Quantum Closures and Disclosures: Thinking-Together Postphenomenology and Quantum Brain Dynamics 9781588113719, 158811371X, 9789027251794, 9027251797

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Quantum Closures and Disclosures

Advances in Consciousness Research Advances in Consciousness Research provides a forum for scholars from different scientific disciplines and fields of knowledge who study consciousness in its multifaceted aspects. Thus the Series will include (but not be limited to) the various areas of cognitive science, including cognitive psychology, linguistics, brain science and philosophy. The orientation of the Series is toward developing new interdisciplinary and integrative approaches for the investigation, description and theory of consciousness, as well as the practical consequences of this research for the individual and society. Series C: Research profiles. Presentations of significant personal and team contributions to the empirical study of consciousness.

Editor Maxim I. Stamenov Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Editorial Board David Chalmers

Earl Mac Cormac

University of Arizona

Duke University

Gordon G. Globus

George Mandler

University of California at Irvine

University of California at San Diego

Ray Jackendoff

John R. Searle

Brandeis University

University of California at Berkeley

Christof Koch

Petra Stoerig

California Institute of Technology

Universität Düsseldorf

Stephen Kosslyn

† Francisco Varela

Harvard University

C.R.E.A., Ecole Polytechnique, Paris

Volume 50 Quantum Closures and Disclosures: Thinking-together postphenomenology and quantum brain dynamics by Gordon G. Globus

Quantum Closures and Disclosures Thinking-together postphenomenology and quantum brain dynamics

Gordon G. Globus Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Philosophy University of California at Irvine

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam
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Philadelphia

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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Globus, Gordon G., 1934Quantum closures and disclosures : thinking-together postphenomenology and quantum brain dynamics / Gordon G. Globus. p. cm. (Advances in Consciousness Research, issn 1381–589X ; v. 50) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Philosophy of mind. 2. Quantum field theory. 3. Neuropsychology-Philosophy. 4. Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976. 5. Derrida, Jaques. I. Title. II. Series. BD418.3 G56 2003 128’.2-dc21 isbn 90 272 5179 7 (Eur.) / 1 58811 370 1 (US) (Hb; alk. paper) isbn 90 272 5180 0 (Eur.) / 1 58811 371 X (US) (Pb; alk. paper)

2003040318

© 2003 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa

For Professor Frogin

Table of contents

Abbreviations x Acknowledgements xi Pre-amble xiii Chapter 1 Heidegger and the Quantum Brain 1 1.0 Introduction 3 1.1 Dasein’s brain 4 1.2 Reading “Heidegger” 6 1.3 “Be-ing holds sway as Enowning” 7 1.4 Heidegger and science 9 1.5 A brief history Umezawa’s Quantum Brain Theory 11 1.6 Macroscopic quantum systems and the problem of presence 16 1.7 Quantum Brain Dynamics (QBD) 20 1.8 Consciousness and memory in QBD 22 1.9 Vitiello’s thermofield Quantum Brain Dynamics 24 1.10 Quantum cybernetics, participation and matching 28 1.11 Vitiello’s Double 30 1.12 Ontological implications of dual mode QBD 32 1.13 The dissipative quantum brain as open system 34 1.14 Universe and ∼universe 35 1.15 Time-reversal 36 1.16 My Double, Myself 37 1.17 God’s Eye 38 1.18 Ereignis . . . Enowning 40 1.19 Seyn, Sein, Wesen, Ereignis 42 1.20 Angst 46 1.21 The beginning (der Anfang) 49 1.22 The problem of transcendence 50 1.23 I am 54 1.24 Hameroff and Penrose’s proto-experience 55

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1.25 1.26 1.27 1.28 1.29 1.30

The role of the classical brain 56 The binding problem 59 What is presence good for? 59 Da-sein and Seinsentwurf 60 “Grounders of the Abyss” 66 Stickings 69

Chapter 2 PostHeideggerian Postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain 73 2.0 Introduction 75 2.1 The postphenomenology of Hubert Dreyfus 76 2.1.a Absorbed coping 76 2.1.b Robust and deflationary realism 79 2.1.c Quantum being-in-the-world or Background 84 2.1.d Concealed plenitude 88 2.1.e Das Gevierte, the Fourfold 91 2.1.f Psychopathology and attunement 92 2.2 The postphenomenology of Pauli Pylkkö 96 2.2.a Ontotheological thinking 96 2.2.b Experience 98 2.2.c Aconceptual experience 100 2.2.d Identity 101 2.2.e Holonomic situatedness 102 2.2.f More on aconceptual experience 103 2.2.g The problem of how aconceptual understanding is learned 105 2.2.h Symmetry and order 106 2.2.i Freedom 108 2.2.j Pylkkö on “No brain, no Dasein” 110 2.3 The postphenomenology of Arkady Plotnitsky 112 2.3.a General economy and the principle of complementarity 112 2.3.b Bataille and the unknowable 119 2.3.c Plotnitsky on play 120 2.4 Précis 122 Chapter 3 Derrida and the Quantum Brain 123 3.0 Transition 125 3.1 Of spirit (Geist) 126

Table of contents

3.2 Of quantum spirit 128 3.3 Self-referentiality and undecidability in Gödel and Derrida 129 3.4 The liar paradox 130 3.5 Gödel’s self-referential undecidable construction 131 3.6 Marks and re-marks 132 3.7 Three rules of the between 133 3.8 Dual mode QBD and Gödel’s theorem 135 3.9 The Derridean type of undecidability 136 3.10 The transcendental and the plus-prèsent 137 3.11 Derridean infrastructural dynamics 140 3.12 The dynamics of arche-trace 140 3.13 Différance and its Freudian provenance 143 3.14 Supplementarity and the infinite 144 3.15 The lack in self 147 3.16 Iterability 148 3.17 The self-erasing trace 148 3.18 Exit from quantum closure 150 3.19 Inscription 151 3.20 The general theory of doubling 152 3.21 The now, time and the excessive 152 3.22 Physical time and subjective time 153 3.23 La dissémination 156 3.24 The tain of the mirror 163 Chapter 4 Post-amble 167 4.0 “Our” universe 169 4.1 Fault and de-fault 170 4.2 O hidden! 171 4.3 Neils Bohr’s emblem 175 4.4 Dual mode interpretation of the tao symbol 4.5 Tag 178 References Index 189

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Abbreviations

Works by Jacques Derrida: D G LI OG OS MP SP WD

Dissemination (1981) Glas (1984) Limited Inc Of Grammatology (1974) Of Spirit (1989) Margins of Philosophy (1982) Speech and Phenomena (1973) Writing and Difference (1978)

Works by Martin Heidegger: BP BT CP OWL QT TB WCT

The basic problems of phenomenology (1980) Being and Time (1978) Contributions to Philosophy (1999) On the Way to Language (1971) The Question concerning Technology On Time and Being (1972) What is called thinking? (1968)

Acknowledgements

I have received much help in trying to understand quantum brain dynamics. I thank Kunio Yasue for his depth of understanding, ability to explain, and greatness of person. Intensive line-by-line discussion of crucial portions of text with Scott Hagan were most helpful and nourished my courage to explore unvisited regions of discourse space. I greatly appreciate Giuseppe Vitiello’s deep insights into Hiroomi Umezawa’s work and his willingness to respond to my questions. Donald Mender was always available for stimulating discussion when I bogged down. I thank Elena Bezzubova for reviving my spirit and intellect, as well as many helpful comments. These good colleagues should not be held responsible for any misreadings of quantum theory.

The ones who question have set aside all curiosity; their seeking yearns for the abground, wherein they know the oldest ground. (Martin Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning), p. 10) – But maybe it’s just a residue, a dream, a bit of dream left over, an echo of the night that other theater, those knocks from without . . . (Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, p. 171) . . . the origin of the thermal degree of freedom in our world could be due to the presence of other universes which are totally dissociated from our world, though they share the vacuum with our world. (Hiroomi Umezawa, Advanced Field Theory, p. 34) God is a Lobster, or a double pincer, a double bind . . . each stratum is double. (Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 40)

Pre-amble

I try to think-together two communities of discourse which “have an attitude” toward one another generally ranging from utter indifference to disgust. Postphenomenological continental philosophy – my exemplars are Heidegger and Derrida – and quantum brain theory admittedly seem like unconnected, radically disparate discourses which are completely unthinkable together. It would be most surprising if postphenomenology and quantum brain theory turn out coherent. If quantum theory joins up with postphenomenology, this leaves classical physical theory on the other side of the fence. In this case the usual postphenomenological critique of classical science no longer applies to quantum science (Pylkkö 1998). This opens the possibility of reconsidering – against both sides – whether there might be some inner resonance between postphenomenology and quantum neurophysics. Such a reconsideration takes some Sprung against resistence, a certain leap. One motivation for such a Sprung would be a deep aconceptual uneasiness with the prevalent idea in brain science and Anglo-American philosophy that our brains really are a fancy wet version of computer. (See Hubert Dreyfus’ 1992 great critique of this central idea of technoscientific modernity, entitled “What computers still can’t do.”) This contemporary belief that we are at heart “Turing’s man” (Bolter 1984) will some day be seen as a profound failure of the fin de millénium mind. Human beings aren’t living computers with better bods! What’s left out – dare I say it? – Geist, Spirit. If quantum neurophysics were accommodating of Spirit, then the great split between science and Spirit would be healed, two mutually wary, great cultures of discourse peacefully united. Such a prospect pumps motivation for the effortful Sprung. I will show that the brain with quantum degrees of freedom can do much much more than compute and that what it is to be such a body-embedded living quantum system is to exist, to always find oneself already thrown amidst a world, and even to write. Here the wet computer idea soddenly crashes and we make an incision into an infinitely dessicated abyss. We shall see that local default takes on profound ontological significance. Default is not the “not” of

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not this, not that, but the “not” in which all objectuality is annihilated, das Abgrund of Heidegger (CP), abground. This book cheerfully leaps toward that null yet addressible place of default.

Incision My incision cuts to das Abgrund of the Heidegger epigraph above, the “abground,” which is also “unground” and a primitive “urground” (Emad & Maly 1999: xxx–xxxii). This is a strange “ground” that is a radical and originary other, a default in the familiar ground of metaphysics. This is abground for presence as such, and explains how there is something rather than nothing at all. Abground is Heidegger’s concession to the transcendental, the condition for the possibility of Being, of presencing, a profound creation ex nihilo – allegedly without metaphysical baggage. (When “being” is used in the sense of presence, I shall capitalize it, Being.) Heidegger wants to describe this abground without falling back into the Cartesian duality of res cogitans and res extensa. Our condition is that we find ourselves thrown amidst the presencing world; we always find ourselves already “there” in world encounter, as Da-sein. Can we conceive of this human condition without positing subjectivity? Abground is middle Heidegger’s way to avoid Cartesianism. His enterprise depends on the ur-un-ab-ground. Incision at the Heidegger epigraph has immediately opened to our existential case. Is there an abground to our existence as lived through, abground to a non-Cartesian existence of finding oneself always already thrown amidst the presencing affordances of the life-world? Let’s consider the abground’s characteristics. The abground is a ground that is profoundly other, alter, never present, indeed, abground withdraws in giving the presence that it grounds. The abground dynamic is presencing/withdrawal. Abground is nothing like the ground at your feet; it is itself incapable of presence whilst grounding it. This abground over which Heidegger implores is not atomistic, not composed of elements (particles), nor is it a continuum carrying waves. Nor is the abground a complementarity of particle and wave. None of these quantum physical concepts are sufficient for abground. Here we are, each in our world, moving along our respective world lines over time, all courtesy “abground,” which we struggle to fathom in the abyss opened by our textual incision. We will come to see, in the textual workings that follow, that there is a kind of “bottom” to the abyss, the strangest of bottoms,

Pre-amble

a bottom that is a peculiar mirror described by Derrida (1981). The mirror at the bottom of the abyss does not reflect back to us in our universe but reflects to the universe of the unpresent abground. This wierd mirror returns a mirror image to an alter universe! So the mirror in the bottom of the abyss leaves our universe bottomless, defaulted. The abyss, then, is a kind of “black hole” that hides an alter universe, as if a Lem-ian “Dorothy” might slide through the defaulting singularities to an alterOz. The bottomlessness of the abyss is not due to never reaching the bottom but is a shift into abground where “bottom” no longer has ontological significance. The abground is an originary dynamical ground that is utterly alter, beyond even no-thing (which remains objectual, dependent on “thing” for its signification). Thingness is completely annihilated in the abground. The absolute altereity of the abground derives in its double movement of gifting/withdrawal; it withdraws as it gifts the presencing world . . . and leaves the questioner yearning and seeking, unable to escape the abground’s defaulting silence. The image of “yearning” for abground, the liebte, the love for the abground, is a Hölderlinian mood I do not share – Hölderlin a great and deeply German poet, the peer of Hegel. My conception of abground is much drier, like the California clime. Heidegger (1999) elevates the yearners to the role of “grounders of the abyss” (Sallis 2001), thinks of them as “the rare” and “the few” who actually face the abground. Heidegger believes the German language has a unique role as the only truly philosophical language. Such self-importance is, perhaps, a slippery slope inclined toward Heidegger’s Nazism. To my mind the abground can be adequately appreciated through democratic toil. In the Derrida epigraph, the abground is “the night that other theatre” [spacing original] which knocks from without, expressing itself. The other theatre plays in a different universe. The knocks seem to be coming from just beyond our theatre’s external boundary walls, but this is a stance of commonsense metaphysics. The knocks derive from the alter universe. “ – But maybe it’s just a residue, a dream, a bit of dream left over, an echo . . . ” of that other theatre, abground. The Derrida (1981) of Dissemination is more concerned with the abground of writing; not worldly presence but textual Being. Derrida, too, yearns – yearns playfully, neither wet nor dry – for the abground, the abground of text. Umezawa introduces an alter universe to the universe we know, an inaccessible universe whose closure is for us absolute. He labels this alter universe the “tilde universe,” and achieves it by means of a matter-of-fact doubling of quantum field theoretical degrees of freedom into two modes: tilde (∼) and nontilde (non∼). (The non∼ mode is the mode of conventional unimode quantum

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theory.) Umezawa thus provides another physical universe, an alter ∼universe, which we will see plays the role of abground. The ∼universe knocks on our universe in the near-zero energy quantum vacuum states, and our universe knocks back. Even though we might never partake of the alter universe, it can strangely be traced within our mode of universe, in the form of vacuum holes or defaults. Umezawa’s ∼abground is profoundly alter, incapable of presence, nonetheless describable mathematically, and the location of its traces marked – Derridean “re-marks” – by addresses of defaults in our universe. !*! The preceding incision into discourse may well not make much sense to many readers. I can empathize with the feeling. The first time I read Heidegger (in rebellion) I understood nothing. Nichts. The first time I read of quantum brain theory (out of respect for Karl Pribram) I didn’t have a clue. Yet somehow I felt drawn to study Heidegger and later drawn to study quantum brain theory, aconceptually tugged (since I had essentially no concept of what I had incomprehendingly tried to read). Only after deconstruction of my assumptions and a lot of hard bushwhacking did any conceptual understanding begin to develop, and a dawning possibility of thinking postphenomenology and quantum neurophysics together. Even if the preceding does not make much sense to the reader, hopefully there is some aconceptual attraction, perhaps just a feeling of intrigue with the idea of alter, even a penchant for mystery and shadows, perhaps a vague yet compelling intuition of a hidden alterity. Or perhaps in experiencing the depersonalization of Angst, and in that state “hearing” the knock from the other side, alter has been briefly acknowledged, and so my incision may tug at the interest, even while uncomprehended. Ontological Pay-Off: If postphenomenology and thermofield quantum brain dynamics can, indeed, be thought together, their success would be based on a symmetrical ontology across Heidegger, Derrida, and Umezawa. Deep down in all three there is a dynamics that is dual mode and these dual modes have a between. The dynamics are called respectively: Ereignis, arche-writing and thermofield dynamics. Such a dual mode ontology gives you something that particles, waves and their complementarity can’t offer: the between – das Zwischen in Heidegger (1999), for whom Da-sein is the Being of the between (1962: 170); the between as the tain of Derrida’s (1981) strange mirror; the between as Umezawa’s (1993) vacuum state that nontilde and tilde universes share. Dual modes and their between underlie both postphenomenology and quantum brain dynamics. This opens a way toward rapprochement. The “closure” of my title is ∼mode whereas “dis-closure” is a function of the between.

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“Closure” here is radical, not a block to reaching something on the other side, as when a store is closed, containing goods that are “there” whether or not anyone is perceiving them. This very radical “closure” can never be opened, only re-marked, as we shall see. Bonus Pay-off: Quantum theoretical descriptions are statistical. The presencing worlds these statistics are about are taken for granted, indeed, require observers – metaphysical subjects – who stand outside of quantum theory. Quantum theory on its own is blind, led by observers who compensate for quantum theory’s incompleteness. Quantum theory, like all science, is subject to Seinsvergessen, Heidegger’s “forgetting of Being” that pervades all science. So the lack in quantum theory is not really felt. But in thinking quantum thermofield theory together with postphenomenology, we will see quantum theory expand to a complete theory that breaks its opacity and lets the lumen naturale flood in. If the attempt is successful, then the quantum revolution of the 20th century is extended in a most surprising way – all the way to our very existence. Widening the incision: Throughout his path of writing Heidegger is deeply concerned with what “is,” Sein, “Being.” His inquiry is fundamentally ontological. “Being” has traditionally meant presence, like the way this book is physically present to you right now. Is = presence, both mental (e.g. conscious thoughts about this book) and physical (the book sitting right there in your lap). In his middle period (1936–1938) Heidegger (1999) admits a second sense of “being” which is not, an unpresent “being.” He calls this unpresent “being” Seyn, since Old German better conveys his intent; the corresponding Old English translation of Seyn is “beyng.” Seyn is dynamical, a welling-up, a continual eruption, an Ur-sprung primitively springing forth. Seyn is characterized by autorhoesis, a spontaneous, selfflowing dynamics. Heidegger calls this welling autorhoetic process das Ereignis. So there are two forms of being for Heidegger, two senses of “is”: presence in the form of the world at hand and an unpresent autodynamical process that continually wells up. Heidegger’s view is accordingly quite distinct from Descartes’ res extensa and res cogitans, which both presence; nonetheless, we shall later see some tacit metaphysical assumptions in Heidegger’s philosophy. In a development seemingly at great distance from Heidegger, Umezawa and coworkers (1967, 1978, 1979) developed an abstract theory of quantum brain functioning in the late sixties and seventies. Jibu and Yasue (1995) gave a physical realization of this theory, which they called “quantum brain dynamics” (QBD). Vitiello (1995, 2001; Celeghini, Rasetti, & Vitiello 1992), applying Umezawa’s (1993) thermodynamical quantum field theory, developed a dissipative quantum brain dynamics (thermofield QBD). Thermofield the-

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ory greatly enriches ontology by admitting an unreachable quantum ∼universe that is the time-reversed mirror image of the ordinary (non∼) quantum universe of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. In Umezawa, ontology gains two modes of one dynamics, dual modes with their between. Umezawa’s innovation brings a fundamentally different kind of “duality” than the Cartesian, not two interacting substances that are incompatible, nor dual aspects of a neutral Spinozan tertium quid, not the incompatible uncertain duals of complementarity, but two interacting modes of one dynamics which opens a between. We shall see that presence – Being – is derivative of the between of dual quantum modes, in the case where the between is a special kind of match. Of course, contemporary brain science has been so successful and remains so sanguine that most practitioners see no need for quantum degrees of freedom in brain functioning. If the quantum brain theorists prove correct, then this would be truly revolutionary. At a more fundamental level than neural networks there would be a “cryptic brain,” as Jibu and Yasue (1995) call it, that has been conventionally overlooked, a previously unrecognized level of brain functioning that might (finally, truly) be worthy of us as Dasein. If quantum brain theory turns out right, then brain science has been barking up the wrong tree, at least when it comes to the most profound level of brain functioning. (Catastrophes to convention – opposition to the technoscientific Gestell, the overarching framework of our times – are of course vehemently resisted.) Quantum brain theory, it should be noted, only appears more speculative than good old neural networks consisting of local neurons richly interconnected by axonal and dendritic branchings. There is in fact no proof that at heart the brain computer. Thus Daugman (1990) states, While the computational metaphor often seems to have the status of an established fact, it should be regarded as an hypothetical, and historical, conjecture about the brain. (15)

Enraptured by silicon achievements – lost in techno-m¯ay¯a – belief in the sweet device of a computer-like processing brain is never deconstructed and so the speculation is not discerned. Furthermore, conventional thinking about the brain has been deluded by the practical successes of the metaphysical Gestell into believing that powerful enough Hal-like computers can do what we can – might pass the Turing test – and so be essentially like us. And even when the computer succeeds in indistinguishably simulating our behavior, it doesn’t get there in the same way. In the famous chess match the computer Big Blue used brute computational force against Kasparov’s insights.

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The admitted lack of direct experimental demonstration of quantum brain functioning is simply not relevant at this juncture, since theory typically longleads experiment in physics. (See Hameroff 2000 for a review of the experimental literature.) It took some seventy years from the theoretical prediction in the mid-twenties of Bose-Einstein condensation for such coherent quanta to be experimentally demonstrated – and the demonstration was awarded a Nobel prize! Physical theory, as elaborated by quantum field theoretical biodynamics, provides an account of the water molecules inside the tiny-tiny microtubules (ten billionths of a meter in diameter) within the neurons. These water molecules that fill the microtubules are slightly polarized – are dipoles – and accordingly form themselves into a delicate crystalline structure, a water quasi-crystal whose nodes are spinning oscillating dipoles. Under these biological conditions, quantum theory calls for a macroscopic quantum field to be formed, an electric dipole field that (contra Tegmark 2000) robustly resists thermal disruption and decoherence (Hagan, Hameroff, & Tuczyinski 2002). Is the resulting quantum brain dynamics, as the dipole field interacts with the quantum field theoretical form of the electromagnetic field, anything like “consciousness”? – no, strike that metaphysics out – anything like “existence”? The physical reality that quantum theory describes is unpresent, like Seyn, and also dynamical like Seyn. There are other crucial ways in which Heidegger and thermofield QBD are near. For example, in the Ereignis dynamic of Seyn, something very peculiar happens: What wells up is two-fold, Sein (Being/presence) and Zeit (time). Es gibt Sein. Es gibt Zeit. The es here that gifts Being and time is das Ereignis. Furthermore, the folds of the two-fold belong together (Zusammengehören); Sein and Zeit “enown” each other (Emad & Maly 1999). But so does the thermofield QBD developed by Vitiello have a two-fold: the ordinary quantum (non∼) universe and the quantum ∼universe. Given certain (Hermitean) assumptions, the quantum universe and the quantum ∼universe are mirror images, belong-together, like the belonging-together of Sein and Zeit. Thus both Heidegger and thermofield QBD converge on something so unconventional as an unpresent dynamics of a two-fold whose folds can belong-together in their between. The between is ontological, supports the presencing of Being; presence is derivative of unpresent dual modes, one mode of which is abground. Presence is dis-closed in the dual modes between. The dual modes belonging together – they press each other rather than bypassing, unnoticing and unnoticed – expresses light. God is a Lobster, as Deleuze and Guattari (1987: 40) say, a totem with powerfully clamping claws that pinch our attention to the “between-two.” But we

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Pre-amble

must shift from the “between” of two-pronged objects like lobster claws to the between of dual unpresent modes. God is a Lobster deconstructed. Reading tips: The progress of this book is not sequential and logical but nonlinear and repetitive in shifting contexts. I do not present the foundations of postphenomenology and independently the foundations of QBD, map correspondences between them, and move on. The methodology of thinkingtogether is quite different, a Derridean symplok¯e, a weaving of different strands into a locally unified but never totalizable discourse. The text is rhizomatic (Deleuze & Guattari 1987), a budding interconnectivity. There is no implication of a full translation between these two discourses, only the claim that there are significant regions of discourse space where the discourses dock well to each other. Plotnitsky (1994, 2002) and Pylkkö (1998) have gone to the border of this undiscussed place in thinking-together postphenomenology with the first quantization of quantum mechanics. I take a further step to the second quantization of quantum field theory and try to think together quantum field theoretical neurophysics with the postphenomenology of Heidegger and Derrida. The work of thinking-together – a kind of two-way translation – is arduous, to be sure. The wrench of appropriation must be applied at times. Each discourse must be deeply understood before their docking places can be wrenched together. Undocked regions of discourse are left respectfully bracketed. At times one side of the docking place is blank and the other structured side guides the filling in, calls forth what belongs to it in the blank region of discourse. Thus, postphenomenology forces an extension of quantum brain dynamics to admit “∼recognition traces,” potential in the quantum physics but undeveloped . . . and a “sweet” symmetry with postphenomenology when elaborated. From the other side, the postphenomenological metaphor of “dissemination” as seed-scattering will be reframed to “dissemination” as the recruitment of quantum coherences, a call to resonantly belonging-together. So in thinking together we procede as if climbing two ladders – one leg on each – two ladders in discourse space, with missing rungs both sides along the way. Sometimes we have to Sprung over gaps both sides at once – and catch back on the two-sided climb. As I said, thinking-together is hard work. The reader lacking background in postphenomenology or quantum brain theory, or both, will likely need to reread and ponder – as I have done with the texts under discussion. The moment of lean comprehension marks conceptual symmetry across the texts thought-together. The movement of my text is guided not by logic but mainly by aesthetics. Successful thinking-together is not provable, always open to the charge that it is forced. Clearly much lies in

Pre-amble 

the eye of the beholder in judging the success of thinking-together. The test of thinking-together is application to fresh texts, and experiencing the surprise as their docking comes into focus. Surprise, to a significant extent an aconceptual bodily experience, marks the docking of discourses. Of course, the texts to be surprisingly thought together ought to be of great insight and richness, so that being able to think them together counts for something. The fruit of this surprising rapprochement between postphenomenology and QBD is a theory of presencing (Sein). Why is there something rather than nothing? The dual modes bring a between-two, and in their special form of match the two of the between disclose lighted world. If this is so, then our true condition begins to dawn on us. The parallelism of monadic worldthrownnesses across Daseins is a horrific blow to common sense with its one world there and parallel cognitions of it. Ambling: Section I focuses on thinking together Heidegger and quantum brain dynamics, though his presence hovers throughout the subsequent discussions. Section II extends the discussion to the postphenomenological work of Dreyfus, Pylkkö and Plotnitsky. The third section shifts thinking-together to Derrida. In thinking-together disparate texts, I amble through the releasement of incision and widening dissection: From the OFr. ambler, to go, came Fr. Aller, alleé, which gives us Eng. Alley . . . To sally forth, however, is not aphetic for L. ex + aller, but from Fr. Saillir, saille, to rush, from L. salire, saltus, to leap, as in insult and somersault, qq.v. Many a leap leads to an ambulance. (Shipley 1945)

In the unpredictable disseminating Ursprung of assault to conventional modernity with playful postmodern somersault – risking the ambulance and white coats of academe! – I shall leap:

Chapter 1

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

In any case the orientation to “I” and “consciousness” and re-presentation mislays all the ins and outs. (Martin Heidegger, Contributions to philosophy (from Enowning), p. 49) Be-ing [Seyn] needs man in order to hold sway; and man belongs to be-ing so that he can accomplish his utmost destiny as Da-sein. (Martin Heidegger, Contributions to philosophy (from enowning), p. 177)

. Introduction Brain theory and postphenomenological continental philosophy are so unnear in contemporary discourse that practitioners on both sides consider them deeply incommensurate. Martin Heidegger, the most original and notorious of postphenomenological thinkers, sees his quest as more authentic and originary than science, which cheerfully posits its objects of inquiry rather than being painfully concerned with their very Being, like Heidegger is. Brain theory on its part almost universally disregards postphenomenology as at best irrelevant. Not all postphenomenologists automatically turn away from brain science as Heidegger does. Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1983), who maintains strong ties to phenomenology, is a prominent exception. Hubert Dreyfus (1992) shows what computers can’t do, but has been little concerned with what brains can do. John Searle (1983) uses the word “brain” often enough but absorbed in arguing philosophical issues, sees no need to go into it. The recent Festschrift for Dreyfus (Wrathall & Malpas 2000a, 2000b) evinces scattered concerns for brain, but a brain described under classical physics. Attempts have been made to think Heidegger together with neural networks (Globus 1995; Schreiber 2001) but again the physical assumptions are classical. The ontological opening provided by quantum brain dynamics, however, has not been previously exploited by postphenomenology. Vitiello’s (2001) philosophy is explicitly the common sense one of the practicing physicist that is deconstructed by postphenomenology, so an attempt at fit is going to be awkward. Plotnitsky (1994, 2002) and Pylkkö (1998) disclose relations between quantum physics and the continental tradition but do not consider quantum neurophysics per se. I shall attempt to show that the revolutionary introduction of quantum degrees of freedom into brain functioning brings brain theory near to certain regions of philosophy in the 20th century postphenomenological continental tradition. Quantum brain science and Heidegger are “near” in Heidegger’s sense, Nähe, so that each can be open to the other in mutual belonging-together and assimilation (Pylkkö 1998: 46), “brought and held together in . . . mutuality”

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(Mehta 1976: 446), rather than closed off, leaving the other incommunicado. This opens up a previously unlit region of discourse space. The movement of my text in this chapter begins with a brief discussion of Dasein, shifts over to a detailed focus on quantum brain functioning, and as the lay of the neighborhood fills in, goes back and forth between the entity Dasein and his quantum brain, thinking them together.

. Dasein’s brain Martin Heidegger is one of the most influential, controversial and difficult to fathom philosophers of the 20th century. I am not a Heideggerian. I am appropriating Heidegger in what follows, appropriating him against his will. I am trying to do something which Heidegger was vehemently against in principle, bringing science into ontology. Heidegger – and to this day Heideggerians – do not recognize that there is one science out of all Science that is relevant to Heidegger’s philosophy, and that is the science of Dasein’s brain. Dasein after all is an entity. Hofstadter (1982) explains, The Dasein is not a Sein but a Seiendes, not a sort of being but a being, though of course it has its own specific mode or way of being, its own Sein, which is named Existenz. (333)

The very possibility of ontology, Heidegger (BP: 19) says, “is referred back to a being [entity], that is, to something ontical – the Dasein.” The entity Dasein certainly does have a brain, and if Dasein’s brain is impaired, there goes the Da, nothing is disclosed. No brain, no Da, no Dasein. So Heideggerian thought is not entitled to ignore completely brain science and related disciplines. Brain and Da are very tightly coupled – that’s a fact, ask any anesthesiologist – give an anesthetic gas and the patient is no longer “there,” no longer Da – though lying there on the surgical table – the light has gone out in her Lichtung and she is left in an anesthetic beyond-darkness. But “darkness” implies a dark presence . . . what I am talking about is beyond that, a nihilation of even no-thing. No-thing is still in the domain of distinction; nothing remains object related, a not-object for a subject who already knows what an object is. Without light-bringing Dasein, there is only the indistinguishable, the unnameable, the unknowable. Dasein has a perilous Promethean role to play, lighting the beyond-darkness. Dasein – the entity able to question its own being – has a brain that somehow supports the welling up of light, a lighting process, enfiring. I shall try to show how Dasein’s brain gets the job done, uti-

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

lizing the quantum resources of a cryptic brain previously ignored by a brain science enamoured of computation.

DASEIN “Dasein” is Heidegger’s name for each of us . . . we human entities are the ones who are Da, “there,” but not the spatial there of “right here or over there.” We are aroused from a deep sleep to find someone shaking us and asking, “Are you there?” Groggily we come awake; we are “there” again. The Lichtung (the lighted place, the clearing) lights up, enfired, as we come awake. When we say of someone in a drunken half-stupor, “He’s not all there,” we don’t mean a location, there, where some of him is missing! We mean that the world is not fully present to him; he is Da deficient. The battered boxer’s Lichtung is dimmed, the lumen naturale of the ring darkens for him, and he is barely “there” when the referee raises the right hand of the victor. Dasein is the entity that is Da, open to presence, dis-closive. Thus Hofstadter (1982) calls the Da an ability, “The ability to open-up, let-be-unveiled as uncovered or disclosed is the ability to exist as the Da” (334). Heidegger (BT: 171) observes that the entity Dasein has the “peculiar” character of “not being closed-up” (Unverschlossenheit) and says that “the expression ‘Da’ means . . . essential disclosedness.” World disclosure is taken for granted by physics, leaving the details to the cognitive and brain sciences. Heidegger, in contrast, problematizes world disclosure, presence, Being, Sein. If “Heidegger” – scare quotes marking my appropriation – on the lookout to think together brain science and Existenz, would think in the ordinary modernistic terms of information processing in neural networks (Globus 1995; Schreiber 2001), then such a thinking-together will not fly far. Such a computational brain – a culminating interpretation by modernity without ontological force – is anything but near to Existenz (Dreyfus 1992).

Heidegger, after all, despises techn¯e. He wants no part of wet mushy stuff inside the skull with its well-kept facial façade. In techn¯e a subject does something to something to produce something. In Plato’s time the technical domination was by a craftsman, such as a potter shaping amorphous clay to produce a pot in accordance with his Idea of the pot, like the Demiurge – Demiurgos literally means craftsman – shaping chaos to cosmos in accordance with his Idea of the good. In our time the Great Technician is a programmer, constraining input to produce output. But what if the brain is not engaged in dominating input (Globus 1992b, 1995)? (The qubits of quantum computers that make possible superpositions (interpenetrations of information) are no different in this regard . . . input is still dominated by the programmer, whatever the computer’s hardware.) Suppose the brain has quantum degrees of freedom and is not engaged in computational domination of input but something else quantum is going on, something

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which might fit with Dasein’s Existenz. If, contra almost universal beliefs about brain functioning, the quantum brain does not dominate input information in computing, then there should be no principled impediment to trying to think together quantum brain dynamics (QBD) with Heideggerian dynamics. Extension of the quantum revolution to brain functioning is unlikely to be routine, more likely to bring strange insights.

. Reading “Heidegger” Everything depends, of course, on how Heidegger’s terms are understood and translated, each understanding and translation necessarily an appropriation. Philipse (1998), in his discussion of Heidegger’s philosophy of being, thoughtfully considers the translation difficulties. (See especially the Preface and Introduction. See also Hofstadter’s (1971) introduction to Heidegger’s Poetry, Language, Thought, and Emad and Maly (1999).) Many of the contributors to the companion volume (Scott, Schoenbohm, Vallega-Neu, & Vallega 2001) to Heidegger’s “Contributions to Philosophy” demur from the Emad and Maly translation and develop their own. Furthermore, Heidegger will be differently understood if, for example, one is thinking poetically, which is clearly “near” to Heidegger, compared to thinking quantum neurodynamically, which seems at first blush very far from him. Moreover, some parts of the text will be nearer for a particular appropriation than other parts. To make the task even more difficult, Heidegger’s path of thought (Denkweg) is akin to forest trails (Holzwege), which follow no inner logic and may even peter out. When a sympathetic Heidegger scholar like Olafson (1987) struggles mightily to discern what Heidegger did mean, or even could mean, by “being,” this warns us not to search for a “true Heidegger.” Quotations can always be found that apparently contradict any claim. So no straightforward definition can be given of Heidegger’s technical terms. We will consider various translations, and in the repetition a soft penumbra of meaning shows forth. The kind of reading undertaken here is very different from reading Anglo-American philosophy or scientific works. As Heidegger says, “The point is not to listen to a series of propositions, but rather to follow the movement of showing” (TB: 2). Terms must be slowly pondered rather than quickly impounded by concepts. We must “dwell” in words. (Expressing them in a language other than English assists dwelling.) Nor should there be any compunction to follow slavishly Heidegger’s thought. The present work is definitely not a contribution to Heidegger schol-

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

arship – neither exegesis nor critique – but aims to think his philosophy together with quantum brain dynamics. When this thinking-together bogs down, I shall have no hesitation in making alterations to Heidegger. Accordingly, the string ‘Heidegger’ should be read in what follows as if surrounded by eyebrowraising quote marks, “Heidegger.” On the quantum brain side, in contrast, the theory is well founded in the equations of quantum physics which should not be tampered with. However, in the thinking-together, “Heidegger” – of course deeply opposed to any such endeavor – calls for certain interpretations and extensions of quantum brain dynamics. Thinking-together “Heidegger” and quantum brain dynamics, then, is a form of “bootstrap” (Chew 1968), an unorthodox procedure whose guiding principle is self-consistency. Participants belonging-together bring self-consistency.

. “Be-ing holds sway as Enowning” (CP: 183) This section considers some key Heideggerian terms and their translation. My painstaking discussion would be wrongly thought pedantic; we will get nowhere in thinking-together Heidegger and quantum brain dynamics without first thoughtfully dwelling in his language. Let’s first consider Ereignis, “en-owning.” Emad and Maly (1999) translate the er- as en-, “insofar as this prefix conveys the sense of ‘enabling’, ‘bring into the condition of ’, or ‘welling up of ”’ (xx). I shall usually use welling up for er(more intensely, erupt) because it conveys a sense of a continuous dynamic; the very sound of welling-up has a flow. “Enabling” is sometimes useful but its connotation is more mechanical, lacking the welling character. Heidegger frequently uses en-, not just in enowning, to emphasize an intrinsic dynamic of welling up. Let’s dwell in en-: To be en-amored is for love to well up. To be en-couraged is for courage (L. cor, heart) to well up. We can say from an extrinsic perspective that love or courage wells up in someone, but en- has the connotation of inwardness, as in en-demic (belonging to a region), endo-crine (to secrete within), endo-gamy (marriage within a certain group), en-dowment (natural capacity, power, or ability), en-joy (to experience pleasure or satisfaction in). In Heidegger er- implies such an inner welling. “En-core” can mean either extrinsically a demand for repetition by the actor – Encore! Encore! Play it again, Sam! – or intrinsically “en-core” calls for the violinist to let the performance well up again from her heart, from being-in-the-world . . . Heidegger

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clearly means the intrinsic sense of “encore” with his use of er-. That en- is highly ambiguous – both extrinsic demand and intrinsic welling up – catches the deconstructionist eye (which is poised to seize on marginalia). Evidences of fundamental confusion are proper incision points for deconstruction. So what wells up in Ereignis? Eignis . . . owning, belonging to, matching, which we will go into shortly. For now: Ereignis is the dynamical welling-up of two modes that belong-together, Sein and Zeit. Seyn: The distinction between Sein (Being) and its archaic form, Seyn (being or beyng), is that Sein is thought metaphysically whereas Seyn is not. Emad and Maly’s typographical convention of hyphenating be-ing defers the archaic implication, so I shall use the old English spelling, beyng, interchangeably with be-ing. Sein and Seyn have radically different meanings. Sein implies presence whereas the originary Seyn implies unpresence. The roles of Sein and Seyn will become clearer as the discussion procedes. Wesen: The most difficult of Heideggerian terms is Wesen . . . not essence, heaven’s no, but “essenc-ing,” translates Father Richardson (1974: 228). An inner possibility is what comes to actual presence in essencing. Mehta (1976: 50) says that Wesen “denotes the process character of Being [Seyn]” and “is about Being itself in regard to the way It, Being, is” (348). Heidegger himself says that Wesen “means the manner in which be-ing itself is” (CP: 341). Philipse (1998) observes that Wesen has a dynamic sense (18), the Wesen of Dasein effectuates, “consists in the fact that it [Dasein] has to be” (26). Schoenbaum (2001: 229) translates Wesen as coming-to-pass and Wesung, which Heidegger often uses, as “coming-passing,” which implies the character of Seyn as disclosing. Philipse (1998), with less specificity, says Wesung means “the way in which Being is” (246). Emad and Maly (1999: xxv) insightfully translate Wesen as “essential sway.” This sway is “essential” in the sense that it is inherent. In the context of metaphysics – which Heidegger refers to as the “first beginning” in contrast to the “other beginning” that Heidegger undertakes – Wesen is given its classical meaning of “essence.” In postphenomenology, however, the “essential” is dynamical, a process in which there is a changing coming-to-pass, the flux of thrownness amidst a world looking this way and that over time. Shipley (1945: 379) unpacks nicely the etymology of “sway,” which is related to “sweet.” To per-suade is “to lead someone to like a thing, to make it sweet.” There is a connotation of gentleness (cf. “suave”). To sway is to shake, to totter, to turn aside. “To fall under the sway of something means to be moved to and fro by it,” gently to be turned.

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

I take Wesen, then, to refer to a dynamical process, a gentle form of control, a turning, an influencing, a soft constraint, which is inherent to Seyn. (Heidegger at times does use the traditional sense of Wesen as “essence,” which will be interpreted as it becomes relevant below.) Das Wesen des Seyns. By Emad and Maly’s translation Be-ing holds sway . . . this constraining is the “process character” of Be-ing and the constraint dynamics is the certain way Be-ing is. Coalescing these various translations of Wesen: Das Wesen des Seyns is a dynamical process of constraining. We will later understand this dynamical cybernetics in quantum terms. I suppose most Heideggerians will howl at interpreting das Wesen des Seyns as a dynamical process of constraining but I have just demonstrated that the two interpretations can be thought together, a docking place between two discourses formed by common symmetries, which leaves vast dockless discourse waters for partisans to sail in.

. Heidegger and science Heidegger in the Beiträge (“Contributions to Philosophy”) is not against science, so long as it knows its place and philosophy is not seduced by it. Even more shortsighted is the alignment of philosophy with the ‘sciences,’ which has become customary – and not accidentally – since the beginning of modernity. (32)

He emphasizes “the lack of truth in all science” (99). There is, indeed, a considerable condescension on Heidegger’s part toward science. Philosophy is neither against nor for science but leaves it to its own mania for its own usefulness – for securing, always more easily and quickly, increasingly more useful results . . . . (108)

Dreyfus (2001) is able to dissect out a systematic Heideggerian position in which the natural kinds of science exist independently of learned practices but only with great effort that goes against the grain of Heidegger’s feelings. Heidegger’s scorn is directed even more at technology, which he identifies as both Russian and American. The historical (historisch) human sciences, as well as the natural sciences and technology, are equally ultimately objectifying, science that

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forges ahead (in modernity, the objectification that advances to completion) by sucking up all concreteness (Sachhaltigkeit) of beings and taking these [beings] only as an occasion for live-experience. (109)

I think Heidegger makes a fateful but quite understandable mistake in his attitude toward science. Nonobjectifying postphenomenological philosophy does not mesh with the machinative classical science that Heidegger is thinking of, agreed, but what of quantum science? Heidegger was aware of quantum science but the nature of the quantum revolution against classical science was not as clear in Heidegger’s time as it is now. (See Pylkkö’s 1998 illuminating discussion in his Chapter Two.) Whatever the deficiencies of machinative classical science, however, we should retain open minds about quantum science. Maybe the continental tradition can be thought together with quantum brain dynamics. The possibilities for such a rapprochement should not be prejudged, since quantum ontology is so revolutionary. So long as Heidegger would expect the science of brain functioning to be machinative (which Penrose 1989, 1994 has argued against), then brain science will have no way of appealing to Heidegger’s thought. But if the quantum heart of brain science is nonmachinative, then the way is open to thinking “Heidegger” together with quantum brain dynamics. An exploration of their nearness is undertaken here. Of course, quantum science has not at all reached out toward Heidegger. Indeed, as Donald Mender pointed out in an online discussion of the Philosophical Psychology Group, “Quantum science has meekly served the technocratic agendas of established power.” Heidegger accused science of Seinsvergessen, the forgetting of Being, and this is proper. Heidegger (like Husserl before him) emphasizes that science posits Being (presence) and so is not foundational. The positive positing of any being includes within itself an a priori knowledge and an a priori understanding of the being’s being, although the positive experience of such a being knows nothing of this understanding and is incapable of bringing what is understood by it into the form of a concept. The constitution of the being of beings is accessible only to a totally different science: philosophy as science of being. (BP: 52)

Brain science, of course, is a “positive science,” taking for granted the presence of the brain probed in the laboratory. Since truth discloses the very Being which science has to posit, science remains far from truth . . . hence Heidegger’s feeling of superiority.

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

Actually brain science, even though “positive” (positing), can bootstrap to Being. Positing Being is a ladder climbed and harmlessly thrown away when a certain perch is attained. Here presence is explained, including the presence of the brain, and positing Being is no longer necessary . . . kick it away! Heidegger does leave an opening for positive science. He states in the Grundproblem that ontology has nothing in common with any method of any of the other sciences, all of which as positive sciences deal with beings. On the other hand . . . being also is, at it were, based in a being, namely, in the Dasein . . . This being accordingly lays claim to a distinctive priority in ontological inquiry . . . Ontology has for its fundamental discipline the analytic of the Dasein. This implies at the same time that ontology cannot be established in a purely ontological manner. Its possibility is referred back to a being, that is, to something ontical – the Dasein. Ontology has an ontical foundation . . . in clarifying the scientific character of ontology, the first task is the demonstration of its ontical foundation and the characterization of this foundation itself. (BP: 19–20, italics original)

Here Heidegger leaves the door ajar for Dasein’s brain to be part of the “ontical foundation” of ontology. Let us enter:

. A brief history of Umezawa’s Quantum Brain Theory Umezawa and coworkers (Ricciardi & Umezawa 1967; Stuart, Takahashi, & Umezawa 1978, 1979), first proposed a quantum field theoretical account of brain functioning in the late sixties. (See Umezawa’s 1995 retrospective.) This account was given in purely mathematical terms, rather than tied to brain functioning. Umezawa recognized that quantum field theory had the resources to provide a powerful account of memory, since the minimal energy “vacuum state” is a perfectly stable physical entity that might securely record memory traces and there are an infinite number of degenerate (undistinguished) vacuum states available for recording, termed “θ-vacua.” θ-vacua are transformed to other θ-vacua by a certain “Bogoliubov transformation” (which carries points to superpositions). This abstract quantum field theoretical neurophysics conceives the conservation of input order as preserved in coherent quanta of the vacuum states of quantum biofields. This conservation is not a literal repetition of the input flux but a conservation of invariant abstract properties over time, which physicists call “symmetry.” Umezawa termed the brain’s symmetry-conserving

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quanta “symmetrons.” Symmetrons are traces of past input symmetries, kept in the infinite quantum reservoir of degenerate (undistinguished) θ-vacuum states provided by the living brain. Symmetrons are memory quanta which are traces of input. Umezawa’s theory supposes another kind of quantum, called “corticons,” which are the quanta of a cortical field that spreads over macroscopic regions. The corticons undergoing creation and annihilation dynamics are described by quantum field theory. Symmetrons are quasi-permanent memory traces in the corticon field vacuum state. (Forgetting is explained in terms of quantum tunneling (Jibu & Yasue 1992).) So Umezawa’s theory is that the living brain supports corticon fields undergoing creation and annihilation dynamics, and in the vacuum states of corticon fields, the symmetrons record memory traces. Umezawa’s theory is well-founded in quantum field theory, which is empirically extremely well supported. Umezawa extends quantum field theory (QFT) to encompass living systems, which are open dissipative systems. Living systems are “open” in the sense that they exchange energy with their environment and “dissipative” in that they are able to accept energy without heating up, that is, without thermalization, and also able to dissipate stored energy back to the environment. (The physicist is wont to think of “environment” in purely energy terms, as “heat bath” for the system. The system + heat bath can be considered a closed system, under certain idealizations. A closed system is the kind of energy system to which the equations of quantum field theory apply.) So QFT in Umezawa’s hands launches a theory of open, dissipative, living systems with quantum degrees of freedom that can record memory traces. Umezawa’s proposal is revolutionary for the theory of brain functioning, since it is not based on recursively organized systems of local neurons. (The “recursive organization” means that systems are embedded within systems embedded within systems, at various scales of organization (Alexander & Globus 1995).) Normal brain science considers neurons to be classical computing elements connected in a network: the brain is essentially a wet computer processing sensory input and calculating motor output. Cognitive programs intervene between the brain’s input and its output, processing the input in a rule-governed way and calculating output. But now Umezawa adds quantum degrees of freedom – which profoundly supplements the brain’s capabilities. This is not to deny the classical level of description in terms of neural networks. In the revolutionary quantum conception, there are mechanisms for nonlocal coherent corticons to have interactions with classical sensory and motor neural networks.

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

So hidden behind the conventional neural networks of brain science is another “cryptic brain” (Jibu & Yasue 1995) with quantum degrees of freedom. This is a truly astonishing proposal, given the extraordinary successes of conventional brain science. No crisis calls into question the prevailing computational paradigm, yet Umezawa would have conventional brain science barking up the wrong tree when it tries to point to memory and consciousness. Any suggestion of foolish barking will be disregarded or meet strong resistance. It is no surprise that an oft-repeated derisive comment about quantum brain theory goes, “The only connection between consciousness and quantum brain theory is that both are mysterious.” A science writer in normally well-contained Science (Seife 2000) even jumps to ridicule quantum brain theorists. The margins of derision in a text do catch the deconstructive eye . . . At this juncture in discourse, where brain functioning becomes quantum field theoretically described, deep intuitions come into play. Most people these days are quite comfortable with the idea that our brains are powerful and specialized wet computers. No need for aery-fairie quantum notions. Our existence is computed. Q.E.D. This deep conventional intuition was manifested in the 2001 Scientific Study of Consciousness conference, held at the University of Skövde, Sweden. Participants in the section on “machine consciousness” felt deep in their sincere bones that when there will be enough computational power to run complex enough programs, the machine would just be conscious. For example, Holland and Goodman (2001) unabashedly begin their abstract with the announcement, “We are engineers interested in building a conscious machine or robot.” The panel on “machine consciousness” was asked, “How will you know the point of complexity where the computer actually attains consciousness?” Reply: “When we start to feel funny about shutting the computer down at night.” We should not take seriously a theory built on free-floating guilt . . . An opposing intuition is the deep down belief that we aren’t really computers . . . that we are something more than mere machines, no matter how powerful they are, even if they are quantum computers which make use of qubits. To be deep down for or agin’ our being machines may well have roots in childhood development. (See Holton 1975 on the origin of the limited number of themata available to science and ontology.) Perhaps the value is learned aconceptually, in early social interaction . . . whenever. Our deep intuitions are aconceptual attunements that guide our thought. So the sanguine “Anglo-American” view of computational being – the cutting edge of metaphysics – sees no need for quantum capabilities (or just relegates them to a fancy quantum form of computation), whereas the rejectionist

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“continental” view (post technoscientific modernity) might at least hope that a brain system with quantum degrees of freedom would prove more congenial. The dogmatic mistake of continental rejectionists is to disseminate a pox on all scientific conceptions, not appreciating that quantum systems are not machinative and so acceptable as a supervenience basis for creatures like us Daseins. About the same time as Umezawa’s proposal Fröhlich (1968) considered protein filaments in the brain and worked out a mechanism for taking input energy to the protein filaments and converting that classical input to coherent quanta, now known as Fröhlich waves, in a superconducting medium. (A superconductor is free of resistance and damping.) Fröhlich’s theory is based on oscillating (1011 Hz) “dipoles” carrying equal positive and negative charge. Under these conditions oscillating electric dipole quanta propagate along the protein filaments. These filaments are now known to be arranged in a dense web of protein strands which pervades neural and neuroglial tissue. This web is at a very small scale – the nanolevel of billionths of a meter. This exquisitely fine, filamentous, nanolevel web does not respect neuronal boundaries, facilely traversing them via membrane proteins. The web densely packs entire neural systems, both inside neurons and in the extracellular space. The famous microtubules are a specialized portion of this nanolevel web in which the protein strands are hollow and contain water. Fröhlich thus opened up how, out of brain biophysics, dipole wave quanta are generated in the pervasive, filamentous, superconducting web by external input and propagate coherently without thermal loss. Davydov (1978, 1982, 1991) formulated the coherent dynamics of this superconducting medium in terms of solitons carrying electric polarization. Solitons are generated out of many dipole wave quanta. They are local topological expressions of global quantum field theoretical properties. Local solitons express the whole. Del Giudice and coworkers (1983, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1991) worked on the quantum field theory of biological systems, developing the theory of quantum biodynamics. Yasue and coworkers developed the quantum neurodynamics of living brain tissue, concretely filling in and extending Umezawa’s original abstract proposal. (See Jibu & Yasue 1992, 1993A, 1993B; Yasue et al. 1988; and Yasue, Jibu, & Pribram 1991.) Through these contributions, Umezawa’s theory not only generates a quantum theory of memory but the theory is physically realized in terms of brain science. In this work Umezawa’s theoretical quantum neurophysics becomes quantum brain dynamics, QBD. For example, the

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

water-filled microtubular component of the nanolevel web provides physical conditions in which a quantum dipole field is formed and protected against thermalization (Jibu & Yasue 1995). The microtubules in effect function as water lasers (Jibu et al. 1994). (For a nonmathematical presentation of QBD see Jibu and Yasue’s (1995) “Introduction to quantum brain dynamics.”) The well known work of Penrose and Hameroff (Hameroff 1987, 1994, 1998a, 1998b, 2000; Hameroff & Penrose 1996; Penrose 1989, 1994) should be mentioned in this brief history of QBD, since it has generated much discussion. Even though quantum field theoretical, it has not wielded great influence on the Umezawa school; its basic intuitions are geometrical, in terms of quantum gravity, so there has not been significant cross-fertilization. Hameroff (2000) has provided a splendid review of brain biology as supportive of quantum degrees of freedom. Vitiello (1995, 2001) made original use of Umezawa’s “thermofield dynamics,” which brings thermodynamics into quantum field theory. (Quantum mechanics and standard QFT do not have thermodynamical degrees of freedom.) Vitiello developed a thermofield quantum brain dynamics. Thermofield dynamics (TFD) admits an utterly alter universe to our own, designated the “tilde-universe.” (Tilde is symbolized by ‘∼’.) Umezawa’s ∼universe permits QFT to have thermodynamical degrees of freedom. A fine distinction should be kept in mind to avoid confusion here. The tilde and nontilde universes are both quantum universes and so unpresent. The nontilde universe has already been described by quantum mechanics (“first quantization”) and quantum field theory (“second quantization”). Umezawa’s innovation supplements with an alter tilde universe. Umezawa takes the nontilde universe of conventional quantum physics as our quantum universe, leaving the tilde universe alter. (See Section 4.1.) There is a “between,” between our quantum universe and the ∼universe, neither presencing, and through this between we can infer the alter universe. The absolute closure of the ∼universe does have one point of relation with the conventional nontilde quantum universe: the conventional and ∼universes share the vacuum state. Quanta are exchanged between tilde and nontilde universes in vacuum states, according to thermofield dynamics, exchanged under certain rules, called the “∼conjugation rules” (Umezawa 1993: §2.2.3). The near-zero energy vacuum states, then, are dual mode, irreducibly paired universe and ∼universe. Duality is ontological here, but not in Descartes’ way of res extensa and res cogitans, both of which are capable of presencing. Umezawa’s duality is unpresent, and as we shall see, presencing arises in the dual modes’ “between.”

