Technology, Connected - Is The Quantum Wave Collapse Proof Of Free Will?

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

If consciousness isn’t produced by the brain but instead produces the brain, what does that make reality?In Chapter 8 of Irreducible, Federico Faggin stops describing consciousness and starts rebuilding the universe around it. He argues that awareness isn’t an accident of matter but the foundation of everything, that every particle carries meaning, not just information.Here he introduces a new model: Quantum Information-based Panpsychism. It joins physics and perception, suggesting that reality itself is built from conscious experience, private, uncopyable, and alive.From this comes a radical idea: free will isn’t philosophy, it’s physics. Each decision, each act of attention, is the quantum moment when possibility becomes fact.This chapter isn’t about theory; it’s about what happens when you accept that the universe might be conscious, and that your choices help create it.This is a book club of Irreducible, Chapter 8.Please enjoy the show. And subscribe if you're conscious.Cheers, Mark and Jeremy --Chapters(00:00) Consciousness and The Big Questions(01:24) The Shift in Understanding Consciousness(02:38) Consciousness: Quantum vs Classical(06:14) What Is Panpsychism and Quantum Information?(09:03) Qualia and Conscious Experience(11:23) What Is Seity?(19:26) Free Will and Quantum Entanglement(21:21) Unsolved Problems of Existence--Other ways to connect with us:⁠Listen to every podcast⁠Follow us on ⁠Instagram⁠Follow us on ⁠X⁠Follow Mark on ⁠LinkedIn⁠Follow Jeremy on ⁠LinkedIn⁠Read our ⁠Substack⁠Email: [e-mail]

Disruptors and curious minds. Welcome to the Thinking on Paper Book Club, where we read books that will change your mind. Books that will change your consciousness. And I had a whole script planned out for what I was going to say today, and I've thrown out of the window because I don't know where to start. We're reading Chapter 8 of Irreducible by Federico Fajon. It's short, he's redefining what it means to be conscious,

and by that he's redefining how we understand the world, the universe, and everything in it. Federico's new way to understand consciousness will help us answer all but one of perhaps the biggest questions that any human has ever asked. The problem of creation. Why does something exist? The problem of order. Why is there order instead of chaos in the universe? The problem of life. How did life emerge and why? The problem of consciousness. How did consciousness appear in living beings and what is its purpose? And the problem of free will.

And he's going to answer all but one of those with his news theory on. consciousness. Existential questions today. So if you know, if you listen to this, go, Mark, I'm moan my law and I don't have time to think about this. Come back to it later. Bookmark the podcast. Listen at your own leisure. So, Jeremy, chapter eight, irreducible, where do you begin? Well, let me, let's step into this. Let's step into this. So chapters one through seven, it was kind of like you're reading through the chapter. You're like, yeah, okay. Yep, yep. Hurry. Yeah, can connect the dot. Yep. Okay, great. Yep. And like chapter eight, our host and author, grabs us by the choler and shakes loose something new.

This was like, wow. So consciousness, as we set the tone for this, he says, is really the only thing that differentiates reality from imitation of it. So in this age of AI, in this age of computers creating things, creating versions of experiences and realities, pointing back to consciousness being the one thing that can differentiate what is real and what is not. And it's an interplay between interactions. We have an inner semantic, inner semantic,

and you can't see my semantic. You can't experience my inner semantic. But when I translate my inner semantic into an outer symbolic, you begin to understand. But guess what happens when I do that? I go from quantum to classical. My inner semantic, my inner perception of things is quantum. When I go to explain what I'm feeling to you,

it comes out and that is classical. We are the hard problem of consciousness. And what did I say in episode two? That every time you have a thought, any time a thought pops into your mind, that is the wave function of collapsing and that is a quantum process that's allowing you to do that. I'm going to quote from Federico Fajan

for our audience just to give an idea of what his actual, would you describe a postulate he calls it, a thesis, an idea, his way to describe the universe. So, quote, I find it hard to believe that consciousness could emerge from organizations, that are devoid of it. Hence, for consciousness to emerge from inanimate matter, a minimum quantum of consciousness should also exist in at least one of the elementary particles of which the atoms are made. TLDR, consciousness is fundamental to the universe. It's not coming from our brain.

