Silly question about physics and quantum madness

[politas]

In other words, the laws of the universe nearly always work, but on a quantum level all bets are off.

More precisely, at a quantum level, the rules are completely different, just as the movement of a body of water obeys different rules to a single H₂O molecule. The rules of fluid dynamics depend on the rules describing molecular interactions. Molecular interactions depend on atomic theory. Atomic Theory depends on Quantum Theory. At each level, the laws are different.

 

[athon]

The deviation of a particle's position is intrinsic to the particle. A measurement can measure a precise position with less error. It's like tossing coins.

If I toss 10 coins, I expect to get heads 5 times. Over many tosses, I expect a deviation of 1.58, so I would say the result is 5 +/- 1.58 heads. But I can toss 10 coins and measure exactly 4.

Totally lost me there. Flipping coins is a series of relatively random events with probabilities. I can watch a coin, measure it and determine its 'position' (heads or tales). A particle's position (as I picture it classically) at a given moment in time is not a series of events, but a single event.

I'm not disagreeing; I'm just lost.

Athon

 

[athon]

More precisely, at a quantum level, the rules are completely different, just as the movement of a body of water obeys different rules to a single H₂O molecule. The rules of fluid dynamics depend on the rules describing molecular interactions. Molecular interactions depend on atomic theory. Atomic Theory depends on Quantum Theory. At each level, the laws are different.

But are the laws on a quantum level always consistent? If I knew the full range of variables for a given sub-atomic entity (ignoring the practicalities of whether I can actually do that or not), and knew the rule which accurately dictates what happens to that particle when it encounters a given event, will I know the outcome with certainty as I would in the macro world?

Athon

 

[Roboramma]

But are the laws on a quantum level always consistent? If I knew the full range of variables for a given sub-atomic entity (ignoring the practicalities of whether I can actually do that or not), and knew the rule which accurately dictates what happens to that particle when it encounters a given event, will I know the outcome with certainty as I would in the macro world?

Not that I know that much about this, but I don't think it's an either/or.

The laws can be consistent without being deterministic. If they are probabalistic in nature, knowing (with as much accuracy as is theoretically possible) all the variables at the beginning won't necessarily mean that we can calculate them at some future date, because the probabilities are part of the laws.
A law of quantum mechanics might tell me that a certain uranium atom has a 50% chance of decaying in a certain amount of time. I can't be certain of whether or not it will decay in that time, but I can (by looking at many other uranium atoms over similar amounts of time) measure that prediction and find that 50% of the time uranium atoms do decay in that specific amount of time.
The prediction, and the law, holds, and is consistent, but isn't deterministic.

I don't know if that's an accurate description of how quantum theory actually is, but I do think that it makes sense for something to be both consistent and non-deterministic.

 

[athon]

My main problem, I think, is that I find it hard to let go of macro thinking (can't blame me; I've lived in the macro world for most of my life).

To me, every effect has a direct cause. Knowing the cause is to know the effect. Probability is what we give to situations where we don't know all of the variables. If I know the full range of variables (force of thrust, the starting position of the coin, the air pressure etc.) for a coin toss, there's no 'probably'. It will be heads, or it will be tales.

That's why it breaks down in my head; I find it really hard to make the jump between probability due to unknowns, and probability as part of a law.

If that probability is essentially due to those quantum rules sometimes being uncertain (again, the universe is the result of probability bias), it makes sense again.

Athon

 

[geni]

Is there any weight behind the claim that "quantum physics shows that consciousness affects reality?"

This lady, with a major in physics, claims that it does.

http://freedomofreligion.myfreeforum.org/sutra507.php#507

We don't need quantum physics to show that. I do certian things because I am conscious thus my consciousness effects reality.

They are probably talking about the stuff around measureing a wave function casesing it to colapse. The area tends to rather the complex side and I don't even pretend to understand it but I belive the problem with the argument is that it doesn't matter what does the measurement.

 

[geni]

My main problem, I think, is that I find it hard to let go of macro thinking (can't blame me; I've lived in the macro world for most of my life).

Partly. You are trying to understand it outside maths which tends not to work too well.

 

[wipeout]

My main problem, I think, is that I find it hard to let go of macro thinking (can't blame me; I've lived in the macro world for most of my life).