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Vitiello shows that QBD with the additional thermodynamical degrees of freedom of thermofield dynamics provides a vastly richer memory than QBD alone. This improvement is because thermofield QBD permits a solution to the overprinting problem, where successive memory traces are superimposed on previous ones, past memories covered over as in a palimpest. The overprinting problem is that with too much memory superimposition, the traces become indistinguishable. Remarkably, thermofield QBD provides in principle a total independently accessible memory for all past inputs without any overprinting, by making use of the infinite number of degenerate θ-vacua. So for Vitiello, the brain can be treated as a dissipative system exchanging energy with its external environment. In the quantum description, the dual modes exchange energy, the ∼mode serving as heat bath for our nontilde mode. (From the symmetric ∼vantage point, our universe is heat bath for theirs.) As a living system the brain holds the entropy law in abeyance for a time, able to decrease entropy (increase order) indefinitely until brain death, when entropy increase abruptly catches up and the second law of thermodynamics resumes its interrupted dominance. Vitiello’s thermofield QBD is a rich and unique resource for thinking together with postphenomenology. When Vitiello himself becomes involved with more philosophical issues like “subject” and “consciousness,” however, he explicitly takes the common sense attitude of the physicist at the bench, for whom “consciousness” as such is unproblematic; its relation to world is the puzzle. An attitude imbued with common sense seems unlikely to fit with extremely revolutionary quantum physics, quantum neurophysics, and thermofield neurodynamics. Quite the contrary, we ought to expect some capsize of our quotidian boat and expect to cry for help in our loss of heimliche certainty, loss of the everydayness in which we feel “at home.” A conventional notion of “consciousness” will provide no life-raft for such strange conditions as quantum theory provides.

. Macroscopic quantum systems and the problem of presence When we think of “quanta,” we tend to think of an incredibly small scale, the most fundamental constituents of matter. A quantum field – a continuum with an infinite number of points hence an infinite number of degrees of freedom to vary – spreads over a spatial region. Quantum fields are an unpresent form of res extensa. In quantum mechanics, spatial operators are subject to the uncertainty principle, whereas in quantum field theory there is extension in the form

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

of addresses. (See Umezawa, §1.4.) The dynamics of quantum fields – their nonlocal interactions and change over time – is investigated by QFT. Umezawa felt that “the pleasure is in the interaction” (Jibu & Yasue 1995: 140). It should be noted that every point in space has an address. In Umezawa the address has two modes: tilde and nontilde. Since our universe is nontilde, the only traces of the ∼universe we can ever find are holes at addresses in our nontilde universe. We shall see in Section III that such holes are Derridean remarks “where nothing takes place but the place” (Derrida, D: 257), where there is only an empty address. Quantum field theory, however, is not restricted to the extremely small, the Microwelt. Everyday macroscopic-sized objects can be built from quanta that are “coherent,” that is, oscillating together in phase. (See Umezawa’s Chapter Six for the mathematical treatment of macroscopic quantum objects.) The points of the quantized field are oscillating too fast to be disrupted by thermal energy. (A detailed account of how coherence is maintained at biological temperatures and energies has been provided by Hagan, Hameroff, & Tuczyinski 2002.) I emphasize that the macroscopic world that Umezawa builds through quantum coherence in vacuum states is not observable in principle. Umezawa extends the spatial scale from the ultra small Planck length to everyday objects, but the quantum realm remains statistical, just as in conventional quantum physics. . . . in quantum mechanics one cannot predict in a definite (i.e. nonprobabilistic) way in which state the system will be found when observed; one can only “expect” that the system may be observed in a specified state with the probability associated to that state . . . Contrary to what happens in classical mechanics . . . our statements about the system state are always in terms of probability expectations. (Vitiello 2001: 129)

Probability expectations are expectations of presences – presences to subjects – so metaphysics persists in quantum physics. The problematic of the presencing world simply is not addressed there, including thermofield QBD. Physics leaves the problem to other disciplines involved with perception and observation, and would happily cede the problem of presencing to philosophy. In relinquishing responsibility for presence, the problematic recedes from view – which is none other than Heidegger’s Seinsvergessen, the forgetting of Being. Quantum physicists are acutely aware of a problem, but it is not the problem of Being (presence). Their issue is observation, misleadingly called the “measurement problem.”

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There are many different points of view about what quantum theory really asserts about reality and its relationship to the observer . . . There is now no more agreement about what quantum theory means than when Einstein and Bohr first debated the question in the 1920s. (Smolin 2001: 34)

Smolin complains that quantum theory normally lets the observer stand outside the universe, when properly there is nothing outside the universe. He insists that the observer be part of the quantum universe and explains whether or not something presences to the observer simply as a matter of scale, that human perception, amazing as it sometimes is, is too coarse to allow us to see the building blocks of nature directly. (Smolin 2001: 2)

What is forgotten here is that when macroscopic-scaled objects are built from the quantum building blocks, they are equally unpresent. And so Smolin can blithely discuss reason and presence. Reasoning about the world is done by observers inside the world, each of whom has limited and partial information about the world, gained from what they can observe by looking around them. (Smolin 2001: 30)

Here Seinsvergessen carries on unabated. Quantum theory, it is thought, gives only a statistical description of what would be there if a conscious observer came along and took a look, and sees which way the pointer is already pointing. Consciousness has, historically, remained outside of quantum theory (with the exception of von Neumann (1955), Wigner (1962) and Stapp (1993) who corral consciousness for the peculiar job of collapsing the wave function). Whatever its great scientific achievements, quantum physics as currently constituted remains ontologically incomplete in its Seinsvergessen. Now with the development of quantum neurophysics – in particular, thermofield QBD – it is only responsible to reassess the exclusion of consciousness from quantum physics. When quantum physics is applied to the very brain of the observer, explanation of the observing consciousness need no longer be farmed out to less royal disciplines. Quantum neurophysics may offer quantum physics something it hasn’t even dreamt of. In quantum neurophysics consciousness itself – or a successor concept of Existenz – might come within the nomological network of physics. I shall try to exploit the opening thermofield QBD provides for ontological completion of quantum physics.

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

Superposition, the wave function and its “collapse” One of the ways in which quantum theory is so queer is that quantum states can be “superpositions” of states in which mutually exclusive states coexist. To illustrate at the macroscopic scale, ordinarily your computer is either in the “on” state or the “off ” state, but a situation can be contrived where familiar terms simply fail to apply, in which your computer under quantum description is a superposition of both “on” and “off.” Such superpositions constitute an important part of the actual construction of our microworld, as has now been revealed to us by Nature. It is just a fact that we appear to find that the quantum-level world actually behaves in this unfamiliar and mysterious way. The descriptions are perfectly clear cut – and they provide us with a micro-world that evolves according to a description that is indeed mathematically precise and, moreover, completely deterministic! (Penrose 1994: 259) The superposition of states is mathematically described as the “Schrödinger wave function” and its deterministic evolution over time is described by the Schrödinger wave equation. When a measurement takes place, the wave function superposition is said to “collapse” onto one of its states. The squared coefficients of the Schrödinger wave equation give the probability of finding the various states. That is, on measurement the superposition of both computer “on” and computer “off ” collapses to either computer “on” or computer “off ” – the wave equation doesn’t tell us which, only the equal probabilities of the possible outcomes.

This grand prospect of completing quantum physics should not be thought of as explaining “collapse of the wave function.” There are already many promising explanations of how superposed possibilities become one actuality. For example, Penrose (1994) thinks that gravity does it and others (e.g. Giulini et al. 1996; Zurek 1991) propose that interactions between the measuring system and its environment rapidly bring about decoherence, a collapse to a particular state of the measurement device. But all of the explanations of wave function collapse remain statistical; they give the probabilities of finding particular actual cases, rather than the actual presence of the collapsed state, what’s there when some observer comes by and takes a look. It is the forgotten ontological lacuna of presence that quantum neurophysics might explain utilizing the resources of thermofield QBD, thereby completing the ontology of physics.

Schrödinger’s cat Schrödinger gave the von Neumann/Wigner view currency with his famous (but politically incorrect) gedanken experiment with a cat, in which the poor animal is made to be in a dread-

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ful superposition of dead and alive under quantum theory, until some von Neumannian consciousness comes by and makes an observation, which collapses the wave function and seals the cat’s fate, one way or the other. It is ironic that Schrödinger makes consciousness the killer! But the work cited above on rapid decoherence through environmental interactions has obviated any need for consciousness to collapse the wave function, since the wave function ultrarapidly collapses in virtue of its (allegedly unavoidable) interactions. (Protection of the wave function from rapid collapse is the topic of the Hagan, Hameroff, and Tuczyinski 2002 paper.) Quantum theory doesn’t tell you that a quantum will ping right there at that point on the screen in the classical two-slit experiment, only the probability of finding it there if you “make an observation.” However, the capacity to observe what’s there – finding oneself already thrown amidst the experimental apparatus – lies outside of quantum theory. (This defect is glossed over mathematically by the effortless assumption of Hermitean operators that are associated with observables.) If QBD could explain world presence, Being, then the observer would no longer stand outside quantum theory’s nomological net. Quantum physics could fully complete its revolution, as the fundamental science of both Being and beings, applicable to both sides of that difference which ruptures ontology. If there is a quantum neurophysical “ground” for the ontological difference, then quantum physics gains greatly in its power.

Notwithstanding the lacuna of world presence, Umezawa offers relief from the very smallest, in his account of macroscopic objects. Quantum theory describes the dynamics of an unpresent physical reality that is very strange compared to our common sense notion of physical reality, the Mitwelt present before our very noses, the presencing of the “phenomenal” or “manifest” world, the one I am writing in and you reading in, the quotidian world-in-common that we take for granted as we go about our everyday business. So I sharply distinguish unpresent quantum reality from presencing world and underline quantum physics’ current insufficiency in explaining the presencing, while hopeful that thermofield QBD might incise beneath the problem.

. Quantum Brain Dynamics (QBD) The brain, like any other Mitwelt-sized object, such as a stone, can in principle be described by quantum thermofield theory. The stone undergoes a tilde/nontilde vacuum state match whereas the brain controls it. The brain, unlike the stone, is able to sustain and control quantum coherence at biological temperatures and energies (which are radically different from the technological conditions of lasers or superconductors which also accomplish quantum coherence). So one distinguishing feature of the quantum field theoretical

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

brain is its vacuum cybernetics. In contrast to nonliving entities, the brain with quantum degrees of freedom supports fine control of the vacuum states. At the quantum level of brain functioning the cybernetics is in virtue of quantum field interactions. Participation in quantum field interactions sways the result. This is not a cybernetic dominance but a cybernetics governed by consensus of participants, a belonging-together. Let’s get an intuitive picture of quantum cybernetics with a more detailed version of the previously sketched illustration of what is going on. Water molecules are ubiquitous in the brain. For example, water molecules fill the famous microtubules within neurons and neuroglia. These water molecules are weak, oscillating dipoles (with equal and opposite electric charge at the poles) and have quantum mechanical spin. Out of the well-described physics of the situation, the spinning, oscillating, water dipoles line up and form a delicate crystal-like lattice structure. Unlike the sturdy diamond’s lattice of carbon atoms, the water molecules form a “quasi-crystal,” where the nodes are somewhat unstable so that the crystal is gingerly sustained. Spinning oscillating dipoles at the nodes of water quasi-crystals inside the microtubules form a quantum field, a dipole field that carries dipole wave quanta or “corticons.” When the momentum axes of the spinning dipoles all line up, like synchronized swimmers, the corticons are said to be “coherent.” So quantum field formation and maintenance of coherence can take place inside the microtubules. (For a detailed account of this microtubular “water laser” with its quantum properties of “superradiance” and “self-induced transparency,” see Jibu et al. 1994.) A quantum cybernetics of consensus is realized in macroscopic-scale quantum fields sustained by living brain tissue, fields that interact with the pervasive electromagnetic field. Control is exercised through participation in the interaction. Quantum cybernetics is not in the spirit of dominance, where one winner takes all – the dominance that characterizes metaphysical modernity – but is in the spirit of participation in a process, which is more postmodern in spirit.

Chi Jibu and Yasue (1995) identify these living quantum biofields with the chi energy of oriental medicine. Note that all cells in the body have microtubules and quantum biofields, a body chi, but neuronal cells specialize in control of the quantum biofields.

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When the neural tissue dies, these quantum fields of course go pop, disperse. The brain, out of all living tissue, specializes in controlling these quantum field interactions. The brain is quantum cybernetical in its functioning, unlike the kidney or spleen, controlling through participation and the belonging-together of participants rather than dominating like computational machines. It is Logos that dominates in the machinative. Modernity’s machinative view is strongly Platonic. The potter shapes the clay, Demiurgous – literally Craftsman – shapes chaos into cosmos, the programmer shapes the logical calculus that mechanistically processes incoming information. This is domination, not participation. Participation welcomes consensus, a best match, which are merely different names for Heidegger’s belonging-together (Zusammengehören).

. Consciousness and memory in QBD As discussed in Section 1.5, Jibu and Yasue (1995) take Umezawa’s abstract formulation and work out a quantum theory of consciousness and memory grounded in living brain tissue. The classical systems of neural networks connect with water dipole fields via the pervasive web of protein filaments which disregard the neuron’s and neuroglia’s boundary membrane. The microtubules are a specialized region of this web, where the protein filaments hollow out, forming water-filled nanolevel tubes whose walls are ultra-rapidly vibrating tubulins. In this section more detail is provided and also a foray at thinking QBD together with Heidegger. Vacuum states are near-zero energy states, also called “ground states.” In the case of ordered water the momentum axes of the spinning water dipoles all point in the same direction in the θ-vacuum states upheld by the living brain. When input comes into this vacuum, corticons (dipole wave quanta) are created, quanta which undergo annihilation and creation dynamics. Input provokes corticon dynamics. In the corticon dynamics the energy gained can be dissipated, with the system relaxing back into a different θ-vacuum state than before. (The θ-vacuum transformation is called the Bogoliubov transformation, which remarkably, in Russian literally means the love-of-God transformation. So we might say that we have memory, and so our humanity, through the love of God.) Input provokes corticon dynamics and a Bogoliubov transformation to a θ-vacuum state. Memory – hence temporality – is derived through the Bogoliubov movement.

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

The corticon fields in which corticon creation and annihilation dynamics takes place are of the spontaneous symmetry-breaking type. (Symmetry is the mathematician’s way of expressing what is “sameness” in postphenomenology.) At the ground there is sameness before difference, vacuum states without preference – degenerate θ-vacua – and difference is achieved, intrinsic to the ground, in symmetry-breaking. The ground in metaphysics, in contrast, is an amorphous ground, in which the extrinsic subject introduces preference, Demiurgos shapes chaos to cosmos, like the potter working with clay. The postphenomenological ground is instead a spontaneous fullness, an upsurge of possibility. This ground is Seyn with its Ereignis dynamics, strangely giving disclosure and withdrawing undisclosed at the same time. The withdrawal of Seyn is full closure, deeper than no-thing (which remains vestigially unclosed in the reference to “thing”). In nonvacuum states the unbroken symmetry of “a uniform rotation of the electric dipole moment vectors of the H2 O molecules does not change the fundamental dynamics of the water rotational field described by the Schrödinger equation” (Jibu & Yasue 1995: 169). The field entity with its various energy levels makes no distinctions under uniform rotation in higher energy states. But in least energy vacuum states the rotational symmetry can be broken: a change in the direction along which the electric dipole moment vectors line up changes the vacuum. Symmetry-breaking in vacuum states thus permits distinction. Order becomes ontological through symmetry-breaking, without which there is only the degeneracy of uniformity. Jibu and Yasue (1995) use the metaphor of synchronized swimming to convey the shift in vacuum state. The swimmers at rest and all facing the same direction stand for coherent quanta in the vacuum with their momentum axes lined up. The music stands for an external energy source. A note is played and the swimmers move in a near-unison manner to face a different direction, which stands for symmetry-breaking. So vacuum states support distinction, permit order. When input spontaneously breaks the rotational symmetry of the vacuum, the broken symmetry is specific to a particular input. However, fundamental energy conservation laws do not allow the loss of symmetry under these conditions. The “lost” invariance is in fact conserved in massless quanta known as Nambu-Goldstone (N-G) bosons. The broken symmetry is preserved by the N-G bosons. The N-G bosons in living brain tissue are none other than the “symmetrons” of the early Umezawa school, since they conserve the lost symmetry specific for input. I shall call them Goldstone symmetrons, to remind that they are massless quanta which conserve the symmetry specifically broken by input

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order. So input evokes corticon dynamics and a shift to a new vacuum state in which coherent Goldstone symmetrons conserve the input invariance. The memory trace is accordingly identified with a particular θ-vacuum in which the trace is maintained by Goldstone symmetrons. The memory trace under idealized conditions might persist indefinitely in Goldstone symmetrons of the vacuum state. Due to quantum tunneling (Jibu & Yasue 1992), however, the memory trace is gradually eroded. Recall of a memory is thought in QBD to take place as follows. A new input comes in which is a “replication signal” of the signal that originally provoked the memory trace in the form of Goldstone symmetrons in vacuum states. The replication signal can be the same signal as the original one, or part of it, or even a signal with which the original one has been previously superposed. The case of superposition provides association. The interaction between the replication signal and the symmetron memory trace restores the original corticon dynamics, thereby recovering the memory. Jibu and Yasue (1995) identify consciousness with corticon dynamics and memory traces with Goldstone symmetrons. In recall past consciousnesses recur in the restoration of corticon dynamics. A lacuna of this account, however, is that there is no motivation provided for the identification of consciousness and corticon dynamics. We can see how Goldstone symmetrons serve as memory traces for past input invariants – that’s in the quantum neurophysics – but it is arbitrary to identify consciousness and corticon dynamics. How do we get the same out of profound difference? This is just the old spiritual/material problem in quantum guise. So we have not yet gained any purchase on the traditional puzzle, which Schopenhauer termed “the world knot.” But let’s follow Vitiello’s (1995, 2001) development of thermofield QBD pace Umezawa: Double the degrees of freedom by positing a ∼universe. Let each address be the address for dual modes. Make the ∼universe mirror image to our own.

. Vitiello’s thermofield Quantum Brain Dynamics Vitiello beautifully exposes a deeper level to the QBD story in an original application of Umezawa’s dual mode thermofield dynamics to quantum brain functioning. Now there is not only a cryptic brain under quantum description, never dreamt of by a classical brain science which degrades human existence to mere machination of neural networks. This cryptic quantum brain in addition has a strange alter, an other that is tilde. The quantum brain according to thermofield QBD functions in two modes: tilde and nontilde. In

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

that the ground is dual mode, it has a between where the crucial action takes place. The belonging-together which constitutes this between is tantamount to das Ereignis. The between is the gift of the dual mode dynamics, inconceivable by any metaphysics. The fruit of the between is in the ∼conjugate match, where the between generates presence. (The match between the complex number a+bi, and its complex conjugate, a–bi, is called a “conjugate” match; when one of these complex numbers applies to the tilde mode, I call the match “∼conjugate.”) Quantum brain dynamics dis-closes (formatively creates). With the tilde supplément, Heidegger can be thought together with the principles of dual vacuum modes and their between. The two modes may exchange quanta in vacuum states under certain ∼conjugation rules (Umezawa, §§2.2.3, 2.3.1). A simple exchange changes nothing since the pairing as such persists. There is another process, however, in which the order of one mode may end up richer than the other. This factor depends on creation and annihilation dynamics. If quanta of the nontilde vacuum mode are annihilated by excitation out of the zero-energy vacuum state, an equivalent number of ∼quanta must be created.

“Imaginary” numbers The somewhat disparaging term “imaginary” has curiously fallen out of fashion in physics – which catches the deconstructionist’s eye. The imaginary isn’t anything present, nothing there in the world. The imaginary is the unpresent “is.” Quantum physics tells us that the best description of fundamental physical reality describes an unpresent “is.” (Not that fundamental physical reality is too small to scale up to the size of our quotidian world presences – macroscopic quantum objects are well-described by Umezawa – but that fundamental quantum physical reality “is” unpresent.) But for the exception: There is one case in quantum physics that is not imaginary, one saving grace of the mathematics. Multiply a complex number by its complex conjugate and i terms disappear, leaving a good old real number associated with presences, observables. So in the provenance of quantum ontology, what “is” is taken to be unpresent, save for the matching of a complex number with its complex conjugate, the special case of “is” present, Heidegger’s Sein.

Now there is a very special Hermitean case of the relation between the dual modes, and that is when the Hamiltonian energy difference across the dual modes is zero. The form of thermofield theory adopted by Vitiello is this Hermitean version, in which it is assumed that the Hamiltonian difference is zero. The very special case of no Hamiltonian difference is chosen because it

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rids ontology of the imaginary dimension required for the mathematical representation of quantum descriptions. Real numbers are unnatural in quantum physics, an exception warranted by the Hermitean assumption, which blithely multiplies complex numbers by their complex conjugates to get out real numbers. Thus in the famous Born postulate of early quantum physics, the complex coefficients of the Schrödinger wave function are arbitrarily multiplied by their complex conjugates, and the resulting real numbers are treated as probabilities. The proof of the Hermitean assumption lies in the eating: the assumption works, everything comes out fine [assuming metaphysical subjectivity – a consciousness – that knows what the probabilities are probabilities of]. Embracing the Hermitean tacitly brings observables – presencings – which the probabilities are of.

The Hamiltonian difference between dual modes The energy of a system is given by the Hamiltonian, H, which is a certain function of momentum and location. In thermofield dynamics (TFD) with its doubled dynamical degrees ˆ (H-hat), is equal to the difference between the of freedom, the free energy Hamiltonian, H nontilde Hamiltonian and the ∼Hamiltonian. ˆ = H∼ – Hnon∼ . H In the Hermitean representation of TFD Hnon∼ is set equal to H∼ . This is an arbitrary asˆ = 0 by restricting certain non-trivial parameters of the vacuum to sumption which makes H certain values. (See Umezawa 1993: §2.4.3, on these non-trivial parameters.) In the more general case of the non-Hermitean representation of TFD in which dissipative systems exˆ can be unequal to zero. For nondissipative systems change energy with an environment, H ˆ is always equal to zero. H ˆ can grow very large. For brain Now it is a striking property of living brain tissue that H ˆ = 0. The ∼system of the living tissue that is dead, like other nondissipative systems, H brain is a repository of energy whereas the nontilde system is continually renewed by input. This comes about (see Umezawa, §7.2.1) because the absorption of energy can occur in two ways. . . . an external stimulus creates either a quantum or a hole. This explains why we have doubled degrees of freedom. (143) In one way of absorbing energy, additional quanta are added to the vacuum state. In the other way, nontilde quanta already in the vacuum are excited to higher energy levels and accordingly annihilated from the lowest energy vacuum state. Under ∼conjugation rules (Umezawa, §7.2.2) the annihilation of the nontilde quantum from the vacuum must be associated with creation of a ∼quantum. It follows that in this scenario “tilde quanta are ˆ increases in dissipaholes of nontilde quanta in the vacuum” (143). We can now see how H tive quantum brain dynamics: The annihilation of nontilde quanta in the vacuum by an ex-

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

ternal stimulus is associated with the creation of ∼quanta, so the Hamiltonian difference, ˆ increases. H,

In the dual mode interaction under the Hermitean assumption, then, two complex-valued modes become a real-valued between. The balanced interaction which fulfills the between is mathematically represented as a ∼conjugate match that gets out real numbers. When the Hamiltonian difference between the dual modes goes to zero, under the Hermitean assumption, then the modes are mirror images and their between is mathematically describable in real terms. Vitiello’s dual modes (which will be considered in more detailed fashion below) have very different functions. The nontilde mode functions as the subject mode and the tilde mode’s function is to “re-present” the external environment and at the same time function as heat bath environment for the nontilde mode. “Environment” is easily confounded between two very different meanings: nontilde external environment and tilde heat bath environment. The mode transformation implicit in the confounding is between nontilde and tilde. Thus ambiguous in Vitiello’s innocent word “environment” is an unexplained mode transformation. So one of Vitiello’s modes is system/subject and its mirror image is “environment” – both conventional mode external environment and alter mode heat bath environment. Quantum “subject” and quantum “environment” match ∼conjugately by assumption. However, a category mistake should be noted in Vitiello’s referring to “subjects (systems)” (110), “the brain (the subject)” (141) and “the brain’s ‘subjective simulation’ of the external world, its own representation of the world” (141). The equation of subjectivity and brain systems ignores the subject/object incongruity and leads to deep confusion. My alternative proposal is nonHermitean. The ∼conjugate match is not assumed but achieved. The Hamiltonian difference tilts toward the tilde because a certain kind of memory trace is tilde – ∼traces not of past input but of past re-cognitions. When a dual mode symmetron trace successfully recognizes an input in virtue of making a match with the input invariances, a peculiar trace is left of the re-cognition, a “hole” or default at a particular address. The ∼mode grows richer than the nontilde through recognitions “re-marked” by nontilde holes. Recognition traces in the ∼mode are the system’s possibilities, whereas the nontilde mode brings reality, and actual presence lies in the between of the tilde/nontilde belonging-together in the making of a ∼conjugate match. From

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an input perspective, input selects from the gifted possibilities, whereas from the system perspective it is attuned for certain gifts of input. Both forms of logocentric dominance are replaced in Heidegger by participation in belongingtogether, which I interpret as a resonance between mutual participants in a matching process. In the matching resonance of the between world lights up. Vitiello’s (§7.7) brief discussion of meaning brings out the difficulty of his position. He cites the work of Walter Freeman. In Freeman’s view, meanings are “intended actions,” namely the meaning belongs to (is in) the subject and arises from the active perception of that subject, which includes intentionality. (Vitiello 2001: 143)

Cognition here is by the active subject, which is thoroughly Cartesian. But Vitiello continues, In the light of Freeman’s suggestion, the ∼modes express meanings or “meaningful representations” rather than just representations. (143)

Thus he thinks that the subject is non∼ mode but the subject’s meanings and meaning representations are ∼mode. It appears that something is inconsistent in Vitiello’s account. The ∼mode upheld by living brain tissue can be thought of instead as a continually shifting attunement for the vacuum state interaction. The ∼mode is attuned for certain nontilde participants and thus constrains the balance. “Intentional acts” tune the ∼mode for the exchange and thereby constrain the ∼conjugate match. The intentionality of consciousness – that it (except under extra-ordinary conditions) is always conscious of something or other – accepts reality’s gift of Wesen, of constraining symmetries, for its own fulfillment. In opening to a ∼conjugate match, the attuned, situated Dasein accepts Seyn’s gift – a match is made and we find ourselves world-thrown.

. Quantum cybernetics, participation and matching In §1.7 I said that the brain is distinguished by fine control of quantum field interactions through participation in those interactions: the brain is quantum cybernetical. There are various sources of this control. One form of control on the interaction is sensory. Input is re-“presented” by a quantum field representation, except that no connotation of presence is permitted, hence the eyebrowraising quotes. Input symmetries over time are conserved (invariants in the input flux, unchanging relationships over time) and participate in control of

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

a many-participant quantum field interaction. (This is a quantum version of Baars (1988) classical “global workspace.”) To participate in the quantum field interaction is “to control” the outcome . . . but “control” is too strong a word, better, “influence,” or recalling Emad and Maly’s term, sway. Sway is participation of certain Wesen in the interaction. Sway is soft control, subject to consensus. Quantum cybernetics is a flowing dynamics of multiply “swaying” participants in a quantum whole, a heterology assuaged in the match. Another source of control is drive, which wants to dominate the interaction, but fortunately comes under social constraint; that is, social ways also sway the interaction by participating in it. Affect, too, constrains the interaction, tunes it a certain way (so that in severe depression the world is seen “through a glass darkly”). There is also cognitive participation in the interaction; our meanings enter in. So there are at least instinctual, social, emotional and cognitive attunements for the quantum field interaction with what’s coming in on the sensory side. All of these, including the sensory, participate, participate in the quantum field interaction. So in QBD terms there is a multiparticipant quantum field interaction, each interpenetrated participant nonlocally influencing the heterological system’s evolution. We now can get a better grip on a second sense of Wesen – closer to the classical sense – Wesen as a state term, instead of the dynamical Wesen which leads Emad and Maly to the “essential sway” translation. So I distinguish WesenS (state) and WesenD (dynamical). The WesenS of reality are invariants over time – conserved symmetries – that participate in the quantum field interaction, and in that swaying intrinsic participation are WesenD. Both senses of Wesen can be brought together in speaking of “constraining invariants.” Participation on my use is not mechanistic but a contribution to a continually renewed process. Participation contributes to shaping a spontaneous dynamics whose rule is “holonomic” (Bohm 1980; Yevick 1975), a spontaneous dynamics under “the law of the whole.” Holonomy tolerates locally acting logical rules, but only as derivatives which merely approximate true holonomy. The participants can be broadly divided into two groups: exogenous (sensory, including somatosensory) and endogenous (e.g. intentional, emotional, instinctual, volitional). Exogenous sensory participants re-“present” physical reality – again eyebrow-raisers, because in the quantum case there is no presencing; the “expression” of physical reality would be a better term. Endogenous participants situate for the quantum field interaction with the exogenous participants. When afraid, we are situated for a threatening reality, and typically find it, may obsessively worry over it, even become paranoid about it. When hungry, we are situated to find food and perform consummatory acts

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(e.g. putting the food in our mouths). When thinking about Umezawa, we are situated for QFT and QBD. Let’s look more closely at what is going on in the interaction between variably participating quantum fields. When Vitiello identifies consciousness with the matching nontilde subject and tilde object interaction, he explicitly assumes the philosophical stance of the practicing physicist, which is in the spirit of technoscientific modernity. In self-recognition one “meets one’s match,” a match is made in the successful self-recognizing process, self finding self. Self-recognition remains anchored in the metaphysical self, which recognizes itself. What should be primary, however, is the match, the belonging-together . . . Ereignis. “Self-recognition” overemphasizes self. Ereignis is a welling up in search of belonging-to – making a match – a welling of interpenetrated WesenS and of time, hoisted by Dasein. “Matching” is a selfless multi-participatory process. But a very strange match in the tilde/nontilde case, since one side of the match remains in an unreachable universe. I mean match in the sense of mutual fulfillment, completion, perfect tense. Only in the match do we “have.” In the matching interaction in vacuum states upheld by living brain tissue, there is a tilde conjugate match . . . and the very mathematics gets out real numbers. (This match collapses the imaginary dimension because in multiplying a complex number by its complex conjugate, the only imaginary term left is i2 , which is equal to –1, so the imaginary dimension of space collapses to the origin.) Real numbers are associated with observables. I propose that what comes out of the interactive match in the vacuum states is presencing, not consciousness. World presences in the ∼conjugate match of a finely controlled interaction between tilde and nontilde universes, hoisted by the living brain. Our very world-thrownness is a continual achievement, continually regenerated on the fly out of the underlying dynamics.

. Vitiello’s Double For Vitiello (2001: 141), the system A∼ “is the A system’s Double and since it can never be eliminated, the A system can never be separated from its Double.” A and A∼ systems are an inviolable pair; the dynamical process is grounded in pairs. There is “a nonlinear coupling or dialogue with the inseparable own Double” (141). The A∼ system is the time-reversed mirror-image of the A nontilde system. But the “mirror” metaphor misleads: image and mirror-image are both to be taken in quantum terms, and so lack presence; nontilde universes and mirror image ∼universes are equally unpresent. There is no personal Double.

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

When Vitiello (141) brings in Plautus’ metaphor (189 B.C.) for doubling of the self in the the form of “Sosia’s Double,” it is easy for the manifest images of the man Sosia and his Double to slide over to dipole wave quanta fields, where there are properly no such images, and so it is easy to forget that the ontological status of both A and A∼ is unpresent. The way the Gestell (mis)handles the problem, says Heidegger, is Seinsvergessen, the forgetting of Being in the sense of presencing, living in blindness to the dynamical phusis, the continual welling up of disclosure. Forget about Being and you don’t have to notice that your theory is about unpresent entities only! Or let somebody else worry about the presence problematic. (If this, I have been reporting my findings.) In Vitiello’s formulation, the brain is an open system exchanging energy with the external world. There is a “permanent ‘trade’ of the brain (the subject) with the external world” (141). This trade is reiterated in the relation between the brain (subject) and its ∼Double. In some sense, the unavoidable coupling with the external world is ‘internalized’ in the dialectic, permanent relation with the Double. (141, italics added)

So now there is a subject/object dialectic where subject is nontilde and object is tilde, and a subject/Double dialectic where again subject is nontilde and Double is tilde. Consciousness arises for Vitiello where tilde and nontilde come together, where nontilde subject meets a world that is “in some sense” tilde, a meeting of time-reversed mirror images, self meeting Double. Consciousness in Vitiello’s account is the case of subject self-recognition in a ∼conjugate mirror. In his metaphor, consciousness is not on either side – neither nontilde/subject nor tilde/object but at the tain of a mirror in which the mirror image comes up in an alter universe. In Vitiello’s thermofield QBD formulation, consciousness lies in the vacuum states where an interaction match takes place. Dasein’s dissipative quantum brain, which supports controlled interactions in its ground states, does it all. So Vitiello’s formula resolves to: nontilde subject self-recognizing ∼world representation → consciousness.

Vitiello gives no justification for thinking of nontilde as subject. It has the very same symmetry as the ∼object, only time runs oppositely in the latter. Tilde and nontilde modes here are perfectly symmetrical so they cannot support the categorical distinction between subject and object, indeed their only distinction is the time reversal. In the very mathematical formulation the selfrecognition or match is assumed. Vitiello “requires” that the condensate con-

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tain an equal number of A and A∼ modes, which insures “that the flow of the energy exchanged between the system and the environment is balanced” (111). The equation of subject and object here is imposed by fiat; their equality is simply postulated, in the dominating fashion typical of still metaphysical modernity. In a non-Hermitean representation of TFD, however, this arbitrary requirement would be lifted and the roles of the tilde and nontilde reverse. Here “subject” is succeeded by “attunement,” tuned ∼situatedness, tuned beingin-the-world. In-der-Welt-Sein is tilde. The interaction is between situatedness and quantum physical reality, tilde and nontilde universes. Furthermore, the representation of TFD here jettisons the Hermitean assumption. The tilde mode is no longer sparse, limited by assumption to the time reversed mirror image of the nontilde, but rich, exceeding what nontilde offers of reality. According to Umezawa (1993: 14) this rich vacuum is a new version of the classical ether. The vacuum dialogue is between a plenum of interpenetrated tuned possibilities and the more limited possibilities in the input flux from reality, both of which constrain the possible match. When a ∼conjugate match is achieved (not assumed) under an energy optimization principle – when the interacting participants belong-together – then there is, not consciousness, but presencing world with Dasein thrown amidst it.

. Ontological implications of dual mode Quantum Brain Dynamics Let’s explore the ontological possibilities of Vitiello’s thermofield QBD. We have seen that ontology splits into two unpresent quantum universes, tilde and nontilde, where tilde is the time-reversed, conjugate, mirror universe to our nontilde universe. Duality brings the possibility of coupling, belonging-to, where the duals match. This is not a Cartesian dualism of incommensurables but the dualism of the same, which belong-together. The problem, however, remains unchanged: no account of presence. Quantum physics is statistical and the world is there, awaiting the observer who would come there and dis-close it. Just how to get from nontilde which is unpresent and statistical, to world presence . . . that problem is bypassed by thinking the world obviously is present, and so no problema. Let the philosophers or whomever take care of it. Restatement: Vitiello provides an account of memory and recall in his dissipative thermofield QBD. Consciousness, he holds, is the self-recognition of nontilde and tilde modes, where subject and object meet. (Neisser 1976 famously said that perception is where cognition and reality meet. Vitiello pro-

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

vides a quantum version of Neisser’s dictum, substituting consciousness for perception.) Again, in the throes of Seinsvergessen and under the sway of das Technik, the sheer Being – the presencing – of the world is forgotten. Vitiello is content that the world is there while quantum physics awaits the observer to release it from its confinement to statistical ensembles. I think we should not grant the world easily to quantum physics. To give something so commonsensical and conventional for free to a theory otherwise extremely uncommonsensical and revolutionary . . . that’s schwach. Once quantum theory is extended to brain functioning, however, a quantum explanation of world presencing can be found. Then there is no need in physics and philosophy to grant the world about us, the world in which we find ourselves already thrown, since world comes naturally out of thermofield QBD, mirabile dictu! The lumen naturale switches on, disclosing worlds.

¯ YA ¯ MA The human condition implied here is rather frightening. Each Dasein is its own Lichtung – each Dasein a clearing – surrounded by darkness, no, darkness is a kind of presence, I mean “something” beyond darkness, unknowable, even beyond nothing in the very annihilation of no-thing. As clearings, we are profoundly isolated from one another, ontologically speaking. The “surround” of the Lichtungen is originary to space-time objectuality. Even nothing is annihilated “there.” We are separate “monads” (taken in a very general spirit of Leibniz) with world-thrownnesses in parallel. The illusion of a world in common, rather than the actual existential isolation of parallel worlds, is sustained because the illusion works out in practical ways. If “monads” have the more-or-less same input coming in, and more-or-less the same culturally inculcated attunement (situatedness), then more or less the same world will be disclosed across monads, and so parallel worlds are easily (mis)taken for one world-in-common. We are scattered clearings lost in m¯ay¯a, taking our scattered disclosing of worlds for a shared quotidian world right under our collectively reassured noses. The world-in-common is illusory. Parallel worlds are integral to physical reality, the case of ∼conjugate matching in the vacuum states upheld by Dasein’s brain. So both the quantum universe and the classical observable one are real, the latter a very special case of the former, the case of Dasein’s dissipative brain, where quantum field interactions come under control and ∼conjugate matches are arranged, so that scattered through the quantum physical universe are parallel lighting processes, where the match discloses worlds, Lichtungen where worlds presence as participants in the matching process withdraw. By social consensus regarding situatedness, a local group of scattered worlds may evolve in parallel, giving the social illusion of a world-in-common. Thus m¯ay¯a-rapt, we feel at home in a common commonsensical world, with the occasional intrusion of Angst when we sense the bottomless gaping abyss of the ∼mode.

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. The dissipative quantum brain as open system We have seen that Vitiello passes on Umezawa’s gift of new thermodynamical degrees of freedom to quantum brain dynamics and makes great use of them. This is a very significant contribution to the Umezawa school. Now the quantum brain can be an open system, taking in energy (order) and dissipating it to an internally coupled tilde heat bath environment. The open system + tilde heat bath environment are together thermodynamical; they are related in their energy exchange. The open system also exchanges energy with its external environment; it is able to absorb and dissipate energy. Living things are open dissipative systems. Nontilde quanta are just what the physicist ordinarily conceives of as quanta. With the advent of Umezawa’s doubled ontology these ordinary quanta must be distinguished as non∼, once the ∼mode is postulated and the pair becomes irreducible. Umezawa emphasizes that the nontilde description is quite sufficient for dynamical operators; however the ∼description is additionally required for thermodynamical operators. The passage of an action potential along a neuronal axon is a dynamical event, in which information is mechanically moved. The passage of the action potential is a dynamical event completely describable in nontilde terms . . . up to a point. And that point is where the input order breaks the vacuum’s symmetry and the broken symmetry is restored as a Nambu-Goldstone dual mode condensate. Now there is memory consisting of dual mode traces of broken symmetry, traces that are possibilities, and as Vitiello (1995, 2001) brings out, time’s arrow is born in that memory. What is the difference between a stone or computer and living brain tissue in vacuum terms? Living brain tissue and a stone are both quantum macroscopic objects based in vacuum condensates (Umezawa 1993, Chapter 6). But the brain is an open dissipative system, able to store traces of order by symmetry-breaking. The trace is recorded by the vacuum state density of massless, energyless, coherent Nambu-Goldstone bosons. The stone is very different from the brain. Inscribe it with a chisel and the mean envelope structure of the vacuum state of infinitely many quanta, which gives a classical field description, is slightly altered but the “fluctuating inner structure” of the stone, which is represented by a quantized field, persists (Jibu & Yasue 1995, p.213). Macroscopic objects are described by the interaction between the classical field and the quantized field (212). So in chiseling a trace on a stone, or throwing it, the classical field of the stone is altered, while the inner quantum field state remains unchanged in its random flutter.

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

The greatest cybernetic achievement of autopoietic, autorhoetic life is selfcontrol of the brain’s inner quantum fields, finely shaping the evolution of the fluctuating inner structure. The stone doesn’t control its fluctuating inner structure but bears it. The living brain controls the matches in its betweens, both by accepting and filtering the order of its surrounding physical reality and by tuning its situatedness. The stone doesn’t control its own state – it just is the way it is – but the brain does. The living brain upholds attuned quantum fields to which input might belong, make a match. The living brain conveys and filters input invariances and parameters to its own attunement, and when belonging-together is achieved in minimizing the free energy functional (cf. Hamiltonian “least action”), world appears in the match.

. Universe and ∼universe The brain is not a closed system that heats up when energy is put in, like a pan on the stove. The brain is an open system that exchanges energy with its external environment. The quantum brain is an autopoietic dissipative system. (Autopoietic systems (Maturana & Varela 1980) are open systems that are selfforming, self-sustaining, self-organizing and, I would add, self-tuning.) By adopting Umezawa’s doubled ontology, Vitiello is able to solve the memory overprinting problem. Whereas QBD adds quantum degrees of freedom to classical neural networks, thermofield QBD further adds thermal quantum degrees of freedom with the introduction of the ∼universe. Entropy is now included in the nomological network of thermofield QBD, and so the dissipative brain which exchanges order with its external environment can be quantum-theoretically interpreted. The interaction between ∼universe and universe is first discussed by Umezawa in §2.2.3, where he develops the theory of thermal-like noise in pure states. The ∼conjugation rule for vacuum states is that a quantum sent over from the universe to the ∼universe must be exchanged for a ∼quantum coming back to the universe. This is hohum, changing nothing, because what really matters is that the vacuum is formed by paired tilde and nontilde operators. What is basic to the vacuum is the pairing, so that exchange under the ∼conjugation rule leaves pairings unchanged. Since the quantum brain’s vacua are “states with a condensation of aa∼ pairs, they are invariant under the exchange of a and a∼” (Umezawa, 23). Umezawa (32) later adds a ∼conjugation rule such that a complex number in one mode is replaced under ∼conjugation by its complex conjugate in the

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alter mode. Instead of a two-sided exchange which changes nothing pair-wise, there can be a one-sided replacement which affects the Hamiltonian difference, ˆ In this second rule of ∼conjugation, nontilde is transformed to tilde and i H. becomes -i. What happens in this second rule of ∼conjugation is accordingly the shift to the other universe, which leaves a hole re-marking the shift. ∼Conjugation means alter for our universe, where alter, for a particular universe, is a singularity or default in its domain.

. Time-reversal The ∼universe has the seemingly strange feature that time is reversed, which breaks time-symmetry. This seems to imply that for the Double, life is lived like a movie run backward! But let’s see what time-reversal actually amounts to. Recall that the equations of quantum physics apply to closed systems. Then properly a quantum system is considered together with its “environment,” a heat bath capable of absorbing energy from the system. In the case of open systems, energy can be exchanged with its environment. System + environment are taken to be a closed system to which quantum physical equations apply. When the system under consideration is dissipative, it accepts external energy without heating up, stores the order, and can later give it up to the surrounding heat bath environment. Umezawa’s innovation is to treat the heat bath environment as tilde. The nontilde system exchanges energy with its ∼environment, while the energy of the nontilde system + ∼environment, that is, the energy of the closed system, remains constant in strict accordance with energy conservation laws. So when the nontilde system dissipates order to the ∼system, its entropy increases and the entropy of the ∼system in compensation decreases. The total entropy of nontilde and tilde systems, however, remains constant under any exchange. Both system and ∼environment are subject to the second law of thermodynamics running in the same direction. Time-symmetry breaking in the exchange is orthogonal to total entropy subject to the second law. So for the nontilde quantum system whose entropy increases, time “reverses” in its ∼environment only in the sense of a balancing entropy decrease. The so-called “time reversal” is only an entropy exchange phenomenon within the now. What obscures this point is Vitiello’s emphasis that the ∼environment is not only “time-reversed” but a “mirror image” of the system. But he means “mirror image” only in a mathematical sense. There is no world running for-

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

ward in the nontilde system and running backward in the ∼environment, and so a metaphor of time and time-reversal as a movie run forward and backward respectively would be an inappropriate metaphor. There is a second kind of time symmetry-breaking in the closed system of dissipative system and its tilde heat bath environment. When a memory trace is recorded in the shift to a new θ-vacuum state, this state can not revert back to the previous vacuum, and so time-symmetry is broken. (The memory trace may dissolve in time due to quantum tunneling effects but this does not restore the previous vacuum state.) For this time-translation form of symmetry-breaking, the arrow of time points in the same direction across system and ∼environment. Time-translation symmetry-breaking gives time its arrow whereas time-reversal symmetry-breaking is arrowless, without past or future, confined to the exchange now.

. My Double, Myself Since Vitiello eschews formal philosophical considerations and simply adopts the everyday attitudes of the physicist while pursuing extremely uncommonsensical quantum theory, an unresolvable tension inevitably arises. On the one hand he unabashedly discusses consciousness, Self and Double. In the very title of his book it is my Double unveiled and the last section is called “My Double, Myself.” Vitiello recalls the play of Plotinus in which Sosia has a Double and notes Narcissus falling in love with his own reflection. His book’s final sentence reads, “Dissipation manifests itself as a ‘second person’, the Double or Sosia, to dialogue with” (145). Such a homey dialogue between Self and its mirror-image Double is fully personalized, indeed; the Double is a second person. Vitiello’s language leaves us most unsettled. I am to think that I am duplicated: a ∼Globus is writing the same book in an alternate universe. (At least the good fellow is not writing it backwards! See §1.15.) There is supposed to be a ∼you of which you must be utterly oblivious, just as the ∼you has been utterly oblivious of you, until Vitiello gave the theory of that ∼person. Vitiello shocks us . . . We saw that in Vitiello’s mathematical formulation, Self is a nontilde system and its Double is a ∼system. In this context “Self ” radically shifts its meaning from ordinary usage. Again, here I need to stress that the world “self ” is only used in the limited sense of mathematical nonlinearity. (140)

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Both nontilde system and ∼system are unpresent quantum systems, and so incompatible with the Self, Double, mirror-images and dialogues of common sense. It would be an egregious category mistake to identify Self as ordinarily understood or its Double with quantum systems. I mean that the environment [the Double] is “mathematically represented” as the time-reversed copy of the corresponding subject. (110)

Here the subject, “myself,” is supposed to be mathematically copied, which leaves it abstract, and so Vitiello’s revelation of a mirror-image self living in an alternative ∼universe proves vacuous. We have no double living our life in an alter universe. Any life – myself ’s or my Double’s – is of the between. This defect in Vitiello’s formulation also shows up in his account of consciousness. He speaks of “the conscious subject” (141). Myself and my Double are both conscious. Yet consciousness for him is a trade between two. . . . consciousness appears to be not solely characterized by a subjective dynamics; its roots . . . seem to be grounded in the permanent “trade” of the brain (the subject) with the external world, on the dynamical relation between the System A and its Sosia or double A∼, permanently joined (conjugate) to it. (141)

Here the subject is identified with the nontilde system A and the Double with the ∼system, A∼. But consciousness lies between-two, between nontilde and tilde, between Subject and Double. Then how can there be a conscious subject? Vitiello’s formulation does not appear to work out felicitously but the fault lies not in his physics but in his adoption of the philosophically naive standpoint of the practicing physicist which is immersed in modernity and the tradition of metaphysics.

. God’s Eye Physicists who work at the most fundamental of sciences with such brilliant success can be forgiven their hubris in adopting a God’s Eye perspective. The temptation is great to see it all, a metaphysical greed for totalization of knowledge. The postmodernist war against totalization seems silly to triumphant physics – any failure in totalization is understood mathematically in terms of noncommutative paired variables which leave uncertainty. As far as contemporary quantum physics is concerned, anything less than total knowledge is uncertain, statistical knowledge.

