'The Myth of Quantum Consciousness.'

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If you take what the double slit experiment is telling us to its logical conclusion, than everything, including a detector, including even your body and brain, possibly even space itself needs something prior to it to actualize it.

What we are, whatever it is we are, is unique and stands out in the universe like the sun is to the planets in the solar system. (Not humans but this "I" we call ourselves. The "I" that all beings know themselves as.)

Often the primary is found to be that which is unique as the sun turned out to be in the solar system. It is often an inversion of what we believed due to appearances.

What we are, whatever we are, may be the only thing not subject to the observer effect.

If knowledge is the common denominator amongst the various observer effect phenomena, than that might indicate that the primary is some knowing presence.

What if it’s something like a computer game where the world exists on your monitor but does not actually exist except as information otherwise? That is, every perspective in the game does not have to exist except when needed by the monitor. If you have a table in the game, you wouldn’t need to create a camera angle from every possible perspective in order for someone’s monitor to show it. You’d only need a program to create on the fly the representation from that perspective.

If everything material and possibly space as well exhibits the observer effect phenomenon, then you’d need something outside of (or prior to) space and matter to actualize it. And this is why I say it may not be consciousness as it’s normally conceived because consciousness is seen as a by-product of the brain. What I’m suggesting is that what we are essentially, some sort of knowing element, actualizes our brain, the rest of the body, and everything else the same way the program in a computer game might generate that world to the screen.

Something like that would begin to make more sense out of this phenomenon than to just say that some material thing actualizes other material things without explaining how the previous material thing came into being.

Also, if you think about it, all we ever know is every experience we have ever had, including experiments conducted, any education or any other knowledge acquired in any way. We have never been outside of experiencing in order to say that there is anything out there other than this knowing element that experiences. It is actually a leap of faith to believe that the world exists out there outside of anything ever experienced the same way someone playing a game might believe that the game world actually exists in its own right. And it is this leap of faith (a belief) upon which all physical sciences rest.

The double slit experiment is bringing it all back to what the mystics have claimed by meditating deeply and announcing that what we are essentially is the primary like the sun to the solar system.
 
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But a better question: Is there actually a wave that passes through both? We infer this from the behavior at the back wall (interference pattern), but no such wave has ever been observed or could be observed. The wave is not considered an element of reality.

Are you saying that the electromagnetic wave (light) is not part of reality?

We knew of this wave (measured it, used it) before we knew of the photon (particle).
 
Are you saying that the electromagnetic wave (light) is not part of reality?

We knew of this wave (measured it, used it) before we knew of the photon (particle).

The previous quote was based on the discussion of the path of a single electron through both slits, not electromagnetic waves.
The wave function of the electron and other particles (including particles as large as C60, Buckminsterfullerene) is not considered a part of reality because a wave is inferred from the behavior at the back wall over time (as each electron adds to the overall pattern) when no detectors are used.

No such wave has ever been observed or could ever be observed because the moment it is observed it actualizes into a particle. And more than that, behaves as if it always was a particle going back to the source of emission and this is true regardless of the distance. If the experiment could be performed across millions or billions of light years, the particle would seemingly go back in time to that point to become a particle even though it appeared to travel as a wave during those millions or billions of years. Except that there was nothing there waving other than infinite potentiality (aka superposition).
 
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What I’m suggesting is that what we are essentially, some sort of knowing element, actualizes our brain, the rest of the body, and everything else the same way the program in a computer game might generate that world to the screen.

Something like that would begin to make more sense out of this phenomenon than to just say that some material thing actualizes other material things without explaining how the previous material thing came into being.
How could this be possible though, all human brain's would have to be connected to one another because we all see and describe the world and universe in similar fashion.
 
How could this be possible though, all human brain's would have to be connected to one another because we all see and describe the world and universe in similar fashion.

Yes. That is why it's suggested that it may not be consciousness as conventionally defined: i.e. a brain producing consciousness for a single human or animal.
It could be an inversion of appearances. So instead of a brain producing consciousness and each one of us having a separate consciousness it could be something more along the lines of some sort of "knowing element" that is common to all sentient beings. And that whatever we are (we know we are even if we may not know what we are) is not a product of a separate brain but that we all have this thing (or non-thing) in common.
Then the separation would be the brain and body that is actualized by the same "knowing" that actualizes the rest of the universe.

