Quantum Decoherence
Quantum Decoherence
I recently posted this to news://Alt.Consciousness :
Conscious observers have lost their monopoly on acquiring and storing
information. The environment can also monitor a system, and...such
monitoring causes decoherence, which allows the familiar approximation known
as classical objective reality--a perception of a selected subset of all
conceivable quantum states evolving in a largely predictable manner--to
emerge from the quantum substrate. (Zurek, 1991, p. 44)
3.8 Hopefully it is apparent from this discussion of interactive decoherence
that the first category of quantum theories of mind we mentioned above,
those which appeal to minds as causal factors or determinants in reducing
the state vector descriptions of appropriate hardware or wetware, have lost
any support they may have enjoyed from more traditional quantum measurement
theory. On the modern view, interactive decoherence would occur even if
there were not a single conscious observer in the cosmos. (And, likewise,
when a conscious observer is involved, selection of the basis states takes
place because of the nonseparable correlations introduced by the measurement
process and not because of the consciousness itself.) In the next section we
turn the discussion the other way round: if mind is irrelevant to quantum
mechanics, is quantum mechanics also irrelevant to mind? In Mulhauser, 1995,
I state this side of the discussion without argument--that quantum mechanics
simply was utterly irrelevant to philosophy of mind--but here we take up the
argument explicitly.
===============================================
The above was copied from :
Copyright (c) Gregory R. Mulhauser 1995
PSYCHE, 2(5), May 1995
http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-05-stapp.html
The apparent loss of the significance of the observer that is postulated in
this article is a death-blow to the effort to raise consciousness (pun
intended) above the level of biological accident or self-deluding
neurological process. I have a comment to make, the assumption that quantum
states, as a result of the realization of the process of dechoherence, do
not require observation in order for the wavestate to collapse and a given
state of reality to resolve is in error. Or, at least, the fundamental
assumption that underline's it is. The entire argument of the Observer
Paradox operates on the assumption that:
A) "I" am the observer in question. "I" being me, you or some other human
being (preferably a physicist)
B) The Observer is conscious of the observation. What percentage of events
in a given historical period of your past years experience are you conscious
of? What percentage of what is happening right now, at this moment, are you
conscious of? What percentage of that information stream is your
sub-conscious/un-conscious registering?
C) Consciousness is the sole property of Physicists (and possibly humans in
general).
D) The apparent ability of the universe to "monitor" or observe quantum
events is NOT a function of consciousness. (Hey, did you catch that Muon
decaying the other day?)
What if consciousness is not the sole property of physicists? What if
the universe itself is conscious? What if humans ...er...ah...I mean
physicists are conscious of far more that they are directly aware of? Humans
are not observers of quantum events, I personally (although I am not a
physicist) have never taken note of the state change of a given proton. What
does that look like anyway? We, as observers would only observe state
changes on a macroscopic scale, such as the letters appearing as I type or
the coffee getting colder. These wavestates are collections of individual
wavestates that is far to vast to calculate, according to the article, and
therefore we cannot "prove" (yet) anything regarding them. the article
further states that we can not derive a given Eigenstate of a sub-system of
any macroscopic system as the complexity is to great. Yet I observe that
this is happening. the particles that comprise the screen that I am
Observing are collapsing into the given Eigenstate that represents the
letter "L" as typed, on this screen. this involves a great deal of detail
but has occurred nonetheless. I have Observed this event and the details of
the event are contained implicitly in the final outcome of the event and are
available for "Observation". In "The User Illusion" by Torr Norretranders,
he (Torr Norretranders) makes the point that what "I" am "Conscious" of is a
product of an "editing" process that results in the information that I
observe. this "editing" process is performed during a 1/3 of a second delay
by the ...brain?. It is just as likely that the detailed information
regarding the Wavestate of constituent particles was observed by the
unconscious mind (only considered so due to the fact that "I" am not
directly aware of that part of my internal make-up) and discarded as
spurious. Of course, there is the possibility that consciousness extends
beyond the realm of physicists, I suppose.
Just an unqualified observation of a non-physicist.
The website in the title of this post is the home page of the author.
