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Henry Stapp’s Influence on My Post-Quantum Mechanics of Consciousness

Via Locally Decodable Keyless Entanglement Signaling

Article  in  Activitas Nervosa Superior · May 2019

DOI: 10.1007/s41470-019-00060-1

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Henry Stapp’s Influence on My Post-
Quantum Mechanics of Consciousness Via
Locally Decodable Keyless Entanglement
Signaling

Jack Sarfatti

Activitas Nervosa Superior

The Journal for Neurocognitive
Research

ISSN 2510-2788

Act Nerv Super

DOI 10.1007/s41470-019-00060-1

1 23
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 Author's personal copy
Activitas Nervosa Superior
typo-corrected June 3, 2019
https://doi.org/10.1007/s41470-019-00060-1

IDEAS AND PERSPECTIVES

Henry Stapp’s Influence on My Post-Quantum Mechanics

of Consciousness Via Locally Decodable Keyless Entanglement
Signaling
Jack Sarfatti 1

Received: 5 July 2018 / Revised: 17 April 2019 / Accepted: 9 May 2019

# Neuroscientia 2019

Abstract
It is wonderful that Henry is still creative and active at the age of 90. I first communicated with Henry in 1963 when I
was with Fred W. Cummings at Ford Philco Aeronutronics in Newport Beach, CA (I left Cornell where I was working
with Leonard Susskind and Johnny Glogower on the problem of time and phase operators in quantum mechanics. I
returned to Cornell about 6 months later.). That is also when I first met Richard Feynman at Cal Tech and also when I
first communicated by snail mail with Brian Josephson if I recall correctly. David Kaiser recalls my interaction with
Henry about quantum entanglement in his book BHow the Hippies Saved Physics.^ Kaiser also wrote how Nick Herbert
and I were key catalysts in the creation of the Bbillion-dollar^ quantum information/cryptography/computer industry.
Henry played a key role in Nick’s and my quixotic quest to use orthodox quantum mechanical entanglement as a
direct stand-alone keyless locally decodable command-control-communication-channel C4. On Apr 22, 2018, at
4:52 PM, Robert Addinall wrote: BActually command-control-communications channel should be C3. For C4, it
should be command-control-communications-computing. Although it starts with the letter C, the word Bchannel^ is not
usually included in the acronym (C2 for command and control, and C4ISR for command-control-communications-
computing-intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance. It’s nice that you are writing some of this up in honor of Henry’s
birthday.^.This Bfailure^ led to the modern-day no-go theorems that form the basis of practical quantum cryptographic
networks like the Chinese satellite web.

Keywords Quantum . Stapp . Entanglement . Retrocausality . Bohm . Sutherland . Ontology

