Proof of Immortality III

[abaddon]

Jim,
- I should have noted more specifically to what I was referring. I am incredibly suspicious of my existence. Does that help?

Wait a minute. You doubt your own existence? That is really unclear. If you think you don't exist, then who has been posting all this nonsense for years?

You wouldn't be slyly attempting to insert solipsism, would you?

 

[caveman1917]

Not necessarily.

That's why I said "under at least some".

Observation needn't involve consciousness; for example in the double slit experiments the "observation" can be the interaction of particles with a photographic film.

Yeah but you can consider the photographic film to be part of the system under consideration rather than as an exterior measuring device.

It think what is generally meant by "observation" in this context is interaction with a non-entangled system, not necessarily one that is conscious.

It needn't necessarily be one, just "under at least some interpretations". My point wasn't to start arguing the finer points of different interpretations, but to show that one can't make such a positive claim about radioactive decay without observers.

 

[JayUtah]

I am incredibly suspicious of my existence. Does that help?

Not at all. You exist. That is a fact. That you can cobble up some impressive-seeming pseudo-math to argue that you probably shouldn't exist does not create any sort of actionable suspicion or mystique about how you came to be.

 

[caveman1917]

That's particle decay, not radioactive decay.

The original paper used the term "unstable quantum system" if you would like to be exact. Do you have some argument about why this should not apply to radioactive decay?

 

[caveman1917]

I think it would be difficult to explain carbon-14 dating if that were the case.

Why?

 

[godless dave]

The original paper used the term "unstable quantum system" if you would like to be exact. Do you have some argument about why this should not apply to radioactive decay?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_decay

Second paragraph.

 

[caveman1917]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_decay

Second paragraph.

I friggin' know what the difference is between particle decay and radioactive decay. Do you actually have an argument as to why the effect should not apply to radioactive decay or not? Wikipedia choosing to use particle decay as an example in its article on the effect is hardly an argument.

This is like arguing that Newtonian mechanics doesn't apply to baseballs because wikipedia uses basket balls as an example.

 

[I Am The Scum]

Maybe it applies to the decay of a corpse, as well. Let's not sell ourselves short.

 

[godless dave]

I friggin' know what the difference is between particle decay and radioactive decay. Do you actually have an argument as to why the effect should not apply to radioactive decay or not? Just because wikipedia chooses to use particle decay as an example in its article on the effect is hardly an argument.

It doesn't just use particle decay as an example, it specifically says that the Quantum Zeno effect applies to unstable particles.

Atomic nuclei aren't particles.

 

[jt512]

Why?

Radioactive processes must go on whether anyone is around to observe them or not. How else would the universe have evolved to the point it did before there was any life in the universe?

You seem to be interpreting the word "observation" to mean "observation by someone." But it has been shown experimentally that wave function collapse occurs without observation by anyone. Any interaction with the environment is an "observation" in quantum mechanics.

 

[caveman1917]

It doesn't just use particle decay as an example, it specifically says that the Quantum Zeno effect applies to unstable particles.

Atomic nuclei aren't particles.

Yes they are.

 

[godless dave]

Atomic nuclei consist of particles. They aren't particles themselves.

 

[caveman1917]

But it has been shown experimentally that wave function collapse occurs without observation by someone.

Do you have an example of such an experiment?

Any interaction with the environment is an "observation" in quantum mechanics.

Is this environment not itself a quantum system, and thus subject to a combined "system + environment" wave function? When does that one collapse? What is the environment of the universal wave function?

 

[JayUtah]

You seem to be interpreting the word "observation" to mean "observation by someone." But it has been shown experimentally that wave function collapse occurs without observation by anyone. Any interaction with the environment is an "observation" in quantum mechanics.

At one point early on, some theorists believed that observation in the quantum mechanics sense must involve observation by a conscious entity, but this was quickly disproven. Your last sentence is correct. Observation, in the quantum mechanics sense, is the convolution of the incident wave function with the subject wave function. The "collapse" is simply the notice that the resulting wave function strongly favors a state expressible in classical mechanics.

 

[caveman1917]

Atomic nuclei consist of particles.

Composite particles being compositions of other particles, all the way down to elementary particles. We're never going to get anywhere close to an argument here, are we?

 

[Mojo]

Yeah but you can consider the photographic film to be part of the system under consideration rather than as an exterior measuring device.

The image forms when the particles interact with the film, not when someone looks at it.

 

[jt512]

Do you have an example of such an experiment?

http://web.archive.org/web/20061130173850/http://www.ensmp.fr/aflb/AFLB-311/aflb311m387.pdf

Is this environment not itself a quantum system, and thus subject to a combined "system + environment" wave function? When does that one collapse? What is the environment of the universal wave function?

Beats me. Answer the questions yourself and prove that the answers show that radioactive decay requires a conscious observer, or whatever you think they imply about radioactive decay.

 

[caveman1917]

At one point early on, some theorists believed that observation in the quantum mechanics sense must involve observation by a conscious entity, but this was quickly disproven.

Can you show evidence of such quick disproval?

 

[MRC_Hans]

Yeah. That has been my intent all along. To leave it unevidenced and unsupported. To avoid trying to force-feed turtles in a quagmire.

Ah, fine. Surely I shan't trouble you.

Hans

 

[Toontown]

Is this environment not itself a quantum system, and thus subject to a combined "system + environment" wave function? When does that one collapse? What is the environment of the universal wave function?

How dare you question the foundation of materialism! You will be dragged down into the quagmire.

On a side note: Yes, a superposition includes everything that becomes involved with it, including observers.

What you're suggesting seems to be along the lines Hugh Everett was thinking when he proposed the "no collapse" interpretation of QM, a.k.a. "Many Worlds". We may soon learn whether the Everett interpretation is heresy here. Probably not, unless it is construed as somehow supporting Jabba.

Everett proposed that the universe is a detrministically evolving wave function in which what has been interpreted as the "collapse of the wave function" is instead a decoherence of a quantum superposition into all possible outcomes. Each possible outcome goes to live, so to speak, in a separate, internally consistent branch of the universal wave function. Dragging duplicates of any observers along with it. The duplicate observers see only one outcome, and may interpret this as a collapse of the wave function.

This interpretation of QM may be the stuff of JoeBentley's nightmares.