Blissful Brain

The Blissful Brain is published by Gaia Thinking. For more information on how to order your copy, please click here.

Guardian G2: Mind over matter by Andy Darling

"Neuroscientist Shanida Nataraja has proven meditation does more than clear your head, it can put both halves of your brain to work, improving your concentration, memory, and decision-making...". To read more, please click here.

Upcoming talk: Yoga Ananda, Reigate, Surrey on Friday the 4th of June

Shanida Nataraja will be speaking at a seminar on The Blissful Brain on Friday, 04th June 2010 at 19:30 at Yoga Ananda Ltd. 46 Albert Road North, Reigate, Surrey, RH2 9EL. For more information, please click here.

Ghost Particles and Coherent Superposition

At a quantum level, therefore, electrons can be seen to exist, not as concrete particles, but as standing waves representing a state of coherent superposition, in which all the possible outcomes exist simultaneously, one on top of each other. A state of coherent superposition can be likened to a state of limbo, and therefore matter is often described in terms of exhibiting ghost-like properties at a quantum level. In this state of coherent superposition, the quantum particles are thought to express the full range of potential outcomes, and it is the choice of experimental set-up that determines which of these potential outcomes become actuality. Some researchers have interpreted this to mean that it is the interaction with the consciousness of the observer that acts to limit the electrons behaviour to only one of these possible outcomes.

Let us examine this issue further in the following hypothetical experiment. Consider an electron heading towards a target. When it hits the target, we know that there is a 50% probability that it will be deflected to the left and a 50% probability it will be deflected to the right. Now, before the act of measurement, we cannot of course say with any certainty what the electron is doing or where it is located; however, it has been proposed that the electron exists in a hybrid reality, appearing as a “ghost” on both the left and the right. The act of measurement abolishes this hybrid world, and the electron will be found on either the left or the right. Since the ghost-like hybrid world collapses into a single, concrete reality, the process of observation is often referred to as “collapsing the probability wave”. It is perhaps easier to imagine this concept, if we turn again to the image of our wave packet that describes the possible location of an electron in its orbit around the atom’s nucleus. If we measure the location of the electron precisely i.e. make the wave packet infinitely small in size, essentially we have collapsed Schrödinger’s probability wave into a single, concrete reality. The entire spectrum of possible outcomes is therefore replaced by a single actual outcome.

This concept has been most famously illustrated by Schrödinger’s cat paradox. In a theoretical experiment, a cat is placed in a sealed chamber, together with a glass vial containing cyanide. A quantum process triggers the release of the cyanide, and therefore there is a 50:50 chance that the poison is released and the cat killed. It is proposed that, until a measurement is made (i.e. an observer looks into the chamber to see if the poison has been released), the cat exists in a hybrid reality, in which it is both alive and dead. The act of observation forces this ghost-like existence to collapse, and thus the cat is seen to be either alive or dead. This experiment is open to misinterpretation. It certainly should not be taken literally; the concrete cat does not become two ghost-like apparitions, one alive and the other dead. It merely illustrates the point that quantum processes are probabilistic in nature, and that they exhibit the full range of possible outcomes until the point at which a measurement is made.

There is much controversy surrounding the issue of the collapsing of the probability wave. The physicist John Wheeler postulated that the precise nature of reality was dependent on the participation of a conscious observer i.e. someone to design and implement the experiment.

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