Danko Georgiev wrote an article entitled “A Linkage of Mind and Brain: Sir John Eccles and Modern Dualistic Interactionism,” published in Biomedical Reviews, 2011: 22: 81-84. I am posting quotes from that article that relate to points I have shared in my books and blogs.
The author shared that the nature of the mind-brain relationship is poorly understood. He states that “the roots of the problem lie within the causally closed deterministic structure of classical materialism.” In his article he discusses “how the quantum dualistic interactionism proposed by Sir John Eccles could resolve these problems.” I have provided much evidential support for dualist interactionism in my writings and have included support for an open indeterminant universe, components of which are governed by quantum mechanics. Georgiev states that “the behavior of elementary physical particles [is] inherently indeterministic so that one cannot predict exactly the future state of an individual particle, only the probability with which [a] given future state could occur. The dynamics of individual quantum particles is governed by a wavefunction. . . . The indeterminism in quantum mechanics stems from the fact that when the particle interacts with other particles only one of the possible states is actualized.” Indeterminism allows quantum components to be open to influences outside a classical material universe, including an immaterial cognitive mind as I have discussed in my writings.
“Sir John Eccles, who won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the synapse, was one of the first who understood the importance of quantum mechanics for resolving the mind-brain problem.” He proposed “that mental events can cause brain events.” According to Georgiev “it is possible to construct a theory in which mind and brain states interact: the brain state produces deterministically a mind state after which the mind state makes an indeterministic choice from multiple possible alternatives and selects a future brain state.” In his concluding remarks the author acknowledges the increasing number of neuroscientists who think that quantum theory supports dualist interactionism as proposed by Eccles. He states, “Attestation for that are the plethora of recent models based on the nanoscale organization of the neurons in which the mind states can affect the brain through quantum effects.” He refers to “the experimental verification of quantum tunneling for hydrogen transfer in enzyme-catalyzed reactions, quantum quasi-particle assisted folding of proteins and microsecond quantum coherence in the retina” permitting navigation by the sensing of Earth’s magnetic field by certain birds. I have presented data confirming electron transfers in synaptic transmission.