Phenomenological Reviews

Book | Chapter

183664

Note on quantum mechanics and consciousness

Henry Margenau

pp. 373-374

Abstract

To say that quantum mechanics is not complete is to affirm its tolerance, indeed its need, for progressive deepening and refinement. It seems unlikely that its radical probability character can be altered by the installation of physical hidden variables. The introduction of consciousness as a variable complementing a quantum state to render it classically deterministic, perhaps even as a submanifold of Hilbert space or an ingredient of the Hamiltonian, seems fantastic though not contradictory to anything we know. Wigner, himself, when suggesting the need for implementation of quantum mechanics to render it applicable to physiological and psychological processes, has hinted sympathetically at such contingencies. There is a philosophic argument which, though highly metaphysical, gives it a measure of credibility, but in a somewhat surprising, quasireligious sense. At the risk of inviting condemnation by many colleagues in physics I make bold to voice it here as a most unconventional but defensible suggestion transcending, to be sure, the currently accepted principles of quantum theory.

Publication details

Published in:

Margenau Henry (1978) Physics and philosophy: selected essays. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 373-374

Full citation:

Margenau Henry (1978) Note on quantum mechanics and consciousness, In: Physics and philosophy, Dordrecht, Springer, 373–374.