As I share posts that consider how the immaterial mind of Man and Mind of God interact with God’s created synaptic networks of the material brain, I pause to remind the reader of the ultimate objective for my blog posts and my books. We must have reason to believe that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is restored to us in repentance by the grace of God through His Son Jesus Christ. As He promised His disciples upon His resurrection, He sent the Holy Spirit when He rejoined the Father to provide for the salvation of fallen mankind in our time. We have the blessing to commune bidirectionally with the Holy Spirit and to be led by Him in these most challenging times. People need hope, and eternal Hope was revived through Jesus Christ’s sin sacrifice in Man’s behalf. It is our purpose in restoration to share the simple but powerful Truth of the Gospel. No, one’s salvation does not depend upon an intellectual understanding of how dualist interaction occurs, but to many an acceptance of such evidence gives reason to believe in the Truth of the Gospel and the reality of an intimate, personal communion with the Holy Spirit, truly minds in communion.
Gholipour pointed out in her article that what the readiness potential was was unknown. It appeared to be “the electrophysiological sign of planning and initiating an action.” Experiments by Benjamin Libet asked why it took “half a second or so between deciding to tap a finger and actually doing it?” He repeated the experiment of Kornhuber and Deecke with some methodological modifications. His results “showed that while the Bereitschafspotential started to rise about 500 milliseconds before the participants performed an action, they reported their decision to take that action only about 150 milliseconds beforehand. ‘The brain evidently decides to initiate the act’ before a person is even aware that decision has taken place, Libet concluded.” Free will was thus discounted, and dualism between the immaterial mind and the material synaptic networks of the brain was challenged.
Gholipour shared that it was possible that what Libet observed was accurate, but the question to be asked was “if the Bereitschafspotential didn’t cause actions in the first place?” Libet’s idea has been powerfully influential in neuroscience, and a real alternative had to be offered to dismantle it. In the next blog I will share Gholipour’s review of a 2010 study by Aaron Schurger that made such an offer. Read on.
Gholipour identified the two German scientists who discovered the readiness potential, or Bereitschaftspotential. They are Hans Helmut Kornhuber and Luder Deecke. “Over lunch in 1964, the pair decided that they would figure out how the brain works to spontaneously generate an action. ‘Kornhuber and I believed in free will,’ says Deecke.” In my research I am seeking to identify how the intention of an immaterial mind generates encoded spike trains of action potentials that are transmitted with specified information through neural synaptic networks to “generate an action.”
Kornhuber and Deecke devised an experiment utilizing a computer to measure their participants’ brain waves that worked only after it detected a finger tap. They recorded the brain activity separately on tapes and played the reels backwards into the computer. This technique is referred to as reverse-averaging, and it revealed the readiness potential, or Bereitschaftspotential. “John Eccles and . . . Karl Popper compared the study’s ingenuity to Galileo’s use of sliding balls for uncovering the laws of motion of the universe.” So the question is, what IS the readiness potential and is it related to free will? Read on.
In my last blog I shared perspectives of neuroscientists who adhere to the materialist view of free will, referred to as determinism, specifically that one’s free will really does not exist but emanates from the brain! I will share a review by Bahar Gholipour of studies by Aaron Schurger, a researcher at the National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Paris, France. Her review appeared in The Atlantic in September, 2019. First, some background. I will subsequently post a series of blogs addressing this important review.
A landmark and well known study conducted by Benjamin LIbet was interpreted to be a genuine argument against free will. His interpretation became shared by a majority of neuroscientists and philosophers who believed that humans are not authors of their actions and decisions. Libet’s study was based on his observations of the readiness potential, or Bereitschaftspotential, first described by two German scientists in 1964. The purpose of their experiment was to search for neural signals in study participants’ brains that preceded finger taps made at whatever irregular intervals they selected. Brain waves were observed in the milliseconds leading up to the finger taps. It was an almost undetectable wave that appeared for about a second before each tap. This wave was called the Bereitschaftsdpotentail, or the readiness potential. The investigators believed they could see the brain readying itself to create a voluntary movement.
It was this wave that Libet studied and used “to make the case . . . that the brain shows signs of a decision before a person acts, but that, incredibly, the brain’s wheels start turning before the person even consciously intends to do something.” Gholipour stated that “It would be quite an achievement for a brain signal 100 times smaller that major brain waves to solve the problem of free will. . . . the Bereitschaftspotential has one more twist: It might be something else entirely.” Please read on.
Throughout my research and writing I have endeavored to provide compelling evidence for dualist interaction between the immaterial mind and the material components of the synaptic networks. I have identified the difficulty in finding articles from neuroscience that support this perspective. In this blog I am posting viewpoints that run counter to dualism. It is important for my readers to understand these perspectives to which I have made reference in my writing.
