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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2014 8:46:31 GMT -5
Young's experiment was done in 1895. The version that involved one photon at a time wasn't done until decades after the 1928 "Copenhagen Interpretation" and was first done with electrons some time in the 50's. Have you ever wondered why noone has won the Nobel Prize by answering the question of what, exactly, constitutes a conscious observer? Why no Noble Prize yet? Well....I think this question is still very much up in the air. I think that probably most physicists don't believe it takes a conscious observer to collapse a superposition (a range of probabilities of what might happen) to what actually occurs in "reality", here and now. I want to add one thing concerning the delayed measurement double-slit experiment mentioned above. I wrote that from memory so checked up on myself, and found the following extra little info. They can set up the experiment so that the photons pass through the slits before the decision is even made to peek or not peek at what happened. If they decide to look, the photons go through only one slit and we have the buckshot pattern, making the photon a particle. If they decided not to look, the photons go through both slits and we have the interference pattern making the photon a wave. That's pretty weird. Reading some more in the Amanda Gefter book, she seems to think she has resolved the observer problem and thus has an explanation for the double-slit experiment. It seems that all the problems of trying to understand what's happening is in trying to have a "God's eye view", a view from outside. Leonard Susskind showed in his book The Black Hole War that you can't have a God's eye view looking at a black hole. You can have a view from "someone" going into a black hole and some else looking at them going into a black hole well safe from the event horizon, two very different views of what's happening, but nobody can have both views simultaneously, there isn't such a thing as these two different views simultaneously. (Amanda had already met Susskind so he gave her an advanced copy of his book. It's a very excellent book in which Susskind gives an explanation as to how our world is actually a hologram). Gefter essentially says that all the paradoxes in quantum physics arise because of trying to have this God's eye view. I have six more pages left to read in the book, will give a wrap-up later. One more thing, I was going from memory concerning the dating of the Thomas Young double slit experiment to see whether light consists of particles or waves. So I googled it this morning to check on myself (not that I didn't believe your 1895 date l). I came up with two dates of 1801 and one date of 1803. sdp I'm enjoying this thread, sdp. Along the lines of light experiments... www.ascensionnow.co.uk/the-holographic-paradigm--all-is-one.html
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Mar 20, 2014 8:52:44 GMT -5
Why no Noble Prize yet? Well....I think this question is still very much up in the air. I think that probably most physicists don't believe it takes a conscious observer to collapse a superposition (a range of probabilities of what might happen) to what actually occurs in "reality", here and now. I want to add one thing concerning the delayed measurement double-slit experiment mentioned above. .............../.................. One more thing, I was going from memory concerning the dating of the Thomas Young double slit experiment to see whether light consists of particles or waves. So I googled it this morning to check on myself (not that I didn't believe your 1895 date l). I came up with two dates of 1801 and one date of 1803. sdp I'm enjoying this thread, sdp. Along the lines of light experiments... www.ascensionnow.co.uk/the-holographic-paradigm--all-is-one.htmlThanks Seymour. As long as I'm getting some feedback, I'll probably continue........ ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) .............. sdp
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Post by laughter on Mar 20, 2014 11:43:54 GMT -5
Young's experiment was done in 1895. The version that involved one photon at a time wasn't done until decades after the 1928 "Copenhagen Interpretation" and was first done with electrons some time in the 50's. Have you ever wondered why noone has won the Nobel Prize by answering the question of what, exactly, constitutes a conscious observer? Why no Noble Prize yet? Well....I think this question is still very much up in the air. I think that probably most physicists don't believe it takes a conscious observer to collapse a superposition (a range of probabilities of what might happen) to what actually occurs in "reality", here and now. I want to add one thing concerning the delayed measurement double-slit experiment mentioned above. I wrote that from memory so checked up on myself, and found the following extra little info. They can set up the experiment so that the photons pass through the slits before the decision is even made to peek or not peek at what happened. If they decide to look, the photons go through only one slit and we have the buckshot pattern, making the photon a particle. If they decided not to look, the photons go through both slits and we have the interference pattern making the photon a wave. That's pretty weird. Reading some more in the Amanda Gefter book, she seems to think she has resolved the observer problem and thus has an explanation for the double-slit experiment. It seems that all the problems of trying to understand what's happening is in trying to have a "God's eye view", a view from outside. Leonard Susskind showed in his book The Black Hole War that you can't have a God's eye view looking at a black hole. You can