Quantum mechanics needs no consciousness (and the other way around)

a reply to: ImaFungi How much photon could a photon photon if a photon could photon photon? Why only 20% left?

originally posted by: neoholographic
a reply to: Arbitrageur

I already explained in another thread why this makes no sense but let me ask you a question. The title of the thread is Quantum Mechanics needs no consciousness. Could you define consciousness? What is the true nature of consciousness?

If you don't have an answer then your posts makes no sense. How can you say definitively that Quantum Mechanics needs no Consciousness when you don't know what consciousness is?

Please define the true nature of consciousness for me.

Once you do, then please explain how Quantum Mechanics DOES need that consciousness (consciousness as you define it, with its true nature).

a reply to: Arbitrageur

The analysis in the paper is a bit technical, but for a simplified explanation see the video below which explains the experimental results in layman terms and the implications for consciousness.

Did you read it?

Those archive files don't open for me.

I would like to have some more information of the exact setup. Your thread and the article don't provide any evidence.

originally posted by: HotMale
a reply to: Arbitrageur

The analysis in the paper is a bit technical, but for a simplified explanation see the video below which explains the experimental results in layman terms and the implications for consciousness.

Did you read it?

Those archive files don't open for me.

arxiv.org...

a reply to: GetHyped

Thanks!

Of course if the universe is our mind and our consciousness is not aware of this then the confusion is to limit consciousness to ourselves. Or perhaps the universe is a collection of consciousness's and we, the participants, are separate consciousness's from the one's which're the universe. Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to vomit up is that if consciousness is fundamental to the universe then separating it might be impossible.

I accept that the universe will exist whether or not I observe it, so I'm agreeing with the OP. But I don't think this is the end of it. As another poster stated, do we really know what consciousness is? I thought it was a good post because even if we someday figure out how our own consciousness emerges from the universe that will not rule out imho that the universe itself is a consciousness or collection fo them.

A few years ago my idea of consciousness was that even particles are conscious. Ofc, they're not conscious to the amount we're, but they can react to their environment in limited fashion. They remember their temperature and shape and their direction and speed. It's the capacity to react to the environment and store information within itself and in turn that information influence its future actions which defines its level of consciousness. So everything could be seen as a level of consciousness. The greater the capacity to react and store information and have an exchange between the information and reaction, the more conscious it's.

So this thought experiment I have running is that consciousness doesn't emerge because it's already there. What it does is become perceptible to us. Our capacity to see consciousness is like a lens which has limited faculty to be a microscope or telescope--to see the small and great.

It's similar to asking What's hot? Temperature, as I define it, is a measurement of internal kinetic energy. But what's hot? Hot is a number. A hot day on Mars is mild for Earth. A hot day on Europa is frozen cold on Mars. When does hot happen? Depends on the number. Objects we measure always have some internal heat, unless they're absolute zero. Is there an absolute zero for consciousness? Possibly. It would mean it's not always fundamental to the universe, but it's damn close to it. (Note: According to my reading, absolute zero cannot be reached, neither does it mean no quantum mechanical zero-point energy. It's just simply the (theoretical) lowest state of internal energy. Atoms can still move.)

But for all reality we must stick to what we know. For the time being, I can only strictly support the OP, although inwardly things are blurry.

The question to ask regarding consciousness and wave function breakdown is...what is the interaction? How does a passive condition interact with a quantum of energy? Ah, to hell with this, I'll answer the question for you.

Consciousness is not a form of energy that we focus and project as if it was some form of laser energy. Consciousness arises after the interaction not before, so it cannot be the cause of wave-function breakdown. Wave-function breakdown occurs due to interactive energy correspondence, When a photon is absorbed by a quantum, that assimilation is the cause of the wave-function breakdown of that quantum, reality appears. Consciousness does not shoot out photons, it simply does not interact with anything. If you think it does, then by all means, show me energy of consciousness!

a reply to: Arbitrageur

The analysis in the paper is a bit technical, but for a simplified explanation see the video below which explains the experimental results in layman terms and the implications for consciousness.

