According to nonlocality, if any two entangled objects are sent in opposite directions and the state of one of them is altered, the second instantly alters its state in response no matter how far apart the two may be. Hobson cites direct experimental evidence supporting his analysis, from experiments performed in 1990 involving nonlocal observation of entangled pairs of photons.
“The strange thing is that the action happens instantly, with no time for light or an electromagnetic signal or radio signal to communicate between the two,” Hobson said. “It is a single object that is behaving as a single object but it is in two different places. It doesn’t matter what the distance is between them.”
Physicist Art Hobson’s solution is that the non-local “phenomenon must be taken into account to resolve the measurement problem”:
According to Hobson, since 1978, three previous published analyses have suggested similar solutions to the measurement problem, but the earlier solutions were little noticed at the time and the debate continued, “leading to confusion and even to pseudoscientific claims about the implications of quantum physics,” he said.
Whatever the “pseudo-scientific claims” may be, acceptance of non-locality is a serious blow to materialism.
Consider, for example, studies attempting to “find out how consciousness works” or “pinpoint consciousness in the brain.” If consciousness turns out to be a phenomenon that depends on the interactions of non-local particles like electrons, … a bigger waste of time than materialist attempts to understand it was never undertaken, unless you count trying to catch hold of one’s shadow.
Of course there are laws governing consciousness, laws we can probably discover. But often, discovering laws in stubborn situations means leaving behind the detritus of old ideas about how things must work.
Just as quantum mechanics introduced us to laws other than the ones we are used to, consciousness will likely do the same, and the two are likely related.
Paper: Art Hobson. Two-photon interferometry and quantum state collapse. Physical Review A, 2013; 88 (2) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.88.022105
Note: At the most basic level of its operations, the brain depends on electrons and therefore may well be a quantum-influenced system. See also The Spiritual Brain.