Consciousness and Existence: Quantum Mechanics Without Paradoxes

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This is a copy of my article, published (in Russian) on 2020-02-25 on Habr: Consciousness and Existence. Quantum Mechanics Without Paradoxes

Unlike my legal texts, here the degree of confidence in the conclusions is not as high. This is a hypothesis. Material for reflection and an invitation to discussion.

This essay independently arrives at what may be read as a variant of the von Neumann–Wigner interpretation of quantum mechanics. But it defuses the solipsism problem that led Wigner himself to step back from the strong form of that interpretation — and it does so in a way that carries far-reaching consequences.

Is the Experiment with Schrödinger's Cat a Paradox?

The professor raised his head from the desk and says:
– Hello, boy. What have you come for?
– I want to ask you about a cat.
– What about a cat?
– Suppose you had a cat …

Eduard Uspensky, "Uncle Fedya, His Dog, and His Cat"

Quantum Superposition and the Role of the Observer in Quantum Physics

According to quantum mechanics, if no observation is made of a particle, then its state is described as a quantum superposition (coherent superposition), i.e., a mixture of all the possible alternative states the particle can be in.

For example, an atomic nucleus that is not being observed may be in a mixed state of decay, whose probability is, say, 1/4, and a state of non-decay, whose probability is 3/4. It is held that, at the moment of measurement of some parameter of it, the particle chooses from all the probable values of this parameter some specific one — or, in other words, a collapse of the wave function occurs.

Moreover, it is held that "the behaviour of an individual particle is random," and the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics holds that the behaviour of a particle cannot be predicted by any method whatsoever.

In other words, quantum physics has established that the act of measurement affects the behaviour of a particle.

This is demonstrated especially vividly by the double-slit experiment, which shows that photons or electrons behave differently depending on whether or not they are being observed. However strange this may sound.

The Double-Slit Experiment

We choose to examine a phenomenon which is impossible, absolutely impossible, to explain in any classical way, and which has in it the heart of quantum mechanics. In reality, it contains the only mystery.

Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume III, Chapter 1. Quantum Behaviour

For more on the double-slit experiment, see the excellent lecture Ron Garret, The Quantum Conspiracy, Google Tech Talk, 2011-01-06, or The Riddle of Quantum Physics — The Double-Slit Experiment (the latter with Russian subtitles).

Briefly, this experiment can be described as follows:

If a stream of particles (photons or electrons) is directed at a sensitive screen placed behind a screen with two slits in it, then the pattern of traces on the screen will not reproduce the two slits, as one might expect from particles passing through, but will create an interference pattern, as if we were passing waves through these slits, each of which, having left the radiation source, passes through both slits simultaneously:

double-slit experiment

Schrödinger's Experiment with the Cat

Erwin Schrödinger ended his paper "The Present Situation in Quantum Mechanics" with the following:

One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following diabolical device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The first atomic decay would have poisoned it. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.

It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a "blurred model" for representing reality. In itself, it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks.

Despite Schrödinger's remark that "in itself, it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory," the steel chamber with the cat turned out to be a Pandora's box for physics.

When I hear of Schrödinger's cat, I reach for my gun…

Stephen Hawking

All existing interpretations of quantum mechanics can be regarded as variant explanations of just what happens to this cat.

This experiment is regarded as a paradox demonstrating the "incompleteness of quantum mechanics in the transition from subatomic to macroscopic systems."

Thus the corresponding Wikipedia article states:

Since it is clear that the cat must necessarily be either alive or dead (there is no state combining life and death), the same will hold for the atomic nucleus as well. It must necessarily be either decayed or not decayed.

Let us take a closer look at the cat. It is clear that, if we open the box, the cat will turn out to be either alive or dead, and it was such even before the box was opened — just as the measured electron in the double-slit experiment passed through only one slit before its measurement.

But here is what happens to the past we still know nothing about. What does the unopened box have in its past? What will become of the cat if we never open the box and never learn whether the cat is alive or dead?

It seems to me that to say this experiment demonstrates the incompleteness of quantum physics merely because people are accustomed to thinking that "the cat must necessarily be either alive or dead" is the same as speaking of the incompleteness of cosmology (which asserts that the Earth is round and smaller than the Sun), whereas it is obvious to us that the Earth is flat and the Sun is smaller than the Earth.

