Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics

Copyright 1988 Thomas J. McFarlane

426 Lowell Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94301

We take a journey with 20th century physicists beyond the limits of old world views to explore the
fascinating world of quantum mechanics and its profound philosophical implications. A fresh analysis of
this paradoxical quantum world reveals that it can not be fully understood apart from consciousness, and
that both the world and consciousness must be understood in a sense which goes far beyond our usual
ideas.

New Worlds
In 1492 Columbus set sail on a journey to unknown lands, pushing the limits of human experience and knowledge. It
was the beginning of the Renaissance, and the beginning of a revolution in thought that would give birth to modern
science, a vessel that would carry Newton beyond the earth itself.

Four hundred years later the earth was mapped, lands were colonized and Columbus was a legend. The earthly realm
was no longer a mystery. But by this time science had gone far ahead. It had mapped the planets, stars, and galaxies. It
had revealed the laws of nature--both on earth and beyond. And people had put the knowledge into practice,
transforming the lives of everyone it touched. The universe was no longer a mystery, but an intricate lawful machine.

Yet, at the dawn of the 20th century, while civilization was transforming under the influence of this Newtonian vision,
a few adventurous souls were being guided by another vision which would take them to an unknown frontier, beyond
the limits of Newton's universe, beyond space and time itself. These would be the future pioneers of a strange new
world, a wonderland that defied common sense. But no one could then imagine what profound implications this
revolution would have. Not even the pioneers themselves could foresee the depth of mystery before them as they took
the first few steps on the journey through the quantum realm.

Two Heroes
Werner Heisenberg, the first revolutionary physicist to completely abandon the classical Newtonian universe and break
trail into the quantum realm, compared his journey with that of Columbus. The greatest achievement in his discovery
of America was not the idea to sail around the world or his careful preparation for the trip. No, Heisenberg says, "his
most remarkable feat was the decision to leave the known regions of the world and to sail westward, far beyond the
point from which his provisions could have got him back home again." And so it is with science, Heisenberg
continues, "it is impossible to open up new territory unless one is prepared to leave the safe anchorage of established
doctrine and run the risk of a hazardous leap forward."

Young and daring, Heisenberg took the first quantum leap with his abstract Matrix Mechanics in 1925. These strange
laws formed the first consistent theory of the just-as-strange atoms whose behavior defied explanation within Newton's
universe. Like Columbus, Heisenberg had discovered a new world. But unlike Columbus, he hadn't found it alone. . .

Only a few months after young Heisenberg had set foot on the new land, an older fellow appeared on the horizon,
having found the same frontier by a different route. It was Erwin Schrödinger, who had found his way to the quantum
realm with a theory of Wave Mechanics. Being the older of the two, Schrödinger had traveled with more caution and
vision. As he wrote only a few months before embarking on his historic journey, "among the advancing hosts of the
forces of knowledge, metaphysics is the vanguard, establishing the forward outposts in an unknown and hostile
territory; we cannot do without such outposts, but we all know that they are exposed to the most extreme danger."

Both had dared. And both survived the dangers, discovering by two different paths the same new frontier of scientific

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 exploration.

Overthrowing The Old Order

Neither Heisenberg nor Schrödinger could fully anticipate in those early days just how much their discoveries would
change the Newtonian world back home. The wonders that this quantum realm revealed would soon undermine the
materialistic determinism that had been the basis for the Newtonian universe. As one crossed the border into the
quantum realm, materialism evaporated. Thus, just as the pioneers of Columbus' time could return home with word
that the world was not flat, our quantum pioneers would bring us word that the world is not made of matter. Regarding
the assumption of materialism, Schrödinger comments, "anyone who wants to make it can do so; it is convenient, if
somewhat naive. He will be missing a great deal if he does." Or, as Heisenberg put it, "materialism rested upon the
illusion that the kind of existence, the direct "actuality" of the world around us, can be extrapolated into the atomic
range." And he adds a warning that "the naive materialistic way of thinking is an obstacle to understanding the
quantum concept of reality."

Despite the profound discoveries of Heisenberg and Schrödinger over sixty years ago, most of us today still think we
live in the naive materialistic world. This world view can be traced back to the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus,
who taught that the fundamental substance of the universe is composed of indivisible and indestructible atoms which
moved in empty space. From the complex arrangements and motions of these basic particles of matter, all other things
are derived. As Democritus put it, "A thing merely appears to have color, it merely appears to be sweet or bitter. Only
atoms and empty space have a real existence." Despite the fact that Plato, among other of his Greek contemporaries,
were strongly opposed to Democritus, this ancient seed of materialism would grow to dominate the whole Western
world view.

In the 1680s Isaac Newton formulated his mathematical laws of universal motion, throwing the scientific revolution
into full swing. Newton's laws united the motion of objects in heaven and earth--both the moon and an apple moved
according to the same laws he discovered. With their mathematical precision, it seemed that nothing could not be
described by these universal laws. Thus the conception grew that the universe was made of material objects which
moved in space according to these laws of Newton, like a big cosmic clockwork. So in this grand vision, everything
could be reduced to the lawful motion of atoms. And since these laws made predictions with mathematical certainty,
the cosmic machine was totally determined--there was no freedom. Furthermore, this world existed objectively,
independent of our observation. Thus, in addition to materialism, the world view of classical physics was characterized
by determinism and objectivity.

This classical mechanism was the old universe which Heisenberg and Schrödinger would abandon in search of a new
frontier. But what prompted them to leave? The powerful laws of Newton had explained everything from the motion
of the planets to the motion of baseballs. It had given people incredible machines and engines, tools and instruments.
But as the 20th century drew closer, and classical physics extended its investigations into the small world of those
fundamental atoms, nature began to defy explanation. The results no longer agreed with the predictions.

