- #36
DevilsAvocado
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Ken G said:self-styled quantum physics experts
That’s me!
(:rofl:)
Ken G said:In other words, classical wave mechanics has no difficulty with DCQE
Now you’re dreaming again Ken G.
Ken G said:self-styled quantum physics experts
Ken G said:In other words, classical wave mechanics has no difficulty with DCQE
DevilsAvocado said:Of course!
And this data at D0 is recorded 8ns earlier than that of D2?? We could easily extend this to seconds, hours...
I don’t get it... P.S. Wouldn’t we be able to tell 'which path' from the phase differences in the set up in 'my' picture in post #27?
San K said:hi devilsavocado
thanks for editing my other post.
San K said:Not sure what you are asking, however if I guessed correctly (as to what you are asking) then the below information might help.
When the photon at Do is recorded then the probabilities of its entangled twin photon (hitting specific locations/detector also gets fixed (the wave function collapses and the idler photon has a definite state).
San K said:Thus we can probabilistic-ally say:
given that the photon at Do is (recorded)at position x,y ...the probability of its twin photon arriving at a detector d2 is z etc.
San K said:On a separate note: can we say that an avocado is much higher on the morality hierarchy and closer to god/heaven than an advocate?...:)
I think we are left with the fundamental conundrum, but we get insights into how to make it not a conundrum: by working on our expectations rather than our physics. In some sense, the discovery of DCQE moves us one step farther away from understanding the double slit-- it is a more sophisticated way to explore the double-slit behavior, but it results in even more sophisticated questions that we cannot answer, rather than answering the original ones! But in another way it moves us closer to not being concerned about our lack of answers, because it actually teaches us something about what an answer is, specifically, it teaches us the difference between an answer to a question that an experiment can give meaning to, and an answer to a question that we imagine has meaning but probably doesn't (because we can't find an experiment to answer it, without changing the question we are answering).ThomasT said:So, do so-called quantum erasure experiments inform wrt the reality underlying instrumental behavior? Or, are we still left with the fundamental conundrum illustrated by quantum double-slit experiments?
This is the point I'm making, that when you call something "noise", you have no idea what "information" went into it. One man's noise is another man's information, the only difference is how they are slicing that information. You see "no interference pattern", and conclude that no interference occurred at all. But you can't conclude that-- you can only conclude that no interference occured in the net. It seems to me that the main message of DCQE is that if our experiment cannot tell us why or how we get the "noise" we get, then we cannot conclude it is "really noise", it might be layers and layers of highly structured information (including interference patterns) that we are simply not extracting in our experiment, whether it be a stripped-down double slit with which-way information, or a more sophisticated DCQE experiment with a delayed choice to extract which-way information. Other experiments (like a delayed choice to "leave in" the which-way information rather than extract it by destroying the necessary coherences) might be able to extract that information, but not by changing anything that happened in the first detection-- but simply by looking at it in a different way. There is no problem with looking at something in a different way any amount of time later-- what actually happened is never changing. (That's what I meant by the causes of WWI, an analogy that doesn't seem to resonate for you. Too classical for your taste, probably.)DevilsAvocado said:I understand that we could get a mix of interference/non-interference pattern in D0, what I don’t understand is how this could be set before any of the idler detectors has recorded anything at all. In this paper the time difference is 8ns, but this could easily be extended into 'absurdum'...
Cthugha said:Assuming the setup as shown in DevilsAvocado's post, you always have two fields arriving at the final BS. One from the red path and one from the blue path. As you cannot say that the photon that will be detected later has taken one of these paths, you need to take both of them into account which then gives the interference effect mentioned earlier. If you just send single photons down one of these paths, you will instead get a pattern like the last one you posted.
DevilsAvocado said:P.S. Wouldn’t we be able to tell 'which path' from the phase differences in the set up in 'my' picture in post #27?
