The so-called quantum Zeno effect is essentially a consequence of the projection postulate for ideal measurements. To test the effect, Itanoet al. have performed an experiment on an ensemble of atoms where rapidly repeated level measurements were realized by means of short laser pulses. Using dynamical considerations, we give an explanation why the projection postulate can be applied in good approximation to such measurements. Corrections to ideal measurements are determined explicitly. This is used to discuss how (...) far the experiment of Itanoet al. can be considered as a test of the quantum Zeno effect. We also analyze a new possible experiment on a single atom where stochastic light and dark periods can be interpreted as manifestation of the quantum Zeno effect. We show that the measurement point of view gives a quick and intuitive understanding of experiments of the above type, although a finer analysis has to take the corrections into account. (shrink)

The quantum Zeno effect is often studied and understood in term of nonunitary evolutions, involving projections à la von Neumann (measurements). We propose a dynamical explanation of this effect, which involves only unitary operators. The limit of infinitely frequent measurements is critically discussed: it is unphysical, yet interesting and peculiar.

A simple exactly solvable model is given of the dynamical coupling between a person’s classically described perceptions and that person’s quantum mechanically described brain. The model is based jointly upon von Neumann’s theory of measurements and the empirical findings of close connections between conscious intentions and synchronous oscillations in well separated parts of the brain. A quantum-Zeno-effect-based mechanism is described that allows conscious intentions to influence brain activity in a functionally appropriate way. The robustness of this (...) mechanism in the face of environmental decoherence effects is emphasized. (shrink)

The quantum Zeno effect (QZE) is often associated with the ironic maxim, “a watched pot never boils”, although the notion of “watching” suggests a continuous activity at odds with the usual (pulsed measurement) presentation of the QZE. We show how continuous watching can provide the same halting of decay as the usual QZE, and, for incomplete hindrance, we provide a precise connection between the interval between projections and the response time of the continuous observer. Thus, watching closely, (...) but not so closely as to halt the “boiling”, is equivalent to—gives the same degree of partial hindrance as—pulsed measurements with a particular pulsing rate. Our demonstration is accomplished by treating the apparatus for the continuous watching as a fully quantum object. This in turn allows us a second perspective on the QZE, in which it is the modified level structure of the combined system/apparatus Hamiltonian that slows the decay. This and other considerations favor the characterization “dominated time evolution” for the QZE. (shrink)

A familiar interpretation of quantum mechanics (one of a number of views sometimes labeled the "Copenhagen interpretation'"), takes its empirical apparatus at face value, holding that the quantum wave function evolves by the Schrödinger equation except on certain occasions of measurement, when it collapses into a new state according to the Born rule. This interpretation is widely rejected, primarily because it faces the measurement problem: "measurement" is too imprecise for use in a fundamental physical theory. We argue that (...) this is a weak objection, as there may be many ways of making "measurement" precise. However, measurement-collapse interpretations face a more serious objection: a dilemma tied to the quantum Zeno effect. Is measurement itself an observable that can enter superpositions? If yes, then the standard measurement-collapse dynamics is ill-defined. If no, then (at least if measurement is an observable), measurements can never start or finish. The best way out is to deny that measurement is an observable, but this leads to strong and revisionary consequences. This reinforces the view that there is no nonrevisionary interpretation of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