As far as I know, no one has carried out a real experiment with a cat and a Geiger counter. But there is, in fact, no need to. Even in thought form, the experiment proves that macro-objects (cats and the like) must behave just as "quantum objects" do.

That is, we can formulate the following conclusion: until we learn whether the cat is alive or not, it is indeed neither alive nor dead. Moreover, its past will appear only after we have fixed its present.

In fact, this concerns not even only the objects themselves but their properties — any properties that can be measured or observed. Until we have measured the cat's temperature, regardless of whether it is alive or dead, its temperature is a mixture of all the possible readings of its temperature, and it will "choose" its specific value only at the moment of its measurement; moreover, this choice will be made with respect to the past, to the extent that this past determines the measured present.

Physicists are accustomed to proceeding from the premise that the object of study of their science is the objectively existing world, and not the consciousness of the human being studying the surrounding world; and from this point of view such a conclusion seems strange.

However, we may suppose that in the transition from subatomic to macroscopic systems what actually changes is not the laws of physics, but the researcher's readiness to accept the conclusions that follow from them.

Indeed, some researchers have asked: where is the boundary separating the macro-world, in which the laws of classical physics operate, from the micro-world, in which the laws of quantum mechanics operate? In reality this boundary signifies only a readiness to accept the counter-intuitive conclusions of quantum physics, and it runs solely through the consciousness of the researcher.

Hence Einstein's famous question to Abraham Pais: "Do you really think the moon exists only when you look at it?" (A. Pais, Einstein and the quantum theory, Rev. Mod. Phys. 51, 863–914 (1979), p. 907; quoted from What did Einstein mean when he asked Abraham Pais whether he really believed that the moon only exists when you look at it?)

In reality there is no fundamental difference between an electron and the moon. It is simply that the presence of the moon is a property of the sky, which we are accustomed to observing directly, whereas the electron is a property of the atom — an object from a "world" in which we have no settled stereotypes.

Macro-objects, just like quantum objects of which no observation has been made — and their past as well — represent only a range of possibilities, determined by the observer's conceptions of this range of possibilities.

The Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen Paradox (EPR Paradox) and Quantum Teleportation

The cat experiment was a development of the idea of the thought experiment known as the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox (EPR paradox). This thought experiment was described in the paper by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen, Can the Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete? (A. Einstein, B. Podolsky, N. Rosen, Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete? // Phys. Rev. / G. D. Sprouse — American Physical Society, 1935. — Vol. 47, Iss. 10. — P. 777–780.).

This same paper was reproduced in the appendix to the article Fock, Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen, Bohr, Can the Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?, which repeated its title.

Briefly, the experiment proposed by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen can be described as follows:

Suppose we measure the momentum of some particle. After this it decays into two parts, which fly off in different directions. By the law of conservation of momentum, the total momentum of the particles produced in the decay equals the initial momentum of the original particle.

As in the case of the cat experiment, until the moment of measurement each of the new particles is, from the point of view of quantum mechanics, in a state of quantum superposition. Now let us make an observation and measure the momentum of the first particle. At the moment of observation a collapse of the wave function occurs, and we have the measured momentum of one of the particles. But since the momentum of the second particle will equal the momentum of the decayed particle minus the momentum of the measured one, we know the momentum of the second particle, even if this particle is at a considerable distance (arbitrarily far) from the first.

As stated in Wikipedia:

The measurement of the momentum of one particle is equivalent to measuring the momentum of the second particle. However, this creates the impression of an instantaneous effect of the first particle on the second, in contradiction with the principle of causality.

Strictly speaking, by describing the paradox the authors wished to demonstrate the possibility of simultaneously measuring the momentum of the second particle and its position, whereas, according to the Heisenberg uncertainty relation, it is impossible to measure simultaneously and precisely a particle's position and its momentum.

On the basis of the (thought) experiment proposed by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen, the quantum teleportation experiment was developed, in which the "quantum part" uses the mechanism described by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen of, as it were, "transferring information about the state of the first particle to the second particle."

Briefly, the idea of quantum teleportation can be described as follows:

Suppose the sender has a certain particle at A. It has two possible states, which we shall denote 1 and 0. The sender must transmit the state of particle A to the receiver. For this they create a pair of quantum-entangled particles B and C, as in the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen experiment; each particle of this pair has a possible state of 1 or 0, and it is known that the sum of the states of these particles (1+0) equals 1. Suppose that C is with the sender and B is with the receiver.

