Quantum Experiment Confirms Reality Doesn't Exist Until Measured

a reply to: mbkennel

You are, like all the others before you, still not touching the actual results of this experiment or saying anything of substance.

a reply to: mbkennel
Admittedly we've got examples of Poe's Law in action here, so from a random poster sometimes it's hard to tell who is parodying an extreme view and who is serious about it, but in your case I knew which was the case and was playing along, I LOLed.

If I thought you were serious, I would have asked why Zog was the first, and not Zog's father.

originally posted by: HotMale
a reply to: ImaFungi

Reality exists beyond human perception; for example, my great great great great grandfather might have thought reality did not exist beyond his perception. His perception no longer exists, reality still does.

That's another assumption. Just because some things are discovered later doesn't mean they were there before in the material form.

Anyway this is another bogus argument because you determine that reality still exists beyond human perception by using your own conciousness.........


The rest of your post has nothing to do with the experiment this thread is about.

The only reason why people keep coming up with these hilariously skewed arguments is because they just can't compute.

No its because you don't understand physics. Physics is about probabilities and degrees of freedom. To an electron it has huge probabilities as to location. This is its degrees of fredom we can use physics to only give us probabilities of where it will be. Now move our electron into an atom this restricts it's probabilities to what we call electron cloud. This limits it's degrees of freedom. Now we connect multiple atoms with our electron in its atom. Now once again we are restricting it's degrees of freedom this is why an asteroid doesn't cease to exist just because no one is observing it.

You are attempting to introduce some metaphysics to reality. I'll make it simple reality is always their the only restriction is how much of it can we observe.

originally posted by: HotMale
a reply to: ImaFungi

Reality exists beyond human perception; for example, my great great great great grandfather might have thought reality did not exist beyond his perception. His perception no longer exists, reality still does.

That's another assumption. Just because some things are discovered later doesn't mean they were there before in the material form.

Anyway this is another bogus argument because you determine that reality still exists beyond human perception by using your own conciousness.........

I said reality exists beyond his perception.

People arguing that reality does not exist beyond their own perception. Those people die. And reality still exists. So reality exists beyond a persons perception.

The rest of your post has nothing to do with the experiment this thread is about.

The only reason why people keep coming up with these hilariously skewed arguments is because they just can't compute.

The rest of my post is a primer in regards to any of these discussions.

Tell me what I cant compute. Tell me one thing you believe is true about reality that I dont already know is a possible thought to have, which I disagree with.


The argument and difficulty is in regards to the nature of a or the absolute objective reference frame, the truth of truth. The true aesthetic of reality. Do classical objects exist as classical objects, or is reality a soup of quantum broth.

Everything exists exactly as it does at all times. When something is measured, exactly what is measured is effected exactly in the way it is.

About the reference frames it comes down to knowledge of the reality of an object. An apple for example. Consider a micro organism, a caveman, and a modern apple specialist scientist, a baby. We can consider that these 4 entities will have differing amounts of knowledge about the apple in their minds. We rightly assume there is a truth, that there is information of and in and as apple, and reasons as to how and why it exists (seeds, soil, rain, sun, evolution).

So it is possible to know more about reality and it is possible to know nothing about it.

Your side of the ~argument, is attempting to claim a truth about reality, to claim knowledge of how reality exists in and of itself, that is the attempt of fundamental physics, to comprehend the fundamental nature of reality fundamentally.


Ok well I will try to talk about the experiment, the key aspects.

'stuff from the future can physically effect stuff in the present'.

Is that pretty much the only claim of the experiment I am failing to get, that is the main point you want to be true, that you have gained from the experiment? Or is there another I missed?


The reason someone can say such a thing (when not talking about the nature of minds and thinking);

Is because either the fact of macro spinning (earth, solar system, galaxy), and/or an intimate connection between all local matter such that when one quantum amongst the connection is jostled there is a reverberation effect that ripples in all directions away, and so it is possible (when using an atom maybe especially, which is traveling less then speed of light) the reverberation ripples travel in different directions and thus a particle traveling forward can be effected by reverbs of reverbs of reverbs x a billion maybe. Also another thing maybe to consider is the weak force of gravity on these micro quanta, being momentarily loosed from a bond, the earth with its inertia and gravity, perhaps there is some novel effect that causes it to move in such a way. Though yes, everything being in the earths reference frame already, so I am not sure, object in motion stays in motion. Have everyone who works on these experiments and theories collectively agree on definitions to the terms 'particle', 'wave', 'field', 'photon', 'atom', 'time', 'space', and then there should be no debate or controversy. Reality works, there is a way in which it works, physicists job is to figure this out, the title of this thread appears (after I measured it of course) meaningless, which my post about the nature of the term reality was in response to.

