Piero Scaruffi

These are excerpts and elaborations from my book "The Nature of Consciousness"

The Pilot-Wave To explain the function of the quantum potential, Bohm introduced the notion of "active in-formation" (“information” as in "give form", for example to a particle's movement).  A particle is moved by whatever energy it has (for example, because a force is acting on it) but its movement is guided by the "in-formation" in the quantum field (in the “pilot-wave”). In Physics, a potential describes a field in terms of how, at each point in space, the particle located at that point will be affected by that field. In Newton's physics the effect of the classical potential on a particle is proportional to the magnitude of the field. Bohm thought that his quantum field, in particular, had to reflect whatever is going on in the environment, including the measuring apparatus. Therefore, the quantum potential depends only on the form, and not on the magnitude, of the quantum field. The “strength” of the quantum potential does not depend on the intensity of the wave but only on the form of the wave. Even a very weak quantum potential can affect the particle. Even a very distant event can affect the particle. The previous interpretations of Quantum Theory were trying to reconcile the traditional, classical concept of "measurement" (somebody who watches a particle through a microscope) with a quantum concept of "system". Bohm dispensed with the classical notion of "measurement": one cannot separate the measuring instrument from the measured quantity, as they interact all the time.  It is misleading to call this act "measurement". It is an interaction, just like any other interaction, and, as Heisenberg's principle states, the consequence of this interaction is not a measurement at all.       Back to the beginning of the chapter "The New Physics" | Back to the index of all chapters