Time and Consciousness in a Quantum World
Augusto César Lobo
arXiv (Cornell University) September 23, 2017 preprint DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1709.08093 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that time is a measure of individuality and proposes a toy model in which time emerges from a timeless quantum-like "unus mundus" space via Aharonov's two-state formalism. The authors further argue that Aerts et al.'s approach to consciousness is panpsychist and top-down, and discuss Blutner et al.'s quantum cognitive model of Jung's psychological types, aiming to make a panpsychist worldview credible to mainstream physicists. |
Abstract
We address the relation between two apparently distinct problems: The quest for a deeper understanding of the nature of consciousness and the search for time and space as emergent structures in the quantum mechanical world. We also advance a toy-model proposal of emergence of time from a timeless unus mundus quantum-like space by using Aharonov's two state formalism of quantum mechanics. We further speculate on these issues within a quantum cognitive perspective with particular interest in two recent papers on this emerging field of science. One (Aerts et al) entails (as we argue) a panpsychist top-down approach to the problem of consciousness. The second paper (Blutner et al) proposes a quantum cognitive model for Jung's psychological type structure. We discuss these concepts and their relation with our main thesis, that time is a measure of individuality. One of our central motivations is to provide arguments that allows the mainstream physicist to take seriously a panpsychist worldview, a position that has been openly forwarded by many modern philosophers.