The Myth of ‘The Myth of Quantum Consciousness’
Graham Smetham
Now let’s go through the woeful intellectually fraudulent materialist madness perpetrated by Victor J. Stenger in his article ‘The Myth of Quantum Consciousness’ and elsewhere.
In ‘The Myth of Quantum Consciousness’ Stenger begins by identifying the notion of the entanglement of consciousness and the quantum substrate with various ‘New Age’ type doctrines, he cites an article by Robert Lanza, ‘The Wise Silence’ which appeared in the Humanist magazine (November/December 1992). In this article, Lanza apparently writes that the quantum mechanical worldview entails that “We are all the ephemeral forms of a consciousness greater than ourselves.” Furthermore:
In Lanza’s interpretation, quantum mechanics tells us that all human minds are united in one mind and “the entities of and “the entities of the universe - electrons, photons, galaxies, and the like - are floating in a field of mind that cannot be limited within a restricted space or period. . .”
Such notions Stenger says:
…sound very much like the ideas of physicist and New Age guru Fritjof Capra…They also resonate with the “cosmic consciousness” promoted by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his transcendental Meditation movement. Like Lanza, these sages claim modern physics as their authority. The maharishi associates cosmic consciousness with the grand unified field of particle physics.
He then states that this “latest version of Hindu idealism is supposedly based on up-to-date scientific knowledge” and:
The assertion is made that quantum mechanics has ruled invalid the materialistic, reductionist view of the universe view introduced by Newton in the seventeenth century, which formed the foundation of the scientific revolution. Now materialism is replaced by a new spiritualism, and reductionism is cast aside by a new holism.
It is vital to be aware that Stenger is conflating two interrelated issues 1) the validity of materialism as a metaphysical doctrine as regards the ultimate constitution of the process of reality or whether the ultimate ‘stuff’ is more mind-like, and 2) whether quantum physics necessarily supports a ‘spiritual’ view of the universe.
If we take the first issue then my article and previous post indicates that crude materialism has certainly been invalidated by quantum physics. Here is another pertinent quote from Stapp; this is when he is discussing Dennett’s view that the ‘material’ brain somehow produces consciousness:
…no such brain exists; no brain, body, or anything else in the real world is composed of those tiny bits of matter that Newton imagined the universe to be made of.
[Stapp, Henry (2007). Mindful Universe. P139]
It is important to bear in mind here that Stapp is indicating that the ULTIMATE ‘stuff’ of reality is not Newtonian type ‘matter’ (which conceptually is the only type of ‘matter’ there is – ‘matter’ has not been redefined since Descartes, although physicists often use the term illicitly as if it has been redefined).
Now the recent Higgs discovery has certainly endorsed this view - because the material world has been shown to be manifested by interactions of immaterial quantum fields. Furthermore, quantum fields certainly must have a cognitive aspect, or a qualitative nature of consciousness, otherwise the operation of this ground level consciousness could not manifest the universe from the pool of quantum potentiality. This view is endorsed by all the assertions from various physicists given in my previous post, as well as Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow’s account of the development of our universe from quantum potentiality:
… the universe appeared spontaneously, starting off in every possible way. Most of these correspond to other universes …. Some people make a great mystery of this idea, sometimes called the multiverse concept, but these are just different expressions of the Feynman sum over histories.
[The Grand Design p136]
Universes ‘start off in every possible way’ from the possibilities in the ‘eternal’ quantum fields that underlie the process of our experience of reality. According to H & M:
We are the product of quantum fluctuations in the very early universe. [Grand Design p139]
So it would seem plausible that we should look to quantum field theory for clues as to the ultimate nature of reality, and according to a recent work on quantum theory by physicist Jonathan Allday:
…at the quantum level, the objects we study have no substance to them independent of their properties. [Quantum Reality p493]
In an article in the New Scientist (23rd June 2007) Michael Brooks, commenting on quantum entanglement experiments carried out by teams led by Markus Aspelmeyer of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna, tells us that the conclusion reached by the physicists involved is that:
…we now have to face the possibility that there is nothing inherently real about the properties of an object that we measure. In other words measuring those properties is what brings them into existence.
