What quantum physics means to you — for $1

Originally published 14 October 1991

Dear Mr. Raymo,

I am the edi­tor of Gee­Whiz mag­a­zine and a read­er of your Globe col­umn. Could you write an arti­cle for our mag­a­zine on the fol­low­ing ques­tions: What effect does quan­tum physics have on every­day life? What are its impli­ca­tions for under­stand­ing human con­scious­ness? What are the ram­i­fi­ca­tions for psy­chol­o­gy? We would like about 3,000 words and will pay $1,000.

Sin­cere­ly,
I.M. Curi­ous, editor

Dear I.M. Curious,

I can answer your ques­tions in three words: none, none, none. If you pub­lish, please remit $1.

Yours,
Chet Ray­mo

Dear Mr. Raymo,

Ah, sure­ly you jest. There have been a lot of pop­u­lar books late­ly, some of them best­sellers and all by sci­en­tists, sug­gest­ing a con­nec­tion between quan­tum physics and con­scious­ness. We’ve heard that in the atom­ic world — the quan­tum world — the laws of physics get kind of fuzzy. Every­thing hap­pens accord­ing to prob­a­bil­i­ties, noth­ing is cer­tain. That sort of thing. Might not quan­tum fuzzi­ness be the source of our free will? And our cre­ativ­i­ty? Aren’t our brains more than mere com­put­ers? Read­ers of Gee­Whiz mag­a­zine would like to know. Please recon­sid­er doing an article.

Sin­cere­ly,
I.M. Curi­ous, Editor

Dear I.M. Curious,

I am nei­ther a quan­tum physi­cist nor a psy­chol­o­gist. But I’ve got hunch­es in this mat­ter, and my hunch­es are: none, none, none. Please under­stand me. The brain is won­der­ful­ly mys­te­ri­ous. And elec­trons, etc., when we tweak them do behave in sur­pris­ing ways. But, as far as I know, no one has demon­strat­ed any quan­tum basis to con­scious­ness. What we have here isn’t sci­ence; it is wish­ful long­ing for tran­scen­dence pos­ing as science.

Yours,
Chet Ray­mo

Dear Mr. Raymo,

For­give me for tak­ing up so much of your time, but I have just read Fred Alan Wolf’s Star Wave, a book about the quan­tum basis for con­scious­ness, and — well, Wolf is a physi­cist, and you have a back­ground in physics, I won­der if you could eval­u­ate his argu­ments. All those num­bers and com­put­er print­outs of quan­tum waves cer­tain­ly make Wolf’s book look impres­sive to me.

Sin­cere­ly,
I.M. Curi­ous

Dear I.M. Curious,

I’m afraid I’m out of my depth here. You see, Mr. Wolf has had expe­ri­ences I have not had. He has vis­it­ed par­al­lel uni­vers­es in lucid dreams and encoun­tered oth­er con­scious­ness­es on high­er astral planes (what­ev­er those are). Mean­while, I’ve been stuck in the plain old here and now. So when Mr. Wolf says, “To evolve in a spir­it of peace and blessed coex­is­tence, human beings must under­stand quan­tum physics and its appli­ca­tion to their minds,” I must dis­qual­i­fy myself from comment.

Yours,
Chet Ray­mo

Dear Mr. Raymo,

It seems to me you dis­miss Mr. Wolf too blithe­ly. Exper­i­ments have shown that in the quan­tum world, space and time are entan­gled in mys­te­ri­ous ways. For exam­ple, cer­tain recent exper­i­ments sug­gest that the same par­ti­cle can be in two places at the same time. Might not that be an expla­na­tion for the kinds of psy­chic expe­ri­ences described by Wolf?

Sin­cere­ly,
I.M. Curi­ous

Dear I.M. Curious,

Uh, well, like I say, I’ve nev­er had a “psy­chic” expe­ri­ence, oth­er than ordi­nary thought and dreams. As far as I know, neu­rons in the human brain can­not be trig­gered (made to fire) by a sin­gle quan­tum-scale event. Cer­tain ener­gy thresh­olds must be met before brain cells are acti­vat­ed, and many sep­a­rate stim­u­la­tions are need­ed to reach those thresh­olds, wash­ing out any role for quan­tum physics. I’m inclined to believe that if quan­tum effects were impor­tant in the brain, then con­scious­ness (and mem­o­ry) would­n’t be pos­si­ble at all.

Yours,
Chet Ray­mo

Dear Mr. Raymo,

I’ve just read anoth­er book, The Emper­or’s New Mind, by math­e­mat­i­cal physi­cist Roger Pen­rose. He too dares sug­gest that the brain is more than a com­put­er, and that quan­tum physics is nec­es­sary to under­stand con­scious­ness. I con­fess that I did­n’t under­stand a lot of the tech­ni­cal stuff, but the book sure sold lots of copies.

Sin­cere­ly,
I.M.Curious

Dear I.M. Curious,

Ah, now you’re talk­ing. Roger Pen­rose is a very clever man, and any­thing he says is worth pay­ing atten­tion too. But don’t be too impressed by all that tech­ni­cal stuff. Those 400 pages of physics don’t say beans about human con­scious­ness. In the last analy­sis, Pen­rose’s book is about his intu­ition that the mind will nev­er be emu­lat­ed by a machine. He may be right, but don’t count machines out yet.

Yours,
Chet Ray­mo

Dear Mr. Raymo,

Ok, per­haps it is wish­ful think­ing, but I’m rather fond of the idea that there is some­thing irre­ducible, even cos­mic, about human con­scious­ness. Sure­ly our brains are more than mere com­put­ers made of meat. I don’t believe in dis­em­bod­ied spir­its. If not quan­tum physics, what?

Sin­cere­ly,
I.M.Curious

Dear I.M. Curious,

What, indeed? In my opin­ion, all this talk about quan­tum physics and con­scious­ness is a tem­pest in a teapot. Let’s keep learn­ing more about the brain, and about com­put­ers. Our grand­chil­dren will know more than we do. In the mean­time, read­ers of Gee­Whiz mag­a­zine can go right on feel­ing free and cre­ative. They can even seek “to evolve in a spir­it of peace and blessed coex­is­tence.” Folks have been doing these things for sev­er­al mil­lion years. We don’t need a physi­cist’s per­mis­sion to be ful­ly human.

All the best…