ID’s problem in a nutshell

_{Denyse O'Leary

September 23, 2013

Intelligent Design, News}

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Laszlo Bencze offs a thought on how to survive in a culture that thinks that design in nature is unreasonable but an infinity of flopped universes is reasonable:

In my reading of a very fine book subtitled “How the Christian Middle Ages launched the scientific revolution” I encountered this passage:

Sir Isaac Newton explicitly stated that he was investigating God’s creation, which was a religious duty because nature reflects the creativity of its maker. In 1713, he inserted into the second edition of his greatest work, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, the words:

Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and everywhere, could produce no variety of things. All that diversity of organisms which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing….And that is enough concerning God, to discourse of whom from the appearances of things does certainly belong to natural philosophy.

It would take Charles Darwin (1809-1882) to prove Newton wrong. —The Genesis of Science, James Hannam, p. 349

Mind you, this book bends over backwards to be sympathetic to Christianity, frequently reminding the reader that the Middle Ages produced much excellent science and that the church was neither frightened of such knowledge nor fought against it. But sympathy has its limits. The flat statement of fact closing this passage certainly represents the standard secular view of science and its relation to Christianity. Darwin made God obsolete. That’s that. Any discussion of evolution which proposes taking God seriously as an actual existing entity is backwards, primitive, outmoded, and, frankly, contemptible. Such is the world view which pervades intellectual society.

I find it fascinating that Hannam does such a good job of explaining the metaphysical controversies of the Middle Ages, some of which were quite subtle, yet manages to miss the elephant in the room of our current discourse. Of course Darwin did not disprove Newton’s statement. His achievement was insignificant in terms of advancing science and negligible as theology. But the problem is that he wrote so beguilingly that his work was accepted as both paradigm changing science and irrefutable theology. The best minds of the past 150 years have generally been conned into both opinions. And those opinions are seemingly unshakable.

Vast human capital gets infested in such theories. Only obituaries help in such cases, unfortunately. Suddenly, the relicts and dependents provided for, it becomes safer to say that it is all rot.

Comments

nightlight you seem to be missing the forest for the trees! Why in blue blazes is it that locality and realism are the ones that keep getting falsified in these particular experiments and not the other way around. i.e. Realism and locality cannot forever be going on somewhere else where we can't concretely confirm it. You can hide in the loopholes if you wish, and pretend you are being 'scientific' in doing so, but I find it severely disingenuous of you to do so and for you to take cheap shots from your, so far, unfalsifiable position is even more confirmation that you are more of a dogmatist than unbiased observer in this.bornagain77_{September 24, 2013
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@bornagain77 #13 Regarding the assertion "Zeilinger's team recently closed the `last loophole' for Bell's inequalities" note that even they don't claim that it is a loophole free experiment but acknowledge that it leaves locality loophole open. What is worse, even the detection loophole they claim to have closed is merely replaced with another loophole that wasn't under scrutiny in the earlier two channel experiments. Namely, they changed from the two channel to a single channel experiment. That means they "solved" the low detection efficiency problem of two channel experiments by disabling 2 of the 4 detectors altogether, discarding thus half the available data. Then they used PDC source with multiple photon pairs per detection window to artificially boost the yield (their apparent efficiency, if you don't check for extra pairs) of the remaining half of detectors. The 2nd channel they chose to discard would have revealed this kind of sleight of hand, hence they "solved" the problem by removing those 2 detectors. This is analogous to stage magician always showing one half of the box at a time, while hiding the other half. Yet, despite their best effort, a little error slipped through behind the curtains of their latest magic setup, showing up as anomalous counts on one of the settings, and a there was a recent arXiv preprint by a long time friend Emilio Santos pointing out the anomaly. I have also pointed out the above problem to Zeilinger via several back and forth emails and he promised to reveal more data and address the issues raised shortly. Indeed, within weeks after that they added two more explanatory preprints to the arXiv (one and two), unfortunately sidestepping the main problems and answering only several weaker or strawman objections (sort of). The fundamental problem with their claim is that they are misusing Eberhard's inequality (they have to use it because it is insensitive to detection loophole) which assumes single pair of photons per detection window, while nothing in their experiment checks for multiple pairs, leaving thus a new generally unfamiliar loophole, previously not considered (since they disabled half the detectors that could have shown these multiple pairs). Namely the laser driven PDC source pumps Poisson distribution of high frequency input photons, producing thus the Poisson distribution of the resulting low frequency photon pairs. The laser pump intensity can be tuned if they wish to do so (which they would want to do) to produce more than one pair per detection window, invalidating thus Eberhard's inequality. Their experiment is deliberately set up not to check for or detect such multi-pair instances. Another friend from that same group in Spain (as E. Santos) is working on a paper to derive more general Eberhard's inequality that covers real PDC sources with multiple photon pairs. That way he can explain the anomalous counts and challenge them on the new primary loophole theoretically, pointing out the correct inequality they needed to violate, not the broken one. In short, it's another bogus claim, just running fast on a newly created, unfamiliar loophole (it's generally unfamiliar, except to a handful of experts, since it was not relevant for the two channel experiments). They have got a little while to run and strut before the wider physics community catches up to the new trick. If you have followed the history of this problem, the same little game went on for each new unfamiliar loophole for the last half century. Note that except for the two very small circles, one of flashy "magicians" who are loud far beyond their actual numbers, and the other of their quiet critics, the vast majority of physicists subscribe to the QM interpretation known as "shut up and calculate" i.e. stay away from the quantum magic tarpit, it's a dead end.
I just want to point out that the countervailing view that you seem to be supporting, the view that consciousness is not foundational to reality but that consciousness simply `emerges' from some material basis, is the truly `fringe/lunatic/psychopathic' view to hold about reality
You are completely misunderstanding what I am saying. My point is not about the existence or nature of consciousness. The philosophers have trashed that subject for thousands of years already, and will probably go on about it another few thousand, and I just don't have that kind of free time to join in with an enterprise with that level of low productivity track record. The issue I am discussing is whether consciousness is an element of the models (of the formalism, or generally of the 'scientific statements' generating algorithms) of natural science. The answer is -- no, it is not. There are, of course, all kinds of scientist from all fields philosophizing about it, but it is not formally defined and specified in any natural science, hence it doesn't do anything at all as far as the models of science are concerned. Any informal, accidental, habitual, figure of speech or poetic mention of consciousness in any science textbook can be safely removed without affecting any prediction of that science, whether it is physics, chemistry, biology, neuroscience,... Nobody has a clue what it is, what it does (other than exist as direct experience), what to do with it, what equations it satisfy, what does it predict that the rest of that science already doesn't without it,... Physicists, whose subject matter is the farthest from it than those of all others, know about it the least. Not that they don't philosophize with the rest of them, especially in their twilight years, but physics as a science has nothing to with it and it doesn't shed the slightest bit light on it, much less predict or explain its existence or properties (as you seem to imagine). That may be the problem with the present science, a kind of big gap, but that is the way it is. Presently it is a philosophical and theological subject matter, while being idle speculation for all the rest. Hence my point about consciousness is that DI keeps complaining that ID is unjustly being kept out of science, when it is none other than DI fellows who, with their constant 'consciousness' talk, are the loudest voice defining and advertising ID as a branch of philosophy and theology.nightlight_{September 24, 2013
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nightlight you want to
frame ID as a conjecture about the powerful underlying computational process (so that) ID might have made it into schools as a genuine natural science
If by natural science, you mean materialism, well as Chaitin elucidated from Godel's work, that dog won't hunt!,,
The Limits Of Reason - Gregory Chaitin - 2006 Excerpt: an infinite number of true mathematical theorems exist that cannot be proved from any finite system of axioms.,,, http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/sciamer3.pdf
In fact Chaitin, although he was well aware of the limitation that Godel's incompleteness theorem placed on computers ever being able to generate functional/algorithmic information such as we find in genomes, tried to develop a computer program that could be 'proof of principle' that Darwinian evolution could genrate functional/algorithmic information and this is what he found:
At last, a Darwinist mathematician tells the truth about evolution - VJT - November 2011 Excerpt: In Chaitin’s own words, “You’re allowed to ask God or someone to give you the answer to some question where you can’t compute the answer, and the oracle will immediately give you the answer, and you go on ahead.” per VJ Torley
Here is the video where, at the 30:00 minute mark, you can hear the preceding quote from Chaitin's own mouth in full context:
Life as Evolving Software, Greg Chaitin at PPGC UFRGS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlYS_GiAnK8
Moreover, at the 40:00 minute mark of the video Chaitin readily admits that Intelligent Design is the best possible way to get evolution to take place, and at the 43:30 minute mark Chaitin even tells of a friend pointing out that the idea Evolutionary computer model that Chaitin has devised does not have enough time to work. And Chaitin even agreed that his friend had a point, although Chaitin still ends up just 'wanting', and not ever proving, his idea Darwinian mathematical model to be true! related notes:
Kurt Gödel - Incompleteness Theorem - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/8462821 Alan Turing & Kurt Godel - Incompleteness Theorem and Human Intuition - video (notes in video description) http://www.metacafe.com/watch/8516356/
i.e. although many people seem to have an unreal impression of computers, an impression that they are somehow a super-intelligent thing that can generate unlimited information,,, (people such as Michael Denton, Barbara McClintock, Lynn Margulis, James Shapiro, or even better, Stuart Kauffman),,, the fact of the matter is that computers are very limited in the amount of algorithmic/functional information that they can generate,,,
Algorithmic Information Theory, Free Will and the Turing Test - Douglas S. Robertson Excerpt: Chaitin’s Algorithmic Information Theory shows that information is conserved under formal mathematical operations and, equivalently, under computer operations. This conservation law puts a new perspective on many familiar problems related to artificial intelligence. For example, the famous “Turing test” for artificial intelligence could be defeated by simply asking for a new axiom in mathematics. Human mathematicians are able to create axioms, but a computer program cannot do this without violating information conservation. Creating new axioms and free will are shown to be different aspects of the same phenomena: the creation of new information. http://cires.colorado.edu/~doug/philosophy/info8.pdf
And without such a 'unlimited' capacity for computers to generate useful, functional, information, computers are basically left with just a blind search for finding 'elegant engineering solutions':
Applied Darwinism: A New Paper from Bob Marks and His Team, in BIO-Complexity - Doug Axe 2012 Excerpt: Furthermore, if you dig a bit beyond these papers and look at what kinds of problems this technique (Steiner Tree) is being used for in the engineering world, you quickly find that it is of extremely limited applicability. It works for tasks that are easily accomplished in a huge number of specific ways, but where someone would have to do a lot of mindless fiddling to decide which of these ways is best.,, That's helpful in the sense that we commonly find computers helpful -- they do what we tell them to do very efficiently, without complaining. But in biology we see something altogether different. We see elegant solutions to millions of engineering problems that human ingenuity cannot even begin to solve. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/04/applied_darwini058591.html
Supplemental note as to the disconnect between theory and empirical evidence. Here's Shapiro on 'natural' genetic engineering:
How Natural Genetic Engineering Solves Problems in Protein Evolution - James Shapiro - May 2012 Excerpt: When I pointed out the potential of domain shuffling by natural genetic engineering to Intelligent Design advocates who claimed protein evolution by natural mechanisms was impossible, they refused to recognize genomic data as irrefutable evidence and insisted on real-time experiments. I disagree with them strongly on the DNA sequence data. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-a-shapiro/genetic-engineering_b_1541180.html
Although Shapiro admits he has no ‘real time’ empirical evidence for the origin of novel protein domains and/or genes by Darwinian processes (so as to be able to have the ‘protein domains’ to shuffle around in the first place) but must rely, as do neo-Darwinists, on the DNA/protein sequence similarity/dissimilarity data to try to make his case that novel protein domains were created in the distant past so that ‘natural genetic engineering' can presently create all the diversity we see in life on earth today. Yet, just as with neo-Darwinists, Shapiro relying on sequence similarity/dissimilarity data to ultimately try to make his case for ‘natural genetic engineering’ has the very same ‘unscientific’ problem that neo-Darwinism has of assuming the conclusion beforehand to try to prove the very question being asked. i.e. Can novel functional information we see in protein domains and/or genes ever be generated in a ‘bottom up’ fashion by the unguided material processes of neo-Darwinism?
Exon Shuffling: Evaluating the Evidence - Jonathan M. - July 2013 The Problems with Domain Shuffling as an Explanation for Protein Folds Excerpt: The domain shuffling hypothesis in many cases requires the formation of new binding interfaces. Since amino acids that comprise polypeptide chains are distinguished from one another by the specificity of their side-chains, however, the binding interfaces that allow units of secondary structure (i.e. ?-helices and ?-strands) to come together to form elements of tertiary structure is dependent upon the specific sequence of amino acids. That is to say, it is non-generic in the sense that it is strictly dependent upon the particulars of the components. Domains that must bind and interact with one another can't simply be pieced together like LEGO bricks. In his 2010 paper in the journal BIO-Complexity Douglas Axe reports on an experiment conducted using ?-lactamase enzymes which illustrates this difficulty (Axe, 2010). http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/07/an_evaluation_o074441.html
Doug Axe's work on the rarity of proteins is focused exactly on the rarity of individual protein domains/folds themselves. Doug Axe addresses James Shapiro's disconnect between theory and evidence here:
On Protein Origins, Getting to the Root of Our Disagreement with James Shapiro - Doug Axe - January 2012 Excerpt: I know of many processes that people talk about as though they can do the job of inventing new proteins (and of many papers that have resulted from such talk), but when these ideas are pushed to the point of demonstration, they all seem to retreat into the realm of the theoretical. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/01/on_protein_orig055471.html
bornagain77_{September 24, 2013
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nightlight, to me it seems rather obvious that you are the one who is not presenting any hard evidence whatsoever for your position that consciousness has nothing to do with quantum mechanics. Despite your seemingly shallow and snooty dismissal of the evidence I presented, Leggett's inequality, among the other experiments, is hardly to be considered 'informal speculations' of some fringe experiment but is a straight forward interpretation of an experiment that was devised precisely to try to deny consciousness any role in quantum mechanics and to maintain 'objective realism' apart from consciousness.
A team of physicists in Vienna has devised experiments that may answer one of the enduring riddles of science: Do we create the world just by looking at it? - 2008 Excerpt: Leggett’s theory was more powerful than Bell’s because it required that light’s polarization be measured not just like the second hand on a clock face, but over an entire sphere. In essence, there were an infinite number of clock faces on which the second hand could point. For the experimenters this meant that they had to account for an infinite number of possible measurement settings. So Zeilinger’s group rederived Leggett’s theory for a finite number of measurements. There were certain directions the polarization would more likely face in quantum mechanics. This test was more stringent. 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. http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_reality_tests/P3/
Please note in the preceding article that Leggett himself, even though he had devised the experiment to 'reality was really out there with no need for conscious observation', would not, because of his a priori philosophical bias, would not accept the implications of his experiment but stated:
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 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.
Richard Conn Henry, professor of physics at John Hopkins university, sums up the situation in quantum mechanics, with dogmatic physicist who refuse to follow the evidence where it leads, this way:
Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger by Richard Conn Henry - Physics Professor - John Hopkins University Excerpt: Why do people cling with such ferocity to belief in a mind-independent reality? It is surely because if there is no such reality, then ultimately (as far as we can know) mind alone exists. And if mind is not a product of real matter, but rather is the creator of the "illusion" of material reality (which has, in fact, despite the materialists, been known to be the case, since the discovery of quantum mechanics in 1925), then a theistic view of our existence becomes the only rational alternative to solipsism (solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist). (Dr. Henry's referenced experiment and paper - “An experimental test of non-local realism” by S. Gröblacher et. al., Nature 446, 871, April 2007 - “To be or not to be local” by Alain Aspect, Nature 446, 866, April 2007 (i.e. Leggett's inequality) http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/aspect.html
Also somewhat related interest, Zeilinger's team recently closed the 'last loophole' for Bell's inequalities. Closed it by 70 standard deviations!
Closing the last Bell-test loophole for photons - Jun 11, 2013 Excerpt: In the years since, many "Bell tests" have been performed, but critics have identified several conditions (known as loopholes) in which the results could be considered inconclusive. For entangled photons, there have been three major loopholes; two were closed by previous experiments. The remaining problem, known as the "detection-efficiency/fair sampling loophole," results from the fact that, until now, the detectors employed in experiments have captured an insufficiently large fraction of the photons, and the photon sources have been insufficiently efficient. The validity of such experiments is thus dependent on the assumption that the detected photons are a statistically fair sample of all the photons. That, in turn, leaves open the possibility that, if all the photon data were known, they could be described by local realism. The new research, conducted at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Communication in Austria, closes the fair-sampling loophole by using improved photon sources (spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a Sagnac configuration) and ultra-sensitive detectors provided by the Single Photonics and Quantum Information project in PML's Quantum Electronics and Photonics Division. That combination, the researchers write, was "crucial for achieving a sufficiently high collection efficiency," resulting in a high-accuracy data set – requiring no assumptions or correction of count rates – that confirmed quantum entanglement to nearly 70 standard deviations.,,, http://phys.org/news/2013-06-bell-test-loophole-photons.html
For me the closing of the last loophole leaves the skeptics in a rather awkward situation. i.e. They have to maintain the local realism is forever hiding in the ever shrinking loopholes and that local realism never presents itself as a valid of reality when directly measured for it. The situation in quantum mechanics is much like evolution's punctuated equilibrium, in that, we are assured by Darwinists, that we don't find transitional fossils where we ought to in the fossil record because evolution happens to fast for us to expect to find them. i.e. Quantum physicists/skeptics who want to hold onto a purely deterministic universe, such as Einstein did, are left with unbelievable 'just so' stories instead of any actual hard evidence to support their case!
Here is a clip of a talk in which Alain Aspect talks about a debate between Neils Bohr and Einstein, and the failure of 'local realism', or the failure of materialism, to explain reality: Quantum Entanglement – The Failure Of Local Realism - Materialism - Alain Aspect - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/4744145
Os supplemental note: Although I would like to hear your speculations on this following double slit video, which the Zeilinger group, arguably the best experimentalists in quantum mechanics today, has listed on their outreach page:
Double slit http://vcq.quantum.at/outreach/multimedia/videos.html
and this video in which Dr. Zeilinger 'tries' to explain to Morgan Freeman the double slit experiment:
Quantum Mechanics - Double Slit Experiment. Is anything real? (Prof. Anton Zeilinger) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayvbKafw2g0
nightlight, instead of soliciting your opinion on those videos on the double slit, and consciousness's enigmatic/foundational role in the double slit, I just want to point out that the countervailing view that you seem to be supporting, the view that consciousness is not foundational to reality but that consciousness simply 'emerges' from some material basis, is the truly 'fringe/lunatic/psychopathic' view to hold about reality:
We have so much confidence in our materialist assumptions (which are assumptions, not facts) that something like free will is denied in principle. Maybe it doesn’t exist, but I don’t really know that. Either way, it doesn’t matter because if free will and consciousness are just an illusion, they are the most seamless illusions ever created. Film maker James Cameron wishes he had special effects that good. Matthew D. Lieberman - neuroscientist - materialist - UCLA professor The Heretic - Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him? - March 25, 2013 Excerpt:,,,Fortunately, materialism is never translated into life as it’s lived. As colleagues and friends, husbands and mothers, wives and fathers, sons and daughters, materialists never put their money where their mouth is. Nobody thinks his daughter is just molecules in motion and nothing but; nobody thinks the Holocaust was evil, but only in a relative, provisional sense. A materialist who lived his life according to his professed convictions—understanding himself to have no moral agency at all, seeing his friends and enemies and family as genetically determined robots—wouldn’t just be a materialist: He’d be a psychopath. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/heretic_707692.html?page=3
bornagain77_{September 24, 2013
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@bornagain77 #9,#10 We've spent enough time in this 'darkest place in the armpit of Quantum Mechanics' earlier to be worthy further sniffing. Your latest quote stream consists of either informal speculations in popular literature or imaginative interpretations of otherwise unremarkable experiments through the lenses of a particular set of far fetched assumptions (the strong measurements postulate of composite systems, see post1 and post2) which themselves have still not been empirically demonstrated despite countless experiments that pursued that holy grail. It's a house of cards resting on wishful thinking and the pa$$ion for research grants. My impression so far is that the chief programmer of the universe doesn't care much for the cheap, flashy magic tricks, whether psychedelically induced or quantum magic induced, since the creation is amazing enough as it is to need any such embellishments. They would be like framing Mona Lisa into bright colored flashing neon signs to make it prettier, or modernizing Mozart's violin concertos with gangsta rap vocals to make them more masculine. While generally you bring in lots of interesting quotes and useful links, it is when you drag it into this subject that I have to cringe, unfortunately, since it is not helping ID but turning those who know better off. On the bright side, that still does far less harm to ID than what Meyer and some other DI fellows are doing, having much bigger loudspeakers, with their 'conscious agency' obsession. If they could have just got off it and stuck with the likes of Michael Denton, Barbara McClintock, Lynn Margulis, James Shapiro, or even better, Stuart Kauffman and other Santa Fe Institute researchers to help frame ID as a conjecture about the powerful underlying computational process, the ID might have made it into schools as a genuine natural science by now. Instead, they have dragged into the 'consciousness' swamp to wallow and drown with philosophers and theologians for few more millennia.nightlight_{September 24, 2013
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nightlight: thanks for your post (comment 7). That helped clarify some of my impressions.Jerad_{September 24, 2013
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#3, here’s Wigner’s Quantum Symmetries
"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) - received Nobel Prize in 1963 for 'Quantum Symmetries' http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/wigner/
Here is Wigner commenting on the key experiment that led Wigner to his Nobel Prize winning work on quantum symmetries,,,
Eugene Wigner Excerpt: To express this basic experience in a more direct way: the world does not have a privileged center, there is no absolute rest, preferred direction, unique origin of calendar time, even left and right seem to be rather symmetric. The interference of electrons, photons, neutrons has indicated that the state of a particle can be described by a vector possessing a certain number of components. As the observer is replaced by another observer (working elsewhere, looking at a different direction, using another clock, perhaps being left-handed), the state of the very same particle is described by another vector, obtained from the previous vector by multiplying it with a matrix. This matrix transfers from one observer to another. http://www.reak.bme.hu/Wigner_Course/WignerBio/wb1.htm
i.e. In the experiment the 'world' (i.e. the universe) does not have a ‘privileged center’. Yet strangely, the conscious observer does exhibit a 'privileged center'. This is since the 'matrix', which determines which vector will be used to describe the particle in the experiment, is 'observer-centric' in its origination! Thus explaining Wigner’s dramatic statement, “It was not possible to formulate the laws (of quantum theory) in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness.” Here is a corroborating piece of evidence that goes very well with Wigner’s work:
Causing Collapse: Can One Affect an Atom's Spin Just by Adjusting the Way It Is Measured? - Mar. 18, 2013 Excerpt: One of the most basic laws of quantum mechanics is that a system can be in more than one state -- it can exist in multiple realities -- at once. This phenomenon, known as the superposition principle, exists only so long as the system is not observed or measured in any way. As soon as such a system is measured, its superposition collapses into a single state. Thus, we, who are constantly observing and measuring, experience the world around us as existing in a single reality.,,, They "measured" the atom by shining laser light on it. Just as our eyes observe the world by absorbing the photons -- light particles -- scattered in our direction by objects, the researchers observed the process of spin collapse in the atoms by measuring the scattered photons. In results that appeared recently in Science, they showed that the direction that a photon takes as it leaves the atom is the direction that the spin adopts when superposition collapses. Next, the team measured the polarization of the emitted photon and found that the observed polarization determines the effect of measurement on the spin. This suggests that an observer can influence the collapse of superposition just by adjusting the orientation of his photon-polarization measurement apparatus. The reason for this "action-at-a-distance" is that the spins of the measured atoms and the emitted photons were entangled. That is, even after they were separated, a measurement of one of them instantaneously affected the other.,,, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130318133026.htm
#4 The Quantum Zeno Effect:
Quantum Zeno effect Excerpt: The quantum Zeno effect is,,, an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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:
The Physics of the Small and Large: What is the Bridge Between Them? Roger Penrose Excerpt: “The time-asymmetry is fundamentally connected to with the Second Law of Thermodynamics: indeed, the extraordinarily special nature (to a greater precision than about 1 in 10^10^123, in terms of phase-space volume) can be identified as the “source” of the Second Law (Entropy).” How special was the big bang? – Roger Penrose Excerpt: This now tells us how precise the Creator’s aim must have been: namely to an accuracy of one part in 10^10^123. (from the Emperor’s New Mind, Penrose, pp 339-345 – 1989)
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:
Shining Light on Dark Energy - October 21, 2012 Excerpt: It (Entropy) explains time; it explains every possible action in the universe;,, Even gravity, Vedral argued, can be expressed as a consequence of the law of entropy. ,,, The principles of thermodynamics are at their roots all to do with information theory. Information theory is simply an embodiment of how we interact with the universe —,,, http://crev.info/2012/10/shining-light-on-dark-energy/ Evolution is a Fact, Just Like Gravity is a Fact! UhOh! - January 2010 Excerpt: The results of this paper suggest gravity arises as an entropic force, once space and time themselves have emerged. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/evolution-is-a-fact-just-like-gravity-is-a-fact-uhoh/
In fact, entropy is also the primary reason why our physical, temporal, bodies grow old and die,,, And yet, to repeat,,,
Quantum Zeno effect Excerpt: The quantum Zeno effect is,,, an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay. per wiki
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 entropy is? And seeing that entropy is VERY foundational to explaining events within space-times, I think the implications are fairly obvious that consciousness precedes the 1 in 10^10^123 entropy of the universe: Thus, we have at least four different intersecting lines of experimental evidence, from quantum mechanics, which all converge to the one Theistic presupposition which holds that consciousness precedes all of material reality! More fascinating details on establishing the 'geometric' centrality of consciousness in the universe may be picked up here:
The Galileo Affair and consciousness as the true "Center of the Universe" Excerpt: I find it extremely interesting, and strange, that quantum mechanics tells us that instantaneous quantum wave collapse to its 'uncertain' 3D state is centered on each individual conscious observer in the universe, whereas, 4D space-time cosmology (General Relativity) tells us each 3D point in the universe is central to the expansion of the universe. These findings of modern science are pretty much exactly what we would expect to see if this universe were indeed created, and sustained, from a higher dimension by a omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal Being who knows everything that is happening everywhere in the universe at the same time. These findings certainly seem to go to the very heart of the age old question asked of many parents by their children, “How can God hear everybody’s prayers at the same time?”,,, i.e. Why should the expansion of the universe, or the quantum wave collapse of the entire universe, even care that you or I, or anyone else, should exist? Only Theism, Christian Theism in particular, offers a rational explanation as to why you or I, or anyone else, should have such undeserved significance in such a vast universe. [15] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BHAcvrc913SgnPcDohwkPnN4kMJ9EDX-JJSkjc4AXmA/edit
Of related interest to consciousness preceding material reality, The following site is very interesting;
The Scale of The Universe - Part 2 - interactive graph (recently updated in 2012 with cool features) http://htwins.net/scale2/scale2.swf?bordercolor=white
The preceding interactive graph points out that the smallest scale visible to the human eye (as well as a human egg) is at 10^-4 meters, which 'just so happens' to be directly in the exponential center of all possible sizes of our physical reality (not just ‘nearly’ in the exponential center!). i.e. 10^-4 is, exponentially, right in the middle of 10^-35 meters, which is the smallest possible unit of length, which is Planck length, and 10^27 meters, which is the largest possible unit of 'observable' length since space-time was created in the Big Bang, which is the diameter of the universe. This is very interesting for, as far as I can tell, the limits to human vision (as well as the size of the human egg) could have, theoretically, been at very different positions than directly in the exponential middle; Verse and Music:
Luke 17: 21 Nor will they say, 'Look here!' or, 'Look over there!' For behold, the kingdom of God is within you and around you." Give Me Your Eyes - Brandon Heath http://myktis.com/songs/give-me-your-eyes/
bornagain77_{September 24, 2013
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as to nightlight's comment:
"If one were to ponder what is the best strategy to derail ID from becoming a legitimate, respected branch of natural science, dragging it and drowning it in the ‘consciousness’ tarpit would be hard to beat in effectiveness."
There is just so much wrong with that statement it is hard to know where to begin. First off, let's be perfectly clear, Darwinism is a pseudo-science not Intelligent Design. If any theory should have to prove that it is 'legitimate science' it should be Darwinism! Anyone who disagrees with that statement please produce the rigid mathematical falsification criteria so that we may see how to falsify Darwinism scientifically!!!. As to nightlight's 'educated' diatribe against consciousness (something nightlight experiences first hand by the way and knows more concretely that anything else he can possibly know in reality),,, well both consciousness, and free will, are now shown to play a central (axiomatic) role in quantum mechanics,
Can quantum theory be improved? - July 23, 2012 Excerpt: However, in the new paper, the physicists have experimentally demonstrated that there cannot exist any alternative theory that increases the predictive probability of quantum theory by more than 0.165, with the only assumption being that measurement (observation) parameters can be chosen independently (free choice, free will, assumption) of the other parameters of the theory.,,, ,, the experimental results provide the tightest constraints yet on alternatives to quantum theory. The findings imply that quantum theory is close to optimal in terms of its predictive power, even when the predictions are completely random. http://phys.org/news/2012-07-quantum-theory.html
Now this is completely unheard of in science as far as I know. i.e. That a mathematical description of reality would advance to the point that one can actually perform a experiment showing that your current theory will not be exceeded in predictive power by another future theory is simply unprecedented in science! And please note that free will and consciousness are axiomatic to Quantum Theory in the experiment. This is born out in more detail here:
What Does Quantum Physics Have to Do with Free Will? - By Antoine Suarez - July 22, 2013 Excerpt: What is more, recent experiments are bringing to light that the experimenter’s free will and consciousness should be considered axioms (founding principles) of standard quantum physics theory. So for instance, in experiments involving “entanglement” (the phenomenon Einstein called “spooky action at a distance”), to conclude that quantum correlations of two particles are nonlocal (i.e. cannot be explained by signals traveling at velocity less than or equal to the speed of light), it is crucial to assume that the experimenter can make free choices, and is not constrained in what orientation he/she sets the measuring devices. To understand these implications it is crucial to be aware that quantum physics is not only a description of the material and visible world around us, but also speaks about non-material influences coming from outside the space-time.,,, https://www.bigquestionsonline.com/content/what-does-quantum-physics-have-do-free-will
Moreover, we have several lines of compelling evidence that atheistic materialists have to deal with in order to try to 'explain away' consciousness and free will in quantum mechanics. Here is a basic overview of the disingenuous way materialists have tried to cope thus far:
Divinely Planted Quantum States - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCTBygadaM4
But to go into a bit more detail, we have, at least, four different intersecting lines of experimental evidence, from quantum mechanics, which all converge to this one following conclusion;
1. Consciousness either preceded all of material reality or is a 'epi-phenomena' of material reality. 2. If consciousness is a 'epi-phenomena' of material reality then consciousness will be found to have no special position within material reality. Whereas conversely, if consciousness precedes material reality then consciousness will be found to have a special position within material reality. 3. Consciousness is found to have a special, even central, position within material reality. 4. Therefore, consciousness is found to precede material reality.
