Telepathy: Rupert Sheldrake & Evidence from "The Sense of Being Stared At

[zoobyshoe]

Here's a lab device I tracked down:

Google Image Result for http://www.telatomic.com/art/electrondiffractiontube_sm.jpg
Address:http://images.google.com/imgres?img...raction+tube&svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=G

This isn't quite the same as a double-slit experiment, but is similar.

The interesting point is to demonstrate proof of DeBroglie's reciprocal to the assertion that waves act like particles. If so, he said, then particles should act like waves. The electron diffraction tube, apparently, shows them doing just that.

I suspect this tube must be evacuated of air and gas, but they don't mention that it is. I think if it weren't, the electron stream would make the air glow like a neon lamp.

Edit: Much better picture:

Address:http://www.atas.gr/perigrafi.php?pr=2934

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Btw, one of my professors worked on matter wave interferometry. By using matter waves [atoms] instead of light waves to measure accelerations, higher resolution is possible due to the large momentum, hence shorter wavelengths involved.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I'm trying to set up some structure within which to examine the notion of the non-electromagnetic, faster than light energy being proposed as the medium of telepathy.

Well, I'm not about to take on that one, but here is an introduction to entanglement from the Napster.

Quantum Entanglement and Information
Most physicists dismissed the puzzling features of entangled quantum states as an artefact of Einstein's inappropriate ‘detached observer’ view of physical theory, and regarded Bohr's reply to the EPR argument as vindicating the Copenhagen interpretation. This was unfortunate, because the study of entanglement was ignored for thirty years until John Bell's reconsideration and extension of the EPR argument. Bell looked at entanglement in simpler systems than the EPR case: matching correlations between two-valued dynamical quantities, such as polarization or spin, of two separated systems in an entangled state. What Bell showed was that the statistical correlations between the measurement outcomes of suitably chosen different quantities on the two systems are inconsistent with an inequality derivable from Einstein's separability and locality assumptions — in effect from the assumption that the correlations have a common cause.

Bell's investigation generated an ongoing debate on the foundations of quantum mechanics. One important feature of this debate was confirmation that entanglement can persist over long distances(see Aspect et al.), thus falsifying Schrödinger's supposition of the spontaneous decay of entanglement as two entangled particles separate. But it was not until the 1980s that physicists, computer scientists, and cryptographers began to regard the non-local correlations of entangled quantum states as a new kind of non-classical resource that could be exploited, rather than an embarrassment to be explained away. (For further discussion of entanglement as a physical resource, including measuring entanglement, and the manipulation and purification of entanglement by local operations, see "The Joy of Entanglement" by Popescu and Rohrlich in Lo, Popescu, and Spiller, or Nielsen and Chuang.) [continued]

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-entangle/

 

[zoobyshoe]

Btw, one of my professors worked on matter wave interferometry. By using matter waves [atoms] instead of light waves to measure accelerations, higher resolution is possible due to the large momentum, hence shorter wavelengths involved.

A bit of googling reveals this area of study has many manifestations. Aparently they've even done it with whole molecules. Here's one paper with a brief history:

Optics and Interferometry with Atoms and Molecules - I. Introduction
Address:http://rleweb.mit.edu/ifm/pubs/AAMOP/AAMOP-I.html

Other links mention "laser cooled atoms" being used, whatever that might mean.

-----

I looked back over some parts of QED, and I think Feynman was quite convinced of the purely particulate nature of photons. The whole first part of that book Photons: Particles of Light is essentially his non-heisenbergian, alternate way of analyzing their behaviour, and analyzing them as particles that take, not the straight path per se, but which favor the path of least time, explains everything.

If you look at what he says about how light behaves the narrower you make a slit for it to go through (on pages 54, 55, and 56 of the paperback edition) I think he has explained the Young double slit experiment without recourse to "collapsing" wave functions. He's obviated the need for the concept of "self-interference" by explaining how a narrower slit prevents the photons that take non-conformist paths from cancelling each other out, which they will do when the slit is large enough.

I think the direction from which you approach all these kinds of apparent mysteries can either exacerbate or evaporate all the kinds of philosophical problems mentioned in your link about measurement, etc.

