Quantum mechanics needs no consciousness (and the other way around)

Check out this link to work done which says Quantum consciousness does not exist.


REPRINT
www.danko-nikolic.com/.../2011/.../Yu-and-Nikolic-Qm-and-consciousness- Annalen-Physik.pdf

Oct 13, 2011 ... Quantum mechanics needs no consciousness ..... The experimental results that falsify predictions i) and ii) already exist. Firstly, in experiments similar to thatproposed here (e.g., [11, 20, 33]), it was shown that ifwhich-pathinformation ...obtainable, then even though no actual attempt was made to extract ...

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=The experimental results that falsify predictions i) and ii) already exist. Firstly, in experiments similar to that proposed here (e.g., [11, 20, 33]), it was shown that if “which-path” information was in principle obtainable, then even though no actual attempt was made to extract this information (i.e., to measure it), no interference pattern was found.&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
The article linked that I replied to sciborg was about locality, realism, and Bell's inequality. Not consciousness.....
 
Have you people read the work on Quantum consciousness which experimentally disproves consciousness as a factor in the double slit experiment?

REPRINT
www.danko-nikolic.com/.../2011/.../Yu-and-Nikolic-Qm-and-consciousness- Annalen-Physik.pdf

Oct 13, 2011 ... Quantum mechanics needs no consciousness ..... The experimental results that falsify predictions i) and ii) already exist. Firstly, in experiments similar to thatproposed here (e.g., [11, 20, 33]), it was shown that ifwhich-pathinformation ...obtainable, then even though no actual attempt was made to extract ...

Good luck with making observations without an observer...
 
Good luck with making observations without an observer...
Two questions for you.
1.Do you understand what "observer" means?
2. Do you understand what it means to "observe"?
If there's just the tiniest bit of uncertainy about the correct answers, search it out before replying.
 
Two questions for you.
1.Do you understand what "observer" means?
2. Do you understand what it means to "observe"?
If there's just the tiniest bit of uncertainy about the correct answers, search it out before replying.
Careful there sport. Observations are also terms used in statistics, which you pleaded ignorance over.
 
Two questions for you.
1.Do you understand what "observer" means?
2. Do you understand what it means to "observe"?
If there's just the tiniest bit of uncertainy about the correct answers, search it out before replying.

An observer is someone or something that watches. To observe means to watch. Anyway, regardless of whether you use a measuring device, do tell me how we can get the results and interpret them without consciousness.
 
This is the same link in the OP right?


Yes,... I had not read the OP.
I jumped in here in the middle, because it was a link from some other source where I was at the moment.

Now, as I read the OP and other comments here, I see you people have been discussing this experiment and taking different sides in regard to what the meaning is.

The inference seems to be saying that the Copenhagen Interpretation is wrong
Copenhagen, according to the theory, says what is passing through the split of the double slit experiment is not a material wave at all, but is a 'probability wave'. ....That wave merely contains the "probability" for what COULD be real.

Once the thing is observed, the wave function collapses and the photon, atom, and electron, or the whole world becomes a reality.

So is Copenhagen wrong then?
And, if so, what is the reason the wave collapses?
 
An observer is someone or something that watches.
Partially true. An observer is anything that collapses the uncertain eigenstates to a single definite eigenstate. Typically it's a machine; it could be a living thing or a the wall in the same room because both reflect light because in the case of the living thing or the wall it's the photons reflected from both that cause the single eigenstate to manifest. How the word observer became synonymous with conscious human observer I refer you to this:
Quantum Mysticism: Gone but Not Forgotten
Lisa Zyga
Does mysticism have a place in quantum mechanics today, or is the idea that the mind plays a role in creating reality best left to philosophical meditations? Harvard historian Juan Miguel Marin argues the former - not because physicists today should account for consciousness in their research, but because knowing the early history of the philosophical ideas in quantum mechanics is essential for understanding the theory on a fundamental level.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news163670588.html#jCp
To observe means to watch. [/quote]
In common usage that's what observe means. To a quantum physicists it means to take a energy measurement. you know that, but for those that do not it means to impart energy into a quantum system to manifest a change of that system.