The sender measures their particle C; at this moment a collapse of the wave function occurs, as described in the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen experiment, and particle B, as if having received information about the measured state of particle C, takes on a definite state. Say the sender, having measured particle C, obtained the value 1; consequently, particle B must turn out to be in state 0. Now, over an "ordinary classical communication channel," the sender transmits to the receiver information about the total state of the system of particles A and C.

Suppose particle A is in state 1. The sender, having measured particle C, obtained the value 1. The sender performs an XOR operation on these two values — obtains 0 — and sends this value to the receiver.

The receiver has obtained the value 0, but does not yet know the value of A. In order to obtain the value of A, the receiver makes an observation of their particle B, obtains its value 0, from which they conclude that the value of C was 1. And accordingly they can compute the value of particle A.

As reported, several real (not thought) experiments on quantum teleportation have been carried out.

In particular, in 2017 Chinese scientists accomplished quantum teleportation using a pair of satellites and three ground stations.

However, let us imagine a device consisting of a composite closed box into which two balls are dropped — one black and one white — and the box divides into two separate boxes in such a way that one ball remains in one box and the other in the other, this happening at random, and there being no way to learn which ball is in which box without opening the box.

We can perform with the balls exactly the same operation as described in the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen experiment. We place two balls, one black and one white, into a box, divide the box into two separate boxes, and, keeping them closed, carry the boxes apart to some fairly large distance — say, we leave one of the boxes on Earth and send the second to Mars.

The balls in the unopened boxes are in a state of "superposition," i.e., each of them is black and white with equal probability, just as the long-suffering cat is alive and dead with equal probability.

One could say "is simultaneously," but, strictly speaking, a ball or a cat in an unopened box is outside time; their past and present are not yet formed.

When the observer on Earth opens the box and sees a white ball in it, then, exactly as described in the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen experiment, the other ball, as if having received information about the measurement of the first, takes on the state left over for it. That is, both the observer on Earth and the observer on Mars perceive this ball as black, and in their perception it has been black ever since the moment the box was divided — or, in other words, its past is determined just as its present is.

Instead of balls we could also use a pair of files generated with a random-number generator, such that one records the value 1 and the other 0. Each of the files can be password-protected so that its contents are not read prematurely, and they can be handed to two different users. The contents of the files, while unread, are likewise perceived as probabilistic: with equal probability they may be 1 or 0. At the moment when one of the users reads the contents of their file, they also understand what the contents of the second file are. And the second user, correspondingly, having read their file, can learn the contents of the first file.

As a matter of fact, the idea has already occurred to physicists that what happens to the particles in the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen experiment can be modelled using a black and a white ball (see Emil Akhmedov, The Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen Paradox // PostNauka) or a right and a left shoe (see Quantum Teleportation // PostNauka, 2016-09-30, Habr).

Here is how it is described in the article Quantum Teleportation // PostNauka, 2016-09-30, Habr:

Or take a shoebox containing a right and a left shoe, quietly remove them and carry one shoe to you and the other to me in a bag. Here I have opened the bag, I look: I have the right one. That means you definitely have the left one.

The quantum case differs in that the state that came to me before measurement is neither blue nor green — it is in a superposition of blue and green. After you have separated the shoes, the result is already predetermined. While the bags are being carried, while they have not yet been opened, it is already definitely clear what will be there. But as long as quantum objects have not been measured, nothing has yet been decided.

In reality, in this respect there is no difference between a photon, a ball, and a cat. As Schrödinger's cat experiment proves, macro-objects too can be in a state of "quantum superposition." As we saw vividly in the double-slit experiment, observation of an object that is in a state of superposition gives it a definite state not only in the present but also in the past.

There is no boundary in size, mass, or volume beyond which objects lose the property of being in a state of quantum superposition. Any parameter of any object of which it is known that it may, with some probability, be in one of the states within some bounded range is, until the moment of measurement, in a state of superposition.

In this respect the difference between a cat and an atomic nucleus is only that such a conclusion is easier to accept for the atomic nucleus than for the cat. It is just as it is easier for us to accept that the Moon is round when we observe the Moon through a telescope than to accept the same conclusion about the Earth, upon which we walk and which is obviously flat to us. But observing the Moon from afar may nonetheless prompt us towards certain conclusions about what is under our feet.