Are you suggesting that this vid is representing the paper you are talking about?

What seems odd is that some people try to cite the quantum eraser experiment as proof that consciousness is needed in quantum mechanics but it actually shows the opposite, that it's not.

Can you cite the source she used for her vid? What specific experiment?

That's ok, you can have other reasons to feel special about yourself, without the need to feel that the universe revolves around you because of your consciousness.

I don't see how acknowledging the role of consciousness is equivalent to having a big ego. If anything it would deflate one's ego since everything would be one.

Here is a pretty good technical explanation of the implications of the quantum eraser experiment. Most of the "spooky" misinterpretations which lead to "magic" are the result of assuming things we call "particles" must always act like particles, but a fundamental concept of quantum mechanics is that they can also behave as waves. When we consider this wave behavior, it's much easier to interpret the results of the experiment:

It is a cop out and even this view doesn't explain it, the experiment has certain factors that are not explained by supposed particle/ wave duallity.

What matters is availability of info. Why is there still an interference pattern when the info is erased?

Btw, "a single particle is both a particle and a wave" is not magic?

In conclusion, the available evidence does not indicate that the observer’s explicit phenomenal representation about the outcome of a measurement plays a role in collapsing the wave function. We also suggest that the observer does not serve a more fundamental function in quantum mechanics than that in the classical theory. Thus, the idea that by mere observation the experimenter creates physical reality is not viable. This supports Wigner’s opinion in his later years and promises to fulfill his hopes– –that we “will not embrace solipsism” and “will let us admit that the world really exists” (cited from Primas and Esfeld, 1997).

They base their conclusion on 3 existing experiments.

Their conclusion of the first one I can easily refute.

The third one is just a concept and was never actually conducted so we can scratch that. Even its predicted result is easily refuted.

The second one(actually two experiments) is of greater importance to the outcome of this discussion but I have had no luck finding an actual paper on it.

I wil do another post on this anyway.

Conscious access to the information about the outcome of a measurement of a quantum state is not necessary for the collapse of wave function

Just a qoute to show where things go wrong in their interpretations, CONSCIOUS ACCES is not needed, correct. But ACCES is.

Just like I have been pointing out, AVAILABILITY of info.

This doesn't disprove the role of consciousness. To what other factor would it matter if there was acces to information? Who would do the accessing?

It's not about looking direcly but having the potential to. What if you did decide to look at the path info anyway? Off course there is no interference pattern beforehand, because that would be a result that would not line up with that potential reality(form the perspective of the conscious observer)

And this paper, is also, completely ignoring the result that erasure of the path info has.


These are the experiments I am looking for,

Eichmann et al. 1993 ; Durr et al. 1998,

If anyone can help with that then please.

HotMale:

This doesn't disprove the role of consciousness.

Oh for crying out loud! Consciousness plays no role in the presentation of reality...it is in fact a by-product of the presentation of reality, a reality that is presented out of energetic interactions that occur way before consciousness arises. How the hell can you be conscious of an event that has to first stimulate the body's senses, from which a signal is fired from the sensing organ to the brain and the signal then transposed into a collection of signals that presents a meaningful experience of external reality? Why does no one see the latency involved? There is a a duration interval between wave-function breakdown, and the meaningful experience of its reality (ie consciousness of it). So how can consciousness play a role in wave-function breakdown?

a reply to: Elysiumfire

Are you talking about an experimental result like I was? I just explained why the result indicates consciousness. If you don't want to discuss actual experimental results I have no interest in talking to you.

a reply to: HotMale


If they are doing it with 1 particle.

Particle enters End A

Detector is at End C

Path info detector is at Middle B


Single particle goes through and the Path info detector detects the path info at Middle B.

Is that info erased before the particle gets to End C?

If the info is not erased, the particle is detected at End C

And the info at End C is looked at, and it is not an interference pattern (because the path info was detected).

If the same process occurs; Single particle enters End A.

But this time, the Path info detector does detect,

But before the particle gets to End C

The path detector info is erased

Then the particle gets to End C

And you say there exists an interference pattern?

