59 The environment, here, should be understood in a broad sense. For a ‘small’ system, it refers to its environment in the traditional sense. For a ‘large’ system, one isolates one or more macroscopic variables – for example, the center of mass of the system – from the other degrees of freedom, which then constitute the environment with respect to the macroscopic degrees of freedom whose behavior is being studied, in this case, decoherence.
60 One can refer to, for example, the following review: M. Schlosshauer «The quantum to classical transition and decoherence,» arXiv:1404.2635 [quant-ph] (2019).
61 For all the following discussion, reference is made, for example, to the excellent books by S. Dehaene, “The Code of Consciousness”, Odile Jacob, 2014, and A. Moukheiber, “Your Brain is Playing Tricks on You”, Allary, 2019.
62 One could argue that this is indeed the case for placebo or nocebo effects. However, it is then a matter of the influence of the psychological state on the physical state, which in no way relates to magic.
63 Let us think of Proust’s famous madeleine.
64 One can consult the magnificent research by Céline Loozen dedicated to this subject: «Transe: Enquête sur un état de conscience modifié,» CNRS editions, 2024.
65 These results are due to Bell, Kochen and Specker, Greenberger, Horn and Zeilinger, as well as Mermin. For a comprehensive list of references and for understanding these results, one can consult Mermin’s enlightening article on the subject: N.D. Mermin «Hidden Variables and the Two Theorems of John Bell,» Reviews of Modern Physics, 65, 803 (1993).
66 To clarify: contextuality implies that, under the assumption of the existence of hidden variables, the result of the measurement of the observable A must depend on the group of observables – {B, C...} or {B’, C’...} – that are compatible with each other and compatible with A with which we choose to measure this quantity, if certain observables – B or C or ... – from one group are not compatible with certain observables – B’ or C’ or ... – from the other group.
67 S. Dehaene, op. cit.
68 It is in no way about speculating on the quantum nature of the phenomenon of con-sciousness, although this has been considered elsewhere.
69 We refer to the excellent article by Latorre: J. I. Latorre, ‘Quantum Will: Determinism meets Quantum Mechanics,’ Euresis journal, 5, 1 (2013).
70 Term proposed by the author.
71 See A. Moukheiber, op. cit.
72 and for which the author disclaims all responsibility.
73 Approximate date of the emergence of Homo sapiens.
74 In contrast to invented. But the argument developed here would work just as well, or even better, in the latter case.
75 We refer here to the excellent article by Carlo Rovelli: C. Rovelli, «Michelangelo’s Stone: an Argument against Platonism in Mathematics,» European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 7, 285 (2016).
76 C. Rovelli, op. cit.
77 The author refrains from committing to the question of what form this «we» might take on a gas giant planet...
78 Or, equivalently, by an arbitrary assignment of numbers to the particles.
79 See A. Moukheiber, op. cit.