To elaborate, a photon detector is not something that can be in quantum superposition, so the result it records from an experiment is the result, whether or not any conscious person reads it. An observer doesn't have to be conscious. Your beliefs are the result of a fundamental misunderstanding of the theory.
Yes it does, but It can be completely smashed too, as I will soon do, but first some clarifications are needed: Consciousness is not awareness, but usually includes that; however people in environmental awareness suppression experiments* have little awareness and, cut off from that, often begin to create - like some. Sort of like what one is aware of in dreams. ---------- * total silence (except for their own heart beat, if they can hear it with ears plugged, total darkeness, hands imobalized, body too as floating in water with temperature fraction of a degrees less than 37C, nothing to smell, see, hear, taste or touch. Consciousness is hard to define, but once you know it is not awareness but thoughts, not even connected to your environment, it comes down to sense of self, or being, plus some "qualia" like boredom, happiness, sadness, anger, etc. and possibly pain if you have any chronic ones. - Things no machine can have - a real mind. Consciousness, unlike awareness, is 100% pure subjectivity. Now I need to clarify QM's "observation" (a very unfortunate term, not nearly as misleading in the original German.) What "collapse a mixed state" (weighted sum of two or more of the system's pure states or "eigenvectors") requires is energy interaction with a macro system. Lets consider cosmic rays (another unfortunate name as they are all particles, 90+% simply protons.): Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Caption is: Pacini makes a measurement in 1910. But new sciforums makes insert of photo very hard - see it at link above or if "insert" is available to you, here is its link: Hess & Pacini and all the early turn of the century investigators who sent stacks of glass photograph plates high up into the air on balloons are long dead now. When a primary or first few generation cosmic ray passed thur these plates and "hit" a nucleus many interesting "tracks" were left in the film, curved tracks for charged particles if plates were in a magnetic field. Measuring the curvature and other characteristic such as track density and connections to other tracks, when it is obvious. Hours of carefull microscopic analysis for just a couple of tracks. These tracks are or contain the QM interactions that "collapsed" the mixed QM states in to more classical ones. That collapse happened about 100 years ago. For every classical track set that has been process there are many dozens that have not been. - Too time consuming and Cosmic Ray studied have shifted the interest to the rare but very high energy primary interactions. No one (nor machine) is even looking at this wealth of old data now. No intelligene is "wasted" on it now that the focus of cosmic ray research has changed. Occasionally some high-energy Ph. D. graduate student may be told to process a track set just to understand what an effort it was. I think most of the plates have at least been developed - chemically processed as film was, before digital cameras existed. POINT IS: No intelligence, not human, dog or flea nor any clever machine is needed to "collapse the QM mixed state wave function." Many like BIGFOOT, who have no understanding of QM have been badly mislead by the phrase: "An observation collapses the wave function." to think some intelligence does that. QM wave function were collapsing 10 billion years ago! long before our later generation sun even existed!
My impression is that the quantum idealists (most of whom, like me, aren't physicists) would typically try to dispute that. The quantum idealist would seemingly want to insist that the detector itself would remain in a superposition of A and B readings, until an investigator with one of these mysterious 'minds' happens along and perceives the detector as indicating either A or B. Apparently the idea is that wave functions only collapse and classical reality only exists within the mind's phenomenal awareness. I'm not trained in the higher levels of university physics and interpreting quantum mechanics is way beyond my pay-grade. Having said that, my layman's inclination is to agree very emphatically with Spidergoat. I don't find quantum idealism credible.
