Will social science morph into physics and economics, using Big Data?

Re-read posts 3-6. You'll see. jdk

How did this thread devolve from an OP about social science to quantum mechanics? If I didn’t know better I would suspect a concerted attempt by someone to drag the thread off on a per theory tangent. :) R J Sawyer

jdk hand waves off the measurement problem video by InspiringPhilosophy becauses among other things, he is apparently a no nothing Christian Apologist, and even though the video is very well done and is very useful for educating people about this basic and central unresolved 'problem' in QM, he basically just sniffs it off. Anyways,, jdk then brings up, via wikipedia, Wigner's solipsism

This was partly because he was embarrassed that “consciousness causes collapse” can lead to a kind of solipsism, but also because he decided that he had been wrong to try to apply quantum physics at the scale of everyday life (specifically, he rejected his initial idea of treating macroscopic objects as isolated systems)

Yet Wigner's solipsism was addressed at post 22, which apparently jdk has not bothered to read, yet, even though he was called out for not reading it in post 75, when he made false claims against me about decoherence jdk then references some word salad by Chalmers, a pantheist who advocates panprotopsychism," (in which objects only possess a "proto-consciousness"). From what I can make out of his writing, I believe Chalmers suggests that Agent causality is unsupported in QM. First off, Chalmers is certainly not a friend of atheists in the first place with his analysis of qualia and the subsequent elucidation of 'the hard problem of consciousness'

David Chalmers on Consciousness (Descartes, Philosophical Zombies and the Hard Problem of Consciousness) – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Yo6VbRoo

Secondly, as much as I respect his work in that area of qualia, I suggest Chalmers stick to qualia and forget about trying to delineate agent causality in QM. Contrary to the word salad Chalmers put forth about causal closure being achieved in QM without consciouness, free will is the defining attribute of the agent causality of a conscious mind and is, to repeat myself, now empirically verified, with no 'loopholes', to be a integral part of measurement.

(Sept. 2018) Qualia, “The Experience of ‘The Now’”, Free Will, Agent Causality, and Jesus Christ’s Resurrection From The Dead As The “Theory Of Everything” https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/is-there-an-atheist-value-system-at-odds-with-traditional-ones/#comment-665517

This following statement was mentioned after the Chalmers quote that jdk referenced:

"The interpretation has also been criticized for not explaining which things have sufficient consciousness to collapse the wave function."

That specific objection was addressed in post 62:

That the Mind of God must be posited as the ‘sufficient cause’ so as to explain quantum wave collapse is found, by one method, in the fact that the quantum wave exists in a infinite dimensional-infinite information state prior to its collapse to a single bit of information: Double Slit, Quantum-Electrodynamics, and Christian Theism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK9kGpIxMRM

As to the informal poll jdk referenced, it should be noted that it was only a few dozen people, moreover in the poll we still find that "This poll also states that 55% (18 of the 33) indicated that they believed the observer “plays a fundamental role in the application of the formalism but plays no distinguished physical role” It might surprise jdk to know that that '55% position' is my position as well. Although free will is central to choosing the measurement setting, I certainly do not believe that my finite conscious mind is physically causing the "infinite dimensional-infinite information wave function" to collapse to a single bit, As was just mentioned previously, IMHO, only the infinite Mind of God has the 'causal sufficiency' necessary to collapse the infinite dimensional wave function to a single bit state. bornagain77

On the one hand, I watched the video on Decoherence and the Measurement problem ba linked to in 22. On the other hand, I can't keep up with the bornagain gallop over so many topics in his last two posts, many of which we have discussed and agreed upon, or are irrelevant, and ending with the idea that Christ's word upholds the universe. The video was typical: done by someone someone who advertising himself as "Inspiring Philosophy is creating Christian Apologetic Videos", featuring quotes (appealing to authority!) from a number of people who support the "consciousness is necessary" interpretation but offering no evidence other than simplistic animations that illustrate as assumptions the conclusions the video wants to reach, and offering no evidence that the situation might be more complex than is being presented. I did some further reading about the people quoted in the video. It is interesting that the Wikipedia articles are pretty good at presenting the issues in their complexity. Here is some interesting quote mining from the article on the Von Neuman - Wigner interpretation, one of the main "consciousness is necessary" interpretations. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann%E2%80%93Wigner_interpretation)

There are other possible solutions to the "Wigner's friend" thought experiment, which do not require consciousness to be different from other physical processes. Moreover, Wigner actually shifted to those interpretations (and away from "consciousness causes collapse") in his later years. This was partly because he was embarrassed that "consciousness causes collapse" can lead to a kind of solipsism, but also because he decided that he had been wrong to try to apply quantum physics at the scale of everyday life (specifically, he rejected his initial idea of treating macroscopic objects as isolated systems)

The measurement problem not withstanding, they point to a causal closure of physics, suggesting a problem with how consciousness and matter might interact, reminiscent of objections to Descartes' substance dualism.

The only form of interactionist dualism that has seemed even remotely tenable in the contemporary picture is one that exploits certain properties of quantum mechanics. There are two ways this might go. First, some [e.g., Eccles 1986] have appealed to the existence of quantum indeterminacy, and have suggested that a nonphysical consciousness might be responsible for filling the resultant causal gaps, determining which values some physical magnitudes might take within an apparently "probabilistic" distribution… This is an audacious and interesting suggestion, but it has a number of problems… A second way in which quantum mechanics bears on the issue of causal closure lies with the fact that in some interpretations of the quantum formalism, consciousness itself plays a vital causal role, being required to bring about the so-called "collapse of the wave-function." This collapse is supposed to occur upon any act of measurement; and in one interpretation, the only way to distinguish a measurement from a nonmeasurement is via the presence of consciousness. This theory is certainly not universally accepted (for a start, it presupposes that consciousness is not itself physical, surely contrary to the views of most physicists), and I do not accept it myself, but in any case it seems that the kind of causal work consciousness performs here is quite different from the kind required for consciousness to play a role in directing behavior… In any case, all versions of interactionist dualism have a conceptual problem that suggests that they are less successful in avoiding epiphenomenalism than they might seem; or at least they are no better off than [naturalistic dualism]. Even on these views, there is a sense in which the phenomenal is irrelevant. We can always subtract the phenomenal component from any explanatory account, yielding a purely causal component.[7] —?David Chalmers, "The Irreducibility of Consciousness" in The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory

The interpretation has also been criticized for not explaining which things have sufficient consciousness to collapse the wave function. Also, it posits an important role for the conscious mind, and it has been questioned how this could be the case for the earlier universe, before consciousness had evolved or emerged. It has been argued that "[consciousness causes collapse] does not allow sensible discussion of Big Bang cosmology or biological evolution".[3] For example, Roger Penrose remarked, "[T]he evolution of conscious life on this planet is due to appropriate mutations having taken place at various times. These, presumably, are quantum events, so they would exist only in linearly superposed form until they finally led to the evolution of a conscious being—whose very existence depends on all the right mutations having 'actually' taken place!"[8] Others further suppose a universal mind (see also panpsychism and panexperientialism). To most physicists[citation needed], this merely pushes the problem back, which some see as a fatal unparsimonious move in a competition with other theories.

And last, a survey was mentioned in the video. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it.

A poll was conducted at a quantum mechanics conference in 2011 using 33 participants (including physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers). Researchers found that 6% of participants (2 of the 33) indicated that they believed the observer "plays a distinguished physical role (e.g., wave-function collapse by consciousness)". This poll also states that 55% (18 of the 33) indicated that they believed the observer "plays a fundamental role in the application of the formalism but plays no distinguished physical role". They also mention that "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."[15]

So the situation is complex and unresolved, but among QM experts, the "consciousness causes collapse" view is not at all the mainstream view, and has significant problems of its own. I will leave this as my parting post in this time-consuming and rambling thread. jdk

Of related interest to "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (Col 1:17), Another major problem in trying to unify quantum mechanics and general relativity is that when theorists try to combine the two theories, then the resulting theory predicts that spacetime, atoms, and the universe itself should all be literally torn apart. Here are a few references that get this point across.

Goedel's Way : Exploits into an Undecidable World Excerpt: "There are serious problems with the traditional view that the world is a space-time continuum. Quantum field theory and general relativity contradict each other. The notion of space-time breaks down at very small distances, because extremely massive quantum fluctuations (virtual particle/antiparticle pairs) should provoke black holes and space-time should be torn apart, which doesn’t actually happen." - Gregory J. Chaitin , Francisco A. Doria, and Newton C. a. Da Costa https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~chaitin/bookgoedel_6.pdf Cosmic coincidence spotted - Philip Ball - 2008 Excerpt: One interpretation of dark energy is that it results from the energy of empty space, called vacuum energy. The laws of quantum physics imply that empty space is not empty at all, but filled with particles popping in and out of existence. This particle ‘fizz’ should push objects apart, just as dark energy seems to require. But the theoretical value of this energy is immense — so huge that it should blow atoms apart, rather than just causing the Universe to accelerate. Physicists think that some unknown force nearly perfectly cancels out the vacuum energy, leaving only the amount seen as dark energy to push things apart. This cancellation is imperfect to an absurdly fine margin: the unknown 'energy' differs from the vacuum energy by just one part in 10^122. It seems incredible that any physical mechanism could be so finely poised as to reduce the vacuum energy to within a whisker of zero, but it seems to be so. http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080219/full/news.2008.610.html The 2 most dangerous numbers in the universe are threatening the end of physics - Jessica Orwig - Jan. 14, 2016 Excerpt: Dangerous No. 2: The strength of dark energy ,,, you should be able to sum up all the energy of empty space to get a value representing the strength of dark energy. And although theoretical physicists have done so, there's one gigantic problem with their answer: "Dark energy should be 10^120 times stronger than the value we observe from astronomy," Cliff said. "This is a number so mind-boggling huge that it's impossible to get your head around ... this number is bigger than any number in astronomy — it's a thousand-trillion-trillion-trillion times bigger than the number of atoms in the universe. That's a pretty bad prediction." On the bright side, we're lucky that dark energy is smaller than theorists predict. If it followed our theoretical models, then the repulsive force of dark energy would be so huge that it would literally rip our universe apart. The fundamental forces that bind atoms together would be powerless against it and nothing could ever form — galaxies, stars, planets, and life as we know it would not exist. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/two-most-dangerous-numbers-universe-194557366.html

