We suggest that qualia have a causally efficacious role in quantum mechanics; an occurrence which explains how information about qualia can enter the physical environment. This is compatible with the unitary time-evolution of the quantum state if qualia are understood as effecting the beables of the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation or wavefunction collapse process rather than at the wavefunction level. We furthermore suggest that not all quantum states are consistent with qualia. If this is the case, the standard wavefunction collapse postulates of the Copenhagen interpretation will fail to select only those states which are consistent with qualia, and the Born-rule must be modified if wavefunction collapse is to generate the correct dynamical histories across time. This new model which includes qualia clearly demonstrates how non-linear and self-referential phenomena can occur, despite the linear, deterministic time-evolution of the wavefunction. We reject the notion that physical matter operates independently of qualia, and find that the main evidence for epiphenomenalism i.e. the causal closure of the underlying physical time-evolution, has failed to take into consideration fine-tuning of the microcausal degrees of freedom. We propose that the philosophical zombie argument is fine-tuned in the initial conditions, thus making philosophical zombies statistically unlikely if the fine-tuning is removed. We furthermore suggest the presence of fine-tuning can be used as a test for consciousness in the general case. This explains why some classical processes such as computer circuits may never be conscious; because they lack the capacity for fine-tuning when the dynamics is reversed.
We suggest that qualia have a causally efficacious role in quantum mechanics; an occurrence which explains how information about qualia can enter the physical environment. This is compatible with the unitary time-evolution of the quantum state if qualia are understood as effecting the beables of the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation or wavefunction collapse process rather than at the wavefunction level. We furthermore suggest that not all quantum states are consistent with qualia. If this is the case, the standard wavefunction collapse postulates of the Copenhagen interpretation will fail to select only those states which are consistent with qualia, and the Born-rule must be modified if wavefunction collapse is to generate the correct dynamical histories across time. This new model which includes qualia clearly demonstrates how non-linear and self-referential phenomena can occur, despite the linear, deterministic time-evolution of the wavefunction. We reject the notion that physical matter operates independently of qualia, and find that the main evidence for epiphenomenalism i.e. the causal closure of the underlying physical time-evolution, has failed to take into consideration fine-tuning of the microcausal degrees of freedom. We propose that the philosophical zombie argument is fine-tuned in the initial conditions, thus making philosophical zombies statistically unlikely if the fine-tuning is removed. We furthermore suggest the presence of fine-tuning can be used as a test for consciousness in the general case. This explains why some classical processes such as computer circuits may never be conscious; because they lack the capacity for fine-tuning when the dynamics is reversed.
The link between the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation and the hard problem of consciousness is investigated. We highlight that beables of the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation are not themselves qualia, but are intimately related to qualia. It is then argued that qualia are necessary for the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation, and conversely the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation (or similar theories) are necessary for qualia. Therefore, there is a reflexive two-way relationship between the beables of the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation and qualia such that they support the existence of each other. By using this reflexive argument, the hard problem of consciousness can be addressed via an indirect route.
Since Descartes' dualism, with his res extensa and res cogitans, six fundamental problems in the philosophy and natural history of mind are these: 1. how does mind act on matter? 2. If mind does not act on matter is mind a mere epiphenomenon? 3. What might be the source of free will? 4. What might be the source of a responsible free will? 5. Why might it have been selectively advantageous to evolve consciousness? 6. What is consciousness? I approach the first five of the above six problems based on two physical postulates. First the mind-brain system is a quantum coherent, but reversibly decohering and recohering system. This allows me to answer 1) above, mind does not act causally on brain at all, rather it acausally decohers to classicity (for all practical purposes), hence has consequences for brain and body as matter. Epiphenomenalism is averted. A quantum mind, because it is acausal on Copenhagen including Born, yields a free will, but a merely random free will, not a responsible free will. Second, the most radical part of this article proposes that the quantum classical interface is not always describable by a law: specifically in a special relativity setting, no function, F, maps the present state of the system mind-brain into its future. In its place is a nonrandom yet lawless process. I seek in this non-random yet lawless process a source for a responsible free will. Finally, if the quantum-classical boundary can be non-random yet lawless, then no algorithmic simulation of the world or ourselves can calculate the real world, hence the evolutionary selective advantages for evolving consciousness to know it may be great. I make no progress on problem 6, the hard problem of qualia.
