Notes on Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness

Human consciousness played a crucial a priori role in the discovery or creation of both classical and quantum mechanics, a role more fundamental than any a posteriori interplay between consciousness and these theories during experiments or measurements. Recent attempts to connect or reduce human consciousness to quantum mechanical processes often draw a sharp distinction between consciousness in classical versus quantum mechanics, emphasizing the exceptional character of the latter. However, the specific features consciousness may exhibit when interacting with quantum systems could have other explanations that are equally plausible and well founded.

Study at a glance

Abstract

There have lately been a variety of attempts to connect, or even explain, if not in fact, reduce human consciousness to quantum mechanical processes. Such attempts tend to draw a sharp and fundamental distinction between the role of consciousness in classical mechanics, and on the other hand, in quantum mechanics, with an insistence on the assumed exceptional character of the latter. What is strangely missed, however, is the role of human consciousness as such in the very discovery or creation of both of these physical theories. And this a priori role is far more important than all the possible a posteriori interplays between consciousness and the mentioned two theories of physics, interplays which may happen during one or another specific experiment, measurement, and so on. In this regard it is suggested that the specific features human consciousness may exhibit during interactions with quantum mechanical systems may as well have other explanations which do not appear to be less plausible, or less well founded.