ONE of the most scandalously bad misrepresentations of physics in recent years is the drama-documentary What the Bleep Do We Know?, released in 2004. The film promulgated the idea that according to quantum theory, you can change everyday reality simply by thinking about it. In the fictional story, the main character successfully uses this mind-over-matter technique to thin her thighs. Depressingly, it is the fifth-biggest-grossing documentary in the US.

The irony here is that the true world revealed by quantum theory - which remains our best description of the microscopic world of atoms - is far wilder than anything in the movie. It is a world where an atom can be in two places at once - the equivalent of you being in London and Tokyo simultaneously. This is not some theoretical fantasy: it is possible to observe an atom in two places at once, or at least the consequences of this. It's a world where one atom can influence another instantaneously even if they are on opposite sides of the universe.

This property was deemed so outrageous by Einstein that he held it up as proof that quantum theory was not nature's last word on reality (though experiments appear to show that Einstein was wrong). Furthermore, it's a world where things happen for absolutely no reason at all, where events are irreducibly random in a way utterly unlike the pseudo-random roll of a die in the everyday world.
“It's a world where things happen for absolutely no reason”

This quantum weirdness is expounded clearly by physicists Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner, who teach a course on these fundamental ideas at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Indeed, the bulk of their book Quantum Enigma serves as an entertaining primer on the nuts and bolts of quantum theory. However, what principally interests the authors is not quantum theory's fantastically successful recipe for prediction, but what the theory "means". This takes them to the boundary of physics and philosophy: the observer-created reality.

An atom does not travel through space along a single path with 100 per cent certainty as a planet does. Rather, it has a large number of possible paths open to it, each with a particular probability. When the atom is "observed", one and only one of the possibilities is actualised. Thus, reality is created by observation. Here the authors make their most controversial assertion: that the observer must be conscious. Consciousness, they believe, is intimately tied up with quantum processes.

# 19 August 2006
# From New Scientist Print Edition.
# Marcus Chown

Many physicists think that the phenomenon of "decoherence" does away with the need for a conscious observer. Decoherence explains why an atom on its own can do many things at once, while entities composed of many atoms, such as humans, cannot. This is because in a large collection of atoms it is impossible for the quantum waves associated with each to overlap sufficiently (a state known as "coherence") to allow them to interfere - the key behind all quantum weirdness. Some believe a conscious observer is not necessary for decoherence to take place. However, Rosenblum and Kuttner point out that while decoherence explains why you and I are never in two places at once, it does not explain why a single atom is in one place rather than another. For an atom to become fixed, a conscious observer is essential, they argue.

Rosenblum and Kuttner thus tie together two great mysteries: consciousness, and the "quantum enigma" of how reality coalesces out of the fog of quantum possibilities. They never spell out what they think the connection is, they only emphasise that it is an enigma at the heart of quantum theory that physicists must sooner or later confront head-on. They also remind us that we have not got to the bottom of quantum theory by a long chalk. We still need a new way of seeing and, as quantum philosopher John Bell said, "The new way of seeing will involve an imaginative leap that will astonish us."
Marcus Chown is the author of The Quantum Zoo (Joseph Henry Press, 2006)

Quantum effects are not directly dependant on a consciuos observer, or an observation at all.
In fact they do not seperate a physical reaction from an observation.
Thus observations effect experiments so much that when we account for that, a bluriness occurs
that has a theoretical model of overlapping worlds, as to aid calculating.
Quantum theory was not created to explain the absolute reality of the world.
It was created to explain processes beetween atoms and other small particles and energy
to aid fabrication of materials. ( and bombs and so on )

Ifyoubelieve it is tied to consciousness, the physical world will change whenyouare drunk
and possible disappear whenyousleep.
Oryoumight believe it to sell an article to a newspaper and make some cash.
Doens't a bacteria exist just because I doesn't have the same lvl of awareness ?

Every science has a limited field to where it is practical and often proven.
Don't mix cats and dogs.

As to where mind meets quantum matter, the answer is everywhere.
Mind IS quantum matter, just as everything else we know of.
Just thinking a thought, u are forced to indirectly shuffle around trillions of trillions of quantum effects.
Butyoudon't do that with ur consciousness, and fortunately.
Be glad thatyouaren't force to know every single quantum effect of a feeling
in order to have a feeling, becauseyouwould go insane with trillions of bites of useless information.