Imagine a dream. In the dream, your body moves throughout the world and you interact with others. Upon waking you realize that anything your body measured in that world, whether the length of a wall or the width of an atom, was not really there upon waking. In fact upon waking, you never even moved from where you really were in the bed. You only appeared to inhabit a body that moved through a world. In fact there was no three dimensional world, only time seemed to pass. What if dreams are an echo of whatever we are. Everything is very real of course, but it's reality must have another source other than rock-solid particles: That is what these experiments are telling us IMO.

And this knowing element is what we essentially are: The non-thing that knows deep meanings like love the same way it knows other experience like any of our senses, logical thought, memories, dreams, any and every experience ever experienced.

Of course this is speculation but this is where Young's double slit experiment seems to be pointing in my opinion.
I'm not sure if there's anything there for physical sciences to put a measuring stick to in order to prove or disprove this (except possibly by doing other observer effect type experiments to prove or disprove the interaction hypothesis and other solid universe hypotheses), but at least it might begin to give some speculative ideas about what these experiments may be telling us.

This might be called the zero worlds model as opposed to the many worlds model that grew up to try to explain QM.
 
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Yes. That is why it's suggested that it may not be consciousness as conventionally defined: i.e. a brain producing consciousness for a single human or animal.
It could be an inversion of appearances. So instead of a brain producing consciousness and each one of us having a separate consciousness it could be something more along the lines of some sort of "knowing element" that is common to all sentient beings. And that whatever we are (we know we are even if we may not know what we are) is not a product of a separate brain but that we all have this thing (or non-thing) in common.
Then the separation would be the brain and body that is actualized by the same "knowing" that actualizes the rest of the universe.

And this knowing element is what we essentially are: The non-thing that knows deep meanings like love the same way it knows other experience like any of our senses, logical thought, memories, dreams, any and every experience ever experienced.

Of course this is speculation but this is where Young's double slit experiment seems to be pointing in my opinion.
I'm not sure if there's anything there for physical sciences to put a measuring stick to in order to prove or disprove this (except possibly by doing other observer effect type experiments to prove or disprove the interaction hypothesis and other solid universe hypotheses), but at least it might begin to give some speculative ideas about what these experiments may be telling us.

This might be called the zero worlds model as opposed to the many worlds model that grew up to try to explain QM.
But would human observation have to be imagined for this to be true. Meaning everything we see doesn't actually exist as in matter, but exist through imagination. What we see through our telescopes both visually and radio would also have to be imagined.
 
John said:
The previous quote was based on the discussion of the path of a single electron through both slits, not electromagnetic waves.
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So the two-slit behaviour is perfectly "natural" for light (spin-zero particles) but not for other particles?

Consider the thought experiment described in the following video from 10:20 onwards.



Light leaves a star 100 billion light year away from an observer. Mid-way, it encounters a galaxy which lens the light. Thinking two dimensionally, some light bends around the left and some bends around the right.

If the observer looks at both sides of the galaxy at the same time, the arriving light exhibits interference (wave-like). If the observer focusses on each side side separately, the arriving light does not exhibit interference (particle like) and the observer will see the photons going around either the left or the right.

"So how we chose to observe now effects how the photon must have acted 50 billion years ago. Our choice effects how the particle must have acted in the past".
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  • Do you agree that such a statement is bunk (for light).
 
From the perspective of a dream things seem real enough, unless you lucidly dreaming.
But upon waking you realize that this reality is more real. And that you never moved in a body as you believed you had.

If we are not to shy away from what the seemingly logical conclusion that these experiments are telling us, than (although this reality is very real) it borrows its rock solid appearances from what we essentially are (which is very real).
You know that you are even if you don't know what you are.
 
Light leaves a star 100 billion light year away from an observer. Mid-way, it encounters a galaxy which lens the light. Thinking two dimensionally, some light bends around the left and some bends around the right.

If the observer looks at both sides of the galaxy at the same time, the arriving light exhibits interference (wave-like). If the observer focusses on each side side separately, the arriving light does not exhibit interference (particle like) and the observer will see the photons going around either the left or the right.

