Re: [Fis] Re: quantum entropy

   Pedro's question

>Could quantum entropies be the leit motiv to explain the evolution of
>consciousness --and the conundrums we have to face concerning time
>regimes?

is really big. Although I am not prepared yet to respond to the issue
properly, let me do what I can do with regard to the related agenda via
quantum mechanics.

   Quantum mechanics has something similar to probability, but not
probability per se. The best guess we have so far is quasiprobability, whose
values can sometimes become negative while the sum total is definitely
conserved as probability (a la Kolmogorov) is. The quasiprobability would
reduce to authentic positive-definite probability if we make a right choice
of the basis set, but may fail in doing so if we make another choice.
Entropy defined on the quasiprobability, or the von Neumann entropy, is thus
quite weird.

   The hard issue is how the quantum weirdness or quasiprobability can be
reduced to the classical rationality or probability. A key player here is
measurement, since it is the act of measurement which can bring about
probabilities in the end. Despite that, the act of measurement is
intrinsically local. There is no global measurement to tell us what our
whole universe would look like on the spot. Measurement can reduce
quasiprobability to probability only locally. A necessary consequence from
this local stipulation is that the local act of measurement for
probability-flow equilibration for the sake of probabilities to conserved in
the effect constantly spills over into the neighborhood and reverberates
indefinitely in the material world. The act of probability-flow
equilibration on behalf of the global conservation of probability is unique
to the quantum world. There is no such analogue in the classical world,
however, in the latter of which the probability distribution, if ever
conceivable, is taken to be globally consistent from the outset.

   Then, time paradoxes emerge. So far, we have three alternatives; time in
private experiencing, time in mutual negotiation, and time in public
sharing. Probability-flow equilibration in the weird quantum world is
basically a physical process in time in private experiencing and in mutual
negotiation. Experiencing negative (quasi)probabilities cannot be shared in
public, but remains undeniable. Passing over negative (quasi)probabilities
onto others nearby cannot objectively be approached from the outside, but
cannot be denied. Only when we feel confident about the availability of the
global makeup frozen in the record, the classical world of rationality would
take over there. Strangely enough, however, quantum mechanics would seem to
suggest to us that both time in private experiencing in first-person
description and time in mutual negotiation in second-person description may
have its material or physical underpinning despite its philosophical
overtone. At this point, I have a sense that even an actin-myosin complex as
a functional unit of muscle contraction lives in both time in private
experiencing and time in mutual negotiation.

   This has been the second piece for me this week.

   Cheers,
   Koichiro

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Received on Fri May 14 02:34:06 2004