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

But in terms of our actual existence, there is only one universe, whose quantum mode is nontilde. The alter quantum ∼universe is in principle inaccessible, knowable only indirectly through its vacuum state exchanges with our nontilde universe. Defaults in our non∼ quantum mode re-mark the location of ∼mode traces, but not the inscribed trace as such, only that there is some trace. This Derridean re-mark is indefinite, de dicto, not de re. The default that re-marks is meaningless, merely marking certain addresses where meaning is hidden in the alter mode. Our quantum perspective is unsurpassably unimode and riddled with defaults. For God’s Eye, however, outside the system, a meta-physics, using His full metamathematical understanding of the equations of quantum physics, there are dual modes. God’s Eye sees our unimode state, and the alter mode, too. What can God’s Eye see of the ∼mode forever closed to us mortals, who each suffer the clearing for a time, until the light is finally quenched in death. The God’s Eye description of the tilde mode depends on which representation of thermofield dynamics is being used: Hermitean or nonHermitean. For God’s Eye under the Hermitean representation, the modes are assumed to be mirror images. Where our quantum mode has holes, the alter mode has quanta, and vice versa, God’s Eye can see. But our eyes have only a Swiss cheese mode, riddled with holes of re-cognitions. Under the nonHermitean representation, our situation is unchanged, our non∼ mode replete with holes. For God’s Eye in contrast the condensate density of the ∼mode is greater than the density of coherent quanta for our non∼ mode, in virtue of the ∼mode’s traces of re-cognition. It is apparent that the more general nonHermitean representation of thermofield dynamics is much richer in its provenance. Rather than the match being fixed by assumption, the match is spontaneously achieved by minimizing the free energy, a functional depending on both entropy and energy. Minimization of the free energy is achieved in the match. So rather than equal duals yoked by assumption, possibilities as ordered states are dynamically selected by input in the match, selected for actual presencing in virtue of the ∼conjugate match. Whether the representation of thermofield theory is Hermitean or nonHermitean, is only relevant to God’s Eye. From the perspective of our universe with its quantum unimode, defaults are traces of re-cognition traces in the unreachable unknowable alter mode. Defaults destroy totalization, except to God’s Eye, whose metaphysical vision we are not properly permitted whenever talking about consciousness, existence and our vital situation.

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Dreams In dreams it is not literal memories of past presences that light up in disguised form, but activation of past tunings, which are intentions that situate the dreamer, a situatedness for the fulfillment of wishes (Globus 1987). There is a quantum attunement during dreaming sleep, made up of interpenetrated left-overs, residual from the day. These residua are weighted for probability of satisfaction, especially unsatisfied intentions. During sleep the pons in the brain stem periodically randomly activates the cortex, and the already weighted participants enter in. Situatedness is unchecked by Wesen during dreaming. Belonging-together shifts in dreaming: from in waking, where reality and situatedness make a match, to quasi-random perturbation making a match with a situatedness weighted for emotion and instinct, pleasure and displeasure, day residuals and past ungratified wishes. Randomly perturbated and fulfilled weighted situatedness, unchecked by input, dominates dreaming.

. Ereignis . . . Enowning Chapter One began with a cursory discussion of Heidegger and then launched into a detailed discussion of thermofield quantum brain dynamics, with occasional side comments showing a connection to Heidegger. The remainder of this chapter now recovers and expands the preceding discussion, and begins to think Heidegger and thermofield QBD together more vigorously. Heidegger’s (1999) Contributions to Philosophy (from Enowning), known to aficionados as the Beiträge, is written ten years after his extraordinary Being and Time, and surpasses it. In the opening passage he scorns the “public title” of his book as “bland, ordinary and saying nothing” (3), but nonetheless necessary. “Contributions to philosophy” is the only way that philosophy can appear in public since “the genuine relation to the word has been destroyed” (3), under the hegemony of metaphysics, modernity and technology (the usual whipping boys for Heidegger). The title in parentheses, in contrast, expresses Heidegger’s predilection for “future thinking” that is “underway.” Er-eignis: As discussed in §1.3, Emad and Maly translate Er as En. This prefix conveys “the sense of ‘enabling’, ‘bringing into the condition of ’, or ‘welling up of ’ (xx).” In enabling, something becomes able and a potential goes over to an actual. In welling up an actual condition is brought about. The “welling up” is spontaneous, an Ursprung, a primitive springing-forth, en-gendering, formatively creative, dynamical. En is an “enabling power,” “the always ongoing movement” without ever “coming to rest in a ‘property’ or ‘possession”’

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

(xx). En implies a welling up that enables presencing. So Er-eignis is an incessantly eruptive, pure movement, and Heidegger’s philosophy is in its own way dynamical. Heideggerian dynamics has not been appreciated as such, perhaps because “dynamics” is closely associated with science and psychoanalysis. The orthodox Heideggerian shudders at a close embrace between Heidegger and a positive science like quantum brain dynamics. Such classical Heideggerian distaste prevents the orthodox Heideggerian from opening to the notion that quantum science is different, that maybe old aversions don’t apply. Eignis: This means “owning,” but Emad and Maly say, “not an ‘owning of something”’ (xx); they call Eignis an “unpossessive owning” (xx). Let’s go into this paradoxical unpossessive owning. “Owning” in Heidegger does not imply the domination so characteristic of metaphysics, modernity and technology, that is, characteristic of the contemporary Gestell. Owning for Heidegger is mutual, a belonging-together. The phrase “unpossessive owning” loses sight of this mutual belonging-together. In the dominance of owning, which the translators try to mitigate by making owning “unpossessive,” the visage of metaphysics is revealed. So en-owning wells up and enables a belonging-together without domination . . . a belonging-together that constitutes das Zwischen, the between. Das Ereignis and ereignen: Hofstadter’s (1971: xvi–xxiv) discussion is helpful here. The dictionary meaning of the noun form, das Ereignis, is an event, occurrence, happening, and the verb form, ereignen, means to happen, occur. Part of the provenance of ereignen is eräugen, to place before the eyes (Augen); so the belonging-together is like a seeing eye-to-eye. There is an ereignende Spiegel-Spiel, a welling mirror-play in which we eye ourselves in the mirror and our mirror image eyes us . . . we belong together. Those that belong together “appropriate” each other; it is a Rundtanz, a round dance, in which the participants belong to one another in a “circling compliancy” (Hofstadter 1971: xxii). The welling Ursprung is bimodal, the modes eye-to-eye, belongingtogether. Quantum-eye-to-quantum-eye, nontilde universe and mirror-image ∼universe, a faceless facing of the faceless taking place in the vacuum states upheld by living brain. Faceless facing faceless . . . dual mode unpresence . . . and only then, in the achievement of belonging together, is the world face dis-closed. Er-eignis: The continual welling that enables an actual belonging-together selected from possibilities, enabling some to become actualities. The epitome of belonging-together is the match. Looking in the ordinary mirror, my mirror image and I belong to each other . . . we match . . . we share invariants . . . we

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have common symmetry. But in the present context, the mirror is complex, the “images” unpresent, and their presencing match is of the mirror’s tain.

. Seyn, Sein, Wesen, Ereignis It is fruitless to search Heidegger’s oeuvre for the fundamental definitions of or relationships between Seyn, Sein, Wesen, and Ereignis. (Inwood’s Heidegger dictionary shows with great clarity that Heidegger’s terms keep changing over time.) I will instead appropriate these terms and work out their relationships, quoting Heidegger in support, while recognizing that contrary quotations can be found. I supplement the discussion in the Beiträge with the 1962 lecture, Zeit und Sein (TB, 1972). The term Seyn (be-ing) does not appear in this lecture. Indeed, since Seyn holds sway as enowning, we can just as easily say that enowning holds sway. The role of Seyn is to remind that Ereignis “is,” an unpresent “is.” I take Sein (Being) to mean presencing. From the dawn of Western-European thinking until today, Being means the same as presencing. Presencing, presence speaks of the present. (TB: 2)

Beings (entities) are present, “beings are” (CP: 11), whereas Seyn (be-ing or beyng), in profound contrast, is unpresent. Be-ing is always at its utmost sheltering-concealing (verbergen) . . . . (CP: 167) Seen from the perspective of beings, be-ing “is” not a being: It is the not-being and thus, following the ordinary concept, the nothing. (CP: 173)

So “is” can imply either unpresence or presence, just as we say there “is” a nonpresencing quantum passing through the cloud chamber or there is a presencing track in a cloud chamber (from which we infer there “is” an unpresent quantum). There is nothing remarkable these days in “is” making no discrimination between presence and unpresence. Seyn is an ability, a process, dynamical. But first of all, be-ing “is” nothing at all but rather holds sway.

(CP: 180)

Sway is exerted by nothing. The way in which Seyn holds sway is its Wesen. There are compatible symmetries between the quantum and Heideggerian discourses: Seyn and the quantum universe are near, each “is” unpresent, each a not-being that is the ground of Sein, presence. Heidegger provides an account of that presencing: Unpresent Seyn is the ground of Sein. The problem is how

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

to get back to Seyn from Sein – the presencing of world – which is what has appeared to us in our life experience, what we have to work with. Conversely put, the problem is the generation of Sein by its ground, Seyn. Another problem is that quantum physics gives only probabilities of presences, not actual presences. For that an observer has to be hauled in, who is external to the quantum description, to see what world is actually there. Without the observer quantum physics is blindly expectant. So both Heidegger and quantum physics need a theory of how unpresence generates presence. Thermofield QBD provides the resources to account for presence. There is a dynamical process going on in the quantum vacuum states, an interaction between the quantum nontilde universe and the quantum ∼universe. In closed systems the exchange is always balanced but in open systems the quantum ∼universe remembers past re-cognitions, and the Hamiltonian difference ˆ increases. Presencing is the ∼conjugate match between the dual universes, H, of quantum memory to quantum reality. Heidegger accounts for presence by das Ereignis. He says in Time and being (16) that Es gibt Sein. Es gibt Zeit. It gives being. It gives time. “It” here refers to das Ereignis. The welling up of belonging-to provides both presence and time. I think that Heidegger is not right here, on a point of great importance: Sein is given in a certain way which depends on the Wesen of Seyn; the Wesen is the gift that Dasein’s quantum brain accepts. This is a nontilde gift to the vacuum, symmetries coming in that conserve invariant properties of reality, symmetries that interact with the ∼universe, and constrain the ∼conjugate match. In the match there is a Lichtung and Sein; world presences. Then the slogan should be: Es gibt Wesen. Es gibt Zeit. And in the belonging together of Wesen and Zeit, there is Sein, when the Wesen coming in constrains the match with ∼situatedness. (The relation of Zeit to situatedness is that Heidegger means “time” in a very broad sense, which includes space and a variety of projections. Temporality stretches space-time and other dimensions of life, and so situates.) The welling of Seyn is “two-headed”: as enowning there is both quantum and ∼quantum universes which belong-together. Beyng hoists a vibrancy, a resonance of its two modes, Wesen and Zeit, belongingtogether, the match between Wesen and Zeit, which is Sein. Seyn constrains, both as Wesen and as Zeit, in accordance with its dual mode nature. So I think that Heidegger is wrong in thinking that presence is given by Ereignis, which stems from his not completely expurgated naive realism. He is quite explicit that Sein is there, awaiting Dasein.

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Man: standing within the approach of presence, but in such a way that he receives as a gift the presencing that It gives by perceiving what appears in letting-presence . . . Presence means: the constant abiding that approaches man, reaches him, is extended to him. (TB: 12, italics added) True, man always remains approached by the presencing of something actually present . . . . (TB: 13)

An abiding presence which approaches man . . . a gift that is perceived by him . . . this indicates something is “there,” approaching, whether or not man is around to accept the gift in perceiving it. Zeit is also given by Ereignis, “giving as an opening up which reaches out” (TB: 19). Time is “the realm of the open” (19), open to the flux of input from the surrounding reality, open to the possibilities of what might be coming in, open to making a match. Time is an opening up which reaches out by participating in an interaction, opening up by offering possibilities to the interaction – to the match among participants – opening up and reaching out by situating with respect to the input flux from physical reality, with it symmetries (Wesen). Dasein is always ahead of himself in the projection of his possibilities, in the form of a quantum attunement. Being is dis-closed in the ∼conjugate match between situatedness and reality; world presences in the belongingtogether of time and “reality,” in their match. Time, then, is destiny (Geschick), a situatedness constraining and so destining what might be present. The match is alethia, truth as unhidden disclosure. Sein and Zeit are, for Heidegger, given by Ereignis as belonging to each other. Because Sein and Zeit are there only in Ereignis, Ereignis has “the peculiar property of bringing man (Mensch) into his own as the being who perceives Sein by standing within true time” (23). So for Heidegger, Seyn as Ereignis gives presence and time; in my formulation it gives the reality constraint (Wesen) and time (situatedness). Well past Heidegger’s Kehre man remains essential. If man were not the constant receiver of the gift given by the “It gives presence,” if that which is extended in the gift did not reach man, then not only would Being remained concealed in the absence of this gift, not only closed off, but man would remain excluded from the scope of: It gives Being. Man would not be man. (TB: 12)

Heidegger’s position here is akin to conventional quantum physics where man is essential to transcending the statistical ontology of quantum physics. The world for Heidegger is present, Sein as the gift of das Ereignis, but if man isn’t around, or isn’t open to the world, then Sein is closed off. Comparably for the conventional position of quantum physics, after measurement of the

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

quantum system, the world is there, present, but unknown, until man aka the experimental observer comes by and takes a look. So for both Heidegger and quantum physics the closure is only epistemic – ontologically speaking, there is presence, albeit unperceived. This is a weak form of closure, since in withdrawing Seyn has left something behind that is “there,” a gift not yet accepted, merely unnoted, awaiting the thankful Dasein. In my formulation, in contrast, without man the closure is fully ontological. Nothing is there without Dasein and his brain. For Heidegger, in the absence of man, when Seyn withdraws in the giving, the gift remains, but (epistemically) closed because no one perceives it. For me, in the absence of man, the closure is absolute; there are no gifts left behind to mitigate man’s Angst. There is quantum universe and quantum ∼universe, both unpresent, but there are scattered about, at least here on earth, Lichtungen, lighted places, singularities in the closure where closure clears. These singularities in closure are not ad hoc structures but fully explicable within the terms of the theory, which provides unclosure, dis-closure, in the case of ∼conjugate match, tearing dual mode quantum unpresence and letting lumen naturale shine in the unique case of a ∼conjugate match between the dual modes. In the welling up of their tilde/nontilde belonging-together, world appears. To say that “Being is dis-closed” should not be taken to mean that being is in some sense there but closed off until Dasein unveils it in the match. It is Seyn that is there, unpresent, not Sein. The presencing world does not persist, does not abide, but is continually generated by a process: the match between the Wesen of Seyn and the situatedness (Zeit) of Seyn. The dynamics of this process is das Ereignis, the welling up of Wesen and Zeit belonging-together. We may think of Heidegger’s “time” as a plenum of superposed possibilities – a quantum attunement – possible destinies. The likelihood of the various possible destinies lies in the probability weightings. Unconcealment is the case of the match between attunement and physical reality. The possibilities are given in sending; all possibilities are given but only some are at all likely to become unconcealed, dis-closed. The sending is the offering of interpenetrated possibilities (as in a superposition), possible presences. The “extending” of Ereignis is conceived of as the weights on the interpenetrated possibilities, which probabilize them. Unconcealment is conceived of as the ∼conjugate match of possibility with input Wesen that brings actuality. The extending (weighted) sending (possibilities) is a continuous flow of true time, out of which world is dis-closed in the match with input. The match conserves the symmetries (invariances) of physical reality. Ereignis, we saw, “has the peculiar property of bringing man into his own as the being who perceives Being

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by standing within true time” (23). Dasein’s quantum brain is attuned as true time which stretches ordinary time, stands situated a certain way, and accepts the Wesen that reality gifts, and in so doing “perceives Being.” But what determines the situatedness? An utterly unCartesian quantum subject? Or are there shades of Descartes in the present account? Reality determines nontilde contributions to the exchange with ∼systems, but where does control lie on the ∼side? How is the tuning accomplished? An account of the quantum subject is called for. The quantum subject’s ontology is tilde. The subject is an act of doing, and what’s done is tuning an opening to a ∼conjugate match with what’s coming in from reality (under nontilde description). The ∼mode situates by constraining the achievement of matching to certain nontilde occasions. In the case that belonging-together is achieved in the interaction, the light goes on in the Lichtung – the lighted place, the clearing – and world is disclosed, “there.”

. Angst The continental spirit of Philipse’s (1998) book, Heidegger’s philosophy of being, is nearer to Heidegger than Dreyfus’ (1991) Being-in-the-World, which appropriates Heidegger in a more Anglo-American way. Each appropriation is valid in its own right. Philipse gives this fine rendition of Angst. What we experience in Angst is that the world as a meaningful structure collapses. Everything becomes insignificant. If we ask someone who experiences Angst what he is afraid of, he will answer: nothing. And indeed, Angst is not an apprehension for particular things or events. (27)

In Angst the world is drained of meaning. Anxiety “reveals the groundlessness of the world and of Dasein’s being-in-the-world” (Dreyfus 179). Dreyfus brings out the analogy between Heidegger’s account of tool breaking and Angst. When the tool functions properly, it is transparent in its use, but when a tool breaks, the nexus of relationships that constitute the whole workplace lights up. We see the tool in its equipmental context. In effect, the world has been like a tool for inauthentic Dasein . . . In anxiety, inauthentic Dasein experiences the world as an instrument that has failed to do its job. (Dreyfus 1991: 178–179)

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

Angst offers Dasein the possibility of authenticity (Eigentlichkeit). In the meaninglessness, Angst reveals the world as world, and it discloses Dasein as a finite being-inthe-world. It is at this point that Heidegger’s concept of authenticity emerges ... . (Philipse, 27) Just as the breakdown of a piece of equipment reveals the nature both of equipmentality and the referential whole, so anxiety serves as a breakdown that reveals the nature of Dasein and its world. (Dreyfus, 177)

In the breakdown of world, Dasein may not only recognize that the everyday ontic world depends on him, but also recognize that Dasein depends on das Man for his situatedness. Dasein has to define itself in terms of the public world. It has to accept the fact that in order to make sense of itself, it must already dwell in the meanings given by the one [das Man]. (Dreyfus, 177) Anxiety is thus the disclosure accompanying a Dasein’s preontological sense that it is not the source of the meanings it uses to understand itself . . . In anxiety Dasein discovers that it has no meaning or content of its own; nothing individualizes it but its empty thrownness. (Dreyfus, 180)

In the dislocating tradition of Copernicus who decentered world, Darwin who dethroned man, and Freud who diminished consciousness, now there is yet another narcissistic injury when Heidegger decenters self to an empty thrownness. However, Dasein at least has the possibility of authentically dealing with Angst. Authenticity [Eigentlichkeit], then, consists in a radical affirmation of our existential solitude . . . a complete autonomy of the Self, in which the individual does not rely on his cultural background, except in the sense that he freely chooses the possibilities he wants to realize, or, as Heidegger says, [freely chooses] his “heroes”. (Philipse, 28)

Could Angst and Eigentlichkeit be at all near quantum brain dynamics? At first blush this would be quite a stretch.

Choice of the Hero in sorcery Desituatedness and authenticity are wonderfully rendered in the much-ridiculed and misunderstood stories of Carlos Castaneda (1969, 1971, 1973, 1974). Carlitos’ mentor, the sorcerer don Juan, tries to get him to “stop the world,” to let go of the ordinary description

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of the world which he has learned from the moment of birth, or in Heidegger’s terms, to become free of das Man, desituated to convention. Since Carlitos’ enthrallment by das Man is so stubborn, don Juan blasts him with psychedelic plants, takes him on arduous treks, seats him in ambiguous locales at twilight, plays disorienting tricks, and uses a variety of sorcerer’s techniques to pry him free of das Man. When free – as a “man of knowledge” – Carlitos will be able to authentically choose his “heroes.” He will be able to dwell in the community of men and women of knowledge, who fully recognize that meaning is arbitrary but in their “controlled folly” hoist a sorceric world description, choosing to situate themselves according to the sorceric “one” (das Man). His heroes will be those titled Nagual – aficionados of the abground who express the unfathomable nagual in their comportment. When the Angst of the nothingness in quantum untunedness is faced with authenticity, Dasein retunes according to his innermost predilection, choosing his heroes accordingly, all the while affirming his existential solitude. Thus the sorcerer don Genaro detunes on his lonely journey home to Ixtlan, recognizing that the warm human creatures of flesh he meets on his journey are but “apparitions” who try to coax him back to enslavement by das Man, to “fall” inauthentically, rather than resolutely continue on his way to his unreachable home, an unending poignant “journey to Ixtlan” (Castaneda 1973).

Angst arises when we become desituated – our ordinary quantum attunement is detuned – and with the loss of at-homeness in the world, with everything unheimlich, we find ourselves thrown amidst a strange world. In such circumstances unsettled dysphoric Angst naturally arises. Desituatedness may just happen, as with the nausea of Sartre’s (1975) Roquetin just sitting on a park bench, or it may be provoked by powerful affective states (e.g. when confronted by death), by altering brain chemistry (e.g. with LSD which is a powerful neurochemical desituator), by unfamiliar stimuli (e.g., getting lost), in certain psychiatric disorders (e.g. depersonalization, existential depression); however desituatedness is brought about, it is accompanied by Angst. Since desituatedness can be thought together with detuning, we can also say that detuning is accompanied by Angst. In appreciating that the world is meaningful only because our quantum attunement expresses one mode of the sway of das Ereignis – appreciated in the breakdown of that attunement – this takes nothing away from Dasein’s authentic understanding and achievement. There is no “reduction” of authenticity to quantum brain functioning going on here; the quantum brain is not the ground of authenticity . . . they are at the same level. To be a body-embedded brain with quantum degrees of freedom – to be brainq – is as such to have the possibility of being authentic.

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

. The beginning (der Anfang) On a first reading, Heidegger’s discussion of the beginning seems hopelessly (and typically) opaque. The beginning is what grounds itself as it reaches ahead: It grounds itself in the ground that is to be engrounded by the beginning; it reach ahead as grounding and thus is unsurpassable. (CP: 38)

Let’s try to comprehend the beginning in dual mode QBD terms. The brain’s quantum attunement “reaches ahead” by constraining what might become actually present. The ground wells up in der Anfang; the beginning enables a ground that continually reaches ahead, constraining what might presence, and in being continually ahead in its reach, it can never be surpassed now. Thus ecstatic-horizonal Dasein is always ahead-of-itself, and so the beginning is never the same. [The] beginning can never be comprehended as the same, because it reaches ahead and thus each time reaches beyond what is begun through it and determines accordingly its own retrieval. (CP: 39)

The beginning can never be repeated, Heidegger says, because of always reaching beyond itself. The beginning is thus not static but dynamical in its continual reaching beyond, its ecstatic openness. The ∼situatedness upheld by Dasein’s brain also reaches to what might be. The quantum ek-stasis gets outside itself not in transcending inner immanence to outer objectivity; quantum transcendence is achieved by making a match. Transcendence is thoroughly dual mode, achieved in this belonging-together. Transcendence does not go from one to another but is a match in a between-two. The beginning is furthermore “sheltered” (bergen), “the origin that is always withdrawing as it grasps far ahead and thus preserves within itself the highest reign” (p. 40). This unrepeatable ahead-of itself controls (reigns) as it continually withdraws, is lost unseen, and so is general economic (Bataille). So the beginning continually wells up in its concealed unsurpassable sovereignty. The general economic loss that is Bataillean sovereignty at any moment is loss of ∼possibilities when certain possibilities make a match and thus become actual. The ∼mode insures us against being totalizable, which makes the ∼universe the “saving grace” of man otherwise mechanized under the Gestell of full modernity. But for their clamor, the postmodernists could embrace the tilde mode.

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. The problem of transcendence As was saw in §1.19, das Ereignis is thought to gift the external world which is there and when Dasein belongs to it – when his also gifted situatedness belongs to the extrinsic gift – what was already there is dis-closed. Heidegger’s proliferating ontology thus contains (1) an ontologically unpresent “is” (Seyn), (2) an ontologically present but epistemically unpresent “is” (“Nature can also be when no Dasein exists” (BP: 170).), and (3) an ontologically present and epistemically present “is” (Sein). Heidegger indiscriminately refers to the “is” of (2) and (3) in terms of Sein, since he thinks an entity “is” there whether or not a Dasein discloses it. But how do we get from immanent Zeit to transcendent Sein? This is Heidegger’s version of the traditional problem of “transcendence.” Let’s recall two clearly problematic dualities since Descartes. First there is the duality of consciousness and brain which has been much discussed in the late 20th century. Second there is the inner/outer duality, consciousness and world, subject and object, immanent and transcendent. The problem for the immanent/transcendent duality is overcoming subjectivity, transcending the immanent to “objective” world presence. Since brain is part of world, these two distinct problems are easily confounded, but the brain is a very special part of the world, to which consciousness is tightly coupled, whereas world (including brain) consists in objects we are conscious of. So the first problematic of the consciousness/brain relation is the coupling relation of seemingly categorical incompatibles whereas the second problematic of transcendence is the ekstatic relation between categorical incompatibles. The problem of transcending the immanent to the transcendent seems less formidable than consciousness/brain coupling because there are so many solutions which have been offered, surely one must be right (or else accept with the cheerfully resigned McGinn (1991), ignoramus et ignoramibus). One example of a solution, indirect realism (e.g. Feigl 1967; Globus 1989; Russell 1947; Schlick 1974) holds that the transcendent is re-presented immanently and so consciousness gets to world via the representation. But as many writers (e.g. Heidegger (BT); Sartre 1956; Sellars 1963; Rorty 1979) have pointed out, we do not experience both representation and world, only world. No representation is presented, so as Sellars (1963) emphasizes, re-presentations are theoretical entities. Direct realism, in contrast, holds that we reach reality without intermediary representation, simply by directly picking up the rich information in the input flux that specifies reality’s properties (Gibson 1979). But it is not clear how to get from neurally encoded information to world presence . . . they

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

seem incommensurate. For example, how do we get from a neural code for the numerical value of the texture gradient of the visual field to the experience of depth? Clearly there is a correlation but the correlates are categorically incommensurate. The most dominant contemporary theory of transcendence in science is that the brain detects “features” of the world and then “binds” the features detected into the world. But features detected are ab-stract – literally, liftedout of the concrete world. Feature detection is de dicto, indefinite, telling us only that certain conditions have been satisfied, not providing us with what actually met those conditions. It is not clear how to get back from a list of satisfied abstract conditions to concrete satisfying phenomena. However, with many explanations to choose from and controversies to engage in, there is no sense of crisis over the problem of transcendence. Heidegger is convinced there have to be temporal ekstases to get the transcendence job done. Let’s go into his account. In the Grundproblem (BP) he reformulates transcendence in terms of the preSocratic ekstatikon, the “original outside-itself,” a “stepping-outside-self ” (267). Within itself, original time [temporality] is outside itself; that is the nature of its temporalizing. It is this outside-itself itself. That is to say, it is not something that might first be extant as a thing and thereafter outside itself, so that it would be leaving itself behind itself. Instead, within its own self, intrinsically, it is nothing but the outside-itself pure and simple. (BP: 267)

So the immanent gets outside itself by means of temporality (“original time”), the temporal “ekstases” that Dasein projects, which stretch open a past, a future, a now, a near-by and far-away, opening time. Dasein gets outside himself by means of the temporal ekstases. Heidegger italicizes, Transcendence is a fundamental determination of the ontological structure of the Dasein. (BP: 162)

In the Beiträge he still retains the inside/outside dichotomy, in that “man always remains approached by the presencing of something actually present” (CP: 13). Heidegger’s discussion in the Grundproblem (BP: 298–302) is illuminating. “Transcendere signifies literally to step over . . . ” (298). There is a “mode of being” (299) characterized by this stepping-over, a mode of being which is Dasein. What is traditionally transcendent is external world but what is truly transcendent for Heidegger is Dasein. In his appropriation transcendence is “not that toward which I step over” but “that which oversteps as such” (299).

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The Dasein itself oversteps in its being and thus is exactly not the immanent . . . Only a being with the mode of being of the Dasein transcends, in such a way in fact that transcendence is precisely what essentially characterizes being . . . [Dasein] is a being which in its being is out beyond itself. (299) Existence . . . always already means to step beyond or, better, having stepped beyond. (300)

It is this ekstatic getting outside itself that “makes it possible for the Dasein to comport itself to beings, whether to extant things, to others, or to itself, as beings” (300). In getting outside itself, the Dasein is “open for . . . Openness belongs to its being” (300, ellipsis original). In the openness of ekstasis, Dasein “is here for itself and . . . others are there with it” (300). The particular way the ekstasis opens – its pre-delineating situatedness – is called the “horizonal schema of the ecstasis” (302). Transcendence, then, is founded “on the original ecstatic-horizonal unity of temporality” (302). It seems clear that Heidegger simply postulates Dasein’s ekstatic transcending. Dasein is that unique mode of being which always already steps beyond itself. Thus Heidegger deals with the problem of transcendence by fiat; it is simply Dasein’s role to transcend. His discussion then veers toward Leibniz who interpreted all substances in general as monads (unities) . . . Each monad, each substance is intrinsically representation: it represents to itself the universe of all beings. (300–301)

Monads need no windows to see what is outside because the universe is contained within. Monads differ, however, according to the level of their wakefulness in regard to the clarity in which the whole of the world, the universe of the remaining monads, is accessible to it for its own self. (300–301)

Heidegger distinguishes his view from that of Leibniz. As a monad, the Dasein needs no window in order first of all to look out toward something outside itself, not because, as Leibniz thinks, all beings are already accessible within its capsule, but because the monad, the Dasein, in its own being (transcendence) is already outside among other beings, and this implies always with its own self . . . Due to the original transcendence, a window would be superfluous for the Dasein. (301)

It would be completely unwarranted, however, for Heidegger to claim an account of transcendence when he merely posits that monadic Dasein gets outside-itself because that is Dasein’s being to do so.

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

I formulate the problem of transcendence very differently. What is “inside” monadic Dasein is weighted possibility. The immanent subject is pure possibility. Transcendence is getting from possibility to actuality, both “inside.” What’s “outside” is closed, withdrawn. “Inside” is the monad’s immanent possibility that becomes an actual transcendent in a matching process that discloses. The process of transcendence selects from possibility, in achieving a match with quantum physical reality. This is not a transcendence to a world-in-common but formative creation of a monadic world in parallel with the monadic worlds of other Dasein. So what is transcended is possibility. Not that one is getting to the real external world in transcendence, but there is selection among possibilities. The transcending is a selection from possibility for actuality, not a stepping over from inner to outer, but a situated openness that achieves actualization in a ∼conjugate match. We bring possibilities, genetically encoded, imprinted, learned, spontaneously emergent, whatever. Our task is to get outside those possibilities to “truth,” a-lethia, dis-closure, presence. Dasein’s ontology is fundamentally possibilities but in the ekstasis – throwing up (projection, Entwurf ) the weighted possibilities – possibility is transcended in the ∼conjugate match. Without Dasein’s brain what “is” is entirely of the unpresent kind, quantum physical reality. Dasein has the heroic role of providing a singularity in unpresence, but Heidegger thinks only the rare and the few – “grounders of the abyss” (Sallis 2001) – are up to it. Heidegger would have Dasein in a windowless capsule, unable to perceive the surrounding world, were it not for its assumed extraordinary power to (somehow) transcend the capsule. This ecstatic transcendence, with its Dionysian overtones of primitiveness and passion, is an amechanical dynamic, perhaps best expressed by the poet. In my formulation the world is inside the capsule so no need to get outside it. The capsule is always already the case of world thrownness in parallel with others, giving the illusion for the m¯ay¯astricken that they see the same world. Daseins are little clearings in quantum unpresence where we are thrown, situated, situated for the other mode of Seyn’s provenance, situated for Wesen, and achieving the ∼conjugate belonging-to it. The task of survival is keeping the self, with its possibilities, alive. How is a quantum system to survive and reproduce unless it fits with quantum physical reality? The capsular isolation of possibilities has to have, not a “window” to see outside and thereby transcend possibility, nor an ecstatic leap beyond itself to actuality, but a transducer, a portal where quantum physical reality’s candidate symmetries pass inside the monad, now interpreted as Dasein’s brain with

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quantum degrees of freedom. The quantum monad transcends its isolation not by getting outside itself in some mysterious ecstasy but by coherence with other monads, a knowing-together, a literal con-sciousness.

. I am It is. She is. I am. “I is” sounds funny because it makes “I” an entity like all the others, and so incongruously separated from itself. “Am” is the first person present indicative of “to be.” What is it like to be something? In Nagel’s (1974) case, I supposedly am a bat. But Nagel goes too far afield. The more cogent question is: What is it to be the brain? Or in light of thermofield QBD: What is it to be the brainq ? I assert: “I am a bodyq -embedded brainq .” So strange-sounding this assertion . . . does it make any sense? What does “am” mean? There is no justifiable experiential answer here. We could claim to know what it is to be the one we see in the mirror, but we could never know what it is actually to be something other than what we are, never know what it is to be even a fellow Dasein, and surely not what it is to be a bat. We can imagine, perhaps infer, but we cannot have direct acquaintance with something other than what we are. And if the something in question is a macroscopic quantum object, we would go far beyond our purview to claim that we might directly immediately be acquainted with what it is to be an “other” which isn’t even present! So the claim, “I am the bodyq -embedded brainq, ” can be neither justified nor criticized on experiential grounds. Experience is irrelevant to evaluating the claim, and so our intuitions are of no help, indeed, get in the way. A different strategy is required for getting to what it is to be a brainq . This strategy is at first empirical, thinking out from a quantum version of classical psychoneural correlation where there is a tight coupling between mental events and neural events. Replace “mental events” by “existence” and “neural events” by “quantum neurophysical events,” then we get a quantum correlation principle. The empirical basis for the quantum correlation principle is that we know that Dasein’s very existence is tightly coupled to brain functioning. Give Dasein an anesthetic gas, which has profound effects on the nanolevel filamentous protein web (Hameroff 2000), and the light goes out in Dasein’s Lichtung. Dasein no longer exists, just his body does; Dasein no longer gets outside of himself in Heideggerian ekstasis to the world when normal brain functioning is disrupted

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

under deep anesthesia. There is an enormous data base in experimental and clinical neuroscience to support the coupling of the existential and the neural, but anesthesia makes the point bluntly: No well functioning brain, no Existenz – unless the ghostly Existenz of the Headless Horseman. In the thermofield QBD formulation developed above, Dasein’s existence correlates with brainq and so correlates with the perceivable brain that well models brainq . Thus in the quantum/postphenomenological account, brainq and existence are tightly coupled. We cannot claim to know experientially what it is to be brainq . However the contingent fact remains that the brain’s quantum states correlate with existence. No well functioning brainq , no existence. (This is consistent with “No well functioning brain, no existence,” because “brain” is a symmetry-conserving model of brainq .) The tight coupling between brainq and existence is grounded in the dual modes of brainq . By not adopting the ad hoc Hermitean assumption there is in general a Hamiltonian difference between the tilde and nontilde modes. The Hermitean case need not be assumed, as it is in quantum physics, since it arises out of the natural dynamics of the theory – an achievement rather than an assumption. The Hermitean case is the ∼conjugate match between the nontilde symmetries coming into the brainq and its thrown ∼attunement. The Hermitean case is contingently picked out in the interaction between quantum reality and quantum situatedness, in the making of a match. In summary, the tight coupling between existence and brainq can be neither justified nor criticized on experiential grounds. Existence is found empirically to be tightly coupled to brainq because it is the between of brainq ’s matching dual modes. I am a bodyq -embedded brainq in that I am the between of the brainq ’s matching dual modes. The dual modes are transcendental to I am. Anesthetize the modes . . . the light goes out . . . the Lichtung goes dark . . . I am annihilated.

. Hameroff and Penrose’s proto-experience The contrast between the present view and that of Hameroff and Penrose is striking. Of course their concern is with consciousness and qualia, not presence, yet the comparison can be undertaken. According to Hameroff (1998a), “proto-conscious experience” is embedded in the fundamental reality of spacetime geometry at the Planck scale (10–33 cm and 10–43 seconds). Hameroff (2000) proposes,

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Qualia are primitive, fundamental aspects of reality, irreducible to anything else, something like spin, or charge . . . there exists a fundamental protoconscious entity convertible to consciousness by some action of the brain. (11)

Quantum superpositions in the Planck-scale experiential geometry are objectively reduced by a quantum gravity mechanism which selects from the superposed possibilities a discrete conscious event (akin to Whitehead’s 1929 “occasions of experience”). Hameroff and Penrose assume fundamental space-time geometry is protoconscious and then derive consciousness by selection in virtue of objective reduction. This means that superpositions are proto-experiential. “Proto” here would only seem interpretable as capable of becoming experienced rather than experienced per se, since superpositions aren’t experienced, only their reductions can be experienced. So qualia aren’t “primitive, fundamental aspects of reality” (Hameroff 2000: 11), though their possibility is. Space-time geometry is pre-conscious, not proto-conscious – a distinction Hameroff continually blurs – and so, contra Hameroff (2000: 11), the theory is unrelated to panpsychism (he cites Spinosa), nor a panexperientialism (Whitehead), nor a panprotopsychism (Chalmers 1995, 1996) in which at least some, and maybe all, physical information “has two basic aspects, a physical aspect and a phenomenal aspect” (1995: 216). Since space-time geometry has no Planck-scale experiential geometry, the Hameroff and Penrose theory never gets off the ground. Dual mode QBD is also a selection theory but instead of positing protoconscious experience as fundamental to Planck-scale geometry and converting it by brain action to specific conscious experience, “conscious experience” – now substitute world-thrownness – is explained within the theory as generated in the dual mode’s between in virtue of a ∼conjugate match.

. The role of the classical brain Surely the classical brain must enter into my account, with its networks of macroscopic computational elements, neurons that can be actually seen with a light microscope. Brain science today is thoroughly classical, and has made extraordinary advances in the preceding “decade of the brain,” so classical neural networks must somehow be accommodated to the quantum brain account. The key is getting clear what is meant by “classical neural networks” in the thermofield QBD terms developed above.

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

Recall three kinds of “is” in Heidegger: (1) Is present (Sein), presencing like the ordinary world furnishings we find ourselves amidst. This “is” is the one subject to Seinsvergessen. (2) Is present, is “there,” but unperceived, “simply unseen,” like the back of your head at this moment. (This is the most pernicious meaning of the three.) The computer remains “there” when you shut your eyes. Men come and go, the earth abides. (3) Is unpresent (Seyn/Ereignis), unperceived, yet (ur)grounds presence. The word “there,” Da, gives different slants on “is.” “There” in English can mean either is present or is actually present though unperceived. The book is “there” at a spacetime location on the shelf I am looking at, ditto for the book hidden under the papers on my desk, though I know it is “there.” Dasein is also “there,” in a different sense, as witness, undergoing experience, dis-closing what is “there” objectively. This deeper sense of Da is a suffering of experience. Heidegger’s Da sometimes mean the existentiale “there” as suffering disclosure and sometimes the ontic “there” as world disclosed. “There” has close connections to metaphysical rationality: there-fore, there-by, there-in. All of these hyphenated “theres” imply presence, respectively, as logical consequence, operational consequence, and inclusion. “There” as the action of disclosing is more difficult to convey . . . When we say “Hi there!” to somebody, what does “there” mean? “There” could conceivably refer to location of the animated body standing there, which we say ‘hi there’ to, but typically the greeting is to an Other who also dis-closes. We both have the ability to disclose – this is our commonality – to be “there” as the clearing of world presence. “There” in this disclosive sense cuts across both res extensa and res cogitans. So the “there” of “hi there” is polysemous: location and disclosiveness. The three kinds of being in Heidegger are reduced to two in my formulation: “Is present but unperceived” – Heidegger’s residual metaphysics – is denied. This is a fundamental ontological shift. If present-but-unperceived is denied, what seems obviously “there” to perception can no longer be grounded in “what is actually ‘there’ albeit unperceived.” The assumption of unperceived presence lies deep in metaphysics, and Heidegger does not distance himself from it, even after his Kehre. What “classical neural networks” means, then, in the framework developed above is a special kind of model of unpresent quantum physical reality, a model that presences rather than being abstractly formulated. Dasein qua experimental observer has a brain that supports quantum field interactions such that he finds himself, for example, thrown in a microscopic world of Golgi-stained neurons. We have ended up where we started from, now with Dasein as exper-

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imental observer. But “where we started” was a ladder we can now kick away, cross-out, erase. We have two ontological modes: present (Sein) and unpresent (Seyn). These modes are not of the same level: Seyn grounds Sein. There is no need to assume an unperceived presence because the nature of Seyn is to generate presence in the between of the Ereignis. Thermofield QBD also has two modes: tilde and nontilde, but they do not pair off straightaway with Sein and Seyn. Tilde and nontilde are dual modes of Seyn. Sein is derivative, generated by Seyn. Sein is generated when the vacuum states supported by Dasein’s brain undergo a ∼conjugate match between these dual modes. Time for Heidegger, Zeit, situatedness, is one gift of Seyn, which in its dynamics gifts two. The other gift he thinks to be there but unperceived, awaiting disclosure. Dasein, standing within time, dis-closes what is already “there” awaiting disclosure. In my formulation both gifts are unpresent and in their peculiar belonging-together – a ∼conjugate kind of belonging-together first permitted by thermofield theory – a Lichtung lights up and world presences. The utterly metaphysical category of “there but unperceived” is superfluous and misleading. Metaphysical “closure” implies something is “there” closed off, “there” awaiting disclosure by Dasein who is “there” to disclose. Instead of “dis-closed” we may substitute, after Bohm (1980), “explicated” from an implicate quantum order. So the dis- of dis-closure does not negate but means “explicated,” un-folded, opened, formatively created. What, then, does “classical neural networks” mean in my formulation and what role do they play? Classical neural networks are the disclosed that model quantum physical reality, conserving reality’s invariances in the model. We think more fundamentally in terms of a brainq . The difference between QBD systems and classical neural networks is not one of scale, as is commonly thought, since there are macroscopic quantum systems (Umezawa 1993). Classical networks utilize arrangements of logical, local elements – they are hyperneurons – whereas unpresencing QBD systems do not respect neuronal membrane boundaries but pervade regions. Jibu and Yasue (1993) point to a brain structure that is a filamentous protein web that passes through neuronal and neuroglial membranes via membrane proteins. This filamentous web pervades all neural tissue. The web is organized into systems. This filamentous web is surrounded by, and in specializing locations (the microtubules) contains, ordered (quasi-crystalline) water molecules. Dipolar solitons arise in the global dynamics of the protein web and the water molecules are themselves dipoles; together the dipole solitons

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

and ordered dipole water molecules form an electric dipole field featuring local expressions of the whole. Although neural systems can be conceived of in this fashion, it will not work for the entire brain. The left and right brains are separated by the fibrous corpus callosum through which the web/ordered water system does not pass. The brain’s organization appears to be one of richly interconnected systems in a recursive organization (systems within systems within systems . . . ). The visual system, for example, has over 30 subsystems and each subsystem has reciprocal connections with most of the others (van Essen, Anderson, & Felleman 1992). So the brain’s electric dipole field is broken up into regions reciprocally connected by macroscopic structures which classical neural networks model. This seems to leave quantum brain science with the same “binding problem” as classical brain science: How are all these different regions bound together?

. The binding problem The collective modes of water dipole fields of discontinuous neural systems each interact with the electromagnetic field and thereby can interact with each other over macroscopic spatial distances by emitting and absorbing coherent photons (Jibu & Yasue 1993). If spatially discontinuous systems are coherent, then they bind through the electromagnetic field. QBD is defined as the interaction between the water dipole field and the electromagnetic field, or as presently expanded, the interaction between systems of water dipole fields and the electromagnetic field. Through the common medium of the electromagnetic field, coherent systems are bound by mutual entanglements. When the corpus callosum is cut in split-brain syndromes, the two sides of the brain no longer have reciprocal connections and do not have a common collective mode. Each side of the brain is itself coherent but the sides do not cohere, and accordingly, there are two consciousnesses with no awareness of the other, since in the idealized split brain there are two betweens rather than one.

. What is presence good for? If the most profound level of brain functioning is quantum, and therefore unpresent, then what is the point of world presencing? Is world presence merely an epiphenomenon – a nomologically dangling byproduct of a ∼conjugate match between physical reality and Dasein’s situatedness, a functionless hap-

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penstance Zwischen twixt Wesen and Zeit – or is world presence actually good for something? Presencing in fact does have an essential role to play – just as it ordinarily seems to us. In presencing there is a selection from possibilities; one possibility is singled out for actualization when nontilde input achieves a ∼conjugate match with a ∼possibility. The possibility selected is coherent with many others over macroscopic regions, through photon exchange with a common electromagnetic field. Separate but coherent quantum field locations are bound together through interaction with the pervasive electromagnetic field. Presence depends on maintenance of quantum coherence, shielded by the living brain from thermalization (thermal interference). Participants in the interaction are one in virtue of coherently exchanging photons with the electromagnetic field. What is achieved in that balance is mutual coherence, a belonging-together that lights up in the collapse of the imaginary dimension in the ∼conjugate match. Any part can evoke the whole of interpenetrated parts to which it has coherently belonged, analogous to the holographic brain (Pribram 1971, 1991). Belonging-together is reinforced through simultaneous presence. Being present together enhances the belonging-together of the participants in their coherent mutual entanglement. If nothing ever presenced, there would be no coherent associations, only independent possibilities and randomness. Presencing together coherently connects and reinforces belonging-together with whatever is going on in different regions, through coherent exchange with the electromagnetic field. The incoherent stands unconnected, Abgrund, but when coherence is reached it participates in presencing and gets entangled with the rest. Presencing-together weights the possibilities of the attunement. Memory depends on presencing aka the now. Someone might say, “It’s not presence as such that is effective but the quantum brain dynamics. The presence is irrelevant.” But this would misunderstand the theory. Presence is the quantum brain dynamics, the case of brainq when the flux of physical reality and the situatedness achieve a ∼conjugate match. This between is world thrownness. Presence is integral to thermofield QBD as the between of dual modes.

. Da-sein and Seinsentwurf This section rachets down the level of discussion to sentences. If Heidegger in fact can be thought together with thermofield QBD, then this ought to apply to a fine grain of discussion. This section is accordingly dense.

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

What text to choose? Any particular postphenomenological text that could be shown thinkable, paragraph by paragraph, with the text of thermofield QBD would do. No claim is made that the translation is globally one-to-one, only that there are regions of Heideggerian and Umezawan discourse spaces where the texts do deeply cohere. My incision has been toward dissecting those dockings. The particular text considered below (subsections 178–183) was chosen randomly from the middle of the book – though in truth my finger did waver just a little toward the end, picking out a “sweet spot.” I break off discussion at the margin where we fall off the dock. Some preliminary remarks about Seinsentwurf : Emad and Maly (xxviii) translate variants of werfen as “throw” and “throwing,” with the exception of Entwurf which is taken to mean “projecting-open.” Entwurf is a throwing that opens, without any metaphysical connotation that the throwing is under the jurisdiction of a thinking subject who strategizes and controls in making the throw. Inwood notes, “Today entwerfen means ‘to sketch, draft, draw up, depict, outline”’ (176). It was originally a term of weaving, a planning of the design to be woven, where to plan is to throw-before, Ent-wurf. Entwurf is “not a particular plan or project; it is what makes any plan or project possible” (176). There are subtle distinctions at work here. Entwurf is transcendental, not merely in the sense that the dynamics generates particulars, (ab)grounds particulars, but in the sense that Entwurf is already full with possibilities, and particulars are selected from possibles. It is not the particular that is created but possibilities from which particulars are unfolded (cf. Bohm 1980). The “plan” of possibilities thrown before does not imply a subject who does the planning, nor does the plan consist in concepts, rules or other determinations, so “plan” as a translation of Entwurf is misleading. We can actually better grasp the meaning of Entwurf if we think in thermofield QBD terms. Recall that the ∼universe interacts with the nontilde universe in the vacuum states upheld by living brain tissue. Situatedness is tilde, weighted possibilities entering the interaction. Entwurf implies the capability for the participation of possibilities in the interaction. Seinsentwurf is somewhat awkwardly translated by Emad and Maly as “projecting being open.” The capability of entering into the between’s interaction is a condition for the possibility of opening, dis-closure. So Entwurf already implies openness, as openness for the match, and if this is kept in mind, then Seinsentwurf can be translated as “being projected,” thrown ahead into an

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interaction in which world is disclosed. The projection is open, open to make a match that dis-closes world. 178. “Da-sein Exists for the Sake of Itself ” To what Extent? What is Da-sein and what does “exist” mean? Da-sein is standing fast the truth of be-ing; and, as ex-isting, Da-sein “is” this and only this inabiding, sustaining the exposedness, being-a-self . “For the sake of itself,” i.e., purely as preserving and guardianship of being, if indeed understanding of being is what is still fundamental.

Da-sein “is” this and only this inabiding . . . Beständnis . . . continuance. Beautifully translated, in-abiding: in- (here equivalent to en-), the welling up of biding, as in abode . . . to dwell, to endure . . . So Da-sein “is” an enduring welling up. This continuance does something, sustains exposedness (Ausgesetztheit), lights the Lichtung, clears the closure, dis-closes world in the lumen naturale. “Being-a-self ” . . . Selbst-seiendes . . . the translation is too subjectivistic. Da-sein is itself in the welling up of disclosure. Da-sein is the continuance of the truth of beyng. The truth of beyng presences in Da-sein’s welling disclosure. “Self ” is not an insubstantial entity but a dynamic. Dasein “ex-ists” ek-statically; Dasein gets beyond itself, transported in literal ec-stasy, and only transcending Dasein (and likely, Dasein’s biological family of relatives) gets outside-himself, by disclosing world. Dasein’s Existenz is ek-sistence. Summarizing the passage: Da-sein is always-already-beyond-itself, providing continuance to the truth of beyng, a continual welling up of a lighting process in which the truth of beyng is disclosed, while beyng withdraws into unrelenting recalcitrant concealment. No brain, no lighting process, no eksistence. The living brain of thermofield QBD supports a controlled interaction between tilde and nontilde universes, and lighting up is sustained in the continuance of a ∼conjugate match, and in that lighting Dasein dwells amidst world, whilst the unmatched is senselessly wasted in the general economy of Bataille (1988–1990). 179. “Existence” (Being and Time, GA 2, pp. 56–57) Initially, in conjunction with the age-old existentia [existence], is not the what but the that-being and the how-being. But this [is] parousia, presence, extantness (the present). Here on the other hand: Existence = the full temporality and indeed as ecstatic. Ex-sistere – being exposed (Ausgesetzheit) to beings. For some time now

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

[existence is] no longer used, because [it is] misconstrueable – “Philosophy of Existence.” Da-sein as ex-sistere means having been shifted into and standing out in the openness of be-ing. From this perspective the what, i.e., the who, and the selfhood of Da-sein are determined.

The old meaning of “existence” is presence, both that something is (that there is something rather than nothing) and how that something is (looks). Dasein is “exposed” to beings – but the translation implies passivity, when the sense of Ausgesetzheit is active, a putting, a standing out toward beings, or in QBD terms, an attunement. Existence as temporality is ecstatic-horizonal rather than extrinsic presence and essence. Though Heidegger speaks shorthand of “the openness of be-ing,” be-ing (Seyn) is not open per se but hidden, withdrawing, open only in the belonging-together of the two modes of das Ereignis. The who, the selfhood, of Da-sein is ecstatic-horizonal, getting outside of itself in virtue of its situatedness, which is projected by Seyn. As was discussed in §1.22, Heidegger does not really resolve the problem of transcendence because he assumes that whatevers are already there, ontologically “present” but epistemologically unpresent, and assumes Dasein’s kind of being is ecstatic. My alternative is that quantum beyng gifts both Dasein’s quantum ∼attunement and quantum nontilde reality, and in the achievement of a ∼conjugate match, world presences. Existence – for the sake of Da-sein, i.e., grounding the truth of be-ing. Metaphysically, existence [means] presencing, appearing. Being-historically, existence [means] inabiding removal-unto [Entrückung] the t/here [Da].