If we accept such a position, then the Schrödinger's cat paradox and the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox cease to be paradoxes. The cat and the atomic nucleus, the photons and the balls in the box, behave identically, as they ought to behave, without any paradoxes at all.

Note: no, the experimental tests of Bell's inequalities do not (yet) prove that macro-objects must in that case necessarily have hidden variables; they have only shown that quantum objects do not have them.

The Observer and a Critique of the Many-Worlds Interpretation

So who, after all, makes the choice in the collapse of the wave function — who decides whether the electron passes through the right or the left slit, who decides whether the cat lives or dies?

The many-worlds interpretation asserts that all possible variants are realized, but in different worlds.

The Copenhagen interpretation asserts that the choice occurs at random from the entire possible set of variants.

It seems to me that the problem here lies in the definition of the possible set of variants. If one looks closely at what happens when a particle chooses a variant of behaviour, one can notice that the range of choice is set by the observer's conceptions of the possibilities of choice. Every act of measurement is an application of the measurer's conceptions of the possible parameters to the object of measurement.

In other words, if two variants of the cat's state are possible — "alive or dead" — then, according to the many-worlds interpretation, the world must split into two worlds: one in which the cat is alive, the other in which the cat is dead.

In this interpretation the world is constantly dividing into different worlds, in which all possible variants of events are realized.

But the cat's state can be described by more than two possible variants. For example: "the cat is alive and feels splendid," "the cat is alive and feels poorly," "the cat's heart has stopped, but brain activity is observed," "the cat's brain activity is not observed" — and in that case the world, according to the many-worlds interpretation, must split not into two but already into four. And if we introduce an assessment of the cat's state on a scale from 0 to 100, that is, 100 possibilities for the development of events, then, following the many-worlds interpretation, the world is now forced to divide so as to allow all these possibilities to be realized.

Thus, if one follows the many-worlds interpretation, then, simply by changing the observer's conception of the number of possible variants for the development of events, one can change the number of worlds in the world — and the observer themselves will continue their existence in all these worlds, but losing the connection with their clones in the parallel worlds. But here we return to the same question that Einstein posed regarding the Moon: can we say that worlds which cannot be observed or even imagined really exist?

To answer Einstein's question about the Moon, we need to settle what "exists" means. One can say that the unobserved moon represents only a set of possible parameter values that the observer can learn upon observing it.

That is, it exists only to the extent that the decay of an atomic nucleus "exists" before an observation has been made. Moreover, "before" is not a very good term here, because "after" an observation has been made, the atom will have been decayed (or not decayed) before the observation. Just as, in a cat box opened by an observer, the cat will be alive or dead before the box is opened, but in an unopened box the cat is neither alive nor dead.

The problem with the concept of "exists" is demonstrated by the "kangaroo-world paradox" (see The Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen Paradox in Plain Terms and… What the Ether Has to Do with It // 2019-12-18, Habr):

… when we close our eyes and switch off the instruments, everything around turns into kangaroos. But as soon as we switch on the instruments or open our eyes, everything turns into what we see. The paradoxical point is that these worlds can in principle be neither proved nor disproved and are, as a rule, discarded by Occam's razor.

(Occam's razor is the name for the principle "do not multiply entities beyond necessity")

In reality, if one thinks about it, the same paradox is possible with any other marsupial animal, or indeed … with reality as a whole: we can neither prove nor disprove the existence of a reality that we do not perceive, and we must cut it off with Occam's razor.

Or, to put it more simply, it makes no sense to speak of the "existence" of something that "we" do not know about. Both in space and in time, only that which is perceived by consciousness exists.

In other words, consciousness is the cause of the existence of anything whatsoever.

Moreover, we can define consciousness as the property of a subject to endow itself and the surrounding world with existence.

Indeed, let us imagine that in the double-slit experiment a mannequin very similar to a human is used as the "observer," or any other imitation of a human — for example, a humanoid robot capable of easily passing the Turing test. Could we deceive an electron, or even a photon, in this way? Can we in any way at all force a particle to "make a choice" without the presence of a human (or rather, without the presence of an observer possessing consciousness)?

It seems to me that physics, despite the historically established tendency to consider the objectively existing world to be the object of its study, must abandon the concept of particles that make choices and must not use the expression "a particle makes a choice."

