The physical nature of subjective experience and its interaction with the brain

Medical Hypotheses 125 (2019) 57–69

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The physical nature of subjective experience and its interaction with the brain

T

Fredric Schiffer Developmental Biopsychiatry Research Program, McLean Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Belmont, MA, USA

A R T I C LE I N FO

A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Consciousness Non-conscious Experience Quantum field Brain information The hard problem Subjectivity

Penrose and Hameroff assert that brain computations, including quantum computations, involving hydrophobic areas of microtubules whose electron clouds go into orchestrated superpositions and reductions that lead to proto-conscious elements, or “bings” that become orchestrated into conscious experiences. Their assertion, however, like the findings of the neural correlates of consciousness, does not explain subjectivity, but rather describes necessary conditions for it. Many scientists, including Panksepp, Demasio, and Tononi, have each made great contributions to the field, but none explains how material biological processes acquire subjectivity. Yet, the fact is that subjectivity exists and is and of great importance to evolution. Penrose argues that understanding, which involves subjectivity, must be brought into physics, perhaps an undiscovered aspect. Subjectivity is always of or about certain living brain information even though most brain functions do not have subjectivity. Many quantum fields are known to exist and follow Dyson's definition: “a kind of tension or stress which can exist in empty space in the absence of matter. It reveals itself by producing forces, which act on any material objects that happen to lie in the space the field occupies.” My hypothesis is that there may be undiscovered quantum fields, which unlike known fields, induce subjectivity when they interact with certain brain information. They emit quantum particles that exert force and cause changes to material objects (brain patterns conveying information) with which they interact. Information that transports meaning to living material exerts force through the understanding it conveys. There is a continuous interplay between experience and brain information. Experiences profoundly inform the brain and alter brain structure, function, and behavior, and local and integrated brain functions process information and initiate multiple associated experiences. Most experience is non-conscious, as discussed by Wright and others, like the soundtrack of a movie to which our brains respond continuously and emotionally even though, we are only intermittently consciously aware of it. I will explore how non-conscious experience may relate to the self, and how it might become conscious. I will offer present support and directions for testing this plausible hypothesis, as well as potential clinical applications in psychology.

Introduction Penrose asserts that conscious experiences are real and will be explained by natural physical laws, but the laws of a new physics. According to Penrose, the transition from certain quantum states to classical states involves a choice about which of two quantum states are to become classical and that that choice, according to Penrose, may be associated with the emission of proto-conscious events or “bings” of consciousness, which according to Hameroff become orchestrated into conscious experiences [1]. The Penrose-Hameroff Orch-OR theory, which stands for “orchestrated objective reduction” in which orchestrated refers to the

orchestration of the proto-conscious events that are emitted at the reduction of the quantum superposition to the classical state. Objective reduction is the inclusion of a hypothesis involving Einsteinian relativistic gravitational effects in the concept about the reduction of the quantum superposition. Hameroff [1,2] has suggested that this quantum reduction takes place in hydrophobic portions of tubulin molecules which are the components of microtubules. Penrose found a place for his objective reduction of quantum superpositions in Hameroff's work on microtubules and together they are the basis for the Orch-OR theory. Hameroff [1,2] discussed brain computation and quantum computing, and he related quantum coherence across a large number of microtubules

E-mail address: fschiff[email protected]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2019.02.011 Received 25 December 2018; Accepted 2 February 2019 0306-9877/ © 2019 The Author. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY-NC-ND/4.0/).

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The hypothesis

within a large number of neurons as the basis for the orchestration of the proto-conscious events. I see the state of tubulin molecules as falling within the definition of brain information because it is a physical brain state that like other brain states (structures, particles and electromagnetic fields) is involved in the processing of brain information. I agree further with Hameroff and Penrose that other theories of consciousness such as reductive materialism, epiphenomenalism. monistic idealism, the identity theory, and spirituality do not advance our understanding of the phenomena of consciousness [1]. Panksepp [3] has described how consciousness is conserved evolutionarily from lower animals and how it relates to subcortical midline structures (SCMS) and affective states. He invokes “dual-aspect monism,” from which he argues that SCMS and affective states are in effect two sides of the same coin. Damasio has wisely stressed the importance of the self [4], and, like Panksepp, sees the lower brain centers as essential to the proto-self and sees “subcortical and cortical somatic maps within the central nervous system” as an essential component of it [5]. Damasio explains consciousness experience as a “brain process” [4]. Edelman [6], like Panksepp, is studying non-human species in search of the necessary brain conditions required for consciousness. Integrated Information Theory (IIT) [7], is a theory that is very prominent in the Academy. It explains consciousness as caused by the complex integration of information, but IIT does nothing to explain how the physical substrate of consciousness actually produces consciousness. Field theories of consciousness, the most prominent is the electromagnetic field theory of consciousness [8,9], like the neural identity theory, do not adequately explain how an electromagnetic field acquires subjectivity. In the end, although many esteemed scientists, including Panksepp, Demasio, Baars, Koch and Tononi, have each made great contributions to the field, none explains how material biological processes acquire subjectivity. Orch OR explains experience as emanating from “bings” of proto-consciousness that are orchestrated, but the theory does not explain how the reduction of a superposition relates to or causes experience or how the created consciousness affects the brain. Yet, the fact is that subjectivity exists and is of great importance to the sustenance and meaning of life. Penrose argues that understanding, which involves subjectivity, what Chalmers [10] calls “ phenomenal properties,” must be brought into physics. I will suggest that it will be revealed as physics advances further into quantum biology, the relatively new field of biophotons [11–13], and quantum field theory [14]. Subjectivity is felt meaning. Philosophy has struggled with the meaning of meaning [15], and meaning has had no place in physics. But information without meaning is noise. Meaning is available only to biological systems. Without life there is no meaning. The first instance of meaning was likely “food” or “danger.” And this meaning would be carried by information. Meaning is the precursor of subjectivity, and is necessary for life and seems to exit, as yet, only in living material. Since subjectivity exists, it must exist in nature. Clearly, it only exists, as yet, in association with living brains. This could mean that brains produce subjectivity, but all of many efforts to demonstrate that have failed. This is the mind-brain problem and has remained unsolved. Chalmers [16] has called this the “hard problem.” The question is how a material brain could produce subjectivity. Perhaps, the fact is that a material brain cannot by itself produce subjectivity! We know that all subjectivity is of or about brain information. Brain information seems to consist of local and global interacting brain activity on many different levels, but may have its final expression in patterns of biphotons emitted from microtubules as some have suggested [17,18], or perhaps as proto-conscious bings as proposed by Penrose and Hameroff [1]. Simon [19] has speculated that biophotons could have entangled spins that form quantum networks that create subjectivity, but I believe that entanglement alone is not an explanation for subjectivity, Emission patterns conveying information, in some forms, are necessary for the creation of subjectivity, but they are not sufficient to explain it. Something more is needed.

