Why quantum uncertainty?

[Layp3rs0n]

I have been pondering why God has designed the universe in such a way that particles exist in two states unti they are observed. Why do particles, created by God, react to human observation?

A theory of mine: God brought all the animals before Adam, and whatever he named them, that was what they were called. Obviously, the Bible speaks in certain literary terms, but we do know that Adam is special as the race, in Christ, acts as a bridge to the Divine. Adam was created special, a bridge of sorts begore the fall. We know he was at least set over lord of the world. In biblical terms, a things name is essential to its character. A name signifies what something is. So, in naming the animals, in some way, Adam may have assisted in the creation. In someway, Adam the First Man and representitive of the entire race, helped God. Is this fitting with quantum uncertainty? That particles exist in two states before they are observed by men? Like the universe, made for man, reacts to him? (Is any of this contrary to Catholic Teaching?)

 

[JB_Dugan]

I doubt it that it is contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church.

But to answer your question: "Why do particles, created by God, react to human observation? " …I would have to use another question…

“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it…does it really make a sound?”

 

[Beryllos]

Is this fitting with quantum uncertainty? That particles exist in two states before they are observed by men? Like the universe, made for man, reacts to him?

This is a common misunderstanding of quantum mechanics. Quantum states are not selected or restricted according to human awareness or knowing. Rather they are selected or restricted by their physical interactions with matter and radiation. When physicists say the quantum state was affected by “observation,” that implies some physical interaction. The observation might be accomplished by, for example, shining a light on the system, applying a magnetic field, placing a polarizer in the path, or many other methods. Furthermore, in the absence of such a physical interaction, we cannot detect, affect, or know anything about the quantum state.

 

[Partinobodycula]

This is a common misunderstanding of quantum mechanics. Quantum states are not selected or restricted according to human awareness or knowing. Rather they are selected or restricted by their physical interactions with matter and radiation.

Beryllos, I do believe that you have replaced one common misunderstanding of quantum mechanics, with another common misunderstanding of quantum mechanics. The mistake that you make is with the idea that interaction is the cause of decoherence, it’s not, of this much we can be certain. There is an ongoing debate about when decoherence occurs, and what causes it, but one thing is clear, interaction alone does not cause decoherence. The evidence of this fact is apparent in any of the myriad double slit experiments in which particles are passed through polarizers, or splitters, or reflected off of mirrors without introducing decoherence. It is possible to interact with a particle in any number of ways without causing the wave function to collapse. What seems to be the determining factor is that information about the state of the system, must be lost to the environment. This can be defined in any number of ways, be it entropy, or heat loss, or irreversibility. But there would appear to be at least a two step process, there must be an interaction, and the interaction must transfer information about the state of the system, into the environment. Interaction alone won’t do it, there must be a loss of information into the environment.

Now when it comes to the necessity of a conscious observer, we run into the classic Catch-22 situation. For example let’s take the Schrodinger’s cat thought experiment. Before we open the box we have no idea as to whether the cat is alive or dead. It could be argued quite logically that the environment within the box is itself sufficient to cause the wave function to collapse, and for the cat to be either alive or dead, but not both. It may well be true, that the environment within the box can itself act as an observer, be it the cat, or a flea on the cat, or the air molecules in the box, or even a single stray particle. Any of these may be sufficient to act as an observer. The problem is that we can’t know if an interaction within the box has collapsed the state of the cat, until we somehow look inside the box. At which point we become an observer ourselves, and any information about the state of the cat prior to when we looked inside the box, is lost. So although it may not be necessary for a conscious observer to be present to collapse the wave function, there’s no way to prove it. And thus we have a measurement problem. You can’t know the state of a system, without somehow observing the system.

Strangely enough, it’s not even possible for me to prove that anything other than myself is capable of collapsing the wave function. You could look inside the box with the cat and proclaim that the cat is indeed dead, but the only way for me to be certain of this, is to look inside the box myself. You may very well have collapsed the wave function, but there is no way for me to know this, and thus for me, there is no way to know when the wave function actually collapsed, when you looked, or when I looked. Because of this Catch-22 it can never be stated unequivocally that any observer other than myself is capable of collapsing the wave function. It is indeed possible that we live in an observer created reality, and that the only undeniable observer, is me.

