Is Consciousness Causally Insulated from the Universe?

[jambaugh]

I don't agree with the assumption that unmeasured states have definite observables that are inaccessible to our experiments(i.e. limited knowledge of the system). That seems to be the dividing line between our viewpoints.

No you misunderstand. The limit to knowledge may be absence of knowledge about existent information (as with classical ignorance) or it may be a fundamental limit in that a system is limited to encoding only so many bits of information. In the quantum case when we have gone over to the praxic (pragmatic) operational definition we should be properly agnostic about the nature of those limits (except where we can e.g. define entropy). We should specifically not positively assume existent values apart from actualized measurements but we should also neither rule this out completely.

Think of that last part as similar to saying while science has no business asserting the existence of God it by the very same arguments has no business asserting his non-existence. Science should be atheistic not anti-theistic. Similarly with ontological reality... quantum theory should be agnostic with regard reality of unmeasured values.

If you didn't assume that particles had definite properties at all times that lie in a blocked view from us, you'd be hard pressed to come up with classical-like example. In my view, a polarised photon has neither a horizontal, nor a vertical polarisation until you do a measurement. I find it meaningless to about unmeasured events. It appears you are you advocating the Bohmian approach.

I can't decide if my confusion stems from you mixing Bohmian mechanics with QM or if I misunderstood your point.

No you misunderstand my position. I fully adhere to Orthodox Copenhagen. The wave function is a representation of our knowledge not a representation of reality. The definition of a value for an observable is that it is an actualized measured value and hence is undefined in the absence of an act of measurement.

Remember that in reference to an object we think of it having a property such as momentum and a value for that property such as 3kg m/s. A quantum particle at all times has the definite property of momentum in that at any time it is meaningful to measure the momentum (and e.g. write the momentum operator down) but that property doesn't have a defined value until and unless we actualize that measurement. This is simply saying that the meaning of "having a value" is that the measurement has been actualized (or the equivalent w.r.t. other measurements and specific dynamic evolution.)

We are in agreement there but for a bit of semantics in distinguishing "property" and "value of property".

 

[kote]

This is really getting good now. Truly great comments, Apeiron. In fact I had seen your comments in an earlier thread and had meant to contact you as we have similar philosophical interests.

Agreed . Welcome to the forums!

Regarding your basic field, there's one major issue I see. Whatever it is in your field that is upholding the existence of an electron even when it is not exhibiting any observable properties is inherently beyond the limits of empirical science. In other words, if it doesn't correspond to observables, we can't ever know anything about it. It will and will always remain pure speculation.

Philosophers have known, since Plato and his cave and shadows, that we don't actually know anything about the source of our perceptions. We can only model the observables we perceive.

There was an operating assumption in classical physics, due to its determinism, that our models did in fact truly represent reality. From a philosophical standpoint, this was an unjustified assumption. The probabilistic nature of QM forces us to reevaluate this assumption.

The Bohmian interpretation probably comes closest to the view you are talking about, one that insists on persistence. I agree with Heisenberg's comment on this interpretation, which is very relevant to your maxent field, in his 1958 Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science:

What does it mean to call waves in configuration space “real”? This space is a very abstract space. The word “real” goes back to the Latin word “res,” which means “thing;” but things are in the ordinary three-dimensional space, not in an abstract configuration space. ... Bohm considers himself able to assert: “We do not need to abandon the precise, rational, and objective description of individual systems in the realm of quantum theory.” This objective description, however, reveals itself as a kind of “ideological superstructure,” which has little to do with immediate physical reality.

But even Bohm does not read too much into his "Ontological Interpretation." Bohm, in his (1986?) A New Theory of the Relationship of Mind and Matter, writes:

The deeper reality is something beyond either mind or matter, both of which are only aspects that serve as terms for analysis

Bohr, of course, also makes this explicit in Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature (1934):

We meet here in a new light the old truth that in our description of nature the purpose is not to disclose the real essence of the phenomena but only to track down, so far as it is possible, relations between the manifold and aspects of our experience.

Of course there are also those with opposite views, but the fact is that even if you come up with a deterministic theory to replace QM, you will never have any evidence whatsoever of what is causing us to see the patterns we do. This is one belief even Bohm and Bohr shared and made explicit. The structure of the matrix, deeper reality, or the manifold, is hidden from us .

 

[apeiron]

To make clear what I mean by a field of maximum entropy, I will define it mathematically: for any dimension of an n-dimensional field of maximum entropy, let there be an hyperplane that extends along that dimension infinitely in every direction. Time is not treated as a special case, but as an dimension...In plain sense, I am describing a system in equilibrium.