It's not an odd side project of our brain. It's actually, if it's in the fabric of the universe, Our body, we don't need our bodies. Wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. You just said consciousness is a side hustle of our brain. I love that. When it's not, is it? It's not right. It's not just the side hustle, right?

Well, let's, we can, we can go into this a little bit with, with his idea, basically human beings are fields. And let's, let's get into that here in a little bit. But you talk about what you, what you were saying the second ago is consciousness being fundamental, all right? So that is a theory called panpsychism, which has been around for a long, long time. It's that consciousness is a fundamental element of the universe, even before particles. Because some people, some people think the other theories are like, okay, consciousness emerges

from material things. Consciousness emerges from molecules and particles and all of these things. They emerge out of it as a secondary experience. But panpsychism says that it's part of the foundational elements of things, meaning, you know, again, irreducible, like you can't go below these foundational elements. They are what they are. And that's what panpsychism is. But you say the word panpsychism, people are like, oh, what is that? It's a little froufoo. Like more, more spiritual, less science. But as we see our host and author runs us through this stuff, it's actually like a very, very interwoven thing between spirituality, between science.

And one thing I wanted to point out, it was part in this book, but part in our like, So Mark and I are digging into supplemental material from Frederico Fajian to help us connect the dots in some of this stuff because we have to go deeper. Our curiosity has driven us to go deeper. What I really means is to help us understand just some of what the hell he's saying some of the time. That is for me. That too. No, no, it's both. But the idea that this theory, this postulate that he has a quantum information based panpsychism, QIP, which is basically talking about what I just said before,

Reality is both semantic and symbolic. It's internal, it's inner and it's outer. And it's all based on quantum information. And what was that gentleman's name, Di Amelio? No, not what is his name? Okay, let's go back there. Diaryano. Diaryano.

Yeah. So, Federico Fajan, he came across something called operational probabilistic theory that this GM, Dariano, and his club is developed. And that showed that, quote, quantum physics can logically derive from quantum information. However, quantum information is completely abstract, i.e. devoid of any meaning. If consciousness is fundamental, information without meaning makes no sense at all. I'm not sure that makes much sense to most people. And that was the essential aspect was missing from this QIP. So Federico Fajan spent some time speaking to GM Deriano about this. And Federico is like, okay, yeah, conscious experience

is an irreducible aspect of quantum information. Mix that into this original QIP and you get this quantum information-based panpsychism. So essentially it's added ingredient into panpsychism, which is this conscious experience, the quality of it, we all have this innate, unique internal experience. Put that in there and you get QIP. Let's, all right, so let's go back to what you said a second ago, Mark.

You said something about quantum information is an absolute. abstraction. And what did you say? It's, it's, is in quantum information is completely abstract, i.e. devoid of any meaning. Okay. Okay. This is fundamental information without meaning makes no sense at all. Okay. Let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's keep on that first part of that. Quantum information is devoid of meaning. I can't remember if there's the Michiocaku book or or, or Carlo Rovelli, but like I, I remember thinking when two particles are entangled, quantum entanglement. Information can travel between those two particles faster than the speed of light.

But the problem is that information that's moving at the speed of light is noise. It's static. It's not signal. It's kind of nonsense. It doesn't make sense. But what it actually is is the probability of all of the situations that can happen between those two particles. I remember if we have to like clarify that speed of light, think if someone's just tuning

into this, you know, things are moving fast than the speed of light. Then I think that we're complete idiots. We are complete idiots, though. Well, we are complete idiots. Yes, that's why we're doing this. But it's not exactly what we're saying. is it so it's that entanglement of quantum physics. One bit can be a negative, the other can be positive,

but there can be billions of light years apart, and then they change in accordance with each other. And it says that that's the information, and that's the beauty and the weirdness and the strangeness of quantum mechanics, is that that happens. And for that to happen, if it was a one bit sending a signal to the other one, obviously it would be going faster than speed of light, because it couldn't be this instantaneous change on the other side of the galaxy.

but that is happening in entanglement. So whatever that is, nobody knows, that probability of, I don't know, yeah, yes, I remember. All right, so let's continue. Let's continue.