Now I didn’t say all of this to try to educate anyone on the subtilties of quantum mechanics, or to advocate for solipsism. But rather I wanted to address the question posited by the OP as to why God would create a world with such an underlying state of quantum uncertainty. It would seem to me, that if you wanted to create a world in which there truly was free will, then at some point you must break the chain of cause and effect. If everything that happens is determined by the preceding conditions, then free will is impossible. The state of the system now, will determine the state of the system at every point in the future. To break this chain you must introduce uncertainty. In most basic systems, the ultimate choice will simply appear to be random, with no discernible cause as to why one state was chosen over another. But when it comes to a conscious observer, such quantum uncertainty may give just enough flexibility to allow free will to assert itself. It may be that quantum uncertainty is the mechanism by which God affords man the characteristic of free will. In some sense, God has ceded some control of His creation, to the creation itself.

This is absolute and total conjecture though. There may indeed be no such thing as free will. But if there is, quantum uncertainty may be a glimpse into just how God managed to pull this feat off.

 

[Beryllos]

Partinobodycula, thanks for that explanation, and the interesting conjecture that quantum uncertainty ties into free will.

I have a problem with the argument that a conscious observer collapses the wave function. In the material world, that is, the world governed by the laws of nature, the conscious observer is simply an assemblage of particles and fields. The cat in a box is another assemblage of particles and fields. Every other thing in the universe is an assemblage of particles and fields.

How could consciousness influence the physical state of particles and fields? Does the material body of a conscious being have a special state of its particles and fields that somehow alerts the cat to the presence of a conscious observer, so that it’s wavefunction may obligingly collapse? I don’t think it does. At the level of physics, your particles and fields are fairly ordinary. The equations do not have a term corresponding to consciousness.

 

[Partinobodycula]

I have a problem with the argument that a conscious observer collapses the wave function.

To be perfectly honest with you I don’t buy the idea that the conscious observer collapses the wave function either, but none-the-less it can’t be completely ruled out. But between you and me, I doubt it. I think that any interaction that transfers information about the state of the system to the environment, be it through entropy, or heat transfer, or phase change, or whatever, will collapse the wave function. I think that it’s really just that simple and straight forward. No hocus pocus. No conscious observer necessary.

The thing that affects the whole chain of cause and effect though, is the fact that the collapse, as far as we can tell, is completely random. There’s no way to predict for example where on the screen an electron fired from an emitter will be detected. The best that we can do is give the probability of the particle being detected at any given point. This is something that Einstein didn’t much care for. Famously saying that God doesn’t play dice with the universe. But without this fundamental characteristic of uncertainty it would be difficult to argue that the universe isn’t completely deterministic. Given sufficient information about the initial conditions, all future outcomes should be totally predictable. This may still turn out to be the case. But for now, uncertainty allows us to argue that free will is perhaps, at least possible, and uncertainty is the mechanism by which it is expressed.

It is however difficult to see how a conscious observer could have any effect on the seemingly random collapse of the wave function, but having no idea as to what actually determines the collapse, people can and do posit all manner of determining factors, including the conscious mind. Most day to day collapses are, as far as we can tell, completely random, but the human brain might be sufficiently complex as to allow the conscious mind to influence its behavior at the quantum level, and thus exercise some degree of free will, at least over a persons own thoughts and actions. If this is not the case then it’s difficult to see how God could hold men accountable for them.

As I said in my last post, this is absolute and total conjecture, and probably a load of hooey. But the OP wondered why God would create a world with such underlying uncertainty. The only reason that I can think of, is that uncertainty is necessary to allow for free will. But the truth is that there probably is no God, and at some point science will discover some perfectly simple explanation for the whole idea of uncertainty. But even then the debate about free will, predetermination, and the existence of God will continue unabated, and I will continue to feel free to change my opinion at any time. At least I think that I’m free to change it.

 

[Brandon_Cal]

This is an interesting topic! Thanks. I just wanted to save this to my subscription folder to follow it in the future. One small quibble though: You folks aren’t talking about Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, rather the Observer Effect. The former states that as the precision in one’s measurement of a particle’s location is enhanced the precision in the measurement of its momentum is diminished (and vice versa). Hence the old physicist’s joke: “A cop pulls Heisenberg over for speeding and says to him ‘Have you any idea how fast you were going!?’ to which Heisenberg responds: ‘No, but I know where I am.’”

Beryllos gave a pretty good explanation of what the Observer Effect entails. It’s an inherent property of all measurements not because human, sentient observation somehow affects reality, rather the means by which we measure physical phenomena involve disrupting the natural behavior of such in order to detect them.

