Physicist Eugene Wigner on the principal argument against materialism

Amazing verse, BA77. True indeed. In him, all things hold together. Truth Will Set You Free

To try to dispel some of the confusion surrounding GD's thinking. GD is hung up on the fact that Random Number Generators and the randomness of starlight are being used as 'stand ins' for “free will”/”choice” in the experiments.

Strong experimental guarantees in ultrafast quantum random number generation Excerpt: We describe a methodology and standard of proof for experimental claims of quantum random-number generation (QRNG), analogous to well-established methods from precision measurement. For appropriately constructed physical implementations, lower bounds on the quantum contribution to the average min-entropy can be derived from measurements on the QRNG output. Given these bounds, randomness extractors allow generation of nearly perfect “ -random” bit streams. https://journals.aps.org/pra/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevA.91.012314 COSMIC BELL EXPERIMENTS Excerpt: An important fundamental issue in all previous Bell experiments is the quality of the random numbers, which are used to decide the setting parameter on both photons independently. In our “loophole-free” experiment [1], we did this with high quality random number generators [2], which, to the best of our knowledge, are among the best random number generators currently available. Yet, as has been pointed out in the early days of this experiment, such random number generators could in principle still be influenced by some very recent event in their common past. In that sense, it is important to look for the most independent possible sources of randomness available in the Universe. It has been suggested very early to use the light from quasars at opposite locations in the sky to choose between the different measurement settings in a Bell experiment and a related explicit proposal for such a “Cosmic Bell” test was published in 2014 [3]. One of the ideas is that there are regions of the Universe, which, due to the inflationary early phase of the expansion of the Universe, are causally disconnected in the sense that they could not have been in any causal connection except at the time before inflation [Alan Guth, private communication]. https://www.iqoqi-vienna.at/research/zeilinger-group/cosmic-bell-experiments/

The use of "nearly perfect' quantum random-number generators and of 'random starlight' in the experiments are for a very specific reason. The reason they did this was to establish that the detector setting is completely independent and is not predetermined in any way, shape, or form, by any other causal factors in the universe. They have shown that the precondition of the detector setting is, what may be termed, “infinitely random” in that, as far as experiment will allow, there are found to be no causal, i.e. deterministic, influences predetermining what the detector setting will be . In other words, the fact that 'nearly perfect' randomness was used in the experiment was done precisely to refute the 'classical', deterministic, notion that the detector setting could somehow be predetermined. To be perfectly clear, they did 'philosophically' assume that the physicist running the experiment does have free will in that they assumed the experimenter can choose whatever detector setting he likes beforehand. But that was not the purpose of the experiment. The purpose of the experiment was to establish the fact of “complete setting independence” for the detector and not to establish 'complete free will' for the physicist running the experiment. In other words, they assumed the common sense assumption that physicist themselves have free will. And indeed the Physicist does not just randomly choose what detector settings to use beforehand and what aspects of reality to probe, but purposely chooses those settings and aspects in a experiment that will specifically answer the question he is asking about reality. And indeed even answer questions about the materialistic assumption of 'realism'. For example, “In the quantum world, the property that you discover through measurement is not the property that the system actually had prior to the measurement process. What you observe necessarily depends on how you carried out the observation” and “Measurement outcomes depend on all the other measurements that are performed – the full context of the experiment.”

Contextuality is 'magic ingredient' for quantum computing - June 11, 2012 Excerpt: Contextuality was first recognized as a feature of quantum theory almost 50 years ago. The theory showed that it was impossible to explain measurements on quantum systems in the same way as classical systems. In the classical world, measurements simply reveal properties that the system had, such as colour, prior to the measurement. In the quantum world, the property that you discover through measurement is not the property that the system actually had prior to the measurement process. What you observe necessarily depends on how you carried out the observation. Imagine turning over a playing card. It will be either a red suit or a black suit - a two-outcome measurement. Now imagine nine playing cards laid out in a grid with three rows and three columns. Quantum mechanics predicts something that seems contradictory – there must be an even number of red cards in every row and an odd number of red cards in every column. Try to draw a grid that obeys these rules and you will find it impossible. It's because quantum measurements cannot be interpreted as merely revealing a pre-existing property in the same way that flipping a card reveals a red or black suit. Measurement outcomes depend on all the other measurements that are performed – the full context of the experiment. Contextuality means that quantum measurements can not be thought of as simply revealing some pre-existing properties of the system under study. That's part of the weirdness of quantum mechanics. http://phys.org/news/2014-06-weird-magic-ingredient-quantum.html

In other words, due to contextuality, the results we obtain in quantum mechanics crucially depend on how we chose our prior measurements. As Anton Zeilinger stated of the Kochen-Specker theorem "what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.”

“The Kochen-Specker Theorem talks about properties of one system only. So we know that we cannot assume – to put it precisely, we know that it is wrong to assume that the features of a system, which we observe in a measurement exist prior to measurement. Not always. I mean in a certain cases. So in a sense, what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.” Anton Zeilinger – Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism – video (7:17 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4C5pq7W5yRM#t=437

And if GD really wants to go down the path of denying that the scientists doing the experiments have free will, in being able to choose whatever detector settings they like, I remind readers that GD is logically cutting his own throat in that in his denial of his own free will he is forsaking any right to the claim that he is making a logically coherent argument in the first place:

Sam Harris's Free Will: The Medial Pre-Frontal Cortex Did It - Martin Cothran - November 9, 2012 Excerpt: There is something ironic about the position of thinkers like (Sam) Harris on issues like this: they claim that their position is the result of the irresistible necessity of logic (in fact, they pride themselves on their logic). Their belief is the consequent, in a ground/consequent relation between their evidence and their conclusion. But their very stated position is that any mental state -- including their position on this issue -- is the effect of a physical, not logical cause. By their own logic, it isn't logic that demands their assent to the claim that free will is an illusion, but the prior chemical state of their brains. The only condition under which we could possibly find their argument convincing is if they are not true. The claim that free will is an illusion requires the possibility that minds have the freedom to assent to a logical argument, a freedom denied by the claim itself. It is an assent that must, in order to remain logical and not physiological, presume a perspective outside the physical order. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/11/sam_harriss_fre066221.html

To be blunt, GD's denial of his own free will is insane! And of particular interest to GD's notion of 'random starlight" is the experiment of 'quantum entanglement in time'. In regards to the experiment of 'quantum entanglement in time', in the following article Professor Crull states “entanglement can occur across two quantum systems that never coexisted,,, it implies that the measurements carried out by your eye upon starlight falling through your telescope this winter somehow dictated the polarity of photons more than 9 billion years old.”

You thought quantum mechanics was weird: check out entangled time - Feb. 2018 Excerpt: Up to today, most experiments have tested entanglement over spatial gaps. The assumption is that the ‘nonlocal’ part of quantum nonlocality refers to the entanglement of properties across space. But what if entanglement also occurs across time? Is there such a thing as temporal nonlocality?,,, The data revealed the existence of quantum correlations between ‘temporally nonlocal’ photons 1 and 4. That is, entanglement can occur across two quantum systems that never coexisted. What on Earth can this mean? Prima facie, it seems as troubling as saying that the polarity of starlight in the far-distant past – say, greater than twice Earth’s lifetime – nevertheless influenced the polarity of starlight falling through your amateur telescope this winter. Even more bizarrely: maybe it implies that the measurements carried out by your eye upon starlight falling through your telescope this winter somehow dictated the polarity of photons more than 9 billion years old. https://aeon.co/ideas/you-thought-quantum-mechanics-was-weird-check-out-entangled-time

That experiment would certainly seem to throw a big ole monkey wrench into GD's entire 'random starlight' hypothesis. One interesting final note to all this is the falsification of Einstein's prior 'classical' notions about quantum mechanics and his own mind:

Albert Einstein vs. Quantum Mechanics and His Own Mind – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxFFtZ301j4

Verse:

Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

bornagain77

Gotcha GD, everybody is mistaken except you and your fellow Atheists. The precise point of the cosmic bell test was to close the setting independence loophole and establish that the physicist running the experiment has "complete free will" in choosing each detector’s setting. Thus you are stuck with either accepting the reality of free will or with accepting 'superdeterminism'. Both positions are self-defeaters for atheistic materialism. If you do not like the results, argue with the scientists, (Zeilinger and Company), who closed the free will 'loophole'. Here is Anton Zielinger's website where you can contact him personally and tell him exactly why you think he is wrong in his experimentally verified belief in free will. ZEILINGER GROUP EXPERIMENTAL QUANTUM FOUNDATIONS AND APPLICATIONS https://www.iqoqi-vienna.at/research/zeilinger-group/ Do let me know how all that goes for you. As to your beef with subjective consciousness in QM, see my post on kf's thread on the falsification of 'realism"

Of related note, objective reality does not belong to the Atheistic Materialist but to the Theist who holds ‘subjective’ Mind to be the primary foundation of reality: https://uncommondescent.com/mathematics/why-is-the-objectivity-of-mathematics-an-important-id-relevant-question/#comment-660356

bornagain77

You're just repeating your mistake, without addressing my point.

Quantum “Spookiness” Passes Toughest Test Yet – August 28, 2015 [...] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quantum-spookiness-passes-toughest-test-yet/

Actual article: https://arxiv.org/abs/1508.05949. If you look at the diagram at the top of page 2, they used quantum random number generators (not conscious choice) to choose which measurements to make, and the results of the measurement were recorded rather than being directly observed by a conscious observer. No consciousness directly involved. As I said, the fact that these effects occur without the direct involvement of any conscious entities means they aren't dependent on conscionsness, which pretty much pulls the rug out from under your whole argument.

Closing the ‘free will’ loophole: Using distant quasars to test Bell’s theorem – February 20, 2014 [...] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140220112515.htm

As I said before, this proposal involves using the randomness of starlight as a source of "free will"/"choice" -- not consciousness. Do you think starlight is conscious? If not, then this does not support your view.

Prof. Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology lecture: Entangled Photons – from Bell Tests (closing all loopholes, including freedom of choice, at 16:40 minute mark) to Applications – Published on Jul 25, 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzMdKCcCGDI

I presume you mean 17:40? Anyway, he's talking about the same thing as your last link, using starlight as a source of "free will"/"choice".

