Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics
July 18, 2022
Philip Goff
AbstractThis chapter argues that wave function monism – a popular theory of the ontology of quantum mechanics – cannot be true, on the grounds that its truth is inconsistent with the reality of consciousness. According to wave function monism, fundamental physical reality consists of a complex-valued field in a high-dimensional space. Building on a specific analysis of the grounding...
Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics
July 18, 2022
Jenann Ismael
Abstract: Physics has a somewhat uneasy relationship to the mind. On the one hand, minds are part of the natural universe and although much of physics is concerned with the non-minded parts of reality, recently a set of problems has emerged in physics that has placed a special focus on observers. In quantum mechanics, the contrast between what the deterministic dynamics yields and what the...
Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics
July 18, 2022
Lee Smolin
Abstract: We propose an approach to the question of how qualia fit into the physical world, in the context of a relational and realist completion of quantum theory, called the causal theory of views. This is a combination of an approach to a dynamics of discrete causal structures, called energetic causal sets, developed with M. Cortes, with a realist approach to quantum foundations, called the...
Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics
July 18, 2022
Michael Silberstein, William Stuckey
Abstract: Recent experiments (gedanken or otherwise) and theorems in quantum mechanics (QM) have led many people to claim that QM is not compatible with determinate and intersubjectively consistent experience, what some call the “absoluteness” of observed events; examples include new iterations on Wigner’s friend and delayed choice. Herein we provide a realist psi-epistemic take on QM that...
Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics
July 18, 2022
Roger Penrose
Abstract The human ability to achieve conscious understanding is argued to be a non-computational process. For this to be in accordance with physical laws requires something beyond current physical theory, in supplying a physical basis for “the collapse of the wave function”, demoted OR. This is argued to be an effect of gravitation on quantum mechanics. OR events are what allow a firm...
Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics
July 18, 2022
Michel Bitbol
AbstractTwo questions standardly arise about the connections between quantum mechanics and consciousness: “how can consciousness impose a reduction of the physical system’s quantum state?”; and, conversely, “how can consciousness be produced by a quantum process?”. In this paper, such questions are not answered, but considered as symptoms of a cultural bias. Indeed, they involve two terms,...
Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics
July 18, 2022
Elias Okon, Miguel Ángel Sebastián
Abstract: The idea that “consciousness causes the collapse of the wave function” has never been popular among physicists. The main reason being that the alleged interaction makes the resulting theory mysterious and in tension with physicalism. The Subjective-Objective Collapse (SOC) model attends these worries. SOC is an objective collapse model where the collapse operator depends upon a...
Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics
July 18, 2022
J. Acacio De Barros, Carlos Montemayor
AbstractIn this chapter we argue that an access-consciousness version of panpsychism, which we call “panintentionalism” suffices, and is better equipped to account for the type of mentality involved in quantum mechanics than the standard one, based on phenomenal-consciousness. We provide details concerning the notion of “observer” in quantum mechanics to support our claims and conclude that,...
Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics
July 18, 2022
Basil J. Hiley, Paavo Pylkkänen
AbstractThe paper proposes that quantum theory implies a radically new notion of matter which has not been properly understood before David Bohm’s groundbreaking work. Bohm proposed that the fundamental particles of physics (such as electrons) are not merely pushed around mechanically by classical forces but are also able to respond to information. Information is thus assumed to be an objective...