These are excerpts and elaborations from my book "The Nature of Consciousness"
The Brain as a
Measurement Device Quantum Theory
is really about waves of possibilities.
A particle is described by a wave function as being in many possible
places at the same time. When the
particle is observed, its wave function "collapses" with definite
attributes, including the location it occupies, but such attributes cannot be
foreseen until they actually collapse.
In other words, the observer can only observe a quantum system after
having interfered with it. Von Neumann highlighted an inconsistency in the standard interpretation of
Quantum Theory: the objects to be observed are treated as quantum objects (or
waves), while the objects that observe (the instruments) are classical objects,
with a shape, a position and no wave.
The "measurer" is a natural object as much as the
"measured", but we grant it immunity from Quantum Theory. Von Neumann
objected to dividing the world into two parts that behaved differently. Quantum
Theory unequivocally states that everything is a quantum system, no matter how
small or big it is. On the other hand, if everything is a quantum system
regulated by a wave of possibilities, what makes it collapse? Von Neumann was
led again to postulate that something "different" from a quantum
system has the power to cause such a collapse, and that something had to be
human consciousness. Nothing in the world is real unless perceived by a mind,
as the British philosopher Berkeley had argued centuries before Von Neumann. What if we built
an instrument which is smaller than the system to be observed? What would be a
quantum system: the smaller or the bigger, the measurer or the measured? The range of
uncertainty of a particle is measured by Max Planck's constant. Because Planck's constant is so small, big
objects have a well-defined position and shape and everything. The features of
small objects such as particles are instead highly uncertain. Therefore, large
objects are granted an immunity from quantum laws that is based only on their
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