Quantum Quackery
Skeptical Inquirer : January/February 1997

Furthermore, since the quantum jump is random, no signal or other causal
effect is superluminally transmitted. On the other hand, a deterministic
theory based on subquantum forces or hidden variables is necessarily
superluminal.

Thus quantum mechanics, as conventionally practiced, describes quantum leaps
without too drastic a quantum leap beyond common sense. Certainly no
mystical assertions are justified by any observations concerning quantum
processes.

Conclusion
Quantum mechanics, the centerpiece of modern physics, is misinterpreted as
implying that the human mind controls reality and that the universe is one
connected whole that cannot be understood by the usual reduction to parts.

However, no compelling argument or evidence requires that quantum mechanics
plays a central role in human consciousness or provides instantaneous,
holistic connections across the universe. Modern physics, including quantum
mechanics, remains completely materialistic and reductionistic while being
consistent with all scientific observations.

The apparent holistic, nonlocal behavior of quantum phenomena, as
exemplified by a particle's appearing to be in two places at once, can be
understood without discarding the commonsense notion of particles following
definite paths in space and time or requiring that signals travel faster
than the speed of light.

No superluminal motion or signalling has ever been observed, in agreement
with the limit set by the theory of relativity. Furthermore, interpretations
of quantum effects need not so uproot classical physics, or common sense, as
to render them inoperable on all scales-especially the macroscopic scale on
which humans function. Newtonian physics, which successfully describes
virtually all macroscopic phenomena, follows smoothly as the many-particle
limit of quantum mechanics. And common sense continues to apply on the human
scale.

Notes
For a review of alternate medicine, including "quantum medicine," see
Douglas Stalker and Clark Glymour, eds., Examining Holistic Medicine
(Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1985).

For a fuller discussion and references, see Victor J. Stenger, Physics and
Psychics: The Search for a World Beyond the Senses (Amherst, N.Y.:
Prometheus Books, 1990).

L. A. Govinda, Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism (New York: Samuel Weiser,
1974), p. 225, as quoted in Capra 1975, p. 305.

See, for example, Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and
Social Transformation in the 1980s (Los Angeles: Tarcher, 1980).

Of course, in some cases those distributions may be highly peaked and thus
an outcome can be predicted with high probability, that is, certainty for
all practical purposes. In fact, this is precisely what happens in the case
of systems of many particles, such as macroscopic objects. These systems
then become describable by deterministic classical mechanics as the
many-particle limit of quantum mechanics.

For a fuller discussion and references, see Victor J. Stenger, The
Unconscious Quantum: Metaphysics in Modern Physics and Cosmology (Amherst,
N.Y. : Prometheus Books, 1995).


References
Bohm D., and B. J. Hiley. 1993. The Undivided Universe: An Ontological
Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. London: Routledge.

Capra, Fritjof. 1975. The Tao of Physics. Boulder, Colorado: Shambhala.

Chopra, Deepak. 1989. Quantum Healing: Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body
Medicine. New York: Bantam.
---. 1993. Ageless Body, Timeless Mind: The Quantum Alternative to Growing
Old. New York: Random House.

Eberhard, Phillippe H., and Ronald R. Ross. 1989. Quantum field theory
cannot provide faster-than-light communication. Found. Phys. Lett. 2:
127-149.

Everett III, Hugh. 1957. "Relative state" formulation of quantum mechanics.
Rev. Mod. Phys. 29: 454-462.

Goswami, Amit. 1993. The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the
Material World. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Kafatos, Menas, and Robert Nadeau. 1990. The Conscious Universe: Part and
Whole in Modern Physical Theory. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Squires, Euan. 1990. Conscious Mind in the Physical World. New York: Adam
Hilger.

Wilber, Ken, ed. 1984. Quantum Questions: Mystical Writings of the World's
Great Physicists. Boulder, Colorado: Shambhala.

About the Author
Victor J. Stenger is professor of physics and astronomy at the University of
Hawaii and the author of Not By Design: The Origin of the Universe
(Prometheus Books, 1988) and Physics and Psychics: The Search for a World
Beyond the Senses (Prometheus Books, 1990). This paper is based on his
latest book, The Unconscious Quantum: Metaphysics in Modern Physics and
Cosmology (Prometheus Books, 1995).
Related Information
Victor J. Stenger home page



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