Historical Background regular terms. I then went on to Brandeis in 1960 with a

Quantum entanglement was not even mentioned when I
took courses at Cornell under Phil Morrison, Ken Greisen,
Dale Corson, Robert Woodward, Ed Salpeter, and Hans
Bethe et al. in the late 1950s. I discovered it in the sum-
mer of my junior year by reading David Bohm’s
BQuantum Theory^ when I worked the night shift at the
1 Bev Synchrotron as Robert Wilson’s assistant. I prac-
ticed singing Gilbert and Sullivan in the wee hours as I
was a lead tenor in the Cornell Savoyards during the
* Jack Sarfatti
jacksarfatti@icloud.com
1
Internet Science Education Project Private Foundation, San
Francisco, CA, USA
National Defense Fellowship when I read a Review of
Modern Physics paper by David Inglis on the BTau-
Theta^ puzzle that discussed EPR in a way that struck
me as in conflict with the no-faster-than-light signaling
restriction that everyone thinks is essential to Einstein’s
special relativity. When I brought this puzzle to Sylvan
Schweber and Stanley Deser as a possible dissertation
topic, they were both flummoxed and basically told me
to Bshut up and calculate^ on some less ambitious prob-
lem. This was somewhat ironic as they were trying to get
David Bohm back in the USA at that time but failed to get
him permission to return to his native land. I got angry,
quit my fellowship, and quickly found a job with George
Parrant’s group at Tech/Ops a CIA contractor associated
with the Mitre Corporation on Route 2. It was there that I
learned about the new lasers and the problems of
 Author's personal copy
coherence in quantum mechanics. After 6 months or so
there I returned to Cornell bringing my middle and high
school collaborator Johnny Glogower1 with me with Phil
Morrison’s help and meeting Lenny Susskind.
Fast-forward from the 1950s, 1960s pass through the
1970s, 1980s, 1990s covered in David Kaiser’s book, to
where we are today in 2018 still kicking. Henry basically sides
with Niels Bohr, Johnny Von Neumann, Eugene Wigner, and
John Archibald Wheeler’s epistemic BIT FROM BIT^2that
quantum reality is basically unknowable in any classical
way. I, as loyal opposition, oppose Henry’s premise siding
with Einstein, Louis de Broglie, and the young David Bohm
of the 1950s that quantum reality is not only knowable, but is
ontological—really real. This ontological view says that quan-
tum waves are real and exist alongside classical Newtonian
hard massy particles3and classical Maxwell electromagnetic,
classical Einstein geometrodynamic, classical Yang-Mills,
and classical Higgs fields as Bbeables^ (J.S. Bell) unfortunate-
ly mis-named Bhidden variables^ and consigned falsely by
David Bohm, Jean-Pierre Vigier, and Antony Valentini to
some unobservable Bsub-quantum level^ (analogy with
Brownian motion)—this wrong view, in my opinion, is also
favored by Gerard ‘t-Hooft in his cellular automaton
approach.
The Situation in 2018
In addition to the above epistemic vs ontic view of the funda-
mental meaning of the quantum wave function and its
relation to what is, how to reconcile relativity with
entanglement? I.J. Good, Yakir Aharonov, Fred Hoyle, and
especially Vigier’s rival at Institut Henri Poincare, Olivier
Costa de Beauregard solved this problem adequately by
showing the real meaning of entanglement is that the
common-sense assumption that only historical past partial
causes of present effects happen is wrong. Most of the
spooky seemingly Btelepathic^ (Einstein’s term) irrational
voodoo appearance of quantum entanglement is rationally
understood as destiny future partial causes of
1
Glogower was a prodigy Westinghouse Science Talent winner and had been
a Quiz Kid on the radio as well as a child violinist at Julliard. Lenny was a
roughshod New York City plumber in overalls in the Halls of Ivy at that
time—three mavericks sticking out like sore thumbs.
2
Also include Roger Penrose’s Borchestrated OR^ self-gravity collapse theory
of consciousness extending the idea of Von Neumann and Wigner that in some
mysterious way consciousness is associated with collapse, whether as a cause
or as an effect is never made clear in what Wheeler called BThe Great Smoky
Dragon^. Basil Hiley has rejected this idea as Breplacing one mystery with
another^ and I agree with him. BOrchestrated^ as Bcoherent^ as
Bsynchronized^ over long distances suppressing Bohr’s Buncontrollable quan-
tum randomness^ throwing oil over troubled waters.
3
More precisely, the Lagrangian contains Bclassical^ h-independent dynami-
cal degrees of freedom in addition to the h-dependent Bwavy^ degrees of
freedom. This is made clear in the recent papers of Roderick Sutherland.
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those same present effects. As Ruth Kastner likes to point
out, this picture requires Minkowski’s Bblock universe^—so
be it. We also know that the physics of black hole horizons in
general relativity is essentially teleological, i.e., future causes
even classically as explained by Kip Thorne and others. Costa
de Beauregard tried to explain this to me when I visited him in
Paris in the 1960s, but I was stupefied by John Wheeler’s
Bsmoky dragon^ and like Parsifal did not get what he was
saying to me causing me to wander in the fog for decades
along with most quantum physicists who are still dazed. The
fog has lifted only recently with the brilliantly crisp papers of
Huw Price Bertrand Russell, Professor at Trinity College,
Cambridge, who has resurrected Costa de Beauregard’s
Bzig-zag^ explanation of Bell’s theorem for the simplest
two-particle quantum entanglement seen in the experiments
of Freedman, Clauser, and Aspect. Local causes do explain
the violation of Bell’s 1964 locality inequality. The observed
violations prove the existence of future causes of the
entanglement—and that is the only explanation that does not
violate the Bspirit^ if not the Bletter^ of special relativity. This
idea has been applied brilliantly by Roderick Sutherland.
Objections to Bohm’s 1952 pilot wave theory were raised by
Kleinert and Chen who claim it gives the wrong double slit
fringe pattern for massive low energy particles by a large
factor. They claim that this is because the 1952 Bohm model
is a WKB approximation neglecting quantum fluctuations.
When the latter are included, they get the correct pattern.
Valentini has claimed that Bohm’s 1952s-order model has a
Born probability rule that is unstable. He says the original


