At Scientific American: Quantum theory does not require a conscious observer

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September 10, 2018

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment#/media/File:Double-slit.svg — double slit experiment

Science writer Anil Ananthaswamy Intro of surveys current theories:

If nothing else, these experiments are showing that we cannot yet make any claims about the nature of reality, even if the claims are well-motivated mathematically or philosophically. And given that neuroscientists and philosophers of mind don’t agree on the nature of consciousness, claims that it collapses wave functions are premature at best and misleading and wrong at worst.Anil Ananthaswamy, “What Does Quantum Theory Actually Tell Us about Reality?” at Scientific American

One wants to ask, if we cannot make any claims about the nature of reality and there is no agreement about the nature of consciousness, how does Ananthaswamy know that claims about the role of consciousness are “premature,” “misleading,” or “wrong?” Hasn’t he ruled out any basis for such decisions?

See also: At Nature: For now, “uncertainty seems the wisest position” on the implications of quantum mechanics

and

Post-modern science: The illusion of consciousness sees through itself

Comments

Sev @ 70 "But it seems to me that, good as some of our theories are, their limitations indicate that there is still a lot that we don’t yet know, that we still don’t have a good handle on what all this is about." And it will never change. To that I say "Amen". Something we find agreement. That's why God tells us "fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" Epistemologically, us humans find ourselves at all different levels. We can stay shallow and God will entreat us "fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom". Or we can go deep, study the greats minds of the past/present and ponder the mysterious before us and God will still entreat us "fear the of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" So in a sense we just give up and look to the LORD for our wisdom. Everything changes when we do. juwilkerjuwilker_{September 16, 2018
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As to this previously cited quote from von Neumann
How (conscious) observation is inextricably bound to measurement in quantum mechanics: Quote: “We wish to measure a temperature.,,, But in any case, no matter how far we calculate — to the mercury vessel, to the scale of the thermometer, to the retina, or into the brain, at some time we must say: and this is perceived by the observer. That is, we must always divide the world into two parts, the one being the observed system, the other the observer.” John von Neumann – 1903-1957 – The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, pp.418-21 – 1955 http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/neumann/
In quantum mechanics, 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,
"The boundary between the two is arbitrary to a very large extent. In particular we saw in the four different possibilities in the example above, that the observer in this sense needs not to become identified with the body of the actual observer: In one instance in the above example, we included even the thermometer in it, while in another instance, even the eyes and optic nerve tract were not included. That this boundary can be pushed arbitrarily deeply into the interior of the body of the actual observer is the content of the principle of the psycho-physical parallelism -- but this does not change the fact that in each method of description the boundary must be put somewhere, if the method is not to proceed vacuously, i.e., if a comparison with experiment is to be possible. Indeed experience only makes statements of this type: an observer has made a certain (subjective) observation; and never any like this: a physical quantity has a certain value." - von Neumann
Moreover, it is also important to note that, in atheistic materialism, it is presupposed that the observer is just passively observing some pre-existent value of some physical system. Yet that materialistic presupposition of 'passive observation' is now known to be false. In regards to Wheeler's Delayed Choice Experiment, Wheeler stated:
“It begins to look as we ourselves, by our last minute decision, have an influence on what a photon will do when it has already accomplished most of its doing… we have to say that we ourselves have an undeniable part in what we have always called the past. The past is not really the past until is has been registered. Or to put it another way, the past has no meaning or existence unless it exists as a record in the present.” – John Wheeler – The Ghost In The Atom – Page 66-68 - P. C. W. Davies, Julian R. Brown - Cambridge University Press, Jul 30, 1993
But even Wheeler's contention that "the past has no meaning or existence unless it exists as a record in the present” is found not to be such an ironclad rule in quantum mechanics as some have thought it to be. As Asher Peres stated in 2000, "quantum effects mimic not only instantaneous action-at-a-distance but also, as seen here, influence of future actions on past events, even after these events have been irrevocably recorded."
"If we attempt to attribute an objective meaning to the quantum state of a single system, curious paradoxes appear: quantum effects mimic not only instantaneous action-at-a-distance but also, as seen here, influence of future actions on past events, even after these events have been irrevocably recorded." Asher Peres, Delayed choice for entanglement swapping. J. Mod. Opt. 47, 139-143 (2000).
Zeilinger and company experimentally realized Peres's thought experiment
Quantum physics mimics spooky action into the past - April 23, 2012 Excerpt: The authors experimentally realized a "Gedankenexperiment" called "delayed-choice entanglement swapping", formulated by Asher Peres in the year 2000. Two pairs of entangled photons are produced, and one photon from each pair is sent to a party called Victor. Of the two remaining photons, one photon is sent to the party Alice and one is sent to the party Bob. Victor can now choose between two kinds of measurements. If he decides to measure his two photons in a way such that they are forced to be in an entangled state, then also Alice's and Bob's photon pair becomes entangled. If Victor chooses to measure his particles individually, Alice's and Bob's photon pair ends up in a separable state. Modern quantum optics technology allowed the team to delay Victor's choice and measurement with respect to the measurements which Alice and Bob perform on their photons. "We found that whether Alice's and Bob's photons are entangled and show quantum correlations or are separable and show classical correlations can be decided after they have been measured", explains Xiao-song Ma, lead author of the study. According to the famous words of Albert Einstein, the effects of quantum entanglement appear as "spooky action at a distance". The recent experiment has gone one remarkable step further. "Within a naïve classical world view, quantum mechanics can even mimic an influence of future actions on past events", says Anton Zeilinger. http://phys.org/news/2012-04-quantum-physics-mimics-spooky-action.html
And as Professor Crull states in the following article “entanglement can occur across two quantum systems that never coexisted,,, it implies that the measurements carried out by your eye upon starlight falling through your telescope this winter somehow dictated the polarity of photons more than 9 billion years old.”