The future cannot effect the past/present, because the future doesnt exist until it is the present. It is always the present. The present is the future continuously becoming the past. The future only 'exists' ...

Well this is relevantly interesting conceptual discussion;

I am convinced (I would challenge anyone in the world dead or alive to attempt to argue my premise, and I am confident they would fail, please try to) that time is only! the fact that substance (non nothing) moves/can move.

Now there is a lot of substance. And there are different collections of it, a star here, a planet there, an asteroid here, a galaxy there.

And there is a lot of movement. Different speeds. Some spinning. Spinning with different speeds. Some rotating and spinning. There are interesting things like, on earth alone, consider all the movement on and around earths surface, yada yada;

Our 'tomorrow' (future), is, the earth spinning half a rotation. It also is moving linearly and in other ways, which I suppose would be necessary to conceive of the future that is tomorrow.

But if you were in a really fast plane, and you took off from where you were, and flew halfway around the horizontal axis of the earth, would you be traveling into the future? If this plane was really fast, like could fly 10,000 mph, and you flew half way around the earth, landed, went into a store and bought a boxing glove, got on your plane, and flew back to your home, and you had a friend who was on your couch the entire time watching tv, and you punched him in the face with the glove, would this be an example of the future effecting the past?

a reply to: HotMale

Good points and materialism is truly where science meets science-fiction. There's no evidence an objective physical reality exists outside of conscious experience. This is what science tells us.

In order to avoid this, you have to conjure up a ton of material universes out there somewhere that can't be measured or observed in order to try and avoid the fine tuning of the universe and you still have no way to show how any of these things can naturally emerge and this is why you have things like the vacuum catastrophe and the axis of evil in Cosmology.

At this point, science can't show that while I'm typing this post, my couch in the living room has a definite position in this universe if I'm not in there sitting on it.

Every test so far has violated macrorealism and we see it in things like Cesium atom to a Buckminsterfullerene.

Science hasn't found any quantum-classical boundary.

Also, a lot of people throw around decoherence and they don't understand it.

Say you have quantum system in a pure state. There's a 60% chance of spin up and 40% spin down. When decoherence occurs, you just go from a pure state to a mixed state of probabilities. Decoherence doesn't explain measurement and this is why you have these different interpretations. With decoherence, people talk about "apparent collapse."

When a measurement occurs though, the wave function "collapses" to a Dirac Delta function. You don't have probabilities but with decoherence you still have a mixed state of probabilities. So decoherence says, OBJECTIVE MATERIAL REALITY DOESN'T EXIST.

How can a mixture of probabilities be in a definite state without a conscious observer?

Decoherence also has many other problems and this is why there's still vigorous debate. Decoherence answers nothing and if you accept decoherence as an explanation, you have to say objective material reality doesn't exist without a conscious observer observing one state instead of a mixture of probable states.

Also, there has been experiments that have measured wave function collapse.

Quantum Experiment Verifies Nonlocal Wavefunction Collapse for a Single Particle

“Einstein never accepted orthodox quantum mechanics and the original basis of his contention was this single-particle argument. This is why it is important to demonstrate non-local wave function collapse with a single particle,” says Professor Wiseman.

“Einstein’s view was that the detection of the particle only ever at one point could be much better explained by the hypothesis that the particle is only ever at one point, without invoking the instantaneous collapse of the wave function to nothing at all other points.

“However, rather than simply detecting the presence or absence of the particle, we used homodyne measurements enabling one party to make different measurements and the other, using quantum tomography, to test the effect of those choices.”

“Through these different measurements, you see the wave function collapse in different ways, thus proving its existence and showing that Einstein was wrong.”

scitechdaily.com...

So to scream decoherence makes no sense because decoherence doesn't support an objective material reality, just a mixture of probabilities.

a reply to: neoholographic

Where is the source of your desire to believe what you are saying?

What you are saying you believe in, is the essence of meaningless and falseness and nonsense.

The source of your beliefs must be psychological, but they dont even follow through to anything, I mean unless you desire to attempt to defend yourself against others and offend others by attacking them with your belief that all that exists is meaningless, nonsensical illusion, and while this may be true for other reasons, it must certainly is not fundamentally physically true as you seem to want to claim it is.

So that is the largest reason for you to believe what you are saying, and your desire to believe it and want this perspective to be true.

Other than then that, the evidence does not follow to the conclusions you are making.

