Can a materialist provide scientific evidence that the material world has an objective existence?

originally posted by: Phantom423
a reply to: neoholographic

Totally wrong interpretation. The cat is composed of trillions of particles. QM experiments are generally isolated systems of a small number of particles.
Read my response again. The phase state of the cat was ALWAYS in decoherence regardless how you misinterpret it.

The density matrix is the only way to analyze the quantum state properly and the density matrix does not always relate to a wave function.

Your ignorance is overwhelming. The cat is a real thing. It has no quantum state even if you assume superposition for some technical reason.

Do the math. You can't.

Deserves to be repeated again he clearly does not understand physics. The biggest problem is decoherence destroying experiments. 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. Why do we bother to go through all the trouble if it doesn't have any effect?

Then again he thinks atoms are mostly empty space and doesn't understand the math being used so I'm not that surprised. I could discuss entangled particles and the effects they have but he's so far behind in science he needs to study first.

a reply to: dragonridr

He also didn't understand Planck's constant on the "other" board and how it relates to quantum and classical mechanics.

At this point just:

a reply to: Phantom423

This isn't about the cat but the wavefunction. Schrodinger continued.

If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The first atomic decay would have poisoned it. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.

This was an important question:

Schrödinger's famous thought experiment poses the question, "when does a quantum system stop existing as a superposition of states and become one or the other?" (More technically, when does the actual quantum state stop being a non-trivial linear combination of states, each of which resembles different classical states, and instead begin to have a unique classical description?) If the cat survives, it remembers only being alive. But explanations of the EPR experiments that are consistent with standard microscopic quantum mechanics require that macroscopic objects, such as cats and notebooks, do not always have unique classical descriptions.

en.wikipedia.org...

In fact, you have had object considered classical put in Schrodinger cat states.

Giant Molecules Exist in Two Places at Once in Unprecedented Quantum Experiment

www.scientificamerican.com...

Scientists supersize quantum mechanics

A team of scientists has succeeded in putting an object large enough to be visible to the naked eye into a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving.

www.nature.com...

This supports what many Physicist think that all is quantum. If this is the case, it doesn't bode well for your cat.

Relational Quantum Mechanics explains this well.

The relational interpretation makes no fundamental distinction between the human experimenter, the cat, or the apparatus, or between animate and inanimate systems; all are quantum systems governed by the same rules of wavefunction evolution, and all may be considered "observers". But the relational interpretation allows that different observers can give different accounts of the same series of events, depending on the information they have about the system.[21] The cat can be considered an observer of the apparatus; meanwhile, the experimenter can be considered another observer of the system in the box (the cat plus the apparatus). Before the box is opened, the cat, by nature of its being alive or dead, has information about the state of the apparatus (the atom has either decayed or not decayed); but the experimenter does not have information about the state of the box contents. In this way, the two observers simultaneously have different accounts of the situation: To the cat, the wavefunction of the apparatus has appeared to "collapse"; to the experimenter, the contents of the box appear to be in superposition. Not until the box is opened, and both observers have the same information about what happened, do both system states appear to "collapse" into the same definite result, a cat that is either alive or dead.

en.wikipedia.org...

This poses several questions in light of the confirmation of Wigner's Friend on a microscopic level where Wigner's Friend in the labs carried out a measurement but Wigner outside of the lab can still measure interference in the system until he ha knowledge about the outcome of his friend's measurement then "collapse" occurs and Wigner and his friend share the same history.

I wrote about this shared history.

1. Introduction

You often hear this debate about the role of the observer in Quantum Mechanics. How you view this role usually dictates the interpretation you prefer. If it's Copenhagen, then the observer is more robust and plays a crucial role in wave function collapse. If it's Many Worlds, then the observer is no different than a rock as Sean Carroll says and there's no wave function collapse. It all depends on how you view the observer in quantum mechanics.

