Kevin's Watch

Avatar wrote:Anyway, you're saying that any form of interaction collapses the waveform? Not perception?

The only way to get any information about a system is to interact with it; interaction changes the system, hence 'observing' a system changes the system.

Syl wrote:

Emotional Leper wrote:Also, my answer to "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound," is Mu.

Funny, that's my answer to "Does a dog have buddha nature?"

Mine is 'RUFF! RUFF! I'M SEAN CONNERY! RUFF!'

Xar wrote:

Emotional Leper wrote:Until observed, a thing is considered to be in all possible states at once, which is to say, until INTERACTED with, the thing is in all possible states at once. Since a thing is constantly being interacted with, the waveform always collapses and no superposition is possible. Atleast, for macro-scale objects.

Also, my answer to "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound," is Mu.

But what if the "thing" is the universe? If it only collapses once something interacts with it, CAN it collapse at all? All things within the universe are part of it and therefore cannot "interact" with it; the only possibility for this collapse would be if something outside the universe observed or interacted with it...

According to the laws of thermodynamics, all parts of a closed system (the universe) are constantly moving closer to thermal equilibrium, and therefore, interacting. Since interaction and observation are the same thing (since you must interact with something to observe it,) and all things are constantly interacting above a certain threshold (there is no moment where my body is not being pelted with god knows how many kinds of radiation, but it is possible for there to be a Plank-time or two gap where something is not being interacted with, and therefore not being observed, on the quantum scale,) this means that there is never a superposition on the macro scale.

Emotional Leper wrote:

Xar wrote:

Emotional Leper wrote:Until observed, a thing is considered to be in all possible states at once, which is to say, until INTERACTED with, the thing is in all possible states at once. Since a thing is constantly being interacted with, the waveform always collapses and no superposition is possible. Atleast, for macro-scale objects.

Also, my answer to "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound," is Mu.

But what if the "thing" is the universe? If it only collapses once something interacts with it, CAN it collapse at all? All things within the universe are part of it and therefore cannot "interact" with it; the only possibility for this collapse would be if something outside the universe observed or interacted with it...

According to the laws of thermodynamics, all parts of a closed system (the universe) are constantly moving closer to thermal equilibrium, and therefore, interacting. Since interaction and observation are the same thing (since you must interact with something to observe it,) and all things are constantly interacting above a certain threshold (there is no moment where my body is not being pelted with god knows how many kinds of radiation, but it is possible for there to be a Plank-time or two gap where something is not being interacted with, and therefore not being observed, on the quantum scale,) this means that there is never a superposition on the macro scale.

Found the link I was looking for... it explains that the many-world interpretation is intended to solve problems of quantum mechanics by utilizing quantum decoherence instead of wavefunction collapse.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation

I hate matrix math.

Wait, so Hyperception's and my way of life of "shifting realities" when something isn't the way we know it was the day before is unusual? We've lived together with this as a fundamental belief of our day to day mundane world that I can't imagine seeing things as static and unchangeing...

Menolly wrote:Wait, so Hyperception's and my way of life of "shifting realities" when something isn't the way we know it was the day before is unusual? We've lived together with this as a fundamental belief of our day to day mundane world that I can't imagine seeing things as static and unchangeing...

Do you mean you have days where you wake up and the South won the Civil War, or Gore is President, or Gore is President and the South won the Civil War, or the 13 Colonies were colonised by the Dutch, not the English?

Uhm...close.

But nothing quite that drastic...

...yet...

Menolly wrote:Uhm...close.

But nothing quite that drastic...

...yet...

Well, if you wake up one morning and I know where my Tardis is, please tell me.

I miss it dearly. It's got all my things in it, you see.

Did it camouflage itself so effectively you no longer recognize it? Nice to know the ability on yours works!

Menolly wrote:Did it camouflage itself so effectively you no longer recognize it? Nice to know the ability on yours works!

I think I may have eaten it at some point.

The quantum measurement problem ("observation") isn't the same as interaction in general. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle has nothing to do with the fact that we interact with a system when we observe it, unintentionally disturbing it from its original state. It is an inherent uncertainty in the nature of matter itself. I don't have the time to find the links, post urls, etc., so I'll just do a cut-'n-paste of a previous post I made in another forum. (The main point here being that reality is so strange that we don't even understand our own physical theories.)

There are two basic problems quantum theory: 1) the quantum measurement problem and 2) the quantum interpretation question.

1) is the problem of where to draw the line between quantum world and classical world; in other words, where exactly in the process of measuring do probability waves get collapsed into definite, actual values?