Content from external source "So how we chose to observe now effects how the photon must have acted 50 billion years ago. Our choice effects how the particle must have acted in the past".

  • Do you agree that such a statement is bunk (for light).
The thing that causes people to argue about when and how the photon learns that the experimental apparatus is in a certain configuration and then changes from wave to particle to fit the demands of the experiment's configuration is the assumption that a photon had some physical form before the astronomers observed it. Either it was a wave or a particle; either it went both ways around the galaxy or only one way. Actually, quantum phenomena are neither waves nor particles but are intrinsically undefined until the moment they are measured. In a sense, the British philosopher Bishop Berkeley was right when he asserted two centuries ago "to be is to be perceived. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheeler's_delayed_choice_experiment
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The quote above is not mine.

The universe is said to be around 13 billion years old, so presumably that's not possible.
But for smaller distances, within the history of the universe, it would not seem to matter how far the emitter is from the double slits or back wall. The moment it is detected, an electron will behave as though it were a particle from the emission source even though it had travelled all that time seemingly as a wave. Almost as though only the present determines the past's reality. It's strange but afaik, has been proven.

John Wheeler proposed the experiment with photons from a distant star in his book "Law without Law:"
page. 192
http://www.forizslaszlo.com/tudomany/wheeler_law_without_law.pdf

Also see this at 17:45:
 
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For this idea, I don't think separate "conscious observers" would work. But something more along the lines of some sort of knowing element that has observers. And that this knowing element is a commonality, the brain/body being the separation.

For photons actualizing into particles across cosmological distances, see the following from John Wheeler who proposed it:
p. 192 in the pdf
http://www.forizslaszlo.com/tudomany/wheeler_law_without_law.pdf
 
BTW, just as a side note.
The Wheeler-DeWitt equation unifies quantum mechanics with relativity at the cost of simplifying out time. (Quantum mechanics and general relativity infamously do not play well together otherwise.)
So it has been discarded by modern physics and is not taught in universities as it is regarded as an anomaly.
However, what if that also tells us something about reality that we cannot understand due to the limitations of language? (Reality being our actual experience before attempting to describe it in words).
 
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For this idea, I don't think separate "conscious observers" would work. But something more along the lines of some sort of knowing element that has observers. And that this knowing element is a commonality, the brain/body being the separation.
But can't humans be the observers of this "knowing element"
 
QM introduces the notion of the wave/particle duality.

If you deny the wave (which @John Martin appears to be doing), then one is left with magic like "the ability to influence events in the past" and the "special role of conscious observers".

Accept the wave, and all that magic goes away.

There are only waves that, under certain circumstances, exhibit particle like behaviour.
 
But can't humans be the observers of this "knowing element"

An inversion of seeming appearances in this case may be closer to reality than what seems obvious at first glance.

"A conscious observer" suggests that what you are essentially inhabits a body and is in this universe.
I believe for this idea to work it has to be something outside of or prior to that. Just as in a dream, the dream body moves through a universe, but upon waking, you realize the reality: You never actually inhabited a dream body nor actually moved but remained always unmoving and unmovable from the waking state perspective (even though in the dream you were in a body that moved through a world).

A single thing (or non-thing) that we all essentially are seems to be what is needed to make sense of what these experiments are telling us when taken to their logical conclusion: That everything in the physical universe needs to be actualized from a superposition of infinite potentiality.
And that whatever it is doing the actualizing, cannot be a material thing (or you get into the conundrum of what actualized that material thing).
That’s why whatever we are seems to be the prime candidate IMO for the initial actualizing process: The most unique non-material thing in an otherwise material universe.
 
QM introduces the notion of the wave/particle duality.

If you deny the wave (which @John Martin appears to be doing), then one is left with magic like "the ability to influence events in the past" and the "special role of conscious observers".

Accept the wave, and all that magic goes away.

There are only waves that, under certain circumstances, exhibit particle like behaviour.

That's fair, except that the special circumstance of when the particle is a wave is when it is not being observed or when there is otherwise no information about it.
Gather any information through an act of amplification, and the wave does seem to magically disappear. That is to say, it's impossible to get information about the wave directly except from an inference of the behavior at the back wall of the double slit experiment when unobserved.
That's the paradox.
And it is actually a mystery.
That's why the many worlds interpretation has been proposed for example.
 
