Why must you insist reality is illusion?

reply to post by Epsillion70

Well, I don't know if that was beyond Brisbane, mate, but it was certainly beyond me. Nice avatar, by the way. Reminds me of this, the only car that ever actually looked like the animal it was named after. Don't ask me why.

You don't agree with old sirnex or what?

reply to post by enigmania

Oh, you mean the light of science that makes people think all they are is there body and the result of it's processes?

Ooh! What an exciting question! I suppose you mean 'their body' and 'its processes'. Do you have any evidence to show me different?

What about the implications of the experiment I'm talking about? Don't you see anything strange about them?

Did that experiment in lab, many years ago when I was failing to become a physicist. There's nothing strange about it. If I'd turned round a fraction of a second earlier or later, I'd have seen the damn' thing go through the other slit. So what? Sometimes it's going one way, sometimes it's going the other. I just catch it one way or the other. I don't know which way it's going to fall. I can't predict or direct it. So what's the big deal?

Sometimes I look out my window, it's raining. Other times the sky is blue. Doesn't mean I'm controlling the weather.

Even if you don't believe consciousness is affecting the pattern, can you tell me what is making the pattern change?

You really aren't even beginning to get it, are you? The pattern is. That's all. Asking yourself what makes it change isn't going to make the pattern any different. Were ifs and ands but pots and pans, there'd be no need for tinkers.

And don't say observer effect, cause the quantum eraser experiment proves that is not the case, no matter how you look at it.

What a load of stinkybollocks. The 'quantum eraser' experiment just says that if a particle went thisaway, it's entangled complement must have gone thataway. Your looking at it didn't have anything to do with it. Don't be so bigheaded, you don't control the world.




[edit on 16-9-2008 by Astyanax]

reply to post by Astyanax

Did that experiment in lab, many years ago when I was failing to become a physicist. There's nothing strange about it

Jeah, that would explain why you don't get it. Nothing strange about it, lol.

Even Wikipedia thinks it's remarkable.

It is perhaps not so astounding that one knows nothing about what a light particle is doing between the time it is emitted from the sun and the time it triggers a reaction in one's retina, but the remarkable consequence discovered by this experiment is that anything that one does to try to locate a photon between the emitter and the detection screen will change the results of the experiment in a way that everyday experience would not lead one to expect. If, for instance, any device is used in any way that can determine whether a particle has passed through one slit or the other, the interference pattern formerly produced will then disappear.

What a load of stinkybollocks. The 'quantum eraser' experiment just says that if a particle went thisaway, it's entangled complement must have gone thataway. Your looking at it didn't have anything to do with it. Don't be so bigheaded, you don't control the world.

I don't think you get it:

The quantum eraser experiment is a double-slit experiment in which particle entanglement and selective polarization is used to determine which slit a particle goes through by measuring the particle's entangled partner. This entangled partner never enters the double slit experiment. Earlier experiments with the basic Young double-slit experiment had already determined that anything done to discover by which path (through slit a or through slit b) a photon traveled to the detection screen would destroy the interference effect that is responsible for the production of interference fringes on the detection screen.

I think you should do some more research on these experiment because you have no clue.

I'm not saying that I can control matter. Every possible situation is present in potential form, at the same place at the same time, our consciousness just materializes the one that corresponds with what we think and know.

reply to post by Astyanax

You really aren't even beginning to get it, are you? The pattern is. That's all. Asking yourself what makes it change isn't going to make the pattern any different. Were ifs and ands but pots and pans, there'd be no need for tinkers.

See, you don't have a clue. The pattern "is" not. It changes. Depending on whether you observe the slit that the particle goes through.

Remarks like this:

Sometimes I look out my window, it's raining. Other times the sky is blue. Doesn't mean I'm controlling the weather.

clearly show you don't even remotely understand those experiments and their implications.

reply to post by enigmania

This entangled partner never enters the double slit experiment.

Do you understand what this means?

Why do you think you are affecting it?

reply to post by Astyanax


Again you don't get it, at all. Off course the entangled partner doesn't enter the DS-experiment.

The entagled partner is just there to measure wich slit the particle that DOES enter the DS, went through. The particle that does enter is what is creating the changing pattern, depending on observation.

Care to respond to the other points I made, or is this the only thing you could come up with?

reply to post by enigmania

Care to respond to your points? Not really. The place you're going wrong has nothing to do with the technicalities of the experiment. It has to do with the delusion that you have decided something just because you were accidentally there to see it happen. If you hadn't been there, would the photon have gone in through a different slit and caused a different entangled outcome? Hey, guess what? You don't know. If you hadn't been there the chance that the first photon would be detected so, and therefore the entangled one would have to be detected so', would be exactly the same as if you hadn't stuck your head in the lab door in the first place: the same dull, unglamorous fifty-fifty. So what have you done? Changed worlds with your observation?

