Quantum Physics and the death of materialism

It's sad to see so many physicist trying to hold onto materialism at the expense of reason.

The ancients recognized the Oneness of the universe and you get things like Buddha, Brahman, The Tao and more. The oneness that manifest in many different ways.

Then came dualism which said that spirit and matter were seperate and they should be studied as such. You then have Newton and Darwin and the materialist said why do we need the spiritual? We can explain the universe without God or spirit just the material universe. Everything works like a clock.

Then came Quantum Physics

Quantum physics has put the nail in the coffin when it comes to materialism, it's just many people can't accept it.

Einstein was troubled by quantum physics and said,"God doesn't play dice with the universe." He also asked was the moon still there when he was not looking at it.

This troubled Bohm, Schrodinger and others. See, subatomic particles can jump from energy level to a different energy level without traveling through the space in between. Schrodinger said he would have never got involved with quantum physics if he knew about these jumps.

Say a person makes a choice to take the highway or take the streets home from work. Behind this choice is probability and the conscious observer makes the measurement. Most materialist want something physical behind this choice in order to hold onto materialism.

This truly upset the apple cart.

So the question is, what is holding the universe together? All experiments point to the conscious observer but the observer sounds too much like God or spirit.

So after the EPR paradox, Bell's Theorum, Double slit experiment and non-locality they have to answer the question because they can't accept the answer. All these test point to the conscious transcendent observer.

Now they have to turn to parallel universes to try and avoid the observer. So if you do something like flip a coin and it lands on heads, it's because in another universe a different version of yourself did the same thing and it landed on tails.

David Deutsch really pushes parallel universes and he said in his book The Fabric of Reality, he likes parallel universes because it lessens the role of the observer.

One problem, it doesn't. Even if these parallel universes exist, there still centered around the observer. The observer has to make a choice to flip the coin or introduce himself to his future wife. It comes down to choice because choice is what causes these universes to split. Who makes the choice first? What or who decides who makes the choice first?

Say you flip the coin, you need a universe where it lands on heads and one where it lands on tails. One where you drop the coin under the couch and one where you drop the coin and it rolls under the table. I can go on and on. This is just consciousness but materialist have not accepted it yet.

The materialist is desperate to say that consciousness is a product of matter to hold onto their dogma of materialism.

All of the tests tell us that it's the conscious observer that creates reality by making a choice.

Scientist have discovered the matter is a vacuum fluction and therefore virtual.
www.newscientist.com...

Plato said this years ago with the allegory of the cave before this and things like the Holographic Principle.

I think this is like the Tower of Babel. Men and women trying to deny their spiritual nature and build a world without God.

reply to post by Dodecahedral


Interesting post OP. The argument against parallel universe theory not relying on the observer was well laid out.

One thing I don't fully understand is the science behind the following;

See, subatomic particles can jump from energy level to a different energy level without traveling through the space in between.

I would be most grateful if anyone could shed some light on the theory behind this notion.

Originally posted by liketoknow

See, subatomic particles can jump from energy level to a different energy level without traveling through the space in between.

I would be most grateful if anyone could shed some light on the theory behind this notion.

I am not 100% sure, but is the poster saying that when an electron jumps to the a higher energy electron shell, it doesn't traverse the space required to change orbits but simply disappears from its current orbit and reappears in the higher energy orbit?

I don't know enough about quantum mechanics to know if this is true. Just some physical science classes when I was young and a few books on quantum theory since then.

[edit on 26-11-2008 by OuttaHere]

Originally posted by liketoknow
reply to post by Dodecahedral

 

Interesting post OP. The argument against parallel universe theory not relying on the observer was well laid out.

One thing I don't fully understand is the science behind the following;

See, subatomic particles can jump from energy level to a different energy level without traveling through the space in between.

I would be most grateful if anyone could shed some light on the theory behind this notion.

Thanks for the response liketoknow.

A quantum jump is a change of an electron from one energy state to another within an atom. It's also called a quantum leap.

You can look at it like this. Say you have three lines.

Line 1 -------------------------------------------

space

Line 2 -------------------------------------------

space

Line 3 -------------------------------------------

You would expect an electron to travel from line 1 to line 2 through the space in between. The electron jumps from line 1 to line 2 without traveling through space between the two lines. It just jumps from line to line.

Another thing is, if you measure the electron's position you will not know it's momentum and if you measure it's momentum you will not know it's position. This is called the Uncertainty Principle.

