FoundationalConceptsNeuroscience

fundamental particles of nature: quarks, gluons, electrons, muons,
neutrinos, bosons, photons, and taus. Nonetheless, it is said that even
all this success accounts for only about 4 percent of the matter/energy
content of the universe. And the remaining 96 percent is composed of
so-called dark matter and dark energy, the natures of which we do not
understand.
Moreover, quantum mechanics, the physics that describes matter
in its most fundamental aspects, indicates that the behavior of mat-
ter and energy at the submicroscopic level is very weird indeed. For
example, a single particle can exist in many states and places simul-
taneously, and its behavior is governed by a quantum wave function
—a mathematical construct that assigns probabilities to the various
alternative states and locations available to the particle. The particle
is said to exist as a superposition of multiple alternative possibilities.
However, we perceive reality as actualities, not potentialities—atoms
and molecules, for example, having actual locations in space and
time. The transition from a superposition of potentialities to a dis-
crete value is called a “reduction” or “collapse” of the wave function.
It defines the connection between the microscopic quantum world of
potentialities and the macroscopic classical world of our experience.
Exactly how this collapse or reduction comes about is called the “mea-
surement problem” in quantum physics. It is an unsolved problem,
vigorously debated among physicists interested in the foundations of
their subject—a mystery.
In addition, in quantum physics there is what is called nonlocal
entanglement, in which particles that are separated by arbitrarily
large distances may still influence one another, seemingly instan-
taneously. This derives from the fact that systems of particles, once
having interacted, may continue to be described by a single quantum
wave function. There is universal agreement among physical scien-