These are the caveman ventures into the beginning tampering with understanding fire. Weak and sloppy interpretations about the most fundamental substance of reality.

I would agree that, if non locality is true (and I have seen no evidence for it, only slanted interpretation with the desire to get funding by making ones work seem like spooky magic) then that opens a tiny window for the potential of the universe being fake, a symbolic computation of some kind, but still prior to that there would be more likelihood I think of the reason for non locality for just being the result of a more subtle energy field than the EM field which transfers information faster than the EM field; extrapolations to then say that sketchy early moments of tampering with and declaring 'entanglement' means that two particles can send information between each other at infinite distances at infinite speed, is so far from logic and reason and rational and science it is a waste of time for any intelligence to think about it too much, besides the attempt to one fell swooply dispel a massive amount of ignorance if one cares about other people at all, at least so far as their ignorance can aeffect them, which unfortunately for some, can be entirely.


"Einstein never accepted orthodox quantum mechanics and the original basis of his contention was this single-particle argument. This is why it is important to demonstrate non-local wave function collapse with a single particle,” says Professor Wiseman.


“Through these different measurements, you see the wave function collapse in different ways, thus proving its existence and showing that Einstein was wrong.”

The world must be trolling all intelligences, this seems like an 'Onion news' article; Professor 'Wiseman'... could only make that up as a joke!

a reply to: neoholographic

Isn't the further future, an infinite amount of probable outcomes? but only when the wave collapses at the front of the time wave, due to observation, IE. when the future becomes the past, only then ,does it become awareness, as interpreted as a defined material reality. Then material reality ,is observed as the decaying ambient time field, as its overwritten, by new wave front collapse.

This rather sounds like their are "finite" number of,probable outcomes, becoming real, in the near future, to a "finite' number of observers , at the point of the wave collapse. Then the finite number of observers expand , as the probable outcomes expand down the time line, ad infinitum. Because in the near future things cant go an infinite number of ways, their are only so many cause and effects possible in the near future, but they will expand as time passes. Materially this is impossible, as the energy required to produce this many parallel worlds, would not exist. it could only exist as information interpretation.

originally posted by: HotMale
a reply to: mbkennel

You obviously are not arguing from standpoint that indicates knowledge of these experiments. Otherwise you wouldn't be asking these questions.

So, does it work one way if a human reads it and different way if an orangutan reads it? Is there any experimental result specifically which proves *consciousness* is important?

I"m denying the idea that there is something magical about "consciousness" which has an effect as opposed to thermodynamically large measurement apparatus which decoheres quickly into classical states.

Other than that orthodox quantum mechanics keeps on working as it does on the wavefuntion of everything: dPsi/dt = -ih [Psi, H(Psi)]

I call Psi a material universe.

And people are unjustifably ragging on Einstein. He saw earlier than others that the standard quantum mechanics appeared to imply non-local interactions and he thus thought that it was not complete on the assumption such non-local interactions were disallowed. That was a pretty reasonable assumption but it turned out to be wrong. There was no experimental evidence to settle the matter until after Einstein's death. The resolution is simple: non-local interactions are allowed. They just don't happen in the classical limit.

HotMale:

This notion that it doesn't apply to macroscopic reality is ridiculous.

You are just trolling, or you do not understand that your blindness is due to your refusal to see, both stances explain your wilful ignorance!

You are dismissed as a lost cause. Good day!

I still don't see any of the material girls touching the experiment and its results. Can any of you tell me if information somehow travels back through time to affect an outcome in the past, or does the correct reality manifest upon observation?

If you can't acknowledge one of the two options then at least tell me what is happening in the experiment causing the result that none of you is able to discuss let alone explain.

a reply to: HotMale

Can you give a simple outline of the experiment? Is it standard delay choice experiment?

An exact quantity (difficult to exactly know, maybe, prior to measuring) of energy/matter is sent into the apparatus at point A.

That exact quantity travels through the apparatus, maybe reacting with the materials of the apparatus creating radiation and resonances along the way, maybe it doesnt.

That exact quantity is then detected at point B, the detector, which shouldnt be called point B, because a detector is not a point, any detector devices is an array of arrays, it is even possible that depending on the type of detector, size of the detector sections, materials etc, different expressions of the quantity could be detected, but yeah you get the picture.

Ok, so exact quanta of quanta sent in Side A;

exact quanta of quanta detected at side B;

Where is the controversy?

When they tamper with devices in between A and B, after the quanta was sent from A, the detector detects a quanta signature which correlates somehow to the device in between A and B that was tampered with? And when they dont tamper with a device in between A and B then the quanta is as they assume quanta exists without being tampered with?

