QUANTUM METAPHYSICS - E-thesis

The concept of a quantum state which controls the shaping of material phenomena can provide a
simple explanation of certain holistic and non-local features connected with particular brain
activities and phenomena of consciousness. Within the classical mechanistic-deterministic frame
of reference, it is difficult to explain the basis for different states of consciousness such as
dreaming and waking which are typically linked to the presence of different electrical
oscillations in the brain cortex, or what it is that synchronises and combines, for example, visual
information into an integrated whole by activating 40 different brain areas – the binding
problem. 829 It is estimated that the human brain has 10 11 nerve cells or neurons, each of which
has links with hundreds or perhaps thousands of other nerve cells. Even though all the genes
constituting our genetic inheritance were used to control and monitor the birth and maintenance
of the connections between nerve cells, only a vanishingly-small amount of information is
available concerning the birth of this extraordinarily-precise process of biological evolution. 830
As humans, we know that we can if we wish, and also without wishing it, be involved in many
different situations and feelings. Deeper interaction between people and understanding one
another requires, in addition to the exchange of information, empathy and the skill to place
oneself in another’s situation or ”soul-view”. If every individual human is assumed to occupy
their own unique state-space, its nature and the factors it contains can be thought of as directing
our activities and the questions we ask in different interactive situations. We can, for example,
presume that we obtain the projection of other people’s state-space-functions via those basic
vectors on which we ourselves operate. 831 Since everyone of us is bound to our own ”apparatus”,
we cannot assume that we obtain a clear picture of the overall abundance of what is a complex
system, at least when the other system is more complex than our own. For example, through
learning, humans can make choices and even, if they so wish, change some part of the contents
of the mind, but part of their cognitive composition is unconscious and can subconsciously affect
the actions that an individual takes. One example of this is the reactions we learn during
childhood, reactions from which it can be difficult to free ourselves at a later date even though
829 The stability and unity of a person’s identity is also difficult to explain. Why do we usually feel ourselves to be a
whole which is ”ready” as such, even if, for example, learning may cause a multitude of new states within us.
830 Kaila 1998, 11. It has been suggested that the formation of brain is guided by epigenetic information which is
born in interaction between an individual and his/her physical and social environment and constructed above genetic
functions. The birth of this kind of information structure is however difficult to explain within a mechanicaldeterministic
framework.
831 In quantum mechanics, operators coordinatise the quantum system. Other phenomena which are inexplicable
within a mechanistic-deterministic framework could also be better understood by using quantum concepts. For
example, the expansion of consciousness to include new insights could perhaps be viewed in terms equivalent to
quantum tunneling: in certain ircumstances, the mind might be able to use borrowed energy to intrude into an
otherwise forbidden area. Correlation phenomena might explain Heisenberg’s observation that the most-fruitful
developments in the history of human thought occur when two ways of thinking which are similar enough for proper
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