DevilsAvocado said:I understand that we could get a mix of interference/non-interference pattern in D0, what I don’t understand is how this could be set before any of the idler detectors has recorded anything at all. In this paper the time difference is 8ns, but this could easily be extended into 'absurdum'...
DevilsAvocado said:I see a problem right there; the idler twin photons don’t hit any "specific locations" (on the x-axis). It’s only a count of photon hits and timing, and depending on path you could tell/or not tell which slit it went thru. That’s it.
Joncon said:the idler photon "travels both paths" in the same way the signal photon does, and so interferes with itself?
Joncon said:Although this doesn't seem too much more mysterious than the standard double slit experiment now ...
Cthugha said:By the way in my opinion the standard double slit can already be pretty mysterious...
Cthugha said:I am not quite sure I get your question right, so forgive me if my answer is way off target.
Ken G said:This is the point I'm making, that when you call something "noise", you have no idea what "information" went into it. One man's noise is another man's information, the only difference is how they are slicing that information.
Ken G said:You see "no interference pattern", and conclude that no interference occurred at all.
Ken G said:Other experiments (like a delayed choice to "leave in" the which-way information rather than extract it by destroying the necessary coherences) might be able to extract that information, but not by changing anything that happened in the first detection-- but simply by looking at it in a different way.
Ken G said:There is no problem with looking at something in a different way any amount of time later-- what actually happened is never changing.
Ken G said:(That's what I meant by the causes of WWI, an analogy that doesn't seem to resonate for you. Too classical for your taste, probably.)
Ken G said:But what gets very subtle is when "what actually happened" is itself a construct of our intelligence, based on what information we have about the apparatus, and what expectations we have for physics. So looking underneath the lesson of DCQE, I think we see a deeper message: what actually happened is what the detector showed, period
Ken G said:Gone are the days when we could imagine our measuring apparatus was a "fly on the wall" to what is really happening-- instead, we find that our measuring apparatus is a defining element of what is really happening-- regardless of when in time those defining choices are made. Thus we should not talk so much about what actually happened, or changing what actually happened, we should simply talk about what we can say about what happened, and when we can say it!
DevilsAvocado said:I think I’m almost there, but I’m slightly 'blinded' by years of discussing EPR-Bell, rotating polarizers, and stuff, so I must ask you this, before going any further:
I think this is just the bit which puts the "Delayed" in DCQE. So we send our photons through the double slit, but then can choose to "erase" the which path information 8ns after the actual detection.[*]Has the 8ns delay, mentioned in the paper, anything to do with anything?
I would imagine the pattern would be completely unchanged as there is still the possibility, in principle, to obtain which path information.[*]What kind of pattern would one get at D0 if we completely remove everything on the idler side (from the PS and on)?
Again, this just enables us to retrieve or "erase" which path information *after* the signal photons have been detected, which wouldn't be possible just using single photons.[*]Is the entanglement just a 'tool' to get everything "in phase" like your "two identical sine waves"?
That's what I have been talking about, the answer to the "how it got there." The answer is, it was always there, it just wasn't discernable-- it looks like noise when the experiment is not able to separate it. It's a bit like a code-- if you see a coded message, it might look like complete gibberish, no rhyme or reason there and certainly not a message. But if you have the decoder, the message pops right out. You don't ask "where did this message come from, it was complete gibberish a moment ago-- have I done something that propagated a signal into the past and turned gibberish into a message being sent?" The time later that you decode the message is completely irrelevant, it could be 100 years later, because the message was always there. You didn't change it, you decoded it. That's what correlating the entanglements does. But you can "decode" it in several ways, based on what you choose to do with the entanglements. Do one thing, and the message is still gibberish-- you haven't extracted that information (you extracted some other information instead, perhaps some other message that now makes sense to you). Do something different with the entanglements, and it is like using a different cypher. The message pops right out, any amount of time later.DevilsAvocado said:No, that’s not what I’m saying. I see the interference pattern, clearly. However, I don’t understand how this works and how it got there. (Until Cthugha is about to save my soul ;)
It's just an analogy, but I think it is a good one. The point is, if we stick to a "just the facts ma'am" approach, we have a bunch of events that led up to WWI, and we have a bunch of photons hitting detectors at various times. That's it, nothing more. But we are not satisfied, we want to seek reasons for why these events transpired, what was the "cause" of the presence or absence of patterns. Right away we are telling a story-- we've left the dry narrative of photons hitting detectors and people knocking off Archdukes, and we are saying "this led to that." It isn't history any more, it isn't physics any more-- yet we still call it history, and physics, because in fact this is what we want to know about history and physics. But our means of analysis has entered the picture-- we no longer are dealing in irrefutable empirical data, we have invoked a process of description, and it need not be unique.Well, here we disagree. To me there’s a HUGE difference between historical human events and physics, and that is repeatable empirical data that fits the theory, again and again and again and again... until someone come up with a brighter idea.