You know if you just assume that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe, ( see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction ) all this god stuff just goes away. Good riddance Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
What's a 'mind'? How would you define that word? What do you think it refers to? "Mind, i can define it as an Intelligent Self-Aware and Self-Directing entity, with creative powers. That may not be complete definition but its works for me. Same question. What's 'consciousness'? Are you attributing ontological status to this "wave structure" and to the "quantum state of systems"? In other words, do you believe these things exist prior to and independently of the act of "observation" (the intervention of a 'mind' in the quantum-idealist scheme) that supposedly "collapses" the quantum state into a more classical state of affairs? Do I believe that things exist prior to, and independent of action of "observation" I believe that existence and observation is the same thing in a way. esse est percipi" (To Be, is to be perceived) To that extent, I believe that since observation is entangled with existence, we are to that extent, creators of our reality, even if it appears to exists in spite of our observation. Doesn't the belief that 'mind' 'collapses' the 'wave structure' presuppose something very similar? It presupposes that that reality exists in a state of supper positioning, and until observation is made, its existence is immaterial. It exists as a potentiality but not in actuality. That, is very good for our future. It means that no one is limited by anything and its never too late to achieve your dreams. It exists in a state of supper positioning waiting for you to make it a reality! If our conclusion should be that objectivity and objective reality are just illusions, then what standing does quantum mechanics retain in all this? Why not just say 'My belief is true because it's my belief, it's my subjective reality'? Why try to provide that rather solipsistic belief with an ostensibly more objective justification drawn from the far reaches of philosophical interpretations of quantum mechanics?[/QUOTE] Quantum Mechanics have given us an astonishing conclusion. Quantum Entanglement of Quantum State of Systems which is collapsed by observation confirms that everything is interconnected in a way, even if we as observers are unaware of this. Its the same thing that Waking up tells us about dreams. That we are everything we experience in the dream state. Your subjective tools of consciousness which you use to experience the so-called objective reality are biased, and therefore they are cheating you. Your beliefs are just that. Your believes. But just because you believe in them does not mean that they are true. Man used to believe that the earth was flat, and that you could walk until you came to the edge, where you could fall into the abyss. Now we know different. Maybe, some years to come, we will see just how foolish we had been, to belief that we are different and having individual lives, disconnected from the rest. But as for Now, this truth about reality will undergo a period of rejecting before it becomes plain for all.
Guess you need to consider The Schrödinger Cat Experiment This experiment confirm that even in the Macro World, observation does collapsed the Wave Function
“Every truth passes through three stages before it’s recognized. In the first, it’s ridiculed. In the second, it’s opposed. And in the third, its regarded as self-evident” Arthur Schopenhauer. Most Physicists and experts are reluctant to consider what Quantum Mechanics have revealed. Because it means that Quantum Mechanics maybe proving the Bible True. The most accepted state of sub-atomic particle is Wave-Particle state. But some radical ones have gone further to reduced this Wave-Particle duality into "Wave In Motion" Dr. Milo Wolff, retired Astronomer-physicist-Engineer, and former professor of physics in University of Indonesia, together with Geoff Haselhust and another scientist the late Gabriel LaFreniere had been collaborating on the development of this “Wave Mechanics” theory, even going as far as building complex models to explain this phenomenon of waves. According to them, the best way to interpret the true nature of mater, is that Matter is made of waves That these subatomic entities exists in a “Wave Structure” as spherical standing waves, that have been condensed or coherently directed appearing as if they have been slowed down. These spherical standing waves are the ones that keep moving in a coherent manner, actualizing what we refer to as subatomic particle, out of which all matter and reality is made of. This wave structure of matter reduced the atom into mare emptiness, and reality as being entangled with observation. Curiously enough, this Wave Structure of Matter, appears to agree with the nature of God, Yahweh, who says that his word as law, exists as a Spherical Wave. He states that His Word, goes and comes back to him, having accomplished his desires. We read; . “Yes, as the rain and the snow comes down from the heavens and do not return without watering the earth, making it yield and give growth to provide seed for the sower, and bread for the eating, so, the word that goes out of my mouth, does not return to me empty without carrying out my will, and succeeding in what I sent it to do. Isaiah 55:10-11 So, if more scientists agree with this notion of matter, well, you can expect a radical shift in paradigm.
You are reading into things. Nothing about quantum theory has anything to do with consciousness, as the observer can be an unconscious machine. It's going to take more than two words to make a connection between your favorite bronze age moralists and modern physics.
No I'm afraid Spidergoat, Billy T and Yazata are on the right track. There is no requirement in QM for any conscious observer, in order for a wave function to collapse. It is an interaction that collapses it, for example the sort of interaction that gives rise to a signal in a detector, but this happens whether or not somebody is in the room at the time. (Indeed, it would be absurd to think that if nobody is present but the experiment is running, then the wavefunction doesn't collapse until somebody comes back from their coffee break to observe the reading on the photomultiplier tube, or whatever the detector may be.) I understand you want to attempt a marriage of science with religion but I have to tell you this is doomed enterprise, precisely because the elimination of religious ways of thinking is key to the scientific method of understanding the physical world. In my view you are far better off to see Science and Religion as complementary approaches to human experience. Religion has far more in common with the Humanities than with the Sciences. Plenty of scientists are also religious, but that does not mean they invoke religion in the scientific models of the world that they work with. The moment they do that they are doing metaphysics, not science. I think where QM is interesting is that one can argue it denies that the world is fully deterministic. Personally, I rather like that.
No. It confirms nothing* if you mean by "observation" some intelligent beings, like a rat, smelling a cat inside the box, naws his way into box to have a look. Did you read post 21? (with a modicum of understanding?) There I mention a type of Schrödinger Cat Experiment in which more than 100 years have passed and most of the boxes in which a cosmic ray created mixed state occurred before 1910 still have not yet been observed by any intelligent creature (or machine). You suffer from gross misunderstanding of what collapses the mixed state into a pure state. I assure you those glass photographic plates a cosmic passed thru more than 100 years ago are not still waiting for some flea or above level of intelligence to look at them so they can collapse. Your view that they still remain in a mixed state 100+ years, like Schrödinger's Cat, waiting for an observer to look at them so they can collapse - is about as stupid as it gets. Let me try to teach you a little: I just flipped a coin, but have not looked at it. Thus your point of view is that it is in the mixed state, consisting of 50% heads state & 50% tails state** while it rest on the floor, waiting for me to look. After about five minutes without looking at it, I took a digital camera image of that part of the floor, but I did not look even at the camera image. Do you think that photographing collapsed it into either pure head or pure tail state? Or must the coin wait until my wife gets home from store and I ask her to look at the camera image? This coin flip is also a "Schrödinger Cat Experiment" but the two states are "head" and "tail" not "living" and "dead." * Except, possibly that some people grossly misunderstand what causes a mixed state to collapse. ** That is indeed the best description of MY state of knowledge about the coin but not about the state of the coin.
Schroedinger's Cat was a thought experiment, not a real physical experiment. I believe that Schroedinger intended it as a reductio-ad-absurdem of the philosophically idealist Kantian-style interpretations of the Copenhagen Interpretation that interpreted 'observer' to mean a human mind. Schroedinger thought that interpreting 'observer' that way led to absurd implications, such as the dead/alive cat. My understanding is that Neils Bohr, who originated the Copenhagen Interpretation with its idea that 'observation' collapsed the wave function, understood 'observation' to mean an interaction with a classical measuring instrument. So in Bohr's view, Schroedinger's thought experiment didn't present problems. The classical measuring instrument in the box would have produced a measurement and the poison would have either been released or not, all without any human beings having to look in the box.
Yes but nerves are much too massive to have quantum mixed states. For a long time (a few decades) I thought (and still do) that their discharges are governed by "classical" (not QM) natural laws, mainly of chemistry and physic, so how could free will exist? With intent only to better understand perception, especially visual perception, I stumbled on how genuine free will could exist and not conflict with those non- QM laws. Thus you should learn from and find interesting: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=905778&postcount=66 where I explain and justify my RTS view of perception with focus on showing genuine free will is not necessarily inconsistent with the natural laws that control the firing of every nerve in your body. Then see: http://www.sciforums.com/threads/wh...e-will-an-illusion.104623/page-5#post-2644660 and posts 84, 86 & 94 where I clarify my POV more.
Sure sure, I do not intend to erect any house of cards on this, such as justification of free will or anything. Merely that, philosophically, I find it attractive that there are limits to knowledge imposed by physics itself. Sort of seems an attractively modest, if you like.
Not my POV as you have no control at all over anything. Not over how QM collapses or if all were deterministic, certainly not too. I prefer my RTS, POV of the link 66 I gave rather than just the illusion of some control.