Existence (Ex-sistenz) means the continuance of the lighting process which grounds the truth of unpresent Seyn as presencing. Entrückung means “removalunto” in the sense of ecstasy, transported beyond itself, and so Da in this case means “there” where being is (not “there” as the essential disclosedness which Da-sein is). Existence is the case of a ∼conjugate match in which world presences, whereas in metaphysics existence already is “there,” abiding, prior to Da-sein. 180. Be-ing and Understanding of Being Understanding of being, maintaining oneself in it, means, however, staying within the openness, because understanding [is] projecting-open what is open. [Understanding of being means] being related to that which is enopened in the openness (the self-sheltering-concealing).

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(Emad and Maly’s translation of Entwurf as “projecting-open,” rather than “projecting,” leads to the awkward “projecting-open what is open,” instead of the simpler “projecting what is open.”) Understanding of being does not make be-ing either “subjective” or “objective.” Indeed it overcomes all “subjectivity” and shifts man into the openness of being, poses him as the one who is exposed to being (and before that, to the truth of be-ing).

Understanding is a projection, ent-wurf, throwing-out, throwing out possibilities to the match, and in the particular way of understanding, the projection is tuned. Understanding as projection is tuned openness to the match with real symmetries. Self-concealing beyng enables openness in das Ereignis and consequently that which presences. Understanding is a tuning process, and when understanding is matched by the symmetries of unpresent reality, there is presencing, which exposes the truth of beyng. The tuning process is not “subjectivity” in the traditional sense, opposed to object, but subjectivity as an intrinsic belonging-to real symmetry, a belonging-to in which object presences. But, contrary to common opinion, be-ing is the most estranging and selfsheltering-concealing; and nevertheless it holds sway before all beings that stand within it – something that of course can never be grasped according to the hitherto “a priori.” “Be-ing” is not the making of the “subject.” Rather Da-sein as overcoming of all subjectivity arises from the essential swaying of be-ing.

Dynamical beyng is the most concealing – it is quantum unpresence – but nonetheless controls (holds sway over) the presencing of beings. Da-sein overcomes the autonomy of the classical subject because the presencing of world requires beying’s gift of symmetries to the match with the horizonal attunement that is time. (This is no longer ecstatic-horizonal; the inside no longer needs be transported outside itself to world because world arises in the between of time and Wesen.) The metaphysical subject/object separation is overcome by participation in a matching process that lights up Being (presence) in the between. Carefully put, it is not the object that participates but unpresent symmetries; objects presence in the match. 181. Leap (Sprung) The leap is the enopening self-throwing “into” Da-sein. This is grounded in the leap. That unto which the leap leaps in enopening is first grounded by the leap. The self-throwing; the self only becomes its own in the leap; and yet this is not an absolute creating, but the opposite: the thrownness of self-throwing and

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

of the thrower enopens in its belonging to abground. This is totally other than [creating] in all finitude of the so-called extant created and producing of the demiurgos.

The Sprung is not “into” Da-sein but, Heidegger writes, ‘in’ das Da-sein, the spontaneous springing-forth of Da-sein as Da-sein. This is a welling of opening to the match, an attunement for the match. The leap self-tunes. This is not a self creating other, as demiurgos does, shaping chaos to cosmos, but a participation with “other,” where “other” consists in conserved symmetries. Creativity lies in the Abgrund, a quantum ground. The Abgrund does not have the passivity implied by a bottomless abyss, but “a ground that stays away and in staying away somehow is” (Emad & Maly, xxxi). The Abgrund “is” but not in the sense of presence. The Sprung of openness springs forth from the Abgrund. The leap is from unpresent Abgrund to openness for presencing world, which means that the leap is to participation in the between. The Sprung is attuned participation in the welling up of belonging-to, a welling process out of which being presences in the ∼conjugate match of belonging-together. 182. Projecting Be-ing Open. Projecting-Open as Thrown What is meant is always merely the projecting-open of the truth of be-ing. The thrower itself, Da-sein, is thrown, en-owned by be-ing. Thrownness occurs and is attested expressly by the distress of the abandonment of being and in the necessity of decision. In that the thrower projects-open and enopens openness, the enopening reveals that the thrower itself is the thrown and does not accomplish anything other than getting hold of the counter-resonance in be-ing, i.e., shifting into this counter-resonance and thus into enowning and thus first becoming itself, namely the preserver [Wahrer] of the thrown projecting-open.

Da-sein projects (throws) but is itself the projection (thrown) of Seyn. The thrown thrower – not a subject but Da-sein, to be “there,” of the between – throws the truth of Seyn (and so there is a double throw). Da-sein’s projecting is a welling process that is the condition for the possibility of openness. There is a relation of “counter-resonance” (Gegenschwung) between the thrower and Seyn. The thrown thrower shifts “into this counter-resonance [∼conjugate match] and thus into enowning,” shifts into belonging-together, makes – achieves – a match (under a Hamiltonian-like least energy principle). Da-sein, which is the between, is, obviously, more than the thrown thrower. The thrown thrower is not itself by itself but only in relation to the counter-resonance. In this ontological necessity Heidegger is dual mode: resonance and counter-resonance. The

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“counter-resonance” is not an opposition to a resonance, nor a reaction to it, like the glasses in the cupboard set achattering when the elevated train goes by. Candidate resonance and candidate counter-resonance participate in an interaction and actual resonance (coherence) is achieved in making the match between the two modes of Seyn’s gift. The thrower “gets hold” of the counterresonance Seyn by belonging to it in the common resonance of a coherent photon exchange of Wesen and Zeit with the electromagnetic field. 183. Projecting-Open unto Be-ing The projecting-open unto be-ing is unique, so much so that the thrower of the projecting-open essentially casts itself into the open of the enopening that is thrown-projected open, in order for the first time to become itself in this open as ground and abground. Shifting (Einrrücking) into openness sounds misleading in a way, as if this openness stood ready, whereas openness occurs first of all and only along with the displacing (Verrückung). Prior to this is being-away, and indeed constantly so. Being-away as denial of having been exposed to the truth of be-ing.

Here Heidegger appears to radically shifts the direction of projection from the usual present-but-unperceived to unpresent Seyn. The thrower, Da-sein, is thrown by Seyn but now throws himself back into Seyn and thereby becomes both the lighting process and the withdrawal, das Weg-sein. In this shift Da-sein is more than the between: The modes whose between has been at issue are also included.

. “Grounders of the Abyss” I follow John Sallis’ (2001) insightful discussion of Heidegger – “Grounders of the Abyss” – and think it together with thermofield QBD. Heidegger distinguishes a “first beginning,” which is all of philosophy up to his time, “metaphysics.” Technoscientific modernity is the current phase of metaphysics. In the first beginning the beingness of beings is presencing as a “look,” an ιδÜ7α that in Platonic fashion both precedes the being and survives its destruction. The first beginning reaches its culmination in final exhaustion of its possibility, in the form of its very negation by Nietzsche. The other beginning does not start up like Athena from Jove’s brow but entails a play between (Zuspiel) the first beginning and the other beginning, which opens up the “between” (das Zwischen), through which the Grounders

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

of the seemingly bottomless abyss leap to Seyn with its Ereignis dynamic. This between is originary to any determination of what being or non-being is and so more primary than any metaphysics. Man is “set forth” into this between and “for the first time has the experience of finding himself in the midst of beings” (Sallis 2001: 183). It is the “space” of the between “in which beings can come forth in their being and can thus be apprehended and named in their being for the first time” (183). The between can be comprehended as the match of dual quantum field theoretical modes. Beings presence and can be perceived, and named, for the first time only in virtue of a ∼conjugate match. Metaphysics begins with man in the midst of beings – always already finding himself thrown amidst the world – and (in dread) suppresses thinking the other beginning in the dynamical process of matching that is originary to man. To arrive at the other beginning a play with the first beginning is required, but also a leap into the abyss of groundlessness, a leap to Seyn, Beyng. We cannot ask what Seyn is – freefalling through the abyss, unfounded – in the way that the first beginning asks what beings are, because Seyn “is” an Abgrund originary to any presencings looking this way or that. The leap of those who would ground the abyss is the great and disappearing leap (der Sprung) to the ∼universe. This springing leaves its trace in our universe, as nontilde holes. Sallis distinguishes four ways in which Heidegger ventures to think the unthought of the first beginning. (The orthographic convention is that ‘Dasein’ refers to an entity and ‘Da-sein’ to being-there, disclosedness as such.) 1. Seyn is the unthought of the first beginning. 2. The “essency” (Wesung) of Seyn is that it holds sway as happening; Seyn “is” “nothing other than its happening” (185), a happening which “holds sway” (west), that is, exerts some control, some constraint, a cybernetic happening. Heidegger calls this dynamical event Ereignis, a happening in which belonging-together wells up. We have already seen that the theory of this dynamical event, Ereignis, can be thought together with the theory of thermofield QBD. 3. Seyn’s happening simultaneously clears and conceals, gifts and withdraws . . . this is α ´ ληθεÜHα ´ , the truth of Seyn. “For truth is the between” (CP: 10), unconcealed in the presencing of the between’s ∼conjugate match between dual modes, variable modes that constrain what match might be achieved and accordingly what might presence. The bimodal gifts withdraw in the collapse of the imaginary dimension in the match, the ∼mode falling back into the abground’s concealed possibilities.

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4. Truth is not a ground, not fundamental but an achievement by a dynamical process. Truth itself must be grounded and “this grounding must be enacted as Da-Sein” (CP: 124), enacted by the “grounders of the abyss.” Seyn appropriates them to ground its own truth (al¯etheia), commandeers their between to dis-close its gifts in the match of dual modes belongingtogether. Truth is the match, not the ground. Da-sein enacted by those few grounders of the abyss “shelters” this truth. The grounders eschew metaphysics. For those who question, being grounders of the abyss does not mean installing a ground that would cancel the abyss as such but rather apprehending the abyss as archaic ground, as an abysmal ground older than beingness as ground. (Sallis, 189)

These Daseins may be few but without their springing forth we are lost to metaphysics. Yet, before all else, what these grounders ground is beying [Seyn] in its truth; their accomplishment – indeed the accomplishment of all grounders of the abyss – is to ground the truth of beying in this abysmal ground. (189)

The daring leap by the grounders of the abyss “abandons and casts behind itself everything familiar, expecting nothing from beings immediately” (CP: 161). Nonetheless, Heidegger cannot get free of Mensch, however rare and daring, required to ground the truth of Seyn. The role of “man” in Heidegger’s thought is crucial. Does “man” have a brain? Is man’s brain required for the few to ground the truth of Seyn? Sallis follows the twists and turns of Heidegger who would evade man’s having a brain. Da-sein is not to be identified with man; its name is not to be taken as just an updated name for the being previously called man. Da-sein is not something to be found in extant man, neither an inherent structure nor an emergent form nor an intrinsic capability . . . . (Sallis, 192)

But the grounders are brainy creatures that ek-sist, special in Heidegger’s dramaturgy and Nazism, but Heidegger’s herd of nongrounders ek-sists as well. No brain. No Da-Sein. Yes brain. Yes Da-Sein. The coupling is perfect: Heidegger cannot avoid the Dasein’s brain. In terms of the other beginning, how are we to understand unplaceable “Da-sein”? Da-sein is not what we find lying before us, but what we leap into.

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

Da-sein – itself nowhere placeable – . . . reveals itself as the “between” [das Zwischen] that is unfolded by be-ing [Seyn] itself as the domain where beings tower up . . . . (CP: 211)

The between is the “there” (Da). “What Da-sein says is that a clearing opens” (Sallis, 192). Heidegger glosses over man, in a Kopfvergessen as profound as the Seinsvergessen he deplores. The human being is unique, “the uniqueness of that being, human, to whom alone Da-sein fits” (CP: 212). Since “unique,” Heidegger can cease referring to “man” – and his brain. Da-sein distinguishes a human in its possibility: thus Da-sein then no longer needs the addition “human”. (CP: 212, italics original)

Nonetheless “man” persists in an essential role, fulfilling his utmost vocation, excessively elevated (überhöht) by Da-sein , but at the same time, “Beyng needs man in order that it hold sway” (CP: 177). Man “contributes to opening and preserving a clearing in the midst of concealment” (Sallis, 193). Man “is the one by whom the truth of beyng comes to be sheltered in a being” (Sallis, 194). Man accomplishes this sheltering in a variety of ways, “in thinking, poetizing, building, leading, sacrificing, suffering, celebrating” (CP: 213). Man becomes a grounder of the abyss – that is, of the abysmal ground Da-sein – by creating, by sheltering the truth of beyng in a being. For instance, in an artwork . . . . (Sallis, 194)

Seyn needs man to preserve its truth in the disclosing of presencing beings, and man has a brain with dual quantum modes whose presencing between is Dasein, “a clearing in the midst of concealment” (Sallis, 193), sporadic lightings amidst the quantum annihilation of no-thing.

. Stickings Scraping the motley fry above, a simpler trace of a greater complexity is left sticking in the pan. Physical reality is not atomic (particles), not a continuum (waves), nor is physical reality completely describable by complementary wave/particle descriptions. Physical reality is not any such “stuff ” or complementary “takes” on it, but is a dynamical abground with dual modes and their between. At the “bottom” of physical reality is not some hyle to operate on – whether grainy or continuous – but the abyss of dual unpresent

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Chapter 1

quantum modes that hoist presencings – Sein – in the ∼conjugate match of their between. In Umezawa, the dual mode dynamics are ∼ and non∼. The non∼ is our quantum mode whereas for us the tilde quantum mode is an unattainable alter universe. The dual mode’s between is the vacuum state which the modes share. In the case that the between is a ∼conjugate match of the dual modes, then world presences. The Hermitean assumption by Vitiello assumes this match. But in the nonHermitean thermofield case, the ∼mode is enriched by “traces” of recognitions – defaults for us, who are confined to our non∼ universe, which is riddled with holes of recognitions – and the match with the non∼ mode annihilates unmatched possibilities in actualizing, in presencing. In Heidegger, the dual mode dynamics is a welling of Sein and Zeit belonging-together, an “enowning,” Ereignis. I amended his formulation to Wesen and Zeit, to conserved real invariances and quantum attunement. The belonging-together of Wesen and Zeit constitutes their matched between, in which we find ourselves world-thrown. Umezawa and Heidegger dock in discourse space, belonging-together in that both show dual mode dynamics, with presencing – Being (Sein) – constitutable in the between. In Section II the docking is extended to postHeideggerians – Hubert Dreyfus, Pauli Pylkkö and Arkady Plotnitsky. In Section III, where the thermofield QBD story is thought together with Derrida, dual mode dynamics and the between will dock with “writing.” This grand and unexpected rapprochement between quantum thermofield theoretical neurophysics and postphenomenology comes at very great cost, however, another great “decentering,”as in the tradition of Copernicus, Darwin, Freud and Heidegger, where earth as center, man as unique, and self as autonomous are deeply undermined. The homey world-in-common is now lost, too, no longer abiding as we come and go, instead fracturing into worlds in parallel, a heterology of parallel worlds, which may be kept in synch by reality’s invariances and by common socially-derived attunements. M¯ay¯a is stubbornly born in that beguiling synchrony, and defended in avoidance of abysmal Angst. It seems ridiculous to deny a world-in-common which we each disclose in our various ways. Any fool can see the world right there, transcendent to our immanent comings and goings, available to each of our culturally common/partly idiosyncratic appropriations. Why should we let some laboriously achieved docking of thermofield QBD and Heidegger solicit our confidence in the quotidian world? Philosophical scruples turn us in an aconventional direction. We are obliged to challenge our belief in the external world and remember Being

Heidegger and the Quantum Brain

(Sein). This goes far beyond the phenomenological epoch¯e, which goes on believing in the external world but makes no use of the belief for philosophical purposes, brackets the belief out of its discourse. In the postphenomenological epoch¯e under taken here even the believing is held in check – ‘tis all damnèd illusion. We roll back belief and disbelief both, with respect to the external world, and let belonging-together guide us . . . the belonging together of an exemplary quantum neurophysics – thermofield QBD – and an exemplary continental philosophy – postphenomenology. Our criterion is not logical truth but the belonging-together where two valued discourses dock, and in so doing burst the chains of m¯ay¯a.

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Chapter 2

PostHeideggerian Postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain

. . . a solution that solves a puzzle, no matter how perceptually and intellectually counterintuitive, would have the power to force scientists to abandon even their current principles of intelligibility. Quantum physics is a case study of long-accepted principles of intelligibility being cast aside. (Hubert Dreyfus, 2001, p. 162) Living matter, while not eluding the “laws of physics” as established up to date, is likely to involve “other laws of physics” hither to unknown, which, however, once they have been revealed will form just as integral a part of this science as the former. (Erwin Schrödinger, What is life?, p. 81) . . . classical phenomenology is biased to the side of consciousness in the description of the human mind. And consciousness is, of course, the most faithful ally of logical and grammatical structure. If consciousness is part of experience, it belongs to the most corrupted and compliant department of it. (Pauli Pylkkö, The aconceptual mind, p. 15) . . . nonclassical theories . . . radically redefine the nature of knowledge by making the unknowable an irreducible part of knowledge, insofar as the ultimate objects under investigation by nonclassical theories are seen as being beyond any knowledge or even conception, while, at the same time, affecting what is knowable. (Arkady Plotnitsky, The knowable and the unknowable, p. xiii)

. Introduction Martin Heidegger is arguably the most seminal of 20th century continental philosophers. Even the appalling fact of the great philosopher’s Nazism scatters seeds of fruitful philosophical discourse. After all, philosophers since Plato – whatever their public posture – have thought themselves devoted to Sophia. And now a truly original and influential 20th century philosopher participates in the most reviled political system of the 20th century. Sorry, this doesn’t make the love of Sophia look good! I have demonstrated in Section I that Heidegger can be thought-together with thermofield dual mode quantum brain dynamics. The present chapter carries this project forward at the interface between dual mode QBD and postphenomenology, focusing mainly on the work of three post-Heideggerian postphenomenologists: Hubert Dreyfus, Pauli Pylkkö and Arkady Plotnitsky. In the forward to the recent Dreyfus Festschrift, Richard Rorty (2000) captures something of Dreyfus’ contribution to continental philosophy. It is no exaggeration to say that without Dreyfus the gap between European and anglophone philosophy would be, at the end of the twentieth century, far greater than it in fact is. By behaving as if the analytic-Continental split were of no great importance, he has done a great deal to narrow it. (ix)

Dreyfus’ (1992) demonstration of “what computers still can’t do” is a profound continental critique of the metaphysics of the Socratic philosophers, and its technoscientific successor, modernity, with artificial intelligence at the cutting edge. Dreyfus’ detailed discussion (1991) of Heidegger’s Being and Time, while of great help to those first encountering Heidegger’s thought, provides a certain window on it, as the title Being-in-the-World foredestines. I open a larger ontological window in Chapter 2. Pylkkö (1998) is fully aware of the power of Heidegger’s thought. Heidegger’s thinking is like a field of energy which affects everything. Even in those areas where the influence is hard to recognize, it is inseparably everywhere. (xix)

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Chapter 2

His stance toward Heidegger is radically corrective. While sympathetic to Heidegger’s suspicion of Western technology and its reach for global dominance, Pylkkö thinks Heidegger can be appropriated to a new anomalous naturalism [which] will be both more aware and more critical of the metaphysical origins of standard science than the old one because it is naturalism that we need in our attempt to ascend away from the experiential hell of Heidegger’s times. (xviii)

In naturalizing Heidegger Pylkkö turns away from standard “onto-theological” science to quantum science which he argues is a-onto-theo-logical. Pylkkö thus docks quantum science and postphenomenology. Plotnitsky (1994, 2002) is less concerned with Heidegger, whom he lumps with Nietzsche, Freud and Lacan, but focuses on Bataille and Derrida. He wants to think together Bataille and Derrida’s “general economies” with Neils Bohr’s quantum theory, especially his complementarity principle. The bridge for their commonality is anti-epistemology – from the irreducible loss of meaning and indeterminacy in general economies to a principled “unknowable” in quantum mechanics. Coordinate with this irreducible loss is an irreducible heterology generated by the general economic framework. Like Pylkkö, Plotnitsky thinks quantum physics with postphenomenology, whereas I bring in quantum neurophysics.

. The postphenomenology of Hubert Dreyfus .. Absorbed coping It is characteristic of postphenomenological thought to dethrone representation in the account of mind, giving it a secondary status. Dreyfus wants to describe and explain learning and skillful action without utilizing mind or brain representations. What Dreyfus (1991) calls “absorbed coping” is more social in conception that scientific. (Merleau-Ponty’s approach is much more easily connected to science.) Such a postphenomenological account, which also has strong Gibsonian (1979) resonances, is consistent with dissipative quantum brain dynamics (thermofield QBD). What one learns is not a mental representation, not even an unconscious mental representation, but shows up in the way the world itself appears. There is no mental object that intervenes between mind and world. When I perceive the tomato, there are no experienced images – no red “sensa” or “qualia” – in

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain

or of my mind, in addition to the tomato there in the world. When I hit myself with the hammer, the pain is not in my mind, it is obviously – painfully – in my thumb! As Sellars (1963) showed long ago, exposing the scandal, qualia are theoretical, not experiential, entities. Learning changes the way the world is disclosed, so that the world is seen as “affording” or “soliciting” certain actions. No representations intervene. According to Gibson (1979: 134) what we perceive in everyday life when we look at objects is not their qualities or class membership but their affordances, i.e., how they can be used. Thus the manifest world consists in pragmata: the hammer affords driving nails, the chair affords sitting. (In Heidegger this ground is covered by objects being ready-to-hand (Zuhanden).) Affordances are mainly learned. We learn to see things as affording certain actions, based on past experience with a particular thing in a certain kind of situation. In the vocabulary I have been using, our situatedness discloses the world as affording certain actions. (Situatedness is not a representation-of but an attunement-for.) Situatedness is not in complete control, however. At the same time reality calls for certain situatednesses, its invariances provoking resonances that shape the attunement. World presences in the between, das Zwischen, of situatedness and reality. A large flat stone calls for sitting when our legs are tired from the hike, even though we are not at the moment situated to take a seat. However typically, what we are situated for and what world calls for are indivisible. Tired, we are situated to sit down and the rock solicits sitting. Such a reciprocity between situatedness and world is called by Merleau-Ponty the “intentional arc.” The intentional arc has a further characteristic. There is typically a deviation between situatedness and world affordances, a deviation accompanied by a certain bodily tension. One’s activity moves towards decreasing this tension, which goes to a minimum with the consummatory act. Merleau-Ponty calls this successful activity getting a “maximum grip.” For example, when situated to open a door one may reach with a spread hand, ready to grasp and rotate a door knob, or reach with a more closed hand with thumb up, ready to grasp a fixed handle and depress the tongue, as a function of what the door’s hardware happens to afford. In getting a maximum grip, there is no mental representation of the end result, no telos, only a sense of increased or decreased tension. Action here is “purposive without the agent entertaining a purpose,” guided by tension reduction. In skillful action the world is experienced as eliciting from me the appropriate action to reduce tension. Our acquired skills are not stored as representations but as dispositions to respond in certain ways to the world’s solicitations. Maximum grip is the body’s tendency to respond to these

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Chapter 2

solicitations by decreasing felt tension. In skillful action the agent optimizes maximum grip. In thinking together Dreyfus with my ontological formulation of thermofield QBD, one radical difference must be kept in mind: For him there is a world “there,” seen from various perspectives as affording various actions. This is a sophisticated form of commonsense realism about the world. This difference from Dreyfus is also present in comparing my view to that of Heidegger. We have seen that Heidegger’s ontology makes three crucial distinctions: (1) an unpresent but abiding world awaiting disclosure, (2) a world disclosed, presencing, coupled with (3) withdrawal of the unfulfilled possibilities. In my two-fold ontology there is a comparable useless, senseless withdrawal, withdrawal of the unmatched. There is also a world disclosed. But there is no world “there” awaiting disclosure in my ontology. What’s there needs to be continually hoisted. World disclosure and withdrawal of possibilities are the same moment in the movement of Ereignis. With this understanding, we may consider Dreyfus’ discussion of dispositions to respond to the solicitations of situations in the world. Dispositions to respond or situatedness can be thought as quantum attunements for the interaction with expressions of quantum physical reality. Our quantum attunement predisposes us to respond to the solicitation, the call, of . . . not world situations. Whereas Dreyfus means “situations in the world” in a straightforward everyday sense, e.g., the perceptible chair soliciting sitting, what solicits is, for me, unpresent. So our quantum attunement predisposes us to respond to the solicitations of quantum physical reality, not phenomenal world. A fully adequate response to the solicitation makes a ∼conjugate match. In previous sections I have frequently written of “achieving” the match. Achieving the match is isomorphic with Merleau-Ponty’s getting “maximum grip.” Input coming in selects situatedness, which in turn shapes behavior so as to select what input comes in, until the match is achieved. The discrepancy between input symmetries and situatedness symmetries is felt as a tension.

“Getting a grip” in psychotherapy This tension that drives maximum grip has been illuminated by the philosopher/psychologist, Eugene Gendlin (1981, 1986, 1997). What makes a therapist’s interpretation “sure,” Gendlin says, is a feeling of bodily shift, a sense of “tension release,” a “relief ” (1986: 3). This felt sense is not a feeling like anger or sadness but has “a unique felt quality that fits no category” (3). The felt sense is “an indefinable, global, puzzling, odd, uneasy, fuzzy

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain

sense in your body” (3). (Note that “uneasy” does not fit with “relief.” I think Gendlin means “uneasy” in the sense of odd. What’s odd about the feeling is its unusualness; we usually don’t notice the tension relief but Gendlin shows how to become aware of it.) It is this background felt sense that indicates the tension between situatedness and expressions of quantum reality, an un-ease reduced under maximum grip. (Imagine the unease of trying to open a door with handle-and-tongue hardware by a movement of turning a knob. Shift the grip, extend the thumb, press down . . . and everything is effortless.) The intuitively sensitive person trusts a bodily feel for guidance where the logical person tries to think it out. These strategies properly augment each other.

The concept of situatedness that succeeds mental representation is very complex. There is situatedness for perceiving, cognition and action. (Conventional cognitive science improperly assimilates perception to cognition, which can only be done by forgetting Being.) In perception situatedness is for unpresent physical reality. To say that perceptual situatedness is for the world right “there” is to put the cart before the horse. In cognition situatedness is for thinking, understanding, planning, communicating, etc. In skilled action situatedness is for a to-be-current reality that will presence in the act’s consummation. Freud (1900) saw the relation of action to presence clearly: The instinctual drive aims to bring about a presence previously associated with instinctual gratification. The hungry infant first hallucinates the breast. In perception the match and presence is immediately achieved (on the order of 100 milleseconds) whereas in skilled action the match and presence are delayed while the ongoing mismatch presences as a bodily feeling of tension. So absorbed coping takes place without reliance on mental representations. Absorbed coping is a function of ∼situatedness. The mismatch between ∼situatedness and reality is felt as a tension which is relieved in the ∼conjugate match of successful coping. .. Robust and deflationary realism Hubert Dreyfus (2001) has discussed, and relieved, a certain tension in Heidegger between a “robust realism” in which reality consists of independent things “in themselves,” and a “deflationary realism” in which reality is not independent but depends on background practices, including the scientific practices which Kuhn (1976) so well described. Ordinarily the things of the real world are Zuhanden, ready-to-hand, ready against a background of social practices, but when equipment breaks down or

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Chapter 2

anxiety overwhelms, the things of reality become unusable Vorhanden, occurrents just there, presences. With such a desituatedness, the unavailability of real things reveals unsocialized deworlded nature “as having been there all along” (Dreyfus 2001: 54). When we can no longer use broken things or when customary meanings disappear in sheer anxiety, then we uncover and potentially contemplate persisting real things which have been there all along, independent of our practices. Dreyfus’ view here is clearly realistic, not a scientific realism but quotidian realism in which “men come and go, and earth abides.” What is untraditional is Dreyfus’ emphasis on skilled coping within an acomputational background of socialized practices. He appropriates Heidegger, somewhat in the drier spirit of Merleau-Ponty. Like Heidegger, Dreyfus doesn’t question the belief that Zuhanden have been there all along. His interest lies in coping with them. Dreyfus explains how Heidegger escapes the relativism of deflationary realism, noting the similarity to Saul Kripke’s concept of “rigid designation.” Science is launched within the background of the scientist’s everyday situatedness, true enough, a “positive” science in that it must posit the objects of its inquiry. But science is able to break free to “a universe that is anterior to and independent of our everyday mode of making sense of things” (155). Science’s real objects are identified by characteristics which are contingent until their essential properties become known (158). Once the perch of essential properties – the heart of reality – is reached, the contingent ladder can be thrown away, mere accident dispensed with. I procede in an appropriation of Heidegger’s realism by first showing some basic distinctions. In the ontological dualism of the Platonic tradition, through Descartes, to modernity, there are two kinds of presence, mental presence, which is the presence of the subject in its viscissitudes, and physical presence, the presence of the everyday changing external world. Both subject and physical object are present. There is the physical ruler on the lab bench (and its re-presentation in the brain), and there is the experimenter’s consciousness of it – res extensa and res cogitans, dual interacting substances. The interaction of ontologically distinct duals has been and remains ontologically problematic for the Cartesian tradition. There is no between of interaction in Descartes; the pineal gland is not a between but a location where two-way causal effects mysteriously obtain. How could ontologically distinct substances interact? How does immaterial mind instruct behaviors of the material body and how do material bodies instruct the immaterial mind of their (metaphysically assumed) presence?

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain

In the account provided in this book – to put it in a Cartesian way – res cogitans is succeeded by an unpresent tilde conception and res extensa is succeeded by something equally unpresent, the non∼ description. Ontology is no longer divided because there are two modes of one dynamics and even the division is transcended in the unique case of the match of their between. So Descartes’ dualism of incompatible yet interacting substances is succeeded by a thermofield dualism in which an interaction takes place in the vacuum states upheld by living brain. This interaction is between the tilde mode successor to cogitans and the nontilde mode successor to, not extensa, but the thing as it is in itself, when none of us are around – a nontilde quantum reality in itself. The interaction is a lighting process in which res extensa is disclosed in virtue of a ∼conjugate match. In the case of match, the physics equations show real numbers, which are associated with observables. The match is the between (das Zwischen) of tilde and nontilde universes, the illumination provided by a belonging-together in the vacuum states sustained in neural autopoiesis and autorhoesis. But let’s get to the illumination more slowly. Heidegger deconstructs the present subject and develops the successor notion of being-in-the-world, situatedness, which is unpresent. Situatedness is an unpresent aconceptual background of practices that permits the world to be intelligible. Situatedness helps ground presence as such. So the only presence left to explain is that of “reality.” How does Heidegger think of it? It is difficult to be sure what Heidegger’s position is on the presence of “reality.” (See Olafson 1987: Chapter 8 and Globus 1995: §3.3) for more detailed discussions.) Let’s try to think through Heidegger’s position. In early Heidegger, situated Dasein provides a Lichtung, a lighted place, a clearing for external world to presence. Without the Dasein there can be no presencing. This left early Heidegger open to the charge of subjectivism which contributed to launching his Kehre (turn) to Seyn and its Ereignis dynamics. Now, what is the status of the things in themselves before Dasein clears them, dis-closes them? And what is the status of the entity Dasein, the place of Being where world lights up, the ontic denizen on whom Being (Sein) itself depends? Without this Dasein, nichts! Things uncleared by Dasein are simply not present though for Heidegger they are “there.” How does the entity Dasein do it? How does Dasein turn the light on to disclose presence? Of course Heidegger is uninterested in this question, but surely it depends on Dasein’s brain. Anesthetize the brain and the light is quenched. Without an account of how Dasein’s brain could support such a thing, the old consciousness/brain problem is joined by an equally recalcitrant Being/brain problem. Furthermore, there is still left dangling an unpresent Being; so now

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Chapter 2

“Being” (Sein) spans both presence and unpresence. What are we to understand by “unpresent Being”? It is in itself without disclosure to Dasein. What it “is” in itself? Bill Clinton was right in his famous defense: It all depends on what “is” is. “Is” can’t imply presence in this context. So what kind of “is” is it? Post-Kehre, Heidegger develops a different account. Now there is the Dasein – Heidegger likes to call him “man” or the “mortals” but he is still the entity Dasein – and also there is unpresent “Being,” “there” but unperceived. Presence arises from the relationship between the Dasein and unpresent Being; specifically, presence arises in the belonging-together of the Dasein, standing within time, and unpresent Being. The Dasein and unpresent Being (Seyn) need each other for there to be presence. The Dasein and unpresent Being appropriate each other – and there is presence, world disclosure. Dasein with his brain is crucial . . . without Dasein’s sustained ontic antics, the light goes out. For it is man, open toward Being, who alone lets Being arrive as presence. (ID: 32) . . . for only with us can Being be present as Being, that is, become present. (33)

But so is Other crucial; man needs Other, unpresent Being. A belonging to Being prevails within man, a belonging which listens to Being because it is appropriated to Being. (31)

Post-Kehre, Dasein’s sovereign subject is succeeded by participation in a process of belonging-to, a process of matching unpresent – but nonetheless “there” – Being. Without a brain, the Dasein has no chance at disclosing Being. If Dasein’s brain were nothing but a wet computer, Dasein could not host presence. It takes a dissipative quantum dynamical brain to do that. For then situatedness can be conceived as an unpresent quantum ∼attunement of the self-tuning quantum brain. The ∼domain is attuned nonlocally. For then the unpresent Being, “reality,” properly Wesen, becomes a participant in an interaction going on in the vacuum states upheld by living brain tissue. Only then, when representatives (conserved symmetries, Wesen) of beyng participate with the ∼attunement in a matching process, only then does anything presence. Unpresent Wesen (real invariances) interact with unpresent being-in-the-world (situatedness) and mirabile dictu! Being presences . . . as possibility silently withdraws into quantum closure. There is both presence and hiddenness in the simultaneous movement of quantum closure and disclosure.

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain

Macroscopic physical reality on the scale of the Dasein has a quantum description and is accordingly unpresent, large but nonetheless not presencing. (It is a mistake to think of quantum theory as relevant only to the very small, from the nanolevel of billionths of a meter down to the Planck scale.) The quantum description gives only the possibilities of physical reality. Quantum physical reality’s unpresence, however, doubles in thermofield dynamics. Here unpresence is “dual mode.” Presence comes out of the dual ontology’s between. Here, for the first time, presence lies within the scope of physics. World presences when there is an interaction that achieves matching between tilde and nontilde systems upheld by living brain tissue. This “reality” is world presence, which is not independent of ∼situatedness, and so this realism is not fully robust. Being-as-presence is a derivative “reality,” achieved in the balanced interaction of a ∼conjugate match. Being-as-presence is the illusion of foundational reality, m¯ay¯a. There is a noteworthy gain here: No longer is there an ontological chasm between the presence of things and Dasein’s situatedness, which we found in early Heidegger, a chasm bridged by the assumption of ekstases in which Dasein gets outside itself to world. The presence of things now is posterior to situatedness, in virtue of the match between ∼situatedness and nontilde expressions of physical reality. Being presences – world lights up – in the belongingtogether of Wesen and situatedness. In the mathematical representation of such a belonging-together, complex numbers devolve to real numbers associated with observables. Being as presence is accordingly ejected from fundamental ontology and seen to be derivative of belonging-together, in the form of a ∼conjugate match. Under a quantum monadology, with the scattered exceptions of the Dasein, there is only unpresence, things as they are in themselves, quantum objects across microscopic, macroscopic and cosmological scales. Presence comes about only in scattered monadic locations, where Dasein’s superlative brain creates conditions where vacuum state interactions come under fine control. The extrinsic source of control is nontilde, external quantum physical reality. The intrinsic source of control is quantum attunement. In the interactive match there is presencing: Dynamical Ereignis generates in parallel the lifeworlds in which we each always find ourselves already thrown, totally convinced our world is a world in common, albeit taken from our perspective. A parallel Mitsein is not very heimlich. In my account the realism that Dreyfus labels “robust” and “deflationary” are reinterpreted, breaking “realism” in two. The realism that is robustly independent is quantum dual mode, whereas the deflated realism dependent on

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Chapter 2

background practices is of the between. The present account, then, is both robust and deflationary. .. Quantum being-in-the-world or Background Dazzled by the vibrant dispute between Dreyfus (2000a, 2000b) and Searle (2000) in the Dreyfus Festchrift (Wrathal & Malpes 2000a, 2000b), and yanked back and forth between them by perspicuous commentary, one falls into vertigo. If such eminences have taught seminars together at Berkeley and argued for some thirty years, and still cannot agree on what Searle actually says, no wonder the vortex! Yet safe in the Derridean margins of their dialogue, we can Mitsprung. Dreyfus and Searle discuss preintentionality, in agreement that intentionality rests on a preintentionality. (Dreyfus had previously conceived of a nonintentional ground but admits coming to agree with Searle.) They agree that the preintentional is a kind of intentionality – not something distinct from intentionality. It would seem, after all, an intractable problem how intentionality might arise from something nonintentional. Better let the preintentional be in some way primordially intentional, thereby eliding such a puzzle. There is another more founded argument that the preintentional is primordially intentional. In Searle’s (1983) theory, the preintentional is called the Background. For Searle the subject’s intentional states, such as beliefs and desires, form a Network such that each state cannot be considered independently but depends on the others. In following out the threads of this Network, Searle says, eventually we encounter “a bedrock of mental capacities that do not themselves consist in Intentional states (representations), but nonetheless form the preconditions for the functioning of Intentional states” (143). The Network “shades off into the Background” which “is simply a set of skills, stances, preintentional assumptions and presuppositions, practices, and habits” (154). This bedrock of capacities is a preintentional Background which is a set of mental capacities or abilities, a know-how. In Searle, then, the preintentional is a rich background, akin to Dreyfus’ being-in-the-world. Neither can be reduced to rules and representations. So for both Searle and Dreyfus the preintentional is the ground for skilled absorbed coping. Another reason for preintentionality to already smack of intentionality is that the skillful action of absorbed coping may or may not be successful. In golf, putting may or may not get the ball in the hole. So Background or beingin-the-world has conditions of satisfaction, and conditions of satisfaction are the hallmark of the intentional. (The intentional “content,” in Husserl (1960)

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain

the noema, in Smith and McIntyre (1982) the “prescription,” are all equivalent to Searle’s “conditions of satisfaction.”) Preintentionality has conditions of satisfaction so it is intentional. Still, what makes the preintentional different from the intentional? To say as Searle does that the latter “shades off ” into the former just sweeps the difference under the rug. Now Searle explicitly anchors his theory in brain functioning. Searle (2000) sees intentionality and preintentionality as at bottom neuronal. For Searle, says Wrathall (2000), our disposition to be in a particular intentional state is internal to us in the sense of being a neurophysiological feature of us. (104)

Conditions of satisfaction are generated by the brain for Searle. The Background is a set of capacities for skilled action provided by the brain. Contra Wrathall (2000), Dreyfus is not adverse to bringing in brain functioning (Kelly 2000b), allowing discussion of skilled action in terms of neural networks (Freeman 1997). Dreyfus does argue against skillful action being a function of brain representations but not all theories of brain functioning depend on representations (Globus 1992b; Skarda & Freeman 1987), so Dreyfus leaves the door open to the neural implementation of skilled action. Heidegger, of course, would not buy in; he would see brain science as irretrievably onto-theo-logical. For Heidegger, furthermore, describing brain functioning as a capacity “is the wrong level of description for capturing what is uniquely human about intentional states” (Wrathall 2000: 109). For his account of intentionality Heidegger turns to time, to Dasein’s “temporalizing which opens up a world” (112), leaving brain science irrelevant. Kelly (2000b) counters Heidegger as follows. We must not confuse the phenomenological fact that the right description of our intentional relation to the world denies that we are private, inner subjects with the scientific fact that this intentional relation is physically realized within the human organism. (165)

For our part, let’s exploit the opening of the agreement between Dreyfus and Searle, but in a quantum vein. Let’s move toward describing preintentionality and intentionality in brain terms, in particular, in terms of dual mode QBD. This move from preintentionality and intentionality to thermofield quantum brain dynamics is not a reduction to itty-bitty quanta! We will consider a level of brain functioning that is preintentional. To be an embodied brain with quantum degrees of freedom just is to cope absorbedly and skillfully, to “just do it,” as Searle holds.

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Chapter 2

We saw in §1.8 that invariant relationships in the input flux – symmetries in time – are conserved in quantum brain dynamics, in the form of Goldstone symmetrons. And when these symmetrons recognize new input, they leave traces in the ∼universe which function as conditions of satisfaction imposed on the input flux from external reality. When the same symmetry recurs in the input flux, the tilde recognition traces are satisfied in the match, a matching ∼/non∼ interaction takes place, and a world presences. So intentional conditions of satisfaction are tantamount to ∼encoded symmetries. But what of the preintentional conditions of satisfaction? Some context will be helpful in grasping preintentionality in quantum terms. My thinking together postphenomenology with dual mode QBD above has focused on presence (traditionally, perception) and neglected action, whereas Dreyfus tends to go the opposite way, focusing instead on skilled action, absorbed coping. Heidegger in contrast has a balanced view. I extend my account now to action and its preintentional sources. Umezawa (1993: 112, 129, 131) discusses the frequent inducing of symmetries in quantum systems that were not originally present, “do not exist in the basic Lagrangian” (112). ∼Symmetries “emerge” that were never in the input flux and thus do not correspond to input symmetries that stand in for reality’s symmetries. That is, new groups of transformations emerge under which the form of the dynamics does not change. So we can “re-cognize” things we have never seen before. To grasp this more intuitively, let’s think musically: think of symmetry as a self-harmony over time, a resonance. The different symmetries over time in the input flux, when recognized, are different resonances that intermix and achieve a greater harmony, a new resonance – but in an inaccessible ∼universe. Out of the interpenetrating interaction of resonances a resonance of greater complexity is launched ∼mode. New resonances in turn interact and cascade out to further emergence. The brain is very good at generating emergent symmetry. Umezawa’s mention of symmetries emergent in the dynamics opens explanatory possibilities. In the spontaneity of the dynamics, we become free of concrete input hegemony. We can only perceive what we re-cognize – cf. Plato’s Meno – for only in the match of ∼trace and non∼ input can world presence. We can immediately re-cognize completely novel versions of triangle, never seen before, as triangular, through the match with the symmetry emergent from previous experience with particular triangles. Emergent symmetry underlies family resemblance. Emergent symmetries spontaneously and playfully arise out of the mechanistic symmetry traces, leaving a formative creativity no

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain

longer contingent on physical reality but sovereign. Plato’s a priori Ideas are neither inherited nor learned but spontaneously emergent. To see how this works out to be preintentional, let’s focus on local background practices. Local practices are the way we do things “around these here parts.” The way us folks tend to walk and talk, believe and desire, think about things, hold eating utensils, whatever, which is different from practices located elsewhere, say the different comportment styles of rural Finn and denizen of the Southern California megalopolis. I emphasize that these very many ways we do things locally all hang together. There is a certain style in the way a national community tends to (is tuned to) walk, talk, believe, make love, whatever, the style of how everything belongs together hereabouts, and there is a different style of how everything belongs together thereabouts. It would look silly if someone walked and believed in the Finnish way but talked and desired in the Californian way. It would be the case of Woody Allen’s chameleonic Zelig. We couldn’t find a unified person in that case. Somehow the very many local ways belong together and don’t fit as well with ways in other localities, which in extremity leads to culture clash. This hanging together, this fitting, does not imply an essence in the sense of a fundamental characteristic or feature that might be pointed out, like the characteristic fragrance of a perfume or the manly grip in shaking hands in the American southwest. Nor is this hanging together a family resemblance, where the family members look alike. There is no common look (eidos) to the very many ways we do things hereabouts, ways that nonetheless “hang together.” The “essence” meant here is a group of transformations under which the form of the evolution equation does not change. There are many possible evolutions under a particular group structure. These possibilities provide the successor concept to the classical “accidents” (nonessentials) while the group structure is successor concept to the classical essentials. Jones (1975: 380) nicely illustrates nonessentials and essentials with Socrates: his dying by taking Hemlock is an accident whereas “those traits of character and personality that made him the man he was” are essentials.) With this quantum interpretation of “essence,” we have essence as a group structure that generates indefinitely many accidents. It may seem horrifying to bring “essence” back in to postphenomenology – a reversion to Husserl – but “essence” now takes on a very different meaning. The word “revolutionary” is overused and thereby vitiated, but it must be remembered that quantum theory is truly REVOLUTIONARY, and so to reinterpret “essence” in quantum terms is to radically change its meaning, so much so that anti-metaphysical critics of essentialism should not be put off.

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Chapter 2

Despite Heidegger’s disdain for ontotheological thinking he continually makes use of the term Wesen, which less courageous translators render as “essence.” But Wesen is a way of being, being’s “sway.” Wesen is the transformation group structure under which the underlying form of the evolution equation does not change, while capable of generating indefinitely many expressions (accidents). The Wesen locally is expressed as the symmetry emergent in our local dissipative quantum brain dynamics. Our brain’s spontaneous creation of emergent symmetries is integral to how we learn to be a Finn or American, come to operate out of a different Background of practices, achieve our contentless comportments and understandings. Each local individual has a different sample of inputs but the different local samples have a common group structure and so a comparable Wesen is created for each individual, the unified way we do things hereabouts. The preintentionality of Dreyfus and Searle, then, is based on common emergent symmetries in local communities. .. Concealed plenitude We have been trying to understand preintentionality, Background, being-inthe-world, situatedness, aconceptual understanding – all by and large equivalent – in postphenomenology. Thus far we have focused on how such a thing could be learned. The quantum brain extracts Wesen and emergent Wesen additionally form. In re-cognition these Wesen become coded in the ∼universe. This quantum ∼universe is highly differentiated with emergent symmetries. There is an interaction between tilde and nontilde universes emergent in living brain tissue, a controlled interaction, and in their belonging-together world presences. The light goes on and world presences simultaneously . . . light-andpresence out of the ∼conjugate match, a matching ∼/non∼ interaction in vacuum states upheld by the living brain . . . in this matched case lumen naturale-and-presence results, the light goes on and world is there . . . strange, or strangely beautiful, scattered Lichtungen dis-closing worlds in parallel for the m¯ay¯a-enraptured Dasein. Dreyfus (1991: 133–136) is very unhappy with this line of thought when it occurs in Heidegger. Uncharacteristically he calls Heidegger “confused,” “murky,” and charges that the master “fails to distinguish” something crucial. For if we accept what Heidegger says about Dasein, then there could be no public space. We would have a number of monads each with its own centered experience of presence, and public space would be a construct. (135)

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain

Dreyfus finds monadic prospects horrific, and again uncharacteristically (and so catching the deconstructive eye), tells what Heidegger “should have stressed” to avoid them, that my centered space depends on and is located in a public field of presence, that my here does not mean a private, subjective perspective but is located visa-vis public equipment in a public world . . . The equipment directly accessible to me is what anyone would have accessible if he or she were in my place (135).

So Dreyfus shrinks from the idea of monads which Heidegger seems to slip into at times. Note the unremarked assumption that lets Dreyfus break out of the monad: presence is public. World equipment is there, accessible, common to us all, anyone could come by, see it and use it. Dreyfus turns to action, thinking world presence unproblematic, thereby parting sharply from Heidegger, to whom my own account remains near. It should not be thought that the phenomenological epoch¯e, which “brackets” belief in the existence of the world, is monadic. The phenomenologist practicing the methodology of the phenomenological reductions goes on believing in a quotidian world-in-common, present “there,” just as it is in ordinary life, but doesn’t make any use of this belief, that’s all, holds it in abeyance. In the introductory chapter to a recent book (Roy et al. 1999) devoted to naturalizing Husserl in cognitive science terms, Husserl’s monadic tendencies are still a cause of concern. Husserl’s transcendental subjectivity easily slips into solipsism, so other consciousnesses have to be recognized. (See the fifth Cartesian meditation on the constitution of the consciousness of the other (Husserl 1988).) But with the admission of other consciousnesses, there comes a plurality of worlds, each consciousness constituting a world of its own. However, the idea of a plurality of worlds correlating to the plurality of consciousnesses contradicts our immediate experience of a common world. (Roy et al. 1999: 36)

But this alleged “immediate experience of a common world” is clearly a belief that there is only one world which different subjects are conscious of, indeed, a belief of metaphysics. There is nothing in our experience that would distinguish the world in common from parallel mutually consistent worlds. It is no different in postphenomenological terms: the world-in-common is a learned Background assumption. It would be comforting to think that as much as we disagree, there is but one world. Sure, we may take the world in different ways – preintentionally and intentionally. The more takes on the world, the merrier – even radically incom-

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mensurate takes – so long as we can be assured that there is only One World, taken variously. This belief or Background assumption seems as indubitable as the earlier taking Earth to be the center of the universe. And after all, this belief or Background assumption works flawlessly, so why doubt it? Ah, the pain if it went the other way . . . Suppose the pervasive is something closed, which we can only conceive of as the nihilation of nothing, where even the abyss defaults to the unreachable beyond silence, to Abgrund. To understand the assumption of world more deeply, let’s return to the insightful and quite beautiful article by Julian Young (2000) in the Dreyfus Festchrift. Early Heidegger pictures Dasein’s world as a “clearing” of light . . . Since he conceives being as . . . the “intelligibility” of beings that show up in the clearing, over and above the clearing there is – nothing: emotionally this is received as . . . an “abysmal”. (199)

Heidegger is definitely on a monadic track here, and escaping it requires a drastic turn, Heidegger’s famous Kehre. This abysmal nothingness is an infinitely dark and absolute emptiness that “threatens” to break into the clearing at any moment in the form of pain and death. (189)

This threat has an effect on Dasein. At its heart, therefore, Dasein’s existence is permeated by radical – as I shall sometimes say “ontological” – insecurity. (189)

“Dwelling,” in contrast, is ontological security. To call ontological insecurity “homelessness” is to understate it! Facing all this takes what Young recognizes as “heroic nihilism” (190), which Heidegger more calmly surpasses: Life lived in the face of the abyss (whether it is heroic or evasive makes no difference) is “destitute”. (191)

Young points out that there is a striking shift away from the homelessness of ontological insecurity in late Heidegger. There is some ontological transformation which lies at the heart of the passage from early to late Heidegger: ontological insecurity, understood as the heart of human being, has been transformed into ontological security. (190)

In late Heidegger the nothing is no longer empty and abysmal, but quite the opposite, a concealed plenitude, a reservoir of potential dis-closures. Now closure is rich rather than empty; the unreachable closure of Other is filled with possibility. The concealed plenitude is a weighted attunement for the match.

