Let me rephrase. By break in the laws of physics, I mean that there is something to which the laws of physics doesn’t apply. Now, we all know you think God can’t break his natural law, his laws of physics, so in some sense you can’t allow anything on this side of the spiritual world to be out of the control of natural law. Thus, you have a theological issue with free will being in the material world. I know you believe in free will but it is via the spirit.
Free will is defined like t’Hooft defines it at the start of his paper–This is the traditional definition:
"In attempts to get into grips with this situation, and to derive its consequences for deterministic theories, the concept of “free will” was introduced. Basically, it assumes that any “observer” has the freedom, at all times and all places, to choose, at will, what variables to observe and measure. " Gerard 't Hooft ON THE FREE-WILL POSTULATE IN QUANTUM MECHANICS https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0701097.pdf, p. 3
An observer whose actions are constrained by natural law, simply does not have freedom at all time but must do what the natural law says to do. Here are some other philosophers talking about that issue of lack of freedom if you are subject to natural law.
"Materialists used the laws of physics to show, or attempt to show, that the movements of human bodies are mechanically determined, and that consequently everything that we say and every change of position that we effect fall outside the sphere of any possible free will. If this be so, whatever may be left for our unfettered volitions is of little value. If, when a man writes a poem or commits a murder, the bodily movements involved in his act result solely from physical causes, it would seem absurd to put up a statue to him in the one case and to hang him in the other. " Bertrand Russell, “Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization?,” in Paul Edwards, editor, Why I Am Not A Christian, ( New York: Touchstone Books, 1957), p. 37-39
Kant says speaks of what follows from subjecting everything to natural law::
“On the other side, it is equally necessary that everything that takes place should be fixedly determined according to laws of nature. This necessity of nature is likewise not an empirical conception, just for this reason that it involves the notion of necessity and consequently of a priori cognition. But this conception of a system of nature is confirmed by experience; and it must even be inevitably presupposed if experience itself is to be possible, that is, a connected knowledge of the objects of sense resting on general laws. Therefore freedom is only an idea [Ideal Conception] of reason, and its objective reality in itself is doubtful;” Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, Transl. By Thomas K. Abbott, (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1949), p. 72
I don’t accept your assumption about God’s inability to break natural law, nor do I accept the materialist assumption that nothing can be exempted from the laws of physics, so within my view, I am free to use the definition of free will that the materialists do–i.e. not subject to natural law.
Just remember Mitch, your view is applicable to others only in so far as they accept the assumptions you do. Neither your view nor my view in this area constitute observable metaphysical truth.
We might have hit an impass here Roger. I don’t see much common ground here.
When you write:
“I have no problem with saying that the Mind arises from the physical brain, however just because the Brain is composed of atoms doe34s not mean that thinking is Material. Ideas are not physical, but mental or rational. They are relational and so is the Mind.”
I find that confusing. Blame me, but we are not communicating about the same things.
Yes the laws of physics do not apply BUT that is not the meaning of breaking the laws of physics.
Doing something to which a law does not apply is not breaking the law. To claim otherwise is insane.
And thereby you demonstrate that some of the things you “know” and claim that others “know” is just plain incorrect. I do not think that God cannot break natural law. I don’t believe there is anything God cannot do. I think God can even do evil if He chose to do so. But don’t think God does evil. AND I don’t think God breaks the laws of nature which He made because I see no rational reason for him to do so. Some people have integrity and don’t believe in making laws which don’t apply to themselves and so we think God has integrity also and doesn’t do that either. We make laws and rules because they are important – serve an important purpose and so we don’t break those laws and rules just to make ourselves look powerful. That is the behavior of a criminal and lunatic. AND I wouldn’t give such a “god” the time of day. I would in fact say that this description fits the “god of this world” and the devil.
When it comes to religion you are quite correct. But when it comes to science this is not correct.
Given that you have never explained why so many physicists believe consciousness plays a special role in quantum and think it means that consciousness is above and apart from the laws of nature, I would suggest that your views of science might not be the cat’s meow either.
