Free Schrodinger's Gat by Robert Kroese

could re-establish contact with the classical computer and Bob’s your uncle.”
    My head hurts. For all Heller’s initial reluctance to talk, he seems downright eager to spill everything now. It’s like he’s been holding it in for years and he’s overcome with relief at his chance to finally talk to somebody about it. But I don’t want to know the history of quantum physics; I just want to know where Tali is. I interject, “What does any of this have to do with what Tali and you are doing?”
    “ Excellent question,” he answers without even a momentary pause. “You know what the most powerful computer in the world is? The human brain. It’s lousy at low-level deterministic stuff, but the human brain is capable of making decisions in a matter of seconds that would tie up a super-computer for hours. And yet the human brain is a biochemical system that seems at first glance to run much more slowly than the typical silicon-based computer. How is this possible? Well, clearly the human brain is a qualitatively different sort of computer. One theory is that the human brain is a quantum computer, and therefore able to be in multiple quantum states simultaneously. The quantum brain is assigned problems to solve by the classical component of the brain. When the quantum brain comes up with a solution (or solutions, as the case may be), it reports back to the classical brain. You see, the human brain has somehow evolved to take advantage of quantum indeterminacy in order to work faster than would normally be possible.”
    “ I still don’t …”
    “ Almost there,” he says. “So the question is, what happens to this other part of your brain, the quantum part, when you die? Well, presumably it dies as well – falls apart, ceases to be an ordered system, in compliance with the second law of thermodynamics. But we know already that the quantum brain has to be able to work independently, because in its calculating state, it’s completely isolated from the rest of the universe. So what happens if your brain in this dimension is destroyed so suddenly that it’s unable to ‘power down’ the quantum part of your brain? What if, in fact, your brain sends out a last-minute ‘distress signal’ to the quantum brain, desperately trying to solve some sort of existential threat it is facing? Every available bit of energy is sent from your brain in this dimension to the quantum brain, in an attempt to solve the problem – but then the connection is permanently severed. What then?”
    I think I see where he’s going. “The quantum brain continues to exist for a while, still trying to work out that last problem.”
    “ Exactly! So what the psionic field detector does is to detect the disturbances in the psionic field made by quantum brains in that condition.”
    “ I don’t recall learning about psionic fields in my high school physics class,” I reply.
    “ That’s because most physicists don’t acknowledge their existence. A number of studies have been done indicating that the human brain can remotely influence physical objects. We refer to the medium of this influence as the psionic field.”
    “ You’re talking about telekinesis.”
    “ Yes, but on a very, very small scale. We’re talking about a person being able to slightly alter the expected statistical behavior of a sampling of subatomic particles, not being able to bend a spoon. The point is that the effect, although tiny, is real and detectable. It also occurs largely at the unconscious level. That’s part of the reason it’s so difficult to detect. Your conscious brain works almost entirely at the classical, not the quantum, level. Have you ever had the experience of spending hours trying to work out a particularly difficult problem only to have the answer pop into your head later, when you weren’t even consciously thinking about it?”
    “ So you’re saying that if I want to bend a spoon, I should give the job to my unconscious.”
    “ You’re