Quantum Superposition

Quantum Superposition 97-98-99 by Eldon New

From a deep materialist viewpoint the mind is considered epiphenomena of biological processes. From a mystical standpoint, the material world is a side effect of the mind.

Quantum theory offers a model half way between the two extremes.

If we put together the Many Worlds model, the transactional model of quantum theory, the notion of attractors in phase space, and the neural net training model, it seems that the mathematical descriptions of particles and thoughts have something in common.

This paper has three parts:

(A) The implications of the many worlds, (or parallel universes model), on the interpretation of quantum electrodynamics. The recently developed quantum computers strengthen the argument for interpreting physical phenomena as superpositions of infinitely many universes.

(B) The application of quantum theory to the understanding of mental processes.

(C) A new approach to the mind-body problem.

Part A

The physical universe results form a superposition of states of millions of possibilities. Whether you start with a particle model or a wave model.

superposition principle: The general idea that, when a number of influences are acting on a system, the total influence on that system is merely the sum of the individual influences; that is, influences governed by the superposition principle add linearly. Some specific examples are: superposition principle of forces The net force on a body is equal to the sum of the forces impressed upon it. superposition principle of states The resultant quantum mechnical wavefunction due to two or more individual wavefunctions is the sum of the individual wavefunctions. superposition principle of waves The resultant wave function due to two or more individual wave functions is the sum of the individual wave functions.The laws list ,by Erik Max Francis

Probabilities imply multiple possible states.

The wave model of physics implies interference patterns.

To use the hologram metaphor, the universe is a composite of billions of views of reality superimposed. From any particular viewpoint, many of the patterns cancel out because of destructive interference. The patterns which interact constructively become the phenomena that we perceive.

In a similar way, the Newtonian consensus reality (a particle model) results from summing over all possible paths in Feynman's model of quantum electrodynamics.

"Interference phenomena are the result of causal contact between nearby universes. We have seen ... that even this miniscule level of contact can be used to exchange significant, computationally useful information between universes." Pg 318, "The Fabric of Reality," David Deutsch, 1997

"If you only want to predict what quantum computers will be able to do, you only need the equations of quantum mechanics. But if you want to explain how they will do it, you need to understand that the computer you can see and touch is only one tiny facet of a far larger object, which is just as real even though its existence is only detectable indirectly, through the computational work it does for us. It has the structure of many computers similar to the one we see, performing different computations which affect each other through quantum interference."

"In quantum computers, the effects of quantum interference are writ large. But the theory says that the whole of reality behaves in the same way. So the whole universe that we see around us is only a tiny facet of a much larger entity, the multiverse, which contains many universes like ours, interacting only through quantum interference. "

"Neither matter nor spirit but the invisible organization of energy." Heinz Pagels

Einstein put down the pickle, and, manic gleam in his eyes, quoth, "For rebelling against every form of authority Fate has punished me by making me an authority."(from Kent Kemish)

"This rigid determinism implied by Newton's laws promotes a sense of security about the place of humanity in the universe. All is independent of how we question it may have been instilled in him then . This early commitment to classical determinism was to be the theme of his [Einstein's] later opposition to the quantum theory, which maintains that fundamental atomic processes occur at random and that human intention influences the outcome of experiments." Heinz Pagels

We can determine that the Feynman path integral of physical particles in a system will allways evaluate to resultants which tend to converge toward a local attractor in phase space or Hilbert space.

"I pointed out there...that knowledge creation and biological evolution are physically significant processes. And one of the reasons was that those processes, and only those, have a particular effect on parallel universes - namely to create trans-universe structure by making them become more alike."Pg 317: Deutsch

Part B

The mind is seen as a higher order phenomenon, in a similar way that sounds have harmonic resonance in the higher octaves.

Superposition Breakthrough

(maybe a semantic breakthrough)

Recently, 11-19-2001, I was able to finish a conversation that was started over ten years ago.

If you take the two different views of reality,subjective "cogito ergo sum" of Descartes, and objective, the materialism of Newton, they can both coexist with the principle of superposition used in quantum electrodynamics.

The material world of "consensus reality" is the interference pattern of the sum of all individual, subjective, realities.

A kind of democracy in the parallel universes domain.