And Professor Vlatko Vedral remarked that:
Rather than passively observing it, we in fact create reality.
[Vlatko Vedral quoted in New Scientist 23rd June 2007]
The headline for the article proclaims that:
To track down a theory of everything, we might have to accept that the universe only exists when we are looking at it… [New Scientist 23rd June 2007]
Hawking and Mlodinow tell us in one of the central chapters in their book The Grand Design, which is entitled ‘Choosing Our Universe’:
The idea that the universe does not have a unique observer-independent history might seem to conflict with certain facts that we know. There might be one history in which the moon is made of Roquefort cheese. But we have observed that the moon is not made of cheese, which is bad news for mice. Hence histories in which the moon is not made of cheese do not contribute to the current state of our universe, though they might contribute to others. This might sound like science fiction but it isn’t.
[The Grand Design p140]
If this is true, and such a view conforms to the most significant approaches to quantum interpretation outlined in the previous post, then the fact that ‘observer-participation’ is responsible for ‘choosing’ which potentialities are manifested certainly suggests that an element of ‘design’ and ‘intelligence’ must be inherent in the process. Furthermore some form of cognizance, or consciousness, must be doing the ‘choosing’. It must be the case that consciousness is embedded within the ultimate quantum field, where else could it emerge from?
Returning to Stenger; let’s go through some of his ridiculous arguments against the above majority view. Stenger says:
The myth of quantum consciousness sits well with many whose egos have made it impossible for them to accept the insignificant place science perceives for humanity, as modern instruments probe the farthest reaches of space and time.
This is irrelevant. The psychological state of proponents of a view of reality is irrelevant to the truth or falsity of the claim. I would have thought it is a central tenet of science that evidence should decide issues as far as possible. Stenger thinks that pointing out some psychological quirks of some physicists can undermine the truth of a scientific discovery; for example, he tells us that Oliver Lodge:
…desperately wanted to believe in life after death, writing passionately about communications with his son Raymond, who was killed in Flanders in 1915. Sadly, he accepted the wildest claims of mediums.
This may be true, but it has nothing to do with modern quantum field theory. Neither has the question as to whether the universe “cares” about us. Stenger writes:
Quantum mechanics does not violate the Copernican principle that that universe cares about the human race.
I doubt that the universe does “care about us”, but this absurd notion has nothing to do with whether the universe is ultimately produced from immaterial quantum fields which have a cognizant quality.
Next:
Early in this century, quantum mechanics and Einstein’s relativity destroyed the notion of a holistic universe that had seemed within the realm of possibility in the century just past.
Utter nonsense – relativity theory shows that the characteristics that objects may have depends upon relationship with other entities, this is why it is called the theory of ‘relativity’.
Next:
Einstein did away with the aether, shattering the doctrine that we all move about inside a universal, cosmic fluid whose excitations connect us simultaneously to one another and to the rest of the universe.
It is not clear whether Stenger is referring to the classical type ‘aether’ imagined by Maxwell who produced the electromagnetic equations or to Einstein’s aether theory which is “a controversial generally covariant generalization of general relativity which describes a spacetime endowed with both a metric and a unit timelike vector field named the æther” [Wikipedia].
Maxwell conceived of an electromagnetic ‘aether’ through which his electromagnetic waves travelled:
The vast interplanetary and interstellar regions will no longer be regarded as waste places in the universe, which the Creator has not seen fit to fill with the symbols of the manifold order of His kingdom. We shall find them to be already full of this wonderful medium; so full, that no human power can remove it from the smallest portion of space, or produce the slightest flaw in its infinite continuity. It extends unbroken from star to star; and when a molecule of hydrogen vibrates in the dog-star, the medium receives the impulses of these vibrations; and after carrying them in its immense bosom for three years, delivers them in due course, regular order, and full tale into the spectroscope of Mr. Huggins, at Tulse Hill.