Neither have you explained the paradox presented by Euan Squires over in Wigner’s friend, nor even commented on Frauchiger and Renner’s work or the experimental confirmation of their work by Proietti et al. Their work says that Quantum can’t be used to model the use of itself by observers. It leads to serious logical contradictions, like different observers lookng at the same experiment seeing different things–and if one tries to say this is in the multiverse, it isn’t. Renner worked that math and it doesn’t work. In no branch of the multiverse are all observers agreed on the same experimental outcome.
The science is about what the experiments show and not what people believe. Just because you have read the personal beliefs in books written by people who happen to be physicists doesn’t mean that the physics shows any such thing. When you study physics you do not read such books because the beliefs of physicist is irrelevant to the science of physics.
The experiments show quite conclusively that consciousness makes no difference whatsoever in the results of these experiments and when quantum physics talks of an observer it means a measuring device and nothing more.
There is no such paradox in the science of physics. This is only discussed in popular books of philosophy and rhetoric.
It is only science when the experiments give the same results every time no matter who does the experiment and no matter what they may want or believe.
Not so, Mitch. It shows how little you understand of Frauchiger and Renner’s work. They used the mathematics of quantum on 4 different observers and showed that if you apply the laws of quantum to the scientists things go haywire. It passed peer review and ended up in Nature Communications. Experimental verification is part of science not philosophy. Proietti et all has also now been published meaning their verification of Frauchiger and Renner’s theoretical work also passed peer review.
The experiments show quite conclusively that consciousness makes no difference whatsoever in the results of these experiments and when quantum physics talks of an observer it means a measuring device and nothing more.
Unnamed experiments. Refer to them please so we can all look them up.
To say that a device is an observer again shows your lack of understanding. A computer is just a recorder, it isn’t an observer. If here is to be any actual material item that collapses the wavefunction, it is the photon or field used to actually interact with the quantum particle. The computer itself, the chip of the computer is way to big to be a probe of quantum particles. That means the device, becomes nothing but a recorder not a collapser.
Quantum says that when two photons, two particles interact they go into superposition. If quantum applies to the whole universe and everything in it, quantum says when two objects interact, they go into superposition–not collapse. Why? because every object has its own wave function and quantum mechanics is linear, meaning the wavefunctions are added together in he Schrodinger equation. Indeed, some physicist have taken this inability of material objects to collapse the wavelet all the way:
“When two particles interact, their quantum states generally become entangled. Further interaction with other particles spreads the entanglement far and wide. Subsequent local manipulations of separated particles cannot, in the absence of quantum communication, undo the entanglement. … To summarize, modern cosmology suggests that most of the particles in the visible universe exhibit a high degree of entanglement with degrees of freedom far beyond our horizon volume.”" Roman Bunly and Stephen H. D. Hsu, Everything is Entangled, Physics Letters B, 718:2, Dec 5, 2012, p. 233, 235 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037026931200994X
I will say I don’t think everything is entangle because we humans have looked at the universe.
Notice that this guy says the entanglement continues to enlarge with every subsequent interaction. What collapses the system? Not your computer. It is the human when he observes the situation.
I have shown this to you before, but you never explain why Bryce Dewitt, is wrong and you are correct. Are you really going to ignore this again?
“Here the controversies over the interpretation of quantum mechanics start. For most people, a state like that of equation 5 does not represent the actual occurrence of an observation. They conceive the apparatus to have entered a kind of schizophrenic state in which it is unable to decide what value it has found for the system observable. At the same time they can not deny that the coupling chosen between system and apparatus would, in the classical theory, have led to a definite outcome. They therefore face a crisis. How can they prod the apparatus into making up its mind? " “The usual suggestion is to introduce a second apparatus to get at the facts simply by looking at the first apparatus to see what it has recorded. But an analysis carried out along the above lines quickly shows that the second apparatus performs no better than the first. It too goes into a state of schizophrenia. The same thing happens with a third apparatus, and a fourth, and so on. This chain, known as "von Neumann’s catastrophe of infinite regression,” only makes the crisis worse.” Bryce Dewitt,Quantum Mechanics and Reality, PHYSICS TODAY /SEPTEMBER 1970, p. 30- 31
Every device you bring in, goes into superposition, according to the equations of quantum.