I envision the debates on campuses ten years from now: "Reality, subjective or objective",

and "Reality, illusion or fact?"

"What happens if we reject the pervasive knowledge-as-object (as 'third thing') metaphor and adopt, instead, an understanding of knowledge-as-action - or better yet, knowledge-as-(inter)action? Or, to frame it differently, what if we were to reject the 'self'-evident axiom that cognition is located 'within' cognitive agents who are cast as isolated from one another and distinct from the world, and insist instead that all cognition exists in the 'interstices' of a complex ecology of organismic relationality?"Cognition, Complexity, and Teacher Education" Davis and Sumara, Harvard Educational Review

The observer is necessary for observation, and for any phenomena.

The Quantum Conundrum, or the Whorf and Wolf ot the Universe

Fred Alan Wolf, in his books Taking the Quantum Leap and Star Wave, has developed some ideas about how the observer affects things by observing them.

When trying to describe his theories to someone I ran into semantic difficulties. It seems that the words "particle" and "wave" have different meanings depending on whether classical physics models inform your perceptions, or quantum theory.

Quantum theory moves beyond demanding that the photon exist as either a particle or a wave exclusively, to a position of describing an object as having both particle and wave qualities.

The Whorf Hypothesis suggests that the classical notion of a need to describe phenomena in terms of particles and waves was related to the subject verb structure of European languages. Well formed sentences in these languages usually have a subject, a verb and possibly an object.

The wave concept derived from an attempt to describe action and energy. The particle concept derives from the subject and object categories. In the quantum model, however, the statistical probability and the wave equation supplant the linguistic models and the mechanical visualizations of classical physics.

The Whorf Hypothesis assumes that language determines reality and the way we use language influences our perceptions. Whorf wrote in Language and Reality that the Hopi language seems more suited to describing notions of relativity and quantum theory than English. At the same time, since the Hopi language lacks a past tense and future tense, many ideas of the European world view prove impossible to formulate in that language.

One of Wolf's hypotheses was stated "We has met the hidden variables, and they is us", or the act of observation collapses the quantum wave function into an apparent particle. This has deep implications about how mind interacts with matter (if you don't buy the medieval notion of synchronized layers of mind and matter following preordained paths).

These two viewpoints promise to empower the individual, and they encourage us to reconsider any supposed limitations. They can be paradigm-shifting meta-concepts.

Part C

There are two discoveries in science which shed light on the connection between the realm of thought and the phenomena of objective physical reality.

"Mental events stimulate neural events through sudden changes in the quantum physical probability field and the timing of these events could be governed by quantum mechanical consideration."

There seems to be a quantum mechanical mechanism connecting the mind to the brain. The thoughts themselves tend toward archetypes that function as strange attractors in Hilbert space.

"Meta-level recursion (compression-expansion cycles) both randomizes and reinforces attractors. Attractors emerge from local and non-local parameters operating on a fixed rule set. Order accretes to attractors as the process evolves. Randomness is a function of parameters which are provided by the local and global space-time structure. Recursion is the process of expansion into space-time (randomness) and the subsequent compression back into force interactions of subspace rule sets (attractors). Relativity mediates the recursion via light-speed interactions." Swinton Roof, 3-17-2000

Sarfatti's work refers to an idea similar to this:

In the Neurocomputational Perspective by Churchland, a model of the development of thought from matter is described which starts with the assumption that thought derives from matter. Then a mechanism is developed to explain how this could happen. Sarfatti, on his Web page, starts with the opposite assumption, and then shows a possible mechanism by which it probably does work.

If we consider both of these assumptions about the possible connections between mind and matter, they do not seem contradictory, they even appear to reinforce each other.

Cognitive science's quantum connection relies mainly on radical 'first principles' deriving from either David Bohm or Alfred North Whitehead (the latter often through Roger Penrose's work). If one allows a door toward temporally rooted non-locality to be held open in either of these directions, what then enters from thermodynamics, biology, and phenomenology, can make a giant step for experience seem tantalizingly close.

fromThinking's Legacy and the Evolution of Experience,.Clifford J. Smoog

David Bohm, directly under Einstein’s influence at Princeton in 1951 or so, had an epiphany after writing his Copenhagen-based book, Quantum Theory, and realized that quantum reality has both thoughtlike and rocklike things. Bohr said it was impossible to visualize the motion of a tiny rocklike particle in quantum reality. Bohm proved Bohr wrong. Bohm’s thoughtlike thing is the quantum “pilot-wave”. His rocklike thing is the “hidden variable.Sarfatti

I had been aware that some physicists, like Fritjof Capra and Fred Alan Wolf, have noticed a parallel between ideas in oriental philosophy and modern quantum theory, but I was suprised to find the similarity approached for the other direction.