There's a lot of what Murray Gell-Man called 'quantum flapdoodle' out there. Don't fall for it. Quantum mechanics isn't a complete theory. If it ever is completed, you can bet your life the Observer Paradox isn't going to be part of it.

reply to post by Astyanax


So you still fail to see the weirdness in having one single particle going through 2 slits, to interfere with itself, creating an interference pattern on a screen and ultimately acting as a wave.

That's weird enough on its own.

Then when you put a detector next to one or both slits, the particle starts behaving like a particle again, it goes trough one slit and creates a particle pattern.

Now you would say(but I doubt you can even grasp this, judging by your replies)
this change in the pattern is a result of physical interaction between the detector and the particle.

But it is clearly not, because if the info gathered by the detector is immediately erased, before the pattern is even made on the projector screen it starts to behave like a wave again with wave pattern.

So this happens even though the detector physically detected the particle, so it means the detector itself has no influence on the particle becoming a wave.

This really happened, even Wiki says it, nobody seems to want to acknowledge the true implications.

[edit on 16/9/08 by enigmania]

reply to post by Astyanax

The place you're going wrong has nothing to do with the technicalities of the experiment. It has to do with the delusion that you have decided something just because you were accidentally there to see it happen. If you hadn't been there, would the photon have gone in through a different slit and caused a different entangled outcome? Hey, guess what? You don't know.

That's just the point. I do know what happened, if I don't watch the slits, I can watch the screen wich has the pattern on it.

The pattern will be an interference pattern. Do you realize we are shooting single particles here?

Because we didn't watch the slits, the particle goes trough both and interferes with itself, creating a wave and an interference pattern on the screen behind the slit.

It has to go through both slits because we are seeing an interference pattern, but we only fired a single particle.

The only conclusion is, it goes through both slits.

If you do look at the slits there can only be one option, so the particle behaves as a particle and forms a particle pattern on the screen behind the slit.

reply to post by enigmania


Nope because it doesn't explicitly say this. Your leaving out the important piece of the puzzle, particle entanglement. Once you understand what that means, you'll then understand why your denser than lead.

Yes but if there is no way to read the instruments results, the wave pattern continues.

The process can be automated and still have the same outcome due to the reason that the observer effect has NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU. I could have sworn you said you had a better understanding of this concept?

So, isn't there a force outside of the instruments that has influence on the pattern?

No because the observer effect has nothing to do with you because (like a broken record) you don't do the actual observing and changing.

Even if you don't believe consciousness is affecting the pattern, can you tell me what is making the pattern change?

Like I said, denser than lead. It is the instruments themselves. The process can be automated with the same results achieved. You don't equate into the equation at all. You still insist on misusing the term.

And don't say observer effect, cause the quantum eraser experiment proves that is not the case, no matter how you look at it.

Wrong, entangled particles. Understand that concept and you understand what happened.

So instead they choose to ignore the whole experiment and it's implications.

Wrong, you insist on misusing the terms in your arguments which is leading to faulty conceptualizations of what is going on. You refuse to accept what the scientists themselves are saying.

So can anyone explain what actually causes the wave pattern to collapse in this experiment?

Entangled pairs.

So translated to our life, it could mean that consciousness is what makes up the world, and not the other way around.

As I requested earlier more than once now, please directly quote where in the article that it says something to this effect.

The consciousness could exist without the nothing, but could the nothing exist without the consciousness?

Faulty logic. For a variety of reasons.

I think you should do some more research on these experiment because you have no clue.

You quoted the answer to your problem and you STILL don't see it. FFS man. ENTANGLED PAIRS. It isn't rocket science ... just quantum science lmfao.

Depending on whether you observe the slit that the particle goes through.

WRONG! YOUUUUU do not observe anything, the INSTRUMENTS DO. Stop misusing the god damn term.

clearly show you don't even remotely understand those experiments and their implications.

Your constant misuse of the terms in your arguments shows you don't have a leg to stand on in your arguments.

Again, YOU ARE NOT THE OBSERVER. Please stop misusing the term in your arguments because you sound like a flipping moron when doing so.

People ask: how can what we see, etc., be an illusion?

But it is - and you don't have to resort to any fancy mystical b*ll*cks to justify that position.

Think about it just from a purely evolutionary point of view.

If intelligence'd evolved in the universe but no species of any kind had ever evolved eyes, then we wouldn't even be able to speak of seeing.