Anyway, I think I've gotten myself up to speed on the variety of particles that can demonstrate the wave behavior of interference, including particles of matter, that SGT was talking about

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The dual nature of things is well established. I think you are taking his comments out of context... The key is to realize that as you said, a single photon can interfere with itself even in a double split experiment. In other words, the one photon had to pass through both slits. However, if we try to see which slit the "particle" passes through, the wave-like nature is destroyed and the interference pattern goes away.

I will have to check my QED but I can say for sure that this is not going to be resolved here. This problem has perplexed the greatest minds in physics for ninety years. There are probably half a dozen schools of thought on these issues.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Wavefunctions are associated to material particles. Is a thought material?

Interestingly, it appears to be true that a thought must have mass. I did a little checking most people seemed to agree with the logic. No matter how we veiw it, thought is more highly organized than random processes and it took energy to make it that way. What first gave me this idea is the solution to Maxwell's Demon paradox: Information contains energy.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I will have to check my QED but I can say for sure that this is not going to be resolved here.

Check out the pages 54, 55, and 56, and also his footnote on page 76. I am pretty sure Feynman has done away with the need for a "wave function".

 

[zoobyshoe]

Interestingly, it appears to be true that a thought must have mass. I did a little checking most people seemed to agree with the logic. No matter how we veiw it, thought is more highly organized than random processes and it took energy to make it that way. What first gave me this idea is the solution to Maxwell's Demon paradox: Information contains energy.

A strangely roundabout way of getting to it. All you really need to look at is the fact that it takes energy to "cock" a neuron: to pump the ions back out of it after it has fired, to know that thought requires the expenditure of energy.

To say thoughts have "mass" however is not really true. Theoretically, any energy might be converted to mass, but this never happens to the energy expended in thinking. IIRC, they have had to do some really elaborate gymnastics with particle accelerators to get any energy to convert into mass. The energy of thought just converts to different forms of energy.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Check out the pages 54, 55, and 56, and also his footnote on page 76. I am pretty sure Feynman has done away with the need for a "wave function".

No way; this concept if fundamental to all of QM. I will dig out my book but I can guarantee that you are misunderstanding what he says.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

A strangely roundabout way of getting to it. All you really need to look at is the fact that it takes energy to "cock" a neuron: to pump the ions back out of it after it has fired, to know that thought requires the expenditure of energy.

To say thoughts have "mass" however is not really true. Theoretically, any energy might be converted to mass, but this never happens to the energy expended in thinking. IIRC, they have had to do some really elaborate gymnastics with particle accelerators to get any energy to convert into mass. The energy of thought just converts to different forms of energy.

If the energy of the closed system has increased, the mass has increased.

 

[zoobyshoe]

No way; this concept if fundamental to all of QM. I will dig out my book but I can guarantee that you are misunderstanding what he says.

"I want to emphasize that light comes in this form - particles. It is very important to know that light behaves like particles, especially for those of you who have gone to school, where you were probably told something about light behaving like waves. I'm telling you the way it does behave - like particles."

QED, p 15

 

[zoobyshoe]

The key is to realize that as you said, a single photon can interfere with itself even in a double split experiment. In other words, the one photon had to pass through both slits.

"There is no splitting of light into "half particles" that go different places."

-Feynman
QED
p.15

 

[zoobyshoe]

If the energy of the closed system has increased, the mass has increased.

If this has anything to do with what we're talking about then all it means is that the only people whose thoughs have mass are closed-minded people.

 

[PIT2]

Heres a picture from wikipedia about the different interpretations of QM, with the one i mentioned circled in red:

picture:http://img303.imageshack.us/img303/7101/qm2kh.jpg



source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_quantum_mechanics

 

[zoobyshoe]

Here's the expanded verbal explanation of that interpretation:

Consciousness causes collapse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Address:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_causes_collapse

 

[zoobyshoe]

Here's a really good, readable explanation of the double-slit problem in layman's terms:

The Feynman Double Slit
Address:http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/GeneralInterest/Harrison/DoubleSlit/DoubleSlit.html

 

[SGT]

If the energy of the closed system has increased, the mass has increased.

