Does the Gnergy Principle Provide a Mechanism for Wavefunction Collapse?
Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Cell Biology
Rutgers University
September 20, 2025
1. The Old Puzzle of Collapse
Quantum mechanics has always carried a riddle at its heart: how does the wavefunction collapse [1]?
Before measurement, a quantum particle exists in a superposition of many possible states. After measurement, only one state is realized. The mathematics describes the before and after, but says nothing about the actual process of collapse. Physicists often treat it as a “black box” postulate: it happens, but we don’t know why.
2. Wheeler–Feynman: The Virtual Handshake
In the 1940s, John Wheeler and Richard Feynman proposed the absorber theory of radiation [2, 3].
An emitter doesn’t just send a wave forward in time. It sends both forward-in-time and backward-in-time waves.
A future absorber responds with its own backward-in-time wave.
Where these meet, a handshake occurs, and the photon is transferred.
This picture is time-symmetric and fully reversible. It describes the negotiation of possibilities, but it doesn’t explain why one possibility becomes actual.
3. The Gnergy Principle of Organization (GPO)
The Gnergy Principle of Organization (GPO) [4] states:
Organization requires both energy (to do work) and information (to control work).
According to GPO, for a handshake to become real:
Energy must be dissipated irreversibly (e.g., heat lost, photons scattered).
Information must be selected and encoded by the environment.
Thus, collapse is no longer a mysterious axiom. It is the point at which a reversible Wheeler–Feynman handshake is converted into an irreversible GPO handshake, through energy loss + information gain, i.e., selection by environment.
4. The Saddle Mechanism: Fast Meets Slow
How, concretely, does this dissipation occur? Here the saddle surface (mixed curvature surface) becomes useful.
Along the concave green path (A ↔ B): we have fast quantum transitions, operating on femto- to picosecond timescales.
Along the convex red path (D → C): we have slow mesoscopic or classical reorganizations — protein conformations, solvent motions, neural networks — unfolding over nanoseconds to milliseconds.
At the saddle point: these two regimes meet and couple.
According to the Generalized Franck–Condon Principle (GFCP) [5], a fast quantum jump is only possible when the slower environment is in the right resonant configuration. At the saddle, this condition is satisfied: the fast process can fire, but only by coupling into the slower degrees of freedom.
The result?
The quantum event deposits its excess energy (ΔE\Delta EΔE) into a dense bath of classical modes
That energy rapidly disperses as heat and work.
The environment records the new state, thereby encoding information.
5. From Possibility to Actuality: Two Handshakes
We can now distinguish two levels:
Wheeler–Feynman Handshake (Virtual)
Reversible, time-symmetric.
No energy dissipated.
A space of possibilities — the negotiation stage.
GPO Handshake (Actual, via GFCP Saddle)
Irreversible, arrow-of-time.
Fast quantum hops coupled to slow classical baths at the saddle point.
Energy dissipated + information encoded.
Collapse, in this view, is the irreversible GPO handshake triggered at a saddle point where fast and slow processes couple under GFCP constraints.
6. Comparison with Decoherence
Standard collapse (Copenhagen): A postulate — the wavefunction collapses when observed.
Decoherence theory: A partial resolution — superpositions appear to collapse when entangled with an environment, but in principle all outcomes still exist in a larger wavefunction.
GPO mechanism (with GFCP saddle): A deeper resolution — collapse occurs when fast quantum events couple to slow classical environments, forcing dissipation and selection.
Thus, GPO does what decoherence cannot: it provides a physical mechanism of actualization, not just an apparent loss of coherence.
7. A Novel Mechanism of Collapse
Seen this way, wavefunction collapse is no longer mysterious. It is the organizational necessity built into nature:
Before collapse: reversible possibilities (virtual handshakes).
At collapse: GFCP-gated fast quantum hops transfer energy into slow modes at the saddle point.
After collapse: energy is dissipated, information is recorded, one outcome is realized.
In short:
The Gnergy Principle of Organization, constrained by the Generalized Franck–Condon Principle, provides a novel mechanism for wavefunction collapse.
8. Conclusion
The Wheeler–Feynman absorber theory explains how quantum processes negotiate across time. The Gnergy Principle explains why those negotiations sometimes become real. The saddle surface mechanism shows how energy dissipation and information encoding can occur: by coupling fast quantum processes with slower classical ones under GFCP.
What was once a postulate may now be understood as a handshake made irreversible by gnergy at a saddle point — a concrete physical mechanism for the collapse of the wavefunction.
Here’s the annotated saddle surface diagram showing your mechanism:
Green curve (A ↔ B): fast quantum transitions (concave direction).
Red curve (D → C): slow classical/mesoscopic rearrangements (convex direction).
Black dot at (0,0,0): the saddle point (GFCP gate) where fast and slow processes couple.
Mechanism: At this gate, the quantum hop deposits energy into the slow bath → dissipation + information encoding → irreversible GPO handshake = wavefunction collapse.
References:
[1] Wavefunction collapse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function_collapse
[2] Zurek, W. H. (1982). Environment-induced superselection rules. Physical Review D, 26(8), 1862–1880. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.26.1862
[3] Zurek, W. H. (1991). Decoherence and the transition from quantum to classical. Physics Today, 44(10), 36–44. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.881293
[4] Ji, S. (2018). The Gnergy Principle of Organization. In: The Cell Language Theory: Connecting Mind and Matter. World Scientific Publishing, New Jersey. Pp. 33-34.
[5] ] Ji, S. (2025). Discovery of Conscions. https://622622.substack.com/p/discovery-of-conscions.