Quantum observations of God?

[Wormwood]

Hi Everyone

 

I feel like I need to put a disclaimer before my actual question. I am not a physicist; I just have interest in the subject. I am not specifically religious; that is to say that I am a deist for most intents and purposes. There is no agenda in my question beyond the question itself. Now that I got that out of the way:

 

It is my understanding that wave functions need consciousness or an observer to collapse. I recently heard someone say that since consciousness or an observer are required, that the universe as we know it could not exist without some greater consciousness that collapsed the wave functions, or that the universe did not exist in a definite state until consciousness came into being (?). I think that was the gist of it.

 

To me this sounded interesting, and as if it might support my position of deism, but I am curious how much merit something like this has scientifically. Is it a possible correct interpretation of the data, or was this person just misunderstanding something or making it up? Again, I am not asking if you agree with deism, or even with the person I am asking about; just if what he said was possibly a correct interpretation of the data that exists. Thanks in advance for any answers.

[insane_alien]

mixing terms here. observer does not mean 'a person' or 'a conciousness'

 

what it means here is an interaction.

[Wormwood]

An interaction between what?

[Klaynos]

An interaction between what?

 

Anything. And the thing with the wavefunction we are interested in.

[Wormwood]

So does that include other electrons?

 

Also, what about the differences between the collapsed and non-collapsed wave functions on something like the double slit experiment where the outcome was influenced by measuring the phenomenon? Is that unrelated?

[Severian]

mixing terms here. observer does not mean 'a person' or 'a conciousness'

 

what it means here is an interaction.

 

I challenge you to make an observation without involving a person.

[Sisyphus]

I challenge you to make an observation without involving a person.

 

But that's hardly unique to quantum physics. Yes, the fact that somebody is looking at the results is assumed, just as it is assumed in any other branch of science. And just as in any other branch of science, that person is assumed not to have an effect, no? As in, the "observation" is the interaction, and the person watching it on a computer screen is not. ...right?

[bombus]

mixing terms here. observer does not mean 'a person' or 'a conciousness'

 

what it means here is an interaction.

 

How do you know that without observation by a conscious mind?

[Sisyphus]

How do you know that without observation by a conscious mind?

 

The same way you know any scientific law is always true whether you're consciously looking at it or not. The same way you know that tree falling in the forest still makes a sound even when there's nobody around. In other words, you don't know, but all of science and rational existence depends on making the assumption, and there's nothing special about this case to make us stop.

[Wormwood]

It sounds like some of you are suggesting that he could have been right in some respect....?

 

Also, wouldn't the only things capable of making "observations" be beings with consciousness, and instruments for measurement?

[Sisyphus]

It sounds like some of you are suggesting that he could have been right in some respect....?

 

Also, wouldn't the only things capable of making "observations" be beings with consciousness, and instruments for measurement?

 

No, I'm not suggesting he's correct. "Observation" just means having some effect on something other than itself. It has nothing to do with consciousness. The terminology, "observation" and "travelling information" and such, can be confusing in that regard, but there are good reasons for using those terms.

 

What's new in quantum physics is not some mystical interaction between matter and consciousness. Here is basically the deal. In classical physics, take the example of a planet orbiting a star. It's assumed that you can know the exact position, velocity, and various forces acting on the planet, and thereby extrapolate these values for a future point in time. However, all of this depends on the assumption that you know those initial values, and how that information arrives at you (presumably, via photons from the star bouncing off the planet and some of them entering the lens of a telescope, etc.) doesn't affect that information in any significant way, and so the process is ignored. However, when looking at something like an electron, the form of the "information" that tells you about it becomes extremely important, because, just like with the planet, it involves bouncing stuff off of it and seeing where the bouncing stuff ends up. But the "bounce," unlike with the planet, has a large effect on the object of study in an unpredictable way, due to the manner in which such things travel (a particular sort of "particle-like" wave function whose "position" and "velocity" are ranges of values with inversely proportional precision) which causes just as much inexactitude in both object and "bouncer."

[Wormwood]

Thanks

 

Two follow up questions:

Does the fact that the particles have to interact with another kind of particle suggest that all particles developed with a pre-existing interdependant relationship?

 

Why does measurment effect the outcome of the double slit experiment? Is this a related phenomenon suggesting that consciousness specifically, has some effect on particle behavior?

[gib65]

Thanks

 

Two follow up questions:

Does the fact that the particles have to interact with another kind of particle suggest that all particles developed with a pre-existing interdependant relationship?

 

Why does measurment effect the outcome of the double slit experiment? Is this a related phenomenon suggesting that consciousness specifically, has some effect on particle behavior?

 

I'm not sure how the first question would be answered. I suspect it would have something to do with quantum entanglement having been established between all particles at the moment of BB.

