Does wave collapse in quantum physics require consciousness?[A theory]

[DuckTapeFileMan]

How am I misrepresenting those ideas?

 

[Ashles]

How am I misrepresenting those ideas?

From my link:

While there are a very few people who claim that a "consciousness" is necessary to "observe" something in a quantum mechanical sense, practically no physicists believe this.

Instead, all that is needed to be counted as an "observer" is something that is much more complicated than the object which is being observed. A speck of dust could act as an observer to a photon, for example; you don't need a consciousness.

Then you write:

this is my point. There has to be an "interacting with the environment", and that is where conscious beings live.

But as was stated in the link consciousness is irrelevent to the interaction. Assuming that was what you meant by "that is where conscious beings live".

If it wasn't then I don't even understand what you were saying.

But anyway, are we agreed that consciousness is not required for interaction?

And if not, do you agree that your theory then disagrees with prety much all current thinking about Quantum Mechanics?

 

[DuckTapeFileMan]

But anyway, are we agreed that consciousness is not required for interaction?

well, I don't know if I agree, I am just following the argument of my theory through.
I really don't know whether consciousness is required or not.



In my theory
the particlewave interacts with a large particle(from your link)
and is thus collapsed

this must in turn have an effect on the larger particle(surely?)

then this effect can have an effect on the rest of the Universe as in the butterfly effect.



I assumed the quote from your link was considered a fact and was not someone's theory.

 

[Dredred]

DuckTapeFileMan, I think the question that you asked in the subjectline of this thread "Does wave collapse in quantum physics require consciousness?" has been very well answered by know. I'm still curious about two other things you have stated, namely that flies can think, and that they have free will. Could elaborate on that please? To me those ideas are quite revolutionary.

 

[Ashles]

well, I don't know if I agree, I am just following the argument of my theory through.
I really don't know whether consciousness is required or not.


In my theory
the particlewave interacts with a large particle(from your link)
and is thus collapsed

this must in turn have an effect on the larger particle(surely?)

then this effect can have an effect on the rest of the Universe as in the butterfly effect.

The effect it has on the world is already described very well by Quantum Physics.

Please explain how Chaos theory is relevant to your theory?

And what happened to the involvement of organisms?

I assumed the quote from your link was considered a fact and was not someone's theory.

It is a theory, but a massive amount of evidence backs it up.

Again you really need to read information about the scientific meaning of the word 'theory'.
It doesn't just mean any old thing someone randomly thought of.

 

[drkitten]

In my theory
the particlewave interacts with a large particle(from your link)
and is thus collapsed

this must in turn have an effect on the larger particle(surely?)

then this effect can have an effect on the rest of the Universe as in the butterfly effect.

Doesn't follow. Specifically, the second doesn't follow from the first, and the third wouldn't follow from the second.

"Chaotic" behavior as typified by the butterfly effect is actually rather rare in real systems, which is part of why it took several thousand years before people started serious study of it. Most systems are stable and to some degree self-regulating, so that a minor change in the system will not affect the overall system to a measurable degree. Throwing a rock into the ocean will not affect the sea level, nor will it even produce a persistant change in the waves. Similarly, if you swallow a gnat, there will be much more of an effect on the gnat than on you.

And, of course, the only way that something can have an effect on something else is if the systems are in some way connected. Even taking the "butterfly effect" seriously, a butterfly flapping its wings in Kenya could not affect weather patterns on Mars, because there is no atmosphere between the two to carry the disturbance.

 

[DuckTapeFileMan]

The butterfly effect, I took to mean


the inability to make long range forcasts due to the amount of noise(butterflys) in a system.

As far as I was aware it didn't really have anything to do with huricanes, that was just an extreem example.

As for mars, that may be true or it may not be, that is why I said "world" in the opening post.

 

[jmercer]

The butterfly effect, I took to mean


the inability to make long range forcasts due to the amount of noise(butterflys) in a system.

As far as I was aware it didn't really have anything to do with huricanes, that was just an extreem example.

As for mars, that may be true or it may not be, that is why I said "world" in the opening post.

Regarding long-range forcast difficulty - the problem isn't noise in the system, it's the complexity of the system itself. We simply don't have enough data (and possibly enough computing horsepower) to model the information well enough to provide rock-solid predictions. However, long-range weather forcasting (NOT climatology!) has come a long way, and is substantally accurate as compared to even a decade ago.

What Dr K and Ashles (and others) have said is absolutely correct. I'd like to add a bit more to it, if I may.