What closed system? The human body? The Universe? The brain uses energy coming from food to fire the neurons. The chemical reactions produce heat. the excess heat is transported by the blood to the skin, where it dissipates into the ambient by radiation (very little) and transpiration.
I don't see any increase of energy not accounted for.
By the way, the interpretation of the paradox of Maxwell's demon is that the demon will expend energy to observe the gas molecules and the demon plus the trap door will increase their entropy. So the total entropy of the system gas-demon-trap will increase.
The theory that information contains energy smells like a creationists argument.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The information contains energy solution was presented in a physics lecture at OSU. It is found that useful information [as opposed to random data] can do work. A machine can be built that shows this.

The closed system reference was sloppy. I was referencing the idea that energy has been added to a box. Are you suggesting that it doesn't require energy to think or that the brain organizes information free of charge? As Zooby pointed out, a less elegant view reveals that the chemistry demands that suggested is correct - the energy of the system has increased, so the mass has increased.

In Maxwell's paradox, we assume a perfect door. This is elementary to the problem.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

"I want to emphasize that light comes in this form - particles. It is very important to know that light behaves like particles, especially for those of you who have gone to school, where you were probably told something about light behaving like waves. I'm telling you the way it does behave - like particles."

QED, p 15

Well, first let me say this. When we begin to study QM, the first thing that we learn is the wave function. This is the basis for all of QM - the most successful theory in the history of science. There is no doubt about this fact: Feynman did not do away with the need for the wave function.

On page 54 he also says:
"So light doesn't really travel only in a straight line;' it smells the neighboring paths around and uses a small core of nearby space."

Does this sound like a particle? Can particles really smell?. You can't take one sentence from the introduction and assume that this gives the complete picture.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Check out the pages 54, 55, and 56, and also his footnote on page 76. I am pretty sure Feynman has done away with the need for a "wave function".

Yes, this is confusing. The best answer that I can manage at the moment is that he describes a model that avoids the wave function by introducing other magic, like "smelling the neighborhood". I haven't read this for a long time so the context is no longer clear, but I think you are reading too much into what he says. I will try to come up with a better explanation when time allows.

I should add that the proper interpretation of the wave function and collapse is still hotly debated. In fact, some Cosmologists now propose that a measurement collapses the wave function of the observer and not that observed. So in a sense, since Feynman, the problem has only gotten worse. Some scientists think that collapse has been explained via Von Neumann’s wave function collapse postulate, but other scientists disagree.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

A few years ago I tried to sort this all out. From this effort, here is an excerpt from a personal email from Steve Carlip - a highly respected physicist.

The answer to the ``measurement problem'' is not known, at least in
the sense that there's no answer that is widely accepted. For most
purposes, that doesn't matter, since Von Neumann showed that in
general it doesn't matter exactly where the collapse takes place --
that is, if you have a chain of instruments measuring instruments
measuring instruments, the final predictions will be the same whichever
one ``collapses the wave function.''

That's not very satisfying as a fundamental answer, though. But there's
little experimental basis to say anything more, so there's no agreement
among physicists about where to go from there. Some people argue for
some additional dynamics, for example a stochastic process that causes
physical wave function collapse (look up the GRW model, for example).
Penrose and a few others believe that gravitational effects should make
the Schrodinger equation nonlinear and cause collapse. Many people in
quantum cosmology, where one has to think about a wave function for
the whole universe, believe there's no collapse; when you look at the
dial on an instrument, *you* go into a superposition of states. Others
argue that the key is ``decoherence,'' the near-vanishing of interference
terms when you interact with a system with a large number of degrees
of freedom; Gell-Mann, Hartle, Griffiths, and Omnes have major research
programs on ``decoherent histories.''

There's a book edited by Wheeler and Zurek called _Quantum Theory of
Measurement_ that has many of the classic papers on this subject. You
should also look at Chris Isham's book _Lectures on Quantum Theory_,
especially chapter 8, and at Bell's essay collection, _Speakable and
Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics_. Jim Hartle's 1992 Les Houches
lectures are also worth reading.