Ah, but the first half of your sentence has nothing to do with the second! The data never change, true, but whether or not the apple continues to fall is a description of what happened to the apple, it isn't data! Newton says the apple fell, Einstein says the apple ceased to be accelerated by the branch. A totally different story about what happened to the apple, both consistent with the data. So the data did not change when Einstein came along, but what "happened to the apple" certainly did change with Einstein! Because what happened is a construct, and changes in information, centuries later, can change that construct dramatically.But the data never change, and Newton’s apple does not suspend itself in mid-air just because of Einstein, it will continue to fall the same way it always has.
But physics is actually not so different-- it doesn't have that luxury either. All that is different is the precision that is possible, and the scale where we encounter just where that "luxury" breaks down.Philosophy, psychology, economy, history, metaphysics, etc, don’t have this luxury and this makes it very different (to me).
Yes, the value the apparatus shows-- but not why it shows it. Not whether or not interference occured, not which slit the particle went through. Those are not part of the data until we make the choice to make them part of the data-- at which point our description of what happened also changes, even long after the original experiment in which the happening happened.To us the apparatus must be real (even if theory eventually says otherwise on a more fundamental level). The value the apparatus shows must be real, and we must be able to agree on this value.
Certainly, but that's not "what happened". We don't say "120 photons hit a detector in this here pattern", we say "no two-slit interference". The latter is not 120 photons, it is a kind of judgement about what happened, and that's what quantum erasure shows is not a unique thing, and can change a century later without actually changing anything at all but our mode of analysis of the original happening. This is no minor point-- quantum mechanics is extending to physics the much more general rule that our descriptions of what happened are dependent on our means of establishing what happened.If it shows 120 photons, then it is 120 photons to everyone.
Joncon said:OK I'll take a punt, and treat it as a test until someone with more knowledge can come back with the proper answers
Joncon said:I think this is just the bit which puts the "Delayed" in DCQE. So we send our photons through the double slit, but then can choose to "erase" the which path information 8ns after the actual detection.
Joncon said:I would imagine the pattern would be completely unchanged as there is still the possibility, in principle, to obtain which path information.
Joncon said:Again, this just enables us to retrieve or "erase" which path information *after* the signal photons have been detected, which wouldn't be possible just using single photons.
DevilsAvocado said:Okay... interesting... but if I got this right; the entanglement does not affect the outcome at D0 one bit, right? So what’s in fact is 'delayed' is the choice to measure "which path", or not, in "cloned twin beam", right?
If I understand this right, non-locality is not the crucial thing here, but a "clone copy" of the signal beam, right?
DevilsAvocado said:Why do we get a mixture of interference/non-interference pattern in D0? What causes it? There’s no "flip-flopping gate" at the double slit, is it? I don’t get it? In a normal experiment we would get an interference pattern or no interference pattern, not both, right??
Cthugha said:One is that that the two entangled particles do indeed bahave like cloned copies
...
So for the experimental outcome it is in fact only the first property which matters.
...
