Experiencing Creation: Correlations Between Meditative Forest Experiences and Mental Health

Graduate Textual or Investigativ

Quantum Locality?

Robert Griffiths has recently addressed, within the framework of a 'consistent quantum theory' that he has developed, the issue of whether, as is often claimed, quantum mechanics entails a need for faster-than-light transfers of information over long distances. He argues that the putative proofs of this property that involve hidden variables include in their premises some essentially classical-physics-type assumptions that are fundamentally incompatible with the precepts of quantum physics. One cannot logically prove properties of a system by establishing, instead, properties of a system modified by adding properties alien to the original system. Hence Griffiths' rejection of hidden-variable-based proofs is logically warranted. Griffiths mentions the existence of a certain alternative proof that does not involve hidden variables, and that uses only macroscopically described observable properties. He notes that he had examined in his book proofs of this general kind, and concluded that they provide no evidence for nonlocal influences. But he did not examine the particular proof that he cites. An examination of that particular proof by the method specified by his 'consistent quantum theory' shows that the cited proof is valid within that restrictive version of quantum theory. An added section responds to Griffiths' reply, which cites general possibilities of ambiguities that make what is to be proved ill-defined, and hence render the pertinent 'consistent framework' ill defined. But the vagaries that he cites do not upset the proof in question, which, both by its physical formulation and by explicit identification, specify the framework to be used. Griffiths confirms the validity of the proof insofar as that framework is used. The section also shows, in response to Griffiths' challenge, why a putative proof of locality that he has described is flawed.Comment: This version adds a response to Griffiths' reply to my original. It notes that Griffiths confirms the validity of my argument if one uses the framework that I use. Griffiths' objection that other frameworks exist is not germaine, because I use the unique one that satisfies the explicitly stated conditions that the choices be macroscopic choices of experiments and outcomes in a specified orde

The 18-fold way

I shall consider each of the 18 claims made by Mohrhoff, and explain, in each case, why I take the path opposite to the one by which he seeks to remove the effects of our thoughts on the activities of our quantum mechanically described brains.Comment: To be published in Foundations of Physics. This is a reply to an article (quant-ph/0105097) by Ulrich Mohrhof

Quantum Ontologies and Mind-Matter Synthesis

Aspects of a quantum mechanical theory of a world containing efficacious mental aspects that are closely tied to brains, but that are not identical to brains.Comment: 69 pages. Invited contribution to Xth Max Born Symposium: "Quantum Future". Published in "Quantum Future", eds. P. Blanchard and A. Jadczyk, Springer-Verlag, 1999, ISBN 3-540-65218-3. LBNL 4072

Bell's Theorem Without Hidden Variables

Experiments motivated by Bell's theorem have led some physicists to conclude that quantum theory is nonlocal. However, the theoretical basis for such claims is usually taken to be Bell's Theorem, which shows only that if certain predictions of quantum theory are correct, and a strong hidden-variable assumption is valid, then a certain locality condition must fail. This locality condition expresses the idea that what an experimenter freely chooses to measure in one spacetime region can have no effect of any kind in a second region situated spacelike relative to the first. The experimental results conform closely to the predictions of quantum theory in such cases, but the most reasonable conclusion to draw is not that locality fails, but rather that the hidden-variable assumption is false. For this assumption conflicts with the quantum precept that unperformed experiments have no outcomes. The present paper deduces the failure of this locality condition directly from the precepts of quantum theory themselves, in a way that generates no inconsistency or any conflict with the predictions of relativistic quantum field theory.Comment: This paper is a much simplified, yet still rigorous, version of quant-ph/0010047. The descriptive material is almost all new, and I believe very clear, but the rigorous formal argument, now relegated to Appendices, is the same as before. I consider it to be a new pape

The Hard Problem: A Quantum Approach

Contents: 1. Introduction: Philosophical Setting 2. Quantum Model of the Mind/Brain 3. Person and Self 4. Meeting Baars's Criteria for Consciousness 5. Qualia 6. Free-WillComment: 28 pages, no figures, latexed, uses math_macros.tex that can be found on Archive, this paper was submitted in 5/95 and this is a revised version full postscript available from http://theor1.lbl.gov/www/theorygroup/papers/37163rev.p