Marissa Giustina: Significant loophole-free test of Bell’s theorem with entangled photons – video Published on Jul 5, 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgoWM4Jcl-s [...] http://arxiv.org/pdf/1511.03190.pdf

I haven't watched the video, but the arXiv paper says: "While the photons were in flight, the choice of measurement setting was made in each station by a random number generator (RNG) [25,26] situated there. The measurement was implemented by a fast electro-optical modulator (EOM) followed by a polar- izer and a transition-edge sensor (TES) single-photon detector [27]. The signal from the TES was amplified by a series of superconducting [28] and room-temperature amplifiers, digitized, and recorded locally on a hard drive." Again, no conscious choice or observation was directly involved.

Cosmic Bell Test: Measurement Settings from Milky Way Stars – 2017 [...] http://vcq.quantum.at/publications/all-publications/details/2036.html Experiment Reaffirms Quantum Weirdness – 2017 [...] https://www.quantamagazine.org/20170207-bell-test-quantum-loophole/ Quantum Entanglement & the Cosmic Bell Test – video (February 2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGPJKJWY-7o

Again, these are all talking about using starlight-based randomness, not conscious choice.

But why is the quantum world thought spooky anyway? – September 1, 2015 Excerpt: Zeilinger also notes that there remains one last, somewhat philosophical loophole, first identified by Bell himself: the possibility that hidden variables could somehow manipulate the experimenters’ choices of what properties to measure, tricking them into thinking quantum theory is correct.,,, Leifer is less troubled by this ‘freedom-of-choice loophole’, however. “It could be that there is some kind of superdeterminism, so that the choice of measurement settings was determined at the Big Bang,” he says. “We can never prove that is not the case, so I think it’s fair to say that most physicists don’t worry too much about this.” https://uncommondescent.com/physics/but-why-is-the-quantum-world-thought-spooky-anyway/ Superdeterminism, Calvinism, and free will (August 2016) if you truly believe that your free will choices were ‘superdetermined’ all the way back at the big bang, then I say welcome to Christianity since ultra-strict Calvinists have, for centuries, held to a ‘superdeterminism’ view of reality. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/since-you-asked-2/#comment-615455

So? As I said before, I agree that we can reject superdeterminism.

Accommodating Retrocausality with Free Will – 2016 [...] http://quanta.ws/ojs/index.php/quanta/article/view/44

Relevance? They're examining causality in a situation that, as far as we know, doesn't (and maybe cannot) exist.

The Death of Materialism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM0IKLv7KrE Materialism has been dead for decades and recent research only reconfirms this, as this video will show. This video was reviewed by physicist Fred Kuttner and Richard Conn Henry. A few other physicists reviewed this but asked to remain anonymous for privacy reasons.

The InspiringPhilosophy guy makes many of the same mistakes you do.

The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics – Steven Weinberg – January 19, 2017 [...] Some physicists who adopt an instrumentalist approach argue that the probabilities we infer from the wave function are objective probabilities, independent of whether humans are making a measurement. I don’t find this tenable. In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure, such as the spin in one or another direction. Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made... http://www.nybooks.com/article.....mechanics/

This sounds superficially relevant, doesn't it? But as we've seen in your previous citations, physicists don't really distinguish between a person choosing which measurement to make vs a random process making the choice. Also, if you actually bother to read the article, he's basically griping about how he doesn't really like either realist or instrumentalist interpretations of QM, and thinks we need a better theory to replace QM. And he says: "The goal in inventing a new theory is to make this happen not by giving measurement any special status in the laws of physics, but as part of what in the post-quantum theory would be the ordinary processes of physics." In other words, he doesn't think that either the choice of measurements to make, nor observation of their results, should have any special status.

“The Kochen-Speckter Theorem talks about properties of one system only. So we know that we cannot assume – to put it precisely, we know that it is wrong to assume that the features of a system, which we observe in a measurement exist prior to measurement. Not always. I mean in a certain cases. So in a sense, what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.” Anton Zeilinger – Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism – video (7:17 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4C5pq7W5yRM#t=437

The Kochen-Specker theorem, as usual, is generally tested using non-conscious choice of measurements and non-conscious observation of results. So when he says "We are not just passive observers", he's not specifically talking about conscious observers. The K-S results imply that unconscious measurement devices are also not just passive observers.

New Book, Cosmological Implications of Heisenberg’s Principle, Argues for Purpose and Design in Nature – Casey Luskin – August 5, 2015 Excerpt: Physicist Stephen Barr explains his view of quantum indeterminacy: “The death of determinism is not the only deep conclusion that follows from the probabilistic nature of quantum theory. An even deeper conclusion that some have drawn is that materialism, as applied to the human mind, is wrong. Eugene Wigner, a Nobel laureate, argued in a famous essay that philosophical materialism is not “logically consistent with present quantum mechanics.” And Sir Rudolf Peierls, another leading physicist, maintained that “the premise that you can describe in terms of physics the whole function of a human being . . . including its knowledge, and its consciousness, is untenable.” Why does it destroy materialism? Because any material system is subject to the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics. Only once a mind observes (or doesn’t observe) some event can you have a definitive answer about whether the event did (or did not) happen. As Barr puts it: “As long as only physical structures and mechanisms are involved, however complex, their behavior is described by equations that yield only probabilities — and once a mind is involved that can make a rational judgment of fact, and thus come to knowledge, there is certainty. Therefore, such a mind cannot be just a physical structure or mechanism completely describable by the equations of physics.” Minds, therefore, cannot be strictly material entities or they too would be subject to such indeterminacy. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/08/new_book_cosmol098321.html Does Quantum Physics Make it Easier to Believe in God? Stephen M. Barr – July 10, 2012 Excerpt: Couldn’t an inanimate physical device (say, a Geiger counter) carry out a “measurement” (minus the ‘observer’ in quantum mechanics)? That would run into the very problem pointed out by von Neumann: If the “observer” were just a purely physical entity, such as a Geiger counter, one could in principle write down a bigger wavefunction that described not only the thing being measured but also the observer. And, when calculated with the Schrödinger equation, that bigger wave function would not jump! Again: as long as only purely physical entities are involved, they are governed by an equation that says that the probabilities don’t jump. That’s why, when Peierls was asked whether a machine could be an “observer,” he said no, explaining that “the quantum mechanical description is in terms of knowledge, and knowledge requires somebody who knows.” Not a purely physical thing, but a mind. https://www.bigquestionsonline.com/content/does-quantum-physics-make-it-easier-believe-god

Barr's argument is fundamentally silly. We don't know what (if anything) causes an wavefunction to collapse. Barr infers that therefore, it must be consciousness that causes collapse! But there's no basis for that inference, other than Barr having started with the assumption that consciousness is special. Actually, collapse (if it's even a real thing) could be caused by pretty much anything, as long as it doesn't occur to the particles being studied, during the experiment. Take the Ghirardi–Rimini–Weber theory as an example. It proposes that individual particles sometimes (but very very rarely) spontaneously collapse. This'll almost never happen to any of the particles involved in an experiment during the experiment, but once you get a measuring device (consisting of millions of billions of billions of particles), it's almost certain that at least one of them will collapse pretty quick, and when that happens it'll (per the normal rules of QM) collapse the entire entangled superposition. Does that sound silly to you? If so, it's only because your pre-existing philosophical bias makes the idea of consciousness being special seem less silly than the idea of particles being special. But it's actually worse that that. If Burr is right, then all of those other experiments you cited -- all those experiments that used non-conscious measurements and recording and results -- didn't actually test what they set out to do, because their measurements didn't really happen! Well, not until much later, when (/if) a human looked at the results. Do you really want to make that claim?

The Measurement Problem in quantum mechanics – (Inspiring Philosophy) – 2014 video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB7d5V71vUE

The InspiringPhilosophy guy (and many of those he quotes) are making the same mistake as Barr; mistaking their philosophical prejudice for an implication of QM. And his discussion starting at 6:20 of what Henry Stapp calls the "Heisenberg choice" (what to measure) vs. the "Dirac choice" (what the result will be) is pretty much refuted by all those citations you gave earlier. He claims it takes an "observer" to choose what to measure, but as we saw earlier that can be made randomly. Gordon Davisson

Of related note to the preceding articles:

But why is the quantum world thought spooky anyway? - September 1, 2015 Excerpt: Zeilinger also notes that there remains one last, somewhat philosophical loophole, first identified by Bell himself: the possibility that hidden variables could somehow manipulate the experimenters’ choices of what properties to measure, tricking them into thinking quantum theory is correct.,,, Leifer is less troubled by this ‘freedom-of-choice loophole’, however. “It could be that there is some kind of superdeterminism, so that the choice of measurement settings was determined at the Big Bang,” he says. “We can never prove that is not the case, so I think it’s fair to say that most physicists don’t worry too much about this.” https://uncommondescent.com/physics/but-why-is-the-quantum-world-thought-spooky-anyway/ Superdeterminism, Calvinism, and free will (August 2016) if you truly believe that your free will choices were ‘superdetermined’ all the way back at the big bang, then I say welcome to Christianity since ultra-strict Calvinists have, for centuries, held to a ‘superdeterminism’ view of reality. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/since-you-asked-2/#comment-615455