Just as circumnavigation revealed the reality of a globe behind the illusion of a flat earth, the discovery of quantum
mechanics revealed a strange new reality beneath the illusion of matter. While it may be convenient to assume a flat or
material world, were we to expand our range of experience, we would find limits to these notions. Thus, reality is not a
big machine after all, even though it seems to be. For now the door has been opened to a new frontier beyond
Newton's universe.

The Quantum Reality Behind The Veil of Classical Mechanism

What has the quantum realm revealed beneath the illusion of Newton's universe?

That atomic matter, supposedly the ultimate immutable substance, dissolves into waves of potential existence.
That determinism, which rigidly governed Newton's universe like a cosmic machine, falls apart, giving us a
world with spontaneity.

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 That the objective world, existing "out there" independent of observers, vanishes, leaving a world in which the
observer and the observed are interdependent.
That the manifold world of separate independent objects interacting within space and time is transcended,
revealing a realm where all things unite in an indivisible whole.

As strange as this new quantum world may seem, it is not off in some far land--it is here and now, hidden beneath the
veil of materialism. And one does not need a particle accelerator to get to the quantum realm any more than one needs
a boat to get to a round earth--it is already here, the true nature of this apparently flat world. We already live in this
quantum wonderland. So let us take a look at our true home.

We Are Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On: As Matter Dissolves

The first piece of the Newtonian mechanism to crumble was materialism: the immutable atoms were not so immutable
after all. Soon after the discovery of radioactivity in 1896 it was found that atoms sometimes transmute into other
atoms, just as the alchemists had dreamed. Next, the electron was discovered in 1897, a particle much smaller than any
of the supposedly fundamental atoms. Thus, the atoms forming the substantial basis for all existence in the material
world view were not the firm foundation they were taken to be. But this discovery in itself only pushed materialism
down one step in scale, to the smaller particles which made up the atoms. While the substantial foundation had shifted,
it was still just as firm. . .or so they thought.

Thus, at the dawn of the 20th century, the physicists of a new generation were faced with a new realm to explore.
Since the atoms were no longer the fundamental entities which they were thought to have been, it was now the task of
these 20th century physicists to discover the true elementary particles and how they combine to form the atoms. It was
at this point, however, that Newton's classical laws began to fail. All attempts to explain atomic structure with the
classical laws simply gave the wrong answers. For example, in 1911 Rutherford in England proposed a planetary
model of the atom, in which a host of negatively charged electrons orbited a positively charged nucleus just as planets
orbit the sun. But the known laws predicted that any electronic charge moving in an orbit must radiate energy. Thus
the orbiting electron-planets would spiral into the nucleus, in much the same way that a satellite falls out of orbit,
losing energy due to its drag in the earth's atmosphere. In the case of the electrons, however, they would fall out of
orbit very quickly, destroying the whole atomic structure almost immediately--catastrophe. But the plain fact was that
the atomic orbits were stable, and classical physics simply could not explain this fact.

To add to the troubles, Max Planck discovered in 1900 that atoms exchanged energy only in specific quantities.
According to Newton's laws, exchanges of energy could take place in arbitrary amounts. But according to Planck,
energy exchange was like the exchange of money: instead of coming in any amount, it must always come in specific
quantities, called quanta. The quantum of money in the U.S., for example, is the penny. And the quantum of action in
the universe is now called Planck's constant. There was no classical explanation for this strange quantization, and yet
there was no way around it. This quantum, which Planck called "the mysterious ambassador from the real world," was
then revealing the first of many paradoxes of the quantum world.

Five years later Einstein took Planck's idea one step further and proposed that these energy quanta were in fact
particles of light. But the classical laws said that light was made of waves. Which was it? To help remedy the situation,
a young Danish student of Rutherford made a quite radical proposal. His name was Niels Bohr, and he was to become
the father of the quantum revolution. Bohr used Planck's strange quantum idea and proposed a daring model of the
atom which explicitly denies the validity of the old classical laws. Without explaining why, Bohr simply assumed that
there were only certain stable electron orbits, so that the electrons could orbit at some distances but not at any others.
In addition, when electrons "jump" from one orbit to another, a quantum of light is emitted. From this simple model,
Bohr was then able to predict the observed atomic spectra, and offer a reason why only certain frequencies were seen.
But while Bohr broke away from the classical laws of Newton, he did not find any new laws to replace them. The
physicists still could not explain why Bohr's orbits were stable, or what the electrons did during their jumps.

Before Heisenberg and Schrödinger could solve this atomic puzzle and reveal the strange laws of the quantum, one
last piece was needed. One day a French Nobleman-turned-physicist named Louis DeBroglie was thinking about
Einstein's paradoxical proposal that light was composed of particles, despite the fact that it was known to be a wave.

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 Somehow, light had both a wave and particle aspect. DeBroglie then had a brilliant insight that connected this paradox
with Bohr's atomic model in a new way. If light waves can have particle properties, DeBroglie thought, then material
particles ought to have wave properties. The particle-wave duality should hold for matter and light alike. Using this
hypothesis, DeBroglie explained why there were only certain stable orbits in Bohr's model. If the electron is a wave
surrounding the nucleus, then just as a string can only play certain notes, the electron wave can only vibrate at certain
frequencies. These frequencies of the electron wave correspond to Bohr's stable orbits, with higher notes being higher
energy orbits. It was a brilliant proposal. Yet, what does it mean to say that matter is a wave? Here we have our first
hint that the solid particles of Newton's universe were to quickly dissolve. . .

