Can Wigner’s Friend Lie?

I think this is an interesting thought experiment. It's a variation of the Wigner's friend experiment which could go down as one of the most important thought experiments in science. There's been a lot of papers on Wigner's friend lately. I think it supports the consciousness or awareness of the observer in QM is needed to fully explain quantum mechanics.

A thought experiment ask, is Quantum Awareness fundamental to the universe?

Orch Or and other theories of consciousness need to be looked at with an open mind. In this article, I want to talk about a thought experiment that I came up with called, Can Wigner’s Friend Lie? This thought experiment is a twist on the Wigner’s friend thought experiment by Nobel prize winning Physicist Eugene Wigner. Wigner’s friend says, his friend in a laboratory carries out a quantum measurement on a system like an electron or photon. In this case, he’s performing a polarization measurement on a photon and he will observe if the photon is in vertical or horizontal polarization. He carries out the measurement and writes down in his notebook that he measured vertical polarization of the photon at 1 PM. In the lab, Wigner’s friend has caused the wave function to “collapse.” For Wigner outside of the lab, it’s a different story. Wigner can look at the photon and a record of his friend’s measurement and do an interference measurement and measure interference. Wigner can conclude that his friend didn’t carry out a measurement in the lab and the wave function Wigner measures is in superposition according to the linearity of the quantum mechanical equations. So the laboratory is in a superposition that includes Wigner’s friend who measured verticlal polarization and Wigner’s friend who measured horizontal polarization. Wigner’s wave function didn’t collapse although the wave function for his friend in the lab clearly collapsed and he has written down a record of this result. Wigner can only carry out an interference measurement and measure interference as long as he doesn’t have any knowledge and isn’t conscious of his friend’s measurement. If his friend calls and says,”Hey Wigner, I measured vertical polarization.” Wigner can no longer measure interference. How is the quantum system aware of what Wigner knows or doesn’t know about it’s state?

I have a strong QA postulate and a weak QA postulate. A weak QA postulate says this Quantum Awareness becomes more dynamic when it interacts with human brains. It becomes self awareness. A strong QA postulate would be a more robust Quantum Awareness that may be more self aware than we are. We can test this by a thought experiment I call,”Can Wigner’s Friend Lie?” It would essentially be the same set up as the Wigner’s friend experiments, but Wigner’s friend would call Wigner and say,”Hey Wigner, I measured horizontal polarization.” Wigner’s friend actually measures vertical polarization and the question is, can Wigner still measure interference when his friend lies to him about the results of his measurement? We already know that Wigner can’t measure interference once he has knowledge of his friend’s measurement. The question is, is this Quantum Awareness so robust that it even knows when Wigner is being lied to and he actually doesn’t have knowledge of the state of a quantum system even when Wigner doesn’t know he’s being lied to?

hwimberlyjr.medium.com...

This would be an interesting experiment. If Wigner's friend calls and tells Wigner the truth about what was measured and the Wigner can't carry out an interference measurement, then the friend calls him and lies about the measurement and Wigner can still carry out an interference measurement, that would be huge. You would have to connect the wave function to the knowledge of an observer and what an observer knows or doesn't know about it's state.

Here's some more recent Wigner friend studies:

Experimental test of local observer independence

The scientific method relies on facts, established through repeated measurements and agreed upon universally, independently of who observed them. In quantum mechanics the objectivity of observations is not so clear, most markedly exposed in Wigner’s eponymous thought experiment where two observers can experience seemingly different realities. The question whether the observers’ narratives can be reconciled has only recently been made accessible to empirical investigation, through recent no-go theorems that construct an extended Wigner’s friend scenario with four observers. In a state-of-the-art six-photon experiment, we realize this extended Wigner’s friend scenario, experimentally violating the associated Bell-type inequality by five standard deviations. If one holds fast to the assumptions of locality and free choice, this result implies that quantum theory should be interpreted in an observer-dependent way.

advances.sciencemag.org...

Quantum erasing the memory of Wigner's friend

The Wigner's friend paradox concerns one of the most puzzling concepts of quantum mechanics: the consistent description of multiple nested observers. Recently, a variation of Wigner's gedankenexperiment, introduced by Frauchiger and Renner, has lead to new debates about the self-consistency of quantum mechanics. We propose a simple single-photon interferometric setup implementing their scenario, and use our reformulation to shed a new light on the assumptions leading to their paradox. From our description, we argue that the three apparently incompatible properties used to question the consistency of quantum mechanics correspond to two logically distinct contexts: either assuming that Wigner has full control over his friends' lab, or conversely that some part of the labs remain unaffected by Wigner's subsequent measurements. The first context may be seen as the quantum erasure of the memory of Wigner's friend. We further show these properties are associated with observables which do not commute, and therefore cannot take well-defined values simultaneously. Consequently, the three contradictory properties never hold simultaneously.

arxiv.org...

Wigner's friend is destroying the notion of materialism once again and posing serious questions about the role of the observer, consciousness and is there really an objective reality.

What's the question?

originally posted by: CopeLongCut
What's the question?

What do you mean what's the question?

It's a discussion on the article and the implication of recent Wigner's friend experiments. Do you understand the Wigner's friend thought experiment which was recently confirmed on a microscopic scale?

a reply to: neoholographic

Interesting article.

The results of that experiment might say a lot about observation.

I've always liked Wigner's friend and I think it poses some serious questions alongside Schrodinger's cat.

