Wave functions and the real presence

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promethius said:
Incorrect application of the theory. For each quantum particle, there is a seperate probability function, which is why we have suspension when unmeasured. However, as we consider multiple quantum particles we have to consider the overlap of multiple probability functions. That is to say, the highest probability will become more and more regionalized to a smaller and smaller area of the function with each additional probability function we add into the mix. Thus for something MAYBE as large as a very small molecule, we may still have a probability function (existance in wave form), but anything larger than that is so restricted that it no longer follows the waveform of existance… the overwhelming nature of its overlapping fuctions determines that your bread will always be bread, no matter how long you leave it in suspension.

Probability functions only take hold when they are isolated or few in number
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Your presentation does not agree with what I read in Biocentrism by Robert Lanza (with a co-author I forget). He says that if the world had no observers, that the whole universe would be in an indeterminate probabilistive wave state. It almost seems like you do not deny this but are resorting to what is the likely collapse of wave functions for your position. But my thought experiment involved the unlikely and furthermore what a thing is likely to collapse to, even extremely likely to collapse to, does not make it that before the collapse occurs. Bread may be extremely likely to be formed when certain ingredients undergo certain processes. But that does not mean that during these processes it is already bread. Likewise, before the wave functions have collapsed, even if it is almost certain to collapse into a bread form, it is not bread. Perhaps you did not understand the special box in the thought experiment. I am not referring to bread simply laying on a table.

The latest double slit experiments also are difficult to explain without relying on the observer as the crucial variable since the quantum effect appears to be retroactive, ruling out some kind of communication between entangled particles unless the particles are able to foreknow what they will encounter in a future path.

Quantum effects have already been observed on the macroscopic scale, on the multi-molecular scale. In theory, quantum effects could prevent water from boiling. In fact the equivalent of this feat has already been experimentally achieved and scientist have compared the feat to preventing water from boiling even as it is continually heated. In theory, quantum effects can prevent a nuclear bomb from exploding. When one constantly observes particles, it has quantum effects – and it was this mechanism that resulted in the equivalent of preventing water from boiling. This is not a thought experiment. This has really happened.
 
I think it bears repeating here.
vz71 said:
Accidental properties aside, God does not exist in some flux state until observed.
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All of the theory and ‘observation’ are taking place in a universe that God transcends.
Any theory has little bearing on the existence of God, and likewise little bearing upon the form God chooses to be.
 
vz71 said:
I think it bears repeating here.

All of the theory and ‘observation’ are taking place in a universe that God transcends.
Any theory has little bearing on the existence of God, and likewise little bearing upon the form God chooses to be.
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This thread has nothing to do with the existence of God.
 
fosio said:
This thread has nothing to do with the existence of God.
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Just the ‘Real Presence’

I do not see how you can question the one without questioning the other.

If it is true that the bread and wine has truly become God, then any theory thereof that questions the existence of these species necessarily questions God.

When one makes the claim that God is simply a wave form until observation collapses it into some form, then one has placed God as simply another aspect of creation, and not God at all.
 
vz71 said:
Just the ‘Real Presence’

I do not see how you can question the one without questioning the other.
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I don’t believe in the Real Presence but as I mentioned I don’t see this as an actual problem for the Real Presence. (And if I did believe in it and found something that created a problem for it, I wouldn’t then decide to not believe in God; rather, I would decide not to believe in the Real Presence and retain my belief in God … I hope that even if you decide one day Catholicism is not true, that you would still choose to retain Christianity)

The reason I don’t see this as a problem for the Real Presence is that my understanding is that the doctrine says it is the flesh of Jesus only when the form of bread is truly there. If putting the bread in this special box decollapses the wave functions, making it no longer be bread, then the Real Presence would just cease at that point. The only interesting question to me is whether if taking it out of the box would then cause it to regain the Real Presence. If indeed these boxes make the Real Presence cease and such boxes one day bizarrely were sold on the street corner, then I would imagine your church would just advise anyone to not place the blessed bread in such boxes … though since there’s no reason to, I don’t see why there’d be a need. So there’s no practical problem and there’s also IMO no theroetical problem. There is only an interesting theoretical question and however that question is answered, I don’t see it affecting at all the credibility of the real presence.
 