There is an incredible amount of mass held in the atmosphere, even though it's mostly gases and microscopic particles... these items are subject to Newton's laws just like any matter. The amount of energy required to create a hurricane, in example, is enormous, and requires an incredibly powerful source. Something huge, something on the order of... the Sun and the spin of the entire Earth, working together.

If a butterfly can generate a hurricane, then we're all doomed.

The bottom line is that the bigger the effect, the bigger the source. Entropy exists, and refuses to be ignored.

Regarding Mars - there's no physical connection. None. So it's self-evident that an event in our atmosphere would not have any impact - no matter how slight - on Mars.

 

[DuckTapeFileMan]

That's not strictly true anymore about mars, as there is a little remote control vehicle there and that would have the same effect.

 

[jmercer]

That's not strictly true anymore about mars, as there is a little remote control vehicle there and that would have the same effect.

Uh... ooooohkaaaayy... DTFM, mind telling me how an independently running controlled robot connects the Earth and Mars in any way other than a virtual one?

There are martian meteorites on Earth... does that mean a zephyr on Mars can start a tornado in Kansas?

 

[Pragmatist]

It is said that observation collapses wave functions for atomic particles.

Is consciousness necessary for observation to take place?
Can a camera without film "observe you"


Theory

That activity at the subatomic level can be symbolically represented at the macroscopic level.

For example a street scene or a flock of birds in the sky or a beach with waves crashing on it.

This "representation" could be on the other side of the world but could then be observed via a conscious being(even a fly) and so collapse the uncertainty wave function activity on the other side of the world.

In this theory the macro-scopic world becomes a theater for the subatomic world.
This sets up an interaction between the microscopic(sub-atomic)and the macroscopic worlds.

In this theory the pre-conscious universe had no wittnesses and so these wave functions couldn't collapse, instead of collapsing many other Universes were created.
When the first conscious(meaning biological being with freewill) came into being then wave functions were able to be collapse and there was a relationship between the microscopic and the macroscopic.

In this theory any part of the subatomic Universe may be acted out in any other part of the Universe, how ever far away. This may be at odds with Einstein's speed of light restriction, you may think, but this acting out is brought to the you via entanglement which doesn't involve relativity(IIRC or as far as I am aware).

[/theory]

I am not saying that this is true but I put it down as a possibility.
I really can't believe that there is more than one of any individual although I can believe that there is more than one universe.

This whole thread is totally premature. Without intending to be rude, DuckTapeFileMan, do you actually know what a wavefunction is? Or what the basic premises of quantum theory are? It's pointless to spin theories about something unless you understand properly what the subject is to begin with.

I think if you took the time to study basic QM in more detail you would be in a position to answer your own questions, and you would also clearly understand why at least some of us cannot see any rational connection between "consciousness" and QM. Quite aside from the fact that nobody has as yet succeeded in actually defining "consciousness" in any quantitative manner.

Quantum mechanics consists of a series of measurable physical observations. Beyond a certain point we have no idea why certain things happen, we just know that they do. In response to that, some people have proposed preposterous "explanations" for them involving vague, undefined concepts such as "consciousness". But that isn't science. It's no different to claiming that things happen because God makes them happen. The premise is inherently untestable, and as such is just a waste of time.

Consider this, an analogy: let us suppose we have a pipe. We observe that when we push a green ball into one end, a red ball comes out the other end. We also observe that when we push a red ball into the same end as we pushed the green ball originally, a green ball now comes out the other end. So it appears that somehow this mysterious pipe converts green balls into red balls and vice versa. Now let us suppose that we cannot look into the pipe - in fact, there is no possible way (that we can currently think of) of actually directly measuring or observing precisely what happens inside the pipe. What do we do?

This is analogous to the state of play in QM. All we know is that green balls become red and vice versa when passed through the pipe. That is the true, known "science" of the matter.

Now some people speculate that maybe it's because the waves we interpret as green are somehow stretched into red ones due to interaction with some kind of field. And vice versa. Now that sounds sort of plausible but we have no way of actually knowing whether it's true or not. But we can work out ways to perform experiments that may or may not show us the existence of such a field. That is similar to what is happening in current QM research, experiments are constantly being devised to test particular hypotheses.

Finally, along comes a creationist who simply dismisses everything else and claims that the reason it happens is because God manifests in the pipe and makes green balls red and vice versa through the force of His Will.

Which of the above do we take seriously and discuss further? We can certainly discuss the fact that balls change color. We can also certainly discuss the validity of experiments designed to test whether some sort of field exists in/around the pipe. But how can we sensibly discuss whether or not it is God's Will that balls change color? Especially when the existence of God cannot be proven in the first instance, and secondly given that we cannot define "God", let alone His "Will".

