Chalmer’s last option is neutral monism, that something more primal than matter or mind is the cause of both, as suggested by Russell in 1921:

“The stuff of which the world of our experience is composed is, in my belief, neither mind nor matter, but something more primitive than either. Both mind and matter seem to be composite, and the stuff of which they are compounded lies in a sense between the two, in a sense above them both, like a common ancestor.” (Russell, 2005)

Russell didn’t specify a common ancestor for mind and matter, but if quantum reality creates the observer as well as physical events, quantum realism is a neutral monism as Russell proposed.

Consider the premise that every physical event must have an observer. Virtual worlds exist by being observed so if our physical reality is virtual, it should be the same. Quantum theory confirms that physical events require observation, as spreading quantum waves only collapse to a physical event when observed. It follows that an observer is needed for physical events to occur.

We also know that our universe began at a moment in time so without observation, it would have stayed in a quantum superposition. The initial physical events had to be observed to occur. If our universe began as a light plasma that physically collided into basic matter (Chapter 3), the only entities that could observe were photons. The simplest conclusion that lets observation cause the initial physical events is that photons observed.

It isn’t claimed that photons observe as we do, but that they observe quantum scale events of 10^-35 meters and 10^-43 seconds. Such events are incredibly short and brief to us, as they occur more times per second than there have been seconds in our universe. That photons observe seems preposterous but the alternative, that only we observe the universe, is equally so.

To observe so little so briefly seems hardly worth it to us, but smallism, that facts about big things come from facts about small things (Coleman, 2006), can apply to observation too. If the observer experience began small, like everything else, then macro-consciousness can derive from micro-consciousness (Chalmers, 1996) (p305). It is possible that photons observe, so who are we to say that they don’t when we claim that we do? By Conway’s free will theorem, either everything is conscious or nothing is (Koch, 2014), so it is simpler to say that observation always existed than to explain how it began with no precedent.

If observation existed from the start, then photons observe on their scale, but not as we do. To avoid confusion, let us call quantum-scale observations proto-consciousness, as Penrose proposed in 1944 (Penrose, 1994), and more recently:

“… the elements of proto-consciousness would be intimately tied in with the most primitive Planck level ingredients of space-time geometry, these presumed ‘ingredients’ being taken to be at the absurdly tiny level of 10^-35m and 10^-43s, a distance and time some 20 orders of magnitude smaller than those of normal particle-physics scales and their most rapid processes.” (Penrose & Hameroff, 2017) p21.

That consciousness began small answers another question, that if everything is a player in our virtual universe, isn’t it boring for some? If one asked for players in a virtual universe like ours, who wants to be a rock on mars, that just sits there for a million years? But a rock is an aggregate of molecules, so it observes on a molecular scale, not a rock scale. On this scale, something new happens every nanosecond, so it isn’t boring at all.

This isn’t panpsychism, that matter is conscious, because in quantum realism, matter doesn’t exist except as a view. Panpsychism assumes that matter exists to have a consciousness property, but if matter itself doesn’t exist, it can’t have that property. This is possible because previous chapters derived matter properties, like mass, charge, and spin, from quantum reality.

Quantum realism changes the question from how dead matter became able to observe to how proto-observations became human observations. It replaces the explanatory gap between matter and consciousness with an evolutionary gap, between what atoms observe and what we do. The conclusion, developed later, is that the ability to observe had to exist from the beginning to cause physical events. Hence, instead of asking how matter acquired consciousness, we now ask how matter observations evolved, which raises the question of how brains evolved?

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We assume realism when we observe that a reality exists out there apart from us. Physical realism calls it physical and quantum realism calls it quantum but, in both cases, sensory events cause nerves to cause observation. If sensory events cause nerve events that cause mental events, one can short-circuit the sequence to argue that mind alone creates observations. This goes against realism, but it is still logical.

Solipsism for example claims that mind alone creates reality, as it does when we dream. This theory is impossible to disprove but it isn’t accepted by science because it predicts nothing new and doesn’t explain how a mind that can dream arose in the first place.