Hey, there were famous physicists who split physics in two, with quantum laws for the very small and classical laws for everything else because of their problems going from the very small upwards.

That's why it breaks down in my head; I find it really hard to make the jump between probability due to unknowns, and probability as part of a law.

There are some physicists which don't like events being down to chance and occuring for no other reason, Einstein being the most famous with his quote about finding it hard to believe God plays dice with the universe.

It usually now comes down to having a choice to believe:

1) One quantum possibility occurs out of many for no known underlying reason. A few people want to find this reason.

2) Every quantum possibility occurs out of many but in seperate realities. No underlying reason is then needed for one to occur if they all do.

Quantum rules are certain but they only supply the probabilities for what will happen.

 

[wipeout]

Is there any weight behind the claim that "quantum physics shows that consciousness affects reality?"

This lady, with a major in physics, claims that it does.

http://freedomofreligion.myfreeforum.org/sutra507.php#507

Some otherwise great mathematicians and physicists used consciousness as an easy escape to avoid some challenging problems which became apparent during the development of quantum theory, problems which have now been solved by further development without any special place for consciousness.

 

[Almo]

Is there any weight behind the claim that "quantum physics shows that consciousness affects reality?"

This lady, with a major in physics, claims that it does.

http://freedomofreligion.myfreeforum.org/sutra507.php#507

This is silly. Truly, and monumentally silly. The Bleep people argue this. They show an experiment being changed by observation. But they show observation as a completely passive action, as if you are affecting it just by thinking about it. But this is NOT the case. To observe something, you must "hit" it with something else and see what happens. For example, you can't know where a particle is until it interacts with something. It is that interaction that changes the state of the system. The Bleep dudes' cartoon shows a scientist just placing an eyeball by the experiment. It implies the eyeball changes the experiment without actually touching it. But an eyeball is useless without photons coming in, and those photons don't give any information about the experiment unless they've bounced off some part of it.

In short: Observing an experiment DOES change its outcome. But by observing an experiment, you are actually messing with it.

 

[thaiboxerken]

The psychic replies:

I went and read te forum you posted and was impressed with what was there.
You need to be a little more accurate when you are responding to what I say though, I certainly never posted a position similar to the Bleep people. I believe I explained, or at least tried to explain that the major thrust of the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle is that in observing a system you add energy and change the results. It isn't possible to observe in a totally passive state. And the principle states that you cannot observe ALL of the parameters of a system accurately. In effect, you can get a really accurate position, but then will have a relatively high error in velocity or vice versa.
I also though I had made it clear that the operation of consciousness I have been referring to is in a mechanistic bioelectrical sense. The brain itself creates very small electrical impulses which impact and are impacted by other magnetic and electrical fields.
What I said is that at the micro scale it is not impossible that those small affects could cause real effects.
I like the way Almo refers to "otherwise" great mathematicians and physicists" as taking the easy way out. Having been there for some of the original thinking on this stuff, I can tell you that some of the fellows in the physics department at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania might find that a little bit snotty. I would like to know what has been published in the last 20 years that invalidates what I have said.
Try and remember that in almost all theoretical situations, physics stop at the point of sufficiency. When an explanation is sufficient, it can be called complete. But that does not mean that it is necessary actually complete. Often physicists do not follow the logical consequences of their theories. That doesn't make them bad, weak or silly (all of which you have called me), it just notes that they have a limited range of interest and little or no interest in looking beyond the immediate scope of their focus. Philosophers are more interested in looking to see what the physics means. I studied physics very seriously so that I could hopefully grasp what it all implied.

Now the funniest part of this whole thing is that the bottom line is a little philosophical stance called modified common sense realism.