 

As for you second question, I think I can answer it. It depends on what kind of measurement you're taking in the double-slit experiment. If you put some kind of particle detector in one of the slits, then it effects the outcome by determining either that the particle goes through that slit (detection) or it doesn't (no detection). If you don't have any such detection device, the particle will go through both slits at once. So if the question is: where is the particle? And you setup your detection device in order to get an answer, that act will effect the set of possible answers (specifically, it will eliminate one - it won't go through both slits at once).

[Wormwood]

In response to number 2, wouldn't that mean that consciousness DOES effect particle behavior in that it makes it behave in a way that is consistent with what we would expect?

 

Also, how can a single photon travel through two slits?! I have read this before but it is hard to imagine. Even though I can accept that the photon travels as a wave of probable positions, it can only physically exist in one place at a time (discounting bi location in a vaccuum of course).

[swansont]

Also, how can a single photon travel through two slits?! I have read this before but it is hard to imagine. Even though I can accept that the photon travels as a wave of probable positions, it can only physically exist in one place at a time (discounting bi location in a vaccuum of course).

 

But that's how it behaves.

[bombus]

The same way you know any scientific law is always true whether you're consciously looking at it or not. The same way you know that tree falling in the forest still makes a sound even when there's nobody around. In other words, you don't know, but all of science and rational existence depends on making the assumption, and there's nothing special about this case to make us stop.

 

Isn't that the fundamental problem with quantum theory though? That the experimental evidence shows that these assumptions are not reliable.

[bombus]

No, I'm not suggesting he's correct. "Observation" just means having some effect on something other than itself. It has nothing to do with consciousness. The terminology, "observation" and "travelling information" and such, can be confusing in that regard, but there are good reasons for using those terms.

 

What's new in quantum physics is not some mystical interaction between matter and consciousness. Here is basically the deal. In classical physics, take the example of a planet orbiting a star. It's assumed that you can know the exact position, velocity, and various forces acting on the planet, and thereby extrapolate these values for a future point in time. However, all of this depends on the assumption that you know those initial values, and how that information arrives at you (presumably, via photons from the star bouncing off the planet and some of them entering the lens of a telescope, etc.) doesn't affect that information in any significant way, and so the process is ignored. However, when looking at something like an electron, the form of the "information" that tells you about it becomes extremely important, because, just like with the planet, it involves bouncing stuff off of it and seeing where the bouncing stuff ends up. But the "bounce," unlike with the planet, has a large effect on the object of study in an unpredictable way, due to the manner in which such things travel (a particular sort of "particle-like" wave function whose "position" and "velocity" are ranges of values with inversely proportional precision) which causes just as much inexactitude in both object and "bouncer."

 

Quantum wierdness is more than that though isn't it. You can't measure the exact velocity and position of a moving elephant at the same time, but quantum wierdness DOES border on the 'mystical' hence Schrodingers cat, double slit, parallel universes, many minds etc...

[Sisyphus]

Strange /= mystical. It's still just physical laws, just not the ones we expected to find before we knew about them. It's unfortunately quite common for people to take the "weirdness" of QM and the fact that we don't completely understand it yet as license to project whatever mystical mumbojumbo they want onto it. Like all the people who think that QM holds the secret to free will. "We don't completely understand QM. We don't completely understand how consciousness works. Both use words like 'observer.' Both involve unpredictability...... JACKPOT!"

[bombus]

Strange /= mystical. It's still just physical laws, just not the ones we expected to find before we knew about them. It's unfortunately quite common for people to take the "weirdness" of QM and the fact that we don't completely understand it yet as license to project whatever mystical mumbojumbo they want onto it. Like all the people who think that QM holds the secret to free will. "We don't completely understand QM. We don't completely understand how consciousness works. Both use words like 'observer.' Both involve unpredictability...... JACKPOT!"

 

I agree with you about mystical mumbojumbo, there is too much pseudoscience around, but WHY do both consciousness and quantum theory involve those terms so intrinsically? I can ..er..feel (?) a connection between the two. It kinda makes sense that they are linked. In fact I can imagine the next great step in Physics coming out of the study of consciousness, because, of course, it's where 'we' actually interface with reality, which is what Physics attempts to explain. I think linkage of the two subjects is actually inevitable.

[ajb]

I expect going down these lines will not help you with quantum mechanics. I too am very unhappy with the fact that the way it is formulated relies heavily on the role of the observer. But that is how it is formulated. Quantum mechanics was formulated to answer experimental questions. The notions of an observable and an observer are critical. You will have to be very careful about trying to answer questions in standard quantum mechanics that do not make a clear cut difference between the observer and the system.

