Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

But should we be talking about a “Big Bang” of birds?

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

Does the idea of an “explosion of organisms” reinforce a misleading perspective?

From Evolution News & Views:

The evidence for intelligent design just keeps getting stronger. It’s long been known that the Cambrian explosion isn’t the only explosion of organisms in the fossil record. There’s also something of a fish explosion, an angiosperm explosion, and a mammal explosion. Paleontologists have even cited a “bird explosion,” with major bird groups appearing in a short time period. Frank Gill’s 2007 textbook Ornithology observes the “explosive evolution” of major living bird groups, and a paper in Trends in Ecology and Evolution titled “Evolutionary Explosions and the Phylogenetic Fuse” explains:

A literal reading of the fossil record indicates that the early Cambrian (c. 545 million years ago) and early Tertiary (c. 65 million years ago) were characterized by enormously accelerated periods of morphological evolution marking the appearance of the animal phyla, and modern bird and placental mammal orders, respectively.

Now, a massive genetic study published in Science has confirmed the fossil evidence that birds arose explosively. According to an article titled, “Rapid bird evolution after the age of dinosaurs unprecedented”: More.

Okay, it all happened really fast, and so do explosions. (If it happened really slow, we would call it evolution.)

See the problem? Explosions aren’t just very fast, they are usually destructive. Yes, they can be constructive, but only if controlled for a constructive purpose like blasting a subway tunnel (intelligent design).

What actually happens, whether it’s the origin of the universe or the origin of birds most fits the pattern of a scheduled rollout.

You can often see antecedents, to be sure, as in the dinosaurian traits of birds. But the antecedents do nothing to account for later developments like the “enormously accelerated periods” or “unprecedented” rapidity of constructive change.

Don’t forget, Fred Hoyle called it the Big Bang theory to make fun of it. In doing so, he implanted an idea that fits what we are required to believe, but not what we see. Thoughts?

