Wigner's Friend, the existence of the immaterial soul and death of materialism

I actually gave you the courtesy of going to your list of reasons to believe, unlike your refusal to look at our paper. I did notice this:

“I feel there are profound pragmatic reasons to reject the idea that reality is exclusively objective because it immediately takes any conviction about reality to a conclusion that the people who disagree with you are detached from reality and delusional or in some other way defective,

I wanted to laugh because when someone suggests that nature isn’t exclusively objective, like I have here, I certainly have felt at times over the past few days that you and others here think I am “detached from reality and delusional or in some other way defective,” LOL. I say this with all good humor because there is a long line of folk who have said or though much worse than that about me. lol

I would like to know the profound reasons that you believe the world isn’t totally objective? OK, not offline for a while.

Ah yes indeed! Digestion being representative of the broader category of metabolism reminds me of both attempts to define life in such terms and metabolism first theories of abiogenesis. Your comment shows how very close our points of view actual are. Perhaps the only difference is that I think the process of life can be abstracted from the biological example of it – I don’t know if you actually disagree on this point or simply lack interest or background to consider the possibility.

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Forum etiquette only obliges one to participate fully in the content of the forum not follow people’s links to other material. The latter tastes a little like using the forum to advertise.

And that kind of experience tends to put a chip on your shoulders.

I said “profound pragmatic reasons” and then proceeded to describe them right away. I consider the foundations of a free and tolerant society to be quite profound pragmatic reasons.

From the abstract of your paper itself-what does their paper even establish:

Quantum theory cannot be extrapolated to complex systems, at least not in a straightforward manner

Key phrase: at least not in a straightforward manner.

But this also doesn’t give you the leap from ‘not describing the brain’ to ‘consciousness.’ Here is a newer paper that challenges even the results of this paper you have presented as a sort of trump card (i.e. its in nature communications and you haven’t published in nature now have you):
How Quantum Mechanics can consistently describe the use of itself

Pevaquark, that sentence is a quote from the F and R. abstract. It isn’t from my paper as you state. They do not present a method to extrapolate quantum to those systems. Basically they are just leaving the options open, but lacking a methodology, their view shows big problems applying quantum to human agents.

The paper you link to is the one I mentioned in my big post last night, so it isn’t a surprise to me. I already told you about it. It uses the very unpopular Bohmian mechanics which most people believe has been disproven. But even so, Bohm didn’t believe he had completely avoided consciousness. He discussed it in his book.

Edited to add: "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 technical 1993 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

yep, another one of those pesky quotes. lol

Ok, going to get into math below but not tough math and it is necessary to show the paradox of having a human observer in quantum.

Let’s first, though, look at von Neumann’s seminal book on Quantum, in which he explicitly brings in the subjective observer into quantum.

" Let us now compare these circumstances with those which actually exist in nature, or in its observation. First, it is inherently correct that measurement or the related process of subjective perception is a new entity relative to the physical environment, and is not reducible to the latter. Indeed subjective perception leads us into the intellectual inner life of the individual, which is extra-observational by its very nature, since it must be taken for granted by any conceivable observation or experiment. (See the discussion above.) Nevertheless, it is a fundamental requirement of the scientific viewpoint–the so-called principle of psycho-physical parallelism–that it must be possible so to describe the extra-physical process of subjective perception as if it were in the reality of the physical world; i.e., to assign to its parts equivalent physical processes in the objective environment, in ordinary space. (Of course, in this correlating procedure there arises the frequent necessity of localizing some of these processes at points which lie within the portion of space occupied by our own bodies. But this does not alter the fact of their belonging to ‘the world about us,’ the objective environment referred to above.) In a simple example, these concepts might be applied as follows: We wish to measure the temperature. If we want, we can proceed numerically by looking to the mercury column in a thermometer, and then say: ‘This is the temperature as measured by the thermometer.’ But we can carry the process further, and from the properties of mercury (which can be explained in kinetic and molecular terms) we can calculate its heating, expansion, and the resultant length of the mercury column, and then say: ‘This length is seen by the observer.’ 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.’ 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 Newumann, Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics: New Edition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), p. 272-273

