Prior to the 20th century, the strictly deterministic laws of classical Newtonian physics made the integration of a non-physical entity such as volition into a scientific model of brain dynamics a seemingly impossible task. However, the probabilistic laws of quantum physics discovered in the 1920’s have provided researchers with a valuable new tool, allowing them to account for non-physical entities like volition while still maintaining scientific rigor. One of the greatest challenges that researchers in this field have faced is the application of the atomic-level laws of quantum physics to the study of macroscopic objects. This paper contributes to this line of research by examining the Beck-Eccles quantum trigger model from a neuropsychological processing perspective. Specifically, experimental results from several recent studies of the effects of mindfulness meditation on attentional skills are considered. These results strongly suggest that volition can be used to induce significant changes in the brain’s ability to maintain focus on a single stimulus. In addition, it is shown that the gradual nature of the induced changes is very much consistent with the contention that the Beck-Eccles trigger functions only at an atomic level, and that nonlinear dynamics, and more specifically the principle of self-organization, are needed to apply the trigger’s effects coherently on a macroscopic level.

Quantum Trigger, Coherence, Volition, Mindfulness