Rating  - Free will & the Quantum Enigma
This book is by far one of the most concise and simplest elucidations of various quantum phenomena... treating Copenhagen interpretation, the famous EPR paradox, Bell's theorem & inequality and more. Since I am not a physicist or physics major, I found their approach welcoming and I cannot critique the physics of the book, but I do have some major qualms with Quantum Enigma.
My prime objection to this book is that the authors implicitly believe in the reality & truth of free will throughout the text. I was a student in Bruce Rosenblum's class at UC Santa Cruz so I was able to ask questions to one of the authors of the book. The issue of free will was one that Rosenblum was not a fan of discussing, often dismissing the nearly uniform proclamation of the natural sciences that free will (i.e. our conscious control of choices) is an illusion.
This is may not seem like a profound objection to a book about physics, but Rosenblum & Kuttner insist themselves on the importance of free will to their book: "the existence of a quantum enigma depends crucially on free will." (p.168) If this is true, one would expect a substantial discussion of this concept yet the authors devote less than 2 pages to it. In these 2 pages, the authors admit, "Though it is hard to fit free will into a scientific worldview, we cannot ourselves, with any seriousness, doubt it. J.A. Hobson's comment seems apt to us: `Those of us with common sense are amazed at the resistance put up by psychologists, physiologists, and philosophers to the obvious reality of free will.'"
This quotation is essentially saying that Rosenblum and Kuttner cannot accept the notion that free will is an illusion because of "common sense." Physicists of all people should know that our so-called "common sense" and our intuitions are often skewed and sometimes totally incorrect. Quantum mechanics is a perfect example of this - as is Copernicus' discovery that we live in a heliocentric system - yet this notion of not trusting our "common sense" seems to not occur to Rosenblum and Kuttner in relation to free will. Often in the Quantum Enigma course (Physics 75), Bruce Rosenblum would simply say, "I know I have free will" - a statement that should make any philosopher, physicist, or biologist cringe - and presumably anyone who values empirical data over subjective "intuitions." Why should we trust our intuitions and "common sense" over the empirical data in this one case of our apparent free will?
The quotation above also belies a major problem with Quantum Enigma, where physics supposedly meets consciousness. The views of those fields named in the quotation above - psychologists, physiologists, and philosophers - are notably absent from Rosenblum and Kuttner's book. In Quantum Enigma where "physics meets consciousness," David Chalmers' book from the 80s is invoked often; they also mention Libet's studies from the 1980s. The problem with this is that an immense amount of research has been done since the 1980s in the blossoming field of neuroscience, which relate directly to our notions of intention, free will, consciousness, and self-representations. None of these findings are even mentioned even in passing in Quantum Enigma.
Patricia Churchland, a philosopher and neuroscientist, states in her book Brain-Wise, "So far, there is no evidence at all that some neuronal events happen without any cause... Importantly, even were uncaused neuronal events to be discovered, it is a further, substantial matter to show that precisely those events constitute choice." From a biological perspective, there appears to be no room for free will. Rosenblum and Kuttner even admit as much when they begin the quotation above with the phrase, "Though it is hard to fit free will into a scientific worldview..." If free will is hard to fit into a scientific worldview, and "the existence of a quantum enigma depends crucially on free will," would it not seem practical to devote a little more than two pages to the discussion of free will? Wouldn't it be necessary to understand the views of biologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, and philosophers on these issues of consciousness and free will to have a full, accurate, scientific picture of the situation?
Certainly physics can expect to "encounter" consciousness because physics intends to find a holistic explanation of the universe, and consciousness is obviously part of the universe physics intends to explain. In our search to understand both quantum mechanics and consciousness, we must be honest and open to all sides of the story. Unfortunately, Rosenblum and Kuttner leave out the arguments from biology, psychology, neurology, and some physicists when discussing the quantum enigma where "physics encounters consciousness." This is an overwhelming handicap, especially because of the authors' supposedly "common sense" presupposition that humans have free will. I admit that there is certainly a quantum enigma that presents itself in what we know as the "measurement problem," and Rosenblum and Kuttner should be congratulated to attempt to bring this to light to combat pseudoscience. But to understand the Quantum Enigma, we cannot start with presupposed truths, especially including the notion that we have free will.
