Quantum mysticism

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Quantum mysticism is the claim that the laws of quantum mechanics incorporate mystical ideas similar to those found in certain religious traditions or New Age beliefs. It is descended from the measurement problem – the seemingly special role which observers play in quantum mechanics. The related term quantum quackery has been used pejoratively by skeptics to discount claims that quantum theory might support mystical beliefs, while quantum mysticism has been used as a more neutral description of ideas that blend the ideas of eastern mysticism and quantum physics. It should be noted that the laws of quantum physics allow by calculation the prediction of observables, which can be tested in repeated experiments to a very high precision. This is a property shared with all other physical theories, but not with mystical beliefs.

Parallels with mysticism were first drawn by the founders of quantum mechanics, most notably Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli, Niels Bohr, and Eugene Wigner. Nevertheless, critics such as science fiction writer Greg Egan and author Margaret Wertheim, along with many scientists, have opined that quantum mysticism is a hijacking of quantum physics by ill-informed purveyors of pseudo-science.

History

In many mystical traditions, the conscious mind is seen as a separate entity, existing in a realm not described by physical law. Some people claim that this idea gains support from the description of the physical world provided by quantum mechanics .

The reason is that quantum mechanics requires interpretation before it describes the experience of an observer. While particles and fields are described by a wavefunction, the results of observations are described by classical information which tells you the result. The information about observations is not in the wavefunction, but is additional random data. The wavefunction only gives the probability of getting different outcomes, and it only turns into a particular value when it is measured.

The nature of observation has often been a point of contention in quantum mechanics, because quantum mechanics describes the experiences of observers with different numbers than it uses to describe material objects. With the exception of Louis DeBroglie and Albert Einstein, who believed that quantum mechanics was a statistical approximation to a deeper reality which is deterministic, most of the founders of quantum mechanics believed that this problem is purely philosophical. Eugene Wigner went further, and explicitly identified it as a quantum version of the mind/body problem .

Mind/body problem in Newtonian mechanics

Within Newtonian mechanics, the question of consciousness does not seem as obviously mysterious, because the content of a mind might be identified with the position and velocity of the atoms of the brain. Knowing the state of the atoms determines the future, so in a verificationalist sense it determines all measurable aspects of conscious behavior. But even in a Newtonian universe, there are philosophical doubts. The atoms which constitute the brain do not stay the same, and in certain contrived thought experiments, the identification of mind and brain can become confused.

For example, when a conscious Newtonian observer is duplicated, by copying all the atoms relative positions and velocities, it is not obvious which way the stream of conscious experience for the observer will go. If the consciousness only goes one way, the duplicate will be left a philosophical zombie, without a consciousness of its own. But if the consciousness goes both ways, both observers start off in the same state, so that the subjective experience of the consciousness after the split requires an extra bit of information to describe--- the bit which tells you which path the consciousness will take. The value of this bit is subjectively very important for the duplicated--- it predicts the future--- but this bit is not in the positions and velocities of the atoms .

Observation in quantum mechanics

Unlike classical mechanics, in quantum mechanics, there is no naive way of identifying the true state of the world, in particular, the state of observers is indefinite. The quantum mechanical wavefunction spreads out describing an ever larger superposition of different worlds. An observer observing a superposition can be described by a superposition of different observers seeing different things, but in actual experience, an observer never feels a superposition, but always feels that one of the outcomes has occurred with certainty. This apparent conflict between a wavefunction description and classical experience is called the problem of observation, and it was apparent to the early founders of quantum mechanics. Each one had a different opinion about the resolution:

Albert Einstein, and with him Louis DeBroglie and later David Bohm, believed that quantum mechanics was incomplete, that the wavefunction was only a statistical description of a deeper structure which was deterministic. Einstein saw quantum mechanics as analogous to statistical mechanics, and the wavefunction just a peculiar statistical device for observers who are ignorant of the values of the hidden variables underneath. This point of view makes the extra information not at all mysterious--- the results of observations are simply revealing the values of the hidden variables. In 1964, John Bell realized that local hidden variables set a limit on the degree to which the results of distant experiments can be correlated, a limit which is violated in quantum mechanics. The experimental observation of violations of Bell's inequality showed that the original local hidden variables of Einstein Podolski and Rosen could not be correct. Non-local hidden variables are still a possibility, and David Bohm was able to explicitly formulate a nonlocal theory which reproduces the predictions of quantum mechanics. But nonlocal theories are very arbitrary, and the new variables in Bohm's theory are inaccessible to experiments. So most physicists do not accept hidden variable interpretations as compelling..

Niels Bohr believed that quantum mechanics was a complete description of nature, but that it was simply a language ill suited to describing the world of everyday experience, and that in the human realm experiences were described by classical mechanics and by probability. This point of view, the Copenhagen interpretation, was shared by Max Born and Werner Heisenberg and became the standard view. It requires a demarcation line, a boundary, above which an object would cease to be quantum and would start to be classical. Bohr never specified this line precisely, since he believed that it was not a question of physics, but of pure philosophy. Von Neumann, in his analysis of measurements, interpreted the demarcation line as the point where wave-function collapse occurs, and he showed that within quantum mechanics, the point of collapse is largely arbitrary, past the first incoherent interaction with a complex enough object .

Eugene Wigner reformulated the Schrodinger's cat using a conscious observer, Wigner's friend. He concluded that the demarcation line which Bohr refused to specify was at the point of conscious experience. Wigner's position was that the wavefunction collapses because consciousness observes it, placing a non-scientific layer at the foundation of quantum mechanics, a non-scientific layer which could be interpreted as mystical, since it treats conscious observation as a separate ingredient.

Decoherence and modern interpretations

The physical aspects of the interpretation of quantum mechanics were clarified by Hugh Everett III, who proposed an entirely mechanistic interpretation. In Everett's description, the whole universe is an enormous wavefunction, describing a dizzying multiplying possibility of worlds. In this formalism, observers were to be treated as computers or as any other measuring device, their memories written out on magnetic tape . To understand their experiences, you would focus on the answer which these observers would give to questions asked by an external observer. Everett believed that this line of reasoning showed that any interpretational problems in quantum mechanics were entirely philosophical, because he could show that there was no conflict between deterministic evolution of the wavefunction with the subjective randomness experienced by the observers, when analyzed using the theory itself .

Since the physical description in Everett's picture is the deterministic wavefunction, the issue of interpretation is only relevant when analyzing the experience of an observer. The answer to the question "what does this observer see?" is only ambiguous to the extent that the specification of the observer is imprecise. An observer's state is a particular high dimensional projection of the wavefunction, but not all parts of the wavefunction describe a single observer – only those parts which describe a consistent past of memories. In Everett's picture, the interpretation is a clarification, it tells you which observer you are examining. But the description of the observer is now a major chunk of the description of the world--- it includes a lot of extra information not present in the original wavefunction.

This extra information includes most observable parameters in our universe. For example, if the universe started out perfectly homogeneous and isotropic, the universal wavefunction would still be homogeneous and isotropic. But for any observer, the description would be irregular describing a different pattern of galaxies, stars and planets. The information which specifies the observer specifies the positions of all those stars, the distance to Jupiter, the location of the moon in its orbit, the contents of today's newspaper, etc. None of this is in the universal wavefunction, that object is only a quantum superposition of all possible worlds. Most of the nontrivial information is in the history of past random events.

Everett's approach has been elaborated into a field of study called decoherence, which attempts to identify the way in which a classical world is embedded into quantum mechanics when the systems become large .

Mystical interpretations

The description of the observer in decoherence approaches, as in the Copenhagen approach, always involves extra information, the information which specifies the outcome of all the random events in the past. This information answers the question "which observer?" in many-worlds, and correspondingly answers the question "what outcomes of past measurements?" in Copenhagen.

