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International audience; This article deals with the question of the maximal correlation degree of two intelligent machines that cannot exchange any signals. After reminding the reader of the incorrectness of the mainstream statistical interpretation of the "no-signaling" condition, its informational meaning is explored. It is emphasized that if Pawlowski et al.'s Information Causality Principle correctly expresses (and generalizes) the no-signaling condition, its application is, for now, based on a specific scenario (suggested by van Dam) and a no less specific (and simplified) relationship between mutual information and correlators. A more general informational interpretation of the no-signaling condition from which the Tsirelson bound can be derived is then formulated in terms of correlational independence.

International audience; Bayes’ inference cannot reliably account for uncertainty in mental processes. The reason is that Bayes’ inference is based on the assumption that the order in which the relevant features are evaluated is indifferent, which is not the case in most of mental processes. Instead of Bayes’ rule, a more general, probabilistic rule of inference capable of accounting for these order effects is established. This new rule of inference can be used to improve the current Bayesian models of cognition. Moreover, it should play an essential role in the search for artificial emotional intelligence.

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This article deals with the difficulties of the yet intuitive causal interpretation of the mind–body connection emphasized by metaphysical, theoretical and experimental considerations. It shows that a decisive contribution to determining the nature of this connection can be provided experimentally. This experimental test is designed within the framework of a general systems theory capable of representing the concepts of complementarity and entanglement that are involved in the description of the mind–body connection.

This paper shows that the Clauser–Horne–Shimony–Holt test of locality of correlations which was originally designed to be used with binary observables can actually be used for any couples of quantum-like bounded continuous observables, and then for any experimental situation describable within the mathematical framework of quantum theory.

International audience; This book suggests a radical departure in approaching the mind-body problem. Instead of trying to causally relate subjective experience to the functioning of the body, it begins with the notion of the psychosomatic unity of the individual and looks for its conditions of possibility. This text shows that what makes this unity possible is the generalized entanglement relation that connects a person's subjective experience with its body functioning in a specific way. In addition to providing a significant contribution to the long-standing philosophical debate about the nature of the mind-body connection, this change of perspective based on the concept of generalized entanglement allows for exploring a holistic approach to health. It can for example explain the existence of body memory and leads to a better understanding of the genesis and evolution of internal diseases, allowing for the development of mindbody therapies. This volume also provides new insights into mental disorders and sets the theoretical basis of self-healing methods appealing to students, researchers and professionals in the fields.

The idea that nonlocal correlations stronger than quantum correlations between two no-signaling systems could “theoretically” exist is based on an incorrect statistical interpretation of the no-signaling condition. This article shows that any physically realizable no-signaling “box” involving local incompatible observables indeed requires to be described in a noncommutative, quantum-like language of operators, which leads to the derivation of the Tsirelson bound and then contradicts this idea.

A Bell-type strategy of decision for the long-standing question of the nature of psychophysical correlations has been previously presented in a recent article published in Mind and Matter. This strategy of decision is here applied to experimental data on psychophysiological correlations, namely, correlations between cardiovascular and emotional variables that have been reported in several independent publications. This statistical analysis shows that a substantial majority of these correlations cannot be interpreted as an exchange of signals or a mere “interaction”, whatever its form, but that these correlations could a priori be explained classically, as the result of a common preparation during the evolution process. A discussion on the scope and the limitations of this result will then be provided. In particular, alternative explanations of the psychophysical correlations that do not appeal to a notion of signalling (on which we focus here) will be discussed.

This paper proposes a necessary clarification about the problematic of super-quantum correlations, whose mainstream debate relies on an incorrect, statistical interpretation of the no-signaling condition. The no-signaling condition is an informational constraint that limits the strength of non-local correlations to the Tsirelson bound.

The quantum-like approach of psychosomatic phenomena suggests an explanation of the correlations between mind and body in terms of quantum-like entanglement, that is, without appealing to any concept of psychophysical, efficient causality. This approach is developed within the Hilbert space formalism and its general consequences are drawn. It is first illustrated by a simple, qualitative model of the placebo effect which shows that representing psychosomatic states by entangled states can explain that purely psychological factors can produce a-causal changes of physiological parameters. Then, a dynamical, quantitative and predictive model of bipolar disorder which makes use of the unitarity of the temporal evolution of psychosomatic states due to biological and psychological rhythms is worked out. This model can explain some current observations, like for example the severe fluctuations in mood between depression and mania, and it can forecast the moment of shifting. In addition, it justifies the efficiency of chronotherapy on theoretical basis.

International audience; Besides the application of the notion of complementarity to psychological and physical descriptions of the individual, this paper explores the possibility of defining complementary observables in the same phenomenal domain. Complementary emotional observables are defined from experimental data on experienced emotions reported by subjects who have been prepared in a state of induced emotion. Complementary physiological observables are defined in correspondence with conjugate, physiological quantities that can be measured.