I understand you want to attempt a marriage of science with religion but I have to tell you this is doomed enterprise, precisely because the elimination of religious ways of thinking is key to the scientific method of understanding the physical world. In my view you are far better off to see Science and Religion as complementary approaches to human experience. Religion has far more in common with the Humanities than with the Sciences. Plenty of scientists are also religious, but that does not mean they invoke religion in the scientific models of the world that they work with. The moment they do that they are doing metaphysics, not science. I think where QM is interesting is that one can argue it denies that the world is fully deterministic. Personally, I rather like that.[/QUOTE] The fact that the Quantum state of systems is a supper positioning means that matter and reality is non-local. Therefore, we as observers are as much a part of the observed reality. Quantum mechanics sometime requires radical approach, which may not make sense. Its implications are also in a way "absurd" because it infers that observers are necessary for existence of reality. "I think that a particle must have a separate reality independent of the measurements. That is: an electron has spin, location and so forth even when it is not being measured. I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it."Einstein So, does the moon exist if we are not looking at it? Is the reality real if there are no observers? If a tree falls in the Forrest, does it make noise if there are no sentient beings with a hearing capacity? The questions appear silly. Of course, the moon exists! Of course, the tree makes noise! But Quantum mechanics requires us to consider what may appear absurd. We would like to think it silly to make any other proposition. But the fact that matter particles appear to have some kind of "superluminal signaling, and then disappear into a supper positioning state like a kind of singularity forces us to consider the implication of the macro reality. You say that marriage of religion and science is a doomed enterprise. How is this so, and yet Quantum Mechanics has forced the marriage? Religion, and here I mean Christianity claimed that we are Spirit being, and God is Spirit. And its He who have created everything. “God is Spirit, and those who worship him, must worship him in Spirit, and Truth” John 4: 24-25 Jesus What has Quantum Mechanics claimed of reality? Bells Theorem states; “No physical theory, of local Hidden Variables, can ever reproduce all the predictions of Quantum Mechanics” ” In that regard, its not possible to have a physical theory which is realistic and also local, that agrees with all the theory’s predictions. In a lay mans language, the theory stipulates that if the predictions of the quantum theory are true, i.e that matter particles exists as a set of probabilities, then, its improbable to expect the universe to be influence by laws of local causes. And therefore no “hidden variables” will ever give rise to the same results as quantum theory. In that case, an “Objective Universe” cannot exists apart from conscious observers, and the so-called, locally realistic view of the world was false. So, God is Spirit, and the reality He has created, has been confirmed as being non-local, meaning Spiritual. What does He say of Himself? I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give water from the well of Life free to anybody who is thirsty; anyone who proves victorious will inherit these things; and I will be his God, and he will be my Son. Revelation 21:1- 10 Alpha, and the Omega, the Beginning and the end. What has Quantum Mechanics claims as the state of matter and reality? Super positioning. Beginning of matter is also the end. A superposition Have I forced anything? No. What is the nature of God? “ I the Light, have come down to the World so that all who believe in me won’t have to stay any longer in the dark.” John 12:46:46. God, is Light. What is matter made of basically? Photons of light. So, there! "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries”. Robert Jastrow How apt, indeed!