See: Big Bang exterminator wanted, will train

Comments
Speaking of birds ...
The Wright brothers studied wing structures of seabirds before building their first airplane, and the first helicopter is said to have been inspired by dragonfly flight. Today, inventors continue this tradition, focusing on bio-inspired flight sensors. A series of telling admissions in a recent summary of state-of-the-art research leave no doubt about the origins of flight-ready sensors. Gusts of wind tend to blow small, man-made flying machines called Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) off course—or knock them out of the sky altogether. But insects and birds fare much better. What keeps them so stable? A team of inventors from Australia, publishing in the journal Progress in Aerospace Sciences, recently summarized their progress in the ongoing search for flight-stabilizing sensor technologies in flying animals.1 Biologists continue to uncover exquisite design in natural flight sensors—devices like mechanoreceptors that send sophisticated information to an insect's brain about the visual field, airflow, inertia, and wing-load pressure. Investigations have revealed that most or perhaps all natural sensors multitask. A single biological sensor can detect, integrate, and send multiple messages to the creature's brain. But when it comes to identifying who or what developed these hi-tech sensors, this journal report conveys contradicting messages. On one hand, the study authors credited evolution. They wrote, "Nature's fliers have evolved to fly successfully close to the ground in turbulent conditions thus it is sensible to turn to nature for design cues."1 But could unguided nature really perform the tasks necessary to develop just the right aeronautical sensors to enable creatures to steady their flight in turbulent air? Flying insects have tiny, wind-sensing hairs placed around their wing's edges—the best places to detect air turbulence the fastest. More tiny hairs project out the front of the insects' head and integrate with their eyes. The study authors wrote, "Their location on the head is practical, since the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) would be highest in that region due to the laminar flow existing here." And where should bio-inspired air sensors be placed onto new man-made mini flyers? The researchers wrote, "locating sensors thus requires a comprehensive understanding of the aerodynamics of the air foil."1 Does nature have this required level of intricate understanding? What if birds were equipped with airspeed indicators tuned to 400 miles per hour? Birds never fly that fast, so such sensors would be a complete waste. For this reason, the team wrote that the sensors human inventors install will "require calibration to those conditions" that the flying machine will meet. Since "both birds and insects are equipped with sensors that suit their physical, anatomical, and physiological properties, in addition to their operating environment," doesn't it stand to reason that Someone performed these fined-tuned calibrations, since nature alone has never been shown to calibrate equipment?1 Plus, since the precise calibrations need to be performed one step ahead of the flight needs of each creature it stands to reason that whoever programmed these sensors had uncanny foresight—something nature lacks. On one hand the study authors described how biological sensors have "optimally evolved to sense flight-related parameters."1 But on the other hand they wrote, "A delicate design balance is hence required to achieve high sensitivity while maintaining sensor bandwidth."1 How could natural processes, which have no clue what "sensor bandwidth" even means, ever have achieved the optimal balance required for stable flight? The study authors also wrote that "nature's flyers do not rely on single sensors."1 Could evolution really integrate multiple functions into single sensors like those in insects and birds? These biological devices are so advanced that intelligent and capable inventors have not been able to build one—even with a living, working prototype right in front of them! Even if a person does someday invent a multitasking sensor, it will do the aircraft no immediate good, since "it is not the sensors themselves, but the auxillary [sic] sub-components (hardware, installation, and wiring) and the algorithmic integration (CPUs and novel algorithms) of their measurements that build the gap in attitude stabilisation [sic] and control technologies for MAV."1 In other words, someone will have to write a blueprint to successfully install, wire, interpret and integrate inputs from any new sensor. Does any natural process perform all these tasks, each of which is required to construct a small and stable flyer? http://www.icr.org/article/8515
tjguy
December 22, 2014
December
12
Dec
22
22
2014
08:10 PM
8
08
10
PM
PDT
Axel, I have not watched this following video yet, but saw it referenced in the first Alexander video at the 27:00 minute mark., so I thought you might like to take a peek: Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey Paperback – book - May 26, 2009 Review: On the morning of December 10, 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, a thirty-seven-year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist, experienced a massive stroke when a blood vessel exploded in the left side of her brain. A neuroanatomist by profession, she observed her own mind completely deteriorate to the point that she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life, all within the space of four brief hours. As the damaged left side of her brain--the rational, grounded, detail- and time-oriented side--swung in and out of function, Taylor alternated between two distinct and opposite realties: the euphoric nirvana of the intuitive and kinesthetic right brain, in which she felt a sense of complete well-being and peace; and the logical, sequential left brain, which recognized Jill was having a stroke, and enabled her to seek help before she was lost completely. In My Stroke of Insight, Taylor shares her unique perspective on the brain and its capacity for recovery, and the sense of omniscient understanding she gained from this unusual and inspiring voyage out of the abyss of a wounded brain. http://www.amazon.com/My-Stroke-Insight-Scientists-Personal/dp/0452295548bornagain77