This work presents an operational and geometric approach to logic. It starts from the multilinear elective decomposition of binary logical functions in the original form introduced by George Boole. A justification on historical grounds is presented bridging Boole’s theory and the use of his arithmetical logical functions with the axioms of Boolean algebra using sets and quantum logic. It is shown that this algebraic polynomial formulation can be naturally extended to operators in finite vector spaces. Logical operators will appear (...) as commuting projection operators and the truth values, which take the binary values \, are the respective eigenvalues. In this view the solution of a logical proposition resulting from the operation on a combination of arguments will appear as a selection where the outcome can only be one of the eigenvalues. In this way propositional logic can be formalized in linear algebra by using elective developments which correspond here to combinations of tensored elementary projection operators. The original and principal motivation of this work is for applications in the new field of quantum information, differences are outlined with more traditional quantum logic approaches. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Beyond Ratzinger's Republic:Communio's Postliberal TurnSam Zeno Conedera S.J. and Vincent L. Strand S.J.Is the political future of the West a postliberal one? For the past decade, numerous prominent thinkers in America and Europe have been debating this question. Matters that not long ago were merely of historical interest, such as Pope Gelasius I's understanding of the relation between sacral authority and royal power, Thomas Aquinas's thought on monarchy (...) and Robert Bellarmine's theory of the pope's indirect authority in temporal matters are now increasingly studied for their potential answers to contemporary political questions. This development, which would have been nearly unimaginable just a decade earlier, unsurprisingly has been led by Catholics. We say "unsurprisingly" in view of the long pre-modern tradition of Catholic political thought, as well as the Church's long struggle against liberalism during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some of the current postliberal writers explicitly connect themselves to both of these aspects by using the term "integralist" to describe their position.1 [End Page 889]This "new integralism" represents a radical departure from the mainstream of Catholic political discourse of the last half century, which has largely sought rapprochement with Western liberalism. A group of writers, led by John Courtney Murray, George Weigel, Michael Novak, and Robert George, have held that the American constitutional order is rooted in the natural law tradition, and therefore is basically friendly to Catholic political thought. The Church's role in American life, they say, is upholding the natural law as a public moral philosophy, while embracing the non-establishment clause of the First Amendment as a matter of principle, in accordance with the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. This "Whig Thomism," which for decades represented the predominant outlook of conservative American Catholics, must now face the challenge of a different sort of Thomism represented by the integralists.2While the engagement between Whig Thomists and integralists has received most of the attention from scholars and journalists alike, another postliberal option has emerged in recent years. Its source is a group of Catholic thinkers associated with the Communio theological movement. Their political vision, which has no single name or label, has a complex and subtle relationship with the thought of earlier Communio writers, most of whom shared the Whig Thomist desire for reconciliation with Western liberalism. [End Page 890] The appearance of a Communio postliberalism therefore represents a significant development within this intellectual tradition. The most important representative of the earlier Communio perspective on political questions is Joseph Ratzinger / Pope Benedict XVI, who has recently been lauded as the "most important Catholic thinker of the twentieth century" on matters at the intersection of theology and politics.3In an article titled "Ratzinger's Republic" that appeared in these pages in 2020, we identified a significant tension in his thought about the Church's contribution to political life.4 Exploring Ratzinger's writings on natural law, we demonstrated that two currents are present. In accord with his fundamental theological commitments about nature and grace and about faith and reason, Ratzinger often questioned the effectiveness of arguments from natural law. He claimed that, since reason is historically conditioned, and therefore in the current order marked by sin, reason needs grace and faith to function properly. Yet, on other occasions, Ratzinger strongly endorsed arguments from natural law, highlighting its role as the foundation of a just democratic political order. We traced this ambivalence about natural law back to a dilemma at the heart of Ratzinger's political thought. On the one hand, in accord with his thinking about the relations of nature and grace and faith and reason, Ratzinger argued that the state needs the Church to supply moral values that the state cannot furnish on its own. On the other hand, he believed it belongs to the very nature of the Church to be separate from the state, and he endorsed nonconfessional, religiously pluralistic states.5 In light of these two commitments, Ratzinger argued that the contribution Christians are to make to the state is to supply moral values that were discerned under the influence of grace and divine revelation but... (shrink)

Even in a theory corroboration context, attention to effect size is called for if significance testing is to be of any value. I sketch a Popperian construal of significance tests that better fits into scientific inference as a whole. Because of its many errors Chow's book cannot be recommended to the novice.

Decoherence is one of the most serious drawback in quantum mechanical applications. We discuss the effects of noise in superconducting devices (Josephson junctions) and suggest a decoherence-control strategy based on the quantum Zeno effect.