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain

The richness of Other changes everything for Dasein. Now Being is like the moon with the Lichtung its lighted side. Rather than relating Being (Sein) and beings (Seiendes) solely to presence, the unreachable Other is granted Being too. Nothing-negated is! Dasein’s death is different from the perishing of an animal who “has death neither ahead of itself nor behind it” (OWL: 178). Death becomes “the shrine of Nothing” (179); death becomes hallowed in association with the fullness of unpresent being. Heidegger extends Dasein’s “dwelling” to this Other, ontologically secure in its richness. Dasein transcends the Lichtung in that nothing, too, “is” (in Heidegger’s extended sense). Human beings dwell [authentically] because they “stand out” [ek-sist] beyond the clearing into the nothing of plenitude and are thus ontologically secure. (Young 2000: 193, brackets added)

Seinsvergessenheit – the forgetting of being which extends to nothing – leaves Dasein in dread of ontological insecurity. What lets Dasein dwell in nothing’s plenitude is poetry, which in its richness reaches beyond words, reaches even beyond the Background to the “inexhaustible” and “unfathomable” (OWL: 108). Poets are those who, in naming, bring forth the unnameable (Young 2000: 196). “. . . Poetically man dwells . . . ” (OWL, 1971). .. Das Gevierte, the Fourfold The meaning of being-in-the-world also changes in late Heidegger. Being-inthe-world is no longer an involvement with available equipment but instead consists in a “fourfold” of existentials, the Gevierte. Late Heidegger defines being-in-the-world as a matter of being “on the earth,” “under the sky,” “among men,” and “before the divinities”. (Young, 197)

Let’s consider the participants in the Gevierte in turn. Young takes earth as the poetic sense of nature, in which nature replaces the equipment found in early Heidegger’s formulation of being-in-the-world. But Heidegger’s cthonic Ort is more than equipment; it is closure. Young strangely takes sky (the heavens) to be part of nature too, viz. “climate.” I suggest instead that “under the sky” refers poetically to light rather than equipment. “The sky is the vaulting path of the sun, the course of the changing moon, the wandering glitter of the stars . . . ” (Heidegger, OWL: 149). Mehta puts it beautifully.

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The celestial region of Heaven is the pure principle of light, in which everything that emerges into unhiddenness shines forth as what it is. It is the wide horizon of openness. (441)

Heaven is the “necessary correlate” of earth (441). “Among men” refers to our being with one another (Mitsein) and the “divinities” refer to our heritage, the “guidance of a given cultural tradition” (Young, 201). These existentials of the Gevierte exist only in relationship to each other, in a Rundtanz, a welling round dance of dark earth, celestial light, mortals and divinities, a mirror-play of fourfold belonging-together. Within their belonging together each transcends its onesidedness and finitude (Mehta, 442), and so partakes of infinity. This is an interplay, respectively, of quantum physical reality, the match of the dual mode between, Dasein’s brain that hoists the between, and socially learned attunement for the match. .. Psychopathology and attunement Dreyfus (2002) has provided a sensitive conceptualization of psychopathology. He distinguishes between an epistemological psychopathology well developed by Freud and an ontological, strongly Heideggerian, psychopathology discussed by Merleau-Ponty. (Quotations from Merleau-Ponty in the Dreyfus text will be marked ‘M-P’.) The epistemological conception is Cartesian. The epistemological conception of mind is roughly that the mind contains ideas which correspond or sometimes fail to correspond to what is out there in the world. (1)

From Descartes through Husserl, the subject is conscious of its representations of what is out there in the world, but with Freud, the most significant representations are unconscious, notably unconscious representations of the instincts. In Freud’s epistemological psychopathology, a powerful unconscious is added to Cartesianism. This affiliation of Freud should be no surprise, given his firm foundation in prequantum 19th century science. The opposing conception of Merleau-Ponty is ontologically Heideggerian, a conception of mind as being-in-the-world. “Mind,” here, is a way of being. It is a background of social practices that is untotalizable, unanalyzable, unknowable. Objects show up only against this context. The understanding of Being that Heidegger seeks is the background situatedness for what is. Beingin-the-world is necessary for dis-closure of world. Sans situatedness, there is no world.

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain

This ontological sketch of “mind” belongs together with dual mode QBD. Being-in-the-world can be interpreted as ∼attunement which contains invariant traces of past symmetries and their natural emergents. The world shows up only against the background, which is a ∼mode background of interpenetrated possibilities, since there is a ∼conjugate match achieved between what is coming in and the ∼possibilities. No ∼attunement, nothing to match the input flux, no world appears. This quantum formulation adds value to the Heideggerian ontology, for now Being is derived rather than assumed. Although Heidegger decries the forgetting of Being – the uncritical acceptance of presencing by common sense and science – his remembering of Being is only by assumption. Sein is given, a mode of the Ereignis dynamic, along with Zeit. Heidegger doesn’t really question that the world is “there.” He just doesn’t want to forget about its “thereness,” and he develops a story of Da-sein, the Being of the between (BT: 170), which is gift to and burden for the entity Dasein. Da-sein is simply assumed by Heidegger, an ekstasis from immanent to transcendent. In dual mode QBD, however, Sein is a consequence of a ∼conjugate match between modes, no longer assumed but derived within the theory. Thus far we have been able to think-together dual mode QBD with Dreyfus’ distinguishing of ontological from epistemological psychopathology. Now we may focus on Dreyfus’ rendition of psychopathology, in particular psychopathological “character.” Character problems occur when “some aspect of a person’s way of relating to objects in the world becomes part of the context on the basis of which all objects are encountered” (2). Some repeated way of being in our continuing world thrownness becomes part of our attunement. Experiences in early life become contextualized and thereafter constrain what world might be encountered. Merleau-Ponty writes, One present among all presents thus acquires an exceptional value; it displaces the others and deprives them of their value as authentic presents. (M-P, 3)

Certain past presents – especially those which were highly instinctually gratifying and/or emotional – are heavily weighted in the attunement and become “the atmosphere of my present” (M-P, 2). Significant past events become immediate but tacit background for presencing, and this has a profound effect on a person’s life. For example, early experience of rejection becomes contextualized, leaving the person with an expectation of rejection. How does the atmosphere of the present effect us? We are constricted by the atmosphere of the present.

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Chapter 2

The person suffers from lack of possibilities which he cannot understand and over which he has no control. (2)

The weighted possibilities stifle the others. When the lack of possibilities is rigidly restricting and negatively impact social adaptation in characteristic ways, we speak of character disorder. Heidegger focuses on the opening of world, on disclosure, on Being, whereas Merleau-Ponty’s concern is with the constriction of possibilities. Dual mode QBD offers an account of the weighting process. The more an event is recognized, the more heavily weighted its trace becomes, and the more non∼ defaults. Instinct and affect augment the weighting process. In this light there is no incompatibility between Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. Heidegger is focusing on the match per se with respect to what opens up, whereas Merleau-Ponty emphasizes weighted possibilities to the match with respect to what is closed off by this weighting – even psychopathologically closed-off. Thus instinctually and affectively weighted possibilities comprise a ∼attunement for the match in the ∼/non∼ between. This offers a wider prospect than character. The psychiatric patient can be conceived of as maltuned for the match with his or her reality. “Malattunement” covers a variety of psychopathological processes, not only a maladaptive way of being attuned for the match but defects in the matching process as such. In generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), for example, the patient worries incessantly. What the patient worries about is only superficially relevant. There is always something to attract the continual welling of worry. In GAD the patient is attuned to worry, and what presences is whatever belongs to worry. In the manic phase of bipolar disorder (BPD) the attunement is for immediate gratification and grandiosity, whereas in the depressed phase the attunement shifts to self-renunciation and self-depreciation. In classic BPD the attunement cycles. In the classical form of multiple personality disorder (MPD) the problem is not primarily the way that the ∼mode is tuned for the match but that the ∼attunement is split up. In a famous case of MPD, Eve has “three faces,” three contrasting attunements. Each of Eve’s three attunements is sharply restricted in such a way that memories, feelings and acts of the other faces never presence. Mutually preclusive attunements bring mutually exclusive lives in MPD. In schizophrenia there are not only maladaptive ways of being attuned but the tuning process itself is deficient. “Loosening of associations” is a cardinal sign of schizophrenia. Here the normal global attunement that coherently guides the associations over time breaks down and associations are made on the basis of more primitive local factors, like brute similarity and prior contin-

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain

gent co-occurence (accident). At the extreme is the “word salad” of the severely decompensated chronic schizophrenic patient – producing a mix of words devoid of syntax and meaning. (Not, however, necessarily completely lacking in meaning and structure – the persistent and attentive ear may pick up bizarre attunements in the torrent of word salad.) The word salad is strangely disjointed from the affect demonstrated – another cardinal sign of schizophrenia, disassociation of affect and meaning. The word salad makes hardly any sense and the affects come and go, not corresponding to the words anyway. There is a loss of integrative capacity – a splitting of mind, schizo-phrenia – which ordinarily keeps affect, meaning and behavior together. In QBD terms, integration failure is a loss of the capacity to maintain coherence. Normatively, affect, meaning and behavior are coherent, their attunements mutually supportive, and so tuning is sharp. When affect, meaning and behavior decohere in the integrative breakdown, tuning blurs and the idiosyncratic, bizarre, and literal gains salience. How are ocean and river alike? Classic schizophrenic response: Both have five letters. This phenomenon is misnamed “concreteness.” It is not a loss of abstract ability but a dedifferentiation of tuning, a plateau of weighting, such that idiosyncratic, otherwise low probability, matches may come to the fore. This idiosyncracy is a positive symptom of schizophrenia, potentially one source of schizophrenic creativity. Apathy is a negative symptom of schizophrenia (also characteristic of frontal lobe dysfunction, e.g., secondary to brain injury). Apathy carries further the leveling of tuning, to a generalized deweighting, a weight impoverishment. Nothing matters to the detuned schizophrenic patient with negative symptomatology. Instead of the incoherent disintegration and resulting dedifferentiation of the positive symptom, possibility as such diminishes. The person no longer cares. This reminds of Heidegger’s thesis that care (Sorge) is the essential structure of Dasein (BT, Section VI). In schizophrenia we can see the ontological psychopathology of care. Schizophrenia can be seen along these lines as an ontological disorder. Dreyfus offers a refreshing take on the treatment process for patients with maladaptive ways of being attuned. The malattunement is not appreciated by the patient because it colors everything. To take an extreme case, the world is just dis-closed as sinister-looking to the paranoid patient such that even something quite innocent nonetheless looks sinister. I ask how the patient can be so sure that the cars driving by his house every night are Mafia, as he insists, and he replies incredulously, “Because they look like Mafia cars.” This is for the patient a direct unconditional truth. There is no arguing with a paranoid delusion

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because all possible evidence is assimilated to the delusion. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. This leaves treatment seemingly stymied. How does the therapist shift the malattunement when that very attunement in its constriction rigidly precludes any alternative? Dreyfus offers this intriguing out for the therapist. When a patient’s world becomes totalized and one-dimensional, other ways of behaving from earlier days endure. These marginal stances, interpretations and practices are not taken up into the one-dimensional clearing precisely because they are too fragmentary and trivial to be seen as important. The therapist must recover and focus the lost possibilities. (6) Other ways of encountering things and people, which were once possible for the patient and are still present in his body and behavior, but are dispersed . . . can be drawn together in the patient’s relation to the therapist. (6)

This is to say that healthier but lightly weighted possibilities are traced in the ∼mode and the therapist works to increase their weight. The transference relationship to the therapist provides a vehicle for such change. For example, even though a patient is sharply tuned to be distrustful of others, there may be latent attunements that remain trusting, which latent transferences the skillful and trustworthy therapist may be able to belong to, and in that recognition weight more heavily. Of course, some patients are so paranoid and so lightly weighted for trust that the most benign therapist can never make a match. Nonetheless psychotherapy and especially the therapeutic relationship can reweight the patient’s attunement, while antipsychotic medication works to correct the brain chemistry and correct decoherence.

. The postphenomenology of Pauli Pylkkö .. Ontotheological thinking Pauli Pylkkö’s (1998) book, The Aconceptual Mind, subtitled Heideggerian themes in holistic naturalism, is powerfully written, and in espousing anomalous science, extreme. Pylkkö’s mood, which I do not share, stands out in this quotation: The best that philosophical work can ever hope to do is to shed the cool, lonely and weak light of disillusion on the human condition. (38)

Let’s go into Pylkkö’s view, whistling. Pylkkö discusses Heidegger’s critique of onto-theo-logical thinking.

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain

Heidegger used the attribute onto-theo-logical to designate such thinking which is unable to recognize the difference between Being (Sein) and entities (Seienden). (27)

Being is forgotten, Seinsvergessenheit, the “ontological difference” between Being and beings (Seienden) is not recognized. Onto-theo-logical thinking makes use of representations, and so is “bound to endorse the dichotomy of subject and object” (27). So Heidegger’s Seinsfrage, the question of Being, does not get asked and after a while is forgotten – or more likely, as deconstructionism points out, the Seinsfrage is actively suppressed, leaving remnants in the margins of the text. Onto-theo-logic is the core of the Western metaphysical tradition and, according to Heidegger, metaphysics dominates modern Western culture though technology (Technik) and natural science. (Derrida 1982: 27)

Onto-theo-logical thinking must ignore its own “Being.” For such thinking Logos is the foundation of knowledge, “the immutable structure of onto-logic and theo-logic” (27). In the onto-theo-logical context, the human mind becomes a mechanism or device whose main purpose is to reflect entities and their relations. (27)

The ontological difference between Being and beings can’t be thought ontotheo-logically. That metaphysical way of thinking “block’s the mind’s access to the proper understanding of what it is” (28). Heidegger considered science completely onto-theo-logical, relating only to entities and forgetting Being. He saw no reason to make an exception for quantum science and so could not consider the quantum opening. Heidegger views the prospects of natural science and naturalism in a bleak light indeed. But it is possible that he confounded science with classical science and was, therefore, unable to give credit to the ametaphysical tendencies of . . . the quantum theory. (xx)

He did not consider the possibility that quantum physics is a-onto-theological, which is Pylkkö’s opening. The antirealism of quantum theory makes quantum theory look much less onto-theo-logical than what one would have expected had Heidegger been right about the essence of science . . . In quantum theory, subject and object have become entangled and their boundary appears to be highly conventional, and the existence of separable physical objects has been questioned. (21)

Pylkkö points out the irony that Heidegger

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was not willing to admit, or even to see, that the weakest link in the essence of technology, where the technology may begin to break down, lies within the most advanced department of modern science itself, namely in quantum theory and its aconceptual and holistic nature. (75)

Science can heal itself of onto-theo-logical tendencies in embracing the quantum revolution. Pylkkö sets out to develop an a-onto-theo-logical theory in a quantum framework. In a-onto-theo-logical theory, language and mind are “described primarily in terms of . . . primitive and primordial experience” (12), an aconceptual experience. . . . there is an experience which is so unstructured with respect to conceptuality that even the contrast of the interior and the exterior (subject and object; subject and predicate) isn’t yet discernable. This is experience that cannot be captured by such conceptual or theoretical tools which cut everything into logical and grammatical structure. (11)

To comprehend aconceptual experience, we must first consider what Pylkkö means by “experience” and mine it further. Then we shall return to aconceptuality. .. Experience Pylkkö (xxii) emphasizes that “experience” covers nonhuman experience, including inanimate experience, and startlingly, includes nonpersonal human experience. By “nonpersonal” experience he cuts deeper than the notion of the collective mind as an interactive collection of individuated minds. Experience “can be so holistic that it destroys the boundaries which are said to separate persons from one another” (xxii). Experience “covers experience of all times everywhere” (xxii). So “experience” has a tremendously broad range for Pylkkö, very different from restricting “experience” to the conscious experience of a subject. Now, ex-perience is literally in Latin a trying-out, implementing certain operations. (Think of “experiment,” and experimental methods as operations.) But there is also a passive sense of experience, when we have an experience, undergo it, suffer it. Suffering is a quality of an experience undergone. One bears the burden of one’s suffering. This burden is experienced. (The Oxford English Dictionary under “experience” gives in 1588, “as one that had experienced the same, the rewarde of that good deede,” and 1773, “they who experience His loving kindness.”) To have an experience is literally to be tried out, to undergo the operations tried, to “suffer” them. The experimental apparatus is operated

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain

on by the experimenter, and so, in Pylkkö’s sense, the apparatus experiences the experiment, suffers the experimenter’s manipulations. Though “suffering” has a connotation of pain, in a deeper sense, the reference is broader. For example, in a religious context, God operates with loving kindness and we suffer his grace, gratefully experience it. So when Pylkkö permits inanimate experience, then a rock, say, is tried out, undergoes, suffers. The rock does not suffer presence, however. In being a rockq no Lichtung lights up. The Lichtung requires a very advanced living form – spectacularly different from a rock. In being a human brainq embedded in a human bodyq embedded in a worldq , there is a lighting process, and mirabile dictu! World is dis-closed. In being a rockq , nothing presences. Being a rockq isn’t up to being a Dasein because it lacks the lighting process, lacks enfiring. The rock’s experience, in Pylkkö’s sense, is neither conceptual nor aconceptual. The rock is not attuned for the physical energies impinging on it. The rock for itself just “is” what it “is,” where “is” does not imply any presence. “Is” instead expresses an unpresent reality. (Recall that Heidegger distinguishes between two senses of “is”: present (Sein) and unpresent (Seyn). The quantum “is” lacks presence.) Being a rock is different from being a computer, say, but neither is associated with presence. Nor would being Washington Irving’s Headless Horseman be associated with anything presencing on his dark ride. What promotes Angst in us is the brainless Horseman’s horrifying closure while riding throughout the land. It takes Dasein’s brain for presencing of the human world to take place. Other living creatures with related brains have their own Lichtungen with their own presencing “worlds.” These are unique conditions where the lighting process fires up. To be the entity Dasein is to suffer unfounded the presencing of world, to find oneself (under ordinary conditions) always already thrown bei the world, amidst the ready-to-hand world of Zuhanden, the world that affords certain actions. The transcendental ground – the condition for the possibility of the Lichtung – can only be attained in der Sprung, the leap. (Heidegger’s Ereignis which gives presence and time is transcendental, a condition for the possibility of world-thrownness.) The ground withdraws as it gifts Wesen and situatedness belonging-together, which in their ∼conjugate match enfires das Zwischen, the between that discloses world. Dasein experiences, undergoes, world thrownness when Dasein’s brain achieves a ∼conjugate match between reality and situatedness in vacuum states hoisted by living brain tissue. The lighting up of experience takes place in the process of matching.



 Chapter 2

Such experience is local, not distributed throughout nature, as Pylkkö thinks. Pylkkö, adopting the standpoint of first quantization, necessarily valorizes nonlocality, but in second quantization, location is addressible (even if there is nothing there at the address). Matching ∼/non∼ interactions are located. Only certain addresses light up, those addresses where Dasein dwells. .. Aconceptual experience Aconceptual experience is anterior to onto-theo-logic. The human mind was there before external objects and the human language before concepts. Therefore, experience is not to be described in terms of externalization and conceptualization alone. There is much more to the mind than what can be conceptualized and experienced as external or internal objects. (12) The human mind and language is, first of all, aconceptual experience which is immediate and present before internal or external objects enter the scene of the mind and organize it. (12)

This aconceptual experience is “asubjective” and so it cannot be characterized in terms of “person, rationality, intentionality or consciousness” (xxii). The aconceptual experience just is. Pylkkö’s aconceptual experience has overlap with Heidegger’s being-inthe-world (Dreyfus 1991) but is more encompassing. Dreyfus, influenced by Merleau-Ponty, thinks of situatedness as generating appropriate actions, as “know-how.” Through experience in the natural and social world we have “a direct sense of how things are done and what to expect” (Dreyfus 1992: xxix). This familiarity “enables us to respond to what is relevant” (xxix). “Our world,” Dreyfus (xxix) says, “is organized by these preconceptual meanings.” Pylkkö focuses on aconceptual mind rather than actions and skills. (I think Dreyfus and Pylkkö are not in great conflict in this regard, though there are other significant differences.) Aconceptuality is primary and the reification of permanent objects is derivative. Thus when reified by repeated associations and surrounded by a history of proper thing-enhancing beliefs, the aconceptual experience may create the impression that we are dealing with permanent things. (Pylkkö, 69) The reificational aspect of experience floats like a sloop on the high seas of aconceptual experience. (50)

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain 

But just how are objects individuated out of aconceptuality? Individuation depends on the concept of identity, sameness, individuals preserving their identity over time. .. Identity Pylkkö, pace Heidegger, distinguishes Leibniz identity from Parmenides identity. Individuation of objects depends classically on Leibniz’s identity of indiscernables. The transtemporal identity preservation of individuals is based on indistinguishable properties, including space-time location. Pylkkö observes that Being is based in sameness, identity preservation. The Leibniz identity holds among entities (Seiende) and each natural science has to assume that the things which constitute its subject matter . . . preserve their identity over time . . . . (63)

The Leibniz identity is at “the core of modern onto-logic” (63). A-onto-theo-logical science, in contrast, individuates according to Parmenides identity. Here sameness means belonging-together (Zusammen-gehören). “What is same belongs together and to each other” (65). So Leibniz identity is sameness over time and the distinctly different Parmenides identity is belonging-together of the same. Parmenides identity can be construed as dual mode. Asubjective experience is open to Being, “genuinely open and unpredictable” (66). Asubjective experience makes “a jump to the experience of sameness” (66), and thus to Being. This is an experience of disclosure toward that with which one is the same, a kind of assimilation with, or surrendering to, that to which one belongs. (66) In the proper self-understanding, Being and the Being of man belong to one another or together in a kind of act of intertwinement, assimilation and mutual surrendering. (28)

So the sameness that characterizes Being is not based on the indiscernable properties of onto-theo-logic but on a belonging-to, a dynamical matching. In the Dasein analysis, there is no man-independent reality out there with a complete and consistent structure awaiting consideration by human reason. Being and man’s Dasein depend on each other and are inseparably entangled with one another. (41)

“Man’s Dasein,” man’s there-being, being Da, is a situated presencing. The entity Dasein is situated. “Being” is what Pylkkö called “man-independent reality

 Chapter 2

out there.” “Reality” is ambiguous here; reality could be the world that presences to Dasein or the hidden one that quantum physics describes, which is unpresent. This ambiguity is resolved by Heidegger’s distinction between Being (Sein) and Be-ing (Seyn). Presence is what philosophy has always meant by the gift of Being. In contrast, Seyn is unpresent, withdrawing behind its gift, senselessly lost to use (i.e. “general economic” (Bataille 1988–1990)). Considered in the thermofield QBD frame, extrinsically controlled quantum fields encode reality’s symmetries (invariances over time, Wesen) and intrinsically controlled quantum fields encode situatedness. Reality and situatedness belong-to each other in their match, and in their belonging-together Being is disclosed. (I emphasize that in Heidegger “disclosure” means something “there” but hidden becomes unhidden, whereas for me nothing is “there” in closure and disclosure is formatively creative.) We are again in the vicinity of Ereignis, the welling up of owning, of being belonged to and at the same time belonging to, of fitting. The dual mode Parmenides identity is identity in terms of shared symmetries, deep resonances, mutual vibration, “circling compliancy” (Hofstadter 1971: xxii). .. Holonomic situatedness Dasein’s situatedness, which Dreyfus (1979) showed to be irreducible to logical Turing machines, has been thought of above as a fluctuating nonlocal quantum attunement, a process holonomic rather than logical, operating under a quantum law of the whole. As Pylkkö drives home, quantum science is not onto-theo-logical. Heideggerian thought, then, should at least be open to the possibility of rapprochement with quantum brain science. The continual codependent entanglement of fluctuating Wesen and fluctuating situatedness can be thought of as a ∼conjugate matching process in which world presences to Dasein. Wesen and situatedness, utterly codependent, unfold Being in a ∼conjugate matching process. Thus “Heidegger” can be thought together with dual mode QBD. Pylkkö is right, quantum science is aonto-theo-logical and there is no principled impediment to thinking-together dual mode QBD with “Heidegger.”

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain 

.. More on aconceptual experience Pylkkö discusses “aconceptual experience” that is so unstructured with respect to conceptuality that even the contrast of the interior and the exterior (subject and object; subject and predicate) isn’t yet discernable. This is experience that cannot be captured by such conceptual or theoretical tools which cut everything into logical and grammatical structures. (11)

Mind and language are “to be described primarily in terms of this kind of primitive and primordial experience” (12). There is no subject who organizes experience making use of concepts. Aconceptual experience is prelogical, atheoretical, asubjective, pre-externalization, pre-objectification. Such structures as space, time, causation, preferences and intentions dissolve, leaving an experience which “has no organization, structure or content. It is about nothing” (270). Aconceptual experience is unintentional. Aconceptual experience should be not be confused with distinctionless deep meditative states. Aconceptual experience can be described whereas deep meditative states are indescribable. Neti. Neti. Not this. Not that. Aconceptual experience can be described, as long as our descriptions do not assume structure, objectification and externalization, and as long as descriptions of the language which is used to describe experience do not resort to structure, objectification and externalization either. (15)

Indo-European languages imbue the conscious rational subject with such power that aconceptual reference is difficult. Aconceptual experience is wellevoked by poetry and music, and Pylkkö thinks, the Finnish language, all of which pull out certain aconceptual experiences that belong-to them. For illustration Pylkkö turns to Finnish (Chapter 8), the word ollaan, which is neither a grammatical nor a logical subject. Ollaan has no person, number or gender. There is no “one” present in ollaan “because being one presupposes oneness, that is, unity and identity, and the Finnish utterance doesn’t suggest anything like that” (266). There is an allusion to collectivity in ollaan: when in the mode of Ollaan, “we are there pre-individually, before the processes of individuation apply” (266). So ollaan refers to a pre-individuation, pre-objectification experience which is pure Being – the am in “I am” – a way of being, different between, say, Finland and California. The development of dual mode QBD described above did not distinguish aconceptual and conceptual experience. Let’s conduct this very useful exercise.

 Chapter 2

The terms conceptual and a-conceptual sound close together, as if a form of duality, the latter the privative form of the former, like presence and absence, but actually conceptual and a-conceptual are very far apart and do not form a duality. Concepts are ultimately derived from presences. Abstract concepts are ab-stracted from – literally lifted out of – the domain of presencings. The aconceptual, in contrast, is situatedness, which is never present, but is prior to presence. The aconceptual participates in the interaction from which presence is explicated. The aconceptual is “implicate” (Bohm 1980) and the conceptual is based in the “explicate.” So the aconceptual is not a privative form of the conceptual but its radical ground . . . the aconceptual is Abgrund for the conceptual. Pylkkö also illustrates aconceptual experience with Nazism whose “spiritual core . . . consisted of the urge to go through powerful aconceptual experiences” (221). During these experiences the ordinary subject withers away “giving way to a collective experiential flow which is indivisible and selfless” (221). Individuality collapses and there is longing for belonging together with this primordial experiential flux in which the rational subject doesn’t inhibit action and dilute experience, and one feels free to surrender to the mythical powers which are simultaneously both subpersonal and superpersonal, and which guide man toward authentic life. (221)

The aconceptual experience here is primordially a volkisch communion, “an experience which can be traced back to the prehistorical heritage of the German people (Volk)” (222). Nazism accordingly deconstructed the subject/object boundary that separated the German of National Socialism’s day from his ancestors. For Nazism, Only the original experience of the Volk is sufficiently sane and healthy in order to realize the Life principle, and only the national revolution can eventually generate the vigor which the German nation needs in order to accomplish its destiny. (222)

Such an irrational and overwhelming Volk experience realizes the Volk spirit in the individual’s own life. The experience is immediate, asubjective, revelatory and so powerful that no doubt of its nature and origin can arise. (223)

Revelation . . . the revealing of truth. Volk experience, once enjoined, is revealing of truth, and in this lies its power, for good or evil. The sign of aconceptual truth is revelation. Here each person hath his own truth revealed. Try arguing with a paranoid or a terrorist about what feels true to him. Aconceptual truth

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain 

is a deep bodily feeling of truth – the truth of profound tension relief – which can be utterly evil. A more accessible example of aconceptual experience from contemporary culture is the football fan at, say, the hotly contested UCLA vs. USC game. With relief a cheering fan loses his bougeoise individuality and becomes aconceptually, yes, one of the UCLA Bruins – mythically a brown bear – moved by and in allegiance to the college Geist, which he is too drunk to conceive and describe, but which nonetheless operates within, aconceptually, quickly able to recognize other Bruins without really thinking about it, from their “feel,” and experience them as fellow Bruin-Volk. Aconceptuality can be thought as a ∼mode attunement of interpenetrated weighted possibilities. The privative case is deep meditative states, where the quantum mind untunes. Actuality depends on the belonging-together of the ∼aconceptual and non∼ reality. The conceptual in turn depends on the actual. .. The problem of how aconceptual understanding is learned An important issue neither Pylkkö nor Dreyfus delve into is how aconceptual understanding is gained. Where does the knowing-how of skillful action come from? Peoples differ in their aconceptual understanding, and the different understandings must be learned. Learning is not so easily handled in Pylkkö’s account. If aconceptual understanding is not understanding of entities and their relationships, not an understanding of distinctions, then what is learned and how? How could learning take place preobjectification and what could be learned preobjectification? We can see the same problem arise in Dreyfus, for whom aconceptual understanding is not knowable. In explaining our actions we must always sooner or later fall back on our everyday practices and simply say “this is what we do” or “that’s what it is to be a human being.” Thus in the last analysis all intelligibility and all intelligent behavior must be traced back to our sense of what we are, which is, according to this argument, necessarily, on pain of regress, something we can never explicitly know. (1979: 57) The shared background, not being representable, cannot be communicated. But that need not worry us since all members of the linguistic community are socialized into the same world. (1991: 221)

(“Need not worry us” because the account of socialization is left to others.) Obviously members of the linguistic community are socialized so Dreyfus assures

 Chapter 2

that we need not worry about it. But if the background is not knowable, representable or communicable, then how could we possibly learn it? The answer I propose has to do with symmetry and symmetry breaking. What is learned in a culture is not only distinctive practices which follow rules, but abstract symmetry that informs all practices. Neuroscience, despite appearances, does not really advance over Pylkkö and Dreyfus, because a crucial part of the problem is left out. Neuroscience formulates background in terms of “nondeclarative memory” and contrasts it with “declarative memory.” Declarative memory is conscious, about facts and events, whereas nondeclarative memory is unconscious. Whereas declarative memory is tied to a particular brain system, nondeclarative memory refers to a collection of learned abilities with different brain substrates . . . These forms of nondeclarative memory, which provide for myriad unconscious ways of responding to the world, are evolutionarily ancient and observable in Aplysia and Drosophilia. (Kandel & Squires 2000: 1118)

Nondeclarative memory covers roughly the same ground as background and being-in-the-world. By virtue of the unconscious status of these forms of [nondeclarative] memory, they create some of the mystery of human experience. For here arise the dispositions, habits, attitudes, and preferences that are inaccessible to conscious recollection, yet are shaped by past events, influence our behavior and our mental life, and are a fundamental part of who we are. (ibid)

Nondeclarative memory, however, does not thematize the problem of how there can be memory of something which cannot be known, represented or communicated. Let’s try to develop a quantum account that does justice to aconceptual understanding, being-in-the-world, background, and nondeclarative memory, while considering the nature of the unaddressed learning process. .. Symmetry and order Symmetry and order are mutually exclusive. Symmetry means that “things are alike, exchangeable, indistinguishable among themselves” (Vitiello 2001: 30), whereas order breaks symmetry. Ordering is the making of distinctions. Unmagnetized iron atoms, for example, have magnetic moments that can point in any direction and so unmagnetized atoms carry no magnetic order, that is, are magnetically “symmetrical.” Magnetized atoms, however, are not free to rotate in any direction but all point in the same direction; they carry magnetic order. In liquid water and water vapor the molecules might be anywhere and so loca-

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain 

tion is symmetrical (space translation symmetry) but in the case of ice the symmetry is broken and the molecules are confined to specific locations in a lattice structure at definite intervals. Thus the breakdown of symmetry results in ordering. Symmetry is the undistinguished that can make room for variation; variables are stretched by the quantum physics of symmetry breaking. Symmetry breaking should be distinguished sharply from the dynamical rearrangement of symmetry. H2 O has three phases: liquid, solid and gas. (Note that quantum mechanics does not encompass change in phase; for phase change quantum field theory is required (Vitiello 2001: §2.4).) The underlying dynamics are rearranged across the phases while there is persistence of the group of transformations under which the form of the dynamical equation does not change. The different phases in the case of living brain tissue are the various qualia. Just as liquid, solid and gas are phases of water, so are touch, sound and odor different phases of brain systems. Dynamical rearrangement of symmetry gives the kinds of qualia whereas symmetry breaking within phase gives the values for a quale. There is a very different sense of symmetry, however, that can be confusing: symmetry in time. Here symmetry means an order comprising invariant relationships over time. Now the connotation of symmetry shifts from distinctionless to identity. Some order indistinguishable from its successor in time, which is in turn indistinguishable from its successor in time, is “symmetrical” in time. I shall accordingly distinguish symmetry in time, which is an order, from unordered rearranged symmetry. (A way to flag the distinction is to replace “symmetry” in time with “invariant” relationships over time.) To appreciate invariance (Gibson 1979), think of the projection on the retina as the dice tumble down the craps table. There is only a succession of rhomboids in the energy flux at the retina as the dice tumble away from us, yet we don’t see rhomboids, we see cubes. Certain abstract relationships between the angles and the lengths of the sides of the rhomboidal succession remain invariant, however, and specify cubeness. Gibson therefore would conclude that the constant cubeness of the tumbling die depends on the pickup of invariant relationships in the input flux that specify cubeness. Yasue, Jibu and Pribram (1991) show that the quantum brain encodes invariant relationships in the input flux. This conservation of invariance is based on fundamental energy conservation laws in physics and the Hamiltonian principle of least action. Such conservation of invariants depends on symmetry breaking in the vacuum states upheld by living neural tissue. Invariants are encoded as coherent Nambu-Goldstone bosons over macroscopic regions. Here invariance conservation becomes dynamical.

 Chapter 2

The symmetry which gets broken in the creation of observable ordered patterns is the symmetry, or invariance, of the dynamical equations. The group of transformations under which the form of the dynamical equation does not change defines the symmetry properties of the dynamics. . . . the same original symmetry of the dynamics may be dynamically rearranged in these different observable orderings. (Vitiello 2001: 30)

The group of conservative transformations reduces with symmetry breaking by invariant orders in the input flux while the symmetry lost is encoded in the Nambu-Goldstone bosons. .. Freedom Now Pylkkö holds that the origin of genuinely aconceptual human experiences may lie in the randomness of the underlying physical, chemical and biological phenomena which are effective in the human brain, body and environment during such experiences. (81)

This randomly based aconceptual experience controls the will, no decision of ours! the so-called freedom of will should be associated not directly with the results of the choices which we allegedly make in conscious thinking, speaking and planning, but with such genuinely aconceptual ingredients of our experience which, in some sense, precede conscious thinking, speaking and planning. (81)

Freedom for Pylkkö is founded in “asubjective randomness” on a quantum basis, and it is the randomness of quantum phenomena “which serves as the origin of the freedom of our mind” (271). By “freedom” he means “the unpredictability of the course which thinking and other experiences may take” (271). (Cf. Penrose 1994.) So “freedom” is not rational choice but unpredictability. Contrary to traditional views, freedom means that we cannot know, not even in principle, which direction we, our thoughts and actions, are going to take. (272)

Thus does Pylkkö assault metaphysics. Pylkkö’s resolve is to be rigorously asubjective but overshoots to a fundamental randomness that seems utterly unhuman. Bald randomness at the very ground of existence – that would be a schwach freedom. Let’s hope for something more robust than dull randomness . . . while retaining spontaneity and unpredictability. This is an idea of freedom as letting a “belonging to” – an

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain 

openness to belonging to Other – and so to match, in finding a mirror image in an ∼alter universe. Here free choice does not dominate but is a form of “releasement” (Gelassenheit) for belonging-to. Substituting stochastic belonging-together for randomness, where does this leave “freedom”? Aconceptual and so unpredictable, as Pylkkö says, but not random at heart. In the between of dual ontological modes, a matching is achieved, by no means random, but depending on the tuning of each mode. One mode is tuned by physical reality. Physical reality tunes one mode to carry its symmetry in time. The other mode is tuned by past re-cognitions and is highly sensitive to language. Although there is some random jitter to participation, the main work is done by selectiveness – the very opposite of randomness – the selection by belonging-to a community of participants. At the bottom is not Pylkkö’s randomness but consensus. This consensus is spontaneous, a spontaneous achievement governed by an energy minimization principle (a Hamiltonianlike least action principle (Yasue, Jibu, & Pribram 1991)). This consensus is also unpredictable. Our foreknowledge of the actual match achieved is statistical. This formulation retains the crucial features of Pylkkö’s “freedom” – spontaneity, unpredictability, (a little) randomness . . . in a word, play (Spiel, Jeu). But the boring, frivolously random ground is gone in the continual eruption that is Ereignis with its exclusivity of belonging-together. There is another way that Pylkkö’s asubjectivity goes too far. Rather than choosing, we are aconceptually chosen . . . but this does not necessarily imply that rational choice is a foolish illusion. Pylkkö’s position is also consistent with rational choice being one of the participants in an interaction in which participants that belong-together find each other, find coherences. That rational choice does not dominate does not imply that rational choice lacks influence. Let’s factor in rational choice, in proper perspective, no longer demiurgic, but of varying influence under least action consensus. In the moment that we try to “exercise our will,” we talk to ourselves. The aconceptual ground comes under some linguistic sway in the exercise of will. Let’s consider the drawn-out moment of exercising will, when deciding. Decision is thoroughly linguistic. Once made, decision can go on aconceptual autopilot. (A decision can even be made to let the next thing that pops into mind be the decision.) There is no true decision without language. The decision, then, becomes a participant, along with the instinctual decisions, the emotional decisions, and all the other decisions that participate in the interaction, open to belonging-together, some achieving unity.

 Chapter 2

De-cision, not in the literal sense of a cutting-away process, but in its result. A unity has been terminated in the fragmenting process of separating. Decision separates its selection from interpenetrated possibilities – or tries to, being subject to consensus along with the other participants in the interaction. The quantum mechanism of decision – of will – is linguistic. Linguistic input resonates in ∼systems via coherence. The resulting linguistic attunement – the de-cision that terminates the whole by bringing about a separation, a scission in the whole – participates with other attunements in the matching process with nonlinguistic input. I may tell myself “skip the chocolates” and tune myself to pass by the box, but my craving tunes me otherwise, leaving in-decision. Once the inner voice (Perlsian “top dog”) is hushed, no longer pumping the denial, “underdog” wins out. Or the inner voice can be excited and convinced – topdog’s triumph – effortfully maintaining dominance. This is to say that the weighting of the inner voice’s participation is variable. So in “exercising will” we talk to ourselves, and thereby tune ourselves for a certain task, participating in a heterological interaction of multiple participants. Deflating Pylkkö’s frame a bit, both aconceptual and conceptual participations, in varying ratio, control our actions. Variable participations select in virtue of making a match. In the between of the match, a world is selected for dis-closure. The between is a spontaneous disclosure, Da-sein, unpredictable, the play of Ereignis variously swayed by top dog and reason, underdog and desire. .. Pylkkö on “No brain, no Dasein” Pylkkö takes a sledgehammer to my slogan (Globus 1995), “No brain. No Dasein.” No Lichtung without Dasein’s brain, I insist. But Pylkkö’s anti-realism and anti-essentialism denies that the term “brain” has any persisting meaning. What we say about the thing which is in present-day neuroscience called the brain, may, in light of the future research, turn out to be based on a ridiculous conception . . . What today we happen to be denoting by the word brain may, according to future conceptions, simply turn out to be nonexistent. (98)

So the word “brain” will refer to “different phenomena in different historical, cultural and other experiential contexts” (98). Perhaps, Pylkkö argues, “brain” will not imply any separation from its environment, or perhaps it will not belong to the external world, or perhaps the brain’s outermost boundary lies with the most distant galaxies.

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain

Therefore the slogan No brain. No Dasein., in which the use of the word brain is understood to accord with the doxa of the present-day neuroscience, may simply be untenable in the future neuroscience or in some of its interpretations. (98–99)

But whatever the conventional range and meaning of the term “brain,” there must be locations where a very special type of physical event is supported, scattered locations where world is disclosed. This is by no means problematic. Location survives alive and well in quantum field theory (QFT) though not in quantum mechanics (QM), where position variables are subject to uncertainty and nonlocality. This is a great advantage of the more comprehensive QFT compared to QM. Pylkkö explicitly makes the assumption that “the best interpretation of the quantum theory allows us to eliminate macrophysical objects and handle them as handy fictions” (127), but QM is not the most advanced interpretation of quantum theory. With the help of the Bogoliubov transformation of the quantized field, we have shown succinctly that any macroscopic object . . . can be well described . . . A good old phenomenological description of a macroscopic object as a classical material body or a classical field in classical physics is derived as the mean (macroscopic) envelope structure of the θ-vacuum containing infinitely many quanta. (Jibu & Yasue 1995: 213)

Pylkkö would deny the traditional belief that “science cuts nature at her joints,” because he thinks of nature as quantum nature which really doesn’t have any joints; the joints, he thinks, are merely fictions that change over time. In my more modest deflation, nature’s joints are invariants preserved in our brains. Depending on how we question them in our situatedness, differing worlds are disclosed in the belonging-together that constitutes the between, Da-sein, but the form of the dynamical equations does not change under our questioning, which carves invariances out of nature. At certain well-defined locations a balance is continually achieved – a tildeconjugate match – in the interaction between non-tilde expressions of physical reality and tilde situatedness, and only at these very particular locations is there a lighting process that discloses the human world, and tethered to each of these particular addresses is a particular Dasein. No tilde-conjugate match, then no Da, no Lichtung, no Da-sein, not even no-thing . . . No ∼conjugate match? Dasein defaults to abground. There is, however, a problem with my “no brain, no Dasein” slogan as stated: “brain” is ambiguous. “Brain” could mean the object dis-closed if we peer through a window in the skull – what we commonsensically take to be





Chapter 2

the brain – which I will designate by “brainp ” (brain-presencing). Or “brain” could mean an unpresent macroscopic quantum object, brainq , whose symmetry is conserved by brainp , which accordingly can successfully stand in for brainq . Da-sein is associated with a tilde/nontilde match in the vacuum states of a functioning brainq . So my slogan should be stated more correctly: No brainq . No Da-sein. Da-sein supervenes on brainq ’s matched dual mode between. What it is to be brainq is to be the essential disclosedness that is Da-sein, a belonging-together in the between of dual modes. Counter-intuition counts for nothing here, since there can be no intuition of unpresence; in this respect intuition can only default itself and keep quiet.

. The postphenomenology of Arkady Plotnitsky .. General economy and the principle of complementarity Plotnitsky (2002) has not been content with the usual interpretation of Bohr’s quantum mechanics but has pushed on to Bohr’s insight that places “the ultimate objects of quantum mechanics, quantum objects, beyond the reach of quantum theory and beyond all knowledge and conception” (29). Bohr’s principle of complementarity “idealizes quantum ‘objects’ and ‘processes’ as something to which no possible physical description or conception is applicable” (36). Our knowledge is confined to the interaction between quantum “objects” and a classical measuring apparatus where it is limited by the uncertainty relation of Heisenberg. How postphenomenological is Bohr’s principle of complementarity? Plotnitsky (1994) thinks they are close. The argument of this study is for the general economic character of Bohr’s complementarity and, conversely, the complementary character of general economy. (19)

There is a “radical, irreducible loss in representation affecting any quantum system” (9), a loss which makes any purported representation an idealization and leaves knowledge incomplete. Thus, the loss in the content of observation or measurement makes quantum mechanics a general economic theory . . . . (20)

The system cannot fully control itself due to this loss, which shatters the dream of totalization.

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain

Plotnitsky (1994) assigns this irreducible loss to Heisenberg’s uncertainty relations. These relations describe the quantum physical necessity that the more certain we are about the value of one side of certain paired variables – e.g. position/momentum, time/energy – the less certain we are about the other. Thus if we know a particle’s momentum with great precision, we can have almost no idea of its location, and vice versa. Plotnitsky (1994) wants to see the uncertainty relations as the very useless, senseless loss of energy described in Bataille’s “general economy.” Due to Heisenberg’s uncertainty relations, quantum mechanics introduces a certain – general economic – loss in representation and thus irreducible incompleteness of knowledge as classically understood. (5)

Plotnitsky’s move linking Heisenberg uncertainty to Bataille will not work, however, because uncertainty is epistemic rather than ontological. If we know the position of a quantum object precisely, we are completely uncertain about its momentum. Indeed, the quantum object has neither position nor momentum until we inquire about it, a deflation of reality to co-dependence with a measuring apparatus. But “loss” in the general economy is ontological, not epistemic, and so the uncertainty relations do not provide a bridge to the general economy. General economic loss is ontological in that possibilities are lost – possible presences – whereas loss in the uncertainty principle is epistemic, a limitation in knowledge of simultaneous presences, of such paired observables as location and momentum. Indeed, Plotnitsky (2001) later shifts from epistemic to ontological loss. Sovereignty, thus, relates . . . to the irreducible loss of meaning, which is also always excessive, in particular with respect to any possibility of containing it by presence, consciousness and meaning. It is experienced or felt (in unknowledge) as unmanifest and unmanifestable in manifest effects, of which we can speak, for example, those of the loss of meaning, excessive expenditures, and so forth. (21)

Here the “loss” relates to the unknowable, unrelated to the uncertainty principle which applies to the uncertainty of knowables. In moving from Plotnitsky’s concentration on Bohr’s quantum physics to dual mode quantum theory, a refined sense of “loss” opens up, which I think is close to Bataille’s intention. The loss in dual mode nonHermitean QBD takes place in the matching process. Much more is offered to the match by the ∼mode than the nontilde mode can belong to. After all, incompatible possibilities can co-“exist” as eigenstates of the quantum system. In the match most of

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Chapter 2

these possibilities are uselessly and senselessly lost, and so the matching process well qualifies as general economic. When two modes with a Hamiltonian difference make a ∼conjugate match, the modes’ between lights up; some possibility is actualized in the match, the rest lost. It is such loss of unmatched possibility that is the loss of meaning which characterizes the general economy. This continuous loss is accordingly ontological and unrelated to the uncertainty relations. In Plotnitsky’s hands there are multiple and heterogeneous representations – complementarity is heterological – and these representations are interactive in such a way that a complete synthesis cannot be attained. Heterology in, heterology out. The general economy cannot be captured by mutually exclusive descriptions; it is as such indescribable, only its effects describable. Let’s go into Bataille’s general economy more deeply and consider its “sovereignty.” It is characteristic of the general economy that there are unused excesses. According to Bataille, the general economy is a “science” – a theoretical framework and textual practice – by means of which one can relate to the production, material or intellectual, of excesses that cannot be utilized. (Plotnitsky 1994: 19)

Bataille calls this meaningless wasteful loss “sovereignty.” There is no controlling ground, as in Hegel, where Geist secures synthesis. Unknowable loss and sovereignty are linked in Bataille. Unknowable loss precludes totalization, leaving the general economy sovereign. Derrida brings out the “nonmeaning” of sovereignty, which supplements untotalizeable with indifferent exhaustion, the baselessness of the nonmeaning from which the basis of meaning is drawn, and in which this basis of meaning is exhausted. (WD: 257)

Sovereignty is a “silence which tolerates no relations” (WD, 264), is “absolved of every relationship” (266), indifferent. This nonmeaning of sovereignty is not a negativity because it has no reserved underside, because it can no longer permit itself to be converted into positivity, because it can no longer collaborate with the continuous linking-up of meaning, concept, time and truth in discourse; because it literally can no longer labor and let itself be interrogated as the “work of the negative”. (WD: 259)

The nonmeaning of sovereignty defaults the domain where positive and negative apply. Sovereignty is not subordinate to anything nor is anything subordinated to sovereignty which “is indifferent to any possible results” (264).

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain

Sovereignty has its own form of writing. Presence is “irremediably eluded” in such a trace which “constitutes itself as the possibility of absolute erasure” (265). Sovereign writing is written as textual defaults. The rupturing of text is the trace of sovereignty. Sovereignty, then, is excessive, unrelated and defaulting, and so quite unlike complementary description which unites incompatibles in its totalizing principle. Plotnitsky extends Bohr’s principle of complementarity. Let’s follow closely his discussion. The “quantum postulate” is that ontology is discontinuous – individuates – symbolized by Planck’s quantum of action, h. Plotnitsky wants to tie the quantum postulate together with complementarity and anti-epistemology. For Bohr, an independent reality in the ordinary physical sense can neither be ascribed to the phenomena nor to the agencies of observation. (Bohr 1987: 53)

The autonomous deterministic reality of metaphysics gives way to an acausal reality whose properties depend on the method of observation. Yet Bohr retains the common sense assumption. Ultimately, every observation can, of course, be reduced to our sense perceptions. (1987: 54)

Bona fide Seinsvergessen! But prior to that, the observation as such induces indeterminacy in what will be observed, both kinematic and dynamical indeterminacy. For any understanding of both light and matter, there is, Bohr says, “an inevitable dilemma” (57) brought on by experimental evidence, which the complementarity principle is meant to resolve. Though revolutionary, the complementary description offers a “natural generalization of the classical mode of description” (57). This generalization of the classical remains a restricted economy in Bataille’s terms – nothing is lost ontologically. Complementary descriptions are totalizing within the domain of the knowable. Even though anticausal, incompatible and indeterminate, complementarity’s losses are “merely” epistemic. Complementarity gets us part of the way to the general economy in that general economic “loss” is vitiated to uncertainty about meaning, but loss in Bataille is more profound, a loss of meaning altogether. The antiepistemology of complementarity is weak. For Bohr, quantum physical reality is neither wave nor particle. Wave and particle pictures are “related in a complex way to observed traces and their

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Chapter 2

efficacity” (Plotnitsky 1994: 69) but reality is neither. What is observed is an effect without classical cause. The general economy of complementarity is fundamentally conditioned by the irreducible dependence of quantum processes on the experimental arrangements, where quantum effects are observed, and [on] the mathematical formalism – in particular, uncertainty relations – that accounts for them. (Plotnitsky 1994: 69)

In the mathematical formalism, the incompatibility of the experimental arrangements is called “non-commutative.” (Non-commutation is mathematically symbolized by two mutually exclusive operators, P and Q, required for the unambiguous description of the experimental arrangements, where PQ is unequal to QP.) Plotnitsky approves of the broadening of “complementarity” by Abraham Pais. Complementarity can be formulated without explicit reference to physics, to wit, as two aspects of a description that are mutually exclusive yet both necessary for a full understanding of what is to be described. (Pais 1991: 24)

Here Plotnitsky dilutes out the uncertainty relations in this generalization of physics, a case of throwing out the baby with the bath. Now complementarity is defined solely in terms of mutual exclusivity. Plotnitsky is content with multiple operative configurations, so long as they do not lend themselves “to a full synthesis, Hegelian or other” (Plotnitsky 1994: 73), so long as the constituents act jointly, at times complementarily, at times conflicting with or inhibiting each other, at times mutually exclusive; but never allowing for a full synthesis. (73)

There can be no full synthesis of complementaries. Jointly under general economy and complementarity, a “concurrent consideration of concepts, metaphors, or frameworks [is] always necessary” (74), that is, a heterology, a participatory (i.e. concurrent) dynamical heterology without arch¯e or telos. (See also Gasché 1986.) Complementarity is a very broadly conceived interconnectivity, except that it equally implies, under certain conditions, the possibility of mutual exclusivity, conflictuality, irreconcilable features of description, and other forms of discontinuity, both from without and from within. (75)

Here complementarity is vitiated to an anti-epistemological weapon against totalization, which is a far cry from quantum physics.