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BTW, it's not only waves.
Atomic nuclei seem to take all possible shapes simultaneously (superimposed on top of each other not just modulating between the different shapes) till actually observed when it takes a distinct shape and remains that way.
The more we learn the more we find that everything seems to have this property.

See this at 35:55 :
 
Gather any information through an act of amplification, and the wave does seem to magically disappear. That is to say, it's impossible to get information about the wave directly except from an inference of the behavior at the back wall of the double slit experiment when unobserved.
That's the paradox.
And it is actually a mystery.

Not really. That is how waves behave. That is why the two-slit experiment is understood purely classically for light. The particle is the wave in a particular state.
 
I was wondering how string theory would play into all of this and did a bit of reading and came across this paper titled; "philosophising consciousness from string theory" http://www.academia.edu/2593017/Philosophising_consciousness_from_string_theory
Consciousness may even exist at the quantum scale. "In some strange way,an electron or a photon [or any other elementary particle] seems to 'know' about changes in the environment and appears torespond accordingly," says physicist Danah Zohar. A group at the Weizmann Institute in Israel has done avariation of the famous "double-slit" experiment. They used electrons, instead of photons, and observed how the resultant interference pattern (which indicates wave-like properties of the particle) dissipated the longer you watched the electrons go through the slits. As a wave,the electron passes through bothslits simultaneously but if, according to E Buks, it "senses" that it is being watched, the electron (as a particle) goes through only one path, diminishing the interference pattern. Elementary particles (such as photons and electrons) appear to possess a certain degree of "intelligence" and awareness of theenvironment. Renowned plasma and particle physicist, David Bohm, says "In some sense a rudimentary mind-like quality is present even at the level of particle physics. In a new field called "quantummetaphysics", Jay Alfred has proposed that consciousness is as fundamental a property to elementary particles as properties that make it "matter" or a "physical force" (for example, mass, spin and charge)

In the book
“The Conscious Universe”
,astrophysicst Menas Kafasto and philosopher Robert Nadeauinterpret that the wave function as ultimate reality itself.
16
Following the reading of some existing work mentioned above,it could be argued that,
why ‘mind likequality’ which is present at the level of elementary particles like electrons according to a particle
physicist,and,as astrobiologists too argued against scale of measurement to define consciousness in lifeforms and al
so,the very fact that quantum physicists’ inclination of being supportive when confrontedwith the notion of consciousness being caged even by quantum scale, ‘should’ rather than ‘would’ give a
double standard and parochial intellectual attitude if (in case,if string consciousness
withstanding that
strings are empirically validated to be true or till they become to be tested as truth)string consciousness
is given a step motherly treatment on the clouded question of ‘pseudo science’,then those who call‘pseudo science’ but can’t claim an iota of being non
-mathematical,would either have to rethink theirstatus of quantum consciousness or left with no choice but to respect string consciousness and besidesthis,why should a scale of restriction be stopped
at quantum scale only or whether it would go further
smaller even to a level of Planck length,the smallest length possible in physics,as yet and why shouldn’t
it go further as nature would have no such restriction of only favouring quantum scale and not stringscale like Planck length,and why should nature be biased?There could also be a further argument that,the question -why some strings get attached to the D-braneand why some are free to flow to other universes and why they behave in that manner,has a calibre toignite the notion of string consciousness,as whether,some strings love to be with a particular universe
like a country based ‘bureaucrat’ and some love to be like an all time moving ‘diplomat’ interacting withother universe,or why can’t a string ch
ange on its own from closed to open and vice versa if it isexpected to be conscious,besides attacking the problem using mathematical boundary conditions.

5The motivation to use string theory to study consciousness comes from the problem of relativistic quantum gravity.I find significantly interesting to use the methodology of light cone physics
to try making an attempt to study consciousness. “In light cone physics,th
e quantization of a relativisticstring can be worked out most directly using light-cone coordinates. There is a different approach to thequantization of the relativistic string, in which no special coordinates are used. This approach is calledLorentz covariant quantization. The curves that remain within the light-cone and whose slopes never go
below 45◦ are possible world
-lines of physical particles.

