Related papers: Between Myth and History: von Neumann on Conscious…
We provide an introduction to the theory of quantum measurements that is centered on the pivotal role played by John von Neumann's model. This introduction is accessible to students and researchers from outside the field of foundations of…
There have lately been a variety of attempts to connect, or even explain, if not in fact, reduce human consciousness to quantum mechanical processes. Such attempts tend to draw a sharp and fundamental distinction between the role of…
Since its inception, many physicists have seen in quantum mechanics the possibility, if not the necessity, of bringing cognitive aspects into the play, which were instead absent, or unnoticed, in the previous classical theories. In this…
Orthodox Copenhagen quantum theory renounces the quest to understand the reality in which we are imbedded, and settles for practical rules that describe connections between our observations. Many physicist have believed that this…
Few things in physics have caused so much hand-wringing as von Neumann's collapse hypothesis. Unable to derive it mathematically, von Neumann attributed it to interaction with the observer's brain! Few physicists agreed, but tweaks of von…
The Bohr and von Neumann views on the measurement process in quantum mechanics have been interpreted for a long time in somewhat controversial terms, often leading to misconceptions. On the basis of some textual analysis, I would like to…
It has been suggested that consciousness plays an important role in quantum mechanics as it is necessary for the collapse of wave function during the measurement. Furthermore, this idea has spawned a symmetrical proposal: a possibility that…
A history of the discovery of quantum mechanics and paradoxes of its interpretation is reconsidered from the modern point of view of quantum stochastics and information. It is argued that in the orthodox quantum mechanics there is no place…
Why does such a successful theory like Quantum Mechanics have so many mysteries? The history of this theory is replete with dubious interpretations and controversies, and yet a knowledge of its predictions, however, contributed to the…
It is shown that the classical book by von Neumann proposing dynamics of measured systems with "reduction (or collapse) of system's wave packet" contains also hints how to avoid this discontinuity in time evolution of the measured system…
Preciously given rules allow conscious systems to be included in quantum mechanical systems. There rules are derived from the empirical experience of an observer who witnesses a quantum mechanical interaction leading to the capture of a…
It is argued that Feynman's rules for evaluating probabilities, combined with von Neumann's principle of psycho-physical parallelism, help avoid inconsistencies, often associated with quantum theory. The former allows one to assign…
The measurement process in quantum mechanics is usually described by the von Neumann projection postulate, which forms a basic constituent of the laws of quantum mechanics. Since this postulate requires the outside observer of the system,…
Von Neumann's psycho-physical parallelism requires the existence of an interaction between subjective experiences and material systems. A hypothesis is proposed that amends physics in a way that connects subjective states with physical…
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…
Orthodox Copenhagen quantum theory renounces the quest to understand the reality in which we are imbedded, and settles for practical rules describing connections between our observations. Many physicist have regarded this renunciation of…
I suggest that the common unease with taking quantum mechanics as a fundamental description of nature (the "measurement problem") could derive from the use of an incorrect notion, as the unease with the Lorentz transformations before…
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…
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…
The development of quantum measurement theory, initiated by von Neumann, only indicated a possibility for resolution of the interpretational crisis of quantum mechanics. We do this by divorcing the algebra of the dynamical generators and…