You thought quantum mechanics was weird: check out entangled time - Feb. 2018 Excerpt: Up to today, most experiments have tested entanglement over spatial gaps. The assumption is that the ‘nonlocal’ part of quantum nonlocality refers to the entanglement of properties across space. But what if entanglement also occurs across time? Is there such a thing as temporal nonlocality?,,, The data revealed the existence of quantum correlations between ‘temporally nonlocal’ photons 1 and 4. That is, entanglement can occur across two quantum systems that never coexisted. What on Earth can this mean? Prima facie, it seems as troubling as saying that the polarity of starlight in the far-distant past – say, greater than twice Earth’s lifetime – nevertheless influenced the polarity of starlight falling through your amateur telescope this winter. Even more bizarrely: maybe it implies that the measurements carried out by your eye upon starlight falling through your telescope this winter somehow dictated the polarity of photons more than 9 billion years old. https://aeon.co/ideas/you-thought-quantum-mechanics-was-weird-check-out-entangled-time
And as the following author stated: "Not only can two events be correlated, linking the earlier one to the later one, but two events can become correlated such that it becomes impossible to say which is earlier and which is later.,,,"
Quantum Weirdness Now a Matter of Time – 2016 Bizarre quantum bonds connect distinct moments in time, suggesting that quantum links — not space-time — constitute the fundamental structure of the universe. Excerpt: Not only can two events be correlated, linking the earlier one to the later one, but two events can become correlated such that it becomes impossible to say which is earlier and which is later.,,, “If you have space-time, you have a well-defined causal order,” said Caslav Brukner, a physicist at the University of Vienna who studies quantum information. But “if you don’t have a well-defined causal order,” he said — as is the case in experiments he has proposed — then “you don’t have space-time.”,,, Quantum correlations come first, space-time later. Exactly how does space-time emerge out of the quantum world? Bruner said he is still unsure. https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160119-time-entanglement/
That is just plain bizarre and is certainly completely antagonistic to materialistic presuppositions of 'passive observation'. As Pascual Jordan, put it: "observations not only disturb what has to be measured, they produce it… We compel [a quantum particle] to assume a definite position." In other words, Jordan said, "we ourselves produce the results of measurements."
The Strange Link between the Human mind and Quantum Physics - By Philip Ball - 16 February 2017 Excerpt: The physicist Pascual Jordan, who worked with quantum guru Niels Bohr in Copenhagen in the 1920s, put it like this: "observations not only disturb what has to be measured, they produce it… We compel [a quantum particle] to assume a definite position." In other words, Jordan said, "we ourselves produce the results of measurements." http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170215-the-strange-link-between-the-human-mind-and-quantum-physics
And as Anton Zeilinger stated, "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://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/suarez-quantum-nonlocal-correlations-come-from-outside-space-time/
To say all of this is incompatible with materialistic presuppositions which hold that we are just 'passive observers' would be an understatement. It is also interesting to point out that this line of evidence is very friendly to Dr. Michael Egnor’s (Theistic) contention (via Aristotle) that “Perception at a distance is no more inconceivable than action at a distance.”
Perception and the Cartesian Theater – Michael Egnor – December 8, 2015 Excerpt: Perception at a distance is no more inconceivable than action at a distance. The notion that a perception of the moon occurs at the moon is “bizarre” (Torley’s word) only if one presumes that perception is constrained by distance and local conditions — perhaps perception would get tired if it had to go to the moon or it wouldn’t be able to go because it’s too cold there. Yet surely the view that the perception of a rose held up to my eye was located at the rose wouldn’t be deemed nearly as bizarre. At what distance does perception of an object at the object become inconceivable? http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/12/perception_and101471.html
Of related interest to this, in the following article, Dr. Egnor points out that Aristotle (and Aquinas) anticipated the basics of Quantum Wave Collapse thousands of years before quantum mechanics was discovered.