17
The light cone could be used to understandpast,present and future time
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R. B. Griffiths' Consistent Quantum Theory (2003, Cambridge Press)

Measurements play no fundamental role in quantum mechanics, just as they play no fundamental role in classical mechanics. In both cases, measurement apparatus and the process of measurement are described using the same basic mechanical principles which apply to all other physical objects and physical processes. Quantum measurements, when interpreted using a suitable framework, can be understood as revealing properties of a measured system before the measurement took place, in a manner which was taken for granted in classical physics. See the discussion in Chs. 17 and 18. (It may be worth adding that there is no special role for human consciousness in the quantum measurement process, again in agreement with classical physics.)

[...]

Both quantum mechanics and classical mechanics are consistent with the notion of an independent reality, a real world whose properties and fundamental laws do not depend upon what human beings happen to believe, desire, or think. While this real world contains human beings, among other things, it existed long before the human race appeared on the surface of the earth, and our presence is not essential for it to continue.

The idea of an independent reality had been challenged by philosophers long before the advent of quantum mechanics. However, the difficulty of interpreting quantum theory has sometimes been interpreted as providing additional reasons for doubting that such a reality exists. In particular, the idea that measurements collapse wave functions can suggest the notion that they thereby bring reality into existence, and if a conscious observer is needed to collapse the wave function (MQS state) of a measuring apparatus, this could mean that consciousness somehow plays a fundamental role in reality. However, once measurements are understood as no more than particular examples of physical processes, and wave function collapse as nothing more than a computational tool, there is no reason to suppose that quantum theory is incompatible with an independent reality, and one is back to the situation which preceded the quantum era.
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Michael Nauenberg: Journal of Cosmology

The notion that the interpretation of quantum mechanics requires a conscious observer is rooted, I believe, in a basic misunderstanding of the meaning of a) the quantum wavefunction ψ, and b) the quantum measurement process. This misunderstanding originated with the work of John von Neumann (1932) on the foundations of quantum mechanics, and afterwards it was spread by some prominent physicists like Eugene Wigner (1984); by now it has acquired a life of its own, giving rise to endless discussions on this subject, as shown by the articles in the Journal of Cosmology (see volumes 3 and 14).

Quantum mechanics is a statistical theory that determines the probabilities for the outcome of a physical process when its initial state has been determined. A fundamental quantity in this theory is the wavefunction ψ which is a complex function that depends on the variables of the system under consideration. The absolute square of this function, ψ2, gives the probability to find the system in one of its possible quantum states. Early pioneers in the development of quantum mechanics like Niels Bohr (1958) assumed, however, that the measurement devices behave according to the laws of classical mechanics, but von Neumann pointed out, quite correctly, that such devices also must satisfy the principles of quantum mechanics. Hence, the wavefunction describing this device becomes entangled with the wavefunction of the object that is being measured, and the superposition of these entangled wavefunctions continues to evolve in accordance with the equations of quantum mechanics. This analysis leads to the notorious von Neumann chain, where the measuring devices are left forever in an indefinite superposition of quantum states. It is postulated that this chain can be broken, ultimately, only by the mind of a conscious observer.

Forty five years ago I wrote an article on this subject with John Bell who became, after von Neumann, the foremost contributor to the foundations of quantum mechanics, where we presented, tongue in cheek, the von Neumann paradox as a dilemma:

The experiment may be said to start with the printed proposal and to end with the issue of the report. The laboratory, the experimenter, the administration, and the editorial staff of the Physical Review are all just part of the instrumentation. The incorporation of (presumably) conscious experimenters and editors into the equipment raises a very intriguing question... If the interference is destroyed, then the Schrodinger equation is incorrect for systems containing consciousness. If the interference is not destroyed, the quantum mechanical description is revealed as not wrong but certainly incomplete (Bell and Nauenberg, 1966).

