No psychic entanglement- this is mysticism not science

(Andrew W., PoliSci@Madison, Our place in the universe: Alexander Wendt and

quantum mechanics International Theory (2022), 14 (1), 130–145 doi:10.1017/S1752971921000063)

Instead, Wendt argues for ‘direct perception of other minds’. He begins with a seeming digression into the nature of light, arguing that light ‘breaks down the separability of subject and object’. 20 He then claims that the problem of how we perceive objects to be located in three-dimensional spaces when all we have is photons impacting our retinas, which are two-dimensional surfaces, is unsolved. He proposes that our minds make internal holograms with reference waves from the future, ‘enabling us to directly “touch” objects quantum mechanically’. 21 Wendt then argues, citing Wittgenstein, that we directly perceive emotions in people’s faces, rather than infer their presence. This is evidence that our minds are ‘entangled’ with other minds, and so directly perceive them. The quantum theory of language is then developed for the two person case, in which ‘there is no need to infer a speaker’s meaning, since it is contained right there in her words and their context, which are picked up non-locally, i.e. directly, rather than “transported” to the listener’s mind’. 22 This reverses the default question from ‘how can we understand other minds’, to ‘why do we ever make mistakes’. 23 In critiquing this view, my first piece of evidence is that I have very little idea what Wendt is talking about here. For me, this chapter marks the point at which the book finally takes leave of even a loose association with science and becomes almost entirely metaphorical or even mystical. It seems almost pedantic to point out that we see objects in three dimensions primarily because we have binocular vision, so intra-cranial holograms are unnecessary. As for the theory of entangled minds and language, it reads as a loose metaphor, applying quantum words and concepts to new contexts in which the normal language meaning of the words seems to make sense, but without actually meaning it to be taken literally in a scientific way. Yet, Wendt explicitly forswears this kind of reasoning, insisting that he is talking about ontology, not even ‘as if’ uses of the formalism.24 So, if the claim is that quantum processes in two brains are actually literally entangled, what are we to make of it? The first objection, noted by Wendt, is the fundamental result in quantum mechanics that entanglement does not permit communication faster than light, much less immediately or ‘directly’. 25 This is not a small problem for Wendt, it is fundamental. Wendt’s response, however, is to say that verbal communication proceeds at the speed of sound, but we just understand it ‘directly’ due to our entangled minds. But, if the meaning is not clear from the words, there must be additional information that needs to be conveyed to make it clear. That information cannot be communicated by entangled particles, so how does it get communicated? Furthermore, if our brains are really entangled, how did they get that way? Particles in the Bell experiments are entangled by careful experimental design, by starting out in the same location and having momentums that are related to each other. Could it be that two electrons were generated somewhere with entangled momentums, made their separate ways into my brain and another person’s brain, without hitting any matter along the way that would cause their wave functions to collapse, and are currently held there, presumably in the microtubules, in their still entangles states? The question answers itself in the negative. Wendt seems to think that all particles are entangled with all other particles, so entanglement is everywhere. This does not appear to be the case. Finally, at a much more pragmatic level, Wendt’s argument that the default should be understanding and what needs to be explained is misunderstanding strikes me as highly unrealistic. To pick just one example, a substantial percentage of homicides involve cases where the killer and victim know each other. Some are even husband and wife. Less deadly but more common, marital infidelity is usually concealed, at least for a while, along with gambling problems, financial mismanagement, and so on. Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce, and poor communication is often cited as a reason. If 50% of people who think they understand each other the best are incorrect, what hope have the rest of us?