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain

But at the ontological level, what is lost is unmatched possibilities, each time a ∼conjugate match is made in the interconnectivity. “Sovereignty is the impossible,” as Derrida (WD: 397) writes, the unmatched, the impossibility of presencing and thereby wasted, unknowable. This ontological loss is general economic. There is a continual flux of possibilities, some selected for actualization, presencing, the rest wasted, and so qualifying as general economic. The dual mode ontology offers a between of dis-closure, and in the non-Hermitean case, ∼traces are possibilities resonating disseminatively. These ∼trace possibilities offer a tilde attunement to the vacuum interaction with external energy coming in: the between in their ∼conjugate match is associated with presencing. Plotnitsky quotes Wheeler and Zurek who express deflationary realism. Nature at the quantum level is not a machine that goes its inexorable way. Instead what answer we get depends on the question we put, the experiment we arrange, the registering device we choose. We are inescapably involved in bringing about that which appears to be happening. (Wheeler & Zurek 1983: 185)

We are involved in two ways. First we put the question – enacting operations – and so determine what is found there. But more radically, we bring about the appearance, too; not only what the appearance is but that it is, not only the way something looks (eidos) but presence as such. Our attunement shapes what can appear (by constraining the ∼conjugate match) and explains what does appear (in the match). Bohr’s complementarity principle quite forgets Being. Wave function collapse for Bohr describes the observer’s knowledge; knowledge of possibilities collapses to the direct knowledge of an actual presencing to the observer. Both pre- and post-collapse, Being is assumed – commonsensically, pragmatically. (Possibilities, after all, are possibilities of presencing.) Complementarity is the furthest reach of metaphysics, drawing closer to general economy, along Plotnitsky’s line of development, but not fully belonging to general economy in the complementarity principle’s retaining a tacit metaphysics of presence. In general economy presencing is coupled to loss. Presence is derivative – abground takes precedence – and the loss takes place in the process of derivation . . . hence the coupling of presencing and loss. What is lost is possibilities of actualization, unmatched possibilities go unused, are wasted. In the matching process, presence is derived in the between and simultaneously unmatched possibilities are lost, which qualifies as general economy. The dynamics of the general economy link presence and loss – presence in virtue of mak-

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Chapter 2

ing a ∼conjugate match and loss of possible presences that went unmatched. The possibilities are meanings which may or may not be fulfilled in actuality, so Bataille’s “loss of meaning” as characteristic of the general economy applies to unmatched possibilities. Dual mode QBD is a general economy, whereas quantum mechanics is a restricted economy. Derrida sagely points out that the general economy “does not describe unknowledge, for this is impossible, but only the effects of unknowledge” (WD: 270). The alter universe as such is categorically inaccessible – unavailable to our direct acquaintance – but the alter’s defaulting traces in on our universe permit us to at least re-mark the alter universe. The traces of general economic writing are defaults, nonmeanings, unknowables. The “effects of unknowledge” are defaults in knowledge. Plotnitsky’s discussion is greatly influenced by Bataille. The “general economy” that I have shown here is quantum, pace Plotnitsky, but I face in a different direction than Bataille and Plotnitsky, inward toward a biological brain with quantum degrees of freedom, inward toward quantum neurophysics, not outward like Bataille, toward social, historical and politico-economic processes, nor outward in the sense of Copenhagen quantum mechanics, like Plotnitsky. Can dual mode QBD be considered a general economy a la Bataille? In discussions of the general economy there is a certain continental overemphasis on the loss and less emphasis on the excess. (This is the proverbial glass half-empty vs. glass half-full.) The general economy is excessive and wasteful, compared to the flat efficiency of silicon “restricted” (classical) economies. The general economy is a strange dynamics of excess, presence and waste. Dual mode quantum brain dynamics displays this general economy, with its excess of possible matches, the actual matches – hence presencings – and the waste of unmatched possibilities. Excess, presence, waste – these are characteristics of a general economy. The general economy is under no controlling regime; its excess and waste are unregimented, unsubordinated, unTuring-like. Instead of control, the general economy accepts participants, and presencing is explicated in their optimized consensus. The general economy is Seyn-like in gifting presence while withdrawing in waste . . . a gift in the dual mode match, a withdrawing waste of the unmatched, a continually renewed presencing and waste of excess that is our lot as Da-sein.

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain

.. Bataille and the unknowable Plotnitsky’s (2001) article, “Effects of the Unknowable: Materialism, Epistemology, and the General Economy of the Body in Bataille,” is especially concerned with the irreducibly unknowable (unsavoir) and its effects in Bataille, who encounters the impossible. The interior experience of this encounter is to be distinguished from “the classical concept of experience as the experience of presence and particularly of consciousness” (17). Interior experience lacks presencing. Interior experience is “at the limit” of possible presences and “on the threshold of the impossible” (17). We shall try to listen to unsavoir as ∼mode, and shall see that we can do so. General and restricted economies in Bataille are not opposed. It is crucial that general economy entails a deployment of restricted economy . . . a general economy is the science of the relationships between what is accessible by restricted-economic means and what is inaccessible by any means. (21)

What is accessible presences; presencing is restricted-economic. The restricted economy is restricted to the ∼conjugate match of the between. The nontilde mode also is restricted-economic; though unpresent, under the restricted economy of quantum mechanics (first quantization) the nontilde mode ultrarapidly collapses to presence. The ∼mode is inaccessible by any means, and so is general-economic. The inaccessible is manifest within the restricted economy, however, by its effects (22). The efficacity as such of the inaccessible is inaccessible to any representation, strictly speaking impossible to conceive (23). Unsavoir can only be properly spoken of via its effects. The ∼mode, too, is only manifest within the restricted economy of presence by constraining participation in the match, resulting in particular presencings. The individual is distinguished sharply from the collective. . . . the representation of the ‘collective’ may, in certain circumstances, be subject to organization and law; that of the “individual” is irreducibly lawless. (22)

Collectivity is phenomenal, manifest, present, whereas individuality is “singularity – manifest lawlessness in relation to a given law, or to law in general” (24). Here we may read “individuality” as nontilde default which does not participate in the lawful nomological network and thus remains sovereign. To encounter such individuality is to encounter the impossible, the irreducibly unknowable, the loss of meaning, which is to have “interior experi-

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 Chapter 2

ence” (Bataille 1988). Botting and Wilson (1997) unpack what Bataille means by “interior experience,” the opening out into an unbearably unfamiliar or foreign condition exterior to the comforts and defenses of consciousness. The writing of ‘inner experience’ describes that movement beyond the attainment, in meditation or ecstasy, of a knowing summit of experience and into an abyss of un-knowing or non-knowledge. Inner experiences describes an anguished tearing of individual experience and existence from within and without itself, an encounter with forces at the extreme limit of possibility. (8)

It is the ∼mode that is an abyssal condition foreign to consciousness, beyond presence possible and actual. (Interior experience is the experience of Heidegger’s “few” who brave the encounter with abground.) An encounter with implications of the ∼universe, too, may engender interior vertiginous experience of default beyond possible presence and impossible presence (both of which make reference to presence). Interior experience as encounter with the impossible is distinguished, then, from “the classical concept of experience as the experience of presence and particularly of consciousness” (17). Plotnitsky defines Bataille’s practice in terms of “heterogeneous but mutually engaging relationships among various problematics, terms, concepts, fragments and other elements of Bataille’s text” (18), relationships which are not summable in a totality. We can read “heterogenous but mutually engaging relationships” as quantum coherence across otherwise heterogeneous water dipole field participants. Coherence is a function of either common symmetry or contiguity (association). Heterogeneous coherent participants become “mutually engaged,” either in virtue of symmetry or association, via their interaction with the pervasive electromagnetic field. Incoherent participants are disengaged, lost to presencing, and so untotalizably sovereign. .. Plotnitsky on play Plotnitsky (2002) points out that Derrida’s sense of “play” is like “the play of the world” (185), how things “play out.” Derrida’s Jeu is represented mathematically by an evolution equation – such as Schrödinger’s famous evolution equation for how the wave function plays out – with both chance and the surprise of collapse thrown in. Plotnitsky calls this dynamic of playing out “nonclassical.” In this dynamic, space or space-time, or even “the world,” however conceived, are not given as a background on which whatever “play” of events takes place. The space-time world before us is not a playground for events.

PostHeideggerian postphenomenology and the Quantum Brain

Instead we deal with différance and play in which such effects as space and time, or space-time, or even whatever appears (including phenomenologically) to us as world, emerge in a nonclassical manner, while their ultimate efficacity remains inaccessible. (185–186)

In the nonclassical account world emerges out of inaccessible operations. The operations efficaciously providing world are of the abground, unknowable, abyssal. Suppose we let those inaccessible operations be dual mode. Then world is disclosed in the efficacity of the dual quantum modes ∼conjugate match. Efficacity is of the match. The play lies in the shifting match between attunement and reality, jiggled by chance, in which whatever appears to us as world emerges. Différance is efficacious as an attunement of interpenetrated possibilities which is a powerful constraint on the match. The attunement constrains both what does, and accordingly what does not, appear to us. Certain appearances are avoided in virtue of the attunement, even defended against appearing. The Freudian defense-attunement includes/excludes what will make a match. (“What” here is symmetry, invariance (see §1.8).) So the ∼attunement primed for certain possible presences is also capable of deferring endlessly other possible presences to consciousness. Dual mode QBD is thoroughly nonclassical in the sense developed by Plotnitsky. Plotnitsky considers the interface between first quantization (quantum mechanics) and postphenomenology (especially Bataille, Lacan and Derrida). I consider the interface between an extension of second quantization to an open system – the living quantum thermofield theoretical brain – and postphenomenology. Quantum mechanics applies to closed systems whereas thermofield dynamics applies to open systems. The difference between closed and open systems is categorical, like the difference between the silicon “brain” of your computer and your own living brain. Quantum mechanics and quantum field theory both presume closed, utterly dead systems. A much richer quantum theory is necessary to consider the immense complexity of living systems like the human brain – a theory which Umezawa provides with thermofield dynamics. What a gift! Now a living autopoietic, autorhoetic system evolves in which traces of presences persist. These traces stretch a past, and a future too, that is, stretch time. Not only the gift of time in virtue of traces, but also the gift of Being.

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 Chapter 2

We saw that re-cognition is required for presence. Re-cognition is the match of possibilities – attunement – with the autopoietic, autorhoetic system’s surrounding physical reality that selects one of the possibilities for actualization, dis-closure amidst the unknowable. So dual mode QBD offers a theory of presence, dis-closure, local clearings in the withdrawal of abground, singularities in the unknowable abground – that’s us – singularities in the unknowable. In QBD’s theory of trace, time is born. We are singularities of the abground where world is dis-closed out of the match between possibility and reality. Monadic singularities in lighting a Lichtung amidst the unknowable . . . Dual mode QBD proposes the neurophysics of the lighting process. Time: We stretch a future of possibilities based on preservation of past symmetry. These are anticipations of what might become present. We each stretch a time dimension – past and future – based on trace. Subjective time is a function of trace, and objective time a function of presencing clocks. Since trace (to-be-matched) is originary to presence (the match), subjective time as a mode of the unknowable Abgrund is originary to presence, Sein no longer the equal of Zeit, which opens a big crack with Heidegger, though filled by Derrida’s dislocation. We are “points of light” in a quantum abground, singularities of the ground, the case of ∼conjugate match of ∼attunement and non∼ reality, in which world is formatively dis-closed from the closet of interpenetrating possibility. Lumen naturale in the belonging-together of dual quantum modes . . . .

. Précis Aspects of the postphenomenologies of Dreyfus, Pylkkö and Plotnitsky have been presented, critiqued and appropriated in this chapter for thinkingtogether with dual mode quantum brain dynamics. I have shown docking places for these discourses where they belong-together. Pylkkö had removed a barrier to this endeavor by showing that Heidegger’s critique of ontotheological science does not apply to quantum physics. Dreyfus extended Heidegger’s philosophy and with absorbed coping framed Heidegger in more accessible contemporary terms. Plotnitsky moved on from Heidegger to Bataille, Lacan and Derrida, and thought them together with Bohr’s idealization of unknowability. In Section III I turn to discussion of Derrida and attempt to think him together with dual mode QBD.

Chapter 3

Derrida and the Quantum Brain

. . . he who through “methodological prudence,” “norms of subjectivity,” or “safeguards of knowledge” would refrain from committing anything of himself, would not read at all. (Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, p. 64) . . . the simple must inscribe the possibility of being divided within itself; in order to be simple, the simple must already be double. (Rodolphe Gasché, The tain of the mirror, p. 226) Imagine that mirrors would not be in the world, simply, included in the totality of all onta and their images, but that things “present,” on the contrary, would be in them. (Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, p. 324) The Stranger comes from elsewhere and is always somewhere other than we are, not belonging to our horizon and not inscribing himself upon any representable horizon whatsoever, so that his ‘place’ would be invisible. (Maurice Blanchot, The infinite conversation, p. 52) It’s enough not to interrupt the colloquium, even when it is already late. The Spirit which keeps watch in returning [as a ghost] will always do the rest. Through flame or ash, but as the entirely other, inevitably. (Jacques Derrida, Of Spirit, p. 113)

. Transition The postphenomenological focus of the first two sections has been mainly on presencing (Sein), aconceptual situatedness (Zeit) and abground (Seyn with its Ereignis dynamics). This concentration has been thought-together with dual mode thermofield quantum brain dynamics. The focus now shifts to “writing” in the postphenomenology of Jacques Derrida and thinks him together with quantum brain theory. “Thinking-together” is perhaps too grand a banner for reading Derrida, who we come across, think-together with for a stretch, and then depart from. The discourse spaces of Derrida and dual mode QBD have certain conceptual modes that dock well, belong-together, which suffices for thinking-together, even while the majority of concepts remains incoherent. Derrida’s great endeavor is obscured both by predilection and principle. The fluidity of Derrida’s thought reflects his fundamentally dynamical ontology, where there is continual change grounded in indefinable undecidable unnameables. His love of flux is Heraclitean in spirit, but much more than a flow: Derrida’s heterological dynamics is tracing, re-marking, differing, deferring, disseminating and other infrastructural processings (Gasché 1986; Plotnitsky 1994). Johnson (1993) is emphatic that “Derrida’s work is philosophy, and an extremely rigorous philosophy” (9), and although difficult to reduce Derrida’s system to a set of concepts, “the formal rigour of his argument remains undiminished” (188). We shall see that there are ways of talking lucidly about the indefinable, undecidable unnameables of Derridean dynamics, ways which make use of the ∼universe. Umezawa offers an ontological complexity never before achieved prior to thermofield dynamics, in which dual modes thrive and disclose world in the belonging-together of their between.

 Chapter 3

. Of spirit (Geist) Derrida points out that in Sein und Zeit (1927), Heidegger “disinherits” the term “spirit” (Geist). Why, Derrida (1989) asks, does Geist not occupy the place it deserves alongside the major themes and major terms: being, Dasein, time, the world, history, ontological difference, Ereignis, etc.? (4)

Later Heidegger, however, is preoccupied with Geist. The great acuity of Derrida’s (66) deconstructive eye even catches Heidegger quoting himself, eight years later, but removing his original quotation marks around Geist. Geist is a unifying unity, another name for the One and the Versammlung, one of the names of collecting and gathering. (9)

What is collected and gathered belongs together. Geist gives the possibility of questioning, questioning that constrains what collects and gathers. Geist, says Derrida, “seems to designate, beyond a deconstruction, the very resource for any deconstruction and the possibility of any evaluation” (15).

The highest gift (Geschenk) The more original a thought the richer its Un-thought becomes. The Unthought is the highest gift (Geschenk) that a thought can give. (Heidegger, WCT: 76) The Unthought is ∼mode. The ∼resonance of conventional thought is restricted – a less rich coherence – whereas the ∼resonance of original thought spreads widely. Disseminative resonance is the unthought ∼mode’s highest gift, a coherence which conventional thought restricts. The words of the poet, in contrast, evoke widespread resonance in the unthought.

Derrida distinguishes the traditional Geist as having a common feature: to be opposed to the thing, to the metaphysical determination of thing-ness, and above all to the thingification of the subject, of the subjectivity of the subject as supposed by Descartes. This is the series of soul, consciousness, spirit, person. Spirit is not the thing, spirit is not the body. (15)

Geist for Derrida can not be “thingified” (16). Nor does it fall into time, in that “spirit is essentially temporalization” (Derrida, OS: 29).

Derrida and the Quantum Brain 

Though of a series that includes feminine “soul” (Seele, psych¯e), masculine Geist is distinguished from feminine soul (anima) in Heidegger’s appropriation. Spirit gifts soul – spirit ensouls – and soul nourishes spirit. The soul “must consent, or lend itself ” (105) to the spirit that endows it. Soul carries a burden. Solitary and voyaging, the soul must assume the weight of its destiny (Geschick). It must gather itself in the One, carry and carry itself towards the essence assigned to it . . . . (105)

Thus Webster’s prefers soul to spirit “when the emphasis is on the entity having functions, responsibilities, aspects or a destiny.” Soul is engaged, gathered, whereas the more originary spirit gathers: “the Geist is the unconditioned absolute which determines and gathers every entity” (76). Geist is “the spirit of gathering” (76). The gathering spirit is thought thinking itself. What makes it “truly spirit” is its gathering by thinking. Spirit gathers “by thinking itself, thus finding itself at home, close up to itself (zu Hauss)” (76). Spirit is “that which gathers or in which what gathers is gathered . . . ” (76). In thinking itself, the gathering of Spirit is the belonging-together of the same, the matched between in which I claim world is disclosed. From 1933 on, Derrida recounts, Heidegger no longer avoids spirit, “begins to talk of spirit and in the name of spirit” (OS: 83). Twenty years later Geist is “fire, flame, burning, conflagration” (83), but in a special sense: Geist is not only inflaming but self-inflaming, enfiring. “Spirit catches fire and gives fire” (84), both self-affecting and affecting other. Flame is “glowing lumination” (Heidegger, OWL: 179). “Spirit is flame. It glows and shines” (OWL: 181). Spirit literally en-lightens, a welling process of lighting. The German language is crucial to understanding Geist as flame. Heidegger famously claimed that Greek and German are the only truly philosophical languages, but the ever-surprising Derrida says that actually only German has the resources to understand properly Geist, through the idiom gheis, which means: To be thrown (aufgebracht), transported [or transposed, deported . . . and I believe this is the most determining predicate] outside itself (ausser sich). (OS: 98, brackets original)

The German string of symbols ‘gheis’ sways the sense of Geist, to pass ecstatically outside itself; it gives itself Being outside itself . . . : spirit in flames – gives and catches fire all by itself . . . . (Derrida’s translation, 98, of Heidegger, OWL: 179)

Heidegger’s Geist is ek-static, which is his solution to the problem of transcendence (see §1.22 above).

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. . . the nature of spirit consists in a bursting into flame, it strikes a new course, lights it, and sets man on the way. (OWL, 1971: 179)

Geist is the fiery ekstatikon, the “original outside itself ” (BP), which allows the immanent to reach the transcendent. So long as Heidegger thinks (metaphysically) a world is there – right there at that world address – awaiting some Dasein to come by and dis-close it, then he has an inside/outside, immanent/transcendent problem. Heidegger smoothly posits ekstases and gives to Geist the quintessential role of gheis, whose nature just is to be outside itself, originarily transcending. If the world right there is continually generated in parallel across Daseins, however, then the transcendence problem collapses. If world thrownness is an immanent product in parallel formation, then no need for Geist to get outside itself. Heidegger’s Geist will be reinterpreted – and in a way that German loses its linguistic primacy. Spirit as flame has an eruptive, spontaneous nature, self-enfiring. . . . what is proper to spirit is this auto-affective spontaneity which has need of no exteriority to catch fire or set fire. (98)

Here fire is supposed to be immanently self-inflaming and transcendently consuming other. Setting fire is consumption. Geist consumes as it erupts in light. “Hölderlin is he who has been struck by the God of light . . . on the return path from his walk towards the fire” (81). Geist is self-consuming in the eruption of light – its element clearly Fire. Hölderlin’s Beseeler – the spirit that ensouls: He who consumes himself. He would be almost ash the animator.

(quoted by Derrida, 81). Such a process is dynamical, self-consuming and light bringing. Let’s consider if spirit and soul might be thought together with quantum brain dynamics. At first blush the two discourses seem to have nothing in common, no docking place where they might be thought-together, gathered into a unity. It seems as if the old schism survives in the shift from classical to quantum science. But let’s see if some thinking-together can be accomplished.

. Of quantum spirit Can dual mode QBD describe a dynamical self-consuming process that brings light? QBD is of course dynamical and describes the lighting process of the vacuum state between. The lighting of world thrownness is the conflagration of a ∼conjugate match. Con-flagration – to burn-with – dual modes that burn

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only in the match. (A mismatch strikes no spark.) So far, so good, in thinking spirit together with quantum theory. But what of self-consumption? First, let’s “locate” the “soul.” The soul is tilde, solitarily provisioned for a journey (the original sense of “voyage”) in its quantum ∼attunement. The weight of the soul’s destiny is participation of reality in its processes. The ∼soul is gathered with the essence (Wesen) assigned to it, achieving (by least action) a ∼conjugate match. What is consumed in the lighting process that is Geist is possibility. “That which both catches (or takes) and gives is fire” (84). The spirit/fire “takes” the possibilities of Wesen – interpenetrated invariances – possibilities which it may catch on to. The spirit/fire also “takes” the possibilities of the ∼soul and may “catch” its possibilities. Spirit/fire “gives” light in the ∼conjugate match of Wesen and ∼soul, whilst unmatched possibilities are consumed. That which both selects and is selected constitutes the lighted between. Outside the possibilities selected there is only the useless, senseless loss of a “general economy” (Bataille). Unmatched possibilities are dissipated in the match, while a presencing world is cleared. So Geist is of the between. Wesen and soul are dual modes that nourish the between in a continually renewed process. The lumen naturale turns on – actuality gained in the match of possibles – with unmatched possibilities turned to ash. Lighting and general economic loss in the ∼conjugate match of the between are the very traits of Geist. If Geist is thinkable this way, then Spirit is quantum. How strange . . . The computer and a computer-like brain have no place for Spirit. Modernity ousts Spirit by relegating it to religious belief. In the contemporary context Spirit v. science, no contesta. But what if Spirit is quantum? The rapprochement . . . sweet! Spirit and science able peacefully to dock (elsewhere going their separate ways). But O wormwood, O bitter breaking of m¯ay¯a’s chains, in the rapprochement the quotidian world-in-common is deconstructed to parallel worlds.

. Self-referentiality and undecidability in Gödel and Derrida Derrida has provided a means to elide Gödel undecidability, though Derrida (D: 219) himself thinks his undecidability is analogous to Gödel’s. However, there is a crucial point missing from Derrida’s anti-Hegelian rendition of Gödel undecidability.

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An undecidable proposition, as Gödel demonstrated in 1931, is a proposition which, given a system of axioms governing a multiplicity, is neither an analytical nor deductive consequence of those axioms, nor in contradiction with them, neither true nor false with respect to those axioms. Tertium datur, without synthesis. (Derrida, D: 219)

Derrida does not mention that Gödel’s (1990) undecidable self-referential proposition relies on a metamathematical perspective. On a deeper penetration of Gödel’s theorem than undertaken by Derrida, an illuminating difference between Derrida and Gödel is found. Furthermore, Umezawa’s (1993) quantum brain dynamics (QBD) can be reconciled with Derridean undecidability; Derrida and Umezawa can be thought-together in a way that opens a reinterpretation of Gödel’s theorem. The key move is to achieve self-reference via defaults.

. The liar paradox Gödel’s famous theorem has roots in philosophy at the time of ancient Greece. Epimenides, the Cretan, swore that all Cretans are liars. If what Epimenides swears is true, he is a liar; and if he lies, then there is at least one Cretan who is not a liar, a mantle Epimenides himself seizes. Gödel ingeniously found a way to embed this “liar paradox” (which has many versions) within a self-referential formula, G, in a formalized calculus, S, with axiomatized resources of a certain richness. Legal claims in S, which include G’s self-referential claim, may or may not turn out to be theorems of S, that is, may or may not be demonstrable within the formalized, consistent system, S. The “undecidable” self-referring formula, G, is indeed a formal version of Epimenides’ claim, claiming in effect that G is not demonstrable in S. So if the formula G can be demonstrated to be a theorem of S, G cannot be demonstrated, and if the formula not-G can be demonstrated to be a theorem of S, G can be demonstrated. Thus the legal self-referring formula G can be neither proved nor disproved within S, so long as S does not permit contradiction within itself. G is left undecidable. But exactly how does Gödel construct G? That construction will next be considered, and it will be seen that Gödel’s method could not be tolerated by a consistent Derrida, and so the “analogy” Derrida sees with Gödel turns out to be based on an unnoticed metaphysical residue within Derrida’s thought.

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. Gödel’s self-referential undecidable construction Gödel’s trick of getting a legal formula of S to contradict itself relies on something external to S, a metamathematical perspective on S, which has available the full subjective resources of the mathematician, rather than being constricted to the axiomatized resources within S. Gödel assumes an autonomous subjectivity in taking this metamathematical perspective on S. Gödel is a proud Platonist. Any analogy to Gödel by Derrida would deeply betray the movement of deconstruction. A metamathematical claim about S is made, and then this claim is put into S. Gödel’s mechanism for getting metamathematical claims back within the formalized calculus relies on a code consisting of prime numbers taken to powers and multiplied. Every formula has a unique “Gödel number,” and the formula sequences of every proof as well have a unique Gödel number. The prime Gödel number not only provides a unique address for a specific formula, the formula is folded up inside the Gödel number address and, given the proper algorithm, can be recovered. The Gödel number of the self-referential G is designated G#. G# is an address that includes a trace of G. Gödel contrives for metamathematical claims about S to be mirrored in arithmetical properties and relations of certain integers within S. So G’s self-referential claim is along these lines (cf. Nagel & Newman 1958): There is no Gödel number that is the Gödel number of a proof of the formula with Gödel number G#. The liar paradox comes about because Gödel admits, in addition to the formalized system, the full subjectivity of the metamathematical mathematician (Penrose 1994: Chapter 2) which is used to make G contradict itself. Without the metaphysical granting of mathematical subjectivity G cannot be even constructed. So there are two kinds of subjectivity in Gödel: a highly restricted formal subjectivity, strictly confined to the axioms and theorems of S, and the unrestricted subjectivity of the metamathematical observer of S in all her Cartesian glory. Plotnitsky (1994: 200) points out that “Gödel’s own philosophy of mathematics was fundamentally metaphysical – a form of Platonism.” Gödel’s theorem is steeped in metaphysics. But Derrida’s (1976) unyielding stance is against any metaphysics of subjectivity. There can be no “analogy” between Derrida’s and Gödel’s undecidability, because a consistent Derrida does not grant the mathematical subjectivity on which Gödel’s theorem is based. Since Derrida’s postphenomenological discourse is far from Gödel’s mathematical discourse, the falling out of Derrida and Gödel might seem of no consequence to either. However, the problems that follows upon self-

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reference merely relocate in Derrida, surfacing in writing. Derrida provides an ingenious solution.

. Marks and re-marks Self-referentiality is addressed by Derrida in noting that for a mark to be a mark, it must be iterable. The mark, to be a mark, must include an other, an other which yet is “the same,” under the iterability requirement. A selfsufficient mark – one that does not rely on someone’s subjectivity – must somehow include self-as-other within itself. The self-sufficient mark marks iteration and so is self-referring. This is one of the elevated features of the mark over a mere physical configuration of any type: the self-sufficient mark marks itself as other, whereas nontextual configurations are not self-referring. For there to be self and other (of course including self-as-other), some kind of boundary to self must be established. Classically this is an external boundary of self beyond which other lies. Classically self and its iterations each have external boundaries that separate them all. Self-reference here is a matter of taking an other that iterates self and putting this other back into self. This drags the external boundary within, so now the self is internally disrupted by a self-other, leaving the self with inner contradiction. This is just the path that Gödel follows in constructing his undecidable theorem. A cunning metamathematical subjectivity plants a contradiction in G by standing external to S, treating G as an object, and folding its objective claim about self back into an S that is confined to its own axiomatized resources. The logical movement here in effect makes a subject refer to itself as an object, which is a recipe for self-contradictory self-reference and Gödel’s tertium datur. Derrida’s fresh approach to self-reference is to refer to the self as a default in the self, a tear, a “hole” in self. The default is a singularity where selfproperties break down. The hole is a trace of a trace – of an “arche-trace” – that lies in another mode, unreachable by self. Derrida calls these holes “remarks” where “nothing takes place but the place” (D: 257). That is, re-marks have an address but nothing is present at that address. Nonetheless, singularities that are re-marks mark marks of the alter mode. Re-marks are traces of the alter mark, the other. The mark is re-marked by the default, “inscribes itself within itself, reflects itself within itself under the form of what it is not” (Gasché, 222). The re-mark is continually retracted, an addressible default that can never present itself.

Derrida and the Quantum Brain

So Derrida admits three kinds of traces: (1) ordinary marks there on the page, (2) “arche-traces” which are unpresent, and (3) “re-marks” which are traces of arche-traces. Re-marks open a novel way to iterate the self, a way that leaves no indigestible self-object. Self-reference is accomplished via re-marks that have an address but nothing can be predicated of them. Re-marks fall outside of conventional logic and so self-reference via a default cannot be forced into a form of the liar paradox. Instead of self-reference depending on an alter Platonic subject who treats the self as object, as in Gödel, or self-reference depending on an iteration of the self in turn iterated within the self – an iteration of an interation is a Platonic simulacrum – Derrida achieves self-reference by a re-mark that is a default in self, a “semantic void” that “in fact begins to signify” (D: 222). So Derrida comes up with a self-reference that cannot be self-contradictory because the self reference is originary to any contradiction, a default, a singularity in the domain of contradictories, a singularity with a unique address, a place where nothing takes place but the place, a default to an abyss of ∼traces.

. Three rules of the between To review, Umezawa’s (1993) proposal for a thermofield dynamics with dual quantum modes opens up their between. Because the dual modes share the vacuum state, the unattainable ∼mode has an address, but since we can never go over to the ∼mode, the ∼mode can only be marked by a default, a hole, in our quantum universe at certain addresses. Dual modes of degenerate vacuum states (the infinite θ-vacua) lie at the heart of Umezawa’s thermofield dynamics. Symmetry-conserving memory traces of past inputs to the brain are dual mode traces, in the form of coherent Nambu-Goldstone (N-G) bosons or “symmetron modes.” This is a “total memory” (Jibu & Yasue 1995), in the sense that all the input that has ever come in is, in principle, traced in the symmetrons of a particular θ-vacuum state. When fresh input comes in, its information becomes integral to the total memory up to that time, and a new total memory is traced in a different θ-vacuum (by Bogoliubov transformation of the previous θ-vacuum state (Umezawa 1993)). Now the relationship between the dual modes is governed in at least three ways, three rules of the between:

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1. If the dual modes exchange quanta – a quantum from our quantum universe is exchanged for a quantum from the ∼universe – there is no change, since the fundamental pairing remains intact. Ontology is irreducibly and inescapably dual mode, so simple exchange is no change. 2. If the dual mode interaction is a ∼conjugate match, the dual unpresent quantum modes collapse to observables. Such an interaction is not a simple exchange of quanta as in (1) but is mathematically represented by multiplying a complex number in one mode by its complex conjugate in the other mode, which collapses the imaginary dimension. This interaction is a true belonging-together, not a quid pro quo where there is no unity. Such an interaction between dual modes is called the “∼conjugate match.” The “between” in Umezawa and Vitiello is this ∼conjugate match. The equation for the ∼conjugate match of participants gives real numbers associated with observables. 3. If a quantum is annihilated from one mode of the vacuum by excitation to a higher energy state, then a quantum is created in the other mode. Annihilation leaves a hole in our universe’s vacuum mode at an address where the vacuum ∼mode gains a quantum. The default in our quantum universe re-marks a ∼creation in the alter quantum universe. It is this third rule, that annihilation (creation) in one mode is necessarily (under fundamental physical energy conservation law) accompanied by creation (annihilation) in the other mode, which permits Derridean self-reference. The Liar Paradox does not arise in the case of self-reference by ∼image, since nothing can be predicated of the self referred to, only a place pointed to where nothing takes place but the place, Bohr’s unknowable. The condition under which annihilation in our mode takes place is when external energy comes in to the vacuum and is recognized – re-cognized – by the symmetron traces. An input similar to the one that originally was traced in the symmetrons annihilates quanta from our mode of the vacuum by exciting quanta, and after dissipating the energy, our mode falls back into a new θ-vacuum, leaving holes at the addresses of ∼traces. The vacuum hole re-marks a ∼trace of re-cognition. So total memory is traced in dual mode symmetrons and memory of re-cognition is traced only in ∼mode. Quantum re-marks can be used for self-reference, without requiring assumption of a hovering subject or Platonic simulacra. A mark can have an inner “boundary” at a default in our quantum universe, a default that may selfrefer. Here objective self-image does not divide self-subject – and so does not

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create ontological opposition between self-subject and self-object – but riddles self-subject with defaulting holes.

. Dual mode QBD and Gödel’s theorem These findings reflect back on Gödel’s theorem. Suppose the formalized system, S, was enriched to S* by admitting complex numbers and axiomatizing dual modes. Umezawa’s (1993: §7.2.2) tilde-conjugation rules would also be axiomatized. This gives a formal ontology that is dual mode, each mode Swiss cheese-like in being locally defaulted. In this case both G and tilde-G are legal formulas, where tilde-G is the conjugate of G. The Gödel number of G is G#. As noted, the Gödel number of a formula provides both a unique address for and a trace of that formula. The Gödel number of tilde-G would be –G#, since the forms are the same (pace Umezawa, §7.2.2). That is, any address is common to both modes and so a Gödel numbered address enfolds the trace of both G and its conjugate tilde-G. So G and tilde-G share the same address in a dual mode S. Even though tilde-G is irrevocably unpresent, the Gödel numbered address of the hole in S contains a trace of tilde-G, folded up in G#. G, then, can refer to itself as ∼other – a mirror image in the strange ∼conjugate mirror – without introducing self-as-subject/self-as-object contradiction, since a default in S is neither self-subject nor self-object, and neither provable nor disprovable. A dual mode S, then, could manage self-reference via default without opening up selfcontradiction and Gödel undecidability. Self-reference no longer requires introducing self-as-other into self-subject via a metaperspective but makes selfreference in terms of self-default that does not require any metaperspective. Self-reference is achieved purely subjectively, which overturn’s Gödel’s result. Contra Derrida, Derridean undecidability is profoundly different from Gödel’s formalization of the liar paradox, which is thoroughly metaphysical in conception. Derridean undecidability is a function of defaults, re-marks, which are originary to proof and disproof, but describable in terms of Umezawa’s dual mode quantum field theoretical logic. Gödel undecidability is a function of permitting metamathematical subjectivity to cunningly supplement the capabilities of the formalized system, S. A dual mode S, axiomatized along the lines of Umezawa’s quantum thermofield theoretical formulation and making use of Derrida’s insights about writing, will provide a system rich enough to elide the self-referential undecidability impasse of Gödel’s metaphysical theorem.

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. The Derridean type of undecidability If Derrida’s undecidability is not Gödel’s, then how is it to be characterized positively? Of course Derrida strongly resists, for principled reasons, any definition that would nail down a meaning, but the dissemination of undecidability can be considered here. Further, does Derridean undecidability coincide with the theoretical structure of quantum brain dynamics? Derrida’s work has been previously connected to neural network theory (Globus 1992a; Schreiber 2001) and systems theory (Johnson 1993), and Plotnitsky (1994, 2002) has discussed him in relation to Bohr’s original quantum mechanics. Detailed discussions of Derridean undecidability can be found in Gasché (1986: 239–251) and Plotnitsky (1994: Chapter 7). Plotnitsky emphasizes that Derridean undecidability is not the same as indeterminancy (an expression of which is found in Heisenberg’s uncertainty relation) and Gasché distinguishes undecidability from ambiguity, ambivalence, lack of clarity, semantic confusion, polysemic richness and Heideggerian concealment. Undecidables as tertium datur (§3.3) suspend the decidable opposition between what is true and false and put all the concepts that belong to the philosophical system of decidability into brackets. (Gasché 1986: 241)

Vacuum holes in our universe are undecidable in this sense, abyssal windows to an alter universe. The undecidables are defaulting re-marks which signify. Signifying is a ∼function re-marked by holes in our quantum universe. Signification is not of our universe, but is tilde. So “between” is not a classically logical relationship between self and other, including self-other, but between undefaulted self and the defaulting holes that riddle it. The hole is semantically “quasi-empty” (D: 222) in the sense that a default is void but the address re-marks a ∼mark, which qualifies the void as semantic. The signifying void is deeper than nothing (which retains thingness as something to negate). This void annihilates even no-thing, yet is signifying in virtue of the re-mark. Undecidability also refers to the status of signs, not in any Gödelian sense but signs like pharmakon, supplement, differance, and others, have a double, contradictory, undecidable value that always derives from their syntax. (Derrida 1981: 221)

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In this second sense the value of a sign is “undecidable.” Two incompatible meanings can be simultaneously signified (which brings back the “polysemic richness” lost to ontological undecidability). The undecidability of the value is syntactic, “the irreducible excess of the syntactic over the semantic” (221). Does dual mode QBD have a place for syntactic excess? We recall (see §1.26) that water dipole fields generated in different systems, if coherent, can interact via the common electromagnetic field. Interaction of different coherent systems through the electromagnetic field resolves the binding problem. ∼Traces that were simultaneously laid down are coherent, superposed, “entangled.” For example, the ∼trace of a cat is entangled with the ∼trace of purring. The syntactical string ‘cat’ as input calls up all the ∼traces with which its tilde mirror image is coherent. Furthermore, these ∼traces are not restricted to past inputs. The ∼mode has a certain freedom from the past’s hegemony in virtue of “emergent symmetries” (Umezawa, 112), never previously inputed, which spontaneously and unpredictably arise and which may resonate with ‘cat’. Emergent properties of the ∼mode undermine causal determinism. So ‘cat’ fans out in syntactical excess to its contingent and emergent coherences via the electromagnetic field. Prominent among a sign’s coherences is its opposite. Thus the string ‘external’ naturally evokes the ∼traces of both external and internal. So for Derrida, it is not the presencing meaning of the sign that is undecidable (in the polysemous sense), but the resonances evoked, which found polysemy (including the special form of polysemy that is opposition) and the dissemination of meaning.

. The transcendental and the plus-prèsent The condition for the possibility of change – the transcendental ground of all change – is rigorously conceived by Derrida, as shown by his discussion of iterability. Such is the law of iterability. Which does not amount to saying that this law has the simplicity of a logical or transcendental principle. One cannot even speak of it being fundamental or radical in the traditional philosophical sense . . . All problems arises from this non-simplicity which makes possible and limits at one and the same time. (LI: 92, italics original)

So there is, for Derrida, a transcendental kind of infrastructural law, with the clarification that it is heterological and limits what it makes possible.

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The peculiar conjoining of possibility and limitation fits neatly with dual mode QBD as developed above. The quantum attunement, too, limits what it makes possible. Its limitations are weighted possibilities to the match, which unfold in actuality in the case of matching. So infrastructural law and quantum brain dynamics both make possible presence while limiting what actually presences. The limit is the quantum attunement, the presence is its match with physical reality. Derrida is, in his unique way, a transcendental philosopher. He offers a ground for text that is not a logical computer-like mechanism grinding out strings of symbols. In modernity, to this day of information processing, there is (1) an initial state, arch¯e, input to be tranformed, and (2) a mechanical calculation on it, logical constraints on the determinate series of states, (3) resulting in an end state, telos. Derrida’s arch¯e, in contrast, is not an initial state but a formative dynamic, a spontaneous process that is condition for the possibility of textuality. So Derrida’s is not any old transcendental law or logical principle but a very new kind of transcendental law, which is systematizable with the addition of ∼degrees of freedom. Under dual mode ∼ontology, the condition for the possibility of textuality is a ground in which even no-thing is nihilated, an annihilation of the ground of metaphysics. Derrida’s strange transcendental law of textual presencing is unpresent in its operation. Derrida calls this unpresent the plus-prèsent, a “plupresent” that is unpresent and thereby “imperfect” (in the grammatical sense of an incomplete action or process, here an incomplete process of presencing). The ∼attunement, too, is unpresent and imperfect, requiring a match for perfection to presence. So the plus-prèsent can be conceived of as tilde, which is also an imperfect unpresent. One of Derrida’s transcendental laws makes the unpresent imperfect plus-prèsent the condition for the possibility of the present perfect – condition for I have, I have a world, I have a world of text. Derrida’s transcendental is plus-prèsent. In Derrida there is no subject-distinguished-from-object, no subject who is the ground of writing. The ground of texts is not self-present, not selfintimating, and so not subject-like. This unpresent ground is thoroughly alogical. Yet it is “a universal and necessary structure” (Gasché, 216) which is the heterological infrastructural ground of presencing text. Gasché concludes that “a certain systematicity exists among these . . . infrastructures” (223). (Alogicality does not preclude systematicity by other means.) How are we to describe the Derridean dynamics of the transcendental ground of text? We shall look to the dual-mode thermofield dynamics of QBD and see if Derridean and quan-

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tum brain dynamics play together well, see if we can bootstrap on this play to a quantum brain dynamical account of textuality. Parallels between Derrida and Heidegger are striking. Each formulates a dynamics transcendental to disclosure. In Heideggerian dynamics there is a welling-up of a belonging-together, das Ereignis, a mutuality between Being and time. Ekstatic Dasein, ecstatically leaping outside himself in virtue of projecting time, discloses world. (The pro-jection is the attunement; the pro-ject attunes.) The related dynamics in Derrida is arche-ecriture, arche-writing, but the dual-mode belonging-together is somewhat differently conceived, as we shall see. I have objected (§2.1b) to Heidegger’s assumption that the world is there, awaiting Dasein to dis-close it, as well as the quantum physicist’s assuming the world is present there (§1.6), ready to actually fulfill quantum physics’ statistically predictive ensembles, assumptions of a physical reality meekly awaiting the observer to discover which possibility turned out actually there. I claim the welling up is a belonging together of real extrinsic invariances and intrinsic conditions of satisfaction, extrinsic quantum reality and intrinsic quantum brain attunement. Dasein is not ecstatically transported beyond itself to a world that abides there, waiting for Dasein’s disclosing activity. Heidegger makes the most conventional of assumptions: the forest is still right there when nobody looks, has been there, abiding, till Dasein with his transcendental powers comes by and dis-closes it. This assumption of metaphysics continues to weigh down Heidegger. I claim, consistent with Derrida, that the world’s being “there” is derivative. The ekstases that Heidegger simply assumes – assumes to bridge the ontological gap between immanent and transcendent – these to-the-rescue ek-stases are presently replaced by a match in which the immanent – the indwelling, inherent, pervading – which is a ∼immanent, withdraws in the disclosure of world. The trick to world dis-closure is the ∼conjugate match between the dual modes. Derrida’s version of Dasein is surprisingly monadic, containing a between – the hymen – which is the very scene of world disclosure. In the thermofield QBD framework, the hymen is a kind of screen within the monad, a between that dis-closes world in the ∼conjugate match of dual modes. Hymen has a connotation of a thin membrane which separates two spaces, but there is no such membrane or separated spaces in the quantum formulation. The deconstructed hymen is tantamount to the vacuum dynamics wherein partitionable space is generated. Derrida’s philosophy goes deeper than Heidegger’s here, making Being (presence) derivative of dual modes rather than accepted as

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one of the dual modes. In this rejection of Heidegger, Derrida draws close to dual mode QBD.

. Derridean infrastructural dynamics Derrida describes the unpresent ground of presencing text, the relations between the surface text and the hidden movement which inscribes the surface. The apparent immediacy of what seems to be given to present perception in its original nakedness, in its nature is already shed as an effect; it falls: under the sway of a machinated structure that never gives itself away in/to the present, which has nothing to do with it. (D: 308)

Relations between the surface and a deep machinated structure are not governed by the familiar logos but by peculiar infrastructural principles which are transcendental to surface text. Derridean dynamics is a process of arche-writing, a general form of writing that grounds writing, speech and other modes of expression. This archeprocess that arche-writes is unpresent. A principled, heterological, untotalizable, unpredictable, unpresent arche-dynamics is condition for the possibility of the various presencings of expression. In quantum terms, the principles includes principles of coherence – belonging-together – a matching taken here to be ∼conjugate. Though free of the traditional logos, Derrida’s arche-dynamics remains well-principled, a logic of dual modes, with the marvelous result of presence: ∼conjugate match of the between.

. The dynamics of arche-trace Arche-dynamics enables storing traces of presences, called arche-traces. Now in quantum physics there is no order and no trace without symmetry-breaking. Recall that symmetry signifies unorderedness, e.g., any point may or may not contain a molecule of a gas and so the gas is symmetrical, in contrast to crystals which distinguish the nodal points of the lattice structure where atoms or molecules are restrained to particular locations. Symmetry lost is specific to the symmetry-breaking input. Symmetry lost means order gained. One form of arche-trace is a consequence of symmetry-breaking, a unique consequence of fundamental conservation law in that this form of arche-trace conserves the symmetry lost/order gained in the form of coherent Nambu-Goldstone (N-G)

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bosons that are dual mode. Neglecting quantum tunneling which eats away at the trace, a record is kept of all information that has ever come in, a “total memory” (Jibu & Yasue 1995: 184), a record continually updated in the continual formation of new vacuum states (the theta-vacua which are infinite in number). Total memory is traced in the vacuum states of living brain tissue as symmetry-preserving, dual mode, N-G bosons that play precisely the role of Umezawa’s symmetrons, which are quantum traces of input invariances. So the total memory trace is in the form of symmetron dual modes that are able to preserve the order gained (symmetry lost) in symmetry-breaking under the impact of input energies. These dual mode symmetrons are representations of input invariances, “re-presentations” which are unpresent. A trace, classically, is a present trace of some former presence, a trace that repeats. A second form of arche-trace, peculiarly, is “present” as an effacement – a hole in the non∼ vacuum. Here the arche-trace is trace of a recognition. This form of arche-trace is encrypted in the ∼mode. The arche-trace names something of which presence and trace, or more generally self and Other, are the erasure within the discourse of philosophy. (Gasché, 187)

Both forms of arche-trace, dual mode and unimode, are forgotten in the splendor of presencing. Traditionally Other is “subjected” to self. However, the very identity of the self, in Derrida, its distinguishability, “is a function of its demarcation from the Other, which thus becomes endowed with an essential autonomy” (187). The identity of self requires some form of boundary with other. The archetrace provides such a demarcation, an internal boundary of addressible default that signifies other (not an external boundary that separates self inside from whatever is outside, not a boundary outside of which there might be a mirror which displays a mirror-image of the self). Self-as-other repeats self, and the mirror-image re-enters self as self-object. Here the self-object is an iteration of an iteration, thus, a good old Platonic simulacrum. The mirror iteration is reinserted in the self, but in that reinsertion the mirror image no longer mirrors the self, which now contains the mirror image. The self-object can never copy the self which the self-object itself enriches. The attempt is an interminable cascade, where the copy of the self inserted back into the self changes the self that was copied, always dividing the self into self-subject and self-object. The tracing of the arche-trace, in contrast, is an effacement; the archetrace is a hole. “. . . the trace is never presented as such. In presenting itself it becomes effaced” (Derrida, SP: 154), trace “presencing” as default. “For essential reasons,” Gasché says, “nothing of the infrastructure arche-trace as such

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can become present” (189). Arche-traces can be well represented as dual mode symmetron traces and as unimode ∼traces. Symmetron-traces store the order gained in the dynamics of symmetrybreaking vacuum states. Invariant abstract properties within the external energy flux become coded in vacuum states with their Nambu-Goldstone boson condensates. The invariances of external physical reality are coded by dual mode N-G bosons. The unimode form of trace is a re-tracing, a “re-mark,” in Derrida’s terms. N-G bosons re-cognize the signal involved in originally laying down the N-G symmetron trace. The non∼ modes become energized in input recognition, excited out of the vacuum to higher energy states, leaving a theta vacuum hole at a certain address. The higher energy states dissipate their energy and fall back into a new vacuum, with its dual mode total memory, leaving the vacuum hole as residual trace. So when symmetron-traces recognize a fresh input – when a symmetron/input match has been achieved – a copy is made of the satisfied symmetron-trace, a copy which is traced only in the ∼mode, though marked in the non∼ mode by a hole, by addressible defaults of the non∼ mode, “remarks.” So it is crucial to distinguish: (1) The dual mode symmetron trace of input that is total memory. (2) The trace of re-cognition that is tilde mode. (3) Satisfaction of the tilde mode re-cognition trace by matching input, which lights up world. The ∼mode becomes richly arche-written during development – which is to say, our non∼ mode becomes richly riddled with holes as we develop. Re-marks are weighted by repetition of recognitions in average expectable environments. Certain invariances become strongly re-written, become heavily weighted in the ∼background. The ∼mode is a cryptic resource of unreachable unpresent traces, at many addresses marked by non∼ holes, where the only presence is the address scheme. Thus is our attunement written, which both limits, qua attunement, and makes possible, in allowing for presencing when tilde-conjugately matched. Suppose at t = 0 the zero-energy quanta – of the vacuum state sustained by the autopoietic and autorhoetic living brain – are all lined up coherently like synchronous swimmers at rest (Jibu & Yasue 1995), the dipole moment vectors of the quanta all pointing in the same direction. External energy comes in at t = 1 and the dipoles shift and point coherently in a new direction. Rotational symmetry is lost in the vector shift, which under fundamental physical energy conservation law means that the lost symmetry must be restored elsewhere. Quantum theory restores broken symmetry in the N-G condensates, broken symmetry restored in the form of dual mode symmetron arche-traces.

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So liberally whiting-out the Derridean penumbra of meaning, arche-writing is an unpresent process that grounds signs, whatever their form of presentation (marks, sounds, natural processes, etc.), and arche-traces are vacuum inscriptions upheld in living brain tissue. Total memory of external energy is dual mode, whereas memory of recognitions is unimode tilde.

. Différance and its Freudian provenance Again whiting out the meaning penumbra, Derrida’s term différance refers in its most restricted form to a process of differentiation and deferral, simultaneously opening different possibilities of presence and delaying actualization of certain presences. Different signs are enabled to presence and at the same time the presence of other signs is deferred, even forever made incapable of presencing. (For a classic Freudian example, any reference to incestuous wishes is endlessly deferred, i.e. “repressed,” these expressions leaking out only in disguised fashion at the margins of the life text.) Without differencing there is only semiotic symmetry incapable of signification. Without deferral there can be no thought detour, only action directed toward immediate instinctual satisfaction with the least expenditure of energy. Let’s consider more deeply the Freudian provenance of Derrida’s deferral. The instinctual wish, according to Freud (1900), seeks immediate gratification by the most direct and easy path available. He thinks the hungry infant first hallucinates the breast which temporarily stands in for the gratifying real breast, and so the hallucination is a wish fulfillment, a wish the hallucination will only gratify temporarily. After a while the baby wants the breast. Unchecked, the sexual instincts are immediately directed on the instinctual objects that might most quickly and with least effort satisfy these instincts. (This is Freud’s famous “pleasure principle.”) Freud calls this primitive (and classically thermodynamic) process the primary process. In delaying this immediate and direct process, a detour on the way to gratification is forced. The detour for Freud is thought, which retains the aim of instinctual gratification but postpones it for practical reasons. Freud calls the forcing of this detour the secondary process. Derrida takes up Freud’s idea of delay in the deferral aspect of différance, where the presencing of certain of the differences, the actualization of certain textual possibilities, is postponed, even indefinitely. Derrida looks to the “margins” of texts for hints about what texts have been postponed by the tradition of metaphysics, now technoscientific, just as Freud’s penchant for marginalia such

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as slips of the tongue and dreams reveals the unpresent dynamical ground – the unconscious wishes. (Jung’s 1960 use of myth to get to a universal unconscious is another illustration.) In the margins there are subtle evidences of what has been deferred. So the Derridean arche-dynamics of différance differs and defers. Quantum brain dynamics can also be considered a process of differencing and deferring, a différance of QBD. The ∼mode contains interpenetrated possibilities that, in the case of matching non∼ input, actually presence. These possibilities are weighted, and accordingly, variously more or less likely to actually presence. Certain possibilities are deferred by heavily weighted possibilities, even endlessly. (Thus in Freud’s famous Schreber case, the possible “I love him” is continually deferred by the heavy weighting on “I hate him.”) The weighted possibilities comprise an attunement for the match with input, and as the weights change, certain presences are more likely to be achieved whereas others become unlikely. The shifting attunement, then, is the condition for the possibility of both different presences and their deferrals. QBD differs/defers and is accordingly well characterized as a movement of différance. . Supplementarity and the infinite The infinite/finite relation for Derrida is not one in which “infinite” is “in-fine,” that is, not finite, not this, not that, the Neti. Neti. of Indian philosophy. Infinite as not-finite does not characterize arche-dynamics. The infinite does not lean on the finite for Derrida, does not make use of the finite by infinitely negating it. Such infinite negation leaves the infinite dependent on the finite, what is being negated. Derrida’s infinite is originary and abyssal, no longer objectual. Yet Derrida’s infinite is integral to the finite. As Johnson (1993) brings out, in Derrida’s infinity the finite elements participatory in the arche-process are infinitely substitutable (Derrida, WD: 289), and so the state is infinitely variable, so long as finite elements persist in participation. So for Derrida, “infinity” implies infinite substitution of participants in a dynamical process, not infinite addition of things. Classical ontology is mechanical, based on a finite ground or center or control from above that in one way or another dominates finite elements in a causal chain, whereas Derrida’s ontology is based in participating finite elements that can be substituted infinitely. To the extent that substitution is random, the system freely plays. In controlled substitution, the system’s play is constrained. A process in which participants are freely substituted is resistent to domination,

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and so free to play, substituting continually, as Derrida loves to do in his polysemous texts. In postphenomenology participation replaces the dominance relations characteristic of metaphysical modernity.