A few more notes

Accommodating Retrocausality with Free Will - 2016 Retrocausal models of quantum mechanics add further weight to the conflict between causality and the possible existence of free will. We analyze a simple closed causal loop ensuing from the interaction between two systems with opposing thermodynamic time arrows, such that each system can forecast future events for the other. The loop is avoided by the fact that the choice to abort an event thus forecasted leads to the destruction of the forecaster’s past. Physical law therefore enables prophecy of future events only as long as this prophecy is not revealed to a free agent who can otherwise render it false. This resolution is demonstrated on an earlier finding derived from the two-state vector formalism, where a weak measurement’s outcome anticipates a future choice, yet this anticipation becomes apparent only after the choice has been actually made. To quantify this assertion, weak information is described in terms of Fisher information. We conclude that an already existing future does not exclude free will nor invoke causal paradoxes. On the quantum level, particles can be thought of as weakly interacting according to their past and future states, but causality remains intact as long as the future is masked by quantum indeterminism. Quanta 2016; 5: 53–60. Conclusions We examined the possibility of free will in a retrocausal theory. Closed causal loops, which arise due to the interaction between two systems with opposing time arrows were discussed. The suggested resolution of the ensuing paradoxes relies on the thermodynamic instability of the past. Moving to the quantum realm, a similar paradox can be solved via the quantum indeterminism, which is understood to protect free will. This resonates with previous findings of Georgiev [7]. Furthermore, we discussed the strength of information transmission, where the terms strong and weak are related to strong (projective) and weak values, respectively. When information about a future event is buried under quantum indeterminism it cannot violate free will. Similarly, encrypted information, such as the one available through weak measurements, does not violate causality. The existence of free will in these time symmetric models was conjectured to resonate with a dynamical notion of time. http://quanta.ws/ojs/index.php/quanta/article/view/44 The Death of Materialism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM0IKLv7KrE Materialism has been dead for decades and recent research only reconfirms this, as this video will show. This video was reviewed by physicist Fred Kuttner and Richard Conn Henry. A few other physicists reviewed this but asked to remain anonymous for privacy reasons. The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics - Steven Weinberg - January 19, 2017 Excerpt: The instrumentalist approach,, (the) wave function,, is merely an instrument that provides predictions of the probabilities of various outcomes when measurements are made.,, In the instrumentalist approach,,, humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level. According to Eugene Wigner, a pioneer of quantum mechanics, “it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness.”11 Thus the instrumentalist approach turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else. It is not that we object to thinking about humans. Rather, we want to understand the relation of humans to nature, not just assuming the character of this relation by incorporating it in what we suppose are nature’s fundamental laws, but rather by deduction from laws that make no explicit reference to humans. We may in the end have to give up this goal,,, Some physicists who adopt an instrumentalist approach argue that the probabilities we infer from the wave function are objective probabilities, independent of whether humans are making a measurement. I don’t find this tenable. In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure, such as the spin in one or another direction. Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/01/19/trouble-with-quantum-mechanics/ “The Kochen-Speckter Theorem talks about properties of one system only. So we know that we cannot assume – to put it precisely, we know that it is wrong to assume that the features of a system, which we observe in a measurement exist prior to measurement. Not always. I mean in a certain cases. So in a sense, what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.” Anton Zeilinger - Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism - video (7:17 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4C5pq7W5yRM#t=437 New Book, Cosmological Implications of Heisenberg's Principle, Argues for Purpose and Design in Nature - Casey Luskin - August 5, 2015 Excerpt: Physicist Stephen Barr explains his view of quantum indeterminacy: "The death of determinism is not the only deep conclusion that follows from the probabilistic nature of quantum theory. An even deeper conclusion that some have drawn is that materialism, as applied to the human mind, is wrong. Eugene Wigner, a Nobel laureate, argued in a famous essay that philosophical materialism is not "logically consistent with present quantum mechanics." And Sir Rudolf Peierls, another leading physicist, maintained that "the premise that you can describe in terms of physics the whole function of a human being . . . including its knowledge, and its consciousness, is untenable." Why does it destroy materialism? Because any material system is subject to the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics. Only once a mind observes (or doesn't observe) some event can you have a definitive answer about whether the event did (or did not) happen. As Barr puts it: "As long as only physical structures and mechanisms are involved, however complex, their behavior is described by equations that yield only probabilities -- and once a mind is involved that can make a rational judgment of fact, and thus come to knowledge, there is certainty. Therefore, such a mind cannot be just a physical structure or mechanism completely describable by the equations of physics." Minds, therefore, cannot be strictly material entities or they too would be subject to such indeterminacy. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/08/new_book_cosmol098321.html Does Quantum Physics Make it Easier to Believe in God? Stephen M. Barr - July 10, 2012 Excerpt: Couldn’t an inanimate physical device (say, a Geiger counter) carry out a “measurement” (minus the 'observer' in quantum mechanics)? That would run into the very problem pointed out by von Neumann: If the “observer” were just a purely physical entity, such as a Geiger counter, one could in principle write down a bigger wavefunction that described not only the thing being measured but also the observer. And, when calculated with the Schrödinger equation, that bigger wave function would not jump! Again: as long as only purely physical entities are involved, they are governed by an equation that says that the probabilities don’t jump. That’s why, when Peierls was asked whether a machine could be an “observer,” he said no, explaining that “the quantum mechanical description is in terms of knowledge, and knowledge requires somebody who knows.” Not a purely physical thing, but a mind. https://www.bigquestionsonline.com/content/does-quantum-physics-make-it-easier-believe-god The Measurement Problem in quantum mechanics – (Inspiring Philosophy) – 2014 video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB7d5V71vUE

bornagain77

A few notes that might help you understand a little more clearly:

Quantum "Spookiness" Passes Toughest Test Yet - August 28, 2015 Excerpt: It’s a bad day both for Albert Einstein and for hackers. The most rigorous test of quantum theory ever carried out has confirmed that the ‘spooky action at a distance’ that the German physicist famously hated — in which manipulating one object instantaneously seems to affect another, far away one — is an inherent part of the quantum world.,,, Moreover, the experiment closed both loopholes at once: because the electrons were easy to monitor, the detection loophole was not an issue, and they were separated far enough apart to close the communication loophole, too. “It is a truly ingenious and beautiful experiment,” says Anton Zeilinger, a physicist at the Vienna Centre for Quantum Science and Technology. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quantum-spookiness-passes-toughest-test-yet/ Closing the 'free will' loophole: Using distant quasars to test Bell's theorem - February 20, 2014 Excerpt: Though two major loopholes have since been closed, a third remains; physicists refer to it as "setting independence," or more provocatively, "free will." This loophole proposes that a particle detector's settings may "conspire" with events in the shared causal past of the detectors themselves to determine which properties of the particle to measure -- a scenario that, however far-fetched, implies that a physicist running the experiment does not have complete free will in choosing each detector's setting. Such a scenario would result in biased measurements, suggesting that two particles are correlated more than they actually are, and giving more weight to quantum mechanics than classical physics. "It sounds creepy, but people realized that's a logical possibility that hasn't been closed yet," says MIT's David Kaiser, the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and senior lecturer in the Department of Physics. "Before we make the leap to say the equations of quantum theory tell us the world is inescapably crazy and bizarre, have we closed every conceivable logical loophole, even if they may not seem plausible in the world we know today?" http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140220112515.htm Prof. Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology lecture: Entangled Photons - from Bell Tests (closing all loopholes, including freedom of choice, at 16:40 minute mark) to Applications - Published on Jul 25, 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzMdKCcCGDI

Here is a more detailed explanation of the closing of the freedom of choice loophole

Marissa Giustina: Significant loophole-free test of Bell’s theorem with entangled photons – video Published on Jul 5, 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgoWM4Jcl-s Significant-loophole-free test of Bell’s theorem with entangled photons – Dec. 2015 Local realism is the worldview in which physical properties of objects exist independently of measurement and where physical influences cannot travel faster than the speed of light. Bell’s theorem states that this worldview is incompatible with the predictions of quantum mechanics, as is expressed in Bell’s inequalities. Previous experiments convincingly supported the quantum predictions. Yet, every experiment requires assumptions that provide loopholes for a local realist explanation. In this paper, I will discuss the recent results from my laboratory, in which we designed an experiment that closes the most significant of these loopholes simultaneously. Using a well-optimized source of entangled photons, rapid setting generation, and highly efficient superconducting detectors, we observe a violation of a Bell inequality with high statistical significance. The purely statistical probability of our results to occur under local realism is exceedingly unlikely, corresponding to an 11.5 standard deviation effect. Excerpt page 5: By closing the freedom-of-choice loophole to one natural stopping point—the first moment at which the particles come into existence—we reduce the possible local-realist explanations to truly exotic hypotheses. Any theory seeking to explain our result by exploiting this loophole would require to originate before the emission event and to influence setting choices derived from spontaneous emission. It has been suggested that setting choices determined by events from distant cosmological sources could push this limit back by billions of years [46]. http://arxiv.org/pdf/1511.03190.pdf Cosmic Bell Test: Measurement Settings from Milky Way Stars – 2017 Abstract: Bell’s theorem states that some predictions of quantum mechanics cannot be reproduced by a local-realist theory. That conflict is expressed by Bell’s inequality, which is usually derived under the assumption that there are no statistical correlations between the choices of measurement settings and anything else that can causally affect the measurement outcomes. In previous experiments, this “freedom of choice” was addressed by ensuring that selection of measurement settings via conventional “quantum random number generators” was spacelike separated from the entangled particle creation. This, however, left open the possibility that an unknown cause affected both the setting choices and measurement outcomes as recently as mere microseconds before each experimental trial. Here we report on a new experimental test of Bell’s inequality that, for the first time, uses distant astronomical sources as “cosmic setting generators.” In our tests with polarization-entangled photons, measurement settings were chosen using real-time observations of Milky Way stars while simultaneously ensuring locality. Assuming fair sampling for all detected photons, and that each stellar photon’s color was set at emission, we observe statistically significant ?7.31? and ?11.93? violations of Bell’s inequality with estimated p values of ?1.8×10?13 and ?4.0×10?33, respectively, thereby pushing back by ?600 years the most recent time by which any local-realist influences could have engineered the observed Bell violation. http://vcq.quantum.at/publications/all-publications/details/2036.html Experiment Reaffirms Quantum Weirdness - 2017 Excerpt: In the first of a planned series of “cosmic Bell test” experiments, the team sent pairs of photons from the roof of Zeilinger’s lab in Vienna through the open windows of two other buildings and into optical modulators, tallying coincident detections as usual. But this time, they attempted to lower the chance that the modulator settings might somehow become correlated with the states of the photons in the moments before each measurement. They pointed a telescope out of each window, trained each telescope on a bright and conveniently located (but otherwise random) star, and, before each measurement, used the color of an incoming photon from each star to set the angle of the associated modulator. The colors of these photons were decided hundreds of years ago, when they left their stars, increasing the chance that they (and therefore the measurement settings) were independent of the states of the photons being measured. And yet, the scientists found that the measurement outcomes still violated Bell’s upper limit, boosting their confidence that the polarized photons in the experiment exhibit spooky action at a distance after all. Nature could still exploit the freedom-of-choice loophole, but the universe would have had to delete items from the menu of possible measurement settings at least 600 years before the measurements occurred (when the closer of the two stars sent its light toward Earth). “Now one needs the correlations to have been established even before Shakespeare wrote, ‘Until I know this sure uncertainty, I’ll entertain the offered fallacy,’” Hall said. Next, the team plans to use light from increasingly distant quasars to control their measurement settings, probing further back in time and giving the universe an even smaller window to cook up correlations between future device settings and restrict freedoms. https://www.quantamagazine.org/20170207-bell-test-quantum-loophole/ Quantum Entanglement & the Cosmic Bell Test - video (February 2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGPJKJWY-7o

bornagain77

ba77, you've completely failed to address the central point of my last message, so I'll state it plainly here: The experiments you've cited as showing there's something special about conscious choice & free will do not actually involve conscious choice, but rather simple randomness. The experiments you've cited as showing there's something special about conscious observation do not actually involve conscious observation, but rather measurement by unconscious devices (or worse, simple absorption). Far from showing that there's something special about consciousness, they actually show that, at least for these purposes, there is nothing special about consciousness, since it can be replaced by unconscious stand ins. Gordon Davisson

Since a lot of Gordon's post involved him trying to refute Zeilinger's "opinion' on free will (and Theism in general), I think the following quote will help clarify what Zeilinger's exact 'opinion' on free will is. Anton Zeilinger states in the following video, what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.”

