The Presentiment Effect Points to an Occurrence of a von Neumann's Collapse

Abstract

Although small and embedded in strong noise, the surprisingly confirmed presentiment effect is deemed among the more reliable "psi" effects, although such an effect cannot reflect prediction in real-time. Rather, the effect reflects correlations found only in the historical past as a result of the end conditions represented by the participant's psychological responses to the stimuli. That is, the effect does appear, but in retrospect only. The current paper mathematically explains this suggestion through an orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics whose ontology is outlined. The explanation is based on von Neumann's idea that the system's quantum state collapses when the participant's mind perceives an observation. The argument takes decoherence considerations into account. The presentiment effect's existence and its presented reasonable quantum explanation seem to support von Neumann's idea.