Alexander Wendt's book Quantum Mind and Social Science is a major accomplishment. It takes on a formidable list of scientific and philosophical problems, including some of the most enduring and solution-resistant, and works toward an integrated answer by drawing on views about numerous fields, starting with particle physics. Quantum Mind builds on a variety of claims, some of which Wendt says are clearly true, while others, he acknowledges, are merely plausible; but taken together they are, he argues, a good bargain, yielding a ‘huge’ intellectual payoff.Footnote 1
Wendt describes the bargain by saying, ‘For the price of two claims of quantum consciousness theory – that the brain is a quantum computer and that consciousness inheres in matter at the fundamental level – we get solutions to a host of intractable problems… [though] the claims are admittedly speculative’.Footnote 2 As readers move through the text, assessing Wendt's bargaining skill, they are rewarded with an extraordinary stream of side-payoffs of creativity and insight.
Wendt describes Quantum Mind as a work in philosophy, and specifically metaphysics. He says, ‘unlike my first book, which was half philosophy and half IR, this one is all philosophy’.Footnote 3 Wendt frequently reaffirms this point, for example, ‘this book is about ontology’Footnote 4 and the subtitle: Unifying physical and social ontology. Some may see the core of the argument as showing the empirical results in quantum decision theory and related areas as demanding changes in social science reasoning and international relations (IR) theorizing. I take Wendt at his word – that the main point of the book to produce a conclusion about social ontology. Thus Wendt's argument is or is not acceptable principally based on its ability to stand up to standards of philosophical evaluation. The aim of this paper is to examine, albeit briefly, its ability to do so.
Significant achievement of the book
Accomplishments
Although this paper offers some criticisms of, and reservations about, Wendt's argument, we must keep in mind that Quantum Mind displays exceptional strengths. It provides fertile ground for generating new hypotheses for social scientists to investigate. It also brings to our attention recent research in a variety of areas of empirical science and Western analytic philosophy that are useful for thinking about the social world. Third, the book draws a connection between IR and physical theory showing how the latter can be a model for theorizing in the former. Fourth, the book makes explicit the set of criteria that it uses. Citing Mackonis,Footnote 5 Wendt lists: explanatory unification, parsimony/simplicity, coherence with background knowledge, ontological unification, range of phenomena, and esthetics/elegance.Footnote 6 Furthermore, the argument might gain persuasive force in the future if the claims Wendt draws on from the sciences and philosophy should acquire stronger support within their disciplines – and shed their ‘speculative’ status. But, the reliance on alien areas of study poses risks, as well; if the reverse happens, the overall argument loses force.
Advantages of structure of the argument
At first glance, the argument may appear to be rather frail because it draws on claims that are not known or widely supported. For example, Wendt begins by endorsing one of the many competing philosophical interpretations of the accepted mathematization of quantum theory, namely ‘multiple minds’. Chapters two through four do a very good job of providing an introduction to the vast array of explanations of what quantum theory says, if anything, about reality. There is wide divergence among manifold interpretations. In some cases a unique, main contending interpretation is taken into multiple different directions by different authors.Footnote 7 Presumably, a supporter of any of the many non-‘multiple minds’ interpretations could not even get to the second step of Quantum Mind. Hence, the ‘multiple minds’ premise may motivate some readers, as Andrew Kydd suggests in his contribution to this forum, to get off the bus at the first stop.Footnote 8
The argument is not, however, as frail as it looks, since there are different ways in which premises can lend support to a conclusion. For example, in a deductive argument the truth of the premise set guarantees, salva veritate, the truth of the conclusion. In inductive arguments, known premises (‘Swan 1 is observably white’) work with other known premises (‘Swan 2 is white’) to support a reliable (or probable) broader conclusion (‘All swans are white’, or ‘Ninety five percent of swans are white’). We also use arguments with less-than-certain statistical (inductively generated) premises (‘It is 0.833 likely that the next roll of the die will not be a six’). But, the more such premises the argument has, the less likely is the conclusion (and Wendt's argument has many). Ten mutually independent premises, each of which is 90% likely yield a conclusion just over a third probable (35%). Wendt's argument may look something like this, since it rests on a long string of claims (from quantum physics, neuroscience, quantum decision theory, quantum semantics, and so on) not known as true. But, I believe he intends that the argument be read as more of an emergence argument.
