where mind meets matter
TRANSCRIPT
www.newscientist.com 19 August 2006 | NewScientist | 47
■ ONE of the most scandalously
bad misrepresentations of
physics in recent years is the
drama-documentary What the Bleep Do We Know?, released in
2004. The film promulgated the
idea that according to quantum
theory, you can change everyday
reality simply by thinking about it.
In the fictional story, the main
character successfully uses this
mind-over-matter technique to
thin her thighs. Depressingly, it is
the fifth-biggest-grossing
documentary in the US.
The irony here is that the true
world revealed by quantum
theory – which remains our best
description of the microscopic
world of atoms – is far wilder than
anything in the movie. It is a world
where an atom can be in two places
at once – the equivalent of you
being in London and Tokyo
simultaneously. This is not some
theoretical fantasy: it is possible
to observe an atom in two places at
once, or at least the consequences
of this. It’s a world where one
atom can influence another
instantaneously even if they are on
opposite sides of the universe.
This property was deemed so
outrageous by Einstein that he held
it up as proof that quantum theory
was not nature’s last word on
reality (though experiments
appear to show that Einstein was
wrong). Furthermore, it’s a world
where things happen for absolutely
no reason at all, where events are
irreducibly random in a way utterly
unlike the pseudo-random roll of a
die in the everyday world.
This quantum weirdness is
expounded clearly by physicists
Bruce Rosenblum and Fred
Kuttner, who teach a course on
these fundamental ideas at the
University of California, Santa
Cruz. Indeed, the bulk of their
book Quantum Enigma serves as
an entertaining primer on the
nuts and bolts of quantum theory.
However, what principally
interests the authors is not
quantum theory’s fantastically
successful recipe for prediction,
but what the theory “means”. This
takes them to the boundary of
physics and philosophy: the
observer-created reality.
An atom does not travel
through space along a single path
with 100 per cent certainty as a
planet does. Rather, it has a large
number of possible paths open to
it, each with a particular
probability. When the atom is
“observed”, one and only one of
the possibilities is actualised.
Thus, reality is created by
observation. Here the authors
make their most controversial
assertion: that the observer must
be conscious. Consciousness, they
believe, is intimately tied up with
quantum processes.
Many physicists think that the
phenomenon of “decoherence”
does away with the need for a
conscious observer. Decoherence
explains why an atom on its own
can do many things at once, while
entities composed of many atoms,
such as humans, cannot. This is
because in a large collection of
atoms it is impossible for the
quantum waves associated with
each to overlap sufficiently (a state
known as “coherence”) to allow
them to interfere – the key behind
all quantum weirdness. Some
believe a conscious observer is not
necessary for decoherence to take
place. However, Rosenblum and
Kuttner point out that while
decoherence explains why you
and I are never in two places at
once, it does not explain why a
single atom is in one place rather
than another. For an atom to
become fixed, a conscious
observer is essential, they argue.
Rosenblum and Kuttner thus
tie together two great mysteries:
consciousness, and the “quantum
enigma” of how reality coalesces
out of the fog of quantum
possibilities. They never spell out
what they think the connection is,
they only emphasise that it is an
enigma at the heart of quantum
theory that physicists must
sooner or later confront head-on.
They also remind us that we have
not got to the bottom of quantum
theory by a long chalk. We still
need a new way of seeing and, as
quantum philosopher John Bell
said, “The new way of seeing will
involve an imaginative leap that
will astonish us.” ●
Marcus Chown is the author of The Quantum Zoo (Joseph Henry Press, 2006)
What the…? if ever a movie sold quantum theory short it was this one
Quantum Enigma: Physics encounters consciousness by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner, OUP, $29.95, ISBN 019517559X
“It’s a world where things happen for absolutely no reason”
Review
WHERE MIND MEETS MATTER
Marcus Chown is intrigued by a new take on what quantum theory really means – something we still don’t understand despite its success in getting to grips with the subatomic world
WHA
T THE
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