JustGeoff said:
Hi Pragmatist
The links I provided were to proper papers. Are you telling me that if I read a paper in the American Journal of Physics, that I might be reading something written about Quantum Mechanics by a person not qualified to write about Quantum Mechanics? I mean.....I don't want to be rude by why should I trust you more than a paper in a scientific journal? You are just like me - posting on the JREF bulletin board. That paper is peer reviewed.
The question of "qualified" or not is irrelevant. The issue is whether they really UNDERSTAND it. And in that respect I would say "yes", there are some people who are highly qualified in quantum physics who don't really understand it. And I believe that many true quantum physicists would be the first to admit this. In fact, why don't you look up Richard Feynman, arguably one of the most brilliant of all Quantum Physicists? He used to start every lecture by telling the students that they wouldn't understand a word of what he was going to tell them, but assured them that it really didn't matter because he didn't understand it either!
And I don't ask you to trust me or expect you to do so. But I hope the logic of my arguments stands on its own merit.
However, you are falling into an old fallacy. The "I found a peer reviewed paper, so it must be true" fallacy. Why is it a fallacy? Simply because the fact that a paper has been PUBLISHED in a peer reviewed journal is no guarantee of its accuracy or veracity. What counts is what the peers actually SAID about those papers. So why don't you tell me? What exactly WAS the result of the peer review of those papers - were they widely accepted or were they trashed? I'll bet you don't know.
Unfortunately, there are so many papers published each year that real experts simply don't have the time or inclination to look them all over and/or comment on them. The great majority of papers will pass without comment, and that doesn't tell us anything about whether they were generally accepted or not. That could be for any number of reasons:
1. The paper was so boring nobody could be bothered to read it.
2. The paper was so badly written that nobody could understand a word of it.
3. The paper was so obviously rubbish that nobody thought there was any necessity to even mention it.
4. The paper was so stunningly correct that nobody thought there was any need to argue.
5. The paper was so insignificant that nobody had any strong views about it.
6. Various other reasons I can't immediately think of.
Secondly, did you actually READ those papers? The first was published on Arxiv which will accept a lot of stuff that major print journals won't. But that's not to cast aspersions on the author because I don't know anything about him - including his qualifications. I'm just pointing out that an Arxiv publication is hardly a guarantee of credibility.
However, I don't believe you have actually read or understood that paper because if you had, I don't believe you would be making the claims you are. What that paper says in essence is that there is an ongoing argument between physicists as to whether ANY kind of reverse causality is possible. The paper explicitly mentions that there is NO proof whatsoever of reverse causality and suggests an experiment that may possibly be performed
to determine whether or not it is even possible.
How you can use that as an alleged "proof" that it IS possible is beyond me!
And as for the second paper, did you actually read anything other than the abstract? In that second paper the author is trying to defend a claim about reverse causality that he made in reference to a Nature article. Well, he got trashed by the original Nature authors in a rather peremptory way. This paper is his attempt at a rebuttal. Now, I don't know what the outcome of this is either. But the guy was proven wrong once and this is his second attempt. His assertion is ambitious to say the least. I would be surprised if he didn't get shot down again. AND his work is THEORETICAL. It is not established fact. I can point you to dozens of alleged "scientific" theories that weren't worth the paper they were written on.
Ah, yes, I just looked him up. It seems that his views are not very popular. He seems to be a closet solipsist trying to assert that "quantum reality" is all in the mind. If you do a search for comments on his work you will see it described in various places (including other peer reviewed papers) as "counterfactual", "deceptive magic", "conflating empirical or psychological facts with physical facts in a deceptive and delusory way" etc. I can't and won't comment on whether or not he is right, I don't know, but I do know that his claims are not unopposed.
So thus far, your "evidence" doesn't really make the grade as far as I am concerned.
All the above aside, it doesn't really matter whether or not you DO manage to establish that "reverse causation" is possible at the quantum level or not. Even if it IS, that only applies to microscopic quantum systems, you cannot possibly extrapolate that to the macroscopic world. It may well be possible for an electron to appear to go back a short way in time. That's a world of difference from claiming wholesale changes of macroscopic reality. There are lots of things that work only at the quantum level and which are NOT reproduced at the macroscopic level. An electron can apparently "quantum tunnel" through a solid barrier - that does not justify me claiming I can walk through walls!
JustGeoff said:
Well, I'm not going to abandon my current understanding unless somebody can indeed point out what is wrong with the paper I posted. Sometimes I have to tentatively trust somebody - and since nobody can be an expert in every field of science and every school of philosophy, so must everybody else.