To prove that it is widely believed that there are interpretations of quantum which incorporate consciousness, I would present how Zvi Schrieber’s veiw of von Neumann’s position. In his thesis, Schrieber entitles a chapter, Mind causes collapse and says

"It is therefore possible to assume that the unitary mechanics applies to the entire physical universe and that wave function collapse occurs at the last possible moment, in the mind itself. This, of course, assumes a non-physical mind.

“This interpretation was hinted at by Von Neumann [Neu55,§VI.1] and later advocated in [LB39, §11], [Wig67]. It was at one time known as the standard interpretation” Zvi Schreiber, The Nine Lives of Schrodinger’s Cat, master’s Thesis, University of London, Oct 1994 p. 46, https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/9501014.pdf

The rules of quantum mechanics are correct but there is only one system which may be treated with quantum mechanics, namely the entire material world. There exist external observers which cannot be treated within quantum mechanics, namely human (and perhaps animal) minds, which perform measurements on the brain causing wave function collapse." Zvi Schrieber, "The Nine Lives of Schrodinger’s Cat, University of London: MS Thesis, Oct 1994, p. 46 https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/9501014v5.pdf

It is interesting that Schrieber understands that there are formulations of quantum involving the immaterial soul, namely the late great John von Neumann’s who was a better mathematician/physicist than anyone on this list. Mind and consciousness are synonyms for the same thing.

Ok, let’s get mathematical Sorry everyone else, I think this is necessary but I will try to go slow and explain things. This is taken from Squires’ book Conscious Mind in the Physical Universe pages 184-191. It is simplified a bit to the relevant parts of the equations so that it is easier to follow by those with no experience with this notation.

Lets consider the spin of an electron. It is measured in a Stern-Gerlach device and one spin will be deflected upward, and the other spin deflected downward. We will call the upward spin + and the downward spin -. Since I can’t use greek letters here or don’t know how to, I will use English letters. Wavefunctions are described by | …> and attributes are put inside where the … is. A particle with an upward spin would be | + > and a particle with a negative spin would be | - >

Before we observe the spin the electron is in the state:

|Psi>=a| + > +b | - >

In words, Psi is the wave function and is it is a mixture of + and - states. a and b are coefficients that for our purposes we don’t need to worry about.

One must understand that in quantum, whenever something that is subject to the laws of quantum interacts with an object, it goes into superposition with that object. So, when we add a pointer to the apparatus, which would point up or down in the direction the electron went , prior to observation of the apparatus, the quantum state of the electron AND the pointer would be:

|Psi>=a| +, up > +b | -,down >

The added up and down refer to the direction of the pointer. Before observation, the pointer and the electron are both in mixed states of superposition. In other words, it is in both states at once. This is why one hears that in quantum all possible answers exist at the same time in the wavefunction.

This addition to the chain of objects in superposition can go on forever. Kuttner and Rosenblum describe this von Neumann chain as it is known, because John von Neumann was the first to describe it.

" In his rigourous 1932 treatment, The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechannics, John von Neumann showed that quantum theory makes physics’ encounter with consciousness inevitable. 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 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

It is also interesting that Rosenblum and Kuttner interpret von Neumann the same as Schrieber does and apparently differently than does Mitch.

The von Neumann chain is due to the fact that anything subject to the laws of quantum goes into superposition with what it interacts with. This is a problem. Bryce S. Dewitt talked about quantum putting the apparatus into a schizophrenic state in which it has two different answers at the same time. He 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

This von Neumann chain can continue indefinitely by adding commas and attributes to the chain in between the | and the >. But we won’t go there. We will add a conscious observer in at this point and show why he can’t be subject to quantum laws.

