The Universe Is Not Locally Real, and the Physics Nobel Prize Winners Proved It

a reply to: darkbake

As for the universe disappearing when no one is looking, I'm not sold on that. Where is the proof? Did I miss it?

Can you prove that there is anything outside of what you perceive?

For those still struggling to understand the concept and meaning… phys.org:

phys.org...

Once more, all good things come in threes!!

It should be noted that there are “loopholes” to the experiments but the tolerances are so low as to account for the standard deviation.

I would also like to point out that a “human” consciousness does not have to observe the Universe. In fact, I believe that all physical particles “sense” each other. And this may be what we call gravity. But it is extreme solipsism to think that the moon disappears when you don’t look at it!

A new QM theory? My brain melts when considering the current one!!

originally posted by: namehere
look at it this way, the tree still exists without humans looking at it because to observe doesn't mean to see by a conscious thinking being, it means to interact with and many things interact with each other at the quantum level at all times, thus nothing is never not observed, thus everything is real after interacting with each other. quantum mechanics is hard to explain with words.

You seem to get the idea, though many posts in this thread exhibit misunderstandings.

Most people's idea of "measurement" or "observation" is too narrow, but a tree with lots of air molecules bouncing off of it is constantly interacting with the air molecules which can have the effect of "observation" of the tree, even if no human is "observing" or "measuring" it. That's why the tree is real.

So this is why many of the quantum entanglement experiments we read about are conducted in environments not normal to us humans, near absolute zero and such, to prevent decoherence. This is also why quantum computers generally need cryogenic cooling to operate.

originally posted by: 00018GE
Physics still has no idea what counts as a measurement. Until they do, this is all meaningless.

While it's true that physics cannot say where the dividing line is between what constitutes a measurement and what doesn't, I don't think that your statement that this means they "have no idea" follows from that. They certainly have some good ideas even if they can't precisely define the cut-off. So I would not agree it's all meaningless. This thread includes a video that talks about what we do and don't know about what constitutes a measurement:

Has quantum mechanics proved that reality does not exist?

originally posted by: darkbake
It is a proven fact that particles can communicate with each other instantly even over an infinite distance and thus faster than the speed of light. There is no way to contest this, it is proven.

No, it is not proven, though your misconception is a common one. I hope this correct source corrects your misunderstanding.

What Is Entanglement and Why Is It Important?

A common misconception about entanglement is that the particles are communicating with each other faster than the speed of light, which would go against Einstein's special theory of relativity. Experiments have shown that this is not true, nor can quantum physics be used to send faster-than-light communications. Though scientists still debate how the seemingly bizarre phenomenon of entanglement arises, they know it is a real principle that passes test after test. In fact, while Einstein famously described entanglement as "spooky action at a distance," today's quantum scientists say there is nothing spooky about it.

"It may be tempting to think that the particles are somehow communicating with each other across these great distances, but that is not the case," says Thomas Vidick, a professor of computing and mathematical sciences at Caltech. "There can be correlation without communication," and the particles "can be thought of as one object."

a reply to: Arbitrageur



“is easy to recall from everyday experience that neither electricity nor magnetism have visual properties. So, on its own, it’s not hard to grasp that there is nothing inherently visual, nothing bright or colored about that candle flame. Now let these same invisible electromagnetic waves strike a human retina, and if (and only if) the waves each happen to measure between 400 and 700 nanometers in length from crest to crest, then their energy is just right to deliver a stimulus to the 8 million cone-shaped cells in the retina. Each in turn sends an electrical pulse to a neighbor neuron, and on up the line this goes, at 250 mph, until it reaches the warm, wet occipital lobe of the brain, in the back of the head. There, a cascading complex of neurons fire from the incoming stimuli, and we subjectively perceive this experience as a yellow brightness occurring in a place we have been conditioned to call “the external world.” Other creatures receiving the identical stimulus will experience something altogether different, such as a perception of gray, or even have an entirely dissimilar sensation. The point is, there isn’t a “bright yellow” light “out there” at all. At most, there is an invisible stream of electrical and magnetic pulses. We are totally necessary for the experience of what we’d call a yellow flame. Again, it’s correlative.”
― Robert P. Lanza, Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe

originally posted by: nonspecific
a reply to: MykeNukem

In a nutshell if you accept that the universe is infinate and time is infinate then eventually a random selection of atoms will come togehter and form a fully working brain floating about in space, an infinate amount of times.