What Is Matter? The Aristotelian Perspective – Michael Egnor – July 21, 2017 Excerpt: Heisenberg, almost alone among the great physicists of the quantum revolution, understood that the Aristotelian concept of potency and act was beautifully confirmed by quantum theory and evidence.,,, Heisenberg wrote: ,,,The probability wave of Bohr, Kramers, Slater… was a quantitative version of the old concept of “potentia” in Aristotelian philosophy. It introduced something standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the actual event, a strange kind of physical reality just in the middle between possibility and reality…The probability function combines objective and subjective elements,,, Thus, the existence of potential quantum states described by Schrodinger’s equation (which is a probability function) are the potency (the “matter”) of the system, and the collapse of the quantum waveform is the reduction of potency to act. To an Aristotelian (like Heisenberg), quantum mechanics isn’t strange at all. https://evolutionnews.org/2017/07/what-is-matter-the-aristotelian-perspective/
Verse:
Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
bornagain77_{September 16, 2018
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Seversky said:
For example, there have been loosely-phrased claims about reality not existing until we observe it at the quantum level which have been argued as supporting the claim that nothing exists unless it is being observed. But is that what is being claimed about quantum phenomena.
I don't know of anyone who claims that "reality" doesn't exist, or that "nothing exists" until it is observed (which would be absurd, since there wouldn't be anything to observe, real or otherwise). Rather, the claim is that what we experience as physical space-time does not exist in any particular configuration except in our experience, experience being the interface between conscious mind and what we call a quantum field of potential. IOW, the actual claim is that reality is not what we think it is (an external, material world), and "what exists" doesn't exist the way we commonly think. There's no such thing as "nothing".William J Murray_{September 15, 2018
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duplicate postWilliam J Murray_{September 15, 2018
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random_dent said:
In the physics parlance, in this situation, observation means “the system interacting with other particles/waves in the act of measurement inevitably collapses the system.”
No, it does not. As explained thoroughly in this thread. If all it took was interacting with other wave/particle systems to collapse a wave into a particular location or quality, there would be none of these quantum effects at all.
No consciousness required.
How about you provide a link, then to an experiment where the capacity to know which slit the electron passed through was not required in order to get a clump pattern instead of an interference pattern?William J Murray_{September 15, 2018
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Upright BiPed states
As Von Neumann suggests, all that’s left to do now is explain how the record of a measurement came to be on a piece of paper without recourse to another record.
Exactly,,,, 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
Von Neumann also stated, "we must always divide the world into two parts, the one being the observed system, the other the observer.”
How (conscious) observation is inextricably bound to measurement in quantum mechanics: Quote: "We wish to measure a temperature.,,, But in any case, no matter how far we calculate -- to the mercury vessel, to the scale of the thermometer, to the retina, or into the brain, at some time we must say: and this is perceived by the observer. That is, we must always divide the world into two parts, the one being the observed system, the other the observer.” John von Neumann - 1903-1957 - The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, pp.418-21 - 1955 http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/neumann/
The following fairly recent video by InspiringPhilosophy is also very good, after going though all the failed attempts of materialist to 'explain away' wave collapse, for showing how conscious observation is inextricably bound to measurement:
17:50 minute mark "reality is dependent on conscious observers" The Death of Materialism - (2018) video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM0IKLv7KrE
And let's not forget that it is not only conscious observation that materialists have to deal with in quantum mechanics. Materialists also have to deny the reality of the free will of the conscious observer in the experiments.
What Does Quantum Physics Have to Do with Free Will? – By Antoine Suarez – July 22, 2013 Excerpt: What is more, recent experiments are bringing to light that the experimenter’s free will and consciousness should be considered axioms (founding principles) of standard quantum physics theory. So for instance, in experiments involving “entanglement” (the phenomenon Einstein called “spooky action at a distance”), to conclude that quantum correlations of two particles are nonlocal (i.e. cannot be explained by signals traveling at velocity less than or equal to the speed of light), it is crucial to assume that the experimenter can make free choices, and is not constrained in what orientation he/she sets the measuring devices. To understand these implications it is crucial to be aware that quantum physics is not only a description of the material and visible world around us, but also speaks about non-material influences coming from outside the space-time… https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/suarez-quantum-nonlocal-correlations-come-from-outside-space-time/
And the supposed "free will loop-hole" of materialists was just dealt a death blow by Anton Zeilinger and company
Quantum mechanics: Pushing the “free-will loophole” back to 7.8 billion years ago - September 14, 2018 https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/pushing-the-free-will-loophole-back-to-7-8-billion-years-ago/
Not that experimental evidence ever mattered to Darwinian atheists, but if it did, the work by Zeilinger and company should definitely make them become Theists.bornagain77_{September 15, 2018
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As Von Neumann suggests, all that's left to do now is explain how the record of a measurement came to be on a piece of paper without recourse to another record.Upright BiPed_{September 15, 2018
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Jdk@72. Ditto.R J Sawyer_{September 15, 2018
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Thanks for 70 and 71.jdk_{September 15, 2018