With a classicall object like a ball, you can measure it's position and momentum

So I think we have a quantum mind and a classical brain.

Think about consciousness, it's basically probability. If your playing baseball and you go to bat you can either strike out, walk, get hit by the pitch or get a hit.

These 4 probable states exist until your classical brain measures the choice. So choice creates reality.

I think it's simple but materialist want to hold onto materialism because it shapes their worldview.

Thanks for the reply; it has taken me a while but I think, finally I'm beginning to understand.

Another concept I have been trying to grasp is that of a 10 dimensional universe. What dimension do these quantum jumps occur in and do the electrons that are jumping ever occupy two spaces at the same time?

Because they don't understand the physics of the thing isn't a direct corollary to the existence of god but neither does it disprove the existence of god. They should just say we don't understand and keep looking. Giving up is quitter talk. The answers are out there. Math will unlock the secrets of the universe. We just don't know the math yet.

Originally posted by Dodecahedral
Think about consciousness, it's basically probability. If your playing baseball and you go to bat you can either strike out, walk, get hit by the pitch or get a hit.

These 4 probable states exist until your classical brain measures the choice. So choice creates reality.

OK so can you always choose which one you would like? 'Cause I'd always choose the hit. The four quantum states exist until the brain registers which reality has emerged from the options. This is a natural by-product of ideas moving from the future (potentiality) to the past. But did the batter have a choice? I don't know.

Quantum physics is great. It's the science that tells us all that we don't really exist we're just tiny particles bouncing at a high frequency.

Quantum physics also is great because of the cat in the box (Schrooder's Cat).

[edit on 11/26/08 by blowfishdl]

I read something a while back that gave me the impression that symmetry is associated with quantum. Meaning that the simple fact that the human brain is bi-lateral, left and right, assumes a measure of quantum activity. Dunno....

reply to post by OuttaHere

I don't know enough about quantum mechanics to know if this is true.

It's true in terms of the primitive model of electrons orbiting in shells at fixed physical distances round an atomic nucleus. What is actually happening is a good deal more subtle than that; I don't pretend to understand it perfectly, but it's probably best considered as a quantum increase in the electron's energy - which does, indeed, rise from one value to another without showing any sign of passing through the values in between.

Of course, neither this nor any other quantum phenomenon actually supports the wishful thinking of the OP. Beware when people use the term 'quantum physics'; it is a dead giveaway that they don't understand the subject.

reply to post by OuttaHere


I don't really like that analogy. It's good but it fails in that we misinterpret the object of the analogy in favor of our belief that the brain has ultimate control over physical reality. The brain is just another randomly configured structure of carbon molecules existing within the vast multitude of atoms, which make the world and our universe. Why should the brain have ultimate control over the outcome of any possible reality, as opposed to the whims of the air molecules or dust particles, or even the steel baseball bat that are all around us. I don't think the brain is special in that sense just because its rather unique and that it provides us the consciousness we are all so fond of.


[edit on 27-11-2008 by cognoscente]

Originally posted by OuttaHere

Originally posted by Dodecahedral
Think about consciousness, it's basically probability. If your playing baseball and you go to bat you can either strike out, walk, get hit by the pitch or get a hit.

These 4 probable states exist until your classical brain measures the choice. So choice creates reality.

OK so can you always choose which one you would like? 'Cause I'd always choose the hit. The four quantum states exist until the brain registers which reality has emerged from the options. This is a natural by-product of ideas moving from the future (potentiality) to the past. But did the batter have a choice? I don't know.

Yes, the batter had a choice.

I think the universe is positive and negative, yin and yang, matter and energy, wave and particle and probability and choice

So the batter made the choice to play baseball and then probability followed.

It's just like if you wake up in the morning and you don't feel well and you can either call off or go to work and when you make the choice then probability follows.

Say you call off, you then can go back to bed or fix you some breakfast. When you wake up you can catch up on shows on the DVR or read a book.

So probabilities and choice compliment each other. Think about your day, it's full of choice and probability.

I think the materialist do not want to accept what experiment after experiment tells us. Material theories of the universe will always be incomplete until you include transcendent conscious observation.

reply to post by Dodecahedral

Yes, the batter had a choice.

You are wrong.

The batter had an intention, as Outtahere explained - he wanted a hit. This intention may have affected the outcome, but the outcome was certainly not determined by it.

Trying to use quantum theory to support the delusion that things can be made to happen just by wishing it is a losing game, I'm afraid.