December 20, 2014
December
12
Dec
20
20
2014
07:45 AM
7
07
45
AM
PDT
The non locality, etc, would be woo-woo to you, M_T, wouldn't it?Axel
December 18, 2014
December
12
Dec
18
18
2014
02:08 PM
2
02
08
PM
PDT
BA77, loved Alexander's 'little monkey mind' synonym at one point during the talk, for what A Huxley called the 'analytical intelligence'; though his 'unitive intelligence' has to be the perfect synonym. He's an interesting speaker. Thanks.Axel
December 18, 2014
December
12
Dec
18
18
2014
02:07 PM
2
02
07
PM
PDT
Here are refutations of the atheistic article that tried to discredit Dr. Alexander: Esquire Proof of Heaven Expose Debunked, Dr. Eben Alexander Prevails – Interview with Robert Mays reveals a disturbing pattern of misrepresentation and distortion in Luke Dittrich’s Proof of Heaven expose published in Esquire Magazine. http://www.skeptiko.com/220-esquire-proof-of-heaven-expose-debunked/ audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-220-robert-mays.mp3 In supplement to the skeptiko article and audio, for a thorough rebuttal of the Esquire article see: Esquire article on Eben Alexander distorts the facts - August 2013 http://iands.org/images/stories/pdf_downloads/esquire%20article%20on%20eben%20alexander%20distorts%20the%20facts.pdf as well the observational evidence for the validity of Near Death Experiences is far stronger than the observation evidence for the validity of neo-Darwinian evolution is: Near-Death Experiences: Putting a Darwinist's Evidentiary Standards to the Test - Dr. Michael Egnor - October 15, 2012 Excerpt: Indeed, about 20 percent of NDE's are corroborated, which means that there are independent ways of checking about the veracity of the experience. The patients knew of things that they could not have known except by extraordinary perception -- such as describing details of surgery that they watched while their heart was stopped, etc. Additionally, many NDE's have a vividness and a sense of intense reality that one does not generally encounter in dreams or hallucinations.,,, The most "parsimonious" explanation -- the simplest scientific explanation -- is that the (Near Death) experience was real. Tens of millions of people have had such experiences. That is tens of millions of more times than we have observed the origin of species , (or the origin of life, or the origin of a molecular machine), which is never.,,, The materialist reaction, in short, is unscientific and close-minded. NDE's show fellows like Coyne at their sneering unscientific irrational worst. Somebody finds a crushed fragment of a fossil and it's earth-shaking evidence. Tens of million of people have life-changing spiritual experiences and it's all a big yawn. Note: Dr. Egnor is professor and vice-chairman of neurosurgery at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/10/near_death_expe_1065301.html "A recent analysis of several hundred cases showed that 48% of near-death experiencers reported seeing their physical bodies from a different visual perspective. Many of them also reported witnessing events going on in the vicinity of their body, such as the attempts of medical personnel to resuscitate them (Kelly et al., 2007)." Kelly, E. W., Greyson, B., & Kelly, E. F. (2007). Unusual experiences near death and related phenomena. In E. F. Kelly, E. W. Kelly, A. Crabtree, A. Gauld, M. Grosso, & B. Greyson, Irreducible mind (pp. 367-421). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. 'Afterlife' feels 'even more real than real,' researcher says - Wed April 10, 2013 Excerpt: "If you use this questionnaire ... if the memory is real, it's richer, and if the memory is recent, it's richer," he said. The coma scientists weren't expecting what the tests revealed. "To our surprise, NDEs were much richer than any imagined event or any real event of these coma survivors," Laureys reported. The memories of these experiences beat all other memories, hands down, for their vivid sense of reality. "The difference was so vast," he said with a sense of astonishment. Even if the patient had the experience a long time ago, its memory was as rich "as though it was yesterday," Laureys said. http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/09/health/belgium-near-death-experiences/bornagain77
December 18, 2014
December
12
Dec
18
18
2014
10:15 AM
10
10
15
AM
PDT
Axel and bornagain77, You may not enjoy this:
Alexander's account rests on repeated assertions that his visions of heaven occurred while his cerebral cortex was 'shut down,' 'inactivated,' 'completely shut down,' 'totally offline,' and 'stunned to complete inactivity.' The evidence he provides for this claim is not only inadequate – it suggests that he doesn't know anything about the relevant brain science." "Even in cases where the brain is alleged to have shut down, its activity must return if the subject is to survive and describe the experience. In such cases, there is generally no way to establish that the NDE occurred while the brain was offline
prior to the publication of Proof of Heaven, Alexander had been terminated or suspended from multiple hospital positions, and had been the subject of several malpractice lawsuits, including at least two involving the alteration of medical records to cover up a medical error. The magazine also found what it claimed were discrepancies with regard to Alexander's version of events in the book. Among the discrepancies, according to an account of the Esquire article in Forbes, was that "Alexander writes that he slipped into the coma as a result of severe bacterial meningitis and had no higher brain activity, while a doctor who cared for him says the coma was medically induced and the patient was conscious, though hallucinating.
Me_Think
December 18, 2014
December
12
Dec
18
18
2014
09:19 AM
9
09
19
AM
PDT
