Sum of all minds

‘The fourth theory – “mind” and “matter” as metaphors – is, nobody will be surprised to learn, the one that seems most sensible to me.’ – RAW, The New Inquisition, Ch6

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[Updated, extended post – 25/4/2024. The original, more sketchy, version was posted in April 2020, and read by only a few people]

The recent “Barbenheimer” phenomenon left me feeling slightly underwhelmed, despite the combined nearly 6 hours duration and impressive visuals of the two films. This is a blog for Robert Anton Wilson appreciators, so I can say I’d rather see a film about Erwin Schrödinger, and perhaps Barbie Kali – Destroyer of BS, and readers will know what I mean. Oppenheimer apparently didn’t really feature in Robert Anton Wilson’s writings, although I did find this quote:

“While the Citadel is building more and more nuclear missiles for the Military-Industrial Empire, it is apt to provoke anxiety or guilt or uneasy sensations in general to think about the subject of Planetary Catastrophe. The people who do think about that are likely to resign from the Citadel — or get expelled, like Dr. Oppenheimer — or even to march around with picket signs, making a nuisance of themselves.” – RAW, The New Inquisition

Anyway, to more important matters. I recall a talk given by Robert Anton Wilson, in which he quoted a line from Erwin Schrödinger (the Austrian-Irish quantum-physicist), to the effect that “the sum of all minds is one”. This quote also appeared at the beginning (and the end) of chapter six of RAW’s The New Inquisition: “The sum total of all minds is one” – attributed by Wilson to Schrödinger’s Mind and Matter. And it makes an appearance in Bob’s Coincidance, Email to the Universe, and a few other places (eg talks). Evidently it held some resonance for him.

(I later acquired a copy of Schrödinger’s Mind and Matter – and the nearest I could find to the above quote is “the over-all number of minds is just one.” Well, close enough for me. Different transcripts from the original Schrödinger lectures, perhaps?).

When I first heard the quote, I was amazed, given that it came from a Nobel Prize-winning physicist – it seemed sort of mystical, and totally at odds with modern western definitions of a “mind” (noun) as a kind of metaphorical personal container of thoughts and experiences. We never actually observe this container, only its supposed “contents” or “states” at a given moment (as RAW himself pointed out, paraphrasing Hume, in chapter 6 of The New Inquisition).

Digging deeper into RAW’s philosophy via Schrödinger’s framing

Also in chapter 6 of The New Inquisition, we get the following:

“Monism”, a philosophical notion (not to be confused with monotheism), roughly equates to “non-dualistic”, and seems similar in some sense to “pantheism”, although some contemporary “nondual” thinkers/philosophers have somewhat different, more radically “deconstructive” notions when it comes to the uncountable and unsayable. RAW’s use of terms such as “transactional” and “synergy” contributes a different flavour/framing, although he refers to the “same” “thing”, as can be seen from the above quote and elsewhere in his writings. (The title of chapter 6 of The New Inquisition, incidentally, is: “Mind,” “Matter” and Monism (RAW’s quotes).

In Coincidance, Bob uses a different framing again: “the Tao or no-mind of Chinese philosophy, or may be the class of all minds…” – this time for Joyce’s function, ∃, “based on Dodgson/Carroll’s symbol for mathematical existence” (Coincidance: Part 4 – The Hidden Variables). This, in turn, gets related back to Schrödinger’s phrase, as follows (continuing Coincidance: Part 4):

Given all these different models/terms that RAW rubs together, it might help to clarify what Schrödinger has written (since Bob doesn’t quote him at length). The following is from Mind and Matter:

“There is obviously only one alternative, namely the unification of minds or consciousnesses. Their multiplicity is only apparent, in truth there is only one mind. This is the doctrine of the Upanishads. And not only of the Upanishads. The mystically experienced union with God regularly entails this attitude unless it is opposed by strong existing prejudices; and this means that it is less easily accepted in the West than in the East.”
– Erwin Schrödinger, Mind and Matter

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The full quote for the “sum of all minds is one” type line is this:

“Mind is by its very nature a singulare tantum. I should say: the over-all number of minds is just one. I venture to call it indestructible since it has a peculiar timetable, namely mind is always now.”
– Erwin Schrödinger, Mind and Matter

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To me, this sounds similar to some modern western readings of Advaita Vedanta, fashionable in a few of the contemporary ‘nondual’ circles that I mentioned above. Schrödinger’s Mind and Matter was first published in 1958 – from lectures delivered at Trinity College, Cambridge, 1956 (my copy is a later combined reprint with ‘What is Life?).

Talking of his ‘What is Life?’ (first published in 1944), here’s a quote from the epilogue of my edition:

“The only possible alternative is simply to keep to the immediate experience that consciousness is a singular of which the plural is unknown; that there is only one thing and that what seems to be a plurality is merely a series of different aspects of this one thing, produced by a deception (the Indian MAJA); the same illusion is produced in a gallery of mirrors, and in the same way Gaurisankar and Mt Everest turned out to be the same peak seen from different valleys.”
– Erwin Schrödinger, What is Life?

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I haven’t read Schrödinger’s later book My View of the World, but in it he revisits these themes. The following excerpt (copied and pasted from Google Books) is from the chapter titled, ‘More about non-plurality’:

“Mind” or “consciousness”?

You may have noticed that Schrödinger refers to “consciousness” instead of “mind” in that last quote. The concept of “mind” (“a concept borrowed from the medieval theologians”, to quote RAW) may lead to confusion in discussions like these. On the one hand we regard “mind” as dichotomous with “matter”. On the other hand we commonly talk about mind as if it has material attributes such as space-time location, state, size, health and condition (“mental health”, etc), attachment to a body/brain, individuality, etc. Some cognitive scientists talk of “the embodied mind” with good reason.

When we start talking about “the sum of all minds” or ” the ‘mind-like’ aspect of the Hidden Variable… which underlies the hologrammic structure… of the universe”, etc, which kind of “mind” do we refer to? Or does it make more sense to talk in terms of “awareness” or “consciousness” (without any material or personal – or human – attributes implied)?