Consciousness and quantum mechanics

[mmcirvin]

bram linked to Nova Spivack's blog a while back; here she he has a long post about the possibility (or impossibility) of simulating consciousness that goes into a lot of interesting opinions. I disagree with large parts of it, but those are just my own opinions; I'll admit I don't know any better than she he does exactly how consciousness relates to the physical world. (thanks to Bram for the correction)

Partway down, though, it goes into something that I think is actually a popular misconception, one whose popularity (especially in New Age and motivational literature) bothers me:

Research into quantum mechanics is also arriving at the fact that consciousness plays an important, but not yet understood, role in shaping physical reality. It is clear that consciousness has a major impact on the outcome of certain types of experiments, for example. Whether you observe a particle or not determines how it seems to behave.

The impression given is that physical experiments have shown that the consciousness of an observer has an effect on experimental results. I hear this a lot, but it's incorrect. The process in question is that of "wavefunction collapse" or "reduction of the state vector", in which a system that was in a superposition of states suddenly ends up in a state with a definite value of the measured quantity. Some respectable physicists, particularly Eugene Wigner, have insisted that the thing that really produces wavefunction collapse is the presence of a conscious observer. But in practice, you cannot experimentally tell this kind of interpretation apart from one in which collapse is produced by thermodynamically irreversible events (or, for that matter, one in which there is not collapse at all, and the process is one of entanglement of the measuring system with the measured one). Interpretations aside, it is not an essential feature of quantum mechanics itself that consciousness has a direct physical role. Quantum physics is done and observed by conscious physicists, of course, but so is classical physics; there's nothing quantumly special here.

I just thought I'd clear that up...

Comments

Kibo's birthday?

[timchuma.livejournal.com]

I was going to send him a present, but I had to pay for some software instead. Say happy birthday to him if you see him on the day.

Thanks.

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

In the universe of the TV series Andromeda, the only way to travel FTL is with a technology called "slipstream", in which only conscious, organic beings may be pilots. This sets up a useful constraint for plot points, as messages must be conveyed by live couriers, and you can't have drones going through hyperspace, and so forth.

Six episodes in, they cheated, by having a race of artificial beings grow brains in jars for the purpose of being slipstream pilots. Duh.

[jwgh]

Reading things like this makes me realize what a ridiculously extreme materialist I am.

Even various religions disagree [. . .]

Woah, there are things that different religions disagree about?

I appreciate that Nova is carefully neutral on whether or not any of the beings he encounters in day to day life actually have consciousness, or if it's just him.

The inevitable reference to Searle occurs a little more than halfway though, I see.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Don't you understand?? When we gaze at the Abyss, it GAZES BACK!! The Universe perceives us! And... it's ANGRY!!!

[bram.livejournal.com]

Before getting very far into your post, I must interject that Nova Spivack is a man. (See, when he was conceived, his parents were on the beach and saw a ship called "Avon" but one of them saw it upside-down.)

Nova was one of my best friends from college. His grandfather is the extremely famous Peter Drucker.