I just did point out what was wrong with the papers you posted. I didn't even need to examine the specific scientific points to see that neither supports your claim.
And if even Feynman, one of the greatest scientific geniuses of the last century and probably the worlds greatest expert on the subject, who won a Nobel prize for it, said that HE didn't understand it, you may want to re-evaluate just how much YOU think you understand it. That's not an appeal to authority, it's just something I suggest you bear in mind before you claim you understand the subject properly.
I have already said that *I* don't understand it - I believe I understand a significant PART of it and I have been studying it for more than 25 years...
JustGeoff said:
I will have to do some further reading before I respond to the above, because right now I can't say I fully understand the relationship between time reversal symmettry and reverse causation.
O.K. no problem. But bear in mind that as this is one of the most basic underlying principles, the fact that you don't understand that is highly significant to the validity of your claims.
JustGeoff said:
Well, I only got into the argument in the first place because I claim to have witnessed macroscopic reverse causation. Furthermore I believe that what I witnessed is mistaken by some people for "supernatural" phenomena. I would like to think that what I saw was the result of a natural process, and reverse causation would allow this to be possible. So from my perspective, I have more than just the maths to go on - and I am looking for a rational explanation for something I find very hard to rationalise any other way.
I don't hold that against you, but if you are REALLY interested in finding a rational explanation I can't see how you can simply discard the POSSIBILITY that it was a delusion. You do understand that your current position appears to simply consist of trying to bend facts to fit a pre selected hypothesis. That's pseudoscience.
JustGeoff said:
It is established as being within the bounds of believability. If it were true, it would not shatter science. If phenomena were found which involved reverse causation, we would not have to re-write physics. For my purposes here, I think that is all I could have hoped for.
"Within the bounds of believability" is meaningless. There is always SOMEONE who will believe ANYTHING - which is rather appropriate considering the venue we're in.
If macroscopic reverse causation were found, OF COURSE it would require a re-write of physics! I don't know why you persist in this claim. Look, chemical processes are known to occur because they involve changes of state from low to high entropy. If reverse causation were found it would completely demolish chemistry for a start because it would imply that kinetic processes could run from high to LOW entropy states. The same would demolish most of physics, biology and thermodynamics! We'd see carbon dioxide condensing out of the atmosphere into diamonds. Things would fall UPWARDS under gravity. A cold cup of coffee would heat itself. And so on. And that (entropy) is only ONE example out of many.
Hey, I just thought of something! If you witnessed true reverse causation then you MUST have seen things falling upwards etc! Did you? And if not, why not?
JustGeoff said:
Some things are fundamentally impossible to empirically verify. This does not mean they are not worth discussing, or not understandable. And I must re-iterate that I am not looking for evidence that reverse causation actually happens, just that reverse causation lies within the realms of the scientifically possible. And I maintain that it is, and I think you are basically accepting that, even though you do not personally feel you have any reason to believe it really happens.
I honestly don't know if reverse causality at the quantum level is possible or not. And I will state definitively here and now that I believe it IS impossible at the macroscopic level. So how am I accepting your premise?
And what if you DID find evidence that it was theoretically possible? How does that help anything? Lots of things are THEORETICALLY possible but never happen in practice. It doesn't validate your experience in any way, so why bother. If you are going to insist and maintain that it happened REGARDLESS (as you are doing) then what difference does it make to anyone - even you, whether it's possible in theory or not?
And of course, regardless of anything else, theory can always be wrong...
JustGeoff said:
Amen, brother.
I am about to start a combined degree in cognitive science and philosophy, and it is the border between the two I am most interested in - especially from the POV of the cognitive scientists. I believe that cognitive science, as a field, may be guilty of not properly recognising the distinction between itself and metaphysics. Many cognitive scientists seem to assume a metaphysical position in order to carry out science, and then draw conclusions which are based upon the metaphysical assumption, but mistakenly believe that those conclusions are based on scientific evidence. They then seem to have some difficulty in believing that people like Shroedinger and Eddington really believed what they claimed to believe. If I have an agenda at all, it is to make sure that scientists in all fields, but especially physics and cognitive science, recognise where science stops and philosophy starts. But in your case I appear to be preaching to the converted.
Good luck! By the way, Eddington was caught more than once indulging in pseudoscience. His "analyses" of the fine structure constant immediately spring to mind. And Schrodinger may have held some unusual metaphysical opinions but he kept them well separated from his science. His scientific position bears little relation to the metaphysical woo woo that some people try to make him out to be.