I’ll be sure to come back in a couple weeks to follow through with this thread. I’m leaving for vacation with my better half tomorrow morning so I won’t be around to participate.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Now when it comes to the necessity of a conscious observer, we run into the classic Catch-22 situation. For example let’s take the Schrodinger’s cat thought experiment. Before we open the box we have no idea as to whether the cat is alive or dead. It could be argued quite logically that the environment within the box is itself sufficient to cause the wave function to collapse, and for the cat to be either alive or dead, but not both. It may well be true, that the environment within the box can itself act as an observer, be it the cat, or a flea on the cat, or the air molecules in the box, or even a single stray particle. Any of these may be sufficient to act as an observer. The problem is that we can’t know if an interaction within the box has collapsed the state of the cat, until we somehow look inside the box. At which point we become an observer ourselves, and any information about the state of the cat prior to when we looked inside the box, is lost. So although it may not be necessary for a conscious observer to be present to collapse the wave function, there’s no way to prove it. And thus we have a measurement problem. You can’t know the state of a system, without somehow observing the system.

This doesn’t seem to me to be the mere fact of observation but the fact the observer “opened the box”, and in doing so, may have caused the wave function to collapse. It’s the action the observer takes, not the mere fact the observer observed.

I don’t see much difference between the old magician’s act where he puts three different coloured balls under cups and then gets you to mix them up. Somehow he always knows what the outcomes going to be when he picks up the correct cup first time, but you don’t as the observer. You don’t know until he picks up the cup, or “opens the box”.

God’s in the position of the magician.

However, in the macro world, all these “unknowable” quantum states don’t seem to make much difference. We haven’t got milk men anymore, but if we did, it would be a fair guess that if I opened the front door tomorrow, the milk bottles would be sitting on the steps, as ordered. If all the hoohaa about the quantum uncertainty was all it is cracked up to be, I wouldn’t even know if the milkman existed tomorrow, let alone if my milk order was going to be there.

 

[Coolhandlukeboy]

But for now, uncertainty allows us to argue that free will is perhaps, at least possible, and uncertainty is the mechanism by which it is expressed.

I cannot pretend to be very good at Quantum Mechanics or its theories, however, why would this be even necessary? Why would free will be empirically observable and needed to be defended as such? [edit: by this I mean free will itself, not its chosen effects, which are obviously observable]

I mean I get predicting things within physics, but why would free will be called into question?

I mean I do read up on Quantum Mechanics as much as possible, I just never saw the connection.

 

[Partinobodycula]

One small quibble though: You folks aren’t talking about Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, rather the Observer Effect.

Well, I’m sort of combining the two ideas, because in essence they’re intimately related. The Observer Effect proposes that the innate uncertainty within a system collapses only when the system interacts with an observer. This seems to be true enough, but the argument then becomes, well what constitutes an observer? It would seem that anything at all that interacts with the system is a potential observer, capable of collapsing the wave function. But some would argue that the wave function collapses only when the interaction includes a “conscious” observer. This idea of “consciousness” seems to be a bit of a vague and unnecessary complication, but can’t be ruled out due to the measurement problem. The measurement problem essentially holds that you can’t know, with absolute certainty, whether the wave function has indeed collapsed, without somehow interacting with the system, and gaining information about it. To know if the wave function has collapsed, you have to “look” at it, thereby entangling yourself with the system such that you can never be completely certain whether it was the interaction that caused the collapse, or you, the conscious observer. Thus we have an intimate connection between innate uncertainty, and the conscious observer.

So it may be that we do not live in a universe that is completely deterministic. There appears to be an underlying foundation of uncertainty. The role that you, I, or God plays in the unfolding of this universe is debatable. It may still turn out to be that everything is fixed and predetermined, or it may be that we the observer have some measure of free will. We may be able to assert some degree of control, if only over our own thoughts and actions. Which leads interestingly enough to the idea raised by Bob Crowley in post #8.

However, in the macro world, all these “unknowable” quantum states don’t seem to make much difference.

This observation of the seeming inevitability of outcomes, leads to a fascinating consequence in a system with even an apparently insignificant degree of uncertainty. In fluid mechanics if you try to model the behavior of a small number of particles within a system, the initial uncertainty inherent within the individual particles causes the accuracy of the model to fall off rapidly beyond a certain point. This is known as the Butterfly Effect. Even small variations in the initial conditions lead to huge discrepancies in outcomes. In a system with a small number of particles you can’t predict the final state based upon the initial conditions, due to the minute uncertainty inherent in the particles.