I have personally never seen evidence that a single particle entering into a path experiment system creates an interference pattern;

If a single quanta enters a path experiment system and creates an interference pattern, it must be a wave with width (Iike an ocean wave). Which is, I think, is it difficult to explain, how a quanta is shot out of a skinny nozzle, and does it immediately burst into a perfectly straight horizontal wave? This is extremely necessary to consider. Experiments are being done with quanta, in which the experimenters do not fully know what or how the quanta really is, in attempt to know how and what the quanta really is.

So some how, energy with a width the size of the nozzle, exists the nozzle, and its width increases as an arc or extends into a perfectly straight line?

And then this ocean like wide wave heads for 2 paths;

Quite intuitively, the wave is split and half of it goes down one path and half down the other (God knows what sort of energy is jostled when it collides with the path to split, or if it interacts with the material of the path itself to create radiation etc.)

When no path is detected, as each half of the wave exists each path, it 'spreads out', which again, this entire notion is difficult, because of the nature of energy conservation;

If half this quanta has an energy value of x, what are the limits it is able to spread out, how is this not consistently increasing its quantity or energy value of energy? Considering the more it spreads the more it would theoretically be able to 'do work' on that which its spreading width can touch.

But as is said by 'those in the know';

each half does spread, as it exits each path, and this spreading, interacts with itself (oh dear... what a mess all this is.... if this is done with a photon, i mean... is a photon like a wide ocean wave.... if this is done with an atom like claimed, does the atom become 2 different elements, and then recombine... this is terrible!!)

And then from entering into End A, 1 single quanta, End C has detected 'an interference pattern'.

When the path info is detected and erased;

Each half quanta travels down its path (the problem is people try to have it both and all ways, that the wave function is real, and that it is not real... that the single quanta really travels and really can travel both paths, and really cannot...)

The detector detects as and how detectors do... shooting 1 photon, or a million? At the each half quanta wide wave

And this.....does....


Ok, but whatever it does without the erasing of the information...

It does differently when the information is erased....

Which leads people to believe, that the half quantas were going as they would if their path was detected, and then when the path info detectors info was erased, the quantas stopped going as they would if their path was detected.

originally posted by: HotMale
a reply to: Elysiumfire

Are you talking about an experimental result like I was? I just explained why the result indicates consciousness. If you don't want to discuss actual experimental results I have no interest in talking to you.

I believe what he is saying is that it obviously takes time for our brains to register an event, due to the finite speed of the light coming from that event to our brains, plus the finite speed of our brains registering that the event occurred.

If that is true, then that means that an event (such as the movement of photons in the double slit experiment) has already happened before we can perceive it. If the event occurs prior to our perception of the event, then our perception cannot affect the event.

There has been a huge misunderstanding about what the observer actually means... and it is of course the term that is often used when talking about measurement and quantum mechanics.

Quantum mechanics doesn't actually need a conscious observer, because quantum mechanics is not about choice, it is about chance.

It is about potentials and how those potentials go from being at odds against to being certainties.

This is achieved through interaction, for every interaction a quantum object goes through will reduce the number of possibilities of it's existence to a smaller value, until that value is 1:1.. the point of coherence.

So Quantum mechanics should be more thought of as the study of systems and of isolation and of potentials.

If a system is closed then it has so many possible outcomes... each one is valid... and it is only when the system is opened does the outcome become set... Schrodingers cat.

This is how Quantum Mechanics works.

I gladly take any questions you may have.

Korg.

HotMale:

If you don't want to discuss actual experimental results I have no interest in talking to you.

If you can rebut the logic of what I have posited, then by all means let's discuss. Don't hang onto a fallacy just so you can refuse to acknowledge your error.

Whatever result came out of the experiment is irrelevant, what is relevant is the interpretation of the results. That is where discussion should focus. Are you game?

soylent green is people:

If the event occurs prior to our perception of the event, then our perception cannot affect the event.