We added the remark that "we emphasize not only that our view is that of a minority, but also that current interest in such questions is small. The typical physicist feels that they have been long answered, and that he will fully understand just how, if ever he can spare twenty minutes to think about it." Now the situation has changed dramatically, and interest in a possible role of consciousness in quantum mechanics has become widespread. But Bell, who died in 1990 , believed in the second alternative to the von Neumann dilemma, remarking that :



I think the experimental facts which are usually offered to show that we must bring the observer into quantum theory do not compel us to adopt that conclusion (Davies and Brown, 1986).
Actually, by now it is understood by most physicists that von Neumann's dilemma arises because he had simplified the measuring device to a system with only a few degrees of freedom, e.g. a pointer with only two states (see Appendix). Instead, a measuring device must have an exponentially large number of degrees of freedom in order to record, more or less permanently, the outcome of a measurement. This recording takes place by a time irreversible process. The occurrence of such processes in Nature already mystified 19th century scientists, who argued that this feature implied a failure in the basic laws of classical physics, because these laws are time reversible. Ludwig Boltzmann resolved this paradox by taking into account the large number of degrees of freedom of a macroscopic system, which implied that to a very high degree of probability such a system evolved with a unique direction in time. Such an irreversibility property is also valid for quantum systems, and it constitutes the physical basis for the second law of thermodynamics, where the arrow of time is related to the increase of entropy of the system.

Another misconception is the assumption that the wavefunction ψ describing the state of a system in quantum mechanics behaves like a physical object. For example, the authors of a recent book discussing quantum mechanics and consciousness claim that

In quantum theory there is no atom in addition to the wavefunction of the atom. This is so crucial that we say it again in other words. The atom's wave-functions and the atom are the same thing; "the wave function of the atom" is a synonym for "the atom". Since the wavefunction ψ is synonymous with the atom itself, the atom is simultaneously in both boxes. The point of that last paragraph is hard to accept. That is why we keep repeating it (Rosenblum and Kuttner, 2006).

If the wavefunction ψ is a physical object like an atom, then the proponents of this flawed concept must require the existence of a mechanism that lies outside the principles governing the time evolution of the wavefunction ψ in order to account for the so-called "collapse" of the wavefunction after a measurement has been performed. But the wavefunction ψ is not a physical object like, for example, an atom which has an observable mass, charge and spin as well as internal degrees of freedom. Instead, ψ is an abstract mathematical function that contains all the statistical information that an observer can obtain from measurements of a given system. In this case there isn't any mystery that its mathematical form must change abruptly after a measurement has been performed. For further details on this subject, see (Nauenberg, 2007) and (van Kampen, 2008). The surprising fact that mathematical abstractions can explain and predict real physical phenomena has been emphazised by Wigner (Wigner 1960), who wrote:

The miracle of appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither undestand nor deserve.
I conclude with a few quotations, that are relevant to the topic addressed here, by some of the most prominent physicists in the second half of the 20th century.

Richard P. Feynman (Nobel Prize, 1965):

Nature does not know what you are looking at, and she behaves the way she is going to behave whether you bother to take down the data or not (Feynman et al., 1965).Murray Gellmann (Nobel Prize, 1969):The universe presumably couldn't care less whether human beings evolved on some obscure planet to study its history; it goes on obeying the quantum mechanical laws of physics irrespective of observation by physicists (Rosenblum and Kuttner 2006, 156).Anthony J. Leggett (Nobel Prize 2003):It may be somewhat dangerous to explain something one does not understand very well [the quantum measurement process] by invoking something [consciousness] one does not understand at all! (Leggett, 1991).John A. Wheeler:Caution: "Consciousness" has nothing whatsover to do with the quantum process. We are dealing with an event that makes itself known by an irreversible act of amplification, by an indelible record, an act of registration. Does that record subsequently enter into the "consciousness" of some person, some animal or some computer? Is that the first step into translating the measurement into "meaning" meaning regarded as "the joint product of all the evidence that is available to those who communicate." Then that is a separate part of the story, important but not to be confused with "quantum phenomena." (Wheeler, 1983).
John S. Bell: From some popular presentations the general public could get the impression that the very existence of the cosmos depends on our being here to observe the observables. I do not know that this is wrong. I am inclined to hope that we are indeed that important. But I see no evidence that it is so in the success of contemporary quantum theory.