Since quantum mechanics and general relativity are both tested to extreme levels of precision, and we can thus have a high level of confidence that both theories are true,

The Most Precisely Tested Theory in the History of Science - May 5, 2011 Excerpt: So, which of the two (general relativity or QED) is The Most Precisely Tested Theory in the History of Science? It’s a little tough to quantify a title like that, but I think relativity can claim to have tested the smallest effects. Things like the aluminum ion clock experiments showing shifts in the rate of a clock set moving at a few m/s, or raised by a foot, measure relativistic shifts of a few parts in 10^16. That is, if one clock ticks 10,000,000,000,000,000 times, the other ticks 9,999,999,999,999,999 times. That’s an impressively tiny effect, but the measured value is in good agreement with the predictions of relativity. In the end, though, I have to give the nod to QED, because while the absolute effects in relativity may be smaller, the precision of the measurements in QED is more impressive. Experimental tests of relativity measure tiny shifts, but to only a few decimal places. Experimental tests of QED measure small shifts, but to an absurd number of decimal places. The most impressive of these is the “anomalous magnetic moment of the electron,” expressed is terms of a number g whose best measured value is: g/2 = 1.001 159 652 180 73 (28) Depending on how you want to count it, that’s either 11 or 14 digits of precision (the value you would expect without QED is exactly 1, so in some sense, the shift really starts with the first non-zero decimal place), which is just incredible. And QED correctly predicts all those decimal places (at least to within the measurement uncertainty, given by the two digits in parentheses at the end of that). http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2011/05/05/the-most-precisely-tested-theo/

,,, and since Godel's incompleteness theorem requires something to be 'outside the circle' of mathematics, then it is safe to assume that something very powerful must be holding the universe together. ,,, For the Christian this should not be surprising. Christianity predicts that Christ upholds the universe by the word of his power.

Hebrews 1:3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

The following article gives us a small glimpse into just how powerful Christ's word may be in 'upholding' this universe.

“In order for quantum mechanics and relativity theory to be internally self-consistent [Seeking consistency between quantum mechanics and relativity theory is the major task theoretical physicists have been grappling with since quantum mechanics emerged], the physical vacuum has to contain 10^94 grams equivalent of energy per cubic centimeter. What that means is, if you take just a single hydrogen atom, which is one proton and one electron and all the rest of the atom is ‘empty space,’ if you take just that volume of empty space, … you find that you end up with a trillion times as much vacuum energy as all the electromagnetic energy in all the planets, all the stars, and all the cosmic dust in a sphere of radius 15 billion light-years.” To summarize, the subtle energy in the vacuum space of a single hydrogen atom is as great as all the electromagnetic energy found in everything within 15 billion light-years of our space-time cosmos.” ,,, Dr. William Tiller http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1093640-a-physicists-view-of-human-intention-it-physically-exists-can-be-imprinted-into-a-machine/

Verse, video, and verse:

Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Turin Shroud Hologram Reveals The Words "The Lamb" – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tmka1l8GAQ Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth.

bornagain77

jdk, In post 22 in the quote that you yourself cited, I specifically stated:

"The following video also explains why decoherence does not solve the measurement problem": The Measurement Problem in quantum mechanics – (Inspiring Philosophy) – 2014 video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB7d5V71vUE

Thus throughout this entire thread I have specifically maintained that 'decoherence does not solve the measurement problem' and have never specifically claimed that decoherence does not occur at all. In fact, the short quote you cited from 65 was simply a short quip against to your dishonesty towards accepting evidence that falsifies dehcorence as a satisfactory answer to the measurement problem, and was certainly not a charitable reading of my position on decoherence since you yourself cited from post 22 to try to say I was inconsistent. Of course if you were trying to be honest instead of just grasping for straws, you would have seen this in 22 instead of missing it. You also falsely stated that the rest of my post in 73 does not address decoherence and yet I specifically stated that "decoherence itself is a process that involves non-local ‘entanglement’ with the environment, and as such also requires a ‘beyond space and time’ cause in order to explain the (decoherence) effect," For crying out loud I cited Charles Bennett himself to make the point that “Entanglement is ubiquitous: Almost every interaction between two systems creates entanglement between them". You then dishonestly try to smuggle in "if decoherence does occur (that is, interaction with a non-conscious macroscopic event" "non-conscious macroscopic event" being the key term you disingenuously are trying to smuggle in. Let me be perfectly clear, in order to explain the "beyond space and time' non-local ‘entanglement’ that is 'ubiquitously' involved in decoherence, we are forced to appeal to a cause that is itself not limited to space and time.

Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory – 29 October 2012 Excerpt: “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,” http://www.quantumlah.org/highlight/121029_hidden_influences.php

All hidden variable theories that atheists have tried to put forth to try to 'explain away' non-local entanglement have failed.

Einstein vs quantum mechanics, and why he'd be a convert today - Margaret Reid - June 13, 2014 In a nutshell, experimentalists John Clauser, Alain Aspect, Anton Zeilinger, Paul Kwiat and colleagues have performed the Bell proposal for a test of Einstein's hidden variable theories. All results so far support quantum mechanics. It seems that when two particles undergo entanglement, whatever happens to one of the particles can instantly affect the other, even if the particles are separated! http://phys.org/news/2014-06-einstein-quantum-mechanics-hed-today.html “When Bohm expressed “hope” that violations of QM (Quantum Mechanics) would be found later and hidden variables supported, Bohr responded that the strange sentence is almost isomorphic to “I hope that 2×2=5 will be proven at some point which will have a good effect on our finances.” https://motls.blogspot.com/2015/12/how-term-copenhagen-interpretation-got.html

The fact of the matter is that “multiple mathematical theorems have all but proven that hidden variables between particles cannot explain away the instantaneous 'spooky action at a distance' that is seen in quantum mechanics.”

The One Theory of Quantum Mechanics That Actually Kind of Makes Sense – But most physicists don’t buy it. – Dec 1, 2016 Excerpt: pilot-wave theory requires that “hidden variables” exist,,, But despite Einstein’s reservations, multiple mathematical theorems have all but proven that hidden variables cannot explain away all of the bizarre behaviors seen in quantum mechanics. The most recent and famous being John Stewart Bell’s theorem, which concludes that, “No physical theory of local hidden variables can ever reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics.” http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a24114/pilot-wave-quantum-mechanics-theory/ A Critique of Bohmian Mechanics (Pilot Wave theory) - (2018) InspiringPhilosophy - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn2hoU4jaQQ

Entangled objects, via hidden variables, simply do not cause each other to behave the way they do.

Experimental test of nonlocal causality – August 10, 2016 DISCUSSION Previous work on causal explanations beyond local hidden-variable models focused on testing Leggett’s crypto-nonlocality (7, 42, 43), a class of models with a very specific choice of hidden variable that is unrelated to Bell’s local causality (44). In contrast, we make no assumptions on the form of the hidden variable and test all models ,,, Our results demonstrate that a causal influence from one measurement outcome to the other, which may be subluminal, superluminal, or even instantaneous, cannot explain the observed correlations.,,, http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/8/e1600162.full Quantum correlations do not imply instant causation – August 12, 2016 Excerpt: A research team led by a Heriot-Watt scientist has shown that the universe is even weirder than had previously been thought. In 2015 the universe was officially proven to be weird. After many decades of research, a series of experiments showed that distant, entangled objects can seemingly interact with each other through what Albert Einstein famously dismissed as “Spooky action at a distance”. A new experiment by an international team led by Heriot-Watt’s Dr Alessandro Fedrizzi has now found that the universe is even weirder than that: entangled objects do not cause each other to behave the way they do. http://phys.org/news/2016-08-quantum-imply-instant-causation.html

Thus, whereas atheists have no clue how non-local entanglement might possibly occur, Christian Theists have no problem whatsoever finding a beyond space and time cause in order to explain non-local entanglement. Verse:

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

bornagain77

re 73: ba, you write,

My claim is not that decoherence does not occur

Yet in 65, you wrote,

And you refused to accept the empirical refutation of decoherence in 22.

These seem like contradictory statements. Does occurence occur, or has it been refuted? Which is it? I understand that everyone agrees that the question of measurement is not totally and satisfactorily resolved. However, that does NOT mean that a) decoherence by interaction with macroscopic events does not happen, nor that b) consciousness is required to collapse the wave function (which I see very little about from a scientific viewpoint in any of your links.) The rest of 73 is quotes and links that don't address the above two points. And I'll note that you haven't replied to my link to a book, positively reviewed by Zeilinger, on decoherence theory. If coherence has been refuted, why are there whole books about it? On the other hand, if decoherence does occur (that is, interaction with a non-conscious macroscopic event can collapse the wave function), which you now say is the case, then where is the evidence that consciousness is required to collapse the wave function? jdk

My claim is not that decoherence does not occur, my empirically supported claim, via interaction free measurement, is that decoherence does not satisfactorily solve the measurement problem. Moreover, if decoherence really explained the measurement problem, then how is it possible that a photon is able to survive all the way to detection at the retina? The following paper found that the human eye can detect the presence of a single photon, the researchers stated that “Any man-made detector would need to be cooled and isolated from noise to behave the same way.”,,,

Study suggests humans can detect even the smallest units of light – July 21, 2016 Excerpt: Research,, has shown that humans can detect the presence of a single photon, the smallest measurable unit of light. Previous studies had established that human subjects acclimated to the dark were capable only of reporting flashes of five to seven photons.,,, it is remarkable: a photon, the smallest physical entity with quantum properties of which light consists, is interacting with a biological system consisting of billions of cells, all in a warm and wet environment,” says Vaziri. “The response that the photon generates survives all the way to the level of our awareness despite the ubiquitous background noise. Any man-made detector would need to be cooled and isolated from noise to behave the same way.”,,, The gathered data from more than 30,000 trials demonstrated that humans can indeed detect a single photon incident on their eye with a probability significantly above chance. “What we want to know next is how does a biological system achieve such sensitivity? How does it achieve this in the presence of noise? http://phys.org/news/2016-07-humans-smallest.html

In fact, since the human eye can 'very unexpectedly' detect a singe quanta of light, researchers are currently working on ways to probe the foundations of quantum theory using the human eye itself instead of using some man made detector.

