A variant of the von Neumann-Wigner Interpretation is proposed. It does not make use of the familiar language of wave functions and observers. Instead it pictures the state of the physical world as a vector in a Fock space and, therefore not, literally, a function of any spacetime coordinates. And, rather than segregating consciousness into individual points of view (each carrying with it a sense of its proper time), this model proposes only unitary states of consciousness, Q(t), where t represents a fiducial time with respect to which both the state of the physical world and the state of consciousness evolve. States in our world's Fock space are classified as either 'admissible' (meaning they correspond to definite states of consciousness) or 'inadmissible' (meaning they do not). The evolution of the state vector of the world is such as to always keep it restricted to 'admissible' states. Consciousness is treated rather like what Chalmers has called an "m-property." We try to show that problems with the quantum Zeno effect do not arise from this model. The measurement of degenerate states is also discussed, as is the EPR paradox. Finally, it is suggested that the universe is far more likely to contain conscious observers than not.
A variant of the von Neumann-Wigner Interpretation is proposed. It does not make use of the familiar language of wave functionsand observers. Instead it pictures the state of the physical world as a vector in a Fock space and, therefore not, literally, a functionof any spacetime coordinates. And, rather than segregating consciousness into individual points of view (each carrying with it asense of its proper time), this model proposes only unitary states of consciousness, Q(t), where t represents a fiducial time withrespect to which both the state of the physical world and the state of consciousness evolve. States in our world's Fock space areclassified as either 'admissible' (meaning they correspond to definite states of consciousness) or 'inadmissible' (meaning they donot). The evolution of the state vector of the world is such as to always keep it restricted to 'admissible' states. Consciousness istreated very much like what Chalmers calls an "M-Property." But we try to show that problems with the quantum Zeno effect do not arise from this model.
A variant of the von Neumann-Wigner Interpretation is proposed. Problems arising from the quantum Zeno effect are addressed as we have described previously. We do, however, offer some new, and perhaps unexpected observations. We are accustomed to thinking of wave function collapse as occurring consequent to laboratory measurements. We speculate that, whatever physical correlate of consciousness exists within the brain, it is quantum mechanical in the sense that a brain, left to itself, would eventually decohere into a state no longer compatible with its conscious functioning. Wave function collapse returns it to a state compatible with consciousness. Indeed, this may be its important reason for occurring. A universe without it simply could not play host to conscious brains. The fact that it also prevents us from encountering "absurd" situations in the laboratory is merely a fortunate dividend. Whenever a quantum measurement is made the universe's future history splits into a number of possibilities. This number may be very large or infinite. And we believe consciousness plays a vital role in this happening. A "conscious" universe where quantum measurements are being made allows for an enormous number of equally acceptable world-histories. An "unconscious" one, always evolving in a unitary fashion, allows for only one. If we assume that the decision as to which worldhistory is the real one (i.e. this one) is made at random we see that the universe is overwhelmingly more likely to be "conscious" than not.
A variant of the von Neumann-Wigner Interpretation is proposed. Problems arising from the quantum Zeno effect are addressed as we have described previously. We do, however, offer some new, and perhaps unexpected observations. We are accustomed to thinking of wave function collapse as occurring consequent to laboratory measurements. We speculate that, whatever physical correlate of consciousness exists within the brain, it is quantum mechanical in the sense that a brain, left to itself, would eventually decohere into a state no longer compatible with its conscious functioning. Wave function collapse returns it to a state compatible with consciousness. Indeed, this may be its important reason for occurring. A universe without it simply could not play host to conscious brains. The fact that it also prevents us from encountering "absurd" situations in the laboratory is merely a fortunate dividend. Whenever a quantum measurement is made the universe's future history splits into a number of possibilities. This number may be very large or infinite. And we believe consciousness plays a vital role in this happening. A "conscious" universe where quantum measurements are being made allows for an enormous number of equally acceptable world-histories. An "unconscious" one, always evolving in a unitary fashion, allows for only one. If we assume that the decision as to which worldhistory is the real one (i.e. this one) is made at random we see that the universe is overwhelmingly more likely to be "conscious" than not.
This paper explores the intricate relationship between the observer, consciousness, and quantum mechanics, attempting to defend the interpretation of the wave function as a representation of consciousness. More precisely, in our framework, a quantum state, represented by a wave function, determines a state of consciousness related to the first-person experiences,
w, of the events
E, detected by senses. Building on Everett’s many-worlds interpretation, we argue that the wave function is not an objective universal entity, but rather one that is inherently associated with the first-person experiences
w∈P of an observer
O . The set
P also includes other observers,
O′, as subsets. We demonstrate that this proposal does not lead to solipsism, because there is no unique hierarchy of observers, as indicated above, but there are many possible hierarchies of observers, such that, e.g., the roles of the first-person observer,
O, and the third-person observer,
O′ are interchanged. The corresponding quantum states,
ψO and
ψO′, are elements of the space of all possible quantum states, the Hilbert space,
H. It is this larger space that we identify as the objective reality. Thus, our approach overcomes the main obstacle faced by researchers who tried to make sense of quantum mechanics, namely, the wall of solipsism. In this framework, the Everett many-worlds interpretation and the wave function collapse interpretation are not mutually exclusive but instead represent complementary perspectives within the hierarchy of observers, each offering insight into the underlying physics from a different vantage point.
A minimal approach to the measurement problem and the quantum-to-classical transition assumes a universally valid quantum formalism, i.e. unitary time evolution governed by a Schrödinger-type equation. As had been pointed out long ago, in this view the measurement process can be described by decoherence which results in a "Many-Worlds" or "Many-Minds" scenario according to Everett and Zeh. A silent assumption for decoherence to proceed is however, that there exists incomplete information about the environment our object system gets entangled with in the measurement process. This paper addresses the question where this information is traced out and - by adopting recent approaches to model consciousness in neuroscience - argues that a rigorous interpretation results in a modern perspective on the von-Neumann-Wigner interpretation - namely that the information that is or is not available in the consciousness of the observer is crucial for the definition of the environment. As such the quantum-to-classical transition while being difficult or impossible to probe in physics may become testable in psychology.