Axel, you may enjoy this: Eben Alexander - Synthesis of Science and Spirituality: The Arc of Human Destiny over Milennia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpjX9aHcjAo Sep 18, 2014: Distinguished scholars and scientists at the 128th Summer Convention of the Theosophical Society in America discuss the implications of the near-death experience and more! In this program, Dr. Alexander(Proof of Heaven) continues his discussion of why he believes that his near-death experience is totally consistent with the leading edges of scientific understanding today. Eben Alexander: A Neurosurgeon's Journey through the Afterlife - video (Aug. 2014) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbkgj5J91hE Aug 27, 2014: In this intimate and powerful re-examination of his best-selling book "Proof of Heaven," Dr. Alexander looks at the past two and a half years of his life spent in trying to reconcile his rich spiritual experience with contemporary physics and cosmology. He is convinced that his remarkable near-death journey is totally consistent with the leading edges of scientific understanding today. 2014.bornagain77
December 18, 2014
December
12
Dec
18
18
2014
09:04 AM
9
09
04
AM
PDT
Axel, What cutting edge research is going on in 7th dimensional Spiritual world? What is woo-woo in QM ?Me_Think
December 18, 2014
December
12
Dec
18
18
2014
08:26 AM
8
08
26
AM
PDT
Unless it's pedestrian and mechanistic, it's all woo-woo to you, M-T. Own up. Come on. You've just admitted it once!Axel
December 18, 2014
December
12
Dec
18
18
2014
08:18 AM
8
08
18
AM
PDT
Axel @ 147
Don’t even think about a cutting-edge or leading-edge for science.
What cutting edge research is going on in 7th dimensional Spiritual world?Me_Think
December 18, 2014
December
12
Dec
18
18
2014
06:41 AM
6
06
41
AM
PDT
'It’s all well and good to talk about abstracts in some higher dimensional world, but it is of no use in daily life, nor does it advance science in anyway. Please keep your spiritual world confined to your dream land.' - M_T Darned right! There you are, folks, M_T's well and truly denounced QM as woo-woo! After all that argy-bargy, finally we get the bottom line: Don't even think about a cutting-edge or leading-edge for science. Let's just do our sums and not fuss about things we can't see.Axel
December 18, 2014
December
12
Dec
18
18
2014
05:03 AM
5
05
03
AM
PDT
Not quite Serge. Apparently it was my turn, first, to be at the receiving end. No direct physical torture, just one contribution among several to a heart attack and bypass op. - by a number of near car accidents. Famous last words - I knew that if they wanted to kill me they wouldn't f*rt around and it would seem like an accident or natural causes. There are some hilarious anecdotes I could tell. So, while I got a bit of a buzz from it all, I also got a bit hooked on the adrenaline rushes, and forgot where that was supposed to lead! I actually had a small heart attack while driving in town, but didn't now what it was until I read about it some time after. My face broke out into a sudden muck sweat; weird. But the main torture, which I suppose is what it is in a long drawn out sort of way, has been psychological. I was foolish enough to tell someone in a betting shop that, though it was manageable, I could feel guilty of anything, any kind of sexual perversion. All that was necessary was for me to have heard or read about it. Let's just say they have ways of destroying your self-identity/esteem, etc. I hardly dare go out these for fear of seeing a possible trigger of a perverted thought! Joy is the best defence against such vulnerabilities, and prayer is vital. Fear is the opposite, yet fear of mental illness in others (and caused by it in the afflicted person), is a very understandable and surely wise instinct, since even the putative experts know so little about it. We instinctively know it's potentially a Pandora's Box. I've also been given a number of parasitic infections, not susceptible to medical cure, because resistance has built up to the drug. I could get rid of head lice, but fear blinding myself washing the potion from my hair. They'll go too, by the grace of God, before I 'ponk it' and meet the Boss. Fortunately, for me. I don't believe that God exists. I know He does. I also know it will all come good in the end in this life - and fairly soon, I would think. Meanwhile, God enables me to be very light-hearted almost all the time. It's not forced, it's just the way God keeps me. I don't entirely blame the service, as I believe they were/are under pressure from the CIA, and, in any case, the corporate 'deep state' that pulls both countries' strings - the world's strings, for that matter.Axel
December 17, 2014
December
12
Dec
17
17
2014
08:06 AM
8
08
06
AM
PDT
Axel @ 138:
Torturers and Black Arts people with the clandestine services do quite well enough with drugs, I believe, and their other psychological arcana. (I was that soldier!)
Were you a Torturers and Black Arts person with the clandestine services?sergmendes
December 17, 2014
December
12
Dec
17
17
2014
06:33 AM
6
06
33
AM
PDT
@BA77 'It’s all well and good to talk about abstracts in some higher dimensional world, but it is of no use in daily life, nor does it advance science in anyway. Please keep your spiritual world confined to your dream land.' This is what happens when a stamp-collector (or plant-collector) tries to apply his mind to areas where science and metaphysics are most closely bound up with each other, i.e. modern-day science. If M_E can't find it in Stanley Gibbons or the I-Spy Book of Railway Engines... forget it. It's why he didn't answer my question concerning the apparent omniscience of light or its agency. He'll be feeling particularly cheesed off at the moment with winter settling in. He's had to put away his butterfly net till next summer. Or maybe he's giving James Bond a good working over, with some pentathol, or whatever they call it! Oh, no. He's our side, isn't he!Axel
December 17, 2014
December
12
Dec
17
17
2014
06:29 AM
6
06
29
AM
PDT
@BA77 #139 Re the Mind and its Now, BA, imho, Planck answered that question (the Now being perhaps THE ultimate mystery of nature) put to Einstein, when he stated: 'Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.'Axel
December 17, 2014
December
12
Dec
17
17
2014
06:13 AM
6
06
13
AM
PDT
