Review of Wolfgang Baer’s Book: Conscious Action Theory - An Introduction to the Event-Oriented World View

Abstract

Wolfgang Baer’s project consists of nothing less than adducing from first principles a model of consciousness that reconciles subjective experiences with biophysical processes inherent in brain function (Baer 2020). His model, Conscious Action Theory (CAT) argues that unification of the subjective and objective  can only be achieved by accepting the observer’s existence as the foundational premise underlying all scientific inquiry. Starting from this premise it becomes possible to abandon object-oriented epistemologies that view subjective experience as epiphenomena of physical processes, and to develop a truly event-oriented ontology in which the first-person observer is a physical system that has always contained its own mental experience. Baer asserts that mind, brain, and world can be unified only when physics evolves to encompass both the causes and subjective feelings of experiences. His book transcends mere philosophical speculation by proposing the expansion of contemporary quantum physics to implement these unifying concepts.