> At the end of this review, the author cites Bell who seems to say that
> although deep problems exist within this question, most physicists
> simply avoid the issue and it's implications.

Most physicists avoid *most* issues. I avoid most issues in condensed
matter theory, for example. The measurement problem in quantum
mechanics is a deep one, and most physicists recognize it's there, but
it doesn't affect most areas of research, and few people have any idea
how to resolve it. If someone could figure out a *testable* implication,
that would make a big difference; but right now, most of the argument
is about ``interpretation'' of the existing theory, with no hint that different
interpretations affect anything except the way individuals visualize things.

Steve Carlip

I think his last sentence accounts for the confusion with Feynman's comments.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Thank you for that Carlip quote Ivan. I have always depended on him to combine deeper knowledge about some things (especially GR) than anybody else with a head screwed firmly on his shoulders. And this quote confirms my opinion again.

 

[SGT]

The information contains energy solution was presented in a physics lecture at OSU. It is found that useful information [as opposed to random data] can do work. A machine can be built that shows this.

The closed system reference was sloppy. I was referencing the idea that energy has been added to a box. Are you suggesting that it doesn't require energy to think or that the brain organizes information free of charge? As Zooby pointed out, a less elegant view reveals that the chemistry demands that suggested is correct - the energy of the system has increased, so the mass has increased.

In Maxwell's paradox, we assume a perfect door. This is elementary to the problem.

All vital processes, including thought, require energy. This energy may be used to turn small molecules into more complex ones (aminoacids into proteins). The excess heat is eliminated to the ambient in the form of heat. Unless you have some cite that proves that not all energy employed in firing the neurons turn into heat, I don't believe that any portion has become matter.
If you take energy from a random mix of water molecules, they will turn into an ice crystal. A crystal is more organized and thus contains more information than the random molecules, but it is obtained when the water releases energy.

 

[zoobyshoe]

As Zooby pointed out, a less elegant view reveals that the chemistry demands that suggested is correct - the energy of the system has increased, so the mass has increased.

The firing of neurons doesn't add energy, it uses stored energy. If anything, thinking increases the entropy. Thoughts don't represent an increase in energy and they don't have mass: they are events during which energy is expended, not added to storage.
The event "thought" is not the occasion of the inflow of energy. It is the occasion of the expenditure of electropotential energy that is primarily transduced to heat. To the extent that tiny amount of heat conrtributes to the brain's overall operating temperature, we may consider the energy "recycled", but the real heat source for the brain is the blood supply, and the heat generated by all the firing neurons is a drop in the ocean in the overall flow of heat from the body into the head and out the top of the head.

You might argue elegantly that memory has mass since it is the kind of organized information you're referring to, but thoughts don't have mass.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Okay, because Zooby said so.

What are your qualifications Zooby? Should we assume that you are an expert in the functions of the brain, or are you self taught?

I stated that this all appears to be true. I have run this by a number of qualified people who think it makes sense. Maybe I am wrong for some reason, but you need to get over your perpetual case of freshmanitis.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Thank you for that Carlip quote Ivan. I have always depended on him to combine deeper knowledge about some things (especially GR) than anybody else with a head screwed firmly on his shoulders. And this quote confirms my opinion again.

He has been kind enough to help a couple of times - a really nice guy.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

As for the brain, if we store information then it must take work to do it. But my suggestion, and I did clearly indicate that this was my suggestion and not a proven fact, was based on a fundamental principle of information and energy.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Okay its starting to come back to me now. I remember that Feynman is famous for a calculation that has been interpreted as meaning that an electron in motion interacts with its future self. The "smelling" that Feynman mentions may refer to virtual particles... But unless one of our experts chimes in before hand, I will get the proper answer to explain Feynmans comments. Its just been so long that for the life of me I can't remember the context. It looks like I had better get back to reading the selections suggested by Carlip, as well as a re-read of QED.

