By Ryan Cochrane at Social Epistemology
Ryan Cochrane (RC): How did you become interested in physics and how did you end up working with Wolfgang Pauli and Werner Heisenberg?
Henry Stapp (HS): Already in high school I was solving every mathematical puzzle I could find, and was proposing theories about how the world works for example how light is propagated. As a junior, I read a book Inside the Atom that described, in effect, the double-slit experiment, and I decided that this was a puzzle that I needed to solve. As a junior in college, at the University of Michigan, I carried out, during Easter vacation a double-slit experiment where the photons were, on average, 1 km apart, and verified that effect was not due different photons interfering with one another. As a young post-doc at UCB [University of California, Berkeley] in 1956, I was chosen to write up the lecture notes describing lectures that Pauli was giving. I talked often to Pauli, and expressed my objections to a theory that he was then working on with Heisenberg. Pauli invited me to come to Zurich. I arrived in September, we talked every weekday, and he treated me with great kindness and respect. In December he went to the hospital for a check-up, and sent a message that he wanted me to come to the hospital. But because I knew he was not at work, I worked at my apartment. When I returned to my office I found out that he had died. After his death I completed what we had been working on together, and then read von Neumann’s book. I wrote for myself as essay “Mind, Matter, and Quantum Mechanics”. I pursued the topic as a sideline to my main more practical work at the lab, and in 1993 published a book with the same title.
It was years later, in 1970 or 1971, that Heisenberg invited me to come to the Max Planck Institute in Munich, of which he was then the director. I had been working in Berkeley on Axiomatic S-Matrix Theory, but had become deeply involved with the question of locality (faster-than-light transfer of information about which experiment an experimenter chooses to perform) stimulated by a 1935 paper by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen, and Bohr’s response, and some more recent works by John Bell. We talked about these deep problems, and stimulated by those, and by my readings of William James, and many others, I wrote an article, “The Copenhagen Interpretation,” which was published in 1972 in AJP [American Journal of Physics]. Heisenberg commented favorably upon it in letters recorded in the appendix.
RC: What do you think quantum mechanics [QM] has to say about the nature of the universe?
HS: I think the fantastic success and accuracy of QM, and its capacity to rationally encompass our conscious thoughts and their evident empirical capacity to influence our bodily behavior, together with the mind-like behavior of the physical aspects of the quantum mechanical description of nature — its sudden global jumps to new forms compatible with newly received information — suggest that the world is in closer accord with our conception of mind than with our conception of classically conceived matter. More.
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This is a truth that atheists are having a heck of a time trying to get around and it always seems to hit them with a thud, that the universe seems to behave more like a great mind then a great mechanism.
You have to marvel at the mind of God to have created all we see in front of us and marvel even more at what he has in store for us in the after life. Our feeble minds can’t even come close to comprehending that ultimate reality that must make this one seem feeble in comparison.
As to
Now that is an impressive feat for a full fledged PhD, much less a junior in college. No wonder he caught the eye of Wolfgang Pauli and Werner Heisenberg.
