Philip Goff (Durham University, Dept. of Philosophy)
A Panpsychist Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
The Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics has the advantage of being the simplest interpretation. However, one big problem with it is that it’s hard to make sense of the probabilities associated with quantum mechanics if everything is going to happen. In the 1990s Euan Squires developed a view which tries to avoid this problem by adding that consciousness only goes down one branch of the wave function, thus allowing us to interpret the probability claims as claims about how likely it is that consciousness will go down each branch. One big problem with Squires’ view is that it’s hard to see what prevents different conscious minds going down difference branches, with the result that most of us end up surrounded by zombies. Squires tried to avoid this problem with a vague appeal to ‘universal consciousness.’ I will explore whether contemporary discussions of panpsychism in philosophy can give a more precise account of this interpretation of quantum mechanics and a more precise solution to this central problem