Quantum Consciousness is Cybernetic Gordon Globus University of California Irvine Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior 360 San Miguel Dr., Suite 603 Newport Beach CA 92660 U.S.A. ggglobus@uci.edu Copyright (c) Gordon Globus 1995 PSYCHE, 2(12), August 1995 http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-12-curran.html KEYWORDS: quantum cybernetics, quantum brain dynamics, consciousness, Heisenberg, Stapp, Umezawa, Yasue, holoworld, quantum cognition. ABSTRACT: Classical mechanics cannot naturally accommodate consciousness, whereas quantum mechanics can, but the Heisenberg/Stapp (H/S) approach, in which consciousness randomly collapses the neural wave function, leaves the conscious function unrestricted by known physical principles. The Umezawa/Yasue (U/Y) approach, in which consciousness offers superposed possibilities to the match with sensory input, is based in the first physical principles of quantum field theory. Stapp thinks of the brain as a measuring device, like a Geiger counter, and overlooks that the brain upholds second-order quantum fields that are symmetry-conserving with respect to reality. Consciousness is cybernetic rather than having a random function. 1. Introduction 1.1 The current upsurge of intense interest in quantum brain theory and consciousness (e.g., Hameroff, 1994; Jibu and Yasue, in press; Penrose, 1994; Stapp, 1993) is fueled in large part by what Stapp calls "the fundamentally holistic character of the quantum mechanical description [of] nature [which is] perhaps its most basic and pervasive feature" (3.12). Since consciousness, too, in some difficult to define sense is holistic in character, the hope has arisen that consciousness can finally be explained in quantum terms. Classical mechanics, on the other hand, does not naturally accommodate consciousness, as Stapp nicely shows. His theory of consciousness is problematically founded, however, which vitiates the impact of his article. 2. The Brain as Measuring Device