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[edit on 15-12-2009 by AndreDC]
[edit on 15-12-2009 by AndreDC]
Your hung up on 'choice' and 'observer' as invariably meaning human consciousness and this simply is not the case at all. I've even attempted to get to to make an explicit quote from the experiment description that human consciousness was this observer and chooser, you ignored such request.
The experimenter makes the "choice" in the experiment.
Do you even read these things before you ask these questions?
Wheeler's experiment consisted of a standard double-slit experiment, except that the detector screen could be removed at the last moment, thereby directing light into two more remote telescopes, each one focused on one of the slits. This allowed a "delayed choice" of the observer, i.e. a choice made after the presumed photon would have cleared the midstream barrier containing two parallel slits. The two telescopes, behind the (removed) screen could presumably "see" a flash of light from one of the slits, and would detect by which path the photon traveled.
According to the results of the double slit experiment, if experimenters do something to learn which slit the photon goes through, they change the outcome of the experiment and the behavior of the photon. If the experimenters know which slit it goes through, the photon will behave as a particle. If they do not know which slit it goes through, the photon will behave as if it were a wave when it is given an opportunity to interfere with itself. The double-slit experiment is meant to observe phenomena that indicate whether light has a particle nature or a wave nature. The fundamental lesson of Wheeler's delayed choice experiment is that the result depends on whether the experiment is set up to detect waves or particles.
Originally posted by Xeven
Originally posted by TheRepublic
reply to post by Matrix Rising
exactly. energy can be neither created nor destroyed. matter is just energy trapped in form.
Except that energy does not have to remain organized in a way to allow cohesion and sentience. Just because your energy lives on in the universe it does not mean YOU will. Your conscious self rely on your "energy" being a form that creates your awareness.
The energy that is your thoughts get dissipated as heat into the universe. Your not home anymore. You cease to exist.
. Originally posted by Matrix Rising
reply to post by sirnex
You are talking about the wrong experiment.
These are 2 different experiments. The one I was talking about above is the delayed choice experiment.
The experiment you sourced is the delayed choice quantum eraser.
This is an experiment that's talking about an entangled pair of photons. When the signal photons hits what's called D0, there's no interference pattern. The other photon is called the idler photon. It can go through D1, D2, D3 or D4.
The signal photon will hit D0 before the idler photon registers. If the idler photon goes through D1 or D2 then an interference pattern occurs and the which path information is erased and a subset of signal photons shows an interference pattern.
What this shows is reality is not fixed. This is what troubled Einstein and led him to say,"God doesn't pay dice with the universe." This also led to things like the EPR paradox. What has been shown throughout the years is that a dice game is being played.
We also play dice. This is consciousness. When you get up in the morninig the dice game starts. You could watch TV, go to the kitchen or hop on the internet. While at work, you could take an early lunch or do something that gets you a raise.
Consciousness plays dice and the universe is conscious.
Materialism is magic. It's hocus pocus. We perceive things like hardness or softness. Nobody has ever touched matter. You don't touch a hard table or lay your head on a soft pillow. You perceive these things.
Idealism is science, materialism is magic.
I know it's hard to let go of the illusion. People want this to be an objective material reality but it's not.
Good books to read on this is.
The Self-Aware Universe by Theoretical Nuclear Physicist Amit Goswami
The Conscious Universe by Dean Radin