I am not trying to break your balls. I read you post, with your opinion, linked articles and posted quotes. . But, I didn't see a question anywhere in your post. I could give an opinion. If that is what you were expecting. a reply to: neoholographic

originally posted by: CopeLongCut
I am not trying to break your balls. I read you post, with your opinion, linked articles and posted quotes. . But, I didn't see a question anywhere in your post. I could give an opinion. If that is what you were expecting. a reply to: neoholographic

Why do you need to see a question when it's obviously a discussion on a discussion board about the article posted which poses a question and the implications of recent Wigner's friend experiments. Are you new here or something?

Ok. I give. You win. Great post btw. a reply to: neoholographic

originally posted by: Romeopsi
a reply to: neoholographic

Interesting article.

The results of that experiment might say a lot about observation.

I've always liked Wigner's friend and I think it poses some serious questions alongside Schrodinger's cat.

I think it's amazing how these 2 thought experiments have fostered the most central debates around quantum mechanics.

If Wigner left a train station wearing Rock Hudson's wristwatch and had a collision with Shroedinger's cat on a Tuesday what would be the square root of pi?

originally posted by: neoholographic
hwimberlyjr.medium.com...

advances.sciencemag.org...

arxiv.org...

Wigner's friend is destroying the notion of materialism once again and posing serious questions about the role of the observer, consciousness and is there really an objective reality.

Once again you take some interesting science, and put some kind of twisted spin on it. Your first source there is not a scientific source, this is his next blog post after that one:

3 Clues to the Identity of the Antichrist
He quotes the bible, that archbishop Ussher used to calculate that the first day of creation was October 23, 4004 BC, which as you probably know is not a finding that scientists agree with, so I tend to discount the scientific validity of your first source, Harold Wimberly.

The other two links are more scientific, but they do not support the last statement in your OP that "Wigner's friend is destroying the notion of materialism once again". However it does pose serious questions about the role of the observer, but the authors that generated much of the recent interest in Wigner's friend in the past several years came to this conclusion in the abstract:

www.nature.com...

...quantum theory cannot be extrapolated to complex systems, at least not in a straightforward manner.

That's sort of the same conclusion we come to from Schrodinger's cat thought experiment, where quantum theory might suppose an atom is in a superposition of states, both decayed and not decayed, and then we impose a complex system on that to conclude that the cat must also be in a superposition of states, dead and alive, except that is not what the thought experiment really means. What it really means is almost the exact same thing that the authors of the Wigner's friend experiment suggested, that "...quantum theory cannot be extrapolated to complex systems, at least not in a straightforward manner."

We should know that the cat is not simultaneously dead and alive, and that if we are using quantum theory to say that it is, then there is something wrong with the way we are applying quantum theory to complex systems. In this article, Wigner's friend is described as a "twist" on the Schrödinger’s Cat paradox:

This Twist on Schrödinger’s Cat Paradox Has Major Implications for Quantum Theory

Wigner's friend scientific authors have debated the question if quantum theory cannot be extrapolated to complex systems in a straightforward manner, then in what manner can the extrapolations be made? This scientific american source gives a more scientific perspective than your bible-thumping source:

“People in the foundations of quantum mechanics rapidly dismiss Wigner’s view as spooky and ill-defined because it makes observers special,” says David Chalmers, a philosopher and cognitive scientist at New York University. Today most physicists concur that inanimate objects can knock quantum systems out of superposition through a process known as decoherence. Certainly, researchers attempting to manipulate complex quantum superpositions in the lab can find their hard work destroyed by speedy air particles colliding with their systems. So they carry out their tests at ultracold temperatures and try to isolate their apparatuses from vibrations.

Several competing quantum interpretations have sprung up over the decades that employ less mystical mechanisms, such as decoherence, to explain how superpositions break down without invoking consciousness. Other interpretations hold the even more radical position that there is no collapse at all. Each has its own weird and wonderful take on Wigner’s test. The most exotic is the “many worlds” view, which says that whenever you make a quantum measurement, reality fractures, creating parallel universes to accommodate every possible outcome.

In fact it was Hugh Everett who had something similar to Wigner's friend experiment in an early draft of his doctoral thesis, though it's thought that since Wigner was Everett's teacher, they probably discussed the idea.

But they had different takes on the solution to the thought experiment and according to Vaidman, Everett's theory (or the interpretation of it called many worlds) explains everything seen in the Wigner's friend experiment:

“If you think quantum mechanics is unhealthy, and it needs replacing, then this is useful because it tells you new constraints,” Vaidman says. “But I don’t agree that this is the case—many worlds explains everything.”

Actually Everett's idea was not really "many worlds" but a "universal wave function" and I am not sure the experimenters are looking at it from a universal wave function perspective. But a universal wave function is very complex so I think it's at least somewhat consistent with the Frauchiger and Renner's conclusion that quantum theory cannot be extrapolated to complex systems in a straightforward manner.

For now the debates between majority of physicists continue on the real science, while a small minority talk about "conscious observers" as having a role, when that is no longer a mainstream view, as discussed in the Scientific American article.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

The things you're saying have nothing to do with the actual Wigner's friend experiment that was carried out and confirmed Wigner's friend on a microscopic level. There's no evidence of some universal wave function. It's a fantasy that can never be tested and isn't scientific.

What can be tested is the fact observers knowledge or lack therof "collapses" or appears to collapse the wave function in the observers reference frame which matches Carlos Rovelli's Relational quantum mechanics not many worlds. MWI wants to reduce and avoid the role of the observer which is a belief not science. There's no way to test these many worlds or observe them. There's no clear definition when these worlds actually occur. Are these all physical worlds? Let's look what happened during the actual experiment.

