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Register a new userQuantum mechanics, objective reality, and the problem of consciousness
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Added by
Ranjan Mukhopadhyay
Publication date
2018
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
Authors
Ranjan Mukhopadhyay
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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.
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It is shown that the nature of quantum states that emerge from decoherence is such that one can {em measure} the expectation value of any observable of the system in a single measurement. This can be done even when such pointer states are a priori unknown. The possibility of measuring the expectation value of any observable, without any prior knowledge of the state, points to the objective existence of such states.
A modified version of relational quantum mechanics is developed based on the three following ideas. An observer can develop an internally consistent description of the universe but it will, of necessity, differ in particulars from the description developed by any other observer. The state vector is epistomological and relative to a given quantum system as in the original relational quantum mechanics. If two quantum systems are entangled, they will observe themselves to be in just one of the many states in the Schmidt biorthonormal decomposition and not in a linear combination of many.
The goal of this paper is to explain how the views of Albert Einstein, John Bell and others, about nonlocality and the conceptual issues raised by quantum mechanics, have been rather systematically misunderstood by the majority of physicists.
Understanding the quantum measurement problem is closely associated with understanding wave function collapse. Motivated by Breuers claim that it is impossible for an observer to distinguish all states of a system in which it is contained, wave function collapse is tied to self observation in the Schmidt biorthonormal decomposition of entangled systems. This approach provides quantum mechanics in general and relational quantum mechanics in particular with a clean, well motivated explanation of the measurement process and wave function collapse.
We show that quantum mechanics is the first theory in human history that violates the basic a priori principles that have shaped human thought since immemorial times. Therefore although it is more contrary to magic than any body of knowledge could be, what could be called its magic precisely resides in this violation.
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