Here are the four intersecting lines of evidence from quantum mechanics. Wheeler's delayed choice, Leggett's inequalities, Wigner's symmetries and Quantum Zeno effect; #1. Here’s Wheeler’s Delayed Choice,
Alain Aspect speaks on John Wheeler's Delayed Choice Experiment - video http://vimeo.com/38508798 "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: 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
Here is a variation of Wheeler’s Delayed Choice which highlights free will's position within quantum mechanics;
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. Two pairs of entangled photons are produced, and one photon from each pair is sent to a party called Victor. Of the two remaining photons, one photon is sent to the party Alice and one is sent to the party Bob. Victor can now choose between two kinds of measurements. If he decides to measure his two photons in a way such that they are forced to be in an entangled state, then also Alice's and Bob's photon pair becomes entangled. If Victor chooses to measure his particles individually, Alice's and Bob's photon pair ends up in a separable state. Modern quantum optics technology allowed the team to delay Victor's choice and measurement with respect to the measurements which Alice and Bob perform on their photons. "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
i.e. how can my present choices effect the state of material particles into the past? Within the materialistic worldview this experiment is not even possible!: #2. Here’s Leggett’s Inequality
“I’m going to talk about the Bell inequality, and more importantly a new inequality that you might not have heard of called the Leggett inequality, that was recently measured. It was actually formulated almost 30 years ago by Professor Leggett, who is a Nobel Prize winner, but it wasn’t tested until about a year and a half ago (in 2007), when an article appeared in Nature, that the measurement was made by this prominent quantum group in Vienna led by Anton Zeilinger, which they measured the Leggett inequality, which actually goes a step deeper than the Bell inequality and rules out any possible interpretation other than consciousness creates reality when the measurement is made.” – Bernard Haisch, Ph.D., Calphysics Institute, is an astrophysicist and author of over 130 scientific publications. Preceding quote taken from this following video; Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness - A New Measurement - Bernard Haisch, Ph.D (Shortened version of entire video with notes in description of video) http://vimeo.com/37517080 Quantum physics says goodbye to reality - Apr 20, 2007 Excerpt: They devised an experiment that violates a different inequality proposed by physicist Anthony Leggett in 2003 that relies only on realism, and relaxes the reliance on locality. To do this, rather than taking measurements along just one plane of polarization, the Austrian team took measurements in additional, perpendicular planes to check for elliptical polarization. They found that, just as in the realizations of Bell's thought experiment, Leggett's inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we're not observing it. http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/27640
bornagain77_{September 24, 2013
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Hannam points out, quite correctly, that evolution by natural selection is a non-interventionist, non-teleological explanation of adaptation.
Adaptation and evolution are not the same thing. Just what is evolution by natural selection? If it is modern day genetics, then is this really evolution in the molecules to man scenario? Or is it just a clever design mechanism for organism to survive better? They are not the same thing. The debate is not over adaptation. Nobody has ever shown that adaptation has led to anything significant in the evolution debate. Bencze's reading is not ludicrous. He has nailed it. Darwin contributed little to science. He did create as Bencze said, the biggest con job in science history.jerry_{September 24, 2013
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@Querius #5
Frankly, I'm stunned by your assertion. If your education has included Physics, surely you're familiar with quantum mechanics, and the role played by measurement together with the potential for conscious observation. Consciousness has been repeatedly and convincingly demonstrated to collapse wave functions.
I happen to know a bit on that subject since my MSc thesis was titled "Quantum Paradoxes" (i.e. 'Kvantni Paradoksi' in Serbo-Croatian; it dealt with measurement problem, Bell inequalities, locality, etc). Few earlier posts in UD (post1 and post2) cover those questions in more detail, so I will only summarize the gist of it here. There is no empirically demonstrated 'wave function collapse' in QM (Quantum Mechanics), despite nearly a century of speculation on the subject and numerous experiments. See for example this long thread in Physics Forum explaining the blatant cheating in the most recent experimental claims of the 'collapse' demonstration. Consciousness entered that topic in 1932 as an offhand, perhaps tongue in cheek, remark by von Neumann in his analysis of the quantum measurement problem. He wasn't even specific on whether it was human or divine consciousness, nor what it is. By analyzing a measurement apparatus as a quantum object via dynamical laws of QM (unitary evolution eqs.) he realized that the apparatus cannot enter the state with definite result but remained in a superposition of states of all possible results. In order to fix it, he added apparatus A2 to "measure" the first apparatus A1, then treated both A1+A2 as quantum object, and still the combined system remained in an undefined (superposed) result state. Then he added infinite chain of instruments A3, A4, A5,... ultimately including the entire universe into a quantum object, each apparatus in the chain "measuring" the previous one, but still the linear equations could only produce the undefined (superposed) result for the entire chain. The immediate problem with such theoretical "prediction" was that it contradicted the most bare empirical fact which is that a definite result does occur even with single apparatus A1. The most obvious conclusion would be that QM equations were incomplete i.e. that there is perhaps a finer grained theory with variables which could predict or fix a single definite result of the measurement. In other words, QM would be a coarse grained statistical description of some deeper theory (hidden variable theory, HV). That was Einstein's view. But in the previous chapter of his 1932 QM monograph von Neumann believed he had proven a no-go theorem, showing that no such finer grained theory is possible. Hence he believed one couldn't assume that some finer grained theory than QM can exist and fix the problem. So at this point, with the infinite chain of instruments A1,A2,A3,... that included entire universe still in superposition, unable to pick a definite result according to QM equations, he gratuitously threw in a closing remark, that since all matter-energy of the universe was already