have a view from "someone" going into a black hole and some else looking at them going into a black hole well safe from the event horizon, two very different views of what's happening, but nobody can have both views simultaneously, there isn't such a thing as these two different views simultaneously. (Amanda had already met Susskind so he gave her an advanced copy of his book. It's a very excellent book in which Susskind gives an explanation as to how our world is actually a hologram). Gefter essentially says that all the paradoxes in quantum physics arise because of trying to have this God's eye view. I have six more pages left to read in the book, will give a wrap-up later. One more thing, I was going from memory concerning the dating of the Thomas Young double slit experiment to see whether light consists of particles or waves. So I googled it this morning to check on myself (not that I didn't believe your 1895 date l). I came up with two dates of 1801 and one date of 1803 (and his dates, 1773-1829). sdp Yes, you're right about the dates on Young ... I can't recall at the moment what was important about 1895 and the d.s., but it was a date that stuck in my mind about it for some reason. Why no Noble Prize yet? Well....I think this question is still very much up in the air. Really? O.k. then, is it an active topic of research? If so, by who and based on what hypothesis? The models of matter that come out of QM don't have any commonsense analogs. One point about QM that forms the basis for the models in the science of Chemistry are the permissible energy levels of electrons. This is usually explained to high school students in terms of the model of an atom as a solar system, and lower energy states correspond to electron orbits further away from the nucleus while higher energy states correspond to orbits closer in. Now the really really strange consequence of the quantum nature of sub-atomic particles is that in a transition, the electron doesn't fall continuously over a period in time from one orbit to the other. Instead, it's as if the electron suddenly poofed out of existence at one place and then suddenly popped into existence in the other. Think about this in real world terms. What if our cars worked this way? Instead of rolling past the houses in our neighborhood as we turned onto our street on our way home it would be as if the car would continuously vanish from in front of one house and then re-appear for a second a few doors down, only to **poof!** disappear again as it went along the way. While any Physicist popularizing this knowledge worth their salt will take the time to explain the deficiency of the visual and other classical metaphors such as the use of the word "orbit", the fact is that Chemists model everyday reactions like dissolving salt in water using similar models. The idea of consciousness is introduced to the scenario of the double-slit experiment because it is the act of observation itself, rather than any particular, quantifiable physical interaction, that effects the physical state of the photon. The screen on which either the scatter or interference pattern is seen is obviously not a conscious observer. If it was, we'd never see the interference pattern. Are the detectors themselves conscious? If they are, what differentiates them from the screen? To re-iterate, is it an active topic of research? If so, by who and based on what hypothesis, and what sort of experiments to either validate or negate the hypothesis? What field of science is pursuing this question? Is it being pursued by Physicists?
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Post by zendancer on Mar 20, 2014 12:59:41 GMT -5
The point I often like to make about the collapse of the wave function is that it's not the observation that collapses the wave function as much as it is the distinctions we make or ideas about what we see happening. If we open the box and look at Schroedinger's cat, what do we see if we don't imagine anything? Is the cat alive or dead? (This is a wonderful koan.)
If we simply look at "what is," without making any distinctions, "what is" remains a superposition of infinite potentiality, and we are one-with it. The idea of a particle is a distinction, as is the idea of a wave. The supposed weirdness of the double-slit experiment arises out of the pre-suppositions of an observing scientist who has pre-conceived ideas about what "ought" to be happening at a level of reality than cannot be observed directly. Everything we infer about what is happening beyond our visual range is an inference based on a wide range of other distinctions.
What we see when we look at the various double-slit experiments is "what is," but our ideas ABOUT "what is" do not correspond to other things that we imagine about "what is." If we assume that a subatomic particle is a particle that will behave like a sand grain behaves, we will be surprised by what we see when we do various things with what we imagine are subatomic particles. Same same with the idea of waves. Clearly, the idea of a subatomic particle is just that--an idea--, and whatever is happening does not correspond with how sand grains traditionally behave. IOW, the problem lies in how we think ABOUT what's happening. This is why visualization of subatomic phenomena is so ineffective. We have no visual analog for a sand grain that jumps from place to place without crossing the intervening space. We have no visual analog for a sand grain that acts like a sand grain one moment and a wave the next (or a vibrating string for that matter). This is why at a certain depth of mathematical understanding, the visual analogs are discarded entirely, and only the math continues. Problems arise when we try to understand what the math implies about the world of our ordinary senses.