MT: as to: “There is no now” HMMM??? Apparently you did not even read my posts for comprehension and just knee jerked a response with no thought at all of what was actually said. In fact, your statement is the complete opposite of what my post conveyed for the existence of 'now'. ‘the now of the mind’, contrary to what Einstein thought possible for experimental physics, and according to advances in quantum mechanics, takes precedence over past events in time. i.e. per LaPlace, quantum mechanics says of time ‘I have no need of that hypothesis’. In fact, due to advances in quantum mechanics, it would now be much more appropriate to phrase Einstein’s answer to the philosopher in this way: “It is impossible for the experience of ‘the now of the mind’ to ever be divorced from physical measurement, it will always be a part of physics.” as to your comment: "Please keep your spiritual world confined to your dream land." Actually, it is the atheist/materialist who is forced to appeal to a imaginary 'dream land' in order to try support his beliefs: Although we have no evidence for the materialist's imaginary multiverse which they use to try to 'explain away' the extreme fine-tuning of this universe, and although we do not have any evidence of the 'many worlds' that materialists conjectured to try to 'explain away' the enigma of quantum wave collapse, we do have evidence of ‘higher dimensions’ above this 3-Dimensional universe as has always been postulated in Theism. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/reasonable-faith-on-the-fine-tuning-of-the-universe/#comment-519052bornagain77
December 17, 2014
December
12
Dec
17
17
2014
05:30 AM
5
05
30
AM
PDT
bornagain77, "There is no now " - try saying that to your Project Manager, and draw a thin line on the Gantt chart and mark it as 'there is no now'. It's all well and good to talk about abstracts in some higher dimensional world, but it is of no use in daily life, nor does it advance science in anyway. Please keep your spiritual world confined to your dream land.Me_Think
December 17, 2014
December
12
Dec
17
17
2014
12:59 AM
12
12
59
AM
PDT
Moreover, we also have testimony for the 'eternal now' from Near Death Experience testimonies:
‘There is no way to tell whether minutes, hours or years go by. Existence is the only reality and it is inseparable from the eternal now.’ - John Star – NDE Experiencer ‘Earthly time has no meaning in the spirit realm. There is no concept of before or after. Everything – past, present, future – exists simultaneously.’ - Kimberly Clark Sharp – NDE Experiencer ‘In the ‘spirit world,,, instantly, there was no sense of time. See, everything on earth is related to time. You got up this morning, you are going to go to bed tonight. Something is new, it will get old. Something is born, it’s going to die. Everything on the physical plane is relative to time, but everything in the spiritual plane is relative to eternity. Instantly I was in total consciousness and awareness of eternity, and you and I as we live in this earth cannot even comprehend it, because everything that we have here is filled within the veil of the temporal life. In the spirit life that is more real than anything else and it is awesome. Eternity as a concept is awesome. There is no such thing as time. I knew that whatever happened was going to go on and on.’ In The Presence Of Almighty God – The NDE of Mickey Robinson – video https://vimeo.com/92172680
Verse and Music
Titus 1:2 in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, CLAY AIKEN - MARY DID YOU KNOW https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07SQgt-Jmws
Of supplemental note, If temporal time has always existed, due to the infinite regress, we could never reach the present ‘now’,,,
Time Cannot Be Infinite Into The Past – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg0pdUvQdi4
Yet, consciousness, as Jaki demonstrated, does not suffer from infinite regress because it is always ‘now’ for the mind,,,
,,, "All our moments, all our nows, flow into a personal continuum, of which the supreme form is the NOW which is uncreated, because it simply IS." Stanley Jaki
bornagain77
December 16, 2014
December
12
Dec
16
16
2014
10:42 PM
10
10
42
PM
PDT
Of related interest to Einstein being proven wrong in Quantum Mechanics with the refutation of his materialistic hidden variables model, Einstein was once asked (by a philosopher):
“Can physics demonstrate the existence of ‘the now’ in order to make the notion of ‘now’ into a scientifically valid term?”
Einstein’s answer was categorical, he said:
“The experience of ‘the now’ cannot be turned into an object of physical measurement, it can never be a part of physics.”
The ‘now’ quote from Einstein was taken from the last few minutes of this following video, and what the philosopher meant by the question can be read in full context in the article following the video:
Stanley L. Jaki: “The Mind and Its Now” https://vimeo.com/10588094 The Mind and Its Now – Stanley L. Jaki, July 2008 Excerpts: There can be no active mind without its sensing its existence in the moment called now.,,, Three quarters of a century ago Charles Sherrington, the greatest modern student of the brain, spoke memorably on the mind’s baffling independence of the brain. The mind lives in a self-continued now or rather in the now continued in the self. This life involves the entire brain, some parts of which overlap, others do not. ,,,There is no physical parallel to the mind’s ability to extend from its position in the momentary present to its past moments, or in its ability to imagine its future. The mind remains identical with itself while it lives through its momentary nows. ,,, the now is immensely richer an experience than any marvelous set of numbers, even if science could give an account of the set of numbers, in terms of energy levels. The now is not a number. It is rather a word, the most decisive of all words. It is through experiencing that word that the mind comes alive and registers all existence around and well beyond. ,,, All our moments, all our nows, flow into a personal continuum, of which the supreme form is the NOW which is uncreated, because it simply IS. http://www.saintcd.com/science-and-faith/277-the-mind-and-its-now.html?showall=1&limitstart=
Moreover, ‘the now of the mind’, contrary to what Einstein thought possible for experimental physics, and according to advances in quantum mechanics, takes precedence over past events in space-time.