Human Eye, that “Clunky Design,” to be Used to Confirm, or Disconfirm, Quantum Mechanics - July 12, 2018 Excerpt: Whether people can actually see a single photon, which requires the rod signal to propagate through the rest of the noisy visual system and be perceived in the brain, has been the subject of research for nearly 100 years. Early experiments hinted that people could see just a few photons, but classical light sources are poor tools for answering these questions. Single-photon sources have opened up a new area of vision research, providing the best evidence yet that humans can indeed see single photons, and could even be used to test quantum effects through the visual system. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/07/human-eye-that-clunky-design-to-be-used-to-confirm-or-disconfirm-quantum-mechanics/

Moreover, decoherence itself is a process that involves non-local 'entanglement' with the environment, and as such also requires a 'beyond space and time' cause in order to explain the effect, (of note: much of the extreme technical difficulties challenging the advancement of quantum computation involve trying to sufficiently isolate quantum systems from the environment):

Information is Quantum 39:30 minute mark: “Entanglement is ubiquitous: Almost every interaction between two systems creates entanglement between them… Most systems in nature… interact so strongly with the environment as to become entangled with it almost immediately.”… 44:00 minute mark: “A classical communications channel is a quantum communication channel with an eavesdropper (maybe only the environment)… A classical computer is a quantum computer handicapped by having eavesdroppers on all its wires.” - Charles Bennett - (developed Reversible Computation and Quantum Teleportation) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqXv40kCahM Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory – 29 October 2012 Excerpt: “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,” http://www.quantumlah.org/highlight/121029_hidden_influences.php

Of supplemental note to Zeilinger's overall view of reality:

“From that position, the so-called measurement problem . . . is not a problem but a consequence of the more fundamental role information plays in quantum physics as compared to classical physics.” A. Zeilinger, Rev. Mod. Phys.71, S288 (1999) Zeilinger's principle Zeilinger's principle states that any elementary system carries just one bit of information. This principle was put forward by Austrian physicist Anton Zeilinger in 1999 and subsequently developed by him to derive several aspects of quantum mechanics. Some have reasoned that this principle, in certain ways, links thermodynamics with information theory. [1] http://www.eoht.info/page/Zeilinger%27s+principle 48:24 mark: “It is operationally impossible to separate Reality and Information” 49:45 mark: “In the Beginning was the Word” John 1:1 Prof Anton Zeilinger speaks on quantum physics. at UCT - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3ZPWW5NOrw 49:28 mark: "This is now my personal opinion OK. Because we cannot operationally separate the two. Whenever we talk about reality, we think about reality, we are really handling information. The two are not separable. So maybe now, this is speculative here, maybe the two are the same? Or maybe information constitutive to the universe. This reminds me of the beginning the bible of St. John which starts with “In the Beginning was the Word”.,,, https://youtu.be/s3ZPWW5NOrw?t=2969

bornagain77

re 71: I'm confused. Decoherence doesn't say "that wave collapse can occur minus any interaction." It says wave collapse happens due to interaction with a macroscopic event. So your second sentence in 71 doesn't make sense. And what do you think about the fact that there are many books on decoherence theory - I linked to one. Why would these books exist if decoherence had been refuted? Also, as Wikipedia says about Zeilinger,

Key results [of his work] include the most precise quantitative study to date of decoherence by thermal radiation ...

That doesn't sound like decoherence has been refuted. It sounds like (as the book I linked to shows) that decoherence theory exists and is used mathematically to explain actual phenomena. jdk

Don't go full retard jdk. It is on you to empirically prove that wave collapse can occur minus any interaction if you want a somewhat 'satisfactory' theory of decoherence explaining the measurement problem. And with the advent retrocausality within QM, I see no hope for you ever achieving that empirical proof. But hey, give it your best shot anyway. bornagain77

The fact that "interaction free" measurement can take place does not refute the fact that interactional measurement via decoherence is the common way in which the wave function collapses. In what way does the existence of interaction-free measurement refute decoherence as the standard mode of wave function collapse? jdk

Interaction free measurement empirically refutes decoherence as a 'satifactory' answer to the measurement problem simply because, (as the term 'Interaction Free' itself indicates), no interaction takes place and yet wave collapse still occurs. By the way, Zeilinger is one of the experimentalist who was instrumental in advancing interaction free measurement.

An Interaction-Free Quantum Experiment (Zeilinger Bomb Tester experiment, and in the double slit experiment, the Detector can be placed at one slit during the double slit experiment and yet the photon or electron still collapses in the unobserved slit) – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOv8zYla1wY

As Barr states: "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. "

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

bornagain77

jdk:

See #21, where I quoted Griffith’s book on this matter.

Read it. He never says how to measure something without conscious observation. He seems to merely hand-wave it away. Geiger counters, last I checked, required a conscious observer in order to exist. ET

Perhaps you should start here, ba: https://www.amazon.com/Decoherence-Classical-Transition-Frontiers-Collection/dp/3540357734. It has a positive review by Zeilinger:

"A thorough and readable representation of today's understanding of the topic ... An excellent overview of the various theoretical approaches to the physics that leads to decoherence. A particular strength is that it includes accounts of several experiments demonstrating the decoherence mechanism in detail ... An important resource for anyone interested in decoherence. It is very well written and it will contribute to further conceptual and theoretical development and to new experiments." Review by Anton Zeilinger, published in Nature 451, 18 (2008)

It doesn't appear to say anything about decoherence being "refuted." jdk

I don't see an "empirical refutation of decoherence" in 22. Perhaps you could explain what you mean by saying "decoherence has been refuted" and point to the evidence that supports that conclusion. And of course, merely appealing to the statements of authorities will be insufficient., re #9. I'd like specific statements, and evidence. jdk

And you refused to accept the empirical refutation of decoherence in 22. Repeating a claim after empirical refutation is dishonest. bornagain77

See #21, where I quoted Griffith's book on this matter. jdk

jdk:

The question of what is a measurement, and specifically, whether it requires a conscious observation, is what we are discussing.

Try to explain how a measurement can be taken without conscious observation. I'll get the popcorn ready- this should be very entertaining. ET

"You are blinded by obsession," That is a belly laugh coming from you. Your rhetoric aside, free will and contextuality go hand in hand: To repeat Zeilinger's quote: "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

Having free will figure centrally in QM, since free will and mind are inextricably linked, (i.e. agent causality), brings our mind and/or consciousness front and center into QM. This inextricable link between free will and consciousness (and QM) further plays out with what is termed 'the experience of the now'

(Sept. 2018) Qualia, “The Experience of ‘The Now'”, Free Will, Agent Causality, and Jesus Christ’s Resurrection From The Dead As The “Theory Of Everything” https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/is-there-an-atheist-value-system-at-odds-with-traditional-ones/#comment-665517

That the Mind of God must be posited as the 'sufficient cause' so as to explain quantum wave collapse is found, by one method, in the fact that the quantum wave exists in a infinite dimensional-infinite information state prior to its collapse to a single bit of information:

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

Shoot, advances in quantum biology now even provide us physical evidence for a immaterial soul that is capable of living past the death of our material bodies:

Darwinian Materialism vs Quantum Biology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHdD2Am1g5Y

etc.. etc.. etc.. bornagain77

You are blinded by obsession, ba. The loophole they wanted to close had nothing to do with atheism: it was just good scientific work trying to thoroughly establish that local hidden variables were ruled out. Even though there are other interpretations that have some adherents, I think a majority of QM scientists accept the conclusion that quantum entities do not have definite properties until a "measurement" is made. The question of what is a measurement, and specifically, whether it requires a conscious observation, is what we are discussing. All you links establishing that hidden variables don't exist are irrelevant to the "what is measurement" issue. Also, the phrase "free will" has nothing to do with metaphysical free will. This article, http://news.mit.edu/2014/closing-the-free-will-loophole-0220, says that "setting independence" is a better term, and that the big idea is to have something totally unrelated, causally, from the experimental setup add a choice to the situation. Metaphysical free will is NOT what they are talking about. jdk

You do not understand what you are talking about. They were simply establishing that the experimenters were completely free to set the detector setting any which way they wanted. The 'far fetched' objection from atheists was this "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." i.e. atheists were trying to get around contexuality by saying the detector settings were somehow biased to give us a false positive verifying the predictions of QM. They simply falsified that 'far fetched' scenario of atheists so as to further verify contextuality bornagain77

This is not the subject I've been discussing, but you don't understand the meaning of "free-will" in "free-will loophole." It has nothing to do with metaphysical free will. Furthermore, the article about "pushing the loophole back 7.8 billion years" is about eliminating any possibility of local hidden variables, not about consciousness. The issue of possible local hidden variables has been fairly thoroughly disconfirmed by evidence, but that it a DIFFERENT issue than saying consciousness is necessary for the collapse of the wave function. I don't think even one of the articles you linked to is about the role of consciousness. They are all about non-locality, entanglement, etc, which I don't doubt, but that do NOT establish, again, that consciousness is necessary for wave function collapse. Note: the above was in response to 57, not 58, which I hadn't seen. jdk

This is not a matter of reasonable disagreement. This is a matter of atheists clinging to a dogma in spite of the empirical evidence that has consistently, over and over again, falsified their claims simply because they do not like the implications of what the experiments are telling us.