One of his most famous quotes about the more metaphysical interpretations of quantum mechanics was: "I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it."
JustGeoff said:
Well, there seems to be some confusion about what I was claiming to be right about. I was claiming that reverse causality was scientifically possible. And I still think I am correct. In actual fact, I have already said that I don't think Schroedingers cat is a very good thought experiment anyway, since the cat is an observer. Maybe schroedingers cat does break physical law. I'm not sure that this fundamentally changes the rest of my position. Reverse causality doesn't just exist in the cat experiment.
Well, there is no evidence (that I am aware of) that it IS scientifically possible. So I still don't know on what basis you can claim to be right.
JustGeoff said:
Plenty of scientific skeptics here have claimed it. There are just observations, they say, and no observers. If you try to defend hard metaphysical materialism then you can end up having to claim there is no metaphysical observer.
Well I can only speak for myself. I should ask for proof that "other scientific skeptics here have claimed it", but I can't be bothered!
I have no idea what you mean by "metaphysical materialism" or "metaphysical observers", and to be honest I'm not interested in "metaphysical" anything. There are interaction events which may be called "observations" and there may or may not be a real physical person who witnesses the result of that interaction who may be called an observer. Simple as that.
JustGeoff said:
But aren't they just part of the system too?
What is a guy making an observation apart from a bunch of atoms containing a brain with some signals flying around it? This is why you cannot make sense of this question without reference to metaphysics. Basically, if you are a physicalist you cannot define observer as anything apart from part of the system which is being observed. If a human being is only a brain, what distinguishes that brain from the quantum system he is "observing"? This problem is exclusive to physicalism. If you are a dualist, or an idealist like Eddington and Schroedinger, or a neutral monist like Bohm, then you can use ontology to define what you mean by observer. The physicalist cannot do so. But you have told me that you wish to play the role of scientist rather than philosopher. I have to ask you now whether you believe you have made any metaphysical assumptions in order to define "observer" as "the guy making the measurements".
What system? A system needs to be defined for the purposes of a specific experiment. A well designed experiment seeks to eliminate any effect of the observer as far as reasonably possible. And I am not aware that I have any trouble making sense of anything!
You seem to be very hung up on "ists" and "isms". What you say above makes little sense to me. Of course there may be interactions between the experimenter and the experiment. Which is why I maintain a well designed experiment will seek to eliminate this effect as far as reasonably possible. I am not aware of any specific problems in real, practical quantum mechanics experiments with maintaining observer "separation", or subsequently isolating the observed effect from the observer. I have no idea what you mean by "metaphysical assumptions" in defining an observer. I mean a person, a human being, male or female (hell, let's not discriminate against hermaphrodites either!) And we can even let 'em wear a lab coat!
Do you need a metaphysical description of what a lab coat is? Or can we assume it's a white cloth thingy?
JustGeoff said:
You have said that you don't think the definition/identity of the observer makes any difference. I think it is absolutely critical, and so did Schroedinger, which is why he wrote about it.
Listen, if I am going to do an experiment in the lab, I will use me. That's "I", "myself", "the person writing this" etc., etc. I don't NEED a definition of me! I am all that I have and that's that. What's there to define? And why would I need to? I don't need to "define" myself when I eat a pizza or take a pee, so why would I need to "define" myself if I do an experiment?
JustGeoff said:
No, but you might need a metaphysical assumption in order to claim that a brain can collapse a wavefunction.
I may well need one if I made such a claim. But I don't make such a claim. I don't believe a brain CAN collapse a wavefunction.
JustGeoff said:
"Ego" is a bad word, because it has been used by other people in a very different sense. Schroedinger used it, but he also used "percipient" as in "that which percieves" - and that is a better word. He is talking about the fact that the thing which is doing the observing doesn't appear in the picture that is being observed. You see - if you agree with schroedinger on this then you cannot also claim that "the guy doing the measuring" is the observer because "the guy doing the measuring" does exist within our scientific picture of the world. We know what brains are. We can see ourselves. What we cannot see is the thing which is actually observing the picture.
So I'd like you to clarify to me how you resolve this apparent contradiction.
All I see is that you appear to be confusing semantic levels of abstraction. That always leads to contradiction/paradox. But since I don't indulge in that confusion I don't SEE any contradiction or paradox. I believe you may have misunderstood what Schrodinger said. I would suggest you try to express your idea in formal logic. I'll bet you can't. Because you'll end up with an oscillating loop. This is exactly the kind of error I have pointed out already in previous posts.
