But you wont find intellect in the brain

[inocente]

all who say that it’s a consciousness or a nonmaterial element in a human observer that “knows”, different in kind than the material/physical world that all the quantum entities are “made of”, which causes the collapse of the quantum wavefunction.

I don’t understand the math of quantum theory, meaning I don’t properly understand the theory either, but that interpretation has always seemed a bit iffy.

Do they say whether this statement is true or false - we train a new telescope on the skies, one that can see further than any before, and our conscious observation causes the instantaneous collapse of wave function in hitherto unseen galaxies.

 

[ronnie_bonigli]

I don’t understand the math of quantum theory, meaning I don’t properly understand the theory either, but that interpretation has always seemed a bit iffy.

Do they say whether this statement is true or false - we train a new telescope on the skies, one that can see further than any before, and our conscious observation causes the instantaneous collapse of wave function in hitherto unseen galaxies.

It gets a little complicated and controversial when you’re dealing with macroscopic objects, like a cat, say Schrodinger’s cat. But for quantum sized entities, things are much clearer. If you have a half hour and really what to learn the basic enigma, please read the two chapters from this web page about The Double Slit Experiment;

bottomlayer.com/bottom/reality/Chap1.html

bottomlayer.com/bottom/reality/chap2.html

I’ve read a lot of books about QM and the enigma of the modern version of the Double Slit Experiment over the years and this guy’s web site does an outstanding job of laying it out in non-technical terms. Wait until you get the the part about half way down Chapter 2 where it says “Here’s the scary part”, it will likely blow you away when you see the implications.

 

[inocente]

Thanks but I fear I misled you. I first saw the double slit in Richard Fenyman’s Six Easy Pieces. His lectures on QED, a theory he helped to develop, are also in an easy book. And this surprised me, I kind of understood every step in the math of the wider theory (or at least Penrose’s version of the math) but got completely lost in all the layers of abstraction, and so can’t claim full understanding.

What is iffy is the interpretation that conscious observation has any role to play. The example quoted was from a physicist (can’t remember the name) who scaled up Schrodinger’s paradox to include relativity and then some, putting the conscious observer in a whole new light (pardon the pun).

I tend to distrust interpretations of theories in science. There is a danger of hanging your hat on a particular worldview such as the Newtonian clockwork universe, which later turns out to be wrong, and of reading more into a theory than it actually says.

At heart I’m content to leave precise formulations alone, a view that definitely won’t win any awards in a philosophy thread. No one took me up on my question (#46) about whether faith in its most general and abstract form depends on words. I don’t think it does, we were built that way and then added the rationale later. Christ gave us the reason, Christ is the Word . To put it bluntly we evolved that way, it’s in our nature, and we are perhaps forever inexplicably far more than computers thank God.

 

[Leela]

I often see threads on religion forums on other sites along the lines of “You won’t find consciousness in the brain”, I really do, and they almost always break down into two camps, the Cartisian dualists and the reductive materialists. One camp thinks mind is independent of the brain and the other than it is solely a product of the brain.

But instead, the reality is it’s not a question of whether you will “find consciousness in the brain” (all conscious experience might very well be soley a product of the brain, though I’m not sure), the question is whether you will “find intellect in the brain”.

I don’t think you’ll find any thoughts by dissecting brains, but I also don’t think you can find a novel stored in a computer’s memory by taking apart a computer. If you destroy the computer, the novel (assuming that their are no other copies) is also destroyed. I think it is probably the same with human minds.

 

[ronnie_bonigli]

I tend to distrust interpretations of theories in science.

What else is there? You want to know what is the reality behind the formalism, i.e. the mathematical equations. Unless you want to say reality is made of mathematical equations (and some do say that). btw, I’m not sure which quantum interpretation is the true one, I just felt like putting that supercilious atheist a couple of posts back in his place, I hate when guys pretend they’re an expert in science or physics and then use that to look down on religious people, it’s very very tedious

 

[inocente]

I like your motivation.

What I was getting at is, e.g. we are taught basic electrics (p.d., current, resistance) by analogies to water running through pipes and rivers flowing downstream. Useful for learning, but every analogy is a tiny lie. Electrics don’t really work like that, it’s not the reality. Without trying to be Zen, reality just is what it is.

There are those who confidently proclaim that science is defective due to one of a variety of X factors, in most cases because all they have heard are analogies, interpretations and speculations, without ever learning the science. Atheists are not immune – Dawkins steps outside his field, invents the pseudoscience of memes, and then uses it to bash religion.