“The Kochen-Speckter Theorem talks about properties of one system only. So we know that we cannot assume – to put it precisely, we know that it is wrong to assume that the features of a system, which we observe in a measurement exist prior to measurement. Not always. I mean in a certain cases. So in a sense, what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.” Anton Zeilinger – Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism – video (7:17 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4C5pq7W5yRM#t=437

Needless to say, 'Not just passive observers' is very conducive to my Christian worldview. Also of note, In Gordon's denial of the reality of free will, he undermines his own claim that he is, by his own volition, forming a rationally coherent 'opinion'.

Sam Harris’s Free Will: The Medial Pre-Frontal Cortex Did It – Martin Cothran – November 9, 2012 Excerpt: There is something ironic about the position of thinkers like Harris on issues like this: they claim that their position is the result of the irresistible necessity of logic (in fact, they pride themselves on their logic). Their belief is the consequent, in a ground/consequent relation between their evidence and their conclusion. But their very stated position is that any mental state — including their position on this issue — is the effect of a physical, not logical cause. By their own logic, it isn’t logic that demands their assent to the claim that free will is an illusion, but the prior chemical state of their brains. The only condition under which we could possibly find their argument convincing is if they are not true. The claim that free will is an illusion requires the possibility that minds have the freedom to assent to a logical argument, a freedom denied by the claim itself. It is an assent that must, in order to remain logical and not physiological, presume a perspective outside the physical order. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/11/sam_harriss_fre066221.html

As to 'presume a perspective outside the physical order', see, Lewis's "the argument from reason':

THE ARGUMENT FROM REASON - John M. DePoe Excerpt: (CS) Lewis closes the third chapter of Miracles with this conclusion: Reason is given before Nature and on reason our concept of Nature depends. Our acts of inference are prior to our picture of Nature almost as the telephone is prior to the friend’s voice we hear by it. When we try to fit these acts into the picture of nature we fail. The item which we put into that picture and label "Reason" always turns out to be somehow different from the reason we ourselves are enjoying and exercising as we put it in. [. . .] But the imagined thinking which we put into the picture depends—because our whole idea of Nature depends—on thinking we actually doing, not vice versa. This is the prime reality, on which the attribution of reality to anything else rests. If it won’t fit into Nature, we can’t help it. We will certainly not, on that account, give it up. If we do, we should be giving up Nature too. http://www.reasonsforgod.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/DePoe-The-Argument-from-Reason.pdf

Also see Weinberg's description of the 'instrumentalist approach': Steven Weinberg states in the following article, (in quantum mechanics) humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level.,,, the instrumentalist approach (in quantum mechanics) turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.,,, In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure,,, Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,,

The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics – Steven Weinberg – January 19, 2017 Excerpt: The instrumentalist approach,, (the) wave function,, is merely an instrument that provides predictions of the probabilities of various outcomes when measurements are made.,, In the instrumentalist approach,,, humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level. According to Eugene Wigner, a pioneer of quantum mechanics, “it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness.”11 Thus the instrumentalist approach turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else. It is not that we object to thinking about humans. Rather, we want to understand the relation of humans to nature, not just assuming the character of this relation by incorporating it in what we suppose are nature’s fundamental laws, but rather by deduction from laws that make no explicit reference to humans. We may in the end have to give up this goal,,, Some physicists who adopt an instrumentalist approach argue that the probabilities we infer from the wave function are objective probabilities, independent of whether humans are making a measurement. I don’t find this tenable. In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure, such as the spin in one or another direction. Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/01/19/trouble-with-quantum-mechanics/

And again, this 'humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level' and ' these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure' position is very comforting to overall Christian presuppositions. To reiterate, although free will is often thought of as allowing someone to choose between a veritable infinity of options, in a theistic view of reality that veritable infinity of options all boils down to just two options. Eternal life, (infinity if you will), with God, or Eternal life, (infinity again if you will), without God. C.S. states it as such:

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.” – C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

And exactly as would be expected on the Christian view of reality, we find two very different eternities in reality. An ‘infinitely destructive’ eternity associated with General Relativity and a extremely orderly eternity associated with Special Relativity:

Quantum Mechanics, Special Relativity, General Relativity and Christianity – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4QDy1Soolo

Verse;

Isaiah 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

bornagain77

Gordon Davisson at 37 states:

ba77: Actually, Anton Zeilinger agrees far more with the Christian position than he does with your Atheistic Materialism. First off, as mention previously in this thread, Zeilinger holds to a “Information Theoretic” position on Quantum Mechanics and even mentions John 1:1 on at least a couple of occasions. Gordon: Did you notice the very next thing he said in the video after quoting John 1:1? He says “And I know that this is not the only tradition in the world which says something like that.”

And exactly how does this unspecified allusion to other traditions refute my claim that "Anton Zeilinger agrees far more with the Christian position than he does with your Atheistic Materialism"? It seems readily apparent to me that you are far more interested in trying to cast doubt on Christianity than you are in truthfully acknowledging that Atheistic Materialism, as traditionally conceived for thousands of years, and which currently undergirds Darwinian thought, is completely incompatible with quantum mechanics. Gordon then states:

Gordon: Did you also notice this bit at around 10:57 in the video (while talking about a photon through/reflecting off a half-silvered mirror): [Zeilinger:] … I like to provoke some of my Catholic friends sometimes when I talk to them I say that not even God knows what will happen. And they tell me you know, how can I say this, and I say, well, you know, just give God the right to have created the world such that it’s a little bit more interesting for him or her, you know. He doesn’t know all this everything beforehand, but this is just a side remark…

I did notice that comment. First off, He is making a Theistic presupposition about God's omniscience and is not making an Atheistic Materialism presupposition. In other words, it is absolutely no help for you. Secondly, at the 37:00 minute mark, Anton Zeilinger also humorously reflected on just how deeply determinism has been undermined by quantum mechanics by saying such a deep lack of determinism may provide some of us a loop hole when they meet God on judgment day.

Prof Anton Zeilinger speaks on quantum physics. at UCT - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3ZPWW5NOrw

Personally, I feel that such a deep undermining of determinism by quantum mechanics, far from providing a 'loop hole' on judgment day as Dr. Zeilinger stated, actually restores free will to its rightful place in the grand scheme of things, thus making God's final judgments on men's souls all the more fully binding since man truly is a 'free moral agent' to the infinite extent possibly allowed. Although free will is often thought of as allowing someone to choose between a veritable infinity of options, in a theistic view of reality that veritable infinity of options all boils down to just two options. Eternal life, (infinity if you will), with God, or Eternal life, (infinity again if you will), without God. C.S. states it as such:

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell." - C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

And exactly as would be expected on the Christian view of reality, we find two very different eternities in reality. An ‘infinitely destructive’ eternity associated with General Relativity and a extremely orderly eternity associated with Special Relativity:

Quantum Mechanics, Special Relativity, General Relativity and Christianity - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4QDy1Soolo

Gordon then goes through a bunch more stuff about free will and how detector settings are chosen "randomly" by photons before ultimately rejecting 'superdeterminism'. That entire exercise by Gordon is too funny. Since Gordon rejects determinism and now also rejects 'superdeterminism', Gordon is left with no other option than free will. That WAS THE ENTIRE POINT of the experiment for crying out loud! To go on, Gordon tries to get into the weeds on Peres, but Asher Peres also stated this:

"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).

Again, realism, i.e. atheistic materialism, is completely incompatible with this result. And again, Gordon seems to be completely oblivious to the fact that the entire materialistic foundation of his Darwinian worldview is collapsing. As Wheeler stated:

“No phenomenon is a physical phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon.” — John Wheeler Quoted in Robert J. Scully, The Demon and the Quantum (2007), 191

Gordon then goes on to Thermodynamics and reiterates his claim against Granville Sewell. Thermodynamics is a far more devastating problem for Darwinists than Gordon seems willing to ever admit. Myself, I will choose empirical evidence over Gordon's posturing ANY day!

Evolution vs. Entropy - video https://youtu.be/SGaSE-Q8nDU (June 2018) Moreover, the information content of the entire human body is found to be much greater that just the 3.2 billion (10^9) base pairs encoded on the DNA. For instance, the 3.2 x 10^9 base pairs of information encoded on human DNA could easily be stored on a single thumb drive. Yet, as the following video notes, the information required to build a human infant, atom by atom, would take up the equivalent of enough thumb drives to fill the Titanic, multiplied by 2,000. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/cells-are-chock-full-of-information-systems-not-just-dna/#comment-659629

As to the quantum zeno effect and Gordon's attempt to find some type of materialistic loophole, that is exactly why I also listed the 'interaction free measurement' experiment. Interaction free measurements are NOT friendly to Atheistic concerns. Here is a simple example that is easy to understand:

An Interaction-Free Quantum Experiment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOv8zYla1wY

All is all, the same profound mistake runs all though Gordon's supposed rebuttal. He seeks to cast doubt on the Christian view of creation all the while forgetting that he, as an atheistic materialist, is left completely without any coherent foundation whatsoever in which to make the criticism. i.e. remove the plank Gordon!