Now in the DCQE you have a similar setting (I am referring to figure one in the paper by Kim, Kulik, Shih and Scully). You have two atoms A and B placed at the slits which could emit entangled photon pairs. This process is completely random and one cannot distinguish from which atom some certain phton pair comes (unless you have detections at D3/D4). However, the two atoms are not synchronized. The phase of the light fields emitted from the two atoms is pretty much random with respect to each other and it also fluctuates randomly. This is pretty much like having a like source emit a single photon in the common double slit experiment and then moving it somewhere else, emitting another photon, etc which will add up to no interference pattern at all. However, if you note the position of the source for each photon and afterwards just pick a subset of detections corresponding to the source being at the same position, you will find some pattern. If you pick a different subset corresponding to a different position, you will find some different pattern.
In DCQE the position of the peaks in the double slit pattern will depend on the relative phase between the fields emitted by the atoms, so you do not see a single interference pattern, but a superposition of many which add up to no interference pattern. However, you can find any of these interference patterns by just picking those detections that correspond to some phase difference between the fields. That picking is now done using the other entangled partner. Depending on the relative phase that partner is more likely to be detected at D1 or D2, so you get a fringe/antifringe pattern when the coincidence counts D0/D1 or D0/D2 are considered.
DevilsAvocado said:You’re welcome, hope it helped!
I see a problem right there; the idler twin photons don’t hit any "specific locations" (on the x-axis). It’s only a count of photon hits and timing, and depending on path you could tell/or not tell which slit it went thru. That’s it.
And I'd like to interject one caveat that is seemingly picky but I think is actually quite important: meaning always requires consciousness. But your point, I believe, is that consciousness does not enter at the same physical level as the other elements of the experiment, the detector, the slits, etc., nor does it enter at the level of the theory, the Hilbert space or the operators, etc. So there is no "piece of the apparatus" we need to call conscious, and there is no term in the equation we might want to call the "effect of consciousness." All the same, I think quantum mechanics is one of the places where we are forced to come to terms with the fact that the "fingerprints" of our consciousness are all over what we are doing there. A universe without consciousness has no quantum mechanics in it at all, nor anything recognizable as physics, because as Bohr put it, physics is about what we can say about nature. And by "we", he means our consciousness/perceptions/intelligence, etc.. Not our measuring apparatus, which is quite mute.Cthugha said:The meaning of observing in physics does not require any consciousness.
This provides me with a more concrete example of my point-- the fundamental interactions in physics are generally time reversible, so "irreversibility" is already a concept that appears, not in the physical interactions, but at the level of our mental processing of those interactions. Hence, there is no such thing as "irreversible" in the first place, without consciousness (and here I make no effort to parse between what it means to be conscious versus intelligent or able to perceive, as I don't think we have any kind of precise language to use to parse those notions).. Any irreversible interaction is sufficient.
Ken G said:... A universe without consciousness has no quantum mechanics in it at all, nor anything recognizable as physics, because as Bohr put it, physics is about what we can say about nature. And by "we", he means our consciousness/perceptions/intelligence, etc.. Not our measuring apparatus, which is quite mute.
Ken G said:It's just an analogy, but I think it is a good one. The point is, if we stick to a "just the facts ma'am" approach, we have a bunch of events that led up to WWI, and we have a bunch of photons hitting detectors at various times. That's it, nothing more.
Ken G said:Ah, but the first half of your sentence has nothing to do with the second! The data never change, true, but whether or not the apple continues to fall is a description of what happened to the apple, it isn't data! Newton says the apple fell, Einstein says the apple ceased to be accelerated by the branch. A totally different story about what happened to the apple, both consistent with the data. So the data did not change when Einstein came along, but what "happened to the apple" certainly did change with Einstein! Because what happened is a construct, and changes in information, centuries later, can change that construct dramatically.
Ken G said:And I'd like to interject one caveat that is seemingly picky but I think is actually quite important: meaning always requires consciousness. But your point, I believe, is that consciousness does not enter at the same physical level as the other elements of the experiment, the detector, the slits, etc., nor does it enter at the level of the theory, the Hilbert space or the operators, etc. So there is no "piece of the apparatus" we need to call conscious, and there is no term in the equation we might want to call the "effect of consciousness."
