Conscious Action Theory An Introduction to the Event-Oriented World View

Conscious Action Theory provides a logical unification between the spirit and the material, by identifying reality as an event that processes personal experiences into explanatory memories, from which personal experiences are regenerated in a never-ending cycle of activity. Baer explores the idea that our personal feelings are undeniable facts that have been systematically excluded from the basic sciences, thereby leaving us with a schizophrenic division between objective materialism and spiritual idealism.

Cognitive Action Theory (CAT) achieves this unification by recognizing that the observer?s existence is the foundational premise underlying all scientific inquiry. It develops as an event-oriented physical theory in which the first-person observer is central. By analyzing the methods through which we human observers gain knowledge and create the belief systems within which our experiences are explained, we discover a fundamental truth: all systems are observers and exhibit some form of internal awareness. Events, not the objects appearing in them, are the fundamental building blocks of reality. The book is comprised of three parts: the first addresses the paradigm shift from an object to an event-oriented world view, the second develops the foundations of action physics for an event-oriented world view and the third provides examples of how these new ideas can be applied to move our knowledge up the next evolutionary step of human development.

This book will benefit anyone questioning their role in the universe, especially those in interdisciplinary fields of philosophy, psychology, neuroscience and medicine, who seek understanding of quantum theory as the physics of conscious systems that know the world.

Prologue

PART I - The event-oriented world view

1. Introduction to the event-oriented world view

2. Conscious operations in the 1st-person perspective

PART II - Modeling reality

3. How to build a conscious action model

4. The action model

5. The quantum and classic approximation

PART III - Implications and applications

6. Model of a conscious being

7. Applications in artificial intelligence and neuroscience

8. Philosophy, psychology and religion

9. Future development

APPENDICES

A3.1 - Definition of terms

A4.1 - Applicability of mathematical idealizations in physics

A4.2 - Action theory in isolated systems

A4.3 - Mach's Principle and gravito-inertial and electromagnetic equation analogy

A5.1 - Simple derivation of the wave equation

A5.2 - Action-flow diagrams in quantum nomenclature

References and Notes

Index

Wolfgang Baer received his PhD in physics from the University of California at Berkeley. He held a research professor position at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Dr. Baer now directs research at Nascent Systems Inc. in cognitive systems development and macroscopic quantum effects leading toward theories integrating subjective and objective experiences.