Matthew 7:5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

bornagain77

ba77 @ 25:

Actually, Anton Zeilinger agrees far more with the Christian position than he does with your Atheistic Materialism. First off, as mention previously in this thread, Zeilinger holds to a “Information Theoretic” position on Quantum Mechanics and even mentions John 1:1 on at least a couple of occasions.

Did you notice the very next thing he said in the video after quoting John 1:1? He says "And I know that this is not the only tradition in the world which says something like that." Did you also notice this bit at around 10:57 in the video (while talking about a photon through/reflecting off a half-silvered mirror):

[Zeilinger:] ... I like to provoke some of my Catholic friends sometimes when I talk to them I say that not even God knows what will happen. And they tell me you know, how can I say this, and I say, well, you know, just give God the right to have created the world such that it's a little bit more interesting for him or her, you know. He doesn't know all this everything beforehand, but this is just a side remark...

I think you're also assuming the "information" in his view of QM is far more similar to yours than it actually is. You make essentially the same mistake about "free will", "choice", and "observation" -- you assume that physicists use these words to mean the same thing you do, but they actually mean something quite different (and not particularly related to consciousness). The definitions of "information" they use have far more to do with Shannon than Dembski; their definitions of "free will" and "choice" generally don't distinguish between conscious choice and simple randomness, and they don't distinguish conscious observation vs measurement by an unconscious device (or even things even more different. Let me run through your examples to illustrate this.

[ba77:] Secondly, Zeilinger has done work establishing the validity of free will in Quantum Mechanics:

Did you actually read what you quoted? They're using the colors of photons from distant stars as sources of "free will":

They pointed a telescope out of each window, trained each telescope on a bright and conveniently located (but otherwise random) star, and, before each measurement, used the color of an incoming photon from each star to set the angle of the associated modulator. The colors of these photons were decided hundreds of years ago, when they left their stars, increasing the chance that they (and therefore the measurement settings) were independent of the states of the photons being measured.

They're using the random colors of photons instead of having a conscious person choose which measurement settings, because they consider the photons a better source of "free will" than a person would be. Special role in the universe for consciousness? Not if photons work as a drop-in (and higher-quality) replacement. Also, at 27:33 in the video you linked, Zeilinger says:

[Zeilinger:] The other possibility, which is always a logical possibility... the other possibility is that the world is completely determined. There is no freedom. But what is important in the argument of Bell's theorem is that the experimentalist is free to decide what she wants to measure, what features she wants to measure on the particle. If this freedom does not exist, if everything is completely determined, then we have no problem [with Bell's theorem violations -GD], but if that is the case then I ask myself, what am I doing when I do physics? When I do physics I believe that I can ask free questions to nature, to find out something new. If this question is also determined by nature, nature could fool us around, right? She could tell us to ask this question or that question, which is irrelevant to whatever. It would be the end of science, I would argue.

In other words, he rejects the superderminism loophole in Bell's theorem not because it can be properly ruled out, but because he doesn't like it. (And for the record, I agree with him.) This supports what I said @ 24: that one's personal preference in QM interpretations really is largely a personal preference. Next, you said:

[ba77:] Moreover, Zeilinger himself also solidified the inference to free will’s axiomatic position in Quantum Mechanics with this following experiment. In the following experiment, the claim that past material states determine future conscious choices (determinism) is directly falsified by the fact that present conscious choices are, in fact, effecting past material states:

There are two problems here; first and most obviously, the actual experiment (again) doesn't use conscious choice. The actual paper is available from arXiv here, and it explicitly says:

[Ma et al:] The choice between the two measurements is made by using a quantum random number generator (QRNG). The QRNG is based on the intrinsically random[6] detection events of photons behind a balanced beam splitter (for details see the Supplementary Information).

So again, simple randomness is apparently just as magic as consciousness. Except that it's not actually magic either, since the appearance of future "choices" affecting past states is only an appearance, not a reality. Asher Peres, in the original paper where he proposed this experiment, makes this pretty clear (note: I've trimmed this heavily, and added my emphasis):

[Peres:] Abstract. Two observers (Alice and Bob) independently prepare two sets of singlets. They test one particle of each singlet along an arbitrarily chosen direction and send the other particle to a third observer, Eve. At a later time, Eve performs joint tests on pairs of particles (one from Alice and one from Bob). According to Eve’s choice of test and to her results, Alice and Bob can sort into subsets the samples that they have already tested, and they can verify that each subset behaves as if it consisted of entangled pairs of distant particles, that have never communicated in the past, even indirectly via other particles. [...] 3. The paradox There can be no doubt that the particles that were independently produced and tested by Alice and Bob were uncorrelated and therefore unentangled. Each one of these particles may well have disappeared (e.g., been absorbed) before the next particle was produced, and before Eve performed her tests. Only the records kept by the three observers remain, to be examined objectively. How can the appearance of entanglement arise in these circumstances? [...detailed analysis trimmed...] It is obvious that from the raw data collected by Alice and Bob it is possible to select in many different ways subsets that correspond to entangled pairs. The only role that Eve has in this experiment is to tell Alice and Bob how to select such a subset. Clearly, Eve has to be honest: if she does not perform her measurements in the correct way and if she reports fake data, Alice and Bob will not select good subsets, and then their analysis will readily expose Eve’s misbehaviour. In summary, there is nothing paradoxical in the experiments outlined above. However, one has to clearly understand quantum mechanics and to firmly believe in its correctness to see that there is no paradox.

So according to Peres, the retroactively-created entangled state is only apparent, not actually real. The real situation is that the particles produced and measured by Alice and Bob are not entangled, they just appear to be when post-selected based on the final measurement made by Eve. Thus, there's no real paradox, and no implication of real backward-in-time causality. Ok, back to ba77 for the next topic, "observation":

[ba77:] Also Gordon Davisson, many times you have championed yourself as some kind of expert on Thermodynamics and have opposed Granville Sewell’s work on ‘Open Systems’, here on UD, on numerous occasions. As such, you might find the following experiments on the “Zeno Effect” particularly interesting. The ‘Quantum Zeno Effect’ is, to put it simply, an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay.

I don't think I've ever claimed to be a proper expert on either QM or thermodynamics. I do claim to know enough about both areas of physics to be able to evaluate the relevant claims on their technical merits (and frankly, it doesn't take a lot of expertise to spot the problems with Granville Sewell's work). For instance, I do understand the physics behind the quantum Zeno effect, and can say with a great deal of certainty that it doesn't have anything to do with consciousness. But you don't need to take my word for it; the paper you cited clearly states that conscious measurement is not needed (again, my emphasis added):

[Lücke et al:] Here, we exploit the quantum Zeno effect to suppress the decay of an unstable system and use this principle for IFMs with an ideal efficiency of 100%. In the generic formulation of the quantum Zeno effect, an unstable system does not decay if its state is continuously measured. This continuous measurement can also be replaced by a continuous absorption of the decay products. An object that continuously absorbs the decay products therefore strongly suppresses the decay of the unstable system. In the limit of strong absorption, decay products are never generated. Therefore, the presence of the object can be detected interaction free by monitoring whether the system decayed or not. In our implementation, the system is realized by a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in an unstable spin configuration. The decay products are atoms that are generated in pairs with opposite spin orientation. Hence, our experiments present a demonstration of the Zeno effect in a truly unstable many-body system[9,10]. The 'absorbing' object is realized by a resonant laser beam, which removes the decayed atoms with one spin orientation from the system.

So, the quantum Zeno effect doesn't require a conscious observer, or even anything that might remotely qualify as measurement; an absorber suffices as a replacement. For the quantum effects that actually do involve measurement, actual physics experiments generally use measuring devices of one sort or another, not conscious observers. They use simple randomness instead of conscious choice, and devices instead of conscious observers, and guess what? All the various quantum effects that're sometimes claimed to depend on the specialness of conscious show up just fine without any conscious involvement at all! BTW, I should probably make something clear here: QM is weird, and I'm not at all claiming that it's not. What I'm saying is that it's not weird in ways that would imply a special role for consciousness. Ok, that's enough for now; if I get a chance I'll address the question of "information" (hint: again, not particularly related to consciousness) and maybe even entropy (although that's pretty far off topic). Gordon Davisson

PPS: BTW, it is Wigner who marvelled on the power of Math in the sciences. Insightful logical reasoning on structure and quantity is not an empirical exercise but has enormous power to reveal connexions and predict observable results. kairosfocus

PS: We may infer more about mindedness, key abstracta and the like than one may at first imagine. For instance, what is essentially a configuration of detachable parts must be caused and is prone to destruction by disintegration. What is essentially a whole without composition by parts -- essential simplicity -- is not prone to such disintegration. For simple illustration distinct identity is framework for a world to exist, and implies twoness directly. This property did not begin, cannot cease and is enabling of the world of numbers and linked structures by necessary logical connexion. Those logical necessities constrain what sort of physical properties are possible . . . mathematics is inextricably entangled with being. And a lot more. kairosfocus

AK, causal sufficiency is required to substantiate the materialist claim. But that gets you to things that undermine credibility of mind, i.e. mind becomes GIGO driven fundamentally non-rational mechanical and/or stochastic computation. Precisely what conscious, insightful, meaning and understanding driven, morally governed contemplation is not. It is also self-referentially incoherent, implying grand delusions of rationality and morally governed responsible freedom; essentially computational entities are mechanical and/or stochastic, not insightful, responsible and free. That one may warp or affect consciousness by physical and chemical manipulation of the brain is not decisive as that is about interface, cf. the Smith model and related remarks on Q-influences. A crude but telling example is, smashing or dunking a functional cell phone -- ceases functionality but it was never the cause of the signals or meanings it processed. See my OP https://uncommondescent.com/ethics/science-worldview-issues-and-society/sevs-iou-on-how-conscious-mind-will-be-explained-on-materialistic-premises/ KF kairosfocus

Kairosfocus,

AK, affirming the consequent: IF causation THEN correlation is not the same as the reverse.

