Quantum Experiment Confirms Reality Doesn't Exist Until Measured

originally posted by: ImaFungi

originally posted by: mbkennel

Explaining it as saying "the particle took both paths" is the problem: it's the wavefunction which takes all sorts of paths and occasionally behaves and instantiates as a particle.

But the 'wavefunction' is not a real thing.

Thinking the wavefunction is a real thing is like if you threw one dice in the air and once you let go no human touched the dice, and while it was in the air you said 'the probability of this dice landing on 1 is real, the probability of this dice landing on 2 is real, the probability of this dice landing on 3 is real, the probability of this dice landing on 4 is real, the probability of this dice landing on 5 is real, the probability of this dice landing on 6 is real, the probability it self 'exists!'.

That's your opinion, but all the experimental results keeps on saying 'watch the wavefunction' and the fundamental theory of quantum mechanics invented in 1926 says the same thing.

The next quantum mechanics, quantum field theory explicitly has "particles" as a phenomenon popping out of wavefunction, there are particle creation and annihilation operators and existence of particles or not is a transient function of the state.

There's no 'creation or annihilation' of the wavefunction, it is always there and is the state.

Anybody can "feel" it's preposterous but Mother Nature doesn't care about what's intuitive or not.

originally posted by: HotMale
a reply to: TzarChasm

you asked for a clarification of "on and off". i dont know how to clarify further and it honestly strikes me as a ploy because who needs to clarify on and off??? wave form, particle form.

There is no random on and off.

It is off when we look, and on when we don't look. Observation is the only variable.

You mean something happens when there is a measurement apparatus with 10^23 particles interacting with something with typically 1 or 2 or 3 particles.

It's not like the human experience of looking with your eyeball which we all know does not have material influence on the world outside the eyeball.

It's more like measuring ants by squashing their hills and seeing how much the bulldozers bounce.

a reply to: dragonridr

I'm suggesting no such thing I'm saying your not understanding the article. He didn't say observation causes the outcome in the past to change that is your interpretation.And he gave you two possibilities one being absurd that observation effects the past. Of course this is the one you choose.

You really have trouble reading. That is not the option I choose. I have made post after post saying it is the other option he offers.

Or he says that the particles act AZ waves.

These were his conclusions,

"It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it," said Associate Professor Andrew Truscott from the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering.

If one chooses to believe that the atom really did take a particular path or paths then one has to accept that a future measurement is affecting the atom's past, said Truscott.

"The atoms did not travel from A to B. It was only when they were measured at the end of the journey that their wave-like or particle-like behaviour was brought into existence," he said.

So logic tells us that your wrong and if you read his article he's telling you yoir wrong you just don't understand the way science is taught. But don't believe me feel free to email him he will respond I get emails all the time on articles. Ask him if observation controls time.You really have no clue the havoc your interpretation would cause.

My interpretatation is exactly the same as his.

It seem like you are reading a parallel thread or something.

a reply to: mbkennel

You mean something happens when there is a measurement apparatus with 10^23 particles interacting with something with typically 1 or 2 or 3 particles.

So you are saying that that is the cause for all quantum weirdness? It's still a mystery noone can agree on, but it turns out it is just the apparatus and the set up of all those quantum experiments?

It's not like the human experience of looking with your eyeball which we all know does not have material influence on the world outside the eyeball.

Are you suggesting that therefore, these quantum experiments are inherently flawed and unreliable?

a reply to: Harte

You're gonna ask me?

Yes. We agree that there has to be a mechanism that allows for information to "travel" between two events seperated by time and space, or making it seem that it does so.

What could it be? It's almost like there is a factor that directly connects the two, but what could it be? Is there anything, I mean anything that comes into contact with both events and correlates them that we might be overlooking here............?

Hmm?

I doubt very seriously that anyone can say what the mechanism is anyway. Murch just published this year. But I bet he has some ideas on it.

a reply to: dragonridr


And to add,

A second light grating to recombine the paths was randomly added, which led to constructive or destructive interference as if the atom had travelled both paths. When the second light grating was not added, no interference was observed as if the atom chose only one path. However, the random number determining whether the grating was added was only generated after the atom had passed through the crossroads.