It’s how we’re made, you got to love us. But still not convinced by the OP thesis.

 

[inocente]

I don’t think you’ll find any thoughts by dissecting brains

The first part of the blog linked in your sig (Why Should We Love One Another?) was very interesting.

To me the NT is a treatise on deepening love. For the most part it does a bang-up job, even though it only has words, and words don’t really cut the mustard. Some of the narrative can only be described as revelation – suddenly transported to an unexpected new place, as if a door has been opened. Not spooky or supernatural, but a eureka moment, subjective and irrational but somehow real and true.

I agree with the blogger (tu?) that the foundation for love can’t be found in any philosophy, although I’m not so sure that it’s a project, a search toward a goal, even in a subjective sense.

Inexplicable love, indefinably magnificent, beyond self, as far as the east is from west. Hence for me God, not by proof but by a groan. Paul says all this much better than me. We know the text well but I like posting it from time to time and it’s on topic.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 Cor 13 NIV

 

[ronnie_bonigli]

I like your motivation.

What I was getting at is, e.g. we are taught basic electrics (p.d., current, resistance) by analogies to water running through pipes and rivers flowing downstream. Useful for learning, but every analogy is a tiny lie. Electrics don’t really work like that, it’s not the reality. Without trying to be Zen, reality just is what it is.

The thing is, something is really happening in the world, and we want to know what it is. Back to the double slit experiment, firing single electrons one at a time at the slits. Quantum physics tells us that as long as the electron remains in the quantum state it will travel as a wave and go through both slits at the same time. But if we make any attempt to gain knowledge of what is going on at the slits the quantum wavefunction for the electron collapses to a definite position and we find the electron now only passing through one slit. By our observation of what was happening at the slits we have caused a change in the state of the electron, and the interfence pattern on the screen beyond the slits is different than if we hadn’t made an observation, we caused physical reality to be different from what it would be just by making an observation. The question is; WHY does the human observation cause the quantum wavefunction for the electron collapses from a spread out wave to a particle at a definition position? There has to be some ***reality ***that explains this phenomenon, is it the Orthodox/Copenhagen explanation, or the Many Worlds explanation, or many the Pilot Wave explanation? I like to think we’ll know some day.

 

[inocente]

By our observation of what was happening at the slits we have caused a change in the state of the electron, and the interfence pattern on the screen beyond the slits is different than if we hadn’t made an observation

Yes and no. Any observation, at any point, will disturb the system, and we can never know what is going on without making an observation, therefore we can’t assume that we had anything to do with it.

The interpretation I like - Bohr’s sparse complementarity - may first need a bit of Zen ooom on your part. That’s not meant to assert that my brain is bigger than yours, which is improbable, it’s just a very different view.

It’s basically that classical thinking cannot be used with quantum mechanics. Took me a while to find a good explanation – go down to the numbered list if you don’t have time to read the whole article, number 12 being a key point.

Bohr thought of the atom as real. Atoms are neither heuristic nor logical constructions… What he did not believe was that the quantum mechanical formalism was true in the sense that it gave us a literal (‘pictorial’) rather than a symbolic representation of the quantum world.

plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/#4

 

[ronnie_bonigli]

Yes and no. Any observation, at any point, will disturb the system, and we can never know what is going on without making an observation, therefore we can’t assume that we had anything to do with it.

But my point is, Why does an observation disturb the system? It’s been show that the various methods of observing the system do not need to make a physical contact with it to cause the wavefunction collapse, it’s the mere act of someone gaining knowledge that causes the collapse. Imagine if a baseball was normally spread in space across a room and only collapsed to a specific baseball sized point in the room whenever someone bothered to look for where the baseball was, and it could be shown that that baseball had indeed been touching every corner of the room until that moment when someone decided to make an observation of where it is. You’d wonder why the baseball goes from touching every corner of the room to a specific point in the room just because someone looked for it. Why should merely looking for it cause the change in the baseball quantum state?

 

[inocente]

It’s been show that the various methods of observing the system do not need to make a physical contact with it to cause the wavefunction collapse,

Nope, can’t be done. Both we and the system are physical, we cannot make an observation supernaturally.

I figure you should have had five Zen moments reading Bohr’s interpretation and was going to write them up but then had my own ooom.

Let me lead you into the Light :heaven:. As I understand it, Schrodinger invented his cat as a reductio ad absurdum. Three more paradoxes – answer each before moving on to get the full effect of the punchline.

