What is the context of observation in this video?

[Thenewdeal38]

Ken G, StevieTNZ are either of you physicists?

Here are some physicists who argue counsciesness has nothing to do with the QM process. Roger Penrose dosent count he's a topologist.

Among them Bohr, Heisenberg, Einstein also only very few prominent physicists, e.g. E. Wigner, have argued for a role of consciousness in the measurement process, but later in his life, however, Wigner changed his views, persuaded by the work of Zeh [5]. But such exceptional cases do not justify ignoring the warning of Bell “that it is not right to tell the public that a central role for consciousness is integrated into modern physics.”Michael Nauenberg http://physics.ucsc.edu/~michael/qefoundations.pdf

Victor Stenger http://www.csicop.org/si/show/quantum_quackery/

 

[Thenewdeal38]

Also http://physicsandcake.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/the-observer-with-a-hammer-effect/

The label "observer effect" is a misnomer as the observation conducted by the conscious agent is only a secondary action, the primary action is that of interaction. In the most famous case, Youngs double slit experiment, the waveform of the electron being measured is collapsed by its interaction with the photon used to detect it. The misunderstanding arises because of the experimenter is essentially interfering with the experiment in the act of measuring the desired phenomenon.

It's a bit like switching a light on to see how dark it is.

 

[TGlad]

"Among them Bohr, Heisenberg, Einstein"
And don't forget Feynman

 

[Low-Q]

I am pretty sure that you will recognise this video :
about at 3:50, they claim that, when we observe an electron passing through a double slit, acts as a particle, as opposed to its wave property. Does that mean, if we place a 8 mega pixel digital camera in between the slit and the light source, will electrons behave as particles? I hardly think so. SO my question is, what is the context of observation in this video?

The problem with observing electrons is that we have to shine a light on it in order to see it. However, if we do, the electron will move to another location when exited by the photons from the light... Maybe that wasn't your point?

Vidar

 

[Ken G]

I'm a bit weary of having which-way info available and allowing the quantum system to be in a definite state. I say that because of Scully's eraser experiment. I think it is natural to say had the particle really gone one way or the other prior to erasure of information, interference wouldn't return.

Yes, it's very important not to give a casual meaning to the word "available." Note that when I imagine a hypothetical consciousness on the scene, I am not affording that consciousness any supernatural powers or "god's eye" views of anything-- it has access only to whatever information a real consciousness could have in the exact same situation. Hence, it has no effect on whether or not information is erased before it is ever made "available"-- one must still have the availability or it just isn't which way information.

 

[Ken G]

But such exceptional cases do not justify ignoring the warning of Bell “that it is not right to tell the public that a central role for consciousness is integrated into modern physics.”

Yes, I am a physicist, but it doesn't matter-- our arguments stand on facts, not credentials. The issues about the "role of consciousness" are rather poorly understood, and even the quotes by those physicists that you refer to are not even talking about the role of consciousness that I am talking about. The myth they wish to dispell is that consciousness has been shown to be some kind of "physical player" in the collapse, like it was a term in the equation or some such thing. That would be an extremely naive way to characterize the role of consciousness in physics, and would suffer the internal inconsistency that we would still not understand the role that consciousness has in requiring that term to appear.

The actual role of consciousness is much more subtle, but much more demonstrably present. It is the role of the physicist in physics. Anyone who would claim that the physicist has no role in physics is not making a whole lot of sense. It is natural to formulate physics without making any explicit reference to the physicist, because we don't know how to do the latter and we got along fine for centuries imagining that the physicist was a "fly on the wall" in physics, so it was a good postulate. But then came quantum mechanics, and we had the inescapable problem of a theory that deals in indefinite outcomes having to be used on a scientific experience, by physicists who deal in definite outcomes. That is the whole reason we have multiple interpretations of quantum mechanics, and that is the place where a role of consciousness is indeed invoked by every one of them in different ways that most people simply sweep under the rug. Even the stauch positivism and empiricism of Bohr and others can be cast simply as the place where their interpretation makes contact with human consciousness/intelligence/analyzing ability, since what else is empiricism but that?

