The interpretation of quantum mechanics in the context of measurements, and concepts such as state “collapse,” have troubled physicists since the inception of quantum theory. Pushed to their logical extreme, such issues become entangled (in the colloquial sense) with questions of consciousness, reality, etc. Bell’s theorem eliminated possible ways out of this tangle via any (halfway reasonable) classical underlying theory, and the success of quantum mechanics forces us to adopt it as a fundamental theory and face the logical consequences.
The interpretation of quantum mechanics in the context of measurements, and concepts such as state “collapse,” have troubled physicists since the inception of quantum theory. Pushed to their logical extreme, such issues become entangled (in the colloquial sense) with questions of consciousness, reality, etc. Bell’s theorem eliminated possible ways out of this tangle via any (halfway reasonable) classical underlying theory, and the success of quantum mechanics forces us to adopt it as a fundamental theory and face the logical consequences.
Quantum mechanics is an extraordinarily successful scientific theory. But more than 100 years after it was first introduced, the interpretation of the theory remains controversial. This Element introduces some of the most puzzling questions at the foundations of quantum mechanics and provides an up-to-date and forward-looking survey of the most prominent ways in which physicists and philosophers of physics have attempted to resolve them. Topics covered include nonlocality, contextuality, the reality of the wavefunction and the measurement problem. The discussion is supplemented with descriptions of some of the most important mathematical results from recent work in quantum foundations, including Bell's theorem, the Kochen-Specker theorem and the PBR theorem.
The difficulties of the old quantum theory were largely dispelled by the development of quantum mechanics in the 1920s. First Heisenberg (1925) developed the rather abstract matrix mechanics and soon after Schro¨dinger (1926; see also Eckart, 1926) developed the physically more appealing wave mechanics. Subsequently he showed them to be mathematically equivalent. The physicists were greatly relieved; now they had once again a mathematical formalism that enabled the results of experiments to be calculated. It was possible to move forward. It is certainly a very elegant and indeed beautiful formalism, and does enable the results of many physical measurements to be calculated with great accuracy. It is used daily by atomic and nuclear physicists; there is no other way to make calculations. From the earliest days there has been intense debate about the interpretation of quantum mechanics, and it shows no signs of being settled; if anything it is becoming more intense over the years. As Penrose has remarked, no one understands quantum mechanics. Feynman (1967; see also Sykes, 1994) also admitted that ‘nobody understands quantum mechanics’, and Einstein once remarked: ‘I have thought a hundred times as much about the quantum problems as I have about general relativity theory’ (Pais, 1994, p. 57). It should therefore be evident that the most that can be done here is to try to show where the real difficulties lie, and how the failure to recognize that quantum mechanics is an essentially statistical theory has led to a series of confusing quantum paradoxes. It is just these paradoxes that have often been used to support theological speculations. It is useful to ask what ‘understanding quantum mechanics’ actually means. Certainly it means being able to calculate the results of many measurements. The same applies to Newton’s theory of gravitation, which we understand in the sense that we can use it as a basis of calculation, although we do not really understand the gravitational force itself. Very often, especially in modern physics, the mathematical formalism does not give us the sort of intuitive physical feeling for what is going on that we often obtain from classical mechanics. Perhaps we can never achieve more than this for quantum mechanics. In classical mechanics we can assume that a property that is measured objectively exists prior to the interaction of the measuring apparatus with the observed system. Quantum mechanics, however, ‘is incompatible with the proposition that measurement discovers some unknown but pre-existing property’ (Peres, 1997, p. 14). There is an important distinction between mysteries and absurdities. We may be forced to live with mysteries, but there is no reason why we should put up with absurdities such as the wave-particle duality, tunnelling through potential barriers, acausal events and the collapse of the wave function. These are the quantum paradoxes that will be discussed later on. They arise within the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics and are solved by other interpretations. These alternative interpretations enable us to make conjectures about what is going on, even though we cannot understand it in detail. This is acceptable and a stimulus to further research. It is certainly difficult enough to understand quantum mechanics, but there is no need to try to visualize logical absurdities in the effort to do so. Quantum mechanics is a mathematical formalism that makes it possible to calculate the results of some experiments. Anything more than this, such as questions about the interpretation of what is measured and whether it tells us what is actually going on in the system being studied, belongs to philosophy. Thus we are concerned here with what is essentially a philosophical debate; if it were just a matter of physics the debate would have been settled long ago. One of the difficulties is that it invokes the results of experiments and uses the language of quantum mechanics. Inevitably this language uses philosophical terms and then it is easy to give the impression that the philosophical propositions are in some way entailed by the physical results. These in turn can influence theological thinking. In order to be quite clear which arguments are justified and which are not, it is essential to separate the three levels of discourse: physical, philosophical and theological. Our task is to relate these together, and this immediately raises the traditional problems of the philosophy of science, including the relation of experiment to theory, and of theory to explanation. We begin by discussing experiments, distinguishing between those that are real and those that are imaginary.