So I think that it is not right to tell the public that a central role for conscious mind is integrated into modern atomic physics. Or that `information' is the real stuff of physical theory. It seems to me irresponsible to suggest that technical features of contemporary theory were anticipated by the saints of ancient religions... by introspection.

The only 'observer' which is essential in orthodox practical quantum theory is the inanimate apparatus which amplifies the microscopic events to macroscopic consequences. Of course this apparatus, in laboratory experiments, is chosen and adjusted by the experiments. In this sense the outcomes of experiments are indeed dependent on the mental process of the experimenters! But once the apparatus is in place, and functioning untouched, it is a matter of complete indifference - according to ordinary quantum mechanics - whether the experimenters stay around to watch, or delegate such 'observing' to computers, (Bell, 1984).

Nico van Kampem:

Whoever endows with more meaning than is needed for computing observable phenomena is responsible for the consequences. (van Kampen, 1988).

Appendix. Schrodinger's Cat: This cat story is notorious. It requires one to accept the notion that a cat, which can be in innumerable different biological states, can be represented by a two component wavefunction ψ, a bit of nonsense that Erwin Schrodinger, one of the original inventors of quantum mechanics, himself originated. One of the two components represents a live cat, and the other a dead cat. The cat is enclosed in a box containing a bottle filled with cyanide that opens when a radioactive nucleus in the box decays. Thus, this fictitious cat is a measuring device that is supposed to determine whether the nucleus has decayed or not when the box is opened. But according to the principles of quantum mechanics formulated by von Neumann, such a cat ought to be in a superposition of life and dead cat states, yet nobody has ever observed such a cat. Instead, it is expected that a movie camera - a real measuring device - that is also installed in the box containing the cat, would record a cat that is alive until the unpredictable moment that the radioactive nucleus decays, opening the bottle containing the cyanide that kills the cat. For obvious reasons such a gruesome experiment has never been performed. It is claimed that Schrodinger never accepted the statistical significance of his celebrated wavefunction.
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Not really. That is how waves behave. That is why the two-slit experiment is understood purely classically for light. The particle is the wave in a particular state.

Light is fundamentally different from matter: It always maintains the speed of light while matter can have any speed below light but never light speed.

Anton Zeilinger states that "the path taken by the photon is not an element of reality" before detection (2:24):


I don't believe any of this can be explained by the conventional views of consciousness and this is where the disconnect may be -- that we are "conscious observers" that have some sort of consciousness stuck in our brains and produced by the brain. It could be that a true understanding of consciousness (or what we essentially are, whatever it is we are) is required before we can make sense of what these experiments are telling us. Conversely, if one were to take what these experiments are saying to their logical conclusion, they would imply a consciousness that is different than currently conceptualized.

In the long run, all this could be debunked. But to believe we understand things enough at the moment to not look into every possibility displays a bit of hubris in my opinion.

The wave function of matter is the result of a superposition (the phenomena that before information is obtained about the particle, it appears to be everywhere at once or to contain all potentialities). So it seems to go through both slits at once when unobserved like a wave, but that this wave has the unique property of never having been observed nor could it ever be observed because the moment you attempt to observe it, it becomes a distinct particle and seemingly always was.

One of the early founders of QM, Niels Bohr, stated:
"Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it."

Also, Eugene Wigner stated something similar to the ideas presented here (although he repudiated it later in life, but not without a good deal of peer pressure):
"When the province of physical theory was extended to encompass microscopic phenomena, through the creation of quantum mechanics, the concept of consciousness came to the fore again: It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness. All that quantum mechanics purports to provide are probability connections between subsequent impressions (also called 'apperceptions') of the consciousness, and even though the dividing line between the observer, whose consciousness is being affected, and the observed physical object can be shifted towards the one or the other to a considerable degree, it cannot be eliminated. It may be premature to believe that the present philosophy of quantum mechanics will remain a permanent feature of future physical theories; it will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the conclusion that the content of the consciousness is an ultimate reality."
-Eugene Wigner

 
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It always maintains the speed of light while matter can have any speed below light but never light speed.
The speed of light in a vacuum always remains the same, but try turning a flash light on under water and watch what happens, or watch light as it travels through a pane of glass.