After watching the movie "Particle Fever," I had the intuitive sense that where the research with the hadron collider is pointing is toward what the Buddhists call "an inter-connected web or network of self-reflecting jewels." Perhaps the idea of a hologram incorporates this idea to some degree, and one of the matrix-type diagrams in the movie suggested as much. At a certain point it becomes "turtles all the way down" and we simply have to accept that there is no end to the turtles.
AAR I had the sense that the math is becoming so deep that the human mind is heading toward a kind of intellectual boundary beyond which translation into everyday terms will become impossible. In one exchange between an older physicist and a younger physicist, the older guy says, in essence, that he has spent 40 years getting to his present understanding. The younger guy says, "Well, it will only take another two years or so to increase the power of the collider to a point that might answer some of our remaining questions." The older guy replies sort of sadly, "I won't be around to see it." The younger guy says, "Of course you will; it's only going to take another two years or so." I don't think the older guy meant that he would be dead; I think he meant that he wouldn't have the intellectual capacity to understand the implications of the results of the more powerful collisions. I think he meant that he had reached the limit of what he could mathematically comprehend or interpret. It's a fairly poignant segment, and I'll be interested to see if other folks on the forum will interpret that segment as I did.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Mar 20, 2014 14:15:13 GMT -5
Why no Noble Prize yet? Well....I think this question is still very much up in the air. I think that probably most physicists don't believe it takes a conscious observer to collapse a superposition (a range of probabilities of what might happen) to what actually occurs in "reality", here and now. I want to add one thing concerning the delayed measurement double-slit experiment mentioned above. I wrote that from memory so checked up on myself, and found the following extra little info. They can set up the experiment so that the photons pass through the slits before the decision is even made to peek or not peek at what happened. If they decide to look, the photons go through only one slit and we have the buckshot pattern, making the photon a particle. If they decided not to look, the photons go through both slits and we have the interference pattern making the photon a wave. That's pretty weird. Reading some more in the Amanda Gefter book, she seems to think she has resolved the observer problem and thus has an explanation for the double-slit experiment. It seems that all the problems of trying to understand what's happening is in trying to have a "God's eye view", a view from outside. Leonard Susskind showed in his book The Black Hole War that you can't have a God's eye view looking at a black hole. You can have a view from "someone" going into a black hole and some else looking at them going into a black hole well safe from the event horizon, two very different views of what's happening, but nobody can have both views simultaneously, there isn't such a thing as these two different views simultaneously. (Amanda had already met Susskind so he gave her an advanced copy of his book. It's a very excellent book in which Susskind gives an explanation as to how our world is actually a hologram). Gefter essentially says that all the paradoxes in quantum physics arise because of trying to have this God's eye view. I have six more pages left to read in the book, will give a wrap-up later. One more thing, I was going from memory concerning the dating of the Thomas Young double slit experiment to see whether light consists of particles or waves. So I googled it this morning to check on myself (not that I didn't believe your 1895 date l). I came up with two dates of 1801 and one date of 1803 (and his dates, 1773-1829). sdp Yes, you're right about the dates on Young ... I can't recall at the moment what was important about 1895 and the d.s., but it was a date that stuck in my mind about it for some reason. Why no Noble Prize yet? Well....I think this question is still very much up in the air. Really? O.k. then, is it an active topic of research? If so, by who and based on what hypothesis? The models of matter that come out of QM don't have any commonsense analogs. One point about QM that forms the basis for the models in the science of Chemistry are the permissible energy levels of electrons. This is usually explained to high school students in terms of the model of an atom as a solar system, and lower energy states correspond to electron orbits further away from the nucleus while higher energy states correspond to orbits closer in. Now the really really strange consequence of the quantum nature of sub-atomic particles is that in a transition, the electron doesn't fall continuously over a period in time from one orbit to the other. Instead, it's as if the electron suddenly poofed out of existence at one place and then suddenly popped into existence in the other. Think about this in real world terms. What if our cars worked this way? Instead of rolling past the houses in our neighborhood as we turned onto our street on our way home it would be as if the car would continuously vanish from in front of one house and then re-appear for a second a few doors down, only to **poof!