Abstract
The undifferentiated event in the consciousness of an observer, introduced by von Neumann in his quantum theory of measurement, is elaborated to interpret experiments by which Sperling demonstrated iconic memory. The numerous quadruplets of letters known to Sperling’s subjects implicitly but not consciously are interpreted as quantum states in a superposition reducible to any of its components by von Neumann’s event in consciousness. The potential loss by decoherence of all information implicit in the superposition, and its possible retention by a secondary observer within the same organism, may be aspects of the biological evolution as of a precursor of the quantum computer.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Baars, B. J. (1988). A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Bass, L. (1971). The mind of Wigner’s friend. Hermathena, 112, 52–68.
Bass, L. (1975). A quantum mechanical mind-body interaction. Foundations of Physics, 5, 159–172.
Einstein, A., Podolsky, B., & Rosen, N. (1935). Can quantum mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete? Physical Review, 47, 777.
Everett, H. (1957). Relative State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics. Reviews of Modern Physics, 29, 454–462
DiVincenzo, D.P. (1995). Quantum Computation. Science, 270, 255–261.
Hameroff, S. (1998). The Penrose-Hameroff “Orch OR” model of consciousness. Philosophical Transactions Royal Society London (A), 356, 1869–1896.
Hilgard, E.R., Morgan, A.H. & MacDonald, H. (1975). Pain and dissocaition in the cold pressor test: A study of hypnotic analgesia with hidden reports through automatic key pressing and automatic talking. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 84, 280–289.
Hilgard, E.R. (1977). Divided consciousness: multiple controls in human thought and action. New York, NY: Wiley.
Quiroga, R.Q. (2012). Borges and memory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Schrödinger, E. (1935). Die gegenwärtige Situation in der Quantenmechanik. Naturwissenschaften, 23, 807.
Sherrington, C.S. (1940). Man on his Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sperling, G. (1960). The information available in brief visual presentation. Psychological Monographs, 74, 1–29.
Moore, G.E. (1965). Cramming more components onto integrated circuits. Electronics, 38, 114–117.
Rosa, L.P. & Faber, J. (2004). Quantum models of the mind: Are they compatible with environment decoherence? Physical Review E, 70, 031902.
Von Neumann, J. (1932/1955). Mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Wigner, E.P. (1963). The problem of measurement. American Journal of Physics, 31, 6–15.
Wigner, E.P. (1967). Remarks on the mind-body problem (pp. 171–184). In: Symmetries and reflections. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Bass, L. Quantum Theory of Iconic Memory. Act Nerv Super 56, 57–61 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03379609
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03379609