So remember in the beginning of this, everyone we talked about. It was Carlo Revelli, by the way, that was the order of time. Ooh, well played. And by the way, you can listen to that whole book

unpacked by Mark and I, chapter by chapter in book club. I mentioned in the beginning, we have inner semantic. This is what I'm feeling. Inner semantic. You don't know what I'm feeling, Mark. Once I explained to,

you how I'm feeling, that's when quantum information, as this theory predicts, internal and semantic is quantum. Consciousness is quantum. And when I explain consciousness, or I explain my feeling to you, that's when it becomes classical. That's when there's a wave collapse, right? So that's, that's what I want to bring up to is this holivo's theorem, holoeveros theorem. There's always a one-to-one relationship between a classical bit and a quantum bit, because you have, you have this whole of things, basically the probability of all things happening, and there's a collapse into one thing happening. So there's that, there's that quantum to classical conversion there as described by Halebos. All right, talking through this, let's talk about qualia.

Let's talk about qualia as described by our host and author. So I'm going to read that. You mean that every co-fadden. Yes, our host and author. Yeah, go on then. That's right. So qualia is the experience of a quantum system in a pure quantum state. So what is a pure quantum state? And you referenced this a second ago. Pure quantum state is not clonable and it's private and it's definite. So that would explain. That's how I'm like, okay, my feelings are that quantum state because my feelings are definite. My feelings are private and they can't be copied and cloned and thrown in your brain. Am I seeing that? Am I hearing that correct? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. That's how I

interpreted it as well. So conscious experience is private then. Yes. Quote, a pure quantum state is the mathematical entity most suitable to represent an experience because it has the extraordinary property of being irreproducible yet knowable by the system feeling it. Yeah, which is what you said. Okay, good. That makes sense. I feel like I'm connecting the dots. Conscious experience at private. So we've talked about comprehension in the last few chapters and comprehension as a difference between computers and us, a difference between silicon and carbon. So comprehension is the transformation from live to quantum information within a conscious entity. So is that a wave collapse?

Is that a free will working in a wave collapse? Is that comprehension? I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but I think every thought, every idea is a quantum process, so the wave collapse. So yes. Not everything is a quantum process because once it's turned into classical, whatever you experience inside you, the feelings, the emotions, the thoughts.

Okay, okay. I'm going to read just to give some optimism because... I'm optimistic, man. I feel good right now. To our audience. It's melted a little bit. What does this mean for technology and artificial intelligence? Because everyone's listening to this, they want to know, what about the machines?

So, quote, the fact that a pure state cannot be reproduced makes it homomorphic to the qualia, I feel. For I too cannot fully describe my love without violating the no cloning theorem. I can only partially express my love with words or with other classical symbols, but that partial description cannot be confused with the love I feel within myself. Moreover, for the symbols to be understood, the receiver must comprehend my words. It should not be surprising then that comprehension requires a transformation from live to quantum information within a conscious entity. Therefore, a pure quantum state is the mathematical entity, this is what I said earlier,

most suitable to represent an experience because it has the extraordinary property of being irreproducible, yet knowable while the system feeling it. Thus, quantum physics, which supervenes on quantum information, indicates that the ultimate ontology resides in the private experience representable by quantum information. This is as far as mathematics can go to describe reality. True knowing is non-alorithmic and only partially shareable with classic symbols, i.e. with algorithms.

Said differently, so if you don't know what I just said, clearly know what I just said, said differently, conscious experience is non-alorithmic because it cannot be known through algorithms, but only by experiencing what. What is known. That's why machines cannot. Okay, again, inter semantic, outer symbolic. Yeah.

Inter semantic, outer symbolic. Sayety, Jeremy. So I've written down saity, what the F? I learned a whole new word. Yeah, sayety, sayity. Some weird stuff going on with the part on sayity. So the definition, a self-conscious entity that can act with free will is a saity. S-E-I-T-Y.