2) addresses our uncertainty in the metaphysical implications of quantum theory. In fact, there are at least 8 different metaphysical models that are currently in competition for interpreting quantum theory, and no one knows which model is correct because they all fit the available evidence and quantum theory (except perhaps #6).

[The following list is paraphrased from QUANTUM REALITY, by Nick Herbert.]

Model #1: the Copenhagan interpretation, part I. This states that there is no "deep reality" behind our measurements and our perceptions. The perceived world is real, but it "floats" on a world that is not as real, the quantum world. This model represents the prevailing doctrine of establishment physics (including Neils Bohr). This is an "anti-realist" interpretation (idealistic). Herbert states, "What more glaring indication of the depth of the reality crisis than the official rejection of reality itself by the bulk of the physics community?" [p. 16.]

Model #2: Copenhagan interpretation, part II. This model claims that reality is created by observation. The phenomenal world is real, but it is not there when no one is looking.

Model #3: Reality is an undivided wholeness. [This is the one I lean towards.] Observers cannot be separated from reality; there is no boundary between subject and object. Subjective reality and objective reality can no longer be maintained as valid distinctions. Physicist David Bohm is known for taking this position.

Model #4: The many-worlds interpretation; reality consists of a steadily increasing number of parallel universes. Each new universe is created upon each new measurement act. For any situation in which multiple outcomes are possible, some physicists believe that every outcome actually does occur in another universe that splits off from ours. Physicist Paul Davies has proposed this interpretation in his book, OTHER WORLDS.

Model #5: Quantum logic; the world obeys a non-human kind of reasoning. This model advocates using non-Boolean logics, multi-valued logics, in order to make sense of the implications of quantum field theory.

Model #6: Neorealism; the world is made of ordinary objects. Objects exist whether we are looking or not, they have all their properties whether we measure them or not, and this view can be carried down to the atomic level. This model is considered heresy among most physicists. They compare neorealists to flat-earthers, because this view cannot be made consistent with quantum theory (the most successful and experimentally confirmed theory in history, by the way). However, notable figures such as Einstein took up this view, claiming that quantum theory was incomplete.

Model #7: consciousness creates reality. Physical objects have no attributes when no one is watching them. Eugene Wigner states, "It is not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness . . . It will remain remarkable in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the conclusion that the content of the consciousness is an ultimate reality." [p.26]

Model #8: the duplex world of Werner Heisenberg; the world is twofold, consisting of potentials and actualities. Similar to the Copenhagan interpretation, there is no deep reality, nothing beyond our measurements and observations that is real like they are. However, unlike Bohr, Heisenberg believed that the unmeasured world is semi-real, potential instead of actual. It reaches full reality – actuality – when observed. So the world of potentiality and the world of actuality are bridged by a "magical" act of observation or measurement.

All these models are experimentally indistinguishable. "For all presently conceivable experiments, each of these realities predicts exactly the same observable phenomena." [p.28] So how are the philosophers to decide among these choices that physicists themselves cannot decide? Each model seems preposterous, but is still consistent with quantum theory (except #6.)

However, despite indecision between physicists, one of these models must be true (or something very much like one of them), if quantum theory is true. And as I said above, quantum theory is the most successful and experimentally confirmed theory in history. So if philosophers are to be consistent with modern science, they will have to turn their attention to this problem. Any ideas?

Methinks this should go into the Loresraat...

Thanks for the short review of prevailing reality theories Malik. I knew I could count on you in this matter (or energy or whatever ).

I won't claim that I immediately understand any of them except perhaps #6. I know that makes me the physics equivalent of a flat earther. However, I'm not so sure that this simile is adquate. The reason I take this view (yes, you can call it incomprehension), BUT: I belive in the periodic system, I believe in the physical existence of atoms and molecules, and I believe that molecles form agregates that are "things".

What I DON'T believe is that these "things" would simply cease to exist if there was no life. It seems to me that all the other theories implicate that some life (in the shape of an observer) must exist for there to be a reality ("things"). Iow, all of the other theories seem to imply some pre-existence of an observer for "things" to ever come into existence. That is where we get to close to religion for my liking. Please correct me if that conception is wrong.

Honestly, I think there has to be some misconception involved when they talk of 'observers' that way. I can't accept the idea that an observer in the sense of a thinking being actively making a measurement is somehow fundamentally different from any other interaction. It's blatant mysticism; just because it's impossible to prove that things would continue working perfectly fine without a thinking observer (it's impossible because any experiment we could do would necessarily include a thinking observer) doesn't mean it wouldn't.
I had understood that 'observer' simply means any system that receives information from another system--which means that as long as the universe exists, each small part of it would be 'observed' by the other parts of it. That image is much easier to believe.