The presence of large amounts of additional information has been interpreted as a possibly mystical component associated with consciousness, since it is data which is associated with the observer, not with the matter from which the observer is built. Since this includes most information about the universe, considering the quantum mechanical description to be complete leads to a very jarring reevaluation of the nature of the observer .

Consciousness causes collapse

"Consciousness causes collapse" is the name of an interpretation of quantum mechanics according to which observation by a conscious observer is the cause of wave function collapse.

The involvement of Consciousness has been summarized as follows:

The rules of quantum mechanics are correct but there is only one system which may be treated with quantum mechanics, namely the entire material world. There exist external observers which cannot be treated within quantum mechanics, namely human (and perhaps animal) minds, which perform measurements on the brain causing wave function collapse.

This interpretation attributes the process of wave function collapse (directly, indirectly, or even partially) to consciousness itself. However, it is not explained by this theory which things have sufficient consciousness to collapse the wave function ("Was the wave function waiting to jump for thousands of millions of years until a single-celled living creature appeared? Or did it have to wait a little longer for some highly qualified measurer - with a PhD?"). Until the Hard problem of consciousness is solved, it is undefined what could or could not have consciousness. It could be that measuring devices might also turn out to be considered conscious by this definition.

Consciousness causes collapse can be seen as a proposed answer to the Wigner's friend thought experiment by asserting that collapse occurs at the first "conscious" observer.

Wigner believed that consciousness is necessary for the collapse process. See Consciousness and measurement. There are several possible ways to explain the Wigner's friend thought experiment, some of which do not require consciousness to be different from physical processes. See, Consciousness and Superposition and Wigner's friend in Many Worlds.

Recent study of quantum decoherence reduces the emphasis on the "macroscopic observer" originally introduced in the language of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory for most systems. Quantum decoherence does not apply to systems governed by a quantum control such as the Schrödinger's cat experiment, or as proponents of CCC postulate, the human brain. Modern scientific discourse has evolved to try to quantify how quantum systems decohere due to their interactions with their surroundings. This provides a unified view which treats neighboring quantum systems, thermal baths and the measurement apparatus on the same footing. Although decoherence gives new insight on how quantum mechanics gives rise to the classical world in general, decoherence is not a philosophy and it does not claim to give a resolution to the philosophical aspects of the problem of measurement.

Popularization

These counterintuitive aspects of quantum physics were popularized in the 1970s with Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics, in which he explores the parallels between quantum physics and principles in Eastern mystical teachings. This was taken up in the 1980s by Hindutva pseudoscience, which extrapolated on the statements of Vivekananda, claiming that "the conclusions of modern science are the very conclusions the Vedanta reached ages ago". It conflated concepts from physics like gravitation, electricity, magnetism and other forces with the mystical Vedantic notion of Prana.

Similarly, the 2004 film What the Bleep Do We Know!? made controversial use of ideas about quantum mechanics, among other sciences, in a New Age context.

Theories of quantum mind have given rise to concepts like quantum meditation, positing a scientific basis for meditation practices not supported by mainstream science. Among these is quantum healing, which claims that through quantum mechanical effects, the mind can heal the body. Quantum healing invokes quantum entanglement and the observer effect to argue that the consciousness of a healer could impact the body of another person. There are several contemporary new-age practices in this category, including Matrix Energetics, Quantum-Touch, and Quantum Energetics.

Rejections by physicists and mystics

Several of the founders of quantum physics were interested in the link between quantum mechanics and mysticism, including Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Eugene Wigner and Erwin Schrödinger. They felt that quantum mechanics required a subtle reexamining of the role of conscious experience in the physical world.

Unlike them, the British physicist Sir Arthur Eddington rejected the notion that mysticism and physics had anything more than a metaphorical relationship. Eddington explained the temptation and why he felt it should be avoided: "We should suspect an intention to reduce God to a system of differential equations. That fiasco at any rate must be avoided. However much the ramifications of physics may be extended by further scientific discovery, they cannot from their very nature the background in which they have their being."