Ken G said:This provides me with a more concrete example of my point-- the fundamental interactions in physics are generally time reversible, so "irreversibility" is already a concept that appears, not in the physical interactions, but at the level of our mental processing of those interactions.
DevilsAvocado said:But I’m curious; exactly how do you explain the evolution of the universe and ΛCDM if consciousness has any crucial role in this evolution? For example red-shift of the CMB, in relation to "our consciousness", is something that you could describe in detail. Thanks.
I’m all ears!
Cthugha said:I have already stated elsewhere (was it inside this thread? I do not know) that one cannot rule out the influence of a human looking at some experiment with absolute certainty as there is no possibility to test this experimentally. You cannot find out what happens if you never find out what happens. However, this also makes it a non-scientific question for exactly the same reason. It is interesting from a philosophical point of view, though.
I think there are (many simple) ways to rule out the influence of a human looking at an experiment.
By setting a series of processes, a cascade/chain of events (...like a domino effect).
One could still argue that the whole process happens when a human looks at it.
one of the arguments (and there are more) refuting that would be:
if you were to repeat the experiment say a hundred/thousand times...you could predict with exact certainty at what any particular point in time where the cascade of events would have reached...for each, and every, instance/run of the experiment.
another refutation would be:
that the series of events cannot happen in an instant, the moment a human looked at the other end of (or anywhere in-between) the series of events
another refutation would be:
even if you assumed multiple universes...you end up with infinite universes...for the more complex setups/experiment...
Bohr said that physics is not about nature, it is about what we can say about nature. Last I checked, "we" were conscious.DevilsAvocado said:I... this sounds like the von Neumann/Wigner interpretation. don’t recall Bohr or the Copenhagen interpretation ever saying anything about consciousness
How do "I" explain it? You mean using my consciousness, or not using my consciousness?But I’m curious; exactly how do you explain the evolution of the universe and ΛCDM if consciousness has any crucial role in this evolution?
There might not be such a "firewall" between what is scientific and what is philosophical. The point being, consciousnesses do both science and philosophy.Cthugha said:I have already stated elsewhere (was it inside this thread? I do not know) that one cannot rule out the influence of a human looking at some experiment with absolute certainty as there is no possibility to test this experimentally. You cannot find out what happens if you never find out what happens. However, this also makes it a non-scientific question for exactly the same reason. It is interesting from a philosophical point of view, though.
Not so, irreversibility is imposed by the analyst, as all the primitive happenings as described by classical physics are reversible. What's more, nothing ever actually reverses, it's just a mode of thinking that they could or could not. We judge the event to be irreversible based on assumptions we make about the constraints on the system. These judgements are useful, they are not mistaken or illusory, but they do come from our analysis. Nature never reverses itself, so nothing is actually reversible in nature. What's more, everything in nature happens only once, or at least that is a natural assumption to make that no experiment has ever refuted. Thus, the whole notion of "reversibility" comes from us, yet it has value in our physics, like so many of the other notions of physics that come from us. It's a little off topic though to get into thermodynamics!I doubt that. Irreversible interactions occur in every measurement.
I think you mean, whenever we choose to treat a system as changing from a superposition of states to an eigenstate. And we have good reason to do that, I don't dispute that, I'm just pointing out that it is we who are making that choice-- not nature. Such happenings do not actually occur in nature, none of those things actually exist. Quantum mechanics certainly doesn't claim they exist, the theory is perfectly clear on the fact that idealizations uphold that kind of language.Whenever some superposition of states ends up in an eigenstate.
