The Quantum Observer and The Two Roles

I’m continuing our exploration on quantum physics and how, when understand the power we have to exceed our human potential; we will become empowered in our life.

Most readers will have heard of the Schroedinger equation: it is the quantum analog of Newton’s and Maxwell’s equations of motion of classical mechanics.

The Schroedinger equation, like Newton’s and Maxwell’s equations, is deterministic: given the motion of the quantum state for all times prior to the present, the motion for all future time is fixed, insofar as the Schroedinger equation is satisfied for all times.

However, the Schroedinger equation fails when an increment of knowledge occurs: then there is a sudden jump to a ‘reduced’ state, which represents the new state of knowledge. This jump involves the well-known element of quantum randomness.

A superficial understanding of quantum theory might easily lead one to conclude that the entire dynamics is controlled by just the combination of the local-deterministic Schroedinger equation and the elements of quantum randomness. If that were true then our conscious experiences would again become epiphenomenal side-shows.

To see beyond this superficial appearance one must look more closely at the two roles of the observer in quantum theory. Niels Bohr (1951, p.223), in recounting the important events at the Solvay Conference of 1927, says:  “On that occasion an interesting discussion arose also about how to speak of the appearance of phenomena for which only predictions of a statistical nature can be made.

The question was whether, as regards the occurrence of individual events, we should adopt the terminology proposed by Dirac, that we have to do with a choice on the part of ‘nature’ or, as suggested by Heisenberg, we should say that we have to do with a choice on the part of the ‘observer’ constructing the measuring instruments and reading their recording.”

Bohr stressed this choice on part of the observer: “…our possibility of handling the measuring instruments allow us only to make a choice between the different complementary types of phenomena we want to study.”

The observer in quantum theory does more than just read the recordings. He also chooses which question will be put to Nature: which aspect of nature his inquiry will probe. I call this important function of the observer ‘The Heisenberg Choice’, to contrast it with the ‘Dirac Choice’, which is the random choice on the part of Nature that Dirac emphasized.

According to quantum theory, the Dirac Choice is a choice between alternatives that are specified by the Heisenberg Choice: the observer must first specify what aspect of the system he intends to measure or probe, and then put in place an instrument that will probe that aspect.

In quantum theory it is the observer who both poses the question, and recognizes the answer. Without some way of specifying what the question is, the quantum rules will not work: the quantum process grinds to a halt. Nature does not answer, willy-nilly, all questions: it answers only properly posed questions.

A question put to Nature must be one with a Yes-or-No answer, or a sequence of such questions. The question is never of the form “Where will object O turn out to be?”, where the possibilities range in a smooth way over a continuum of values. The question is rather of a form such as: “Will the center of object O – perhaps the pointer on some instrument – be found by the observer to lie in the interval between 6 and 7 on some specified ‘dial’?”

The human observer poses such a question, which must be such that the answer Yes is experientially recognizable. Nature then delivers the answer, Yes or No. Nature’s answers are asserted by quantum theory to conform to certain statistical conditions, which are determined jointly by the question posed and the form of the prior state (of the body/brain of the observer.)

The observer can examine the answers that Nature gives, in a long sequence of trials with similar initial conditions, and check the statistical prediction of the theory.

This all works well at the pragmatic Copenhagen level, where the observer stands outside the quantum system, and is simply accepted for what he empirically is and does. But what happens when we pass to the vN/Wontology?

The observer then no longer stands outside the quantum system: he becomes a dynamical body/brain/mind system that is an integral dynamical part of the quantum universe.

The basic problem that originally forced the founders of quantum theory to bring the human observers into the theory was that the evolution of the state via the Schroedinger equation does not fix or specify where and when the question is posed, or what the question actually is. This problem was resolved by placing this issue in the hands and mind of the external human observer.

Putting the observer inside the system does not, by itself, resolve this basic problem: the Schroedinger evolution alone remains unable to specify what the question is. Indeed, this bringing of the human observer into the quantum system intensifies the problem, because there is no longer the option of shifting the problem away, to some outside agent. Rather, the problem is brought to a head, because the human agent is precisely the quantum system that is under investigation.

In the Copenhagen formulation the Heisenberg choice was made by the mind of the external human observer. I call this process of choosing the question the Heisenberg process. In the vN/W formulation this choice is not made by the local deterministic Schroedinger process and the global stochastic Dirac process. So there is still an essential need for a third process, the Heisenberg process. Thus the agent’s mind can continue to play its key role.

But the mind of the human agent is now an integral part of the dynamical body/brain/mind. We therefore have, now, an intrinsically more complex dynamical situation, one in which a person’s conscious thoughts can – and evidently must, if no new element is brought in,  – play a role that is not reducible to the combination of the Schroedinger and Dirac processes.

In an evolving human brain governed by ionic concentrations and electromagnetic field gradients, and other continuous field-like properties, rather than sharply defined properties, or discrete well-defined “branches” of the wave function, the problem of specifying, within this amorphous and diffusive context, the well-defined question that is put to nature is quite nontrivial.

Having thus identified this logical opening for efficacious human mental action, I now proceed to fill in the details of how it might work.

Learn how to apply this information directly to your life by picking up a copy of Develop the Mental Strength of a Warrior today!

Reference:

Attention, Intention, and Will in Quantum Physics – Henry P. Stapp, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory