This is the text of the question and answer session following the lecture (no transcript is available for the lecture itself).

Q. I think the main problem for scientists is the role of consciousness. How do we explain this?

A. I think that's important. You could plug this in by saying that descriptions are formed in consciousness, but I'm not really sure how to do it—you could certainly see where consciousness could fit in: perhaps one could add more physics into the basic mix and then one could do it, but I haven't tried that very much so far.

Q. Most physics theories predict something, and that's what we like. So my question would be, what would you predict from this idea.

A. As it happens, I was researching an article on Intelligent Design for the talk, and there's a nice encyclopedia article where it said that [this kind of idea] might lead to discoveries that hadn't been anticipated by people. You don't believe this kind of thing? I think that might happen.

There are also some phenomena already in this direction: there have been some experiments, with a bacterial colony that is split into two, and you find some [correlations] between the two. There's a difficulty here in that [with] any experiment that produces results that people don't like, they will just ignore the experiment. But still, there might be some result that people would be interested in that might come out of this kind of argument.

[supplementary comment, added Jan. 25th. 2010: in science the usual progression is intuitive idea, mathematical formulation, predictions, confirmation. At the present time we are engaged in the task of connecting the intuitive ideas with mathematical constructs (in part building on existing ideas of others), and it is when this has been accomplished that we can expect predictions to be made, and the ideas put to the test.]

Q. Systems biologists are trying very hard to create mathematical theories of what happens at all levels of mind. How do you see the work that you are doing fitting into the system biology?

A. Probably very consistent with it. I think the clearest connections might be in regard to Ayurveda, involving systems not recognised by medicine, and the degree to which Ayurvedic medicine is successful is already a confirmation of this kind of thinking. It is a way of thinking in terms of systems that cannot really be understood simply in terms of parts.

Q. What about 'orgone energy'?

A. I haven't really studied that, and I haven't studied things like 'chi' either, but chi is probably a well attested phenomenon, if not accepted by the scientific community. It may very well be connected with fundamental levels. I guess there are connections there, and when people do healing by what they say is 'energy' this would all be consistent. And some descriptions of how psychokinesis is performed involve some kind of energy. So I believe there are actually lots of phenomena that would fit this picture, but the trouble is getting people to accept these phenomena. It's easy to fictionalise reality if you like, especially if the whole scientific community wants to adhere to [its existing] picture.