The Mind and the Brain (52 page)

Preface. In: Greenberger, D. M. (Ed.) New techniques and ideas in quantum measurement theory.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 480
, pp. xiii–xiv.

“gift from the gods”:
Ibid., p. xiii.

“the silliest is quantum theory”:
Kaku, M. 1995.
Hyperspace. A scientific odyssey through parallel universes, time warps and the tenth dimension
. New York: Anchor.

“Any other situation in quantum mechanics”:
Feynman, R. 1965.
The character of physical law
. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

physicists in Paris:
Gribbin, J. 1995.
Schrödinger’s kittens and the search for reality: solving the quantum msyteries
. New York: Little, Brown.

Hitachi research labs:
Ibid., p. 7.

“God does not play dice”:
Einstein’s exact words, in a letter to Cornel Lanczos on March 21, 1942, were “It is hard to sneak a look at God’s card’s. But that he would choose to play dice with the world…is something I cannot believe for a single moment.”

physicist John Bell showed:
Bell, J. 1987.
Speakable and unspeakable in quantum mechanics.
New York: Cambridge University Press. For a lucid discussion of this challenging subject, see: Stapp, H. 2001. Quantum theory and the role of mind in nature.
Foundations of Physics, 31,
pp. 1465–1499. Available online at: http:// www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/vnr.txt.

many-worlds view: Everett, H., III. 1957. Relative state formulation of quantum mechanics.
Review of Modern Physics, 29,
p. 454–462.

Copenhagen Interpretation:
Stapp, H. 1972. The Copenhagen interpretation.
American Journal of Physics, 40,
pp. 1098–1116.

“objective existence of an electron”
: Pagels, H. 1982.
The cosmic code: Quantum physics as the language of nature
. New York: Simon & Schuster.

the mind of an observer
: Wigner, 1967 (see especially chapters 12 and 13).

“One aim of the physical sciences”
: Bronowski, J. 1973.
The ascent of man
. Boston: Little, Brown.

“has thus evaporated”
: Heisenberg, 1958.

“It is wrong”
: In: Nadeau, R., & Kafatos, M. 1999.
The non-local universe: The new physics and matters of the mind
. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 96.

Schrödinger’s cat:
Schrödinger’s original 1935 description of the cat is translated in: Jauch, J. M. 1977.
Foundations of quantum mechanics
. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, p. 185.

“shrouded in mystery”:
Wigner, 1967.

his book on the foundations of quantum theory:
von Neumann, J. 1955.
Mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics
. Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press. Translation from the 1932 German original.

“the content of consciousness”:
Wigner, 1969.

“biologists are more prone”:
Wigner, E. P. 1964. Two kinds of reality.
The Monist, 48
, pp. 248–264.

“A brain was always going to do”
: Dennett, 1994.

C
HAPTER
N
INE

a talk on how my OCD work
: Schwartz, J. M. 2000. First steps toward a theory of mental force: PET imaging of systematic cerebral changes after psychological treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder. In: Hameroff, S. R., Kaszniak, A. W., & Chalmers, D. J. (Eds.)
Toward a science of consciousness III: The third Tucson discussions and debates
. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, pp. 111–122.

final version of my “Volitional Brain” paper
: Schwartz, J. M. 1999. A role for volition and attention in the generation of new brain circuitry: Toward a neurobiology of mental force. In Libet, Freeman, & Sutherland, 1999, pp. 115–142.

“mind as a force field”
: Lindahl, B. I. B., & Årheim, P. 1993. Mind as a force field: Comments on a new interactionist hypothesis.
Journal of Theoretical Biography
, 171, pp. 111–122.

“conscious mental field”:
Libet, B. 1996. Conscious mind as a field.
Journal of Theoretical Biography, 178
, pp. 223–224.

In his own
JCS
paper, Stapp argued:
Stapp, H. P. 1999. Attention, intention, and will in quantum physics. In: Libet, Freeman, & Sutherland, 1999, pp. 143–164.

our strongest argument yet:
Ibid., pp. 140–142.

Kant, in fact, succumbed to the same temptation:
Ibid., p. ix.

In 1931, Einstein had declared:
Ibid., p. xii.