included in the chain, the only thing he could think of that is outside of the matter-energy universe would be 'consciousness' (whose consciousness?). And that was that, nothing more to it. This informal, light-hearted remark was soon taken up by the popularizes and mystics and elaborated into a cottage industry of vapidity and wild speculations. Few decades later it turned out that von Neumann's proof of impossibility of hidden variables was flawed since it was based on empirically unsupported assumptions. The last nail in the coffin of the von Neumann's impossibility proof was struck by none other than John Bell in 1963. At the same time Bell came up with a weaker impossibility proof (making in turn his own empirically unsupported assumptions), showing that any finer grained theory has to be non-local, provided his premises are empirically supported. The empirical criterium he gave at the time for that support is known as 'violation of Bell inequalities' -- if the violations can be demonstrated empirically, then any finer grained theory must be non-local. So far, half a century later no such violation was observed despite countless experiments which sought to demonstrate it -- all of the experiments had "loopholes" (euphemism for "experiment failed to violate Bell inequalities"). The measurement problem itself, the superposition of the von Neumann's infinite chain, is still open as it was when he posed it. One option is that QM is incomplete, but the priesthoods of experts are averse to such answers. Some question whether there is any collapse at all since it was never demonstrated experimentally. Others question whether the QM measurement postulate is valid (making needlessly strong assumptions for composite systems). As explained in the earlier post1, I find the last possibility (gratuitously strong measurement postulate for the composite systems) the most convincing and the most economical in the assumptions (it doesn't add any new assumptions but merely drops one unsuppored old assumption). In any case, the measurement problem is a highly speculative, philosophical, borderline mystical, little corner of Quantum Theory, with no empirical evidence to ground the speculations and with nothing in practical uses of QM depending on any of it (i.e. it's an example of mental self-gratification). Regardless of the outcome of any future Bell inequality experiments or eventual resolution of the measurement problem, physicists have no more clue or expertise about 'consciousness' than any ten random guys Jay Leno picks on the street to ask for an opinion. No empirically based physics or physics experiment has any bearing on the matter, speculations by popularizers and mystics notwithstanding. A philosopher or cognitive scientist is far more clued and coherent on the subject of consciousness than a physicist. Yet even they too are nearly as clueless today as the ancient Greeks were thousands of years ago when the subject was first articulated coherently. Frankly, it makes me cringe any time I see the most speculative fringe recesses of Quantum Theory, the darkest place in its hairy armpit, being brought into the ID debate in support of the existence of the 'conscious agency'. If one were to ponder what is the best strategy to derail ID from becoming a legitimate, respected branch of natural science, dragging it and drowning it in the 'consciousness' tarpit would be hard to beat in effectiveness.nightlight_{September 24, 2013
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Consciousness has been repeatedly and convincingly demonstrated to collapse wave functions.
I've never seen it put quite that way in the physics classes I took. Could you provide a reference please?Jerad_{September 23, 2013
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nightlight,
There is nothing science can do with ‘consciousness’, intelligent or any other, since ‘consciousness’ is not a functional element of the present natural science.
Frankly, I'm stunned by your assertion. If your education has included Physics, surely you're familiar with quantum mechanics, and the role played by measurement together with the potential for conscious observation. Consciousness has been repeatedly and convincingly demonstrated to collapse wave functions. Are you skeptical then of QM phenomena such as quantum erasure? If so, how do you explain it?Querius_{September 23, 2013
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Some of ID's problem might be relate to the fact IDers can says something as witless as "[Darwin's] achievement was insignificant in terms of advancing science" and others can agree without batting an eye. Whatever else you might think about evolutionary biology, that's just not the case.wd400_{September 23, 2013
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The problem of DI's ID is that it has been taken over by philosophers, theologians and born-again folks who are needlessly dragging the debate with their consciousness-talk and agency-talk into the bottomless tarpits of philosophy and medieval scholastics, snatching the defeat out of the jaws of victory. The otherwise perfectly valid scientific objections to neo-Darwinism are being squandered and misdirectied into scientifically sterile rhetoric by the shortsighted greedy leap: neo-Darwinism flawed => therefore 'conscious agency'. For ID to get any traction as a candidate for science, DI urgently needs to rephrase their 'consciousness intelligence' talk into more modest 'computational process' terms, the stuff that scientists can work with and build something upon. There is nothing science can do with 'consciousness', intelligent or any other, since 'consciousness' is not a functional element of the present natural science.nightlight_{September 23, 2013
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Bencze's reading of Hannam is, to put it mildly, ludicrous. Hannam points out, quite correctly, that evolution by natural selection is a non-interventionist, non-teleological explanation of adaptation. From this it follows that Newton was wrong when he stated that "All that diversity of organisms which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing" (emphasis added). In other words, Newton was wrong when he claimed that there is no alternative explanation for the diversity of living things besides divine will and intelligence. Darwinism is, indeed, an alternative explanation. That said, Bencze is just fantasizing, or free-associating, when he so much as insinuates that Hannam's agreeing with Darwin against Newton on this particular point commits him to anything at all about either the existence of God or the role of God in evolution. ID's problem in a nutshell is that it consists of beating a straw horse -- constantly refuting a position ("materialism") that no one has actually held.Kantian Naturalist_{September 23, 2013
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Denyse, Do you have the link for Bencze's comments. I went to the web site and all I could find was his photos Absolutely perfect read of the world on this.jerry_{September 23, 2013
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