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"As I understand it, the observer or measurement effect broadly refers to the observation that certain quantum “entities” can exists in a number of different states but that which we observe or measure is not decided until the act of observation. Further, that an act of observation or measurement by a conscious observer is required to “collapse the wave function” to a specific observed state." Almost correct. The first sentence is correct. The second is not. "observation collapses the wave function" leads people to think "human eyeballing the system collapses the wave function." This is not correct. In the physics parlance, in this situation, observation means "the system interacting with other particles/waves in the act of measurement inevitably collapses the system." No consciousness required. To be really explicit, you can easily have a physical setup which measured whether, say, an electron went through this slit or that slit, and print the result on a piece of paper. The wave function collapses and the device takes a reading and dutifully prints it out, whether a human is looking in that direction or not. I'm not a quantum physicist, but I did have 3-4 quantum classes on the way to getting one of my degrees. You haven't known tedium until you've calculated a few pages of Clebsch–Gordan coefficients. IIRC for each one I had to solve 3D integrals in spherical coordinates.random.dent_{September 15, 2018
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In case there was any doubt, let me confirm that I am not a quantum physicist and neither, I suspect, is anyone else here. Thus we are all taking the observations and interpretations of the nature of the quantum world on faith. I accept that there are quantum phenomena like entanglement, "spooky action-at-a-distance' and wave/particle duality which are at odds with our experience of the macro world. What I question is whether there is yet one broadly-accepted interpretation of these phenomena - such as is being implied by some here - or whether it is still the subject of intense debate in the scientific community. What I challenge are the attempts to extrapolate from what is observed at the quantum level to claims about the macro world which lead to absurdities. For example, there have been loosely-phrased claims about reality not existing until we observe it at the quantum level which have been argued as supporting the claim that nothing exists unless it is being observed. But is that what is being claimed about quantum phenomena. Yet, if you remember the famous thought experiment by that notorious metaphorical abuser of cats, Erwin Schroedinger, which was offered to illustrate the fact that not only can we not know whether the cat in the box is alive or dead until we look but that, arguably, it exists in a superposition of both states until observed. What he did not argue was that another possibility was that the cat could also have vanished altogether. As I understand it, the observer or measurement effect broadly refers to the observation that certain quantum "entities" can exists in a number of different states but that which we observe or measure is not decided until the act of observation. Further, that an act of observation or measurement by a conscious observer is required to "collapse the wave function" to a specific observed state. It is not the claim, therefore, that there is literally nothing there until somebody looks, either at the quantum or macro level. I once asked BA77 if he believed that he did not exist unless some other conscious being was observing him. I also posed the obvious chicken-and-egg question: if nothing exists until it is observed then what is the observer observing in the first place? On the other hand, if there is something already there for the observer to observe, then existence of something does not depend on it being observed. As for the primacy of consciousness, as has been pointed out many times before, the only observable instances are always closely correlated with the existence of a physical substrate, specifically the brain. When the brain dies or is destroyed, the associated consciousness disappears. Permanently, as far as we can tell. That is strong, observational support for the materialist interpretation. Speculations about some all-embracing universal field of consciousness sound more like The Force from Star Wars than anything else. Personally, I rather like the idea of The Force but the sad reality is that while it has clearly-observable effects in that far away galaxy we see nothing like it here in the Milky Way, more's the pity. Understandably, we would all like the Universe to turn out to fit our own notions of the way things are and the way things ought to be. But it seems to me that, good as some of our theories are, their limitations indicate that there is still a lot that we don't yet know, that we still don't have a good handle on what all this is about. What I suspect is that whatever it is, it is not like what I as an a/mat believe nor like what followers of the various faiths believe but something we have yet to even imagine. We have managed to get our hands on a few good pieces of the puzzle but the whole picture is still a long way from coming together.Seversky_{September 15, 2018
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Sorry. I couldn't edit it. The syntax is unparadoxically jumbled.Axel_{September 15, 2018
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'“Thus one decides the photon shall have come by one route or by both routes after it has already done its travel” John A. Wheeler' “That’s the enigma. That our choice of what experiment to do determines the prior state of the electron. Somehow or other we had an influence on it which appears to travel backwards in time.” Fred Kuttner – Univ. Of California Surely, ba, all the imponderable mysteries of QM constitute a little bit (or a universe, depending on your perspective) of mockery of atheists by God, who 'scatters the proud in the imagination of their hearts.' 'It's crazy ; but is it crazy enough to be true ?' One of many 'bon mots' of Niels Bohr (who claimed to lean towards views of reality found in mainstream eastern religions) on the subject of the mysterious nature of reality at the quantum level, a consilience that evidently intrigued him no end.Axel_{September 15, 2018
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jdk states
So I appreciate wjm’s involvement (despite his thinking I was being “deliberately ignorant and wasting everyone’s time”), and even ba’s a bit (I may look at some of the videos he linked to), even though he called me a troll for asking him questions (which I don’t believe he has answered.)
jdk may not like the answer, but I have answered his question at post 32. I even took into consideration his ill-defined concept of eastern mysticism and showed, via Hameroff, how it was not compatible with the falsification of realism.
https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/at-scientific-american-quantum-theory-does-not-require-a-conscious-observer/#comment-664871
As the falsification of realism shows, without conscious observation, the past, (i.e. jdk's hypothetical room), simply does not exist. I went on in that post to show how naturalism is falsified by quantum mechanics in its denial of free will (this is one place where jdk's ill-defined concept of pantheism differs from naturalism, i.e. when cornered, jdk does not deny the existence of consciousness and free will as is presupposed in naturalism. He just, as far as I can tell, disingenuously refuses to be specific in his claims about them. Despite all that jdk still said that I refused to answer his question. Like I said, he might not like the answer but answer his question I did. If jdk wants to presuppose that his hypothetical room exists without an observer, (i.e. similar to the box that Schrodinger's cat is in), then he needs to deal with the falsification of realism that I presented against Hameroff's more specifically defined eastern mysticism. Then in post 58, in support of WJM, I referenced this experiment.
“The question of whether detectors in double slit experiments physically cause the wave function to collapse was settled by experiments like the 1999 ‘Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser’ experiment. It was performed by a team of physicists led by Dr. Marlan O. Scully,,,. The experiment showed that the wave property of a photon could not possibly be collapsed into a particle by some physical effect of the detectors. That’s because there were no detectors between the slit and the screen so that the which path information was effected after the photons were already registered on the screen. Here is David Watkinson explaining the experiment.,,,” Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9bXolOFAB8
then in 63, after I specifically referenced the preceding experiment, jdk then again accuses me of not answering his question. That is rhetoric not honesty! As the unbiased reader can hopefully tell by now, after months of dealing with him. I find that jdk is not a man honestly searching for truth so much as he is troll that seeks to obfuscate. It is not simply a matter of honest disagreement between people so much as It is that I find jdk to be insincere in the way he goes about things.bornagain77_{September 13, 2018
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Great stuff BA @64. The main takeaway for those who refuse to accept the primary role of consciousness in deciding the fundamental aspects of our physical experience is this: for decades physicists have attempted to find explanations for these phenomena that does not require a fundamental relationship with the presence of a conscious mind and what that mind can discern in an experiment, and in how it chooses to approach the experiment. "Closing the loopholes" experiments (which have been exhaustively conclusive) have been about dreaming up any potential way, no matter how thin, controversial or in conflict with known facts, to disprove the role of consciousness in deciding this phenomena - not only in the here and now, but retroactively backwards in time. Every experimental result for decades has fully supported the fundamental role of consciousness in determining fundamental states of the substrate of our physical experience. To then say that "we don't know" what the data means is ludicrous. We know exactly what it means. The originators of quantum theory - the true giants in the field - knew what it meant and bluntly stated that the root arbiter of physical reality was consciousness/mind. To backpedal after all the experimental evidence since then has supported that view and say "we don't know" is absurd. We know as much as we know anything in science. The evidence is overwhelming and clear even to laymen. The idea that there is some kind of "hidden variable" that accounts for the experimental results has itself been thoroughly disproved via hidden variable experiments that are also unambiguous. Materialism-oriented scientists just don't like the what the experimental results demonstrate.William J Murray_{September 13, 2018
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jdlk said:
But the description of the delayed choice experiment was good, and I think I understand some things better that wjm has been trying to explain, although I still don’t see how consciousness is critical to the results.
The both experiments show that if the experiment is set up so that the experimenters have the capacity to know which slit the electron passes through, it behaves like a particle. If they do not have the capacity to know, it behaves like a wave. It doesn't matter how complicated the experiment is; how many physical objects the electron interacts with, or if the capacity to know precedes or comes after the slit barrier. Where do you think a "capacity to know" resides, if not in the mind of a consciousness (more precisely, those who set up and conduct the experiment)? Also, I said that if you did not have the time to watch basic information videos offered on the subject, then you would be deliberately ignorant and a waste of time. I stand by that and I think any reasonable person would agree.William J Murray_{September 12, 2018
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Here is a interesting recent experiment from Anton Zeilinger and company that pushed the "free-will loophole" back to 7.8 billion years ago using quasars to determine measurement settings.
Cosmic Bell Test Using Random Measurement Settings from High-Redshift Quasars - Anton Zeilinger - 14 June 2018 Abstract: In this Letter, we present a cosmic Bell experiment with polarization-entangled photons, in which measurement settings were determined based on real-time measurements of the wavelength of photons from high-redshift quasars, whose light was emitted billions of years ago; the experiment simultaneously ensures locality. Assuming fair sampling for all detected photons and that the wavelength of the quasar photons had not been selectively altered or previewed between emission and detection, we observe statistically significant violation of Bell’s inequality by 9.3 standard deviations, corresponding to an estimated p value of ? 7.4 × 10^21. This experiment pushes back to at least ? 7.8 Gyr ago the most recent time by which any local-realist influences could have exploited the “freedom-of-choice” loophole to engineer the observed Bell violation, excluding any such mechanism from 96% of the space-time volume of the past light cone of our experiment, extending from the big bang to today. https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.080403
It should be noted that this present experiment is a vast improvement over their last Cosmic Bell Test which only went back 600 years.
Experiment Reaffirms Quantum Weirdness - 2017 Excerpt: In the first of a planned series of “cosmic Bell test” experiments, the team sent pairs of photons from the roof of Zeilinger’s lab in Vienna through the open windows of two other buildings and into optical modulators, tallying coincident detections as usual. But this time, they attempted to lower the chance that the modulator settings might somehow become correlated with the states of the photons in the moments before each measurement. They pointed a telescope out of each window, trained each telescope on a bright and conveniently located (but otherwise random) star, and, before each measurement, used the color of an incoming photon from each star to set the angle of the associated modulator. The colors of these photons were decided hundreds of years ago, when they left their stars, increasing the chance that they (and therefore the measurement settings) were independent of the states of the photons being measured. And yet, the scientists found that the measurement outcomes still violated Bell’s upper limit, boosting their confidence that the polarized photons in the experiment exhibit spooky action at a distance after all. Nature could still exploit the freedom-of-choice loophole, but the universe would have had to delete items from the menu of possible measurement settings at least 600 years before the measurements occurred (when the closer of the two stars sent its light toward Earth). “Now one needs the correlations to have been established even before Shakespeare wrote, ‘Until I know this sure uncertainty, I’ll entertain the offered fallacy,’” Hall said. Next, the team plans to use light from increasingly distant quasars to control their measurement settings, probing further back in time and giving the universe an even smaller window to cook up correlations between future device settings and restrict freedoms. https://www.quantamagazine.org/20170207-bell-test-quantum-loophole/ Quantum Entanglement & the Cosmic Bell Test - video (February 2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGPJKJWY-7o
And here is another recent interesting experiment by Anton Zeilinger, (and about 70 other researchers), that insured unpredictable measurement settings in a Bell test from the free will choices of 100,000 human participants instead of having a physical randomizer determine measurement settings.
Challenging local realism with human choices - A. Zeilinger - 20 May 2018 Abstract: A Bell test, which challenges the philosophical worldview of local realism against experimental observations, is a randomized trial requiring spatially-distributed entanglement, fast and high-efficiency detection, and unpredictable measurement settings. While technology can perfect the first two of these, and while technological randomness sources enable device-independent protocols based on Bell inequality violation, challenging local realism using physical randomizers inevitably makes assumptions about the same physics one aims to test. Bell himself noted this weakness of physical setting choices and argued that human free will could rigorously be used to assure unpredictability in Bell tests. Here we report a suite of local realism tests using human choices, avoiding assumptions about predictability in physics. We recruited ~100,000 human participants to play an online video game that incentivizes fast, sustained input of unpredictable bits while also illustrating Bell test methodology. The participants generated 97,347,490 binary choices, which were directed via a scalable web platform to twelve laboratories on five continents, in which 13 experiments tested local realism using photons, single atoms, atomic ensembles, and superconducting devices. Over a 12-hour period on the 30 Nov. 2016, participants worldwide provided a sustained flow of over 1000 bits/s to the experiments, which used different human-generated bits to choose each measurement setting. The observed correlations strongly contradict local realism and other realist positions in bi-partite and tri-partite scenarios. Project outcomes include closing of the freedom-of-choice loophole, gamification of statistical and quantum non-locality concepts, new methods for quantum-secured communications, a very large dataset of human-generated randomness, and networking techniques for global participation in experimental science. https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.04431
All of this plays into the recent 'free will' thread here on UD on Antoine Suarez
Suarez: Quantum nonlocal correlations come from outside space-time - September 2, 2018 Excerpt: Since the free will theorem applies to any arbitrary physical theory consistent with the axioms, it would not even be possible to place the information into the universe’s past in an ad hoc way. The argument proceeds from the Kochen-Specker theorem, which shows that the result of any individual measurement of spin was not fixed (pre-determined) independently of the choice of measurements. https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/suarez-quantum-nonlocal-correlations-come-from-outside-space-time/
bornagain77_{September 12, 2018
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I watched the Quantum Eraser video, which wjm linked to, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnpCH9VRvPg. This video was part of a documentary, "The Simulation Hypothesis", about which topdocumentaryfilms.com says, "The Simulation Hypothesis ... argues that matter and ideas are the result of a complex digital simulation, something akin to a video game." I find that a difficult hypothesis to entertain. But the description of the delayed choice experiment was good, and I think I understand some things better that wjm has been trying to explain, although I still don't see how consciousness is critical to the results. I also looked at a few other videos, and read some more. What I discovered is that the disagreement about what this all means about the nature of reality and its relationship to consciousness covers a wide spectrum, from people who believe it all relates to the mind of God to those that think the beliefs about consciousness and QM are new-agey quantum woo, and everything in between. So at this point I'm going to read more (I got Anil Ananthaswamy's book, "The Edge of Physics"), and maybe watch a selection of videos from different viewpoints. So I appreciate wjm's involvement (despite his thinking I was being "deliberately ignorant and wasting everyone’s time"), and even ba's a bit (I may look at some of the videos he linked to), even though he called me a troll for asking him questions (which I don't believe he has answered.) So that's it for me.jdk_{September 12, 2018
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R J Sawyer:
But does this answer the age old question, “if a man says something and his wife isn’t around to hear him, is he still wrong?”?.