I didn't say that they were. But I see too many people use the "correlation does not mean causation" term as if it were evidence that there is not a causal link. Which is not the case. When we see correlation, there is often either a direct causal relationship or an indirect one, sometimes circuitously indirect. We do not know very much about consciousness, but we do know the following: 1) There is no evidence that it exists without a functioning brain. 2) Physical damage to the brain can result in cessation of consciousness and significant changes to level of consciousness. 3) We can use chemicals to cause the cessation of consciousness or changes in the level of consciousness. Maybe consciousness exists independent of the brain. But if this is the case, is this a temporary existence? Are they eternal? And if eternal, how many are there? Is there a finite number? The concept of the non-physical mind asks more questions than it answers. Allan Keith

AK, affirming the consequent: IF causation THEN correlation is not the same as the reverse. Kindly see my onward op. The denial of such evidence as there is that death and annihilation of existence are not equal, does not make the annihilationism true. Likewise, it is unwise to assume that brain size -- absolute or relative -- is a proof of anything beyond need for computing power, where computing is not the same type of thing as rational, insightful, responsible contemplation. KF kairosfocus

Origenes,

Of course, as we all know, correlation is not causation.

But causation does cause correlation.

You are fundamentally mistaken. There cannot be such an observation, since each one of us has exclusive privileged access to one’s own consciousness.

It would be more accurate to say that there is no evidence that the consciousness survives the destruction of the brain.

That’s not much of a challenge … Our physical bodies make it possible to connect, observe and function in this physical world.

As is the case for all other animals, many with senses much more acute than ours. But how do you explain the fact that humans have the highest encephalization quotient of all mammals? Allan Keith

Seversky @23

Sev: The evidence for consciousness arising from the brain lies in the strong correlation between the two … ,

Of course, as we all know, correlation is not causation.

Sev: … the observation that when the brain is destroyed the consciousness disappears permanently …

You are fundamentally mistaken. There cannot be such an observation, since each one of us has exclusive privileged access to one's own consciousness.

Sev: … and the challenge of explaining why else would we commit such a large percentage of our physical resources to support such an organ unless it provided us with something of great value.

That’s not much of a challenge … Our physical bodies make it possible to connect, observe and function in this physical world. Origenes

And thank you empirical evidence for preventing me from blindly following the supposed 'consensus opinion' in science blindly off the cliff as jdk appears more than willing to do.

Albert Einstein vs. Quantum Mechanics and His Own Mind – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxFFtZ301j4 "I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had. Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period." - Michael Crichton

bornagain77

Thank you, Gordon Davisson, for the very informative post, and for providing some support for the quote about Wigner. jdk

Seversky states:

The evidence for consciousness arising from the brain lies in the strong correlation between the two,

What? Consciousness and the brain are two different things? Tell me it ain't so :) I thought that you held the immaterial mind TO BE the material brain,??? i.e. the mind and the brain are ONE thing in your view of consciousness are they not? Moreover, the fact that the immaterial mind has pronounced effects on the material brain is experimentally well established (Brain Plasticity, Placebo effect, etc.. etc..).

"We regard promissory materialism as superstition without a rational foundation. The more we discover about the brain, the more clearly do we distinguish between the brain events and the mental phenomena, and the more wonderful do both the brain events and mental phenomena become. Promissory materialism is simply a religious belief held by dogmatic materialists who often confuse their religion with their science." ? John C. Eccles, The Wonder of Being Human: Our Brain and Our Mind - 1984

Seversky then claims:

the observation that when the brain is destroyed the consciousness disappears permanently

And in that claim, as has been pointed out to Seversky numerous times before, Seversky completely ignores the millions of Near Death Experiences that directly contradict his claim.

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 protein/gene, or 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

Seversky then claims

and the challenge of explaining why else would we commit such a large percentage of our physical resources to support such an organ unless it provided us with something of great value.

Actually Seversky you have it, as usual, completely backwards.

Scaling of Brain Metabolism and Blood Flow in Relation to Capillary and Neural Scaling - 2011 Excerpt: Brain is one of the most energy demanding organs in mammals, and its total metabolic rate scales with brain volume raised to a power of around 5/6. This value is significantly higher than the more common exponent 3/4 (4- dimensional Quarter Power Scaling) relating whole body resting metabolism with body mass and several other physiological variables in animals and plants.,,, Moreover, cerebral metabolic, hemodynamic, and microvascular variables scale with allometric exponents that are simple multiples of 1/6, rather than 1/4, which suggests that brain metabolism is more similar to the metabolism of aerobic than resting body. Relation of these findings to brain functional imaging studies involving the link between cerebral metabolism and blood flow is also discussed.,, General Discussion Excerpt: ,,It should be underlined that both CBF and CMR scale with brain volume with the exponent about 1/6 which is significantly different from the exponent 1/4 relating whole body resting specific metabolism with body volume [1], [2], [3]. Instead, the cerebral exponent 1/6 is closer to an exponent,, characterizing maximal body specific metabolic rate and specific cardiac output in strenuous exercise [43], [44]. In this sense, the brain metabolism and its hemodynamics resemble more the metabolism and circulation of exercised muscles than other resting organs, which is in line with the empirical evidence that brain is an energy expensive organ [10], [17], [18]. This may also suggest that there exists a common plan for the design of microcirculatory system in different parts of the mammalian body that uses the same optimization principles [45].,, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3203885/

The preceding experiments are very unexpected to materialists since materialists hold that 'mind' is merely a 'emergent property' of the physical processes of a material brain. But why should 'thought' which is presupposed to be result of, and subservient to, the material processes of the brain constrain the material brain to operate at such a constant and optimal metabolic rate whereas the rest of body fluctuates in its metabolic activity? The most parsimonious explanation for such a optimal constraint on the brain's metabolic activity is that the material brain was designed, first and foremost, to house the mind and give the mind the most favorable metabolic environment at all times. Moreover the brain, in terms of its 'almost unbelievable' complexity, is shown to have more switches than all the computers on earth put together, and yet the brain consumes far less energy than a computer does, which strongly suggests to me, because of Landauer's principle, that the information of the mind (memories) must be stored on a 'spiritual' level rather than on a material level.

Human brain has more switches than all computers on Earth - November 2010 Excerpt: They found that the brain's complexity is beyond anything they'd imagined, almost to the point of being beyond belief, says Stephen Smith, a professor of molecular and cellular physiology and senior author of the paper describing the study: ...One synapse, by itself, is more like a microprocessor--with both memory-storage and information-processing elements--than a mere on/off switch. In fact, one synapse may contain on the order of 1,000 molecular-scale switches. A single human brain has more switches than all the computers and routers and Internet connections on Earth. http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-20023112-247.html Chiral Induced Spin Selectivity (CISS) James Tour – December 2016 Excerpt: Kwabena Boahen estimated that a microelectronics processor functioning with the capacity of a human brain would need at least ten megawatts to operate. This is equivalent to the output of a small hydroelectric power plant. The human brain needs only about ten watts.6 Might CISS (Chiral Induced Spin Selectivity) help to explain biology’s secret to efficiency? http://inference-review.com/article/chiral-induced-spin-selectivity Information is physical (but not how Rolf Landauer meant) - video (cost of information erasure discussed) https://youtu.be/H35I83y5Uro

Seversky then asks:

Is there anything beyond space and time and, if so, what? Couldn’t it also be the case that what we are observing at the quantum level are phenomena that are intruding into our four-dimensional space-time continuum from some higher dimension?

The first part of this following video touches on the relation between the "invisible and "immaterial"" higher dimension realm and how it relates to this temporal material realm that we are currently living in:

Quantum Mechanics, Special Relativity, General Relativity and Christianity - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4QDy1Soolo

Seversky then challenges the experimental validity of Penrose and Hameoffs's Orch-OR model. Yet the evidence from the entire field of "Quantum Biology" is profound and extensive and falsifies the entire reductive materialistic framework that undergirds Darwinian thought:

Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology - video https://youtu.be/LHdD2Am1g5Y

Seversky then tries to split hairs on the definition of 'realism'. Funny that Seversky does not seem to realize that I never claimed that anything other than his 'materialistic' view of realism has been falsified. (in fact I could use Seversky's own references against him if I so chose to make an argument in that line of reasoning) As to Seversky's complaint that the human mind did not create the car in an instant completely from scratch, I hardly consider that complaint worth a reply, but anyways, besides the "flash of insight' argument from Turing .. I will also reference Ellis in response:

Recognising Top-Down Causation - George Ellis Excerpt: The mind is not a physical entity, but it certainly is causally effective: proof is the existence of the computer on which you are reading this text. It could not exist if it had not been designed and manufactured according to someone’s plans, thereby proving the causal efficacy of thoughts, which like computer programs and data are not physical entities. http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Ellis_FQXI_Essay_Ellis_2012.pdf BBC-Dangerous Knowledge - Part 2 - Gödel, & Turing: https://vimeo.com/30641992

It is interesting to note that even though, as was shown in the preceding Godel-Turing video, Alan Turing believed humans were merely machines, much like the computers he had envisioned, yet Turing failed to realize that his entire idea for computers came to him suddenly, ‘in a vision’ as he put it, thus confirming, in fairly dramatic fashion, Godel’s contention that the humans mind had access to the ‘divine spark of intuition’

"Either mathematics is too big for the human mind, or the human mind is more than a machine." - Kurt Gödel As quoted in Topoi : The Categorial Analysis of Logic (1979) by Robert Goldblatt, p. 13

As to Sevesky's last statement on demonstrating the physical efficacy of top down causation from the 'immaterial' realm of mind and information, I re-reference the George Ellis paper that I just cited in this post (i.e. read the ENTIRE Ellis paper in full Seversky!) bornagain77

Sev, the time when promissory notes on forthcoming materialist explanations of the rational mind, responsible freedom, moral government and more were plausible is long past. The fact is, evolutionary materialism cannot credibly account for the alleged spontaneous account of a functional computational substrate, due to the FSCO/I, blind needle in the haystack challenge. Strictly, it should be a non-starter at that point. But, going on, it is patent that blindly mechanical and/or stochastic computation is simply not the same as rational, intentional, insightful, responsible, understanding-driven contemplation. The things are categorically distinct, computation being a non-rational process. The imagined, unexplained, Sci Fi fantasy of spontaneous emergence of conscious mind from computational substrate (which is ever so commonly seen) is little more than a belief in materialistic magic. It is high time for a fundamental re-think. KF kairosfocus

Gordon Davisson states:

(Note for ba77: note that Anton Zeilinger is one of the authors of that paragraph; I don’t think he agrees with you as much as you think he does.)