Have you read the recent Wigner friend's experiments? There's no evidence of a universal collapse of the wave function. In fact, collapse may not occur at all and Wigner's friend in the lab has just become a part of the S+O system as Rovelli says in his Relational quantum mechanics.

All physical interactions are, at bottom, quantum interactions, and must ultimately be governed by the same rules. Thus, an interaction between two particles does not, in RQM, differ fundamentally from an interaction between a particle and some "apparatus". There is no true wave collapse, in the sense in which it occurs in the Copenhagen interpretation.

Because "state" is expressed in RQM as the correlation between two systems, there can be no meaning to "self-measurement". If observer O measures system S, S's "state" is represented as a correlation between O and S. O itself cannot say anything with respect to its own "state", because its own "state" is defined only relative to another observer, O'. If the S+O compound system does not interact with any other systems, then it will possess a clearly defined state relative to O'. However, because O's measurement of S breaks its unitary evolution with respect to O, O will not be able to give a full description of the S+O system (since it can only speak of the correlation between S and itself, not its own behaviour). A complete description of the (S+O)+O' system can only be given by a further, external observer, and so forth.

Taking the model system discussed above, if O' has full information on the S+O system, it will know the Hamiltonians of both S and O, including the interaction Hamiltonian. Thus, the system will evolve entirely unitarily (without any form of collapse) relative to O', if O measures S. The only reason that O will perceive a "collapse" is because O has incomplete information on the system (specifically, O does not know its own Hamiltonian, and the interaction Hamiltonian for the measurement).

en.wikipedia.org...

This is exactly what we see in the recent Wigner's friend experiments. The wave function "collapses" for Wigner's friend in the lab which is his fram of reference but it doesn't collapse for Wigner oustide of the lab. Wigner can still measure interference between his friend's record of what he measured and the photon that was measured. Here's some highlights from the paper.

Wigner can now perform an interference experiment in an entangled basis containing the states of Eq. 1 to verify that the photon and his friend’s record are indeed in a superposition—a fact from his point of view. From this fact, Wigner concludes that his friend cannot have recorded a definite outcome. Concurrently, however, the friend does always record a definite outcome, which suggests that the original superposition was destroyed and Wigner should not observe any interference. The friend can even tell Wigner that she recorded a definite outcome (without revealing the result), yet Wigner and his friend’s respective descriptions remain unchanged (6). This calls into question the objective status of the facts established by the two observers. Can one reconcile their different records, or are they fundamentally incompatible, so that they cannot be considered objective, observer-independent “facts of the world” (3, 4)?

Again, you're saying what some suspect to be the result but it wasn't. Wigner's friend in the lab did't destroy the superposition when he measured the photon. The friend can even tell Wigner that a recorded outcome occurred without revealing the results and Wigner can still measure interference as I said.

It was recently shown (4) that this question can be addressed formally, by considering an extension of the Wigner’s friend scenario as follows. Consider a pair of physical systems, shared between two separate laboratories controlled by Alice and Bob, respectively (see Fig. 1C). Inside these laboratories, Alice’s friend and Bob’s friend measure their respective system nondestructively and record the outcomes in some memory. Outside these laboratories, in each run of the experiment, Alice and Bob can choose to either measure the state of their friend’s record—i.e., to attest the facts established by their friend, and whose results define the random variables A0 (for Alice’s friend) and B0 (for Bob’s friend), or to jointly measure the friend’s record and the system held by the friend—to establish their own facts, defining variables A1 (for Alice) and B1 (for Bob). After comparing their results, Alice and Bob can estimate the probability distributions P(Ax, By) for all four combinations of x, y = 0,1. As in the original Wigner’s friend Gedankenexperiment, the facts A1, B1 attributed to Alice and Bob and A0, B0 attributed to their friends’ measurements may be inconsistent.

Again, there's no universal collapse of the wave function. This supports Rovelli and RQM which says these things are observer dependent. So "collapse" happens in Wigner's friend's reference frame but not for Wigner until he has knowledge of his friend's result. This is also in line with the quantum eraser delayed choice experiment and entanglement swapping experiments. This is exactly what happened when they carried out the experiment.

The observables A0 and B0 directly unveil the records established by Alice’s and Bob’s friend, respectively. The observables A1 and B1, on the other hand, correspond to Alice’s and Bob’s joint measurements on their friend’s photon and record, and define their own facts in the same way as Wigner in the original thought experiment confirms his entangled state assignment.

All of these quotes are taken from the published paper Experimental test of local observer independence: advances.sciencemag.org...



If decoherence occurred and some universal collapse independent of the observer, then they shouldn't be able to measure interference. This supports Quantum Awareness. The only thing that collapses the wave function for Wigner is when he gains knowledge about the outcome of his friends measurement in the lab. It would be more profound if his friend lied to Wigner about the result of his measurement and then Wigner can still measure interference. How is the system aware Wigner is being lied to when Wigner isn't aware of it?

When you respond please address the actual issue not a bunch of bloviating that has nothing to do with the thread. If you have scienctific evidence of a universal wave function that has been measured present it.

originally posted by: neoholographic
a reply to: Arbitrageur

The things you're saying have nothing to do with the actual Wigner's friend experiment that was carried out and confirmed Wigner's friend on a microscopic level. There's no evidence of some universal wave function. It's a fantasy that can never be tested and isn't scientific.

What can be tested is the fact observers knowledge or lack therof "collapses" or appears to collapse the wave function in the observers reference frame which matches Carlos Rovelli's Relational quantum mechanics not many worlds. MWI wants to reduce and avoid the role of the observer which is a belief not science. There's no way to test these many worlds or observe them. There's no clear definition when these worlds actually occur. Are these all physical worlds? Let's look what happened during the actual experiment.

