Been suggesting in
this space that consciousness may be a
primary characteristic of the universe and that there is, in
effect, a “ghost
in the machine” that observes the universe by collapsing the
wave function of quantum reality. The supposition has been that our
individual consciousness is but part of a cosmic consciousness that
in some sense caused the universe. But there may be another way to
look at things.
Stephen Hawkin has
suggested that the
entire universe might be described as a wave function. That is,
one single equation – if we could calculate it – might define the
entire universe across time. The
math is beyond me but the notion might be seen as raising the
question of how the wave function is broken by the conscious
observer. One possibility is that a
conscious observer is necessary. But at least for some billions
of years, there was no conscious observer as we might understand that
without resorting to some role for an original cosmic observer. Yet
the universe evolved. From the Big Bang through the the
differentiation of the primordial energies and matter to the
emergence of galaxies and stars. Now without any conscious
observers, how could the wave function of the universe have
collapsed? To put this into classic terms, if a tree fell in the
forest without anyone there to hear it, would it make a sound? For
millions
of years on earth, life arose and also evolved without any of us
to witness it. Yet obviously, things happened and did so according
to the laws of science. We live on continents that moved into the
place we find them long before we arrived on the scene. Dinosaurs
left fossils in the ground that we could later observe. Did none of
this exist before we were around to see the results?
Our common sense
must tell us that the universe and the world we live in did not
depend on our observation to exist. The straight forward answer
might be that the individual particles and organizations of energy
and matter continually collapsed the wave function through their
lawful interactions. Hydrogen crashing into oxygen makes water.
Perhaps, then, wave functions collapsed through a kind of “virtual
observation.” As wave functions broke down engendering new wave
functions, this virtual observer rode the crest as a flame may arise
from combustion. In effect, collapse creates the observer. In our
case, the brain, with its almost infinite complexity, creates such a
convincing virtual observer that our “I” experiences it as real.
Consciousness – and our individual sense of self – would then be
a kind of illusion riding the continually collapsing wave function
arising from the biological mechanism of our brain and its
moment-to-moment apprehension of the quantum reality at the base of
everything.
This would not seem
to me to explain why there is anything and why the universe is
lawful. Nor does it fully answer the question of what might be said to have exisited without anyone to see it. Perhaps all systems of matter and even the earliest forms of life have a kind of striving which is a form of consciousness. Or a “virtual observer” might simply be the way the
universe knows itself and therefore as real as anything else.
Still ruminating....
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