How can scientists establish an observer-independent science? Embodied cognition, consciousness and quantum mechanics

The action-perception loop of embodied cognition means humans participate in what they perceive, raising the question of how scientists can obtain an observer-independent description of the world. Drawing on the philosophy of mind and a reverse-engineering of science and quantum physics, the authors conjecture that traditional embodiment can manifest aspects of imaginary-time quantum dynamics. They further argue that obtaining real-time quantum dynamics requires additional constraints: an embodied scientist must be described from the perspective of another scientist—a factor ignored in traditional embodied cognition—and observers play complementary roles as both objects experienced by others and subjects that experience other objects.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Evidence is growing for the theory of embodied cognition, which posits that action and perception co-determine each other, forming an action-perception loop. This suggests that we humans somehow participate in what we perceive. So, how can scientists escape the action-perception loop to obtain an observer-independent description of the world? Here we present a set of conjectures informed by the philosophy of mind and a reverse-engineering of science and quantum physics to explore this question. We argue that embodiment, as traditionally understood, can manifest aspects of imaginary-time quantum dynamics. We then explore what additional constraints are required to obtain aspects of genuine, real-time quantum dynamics. In particular, we conjecture that an embodied scientist doing experiments must be described from the perspective of another scientist, which is ignored in traditional approaches to embodied cognition, and that observers play complementary roles as both objects experienced by other observers and ``subjects'' that experience other objects.