Quirks of the Quantum Mind

Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne are well known for their collaboration at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory for their work on the mind-machine interface and remote perception. In this radical book they propose that quantum mechanics, 'like any other model of human representation, is both a reflection and a product of the mind that seeks to comprehend and explain its observations and experiences.' In this they are backed up by the patriarchs of modern physics – there is a fascinating 80-page series of extracts that alone would make the book worth purchasing. They are only too aware of the intellectual resistance to accepting paranormal phenomena in terms of replication and explanatory models and they investigate the potential of quantum theory to provide some degree of theoretical underpinning.

To this end they define their terms very carefully before giving a relatively technical overview of quantum theory. They then explore analogies and metaphors in the field, including waves, atoms, covalence and the metaphorical principles of indistinguishability, exclusion, correspondence, uncertainty and complementarity. They apply these to their data on human-machine anomalies and precognitive remote perception with some very interesting implications. Specifically, successful subjects seem to achieve a balance between observation and participation, analysis and synthesis, doing and being. Trying too hard does not guarantee optimum results. Although we normally separate our thinking processes from our observations, the authors remind us that Einstein said that it was the theory that decides what we can observe.

They also quote William James to the effect that the intellectual life of man insists in substituting our conceptual order for the perceptual order from which our experience originally derives. This is one of the main points reinforced by the quotations from distinguished (in some ways neo-Kantian) 20th-century physicists - here are three for illustrative purposes: 'all idea of the form of the outer world are ultimately only reflections of our own perceptions' (Max Planck); 'all new experience makes its appearance within the frame of our customary points of view and forms of perception' (Niels Bohr); 'the same organising forces that have shaped nature in all her forms are also responsible for the structure of our minds.' (Heisenberg). The book breaks new ground with the boldness, rigour and coherence of thinking.