Jeu Like “infinity” as infinity of substitutions, “randomness” takes on a special meaning in Derrida, a playful randomness or jeu, not like the dull randomness of inexorably increasing entropy, S, in thermodynamics. A thing so dull as S could not be Derridean! The elements in thermodynamics are all the same, but in Derrida, from a very formal perspective, the “elements” become much richer, infinitely substitutable participants in an interaction. The participants are finite but infinitely substitutable. A random substitution of one participant effects all participants, which can give the trajectory of the dynamical state of participants a crooked demeanor, especially when the substitution is mostly not random, but with scattered random episodes where suddenly the whole changes. This is brought out vividly in dreams, when the scene suddenly shifts, which the dream reporter marks by “and the next thing I knew I was in a different place . . . ” Jeu is at its most powerful in dreams, free of constraint by the input flux. Dream shifts expose the foliation of a playful infinite resource.

The infinite in the finite is infinite substitution of finite participants. Lacking the traditional ground or center or superior control, the infinite substitution of participating finites is the movement of supplementarity. Supplementarity, for Derrida, is close to différance, with its different possibilities of presence and deferrals of certain presences, but adds the notion of infinite substitution of possibilities in time while maintaining the deferrals. This playful substitution is the supplément. Derrida’s infinite substitution of finites is a powerful ontological move. The text that presences – whether marks on the page or sounds from a speaker – is made up of finite chains but its ground – the dynamical arche-process – is infinite, by infinite substitution of participants, participants in an interactive process that results in the presence of finite text. The classical and still common sense finite/in-finite relation gives way to a finite/infinite substitution relation. Here the finite becomes a consequence of the infinite. The finite is infinitely generated by infinite substitution in a participatory quantum brain dynamics that holds up a living between. For common sense the infinite means more finites than can ever be counted, an infinite chain of finites. In the Derridean frame appropriated here, the infinite means infinitely varied participation of finites. Derrida thus nests infinity within the substitutable finite. Now the finite makes use of infinity – classically, the limited finite is dwarfed by infinity – to generate finite pres-

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ences through the infinitely participatory arche-process that unpresently supplements the finite presentation. The infinite substitution that is supplementarity determines what presences by constraining the possibilities of presencing. The supplément by infinite substitution is a kind of addition, “a surplus, a plenitude enriching another plenitude, the fullest measure of presence” (OG: 144). This other plenitude, to be enriched by the supplément, is measured by the Hamiltonian difference (H-hat, the energy difference between the dual modes, in favor of the tilde). The supplément is itself a substitution, substituting for a lack, for a hole at an address where the non∼ mode has been replaced by its unattainable dual, which it can only represent by a default at a place in itself. Not an ab-sence of something which has been or could be a pre-sence but a default in the very possibility of presencing. Then the substitution substituting for such a nothing is tantamount to a replacement of nothing by something. Thus a supplément to nothing is more than an addition of presence; the supplément also fills in the holes that are deficiencies in presence. Yet if one combines the two meanings of supplement, then the supplement, which seemingly adds itself like a plenitude to another plenitude, also fills an absence of plenitude, makes up for a deficiency of plenitude. (Gasché, 208)

So supplément carries different but intertwined meanings: (1) an unpresent ground that in its possibilities exceeds what actually presences, the ∼richness at the addresses of non∼ holes. The supplément also (2) makes up for a lack, is a replacement that substitutes the default by presence constituted in the between. The supplément as surplus for addition is ∼mode, the supplément as replacement is presence. In its replacement-of-lack/surplus polysemy the supplément evokes dual-mode dynamics in which the lack is replaced in a ∼conjugate match between dual modes and the surplus is ∼arche-trace. Here Derrida’s principled love of and gift for polysemy manages to encompass the ontological dual-mode divide, with supplément signifying both unpresent ∼plenitude and replacement of non∼ holes by presencings. Derrida speaks of “the overabundance of the signifier, its supplementary character” (WD: 290), which results from the lack of ground or center, a lack that must be supplemented. The signifier makes reference not only to concrete presences but to an originary whole which surpasses presence. This plenitude of the signifier depends on coherence. Non∼ signifier inputs activate ∼traces that are coherent with the input because of previous entanglement. Thus the non∼ representation of c-a-t is coherent with certain tilde modes that abundantly situate for cats, that supplement the symbol string by a characteristic ∼attunement. The overabundance of the mere signifier is that it activates by

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coherence mechanisms a rich ∼attunement. The signifier taps into the surplus signifieds and resonates coherently with some. Signifiers and signifieds are not like the two sides of a single sheet of paper, which was the metaphor suggested by Saussure. Signifier and signified are not at parity; the simple signifier fans out by coherence to the rich signified which fans in to the signifier. The fanout/fan-in of signifiers and signifieds give the arche-process great dynamical complexity. To review, the dynamics of arche-writing differentiates, defers, traces and supplements (addition/replacement). Quantum brain dynamics differs by symmetry-breaking, defers in virtue of its ∼attunement, traces in dual mode symmetrons and unimode ∼traces, and supplements both in the surplus of its ∼attunement and the replacement of defaults by presencings in the ∼conjugate match.

. The lack in self For the self to be distinguished and have self-identity, there must be a boundary with other. Now from a metaperspective – which Gödel in his Platonism unperturbedly permits himself – self is nicely distinguished at the boundary with other, but this leaves self on its own insufficient, dependent on a metaphysical meta-self for its very identity. Self, accordingly, has a lack – needs other within itself to have an autonomous identity, to get free of the metaphysical self. The problem is how to introduce other within, without getting into big trouble of the Gödel type already discussed (§3.8). The traditional way of getting “other” into self is as self-object. The self looks into the mirror and gets its self-other back. However, the continuity of the subject is torn by the object re-presentation, and the misery of undecidability follows in the tear. What’s needed is a kind of iter that is not an object . . . an iter that is default. The deepest meaning of iter is default of objectuality, and with the provenance of dual modes, there can be trace in the alter mode at the address of default in our mode. So now the self-other within the self is a self-default lacking all objectuality. The Swiss cheese self is riddled with defaults that serve as other, thus solving the self ’s identity problem. The self doesn’t need external boundaries to distinguish itself, it has internal boundaries at defaults, boundaries with abground at places where nothing takes place but the place. The self ’s identity is made possible by default. This leaves self an untotalizeable postmodern identity.

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. Iterability One sense of iterability is repetition, an original is copied. But now there is repetition sans original. Nothing is copied, the same is regenerated from scratch, under specific conditions of matching dual modes. There are infrastructural resources for repetition. Iterability also means the ability to alter. In alteration “something new takes place” (LI: 175). The infrastructure iterability – an Other which is entirely heterogeneous to what it grounds, identity and difference – affects the grounded by altering it; it alters it by repeating it. (Gasche, 215)

Alterations are non∼ defaults that re-mark tilde repetitions. Alteration displaces to the ∼mode, leaving scars of default as “evidence.”

. The self-erasing trace We have seen that unpresent dynamics produces textual difference, defers certain textual presences, substitutes other textual presences within its own text, re-marks re-cognitions by defaults, yet is able to repeat what was present out of ∼traces. The vibrant Heideggerian overtones in Derrida’s theory of “writing” are again noted. The unpresent dynamics behind the presence of being in Heidegger is das Ereignis whereas in Derrida’s focus on text this unpresent dynamics is “infrastructure.” The space of the infrastructures is “a system which is no longer that of presence but that of différance” (Derrida, SP: 147). The infrastructure “space” accordingly lacks a center that might ground the continual play of infinite substitutions going on in the infrastructure. Infrastructure dynamics are ungrounded in any traditional sense. The ground is the unpresent infrastructural dynamics that generates surface text. Gasché (Chapter 6) emphasizes that the infrastructure space is “heterological,” an irreducible underivable multiplicity, “irretrievably plural,” an alogical space which bans contradiction while remaining systematically transcendental. The heterological principles – “principles” in a soft sense – cannot be derived from each other, cannot be dominated by any one principle. Indeed, each of the heterological principles “function as the matrix of possibility for them all” (Gasché, 183). The heterological principles of the infrastructure are near to asymmetric thermofield quantum brain dynamics.

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One heterological principle is that of the arche-trace, already discussed. Here the self is effaced and so all relations to self are relations to an effacement. “. . . nothing of the infra-structure arche-trace as such can become present” (189). We ordinarily think of a trace as a trace of a past presence – trace as memory of the past – but the arche-trace is written as an effacement, unpresence, a hole, default, whilst the trace hides in the ∼mode. With arche-trace Derrida shows a way to exceed metaphysics (1982: 65) with its enthrallment to presence. To get beyond metaphysics (which includes contemporary technoscientific modernity), let “a trace be inscribed within the text of metaphysics” (65). This trace is not another version of presence but “an entirely other text” (65) . . . read tilde. This trace is neither perceptible nor imperceptible, indeed, this trace is unthinkable, so the only way to describe it is as a self-erasure of the trace, leaving a hole. “The trace is produced as its own erasure” (65). The trace is a hole and at the same time locates a trace encrypted in the ∼mode. Derrida sometimes calls this self-erasing trace “arche-trace,” inclusive of both default and ∼trace. I think the terminology shows more if “arche-trace” is limited to the ∼mode while calling the non∼ default “re-mark.” The remark consists in self-fenistrated openings that are blank, empty, nihilated, yet located. Re-marks mark the address of a self-erasing trace. Thus Derrida locates a trace of the self-erasing trace, the case of default. Presence, then, far from being, as is commonly thought, what the sign signifies, what a trace refers to, presence, then, is the trace of the trace, the trace of the erasure of the trace. (66)

The “presences” a sign signifies are only holes, addresses in our universe where the only thing that takes place is the place. The reference of the signifier is tilde, a certain situatedness for the vacuum state interaction with non∼ reality.

The blind spot as default The retinal blindspot, where axons of the retinal cells exit the retina to form the optic nerve, is insensitive to light and thus a default in the great light sensitivity of the retinal field. There is accordingly a default in the visual field, a small region where nothing can be seen. We do not ordinarily notice the lack, however, because central brain mechanisms skillfully fill it in. If we shut one eye and probe the blindspot of the visual field with an object close by, then we can recognize the blind spot. Suppose we take a pencil, put a ring of white tape around the midpoint of the pencil, and place it such that light from the middle reflects to the blind spot. We will see the pencil

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but it is truncated. We notice the banded region of the pencil is missing and infer that’s the blind spot. The visual field is experienced as unbroken; the blind spot can never be seen but must be locally inferred from our knowledge of pencils. The blind spot default has a definite location – moving the probe about we can define its margins. The re-mark is a textual blind spot inferred from postphenomenological probes and marginalia.

So at the unpresent ground described by Derrida, there is the very strange and profound process of arche-writing, “without presence and without absence, without history, without cause, without archia, without telos,” a writing that “absolutely upsets all dialectics, all theology, all teleology, all ontology” (67). This ground is thoroughly dynamical, a difference “ceaselessly differing from and deferring (itself) (by itself)” (67). (The parentheses mean that language calls for the term but such a term is not appropriate for the ground. So we use the word and then erase it.) This movement, called différance, “would trace (itself) (by itself)” (67). Autopoietic and autorhoetic différance writes. We can discern in Derrida a dynamic (arche-writing) of differing/deferring (différance) that leaves an effaced trace (arche-trace). The trace of that effacement is a default that re-marks a trace in the alter mode. This is very close to Heidegger, but applied in the framework of texts. Recall Heidegger: Das Ereignis withdraws in giving Being and time belonging-together. The world with its affordances is disclosed. The arche-traces withdraw leaving a presencing trace that affords reading. For both Heidegger and Derrida there is an underlying dynamic of simultaneous withdrawal and presencing.

. Exit from quantum closure Something new enters the universe with life, at life’s most complex, upheld by the living brain, an exit aperture from the quantum closure of inanimate matter, disclosure ex nihilo. The living brain is specialized to form and maintain vacuum states under exquisite control. Broadly speaking, the brain’s vacuum state cybernetics has two participants. One participant in vacuum state control is derived from external energy coming into the brain and the other participant is ∼memory, including its emergent symmetries, which makes ∼memory “intentional,” that is, setting conditions of satisfaction for the matching process with external energy, and so “of ” (about) the world presencing in the match. “Intentionality” is a quantum ∼prescription for the matching process. Under advanced conditions of life, most strikingly in living brain tissue, two modes and their between, under refined control, break out of quantum self-closure

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to world-thrownness. In nonliving entities, the dual modes are Hermitean and so the entity cannot get outside itself. In the non-Hermitean living case, the entity can bootstrap its way outside itself – which Heidegger called ekstasis, a literal ecstasy – by participating as conditions of satisfaction for a match. The satisfied match does the work of ekstasis without the mystery. Unpresent quantum modes in satisfaction transcend to world presencing, while conditions unsatisfied withdraw to das Abgrund.

. Inscription In discussing inscription in Derrida, Johnson considers a “nothingness or vacuum” which “cannot be apprehended as such” (20). Like the vacuum of quantum physics, Derrida’s vacuum is rich, a supplément that is pure possibility, a kind of sur-compossibilite autonome des significations – an autonomous supercompossibility of meanings (WD: 9). Like a quantum vacuum, Derrida’s supercompossible needs support in which to realize itself, to presence, “a support which actually constitutes that possibility” (Johnson, 22). Without constituting actuality out of possibility, there would only be compossibility. This process is where “force” comes in, the Dionysian element. Inscription (in the broadest sense) requires a surge, surgir, like Heidegger’s Ursprung, in a Heraclitean spirit. Derrida’s surgir has a painful anguished quality, however, lacking in the wondrous natural Ursprung. The compossibles push against each other with a force, competing for actuality. . . . the necessarily restricted passageway of speech against which all possible meanings push against one another, preventing each other’s emergence. (23)

What emerges to presence from this competition is the funnel down to inscription in some form or other. “The passage from pure compossibility to the inscription of writing is a narrow one” (Johnson, 23). Derrida vitiates the pushing/shoving-back metaphor of meanings struggling for presence. Preventing [each other’s emergence], but calling upon each other, provoking each other too, unforeseeably and as if despite oneself, in a kind of autonomous super-compossibility of meanings. (WD: 9)

Calling upon while preventing and provoking each other is much closer to what I have called “participation” (while retaining some push-and-shove). Coherence recruits quantum systems which reinforce (provoke) the quantum reso-

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nance of the whole and accordingly prevent other possibilities from actualizing. Possibilities funnel down to the ∼conjugate match with non∼ reality in which world and signifier presence. The power of the signifier is that its configuration evokes recruitment and coherence in the ∼supplément. The signifier evokes the signified, meaning, by recruiting coherence. The signified in turn constitutes a ∼attunement of systems that produce certain signifiers. The semiotic sign is dual mode, too, a union of signifier and signified, not in Saussures’s classical sense – the two sides of a sheet of paper – but the union of belonging together of dual modes, the mutual coherence of signifier and signified. The marvel of the sign – a marvel operating out of sight – lies in its bridging between non∼ and tilde modes. We can never enter the ∼universe, but we can nonetheless participate in its play, even control it, with signs. Signs liberate us from the prison of the nontilde.

. The general theory of doubling Gasché concludes that “a general theory of duplication” (225) necessarily undergirds Derrida’s infrastructural dynamics. Indeed, “mirrors” fill Derrida’s discussion of Philippe Sollers in La dissémination. The general theory of doubling does not explain “duplicity.” (The double entendre of doubled/devious reminds us of our cherished illusions that need breaking.) Duplicity is not explained in terms of a prior whole that becomes divided. That whole is an “aftereffect,” a “necessary illusion” (225), anything but originary. “Traditionally, the double comes after the simple, and subsequently multiplies it” (225); here the double is inferior. In Derrida’s infrastructural ground double and doubled are at parity, “an originary doubling which would not be preceded by any unity” (225). The irreducible duality of the doubles generates the simple. Traditionally simple→double, but here in the general theory of doubling: double→simple.

. The now, time and the excessive The now/presence (Anwesenheit) is the case of matching, a special case of the between. It is only in virtue of a trace of this match – a trace of presence – that there can be past and future, that is, time. The trace of the match (“re-cognition trace,” see §1.9) traces now/presence and introduces succession. Because now is sandwiched between was present and will be present, it is easy to think mistakenly that now is integral to time. But now, properly as now/presence, must

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sort with Sein, not with Zeit. It is the trace of Sein that sorts with Zeit. It is only by traces of presencings that we can have past nows and anticipation of future nows. I sharply distinguish, then, now/presence and time, which Aristotle and the tradition run together, bringing much mischief. The now as such has no other (Derrida, MP, “Ousia and Gramm¯e”), no double, which is to say that presence has no other (ab-sence has an anaclitic relationship to pre-sence), no double. This is comprehensible in that now/presence is a special state of the between, between non∼ doubled and ∼double. The between presupposes an originary duplicity. The polysemy of “duplicity” works well here. Not only is there doubleness, but also deceit, in which something is hidden. The duplicity of quantum brain dynamics lies in both its dual modes and the principled hiddenness of one of them, the ∼mode. Dual mode QBD with its alter quantum universe can explain now/presence as the matched state of the between. Derrida (MP) discusses in “Ousia and Gramme” the relationship between “presence in general (Anwesenheit) and that which exceeds it” (65). But how to signify the excessive? In order to exceed metaphysics it is necessary that a trace be inscribed within the text of metaphysics, a trace that continues to signal not in the direction of another presence, or another form of presence [absence], but in the direction of an entirely other text. Such a trace cannot be thought more metaphysico [in the manner of metaphysics]. No philosopheme is prepared to master it. And it (is) that which must elude mastery. Only presence is mastered. (MP: 65, brackets added)

Such a sovereign trace is unthinkable within metaphysics and “must be described as an erasure of the trace itself ” (65). It is neither perceptible nor imperceptible but a default of Being itself, a default that re-marks the erasure of trace, re-marks “an entirely other text” that cannot be dominated, an other text resident in the ∼universe in the form of an attunement. So the excessive which cannot be thought more metaphysico still can be signified by defaults, by holes comprising a pattern of defaults that re-mark ∼traces.

. Physical time and subjective time Franck (2000), in his rich discussion “Time and Presence,” points to the dualism between physical time and subjective time. Subjective time cannot be reduced to clock measures. Subjective time passes and is “centered” in the

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now. “Centered” wrongly implies an off-center, an off-now, but now has no gradations. There is now and not now, with nothing inbetween. Franck clearly equates subjective time and presence. The subjectivity of subjective time lies in its being centred in present awareness. The way we experience the present is the presence of consciousness . . . .The presence of consciousness and the ‘presencing’ of world states would amount to one and the same thing . . . we do not know what the present might be as something independent of the presence of consciousness. (69)

This statement fully warrants this substitution: Presencing cannot be reduced to clock measures. After all, presencing is already presumed in the reference to clock measures. The pointers on the clock are present to the observer. So clearly presencing/now cannot be simply reduced to clock time, which leaves a form of dualism. “With the passage of time we mean that the now is in motion relatively to the chronological order of events” (68). There is a subtle but nonetheless crucial mistake in such a claim, I believe. As already noted, but not easy to overemphasize its importance, the chronological order depends on now, because our knowing the passage of time requires traces of nows. Without the writing down of world states that have presenced, written as brain traces (whether quantum or classical doesn’t matter here), time could not be stretched to a past, nor could time stretch anticipation of what world might presence. Without trace now is all-engulfing. So a now that is traced is already presupposed in referring to the chronological order. Now is not in motion. Now never changes. It is always now – of varying contents in the so-called “passage of time.” The motion/passage of time depends on traces of a matched between, traces of past nows/presences. Franck discriminates two views of the now: “one view showing the now as passing and the ‘block’ of world states at rest” and the other view “shows the now as resting and the world states passing through it” (68). He identifies the first view with “western science (space/time)” and the second with “eastern spirituality.” The first view I have just critiqued: The now is instead unchanging, “resting,” as in the second spiritual view. World states “pass through” the now as states of the between in which there is a ∼conjugate match. But “pass through” has the wrong connotation, putting the now into time, when the now, as presence, is not of time. Just as postphenomenology’s critique of science – that is, ontotheological science in the phase of technological modernity as an expression of metaphysics – does not apply to dual mode quantum theory, so is the spiritual cri-

Derrida and the Quantum Brain

tique of western science inapplicable to this quantum theory. In quantum field theory applied to brain functioning there are possibilities of rapprochement between “east” and “west” which Franck does not recognize. Franck leaves us with clear alternatives, “If the now is something objective, waiting for physical explanation, well-established theories have to be turned upside down” (70). But if the now is subjective, “consciousness is the precondition of the very existence of an actual world,” indeed, “being aware would be the primordial mode of existence” (70). Franck juxtaposes subjective now/consciousness to actual world, retaining the traditional dualism of immanent and transcendent, but in a special form, the idealism of the east in which consciousness is originary to material world. Mind is primary and matter is secondary, obverse of western science’s ranking of them. My proposal is a third alternative: neither mind nor matter primary but primacy of their between. This now can be objectively described by a quantum brain science that is not ontotheological: a ∼conjugate match in the vacuum states of living brain tissue where dual thermofield dynamical modes meet. At the same time this now is world thrownness, the case of dual mode match, where “subjective” takes on a novel meaning. The subject is not present, now, self-evidencing but is unknowable, tilde, participant in the matching process that evidences world. Subject and abstract world symmetry, neither presencing on their own, belong-together, like Zeit and Sein (TB), and we find ourselves world-thrown. So “consciousness” is not an idealistic “precondition” for the existence of the actual world; unpresent subject and unpresent physical reality are, in the case of their matching, preconditions for the world-thrownness. Franck observes that the now, which he (wrongly, I have argued) thinks travels, yet is “synchronized intersubjectively” (81). There are no experiences whatsoever disproving the impression that time goes by. Nor is it disputed intersubjectively. Everybody agrees on being subject to it. People even agree on the time slice of space-time ‘presencing’ itself. (81)

The intersubjective synchronization, Franck believes, “would come up to a miracle,” if “generated by the individual brain.” But it is no miracle! If the ∼attunement across individual brains is more or less the same through local socialization processes, and the invariant properties of non∼ physical reality carried by input are more or less the same, then these individual brains will be more or less synchronized such that people more or less agree on the time slice of space-time presencing itself. The consensus quotidian world is objectively achieved through correlated attunements and inputs.

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 Chapter 3

In the representation of Einstein’s relativity theory, “the entire collection of events, successive for us,” is given en bloc. There is no difference between these events as to their actuality. In physical reality, world states differing in date are co-existent. (69)

This strange manifold of Einstein’s block universe is comprehensible if the now is not of time. No traces of the now are admitted to the representation, and so all nows are indistinguishably now. Einstein leaves the brain out of it, and without brain traces, no time can be stretched and so the universe is of the infinite unbounded now. The key point in understanding time is the highly counterintuitive view that the now is not of time, but of presence. It is traces of now/presence that are of time. To put the now as the moving center of time is inappropriately to force Being into cleaving the order of time. Only traces of Being stretch time.

. La dissémination In terms of social history, Derrida fascinated the aficionados early on and then a wider counter-reaction set in which has eroded his reputation, already abetted by his playful obscurity. There are few discussions these days devoted to Derrida in academic philosophical journals. To the contrary, I take Derrida to be Heidegger’s great successor, in shifting from a primary focus on Being to writing. There are, of course, notable differences, too. (Cf. the very different feel of Heidegger’s favorite German poet – Friedrich Holderlein (1770–1843), a college-mate of Hegel – and the textual play of Derrida’s 1984 Glas.) The rapprochement between Heidegger and Derrida, then, is limited to certain regions of discourse. Derrida’s brilliance is evident in La dissémination (1972). The polyphony of the very word “dissemination” is a vibratory coherence, a Gegenschwung, a “plural scattering” (Johnson, 159) evoked by and specific to certain marks: d-is-s-e-m-i-n-a-t-i-o-n, so tedious a mark, a local string of symbols . . . whereas “dissemination” is so rich in coherences. Meaning in Derrida is not alogical but heterological. There is no first insemination. The semen is always already swarming. The “primal” insemination is dissemination (D: 304). To inseminate is for input traces to set resonating the plural scattering of coherences. These are not serial chains of associations but a global autoselection by mutual coherence. QBD provides a “mechanism” of “dissemination” in Derrida’s sense, a way that is a

Derrida and the Quantum Brain

dual mode dynamics originary to mechanisms. Input selects from coherences that function as attunements, including attunement for other marks. Marks attune in the form of a dissemination. Let’s initiate study of La dissémination line-by-line and interplay with it for a while in deliberate discussion. This work begins with an italicized poetical statement whose author is Sollers – the name itself a pseudonym in the dissemination of the sun. Derrida engages Sollers’ Nombres throughout La dissémination. (The ever clever Derrida even encrypts Sollers’ real name in the text, playing with the idea of authorship, which he polemically critiques against John Searle in Limited Inc (1988).) not so much that it does not enumerate upon some vacant superior surface the successive bumping siderally of a total account in process of formation. (D: 289)

Here Derrida announces an annihilation to some ground prior to totalizing enumeration of world furnishings and their absences. Annihilation to abground is not an absence. Abground defaults both presence and absence, and so resists totalization. In Heidegger annihilation is to Abgrund; in Derrida annihilation is to the arche-process that underlies textuality. “Arche” as used here implies an originary principle of beginning. Derrida’s arche-process is an originary dynamic that differs, defers, disseminates, re-marks, supplements . . . his description is heterological. “Ab” means radically “away” here, away to a domain lacking presence, lacking world, away to default, away to a welling dynamical ground that gifts dual modes, Sein and Zeit, Being and time, belonging together . . . . Where Heidegger has “welling,” a graceful organic movement, Derrida has “bumping,” violence, conflict, discontinuity, dislocation that transforms Heidegger’s welling dynamic to something more French and au contemporaire. What is traced? A “bumping” is traced. There is a violence in inscription, a “successive bumping,” a serial process of violent inscription, sidereally. Sidus is Latin for star. (The “sidereal day” measured against the background of the stars is slightly shorter than the “solar day” measured against the sun.) A violent inscription under the time of the myriad stars in their fixed dynamics, not the moving time of the sole local Solus, but a more universal natural inscription that forms a “total account” as written Nombres. (Sollers’ Nombres is totalizing,

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Derrida notes, with surprising approval, a total account, certain things “said for the first time.”) The physical mode of Derrida’s transcendental vacancy is tilde. Tilde’s vacancy is the utter emptiness of double negation, even lacking no-thing. The bump is an exchange, a form of interaction where ∼ and non∼ modes bump, and in achieving coherence, there is presencing . . . world and text. In the bump what’s coming in – put-in – encounters ∼situatedness and the put-out is world and text. The ∼conjugate match enumerates on the hymen which the match itself provides. The surface is not prior but continually generated de novo in the ∼conjugate match Quantum brain systems participating in reading, with their arche-traces, are bumped by physical marks coming in and we have certain meanings. The input calls for coherences – input provokes its web of quantum entanglements – and we “have” certain meanings. (The tense is present perfect, the task of meaning completed.) In reading, input evokes its coherences, and we are situated for a world, which in reading never actually presences. The book plays with our situatedness by evoking coherences. Input-traces in the non∼ mode ring the ∼mode and a coherent resonance is set up. In writing, the quantum brain systems controlling writing participate and become coherent with the prevailing coherences, and ultimately express those coherences in the marks written. More specifically, the marks encode the symmetry, the invariance across coherent participants.

The pure book Christopher Johnson (1993) has drawn significant parallels between the discourses of Derrida and systems theory. I add to the systems account quantum degrees of freedom with dual modes. The fit between Derrida and dual mode quantum dynamics with its alter universe is very striking in the following quotation from “Force and Signification” in Writing and Difference (1978). Derrida is discussing “the operation of creative imagination . . . the invisible interior of poetic freedom . . . the blind origin of the work in its darkness” (WD: 8) which in founding the literary act, whether of writing or reading, breaks off from the world in a scission. For in question here is a departure from the world toward a place which is neither a non-place nor an other world . . . the creation of “a universe to be added to the universe” [Focillon] . . . This universe articulates on that which is in excess of everything, the essential nothing on whose basis everything can appear and be produced within language . . . this excess is the very possibility of writing and of literary inspiration in general. Only pure absence – not the absence of this or that,

Derrida and the Quantum Brain 

but the absence of everything in which all presence is announced – can inspire . . . The pure book, the book itself, by virtue of what is most irreplaceable within it, must be the “book about nothing” [Flaubert] . . . . (WD: 8) This pure book which is not the negative of presence now or past, nor the negative of our world, is excess, supplement transcendental to the literary act. This pure book – the “invisible interior of poetic freedom” – is tilde. The poet’s creative imagination is a ∼mode function. Rather than a pure book that might contain the totality of books, the pure book is absolutely separated from legible books, and “has it own, infinite, world” (Johnson, 26). The pure book is written in the ∼mode, arche-written, nothing like inscriptions on the page you presently read, instead it is condition for the possibility of books presencing, like the one you now hold.

Derrida begins the first section of La dissémination with Littre definitions of le declenchement – the trigger – and the verb declencher, bringing out the polysemy. One sense is the act of engaging and releasing a mechanism that had been held in check. A constrained force comes free of deferral. The pistol’s lethality is deferred until someone pulls the trigger which activates the mechanism for firing a bullet. The “trigger” also refers to the mechanism of release that the act triggers. Declencher is also “to lift the latch of a door in order to open it,” and so opening up is part of its polysemy, and further, declencher signifies speech, at least in lower Normandy. (“He stayed for an hour without unclenching his teeth.”) So declenchement and declencher signify releasement, opening, indeed opening out of belonging-together, opening as the match of clencher and clenched, the fit (Merleau-Ponty’s “maximum grip”) between act and world affordances. But more, clenching implies opposing forces, and in unclenching, the release of this energy in writing. Derrida’s “trigger” releases text for disclosure, not a text already there to be displayed but a text produced by the triggering mechanism. “Clench” is etymologically related (pace Chalmers’ dictionary) both to “clink,” a ringing sound, a resonance, a belonging-together, and “clinch,” fastening a nail by bending down the point, a duality of exiting and re-entering the wood, and also “clinch,” “to settle or confirm (an argument, a bargain),” the end of competition (the Lakers clinched making the playoffs), the belonging-together, the clink of winner and loser, the clinch of their match, there coherence in the game of winning/losing . . . all this is triggered. What is the textual mechanism that is triggered in the bump? The textual apparatus has four surfaces, one of which “gives way, gives place, and gives rise . . . to the moment of visibility, of the surface as what is facing out, of presence as what is face-to-face”. (291)

 Chapter 3

One surface of the textual apparatus is the surface of presencing, marks on the page. The other three surfaces are imperfect, incomplete and closed. The surfaces of imperfection are “plupresent” (plus-prèsent), an unpresent “is” that is a plus, a supplément richer than any presencing. The plupresent is doubled, a “fold,” a “double bottom.” The plupresent is not only present imperfect, not only incomplete, its tense is also “a kind of future perfect . . . the future perfect of an innumerable imperfect, an indefinite past that will never have been present” (309). A future perfect, in the sense that there will be a presencing, but this presencing is never final, always underway, “excludes any and all eschatology” (309). Derrida’s ground of text features both perfect and imperfect tenses. The unpresent uncompleted imperfect provides “the illusion of the present” (D: 308). The perfect is present, complete, perfected, scientific. The imperfect is “a time without grounding, foundation or limit . . . a presentless time” (D: 308). So the plupresent supports a continual presencing in the between of unpresent dual modes which are “constantly reanimated and unappeased” (311, quoting Sollers). The non∼ mode is continually reanimated by the symmetrybreaking input flux of unappeasable reality. The ∼mode is continually reanimated by input flux, including marks, reanimated by coherence, an everchanging situatedness, a shifting incompletely appeasable attunement for the match. The plupresent, then, supports a continual presencing whose ground has a “double bottom,” an unpresent dual mode dynamic. The plupresent event is no longer an event since its singularity, from the word go, is doubled, multiplied, divided and discounted, immediately concealing itself in an unintelligible “double bottom” of nonpresence, at the very moment it seems to produce itself, that is to say, to present itself. (292)

The nonpresencing event of the dual quantum modes withdraws in their ∼conjugate match, which simultaneously produces presencing, indeed, the nonpresencing event produces itself, since the presencing conserves the common symmetry of the dual modes. The unpresent dual modes express their common symmetry in the presencing event. The textual apparatus is a frame (Derrida’s Section 2), a setting “that constitutes the object, that presents the thing as an object, as that which stands opposite me, facing me” (297). In the quadrature of the apparatus, one face, as we have seen, presents a “transcendental illusion” when in fact “nothing will indeed have taken place but the place” (297), the address of the imperfect faces

Derrida and the Quantum Brain

whose play effects the illusion. “He who says I in the present tense” (298) has only an illusion of mastery, of control. At the very moment he thinks he is directing the operations, his place – the opening toward the present assumed by whoever believes himself capable of saying I, I think, I am, I see, I feel, I say . . . – [his place] is constantly and in spite of him[,] being decided by a throw of dice whose law will subsequently be developed inexorably by chance. (298)

The apparatus gives rise to “I,” which “is only the differentiated structure of this organization” (299). Derrida’s play (jeu) of chance is not merely randomness but a crisis, “an autonomous tendency to destabilization” (Johnson, 116) every general economy . . . is open to destabilization from an indeterminate source, is always already in crisis. (Johnson, 118)

This crisis is originary – always already begun – and forms an interminable development. This series of crises is precisely the rhythm of history and the rhythm of life. (Johnson, 118)

These crises or “rifts” (D: 295) are destabilizing in the play of coherences. The dream beautifully demonstrates a sharp rift, when the dream scene suddenly shifts, marked by the dreamer later shaking his head and recounting, “and the next thing I knew . . . ” (Globus 1991). Section 3 is titled “The Scission” (La Coupure), a cut or break. Since every moment calls for an infinite commentary, an incision must be effected, “some violent arbitrary cut” (D: 300). Such a mutilating beginning is of course “fictional” (300). It is only in the play of scission that the presence of the present . . . forms a surface . . . only institutes itself as something face-to-face – something present – only triggers off discourse – speech in praesentia – only unclenches its teeth, in the play of this cut, this scission. (303)

It is a myth that what appears, “that which erects itself freely before me,” is “a pure upsurge owing to nothing.” In this myth the presencing world is selfgrounding, a world “there,” but not appearing, until someone comes by and takes a look at that neck of the woods. The myth distinguishes presence and absence, absence of a former presence, in terms of time. The present is present, the absent was present, and the future will be present in the metaphysical myth. Derrida deconstructs the myth of modernity. Now presence/absence are on the same side, each entailing presences distinguished by time, distinguished

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 Chapter 3

from an unpresence that is originary to presence/absence. Presence/absence is grounded in dual mode quantum brain dynamics. The between of the dual modes is the realm of presence and absence. The unpresent dual modes themselves are the unpresent ground of presencing. Classically, the absent is other to the present, but with Heidegger, the Abgrund is the other of present/absent; with Derrida, arche-writing is the other of textual presences and absences. The other is ground and dual in Derrida, like the “tain of a mirror” which reflects a mirror-image, only a “blank mirror” that reflects no presence back to us, but instead reflects to an alter universe. The reflection in the blank mirror is in the alter mode. Both image and mirror-image are unpresent; presence is dis-closed in their between. Incoming energy is recognized by these dual mode traces in virtue of coherence, and a trace of the recognition is left in the ∼mode only, though addressible in the non∼ mode, where it is represented as a default. Recognitions leave a swiss-cheese non∼ mode where the trace is the hole. In Derridean terms, the holes re-mark in virtue of symmetry-conservation of the mark that presenced in recognition. The re-mark of a ∼mark is a hole, utter withdrawal, yet the address signifies a trace of the mark within the ∼mode. The self requires a boundary for its own definition, a boundary on the other side of which is other. Self without other is hermetic, unable to get outside of itself, nothing but isolated subjectivity. The classical other that allows self to be a self lies on the other side of the boundary. The classical other is a presence that can be re-presented in the self. In the case where the other is the very special other that mirror-images the self ’s bodily presentation – the other seen by the self every morning in the mirror – the case where self-as-object is represented in self-as-subject, this case of self-reference falls into the vertigo of Gödel undecidability (§ 3.3). Dual mode dynamics permits a very different boundary for the self, no longer an external boundary where self stops and other begins, but an internal boundary where the self is torn, scission of self takes place, holes appear in the non∼ mode, which re-mark ∼traces. The other of self in dual mode dynamics is a default in self, an intrinsic boundary where the conventional domain of self and other is annihilated. The other of the self is the abyss of double negation, where the annihilation of not-any-thing takes place, forming a scission, a cut where classical Being no longer appears, a scission in our non∼ universe. Nonetheless a trace persists at the address of the hole, re-marking the ∼trace. So now self-reference need not be self-object representation, now selfreference can be by self-annihilation to the alter mode. If the mirror be a complex mirror, with an imaginary dimension, in which the mirror-image is

Derrida and the Quantum Brain 

not only the complex conjugate of the non∼ image but is additionally of the ∼mode, then the mirror-image in such a strange mirror is in the form of holes that re-mark the addresses of ∼traces. In unimode quantum theory, presence is assumed. The quantum description is consistent with what presences – say, the pattern of dots on the screen in two-slit experiments – but the quantum description doesn’t account for presencing, which lies outside quantum theory. Quantum theoretical equations provide only the probabilities of different presences which are taken for granted. The mode of unimode quantum theory is non∼. Unimode quantum theory is sufficient to explain dynamics, but not thermodynamics (Umezawa, 146). Unimode quantum theory describes the dynamics of our universe, both unpresent quantum and present world. The ∼universe is radically alter, never can be ours, continually withdraws while helping actualize possibilities to presences, participating in the actualizing process. When the self-representation is tilde, Gödel undecidability is evaded. Self-reference is not via a re-presentation of the object-self inside the self but by a hole in the self that is a new species of simulacrum, trace of a trace of self. The self-referential formula is now decidable because the self-representation is not lodged as a contradiction within the self but as annihilation of self, which is unable to mount contradiction.

. The tain of the mirror Derrida observes, While we remain attentive, fascinated, glued to what presents itself, we are unable to see presence as such, since presence does not present itself, no more than does the visibility of the visible . . . . (D: 314)

Our gluey fascination with what presents itself reaches an apotheosis in the dream, which holds us enraptured, even though the dreams events are fantastic. When we reflect back on our dream, we see our rapt absorption with what presented itself while we lay sleeping, and smile at ourselves for our oneiric foolishness, but it is no different in waking life. In waking, too, we are caught up in the presencing world that is carved out . . . a closed opening, neither quite open nor quite closed. It is a false exit. A mirror. (D: 314)

 Chapter 3

Three sides of the textual surface are unpresent, an imperfect plupresent, and the fourth side a closed opening, a mirror open in what presents itself but closed in virtue of its peculiar tain, the surface which we cannot get behind. “And it is not just any mirror” but a mirror turned toward the other three sides that encase it plupresently, “offering us only the sight of its tain” (314). The tain of the Derridean mirror is not itself an opaque back that reflects back what comes in but is in a sense “transparent,” the tain “forms a screen” (314) on which the hidden play of the plupresent shows through. This screen is “at once the visible projection surface for images, and that which prevents one from seeing the other side” (314), a screen that is a “closed opening.” We cannot see through the vacuum state screen to the ∼universe – the vacuum closes – but the screen dis-closes, opens, our quotidian universe. Furthermore, the tain is “transformative of what it lets show through” (314). The Derridean mirror is not passively reflexive but actively transforms what shows through. The tain in this mirror thus reflects – imperfectly – what comes to it – imperfectly – from the other three walls and lets through – presently – the ghost of what it reflects, the shadow deformed and reformed according to the figure of what is called present: the upright fixity of what stands before me. (314)

The imperfect unpresent pluperfect is the reflection by the tain of the active Derridean mirror, while an image of it shows through the transforming tain as a presence. This presence is an illusory reality, a transformed ghost of plupresent reality. What shows through the tain is regulated by the plupresent. But the plupresent never shows through, the tain “shelters and conceals. Holds in reserve and exposes to a view” (314). Derrida’s exposition is quite concrete: Three sides of a four-sided system are unpresent and the fourth “side” is the tain-between, and so supportive of presence, displaying world. The tain of the Derridean mirror lets text show through whilst concealing an originary plupresent of arche-writing. The debt to Heidegger is apparent: Ereignis withdraws as it discloses Being in the belonging together of Being and time. The movement of withdrawal/disclosure in Heidegger is continued by Derrida, but now applied to ecriture. We can never pass through the Derridean mirror to the plupresent. We are limited to breaking the mirror, “tearing the screen” (Sollers), which is still a great step, freeing us from the hegemony of what presences, freeing us for the annihilation of no-thing to the abground of the undecidable plupresent. The Derridean mirror is like Umezawa’s dual-mode vacuum. The plupresent is tilde mode. Derrida’s mirror is a tilde mirror, and behind the mirror,

Derrida and the Quantum Brain 

closed off from us, indeed, of another universe, is the plupresent universe that is tilde. What shows through the mirror – the illusory “ghost” of the plupresent – is the ∼conjugate match of tilde and nontilde participants in an interaction within the brain’s vacuum states. The tain of the Derridean mirror is the place of interaction between external energy and plupresent possibility, between non∼ traces of external energy and the interpenetrated possibilities of the ∼attunement. What “shows through” the mirror in the external/attunement match is the “ghost” of the hidden dynamics, the illusion of a self-subsisting abiding world where we happily come and go, smothering the Angst and abyssal vertigo of facelessly facing the postnihilation plupresent. The Derridean ∼mirror complicates a four-sided structure. The mirrorimage is like “an echo that would somehow precede the origin it seems to answer” (323). It is only in the possibility of duplication that a sign can be unique; the possibility of duplication must already be in the sign for it to be a sign. In dual mode dynamics the duplicate can be marked by a vacuum hole. The hole provides a cut, an inner boundary, an address where nothing takes place but the place, but nonetheless a duplication is signified in another universe. “. . . the ‘echo’ is an ‘incision”’ (323). And what of the subject? “You”? “Me”? “Us” will have been in the imperfect of that echo.

(D: 323)

The subject is pluperfect, a ∼subject. Plato’s cave, Derrida writes, is entirely transformed “into a circumscribed area contained within another – an absolutely other – structure,” a surrounding structure to the scene of Plato’s cave, “an incommensurably, unpredictably more complicated machine” (324). This machine is outfitted with Derridean mirrors, mirrors that “would not be in the world, simply, included in the totality of all onta and their images,” but quoting Derrida: things “present,” on the contrary, would be in them (324). Things present are not self-subsistent and duplicatable in the mirror but things presence only in the mirror, showing through the tain in the ∼conjugate match of Umezawa’s dual modes. There is no presencing world other than through the tain of the ∼conjugate mirror.

Chapter 4

Post-amble

More precisely, there were two of us, now: the one whose intact skin could be shown to everyone, the one whose outer envelope did not immediately provoke horror, and the other riddled with gashes and holes, the flesh cut to the quick, crimson and purple, skinned like a steer . . . . (Philippe Sollers, quoted by Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, p. 301)

. “Our” universe Umezawa has no reservations about which of the dual universes is ours and which is Alter. After all, the unimode universe of quantum mechanics and standard quantum field theory works quite well for dynamics . . . to which a common sense theory of observation needs be appended. In discourse on the unimode quantum universe, observables come for free. For Copenhagen quantum mechanics the classical retains a hold, since classical ways of thinking are integral to nonclassical theories. Bohr, in his rigor, restricts our knowledge specifically to the interaction of a classical observing system and a quantum system, thus the classical remains vital to quantum mechanics. Indeed, just let Planck’s constant go to zero at macroscopic scale and you get the classical, simple as that. When quantum field theory with thermodynamical degrees of freedom requires a second unknowable mode, we think naturally enough it is alter to the quantum universe we have known of for a century now, the familiarly strange quantum universe thought to underlie the quotidian world that we perceive, a quantum universe whose oddities we have grown to accept while still finding them quite odd. The experiential impact of quantum strangeness has habituated, leaving the unemotional idea. A more definite response can be given to the question of what makes a quantum universe “our” quantum universe. Our quantum universe is the undefaulted, the alter quantum universe is for us defaults in our quantum universe. Sosia and his mirror-image double each could say, under the Hermitean assumption, my quantum universe is the undefaulted one, and the defaulted alter universe I can never know but only re-mark addresses of its traces. In the nonHermitean case the defaulted universe can be rich – much more than our undefaulted universe – rich with re-cognition traces of input symmetries and their emergents. The defaulted universe hoisted by living brain tissue is written during our experience. All this richness is Alter, defaults in our universe that are successor to res cogitans. The meaning of subjectivity shifts here . . . the true self is alter, default, not party to an ontological duality with other, but defaulting self/other. “Duality” is no longer dual interacting substances,

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mental and physical, but dual ontological modes constituting presence in their between as the ∼conjugate match. We are thrown in the between – this is where we always already find ourselves, amidst the world dis-closed there. The defaulted universe is our subjective richness. The undefaulted universe is objective, ultimately confirmable by a presencing, like the reading on a meter anyone might see. “Our” universe is the one that presences and its quantum underpinnings. “Our” own richly fenestrating quantum defaults re-mark the Alter universe. The fenestrating defaults re-mark traces in Alter subjectivity. Note the table has been turned: Self is alter to world rather than in (bei) it. Subjectivity is profoundly Alter, a fluctuating quantum attunement for a match with input symmetries, the ∼conjugate match in which world lights up. Dual mode QBD invites a novel interpretation of subjectivity as ∼mode, opens subjectivity to dual mode ontology. . Fault and de-fault Well, whose fault is it that we have hog-tied ourselves to the extreme of parallel worlds? The fault lies with default, the unknowable Alter. Unfortunately, there’s nothing “there” to blame, only das Abgrund. Abground, bringing default into the ground of neurophysics, enriches its ontology. There is an alter universe that we in our universe can only re-mark but never reach. The default as mark locates an alter universe trace which is as such unknowable. Blame our predicament on the default, defaulting to an alter universe. This brings a second mode and a dual mode between, where free of m¯ay¯a, we see that the seemingly self-subsistent world is constituted in the between. This impacts back on m¯ay¯a, too. Now, for the first time, m¯ay¯a is explained in terms of physical reality, rather than being merely a false belief. We wrongly give a transcendent autonomy to what is actually derived in the between, putting the cart before the dual horses. The presencing of world is continually hoisted, not self-subsistent. The world in which one finds oneself thrown is a singular disclosure, in the contingent case of a ∼conjugate match between dual modes. We each sustain a world sharing invariances with the others and so a world-in-common is feasible, though that is not the true case. The quotidian world works perfectly well, which ensnares our belief in its transcendent reality. The cost of breaking the chains of m¯ay¯a is existential isolation to an extreme monadological degree. The Latin meaning of “fault” is to deceive. What then is de-fault, dedeceive? In deception something passes for something else; deception remains

Post-amble

within the plane of Being. Default as de-deception is not to reveal, however, but to default to a universe alter to ours, a universe immune to deception and revelation alike. Let the blame for m¯ay¯a accrue to Alter’s hiddenness. Dual asymmetric modes hoisted by the living brain – the ∼mode the richer, having traces that the non∼ mode can only re-mark – and the unparalleled opportunity of their between, which dis-closes world in the ∼conjugate match between modes. M¯ay¯a is thinking its there, the quotidian world, rather than facing up to our generating it, each in parallel, the world disclosed in our Lichtungen falling to a world-in-common under the sorcery of everyday life. Dual modes are constitutive of their between and so the world dis-closed there is derivative for all Da-seins in parallel. Our experience of world-thrownness is a brain state, specifically, a state of the dual mode between in which input and attunement match ∼conjugately. It follows that world-thrownness is generated in parallel for all Dasein. To see this is to break the chains of m¯ay¯a . . . no favor freedom, breakthrough to the Angst of an abyssal defaulting process . A fault is a blemish, blemish literally a “stain” that breaks the continuity, resulting in discontinuity of normal skin and good reputation, breaking both. A de-fault is beyond stain; continuity and discontinuity do not apply. Instead there is displacement, in the sense of a geological fault, now extended in meaning: an extremely radical displacement to the abyssal. When hunting dogs lose the scent they are said to be “at fault.” Indeed, they default the game of the chase which collapses to milling-about. The yelping atfault dogs that lose the scent are guilty of pluperfection. Blame our predicament on the dogs, if you will. Default is fault beyond guilt, beyond blame, to an alter universe, so that there are two universes and the clearing of their between in which we always already find ourselves. Defaults are coordinate with Being, giving/withdrawing, stigmata of the general economy. M¯ay¯a has no clue of our scary predicament: parallel bubbles of world disclosure amidst the withdrawing unknowable. . O hidden! O hidden under the dove’s wing, Hidden in the turtle’s breast, under the palm tree at noon, under the running water, at the still point of the turning world, O hidden. T. S. Eliot

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I have shown repeatedly that postphenomenological and quantum thermofield theoretical discourses can be well-thought together in limited discourse regions, where a “docking” becomes feasible. Heidegger, Derrida and Umezawa all describe a dual mode dynamics whose provenance is the dual mode’s between. The belonging-together, the unique matching in the between, dis-closes world in which we always find ourselves already thrown. Subjectivity has been reinterpreted as ∼mode attunement. Physical reality is re-presented by non∼ invariances. This is not a duality of interacting Cartesian substances, each exercising some control on the other, causal arrows going both ways, but a matching of dual modes; not a dominance relation but participation in the consensus of belonging-together. Subjectivity at last finds a place in physical ontology, “residing” in the alter universe. When Umezawa added the utterly alter ∼universe to make quantum field theory thermodynamical and thus applicable to dissipative living systems, he opened the way to finally integrating subjectivity with physicalism, a new identification of mind with quantum degrees of freedom in brain functioning. It is comforting to have subjectivity once again consistent with science (though the truth is our discomfort merely relocates). Dualism takes up a radically new life in dual mode dynamics. The subject is of an alter universe and so never splits our physical universe like Descartes’ res cogitans does into subject and object. Dual modes and their between provide much richer resources than interacting substances. I have tried to extend the quantum revolution, now in its second century, to the forgotten Being, using dual mode resources. Presence to an observer has simply been commonsensically assumed in quantum physics. Presencing lies outside of quantum theory. Probabilities are probabilities of presencings and quantum theory has nothing to say about presencing as such. Quantum theory copes with this deficiency by the traditional convenience of Seinsvergessen. I claim that presencing can at last be encompassed by quantum theory. Let the quantum theory be quantum field theory, indeed, quantum thermofield theory. Here presencing can be naturally explained as a certain state of the between – the state of a ∼conjugate match. Quantum theory thus extends its revolution through dual mode quantum brain dynamics to our very existence, docking in surprising symmetry at the postphenomenological landing. Thinking-together postphenomenology and dual mode quantum brain dynamics, explaining presence, and extending the quantum revolution – if these be achievements above, they are only at great cost. The everyday world of Dasein hereabouts is lost. Each Dasein (entity), as Da-sein (being-there), is utterly isolated. The quotidian world-in-common is a phantasm of the logos. We

Post-amble 

are really alone, ensconsed in parallel worlds that are hoisted in our respective betweens, whilst clinging in common to m¯ay¯a. We are separated bubbles of disclosure under grand illusion of community. We are lighting, Spirit, Fire . . . on our own, self-lighting Lichtungen disseminated within the quantum beyonddarkness. Without these clearings even no-thing is annihilated in a universal default of objectuality. What generates the lighting in self-lighting is the ∼conjugate match of dual modes in their between. Self-lighting is continually generated, in waking and (sometimes indiscernable) dreaming. Under anesthesia self-lighting ceases temporarily, in death forever, where matches are no longer hoisted and worlds no more disclosed. Das Ereignis is tantamount to Fire, the dynamical belonging-together of upsurging dual modes in which worlds light up. * While suffering the historical revolutions in philosophical and scientific thought, humankind has been stripped of powerful illusions, sustained blows to its narcissistic self-conception. We have gone in the Copernician revolution from center of the universe to a cosmic speck in a regional wedge of milky galaxy. Reduction in self-importance takes place despite our actually living as if we are at the very center of the universe, in the continual throes of biological narcissism. We have also been displaced in the Darwinian revolution, our categorical distinction from the mere animals collapses and we are pulled back to the animal masses . . . another narcissistic injury. Freud and Jung undermined our conviction of conscious control, giving the unconscious, both personal and archetypal, a powerful say in what we are. No longer masters of our destiny, postphenomenology pounds us again, taking away control. Our foundations crumble and give way to the unknowable abyss of das Abgrund, the dynamical abground of possibility in which all objectuality defaults. I have tried to increase this burden of blows. Now the self-subsistent every day world-in-common perceived by various observers, each in their own consciousness, gives way to parallel world dis-closures out of aconceptual local consensus. Here the quotidian world-in-common implodes in monadic dissemination, a dissemination of world-thrownnesses in parallel. The impact of our full “existential isolation” finally hits . . . not even the inflated fellowship of Heidegger’s resolute “grounders of the abyss” is left. Ontologically alone. . . robustly finite, isolated bubbles of light existingly. As if loss of the world-in-common were not enough, there is a loss of metaphysical dominance. Now everything depends upon the profoundly hidden, the unknowable abground, the utterly alter that we can only re-mark by default

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of our own universe. We live our lives under the hegemony of the hidden. The ∼attunement constrains the life-world that actually presences. In the torpor of Seinsvergessen our perilous case is overlooked – that of continually hoisting parallel worlds in both waking and dreaming – and the power of the hidden persists unappreciated. To encounter that power fully, waking and dreaming must be at parity (as taught in initiation to sorcery), which raises a deep Angst and thus avoidance, finally to rest in the common belief: dreams are “merely” and waking is “really.” The abground smiles like the Cheshire cat at our illusions! The “hidden” saluted by T. S. Eliot can be variously interpreted. There but unseen – such a trivial “hidden” is not what I mean. The non∼ mode is “hidden” in the sense of not even being there, yet can transcend its hiddenness by collapse to something there – a dead cat or a live one in the Schrödinger story set in the first quantization of quantum mechanics. So the non∼ mode is more hidden than there-but-unperceived-by-anyone, which is still an accessible hiddenness. The “hidden” for which I yearn is an even deeper sense of hidden: This is the utterly unreachable “hidden” of a principled alter-universe, an abground mystery which can be only re-marked in our universe by defaults. Alter is the default rather than an opposite. Alter is subjectivity, appropriated away from metaphysics where self-other is an object, to the Alter as default in objectuality. Alter takes on a new meaning in the context of dual mode dynamics: Alter is ∼mode. Alter carries layers of trace: (1) total information that has come in, coded by dual mode, Nambu-Goldstone symmetrons. (2) re-cognitions in which certain traces are satisfied and re-marked as defaults. This layer includes emergent recognitions that are also defaults. Alter is rich in trace, both put-in and spontaneously emergent. This unknowable hidden of an alter universe pressing on the brain’s vacuum states, this weighted superposition, encounters our universe pressing in – and in the ∼conjugate match Being is cleared, world presences. World is dis-closed in the match; Being, the fruit of an achievement, in making a ∼conjugate match. Whilst Alter withdraws (Heidegger’s insight) and is wasted (Bataille), unmatched with the input flux. Meanwhile, alter is continually retuned, both in its inner dynamics and in terms of its “accidental” encounters in the lightness of Being. Alter is not a static Cartesian subject with ethereal nose above everything; Alter is O hidden! dynamical defaults.

