When phenomena in quantum mechanics are interpreted from the perspective of bio-psychology, wave function collapse from several to a single eigenstate must be plausibly explained. Quantum mechanics requires a context, yet the context of an observer is rarely considered. On the other hand, in bio-psychology, the observer context is examined to explain superposition and collapse by different mental functions used in everyday life. Three mental functions are described, one of which is responsible for observation, and the others for conservation and treatment of information in mental representation. Whereas observation produces information with certainty, the subsequent processes result in uncertain potentiality. In order to encompass uncertainty, multiple possibilities are simultaneously considered in mental superposition, one of which should represent the unknown future outcome. During observation, all suggested potentialities necessarily collapse to one real outcome. The collapse of superposition does not occur in observable physical reality, but in its mental representation. Some physical principles—such as superposition, infinity and nothingness before the Big Bang—are pure phenomena of mental representation, which will always remain unverifiable by observation. This argument proves that mental representation brought about by the observer context participates in the production of mental models for the best approximation of physical reality.
When phenomena in quantum mechanics are interpreted from the perspective of bio-psychology, wave function collapse from several to a single eigenstate must be plausibly explained. Quantum mechanics requires a context, yet the context of an observer is rarely considered. On the other hand, in bio-psychology, the observer context is examined to explain superposition and collapse by different mental functions used in everyday life. Three mental functions are described, one of which is responsible for observation, and the others for conservation and treatment of information in mental representation. Whereas observation produces information with certainty, the subsequent processes result in uncertain potentiality. In order to encompass uncertainty, multiple possibilities are simultaneously considered in mental superposition, one of which should represent the unknown future outcome. During observation, all suggested potentialities necessarily collapse to one real outcome. The collapse of superposition does not occur in observable physical reality, but in its mental representation. Some physical principles—such as superposition, infinity and nothingness before the Big Bang—are pure phenomena of mental representation, which will always remain unverifiable by observation. This argument proves that mental representation brought about by the observer context participates in the production of mental models for the best approximation of physical reality.
When phenomena in quantum mechanics are interpreted from the perspective of bio-psychology, wave function collapse from several to a single eigenstate must be plausibly explained. Quantum mechanics requires a context, yet the context of an observer is rarely considered. On the other hand, in bio-psychology, the observer context is examined to explain superposition and collapse by different mental functions used in everyday life. Three mental functions are described, one of which is responsible for observation, and the others for conservation and treatment of information in mental representation. Whereas observation produces information with certainty, the subsequent processes result in information that remains uncertain potentiality. In order to encompass uncertainty, multiple possibilities are simultaneously considered in mental superposition, one of which should represent the unknown future outcome in observable reality. During verification by new observation, all suggested potentialities necessarily collapse to one real outcome. The collapse of superposition does not occur in observable physical reality, but in its mental representation. Some physical principles—such as superposition, infinity and nothingness before the Big Bang—are pure phenomena of mental representation, which will always remain unverifiable by observation. This argument proves that mental representation brought about by the observer context participates in the production of mental models for the best approximation of physical reality.
Quantum mechanics have always shown great predictive successes, but also some weird aspects concerning the mathematics-reality correspondence, such as superposition of contradictory events, like a dead and alive cat. Although physicists claim that we have to live with these contradictions, a psycho-biological analysis could propose another explanation. Observation of extra-mental reality is based on direct physical contact between an object, its corresponding sense organ and its mental representation in the brain. In contrast, prediction of the future is no longer directly linked to extra-mental reality, but projects possible observations from the memory of the past into the future. Due to the uncertainty of the future, predictions require mental potentiality, meaning that it may or may not happen in extra-mental reality. Nevertheless, if past observations are regular as in classical physics, they allow predictions with high reliability, whereas if they are irregular as in quantum physics, they are limited to uncertainty and probability. Superposition in classical physics increases space or time units accordingly, whereas quantum superposition considers multiple space locations for the same object at the same time. Thus, the quantum mechanical formalism is in direct contradiction to the philosophical law of non-contradiction, which does not allow considering it as extra-mental reality. However, it has all characteristics of mental potentiality, which allows prediction of future outcomes with probability. The consideration of quantum mechanics as mental potentiality would solve the superposition problem, as well as the measurement and the non-locality problem. According to the regularity or irregularity of observation, classical or quantum mechanical formalism has to be applied for prediction of future dynamics. There is no collapse or continuation of superposition in the wave function, but simply the replacement of an uncertain prediction model by the more certain observation. With this interpretation some weird aspects could be completely eliminated.