Aha. That's my kind of thinking.

But where I would differ is in trying to be even more general here. I think you are imagining a static realm - time being just one of the n-dimensions. I would assume a dynamic view in which things expand in some equilibrium fashion. To prevent expansion, there would have to be some further constraints applied.

So truly max-ent (that is a fairly common phrase I think) would involve maximum disorder in time as well as space. Which is then going to be associated with a powerlaw statistics (rather than gaussian, as with an ideal gas trapped statically in a container for instance). So we would be talking Renyi, Tsallis and others taking a non-extensive approach to entropy. Perhaps i/f noise in the way events occur chaotically over a time dimension.

I'm not sure how this would map to your hyperplane notion - though it might turn it conformal perhaps! I don't know.

I will not decry your views; however, I will say that it is possible to absolutely and objectively quantify something (with the technological means) as existing or not if it can be quantified as a perturbation of a field of maximum entropy.

I agree I think. Max-ent is a limit (whether we take the static or dynamic case). And it is a naturally self-organising concept. So it is naturally persistent - equilibrium is by definition what is most likely to exist, if anything exists. Then local deviations from equilbriun will be distinctive as events (if brief departures) and objects (if enduring departures),

We can then yoke this to Prigogine style dissipative structure thinking. Negentropy as you say. This accounts for locally persisting structure such as solitons and quasiparticles - the order that arises on the back of disorder (for a time).

Thus, we can use this model to presuppose fundamental point-particles and help us argue the fine points of any interpretation of QM. Let us work on the central issue of whether or not fundamental particles in a coherent state exist somewhere. I reason that they must, or they violate the most fundamental logical precepts of truth; which is that spontaneous deviation of maxent is work, and work requires energy. Not the standard model, not any of the wildest dreams of theoretical physics, can ignore the reasoning of the laws of conservation of matter and energy.

This is then a critical problem you get to with the condensed matter approach. Why do electrons and protons persist probably "forever"?

One answer, from the open systems approach, is that they would have to be supplied with a continuous throughput of sustaining energy in some way, like ordinary solitons.

But another possibility is - I think - that they are locked into the fabric of things because spacetime expands. So they are the product of a different kind of open system. Instead of being a static system kept alive by energy throughput, they are knots in the fabric that cannot fall apart because the fabric keeps expanding (and cooling).

This may be quite wrong as the explanation, but I think you are highlighting a core problem with taking a condensate approach (as Wilzcek calls it).

For two QM systems, regardless of being fermion, quark, or boson, what I have heard from many proponents of the present mainstream is that they reason that a QM system spontaneously has order, and thus is detectable and knowable, only after decoherence. And that while coherent, the system is said to be undetermined, and not yet manifest, but (un-)exists as a potential, a probability, which allows for the strangeness we observe.

I argue that the strangeness is not the result of an (un-)reality, but from a possible misinterpretation of the available data. I say this very great, great caution, as I respect the work of those that came before me with the greatest of approbation, but I must concede that if anything violates the common sense of entropy that we are likely in error.

There may be an alternative explanation that isn't hidden variables, but another fundamental layer to reality we have yet to uncover, which isn't necessarily another dimension or another reality, but perhaps just a deeper truth.

Thoughts?

Here we get back to the OP. And now I think we need to accept the reality of QM non-locality. The arguments over twin slits and Bell's inequality have persuaded me in the past and I've not yet heard anything that allows us to dismiss them as proof non-locality is a fact. Of course, all is modelling. But I would personally still put non-locality as something existing "out there".

What this would mean is that a condensed matter/soliton approach to problem of the persistence of particles would need to be married to a non-local interpretation of the existence of spacetime generally.

So the fabric would arise (as an equilibrium causal realm with strongly local properties) from the deeper reality of a local~non-local decoherence machinery. Particles would then be knots in that equilibrium fabric.

I think that one of the things no one talks about is how limited non-locality appears to be. To me, it seems that non-locality is all about the freedoms that gets suppressed by the self-organisation of space time. Get rid of all non-locality (dissipate it!) and things become cleanly local. Only the faintest residue of weirdness is left (such as Bell's inequalities).

This is a thermo or systems view of QM. And extension to the trend already started with decoherence approaches.