I am suggesting that information (composed of patterns of material elements) interacts with undiscovered quantum fields, much as accepted quantum fields interact with material elements within their field. Such interactions produce an alteration in the material. I am suggesting that certain brain information has structure and material dependence and interacts with undiscovered quantum fields and is altered. It is altered in that this information within the field acquires subjectivity that is specific to the information. I will speculate that brain information may ultimately be expressed as three -dimensional patterns of biophotons or as quantum networks of entangled biophotons [19] that interact with the undiscovered quantum fields. Biophotons are capable of entanglement, superposition and reduction, absorption and emission, as well as creation and annihilation and are good candidates for interactions with the undiscovered quantum fields to achieve subjectivity. But it is the fundamental, universal undiscovered quantum fields that ultimately enable subjectivity. I do not believe that this is panpsychism or evidence of a universal consciousness. I suggest that these quantum fields do nothing, the way a gravitational or electromagnetic field does noting unless it is activated by some material, in this case, by the material patterns of brain information. My hypothesis, then, is that there may be undiscovered quantum fields, which unlike known fields, induce Chalmers' “phenomenal properties” (of subjectivity) when they interact with certain brain information. Dyson [20] defines a field as: . . . a kind of tension or stress which can exist in empty space in the absence of matter. It reveals itself by producing forces, which act on any material objects that happen to lie in the space the field occupies. The standard examples of classical fields are the electric and magnetic fields, which push and pull electrically charged objects and magnetized objects respectively. . .. The picture of the world that we have finally reached is the following: Some 10 or 20 qualitatively different quantum fields exist. Each fills the whole of space and has its own particular properties. There is nothing else except these fields; the whole of the material universe is built of them. Between various pairs of the fields there are various kinds of interaction. Each field manifests itself as a type of elementary particle. I suggest that these undiscovered quantum fields emit quantum particles/waves that exert force and cause changes to material objects (brain patterns conveying information) with which they interact. This interaction creates a subjective aspect to the original brain information. This subjectivity itself is new information, which transports meaning to living material (brain information) and exerts force through the understanding it conveys. I suggest that there is a continuous interplay between experience and brain information, and that experiences profoundly inform the brain and alter brain structure, function, and behavior, and local and integrated brain functions process information and initiate multiple associated experiences through its interactions with the subjective field. Although quantum field theory is still being developed, it strongly suggests that everything will eventually be reduced to fields [21]. I am proposing the possibility of undiscovered quantum fields that operate in a fashion similar to already accepted fields, such as gravity and the electromagnetic field. and exist throughout spacetime and act on specific material objects that come within their domains. Different quantum fields have different properties; the gravitational field is very different from electromagnetic field, and each act on different material elements such as mass or charge. The main difference between these undiscovered fields and accepted fields, and it is a large difference, is that the fields that I propose have a fundamental property that relates to subjectivity, which has been vastly ignored by physics because physics is not yet developed enough to tackle the problem of subjectivity. That I will argue for more than one field having to do with subjectivity is in my mind not too different from there being perhaps a known two dozen 58

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fields already identified in physics. None of the presently accepted quantum fields was known before its discovery, and usually were not anticipated before their discovery. My hypothesis is that the proposed new fields do not possess subjectivity themselves, but rather that they possess fundamental qualities that are able to alter certain brain information so that it acquires subjectivity. This paper will attempt to articulate and support my hypotheses as well as offer suggestions for testing and applying the hypothesis. See Table 2a and 2b. for a summary of the hypotheses. Ways to test these speculations will be discussed below in the section: Tests of the Hypotheses.

experience a sound track of a movie, the sound is never experienced directly, but its sound waves stimulate special receptor cells in my cochlea and my brain reconstructs the music. The processing of the sound information always proceeds from my cochlea, my inner ear, up through a pathway that goes through structures that are specific brain processing centers, including the dorsal cochlear nucleus, the superior olivary complex, the nucleus of the lateral lemniscus, the inferior colliculus to the medial geniculate, and the cortical auditory pathway. Only after this information is properly processed will I be able to have an experience (consciously or non-consciously) of the music. All music in my present environment can be experienced only if the sound information is so processed. It is true that I could remember music that I heard in the past or create in my brain a new song, both of which might rise to the level of experience, and both of which would be of or about brain information. But the only way for me to experience music actually playing in my environment is for the sound information to be formally processed by my brain. How processed brain information becomes an experience is what my hypothesis will try to explain. First, I will discuss non-conscious experience, then how non-conscious experience might be explained through a new physical hypothesis. This will prepare us for a discussion of the possible physical nature of conscious experience.

Brain information I define brain information as the material patterns of all brain structures, including particles and electromagnetic fields of which the information that the brain processes are expressed, including genetic and epigenetic information. This information is dynamically organized throughout the brain locally and in networks that can be of variable sizes, from small to vast. These are organized into information fields, by which I simply mean an organization of information, without experience, which represents a sensation or a concept. My concept of brain information is very different from the φ of IIT [7], which proposes that consciousness is explained as integrated information. I disagree because information does not explain consciousness, even though it is obvious that consciousness contains information. I am conscious of my pain, and my pain is subjective information, but my having pain does nothing to explain how I have the conscious experience of pain. The physical substrate of consciousness, defined in IIT, is included in my definition of brain information, but IIT does nothing to explain how the physical substrate of consciousness, even though of great complexity, actually relates to or produces consciousness. By brain information, I mean all of the physical attributes of the brain that express information. How some of that information, including the physical substrate of consciousness of IIT, acquires subjectivity is the subject of my thesis. All brain information is biological information, which is studied in biosemiotics [22–24]. Biosemiotics explains well information processing in metabolism and within larger biological systems but does not explain experience or conscious awareness. Machines, such as computers, process information, but do not have experience. All machines are constructed by humans, who are alive and have experience. I see biological information as a pattern that has the potential to repeat, through instruction, a successful method. There is nothing mysterious here. Some information is helpful, and some turns out to be unhelpful. In this sense information is what experienced physicians teach medical students. That is, information has to do with trial and error and survival. Once formed, genetic information is propagated by trial and error, and genetic information passes on a way to reproduce a method that enhanced survival. The meaning of information exists in the absence of matter (like energy or time). Meaning is transported by information, which can be quantified and transported by material patterns or by fields, such as electromagnetic fields, as described by Shannon [25]. Meaning [26–28] and information [29,30] have long been of interest to philosophers, but meaning in modern philosophy has focused on the intent of language [31–33], and information theory has focused on the transport of information and measures of its entropy [25]. Complexity theory [34] and information field theory [35] have advance our understanding of information. Several authors [36–38] have attempted to decipher mechanisms of brain information processing and IIT is one of the more prominent attempts to understand brain information processing [7]. My interest and expertise are not in the details of how the brain processes information, only in that it does and generally does it well. Everything that I experience is of or about my brain information. If I