Actually, Anton Zeilinger agrees far more with the Christian position than he does with your Atheistic Materialism. First off, as mention previously in this thread, Zeilinger holds to a "Information Theoretic" position on Quantum Mechanics and even mentions John 1:1 on at least a couple of occasions. Secondly, Zeilinger has done work establishing the validity of free will in Quantum Mechanics:

Experiment Reaffirms Quantum Weirdness - 2017 Excerpt: In the first of a planned series of “cosmic Bell test” experiments, the team sent pairs of photons from the roof of Zeilinger’s lab in Vienna through the open windows of two other buildings and into optical modulators, tallying coincident detections as usual. But this time, they attempted to lower the chance that the modulator settings might somehow become correlated with the states of the photons in the moments before each measurement. They pointed a telescope out of each window, trained each telescope on a bright and conveniently located (but otherwise random) star, and, before each measurement, used the color of an incoming photon from each star to set the angle of the associated modulator. The colors of these photons were decided hundreds of years ago, when they left their stars, increasing the chance that they (and therefore the measurement settings) were independent of the states of the photons being measured. And yet, the scientists found that the measurement outcomes still violated Bell’s upper limit, boosting their confidence that the polarized photons in the experiment exhibit spooky action at a distance after all. Nature could still exploit the freedom-of-choice loophole, but the universe would have had to delete items from the menu of possible measurement settings at least 600 years before the measurements occurred (when the closer of the two stars sent its light toward Earth). “Now one needs the correlations to have been established even before Shakespeare wrote, ‘Until I know this sure uncertainty, I’ll entertain the offered fallacy,’” Hall said. Next, the team plans to use light from increasingly distant quasars to control their measurement settings, probing further back in time and giving the universe an even smaller window to cook up correlations between future device settings and restrict freedoms. https://www.quantamagazine.org/20170207-bell-test-quantum-loophole/ Quantum Entanglement & the Cosmic Bell Test - video (February 2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGPJKJWY-7o

Moreover, Zeilinger himself also solidified the inference to free will’s axiomatic position in Quantum Mechanics with this following experiment. In the following experiment, the claim that past material states determine future conscious choices (determinism) is directly falsified by the fact that present conscious choices are, in fact, effecting past material states:

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

In other words, if my conscious choices really are just merely the result of whatever state the material particles in my brain happen to be in in the past (deterministic) how in blue blazes are my choices in how to set up an experiment instantaneously effecting the state of material particles into the past? This experiment is simply impossible for any coherent materialistic presupposition! Also Gordon Davisson, many times you have championed yourself as some kind of expert on Thermodynamics and have opposed Granville Sewell's work on 'Open Systems', here on UD, on numerous occasions. As such, you might find the following experiments on the "Zeno Effect" particularly interesting. The ‘Quantum Zeno Effect’ is, to put it simply, an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay.

Quantum Zeno Effect The quantum Zeno effect is,, an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Zeno_effect 'Zeno effect' verified—atoms won't move while you watch - October 23, 2015 Excerpt: Graduate students,, created and cooled a gas of about a billion Rubidium atoms inside a vacuum chamber and suspended the mass between laser beams.,,, In that state the atoms arrange in an orderly lattice just as they would in a crystalline solid.,But at such low temperatures, the atoms can "tunnel" from place to place in the lattice.,,, The researchers demonstrated that they were able to suppress quantum tunneling merely by observing the atoms.,,, The researchers observed the atoms under a microscope by illuminating them with a separate imaging laser. A light microscope can't see individual atoms, but the imaging laser causes them to fluoresce, and the microscope captured the flashes of light. When the imaging laser was off, or turned on only dimly, the atoms tunneled freely. But as the imaging beam was made brighter and measurements made more frequently, the tunneling reduced dramatically.,,, The experiments were made possible by the group's invention of a novel imaging technique that made it possible to observe ultracold atoms while leaving them in the same quantum state.,,, The popular press has drawn a parallel of this work with the "weeping angels" depicted in the Dr. Who television series – alien creatures who look like statues and can't move as long as you're looking at them. There may be some sense to that. In the quantum world, the folk wisdom really is true: "A watched pot never boils." http://phys.org/news/2015-10-zeno-effect-verifiedatoms-wont.html Interaction-free measurements by quantum Zeno stabilization of ultracold atoms – 14 April 2015 Excerpt: In our experiments, we employ an ultracold gas in an unstable spin configuration, which can undergo a rapid decay. The object—realized by a laser beam—prevents this decay because of the indirect quantum Zeno effect and thus, its presence can be detected without interacting with a single atom. http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150414/ncomms7811/full/ncomms7811.html?WT.ec_id=NCOMMS-20150415

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:

“An explosion you think of as kind of a messy event. And this is the point about entropy. The explosion in which our universe began was not a messy event. And if you talk about how messy it could have been, this is what the Penrose calculation is all about essentially. It looks at the observed statistical entropy in our universe. The entropy per baryon. And he calculates that out and he arrives at a certain figure. And then he calculates using the Bekenstein-Hawking formula for Black-Hole entropy what the,,, (what sort of entropy could have been associated with,,, the singularity that would have constituted the beginning of the universe). So you've got the numerator, the observed entropy, and the denominator, how big it (the entropy) could have been. And that fraction turns out to be,, 1 over 10 to the 10 to the 123rd power. Let me just emphasize how big that denominator is so you can gain a real appreciation for how small that probability is. So there are 10^80th baryons in the universe. Protons and neutrons. No suppose we put a zero on every one of those. OK, how many zeros is that? That is 10^80th zeros. This number has 10^123rd zeros. OK, so you would need a hundred million, trillion, trillion, trillion, universes our size, with zero on every proton and neutron in all of those universes just to write out this number. That is how fine tuned the initial entropy of our universe is. And if there were a pre-Big Bang state and you had some bounces, then that fine tuning (for entropy) gets even finer as you go backwards if you can even imagine such a thing. ” Dr Bruce Gordon - Contemporary Physics and God Part 2 - video – 1:50 minute mark - video https://youtu.be/ff_sNyGNSko?t=110 “This now tells us how precise the Creator’s aim must have been: namely to an accuracy of one part in 10^10^123.” Roger Penrose - How special was the big bang? – (from the Emperor’s New Mind, Penrose, pp 339-345 – 1989) “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).” Roger Penrose - The Physics of the Small and Large: What is the Bridge Between Them?

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/

In fact, entropy is the primary reason why our physical, temporal, bodies grow old and die,,,

Entropy Explains Aging, Genetic Determinism Explains Longevity, and Undefined Terminology Explains Misunderstanding Both - 2007 Excerpt: There is a huge body of knowledge supporting the belief that age changes are characterized by increasing entropy, which results in the random loss of molecular fidelity, and accumulates to slowly overwhelm maintenance systems [1–4].,,, http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi/10.1371/journal.pgen.0030220

And yet, to repeat,,, "an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay."

Quantum Zeno effect Excerpt: The quantum Zeno effect is,,, an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay. per wikipedia

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 10^10^123 entropy is? A few verses of related interest:

Psalm 102:25-27 Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You will endure; Yes, they will all grow old like a garment; Like a cloak You will change them, And they will be changed. But You are the same, And Your years will have no end. Hebrews 1:10-12 You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the works of Your hands; They will perish, but You remain; And they all will become old like a garment, And like a mantle You will roll them up; Like a garment they will also be changed. But You are the same, And Your years will not come to an end.

Also of note, Sir William Thomson certainly thought the second law of thermodynamics supported the Christian view of creation.

"We have the sober scientific certainty that the heavens and earth shall ‘wax old as doth a garment’.... Dark indeed would be the prospects of the human race if unilluminated by that light which reveals ‘new heavens and a new earth.’" Sir William Thomson, Lord Kelvin (1824 – 1907) – pioneer in many different fields, particularly electromagnetism and thermodynamics.

bornagain77

Belfast @ 7:

Curious about this line “(minus Wigner’s consciousness-based proposal, which has been dismissed as needlessly speculative and vague, and in danger of collapsing into solipsism” Does Becker say who has dismissed iWigner’s proposal; are there any sources for his conclusion?

I haven't read Becker's book, but you get can some idea of current opinions from a couple of informal surveys of physicists, philosophers, and mathematicians attending recent conferences: a 2011 conference on "Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality" ("A Snapshot of Foundational Attitudes Toward Quantum Mechanics, by M. Schlosshauer, J. Kofler, and A. Zeilinger) and a 2013 conference "Quantum Theory Without Observers III" ("Yet Another Snapshot of Foundational Attitudes Toward Quantum Mechanics", by T. Norsen and S. Nelson). The attendees aren't necessarily a representative sample (especially in the second case), and this is clear from some of the results. Most notably, in the 2011 conference, the most popular interpretation of QM (question #12) was the Copenhagen interpretation (chosen by 42% of attendees), followed by "Information-based/information-theoretical" (24%) and "Everett (many worlds and/or many minds)" (18%); nobody chose the De Broglie–Bohm interpretation as their favorite. Compare that with the 2013 conference, where De Broglie–Bohm was by far the most popular (with 63%) followed by "Objective collapse (e.g., GRW, Penrose)" (16%); in this survey, Copenhagen got only 4%. But the questions that're most relevant here are reasonably consistent, despite the very different groups of attendees. The first is question 10, "The observer": a. Is a complex (quantum) system: 39% in 2011, 54% in 2013 b. Should play no fundamental role whatsoever: 21% in 2011, 65% in 2013 c. Plays a fundamental role in the application of the formalism but plays no distinguished physical role: 55% in 2011, 24% in 2013 d. Plays a distinguished physical role (e.g., wave-function collapse by consciousness) (i.e. the Wigner view -GD): 6% in 2011, 1% in 2013 (Note: the numbers don't add to 100% because multiple answers were allowed.) In the 2011 paper, the authors have a particularly relevant comment on this result:

It is remarkable that more than 60% of respondents appear to believe that the observer is not a complex quantum system. Also, very few adhere to the notion that the observer plays a distinguished physical role (for example, through a consciousness-induced collapse of the wave function). Given the relatively strong (42%) support for the Copenhagen interpretation (see Question 12), this finding shows that support of the Copenhagen interpretation does not necessarily imply a belief in a fundamental role for consciousness. (Popular accounts have sometimes suggested that the Copenhagen interpretation attributes such a role to consciousness. In our view, this is to misunderstand the Copenhagen interpretation.)

