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Post by speakertoanimals on Nov 4, 2010 17:38:26 GMT 1
Abacus is free to believe whatever nonsense he likes, just as anyone else is free to say that what he believes is nonsense, that being the nature of such beliefs. What is just plain wrong is trying to claim, as he has done repeatedly, is that science supports his beliefs. It doesn't, plain and simple.
What I seem to you? Well, given your mistaken ideas and judgment as regards quantum theory, why should anyone think that your judgment of me is any more reliable? Or even worse, why should you think that anyone else here cares one whit about your opinion of me -- I certainly don't!
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Post by Progenitor A on Nov 4, 2010 17:47:58 GMT 1
Abacus is free to believe whatever nonsense he likes, just as anyone else is free to say that what he believes is nonsense, that being the nature of such beliefs. What is just plain wrong is trying to claim, as he has done repeatedly, is that science supports his beliefs. It doesn't, plain and simple. What I seem to you? Well, given your mistaken ideas and judgment as regards quantum theory, why should anyone think that your judgment of me is any more reliable? Or even worse, why should you think that anyone else here cares one whit about your opinion of me -- I certainly don't! That is good - I would not want to hurt you, but if you do have any real knowledge -rather than just regurgitating text-books, then it is a pity as you are so antagonistic, so closed-minded, that anything you might have to contribute is utterly negated. Quite frankly I do not mind in the slightest about my mistaken ideas and judgement about QM -I am trying to learn about it.
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Post by abacus9900 on Nov 4, 2010 18:35:27 GMT 1
"Werner Heisenberg reported on Pauli's position, and his own, as follows: ...Pauli once spoke of two limiting conceptions, both of which have been extraordinarily fruitful in the history of human thought, although no genuine reality corresponds to them. At one extreme is the idea of an objective world, pursuing its regular course in space and time, independently of any kind of observing subject; this has been the guiding image of modern science. At the other extreme is the idea of a subject, mystically experiencing the unity of the world and no longer confronted by an object or by any objective world; this has been the guiding image of Asian mysticism. Our thinking moves somewhere in the middle, between these two limiting conceptions; we should maintain the tension resulting from these two opposites." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_causes_collapse#Quantum_mysticism.2C_New_Age_and_New_Thought_beliefIt appears that Werner Heisenberg, one of the greatest physicists of all time, takes my view. Are you really going to contradict him? Or was he just waffling too?
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Post by speakertoanimals on Nov 4, 2010 19:11:09 GMT 1
Of course I am -- just because he was a great physicist doesn't mean I have to agree with his views on mystical clap-trap, anymore than his status as a physicist means I have to agree with his views on the best way to cook to a chicken, or his political views, or his opinion on socks.
Anyway, what he is saying isn't that surprising, given the suggestions early on that observations (i.e., POSSIBLY a conscious observer) play an important part in quantum theory, that we can't totally separate the thing being measured from the thing doing the measuring. But that DOES NOT say that the only VALID interpretation is that consciousness causes collapse, and indeed most of the standard interpretations of quantum theory don't say such a thing.
But you will NEVER learn unless you can accept it when someone shows you you are wrong. And so far, you won't, hence you will never learn.
Which is sad, but then again, perhaps the best I can do is to try and prevent your ignorance from becoming infectious. I'm the nasty needle loaded with vaccine, and unfortunately you keep needing booster shots.............
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Post by Progenitor A on Nov 4, 2010 19:34:59 GMT 1
. But you will NEVER learn unless you can accept it when someone shows you you are wrong. And so far, you won't, hence you will never learn. Which is sad, but then again, perhaps the best I can do is to try and prevent your ignorance from becoming infectious. I'm the nasty needle loaded with vaccine, and unfortunately you keep needing booster shots............. ;D Your arrogance is quite astonishing. You are not fit to teach anyone anything in my opinion
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Post by abacus9900 on Nov 4, 2010 19:37:32 GMT 1
STA, you never acknowledge that anyone is correct in my experience in any regard. I think you just like to put people down, for some deep-seated reason.