1. 
   *]From #81 - We train a new telescope on the skies, one that can see further than any before, and our conscious observation causes the instantaneous collapse of wave function in hitherto unseen galaxies.
   
   *]We set up the two slit experiment in a closed room and have a computer at the other side of the world record the results over the Internet. We never enter the room again, and only look at the results a month later. Does the wave function figure out that the results will eventually be observed and so collapse immediately, or does it see the computer as conscious, or does it wait a month?
   
   *]Did the wave function for the entire universe sit around for x years (oops, I meant days, well no I didn’t) after creation until the first life-form observed it?
   
   Now for the good bit, well I like it anyway. If wave-forms don’t collapse until we make an observation then why isn’t that a proof for the non-existence of God, since God is conscious and God sees all? (do you hear me shouting Out, Demons, Out?).

 

[Leela]

The first part of the blog linked in your sig (Why Should We Love One Another?) was very interesting.

Thanks!

 

[Moonstruck888]

We train a new telescope on the skies, one that can see further than any before, and our conscious observation causes the instantaneous collapse of wave function in hitherto unseen galaxies.

This is not me speaking as a scientist, just thinking out loud…

When we train our telescopes on far away Galaxies, we see them as they were a very long time ago. If the waveform collapsed instantly (not the galaxies have any waveform associated with them that is of any significance whatsoever), from what we see of the galaxy to the waveform collapsing, the maths in terms of light speed and time should still add up.

If we look at a galaxy a million light years away, we are seeing it as it was a million years ago, so if the waveform collapses instantaneously, it has, in a sense, still been a million years between the observation and the collapse.

 

[ronnie_bonigli]

This is not me speaking as a scientist, just thinking out loud…

When we train our telescopes on far away Galaxies, we see them as they were a very long time ago. If the waveform collapsed instantly (not the galaxies have any waveform associated with them that is of any significance whatsoever), from what we see of the galaxy to the waveform collapsing, the maths in terms of light speed and time should still add up.

If we look at a galaxy a million light years away, we are seeing it as it was a million years ago, so if the waveform collapses instantaneously, it has, in a sense, still been a million years between the observation and the collapse.

what the heck is a waveform collapse? it’s “wavefunction” or state vector, or quantum state

 

[inocente]

That may have been me. I’m doing audio work and my brain substituted wave-forms for wave functions on the last line of post #91.

 

[Moonstruck888]

what the heck is a waveform collapse? it’s “wavefunction” or state vector, or quantum state

Touché. My work is in psychoacoustics, and I make that third word error quite frequently.

I assume from the fact that you attacked my wording rather than my idea that this was the best you could find to disapprove of in it. I take that as a compliment.

Thank You…

 

[ronnie_bonigli]

yeah, you keep telling yourself those musings on “waveform collapses” were profound. whatever gets you through the day.

btw, Wheeler’s Delayed Choice Experiment has shown that our present observations can be the cause of what happened millions of years ago.

bottomlayer.com/bottom/basic_delayed_choice.htm

 

[Moonstruck888]

yeah, you keep telling yourself those musings on “waveform collapses” were profound. whatever gets you through the day.

You’re a bombastic idiot and this is a weak witted and pathetic attempt to adopt an attitude of superiority. Waveform / Wavefunction. Very easy switch for someone to make, especially when they deal with waveforms at work every day. I’m sure you make third word associations from time to time.

btw, Wheeler’s Delayed Choice Experiment has shown that our present observations can be the cause of what happened millions of years ago.

bottomlayer.com/bottom/basic_delayed_choice.htm

I’m not interested in that kind of metaphysically challenged pueudo scientific bunkum and I’m not interested in the inferiority complexes that cause the main moods of ronnie bonigli. QM is great for building semi conductors and LASER beams. It is useless at explaining the Universe.

 

[Moonstruck888]

“waveform collapses”

Actually, it’s frequently referred to as a waveform collapse. What a silly and pedantic person you are ronnie.

google.co.uk/#hl=en&source=hp&q=waveform+collapse&aq=f&aqi=g1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=4decbba4b4ffde8d

 

[ronnie_bonigli]

Actually, it’s frequently referred to as a waveform collapse. What a silly and pedantic person you are ronnie.

google.co.uk/#hl=en&source=hp&q=waveform+collapse&aq=f&aqi=g1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=4decbba4b4ffde8d

actually those people saying that are just more uninformed little fellas on messageboards

you seem angry, take a chill moment

and btw, John Wheeler was one of the most respected physicists of the 20th century, he didn’t deal in “metaphysically challenged pueudo scientific bunkum”