Explaining Our Biases With Quantum Mechanics
by TE Mark – Writer (Mark Thomas)
15/02/2025
HUMAN BIAS
As humans, we’re naturally biased. Even what we call our preferences – whether ethical or unscrupulous, consequentialist or deontological – are biases. For some we find explanations in chemistry or biology – others in cognitive psychology or sociology while some researchers delve even deeper into things like evolution.
But what about physics? Specifically, physics at the quantum level. Are our biases possibly something beneath chemistry, biology, sociology and cognitive psychology? Could our biases be something more elemental?
We’re masses of electrical energy radiating our own electromagnetic biofields from the electrical activity of our cells. Our organs and tissue are comprised of positively charged protons and negatively charged electrons – every cell producing a small electrical current due to chemical reactions.
Our brains produce significant electrical activity measurable through techniques like EEG and MEG.
But before I push even further into my Bias as a Quantum Mechanical function thesis, let’s look at accepted explanations in the other sciences.
CHEMICAL REACTION BIASES
All smells are chemical reactions between odour molecules (airborne particles / vapours) and receptors in your nose.
Depending on your body chemistry, you will have a natural bias towards certain foods, colognes, scented soaps and shampoos, or the body odour of another person.
Have you ever met someone who had an entirely different diet from you (ate lots of garlic, onions, meat, curry, what-have-you) and found being around them unpleasant?
How about taste? Ever kiss someone whose body chemistry was so different from yours you had such a strong negative chemical reaction that you cancelled that next date? And regardless of all the good, (intelligent – funny – same tastes in books & films – You both liked Shrek) you just couldn’t get past it?
These are reasonable biases easily explained in chemistry. Let’s move then to…
BIOLOGICAL BIASES
Our biological biases overlap and intersect with our other biases, such as: Anthropic Biases (biases as the result of being Human) Material or Physical Bias (our biases in virtue of being composed of matter.)
Like explaining smell and taste biases with chemistry, biological biases are mostly straight forward. Anthropic biases: I may like and respect your dog but will probably discount her fringe Astrophysics theory on early galaxy formation before even hearing her out. (How this bias will play out with aliens or synthetic intelligence is a subject for a future exploration)
Material or Physical biases: I said mostly straight forward above. This may cause you to expand a bit. Our material bias may extend to our evaluation of abstractions that lie outside the realm of our physical universe or reality. (Can we avoid bias if we were to compare our biological selves to a thought, an opinion, idea or a number? You may wish to review Platonism if this idea confuses or intrigues you.)
COGNITIVE & PSYCHOLOGICAL BIASES
Cognitive and psychological biases are mostly indistinguishable. And as we’re heading, you guessed it, with guns blazing into Quantum Consciousness, I’m going to give just a few examples of each holding back the presumably unnecessary definitions.
EXAMPLES OF COGNITIVE & PSYCHOLOGICAL BIASES
Overconfidence bias, Anchoring, Confirmation bias, False consensus effect, Bandwagon effect, Halo effect, Attentional bias, Gambler’s fallacy, Hindsight bias, Self-serving bias, Ambiguity effect, Clustering illusion, Congruence bias, Optimism bias, Authority bias, etc.
Cognitive Psychological biases are considered behavioural deviations from rational judgment. But not everyone agrees. German psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer favours interpreting them as “rational deviations arising from logical thought.”
Though this appears a minor distinction, it’s not. Dr Gigerenzer is essentially calling bias both rational and logical.
SOCIAL & SOCIOLOGICAL BIASES
Keep in mind many of these are considered unconscious or unintentional and can be either positive or negative. Our brains like to take mental shortcuts (use Heuristics) that can save us time and energy. The downside being the inaccuracies and possibly injurious judgments of individuals or entire groups of people.
EXAMPLES OF SOCIAL BIASES
Racism, Gender bias, Ageism, Classism, Name bias, Socioeconomic bias, Illusory superiority, Stereotype, Authority bias, Beauty bias etc.
Nature vs Nurture. Do we learn these from our parents and peers? Our environment - the media? Or is there something else going on? Something deeper?
You’re an educated, Oxford scholar convinced bias is directly related to low intelligence – deficient education – inferior nurture by proletarian caregivers and environmental norms. (and I am unconvinced I can even hypothesize a more biased opinion)
领英推荐
Or;
You’re a beer-drinking football fan convinced the egg-headed, misguided, Oxford educated scholars and politicians are sending the country and entire world to Hell-in-a-handbasket. (Beer-drinking football fan? Did I just write that?)