 

[Chronos]

The firing of neurons doesn't add energy, it uses stored energy. If anything, thinking increases the entropy. Thoughts don't represent an increase in energy and they don't have mass: they are events during which energy is expended, not added to storage.
The event "thought" is not the occasion of the inflow of energy. It is the occasion of the expenditure of electropotential energy that is primarily transduced to heat. To the extent that tiny amount of heat conrtributes to the brain's overall operating temperature, we may consider the energy "recycled", but the real heat source for the brain is the blood supply, and the heat generated by all the firing neurons is a drop in the ocean in the overall flow of heat from the body into the head and out the top of the head.

You might argue elegantly that memory has mass since it is the kind of organized information you're referring to, but thoughts don't have mass.

I disagree. Neurons scarcely generate any heat. Heat comes from imagination. Fire away.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Yes, this is confusing. The best answer that I can manage at the moment is that he describes a model that avoids the wave function by introducing other magic, like "smelling the neighborhood".

This is incorrect. He does away with the need for a concept of wave function by calculating probability amplitudes. Look back at the paragraph that footnote #8 refers to. The opposite of "similar magic" is probablility amplitudes, not "smells" the neighborhood.

The "smells" remark was just a colorful metaphor that he, himself, put in quotes: it's an amusing anthropomorphisation. It's the way he talks. Look on page 57, second paragraph from the bottom:

'Now, let's have some fun. Let's `fool the light,' so that all paths take exactly the same amount of time."

In case there's any doubt in your mind, Feynman is not suggesting that photons are sentient beings that can be fooled, or that can smell. Don't get all Aspergery and start taking amusing remarks like that literally.

I haven't read this for a long time so the context is no longer clear, but I think you are reading too much into what he says. I will try to come up with a better explanation when time allows.

I am positive Feynman is saying there is no need for a wave function.

I should add that the proper interpretation of the wave function and collapse is still hotly debated.

This is clear from everything I've dug up for this conversation.

In fact, some Cosmologists now propose that a measurement collapses the wave function of the observer and not that observed. So in a sense, since Feynman, the problem has only gotten worse. Some scientists think that collapse has been explained via Von Neumann's wave function collapse postulate, but other scientists disagree.

The double slit has obviously created a mystery. When you can't tell what something is, you start speculating, then hypothesizing. I am kind of amazed at how mystical a lot of these trains of thought become. The double slit is one thing for certain: a rohrschach test.

I think his last sentence accounts for the confusion with Feynman's comments.

The last sentence being:

If someone could figure out a testable implication, that would make a big difference; but right now most of the argument is about "interpretation" of the existing theory, with no hint that different interpretations affect anything except the way individuals visualize things.

This is a statement I agree with to the very small extent I am aware of and can follow all the competeing theories, but it actually has nothing to do with any confusion on my part about what Feynman said. I don't believe I am confused in asserting he did away with the need for a collapsable wave function. In QED no such thing has to be accounted for or calculated:

"This strange phenomenon of partial reflection by two surfaces can be explained for intense light by a theory of waves, but the wave theory cannot explain how the detector makes equally loud clicks as the light gets dimmer. Quantum electrodynamics "resolves" this wave-particle duality by saying that light is made of particles (as Newton originally thought), but the price of this great advancement of science is a retreat by physics to a position of being able to calculate only the probability that a photon will hit a detector, without offering good model of how it actually happens."

He shoves the collapsable wave function to the side and says in effect, "I'm going to approach the whole thing from a completely different angle."

He does the same thing to the HUP. Look at the footnote on pages 55 & 56:

³This is an example of the "uncertainty principle": there is a kind of "complementarity" between knowledge of where the light goes between the blocks and where it goe afterward-precise knowledge of both is impossible. I would like to put the uncertainty principle in ts historical place: When the revolutionary ideas of quantum physics were first coming out, people still tried to understand them in terms of old-fashioned ideas (such as, light goes in straight lines). But at a certain point the old-fashioned ideas would begin to fail, so a warning system was developed that said, in effect, "your old-fashioned ideas are no damn good when..." If you get rid of all the old-fashioned ideas and instead use the ideas that I'm explaining in these lectures - adding arrows for all the ways an event can happen - there is no need for an uncertainty principle!