I guess this would be the next revolution. Mind science and life science have already begun a rapid reduction to thermo principles over the past 30 years. You have Prigogine's dissipative structures, Brier's biosemiotics, Salthe's specification hierarchy, Kay/Schneider's entropy degraders, Swenson's maximum entropy principle - a whole bunch of ways of saying much the same thing, of reducing bios to a thermodynamic basis.

And the same would seem to be occurring in physics (if people would let it). We have Laughin, Wen and others trying to bring in condensed matter approaches to particle physics. There is all the black hole, holographic horizon, stuff in GR. There is decoherence in QM.

This is how I am seeing the bigger picture anyway.

 

[jambaugh]

Anyone claiming that there is no signalling between entangled pairs of praticles, assumes those particles have 'hidden', well defined observables, which is what a classical intuition would lead you to believe.

Nope. There is a "gripping hand" alternative. When you fully flush the habitual implicit realism we all grow up with and carefully parse the EPR experiment there is no need to assume hidden variables. Said assumption is again invoking realism and the necessity that outcomes of measurements are determinations of some aspect of an underlying state of reality.

Quantum Mechanics in the Orthodox CI is simply a series of statements about the probabilistic correlation between system-device interactions. Given the system interacted with device A in a certain way it will have a calculable probability of interact with device B in a certain way. Causal propagation, entanglement, and all the rest get defined in terms of such statements. There is no need nor any contradiction in remaining agnostic about an underlying reality. If one asks about hidden variables then one has invoked a Buddhist koan. No definite answer is correct. One should rather stand mute.

(Well we don't have to be that Zen about it. One should in fact state that within QM such questions are as ill posed as asking the value of an observable in the absence of an actual measurement.)

To be fair one should be just as agnostic about "no signaling" excepting that one can reject it (for classical relativistic reasons) with impunity.

If there is no information transfer, then realism is wrong.

Absolute Realism is what you give up in QM just as absolute time is what you give up in SR.
If you want, you can call it "relative realism" but that's probably not helpful.

If there is information transfer, then it's a non-local effect. If both locality and realism are true, then entanglement is wrong, which is beyond any reasonable doubt. Local hidden variable theories are what he appears to allude to and my impression that he was stating that particles always had definite unobserved properties was further amplified by:

Or do you know of a way around Bell's theorem and the disproval of LHV? Or did he imply realism was wrong and I missed his point by a large margin?

The locality business is a "red herring" in the Bell theorem derivation. Bell's inequality is basically the triangle inequality of the "metric" defined for subsets of a state manifold by taking a measure of the symmetric difference (xor).

The main RAA hypothesis of Bell's theorem is that there exists a set of realities and that probabilities for outcomes of measurements derive from a probability measure over that set. The locality business is just the easiest of many ways you can assert the measurements of two observables are causally independent i.e. commute. And yet you can, according to QM, prepare systems so that the probabilities violate the respective Bell inequality.

Forget about locality issues entirely. One should either reject realism or one must acknowledge that there is no such thing as two commuting observables (beyond trivial cases). Note signaling invalidates the assumed commutativity.

That two observables commute invalidates the "signaling" loophole as the product order IS the causal order in the event of any causal effect (hidden or no) on the outcomes. That there are such commuting observables is predicted by QM so you can't assume signaling when commuting quantum observables are strongly correlated (entangled) without invalidating QM.

Let me try to write this up in some rigorous detail and I'll post it.

 

[apeiron]

Forget about locality issues entirely. One should either reject realism or one must acknowledge that there is no such thing as two commuting observables (beyond trivial cases). Note signaling invalidates the assumed commutativity.

I like your point about rejecting realism and accepting "relative realism". I think the analogy with GR is actually right.

But that then would mean we could hope for a new level of modelling on that basis. We don't have to be just agnostic about "what is really going on".

The question is then relative to what? My suggestion, made rather too frequently perhaps, is that we need a developmental notion like vague to crisp. So we can have relatively crisply developed realities, and then very crisply developed realities.

The current view of QM is very black and white. We want to insist either there is nothing or everything. Either we have QM indeterminancy or classical definiteness.

But what if instead all reality was a gradient of decoherence? So a twin slit apparatus at least constrains events relatively to a realistic path. But the final bit of development has to be added late in the day. A wavefunction always pins down quite a lot, even if it does not pin down everything. So a wavefunction would be a relatively developed state of realism in this view. And even after the wavefunction is collapsed, it would be more a case of there now being a train of events that is asymptotically close to being definite.

This is in the spirit of GR where mass can approach lightspeed yet never actually reach it. Thus remains relative.

Let me try to write this up in some rigorous detail and I'll post it.