Then what collapses wavefunctions outside of human observation? If a grain of dust in space absorbs a photon and collapses its wavefunction, is that grain of dust a consciousness? Is the photon a consciousness?
How is that different than a grain of dust in space collapsing a photon’s wavefunction?
We are not talking about the same things I am talking about a real brain and mind that thinks. You are talking about people who say that thinking and free will are a mirage, basically because Reality is composed solely of the physical. This is manifestly false, so why must you and I try to understand it and explain it.
What we need is a new understanding that makes sense and conforms with the clear facts, not some ideology. If we as humans are to survive we need to break the power of dualist ideology in the world today. People think that YEC are a little crazy because they beli3eve in a 6 say Creation, but many others believe in things that are just a strange without blinking.
God? I know he isn’t a popular option. To exclude him is to accept either materialism, or a deistic God.
Euan Squires, a mathematical physicist noted:
“Quantum theory offers at least two possible roles for a ‘God’, where we use this term for a being that is non-physical, non-human, in some sense superhuman, and is conscious. “The first role is to make the ‘choices’ that are required whenever a measurment is made that selects from a quantum system one of the possible outcomes. Such a God would remove the indeterminacy from the world by taking upon himself those decisions that are not forced by the rules of physics. Although expressed in non-traditional terms, this is reasonably in accordance with the accepted role of a God. He would be very active in all aspects of the world,and would be totally omnipotent within the prescribed limits. Prediction of his behaviour from the laws of physics would be impossible (note that we are not permitting any hidden variables in this chapter), although from both the theological and the scientific viewpoint we would want to believe that there were reasons for at least some of the choices: otherwise we would be back with random behaviour and the God would not have played any part. It is interesting to note that this role might even permit ‘miracles’, if we were to regard these as events so highly unlikely that they would be effectivvely impossible without very specific, and unusual, ‘divine’ choice. For example, according to quantum theory, there must be a small but noon-zero, probability that if I run into a wall, then I will pass right through it. This is a special case of the potential barrier experiment and the wavefunction on the left-hand side, corresponding to transmission is never quite zero. Then, however small the probability for transmission might be, a God would be able to select it as the outcome, if he so chose.” "The second possible role for a God to play in Quantum theory is more relevant to our principal topic. God might be the conscious observer who is responsible for the reduction of wavefunctions. Whether, in addition he also decides the outcome of his observations, as in the above paragraph, or whether this is left to chance is not important here. … "It is therefore necessary that the God who reduces wavefunctions, and so allows things to happen in the early universe, in particular things that might be required in order for other conscious observers to exist, should know about these other observers and should know what they intend to measure. God must in some way be linked to all human consciousness. There is nothing obviously revolutionary in all this (except perhaps the fact that it is discussed in a book on physics), although it perhaps should be mentioned that John PolkinghorProfessor of Theoretical Physics of Cambride and now an Anglican priest, is clearly unhappy with this role for God (see p 67 of the book The Quantum World mentioned in the bibliography).” Euan Squires, The Mystery of the Quantum World, 2nd ed., (Bristol: Institute of Physics Publishing, 1994), p.66-68
God seems to pop out in unexpected places in quantum. I have mentioned the conflicts that arise by trying to apply quantum to the human mind. Proietti et al, who experimentally confirmed these conflicts suggest that a ‘privileged’ observer, (who would have to be above the multiverse, could sort out the contradictions and make the world logical:
" one way to accommodate our result is by proclaiming that “facts of the world” can only be established by a privileged observer-e.g., one that would have access to the “global wavefunction” in the many worlds interpretation" Massimiliano Proietti et al, “Experimental rejection of observer-independence in the quantum world” https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.05080.pdf, p. 4
Only God could have access to the global wavefunction, which is the function that governs the multiveerse (assuming there is a multiverse).