So as soon as I started reading this, if you guys have read any Buckminster Fuller, specifically nine chains to the moon, which I've suggested multiple times to Mark, but he's slightly frightened of it, which he should be, which he should be. It's a gnarly read. But Buckminster Fuller calls the Sadie, I think, he refers to it as the Phantom Captain. The Phantom Captain that's like in those movies where you have a meck and you drop into the meck and your control on the body. The Phantom Captain is making the decisions. and the seity is the decision maker for the body. And the body is the body is how the saity experiences and organizes what's happening in the world. The body allows, here's what I wrote, the body allows the saity to perceive and operate in the physical world. Yeah, okay. So a seity exists even without a physical body. And this is a crucial statement because it means that our existence does not depend on the body's existence. The body simply allows the saity to perceive and operate in the physical world,

which is only a small portion of the vast reality in which, She exists now, yes, he's referring to it as she. I don't want to go into what that means. That's the opens a conversation about life after death, and I'm just not going there today. So maybe we can save that for... Well, suffice it to say, suffice it to say friends and neighbors that there's more to everything than meets the eye. Boom.

Next. In principle, a society could be described with a set of quantum equations, which, however, could not represent. This is where we need a proper scientist to come on to explain it. Or a mathematician, I don't know, he's talking about Heisenberg's in determining. and how using this his new theory of consciousness somehow you could use mathematics to describe kindness and it was like what is going on that that was bonkers yeah i want to i want to jump into that i kind of love it though yeah i loved it was like yeah well let's let's all right let's look at um let's look at

page 172 here for a second what's the difference between conscious and self-conscious being self-conscious is is much more than being conscious without identity let me read this assaity is endowed with a unique and permanent identity because she knows that the conscious experience she is having is her own, and thus she can direct her experience. Being self-conscious is much more than being conscious without identity. Quantum entities that are conscious but not self-conscious, I call thought forms. Thought forms do not know that their experience is their own, and this could not direct their own actions and experience with free will.

So this idea it has that, okay, consciousness is fundamental to the universe. If the universe is a field, it's in the field. It's part of everything, which means that consciousness has levels. So our consciousness, my consciousness, your consciousness is not the same as your cat's consciousness. And your cat's consciousness is not the same as a mouse. And it goes down, down, down, down to these like fundamental particles that they have, they have no free will because they're particles, but they do have what he calls thought forms. They do not know their experience is their own.

and this they can't direct it, but they are still conscious, not like we are, but in this theory of consciousness being fundamental to the fabric of the universe. So it's like a self-awareness level, right? So it's, yeah. There's something experiencing some sort of qualia,

but they don't know that that qualia is being experienced by them. That's the difference. And their quali wouldn't be like ours asking existential questions about what is nothing that they would just be doing whatever the cell does or whatever that protein does or whatever that particle does. It wouldn't be going, I'm a light particle. I'm going to do something different.

Might go a bit slower today. Chill out. Just relax. Kick back. You actually can't. We learn that electrons actually have granular force. Electrons spin at the same force no matter what. It's not like, hey, I'm an electron today.

I'm going to spin a little bit lighter. They're all spinning at the same force. Let's kick back against Kevin Kelly here because everyone says AI is AI creative. Everyone says AI is creative. Wait, Kevin Kelly, you mean the guy that was on our show a while back, the founder of Wired magazine? Thinking on paper, XYZ, you're to listen to. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you can listen to us to have other conversations with other people about whether AI is creative or not.

Free will implies creative choices from within that cannot be determined by any algorithm or mathematics, but only represented apostatire experiences not in mathematics. in a simulation a minute. Does that mean that the argument isn't creative because it doesn't have free will? Yeah, so he talks about it at the very end of this. There's no real creativity in a computer because creativity requires non-alorithmic choices

that can only be made by a quantum entity controlling the computer from the outside. Let me read that one more time because I've got a funky idea on this. Yeah. There is no real creativity in a computer because creativity requires non-alorithmic choices that can only be made by a quantum entity,

phantom captain controlling the computer from the outside. All right, here's what I wrote in the book. What about quantum AI controllers? What if there was a quantum computer that could control an AI, a computer that actually lives as the quantum conscious side of the fence that controls the classical side of the fence? Then yes, this goes back to what we were raging about the other day, where everyone makes robots out of metal and silicon and chips. But if you start making your robots in a petri dish, then yes. Or if you use a quantum computer, then yes, because then it's been built from the inside out. It has the building blocks of life.

