Quantum mechanics needs no consciousness (and the other way around)

Rather than the silly, arrogant notion that human observation creates reality, there are more reasoned, scientific explanations out there. Explanations that allow for falsifiability and can be confirmed experimentally. HERE is one such proposal involving gravitational time dilation.

I expect the usual trolls to immediately attack. Perhaps it would be better if you challenge the researchers from the University of Vienna, Harvard University and the University of Queensland who made the discovery, instead of derailing this thread. That, or go to one of the a more rigorous scientific forums online to plead your case. I’d suggest the Physics Forum. They’ll have a field day with you. That is, if they respond at all.

Once again, Einstein comes to the rescue...

HotMale:

If no one wants to discuss the fact that availability of path info is making the difference between non interference and interference...

What you are asking is nothing. Your question has no relevancy to the issue at hand...none whatsoever. It has been a constant drone of nonsense, a pure fabricated question of utter banality.

originally posted by: HotMale
a reply to: TzarChasm

No it doesn't respond to the mechanical observation, because if you erase the info of said observation, there still is an interference pattern, even though the mechanical observation took place.

This proves it is not the physical detection itself but the availability of the path info.

As I have already explained, in This Post

Where I said....

In the case of the Quantum eraser, it is clear that there is an interaction but that interaction is in itself no longer part of the system... because it has been erased... therefore the original photon is once more Quantum in nature.

What part of this are you having difficulty with?

originally posted by: mbkennel

classical E&M:

In EM waveguides there are a countable, enumerable, *set* of modes---these are spatial distributions of functions, which you sum together to make the total EM field: there is some total sum over all possible modes. These modes typically represent only the stationary or fully propagating solutions, and not the less interesting 'evanescent' modes which are exponentially decaying.

And this is pretty much pure geometry, like fourier 'stuff'? Like any perfect 3d (4d) mathematical grid axis, and with 1 line, can be computed it into a wave function, and the only task is keeping arcs at the trough and crest?

Now, onto quantum mechanics. It turns out, that there is some lower limit. It's really small for radio waves (and not so small for x-rays), but the cavity modes, when it comes to amplitude, cannot be fully continuous. What's a photon, by this we mean one and only one photon, then? The quantum mechanical wave function of one minimum (but non-zero) amplitude mode, that has the minimum Planck energy allowable for its frequency. It's a building block of the wavefunction of the EM field. In a cavity you'd get two finite sums, but in free space, the countable sum over spatial modes becomes an integral, and what was once in classical physics be an integral over all possible amplitudes paramterized by a real number, is now a sum over allowable amplitude states photons (call them particles) and their occupation count. [the details come down to imposing a commutator relationship which isn't zero but has a 'h' in it]

The 'particle' aka photon is a manifestation of the wavefunction of the E&M field.

Photon is 'stuff' that really exists. Therefore there is a real way in which it actually exists. It must be comparable to our absolute notion of geometry, as is attempted in your first paragraph, and it is done so as waves. It is said photon are definitely not 'solitary bullets' that exist in space.

Photon actually exists.

Therefore, if you draw a graph, and label it with numbers, and those numbers are units of measurement of real space, the graph is a real area of space, (and we imagine our ability to create 1,000,000 of these graphs all scaleing up and scaling down from the first one we choose to make), because the photon is 'not nothing', how it exists must be able to be represented, imagely, on the graph/s.

If it is definitely not like a single bullet. That you can plot on the graph, as it moves through space (and therefore unavoidably time), then what is photon like, what is EM radiation like?

Is it really, existing, as 2 separate waves that create each other? Is that real?

There is no reason to say E M field, the concept appears to be not related to reality, and it misled me.

The comprehension of fundamental physics, by the world, is lacking.

For the photon to be able to transform into other particles, excuse me not particle, real waves, for real things to transform into the photon.

There is discussion about length of wave length.

A photon is never a ball/bullet.