Now, substitute "consciousness" for God, above. Does that make it any more sensible? Simple answer - no. That is why many quantum physicists believe the ideas about "consciousness" affecting wavefunctions are absurd. Unless/until you define precisely what "consciousness" is anything you say about it is at best idle speculation. You can't ask anyone to tell you if "consciousness collapses wavefunctions" if you can't even define mathematically what consciousness is (given that a wavefunction is a mathematical model). You might just as well ask if God collapses wavefunctions, the question makes about as much sense as "consciousness" does.

Making up new theories about how "consciousness collapses wavefunctions" is little different in principle to making up new theories about how God makes red balls green.

I hope that helps you understand better what the problem is from a skeptical physicist's point of view. I would strongly recommend that you study the basics in more detail - if you don't understand something specific, just ask - there are plenty of people on here who can help you. Nobody (in their right mind) takes offence at somehow who genuinely wants to learn - but you do have to make the initial effort yourself.

 

[jmercer]

Extremely well said.

 

[DuckTapeFileMan]

I suppose that scientists do have to be pragmatic.

I was trying to bridge quite a big gap with only a brief understanding of the physics involved.

 

[jmercer]

There are some decent books you can buy that provide non-mathematical insights into chaos theory and quantum theory... browse the Science section at your local bookstore (Barnes and Nobles usually have a good selection), or you can browse Amazon.

If you have any questions about the quality of the author and his/her writings, just post the title and author in the Science forum and you'll be sure to get some good feedback. (And probably some recommendations as well!)

In order to build a bridge, you need to know what kinds of materials will support it.

 

[Flatworm]

Re: Re: Re: Does wave collapse in quantum physics require consciousness?[A theory]

I don't mean freewill in terms of intelligence.

I consider all animals have a level of freewill because their brains are neural networks.

So even a fly will fit this requirement.

You are implying that "free will" is an inherent property of neural networks. Do artificial neural networks posess this property?

BTW, in at least one interpretation of quantum mechanics, the wavefunction doesn't "collapse" at all (i.e. the Many World Interpretation).

The basic gist of your hypothesis is nothing new, having been formalized by Von Neumann in 1932. Since then experiments have indicated that quantum superposition can be resolved without conscious interaction. In fact, dealing with decoherence is one of the central problems facing physicists and engineers working to develop quantum computers.

Correction: The Many Worlds Interpretation is not really a single interpretation of QM, but rather a family of related theories.

 

[Flatworm]

DuctTapeFileMan,

I would like to change the tone of this thread for a moment by offering a few words of encouragement. It is always disheartening when a pet belief fails to be validated by experiment. However, there is something wonderful going on here that you may not have realized.

When you formulated this hypothesis, you found yourself asking many of the same questions that some of the best and brightest minds of the twentieth century once asked themselves. You have been walking, so to speak, in the footsteps of greatness. As an amateur student of science, I have always found this to be a magical feeling.

This also means you don't have to set out alone on your search for knowledge. You can instead continue to walk the path great minds have walked before. Eventually you will acquire a greater understanding of what roads have not yet been taken or where wrong turns could have been made.

 

[DuckTapeFileMan]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Does wave collapse in quantum physics require consciousness?[A theory]

Originally posted by Dredred Edited to add:
I'm now reading another thread , and i see what i said has already been said much better, and DuckTapeFileMan's theory had already been proven wrong before he started this thread. So this thead is redundant, and i shouldn't have bothered to reply. [/B]

could you be more specific as to where this theory has been disproved.

Perhaps it has, I don't know. I didn't notice it being disproved or else I wouldn't have started this thread.

This isn't a long cherished theory I am loath to give up, it only came to me as I was reading the other thread.

 

[Dredred]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Does wave collapse in quantum physics require consciousness?[A th

could you be more specific as to where this theory has been disproved.

here

 

[DuckTapeFileMan]

well, even the site that that post links to encourages the reader to "keep thinking" about the subject.

 

[Ashles]

well, even the site that that post links to encourages the reader to "keep thinking" about the subject.

Well to be fair I think they would probably encourage you to read about the subject first.

You don't have to be an expert, but if you want to construct theories about Quantum Physics or Chaos Theory it is probably a good idea to have at least read the basics on the subject.

The more I read about QM the more I understand how little I actually know about it.

And there's no getting away from the fact that QM at its heart is a mathematical model. No-one can really claim to have a good understanding of the area without understanding at least some of the equations involved, and what they represent.