Robbins Library Notes

Good morning, readers!

Yesterday, I learned of a journal that may be of interest to those who study philosophy of mind, epistemology, cognitive science, and related fields: Mind and Matter. Here is a description of the journal:

Mind and Matter is aimed at an educated interdisciplinary readership interested in all aspects of mind-matter research from the perspectives of the sciences and humanities. It is devoted to the publication of empirical, theoretical, and conceptual research and the discussion of its results. The main subject areas of the journal are:

– neuroscience, cognitive science, behavioral science
– physical approaches, mathematical modeling, data analysis
– philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, applied metaphysics
– cultural and social studies, history of ideas

Some, but not all, of the articles are available for free on the site.  One of these is “The Phenomenological Role of Consciousness in Measurement,” by Patrick A. Heelan, Mind and Matter 2(1) 2004, which a friend and colleague sent to me yesterday.  The abstract reads:

A structural analogy is pointed out between a hermeneutically developed phenomenological description, based on Husserl, of the process of perceptual cognition on the one hand and quantum mechanical measurement on the other hand. In Husserl’s analytic phase of the cognition process, the “intentionality-structure” of the subject/object union prior to predication of a local object is an entangled symmetry-making state, and this entanglement is broken in the synthetic phase when the particular local object is constituted under the influence of an eidos (”inner horizon”) and the “facticity” of the local world (”outer horizon”). Replacing “perceptual cognition” by “measurement” and “subject” by “expert subject using a measuring device” the analogy of a formal quantum structure is extended to the conscious structure of all empirical cognition. This is laid out in three theses: about perception, about classical measurement, and about quantum measurement. The results point to the need for research into the quantum structure of the physical embodiment of human cognition.

Harvard does not currently have electronic access to the full contents of the journal, though a hard copy may be found in Widener, Widener WID-LC RC321 .M49, with current issues in the Reading Room Stacks.

What do you think, readers?