Toy observer in unitary evolution: Histories, consciousness, and state reduction

TL;DR

This paper presents a toy quantum model where consciousness influences the observer's history, suggesting that the conscious experience is concentrated in the extremal branch of a discretized quantum evolution, potentially addressing the many-worlds problem.

Contribution

It introduces a toy model demonstrating how consciousness can select a unique history in quantum evolution, offering a novel perspective on the many-worlds interpretation.

Findings

Conscious dimension is concentrated in the extremal branch.

The model shows how observer's records are coherently sequenced.

Most likely observer's experience occurs at the end of a branch.

Abstract

For a toy version of a quantum system with a conscious observer, it is demonstrated that the many-worlds problem is solved by retreating into the conscious subspace of an entire observer history. In every step of a discretised time, the observer tries to "see" records of his past and present in a coherent temporal sequence, by scanning through a temporal fine-graining cascade. The extreme most likely occurs at the end of some branch, thus determining observer's world line. The relevant neurons, each with two dimensions, are power-law distributed in number, so order statistics implies that conscious dimension is located almost entirely in the extremal branch.