Only if he's a materialist. :cool:ET_{September 12, 2018
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re 59: First, I did watch the video on the delayed choice experiment, and read some other things about it, so I hope to have a response to that later. However, as to 59, you explain the simpler double slit experiment, and then ask "How do you explain this?" I accept that that is how particles work on the quantum level: if they "travel" to the screen through two slits, the eventual manifestation of their nature is wave-like, but if we adjust the situation so that a measurement device observes them as they travel, the present as a particle. I'm not arguing that this doesn't happen, or that it doesn't presents fundamental questions about the nature of reality. I'm just asking about the role that consciousness plays. Where is a conscious observer in this process? What differences are there, if any, if a conscious observer is or isn't observing any of the process, or the final results? That's the question that doesn't seem to be being addressed.jdk_{September 12, 2018
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But does this answer the age old question, “if a man says something and his wife isn’t around to hear him, is he still wrong?”?.R J Sawyer_{September 12, 2018
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jdk, Let's go at this another way, then. If you have two slits and cover one up, whether you fire one or a hundred electrons at a time, you get a correspondingly located one-slit clump pattern on the screen behind it. If you uncover the other slit, and cover the first one, you get a one-slit clump pattern that corresponds to the now open slit. However, if you open both slits, you get an interference pattern whether you shoot one or a hundred electrons at a time. Additionally, if you put observational device that can see which slit the photon goes through in front of the slit barrier, then even if you leave both slits open you will still get two corresponding clumps and no interference pattern. How do you explain this? By the way, you said:
It does not address the issue we are discussing: whether a conscious observer is necessary, or whether the measurement apparatus is enough to collapse the wave function.
This is a nonsensical query because in every experiment there is a measurement apparatus or else you wouldn't be able to gather any results. If the presence of a "measurement apparatus" was enough to collapse the wave and produce the slit-corresponding clump patterns, then just firing the electrons through a two-slit barrier at a sensor screen beyond would result in two clump distributions that corresponded to the slits, because the sensor landing screen is, in fact, measuring the distribution of electron strikes on it.William J Murray_{September 12, 2018
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For the unbiased reader, and to add weight to WJM's second referenced experiment: This following experiment extended Wheeler's delayed choice experiment to highlight the centrality of 'information being available to the observer at the end of the experiment' in the Double Slit Experiment, and refutes any 'detector' arguments for why the wave function may collapse:
"The question of whether detectors in double slit experiments physically cause the wave function to collapse was settled by experiments like the 1999 'Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser' experiment. It was performed by a team of physicists led by Dr. Marlan O. Scully,,,. The experiment showed that the wave property of a photon could not possibly be collapsed into a particle by some physical effect of the detectors. That's because there were no detectors between the slit and the screen so that the which path information was effected after the photons were already registered on the screen. Here is David Watkinson explaining the experiment.,,,” Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9bXolOFAB8 The Experiment That Debunked Materialism - video - (delayed choice quantum eraser) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xKUass7G8w Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser Experiment Explained - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6HLjpj4Nt4 (Double Slit) A Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser - updated 2007 Excerpt: Upon accessing the information gathered by the Coincidence Circuit, we the observer are shocked to learn that the pattern shown by the positions registered at D0 (Detector Zero) at Time 2 depends entirely on the information gathered later at Time 4 and available to us at the conclusion of the experiment. http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/kim-scully/kim-scully-web.htm
And here is an experiment entitled “delayed-choice entanglement swapping”
Quantum physics mimics spooky action into the past – April 23, 2012 Excerpt: The authors experimentally realized a “Gedankenexperiment” called “delayed-choice entanglement swapping”, formulated by Asher Peres in the year 2000. Two pairs of entangled photons are produced, and one photon from each pair is sent to a party called Victor. Of the two remaining photons, one photon is sent to the party Alice and one is sent to the party Bob. Victor can now choose between two kinds of measurements. If he decides to measure his two photons in a way such that they are forced to be in an entangled state, then also Alice’s and Bob’s photon pair becomes entangled. If Victor chooses to measure his particles individually, Alice’s and Bob’s photon pair ends up in a separable state. Modern quantum optics technology allowed the team to delay Victor’s choice and measurement with respect to the measurements which Alice and Bob perform on their photons. “We found that whether Alice’s and Bob’s photons are entangled and show quantum correlations or are separable and show classical correlations can be decided after they have been measured”, explains Xiao-song Ma, lead author of the study. According to the famous words of Albert Einstein, the effects of quantum entanglement appear as “spooky action at a distance”. The recent experiment has gone one remarkable step further. “Within a naïve classical world view, quantum mechanics can even mimic an influence of future actions on past events”, says Anton Zeilinger. http://phys.org/news/2012-04-quantum-physics-mimics-spooky-action.html Experimental delayed-choice entanglement swapping - Oct. 2012 Abstract: Motivated by the question, which kind of physical interactions and processes are needed for the production of quantum entanglement, Peres has put forward the radical idea of delayed-choice entanglement swapping. There, entanglement can be "produced a posteriori, after the entangled particles have been measured and may no longer exist". In this work we report the first realization of Peres' gedanken experiment. Using four photons, we can actively delay the choice of measurement-implemented via a high-speed tunable bipartite state analyzer and a quantum random number generator-on two of the photons into the time-like future of the registration of the other two photons. This effectively projects the two already registered photons onto one definite of two mutually exclusive quantum states in which either the photons are entangled (quantum correlations) or separable (classical correlations). This can also be viewed as "quantum steering into the past". http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.4834
In regards to the “delayed-choice entanglement swapping” experiment, Asher Peres states they quote unquote “‘mimic’ future actions on past events”:
“If we attempt to attribute an objective meaning to the quantum state of a single system, curious paradoxes appear: quantum effects mimic not only instantaneous action-at-a-distance but also, as seen here, influence of future actions on past events, even after these events have been irrevocably recorded.” Asher Peres, Delayed choice for entanglement swapping. J. Mod. Opt. 47, 139-143 (2000)
You can see a more complete explanation of the startling results of the entanglement swapping experiment at the 9:11 minute mark of the following video:
Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser Experiment Explained – 2014 video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6HLjpj4Nt4
It is also important to note that the delayed choice-quantum eraser experiment and entanglement swapping experiment is part of a broader mosaic of experiments in quantum mechanics which have consistently pointed to the central importance of the conscious observer within the experiments.