Is a photon, is light, is EM radiation, always 1 crest and 1 trough, and that is what is called a photon?

And when EM radiation is created continuously, can 7 crests and 7 troughs be attached in a row, connected?

And the difference between the different frequencies on EM spectrum is; well first I want to ask;

How are single, photons compared to one another in regards to frequency?

If a single photon is only ever 1 crest and 1 trough;

The difference throughout the EM spectrum is the difference between the distance between the 1 crest and the 1 trough?

And what creates that distance?

And how thick is the material that composes the 1 crest and 1 trough?

And how does that 1 crest and 1 trough turn into another material?

How does other materials turn into that 1 crest and 1 trough?

One electron is an elementary 'mode' of that field. It also turns out that in deep contrast to EM, there is a very strong conservation law: it is really really hard as heck to delete an electron, where as photons can just come and go as long as total energy & momentum is conserved. And, additionally, there's that Pauli exclusion thing, so you can't normally stick electrons together 'adding up' to something bigger, so they don't like being crowded. And moreover they electrostatically repel.

So, at the start of it; electrons are exactly like photons, but just a different 'essential substance'?

An analogy would be, 1 atom is exactly like any other atom (in theory, in sharing similarities, but they are different in differences... Atom, the difference (most differences are in) is in quantity, which creates difference in quality... who knows what the deal is with fundamental substance, how there are multiple so stable different fundamental substances, that have their similarities and differences... might differences always be differences in quantity, which unavoidably are differences in quality?

And there is no comprehension as to why a difference between photon and electron is that in one case they can be excluded and the other case they cant?

And it is also important to note, the severely intimate and special relationship between electron and photon. Not all fundamental substances have such relations with those ones, or any others like those ones have right?

So those individual modes (aka particles) really stick around and don't go anywhere and take up space and make up the persistent solid world of our universe. But deep down they're just excitations of the underlying field & wavefunction just as cavity modes of microwaves are and when you do the deep QM experiments you see that.

If an electron is just, really a 'stringy wave' (if its not, I will be done to exhaust realities possibilities of possible geometric forms to compare the electron to, and if you are not satisfied with any, you do not know how an electron exists)

What keeps something that sounds so flimsy and shaky, from being ruined, by anything it comes in contact with? thats a strong wave huh.

Well I guess you can say its like an ocean wave right, like try to stop an ocean wave from existing, and likely its energy will be conserved; but you can split an ocean wave in half, and you cant split an electron in half. So its almost like an electron is a vibrating string that cant be stopped from vibrating.

I say: A particle is something that quantum fields do, not something that they are. It's a behavior of quantum fields which have waves. The spatial basis functions are the waves and with quantized amplitudes/occupation state they behave when interacting as countable particles.

Abstractions dont actually exist in reality. There is only something, and nothing, and only something exists. Potential is real, and not real. This gets back to probability and determinism. Potential is real to 'beings that comprehend the arrow of time', but potential is not real to reality itself. There is only exactly what is at all times, and it is determined to do exactly what it does at all times.

For all these reasons and more, "observation" seems a much more pertinent aspect of (speaking as a complete layperson mind you) any conceptual picture of quantum mechanics than "consciousness."

Moreover, what is consciousness but an exponentially more complex series of the interactions we define as simple "observations" anyway?

So whether one is empirically inclined, abstraction-inclined, spiritually inclined, or any combination of the above (to each their own - we're all going to die anyway, think in the paradigm you wish to,) it does seem that observation fits the picture better than the term "consciousness."

Peace.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Why would you assume that the state is determined when the measuring device records as opposed to when we observe the measuring device?

Isn't time a fairly human construct that we've invented to comprehend the world and the changes around us?

"When you review the camera's recording later after opening the box, you're not having any effect on what was recorded earlier..."