Of course it is not the object that makes the choice, but the observer.

From the observer's point of view, only that which is perceived by consciousness exists.

The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics therefore makes as much sense as the hypothesis that, when we close our eyes, the surrounding world turns into kangaroos.

Note: A very witty logical refutation of the many-worlds interpretation was given in Alexander Boldachev's article The Logic of the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (2025).

Consciousness and Intellect in Quantum Mechanics

Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.

Niels Bohr

Let us imagine the following thought experiment:

Let us reproduce Schrödinger's experiment, but take several observers, each of whom will check the cat's state in such a way that the result of the check is not known to the others. And then, after a series of measurements, we shall compare the results.

To what extent do the results of observing the surrounding world agree among different people — does it really happen that, if one person has already seen the cat as dead, another can no longer see it as alive?

I am not aware of such experiments having been carried out, but we may suppose that the observation results of different people agree with one another, even if they did not communicate these results to each other.

From the conclusions we have already drawn, it follows that for such an experiment it is not necessary to take a cat, a Geiger counter, and an atomic nucleus. It is enough to throw a die into an opaque cup, to which observers then come up one at a time, record what they have seen, and afterwards compare their observations.

In the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen experiment, or in the analogous experiment with balls in boxes, one of which is on Earth and the other on Mars — if we hold that the particles cannot exchange information with each other — then it turns out that either

information about the observation made by the first observer is transmitted to the second observer, or
the observer is, in fact, one.

In the first case we encounter the same problem with observers that we had earlier with particles: information is transmitted faster than the speed of light and, indeed, without any interaction at all.

That is, if we suppose that in the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen experiment information is transmitted not from particle to particle but from observer to observer, then a transfer of information nevertheless takes place, and consequently it cannot be instantaneous, and the transmitted information may be subject to distortions.

In our thought experiment with the cat and a multitude of observers, if we suppose that the one who first opened the box somehow transmits information about what they saw, and that the unity of the picture of the world (including the cat) seen by different independent observers is ensured by such a transfer of information, then it would be logical to suppose that distortions are possible in such a transfer.

In the second case we can formulate the supposition that, in fact, the observer is one, and no transfer of information from one observer to another takes place. Of course, these may be different biological beings, but from the point of view of the observer's role in quantum physics, this is one and the same observer.

We can thus separate intellect and consciousness. Consciousness is one for all; any observer is one and the same consciousness, but each individual experimenter is endowed with their own intellect. In other words, if a box with a dead cat was opened by an illiterate shepherd, then a Nobel laureate would find in this same box the same dead cat; they may give different interpretations of what they saw owing to the difference in intellect, but they see the same thing — because it is one and the same observing consciousness.

On the one hand this may sound strange: a person who is at this moment on Mars, and a person who is at this moment on Earth, and a person who lived on Earth three thousand years ago, are manifestations of one and the same observer, by virtue of whose observation the observed objects pass from a mixture of possible states into specific (or, in other words, real or actually existing) states, acquiring existence in the present and the past. But it is precisely this explanation of quantum mechanics that is the most internally consistent and rids us of paradoxes. Moreover, such an explanation allows us to understand something important about ourselves. The awareness of one's own being and of the being of the surrounding world — that which distinguishes us, the Observer, from the observed objects.

Any "observer" in the terms of quantum mechanics is one and the same global subject, who is aware of reality and creates it by this awareness.

It turns out that "objective reality," the surrounding world, is nothing other than the result of consciousness separating itself from the surrounding world. This is what Kabbalah describes by the term "tzimtzum," literally "contraction," meaning by this that the infinite Creator (Ein Sof (אֵין סוֹף), literally "the infinite"), by limiting Himself, as it were creates a "vacant place" (מקום פנוי) in which the world appears. Or, in other words, the world appears by virtue of the Creator "separating" Himself from the world, and the world exists thanks to this "separation."

We may note that, while physicists have approached the boundaries of objective reality, the mystics have approached perhaps these same boundaries, but from the other side (see Fritjof Capra. The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism).

And here we shall for a while leave behind the physics laboratories with cats in iron boxes, Geiger counters, and photon guns, and move several thousand years back, into the Sinai desert.