A Short Survey Of Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness Excerpt: Putting all the lines of evidence together the argument for God from consciousness can now be framed like this: 1. Consciousness either preceded all of material reality or is a ‘epi-phenomena’ of material reality. 2. If consciousness is a ‘epi-phenomena’ of material reality then consciousness will be found to have no special position within material reality. Whereas conversely, if consciousness precedes material reality then consciousness will be found to have a special position within material reality. 3. Consciousness is found to have a special, even central, position within material reality. 4. Therefore, consciousness is found to precede material reality. 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://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5qphmi8gYE
More interesting still, Einstein himself has now been refuted in his dispute with philosophers of his time where Einstein held "the experience of the now can never be a part of physics". In quantum mechanics, several lines of experimental evidence have now demonstrated, as the following video clearly shows, “the now of the mind” takes precedence over past events in time.
Albert Einstein vs. Quantum Mechanics and His Own Mind – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxFFtZ301j4
Quote:
“It begins to look as we ourselves, by our last minute decision, have an influence on what a photon will do when it has already accomplished most of its doing… we have to say that we ourselves have an undeniable part in what we have always called the past. The past is not really the past until is has been registered. Or to put it another way, the past has no meaning or existence unless it exists as a record in the present.” – John Wheeler – The Ghost In The Atom – Page 66-68 - P. C. W. Davies, Julian R. Brown - Cambridge University Press, Jul 30, 1993
bornagain77_{September 12, 2018
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FYI. I watched the video that wjm linked to at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc, from the movie "What the Bleep Do we Know: Down the Rabbit Hole." This was a simple explanation of the situation, all of which I was previously familiar with. It also was, I think, sloppy, about a number of details, and implicitly assumed a perspective on the very issue we are discussing. First, it started by called the electron a "tiny bit of matter". Then, it anthropomorphized the sensor after the slits as an eye, and at one point (about 4:15) says, "The very act of measuring, or observing ..." In this way it presumes that a conscious observer is part of the situation. It does not address the issue we are discussing: whether a conscious observer is necessary, or whether the measurement apparatus is enough to collapse the wave function. And last, it anthropomorphizes the electron itself, saying at the end that the electron "decided" and "was aware". I know you are making additional points, wjm, but this video does not address them, is inaccurate in some important ways, and implies that the observer has to be a person by making the sensor a little eye. Also, for what it's worth, "What the Bleep Do we Know" was produced by adherents of Ramtha's School of Enlightenment, and was widely seen as an new-agey blend of physics and spiritualism, not a reliable source of information about QM.jdk_{September 12, 2018
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No, don't ban Jack as he is evidence that ID's opponents don't care about reality and evidence.ET_{September 12, 2018
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WJM states, "you’re being deliberately ignorant and wasting everyone’s time." My sentiments exactly. If he persists in this behavior, I will request that he be banned (once again) from UD for trolling.bornagain77_{September 12, 2018
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re 52: sorry ba, I'll not troll you anymore by asking you questions and expecting that you might answer them. I appreciate the effort wjm is putting into the discussion.jdk_{September 12, 2018
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re 51: I'm sorry you feel that way. I have read a lot about these issues, and I understood your description back in 38. For instance, could you answer my question in 46: is the man opening his eyes just meant to be a metaphor for observing? I will try to find time to watch the videos. I am genuinely trying to understand the distinctions you are making.jdk_{September 12, 2018
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"This discussion has nothing to do with atheism." So you really believe the fact that "Mind" is fundamental to quantum mechanics has nothing whatsoever to do with atheism? And then you have the gall to accuse me of not answering your supposed honest questions forthrightly in the very next sentence. Well, I let WJM deal with you, I refuse to try to reason with those who refuse to be reasonable or simply can't be reasonable. I suggest you not troll me anymore. I have no patience for stupidity.bornagain77_{September 12, 2018
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jdk @ 46: You are obviously not serious about learning even the fundamentals about the two slit experiment if you cannot even be bothered to watch a couple of short videos that explain it. Until you watch the videos and then have a cogent question, you're being deliberately ignorant and wasting everyone's time.William J Murray_{September 12, 2018
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