Quantum Consciousness & Quantum Mind

The seed in the measurement problem (1932). John von Neumann’s Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics (1932) formalized measurement as a non-unitary “collapse” of the wave function but did not tie it to consciousness, calling the mechanism unexplained.

Fritz London and Edmond Bauer (1939) first explicitly proposed that the observer’s consciousness completes the measurement.

• The Wigner phase (1961) — and his retreat. Eugene Wigner argued in 1961 that consciousness induces collapse (the “von Neumann–Wigner interpretation,” dramatized by his “Wigner’s friend” thought experiment). A note on the evidence: Wigner himself later abandoned this view in the 1970s, persuaded by H. Dieter Zeh’s work on decoherence — a fact almost never mentioned by those who cite him.
• Stapp’s elaboration (1970s onward). Berkeley physicist Henry Stapp developed the von Neumann line into a detailed account of conscious choice in quantum mechanics (Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics, 1993; Mindful Universe, 2007).
• Orch-OR (mid-1990s). Physicist Roger Penrose and anaesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff proposed “orchestrated objective reduction” — consciousness arising from quantum computations in neuronal microtubules, collapsing by an objective gravitational mechanism. Penrose set out the groundwork in The Emperor’s New Mind (1989) and Shadows of the Mind (1994); the joint Orch-OR papers followed in the mid-1990s.
• The idealist turn (1993). Physicist Amit Goswami’s The Self-Aware Universe (1993) recast quantum physics as “monistic idealism” — consciousness as the ground of the material world.
• The popular wave (2000s). Lynne McTaggart’s The Field (2001), Gregg Braden, and Joe Dispenza carried “quantum” language into mass-market manifestation, where it fused with the older New Thought current and the 2006 film/book The Secret.

Held as the field’s own claims, strongest-form (the honest read is §below and in §7):

• Consciousness has a role in measurement. In the von Neumann–Wigner–Stapp line, the chain of measurement is only closed by an observing mind; nature stays in superposition until consciousness acts. (→ Life Is a Dream, Consciousness Is Fundamental.)
• The observer participates in reality. Wheeler’s phrase “participatory universe” is taken to mean that observation helps bring the definite world into being, not merely record it. (→ Life Is a Dream.)
• Mind may be quantum. Orch-OR holds that the brain exploits quantum coherence in microtubules, so consciousness is a physical-but-quantum process, not classical computation. (→ Consciousness Is Fundamental.)
• Reality is ultimately consciousness. In Goswami’s idealism and Bohm’s “implicate order,” matter unfolds from a deeper, mind-like ground. (→ All Is One, Consciousness Is Fundamental.)
• (Pop tier) You collapse your reality with your vibration. The manifestation wave claims thought/feeling “frequency” selects which quantum possibility becomes real. (→ The Inner Creates the Outer — and see the skeptical literature; this tier has no scientific support.)

Roger Penrose — mathematical physicist; with Hameroff, the Orch-OR hypothesis. The Emperor’s New Mind (1989), Shadows of the Mind (1994).

• Stuart Hameroff — anaesthesiologist; the microtubule half of Orch-OR.
• Amit Goswami — quantum physicist; The Self-Aware Universe (1993), monistic idealism.
• Dean Radin — parapsychologist arguing experimental consciousness–matter effects.
• Lynne McTaggart — journalist; The Field (2001), the “zero-point field” as connective consciousness.
• Gregg Braden — popular author of the manifestation wave.
• David Bohm — physicist; the “implicate order,” an undivided wholeness underlying matter.
• In prose (no nodes): John von Neumann and Eugene Wigner (the measurement-collapse formalism), and Henry Stapp (its leading modern defender).

This is the tradition that tries to ground the oldest claims in physics: Life Is a Dream reality is participatory (the observer in measurement), Consciousness Is Fundamental / All Is One consciousness is fundamental (Orch-OR, Goswami’s idealism, Bohm’s implicate order), and — in its popular tier — The Inner Creates the Outer vibration/frequency as the language of states.

It carries them with real scientific vocabulary, which is exactly why the page insists on separating the verified physics from the borrowed metaphor.

Grew from: the early-20th-century quantum revolution and its unsolved measurement problem; and, philosophically, from much older idealist and nondual currents that it now cites as vindicated. → Seeded: the modern “quantum manifestation” culture and the broader 2000s self-development wave; it gave New-Thought-style claims a scientific-sounding vocabulary and supplied the physics-flavoured framing used by systems such as Vadim Zeland’s reality-shaping model.,