There was a time when the newspapers said that only twelve men understood the theory of relativity. I do not believe there ever was such a time. There might have been a time when only one man did, because he was the only guy who caught on, before he wrote his paper. But after people read the paper a lot of people understood the theory of relativity in some way or other, certainly more than twelve. On the other hand, I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics…
I am going to tell you what nature behaves like. If you will simply admit that maybe she does behave like this, you will find her a delightful, entrancing thing. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, ‘but how can it be like that?’ because you will get ‘down the drain,’ into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.
Richard Feynman - The Character of Physical Law (Lecture 6),
Waves and particles, minds and bodies
The quantum wave/particle problem
You can ask what causes the wave behaviour of quantum objects such as photons of light and electrons, which has been mathematically described in quantum mechanics, and the answer could just be nothing at all.
So experiments have been carried out where quantum objects that are detected as particles can, one by one, build up patterns on a screen than can be called wave diffraction and interference. And this can be done just by passing these objects through one or more very small openings in a barrier.
Evidence of these patterns can only be detected of objects of less than a very low mass, while electrons are found to be the least massive of all the components of atoms and molecules. And these objects are themselves found to the smallest parts of the elements and compounds of matter. So that electrons can be regarded as the universal components of all observable matter.
Or, alternatively, you can think that it's the experimental apparatus that causes the particle wave patterns, while quantum objects themselves are in an indeterminate state of being neither waves nor particles until they are detected.
For there has been found to be no means of observing, detecting or measuring any evidence at all of quantum waves while any objects are in motion. Nor has definite evidence been found of quantum objects behaving as both waves and particles simultaneously.
Then there is also the unavoidable and universal uncertainty in the observation and measurement of quantum object behaviour. So, just given the measured evidence, you can conclude that quantum objects don’t possess definite properties of position and momentum at the same time. And thus you can conclude that all quantum objects are in states that can’t be determined or visualised while undetected or measured.
Although there is another interpretation that proposes, on the contrary, that even though you can't find any definite direct evidence of any objects being both waves and particles, there are real extended waves that travel together with each of the particles to cause the diffraction and interference patterns.
So that the wave of each particle acts so as to deflect the particle in such a way as to produce the patterns detected. And it has been found possible to both mathematically describe and visualise in diagrams the trajectories of particles in motion and that are also waves that can produce the interference pattern. While the uncertainty in observation and measurement could just be the result of systematically describable and universal limitations in measuring behaviour that, while producing definite and continuous paths of particles in motion, would be quite unlike any behaviour that can be directly observed of any objects.
You can conclude from this interpretation, however, that such a wave cause couldn't be described as surrounding objects to produce these effects on particles like the forces that act at a distance such as gravity and electromagnetism. So you could ask from where could this cause act upon objects? And also, how is it that there could be a cause that produces these particular wave-like effects upon quantum particles?
The mind/body problem
You can ask what is the mind and consciousness. And the answer could be nothing at all that is distinct from the body. For where in the body can you find the mind or consciousness? And how could you describe something invisible or immaterial that would need to be the unique mind or subject of experience in each of many individuals when you can only describe one each of the invisible forces that act at a distance? So you can think there couldn't be many invisible minds just as there couldn't be many magnetisms.
And also, you can just ask what definite scientific evidence is there, in any case, for the existence of any invisible entity in addition to the invisible forces?
Although you could just think there at least needs to be something that turns or translates what occurs in the body to produce consciousness, as nerve and brain activity, into consciousness itself, as thoughts and experience, And this could be distinct from the body or anything else found in the world experienced since it would be only thing that produces experience or consciousness. And this would be something invisible because consciousness itself can't be observed.
And then again, when considering just the uniqueness of the experience of just one individual, there is the problem of how this could be necessarily unique.
So it doesn't seem to make sense that you could, simultaneously at least, have more than one experience from more than one body. You have just one body and so just one point of view in the world.
But a problem arises when imagining that, somehow, your body or the experiencing part of your body could be divided, while the divided parts continue to experience the world. So you can ask what could it be that makes you experience from just the one point of view of one part of your divided body and not from the other part or parts that would also be experiencing the world?
Then one can think of single cell organism like an amoeba, which can live independently, as needing some kind of rudimentary consciousness as a sensitivity to its immediate environment for its individual survival. Then consider how these creatures bodily divide to reproduce themselves. And so that there seems to be no problem for one independently sensing and acting amoeba in dividing into two such living organisms.