No one can PROVE that the external world exists. From a standpoint of pure logic with no unfounded or unprovable assumptions, only the purest existentialism can be defended. But when all is said and done, to believe that one one being (oneself) exists and that the entire external universe is a self-deluding hallucination is sort of silly. The thrust of modified common sense realism is that the external universe probably exists, that it probably is pretty much as we perceive it with the exception of superficial characteristics like paint) and that the strongest weapon in philosophy is common sense.
If you look at what I have said, it follows this rule pretty strictly. Were esp something common and a strong ability, it would be easy to measure and reproduce. If it is something rare and not very strong it would be very difficult. What I have/do is something uncommon and not controllable. I have a noted cerebral anomaly (along with an assortment of orthopedic abnormalities) which appear to be a family syndrome. I also, by the way, have a bunch of paperwork from Mensa, regarding a measured IQ of 186. It seems reasonable when presented with something that is not explanable by ordinary means, that what I have postulated is a fairly simple, common sense explanation. Very very small causes producing small, erratic effects. And remember that the major postulation is that the most likely explanation is some kind of future memory. Small amounts of information remembered from the future. I would welcome rational discourse with anyone who would be willing to discuss this politely, but I really don't understand why you, bangoskank, find it necessary to call names and be nasty. If the idea of not knowing everything as it is upsets you so much, I'd stay away from physicists. Those guys are very prone to haring off into multiverses and extra dimensions.
I have to admit that string theory bothers me. Something about the notion of little particles running around 2 or 5 extra teensy dimensions, creating a probability wave-like nexus for particles in the regular 4D universe just doesn't seemto fit the patterns.
My specialty back when, was noting and describing how different patterns echo and repeat at the different levels of scale. It's not a precise repetition in the fractal mode, but more a mirroring or shadowing somehow. It seems to indicate that there is a number of levels of structure in the universe. You can see it most easily in physics, how Newtonian physics works at the macro level, then relativity as you go up and quantum physics as you go down. Yet each theory is consistent with the others in a certain sense.
Oh hell.
I'm not in a mood to play today. You believe whatever you want bangoskank, you've obviously made up your mind that you know everything and that no one else holds a valid position that conflicts with yours. So take your self-righteousness and wrap up in it. I, at least, am willing to admit that I don't know it all.

 

[rockoon]

A quark follows the laws.
An atom follows the same laws.
A planet follows the same laws.
A galaxy follows the same laws.
The universe follows the same laws.

All the quantum "spooky" stuff.. yeah... counter-intuitive and all that.. no local hidden variables.. so maybe FTL, stochastic processes, or maybe an infinite number of universes... yeah... hard to explain.. many "interpretations" that try to "explain"

But what makes it hard isnt in quantum theory.. its in our notions.. the oldschool newtonian view was equally hard to explain.. it made no attempt to explain things but most people don't realize that.

The notion that non-quantum ideas need no explanation but the quantum stuff does is the big stumbling block...

 

[wipeout]

Well, the believer in psychic phenomena makes many fair points about science there.

And yeah, I never thought I'd hear myself saying that either.

The brain itself creates very small electrical impulses which impact and are impacted by other magnetic and electrical fields. What I said is that at the micro scale it is not impossible that those small affects could cause real effects.

Well, there's obviously medical diagnostic and monitoring equipment for the brain which work along these lines. There's even been experiments which induce hallucinations using extremely powerful magnetic fields. People start seeing strange chessboard-like patterns. They can also pump blood using magnetic effects on the iron in the cells to avoid the damage that mechanical pumps would do so blood flow within the brain would be also affected by powerful magnetic fields. And so on.

However, as is often pointed out, we don't need electromagnetic theory to explain ESP. We need some convincing experiments that show ESP exists first to show there's something which actually needs to be explained.

I like the way Almo refers to "otherwise" great mathematicians and physicists" as taking the easy way out. Having been there for some of the original thinking on this stuff, I can tell you that some of the fellows in the physics department at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania might find that a little bit snotty. I would like to know what has been published in the last 20 years that invalidates what I have said.

Oh, that was me being snotty there, not Almo.

What's been done in recent decades is work on something called decoherence which originates from the work of various people like Everett, Zeh, Zurek, Gell-Mann, Hartle and others. Heisenberg himself was thinking along similar lines a bit earlier. It's partly about removing external observation and/or measurement from quantum theory so the theory can be applied to the entire universe. Consciousness being invoked in quantum theory originates either partly or completely from related problems.

If we leave external observation or measurement in as being necessary features of quantum theory, then a quantum universe needs something outside of it to observe or measure it. Not only does something outside the universe make no sense from the point of surely a universe would need to include everything to actually be a universe, there's also problems like the "von Neumann chain" pointed out by the great mathematician and mathematical physicist John von Neumann as he and others were founding and developing quantum theory.