Have you read the recent Wigner friend's experiments? There's no evidence of a universal collapse of the wave function.

Again, there's no universal collapse of the wave function.

You're not familiar with many of the things you talk about, this is another example. There doesn't need to be collapse of a universal wave function for Everett's thesis to be true, neither his original thesis of "universal wave function" nor the later adaptation of that by others called "many worlds" has any wave function collapse.

Wikipedia has a summary of the different interpretations of quantum mechanics and one of the columns says "collapsing wavefunctions?". Everett's idea has no collapse as shown here:

Interpretations of quantum mechanics

See the row that says "Many worlds interpretation" then "Hugh Everett 1957" which is slightly inaccurate, since Everett didn't propose many worlds, he proposed a universal wave function. Then years later someone looked at Everett's paper and called Everett's idea "many worlds", but Everett said that's not what he had in mind when he wrote it. But in any case, then look at the column that says "collapsing wave function", and see "many worlds" shows "no".

So your argument against "many worlds" that it can't explain the results because there's no collapse of a universal wave function just illustrates your ignorance of many worlds interpretation which doesn't propose any collapse. Your idea that the universal wavefunction collapses as part of Everett's idea is complete ignorance on your part.

Look, even your own source posted in the OP says the results are consistent with many worlds, did you even read your own source before posting such an ignorant reply saying it can't be many worlds?

originally posted by: neoholographic
Here's some more recent Wigner friend studies:
...
advances.sciencemag.org...

A compelling way to accommodate our result is then to proclaim that facts of the world can only be established by a privileged observer—e.g., one that would have access to the “global wavefunction” in the many worlds interpretation

"Global wavefunction" and "universal wavefunction" are synonymous in this context.

As for the interpretations being difficult to confirm, that is true of ALL the interpretations, which is the one thing everybody agrees on, that it's difficult to confirm any of them. There is no consensus on which interpretation is correct, and I don't think the Wigner's friend experiment settles that matter.

However the situation is very interesting because "wavefunction collapse" of the Copenhagen interpretation has fallen out of favor from those physicists who have given this matter some thought, and possibly the Wigner's friend experiment may be another blow to the Copenhagen interpretation. But, if they have to re-write all the textbooks to replace the Copenhagen interpretation and wave function collapse, I'm not sure what they are going to replace it with. It seems like they might have to talk about several other candidates. Anyway this experimental result wouldn't surprise Hugh Everett one bit, it's the type of thing his model suggests can happen, as the article you posted says.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

I figured your post would be full of bloviating without answering any questions. I said:

When you respond please address the actual issue not a bunch of bloviating that has nothing to do with the thread. If you have scienctific evidence of a universal wave function that has been measured present it.

This has nothing to do with collapse. Before you get to collapse you have to provide evidence that a universal wave function exists. There's no evidence of this magical universal wave function and most proponents of M.W.I. say there will never be evidence and we will never have evidence of these other worlds. We don't know when these splits occur and if these worlds are all physical universes.

So yes, the wave function does collapse in the observers reference frame. When an experimenter enters the lab, a quantum system is in superposition. This superposition contains probable states the system can be in when measured. When the experimenter carries out a measurement, probabilities of the wave function collapse to one probable state in that observers reference frame because he becomes a part of an s+o system.

All physical interactions are, at bottom, quantum interactions, and must ultimately be governed by the same rules. Thus, an interaction between two particles does not, in RQM, differ fundamentally from an interaction between a particle and some "apparatus". There is no true wave collapse, in the sense in which it occurs in the Copenhagen interpretation.

Because "state" is expressed in RQM as the correlation between two systems, there can be no meaning to "self-measurement". If observer O measures system S, S's "state" is represented as a correlation between O and S. O itself cannot say anything with respect to its own "state", because its own "state" is defined only relative to another observer, O'. If the S+O compound system does not interact with any other systems, then it will possess a clearly defined state relative to O'. However, because O's measurement of S breaks its unitary evolution with respect to O, O will not be able to give a full description of the S+O system (since it can only speak of the correlation between S and itself, not its own behaviour). A complete description of the (S+O)+O' system can only be given by a further, external observer, and so forth.

Taking the model system discussed above, if O' has full information on the S+O system, it will know the Hamiltonians of both S and O, including the interaction Hamiltonian. Thus, the system will evolve entirely unitarily (without any form of collapse) relative to O', if O measures S. The only reason that O will perceive a "collapse" is because O has incomplete information on the system (specifically, O does not know its own Hamiltonian, and the interaction Hamiltonian for the measurement).

en.wikipedia.org...

This is exactly what was shown in the recent Wigner's friend experiment.

So there's no need for a universal wave function. There's no evidence for a universal wave function.

When Everett came up with ideas he was ridiculed.

Dr. Hugh Everett III was one of the more compelling and even bizarre figures in physics, someone was scorned and even ridiculed during their lifetime, only for the influence of their theories to grow beyond science and becoming a pop culture phenomenon after their death. Moreover, he truly and deeply believed in the consequences of his theories, which likely contributed to his death and the later suicide of his daughter.

suzettelyn.com...

What happened? Why did his ideas become popular?

For 2 reasons.

1. Quantum Mechanics is observer dependent. Even with the M. W.I. fantasy they still can't get around this. What was the recent paper for the Wigner experiment called?

