Summary of Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics: How are they related?

00:00:00 - 00:15:00

The video discusses the possible relationship between consciousness and quantum mechanics, with a focus on the idea that consciousness may cause the collapse of the wave-function. The video discusses the idea that one can formulate a collapse model based on this idea, which is a testable modification of quantum mechanics. However, the video concludes that if the model is tested, it will likely be ruled out as pseudoscience.

• 00:00:00 Quantum mechanics is the study of the behavior of matter and energy on the atomic and subatomic level. It is widely accepted that consciousness plays an important role in shaping the results of quantum experiments, but the precise nature of this connection has been a matter of debate for more than 100 years. Some physicists, like Von Neumann and Wigner, believed that consciousness is necessary to make sense of quantum mechanics, and that it can influence the outcome of a quantum experiment. Einstein, however, disagreed, arguing that quantum mechanics is inherently spooky and cannot be explained in terms of knowable reality. Bohr eventually won the argument, based on the idea that the wave function is nothing more than a description of what we know. However, Eugene Wigner was still troubled, believing that the concept of the wave function describing knowledge has a big problem. Wigner came up with the "Wigner's friend experiment" to illustrate this point. In this scenario, a particle is in a superposition of left and right, but the outcome of a measurement is known only to the observer. Wigner argued that it would be "absurd" if consciousness were in a superposition, and since no one knew just what caused a wave
• 00:05:00 The Wigner von Neumann interpretation of quantum mechanics is a complex and controversial theory that suggests that consciousness is related to the collapse of the wave-function. While the theory has been widely accepted by physicists, it has been met with criticism for being unnecessarily complicated and for being internally inconsistent. recent paper by two philosophers suggests that consciousness can be induced through systems that are "sufficiently conscious" in a quantifiable sense, and this model has the potential to address some of the issues with the Wigner von Neumann interpretation. While the paper is interesting, I believe that it is unnecessarily complicated and that the real cause of wave-function collapse is still unknown.
• 00:10:00 The mind-body problem is the question of how mind and body are related. In his essay "The Mind-Body Problem," physicist Richard P. Feynman wrote, "We do not know of any phenomenon in which one subject is influenced by another without exerting an influence thereupon." It's not a big step from there to conclude that if conscious knowledge can be influenced by the result of a quantum experiment, then your conscious knowledge can also influence the result of a quantum experiment. In the 1990s, scientists began conducting experiments claiming to find an influence of conscious thought on the outcome of quantum experiments. However, the results of these experiments have remained highly controversial and have not been reproduced. Additionally, the idea that your conscious attention somehow influences what a wave-function collapses into does not make sense.
• 00:15:00 The video discusses the possible relationship between consciousness and quantum mechanics, discussing the idea that consciousness may cause the collapse of the wave-function. It also discusses the idea that one can formulate a collapse model based on this idea, which is a testable modification of quantum mechanics. However, the video concludes that if the model is tested, it will likely be ruled out as pseudoscience.