On the occasion of the centennial of his birth, Schrödinger's life and views are sketched and his critique of the interpretation of quantum mechanics accepted at his time is examined. His own interpretation, which he had to abandon after a short time, provides a prime example of the way in which the tentative meaning of central theoretical terms in a new and revolutionary theory often fails. Schrödinger's strong philosophical convictions have played a key role in his refusal to break with (...) many of the notions of classical physics. At the same time, they made him into a keen and incisive critic of the Copenhagen interpretation. His criticism is compared with present views on quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Classical relativistic physics assumes that spatially separated events cannot influence one another (“locality”) and that values may be assigned to quantities independently of whether or not they are actually measured (“realism”). These assumptions have consequences—the Bell inequalities—that are sometimes in disagreement with experiment and with the predictions of quantum mechanics. It has been argued that, even if realism is not assumed, the violation of the Bell inequalities implies nonlocality—and hence that radical changes are necessary in the foundations of physics. We (...) show that this conclusion does not follow unless the locality hypothesis is strengthened in an implausible manner. (shrink)

Abstract In recent decades scholars in every major religious tradition have been commenting on the relationship between their own tradition and science. The subject in the context of Hinduism is complex because there is no central institutionalized authority to dictate what is acceptable Hindu belief and what is not. This has resulted in a variety of perspectives that are touched upon here. Historical factors in the introduction of modern science in the Hindu world have also influenced the subject. The reflections (...) in this paper are based on these. (shrink)

We use the system of p-adic numbers for the description of information processes. Basic objects of our models are so-called transformers of information, basic processes are information processes and statistics are information statistics (thus we present a model of information reality). The classical and quantum mechanical formalisms on information p-adic spaces are developed. It seems that classical and quantum mechanical models on p-adic information spaces can be applied for the investigation of flows of information in cognitive and social systems, since (...) a p-adic metric gives a quite natural description of the ability to form associations. (shrink)

Theoretical explication of a growing body of empirical data on consciousness-related anomalous phenomena is unlikely to be achieved in terms of known physical processes. Rather, it will first be necessary to formulate the basic role of consciousness in the definition of reality before such anomalous experience can adequately be represented. This paper takes the position that reality is constituted only in the interaction of consciousness with its environment, and therefore that any scheme of conceptual organization developed to represent that reality (...) must reflect the processes of consciousness as well as those of its environment. In this spirit, the concepts and formalisms of elementary quantum mechanics, as originally proposed to explain anomalous atomic-scale physical phenomena, are appropriated via metaphor to represent the general characteristics of consciousness interacting with any environment. More specifically, if consciousness is represented by a quantum mechanical wave function, and its environment by an appropriate potential profile, Schrödinger wave mechanics defines eigenfunctions and eigenvalues that can be associated with the cognitive and emotional experiences of that consciousness in that environment. To articulate this metaphor it is necessary to associate certain aspects of the formalism, such as the coordinate system, the quantum numbers, and even the metric itself, with various impressionistic descriptors of consciousness, such as its intensity, perspective, approach/avoidance attitude, balance between cognitive and emotional activity, and receptive/assertive disposition. With these established, a number of the generic features of quantum mechanics, such as the wave/particle duality, and the uncertainty, indistinguishability, and exclusion principles, display metaphoric relevance to familiar individual and collective experiences. Similarly, such traditional quantum theoretic exercises as the central force field and atomic structure, covalent molecular bonds, barrier penetration, and quantum statistical collective behavior become useful analogies for representation of a variety of consciousness experiences, both normal and anomalous, and for the design of experiments to study these systematically. (shrink)

Eminent scientists are well-placed to bring the novel works of others, even if not in their own areas of expertise, to general attention. In so doing, they may be able to extend original accounts or introduce new terminologies, but they are basically messengers, not innovators. In the 1940s an evolutionary theory of biological aging was explained by Peter Medawar, and informational concepts relating to DNA were explained by Erwin Schrödinger. Both explanations were eventually traced back to the Victorian polymath Samuel (...) Butler—one by Medawar’s research associate Alex Comfort, and the other, albeit indirectly, by Schrödinger himself. In his time Butler’s works were too erudite for general readers and too laden with populist jargon for contemporary experts to take seriously. However, today it appears counterfactually plausible that an early acceptance of his ideas would have greatly quickened the pace of research. (shrink)

Abstract. The science and religion discourse in the Western academy, though expansive, has not paid significant enough attention to South Asian views, particularly those from Hindu thought. This essay seeks to address this issue in three parts. First, I present the South Asian standpoint as it currently relates to the science and religion discourse. Second, I survey and evaluate some available literature on South Asian approaches to the science and religion discourse. Finally, I promote three possible steps forward: (1) the (...) literature must shift from high Hindu philosophical religion to the more prevalent bhakti traditions, (2) the Indian context must be understood in its own right without metaphysical assumptions attached to the concepts of science and religion, and (3) most importantly, concepts unique to the Indian worldview, such as dharma, maya, and cit, must receive better treatment in translation in order to facilitate a more accurate exchange of ideas across cultural boundaries. (shrink)