Yes, that is certainly true, I'm not trying to contradict the validity of that point. I'm saying something different-- as the thread is about the role of consciousness in physics.In the context of my post you quoted I just wanted to point out that there is some difference between processes like inserting a wave plate in a light beam and rotating its polarization on the one hand and processes like absorbing a photon at one certain position. The first is reversible and does not constitute a measurement. The second is usually
Not for things to happen that way, but there is certainly value in organizing our experiences around that way of thinking. In our consciousness.While it is true that many underlying fundamental processes may be reversible, there is nevertheless a statistical prevalence for things to happen in a certain way (see Feynman's famous broken cup example) in the sense of statistical mechanics.
But it is, and just look at your own language: there is no "physics point of view", because physics doesn't have a point of view, that is the prerogative of consciousness.I do not think that mental processing is a necessity for that concept from a physics point of view.
In many situations in physics, yes, but not when the question is fundamentally about the role of consciousness in physics. In that situation, these other issues need to be raised, not in contradiction to what you were saying, but in addition to it.Philosophical discussions are of course a different topic, bit from my point of view rather distracting when discussing real experiments.
Ken G said:Bohr said that physics is not about nature, it is about what we can say about nature. Last I checked, "we" were conscious.
Ken G said:A universe without consciousness has no quantum mechanics in it at all, nor anything recognizable as physics
Ken G said:How do "I" explain it? You mean using my consciousness, or not using my consciousness?
Ken G said:All the same, I think quantum mechanics is one of the places where we are forced to come to terms with the fact that the "fingerprints" of our consciousness are all over what we are doing there.
Ken G said:So there is no "piece of the apparatus" we need to call conscious
Ken G said:There might not be such a "firewall" between what is scientific and what is philosophical. The point being, consciousnesses do both science and philosophy.
Ken G said:It's a little off topic though to get into thermodynamics!
Ken G said:I'm just pointing out that it is we who are making that choice-- not nature.
Ken G said:as the thread is about the role of consciousness in physics
Ken G said:In our consciousness
Ken G said:that is the prerogative of consciousness
Ken G said:fundamentally about the role of consciousness in physics
Um, now you are disputing that we are conscious? I don't think you are interested in informative exchange. We'll just have to leave it that you are not understanding anything I'm saying, and not bother to try and place the blame. You are welcome to continue to imagine that the universe is just the universe, and our conception of it has nothing to do with how we conceive. I wouldn't try to tax you, my comments are for those willing to get past that.DevilsAvocado said:Okay, so how did you check this, with the help of "God"?
Try post #55, or get a new browser. It's a long thread-- perhaps it has not occurred to you the thread has taken some twists and turns since the OP five pages ago. But as I said, you are not interesting in informative exchange, so that's fine, I'm willing to discuss these issues with those who are.Gosh, there must be something wrong with my browser... I have been searching OP for "consciousness"... and I just can’t find it...
Ken G said:Um, now you are disputing that we are conscious?
Ken G said:I don't think you are interested in informative exchange.
Ken G said:Try post #55, or get a new browser.
Cthugha (#55) said:Same answer to all questions: The presence or absence of humans has absolutely nothing to do with the outcome. The meaning of observing in physics does not require any consciousness. Any irreversible interaction is sufficient.
Nor did I ever say it could. More straw men? Don't you ever get tired of misquoting me?DevilsAvocado said:Of course not, I’m in the mainstream camp, consciousness is what it is, and as far as I know no one has yet defined it mathematically or proved that it can create universes, etc.
More misquotes. Please don't refer to anything I say without quoting me, you never interpret it correctly.You are the one disputing reality, that nothing except your conscious is real.
None of that has anything to do with anything I said. I'm am utterly uninterested in proving that I am conscious, this can be taken as an axiom or go have a discussion with someone who has some definition of the word where I am not it. What "conscious" means is like what a "point" means in geometry-- it must be held as axiomatic that we understand this, because defining it is fruitless for those who don't understand it already.And the question is really simple: How do you prove that you are conscious if you live in a "bubble of self-creation", i.e. nothing outside your conscious is real?