I will show through the recent paper titled,”Experimental test of local observer independence,”(1) that a conscious observer is needed to collapse many histories into a single shared history between conscious observers. This experiment was a realization of Wigner’s Friend gedanken experiment. It showed how two observers can reach different conclusions based on the same event and they can both be certain that their results are correct. I will also show how consciousness is connected to a real but non physical wave function. This was put forth in a paper titled,”The wave-function is real but nonphysical: A view from counterfactual quantum cryptography.”(2) Transfer of information without the transmission of a physical particle was realized in a recent experiment and published in a paper titled,”Direct counterfactual communication via quantum Zeno effect.”(3)

www.abovetopsecret.com...

So can the cat have knowledge of it's own state? Does the cat know if it's dead or alive or does the cat know about decay/not decay or poison/not poison in order to "collapse" the wavefunction into a shared history between the cat and the experimenter who has this knowledge?

How can the cat have a definite state in the box prior to the event decay/not decay occurring?

In Relational QM, the superposition of the wavefunction never collapses and classical systems get entangled with the superposition of quantum systems.

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...

So, at the end of the day, Schrodinger's cat is still an issue. If you noticed, materialist on this message board keep screaming about Decoherence when they obviously don't understand that Decoherence as an interpretation of QM solves nothing. There's Decoherence, which occurs then there's Decoherence that tries to explain interpretational issues with QM but it fails!

So, at the end of the day, Schrodinger's cat is still an issue. If you noticed, materialist on this message board keep screaming about Decoherence when they obviously don't understand that Decoherence as an interpretation of QM solves nothing. There's Decoherence, which occurs then there's Decoherence that tries to explain interpretational issues with QM but it fails!

a reply to: neoholographic

No one ever said that decoherence solves anything, especially the measurement problem. You refuse to acknowledge what the responses to your question actually say.

What about the age-redshift analysis? You never addressed that. Age-redshift analysis shows definitively that matter existed in the universe billions of years before we existed. Your definition of material vs non-material is vague and inexplicable. Richard Feyman famously said: "if you can't explain something in simple language, then you don't understand it". And he was absolutely right. You continue to give convoluted explanations of your theory, repeating the title of this thread. Perhaps you're the only one who doesn't understand it? I think that's exactly the case.

a reply to: dragonridr

It's obvious that you and Phantom say things without a shred of evidence or context. Everything I say is backed by links to papers, videos and articles. Everything you guys say is nonsense and that's why you don't support anything you say with links to back it up.

I'm still waiting on you to provide links to the Physicist that say the Holographic Principle was thrown out in the 90's LOL!

I'll ask for the 4th time!

Show me where these Physicist agree with you.You said:

Well, you are stuck in the 90s holographic universe was an idea that has now for the most part dismissed.

Show me the published papers and the scientist that agree with you.

a reply to: neoholographic

Feynman covered this it is not what you think it is again a science writer misunderstood the experiment. such situations were outlined in Feynman’s undergraduate text, rarely mentioned in the present context. Feynman’s general principles are quite simple. To find the probability of a sequence of observed events, one needs to evaluate the amplitude for each route, by multiplying the amplitudes for each part of the route, add up the amplitudes, if the routes cannot be told apart, and take the absolute square of the sum. Feynman warns against thinking “in terms of ‘particle waves’”, and his recipe does not need to address the “collapse”’ problem.

a reply to: dragonridr

Yes, there's a collapse issue and there's been many experiments since Feynman that illumate the interpretational issues in QM. Some say no collapse needed and others say it is.

Quantum Experiment Verifies Nonlocal Wavefunction Collapse for a Single Particle

An experiment devised in Griffith University’s Center for Quantum Dynamics has for the first time demonstrated Albert Einstein’s original conception of “spooky action at a distance” using a single particle.

In a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, CQD Director Professor Howard Wiseman and his experimental collaborators at the University of Tokyo report their use of homodyne measurements to show what Einstein did not believe to be real, namely the non-local collapse of a particle’s wave function.

Almost 90 years later, by splitting a single photon between two laboratories, scientists have used homodyne detectors — which measure wave-like properties — to show the collapse of the wave function is a real effect.

This phenomenon is the strongest yet proof of the entanglement of a single particle, an unusual form of quantum entanglement that is being increasingly explored for quantum communication and computation.

