The brain is a peculiar device:

• It has mind and consciousness.
• It is a computing, but also a non-computing information processor.

No doubt that the brain is an informational device. The forms of information in the brain/mind cannot, perhaps, be reduced only to the information carried by bits, even if their organization, like in artificial intelligence, may carry context and reference significance. There is also a kind of information that has a manifestation in feelings, meanings, in qualia. Both kinds of information, it seems, may act also together, constituting a mixed type of information.

The brain/mind is working like a computer with the first type of information, an information that I called structural, and which can always be reduced, in principle, to bits. With the other type of information, that I called phenomenological, the brain/mind is not working as a computer, but still it is processing this second type of information. And when the two kinds of information are working together, in structural-phenomenological conditions, the brain/mind is capable of quite genuine performances as are the processes of deep creation. Roger Penrose proved that the brain has really non-computing ways of processing information (PENROSE 1994), and also myself advanced the same idea in some works of philosophy of science (DRÃGÃNESCU 1979, 1985).

At this stage of knowledge, we do not know if information is a fundamental ingredient of nature. Of course, we cognize the shannonian information, the algorithmic Kolmogorov-Chaitin information, and the syntactic and semantic information represented by bits. The other kinds of information of the brain/mind, shortly presented above, are not yet explored by science. They are not even recognized by science, because the nature of the brain/mind was not elucidated, although there are already good reasons, as we shall see, to accept them. Due to this situation, the information is not a fundamental notion of science. One cannot say exactly that if the brain/mind information is recognized, as comprehensive as above, then we shall reach the notion of a fundamental information, but perhaps we will be nearer. John Archibald Wheeler, the well known physicist from Princeton, defined the next stage of physics as the era of information, in which information will be recognized as a primary phenomenon and a fundamental notion. But we are not there yet, physics is not treating information as one of the primary ingredients of nature.

It is not sufficient to say that the brain is an information processor. Better, it is a structural-phenomenological processor of information or a brain/mind information processor. All the electronic computers that we know today are structural processors of information. After some authors it will be possible to build a specific type of quantum computer that will be a breed of hardware/mind information processor (AMOROSO 1997 b)

Biology, neuroscience (neurobiology and neural circuits), physics, molecular nanometric science, quantum mechanics, informatics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, psychology, philosophy of science, complex adaptive systems and others are necessary for the study of the brain. The brain is a problem of interdisciplinary science (DRÃGÃNESCU 1999, from where many ideas were taken and adapted in this paper).

This is also due to the existence of many levels of information processing in the brain:

1. The highest level is the psychological level, which may be seen as a specific macroscopic level, which comprises behaviour, intellectual activities, thinking, sentiments, will and others. Could these be explained only by reduction to the known structures of the brain, that is only to the elements of the following two levels (b and c)?
2. The neuronal level that comprises the networks of neurons, modules of neurons and the structural organisation of the brain.
3. The molecular level, that comprises the molecular activities inside the neurons and at the synapses between neurons.


At these levels it may be added:

4. The quantum level, which was proposed by a number of physicists in the last years, and
5. The experiential level (phenomenological level) which proved to be a fact of brain and mind reality.

The main attention was given by science to the levels a, b, and c. It was considered that these levels are sufficient for explaining the brain/mind and consciousness. The main stream of the scientific theories of the brain, based especially on today neurobiology, is in this class, but these theories cannot explain the so-called subjective phenomena analysed by philosophy and even by psychology.

The problem is that the science of today has an ontological model of reality and a methodology, which do not include and does not allow recognising some peculiar phenomena and information processing of the brain. Because they are not fitting in the mentioned model and methodology, they are not recognised as objects of science, or worse, they are, strangely, considered non-existent. There is today a strong objection towards a too structural science, which proves it not to be sufficient to explain the brain/mind, and through this, the nature of the entire reality. The study of brain/mind is leading towards the most fundamental problems of science.