An article in Wikipedia, entitled “Neuroscience of Free Will,” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will) is my source for the following posts. The field is highly controversial. “One significant finding of modern studies is that a person’s brain seems to commit to certain decisions before the person becomes aware of having made them. . . . although we may experience that our conscious decisions and thoughts cause our actions, these experiences are in fact based on readouts of brain activity in a network of brain areas that control voluntary action. . . . It is clearly wrong to think of [feeling of willing something] as a prior intention, located at the very earliest moment of decision in an extended action chain. . . . Researcher Itzhak Fried says that available studies do at least suggest that consciousness comes in a later stage of decision making than previously expected - challenging any versions of ‘free will’ where intention occurs at the beginning of the human decision process. . . . the conscious self is somehow alerted to a given behavior that the rest of the brain and body are already planning and performing. . . . Neuroscientist and author Sam Harris believes that we are mistaken in believing the intuitive idea that intention initiates actions. . . . Harris argues: ‘Thoughts simply arise in the brain.’ . . . Walter Glannon and Alfred Mele say that the available research is more evidence against any dualist notions of free will . . . Mele says that most discussions of free will are now in materialist terms.”
I am posting this blog that counters the monistic proposal for mind-body interaction by David Bohm and gives further justification for dualist interaction between the immaterial mind and the material synaptic networks of the human brain. The blog considers the quantum wave potential described by Bohm and suggests that it is the product of the mind rather than an entity within a monistic perspective.
The Mind and the Quantum Wave Potential
In my Hypothesis, stated at the beginning of Chapter Seven of my book, Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man through Neural Synaptic Networks, it is proposed that a nonmaterial energy from the Mind of God induces the synaptic transmission of encoded specified information within spike trains of action potentials to the mind of Man by quantum tunneling across synaptic clefts. That the human cognitive mind is created in the image of the Mind of God, the same process for neural transmission through synaptic networks is likely by this created process. In this blog I will address how the mathematical expression of the quantum wave potential might relate to dualist interaction between the immaterial Mind of God/mind of Man and the material synaptic networks of the human brain. In my discussion I will be referring to the work of David Bohm, Hiley and Pylkkanen, John C. Eccles, Friedrich Beck, Stephen Meyer and William A. Dembski in particular. Much of what I am sharing has been presented in my books and earlier blogs, but I will consolidate what I have presented and include information from recent scientific articles that consider the “quantum wave potential,” a mathematical entity described by David Bohm in the quantum Hamilton-Jacobi equation.
Eccles and Beck designated quantum tunneling as the “trigger” for synaptic transmission when the mind willfully transmits specified, encoded programs through neural synaptic networks. Their proposal suggested how quantum tunneling could play a role in controlling the frequency of synaptic exocytosis, a stochastic process. Beck and Eccles proposed that quantum tunneling would enable the “self” to control its brain without violating the energy conservation law. Hiley and Pylkkanen have described a relationship between wave functions and quantum tunnelling. The question I propose is as follows: Does the cognitive mind activate the “trigger” by generating wave functions, or wave forms, that transmit quasiparticles (electrons) through the voltage potential barriers of synapses by tunneling in the cerebral cortex? [Basil J. Hiley and Paavo Pylkkanen, “Can Mind Affect Matter Via Active Information?” Mind and Matter, Vol. 3(2), 2005, pp. 7-27] The authors acknowledged the work of Eccles and Beck and elaborated on it by considering the role of a quantum wave potential described in mathematical detail by David Bohm in quantum tunneling. (D. Bohm, “A New Theory of the Relationship of Mind and Matter, Philosophical Psychology, Vol. 3, 1990, pp. 271-286; F. Beck and J.C. Eccles, “Quantum Aspects of Brain Activity and the Role of Consciousness,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 89, 1992, pp 11357-11361; F. Beck, Quantum Brain Dynamics and Consciousness, The Physical Nature of Consciousness, ed. By P. van Loocke, John Benjamins, Amsterdam, 2001, pp. 83-116)
Hiley and Pylkkanen proposed that the quantum energy involved in synaptic transmission is a form of internal energy distinct from kinetic and classical potential energy that transmits what Bohm called a new type of “active information.” The energy proposed is associated with simultaneous position and momentum determinants of quantum entities in contrast to the long-accepted Copenhagen perspective of indeterminism. How do quasi-particles (electrons) associated with quantum waves penetrate voltage potential barriers? By applying Bohm mechanics to tunneling they proposed that the wave form of a quasi-particle goes through a potential barrier depending on the position of the particle in the oncoming wave function. The total energy of the process is conserved because there is a redistribution of energy between the kinetic energy, the classical potential energy and the quantum potential energy described by David Bohm. Particles at the front of the wave function, or specified wave form, pass through the barrier by tunneling while those at the rear are reflected before they reach the barrier. The third group of trajectories remain inside the voltage barrier for a time. The quantum wave potential was described as having active information for the particles. At the quantum level this information was stated to organize and give direction to the dynamic evolution of quantum wave and quasi-particle flow in double-slit experiments. Could the proposed quantum wave potential also give direction to wave forms and quasiparticles through neural synaptic networks? The quantum wave potential energy is expressed in the shape or form of the wave rather than in its amplitude, accounting for the conservation of energy in tunneling. Hiley and Pylkkanen considered the quantum wave potential to have a physical, deterministic aspect by its influence on the kinetic and potential energies at synaptic voltage barriers in synaptic entities. A relationship was suggested between an internal energy and the material synaptic components without violation of the law of conservation of energy as proposed by Beck and Eccles.