[/quote]Anyway, regardless of whether you use a measuring device, do tell me how we can get the results and interpret them without consciousness.[/quote]
You are conflating two different things. That consciousness [a person] can directly influence a result to a predetermined outcome with some person to read the results after the fact. It's possible to set up an experiment to automatically measure the spin of an arbitrary number of electrons. Store the results and at some arbitrary later date have some other arbitrarily chosen third party read the results. You need people to read the results. Not long ago you linked a video interview with Anton Zweigler
. Listen to what he says about the socks
Then there's this video
What would be an interesting test of the "conscious observer" affect would be this setup using a continuous beam of light showing up as a pattern of points. I have not heard of such an experiment.
More claification from Anton.
[/QUOTE]
Also you linked to this video not long ago and it is my understanding you thought Anton's remarks supported conscious influence. Not really as this article by he makes clear.
There is No Reality in the Quantum World
The idea to be abandoned is the idea that there is no reality in the quantum world. The idea probably came about because of two reasons. On the one hand, because of the fact that one cannot always ascribe a precise value to a physical property, and on the other hand, because within the wide spectrum of interpretations of quantum mechanics some suggest that the quantum state does not describe an external reality, but rather that the properties only come about in the mind of the observer and therefore that consciousness plays a crucial role.
Let us consider for a second the famous double-slit experiment. Such experiments or their equivalents have to date not only been performed with single photons or any other kind of single particles, like neutrons, protons, electrons etc., but even with very large macromolecules, such as buckyballs and even larger. Specifically we do the experiment with buckyballs—the C-60 or C-70 molecules. You have two slits and under the right experimental conditions, you observe a distribution of the buckyballs behind the slits which has maxima and minima, the interference pattern. This is due to interference of the probability waves passing through both slits. But, following Einstein in his famous debate with Niels Bohr, we might ask if we do the experiment with individual particles, individual buckballs one by one: Through which slit does an individual buckyball molecule pass? Would it not be natural to assume that every particle has to pass either slit? Quantum physics tells us that this is not a meaningful question. We cannot assign a well-defined position to the particle unless we actually perform an experiment which allows us to find out where it is. So, before we do the measurement, the position of the buckyball—and therefore the slit it passes through—is a concept devoid of any meaning.
Suppose we now measure the position of the particle. Then we get an answer and know where it is. It is either near one slit or near the other slit. In that case, position is certainly an element of reality, and we can clearly say that quantum physics describes this reality. What is interesting is that having precise knowledge of one feature, namely the position, another kind of knowledge, namely the one encoded in the interference pattern, is not well-defined anymore.
Where could consciousness come in here? Quantum mechanics tells us that the particle, before any observation, is in a superposition of passing through one slit and of passing through the other slit. If we now have two detectors, one each behind each slit, then either detector will register the particle. But quantum mechanics tells us that the measurement apparatus becomes entangled with the position observable of the particle, and thus itself does not have well-defined classical features, at least in principle. This, following the Hungarian-American Nobel prize winner Eugene Wigner, is a chain which can be followed until an observer registers the result. So if we would adopt that reasoning, it is the consciousness which would make reality happen.
But you don't have to go so far. It is enough to assume that quantum mechanics just describes probabilities of possible measurement results. Then making an observation [a measurement my emphasis] turns potentiality into actuality and, in our case, the position of the particle becomes a quantity one can talk reasonably about. But, whether it has a well-defined position or not, the buckyball very well exists. It is real in the double-slit experiment, even when it is impossible to assign its position a well-defined value.
http://edge.org/response-detail/25548
 
An observer is someone or something that watches.
Partially true. An observer is anything that collapses the uncertain eigenstates to a single definite eigenstate. Typically it's a machine; it could be a living thing or a the wall in the same room because both reflect light because in the case of the living thing or the wall it's the photons reflected from both that cause the single eigenstate to manifest. How the word observer became synonymous with conscious human observer I refer you to this:
Quantum Mysticism: Gone but Not Forgotten
Lisa Zyga
Does mysticism have a place in quantum mechanics today, or is the idea that the mind plays a role in creating reality best left to philosophical meditations? Harvard historian Juan Miguel Marin argues the former - not because physicists today should account for consciousness in their research, but because knowing the early history of the philosophical ideas in quantum mechanics is essential for understanding the theory on a fundamental level.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news163670588.html#jCp
To observe means to watch. [/quote]
In common usage that's what observe means. To a quantum physicists it means to take a energy measurement. you know that, but for those that do not it means to impart energy into a quantum system to manifest a change of that system.

