What breathes life into the equations?

PearKrill

The current understanding of Science is shown to prove its limits by its very own methods. This doesn't diminish its validity, by contrast, it shows that its domain extends by making fundamental metaphysical questions about consciousness falsifiable, and therefore a part of Science. As a result, sentient experience is shown to be fundamental and intimately connected with Quantum Physics. This naturally suggests a unitary one-world no-conspiracy understanding of Quantum Physics and connects it with sentient life.

Download Essay PDF File

Download Reference PDF File

Download Technical Endnotes PDF File

PearKrill

Endnotes (because in the Technical Endnotes PDF File they are messed up)

A mathematical structure consists of a collection of sets and relations between these sets (subsets of Cartesian products of these sets), see Universal Algebra [10] and Model Theory [4].
The possible values of an observable is the spectrum of the operator representing it.
For a state vector $\ket{\psi}$ and the position eigenvectors \ket{x}, the wavefunction is \psi(x):=\braket{x,\psi}.
The dimension of the unitary group U(n) is n^2. The dimension of the subgroup of unitary transformations preserving the Hamiltonian is between n and n^2.
The unitary group acts transitively on the space of unit vectors.
Transformations preserving the form of the dynamical law must commute with the Hamiltonian. In the \emph{standard measurement model} (see [2]}, §II.3.4, and §VII for real-world examples) the Hamiltonian is, during the measurement, H = -g A\otimes p_{\mathbf{Z}} where A is the observable and p_{\mathbf{Z}} is the canonical conjugate of the pointer observable Z.
Then, if for any eigenvalue \lambda of A -\lambda is an eigenvalue of equal degeneracy, the transformation \ket{\lambda,a}\ket{\text{outcome}=\lambda}\mapsto\ket{-\lambda,a}\ket{\text{outcome}=-\lambda} is unitary and commutes with H. If the spectrum of A is \R and the degeneracy is the same for all eigenvalues, the transformation \ket{\lambda,a}\ket{\zeta}\mapsto|\frac{\lambda_2}{\lambda_1}|\ket{\frac{\lambda_2}{\lambda_1}\lambda,a}\ket{\frac{\lambda_2}{\lambda_1}\zeta} swaps the two worlds and commutes with H.
These symmetries relabel a world in which the measurement has an outcome as a world in which the measurement has any other outcome, for a previously unknown observed state.
These observables can be obtained by unitary transformations that commute with the Hamiltonian.
It is often believed that a preferred decomposition into subsystems emerges from conditions like the locality of the interactions [6]. But even for relabelings that don't change the dynamical law and preserve this kind of locality, for a 2^n-dimensional vector space, the ways to decompose it into n qubits (vector spaces with 2 complex dimensions) form a space whose number of dimensions grows exponentially with n (to see this, factor the group of unitary transformations that preserve H through the group of local unitary transformations on the factor spaces).
The Kochen-Specker theorem shows that, at least for three or more dimensions, the observed property could not have a definite value before the quantum measurement [14].
Unlike value-indefiniteness (9), in our approach (5.9-5.1), not the state was indefinite, but the observable associated to the measured physical property. This can avoid the superposition of different outcomes.
We call the measurements of a system by its environment decoherence [12,18].
It is hoped to explain the emergence of classicality at the macro level and resolve the measurement problem. There are serious unsolved questions in the decoherence program, but in any case it can't resolve the measurement problem by itself, but only combined with one of the proposals (5.7-5.10).

Ulla Mattfolk

PearKrill You've hit on the mathematical conflict that the living system is engineered to solve!
Ulla.

EmeraldRaccoon

The essay offers an ambitious and intellectually bold attempt to transcend a purely structural view of reality and to challenge the position that mathematical description alone exhausts the essence of life and consciousness, adopting a relational perspective which convincingly highlights that life and awareness may be understood as processes emerging from interactions rather than as properties of isolated entities. Nevertheless, the essay lacks a clear distinction between metaphor and scientific argument, which makes it difficult to evaluate which claims are intended descriptively and which aspire to ontological validity, and the reasoning remains largely speculative due to the absence of empirical cohesion: references to quantum biology do not lead to explicit, testable conclusions. The text frequently transitions from intuitive observations to strong ontological assertions such as the introduction of “stuff-in-itself,” which weakens logical continuity, and the absence of mathematical or formal structure, even in sections concerning physical processes, causes much of the argumentation to rely solely on intuition without demonstrable grounding. Furthermore, the assumption that consciousness may emerge exclusively from internal relationality, disregarding the role of external data and environment, remains debatable and insufficiently justified. Finally, the essay presupposes the existence of a non-mathematical aspect of reality, whereas one could argue that any coherent universe — enabling stability, evolution, and causal relations — must be structured and describable through formal principles, implying that mathematical organization is not optional but rather a necessary condition for order and, consequently, for life itself.