[Okay, I've got myself ruminating, so you can ignore the following if you like. It's irrellevant to the topic, really--it just interests me.]
The question then is whether the universe as a whole is 'observed'--in the strict technical sense. But then, could the universe exist if it wasn't? I read an interesting thing a while back that brought up the idea of a substance that is entirely chaotic. In that chaotic mess, simply because of its random nature, there must arise occasionally localised areas of order. Our universe could be seen, in this model, as one of these briefly extant points of order in the chaotic substance that is reality. Random fluctuations in the fabric have caused a small area to suddenly have rules--time, space, the fundamental forces. It lasts for a brief time and then it collapses back into the chaos it emerged from. In this case, you then have a similar situation to what I mentioned above: the universe can exist because it is 'observed'--information is exchanged with the rest of reailty surrounding it. But then you might argue that it's "turtles all the way down" again, because you're back where you started.

The fact that an accurate description of the implications quantum theory causes this much "distress" is merely evidence that people in general don't understand how weird the world really is. We're not talking about the opinions of journalists, philosophers, preachers, etc. We're talking about the opinions of the physicists themselves, the very same people who invented quantum theory. The fact that they don't agree with each other on how to interpret the results is beside the point. They do agree that quantum theory forces us to radically reinterpret reality, and that ONE of these "impossible" interpretations must be true.

This is a theory that is nearly 100 years old, and the public in general still doesn't realize that it implies the above. Or they flat out don't accept it. Yes, it does sound "religious" or "mystic." But this theory has been experimentally confirmed to a mind-boggling degree of accuracy--more so than any other scientific theory.

Murrin, an observer is certainly different from "any other interaction." For instance, electrons and protons are interacting all the time. Atoms wouldn't exist without this interaction. Yet, this doesn't change the fact that electrons exist around the nucleus in an "electron cloud," as you may have heard in school. They don't call it that because it's made of water vapor. The electron's position and momentum is "spread out" around the atom in such a way that it is meaningless to talk about it actually being in a specific spot with a specific momentum at any given time. It has a certain probability of being in a specific spot. It is only when we do a measurement that it actually has a specific location. Yet, even when we have this much information, its "conjugate attribute"--the momentum--is less certain the more precisely we know its position (Heisenberg's U.P.). Clearly, an electron isn't a particle like we usually think of tiny bits of solid matter. And this is true for all particles, except the smaller they are the more they exhibit these qualities. Even you and I would exhibit these properties if we had instruments precise enough to measure them. And maybe that's the "solution." Maybe we're talking about effects that are simply too small to notice on a day-to-day basis. But Schroedenger's cat shows that it's not that simple. Quantum effects could, in principle, make themselves known on macro scales.

We all know how the world we take for granted isn't necessarily true. A geocentric solar system. A flat earth. Etc. Perhaps this tendency to be prejudiced about reality goes all the way to the core. Perhaps it is not the case that consciousness creates the world, but that it merely creates an illusion. Perhaps it was wrong to think of the world as discrete, solid objects to begin with, and the consciousness-illusion is the reason things appear this way. After all, we've learned that matter isn't really "solid." It's mostly empty space. In fact, it's actually energy held together in a pattern we recognize as "matter." Quantum theory just says that this pattern "stretches" into the realm of probability.

I don't believe the universe ceases to exist when we're not looking. But perhaps it ceases being "actual" and is rather "probable." After all, probability is in a sense more real than the actual. The actual is contingent, changing, and fleeting. What happened to actual objects that once existed but don't any longer? What is it about the passage of time that makes things disappear? How can anything real cease to exist anyway? How real can things be that spontaneously emerge out of the void and then disappear again (such as with quantum fluctuations in "empty" space)?

On the other hand, potentiality or possibility is always real, always there. The very laws which make things possible in the first place "pre-date" the things themselves. The "realm of the possible" is what allows the "actual" to occur. And actual things are only one, infinitesimal slice of that realm.

Honestly, I don't think the universe is physical. At least not in the classical sense. I don't think it is spiritual, either, but rather something in between.

An Afterlife without God... I have always believed that, though. I am a Buddhist and believe in reincarnation. I know that is more religion but I have looked into this Quantum thing... find it hard to understand. If it works and we have proof of an afterlife... I am happy

Great posts. Personally, I've always been a fan of the Copenhagen interpretations, and Model 7 seems to be largely similar to them.

Reality as a holographic projection of the collective unconscious.

--A

I prefer the collective conscious, myself....

Nah, if it was conscious, we'd all be walking through walls and on water. The universe relies on us not being conscious for it all to work.

--A