[/quote]Anyway, regardless of whether you use a measuring device, do tell me how we can get the results and interpret them without consciousness.[/quote]
You are conflating two different things. That consciousness [a person] can directly influence a result to a predetermined outcome with some person to read the results after the fact. It's possible to set up an experiment to automatically measure the spin of an arbitrary number of electrons. Store the results and at some arbitrary later date have some other arbitrarily chosen third party read the results. You need people to read the results. Not long ago you linked a video interview with Anton Zweigler
. Listen to what he says about the socks
Then there's this video
What would be an interesting test of the "conscious observer" affect would be this setup using a continuous beam of light showing up as a pattern of points. I have not heard of such an experiment.
More claification from Anton.
[/QUOTE]
Also you linked to this video not long ago and it is my understanding you thought Anton's remarks supported conscious influence. Not really as this article by he makes clear.
There is No Reality in the Quantum World
The idea to be abandoned is the idea that there is no reality in the quantum world. The idea probably came about because of two reasons. On the one hand, because of the fact that one cannot always ascribe a precise value to a physical property, and on the other hand, because within the wide spectrum of interpretations of quantum mechanics some suggest that the quantum state does not describe an external reality, but rather that the properties only come about in the mind of the observer and therefore that consciousness plays a crucial role.
Let us consider for a second the famous double-slit experiment. Such experiments or their equivalents have to date not only been performed with single photons or any other kind of single particles, like neutrons, protons, electrons etc., but even with very large macromolecules, such as buckyballs and even larger. Specifically we do the experiment with buckyballs—the C-60 or C-70 molecules. You have two slits and under the right experimental conditions, you observe a distribution of the buckyballs behind the slits which has maxima and minima, the interference pattern. This is due to interference of the probability waves passing through both slits. But, following Einstein in his famous debate with Niels Bohr, we might ask if we do the experiment with individual particles, individual buckballs one by one: Through which slit does an individual buckyball molecule pass? Would it not be natural to assume that every particle has to pass either slit? Quantum physics tells us that this is not a meaningful question. We cannot assign a well-defined position to the particle unless we actually perform an experiment which allows us to find out where it is. So, before we do the measurement, the position of the buckyball—and therefore the slit it passes through—is a concept devoid of any meaning.
Suppose we now measure the position of the particle. Then we get an answer and know where it is. It is either near one slit or near the other slit. In that case, position is certainly an element of reality, and we can clearly say that quantum physics describes this reality. What is interesting is that having precise knowledge of one feature, namely the position, another kind of knowledge, namely the one encoded in the interference pattern, is not well-defined anymore.
Where could consciousness come in here? Quantum mechanics tells us that the particle, before any observation, is in a superposition of passing through one slit and of passing through the other slit. If we now have two detectors, one each behind each slit, then either detector will register the particle. But quantum mechanics tells us that the measurement apparatus becomes entangled with the position observable of the particle, and thus itself does not have well-defined classical features, at least in principle. This, following the Hungarian-American Nobel prize winner Eugene Wigner, is a chain which can be followed until an observer registers the result. So if we would adopt that reasoning, it is the consciousness which would make reality happen.
But you don't have to go so far. It is enough to assume that quantum mechanics just describes probabilities of possible measurement results. Then making an observation [a measurement my emphasis] turns potentiality into actuality and, in our case, the position of the particle becomes a quantity one can talk reasonably about. But, whether it has a well-defined position or not, the buckyball very well exists. It is real in the double-slit experiment, even when it is impossible to assign its position a well-defined value.
http://edge.org/response-detail/25548
 
Yes,... I had not read the OP.
I jumped in here in the middle, because it was a link from some other source where I was at the moment.

Now, as I read the OP and other comments here, I see you people have been discussing this experiment and taking different sides in regard to what the meaning is.

The inference seems to be saying that the Copenhagen Interpretation is wrong
Copenhagen, according to the theory, says what is passing through the split of the double slit experiment is not a material wave at all, but is a 'probability wave'. ....That wave merely contains the "probability" for what COULD be real.