That is to say, the appearance of what we take for reality only appears that way because we have these things called eyes that make it appear that way - no eyes, no appearance or, for that matter, if we had the eyes of a fly, then our idea of visual normality'd be identical to that of a fly.

The only reason blind people can conceive of such a thing as sight is because the sighted tell them there's such a thing.

Ditto if ears - and, thus, hearing - hadn't evolved in any form there'd be no such thing as sound.

And if suitable nerve ends hadn't evolved, then we also wouldn't be able to speak of hot and cold, of texture, of vibrating, and so on, either.

And if you doubt that, think of these kids you hear about who're born without an ability to feel the effect of the red hot stove their hands're blithely gripped around even as they're fascinatedly watching flames gaily dancing between their crumbling blackening fingers.

In fact, if the only sense that'd evolved was, say, the sense of smell, then our sense of reality would be entirely predicated upon whatever our nose was capable of detecting.

For instance, even if we were actually capable of building electronic devices capable of detecting other, non-olfactory realms, the only way we could use them is if they somehow accomodated our sole sense, the sense of smell. So even if these devices were capable of detecting such things as what we call visible light, infrared, ultraviolet, and so on, these gadgets would have to convert them into a form detectable by the nose.

Under such circumstances, then, it would make perfect sense to speak of the smell of yellow, but anyone who started talking about the sight or the colour of yellow would sound positively insane.

And don't try to argue against what I'm saying by claiming that perceiving colour as a smell is impossible, because we now know in fact there are indeed individuals out there who do indeed experience a condition called synesthesia in which various senses seem to mix-up with or swap functions with each other.

And before we can even begin to touch on things of concern to physics like where does that cornerstone of so-called reality, matter's apparent solidity, come from, (hence the search for the Higgsboson), there's the little matter of culture: the only reason you're able to read this is because you've been brought up to understand there is such a thing as language, that there are such things as letters, words, and so on, and how to use them.

But if you'd been brought up in an environment without the concept of language, then what you're looking at would be at best peculiar markings like the lines on the tips of your fingers.

Ditto the screen you're looking at: you know what it is, how to use the pc it's part of, but if you'd been brought up in a culture that didn't even know how to make spear heads, never mind pcs, you wouldn't have the least clue what it was.

None of this means that if things like eye sight or smell or whatever - or, for that matter, culture - had never evolved, then nothing would exist, but it does mean REALITY is purely something we construct with whatever means are available to us and, thus, that whatever we perceive really is an illusion.

reply to post by sirnex

The process can be automated and still have the same outcome due to the reason that the observer effect has NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU. I could have sworn you said you had a better understanding of this concept?

I'm not misusing the term observer effect, I'm saying that it is not the observer effect that is changing the pattern.

I'm not saying the observer effect has anything to do with me the "experimenter".

When the measuring results of the slits are erased before the pattern is formed, the experiment behaves as if there is no measuring device there at all, and a wave pattern forms on the screen.

If they don't erase the info a particle pattern forms.

No because the observer effect has nothing to do with you because (like a broken record) you don't do the actual observing and changing.

That's bull, once you read the info the measuring device sends through you are observing the process.

The process can be automated with the same results achieved.

That is not true. If no one is there to watch the slits the result is a wave pattern, because the single particle goes through both slits and interferes with itself. Superposition.

If the proces is not automated and someone is looking at the measuring results, the pattern they get is a particle pattern.

Not the same result.

As I requested earlier more than once now, please directly quote where in the article that it says something to this effect.

It doesn't in those words. Do you expect Wiki to, as you like to say, "handfeed" you the greater meaning of this experiment.

It is just the fact that a wave pattern or particle pattern appears depending on if the experimenter get's to see the info.

That's the only possible conclusion. So that's why consciousness collapses the wave pattern.

At least Wiki admits that there are some remarkable things happening in those experiments, while you guys just pretend it is all normal and fully explainable within your paradigm.

And actually that line you quoted was just my own view.

reply to post by sirnex

Nope because it doesn't explicitly say this. Your leaving out the important piece of the puzzle, particle entanglement. Once you understand what that means, you'll then understand why your denser than lead.

Particle entanglement is only used in the qauntum eraser/double slit to determine the path of the entagled partner that has gone through the double slit setup.

Particle entaglement is not the reason the pattern changes.

From Wiki:

A variation of this experiment, delayed choice quantum eraser, allows the decision whether to measure or destroy the "which path" information to be delayed until after the entangled particle partner (the one going through the slits) has either interfered with itself or not. Doing so appears to have the bizarre effect of determining the outcome of an event after it has already occurred.

Click here for more information.

reply to post by enigmania

Particle entanglement is only used in the qauntum eraser/double slit to determine the path of the entagled partner that has gone through the double slit setup.