Orthodox Copenhagen quantum theory renounces the quest to understand the reality in which we are imbedded, and settles for practical rules describing connections between our observations. Many physicist have regarded this renunciation of our effort describe nature herself as premature, and John von Neumann reformulated quantum theory as a theory of an evolving objective universe interacting with human consciousness. This interaction is associated both in Copenhagen quantum theory and in von Neumann quantum theory with a sudden (...) change that brings the objective physical state of a system in line with a subjectively felt psychical reality. The objective physical state is thereby converted from a material substrate to an informational and dispositional substrate that carries both the information incorporated into it by the psychical realities, and certain dispositions for the occurrence of future psychical realities. The present work examines and proposes solutions to two problems that have appeared to block the development of this conception of nature. The first problem is how to reconcile this theory with the principles of relativistic quantum field theory; the second problem is to understand whether, strictly within quantum theory, a person's mind can affect the activities of his brain, and if so how. Solving the first problem involves resolving a certain non-locality question. The proposed solution to the second problem is based on a postulated connection between effort, attention, and the quantum Zeno effect. This solution explains on the basic of quantum physics a large amount of heretofore unexplained data amassed by psychologists. (shrink)

I discuss the quantum mechanical theory of consciousness and freewill offered by Stapp (1993, 1995, 2000, 2004). First I show that decoherence-based arguments do not work against this theory. Then discuss a number of problems with the theory: Stapp's separate accounts of consciousness and freewill are incompatible, the interpretations of QM they are tied to are questionable, the Zeno effect could not enable freewill as he suggests because weakness of will would then be ubiquitous, and the holism (...) of measurement in QM is not a good explanation of the unity of consciousness for essentially the same reason that local interactions may seem incapable of accounting for it. (shrink)

It is well known that successive observations of the instantaneous state of a decaying system lead to a modified decay law. In the limit of infinitely frequent observations, the modified lifetime becomes infinite (“Zeno's paradox”). We study here the behavior of decaying systems under continuous rather than successive observations. Such continuous observation is achieved by a permanent coupling of the decaying system to a counter, which is sufficiently sensitive to the presence of the decay products. For two explicitly soluble (...) models we obtain a result very similar to Zeno's paradox: The observation again strongly modifies the decay law, and prevents the decay completely in the limit of a perfect (i.e., infinitely sensitive) counter. Like Zeno's paradox, however, this “watchdog effect” is not very likely to be detected in actual experiments, e.g., with radioactive nuclei. (shrink)

Ever since the early days of quantum mechanics it has been suggested that consciousness could be linked to the collapse of the wave function. However, no detailed account of such an interplay is usually provided. In this paper we present an objective collapse model where the collapse operator depends on integrated information, which has been argued to measure consciousness. By doing so, we construct an empirically adequate scheme in which superpositions of conscious states are dynamically suppressed. Unlike other proposals (...) in which “consciousness causes the collapse of the wave function,” our model is fully consistent with a materialistic view of the world and does not require the postulation of entities suspicious of laying outside of the quantum realm. (shrink)

A Gedanken experiment is presented where an excited and a ground-state atom are positioned such that, within the former’s half-life time, they exchange a photon with 50% probability. A measurement of their energy state will therefore indicate in 50% of the cases that no photon was exchanged. Yet other measurements would reveal that, by the mere possibility of exchange, the two atoms have become entangled. Consequently, the “no exchange” result, apparently precluding entanglement, is non-locally established between the atoms by this (...) very entanglement. This quantum-mechanical version of the ancient Liar Paradox can be realized with already existing transmission schemes, with the addition of Bell’s theorem applied to the no-exchange cases. Under appropriate probabilities, the initially-excited atom, still excited, can be entangled with additional atoms time and again, or alternatively, exert multipartite nonlocal correlations in an interaction free manner. When densely repeated several times, this result also gives rise to the Quantum Zeno effect, again exerted between distant atoms without photon exchange. We discuss these experiments as variants of interaction-free-measurement, now generalized for both spatial and temporal uncertainties. We next employ weak measurements for elucidating the paradox. Interpretational issues are discussed in the conclusion, and a resolution is offered within the Two-State Vector Formalism and its new Heisenberg framework. (shrink)