Concerning the first three levels they are well recognised today, although there are still problems referring to their interconnection, especially of the first level (a) with the levels (b) and (c). Nevertheless the most troubling problems appear when one considers the interconnection with the last levels mentioned above, the phenomenological level and the quantum level. The arguments that follow in this paragraph and in the following will consider only these two levels.

The phenomenological level is that level of the brain/mind which displays the so called experience, named also phenomenal experience or phenomenological sense.

For Stapp, phenomenology is "the study of experience" (STAPP 1993, p.239) and, experience is "the collection of events, or happenings, that constitute our conscious mental life" (STAPP 1993, p.236). The subjective experience, is considered the best characteristics of the mind (SCHAFFER 1994), having also an objective side.

But what is important is the fact that experience (phenomenological sense) is considered and demonstrated as a fundamental reality of nature. The recognition of a "new" phenomenon of nature (new only because it was neglected and considered as purely subjective or as an epiphenomenon), namely the "phenomenological sense" (DRÃGÃNESCU 1985, 1979), or the experience (CHALMERS 1996) may be considered as a step further for a future theory of brain/mind. For Chalmers the term experiential is equivalent with phenomenological (CHALMERS 1996). Experience is a phenomenological sense at the mental level. Kodratoff was among the first to recognise the phenomenological sense as a general phenomenon of nature (KODRATOFF 1997) as it was proposed by DRÃGÃNESCU (1996, 1985, 1979). Since many years, many scientists recognise the mental experience as a scientific fact without going further.

The phenomenon of experience is a kind of information, namely a phenomenological information, quite different from the structural information. By its nature, experience is always semantic, and a better name for it is that of phenomenological sense or phenomenological information. Experience is considered, in general, as a scientific fact, as a fundamental process of nature (DRÃGÃNESCU 1998 a). Experience is a phenomenological sense in an organism, but the phenomenological sense may be a general property of existence, having perhaps its place of manifestation in its deepest reality.

If the phenomenological sense is a reality, and is a kind of information, it must have a physical substrate. The recognition of the phenomenological sense implies the recognition of such a substrate, and this becomes another serious problem for science.

If the mental processes are based, on the one side, on physical structures, as neurobiology is showing, and, on the other side, on phenomenological senses, it follows that there is a way of coupling between structural processes and phenomenological processes. The recognition of this necessary coupling, in a way that still has to be established, but underlying the structural-phenomenological character of reality is another challenge for science. This implies the way in which the information is processed at the phenomenological level, conditioned by the nature of this information, and the way in which the structural information interact with the phenomenological one. The processing of information by the brain/mind is very peculiar, and very different from the present technical computers.

For the brain there is an explanatory gap or a coupling problem between structural (neuronal processes mainly) and experience. This is perhaps one of the main problem for the science of the brain (TAYLOR 1998, DRÃGÃNESCU 1998 b).

There is something more, namely the justified inference of the existence of a deep underlying reality of the universe which might be the substratum of the phenomenological senses and a source of primary energy. The deep existence, which is out of space and time of a universe, is a fact of reality (DRÃGÃNESCU 1979, 1985; KAFATOS, NADEAU 1990; DRÃGÃNESCU, KAFATOS 1998). It is very difficult today to contradict this assertion. The problem is if there is a participation of the deep underlying reality (deep existence, deep matter) in mind and consciousness processes of the brain. This is also a challenge for science.

A series of authors considers the brain as a specific type of a quantum device, otherwise, after them, its functioning could not be completely understood.

Perhaps, for the first time, the physicist Fred Alan Wolf (WOLF 1984) applied the concepts of quantum physics to the study of mind and human consciousness. He observed that "thousands of years ago we probably felt just as helpless about the physical world as we feel today about the psychic world" (WOLF 1984, p.324). Although there are a few advances in the last fifteen years, his remarks are still, unfortunately, desperately true.

