Peter Ells - Quantum Mind...

About the Author I became interested in the mind-body problem after reading “Consciousness Explained” by Daniel Dennett. He proposes that qualitative experiences, such as a feeling of pain, or the scent of new-mown grass, do not exist. He claims that, although it *seems* to us that we have this phenomenology, we do not actually do so. His book made me realise that any explanation of mind in terms of physics must be extremely difficult. After five years of extensive study, I had developed my ideas sufficiently to write a draft manuscript on *panpsychism,* which is the philosophical position that mind exists – albeit in extremely primitive form – everywhere in the universe. I took an MA degree at the University of Reading, writing my thesis on the mind-body problem, and used this experience to improve my manuscript, which was then published as “Panpsychism.” I became great friends with the sociologist Hermíno Martins, who became my mentor. He invited me to contribute a chapter outlining my ideas, in a volume comprised of papers in his honour. The book is “Time, Science and the Critique of Technological Reason,” and my brief chapter is “Alternatives to Physicalism.” My latest book, “Mind, Quantum, and Free Will,” was published in December 2022. I had always wanted my ideas to be bound as closely as possible to a specific theory of contemporary physics. Only in this way would the theory gain sufficient credibility. I believe my new book fulfils this promise.