Arguments pertaining to the mind-brain connection and to the physical effectiveness of our conscious choices have been presented in two recent books, one by John Searle, the other by Jaegwon Kim. These arguments are examined, and it is explained how the encountered difficulties arise from a defective understanding and application of a pertinent part of contemporary science, namely quantum mechanics. The principled quantum uncertainties entering at the microscopic levels of brain processing cannot be confined to the micro level, (...) but percolate up to the macroscopic regime. To cope with the conflict between the resulting macroscopic indefiniteness and the definiteness of our conscious experiences, orthodox quantum mechanics introduces the idea of agent-generated probing actions, each of which specifies a definite set of alternative possible empirically/experientially distinguishable outcomes. Quantum theory then introduces the mathematical concept of randomness to describe the probabilities of the various alternative possible outcomes of the chosen probing action. But the agent-generated choice of which probing action to perform is not governed by any known law or rule, statistical or otherwise. This causal gap provides a logical opening, and indeed a logical need, for the entry into the dynamical structure of nature of a process that goes beyond the currently understood quantum mechanical statistical generalization of the deterministic laws of classical physics. The well-known quantum Zeno effect can then be exploited to provide a natural process that establishes a causal psychophysical link within the complex structure consisting of a stream of conscious experiences and certain macroscopic classical features of a quantum mechanically described brain. This naturally created causal link effectively allows consciously felt intentions to affect brain activity in a way that tends to produce the intended feedback. This quantum mechanism provides an eminently satisfactory alternative to the classical physics conclusion that the physical present is 1 completely determined by the physical past, and hence provides a physicsbased way out of the dilemma that Searle and Kim tried to resolve by philosophical analysis.. (shrink)

Examining the notion of wavefunction collapse (WFC) in quantum measurements, which came again to be in question in the recent debate on the quantum Zeno effect, we remark that WFC is realized only through decoherence among branch waves by detection, after a spectral decomposition process from an initial object wavefunction to a superposition of branch waves corresponding to relevant measurement propositions. We improve the definition of the decoherence parameter, so as to be fitted to general cases, (...) by which we can quantitatively estimate the degree of WFC given by detectors. Finally, we briefly discuss whether two special detector models, with very huge and very small degrees of freedom, can provoke WFC. (shrink)

The work interprets experimental data for the heat capacity of Zn22 in the region of second-order phase transitions. The proposed understanding of the processes occurring during phase transitions may be helpful to reveal quantum Zeno effects in metal–organic frameworks with evolving structural subsystems and to establish relations between quantum measurements and the entropy of phase transitions.

An analysis of the two routes through which one may disentangle a quantum system from a measuring apparatus, hence protect the state vector of a single quantum system from being disturbed by the measurement, reveals several loopholes in the argument from protective measurement to the reality of the state vector of a single quantum system.

This paper provides a general method for defining a generalized quantum observable that supplies properly normalized conditional probabilities for the time of occurrence. This method treats the time of occurrence as a probabilistic variable whose value is to be determined by experiment and predicted by the Born rule. This avoids the problematic assumption that a question about the time at which an event occurs must be answered through instantaneous measurements of a projector by an observer, common to both Rovelli (...) and Oppenheim et al.. I also address the interpretation of experiments purporting to demonstrate the quantum Zeno effect, used by Oppenheim et al. to justify an inherent uncertainty for measurements of times. (shrink)