This preprint develops Dual-Aspect Quantum Theory (DAQT), a framework that interprets the two fundamental dynamical modes of quantum mechanics, unitary evolution and collapse, as possessing intrinsic subjective aspects. The theory is motivated by the attempt to place phenomenology, evolutionary constraints, and physical processes within a single coherent ontology. Beginning from the conditional hypothesis that consciousness is real and not wholly epiphenomenal, the paper argues that consciousness has a dual functional structure: qualia modulate probabilistic tendencies, while agency resolves open alternatives into actual behavior. DAQT then proposes that quantum theory provides the clearest known structural match for this architecture. On that basis, it advances a dual-aspect interpretation in which unitary evolution has a qualitative interior and collapse an agential interior. Within this framework, several major problems in the philosophy of mind, including the Hard Problem, the conceivability of philosophical zombies, and the Combination Problem, are not treated as isolated puzzles but are reformulated as internal consequences of the same psychophysical structure. The paper also explores the mathematical characterization of qualia, the role of entanglement in unified consciousness, and the possibility of a biologically plausible mechanism capable of exploiting these dynamics. Rather than claiming a deductive proof or a completed empirical model, DAQT is presented as a coherent explanatory program for the functional role, physical locus, and ontological status of consciousness.
The de Broglie-Bohm interpretation is known to make the vagueness of the Copenhagen interpretation precise. What this actually means is that it offers a purely materialist framework for understanding quantum mechanics, as opposed to a dualist or idealist framework. The Copenhagen interpretation introduces conscious observers into its ontology and therefore lacks the precision of a materialist scientific theory expressible in terms of mathematics. The corollary of this is that using the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation as a proof by contradiction, it can be shown that if consciousness is not epiphenomenal but instead has causal efficacy, then the Born rule probabilities must be incomplete, and both the de Broglie-Bohm and Copenhagen interpretations are incomplete.
The measurement problem — the question of why quantum superpositions appear to collapse to definite outcomes upon measurement — remains one of the most consequential unresolved questions in the foundations of physics. Despite the extraordinary empirical success of quantum mechanics, the field has for decades operated under an unofficial norm of interpretive silence, a posture Sean Carroll and others have identified as both intellectually dishonest and scientifically costly. This paper argues that the experimental evidence, properly understood through the framework of quantum entanglement and decoherence, provides strong grounds for rejecting the hypothesis that consciousness plays a causal role in wavefunction collapse. Three tiers of experimental evidence are examined: the double slit experiment with which-path detection, Bell inequality tests confirming non-local entanglement, and the LIGO gravitational wave detections demonstrating macroscopic quantum coherence at cosmological scales without any role for conscious observation. The paper concludes that the consciousness hypothesis is not supported by experimental physics and that Carroll's call for serious investment in foundational research is scientifically justified and philosophically urgent.
Is mind quantum-like? Is consciousness quantum physical? Does consciousness have a role to play in the emergence of the classical world from the underlying quantum universe? Or is this dichotomy between classical and quantum an illusion? How can world philosophies enrich our views on these matters and interact with the best scientific theories? These are some questions that motivated us to conceive the current book. We also felt an urgent need to discuss the central philosophical questions haunting the emerging frameworks of quantum cognition and quantum-like framework (QLF). We have observed that there are very good technical or mathematical works being done in the emerging fields of quantum cognition and QLF, but there is still a great need for exploring the underlying and open philosophical questions they demand. Quantum cognition developed as a frontier research programme in understanding various cognitive phenomena that are hard or impossible to describe based on classical cognitive science paradigm. Classical cognitive science draws philosophically and mathematically from classical physics and classical probability theory. For example, cognitive realism thinking is deeply motivated by the scientific realism of classical physics. However, as we explore, there are numerous empirical findings which demonstrate clearly that human mind and cognitive processes exhibit features that are more quantum-like. Central to these features are indeterminacy, context dependence, and complementarity of cognitive phenomena, for example, perception, information retrieval, and even qualia. Many good works in the previous decade have demonstrated the efficacy of quantum-like mathematical modelling in such cases. However, given that efficacy, we cannot simply conclude that mind is quantum. Rather there are features that go beyond what is allowed in standard quantum formalism.