“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.

scitechdaily.com...

The fact is, you just say stuff without any evidence. Where's your list of Physicist?

I'll ask for the 5th time!

Show me where these Physicist agree with you.You said:

Well, you are stuck in the 90s holographic universe was an idea that has now for the most part dismissed.

Show me the published papers and the scientist that agree with you.

This topic really should have concluded after a dozen examples of objective reality being quite visceral and evident. Starting to think OP just enjoys the attention.

originally posted by: TzarChasm
This topic really should have concluded after a dozen examples of objective reality being quite visceral and evident. Starting to think OP just enjoys the attention.

What examples?

List them and the published papers that support them.

I want to see the evidence that shows an objective material universe exist. Where's the evidence that the material universe gives us our existence and not some information on a 2D surface, Consciousness, a self replicating AI, a quantum error correcting code or any of the other things I mentioned in the OP? The point is, Scientist are just trying to find explanations where the Bible already tells us the answer...God. If there were evidence that an objective material reality exists, why do scientist behave like there isn't one?

I'll wait ...........

a reply to: neoholographic

I have learned in many places (but especially on this forum) that sometimes you just can't make people accept simple facts. It's called a delusion and most times it's completely harmless. The earth is flat, NASA never landed on the moon, fluoride is toxic, reality is a simulation, etc. There's no actual prize or achievement in convincing you to acknowledge basic science so there's no motivation to give you what you demand. If the evidence under your feet and in your fridge and under your butt when you use the bathroom doesn't convince you, then realistically I don't have a chance.

originally posted by: TzarChasm
a reply to: neoholographic

I have learned in many places (but especially on this forum) that sometimes you just can't make people accept simple facts. It's called a delusion and most times it's completely harmless. The earth is flat, NASA never landed on the moon, fluoride is toxic, reality is a simulation, etc. There's no actual prize or achievement in convincing you to acknowledge basic science so there's no motivation to give you what you demand. If the evidence under your feet and in your fridge and under your butt when you use the bathroom doesn't convince you, then realistically I don't have a chance.

What???

Where's the evidence that the material that makes up the fridge or the bathroom gives us our existence and not a mind that can create a fridge or a bathroom?

You don't have any evidence to support an objective material reality so you can't provide any evidence.

a reply to: neoholographic
Wouldn't the example be the world around you?

There are no papers because none are needed.

a reply to: neoholographic

Saying "that's not evidence" is a really lazy way to say "I don't know how to disprove your logic"

A better way to counter would be "I understand your confusion but here's what is actually happening"

You're not explaining anything except theoretical quotes from scientists who can only offer a hypothesis that no one has figured out how to test or falsify. And we all know you can't prove a negative.

a reply to: neoholographic

You still have not responded to a perfectly valid answer to your original question:

What about the age-redshift analysis? You never addressed that. Age-redshift analysis shows definitively that matter existed in the universe billions of years before we existed. Your definition of material vs non-material is vague and inexplicable. Richard Feyman famously said: "if you can't explain something in simple language, then you don't understand it". And he was absolutely right. You continue to give convoluted explanations of your theory, repeating the title of this thread. Perhaps you're the only one who doesn't understand it? I think that's exactly the case.

Prove that age-redshift analysis does NOT confirm the age and material content of the early universe.

I would remind you of the first law of thermodynamics (yeah, that one that you don't understand either): the conservation of energy - it's neither created nor destroyed. Therefore, whatever the Big Bang (or whatever) generated was present then as it is now and will always be. If quarks were created at the beginning of the universe, that energy is still present today albeit wrapped up in different forms.

Your "material" theory falls flat on its face when analyzed against spectroscopic data and data from the LHC. Matter was there at the beginning and it will be there at the end.

I'll wait patiently for a response to the age-redshift analysis question.

a reply to: neoholographic

Where's the evidence that the material that makes up the fridge or the bathroom gives us our existence and not a mind that can create a fridge or a bathroom?

You don't have any evidence to support an objective material reality so you can't provide any evidence.

