http://www.geocities.com/saint7peter/PossibletoActual.html
Heisenberg, 'Physics and Philosophy', pages 54-55:
"Therefore, the transition from the 'possible' to the 'actual' takes place during the act of observation. If we want to describe what happens in an atomic event, we have to realize that the word 'happens' can apply only to the observation, not to the state of affairs between two observations. It applies to the physical, not the psychical act of observation, and we may say that the transition from the 'possible' to the 'actual' takes place as soon as the interaction of the object with the measuring device, and thereby the rest of the world, has come into play; it is not connected with the act of registration of the result by the mind of the observer. The discontinuous change in the probability function, however, takes place with the act of registration, because it is the discontinuous change of our knowledge in the instant of registration that has its image in the discontinuous change of the probability function."
Ontologically, "the physical act of observation" has to do with the action of the physical on the etheric, the essence of von Neumann's I on von Neumann's II, while "the psychical act of observation" has to do with the action of the etheric on the physical. The physical act is characterized by [potential - actual event], while the psychical act is characterized by [state vector - substance]. Together, the physical act and the psychical act constitute "the *interaction* of the object with the measuring device".
To explain how the physical act of observation can be both physical and etheric, one must realize that the physical act of observation is in the causal world of the phenomenological system of worlds, while the action of the physical on the etheric by way of the emotional potential and the mental actual event takes place in the ontological system of worlds. The ontological system of worlds is comprised by the following worlds: physical, emotional, mental, etheric, phenomenal, causal, and archetypal or meta-physical. The causal world contains an ideal representation of the four lower worlds, since it is in a sense the cause of them.
The phenomenological system of worlds is very similar to the ontological system of worlds except that it is more or less rotated in metaphysical space. It employs the same elements of reality but in somewhat different capacities. Each system of worlds is in a sense just a Gestalt of the structured aggregate of the elements of reality. In the phenomenological system of worlds, the representation of the four lower worlds within the causal world does not have an ideal character but rather a psychical character, and there is another representation, as above so below, with a physical character.
"The act of registration of the result by the mind of the observer" is ontologically the establishment of a mental faculty in nature capable of greater determination than the [state vector - substance] determination. That mental faculty has to do with the capacity for conceiving of the *body-world* as a *schema*. This constitutes the true principle of *action*. The intentional act of consciousness is then ontologically the *affection* resulting from that action, but it is more than that because it belongs to consciousness. It is the intentional act or *noesis* stemming from the fact of a *noema* held in the mental faculty, but only insofar as it can be identified as an intentional act *of consciousness*. It must reflect back on the mind that emanated the *body-world schema* in the first place. This constitutes the enfoldment of the quantum explicate order.
The way that it does this is through the concepts of *time* and *place*: action is to affection as time is to place, but time supersedes action as an active principle and causes both action and affection to be localized in a place. This *place* then becomes the nexus of all the Aristotelian categories, including potential, actual, state, substance, body-world schema|noema, action, affection, time, and place. It is this nexus that carries over into the phenomenological perspective. It is what is retained in the phenomenological reduction. It is noumenal content reduced to phenomenal content and then to the phenomenological content of Heisenberg's selection process. So, the intentional act of consciousness corresponds to the enfoldment of the quantum explicate order in this way. The enfoldment is therefore the material correlate of consciousness.
There is a hierarchy of concepts associated with the body-world schema, which constitutes the unfoldment of the quantum explicate order, as the phenomenal base and phenomenal reality of the observer reaches down into the quantum noumenal reality of the observed:
1. body
2. body-world
3. body-world schema
4. body-world schema|noema
5. body-world schema|noema|dianoia-noesis
6. body-world schema|noema|dianoia-noesis|noumenon
...phenomenal|-----mental-----|---emotional---|physical
The intentional act of consciousness should be regarded as the fourth element of Heisenberg's selection process:
1. the physical act of observation,
2. the psychical act of observation,
3. the act of registration of the result by the mind of the observer, and
4. the intentional act of consciousness;
and the four elements of the selection process correspond to the following groups of enfolded categories:
1. potential - actual event,
2. state vector - substance,
3. body-world schema|noema, and
4. action - affection - time - place.
"The transition from the 'possible' to the 'actual' takes place [only with the intentional act of consciousness], and we may say that the transition from the 'possible' to the 'actual' takes place as soon as the interaction of the object with the measuring device, and thereby the rest of the world, has come into play". "The interaction of the object with the measuring device" is signified by #1 and #2, while "the rest of the world" is signified by #3, which signifies ontologically the *body-world schema*. The intentional act or *noesis* reaches down into the noumenal world as well, which is altered by the noeses ontologically and entirely constituted by them phenomenologically.
The 'possible' itself refers to the infinite potential of consciousness without an object, while the 'actual' is the residue of consciousness with an object. The intentional act of consciousness with an object is the transition from the 'possible' to the 'actual'. The 'possible' itself is not transformed by this transition, so in that sense there is no reduction, and yet the transition is real in a constitutive sense. It is a transition from the infinite to the finite by way of the real. It is also a transition from the infinitely structured, or the unstructured, to the finitely structured by way of Derrida's *differance*. Subjective experience, pertaining to consciousness with an object, is an expression of *differance*, not of the unstructured consciousness without an object. It is the infinitely structured, or the unstructured, that is deconstructed, bringing forth the actual world of finite structure. True deconstruction is thus a negation of a negation, and not a simple negation. It is a creative act.
The secondary connection between the categories and the phenomenological elements of the selection process is this: the actual has the structure of self and other, but the categories are a proxy for self, so that the actual is itself a quantum process, whereby self is actualized as other. Self is, like the infinite potential of consciousness without an object, not transformable, but yet the actual allows for its actualization in the other. Thus, *differance* is not enough; one must also discern the *trace* of the internal reflection of the infinite potential, which is *cogitavi ergo sum*. This trace occurs not in the actual per se, but in the other, as though the double reflection of 'possible' into 'actual' and 'self' into 'other' sets free the possible from the limitations of the actual. It is this freedom that is the essence of the selection process. The double reflection indicates that we are dealing with something like a Hilbert space of Hilbert spaces, since the 'actual' itself, with respect to consciousness, contains a new quantum potentiality to be actualized in the 'other'. This is an indication of how matter is created from consciousness.