You must dislike reading huh?

The advantage of manipulating the entangled partners of the photons in the double-slit part of the experimental apparatus is that experimenters can destroy or restore the interference pattern in the latter without changing anything in that part of the apparatus. Experimenters do so by manipulating the entangled photon, and they can do so before or after its partner has entered or after it has exited the double-slits and other elements of experimental apparatus between the photon emitter and the detection screen. So, under conditions where the double-slit part of the experiment has been set up to prevent the appearance of interference phenomena (because there is definitive "which path" information present), the quantum eraser can be used to effectively erase that information. In doing so, the experimenter restores interference without altering the double-slit part of the experimental apparatus. An event that is remote in space and in time can restore the readily visible interference pattern that manifests itself through the constructive and destructive wave interference. The apparatus currently under discussion does not have any provision for varying its time parameters, however.

Particle entaglement is not the reason the pattern changes.

Yea, those damn scientists doing the experiments are just doing it all wrong huh?

Click here for more information.

reply to post by sirnex

You are observing the read out on the INSTRUMENT. You never once directly observe the process itself. You are not part of the damn equation. Get it?

Ok, so when you are watching a live tv event, you are not actually observing the event that is being filmed.

What does it matter if you view it directly or not, you still know the outcome.

Wrong wrong wrong wrong. Blubbering dolt ... Look, the observer effect only applies to the instruments doing the detection, you observe only the readout of the detection process. You are not the detector (observer). Stop misusing the term and trying to redefine it.

Like I said before, I know what the observer effect is:

In physics, the term observer effect refers to changes that the act of observation will make on the phenomenon being observed. This is often the result of instruments that, by necessity, alter the state of what they measure in some manner. This effect can be observed in many domains of physics.

The fact that I think that consciousness changes the pattern, doesn't mean I 've got that mixed up with the observer effect, or that I think it is the same thing.

So stop implying that I do.

The fact that the pattern changes after the info of detection is erased, means that the physical observer effect, didn't change the pattern.

Quote directly where it states something to the effect that would lead you to conclude the very thing you are arguing for.

I already did that 5 times.

You must dislike reading huh?

Nowhere in that text does it say that particle entanglement is responsible for changing the pattern. They use particle entanglement as a means to erase the info.

The erasing of the info changes the pattern.

Yea, those damn scientists doing the experiments are just doing it all wrong huh?

No, actually you are interpreting it wrong.

I'm starting to get the feeling that you may possibly have some type of learning disorder.

If learning equates to swallowing your truth, then jeah, I'm a freaking retard.

Click here for more information.

reply to post by enigmania

That's just the point. I do know what happened, if I don't watch the slits, I can watch the screen wich has the pattern on it.

O gawwwd. I can see why some of the other people on the thread have lost patience with you.

I do not propose to. Here is my final attempt to help you understand. I shall not attempt another. If you don't get it this time, you probably never will.

First: you seem to think that light switches between being a particle and being a wave - now this, now that. You are incorrect. Light is both a particle - a photon, or quantum of electromagnetic energy - and a wave - a propagating disturbance in an electromagnetic field. What you take it to be - particle or wave - depends on what you use to detect it.

Remember that point: what you use to detect it.

In the so-called quantum eraser experiment, as with everything else in the world, you know what has happened after it has happened. You can even (theoretically) affect what has happened after it has happened (delayed quantum eraser). This is paradoxical, but not as telling as you think.

Anyway, here's what you cannot do: you cannot control the experiment to produce a specified outcome, nor can you predict what the outcome will be, in advance, simply by willing it. You can control it in the very dull and boring sense that you can fiip an electronic switch and start your car engine, or fire a missile, or whatever, because you know the machinery is connected to the switch in such a way as to allow this. What does this mean? Just what poor old sirnex was driving himself crazy trying to explain to you: it is quantum entanglement, not some hypothetical direct effect of conscious will on real-world phenomena, that forms the causal connection here.

What does the quantum eraser imply for the observer effect? Photons aren't going to start behaving in amazing and extraordinary ways just because you're observing them. For heaven's sake, you're observing any number of photons swarming out of your computer screen even as you read this. You can't predict their behaviour or change it. No more could you have done so in the quantum eraser lab. Reality just happens anyway, whether you're there with your polarizers and detectors and coincidence counters - or not.

I think your problem is that you're getting the concept of complementarity mixed up with the observer effect. They are two different things.

[edit on 16-9-2008 by Astyanax]

reply to post by Astyanax

Hey thanks Mate,
Nah Just "Geeing up" Sirnex
by compounding belicose cartesian logic with an obtuse analogy