Does Consciousness Collapse the Wave Function

Abstract

A conceptual replication of the Hall-experiment to test the &#39;subjective reduction&#39; interpretation of the measurement problem in Quantum Physics is reported. Two improvements are introduced. First the delay between pre-observation and final observation of the same quantum event is increased from a few microseconds in the original experiment to 1 second in this replication. Second, rather than using the observers conscious response as the dependent variable, we use the early brain responses as measured by EEG. These early responses cover a period where the observer is not yet conscious of the quantum event. Results support the &#39;subjective reduction&#39; hypothesis because significant differences between the brain responses of the final observer are found dependent upon the pre-observer looking or not looking at the quantum event (exact binomial p < 0.02). Alternative &#39;normal&#39; explanations are discussed and rejected. It is concluded that the present results do justify further research along these lines.