In his emergence-argument structure, the premises are related to the conclusion in such way that the strength of the argument as a whole is greater than the strength of any of the premise-parts (and has more content, unlike inductive). Many of the essential premises of Wendt's argument lack substantial prima facie plausibility. But, each gains force when viewed as part of the complex comprising the full set. This parallels the way an esthetically pleasing picture of a Waikiki sunset might emerge from many jigsaw puzzle pieces, each of which appears to be randomly colored, oddly shaped, and, individually, without esthetic value. (It is not surprising that Wendt, who uses this form of argument, would endorse simplicity and elegance Footnote 9 as justifying criteria, and think that human ‘lives are like works of art’.Footnote 10) Thus, the complex of quantum structures in each of these fields, where the various specific conclusions are in a linked relationship to social structures, produces an overall conclusion that is more compelling than any of the premises. Elegance can be emergent, like beauty, and Wendt's summary assessment, in defending a realist conclusion about the ontology of the social world, is that the argument is ‘too elegant not to be true’.Footnote 11
Central reservation – focusing on a problem IR does not have
My principal reservation about Wendt's core argument is that there is no well-formed problem for Quantum Mind to solve.
The job quantum mind claims to do is not one that can be done (yet?)
Consider the following points.
(1) Philosophers and scientists debate the ontology of physical theories only after they have agreed on the correct substantive physical theory.
Newtonian physics yielded a set of ontological claims that were debated by philosophers who defended different metaphysical perspectives.Footnote 12 The observable, empirically corroborated mathematical formulae of Newton were the basis for debate about the unobservable implications. Over time, none of the disputants questioned that f = ma or that falling objects accelerated at the rate of 32′/s2. And it was only when there was an accepted physical theory that scientists and philosophers were able to engage in coherent debate about ontology. The reason physicists and philosophers are energetically debating ontologies today, and disagreeing about the best interpretation of quantum theory, is precisely because they agree that there is a formal theory that accounts for all observations at the subatomic level.
(2) Wendt is offering an ontology for scholars in the field of IR.
(3) But, there is no accepted substantive theory in IR, as Wendt himself recognizes, when he says, in contrast to the theoretical agreement in the natural sciences, ‘In the social sciences there is no such consensus’.Footnote 13 Institutionalists, neorealists, post-structuralists, and many others have contending theoretical principles that they believe satisfy the appropriate social science criteria of theory choice better than other substantive theories – and each has its own ontological posits.
(4) Hence, it is not clear that there even can be ‘an ontology’ for the field of IR, since different IR theorists posit different ontologies.
My own view is that any attempt to present an ontology for the field of IR in toto is entirely misplaced, a goal that cannot (yet, if ever) be pursued.
Points 1–4 lead to the question, what exactly is it that Quantum Mind claims to be doing?
Dilemma: either dismiss past ontological discussion in IR or stifle future theorizing
There seem to be two possibilities as to the potential impact of the book: either it is presenting an ontology to which all current (and future) IR theories coincidentally happen to conform or it is presenting the One True ontology to which all proposed IR theories must conform or face automatic banishment.
The first option entails a description of IR that views all extant theories as in ontological agreement. This agreed-upon ontology, furthermore, can be reduced to, or somehow subsumed by, the view laid out in Quantum Mind. But, this is inconsistent with the obvious existence of a vigorous debate in IR about ontology, to which Wendt has contributed. This debate in IR seems to show that there is not a single, current ontology in IR.
The other possibility would seem to be a normative one, according to which Quantum Mind shows the reader the True Ontology of the social world, which thereby becomes a sine qua non of any acceptable future IR theory. Thus, when a new theory comes along in IR with new posits, like soft balancing or democracy deficits, or perhaps even something much less familiar, if its theoretical posits do not conform to the ontology of Quantum Mind, the theory would have to be rejected. The rejection would occur without any empirical examination simply because it does not conform to a prior ontological doctrine that IR has inherited from physics. Acceptance of the argument of Quantum Mind thus limits substantive IR debate (forever) to a range of theories whose theoretical posits are demonstrably compatible with theories extant in third decade of the 21st century. We are far more likely to produce good theories if new candidates are evaluated on their comparative abilities to satisfy various criteria – which would include empirical criteria and not solely philosophical.
