Schilling, Andreas (2025) Randomness, Quantum Uncertainty, and Emergence: A Suggestion for Testing the Seemingly Untestable. [Preprint]

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Abstract

The functioning of complex natural structures, such as living systems, has been awaiting a generally accepted theoretical basis and respective empirical verification for decades, partly due to a lack of meaningful experiments. We therefore propose a class of experiments designed to test whether an unknown principle of order is at work in natural dynamical systems that cannot be captured by known physical laws. The working hypothesis is that the quantum mechanical uncertainty principle allows for ordering phenomena in chaotic or nearly chaotic physical systems, in the sense of a strong emergence principle, which would not be expected when they are modelled conventionally, as several authors have already formulated in various forms. In order to account for the harsh conditions prevailing in living systems which appear to preclude fragile macroscopic quantum coherence, our hypothesis does not require such coherence at all, contrary to earlier proposals that included coherent quantum mechanical states. The key idea behind testing this bold hypothesis is to compare two virtually identical, sufficiently complex experimental setups. One setup operates with deterministic pseudo-random number generators at key sensitive points, while the other uses quantum-based physical random-number generators, the two setups being otherwise identical. Existing artificial neural networks are proposed as possible test objects for this purpose, and their overall performance under identical training conditions could be used as a quantitative benchmark. As this working hypothesis extends far beyond artificial networks, a successful outcome of such an experiment could have significant implications for many other branches of science.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Schilling, Andreas andreas.schilling@physik.uzh.ch 0000-0002-3898-2498
Keywords:	Complex systems, neural networks, emergence, uncertainty principle, randomness
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Artificial Intelligence General Issues > Computer Simulation General Issues > Determinism/Indeterminism Specific Sciences > Artificial Intelligence > Machine Learning General Issues > Theory/Observation
Depositing User:	Prof. Andreas Schilling
Date Deposited:	22 Jul 2025 13:09
Last Modified:	22 Jul 2025 13:09
Item ID:	25995
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Artificial Intelligence General Issues > Computer Simulation General Issues > Determinism/Indeterminism Specific Sciences > Artificial Intelligence > Machine Learning General Issues > Theory/Observation
Date:	13 May 2025
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/25995

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• Randomness, Quantum Uncertainty, and Emergence: A Suggestion for Testing the Seemingly Untestable. (deposited 15 May 2025 12:18)

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