Anomalous Mind-Matter Influence, Free Will, and the Nature of Causality

Abstract

This paper proposes a framework that supports both free will and anomalous mind-matter interaction (psychokinesis). I begin by considering the argument by the physicist Sean Carroll that the laws of physics as we understand them rule out psychokinesis (and other modes of psi), and find his claims problematic, in part due to misunderstandings of arguments borrowed from David Hume. I proceed to consider a more dispositional notion of causality (in contrast to one characterized by universal and necessary laws) which is more hospitable to both psychokinesis and free will. I then incorporate recent work from the philosophy of mind and science to arrive at a framework that supports real volition and psychokinesis, which are intimately linked. This approach is fundamentally dispositional but grounded in an ontologically prior field of awareness and potentiality. I also consider that the regularities (or causal natures) we observe in our physical world are ultimately supported by teleological “intentions” within a nonlocal, mind-like quantum ground.

Keywords

• causality
• psychokinesis
• consciousness
• free will
• dispositionalism
• quantum mechanics
• pk
• anomalous influence