Between Myth and History: von Neumann on Consciousness in Quantum Mechanics
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| _version_ | 1866918128853712896 |
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| author | Laudisa, Federico |
| author_facet | Laudisa, Federico |
| contents | The von Neumann attitude on such a deep interpretational question as the role of a human observer in order for the quantum description of measurement to be consistent has been long misrepresented. The large majority of the subsequent literature ascribed to von Neumann a radical view, according to which not only the collapse was in itself a truly physical process, but also the only way to accomodate it within a quantum description of a typical measurement was the introduction of human consciousness as a kind of 'causal' factor. Inspired by the work of reconstruction pursued by the phenomenological reading of the London-Bauer approach, started by Steven French more than twenty years ago, the account I propose substantiates a significantly more cautious attitude by von Neumann: the time seems then ripe to tell a more balanced story on the relation between the notion of consciousness and the foundations of quantum mechanics in the work of the first scientist - Janos von Neumann - who explicitly and rigorously addressed the implication of a really universal formulation of quantum physics. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_15871 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Between Myth and History: von Neumann on Consciousness in Quantum Mechanics Laudisa, Federico History and Philosophy of Physics Quantum Physics The von Neumann attitude on such a deep interpretational question as the role of a human observer in order for the quantum description of measurement to be consistent has been long misrepresented. The large majority of the subsequent literature ascribed to von Neumann a radical view, according to which not only the collapse was in itself a truly physical process, but also the only way to accomodate it within a quantum description of a typical measurement was the introduction of human consciousness as a kind of 'causal' factor. Inspired by the work of reconstruction pursued by the phenomenological reading of the London-Bauer approach, started by Steven French more than twenty years ago, the account I propose substantiates a significantly more cautious attitude by von Neumann: the time seems then ripe to tell a more balanced story on the relation between the notion of consciousness and the foundations of quantum mechanics in the work of the first scientist - Janos von Neumann - who explicitly and rigorously addressed the implication of a really universal formulation of quantum physics. |
| title | Between Myth and History: von Neumann on Consciousness in Quantum Mechanics |
| topic | History and Philosophy of Physics Quantum Physics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.15871 |