What if we overlook these reservations?
If we overlook all of the above and accept that a social ontology of IR can be based on a physical ontology, there are still substantial problems with the confidence Wendt displays in the conclusion of Quantum Mind. Consider the following two points:
(1) As Wendt acknowledges, his preferred interpretation of quantum theory is but one of many popular interpretations and there is no majority support for it *(although he believes momentum is building).Footnote 14 It is important to note that Wendt describes the debate about interpretation as one that can never be solved empirically. Any resolution that might arise will result from one of the many sides triumphing in philosophical argument. First, a consensus around one of the many interpretations other than Wendt's preferred ‘many minds’ would pose a problem for Quantum Mind. But, second, although empirical study cannot credit any one interpretation, empirical study can discredit all with the rise of a new theory. So, we may ask, will quantum theory itself stand up to future empirical and theoretical investigation rule indefinitely?
(2) It is possible that another theory will replace quantum theory. It seems very probable that this will happen, an eventuality that Wendt acknowledges.Footnote 15 As we know, all past physical theories have encountered problems, which have led to replacement. And, unlike Newtonian physics a century after its advent, today (a century after the advent of quantum theory) there are known inconsistencies – both internal to quantum theory, as PenroseFootnote 16 describes in detail, and fundamental inconsistencies with general relativity.Footnote 17 And of course general relativity is every bit as well-confirmed as quantum theory. So, despite its exceptional record of empirical corroboration at this point, it seems indeed possible that replacement, at some point in the future, is a genuine possibility. But maybe this does not pose a problem for Wendt.
Overconfidence thanks to an erroneous history of science
Wendt's confidence in his ontological conclusion is not dampened by the prospect of a replacement of quantum theory. This is because, he says, new theories have a pattern of ‘subsuming’ existing theories.Footnote 18 However, what is historically subsumed is the unrefuted empirical content of the theory, that is, the observational correspondence to empirical laws. Paradigm shifts or fundamental theory-replacements in the history of science have often involved rejecting, rather than subsuming, the theoretical posits of the old ontology. Relativity theory retained the correct mathematics of classical physics, but dispatched Newton's theoretical posits of absolute points of space and time. Thus, contrary to Wendt's remarks, basic-theory change poses a significant threat to his argument.
Overselling the bargain's payoff: do we achieve a ‘deeper understanding’ of consciousness?
The structure of Wendt's argument is to show that readers who accept two speculative claims gain a huge payoff: explanations of anomalous choice-behavior, a unified ontology, and so on, and especially a solution to the mind–body problem, with an explanation – or deepened understanding – of consciousness. My concern here is that it is hard to see in Wendt's argument any radical solution to mind–body relationship and any lessening of the mystery of consciousness. Wendt's solution to the mind–body problem seems more a variation on the mind–brain identity thesis than a significant new solution.Footnote 19 Wendt claims to provide a deepened understanding of human consciousness but he does so by positing that all physical objects have some sort of consciousness. Although I see no inherent difficulty with panpsychism,Footnote 20 I do not see how it removes the mystery of consciousness. The problem is perhaps obscured in the text because of the long chain of inferences linking one discipline to another. But for Wendt the way consciousness can arise in a world of physical objects results from his positing the consciousness of all physical objects, which includes human brains.
At one point Wendt recognizes that what he has done may not rise to the level of ‘explanation’. He backs up slightly and says that he has at the very least ‘deepened our understanding of consciousness’.Footnote 21 There are good reasons to back up. Suppose I tell my smartest friend, MiaMaria, that I am puzzled as to why the ball I threw into the air fell to the ground. She replies that all unsupported objects fall to the ground. Where does that leave me in terms of explanation and understanding? I began with one question, why my ball fell. Now I have many questions – about all other balls, all rocks, all apples, all water bowls, and so on. My single question has multiplied. And it is not clear that there is any real deepening of my understanding of the ball's behavior. Although at least I know there is a general observable behavioral regularity. Similarly, if I ask MiaMaria how it is that I experience consciousness, and she answers that she also experiences consciousness, and the ball I threw in the air experiences consciousness, and the moon experiences consciousness, she has turned my single question into many questions. This seems to offer even less ‘deepening’ than the ball question, as the latter at least included an observable regularity, which this does not.
