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Työväentutkimus Vuosikirja

Can Quantum Mechanics Solve the Hard Problem of Consciousness?

Basil J. Hiley, Paavo Pylkkänen

Published Jul 18, 2022• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract The paper proposes that quantum theory implies a radically new notion of matter which has not been properly understood before David Bohm’s groundbreaking work. Bohm proposed that the fundamental particles of physics (such as electrons) are not merely pushed around mechanically by classical forces but are also able to respond to information. Information is thus assumed to be an objective commodity which can exist independently of the human mind and which actively guides or instructs physical processes. This notion of active information also applies in computational, biological and psychological phenomena, thus helping us to understand how the mental and the physical sides of reality are related. It may even help us to understand the nature of conscious experience. The latter part of the paper considers the deeper mathematical and physical background of quantum theory and suggests that we need to revise our basic assumptions about quantum objects, such as the role of the wave function.

DOI
10.1093/oso/9780197501665.003.0016

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Abstract The paper proposes that quantum theory implies a radically new notion of matter which has not been properly understood before David Bohm’s groundbreaking work. Bohm proposed that the fundamental particles of physics (such as electrons) are not merely pushed around mechanically by classical forces but are also able to respond to information. Information is thus assumed to be an objective commodity which can exist independently of the human mind and which actively guides or instructs physical processes. This notion of active information also applies in computational, biological and psychological phenomena, thus helping us to understand how the mental and the physical sides of reality are related. It may even help us to understand the nature of conscious experience. The latter part of the paper considers the deeper mathematical and physical background of quantum theory and suggests that we need to revise our basic assumptions about quantum objects, such as the role of the wave function.
In two 1952 papers David Bohm proposed a hidden-variables interpretation of quantum theory, completing an approach de Broglie had suggested in 1927. An electron is a particle accompanied by a field, described by the wave function, which gives rise to a quantum potential influencing the particle alongside the classical potential. Bohm later became critical of his own theory: the mathematical form of the quantum potential is arbitrary; for a many-body system it assumes a physical field in 3N-dimensional configuration space; and in measurement it leaves empty wave packets floating around. He responded by radically reinterpreting the quantum field as a field of information rather than a physical field, claiming thereby to solve all three problems. This proposal has been largely ignored in recent philosophy of physics. I situate it in relation to the nomological interpretation of the wave function and its dispositionalist and Humean variants, arguing that active information agrees with the nomological view about what the wave function is not while differing about what it is, and that it belongs among property rather than law interpretations. I conclude that it is a serious live option, which moreover suggests a new approach to the mind–matter relation.
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.
Western philosophy and science have a strongly dualistic tradition regarding the mental and physical aspects of reality, which makes it difficult to understand their possible causal relations. In recent debates in cognitive neuroscience it has been common to claim on the basis of neural experiments that conscious experiences are causally inefficacious. At the same time there is much evidence that consciousness does play an important role in guiding behavior. The author explores whether a new way of understanding the causal role of mental states and consciousness could be provided by the ontological interpretation of the quantum theory (Bohm and Hiley, Phys. Rep. 144:323–348, 1987; Bohm and Hiley, The undivided universe: An ontological interpretation of quantum theory. Routledge: London, 1993). This interpretation radically changes our notion of matter by suggesting that a new type of active information plays a causal role at the quantum level of reality. The author thus considers to what extent the alleged causal powers of consciousness involve information, and then moves on to consider whether information in (conscious) mental states can be connected to the information at the level of quantum physics. In this way he sketches how quantum theory might help to throw light upon one of the grand challenges facing the social sciences and the humanities, namely the question of whether consciousness plays any genuine causal role in the physical world.
The hard problem in consciousness is the problem of understanding how physical processes in the brain could give rise to subjective conscious experience. In this paper, I suggest that in order to understand the relationship between consciousness and the physical world, we need to probe deeply into the nature of physical reality. This leads us to quantum physics and to a second explanatory gap: that between quantum and classical reality. I will seek a philosophical framework that can address these two gaps simultaneously. Our analysis of quantum mechanics will naturally lead us to the notion of a hidden reality and to the postulate that consciousness is an integral component of this reality. The framework proposed in the paper provides the philosophical underpinnings for a theory of consciousness while satisfactorily resolving the interpretation problem in quantum mechanics without the need to alter its mathematical structure. I also discuss some implications for a scientific theory of consciousness.
The nature and idea of consciousness is very mysterious and has profound importance, with existential, medical and spiritual implications and productivity. Behavior and functioning of the brain or, in other words, material brain activity is in some way correlated to the consciousness or mental activity. Since it is the most fundamental theory about the matter that is currently available, in efforts to understand the consciousness we can assume that the Quantum theory can be helpful. Various steps and studies have been carried out to achieve the extent of relation of quantum theory to the different neurophysiological levels of descriptions. In past and in current scenario efforts have been made to adopt quantum theory in different ways that correlate it to consciousness. The concept that this is solely a quantum effect and does not work for a classical case is also discussed. Researchers studied this about the notorious puzzles and contradiction of quantum mechanics, the theory physicists use to describe the tiniest objects in the Universe.