In episode 9 of the Quantum Consciousness series, Justin Riddle discusses metaphysical models that rely on three aspects. The topics for today include: how the mind creates a mapping between syntax and semantics, Plato’s allegory of the cave and its relationship to the Matrix film trilogy, and a discussion of ways that the entanglement web and David Bohm’s pilot-wave might serve as a scientific basis for mathematics and universal concepts.

To summarize this episode, David Chalmers pitches the model of “naturalistic dualism” that describes a domain of syntax (symbols and data without any meaning) and a domain of semantics (meaning beyond any symbolic representation). Syntax and semantics are independent from each other (Physical and Platonic Worlds) and are only connected via a mapping between the two that passes through the individual person and their culture (Mental World). In communication, a syntax is shared that attempts to relate meaningful concepts and through long-form conversation the mapping between two people can be aligned. Similar to Chalmer’s semantics, Plato believed in a “world of forms” that contained concepts and meaning. The Physical World is merely a shadow projected onto a cave wall and our goal as a philosopher is to seek out truth. The Matrix trilogy presents the allegory of the cave as the protagonist breaks free from a dream world projected into his mind through his biological perception. In each of these theories, it is relatively simpler to think about how the physical world might be implemented in physics, but the Platonic world of forms and meaning is much more difficult. Does quantum physics provide a novel solution? Quantum entanglement is the shared superposition of two systems that defies classical notions of space and time. David Bohm’s theory of hidden variables suggests that even after the collapse of the wave function, entanglement might leave an impression such that each system is unique and a hidden web of connections between systems exists under the surface. This “implicate order” permeates the background of the universe and could serve as a foundation for building an access bridge to universal concepts. Bohm speculated that at the scale of the entire universe a single “pilot-wave” is guiding all quantum computers within the universe towards the future and systematically determining the output of every single wave function collapse.