A Course in Consciousness

[Alex]

A Course in Consciousness
Stanley Sobottka                                                    
Emeritus Professor of Physics                            
University of Virginia                                            
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4714
http://faculty.virginia.edu/consciousness


6.6. Nonlocality in the Copenhagen interpretation

-  wavefunction collapse cannot be produced by any known physical process (which are all local)
-  Therefore, there can be only one consciousness and it must be nonlocal.  
-  Thus, the consciousness of all sentient observers is the same nonlocal universal consciousness.
-  whenever we assume that objects appear only as mental images, not as independently existing objects, the consciousness of the individual observers must be universal consciousness


6.9. The astonishing implications of the nonlocality of consciousness

In Section 6.5, we saw that all quantum systems are nonlocal, not just those of the Aspect and Gröblacher experiments described in Section 4.3. The Copenhagen interpretation includes observations but contains no physical mechanism for nonlocal wavefunction collapse. Hidden variables theory is intrinsically nonlocal because of the nonlocal quantum force, but includes no observations. Many-worlds theory includes observations but has no physical explanation for the nonlocality of an observation and its associated branching. Thus, physics has no explanation whatsoever for the nonlocality of observation. (This is reminiscent of Gödel’s theorem, which we discussed in Section 5.6.) We must now begin to question our assumptions about the reality of space and time. We shall say more about this in Section 7.1 and Chapter 12.

As we have seen in Sections 6.4 and 6.5, if it is consciousness that collapses the wavefunction (or that materializes a branch as in Section 6.7), then consciousness must be nonphysical. If it is nonlocal universal consciousness, we are faced with some other far-reaching conclusions. What two individual observers see is determined by universal consciousness, not by any kind of individual consciousness that might exist. This applies to all of our sensory perceptions without exception. Since everything we perceive is determined by universal consciousness, it makes no sense to say that there is a material world independent of consciousness. Thus the dualism of mind and matter is excluded.

It is only a small step now to suppose that, if all of our sensory perceptions are determined by universal consciousness, then so also are all of our thoughts and feelings because there is no intrinsic difference between them (as we shall see in Chapters 9 and 23). If all experiences are determined by universal consciousness, then we must conclude that nothing in our lives that we consider to be "ours" as individuals is truly ours. If everything flows from universal consciousness, "our" lives are not our lives at all but are lives of universal consciousness. "My" consciousness cannot really be mine, nor can there be any free will if none of "my" thoughts is mine. Even the thought that I exist is not mine. With these astounding conclusions, we are forced to ask the questions, "Do I really exist?", and, "What am I, really?"  We shall consider these questions later in the course.

Question: If you really knew that you are universal, nonlocal consciousness, could you still suffer?