 

[StevieTNZ]

Ken G, StevieTNZ are either of you physicists?

I'm not.

Here are some physicists who argue counsciesness has nothing to do with the QM process. Roger Penrose dosent count he's a topologist.

You'll always get someone who will argue against an interpretation.

 

[faen]

It requires a pretty die-hard idealist stance to claim that the mixed state remains mixed until some consciousness comes into contact with it. I tend to prefer a "softer" role of consciousness-- the concept of a hypothetical consciousness suffices. That handles the "tree falling in the woods" issue. The point is, most scientists are too realist to want to imagine that a consciousness is actually required to collapse a wave function, but one does need to introduce a hypothetical consciousness into the problem to collapse the mixed state. The way that looks is, we say the mixed state is "actually" one result or the other, because we can imagine introducing a hypothetical consciousness/intelligence/analyzing agent into the situation without disrupting the system (because it is already highly macroscopic) to adjudicate which outcome occured. It doesn't matter if the consciousness is there, what matters is that our consciousness can imagine that one.

The collapse then occurs via a kind of "mini me" mindset, much like the way "which way" information collapses a two-slit experiment whether or not any consciousness is actually there to interpret that information. Note that in this brand of interpretation, the consciousness is still required to give meaning to the experiment, it is just not required to be on hand in the actual apparatus. This approach allows for realism, which most scientists view as a convenient philosophical stance whenever possible.
This doesn't present any problem. The idealist simply holds that the universe is in a kind of unactualized state until the consciousnesses come along to collapse it into a definite state. But the realist finds that too radical, yet can still easily find a role for consciousness in the same "mini me" fashion I mentioned above-- we simply say that because we can imagine a consciousness being present without altering the reality, it doesn't matter if the consciousness was really there or not. Note this is what you cannot do inside an atom, say-- there is no way to imagine a consciousness present inside an atom without changing the atom, the atom has not been rendered into a macroscopic mixed state that the (hypothetical) consciousness could collapse.

Now I know what some might say-- they'll say that a hypothetical entity cannot actually "do" anything in a physical situation. But that is because they have already adopted a fairly radical philosophical stance that reality can actually be parsed into "doers" that cause things to happen, and "onlookers" that have no effect. That approach has worked for us for so long that we forgot to notice how radical a stance it it, but it is in quantum mechanics that this stance falls all apart. Instead, in quantum mechanics we find that even the onlooker is responsible for the information they are using in their physics-- their fingerprints are all over the way they are choosing to think about any situation, the coherences they are choosing to track and those they are choosing to average over and ignore. Quantum mechanics is simply not possible without making choices like that.
The analogy doesn't hold-- we don't need Santa to do science. We do need consciousnesses/intelligences/analyzing agents (again I make no effort to parse any distinctions there), they are demonstrable and inextricable elements of doing physics. We just didn't need to think about them before quantum mechanics, because we never faced the question, "where does the definite outcome come from?" That is exactly the question that forces us to adopt an interpretation of quantum mechanics where we did not have to adopt an interpretation of classical mechanics, because we never included any indefinite outcomes in our theories before.

What do you mean when you say hypothetical counciousness? Is it the counciousness of a human, or in the environment?

This doesn't present any problem. The idealist simply holds that the universe is in a kind of unactualized state until the consciousnesses come along to collapse it into a definite state.

In order for the universe to cause a counciousness, something definite is still required, isn't it? That definite would then require a counciousness before the existence of the counciousness.

 

[TGlad]

"Anyone who would claim that the physicist has no role in physics is not making a whole lot of sense"
The physicist has no special role in physics, since there is nothing special about the physicist that distinguishes it from any other large lump of matter as far as the universe is concerned.

"our arguments stand on facts, not credentials"
But you're not providing facts, just quite vague descriptions in my opinion which are hard to interpret one way or another.
So I'll stick with Bohr, Feynman, Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Einstein and Bell on this.