It's organic. It's conscious. Then yes. Okay. So we're now seeking funding for our quantum AI controller patented by thinking on paper. A16C, feel free to give us a shout. And we'll talk about it. Toddcast is great.

You can just literally say anything you want. If we just redefine physics. We're changing physics. What this book is. What this book is doing is redefining physics. It's redefining what science means. Redefining our understanding of science, I think. Or unifying.

What is I think that to be able to unify physics, we must abandon the current approach and open ourselves to a new vision. New concepts are needed. Okay. So what did you think? Big, isn't it? He's not like, he's not, he's not messing about. No, he's not messing about. So, all right.

Mike drop moment in this chapter. If we were to turn this chapter. into short editable TikTok videos. This would be the mic drop moment. Free will is proven by quantum entanglement. He believes free will, the proof for free will exists in quantum entanglement. And the wave collapse of the field of a particle is actually free will in action as described by science. Sam Harris would be mad at that one.

Maybe Sam and Anika could both come on and talk about this with us. You've got to go on TikTok and do that. And I want to see what TikTok says. Dude, I don't even know how to like, I think I've maybe tried to make one TikTok piece of content. The entanglement stuff. I'm just trying to find where there's another sentence about entanglement, which I read it.

And then I just kind of tried to forget that it existed. Okay, here we go. I got it. I got it right here. All right. Since entangled quantum systems exhibit non-local correlations, quantum entanglement provides the conclusive proof that classical states can not exist prior to the quantum

transformations that manifest them wave collapse, right? This is exactly the necessary conditions for the existence of free will, Mike Drop, by our host and author. Coming soon to a TikTok channel near you. Right, let's just for the sake of posterity, answer some of these questions, the unsolved problems, the problem of creation, the problem of order, the problem of life, the problem of consciousness, the problem of free will. Now, these five problems, he does say that his theory will not answer the first problem, the problem of creation. Why does something exist instead of nothing? Where does the universe come from?

Has it always existed? What is its purpose? He says it's a miracle and you can't. Our brains can't answer that question. He thinks that that question goes unanswered. Well, we do know how our life got to be in a way. With cyanobacteria, burping, we've talked about this a lot, created our atmosphere, created life on Earth.

No, Luca, Luca. Yeah, tell me, tell us about Luke. Well, Luca, last universal common ancestor, no scientist has ever been able to explain how it was created by natural processes. So evolution Darwinism works from that point. Survivor of the fittest, evolution works from that point. But it doesn't work before that point. At what point does non-conscious become conscious? It's like, what is that a miracle?

Do we have to say that? With his theory. He's accepting one miracle. And the rest of it. Not that one. Yeah. He's accepting one miracle, like, because our brains can't handle the problem of creation. But his theory answers that problem because if there is consciousness in the fundamental building blocks of the universe, then Luca, that last universal common answer, that first one, that first point, that first glimmer of consciousness came from something that was already conscious.

So that answer is that one. Sorry, Darwin. So, yeah, so on these nested, he talks about these nested level. The emergence of the inanimate, which then all living organisms are nested in the first level there, in this second level. And then the third level, all conscious organisms are tested in that level. And then the fourth level finally nested within all of those levels is all conscious organisms plus free will. And he has this like a little almost the, what are those like the Russian doll? Yeah, Russian doll.

Yeah, yeah. In other words, living organisms must emerge from inanimate matter. conscious organisms emerge from unconscious organisms and free will emerges from conscious organism and a similar structure also applies to the laws that govern each level. And that is the bit, I think the only problem of the five that can never be solved is the problem of creation. The beginning of the universe, assuming there was a beginning,

is something that is beyond the reach of our feeble, I added that, minds. And yet we need to start with reasonable posture to explain the other problems as logical consequences of the only miracle of creation that must be accepted. There's just stuff we don't understand is what it really boils down. down to. There's, there's just stuff that is beyond our current comprehension to understand. And we have this stubbornness, not just you and I, Mark, but all of the, uh, all of the human species has this, um,

need to organize, organize label, define into blocks. It's like when you learned about cells in, you know, elementary school or when you were younger and you learned a, okay, a cell is a thing and and then it has a mitochondria and that's like a thing. And there are all these little objects and a molecule is a thing. It's a round ball. Not really. It's this interaction between fields and what you're seeing is kind of the result of that interaction.