The Tetragrammaton: Mysteries of the Ancient Name and the Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory

(לא לנו יהוה לא לנו כי לשמך תן כבוד)

The motto of the Order of the Templars (Knights Templar)

As to how to pronounce exactly the "basic" Four-Letter Name itself, we shall most likely learn this when the prophet Eliyahu comes, at the end of the sixth millennium (that is, already soon — at a time that the Most High will determine).

Rabbi Eliyahu Essas, On the Vocalization of the Four-Letter Name, 21.09.08

Now we shall try to apply our interpretation of quantum mechanics to unfolding the meaning of certain ancient legends and mysteries that have, in one way or another, held sway over the minds of people for millennia.

The Tetragrammaton. The sacred, unpronounceable name, the lost word of the European mystics.

So, then: Mount Sinai, presumably the second millennium BCE. A man named Moshe (known as Moses in Christianity or Musa in Islam) sees a burning bush from which the Most High addresses him. It is precisely in this conversation that the Most High tells Moshe His name.

Let us analyse this passage in the Tanakh. In the King James Version (KJV) the text reads as follows (Exodus 3:13–15):

13 And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?

14 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

15 And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.

The Hebrew text with an English translation (the Jewish Publication Society of America Version (JPS), 1917 Edition) can be read at Exodus Chapter 3 שְׁמוֹת.

We shall analyse the Hebrew text (the sound of the whole chapter in Hebrew) in connection with the interpretation of quantum mechanics that we considered above (the rendering is the present author's own — here translated into English):

[1]

וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה אֶל-הָאֱלֹהִים.

And Moshe says to the Most High [pl.]

We translated the Hebrew word אלוהים (Elohim) as "the Most High [pl.]." At its base is the root אל, which has the meaning "divine," but also "upward / on high." It is interesting that grammatically Elohim is a plural form, i.e., "the most high ones" or "gods," but a singular verb is used with it.

The Torah (the Bible) begins with the phrase בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים, literally "in the beginning the Most High [pl.] (plural) created (singular)."

The classic Soncino commentary explains the use of a plural subject with a singular predicate as follows:

Elohim, as a word of the language, has the meaning "a multitude of higher forces." However, when it is a matter of the Most High, the Torah admits no association with the aspect of plurality. The word Elohim, used as a name, has a somewhat different meaning: "the Source of the arising and the maintenance of the existence of all forces." It indicates that all existing forces, wherever they may manifest themselves, are always within the power of the Most High.

However, in the aspect of our interpretation of quantum mechanics — in which the multitude of observers that at first glance seem independent are in fact one and the same observer, who by their observation creates the surrounding world — we could explain such grammar in the Torah as a reflection of this aspect of what we have designated as the "observer" from the point of view of quantum mechanics.

[2]

הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי בָא אֶל-בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, וְאָמַרְתִּי לָהֶם, אֱלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתֵיכֶם שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם; וְאָמְרוּ-לִי מַה-שְּׁמוֹ, מָה אֹמַר אֲלֵהֶם

Behold, I have come to the sons of Israel, and have said to them: the God (the Most High [pl.]) of your fathers has sent me to you; and they said to me: what is His name? What am I to say to them? (literally: "what [did] I say to them?")

Here it should be noted that in the Torah the description of the future tense (Moshe asks about what will be when he comes to the sons of Israel) is carried out by means of words grammatically standing in the past tense, and such usage in Hebrew is used only in the language of the Tanakh.

[3]

וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים אֶל-מֹשֶׁה,

"And the Most High (the Most High [pl.]) says to Moshe:"

[4]

אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה

It sounds like "ehyeh asher ehyeh." The translation of this phrase has always been difficult.

The Soncino commentary explains this phrase as follows:

This name of the Most High, which in Hebrew sounds like Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, does not lend itself to an exact translation. Literally it could be translated as "I Will Be As I Will Be."

In the King James Version this phrase is rendered as "I AM THAT I AM."

That is, literally one can translate it as: "(I) will be which I will be," "I will exist as that which I will exist," "I will be that which I will exist," but the most felicitous translation, in my view, is: "the one who is the cause of being" (see The Tetragrammaton (the Four-Letter Name of God)).

Further, אהיה ("ehyeh" ("I will be")) is used as a name of the Most High:

[5]

וַיֹּאמֶר, כֹּה תֹאמַר לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, אֶהְיֶה, שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם.

And He said: thus shall you say to the sons of Israel, "I will be" (אהיה) has sent me to you.

