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| Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness | 
 enlarge | Authors: Bruce Rosenblum, Fred Kuttner
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy New: $10.44
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Avg. Customer Rating:  26 reviews
Sales Rank: 6054
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 0.8
ISBN: 019534250X
Dewey Decimal Number: 530
EAN: 9780195342505
ASIN: 019534250X
Publication Date: June 16, 2008
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Condition: BRAND NEW
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| Customer Reviews:
 A Breath of Fresh Air on the Quantum Quandry November 29, 2006
18 out of 22 found this review helpful
I have read several books explaining the various interpretations of quantum theory but none as clear and complete as this one. A little humor thrown in helps too. But I have to disagree with some reviewers who found the book "easy" or "not difficult" to understand. Quantum theory is inherently complex and counterintutive, and the experiments involve concepts that even the layman with a science background will find challenging (at least this one did.) To their great credit, the authors have written about these concepts and experiments comprehensively and more clearly than any similar book I have read. But that doesn't mean the book does not challenge the mind. It does, which means I would not recommend it for those with no science background (and even less so for those many intelligent and well educated people who nevertheless are proud of their scientific ignorance - we have all met them). The author's paucity of jargon is refreshing. For example, the awkward word "nonlocality", though the concept is central to any discussion of quantum phenomena, is never used. The book is perhaps most distinguished by its fascinating, but not unplausible speculations, which scientists who have left their quantum enigma skeletons in their closets are too "scientifically correct" to make. In light of the author's intellectual courage, it is unfortunate that the important body of rigorous, scientific experiments in paraphenomena - which, like quantum experiments, point directly to human consciousness as the basis for future theories of these enigmatic phenomena - are rather glibly dismissed. Of course, the authors are not alone; almost no books written by scientists even mention this important body of scientific work.
Follows the evidence where it leads January 4, 2007
16 out of 20 found this review helpful
This book is that rarest of gems: a work about science that actually makes its topic understandable to laypeople like myself. This is especially impressive given that the text deals with what is probably the most arcane and counter-intuitive field in science, quantum mechanics.
It leads the reader through a brief but informative tour of physics since Isaac Newton. It shows how the earlier classical ideas have given way to increasingly strange but undeniably true notions. These began with Einstein's understanding of time and space. These were followed by the eerie aspects of quantum physics, such as wave/particle duality, observer influenced experiments and the indisputable role that consciousness plays in whatever the heck is going on at the subatomic level.
The authors survey the primay interpretations of quantum phenomena, including the pros and cons of the Copenhagen interpretation. Their final comments affirm that, no matter what the "correct" answer turns out to be, the old paradigm of a material universe governed by impersonal laws is forever dead.
For a theist like myself, this is especially good news. It is difficult for atheists to argue credibly that idealism, discarnate consciousness and similar metaphysical concepts have been disproven when they lie at the heart of science's cutting edge. This book is highly recommended for all lovers of science and seekers of truth.
Voodoo science that works for us, but has not been understood for about 80 years January 14, 2007
7 out of 11 found this review helpful
The world needs us, it may not exist if we were not here to look at it (at least the very tiny things that make up the world). Scientists diagree about global warming but they all agree with John Clauser's experiment (page 148) based on "hard science" that proves that objects have an "observation-created reality". A clearly written book with simple drawings that help you visualize and understand this "spooky" aspect of physics.
 Good science explanation, arbitrary interpretations July 18, 2007
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
Well, it IS a curious thing- try as physicists might to come up with purely "objective" quantum mechanics without need of an "observation"- that a subjective element seems to creep its way back into the standard interpretations of QM. This bothers many working physicists no end, who naturally want a "clean" theory, and the attempts to exorcise the ghost of consciousness have been mighty. Even the great Murray Gell-Mann has done his best to get rid of the ghost, albeit unsuccessfully in the minds of some. For, you see, even if you could successfully remove conscious interaction (aka "the observer") out of the direct subatomic realm, you still have to somehow account for the selective process the environment does when a quantum event interacts with the macroscopic world around it. Gell-Mann, for instance, proposed his "information gathering utilization systems" (IGUS), organisms which recognize and process information and patterns in the environment. Does this look to you, dear reader, like a satisfactory resolution of the subjective element in physics? Okay, me neither...
While modern theories of decoherence partly explain the environmental interaction process, they don't completely solve the mystery of why one outcome occurs vs. another... Why this and not that? The mystery, alas, remains. Quantum mechanics by itself, unfortunately, doesn't seem to have the answer within it's own scope.
