I have failed, failed, and failed. Did I mention I have failed?
quote:
Everyone agrees that conscious observers cause wave function collapse. The disagreement is over the claim that ONLY conscious observers can cause wave functions to collapse.
Can you please try to pay attention to ONLY one thing? Your "Everyone" comment is just plain wrong, and it is amazingly demonstrably wrong. We were here before (weeks/months earlier):
"And the observer [who collapses the wave function] doesn't need to be a being with consciousness. Something as simple as a mote of dust absorbing a photon is considered an observer in quantum mechanics." TAQ
I said:
You are describing a particle as something making up it's own wave function, and then you blur the lines between it and the measuring apparatus/observer.(Man, you get on shaky ground when you don't quantify WHAT PERCENTAGE of physicists, say exactly what you just pronounced)
Thats what I said months (?) before you made your "Everyone agrees" comment.
What can I do to explain that your Copenhagen wave function collapse is not something everyone agrees with?
Copenhagen is the majority view, and it contains these features:
"Spooky Action at a distance"
Constant creation of matter - per particle - every split second
A moon that did not exist until it was measured in the last second (July 21 2024 4:09:22)
(Albeit it is just the individual particles, OF A LARGER BODY CALLED "THE MOON", that get measured independently of one another, perhaps not a giant entangled conglomeration of particles making up a macro-object?)
NEW AGE-ish constant "measurement" creationism
THE MANY WORLDS INTERPRETATION (which I accept) HAS NONE OF THESE THINGS
Albert Einstein said it was absurd to think that the moon did not exist until it was measured. Most scientific commentary will say that EINSTEIN has been proven wrong and that he - post inhumation - lost the EPR Paradox debate. The internet is full of mainstream academic articles that will say the moon is being created anew with every measurement. (The Bell-Aspect "action at a distance" measurements and related studies are often seen as solid evidence for NON LOCAL Quantum entanglements, and the debate is full of supposed implications for the Pilot/Guide Waves interpretation and the Many Worlds Interpretation - many will say the results falsify both interpretations. But even Domino Valdino - who rejects the Many Worlds Interpretation - says there has been no study that proved that Quantum Entanglements are not LOCAL, therefore NON LOCALITY has not been proven)
(Roger Penrose feels the best evidence against the Many Worlds Interpretation is the evidence for Quantum Teleportation via the Action at a Distance experiments, but he admits it is not decisive evidence)
Copenhagen Interpretation supporters use the Quantum Teleportation tests as evidence for the New Age views - the very views you strongly support, Taq.
I will quote from EINSTEINS MOON by a leading physicist, F. David Peat. His views are mainstream.
He, has a section, THE COPENHAGEN INTERPRETATION, starting on page 58
quote:
The objections of physicists the caliber of Einstein, Planck, an Schrödinger to the new ideas that were emerging from Copenhagen forced Bohr and his two colleagues to create what philosophers call an epistemology - a theory of knowledge. In this case, it was a theory of what can be known about the atomic world. The theory has become known as the Copenhagen interpretation.
Philosophers have always been concerned with questions like "How can we know anything for certain?" and "What is the difference between knowing something and believing it?". Since our senses are fallible - for example, our sight can be deceived by an optical illusion - how can we be sure about the things we see, touch, hear, smell, and taste? The great philosophers of history have faced these questions and attempted to answer them.
p.59
But now the task had fallen to the physicists. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle was forcing the Copenhagen group to ask what it means to have knowledge and certainty about the atom. Indeed, they were beginning to ask whether atomic reality actually exists.
Classical physics offers complete certainty and predictability. Quantum theory suggests a reality in which no absolute knowledge is possible and in which indeterminism replaces determinism. Bohr felt that this new world had to be faced squarely and a consistent epistemology created. He began his investigation into quantum reality by thinking about how physics learns about the quantum world.