It would be good if you could also offer some views on transactional interpretations. I don't believe in a literal back and forth Bohmian wave as per Cramer. That is just the clunky method of making the calculations.

But the basic idea that whole events are made in ways that cross time (and space, given Bell's inequality) is the future for "realistic" QM for me. This would make non-locality real, and locality emergent I think.

And hey, Cramer even believes the transactional approach is testable. So it is science as well!

 

[kote]

I like your point about rejecting realism and accepting "relative realism".

Now this is just getting weird .

Conclusion of my thesis (chapter title "Accepting Reality"):

Quantum mechanics has forever destroyed classical objective realism. So, let us reject objective realism and accept reality. When asked the question, “are particles real?” I may now answer: “Only as real as the chair I am sitting on, the green of the grass, and the meaning of the words written on this paper.”

 

[kote]

The structure of the matrix, deeper reality, or the manifold, is hidden from us .

Let me elaborate a bit on why this is important. This is the source of the agnosticism mentioned by jambaugh regarding what lies beneath. The fact that we can't ever have any evidence whatsoever about any aspect of the source of our perceptions does not mean that some manifold, deeper reality, maxent field, or matrix does not exist. What it does do is cause us to question the assumption that only this deepest level may be considered real.

Is reality that abstract field of which we can never say anything due to epistemological constraints? If so, we can never call anything real, since our conceptions are based on perceptions that may be entirely different than the underlying reality. Similarly we can never form any conceptions based on this ultimate reality, since it is beyond our perceptual and experimental grasp.

Is nothing real besides the unknowable properties of the maxent field? Or are tables and chairs real, and electrons, and colors and sounds? Either nothing speakable is real or reality does not require objective persistence and determinism. Admittedly it's an aesthetic and semantic choice. I'm persuaded by Berkeley's argument that what is real are those things that we immediately perceive and which constitute the world we experience.

 

[kote]

There may be an alternative explanation that isn't hidden variables, but another fundamental layer to reality we have yet to uncover, which isn't necessarily another dimension or another reality, but perhaps just a deeper truth.

You've mentioned the lack of necessity of hidden variables a few times now. I've been primarily responding to the deeper truth or fundamental layer question. Typically a deeper hidden layer would be equated with hidden variables. Is it fair if I call the properties of the deeper reality hidden variables (as I have been assuming)?

Bohm was big on all of this actually. He suggested that matter emerged from a more fundamental layer of mind which emerged from a more fundamental layer of matter ad infinitum. This is the context of my previous quote about mind and matter being terms for analysis.

 

[kote]

If you want, you can call it "relative realism" but that's probably not helpful.

Faye on Folse on Bohr (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/):

It makes much sense to characterize Bohr in modern terms as an entity realist who opposes theory realism (Folse 1987). It is because of the imaginary quantities in quantum mechanics (where the commutation rule for canonically conjugate variable, p and q, introduces Planck's constant into the formalism by pq − qp = ih/2π) that quantum mechanics does not give us a ‘pictorial’ representation of the world. Neither does the theory of relativity, Bohr argued, provide us with a literal representation, since the velocity of light is introduced with a factor of i in the definition of the fourth coordinate in a four-dimensional manifold (CC, p. 86 and p. 105). Instead these theories can only be used symbolically to predict observations under well-defined conditions. Thus Bohr was an antirealist or an instrumentalist when it comes to theories.

 

[1Truthseeker]

Typically a deeper hidden layer would be equated with hidden variables. Is it fair if I call the properties of the deeper reality hidden variables (as I have been assuming)?

A variable is a declaration, and the definition is what is obscure. We can even discuss/declare the unknown and make educated guesses, but be without the definition (e.g.: what is an electron, really?). Thus, this deeper truth isn't a set of hidden variables, but a realm we can either not access or understand, at this time. And that realm may have a lot more fundamental substance than some variables, even in the mathematical sense.

 

[1Truthseeker]

But where I would differ is in trying to be even more general here. I think you are imagining a static realm - time being just one of the n-dimensions.

It isn't static, but infinite. It can, through the time dimension, be projected dynamically. The model needs to be flexible enough to describe space-time or an information stream, such as a FM radio signal, but a tool to view causality within the maxent field; without a time dimension we would not be able to understand deltas in the field. I have not reconciled the design with SR and GR, so I can not say for sure if I agree that time need exist or if it should be part of each n-dimension itself. This would make any point in the range a 4-vector. It is something I would need to work out. There are pros and cons to projecting a the 4th scalar (time) into its own n-dimensional manifold.

