Redefining Reality - The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

Because we are just atoms, we, too, should be part of the
system, as should the rest of the universe. There should be
no collapsing from the superposed state into a single-property
state. Wigner concluded that the only place in the process
that a different sort of entity could be active is in the making
of the observation—the point when our consciousness
becomes involved and we learn of the result. Other than our
consciousness, there is nothing but atoms and nothing that
should affect the system to cause the collapse.
Perhaps we need to hold that matter and mind interact but are
completely different. If this were true, it would allow us to
make sense of one of the most troubling aspects of quantum
theory. But what sense do we then make of a nonmaterial
consciousness, and how does it cause the collapse of the
wave function?
In a materialistic view, the universe is just matter and energy,
and these behave according to mathematically expressed laws
of nature. Humans have no ability to do other than what we do.
But materialists can try to save some sense of nondeterminism
in human action based on the laws of nature. The fact that the
universe is a well-behaved place does not mean that human actions
are a deterministic product of history and environment. This is the
view taken by the British theoretical physicist Roger Penrose.
Penrose starts with the simple proposition that our actions
are controlled by the brain, which is made up of neurons in
intricate networks. Neurons work together by the release of
When one neuron releases a particular chemical into the gap
between the cells, it will either facilitate or stop an exchange
of electrical signals, and it is the propagation of these electrical
signals through the brain that results in bodily movement.
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