What is "earlier" if time is not a factor? Although there is no good way to prove it, I don't think we can discount the possibility that consciously observing the measurement itself might determine the state, as opposed to consciously observing the event. And if this were true, we would never be able to prove it, as we cannot provide proof without, at some point, reviewing the evidence and therefore invalidating it.

originally posted by: MyrTheSeeker
What is "earlier" if time is not a factor?

Time is not a factor if the wave function hasn't been collapsed by observation (if you follow Copenhagen interpretation, or you could state it differently for other interpretations). But, once the wave function has been irreversibly collapsed, more time will not "uncollapse" it and allow the observation to be made somewhere else in some other way. This is why the camera recording is not reversible, and time matters, specifically the time before the camera recorded the photon versus the time after the camera recorded the photon.

Since it's a video camera it has a time index recorder and we know from that exactly what time the events it recorded happened.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: MyrTheSeeker
What is "earlier" if time is not a factor?

Time is not a factor if the wave function hasn't been collapsed by observation (if you follow Copenhagen interpretation, or you could state it differently for other interpretations). But, once the wave function has been irreversibly collapsed, more time will not "uncollapse" it and allow the observation to be made somewhere else in some other way. This is why the camera recording is not reversible, and time matters, specifically the time before the camera recorded the photon versus the time after the camera recorded the photon.

Since it's a video camera it has a time index recorder and we know from that exactly what time the events it recorded happened.

Is it anything to consider at all that;

Cameras require light, a steady stream of light;

And so we are never getting 'essential imagery of an object itself' but we are only ever getting light?

In double slit and eraser experiments, is the end detector a capturer of light? Or is it like a piece of paper, that an object 'bumps into' and makes a physical mark?

These kind of thoughts, are related to the difficulty of measurement; of any attempt to 'grasp and measure and know how a think exists' requires that thing, interacting with other things, and then attempting to 'reverse engineer what a thing is and how it exists, by only using the context clues, of its reactions when interacting with other things'.

Regardless, a way to potentially further your point in favor, is to have multiple cameras of different types too; (different film, different digital cameras, photographs even maybe, long exposure photo graph), but yeah, they all use light, im quite sure.

originally posted by: ImaFungi
Regardless, a way to potentially further your point in favor, is to have multiple cameras of different types too; (different film, different digital cameras, photographs even maybe, long exposure photo graph), but yeah, they all use light, im quite sure.

In the Scrodinger's cat experiment, if you use several cameras they will all record the cat dying at the same time. Yes, it's just the light reflected from the cat, but even so I think we can tell when the cat dies from the light it reflects, which is usually many photons.

If you are talking about detecting individual photons, you can't detect a single photon on more than one camera.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

I understand where you are coming from, but I think you missed my point. You're still assuming the camera recorded the event at a certain point in "time." For this thought experiment, first assume that time does not exist.

If the state is not determined until it is observed (not simply until it is measured) then the state of the imagery on the camera is undetermined until observed as well; timecode and all.

originally posted by: MyrTheSeeker
a reply to: Arbitrageur

Why would you assume that the state is determined when the measuring device records as opposed to when we observe the measuring device?

Isn't time a fairly human construct that we've invented to comprehend the world and the changes around us?

"When you review the camera's recording later after opening the box, you're not having any effect on what was recorded earlier..."

What is "earlier" if time is not a factor? Although there is no good way to prove it, I don't think we can discount the possibility that consciously observing the measurement itself might determine the state, as opposed to consciously observing the event. And if this were true, we would never be able to prove it, as we cannot provide proof without, at some point, reviewing the evidence and therefore invalidating it.

Great points and you're right if the box is isolated from the environment outside of the box and the radioactive substance is isolated from the cat.

It's really a setup that makes no sense.

Of course if you put a camera in the box that was created by a conscious observer to record information then you don't have an isolated system in the box. Here's Schrodinger in his own words:

One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter, there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer that shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.

Again, if you put a camera in the box then the camera is observing the cat. How can you have a camera to put in the box without a conscious observer? It's silly has nothing to do with the thought experiment.

