Monday 31 October 2022

Quantum Consciousness

Consciousness and quantum mechanics are both mysterious so are they connected, especially since the observer effect is important in quantum mechanics? Since consciousness cannot be discerned on the cellular or molecular levels, might it operate on the quantum level? Are we superposed without realizing it? Do we see the dead cat without realizing that we also see the live cat and vice versa?

Poul Anderson and James Blish fictionalize quantum mechanics:

in Anderson's Technic History, hyperspace is a series of quantum jumps;

in Anderson's Time Patrol series, a time traveller arriving from a merely potential timeline is like a macroscopic quantum event;

in Blish's "Nor Iron Bars," an interstellar spaceship given negative mass collapses into the microcosm where its occupants experience quantum phenomena;

spatially distant particles interacting instantaneously become a means of interstellar travel in "Nor Iron Bars" and of instantaneous communication in Blish's "Beep"/The Quincunx Of Time.

I think that Blish is ahead of Anderson in terms of quantum fiction.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

But I think Anderson stuck better either to what was scientifically known or likely at the time he wrote a particular story. Or made more convincingly plausible rationalizations for "advances" beyond what was then known. Last, I can't take seriously stories like Blish's "Surface Tension," with its impossible premise of micro-miniaturized human beings!

Ad astra! Sean