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275Particles, consciousness, volition: A vedantic visionAntiMatters 1 (1): 23-53. 2007.This essay puts forward a theory of existence that takes its cue from both contemporary physics and Indian Vedanta. The quantum statistics of indistinguishable particles strongly suggests that the “ultimate” constituents of matter, considered out of relation to each other, are identical in the strong sense of numerical identity. This makes it possible to identify each fundamental particle with the vedantic brahman, which relates to the world in a threefold manner: as a substance constituting it …Read more
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137Why the Laws of Physics Are Just SoFoundations of Physics 32 (8): 1313-1324. 2002.Does a world that contains chemistry entail the validity of both the standard model of elementary particle physics and general relativity, at least as effective theories? This article shows that the answer may very well be affirmative. It further suggests that the very existence of stable, spatially extended material objects, if not the very existence of the physical world, may require the validity of these theories
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99Manifesting the Quantum WorldFoundations of Physics 44 (6): 641-677. 2014.In resisting attempts to explain the unity of a whole in terms of a multiplicity of interacting parts, quantum mechanics calls for an explanatory concept that proceeds in the opposite direction: from unity to multiplicity. Being part of the Scientific Image of the world, the theory concerns the process by which (the physical aspect of) what Sellars called the Manifest Image of the world comes into being. This process consists in the progressive differentiation of an intrinsically undifferentiate…Read more
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92The physics of interactionismJournal of Consciousness Studies 6 (8-9). 1999.There is another hard problem, in addition to the problem of how anything material can have the subjective, first-person phenomenology of consciousness (Chalmers, 1995). It is the problem of how anything material can have freedom. By ‘freedom’ I mean a person’s ability to behave in a purposive, non-random fashion that is not determined by neurophysiological structure and physical law.
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87Doing justice to quantum mechanics calls for a deeper examination of the relations between our experience, its objects, and its subjects than either third-person interpretations or the first-person singular interpretation of the QBist permit. The metaphysical space opened by Bohr's employment of the "Kantian wedge" between the objective world, about which we can communicate, and the world "in itself" allows quantum mechanics to unfold its metaphysical potential. This in turn makes it possible to…Read more
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77Quantum Mechanics in a New LightFoundations of Science 22 (3): 517-537. 2017.Although the present paper looks upon the formal apparatus of quantum mechanics as a calculus of correlations, it goes beyond a purely operationalist interpretation. Having established the consistency of the correlations with the existence of their correlata, and having justified the distinction between a domain in which outcome-indicating events occur and a domain whose properties only exist if their existence is indicated by such events, it explains the difference between the two domains as es…Read more
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69Objective Probability and Quantum FuzzinessFoundations of Physics 39 (2): 137-155. 2009.This paper offers a critique of the Bayesian interpretation of quantum mechanics with particular focus on a paper by Caves, Fuchs, and Schack containing a critique of the “objective preparations view” or OPV. It also aims to carry the discussion beyond the hardened positions of Bayesians and proponents of the OPV. Several claims made by Caves et al. are rebutted, including the claim that different pure states may legitimately be assigned to the same system at the same time, and the claim that th…Read more
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66Do Quantum States Evolve? Apropos of Marchildon's RemarksFoundations of Physics 34 (1): 75-97. 2004.Marchildon’s (favorable) assessment (quant-ph/0303170, to appear in Found. Phys.) of the Pondicherry interpretation of quantum mechanics raises several issues, which are addressed. Proceeding from the assumption that quantum mechanics is fundamentally a probability algorithm, this interpretation determines the nature of a world that is irreducibly described by this probability algorithm. Such a world features an objective fuzziness, which implies that its spatiotemporal differentiation does not …Read more