 

[StevieTNZ]

"Anyone who would claim that the physicist has no role in physics is not making a whole lot of sense"
The physicist has no special role in physics, since there is nothing special about the physicist that distinguishes it from any other large lump of matter as far as the universe is concerned.

"our arguments stand on facts, not credentials"
But you're not providing facts, just quite vague descriptions in my opinion which are hard to interpret one way or another.
So I'll stick with Bohr, Feynman, Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Einstein and Bell on this.

It's probably a good idea to get a basic grip of quantum predictions, etc, in order to know "the facts". Then rather than repeating them you know what we're basing our descriptions on.

 

[Ken G]

What do you mean when you say hypothetical counciousness? Is it the counciousness of a human, or in the environment?

It is the only kind of consciousness we know, a human one. But we simply imagine it is present in the situation, and give it access to information that it would actually have access to were it there. That is the sole means we have for adjudicating if we will regard a collapse as having happened or not. All interpretations of QM insert a hypothetical consciousness somewhere, and tracking just where they do that is a good way to understand their distinguishing features.

In order for the universe to cause a counciousness, something definite is still required, isn't it? That definite would then require a counciousness before the existence of the counciousness.

That is certainly an unresolved issue, but an important one. Does physics give rise to definite macroscopic states, which in turn give rise to consciousness, or does consciousness give rise to the concept of a definite state, and onward to physics itself? The latter is the only one that is demonstrably true, the former requires a particular type of philosophy to claim-- yet it is a philosophy that has served science for a long time (but may be showing some cracks now). Probably the "truth" cannot be stated so simply as an "either/or" proposition.

 

[Ken G]

The physicist has no special role in physics, since there is nothing special about the physicist that distinguishes it from any other large lump of matter as far as the universe is concerned.

This is a classic example of what I meant by "not making a whole lot of sense." There is quite demonstrably something distinguishing the physicist from another lump of matter-- the physicist will be the one doing physics.

But you're not providing facts, just quite vague descriptions in my opinion which are hard to interpret one way or another.

No, the claims I've made above are simple facts. Or would you dispute that the physicist is the "lump" that is doing physics?

So I'll stick with Bohr, Feynman, Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Einstein and Bell on this.

None of the remarks they made are germaine to what I am saying. As I said, they were dispelling a quite naive myth that consciousness acts as a physical agent in creating collapse. What I'm saying is quite different-- consciousness is, quite demonstrably, the reason that we encounter the issue of collapse of a wavefunction in the first place. Again, that is not opinion, it is fact-- no rock has the vaguest concern what we would call a wavefunction or a collapse. Multiple choice: we ask the question "what is collapse", or "what predictions does quantum mechanics make", because we are:
a) conscious/intelligent
b) lumps of matter

 

[kaonyx]

The act of observation "determining" the event in question is wrong-headed, and is a stubborn meme that persists from the early writings on quantum mechanics. We now know that the boot is on the other foot. We now know that we must cooperate to know anything, and it is this necessary cooperation that limits us.

Observation is a metaphor for the existence of an information channel, it does not presume that a human being is the consumer.

Also another point, actual events can have myriad consequences in the world of being, and of potential being, so we can observe without looking. The information channel can be convoluted. This point is often lost on non-scientists. As Neils Bohr once explained, there are many ways to measure air pressure with a pendulum.

When a particle strikes a screen, there is no wavefunction collapse of a moving particle, because wavefunctions do not move, they describe. When hydrogen atoms bond to make a gas, the electron wavefunction not collapse, it simply is more appropriate to use a function that includes both hydrogen nuclei. Similarly when a particle is "detected" at a screen, the wave functions that we need to use are necessarily a little different from the moving particle functions.

We cannot cause the collapse of wave functions, but we can participate in wavefunctions that describe us and other objects.

It is even worse than you think, not only can I **not** control the manufacture of events at the quantum level, I must even be **dependent** on them before I can even observe them. I must **share** in their state to a good degree. I can do it by proxy though, through a chain of such dependencies.

