Quantum Mechanics, Computers, and the Mind

2007 ◽  
pp. 103-126
Author(s):  
David H. Glass ◽  
Mark McCartney
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
The Mind

Contemporary Echoes of the World Soul

2021 ◽  
pp. 320-342
Author(s):  
Valia Allori
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Conscious Experience ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Quantum Theories ◽  
The World ◽  
The Hard Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Way

Quantum mechanics is a groundbreaking theory: it not only is extraordinarily empirically adequate but also is claimed to having shattered the classical paradigm of understanding the observer-observed distinction as well as the part-whole relation. This, together with other quantum features, has been taken to suggest that quantum theory can help one understand the mind-body relation in a unique way, in particular to solve the hard problem of consciousness along the lines of panpsychism. In this chapter, after having briefly presented panpsychism, Valia Allori discusses the main features of quantum theories and the way in which the main quantum theories of consciousness use them to account for conscious experience.

Quantum Metaphors and the Study of the Mind-Brain

1998 ◽  
pp. 228-234
Author(s):  
Delores D. Liston
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Cartesian Dualism ◽  
Brain Physiology ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Participant Observer ◽  
The Brain

Although much of current neuroscience literature speaks of the mind-brain, most study of the mind-brain generally remains focused on either the mind (psychology, philosophy or sociology) or the brain (physiology). Neuroscientists continue to be hampered by Cartesian dualism and the divisions it creates. Even when we speak of the mind-brain, our attention tends to revert to either the mind or the brain. A similar problem faced physicists earlier this century during the rise of quantum mechanics. I believe that adopting metaphors from quantum physics can help us overcome the tendency to dichotomize our study of the mind-brain. In this paper, I explore some of these metaphors (such as the participant-observer and wave-particle unity) to help establish a set of sustainable metaphors within which we can unify our interpretations of the mind-brain.

scholarly journals Towards a quantum-like cognitive architecture for decision-making

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catarina Moreira ◽  
Lauren Fell ◽  
Shahram Dehdashti ◽  
Peter Bruza ◽  
Andreas Wichert
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Cognitive Architecture ◽  
Decision Models ◽  
Classical Models ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Computational Resources

Abstract We propose an alternative and unifying framework for decision-making that, by using quantum mechanics, provides more generalised cognitive and decision models with the ability to represent more information compared to classical models. This framework can accommodate and predict several cognitive biases reported in Lieder & Griffiths without heavy reliance on heuristics or on assumptions of the computational resources of the mind.

The Quantum World

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-60
Author(s):  
A. James Melnick ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Cosmological Constant ◽  
Albert Einstein ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Anthropic Reasoning ◽  
The Mind

Scientific measurements of fine-tuning factors, especially the cosmological constant, have forced non-theists to fall back on anthropic reasoning and multiverse theories to try to explain away the implications of a theistically-designed universe. Whatever its other uses, employing anthropic reasoning in this way is questionable. It is unscientific to posit trillions upon trillions of universes--as many multiverse proponents and string theorists do--in order to try to explain away the fine-tuned existence of our own. Albert Einstein would likely dismiss many current multiverse theories. Yet, might we still live in a multiversal reality? This essay posits such a reality--a Triverse--as a more parsimonious view over popular multiverse theories. The proposed Triverse has some similarity to, but is distinct from, Roger Penrose’s “three worlds” in his Shadows of the Mind. A multiversal Triverse reality might also eventually be reconciled with some of the evidence and indicators that support quantum mechanics, and thus help define a more deterministic universe.

scholarly journals Neutral monism in modern philosophy and physics

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-140
Author(s):  
Slobodan Perovic
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Body Problem ◽  
Niels Bohr ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Philosophical View ◽  
Ernst Mach ◽  
Neutral Monism ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Principle Of Complementarity

Philosophers have substantially considered the key ideas of Neutral Monism, a philosophical view attempting to overcome the Mind/Body problem, as it was initially developed by Ernst Mach and Bertrand Russell. Yet similar ideas are also found in some key considerations of a few prominent physicists who developed quantum mechanics, although philosophers have neglected them. We will show that Niels Bohr?s principle of complementarity (of the particle and wave aspects of microphysical phenomena) is a gradually developed and experimentally motivated account very close to Russell?s and Mach?s key ideas on Neutral Monism.

Paul Dirac: Building Bridges of the Mind

2004 ◽  
Vol 19 (supp01) ◽  
pp. 9-20
Author(s):  
Laurie M. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Physical Intuition ◽  
Mathematical Beauty ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Original Thinker

Paul Dirac was a brilliant and original thinker. He used his physical intuition and his ideal of mathematical beauty to construct bridges between major areas of physics. This article discusses several such important works, including the bridge between quantum mechanics and relativity that led to his prediction of the existence of antimatter.

In Support of Whitehead’s Time

KronoScope ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-45
Author(s):  
Rémy Lestienne
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Body Problem ◽  
Alfred North Whitehead ◽  
Philosophy Of Nature ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Deterministic Behavior

Abstract In 1911, Alfred North Whitehead has a brainstorm: if we deny the reality of the instant, many problems of the philosophy of nature seem solved. His metaphysics, however, will wait until his moving to Harvard, in 1924, to mature. Besides his denial of the instants of time and the replacement of the concept of time by that of “process,” Whitehead articulates new concepts (concrescence, prehension) to account for the crystallization of successive empirical realities, the solidarity between events, the permanence of objects, and their deterministic behavior altogether. His views of nature fit well with both quantum mechanics and relativity theories, although not in the details of the latter. But one of his largely unnoticed merits, in my view, is to reopen the question of free will in the mind-body problem.

scholarly journals SENSIBLE QUANTUM MECHANICS: ARE PROBABILITIES ONLY IN THE MIND?

1996 ◽  
Vol 05 (06) ◽  
pp. 583-596 ◽  
Author(s):  
DON N. PAGE
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Positive Operator ◽  
Expectation Values ◽  
Quantum Probabilities ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Single Set ◽  
Ordinary Quantum

Quantum mechanics may be formulated as Sensible Quantum Mechanics (SQM) so that it contains nothing probabilistic except conscious perceptions. Sets of these perceptions can be deterministically realized with measures given by expectation values of positive-operator-valued awareness operators. Ratios of the measures for these sets of perceptions can be interpreted as frequency-type probabilities for many actually existing sets. These probabilities generally cannot be given by the ordinary quantum “probabilities” for a single set of alternatives. Probabilism, or ascribing probabilities to unconscious aspects of the world, may be seen to be an aesthemamorphic myth.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document