Back to the math, Let’s add me as an observer to the apparatus with the pointer. IF my mind is subject to quantum laws, then I too, must go into superposition with the system. This is just like the pointer in our example or the counter and Geiger counter of Rosenblum and Kuttner’s example. In that case, the wave function would be:

|Psi>=a| +, up, Me+ > + b | -,down, Me- >

Where Me+ is the me who sees a positive spin and the Me- is the one who sees a negative spin.

Squires says:

" At this stage and only at this stage the wavefunction is apparently unacceptable, because it fails to describe my experience of one result ." Euan Squires, Consciousness Mind in the Physical World, (Adam Hilger, New York, 1990, p. 191

Quantum mechanics does not correctly predict my subjective mental state, which is that I am experiencing only one of the two possible realities.

Squires presented this argument in a paper "Quantum Theory and the Relation between Conscious Mind and the Physical World," Synthese, Vol. 97, No. 1 (Oct., 1993), pp. 109-123. His conclusion there is a bit more interesting:

" It is quite clear that we have made no progress. Indeed the problem might be considered to be even more acute: my brain is in a confused state containing some combination of both answers; I am, nevertheless, apparently convinced that I know one answer. " Euan Squires, "Quantum Theory and the Relation between Conscious Mind and the Physical World," Synthese, Vol. 97, No. 1 (Oct., 1993), p.111-112

If you assume that consciousness mind or soul is subject to the laws of quantum, quantum WILL describe any observer in a confused state seeing both possible outcomes. This is the fundamental problem of consciousness in quantum. I only see unmixed states, like:

|Psi>= | +, up, Me+ >

or |Psi>= b | -,down,Me- >

The thing I don’t see is the mixed state

|Psi>=a| +, up, Me+ > + b | -,down,Me- >

Now, Everett proposed the many worlds interpretation in 1957 and he would say that I have split into two different Me’s one seeing the up branch and one seeing the down branch. Such a situation is the draw of the many worlds view. But, unread by Mitch in our article are other reasons for rejecting the many worlds view.

Point is, this is the problem with consciousness in quantum. If my mind/consciousness/soul is subject to the laws of quantum, it creates a situation where reality (me seeing only one reality) is said to be false by the application of quantum rules.

Again, I affirm that many physicists have discussed the role of consciousness in quantum and the belief that observers external to the physical world is NOT a looney bin idea, but a great problem in the logical structure of quantum. Again, (one of those quotes Pevaquark but a repeat, lol)

"A careful analysis of the logical structure of quantum theory suggests that for quantum theory to make sense it has to posit the existence of observers who lie, at least in part, outside of the description provided by physics." Stephen M. Barr, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003), p. 27-28

ok, tolerance. thanks. I got it. God bless you Mitch.

I will be gone the next 2 days getting immunotherapy (which is fancy schmancy chemo) at MD Anderson. Im in the guinea pig stage of life, going from medical trial to medical trial, which is really quite an interesting time of life. I won’t be posting from there as I won’t have my files with me. So don’t take my absence as a sign I have given up. I won’t even be reading this thread or I will be too tempted to reply.

Edited to add: I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me, I have lived a life very few get to live, having lived on 3 continents, been in 34 countries, been to Antarctica and Tibet, found a billion bbl of oil for my clients, started 4 businesses, 3 successful ones, published on a lot of topics and eaten my way through the zoological dictionary in various places around the world, and I speak Mandarin and my greatest achievement in life is that my 3 sons like me.

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This was a weird thread.

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Well, we’ll go light on the sympathy then. Sounds like a blessed life indeed.

Still, we hope and pray that yet more blessings are in store for you yet.

-Merv

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Thanks Merv,

Best wishes. God bless.

3 sons is another thing we have in common. Japanese (my wife) and Korean got more of my interest than Chinese along with Russian and German… though fluency in other languages was never one of my talents. Visited less countries than you have lived in. And my life experience has been definitely of a considerably lower economic class.