[Dolling, L.M.; Gianelli, A. F. & Statile, G. N. (eds) (2003) Tests of Time p244]
The Michelson-Morley experiment disproved this, but this is all irrelevant as the claim concerning quantum consciousness relates to quantum field theory that pertains to a level ‘beneath’ the ‘classical’. Whilst Michelson-Morley experiment disproved a classical type field; today we now know that electromagnetic pulses are perturbations in an electromagnetic quantum field.
With regard to Einstein aether theory, according to Wikipedia “It is still not known whether Einstein æther theories exist as quantum theories”
Next:
Einstein and other physicists proved that matter and light were composed of particles, wiping away the notion of universal continuity. Atomic theory and quantum mechanics demonstrated that everything, even space and time, exists in discrete bits-quanta. To turn this around and say that twentieth century physics initiated some new holistic view of the universe is a complete misrepresentation of what actually took place.
It is actually Stenger who is engaging in ‘complete misrepresentation’. It is true that Einstein showed that light, which was thought at the time to be continuous, was composed of particles called photons (the photoelectric effect – Einstein got the Nobel Prize for this) much to the consternation of the majority of physicists at the time. However, things have moved on since then, for example quantum physicist H. Dieter Zeh, in his paper ‘There are no Quantum Jumps, nor are there Particles!’, writes that:
…there does not seem to be any reasonable motivation (other than traditionalism) for introducing concepts like particles, quantum jumps, … or classical properties on a fundamental level.
[Zeh, H. D. ‘There are no Quantum Jumps, nor are there Particles’ p5 -
http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~as ... -jumps.pdf]
The following is from physicist Lisa Randall’s book ‘Warped Passages’:
Quantum field theory, the tool with which we study particles, is based upon eternal, omnipresent objects that can create and destroy those particles. These objects are the “fields” of quantum field theory. … quantum fields are objects that permeate spacetime … they create or absorb elementary particles … particles can be produced or destroyed anywhere at any time. [p158]
In this current understanding, all particles are understood as being excitations, perturbations or ‘bumps’ in the underlying quantum field. Each type of particle has its own field and when the field is ‘excited’, a particle or several particles can be ‘created’ and when the excitation ceases particles are ‘destroyed’.
According to the majority of physicists (in fact as far as I know all except Stenger) consider that immaterial quantum fields are the ultimate elements of reality. The physicist and philosopher of science David Albert has pointed out:
The particular, eternally persisting, elementary physical stuff of the world, according to the standard presentations of relativistic quantum field theories, consists (unsurprisingly) of relativistic quantum fields. [New York Times Review]
Science writer Jim Baggott in his book on the Higgs tells us that:
The concept of mass has vanished in a puff of logic. It has been replaced by interactions between otherwise massless particles and the Higgs field. [p88-9]
In his book about the Higgs field and particle, ‘The Particle at the End of the Universe’, physicist Sean Carroll tells us that:
The world is made of fields – substances spread out through all of space that we notice through their vibrations, which appear to us as particles. [p35]
Not only this, Carroll also points out that:
We are part of the universe which has developed a remarkable ability: we can hold an image of the world in our minds. We are matter
contemplating itself.[p280-1]
Carroll, however, betrays a materialist leaning in his mistaken notion that it is “matter contemplating itself”. If the “world is made of fields”, as he himself says, then ultimately it is the immaterial quantum fields which organize themselves in order to manifest and contemplate their own internal qualities; thus quantum fields must have an internal organizing and cognizant aspect.
Stenger, however, simply rejects the current consensus of physics and claims that quantum fields are unreal. Thus in an article ‘Particles Are for Real’ he argues against the current view. Stenger quotes from an article in the December 2012 Scientific American, in which physicist David Tong makes the following statement:
Physicists routinely teach that the building blocks of nature are discrete particles such as the electron or quark. That is a lie. The building blocks of our theories are not particles but fields: continuous, fluidlike objects spread throughout space.