But if you increase the number of particles in the system, the model’s ability to predict future outcomes increases exponentially. Thus supercomputers can model the flow of fluids and gasses in mechanical systems, and rivers, and oceans, and in the atmosphere, and galaxies. You still can’t predict the movement of each individual particle within the system, they’re still too strongly influenced by uncertainty, but you can quite accurately predict the behavior of the system as a whole. Complex systems are predictable, even if their individual constituents aren’t. You can’t predict at the outset which particle will end up at a certain position, but you can be quite certain that one of them will.

If we apply this to your milk man analogy. You may very well be able to predict the appearance of the milk bottles on the porch in the morning, but could you predict the exact minute at which those milk bottles would appear? The exact second? What about the milk man himself? Could you predict who it would be? What about days when he’s sick, or on vacation, or must attend the funeral of a relative? The appearance of the milk bottles is more predictable, than is the minutiae about how the bottles get there. So in the big picture many things look completely predictable, but down on the scale of the individual there may be room for free will.

But how would one reconcile God’s omniscience, His ability to know the future, with our free will. It may be much the same as our computer model. God knows what will happen. He can foresee wars, and famines, and untold details about the unfolding of history. He may know that certain events will occur in your life, for they are inevitable. Like a drop of water caught in the gulf stream, its path across the ocean may be determined, but there is none-the-less a degree of uncertainty inherent within the drop’s path. For the drop of water its choices may be random. But for individuals the path as a whole may be set, but the individual may still have the free will to choose how to respond within that path, and thus alter to some small degree, the path itself. You may not be able to escape the path entirely, but you may be able to have some small influence upon it, and small influences can have seemingly significant effects. Not significant as far as the system as a whole is concerned for it proceeds unaffected, but for the individual, the effects can be life altering. The future may be fixed. The outcome set. But the details may yet to be determined. The final strokes of the artist’s brush may yet to be applied.

Again I reiterate, complete and total conjecture on my part. Idiocy is not out of the question, and I feel free to change my mind at any time. (And often do) I likewise afford you the same freedom.

 

[Partinobodycula]

Why would free will be empirically observable and needed to be defended as such?

The problem is that free will may not be as readily apparent as it at first appears. There is no consensus about whether men do, or do not, possess it. Determinism holds that if the preconditions are known, then the outcome is inevitable. Nothing else could possibly happen, and everything is a simple matter of cause and effect. Thus there is no such thing as free will. Technically, there is no such thing as empirically observable free will, only apparently observable free will. What you may see as free will, others may see as no more than the intricate interaction of preconditions giving only the appearance of free will, not free will itself. While still others may argue that if God knows everything that will happen, then what will happen is fixed and predetermined. Therefore free will is only an illusion. I for one do not know, but I am drawn like many others to ponder the question.

What I have tried to do is define a way by which free will is both physically possible within the known laws of quantum mechanics, and philosophically allowable within the doctrines of Catholicism. It’s a very delicate balance to strike, and I could never hope to please everyone. But I’m not trying to convince people, just trying to illicit their natural curiosity. The rest is up to them.

 

[Good_Fella]

The problem is that free will may not be as readily apparent as it at first appears. There is no consensus about whether men do, or do not, possess it. Determinism holds that if the preconditions are known, then the outcome is inevitable. Nothing else could possibly happen, and everything is a simple matter of cause and effect. Thus there is no such thing as free will. Technically, there is no such thing as empirically observable free will, only apparently observable free will. What you may see as free will, others may see as no more than the intricate interaction of preconditions giving only the appearance of free will, not free will itself. While still others may argue that if God knows everything that will happen, then what will happen is fixed and predetermined. Therefore free will is only an illusion. I for one do not know, but I am drawn like many others to ponder the question.

What I have tried to do is define a way by which free will is both physically possible within the known laws of quantum mechanics, and philosophically allowable within the doctrines of Catholicism. It’s a very delicate balance to strike, and I could never hope to please everyone. But I’m not trying to convince people, just trying to illicit their natural curiosity. The rest is up to them.

I believe environmental preconditions do in fact affect the human will rather than determine what people choose to do. When it comes to making an important decision, people normally act on persuasion which presupposes the autonomous freedom to act. If for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given those conditions, nothing else could happen, then how do we explain resistance? What’s the point of being able to resist if ultimately we can’t? .