You are apparently not getting that the whole setup of the experiment can only garner a result that seems to violate the barriers of time.

Yes it creates a paradox. So how can you act like it is not a mystery?

And even your precious macroscopic matter forming "solid" objects is an illusion. There is more empty space between atoms that form objects, and in atoms themselves, than actual "stuff" and you can't even really touch them.

The idea that it all disintegrates when an essential ingredient is removed is not that much more wild than the nature of this reality itself.

originally posted by: HotMale
a reply to: Harte

You're gonna ask me?

Yes. We agree that there has to be a mechanism that allows for information to "travel" between two events seperated by time and space, or making it seem that it does so.

What could it be? It's almost like there is a factor that directly connects the two, but what could it be? Is there anything, I mean anything that comes into contact with both events and correlates them that we might be overlooking here............?

Hmm?

I see.

"We don't know," so - the Matrix.

It's a handy explanation, and it explains lots of other things we don't know - like women.

Or missing socks.

Harte

If this is the truth:

If one chooses to believe that the atom really did take a particular path or paths then one has to accept that a future measurement is affecting the atom's past, said Truscott.

Then it's evidence that destiny, rather than free-will exist.

If this is the truth:

"It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it," said Associate Professor Andrew Truscott from the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering.

Then it's evidence for free-will rather than destiny.

I'm surprised more people are not siding with the conclusion that leads to evidence for free-will.

Either way, it shows that something more is going on then what the scientists of classical physics taught (the Future affecting past or Measurement changing reality).

a reply to: HotMale

There is no random on and off.

It is off when we look, and on when we don't look. Observation is the only variable.

like saying that turning the light off makes everyone in the room stop existing simply because you cant perceive them.

It implies that reality is being governed by a program that makes sure that reality conforms to the observers observation.

Again, why are future measurements affecting past results?

really? you got all that from "on and off"? thats hilarious.

You don't "measure" everything you see?

not the way those scientists do. and if things are blinking in and out of existence, doesnt that mess with physics? imagine a whole galaxy disappearing because no one has an eye on it. or a whole galaxy materializing out of thin air because someone looked at it. there is no evidence that the phenomenon described in the article can be translated as the magic act you are alluding to. so this...

originally posted by: HotMale
a reply to: TzarChasm

please tell me you arent actually implying that pluto ceases to exist when we cease observing it.

I am implying it ceases to exist in the material form.

...is complete bollocks.

originally posted by: HotMale


Quantum eraser experiments have already proven that it is not the interaction of the particle with a measuring device that is causing the results, it is the availability of path info.

There is no 'availability of path info' without a measuring device interacting.

Any attempt to gain information about the particle, requires injecting energy into the system, requires interacting with that particle with 'something/energy/matter' and having that 'something' reflect back off the particle to give us information about it. It is impossible to receive information without effecting the pure information we are attempting to receive. Especially when dealing on such small scales.

I, and this professor, am saying that the results can be viewed in only two ways, information travels back through time, or, reality manifests upon measurement.

We are both saying it is the latter.

Of course reality manifests upon measurement; like for example, the reality of pizza can not manifest without the measuring of ingredients.

In order for a particular reality to exist, substance (us) needs to interact with substance (everything beyond us) to move substance and create interactions of substance.

a reply to: ImaFungi

But that's not to say that reality is a direct product of cognition, correct?

originally posted by: HotMale
a reply to: mbkennel

You mean something happens when there is a measurement apparatus with 10^23 particles interacting with something with typically 1 or 2 or 3 particles.

So you are saying that that is the cause for all quantum weirdness? It's still a mystery noone can agree on, but it turns out it is just the apparatus and the set up of all those quantum experiments?

Well, really the origin of the weirdness is the fact that the state of the world is this wavefunction in some bizarre enormous functional Hilbert space which is completely unintuitive. Then the observations in combination with that result in weird consequences which are unintuitive and different from what we expect in our macroscopic classical limit which governed the evolution of human brains.