Of this global wave function Smolin came right out and said there is no other name for that observer except God!
"It thus seems to me that the many-worlds interpretation can be understood as an attempt to preserver, in quantum theory of the whole universe, the notion of single-observer objectivity. I know no other way to understand the desire to posit that the quantum state of the universe corresponds to reality, in spite of the fact that there can be no observer inside the universe (as we ordinarily mean it) who can observe it. This formulation preserves the idea that there is a single objective view of reality by the extreme means of making that the view of an observer who does not live in the world." “It seems to me that the only possible name for such an observer is God, and the theory is to be criticized as being unlikely on these grounds.” Lee Smolin, The Life of the Cosmos Oxford University press, 1997 p. 263-264
Yes the Everettian multiverse has a wave function that can only be seen by an extra-material being who lives outside of the multiverse.
The question below is answered by the above:
If a grain of dust in space absorbs a photon and collapses its wavefunction, is that grain of dust a consciousness? Is the photon a consciousness?
What about matter that isn’t humans? The Moon is above 0 K because it absorbs photons from the Sun. That would require collapsing the wavefunction of the photons coming from the Sun. I don’t think the Moon disappears if no human is looking at it.
Also, if we are talking science then you need evidence to include something. It isn’t about exclusion, but about rules for what can be included.
The next step in the scientific process would be to find evidence that God is filling this role. If it is a matter of faith, then it would be outside of the purview of science.
One can find people who claim that a device collapses the wavelet, but when one analysizes the issue, it becomes clear that it requires an observer. Let me again quote Bryce Dewitt, and John von Neuman, who wrote the seminal book on Quantum. Frist von Neuman:
Going still further, and taking the light source into consideration, we could find out the reflection of the light quanta on the opaque mercury column and the path taken by the reflected light quanta into the eye of the observer, their refraction in the eye lens, and the formation of an image on the retina, and then we would say: ‘This image is registered by the retina of the observer.’ And were our physiological knowledge greater than it is today, we could go still further, tracing the chemical reactions which produce the impression of this image on the retina, and in the optic nerve and in the brain, and then in the end say; ‘These chemical changes of his brain cells are perceived by the observer.’ But in any case, no matter how far we proceed - from the thermometer scale, to the mercury, to the retina, or into the brain - at some point we must say: ‘And this is perceived by the observer.’
I am breaking this quotation in two right here. The observer is NOT the retina which forms the image of the physical situation. The observer is not the nerve cells. The observer is something behind all the physical apparatus of retina/nerve cells/ brain cells. The retina is physical. Why doesn’t it collapse the wavelet? It is a device. Why doesn’t the nerve cell collapse the wavelet? It too is a device. We will look into that in a minute.
Let us continue:
“That is, we are obliged always to divide the world into two parts, the one being the observed system, the other the observer. In the former we can follow all physical processes (in principle at least) arbitrarily precisely. In the latter, this is meaningless. The boundary between the two is arbitrary to a very large extent. In particular, we saw in the four different possibilities considered in the preceding example that the ‘observer’–in this sense–need not be identified with the body of the actual observer: In one instance we included even the thermometer in it, while in another instance even the eyes and optic nerve were not included. That this boundary can be pushed arbitrarily far into the interior of the body of the actual observer is the content of the principle of psycho-physical parallelism. But this does not change the fact that in every account the boundary must be put somewhere if the principle is not to be rendered vacuous; i.e., if a comparison with experience is to be possible. Indeed, experience only makes statements of this type: ‘An observer has made a certain (subjective) observation,’ and never any like this: 'A physical quantity has a certain value.” John von Neumann, Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics: New Edition (Princeton: Princeton University Press), p. 272-273
If the observer were something OBJECTIVE, then it would be the retina which made a certain observation. Or it would be our optic nerve that made a certain objective observation–for these things are objective. How can something objective have subjective (not objectively verifiable) impressions of the world?