1924 de Broglie model essentially v ¼ mh ∇S; ψ ¼ ReiS does
not suffer from the instability. How both of these objections
apply to Sutherland’s reformulation that in its fundamental
form is non-statistical without any Born rule at all is a topic
for further research. God does not play dice in Sutherland’s
post-Bohmian theory that fits my call for action-reaction in the
de Broglie Bohm wave-particle picture since my talk at the
Tucson Conference in 1996.
The Bhard problem^ of David Chalmers is how to ex-
plain conscious Bqualia^ in Popper-falsifiable terms. As a
hard-core Bohmian 1952 pilot wave advocate, I totally
reject the very idea of Bcollapse^ of the quantum wave
function as nothing more than a mirage from not having
the correct interpretation of the meaning of quantum me-
chanics. Therefore, I categorically reject not only Henry
Stapp’s view on this subject as well as Roger Penrose’s.
That is the bad news, the good news is that, in my opin-
ion, nevertheless, several valuable ideas from their work
will survive in the post-Bohmian view I profess to be the
only viable position compared with all the others bar
none—and there are many. By Bpost-Bohmian view^ I
mean the Lagrangian re-formulation of Bohm’s 1952
non-relativistic pilot-wave/particle ontological dualism
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accomplished by Roderick Sutherland in the last decade
or so. Sutherland’s Lagrangian incorporates Yakir
Aharonov’s Bweak measurement^ two-state vector (TSV)
formalism in the Bohmian picture. Therefore, it is locally-
retrocausal consistent with the Costa-de Beauregard zig-
zag as resurrected by Huw Price. The Lagrangian is
completely consistent with both special and general
relativity—a great step forward. Importantly, the need
for higher dimensional configuration space to describe
the entanglement of many particles spatio-temporally dis-
tant from each other is eliminated completely.4 Even more
important is that Sutherland uses the same organizing
action-reaction idea that Einstein used to go from special
to general relativity. It is now generally agreed from
Henry Stapp’s frustrating debate (for him) with me in
the 1980s that the reason quantum entanglement cannot
be used as a locally decodable communication channel
not needing a classical retarded signal key to unlock the
encoded message, is the linearity of the observable oper-
ators on the Hilbert space along with their unitary time
evolution that conserves the probability current densities
in the sense of BBorn’s rule.^ Indeed, in 2002, Antony
Valentini proposed a post-Bohmian ontological model that
allows the very kind of entanglement signaling that Nick
Herbert and I were trying to find in the late 1970s and
throughout the 1980s. What defeated us was trying to use
orthodox quantum theory rules as some still try to do
today without learning from the mistakes of the past.
Valentini argued that if the Born rule could be violated
in what he called Bsub-quantum non-equilibrium^ then
not only can you get entanglement signaling effectively
faster-than-light, but you could even hack current quan-
tum cryptographic networks like the one the Chinese have
launched in space in the first stage. The problem with
Valentini’s argument is that he makes the same mistake
4
1. Sutherland has begun to tackle the quantum field problem, as opposed to
particles (real and virtua) in his paper BNaïve Quantum Gravity^ (spin 2) with
some success. The same approach needs to be done for quantum electrody-
namics and quantum Yang-Mills (spin 1) and Higgs fields (spin 0). It can
restore locality in the case of entangled states (such as with Bell’s theorem)
2. It can preserve consistency with special relativity at the ontological level
3. It can allow replacement of many-particle, configuration space
wavefunctions by individual wavefunctions
4. It can allow statistical descriptions to be replaced by definite, ontological
values
5. It can facilitate the development of a Lagrangian formulation in the case
where a particle ontology is assumed
6. It can suggest significant improvements to existing ontological models
7. It restores action-reaction between pilot waves and particles/classical
gauge field Bbeable^ that allows locally decodable entanglement signaling
when the system is resonantly pumped by electromagnetic fields to the
Frohlich macro-quantum coherent Bsuperconducting^ state protected against
the ambient environmental thermodynamic equilibrium temperature. This
Frohlich effect is not in Sutherland’s papers. It has been added by me.
Action-reaction is not permitted in the Copenhagen interpretation and in all
non-Bohmian interpretations because there are no independently existing
Bbeables^ (J. S. Bell’s term).
that Bohm and Vigier made in relegating the Bbeables^ to
some unobservable Bsub-quantum level.^ It is now obvious
from the structure of Sutherland’s Lagrangian including both
h-dependent advanced destiny and retarded history quantum
information waves as in Aharonov’s TSV, but also classical
macroscopic h-independent dynamics that persist even in the
limit h → 0. That this is true should have been obvious from
David Bohm’s 1952 Hamilton-Jacobi equation in which there
is a new h-dependent quantum potential Q in addition to the
classical potential V where the classical particle momentum p is
constrained to follow the gradient flow of the pilot wave. When
h → 0 all that remains would seem to be the purely classical
energy equation in a conservative potential field. However, as
pointed out by Roger Penrose, there is no clear path to the
classical limit within orthodox Bohr-based wave function-
