In my books I have referenced Paavo Pylkkanen’s work. In this blog post I will discuss points he has made in his article, “Implications of Bohmian Quantum Ontology for Psychopathology,” presented in NeuroQuantology, March 2010, Vol. 8, pp 37-48. Specifically, I will discuss points he makes about Bohm’s proposal that “active information” in the ontological interpretation of quantum theory plays a role as a bridge between mind and matter. Pylkkanen states that “some such bridge is needed if we are able to understand how mental processes are able to influence physical processes in the brain. . . .”

Bohm postulates that “an electron is a new kind of entity that has always both a particle aspect and a wave aspect. . . that the electron is a particle always accompanied and guided by a new type of field . . . [that] contains something he calls “active information”. . . . The field gives rise to a potential, which Bohm called the “quantum potential,” [or Q in his mathematical equations]. . . . the field literally IN FORMS (or puts form into the energy of the particle”, giving direction to its trajectory. “At the quantum level information . . . actively guides the movement of particles.”

Bohm states that the quantum potential, Q, itself consists of “active information” and is “mind like,” and the question is asked how this information content acts upon matter. Pylkkanen states that “in the context of the human mind we could speculate that information contained in mental processes and conscious experience is carried by some subtle medium,” in this case the quantum potential. Thus, information is reduced to a quantum entity rather than being generated by a mind, a point made in my books and recent blog posts. Bohm wrote in 1990 “that which we experience as mind, in its movement through various levels of subtlety, will, in a natural way ultimately move the body by reaching to the level of the quantum potential and of the ‘dance of the particles.’ . . . some kind of information is the bridge” between the mind and matter. In contrast, I have cited Dembski who identified energy as the “causal glue” between information and matter, and information can only be generated by an immaterial mind. Bohm “suggests that minds are very subtle but adds that it is a mistake to assume that minds are entirely non-physical. . . . every mental process has a subtle physical aspect which carries the information that is part of the essence of that process.” And the “physical aspect” resides in the quantum potential, Q.

I have asked IF the immaterial cognitive mind can interact with Q (if it truly exists) to give direction to the trajectory of wave forms generated by the mind and transmitted as encoded spike trains of action potentials through synaptic networks via quantum tunneling. Pylkkanen states, “By controlling the shape of the quantum field, the ‘mind’ can control the movement [and direction] of particles, such as electrons.” Pylkkanen looked for sites in the brain “where amplification of quantum effects is likely to play a role in determining more macroscopic neural behavior (e.g. resulting in the activation of motor neurons). He and his associate Hiley “considered Beck and Eccles’s quantum model of synaptic exocytosis from the point of view of the ontological interpretation. We wrote there: ‘. . . [the] action of the quantum potential effectively reduces the height of the barrier to increase the probability of exocytosis. Thus we could regard the ‘mind-field’ as initiating a subsequent neural process which finally activates the motor neurons to produce the outward behavior. In this sense, active information is merely the trigger for the usual classical processes that follow the gating of ion channels.” However, Eccles and Beck considered quantum tunneling as the “trigger” for exocytosis. Specified information with meaning and purpose resided within encoded spike trains of action potentials transmitted through synaptic networks. Information is not the trigger.

In my blog posts I have provided data that suggests how nonmaterial wave forms may act to trigger the transmission of encoded information within spike trains of action potentials across synaptic networks through quantum tunneling. It is a process that would involve electron transfers within ionic channel and synaptic vesicle protein components that would release neural transmitters from vesicle pores to traverse synaptic clefts and stimulate action potentials at postsynaptic structures. I have discussed this process in detail in my books and in several blog posts, highlighted in the blog series entitled “Waves in Our Brains.” In more recent posts I have presented data that indicates the generation of wave forms by the immaterial cognitive mind that transmit encoded information to and through receptor synaptic networks. Investigators in neurophysiology are getting closer to confirming dualist interaction between the immaterial mind and the material components of the brain’s synaptic networks.

I refer the reader to an article by Alexandra Pinto Castellanos entitled “Wave to Pulse Generation. From Oscillatory Synapse to Train of Action Potentials,” October 18, 2018. In the article the author posits how neurons have the capacity to transform information from a digital signal at the dendrites of presynaptic terminals to an analog wave at the synaptic cleft and back to a digital pulse when the acquired voltage for the generation of an action potential is achieved at the postsynaptic neuron. The author proposes that the action potential signals are smoothed at the synaptic cleft to create an oscillatory wave with the same frequency as the originating action potential train. She states, “Once the wave has acquired enough amplification after a process of synchronization, the postsynaptic axon responds to this [analog] wave input by generating a [postsynaptic digital] pulse train” with the same frequency but less amplitude. The result is the transmission of the same information flow frequency through a synaptic network.

Detail is presented by the author to explain the process. I note that there is no consideration of a nonmaterial wave form in the process, which I propose functions by quantum tunneling within specific synaptic structures. Rather an electrical signal is converted to a chemical oscillatory wave within the synaptic cleft that is subsequently converted back to the electrical signal of an action potential.

I call the reader’s attention to this particular article to show how waves are now being considered to account for synaptic transmission. It is a challenging problem, especially to understand how the immaterial mind can and does affect the material mechanisms of the synapse. I will be posting additional blogs as I obtain studies that are investigating this complex process by which specified information is transmitted through the human brain.