Inspired by DeBroglie's vision of matter waves, Schrödinger set out to discover their laws. Just as light waves obey an
equation, these matter waves should have their own wave equation, too. In 1925 he began to search, to find a path into
the quantum realm. After hitting a blind alley and struggling for months, Schrödinger finally broke through,
discovering the now-famous Schrödinger wave equation. Solving this equation for the case of the atom, Schrödinger
derived wave functions which corresponded to Bohr's electronic orbital waves, thus placing atomic stability on the
solid basis of mathematical law. With this Wave Mechanics, he had set a firm foot into the strange land of the
quantum.

Although both Heisenberg and Schrödinger embarked on their historic journeys at about the same time, Heisenberg
took a short-cut, and arrived earlier. Instead of using DeBroglie's wave-pictures of the atomic orbits, he made a
youthful plunge from Bohr's model straight into the quantum realm. Heisenberg put all the possible electron jumps of
the atom into a big table, called a matrix. He was then able to discover the proper laws for these matrices, and directly
set foot into the quantum realm with this Matrix Mechanics. And it was not long before Schrödinger proved that they
had both indeed arrived at the same discovery: the Wave Mechanics and the Matrix Mechanics were mathematical
variations of the same Quantum Mechanics. It was 1926, and the new territory was opened up.

While Quantum Mechanics gave correct predictions, no one yet really understood what it meant. While Heisenberg
and Schrödinger deserve the credit for giving quantum mechanics a consistent mathematical basis, it was Niels Bohr
who was to tackle the conceptual problems of this new theory. Just what were the "matter waves" described by the
wave functions, anyhow? Were material particles just "the foam on a wave of radiation" as Schrödinger said? Or did
matter rest on nothing but the probabilities in Heisenberg's matrices? Bohr's answer turned out to be a strange
combination of both: in a sense, the world is particles and in a sense, the world is waves. The two views are
complementary, neither one by itself telling the whole story.

These waves of matter were not ordinary waves, however. Matter had dissolved into a probability wave, describing not
actual physical properties of the particles, but only their probable, or potential properties. Like a mother's egg before
conception, only a potential for specific properties exists. So an atomic orbit is not an actual path followed by a
material particle, but rather a wave of possibility for the manifestation of a particle. And rather than describing the
movement of actual particles as Newton's laws did, the quantum laws describe the movement of potentiality waves.
The actual particles are gone--only their possibilities remain. Thus the solid substance of materialism has evaporated
into wave functions, describing only the probabilities for particles to appear.

And so it happened that the journey into the quantum realm revealed that the apparent world of hard matter rested on
the airy cloud of nonphysical probabilities. Materialism was just a castle in the clouds, no less an illusion than the flat
earth.

Spontaneity In Nature: Does God Play Dice?

The overthrow of the material basis for the world was to be only the beginning of the quantum revolution. Basing
physical reality on wave functions of potentiality was to undermine other assumptions of the Newtonian universe as
well, and determinism was to be the next pillar of classical physics to fall. The universal machine was no longer
predictable with absolute certainty. Now it had spontaneity.

Let us compare the classical and quantum ways of describing the world. In both quantum and classical physics, we
begin by choosing an isolated system to study. For example, we might study the solar system, or a single atom, or

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 perhaps two billiard balls. By restricting our study to a specific system like this, we define and simplify the problem,
for it would be just too complicated to consider the whole universe at once.

In the case of classical physics, it was found that when the systems got very small--about the size of an atom--then the
laws of Newton did not work anymore. So, we might say that the domain of classical physics was found to be limited
to large systems, just as the domain of "flat earth" geometry is limited to small areas. And just as "round earth"
geometry can explain everything that "flat earth" geometry explains and more, the quantum physics, too, applies to
both the large systems and small atomic systems. It is more general and more comprehensive than classical physics
alone.

After choosing our system, the next step in describing the world is to determine the state of our system. In the case of
classical physics, the state is quite simple. If we are considering the solar system, for example, then the state would be
given by the positions and velocities of all the planets in their orbits. Likewise, the state of a system of two billiard
balls would be given by the position and velocity of each ball. So for any given system, it can exist in many different
possible states: the two balls can be close together and at rest, they can be far away and moving quickly, one can be
moving and the other at rest, and so on. If, for the sake of simplicity, we consider just one dimension of their positions,
then every possible state of the two billiard balls can be represented as a point in a two-dimensional space, plotting the
position of one ball on the x-axis and the position of the other ball on the y-axis. So by just specifying a point, we
know the state of our system. We can call this the "state-point."

Given any initial state, the classical laws will then tell us how the two balls will move in the future. Thus, the point
will move around on the plane, following a curve corresponding to the state-points at each instant in time. There are
two important features of this movement which we should point out. First, the movement of the state-point is smooth
and continuous: neither of the balls suddenly "jumps" from one place to another, causing a break in the line. This
means that once any state-point is known, the whole curve of future and past state-points is totally determined. If we
know where the balls are now, we can predict with certainty where they were or will be. Second, the state-point
represents the actual state of the system, the state that we would observe were we to look. So when we observe the two
balls, we can directly observe the state, and this does not change it at all. For example, if you were to look at the two
billiard balls, this observation would not change their locations.

Now if our system is very small, this method of classical physics no longer works and we must use the methods of
quantum mechanics. Let us take the example of an atom. As we discussed earlier, it was found that the electrons have
only certain stable orbits, which are waves of potentiality and not the movement of actual particles through space. So,
instead of describing the orbital state by the electron's position, each of these orbits is represented by a wave function,
which is the mathematical description of the wave of possibility for the electron to appear. Thus, since the electron has
no actual position, but only a potential position, we cannot use the classical method of "state- points" to describe its
state. We must find another way.