It's not like the human experience of looking with your eyeball which we all know does not have material influence on the world outside the eyeball.

Are you suggesting that therefore, these quantum experiments are inherently flawed and unreliable?

Nope. They just need to be understood knowing the consequences of their setup.

originally posted by: HotMale
a reply to: dragonridr


And to add,

A second light grating to recombine the paths was randomly added, which led to constructive or destructive interference as if the atom had travelled both paths. When the second light grating was not added, no interference was observed as if the atom chose only one path. However, the random number determining whether the grating was added was only generated after the atom had passed through the crossroads.

You are apparently not getting that the whole setup of the experiment can only garner a result that seems to violate the barriers of time.

Yes it creates a paradox. So how can you act like it is not a mystery?

It's weird, because it's the wavefunction and not the atom which matters. Saying the 'atom had passed already' is already presupposing and incorrectly privileging a classical outlook.

If you want to say 'classical reality as we intuitively understand it doesn't manifest itself until interaction with thermodynamically large and irreversible measurement systems (or other systems which don't explicitly do measurement but implicitly could be measured)' i'd respond, 'yes, that's the whole point'.

QM experiments keep on saying that non-local in space correlations are maintained and apparently non-local in time is also a go, but these all vanish in the macroscopic limit. Weird, certainly.

originally posted by: HotMale
a reply to: Harte

You're gonna ask me?

Yes. We agree that there has to be a mechanism that allows for information to "travel" between two events seperated by time and space, or making it seem that it does so.

What could it be? It's almost like there is a factor that directly connects the two, but what could it be? Is there anything, I mean anything that comes into contact with both events and correlates them that we might be overlooking here............?

Hmm?

Stuff that's far apart in x,y,z,t can be close in a functional space.

originally posted by: Harte
"We don't know," so - the Matrix.

It's a handy explanation, and it explains lots of other things we don't know - like women.

Or missing socks.

Critique of "Quantum Enigma: Physics encounters Consciousness"

it is the statement made by Gell-Mann and not the one attributed incorrectly to Rees (see footnote 1), that represents the generally accepted view that all processes in the universe evolve in accordance with the laws of quantum mechanics without any need whatsoever of conscious observers. In cases where classical mechanics is adequate to explain the observations, it is regarded as an approximate theory.

John Bell, who is regarded as having made some of the most significant modern contributions to our understanding of quantum theory, remarked that

"I see no evidence that it is so [that the cosmos depends on our being here to observe the observables] in the success of contemporary quantum theory. So I think it is not right to tell the public that a central role for conscious mind is integrated into modern atomic physics. Or that ‘information’ is the real stuff of physical theory [5]

I think the experimental facts which are usually offered to show that we must bring the observer into quantum theory do not compel us to adopt that conclusion." [6]

For a long time I have argued along the same lines that I found recently in an article by A. Leggett [7], a Nobel prize winner who has given considerable thought to the quantum measurement paradox,

"...it may be somewhat dangerous to ‘explain’ something one does not understand very well [the quantum measurement process] by invoking something [consciousness] one does not understand at all!"

But instead of “it may be dangerous,”, I would say “it is nonsense.”

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Thanks for finding that article. It sums up what I believe and states so powerfully and carefully.

The 'money shot':

According to the description of some of the
founders of the quantum theory who are quoted in the next section, a meaningful
statement is that the reduction or collapse of a wavefunction occurs
after a recording has been made by an irreversible amplification of an atomic
event by a macroscopic detector, like a Geiger counter or a photographic
plate. The combination of eye lens, retina, optical nerve and neural memory
cells can be regarded as a detector for the special case of photons in a visible
frequency range, but such a detector is unique to a single observer.

And describing the most common error:

But in the next sentence one finds that this “inevitable encounter” occurs
because von Neumann has treated a Geiger counter by a trivial wavefunction
consisting of the superposition of only two states: whether it is in a “fired” or
in an “unfired” state. This model of a Geiger counter, however, is incorrect,
because it does not describe the essential property of such a detector, which
is to be able to make a permanent record of an atomic event. Such a recording
requires an irreversible process.

