How can scientists establish an observer-independent science? Embodied cognition, consciousness and quantum mechanics

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Realpe-Gómez, John
Format: Preprint
Published: 2021
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author Realpe-Gómez, John
author_facet Realpe-Gómez, John
contents Evidence is growing for the theory of embodied cognition, which posits that action and perception co-determine each other, forming an action-perception loop. This suggests that we humans somehow participate in what we perceive. So, how can scientists escape the action-perception loop to obtain an observer-independent description of the world? Here we present a set of conjectures informed by the philosophy of mind and a reverse-engineering of science and quantum physics to explore this question. We argue that embodiment, as traditionally understood, can manifest aspects of imaginary-time quantum dynamics. We then explore what additional constraints are required to obtain aspects of genuine, real-time quantum dynamics. In particular, we conjecture that an embodied scientist doing experiments must be described from the perspective of another scientist, which is ignored in traditional approaches to embodied cognition, and that observers play complementary roles as both objects experienced by other observers and ``subjects'' that experience other objects.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2112_15428
institution arXiv
publishDate 2021
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle How can scientists establish an observer-independent science? Embodied cognition, consciousness and quantum mechanics
Realpe-Gómez, John
History and Philosophy of Physics
Quantum Physics
Evidence is growing for the theory of embodied cognition, which posits that action and perception co-determine each other, forming an action-perception loop. This suggests that we humans somehow participate in what we perceive. So, how can scientists escape the action-perception loop to obtain an observer-independent description of the world? Here we present a set of conjectures informed by the philosophy of mind and a reverse-engineering of science and quantum physics to explore this question. We argue that embodiment, as traditionally understood, can manifest aspects of imaginary-time quantum dynamics. We then explore what additional constraints are required to obtain aspects of genuine, real-time quantum dynamics. In particular, we conjecture that an embodied scientist doing experiments must be described from the perspective of another scientist, which is ignored in traditional approaches to embodied cognition, and that observers play complementary roles as both objects experienced by other observers and ``subjects'' that experience other objects.
title How can scientists establish an observer-independent science? Embodied cognition, consciousness and quantum mechanics
topic History and Philosophy of Physics
Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.15428