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Founding Quantum Theory on the Basis of Consciousness

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In the present work, quantum theory is founded on the framework of consciousness, in contrast to earlier suggestions that consciousness might be understood starting from quantum theory. The notion of streams of consciousness, usually restricted to conscious beings, is extended to the notion of a Universal/Global stream of conscious flow of ordered events. The streams of conscious events which we experience constitute sub-streams of the Universal stream. Our postulated ontological character of consciousness also consists of an operator which acts on a state of potential consciousness to create or modify the likelihoods for later events to occur and become part of the Universal conscious flow. A generalized process of measurement-perception is introduced, where the operation of consciousness brings into existence, from a state of potentiality, the event in consciousness. This is mathematically represented by (a) an operator acting on the state of potential consciousness before an actual event arises in consciousness and (b) the reflecting of the result of this operation back onto the state of potential consciousness for comparison in order for the event to arise in consciousness. Beginning from our postulated ontology that consciousness is primary and from the most elementary conscious contents, such as perception of periodic change and motion, quantum theory follows naturally as the description of the conscious experience.

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  1. Department of Physics, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, 32306-4350, U.S.A

    Efstratios Manousakis

  2. Department of Physics, University of Athens, Athens, 15784, Greece

    Efstratios Manousakis

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Manousakis, E. Founding Quantum Theory on the Basis of Consciousness. Found Phys 36, 795–838 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-006-9049-9

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