Stapp Mindful Universe

Quantum Mechanics and the Participating Observer
1. Auflage 2007
ISBN: 978-3-540-72414-8
Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 198 Seiten

Reihe: The Frontiers Collection

This book concerns your nature as a human being. It is about the connection of your mind to your body. You may imagine that your mind – your stream of conscious thoughts,ideas,andfeelings–in?uencesyouractions.Youmaybelieve that what you think a?ects what you do. You could be right. However, the scienti?c ideas that prevailed from the time of Isaac Newton to the beginningofthetwentiethcenturyproclaimedyourphysicalactionsto becompletelydeterminedbyprocessesthataredescribableinphysical terms alone. Any notion that your conscious choices make a di?erence in how you behave was branded an illusion: you were asserted to be causally equivalent to a mindless automaton. We now know that that earlier form of science is fundamentally incorrect. During the ?rst part of the twentieth century, that classic- physics-based conception of nature was replaced by a new theory that reproduces all of the successful predictions of its predecessor, while providing also valid predictions about a host of phenomena that are strictly incompatible with the precepts of eighteenth and nineteenth century physics. No prediction of the new theory has been shown to be false.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Stapp, Henry P.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Preface;7
2;Contents;9
3;1 Science, Consciousness and Human Values;12
4;2 Human Knowledge as the Foundation of Science;22
5;3 Actions, Knowledge, and Information;27
5.1;3.1 The Anti-Newtonian Revolution;27
5.2;3.2 The World of Actions;29
5.3;3.3 Intentional Actions and Experienced Feedbacks;33
5.4;3.4 Cloudlike Forms;35
5.5;3.5 Simple Harmonic Oscillators;35
5.6;3.6 The Double-Slit Experiment;36
6;4 Nerve Terminals and the Need to Use Quantum Theory;38
6.1;4.1 Nerve Terminals;39
7;5 Templates for Action;42
8;6 The Physical Effectiveness of Conscious Will and the Quantum Zeno Effect;44
8.1;6.1 The Quantum Zeno Effect;44
8.2;6.2 William James’s Theory of Volition;46
9;7 Support from Contemporary Psychology;49
10;8 Application to Neuropsychology;54
11;9 Roger Penrose’s Theory and Quantum Decoherence;58
12;10 Non-Orthodox Versions of Quantum Theory and the Need for Process 1;61
12.1;10.1 The Many-Worlds (or Many-Minds) Approach and Decoherence;63
12.2;10.2 Bohm’s Pilot-Wave Model;68
12.3;10.3 Spontaneous-Reduction Models;69
13;11 The Basis Problem in Many- Worlds Theories;70
13.1;11.1 Connection Between Classical Physics and Quantum Physics;70
13.2;11.2 Decoherence and Discreteness in Many- Minds/ Worlds Theories;75
14;12 Despised Dualism;83
14.1;12.1 Historical Background;83
14.2;12.2 A Flawed Argument;85
14.3;12.3 Squaring with Contemporary Neuroscience;85
15;13 Whiteheadian Quantum Ontology;89
15.1;13.1 Some Key Elements of Whitehead’s Process Ontology;94
15.2;13.2 From von Neumann NRQT to Tomonaga– Schwinger RQFT;98
15.3;13.3 Similarities Between Whitehead’s Ontology and Ontologically Construed RQFT;99
15.4;13.4 The Transition from ‘Potentiality’ to ‘Actuality’ in Quantum Mechanics;99
15.5;13.5 Compatibility with Einstein’s (Special) Theory of Relativity;99
15.6;13.6 The Psychophysical Building Blocks of Reality;100
16;14 Interview;103
17;15 Consciousness and the Anthropic Questions;122
18;16 Impact of Quantum Mechanics on Human Values;141
19;17 Conclusions;146
20;A Gazzaniga’s The Ethical Brain;147
21;B Von Neumann: Knowledge, Information, and Entropy;152
22;C Wigner’s Friend and Consciousness in Quantum Theory;159
23;D Orthodox Interpretation and the Mind– Brain Connection;162
24;E Locality in Physics;166
25;F Einstein Locality and Spooky Action at a Distance;169
26;G Nonlocality in the Quantum World;176
27;References;182
28;Index;190