Experimental test of local observer independence

The scientific method relies on facts, established through repeated measurements and agreed upon universally, independently of who observed them. In quantum mechanics the objectivity of observations is not so clear, most markedly exposed in Wigner’s eponymous thought experiment where two observers can experience seemingly different realities. The question whether the observers’ narratives can be reconciled has only recently been made accessible to empirical investigation, through recent no-go theorems that construct an extended Wigner’s friend scenario with four observers. In a state-of-the-art six-photon experiment, we realize this extended Wigner’s friend scenario, experimentally violating the associated Bell-type inequality by five standard deviations. If one holds fast to the assumptions of locality and free choice, this result implies that quantum theory should be interpreted in an observer-dependent way.

advances.sciencemag.org...

2. Fine tuning of the universe

Everett work was ridiculed but when materialist scientist saw more and more fine tuning they panicked when they saw God. So they had to try and explain it. So they dusted off Everett's work and said we see fine tuning because there's a gazillion universes and we're just one in a gazillion. There's zero evidence of this. They have tried to find evidence with things like 10^500 false vacua of string theory and still no cigar.

M.W.I. makes no sense. They have to reduce the observer to a mindless rock. In fact, Sean Carroll, one of the biggest proponents of M.W.I. said the observer is no different then a rock.

They do this to avoid consciousness. This has nothing to do with science and everything to do with belief. As soon as I make a choice, M.W.I. is dead. So when I wake up and grab my remote, I don't choose to watch ESPN or a news channel, I only turn to these channels because there's a bunch of universes with different versions of me watching all of the other channels. This is just asinine but it's how far they will go for belief.

Again, I know you will bloviate because you can't respond to what I'm saying. So again I ask because of course you didn't answer it in your long winded post that didn't answer anything. Before you talk about collapse, you have to show evidence that a universal wave function exists if you're a proponent of M.W.I.

When you respond please address the actual issue not a bunch of bloviating that has nothing to do with the thread. If you have scienctific evidence of a universal wave function that has been measured present it.

Quantum Mechanics is observer dependent

a reply to: neoholographic

Does that mean that the quantum world didn't exist before someone was there to observe it?

originally posted by: neoholographic
When you respond please address the actual issue not a bunch of bloviating that has nothing to do with the thread.

You post a source. I re-cite your source, and post an exact quote from your source. You saying it has nothing to do with your thread is an incoherent statement on your part.

originally posted by: neoholographic
Here's some more recent Wigner friend studies:
...
advances.sciencemag.org...

A compelling way to accommodate our result is then to proclaim that facts of the world can only be established by a privileged observer—e.g., one that would have access to the “global wavefunction” in the many worlds interpretation

I'm not trying to prove Everett's hypothesis is correct. The consensus view of physicists is that nobody has proven that or any other interpretation of quantum mechanics to be the correct interpretation. I'm just trying to point out that your source would disagree with your conclusions based on their research since you dismiss the explanation they say accommodates their results. You're entitled to your opinion of course, but don't pretend it's supported by the research you're citing. This is yet another example where the researchers say one thing, and you try to claim they didn't say that, well look again, they did and what they say is not the argument you're making. You are constantly misrepresenting and twisting your sources, over and over and over.

originally posted by: Phantom423

Quantum Mechanics is observer dependent

a reply to: neoholographic

Does that mean that the quantum world didn't exist before someone was there to observe it?

That depends on who you ask. What neo calls a "scientific materialist" believes it's there before it's observed but in a state we are not familiar with.

What is the basis for scientific materialism? by Neolographic

originally posted by: neoholographic
What's the basis outside of belief?

I get into a lot of debates surrounding these issues and it amazes me how many scientist and people in general act like the universe must be explained in materialistic terms. There's no reason why this is the case. There's no evidence that an objective material universe exists ...

This would be the answer about whether an electron exists before it is observed:

Would The Universe Still Exist If No Life Existed To Observe It?

This question demonstrates the dangers of trying to comprehend modern physics from popularizations.

It is absolutely not true that states of matter do not exist when they are not noticed. If someone tells you this, he is talking nonsense.

The correct statement is that a quantum system usually exists in a state that is not at all like the states of the classical world. Simply put, it cannot be described by ordinary numbers.

This is in contrast with classical objects, which can be described with ordinary numbers. That is to say, their position, their velocity, and other physical properties can be described using simple numerical values.

Now it is true that there is no such thing as a truly classical object: that even people, cats, cannonballs or planets are made of a large number of quantum particles. However, in these systems, all the quantum behavior is averaged out, so to speak, so their behavior is indistinguishable from that of classical systems.

Every once in a while, some properties of a quantum system may be describable by ordinary numbers. When a quantum system is (briefly) in such a classical state, it is said to be in an eigenstate (“eigen” means “own” in German); the value of the property would be the corresponding “eigenvalue”.

This is precisely what happens when a quantum system interacts with a classical system; i.e., when we “measure” something. During the interaction, the quantum system is confined to an eigenstate.

Let me explain this through a common thought experiment: the infamous two-slit experiment. The experiment involves an electron gun that emits electrons which can go through one of two slits before impacting a screen. We find that an interference pattern emerges on the screen; this is true even when we fire the electrons one at a time. You may have heard that this means that every single electron goes through both slits. True, but there is a better way to understand this. When the electron finally arrives at the screen, the screen (a classical object) measures the electron’s position: the electron is now in a “position eigenstate”. En route, however, the electron is not in a position eigenstate. It does not have a position in the classical sense at all. So yes, it goes through both slits and does many other things that classical objects just cannot do (and it is wrong even to try to visualize the electron when it is in this quantum state). But it does not mean the electron’s existence is conditional. It exists all along… its position is just not describable by ordinary numbers. Nor is there any need for consciousness to be involved. The fluorescent screen has no consciousness at all, but it does confine the electron to an eigenstate because it itself is a classical object (or so close to being classical as to be indistinguishable from it).