It is clear what your agenda is. You pretend to give people the benefit of your expertise yet do it in such an obscure manner by treating people as if they were undergraduates (which most are plainly not) and then when they get it wrong, which they inevitably will due to your poor communication skills, you then berate them for either being thick or promoting their own misguided views. Strange way of teaching people.
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Post by speakertoanimals on Nov 4, 2010 21:28:38 GMT 1
Of course you think that, else you'd listen to what I'm saying!
So, tell me something I don't know, and explain WHY I should accept Heisenbergs opinion on the mythical ramifications of quantum theory? Or explain why he didn't just mean that....this is interesting, we can no longer simple separate the observer and that being observed as we do in classical physics (Heisenbergs uncertainty principle is a bit of a give away here, since he invented it, he knew what he was saying). But I bet he would have added ... we must think carefully about what we mean by an 'observation', does that mean an observer, or is it just the interaction between the quantum system being observed, and the classical piece of measuring apparatus? Let's not be anthropomorphic here............
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Post by abacus9900 on Nov 4, 2010 22:34:37 GMT 1
Of course you think that, else you'd listen to what I'm saying! So, tell me something I don't know, and explain WHY I should accept Heisenbergs opinion on the mythical ramifications of quantum theory? Or explain why he didn't just mean that....this is interesting, we can no longer simple separate the observer and that being observed as we do in classical physics (Heisenbergs uncertainty principle is a bit of a give away here, since he invented it, he knew what he was saying). But I bet he would have added ... we must think carefully about what we mean by an 'observation', does that mean an observer, or is it just the interaction between the quantum system being observed, and the classical piece of measuring apparatus? Let's not be anthropomorphic here............ I think what he meant was that the observer is an essential element in any observation. Traditionally, science has considered the observer as secondary.
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Post by speakertoanimals on Nov 5, 2010 4:13:15 GMT 1
No, what he meant was the process of measurement, which is the key to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Classically, you make the measurement process as delicate as you like, so leaving the system being measured undisturbed. But in the quantum case, you can't do this. Why? Think about measuring the position of a particle by bouncing light off it. The accuracy to which you can measure position depends on the wavelength. Classically, waves are continuous, and you can choose a short wavelength, and reduce the intensity so that the momentum transferred is as small as you like. But in the quantum case, you can use at least, one photon, and the smaller the wavelength, the higher the momentum! Hence you unavoidably disturb what you are measuring.
This is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and this is what is secondary in the classical case (doesn't disturb system, future evolution unchanged), but not in the quantum case (the process of measurement alters what is being measured). It says nothing about an observer, just the act of measurment.
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Post by abacus9900 on Nov 5, 2010 10:21:19 GMT 1
Yet an observer is an intrinsic part of any measurement, will you at least concede that?
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Post by speakertoanimals on Nov 5, 2010 14:00:44 GMT 1
No of course not, because that is the very point being debated! Do pay attention!
And as I thought, you haven't thought about the proper definition of measurement, just as you haven't thought about observation...........
So, in our case it takes an experimenter to set up the experiment, arrange the double-slit, power up the laser, switch on the TV camera. but once the experiment is up and running, and she has gone off for a cup of tea, there is nothing about that particular collection of macroscopic objects that makes them different from any naturally-occurring set of objects -- the atoms in them don't know they are arranged objects.
So, the question then reduces to -- when does wavefunction collapse occur, when the quantum system interacts with the measuring apparatus , or when she comes back into the lab and looks at the screen?
The former makes more physical sense. We have possible explanations, such as it is mediated by gravity. The latter doesn't make sense, since is is not actually an explanation, since it doesn't define what consciousness is, what it is about conscious matter that makes it different from non-conscious matter. How conscious, you could also ask, could a flea collapse a wavefunction, could a single excised nerve cell, kept alive in some nutrient medium collapse a wavefunction? And most of all, WHY should we assign to consciousness, which most scientists consider to be an emergent property of evolved life, something that can be explained purely in terms of the physics of matter, a special status compared to all other physical processes?
We know the answer -- because those advocating it already know that they want to assign some special, magical power to consciousness, and this bit of quantum theory seems to give them some science to hang their prior beliefs on.