Do people literally mean a new universe is created when a choice is made ie all probabilities exist.Say typing this and i might have made a spelling mistake or not posted at all.Is it just mind games like schrodingers cat or *literally* a new universe is created with all probilities of events.

reply to post by Solomons

Do people literally mean a new universe is created when a choice is made ie all probabilities exist.Say typing this and i might have made a spelling mistake or not posted at all.Is it just mind games like schrodingers cat or *literally* a new universe is created with all probilities of events.

The mathematics of quantum theory produce some pretty weird results. Trying to visualize these results in real-world terms is difficult. Ideas like the Many Worlds Interpretation (what you're talking about here) are ways of explaining what must happen in the real world if the maths is correct. But the maths can be interpreted in many different ways. Besides the Many Worlds Interpretation, you'll find the Many Minds Interpretation and the concept of decoherence.

The Many Worlds Interpretation is popular with non-physicists because they're fascinated by the idea that, somewhere among this infinity of worlds is one in which they are Einstein, or Jay-Z, or Marilyn Monroe, or whoever it is they want to be. They hope, I suppose, that one day they'll be able to transfer themselves from this world (where they're not doing so well, truth be known) to that world (where life for them is all hookers and coke). Wishy-wishy, shut your eyes and hope it all comes true... a bit sad, really.

The Schrodinger's Cat thought-experiment is just an example used to get the measurement problem in quantum mechanics into the heads of physics students. You know, the cat may be both dead and alive to a scientist waiting to open the box, but you may be sure that, from the cat's point of view, there's never a moment of doubt which it is.

Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by Dodecahedral

 

Yes, the batter had a choice.

You are wrong.

The batter had an intention, as Outtahere explained - he wanted a hit. This intention may have affected the outcome, but the outcome was certainly not determined by it.

Trying to use quantum theory to support the delusion that things can be made to happen just by wishing it is a losing game, I'm afraid.

It's funny how some people go so far to avoid choice but that is the point of my initial post.

In order for him to have the intention to hit the ball, he had to make the choice to play baseball. No matter how far you try to run from choice, you can't escape it.

Originally posted by Solomons
Do people literally mean a new universe is created when a choice is made ie all probabilities exist.Say typing this and i might have made a spelling mistake or not posted at all.Is it just mind games like schrodingers cat or *literally* a new universe is created with all probilities of events.

Yes,. LITERALLY.

It's not just non physicist who accept this either.

Stephen Hawking, David Deutsch, Michio Kaku, Briane Greene, Ed Witten and more. Many physicist accept this.

So, an actual universe is created whenever you make a choice. You can see a bunch of these "non physicist" here..
www.youtube.com...

There's 2 popular schools of thought in physics. The multiverse or Copenhagen Interpretation.

Copenhagen says it stops at the Observer but the observer sounds too much like God or spirit. It's too mysterious.

So, these universes need to exist to avoid choice. That way, you are not making the choice but the universe is making it for you. This is how far they will go to avoid choice.

See, behind your choice there's probability. So, when you chose to type on your computer, then different probable events could occur. Many physicist don't like this because there's no cause and effect behind your choice just probability and they want something there besides consciousness so things like parallel universes is needed.

So, when you come to a fork in the road and go left, another version of you in another universe is going right. So, there's no free will because the universes is making the choices for you.

[edit on 28-11-2008 by Dodecahedral]

reply to post by Dodecahedral

In order for him to have the intention to hit the ball, he had to make the choice to play baseball. No matter how far you try to run from choice, you can't escape it.

And you believe that the choice to play baseball was the player's?

If this were the Philosophy forum, I would ask you to justify that statement. You would have, I promise you, the Devil's own task of it.

But since this is the Science forum, I will simply point out that the discussion up to now has been confined within the experimental limits of a specified event (a batter hitting a ball) with four outcomes defined as possible. You are attempting to introduce a factor outside the experimental frame of reference, which is (obviously) temporal as well as spatial. Events earlier on the timeline have nothing to do with how the probability function being observed collapses at that instant in spacetime.

Funny how far some people will go - right outside the framework of discussion they themselves set up in the first place - to make believe that wishes can come true.

[edit on 2-12-2008 by Astyanax]

reply to post by Dodecahedral

Stephen Hawking, David Deutsch, Michio Kaku, Briane Greene, Ed Witten and more.

You missed out Everett and DeWitt. I guess they don't get on YouTube much.

When we have a complete theory of quantum mechanics, we will be able to tell for certain whether the MWI is correct or not. Don't hold your breath.