As we have seen this is the consensus view, it is also the most natural view for we know there were no ‘particles’ present at the moment of the big bang, therefore whatever particles are around now are ultimately derived from the quantum field(s) at the moment of the big bang. Stenger says of Tong’s assertion that:
This is highly misleading. No one has ever observed a quantum field. Quantum fields are purely mathematical constructs within quantum field theory.
[
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-st ... 77361.html]
The problem with such an absurd view, however, that it would require us to think in terms of ‘particles’ popping into existence from absolute nothingness, a viewpoint that would make them even less ‘real’ than having them at least supported by immaterial quantum potential-energy fields!
As I go through this Stenger article the degree of misrepresentation, misinformation and misdirection is truly awesome. His discussion of Bell’s inequalities and the associated experiments is entirely fraudulent:
A careful analysis of the experiments that tested Bell’s theorem shows that the only objects that move faster than light are mathematical creations of our imaginations…
Heavyweight quantum physicist Giancarlo Ghirardi, however, tells us that the evidence tells us that “the photons [in Bell type experiments] themselves must be telepathic.” [Ghirardi, G. (2005), Sneaking a Look at God’s Cards p236]. Experiments of extraordinary delicacy and precision have been carried out to probe the phenomenon of the telepathic nature of quantum entanglement. Ghirardi concludes:
Personally, I take the experiment of Aspect and his collaborators as conclusive: photons really are telepathic…, [Ghirardi, G. (2005), Sneaking a Look at God’s Cards p246]
One implication of Bell’s theorem is the correctness of quantum field theory as the most fundamental physical and metaphysical account of ‘Reality’. As d’Espagnat writes:
…what, from a philosophical standpoint, is by far the most remarkable feature of quantum field theory is that it reduces the (scientifically unmanageable) notion “creation” [of particles] to the (scientifically tractable) notion “state change.” And the point that is relevant to the here considered issue is that it succeeds in doing so by making primary some concepts of a general nature - such as fields associated with types of particles - and secondary the concept of individualized particles. Consequently, if we are on the lookout for some concept, or “mathematical algorithm,” that this theory could be identified as referring to the “basic stuff,” we can find none except, conceivably, the element the state of which changes when a particle gets “created” or “annihilated”. … Now, in the theory, there are not myriads and myriads of such elements. Indeed there is just one! Which means that, conceptually speaking, the theory is as far from atomism as it is conceivably possible for a theory to be.
[d' Espagnat, B (2003) Veiled Reality p317]
There really seems to be no end to Stenger’s intellectual perfidy:
…this seeming profound association between quantum and mind is a consequence of unfortunate language used by Bohr, Heisenberg and others who originated formulated quantum mechanics. In describing the necessary interaction between the observer and observed, and how the state of a system is determined by the act of its measurement, they inadvertently left the impression that human consciousness enters the picture to cause that state to come into being.
This is completely fallacious. Stapp, who actually discussed quantum issues with Heisenberg, says regarding Heisenberg’s views:
Let there be no doubt about this point. The original form of quantum theory is subjective, in the sense that it is forthrightly about relationships among conscious human experiences…
[Stapp, Henry (2007) Mindful Universe p11]
Stapp also wrote regarding the ‘free choices’, choices that are effective at the quantum level, on the part of sentient beings that quantum theory requires that:
I see no way for contemporary science to disprove, or even render highly unlikely, this religious extension of quantum theory, or to provide any strong evidence in support of an alternative picture of the nature of these “free choices.” These choices seem to be rooted in reasons that are rooted in feelings pertaining to value or worth. Thus it can be argued that quantum theory provides a rational opening for an idea of nature and of our role within it that are in general accord with certain religious concepts…
[Stapp – ‘Minds and Values in the Quantum Universe’]
All in all Stenger seems to lack a quantum of intellectual integrity!