If you happen to have a copy of Genius by James Gleick you will remember the story of Niels Bohr's uncomprehending reaction to Feynman's diagrams:

"The chicken-wire diagrams that Feynman had etched on the blackboard seemed, by contrast, quite definite. Those trajectories looked classical in their precision. Niels Bohr stood up. He knew this young physicist from Los Alamos-Feynman had argued freely and vehemently with Bohr. Bohr had sought Feynman's private council there, valuing his frankness, but now he was disturbed by the evident implications of those crisp lines. Feynman's particles seemed to be following paths neatly fixed in space and time. This they could not do. The uncertainty principle said so.

"Already we know that the classical idea of the trajectory in a path is not a legitimate idea in quantum mechanics," he said, or so Feynman thought-Bohr's soft voice and notoriously vague Danish tones kept his listeners straining to understand. He stepped forward and for many minutes with Feynman standing unhappily to the side, delivered a huniliating lecture on the uncertainty principle. Afterward Feynman kept his despair to himself.

Genius, p.8

Feynman was no respector of the "well-established" wave-particle duality, and found the most useful means of approaching the problem was to analyze light as particles. I say "most useful" not "most accurate" because in Six Easy Pieces he says that the true naure of a photon is not particle or wave, nor is it both wave and particle, it is neither wave nor particle: a thing unto itself that has no comprehensible analogy on a macro scale, but which is most usefully analyzed as a particle.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Okay, because Zooby said so.

Reminds me of fileen.

What are your qualifications Zooby? Should we assume that you are an expert in the functions of the brain, or are you self taught?

Eh? My qualifications were fine for you when you wanted to use something I asserted in your argument against SGT. I guess they only become suspect when you can't use them to your advantage.

I stated that this all appears to be true. I have run this by a number of qualified people who think it makes sense. Maybe I am wrong for some reason, but you need to get over your perpetual case of freshmanitis.

I don't know what "freshmanistis" is, but I think what it means is you don't really know how to counter my arguments against thought having mass, and are, therefore, diverting the issue to my attitude.

This "qualifications" thing is a new ploy you've come up with lately: if you don't like someone's facts and logic, you now declare them "unqualified".

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I wasn't being selective, my objection is that you make unqualified declarations that are way beyond your level of knowledge; that is unless you care to explain consciousness and refute the solution to Maxwell's paradox.

 

[SGT]

I wasn't being selective, my objection is that you make unqualified declarations that are way beyond your level of knowledge; that is unless you care to explain consciousness and refute the solution to Maxwell's paradox.

What is in your opinion the solution to Maxwell's paradox?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness
Consciousness poses the most baffling problems in the science of the mind. There is nothing that we know more intimately than conscious experience, but there is nothing that is harder to explain. All sorts of mental phenomena have yielded to scientific investigation in recent years, but consciousness has stubbornly resisted. Many have tried to explain it, but the explanations always seem to fall short of the target. Some have been led to suppose that the problem is intractable, and that no good explanation can be given.

To make progress on the problem of consciousness, we have to confront it directly. In this paper, I first isolate the truly hard part of the problem, separating it from more tractable parts and giving an account of why it is so difficult to explain. [continued]

http://consc.net/papers/facing.html

Many suggest that consciousness lies in the Quantum realm. For example:

Spin-Mediated Consciousness Theory: Possible Roles of Oxygen Unpaired Electronic Spins and Neural Membrane Nuclear Spin Ensemble in Memory and Consciousness

A novel theory of consciousness is proposed in this paper. We postulate that consciousness is connected to quantum mechanical spin since said spin is embedded in the microscopic structure of spacetime and may be more fundamental than spacetime itself. Thus, we theorize that consciousness is connected with the fabric of spacetime through spin.[continued]

http://arxiv.org/ftp/quant-ph/papers/0208/0208068.pdf

 

[Ivan Seeking]

What is in your opinion the solution to Maxwell's paradox?

I already stated what I was taught in physics: Useful information contains energy. Again, this isn't my opinion, this is what I was taught. The observation and decision required for the demon to open or close the door accounts for the "missing" work.