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Mindful Universe Quantum Mechanics and the Participating Observer

:	Henry P. Stapp
:	Mindful Universe Quantum Mechanics and the Participating Observer
:	Springer-Verlag
:	9783540724148
:	1
:	CHF 25.50
:

:	Theoretische Physik
:	English

:	198
:	Wasserzeichen/DRM
:	PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
:	PDF

This book concerns your nature as a human being. It is about the connection of your mind to your body. You may imagine that your mind – your stream of conscious thoughts,ideas,andfeelings–in uencesyouractions.Youmaybelie e that what you think a?ects what you do. You could be right. However, the scienti?c ideas that prevailed from the time of Isaac Newton to the beginningofthetwentiethcentur proclaimedyourphysicalactions o becompletelydeterminedbyproce sesthataredescribableinphysic l terms alone. Any notion that your conscious choices make a di?erence in how you behave was branded an illusion: you were asserted to be causally equivalent to a mindless automaton. We now know that that earlier form of science is fundamentally incorrect. During the ?rst part of the twentieth century, that classic- physics-based conception of nature was replaced by a new theory that reproduces all of the successful predictions of its predecessor, while providing also valid predictions about a host of phenomena that are strictly incompatible with the precepts of eighteenth and nineteenth century physics. No prediction of the new theory has been shown to be false.

	Preface	7
	Contents	9
	1 Science, Consciousness and Human Values	12
	2 Human Knowledge as the Foundation of Science	22
	3 Actions, Knowledge, and Information	27
	3.1 The Anti-Newtonian Revolution	27
	3.2 The World of Actions	29
	3.3 Intentional Actions and Experienced Feedbacks	33
	3.4 Cloudlike Forms	35
	3.5 Simple Harmonic Oscillators	35
	3.6 The Double-Slit Experiment	36
	4 Nerve Terminals and the Need to Use Quantum Theory	38
	4.1 Nerve Terminals	39
	5 Templates for Action	42
	6 The Physical Effectiveness of Conscious Will and the Quantum Zeno Effect	44
	6.1 The Quantum Zeno Effect	44
	6.2 William James’s Theory of Volition	46
	7 Support from Contemporary Psychology	49
	8 Application to Neuropsychology	54
	9 Roger Penrose’s Theory and Quantum Decoherence	58
	10 Non-Orthodox Versions of Quantum Theory and the Need for Process 1	61
	10.1 The Many-Worlds (or Many-Minds) Approach and Decoherence	63
	10.2 Bohm’s Pilot-Wave Model	68
	10.3 Spontaneous-Reduction Models	69
	11 The Basis Problem in Many- Worlds Theories	70
	11.1 Connection Between Classical Physics and Quantum Physics	70
	11.2 Decoherence and Discreteness in Many- Minds/ Worlds Theories	75
	12 Despised Dualism	83
	12.1 Historical Background	83
	12.2 A Flawed Argument	85
	12.3 Squaring with Contemporary Neuroscience	85
	13 Whiteheadian Quantum Ontology	89
	13.1 Some Key Elements of Whitehead’s Process Ontology	94
	13.2 From von Neumann NRQT to Tomonaga– Schwinger RQFT	98
	13.3 Similarities Between Whitehead’s Ontology and Ontologically Construed RQFT	99
	13.4 The Transition from ‘Potentiality’ to ‘Actuality’ in Quantum Mechanics	99
	13.5 Compatibility with Einstein’s (Special) Theory of Relativity	99
	13.6 The Psychophysical Building Blocks of Reality	100
	14 Interview	103
	15 Consciousness and the Anthropic Questions	122
	16 Impact of Quantum Mechanics on Human Values	141
	17 Conclusions	146
	A Gazzaniga’s The Ethical Brain	147
	B Von Neumann: Knowledge, Information, and Entropy	152
	C Wigner’s Friend and Consciousness in Quantum Theory	159
	D Orthodox Interpretation and the Mind– Brain Connection	162
	E Locality in Physics	166
	F Einstein Locality and Spooky Action at a Distance	169
	G Nonlocality in the Quantum World	176
	References	182
	Index	190