Imagine how good it feels to say, perhaps with your wife and kids watching, hopefully a female student, with authority; 'Einstein was wrong'. Heck of a self esteem builder I imagine.

originally posted by: HotMale
I still don't see any of the material girls touching the experiment and its results. Can any of you tell me if information somehow travels back through time to affect an outcome in the past, or does the correct reality manifest upon observation?

If you can't acknowledge one of the two options then at least tell me what is happening in the experiment causing the result that none of you is able to discuss let alone explain.

The experiment dorsnt say the future effects the past your misreading it. What it says is if our particle took a certain path the only way to explain it would be that our particle communicated into the past. But since that's not what physics says happens it's considered a validation of physics. Because in physics our particle can take both paths and does.I have a very similar experiment set up in my lab for students. This isn't ground breaking and this doesn't mean reality doesn't exist.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Decoherence explains why we do not routinely see quantum superpositions in the world around us. It is not because quantum mechanics intrinsically stops working for objects larger than some magic size.

originally posted by: HotMale
I rest my case.

Your case was that quantum effects "applies to macroscopic reality". That says they do but we don't see them because of decoherence so I if you're claiming we see quantum effects routinely around us (outside the lab), that's not what it says.

In fact you cherry-picked the quote to leave off the part that explained in detail why you're wrong about how quantum effects "applies to macroscopic reality".

Instead, macroscopic objects such as cats and cards are almost impossible to keep isolated to the extent needed to prevent decoherence. Microscopic objects, in contrast, are more easily isolated from their surroundings so that they retain their quantum secrets and quantum behavior.

Anyway TzarChasm was probably right that there's not much point in debating someone who thinks Pluto ceases to exist when you're not looking at it. Nothing about this experiment suggests anything like that.

originally posted by: dragonridr

originally posted by: HotMale
I still don't see any of the material girls touching the experiment and its results. Can any of you tell me if information somehow travels back through time to affect an outcome in the past, or does the correct reality manifest upon observation?

If you can't acknowledge one of the two options then at least tell me what is happening in the experiment causing the result that none of you is able to discuss let alone explain.

The experiment dorsnt say the future effects the past your misreading it. What it says is if our particle took a certain path the only way to explain it would be that our particle communicated into the past. But since that's not what physics says happens it's considered a validation of physics. Because in physics our particle can take both paths and does.I have a very similar experiment set up in my lab for students. This isn't ground breaking and this doesn't mean reality doesn't exist.

Several of us have tried to convey this, but it looks like either it is not being understood or is being ignored.

I really really really wish people would go an learn about Relativity... a lot of people here are attempting understand space-time, without first understanding the foundation of the principles.

Furthermore, although I agree that Quantum Mechanics is counter intuitive and it is often banded about that if one states they understand it that they do not... this is a fallacy.. there are some very clear principles that we do understand extremely well...

It's just it's cutting edge science and thus the boundaries of that knowledge is what is being pushed with experiments such as the one we are discussing.

Korg.

The experiment dorsnt say the future effects the past your misreading it. What it says is if our particle took a certain path the only way to explain it would be that our particle communicated into the past. But since that's not what physics says happens it's considered a validation of physics. Because in physics our particle can take both paths and does.I have a very similar experiment set up in my lab for students. This isn't ground breaking and this doesn't mean reality doesn't exist.

Explaining it as saying "the particle took both paths" is the problem: it's the wavefunction which takes all sorts of paths and occasionally behaves and instantiates as a particle.

originally posted by: mbkennel

Explaining it as saying "the particle took both paths" is the problem: it's the wavefunction which takes all sorts of paths and occasionally behaves and instantiates as a particle.

But the 'wavefunction' is not a real thing.

Thinking the wavefunction is a real thing is like if you threw one dice in the air and once you let go no human touched the dice, and while it was in the air you said 'the probability of this dice landing on 1 is real, the probability of this dice landing on 2 is real, the probability of this dice landing on 3 is real, the probability of this dice landing on 4 is real, the probability of this dice landing on 5 is real, the probability of this dice landing on 6 is real, the probability it self 'exists!'.

Most honestly, intellectually, intelligently, scientifically, logically, philosophically, reasonably, obviously; probability doesnt actually exist (as objects exist); probability is only a way to organize our ignorance, to put limits on our ignorance, there is 0 probability the dice will show the number 7.

Once the dice has left the fingers, as hard as it may be to accept it, the number it will land on is no longer probable, it is absolutely determined.