Non-conscious experience We have a clear understanding that we have conscious experience. What is difficult to describe is what is non-conscious experience. The concept of experiences that are not conscious seems like a non-sequitur, and can be a difficult concept, which I will try to clarify. Most information that the brain processes does not become experienced, consciously or non-consciously, such as the brain stem processes that maintain cardiopulmonary functions. This concept of non-conscious experience has been discussed widely in the literature [39–44]. We all have experiences which are not conscious. These non-conscious experiences are common, as in the musical score of a movie that I respond to mostly non-consciously. Although throughout most of the movie, I am not consciously experiencing the music, my mind, unconsciously, and brain appreciate and respond to the emotion and meaning that the music conveys throughout the movie, even when I am not consciously aware of it. To appreciate and respond to music requires an experience, even if non-conscious. My dreams are non-conscious experiences, except when I awaken, and my conscious self observes the dream, but I must assume that the dream was in progress with thoughts (distorted, certainly) and feelings, before I became aware of it. The Freudian unconscious is full of urges, conflicts, feelings, motivations and fantasies which might reach consciousness only upon deep reflection such as may occur in psychoanalysis. The brain clearly responses to non-conscious experiences [45]. This has been demonstrated in the laboratory with subliminal stimulus presentations [46,47], and in everyday life such as my driving without conscious awareness of the road because I am thinking about consciousness. A competent hypnotist can create delusions in a highly hypnotizable subject in a deep trance. For example, Nobel and MacConkey [48] were able to suggest to subjects that they will be of the opposite sex when they awaken, and most of the highly hypnotizable subjects accepted the suggestion even when challenged. I believe that the delusion came from the non-conscious experience of the hypnotist's suggestion. My non-conscious experiences affect my brain. For example, my non-conscious jealousy of my colleague's success depresses me beyond my conscious awareness, but still the non-conscious jealousy is real and is processed by my brain. My irritability and depression are real, even if I attribute them to the weather. My brain has processed this non-conscious experience of jealousy and induced a further experience, my depression. In my nightmare, this evening, I am humiliated by my colleague and seek revenge. I bring this information to my psychoanalytic session, and my non-conscious experience becomes conscious. 59

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Experiences, even when non-conscious, have to be felt or experienced on a non-conscious level, and those experiences influence and, not infrequently, drive the brain. I have no doubt that conscious experiences often have a larger impact on the brain than non-conscious experiences, but many people are profoundly driven by non-conscious experiences, often related to past, unattended traumas, that can lead to urges that can lead to poor judgements and destructive behaviors such as addictions. I assert that drosophila probably do not have consciousness, but do seem to have experiences, which are likely non-conscious experiences. A fruit fly is capable of courtship, learning and memory, aggression, and motivation [49,50]. For example, Krashes, et al. [51] have studied motivation in the fruit fly by studying the receptors of dopamine neurons in flies with food associated memory enhancement by food deprivation and diminished by food consumption. In short, the fly acts as if it is hungry when it is food deprived which induces enhanced food seeking learning, memory, and behavior. We cannot know what a fly's experience might be like, just as we cannot know a bat's experience as articulated by Nagel [52]. My point here is that the fruit fly might be having a non-conscious hunger, that is that the fly's behavior may be different from that of an advanced robot, which to date cannot have experiences. The fly's non-conscious experiences might give the fly compact information that strongly influence its brain and its behavior. The Roomba vacuum cleaner functions, but it lacks non-conscious experience. What is the difference between the Roomba and the fruit fly? I suggest that it is non-conscious experience. The nature of nonconscious experience in the fruit fly is unknown to us, but seems to involve a non-conscious feeling, which seems to be a non-sequitur, because it cannot be known to us, but we humans have a very rich nonconscious mental life that I think is similar in its physical nature (although much more complex) to the fruit fly’s. So, I would say that nonconscious experience exists by deduction, but is not directly know to us, except when we become conscious of something that had been nonconscious, but even here we only know non-conscious experience by inference. We do not know anything of the experience of a dream that we are not conscious of (by remaining in deep sleep during the dream), but we can assume that the undetected dream has experiences which are, of course, non-conscious. We know that we can awaken someone in REM sleep, and they will become aware of the dream, which they otherwise would likely have had no conscious experience of. This reasoning leads to the idea that the nature of non-conscious experience, as well as conscious experience, is the real hard problem. I suggest that the hard problem of consciousness will be best answered by first addressing the hard problem of non-conscious experience, which is experienced on a deeper level, beneath consciousness, and, yet, profoundly influences the brain. The physical nature of non-conscious experience has not yet been appreciated or understood. I will explore the physical nature of non-conscious experience, and later within that explanation, explore the physical nature of consciousness.

Fig. 1. A physical conceptualization of how brain information is proposed to physically exist and emit a signal as energy to the universal subjective field, which then becomes energized and produces quantum forces (bosons) that I call expitons, which then act on brain information to transform it into a non-conscious experience.

from the brain, as is a popular notion, but rather, it comes from a universal quantum field that interacts with certain brain information to create experience, first non-conscious experience. That is, I suggest that brain information interacts with a universal subjective field, an as yet undiscovered quantum field, and that through that interaction, certain brain information acquires experience and that experience does not emerge from the brain [53], but rather comes from the interaction of a universal quantum field and certain brain information, not unlike the electromagnetic field, in its being present throughout spacetime, emitting a particle (the photon) and interacting with material elements (charge) within its field. See Fig. 1. Different accepted quantum fields have very different qualities from one another. The electron field is a quantum field which when energized emits electrons. The quantum particle of the electromagnetic field, or photon field [54], is the photon. The qualities of the electron are very different from the qualities of a photon. These qualities could not be predicted, but they are observed. Weinberg stated [55]: Just as there is an electromagnetic field whose energy and momentum come in tiny bundles called photons, so there is an electron field whose energy and momentum and electric charge are found in the bundles we call electrons, and likewise for every species of elementary particles. The basic ingredients of nature are fields; particles are derivative phenomena.

How brain information becomes non-conscious experience

My hypothesis is that there may be undiscovered quantum fields with qualities that are very different from the qualities of known quantum fields. Fields themselves are never observed; only their effects (gravity, light, electricity) are observed. Some fields interact with other specific fields, or rather, particles from those fields. Gravity interacts with mass; magnetic fields interact with charge. Subjectivity is observed, I suggest, when an undiscovered quantum field interacts with certain brain information (likely, the brain information that correlates with experience, not unlike the brain information proposed by IIT). As Dyson [20], said of a field, “It reveals itself by producing forces, which act on any material objects that happen to lie in the space the field occupies.” In my hypothesis, the field is an undiscovered quantum field and the material with which it interacts is, perhaps, certain brain information in its final expression, as patterns of biophotons.