PAX
:heaven:

 

[Bob_Crowley]

If we apply this to your milk man analogy. You may very well be able to predict the appearance of the milk bottles on the porch in the morning, but could you predict the exact minute at which those milk bottles would appear? The exact second? What about the milk man himself? Could you predict who it would be? What about days when he’s sick, or on vacation, or must attend the funeral of a relative? The appearance of the milk bottles is more predictable, than is the minutiae about how the bottles get there. So in the big picture many things look completely predictable, but down on the scale of the individual there may be room for free will.

But how would one reconcile God’s omniscience, His ability to know the future, with our free will. It may be much the same as our computer model. God knows what will happen. He can foresee wars, and famines, and untold details about the unfolding of history. He may know that certain events will occur in your life, for they are inevitable. Like a drop of water caught in the gulf stream, its path across the ocean may be determined, but there is none-the-less a degree of uncertainty inherent within the drop’s path. For the drop of water its choices may be random. But for individuals the path as a whole may be set, but the individual may still have the free will to choose how to respond within that path, and thus alter to some small degree, the path itself. You may not be able to escape the path entirely, but you may be able to have some small influence upon it, and small influences can have seemingly significant effects. Not significant as far as the system as a whole is concerned for it proceeds unaffected, but for the individual, the effects can be life altering. The future may be fixed. The outcome set. But the details may yet to be determined. The final strokes of the artist’s brush may yet to be applied.

Again I reiterate, complete and total conjecture on my part. Idiocy is not out of the question, and I feel free to change my mind at any time. (And often do) I likewise afford you the same freedom.

I accept your point about not knowing the exact details of the milkman’s visit, or the time the milk will arrive, or even those odd occasions when there’s a hiccup and he doesn’t get there.

But the difference between our observation and that of God is that the future is like a map to Him. He can see the map from any point, including future choices. And if he wants to He can tell us some of those outcomes before they happen.

I’ll give you an example from personal experience. I’ve quoted it before, but I’ll put it in again.

I had an old (Presbyterian ex. Methodist) pastor who was very wise and also prophetic, if discouraging. At one point towards the end of his life (January 1992), he said “I think you’ll be doing a cleaning job for a while. You won’t like it much, and you won’t be doing it for long, but I think the Lord will just want you to hear about a ghost.”

Now I thought it was silly at the time, but in 2006, nearly 15 years later, I did a cleaning job for about 4 months, didn’t like it much, and heard about a ghost. Sometime in 2010 I happened upon the only Australian priest I’ve seen on this forum, and he just happened to be located in the very same parish as the “ghost”. So via the email facility afforded by the forum, we had a brief exchange of emails, and he promised to have a mass said for the ghost (a former manager who committed suicide in the store I was cleaning, sometime back in the 1960’s).

So I assume that’s why the Lord wanted me to hear about a ghost viz. to get a mass said for a suicide. There’s an element of God’s will there, but there’s also the fact that this peculiar prediction happened.

Now there was no way the pastor could have foreseen that himself. The devil can’t see the future, so the only way the pastor could know was because God was telling him.

There were no details given about the date however, and I’d more or less forgotten about the prediction anyway, until it happened. Yet there it was.

So despite all my “free will” choices in the 15 years from the time the prediction was made, up until the time the event occurred, God could still say what was going to happen. I think He sees the future like a map, so all the question of quantum uncertainty is irrelevant in His case. It’s also why I think time travel into the past will never occur. I’m pretty sure God has so designed the universe so it can’t happen, otherwise we’d be trying to change the outcomes of past decisions.

Quantum uncertainty may have some limiting influence our OUR ability to forecast the future. But I don’t think it is significant. I think the beating of a butterfly’s wings will remain just that - virtually insignificant.

 

[Partinobodycula]

I think the beating of a butterfly’s wings will remain just that - virtually insignificant.

Virtually insignificant to you and I, but vitally important to the butterfly.

There is a point, where even the virtually insignificant, makes a difference. Perhaps uncertainty does not give men the ability to change the world, only the ability to change themselves.

 

[fisherman_carl]

I have been pondering why God has designed the universe in such a way that particles exist in two states unti they are observed. Why do particles, created by God, react to human observation?

I’m not sure what you are referring to. However, I do know of the phenomenon where 2 photons take on opposite charge to each other no matter how far apart they are, indicating that perhaps the information was instantaneous.

But, going back to your original question. If anything something changing state because it is observed would just mean the universe is more complicated than we thought. Which leads even more credence to a designer.

The only thing I know of that changes states because it is observed is sentient beings (or sentient beings behind the wheel so to speak).