|
splitting polarizers for those in front of the detectors. The time of arrival and the polarization of all photons reaching the detectors was automatically recorded and stored in a computer. Subsequent examination of the data showed that, for similarly polarized photons, interference patterns persisted--but only when the path of individual photons remained unknown.
The Central Order of Things
When this kind of evidence is combined with that from other kinds of experiments on quantum phenomena (such as the apparent communication between correlated photons and electrons that occurs independently of space and time, or that described in the July/August issue of Innerface on electron spin), many researchers are led to believe that there is some kind of intelligent agency operating in a dimension outside of space-time that somehow participates in upholding the rules of quantum physics.
Two of the originators of quantum theory, Werner Heisenberg and Wolfgang Pauli (both Nobel Prize winners), gave this controlling agency the name, the "Central Order of Things" and expressed their belief that its existence could not be doubted.3 Others call it "Universal Consciousness" or the "Ground of All Being4."
As would be expected, there are those who attempt to avoid the implications of an outside 'intelligence.' One proposal is that the environment plays a role that is not simply random noise but is an apparatus that acts as a constant monitor5. But such a proposal appears to introduce other difficulties--who designed and built the apparatus, who keeps the records, who ensures that it operates consistently, and how is it that this 'environment' is clever enough to outwit some of our smartest experimentalists? Perhaps the truth is somewhere in between views at the extremities.
One of the extreme views allows that Universal Consciousness is the major player. In this scheme the consciousness of an observer is one with Universal Consciousness (monistic idealism). A semi-materialist view renames universal consciousness as simply a destabilizing environment. This latter view appears to sweep too much out of sight.
Determinism defused
The work that appears to have finally tilted the balance in favor of the bizarre findings of quantum physics and against the determinism of classical physics was done by Alaine Aspect6 whose experiments tested proposals of Irish physicist, John Bell.
Bell developed a statistical procedure for investigating whether any form of local signaling ("local" means within our space and time) could account for communication between closely correlated quantum particles separated in space. For such to occur within the bounds set by classical physics and relativity, any signal would need to proceed at the speed of light or less (if a signal travels faster than light, the rules require that time would travel backwards and hence give rise to anomalies like signals arriving before they left).
Aspect was not the first to demonstrate that the communication phenomenon between correlated quantum particles must be instantaneous and independent of space-time, but his work was perhaps more elegant than others and certainly caught the attention of the media.
Consciousness recognized as real
The publicity engendered by Aspect's work did a lot to disenthrone determinism. One consequence is that researchers with an interest in subjects such as human consciousness, free will, and self awareness may now have an opportunity to pursue those interests without being derided as 'unscientific' by their determinist colleagues.
Recently there has been an explosion in the number of papers being published on the topic of consciousness. As with any relatively new field, there are problems of semantics.
Arthur J. Deikman from the University of California believes that there is an "I" which is the same as our awareness or consciousness, and which needs to be differentiated from other aspects of the physical person and the mental contents that form the self. He says that most discussions of consciousness confuse the "I" and the "self," and that our experience is fundamentally dualistic--but not the dualism of mind and matter. Rather it is that of the "I" and that which is observed, of consciousness and the content of consciousness.
On building an Android
Another way of drawing attention to this dualism is to imagine that inside our heads there is a television set that takes all the signals arriving from our senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, pain, etc., and integrates them into an overall picture from which any requisite action could be taken. This is the kind of system that might be required in order to build an "android"--a computer that simulates the appearance and behavior of a human being. But if this is a realistic model, we are left with a question--who or what is watching the TV.
|
|