Von Neumann noticed that quantum interference spreads from the system under investigation to the observer or measuring device, so you need another observer or measuring device to get anything useful from the theory. But the interference spreads to them too. So you need another observer or measuring device. And another. And another. And then you have an infinity of observers or measuring devices. Which isn't terribly helpful.

So von Neumann invoked consciousness as being somehow "special" and immune to the effects of the spreading quantum interference so this infinity of observers or measuring devices ends at the first conscious observer. Which wasn't terribly helpful either as it's physically vague in the extreme. This is an example of what I mean when I say "otherwise great mathematicians and physicists".

Decoherence is the modern answer to this problem. It comes from quantum theory itself and thus makes adding external observers and measurements and/or consciousness unnecessary. It may also mean the possible existence of an infinity of alternative realities within the universe, however, so we've gone from one kind of infinity spreading outside what we usually call the universe to possibly another spreading within it. Oh well, that's progress for you.

Anyhow, while going from the scale at which quantum effects dominates upwards to the scale at which the brain functions still has some mysteries as far as I know, it's mind-boggling challenge to investigate this.

Simple, reliable and repeatable experiments demonstrating the existence of ESP are what people who believe in ESP should concentrate on.

I hope my long ramble here should discourage from venturing into the quantum swamp looking for answers to anything we don't have to.

 

[epepke]

My main problem, I think, is that I find it hard to let go of macro thinking (can't blame me; I've lived in the macro world for most of my life).

To me, every effect has a direct cause. Knowing the cause is to know the effect. Probability is what we give to situations where we don't know all of the variables. If I know the full range of variables (force of thrust, the starting position of the coin, the air pressure etc.) for a coin toss, there's no 'probably'. It will be heads, or it will be tales.

That's why it breaks down in my head; I find it really hard to make the jump between probability due to unknowns, and probability as part of a law.

If that probability is essentially due to those quantum rules sometimes being uncertain (again, the universe is the result of probability bias), it makes sense again.

Well, yeah, that can be a problem. Sufficiently long university study is a known cure, and it works in most cases.

Alas, though. The quantum rules are nice, clean, simple, and about as deterministic that you can get. No problem there.

So are the classical rules.

Here's the trouble, though. When you try to translate between the two, you get the probabilistic effects. Some people have interpretations that make them go away. But if you don't make them go away, then what's left is unavoidably, completely random, in the sense that there is no way, even in theory or principle, to make a prediction beyond certain parameters.

 

[wipeout]

Thanks to who I assume is thaiboxerken for posting what we're saying over at the other forum. Saves me from joining up.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Lling the psychic:

all mimsey were the borogroves and the momraths, outgrabe

(hoping that I only toasted my keyboard and not any damage to the machine itself. we had a blond moment last night and dropped about 1/2 cup of drinkatoast into the keyboard. OOOoooh, caramel, sugar, boiled raisins and caffeine. Gonna work real well. The spare keyboard kept throwing /\ by the dozen all over the place so we tried another. If this don't work, I may be gone for a day or so)