In order to provide information about a primary system (eg such as a spontaneous atomic decay), the observing system must be correlated with the primary system.

If you are a random coin, then I can be a random coin too (uncorrelated) or I can be a perfect follower (correlated). If I want to know if you are heads, then I too must become heads when you are heads. To this extent I must share your state, or relevant aspects of it. This is the essence of what it means to observe. I must be dependent, not independent, in my behaviour.

I can correlate with the momentum of a moving particle by a collision, by exchanging momentum, for example, so my detector is again a form of correlation with the primary event. If I want to correlate with a precise point in time, and so detect events, then I can do that, but remembering that in so doing I cannot correlate with a precise energy according to the uncertainty principle. The choice I have is in what my observer technology will consist of, and that will limit me.

But we are also of the universe, so that as observation necessarily entangles systems together, so we too can become entangled parties to such informational events. But that does not grant the entanglees any special privileges, it just means that we too are part of these bigger systems, and not placed on this Earth as dissociated, supernatural beings after all.

 

[Thenewdeal38]

"Does physics give rise to definite macroscopic states, which in turn give rise to consciousness, or does consciousness give rise to the concept of a definite state, and onward to physics itself? The latter is the only one that is demonstrably true."

Proofs, links anything because I think that's philosophical crap.

 

[Ken G]

I don't think any "links" are required to notice that it is demonstrably true that conscious thought gives rise to physics. Pick up any physics textbook, and ask, "what gave rise to this?" That will serve as my link for you.

 

[Thenewdeal38]

No physics existed before we thought about it. Gravity didnt just come into existence the same time humans did. Youre getting lost in semantics. Our cognitive process of trying to make sense of physics is completley diffrent than saying our counscieness creates gravity, thermodynamics and physics in general. An incredibly egocentric opinion, like saying Earth is at the center of the universe or something.

 

[Thenewdeal38]

Murray Gell-Mann, the winner of a Nobel Prize for his fundamental
contributions to particle physics, is quoted in QE as saying that
"The universe presumably couldn’t care less whether human beings evolved on some obscure planet to study its history; it goes on obeying the quantum mechanical laws of physics irrespective of observation by physicists"

 

[kaonyx]

When quantum theory began producing wave functions, then the relationship between the wave function or quantum state (psi), and those events that were subject to this function, drew immediate parallels with the relationship between mind and body. It was an obvious jump to equate mind with psi, and event with brain. That is an interesting hypothesis, and it should be testable, but the jury is still out. But meantime consider this: The unitary nature of a quantum state is often compared to the "unity" of consciousness. However there are some serious cracks in this idea. Are we not confusing unity with concurrency?
If you naively imagine that you have a "unified" consiousness, then think again. What would your experience be like without sight? Without hearing? A stroke can leave you with all kinds of bizarre misfunction, but the interesting thing is that this so-called unified conscious experience is hardly unified. It is a muddle of multiple brain functions, with limited memory capacity, and poor reasoning skills, struggling to maintain some level of overall coherence in the attentional centers. Conscious experience is a pastiche of many brain functions operating at the same time, they don't integrate all that well on close inspection - as a raft of psychological tests and games can easily show. Using FMRI and brain scanning experiments, we are starting to slowly unravel the threads of this "experience" and show that they are in fact a composite of co-acting parts.
No one part is essential either. If you have all your capacities active then count yourself lucky, but the overall effect is not some magico-physical field, it is a piece of good fortune that you should enjoy until your first stroke starts lopping random parts away.

 

[kaonyx]

As far as the physics goes we can only observe events such as a quantum transition in a property or the selection of a property from a superposition. We can arrange to observe only events of a certain sort, but that still does not mean we were the creator or the cause of those events. We are participants certainly. It is a quite different question to ask if our mental state can be be coupled to quantum events such as these. That is the million dollar question.

 

[Ken G]

As far as the physics goes we can only observe events such as a quantum transition in a property or the selection of a property from a superposition. We can arrange to observe only events of a certain sort, but that still does not mean we were the creator or the cause of those events. We are participants certainly. It is a quite different question to ask if our mental state can be be coupled to quantum events such as these. That is the million dollar question.