Should Quantum Anomalies Make Us Rethink Reality? Inexplicable lab results may be telling us we’re on the cusp of a new scientific paradigm By Bernardo Kastrup on April 19, 2018 Excerpt: ,, according to the current paradigm, the properties of an object should exist and have definite values even when the object is not being observed: the moon should exist and have whatever weight, shape, size and color it has even when nobody is looking at it. Moreover, a mere act of observation should not change the values of these properties. Operationally, all this is captured in the notion of “non-contextuality”: ,,, since Alain Aspect’s seminal experiments in 1981–82, these predictions (of Quantum Mechanics) have been repeatedly confirmed, with potential experimental loopholes closed one by one. 1998 was a particularly fruitful year, with two remarkable experiments performed in Switzerland and Austria. In 2011 and 2015, new experiments again challenged non-contextuality. Commenting on this, physicist Anton Zeilinger has been quoted as saying that “there is no sense in assuming that what we do not measure [that is, observe] about a system has [an independent] reality.” Finally, Dutch researchers successfully performed a test closing all remaining potential loopholes, which was considered by Nature the “toughest test yet.”,,, It turns out, however, that some predictions of QM are incompatible with non-contextuality even for a large and important class of non-local theories. Experimental results reported in 2007 and 2010 have confirmed these predictions. To reconcile these results with the current paradigm would require a profoundly counterintuitive redefinition of what we call “objectivity.” And since contemporary culture has come to associate objectivity with reality itself, the science press felt compelled to report on this by pronouncing, “Quantum physics says goodbye to reality.” The tension between the anomalies and the current paradigm can only be tolerated by ignoring the anomalies. This has been possible so far because the anomalies are only observed in laboratories. Yet we know that they are there, for their existence has been confirmed beyond reasonable doubt. Therefore, when we believe that we see objects and events outside and independent of mind, we are wrong in at least some essential sense. A new paradigm is needed to accommodate and make sense of the anomalies; one wherein mind itself is understood to be the essence—cognitively but also physically—of what we perceive when we look at the world around ourselves. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/should-quantum-anomalies-make-us-rethink-reality/ “I’m going to talk about the Bell inequality, and more importantly a new inequality that you might not have heard of called the Leggett inequality, that was recently measured. It was actually formulated almost 30 years ago by Professor Leggett, who is a Nobel Prize winner, but it wasn’t tested until about a year and a half ago (in 2007), when an article appeared in Nature, that the measurement was made by this prominent quantum group in Vienna led by Anton Zeilinger, which they measured the Leggett inequality, which actually goes a step deeper than the Bell inequality and rules out any possible interpretation other than consciousness creates reality when the measurement is made.” – Bernard Haisch, Ph.D., Calphysics Institute Preceding quote taken from this following video; Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness - A New Measurement - Bernard Haisch, Ph.D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nttB3Wze3Y8

The continued refusal of atheists to abide by what the empirical evidence itself is clearly telling us is downright unscientific. Even Leggett himself refused to believe the results of the Leggett inequality experiment:

Do we create the world just by looking at it? - 2008 Excerpt: In mid-2007 Fedrizzi found that the new realism model was violated by 80 orders of magnitude; the group was even more assured that quantum mechanics was correct. Leggett agrees with Zeilinger that realism is wrong in quantum mechanics, but when I asked him whether he now believes in the theory, he answered only “no” before demurring, “I’m in a small minority with that point of view and I wouldn’t stake my life on it.” For Leggett there are still enough loopholes to disbelieve. I asked him what could finally change his mind about quantum mechanics. Without hesitation, he said sending humans into space as detectors to test the theory.,,, (to which Anton Zeilinger responded) When I mentioned this to Prof. Zeilinger he said, “That will happen someday. There is no doubt in my mind. It is just a question of technology.” Alessandro Fedrizzi had already shown me a prototype of a realism experiment he is hoping to send up in a satellite. It’s a heavy, metallic slab the size of a dinner plate. http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_reality_tests/P3/

Of note, quantum experiments have now been extended to space:

Extending Wheeler’s delayed-choice experiment to space - Oct. 25, 2017 Excerpt: We implement Wheeler’s idea along a satellite-ground interferometer that extends for thousands of kilometers in space.,,, http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/10/e1701180 China Shatters “Spooky Action at a Distance” Record - June 15, 2017 Excerpt: In a landmark study, a team of Chinese scientists using an experimental satellite has tested quantum entanglement over unprecedented distances, beaming entangled pairs of photons to three ground stations across China—each separated by more than 1,000 kilometers. The test verifies a mysterious and long-held tenet of quantum theory, and firmly establishes China as the frontrunner in a burgeoning “quantum space race” to create a secure, quantum-based global communications network—that is, a potentially unhackable https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-shatters-ldquo-spooky-action-at-a-distance-rdquo-record-preps-for-quantum-internet/

And I would bet you money that Leggett, an atheist, still does not believe quantum theory even though QM has now been extended to space, And to further solidify the case that 'consciousness precedes reality', the violation of Leggett's inequalities have now been extended. This following experiment violated Leggett's inequality to a stunning 120 standard deviations:

Experimental non-classicality of an indivisible quantum system - Zeilinger 2011 Excerpt: Page 491: "This represents a violation of (Leggett's) inequality (3) by more than 120 standard deviations, demonstrating that no joint probability distribution is capable of describing our results." The violation also excludes any non-contextual hidden-variable model. The result does, however, agree well with quantum mechanical predictions, as we will show now.,,, https://vcq.quantum.at/fileadmin/Publications/Experimental%20non-classicality%20of%20an%20indivisible.pdf "hidden variables don’t exist. If you have proved them come back with PROOF and a Nobel Prize. John Bell theorized that maybe the particles can signal faster than the speed of light. This is what he advocated in his interview in “The Ghost in the Atom.” But the violation of Leggett’s inequality in 2007 takes away that possibility and rules out all non-local hidden variables. Observation instantly defines what properties a particle has and if you assume they had properties before we measured them, then you need evidence, because right now there is none which is why realism is dead, and materialism dies with it. How does the particle know what we are going to pick so it can conform to that?" per Jimfit UD blogger

To sum up, atheists, as far as empirical science is concerned, have run out of hiding places for their 'anti-theistic' theories in QM. bornagain77

as to:

I’m not arguing that free will is incompatible with QM, or that materialism is true, or that consciousness and free will don’t exist. I am merely trying to establish that important experts (Robert Griffiths is the person you brought up) do NOT think it is established science that consciousness is necessary for the wave function to collapse. You like quotes: I’ve linked to a whole section on what he thinks about these issues, which could be substantial content for discussion, and I see no sign that you have looked at that. That is not trolling.

As far as empirical science is concerned, the necessity of free will, and by default consciousness, certainly is 'established science'. You and other atheists may not like the empirical evidence, but that dislike certainly does not constitute a refutation of the empirical evidence. It reveals a closed mind. Starting with Aspect in the 80's, Atheists have had all their supposed loopholes, that would have allowed for some 'non-mind' interpretation of QM, closed. The last one, and perhaps most importantly, being the free will loophole that was very recently closed.

