Chapter 12                    Part F 

If the true picture of reality and our place in it is that stochastic, one begins to wonder how we manage to get anything done. What mental models can guide us to effective action in such a scary environment? The answer lies in viewing the human mind itself in a way that is consistent with quantum theory, namely the Bayesian way. 

                          

Before we close this chapter, it is also worthwhile to note that no one would really engage in everyday life as if she or he did not see herself/himself as being free. In my dealings in everyday life, of course I believe in free will. I get out of the way of oncoming buses or landslides, I go to work to earn my pay, and I hold people responsible for their actions. I expect other rational adults to do the same. I applaud decent actions and reprimand mean ones. I calculate odds on both the material "rightness" and the moral "rightness" of nearly everything I do. The Bayesian view of the mind, combined with the quantum picture of reality, affirms and draws into sharp focus my everyday picture of myself.   

  

The Bayesian model of the human mind is an appropriate one to fit inside of the quantum model of the universe because it portrays the human mind in a way that is consistent with quantum uncertainty. A sense-data-processing, probability-calculating, action-planning program - refined by trial and error through centuries of cultural evolution - is going to be more likely to enable the organism that runs by it to survive than is any other program for surviving that we could propose.

The mind-software that runs on the brain hardware is presently defying all of the computer simulations and other models that we have devised to try to imitate it or explain it. In other words, the details of the programs that run on the brain's protoplasmic hardware are even more of a mystery than the enormously complex neuron-hardware itself. The mind, which is only an evolved variation of the larger phenomenon of life itself, spots patterns in sense data. In fact, some of the models of reality that the mind uses to guide its actions have been worked by whole societies out over generations. 

Finding patterns in the flows of matter and energy around us and calculating ways to exploit them is what our minds do. Exactly how they do this, so far, we have not been able to pin down. But, in spite of our difficulties with comprehending what we are doing when we are comprehending, the Bayesian model of the mind is still useful and workable. With it, we can do some serious reasoning. 

The point as far as this book is concerned is that we have now integrated the Bayesian model of the human mind with the socio-cultural model of human evolution and the quantum model of the physical universe. We are thinking creatures, learning - sometimes over generations - by Bayesian means, individual and collective, to better and better handle this probabilistic universe. With this tripartite model to support us, we are ready to draw some further powerful conclusions.

Notes 

1.http://www.truthaccordingtoscripture.com/documents/apologetics/

mere-christianity/Book1/ 

cs-lewis-mere-christianitybook1.php#.U1gQFo1OVLM

2. http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0811/0811.3696.pdf    

3. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chaos/

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminism#Robert_Kane

5.http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/bycsp/

  necessity/necessity.html