In a nutshell! Apologies to all if my exasperation causes offence?

a reply to: soylent green is people

I believe what he is saying is that it obviously takes time for our brains to register an event, due to the finite speed of the light coming from that event to our brains, plus the finite speed of our brains registering that the event occurred. If that is true, then that means that an event (such as the movement of photons in the double slit experiment) has already happened before we can perceive it. If the event occurs prior to our perception of the event, then our perception cannot affect the event.

First off he cherry picked one line and took it completely out of context taking off on another tangent.

It is a completely moot point and indicative of a non understanding.

The information we look at in these experiments has already happened anyway since we are looking at results from detectors.

But that is not what he meant. He meant in the real world.

It is still a moot point.

People keep thinking that the idea of a role of consciousness in Quantum Mechanics would mean that our material brain's consciousness creates material reality but that is not what I am saying.

Why does noone ever adress the parts of my posts that are based on experimental results?

Why don't you explain why availability of info, or acces to it, matters?


How many of you actually read the paper this op is based on?

HotMale:

First off he cherry picked one line and took it completely out of context taking off on another tangent.

No...I didn't, so stop crying. That one line I allegedly cherry-picked represents all your statement. I showed you with clear irrefutable logic that consciousness (and there is only one) plays no role in wave-function breakdown. What this means is that if consciousness is invoked in an interpretation of an experimental result, then the interpretation is wrong!

There is no moot point about the simplicity of the logic I posit, it is just something that you don't want to see and acknowledge

originally posted by: HotMale
Why does noone ever adress the parts of my posts that are based on experimental results?

Why don't you explain why availability of info, or acces to it, matters?


How many of you actually read the paper this op is based on?

Care to elaborate and I will do my best to answer you.

Physics (science in general) attempts to know what exists and how it exists. (when we increase our knowledge of what exists and how it exists, and the laws that relate what exists and how it exists and how it interacts and moves, we can invent things that did not exist, but we still believe we are using 'what exists and how what exists exists and the laws that what exists abides by' to invent and create what we do. For example, we dont think Pizza exists in nature; it takes the knowledge of different things that exist and the laws of their existence for us to invent Pizza; but we dont think we invent fundamental Pizza particles when we make Pizza.

So when we speak about; Photon, Electron, Atom; We believe there exists 'something' beyond us that relates to those words, that requires different words to describe different things that exist.

That the sun contains 'stuff that exists', and the stuff that exists is not exactly and entirely identical in quanta and quality; we believe that if humans existed or not; the sun would contain 'something like our knowledge of atom', something like our knowledge (or what our knowledge is ever working toward cornering) electron and something like Photon.

We have reason to believe the stuff is not exactly and entirely identical; so we created words that express difference, different words relate to different things.

Our knowledge, of what the words atom, electron, photon attempt to corner, may be lacking, may be severely lacking, may be our knowledge is approaching Truth, as in a realistic comprehension of what exists and how it exists.

We believe the sun creates Photon.

We believe Photon is a thing. That requires certain things, to create it.

It is like a puzzle; 2 + 2 = 4. If photon = 4 (for analogy), you can create photons by interacting 2 and 2, also maybe you can by interacting 3 and 1, and maybe etc.

We believe in labs, if the sun has 'things that exist, that interact to create a thing',

That if we know and have access to things that exist, we can interact them to create a thing. And we believe we can there fore know more about what exists out there, closer to home.

When I say the word Photon, a hundred people might think a hundred different things. In reality, if the word Photon, relates and/or is attempting to relate and equal, a 'thing that exists', then we must admit our word is not 100% equal to the thing, and how might we work towards knowing or comprehending how much it falls short?

To then use, or think we are using, these things, in experiment, to attempt to tell us more about what we dont know about the thing we are using, can be sketchy.

This is all I have to say really. So many people psychotically with enthusiasm and excitement jumping to conclusions, when they literally know so little about everything and anything.

When I am presented by such experiments, dealing with photons, or electrons, traveling through paths, with detectors, and lasers, and info erasing; I tread as intellectually careful as I can.

If any, a bias that I have is that I believe the best chance of knowing is by thinking thoroughly and carefully.