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63The World According to Quantum Mechanics (Or the 18 Errors of Henry P. Stapp)Foundations of Physics 32 (2): 217-254. 2002.Several errors in Stapp's interpretation of quantum mechanics and its application to mental causation (Henry P. Stapp, “Quantum theory and the role of mind in nature,” Foundations of Physics 31, 1465–1499 (2001)) are pointed out. An interpretation of (standard) quantum mechanics that avoids these errors is presented
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60Quantum mechanics, the fundamental theoretical framework of contemporary physics, supports the following claim: by entering into spatial relations with itself, Brahman creates both space (the totality of existing spatial relations) and matter (the corresponding apparent multitude of relata). The psychological processes by which Brahman enters into spatial relations with itself are discussed by taking a tour of a descending series of supraphysical worlds. [Presented at the International Conferenc…Read more
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60Making Sense of a World of ClicksFoundations of Physics 32 (8): 1295-1311. 2002.In a recent article, O. Ulfbeck and A. Bohr [Found. Phys. 31, 757 (2001)] have stressed the genuine fortuitousness of detector clicks, which has also been pointed out, in different terms, by the present author [Am. J. Phys. 68, 728 (2000)]. In spite of this basic agreement, the present article raises objections to the presuppositions and conclusions of Ulfbeck and Bohr, in particular their rejection of the terminology of indefinite variables, their identification of reality with “the world of ex…Read more
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57Beyond the cookie Cutter paradigmConsciousness and its Transformation: Papers Presented at the Second International Conference on Integral Psychology. 2001.What makes it so hard to make sense of quantum mechanics (the theory at the heart of contemporary physics) is the cookie cutter paradigm (a fallacy that is both rooted in our neurophysiological make-up and inherent in the nature of mental consciousness) according to which the world's synchronic multiplicity derives from surfaces that carve up space in the manner of three-dimensional cookie cutters. When liberated from this fallacy, quantum mechanics not only describes the physical world as a man…Read more
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51Indian psychology's coming of ageJournal of Consciousness Studies 15 (5): 121-126. 2008.Report on the National Seminar on Indian Psychology, Bangalore, December 2007, jointly organized by the Indian Council of Philosophical Research and the Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana
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47Quantum theory’s violation of remote outcome independence is explained in the context of a novel interpretation of the theory, in which the unavoidable distinction between the classical and quantum domains is understood as a distinction between the manifested world and its manifestation.
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47Interactionism, energy conservation, and the violation of physical lawsPhysics Essays 10 (4). 1997.The law of energy conservation is either analytic and not threatened by psychophysical interactionism or contingent upon the causal closure of the physical world which interactionism denies. In either case, interactionism implies departures from the laws of physics, despite attempts to demonstrate the contrary by exploiting the loophole of quantum mechanical indeterminism. These departures are best formulated in terms of modifications, by the conscious self, of the electromagnetic interactions b…Read more
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45The Quantum Mechanics of Being and Its ManifestationCosmology 24. 2016.How can quantum mechanics be (i) the fundamental theoretical framework of contemporary physics and (ii) a probability calculus that presupposes the events to which, and on the basis of which, it assigns probabilities? The question is answered without invoking knowledge or observers, by interpreting the necessary distinction between two kinds of physical quantities - unconditionally definite quantities and quantities that have values only if they are measured - as a distinction between the manife…Read more
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40Quantum mechanics and the cookie Cutter paradigmarXiv.Org. 0009.What has so far prevented us from decrypting quantum mechanics is the Cookie Cutter Paradigm, according to which the world’s synchronic multiplicity derives from surfaces that carve up space in the manner of three-dimensional cookie cutters. This insidious notion is shown to be rooted in our neurophysiological make-up. An effort is made to liberate the physical world from this innate fallacy.