Every physical object in the world is governed by a wavefunction–it is just a wave with characteristics suitable for the object it represents. Waves, are linearly addable–that is called superposition. Like waves on the sea that superpose upon each other to create a monster wave that sinks a ship, quantum wave functions can add as well.
Now this is important. If any physical object was an observer, it would mean that its wave function does NOT add to the quantum superposition.It would act like an operator on all other physical objects. In such a case, there would never be interference in the double slit experiment. All objects have a wave and are subject to Shrodinger’s wave equation.
Consider two electrons going through the double slit. They are objects–physical objects. As we know, they interfere with each other to produce an interference pattern on the screen. But EACH ELECTRON DETECTED THE OTHER ELECTRON, yet the interference pattern didn’t collapse. Electrons can be used to sense other electrons, protons, or even photons.
An illustration: Consdier the delayed choice experiments:
Green box captures if electron went through this slit A or B… That particle is in a schizophrenic state of having gone through both A and B
But we have a device, the green box that tells us which slot it went through. . Normally collecting such information collapses the Interference pattern. But if we wait until the travel time says the electrons are at the big green arrow, which means all the interactions have taken place, and if the electron
is merely a device capable of collapsing the wavelet, then no interference pattern should
appear. But that isn’t what happens. The device has already detected the path. But here is what is crazy. If the information is destroyed before the waves get to the screen, the interference pattern appears, even though the device (Green box or the electron/ photon it sent to observe the path) has already interacted.
Now, these experiments are run by computers,which is also a device. What makes a computer a special device such that it collapses the wavelet when an electron won’t? Because the computer has a wavefunction, it does what all physical objects with a wave functions do–goes into superposition with whatever it interacts with. So now we have the Green box, the sensor particle and the computer all in superposition. Bryce Dewitt notes that every object goes into superposition with whatever it intereacts with. This means we have electron, sesory particle, green box and computer all in superposition. We have the delayed choice with its electron telling us of whether or not the particle went through slit A or B. Even when the information is saved on the computer and the interference now won’t happen, the computer and its information are in superposition—computer (interference) + computer(no interference).
Dewitt says:
How can they prod the apparatus into making up its mind? "
“The usual suggestion is to introduce a second apparatus to get at the facts simply by looking at the first apparatus to see what it has recorded. But an analysis carried out along the above lines quickly shows that the second apparatus performs no better than the first. It too goes into a state of schizophrenia. The same thing happens with a third apparatus, and a fourth, and so on. This chain, known as "von Neumann’s catastrophe of infinite regression,” only makes the crisis worse. Bryce Dewitt,Quantum Mechanics and Reality, PHYSICS TODAY /SEPTEMBER 1970, p. 30- 31
In von Neuman’s example above of retina, optic nerve, visual cortex, all these things are physical objects subject to von Neuman’s chain, and there in lies the problem. These objects can’t collapse the wavelet. At some point an observer must say, “I observed X” and that isn’t the neuron saying that.
The observer is the photosensitive molecules in the eye. They are what collapses the wavefunction. The rest is just interpretation by our nervous system well after the fact in relative terms.
We could perform the same experiments with the same results using a digital camera or photographic film.
Obviously, it isn’t the photosensitive chemicals in our eyes that are making subjective judgments. That would be our brain which interprets the effects light has on those chemicals.
The superposition of the photon exists the moment it is emitted from the light source. That superposition collapses when it interacts with any other particle that is able to absorb it. This includes the photographic film used in the double slit experiment. That film is the observer.
Electrons are not detecting each other. If you send one electron at a time through a double slit you get the expected interference pattern.
The device is the observer?
Last I checked, computers are deterministic which poses a problem for your superpositions.