In sum, Wendt provides a long chain of descriptions of the way the world is, a set of interpretations of empirical scientific research, and scores of occurrences of the terms like ‘consciousness’, ‘subjectivity’, ‘Will’, ‘Experience’, and so on. But, they do not provide an explanation, or even a deepened understanding, of what consciousness is. Wendt has posited that all physical objects, down to the subatomic, have consciousness. Even for those of us comfortable with panpsychism, it seems that Wendt's argument does not explain, or deepen our understanding of, consciousness. So, although Wendt argues that consciousness develops upward, emerges, and inheres in us and our institutions (which all may the case), it does not seem to make what consciousness is any less mysterious. The quote Wendt invokes in the textFootnote 22 and in his reply in this forum by Jerry FodorFootnote 23 – that no one understands consciousness – seems to stand, even after careful readings of Quantum Mind.
Justice, goodness, and the moral-normative dimension
Wendt says that social structures cannot be said to have causal powers on a classical physical framework.Footnote 24 Wendt thus requires a physical basis for the justifiable employment of any concept (however, widely-used they may be) in rigorous social science. What then might be the basis for our use of moral-normative concepts like justice and goodness? Although Wendt acknowledges that he does not provide an analysis of the standing of these notions, he does invoke them at times.Footnote 25 Given Wendt's physical-basis requirement, it seems that, in whatever ways he works to extend his argument in the future, he will be unable to admit them into social science. This inability would entail that, despite Wendt's denial, goodness and justice are chimeras or illusions.
What is ‘justice’ or ‘goodness’ if everything real of which we speak are wave functions? Smythe's thought processes are physical things. Let us assume that there are no moral qualities in Smythe's thoughts or statements about the height of his garden wall. But on Wendt's ontology, all Smythe's thoughts, no matter the content, are made of the same stuff. Thus if Smythe is thinking about, or verbally condemning, the moral crime of torture, all that there is, then, are wave functions with the same sort of composition as the thought about the garden wall. Thus it would seem that there is no genuinely moral-normative (not-purely-descriptive) character to the act of torture, or to statements condemning it.Footnote 26
If moral-normative questions have a legitimate place in IR alongside empirical and interpretive questions, then any metaphysics that leads to the a priori rejection of genuinely normative discourse in the social sciences is problematic.Footnote 27 Although the arguments of ‘intrinsic value’ theories in ethics may ultimately be wrong, and utilitarian or others emerge as right, quantum physics would not seem to have any particular authority to decide such core issue in moral theory.
The meaning of ‘truth’ in scientific theories
Wendt makes many claims in Quantum Mind about ‘realism’ in the context of scientific theories. It may seem to the casual reader of Quantum Mind (pardon the oxymoron) that, in evaluating the book, a discussion of Wendt's realist metaphysics of scientific theories may be inappropriate and an irrelevant anachronism, left over from his 1990s publications. But Wendt's central claim in Quantum Mind is that he has identified the ontology of the social world. Unifying the ontology of the physical and social world is the subtitle of the book. And, as noted above, Wendt says the ‘book is about ontology’.Footnote 28 Wendt often states that his efforts are aimed at showing the truth of a unified physical and social ontology. In Quantum Mind Wendt thus explicitly endorses realism as a doctrine about science, and he reaffirms it in his response in this forum below.Footnote 29
Wendt correctly recognizes there that there are different conceptions of truth, a term Wendt often predicates of scientific theories.Footnote 30 However, in typical IR debates on trade, security, and so on, the meaning of the term ‘truth’ is entirely unproblematic, since the IR arguments are consistent with any prominent account of ‘truth’ found in metaphysics, semantics, and the philosophy of language. When we move into discussions of philosophy and metatheory, an author might wade into areas where the particular understanding of ‘truth’ makes a difference as to whether an argument does or does withstand scrutiny. Such is the case with Quantum Mind. Wendt makes many consequential statements about the nature of the physical sciences. The book is replete with locutions like, ‘if quantum consciousness theory is true…’.Footnote 31
The doctrine of realism is usually presented in conjunction with a correspondence theory of truth. This is, of course, a problem for realist views of science. Although space considerations preclude extensive probing, we should at least note that correspondence theories claim that truth is correspondence with reality, or fitting the facts. But as many philosophers note, the ‘correspondence’ relation, as well as the notions of ‘reality’, ‘fitting’, and ‘fact’ do not solve the philosophical problem because they are all as problematic as ‘truth’.Footnote 32