Mitch wrote:
“3 sons is another thing we have in common. Japanese (my wife) and Korean got more of my interest than Chinese along with Russian and German… though fluency in other languages was never one of my talents. Visited less countries than you have lived in. And my life experience has been definitely of a considerably lower economic class.”

lol, three sons is a handful when they turn teens and I almost lost one when he was 16-bad decisions, but he is ok now. I will make clear that I didn’t finance all those trips. I couldn’t have afforded that. My company sent me there. In fact the only one I financed was to Antarctica, I took my oldest son with me. I didn’t start my companies until I was in my late 50s. It is never too late and it padded retirement. lol, I have though, had the pleasure of working in a branch of physics for 45 years or so and that was a blessing.

My daughter in law is Singaporean Chinese/Malay, and speaks Mandarin which she is teaching my grand-daughter. They and I converse in mandarin sometimes.

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Because actual experiments show nothing about the soul or consciousness. It’s only in thought experiments and the interpretation of QM that any of this appears. Also your position is if I understand it correctly-
QM demonstrates the reality of consciousness (through the ‘observer effect’) but QM cannot (easily) apply to complex systems like consciousness?

Pevaquark said:"Because actual experiments show nothing about the soul or consciousness. It’s only in thought experiments and the interpretation of QM that any of this appears. "

Not true Pevaquark. I pointed you to Proietti et al. They specifically cite F and R’s paper as one that influenced the design of their experiment and their experiment supports the problem.

I will go over F and R again, then I gotta go eat and go to a small group of our Church.

F&R’s title says it all. Quantum theory cannot consistently describe the use of itself.

Who uses quantum? quantum physicists are the only ones who do it and they do it mostly by mental effort. My cat certainly has never shown an interest in quantum calculations, so I feel safe saying that those who use quantum are humans and they are using their minds to calculate the result. F&R show that different observers in their theory will NOT see the same results of the same experiment. They will contradict each other. Proietti et al’s experiment says the same thing–they experimentally saw the contradictions F&R predicted.

Now, F&R want to know where the problem is. They say the problems lie in the assumptions that went into their calculations. And this is a normal place to look for where the issue is. The listed 3 assumption that need to be examined. I won’t do them in the same order they did.

1 Assumption S. If they give up the idea that different people can only see the same results from the same experiment, then the problem is solved because their people saw different results while observing the same things. But the problem with giving that up, is that our experience NEVER has me see spin up and you see spin down for the same electron. Thus, giving up this assumption so they can be consistent with their predicted contradictions, means that they don’t match reality–cause we don’t live in that kind of universe.

Assumption 2 consistency. This is logical consistency. It means we don’t believe 1 equals 2. or dogs are cats, or fish are elephants. If we give this up, then mathematics fails and since again, we know mathematics works, giving up this assumption means that they would again NOT match reality. Proietti et al give up consistency so they can keep assumption 3 below, but in doing so, to make it match reality Proietti et al assume there is a privileged observer sitting above the multiverse straightening out all the inconsistencies. That is theology!

Assumption 3 universal validity of quantum theory. This means that quantum theory applies to everything in this universe–no exceptions. and that would mean consciousness can’t be excepted and it must obey the laws of quantum. The conundrum for F and R is that this is the only easy assumption they can dump. F&R state:

" Here, we have shown that Assumptions (Q) and (S) are already problematic by themselves, in the sense that agents who use these assumptions to reason about each other as in Fig. [3] will arrive at inconsistent conclusions "

According to this you can believe that everyone in the world sees multiple quantum events–that is they see the mixed state (yet experience tells us that is false), or you can say quantum is not universally applicable and doesn’t apply to consciousness. Take your pick. In my mind the first choice would make me sound delusional. The second choice is the one I have defended here.

and if quantum is not universal and isn’t applicable to consciousness, then, well, consciousness can’t arise from the quantum mechanical operations in the brain.

If that doesn’t suffice, I don’t know anything that will help. Im off to eat and go to small group tonight. Might be on briefly tomorrow morning.