That consciousness is integral to quantum mechanics is fairly obvious to the unbiased observer (no pun intended). I first, much like everybody else, was immediately shocked to find out that the observer would have any effect whatsoever in the double slit experiment:
Prof. Zeilinger makes this rather startling statement in the preceding video:
Of course, atheists/materialists were/are in complete denial as to the obvious implications of mind in the double slit (invoking infinite parallel universes and such as that to try to get around the obvious implications of ‘Mind’). But my curiosity was aroused and I’ve been sort of poking around finding out a little more here and there about quantum mechanics and how the observer is central to it. One of the first interesting experiments in quantum mechanics I found after the double slit, that highlighted the centrality of the observer to the experiment, was Wigner’s Quantum Symmetries. Here is Wigner commenting on the key experiment that led Wigner to his Nobel Prize winning work on quantum symmetries,,,
Wigner went on to make these rather dramatic comments in regards to his work:
Also of note:
Then after Wigner’s Quantum Symmetries, I stumbled across Wheeler’s Delayed choice experiments in which this finding shocked me as to the central importance of the observer’s free will choice in quantum experiments:
Then a bit later I learned that the delayed choice experiment had been extended:
And then I learned the delayed choice experiment was refined yet again:
i.e. The preceding experiment clearly shows, and removes any doubt whatsoever, that the ‘material’ detector recording information in the double slit is secondary to the experiment and that a conscious observer being able to consciously know the ‘which path’ information of a photon with local certainty, is of primary importance in the experiment. You can see a more complete explanation of the startling results of the experiment at the 9:11 minute mark of the following video:
Of related note to unconstrained ‘free will’, it was recently shown that one can ‘steer a particle’ into a desired state:
In other words, if you don’t like that the cat might be dead (nucleus pointing down), you back off the strength of your measurement until you get a reading telling you that the cat might be more alive than dead (nucleus pointing up) and then once you get that reading you increase the strength of the measurement, as long as the measurement continues to give you the desired more alive than dead state, until you finally have complete knowledge that the cat is fully alive (nucleus pointing up). The preceding experiment obviously seems to be another fairly strong confirmation of free will’s axiomatic position within quantum mechanics.
Related notes on ‘interaction free’ measurement:
And then I learned about something called Leggett’s Inequality. Leggett’s Inequality was, as far as I can tell, a mathematical proof developed by Nobelist Anthony Leggett to prove ‘realism’. Realism is the belief that an objective reality exists independently of a conscious observer looking at it. And, as is usual with challenging the predictions of Quantum Mechanics, his proof was violated by a stunning 80 orders of magnitude, thus once again, in over the top fashion, highlighting the central importance of the conscious observer to Quantum Experiments:
The following video and paper get the general, and dramatic, point across of what ‘giving up realism’ actually means:
But, as if that was not enough, I then learned about something called the ‘Quantum Zeno Effect’,,
The reason why I am very impressed with the Quantum Zeno effect as to establishing consciousness’s primacy in quantum mechanics is, for one thing, that Entropy is, by a wide margin, the most finely tuned of initial conditions of the Big Bang:
For another thing, it is interesting to note just how foundational entropy is in its explanatory power for actions within the space-time of the universe:
In fact, entropy is also the primary reason why our physical, temporal, bodies grow old and die,,,
And yet, to repeat,,,
This is just fascinating! Why in blue blazes should conscious observation put a freeze on entropic decay, unless consciousness was/is more foundational to reality than the 1 in 10^10^120 entropy is?
Putting all the lines of evidence together the argument for God from consciousness can now be framed like this:
Verse and Music:
Supplemental Notes:
OT: 2CELLOS – Thunderstruck [OFFICIAL VIDEO]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT3SBzmDxGk
How would one go about running such an experiment using only equipment available in the late 1940s??
‘I think that shifting from the basic issues about mind and conscious experience is obscuring, not clarifying. The essential issues have to do with the place in the greater whole of the only things we know to be real, our conscious thoughts and the capacity of our present thoughts, ideas, and feelings to influence our future thoughts, ideas, and feelings, and if so, how to both comprehend that capacity and enhance it. Focusing on information tends to obscure rather than clarify, at least if information is not clarified.’ – Henry Stapp
Yes. Theology as the Queen of the Sciences was a perfectly correct designation. It is a mistake, normal though it is in our current culture, to view the abstract and conceptual as superior to personal.
The liberal putative theologian Karl Rahner evidently believed that reconciling Christian theology with philosophy would advance Christian theology, but, while philosophy has helped us to understand the processes of logic, and covered many bases of man’s natural conjectures, in effect, Rahner was trying to turn a silk purse into a sow’s ear. Ultimate truth is not merely personal, but ultra personal; the very antithesis of the atheist’s most basic credo.
Personally, I’m not ‘into’ validating the words of scripture in reference to the physical world, but I have found that the Psalms are a font of metaphysical truths, e.g. ‘Love and truth walk in your presence of Lord’; not vice versa, which would be the natural perspective.
