Partinobodycular,

Yes, the thread on indeterminism and Newtonian physics proceeds from a reductionistic viewpoint, but I made it that way for a number of reasons. In any event I like this thread and think the issues are more interesting the determinism vs indeterminism. To move to the idea in this thread now.

I don't think we live in a collective reality, however I don't think that the only alternative is solipsism either. When you open the box and see the cast (either dead or alive) which I have not confirmed the situation of is that I am looking at you open the box, which means you are an "object" which I am observing which has taken a definitive value from a superposition of possible states. At the same time, you are an observer which has collapsed the superposition into a definitive state.

The very issue you raise here is one that has occurred to me as well as a consequence of the cat in the box. After all, doesn't the existence of many observers contradict the power of each other? If it does, it is only if there isn't many worlds happening. Many worlds avoids solipsism without providing a need for a collective reality. My reasoning for the many worlds theory philosophically speaking is realized alternatively through a different line of argument but that is another discussion.

The irony is that there still could be a collective reality to some degree but it would mean that there would be factors that would have to be working across all directions of time. These factors would need to be the simultaneous quantum ripples of all observers in time as their observer determined effects relate to one another in determining each other. So the idea here is that you have many observers each in their own universe effecting each other across time so that they all collectively determine the whole of reality. In this way, it is each relative observer that determines aspects of all other observations either directly or through indirect chains intersubjectively.

Now to the question of what counts as an observer that would be in my opinion, the ostensive experience of consciousness actively engaged in the world.

What you are not considering is if multiple universes exist that are observer relative. So if you are lying and not really telling the truth, that will be one of the possible outcomes which an observer eventually comes to realize once you see inside the box for yourself. Until you do, and if you do, that eventuality is also in superposition.

You see your assumption is that there is only one of each observer and not observer relative reality which constantly diverges based on possible outcomes. This would be something like a many worlds hypothesis with a Copenhagen twist. I know that is a crude way to put it but what I am saying is based more on the philosophy rather then the physics of this situation.

stormy phillips wrote:To me the cat in the box idea is not a question of whether the cat is alive or dead. It is more that first you opened the box, in other words imagined it to exist, opened your mind to the idea. Then through observation you determined how to make it real through the ingredients of reality, in other words you applied the light of reality to it, in which all things need in order to matter. Having achieved that, you now have acknowledged that yes indeed, the cat exists, but the real question remains....how real is it, the only answer is....real enough to matter.
In the end, "if you don't mind, it wont matter."

So are you saying that the cat is not in a state of potential if no one ever looks at it; that unobserved objects have their own being independent of the perception of them, or do you think this an irrelevant matter and are simply concerned with what is "real" for us and find anything outside of experience to be unintelligible talk? I ask because when you say what i outlined in bold it is someone ambiguous to me given the context.

Steve3007,

I am in agreement with you when you talking about not being able to meaningfully talk about what the electron is doing when not observed. When you say that "the world, and the electron, are the sum of all observations of them" I agree insofar as all we have are the observations themselves for which we come up with explanatory models that better predict future observations.

However, this only applies to knowledge gained via scientific methodology. So from a science perspective we can't talk about the reality of the unobserved electron because that would begin to tread into metaphysical territory. But that does not mean that we cannot tread into such discussions once we take off our scientist hat and put on our philosophers cap.

Ironically, from a philosophical standpoint I argue that there doesn't exist anything beyond the scope of conscious experience, but that is again an argument that proceeds philosophically.

On the subject of the delayed choice experiment though there is just one issue which has me wonder if an understanding of reality that works in terms of local causality and events that are not observer relative has not been falsified. When someone conducting the quantum eraser experiment chooses to not look at the recorded data and an interference pattern results, it would seem to falsify the idea that the detector is corrupting the experiment.

You talked about the uncertainty principle, but the experiment would seem to go beyond epistemic uncertainty and and demonstrate that it is not merely the case that our act of observation is the cause of the uncertainty. Indeed this is a factor but the fact that the observer can be in another room and be using the detector in both cases, but get a different result merely by choosing to not look at the data suggests that the variable is his decision to look or not look at the data (add new information or call it what you like).

That is even more strange then electrons being fired one at a time to accumulate a wave pattern, that is showing that if such accumulations of instances or particle behavior occur it isn't dependent on the electron detectors. What do you think about this?

Steve3007 wrote:Hi Exogen,

I take your point about the distinction between scientific and other ways of looking at the world. When I say that it is meaningless to talk about things that cannot be observed, that's only in the context of what science is trying to achieve. I think that the role of science is (or should be) perhaps more restricted than some people seem to think. It makes predictive theories about observations. That's essentially all it's capable of doing. But there's more to life than that! Art, poetry, emotions etc.