QBism is a theory of physics that uses this “mind-trick” to dismiss not physical reality, as solipsism does, but quantum reality. It argues that quantum probabilities are degrees of belief about physical outcomes, so quantum waves are just in the mind. Like solipsism, it is impossible to disprove, as one could say gravity is a belief about how matter moves, so it is in the mind too. QBism doesn’t do this, as it uses the mind argument selectively to deny quantum reality not physical reality. Like solipsism, QBism has no scientific value because it makes no predictions nor does it explain how a mind with beliefs can exist (McQueen, 2017). That physicists now invoke the mind to deny quantum reality is telling, because the elephant in the room is that quantum causes can explain what physical causes can’t.

Another cognitive theory of consciousness attributes the mind to complexity, by claiming that brains become conscious in the same way that ants form colonies, because:

“… ant colonies are no different from brains in many respects.” (Hofstadter & Dennett, 1981) p181.

The brain is then just a colony of nerves that communicate electrically instead of chemically, as ants do. By this logic, the chemical trails ants lay down are the colony’s “language” just as neuron wiring causes our language. Dumb neurons then create consciousness as dumb ants create a colony, so it remains as neurons come and go, just as a colony remains as ants come and go. Crick’s “pack of neurons” theory is now that we are nothing but a colony of nerves.

The evidence that ant colonies are conscious is weak, as if an ant colony is a being that can communicate, why haven’t we learned its language by now, as we did that of the bees? It doesn’t help to suggest the same logic applies to countries like Russia or America:

“… let us think a bit right now about whether it makes sense to think of ‘being’ a country. Does a country have thoughts or beliefs?” (Hofstadter & Dennett, 1981) p192

To say that consciousness is private so countries might be conscious is just a smoke-screen, as no evidence at all suggests that countries are beings. Scientists don’t ask others to disprove their speculations but go where the evidence leads. To argue that what appears as a unity might be a being is an appeal to naivety. If that were true, tornadoes might be conscious beings, but they aren’t, and neither are ant colonies or countries. When we connect physical parts into a bicycle, it becomes an entity to us but not to itself.

After presenting paradoxical Gestalt patterns and speculating that ant colonies are conscious, the underwhelming conclusion of this theory is that:

“Mind is a pattern perceived by a mind.” (Hofstadter & Dennett, 1981) p200.

It isn’t hard to see that this statement is circular, because a mind is assumed to perceive a pattern that is then equated to the mind that perceived it. This theory, that mind is a creation of mind, is just another miracle thrown up to maintain physical realism.

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Physical reality can’t explain consciousness but its information derivative is claimed to do so. Integrated information theory argues that “consciousness is integrated information” (Tononi, 2008), generalizing an earlier theory that brain functions like language, vision and hearing deposit information into a global workspace that causes consciousness (Baars, 1988).

Distant brain regions process sight, sound, touch, and smell, then pass the results to areas specializing in memory, emotions, language, planning, and motor responses, but how are global decisions made? Global workspace theory claims that sensory results are put into a common area, for higher functions like memory or language to use. Consciousness then arises when:

“… the information has entered into a specific storage area that makes it available to the rest of the brain.” (Dehaene, 2014) p163.

Yet if a specific brain area is critical for consciousness, why hasn’t it been found? Workspace theory also suggests that neurons “chat” like little people:

“… neural systems do not merely report to their superiors; they also chat among themselves.”(Dehaene, 2014) p176.

Brain science then reduces to neuron sociology (Nunez, 2016) p18, by the analogy of crowd control on the Internet:

“… it is helpful to think metaphorically of a theater of mind. In the conscious spotlight on stage – the global workspace – an actor speaks, and his words and gestures are distributed to many unconscious audience members, sitting in the darkened hall. Different listeners understand the performance in different ways. But as the audience claps or boos in response, the actor can change his words, or walk off to yield to the next performer.” (Baars & Laureys, 2004) p672.