I would like to attack a certain view: The view that the concept of identity can fail to apply to some things although, for some positive integer n, we have n of them. The idea of entities without self-identity is seriously entertained in the philosophy of quantum mechanics. It is so pervasive that it has been labelled the Received View. I introduce the Received View in Section 1. In Section 2 I explain what I mean by entity, and I argue (...) that supporters of the Received View should agree with my characterization of the corresponding notion of entity. I also explain what I mean by identity, and I show that supporters of the Received View agree with my characterization of that notion. In Section 3 I argue that the concept of identity, so characterized, is one with the concept of oneness. Thus, it cannot but apply to what belongs to a collection with n elements, n being a positive integer. In Section 4 I add some considerations on the primitiveness of identity or unity and the status of the Identity of Indiscernibles. In Section 5 I address the problem of how reference to indiscernible objects with identity can be achieved. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that much of the confusion and mystery surrounding the concept of "self" can be traced to a failure to appreciate the distinction between the self as a collection of diverse neural components that provide us with our beliefs, memories, desires, personality, emotions, etc (the epistemological self) and the self that is best conceived as subjective, unified awareness, a point of view in the first person (ontological self). While the former can, and indeed has, been extensively (...) studied by researchers of various disciplines in the human sciences, the latter most often has been ignored -- treated more as a place holder attached to a particular predicate of interest (e.g., concept, reference, deception, esteem, image, regulation, etc). These two aspects of the self, I contend, are not reducible -- one being an object (the epistemological self) and the other a subject (the ontological self). Until we appreciate the difficulties of applying scientific methods and analysis to what cannot be reduced to an object of inquiry without stripping it of its essential aspect (its status as subject), progress on the "self", taken as a pluralistic construct, will continue to address only one part of the problems we face in understanding this most fundamental aspect of human experience. (shrink)

“In reality, there are no final choices,” says academic philosopher Michael Grosso, author of The Final Choice. “As long as we are conscious beings we are free to keep making new and hopefully better choices” (p. xiii). With this up-front qualification, Grosso embarks on an inspiring examination of how we might make new and better choices as a species, and why it is imperative for us to do so if we are to survive and thrive. Here is the motif that (...) informs Grosso’s narrative in The Final Choice: What at bottom drives all living things? The goal of life seems to be more life, self-replication with infinite variations. …The tendency among mammals, and humans in particular, is toward greater mobility, freedom and detachment from the environment. Human life is especially mobile and already has begun to move beyond the planetary habitat to explore outer space habitats. If the goal of life is more life — in a word, survival — the function of our nonphysical psychic potential may be to mediate survival of bodily death…. If the goal of life is more life, higher, freer, more complex forms of life, then our psychic potentials represent the power of life transcending its biological template. Psi is the wedge of life driving against the constraints of physical reality, against the boundaries of time and space. Psi is the medium in which new forms of life carry us beyond the boundaries of physical environment [p. 11]. Grosso considers the near-death experience (NDE) as “perhaps the most important psychological phenomenon of the 20th century, as shocking and counter-intuitive as quantum mechanics….” He adds, “We have millions of repetitions of the near-death experience … and can study and analyze it with the tools of science and other intellectual disciplines. The NDE experientially provides access to a greater mental, indeed spiritual sphere of being” (p. xii). Grosso raises the possibility that, with environmental collapse now in sight, a global version of a near-death experience may be forming, analogous to a human approaching death. It’s the sort of thing one might predict from the life force, whose evolutionary vector is toward more life, more survival, a future. And just as individual NDEs result in a radical transformation and reorientation of the person undergoing them, our planetary citizenry, en masse, may similarly change channels in our priorities, values, and how we live our lives. If so, we just might squeak by. (I’m reminded of a hallway conversation I once had with the late physicist David Bohm. I asked him his opinion of the future of humankind: “Do you think we’ll make it?” He paused, thinking intently, then said, “Yes. Barely.”) Grosso’s stated goal in The Final Choice is “to create a new, fact-based mythology of transcendence.” For him, this entails two aspects of transcendence: “the survival of consciousness after death and, no less momentous, the idea of an extended transpersonal mind. Pim van Lommel (2010) calls it ‘endless consciousness’ or following the Upanishads, Erwin Schrödinger (1963) referred to the one mind. Later, Larry Dossey (2013) coined the phrase ‘nonlocal mind’ and has described in detail how we can make sense of being part of the one mind in his book of that title” (pp. xi-xii). (Full disclosure: whether Grosso’s favorable nod to my work influences this review is for the reader to decide.) Grosso employs a nonlocal model of consciousness — consciousness that is not localized or confined to specific points in space, such as brains or bodies, nor to specific points in time, such as the present. Nonlocal mind is Mind at Large, as Aldous Huxley and others have called it. Survival follows, because mind that is boundless or nonlocal with respect to time is seemingly eternal or immortal; and mind nonlocal or boundless with respect to space is omnipresent. So the critical question becomes: What is the evidence that mind is nonlocal? Grosso shows how consciousness variously manifests nonlocally, making the case for Mind at Large, a universal or unitary mind of which each individual mind is a part. Grosso wrote the first edition of The Final Choice in 1985. This revised edition takes into account a plethora of findings by consciousness researchers that have emerged in the nearly three decades separating the two editions. (shrink)