So as an explanation, it's a god-did-it type of explanation, that just invokes something magical in order to explain something physical. It also seems to suffer from the problem that it is untestable.
I'm not saying that in the future, we might not find that there are some special properties that only conscious matter has (but I doubt it, given the propensity of life to exploit any useful abilities. Yet as far as we can see, all life uses normal physical processes to interact with their environment, not weird stuff!).
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Post by abacus9900 on Nov 5, 2010 14:20:28 GMT 1
Let's talk about the quantum delayed choice experiment.
In this experiment it is clearly demonstrated that the presence of a conscious observer directly affects an event that has already occurred by making a conscious decision as to whether to preserve information or erase it. An entangled photon is detected at one point and will always exhibit an interference pattern due to lack of information about which slit it and its 'twin' went through. However, at a later time its 'twin' is arranged to be detected carrying which-slit information which, retrospectively, seems to be able to 'transmit' the fact that information has been made available to the observer (and this is the important point) to the first photon and in doing so changes the interference pattern of the first photon to a 'particulate' one (because information available) so that merely knowing that information is available on the part of a conscious observer changes reality, albeit at the quantum level. The experimenter has the option to erase the information even without directly looking at it and this also affects the first photon in that it will continue to show an interference pattern (no information). So here we have a scenario which quite clearly shows that consciousness has the ability, retrospectively, to change an interference (wavelike) pattern into a particle one!
This experiment leads to the inescapable conclusion that conscious observers have the ability to transform non-particles into particles!!
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Post by Progenitor A on Nov 5, 2010 14:43:45 GMT 1
No of course not, because that is the very point being debated! Do pay attention! What is measurement but observation? Tell me how they differ . Tell me how it is possible to take a measurement without observation. So, in our case it takes an experimenter to set up the experiment, arrange the double-slit, power up the laser, switch on the TV camera. but once the experiment is up and running, and she has gone off for a cup of tea, there is nothing about that particular collection of macroscopic objects that makes them different from any naturally-occurring set of objects What a foolish observation! If there is nothing about that set of macroscopic objects that makes them different from any other, then what the hell is the point in taking care in setting up the experiment? So, the question then reduces to -- when does wavefunction collapse occur, when the quantum system interacts with the measuring apparatus , or when she comes back into the lab and looks at the screen? And that is the question that cannot be answered, for if there is no human observer then it is not known what has happened or not happened. And anyway, even if it does occur when the quanta interact with the measurement system, they would not have so interacted had not the human observer put the equipment there for the purpose of observation in the first place The former makes more physical sense. Perhaps but as the interaction would not have happened had not a conscious decision been taken to place the experimental equipment there, we are no further forward. And here we are talking QM which does not make sense! Nonsense. In this case consciousness is the considered act of making a measurement. It is an act of intelligence. And most of all, WHY should we assign to consciousness, which most scientists consider to be an emergent property of evolved life, something that can be explained purely in terms of the physics of matter, a special status compared to all other physical processes? Because consciousnes cannot be defined as a purely physical process, any more than life life can be defined in comparison to inert matter. Consciousness (or life itself) cannot be defined or explained purely in terms of the physics of matter. Where on earth do you get such ideas? We know the answer -- because those advocating it already know that they want to assign some special, magical power to consciousness, and this bit of quantum theory seems to give them some science to hang their prior beliefs on. Absolute prejudicail bollock-sprechen
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Post by robinpike on Nov 5, 2010 15:03:11 GMT 1
Because consciousnes cannot be defined as a purely physical process, any more than life life can be defined in comparison to inert matter. Consciousness (or life itself) cannot be defined or explained purely in terms of the physics of matter. Where on earth do you get such ideas? Why do you think that consciousness cannot be a consequence of physical processess?
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Post by robinpike on Nov 5, 2010 15:10:38 GMT 1
What is measurement but observation? Tell me how they differ. Tell me how it is possible to take a measurement without observation. Measurement can be the result of interaction between very small things, the measurement itself might be impossible for us to observe and yet it can still happen - the observation (by us) is not necessary for the quantum experiment to happen.
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