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Mind Matters: Intelligence and Agency in the Physical World
This multidisciplinary gathering brought together the FQXi membership along with more top minds to address foundational questions in this intersection, such as:
- How is biological intelligence constituted so as to comprehend the physical world, and how is our understanding of physics shaped by the constitution of our intelligence?
- What are fundamental limits to computation?
- What does it mean for agents to make choices in a world ruled by natural law?
- What sorts and levels of intelligence are physically possible?
- Can we have a rigorous theory of informational correlates of conscious activity that would allow us to assess the consciousness of other minds and intelligences?
- How intertwined are intelligence and computation, or intelligence and consciousness, or intelligence and choice/agency?
- Are there fundamental physical principles or analogies that can help us understand the constraints on, or functioning of, mental systems?
- How does mind relate to the fundamental structure of the Universe?
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PressRelease: Precision experiment puts pressure on quantum collapse theories
Quantum mechanics, the theory governing the microscopic world, is famously counterintuitive. A particle can exist in a superposition of multiple states, such as different positions, until a measurement is performed. At that point, the wavefunction describing that particle appears to ‘collapse’ to a single outcome. This puzzle lies at the heart of the measurement problem, famously illustrated by Schrödinger’s cat, suspended between life and death until observed. The XENONnT detector, which was designed to be sensitive to rare physics events, has tightened constraints on one family of possible solutions to the measurement problem, known as ‘collapse theories.’ The work, which was partially funded by FQxI, was reported in Physical Review Letters in March 2026. Image credit: XENON Collaboration.