Can an Observer die?

Originally posted by Tearman
What the heck? That's exactly the same thing I was saying. That the ****SUM**** of its parts make up the building... HEAVY emphasis on the word sum. That is, all of its parts (together as a building). You are saying that the building itself still exists, and you can somehow still walk into its front door and live or work inside of it as you could with a building that hasn't been demolished. I'm saying it only makes sense to call it a building if its parts are still in the form of a building. We could think of its demolished parts as formerly a building, but no longer capable of functioning as a building.

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Of course I read what I posted. The electron and positron are destroyed and in their place there is now gamma rays or other particles. I.E. THERE IS NO LONGER ANY ELECTRON. Its energy and momentum persist in the from of other particles, but no longer as an electron.

You are confusing language with "isness" as it relates to Observer/Consciousness/Existence. You can observe while having Zero definitions. Zero "building" concepts.

What is a building to someone who has never heard that word or English? Define it for them? Oh you have to switch languages? So "building" is actually just a placeholder for something else... something... that... you just "know" but has to be "translated" into language (which is lossy).

Ok... what about another culture, ask them to draw a building and you draw one and compare. Are they the same? Hmm... ok try to put an edge on "what IS a building" and "what is NOT a building"... try to find that perfect defining set of features which all languages, cultures, and preferences will agree upon.

There are no trees. There are patterns in the universe which most closely match an abstract concept we have chosen to use called tree, nothing more.

As for the electron/positron... imagine a thread in a tapestry as it crosses another. It goes up and down... creating a criss cross pattern. Here the red is visible, there the blue, there the green... as you go across the tapestry the patterns change, there are many "points", but there are actually very few threads. In the best... there is only one thread.

Yin/Yang... Positive/Negative... Up/Down. Those particles don't break apart, they are flipping... inverting. We're simply seeing the other side of that coin... which manifests itself differently in our direction of reality from the other side of the coin.

There is No Thing.

We are the face in this picture, but we "humans" struggle to see ourself because we're distracted by all the "parts" we invented.

EDIT: Great post OP... and great angle of approach. Huge thumbs up!

So because no one spells out that the observer can die that equates to humans being immortal in your eyes?

IF so I have some land to sell you....

Seriously? So basically your argument is quantum semantics?

*SMashes head against wall screaming Deny ignorance over and over*

OMGWTFBBQ


Edit to add: OH by the way you've just managed to roll 3 or 4 different logical fallacies together into one SUPER FALLACY... If this was logical fallacy scrabble you'd be the triple fallacy score MASTER

Interesting and thought provoking thread...

And the core question reminds me of the Sufi Koan...
...if a tree falls in a forest...

Those rascally Sufis!

Akushla

This is an observer:

Observer

And its from the TV series Fringe ..... you should stop watching TV if it has so much impact on your mind ... seriously ...

reply to post by Matrix Rising

At what level is this relevant? A fly looks for a place to land while a frog observes.

You have not observed that even the tiny cells of nature are aware of their surroundings.

reply to post by roguetechie


It's not semantics, it's quantum mechanics.

There's no evidence that an Observer ceases observing when you die. This is because the Observer isn't a singular entity. The Observer is in superposition. On a macroscopic level, this smearing is hidden because of decoherence. It's easier to see this superposition on a microscopic level.

Quantum superposition of distinct macroscopic states
www.nature.com...

Creation of macroscopic superposition states from arrays of Bose-Einstein condensates
arxiv.org...

So it's meaningless to say the Observer dies. The Observer continues Observing probable states.

reply to post by Matrix Rising


There is one observer that never dies. The observer that is reality, is eternal, is Truth.

It cannot be observed. An eye cannot see itself. Without a mirror. And worse then, the reflection is not reality.

You will never observe eternity. Eternity is the only true observer. How will you step outside of eternity to objectively observe it? Where will you go to get such a perspective? Eternity cannot be proven except by experience. An equation cannot explain what a pineapple tastes like.. better than the taste of a pineapple.

If you look at a dead body to see where life exists you will not find it. If you want to understand the truth you need to be true. If you do not believe in eternity you will prove it forever. That is free will.

You can identify with the observed or the observer. As the observed, the delusion of death can persist almost eternally.. but never quite. A piece cannot accept that there is only a whole which it is part of. A piece's experience of wholeness cannot be objective.

Well, if you're going to talk about Everett's quantum immortality thought experiment, you should at least knowledge that the conclusion is by no means accepted as fact. Actually, it's far from a safe bet.

And here's a paradox for you to ponder. Say a guy is hit by a car and at that moment there is an observer who has just sustained injuries with a definite probability of fatality, but who lives for a short moment after the impact. Say, they were decapitated but don't lose consciousness immediately. Clearly there is an observer in that severed head. Does it suddenly hop off into another universe in which the head miraculously reattaches to the body?

Or here's another thought experiment. What happens if you try the quantum suicide experiment where the condition of survival has 0% probability. In that experiment you kill yourself in all possible scenarios. It would seem that under these conditions there would be no surviving "observer" for you to be.

