Pete Tar
Senior Member.
Good essay.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-stenger/the-myth-of-quantum-consc_b_788798.html
Some excerpts...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-stenger/the-myth-of-quantum-consc_b_788798.html
Some excerpts...
A new myth is burrowing its way into modern thinking. The notion is spreading that the principles embodied in quantum mechanics imply a central role for the human mind in determining the very nature of the universe. Not surprisingly, this idea can be found in New Age periodicals and in many books on the metaphysical shelves of book stores. But it also can appear where you least expect it, even on the pages of that bastion of rational thinking, The Humanist.
In an article in the November/December 1992 issue entitled "The Wise Silence," Robert Lanza says that, according to the current quantum mechanical view of reality, "We are all the ephemeral forms of a consciousness greater than ourselves." The mind of each human being on earth is instantaneously connected to each other -- past, present and future -- as "a part of every mind existing in space and time."
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In Lanza's interpretation, quantum mechanics tells us that all human minds are united in one mind 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 . . ."
Unlike traditional myths, which call on scripture or the utterances of charismatic leaders as their authorities, this latest version of ancient Hindu idealism is supposedly based on up-to-date scientific knowledge. The assertion is made that quantum mechanics has ruled invalid the materialistic, reductionist view of the universe, 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.
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. It was bad enough when Copernicus said that we were not at the center of the universe. It was worse when Darwin announced that we were not angels. But it became intolerable when astronomers declared that the earth is but one of a hundred billion trillion other planets, and when geologists demonstrated that recorded history is but a blink of time -- a microsecond of the second of earth's existence.
In a land where self-gratification has reached heights never dreamed of in ancient Rome, where self-esteem is more important than being able to read, and where self-help requires no more effort than putting on a cassette, the myth of quantum consciousness is just what the shrink ordered.
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Quantum mechanics is called on further to argue that the cosmic field, like Newton's aether, couples to the human mind itself. In Robert Lanza's view, that field is the universal mind of all humanity -- living, dead, and unborn. Ironically, this seemingly profound association between quantum and mind is an artifact, the consequence of unfortunate language used by Bohr, Heisenberg, and the others who originally formulated quantum mechanics. In describing the necessary interaction between the observer and what is being 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 come into being. This led many who did not understand the physics, but liked the sound of the words used to describe it, to infer a fundamental human role in what was previously a universe that seemed to have need for neither gods nor humanity.
If Bohr and Heisenberg had spoken of measurements made by inanimate instruments rather than "observers," perhaps this strained relationship between quantum and mind would not have been drawn. For, nothing in quantum mechanics requires human involvement.
Quantum mechanics does not violate the Copernican principle that the
universe cares not a whit about the human race. Long after humanity has disappeared from the scene, matter will still undergo the transitions that we call quantum events. The atoms in stars will radiate photons, and these photons will be absorbed by materials that react to them. Perhaps, after we are gone, some of our machines will remain to analyze these photons. If so, they will do so under the same rules of quantum mechanics that operate today.
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