So no, the existence of the universe does not depend on the presence of life. And many things in this universe are in eigenstates every once in a while simply because of the way they interact with other things which are, for all practical intents and purposes, classical.

So even the electrons in the double-slit experiment exist before they are observed, they are just in a state we don't find easy to conprehend. After the electron is "observed" by the "unconscious" observer of the screen, it is in a state we can more easily understand.

If on the other hand, you ask someone who doesn't believe in materialism, you might research Bishop George Berkeley's "immaterialism" theory which ""denies the existence of material substance and instead contends that familiar objects like tables and chairs are ideas perceived by the minds and, as a result, cannot exist without being perceived. " He might also tell you to be sure to drink your Tar water

a reply to: Arbitrageur

I figured you were searching to try and come up with a response and it's nonsense as usual.

First, the quote about many worlds has nothing to do with what many worlds actual says about observers. There are no "privelaged observers" in M.W.I.

So what the source says, in order to accomodate their results, is if a privileged observer had access to the global wave function of M.W.I. it could work. First, there's no evidence of this global wave function. I'm sure you gooogled it to try and find evidence but couldn't. This is why you avoided the question yet again.

So I would agree with their statement. If you take there results and change M.W.I. to observers are privileged from observers are just mindless rocks then you will make M.W.I. more scientific but the materialist the push M.W.I. will not be happy about privileged observers because then you will have to say there's one privileged observer that has privelaged information about everything.

Here's a video of atheist Sean Carroll trying to downplay the role of the observer. This is before these recent Wigner's friend experiments and even then, his statement about observers made no sense. It starts around 1:17 of the video.



Again, this is why these materialist dug up Everett's papers when he was ridiculed and looked at as ridiculous. They were scared to death of consciousness and the observer and the fine tuning of the universe.

There's no evidence to support it. Your post is more bloviating and it doesn't include a shred of evidence that supports a universal wave function. If you change M.W.I. to include privileged observers, then it becomes more scientific on how it treats observers but the universal wave function is still unscientific. Here's a video of Max Tegmark talking about the importance of the observer.



The reason there's this debate at all isn't because of science, it's because of materialist beliefs. The observer has to include humans who can store information in our memory about the quantum state. The problem is consciousness. If you're going to say humans are observers then you have to deal with consciousness. So the goal isn't science it's to try and reduce the role of the observer to a rock because as soon as an observer makes a choice then their materialist fantasies go down the drain.

So humans aren't making any choices, we're really not conscious, we're just subject to these splits in M.W.I. It makes no sense. This is why we need to separate consciousness from awareness of consciousness.

You then made this unscientific claim from the article you posted from a guy that's a part time physicist but answers questions on Quora. This shows you couldn't find the answers you were looking for so you resoreted to quoting Quora responders LOL. Before he answers he tells you this:

Answer by Viktor T. Toth, IT pro, part-time physicist, on Quora:

You can't make this up!

Look, I don't doubt the guy makes some good points in some of his other papers but in this Quora answer he's flat out wrong. This goes against Bell's Theorem, the free will theorem and QM in general. He said and you quoted.

It is absolutely not true that states of matter do not exist when they are not noticed. If someone tells you this, he is talking nonsense.

This is absolutely true and has been confirmed in experiment after experiment. There's no evidence that matter or what we call "reality" exists prior to measurement.

Reality Doesn’t Exist Until We Measure It, Quantum Experiment Confirms

Australian scientists have recreated a famous experiment and confirmed quantum physics's bizarre predictions about the nature of reality, by proving that reality doesn't actually exist until we measure it - at least, not on the very small scale.

www.sciencealert.com...

Quantum physics: Our study suggests objective reality doesn't exist

But in a paper recently published in Science Advances, we show that in the micro-world of atoms and particles that is governed by the strange rules of quantum mechanics, two different observers are entitled to their own facts. In other words, according to our best theory of the building blocks of nature itself, facts can actually be subjective.

Observers are powerful players in the quantum world. According to the theory, particles can be in several places or states at once—this is called a superposition. But oddly, this is only the case when they aren't observed. The second you observe a quantum system, it picks a specific location or state—breaking the superposition. The fact that nature behaves this way has been proven multiple times in the lab—for example, in the famous double slit experiment (see video).

phys.org...

Reality Doesn’t Exist If You Are Not Looking at It

According to a well-known theory in quantum physics, a particle’s behavior changes depending on whether there is an observer or not. It basically suggests that reality is a kind of illusion and exists only when we are looking at it. Numerous quantum experiments were conducted in the past and showed that this indeed might be the case.

Now, physicists at the Australian National University have found further evidence for the illusory nature of reality. They recreated the John Wheeler’s delayed-choice experiment and confirmed that reality doesn’t exist until it is measured, at least on the atomic scale.

scaleofuniverse.com...

Raising questions about physical reality

Take a look at these three statements:

When someone observes an event happening, it really happened.
It is possible to make free choices, or at least, statistically random choices.
A choice made in one place can’t instantly affect a distant event. (Physicists call this “locality”.)
These are all intuitive ideas, and widely believed even by physicists. But our research, published in Nature Physics, shows they cannot all be true – or quantum mechanics itself must break down at some level.

This is the strongest result yet in a long series of discoveries in quantum mechanics that have upended our ideas about reality. To understand why it’s so important, let’s look at this history.

cosmosmagazine.com...

