Consciousness and the double-slit interference pattern: Six experiments
Dean Radin, Leena Michel, Karla Galdamez, Paul Wendland, Robert Rickenbach and Prof. Arnaud Delorme
(published in Physics Essays 25, 2 in May 2012)
Authors:
Dean Radin, PhD, Institute of Noetic Sciences, Petaluma, California, USA
Leena Michel, Institute of Noetic Sciences, Petaluma, California, USA
Prof. Arnaud Delorme, PhD, Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience, Institute for Neural Computation, University of California, San Diego, USA
Karla Galdamez, Institute of Noetic Sciences, Petaluma, California, USA
Paul Wendland, 4558 La Brea St., Oxnard, California, USA
Robert Rickenbach, Micronor Inc., 750 Mitchell Rd., Newbury Park, California, USA
Summary:
A double-slit optical system was used to test the possible role of consciousness in the collapse of the quantum wave function. During 250 test sessions 137 people took part in six different experiments where they had to either focus their attention on the double-slit experiment or away from it. These 40 attention-toward attention-away epochs lasted between 15 and 30 seconds. The intensity of the double-slit's spectral power was measured and it decreased during focus-towards epochs compared to the spectral power of a single slit (effect size z=-4.36, p=0.000006). During 250 control sessions the same setup was used without any observers present to identify potential artifacts. None were identified (effect size z=0.43, p=0.67).
Factors associated with consciousness, such as meditation experience, electrocortical markers of focused attention, and psychological factors including openness and absorption, significantly correlated in predicted ways with perturbations in the double-slit interference pattern. The results appear to be consistent with a consciousness-related interpretation of the quantum measurement problem.
Background information:
Similar experiments were conducted earlier at York University and Princeton University to research the "consciousness collapse hypothesis". The goal in both cases was to shift the wave-like interference pattern towards a particle-like pattern at a double slit experiment just through mental focusing by a human being. The York team reported a non-significant result, the Princeton team reported a modestly significant result (p=0.05). During a third experiment a Michelson interferometer was used instead of the double-slit setup. This experiment showed a significant result in accordance with the prediction (p=0.002). In this case a group of experienced meditators was among the participants and showed extraordinary results (p=0.0000094) whereas the participating non-meditators did not produce effects differing from chance (p=0.61).
A few excerpts from the conclusions section of this study:
Because it is central to interpretations of quantum mechanics, the physics literature abounds with philosophical and theoretical discussions about the quantum measurement problem, including speculations about the role of consciousness. One might expect to find a correspondingly robust experimental literature testing these ideas, but it is not so, and the reason is not surprising: The notion that consciousness may be related to the formation of physical reality has come to be associated more with medieval magic and so-called New Age ideas than it is with sober science. As a result, it is safer for one’s scientific career to avoid associating with such dubious topics and subsequently rare to find experiments examining these ideas in the physics literature. Indeed, the taboo is so robust that until recently it had extended to any test of the foundations of quantum theory. For more than 50 years such studies were considered unsuitable for serious investigators.
However, this is not to say that the scholarly literature is mute on this matter. A century-long empirical literature can be found in the controversial domain of parapsychology, which focuses on the interface between mind and matter. Here we find over a thousand peer-reviewed studies reporting
- (a) experiments testing the effects of intention on the statistical behavior of random events derived from quantum fluctuations,
- (b) studies involving macroscopic random systems such as tossed dice and human physiology as the targets of intentional influence,
- (c) experiments involving sequential observations to see whether a second observer could detect if a quantum event had been observed by a first observer, or if time-delayed observations would result in similar effects and
- (d) experiments investigating conscious influence on nonliving systems ranging from molecular bonds in water to the behavior of photons in interferometers.
Much of this literature has appeared in discipline-specific journals, but given the controversial nature of the topic, it is worth noting that some of it has also appeared in better-known outlets including the British Journal of Psychology, Science, Nature, Proceedings of the IEEE, Neuroscience Letters, Psychological Bulletin and others. Cumulatively, these experiments suggest that mind–matter interactions occur in a broad range of physical target systems. Observed effects tend to be small in absolute magnitude and are not trivially easy to repeat on demand, but high variance and concomitant difficulties in replication are to be expected because all of these studies necessarily involved focused human attention or intention.
As with any form of human performance, the ability to focus attention varies substantially not just from one person to the next, but within each individual from day to day and throughout the course of a single day. Variables influencing the ability to perform mental tasks go beyond simple factors such as nervous-system arousal and distractions; they include when one last dined and what was consumed, interactions between personal beliefs and the nature of the task, the state of the geomagnetic field, and so on.
Such factors conspire to make the mind side of a postulated mind–matter interaction far more difficult to control than the matter side. As a result, if one is prepared to take seriously the proposition that some properties of quantum objects are not completely independent of human consciousness, then such a study cannot be conducted as a conventional physics experiment, nor can be it conducted as a conventional psychology experiment. The former tends to ignore subjectivity and the latter tends to ignore objectivity.
In an attempt to accommodate both sides of the proposed relationship, we designed a physical system with interference fringes as stable as possible, and we also cultivated a comfortable test setting, encouraged a sense of openness to the idea of extended forms of consciousness, selected participants with practice in focusing their attention, and spent generous amounts of time discussing the nature of the task with the participants. The superior results observed with meditators suggest that in spite of unavoidable performance variance, it may be possible in future studies to identify those aspects of attention and intention that are most important in producing the hypothesized effect.
It should be noted that some meditation styles, such as mantra repetition, tend to train for focused or concentrated attention, while others, such as mindfulness meditation, tend to expand one’s attentional capacities. No attempt was made in the present studies to assess differences among reported meditation styles, or to independently measure participants’ capacity for sustaining focused attention. However, it is not unreasonable to expect that future studies might find that different meditative styles lead to different outcomes. In addition, measuring participants’ capacity for sustaining attention, investigating other brain and behavioral correlates of performance, using single-photon designs, and developing more refined analytical procedures would all be useful directions to pursue.
In sum, the results of the present experiments appear to be consistent with a consciousness-related interpretation of the quantum measurement problem. Given the ontological and epistemological challenges presented by such an interpretation, more research will be required to confirm, systematically replicate, and extend these findings.
Download: http://www.deanradin.com/evidence/Radin2012doubleslit.pdf