I recently posted this to news://Alt.Consciousness :
Conscious observers have lost their monopoly on acquiring and storing
information. The environment can also monitor a system, and...such
monitoring causes decoherence, which allows the familiar approximation known
as classical objective reality--a perception of a selected subset of all
conceivable quantum states evolving in a largely predictable manner--to
emerge from the quantum substrate. (Zurek, 1991, p. 44)
3.8 Hopefully it is apparent from this discussion of interactive decoherence
that the first category of quantum theories of mind we mentioned above,
those which appeal to minds as causal factors or determinants in reducing
the state vector descriptions of appropriate hardware or wetware, have lost
any support they may have enjoyed from more traditional quantum measurement
theory. On the modern view, interactive decoherence would occur even if
there were not a single conscious observer in the cosmos. (And, likewise,
when a conscious observer is involved, selection of the basis states takes
place because of the nonseparable correlations introduced by the measurement
process and not because of the consciousness itself.) In the next section we
turn the discussion the other way round: if mind is irrelevant to quantum
mechanics, is quantum mechanics also irrelevant to mind? In Mulhauser, 1995,
I state this side of the discussion without argument--that quantum mechanics
simply was utterly irrelevant to philosophy of mind--but here we take up the
argument explicitly.
===============================================
The above was copied from :
Copyright (c) Gregory R. Mulhauser 1995
PSYCHE, 2(5), May 1995
http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-05-stapp.html
The apparent loss of the significance of the observer that is postulated in
this article is a death-blow to the effort to raise consciousness (pun
intended) above the level of biological accident or self-deluding
neurological process. I have a comment to make, the assumption that quantum
states, as a result of the realization of the process of dechoherence, do
not require observation in order for the wavestate to collapse and a given
state of reality to resolve is in error. Or, at least, the fundamental
assumption that underline's it is. The entire argument of the Observer
Paradox operates on the assumption that:
A) "I" am the observer in question. "I" being me, you or some other human
being (preferably a physicist)
B) The Observer is conscious of the observation. What percentage of events
in a given historical period of your past years experience are you conscious
of? What percentage of what is happening right now, at this moment, are you
conscious of? What percentage of that information stream is your
sub-conscious/un-conscious registering?
C) Consciousness is the sole property of Physicists (and possibly humans in
general).
D) The apparent ability of the universe to "monitor" or observe quantum
events is NOT a function of consciousness. (Hey, did you catch that Muon
decaying the other day?)
What if consciousness is not the sole property of physicists? What if
the universe itself is conscious? What if humans ...er...ah...I mean
physicists are conscious of far more that they are directly aware of? Humans
are not observers of quantum events, I personally (although I am not a
physicist) have never taken note of the state change of a given proton. What
does that look like anyway? We, as observers would only observe state
changes on a macroscopic scale, such as the letters appearing as I type or
the coffee getting colder. These wavestates are collections of individual
wavestates that is far to vast to calculate, according to the article, and
therefore we cannot "prove" (yet) anything regarding them. the article
further states that we can not derive a given Eigenstate of a sub-system of
any macroscopic system as the complexity is to great. Yet I observe that
this is happening. the particles that comprise the screen that I am
Observing are collapsing into the given Eigenstate that represents the
letter "L" as typed, on this screen. this involves a great deal of detail
but has occurred nonetheless. I have Observed this event and the details of
the event are contained implicitly in the final outcome of the event and are
available for "Observation". In "The User Illusion" by Torr Norretranders,
he (Torr Norretranders) makes the point that what "I" am "Conscious" of is a
product of an "editing" process that results in the information that I
observe. this "editing" process is performed during a 1/3 of a second delay
by the ...brain?. It is just as likely that the detailed information
regarding the Wavestate of constituent particles was observed by the
unconscious mind (only considered so due to the fact that "I" am not
directly aware of that part of my internal make-up) and discarded as
spurious. Of course, there is the possibility that consciousness extends
beyond the realm of physicists, I suppose.
Just an unqualified observation of a non-physicist.
The website in the title of this post is the home page of the author.
posted by tptorpey at Wednesday, January 14, 2004
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