“Thus one decides the photon shall have come by one route or by both routes after it has already done its travel” John A. Wheeler Wheeler’s Classic Delayed Choice Experiment: Excerpt: Now, for many billions of years the photon is in transit in region 3. Yet we can choose (many billions of years later) which experimental set up to employ – the single wide-focus, or the two narrowly focused instruments. We have chosen whether to know which side of the galaxy the photon passed by (by choosing whether to use the two-telescope set up or not, which are the instruments that would give us the information about which side of the galaxy the photon passed). We have delayed this choice until a time long after the particles “have passed by one side of the galaxy, or the other side of the galaxy, or both sides of the galaxy,” so to speak. Yet, it seems paradoxically that our later choice of whether to obtain this information determines which side of the galaxy the light passed, so to speak, billions of years ago. So it seems that time has nothing to do with effects of quantum mechanics. And, indeed, the original thought experiment was not based on any analysis of how particles evolve and behave over time – it was based on the mathematics. This is what the mathematics predicted for a result, and this is exactly the result obtained in the laboratory. http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/basic_delayed_choice.htm Genesis, Quantum Physics and Reality Excerpt: Simply put, an experiment on Earth can be made in such a way that it determines if one photon comes along either on the right or the left side or if it comes (as a wave) along both sides of the gravitational lens (of the galaxy) at the same time. However, how could the photons have known billions of years ago that someday there would be an earth with inhabitants on it, making just this experiment? ,,, This is big trouble for the multi-universe theory and for the “hidden-variables” approach. - per Greer “It begins to look as we ourselves, by our last minute decision, have an influence on what a photon will do when it has already accomplished most of its doing… we have to say that we ourselves have an undeniable part in what we have always called the past. The past is not really the past until is has been registered. Or to put it another way, the past has no meaning or existence unless it exists as a record in the present.” – John Wheeler – The Ghost In The Atom – Page 66-68 “If we attempt to attribute an objective meaning to the quantum state of a single system, curious paradoxes appear: quantum effects mimic not only instantaneous action-at-a-distance but also, as seen here, influence of future actions on past events, even after these events have been irrevocably recorded.” Asher Peres, Delayed choice for entanglement swapping. J. Mod. Opt. 47, 139-143 (2000). Quantum physics mimics spooky action into the past – April 23, 2012 Excerpt: The authors experimentally realized a “Gedankenexperiment” called “delayed-choice entanglement swapping”, formulated by Asher Peres in the year 2000.,,, “We found that whether Alice’s and Bob’s photons are entangled and show quantum correlations or are separable and show classical correlations can be decided after they have been measured”, explains Xiao-song Ma, lead author of the study. According to the famous words of Albert Einstein, the effects of quantum entanglement appear as “spooky action at a distance”. The recent experiment has gone one remarkable step further. “Within a naïve classical world view, quantum mechanics can even mimic an influence of future actions on past events”, says Anton Zeilinger. http://phys.org/news/2012-04-quantum-physics-mimics-spooky-action.html
You can see a more complete explanation of the startling results of the preceding experiment at the 9:11 minute mark of the following video:
Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser Experiment Explained – 2014 video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6HLjpj4Nt4
Perhaps the most dramatic example of 'the now of the mind’ within quantum physics is Leggett’s Inequality:
Lecture 11: Decoherence and Hidden Variables – Scott Aaronson Excerpt: “Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists who think the world sprang into existence on October 23, 4004 BC at 9AM (presumably Babylonian time), with the fossils already in the ground, light from distant stars heading toward us, etc. But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!” http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec11.html Quantum Physics – (material reality does not exist until we look at it) – Dr. Quantum video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1ezNvpFcJU Do we create the world just by looking at it? – 2008 Excerpt: In mid-2007 Fedrizzi found that the new realism model was violated by 80 orders of magnitude; the group was even more assured that quantum mechanics was correct. Leggett agrees with Zeilinger that realism is wrong in quantum mechanics, but when I asked him whether he now believes in the theory, he answered only “no” before demurring, “I’m in a small minority with that point of view and I wouldn’t stake my life on it.” For Leggett there are still enough loopholes to disbelieve. I asked him what could finally change his mind about quantum mechanics. Without hesitation, he said sending humans into space as detectors to test the theory.,,, (to which Anton Zeilinger responded) When I mentioned this to Prof. Zeilinger he said, “That will happen someday. There is no doubt in my mind. It is just a question of technology.” Alessandro Fedrizzi had already shown me a prototype of a realism experiment he is hoping to send up in a satellite. It’s a heavy, metallic slab the size of a dinner plate. http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_reality_tests/P3/
And even though Einstein has now been shown to be wrong in his presupposition of,,,
“The experience of ‘the now’ cannot be turned into an object of physical measurement, it can never be a part of physics.” Albert Einstein
,,, it interesting to note where the ‘now of the mind’ of quantum mechanics finds partial congruence with Einstein's special relativity,,,
“I’ve just developed a new theory of eternity.” Albert Einstein – The Einstein Factor – Reader’s Digest – 2005 Albert Einstein – Special Relativity – Insight Into Eternity – ‘thought experiment’ video https://vimeo.com/93101738 “The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don’t pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass.” Richard Swenson – More Than Meets The Eye, Chpt. 12
bornagain77
December 16, 2014
December
12
Dec
16
16
2014
10:41 PM
10
10
41
PM
PDT