Fosio wrote:
The reason I don’t see this as a problem for the Real Presence is that my understanding is that the doctrine says it is the flesh of Jesus only when the form of bread is truly there.
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No, not quite so. As a preceding poster has already remarked, the Church differentiates between ‘substance’ and ‘accidents’. The accidents, the physical features of bread, anything belonging to the physical realm, are not changed by the Priest performing consecration. What is changed is entirely on a spiritual level - the substance, which cannot be perceived by the senses and hence is not part of the physical world, hence not influenced by physical conditions like the laws(or the lack of laws) of quantum mechanics.
  • Well, to be sure one must be careful of not falling into heresy. The Church strongly abhors a merely spiritual interpretation. But this is to affirm that something much more essential and powerful is happening here than a blunt dealing with symbols. However, the distinction between accidents and substance was made to clarify that, obviously, the change the bread undergoes, though entirely real, is of another nature than the physical: after all, the congregation does not practise cannibalism.
Fosio wrote:
He says that if the world had no observers, that the whole universe would be in an indeterminate probabilistive wave state.
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This does not mean, however, that this should depend on ‘consciousness’ as an agent leading to the breakdown of the curve. For example, if you do micro-scale observations, it will be the light particles cast by your miscroscope(you need them to actually see what is happening) that will come into interaction with the wave and thus lead to its breakdown into particles. Well, I’m sure this has already been said by another one here. - I just want to make sure due proportions are kept. Quantum mechanics does not make rid of the causal principle. The question that remains, however, is whether the position the particles drop into can ever be determined by some variables(‘hidden variables’ theory that Einstein embraced) or is always a purely random event in defiance of the causal principle(the Copenhagen Intperpretation).
 
TheWhim said:
The question that remains, however, is whether the position the particles drop into can ever be determined by some variables(‘hidden variables’ theory that Einstein embraced) or is always a purely random event in defiance of the causal principle(the Copenhagen Intperpretation).
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My understanding is that the latest experiments have ruled out the hidden variables interpretation. For example, the theory that the polarizer is contaminated the results has been ruled out in some experiments. The entanglement effects seem to be retroactively applied so the theory that one entangled particle somehow communicates with the other has also been ruled out.
 
 
The mathematics of quantum mechanics makes accurate predictions, but the philosophy of quantum mechanics is complete nonsense, as the observations made in this thread point out.

However, if you are looking for a conflict between quantum mechanics and the Catholic dogma of the Real Presence, you don’t have to look any further than the Fock superposition of subatomic particles in quantum field theory (see here). There is no way to distinguish between the subatomic particles that make up a piece of consecrated host from the rest of the subatomic particles in the universe, because they are all in a global symmetric (or anti-symmetric) superposition. So when the priest consecrates the Eucharist, he is actually consecrating the entire universe equally. God is everywhere!
 
promethius said:
For each quantum particle, there is a seperate probability function, which is why we have suspension when unmeasured.
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There is only one wave/probability function for an entire quantum mechanical system. Each particle in the system contributes dimensions to the multi-dimensional space over which that one wave function is defined. Typically, each particle contributes three spatial dimensions as well as a discrete intrinsic spin component.
 
fosio said:
Your presentation does not agree with what I read in Biocentrism by Robert Lanza (with a co-author I forget).
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Biocentrism (see here) is a completely wacky theory, even when compared to the general lunacy of quantum mechanics. It’s better to get your science from Physical Review A, not Discover magazine (see here).

Wave function collapse as a physical process is no longer in vogue as a physics theory. The physical aspects are now best understood by the process of decoherence (see here), while the mathematical aspects are mostly explained by the consistent histories interpretation (see here).

Seventy years of hand-waving about measurement collapsing the wave function without ever explaining what a measurement was or even how the mechanism of wave function collapse could occur in a manner consistent with relativity is more than enough time wasted.
 