A number of modern scientists adheres to the point of view that, despite the fact that quantum mechanics does not allow to explain the existence of mental phenomena in the physical world, with the help of its inherent ontological principles and mathematical formalism, it is possible to understand the functioning of consciousness and the unconscious. Based on the analogy between quantum and mental processes, the unconscious can be represented as a superposition of mental states, and consciousness — in the form of decoherence of unconscious experiences. From an evolutionary point of view, consciousness can be considered as a consequence of the accumulation of a sufficient amount of information during the interaction of the organism with the surrounding environment, when the transition from the quantum state of the unconscious to the classical state of consciousness is carried out at the psychic level of being, by analogy with the accumulation of a sufficient amount of information by a quantum system during interaction with the environment, when at the physical level of being the collapse of the wave function. In psychotherapy and psychodiagnostics, one can see an analogy with the measurement process in quantum mechanics and a quantum leap from one mental state to another. However, the analysis of this point of view carried out in the article shows that the parallels between quantum mechanics and psychology today look insufficiently substantiated, since the mathematical model of the psyche, which allows describing human behavior on the basis of the laws of quantum mechanics, has not yet been built, which is why, firstly, the use of quantum-physical terminology in the understanding of mental experience does not rise to the level of scientific theory, remaining a metaphor, and, secondly, quantum psychology has a predictive potential, in contrast to the psychology of the classical type.
Quantum mechanics is based on Schrodinger’s wave function with linear superposition of vectors in a Hilbert space. Due to superposition, multiple physical states are considered simultaneously for the same time point, but when the corresponding quantum mechanical experiments are realized, there is only one outcome and not a superposition of pointer positions. This observation characterizes the quantum mechanical measurement problem, which for about a century found multiple interpretations, which can be classified as potentiality, as proposed by Heisenberg, or as real physical entities, for instance fields. Potentialities are yet inexistent in reality and unobservable in the present, since they represent a possible future. Thus, they can only be an intra-mental representation of a future process and not a physical extra-mental process ongoing in the present. There is coexistence of a physical object observable in reality and a mental prediction by an observer concerning the future behavior of this object. The characterization of quantum mechanical formalism by some physicists corresponds to a prediction and therefore to a mental representation of the future behavior of elementary particles and not to a description of an ongoing extra-mental process. Prediction in life and science has some characteristics, which resemble the measurement problem, since it undergoes a “multiple to one” reduction of mental potentialities to only one observable real outcome. Besides quantum mechanics, such reductions can also be found with many kinds of predictions, in classical physics for regular and irregular dynamical processes and in humans for programming future actions. Superposition in classical physics only concerns variable effects, but in quantum mechanics includes variable effects and non-localizable causes. Quantum mechanics, interpreted as prediction of future outcomes with multiple potentialities but only one realization, would resemble the general prediction problem in life and science and thereby loos its weird aspects.
Abstract: The standard formulation of Quantum Mechanics has raised from its beginning animated discussions about the interpretation of the counterintuitive properties of mental objects (wave functions or Schrödinger waves) introduced to represent the properties of the physical objects.Two questions have since then been formulated to which a universally accepted answer is still lacking. The first one (Bohr, von Neumann) concerns the ontological nature of physical reality (the existence of classical objects) and the role of the observer (wave packet collapse) in assessing it. The second one is the non local character of quantum physical quantities (Einstein Podolski Rosen [EPR] long distance correlation of particles). An alternative formulation of Quantum Mechanics, originally proposed in 1932 by Eugene Wigner, taken up by Richard Feynman in 1987, and reelaborated by myself in the years from 1998 to 2003, is possible. The mental objects of standard Quantum Mechanics (Schrödinger waves) no longer appear in this new formulation and are replaced by new ones (Wigner functions) which do not show any more the puzzling properties which worried Einstein. My conclusion from the preceding discussion is that different explanations of a given set of experimental data may be derived according to the different nature of the mental objects introduced to represent the properties of the physical objects involved. The confusion between these two kind of objects may be, however, very misleading. I will finally discuss two examples of this conclusion from Biology
Quantum psychology points out that consciousness is observational,local and real,and it is similar to particle of quantum.But unconsciousness is unobservational,unlocal,and potential,it is similar to wave of quantum.In the respect of relationship between mind and body or material,quantum psychology attempts to distinguish the first-person I and the third-person He,but not the state of mind and body.In the respect of interaction of consciousness and brain or body,quantum psychology supposes that mental events and quantum events are equal,and both of them obey mathematical orders.In the respect of the effect and function of consciousness,quantum psychology regards consciousness as the agent of observation and asserts that the reality is a potential possibility,it becomes actuality by the projection of consciousness.The effect of consciousness is to make the potential possibility to appear only.Quantum psychology reestablishes the legal position of consciousness in the field of psychology by means of natural science,The theories of psychology are not the description of pure objective mental phenomena and behaviors,instead they are the action of knowledge seekers and knowledge acquirers and the description of the knowledge we get form it.