With quantum mechanics we represent the state of a system by the wave function. Let us illustrate with a simple
example how this wave function represents the potential properties of the electron. Suppose our electron can
potentially exist in only two places: inside a box or outside a box. Now before we look, the electron is not actually in
the box or actually out of the box, but only potentially in either position. Again, this is much like the state of an egg
before conception: it is potentially male or female and not actually either one. Now we can imagine that there might be
a large possibility for the electron to be in the box and only a small possibility for the electron to be out of the box, or
vice versa, or perhaps the possibilities are about equal. If we imagine a space with the "inside box" possibility on one
axis and the "outside box" possibility on the other axis, then the state can be represented as an arrow pointing either
more toward one axis or the other, depending on which position is more probable. Thus our quantum state can be
thought of as an arrow, or vector, living in a possibility space. In addition, this state-vector, as it is called, points in a
direction which determines the relative potentialities of the system.

Now since the state-vector does not necessarily point entirely along one axis but can have components along both
axes, the electron is not actually in the box or actually out of the box. Rather, the electron is just potentially in or out
of the box, but not actually either. So the state vector, or wave function, represents a potentiality for something to
happen.

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 We noticed earlier that Newton's equations moved the state- point of the billiard balls around continuously in its actual
space. In a similar way, Schrödinger's equation moves this state-vector around continuously in the possibility space. So
as time passes, the direction of the arrow may change, meaning that the electron's potential for being in or out of the
box will also change. And just as with the classical state-point, this state-vector will continuously move around in a
completely determined way. But there is a radical difference between what happens to the quantum state-vectors and
the classical state-points when we make an observation. In the classical case, we could directly observe the state of the
billiard balls without changing anything. But in that case the state already represented something actual.

In quantum mechanics the state-vector represents a potential for something actual, rather than simply something actual.
But we cannot observe a potential directly, for when we look, we only see it actually in the box or actually out of the
box--never potentially both in and out of the box at the same time. Thus our looking is analogous to conception: once
it happens, the potentially male and female egg becomes either an actual male or an actual female. So in quantum
mechanics, when we look, the state changes from being a potential for several things to an actual observation of one
thing. This means that when we look, the state vector must suddenly jump so that it is pointing just in one direction or
another, and not a combination of both. It is as if we could only see the shadow of the potential state, as it is projected
onto an axis of actuality. Thus, the transition from potential to actual is often called a projection.

One of the most remarkable features of this projection is that the actual event which manifests in any given case is
determined only by probability. When the world becomes actual, there is a sudden discontinuous jump in the state that
has an element of true spontaneity to it. While deterministic laws still apply to the unobserved potentials, when we
look and the electron manifests either in the box or out of it, the choice is free and spontaneous. It is here that the
analogy with the egg breaks down, for the "random" choice of sex is, in principle, determined by the particular
circumstances surrounding the event. But with quantum events, the act is truly spontaneous. It is not determined-- even
in principle.

Thus, in the quantum realm, the deterministic machine has broken down. No longer is the universe a giant cosmic
machine, predetermined with no room for spontaneity. While there is a deterministic law in the quantum realm, it has
limitations, applying only to the possibilities while we are not looking. When we look, however, the potential is made
actual, breaking deterministic law and introducing spontaneity into the world. There is no predicting which state will
become actual--only the probabilities are determined. And so one more premise of the Newtonian mechanism has been
undermined. The cosmic machine is falling apart, its matter dissolving into potentiality, its determinism making room
for freedom.

Nonseparability: Is Reality One or Many?

In Newton's Mechanistic universe, not only was reality made of matter which followed strict deterministic law, but it is
thought to be composed of many separate, independent material particles. So far on our journey into the quantum
realm, the materialistic and deterministic assumptions have been undermined. First, we found that the particles were
not the substantial bits of solid matter they were cracked up to be, but rather waves of potentiality. Then we found that
while these waves of potentiality themselves are determined, their projection into actuality exhibits spontaneity. Next
we will investigate whether this quantum world, like the classical world, is really composed of separate, independently
existing entities. In other words, is this new world of potentiality a "Many" or a "One"?

Let us, for the sake of simplicity, consider a system of just two particles which have interacted with each other at some
point in the past. Suppose we have a box as before and each particle can be either in the box or out of the box. Now
when we look, we will find one of four actual states: both in the box, both out of the box, one in the box and the other
out of it, and vice versa. So our possibility space for the system will have four directions, and the state of this two
particle system will be represented by a single state vector pointing in some combination of the four directions. For
example, if the vector has a large component in the direction where both particles are in the box, then the probability
of finding the particles in this actual state will be large. But so long as the vector has components in the other
directions as well, there is a possibility of finding one of several actual states when we look. Thus, the state vector
represents a potential for the particles to be found in any of the four possible states we can actually observe.

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 Now it is important to notice that the one state vector describes the potentialities of both particles. So if you look at
one of the particles, the state vector for the whole system will be projected. Thus, by looking at one of the particles,
you have determined what is actual for both of them. For example, if you find one particle in the box, then the other
particle will be either actually in the box or actually out of the box, and not potentially in or out of the box. By making
one particle actual we have made them both actual.

What is amazing about this is that the other particle becomes actual instantly--even if it is in another galaxy. One
might think at first that some strange faster-than-light connection is necessary to coordinate the two particles. But such
strange mechanisms are not at all necessary when we remember that the two particles were not really separate in the
first place--the one state vector described the potentiality for them both. Thus, in the world of potentiality, there were
not two particles at all, but just one potentiality which contained the possibilities for the manifestation of them both.
And since the potentiality exists in a possibility space and not in actual physical space, the "actual" distance between
the particles is irrelevant. While they are separated when manifested in spacetime, in the potential world beyond
spacetime they are united as one. Thus the complementary wave-particle aspects of matter are accompanied by their
respective nonlocal-local aspects.

