Philosophy of Quatum Mechanics

Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics

Introduction

The findings of modern physics is placing us all in dilemmas of understanding what we see, most of all the physicist studying the subject. Einsteins rejection of quantum mechanics with the statement 'God does not gamble' still holds today and has not found a resolution. Since then many more 'unexplainable' or at least very unlikely observations have been made in physics. e.g. the realization that we live in a Goldilocks universe where a series of fundamental physical constants are so precisely chosen that if they only varied by a very small amount, the universe as we know it could not exist. And the big issue of reconciling our models of the very big, Einsteins special and general relativity, and the very small, quantum mechanics and the Standard model. String theory claims to have the mathematical answer but leads to an impossible large amount of possible universes that all are allowed to exist at the very large scale and at the very small scale can never be observed as we miss the means to observe.

This article takes a new position to view our world, as physics sees it, and provide a novel philosophical framework to find a resolution for the logical conflicts we seem to be facing.

It starts with 'God does not gamble' and shifts Einsteins viewpoint away from God to 'the observer'. The observer being any consciousness able to make a free choice. God is reduced to a bystander, possibly one who has created our universe but certainly not one involved in choices or gambling at the quantum level. This fundamentally changes our view what is happening at the quantum level.

When measurements are made at the quantum level the physics tells us that a probability function, that over time gives a greater uncertainty on measurable aspects of fundamental particles, collapses to a measured property. In real life you can see that photons passing through a double split experiment will create an interference pattern of a wave behind the split if the individual photons are not measured through which slit they pass (even a single photon will do this) whereas a particle splatter appears if the passage of the photons through the splits is observed. The wave of the photon collapses in that observation and the photon becomes a particle at that point. The observer changes the world here.

A real understanding of why and what happens here has never been formulated (at least to my knowledge). The observer with a consciousness and the ability to make choices is causing this effect.

Key here are consciousness and free choices, concepts that are nearly as hard to define or explain as the quantum realities. This philosophical framework links these two concepts. Consciousness is by definition present when a free choice is made and that free choice in the macro world is always linked to a collapse of a probability (ies) in the quantum world caused by a novel observation at that level. In other words any choice made changes the world, by that choice at the macro level but simultaneously by the collapse of probabilities into certainties at the quantum level.

If that linking is real it must be present inside us humans, assuming we are conscious, most likely in our brains as that is where we assume our consciousness is created. An interaction within our brains that works based on quantum principles must be present. The connections between neurons have precisely these properties and that is where consciousness acts by making free choices that have quantum effects (or are represented / identical in the quantum world?) at the connecting points of our neural network.

Now where is the meaning in taking the viewpoint of the observer and making God a bystander (maybe an observer of the observers)? Every choice observers make leaves a physical trace in our universe. Not just a trace in the consequences of the choice, any choice itself is intrinsically linked to some collapse of a probability function and thus a physical change in our world. We ourselves as conscious living beings are thus traceable for all the choices we made. The question then rises do we want to take responsibility, to ourselves, for these choices? Or will we be held responsible, by some other consciousness (that can read the trace of our choices)? Einsteins dilemma is changed now to: God has created free choice for conscious beings. It is neither God gambling nor us. But the choice of observing is the essence of consciousness. Artificial intelligence will only become conscious if it has these same qualities. One can speculate if quantum computing has that quality. In the same line of thinking: our present trials with quantum computing aim to use a few qubits with the promise of enormous advances in computing speed. What if all possible qubits in the universe can be used? That would create a consciousness that would be equal to God?

Existing studies in this area:

see: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/

This article basically identifies similar ideas: e.g. it says:

The physicist Roger Penrose (1989, 1994) and the anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff (1998) have championed a model according to which consciousness arises through quantum effects occurring within subcellular structures internal to neurons known as microtubules. The model posits so called “objective collapses” which involve the quantum system moving from a superposition of multiple possible states to a single definite state, but without the intervention of an observer or measurement as in most quantum mechanical models. According to the Penrose and Hameroff, the environment internal to the microtubules is especially suitable for such objective collapses, and the resulting self-collapses produce a coherent flow regulating neuronal activity and making non-algorithmic mental processes possible.

The psychiatrist Ian Marshall has offered a model that aims to explain the coherent unity of consciousness by appeal to the production within the brain of a physical state akin to that of a Bose-Einstein condensate. The latter is a quantum phenomenon in which a collection of atoms acts a single coherent entity and the distinction between discrete atoms is lost. While brain states are not literally examples of Bose-Einstein condensates, reasons have been offered to show why brains are likely to give rise to states that are capable of exhibiting a similar coherence (Marshall and Zohar 1990).

A basis for consciousness has also been sought in the holistic nature of quantum mechanics and the phenomenon of entanglement, according to which particles that have interacted continue to have their natures depend upon each other even after their separation. Unsurprisingly these models have been targeted especially at explaining the coherence of consciousness, but they have also been invoked as a more general challenge to the atomistic conception of traditional physics according to which the properties of wholes are to be explained by appeal to the properties of their parts plus their mode of combination, a method of explanation that might be regarded as unsuccessful to date in explaining consciousness (Silberstein 1998, 2001).

Others have taken quantum mechanics to indicate that consciousness is an absolutely fundamental property of physical reality, one that needs to be brought in at the very most basic level (Stapp 1993). They have appealed especially to the role of the observer in the collapse of the wave function, i.e., the collapse of quantum reality from a superposition of possible states to a single definite state when a measurement is made. Such models may or may not embrace a form of quasi-idealism, in which the very existence of physical reality depends upon its being consciously observed.

Conclusion:

I tried to develop a novel viewpoint and link Quantum Mechanics and Philosophy. I believe this is urgently needed to give non-physicists a philosophical basis that includes the weirdness of quantum mechanics and maybe give physicists some hints how to seek further in unravelling the nature of reality. This effort seems to be already in place?