Abstract Alexander Wendt suggests that an emerging field of research on quantum consciousness may have important implications for our understanding of the social world as well. He wants us to consider that the operations of the brain are not “classical” but rather quantum‐mechanical, and that this sheds light on the social worker as well. This article casts doubt on these claims. First, the idea of panpsychism (all physical things possess features of consciousness) is implausible on its face. Second, the findings of “quantum decision theory” are much more limited than Wendt recognizes. Third, the biological quantum effects currently subject to investigation are limited in their application to brains and persons by unavoidable limits of time and space scale on quantum effects. The “brain as quantum computer” or “brain as wave function” theory is very implausible given current knowledge.
Abstract Alexander Wendt suggests that an emerging field of research on quantum consciousness may have important implications for our understanding of the social world as well. He wants us to consider that the operations of the brain are not “classical” but rather quantum‐mechanical, and that this sheds light on the social worker as well. This article casts doubt on these claims. First, the idea of panpsychism (all physical things possess features of consciousness) is implausible on its face. Second, the findings of “quantum decision theory” are much more limited than Wendt recognizes. Third, the biological quantum effects currently subject to investigation are limited in their application to brains and persons by unavoidable limits of time and space scale on quantum effects. The “brain as quantum computer” or “brain as wave function” theory is very implausible given current knowledge.
There is an underlying assumption in the social sciences that consciousness and social life are ultimately classical physical/material phenomena. In this ground-breaking book, Alexander Wendt challenges this assumption by proposing that consciousness is, in fact, a macroscopic quantum mechanical phenomenon. In the first half of the book, Wendt justifies the insertion of quantum theory into social scientific debates, introduces social scientists to quantum theory and the philosophical controversy about its interpretation, and then defends the quantum consciousness hypothesis against the orthodox, classical approach to the mind-body problem. In the second half, he develops the implications of this metaphysical perspective for the nature of language and the agent-structure problem in social ontology. Wendt's argument is a revolutionary development which raises fundamental questions about the nature of social life and the work of those who study it.
A key claim that Alexander Wendt makes in his book Quantum Mind and Social Science: Unifying Physical and Social Ontology is that he is not using the 'quantum' as a metaphor.Nor is he drawing analogies either.He argues that he is constructing a quantum theory of the human subject and social structures through a quantum-theoretic explanation of consciousness undergirded by a panpsychist hypothesis of primitive protoconsciousness.In this article I show how Wendt's insistence that he is developing a literally-speaking quantum-theoretic approach presents him with a number of must-notignore challenges that originate in quantum theory.I specifically discuss three challenges
Although this book is about the implications for social science of a quantum approach to the mind, much of that potential stems from its ability to integrate consciousness – a particular aspect of the mind – into a naturalistic worldview. And when it comes to the hard problem, quantum brain theory is only a necessary condition for such integration, not sufficient. Necessary, because it would enable the body to exploit for macro-level purposes a physical but non- material space for consciousness at the quantum level – collapse of the wave function – that does not exist in classical physics. Insufficient, however, because quantum brain theory embodies an objective, third-person standpoint and as such can tell us no more than classical brain theory can about why brains have a subjective, first-person point of view in the first place. The explanatory gap is still there, in other words, only now pushed down into quantum theory. To cross this gap, therefore, in addition to a new physics of the brain we will need a new meta -physics as well. As I argue in this chapter, it is this metaphysics that does the real work in solving the mind–body problem. Most social scientists have an instinctive aversion to ‘metaphysics,’ which in our world connotes wooly-headed and speculative thinking that has no place in science. Yet in moving onto this terrain the situation is both worse and better than that. It is worse because we have no choice. The Neuron Doctrine itself is based on a metaphysic, materialism, which looks increasingly unlikely to ever explain consciousness; and in thinking about the meaning of quantum theory metaphysical debate can hardly be avoided, precisely because physics provides little guidance for choosing among its interpretations. So the only question is whether to change our metaphysics of the brain from classical to quantum.
Abstract I discuss the revolutionary implications of Alexander Wendt's Quantum Mind and Social Science for social theory. These center on the significance given to society as a possibility space in which observable social reality amounts to quantum decoherent states in the system. I discuss how Wendt radicalises social constructivism and goes considerably beyond Bourdieu's conceptions of society as a field. A signature feature in Wendt's theory, the state as a hologram, comports well with the implied view of the social order in much public opinion and market research. In this respect, Wendt's theory is very attuned to the spirit of our times.
Alexander Wendt’s Quantum Mind and Social Science reopens the question of the relevance of quantum mechanics to the social sciences. In response, I argue that due to “quantum decoherence,” the macroscopic world filters out quantum effects. Moreover, quantum decoherence makes it unlikely that the theory of quantum brains, on which Wendt relies, is true. Finally, while quantum decision theory is a potentially revolutionary field, it has not clearly accounted for alleged anomalies in classical understandings of decision making. However, the logic of quantum decoherence can motivate a new approach to the structure-agent problem.
Abstract Quantum mechanics supersedes classical mechanics, and social science, some argue, should be responsive to this change. This paper finds that two rather different arguments are currently being used to argue that quantum mechanics is epistemically relevant in social science. One, attributed to Alexander Wendt, appeals to the presence of quantum physical effects in the social world. The other, attributed to Karen Barad, insists on the importance of quantum metaphysics even when quantum effects are negligible. Neither argument, however, is sound. Consequently, the paper concludes that neither of them offers compelling arguments for the view that quantum mechanics has epistemic relevance for social science.