From Freedom In Exile, by Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet, 1990, HarperCollins Publishers, NY, NY

"Yet another area where I believe there is scope for dialoge between modern science and Tibetan culture concerns theoretical rather than experimental knowledge. Some of the latest discoveries of particle physics seem to point toward the non-duality of mind and matter. For example it has been found that if a vacuum (that is to say empty space) is compressed, particles appear where there were none before, matter being apparently inherent in some way. These findings would appear to offer an area of convergence between science and the Buddhist 'Madhyamika' theory of Emptiness."

The Tao of Physics, and Turning Point by ,Fritjof Capra discusses this idea.

Star Wave, The Body Quantum and others by Fred Alan Wolf go into interesting details.

Afterword

Cosmic Troubleshooting

Max Deason, Bruce Biles and I came up with a new problem solving technique I call "Cosmic Troubleshooting". It is a mixture of creative visualization, goal oriented behavior, and higher mathematics. You first visualize Hilbert space as the sum of all possible universes, then you visualize the goal you want to achieve (or problem as solved), then you visualize a path from the present circumstances to the goal in Hilbert space, then you focus in on the Next Step.

Max added, that if you assume the universe is continuous (as in Allen Watts analysis of Buddhist thought), then you can assume that there is a possible path from the present to the Goal which does not break any laws of science. (Actually, he said something to that effect.)

We further noted that frustration occurs when one's attention is at right angles to the path to the goal, as in a distracting sub-problem, and that faith can be (non-diestically) defined as the attempt to place the attention on the goal.

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In Quantum Reality, Beyond the New Physics. , by Nick Herbert, 1985, he lists several interpretations of quantum mechanics. Herbert lists eight different interpretations of quantum theory, and four different ways of calculating quantum mechanics. interpretations:

1:The Copenhagen interpretation ; There is no deep reality. Neils Bohr

2: The Copenhagen interpretation #2, "You create your own reality", Fred Wolf [this was in 85, before Wolf's more recent books]

3. Reality is an undivided wholness, ,Fritjof Capra and David Bohm

4. Many Worlds interpretation, Everett, Wheeler

5. Quantum Logic

6: neorealism. "Neorealists...accuse the orthodox majority of wallowing in empty formalism. and obscuring the world's simplicity with needless mystification."

"Chief among the Neorealist rebels was Einstein." Also included are Max Plank, De Broglie, and Schrodinger.

7 "Consciousness creates reality. Dennis Postle examines reality creating consciousness in 'Fabric of the universe'."

8, "The duplex world of Werner Heisenberg. (The world is twofold, consisting of potentialities and actualities)"

______
Methods of calculation:
Theory 1: Heisenberg's matrix mechanics
Theory 2: Schrodinger's wave mechanics
Theory 3: Dirac's transformation theory
Theory 4: Feynman's sum-over histories

Quantum Reality Beyond the New Physics...An excursion into metaphysics...and the meaning of reality Nick Herbert ISBN 0-385-23569-0

The Net Advance of Physics: PHILOSOPHY AND FOUNDATIONS OF PHYSICS

Symposium on Roger Penrose's Shadows of the Mind

Terms

"The Fabric of Reality," David Deutsch, 1997.

Freedom In Exile, by Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet, 1990, HarperCollins Publishers, NY, NY

superposition

Taknig A Quantum Leap... Fred Alan Wolf

Star*Wave....................... Fred Alan Wolf

Parallel Universes............. Fred Alan Wolf

Language and Reality........Benjamin Whorf

Chaos............................. James Gleick,

Synergetics.....................R. Buckminster Fuller

Godel Escher Bach..........Douglas Hofstadter

The Tao of Physics...........Fritjof Capra

Can Science Enlighten Us? Science, Spirituality and the Revelation of the unknown

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