The classical mechanistic idea of nature that prevailed in science during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was an essentially mindless conception: the physically described aspects of nature were asserted to be completely determined by prior physically described aspects alone, with our conscious experiences entering only passively. During the twentieth century the classical concepts were found to be inadequate. In the new theory, quantum mechanics, our conscious experiences enter into the dynamics in specified ways not fixed by the physically described aspects alone. Consequences of this radical change in our understanding of the connection between mind and brain are described.

"Stapp's book is a bold and original attack on the problem of consciousness and free will based on the openings provided by the laws of quantum mechanics. This is a serious and interesting attack on a truly fundamental problem."

Tony Leggett [Physics Nobel Laureate, 2003]

"Stapp's wide-ranging proposal offers stimulating reading, a strong sense of conceptual coherence and intuitive appeal, and empirical predictions that deserve to be refined and tested."

Harald Atmanspacher

"A highly readable book of genuine wisdom by one of the foremost minds for our generation."

Allan Combs

Autorentext

Author of over three hundred research papers on the mathematical,
physical, and philosophical foundations of quantum mechanics, and
a Springer book "Mind, matter, and quantum mechanics". Worked
personally with W. Heisenberg, W. Pauli, and J.A. Wheeler on these
issues. Invited author of entries about quantum theories consciousness
in several currently about to appear encyclopedias. Invited plenary
speaker at numerous international conferences.

For book cover:

Henry Stapp has spent his entire career working in frontier areas of theoretical physics. After completing his thesis work under Nobel Laureates Emilio Segré and Owen Chamberlain, he joined Wolfgang Pauli to tackle foundational issues. After Pauli's early death, he turned to von Neumann's ideas about the mathematical foundations of quantum theory. The essay 'Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics', that developed out of this work eventually evolved into Stapp's classic book bearing the same title. His deep interest in the quantum measurement problem led him to pursue extensive work pertaining to the influence of our conscious thoughts on physical processes occurring in our brains. The understandings achieved in this work have been described in many technical articles and now, in more accessible prose, in the present book.

Zusammenfassung
This book concerns your nature as a human being. It is about the connection of your mind to your body. You may imagine that your mind your stream of conscious thoughts,ideas,andfeelingsin?uencesyouractions.Youmaybelieve that what you think a?ects what you do. You could be right. However, the scienti?c ideas that prevailed from the time of Isaac Newton to the beginningofthetwentiethcenturyproclaimedyourphysicalactionsto becompletelydeterminedbyprocessesthataredescribableinphysical terms alone. Any notion that your conscious choices make a di?erence in how you behave was branded an illusion: you were asserted to be causally equivalent to a mindless automaton. We now know that that earlier form of science is fundamentally incorrect. During the ?rst part of the twentieth century, that classic- physics-based conception of nature was replaced by a new theory that reproduces all of the successful predictions of its predecessor, while providing also valid predictions about a host of phenomena that are strictly incompatible with the precepts of eighteenth and nineteenth century physics. No prediction of the new theory has been shown to be false.

Inhalt
Science, Consciousness and Human Values.- Human Knowledge as the Foundation of Science.- Actions, Knowledge, and Information.- Nerve Terminals and the Need to Use Quantum Theory.- Templates for Action.- The Physical Effectiveness of Conscious Will and the Quantum Zeno Effect.- Support from Contemporary Psychology.- Application to Neuropsychology.- Roger Penrose's Theory and Quantum Decoherence.- Non-Orthodox Versions of Quantum Theory and the Need for Process 1.- The Basis Problem in Many-Worlds Theories.- Despised Dualism.- Whiteheadian Quantum Ontology.- Interview.- Consciousness and the Anthropic Questions.- Impact of Quantum Mechanics on Human Values.- Conclusions.