At this point, I will not say so certainly, nor will I even say with probability, that the dice is determined even prior to being let go by the person tossing it; because I believe in free will; but now that I think about it, it is still precisely determined...by that free will and that free wills relationship with ultimate determinism, but now this is getting a bit besides the point, though very interesting and important none the less.

The reason the free will aspect is weird, is because the free will is not pure free will. It is free will with multiple ways of determinism, and even relating to the free wills 'grooves of being and thinking', which can potentially be looked at as its own internal form of determinism.

Like if as I am about to toss the dice, if I I think 'hm, maybe I was to show off my subtle strength, by subtly flicking my fingers really fast so the dice spins very fast and neatly many times, to make when it hits the hard floor it goes flying in a 'random' and exciting way'... There are many thoughts I could have like that, many different levels of control, I am choosing, the height to release, the speed of flicking, the degrees and rates of rotation, etc. The control is, the nature of the floor, the nature of the air, the limits of the possible heights, the limits of the possible speeds of rotation, and the sides of the dice.

Once I let go of the dice; and even prior potentially; to a sufficiently god like observer, could view me as just another force of nature, who interacted with an object in a physical way; and if this observer had all the details of the air, my muscle usage, my finger flick age, the nature of the floor, the rotation of the dice and speed, and height and trajectory, then it could compute or simulate the event, and determine how the dice will land.

The probability only exists to one who is ignorant of the necessary information, the information to determine, and the information which determines, what always actually happens.

originally posted by: ImaFungi
But the 'wavefunction' is not a real thing.

I've noticed that sometimes people who know more, claim to know less, while people who know less, claim to know more. I suppose it's probably related to the Dunning Krueger effect.

Sean Carroll seems to know more about it than you and he says we don't know the real nature of the wave function but he's OK with treating it as more real than the Copenhagen interpretation.

I'm sticking with "what cannot be resolved by experiment is not worth debating" at least for scientific topics such as this. So far we haven't designed experiments which can determine which interpretation is correct. I read that some scientists think they might be able to do that and are trying. Those experimental results will mean a lot more than your unilateral proclamations that an electron needs to behave like a die...it doesn't and I already explained why.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Your case was that quantum effects "applies to macroscopic reality". That says they do but we don't see them because of decoherence so I if you're claiming we see quantum effects routinely around us (outside the lab), that's not what it says.

That is not what I was saying. I said before that we have to look at the building blocks of matter, at quantum level to see how reality works. I am not claiming that we can see quantum effects at a macroscopic level but there obviously is a relation. The only reason you see it seperate is because you can´t explain what you are seeing because you are looking at from the wrong perspective.

How can behavior of particles at a quantum level have nothing to do with macroscopic reality which is built up out of the very same particles.

In fact you cherry-picked the quote to leave off the part that explained in detail why you're wrong about how quantum effects "applies to macroscopic reality".

It actually supports my viewpoint.

Instead, macroscopic objects such as cats and cards are almost impossible to keep isolated to the extent needed to prevent decoherence. Microscopic objects, in contrast, are more easily isolated from their surroundings so that they retain their quantum secrets and quantum behavior.

All it is saying that we can´t see what is really happening at a macroscopic level.

Anyway TzarChasm was probably right that there's not much point in debating someone who thinks Pluto ceases to exist when you're not looking at it. Nothing about this experiment suggests anything like that.

I responded to a hypothetical question I was asked about Pluto.

a reply to: dragonridr

The experiment dorsnt say the future effects the past your misreading it. What it says is if our particle took a certain path the only way to explain it would be that our particle communicated into the past. But since that's not what physics says happens it's considered a validation of physics.

Before I go any further responding to these posts, you guys are getting that at the time of the path measurement the other detection (interference/non interference pattern) had already happened?

Because in physics our particle can take both paths and does.

If you accept this, you also have to accept that somehow information traveled throuh time to affect a past result.

That why he is offering these two possible options, knowing you have to reject the first one.

That leaves the only other option, that the result materialises upon path measurement.

How else could a past event always line up with the info from the measurement when this info was not known yet at that time?

You clearly are not getting the implications at all.

I mean this is the experimenter himself saying this.

You guys really think you have more credibility.

If one chooses to believe that the atom really did take a particular path or paths then one has to accept that a future measurement is affecting the atom's past, said Truscott.

So if you reject this one, you have to accept the other one.

"The atoms did not travel from A to B. It was only when they were measured at the end of the journey that their wave-like or particle-like behaviour was brought into existence," he said.

And if you are not going to accept this one you just don't get it at all, or you are able to come up with a third option that describes what happened.

I am waiting.