Quantum will

Physics in our days is at the front of public attention. It promises to answer the most fundamental questions and we are eager waiting for every new discovery. Quantum theory – with its weird effects and paradoxes (and still being useful despite that!) – is especially popular. Many speakers and bloggers use entanglement, quantum leap, and teleportation to prove their points of view, usually very inspirational and exciting. Some people even build a whole theory of consciousness and free will based on all that. For me, such attempts always looked naive and misplaced. But recently, after reading about von Neumann’s Chain, I got caught in by the desire to explain the free will using quantum physics too. Here how it looked.

The essence of von Neumann’s Chain narrows down to the conjecture that the isolated measuring device (Geiger counter, for example) does not collapse the wavefunction, but gets into a superposition state with the measured object instead, thus becoming part of the quantum system it measures. So, it is in the state of yes/no or up/down or whatever until an observer (with consciousness) reads the results of the measurement and (according to the Copenhagen interpretation) “collapses” the wavefunction that described the state of the quantum system (that includes the measured object and all the devices involved). (I apologize for so many undefined words, but it would take a lot of time to explain all of them, while it is not important for the story).

Von Neumann (one of the greatest minds in physics) thought so and came to the conclusion that only an observer with consciousness causes the collapse at the end of the Chain “measured object => device => consciousness.” That’s how (according to the Copenhagen interpretation) an act of a measurement happens and the superposition of quantum states resolves into one state that we get as the concrete result of the experiment.

I grabbed this idea and ran with it. Such a genius as the von Neumann’s could not be wrong! So, I started to pull my own chain of connections (pun was intended): the evolution made us capable of resolving the superposition automatically – that is how we are able to make decisions and act, instead of remaining in the state of uncertainty (as an unconscious device does). We call this ability a free will.

I loved my theory so much that started to pile up new layers until I bumped into the question, why do we all see approximately the same reality? Where is the individual free will then? It is just an objective reality all over again. I could introduce the shared human consciousness – a field that connects all humans, etc… But then I started reading again and found the modern view on the von Neumann’s Chain.

It turned out that a new theory of decoherence took over (well, there are other interpretations, but I like this one the most) the explanation of the transition from the superposition to the specific result. According to this theory, a quantum system demonstrates wave-like behavior “as long as there exists a definite phase relation between different states” (so, the system remains coherent). Remember, I said that the device has to be isolated? In reality, such an isolation is next to impossible and can exist only a short time on a quantum level. Then interaction with the environment kicks in, the phase relation changes, deteriorates and disappears (and the wave behavior with it). That is what was tagged as “collapse of the wavefunction” before.

Which means that great von Neumann was wrong. And my theory of “quantum free will” fell apart completely. The only hope is that von Neumann’s intuition had a good reason to push him towards the image of the Chain, and after some time we will turn around and revisit it on a deeper level of our understanding how everything works. Such twists happened in science quite a few times before.

But for now, another mystery of quantum theory had been resolved for me, which discovery I have shared with you.

I have also found and answer to another question: why there are no Russian sources about von Neumann’s Chain? It seems that it puts consciousness in a privileged position and allows to talk about it as “creating reality” (and “man in our image, after our likeness”). That was, I think, the reason there was nothing written in Russian about von Neumann’s Chain in Soviet times, and later a new understanding has come.

And another interesting fact. Von Neumann described his Chain in the book “The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics” published in 1932. It influenced Schrödinger to come up with his paradox about a cat (that is alive and dead at the same time) in 1935. He used it an illustration of an absurdity of Copenhagen interpretation when it is applied to the everyday objects. He was correct, that interpretation does not work for “big” objects.

I wonder if we live up to the day when von Neumann’s Chain turns to be correct in some respects?

Try to find the very familiar person (you can see him in the news almost daily) on this picture (it is not a photoshop, just original work of Bosch). If you have found him, would not you agree it proves the time travel exists?

If you cannot find him, click here for a tip. Our people always kept an eye on unscrupulous manipulators. Or maybe worked or them? One shows tricks and distracts the audience, the second pulls the purse, and the third watches his back.

If you stiil not sure who is that, click here for the answer.