Clearly, there is brain information without experience, just as the liver or heart process information that lacks experience (conscious or non-conscious). Elements of the brain are capable of producing brain information with non-conscious experience, such as the non-conscious experience of the movie score that I am not consciously aware of. All of my experiences are of or about brain information. I have no experiences that do not begin as brain information. How could material brain information become a subjective experience? Non-conscious experiences are subjective; the music score beyond my awareness is experienced, and I have an emotional response to it that I am not consciously aware of, but which affects my conscious experience of watching the movie. The hard problem of consciousness has been the attempt to understand how a material brain, with material brain information, acquires experience. My answer is that subjective experience does not emerge 60

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leads to another correlate or identity theory. I think that Tononi and Koch and associates [7], in their proposal of IIT, are correct in that brain information (what they refer to as “physical substrate”) is related to conscious experience. Different types and organizations of brain information must be associated with different types of subjective experience. Music certainly involves auditory brain areas and vision, visual areas. Complex conscious thoughts must entail more complex brain information than simple thoughts or sensations. From split-brain studies, we know that each hemisphere can support an intact, autonomous mind, each based on high levels of integrated brain information [56,57]. The idea that consciousness is integrated information is a description, not an explanation and does not explain how subjectivity arises out of the physical substrate or how it affects the brain. I suggest that brain information, whether from neurons, electromagnetic fields or patterns of biophotons interacts with a universal, fundamental subjective field to create brain information with subjectivity. We know that biophotons exist and are emitted by the brain [58–62]. They may convey the final form of brain information (that is the culmination of neuronal, including microtubular information patterns) [17,62,63]. We know that biophotons increase with brain activity [17,18,64]. I suggest that certain complex resonance frequencies of biophotons might be able to interact with the fundamental subjective field, perhaps not unlike the manner in which specific radio waves of a resonance frequency can interact with a radio receiver. Later, I will suggest specific tests for this hypothesis.

The Standard Model does not prohibit the discovery of new quantum fields. Since physicists working on the Standard Model never considered subjectivity, they never considered methods of observing it. Collider experiments are an unlikely place to discover subjectivity, which requires a living brain (to interact with the subjective field). Certainly, those hypotheses on gravity and electromagnetism have been the focus of intense study and we have accumulated great knowledge about them. Not so with the subjective field. It is a novel, paradigm shift and innovation in neuroscience, and as such has not been considered or studied before. My hypothesis goes beyond earlier hypotheses on the nature of consciousness because it suggests that subjectivity is fundamental, but that it is only available to certain brain informational states. My hypothesis can be used to extend Penrose and Hameroff’s hypothesis by suggesting that the collapsed and orchestrated bings that they offer could achieve subjectivity if they cause an interaction with the subjective field. By themselves, their theory does not achieve or explain subjectivity. With my hypothesis it may. The subjective field (The non-conscious experience field) I am now suggesting that there is fundamental universal field, the subjective field, which acts as a force, not on mass or charge, but on information, or more specifically on certain brain information. The subjective field induces the quality of subjectivity when it interacts with brain information. This is similar to the magnetic field's having the quality of the force of attraction (between opposite charges) or repulsion (between like charges). See Table 1. We only know gravity and the electromagnetic forces through observations. In the case of the subjective field, the observation is of experiences and the effects of those experiences on the brain and behavior. See Fig. 2. We all have experiences. In fact, we are compelled by experiences, we live for or against experiences. Experience is the most important force to all sentient beings. The hope of positive experiences compels us to endure physical pain and terror and to strive to learn and create. Negative experiences can compel destructive behaviors, including suicide. Subjectivity has valence, amplitude, and salience. In addition to the arguments that experience, or subjectivity is a force on brain information and that it comes out of brain information, the main benefit of the concept of a subjective field is that it explains the hard problem of experience because it includes subjectivity, and no other explanatory concept does! Further, the concept of a subjective field that interacts with brain information fits well with accepted concepts of quantum field theory, unlike panpsychism, which posits the implausible idea of some kind of universal consciousness. The subjective field is not sentient or feeling; rather, it confers subjectivity to brain information with which it interacts. Global electromagnetic field [9] or biophoton field [17] theories of consciousness assert that these fields themselves contain subjectivity, but that implausible idea is not explained or supported, and simply

How non-conscious experience affects the brain How could an experience interact with the brain? How could I be compelled to do something by an experience of which I am totally unaware? My brain, somewhere within, is experiencing, otherwise it could not respond to my unconscious experiences, such as my unconscious jealousy. The answer, I feel, is that the subjective field adds subjectivity to brain information and the brain is able to interpret this information enhanced by subjectivity. My pain, including my unconscious jealousy, is my experience, and it is definitely understood and reacted to by my brain. The brain can interpret and respond to experience because subjectivity is integrated with the brain's information. In fact, experience is brain information with subjectivity. The brain responds to experience, as shown by fMRI [46] or EEG changes [65] and by behavior, which comes only out of the brain. Thus, the brain is obviously affected, even compelled, by experience. A proposal for how non-conscious experience comes to be and how it interacts with the brain If there is a subjective field that interacts with certain brain information to create non-conscious experience, how might that interaction physically occur? I suggest that the brain creates multiple fields

Table 1 Similarities between standard quantum fields and the subjective field. Standard Quantum Fields

Consistent with the concept of spacetime Unique qualities and properties Known through force Universal Local effects Acts on specific objects Descriptive and not explanatory A tension or stress in empty space Each field has an elementary particle Fields interact

Electromagnetic

Gravitational

Universal Subjective Field

√ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √

√ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √

√ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √

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Table 2 A Summary of the Hypotheses and Tests of Speculations: a. Generally Accepted Concepts, b. Speculations, and c. Tests of Speculations. a. Generally Accepted Concepts: a. Brain information is a flow that has structure and material dependency that, at a minimum, must involve brain chemistry and metabolism, neuronal transmissions, glial functions, and electromagnetic fields. b. Subjectivity cannot be explained by known material interactions. Something more is needed. c. Quantum fields are fundamental and cannot be further explained. We find the gravitational field and the electromagnetic field, and we can study them, but we cannot explain their origins. We consider them to be fundamental to the universe.

d. We cannot observe quantum fields directly; we can only observe their forces and consequences on the elements with which they interact. e. Quantum fields have unique qualities that are very different from one another. f. Quantum fields exert forces by way of emitted particles specific to the field.

g. Formerly unknown quantum fields were unknown prior to their discovery.

b. Speculations:

h. There may still exist undiscovered quantum fields with unique properties.

i. Subjective experiences exist and are profoundly important and require explanation. j. Experiences possess meanings, and the brain responds to the meanings of experiences. Meaning and understanding, themselves, become profound forces upon the brain. The subjective field emits particles that have force that facilitates subjectivity, and subjectivity once formed becomes another force in its own right through the meanings and understandings it creates in the brain. k. All subjective meaning comes out of experience, and all experience requires a living brain. Without life there is no subjective meaning. l. Subjective meaning supports the existence of life. m. Biophotons are photons emitted by living structures, and, like all photons, biophotons can go into superposition and reduction, be entangled, absorbed, annihilated, or created. n. Subjective experiences and biophotons can both be independently measured and manipulated for the purposes of studying any interactions between them. c. Tests of Speculations (elaborated in text):

a. The subjective field, an undiscovered quantum field, emits particles/waves that interact with certain brain information to transform non-subjective brain information into brain information with subjectivity. b. Brain information that has the potential to achieve subjectivity may terminate as a biophoton information flow. c. The biophoton information flow may interact with the subjective field, whose particles may alter the patterns of biophotons so that they then possess the quality of subjectivity and that they then interact with the brain. d. Biophoton patterns that possess subjectivity might be entangled with the subjective field, which as a fundamental property confers subjectivity upon the photon pattern flows with which it interacts and through entanglement may alter its entangled photons in the brain to add subjectivity to brain information. e. Alternatively, or in addition, the particles of the subjective field might interact with some other aspect of non-subjective brain information to transform it into brain information with subjectivity. I prefer the former speculation that suggests subjective field particle to biophoton flow interactions because of its greater simplicity. f. Biophotons in superposition might excite the subjective field as they are reduced or absorbed, causing the excited subjective field to emit particles that interact with the continuous flow of biophoton information patterns (or flow of entangled quantum networks [19]) and add subjectivity to the patterns of biophotons, which can then interact with the brain.

1. Cyclotron experiments, 2 analyze biophoton emission properties, 3.determine qualities of subjectivity 1. Manipulated brain biophoton emissions and 2. correlate with qualities of subjectivity and with 3. brain states 1. Evaluate biophoton patterns and qualities associated with different subjective states and 2. manipulate biophoton emissions 1. Try to disrupt the entanglement through meaurements or electric anesthesia

1. Observe brain changes associated with 2. changes in experience that are not associated with 3. biophoton emissions

1. Collapse or reduce biophoton superposition, 2. detect subjective field particles in cyclotron experiments, 3. evaluate biophoton patterns and 4. qualities associated with different sujective states and 5. manipulate biophoton emissions

have a transformation of brain information without experience to brain information with experience, but so far, still, this is non-conscious experience. The brain is able to appreciate and respond to the brain information enriched with non-conscious subjectivity. See Fig. 3.

of brain information, each with a rest mass, each of which has the capacity to become a non-conscious experience if it interacts with the subjective field, which has no rest mass. According to quantum field theory, fields can interact, usually by stimulating one another. I suggest that each brain information field or domain, must emit energy that interacts with the subjective field. The subjective field prior to this interaction has no content, it is only a field of potentiality, which has the potential of conferring subjectivity on information with which it interacts. Each brain information sphere might emit energy that effects the subjective field through the superposition and reduction of biophotons or through energy released through the reductions of quantum superpositions within tubulin molecules as suggested by Hameroff, or more likely a combination of these factors. Similar reductions, or biophotons, or biophotons produced by reductions of particles in superposition within DNA molecules might also play a similar role. This energy would be orchestrated because it reflects brain information fields, without experience. This energy then stimulates the subjective field, a universal, fundamental field, like the universal, fundamental gravitational field, and possibly causes coordinated activations of the subjective field which upon reduction emit quantum particles, which I will refer to as “expitons,” that can be thought of as similar to the photons of the electromagnetic field. Possibly the activations of the subjective field cause it to go into superpositions which, upon reduction, emit expitons that are absorbed by the specific brain information fields to confer subjectivity upon the brain information fields. We then

The self and the origin of conscious experience The self is a special non-conscious experience, which like other nonconscious experiences is created by specific brain information that receives expitons. But the non-conscious experience of the self can then also acquire the conscious experience of the self. Consciousness is nonconscious experience with awareness, and the self is the only object that has conscious experience (awareness of experience). The self is conscious of itself, which may be an empty feeling of just lying in bed without thinking, with little feeling, perhaps like the experience of the moment of awakening, when one is for a moment unsure of where he or she is. This aspect of the empty self is possibly associated with brain information that originates in part in the default mode network [66,67] or in the claustrum [68,69]. But, the self is also able to become consciously aware of some other non-conscious experiences within the brain, which then become the contents of consciousness, or the global workspace, which Baars [70] described as follows, “GW theory may be thought of as a theater of mental functioning. Consciousness in this metaphor resembles a bright spot on the stage of immediate memory, directed there by a spotlight of attention under executive guidance. 62

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Fig. 2. This figure is meant to clarify that the relationship between the undiscovered animate quantum fields and two accepted quantum fields, both of which are known through observation of the material objects (mass or charge) and the result of the interaction with the field: gravity, electricity, magnetism and light. For the animate fields the material object is information (in different forms) and the results are life and experience. None of the fields, themselves, are directly observed. The possibility that life is explained by a quantum field is placed in the figure even though this is not discussed further in this paper.

Fig. 3. This is a diagram of the possible role of quantum superposition and reduction in the proposed interaction of brain information and the subjective field in the formation of experience.

driving. In both situations, I am awake and conscious, only the contents of my conscious change. But, when a nightmare awakens me, my conscious self had been absent until the nightmare's terror awakened it. In terms of physics, can I distinguish between my terror before I awaken from after? Both my non-conscious experience of my terror (in the dream) and my conscious experience of terror are experiences, and both are related to brain information spheres, though, of course, very different brain information fields, or states. For my non-conscious experiences, I proposed that my brain information interacted with a universal subjective field to give rise to my non-conscious experience of terror. I propose that the non-conscious self, once it is formed out of other non-conscious experiences, is able to interact with a second universal, fundamental field, the awareness field, whose quantum particles I will call aritons, and that this interaction transforms the non-conscious

Only the bright spot is conscious, while the rest of the theater is dark and unconscious.” Oakley and Halligan [41] likewise describe the global workspace theory of Baars as follows: “The Global Workspace theory likened “consciousness” to a working theater where psychological events created by non-conscious processes taking place behind the scenes, allowed some to enter onto the stage of “conscious awareness.” If the self is not attending to or aware of other non-conscious experiences, then those experiences remain non-conscious. The self is experience with awareness. But what then is awareness? What is the difference between non-conscious experiences and conscious experiences? When I am driving on the highway but lost in thoughts about the nature of consciousness, and suddenly have my attention drawn to the highway because someone beeps their horn at me, I am merely shifting my attention from my philosophizing to my 63

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Fig. 4. A physical conceptualization of how the self is transformed from a non-conscious experience to a conscious self, which can then consciously experience other non-conscious experiences to which it attends. Experience only becomes conscious after the non-conscious “self” interacts with another, as yet undiscovered, quantum field, the awareness field, which when activated emits bosons that I call aritons, which render the “self” aware or conscious.