Once the thing is observed, the wave function collapses and the photon, atom, and electron, or the whole world becomes a reality.

So is Copenhagen wrong then?
And, if so, what is the reason the wave collapses?
The Copenhagen Theory probably isn't but the mysticism underlying it might be.
Any disturbance [energy] causes the collapse. In all know cases energy is what causes that collapse. Is consciousness energy?
Actually there appears to be experimental evidence the wave function is real. I'm pretty sure I linked to such evidence at some other time.
 
Yes,... I had not read the OP.
I jumped in here in the middle, because it was a link from some other source where I was at the moment.

Out of curiosity, what other source?

My short answer is [based on my reading while not being a physicist] there's more to the relationship between QM and Consciousness than the collapsing of the wave function, yet even there the ability of consciousness to do so remains in contention (see results conducted after the 2010 date of the paper you linked mentioned here & here).

My long answer -> I responded to the link in the OP earlier in the thread. Relevant posts here, here, and here.
 
Partially true. An observer is anything that collapses the uncertain eigenstates to a single definite eigenstate. Typically it's a machine; it could be a living thing or a the wall in the same room because both reflect light because in the case of the living thing or the wall it's the photons reflected from both that cause the single eigenstate to manifest. How the word observer became synonymous with conscious human observer I refer you to this: To observe means to watch.
In common usage that's what observe means. To a quantum physicists it means to take a energy measurement. you know that, but for those that do not it means to impart energy into a quantum system to manifest a change of that system.

[/quote]Anyway, regardless of whether you use a measuring device, do tell me how we can get the results and interpret them without consciousness.[/quote]
You are conflating two different things. That consciousness [a person] can directly influence a result to a predetermined outcome with some person to read the results after the fact. It's possible to set up an experiment to automatically measure the spin of an arbitrary number of electrons. Store the results and at some arbitrary later date have some other arbitrarily chosen third party read the results. You need people to read the results. Not long ago you linked a video interview with Anton Zweigler
. Listen to what he says about the socks
Then there's this video
What would be an interesting test of the "conscious observer" affect would be this setup using a continuous beam of light showing up as a pattern of points. I have not heard of such an experiment.
More claification from Anton.
[/QUOTE]
Also you linked to this video not long ago and it is my understanding you thought Anton's remarks supported conscious influence. Not really as this article by he makes clear.[/quote]

I don't think Zeilinger has ever argued that there is no reality in the quantum world, and neither do I. However, he has consistently said that there are certain features of something that are not in a defined state prior to measurement. Moreover, in the video you provided from the quantum thread that I originally posted, he states "we are not just passive observers" That to me is pretty clear. It doesn't mean we can deduce that the world is literally created by observation, but rather that certain aspects of nature aren't certain until observed.
 
radicalpolitik said:
I don't think Zeilinger has ever argued that there is no reality in the quantum world, and neither do I. However, he has consistently said that there are certain features of something that are not in a defined state prior to measurement. Moreover, in the video you provided from the quantum thread that I originally posted, he states "we are not just passive observers" That to me is pretty clear. It doesn't mean we can deduce that the world is literally created by observation, but rather that certain aspects of nature aren't certain until observed.
To the bold. That's not the claim you were talking about.? The claim I thought being discussed is the claim that consciousness plays a direct role in creating reality.? At what point in time does he state the quote in that video?
 
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The claim I thought being discussed is the claim that consciousness plays a direct role in creating reality.?

Oh, I think that is definitely the case. But what you're really questioning is whether you, or anybody else, can affect reality when you narrow the question down to a tiny calculable question about the external world, asked using QM. In that case, it appears for all intents and purposes impossible.

But then, isn't that what I would expect after several billion years of time that has been compressed, and which is expanded within space as matter? If it wasn't the case, we wouldn't experience the external world in such a similar way, because the underlying calculation 'process' - which I tend to believe QM represents - would be different. If that were that case, we wouldn't be sharing our experience in the external world. You may have secrets which you keep 'internally', but anything you put into the 'external' world gets shared spatially and temporally, that much has always seemed clear to me. However, it appears that we do experience the external world the same way, at least at the QM level, otherwise QM wouldn't be so stunningly successful at predicting future observations within the external world, but I think that's because QM - at least at present - is our observation of 'the process' by which we participate.

