Consciousness and the measurement problem

Nandakumar Sasidharan Rajalekshmi

Sabrina Dawn Palmer

Michel Bitbol

There are two versions of the putative connection between consciousness and the measurement problem of quantum mechanics: consciousness as the cause of state vector reduction, and state vector reduction as the physical basis of consciousness. In this article, these controversial ideas are neither accepted uncritically, nor rejected from the outset in the name of some prejudice about objective knowledge. Instead, their origin is sought in our most cherished (but disputable) beliefs about the place of mind and consciousness in the world. It is first pointed out that these common beliefs about mind and consciousness arise from reification of situated first-person experience. Then, situatedness is shown to be a constitutive part of any exhaustive treatment of quantum measurements. It turns out that the alleged connection between consciousness and the measurement problem is a symptom of (i) the ineliminability of our being situated from the end-product of science, and (ii) our difficulty to express correctly this being situated.

Liang Shan

The difficulty in solving the measurement problem may derive from a lack of thorough understanding of the nature of consciousness. Recent findings from parapsychological research and confirmed reports of veridical perceptions during near death experiences (NDEs) show that consciousness can acquire non-local information and may act as an independent entity outside of the body. But how apparent nonlocal properties of consciousness correlate with the measurement problem is unclear. Starting from the assumption that discrete states of consciousness are entangled with corresponding superposed eigenstates of an observed system, the findings of the double-slit experiment and delayed-choice quantum eraser experiment are reanalyzed and the non-locality of consciousness entity is derived from first principles. I propose experimental designs aimed at testing non-local entanglement between multiple consciousness entities that may help explain anomalous phenomena including telepathy, the role of “which-path information” in a measurement, and the nature of consciousness in non-human animals. Finally, I discuss the origin of the perception of time and the relationship between time and consciousness.

Gordon G. Globus

The measurement, consciousness and qualia problematics are intertwined: all hinge on the failure to “deconstruct” world, consciousness and qualia. Physical reality is quantum at all scales, whereas world is dis-closed in parallel at unique addresses: thrown existence is monadological. Two categories of solution to the measurement problem are distinguished and analyzed: spontaneous decoherence theories and selection by match theories. A new interpretation of the Schrӧdinger wave function as representing the quantum brain’s “self-tuning” is proposed. Quantum neurophilosophy and neuroquantology within the framework of thermofield brain dynamics support an integrated solution to measurement, consciousness and qualia problems.

Hervé Zwirn C