Fig. 5. This figure conceptualizes how brain information interacts with the subjective field to become non-conscious experience, a part of which becomes the nonconscious “self,” which interacts with the awareness field to become the conscious “self,” which can then attend to some other non-conscious experiences and bring them into conscious awareness. The “conscious mind” is the “self” with the attended (previously) non-conscious experiences to which it attends. When the “self” attends to Global Workspace 1, the conscious mind might have one personality. When the “self” attends to Global Workspace 2 rather than 1, significant alterations in personality and perception may occur.

same model of certain brain information interacting with a quiescent universal quantum field that interacts with the brain information of the non-conscious self to induce awareness, and, thereby, create the conscious self. Awareness always entails experience, even though experience often lacks awareness. Awareness and experience are two similar but very separate entities. Because they are similar, I believe they must have a similar mechanism. Because they are different, I suggest that the difference is likely to be that they involve different quantum fields.

self to the conscious self. See Fig. 4. The self, once conscious can attend to many non-conscious experiences in the brain to make them conscious. The non-conscious experiences that become conscious are the global workspace. See Fig. 5. The reason I invoke a second new quantum field is that I have to try to explain how non-conscious experience becomes conscious experience. Non-conscious experience lacks conscious awareness. How could this awareness become manifest, as we know it does? I turn again to the 64

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Fig. 6. This illustration attempts to depict how unilateral brain stimulation, which has been observed to radically alter experience in many clinical patients, might relate to the hypotheses presented.

Accepted quantum field theory has 24 distinct quantum fields that function similarly, and I suggest similar but different quantum fields that invoke experience and, separately, awareness, is a very plausible explanation for the obvious, but often missed, distinction between experience and awareness. The self is the portal through which conscious experience and the brain communicate [4]. The self is absent as in sleep. Conscious experiences return upon awakening. Non-conscious experiences, which are not attended to by the self, remain non-conscious experiences. Conscious experiences may have more salience than non-conscious experiences, but nonconscious experience comprises much of the Freudian unconscious and has a great importance to psychology, as, of course, do conscious experiences. Just as non-conscious experience is beyond reductive materialism, so is conscious experience, and both must obtain their different qualities of subjectivity from beyond the material brain, I suggest, from new quantum fields. Since all that we are conscious of, we are conscious of through the self, the self must be able to interact with this awareness field. I do feel that relating experience and awareness to quantum fields that interact with specific brain information leads to a solution to the hard problem of consciousness. We have a concept that makes a solution to the hard problem conceivable and removes the inference that it is insolvable or mysterious. These ideas are different from panpsychism or theories of a universal consciousness because there is no subjectivity or awareness in the subjective field or the awareness field. Subjectivity and awareness only arise from an interaction between brain information and the respective quantum field. Without the interactions with brain information, these quantum fields are essentially inert. So there is no universal mentality or consciousness, only a universal potential.

increased, as I discussed in my 1998 book, Of Two Minds: The Revolutionary Science of Dual-Brain Psychology [56]. I had discovered as described the book and in an article [71], that asking a patient, especially one with a trauma history and/or an addiction, to look out of one lateral visual field or the other, resulted consistently in his having a profound change in personality. Each lateral visual field, the left and the right, is wired neurologically to the opposite brain hemisphere. Consistently, over the past 22 years I have often observed that on one side the patient is anxiety ridden, often sees me as disapproving, almost always sees a photograph of an angry man that I keep on my computer as quite frightening, and if he has had a drug addiction, now in remission, he will often get cravings, often quite strong cravings. When the patients look out the other visual field, he is dramatically different. I look approving (I'm often accused of changing my expression), but the angry man no long looks frightening, and there are no drug cravings. These changes begin within seconds and last at least until the person stops looking out that visual field. The experience is generally repeated when the person switches back to the other visual field. This reported observation has been ignored by most of the Academy, but it has been verified by other laboratories [72–74] using rTMS or transcranial photobiomodulation (tPBM) and by complex studies in our laboratory at McLean [65,75,76], including an fMRI study [77]. And very recently, I have been able to produce even stronger and longer lasting personality changes by transcranially irradiating one side of the forehead (over the positive hemisphere, determined by the lateral visual field test) with near infrared light (in submission). This procedure is a variation of the use of bilateral tPBM with near-infrared light for psychological symptoms [73,78–80]. The point of this is that the experiences that the patient has, his thoughts, his fantasies, his affects, and his choices are determined or at least greatly influenced by which brain hemisphere is more active at a given moment. Interestingly, the patient feels himself to be the same person, with the same name, same address, even the same history, even when his experiences are so profoundly different. I must assume from this that the person's thoughts and feelings are originating in brain information processing associated mainly with one hemisphere. When the hemispheric dominance is switched, his experiences, that is his thoughts and feelings and choices change accordingly. This tells me that

The conscious mind The conscious mind is the interaction between the self and the global workspace, as the content of what can enter consciousness. The conscious mind changes as the self observes different global networks as occurs when one cerebral hemisphere is stimulated versus the other and the person's personality, including his drug cravings, are diminished or 65

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field (within the same skull) and that the speaking left hemisphere's brain information was able to make partial contact with the same particle/waves from the awareness field, creating a vague awareness. Is this the same mechanism as in creative writing (and other creative pursuits) when a part of one's mind seems to be listening to (and writing down) the experiences of another part?

experience comes out of brain information! See Fig. 6. I will offer a metaphor, which I hope will clarify the interaction between experience and brain information. Although conscious experience comes out of an interaction between certain brain information and the proposed quantum fields, conscious experience is distinct from brain information. When I look into a mirror, I see my face. The mirror image of my face is not my face, it is a reflection of my face, and any change in my face will be reflected in the mirror, but the mirror image has a real existence and can be explained by natural laws of physics. Similarly, experience reflects brain information, but it is not brain information. Also, the mirror image affects my brain. If I observe that I have mustered on my cheek or that I look insecure, my brain will respond to what I see in the mirror. Similarly, experiences (conscious and non-conscious) affect brain information. Thus, experience not only reflects brain information, but it returns to effect brain information. There is an interplay that is continuous between experience and brain information, just as there is a continuous interplay between the mirror image and my perception of it. In this model, experience becomes embedded in brain information to create subjective brain information, which through new changes in brain information is constantly creating new experiences that further impact brain information, in a rapid, continuous cycle.

