  Contemporary quantum mechanical description of nature involves two processes.
The first is a dynamical process governed by the equations of local quantum
field theory. This process is local and deterministic, but it generates a
structure that is not compatible with observed reality. A second process is
therefore invoked. This second process somehow analyzes the structure generated
by the first process into a collection of possible observable realities, and
selects one of these as the actually appearing reality. This selection process
is not well understood. It is necessarily nonlocal and, according to orthodox
thinking, is governed by an irreducible element of chance. The occurrence of
this irreducible element of chance means that the theory is not naturalistic:
the dynamics is controlled in part by something that is not part of the
physical universe. The present work describes a quantum mechanical model of
brain dynamics in which the quantum selection process is a causal process
governed not by pure chance but rather by a mathematically specified nonlocal
physical process identifiable as the conscious process.