Ok, since you didn’t like Dewitt’s quote about machines being subject to superposition (, indeed you didn’t explain why you think he is wrong,), then let me try this one:
“Von Neumann showed that if the Geiger counter is a physical system governed by quantum mechanics, it would enter a superposition state with the atom and be, simultaneously, in a fired and an un fired state. (We saw this situation in the case of Schrodinger’s cat.)”
" Should a second isolated measuring apparatus come into contact with the Geiger counter-for example, an electronic device recording whether the Geiger counter has fired-it joins the superposition state and records both situations existing simultaneously. This so-called “von Neumann chain” can continue indefinitely. Von Neumann showed that no physical system obeying the laws of physics (i.e., quantum theory) could collapse a superposition state wavefunction to yield a particular result ."
“However, when we look at the Geiger counter, we will always see a particular result, not a superposition. Von Neumann concluded that only a conscious observer doing something that is not presently encompassed by physics can collapse a wavefunction. Though for all practical purposes one can consider the wavefunction collapsed at any macroscopic stage of the von Neumann chain, von Neumann concluded that only a conscious observer can actually make an observation.” Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner, Quantum Enigma, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 184
This will be my last attempt on this particular issue. I have learned not to bang one’s head, and I am sure you don’t want to bang your head against my wall. The position I am trying to defend is widely held among physicists, even though many don’t like it because it places consciousness in a special role. Thus, I will let them speak, and if you so chose, you can go look up their papers. They know or knew more about quantum than you or I.
Heisenberg (1958a): “ The conception of objective reality of the elementary particles has thus evaporated not into the cloud of some obscure new reality concept but into the transparent clarity of a mathematics that represents no longer the behavior of particles but rather our knowledge of this behavior .”
Note that Heisenberg says the math of quantum represents the knowledge of the particle’s behavior–not the particle.
Heisenberg (1958b): “…the act of registration of the result in the mind of the observer. The discontinuous change in the probability function…takes place with the act of registration, because it is the discontinuous change in our knowledge in the instant of registration that has its image in the discontinuous change of the probability function.”
Heisenberg (1958b:) “When the old adage ‘Natura non facit saltus’ is used as a basis of a criticism of quantum theory, we can reply that certainly our knowledge can change suddenly, and that this fact justifies the use of the term ‘quantum jump’. ”
Even the rabid atheist Steven Weinberg acknowledges that quantum can’t be formulated without humans being involved:
" Fundamentally, I have an ideal of what a physical theory should be. It should be something that doesn’t refer in any specific way to human beings. It should be something from which everything else–including anything you can say systematically about chemistry, or biology, or human affairs–can be derived. It shouldn’t have human beings at the beginning in the laws of nature. And yet, I don’t see any way of formulating quantum mechanics without an interpretative postulate that refers to what happens when people choose to measure one thing or another ." Steven Weinberg cited by Tim Folger, How Does the Quantum World Cross Over?, Scientific American, July 2018, p. 32
What does the word ‘people’ mean? It doesn’t mean a brain. Einstein’s brain sits in a jar but his person is not there. A person, must be a conscious being.
Of a computer supposedly not being subject to superposition. I will point out two things–Computers are subject to quantum effects–and secondly, larger and larger objects are being put into superposition. I wouldn’t bet against them someday putting a computer chip into superposition someday–the chip IS a computer.
Quantum can be used to model a classical computer. I am did a picture because the greek letters won’t appear on this forum.
First, I would point out that every atom and particle that makes up the computer is subject to quantum laws. I would point out that semi-conductor work only because we understand valence bands from solid state quantum physics. And the valence bands are superposed states–i.e. subject to quantum.
" The valence band in Si cluster-assembled films presents a merging of thes-like and sp-like bands. This is due to the superposition of thep-like states with odd and even parity. This superposition fills the valley between both thes-like andsp-like bands observed in crystalline phases ." P. M´linon, … A. Perez, in Nanosilicon, 2008, Cluster Assembled Silicon Networks," Nanosilicon, 2008 https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemistry/valence-band
Classical computers work because their chips obey the laws of quantum superposition. They appear deterministic because they use thousands of electrons for each ram storage and thousands of atoms of ferris oxide (or whatever) to store information magnetically. If one build a computer using only one electron and one atom for the storage respectively, the computer would not be predictable.