The first law of thermodynamics says you're wrong. Play with that for a while and maybe you'll have an epiphany.

a reply to: TzarChasm

Sadly for you, there's no evidence to support what you're saying. You said:

There's no actual prize or achievement in convincing you to acknowledge basic science so there's no motivation to give you what you demand. If the evidence under your feet and in your fridge and under your butt when you use the bathroom doesn't convince you, then realistically I don't have a chance.

You're all over the place but I will point out this statement.

If basic science is so clear, why are scientist trying to explain the universe as a hologram, conscious, a simulation, a self replicating AI, a neural network, and error correcting code and more.

Why aren't all of these scientist screaming that basic science is all we need to explain existence?

This is because there's no evidence that what we call material gives us our existence in any way outside of being like pixels that illuminate a code that emanates from an intelligent mind.

Physics Is Pointing Inexorably to Mind

In his 2014 book, Our Mathematical Universe, physicist Max Tegmark boldly claims that “protons, atoms, molecules, cells and stars” are all redundant “baggage.” Only the mathematical apparatus used to describe the behavior of matter is supposedly real, not matter itself. For Tegmark, the universe is a “set of abstract entities with relations between them,” which “can be described in a baggage-independent way”—i.e., without matter. He attributes existence solely to descriptions, while incongruously denying the very thing that is described in the first place. Matter is done away with and only information itself is taken to be ultimately real.

blogs.scientificamerican.com...

The mental Universe

The only reality is mind and observations, but observations are not of things. To see the Universe as it really is, we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things.

Discussing the play, John H. Marburger III, President George W. Bush's science adviser, observes that “in the Copenhagen interpretation of microscopic nature, there are neither waves nor particles”, but then frames his remarks in terms of a non-existent “underlying stuff”. He points out that it is not true that matter “sometimes behaves like a wave and sometimes like a particle... The wave is not in the underlying stuff; it is in the spatial pattern of detector clicks... We cannot help but think of the clicks as caused by little localized pieces of stuff that we might as well call particles. This is where the particle language comes from. It does not come from the underlying stuff, but from our psychological predisposition to associate localized phenomena with particles.”

In place of “underlying stuff” there have been serious attempts to preserve a material world — but they produce no new physics, and serve only to preserve an illusion. Scientists have sadly left it to non-physicist Frayn to note the Emperor's lack of clothes: “it seems to me that the view which [Murray] Gell-Mann favours, and which involves what he calls alternative ‘histories’ or ‘narratives’, is precisely as anthropocentric as Bohr's, since histories and narratives are not freestanding elements of the Universe, but human constructs, as subjective and as restricted in their viewpoint as the act of observation.”

www.nature.com...

This is my point number 7. Subatomic particles are not particles in the material sense. Ask Heisenberg:

“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

There's not a shred of evidence that there's an objective material reality. What we call matter can be no more than pixels on the screen that illumate the thoughts of an intelligent mind!

a reply to: neoholographic


All your cut-and-paste slop doesn't prove a thing. It only says that you can't articulate your own theory and prove it.

Failed again.

a reply to: neoholographic

When are you going to answer the redshift question????

originally posted by: neoholographic
If basic science is so clear, why are scientist trying to explain the universe as a hologram, conscious, a simulation, a self replicating AI, a neural network, and error correcting code and more.

Why aren't all of these scientist screaming that basic science is all we need to explain existence?

One reason might be that it's the job of a theoretical physicist to come up with new ideas. It's just a fact that most of the new ideas they come up with, turn out to be incorrect, but that doesn't stop them from writing about them. So far the holographic universe idea is still in the gray area where it hasn't been proven wrong, but neither has it been shown to be right or even more useful than mainstream models. In fact one of my previous posts pointed out how many scientists just continue to use the mainstream models, because they see no advantage to the holographic universe model. So I think you're putting way more emphasis on some of these things like the holographic model, than can be justified.

This is because there's no evidence that what we call material gives us our existence in any way outside of being like pixels that illuminate a code that emanates from an intelligent mind.