(Note for ba77: note that Anton Zeilinger is one of the authors of that paragraph; I don't think he agrees with you as much as you think he does.) The other is question 14, "How much is the choice of interpretation a matter of personal philosophical prejudice?": a. A lot: 58% in 2011, 40% in 2013 b. A little: 27% in 2011, 34% in 2013 c. Not at all: 15% in 2011, 15% 2013 The significance here is that, contrary to Wigner's statement that "it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness", we now have a wide variety of very different interpretations of QM which are consistent and predict the same empirical results. Thus, it's not possible to justify preferring one interpretation over another on either logical or empirical grounds; instead, one's personal preference is just that: a personal preference. Someone who thinks consciousness should have a distinguished role can pick an interpretation that gives it such a role, but there's no other reason to do so. Gordon Davisson

bornagain77 @ 22

You assume that the material brain has the capacity to generate consciousness. You have no evidence for your assumption. (In fact this is known as the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness, Chalmers).

Yes, the hard problem of consciousness is explaining what it is and how it arises from the physical brain and we don't have such an explanation as yet. The evidence for consciousness arising from the brain lies in the strong correlation between the two, the observation that when the brain is destroyed the consciousness disappears permanently and the challenge of explaining why else would we commit such a large percentage of our physical resources to support such an organ unless it provided us with something of great value.

Quantum Entanglement requires a non-local, beyond space and time, cause in order to explain its effect.

Is there anything beyond space and time and, if so, what? Couldn't it also be the case that what we are observing at the quantum level are phenomena that are intruding into our four-dimensional space-time continuum from some higher dimension?

Hameroff and Penrose’s ORCH-OR model has now been experimentally conformed.

As far as I can make out, there is some experimental support for some of the ORCH-OR model but it is far from being confirmed with the certainty you are suggesting.

Leggett’s inequality and Wheeler’s delayed choice experiments, has both now falsified ‘realism’. Realism is the view that material reality objectively exists apart from our subjective conscious perception of it.

From the Wikipedia entry on Leggett Inequality:

Given that experimental tests of Bell's inequalities have ruled out local realism in quantum mechanics, the violation of Leggett's inequalities is considered to have falsified realism in quantum mechanics.[4] In quantum mechanics "realism" means "notion that physical systems possess complete sets of definite values for various parameters prior to, and independent of, measurement".

On the other hand, realism in the philosophical sense, which is how we think of things at our macroscopic level is described as follows, again from the Wikipedia entry:

Realism (in philosophy) about a given object is the view that this object exists in reality independently of our conceptual scheme. In philosophical terms, these objects are ontologically independent of someone's conceptual scheme, perceptions, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc.

In other words, there are two versions of realism, one at the quantum level and another different one at the macroscopic level. The fact that the quantum version has been undermined by experiment does not mean that the macro version has. Or are you really claiming that you only exist if someone is actually looking at you?

Your argument is nonsensical. It is like you saying I cannot be aware of a car unless the car first exists.

Cars existed before you and I became aware of them.

The human mind created the car!

Yes, inasmuch as human minds first developed carts and carriages pulled by animals. Human minds then developed primitive engines which were improved and made more compact to the point where other minds decided to try fitting them to carts to provide motive power instead of horses. Thus was born the horseless carriage which, over the decades was refined into the modern car. But there was no disembodied intelligence floating in a featureless void that suddenly said "Ford Mustang!" and the fully-fledged vehicle appeared out of nowhere.

Your main flaw in your argument is your belief that material reality is the only reality there is. Material reality is not the only reality there is. There is an eternal, ‘immaterial’, reality that exists above this one.

Maybe, but how do you propose to demonstrate it except by the effects it has on observable material reality? If it produces no such effects then it is like alternative universes that are completely undetectable from this one, they may be there but so what? On the other hand, if it has observable effects then why should we not consider it as just a hitherto unknown aspect of material reality? Seversky

Seversky states:

To be conscious is to be conscious of something otherwise how can there be consciousness? When you are asleep, for example, unless you are dreaming, there is no awareness – no consciousness – of anything. On that basis, the thing of which are conscious must precede our awareness of it. That leaves consciousness as an “epi-phenomenon” of material reality.

You assume that the material brain has the capacity to generate consciousness. You have no evidence for your assumption. (In fact this is known as the 'hard problem' of consciousness, Chalmers). Stuart Hameroff, who is an anesthesiologist, and who is very much aware of the attributes of the 'sleeping brain', and Roger Penrose held that consciousness is entering the brain via quantum entanglement and/or superposition (Orch-OR model). Quantum Entanglement requires a non-local, beyond space and time, cause in order to explain its effect. Hameroff and Penrose's ORCH-OR model has now been experimentally conformed. Bottom line, you have no evidence for your claim that the material brain can generate consciousness, whereas, on the other hand, there is now evidence for the Christian's claim that consciousness must be coming into the brain from outside space-time. Verse:

Isaiah 50:4 ,,, He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to listen as a disciple.

Seversky then asks:

What do you mean by “special position”? and Our consciousness is central to our perspective view of the Universe. It may be special to us but can it be said to be special in anything other than a subjective view?

Leggett's inequality and Wheeler's delayed choice experiments, has both now falsified 'realism'. Realism is the view that material reality objectively exists apart from our subjective conscious perception of it. Moreover, not only has Quantum Mechanics now falsified the Copernican principle, (i.e. the belief that there is no special position or status to humans in the universe), but General Relativity itself undermines the Copernican principle in that even individual people can be considered central in the universe in Einstein's formulation of General Relativity. Seversky then states:

BA77: consciousness is found to precede material reality. Sev: No, that has yet to be determined. The argument against it, namely, that you cannot be conscious of that which does not yet exist, still stands

Your argument is nonsensical. It is like you saying I cannot be aware of a car unless the car first exists. The human mind created the car! As to solipsism and Wigner.,,, I certainly don't think my mind is collapsing the infinite dimensional/infinite information wave function. But I certainly think the omnipresent/omniscience MIND of God is capable of collapsing the "infinite" wave function.

Double Slit, Quantum-Electrodynamics, and Christian Theism- video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK9kGpIxMRM

You keep repeating this following argument as if it had merit:

"If the content of our consciousness is actually knowledge of an external world then it must already exist for us to have knowledge of it."

Your main flaw in your argument is your belief that material reality is the only reality there is. Material reality is not the only reality there is. There is an eternal, 'immaterial', reality that exists above this one. In fact, both Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity are built upon 'higher dimensional' mathematics:

Quantum Mechanics, Special Relativity, General Relativity and Christianity - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKggH8jO0pk

Sev. finally appeals to "several interpretations about (quantum mechanics) which there is still vigorous debate". And yet, as Weinberg himself noted, all these "several interpretations" boil down to just two interpretations. I find the 'instrumentalist approach' to be far and away the most logically coherent. bornagain77

bornagain77 @ 2

1. Consciousness either precedes all of material reality or is a ‘epi-phenomena’ of material reality.

To be conscious is to be conscious of something otherwise how can there be consciousness? When you are asleep, for example, unless you are dreaming, there is no awareness - no consciousness - of anything. On that basis, the thing of which are conscious must precede our awareness of it. That leaves consciousness as an "epi-phenomenon" 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.

What do you mean by "special position"?

3. Consciousness is found to have a special, even central, position within material reality.

Our consciousness is central to our perspective view of the Universe. It may be special to us but can it be said to be special in anything other than a subjective view?

4. Therefore, consciousness is found to precede material reality.

No, that has yet to be determined. The argument against it, namely, that you cannot be conscious of that which does not yet exist, still stands

But Wigner’s principle argument was not about experimental science. His principle argument was about the primacy of consciousness:

“The principal argument against materialism is not that illustrated in the last two sections: that it is incompatible with quantum theory. The principal argument is that thought processes and consciousness are the primary concepts, that our knowledge of the external world is the content of our consciousness and that the consciousness, therefore, cannot be denied.” – Wigner

And in that regards Wigner is more than correct, Atheistic Materialism, (i.e. the denial of the primacy of our own consciousness and the denial of the Mind of God as being primary), simply collapses into complete epistemological failure, i.e. complete insanity!

And Wigner's argument is in danger of collapsing into solipsism. If all we can know is the content of our consciousness then how can we know there is anything beyond? How can we know that it is not just an illusion? If the content of our consciousness is actually knowledge of an external world then it must already exist for us to have knowledge of it. If we are conscious of things that do not exist beyond us we are back to illusion and solipsism. If we are actually just conscious of a pre-existing external reality then how can you argue for the primacy of the mind? As for the Copenhagen Interpretation, it appears to be just that, one of several interpretations about which there is still vigorous debate. It isn't clear which if any of them is the better. Maybe it's none of them. Maybe there's others that we just haven't thought of yet. Seversky

Well groovamos, if you have a grievance against me you can always e-mail the administrator and present your case to him. If he agrees with you I will leave UD. If not, I will continue to cite the proper references to refute the specific (and oft repeated) false claims of atheists. bornagain77

jdk: to ba: what a hodge-podge of copy-and-pastes from your storehouse of previously published material. Tell me about it. I've pointed this out on this board about the contributor. There have been a few instances where I thought that what I wrote on a previous thread was relevant to a new thread on here. But I at least link to it, which is the decent thing, instead of re-presenting it as if novel. In short I don't get it. But I'm not out to save the world. groovamos

This thread is typical for this kind of (endless) discussions. My personal view on this is, while such citations as Wigner's are interesting, it is impossible to get rid of the major impasse between science and Revelation, i.e. that science posits a natural start of the world (and cannot do any better than that), whereas Revelation testifies to Creation (supernatural). Science is powerful in what it is supposed to do, is limited (hence its inferential power) but should mind its own business and stay away from the problem of origins. It simply cannot explain how it all started because it is meant to deal with a world that already exists. It cannot expected to give the correct answer where it cannot provide one. Science is a (powerful but very limited) tool intended to be used as per user manual and not to be turned into religion. As simple as that... So it does not matter much to me what science or scientists have to say on the subject, in general. St Gregory of Thessaloniki: A word is always confronted with a word but who can refute reality? (paraphrase) EugeneS

BA77,

I can put lipstick on a pig and call the pig a beauty queen,...

What you do in your spare time is none of our business. As long as the pig is consensual. :) Allan Keith