Quantum Physics says Good-bye to "Reality"

As I said, I don't have the patience

This will be my last non-topic-directed post on this thread. Feel free to respond to it if you wish, but for myself I shall be confining any further discussion strictly to the physics.

Originally posted by liquidself

I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy -- Richard Feynman

I agree, actually.

...you made that comment about the "few"; which I think is more inflammatory than you realize.

Well, it depends on how you take it. I wasn't suggesting that those capable of understanding quantum mechanics (if, indeed, anyone may be said to) should be treated as members of a higher caste, given special privileges and silver spoons or anything like that -- though in practice, of course, they are. No, what I said -- and here repeat -- was that the study of quantum mechanics is not for everybody. Few people are capable of dealing with its apparent logical incompatibilities, or of settling for experimental results that prove the mathematics but undermine the commonly apprehended model of reality. And precisely because quantum theory puts this model in question, thereby raising all kinds of philosophical questions and leaving them hanging in the air unanswered, those who misunderstand it are apt to draw unwarranted philosophical and other conclusions from their misunderstanding, thereby confusing themselves and others and conceivably doing some damage to themselves and to society (perhaps by diverting good money that could have been used to do real science to crankheaded rubbish like the Veritas Institute and Ian Stevenson) in the process.

On this thread alone we've seen: confusion as to what the published results of a scientific experiment really mean; confusion of ordinary wave function collapse with the EPR paradox; people trying to understand quantum phenomena in classical terms; a bizarre theory of light offered without a smidgen of scientific support; an irruption into the thread of quasi-religious ideas about the origins of consciousness, near-death experiences and communication with the dead; and so forth. Some of this was called forth by my comment, but all of it was there, latent and implicit in the posts that were recorded before mine; all I did was light the touchpaper.

I regard the resulting conflagration as proof of my point.

However, I dont think [Hawking] is being as disingenous as you make him sound.

Probably not. Not that either of us will ever know. But if there is any logical argument that proves, or even indicates strongly that a final 'theory of everything' should be one that is comprehensible by everybody, I have yet to hear of it. I don't believe any such argument exists. If Prof. Hawking believes one does, perhaps he should share it with us. I'm sure we'll all be fascinated.

Materialistic assumptions are just as fatuous as idealist ones if you look at the basic axioms.

Three thousand years of western philosophy have more or less guaranteed this, but one is still entitled to one's opinion. What one is not entitled to do is construct spurious arguments based on one's misunderstanding of an obscure branch of physics in order to support that opinion.

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
You think the idea that consciousness rises from the brain isn't controversial? Hmmm, last time I looked that was still very much a matter of debate.

Actually, I think consciousness is just a by-product of brain function that gives itself big ideas. It is by nature post hoc since it is always a step behind reality anyway. In the old, old days, before seat belt laws existed, my grandfather used to sit me in his lap while driving his old Austin saloon and allow me to hold the steering wheel. I was three years old and of course I thought I was driving the car. I wasn't, of course; it was Grandpa all the time. Consciousness is a little like three-year-old me; it thinks it's in the driving seat when all the time it's just along for the ride.

And yes, I know this point of view is controversial. But more controversial than believing that consciousness creates the universe? Or that little old ladies are sending messages from the Great Beyond to scientific researchers at the Veritas Institute? I don't think so.

[edit on 11-5-2007 by Astyanax]

Hello, Albie

You don't have to quote my posts in their entirety; just the relevant bits will do.

Originally posted by albie
I wasn't suggesting that the photon leaves a trace in the actual air but the space. In a vacuum. An electromagnetic trace. It depends on how fast these single photons are being put out.

Since vacuum is vacuum, i.e. nothing, it doesn't seem likely that it could take an impression from the passage of a photon or anything else. This is a first order response to the question you raise.

Then again, the loop quantum gravity theory of Smolin et al., introduced in this thread, suggests that fundamental particles can be thought of as braids or twists in spacetime itself. But even in this view, the particle doesn't leave 'traces'; it is itself a 'trace'. On a graph, yet.

More logical than the results suggest so far. That we can change a wave to a particle with a couple of slits in paper.

Logical shmerlogical. If you take one thing from this thread, let it be this: quantum mechanics is not 'logical'. At least, not in that way.

Well, there's no such thing as a vacuum, as I've been lead to believe. AS technology increases we have more and more ability to measure things that once we had no notion of.

When I see so called magic happening in science, my first thought is that we simply have something going on that we just can't register or measure...yet. I think that before I even consider magic, or trees falling in forests.

And as you say, it can be considered as a trace. So...we need to find out how long between the firing of these photons.

I wonder if we'd get the same results if there was an hour or a even a minute between them.

Logical shmerlogical. If you take one thing from this thread, let it be this: quantum mechanics is not 'logical'. At least, not in that way.

If we come up against something that SEEMS illogical, surely we don't leave it at that and turn to God. We try to find a solution.

I think the idea of traces IS more logical.

It would be kind of odd to say otherwise.







[edit on 14-5-2007 by albie]

Why should the universe make sense to us?