'Not really. Everyone is entitled to his views. His views are not universally held, else QM physicists would be working towards a theory of consciousness and mind control !' No, they wouldn't, M_T. Only journeyman, atheist physicists would be barmy enough to consider mind, consciousness, as a field accessible to a physics of reductionist materialism, nay to quantum physics to any great depth. As for mind control.... even more loopy! But why, anyway? Why would such a crazy dream cross a person's mind? People who see nothing holy about the human mind have been in charge for far too long. Torturers and Black Arts people with the clandestine services do quite well enough with drugs, I believe, and their other psychological arcana. (I was that soldier!)Axel
December 16, 2014
December
12
Dec
16
16
2014
05:18 PM
5
05
18
PM
PDT
Now. To business. What is your response to this quote from Eugene Wigner, relayed to us by BA77?
Yawn! There is no move to convert QM to theory of mind controlling particles -there is no QM Mind/QM consciousness, how much ever you would like that to be true.Me_Think
December 16, 2014
December
12
Dec
16
16
2014
02:23 PM
2
02
23
PM
PDT
'May be it was due to temporary vision degeneration or advancing macular degeneration, which would give illusions similar to Charles Bonnet syndrome. Read Oliver Sacks The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales for more details. People with Charles Bonnet syndrome, apart from seeing lilliputian persons , see dead relatives near bedside ,dancing strangers without music, Silent relatives standing near bed. Fading faces of people you know etc.' You do realise that medical experts are so brilliant that they discovered that certain African slaves were wont to try to escape their slavery. At first, they were called, 'runaway slaves', but a brilliant physician discovered it was a pathological condition they were afflicted with, and designated the 'syndrome' as 'drapetomania'. So, pardon me if I'm less than impressed by the most scholarly and eclectic tomes you recommend to me, won't you? You're insane, M-T. Stark raving bonkers. Do you really think that all the scholarly tomes in the Library of Congress, written by atheists, are a superior source of knowledge of the supernatural than the general run of mankind down the millennia? You're barking mad. Now. To business. What is your response to this quote from Eugene Wigner, relayed to us by BA77? 'Wigner’s insights, according to no less than Anton Zeilinger himself, are driving the cutting edge of the ‘second revolution’ in quantum mechanics. And all this consciousness being foundational to reality stuff is just a big yawn for MT because Wigner is ‘entitled to his opinion’? ‘“It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of the consciousness is the ultimate universal reality” - Eugene Wigner – (Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, Eugene Wigner, in Wheeler and Zurek, p.169) 1961'Axel
December 16, 2014
December
12
Dec
16
16
2014
12:34 PM
12
12
34
PM
PDT
Wigner's insights, according to no less than Anton Zeilinger himself, are driving the cutting edge of the 'second revolution' in quantum mechanics. And all this consciousness being foundational to reality stuff is just a big yawn for MT because Wigner is 'entitled to his opinion'? ‘“It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of the consciousness is the ultimate universal reality” - Eugene Wigner – (Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, Eugene Wigner, in Wheeler and Zurek, p.169) 1961 Color me less than impressed with MT's opinion about Wigner's opinion. Of related note, Wigner also had this gem of a insight that materialists/atheists have loathed: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences - Eugene Wigner - 1960 Excerpt: ,,certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin's process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.,,, It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here, quite comparable in its striking nature to the miracle that the human mind can string a thousand arguments together without getting itself into contradictions, or to the two miracles of the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind's capacity to divine them.,,, The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html as to this quote from Wigner: ,,"certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin's process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.",,, this is of interest Quote: "In evolutionary games we put truth (true perception) on the stage and it dies. And in genetic algorithms it (true perception) never gets on the stage" Donald Hoffman PhD. - Consciousness and The Interface Theory of Perception - 7:19 to 9:20 minute mark - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=dqDP34a-epI#t=439bornagain77
December 16, 2014
December
12
Dec
16
16
2014
11:40 AM
11
11
40
AM
PDT
bornagain77 @ 132
Thanks for the heads up about your motives MT! :)
If saying instruments don't have consciousness, hence can't influence QM is 'advancing agenda', I am happy to do so.Me_Think
December 16, 2014
December
12
Dec
16
16
2014
09:24 AM
9
09
24
AM
PDT
Axel,
Got that, Me_Thinks? Are you going to shoot Wigner down in flames? Maybe get a Nobel prize for yourself in the process? How about that?
Not really. Everyone is entitled to his views. His views are not universally held, else QM physicists would be working towards a theory of consciousness and mind control !Me_Think
December 16, 2014
December
12
Dec
16
16
2014
09:21 AM
9
09
21
AM
PDT
"Don’t be confused by people trying to advance their own agenda." Such as an atheist who resorts to ad hominem and selective viewing of the evidence so as to 'advance their agenda'??? Thanks for the heads up about your motives MT! :)bornagain77
December 16, 2014
December
12
Dec
16
16
2014
09:16 AM
9
09
16
AM
PDT
'“It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of the consciousness is the ultimate universal reality” - Eugene Wigner – (Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, Eugene Wigner, in Wheeler and Zurek, p.169) 1961 Moreover, Wigner was certainly no lightweight in quantum mechanics, but his deep insights continue to foster ‘a second revolution’ in quantum mechanics:' Got that, Me_Thinks? Are you going to shoot Wigner down in flames? Maybe get a Nobel prize for yourself in the process? How about that? Or perhaps tell us all the things that materialism has taught you, personally, such as how important it is to keep petrol in your car, and not leave your fingers in the way when closing your car door. Perhaps not paradigm-changing stuff, but important just the same.Axel