The fact that the Quantum state of systems is a supper positioning means that matter and reality is non-local. Therefore, we as observers are as much a part of the observed reality. Quantum mechanics sometime requires radical approach, which may not make sense. Its implications are also in a way "absurd" because it infers that observers are necessary for existence of reality. "I think that a particle must have a separate reality independent of the measurements. That is: an electron has spin, location and so forth even when it is not being measured. I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it."Einstein So, does the moon exist if we are not looking at it? Is the reality real if there are no observers? If a tree falls in the Forrest, does it make noise if there are no sentient beings with a hearing capacity? The questions appear silly. Of course, the moon exists! Of course, the tree makes noise! But Quantum mechanics requires us to consider what may appear absurd. We would like to think it silly to make any other proposition. But the fact that matter particles appear to have some kind of "superluminal signaling, and then disappear into a supper positioning state like a kind of singularity forces us to consider the implication of the macro reality. You say that marriage of religion and science is a doomed enterprise. How is this so, and yet Quantum Mechanics has forced the marriage? Religion, and here I mean Christianity claimed that we are Spirit being, and God is Spirit. And its He who have created everything. “God is Spirit, and those who worship him, must worship him in Spirit, and Truth” John 4: 24-25 Jesus What has Quantum Mechanics claimed of reality? Bells Theorem states; “No physical theory, of local Hidden Variables, can ever reproduce all the predictions of Quantum Mechanics” ” In that regard, its not possible to have a physical theory which is realistic and also local, that agrees with all the theory’s predictions. In a lay mans language, the theory stipulates that if the predictions of the quantum theory are true, i.e that matter particles exists as a set of probabilities, then, its improbable to expect the universe to be influence by laws of local causes. And therefore no “hidden variables” will ever give rise to the same results as quantum theory. In that case, an “Objective Universe” cannot exists apart from conscious observers, and the so-called, locally realistic view of the world was false. So, God is Spirit, and the reality He has created, has been confirmed as being non-local, meaning Spiritual. What does He say of Himself? I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give water from the well of Life free to anybody who is thirsty; anyone who proves victorious will inherit these things; and I will be his God, and he will be my Son. Revelation 21:1- 10 Alpha, and the Omega, the Beginning and the end. What has Quantum Mechanics claims as the state of matter and reality? Super positioning. Beginning of matter is also the end. A superposition Have I forced anything? No. What is the nature of God? “ I the Light, have come down to the World so that all who believe in me won’t have to stay any longer in the dark.” John 12:46:46. God, is Light. What is matter made of basically? Photons of light. So, there! "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries”. Robert Jastrow How apt, indeed![/QUOTE] Ah, thanks now I understand. You are not listening at all, are you? You want to preach, rather than discuss. I'll leave you to it, then.
Ah, thanks now I understand. You are not listening at all, are you? You want to preach, rather than discuss. I'll leave you to it, then.[/QUOTE] Oh. You cannot handle the Truth can you? Religion is not supposed to make sense. So, when it starts to make sense, its preaching. Huh!
Oh. You cannot handle the Truth can you? Religion is not supposed to make sense. So, when it starts to make sense, its preaching. Huh![/QUOTE] You have not addressed the points in my post, or those made by others, explaining that QM does NOT say observers are necessary for the existence of reality. Instead you repeat yourself as if the point had not been made. That shows you are unwilling to enter a discussion.
You have not addressed the points in my post, or those made by others, explaining that QM does NOT say observers are necessary for the existence of reality. Instead you repeat yourself as if the point had not been made. That shows you are unwilling to enter a discussion.[/QUOTE] "QM does NOT say observers are necessary for the existence of reality" Am not sure if you are familiar with the theory, but that is exactly what it claims.This is Bells Theorem: “If the statistical predictions of quantum theory are true, an observable universe is incompatible with the laws of local causes” John Bell I may not be an expert in these fields, but the commonness inference by the theory is the necessity of observers for existence of reality. What are the statistical predictions of Quantum Theory? The predication is that at Quantum Realm, the micro structures that manifests the Macro structure we observe as reality have probabilistic existence. Meaning that even if we apprehend what we call “matter” its very existence depends on the observer. The very nature of reality is illusory. Therefore existence require observers who make sense of it. Does the fact that reality needs us observers for it to exists too much to take? Ontologically, it may place Man as very important, as if the Universe would not be there if we did not exists, but pretty much that the crazy claim being made..............and by Science. So, when I try to bring in the reason for this by introducing Religion, am preaching. Smile, you realy are very important for existence, because you are a Child of God. He created everything for you, and He individuated the Universe in you. You are a child of the Universe, and you are a micro Universe. David Bolm, one of the greats Physicists, claimed that the Universe is a Hologram A Virtual Phantasm. Your Mind, according to Karl Pribram is a Hologram. But then, since not many Scientists are yet to buy in this, of course we lay guys will have to wait until they agree.