Such analogies are seductive, but that neural areas chat like little people over nerve phone lines, or clap and boo each other as we do online, contradicts information theory. To exchange data like this, the brain would need common protocols, just as the Internet needs these protocol layers to share information:

a. Data. Ethernet protocol.

b. Network. Internet protocol (IP).

c.  Transport. Transmission Control Program protocol (TCP).

d. Application. Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (http).

The Internet’s TCP/IP/http protocols took decades to develop from the original Arpanet, and it was done by a central group the brain just doesn’t have. Browsers then need to be updated to work with upgrades, like from IP version 4 to 6, but the brain has no way to do this. And these protocols are just to transmit data packages – to actually see a picture or hear music still needs an application specialized for that data type!

For example, Notepad displays text and Paint displays pictures but loading text into Paint or a picture into Notepad gives nonsense, so even if data was put into a common area, neither could read what the other posted. To do this, Paint would need code to analyze text and Notepad would need code to analyze pictures, which increases program size. And if either application changed the other would have to update its included code to work reliably.

Programs like Word that display text and pictures become huge as a result, and they still can’t read zip files, for example. For every brain function to include every other denies the benefits of specialization and updating every area when one changes to share data isn’t feasible for the brain. Information science tells us that one can’t plug the optic nerve into the auditory cortex and expect information to flow like water.

The auditory area of the brain can no more read smell data than I can read a text in Chinese, so what use is a common stage if neural actors don’t use the same language? A global workspace would need a global translator of smells, thoughts, movements, and feelings, which is impossible.

Finally, the Internet shares data so shouldn’t it become conscious? Information integration theorists expect it to do so soon (Koch, 2014), despite no evidence at all for this.

Theories of brain data exchange must respect information science, but global workspace theory doesn’t, and what won’t work for computer networks won’t work for brains either. The cartoonish concept of neural areas as little people chatting via a common brain language that isn’t possible, merging claps or boos they can’t make, on a central stage that doesn’t exist, is a fantasy. The brain needs some other way for different regions to share information.

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In 1637, Descartes argued that scientific physicalism and religious idealism are both true, because mind was a substance outside space just as matter was a substance within it. However, two centuries later, Laplace rejected this, arguing that matter alone determined the universe:

“We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.” Laplace, in (Truscott & Emory, 1951) p4.

That physical laws explained everything challenged mind-matter dualism by claiming that science not only didn’t need religion, it was better off without it. The case was that all physical events have a physical cause, so the universe is causally closed. It is a causal chain with no gaps, like a tube of balls, where pushing one end makes a ball pop out the other end, with no mind or soul needed to make it happen. If all physical facts come from other physical facts, there is no room for mental causes. Causal closure implies that if mind has a physical cause, it is also physical and so not mind, and if not, it can’t have a physical effect (Kim, 1999). Causal closure implies that a non-physical mind can’t affect physical events.

Supporters of dualism sought to demonstrate non-physical causes by paranormal events, like the ability to mentally move objects (telekinesis) or see the unseeable (extra-sensory perception), but attempts to replicate mental powers haven’t been definitive (Kelly at al., 2007).

Then just as physicalism was replacing dualism, a new theory, quantum mechanics, concluded that no physical event is 100% certain. In the Stern-Gerlach experiment, silver atoms in a magnetic field go up or down based on a spin that is perfectly random. We can’t pre-sort the atoms into those going up or down because they are initially identical, and the spin that moves them up or down in the magnetic field is decided when they observe it, not before. Quantum theory says this happens when the atoms are in the field, just as where a photon hits a screen is decided at the screen. In a mechanical universe, the physical past should entirely define the physical future, but it isn’t so in our universe.

   When quantum entities interact, they choose their physical future from what is possible and this unpredictability is part of our universe. Quantum theory rejects the idea that the universe is completely physically predictable, and the evidence agrees, so it can’t be a big machine. 

In quantum theory, when a quantum wave is observed, it randomly actualizes a physical event from one of its lawful possibilities and obliterates the rest. This stops the quantum wave expanding endlessly by restarting it. An observer outside the quantum system ends the chain of quantum events, but there is by definition nothing outside a closed physical universe to do this.