** disappear again as it went along the way. While any Physicist popularizing this knowledge worth their salt will take the time to explain the deficiency of the visual and other classical metaphors such as the use of the word "orbit", the fact is that Chemists model everyday reactions like dissolving salt in water using similar models. The idea of consciousness is introduced to the scenario of the double-slit experiment because it is the act of observation itself, rather than any particular, quantifiable physical interaction, that effects the physical state of the photon. The screen on which either the scatter or interference pattern is seen is obviously not a conscious observer. If it was, we'd never see the interference pattern. Are the detectors themselves conscious? If they are, what differentiates them from the screen? To re-iterate, is it an active topic of research? If so, by who and based on what hypothesis, and what sort of experiments to either validate or negate the hypothesis? What field of science is pursuing this question? Is it being pursued by Physicists? I think I'll bring in Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle here. It's pretty-much the basis where we get the idea that consciousness creates reality. Say we have an hydrogen atom, one electron. As you have said we have come to think that the electron orbits the nucleus like a planet orbiting the sun. Early in quantum physics this picture was given, but probably only after a few months it was recognized this was in no way accurate. But somehow the picture stuck, I guess for convenience sake. What is a more accurate picture is that electron is sort of a cloud that surrounds the nucleus. The Uncertainty principle says that you can measure the place where the electron is, but not at the same time it momentum. Or you can do another experiment and come to know the electron's momentum, but then you can't know it position. Quantum theory says you can't know both at the same time. Now, somehow we have come to believe that reality is the where of the electron and the momentum of the electron. We believe that when we know what one or the other we know the reality of the situation. We have come to believe that when we make a measurement we are coming to know reality. So some even believe that we are creating reality, by choosing what to "measure". I have come to believe that the natural state of the electron is the cloud. We force it into an unnatural situation by making a measurement. We are actually distorting reality by making a measurement. Think of your ceiling fan. When you have it on high speed you see a blurr of blades, they look like they cover the whole space around the motor. This is like the electron cloud. The difference between the fan blade cloud and the electron cloud is that the blades merely appear to surround the motor, in an atom the electron actually does surround the nucleus, that is, until we make a measurement. Making a measurement would be like saying the photo finish at the end of a race is the state of reality. Another question physicists who believe only in materiality have to ask if they think that consciousness creates reality is, how did the universe get along before consciousness came along? But such physicists don't really believe consciousness creates reality, that's why no Nobel Prizes have been handed out. But you have one bunch of physicists like Fred Alan Wolf and Amit Goswami who appeared on the What the Bleep Do We Know? film, who do think consciousness creates reality. And then you have a few physicists like John Wheeler who are sort of caught in the middle. Physicists are still doing research on all this. Some neuroscientists are exploring how consciousness comes about from brain function and what this has to do with quantum reality. There is a lot of speculation about what consciousness has to do with physical reality but despite what many believe I don't think we know yet. Despite the fact that gazillions of books have been written on quantum psychology and why The Secret/type stuff works according to quantum physics, we don't really know yet if there is any connection. sdp
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Post by laughter on Mar 21, 2014 3:38:34 GMT -5
Yes, you're right about the dates on Young ... I can't recall at the moment what was important about 1895 and the d.s., but it was a date that stuck in my mind about it for some reason. Really? O.k. then, is it an active topic of research? If so, by who and based on what hypothesis? The models of matter that come out of QM don't have any commonsense analogs. One point about QM that forms the basis for the models in the science of Chemistry are the permissible energy levels of electrons. This is usually explained to high school students in terms of the model of an atom as a solar system, and lower energy states correspond to electron orbits further away from the nucleus while higher energy states correspond to orbits closer in. Now the really really strange consequence of the quantum nature of sub-atomic particles is that in a transition, the electron doesn't fall continuously over a period in time from one orbit to the other. Instead, it's as if the electron suddenly poofed out of existence at one place and then suddenly popped into existence in the other. Think about this in real world terms. What if our cars worked this way? Instead of rolling past the houses in our neighborhood as we turned onto our street on our way home it would be as if the car would continuously vanish from in front of one house and then re-appear for a second a few doors down, only to **poof!