In this quantum world, things are interconnected beyond the limits of space and time. Behind the classical world of
separate material particles lies a world that is nonseparable. In a sense, a system of two particles is not two separate
particles at all, but one nonseparable potential which contains the possibilities for the manifestation of two particles.
Similarly, a system of many particles is also united in the same way. Thus the whole universe is united in one wave of
potentiality living in a vast space of unimaginable possibility. While the world appears to be a Many, quantum
mechanics demonstrates that it is also a One.

The Loss Of Objectivity: Is The Moon There When Nobody Looks?

As we explore further into the quantum realm, things only get stranger. With the evaporation of matter, then
deterministic law, and finally separability, our hero Schrödinger began to get a bit worried, for as he looked further
into the unexplored territory, he saw some very odd things, indeed. What was most disturbing to Schrödinger was the
fact that when we were not looking at an atom it could be in a potential state and then just by merely looking at an
atom, we somehow trigger the projection of the potential to the actual. To illustrate just how odd this situation is,
Schrödinger imagined performing the following experiment with a cat.

He began with a single radioactive atom which can spontaneously decay, transforming into a different element. So
whenever we look at this atom, it will be in one of two mutually exclusive actual states: decayed or not decayed. (This
is entirely analogous to the electron being actually in or out of the box.) But if we do not look at the atom, then its
state vector can be potentially in both states, pointing partly in the decayed direction and partly in the not-decayed
direction. Initially, of course, the atom was in the not- decayed state, so the state vector pointed along the not- decayed
axis. But as Schrödinger waits, there is a larger probability that he could find the atom decayed, so as time passes the
vector has a smaller component along the not- decayed axis and a larger component on the decayed axis. But the main
point is that, so long as Schrödinger does not look, the atom is not actually in one or the other states, but only
potentially decayed or not-decayed.

Now Schrödinger gets devious. He puts the radioactive atom, a detector, a hammer, a poison bottle into a cage with a
cat in it. Schrödinger arranges it all so that when the atom decays, the detector will be triggered, causing the hammer to
break the poison bottle, releasing the poison and killing the cat. Schrödinger closes the cage and waits a few minutes.
Now since the state of the cat is directly dependent on the state of the bottle, which in turn is dependent on the state of
the atom, when Schrödinger looks into the cage, he will see an actual live cat, if the atom is not decayed, or an actual
dead cat, if the atom is decayed.

But what is the state of the cat while Schrödinger is not looking? In this case, we are forced to say that the cat is in a
state similar to that of the atom: it is not actually dead or actually alive, but just in a state of being potentially both
dead and alive. While it may not seem so strange to think of atoms as being neither actually decayed nor actually not
decayed, when we do this to a cat, it seems ridiculous. Can it be true that in the quantum realm even cats can be in
potential states? And can it be that just because Schrödinger looks, the potential state of the cat suddenly becomes

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 actual, dead or alive?

A classical physicist, not having ventured into the strange quantum realm would consider such ideas as nonsense: "It is
impossible for a cat to be in such a state." But this reaction is like a land-locked sailor considering a round earth as
nonsense: "It is impossible for my lake to be round." Indeed, the roundness is very difficult to detect on such a small
scale. But a sailor with expanded horizons would recognize the fact that the lake, like the earth upon which it lies, must
be round. Similarly, while it is very difficult to detect the strange quantum effects for large objects such as cats, were
we to expand our classical horizons into the quantum realm, we would recognize the fact that cats, like the atoms of
which they are composed, can be in potential states. Like it or not, this is how the world really works beneath the
illusion of classical mechanism, beneath the illusion of a world actually "out there," independent of whether or not we
look.

This brings us to the second, more mysterious question: What is so special about Schrödinger that allows him to
transform the cat from a potential state to an actual state? Or is it really Schrödinger who does it? What changes the
potentiality to an actuality? What projects the state-vector onto one of the axis states? A classical physicist, in a futile
attempt to retain the actual world of large objects, might propose that the projection takes place when the system "gets
large," and can then be treated with the old classical physics. But just how large? Two atoms, ten atoms, a thousand?
Making size determine projection is very arbitrary. Moreover, this solution does not even make sense, for if one or two
atoms can be in a potential state, than so can three or four, or fifty or five thousand--size is a matter of degree, while
actuality is not. Claiming that the world suddenly becomes actual when the system gets "big enough" is like our land-
locked sailor claiming that when a lake gets small enough, then suddenly it really becomes perfectly flat. What he
ought to say is that when the lake gets small enough, it is as if it were really flat, while in reality it is still round.
Similarly, when our system gets big enough it is as if it were really in an actual state, while in reality it is still in a
potential state. We must be careful not to drag classical illusions of an actual world into the quantum reality.

So potential states do not suddenly, of themselves, become actual when a system gets "large enough." But then when
do they become actual? We still have not answered this difficult question. In an attempt to solve this problem, Eugene
Wigner, one of the many physicists to rush into the newly discovered quantum realm, made a radical proposal.

