ABSTRACT The problem of quantum nonlocality references instantaneous entanglements happening between particles at great distances, putting under question physical assumptions about time and local effects. Despite a wide range of proposed solutions in physics, the problem persists; however, due to the recent interest in panconsciousness and panpsychism in philosophy as well as numerous suggestions that consciousness and quantum physics are intimately related, I argue in favor of thinking strange quantum effects—and nonlocality as case in point—in lieu of conscious activity happening at a universal scale. Drawing on the mind-brain problem or “the hard problem” as an intellectual resource and particularly pertinent metaphor in the case helps to illuminate the argument; briefly stated, I argue that a conscious universe eliminates the necessity of thinking distance as a problem needing to be resolved to comprehend disparate physical observations. In other words, I offer a speculative vision for quantum nonlocality and ultimately aim to encourage scholars to more carefully consider what it is like to be In, Of, and About a brain when thinking about the universe.
ABSTRACT The problem of quantum nonlocality references instantaneous entanglements happening between particles at great distances, putting under question physical assumptions about time and local effects. Despite a wide range of proposed solutions in physics, the problem persists; however, due to the recent interest in panconsciousness and panpsychism in philosophy as well as numerous suggestions that consciousness and quantum physics are intimately related, I argue in favor of thinking strange quantum effects—and nonlocality as case in point—in lieu of conscious activity happening at a universal scale. Drawing on the mind-brain problem or “the hard problem” as an intellectual resource and particularly pertinent metaphor in the case helps to illuminate the argument; briefly stated, I argue that a conscious universe eliminates the necessity of thinking distance as a problem needing to be resolved to comprehend disparate physical observations. In other words, I offer a speculative vision for quantum nonlocality and ultimately aim to encourage scholars to more carefully consider what it is like to be In, Of, and About a brain when thinking about the universe.
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: It has been widely thought that consciousness has no causal efficacy in the physical world. However, this may be not the case. In this paper, it is argued that a conscious being can distinguish definite perceptions and their quantum superpositions, while a measuring sys-tem without consciousness cannot distinguish such non-orthogonal quantum states. The existence of this distinct quantum physical effect of consciousness may have interesting implications for the science of consciousness. In particular, it suggests that consciousness is not emergent but a fundamental feature of the universe. This provides a possible quantum basis for panpsychism.
Abstract Classical physics states that physical reality is local—a point in space cannot influence another point beyond a relatively short distance. However, In 1997, experiments were conducted in which light particles (photons) originated under certain conditions and traveled in opposite directions to detectors located about seven miles apart. The amazing results indicated that the photons “interacted” or “communicated” with one another instantly or “in no time”. Since a distance of seven miles is quite vast in quantum physics, this led physicists to an extraordinary conclusion—even if experiments could somehow be conducted in which the distance between the detectors was half-way across the known universe, the results would indicate that interaction or communication between the photons would be instantaneous. What was revealed in these little-known experiments in 1997 is that physical reality is non-local—a discovery that Robert Nadeau and Menas Kafatos view as “the most momentous in the history of science”. In The Non-Local Universe, Nadeau and Kafatos offer a revolutionary look at the breathtaking implications of non-locality. They argue that since every particle in the universe has been “entangled” with other particles like the two photons in the 1997 experiments, physical reality on the most basic level is an undivided wholeness. In addition to demonstrating that physical processes are vastly interdependent and interactive, they also show that more complex systems in both physics and biology display emergent properties and/or behaviors that cannot be explained in the terms of the sum of parts. One of the most startling implications of non-locality in human terms, claim the authors, is that there is no longer any basis for believing in the stark division between mind and world that has preoccupied much of western thought since the seventeenth century. And they also make a convincing case that human consciousness can now be viewed as emergent from and seamlessly connected with the entire cosmos. In pursuing this groundbreaking argument, the authors not only provide a fascinating history of developments that led to the discovery of non-locality and the sometimes heated debate between the great scientists responsible for these discoveries. They also argue that advances in scientific knowledge have further eroded the boundaries between physics and biology, and that recent studies on the evolution of the human brain suggest that the logical foundations of mathematics and ordinary language are much more similar than we previously imagined. What this new knowledge reveals, the authors conclude, is that the connection between mind and nature is far more intimate than we previously dared to imagine. What they offer is a revolutionary look at the implications of non-locality, implications that reach deep into that most intimate aspect of humanity: consciousness.
Introduction We saw in Part I that in addition to explaining consciousness there is another hard problem for the modern scientific worldview – understanding what quantum physics is telling us about reality. And if anything this one is harder. In philosophy of mind there is at least consensus enough for an orthodox position to exist (materialism), and a widespread expectation that it will be vindicated by future neuroscience. By contrast, in philosophy of physics all sides understand that quantum theory is compatible with a variety of metaphysical interpretations, and have little hope that new empirical discoveries will settle the matter. But both problems are “hard” in the sense that, despite tremendous intellectual effort over many decades, no clear progress has been made toward solving them. The basic idea of quantum consciousness theory is that bringing the two problems into contact may be the key to solving both (though I will be addressing only the mind–body problem in what follows). That this could be a novel idea attests to the fact that their philosophical discussions have evolved quite separately. While philosophers of physics have long been interested in the role of consciousness in the measurement process, they have engaged little with the mind–body problem per se; and philosophers of mind have been almost unanimous in dismissing the suggestion that consciousness has anything interesting to do with quantum physics. Social scientists might echo such skepticism, wondering how adding the problem of interpreting quantum theory to the problem of consciousness will help them . Besides piling up jargon and arcane debates, in moving to the sub-atomic level we are now even farther removed from the human world, and seemingly poised to engage in the most vulgar reductionism. Yet, naïvely one might expect the two problems to be related, for two reasons. The first is the intriguing analogies mentioned in Chapter 1 between the mental and quantum domains.
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.
Abstract Physics has a somewhat uneasy relationship to the mind. On the one hand, minds are part of the natural universe and although much of physics is concerned with the non-minded parts of reality, recently a set of problems has emerged in physics that has placed a special focus on observers. In quantum mechanics, the contrast between what the deterministic dynamics yields and what the observer sees is at the forefront of the theory’s difficulties. In the controversies surrounding time, questions about whether the relativistic image of time can account for the subjective experience of passage and flow have been central. In general, reconciling the manifest image of the world with the image presented by science requires at least some tacit understanding of how minds work. And because the evidence for our theories ultimately comes from experience, eventually we have to be able to bring the mind itself firmly under the scope of our physical theories. On the other hand, there is a set of philosophical controversies about the relationship between the mental and the physical that many people believe physics would do well to steer clear of. This chapter argues for a division between the aspects of the mind that physics must cope with and those that it can ignore. I argue the most difficult unresolved questions about the mind can be ignored without affecting progress in physics.