if quantum theory really applies to all systems, then, except in very special circumstances, there can never be any observations, i.e., there can be no events for which the above statistical predictions applySquires, using what appears to be a new quantum version of the classical Turing test in Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation, supports Roger Penrose's claim that understanding cannot be achieved by classical machines.
suppose Melinda had agreed to write a 0 on a piece of paper as soon as she knew whether the system was in the state + or the state -. Note that she does not write down what it is, only that she knows what it is ... we cannot run this argument with a computer ... It works because Melinda is conscious and it therefore makes sense to talk about "knowing". Computers, on the other hand, do not know anything, and we would not have any way of giving the essential instructions to write a 0 as soon as the result is known.I shall ask Dennett if he agrees with this. I doubt it. I just had a discussion with Dennett who claims there is no empirical test for subjective conscious qualia. I forgot to bring up this point by Squires.
The complete description of the "physics" in orthodox quantum theory is the state ... which contains both terms, i.e. both "results". The unique result of which I am aware does not exist in physics- but only in consciousness. The Born rule does not have anything to say about physics- it says something about consciousness.Squires is correct for the Bohr Copenhagen interpretation without the "collapse" postulate which he says is a property of consciousness agreeing with Wigner, von Neumann, Stapp, Penrose and others. However, in the Bohm pilot way theory (see below) the unique result is explained by the matter taking an actual path corresponding to either a + or a -. There is no "actual path" in Bohr's interpretation. On the other hand, we get qualitative agreement with Bohr's epistemological view of the quantum wave function by saying that it is an objective nonlocal context-dependent field of "mind-stuff" intrinsically emitting "qualia" when perturbed by the direct back-action of matter on its attached pilot wave as described below.
Squires demolishes many-minds theories. In particular, although he did not explicitly mention Gell-Mann by name, he, in fact, destroy's Murray Gell-Mann's false claim that there is no faster-than-light "nonlocality" in the many-worlds or many-histories interpretation. Gell-Mann should retract his Chapter 12 "The Story Distorted" in his book The Quark and The Jaguar. Squires said:
It is sometimes stated that one of the advantages of the "many-worlds" style of solutions to the measurement problem is that they do not suffer from the non-locality which is all too evident in the Bohm model or in collapse models. To some extent this is true; the non-locality is removed from the physics because it only arises from the results of measurements, and so does not occur if there are no such results. However, it is still around; it has simply been removed to "consciousness".But even more damaging is the fact that it is impossible to self-consistently define probability in any many-worlds theory and the program of Gell-Mann and Hartle is doomed to fail from the outset. Their program violates reparametrization invariance.
there is no natural measure of a continuous infinity: it just does not mean anything to say, for example, that "more" minds see one result than another....Squires also says that David Albert's "photographs of other worlds" would permit using quantum correlations to transmit locally decodable messages faster than the speeding photon. However, he said, in a question session, that Albert's idea is effectively impossible to implement in a practical experiment.
consciousness actually selects one term ... Normally this will happen at random with the weights given by ... the Born rule ....This corresponds to zero back-action. Non-zero back-action violates the Born rule. I claim that there is no free will in the limit of zero back-action. Intent is the result of finite back-action. However, Squires links up with the back-action idea in the following remark:
there may be circumstances in which there is a quantum superposition in the brain which is not correlated to things outside the brain ... Then the selection, which perhaps need not be random, could determine the action that a person takes. This would correspond to our experience of free-will,So far, we agree. In the Bohm pilot-wave theory it is the quantum force of the pilot wave on particle which explains how consciousness is "efficacious" once we make the postulate that the pilot wave is intrinsically "sentient" capable of qualia. The subjective feel of experience is identified which changes in the pilot wave induced by back-action. However, there is zero-back action in Squires's model which is, therefore, incomplete. He continues:
although it would not alter the total wave functionReturn to main document