Whatever value the correspondence theory has for systematic metaphysics, there are special complexities involved in connecting it to scientific knowledge because the unobservable external reality, by definition, eludes observation. All we can know, qua scientific investigators, is that one theory satisfies the criterion of yielding predictions and retro-dictions that conform to our actual observations better than any available alternative theory. We draw conclusions about which theory is best theory strictly on the basis of which one most fully satisfies this and our other criteria of theory choice.Footnote 33
A brief, further comment on Wendt's general metaphysics of natural science
Wendt's argument for a unified ontology relies on a realist account of scientific theories, which Wendt straightforwardly acknowledges. Wendt is certainly right that empiricists and other opponents of realism can gain a great deal from the book. Nevertheless, those readers are unlikely, for several reasons, to accept the core conclusion about a unified ontology; reservations begin with the very first step of the argument, endorsement of the multiple minds interpretation of quantum theory.
Wendt says that his preference for a realist account of science is a matter of ‘personal disposition’, for which he offers a ‘personal justification’.Footnote 34 Given the range of topics covered, it is unfair to expect a robust defense of this doctrine in Quantum Mind. Nevertheless, since Wendt offers arguments in the text both for realism and against anti-realism, which I believe are misleading, a few comments are in order.
Wendt's positive argument is that that only realism can sustain scientific progress, as it ‘is more likely to yield hypotheses… that might advance our knowledge down the road’.Footnote 35 I believe that Quantum Mind's survey of recent work and philosophical argument will lead to useful hypotheses formation. But Wendt's claim about anti-realism's inability to sustain such advances is empirically false. Mach, Poincaré, Bridgman, and Einstein, all made major contributions to modern physics while embracing rigorous forms of empiricism.Footnote 36
Furthermore, Wendt's attack, in chapter 3, on empiricism and pragmatism are simply straw-man arguments. He cites a number of opponents of realism, but he omits all of the most powerful empiricist and pragmatist voices in the philosophy of science, especially Bas Van Fraassen, WVO Quine, and Charles Sanders Peirce. More glaring still is Wendt's rejection of instrumentalist, ‘as-if’ empiricism. He says empiricists and instrumentalists have no way to choose between a genuinely scientific theory and one that explains everything with great simplicity by invoking gods or demons. Since scientists in fact avoid taking the easy gods-and-demons path, empiricists have no account for this other than to claim that scientists have an arbitrary convention of remaining methodologically atheist. But there is not a single philosopher who holds that theory choice can be based on one criterion; simplicity is always one in a set of criteria. And we need not look farther than Karl Popper and falsifiability as the demarcation criterion of science, accepted by many empiricists, to find a principle that dispatches with ease any theologically based scientific explanations.Footnote 37 One might have reservations about Popper's overall view of science. But clearly the falsifiability criterion and similar principles in the philosophy of science easily take care of Wendt's demons.
Conclusion
Although this paper has sketched some of the problems I see with Wendt's argument in Quantum Mind, such as the lack of ‘an’ existing IR ontology (to unify with natural sciences), the endangering of normative discourse, the pitfall of a priori rejection of new theories, and so on, the book brings important ideas to the attention of the IR community. Indeed, the argument draws on a powerful intuition that the social sciences and particle physics are more like one another than either is like macro-level physical sciences, since both in particle physics and IR there is no simple characterization of the distinction between observer and object, and in both many of our fundamental laws – owing to the nature of our subject matter – are inherently statistical rather than deterministic.Footnote 38
Generating hypotheses that will spur the growth of knowledge
Wendt's Quantum Mind will sure begin serious debates about new ways of enhancing the growth of knowledge in IR and other social sciences. It will bring to the attention of many scholars work that is being done in many related fields in which quantum approaches have proven useful. It will inspire debate and hypotheses,Footnote 39 both about empirical theory and about philosophical grounds for theory choice.