Correct, there is no way, and no need, to prove that life is not a dream. Science certainly does not require that we prove this, nor do I. Science does not care if you think life is a dream, or if you think there is absolute truth, or if you think our most naive notions of reality are absolutely true. Science doesn't need any of that baggage, nor do I-- all we do is make predictions, and form a sense of understanding, which together give us power over our environment and a sense of aesthetic order and beauty. That's it, that's what science does-- it is totally unimportant if you imagine it is a dream or if you imagine it isn't a dream, science just goes," huh? What difference does it make to me? I never had anything to do with your belief system."And there’s no way for you to prove or disprove this statement, right?
You are mistaken. When I face a question I can't answer, I look at why I can't answer it. You just pretend that you can, and when I point out the pretense, you start misquoting me. If you could really make a logical argument, you would not need to replace what I really say with caricatures about dream worlds that are not even wrong, they are simply irrelevant.The problem is that when you face a question you can’t answer, you start to play games, and I think you just have to accept that I "play a little" in return.
More misquoting. I already answered this, but you didn't understand. Let me try again. First of all, I "like" the CMB just fine. But if you insist on repeating your same question for stars, I'll give you the same answer for stars. The word "star" is an invention of human intelligence. This is quite demonstrable, just pick up a dictionary or astronomy text, and look where it says "author". So, your question is, how could this word that we invented, to go with a concept that we formulated, not have existed before there were humans. Well, I'm sorry, but the only thing I can say is, how could either the word or the concept have arised before there where humans? Now, of course I know what you will say, you will say you are not talking about the word or the concept, you are talking about the actual thing. Um, just think about that for two seconds, please.Could you please explain to me (and the readers): How intelligent life and consciousness could arise *before* any stars ignited in the universe? According to you, no evolution of gas clouds and formation of stars can ever take place, without a consciousness "making them real"?
And the endless litany of misquotes go on and on. Maybe if I explain this one more time, you'll get it: there is nothing wrong with theory of evolution. It's fine, it's a wonderful theory, which means it is a wonderful way that human intelligence uses to organize and make sense of our sensory perceptions. That also means it is very good science. It also means it is a construct of human intelligence. That also means there is a role of consciousness in the theory of evolution. These are all just plain facts, I'm sorry that you cannot accept these facts, and feel the need to replace them with preposterous claims I never made in order to refute them. Maybe you just want to have a simplistic view of what science is, and don't like being asked to think in a more sophisticated way. I don't know why you feel the need to replace what I say with something else.[If you are refuting biological evolution as well, you’re definitely in the wrong place.]
DevilsAvocado said:You are the one disputing reality, that nothing except your conscious is real.
Ken G said:More misquotes. Please don't refer to anything I say without quoting me, you never interpret it correctly.
Ken G said:And the endless litany of misquotes go on and on. Maybe if I explain this one more time, you'll get it: there is nothing wrong with theory of evolution. It's fine, it's a wonderful theory, which means it is a wonderful way that human intelligence uses to organize and make sense of our sensory perceptions. That also means it is very good science. It also means it is a construct of human intelligence. That also means there is a role of consciousness in the theory of evolution. These are all just plain facts, I'm sorry that you cannot accept these facts, and feel the need to replace them with preposterous claims I never made in order to refute them. Maybe you just want to have a simplistic view of what science is, and don't like being asked to think in a more sophisticated way. I don't know why you feel the need to replace what I say with something else.
Ken G said:More misquoting. I already answered this, but you didn't understand. Let me try again. First of all, I "like" the CMB just fine. But if you insist on repeating your same question for stars, I'll give you the same answer for stars. The word "star" is an invention of human intelligence. This is quite demonstrable, just pick up a dictionary or astronomy text, and look where it says "author". So, your question is, how could this word that we invented, to go with a concept that we formulated, not have existed before there were humans. Well, I'm sorry, but the only thing I can say is, how could either the word or the concept have arised before there where humans? Now, of course I know what you will say, you will say you are not talking about the word or the concept, you are talking about the actual thing. Um, just think about that for two seconds, please.