How do you define consciousness? Why are you so scared of consciousness? You don't know what consciousness is yet you want to declare definitively what consciousness can't be.

Like I said, there's all these message board PhD's that declare these things that are still being debated in the Scientific community. You guys need to call up nature and tell them you know what consciousness is and that consciousness has nothing to do with quantum mechanics so they can tell the rest of the Scientific world.

originally posted by: MyrTheSeeker
a reply to: Arbitrageur

I understand where you are coming from, but I think you missed my point. You're still assuming the camera recorded the event at a certain point in "time." For this thought experiment, first assume that time does not exist.

You automatically fail when assuming time does not exist.

Because time does exist.

Time is; the fact stuff moves.

For any information to interact with any information; that is what time is. The rates and speeds at which information interacts with information is rates and speeds of time.

Time is a continuum. All that statement means is; Stuff continually exists.

Because stuff continually exists, and moves, time continually exists.

If 'stuff occurs', time occurs, because time is, stuff occurring.

The cat is made of quantities of quantas which interact in various ways. The box, the timer, the radioactive material;, the camera, it is all quantites of quantas, which exist as their own stable systems, and light reflects from one object to another.

All the movements of all the quantas, and all the movement of light, is time.

If light reflects off the cat and enters the camera... that is time. That is matter moving. That is what time is.

The light reflects off the cat and enters the camera, exactly when it does so. All these exact occurrences are 'compared to one another' (nature is the interaction and comparison of all these occurrences, human is attempting to know nature), The time signature is just an arbitrary self consistent rhythm of measurement,

Set an equal self consistent rhythm of measurement outside the system;

1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...

1 (no light detection)... 2 (no light detection)... 3 (no light detection)... 4 (no light detection)... 5 (no light detection)... 6 (light matter hits the camera)... 7... 8...9...

a reply to: neoholographic

Either consciousness is all that exists

Or it is not.


We can define consciousness as; Awareness. Or. Knowing one knows.

Now do you believe that ultimately a massive single consciousness exists, and it is nothing, or more than, the little consciousness (you) that exist in it?

And so the massive one is just passively aware, or it can actively control and do anything it wants in its, what would be imagination?

So the ultimate mind, which we may as well just refer to as God, if it wanted to could imagine that the earth turned into a pink balloon? Or that in this moment, if it wanted to, it could imagine that all the little consciousnesses within it, just popped out of existence?

If it could not possibly do any such thing, then this mind you speak of would be mindless, and there would be no difference between it and a material determined nature.

If it is choosing to have things exactly the way they are, and continue, and it does not want to disturb, it and it just wants to watch;

Then it is still just like a purely determined material nature, because it is not exerting its choice, there are designs that have been made, and they are carrying themselves out.

So your belief either requires that the totality of 'that which exists' is a singular mind that is aware it is aware;

Or, there is no totality, but only multiple subjects (for example me and you); and if this is the case you believe, you must offer at least 1 theory, as to how you think we actually exist; You think we are only minds? And no material exists in between us? All minds are attached by nothingness, and nothingness exists between them, and our minds are pure nothingness, and the way our minds interact and know they know, and are aware of one another, and can relay information to one another, is by being nothing, and distributing pure nothing back and forth, and this pure nothing equals all the different complexity we witness and experience?

a reply to: ImaFungi

Yes, granted, "stuff" moves. I won't debate that. But does "stuff" have to move in any particular way until it is observed doing so, or might it move in every way or none at all? Could we not be assuming that stuff continues to move when we don't observe it only because we cannot view it in the unobserved state without observing it (at risk of becoming confusing)?

Anyhow, you have very real and valid points, and I'm delving into ideas that humans could never verify outside of thought experiments. Just having a little fun and playing the devil's advocate, so don't think me dull

Always an interesting topic to mull over!

a reply to: ImaFungi

You said:

Because time does exist.

