Maybe its too early in the morning, but I'm struggling to get my head around this. The cartoon video suggests that the observational device was positioned at the screen - observing the pattern as it hit the screen. The second video suggests that the key to the pattern outcome is knowing which slit the particles went through - observation or analysis of entry through the slits. Could someone please clarify for me exactly what has to be observed in order to create the wave pattern?

Originally posted by PvtHudson

Originally posted by Spirit Warrior 11:11

For instance, a computer will generate graphics for a flight simulation but it only renders graphics in the area that the simulated aircraft is flying. The computer does not waste processing power to render the graphics of other areas of the map not in use.

Maybe years ago, but these days most video cards can render all of it.

Actually your wrong, it's called frustum clipping and still a very important method of rendering graphics till this day and probably beyond. Doesn't make sense to calculate vertices that do not make it into the clip range thus wasting unnecessary power when that power could be use on something else. Please don't spew ignorance just because it's today and today's technology we can do anything...

People are getting their heads all tied up in knots.

The problem is that you are attempting to fit quantum mechanical properties into familiar human cognitive shortcuts which are evolved into your neural wiring. These shortcuts are not valid when dealing with quantum mechanical objects.

The experiments show nothing other than that the laws of quantum mechanics are indeed exactly as they said in the 1920's and 1930's.

Stop the god and consciousness mumbo-jumbo.

Quantum mechanics says that there is a time evolution operator for the wavefunction (or perhaps evolution in some space which includes time as dependent variable)

The fundamental Mystery of quantum mechanics is that the space of this wavefunction is a Hilbert space of functions and not a finite-dimensional vector space of Euclidean (x,y,z). Get over it.

If you try to project your Euclidean biases into quantum mechanics, you get paradoxes. If you use QM and see how you usually get (but not always) causal Euclidean classical dynamics in the limits of large numbers of particles and large space scales.

It is all in the artificial boundary between QM and classical where the confusion arises---if you consider the atoms of your measurement apparatus to consist of things which are not quantum mechanical, contrary to fact.

Originally posted by mbkennel
Stop the god and consciousness mumbo-jumbo.

As well as the big worded drivel and self righteous mindless garble. I mean, everyone is entitled to their opinion. Take myself for instance, I prefer A-1 sauce on my fried eggs, but that's just me. ~$heopleNation

is this not a fact of physics? why is this in the grey area? was it originally posted in the grey area or moved here?

anyways... since it's here.. let me just take it into the grey area.. i personally feel that this is one of the most underrated concepts in the world. the implications of this phenomenon are infinite. it's as if "life" is programed to keep its divine nature just outside your conscious peripheral. as if "life" teases conscious beings with the idea that there is a mystical nature to our reality, but as soon as you look closely, or "observe" the mystical object or event in question; you find that there is a logical explanation after-all. in other-words.. something unbelievably ironic happens.. your skeptical nature drives you to find reason and logic behind it.. and more times than not.. if you are looking for logic, your mind "will" find a way to make it so.. therefore collapsing the wave-function..

if it is fact (which it is) that an electron behaves differently when observed by a conscious being.. than that means are minds affect reality without us physically having to do anything at all. which means that we, may in fact, be able to affect reality with our observations alone. this is why i feel this topic is severely under-rated.

a little bit further into the grey area...

now lets say that it goes a little beyond (observing - not observing) (paying attention - not paying attention)
(looking - not looking) and we consider that it's not just "observing" but the way in which we are "observing."
in other words... the "intention" behind the "observation" for the sake of example: lets say you are observing a very talented juggler. and lets also say that as he adds more and more balls, he is building a more and more elaborate wave-function. you look over and see you girlfriend giving the juggler the googly eyes.. this angers you internally as you cringe your teeth with strong negative emotion directed at the juggler, and at that very moment.. he drops the balls on the ground; thus collapsing the wave-function.. now we face the ironic coincidence paradox. but the beautiful thing about this paradox is.. that no matter how ironic or coincidental the occurrence.. "life" never offers solid proof to the "mysticism" it only teases you with the idea.

our subconscious intentions may very well play the greatest role and have the greatest affect on the nature of our reality.. to harness it is the game we are all playing, even though we may not realize it.

As for TPTB: if enough of us consciously observe their ill-natured wave-function, IT WILL COLLAPSE

Originally posted by NewAgeMan

The reason materiallst monism (matter alone is primary and all there is) does not work (is killed dead), in light of quantum physics, is because an epiphenomenon of matter, alone, no matter how complex, is not, in and of itself, capable, ever, of collapsing the wave of probability into a measurement, which requires of course a conscioous choice to be made.