Wigner began by taking the paradox of Schrödinger's cat one step further. What would happen if he put another cage
around both Schrödinger and the first cage? Now Schrödinger is in a new cage, and since his state is dependent on
what he sees when he looks at the cat, he is ultimately dependent on the atom's state now as well. So as long as
Wigner does not look into the big cage, Schrödinger will be in a potential state just like the cat! His state vector will be
in a possibility space with the two directions "Schrödinger seeing a live cat" and "Schrödinger seeing a dead cat",
leaving poor Schrödinger in suspended animation until Wigner decides to look at him. But now we can ask, how does
Wigner project the state from potential to actual? What stops us from putting Wigner and his cage in another, even
bigger, cage? After all, Wigner is made of atoms, too, just like Schrödinger and the cat. So what stops Wigner from
being a potential state too? If this continues, then the whole world will be forever in a potential state with nothing to
project it into an actual state.

While it may be unusual for cats to be in potential states, Wigner considered it intolerable for humans to be in such a
state. So to get out of this mess, Wigner proposed that the projection must happen with human consciousness. Suppose
Schrödinger was to look at the cat. First his eye would be in a potential state, "eye with image of live cat" and "eye
with image of dead cat." Then his brain would be in a potential state, "experiencing seeing a dead cat" and
"experiencing seeing a live cat." But it is at this point that we cannot go any further, for Schrödinger is only ever
conscious of one actual experience or another. And there should be no doubt about this for him: it is an absolutely
certain, undeniable, and unambiguous fact that anything appearing in his consciousness is actually in one state or
another. When he looks at a cat it is always actually dead or actually alive (or at least actually in some state or
another.) Never is he conscious of a cat in a potential combination of two mutually exclusive actual states. Thus the
potential must become actual when it appears in Schrödinger's consciousness. Nothing physical--not the cat, not the
eye, not the brain--can project the state vector. Only a nonphysical consciousness can do it. The buck stops with
consciousness.

Something amazing has just happened. In the quantum realm, in order to account for the actual existence of anything

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 physical, we are forced to recognize the existence of a nonphysical consciousness. The world cannot be just a bunch of
inert matter, a collection of objects. There must also be a subject, a consciousness apart from objects, which is aware
of them. Although this may seem at first to be a somewhat radical proposal for a scientist, when one reflects for just a
moment, it is not hard to see why this must be so. Just consider the simple question, "how is it that I am seeing
anything at all?" Is there something like a little TV in your head? But then who is watching it? And then how is it that
they see anything? By trying to account for the seeing of anything with a brain or a TV or any other material
mechanism we are just adding more objects, and leaving the question unanswered: what sees any of these objects at
all? To escape the trap we must recognize a subject apart from all objects that is aware of the objects. Similarly, to
account for actual existence at all, we must recognize a subject, or consciousness, which by its very nature is not
another physical object in the system. So when any object is not in your conscious awareness--an atom, a bottle, a cat,
your own body, a thought in your brain--it is in a potential state. Only when you become conscious of it does it
become actual.

What Wigner's solution proposes is that the human consciousness present in individuals is what projects the potential
to the actual. Thus not only can Wigner project the cat's state, but Schrödinger or any other person can as well. This
solution not only solves the problem of projection, but it also prevents Schrödinger from existing in a potential state--a
proposition which Wigner just could not tolerate. But while the insight that a nonphysical consciousness is necessary
for the world to become actual is brilliant, Wigner's restriction of this consciousness to human individuals has serious
faults.

The first problem with Wigner's approach is that it gives special status to humans. Why is it that a human can make the
cat actual and a monkey can not? And if we give consciousness to monkeys, then what about the cats? And then what
about mice? How about insects? Where do we draw the line? And even if we were able to agree on how to restrict
consciousness to humans, at what age does a human suddenly have the ability to actualize cats? At ten? At two
months? At conception? While the development of an organism is a matter of degree, the projection from potential to
actual is not. This situation is suddenly very arbitrary, and is reminiscent of the idea that things become actual when
they get big enough, only instead of size, Wigner has chosen "human consciousness" to be the property which
determines when the world becomes actual. Considered as an observable property of biological organisms, the term
"human consciousness" is not only extremely ambiguous, but it is also ill-conceived.

To illuminate the problems with Wigner's proposal, let us look at his argument for making humans so special. "O.K.",
Wigner says, "suppose Schrödinger was in a potential state before I looked at him. Now, after I look at him I ask
Schrödinger what he felt before I looked at him. Surely he will not say that he was in a potential state! Thus," Wigner
concludes, "Schrödinger must have been in an actual state before I looked at him." As convincing as this may sound,
Wigner's argument proves nothing. Suppose we replaced Schrödinger with a sophisticated robot. The robot would
never say it was in a superposition either, for when Wigner looks at it, the robot will actualize into a state which has
recorded either a live cat or a dead cat. Similarly, when Wigner looks at Schrödinger, Schrödinger will actualize into a
state "Schrödinger with the memory of having seen a live cat" or "Schrödinger with the memory of having seen a dead
cat." So there is no good reason to suppose that Schrödinger is any more special than a robot or a cat. After all, as far
as Wigner is concerned, Schrödinger's body and brain are made of atoms just like the radioactive atom, all of which
will be in potential states until Wigner looks at them.

Wigner made the mistake of objectifying the subject: he gave a material object (Schrödinger's body) the property of a
conscious subject. It only seems to Wigner as if the humans like Schrödinger really possess consciousness. Wigner has
no way of knowing for certain that Schrödinger is ever conscious of anything, and so he has no basis for the claim that
Schrödinger or any other human is responsible for the projection from potentiality to actuality. Wigner's claim is just
as arbitrary and unverifiable as the claim that big objects are responsible for the projection.