His point of view is described in the following quotation:

The quantum theories of brain/mind that followed based only on the structural vision of quantum mechanics, elaborated by important authors (UMEZAWA 1993; STAPP 1993; PENROSE 1994; JIBU, YASSUE 1995; HAMEROFF, PENROSE 1996) proposed many interesting ideas, but all these are lacking an explanation of the manifestation of the phenomenological sense or experience.

David Chalmers observed this and I am of the same opinion, concerning the structural quantum theory:

Ludwig has shown that the structural science, classical or quantum, can not explain mind with the ingredients of this science (LUDWIG 1995). The propositions of Ludwig were extended (DRÃGÃNESCU 1998 b), to accommodate the phenomenological sense (experience), and this opens the possibility of a quantum- phenomenological theory.

Together with Menas Kafatos, an astrophysicist from George Mason University, we advanced a number of fundamental principles (KAFATOS 1996, DRAGANESCU, KAFATOS 1998) for a new philosophy of science. All these are bringing in the conception of the universe, the participation and the role of the deep underlying reality, of the phenomenological reality, of quantum physics and the necessity of a quantum-phenomenological theory.

Concerning these principles it was observed (DRÃGÃNESCU, KAFATOS 1998):

• The quantum theory, of the most advanced form, is the last and final theory in science, that is, will it describe reality from the deepest substratum of nature?

• How may be developed a quantum phenomenological theory?

A) Based on the concept of intra-openness (or intro-openness).

B) Based on an imbrication of structural and phenomenological properties manifested by some quantum fields and corresponding particles.

The concept of intra-openess was introduced in previous works (DRÃGÃNESCU 1979, 1985) both for the human mind and living bodies, down to the minimum living biological molecule. This openness is not towards the environmental medium, but in the deep underlying reality, that is an interior openness (intra or intro). The intra-openess brings the phenomenological parts (elements) into (among) some specific structures of atoms and molecules that, by this, become alive. The coupling of some specific structures with phenomenological elements (a fundamental coupling problem!) it was suggested to be possible only by quantum ways (DRÃGÃNESCU 1985) and therefore the quantum physics was considered to be essential for explaining life, not only through quantum chemistry.

The possibility B mentioned above was sustained by Stapp who in his book Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics writes:

Richard Amoroso further on the B line did a step. Dismissing the role of the wave function collapse (reduction) for producing experience, which was sustained by some known authors from those mentioned above, and I agree that the wave function collapse cannot produce a phenomenological sense, Amoroso, considers the coherent quantum waves to play an important role in mind and consciousness phenomena. Such waves were put into evidence by FRÖHLICH (1968, 1983) and they were used by JIBU and YASSUE (1995), for the dynamics of the brain, by using the quantum field theory of UMEZAWA (1993), but there is no connection, in all these works, with the phenomenon of "experience" (phenomenological senses). Amoroso presents a reconciliation of the quantum coherent wave with the phenomenon of experience in his, under construction, Noetic Field Theory. To do this, he was obliged to reconsider completely the ontological model of the entire reality, and to propose new quantum physics, a type, one can say, of a quantum-phenomenological theory.

In a series of papers, AMOROSO (1997 a, 1995, 1996, 1997 b, 1998 a, 1998b) presented his concepts concerning the Noetic Field Theory.

For Amoroso, "Fröhlich and Bose-Einstein coherence have become central to quantum theories of mind-body" (AMOROSO 1996) and the Bose condensate is the basis for consciousness, natural or artificially created. Bose condensation was known at cryogenic temperatures, but in organisms at biological temperatures still is possible at Fröhlich frequencies, avoiding thermal effects. Amoroso shows the possibility of Bose condensation even for protein oligomers in vitro and states that "Coherence in biology and mind seems to be the rule rather than the exception" (AMOROSO 1996). Coherent quantum waves are possible in polipeptides, DNA, microtubules, implying water molecules, synaptic connections.