Tests of the hypotheses At the end of all this, I am proposing that certain resonate patterns of biophotons interact with undiscovered quantum fields to create experience. Although we cannot directly detect any quantum fields, we can detect their particles, their forces, and their effects on material with which the fields interact. With gravity, we cannot detect the gravitational field, but we can detect its effect on mass through its force, the gravitational force. We have not yet detected the particle of the gravitational field, the graviton. Still there is a great deal about this hypothesis that can be subjected to rigorous testing. We are able to observe and manipulate both biophotons and subjective experiences, and we can detect much brain information through physiological measurements (including biophoton detection and analysis), and we can correlate those measurements with concurrent mental states. One could study the correlations between spectra and patterns of biophoton emissions with different subjective states, particularly with heightened states. Nicolelis and his group [81] have been able to decode brain information in the premotor cortex using electrodes detecting action potentials that are interpreted by a computer that enables a monkey to move a mechanical arm according to the interpreted brain signals. It should be possible to develop multiple photon detectors to detect 3-D patterns of biophotons, and these might be interpretable. We might be able to determine if such patterns correlate with different subjective experiences such as listening to Bach versus listening to hard rock performed poorly. Does the pattern of biophotons change with hypnotic relaxation versus an arousing movie? Could a state of anxiety be differentiated from a state of confidence? Might it become possible to induce or implant patterns of biophotons in the brain with tPBM (or other technologies) and create experiences such as hearing Bach in the absence of sound? Further, we can detect the force of the resultant experiences, the force of pleasure or pain and their associated urges, and then measure the subsequent brain changes (as well as bodily physiological alterations) and the behaviors that result from the experiences. Brain information is possibly expressed ultimately as certain patterns of resonating patterns of biophotons [17–19,64], and developing methods for augmenting or diminishing their presence and observing the effects on subjectivity could be one path toward fruitful experimentation. Schiffer has reported dramatic shifts in personality states can be induced by lateral visual stimulation [56]. In an experiment in which he and his associates used tPBM in the near-infrared mode [73], they found that immediately after a 4-minute photon irradiation of the brain using 810 nm light, they were able to detect changes in subjectivity using a Positive and Negative Affect Scale [82]. At baseline they determined which brain hemisphere had a more positive hemispheric emotional valence. Earlier studies had found that the more positive hemisphere could be either left or right among patients but was a trait for a given patient [56,71,83]. Immediately after irradiation with photons over the positive hemisphere there was a significantly greater improvement in subjective state compared with sham or with the treatment of the more negative hemisphere [73]. Near-infrared irradiation of the brain is known to alter brain physiology [84], but the immediacy of the response is not easily explained. Further study could determine if this photon treatment stimulated brain biophon emissions and amplified a quantum network of entangled biophotons [19] in one hemisphere, causing it to rise above the threshold of consciousness and significantly altering the subject’s mental state by switching the

Support for these hypotheses The hypothesis offers a plausible explanation for how subjectivity affects the brain and how brain information relates to subjectivity and its consistency with observed psychological phenomena serves as support. Spheres of brain information that could become conscious seem to compete with other spheres of brain information for access to consciousness, as I discussed earlier in my discussion of the Global Workspace and of my clinical experience with hemispheric stimulation. It seems that only one sphere of brain information can be conscious at a given moment, even if that moment may be short lasting. The hypotheses offer plausible explanations for the facts that when my brain information changes, my subjectivity changes, and when my subjective experience changes, as when I have suddenly received bad news, my brain changes. It could explain how subjectivity is very often experienced as outside oneself (I feel anxiety, I don't know why, but I feel anxiety). It explains hallucinations as a non-conscious sphere of brain activity (outside of the self) sending information to the awareness field (which usually accepts only one sphere of information) creating conscious thoughts or perceptions that the conscious self experiences as coming from outside itself. In a similar manner, it offers a plausible explanation for dreams as a non-conscious brain area sending information to a subjective field whose resulting subjectivity can be observed by the partially awakened conscious self. Dreams do appear to us as coming from outside of our self. Is sleep a disconnection from the awareness field, and awakening, a reconnection? Is hypnosis the implanting of the hypnotist's brain information into the subject's so that the subject experiences the foreign brain information as his own subjective experience? Is it possible that hallucinogens such as LSD, which create experiences beyond normal brain information, act in part by enhancing the conscious awareness field? In an interesting split-brain study [57], Sperry showed a photograph of a person to the right hemifield of a split-brain patient, and the patient's left brain, when asked, said he couldn't see it. When asked to guess, the patient said he wasn't sure. Sperry then asked, “Prime Minister, king, president, … any of them?” The patient had a ponderous look on his face and said, “Gee.” Sperry asked, “Great Britain? … Germany …? The patient then interrupted and asserted, ”Germany,“ and then after a pause, ”Hitler.“ The photograph was of Adolf Hitler. The patient's speaking left hemisphere never saw the picture. Sperry suggested that brain information was transferred through lower, uncut brain connections, perhaps in the midbrain, but I wonder if the patients' right hemispheric brain information made contact with an awareness 66

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and focused symptoms as experiences that related to unconscious structures and conflicts. In the 1960′s Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow were prominent theoreticians in Humanistic Psychology which like psychoanalysis focused on the experiences of the individual [88,89]. But, in the 1970′s psychiatry became under assault as in an article in the New England Journal of Medicine [90], which referred to psychiatry as the “battered child of medicine,” and was referred to also as “brainless” because of its disinterest in brain processes which were felt to be beyond understanding or exploration [91]. Psychiatry then became more medicalized as interest in psychopharmacology and neuroscience accelerated in the 1970′s and 80′s [92]. Academic psychiatry, which had been dominated by psychoanalysts, swiftly promoted biological psychiatrists and excluded psychoanalysts. The advent of health insurance companies which tended to favor pharmacotherapies to long term psychotherapies [93,94] and the publication of the Diagnostic Manual by the American Psychiatric Association [95] led to the diminishment of the exploration of experiences and their complex unconscious underpinnings [96]. Today, some have called psychiatry “mindless” [91], and others have called for a better integration of biological and psychodynamic psychiatry [97]. Neuropsychoanalysis is a fledgling science that has very specifically been trying since the early 1990′s to integrate psychoanalytic theory with serious neuroscience, but its theoretical and therapeutic output has not yet been given wide acceptance [98]. But, the truth is that thinking about psychological theories has not really progressed very far since the halcyon days of Freud and Jung and the work of post-war European immigrant psychoanalysts: Erikson, Fromm, Kohut, Horney, Alexander, or Fromm-Reichmann [99]. The importance of experience, especially the distorting effects of mental pain, including the pain of psychological symptoms, needs to be brought further into new theories of psychology [100]. Experience drives the brain and behavior. We live for experiences. Experience is a life force, which compels us to strive to survive and to remain alive. But not all experiences are positive; we struggle to avoid negative experiences. Negative experiences can be a death force, which can drive people to suicide or euthanasia. That is, experiences can be compelling and can induce attraction or repulsion. The critical importance of experience is often minimized or overlooked by physicists and neuroscientists because of its subjective nature. Much of our physical health as well as our mental health is profoundly affected by experience. Experiences of trauma, anxiety, and depression are highly correlated with both physical and mental illnesses [101,102], while love, affiliation, meaningful productivity correlate with physical health and mental wellbeing [103–105]. Our experience affects our development in childhood [106] and throughout life. Piaget's assimilation and accommodation are both actually about experiences. The child, in Piaget's formulation, assimilates and accommodates the experience of objects or events in his environment. It is not the object which is assimilated, rather it is the experience of the object. Experiences strongly influence our esthetic and economic values. It is only through our experience that we find value in art; the object stimulates a profound and meaningful experience if we are to value it [107]. Economic systems are based on values of good and services and the values of such closely relate to the experiences that the goods and/or services are expected to provide. The brain is shaped by experience as in learning, memory, practice, and trauma [108,109]. Experiences are also profoundly affected by the brain as we commonly observe with drugs, disease, injury, stimulation, rest, and satiation, but physically altered brain states still create experiences, which further drive the brain. The experience of trauma and maltreatment is the primary common cause of psychological disorders [110–112]. The self, the mind, and the brain have a limited capacity to bear experiences such as pain, and even pleasure, and one may resort to impulse, addiction, and delusion in their attempts to cope with or avoid such unbearable feelings. Different experiences have different effects on our behavior and our future experiences. Different experiences also have different effects on the brain, and imaging studies show that traumatic experiences affect specific