Responding to results of violations of Bell's inequality, results which cast doubt on hidden-variable interpretations, physicist Heinz Pagels explicitly rejected any link between the supernatural phenomenon often associated with mysticism and quantum mechanics, writing:

"Some recent advocates of Bell's work when confronted with Bell's inequality have gone on to claim that telepathy is verified or the mystical notion that all parts of the universe are instantaneously interconnected is vindicated. Others assert that this implies communication faster than the speed of light. That is rubbish; the quantum theory and Bell's inequality imply nothing of this kind. Individuals who make such claims have substituted a wish-fulfilling fantasy for understanding. If we closely examine Bell's experiment we will see a bit of sleight of hand by the God that plays dice which rules out actual nonlocal influences. Just as we think we have captured a really weird beast--like acausal influences--it slips out of our grasp. The slippery property of quantum reality is again manifested."

Likewise some mystics doubt that quantum physics and mysticism describe the same realm. Tom Huston, in a review on the quantum mystical film What the Bleep Do We Know!? for What is Enlightenment? Magazine wrote:

"Quantum physics deals with the abstract, symbolic analysis of the physical world—space, time, matter, and energy—even down to the subtlest level, the quantum vacuum. Mysticism deals with the direct apprehension of the transcendent Source of all those things. The former is a mathematical system involving intensive intellectual study, and the latter is a spiritual discipline involving the transcendence of the intellectual mind altogether. It's apparently only a very loose interpretation of physics, and a looser interpretation of mysticism, that allows for their surprising convergence—and opens the door to the even wilder idea that by drinking some of this quantum mystical brew, you'll be able to create your own reality.

Parodies

In 1998 Deepak Chopra was awarded the parody Ig Nobel Prize in physics for "his unique interpretation of quantum physics as it applies to life, liberty, and the pursuit of economic happiness.". He received this 'honour' for such writing as:

Quantum healing is healing the bodymind from a quantum level. That means from a level which is not manifest at a sensory level. Our bodies ultimately are fields of information, intelligence and energy. Quantum healing involves a shift in the fields of energy information, so as to bring about a correction in an idea that has gone wrong. So quantum healing involves healing one mode of consciousness, mind, to bring about changes in another mode of consciousness, body.
— Deepak Chopra

Quantum philosophy

In addition to mystical adaptations of quantum theory, postmodern/poststructuralist thinkers have been criticised for pseudoscientific references to quantum mechanics. An example was in the Sokal Affair of 1996, where Alan Sokal published a tongue-in-cheek paper entitled Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity (which refers to quantum gravity, an extension of quantum theory) in the postmodernist journal Social Text. The editors' acceptance of the nonsensical article earned them the 1996 parody Ig Nobel Prize. Sokal, with Jean Bricmont, went on to make a serious critique of the use of science by postmodern thinkers in their book Fashionable Nonsense.