Edited to add: let me say it this way. Quantum will model a person using quantum IF and only if you are will to say that when people look at the same experiment they see different results almost every time. Since that doesn’t happen, it seems to me that the only logical/rational option is to say consciousness isn’t subject to quantum laws.

What? No, these thought experiments are related to interpretations of QM, not the actual experiments involving photons and electrons or calculations of QED or QFT. We do use our brains though when solving the Schrodinger equation or its various numerical counterparts.

Please don’t. You’ve quoted large chunks of one particular paper quite a lot and I can read it myself thank you. Basically you’ve read a paper that you think demonstrates all the points you already believed to be true and keep using it to support your own Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Anything that contradicts this you easily dismiss and have your mind made up you’ve found a remarkable overlooked apologetic for the soul. Your interpretation might not be in contradiction with certain others interpretations of QM, but there is no experiment in QM that demonstrates anything about the soul or consciousness. There are no ‘soul’ terms in the Schrodinger equation. It’s just that people who already believe in souls - if they must find evidence for them somewhere in known science - always flock to QM. The problem with this approach is it limits the soul to an undetectable or maybe a hidden variable in the Schrodinger equation at best which then follows specific mechanical laws. And it’s something that is only important in very simple systems and completely irrelevant to the macro scale world.

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Hi @gbob,

Language and meaning communicated amongst us is a fascinating topic, especially when we consider revelation of God and how we as humans may understand the meaning of what is revealed.

However, to make a hasty response to the back and forth on QM and consciousness - I am a chemist and I use QM for molecular modelling, so I do not have exposure to the area that you are discussing, but from your exchange with Mitchell, I have formed the impression that your difficulty stems from the fact that you may not add a term in the wave equation that stand for consciousness - you and your papers are arguing for what amounts to a thought experiment - just what would result if an equation were formed that included an observer, with a second observer somehow monitoring the first observer and her experiments? I cannot fathom how this may be tested.

I am almost twisted (consciousness :blush:) when I try to say this, and please point out where I may be mistaken.

Hi GJDS, No we are not arguing for adding a term for consciousness. Don’t quite know how you arrived at that conclusion. I certainly haven’t said anything about adding a term. I have said that the act of observation and collapse of the wavelet requires consciousness, which until I got here was discussed so freely on the pages of physics journals that I figured everyone would know of that widely held position–about 42% of physicists according to the few polls taken. .

The observer is NOT a term added to Schrodinger’s equation. I don’t know what they teach over in the chemistry department but in my physics department it was an attitude of shut up and calculate. What the equations meant was not addressed very much and because of that in many physics departments, many physicists didn’t get much info on the various interpretations of quantum.

One other clarification, our paper is arguing the various historical interpretations of quantum and arguing in favor of the necessity of consciousness. All of the positions we discuss in the paper are quite well known interpretations of quantum.

Wigner’s friend is exactly the case of a second observer monitoring the first and the experiments the first observer is engaged in. You might read up on it at Wiki because they have a good account of it or get Wigner’s article.

Other than this, I am a bit confused by your note. Sorry.

Pevaquark.

Surely one is allowed to draw logical conclusions from what a paper says, like what I just did. It shows my line of reasoning. If the act of reading a scientific paper consists only of absorbing the sentences as stated, and not comparing them with other knowledge, or other sentences in the paper, then science would truly become a religion where prophets tell us all what exact sentences we must believe.

Example, If a paper says that all crows are black, and later says that they found a crow, I think it would be logical to deduce that the found crow is black, even if they don’t say it. And that is what I did when I went over the F and R paper. It is what I do with everything I read. It is what everyone SHOULD do.

When you say: “You’ve quoted large chunks of one particular paper quite a lot and I can read it myself thank you.” I would beg to differ. I have quoted small chunks of LOTS of different papers here. Hint: I put the reference at the bottom of each quote. I have not in any way limited myself to quoting one paper. And I don’t think I have quoted very much from the F and R paper. Again, I don’t know how you came up with that.