Paavo Pylkkänen

Paavo Pylkkänen is a philosopher of mind at the University of Helsinki and the University of Skövde, and the leading interpreter of David Bohm’s proposals about mind and matter. Bohm’s reformulation of quantum theory, with its implicate order and the notion of active information carried by the quantum potential, was designed in part to give mental and physical descriptions a common ground. Pylkkänen’s work, including his collaborations with Basil Hiley on whether mind can affect matter via active information (Helsinki research record), develops that program for consciousness science, asking whether the same information dynamics underlie quantum process and mental process.

The position defends a structured alternative to both reductionism and substance dualism. Mind and matter are aspects of one underlying process, and the bridge between them is informational rather than substantial. That places Pylkkänen’s program beside Velmans’s reflexive monism and the quantum information theories of Faggin and D’Ariano in this site’s quantum camp, with a distinctive lineage through Bohm rather than through collapse theories.

For machine consciousness, the framework’s verdict is indirect. If active information is the mind-matter bridge, then a system’s candidateship depends on whether its dynamics instantiate that bridge, a question the classical substrate answer has not addressed.

Known for. Bohmian active information as a mind-matter bridge, the implicate order and experience, philosophy of quantum mind with Basil Hiley

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Paavo Pylkkänen is listed with the other quantum theorists, who hold that consciousness depends on physics classical computers do not reproduce. The theory family behind that position is set out in the index of consciousness theories. Every researcher covered on this site is indexed in the directory of consciousness researchers.