Quantum Field Theory tells us that what we call subatomic particles are excitations of underlying quantum fields. So there's no objective reality of an electron prior to when measurement excites quantum fields. If you're claiming electrons exist prior to measurement, what's their exact position and momentum prior to measurement?

“I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.” ― Werner Heisenberg

“[T]he atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.” ― Werner Heisenberg

a reply to: neoholographic

You haven't even proved Wigner and that guy in the lab are friends. This is key, you see.

Anyway, I think you mix up different concepts, and confuse different things. QM is not a theory about reality. Not even about matter or particles. It is a theory about the effects and interactions of those particles, with the essential flaw of not being able to say anything about the most fundamental force: gravity. By the way, QM only poorly describes an ensemble of particles. It is a description of the effects of just one or two partcies.

Additionally, Wigner's alleged friend is not measuring anything: the detector does. What the guy does is to read the output of the detector, which is a different thing. And it does that way long time way after the interaction between the detector and the photon occured, unless you make us believe he and only he is the one defining what time really is.

Wigner is not observing the lab. He receives photons that bounce off the walls of the lab, impringe his pupils, get converted to electricity, travels to his brain, triggers some neurotransmitters, and so poor Wigner is able to see the lab, a lab that by the time he thinks he is seeing it might or might not be there, by the way. In essence: human brain is far too slow to talk about measuring any quantum property of any quantum system.

Wigner's alleged friend may think he is isolated in a quantum system he calls my lab , but the lab is located inside a bigger system, called the Universe , and therefore is not isolated at all. This also holds for Wigner and any of his potential friends and enemies. There is only one system: the Universe.

Finally, both Wigner and his alleged friend forget that consciousness does not refer to just humans, not even to just biological life forms. There are non-biological conscious agents, too. And they all perceive reality according to their limited senses. There are as many realities as agents, and there is a reality in which there are no agents nor observers at all. You do not need observers at all. Actually, they are a nuisance.

So yes, a forest exists even if there are no human observers unless... you are ready to accept... that during the Big Bang there were human obervers, for otherwise, as per your thesis, the Big Bang couldn't have existed for there were no humans around to observe it. It is typically human to believe they are required for the Universe to be.

(By the way, no particle physicist would ever write down in a notebook the note at 1 PM I observed a vertically polarised photon, because the concept PM makes no sense at all in physics)

a reply to: Direne

This whole post is just....

First you said:

QM is not a theory about reality.

This is just utter nonsense. I'm sorry but you and the other poster are saying some wrong stuff. What about Quantum Electrodynamics? That has nothing to do with reality?

In particle physics, quantum electrodynamics (QED) is the relativistic quantum field theory of electrodynamics. In essence, it describes how light and matter interact and is the first theory where full agreement between quantum mechanics and special relativity is achieved. QED mathematically describes all phenomena involving electrically charged particles interacting by means of exchange of photons and represents the quantum counterpart of classical electromagnetism giving a complete account of matter and light interaction.

In technical terms, QED can be described as a perturbation theory of the electromagnetic quantum vacuum. Richard Feynman called it "the jewel of physics" for its extremely accurate predictions of quantities like the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron and the Lamb shift of the energy levels of hydrogen.[1]:Ch1

en.wikipedia.org...

Was Feynman wrong when he called it the jewel of physics because it makes accurate predictions. You do know what it means when science says make predictions? I have to ask because you guys are making some asinine comemnts.

You can post a message on this board because of QM and it has nothing to do with reality? Are you serious?

What Has Quantum Mechanics Ever Done For Us?

So, while it may sometimes seem like quantum physics is arcane and remote from everyday experience (a self-inflicted problem for physicists, to some degree, as we often over-emphasize the weirder aspects when talking about quantum mechanics), in fact it is absolutely essential to modern life. Semiconductor electronics, lasers, atomic clocks, and magnetic resonance scanners all fundamentally depend on our understanding of the quantum nature of light and matter.

But, you know, other than computers, smartphones, the Internet, GPS, and MRI, what has quantum physics ever done for us?

www.forbes.com...

Sadly, I have to spend time going over the basics of QM because you and the other poster makes these asinine statements that are just false.

QM has everything to do with the reality we experience. It makes very accurate predictions that's been confirmed and observed in experiment after experiment and it gives us the modern world we live in. If you have a better theory publish it and let the scientific community test your predictions and see if they're in agreement with experiment.

I shouldn't have to say things like this because you learn this in 7th grade science class but again, you made these statements that are just out there.

You then said this:

Wigner is not observing the lab. He receives photons that bounce off the walls of the lab, impringe his pupils, get converted to electricity, travels to his brain, triggers some neurotransmitters, and so poor Wigner is able to see the lab, a lab that by the time he thinks he is seeing it might or might not be there, by the way. In essence: human brain is far too slow to talk about measuring any quantum property of any quantum system.

This is just pure gobbledy gook!

This has nothing to do with the OP or the recent Wigner's friend experiments. Where did the lab go in the fractions of a second it takes light to reach Wigner's eyes? You're making an argument that belongs in the Philosophy forum not in this thread. Do we see everything in the past even our reflection in the mirror? Yes, because it takes time for light to reach our eyes. Now, something we see millions or billions of light years away may not exist anymore by the time we see it, but not a lab that we see with a delay of fractions of a second.

Again, this is basic stuff that I have to go over because of your statement that's just ridiculous. It has nothing to do with an observer in QM. Here's how the recent experiment talked about this:

Before we describe our experiment in which we test and indeed violate inequality (2), let us first clarify our notion of an observer. Formally, an observation is the act of extracting and storing information about an observed system. Accordingly, we define an observer as any physical system that can extract information from another system by means of some interaction and store that information in a physical memory.