These coherent waves constitute macroscopic quantum systems characterised

Amoroso considers that the quantum wave under the Bose condensate form is at the same time the carrier of experience, that it is at the same time the experience. For him this is not a simple declaration, or postulate, because he tries to find the cause (origin) of experience, produced neither by the classical physics, nor by quantum standard structural physics processes. . Amoroso tries to find the roots of phenomenological senses (experience) by a deeper ontology than that admitted by the present science. The brain being a Fermi device in Minkowskian spacetime, under this spacetime he considers the multidimensional spacetime of the superstrings, then a pregeometry zone where

The connection with brain processes is supposed to be realised with the Bose condensation: "Bose-Einstein condensation allows the process to go unlocal and couple the Noumenon state of elemental intelligence" (AMOROSO 1997 b). To accept this, it means that something in the stuff of the Bose condensate has not only a structural character, but also a phenomenological character, therefore there is an imbrication of type B. This imbrication is superior to the stappian imbrication which is only declared, here having a physical-informational source for experience.

The unitary domain is a domain where "time becomes timeless, matter becomes energy, and space becomes unextended" (AMOROSO 1997 b). And, of course, is a domain where the phenomenological senses are manifesting to participate in building matter and mind. Amoroso see the unity as a Universal Consciousness.

Under this formulation there is more than simple or complex imbrication. It is a type of intra-openess (nearer the model A).

The subject of the brain as an information processing device is a part of a larger aim of science: exploration of information and of ways of processing it, no matter by animal, in general by living organisms, human or machine. It seems that mind phenomena are the most important characteristics of life. All the other aspects of life are more machine like. If some machines in the future will have mind, they will be alive, even if they will not be biological.

It is interesting that the idea of building a conscious machine haunted a lot of scientists. Gregory R. Mulhauser proposed a number of years ago to Scotland's Learned Society a project for building a conscious machine. One of the fellows of the evaluation team asked: "But don't you think building a conscious machine is a bit like building an atom bomb?" The answer, which I appreciate, as mentioned by the above author, was the following: "No, [?], building a conscious machine is not like building an atomic bomb, at the very least because the process of building a conscious machine would teach us something about our innermost selves, something about those aspects of personal existence with which we are so intimately familiar yet which remain so deeply puzzling - something which making atomic bombs has not taught us" (MULHAUSER, 1998, p.236).

There are a few teams in the world which are trying to build electronic brains by using huge numbers of complex electronic chips and very advanced concepts, but these will remain brains without mind, processing only the structural information. The realization of these brains, perhaps in the first few years after the year 2000, will be not only a great technological performance in artificial intelligence, but also a very important experiment for the science of mind/brain and, for the science in general.

Attempts will be made to build mixed brains, electronic and biological, hoping that as in the natural brain, a mind, with all what this implies, will be self-developed.

Also, attempts will be made to use possibilities offered by the quantum-phenomenological theories, if these will prove to be true, to build machines with brain/mind properties, as proposed by Amoroso (AMOROSO 1997 b).

The structural science, y compris the newest domains of this science that constitutes a neo-structural science (complex adaptive systems, artificial life, fractals, deterministic chaos and others), is insufficient to explain completely the natural brain, mind and consciousness. A new physics seems necessary which will bring also the recognition of the fundamental character of information and, of kinds of information not taken into account until now.

It seems that the ingredients of physics, biology (both of the classical and quantum physics) and of the present science of information are not sufficient for the study of the brain/mind. There is more in nature: the phenomenological sense (experience in mind and perhaps in any organism) and the deep underlying reality, may be, even, a fundamental consciousness. All these may lead us towards a renewed science. There are many authors that contributed to this new line of thinking. Some of them were mentioned in this paper. Various authors, from different parts of the world developed similar ideas, independently. It is perhaps the time for them.

What will happen with such ideas in the next century?

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The 12th International Conference on Control Systems and Computer Science, Bucharest, 26-29 May 1999.