So the conclusion could be that there is something hidden about the nature of the mind as the subject of consciousness in any living thing that is required just to make the uniqueness of the individual’s experience possible.
A general hypothesis
There seem to be no definite answers that could possibly be found for either the wave/particle or the mind/body problem.
But then suppose the answer to both the quantum and the mind problems is a question of how a distinct and invisible cause relates in its effects upon radiant energy and matter in general. And as this would be a cause this acts universally in addition to and in a quite different way to all the forces.
So one reason to consider that there could be such a universal cause could be that, having found experimentally that matter consists almost all of the space between electrons and neutrons as it's subatomic components and a force that powerfully attracts between these components and repels between electrons, there can be thought a general problem in explaining how any matter as atoms, molecules and living organisms can be and remain organised out of these parts, and to a large degree, despite all the forces acting within and upon matter.
While electrons as the outer components of atoms have been measured and calculated to possess a wave property of behaviour that could be thought to prevent electrons from being attracted towards and falling into nuclei..
Also, there has been found to be a mysterious property of quantum behaviour that's called quantum entanglement. This being an effect that can be measured and described as a connection or correlation of behaviour at a distance between electrons while these are components of atoms, as well as between nuclear components and also, between photons.
And many long distance entanglement experiments have now been carried out where this effect has been measured not to vary in any way at distances of up to 141 kilometres or 90 miles between beams of light. And so it could be thought that, like the quantum wave as a cause, quantum entanglement could not be caused by anything that surrounds objects.
Although the same problems of direct detection and measurement apply to quantum entanglement as to quantum particle/waves. And you can argue that because the entangled effect between quantum objects has no measurable strength like any force then it has no cause. Except that you can consider that the quantum mechanics describes a correlation between particular forms of behaviour and it can be thought that there needs to be some cause that acts just so as to maintain or conserve this correlation, and where a fixed relationship of behaviour can be described such as spin up in relation to spin down.
And the question arises: could it ever be clearly shown that and how any cause acts universally in addition to the forces? Such a possibility would seem to be out of the question since, in particular, it could be asked how could any or, at least, enough details be described of such a cause that, unlike the forces, would act at a distance with no measurable strength and without surrounding objects ?
Well, there are reasons to think that the answer to this last question could be found only by examining the appropriate evidence itself in an account that could be regarded as a scientific document. So there are various accounts in science when it only becomes clear that a natural cause can be found, sufficiently justified and described in enough detail by examining the various appropriate evidence together of where the cause acts.
The 17th Century discovery of gravity is a renowned instance of this scientific method. And where details of an invisible cause could only discovered after the realisation that both the orbital motion of moons and planets and the weight, free fall and trajectory of objects close to the Earth's surface, could be the result of a universal attractive force that surrounds and acts at a distance from objects.
Then Isaac Newton could only clearly show that and how this was such a force by finding that he could devise what were then entirely new methods of representing the action of any invisible cause that produces both the orbits of the celestial bodies and the forms of motion and weight of objects nearer to Earth .
Newton's methods were developed by measurement and calculation and could be expressed in mathematical formulae. And these have been found to be the means needed to discover and describe enough details of how all the forces affect the behaviour of matter and energy. Although all these accounts have also needed to be expressed verbally and have also involved the use of diagrams. And this visual method has been used in many accounts in the natural sciences other than physics,.
So when considering that a key problem of describing or representing enough details of an invisible cause could be one of a relationship of this cause to It’s effects upon matter and energy one could wonder whether diagrams could be used to represent this relationship.
For one can think that, while this cause could not be described as surrounding objects in the three spatial dimensions of height, breadth and depth in the world experienced, it could relate in space from outside the three dimensional world, The cause could also be thought to act outside the dimension of time. For the entanglement effect has been measured to occur at faster than the speed of light and can be regarded as being instantaneous at any distance.
Then if the action of this cause could be sufficiently represented just in the form of diagrams that picture the spatial relationship of a cause to its effects upon matter in general, then one may consider that the relationship could be represented of how distinct and invisible minds or experiencing subjects relate to the bodies of human beings and other living organisms.
For a detailed quantum hypothesis see here.
For personal blog and informal theoretical discussion see here
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