We treat here three apparently uncorrelated topics from the point of view of dense measurement: The EPR paradox, the teleportation process, and Wheeler's delayed-choice experiment (DCE). We begin with the DCE and show, using its unique nature and the histories formalism, that use may ascertain and fix the notion of dense measurement (the Zeno effect). We show here by including the experimenter (observer) as an inherent part of the physical system and using the Aharonov–Vardi notion of dense measurement (...) along a path, that knowledge of certain properties of the incoming system (after a measurement) is equivalent to dense measurement. We reach the same conclusion by discussing the teleportation process, and the EPR paradox from, the same point of view. (shrink)

A primary function of mind is to form and manipulate representations to identify and choose survival-enhancing behaviors. Representations are themselves physical systems that can be manipulated to reason about, predict, or plan actions involving the objects they designate. The field of knowledge representation and reasoning turns representation upon itself to study how representations are formed and used by biological and computer systems. Some of the most versatile and successful KRR methods have been imported from computational physics. Features of a problem (...) are mapped onto dimensions of an imaginary physical system in which solution quality is inversely related to energy. Simulating the fictitious physical system on a digital computer yields a low-energy, and hence high-quality, solution to the original problem. This paper suggests a rethinking of the traditional metaphor of cognition as execution of algorithms on a digital computer. It may be both more fruitful and more accurate to conceive of representation as mapping problem features to an energy surface, learning as identifying representations that map good solutions to low free energy, and problem solving as efficient search for low free energy states. This conception of cognition is in natural accord with Stapp's theory of efficacious conscious choice. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}. (shrink)

Does consciousness collapse the quantum wave function? This idea was taken seriously by John von Neumann and Eugene Wigner but is now widely dismissed. We develop the idea by combining a mathematical theory of consciousness (integrated information theory) with an account of quantum collapse dynamics (continuous spontaneous localization). Simple versions of the theory are falsified by the quantum Zeno effect, but more complex versions remain compatible with empirical evidence. In principle, versions of the theory can (...) be tested by experiments with quantum computers. The upshot is not that consciousness-collapse interpretations are clearly correct, but that there is a research program here worth exploring. (shrink)

A Zenonian supertask involving an infinite number of identical colliding balls is generalized to include balls with different masses. Under the restriction that the total mass of all the balls is finite, classical mechanics leads to velocities that have no upper limit. Relativistic mechanics results in velocities bounded by that of light, but energy and momentum are not conserved, implying indeterminism. The notion that both determinism and the conservation laws might be salvaged via photon creation is shown to be flawed.

A Zenonian supertask involving an infinite number of identical colliding balls is generalized to include balls with different masses. Under the restriction that the total mass of all the balls is finite, classical mechanics leads to velocities that have no upper limit. Relativistic mechanics results in velocities bounded by that of light, but energy and momentum are not conserved, implying indeterminism. The notion that both determinism and the conservation laws might be salvaged via photon creation is shown to be flawed.

An intricate quantum statistical effect guides us to a deterministic, non-causal quantum universe with a given fixed initial and final state density matrix. A concept is developed on how and where something like macroscopic physics can emerge. However, the concept does not allow philosophically crucial free will decisions. The quantum world and its conjugate evolve independently, and one can replace fixed final states on each side just with a common matching one. This change allows for external (...) manipulations done in the quantum world and its conjugate, which do not otherwise alter the basic quantum dynamics. In a big bang/big crunch universe, the expanding part can be attributed to the quantum world and the contracting one to the conjugate one. The obtained bi-linear picture has several noteworthy consequences. (shrink)

En este artículo, se atienden ciertas facetas conceptuales y experimentales del efecto Hall cuántico. Se argumenta que el mismo ofrece variados matices para la reflexión filosófica, desde la generación de entidades teóricas hasta la epistemología de la experimentación. La exposición pretende mantener cierta sensibilidad por la dinámica histórica en torno del tema, como así también por las implicaciones metrológicas de ámbitos cuánticos específicos. Dada la enorme producción científica sobre el tema, se hace un recorte a los fines de rescatar algunos (...) perfiles significativos de los fenómenos asociados con ese efecto. In this paper we address several conceptual and historical aspects of the quantum Hall effect. We argue that this effect offers a variety of perspectives for philosophical reflection, from the generation of theoretical entities to the epistemology of experimentation. The exposition attempts to maintain a certain sensitivity to the historical dynamics around the issue, considering at the same time its metrological implications for specific quantum areas. Given the vast scientific literature on the subject, a cut is made in order to rescue some meaningful profiles of the phenomena associated with this effect. (shrink)