Post-amble 

. Neils Bohr’s emblem Neils Bohr put the tao symbol at the center of his personal seal, designed by Bohr himself to adorn his “coat of arms” for the occasion of receiving the Royal Danish award. Bohr also armed himself with this slogan: Contraria sunt complementa. Contraria are not opposites but complement each other, complete each other. Complementaries are both required for a full description. Fittingtogether replaces conflict. These contraria are also contrary in being mutually exclusive, not simultaneously applicable. So contraria are both required for a complete description but the two descriptions are also contrarily incompatible. Contraria are contrary descriptions in Bohr’s motto, descriptions that equally apply, wave and particle, both required for a full description. Ontology becomes ambiguous. “. . . an unambiguous definition of the state of the system is naturally no longer possible” (Bohr 1987, 1: 54). Furthermore, “an independent reality in the ordinary physical sense” (54) cannot be ascribed to quantum physical reality. So it’s not that contraria are for Bohr in the reality – the contraria are not ontological – but only in the contrary means by which we observe reality. As far as physical “reality” as such, we ought to remain silent, restricting ourselves to public observables, which Bohr conveniently grants himself. “Ultimately, every observation can, of course, be reduced to our sense perceptions” (1987, l: 53–54). Bohr’s “of course” is good old Seinsvergessen. Sense perceptions lie outside Bohr’s quantum theory. The tao symbol inscribed on Bohr’s emblem resonates deeply, even in ways not conceived by Bohr, as would only be fitting for the provenance of an ancient symbol. The present approach solicits Bohr’s contraria and appropriates them so that the “contrary” is tilde. Contraries are deconstructed and the contrary reinterpreted as default. The symbol so prominent in Bohr’s arming is not strictly a symbol of the Tao. According to Capra (1975: 107), this ancient Chinese symbol is called T’ ai-chi T’ u or “Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate.” The symbol depicts the dynamical character of yin and yang, “the dynamic interplay of these two polar forces.” The Supreme Ultimate is dynamical, a movement, in which polar forces oppose each other in a balanced way. However, the appropriation above makes the dark element, yin, tilde mode with respect to the light element, nontilde yang. There is no longer the Heraclitean opposition of polar forces, instead there is the belonging-together of dual modes. Bohr’s appropriation of the tao symbol retains metaphysics in the contraria as polar opposing forces, whereas the present appropriation is postphenomenological. For Bohr contraria are

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contrary in mutual exclusivity yet co-operate in completing each other. For me contraria embrace – just the opposite of Bohr – in belonging-together.

. Dual mode interpretation of the tao symbol Contemplate these two figures: the tao symbol and a diameterized version:

The diameterized version looks static, equal and opposite. The unity of the whole of equals is trumped by the division. The tao symbol, in contrast, looks dynamical; we sense a frozen moment of a movement turning clockwise. Here the equals are complementary in the whole. They belong-together, rather than oppose. The diameter of the circle divides whereas the tao symbol’s inner boundary conveys a dynamical balance in which each side is both active and passive at the same time, entering and entered, male and female. This is no Heraclitean conflict of opposing balanced forces, white v. black to a standstill, but a fitting together, the dynamical balance between dual modes, between dual universes. Bohr renews dualism in complementarity, incompatible duals, and Umezawa extends it to dual universes and their between. Vitiello develops dual mode QBD. I have brought postphenomenology into this discourse and now, unexpectedly, an ancient symbol . . . . Let’s focus on the small “oppositely” colored circles within each mode. Conventionally the small circles are interpreted to mean that Yin contains the seed of Yang and Yang the seed of Yin. Capra (1975) refines this. The two dots in the diagram symbolize the idea that each time one of the two forces reaches its extreme, it contains in itself already the seed of its opposite. (107)

Self contains other as prelude opposite to self.

Post-amble 

But the small circles also can be read as defaults, re-marks of seeds that are disseminated and interpenetrated ∼mode. The small black circle in the white mode can be taken to be default of that mode, a default in whiteness, rather than the presence of black. A default is not the opposite but is originary to oppositions. The small white circle in the black mode can be taken as a black default – where black no longer applies. A default in what is cannot be shown by a symbol that is part of what is, the default can only be implied. The symbol as such cannot show us defaults but offers both a conventional reading as opposite and a dual mode reading as default. A good symbol resonates richly with our attunement, recruiting leitmotifs and enhancing them to full motifs. The logic of a rich archetypal symbol is “heterological.” So on the Heraclitean interpretation, the tao symbol suggests a balance of opposing forces, each force both active and passive. On the present interpretation, the symbol suggests the unity of dual defaulted modes of a balanced dynamic. The “balance” between the two modes is not a mere equality, but a fitting together, a belonging-together, a match of complementaries. When the small circles are conceived as defaults in blackness and whiteness, rather than opposites, new possibilities for interpretation open up: Dual defaulted dynamical modes belong-together in the tao symbol. Now the tao symbol has two levels of quantum field theoretical interpretation. For the most literal interpretation, Hermitean thermofield dynamics (Vitiello 2001), the modes must balance, by assumption. But in nonHermitean thermofield dynamics, the modes can be unbalanced, one mode rich with traces that for the other mode are defaults. Here in the nonHermitean case the balanced mode is the unique and marvelous event of match between trace-possibility + emergent-possibility – i.e., ∼attunement – and the continual non∼ input flux from quantum physical reality. So the tao symbol can be reinterpreted as the case of a match, a belonging-together, that selects from possibilities for actualization. Again we have the Heraclitean match of opposites, a balanced conflict, to be contrasted with the Heideggerian match of belonging-together (das Ereignis). Dominance v. participation. Stalemate v. achievement of consensus. The fullest provenance of the match is in disclosing Being. Instead of being assumed and forgotten, Being/Presence lights up in the dual ontological modes’ hymen, the vacuum state between. The tao symbol, fully interpreted, evokes a dynamics of dual matching modes – belonging-together – each mode defaulted, mirror images with mirror image holes that re-mark the alter. The tao symbol can be appropriated without undue strain to show dual mode dynamics – just interpret the holes as defaults rather than opposites. Dual modes with their between enrich on-

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tology and deepen that enrichment through the introduction of default as remark of the alter mark/trace. The dual defaulted modes of the tao-symbol open an arche-writing of trace in the alter ∼mode. These traces flourish further in the symmetries which naturally emerge from them, weighted trace and emergent trace altogether interpenetrated in the background ∼attunement, written in the form of a Bogoliubov – literally, for-the-love-of-God – transformation, where each point of the trace is a superposition. Ancient and powerful symbols are archetypal gifts that are evocative heterologically, bootstraps rich enough for repeated interpretive renewal in the advance of discourse, at the same time pulling out the interpretation. The aim of this book was to think about a new form of duality – dual modes of the quantum vacuum state – at the very edge of contemporary discourse. And quite unexpectedly, ancient wisdom joins in at the denoument, when the symbol spontaneously came to me as affirmation of the ontology proposed. Of course, one symbol reinterpreted + m¯ay¯a doctrine does not a rapprochement make. But it is an alert: Could there be a confluence of three streams of thought: postphenomenology, quantum brain dynamics and ancient wisdom? Or perhaps postphenomenology and QBD are confluent but their connection to the tao symbol is mere accident, fortuitous ambiguity, orthogonal to any wisdom, playful Jeu surprising my brain. This remains to be explored:

. Tag “Tag” has the polysemy beloved by Derrida. It derives from “tack,” which comes to a punkt, a point where two stick-together – less crudely, the tack makes two come-together, traces of text on paper and the corkboard joined, belonging-together. Of course, this is said in a metaphysical context, where the subject who pushes the tack into the corkboard is ontologically distinct from both text and cork. But at least “Tag” brings us to the general neighborhood of belonging-together, a neighborhood that can be razed and erased by deconstruction, the familiar region conceding to the abyssal abground. The string T-a-g – an arbitrary pattern – thus quickly opens to the welling of belonging-together that is das Ereignis . . . with a little cut and fit, granted, as one might shape the hedges to enhance the beauty of the whole garden. Here aesthetical sensitivity come into play. The brown thumb butchers the hedges without notice, severing them from participation in the whole.

Post-amble 

I think of the sticking punkt where writing and cork meet, under auspices of the tack, as a kind of between. Of course, this is not the “between” of dual quantum modes – tack, paper and corkboard are classical objects – however, “Tag” does turn us toward the between. How strange . . . I didn’t choose the heading “Tag,” it just came to me, unauthored, like the tao symbol. My image was of little frayed points of cloth, as in wearing rag-tag clothes. “Tag,” when it came to me, was consciously interpreted as a little frayed piece sticking out of the end of the book, a classical rhizome. Sticking-together as between-two wasn’t part of it for me. “Tag” was gifted by abground. I was tagged! The police tag your car when you have violated the conventions. My initial image put a narrow interpretation on ‘tag’ . . . but at least I was drawn to the vicinity of belonging-together. Tags and tatters. At the moment it came I did not see tattered “fraying” as dissemination, like I now do. Arche-writing throws the string T-a-g as a tenuous trace of its own symmetries – and I accept it, more in the spirit of Derridean jeu, playfully, rather than with the swollen gratitude of Heidegger for the Gift. I didn’t choose “Tag.” I was tagged, labeled, like an army dog-tag, that is, marked, traced. In the game of tag, if I catch you I touch you and you are “it,” labeled other to “we.” My touch marks you as alter. Trace and alter united in “Tag.” Tag: “To string words or ideas together” (Chambers). Bill Clinton was tagged a liar by the press. The label “liar” was tacked to Bill, stuck to him, so that Bill and “liar” belong-together, even for those who believe he tells the truth. So to “string” together words or ideas is to make them belong-together, alogically tacked by association. The tag comes after . . . The “tag-line” comes at the end of the joke . . . . But in the case of a joke the tag-line is not a little nubbin stuck on the end but the very key to a surprised reorganization of what came before in telling the joke, when suddenly we say, “I get it!” The tao symbol is my tag-line. But at the same time the tag follows, “Come, do tag-along.” “Tag” does not hint of domination. “Tag-along” instead suggests community, repetition, sticking-together in harmonious participation. The rhizomatic tag buds disseminatively, tags tatter in weaving-together postphenomenology and dual mode quantum brain dynamics, tatters that frame defaults. Luggage tags claiming ownership, dragging heavily the well-worn luggage of metaphysics; gift tags on unclaimed “presents,” signs beckoning to reopen . . .

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Index

A Abground xviii–xx, xxiii, 48, 60, 65, 67, 69, 90, 117, 120–122, 125, 147, 157, 164, 170, 173, 174, 179 Absorbed coping 79, 84, 86, 122 Abyss xvii–xix, 33, 65, 67–69, 90, 120, 133, 136, 144, 162, 165, 171 aconceptual xvii, xx, xxv, 13, 81, 88, 96, 98–100, 103–106, 108–110, 173 Action 25, 34, 56, 57, 76–79, 84–86, 89, 104, 105, 107, 109, 115, 138, 143 Actualization 53, 60, 117, 122, 143, 177 address 24, 27, 100, 111, 128, 131–135, 142, 146, 147, 149, 160, 162, 163, 165, 169 Affect 29, 94, 95 Affordances xviii, 77, 150 Alogical 138, 148, 156 Alethia 44 Alter xviii–xx, 15, 24, 132, 163, 169, 170, 173, 174, 177, 178 Alteration 148 Altereity xix Anesthesia 55, 81 Angst xx, 33, 45–48, 99, 165, 171, 174 Annihilation xviii, xix, 22, 25, 26, 33, 69, 134, 138, 157, 162–164, 173 Anti-epistemology 76, 115 Anti-essentialism 110 Antirealism 97 Anxiety 46, 47, 80

a-onto-theo-logical 76, 97, 98, 101, 102 apathy 95 Appropriate 42, 77, 82, 100, 150 Appropriation xxiv, 5, 6, 46, 51, 80, 127, 175 arch¯e 116, 138 Arche-dynamics 140, 144 Arche-ecriture 139 Arche-process 140, 144–147, 157 Arche-traces 133, 140–143, 149, 150, 158 Arche-writing xx, 139, 143, 147, 150, 162, 164, 179 Archia 150 arrow of time 37 Artificial intelligence 75 Association 24, 91, 120 Asubjective experience 101 Attunement 28, 32, 33, 40, 44, 45, 48, 49, 60, 63–65, 70, 77, 78, 83, 90, 92–96, 102, 105, 110, 117, 121, 122, 138, 139, 142, 144, 153, 155, 157, 160, 170–172, 177 Authenticity 47, 48 auto-affective 128 Autopoiesis 81 Autorhoesis xxi, 81 B Background xxiv, 47, 79, 80, 84, 85, 87–93, 105, 106, 120, 157, 178 Bataille 44, 62, 76, 102, 113–115, 118–122 be-ing 7–9, 42, 62–66, 69, 102 behavior xxii, 78, 95, 96, 105, 106

 Index

being-in-the-world 7, 32, 47, 81, 82, 84, 88, 91–93, 100, 106 Belonging-together xxiii, xxiv, 3, 7, 8, 22, 25, 27, 28, 30, 32, 40, 41, 43–46, 49, 58, 60, 63, 65, 67, 68, 70, 71, 81–88, 92, 99, 101, 102, 105, 109, 111, 112, 127, 134, 139, 140, 150, 155, 159, 172, 173, 175–179 Between xvii, xx, xxii–xxv, 3, 4, 9, 12, 15, 16, 19, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30–32, 37, 38, 41–43, 45, 46, 50, 54–56, 58–60, 62, 64–70, 75–85, 88, 92–94, 97, 99, 102, 103, 107, 109–112, 114, 117, 119, 121, 122, 127–129, 131, 133, 134, 136, 139, 140, 146, 150, 152–156, 158–160, 162, 165, 170–173, 176–179 Between-two xxiii, xxv, 38, 179 Beyng xxi, 43, 62–64, 67, 69, 82 Binding problem 137 bipolar disorder 94 Blind spot 149, 150 bodyq 99 Bogoliubov transformation 11, 22, 111, 133, 178 Bohm 29, 58, 61, 104 Bohr 18, 115, 117, 169, 175, 176 Bootstrap 11, 139, 151 Born 26, 34, 70, 122 Bose-Einstein condensation xxiii brainp 112 brainq 48, 54, 55, 58, 60, 99, 112 C Capra 175, 176 care 95 Cartesian xviii, 28, 32, 80, 81, 172, 174 Castaneda 47 causal determinism 137 Chalmers 56 chance 82, 120, 121, 161 Chaos 5, 22, 23, 65 character disorder 93, 94

Cheshire cat 174 Classical brain 24, 56, 59 Classical physics 3, 111 Classical science xvii, 10, 97 Closed system 12, 35–37 Closure xix, 15, 23, 45, 62, 82, 90, 99, 150 Cognition 28, 32, 79 cognitive 5, 12, 79, 89 coherence 17, 20, 21, 54, 59, 60, 110, 120, 126, 134, 140, 146, 147, 151, 152, 156, 158–160, 162 Collapse of the wave function 18, 19 Collective mind 98 Complementarity xviii, xx, xxii, 76, 112, 114–117, 176 Complex conjugate 25, 30, 35, 134, 163 Computational xxii, 5, 13, 22, 56 Concealment 136 condensate 32, 34 Consciousness 13, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30–33, 37, 38, 47, 50, 55, 56, 80, 89, 113, 120, 126, 154, 155, 173 Consensus 21, 22, 29, 109, 110, 118, 155, 172, 173, 177 continental philosophy xvii, 3, 71 Copernician revolution 173 Copernicus 47, 70 Corticon 12, 22–24 Counter-resonance 65, 66 Creation and annihilation dynamics 12, 23, 25 Cybernetics 9, 21, 22, 28, 29, 150 D Da 4, 5, 57, 63, 101, 111 Darwin 47, 70, 173 Da-sein xviii Dasein’s brain 4, 11, 33, 49, 53, 58, 81, 82, 92, 99, 110 Davydov 14 de-fault 170, 171 Death 16, 90, 91, 173

Index

Decision 108–110 Decoherence xxiii, 19, 20 Deconstruction xx, 126, 178 Default xx, xvii, xviii, 27, 36, 70, 90, 94, 111, 112, 115, 118–120, 132–136, 141, 142, 146–150, 153, 157, 162, 169–171, 173, 174, 177–179 Deferring 121, 125, 144, 150 Deflationary realism 80, 117 Del Giudice 14 Deleuze xxiii Delusion 96 Depression 29 Descartes 46, 50, 80, 92, 126 Destiny 44, 45, 104, 127, 129, 173 Différance 121, 143–145, 150 Difference 20, 23, 25, 26, 58, 78, 85, 97, 121, 130, 146, 148, 150, 156 Differing 111, 125, 150, 156 Differs/defers 144 Dipole field xxiii, 15, 21, 59 Dipole wave quanta 14, 21, 31 Disclosure 5, 23, 31, 45, 47, 52, 57, 58, 61, 62, 78, 82, 92, 94, 101, 110, 117, 122, 139, 150, 159, 170–173 Discourse xvii, xx, xxiv, 3, 4, 9, 13, 61, 70, 71, 75, 114, 125, 131, 141, 161, 169, 172, 176, 178 Dissemination 117, 136, 156, 157, 173, 179 Disseminative resonance 126 Dissipative brain 33, 35 Dissipative systems 12, 26 Dominance 21, 41, 76, 110, 145, 172, 177 Double xix, 24, 30, 31, 36–38, 65, 136, 152, 153, 158, 160, 162, 169 Doubled 26, 152, 153, 160 Dream xix, 40, 113, 144, 145, 161, 163, 174 Dreamer 40, 161

Dreyfus xxv, 3, 9, 46, 47, 70, 75, 76, 78–80, 83–86, 88–90, 92, 95, 96, 100, 102, 105, 106, 122 Drive 29 Dualism 32, 81, 155, 172, 176 Duality 15, 32, 50, 104, 152, 159, 172, 178 Dwelling 6, 7, 90 Dynamical operators 34 E ecriture 164 ecstatic 49, 53, 54, 62, 63, 120, 151 Ecstatic-horizonal 49, 52, 63, 64 Efficacity 119, 121 eidos 85, 115 Eigenstates 113 Eigentlichkeit 47 Einstein 18, 156 Ek-sist 62, 68 ekstases 49, 50, 52, 81, 91, 128, 139, 151 ekstatikon 50, 128 Electromagnetic field xxiii, 21, 59, 60, 120, 137 Eliot 171, 174 Emad xviii, 6–9, 29, 40, 41, 61, 64, 65 Emergent 53, 68, 86, 88, 137, 151 174, 178 Emergent symmetries 86, 88, 150 emotional 29, 93, 109 En-owning 7, 41 energy minimization principle 109 energy optimization principle 32 enfiring 4, 99, 127 Entanglement 60, 102, 146 entropy 16, 35, 36, 145 Entwurf 60–62, 64 epistemic 92, 93, 113, 115 Epoch¯e 71, 89 Erasure 141, 149, 153 Ereignis xx, xxi, xxiii, 7, 8, 23, 30, 40, 42–45, 50, 58, 67, 70, 83, 93, 99, 102, 109, 110, 125, 126, 164



 Index

Essence 8, 9, 63, 87, 88, 97, 98, 127, 129 Evolution equation 88, 120 Existence xviii, 13, 24, 52, 54, 55, 62, 63, 89, 90, 97, 108, 120, 155, 172 Existential isolation 33, 170 Existenz 4–6, 18, 55, 62 Experience xxv, 7, 10, 43, 46, 50, 51, 54, 56, 57, 67, 77, 86, 88, 89, 93, 98–101, 103–106, 108, 119, 120, 154, 169, 171 Explicated 58, 104, 118 external world 27, 31, 38, 50, 51, 53, 70, 71, 80, 81, 110 F Fault 38, 170, 171 Feature detection 51 fire 127, 128, 173 first quantization xxiv, 100, 121, 174 flame 127, 128 Forgetting of Being 10, 31, 91 Formative creativity 53, 86, 138 fourfold 91, 92 Fröhlich 14 Franck 153–155 Freedom xvii, xix, xxii, 3, 5, 12–16, 21, 24, 26, 34, 35, 48, 54, 85, 108, 118, 137, 138, 158, 169, 171, 172 Freedom of will 108 Freud 47, 70, 76, 79, 92, 121, 143, 173 frontal lobe dysfunction 95 G Gödel 129–133, 135, 147, 162 Gödel number 131, 135 gathered 126, 127, 129 Gegenschwung 156 Geist xvii, 105, 114, 126–129 Gelassenheit 109 Gendlin 78, 79 General economy 49, 62, 76, 112–119, 128, 161, 171

General theory of doubling 152 generalized anxiety disorder 94 Geschenk 126 Gestell xxii, 31, 41, 49 Gevierte 91, 92 Gheis 127, 128 Gibson 50, 77, 107 Globus 5, 12, 40, 50, 81, 85, 110, 136 Goldstone symmetrons 23, 24 Grounders of the abyss 68 Guilty 171 H Hölderlin xix, 128 Hagan xxiii, 17, 20 Hallucinates 79, 143 Hameroff xxiii, 15, 17, 20, 55, 56 Hamiltonian difference 25–27, 36, 43, 55, 114, 146 Heat bath 12, 16, 27, 34, 36, 37 Hegel xix, 114, 156 Heraclitean 125, 151, 175–177 Hermitean 20, 25–27, 32, 55, 70, 151, 169, 177 Heterological 29, 70, 76, 110, 114, 116, 125, 137, 140, 148, 149, 157, 177 Hofstadter 4, 5, 41, 102 Holonomy 29, 102 Husserl 10, 84, 87, 89, 92 Hymen 139, 158, 177 Hyperneurons 58 I identity 101–103, 107, 141, 147, 148 Identity of self 141 Imaginary dimension 25, 26, 30, 60, 67, 134, 162 Imperfect 138, 160, 164, 165 Implicate 58 Indeterminacy 76, 115 individuation 101, 103 Infinite 11, 12, 16, 92, 133, 141, 144, 145, 148, 156, 159, 161 Infinite substitution 144–146

Index 

Information processing xxii, 5, 138 Infrastructural 125, 137, 138, 140, 141, 148, 152 inscription 151, 157 Insemination 156 Instinctual 29, 40, 79, 94, 109, 143 integrative breakdown 95 integrative capacity 95 intention 113 Intentional arc 77 Intentional states 84 Intentionality 28, 84, 85, 100 Interior experience 119, 120 Internal boundaries 147 Interpenetrated possibilities 45, 93, 110, 121, 144, 165 invariance 23, 24, 107, 108, 121, 158 Invariant 11, 35, 43, 86, 93, 107, 108, 142, 155 Iter 147 Iterability 132, 133, 137, 141, 148 J Jeu 120, 145, 178, 179 Jibu xxi, xxii, 13–15, 17, 21–24, 58, 59, 107, 109, 111, 133, 141, 142 Johnson 125, 136, 144, 151, 156, 158, 159, 161 Jung 173 K Kehre 44, 81, 90 Know-how 100 Kripke 80 L La dissémination 152, 156, 157, 159 Lacan 76, 121, 122 lack in self 147 Lagrangian 86 language xix, 6, 37, 98, 100, 103, 109, 127, 150, 158 Leap xvii, xxv, 64, 65, 67, 68, 99 Leibniz 52

Leibniz identity 101 Liar paradox 131, 134, 135 Lichtung 4, 5, 33, 43, 45, 46, 54, 55, 58, 62, 81, 88, 91, 99, 110, 111, 122, 171, 173 Lighting process 4, 62, 63, 66, 81, 99, 111, 128, 129 linguistic attunement 110 Linguistic community 105 Local practices 87 Logic xxiv, 6, 133, 135, 140, 177 Logocentric 28 Logos 22, 97, 140, 172 Lumen naturale xxi, 5, 33, 122, 129

M machine consciousness 13 Macroscopic quantum objects 17, 25 malattunement 95, 96 Man 44, 45, 47–49, 51, 64, 67–70, 82, 87, 91, 101, 104, 128 Maximum grip 77–79 M¯ay¯a 33, 69, 170, 171, 173, 178 Meaning 6, 8, 28, 37, 41, 46–48, 57, 61, 63, 76, 87, 91, 95, 111, 113–115, 119, 136, 137, 143, 145, 147, 152, 155, 156, 158, 169–171, 174 Measurement device 19 measurement problem 17 Meditative states 103, 105 Mehta 4, 8, 91, 92 Memory 11–14, 16, 22, 24, 27, 32, 34, 35, 37, 43, 60, 106, 134, 143, 149 memory traces 11, 12, 16, 24, 133 Merleau-Ponty 3, 77, 80, 92, 94, 100 Metamathematical perspective 131 Metaphysics xviii, xix, xxi, xxiii, 8, 13, 17, 21, 23, 25, 26, 30, 32, 40, 41, 57, 58, 61, 63, 64, 66–68, 75, 76, 89, 97, 108, 115, 117, 126, 130, 131, 135, 138, 139, 143, 145,

 Index

147, 149, 153, 173, 174, 175, 178, 179 Microtubules xxiii, 14, 15, 21, 22 mirror image xix, xxii, 27, 30–32, 41, 109, 135, 137, 141, 177 modernity xvii, xxv, 5, 9, 10, 30, 38, 40, 41, 49, 66, 75, 80, 129, 138, 154, 161 monadic xxv, 33, 52–54, 83, 89, 90, 139 multiple personality disorder 94 Mutually exclusive 19, 94, 106, 114, 116, 175, 176 N N-G bosons 23, 141, 142 Nagel 54, 131 naive realism 43 Nambu-Goldstone 23, 34, 107, 133, 140, 142, 174 Nanolevel web 14, 15 Nazism xix, 68, 75, 104 negative symptom of schizophrenia 95 Neural networks xxii, 3, 5, 12, 13, 22, 24, 35, 56, 58, 59, 85 Neuroglia 21 Nietzsche 76 Nihilation 4, 90 Noema 85 Nombres 157 no-thing xix, 4, 23, 33, 111, 136, 138, 158, 164, 173 Non-commutative 116 NonHermitean 27, 70, 113, 169, 177 nonlocality 12, 17, 100, 102, 111 nontilde universe 15, 17, 32, 41, 43, 61 Now xxi, 8, 10, 14, 18, 19, 24–26, 29, 31, 34, 35, 40, 47, 49, 51, 53, 56–58, 66, 70, 75, 81–83, 86, 87, 91, 93, 98, 107, 121, 125, 132, 133, 140, 141, 143, 145, 147, 148, 152–156, 159, 161, 163, 164, 169–173, 176, 177, 179

O Objectuality xviii, 33, 147, 174 Observation 17, 20, 112, 115, 175 Observer 18–20, 32, 33, 43, 45, 57, 58, 117, 131, 139, 154, 172 Onto-theo-logical 96–98, 102 Ontological xvii, xix–xxi, xxiii, 3, 5, 11, 15, 18, 19, 23, 31, 32, 51, 57, 58, 65, 75, 78, 80, 83, 90–93, 97, 109, 113, 114, 117, 125, 135, 137, 139, 145, 146, 169, 170, 175, 177 Ontological difference 20, 97, 126 Ontology xx, xxii, 4, 10, 11, 13, 19, 20, 25, 26, 32, 34, 35, 46, 50, 53, 78, 81, 83, 93, 115, 117, 125, 134, 135, 144, 170, 172, 175, 178 Ontotheological 88, 96, 122, 154, 155 Open system 31, 34, 35, 121 Other xvii–xxi, xxiii, xxiv, 3, 4, 6, 8, 11, 17, 20, 23–26, 28, 36, 41, 43, 44, 52–54, 57–59, 61, 62, 65–68, 82, 87, 89–92, 94, 96, 99–102, 105, 108–110, 113, 116, 120, 121, 127, 128, 132, 134, 136, 138, 140, 141, 143, 147–154, 157, 160, 162, 164, 165, 169, 172, 175–177, 179

P Parallel worlds 33, 70, 173, 174 Paranoid 29, 95, 96, 104 Parmenides identity 101, 102 Participants 13, 21, 22, 28, 29, 33, 40, 41, 44, 60, 91, 109, 110, 118, 120, 134, 144, 145, 150, 165 Participation 21, 22, 28–30, 61, 64, 65, 82, 109, 110, 119, 129, 144, 145, 151, 158, 163, 172, 177–179 Penrose 10, 15, 19, 55, 56, 108, 131 Perfect tense 30 Phenomenological 85, 89, 111 phenomenological reductions 89 Phenomenology 3

Index 

Philipse 6, 8, 46, 47 Physical reality xxiii, 20, 25, 29, 32, 33, 44, 45, 53, 57–60, 69, 78, 79, 83, 87, 92, 109, 111, 115, 122, 139, 142, 155, 156, 170, 172, 175, 177 Planck scale 55, 83 Planck’s constant 169 Platonic 22, 66, 80, 133, 141 Platonism 131, 147 Play 4, 7, 13, 37, 60, 67, 110, 120, 121, 139, 141, 144, 145, 148, 152, 156, 161, 164, 178 Plenitude 90, 91, 146 Plotnitsky xxiv, xxv, 3, 70, 76, 112–118, 120–122, 131, 136 Plus-prèsent 138 Poet xix, 53, 126, 156, 157 Poetry 6, 91, 103 Polysemy 137, 146, 153, 159, 178 positive symptom of schizophrenia 95 Postmodern xxv, 21, 49 pragmata 75 Preintentionality 84–86, 88 Present perfect 138, 158 Pribram 14, 60, 107, 109 primary process 143 Principle of complementarity 112, 115 Pro-ject 139 Probability 17, 19, 20, 26, 40, 43, 45, 95, 163, 172 Projection 44, 53, 62, 64–66, 107, 164 Protein web 54, 58 psychopathological 92–95 Pure book 159 Pylkkö xvii, xxiv, xxv, 3, 70, 75, 76, 96–106, 108–111, 122 Q Qualia 55, 56, 77, 107 Quantum computers 5, 13 Quantum correlation principle

54

Quantum field interactions 21, 22, 33 Quantum mind 105 quantum spirit 128 Quantum tunneling 12, 24, 37, 141 Quasi-crystals 21 R Randomness 60, 108, 109, 145, 161 Re-cognition 27, 43, 88, 109, 122, 134, 141, 142, 152 Re-mark 162, 163, 170, 171, 174, 177, 178 Re-marking 36, 125, 162 Re-marks 17, 118, 132–136, 142, 148–150, 153, 157, 162, 163, 170, 171, 174, 177, 178 Re-presentation 50, 80, 147, 163 Res cogitans xviii, xxi, 15, 80, 81, 169, 172 Res extensa xviii, xxi, 15, 80, 81 Reading xxiv, 6, 20, 49, 125, 150, 158, 170, 177 Real number 25 recall 24, 32, 36, 50, 57, 61, 99, 137, 140, 150 Recognitions 27, 42, 48, 70, 96, 142, 143, 162, 174 Recursive organization 59 Releasement xxv, 159 Replication signal 24 Representation 26, 28, 31, 32, 50, 52, 76, 77, 79, 83, 112, 113, 119, 146, 156, 162 Resonance xvii, 28, 43, 65, 66, 86, 126, 152, 158, 159 Restricted economy 115, 119 Rhizomatic xxiv, 179 Richardson 8 robust realism 79 Rorty 50, 75 rotational symmetry 23, 142 Russell 50 S Sallis xix, 53, 67–69

 Index

Sartre 50 Saussure 147 schizophrenia 94, 95 Schrödinger 19, 20, 23, 26, 174 Schrödinger’s cat 19 Scission 110, 158, 161, 162 Searle 3, 84, 85, 88, 157 second quantization xxiv, 100, 121 secondary process 143 Sein xxi, xxiii, 4, 8, 42–45, 50, 58, 70, 93, 122, 153, 155, 157 Seinsfrage 97 Seinsvergessen 10, 17, 18, 31, 33, 69, 174 self-affecting 127 Self-as-other 132, 135, 141 Self-closure 151 Self-erasing 148, 149 Self-identity 147 Self-image 134 Self-lighting 173 Self-object 133, 135, 141, 147 Self-other 132, 136, 147, 174 Self-recognition 30–32 Self-reference 129, 130, 132–135, 162, 163 Self-subject 134, 135, 141 Sellars 50, 77 Semantic 133, 136 Seyn xxi, xxiii, 8, 9, 23, 42–45, 58, 63, 65–69, 81, 102, 125 Sign 94, 95, 104, 137, 149, 152, 165 signification 136, 143 Signified 137, 147, 152, 153, 165 Signifier 146, 147, 149, 152 Simulacra 134, 163 Singularity xix, 36, 45, 53, 119, 122, 132, 133, 160 Situatedness 28–30, 32, 33, 40, 43–46, 48, 50, 52, 53, 55, 58–61, 63, 77–83, 88, 92, 99–102, 104, 111, 125, 146, 149, 158, 160 Smolin 18 social 13, 29, 33, 76, 79, 92, 94, 100, 118, 156

Social consensus 33 Social constraint 29 Socrates 87 Solipsism 89 Solitons 14, 58, 59 Sorcerer 47, 48 Sorge 95 Sosia 31, 37, 38, 169 Soul 126–129 Sovereignty 49, 82, 87, 113–115, 117, 153 space-time 43, 55, 56, 101, 120, 121, 155 Spinozan xxii Spirit xvii, 21, 30, 33, 46, 80, 104, 125–129, 154, 155, 173, 179 Spirituality 154 Split brain 59 Spontaneity 86, 108, 109 Sprung xvii, xxiv, 65 Stapp 18 Statistical xxi, 17–19, 32, 33, 44 subject xxi, 4, 5, 16, 23, 27–32, 36, 38, 46, 50, 53, 57, 61, 64, 65, 80, 81, 92, 97, 98, 101, 103, 104, 110, 111, 119, 126, 132, 134, 138, 147, 155, 165, 172, 178 Subjectivity 27, 50, 64, 126, 131, 132, 135, 154, 162, 169, 170, 172, 174 supercompossibility of meanings 151 Superconducting 14 Superposition 19, 20, 24, 174, 178 Supervenience 14 supplément 25, 146, 151, 160 Supplementarity 144–146 Surgir 151 Sway 7–9, 29, 33, 42, 48, 64, 67, 88, 109, 140 Symmetrical xx, 31, 106, 107, 140 Symmetron 24, 27, 133, 134, 141, 142 Symmetry xxiv, 9, 11, 12, 23, 28, 29, 31, 34, 42–45, 53, 55, 64, 65, 78,

Index 

82, 86, 93, 102, 106–108, 112, 120–122, 140–143, 155, 158, 160, 169, 170, 172, 178, 179 Symmetry in time 107, 109 Symmetry-breaking 23, 37, 106–108, 140–142, 147, 160 Syntactic 137 syntax 95, 136 T Tag 179 Tain 31, 162–165 Tao symbol 175–179 telos symbol 75, 115, 138 temporality 22, 43, 51, 62, 63 temporalization 126 Tertium datur 130 Textuality 138, 157 Theory of observation 169 Thermalization 12, 15, 60 Thermodynamical xxi, 15, 16, 34, 169, 172 theta-vacuum 11, 16, 22–24, 37, 109, 133, 134, 141, 142 thinking-together xxiv, xxv, 5, 7, 102, 122, 125, 128, 172 thought xx, xxv, 4, 6–10, 18, 19, 24, 25, 28, 48, 50, 58, 60, 67, 68, 70, 75, 76, 78, 88, 89, 97, 102, 105, 122, 125–128, 143, 149, 153, 169, 173, 178 ∼conjugate match 25, 27, 28, 30, 32, 43–46, 53, 55, 58–60, 62, 63, 65, 67, 70, 79, 81, 83, 88, 93, 99, 114, 117, 118, 121, 122, 128, 129, 134, 139, 140, 146, 152, 154, 155, 158, 160, 165, 170–174 ∼conjugation rules 25, 26 ∼Double 153 ∼recognition traces xxiv, 86 ∼situatedness 32, 43, 49, 79, 83, 158 ∼trace 86, 117, 134, 137, 149 ∼traces 27, 117, 137, 146, 147, 162 ∼universe xx, xxii, xxiii, 15, 17, 24, 35, 36, 38, 41, 43, 45, 49, 61, 67,

86, 88, 120, 125, 134, 152, 153, 163, 164, 172 Time xviii, xx, xxiii, 5, 10, 11, 14, 16, 17, 19, 23, 27, 28, 30–32, 36, 37, 42–46, 49, 51, 58, 62, 64, 66, 67, 69, 77, 82, 83, 85, 86, 94, 99, 101–103, 107, 111, 114, 117, 121, 122, 126, 130, 133, 137, 139, 143, 145, 149, 152–157, 160, 161, 164, 170, 176, 178, 179 time’s arrow 34 time-reversal 36, 37 time-symmetry 36, 37 Total memory 133, 134, 141–143 totalization xxiv, 49, 112, 114–116, 157 Trace 24, 27, 67, 69, 94, 115, 122, 131, 132, 135, 140–142, 147, 149, 150, 152–154, 162, 163, 170, 174, 178, 179 Tracing 125, 141 transcendence 49–53, 63, 127, 128 transcendental xviii, 55, 61, 99, 137–140, 148, 158–160 transcendental ground 99, 137, 138 Transcendental subjectivity 89 Transformations 86, 87, 107, 108 Translation xxi, xxiv, 6, 7, 9, 29, 61–64, 107, 127 Tuning 46, 64, 94, 95, 109 Turing xvii, xxii Turing machines 102

U Umezawa xix–xxii, 11–13, 15, 17, 20, 23–26, 30, 32, 34, 35, 58, 70, 86, 121, 125, 130, 134, 135, 137, 163, 169, 172, 176 Uncertainty principle 16, 113, 116 Unconscious 76, 92, 106, 144, 173 undecidability 125, 129–132, 135–137, 147, 163, 164 Undefaulted 136, 169, 170

 Index

Unknowable 4, 33, 92, 113, 114, 117, 119, 121, 122, 155, 169, 170, 173, 174 Unknowledge 118 Unpredictable xxv, 108, 109, 110, 140 Unsavoir 119 Unthought 67, 126 Ursprung xxv, 40, 41, 151

V Vacuum xx, 11, 12, 15, 17, 20–26, 28, 30–33, 35, 37, 41, 43, 58, 61, 70, 81–83, 88, 99, 107, 112, 117, 128, 133, 134, 139, 141–143, 149–151, 155, 164, 165, 174, 177, 178 Vacuum holes xx, 136 Versammlung 126 Vitiello xxi, xxiii, 15–17, 24, 25, 28, 30–35, 37, 70, 106, 107, 134, 176, 177 Volk experience 104 Von Neumann 18 Vorhanden 80

W Water dipole field 59, 120 Water molecules xxiii, 21, 58, 59 Wave function 19, 20, 117, 120 weighting process 94 weights 45, 60, 95, 96, 127, 129, 144

Wesen 8, 9, 28, 29, 40, 42, 43, 45, 46, 53, 60, 64, 66, 70, 82, 83, 88, 99, 102, 129 WesenD 29 WesenS 29, 30 Wheeler 117 Whitehead 56 Wigner 18 Will xvii, xviii, xx, xxi, xxiv, 4, 6–10, 13, 16, 17, 20, 27, 33, 42, 46, 48, 59, 76, 79, 85, 86, 92, 108–110, 112, 115, 121, 130, 135, 149, 152, 155, 160, 161, 165 Wish fulfillment 143 world presence 20, 32, 50, 57, 59, 60, 83, 86, 89 World-in-common 20, 33, 53, 70, 89, 129, 170–173 World-thrownness 30, 56, 99, 151, 171 worldq 99 Writing xix, xxi, 20, 37, 70, 115, 120, 132, 135, 138, 140, 150, 151, 154, 156, 158, 159, 179 Y Yasue xxi, xxii, 12–15, 17, 21–24, 58, 59, 107, 109, 111, 133, 141, 142 Z Zeit

xxiii, 43–45, 50, 58, 60, 66, 70, 93, 120, 122, 153, 155, 157 Zuhanden 79, 80, 99 Zwischen 60

In the series ADVANCES IN CONSCIOUSNESS RESEARCH (AiCR) the following titles have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 1. GLOBUS, Gordon G.: The Postmodern Brain. 1995. 2. ELLIS, Ralph D.: Questioning Consciousness. The interplay of imagery, cognition, and emotion in the human brain. 1995. 3. JIBU, Mari and Kunio YASUE: Quantum Brain Dynamics and Consciousness. An introduction. 1995. 4. HARDCASTLE, Valerie Gray: Locating Consciousness. 1995. 5. STUBENBERG, Leopold: Consciousness and Qualia. 1998. 6. GENNARO, Rocco J.: Consciousness and Self-Consciousness. A defense of the higher-order thought theory of consciousness. 1996. 7. MAC CORMAC, Earl and Maxim I. STAMENOV (eds): Fractals of Brain, Fractals of Mind. In search of a symmetry bond. 1996. 8. GROSSENBACHER, Peter G. (ed.): Finding Consciousness in the Brain. A neurocognitive approach. 2001. 9. Ó NUALLÁIN, Seán, Paul MC KEVITT and Eoghan MAC AOGÁIN (eds): Two Sciences of Mind. Readings in cognitive science and consciousness. 1997. 10. NEWTON, Natika: Foundations of Understanding. 1996. 11. PYLKKÖ, Pauli: The Aconceptual Mind. Heideggerian themes in holistic naturalism. 1998. 12. STAMENOV, Maxim I. (ed.): Language Structure, Discourse and the Access to Consciousness. 1997. 13. VELMANS, Max (ed.): Investigating Phenomenal Consciousness. Methodologies and Maps. 2000. 14. SHEETS-JOHNSTONE, Maxine: The Primacy of Movement. 1999. 15. CHALLIS, Bradford H. and Boris M. VELICHKOVSKY (eds.): Stratification in Cognition and Consciousness. 1999. 16. ELLIS, Ralph D. and Natika NEWTON (eds.): The Caldron of Consciousness. Motivation, affect and self-organization – An anthology. 2000. 17. HUTTO, Daniel D.: The Presence of Mind. 1999. 18. PALMER, Gary B. and Debra J. OCCHI (eds.): Languages of Sentiment. Cultural constructions of emotional substrates. 1999. 19. DAUTENHAHN, Kerstin (ed.): Human Cognition and Social Agent Technology. 2000. 20. KUNZENDORF, Robert G. and Benjamin WALLACE (eds.): Individual Differences in Conscious Experience. 2000. 21. HUTTO, Daniel D.: Beyond Physicalism. 2000. 22. ROSSETTI, Yves and Antti REVONSUO (eds.): Beyond Dissociation. Interaction between dissociated implicit and explicit processing. 2000. 23. ZAHAVI, Dan (ed.): Exploring the Self. Philosophical and psychopathological perspectives on self-experience. 2000. 24. ROVEE-COLLIER, Carolyn, Harlene HAYNE and Michael COLOMBO: The Development of Implicit and Explicit Memory. 2000. 25. BACHMANN, Talis: Microgenetic Approach to the Conscious Mind. 2000. 26. Ó NUALLÁIN, Seán (ed.): Spatial Cognition. Selected papers from Mind III, Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society of Ireland, 1998. 2000. 27. McMILLAN, John and Grant R. GILLETT: Consciousness and Intentionality. 2001.

28. ZACHAR, Peter: Psychological Concepts and Biological Psychiatry. A philosophical analysis. 2000. 29. VAN LOOCKE, Philip (ed.): The Physical Nature of Consciousness. 2001. 30. BROOK, Andrew and Richard C. DeVIDI (eds.): Self-reference and Self-awareness. 2001. 31. RAKOVER, Sam S. and Baruch CAHLON: Face Recognition. Cognitive and computational processes. 2001. 32. VITIELLO, Giuseppe: My Double Unveiled. The dissipative quantum model of the brain. 2001. 33. YASUE, Kunio, Mari JIBU and Tarcisio DELLA SENTA (eds.): No Matter, Never Mind. Proceedings of Toward a Science of Consciousness: Fundamental Approaches, Tokyo, 1999. 2002. 34. FETZER, James H.(ed.): Consciousness Evolving. 2002. 35. Mc KEVITT, Paul, Seán Ó NUALLÁIN and Conn MULVIHILL (eds.): Language, Vision, and Music. Selected papers from the 8th International Workshop on the Cognitive Science of Natural Language Processing, Galway, 1999. 2002. 36. PERRY, Elaine, Heather ASHTON and Allan YOUNG (eds.): Neurochemistry of Consciousness. Neurotransmitters in mind. 2002. 37. PYLKKÄNEN, Paavo and Tere VADÉN (eds.): Dimensions of Conscious Experience. 2001. 38. SALZARULO, Piero and Gianluca FICCA (eds.): Awakening and Sleep-Wake Cycle Across Development. 2002. 39. BARTSCH, Renate: Consciousness Emerging. The dynamics of perception, imagination, action, memory, thought, and language. 2002. 40. MANDLER, George: Consciousness Recovered. Psychological functions and origins of conscious thought. 2002. 41. ALBERTAZZI, Liliana (ed.): Unfolding Perceptual Continua. 2002. 42. STAMENOV, Maxim I. and Vittorio GALLESE (eds.): Mirror Neurons and the Evolution of Brain and Language. 2002. 43. DEPRAZ, Natalie, Francisco VARELA and Pierre VERMERSCH.: On Becoming Aware. A pragmatics of experiencing. 2003. 44. MOORE, Simon and Mike OAKSFORD (eds.): Emotional Cognition. From brain to behaviour. 2002. 45. DOKIC, Jerome and Joelle PROUST: Simulation and Knowledge of Action. 2002. 46. MATHEAS, Michael and Phoebe SENGERS (ed.): Narrative Intelligence. 2003. 47. COOK, Norman D.: Tone of Voice and Mind. The connections between intonation, emotion, cognition and consciousness. 2002. 48. JIMÉNEZ, Luis: Attention and Implicit Learning. 2003. 49. OSAKA, Naoyuki (ed.): Neural Basis of Consciousness. 2003. 50. GLOBUS, Gordon G.: Quantum Closures and Disclosures. Thinking-together post-phenomenology and quantum brain dynamics. 2003. 51. DROEGE, Paula: Caging the Beast. A theory of sensory consciousness. n.y.p.