This response to Albie isn't strictly about physics but I think it's worth posting on this thread despite my earlier promise. At any rate, I don't think it's going to create any more ruckus.

When I see so called magic happening in science, my first thought is that we simply have something going on that we just can't register or measure...yet. I think that before I even consider magic...

We are not talking about magic here. We aren't even talking about logic.

We are talking about whether or not reality (the universe) conforms with reasonable accuracy to the model of it we have inside our heads.

Now this model isn't something we devised entirely out of logic based on scientific observation. It is rooted in the specifics of our animal nature. It is instinctive and intuitive. Just imagine: if you were a bat or a bacterium you would have an entirely different model of the world. A bat may apprehend sound in the same way we apprehend light -- using it to build up a world-picture with edges, shapes, shadows and even colours all created by sound not light reflections. A bacterium or small insect would have a world-model in which things like Brownian motion, surface tension and viscosity are of far greater importance than gravity.

Our human world-model relates to what Richard Dawkins calls the Middle World -- the world of the not too big and the not to small, the not too fast and the not too slow. Our senses and our brains have evolved to help us function best in this world. It is unnecessary for us to apprehend phenomena at the cosmic-relativistic (very large/very fast) or quantum (very slow/modified or no causality) levels, so we haven't bothered to evolve the sensory and mental apparatus to do it.

Thus, our model isn't capable of coping with quantum and relativistic phenomena. We can't visualize them or explain them in day-to-day terms, so they seem illogical or even impossible to us.

If we come up against something that SEEMS illogical, surely we don't leave it at that and turn to God.

I couldn't agree more. We should try our best to find an explanation. But I can see no reason -- though perhaps more philosophically savvy ATSers can -- to believe that the universe should be ultimately comprehensible to us. We've done pretty well at exploring, explaining and understanding the Middle World, but now we've passed beyond it, into areas where logic and intuition just don't seem to work the way they should.

Perhaps there are limits to knowledge, after all.

Here's a fascinating, easy-to-read discussion of this possibility as it applies to cosmology and in particular the concepts of dark matter and dark energy. Read it through and see if you still think the same way about this. I also recommend highly the section in Chapter 10 of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins entitled 'The Mother of All Burkas'. Enjoy.

Originally posted by blue bird
I think that H: Bortof philosophy on interpretation on Quantum Physics is truly necessary to understand what QP is all about and how is connected to our reality:

Actually, what's really necessary to understand Quantum Physics in an IQ of about 180 and a really good understanding of multi-dimensional mathematics! There are few who really grasp it, and math is essential - there just isn't another language that can grasp the intricacies of the fundamental movement of sub atomic particles and their associated probability wave fronts.

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
Well,12SeVeN34, I have always viewed science as nothing more,or less, than a tool. I think it's important to realize that most scientists want to know many of the same things everyone else does.

[edit on 26-4-2007 by SpeakerofTruth]

I mean absolutely no personal offense when I say this, but it's very easy for people that haven't subjected themselves to the rigor of learning mathematics and physics to dismiss science as a tool. It's very very difficult to learn, takes a lot of time and mind numbing/expanding effort.
People don't seem to get that Math is a language that does not easily translate.
As someone who meditates, I can honestly say that getting a good strong grasp on Differential Equations and Undergraduate multi-variable calculus is much more difficult than learning to open one's chakras.

Whoa, did I just post my own post in a quote within a quote?! Talk about paradoxes!
Sorry.

I think my post

www.abovetopsecret.com...

is a way to realize that we are only skimming the surface and lots of what we think is good theory is a dead end street and a limiting theory.
We can do more with quantum and extradimensional mechanisms then ever thought possible.

I disagree that QP cannot be put into words.

Fighting talk

Originally posted by albie
I disagree that QP cannot be put into words.

In that case, you must either have succeeded in doing so yourself, or found an author who has.

In either case, would you care to share the words with us? I, for one, am eager to read them.

Any basic dummies guide gives you all you need.

Explaining the oddities of qp you won't find, because no one has explained them yet.

You don't need to know the maths of qp to know how particles act.

Originally posted by albie
Any basic dummies guide gives you all you need.

You may be right. However, my experience as an undergraduate student of physics, acquired some twenty-five years ago, suggests otherwise. And I'm reliably informed that undergraduates usually think they know more about their subject than they really do -- the depths of one's ignorance are only revealed by postgraduate study.

Perhaps I should have tried the dummy's guide.

On Reality:

What creates reality ? Experience
What creates experience ? sense
What creates sense ? Reality

So when there is no experience, there is no reality !
When there is no sense, there is no experience, so no reality !



[edit on 24-5-2007 by siddharthsma]

Imagine I am standing on flat ground. The wind is blowing against my back. I can feel the wind on my back. So the wind must exist. Now lets say that a huge metallic block is placed quietly behind me. Now the wind is blocked. So I cant feel wind on my back. So does that mean the wind ceases to exist ? Now it doesnt make any sense to say that something must be blocking the wind, cause the wind doesnt exist. But I can say that something is blocking the reality of the wind ?! But that doesnt make sense either cause it means the wind must have an underlying reality whose reality becomes real reality as soon as the block is moved away ! I guess this is what scientists meant by hidden variables. But if hidden variables is false then how do we make sense of anything !? Because that would mean once the wind's reality ceases to exist, it can never exist again even if the block is removed, because the removal of the block cannot trigger any hidden variable to bring the wind back to reality !!!