** disappear again as it went along the way. While any Physicist popularizing this knowledge worth their salt will take the time to explain the deficiency of the visual and other classical metaphors such as the use of the word "orbit", the fact is that Chemists model everyday reactions like dissolving salt in water using similar models. The idea of consciousness is introduced to the scenario of the double-slit experiment because it is the act of observation itself, rather than any particular, quantifiable physical interaction, that effects the physical state of the photon. The screen on which either the scatter or interference pattern is seen is obviously not a conscious observer. If it was, we'd never see the interference pattern. Are the detectors themselves conscious? If they are, what differentiates them from the screen? To re-iterate, is it an active topic of research? If so, by who and based on what hypothesis, and what sort of experiments to either validate or negate the hypothesis? What field of science is pursuing this question? Is it being pursued by Physicists? I think I'll bring in Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle here. It's pretty-much the basis where we get the idea that consciousness creates reality. The UP describes a limitation, in terms of complimentary criteria, of what may be observed, but the variation in the double-slit result based on the act of observation is a different idea. The fact that the screen is not conscious, and the question of whether the detector in between the slit and the screen is or isn't conscious, relate to the act of observation, and not to the limit of what might be observed. Say we have an hydrogen atom, one electron. As you have said we have come to think that the electron orbits the nucleus like a planet orbiting the sun. Early in quantum physics this picture was given, but probably only after a few months it was recognized this was in no way accurate. But somehow the picture stuck, I guess for convenience sake. What is a more accurate picture is that electron is sort of a cloud that surrounds the nucleus. But the shells (google "valence shell") correspond to distances from the nucleus -- the point about how an energy transition of an electron results in a discontinuous "movement" of the electron is still valid -- because we think of the electron as a particle, referring to it's "orbit" is just a conceptual convenience. The Uncertainty principle says that you can measure the place where the electron is, but not at the same time it momentum. Or you can do another experiment and come to know the electron's momentum, but then you can't know it position. Quantum theory says you can't know both at the same time. Now, somehow we have come to believe that reality is the where of the electron and the momentum of the electron. We believe that when we know what one or the other we know the reality of the situation. We have come to believe that when we make a measurement we are coming to know reality. So some even believe that we are creating reality, by choosing what to "measure". A great way to express the UP as an aphorism is with "the more you know the less you know". If you think of trying to force the measurement by chasing the electron around and putting it into smaller and smaller boxes, the faster it moves, while if it is at rest, it is everywhere -- but to re-iterate, I disagree that the UP is the basis for the idea that consciousness creates reality. Essentially, between the fact that what we observe is not independent of the observation of it and this odd complimentary limitation on the observation, the bottom line is that this physical reality of solid, liquid and gaseous that we experience is not composed of what we would expect it to be. Every answer to every question about what it is that comprises the physical objects that we perceive simply leads to more questions. I have come to believe that the natural state of the electron is the cloud. We force it into an unnatural situation by making a measurement. We are actually distorting reality by making a measurement. Think of your ceiling fan. When you have it on high speed you see a blurr of blades, they look like they cover the whole space around the motor. This is like the electron cloud. The difference between the fan blade cloud and the electron cloud is that the blades merely appear to surround the motor, in an atom the electron actually does surround the nucleus, that is, until we make a measurement. Making a measurement would be like saying the photo finish at the end of a race is the state of reality. When you touch a surface or look at something you're making a measurement. The photons that reach your eye from the screen that form the interference pattern interacted with the screen as particles -- you don't see the scatter pattern because they were in the wave state back at the slits. Put the detector at the slits and the result is different. What the double-slit experiment suggests is that the question of where the wave/particle is and how fast it is traveling between the source of the wave/particle and the slits, and the slits and the screen (absent detector), has no meaning. The wave/particle is only experienced on observation, and your reality is this observation. What I've stated is essentially the "Copenhagen Interpretation" -- the original statement of the founders of QM. There are alternative metaphysical interpretations, and my understanding is that some of them actually involve a radical conceptual reformulation that attempts to discard the notion of the separation between observer and observed. The problem, in the final analysis, is of course the reliance on perspective to formulate a description of what that perspective is on. Another question physicists who believe only in materiality have to ask if they think that consciousness creates reality is, how did the universe get along before consciousness came along? But such physicists don't really believe consciousness creates reality, that's why no Nobel Prizes have been handed out. But you have one bunch of physicists like Fred Alan Wolf and Amit Goswami who appeared on the What the Bleep Do We Know? film, who do think consciousness creates reality. And then you have a few physicists like John Wheeler who are sort of caught in the middle. Goswami's idea is the same as Chopra's, and is essentially the mainstream conceptual presentation of a "Unitive Consciousness" -- essentially, since the DS explodes Newton's idea of an independent physical reality shared by limited isolated instances of consciousness ("people in the world"), the idea is to turn that inside out and