Related papers: The hard problem and the measurement problem: a no…
The hard problem in consciousness is the problem of understanding how physical processes in the brain could give rise to subjective conscious experience. In this paper, I suggest that in order to understand the relationship between…
The most dramatic developments in theoretical physics in the next millennium are likely to come when we make progress on so far unresolved foundational questions. In this essay I consider two of the deepest problems confronting us, the…
The term "measurement" in quantum theory (as well as in other physical theories) is ambiguous: It is used to describe both an experience - e.g., an observation in an experiment - and an interaction with the system under scrutiny. If doing…
Functional theories of consciousness, based on emergence of conscious experiences from the execution of a particular function by an insentient brain, face the hard problem of consciousness of explaining why the insentient brain should…
The brain is composed of electrically excitable neuronal networks regulated by the activity of voltage-gated ion channels. Further portraying the molecular composition of the brain, however, will not reveal anything remotely reminiscent of…
In the area of the foundations of quantum mechanics a true industry appears to have developed in the last decades, with the aim of proving as many results as possible concerning what there cannot be in the quantum realm. In principle, the…
The quantum theory of measurement has been a matter of debate for over eighty years. Most of the discussion has focused on theoretical issues with the consequence that operational prescriptions, which are integral to experimental physics,…
Gao (2017) presents a new mentalistic reformulation of the well-known measurement problem affecting the standard formulation of quantum mechanics. According to this author, it is essentially a determinate-experience problem, namely a…
Measurement is an important scientific activity. In most of science, including classical physics, is may be understood as a way of finding out about the physical world and representing the results numerically. No-go theorems show that…
A number of issues related to measurement show that self-consistency is lacking in quantum mechanics as this theory has been generally understood. Each issue is presented as a point in this paper. Each point can be resolved by incorporating…
After a summary of Bohr's views and their relation to Kant's theory of science, two fruitless lines of attack on the measurement problem are discussed: the way of the psi-ontologist and the way of the QBist. In the remainder of the paper…
In the context of theories of the connection between mind and brain, physicalism is the demand that all is basically purely physical. But the concept of "physical" embodied in this demand is characterized essentially by the properties of…
Decoherence is widely felt to have something to do with the quantum measurement problem, but getting clear on just what is made difficult by the fact that the "measurement problem", as traditionally presented in foundational and…
Quantum Mechanics, the physical theory describing the microworld, represents one of science's greatest triumphs. It lies at the root of all modern digital technologies and offers unparalleled correspondence between prediction and…
The notorious `measurement problem' has been roving around quantum mechanics for nearly a century since its inception, and has given rise to a variety of `interpretations' of quantum mechanics, which are meant to evade it. We argue that no…
It is argued that the problem of interpreting quantum mechanics, and the philosophical problem of consciousness, both have their roots in the same set of misguided Cartesian assumptions. The confusions underlying those assumptions are…
We still lack any consensus about what one is actually talking about as one uses quantum mechanics. There is a gap between the abstract terms in which the theory is couched and the phenomena the theory enables each of us to account for so…
Quantum mechanics notoriously faces the measurement problem, the problem that if read thoroughly, it implies the nonexistence of definite outcomes in measurement procedures. A plausible reaction to this and to related problems is to regard…
According to a particular interpretation of quantum mechanics, the causal role of human consciousness in the measuring process is called upon to solve a foundational problem called the "measurement problem". Traditionally, this…
The human mind is constituted by inner, subjective, private, first-person conscious experiences that cannot be measured with physical devices or observed from an external, objective, public, third-person perspective. The qualitative,…