I have a solution ! ( I think ) My hypothesis of partially interacting systems:

The basis of my solution is a particular postulate of relativity and one of quantum mechanics.
I'll start with the one for quantum mechanics :
" No two fermions with the same quantum state can exist in a closed system "
This is the Pauli Exclusion principle. However, there is just one part of this that I would like to use ..." in a closed system" , which implies CONFINEMENT ! Why do we believe that the Universe is one big open system !? The Universe is instead an amalgamation of many closed systems that can interact with each other. The interaction itself need not be a full interaction that brings out every aspect of reality, it can be a partial interaction, bringing out only one property of the system.
Lets look at the double slit experiment now. When there is no detector at the slits, we have a typical interference pattern. The electrons are one system , we the experimenters are a different system. However, our systems are partially interacting ( we cannot see individual electrons but we see a beam). When the detector is put on the slits, the interference pattern changes immediately. Why ? we have just increased our degree of interaction with the electron's system and brought out another part of the electrons's system into our reality( we can now see individual electrons we have delved deeper into their true reality), thereby changing the results of the experiment because our reality has now also changed and become more complex since individual electrons are now part of the scope or range of our system.

Now the postulate or aspect of relativity that supports my theory of CONFINEMENT of systems and their ability to interact partially is one that says that it makes no sense to compare two systems which are very far apart.
The key : " far apart" , which implies that the Universe is indeed made up of an amalgamation of systems rather than one big unit that interacts completely all the time. Partial interactions can exist.

Originally posted by angst18


[

I mean absolutely no personal offense when I say this, but it's very easy for people that haven't subjected themselves to the rigor of learning mathematics and physics to dismiss science as a tool. I

Well, I am not a mathematician by any means,. I like about 85% of the rest of the population find algebraic equations, calculus, trigonoometry, et cetera, as being perplexing.

I have always had an active interest in physics and its theories, but not always understood all of the math. I am taking a physical science class as I type this and I can't help but notice that as I get older, my math skills seem to sharpen while my spelling skills lessen. It's kind of odd because I used to be a tremendous speller. However, now, I think I am just about as good in mathematics as I am spelling.

I have been thinking about decoherence and its implications;

I do not pretend to have anything like a total understanding of it but the theory seems to equate a scale move from the quantum level to the macro(classical) level with a loss of information and the consequential proposed illusion of wave collapse through enmeshment with non-superimposed states (in other words, it gets all messed up and we can't find it even if we tried). This equivalence in the theory gives me pause, however, that means nothing given my poor understanding of what exactly is supposed to be happening.

But then I happened to find the following article from New Scientist (read it at a Shoppers Drug Mart - I had some trouble tracking it down but here it is: I think the following article has great relevance to the topic of this thread:

postbiota.org...

The experiment has not been officially performed as yet but its expected outcome is the successful erasure of previous information states (read reality here).

Originally posted by siddharthsma
Why do we believe that the Universe is one big open system !? The Universe is instead an amalgamation of many closed systems that can interact with each other.

If a system interacts with another system then it is not closed.

This, I am sorry to say, invalidates your hypothesis.

Originally posted by Astyanax

Originally posted by albie
Any basic dummies guide gives you all you need.

You may be right. However, my experience as an undergraduate student of physics, acquired some twenty-five years ago, suggests otherwise. And I'm reliably informed that undergraduates usually think they know more about their subject than they really do -- the depths of one's ignorance are only revealed by postgraduate study.

Perhaps I should have tried the dummy's guide.

Postgrad will teach you MORE about how particles act. But that doesn't mean they can't be described in simple words.

Originally posted by blue bird

No...objects and events exist, observer just observe them. Observing is not creating. Its all about measuring. Nothing more!

Exactly, if they didn't we wouldn't even be here. I wonder if anyone was here measuring the "big bang" or if they are observing the sun undergoing fusion. That's right, nobody is. Yet it is happening nonetheless.

"Exactly, if they didn't we wouldn't even be here. I wonder if anyone was here measuring the "big bang" or if they are observing the sun undergoing fusion. That's right, nobody is. Yet it is happening nonetheless."

The argument is anthropocentric. It is just as easy to say if we weren't here then "they" (the big bang theory and solar fusion) would not be here either (from the traditional idealist position). It is also just as easy to say it is the observer and not the measurement; quantum physics doesn't specify which it is - though it is difficult to concieve of a measurement with no observer. The sun seems to be a bad example; since it is probably is being observed by at aleast one person out of the 6 billion or so people on the planet at any given time. As for the big bang, how have scientists concluded that it happened without actually measuring the results? It has in fact been measured in the form of cosmic background radiation it left behind among other things. If background radiation had not been found, the big bang hypothesis would not have been created.