quantum network participating in the subject’s conscious state. Only one conscious personality state seems to exist at a given moment [56], but it can change easily. See Fig. 6. Alternatively, could the reduction or inhibition of biophotons reduce subjectivity? To test this, we would require a way to separate the augmentation or diminishment of biophotons from metabolism, which is known to affect biophon emissions, especially by increasing glutamate [85]. Would the application of a dye composed of a chromophore to absorb biophotons to areas of the brain decrease subjectivity in that area of the brain? If it were applied to only one brain hemisphere, would it alter the subjective experience of the animal, much like the application of unilateral near-infrared light seems to [73]. Is it possible that if emitted biophotons are in superposition and/or entangled, that the observation or measurement of the biophotons would cause the collapse or reduction of the biophotons and affect subjectivity through the known effects of measurement on quantum properties? That is, would the measurement of biophotons in an awake subject by photon detectors alter the subject’s level of consciousness? Chai, et al. [85] have reported that the application of Propofol to mouse brain slices decreases biophoton emissions, but this could be an effect of anesthesia on metabolism, and any anesthetic effects directly due to direct biophon effects from Propofol would need to be determined by further investigation. In the 1960′s electricity was used for general anesthesia in “electrical anesthesia” [86]. Is it possible that electrical anesthesia produced its effects through quantum electrodynamic effects that diminished biophoton emissions beyond metabolic effects? Perhaps some anesthetics or even sleep might be found to operate by interfering with biophoton transmission to a quantum field. These states could be studied intensively with biophoton detectors and the manipulation of those emissions. The detection of quantum particles from quantum fields usually requires a cyclotron. To date such experiments have been restricted to non-living material targets. Will an ingenious experimental physicist one day develop methods for studying living objects, perhaps insects or crustacea, in the search for new quantum fields? How might a biophoton pattern carrying brain information without subjectivity differ from one carrying subjectivity? We might measure patterns and frequencies and spins of biophotons in low experience states (hypnotic trance) and compare them with those of high experience states (exciting movie). Would there be a difference in just the number of biophotons or also the properties of the biophotons (frequencies, spins, patterns, or some unanticipated property)? Possibly the property of subjectivity may not be detectable, at present, by any known means other than through reported or behaviorally inferred experiences. A summary of these many of these points and their point to point application to specific speculations is presented in Table 2c. I am presenting a hypothesis that is supported by its power to explain plausibly a large number of phenomena that have defied understanding, including subjectivity. The ideas have not yet been experimentally tested, but I hope will be as physicists, neuroscientists, and psychiatrists, including myself, attend to them. I should note that it has been pointed out that the atomic theory when it was proposed almost 2000 years ago was not testable until a little over 100 years ago, and yet was of great interest and value since its inception. In the spirit of Boltzmann's suggestion [87], “… it cannot be our task to find an absolutely correct theory but rather a picture that is as simple as possible and that represents phenomena as accurately as possible,” I make my proposal. Psychological implications. Much of this work comes out of psychiatry, an unusual place from which to address consciousness, but psychiatry does deal on a daily basis with subjective experiences, conscious and unconscious. Psychoanalysis was the driving force in psychiatry after World War II 67

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brain structures [109]. The understanding of experience as interactions between brain information and quantum fields leads to a better understanding of the importance of both experience and of brain information and of their ability to change each other. All this can lead to greater insights into the psychological pains and disorders that afflict us.

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The treatment of psychological problems. Empathy is the feeling of another person's experiences, conscious and unconscious. The psychotherapist should come to understand the complex origins and relationships of the patient's experiences. The capacity to bear experiences is critical to processing trauma and to achieving well-being. The psychotherapist's most essential task is to help the patient understand their psychological traumas and their covert impacts and then to help the patient bear his or her pain so that it can be integrated and transformed into a constructive experience. Brain treatments such as drugs and physical stimulation can selectively affect different brain areas to alter their brain information. But in my experience as a psychotherapist, a patient's understanding and bearing of his or her experiences is the most powerful intervention yet devised; other interventions work best when they facilitate this intervention. We need to become much more aware of the impact of conscious and non-conscious experiences on our brain and behavior and life functioning. Minds are systems of experiences related to brain information. Nations are interacting systems of people with complex interacting experiences. We have failed nations and we have sustainable, successful nations. Individuals like nations can be failed or healthy. Ultimately the goal of individuals in society should be to improve their experiences and their society's to conditions of well-being and wisdom. Some integrated minds, consistent with Aristotelian virtues, are constructive and advance well-being for the individual and society, and other integrated minds are destructive and induced pain and loss for the individual and society. Conflict of interest The author has been issued two patents covering a method for applying near infrared light to a patient's cerebral hemisphere with a positive valence as a treatment for psychological conditions. He has recently become the founder of MindLight, LLC. Otherwise the author declares that this research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Author contributions The author is solely responsible concepts presented and the writing of the article. Acknowledgements The author appreciates the thoughtful and helpful comments on the manuscript by Christoph Simon, PhD, William P Seltzer, Ann Liebert, PhD, and the reviewers. References [1] Hameroff S, Penrose R. Consciousness in the universe: a review of the 'Orch OR' theory. Phys Life Rev. 2014;11(1):39–78. [2] Hameroff S. Consciousness, the brain, and spacetime geometry. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001;929:74–104. [3] Alcaro A, Carta S, Panksepp J. The Affective Core of the Self: A Neuro-Archetypical Perspective on the Foundations of Human (and Animal) Subjectivity. Front Psychol. 2017;8:1424. [4] Damasio AR. Self comes to mind : constructing the conscious brain. London: William Heinemann 2010;xi:367 pp. [5] Damasio A. Feelings of emotion and the self. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2003;1001:253–61.

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