Zeilinger Group - Photons run out of loopholes - April 15, 2013 Excerpt: A team led by the Austrian physicist Anton Zeilinger has now carried out an experiment with photons, in which they have closed an important loophole. The researchers have thus provided the most complete experimental proof that the quantum world is in conflict with our everyday experience.,,, The young academics in Anton Zeilinger’s group,, have now achieved an important step towards delivering definitive experimental evidence that quantum particles can indeed do things that classical physics does not allow them to do. For their experiment, the team built one of the best sources for entangled photon pairs worldwide and employed highly efficient photon detectors designed by experts at NIST. These technological advances together with a suitable measurement protocol enabled the researchers to detect entangled photons with unprecedented efficiency. In a nutshell: "Our photons can no longer duck out of being measured," says Zeilinger. This kind of tight monitoring is important as it closes an important loophole. In previous experiments on photons, there has always been the possibility that although the measured photons do violate the laws of classical physics, such non-classical behaviour would not have been observed if all photons involved in the experiment could have been measured. In the new experiment, this loophole is now closed. "Perhaps the greatest weakness of photons as a platform for quantum experiments is their vulnerability to loss – but we have just demonstrated that this weakness need not be prohibitive," explains Marissa Giustina, lead author of the paper. http://vcq.quantum.at/research/research-groups/zeilinger-group/news/details/419.html Einstein wouldn't like it: New test proves universe is "spooky" - Oct 21, 2015 Excerpt: Eighty years after the physicist (Einstein) dismissed as "spooky" the idea that simply observing one particle could instantly change another far-away object, Dutch scientists said on Wednesday they had proved decisively that the effect was real. Writing in the journal Nature, researchers detailed an experiment showing how two electrons at separate locations 1.3 km (0.8 mile) apart on the Delft University of Technology campus demonstrated a clear, invisible and instantaneous connection. Importantly, the new study closed loopholes in earlier tests that had left some doubt as to whether the eerie connection predicted by quantum theory was real or not. Einstein famously insisted in a 1935 scientific paper that what he called "spooky action at a distance" had to be wrong and there must be undiscovered properties of particles to explain such counter-intuitive behavior. The idea certainly confounds our day-to-day experience of the world, where change only appears to occur through local interactions. But in recent decades scientific evidence has been building that particles can indeed become "entangled", so that no matter how far apart they are, they will always be connected. The Delft experiment is conclusive because, for the first time, scientists have closed two potential loopholes at once. The first suggests that particles could somehow synchronize behavior ahead of time, while the second implies that testing might detect only a subset of prepared entangled pairs. To prove their case, the team led by Delft professor Ronald Hanson used two diamonds containing tiny traps for electrons with a magnetic property called spin and measured all entangled pairs across 1.3 km separating two laboratories. The experiment effectively closes a chapter in an 80-year scientific debate, http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/21/us-science-universe-einstein-idUSKCN0SF2GQ20151021 Historic Delft Experiments tests Einstein's 'God does not play dice' using quantum 'dice' - October 21, 2015 Excerpt: When measured, the Delft electrons did indeed appear individually random while agreeing very well. So well, in fact, that they cannot have had pre-existing orientations, as realism claims. This behaviour is only possible if the electrons communicate with each other, something that is very surprising for electrons trapped in different crystals. But here's the amazing part: in the Delft experiment, the diamonds were in different buildings, 1.3 km away from each other. Moreover, the measurements were made so quickly that there wasn't time for the electrons to communicate, not even with signals traveling at the speed of light. This puts "local realism" in a very tight spot: if the electron orientations are real, the electrons must have communicated. But if they communicated, they must have done so faster than the speed of light. There's no way out, and local realism is disproven.,,, http://phys.org/news/2015-10-historic-delft-einstein-god-dice.html Quantum correlations do not imply instant causation - August 12, 2016 Excerpt: A research team led by a Heriot-Watt scientist has shown that the universe is even weirder than had previously been thought. In 2015 the universe was officially proven to be weird. After many decades of research, a series of experiments showed that distant, entangled objects can seemingly interact with each other through what Albert Einstein famously dismissed as "Spooky action at a distance". A new experiment by an international team led by Heriot-Watt's Dr Alessandro Fedrizzi has now found that the universe is even weirder than that: entangled objects do not cause each other to behave the way they do. http://phys.org/news/2016-08-quantum-imply-instant-causation.html Experimental test of nonlocal causality - August 10, 2016 DISCUSSION Previous work on causal explanations beyond local hidden-variable models focused on testing Leggett’s crypto-nonlocality (7, 42, 43), a class of models with a very specific choice of hidden variable that is unrelated to Bell’s local causality (44). In contrast, we make no assumptions on the form of the hidden variable and test all models ,,, Our results demonstrate that a causal influence from one measurement outcome to the other, which may be subluminal, superluminal, or even instantaneous, cannot explain the observed correlations.,,, http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/8/e1600162.full Closed Loophole Confirms the Unreality of the Quantum World - July 25, 2018 After researchers found a loophole in a famous experiment designed to prove that quantum objects don’t have intrinsic properties, three experimental groups quickly sewed the loophole shut. The episode closes the door on many “hidden variable” theories. Excerpt: Chaves’s team then proposed a twist to Wheeler’s experiment to test the loophole. With unusual alacrity, three teams raced to do the modified experiment. Their results, reported in early June, have shown that a class of classical models that advocate realism cannot make sense of the results. Quantum mechanics may be weird, but it’s still, oddly, the simplest explanation around.,,, Hidden Variables That Remain Kaiser is impressed by Chaves’s “elegant” theoretical work and the experiments that ensued. “The fact that each of the recent experiments has found clear violations of the new inequality … provides compelling evidence that ‘classical’ models of such systems really do not capture how the world works, even as quantum-mechanical predictions match the latest results beautifully,” he said.,,, Kaiser, even as he lauds the efforts so far, wants to take things further. In current experiments, the choice of whether or not to add the second phase shift or the second beam splitter in the classic delayed-choice experiment was being made by a quantum random-number generator. But what’s being tested in these experiments is quantum mechanics itself, so there’s a whiff of circularity. “It would be helpful to check whether the experimental results remain consistent, even under complementary experimental designs that relied on entirely different sources of randomness,” Kaiser said.,,, To this end, Kaiser and his colleagues have built such a source of randomness using photons coming from distant quasars, some from more than halfway across the universe. The photons were collected with a one-meter telescope at the Table Mountain Observatory in California. https://www.quantamagazine.org/closed-loophole-confirms-the-unreality-of-the-quantum-world-20180725/ 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 Quantum mechanics: Pushing the “free-will loophole” back to 7.8 billion years ago – September 14, 2018 https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/pushing-the-free-will-loophole-back-to-7-8-billion-years-ago/

bornagain77

Go for it, ba. I have engaged in reasonable discussion, and you keep bringing in extraneous subjects. To you, anyone who disagrees with you is a troll. My point in 45 is this: I’m not arguing that free will is incompatible with QM, or that materialism is true, or that consciousness and free will don't exist. I am merely trying to establish that important experts (Robert Griffiths is the person you brought up) do NOT think it is established science that consciousness is necessary for the wave function to collapse. You like quotes: I've linked to a whole section on what he thinks about these issues, which could be substantial content for discussion, and I see no sign that you have looked at that. That is not trolling. jdk

How many times have you've been banned from UD for trolling jdk? The last three comments, IMHO, would suffice to make it once more for you. We can run it by admins to see what they think if you want. bornagain77

1) Appeals to authority. Why is Zeilinger right? What gives his words special weight. Or why is the phys.org article right? You are appealing to authority. Please understand: I think as laypersons we have to do that to a large extent. I just think you were extremely hypocritical to say you were going to refer random.dent for banning because he was appealing to authority. 2. And what good does it do to keep bringing up issues that aren't part of this topic, such as Darwinism and materialism. Therefore, respond to 45. jdk

I notice that you didn't respond to the points in 50 about appeals to authority. I notice that you didn't address the key distinction I made in 45, separating all these other issues you bring in from the limited questions about QM. I notice that "morass" is a very fitting adjective. Obviously any more effort on my part is a waste of time. ========== I wrote 53 before I saw 52. I'll see what ba has to say about appeals to authority. jdk

jdk, my 'standard mode of argument' is empirical evidence. Not authority If I relied solely on supposed 'prestige' and/or "authority', as you are currently trying to do with Griffiths textbook and opinion, (minus any empirical support for his claim of decoherence supposedly solving the measurement problem), then I certainly would be guilty of the 'argument from authority' fallacy. The shoe is squarely on the other foot jdk! For instance of me relying primarily on empirical evidence, I often cite this following experimental work to support my claim for the reality of free will in quantum mechanics: Contexuality and/or the Kochen-Speckter Theorem both confirm the reality of free will within quantum mechanics. With contextuality we find, “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 means that quantum measurements can not be thought of as simply revealing some pre-existing properties of the system under study. ”

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 further note on the Kochen-Speckter Theorem we find, as leading experimental physicist 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

Also of note: I recently took a bit deeper look here:

(Sept. 2018) Qualia, "The Experience of 'The Now'", Free Will, Agent Causality, and Jesus Christ's Resurrection From The Dead As The "Theory Of Everything" https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/is-there-an-atheist-value-system-at-odds-with-traditional-ones/#comment-665517

Bottom line jdk, despite all your rhetoric, and self-contradictory claims, none of this experimental evidence is compatible with the atheistic materialism that undergirds Darwinian thought. (your self-contradictory atheistic claim for the reality of free will not withstanding) bornagain77

jdk, your position is a morass of self contradictory positions. For prime example, you believe in free will and Darwinian evolution at the same time. Since you concede the reality of free will, you also concede the reality of immaterial mind, and even concede the reality of the immaterial Mind of God. Moreover, since only immaterial mind is known to create immaterial information, you concede the entire argument of Intelligent Design. I think you, as a die hard Atheist, may want to reconsider conceding the reality of free will to me. bornagain77

I have several points on my mind. Let's start with this one. ba, t 9 you wrote,

random.dent, ‘argument from authority’ is a fallacious response to the simple question I asked you. If you do not answer properly I will seek to have you banned for trolling.

Appeal to Authority Explanation An appeal to authority is an argument from the fact that a person judged to be an authority affirms a proposition to the claim that the proposition is true. Appeals to authority are always deductively fallacious; even a legitimate authority speaking on his area of expertise may affirm a falsehood, so no testimony of any authority is guaranteed to be true.

And yet your standard mode of argument is to appeal to authority: Von Neumann said this, Wertheim said that, Bruce Gordon said this, Weinberg said that, etc. If appeal to authority is a fallacy, then your quotes are not valid arguments. Do you see here that you are being inconsistent, invoking your authorities as supporting your arguments but then accusing others of a fallacy when they invoke authority. (And what happened to random.dent? Did he leave, or did he actually get banned? That would be ludicrous if that were the case. ) jdk

Since Griffiths held to decoherence and yet decoherence is now shown, empirically, to be false, exactly why do you think I should listen to what Griffiths said in his 'old' textbook over what the empirical evidence now says?

https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/will-social-science-morph-into-physics-and-economics-using-big-data/#comment-665680

Contrary to how you and other atheists treat science, as if empirical evidence does not matter, empirical evidence rules in science. Opinions of supposed 'authorities' are useless in the face of contradictory evidence:

The Scientific Method - Richard Feynman - video Quote: 'If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is… If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL6-x0modwY

Even Einstein himself is not above empirical reproach (and was empirically refuted, among other things, in his stance against 'spooky action at a distance'):

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

bornagain77

Have you read what Griffith's has to say on this yet? jdk

jdk, so you admit, contrary to Darwinian presuppositions, that free will is real. You also admit that free will, which is a defining attribute of the conscious mind and/or Agent Causality, is NOT "incompatible with QM". Yet you want to hold that "Consciousness is NOT necessary for the wave function to collapse."? And exactly how do you propose to separate consciousness from free will? Conceding free will to QM and yet trying to say consciousness is not necessary for explaining QM is like trying to say you can have a circle that is not round. Every time you see a circle you will find roundness. Likewise every time you find free will you will find a conscious mind somewhere. As to consciousness and wave collapse, All this was pretty much gone over in the previous thread where it was erroneously claimed, by an atheist, that the abstract infinite dimensional wave function could have physicality, See: https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/philosophy/at-scientific-american-quantum-theory-does-not-require-a-conscious-observer/#comment-664770 also see: , the infinite regress of the Von Neumann chain, that must necessarily terminate with a conscious observer (and I would further argue that it must necessarily terminate with God as the ‘unobserved observer’), is discussed starting at the 2:00 minute mark of the following video: The Measurement Problem https://youtu.be/qB7d5V71vUE?t=122 https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/philosophy/at-scientific-american-quantum-theory-does-not-require-a-conscious-observer/#comment-665034 also see: as you can see from von Neumann’s quote, the exact place where ‘observation’, and/or “wave collapse”, is said to occur is arbitrary. Von Neumann goes on to note the arbitrariness of ‘observation’ in quantum mechanics, (in the following quote) https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/philosophy/at-scientific-american-quantum-theory-does-not-require-a-conscious-observer/#comment-665052 bornagain77