If quantum immortality is indeed true, then it implies that each of us will eventually find ourselves completely alone in a universe that has long ago reached thermal equilibrium and all other forms of life have perished, including every person we ever cared about.


Hey, how does this quantum immortality apply to the time before we were born? And how do you explain people who lose consciousness and later wake up? If you can never stop observing, then it shouldn't be possible to lose consciousness under any circumstances.

You may also be interested in reading this document... it is titled "Many-Worlds Interpretations Can Not Imply ‘Quantum Immortality’" authored by Dr. Jacques Mallah... I'm not able to determine his credentials, but saw that this paper was referred to on physics forums.
PDF: www.mindpowernews.com...

reply to post by Panic2k11


do you believe that the universe will end or even had a begining

reply to post by Tearman


You're making the mistake of trying to debate MWI with meaningless terms in the context of MWI.

When you say things like "a definite probability of fatality" or "where the condition of survival has 0% probability." In the context of MWI these things make no sense.

Let's look at your thought experiment anyway. Again, in the context of MWI this makes no sense. This is why you said "with a definite probability of fatality." The Observer would find themselves in a universe where they weren't decapitated or they would find themselves in a universe where they can preserve a decapitated head. I was reading where scientist decapitated a rat and they might have up to a minute to preserve the brain. Or they would experience an afterlife like NDE's.

www.healthkicker.com...

Your second thought experiment says "where the condition of survival has 0% probability." Again, you use language that has nothing to do with MWI. I know why you want to talk in absolute terms but then we're not debating MWI or quantum mechanics if we accept things like "where the condition of survival has 0% probability." .

Let's look at the article you posted. It doesn't dispute.quantum immortality. He just doesn't agree with it. Look at what the article says.

The counterargument to this is that lack of experience is not itself an experience. The critics argue that the continuity of consciousness, and the possibility of it enduring forever, are actually assumptions in this scenario, and ones with no physical basis.

Again, when materialist want to remove consciousness from the Observer, then consciousness is no longer part of the physical brain and it has no "physical basis." If consciousness is a product of the brain then of course there's a physical basis. Materialist want it both ways. When you talk about Metaphysics, then consciousness has a "physical basis" in the material brain. When you talk about the Observer then consciousness has no "physical basis." In the article, they also make another assumption that doesn't add up. It says:

Suppose a physicist standing beside a nuclear bomb detonates it. In almost all parallel universes, the nuclear explosion will vaporize the physicist. However, there is a small set of alternate universes in which the physicist somehow survives. The idea behind quantum immortality is that the physicist is only alive in, and thus able to experience, one of the universes in which a miraculous survival occurs, even though these universes form a small subset of the possible universes.

This is an assumption that makes no sense. What if there's more universes where the nuclear device malfunctions? This also makes it seem like if the Observer has a small set of universes to Observe then that somehow means something. If the Observer dies in a thousand explosions and survives in one he's still an Observer.

MWI doesn't treat the universes as separate worlds until after measurement has occurred. So these worlds are probable states of the wave function. This is why in MWI there's no collapse. So both states are in superposition it's just on a macroscopic level this smearing can't be seen because of decoherence vs a microscopic level where you can see this smearing.

Here's more:

Unlike the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment which used poison gas and a radioactive decay trigger, this version involves a life-terminating device and a device that measures the spin value of photons. Every 10 seconds, the spin value of a fresh photon is measured. Conditioned upon that quantum bit, the weapon is either deployed, killing the experimenter, or it makes an audible "click" and the experimenter survives.

The theories are distinctive from the point of view of the experimenter only; their predictions are otherwise identical.

The probability of surviving the first iteration of the experiment is 50%, under both interpretations, as given by the squared norm of the wavefunction. At the start of the second iteration, if the Copenhagen interpretation is true, the wavefunction has already collapsed, so if the experimenter is already dead, there's a 0% chance of survival. However, if the many-worlds interpretation is true, a superposition of the live experimenter necessarily exists, regardless of how many iterations or how improbable the outcome. Barring life after death, it is not possible for the experimenter to experience having been killed, thus the only possible experience is one of having survived every iteration.

en.wikipedia.org...

So there's no evidence that the Observer ceases observing. Whether he observes an after life (mind-body) or he observes another universe (MWI). How can an Observer observe non existence? The Observer isn't a singular enity but a probable state .

You keep saying that an observer is in superposition, but is that true? Can things be in superposition with respect to themselves? Can a system be in superposition from its own perspective? Just curious because I don't see where the connection is between an individual observer, and all possible states of that observer in different worlds. They aren't the same thing, are they?

In other other words, I can imagine a hypothetical version of the world in which there is always some probability of survival under any circumstances, and there is a world in which some version of you does survive somewhere. I just don't see why you should expect to find yourself in any of those worlds just because you can't be aware of your of your own death. How is an individual observer in one world at all connected to the other observers in different worlds?

Adding religious aspects to science makes you lose all credibility.