Quantum enigma: physics encounters consciousness

✍ Scribed by Bruce Rosenblum, Fred Kuttner

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 223
• Edition: Reprint
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The most successful theory in all of science--and the basis of one third of our economy--says the strangest things about the world and about us. Can you believe that physical reality is created by our observation of it? Physicists were forced to this conclusion, the quantum enigma, by what they observed in their laboratories.Trying to understand the atom, physicists built quantum mechanics and found, to their embarrassment, that their theory intimately connects consciousness with the physical world. Quantum Enigma explores what that implies and why some founders of the theory became the foremost objectors to it. Schrödinger showed that it "absurdly" allowed a cat to be in a "superposition" simultaneously dead and alive. Einstein derided the theory's "spooky interactions." With Bell's Theorem, we now know Schrödinger's superpositions and Einstein's spooky interactions indeed exist.Authors Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner explain all of this in non-technical terms with help from some fanciful stories and bits about the theory's developers. They present the quantum mystery honestly, with an emphasis on what is and what is not speculation. Physics' encounter with consciousness is its skeleton in the closet. Because the authors open the closet and examine the skeleton, theirs is a controversial book. Quantum Enigma's description of the experimental quantum facts, and the quantum theory explaining them, is undisputed. Interpreting what it all means, however, is controversial.Every interpretation of quantum physics encounters consciousness. Rosenblum and Kuttner therefore turn to exploring consciousness itself--and encounter quantum physics. Free will and anthropic principles become crucial issues, and the connection of consciousness with the cosmos suggested by some leading quantum cosmologists is mind-blowing.Readers are brought to a boundary where the particular expertise of physicists is no longer a sure guide. They will find, instead, the facts and hints provided by quantum mechanics and the ability to speculate for themselves.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 11
1 Presenting the Enigma......Page 15
2 Einstein Called It “Spooky”—and I Wish I Had Known......Page 21
3 The Visit to Neg Ahne Poc: A Quantum Parable......Page 27
4 Our Newtonian Worldview: A Universal Law of Motion......Page 35
5 All the Rest of Classical Physics......Page 51
Hello Quantum Mechanics......Page 63
6 How the Quantum Was Forced on Physics......Page 65
7 Schrödinger’s Equation: The New Universal Law of Motion......Page 81
8 One-Third of Our Economy......Page 93
9 Our Skeleton in the Closet......Page 99
10 Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen......Page 111
11 Schrödinger’s Controversial Cat......Page 127
12 Seeking a Real World: EPR......Page 137
13 Spooky Interactions: Bell’s Theorem......Page 151
14 What’s Going On? Interpreting the Quantum Enigma......Page 165
15 The Mystery of Consciousness......Page 179
16 The Mystery Meets the Enigma......Page 191
17 Consciousness and the Quantum Cosmos......Page 205
Suggested Reading......Page 215
B......Page 217
E......Page 218
I......Page 219
O......Page 220
R......Page 221
W......Page 222
Z......Page 223