About the delayed choice experiment: I'm not really up to speed on this. Are you saying that an actual experiment has been done in which the interference pattern is either there or not depending on whether the recorded information about which slit it passes through is thrown away?

Well I actually am in total agreement with you in regards to the strictness of the importance of science not using non-empirical evidence. B.F. Skinner the founder of behaviorism in psychology took such a view. He was basically saying that this business of talking about the mind is not scientific because it is not empirical. The same objection has been leveled against string theory in physics as I am sure you are aware of.

In regard to the delayed choice experiment, as I understand it, it is the case that depending the physicists look at the information on how many electrons went through either slit, or delete it from the computer and never look at it, the observed pattern being either one of inference or one of particles, results.

The delayed choice experiment is more complex and they use beamspitters but again, as I understand it, the major difference is that it violates an understanding of causality pointing to observation after the fact as being what makes the determination.

Let me see if I can find some information on the experiment that details precisely what happens.

Xris wrote:I have pondered and speculated on this in my mind for years. I know an electron at rest has mass but when it moving it expresses that mass as energy in the form of a wave. It can alter its frequency but not it's mass. Protons I believe maintain the same frequency.The variable might be the frequency of the electron and this may account for the strange results this experiment indicates but I am only musing.

If we look at river it appears like a constant wave of motion but if we could capture and magnify one point we would see a molecule of water, the wave would be an illusion.

Be they particles or waves, neither are the same as conscious experience, but if you disagree, please explain.

Xris wrote:

Exogen wrote:

Xris wrote:I have pondered and speculated on this in my mind for years. I know an electron at rest has mass but when it moving it expresses that mass as energy in the form of a wave. It can alter its frequency but not it's mass. Protons I believe maintain the same frequency.The variable might be the frequency of the electron and this may account for the strange results this experiment indicates but I am only musing.

If we look at river it appears like a constant wave of motion but if we could capture and magnify one point we would see a molecule of water, the wave would be an illusion.

Be they particles or waves, neither are the same as conscious experience, but if you disagree, please explain.

Sorry Exogen you will have to explain.

I already have in other threads so I would direct you to those threads on the relation between mind and body. I think we would be digressing to much away from the delayed choice experiment.

Let's just say that the experiment has philosophical implications depending on the interpretations you take on it.

Steve,

Something like the Copenhagen interpretation, which is the most prevalent in physics is similar to my phenomenology. Philosophically I argue for that position independent of experiment, and hence what I argue for is philosophical. In my philosophy I use possibility or potential instead of superposition.

The delayed choice experiment as I understand it, at least along Copenhagen lines, is an instance of observation causing the wave collapse. There is a reason why the Copenhagen interpretation is the consensus.

To delineate my position, I am saying there is a cat only if we are experiencing it. Until we experience it we are in a state of potential, until experienced. I don't understand what Stormy is saying either.

Stormy, could you clarify with an example and try to describe what you are saying in other words.

It sounds to me like stormy is expressing some version of idealism. But what I don't understand is how is it that something can exist but also not be "real?" It would seem to me that if you exist then you would be real.

stormy, can you elaborate more on what you mean when something merely "exists" as opposed to being real? I understand that what you mean by reality is being conscious of something, but what do you mean to say when you say that something can exist but not be real/conscious of/mindful of?

Stormy,

so your talking about unobserved things or "stuff" that exists right i.e. dark matter? In going back to what you said before our experienced world would be the "real" of which we are conscious of and the dark matter would be that which is unreal but exists, of which we are not conscious of? But how is it you are talking about the existent unreal "stuff" if you would have to be unconscious of that fact in order for it to exist? Or do you mean to use consciousness to be synonymous with perception in this case?

Well putting your theology aside, I am still trying to understand your metaphysics.

Are you saying that what you call "dark matter" is imagination? So my imagination comes from Dark matter in some galaxy far far away?

I think that it either means that there are multiple universes or any observer determines their local situation and when multiple observers come together they co-determine things.

Xris wrote:The river flows like a constant wave across the rocks. We are observing billions of water molecules passing us but all we see is a river flowing. When is an atom of water a river, when is an electron an electron and when is it a wave of energy? Our observations are only confusing because we see what we want to see or can understand.

But going by reductionism, if all subatomic quanta that make up the river depend on observation to take value out of a superposition, then shouldn't it be the case that the river as a whole is also dependent on observation to take value out of superposition being a collection of quantum states?

Xris wrote:Our inability to comprehend what we are actually seeing does not change what is actually happening. The observer sees what he can, he does not alter the event by the act of observation.

Not according to the Copenhagen interpretation. According to the Copenhagen interpretation, the observer does effect the events.