Consciousnes and the Problem of Quantum Measurement.

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This paper proposes a variant of the von Neumann-Wigner Interpretation where the physical world's state is a vector in Fock space and consciousness evolves unitarily, classifying states as admissible or inadmissible to avoid quantum Zeno effects.

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Abstract

A variant of the von Neumann-Wigner Interpretation is proposed. It does not make use of the familiar language of wave functionsand observers. Instead it pictures the state of the physical world as a vector in a Fock space and, therefore not, literally, a functionof any spacetime coordinates. And, rather than segregating consciousness into individual points of view (each carrying with it asense of its proper time), this model proposes only unitary states of consciousness, Q(t), where t represents a fiducial time withrespect to which both the state of the physical world and the state of consciousness evolve. States in our world's Fock space areclassified as either 'admissible' (meaning they correspond to definite states of consciousness) or 'inadmissible' (meaning they donot). The evolution of the state vector of the world is such as to always keep it restricted to 'admissible' states. Consciousness istreated very much like what Chalmers calls an "M-Property." But we try to show that problems with the quantum Zeno effect do not arise from this model.

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europepmc
last seen: 2026-05-19T01:45:01.086888+00:00
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License: CC-BY-4.0