BIAS IN SOCIOLOGY
“Bias is any thought or action that discriminates or disproportionately favors one person or group of people over another based on superficial or inaccurate perceptions of the person or group.” (Addressing Bias: Rights, Responsibilities and Responses – Penn State.)
I felt it necessary to include a definition that highlights ethics, morals and our hugely successful attempts at stemming bias in the workplace, in our academic institutions and society. (Don’t despair, we’re still working on Faster Than Light Travel too.)
QUANTUM CONSCIOUSNESS & QUANTUM BIAS
Mathematical Physicist Roger Penrose proposed that consciousness is a quantum phenomenon. (The Emperor’s New Mind 2016 - Consciousness and the Universe: Quantum Physics, Evolution, Brain & Mind 2017) His theory suggests consciousness originates at the quantum level inside neurons – that it’s not a product of neural connections. (Not formed as we grow and learn?)
If Penrose is correct, and our conscious experience and perceptions and biases are at least initially or in part guided by the interactions of subatomic particles, which we accept are electrically biased (attraction – repulsion), or the collapse of the wave function, which, according to the Schrodinger equation, experiences an asymmetry leading to a preferred direction of movement, our biases may have their basis in elemental physics.
QUESTIONING QUANTUM CONSCIOUNESS
There are profound implications in this theory. Those neural connections are something we develop as we grow and learn. We’re forming new connections (synapses) constantly – rewiring our brains with everything we read – from every conversation and experience. We’ve long assumed it’s those connections that grow to define us – that create our conscious experience our worldview and our biases.
Are we then born with consciousness - and those biases we typically deny publicly but accept or confront privately?
A study published in Bioethics in 1996 by J A Burgess et al. states: “We conclude (tentatively) that a fetus becomes conscious at about 30 to 35 weeks after conception.”
If we accept consciousness at 30 weeks, dare we reject Penrose’s theory of Quantum Consciousness? Or mine on Quantum Bias?
QUESTIONING QUANTUM BIAS
There may be more to why you feel (initially – instinctively – intuitively) safer or more comfortable in a room full of white professionals or attending an executive board meeting where you’re not the only woman.
Your intellect – your nurture – the experiences that have made you, you over the course of your life will certainly surface on those other occasions – when you’re the sole black person in that room of white professionals or the only person over or even near 50 in that developer’s training seminar at Google.
Is it not logical then to simply credit or blame our biases on nurture, environment and education? If we look deeper and uncover perhaps a Quantum causality, will there be anything useful we can gain from it?
QUANTUM BIAS - SPECULATION
We’re actively exploring Quantum Mechanics: Energy fields – particle physics. The universe as a wave function. If we identified the energy fields our brains produce – perhaps those associated with our biases, could we, dare we, dabble with exploring ways to interpret, categorise and modify them?
Imagine adjusting the collapse of your quantum wave function so the energy fields you produce have a distinctly positive effect – on anyone you encounter. (Or adjusting theirs) People like, respect and trust you (lust after you?) the moment you enter a room. (Imagine – what a confidence builder that would be)
Or, what if you’re a technological police state and you’ve identified a serial pervert you want women and children to immediate, instinctively feel uncomfortable around – for their safety? With or without their knowing it.
How about identifying, classifying and profiling people by their quantum energy fields – supplying this data to law enforcement or prospective employers? (Prospective mates?) This would certainly transcend the profiling done now by governments and companies evaluating your web searches, internet purchases and activity on social media.
SUMMARY
Where has this journey taken us? Have I justified our biases as being perhaps beyond our control? No. I’ve hopefully done the opposite. By better understanding our instinctive, unconscious, possibly Quantum Mechanical likes and dislikes (biases), we should be better equipped to manage and control them.
Have I possibly offered us improved insights into why people have their biases to begin with? I think so. Understanding the misogynist, white supremacist or black nationalist on all levels can only improve our understanding of ourselves.
Finally, have I supported Roger Penrose’s theory that consciousness arises when a quantum state collapses? I believe so – besides underpinning my above thesis about our biases, I admit to having an inexhaustible curiosity about consciousness, our subjective experiences, whether reality is universal or something we create. And I love that he brought something new to the table.
Any ideas you’d like to share? I would love a debate on this one. Please leave a comment.
Mark Thomas (TE Mark – Writer)
15/02/2025
If you’ve enjoyed today’s post, you may like my newly published (Jan 2025) book INTERFACE.