Quantum Mechanics and Intentionality

Abstract

Two mysteries -loosely connected?The Authors who have suggested a deep connection between the solution of the mind-body problem and the understanding of quantum mechanics are too numerous to list. But what exactly would be the alleged structural fit between these two deeply puzzling theoretical issues? Can a genuine philosophical issue -which by its very nature is conceptual in nature -ultimately be resolved by advances in the empirical sciences? The connection is all too often asserted to lie in the subjects confounding natures, but the mere fact that two problems are of equal impenetrability to the human mind does not imply that there is a profound interdependence between the two. There is however an obvious way in which quantum mechanics might have a bearing on the philosophical mind-body problem: if quantum mechanics implies that for some physical events there is no physical cause, then at least the very strong variants of the so-called "principle of causal closure" of the physical realm lose much of their corroborative underpinning in physics as practiced by real physicists as such, and are thus constrained to the speculative physicalism advanced by metaphysicians. However, unless one assumes a strong version of the principle of sufficient reason, which would exclude chance events in principle, even events supposedly not caused by some physical cause are not immediately thereby caused by some nonphysical cause. Moreover the fact is that not all of the interpretations of quantum mechanics imply indeterministic 'choices' of events: neither the many-worlds interpretation nor a Bohmian hidden variable interpretation assume indeterminism. Even in the most obvious theoretical nexus

Modelling disruptions of intentionality in psychosis

“…1,61 On the other hand, in the realworld changes in many outcomes are rarely linear. 62,63 The cusp catastrophe model can explain why relatively small changes in a parameter can result in catastrophic changes in the state of a system. If distal factors are low, the intentional system will be heading in a fluctuating and linear way, depending on the proximal factors' severity), and characterized by inappropriateness of an intentional object or connection.…”

Modeling intentionality in the human brain

“…Human intentionality has a profoundly biological origin, whereby people have to produce intentional states ( 19 – 23 ). At micro-level, the so called ‘micro-intentionality’ or ‘nano-intentionality’ of cells, as a form of ‘intrinsic intentionality’, is extended by analogy in hearts or kidneys, which can have “derived” intentionality ( 17 ).…”

“…It has no relation with the proposed views of intentionality, such as linguistic, derived or original intentionality ( 9 ), but with inner parts or structure of intentionality. In a recent paper, using relative neuroscientific findings ( 19 , 30 – 33 ), we provided an overview of possible pathways of an ‘intentional system’ in the brain, according to the conceptual and neurobiological traces of ‘aboutness’ and ‘directedness’ in the brain and in the behavior ( 34 ) ( Table 1 ).…”