lol, and as I have told you over and over, about half of the physics community disagrees with you. I find your categorical statements that Consciousness plays no role in the observer/measurment problem to be lacking any explanation for how Quantum works in the absence of consciousness. Without this explanation, your statements are merely the moving of your lips (or keyboard as the case may be.) Maybe you should remind me of your interpretive scheme for quantum.
You should at least acknowledge that your view is neither a consensus nor a proven position. Some example of people who disagree with your claim:
"The various universes must be considered to be in some sense “parallel” or coexisting realities. Any given observer will, of course, see only one of them, but we must suppose that the conscious states of the observer will be part of the differentiation process, so that each of the many alternative worlds will carry copies of the minds of the observers. " Paul Davies, The Mind of God, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), p. 217
“Nevertheless, some physicists seriously consider the possibility that quantum mechanics hints of a mysterious connection of conscious observation with the physical world. Eugene Wigner, one of the later developers of quantum theory and a winner of a Nobel Prize in physics, created a version of the cat story suggesting an even stronger involvement of the conscious observer with the physical world than does Schrodinger’s story.”
“…”
Wigner speculated that collapse happens at the very last stage of the observation process, that his friend’s human consciousness collapsed the physical system’s wavefunction. Going even further, he speculated that human conscious awareness might actually “reach out”-in some unexplained way-and change the physical state of a system."
“You can’t prove otherwise. All we know is that someplace on the scale between big molecules and humans there is this mysterious process of observation and collapse. Conceivably, it’s indeed at the last step, at awareness.” Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner, Quantum Enigma, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 120
"The Bohm interpretation seems to conflict with special relativity, but we do not see this as an insurmountable problem. Bohm himself did not believe his innterpretation avoids physics’ encounter with consciousness. In their highly techniical l993 book on quantum theory, The Undivided Universe, whose title emphasizes the universal connectedness and the non separability of the microscopic from the macroscopic, Bohm and Basil Hiley write:
‘Throughout this book it has been our position that the quantum theory itself can be understood without bringing in consciousness and that as far as research in physics is concerned, at least in the present general period, this is probably the best approach. However, the intuition that consciousness and quantum theory are in some sense related seems to be a good one, and for this reason we feel it is appropriate to include in this book a discussion of what this relationship might be.’ (Emphasis added.)"
Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner, Quantum Enigma, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 164-165
Zurek was involved in founding decoherence view which is claimed to solve the observer/measurement problem.
"n essence, the many-worlds interpretation does not address, but only postpones, the key question. *The quantum-classical boundary is pushed all the way towards the observer, right against the border between the material universe and the consciousness, leaving it at a
very uncomfortable place to do physics. " Wojciech Hubert Zurek: Decoherence, einselection, and the quantum origins of the classical REVIEWS OF MODERN PHYSICS, VOLUME 75, JULY 2003, p. 717
"The study of the relationship between the quantum and the classical has been, for a long time, focused almost entirely on measurements. However, the problem of measurement is difficult to discuss without observers. And once the observer enters, it is often hard to avoid its ill-understood anthropic attributes such as consciousness, awareness, and the ability to perceive." Wojciech Hubert Zurek: Decoherence, einselection, and the quantum origins of the classical REVIEWS OF MODERN PHYSICS, VOLUME 75, JULY 2003, p. 725
But importantly Zurek’s Decoherence view, he assumes, without proving it that mental functions can be modeled by quantum. Frauchiger and Renner’s theoretical work and Proietti et al’s experimental confirmation of Frauchiger and Renner prove that mental processes are NOT modelable in quantum.
“The higher functions of observers, e.g., consciousness, etc., may be at present poorly understood, but it is safe to assume that they reflect physical processes in the information-processing hardware of the brain. Hence mental processes are in effect objective, since they must reflect conditional quantum dynamics of open system-observer’s network of neurons and, hence leave an indelible imprint on the environment.” Wojciech Hubert Zurek: decoherence, einselection, and the quantum origins of the classical REVIEWS OF MODERN PHYSICS, VOLUME 75, JULY 2003, p 763
Frauchiger and Renner’s work, entitled, Quantum theory cannot consistently describe the use of itself, is discussed here in accessible form https://www.quantamagazine.org/frauchiger-renner-paradox-clarifies-where-our-views-of-reality-go-wrong-20181203/
do you comprehend what that means? Minds use quantum and quantum can’t be used to describe a mind using quantum. This has been experimentally confirmed and that means decoherence is false because it depends upon minds using quantum being modelable by quantum, which has been proven false. If the mental processes can’t be modeled by quantum, then mind is not subject to the laws of physics and the observer IS playing a special role in quantum.
Sigh, you wrote:
"Incorrect. The wave equation is deterministic but interactions with a measuring device, the so called wave collapse, is demonstrably not deterministic. "
I don’t know why you would disagree with me. I said the wave function is absolutely deterministic, which is exactly what you said. sheesh. If you look at the wave function, it has NO mathematical way to collapse to a given solution. What you describe above, with coupled wave functions is decoherence, which I just showed is not correct. Furthermore, Von Neuman pointed out that any physical object subject to quantum, becomes entangled/coupled with other wave functions. But waves are linearly addable, and the Shrodinger equation just adds the new wave and keeps calculating. What you are missing is von Neuman’s chain where everything in the universe should be coupled because the mathematics of the Schrodinger equation has no inherent collapse mechanism, not even if it is coupled to everything in the universe.
"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
If you really want to go againse Bryce Dewitt, be my guest.
Here is maybe a more accessible explanation for those trying to make sense of this:
“ He considered a measuring apparatus, a Geiger counter, for example. It is isolated from the rest of the world but makes contact with a quantum system, say, an atom simultaneously in two boxes. This Geiger counter is set to fire if the atom is in the top box and to remain unfired if the atom is in the bottom box. 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’ [meaning that they should be viewed as one combined system, hence with one active (un-collapsed) Schrodinger equation-grm,gs] and be, simultaneously, in a fired and an unfired state.
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 wave function to yield a particular result. " Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner, Quantum Enigma, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 184
Let’s say that again, von Neuman showed that no physical system obeying the laws of physics (i.e., quantum) could collapse a superposition state wave function to yield a particular result! that means decoherence is wrong from the get-go as is your idea that coupleing to other things causes collapse. for those who don’t know both von Neuman and Bryce Dewitt were giants in the field.
edited to add. My guess is Mitch that you CAN’T allow an observer into your world view of the quantum because you place a barrier between the spiritual and material and say nothing spiritual can affect the material. this comes from your often cited 'God can’t violate his natural law" and if God can’t, then neither can the lesser spirits. In doing so, you have a philosophical bias against consciousness as the collapser of the wavelet. London and Bauer note that consciousness is the only thing which can know it’s own state and separate it self from von Neumann’s chain:
" The observer has a completely different impression. For him it is only the object x and the apparatus y that belong to the external world, to what he calls ‘objectivity.’ By contrast he has with himself relations of a very special character. He possesses a characteristic and quite familiar faculty which we can call the ‘faculty of introspection.’ He can keep track from moment to moment of his own state. By virtue of this ‘immanent knowledge’ he attributes to himself the right to create his own objectivity." … Thus it is not a mysterious interaction between the apparatus and the object that produces a new [state] for the system during the measurement. It is only the consciousness of an ‘I’ who can separate himself from the former [wavefunction] and, by virtue of his observation, set up a new objectivity in attributing to the object henceforward a new function. " Fritz London and Edmond Bauer, The Theory of Observation in Quantum Mechanics, in John Wheeler and Wojciech Hubert Zurek, Quantum Theory and Measurement, (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1983) p. 252.
