Xiaolei Zhang. The Emergence of Consciousness in the Quantum Universe
Natural Sciences / Physics / General Physics
Submitted on: Sep 17, 2012, 19:16:54
Description: It is argued that human consciousness is likely to have emerged during the self-consistent evolution of the physical universe, through the gradual accumulation of biological entities' ability to tap into the intrinsic non-deterministic potentiality in the global nonequilibrium phase transitions occurring continually in the quantum universe. Due to the fact that the matter and energy content participating in these global phase transitions is a continuum, there are in effect infinite degrees-of-freedom in the substratum, which invalidate the usual deterministic laws of the mechanical evolution, and allow chance factors to appear in the emergent properties of resonantly-formed quantum particles, especially in the acquired phases of their wavefunctions. Such chance factors, though occurring mostly randomly during the early cosmic evolution phase, can be harnessed more "purposefully" by the biological entities co-evolving with the physical universe, due in part to the globally-entangled nature of quantum interactions.