  An endless physical chain with no gaps has no way to select one link to be an observation, so it has no way to allow observation or choice. In contrast quantum realism accepts both because it accepts quantum theory entirely. Figure 6.2 compares the reality options.

Figure 6.2 compares the reality options:

a. In physical realism, a series of physical events (P) lawfully cause each other with no gaps, so there is no observation or choice.

b. In dualism, a series of physical events (P) and mental events (M) affect physical events, so there is observation and choice.

c.  In quantum realism, quantum events (Q) cause observations (O) of physical events (P), so there is both observation and choice. Note that many quantum events produce one physical event.  

In Figure 6.2a, each set of physical events causes the next, with no choice or observation possible, so there can be no evolution or observation, yet we know that both occur.

In Figure 6.2b, two causal chains, mental (M) and physical (P), affect not only their realm but also the other, but that mind events cause physical events is both unproven and illogical.

In Figure 6.2c, physical reality (P) arises when quantum waves (Q) interact to allow observation (O), as quantum theory says. Every quantum collapse is then an observation choice.

If quantum waves spread, interact and collapse to give the observations we call the physical world. Quantum realism has no gaps for physical causes just as physical realism had no gaps for mental causes. A physical event is an observed result, not a cause, so it causes nothing. In this view, physical reality is an epiphenomenon that, like a train whistle, appears but doesn’t affect the quantum engine driving reality.

  If quantum reality creates physical reality, physical laws derive entirely from quantum laws. Physical causality is based on quantum causality, so it is correlation not causality. When a quantum entity picks a physical event from the possibilities it has discovered, it redefines the future timeline. Quantum theory works when physical realism doesn’t because it recognizes that quantum events cause the future, not physical events.

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The scientific approach to a fact is to explain it, not to ignore or dismiss it, so if consciousness is a valid subject for science, the question raised is:

“Why does conscious experience exist?” (Chalmers, 1996) (p5)

Those who argue that the universe is a machine so consciousness can’t exist must also agree that they are also machines, so why should we listen to them? A detailed review of theories on consciousness divides them exhaustively into six categories A-F (Chalmers, 2003):

A.  Materialism-A. Consciousness doesn’t exist except as an imagined effect of the physical brain (Dennett, 1991). If physical causes explain everything, there is nothing beyond the physical brain that needs explaining, so the hard problem doesn’t exist.

B.  Materialism-B. Consciousness exists but is identical to certain physical brain states for all practical purposes (Block & Stalnaker, 1999). If consciousness equates to physical states, the hard problem is solved.

C.  Materialism-C. Consciousness exists but is a physical derivative of the brain in theory (Nagel, 1974) (Edelman, 2003). If physical causes explain everything, they will one day explain consciousness so the hard problem will be solved, eventually.

Theories A-C argue that consciousness arises from a physical process because physical realism is correct. Yet it isn’t easy to argue that the observer experience is imaginary (A) or that it equates to matter states (B), so most believers in physical realism are left hoping that a miracle will one-day derive consciousness from matter.

D. Dualism-D. Consciousness exists by itself to affect physical events and matter in turn affects consciousness (Stapp, 1993). If consciousness exists as well as matter, the hard problem is solved.

E.  Dualism-E. Consciousness is a brain by-product that helps survival but doesn’t affect physical reality (Zizzi, 2003). If consciousness is an epiphenomenon of physical activity, the hard problem is solved.

F.   Neutral Monism-F. If both consciousness and matter derive from a primal cause that is neither, then matter doesn’t need to cause consciousness and the hard problem is solved.

Theories D-F argue that consciousness is a non-physical reality. Dualism-D lets it affect matter from a non-physical realm, Dualism-E lets it exist but have no effect on matter, and neutral monism-F sees both consciousness and matter as derivative, but as Chalmers notes:

“No-one has yet developed any sort of detailed theory in this class, and it is not yet clear whether such a theory can be developed.” (Chalmers, 2003)

Quantum realism is therefore a neutral monism but first, we review physical realism.