This paper looks at the nature of idealizations and representational structures appealed to in the context of the fractional quantum Hall effect, specifically, with respect to the emergence of anyons and fractional statistics. Drawing on an analogy with the Aharonov–Bohm effect, it is suggested that the standard approach to the effects— the topological approach to fractional statistics—relies essentially on problematic idealizations that need to be revised in order for the theory to be explanatory. An alternative geometric approach (...) is outlined and endorsed. Roles for idealizations in science, as well as consequences for the debate revolving around so-called essential idealizations, are discussed. (shrink)

My purpose in this essay is to provide a critical survey of arguments within recent analytic philosophy regarding the so-called “mind-body problem” with a particular view toward the relationship between these arguments and the philosophy of A.N. Whitehead (and Charles Hartshorne’s closely related views).1In course, I shall argue that Whitehead’s panexperientialist physicalism avoids paradoxes and difficulties of both materialist-physicalism and Cartesian dualismas advocated by a variety of analytic philosophers. However, and I believe that this point is not often sufficiently recognized, (...) analytic philosophy of mind is no monolith, and there are those who have found some form of panexperientialism to be attractive enough to merit serious consideration or even full-fledgedacceptance (David Chalmers, Thomas Nagel, Ralph Pred, William Seager, and Galen Strawson among them). A critical discussion of such thinkers should beincluded in any adequate survey of the relation between process panexperientialism and the analytic tradition. Moreover, the revisionary strain of the analyticaltradition which looks to natural science for its construction of worldviews (Broad, Russell, Bunge, Carnap, Quine, etc.) would move us in the direction of examining arguments concerning Whitehead’s view and contemporary empirical scientific considerations. (For a discussion of the basic nature of analytic philosophy and the descriptive and revisionary approaches contained within it, see my Process and Analysis, 5-9, 12-13, 57; and McHenry.) Here I shall argue that Whiteheadian panexperientialism very naturally accommodates important aspects of quantum theory, including the top-down causation involved in neuroplastic phenomena under a quantum mechanical interpretation of brain processes and in so-called Quantum Zeno Effect. The overall picture which emerges is that Whitehead’s position is (at the very least) a strongly plausible alternative in philosophy of mind.While I must confess that this essay can only represent the merest sketch—indeed an adequate treatment of the richly complex interpretive, comparative, and substantive philosophical issues here requires at the very least a monograph—I nonetheless hope to present a coherent and useful précis of major arguments and comparative conceptual relationships, especially for the reader who may not be readily familiar with this terrain. I thus hope that this essay will serve as a short expository and critical introduction to the interface between process and analytic philosophy of mind, and a presentation of the several theoretical advantages gained by listening to Whitehead’s theory as it connects with concerns of analytic philosophers.I shall proceed by first working though the main outlines of John Searle’s important and widely reaching “The Recent History of Materialism,” an essay which exposes critical flaws in a variety of materialist theories in ways which Whiteheadians should find especially fitting and congenial. I shall then examine defenses of dualism and the relation of Whitehead to such defenses, followed by a separate section on Chalmers, Nagel, and Pred. I will then consider a number ofimportant objections to process panexperientialism, including objections arising from the work of Jaegwon Kim and John Searle. I close with a discussion of thementioned empirical scientific arguments. (shrink)