Be that as it may, I'm skeptical of the old idea within physics that what is responsible for the "collapse" of a wavefunction is human consciousness itself. There are too many good reasons (some are just common sense) why human interaction is irrelevant in the evolution of quantum processes, and the difficulties in proving this is so (currently) shouldn't override the observation that "conscious-collapse" is a questionable premise.
Those who want to insert human consciousness into QM also have a problem explaining why Nature is so anthropomorphic, as Abner Shimony observed long ago. Why just human consciousness? How about an ant's observation? How about a single cell? And so on. It would seem to me that anyone who wants to stick with "consciousness" as a factor in subatomic processes ought to be logically forced to come to the conclusion that conscious interaction cannot be limited to merely humans, and we are (again, logically) moving toward a Whiteheadian view of nature, which indeed some physicists find compelling. What this means in practical terms, if one buys this chain of reasoning, is the realization that the standard "conscious collapse" mechanism (of London and Bauer, Wigner, Henry Stapp and so on) is much too limited in scope.
Of course, the "objective" physicists will have none of this, and continue to work on an "objective" interpretation of QM. Personally, I think it's a somewhat misguided enterprise as long as one hopes to find such a critter in QM itself. Perhaps QM is poorly formed at present, and the future will find such objective purity within QM itself, who knows. But current offerings (spontaneous collapse, consistent-histories, transactional interpretation, etc etc) all have their problems, including the selection outcome I mentioned earlier- why one result and not another? Good luck on the "objective" objective, physicists- you seem to have your hands full... But at any rate, back to book reviews. Four stars. An excellent book, far above the ridiculous new-agey crap that seems to abound on this theme.
The Enigma's Enigma August 5, 2007
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
A great and very entertaining read, which points to the issue that New Agers love and something the book addresses: How to avoid Silly Solipsism?
The human mind is a systems property of all the component parts. We know that what goes on in the mind-brain is a series of quantum events in the brain, seeThe Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force by Jeffrey Schwartz. (Read both books.)
It's good that the authors keep reinforcing just how shocking quantum theory is, in spite of driving one third of the economy. As the authors explain very clearly, in quantum theory, the photon doesn't have a +ve or -ve spin until we decide to measure it, thus collapsing the wavefunction. The term 'particle' and 'wavefunction of the particle' are synonymous, so collapsing the wavefunction solidifies its properties. More than that, it doesn't have the property of 'spin' until we decide to measure it. We are making up reality as we go along, with one qualification. Once you measure the spin, that's it, objective reality has been formed. I can't come along a split second later and 'create my reality'.
David Bohm resolved the issue of information being transmitted faster than the speed of light by saying that the photons, the measuring devices, and the observer were all part of the same holographic system, and that the information was everywhere, simultaneously. In any external example, you can picture yourself, the laboratory, the photons flying away, some measuring equipment and the observer as all there but somewhat distinct from each other. You can't do that with a quantum event in your own head, because observing must also be a series of quantum events.
When, as a result of all the quantum events, a picture or a thought arises in the mind, what collapses the wavefunction? Where or what is the observer who decides to collapse the wave function?
Benjamin Libet, also referenced in Quantum Enigma, made the problem even worse by showing that even when 'I' decide to observe the photon's spin, my neurology will gear up to do that half a second before I become conscious of my intention. Presumably that subconscious activity is also a series of quantum events. Would it even make sense to say that the subconscious does the collapsing? Not to John von Neumann it wouldn't.
If we can't find an internal 'collapser' on both counts, then what collapses the wavefunction when it comes to observing the spin properties of a photon? You can't say 'nothing' when the wavefunction obviously has collapsed. Is there a language problem in that 'collapse' presupposes 'collapser'?
If we were to suggest that any form of omnidimensional beingness, infinite informational field, divine being, does the collapsing 'for us', that's tantamount to saying that we are merely the smallest flickers of shadows: Not only is conscious individuality an illusion, but conscious choice (half a second later) is also illusory. That's hard to take - or is 'reality' quite that illusory?
The holism of the implicate/explicate order may be so deeply intertwined that it just doesn't makes sense to consider 'myself' as having any kind of independent, subjective existence distinct from not only the objective reality, but also from every process on all levels in all subjective and objective events.
Can we then resolve the quantum enigma by saying that there is continuous and spontaneous collapsing of the wavefunction, or as one would say in Buddhism, phenomena continuously arising from emptiness and returning to emptiness? No events, no things, only process?
In which case, you might also like to consider Blackfoot Physics: A Journey Into The Native American Universe because we might then need to reconsider our whole paradigm of science.
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