No it doesn't. Macroscopic experimental apparatus appears to be completely capable of "collapsing the wave function" without human intervention.

I think the Copenhagen 'interpretation' is a load of nonsensical bollocks, because it infests a highly successful physical theory with "stuff" that isn't physics or computable. What's the mechanistic equation of motion for "collapsing" as opposed to the regular quantum mechanics which happens all the times that you aren't looking. Oddly enough Neils Bohr didn't have a good answer.

As a useful operational procedure, it works very well if you don't think about it too hard but I believe it to be a calculational shortcut and approximation to the true dynamics of what's going on.

As an analogy, with large numbers of classical collisional particles in some regimes you can derive the Navier Stokes equation from first principles and some reasonable approximate assumptions. This activity took a few lectures in my statistical physics class.

The NS equations are successful but nevertheless everybody is clear that there is no fundamental continuum of matter, it's just a useful approximation for many regimes.

The Copenhagen procedure is just like that, the large thermodynamic approximation useful in nearly all practical experimental situations, a rule of thumb like Fermi's Golden Rules (very useful but approximate perturbative computational procedures).

But it get's "worse" (or better, depending on your POV).. since both observer and observed are entwined within the same system, we cannot distinguish the consciousness of the "observer" from the observed, which is looking back at us looking at it looking at us looking at it, ad infinitum. Therefore, the prior "condition" of mind, or self, is also non-localized, until a choice is made. Provided we then do not get lost in these choices in the form of a strong "reality filter" we remain at peace or at rest, without thought or the need of thought or of particulization or labelling. This is the experience of the great masters and forms the very heart and soul of all the great wisdom teachings down through the ages. It represents therefore something both very old AND very new.

Or, as I believe, the equations of motion of quantum mechanics, when you include observed quantum states and experimental apparatus as also made of large number of quantum particles, does everything on its own as a consequence of dynamical evolution, just as the tides and eclipses predicted by Isaac Newton do their own thing without intervention of human will or consciousness.

In mathematics, if you assume a certain proposition and the consequence of that turns out to be contradictory or nonsensical, that's a good indication your proposition was false.

I think physics works the same way, if you make assumptions whose consequences require bizarre philosophical or mental contortions, you did something wrong. QM is hard and strange enough on its own.

I'm happy to assume that something like the interaction of atoms with the background electromagnetic heat bath of the Universe is perfectly acceptable mechanism for quantum mechanical dynamics to quickly evolve to eigenstates of certain physical systems ('collapse') using nothing but regular QM.

the only reason the slits were used and change anything is to make a pattern on a blank wall. if you didnt have slits it would just splatter randomly on the wall while even using the measuring device. and you woulndt have much of an experiment at all just a random mess on a wall.

People are asking what this whole experiment is about and only get long winded pompous explanations, so let me tell you an easy explanation. Just imagine the photons are naughty children, they run around misbehaving jumping on everything. but when mommy or daddy enters the room and watches them they start behaving. mommy and daddy leave the room...they start acting up again and bouncing around everywhere.

So this is why people are intrigued. How do these particles know we are watching them?

So the scientist thought well hmm maybe the camera we are using to observe is messing up the experiment?
So next comes the quantum eraser experiment...

quantum eraser experiment, it gets even weirder.
Double slit with no camera = waves/many lines fuzzy.
Double slit with camera = particles/two lines.
The double slit experiment results baffled the scientists and they wondered how the camera may have interfered with the wave/particle.
So what they did was set the camera up as normal but within the camera they placed a device that would delete the movie telling them any information about what had been recorded. No person would ever know. So if the wave/particle is been affected by the photo being taken the result would be two lines (because the camera caused the collapse in some way).
This did not happen, the result was many fuzzy lines.

so because the camera had a delete program built into it after it recorded...it changed circumstances of the outcome. Did the photons know their actions would be deleted so the humans could not hit rewind and see what they were doing? hmm!

Originally posted by Foxy1
the only reason the slits were used and change anything is to make a pattern on a blank wall. if you didnt have slits it would just splatter randomly on the wall while even using the measuring device. and you woulndt have much of an experiment at all just a random mess on a wall.

If the photons can be aimed to go through the slits, why can't they be aimed at a certain place on the wall?

Originally posted by SUBKONCIOUS

As for TPTB: if enough of us consciously observe their ill-natured wave-function, IT WILL COLLAPSE

interesting..

consciously observe?. wave function??

so ignorance IS bliss? or not