I would assume a dynamic view in which things expand in some equilibrium fashion. To prevent expansion, there would have to be some further constraints applied.

No expansion, as the field is infinite. The only dimension that would expand would be the time one. You might be trying to constraint the maxent field idea into a description of "our reality" which is too limiting and only a fraction of what it can do. Consider something like the signature of your voice. It has a definite pattern, but can only be understand by a vibration delta of frequency and amplitude for a specific period/time. A two dimensional sinusoidal graph can infer frequency, but for purity I wouldn't want the model to have any inferences. Anything derived should be projected into its own n-dimensional space, with the original dimension that allowed inference collapsed or flattened. I am moving into hypothesis now, as I have not fully worked it out yet and could see a considerable challenge ahead in such collapsing and extraction of analysis into other dimensions of its geometry.

I agree I think. Max-ent is a limit (whether we take the static or dynamic case). And it is a naturally self-organising concept. So it is naturally persistent - equilibrium is by definition what is most likely to exist, if anything exists. Then local deviations from equilbriun will be distinctive as events (if brief departures) and objects (if enduring departures),

Precisely. I couldn't agree more. If anything is likely to exist at all, it is entropy. My entire philosophical works are based on this fundamental proposition.

We can then yoke this to Prigogine style dissipative structure thinking. Negentropy as you say. This accounts for locally persisting structure such as solitons and quasiparticles - the order that arises on the back of disorder (for a time).

Unlike QM, a maxent field theory can describe information in its purest state. I consider "reality" to be a resampled dubbing of that maxent absolute, which loses quality with each octave in higher organization in the laws of physics. In other words, its a lossy compression scheme in which entropy itself begins to interact in our descriptions and definitions of reality where we can not account for the behavior of chaotic systems.

This is then a critical problem you get to with the condensed matter approach. Why do electrons and protons persist probably "forever"?

The infinite is difficult to pin down. Why are there an infinite set of numbers between 0 and 1? The electron may not exist, but is a manifestation that is emergent as the result of interaction of some kind. The knots idea is favorable, I can visualize immediately what you are saying. Like taking a piece of fabric and poking underneath it and perturbing its flatness, this is the existential point-particle. The question is, what is the fabric then?

One answer, from the open systems approach, is that they would have to be supplied with a continuous throughput of sustaining energy in some way, like ordinary solitons.

I am compelled to agree. I refuse to believe that anything, even a fermion, exists as a given. Consumption of negentropy is just as valid to me as "energy."

But another possibility is - I think - that they are locked into the fabric of things because spacetime expands. So they are the product of a different kind of open system. Instead of being a static system kept alive by energy throughput, they are knots in the fabric that cannot fall apart because the fabric keeps expanding (and cooling).

I would have to flesh out the model to really argue against that hypothesis. It is an interesting, one, though. I am not sure that reality itself expands, as it has been shown that gravity can maintain the cohesive structure of local super structures in the cosmos. So what I am saying is, that space-time may be an explanation for that deeper truth that we have yet to uncover. Dark energy and matter may be clues into the deeper truth. I've read research that dark energy is responsible for the expansion, and is the opposing force to gravitation. Just to clarify: I do not refute expansion, but the "stuff" remains cohesive. It isn't tearing galaxies that are already clumped together, apart, it is increasing the space between them at an increasing rate. What I mean is that, even with the expansion, we will remain whole, but grow farther apart if we are not under the influence of mutual gravitation less than the repulsion of dark energy (apparently). Maybe dark energy and matter have clues as to the stability of a proton, but who knows. At GUT energy levels all the forces are reasoned to combine, so what would happen then to the everlasting proton? Quark soup, I would imagine.

Here we get back to the OP. And now I think we need to accept the reality of QM non-locality. The arguments over twin slits and Bell's inequality have persuaded me in the past and I've not yet heard anything that allows us to dismiss them as proof non-locality is a fact. Of course, all is modelling. But I would personally still put non-locality as something existing "out there".

I am not attached to any notions of locality. This is because I think that we are only seeing shadows of the n-dimensional nature of the absolute. Like we can not comprehend a tesseract, we may not be able to comprehend the absolute truth until we find a way to. If it turns out that reality is deeper than we imagine, then locality isn't violated; because, we are not seeing the whole picture. Fold a piece of paper and punch a hole through it, unfold it, they are far apart, but when folded they are on top of each other. It is a matter of perspective of the absolute truth, which may be that we (humanity) are infantile in our understanding of all that is.