December 16, 2014
December
12
Dec
16
16
2014
09:11 AM
9
09
11
AM
PDT
However, my brother’s appearance in the middle of the night – looking very solid, until fading away – to my sister, who has a phenomenally closed mind about most things is rock-solid testimony in my eyes, as she’s very unimaginative and prosaic; ‘plain beef and potatoes’, I believe Americans sometimes call that cast of mind. my sister’s late mother-in-law, a dear lady, who was exceptionally psychic, said that (in the UK) she saw my mother (then in Australia) standing at the end of her bed; although my mother knew nothing about it
May be it was due to temporary vision degeneration or advancing macular degeneration, which would give illusions similar to Charles Bonnet syndrome. Read Oliver Sacks The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales for more details. People with Charles Bonnet syndrome, apart from seeing lilliputian persons , see dead relatives near bedside ,dancing strangers without music, Silent relatives standing near bed. Fading faces of people you know etc.
Well what is the distinction that BA77 makes between an isolated apparatus and the other one, which you insist is not personal, as it is still measured with instrumentation of some kind
Don't be confused by people trying to advance their own agenda. Just ask yourself if photon or electron can be seen by a person, if not, how can it be detected ? So is the instrument conscious ?Me_Think
December 16, 2014
December
12
Dec
16
16
2014
09:09 AM
9
09
09
AM
PDT
Me_Think claims: "QM has nothing to do with mind." and yet Nobelist Eugene Wigner, whose insights continue to drive breakthroughs in quantum mechanics states: “It was not possible to formulate the laws (of quantum theory) in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness.” Eugene Wigner (1902 -1995) from his collection of essays “Symmetries and Reflections – Scientific Essays”; Eugene Wigner laid the foundation for the theory of symmetries in quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963. “It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of the consciousness is the ultimate universal reality” - Eugene Wigner – (Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, Eugene Wigner, in Wheeler and Zurek, p.169) 1961 Moreover, Wigner was certainly no lightweight in quantum mechanics, but his deep insights continue to foster ‘a second revolution’ in quantum mechanics: Eugene Wigner – A Gedanken Pioneer of the Second Quantum Revolution – Anton Zeilinger – Sept. 2014 Conclusion It would be fascinating to know Eugene Wigner’s reaction to the fact that the gedanken experiments he discussed (in 1963 and 1970) have not only become reality, but building on his gedanken experiments, new ideas have developed which on the one hand probe the foundations of quantum mechanics even deeper, and which on the other hand also provide the foundations to the new field of quantum information technology. All these experiments pay homage to the great insight Wigner expressed in developing these gedanken experiments and in his analyses of the foundations of quantum mechanics, http://epjwoc.epj.org/articles/epjconf/pdf/2014/15/epjconf_wigner2014_01010.pdf Since Me-Think is basically an atheist internet troll who could care less about the truth (or others), and Wigner is a Nobelist whose insights continue to be fruitful to the progress of science, I will certainly take Wigner's word way before I take MTs word on anything!bornagain77
December 16, 2014
December
12
Dec
16
16
2014
08:48 AM
8
08
48
AM
PDT
The supernatural realm is an immemorial fact of human experience. If you scorn the plural of anecdote as failing to constitute data, more fool you. Dualism has been proven under laboratory conditions, i.e. from NDEs of individuals hooked up to the most modern, medical, monitoring equipment, all under the supervision of qualified physicians. Such experiences have even been shared by family members around the bedside of their dying relative. At the same time as they shared the theophany and meeting with already deceased relatives and friends, they remained by the bedside at the hospice. Bilocation, as the RC church calls it. However, I read that it was believed to be a misnomer in that it was held that the person was only in the one place at the one time. My impression is that that is wrong, not only on account of the testimony given in this video, but because, one Christmas, my sister's late mother-in-law, a dear lady, who was exceptionally psychic, said that (in the UK) she saw my mother (then in Australia) standing at the end of her bed; although my mother knew nothing about it. However, compared to the body of testimonies world-wide and in all cultures, it wouldn't even register as worth mentioning, save for the question of the nature of bilocation. However, my late brother's appearance in the middle of the night - looking very solid, until fading away - to my sister, who has a phenomenally closed mind about most things is rock-solid testimony in my eyes, as she's very unimaginative and prosaic; 'plain beef and potatoes', I believe Americans sometimes call that cast of mind. The respective religious beliefs of both have always been unfathomable to me, though I think my sister claims some highly personal kind of belief in God, maybe Christ. 'If you mean a person sits near the experiment set up, you are wrong. To avoid any observational effect, the experimenters keep out until after measurement by the instrument.Check out modern ‘Method and Measures’ in the research papers of double slit and related experiments.' Well what is the distinction that BA77 makes between an isolated apparatus and the other one, which you insist is not personal, as it is still measured with instrumentation of some kind? And what about non-locality? And the agency ensuring that a light photon always hits an observer travelling in the same direction at constant speed, irrespective of the spped of the observer? These are seminal issues relating to theism, and materialism's absolute, explanatory incompetence.Axel
December 16, 2014
December
12
Dec
16
16
2014
08:43 AM
8
08
43
AM
PDT
1 2 3 6

Leave a Reply