Quantum mechanics requires that the observer be part of the measurement; thus quantum measurements must include consciousness:
Angus Menuge: Well, likewise, what if physics will conclude finally that we can’t reduce consciousness to any ordinary physical phenomena? We just recognize it as its own kind of thing. And in fact, we need it in order to have a complete physics. After all, if you want the theory of everything that Stephen Hawking wants, in the end, as Thomas Nagel said, the theory of everything has to include the scientist as well as the world the scientist observes.
If I am going to have an account that fully explains what’s going on when a scientist measures a system in quantum physics and deals with entanglement and all these other things, what if it turns out that that account must appeal to consciousness? Does consciousness then become part of physics?
If it does, then — in a way — the debate between physicalists and dualists dissipates because the physical has just absorbed consciousness.
But the dualists would have won in the sense that consciousness doesn’t reduce to any of these other things. That is what they’ve been claiming for a few centuries…
News, “ Can a materialist consciousness theory survive quantum mechanics?” at Mind Matters News
Takehome: If quantum measurements must include consciousness, the dualists are correct, says philosopher Angus Menuge: Consciousness exists in its own right.
Here are the earlier discussions in this podcast:
Part 1: Angus Menuge explains why “red” is such a problem in philosophy. “Red” is an example of qualia, concepts we can experience that have no physical existence otherwise. Materialism would be easy if it weren’t for concepts like “red” which are quite real but abstracted from physical reality.
Part 2: Panpsychism is, in Angus Menuge’s view, a desperate move. But he thinks it is worth keeping an eye on as an understandable reaction to materialism. Menuge argues that one problem for panpsychism is that consciousness is unitary; it does not seem composed of innumerable tiny proto-conscious elements.
Part 3: Can quantum mechanics help decipher consciousness? Free will? Nobel laureate Roger Penrose, among others, looked to the quantum world for models. Angus Menuge thinks that physicists John von Neumann’s and Henry Stapp’s models of quantum mechanics provide some directions.
The won the consciousness argument. They lost the dualism argument.
As to:
The failure to find a quote-unquote ‘theory of everything’ is almost directly tied to the exclusion of ‘the scientist’ from the world that the scientist observes.
Quantum Electrodynamics is considered the archetypical example of what a final, purely mathematical, ‘theory of everything’ might look like.
Theoretical Physicists were only able to unify special relativity and quantum mechanics into Quantum Electrodynamics by quote-unquote ‘brushing infinity under the rug’.
This ‘brushing infinity under the rug’ never set right with Richard Feynman.
In the following video, Feynman rightly expresses his unease with “brushing infinity under the rug.”
And indeed Feynman was right to be ‘always bothered’ by ‘brushing infinity under the rug.’
In the ‘renormalization’ of the infinity that exists between special relativity and quantum mechanics, Feynman ended up brushing quantum measurement itself under the rub.
Yet, quantum measurement is precisely where the conscious observer, i.e. ‘the scientist’ himself, makes his presence known in quantum mechanics.
As the following article states, “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,”,,,
Likewise, the following violation of Leggett’s inequality stressed ‘the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it.’
Moreover, this recent 2019 experimental confirmation of the “Wigner’s Friend” thought experiment established that “measurement results,, must be understood relative to the observer who performed the measurement”.
Thus since Quantum Electrodynamics is regarded by many theoretical physicists as the correct first step towards a purely mathematical theory of everything, and yet since Quantum Electrodynamics excludes quantum measurement and/or conscious observation, i.e. excludes the scientist himself, in that very first step, then Quantum Electrodynamics cannot possibly be the correct first step towards the correct ‘theory of everything.’
Obviously the scientist himself is a very important part of the ‘everything’ that any purported ‘theory of everything’ must successfully explain.
And although special relativity and quantum mechanics were, via the mathematical sleight of hand of renormalization, mathematically unified with one another in order to produce theory of Quantum Electrodynamics, no such mathematical sleight of hand exists for unifying General Relativity with Quantum Mechanics.
Professor Jeremy Bernstein states the situation as such, “there remains an irremediable difficulty. Every order reveals new types of infinities, and no finite number of renormalizations renders all the terms in the series finite.
The theory is not renormalizable.”
And as the following theoretical physicist noted, “You would need to add infinitely many counterterms in a never-ending process. Renormalization would fail.,,,”
Dr. William Dembski in this following comment, although he was not directly addressing the ‘infinite’ mathematical divide that exists between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, offers this insight into what the ‘unification’ of infinite God with finite man might look like mathematically:, Specifically he states, “The Cross is a path of humility in which the infinite God becomes finite and then contracts to zero, only to resurrect and thereby unite a finite humanity within a newfound infinity.”
Moreover, when we rightly allow the Agent Causality of God ‘back’ into physics, as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned, and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands with the closing of the free will loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company,
,,, when we rightly allow the Agent Causality of God ‘back’ into physics as the closing of the free will loophole now empirically demands, then that provides us with a very plausible resolution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead provides an empirically backed reconciliation, (via the Shroud of Turin), between quantum mechanics and general relativity into the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything”.
In regards to gravity being dealt with in the Shroud of Turin, ?The following article states that ‘The bottom part of the cloth (containing the dorsal image) would have born all the weight of the man’s supine body, yet the dorsal image is not encoded with a greater amount of intensity than the frontal image.’
And in the following video, Isabel Piczek states,,, ‘The muscles of the body are absolutely not crushed against the stone of the tomb. They are perfect. It means the body is hovering between the two sides of the shroud. What does that mean? It means there is absolutely no gravity.’
Kevin Moran, an optical engineer, describes the Shroud Image in this way, “The unique front-and-back only image can be best described as gravitationally collimated. The radiation that made the image acted perfectly parallel to gravity. There is no side image. The radiation is parallel to gravity,,,”
Moreover, besides gravity being dealt with on the Shroud of Turin, the Shroud also gives us evidence that Quantum Mechanics itself was dealt with. In the following paper, it was found that it was not possible to describe the image formation on the Shroud in classical terms but they found it necessary to describe the formation of the image on the Shroud in discrete quantum terms.
Moreover, the following rather astonishing study on the Shroud, found that it would take 34 Trillion Watts of what is termed VUV (directional) radiation to form the image on the shroud.
So thus in conclusion, when we rightly allow the Agent Causality of God back into physics then a very plausible solution to the number one unsolved mystery in science today, of finding a reconciliation between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, readily pops out for us in that, as the Shroud of Turin gives witness to, both Gravity and Quantum Mechanics were dealt with in Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
Personally, I firmly believe that Christian founders of modern science, who very much viewed their practice of science as a way worshiping God, would be very pleased to learn about by this recent development in science.
Here are a few quotes to that effect:
I think it is likely that WJM is right: both the physical world at the quantum level, which we participate in as a physical body, and conscousness, which we participate in as a mind, are part of of an whole (a Oneness) that lies “below” both the physical and the mental that we experience, and integrates the two at every moment.