And I re-read the link on the "free-will loophole." All of those experiments are confirming that local realism is not supported by the evidence. I, and more importantly Griffiths, accept that conclusion. But that's not the issue under consideration, so the link isn't relevant to this discussion. jdk

I don't give a $%$^%$ about what Jerry Coyne believes. This is the only internet forum I participate in, and has been for years, and you are the person I am having a discussion with right now. And I'm not trying to convince you, or even argue for, the position that free will is incompatible with QM. Here is the point that you seem to fail to understand, or acknowledge: 1. Consciousness and free will exist. 2. Consciousness is NOT necessary for the wave function to collapse. jdk

Well jdk, if you are not a brick wall and you really do believe in free will perhaps you should be on Coyne's blog trying to convince him that Darwinism and free will (and consciousness) are compatible instead of being on this blog trying to convince me, minus any empirical evidence on your part, that free will is incompatible with quantum theory. Again: Quantum mechanics: Pushing the “free-will loophole” back to 7.8 billion years ago – September 14, 2018 https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/pushing-the-free-will-loophole-back-to-7-8-billion-years-ago/ bornagain77

This is stupid. I believe in free will. When did I say I didn't? But we are not discussing my personal beliefs. We are discussing the range of thought about interpretations of QM, and specifically whether "measurements" necessarily require a conscious observation. And even more specifically, we are (or at least once were) discussing the opinions of David Griffith, well-respected expert on QM, who is not a realist nor a Wignerian who believes consciousness is necessary for the collapse of the wave function. Griffith seems to agree with the position I am describing. Have you read the Appendices to his book yet? jdk

If you don't believe in free will then why do you argue as if you can be persuaded by logical arguments? If all your thoughts are determined by the atoms of your brain, and you have no control over them, I might as well debate a brick wall. bornagain77

We are not discussing Darwinism, nor pantheism, which is something I discussed once, but do not "believe in". Also, as I have said (but you ignore), the issue of whether consciousness and free will exist is separate from the issue of whether consciousness is necessary for the wave function to collapse. You are tilting at windmills that are not part of the subject of this discussion. jdk

jdk, interesting comment coming from someone who defends Darwinian theory as if his life depended on it. You do realize, as Weinberg himself pointed out, that free will is incompatible with Darwin's theory do you not?

“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, such as the spin in one or another direction. Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,,

Moreover jdk, If you personally believe, via pantheism, in free will AND Darwin's theory at the same time, you are virtually alone in your opinion that the two are compatible with each other. I know of no major evolutionary biologist in America who has explicitly endorsed the reality of free will. In fact, Jerry Coyne and Michael Egnor got into a minor scuffle over that issue a few years back.

Misunderstanding Understanding Jerry Coyne on Free Will Michael Egnor - January 5, 2014 https://evolutionnews.org/2014/01/misunderstandin/ Dr. Michael Egnor: Do Humans Have Free Will? Posted on October 14, 2015 On this episode of ID the Future, Dr. Michael Egnor and Casey Luskin continue their conversation, speaking on Dr. Egnor’s recent experience in an online debate on free will with evolutionary biologist Dr. Jerry Coyne. Listen in as Dr. Egnor explains why the argument against free will is self-refuting and shows how determinism as a theory in physics is dead. https://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2015/10/dr-michael-egnor-do-humans-have-free-will/

bornagain77

There is a distinction here worth mentioning, although it won't make a difference to ba. In general, one can accept the existence of consciousness and free will, and be a theist, and still not accept the interpretation that consciousness is necessary for the wave function to collapse. These are two different issues. jdk

jdk, since he rejects free will and/or mind, he is in, like all atheists before him, a epistemologically self-refuting position. I don't care if his position is 'more nuanced' than the realist approach or not. The denial of free will, i.e. an thus the denial of the instrumentalist approach, is simply a logically untenable position. PERIOD! To reject the reality of free will is to reject rationality and reason altogether. (see CS Lewis, The Argument from Reason) Moreover, my options held out this possible option,,, "C. He was not committed to either approach"., ,,, so I'm not absolutely committed to him using the realist approach. I'm just committed to him using some "non mind' approach. I only know for sure, via your quote, that he belittled Wigner and thus, by default, rejects the instrumentalist approach. And again, I can empirically support, via Zeilinger, the instrumentalist approach. Whereas, you got nada. zilch, the goose egg! Despite your usual stupid games, It ain't hard. bornagain77

But he is not a realist. You have, as I have said, an over-simplified and false dichotomy about the subject. But you obviously don't care to study the situation, so I'll quit. But your whole schtick about reporting random.dent for trolling for not answering a question that you yourself won't investigate is ludicrous, and you have been exposed. jdk

Whatever. He either believes Mind precedes material reality or he does not. The quote you already provided,,,

but at least it avoids the stultifying solipsism of Wigner and others, who persuaded themselves that it is the intervention of human consciousness that constitutes a measurement in quantum mechanics.

,,, proves that he rejects mind and/or free will preceding material reality. Moreover, especially with the recent results of Zeilinger and company closing the 'free will loophole', I can appeal directly to empirical evidence to support my claim whereas all atheists can do is go off into far fetched ad hoc proposals to try to 'explain away' what they themselves often admit are the 'counter-intuitive' results of quantum mechanics. bornagain77

I can find a quote in the appendix that proves you're wrong. Can you find it? I'll give you 24 hours. :-) jdk

No I'm not. bornagain77

You re wrong about him. If you won't bother to read, that is not my problem. jdk

Since he invoked decoherence and belittled Wigner's 'consciousness' interpretation, I said Realist. You disagreed. I challenged you to provide another approach that would explain the measurement problem. You punted and said his approach was 'more nuanced' than either the instrumentalist or realist approach. Interestingly, you yourself have not read the entire book yet, and yet you somehow mysteriously know that his approach is 'more nuanced' than the two overarching approaches that were outlined by Weinberg himself. I'll stick with him falling into the Realist camp. As to trolling jdk, you, the troll, can try your luck with that. Something tells me the result is not going to be nearly what you think it will be. Perhaps I will help you out and report myself trolling you , the troll :) bornagain77

ba, the question is what does Griffith think: that is the question you asked. He's someone who has much more actual experience with what quantum mechanics actually does than any of us, and his thoughts are much more nuanced than the dichotomous demarcation that you insist is the only choice. At 9 you actually wrote, to random.dent,

If you do not answer properly I will seek to have you banned for trolling.

And at 10, you wrote,

random.dent, if you need help answering the simple question that I asked you, I will make it much simpler for you and make it multiple choice for you:

Griffiths held to, A. Instrumentalist approach B. Realist approach C. He was not committed to either approach D. You do not know what approach he was committed to

So what is your answer to the questions you asked random.dent? I even sent you source material to help you find the answer. And do you think I would be justified in reporting you for trolling if you won't answer? jdk

jdk, who retreats to some form of shadowy pantheism every time he is challenged on free will and consciousness being incompatible with the reductive material inherent within Darwinism, characteristically, and disingenuously, wants to make the demarcation between possible approaches in quantum mechanics, i.e. mind or no mind, harder than it need be. Despite how intimidating some of the mathematics in quantum mechanics can be, it really can ONLY be two possible options: Empirical evidence, as usual, greatly helps cut through the fog of the complicated mathematics:

Due to advances in quantum mechanics, the argument for God from consciousness can now be framed like this: 1. Consciousness either precedes all of material reality or is a 'epi-phenomena' of material reality. 2. If consciousness is a 'epi-phenomena' of material reality then consciousness will be found to have no special position within material reality. Whereas conversely, if consciousness precedes material reality then consciousness will be found to have a special position within material reality. 3. Consciousness is found to have a special, even central, position within material reality. 4. Therefore, consciousness is found to precede material reality. Five intersecting lines of experimental evidence from quantum mechanics that shows that consciousness precedes material reality (Double Slit, Wigner’s Quantum Symmetries, Wheeler’s Delayed Choice, Leggett’s Inequalities, Quantum Zeno effect): --- Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness: 5 Experiments – video https://youtu.be/t5qphmi8gYE

It should be noted, during the middle ages in Europe, when the foundations of modern science were being laid, consciousness was certainly not a problem for the founders of modern science:

How exactly did consciousness become a problem? by Margaret Wertheim – Dec. 1, 2015 Excerpt: Heaven and Earth were two separate yet intertwined domains of human action. Medieval cosmology was thus inherently dualistic: the physical domain of the body had a parallel in the spiritual domain of the soul; and for medieval thinkers, the latter was the primary domain of the Real.,,, But perhaps most surprisingly, just when the ‘stream of consciousness’ was entering our lexicon, physicists began to realise that consciousness might after all be critical to their own descriptions of the world. With the advent of quantum mechanics they found that, in order to make sense of what their theories were saying about the subatomic world, they had to posit that the scientist-observer was actively involved in constructing reality.,,, Such a view appalled many physicists,,, Just this April, Nature Physics reported on a set of experiments showing a similar effect using helium atoms. Andrew Truscott, the Australian scientist who spearheaded the helium work, noted in Physics Today that ‘99.999 per cent of physicists would say that the measurement… brings the observable into reality’. In other words, human subjectivity is drawing forth the world.,,, Not all physicists are willing to go down this path, however, and there is indeed now a growing backlash against subjectivity.,,, when I was a physics student the MWI (Many Worlds Interpretation) was widely seen as a fringe concept. Today, it is becoming mainstream, in large part because the pesky problem of consciousness simply hasn’t gone away.,,, https://aeon.co/essays/how-and-why-exactly-did-consciousness-become-a-problem

bornagain77

re 28: ba's demarcation is overly simplified and presents a false dichotomy. Maybe you ought to read the material by Griffiths and see what he has to say: read both the Preface and the Appendices. jdk