 

This makes quantum mechanics of truly closed systems difficult, such as quantising the entire universe. What is the quantum mechanics of the observer?

 

People like Chris Isham and others are trying to build theories that will cope with this by using category theory and topos.

[lakmilis]

I challenge you to make an observation without involving a person.

 

Completely with you Severian

[Sisyphus]

I agree with you about mystical mumbojumbo, there is too much pseudoscience around, but WHY do both consciousness and quantum theory involve those terms so intrinsically? I can ..er..feel (?) a connection between the two. It kinda makes sense that they are linked. In fact I can imagine the next great step in Physics coming out of the study of consciousness, because, of course, it's where 'we' actually interface with reality, which is what Physics attempts to explain. I think linkage of the two subjects is actually inevitable.

 

But that's just it. You "feel" a connection. And there's a good reason for that - that traditionally conceived "free will" (sometimes called "absolute metaphysical free will") really has no place in a universe governed by unwavering physical laws has been a very uncomfortable subject since the beginning of modernism. When all of a sudden we start encountering stuff like QM that seems to violate the clockwork-like causality we're used to, we WANT that to be the "way out" of our discomfort. But there's just no evidence for it. No evidence the brain operates on the quantum level, no evidence QM behaves differently in the presence of consciousness.

 

Not only that, but even if it did, it wouldn't solve the problem - our actions could be random, sure, but that's not really what we want it to be, since random is hardly "free." (Personally, I happen to believe that free will is not mutually exclusive with either a deterministic or a random universe, but that is a philosophical camp, not a scientific one, and it involves a slightly different conception of "free will" than most people have or think they have.)

 

What I was trying to say above is that the connection is a tempting but false one, based on misunderstandings from purely superficial commonalities and clouded judgment from a desire to think of ourselves in a certain way, i.e. from our VANITY. Scientists themselves are hardly immune from this - to the contrary, their high intelligence and the groundbreaking territory of their work often spawns the misplaced confidence to make metaphysical statements they know nothing about. In fact, usually the supposed connection is little more than an argument from incredulity, the same fallacy as the "god of the gaps," wherein the nature of something we want to exist (in this case, free will) is said to lie in something we don't understand (in this case, QM), merely because we do not understand it, and cannot prove it otherwise.

[insane_alien]

I challenge you to make an observation without involving a person.

 

obviously i can't since i'm a person. but, an electron could observe a photon hitting it causing it to jump up an energy level. seeing as observe in this context means an interaction

[lakmilis]

obviously i can't since i'm a person. but, an electron could observe a photon hitting it causing it to jump up an energy level. seeing as observe in this context means an interaction

 

lol, now that sounds a bit like mumblejumble to avoid consciousness issues..

 

with no observation of the system, the system will be in some state Q(t) which might include an electron in some excitation level and when t is set, an observer per definition, comes along to see which the total state looks like.

 

An electron observing a photon hitting it? erm, that doesnt sound much like physics

[fredrik]

You "feel" a connection. And there's a good reason for that - that traditionally conceived "free will" (sometimes called "absolute metaphysical free will") really has no place in a universe governed by unwavering physical laws has been a very uncomfortable subject since the beginning of modernism. When all of a sudden we start encountering stuff like QM that seems to violate the clockwork-like causality we're used to, we WANT that to be the "way out" of our discomfort. But there's just no evidence for it. No evidence the brain operates on the quantum level, no evidence QM behaves differently in the presence of consciousness.

 

Not to advocate the derange from physics, but I am personally careful about rejecting things because I can't define it properly, or proove it (yet). Computers or bots would reject questions as irrelevent when not properly formulated, but humans know better. We both find the questions and the answers.

 

I find plenty of useful intuition from my own brain. To me it's still a fact that the human brain outperforms most other systems in nature in it's beauty. I am not one bit religious, so don't get me wrong, but I'm not bold enough to ignore intuition coming from one of most amazing construct known to man, not matter how fuzzy it is.

 

But the proper connection to the brain is not IMO, in the "classical QM" and schrodinger cat stuff.

 

I think the connection to the theory of physics and the scientific model has interesting links to the brain. But the link is not direct and hands on. It's in deeper abstraction layers, where one models the models. The model is under knowledge or understanding, and this is continously modelled. Input to the human brain is analogous to measurement or interaction.

 

My personal intuition is that the right connection, is not between the brain and the physical theories, it's rather the brain and how physical theories come into beeing. It's an abstraction of the scientific method itself, thus beeing much bigger than physics itself.

 

There is ongoing research in these fields and I expect lots of new insights eventually. I think the intuitive connection is onto something, what's probably less successful is the direct application of the old QM formulations. The more modern and evolutionary generalizations is I think the better place to look.

 

/Fredrik