Can we Falsify the Consciousness-Causes-Collapse Hypothesis in Quantum Mechanics?

TL;DR

This paper critically evaluates proposals to disprove the consciousness-causes-collapse hypothesis in quantum mechanics, demonstrating their flaws and arguing that the hypothesis is unfalsifiable under reasonable assumptions.

Contribution

It provides a general experimental framework showing the hypothesis cannot be empirically falsified, challenging its scientific testability.

Findings

Proposals to disprove the hypothesis are fundamentally flawed.

A general experimental setup cannot disprove the hypothesis.

The hypothesis is unfalsifiable under reasonable assumptions.

Abstract

In this paper we examine some proposals to disprove the hypothesis that the interaction between mind and matter causes the collapse of the wave function, showing that such proposals are fundamentally flawed. We then describe a general experimental setup retaining the key features of the ones examined, and show that even a more general case is inadequate to disprove the mind-matter collapse hypothesis. Finally, we use our setup provided to argue that, under some reasonable assumptions about consciousness, such hypothesis is unfalsifiable.