Opinion on PEAR: Analyzing QM & Human Consciousness

[hyperds]

If you are not familiar with the http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/experiments.html" , basically they use devices which create "quantum events", and then a person tries to influence the outcome of the results through thought.

PEAR has completed its experimental agenda of studying the interaction of human consciousness with sensitive physical devices, systems, and processes... Over the laboratory's 28-year history, thousands of such experiments, involving many millions of trials, were performed by several hundred operators. The observed effects were usually quite small, of the order of a few parts in ten thousand on average, but they compounded to highly significant statistical deviations from chance expectations.

I first came across it a few years ago, and I even purchased on of the REG-1 devices from Psyleron. However, I looked at some of their papers on the theory and found them very crackpotish and philosophical, the one that I saw that had math in it was even more crackpotish, and I am a college student, and not even a physics major. That being said, the explanation of their methodology seems reasonable.

Based on the results I have seen myself with the REG-1, and based on the fact that this is Princeton, I think that there may be truth to the idea that human consciousness can affect quantum events, but I don't think Dr. Jahn's theories are even close to correct, except his idea that what causes these effects is that information in the brain is getting mixed up with information in the outside world, and I don't believe results are necessarily indicative of free will.

With all the tricks in quantum mechanics like entanglement, decoherence, superposition, ect, I could easily imagine a deterministic world in which consciousness interacted with outside quantum events.

So, my question is, are the PEAR results compatible with any interpretation of QM? If anything, they would seem most compatible with the Copenhagen "consciousness collapses the wave function" interpretation, but based on the logical paradoxes and problems with the Copenhagen interpretation I have come to believe the Everett Many Worlds interpretation, so I would like to know if there is a conceivable way in which the Everett interpretation would allow for the wave function of brain activity to somehow affect the wave function of outside particles.

 

[hyperds]

According to the Everett interpretation it is a fact that the wave functions of outside particles affect the wave function of the brain, for example if you were gambling on the the spin of an electron, betting that it was up, then the apparatus measured the spin, and found it down, what is happening according to Everett is that the wave function of the electron is interacting with the wave function of the apparatus, and then the wave function of the apparatus displays the results on a monitor which sends photons to your eye which then affects the particles in your brain, and there is no collapse of the universal wave function.

So obviously the wave function of outside particles affects the wave functions of particles in your brain, so why couldn't the reverse happen?

 

[DrChinese]

...

So, my question is, are the PEAR results compatible with any interpretation of QM? If anything, they would seem most compatible with the Copenhagen "consciousness collapses the wave function" interpretation, but based on the logical paradoxes and problems with the Copenhagen interpretation I have come to believe the Everett Many Worlds interpretation, so I would like to know if there is a conceivable way in which the Everett interpretation would allow for the wave function of brain activity to somehow affect the wave function of outside particles.

There are no QM interpretations I am aware of in which a human brain can influence the outcome of a quantum event. There are interpretations in which an observer can collapse a wave function, but this is conceptually (completely) different than influencing the actual outcome.

You may attempt to change the meaning of the words so that you insert "such is possible" into an interpretation. But you may as well say a cat is a flying dog. So the answer is no.

Further: I scoff at the suggestion that controlled trials will show anything other than regression to the mean of pure chance in an experiment to demonstrate thought control of quantum events. I would suggest a proper reference to suitable published work in a peer-reviewed physics journal before we discuss further. Otherwise this is more like sci fi.

 

[DrChinese]

According to the Everett interpretation it is a fact that the wave functions of outside particles affect the wave function of the brain, for example if you were gambling on the the spin of an electron, betting that it was up, then the apparatus measured the spin, and found it down, what is happening according to Everett is that the wave function of the electron is interacting with the wave function of the apparatus, and then the wave function of the apparatus displays the results on a monitor which sends photons to your eye which then affects the particles in your brain, and there is no collapse of the universal wave function.

So obviously the wave function of outside particles affects the wave functions of particles in your brain, so why couldn't the reverse happen?

This is fairly incorrect. Everett's MWI does NOT posit any special connection between a brain and a particle. Period.

Further, there is a HUGE difference between overlapping state functions (such as a particle and a brain) and causation of outcomes. There is NO (NO NO a thousand time NO) evidence that ANYTHING causes any quantum outcome. Much less a brain, which would require entirely new physics to explain.

So please, stick to known science over here. This is the Quantum Physics forum, not the speculative pseudo-science forum.

 

[Demystifier]

There are no QM interpretations I am aware of in which a human brain can influence the outcome of a quantum event.

That's true. Yet, entanglement with brain may create an ILLUSION of a brain influence on the outcome of a quantum event, at least in principle:
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/1006.0338

 

[Fredrik]

The PEAR stuff is complete crackpot nonsense. I'm surprised that the moderators are allowing this thread. Maybe they just haven't seen it yet.

The PEAR experiments I'm familiar with didn't have a lot to do with quantum physics, and their interpretation of the data was just delusional. They would even interpret a deviation from the mean at the wrong time as evidence that these influences could travel through time.