Scientism: The worship of modern mainstream science

a reply to: Kashai
People can think about quantum interconnectedness and even test it.
Where it gets unscientific is when woomasters like Greg Braden cite studies in quantum entanglement as if they support any anti-materialist new age fantasy he wants to promote, and I'm just citing him as one example among many. Quantum woo is one of the most abused citations to support ideas which are scientifically unsupported.

Quantum mechanics experiments are certainly valid, but they just haven't supported all the woo people claim. Another prominent example is the movie "What the Bleep..." where one minute the film is talking about perfectly valid quantum mechanical concepts, then starts sliding into implying some nonsense about the electron having consciousness because it can tell if it's being observed by a conscious observer, which is complete bunk, and then it's talking about communicating with the spirit of a Lemurian warrior who died 17,000 years ago.

No. There is no evidence in quantum mechanics that relates to communicating with 17,000 year old Lemurian warriors, but this is the kind of woo some people try to promote and cite quantum mechanics as support for their idea. It's not. One problem is, many people know so little about quantum mechanics that they have absolutely no idea where the quantum science ends, and where the quantum woo begins, whether it's in the "What the bleep.." movie or some other source, so woomasters are definitely taking advantage of people's ignorance on this subject.

Here's a little writeup on this topic:

rationalwiki.org...

Quantum woo is the justification of irrational beliefs by an obfuscatory reference to quantum physics. Buzzwords like "energy field", "probability wave", or "wave-particle duality" are used to magically turn thoughts into something tangible in order to directly affect the universe. This results in such foolishness as the Law of Attraction or quantum healing. Some have turned quantum woo into a career, such as Deepak Chopra, who often presents ill-defined concepts of quantum physics as proof for God and other magical thinking.

When an idea seems too crazy to believe, the proponent often makes an appeal to quantum physics as the explanation. This is a New Age version of God of the gaps.

Quantum woo is an attempt to piggy-back on the success and legitimacy of science by claiming quack ideas are rooted in accepted concepts in physics, combined with utter misunderstanding of these concepts and a sense of wonder at the amazing magic these misunderstandings would imply if true. A quick way to tell if a claim about quantum physics has scientific validity is to ask for the mathematics. If there isn't any, it's rubbish.

originally posted by: Kashai

On the internet I was once told that considering the relevance of interconnectedness due to quantum mechanics was inappropriate.

This is because (as he explained) that the technology needed to observe such an event at the classical scale had not been developed.

Because we could not directly observe Quantum Entanglement, upon the scale of say a human being. Such a conclusion related to quantum entanglement does not exist.

Because we have not been able to test for it he opinioned I should not think about it.

That's not exactly the story. Clearly we can directly observe it, because the phenomena has been observed in experimental setups. These setups are sensitive enough to measure properties of very small (one,two,three particle) quantum systems, and turn their results into macroscopic classical physics represented by observable currents in a photodetector or other particle detectors.

These detectors are macroscopic systems which turn individual quantum interactions and amplify them through cascades of chain reactions to macroscopic signals.

The original description was right in that it is extremely rare that for large-scale macroscopic numbers of atoms can you maintain an 'entangled' quantum state. In almost all normal cases, the physics of 'decoherence' which is similar to chaos means that for large numbers of particles you end up with properties which are more like classical and the phenomena which come from 'entanglement' end up having negligible probability.

There are a few exceptions and these are intensely interesting to physicists for this reason. The most common one is superconductivity---you get collective effects so that in essence you create a "large N" coherent quantum state from electrons. Also superfluidity and the recent work on atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (condensing whole atoms and not just electrons).

There's something else to notice---these all tend to work at cryogenically low temperatures---higher temperatures with increased random motion destroy all these collective quantum phenomena.

So maybe if you hypothesized superconducting beings who live on the surface interface of a liquid methane ocean, maybe yes they might communicate quantumally.

Us, at 300 Kelvin? No way.

Now you see to me that is a problem because in fact the origin of Classical Mechanics is Quantum Mechanics. Could there be a fundamental relationship between Density and Quantum Interconnectedness??? What about the idea that variations in Density constitutes variations in interconnectedness?

Density, no, but thermodynamically large numbers of interactions which destroy quantum coherence.

Consider that upon the large scale structure of the Universe (13.7 billion years old and about 40 billion light years wide), the relationship between Quantum Interconnectedness and Density/Relativity is apparent and observable?

Any thoughts?

Bigger you get, the harder to maintain entangled quantum interactions. Sorry, thermodynamics & random is everything at that large scale.

a reply to: mbkennel

We do not know whether or not thermodynamics & random is everything at the large scale structure. Essentially that is the argument. Not just between religion and science but also between prominent scientist and prominent scientist.

One can claim that either side is wrong or are motivated by reasons, that have nothing to do with actual exploration.

But the fact of the matter is no one is backing off.

"Bigger you get, the harder to maintain entangled quantum interactions."

You mean the bigger you get the harder it is to observe entanglement.

The idea that quantum interactions are random is similar the issue of a flat universe. In reality it may be curved but outside of our capacity to perceive. It may be that at the large scale there is a "method to the madness".

"Quantum woo is one of the most abused citations to support ideas which are scientifically unsupported."

What about David Bohm and his conclusions?

As far as "abused citations" I would opinion that some are considering that Spirituality is physical. That death results in consciousness focusing on the wave state so to speak.

Consider that all of these people have observed psychic phenomenon. The extent of those observations having established in there minds the conclusion that there must be and explanation. To suggest that it is a farce to consider is to lay claim to the idea that your opinion is absolute, which it is not.

And that is scientism.

Two particles created at the same time are entangled. One heads of into space never to encounter anything for 13 billion years, the other ends up as a part of a person on earth after traveling 2 billion years.

Are they still entangled?

Now you may say to me that any such effect would be impossible to measure. Any such relationships between what a person is made of and anything made at the same time, despite distance is relevant.

See it may be that it is just impossible for mankind to measure it at present.

That does not make it impossible.

Any thoughts?

decoherence (uncountable)
1.(engineering) The normal condition of sensitiveness in a coherer (disused).
2.(physics) The process by which a quantum system interacts with its environment in such a way that no interference between states of the system can be observed.

Source

Is it possible that materialist are having a measurement problem?

So instead of saying you have a measurement problem your saying there is no God?

I mean perhaps to you the idea that you are having a measuring problem sounds "New Age" but it is not.

Any thoughts?

originally posted by: JadeStar
One of science's greatest achievements is its predictive ability. Unlike religions, that ability is not based upon faith.

It's based upon observation and mathematics.


The OP really misunderstands science and should be locked in a room and forced to watch ever episode of Cosmos (Both Carl Sagan and Neil DeGrasse Tyson's).

I would not use violence against you to let you believe what I believe. I guess you don't grant me the same freedoms you'd want for yourself. That's all ignoring the fact that you misunderstood the opening post.