Since atoms are too small to be seen, how can we ever learn about them? The answer is to use laboratory apparatus that magnifies and registers tiny effects that occur at the atomic scale. For example, the click of a Geiger counter indicates that an elementary particle is passing by.
....
p.60
Elementary particles can also be indicated by their tracks on photographic plates or in particle counters. Thanks to sophisticated electronics, even one or two photons can be successfully registered using a device called a photomultiplier. In each case, an event at the atomic scale is amplified to the point where it can register as a large-scale change in some piece of laboratory apparatus.
....
p.61
Bohr pointed out that gathering information about the world of the atom must, at some point, involve making a measurement with a laboratory instrument. To find out about an atom, or elementary particle, a scientist carefully sets up an experiment, with racks of electronic equipment, meters, dials, Geiger counters, and other detectors. The result of the experiment - which causes a dial to move or a Geiger counter to click - always involves an interaction between this large-scale apparatus and the quantum object. After all, if there were no interaction, if no transaction between the experimental apparatus and the atomic world took place, then nothing would have registered.
....
Everything we know about the quantum world therefore comes down to interactions between atoms, or elementary particles, and laboratory detectors and must therefore involve an exchange of energy.
....
p.62
...we can never know exactly where any quantum comes from - we can never divide it into contributions made by atom and apparatus - which implies that the moment the detector and the atom interact, the whole situation becomes an unanalyzable whole. ...In Bohr's words, there is "an indivisible wholeness," an unanalyzable wholeness. At the moment of observation, the observer and observed make a single, unified whole.
This holistic nature of the atomic world was the key to Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation. It was something totally new to physics, although similar ideas had long been taught in the East. For more than two thousand years, Eastern philosophers had talked about the unity that lies between the observer and that which is observed. They had pointed to the illusion of breaking apart a thought from the mind that thinks the thought. Now a similar holism was entering physics.
But this holistic approach creates problems of its own. Whenever we attempt to discover properties of an electron or proton, we must make a measurement. And whenever this act of measurement takes place, the apparatus and atom form a single, whole system. The only way we can learn about the atom is to enter into the world of undivided wholeness. As soon as we do this, however, we lose the whole notion of an independent atom or electron - it is bound to the measuring apparatus within an unanalyzable whole.
....
p.63
What, then, is an electron, a proton, or an atom? What properties does a particle have if it only manifests itself in an unanalyzable interaction with a piece of apparatus? What does it mean to say that the electron has a certain velocity or position if every attempt to measure these properties represents an irreducible act of interference? Indeed, it becomes a major problem to speak of the electron as "having" or possessing properties. And if all the properties of a quantum object become ambiguous, then what sort of reality does it have?
Max Born's colleague Pascual Jordan declared that observations not only DISTURB what was to be measured, they PRODUCE it. In a measurement, "the electron is forced to make a decision. We compel it TO ASSUME A DEFINITE POSITION; previously it was, in general, neither here nor there, it had not yet made its decision for a definite position. ...We ourselves produce the results of measurement."
....
pp.63-4
When a measurement is made, a quantum particle and the experimental apparatus are indissolubly united. When the measurement has ended, the quantum particle is on its own. The clicks of the Geiger counter enable us to say, for example, that an electron just passed through a particular region of space. A moment later, a second Geiger counter may register that electron's arrival.
But where was it in the short period between? Somewhere between the two? Somewhere in the laboratory? Somewhere on earth? Somewhere in the solar system? In fact, quantum theory does not permit us to answer any of these questions. Since the theory is indeterministic, there is no sense in talking about the electron as "having a path." Just because an electron was at point A one moment an at B the next, we are not justified in assuming that it actually took some path to move from A to B! All that is real, Niels Bohr and his colleagues would say, are the two Geiger counter measurements. What happened in between is pure mystery.
This, in essence, is the interpretation of quantum theory proposed by Bohr and his colleagues. But in creating a consistent account of the atomic world, they almost seem to have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. By refusing to talk about atoms and electrons when they are not being observed, by refusing to entertain such notions as paths and trajectories, they seem to have left the theory almost empty of content.
