Can Reproduction and Darwinism Explain Quantum Mechanics' Observer Effect?

[tj8888]

If observation is treated as physical, as you imply above, then why should it be restricted to human nervous systems? Other physical systems can "observe" as well as human can, in which case reality progresses as expected.

Yeah, I am just throwing around ideas, and am not arguing that the human NS would be the only thing that could make an observation (although it might be lol). I don't think QM supports a "physical" universe though as you seem to be using the term. When I ponder the NS bringing a superposition into an actuality I am thinking of an evolving superposition reaching some point of complex interaction where experienced events start occurring. Obviously this is just conjecture, and terms like "experienced," "complex interaction" etc are hard to define (just as "physical" is).

You say that "other physical systems can observe" and yet buckyball molecules with 60 carbon atoms can be in a superposition and create a diffraction pattern. It would seem on some level human subjective observations are not in superpositions. In a "physical" universe where between the two do you think events start occurring?

 

[kote]

You say that "other physical systems can observe" and yet buckyball molecules with 60 carbon atoms can be in a superposition and create a diffraction pattern. It would seem on some level human subjective observations are not in superpositions. In a "physical" universe where between the two do you think events start occurring?

I never claimed to know the interface between the objective and subjective . I think it's literally impossible to prove the connection between the two. They are just two viewpoints from which you can consider physics.

Taking the subjective view, a superposition isn't anything real. It's simply an expression of a lack of knowledge. Taking an objective view, all physical interactions are observations. Two atoms colliding actually collide and interact when we would expect them to - the reaction they have to each other counts as an observation.

What things are like between those physical interactions is anyone's guess. We don't have an agreed upon answer, and it may be impossible to find one. Physics only deals with the results of interactions. We can have no direct evidence of anything between interactions (observations).

 

[apeiron]

You say that "other physical systems can observe" and yet buckyball molecules with 60 carbon atoms can be in a superposition and create a diffraction pattern. It would seem on some level human subjective observations are not in superpositions. In a "physical" universe where between the two do you think events start occurring?

What you have to consider here is the increasing care and energy it takes to observe macroscale QM effects. So this gives you your cut-off between naked QM and QM in interaction with a decohering context.

See for example discussions of the future of this kind of research - people are optimistic we can still go a few orders of magnitude higher in the scale of the hot molecules...here on earth...

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0103-97332005000200004

http://www.df.uba.ar/users/mininni/teo2/interferencia_fulereno.pdf