only quantum mechanics. The solution to this reality problem
is found in endnote I below. My proposed 1996 solution to
David Chalmers’s Bhard problem^ was presented in 2009 by
Michael Towler in his Cambridge University lectures on David
Bohm’s ideas. Further developments in the fully relativistic
local retrocausal replacement of relativity-violating
Bnonlocality^ understanding of spooky telepathic quantum en-
tanglement is found in the papers of Huw Price, Ken Wharton,
Maurice Passman, Arik Shimansky et-al cited below.
Pilot-wave theory, Bohmian metaphysics, and the foun-
dations of quantum mechanics Lecture 8
Bohmian metaphysics: the implicate order and other
arcana
Mike Towler
TCM Group, Cavendish Laboratory, University of
Cambridge
Living matter and back-action
In certain dark corners of the internet, can find specula-
tion of the following nature:
& Propose the wave function/pilot wave is intrinsically
‘mental’ and capable of qualia.
& Equate the pilot wave with the mental aspect of the uni-
verse, generally: the
& particles are ‘matter’ and ‘mind’ the pilot wave. OK, who
cares, except.
& Mental aspect of universe upgradeable to life/consciousness
by self-organization. Happens when a physical system uses
its own non-locality in its organization.
& In this case a feedback loop is created, as follows: system
configures itself so as to set up its own pilot wave, which
in turn directly affects its physical configuration, which
then affects its non-local pilot wave, which affects the
configuration etc.
& Normally in QM this ‘back-action’ is not taken into ac-
count. The wave guides the particles but back-action of
particle onto wave not systematically calculated. Of
 Author's personal copy
course, the back-action is physically real since particle
movement determines initial conditions for next round of
calculation. But there is no systematic way to characterize
such feedback. One reason this works in practice is that for
systems that are not self-organizing the back-action may
not exert any systematic effect.
Well, it is not obviously wrong!
[see p.346, Bohm and Hiley’s Undivided Universe).]
Two-way traffic
Important to note that pilot-wave theory does not take
into account any effect of individual particle on its own
quantum field (though Bohm and Hiley briefly sketch
some ideas about how this might happen, see e.g.,
Undivided Universe pp. 345-346).
& Idea that particles collectively affect quantum field of a
single particle is contained in the standard notion that
shape of quantum field of a particle is determined by shape
of environment (which consists of many particles and is
part of the boundary conditions put into the Schr ̈ odinger
equation before solving it, even in conventional QM).
& Celebrity nutjob Jack Sarfatti (see e.g., er.. www.stardrive.
org) in particular has emphasized the need for an
explanation of how the individual particle influences its
own field and has proposed mechanisms for such ‘back-
action,’ also emphasizing its importance in understanding
the mind- matter relationship and how consciousness
arises (see earlier slide).
& Assuming that notion of such an influence of the particle
on its field can be coherently developed, we can then have
two-way traffic between the mental and the physical levels
without reducing one to the other. Role of Bohm’s model
of the quantum system then would be that it provides a
kind of prototype that defines a more general class of
systems in which a field of information is connected with
a material body by a two-way relationship.
& Quantum theory is currently our most fundamental theory
of matter and Bohm suggests that, when ontologically
interpreted, it reveals a proto-mental aspect of matter.
This is the quantum field, described mathematically by
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the wave function, which is governed by the Schr̈ odinger
e q u a t i o n . B o h m ’s s u g g e s t i o n i s k n o w n a s
panprotopsychism...so at least you learned a new word
today!
http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~mdt26/PWT/lectures/
bohm8.pdf
Roderick Sutherland’s mathematical work in 2015 pro-
vides the justification for my 1996 ideas from
Hameroff’s Tucson conference described by Towler
above in 2009. Henry was at the 1996 conference.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of Interest On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author
states that there is no conflict of interest.
References
Passman, M., Fellman, P.V., Vos post, J., Passman, A., Sarfatti, J.
Ontological Determinism, non-locality, quantum equilibrium and
post-quantum mechanics arXiv:1807.09599
Price, H., Wharton, K. A live alternative to quantum spooks arXiv:
1510.06712.
Price, H., Wharton, K. Disentangling the quantum world arXiv:
1508.01140.
Price, H., Wharton, K.. Dispelling the quantum spooks—a clue that
Einstein missed? arXiv:1307.7744.
Sarfatti, J. (2017) Progress in post-quantum mechanics AIP Conference
Proceedings 1841, 040003 (https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.
4982779).
Sarfatti, J. (2018). Arik Shimansky solution to David Chalmers’s Bhard
problem^. Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social
Philosophy, 14(1) https://cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/
article/view/690.
Sutherland, R. A spacetime ontology compatible with quantum mechan-
ics arXiv:1904.05157.
Sutherland, R. how retrocausality helps arXiv:1706.02290
Sutherland, R. Lagrangian description for particle interpretations of quan-
tum mechanics—entangled many-particle Case arXiv:1509.02442
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0203049
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