Yet despite this problem with Wigner's proposal, he can still be absolutely certain of one thing: the projection must
happen with his consciousness. While Wigner can never know if anyone else is conscious, he is absolutely certain that
he is. Strictly speaking, Wigner is the only conscious subject that is certain to exist for him. For Wigner, the only time
he can be absolutely sure that a potentiality has become an actuality is when it appears in his consciousness. But
Wigner is repulsed by this denial of other people's existence, and understandably so. This all seems to imply solipsism,
the view that he is the only subject, that he is the only conscious being and everyone else is just an object, like robots

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 or machines, in his consciousness. Furthermore, this same argument would apply to each of us. The only conscious
subject that you can be certain of is yourself. Your consciousness is responsible for the projection from potential to
actual.

Although we seem to have corrected Wigner's mistake of objectifying the subject, of arbitrarily granting consciousness
to objects, we are apparently forced to accept solipsism: for you, there is no certainty that anything exists but yourself
and your world. And for Wigner, the only certainty is himself and the existence of his world. Now there seem to be
millions of fragmented people experiencing their own personal worlds with no apparent connection between them. A
world for you, a world for me, a world for Wigner. And the only world you can be certain of is your own.

The first problem that results from this situation is related to the conscious subjects. In your world you will be
claiming to be the true subject responsible for making the world actual, while other people will be arguing that, in fact,
each of them is the creator of the world and you are just an object in their consciousness. Yet you know they are
absolutely wrong. Thus we have a proliferation of conscious subjects, each of whom claims to be the one and only
subject-- hence the unresolvable arguments over who is responsible for whose existence.

The problem at the root of all this lies with the fact that Wigner did not completely eliminate his objectification of the
subject. At first, he thought that consciousness was a property of particular individual humans, such as himself and
Schrödinger. Then after discovering the mistake of objectifying the subject, Wigner was forced to doubt Schrödinger's
(and everyone else's) consciousness, leaving Wigner with only "his own" consciousness. But Wigner is still making
consciousness a property of his mind-body when, in fact, his body, his thoughts, his feelings are all objects appearing
in "his" consciousness. The conscious subject can not "belong" to any object, and that includes the thoughts of Wigner
and the body of Wigner as well as other objects such as Schrödinger. When Wigner mistakenly attributed properties of
a subject to objects such as Schrödinger and other people, he also mistakenly attributed subjecthood to the objects
which comprise his own mind and body! All Wigner can say for sure is that there is a consciousness and "his" world
appears in it.

Once this last objectification of the subject is recognized, we have solved the first problem, for Wigner can no longer
claim that other people are just objects in "his" personal consciousness. Now he is just an object in consciousness, too.
And everyone will agree with him on this point. "Yes," they will each say, "there is a consciousness. This body and
these thoughts are in it, and I see everyone else in it, too." People can no longer argue, "you're just an object in my
consciousness." Not because other people are not objects in consciousness, but because consciousness can not belong
to any person.

At this point something amazing happens. What reason is there to think that the consciousness in which one person's
world appears is different from the consciousness in which another person's world appears? Is the subject to Wigner's
world separate from the subject to Schrödinger's world? Consider what it would be like to switch places with a friend
of yours, say Wigner. To just switch bodies, but not brains, would give you a good idea, but still you would not really
know what it would be like to be Wigner unless you switched brains too. After all, even if you could be in his body,
you still would not have his memories and skills that would allow you to truly experience what it is like to be Wigner
in his essence. So you decide to switch places completely--body, brain, memories, everything. But to really know what
it is like to be him, you must leave behind your own memories, for part of what makes Wigner unique is the fact that
he does not have your memories. So you make this pure switch, and you live as Wigner for a day or two, then you
switch back. But since none of the memories were switched, when you get back, it will be as if you had never
switched at all! When you are Wigner, you would not know it and when you got back, you would not know you had
been gone. So you could be switching back and forth all the time, repeatedly throughout the day, and your mind-body
would never know it, "you" would never know it. But if that is the case, then what is the real difference between you
and your friend Wigner? In your true essence, you are your friend. It is only one consciousness, one subject, that sees
both worlds.

Therefore, the mistake that leads to solipsism is the objectification of the subject, or taking consciousness to be in a
particular mind-body when the mind-body is, in fact, a collection of objects in consciousness. The idea of separate
conscious individuals is thus an illusion resulting from not recognizing this circularity. As Schrödinger himself wrote,
"the plurality that we perceive is only an appearance; it is not real." In fact, there is just one conscious subject, and

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 You Are That.

Although we have resolved the problem caused by the proliferation of subjects, we have still to solve another problem.
This second problem is related to the fragmented worlds of which this subject is conscious. With you being at the
center of your private world and Wigner at the center of his, there is a loss of any notion of a shared, objective world.
In fact, we hardly need quantum mechanical paradoxes to see that this is a problem. After all, do not all individuals live
in their own separate worlds, experiencing life from the particular point of view of one body, living in a certain culture
during a certain time period? Certainly you see different things from Wigner, you experience different things from
your friend. Even if you are both looking at the same object, you still see it from different angles and experience
different reactions. Strictly speaking, no two people live in the same world. Consequently, the notion of an objective
world--that we actually experience the same world "out there"--becomes questionable. While we can say that it is as if
there were an objective, shared world, in fact, we each experience our own personal world of phenomena. In this case,
the whole quest of science to discover the laws of an objective world "out there" seems to lose meaning. In addition,
there is no longer any basis for society. All that is left is the isolated individual and a corresponding world of
experience. And even if there is just one subject common to the worlds relative to all mind-bodies, it still seems as if
there are separate worlds, each centered around a particular mind-body. One world appears relative to your mind-body,
while a totally different world appears relative to Wigner's mind-body. Thus, we still have a serious problem dealing
with objectivity.