The concept of a “new active information” in its role in quantum tunneling was not attributed to the cognitive mind by Bohm, but he stated that it had “mind-like” qualities. He considered that the mind was not distinct from the physical aspects of synaptic transmission, the two processes being essentially the same. He stated that “what we experience as mind . . . will, in a natural way, ultimately move the body by reaching the level of the quantum potential and of the ‘dance’ of the particles” involved in quantum tunneling. He posited that “in some sense a rudimentary mind-like quality is present even at the level of particle physics . . . there is no real division between mind and matter, psyche and soma.” He referred to “a greater collective mind . . . going indefinitely beyond even the human species as a whole.”
I cited Stephen Meyer in my blog post entitled “Waves in Our Brains,” Part Three (http://estanlennard.com) who stated “our uniform experience affirms that specified or functional information . . . always arises from an intelligent source, from a mind (Italics added),” and I emphasized that it refers to an immaterial mind. The direction given to a quantum wave and quasiparticle through neural synaptic networks would ultimately be by the intent of a mind, an intellect, with design and purpose. In my three blogs, each entitled “Waves in Our Brains,” I have given a compelling reason to believe that the cognitive mind of humans generates wave forms. We see that they have amplitude and frequency as well as the shape and form that has been attributed to the action of the quantum wave potential. (Scott R. Cole and Bradley Voytek, “Brain Oscillations and the Importance of Waveform Shape,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2017, Vol 21, No. 2, pp 137-149) I suggest, therefore, that it is the cognitive mind of Man (and of God) that determines the direction of encoded trajectories of spike trains of action potentials through synaptic networks. The question that is posed is if the internal energy of the quantum wave potential relates to the wave forms generated by the cognitive mind of Man (as well as of the Mind of God) that have been documented by electrocarticography and functional magnetic resonance imaging. This topic has been discussed in the “Waves in Our Brains” series. It is proposed that it is instantiated information from a mind that gives the wave form direction by its shape, phase and also by its frequency and amplitude. As a wave form is transmitted across pyramidal modules in the cerebral cortex the “detector function” described by Eccles within pyramidal modules matches the wave form that is being transmitted from the mind/Mind with intrinsic patterns within modules to form synchronous, coherent waves according to their shape and to their amplitude and frequency, a process that includes entrainment and cross frequency coupling. Direction is thereby given to the trajectories of spike trains of action potentials transmitted through synaptic networks. Modular neural activity is highly plastic and varied across the primary site of cognition, the cerebral cortex. By this process of matching, which is under active investigation in our day, direction is given to wave forms emanating from the mind’s intent that are linguistically encoded with information for meaning, specified purposes and actions (e.g. speaking, moving extremities, thinking, etc.) I offer that the quantum wave potential, if it exists, may reflect a causal effect of a mind that gives specified information to the processes and trajectories of quantum tunneling and synaptic transmission.
In “Waves in Our Brains,” Part Three I quoted Stephen Meyer who stated, “…in using language the human mind routinely generates highly improbable linguistic sequences to convey a preconceived idea. In the process of thought, functional objectives precede and constrain the selection of words, sounds, and symbols to generate functional sequences from a vast ensemble of meaningless alternatives . . . intelligent agents can select functional goals before the goals are physically instantiated . . . they can then actualize those goals in accord with a preconceived design plan or set of functional requirements.” Linguistic sequences are transmitted by wave forms constituting neural codes within spike trains of action potentials that are interpreted by the cognitive mind of humans and archived in memory.
I propose that the Mind of God and the mind of Man can by this process channel random synaptic events toward preordained, specified ends. The immaterial wave forms emitted from a mind/Mind are selected from initially random, or indeterministic, probabilities and given specification and direction possibly by an action of the proposed quantum wave potential. The role in the tunneling process of wave form amplitude is not directly addressed by Bohm and appears to be mathematically discounted, giving primary importance to wave form shape. I propose that the quantum wave potential emanates from, or is influenced by, the intent of a mind that imparts information to the shape of the wave form that determines trajectory direction through cortical modules and downstream synaptic networks. The wave forms are entrained with the wave forms of specific cortical neural modules to form synchronized spike trains of wave forms that are linguistically encoded and transmitted through coherent networks with meaning, purpose and intended action. The synaptic networks are referred to as nerve endings of the soul in my first book. Through a lifetime of learning and experience the cognitive mind interprets the neural codes, whether in sensation or motor function. Could this be in part the process by which communion occurs between the Mind of God and the mind of Man?
David Bohm postulated a monistic perspective of mind-body interaction. The proposal offered in this blog is in support of a dualist interaction between the immaterial mind and the material synaptic networks of the human brain.
Here is the link to my interview. I was blessed to have had this invitation, and I am happy to share it with you.
Below is the “LIVE LINK.” Paste this link into your browser and click on it. The link will take you directly to my WebTalkRadio.net host page where the interviews are posted.
https://webtalkradio.net/internet-talk-radio/2021/08/24/two-books-by-e-stan-lennard/?swcfpc=1