Here's the deal. I(me personally) do need a potential rational explanation because I definitely do something that doesn't make a whole lot of sense from the usual standpoint. I don't need to convince you, more than likely even if I floated overhead playing the theme song from close encounters through my bodily orifices you wouldn't be convinced.
I come from a background of hard science, my uncle invented polymerization for Thiokol and is very well known. My father was a mechanical engineer. Practically everybody else are lawyers and between the two, there wasn't a whole lot of room for woowoo anything.
Unfortunately, as I said, we in the maternal line of descent carry a mutation that results in some type of family syndrome. It is undescribed in the literature and according to the geneticists that studied and "care" for my nephew, it seems to be non-dysfunctional resulting in an assortment of orthopedic abnormalities with associated neurological anomalies. Oddly enough one of the corellaries (sic) or associated factors is consistently high tests on the various IQ scales. We range from 150's up to the high 180's and yes, that is substantially over wjat is normally considered genius level.
This is consistent in all descendants and in each generation available for verification so far (4) We just got the first meber of gen 5 but he's only 6 weeks and while Mama, Gramma, Great-gramma and Auntie all think he's brilliant, I expect it's a little soon to tell for sure.
Now I am the only one tested to the limits so to speak - participating in a massive study sponsored by the gov't and administered through Mensa back in the 60's. The aim of this study was to determine whether values of intelligence as measured by IQ tests differ as a measure of speed (CPU speed, if you will) or if at some point genius is qualitatively different from normal. If you find the study you will find that the published results state that up to a certain level, a rather vanishingly small percentage on the order of 1/2 of 1% of the 1/2 of 1% of the highest IQ's, below this it appears to be a simple matter of speed. Smart people think faster than dumber people. When you reach those tinynumbers at the top, a small percentage of that 1/2 of 1% of 1/2 of 1%, about 5-7%, as I recall, something else is happening. Those few do not appear to use the same logic as others, it is some kind of synthetic logic that does not operate in the same kind of linear fashion as normal. In those cases it is felt that regardless of the tested IQ, the results are meaningless. The logic is too different, therefore the map of intelligence to IQ is nullified.
Guess who has paperwork proving she's a freak. Might be a genius, might be retarded, nobody knows.
I could stay in Mensa if I wanted and paid the dues, but never felt like it after that.
Now I could break into some elaborate song and dance involving Native ancestry, punctuated equilibrium and the potential for stress induced speciation pr just postulate some interesting step in human evolution. On the other hand, we could just be defective and will quietly die out.
Don't know.
We're a mildly weird bunch. My sisterinlaw thinks were all Asbergers, but I think she's just tired of us.
Oddly enough, most all of us seem to be able to do some very minor woowoo ****.
It's erratic, unreliable and not very damn useful, but speaking from a personal position as what I would term a secular humanist, it's too f*&^&%$g much to do it once let alone 2 or 3 times a year.
The other day my best friend called and said where were her flipflops.
I immediately said down low, dark and near metal/wire with a sort of like a shoe rack shape - scallopy. BIg Help here. They were under the sofa which has the springs exposed at the bottom. Neither one of thought of that for a long while. She gave up looking for where and just looked. Under the sofa is reasonable for a pair of flat shoes, just because it matches up to what I said didn't do any good. Useless. But bothersome.
How can I possibly know where a stupid pair of rubber flipflops might be. And no, I wasn't there the last time she wore them. The last time she had them was last summer and I've slept way too many times to possibly remember her telling me she put her flips under the sofa. I can't remember what I named the children some days.
Besides, she wouldn't telll me she put her shoes under the sofa. Why would she. So it isn't a memory that floated up.
Now anecdotal evidence doesn't convince you. Okay. You want simple, repeatable experiments. Okay. You get to figure out how to make a simple, repeatable experiment for something I can not control, cannot perform on command, and really have no clue about except it happens to me. Therefore it IS. Whether I like it or not. I had to figure out a rational possiblle explanation because I dislike woowoo **** probably more than you do.
The other option is that I'm seriously delusional. It strikes me as a pretty pecular delusion to periodically hallucinate I am \esping the location\ of odd lost objects\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
=\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\0=0|Keyboard problems more later

 

[thaiboxerken]

The problem with people who have high IQ's is that they often think they're too smart to be wrong. I have a few friends in MENSA and they told me about it, I didn't think I'd like it at all because it's not populated with critical thinkers. It's comprised of alot of "smart" people that have woo-ish ideas. Sure, they're good at math, physics, grammar and problem solving, but many believe in absolute bull****. I think this is a big part of the "psychic's" problem.

 

[Yahzi]

Is there any weight behind the claim that "quantum physics shows that consciousness affects reality?"

Absolutely not. It is true that the wave-function does not collapse until it is observed, but what the woo-woos forget is that the observer can be an electron.

No consciousness required. Just a faulty understanding of how the word "observed" is used. (I see Almo already covered this.)

As for Mensa, I have met 4 people in that organization. Two of them were geniuses of the most astounding kind, and two of them would have suffocated if they had been trapped in a wet paper bag. I lost interest in the idea after that. (Although in High School I had a gang called the "Militant Mensa" )

 

[Yahzi]

As for these idiots claiming psi is too weak to measure... last time I went to a trade show, the booth next to me was selling instruments that could count photons - one at a time. The booth next to him could detect individual molecules. The LIGO project can detect (as a side-effect) highway traffic at 50 miles. My own instrument can measure surface roughness to a sub-angstrom level.