Right, there are two almost completely different ways that our mental efforts could become involved, and most people only think about the second one you mentioned. There is little evidence that one is actually involved, but there is plenty of evidence that the first one is involved (our participation in the perception of a definite outcome when the prime evolutionary law of our theory does not allow for definite outcomes of noncommuting observables, especially observables that don't commute with the Hamiltonian). In a sense, quantum mechanics is a case where nature herself is simply not cooperating with the way we demand to interact with her, and that is the inescapable role of consciousness/intelligence/analysis.

 

[Ken G]

Murray Gell-Mann, the winner of a Nobel Prize for his fundamental
contributions to particle physics, is quoted in QE as saying that
"The universe presumably couldn’t care less whether human beings evolved on some obscure planet to study its history; it goes on obeying the quantum mechanical laws of physics irrespective of observation by physicists"

And by what authority does Gell-Mann make that claim? By the authority of his intelligent brain. So, exactly my point, I thank Murray for so clearly establishing the principle I am describing.

 

[kaonyx]

KenG Thankyou for quoting me, but I have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[Ken G]

You don't know about that element of quantum mechanics then? It is its most surprising yet fundamental element. Our experiences are dominated by definite outcomes, but quantum mechanics is a theory rife with the importance of the indeterminate. This is the fundamental reason that quantum mechanical interpretations cause so much more consternation than the interpretations of any other physical theory, and is probably the reason that Feynman said no one understands quantum mechanics.

 

[brettjor]

How can measurement device somehow affect the result just by watching? Photons bounce of the object to the measurement device and that's it.
A bounce of a ball isn't influenced by a person who catches the ball 3 seconds after.

Right, but without capturing those photons you don't know what happened. All you have is a particle/wave.

 

[Fra]

No physics existed before we thought about it. Gravity didnt just come into existence the same time humans did. Youre getting lost in semantics.

This isn't what Ken meant, that's obvious.

What is undeniable is that the THEORY of gravity, is created by humans.

But this still isn't the point, the subtle point that I don't think has come across is what I would like to phrase like this.

What IS a theory? I think it's best thought of as an "interaction tool"; ie. it's the inferencial machinery by which any observers interprets and reacts on it's experiences.

For humans, it's obvious that human ACTION is strongly ruled by the THEORY of physics, just look at technology development! This is a highly "observable" effect of THEORY.

Now, if we can agree that humans are "in principle" no different than a lump of matter, then the following question presents itself:

What are the "interaction tools" or "inference rules" that a lump of matter uses in order to interact with it's environment? Not though, that whatever these "inferential rules" IS, it's precisely that laws of physics!

So I think the overall point here is that the ACTION of the observing system, does depend on it's EXPECTATION about the environment (which is of course exactly encoded as a THEORY):

Now since atoms don't write papers or post or arxiv, the foundational questions here is to try to understand HOW atoms and lumpts of matter ENCODE and INFER the corresponding "inference rules" from it's interaction history.

It's in these "hypothetical perspectives" we should take about "observers" IMHO. I think I may be more radical than Ken here but I think this makes the point more clear. Human ACTIONS and human THEORY are just an analogy, but if we add to that the idea that in principle the same laws of physics rules physicists as it does lumps of matter then the questions posed are the abopve.

/Fredrik

 

[Thenewdeal38]

This isn't what Ken meant, that's obvious.

What is undeniable is that the THEORY of gravity, is created by humans.

But this still isn't the point, the subtle point that I don't think has come across is what I would like to phrase like this.

What IS a theory? I think it's best thought of as an "interaction tool"; ie. it's the inferencial machinery by which any observers interprets and reacts on it's experiences.

For humans, it's obvious that human ACTION is strongly ruled by the THEORY of physics, just look at technology development! This is a highly "observable" effect of THEORY.