Added: didn't see your post above WW, you beat me to the punch
 
Light is fundamentally different from matter: It always maintains the speed of light while matter can have any speed below light but never light speed.
Good point.

The "photon" wave and the electron "wave" are fundamentally different in that the former travels at the speed of light while the other can travel at any speed under the speed of light (in a vacuum).
 
Have you tried mushrooms, dmt or had a mystical spiritual experience? o_O

yes, many times, I was massively into my hallucinogenics in my early 20's. I talked to stone lions, I saw a green sun (I'm talking full on 1970's dayglo lime green) rising over a music festival, I was 'possessed' by the spirit of a gibbon who told me he was my 'power animal' and loads more 'weird shit' a lot of which I can't fully recall.

However I am more inclined to believe what I saw, heard, felt and smelt was caused by certain chemicals tap dancing on my neurons and having fun with my memories, imagination and my interpretation of sensual stimuli than to believe it was really opening the doors to alternative dimensions, parallel universes and god the creator through some kind of consciousness of quantum or whatever.
 
but have you done DMT? totally different

ham.. you DO realize that a chemical reaction with the brain, is a chemical reaction with the brain no matter WHAT drug it is right? They're hallucinogenics... they do exactly what they describe, cause hallucinations. If your brain is being compromised by a chemical that is overriding your normal brain chemistry.. is there anyway that YOU can be sure that what you're seeing is real.. OTHER than the "feeling?"

Im speaking from experience here ham.. Ive done 'vision quests' and all that.. sweat lodges, Peyote.. you name it.. its all exactly the same.. your mind is compromised... you're stoned.. period. You can call it a "spiritual experience" if you want, but even in MY short lifetime I dont trust what my mind came up with during all that. Ive done and seen a lot on those "trips" and there's nothing to convince me that it was anything other than my brain chemistry being altered in such a way that the way my mind processed information varied from what it evolved to do.
 
overriding your normal brain chemistry
Whatever that is.

is there anyway that YOU can be sure that what you're seeing is real.. OTHER than the "feeling?"
Doesn't apply to "normal" experience?

your mind is compromised
My mind is always compromised.

I dont trust what my mind came up with during all that.
Whereas otherwise you do?

my mind processed information varied from what it evolved to do.
Giving you a fresh viewpoint. That must have sucked. LOL. :)
 
if one were to take what these experiments are saying to their logical conclusion, they would imply a consciousness that is different than currently conceptualized - to believe we understand things enough at the moment to not look into every possibility displays a bit of hubris in my opinion.
I think that fear of hubris should not prevent us from sticking to measurable facts. I sense a religious turn of events, perhaps.

It may be premature to believe that the present philosophy of quantum mechanics will remain a permanent feature of future physical theories; it will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the conclusion that the content of the consciousness is an ultimate reality.
As long as one accepts that its "ultimate reality" exists as the operating software of our brains, and not as part of some Matrix-like dream.

Not magic. Go away, Arthur.
 
I sense a religious turn of events, perhaps.

I wonder if the (or not) the Human propensity to "believe" in religions and "supernatural beings" that don't actually exist might be related to hallucinogens that undoubtedly exist in Nature....and HAVE existed for thousands of years?

(This 'relates' to the thread topic, in terms often used as "consciousness" when people relate their experiences, when under any influence....whether a "peyote sweat lodge", ETC.

Dunno if this makes it "quantum" in any way, though.....).
 
I wonder if the (or not) the Human propensity to "believe" in religions and "supernatural beings" that don't actually exist might be related to hallucinogens that undoubtedly exist in Nature....and HAVE existed for thousands of years?
Also experience itself is hallucinogenic if intense. One's experience in a car crash comes to mind - life history, etc.
And religion is tied to an infant's belief in his/her parents. Basically, it's an inevitable product of our evolution.
 
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And religion is tied to an infant's belief in his/her parents.

What a fascinating point of view!! Not sure I fully agree (have to 'chew' on this a bit...).

At a risk of a 'deletion', there is an ineffable quality of what it actually means to be "conscious" (or, "sentient")...that was VERY well handled years ago in a "Star Trek: TNG" script. Second season, title: "The Measure of a Man".

Please bear with me that this 5-minute clip is relevant:
 
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