It would be interesting to have someone like random.dent respond to ba77's claim. Even though ba77 is not an expert, it is clear that either he proposes the correct demarcations, or he doesn't. If the latter, then the experts can easily chime in and explain in what way the demarcation is wrong. If the former, then ba77 seems to have a point. EricMH

What does Griffith think? That is the question you accused random.dent of trolling because he wouldn't answer it, isn't it? If you read the material I've suggested, you might find that the situation is a bit more nuanced, at least to Griffith, than you think. If you won't read the material and respond, I'll report you for trolling!!!! (Just kidding, of course: you can do whatever you want.) jdk

jdk, it ain't hard, there are only two approaches possible, mind or no mind, Instrumentalist or Realist. bornagain77

I only know the little I read online. Perhaps you ought to read and figure out what he thinks for yourself. Read the Preface and the Appendix, and see what you think. jdk

So he rejects 'consciousness' and/or free will, and in an unsatisfied manner invokes decohence, but does not hold to the realist approach? Really??? Can you be so kind to name exactly what approach he leans to then, (besides "shut up and calculate" :) ), so as to solve the measurement problem discussed by Weinberg and InspiringPhilosophy ?

“David Mermin once summarized a popular attitude towards quantum theory as “Shut up and calculate!”. We suggest an alternative slogan: “Shut up and contemplate!” Lucien Hardy and Robert Spekkens, “Why Physics Needs Quantum Foundations” (2010)

bornagain77

ba, I suggest you read the full appendix of Griffith's book, as I don't believe he "leans towards realism." And I mean read for overall understanding, not just to quote mine. Also note, he, as several others I have quoted, dismiss the idea that consciousness is a necessary component of the wave collapse: that measurement is done by some macroscopic interaction, not some human "observation" as some of those videos you posted to one time seem to imply, or state. jdk

Our flip flopping pantheist jdk is finally useful for something,,, he cites this,,,

The measurement occurs at the moment when the microscopic system (described by the laws of quantum mechanics) interacts with the macroscopic system (described by the laws of classical mechanics) in such a way as to leave a permanent record. The macroscopic system itself is not permitted to occupy a linear combination of distinct states. I would not pretend that this is an entirely satisfactory resolution, but at least it avoids the stultifying solipsism of Wigner and others, who persuaded themselves that it is the intervention of human consciousness that constitutes a measurement in quantum mechanics. - Griffiths

Thanks jdk, that means that Griffiths invoked decoherence and thus leaned heavily towards the Realist approach. Yet Griffiths himself concedes that

"I would not pretend that this is an entirely satisfactory resolution,"

Likewise Weinberg himself is not satisfied with decoherence as a resolution to the measurement problem:

The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics - Steven Weinberg - January 19, 2017 The trouble is that in quantum mechanics the way that wave functions change with time is governed by an equation, the Schrödinger equation, that does not involve probabilities. It is just as deterministic as Newton’s equations of motion and gravitation. That is, given the wave function at any moment, the Schrödinger equation will tell you precisely what the wave function will be at any future time. There is not even the possibility of chaos, the extreme sensitivity to initial conditions that is possible in Newtonian mechanics. So if we regard the whole process of measurement as being governed by the equations of quantum mechanics, and these equations are perfectly deterministic, how do probabilities get into quantum mechanics? One common answer is that, in a measurement, the spin (or whatever else is measured) is put in an interaction with a macroscopic environment that jitters in an unpredictable way. For example, the environment might be the shower of photons in a beam of light that is used to observe the system, as unpredictable in practice as a shower of raindrops. Such an environment causes the superposition of different states in the wave function to break down, leading to an unpredictable result of the measurement. (This is called decoherence.) It is as if a noisy background somehow unpredictably left only one of the notes of a chord audible. But this begs the question. If the deterministic Schrödinger equation governs the changes through time not only of the spin but also of the measuring apparatus and the physicist using it, then the results of measurement should not in principle be unpredictable. So we still have to ask, how do probabilities get into quantum mechanics?,,, Today there are two widely followed approaches to quantum mechanics, the “realist” and “instrumentalist” approaches, which view the origin of probability in measurement in two very different ways.9 For reasons I will explain, neither approach seems to me quite satisfactory.10 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/01/19/trouble-with-quantum-mechanics/

The following video also explains why decoherence does not solve the measurement problem:

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

Moreover, decoherence is directly refuted by empirical evidence, i.e. by "Renninger-type" experiments.

The Mental Universe - Richard Conn Henry - Professor of Physics John Hopkins University Excerpt: The only reality is mind and observations, but observations are not of things. To see the Universe as it really is, we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things.,,, Physicists shy away from the truth because the truth is so alien to everyday physics. A common way to evade the mental universe is to invoke "decoherence" - the notion that "the physical environment" is sufficient to create reality, independent of the human mind. Yet the idea that any irreversible act of amplification is necessary to collapse the wave function is known to be wrong: in "Renninger-type" experiments, the wave function is collapsed simply by your human mind seeing nothing. The universe is entirely mental,,,, The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy. http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/The.mental.universe.pdf The Renninger Negative Result Experiment - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3uzSlh_CV0 An Interaction-Free Quantum Experiment (Zeilinger Bomb Tester experiment, and in the double slit experiment, the Detector can be placed at one slit during the double slit experiment and yet the photon or electron still collapses in the unobserved slit) - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOv8zYla1wY Elitzur–Vaidman bomb tester Excerpt: In 1994, Anton Zeilinger, Paul Kwiat, Harald Weinfurter, and Thomas Herzog actually performed an equivalent of the above experiment, proving interaction-free measurements are indeed possible.[2] In 1996, Kwiat et al. devised a method, using a sequence of polarising devices, that efficiently increases the yield rate to a level arbitrarily close to one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elitzur%E2%80%93Vaidman_bomb-testing_problem#Experiments etc.. etc..

And as mentioned previously, the instrumentalist approach has now been experimentally verified to be true with the recent closing of the free will loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company: i.e. With the recent closing of the ‘free will loop-hole’ by Anton Zeilinger and company, I now think that the ‘instrumentalist approach’ is overwhelmingly empirically confirmed to be the correct interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Quantum mechanics: Pushing the “free-will loophole” back to 7.8 billion years ago – September 14, 2018 https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/pushing-the-free-will-loophole-back-to-7-8-billion-years-ago/

And again, Weinberg, an atheist, boils down all the various interpretations of quantum mechanics as such. The ‘realist’ and the ‘instrumentalist’ approach. Weinberg rightly rejects the realist approach because of the sheer absurdity of many worlds, (i.e. infinite parallel universes that split off from each other, etc..) and also since the realist approach does not really deal with the probabilities properly without making untenable ad hoc assumptions, (See 'many worlds' video on Youtube by inspiringphilosophy), but, on the other hand, it is interesting to note exactly why Weinberg, again an atheist, rejects the instrumentalist approach. Weinberg rejects the instrumentalist approach because having free will figure so centrally in quantum mechanics at such a deep level, undermines the Darwinian worldview from within in that instead of humans being the result of impersonal physical laws, “humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level.” Specifically Weinberg states, “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.”

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/

Moreover, (besides the fact that Anton Zeilinger and company have now closed the ‘free will loop-hole’ and have thus empirically confirmed the instrumentalist approach to be correct), it is simply, as a matter of logic, completely insane for Darwinists to deny the reality of their very own ‘free will’. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/the-cat-is-back-is-quantum-theory-dead-alive-and-contradicting-itself/#comment-665388 of note: Theism solves the problem of solipsism

Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger by Richard Conn Henry – Physics Professor – John Hopkins University Excerpt: Why do people cling with such ferocity to belief in a mind-independent reality? It is surely because if there is no such reality, then ultimately (as far as we can know) mind alone exists. And if mind is not a product of real matter, but rather is the creator of the “illusion” of material reality (which has, in fact, despite the materialists, been known to be the case, since the discovery of quantum mechanics in 1925), then a theistic view of our existence becomes the only rational alternative to solipsism (solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one’s own mind is sure to exist). (Dr. Henry’s referenced experiment and paper – “An experimental test of non-local realism” by S. Gröblacher et. al., Nature 446, 871, April 2007 – “To be or not to be local” by Alain Aspect, Nature 446, 866, April 2007 (Leggett’s Inequality: Violated, as of 2011, to 120 standard deviations) Divine Action and the World of Science: What Cosmology and Quantum Physics Teach Us about the Role of Providence in Nature - Bruce L. Gordon - 2017 Excerpt page 295: In light of this realization, the rather startling picture that begins to seem plausible is that preserving and explaining the objective structure of appearances in light of quantum theory requires reviving a type of phenomenalism in which our perception of the physical universe is constituted by sense-data conforming to certain structural constraints, but in which there is no substantial material reality causing these sensory perceptions. This leaves us with an ontology of minds (as immaterial substances) experiencing and generating mental events and processes that, when sensory in nature, have a formal character limned by the fundamental symmetries and structures revealed in “physical” theory. That these structured sensory perceptions are not mostly of our own individual or collective human making points to the falsity of any solipsistic or social constructivist conclusion, but it also implies the need for a transcendent source and ground of our experience. As Robert Adams points out, mere formal structure is ontologically incomplete: [A] system of spatiotemporal relationships constituted by sizes, shapes, positions, and changes thereof, is too incomplete, too hollow, as it were, to constitute an ultimately real thing or substance. It is a framework that, by its very nature, needs to be filled in by something less purely formal. It can only be a structure of something of some not merely structural sort. Formally, rich as such a structure may be, it lacks too much of the reality of material thinghood. By itself, it participates in the incompleteness of abstractions. . . . [T]he reality of a substance must include something intrinsic and qualitativeover and above any formal or structural features it may possess.117 When we consider the fact that the structure of reality in fundamental physical theory is merely phenomenological and that this structure itself is hollow and non-qualitative, whereas our experience is not, the metaphysical objectivity and epistemic intersubjectivity of the enstructured qualitative reality of our experience can be seen to be best explained by an occasionalist idealism of the sort advocated by George Berkeley (1685-1753) or Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758). In the metaphysical context of this kind of theistic immaterialism, the vera causa that brings coherent closure to the phenomenological reality we inhabit is always and only agent causation. The necessity of causal sufficiency is met by divine action, for as Plantinga emphasizes: [T]he connection between God’s willing that there be light and there being light is necessary in the broadly logical sense: it is necessary in that sense that if God wills that p, p occurs. Insofar as we have a grasp of necessity (and we do have a grasp of necessity), we also have a grasp of causality when it is divine causality that is at issue. I take it this is a point in favor of occasionalism, and in fact it constitutes a very powerful advantage of occasionalism. 118