Bohr, Pauli, and Heisenberg spoke about the quantum world being unintelligible to classical creatures like humans. Their colleagues accepted a literal wave function, Hilbert space, quantum world, etc. Dirac and von Neumann, for example.
Bohr, however, said there is actually no such thing as a literal quantum world. Pauli and Heisenberg also were seemingly wave function denialists. For all of their New Age "measurement" fantasies - which Taq accepts wholeheartedly - that have become the generally-accepted Copenhagen interpretation, with a particle division into an undefined "Classical" and "Quantum" boundary, we are nevertheless left with these important co-founders stating that the quantum world also does not actually exist as anything other than a statistical probability system.
Taq fully swallows the MEASUREMENT postulate which was - ironically - partly promoted by Wave Function denialists.
The division of the world BETWEEN micro quantum particles ON THE ONE HAND and macro classical objects came from these New Agers that Taq so completely agrees with.
The division of the world into an unconnected QUANTUM WORLD, with an individualistically separate set of quantum objects, creates non-locality and isolated single micro particle events which lead to SPOOKY ACTION AT A DISTANCE. (Another New Age fantasy Taq swallows and accepts)
Taq's New Age fantasies are the Quantum cornerstone of these 2 books:
Paul Dirac, The Principles of Quantum Mechanics (1930)
John von Neumann, The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics (1932)
These are the textbooks that represent the majority view of the physics community, though wave function denialists abound and make up a certain wing of the community of Copenhagen Interpretation physicists.
John Bell did not agree with non-locality and Taq's New Age measurement fantasies. (ironically Taq quoted Bell as if the two agree, and it puzzles the mind as to how)
I will quote from the 2013 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS BOOK, The Wave Function: Essays on the Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics (edited by Alyssa Ney and David Z Albert)
From the Introduction, by Alyssa Ney:
quote:
If orthodox quantum mechanics is correct, then all processes in the world may be divided into two fundamental types - Process 1 (in which a measurement is taking place) and Process 2 (in which a measurement is not taking place). If this is correct, there must be some objective fact about which processes in nature count as measurements and which do not,
But is this correct? In the case considered in the previous section, when does the measurement occur? Where does Process 2 end and Process 1 begin? If orthodox quantum mechanics is meant to give us a genuine, objective, exhaustive account of the fundamental physical processes in nature, there must be some answer. Does the collapse of the wave function occur when the electron physically makes its way through the device? When the pointer first begins to move? Only later when some human experimenter observes the device? If the latter, then when exactly in the process of observation does the collapse occur? When light from the device first hits the experimenter's retina, when it gets processed by the visual centers in the brain? When the experimenter first has the conscious thought, "The pointer is reading x-spin up (or x-spin down)"?
John Bell puts the case against orthodox quantum mechanics clearly:
"What exactly qualifies some physical systems to play the role of "measurer"? Was the wavefunction of the world waiting to jump for thousands of millions of years until a single-celled living creature appeared? ...If the theory is to apply to anything but highly idealized laboratory operations, are we not obliged to admit that more or less "measurement-like" processes are going on more or less all the time, more or less everywhere? Do we not have jumping then all the time?
The first charge against "measurement," in the fundamental axioms of quantum mechanics, is that it anchors there the shifty split of the world into "system" and "apparatus". A second charge is that the word comes loaded with meaning from everyday life, meaning which is entirely inappropriate in the quantum context." (1987, p. 216)
Bell's worries appear to be (1) that there is no clear distinction between when there is measurement and when there is not, and (2) that the word MEASUREMENT has inappropriate connotations (see also Schrodinger 1935, p. 158). Focusing on (2) first, Bell says, "When it is said something is 'measured' it is difficult not to think of the result as referring to some pre-existing property of the object in question"
Taq claims every physicist accepts the measurement postulate.
Taq partially quotes John Bell, earlier, which is even more ironic.
