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arXiv:2001.11331

Possible Superluminal Propagation inside Conscious Beings

Don Nelson Page

Published Jan 28, 2020• 2 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The fact that first-person conscious perceptions or sentient experiences have many bits of information strongly suggests that they are produced nonlocally by the effects of many atoms, say by nonlocal quantum operators. If these nonlocal operators act back on the quantum state of the atoms, they could lead to evolution in which signals propagate superluminally, violating the usual causality of local quantum field theory. Although there is not yet any direct evidence that nonlocal operators associated with psycho-physical parallelism act back on the quantum state, it is not totally implausible that this might be the case. In principle the resulting superluminal propagation might be observable by sending signals across brain regions (neural correlates of consciousness) that lead to conscious perceptions.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2001.11331

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The fact that first-person conscious perceptions or sentient experiences have many bits of information strongly suggests that they are produced nonlocally by the effects of many atoms, say by nonlocal quantum operators. If these nonlocal operators act back on the quantum state of the atoms, they could lead to evolution in which signals propagate superluminally, violating the usual causality of local quantum field theory. Although there is not yet any direct evidence that nonlocal operators associated with psycho-physical parallelism act back on the quantum state, it is not totally implausible that this might be the case. In principle the resulting superluminal propagation might be observable by sending signals across brain regions (neural correlates of consciousness) that lead to conscious perceptions.
Science is learning more about the brain activity necessary for consciousness, but has not identified any mechanisms for how it could actually arise through neural processes. Here I present ways to build consciousness into the mathematics of quantum mechanics for use in the growing area of quantum neurology. Quantum waves are not physical in the sense of forces acting on particles through cause and effect, and they are expressed using mathematical placeholders that do not have agreed-upon real-world representations. These can be used to represent consciousness. Quantum mechanics has shown how the traditional aspects of the physical world emerge from non-physical quantum information through a combination of mathematical, not causal, determinism, and stochastic interactions. The modeling methods here could help account for how the mental world could also emerge from information fields. Neural interactions for mental experiences are complex, so it is reasonable to expect that consciousness is an emergent property of neural networks. But emergent properties are not magic – they work through procedural mechanisms – in this case for how neural processes generate experiences. No steps for how consciousness could be manufactured in this way are apparent, and philosophers have strong arguments for such not being possible. An alternative is to model consciousness as part of quantum waves, so it is accessed, not created, by the brain. This is a form of neutral monism – the idea that the physical and mental worlds both come from a single underlying source – in this case quantum waves. The classical physical picture of particles and forces acting under cause and effect has developed into a belief system, not just a theory, and this has created difficulties in taking quantum mechanics itself at face value. The result has been the creation of numerous “interpretations” of quantum mechanics that seek to frame it within these philosophical presuppositions. The conceptual framework of Cartesian dualism provides a platform for analysis of the related philosophical issues of consciousness and of quantum mechanics itself.
Quantum mechanics implies the existence of correlations which cannot be described by any local theory. These nonlocal correlations possibly suggest the existence of particles traveling faster than light (tachyons). But the potential paradoxes associated with their existence imply that, even i f these tachyons do exist, it should not be possible to control them in a manner necessary for human superluminal (faster than light) communication. Indeed, the unitary nature of the time development operator precludes the possibility of using non-local correlations to communicate superluminally within the quantum formalism. A simplified model which preserves unitary time development i s shown to be useful in studying 'thought experiments' which appear init ially to allow for superluminal communication. The consistency of quantum mechanics is questioned when measurements of retarded fields are considered. I f certain idealized measurements are possible in principle, then the quantum formalism appears inconsistent. I f the measurements are not possible in principle, then 'state reduct ion' (non-unitary time evolution of the state operator) in a pragmatic sense can be said to have occurred. The suggestion that tachyons be used to explain the non-local correlations i s abandoned in favor of another model whose philosophy is supported by the tenets of relativity theory. Such a model may imply the existence of a more general quantum theory where a quantum system itself can be taken as a (generalized) frame of reference.
A possible mechanism of nonlinear quantum evolution is introduced and its implications for quantum communication are investigated. First, it is argued that an appropriate combination of wavefunction collapse and the consciousness of observer may permit the observer to distinguish nonorthogonal quantum states in principle, and thus consciousness will introduce certain nonlinearity into quantum dynamics. Next, it is shown that the distinguishability of nonorthogonal states can be used to achieve quantum superluminal communication, by which information can be transmitted nonlocally and faster than the speed of light. Finally, the issue of apparent incompatibility between superluminal communication and special relativity is briefly addressed.
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As shown in the famous EPR paper (Einstein, Podolsky e Rosen, 1935), Quantum Mechanics is non-local. The Bell theorem and the experiments by Aspect and many others, ruled out the possibility of explaining quantum correlations between entangled particles using local hidden variables models (except for implausible combinations of loopholes). Some authors (Bell, Eberhard, Bohm and Hiley) suggested that quantum correlations could be due to superluminal communications (tachyons) that propagate isotropically with velocity v t > c in a preferred reference frame. For finite values of v t , Quantum Mechanics and superluminal models lead to different predictions. Some years ago a Geneva group and our group did experiments on entangled photons to evidence possible discrepancies between experimental results and quantum predictions. Since no discrepancy was found, these experiments established only lower bounds for the possible tachyon velocities v t . Here we propose an improved experiment that should lead us to explore a much larger range of possible tachyon velocities V t for any possible direction of velocity of the tachyons preferred frame.
The premise that consciousness has a quantum mechanical basis or correlate implies that its workings have a nonlocal component. To check whether consciousness as an entity leaves a physical trace, we propose that laboratory searches for such a trace should be for nonlocality, where probabilities do not conform to local expectations. Starting with the idea that nonlocality may be veiled as one of the ways cosmic censorship operates, we further argue that in order to preserve the ordinary objective reality described by local realism and general relativity, veiled nonlocality and cosmic censorship are indispensable operational aspects of the interactions of observers with physical systems. Nevertheless, it may be possible to indirectly detect traces of nonlocality in experiments where humans and other sentient subjects are involved