But that's pretty complex, man. The reason I say that is like that should in and of itself put people's minds in a situation where we have to be open to the possibilities of which we don't understand. Are you buying into the theory? Do you believe it? Are you going to change your mental models of how and how you think about consciousness? I've always thought we're in this constant state of becoming. That's permeated all of the things that I've been learning and teaching and being involved with is, you know, we're different than we were five seconds ago.

And even compounded over time or the cells in our body change every year. Well, yeah, there is no moment. There is no moment. There is no moment. We're just an organized collection of particles that is assembling, in a sense. certain way in a certain moment in time. Well, time doesn't even exist. But we're going to leave that for the whole order of time book. But we're just organizations and approximations. So I definitely am super, I've always been interested in quantum because quantum is this possible explanation for the magic that we don't understand. And classical is our way, is our means to get our head around and

organized stuff, sometimes to our detriment. Sometimes things don't need to be organized. And they're not hierarchical. They're emergent. And there's this, there's this flow of, top to bottom, but I'm feeling it, man. The biggest thing, I guess, for me, and I said this right at the beginning of the episode, is inter-semantic, quantum, outer symbolic, classical. And we are, we are machines that are both quantum and classical at the same time. And there is no hard line between, well, where's the quantum in mark? And where's the classical in mark? It's like, beautiful analogy he used was a true and false. Something is true only or false only in a moment in time. And we are organizations and approximations in a moment in time. So the boundaries,

between what is classical with us and what is quantum with us is pretty fluid. How are you feeling, Mark? I'm feeling conscious, Jeremy. I'm feeling aware. I'm feeling like I'm connected somehow to existence in the universe and creation. I'm feeling as if maybe our consciousness is not a byproduct of events in the brain. But maybe my consciousness is here and here and here and here and here and here and in the trees and in the leaves and in the bees and everywhere else. So that's how I'm feeling.

I'm feeling conscious. So the question is, I think, listener, how are you going to use your consciousness? Because regardless of whether consciousness is fundamental to the very fabric of the universe, regardless of whether consciousness can explain, imagine that the big bang. Consciousness somehow developed and exploded out with all those other things at the beginning of time. Imagine that. Consciousness was in there. It doesn't matter if that's true or thought. also, yeah, the primordial quark glue-on conscious soup that exploded out into the universe.

You're conscious. What are you going to do with it? What are you going to do with it, Jeremy? What are you going to do next? What am I going to do next? I'm going to stay down the rabbit hole, man. This is some fascinating stuff. And almost like, dare I say quasi-tangible stuff that I've always been kind of thinking about

that there was an interconnectedness. But the idea that he's starting to kind of break it down a little bit. And by the way, P.S., quantum theory in general is one of the, most proven theories in science. I think it was proven the most times out of any other theories. So when we look at it, it was like, oh, well, that's just magic and weird stuff. No, it's actually one of the most proven theories in science. I can't remember where I read that, but it was, it was somewhere. And hopefully someone can push us around if I'm incorrect. But there we have it, guys. That's the new vision. Jump on board. The Frederico Fajian consciousness train,

fundamental quantum information-based panpsychism. Stay on the journey. something I never thought I'd say. Oh my gosh. Well, hey, a couple more chapters to go, guys. Tell us what you're thinking about this. Drop us a line. Give us a book. Do you want to jump in to this book club?

Do you want to be on one of these screens about to talk through a particular book with us? If you do, drop us the line, hello at thinking on paper. XYZ. Hit us on social media, all the fun stuff. Mark, any other closing thoughts. Can you hear that? That's the sound of the wave function collapsing. in our decision to end the show.

Stay curious, be disruptive. Keep thinking on paper.