And that's the crux of it! If you treat a macroscopic observing system the same as a trivially small quantum system, you get nonsensical results.

It isn't so. The reality is thermodynamic irreversibility through deterministic chaos.

I believe the consequence is this: the typical Copenhagen process of saying a wavefunction 'collapse' is an instantaneous process & projection operator is merely an approximation to the underlying true physics. It's a very good one and useful for virtually all common experimental circumstances because every device we know about that's technologically useful is in the end macroscopic and thermodynamically irreversible.
I don't think wavefunction collapse is instantaneous but it is extremely rapid---on order of the thermodynamic interaction & decorrelation timescale.

originally posted by: TzarChasm
a reply to: ImaFungi

But that's not to say that reality is a direct product of cognition, correct?

I will assume your question is in response to this statement;

"In order for a particular reality to exist, substance (us) needs to interact with substance (everything beyond us) to move substance and create interactions of substance."

My answer is no. I know I said that confusingly.

Reality exists; substance exists. It is always an exact way. It has existed forever. It moves, it interacts, it changes. At times cognition is created within and of it. Reality is reality, substance is reality, the fact substance is in some sense 'separated from itself' and therefore can 'interact with itself', is the fact that reality creates itself, reality produces itself;

In consciousness, reality produced 'separate' parts within and of reality, (an extremely complex organization of substance) which can 'choose/free will' aspects of reality to occur, that most likely could not occur without the choice and action.

Physics; substance existing and interacting with substance; exists regardless of consciousness.

The attempt of humans forging the map of the science of physics, is the attempt to comprehend what happens when humans are not there. To attempt to comprehend how reality, how substance exists and interactions with the different kinds of itself, and to attempt to comprehend his it can possible interact with it self, which is what humans do by 'inventing' 'naturally impossible' interactions of substance.

It is possible some experiments produce interactions of substance which dont occur naturally in nature; but it is thought there are natural phenomenon which include higher energies of substance, quantity and velocity of interaction, than can be mimicked in experiment.

For example, I dont think a pizza can exist naturally; therefore we can say, the reality of pizza is a direct product of cognition.

I do not think the reality of an atom is a direct product of cognition. I think the word 'atom' in all likelihood is a direct (not absolutely completely, because everything can be in some way traced back to 'being able to happen at all') product of cognition.

Now establishing experiments with sending an atom through a tube from side A to side B;

Atoms interact with materials in reality.

The experiment is the attempt to know how atoms interact with materials in reality. The attempt to gain information about how an atom (or photon, or electron), exists as itself, and exists in relation to the other substances which exist as their self in relation to the other substance etc. which creates the 'local environment'. Whats technically interesting about things like gravity, is that potentially 1 source 'the center of the sun, and the sun' is responsible for such 'describingly non local effects', Like, the existence of the sun 'amidst whatever the gravity field is', can influence a collection of substance, far away from the center and body of the sun; so the local (gravity) environment of pluto, is effected or more so created by the local gravity environment of the center of the sun.

a reply to: Harte

I see. "We don't know," so - the Matrix. It's a handy explanation, and it explains lots of other things we don't know - like women. Or missing socks.

We are looking for a mechanism here. There is only one mechanism that connect these events that we know of. You have to agree on this.

Now what is more logical, to entertain the mechanism we can prove has a connection to the events, or to ignore and actually have to start making up mechanisms like "space foam"?

I don't see why the idea has to be so controversial.

The only reason is because you have been taught to view matter as existing outside of perception but yet we can't prove that anything does exist outside our perception(in the broadest sense of the word), it's an assumption, on the other hand it is a given that everything we know happens within our perception.

Add to that the fact that these experiments support this notion and I would say it is actually more logical to assume that reality only exists within our perception, than outside of it.

Then start investigating from there.


Btw, this sort of philosphy has been very widespread all over Earth since ancient history.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

nm