Panpsychism is the doctrine that mind is a fundamental feature of the world existing throughout the universe. One problem with panpsychism is that it is a purely theoretical concept so far. For progress towards an operationalization of the idea, this paper suggests to make use of an ontological difference involved in the mind-matter distinction. The mode in which mental phenomena exist is called presence. The mode in which matter and radiation exist is called reality Physical theory disregards presence in both (...) the form of mental presence and the form of the temporal present In contrast to mental presence the temporal present is objective in the perspective of the third person. This relative kind of objectivity waits to be utilized for a hypothesis of how the mental and the physical are interrelated In order to do so this paper translates the mind-matter distinction into the distinction between mental and physical time and addresses the problem that panpsychism tries to attack head-on in these temporal terms. There are in particular , two issues thus getting involved: discussions about a time observable and the quantum Zeno effect. (shrink)

In this article we attempt to bring out some significant general aspects of what we call collapse-induced quantum nonlocal effects resulting from the use of the hypothesis of wave function collapse.

McTaggart's ideas on the unreality of time as expressed in "The Nature of Existence" have retained great interest for many years for scholars, academics and other philosophers. In this essay, there is a brief discussion which mentions some of the high points of this philosophical interest, and goes on to apply his ideas to modern physics and neuroscience. It does not discuss McTaggart's C and D series, but does emphasise how the use of derived versions of both his A and (...) B series can be of great virtue in discussing both the abstract physics of time, and the present and future importance of McTaggart's ideas to the subject of time. Indeed an experiment using human volunteers and dynamic systems modelling which was carried out is described, which illustrates this fact. The Many Bubble Interpretation, which also derives from McTaggart's ideas, is discussed and various examples of its use and effectiveness are referred to. The Schrodinger Cat paradox is essentially resolved in principle, the quantum Zeno effect interpretable, Kwiat's recent result referred to, and the newly discovered reverse Stickgold effect described. (shrink)

It is now well-known that Newton–Cartan theory is the correct geometrical setting for modelling the quantum Hall effect. In addition, in recent years edge modes for the Newton–Cartan quantum Hall effect have been derived. However, the existence of these edge modes has, as of yet, been derived using only orthodox methodologies involving the breaking of gauge-invariance; it would be preferable to derive the existence of such edge modes in a gauge-invariant manner. In this article, we employ (...) recent work by Donnelly and Freidel in order to accomplish exactly this task. Our results agree with known physics, but afford greater conceptual insight into the existence of these edge modes: in particular, they connect them to subtle aspects of Newton–Cartan geometry and pave the way for further applications of Newton–Cartan theory in condensed matter physics. (shrink)

We examine arguments for distinguishing between ontological and epistemological concepts of fundamentality, focusing in particular on the role that scale plays in these concepts. Using the fractional quantum Hall effect as a case study, we show that we can draw a distinction between ontologically fundamental and non-fundamental theories without insisting that it is only the fundamental theories that get the ontology right: there are cases where non-fundamental theories involve distinct ontologies that better characterize real systems than fundamental ones (...) do. In order to reconcile these distinct ontologies between fundamental and non-fundamental theories, we suggest that ontology must be understood as scale-dependent. (shrink)

In “Quantum Evolution”, Johnjoe McFadden makes far-reaching claims for the importance of quantum physics in the solution of problems in biological science. In this review, I shall discuss the relevance of unitary wavefunction dynamics to biological systems, analyse the inverse quantum Zeno effect, and argue that McFadden’s use of quantum theory is deeply flawed.

We study the influence of nonuniform magnetic fields on the magneto conductance of mesoscopic microstructures. We show that the coupling of the electron spin to the inhomogenous field gives rise to effects of the Berry phase on ballistic quantum transport and discuss adiabaticity conditions required to observe such effects. We present numerical results for different ring geometries showing a splitting of Aharonov–Bohm conductance peaks for single rings and corresponding signatures of the geometrical phase in weak localization. The latter features (...) can be qualitatively explained in a semiclassical approach to quantum transport. (shrink)