Time is; the fact stuff moves.

What is stuff? Where's the Scientific Evidence? You guys make these definitive statements without a shred of scientific evidence.

Newsflash: Time May Not Exist

discovermagazine.com...

"THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TIME"
ASTROPHYSICIST ADAM FRANK'S NEW BOOK MIXES COSMOLOGY WITH HUMANITY. HOW DOES OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE UNIVERSE AND COSMIC TIME INFORM OUR DAILY LIVES? ESPECIALLY IF TIME IS AN ILLUSION?

www.popsci.com...

Is Time an Illusion?

www.scientificamerican.com...





You said time does exist. Where's the scientific evidence?

originally posted by: MyrTheSeeker
a reply to: ImaFungi

Yes, granted, "stuff" moves. I won't debate that. But does "stuff" have to move in any particular way until it is observed doing so, or might it move in every way or none at all? Could we not be assuming that stuff continues to move when we don't observe it only because we cannot view it in the unobserved state without observing it (at risk of becoming confusing)?

Anyhow, you have very real and valid points, and I'm delving into ideas that humans could never verify outside of thought experiments. Just having a little fun and playing the devil's advocate, so don't think me dull

Always an interesting topic to mull over!

I would say;

Stuff moves exactly the way it moves at all times.

We can attempt to know how it is moving, and we can move it when we attempt.

We can be wrong. Reality can never be wrong.

a reply to: neoholographic

Stuff is;

That which is not nothing.

Time is;

The fact stuff is; And the fact stuff moves.

Proof:

Nothing is nothing is nothing is nothing. Nothing is what is nothing. Nothing = 0. 0+0= 0.

You cannot take nothing and add it to nothing and get something.

Something = non nothing.

something is at least not nothing.

something is something.

something is something is something is something.

You cannot take something and divide it until it is only nothing. Something can not be only composed of nothing.

Only nothing cannot be composed into something.

If something exists. And that something eternally, not 1 speck of it, moved.

If the totality of something that existed, eternally was promised not to move the tiniest bit of it, no movement.

There would be no time.

Therefore; Time = the movement of stuff.

I cant believe I am giving away all my secrets to you noobs.

a reply to: ImaFungi

I forgot you're the one I stopped debating. I get you guys mixed up because there's never any actual science to back up anything you say. I remember now after seeing the inane ramblings that have nothing to do with Science.

originally posted by: neoholographic
a reply to: ImaFungi

I forgot you're the one I stopped debating. I get you guys mixed up because there's never any actual science to back up anything you say. I remember now after seeing the inane ramblings that have nothing to do with Science.

yes, neoholographic, that is exactly why you consistently bring these discussions to a conspiracy forum and NOWHERE ELSE. because its science you are interested in. its not like theres dozens of science-intense forums that you would probably be laughed out of if you ever tried (which is why you havent) nor that there are hundreds of colleges and universities and labs that have the resources and education to confirm or correct your theories (or reject them outright, hence why you [again] havent). no, the only possible means of verifying your theory - sorry, hypothesis - is clearly to post it on a conspiracy forum and badger the participants until they either give up or decide they are bored enough to humor your nonsense. please, have some self respect and at least stop wasting our time even if you cant help wasting your own.

a reply to: TzarChasm

So now you're psychic?

yes, neoholographic, that is exactly why you consistently bring these discussions to a conspiracy forum and NOWHERE ELSE.

How do you know I don't post anywhere else? I post on other forums and I like coming to the Science forum on ATS to debate SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY. If I want to debate Aliens or Philosophy I post in other forums.

All I'm saying is where's the Science?

When you say consciousness has nothing to do with Quantum mechanics and you don't know what consciousness is that makes no sense. People do that because of belief. They fear consciousness because it threatens their view of the world. Why else would there be this desperate attempt to declare consciousness has nothing to do with consciousness when you don't know what consciousness is or you don't know how measurement works.