Carl Rogers wrote
: Rogers, C. R. 1964. Freedom and commitment.
The Humanist
29, pp. 37–40.

conditioned responses to stimuli
: Skinner, B.F. 1971.
Beyond freedom and dignity
. New York: Alfred A Knopf.

risk taking
: Benjamin, J., Li, L., Patterson, C., et al. 1996. Population and familial association between the D4 dopamine receptor gene and measures of novelty seeking.
Nature Genetics, 12
, pp. 81–84.

and hence obesity
: Barinaga, M. 1995. “Obese” protein slims mice.
Science, 269
, pp. 475–476.

dopamine imbalances with addiction
: Koob, G.F., & Bloom, F. E. 1988. Cellular and molecular mechanisms of drug-dependence.
Science, 242
, pp. 715–723.

eternity is impossible:
James, William. 1992. The dilemma of determinism. In:
William James Writings 1878–1899,
p. 570.

“is not imagined to be ultimately responsible for itself”:
Libet, Freeman, & Sutherland, 1999, pp. ix–xxiii.

“needed for a particular movement”:
Doty, R. W. 1998. The five mysteries of the mind, and their consequences.
Neuropsychologia,
36, pp. 1069–1076.

“effortless volitions”:
James, William. 1992. Psychology: Briefer course. In:
William James Writings 1878–1899,
p. 423.

“Actualities”:
James, Ibid, p. 570.

as the theorist Thomas Clark puts it:
Clark, T. W. 1999. Fear of mechanism. In Libet, Freeman, & Sutherland, 1999, p. 277.

“a benign user illusion”:
Dennett, D.C. 1991.
Consciousness explained
. Boston: Little, Brown.

“the owner” of the state of your will:
Anguttara Nikåya V, 57. Translated in: Nyanaponika Thera & Bhikkhu Bodhi. 1999.
Numerical discourses of the Buddha
. Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press, p. 135.
work reported in 1964:
Kornhuber, H. H., & Deecke, L. 1964. Brain potential changes in man preceding and following voluntary movement, displayed with magnetic tape storage and time-reversed analysis. Pflugers Archiv für die gesamte Physiologie
des Menschen und der Tiere, 281
, p .52.

he reported in 1982 and 1985:
Libet, B., Wright, E. W., Jr., & Gleason, C. A. 1982. Readiness-potentials preceding unrestricted “spontaneous” vs. pre-planned voluntary acts.
Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 54
, pp. 322–335; Libet, B. 1985. Unconscious cerebral initiative and the role of conscious will in voluntary action.
Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 8
, pp. 529–566.

“produced the movement”:
Libet, B. 1999. Do we have free will? In: Libet, Freeman, & Sutherland, 1999, pp. 47–57.

“how we could view free will”
: Libet in ibid., p. 49.

“allow[s] enough time”
: Libet in ibid., p. 51.

as Libet wrote in 1998
: Libet, B. 1998. Do the models offer testable proposals of brain functions for conscious experience? In: Jasper,
H. H., Descarries, L., Castellucci, V. F., & Rossignol, S. (Eds.)
Advances in neurology, 77: Consciousness: At the frontiers of neuroscience
. Philadelphia: Lippincott-Raven, p. 215.

“free won’t”
: Claxton, G. 1999. Who dunnit? Unpicking the “seems” of free will. In: Libet, Freeman, & Sutherland, 1999, pp. 99–113.

Experiments published in 1983
: Libet, B., Wright, E.W., Jr., & Gleason, C. A. 1983. Preparation- or intention-to-act, in relation to pre-event potentials recorded at the vertex.
Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 56
, pp. 367–372; Libet, B., Gleason, C. A., Wright, E. W., & Pearl, D. K. 1983. Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activity (readiness-potential) : The unconscious initiation of a freely voluntary act.
Brain, 106, Part 3
, pp. 623–642.

almost two full seconds
: Deecke, L., & Lang, W. 1996. Generation of movement-related potentials and fields in the supplementary sensorimotor area and the primary motor area.
Advances in Neurology 7
, pp. 127–146.

“veto the process”
: Libet in Libet, Freeman, & Sutherland, 1999, pp. 51–52.

Ten Commandments
: Libet in ibid., p. 54.

all five of the basic moral precepts
: Saddhatissa, H. 1987.
Buddhist ethics
. London: Wisdom Publications.

“Restraint everywhere”
: Dhammapada, Verse 361.

“I’ve always been able to avoid that question”
: Horgan, John. 1999.

