Although small and embedded in strong noise, the surprisingly confirmed presentiment effect is deemed among the more reliable "psi" effects, although such an effect cannot reflect prediction in real-time. Rather, the effect reflects correlations found only in the historical past as a result of the end conditions represented by the participant's psychological responses to the stimuli. That is, the effect does appear, but in retrospect only. The current paper mathematically explains this suggestion through an orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics whose ontology is outlined. The explanation is based on von Neumann's idea that the system's quantum state collapses when the participant's mind perceives an observation. The argument takes decoherence considerations into account. The presentiment effect's existence and its presented reasonable quantum explanation seem to support von Neumann's idea.
Although small and embedded in strong noise, the surprisingly confirmed presentiment effect is deemed among the more reliable "psi" effects, although such an effect cannot reflect prediction in real-time. Rather, the effect reflects correlations found only in the historical past as a result of the end conditions represented by the participant's psychological responses to the stimuli. That is, the effect does appear, but in retrospect only. The current paper mathematically explains this suggestion through an orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics whose ontology is outlined. The explanation is based on von Neumann's idea that the system's quantum state collapses when the participant's mind perceives an observation. The argument takes decoherence considerations into account. The presentiment effect's existence and its presented reasonable quantum explanation seem to support von Neumann's idea.
Our inability to rewind time may cast some doubt about the genuineness of the effectiveness of our free choice capability. I suggest that the so-called presentiment anomalous experience can be used to verify this genuineness. The idea is to post stimulus compare averaged results from two apparently “similar” presentiment tests ("channels") carried out simultaneously on the same individual. Before the occurrence of the stimulus an experimenter decides, in real time, whether to observe the measurements in any channel or not and immediately performs this decision before the occurrence of the stimulus. A case in which a channel is observed during real time and a case in which it has not belong to different decoherent histories. This holds true because according to the “Orthodox Interpretation” of quantum mechanics the conscious observation collapses the multitude of possible pre stimulus measurements to just the perceived one. In such cases quantum mechanics imposes a disappearance of the retrospective presentiment effect. Thus, in such a parallel design one can compare what happens when an observation is carried out and is not carried out at the same time instance. The presentiment effect disappearance in the observed channel despite its appearance in the unobserved channel for the same moments is thus evidence for the effectiveness of the experimenter's willed observation.
Few things in physics have caused so much hand-wringing as von Neumann's collapse hypothesis. Unable to derive it mathematically, von Neumann attributed it to interaction with the observer's brain! Few physicists agreed, but tweaks of von Neumann's measurement theory did not lead to collapse, and Shimony and Brown proved theorems establishing `the insolubility of the quantum measurement problem'. Many different `interpretations' of quantum mechanics were put forward, none gained a consensus, and some scholars suggested that the foundations of quantum mechanics were flawed to begin with. Yet, in the last ninety years, no-one looked into now von Neumann had arrived at his collapse hypothesis! Von Neumann based his argument on the experiment of Compton and Simon. But, by comparing readings from von Neumann's book and the Compton-Simon paper, we find that the experiment provides no evidence for the collapse hypothesis; von Neumann had misread it completely! We suggest that von Neumann had relied on his phenomenal memory rather than the printed Compton-Simon paper, and his memory had failed him for once. Our finding has considerable implications for physics, which -- briefly sketched here -- will be discussed elsewhere in detail. An Appendix raises some questions for historians of physics.
The Semiotic Interpretation (SI) of QM pushes further the Von Neumann point of view that `experience only makes statements of this type: an observer has made a certain observation; and never any like this: a physical quantity has a certain value.' The supposition that the observables of a system `possess' objective values is purely idealistic. According to the SI view, the state- vector collapse cannot result from the Schroedinger evolution of a system (even with its environment), but only from the empirical production of a mathematical symbol, irreducible to the quantum level. The production of a symbol always takes some time. Thus the state-vector collapse cannot be instantaneous (Schneider 1994), a specific prediction of the present model. From this interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, the appearances of the body are the result of state-vector collapses of several types, i.e. the production of different kinds of symbols. In fact the universe of symbols is very rich: a symbol can have a conceptual `value' (like in physics and then give rise to a measurement), or other qualitative values (like in many human behaviors). In the latter case, the Semiotic Interpretation of QM gives a way to understand how a mental representation can modify the state of the body.
The classical physical theories that prevailed in science from the time of Isaac Newton until the dawn of the twentieth century were empirically based on human experience and made predictions about our mental experiences, yet excluded from the dynamics all mental properties. But how can one rationally get mental things out if no mental elements are put in? The key step in the creation of quantum mechanics during 1925 by Heisenberg and his colleagues was to recognize and emphasize the essential dynamical role of mental properties in the creation of our mental empirical findings. This basic feature of quantum mechanics was cast into rigorous mathematical form by John von Neumann, and was made a central feature of contemporary relativistic quantum field theory by the work of Tomonaga and Schwinger. That theory is causally strictly forward in time. But it is explained here how it can nevertheless accommodate the seeming backward-in-time causal effects reported by D.J. Bem, and many others, by means of a slight biasing of the famous Born Rule. The purpose of this communication is to explain how those reported retrocausal findings can be explained by a strictly forward-in-time and nearly orthodox causal dynamics that, however, permits the Born Rule to be slightly biased under certain conditions. A feasible experiment is proposed that, if it gives the outcomes predicted by the proposed theory, will provide evidence in favor of this causally forward-in-time and nearly orthodox explanation of the reported retrocausal effects.
Abstract The concept of the collapse of the wave function was introduced into quantum theory by John von Neumann in the early 1930s and has since become an integral part of the theory’s orthodox interpretation. But if we were to ask ourselves what evidence we have that this collapse is a real physical phenomenon, we would have to admit that we have none. The notion of a collapse is necessary to explain how a quantum system initially present in a linear superposition state before the process of measurement is converted into a quantum system present in one, and only one, of the measurement eigenstates after the process has occurred. It was introduced into the theory because it is our experience that pointers point in only one direction at a time.
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.