Now, if we can agree that humans are "in principle" no different than a lump of matter, then the following question presents itself:

What are the "interaction tools" or "inference rules" that a lump of matter uses in order to interact with it's environment? Not though, that whatever these "inferential rules" IS, it's precisely that laws of physics!

So I think the overall point here is that the ACTION of the observing system, does depend on it's EXPECTATION about the environment (which is of course exactly encoded as a THEORY):

Now since atoms don't write papers or post or arxiv, the foundational questions here is to try to understand HOW atoms and lumpts of matter ENCODE and INFER the corresponding "inference rules" from it's interaction history.

It's in these "hypothetical perspectives" we should take about "observers" IMHO. I think I may be more radical than Ken here but I think this makes the point more clear. Human ACTIONS and human THEORY are just an analogy, but if we add to that the idea that in principle the same laws of physics rules physicists as it does lumps of matter then the questions posed are the abopve.

/Fredrik

I think youre giving cousciesness far too much credit for being a special or magical transendent propertiy. Cousciesness is simply information in motion, like everything else around it. Sure its an extremely complicated system of cohesive collage like information in motion but counsciess is only distinguishibly diffrent than (all the particles that make it up are like any other particles orginized diffrently) than rocks, and chairs and fire at the macro level. And even those diffrences are just diffrent ways the matter is orginized to form diffrent patterns. It is our subjective interpretation that is interpreting ourselves just because the brain can dance in redundancy and loopholes dosent mean it affects reality any diffrently than say when we start a fire or knock over a chair rather than storm causing a fire or a chair falling naturally.

As far as nature is concerned when a human does something it is no diffrent than when a rock does something. If a human chooses to fall its the same if a roch falls. Free will is not independent or trancends the physical world around it, a number of experinces and external factors will force you to "choose" something and it may appear completely free but in reality its not, its an illusion there are a number of factors councsiess or uncounsciess pushing (exerting) you towards once choice or another the same way if something else hits (exerts) a force on a rock it has forced the rock to fall. A human just has more facculties than a rock. But our information in motion is not magiccly distinguishible from any other information in motion despite the fact it is a more convuluted and complicated version of the same thing, where interacting systems(parts) of info(the brain) form a cohesive colage to create the illusion of "councsiesness". Councsiesness fundamentally is no diffrent than any other physical system it is simply more complex.

 

[StevieTNZ]

I definitely agree we construct the theories we understand, but what the theory is about is human-independent.

 

[spectragal]

I have to tread carefully because I am a beginner student of quantum physics and am studying it because I like the philisophical nature of it.
I believe the observer is any sentient being (even a chicken) that has intent and forms conclusions based on what it observes.
I remember seeing a Stephen Hawking video 10 or 15 years ago. There was an experiment involving baby chicks and electronic device (that looked like a mother hen). The experiment proved that the baby chicks intent affected the random nature of the electronic device involved in the experiment.
If a camera does affect an experiment, I think it would only be because of the intent or program placed in it - which goes back to a sentient observer.
Just my opinion.

 

[spectragal]

Now I am going really abstract. Is it possible that all living sentient beings are multi-level beings, and that we are only aware of this collective conscious level? Perhaps on the other levels we are collectively holding this reality together through obersevation so that we can experience this physical reality.

 

[brettjor]

The philosophy is fascinating. The QM physics theory, solves several problems. It works for what we need it to do. We can launch a rocket to the moon with Newtons brilliance. We could launch a spaceship to the moon with Einsteins brilliance. But why would you want to? Use the simplest workable idea to get you where you need to go.
Regardless, Philosophy works on words, physics works on math. We need a new theory to unify the worlds of words and math.

If I were to write out the description of why 1+1= 2 in only words, we would sit here and argue the proof using only words. Seriously, probability is often counter intuitive. Arguing the philosophy of probability without using the math of probability, is about as futile as arguing the existence of a specific God using math. Humans and their "crap" always get in the way.
I'm not trying to invalidate the discussion, just point out that we seem to arguing over semantics. Some feel the words describe the idea, others don't see it.