The world you experience and know is just the imagination of that brain.

Sleep well knowing that possibility.

The Universe is not infinite and time isn't infinite either. There is a finite amount of mass-energy in the Universe in the form of visible matter, dark matter, and dark energy, with proportions 4%, 27% and 69% respectively.

The cosmic time is about 13.72 billion years after the BB.

As for the random selection that will form a brain... It's more likely that a random selection of atoms will assemble themselves with a bit of help from a giant space unicorn and create a fully functional brain that wil enter Biden's head replacing his fully non functional brain.. For once in his lifetime he will have a proper brain to use.

What???

I'm pretty sure no one has been able to prove anything you say here.

And why on earth did you think that taking a cheap shot at Joe biden was wanted or needed in a thread like this?

You baffle me at the best of times and this is bat#e even for you.

originally posted by: Asmodeus3

originally posted by: nonspecific
a reply to: MykeNukem

In a nutshell if you accept that the universe is infinate and time is infinate then eventually a random selection of atoms will come togehter and form a fully working brain floating about in space, an infinate amount of times.

The world you experience and know is just the imagination of that brain.

Sleep well knowing that possibility.

The Universe is not infinite and time isn't infinite either. There is a finite amount of mass-energy in the Universe in the form of visible matter, dark matter, and dark energy, with proportions 4%, 27% and 69% respectively.

The cosmic time is about 13.72 billion years after the BB.

As for the random selection that will form a brain... It's more likely that a random selection of atoms will assemble themselves with a bit of help from a giant space unicorn and create a fully functional brain that wil enter Biden's head replacing his fully non functional brain.. For once in his lifetime he will have a proper brain to use.

originally posted by: nonspecific
What???

I'm pretty sure no one has been able to prove anything you say here.

And why on earth did you think that taking a cheap shot at Joe biden was wanted or needed in a thread like this?

You baffle me at the best of times and this is bat#e even for you.

originally posted by: Asmodeus3

originally posted by: nonspecific
a reply to: MykeNukem

In a nutshell if you accept that the universe is infinate and time is infinate then eventually a random selection of atoms will come togehter and form a fully working brain floating about in space, an infinate amount of times.

The world you experience and know is just the imagination of that brain.

Sleep well knowing that possibility.

The Universe is not infinite and time isn't infinite either. There is a finite amount of mass-energy in the Universe in the form of visible matter, dark matter, and dark energy, with proportions 4%, 27% and 69% respectively.

The cosmic time is about 13.72 billion years after the BB.

As for the random selection that will form a brain... It's more likely that a random selection of atoms will assemble themselves with a bit of help from a giant space unicorn and create a fully functional brain that wil enter Biden's head replacing his fully non functional brain.. For once in his lifetime he will have a proper brain to use.

You mean about the constituents of the Universe? Such as visible matter, dark matter and dark energy or in relation to the other comment I made responding to your reply that if you accept the Universe is infinite then anything can happen.

Furthermore, what is real and what is non-real?

a reply to: Asmodeus3

As far as I knew we were still very much undecided as to what and how the universe is?

Dark matter, dark energy are still a mystery to us I thought?

And the visible universe is one thing but the size and makeup of the whole universe is again in the realms of speculation.

That's why I was asking, I assumed you knew things that I don't.

As to what is real then it depends on how you define real I suppose.

Interesting topic.

It's very hard to wrap your head around something that doesn't exist as such when not being observed. I try to think of it like playing a computer game on a large flatscreen TV - we have a relatively narrow field of view and can usually only see what is in the direction we are facing in the game (excusing VR headsets and 360 degree environments). Even then, we can only see a certain distance - just like in real life - and new landscapes only pop into view as we move forward.

Experience and expectation lets us believe that there is a whole world of other content/geography within the game all around us, but it's only generated on screen and appears in our view when we actually try and observe it. The rest of the time, it's essentially 1s and 0s running in the background until the host system is required to display it graphically.

originally posted by: nonspecific
a reply to: Asmodeus3

As far as I knew we were still very much undecided as to what and how the universe is?

Dark matter, dark energy are still a mystery to us I thought?

And the visible universe is one thing but the size and makeup of the whole universe is again in the realms of speculation.

That's why I was asking, I assumed you knew things that I don't.

As to what is real then it depends on how you define real I suppose.

Yes, the nature of dark matter and dark energy is more mysterious but they do make up most of the mass-energy of the Universe. Around 96%

Dark energy is responsible for the accelerated expansion of the Universe for example.

There is a lot of evidence in terms of the existence of the different constituents of the Universe. For example dark matter doesn't interact with light but its gravitational effects are very noticeable. Galaxy rotation curves gives a flavour of why they think dark matter exists.

There is some speculation but there is a lot of data in observational cosmology and astronomy. It is known that the Universe isn't infinite in size or mass. Its diameter is about 93 billion light years.

In this case 'real' means a particle will have definite properties regardless of measurements.

originally posted by: elgaz
Interesting topic.

It's very hard to wrap your head around something that doesn't exist as such when not being observed. I try to think of it like playing a computer game on a large flatscreen TV - we have a relatively narrow field of view and can usually only see what is in the direction we are facing in the game (excusing VR headsets and 360 degree environments). Even then, we can only see a certain distance - just like in real life - and new landscapes only pop into view as we move forward.

Experience and expectation lets us believe that there is a whole world of other content/geography within the game all around us, but it's only generated on screen and appears in our view when we actually try and observe it. The rest of the time, it's essentially 1s and 0s running in the background until the host system is required to display it graphically.

They don't mean non existence.
They imply that particles and objects have different properties under different observations. Still a major breakthrough.

Also 'local' in physics means something different i.e that particles can only be affected by their surroundings only and any interaction cannot happen at a speed greater then the speed of light.

The speed of light is assumed as a barrier however there are hypotheses for variable light speeds which will cancel most of the physics we know.

a reply to: davido
All you did was post a quote followed by a name of who said it, and you apparently have nothing to add yourself, so I'm not sure what your point was supposed to be, or if you even have any point.

I will comment on Lanza as a generally unreliable source when it comes to quantum physics who can spew incorrect things, however you somehow managed to find a particular passage by him suggesting different organisms perceive the same visual stimulus differently, with which I don't have any general disagreement, so we can conclude that not everything he says is wrong. However I would add that such stimuli tend to be objectively observable by instrumentation which is not part of a biological organism, such that we can characterize things like intensity versus frequency of the EM radiation and so on, so if he's trying to imply it's not real because different organisms perceive it differently, I think the independent instrumentation measurement contradicts such an implication. The correct conclusion from his observation is that different biological organisms are different, not a conclusion that reality doesn't exist.

If you want to read up more on the unreliability of Lanza, here is some commentary on some things Lanza doesn't get right (so you may want to find generally more credible sources if you want to be taken seriously):

Robert Lanza’s Quantum Woo
Dr. Robert Lanza and "biocentrism": Time to get out the paper bag again

originally posted by: Asmodeus3
It is known that the Universe isn't infinite in size or mass. Its diameter is about 93 billion light years.

Much of what you said is correct, but when you refer to the diameter of 93 billion light years, that's the observable universe, which is a region of the universe that can potentially be observed. It's not the entire universe, and we really don't know if the universe is finite or infinite.

We know that the galaxies must extend much further than we can see, but we do not know whether the universe is infinite or not.

Why can't the universe be infinite in all directions?

The universe may indeed be infinite in all directions. Maybe if someday more is understood about its origins that statement will get modified, but for now either finite or infinite are completely consistent with observations.

a reply to: gortex

The quantum universe is not defined. Ours is. Scale matters!

originally posted by: CyberBuddha
a reply to: gortex

The quantum universe is not defined.
Ours is.

What do you mean by 'our universe is defined'?

Our observable universe was formed before there was human consciousness. The moon was formed without us observing it. It is real and does exist without a beating heart observing it.

When you look at matter at the quantum scale, certainty breaks down. Reality becomes a cloud of possibility.

This is one of the challenges of modern physics. Nobody has been able to understand this paradox. But not understanding doesn’t mean that our macro reality is not real.

a reply to: TDDAgain

Half Life 3 comfirmed.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: Asmodeus3
It is known that the Universe isn't infinite in size or mass. Its diameter is about 93 billion light years.

Much of what you said is correct, but when you refer to the diameter of 93 billion light years, that's the observable universe, which is a region of the universe that can potentially be observed. It's not the entire universe, and we really don't know if the universe is finite or infinite.

We know that the galaxies must extend much further than we can see, but we do not know whether the universe is infinite or not.

Why can't the universe be infinite in all directions?

The universe may indeed be infinite in all directions. Maybe if someday more is understood about its origins that statement will get modified, but for now either finite or infinite are completely consistent with observations.

Yes I am referring to the observable universe but this term is often misunderstood. The term is associated with the 'particle horizon' which is the maximum distance from which we can detect signals as the speed of light is finite and a physical barrier to how fast we receive signals.

There well could be more galaxies after this point however light emitted cannot reach us. But that doesn't mean the universe is infinite in size. It is known it is expanding with acceleration but that doesn't mean it will keep expanding with acceleration 'forever'.

The term 'forever' isn't a physical concept just as infinity which isn't a physical concept either.

The term infinity is a mathematical concept that we don't see in nature at all. Everything seems to be finite. The number of particles, mass, energy, size, etc.

What it could be said is that the universe maybe much larger than the observable universe.

There is no problem with understanding quantum mechanics on a realist footing if we return to the 1904 philosophy of absolute time and absolute space. If time and space are absolute, then all quantum mechanics results can be understood by postulating that any momentum transfer dp collapses a wave function instantly to a size of dx = hbar/2dp. The problem with present physics is that "instantly" cannot be defined from within relativity. If we set relativity aside, there is no problem.

It was well-known in the early 20th century that both relativity and the earlier Lorentz aether theory gave identical equations for physics in the realm of special (non-gravitational and non-accelerating) frames of reference. But the great success of General Relativity in explaining certain gravitational observations led to near-universal acceptance of relativity and to the discrediting of aether theory. However, a new aether theory can also explain gravitational observations, as is discussed here. With a full aetherial theory now in hand for both electromagnetism and gravity, a realist interpretation of quantum mechanics is again possible to consider.

a reply to: gortex

Yes, local realism is dead and science has known this for awhile. There's materialist and atheist who are kicking and screaming because they can't accept that what we call the "physical" universe has no independent existence. It isn't locally real and isn't real in the physical sense.

Quantum Field Theory tells us that what we call subatimic particles should be called subatomic states. There excitations of quantum fields and they're not real in the physical sense. Here's a paper that talks about the death of local realism in 2015.

Death by experiment for local realism

A fundamental scientific assumption called local realism conflicts with certain predictions of quantum mechanics. Those predictions have now been verified, with none of the loopholes that have compromised earlier tests.

www.nature.com...

Here's some quotes from Werner Heisenberg and Max Planck:

“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

“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clearheaded science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about the atoms this much: There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. . . . We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.” ― Max Planck

If I go into a lab and measure the polarization of a photon, I can measure horizontal or vertical polarization. Vertical or horizontal polarization doesn't exist until a measurement and observation. This violates realism. Subatimic "particles" don't have independent properties. They don't exist independent of the wave like nature of the quantum field. They have no real existence in the physical sense as Heisenberg said.

You just can't get around this because quantum mechanics violates Bell's Inequalities up to 85%. Here's a video in laymen's terms that explains this really well.



This is a death blow for materialism. We have agrowing field of Quantum Biology and here's info on macroscopic quantum entanglement.

First Macroscopic Quantum Entanglement Performed At Room Temperature
futurism.com...

Quantum Entanglement Has Now Been Directly Observed at a Larger Macroscopic Scale
www.sciencealert.com...

Oh, oh, the materialist arguments are sinking. They then appeal to superdeterminism which just supports God.

Atheist have asked how can you have free will if God knows everything. Science is proving the Bible right yet again.

You have God who knows all things(superdetrminism) but he designed our universe to give us free will(the death of local realism).

Here's a few quotes on superdeterminism which makes no sense if it was "physical."

In general, though, superdeterminism is fundamentally untestable
en.wikipedia.org...

For now, we don’t know how to experimentally test for superdeterminism in a comprehensive way. Some partially relevant experiments have not found evidence for it. Philosophically it’s still a terrible choice for most of us: give up understanding the world or give up free will.
bigthink.com...

The problem is, materialist can't see past their "material" shell. They can't see past 3 dimensions of space and 1 dimension of time so they reduce all existence and all intelligence to this 3rd rock from the sun in our type 0 civilization. It's Plato's Cave personified.