JustGeoff said:
This is abscence of evidence, rather than evidence of abscence. Under certain conditions, we have seen that sometimes experiments can be influenced by people having different worldviews, and the precise reasons for this have not been established. I think this is a dead-end line of debate though. We have already gone down that path several times.
I've already said that a poorly designed experiment may be influenced by the world view of the experimenter. That does not imply that ALL experiments may be influenced by the world view of the experimenter.
JustGeoff said:
OK. So you are a hard determinist, yes?
Do you believe that the whole future of the world is therefore pre-defined?
Again, you are too hung up on categorising people into your "ists" and "isms". I have no idea whether I am what YOU believe to be a "hard determinist". I doubt that I am (whatever it means). REAL people are complex entities, they don't all neatly slot into pre-defined categories. I don't KNOW if the future of the world is pre-defined or not and so I don't speculate about it, because it's simply a waste of time to do so.
JustGeoff said:
What does constitute "reality" in a wider sense?
As a scientist, I don't see how you can avoid metaphysics in a discussion about "what constitutes reality?" That question is the very definition of ontology.
I don't have any problem with "reality" in day to day life. I don't step off cliffs whilst speculating about whether they are "real" or not!
I don't need to get a metaphysical "definition" of a bus that's about to hit me - I just jump out the way because it seems like a good idea at the time!
I'm not a philosopher - and I don't want to be one either. Questions of "what constitues reality" make no practical difference to my day to day scientific work. So I don't see what you're getting at.
JustGeoff said:
I don't like solipsism either, Pragmatist. However, Schroedinger and Eddington weren't solipsists.
I never said they were! Nor was my comment directed at anything in relation to Schrodinger and Eddington. I simply said that I believed there was no point in discussing philosophy - PARTICULARLY where solipsism may be involved. And there is a very fine line between claims about "consciousness affecting quantum states" and solipsism.
JustGeoff said:
That would be rather hard. I don't see how you can construct a personal reality where there is no gravity.
Why not? If you're willing to construct one in which reverse causation is possible I don't see why gravity should be sacrosanct! Ignoring of course the fact that gravity WOULD be reversed in reverse causation...
JustGeoff said:
I would do if "contructing a personal reality" consisted of no more than constructing a false picture of consensus reality and then believing it was real, yes. However, that isn't "constructing a personal reality". It is "falsely believing you have constructed a personal reality".
It seems to me that either there is an "objective" reality or there isn't. If a "real" personal reality can overturn any part of an objective reality then strange things must be possible. If they are not possible then there is no "personal reality" distinguishable from delusion - so I agree.
JustGeoff said:
But always accepting the possibility that their failure to prove you wrong doesn't amount to any sort of proof by you that they are actually wrong.
Personally, I like living in a world of diverse beliefs. I have no need to prove anyone else wrong - not even Sam - I was trying to prove that I wasn't wrong, and used sloppy language to do it. I am just defending myself from an accusation that I am neccesarily wrong. I'm not trying to prove I am right, any more than you are.
Intellectually, yes. In practice it doesn't make much difference. I change my belief as and when evidence is presented for or against.
The reason I said you were wrong in your claim to Sam was because you made claims which are refutable and I then refuted them. Now, if you refuse to accept that, that's your business.
Let's reiterate exactly what they were so there is no doubt:
Your claim(s) were:
1. That reverse casuality does not break the laws of science
2. That reverse causality is predicted by the laws of science
3. That your understanding of QM was correct and Sam's was wrong.
4. That in general you were right and Sam was wrong.
And let's not forget that this was in the context of MACROSCOPIC reverse causality. You had NOT commented prior to that on QM in this thread, and you had NOT introduced QM at that stage. Nor did Sam say ANYTHING about QM. You CHANGED the subject to QM at that point and made statements about Sam's understanding of QM which there was no basis for. Like it or not, those are facts which are easily verifiable by simply reading the thread.
Now.
1. You have failed to show any evidence that macroscopic reverse causality is possible or that it would NOT break the "laws" of science. I have shown some examples of why it SHOULD break the "laws of science".
2. You have failed to show that macroscopic reverse causality is predicted by the laws of science. In fact you have also failed to show that it is either possible or predicted by QM either.
3. Sam had not mentioned a word about QM therefore you have failed to show that Sam's understanding of QM is inferior to yours.
4. On the basis of the above I cannot see any basis to support a claim that you were right and Sam was wrong.
I am not trying to prove myself right, I agree. I am trying to show that YOU have no legitimate basis to claim you were right either. I believe I have done so. That's all.