Your brain can't detect individual photons, molecules, or sub-angstrom anything.

 

[thaiboxerken]

More Llinn:

I've been living with this silly **** all my life. It's irritating because it is so useless. I can't find anything that belongs to me or directly affects me. We won't discuss what happened when my husband's 18v cordless drill got disappeared into a tub of my fabric for about a year. Not one little blip on my woowoo radar. Didn;t put it in there. Don't know how it got there. Got a blasted earful when it disappeared and when IT CAME BACK because it was in my stuff. Useless.
If it worked on a repeatable basis maybe I could figure a way to make MONEY off it. Even if I set up in business as a key psychic. Call me and I'll tell you where your keys are. $3.99 a minute.
JUst every so often, no warning, ask me and I'll know. Nothing useful, don't try and trick me for lottery numbers. Trust me, we've tried every variation of that we can possibly think of and we've come up with more than a few. But I know when IT happens because it's an actual sort of false color, ultrasound, radio wave black and white tinted snapshot. I see something - just for a minute and not very much of the area. About like you focused in on the keys with a polaroid and took a bad snapshot with infrared film or such. Unmistakeable. No concurrent ideas, don't know where "there" is just that stupid image popping upl like the floaties you get when you're falling asleep but at least then your eyes are closed and we know what that **** is.
It isn't normal. It isn't simple and repeatable. I don't particularly appreciate it and would happily have it go away.
Ahem
It's there, I had to figure out what it most likely was or else accept that I was delusional in a very limited and rather peculiar fashion. I prefer to think of myself as sane. Most of us do, I suspect.
I will begin reading about decoherence, but as I say my personal opinion, for what it's worth and from the standpoint of a dilettante, since I cannot manage the math and logic necessary to work in the field and still remember to eat and bathe, is that the thrust of quantum physics has gone too far into navel contemplation with string theory and quantum foam.
Remember the part about modified common sense realism.
I think the answer is goiong to lie in the actual nature of em radiation. We need to go back and think about that. Most of the thought is expended on particles. We keep going deeper and deeper into elemental particles - muons, gluons with characteristics like charm and whimsy (who says physicists are dull)( 3 physicists and a particle accelerator and you have a party baby). We now have extra tiny dimensions for the particles to play in and are trying to explain gravity by bouncing them through their little dimensions causing little tiny warps in the quantum foam.
Meantime we have things like light wandering around, waving itself all over the place, when it isn't waving anything (no medium) and yet it can do work. It can spin the golden leaves of a tiny pinwheel in a vacuum tube.
It can only travel at c (in a vacuum) You can slow it down in water or glass. But if you stop it (rest) it no longer exists.
Now things that are not waves, things that exist when stopped (il.e. rest mass greater than zero) can boogie right along up to .999999c but if they hit c all sorts of metaphorical hell breaks loose. (This is where that pesky business about movement on the tau axis comes in) As the object approaches c, it experiences shortening in the 3D dimensions along the vector of travel and apparent dilation or slowing of passage on the tau axis (graphs are a nice way of showing and explaining an event) Time appears to slow down. If you follow the maths derived from e=mc^2 if something with a rest mass greater than zero actually achieves c, it's mass would theoretically become infinite and subsume the entire universe
Now go back and look at the micro scale. At the atomic level, electrons exist in their probability waves in specific shells. An excited electron jumps from s to p or d without ever crossing the distance. It stops being here and starts being there. It's called the electron tunnel effect and is very well documented.
The nature of reality, as you approach the micro scale seems to become something very different from what we see and know and call common sense.
I think that the correct or proper theory of physics will be more "common sense" than string theory. It just requires me to believe 3 impossible things before breakfast. But I could be very wrong.
I could also be very wrong about what I do. It may not be explained in the manner I have guessed. It seems to be a fairly reasonable, sort of sensible explanation of something that is pretty peculiar.
But I know it is because it happens to me.
Now in order for you to know it is, you get to come up with a simple, repeatable experiment that won't cost me any money because we're going into bankruptcy and selling the house.