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Quantum Psychology

Andrew LangCOSE 2013-03-13

PROSPERO A devil, a born devil, on whose natureNurture can never stick; on whom my pains,Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost.- The Tempest 1610

Nature vs. Nurture

Empiricism: Are we born as “blank slates” without built-in knowledge or understanding? Does knowledge and understanding only come through sensory experience?Proponents: St. Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Joseph StalinOpponents: Plato, St. Augustine, Descartes, Ayn Rand, Steven Pinker, Noam Chomsky, Elizabeth Spelke, Bruce Hood

Tabula Rasa

If we’re not born a blank slate, then what knowledge, skills or abilities are "native" or hard-wired into the brain at birth?

Language (Pinker, Chomsky) Mathematics (Leibnitz) Supernatural Belief (Hood) “Supersense” Aristotelian/Newtonian Mechanics

(Spelke) “Object Knowledge”

Cognitive Modules

“This weird gravity error reveals some interesting things about the minds of young children. The first is that they reason in a theory like way. They try to apply knowledge they already possess to make sense of and predict what might happen next. ” - Bruce Hood

Gravity Error: Video on YouTube

Hardwired for gravity? Naïve Physics

Object Knowledge Cognitive Module “Objects do not go in and out of existence like the

Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. Their solidity dictates that they are not phantoms that can move through walls.”

“Objects are bounded so that they do not break up and then come back together again.”

“Objects move on continuous paths so that they cannot teleport from one part of the room to another part without being seen crossing in between.”

“Objects generally only move when something else makes them move by force or collision.”

Elizabeth Spelke

“How do we know that these rules are operating in babies? For the simple reason that babies look longer when each of them is broken in a bit of stage-show magic. By applying the principles of conjuring and illusion, scientists have been able to show that young infants have knowledge about the physical world….”

Bruce Hood – Psychologist, Magician

In quantum mechanics objects do go in and out of existence like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. They are phantoms and can move through walls.

Quantum Mechanics is not Intuitive

Quantum Tunneling

In quantum mechanics objects are not bounded, they do break up and then come back together again.

Quantum Mechanics is not Intuitive

Wave particle duality

In quantum mechanics objects do not move on continuous paths and they can teleport from one part of the room to another part without being seen crossing in between.

Quantum Mechanics is not Intuitive

Particle in a box – 2nd energy level

In quantum mechanics objects move all the time, it is impossible to make them stand still.

Quantum Mechanics is not Intuitive

Zero Point Energy

A system is completely described by a wave function, representing the state of the system, which evolves smoothly in time, except when a measurement is made, at which point it instantaneously collapses to an eigenstate of the observable measured.

The description of nature is essentially probabilistic, with the probability of a given outcome of a measurement given by the square of the amplitude of the wave function. (The Born rule, after Max Born)

It is not possible to know the value of all the properties of the system at the same time; those properties that are not known exactly must be described by probabilities. (Heisenberg's uncertainty principle)

Matter exhibits a wave–particle duality. An experiment can show the particle-like properties of matter, or the wave-like properties; in some experiments both of these complementary viewpoints must be invoked to explain the results, according to the complementarity principle of Niels Bohr.Copenhagen

Interpretation

“Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the "old one." I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice.” – Einstein

“For those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.” – Bohr

"I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.“ – Feynman

Quantum teleportation - Quantum entanglement - EPR Paradox: “Spooky action at a distance” - Einstein

“Quantum Weirdness”

Alternative Interpretations

Hidden Variables: Hidden variable theories contend that quantum mechanics is incomplete and there are “hidden variables” needed to fully describe reality. Local hidden variable theories were shown to be incompatible with quantum mechanics by Bell in 1964.

Many Worlds: The many-worlds interpretation (Everett 1957) is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that asserts the objective reality of the universal wavefunction and denies the actuality of wavefunction collapse. Many-worlds implies that all possible alternative histories and futures are real, each representing an actual "world" (or "universe").

Quantum Mechanics is not hard to understand it is just hard to believe.

Part of the appeal of alternatives to the Copenhagen Interpretation is that they satisfy our native object knowledge cognitive module.