By tradition, this word אהיה is pronounced during the reading of the Torah. And this word is used in modern Hebrew with the same meaning; see, for example, the popular song אייל גולן - אהיה בכל מקום (Eyal Golan, "I Will Be Everywhere" (the reference here, however, is not to the omnipresence of the Most High, but to a young man's love for a girl)).

In the King James Version:

"And he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you."

[6]

וַיֹּאמֶר עוֹד אֱלֹהִים אֶל-מֹשֶׁה, כֹּה-תֹאמַר אֶל-בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי אֲבֹתֵיכֶם אֱלֹהֵי אַבְרָהָם אֱלֹהֵי יִצְחָק וֵאלֹהֵי יַעֲקֹב, שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם; זֶה-שְּׁמִי לְעֹלָם, וְזֶה זִכְרִי לְדֹר דֹּר.

And the Most High said further to Moshe: thus shall you say to the sons of Israel: "he will be (יהוה) the Most High of your fathers, the Most High of Abraham, the Most High of Isaac, and the Most High of Jacob, the one who has sent me to you." This is my name for ever (it can also be read "conceal this my name" — but this contradicts the instruction, given just before, to make this name known), and this is the remembrance of me through the generations.

In the King James Version:

And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.

In this passage the name of the Most High is written יהוה. This is the Tetragrammaton, the sacred, unpronounceable name.

Its vocalization in the Torah, יְהוָה, deliberately does not correspond to the way Moshe pronounced this name, and serves as a reminder that, by tradition, in this place the word "Adonai" ("Our Lord") is pronounced, the vowel points of which have, in adapted form, been transferred in this case (allowing for the fact that in one case the first letter uses a sheva, and in another a hataf-patach; see The Vocalization of the Tetragrammaton and Baruch Podolsky. The Name of God).

אהיה — the first-person singular future tense of the verb לִהיוֹת, which denotes "to be, to exist, to become," and is, among other things, used as a modal verb in constructions for forming the future ("I will do something") or the past tense, or the subjunctive mood.

The root of the verb: ה-י-ה (heh – yod – heh)

In Strong's notation (concordance), this root is H1961, and etymologically it derives from, or is connected with, the root הוה (Strong's H1933), which is used in the verb לְהַווֹת, whose basic meaning is also "to be, to exist" (the translation in B. Podolsky's Dictionary: "1. to compose, to create, to form; 2. to constitute / to represent"). The root of this verb: ה - ו -ה (heh – vav – heh)

Thus, in the ancient but still popular song "Adon Olam (Lord of the World)" ("Adon Olam" / "אדון עולם") there is a line about the Most High:

And He was, and He is

וְהוּא הָיָה וְהוּא הֹוֶה

Transliteration: "V'hu hayah v'hu hoveh," see the performances by Sarit Hadad or Israeli soldiers.

For the past tense, a form of the verb לִהיוֹת (he was) is used; for the present tense, a form of the verb לְהַווֹת (he is) is used.

It is traditionally held that the Tetragrammaton is formed from the root ה-י-ה (the verb לִהיוֹת) (see The Tetragrammaton (the Four-Letter Name of God)); its exact grammatical meaning is unknown.

We, however, hold that the Tetragrammaton is formed from the root ה - ו -ה (the verb לְהַווֹת); accordingly, יהוה should be read as "he will be," with the vocalization יְהֻוֶּה (sheva, shuruk, segol; the vav (ו) being a root letter, not a vowel point).

That is, this is the third-person singular future tense of the verb "to be" (לְהַווֹת) — "he will be" (see the forms of this verb at https://www.pealim.com/dict/452-lehavot/)

Thus, in the first case we have:

And He said: thus shall you say to the sons of Israel, "I will be" (אהיה) has sent me to you.

and further:

And the Most High said further to Moshe: thus shall you say to the sons of Israel, he will be (יְהֻוֶּה) the Most High of your fathers, the Most High of Abraham, the Most High of Isaac, and the Most High of Jacob — the one who has sent me to you.