Notes

Quantum Quackery Victor J. Stenger Skeptical Inquirer magazine, January/February 1997
The Yogi and the Quantum Robert Crease and Charles Mann, Philosophy of Science and the Occult, SUNY Press, ISBN 0791402045
By Michel Bitbol, Olivier Darrigol, Erwin Schrödinger,Institut autrichien de Paris
from "Quantum theory has led the physicists far away from the simple materialistic views that prevailed in the natural science of the nineteenth century" Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy, (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, (1962), 128
"I confess, that very different from you, I do find sometimes scientific inspiration in mysticism … but this is counterbalanced by an immediate sense for mathematics." -- W. Pauli, from
John Honner (2005). "Niels Bohr and the Mysticism of Nature". Zygon Journal of Science and Religion. 17–3: 243–253.
Byrne, Jeremy G. (1993-01). "An Interview with Greg Egan". Eidolon. 11: 18–30. Retrieved 2008-03-09. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
Wertheim, Margaret (2004-06-10). "Quantum Mysticism". LA Weekly. LA Weekly, LP. Retrieved 2008-03-09. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Park, Robert L. (2000). Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. p. 39. ISBN 0-19-513515-6. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Gell-Mann, Murray (1995). The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and Complex. Macmillan. p. 168. ISBN 0805072535. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Bell, J. S. (1988). Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics. Cambridge University Press. p. 170. ISBN 0521523389. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Wigner "Mind Body question": "The present writer has no other qualification to offer his views than has any other physicist and he believes that most of his colleagues would present similar opinions on the subject, if pressed"
This is an abbreviated paraphrase of the section entitled "The Language of Quantum Mechanics" in Wigner "Remarks on the Mind-Body Question"
Roger Balian, in :Cini Levy-Leblond eds. "Quantum Theory without reduction" states (p.89): "Ever since the beginning of quantum mechanics, the measurement problem has been a subject of sometimes discontinued but nevertheless recurrent concern"
Wigner, E. "Remarks on the Mind-Body Question", Symmetries and Reflections
For example, Wigner states in "Remarks on the mind body question":"Until not many years ago, the "existence" of a mind or soul would have been passionately denied by most physical scientists. The brilliant successes of mechanistic and, more generally, macroscopic physics and of chemistry overshadowed the obvious fact that thoughts, desires, and emotions are not made of matter, and it was nearly universally accepted among physical scientists that there is nothing beside matter. The epistome of this belief was the conviction that, if we knew the positions and velocities of all atoms at one instant of time, we could compute the fate of the universe for all future"
Daniel Dennett, Douglas Hofstadter, "The Mind's I"
Amir D. Aczel, "entanglement"
Although recently, the holographic principle of quantum gravity requires nonlocality for completely different reasons, which leads Gerard 't Hooft to propose that hidden variables should be revived. These hidden variables are different than Bohm's, since there would be too few of them to allow for quantum computation.
Von Neumann, J., "Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics"
More precisely: "It will suffice for his purposes that observers possess memories, i.e. parts of a relatively permanent nature whose states are in correspondence with the past experience of the observer", quoting Bohm/Hiley: What this means is that, as in a computer whose memories are contained in the state of a disc, some aspects of the physical state of the observer, presumably within his brain, serves as the basis of his memories" Bohm & Hiley p.297
De Witt, B. and Graham, M. "The Many Worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics", Princeton University Press
quoting Bohm/Hiley: It is evident that in a series of measurements, the number of partial awarenesses must multiply indefinitely. There are correspondingly many possible branches consisting of such sequences of partial awarenesses" p.299
Gell-Mann, M., "The Quark and the Jaguar", pp. 135-176
E.J. Squires "An Attempt to Understand the Many-worlds Interpretation of Quantum Theory", collected in M. Cini, J.M- Levy-Leblond eds. , Quantum Theory without Reduction", ,1990, pp. 151-161
Schreiber, Z. The Nine Lives of Schrödingers's Cat
Bell, J.S., 1981, Quantum Mechanics for Cosmologists. In C.J. Isham, R. Penrose and D.W. Sciama (eds.), Quantum Gravity 2: A second Oxford Symposium. Oxford: Clarendon Press, p.611.
lecture on The Vedanta delivered at Lahore on 12 November 1897; 1970, vol. 3, pp. 398f.
Johns Dobson-Vivekananda & Einstein
Hinduism & Quantum Physics
S. V. Raman, "Advaita Bhagwad Gita: its relevance in quantum meditation", Dilip 28.4, 2002; Tushar K. Ray, Quantum Meditation: A Novel Scientific Method for Developing Inner Balance and Harmony
^ Tom Huston, "Taking the Quantum Leap... Too Far?", What is Enlightenment? Magazine, Retrieved January 25, 2008
Sir Arthur Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (p 282) ISBN 1417907185
Heinz Pagels, The Cosmic Code ISBN 0671248022
The 1998 Ig Nobel Prize Winners

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