Secondly, Will the computer box ever be put into superposition? Physicists think it is a technology problem, not a science problem. As objects get bigger, their wavelength gets much smaller, making it much harder to put the object into superposition. However, they keep putting larger and larger chunks of matter into superposition.
An object visible to the naked eye has been put into superposition:
2010 " This is a milestone," says Wojciech Zurek, a theorist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. "It confirms what many of us believe, but some continue to resist-that our universe is ‘quantum to the core’."
…
In the new experiment Aaron O’Connell, a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his co-workers have shown for the first time that larger objects can also be in two places at once. "It tells us that quantum mechanics works for macroscopic objects in space, " says O’Connell, who presented the results here at a meeting of the American Physical Society. The results were also published online Wednesday in Nature. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)
The team used computer-chip manufacturing techniques to create a mechanical resonator-akin to a small tuning fork. The device is a piece of piezoelectric material (a material that expands or contracts in the presence of an electric field as well as generates an electrical field when put under stress) sandwiched between two layers of aluminum, which act as electrodes. It is one micron thick and 40 microns long, just enough to be visible “with your naked eye,” O’Connell says.
I will bet the that superposition does apply to the computer, but you can bet against that idea
As to camera’s. you have to actually observe the picture to know if it captured the photo correctly. Taking a picture and never looking at it is kinda meaningless, and adds nothing to the knowledge of the world. Remember above, Heisenberg said " of quantum that the mathematics that represents no longer the behavior of particles but rather our knowledge of this behavior
As Peierls said,
" The moment at which you can throw away one possibility and keep only the other is when you finally become conscious of the fact that the experiment has given one result … You see, the quantum mechanical description is in terms of knowledge, and knowledge requires somebody who knows. Rudolf Peierls, in P. C. W. Davies and Julian Brown, The Ghost in the Atom, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) p.74"
A neuron and a retina cell are know ‘Knowers’ And you may have the final word, I am moving on.
The whole reason people are designing quantum computers is because classical computers are deterministic. You set a bunch of switches and then run a program. It is no different than the old mechanical cash registers from days gone by.
I see no reason to accept von Neumann’s ideas. There are collapsed wavefunctions all around us, and they are collapsed by ordinary matter.
Is there a poll or something you can cite?
How does this quote support what you are claiming? Also:
“Therefore, the transition from the ‘possible’ to the ‘actual’ takes place during the act of observation […] We may say that the transition from the ‘possible’ to the ‘actual’ takes place as soon as the interaction of the object with the measuring device, and thereby with the rest of the world, has come into play; it is not connected with the act of registration of the result by the mind of the observer. The discontinuous change in the probability function, however, takes place with the act of registration, because it is the discontinuous change of our knowledge in the instant of registration that has its image in the discontinuous change of the probability function”
–Heisenberg https://www.coursehero.com/file/p7lj5bep/Heisenberg-is-not-very-clear-about-how-precisely-these-objective-and-subjective/
Everyone agrees that science requires humans. Science is a human endeavour. You are making much more of a claim.
Those quantum effects are not used in the operation of the classical computer. Only quantum computers use those effects.
Yeah, there are not many polls on the interpretation of Quantum but Copenhagen usually ends up having the most people, around 40% I am defending the Copenhagen interpretation… All other interps.
polls on quantum view sent to 1234 participants, 149 answered
39% copehagen
6% many worlds
32% no opinion
taken 2016
Tegmark poll n=48
Copenhagen 13 27%
Many Worlds 8 17%
Bohm 4 8%
Consistent Histories 4 8%
Modifed dynamics (GRW/DRM) 1 2%
None of the above/undecided 18 37%
taken 1998
Just for interest, I have been looking for this all day and finally found it. 10,000 rubidium atoms in a Bose-Einstein condensate have been made to be in two different places at once. I bolded an interesting statement:
"Physicists from Stanford University have now demonstrated the superposition of a group of atoms over a greater distance than ever before: 54 centimeters, or about 1.77 feet. The largest distance ever achieved before this was less than a centimeter.