No, it's not. Despite some scientists writing about the holographic universe model, the majority of scientists are not using that model. So you're putting way too much weight on some of these minority viewpoints by a small number of physicists. In fact one physicist blogged that a number of theoretical physicists seem to be getting rather cranky, and selling their out there ideas to the media even if their peers don't think their ideas have much merit:

Former string theorist Luboš Motl explaining the cranky state of theoretical physics

A majority of the theoretical physics community has gradually been morphing into an amalgam of cranks vigorously promoting their own pet crackpot theories and paying no attention to the insights that have actually been achieved by the scientific method and that form the bulk of the reason that physics is the Empress of the Natural Sciences. These cranks spend much of their time by contacting the mainstream media, other tabloids, and sources of dumb propaganda in general; silly and dishonest P.R. battles are really what their existence boils down to. This process is known as the Smolinization of theoretical physics.

I don't know if it's really a majority of theoretical physicists or not, but there are a fair number who write some "out there" stuff and you shouldn't get too excited about the out there ideas, especially when they can't be proven. Even string theory, which used to be considered more respectable, hasn't come up with supporting evidence after decades of trying, so if you're a string theorist, it's really difficult to get a job in the physics department of any university working on string theory.

originally posted by: neoholographic
a reply to: TzarChasm

Sadly for you, there's no evidence to support what you're saying. You said:

There's no actual prize or achievement in convincing you to acknowledge basic science so there's no motivation to give you what you demand. If the evidence under your feet and in your fridge and under your butt when you use the bathroom doesn't convince you, then realistically I don't have a chance.

You're all over the place but I will point out this statement.

If basic science is so clear, why are scientist trying to explain the universe as a hologram, conscious, a simulation, a self replicating AI, a neural network, and error correcting code and more.

Why aren't all of these scientist screaming that basic science is all we need to explain existence?

This is because there's no evidence that what we call material gives us our existence in any way outside of being like pixels that illuminate a code that emanates from an intelligent mind.

Physics Is Pointing Inexorably to Mind

In his 2014 book, Our Mathematical Universe, physicist Max Tegmark boldly claims that “protons, atoms, molecules, cells and stars” are all redundant “baggage.” Only the mathematical apparatus used to describe the behavior of matter is supposedly real, not matter itself. For Tegmark, the universe is a “set of abstract entities with relations between them,” which “can be described in a baggage-independent way”—i.e., without matter. He attributes existence solely to descriptions, while incongruously denying the very thing that is described in the first place. Matter is done away with and only information itself is taken to be ultimately real.

blogs.scientificamerican.com...

The mental Universe

The only reality is mind and observations, but observations are not of things. To see the Universe as it really is, we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things.

Discussing the play, John H. Marburger III, President George W. Bush's science adviser, observes that “in the Copenhagen interpretation of microscopic nature, there are neither waves nor particles”, but then frames his remarks in terms of a non-existent “underlying stuff”. He points out that it is not true that matter “sometimes behaves like a wave and sometimes like a particle... The wave is not in the underlying stuff; it is in the spatial pattern of detector clicks... We cannot help but think of the clicks as caused by little localized pieces of stuff that we might as well call particles. This is where the particle language comes from. It does not come from the underlying stuff, but from our psychological predisposition to associate localized phenomena with particles.”

In place of “underlying stuff” there have been serious attempts to preserve a material world — but they produce no new physics, and serve only to preserve an illusion. Scientists have sadly left it to non-physicist Frayn to note the Emperor's lack of clothes: “it seems to me that the view which [Murray] Gell-Mann favours, and which involves what he calls alternative ‘histories’ or ‘narratives’, is precisely as anthropocentric as Bohr's, since histories and narratives are not freestanding elements of the Universe, but human constructs, as subjective and as restricted in their viewpoint as the act of observation.”

www.nature.com...

This is my point number 7. Subatomic particles are not particles in the material sense. Ask Heisenberg:

“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

There's not a shred of evidence that there's an objective material reality. What we call matter can be no more than pixels on the screen that illumate the thoughts of an intelligent mind!

Excellent post!

I agree with your point. I recently saw a scientist talking about Panpsychism because the universe behaves like it's conscious.