Abstract The article presents the possible role of consciousness in quantum-mechanical description of physical reality. The widely spread interpretations of quantum phenomena are considered as indicating the apparent connection between conscious processes (such as observation) and the properties of the microcosm. The reasons for discrepancies between the results of observations of the microcosm and macrocosm and the potential association of consciousness with these reasons are closely investigated. The mentioned connection is meant to be interpreted in the sense that the probable requirement for a complete understanding of quantum theory is the adequate description of consciousness within it and that the correct theory of consciousness should include quantum-mechanical theoretical apparatus. In this context, the question about the methods of scientific cognition is discussed, in particular, the problem of the place and the importance of intellectual intuition in science and philosophy of science. The author draws the conclusions about the current state of the “measuring” consciousness. problem in its relationship with
Despite its enormous practical success, quantum theory is so contrary to intuition that, even after 45 years, the experts themselves still do not all agree what to make of it. The area of disagreement centers primarily around the problem of describing observations. Formally, the result of a measurement is a superposition of vectors, each representing the quantity being observed as having one of its possible values. The question that has to be answered is how this superposition can be reconciled with the fact that in practice we only observe one value. How is the measuring instrument prodded into making up its mind which value it has observed?
Ediverso Theory: A Unified Theory of Possibility, Choice and Reality Ediverso Theory proposes a new mathematical and conceptual framework for describing how realities emerge from fields of admissible possibilities. While classical mathematics, logic and physics primarily study realised states, determined values and observed outcomes, Ediverso Theory introduces possibility itself as a fundamental object of formal investigation. The framework is built upon four primitive concepts: Possibility (E) — the field of admissible states; Choice (Ω) — the operator that transforms possibility into reality; Memory (H) — the accumulated history of realised states; Coherence (C) — the structure that constrains consistent evolution. From these primitives emerges a unified formal architecture spanning geometry, topology, information theory, observer theory, computational systems, physics, logic, mathematics, consciousness, evolution and collective dynamics. At the core of the theory lies the Ediverso operator: ╠╬╣ which represents a structured field of admissible possibilities rather than a single realised value. Classical mathematics appears as a limiting case when the possibility field collapses to a single point. The work develops: • A Geometry of Possibility• A Topology of Admissible Realities• An Information Theory of Choice• A Formal Theory of Observers• Computational Ediverso Systems for Artificial Intelligence• Possibility-Based Physical Models• Ediverso Logic and Mathematical Foundations• Theories of Consciousness, Evolution and Civilizational Dynamics• The Irreducibility Theorem of Ediverso Systems The central question motivating the entire research programme is: What exists before reality becomes reality? Rather than treating possibility as ignorance, uncertainty or incomplete information, Ediverso Theory investigates the hypothesis that possibility possesses its own independent mathematical structure and that reality emerges through admissible selection within that structure. This manuscript presents the first complete formulation of the Ediverso Research Program and is intended as an open scientific framework subject to mathematical analysis, criticism, refinement, extension and falsification. If successful, Ediverso Theory may provide a common language for describing decision, emergence, information, observation and reality across disciplines traditionally studied in isolation. Reality is not the beginning. Reality is the consequence. Possibility is the beginning. Keywords: Ediverso Theory, Possibility Mathematics, Choice Theory, Emergence, Information Theory, Observer Theory, Mathematical Foundations, Logic, Artificial Intelligence, Consciousness Studies, Complexity Science, Theoretical Physics, Philosophy of Mathematics, Foundations of Reality.
We take it for granted that our physical environment communicates information, making things observable and measurable. However, there are very strong constraints on the fundamental physics of any universe that can do this. Measuring or communicating any kind of information always requires an appropriate interactive context, and these contexts are necessarily complex, involving other kinds of information determined in different contexts. This makes measurement hard to grasp theoretically, since every measurement depends on other kinds of measurements. Even so, we can identify some basic functional requirements for a physics that determines and communicates facts. These are sufficient to explain the peculiar features of quantum mechanics, combining the unitary evolution of superpositions with the mysterious "collapse" that occurs whenever the context allows new facts to be defined. Moreover, the precise determinism of classical physics can be understood on the same basis. It seems likely, in fact, that most of the complexity and fine-tuning we see in our most fundamental theories is needed to make any kind of information measurable.