The Myth of Quantum Consciousness :-
By, Victor J. Stenger
Published in The Humanist, May/June 1992, Vol. 53, Number 3, pp. 13-15.
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The myth of quantum consciousness sits well with many whose egos have made it impossible for them to accept the insignificant place science perceives for humanity, as modern instruments probe the farthest reaches of space and time. It was bad enough when Copernicus said that we were not at the center of the universe. It was worse when Darwin announced that we were not angels. But it became intolerable when astronomers declared that the earth is but one of a hundred billion trillion other planets, and when geologists demonstrated that recorded history is but a blink of time - a microsecond of the second of earth’s existence……
……quantum consciousness has about as much substance as the aether from which it is composed. Early in this century, quantum mechanics and Einstein’s relativity destroyed the notion of a holistic universe that had seemed within the realm of possibility in the century just past. First, Einstein did away with the aether, shattering the doctrine that we all move about inside a universal, cosmic fluid whose excitations connect us simultaneously to one another and to the rest of the universe. Second, Einstein and other physicists proved that matter and light were composed of particles, wiping away the notion of universal continuity. Atomic theory and quantum mechanics demonstrated that everything, even space and time, exists in discrete bits – quanta…..
When Newton was prompted to explain the nature of gravity in non-mathematical terms, he replied that gravity might be transmitted by an invisible aether. He further suggested that the aether also may be responsible for electricity, magnetism, light, radiant heat, and the motion of living things that he, like his contemporaries, thought was the consequence of some source beyond inanimate matter. Even today, despite thepreponderance of evidence unavailable to Newton that life is a purely material phenomenon, people still speak of immaterial, vital forces such a ch’i, ki, prana, and psychic energy which have no scientific basis. Newton also had proposed that vibrations of the aether might be excited by the brain. This speculation forms the conceptual foundation for the modern myth of quantum consciousness and the related belief that the human mind commands special powers - psychic forces - that transcend the material universe…..
Electromagnetic waves beyond the narrow spectrum of visible light were predicted and soon observed and put to use in “wireless telegraphy.” One of the early workers in wireless telegraphy was the English physicist Oliver Lodge. While making major contributions to physics and engineering, Lodge joined William Crookes, Alfred Russel Wallace (co-discoverer of evolution) and other notable nineteenth century scientists in searching for phenomena that transcended the world of matter. If wireless telegraphy was possible, why not wireless telepathy? If electrical circuits could generate and detect ethereal waves, why not the human brain?.......
Near the turn of the century, Michelson and Morley sought to find experimental evidence for the aether and succeeded in showing instead that it did not appear to exist. Shortly thereafter, in 1905, Einstein developed his theory of relativity which demonstrated that the concept of an aether was logically inconsistent with Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism. Einstein concluded that electromagnetic waves, including light, could not be the vibrations of an aether…
Einstein’s principle that no signals can move faster than light implies that separated events in the universe, even those an atomic diameter apart, cannot be simultaneously connected. This fundamentally contradicts the holistic view of an instantaneous interconnectedness among all things. Rather, relativity paints quite the opposite picture: a universe of localized particles that at any instant depend only on the other particles with which they are in direct contact. What is going on elsewhere in the universe at that instant can have no effect until the particles carrying the necessary information can get there, moving no faster than the speed of light. This is a far more complete form of reductionism than is present in pre-Einsteinian mechanics, where motions at superluminal or even infinite speeds were not ruled out by any known theory. Incompatible with the claims of the new holists, relativity not only supports the reductionist view - it makes it mandatory! A universal cosmic field like the aether, providing a mechanism for interconnectedness, requires a violation of Einstein’s relativity. But relativity has passed every experimental test that has been put to it since being introduced in 1905, so it cannot be casually discarded….
Now that the results are in, the new holists argue that relativity must yield, since quantum mechanics provides a mechanism by which signals can move faster than light. Quantum mechanics is indeed “spooky.” So, bring out the spooks! An ethereal, universal field that allows for the simultaneous connection between events everywhere in the universe must exist after all. Quantum mechanics is called on further to argue that the cosmic field, like Newton’s aether, couples to the human mind itself…..
……this seemingly profound association between quantum and mind is an artifact, the consequence of unfortunate language used by Bohr, Heisenberg and the others who originally formulated quantum mechanics. In describing the necessary interaction between the observer and what is being observed, and how the state of a system is determined by the act of its measurement, they inadvertently left the impression that human consciousness enters the picture to cause that state come into being. This led many who did not understand the physics, but liked the sound of the words used to describe it, to infer a fundamental human role in what was previously a universe that seemed to have need for neither gods nor humanity. If Bohr and Heisenberg had spoken of measurements made by inanimate instruments rather than “observers,” perhaps this strained relationship between quantum and mind would not have been drawn. For, nothing in quantum mechanics requires human involvement….
A careful analysis of the experiments that tested Bell’s theorem shows that the only objects that move faster than light are mathematical creations of our imagination, like the quantum wave function, which are not physical objects. It can be demonstrated that no signal carrying actual information moves faster than the speed of light. Neither conventional quantum mechanics nor Einstein’s relativity are violated.The overwhelming weight of evidence, from seven decades of experimentation, shows not a hint of a violation of reductionist, local, discrete, non-superluminal, non-holistic relativity and quantum mechanics - with no fundamental involvement of human consciousness other than in our own subjective perception of whatever reality is out there. Of course our thinking processes have a strong influence on what we perceive. But to say that what we perceive therefore determines, or even controls, what is out there is without rational foundation. The world would be a far different place for all of us if it was just all in our heads - if we really could make our own reality as the New Agers believe. The fact that the world rarely is what we want it to be is the best evidence that we have little to say about it. The myth of quantum consciousness should take its place along with gods, unicorns, and dragons as yet another product of the fantasies of people unwilling to accept what science, reason, and their own eyes tell them about the world.