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38Consciousness in the quantum world: An Indian perspectiveIn Antonella Corradini & Uwe Meixner (eds.), Quantum Physics Meets the Philosophy of Mind: New Essays on the Mind-Body Relation in Quantum-Theoretical Perspective, De Gruyter. pp. 85-97. 2014.In the first part of the paper a new interpretative principle for quantum mechanics is applied to two kinds of experimental situation. Applied to situations involving distinctions between regions of space, it implies that the spatial differentiation of the physical world is incomplete. This makes it possible to rigorously define the term “macroscopic” and to attribute measurement-independent reality to the positions of macroscopic objects. Applied to situations involving distinctions between thi…Read more
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34The quantum world, the mind, and the cookie Cutter paradigmAntiMatters 1 (1): 55-90. 2007.The problem of making sense of quantum mechanics is as much a psychological problem as it is a physical one. There is a conflict between (i) the spatiotemporal structure of the quantum world and (ii) the manner in which the phenomenal world is constructed by our minds and/or brains. Both are examined in detail. Unlike the quantum world, the phenomenal world conforms to the cookie cutter paradigm, according to which the synchronic multiplicity of the world rests on surfaces that carve up space mu…Read more
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27Quantum mechanics and the manifestation of the worldQuantum Studies: Mathematics and Foundations 1 (3-4): 195-202. 2014.Quantum theory’s irreducible empirical core is a probability calculus. While it presupposes the events to which (and on the basis of which) it serves to assign probabilities, and therefore cannot account for their occurrence, it has to be consistent with it. It must make it possible to identify a system of observables that have measurement-independent values.What makes this possible is the incompleteness of the spatiotemporal differentiation of the physical world. This is shown by applying a nov…Read more
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23A QBist OntologyFoundations of Science 27 (3): 1253-1277. 2022.This paper puts forward an ontology that is indebted to QBism, Kant, Bohr, Schrödinger, the philosophy of the Upanishads, and the evolutionary philosophy of Sri Aurobindo. Central to it is that reality is relative to consciousness or experience. Instead of a single mind-independent reality, there are different poises of consciousness, including a consciousness to which “we are all really only various aspects of the One”. This ontology helps clear up unresolved issues in the philosophy of science…Read more
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8A fuzzy worldIn Ignazio Licata & Ammar J. Sakaji (eds.), Vision of Oneness, Aracne Editrice. pp. 41-61. 2011.This book chapter has no abstract. Sections: Introduction - Core Rules - Quantum-Mechanical Probabilities Are Conditional - The Principle of Evolution - Interpretational Strategy - A Scattering Experiment - There Only Is Room For One - A Two-Slit Experiment - Spatial Distinctions: Relative and Contingent - Spatial Distinctions: Not All the Way Down - Fuzzy Observables - The Shapes of Things - Space - The Macroworld - The Emergence of the Macroworld - Assigning Reality - Closing Words
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6Quantum Mechanics, the Manifestation of the Territory, and the Evolution of MapsIn Wuppuluri Shyam & Francisco Antonio Dorio (eds.), The Map and the Territory: Exploring the Foundations of Science, Thought and Reality, Springer. pp. 125-138. 2018.Reality is not a territory. Reality is an intrinsically undifferentiated Being that manifests the territory, wherein beings capable of mapping the territory evolve. Once fully evolved, these beings will realize their identity with each other and with the Reality manifesting the territory, whereupon their maps will be one with the territory. Freed from the obsession of contemporary interpreters of quantum mechanics with the reification of their calculational tools, quantum mechanics provides deep…Read more
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5The world according to quantum mechanicsWorld Scientific Publishing Company. 2011.As the theory takes shape, it is applied to various experimental arrangements. Many of these are central to the discussion in the final part, which aims at making epistemological and ontological sense of the theory.
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Qbism, Bohr, and the quantum omelette tossed by De RondeIn Diederik Aerts, Dalla Chiara, Maria Luisa, Christian de Ronde & Decio Krause (eds.), Probing the meaning of quantum mechanics: information, contextuality, relationalism and entanglement: Proceedings of the II International Workshop on Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Information: Physical, Philosophical and Logical Approaches, CLEA, Brussels, World Scientific. 2019.