Just_Lurking said:
Biocentrism (see here) is a completely wacky theory, even when compared to the general lunacy of quantum mechanics. It’s better to get your science from Physical Review A, not Discover magazine (see here).
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When I referred to “Biocentrism:…” I was refering not to an article in some magazine or journal, but a book, which book, if you had read would have elicited cognizance in you of peer-reviewed articles in journals which take a biocentric position.
Wave function collapse as a physical process is no longer in vogue as a physics theory. The physical aspects are now best understood by the process of decoherence (see here), while the mathematical aspects are mostly explained by the consistent histories interpretation (see here).
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Mostly explained is not good enough. Biocentrism does a better job.

The issue you seem to have is that you are either ignorant of biocentrism or you are skeptical of the notion that fundamental laws of the world may include as part of their operation, involvement of emergent features of the world. Fundamental physical entities need not be governed by laws that operate solely on such entities. It is logically possible for there to be fundamentals laws that relate fundamental physical entities to emergent physical properties, for example, in directing the behavior of quantum particles on the basis of the relation they bear to conscious minds. Such laws would be algorithmically sound and any skepticism to them specifically would be grounded in prejudice, not science. The clinging to tradition is a problem which scientists are not immune to.
 
fosio said:
Mostly explained is not good enough. Biocentrism does a better job.
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I’m not aware of any articles about Biocentrism in any peer-reviewed physics journal.

What formula does Biocentrism use for the collapse of the wave function caused by biological observation?
 
Just_Lurking said:
I’m not aware of any articles about Biocentrism in any peer-reviewed physics journal.

What formula does Biocentrism use for the collapse of the wave function caused by biological observation?
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You are assuming one needs numbers for something to be a law of nature, but your assumption does not itself use numbers. A law must be logical, not necessarily numerical. Mathematics is more than about numbers. Much of mathematics does not use numbers.

The reason you are not aware of any articles is b/c you are not aware of them. If you pick up the book, the articles and journals are mentioned therein.
 
fosio said:
You are assuming one needs numbers for something to be a law of nature, but your assumption does not itself use numbers. A law must be logical, not necessarily numerical. Mathematics is more than about numbers. Much of mathematics does not use numbers.
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Quantum mechanics without numbers is new age nonsense, not physics.

I have to agree with John S. Bell here as to just how ridiculous Biocentrism is. From Bell’s Quantum Mechanics for Cosmologists, reprinted in Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics:

It would seem that the theory is exclusively concerned with ‘results of measurement’ and has nothing to say about anything else. When the ‘system’ in question is the whole world where is the ‘measurer’ to be found? Inside, rather than outside, presumably. What exactly qualifies some subsystems to play this role? Was the world wave function waiting to jump for thousands of millions of years until a single-celled living creature appeared? Or did it have to wait a little longer for some more highly qualified measurer - with a Ph.D.? If the theory is to apply to anything but idealized laboratory operations, are we not obliged to admit that more or less ‘measurement-like’ processes are going on more or less all the time more or less everywhere? Is there ever then a moment when there is no jumping and the Schrodinger equations applies?

The concept of ‘measurement’ becomes so fuzzy on reflection that it is quite surprising to have it appearing in physical theory at the most fundamental level.
…

The problem is this: quantum mechanics is fundamentally about ‘observations’. It necessarily divides the world into two parts, a part which is observed and a part which does the observing. The results depend in detail on just how this division is made, but no definite prescription for it is given. All that we have is a recipe which, because of practical human limitations, is sufficiently unambiguous for practical purposes. So we may ask with Stapp: ‘How can a theory which is fundamentally a procedure by which gross macroscopic creatures, such as human beings, calculate predicted probabilities of what they will observe under macroscopically specified circumstances ever be claimed to be a complete description of physical reality?’. Rosenfeld makes the point with equal eloquence: ‘… the human observer, whom we have been at pains to keep out of the picture, seems irresistibly to intrude into it, since after all the macroscopic character of the measuring apparatus is imposed by the macroscopic structure of the sense organs and the brain. It thus looks as if the mode of description of quantum theory would indeed fall short of ideal perfection to the extend that it is cut to the measure of man.’
 
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