This book discusses the notion that quantum gravity may represent the "breakdown" of spacetime at extremely high energy scales. If spacetime does not exist at the fundamental level, then it has to be considered "emergent", in other words an effective structure, valid at low energy scales. The author develops a conception of emergence appropriate to effective theories in physics, and shows how it applies (or could apply) in various approaches to quantum gravity, including condensed matter approaches, discrete approaches, (...) and loop quantum gravity. (shrink)

The solution of the Klein-Gordon equation for a complex scalar field in the presence of an electrostatic field orthogonal to a magnetostatic field is analyzed. Considerations concerning the quantum Hall-type evolution are presented also. Using the Hamiltonian with a self-interaction term, we obtain a critical value for the magnetic field in the case of the spontaneous symmetry breaking.

Order of information plays a crucial role in the process of updating beliefs across time. In fact, the presence of order effects makes a classical or Bayesian approach to inference difficult. As a result, the existing models of inference, such as the belief-adjustment model, merely provide an ad hoc explanation for these effects. We postulate a quantum inference model for order effects based on the axiomatic principles of quantum probability theory. The quantum inference model explains order effects (...) by transforming a state vector with different sequences of operators for different orderings of information. We demonstrate this process by fitting the quantum model to data collected in a medical diagnostic task and a jury decision-making task. To further test the quantum inference model, a new jury decision-making experiment is developed. Using the results of this experiment, we compare the quantum inference model with two versions of the belief-adjustment model, the adding model and the averaging model. We show that both the quantum model and the adding model provide good fits to the data. To distinguish the quantum model from the adding model, we develop a new experiment involving extreme evidence. The results from this new experiment suggest that the adding model faces limitations when accounting for tasks involving extreme evidence, whereas the quantum inference model does not. Ultimately, we argue that the quantum model provides a more coherent account for order effects that was not possible before. (shrink)

We argue that not all cases of before-effect involve causation and ask how to demarcate cases of before-effect in which the events that follow exert causal influence over the before-effect from cases in which they do not.

The effects in a quantum-mechanical system form a partial algebra and a partially ordered set which is the prototypical example of the effect algebras discussed in this paper. The relationships among effect algebras and such structures as orthoalgebras and orthomodular posets are investigated, as are morphisms and group- valued measures (or charges) on effect algebras. It is proved that there is a universal group for every effect algebra, as well as a universal vector space over (...) an arbitrary field. (shrink)

We show that an effect algebra E possess an order-determining set of states if and only if E is semiclassical; that is, E is essentially a classical effect algebra. We also show that if E possesses at least one state, then E admits hidden variables in the sense that E is homomorphic to an MV-algebra that reproduces the states of E. Both of these results indicate that we cannot distinguish between a quantum mechanical effect algebra and (...) a classical one. Hereditary properties of sharpness and coexistence are discussed and the existence of {0,1} and dispersion-free states are considered. We then discuss a stronger structure called a sequential effect algebra (SEA) that we believe overcomes some of the inadequacies of an effect algebra. We show that a SEA is semiclassical if and only if it possesses an order-determining set of dispersion-free states. (shrink)

One kind of generalized measures called quantum measures on finite effect algebras, which fulfil the grade-2 additive sum rule, is considered. One basis of vector space of quantum measures on a finite effect algebra with the Riesz decomposition property (RDP for short) is given. It is proved that any diagonally positive symmetric signed measure \(\lambda \) on the tensor product \(E\otimes E\) can determine a quantum measure \(\mu \) on a finite effect algebra \(E\) (...) with the RDP such that \(\mu (x)=\lambda (x\otimes x)\) for any \(x\in E\) . Furthermore, some conditions for a grade-2 additive measure \(\mu \) on a finite effect algebra \(E\) are provided to guarantee that there exists a unique diagonally positive symmetric signed measure \(\lambda \) on \(E\otimes E\) such that \(\mu (x)=\lambda (x\otimes x)\) for any \(x\in E\) . At last, it is showed that any grade- \(t\) quantum measure on a finite effect algebra \(E\) with the RDP is essentially established by the values on a subset of \(E\). (shrink)