bornagain77

I'm late to the party here, but I see that the 1995 edition of Griffith's books is online. (Source: http://www.fisica.net/mecanica-quantica/Griffiths%20-%20Introduction%20to%20quantum%20mechanics.pdf) The first paragraphs of the Preface, page vii, are interesting, and directs the reader who is interested in what it all means to consult a short Appendix, but he also says "I do not believe one can intelligently discuss what quantum mechanics means until one has a firm sense of what quantum mechanics does". And on pages 382-383:

Schrodinger regarded this as patent nonsense [the idea that the cat was neither dead or alive until observed], and I think most physicists would agree with him. There is something absurd about the very idea of a macroscopic object being in a linear combination of two palpably different states. An electron can be in a linear combination of spin up and spin down, but a cat simply cannot be in a linear combination of alive and dead. How are we to reconcile this with the orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics? The most widely accepted answer is that the triggering of the Geiger counter constitutes the "measurement," in the sense of the statistical interpretation, not the intervention of a human observer. It is the essence of a measurement that some macroscopic system is affected (the Geiger counter, in this instance). The measurement occurs at the moment when the microscopic system (described by the laws of quantum mechanics) interacts with the macroscopic system (described by the laws of classical mechanics) in such a way as to leave a permanent record. The macroscopic system itself is not permitted to occupy a linear combination of distinct states. I would not pretend that this is an entirely satisfactory resolution, but at least it avoids the stultifying solipsism of Wigner and others, who persuaded themselves that it is the intervention of human consciousness that constitutes a measurement in quantum mechanics. Part of the problem is the word "measurement" itself, which certainly carries an suggestion of human involvement. Heisenberg proposed the word "event", which might be preferable. But I'm afraid "measurement" is so ingrained by now that we're stuck with it. And, in the end, no manipulation of the terminology can completely exorcise this mysterious ghost.

[My emphasis] jdk

At 9, ba writes,

random.dent, ‘argument from authority’ is a fallacious response to the simple question I asked you. If you do not answer properly I will seek to have you banned for trolling.

LOL. What a remark from the guy whose posts are mostly quotes from people, regularly arguing from authority. And, second, ba thinks that not answering him properly is trolling, and ground for banning. Things haven'y changed much since I've been out of town! jdk

The best way to quickly get into SR is by starting with conservation of momentum, though. F=dp/dt. There's an intro physics textbook called Matter and Interactions IIRC that takes that approach. random.dent

That should have been m’=m/(1-v^2/c^2)^1/2. Intro to Special Relativity was like 20 years ago. :-P random.dent

Of course, E=mc^2 can be derived from F=ma, but you have to use the Chain Rule and the relativistic mass correction m'=m/(1-v^2/c^2) so I wouldn't say it's the *same* equation really. The first one is useful in nuclear physics and the second one is good in simple classical mechanics problems. random.dent

I would point out that F=ma (i.e., F=mv^2) is the SAME equation as E=mc^2. Einstein simply noted that since c (the speed of light) is the fastest speed possible, the energy released by converting the mass to energy would have to be equal to or less than the fastest velocity possible (i.e., the speed of light). Endowing Einstein’s version with some mystical genius simply causes confusion.

A strictly newtonian mindset would lead to time being invariant and the speed of light varying. If a truck was coming at you at velocity v and shining its headlights a Newtonian calculation would predict you'd measure c'=v+c. Einstein's real genius was in realizing the speed of light was actually invariant, and time was variant. You calculate the t'= t/(1-v2/c2)1/2 accordingly. random.dent

a=m/s^2. v^2=m^2/s^2 random.dent

a=/=v^2. random.dent

"I would point out that F=ma (i.e., F=mv^2) is the SAME equation as E=mc^2." But F=ma is different than F=mv^2. random.dent

random.dent, repeating the argument from authority is the wrong answer. I will forward this exchange to admins and request you be removed from UD for trolling. of supplemental note: Via Godel, expertise in mathematics is next to useless in evaluating which approach is correct in quantum mechanics. Via empirical science, only evidence will determine which one is correct. Following that route, the instrumentalist approach is shown to very likely be the correct approach since the free will loophole was very recently closed by Anton Zeilinger and company. bornagain77

bornagain my ability to use QM is fairly high. How many time-dependent Schrodinger's equations have you solved? How many Clebsch-Gordon coefficients have you calculated? Do you even know what a Hamiltonian is? Your understanding of QM is very, very much lower than mine. You have nothing to teach me on the subject. So I don't read your posts on the subject, or bother with your questions. There are other commenters I read on this site who are informative. random.dent

random.dent, if you need help answering the simple question that I asked you, I will make it much simpler for you and make it multiple choice for you: Griffiths held to,,

A. Instrumentalist approach B. Realist approach C. He was not committed to either approach D. You do not know what approach he was committed to

Supplemental note:

The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics – Steven Weinberg – January 19, 2017 Excerpt: Today there are two widely followed approaches to quantum mechanics, the “realist” and “instrumentalist” approaches, which view the origin of probability in measurement in two very different ways.9 For reasons I will explain, neither approach seems to me quite satisfactory.10 https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/01/19/trouble-with-quantum-mechanics/

bornagain77

random.dent, 'argument from authority' is a fallacious response to the simple question I asked you. If you do not answer properly I will seek to have you banned for trolling.

Appeal to Authority Explanation An appeal to authority is an argument from the fact that a person judged to be an authority affirms a proposition to the claim that the proposition is true. Appeals to authority are always deductively fallacious; even a legitimate authority speaking on his area of expertise may affirm a falsehood, so no testimony of any authority is guaranteed to be true.

bornagain77

"I have a problem with long division so I think I will give this a pass." Most people do. :-D And I don't blame them. Getting through the 6 or so classes I needed to get a basic understanding of QM was a hell of a lot of work. When I see commenters (not you) jabbering gibberish trying to lecture me about QM it's always people who couldn't solve a problem from chapter 3 of an Intro to QM undergrad textbook if their life depended on it. :-P random.dent

I read one of your posts about QM one time and that was enough. If you ever want to learn something about QM I can give you advice depending on your level of mathematical ability. random.dent

random.dent, you never did answer my question on the previous thread:

Perhaps you know, if any, which interpretation of Quantum Mechanics he (Griffiths) favors? (Instrumentalist or Realist?) https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/the-cat-is-back-is-quantum-theory-dead-alive-and-contradicting-itself/#comment-665388

Also see this:

Relativity theory and quantum mechanics both support Christian Theism not atheism and as such point to morality not amorality. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/is-there-an-atheist-value-system-at-odds-with-traditional-ones/#comment-665602 (Sept. 2018) Qualia, “The Experience of ‘The Now'”, Free Will, Agent Causality, and Jesus Christ’s Resurrection From The Dead As The “Theory Of Everything” https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/is-there-an-atheist-value-system-at-odds-with-traditional-ones/#comment-665517

bornagain77

RD

Pick up a used copy of Griffiths if you want to start to learn, but make sure your Calc III is tight before you do or you’ll have real trouble with triple integrals in spherical coordinates.

I have a problem with long division so I think I will give this a pass. :) R J Sawyer

3 polistraSeptember 28, 2018 at 5:41 pm All three “sciences” have already delegitimized themselves. Might as well merge. Quantum “Mechanics”, Quantitative Easing, Queer Studies. All perfectly disconnected from observed reality.

Ironically you were only able to post this due to semiconductors functioning properly, which you can only really understand when you know QM. Band gaps, the wavelike nature of the electron, etc. In 1956 the Nobel Prize in physics was given to John Bardeen and two others for their transistor. Bardeen was a Quantum Physicist. Pick up a used copy of Griffiths if you want to start to learn, but make sure your Calc III is tight before you do or you'll have real trouble with triple integrals in spherical coordinates. random.dent

All three "sciences" have already delegitimized themselves. Might as well merge. Quantum "Mechanics", Quantitative Easing, Queer Studies. All perfectly disconnected from observed reality. polistra

Eh? That doesn't sound quite right. In your second equation,do you mean E = (mv^2)/2? daveS

I would point out that F=ma (i.e., F=mv^2) is the SAME equation as E=mc^2. Einstein simply noted that since c (the speed of light) is the fastest speed possible, the energy released by converting the mass to energy would have to be equal to or less than the fastest velocity possible (i.e., the speed of light). Endowing Einstein's version with some mystical genius simply causes confusion. vmahuna