If we accept the proposition that in this passage the answer to the question "what is His name" (מַה שְּׁמוֹ) is contained three times:

(1) אהיה אשר אהיה

(2) אהיה

(3) יהוה

And in the first two mentions we have a grammatically clear form of the verb "to be / to exist" — "I will be" — then into this scheme there also fits the assumption that in the third it should be read as "he will be," which in turn yields a phrase that holds together logically and grammatically: he will be (יְהֻוֶּה) the Most High of your fathers, the Most High of Abraham, the Most High of Isaac, and the Most High of Jacob — the one who has sent me to you (or, as a possible variant: "[and] he has sent me to you").

But, of course, a grammatically correct phrase is not enough for us, for we assume that it must contain a meaning that helps us understand something important about the Most High and about ourselves: about who we are, and who the Most High is, and what the interrelation is between the Creator, the world, and the human being.

So, let us look — from the point of view of the conclusions we drew in the part concerning quantum mechanics — at the tradition that sacralized the words denoting existence as denoting God.

The conclusion about the singularity of the "observer" — despite its seeming to us that there are many observers — and the conclusion that this observer is precisely that which allows the world "to be," seem to us consonant with the idea that God is one and that He is that which conditions the existence of the world (אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה).

Indeed, consciousness is divine, in the sense that it lies, as it were, outside the bounds of the objective world. We cannot create consciousness, in the sense that we cannot (at least, not yet) create a new "observer" in the terms of quantum mechanics; we can only be it.

From this point of view we can explain how, six thousand years ago, the material world — which has already existed for millions and billions of years — was "created." The past is "created" by an act of observation. The photon that we measured passed, in the past, through a specific slit in the double-slit experiment; the cat in the box that we opened was already alive or dead in the past as well. Likewise, the world that the observer "saw" had "existed" for millions of years in the past. But without an observer this world does not exist and did not exist in the past. In the past it has only a "quantum superposition," but even this quantum superposition in the past is merely a "reasoning" about what is in the unopened box, and not an actual being inside the box.

We can create a computer capable of performing an enormous number of computations, but we cannot (at least, not yet) create a computer that knows that it exists.

From this point of view, the idea that the human being is created "in the image and likeness" of the Most High (בְּצַלְמֵנוּ כִּדְמוּתֵנוּ) becomes comprehensible. This, of course, does not mean that the Most High has two hands, two legs, one head, and two ears. It means that "the human being" in this context means a bearer of consciousness; that is, by "the human being" here is meant not a biological creature that in the past descended from the ape in the course of evolution, but a subject possessing consciousness, and by the creation of the human being here is understood not the process of evolution of a biological organism, but the appearance of the "observer" in the terms of quantum physics — that is, the human being's awareness of themselves as someone existing and separate from the surrounding world, which in turn conditions the existence of the world.

Conclusions

We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances…

Isaac Newton, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy

…when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth

Sherlock Holmes (A. Conan Doyle, "The Sign of the Four")

A consistent interpretation of quantum mechanics can be built on the basis of the following:

There exists only that which possesses consciousness, or that which is perceived by the consciousness of an observer.
Consciousness is the property of a subject to endow itself and the surrounding world with existence.
The collapse of the wave function — i.e., the object's selection of an actual state from the range of possibilities — occurs as a result of a choice made by the subject, and not by the object of observation. The range of possibilities, moreover, is set by the observer.
No individual object possesses a separate existence; rather, it is a set of properties singled out by the observer from the observed world.
From the point of view of quantum mechanics, there exists only one "observer." All beings or subjects possessing consciousness are its manifestation.
All subjects possessing consciousness are connected. Every subject possessing consciousness can interact with itself. Any interaction of any subjects possessing consciousness is an interaction of a certain entity with itself. This entity is the Creator of the world, and it is simultaneously the cause and the effect of the existence of all subjects possessing consciousness, or of each such subject.
An intuitive awareness of the propositions of the preceding points lies at the basis of monotheistic religion.

Discussion:

Discussion of this article on Habr (in Russian) and a continuation of the discussion (in Russian) in the comments to the article on quantum teleportation.

Is the Experiment with Schrödinger's Cat a Paradox?​

Quantum Superposition and the Role of the Observer in Quantum Physics​

The Double-Slit Experiment​

Schrödinger's Experiment with the Cat​

The Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen Paradox (EPR Paradox) and Quantum Teleportation​

The Observer and a Critique of the Many-Worlds Interpretation​

Consciousness and Intellect in Quantum Mechanics​

The Tetragrammaton: Mysteries of the Ancient Name and the Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics​

Conclusions​