While it may seem that objectivity is totally lost in the quantum realm, it has only taken a new form. To understand
what has happened to objectivity in quantum mechanics, it is useful to draw an analogy with Einstein's special theory
of relativity. Einstein's theory showed two important things. First, all measurements of time and space are relative--
they depend on the point of view, or reference frame, of the observer. Second, the laws of nature do not depend on the
point of view--all worlds are governed by the same laws. Thus, while the way nature appears to each mind-body
depends on its point of view, the laws of nature do not. Objectivity no longer applies to the separate worlds of
appearances. It only applies to the common laws behind them.

Niels Bohr, the father of the quantum revolution, wrote that a study of these two revolutionary theories of the 20th
century "reveals striking similarities as regards the renunciation of the absolute significance of conventional physical
attributes of objects." So, he says, "[we must use the word] phenomena exclusively to refer to the observations
obtained under specified circumstances." In other words, the phenomenal world that appears to each of us is not
objective, or absolute, but relative. To talk of the "actual" state of an object without reference to an observer in
quantum mechanics is meaningless, just as is talking about the "actual" length of a time interval without reference to
an observer in relativity. The "actual" world you experience is just a particular projection of the real world of
potentiality, like shadows flickering on the walls of a cave. And the particular appearance of the shadows will depend
on the position of the light, on your point of view.

In addition, just as there is no preferred reference frame in relativity, there is no point of view that is more special than
any other. While the apparent world that manifests in your reference frame is a different world altogether from the
world that manifests in the reference frame of your friend, both are fundamentally just as valid. While all points of
view are created equal, they nonetheless are unique expressions of the world. Just as the shadow of an object cast by a
light from one angle is no more true or false than a shadow cast by a light from another angle, no one person's point of
view is ultimately any more true or false than another's.

But quantum mechanics differs from relativity in one important way: the objects casting the shadows are not actual but
potential. There is an objective world, but it is not an actual world fixed in space and time. The true objective reality is
a potential world of possibility, beyond this shadow-play of spatio-temporal appearances we call actual. Furthermore,
that objective world of potentiality is nonseparable--it is in a sense a single object, just as we have found that there is
just a single subject. But out of this pair are manifested many relative worlds appearing to different people in different
places at different times. And from the different relative worlds, each mind-body never sees the whole potential reality
but only a limited, actualized projection from one unique point of view. In Schrödinger's words, "this whole is not so
constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance." But behind this apparent proliferation of subjects and objects,
all are united and intricately interconnected.

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 Thus, we have now revealed beneath the veil of Newton's universe a quantum realm of reality in which objects cannot
exist alone, independent of a conscious subject. And while the one unitive subject is free of the limitations of any
particular point of view, what becomes actual in each world depends on the observer at the center of that world, the
individual mind-body who defines the reference point for that relative world. And there are as many relative worlds as
reference points to be chosen. A world for you, a world for your friend, a world for every plant and every animal, and
even a world for the stars and planets and every single atom. Yet, in a deep and profound sense, these worlds are
merely different projections of a single potential reality common to them all, a nonseparable reality interweaving them
all into a coherent whole and its archetypal Law, making objectivity and science possible. And at the center of each
relative world is the one subject, uniting the worlds from the subjective side and making human relationships
meaningful.

And so we lose our last remaining link to the old Cosmic Machine. We have pierced completely through the illusion of
Newton's world and have discovered the strange and wonderful world of the quantum, a world that is right here and
now, veiled beneath the apparent reality of matter, determinism, naive objectivity, and separation. The world is not
made of hard matter. The world does not strictly follow deterministic laws. The world is not just a collection of
separate parts. The world does not exist as a collection of objective entities, independent of observers. No, the world is
not what we have thought it to be after all. Beneath this illusion lies a quantum realm where strange and wonderful
things can happen. And this quantum wonderland is not some far off place, it is not some fiction. This is the world
right here and now, a world that modern physics has lead us to.

Implications: Life In The Quantum Realm

Finally, we have found our way to the quantum realm, a world of possibility and spontaneity, a world of unbroken
unity. This quantum reality we have found at the end of our journey is composed of a Subject and an Object. The
Subject is the One source of conscious awareness which shines forth through the Many individuals. The Object is the
One potential for the appearance of the Many phenomenal appearances in all the individual worlds. This reality is prior
to space, time, and causality, and is thus characterized by nonseparability and spontaneity.

Being such a profound change in our world view, what implications does this quantum reality hold for us? Compare
for a moment our situation with that of the Europeans after the discovery of America. The discovery of quantum
mechanics, like the discovery of the New World, has brought with it many changes in the world. The most profound
changes, however, are not the changes to the world, but the changes in how we see the world. The discovery of the
New World hundreds of years ago brought with it a spirit of freedom and independence that transformed people with
its new possibilities. Similarly, the discovery of quantum mechanics has opened up a vast new Quantum World that
can free us from an outdated world view and its illusions of separation and materialism. Going far beyond superficial
technological changes, the Quantum World has the potential to transform the basis of our individual and social actions.
By recognizing the essential identity of oneself with other creatures, one acts from unity and compassion rather than
separation and conflict. Kindness to others is kindness to oneself and cruelty to others is cruelty to oneself. In addition,
by acknowledging the unity of all creatures, a common ground is established beneath the political, ideological, and
cultural divisions at the root of so many world problems. In the Quantum World, separateness is only half the story.
Beneath all diversity is a unity.

Just as the American pioneers followed Columbus, let us follow the vision of these heroic adventurers to the quantum
realm. The new world has been discovered. Now it awaits those who are called to leave the old lands and seek beyond.
It awaits us.

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