Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics

Consciousness and quantum mechanics are two great mysteries of our time--and recently scholars have postulated a deeper connection between them. Exploring this possible connection can be fruitful: an analysis of the conscious mind and psychophysical connection can be indispensable in understanding quantum mechanics and solving the notorious measurement problem, and there is also likely some kind of intimate connection between quantum mechanics--the most fundamental theory of the physical world--and our efforts to explain, naturalistically, the phenomenon of consciousness.

The seventeen newly written chapters in this volume are divided into three sections: Consciousness and the Wave Function Collapse, Consciousness in Quantum Theories, and Quantum Approaches to Consciousness. This is the first volume to provide a comprehensive review and thorough analysis of intriguing conjectures about the connection between consciousness and quantum mechanics. Written by leading experts in physics, philosophy, and cognitive science, Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics will be of value to students and researchers working on the foundations of quantum mechanics and the philosophy of mind.

Shan Gao is Professor of Philosophy at the Research Center for Philosophy of Science and Technology, Shanxi University. He is the founder and managing editor of the International Journal of Quantum Foundations and is the author of several books, including the recent monograph The Meaning of the Wave
Function: In Search of the Ontology of Quantum Mechanics (2017). His research focuses on the philosophy of physics, especially the foundations of quantum mechanics. He also has interests in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of science.

Acknowledgments
List of Contributors
Introduction

Part I. Consciousness and Wave Function Collapse
Chapter 1: Consciousness and the collapse of the wave function
David Chalmers and Kelvin McQueen
Chapter 2: The Subjective-Objective Collapse Model: Virtues and Challenges
Elias Okon and Miguel Ángel Sebastián
Chapter 3: Quantum Mentality: Panpsychism and Panintentionalism
J. Acacio de Barros and Carlos Montemayor
Chapter 4: Perception Constraints on Mass-Dependent Spontaneous Localization
Adrian Kent

Part II. Consciousness in Quantum Theories
Chapter 5: Quantum Mechanics and the Consciousness Constraint
Philip Goff
Chapter 6: Against “experience”
Peter J. Lewis
Chapter 7: Why mind matters in quantum mechanics
Shan Gao
Chapter 8: The Nature of Belief in No-Collapse Everett Interpretations
Paul Skokowski
Chapter 9: The Completeness of Quantum Mechanics and the Determinateness and
Consistency of Intersubjective Experience: Wigner's Friend and Delayed Choice
Michael Silberstein and W. M. Stuckey
Chapter 10: The roles ascribed to consciousness in quantum physics: a revelator of dualist (or quasi-dualist) prejudice
Michel Bitbol
Chapter 11: Proposal to use Humans to switch settings in a Bell experiment
Lucien Hardy

Part III. Quantum Approaches to Consciousness
Chapter 12: New Physics for the Orch-OR Consciousness Proposal
Roger Penrose
Chapter 13: Orch OR and the quantum biology of consciousness
Stuart Hameroff
Chapter 14: Can quantum mechanics solve the hard problem of consciousness?
Basil Hiley and Paavo Pylkkänen
Chapter 15: Strange Trails: Science to Metaphysics
William Seager
Chapter 16: On the place of qualia in a relational universe
Lee Smolin

Bibliography
Index