JOHN BELL DISAGREES WITH EVERYTHING YOU SAY TAQ
The Many Worlds Interpretation rejects the Copenhagen Interpretation's postulate that the moon does not exist when a measurement is not taking place. The Many Worlds Interpretation is a theory that fully accepts the WAVE FUNCTION AS A FULLY EXISTING PART OF REALITY. IT FULLY ACCEPTS THE SCHRODINGER EQUATION WITH QUANTUM EVOLUTION
NO MEASUREMENT TAKES PLACE
THE MANY WORLDS INTERPRETATION IS FALSIFIABLE
Taq can disprove the Quantum theory of evolution by:
(1) Demonstrating that the Wave Function is false
(2) falsify the Schrodinger equation
(3) FALSIFY the linear evolutionary reality the theory claims by:
(a) demonstrating the wave function collapses
(b) demonstrating the Copenhagen-ish "quantum jumps" by proposing a counter theory - Heisenberg had a competing theory
(4) Demonstrate that macro objects are not quantum objects
Alyssa Ney states:
quote:
Today's anti-realists speak more in information-theoretic or Bayesian terms.
They have not one bit of evidence against the fundamental reality of the wave function.
You, Taq, take the New Age Quantum Jump view which says the Moon does not exist between measurements
Ney, in the introduction, to a work with several essays from several contributors, mentions Many Worlds:
quote:
p.34
Everettians of this stripe will argue the quantum state of our universe is such that it can be represented as a superposition of terms, each of which ground classical-looking macro-objects. And since also as a result of decoherence, interference between the terms washes away, we will not observe other parts of the quantum state even though they are there. We thus get a resolution of the Schrodinger macro-object problem. The quantum state doesn't describe one smeared out cat, but instead two cats, one of which is dead and one of which is alive.
Note that facts about the quantum state decohering are not built into fundamental laws. Rather, this is an accidental fact depending on the kind of state our universe started out in. The existence of these quasi-classical states is not a fundamental fact either, but something that emerges from the complex behavior of the fundamental state. ...Fundamentally there is just one universe evolving according to the Schrodinger equation (or whatever is its relativistically appropriate analog). However, because of the special way this one world evolves, and in particular because parts of this world do not interfere with each other and can each on their own ground the existence of quasi-classical macro-objects that look like individual universes, it is correct in this sense to say (non-fundamentally) that there are many worlds
The Many Worlds position is not your constant creation QUANTUM JUMP COPENHAGEN INTERPRETATION Taq.
Many Worlds is not the New Age measurer POSITION verses measurement POSITION, that you believe in Taq.
There is NO MEASUREMENT in the Many Worlds Interpretation. Just unitary evolution of the entire universe. Every object is part of a universal macro-object state SO IT MAKES NO SENSE TO ASK QUESTIONS ABOUT OBJECT POSITIONS in your New Age measurement fantasies, Taq.
The Many Worlds Interpretation has every particle entangled into one giant universal wave function, and every separate unentangled micro-particle follows specific quantum mechanical up/down rules. Entangled macro-objects like cats and humans, planets and moons. But they never cease to exist, only to be recreated, while waiting for a measurement, like you believe happens in your New Age belief.
The particles and people exist constantly, in never-ending quantum mechanical evolution. Following the wave function rules of the Schrodinger equation.
MANY WORLDS believers, like me, deny measurement, but accept the converse - evolution. But don't worry about me. Worry about the physicists who accept Many Worlds - who see the WAVE FUNCTION AND QUANTUM MECHANICS as the "complete description of reality" (As Alyssa Ney describes their position).
The Physicists who accept Many Worlds are proof that you are wrong when you say ALL accept your New Age measurement postulate.
And John Bell (not a Many Worlds supporter, but a hidden variables supporter) strongly disagrees with your New Age measurement views, even though you butchered a quote of his to attempt to make it look like he agrees with you (you butcher your own views).
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