Conclusions

Abstract

Scientists discovered in the twentieth century that our Minds Matter: that we are not the pre-programmed mechanical automatons that classical Newtonian physics had, for two hundred years, proclaimed us to be. They explained, moreover, how our minds matter: how such intangible things as our mental intentions and consciously felt values influence the behavior of our material bodies. They showed why our mental selves are not, as had been widely believed for two centuries, and are still believed by physicalist philosophies, mere passive witnesses to an inexorable sequence of material events that lie completely beyond the capacity of our thoughts, ideas, and feelings to affect in any way. But quantum mechanics entails that we are not mere material robots deluded by “the illusion of conscious will”. Our conscious will is rather, by the means explicitly spelled out in realistically interpreted orthodox von Neumann Quantum theory, able to substantially affect our individual physical lives in ways causally driven by our consciously felt values.

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