Plantinga finds that the indeterminism of quantum mechanics offers less of a problem for divine action than classical science. “…special divine action…is by no means incompatible with quantum mechanics…because…quantum mechanics doesn’t determine a specific outcome for a given set of initial conditions, but instead merely assigns probabilities to the possible outcomes.” Special divine action is not restrained. It is free to select via a nonmaterial energy (wave functions interacting via quantum tunneling in the case of synaptic transmission) certain outcomes according to what has been termed “small probabilities” by William A. Dembski, giving definition to specificity [which is meaning for the information we receive as recipients from the Mind of God].

Alvin Plantinga addresses the workings of natural laws in a closed versus an open universe. He points out that the conservation laws derived from Newton’s laws are stated for closed or isolated systems. In closed systems there would be nothing to prevent God from changing the velocity or direction of a (quasi)particle, but if he did so energy would not be conserved. Moreover, it would not be a truly closed system, and the law of conservation of energy would not apply. He states that classical science does not claim that the universe is causally closed. His statement is entirely consistent with special divine action in the world. Just as God, who is immaterial and Spirit, can act in the physical universe, so too can the immaterial minds of human beings. There is no objection to special divine action or for human free action, dualistically conceived.

In Chapter Five of The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story, the frame of reference for addressing the neural correlates of cognition, a function of the cerebral cortex, is identified as quantum mechanics. Basil Hiley and Paavo Pylkkanen are cited as proposing this relationship. The process would enable the Self to control its brain without violating the energy conservation law, a focus of much discussion by neuroscientists. These workers believed that there was a coherent way to explain mental activity involving nonclassical physical mechanisms that can act causally on traditional classical neural activity. Alvin Plantinga speaks to this issue in this chapter, and his perspective will be addressed in the next blog.

It was Sir John C. Eccles who first understood the importance of quantum mechanics for resolving the mind-brain problem. He proposed that mental events can cause brain events. I cite Danko D. Georgiev who said, “Indeed if one considers the wave function of a quantum particle as a non-observable mental state of pre-probabilities and the actualized position in space and time as an observable mental state, then the dualistic interactionism proposed by Sir John Eccles is consistent with the modern vision of what the physical world is.” Perhaps the afore mentioned “non-classical energy” of the mind conforms to the “non-observable mental state” and the spike trains of encoded action potentials to the “actualized position in space and time as an observable mental state.” I quote Rene Descartes who 400 years ago said, “Cartesian dualism postulates that the immaterial mind and the material brain, while being ontologically distinct substances, causally interact.”

The question must be asked, what is it that the mind generates to trigger quantum tunneling? Does the mind generate a nonclassical energy? Does this apply to the Mind of God who is Spirit? “Waves in Our Brains,” Part Two, discusses the nonclassical energy in terms of wave functions having frequencies, amplitudes and shapes that are in synchrony so that encoded information is transmitted through selected neural networks with meaning, purpose and intended action.

I offer an explanation of “quantum probabilities” taken from my second book, The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story.

The neural model based on Eccles’ and Beck’s work introduced into the cerebral cortex a quantum probabilistic aspect giving expression to intentional choices that would increase probability amplitudes across synaptic networks selected for functional outcomes from memory archives. Mental intention would become effective by momentarily increasing the probabilities for exocytosis by quantum tunneling in specified neural networks. Large numbers of small probability amplitudes within cerebral modules sufficient collectively to generate action potentials as spike trains with synchronized frequencies would be coordinated to produce a coherent, linguistically encoded transmission of specified information. The information would be sent or received by an immaterial mind, including the Mind of God. Part Two of my blog, “Waves in Our Brains,” addresses this activity.

I continue my posts taken from Chapter Five in The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story, expanding on each where appropriate by including explanations based on more current neuroscientific investigations. My two earlier blogs entitled “Waves in Our Brains,” Parts One and Two, include more current neuroscientific findings that relate quantum mechanics and wave functions to synaptic transmission. These are complex processes, and in subsequent blogs I will introduce even more recent interpretations of these processes of dualist interactionism.

What explains the triggering mechanism that induces molecular conformational movements within synaptic vesicles, their vesicular pores that open into synaptic clefts and within ionic channels so that the release of synaptic transmitters, the process of exocytosis, is stimulated? Each of these structures consists of molecular configurations of proteins and lipids. Eccles developed the concept that operations of the synaptic microsites involve probabilistic displacements of particles so small that they were in the range of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. The vesicle was identified as the key structure on which quantum tunneling caused the release of neural transmitters across synaptic clefts. Eccles and his associate, Friedrich Beck, presented evidence that exocytosis is governed by a trigger mechanism involving quantum level transitions between metastable molecular states. The mechanism involved the motion of a quasiparticle, an electron, possibly carried within a traversing quantum wave of nonmaterial energy at a specific frequency and amplitude. The process corresponds with electronic transitions, such as electron transfer or changes in molecular bonds. The electrochemical process would generate nerve impulses propagated across the synapses of neural networks in which voltage potential barriers are crossed by the quantum tunneling of waves and electrons. Impulses within the spike trains of action potentials are now believed to involve synchronization of propagated wave amplitudes and frequencies comprising neural codes. Part Two of “Wave in Our Brains” addresses this most complex process.

We recall that Eccles called the neural synapse a “frontier” across which interaction flows in both directions, and that the flow is comprised of information, not of classical electrochemical energy. The discussions in blogs to follow can lead one to consider how the form of energy relates to the power of the Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 2:4 the Apostle Paul declared, “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power.” The energy discussions that follow offer support for communion between the Holy Spirit and the mind of Man through the human spirit via the synaptic networks of the brain.

Quantum tunneling has been identified as a “trigger” for directed synaptic transmission when the immaterial mind activates selected encoded programs in the SMA’s (also pre-SMA’s according to more recent studies). Hiley and Pylkkanen have proposed a relationship between wave functions and quantum tunneling that will be discussed in blogs to come. Based on their proposal it can be asked if the immaterial mind activates the “trigger” by generating quantum wave functions that transmit quasiparticles, including electrons, by tunneling through the voltage potential barriers of synaptic networks in the cerebral cortex and associated regions of the brain. We are seeing that mind and matter interact and are coming closer to understanding the process.

I am including a detailed discussion of the supplementary motor area (SMA), a bilateral region of the cerebral cortex that functionally includes what Eccles termed the liaison brain. It is now well known that the mental act of intention acts on the SMA’s where there is an inventory of a vast number of the stored, encoded subroutines of all learned motor programs, including those for speech. It provides an entre into specific motor activities that implement particular intentions. More specifically, a mental intention stimulates appropriate modular programs so that nerve impulses are activated from the library, or archive, of encoded programs, the liaison brain of Eccles. The mere thought of a motor action in the absence of a deliberate motor response, such as moving a finger or limb, bilaterally stimulates the SMA’s. This relationship has been confirmed by transcranial magnetic stimulation during PET imaging. It is a prime example of interaction between the immaterial mind and the neuron based codes of the physical brain.