All the attempts to find the justification of the privileged evolution of phenomena exclusively in the external world need to refer to the inescapable fact that we are living in such an asymmetric universe. This leads us to look for the origin of the “arrow of time” in the relationship between the subject and the world. The anthropic argument shows that the arrow of time is the condition of the possibility of emergence and maintenance of life in the universe. Moreover, according to Bohr’s, Poincare’s and Watanabe’s analysis, this agreement between the earlier-later direction of entropy increase and the past-future direction of life is the very condition of the possibility for meaningful action, representation and creation. Beyond this relationship of logical necessity between the meaning process and the arrow of time the question of their possible physical connection is explored. To answer affirmatively to this question, the meaning process is modelled as an evolving tree-like structure, called “Semantic Time”, where thermodynamic irreversibility can be shown.

This paper explores the philosophy of neutral monism within the framework of a generalized version of quantum theory where all references to the physical world have been relaxed. Psychic and somatic features of the individual are conceived of as co-emergent, complementary properties of an underlying, psychophysical level of reality. It is shown that their entanglement can be interpreted in terms of non-causal correlations and parameterized by time, which thus plays the role of psychophysical interface.

Inter-neuronal conduction is too slow to explain the quasi-instantaneous, long-range synchronisation of neuronal discharges that seems to be required for the binding of information in the brain. This paper aims to evaluate to what extent the dissipative quantum model of the brain could bring a new light on this difficulty of classical neurobiology. This model extends Ricciardi’s and Umezawa’s proposition to represent the collective brain activity, and, in particular, the memorization process within the framework of quantum field theory. It explains the rapid formation of large patterns of synchronized oscillations of the electric dipoles carried by water molecules and macromolecules of the brain as a consequence of the spontaneous breaking of their rotational symmetry, as well as the superposition of these patterns of oscillation at different frequencies in the same area of the brain. However, it is argued that this model can really contribute to explain the temporal binding of information provided that it could establish a genuine correspondence between the description of the brain’s dynamics it gives in terms of dipolar molecules field and spontaneous symmetry breaking and the usual, classical description of the brain’s activity in terms of neurons, action potential, biomolecular achitectures and specialized areas. Moreover, if the latter question regarding the information integration process could be overcome with further experimental and theoretical researches, it is explained that no convincing explanation of conscious experience can be given in such a model of the brain. Suggestions are made in order to overcome these difficulties.

Consciousness and Quantum Physics. This paper aims to assess the contribution of quantum physics to understand the phenomenon of consciousness. If some quantum approaches to consciousness do not shed any light on the questions that have been shelved by contemporary neurobiology, we show that some others are quite promising. First, by providing, within the framework of quantum field theory, an explanation of the long-range synchronisation of the brain which is required for the integration and the diffusion of information, preliminary to the construction of conscious percepts. Second, by using the quantum concepts of complementarity and entanglement and the corresponding formalism to build a unifying representation of the phenomenon of consciousness that transcends the materialist framework wherein subjective experience has no place. Indeed, quantum theory allows to represent the coemergence of the two entangled psychical and physiological aspects of consciousness from a «neutral » , psychophysical and more fundamental level without appealing to a mysterious concept of causality between mental and physiological processes – a mode of representation that can be used more generally to model the psychosomatic unity of the individual., Cet article a pour objet d’évaluer l’apport de la physique quantique dans la compréhension du phénomène de la conscience. Si certaines approches quantiques de la conscience n’apportent aucun éclairage nouveau aux questions laissées en suspens par la neurobiologie actuelle, nous montrons que d’autres s’avèrent tout à fait prometteuses. D’une part en proposant, dans le cadre de la théorie quantique des champs, une explication de la synchronisation à grande échelle du cerveau qui est requise pour l’intégration et la diffusion de l’information, préalable à la construction de percepts conscients. D’autre part, en utilisant les concepts typiquement quantiques de complémentarité et d’intrication ainsi que le formalisme correspondant pour construire une représentation unifiée du phénomène de la conscience permettant de dépasser le cadre matérialiste dans lequel l’expérience subjective ne trouve aucune place. La théorie quantique permet, en effet, de représenter la co-émergence des deux aspects psychiques et physiologiques enchevêtrés de la conscience à partir d’un niveau «neutre » de réalité psychophysique plus fondamental sans faire appel à un mystérieux concept de causalité entre processus mentaux et physiologiques -un mode de représentation qui peut s’appliquer plus généralement pour modéliser l’unité psychosomatique de l’individu., Uzan Pierre. Conscience et physique quantique. In: Intellectica. Revue de l'Association pour la Recherche Cognitive, n°55, 2011/1. Synesthésie et Intermodalité. pp. 211-240.

International audience; This paper suggests an epistemic interpretation of Belnap’s branching space-timestheory based on Everett’s relative state formulation of the measurement operation inquantum mechanics. The informational branching models of the universe are evolvingstructures defined from a partial ordering relation on the set of memory states of theimpersonal observer. The totally ordered set of their information contents defines alinear “time” scale to which the decoherent alternative histories of the informationaluniverse can be referred –which is quite necessary for assigning them a probabilitydistribution.The “historical” state of a physical system is represented in an appropriate extendedHilbert space and an algebra of multi-branch operators is developed. An age operatorcomputes the informational depth of historical states and its standard deviation can beused to provide a universal information/energy uncertainty relation. An informationoperator computes the encoding complexity of historical states, the rate of change of itsaverage value accounting for the process of correlation destruction inherent to thebranching dynamics. In the informational branching models of the universe, theasymmetry of phenomena in nature appears as a mere consequence of the subject’sactivity of measuring, which defines the flow of time-information.