Reading the second sentence of the quote, transcribed below, Aldous Huxley’s essay, The Perennial Philosophy, springs to mind. Also, in a less reliable way, the use of hallucinogens. Although perhaps he was adverting to a more clinical and less mystical influence on our epistemological world-view than either. I mean analytical thought, rather than unitive. Although, if so, presumably, as an introduction, where physics might still be recognizable as distinct from a theology of the meeting of matter and spirit (not necessarily in that order!).
‘The essential issues have to do with the place in the greater whole of the only things we know to be real, our conscious thoughts and the capacity of our present thoughts, ideas, and feelings to influence our future thoughts, ideas, and feelings, and if so, how to both comprehend that capacity and enhance it.
It’s all woo-woo, I tell you! It’s all woo-woo. You’re all mad!
BA77:
The two-slit experiments you’ve been referring to have the allure of postulating an “observer” as a causal necessity for quantum effects to come into being. While this might fit in quite nicely with our understanding of the “mind of God” or the “eye of God,” or however you prefer to phrase it, I, nevertheless, consider this interpretation to be wrong.
The reason I think this is wrong has to do with my understanding of fundamental physics. Let me just say that if my understanding turns out to be right—and the latest results from BICEP2 fits in with this understanding, as well as the latest tests on Dark Energy and most other observations—then the whole of physics will be pointing to a Supreme Being. So, actually, if it is shown that the Copenhagen interpretation is wrong, or if my understanding is shown to be correct, there will still be physical observations pointing directly at God.
[But, of course, if multiverses can be invented to ‘save’ science from God, who knows what will be invented to get around any new discoveries shouting out that God exists.]
Somehow I don’t think that we can argue on the one hand that God created a intelligible, logical universe which can be understood by the human mind and on the other use unintelligible, illogical interpretations to support that claim.
PaV, not that I have disagreed with much of what you have said, but I certainly disagree with your interpretation (not that I embrace Copenhagen) but I consider all the evidence you listed, and much evidence you did not list, to fit in quite well with my ‘consciousness is integral’ interpretation.
i.e. ‘accidental or intended?’
cantor @8, I searched a bit for the experiment and Dr. Stapp’s page, at least the one I found, only has papers going back a few decades. If you happen to run across the experiment, I would appreciate it if you could let me know.
I don’t agree its that complicated.
OCD is just a problem with the triggering mechanism of trhe memory.
Its all indeed just the soul meshed against up against a memory machine. JUst like a man with a computer. The computer is just a memory machine with details.
QM is just a machine with triggering elements even if including God.
Its still just a machine and they simply are slow to figure it out.
My searches to this point have also been unsuccessful, but if I eventually find something I will share it.
‘Somehow I don’t think that we can argue on the one hand that God created a intelligible, logical universe which can be understood by the human mind and on the other use unintelligible, illogical interpretations to support that claim’.
I don’t know if you are talking about the paradoxes, seemingly imponderable mysteries of quantum physics, tragicmishap. Because, if so, it seems that scientists involved in QM research have seen their findings lead to innumerable practical applications in our industrial societies.
They would do this, by accepting the mystery component for what it is, and simply using it, as is, and as a staging- post, a springboard to new discoveries, just as the Christian church and its theologians do, religious paradoxes/mysteries.
For obvious reasons, the current, atheist, scientific establishment finds the notion of paradox, of imponderable mystery, unacceptable, so describe such phenomena as, ‘counter-intuitive’. They are doubtless convinced that their ‘promissory note’, is backed by no less a guarantor than Random Chance or Gaia or some other such demigod they venerate.
… the total, ultimate triumph of the worldly intelligence. Reason, spelt large, albeit, wrongly.
Thanks cantor. That would really be an interesting experiment to know the details of. Hopefully something turns up. Perhaps I’ll search a bit more later on this evening.
Cantor, that paper/experiment, if it is on the web somewhere, is buried deep. I broke down and e-mailed Dr. Stapp. If he answers it and gives me the paper or any details, I will try to let you know.
Hey Cantor, Henry Stapp replied to my e-mail! 🙂 Here is how he accomplished the experiment: