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Comment by Kyle Fonger (kyle-fonger) on Quantum Mechanics, Nothing to do with Consciousness · 2019-09-17T20:21:17.594Z · LW · GW

What if... And I'm too lazy right now to cite sources right now (I know, shame)... Assume that consciousness and matter are two sides of the same coin - that consciousness is fundamental to the universe. As we've studied smaller and smaller pieces of matter, down to the subatomic (down to pure math - in which, I'd argue, we are working in the realm of metaphysics), we are now starting to see the fundamental inseparability of consciousness and matter. Where we've grown accustomed to the medium-sized goods of everyday experience, we might imagine, that at this level something akin to quantum decoherence takes place.

And for the woo... Consciousness and QM share a lot of unique properties. Although we are a long way from having such a rigid math to describe the former, there are plenty of instances of consciousness transcending space (nonlocal). Consciousness regularly time travels, consciousness/our perspective certainly changes the way we see the world around us.

Considering the weak anthropic principle, we require QM and QM tells us something about who and what we are. Just as learning about anything in nature is self reflective, QM (because we are looking so small and so removed from our everyday reality) might be offering us a glimpse, conceptually and mathematically, into the code of consciousness, so to speak. Think: Kant and a priori synthetic knowledge. QM is in our foundation, much like Kant argued space and causality are part of our foundation.