The undiscovered mind: How the human brain defies replication, medication and explanation
. New York: Free Press, p. 234.

“volition is nothing but attention”
: James, 1983, p. 424.

“our conscious veto may not require”
: Libet in Libet, Freeman, & Sutherland, 1999, p. 53.

“attention is the fundamental act of will”
: James, 1983, p. 1168.

led by the Swedish physiologist David Ingvar:
Ingvar, D. H., & Philipson, L. 1977. Distribution of cerebral blood-flow in dominant hemisphere during motor ideation and motor-performance.
Annals of Neurology, 2,
pp. 230–237.

activated during the willful mental activity:
Frith, C.D., Friston, K., Liddle, P. F., & Frackowiak, R. S. J. 1991. Willed action and the prefrontal cortex in man: A study with PET.
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 244,
pp. 241–246; Passingham, R. 1993.
The frontal lobes and voluntary
action.
Oxford: Oxford University Press; Miller, E. K. 2000. The prefrontal cortex and cognitive control.
Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 1,
pp. 59–65.

In schizophrenics:
Spence, S. A., Brooks, D. J., Hirsch, S. R., et al. 1997. A PET study of voluntary movement in schizophrenic patients experiencing passivity phenomena (delusions of alien control).
Brain, 120,
pp. 1997–2011; Frackowiak, R. S. J., Friston, K. J., Frith, C., & Dolan, R. 1997. Human brain function. San Diego: Academic Press; Spence, S. A., Hirsch, S. R., Brooks, D. J., & Grasby, P.M. 1998. Prefrontal cortex activity in people with schizophrenia and control subjects: Evidence from positron emission tomography for remission of “hypofrontality” with recovery from acute schizophrenia.
British Journal of Psychiatry, 17,
pp. 316–323.

In depression:
Drevets, W. C. 1998. Functional neuroimaging studies of depression: The anatomy of melancholia.
Annual Review of Medicine, 49,
pp. 341–361; Mayberg, H. S., Liotti, M., Brannan, S. K., et al. 1999. Reciprocal limbic-cortical function and negative mood: Converging PET findings in depression and normal sadness.
American Journal of Psychology, 156,
pp. 675–682.

what Ingvar calls “action programs for willed acts”:
Ingvar, D. H. 1999. On volition: A neurophysiologically oriented essay. In Libet, Freeman, & Sutherland, 1999, pp. 1–10.

primary role for the prefrontal cortex:
Seitz, R. J., Stephan, K. M., & Binkofski, F. 2000. Control of action as mediated by the human frontal lobe.
Experimental Brain Research, 133
, pp. 71–80.

and associated brain regions:
Libet, Freeman, Sutherland, 1999, p. 16.

accompanied by activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex:
Jahanshahi, M., Jenkins, I. H., Brown, R. G., et al. 1995. Self-initiated versus externally triggered movements. I. An investigation using measurement of regional cerebral blood flow with PET and movement-related potentials in normal and Parkinson’s disease subjects.
Brain, 118
, pp. 913–933; Jenkins, I. H., Jahanshahi, M., Jueptner, M., et al. 2000. Self-initiated versus externally triggered movements. II. The effect of movement predictability on regional cerebral blood flow.
Brain, 123
, pp. 1216–1228.

unable to stifle inappropriate responses:
Spence, S. S., & Frith, C. 1999. Towards a functional anatomy of volition. In: Libet, Freeman, & Sutherland, 1999, 11–29.

testing how volition affects conscious perception:
Silbersweig, D. A., & Stern, E. 1998. Towards a functional neuroanatomy of conscious perception and its modulation by volition: Implications of human auditory neuroimaging studies.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences, 353
, pp. 1883–1888.
fortune sent Stern and Silbersweig a young man known as S.B
.: Engelien, A., Huber, W., Silbersweig, D., et al. 2000. The neural correlates of “deaf-hearing” in man: Conscious sensory awareness enabled by attentional modulation.
Brain, 123
, pp. 532–545.

experiments in the late 1990s:
Birbaumer, N., Ghanayim, N., Hinterberger, T., et al. 1999. A spelling device for the paralysed.
Nature, 398
, pp. 297–298; Kübler, A., Kotchoubey, B., Hinterberger, T, et al. 1999. The thought translation device: A neurophysiological approach to communication in total motor paralysis.
Experimental Brain Research, 124
, pp. 223–232.