Consciousness and Endogenous State Reduction: Two Experiments

Consciousness: The rules of engagement

We examine the role of a conscious observer in a typical quantum mechanical measurement. Four rules are given that govern stochastic choice and state reduction in several cases of continuous and intermittent observation. It is found that consciousness always accompanies a state reduction leading to observation, but its presence is not sufficient to 'cause' a reduction. The distinction is clarified and codified by the rules that are given below. This is the first of several papers that lead to an experimental test of the rules, and of the "parallel principle" that is described elsewhere. Key wo…

Toy observer in unitary evolution: Histories, consciousness, and state reduction

For a toy version of a quantum system with a conscious observer, it is demonstrated that the many-worlds problem is solved by retreating into the conscious subspace of an entire observer history. In every step of a discretised time, the observer tries to "see" records of his past and present in a coherent temporal sequence, by scanning through a temporal fine-graining cascade. The extreme most likely occurs at the end of some branch, thus determining observer's world line. The relevant neurons, each with two dimensions, are power-law distributed in number, so order statistics implies that cons…

Schrodinger's cat: The rules of engagement

In a previous paper we examined the role of a conscious observer in a typical quantum mechanical measurement. Four rules were given that were found to govern the stochastic choice and state reduction in several cases of continuous and intermittent observation. It was shown that consciousness always accompanies a state reduction leading to observation, but its presence is not sufficient to 'cause' a reduction. The distinction is clarified and codified by the rules that are repeated below. In this paper, these rules are successfully applied to two different versions of the Schrodinger cat experi…

The Parallel Principle

Von Neumann's psycho-physical parallelism requires the existence of an interaction between subjective experiences and material systems. A hypothesis is proposed that amends physics in a way that connects subjective states with physical states, and a general model of the interaction is provided. A specific example shows how the theory applies to pain consciousness. The implications concerning quantum mechanical state creation and reduction are discussed, and some mechanisms are suggested to seed the process. An experiment that tests the hypothesis is described elsewhere. Key Words: von Neumann,…

Emergent Consciousness: From the Early Universe to Our Mind

In a previous paper (gr-qc/9907063) we described the early inflationary universe in terms of quantum information. In this paper, we analize those results in more detail, and we stress the fact that, during inflation, the universe can be described as a superposed state of quantum registers. The self-reduction of the superposed quantum state is consistent with the Penrose's Objective Reduction (OR) model. The quantum gravity threshold is reached at the end of inflation, and corresponds to a superposed state of 10^9 quantum registers. This is also the number of superposed tubulins-qubits in our b…

意识在物理世界中的因果效力

Causal potency of consciousness in the physical world

本文证明经典物理框架下心智功能理论必然导致意识因果失效，并提出将意识等同于大脑量子态、借连续量子测量生成随机动力学的量子还原论，以支持意识因果效力与自由意志。