"Quantum superposition is made even more perplexing by the fact that it can only occur when the particles are unobserved. Simply by observing a particle in two different quantum states, you cause what is known as wave function collapse and the particle again exists in only one state or the other (and in the case of superposition, only one physical location or the other). Therefore, measuring a particle in superposition is incredibly difficult.
The Stanford researchers used a cloud of 10,000 rubidium atoms cooled to near-absolute zero temperatures, called a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), to demonstrate superposition. The cloud of atoms, measuring a few millimeters across, was put into a 33-foot-tall chamber. Lasers were used to push the cloud up the chamber, a process that also separated the atoms into two quantum states. When the atoms fell back down to the bottom of the chamber, they returned to one quantum state and appeared to have arrived from two different heights 54 centimeters apart, confirming that they were in superposition at the top of the chamber. The BEC remained in superposition for about a second, four times longer than previous demonstrations." JAY BENNETT, The Same Atoms Exist in Two Places Nearly 2 Feet Apart Simultaneously,
To my knowledge this is the largest number of atoms put into a quantum state, but the number just keeps getting bigger. The bolded part is basically saying what I am saying. If unobserved, it is in a quantum state,but when observed, it collapses to one or the other. Take care
Edited to add, I tool another look for other polls and found a hilarious column by Sean Carroll, He titled his piece, "the most Embarassing Graph in Modern Physics,of one of the polls above. Note, he doesn’t like Copenhagen interp.
I’ll go out on a limb to suggest that the results of this poll should be very embarrassing to physicists. Not, I hasten to add, because Copenhagen came in first, although that’s also a perspective I might want to defend (I think Copenhagen is completely ill-defined, and shouldn’t be the favorite anything of any thoughtful person). The embarrassing thing is that we don’t have agreement.
Think about it — quantum mechanics has been around since the 1920’s at least, in a fairly settled form. [John von Neumann](John von Neumann - Wikipedia#Mathematical_formulation_of_quantum_mechanics) laid out the mathematical structure in 1932. Subsequently, quantum mechanics has become the most important and best-tested part of modern physics. Without it, nothing makes sense. Every student who gets a degree in physics is supposed to learn QM above all else. There are a variety of experimental probes, all of which confirm the theory to spectacular precision.
The best resource I have found is the book by John Gribbin, Q Is for Quantum published in 1998. He seems to follow Richard Feynman. He says that enegy and matter can both take the forms of waves and particles. We might not understand this, but that is the way nature is. If goes against either/or thinking, but that is the way God seems to have made the universe.
Also w3hen measuring quantum particles, we can determine its position or its speed, but not both. Again this seems to be strange, but these seems to be no reason why this cannot be true.
Quantum mechanics does not really involve how humans think, so it has nothing to do with free will.
In this case, an observer is a measuring device. It doesn’t have to be a conscious observer.
There is also the Tegmark paper:
There is a reason that they have to chill quantum computers close to absolute zero in order for those effects to be manipulated. A warm, wet brain just isn’t conducive to quantum computing.
I’ve always thought it was an inherent measurement problem. The methods we need to precisely measure the position of a particle also greatly affect its momentum. Going from very unreliable and hazy memory (physicists please correct me if needed), You can use long wavelengths to vaguely measure the position of a particle, and the low energy within those long wavelengths will not greatly affect the particles momentum. However, if you want to know a particle’s position precisely then you have to use short wavelength light which carries a lot of energy and greatly affects the particle’s momentum. Think of the difference in energy between a radio wave and an x-ray.
I tend to agree with that conclusion, although I am open to being proven wrong.