However, it is inevitable in my view, that we will eventually also have to accept QM processing within our internal world too (as opposed to the external world), whether science can help us with that seems problematic.
 
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To the bold. That's not the claim you were talking about.? The claim I thought being discussed is the claim that consciousness plays a direct role in creating reality.? At what point in time does he state the quote in that video?

Hmm. If we are "not just passive observers" Then consciousness must have some roll, however minimal. But, the 'creation of reality' is an odd one. It's not like just by looking and thinking we get what we like, as per the secret. Rather that observation bring something out of their potential state to their defined state. I also missed your point about looking at the results. Well, I may be barking up the wrong tree but there is a way around that. Via this thought experiment

The idea that quantum mechanics applies to everything in the universe, even to us humans, can lead to some strange conclu- sions. Consider this variant of the iconic Schrödinger cat thought experiment that Nobel laureate Eugene P. Wigner came up with in 1961 and David Deutsch of the Uni- versity of Oxford elaborated on in 1986.

Suppose that a very able experimental physicist, Alice, puts her friend Bob inside a room with a cat, a radioactive atom and cat poison that gets released if the atom decays. The point of having a human there is that we can communicate with him. (Getting answers from cats is not that easy.) As far as Alice is concerned, the atom enters into a state of being both decayed and not decayed, so that the cat is both dead and alive. Bob, however, can directly observe the cat and sees it as one or the other. Alice slips a piece of paper under the door asking Bob whether the cat is in a definite state. He answers, “yes.”

Note that Alice does not ask whether the cat is dead or alive because for her that would force the outcome or, as physicists say, “collapse” the state. She is content observing that her friend sees the cat either alive or dead and does not ask which it is.

Because Alice avoided collapsing the state, quantum theory holds that slipping

the paper under the door was a reversible act. She can undo all the steps she took. If the cat was dead, it would now be alive, the poison would be in the bottle, the particle would not have decayed and Bob would have no memory of ever seeing a dead cat.

And yet one trace remains: the piece of paper. Alice can undo the observation in a way that does not also undo the writing on the paper. The paper remains as proof that Bob had observed the cat as definitely alive or dead.

That leads to a startling conclusion. Alice was able to reverse the observation because, as far as she was concerned, she avoided collapsing the state; to her, Bob was in just as indeterminate a state as the cat. But the friend inside the room thought the state did collapse. That person did see a definite outcome; the paper is proof of it. In this way, the experiment demonstrates two seemingly contradictory principles. Alice thinks that quantum mechanics applies to macroscopic objects: not just cats but also Bobs can be in quantum limbo. Bob thinks that cats are only either dead or alive.

Doing such an experiment with an entire human being would be daunting, but physicists can accomplish much the same with simpler systems. Anton Zeilinger and his colleagues at the Uni-

versity of Vienna take a photon and bounce it off a large mirror. If the photon
is reflected, the mirror recoils, but if the photon is transmitted, the mirror stays still. The photon plays the role of the decaying atom; it can exist simultaneously in more than one state. The mirror, made up of billions of atoms, acts as the cat and as Bob. Whether it recoils or not is analogous to whether the cat lives or dies and is seen to live or die by Bob. The process can be reversed by reflecting the photon back at the mirror. On smaller scales, teams led by Rainer Blatt of the University of Innsbruck and by David J. Wineland of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colo., have reversed the measure- ment of vibrating ions in an ion trap.

In developing this devious thought experiment, Wigner and Deutsch followed in the footsteps of Erwin Schrödinger, Albert Einstein and other theorists who argued that physicists have yet to grasp quantum mechanics in any deep way. For decades most physicists scarcely cared because the foundational issues had no effect on practical applications of the theory. But now that we can perform these experiments for real, the task of under- standing quantum mechanics has become all the more urgent.
 
Learn how to use the damn quote function, please. You've had over 1300 hundred comments to master this very simple operation.
Welcome back Formal Dinning Room Set!

I know how to use the quote function and I did attempt to fix the errors, but I'm the only member to have trouble do to some form of corruption on the server end; editing, posting is laborious most of the time.
 
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