Such an observer can establish facts, to which we assign the value recorded in their memory. Notably, the formalism of quantum mechanics does not make a distinction between large (even conscious) and small physical systems, which is sometimes referred to as universality. Hence, our definition covers human observers, as well as more commonly used nonconscious observers such as (classical or quantum) computers and other measurement devices—even the simplest possible ones, as long as they satisfy the above requirements. We note that the no-go theorem formulated in (5) requires observers to be “agents,” who “use” quantum theory to make predictions based on the measurement outcomes. In contrast, for the no-go theorem we tested here (4), it is sufficient that they perform a measurement and record the outcome. The enhanced capabilities required of agents were recently discussed in (13).

advances.sciencemag.org...

If this doesn't blow your mind I don't know what will.

So you have observers that just store information about an observed system. A measurind device can only store this information. It takes an agent to extract this information and use quantum theory to make predictions. This is because human observers have awareness of consciousness. We're aware of the information stored in our memories about the observed system and we don't need any outside agent to extract that information.

This brings us to the OP and Quantum Awareness. The question it asks is, is our Awareness of consciousness tied to the Quantum Awareness of a quantum system.

In this experiment, when Wigner's friend carried out a measurement and stored information about an observed outcome(polarization of the photon is vertical), Wigner, the observer outside of the lab can do an interference measurement and measure interference and conclude his friend hasn't carried out a measurement even though we know that he did because human awareness set up the experiment.

When Wigner becomes aware of his friends measurement, he can no longer measure interference. How is the quantum system aware what Wigner knows or doesn't know about it's observed state? Is this Quantum Awareness tied to the wave function of the quantum system? Is this Quantum Awareness general and becomes robust when it interacts with complex systems or is it more robust than our awareness and get's diluted in a way when it interacts with complex systems?

Can Wigner's Friend Lie, can answer some of these questions. When his friend lies to Wigner about the outcome of the observed measurement, can Wigner still measure interference? If so, you have a more robust Quantum Awareness.

Hopefully, we can debate the OP and the results of actual experiments instead of going over QM 101 because you guys make statements that have no basis in fact.

a reply to: neoholographic

you and the other poster are saying some wrong stuff

Maybe this is a signal you need to reflect on whether the one being wrong is just you.

Was Feynman wrong when he called it the jewel of physics because it makes accurate predictions

Yes, he was wrong, in case he really said so. Newtonian mechanics also make accurate predictions. It all depends on the scale of the problem. For instance, QM make no predictions at all about the structure of the Universe: relativity does. It seems you overvalue QM, and underestimate all of the other scientific fields, without realizing science has many branches each of which applies to a specific field and to different problems with different scales.

you and the other poster makes these asinine statements that are just false

Yes, we do it because we like to upset you. We find it funny. And you are fulfilling our expectations.

Can Wigner's Friend Lie?

Wigner's friend is a compulsive lier, believe me. But we love him because he is messing around with photons and feeding Schrödinger's cat from time to time. At exactly 1 PM, according to his notes.

Do not despair, neoholographic, we really enjoy your love for QM and we are sure you and Wigner's friend could become friends some day soon and walk together discussing about what you call quantum awareness , whatever that means.

a reply to: Direne

You said:

Yes, he was wrong, in case he really said so. Newtonian mechanics also make accurate predictions. It all depends on the scale of the problem. For instance, QM make no predictions at all about the structure of the Universe: relativity does. It seems you overvalue QM, and underestimate all of the other scientific fields, without realizing science has many branches each of which applies to a specific field and to different problems with different scales.

This is just wrong.

Have you ever heard of QFT(Quantum Field Theory) or Relativistic Quantum Mechanics? This is just an absurd statement.

In physics, relativistic quantum mechanics (RQM) is any Poincaré covariant formulation of quantum mechanics (QM). This theory is applicable to massive particles propagating at all velocities up to those comparable to the speed of light c, and can accommodate massless particles. The theory has application in high energy physics,[1] particle physics and accelerator physics,[2] as well as atomic physics, chemistry[3] and condensed matter physics.[4][5] Non-relativistic quantum mechanics refers to the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics applied in the context of Galilean relativity, more specifically quantizing the equations of classical mechanics by replacing dynamical variables by operators. Relativistic quantum mechanics (RQM) is quantum mechanics applied with special relativity. Although the earlier formulations, like the Schrödinger picture and Heisenberg picture were originally formulated in a non-relativistic background, a few of them (e.g. the Dirac or path-integral formalism) also work with special relativity.

Key features common to all RQMs include: the prediction of antimatter, spin magnetic moments of elementary spin 1/2
fermions, fine structure, and quantum dynamics of charged particles in electromagnetic fields.[6] The key result is the Dirac equation, from which these predictions emerge automatically. By contrast, in non-relativistic quantum mechanics, terms have to be introduced artificially into the Hamiltonian operator to achieve agreement with experimental observations.

en.wikipedia.org...

So antimatter and the fine structure constant have nothing to do with the structure of the universe? How can you have a structure of the universe without quantum mechanics? So entanglement has nothing to do with the structure of the universe when scientist are saying spacetime is an error correcting code and gravity may emerge from the entropy of entanglement?



If QM has nothing to do with the structure of the universe, how did you get the galaxy era without the Planck epoch?

This debate is really ridiculous. If you have such a lack of knowledge about QM that you will make a statement that QM doesn't make any predictions about the universe when there isn't any theory about the universe today that doesn't include QM, then this is a futile debate that has nothing to do with the OP. We're basically debating 7th grade science.