Consciousness and Quantum Theory: Strange Bedfellows
Consciousness January 23, 2003 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199241286.003.0019 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that the puzzle of why global quantum correlations vanish upon connecting with a conscious observer should not be conflated with understanding quantum mechanics as a theory of subsystem correlations in the nonconscious world. |
Abstract
Abstract When I look at the scale of the apparatus I know what it reads. Those absurdly delicate, hopelessly inaccessible, global correlations obviously vanish when they connect up with me. Whether this is because consciousness is beyond the range of phenomena that quantum mechanics is capable of dealing with, or because it has infinitely many degrees of freedom or special super selection rules of its own, I would not presume to guess. But this is a puzzle about consciousness that should not get mixed up with efforts to understand quantum mechanics as a theory of subsystem correlations in the nonconscious world.