In Isaiah 59:21 the Lord declares the following covenant to His chosen people, showing that He communicated directly TO his people as I have endeavored in my writings to justify that He does in our time and how that may happen:

“As for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the Lord. “My Spirit, who is on you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will not depart from your mouth, or from the mouths of your children, or from the mouths of their descendants from this time on and forever,” says the Lord.

Yes, His covenant lives on, and there is still a dual interaction between the immaterial Spirit of God and the material synaptic networks of the human brain through the human spirit and soul.

In my books and a number of blog posts I have presented information that shows the possible role wave forms play in synaptic transmission. Their transmission involves quantum tunneling in ionic channel and synaptic vesicle components. The random/stochastic property of this transmission allows for the immaterial intent/will of an intelligence to generate specified information (with small probabilities) that is actualized with direction through the material components of synapses and their networks. It is a complex and fascinating process that is under investigation by neuroscientists who now have advanced technology to assist their studies.

There is increasing evidence that the “nonmaterial energy” discussed by Dembski and other authors whom I have quoted in my more recent blogs is expressed within the frequencies, amplitudes, shapes and phases of wave forms that are distinct from the material electrochemical energies of action potentials. This nonmaterial energy serves as the “causal glue” (to quote Dembski) between the specified information emanating from a mind and the linguistic codes instantiated within the material spike trains of action potentials that travel through neural synaptic networks to effect intended action. I have endeavored to present this information with documentation to give compelling support to the concept of dualist interaction between the immaterial mind, including the Mind of God, and the material components of the human brain.

My posts will be less frequent since I am continuing my search for current information from the neurosciences that addresses this proposal for mechanism. Studies are underway and data is forthcoming, but it takes time for it to be critiqued and either substantiated or refuted. My fascination and inspiration in my studies rest in the knowledge that our Creator God is the ultimate Source of this information, and we are blessed by His grace to acquire a degree of comprehension of its revelation.

I am concluding my series of blog posts dealing with information and give credit to William A. Dembski for the content I have shared. I trust I have succeeded in explaining information, showing just how important it is to science and to our very existence.

I will resume my review of selected articles from primarily peer review scientific literature that addresses the mechanism of synaptic transmission, confirming the dualist interaction between that which is immaterial and which is material. How does the immaterial Mind of God and mind of Man interact with the material components of synaptic networks of the human brain?

Dembski provides an excellent etymology of “intelligent” in his book:

The word intelligent comes from the Latin [language]. It stems from two Latin words, the preposition inter, meaning between, and the Latin . . . verb lego, meaning to choose or select. . . . According to its Latin etymology, intelligence therefore consists in choosing between. In an act of information creation, an intelligence chooses which possibility within a matrix of possibility to actualize. In the ultimate act of information creation, a supreme intelligence chooses which world among all possible worlds to actualize. The world so chosen becomes the real world. . . . Thus, for me, a nonmaterial trinitarian God is the supreme intelligence and ultimate reality. Moreover, this God creates via speech acts. God speaks and things happen. Or, alternatively, God communicates information and new possibilities are actualized.”

Dembski argues in Chapter 20, “The Creation of Information,” that “intelligence is the ultimate source of information, . . . I come at this question as a Christian for whom God, as creator, is the ultimate source of all there is, and thus of all the information in the world. My model for information creation, therefore, cannot be bottom up, as in trying to reconstitute information from material processes, but rather must be top down, as in trying to understand the creation of information from the vantage of a creative intelligence (in particular, the Christian God).”

Dembski addresses the property that gives definition to intelligence:

“The defining property of intelligence is its ability to create information. . . . The ability of intelligence to create information should be more obvious and convincing to us than any claim of the natural sciences. Why? Because (1) we ourselves are intelligent beings who create information all the time through our thoughts and language and (2) the natural sciences themselves are logically downstream from our ability to create information (if we were not information creators, we could not formulate scientific theories, much less search for those that are empirically adequate, in which case there would be no science). Materialist philosophy, however, has all this backwards, making a materialist science primary and then defining our intelligence out of existence because materialism leaves no room for it (except as unintended motions and modifications of matter). The saner course would be to leave no room for materialism.”

Dembski states that “a nondeterministic universe can be informationally porous and thus open to action by a deity able to impart information without imparting material energy. Quantum mechanics, when interpreted as a fundamentally probabilistic theory, offers such a picture of the universe, allowing God free play at the quantum level. . . . In a world of irreducibly chance or random events, as some interpretations of quantum theory allow, God can channel such events toward preordained ends.”

We have seen in my books and in selected blogs that synaptic transmission is stochastic, or random. It is a nondeterminism that allows the intent of a mind, including the Mind of God, to influence the direction and intensity of spike trains of action potentials through synchronous synaptic networks to bring about specific actions. Quantum mechanics provides the “trigger” mechanism for such action by the process of quantum tunneling, and it is wave forms with frequency, amplitude and shape that serve as the nonmaterial energy for specified information transmission, interacting with the material electrochemical energies along dendrites and axons in the nervous system.

I cite Dembski:

“More generally, in any inquiry, scientific or otherwise, if we are trying to understand an information transfer, the first thing we witness is an information relationship, and only then are we in a position to uncover how energy might have given rise to that relationship. Some form of energy must presumably be involved - we are supposing that information transfers require energy transfers (though not necessarily material energy transfers). Moreover, if the energy can’t be material, then it must be nonmaterial.”