With this in mind, I give the book 3 stars for its extraordinary conciseness with which it explains the phenomena of physics but the lack of biology, philosophy, neuroscience, etc. severely handicaps their interpretations and conclusions.
Rating  - If there is a review but no one reads it, does it exist?
Implications of two different results regarding an experiment in quantum physics is pretty disconcerting when first discovered in the physics community, but when you understand that the reason there is a difference in experimental results is due to a conscious observation, it can really mess with your mind! This great book tries to sum up all the ideas/ theories out there to try and makes sense of all this.
Although they explain the basics of the expleriments, I would have liked a more in depth step by step of the experiment that shows two different results, the wave for no observation and the determined point with observation. It could be that it just isn't in the physics 101 lab reproducibility but requires more extensive equipment to show.
Rating  - Exposes physics' dirty little secret-- It's all based on consciousness!
Quantum Enigma exposes the skeleton in theoretical physics' closet. The authors do not force any conclusions but leave that to the reader. The book will help you understand what quantum theory and its interpretations say, and inspires further questioning and contemplation.
After a historical tour of the fundamentals of theoretical physics, the authors present the story of how quantum theory was forced onto physics. Mainstream scientists felt that having consciousness create physical reality was absurd and that somehow the theory wasn't complete. But the predictions of quantum theory have never been shown wrong.
The authors make very clear that the quantum enigma, their term for having quantum theory based ultimately on consciousness, is physics' skeleton in the closet in the sense that mainstream physics does not embrace it, almost as if it were an embarrassment. The reason being that from the point of view of quantum theory, physical reality does not exist and that what we see is created by the observer. It seems as if physics has abolished the physical world all together. What an embarrassment indeed!
However the scientific value of this theory is unquestionable. There is mention of technologies that rely on quantum mechanics, supposedly one-third of our economy. Pragmatism aside, the main conclusion I can reach is that quantum physics can serve as the basis for a paradigm-shift about how we view the world and ourselves as a part of it. For quantum physics suggests that we have the ability to choose how we want our world to be, and that separateness is an illusion-- everything is connected through quantum entanglement. We must force physics to pull the skeleton out of the closet and expose the enigma.
During the course of reading, the reader will wonder about the main premise: "is it true consciousness creates physical reality by collapsing the wavefunction?" or "do we need to worry about big things like rocks, cats, people being in a state of superposition or does it only apply to tiny things like atoms?" You cannot blame the book for leaving out answers to these vital questions because in truth nobody knows. This book will at least give you the information you need to even know what these questions mean and why they are so hard for science to answer.
In summary, this was a captivating read which could act as a starting point for further philosophical inquiry into consciousness, reality and what science is capable of saying about the universe at this time.
Rating - Requires Some Thinking But Almost No Math
I agree with other reviewers about the merits of this book. It's worth stressing that the book's focus is not on how quantum mechanics works; rather, it is on the implications of quantum mechanics. Generally, if a scientific theory uses math, you must understand the math to understand the theory. With quantum mechanics, however, even if you understand the math, you will still find quantum mechanics baffling. Richard Feynman, perhaps the greatest physicist since Einstein, said with only a touch of hyperbole: "I don't understand it [quantum mechanics]. Nobody does." The good news here is that you don't have to understand the math to get to a clear idea of why people who do understand the math can be befuddled by the implications. So this book pretty much dispenses with mathematics. You can't explain Bell's theorem without some mathematical thinking, but nothing beyond arithmetic is required, not even algebra or geometry. Nonetheless, some parts of the book will have to be read slowly, probably several times. If you don't already understand how waves can interfere with each other, this book's explanation probably won't help you. But you can take the interference on faith and move on. The authors do an excellent job of showing that quantum mechanics yields results that defy common sense. And as their subtitle promises, they hammer at the point that quantum mechanics seems to demand a conscious observer, which creates a major problem for traditional views of how science is supposed to proceed. In fact, it creates a major problem for the common-sense view that material objects exist independently of our observing them. Various interpretations and modifications of the theory try to dodge the need for a conscious observer, with limited success. I've read a number of popular books on quantum mechanics and this one does the best job overall of exploring the implications. (If you're looking for a book that uses some serious math [specifically, linear algebra] without requiring an extensive math background, try Albert, Quantum Mechanics and Experience.)
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