Wendt's own theory choice is justified in part by ‘inference to the best explanation’,Footnote 40 which is sometimes equated with, or as he notes, conflated with, ‘abduction’.Footnote 41 These concepts stem from Peirce in the late 19th century,Footnote 42 although their meanings have changed considerably over the past century and a half. For Peirce abduction works in sequence with deduction and induction to keep science progressing. It involves use of the best existing explanatory theory, which is not thus taken as true, but is taken as the best basis on which to generate new hypotheses to test experimentally. I believe Wendt has made a powerful case that quantum methods and concepts are, and will be, very fruitful in the social sciences. These should be fully embraced as advancements in social science. They represent advances so long as they confer observable empirical advantages. But Wendt's argument highlighting them does not warrant abandoning classical approaches throughout the social sciences.
IR entertains many kinds of questions
Innovative methods and hypotheses stemming from Quantum Mind are almost sure to follow. However, if Wendt's argument has other consequences for theorizing, like ruling out some theories or methods, then there is trouble. This is not an occasion to dilate on methodological pluralism in IR. But since our field entertains a wide array of questions – including empirical-causal, interpretive, moral-normative – it is important to note that many IR scholarsFootnote 43 will be reluctant to accept a metaphysical argument as the basis for limiting legitimate theorizing.
As discussed above, physicists, astronomers, and other natural scientists work from observations to develop theories that solve problems on which they are focused. They do not start with a metaphysical structure and then pursue theories *(and policy-implications) that conform to a priori metaphysics. Why should this same scientific latitude not be permitted to IR researchers?
Thinkers as diverse as Thomas Kuhn and Nancy CartwrightFootnote 44 see the history of science as including the simultaneous acceptance of mutually exclusive theories, since local problem-solving is historically more of a driving force than across-the-board scientific consistency. According to Kuhn, those working in specific areas of physics focus on their own problems, and other scientists largely pursue their community's specialized problems without primary regard for consistency with the over-arching discipline. Cartwright describes scientists historically as advancing theories that are ‘local’ and never completely accurate as literal descriptions.Footnote 45 The theories do important work, despite their lack of complete literal accuracy and genuinely global reach. Wendt's presentation of an ‘inconsistency-preventing’ ontological pre-condition for IR theories puts IR and social sciences at a seemingly unwarranted problem-solving disadvantage vis-à-vis the physical sciences.
Complementarity not displacement
Classical theories and methods should and will survive a quantum turn – even a quantum revolution – in the social sciences.Footnote 46 For the many scholars in IR who regard theory-development to be problem- and question-driven, Wendt's argument should not lead to abandonment of classical forms of theory. Even the model of the physical world shows that universal acceptance of quantum theory in particle physics does not interfere with engineers' and architects' reliance on Newtonian principles. Wendt's argument, even its various vulnerabilities aside, does not warrant abandonment of classical approaches.
So what is, as Wendt asks, the value added?Footnote 47 Wendt says that a quantum approach yields several consequences that many IR scholars will find agreeable, especially those relating to a foundation for cooperation and the existence of social institutions. But this physical basis for our interconnections and cooperation would seem to make it hard to explain the obvious fact that some leaders are capable of acting with extreme selfishness. Furthermore, IR's liberal, institutionalist, and interpretivist theories also provide grounds for believing in cooperation. Wendt could point out that his book shows that those theories are formulated in a classical, non-quantum, framework, and thus run into serious philosophical problems, for example, trying to explain intentions, consciousness, the mind–body problem, and so on. But in assessing Wendt's bargain, the reader of Quantum Mind must weigh those reservations against any that the reader notes along with those offered by contributors to this forum.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Vedika Almal, Heather Frederick, and Genevieve McCarthy, who provided valuable help preparing the manuscript.
