Is consciousness the collapse of the wave function?

[C C]

https://iai.tv/articles/consciousness-is...-auid-2120

INTRO: Quantum mechanics suggests that particles can be in a state of superposition - in two states at the same time - until a measurement take place. Only then does the wavefunction describing the particle collapses into one of the two states. According to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, the collapse of the wave function takes place when a conscious observer is involved.

But according to Roger Penrose, it’s the other way around. Instead of consciousness causing the collapse, Penrose suggested that wavefunctions collapse spontaneously and in the process give rise to consciousness.

Despite the strangeness of this hypothesis, recent experimental results suggest that such a process takes place within microtubules in the brain. This could mean that consciousness is a fundamental feature of reality, arising first in primitive bio-structures, in individual neurons, cascading upwards to networks of neurons, argues Roger Penrose collaborator Stuart Hameroff.... (MORE - details)


RELATED: Roger Penrose on why consciousness does not compute

[Magical Realist]

I would suggest that the indeterminacy and hence freedom of consciousness arises from its reflexive nature. The collapse of the wavefunction of consciousness is itself caused by consciousness. The superpositions of thoughts collapse into the single action of making a decision. Hofstadter theorizes that we are all "strange loops".

“In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self-reference.”
― Douglas Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop

[confused2]

I'm fairly sure there are at least two interpretations of the Copenhagen Interpretation*. There is the spooktastic interpretation where a conscious observer is involved is one (which I only discovered just now while reading the wiki article) and the Bohr version (which I thought was The Version) where an irreversible process is involved. The spooktastic version is more fun but that (I think) is its only merit. When driving and arriving at a junction without knowing which way to turn the quantum brain would have a pure superposition of left/right which would be resolved by the conscious decision. The non-quantum brain would have a finite number of choice arguments and would weigh them by some non-quantum process to choose left or right. I'm firmly with the non-spooktastic version and have only accidentally appeared to argue in favour of the spooktastic version as a consequence of not knowing it existed. I understand (now) that the spooktastic (IMHO crap) Copenhagen Interpretation may (or may not) be the one others are thinking about when they refer to 'The Copenhagen Interpretation'.


*

There is no definitive historical statement of what the Copenhagen interpretation is. There are some fundamental agreements and disagreements between the views of Bohr and Heisenberg.[3][4] For example, Heisenberg emphasized a sharp "cut" between the observer (or the instrument) and the system being observed,[5]: 133  while Bohr offered an interpretation that is independent of a subjective observer or measurement or collapse, which relies on an "irreversible" or effectively irreversible process, which could take place within the quantum system.[6]

Edit
Science (sometimes) advances along the lines of: If proposition A is true then proposition B is an inevitable consequence. This works the other way round - if proposition B can be shown to be false then proposition A is either false or incomplete.