postulate a single shared consciousness as reality in which there arise multiple instances of subjective physical experience. On a personal note, Goswami's "Self Aware Universe" was one of the last books I read a few years prior to Tolle and helped coalesce my conceptual world-view in a progression from a stark and closed atheistic realism to an open form agnostic material monism thru to what he refers to as monistic idealism. ok, these next three paragraphs are a walk down HTMT-memory lane my friend ... ![::)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/eyesroll.png) Monistic Idealism holds that the entire Universe is conscious and that what Physicists refer to as the Quantum Observer is inherent to reality itself. This might sound a little bit like what ZD expresses sometimes -- but really, I don't take what Goswami and ZD to be saying to be the same at all -- although, depending on your perspective it might take some subtle discernment to tell the difference. One interesting variation on Goswami/Chopra's Monistic Idealism that provides an answer to your question about the early Universe is that the first emergence of consciousness in what we take to be the ordered sequence of events in the physical history of it provided the observation of it's own creation. Now turn the arrow of time forward and ask the question, if there's noone present to witness the heat death of the Universe, or perhaps, even to escape it in some way, can it really have been said to have existed at all? I remember this discussion I had with a Christian kid in Barnes and Nobel a bunch of years back when I was purchasing "The God Particle", which was a book about Bell's theorem and entanglement. He struck up a conversation because he was curious based on the title and when I probed him on the topic of the age of the Universe his response was "well what if God put all of those dinosaur bones in the ground when he created Adam so we'd find them that way?". It's a funny shadow-projection of that idea of the first instance of the observer creating it's own origin! ![:D](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/grin.png) This dovetails with some speculative ideas about Multiverses. The general idea is that our Universe isn't the only one, and while there are many ways to come at and out of this idea, the simplest way to think of it is to start with the point that time and space come to an end at the center of a black hole. What if a black hole actually resulted in the creation of a new Universe? – there are actually some well thought out theory’s based on this notion and since the laws of physics could potentially differ across the Multiverse there would be some Universes in which conditions would naturally give rise to conscious life, like ours, and others that wouldn’t. Since there would be no observers in the Universes without life, those Universes don’t actually form their own black holes – this is natural selection on a cosmic scale. Do you see how this topic is related to the question of how the early Universe could exist absent any life to observe it? Do you see how it relates to the role of your assumption of an SOI? Physicists are still doing research on all this. From what I’ve seen of the landscape, there are some physicists with an interest in the metaphysical implications of the question of consciousness, but no active, mainstream research efforts on the topic within the field. If you know of some efforts along these lines I’d be interested in reading about them. The reason for this is obvious – the Quantum Observer is not a physical phenomenon. It’s not a topic that’s within the ambit of the science of Physics. Essentially, it could be said that all the high-energy Physics done after 1928 has been in the context of an asterisk in the shape of an elephant that everyone pretends isn’t really there. Some neuroscientists are exploring how consciousness comes about from brain function and what this has to do with quantum reality. There is a lot of speculation about what consciousness has to do with physical reality but despite what many believe I don't think we know yet. Despite the fact that gazillions of books have been written on quantum psychology and why The Secret/type stuff works according to quantum physics, we don't really know yet if there is any connection. sdp Treating the question of consciousness as an emergent phenomenon of the brain is a practical approach and it’s very likely to lead to some very interesting and exciting models and discoveries. Gary Weber has been an occasional subject of discussion on the forum and he’s an example of the type of presenter you’ll find at the Science and Non-duality Conferences. There seems to be an emerging field of research on the link between physical brain states and meditation, cosmic consciousness experiences and/or a general absence of conditioned state of mind. There’s also of course an interest in applying what is learned along these lines to the field of Artificial Intelligence. Ultimately though, from a metaphysical perspective, I’d reiterate what I wrote here: any of these models can be traced in a hierarchy to the Quantum model of matter, so any successful model of consciousness emerging from the brain has consciousness dependent on something that is dependent on consciousness. It’s a problem of what came first, the consciousness that gave rise to the observer or the observer that gave rise to consciousness? I’ve written previously here on the forum on the relevance of the science of Physics to the question of consciousness. My take on it is that 20th century Physics collapses the assumptions that gave rise to it. Rather than using that as the basis for speculation, I recommend silence. Rather than replace the shared physical reality with a shared unitive consciousness, just recognize that both are simply explanations for why you and I are able to agree on any aspect of what we each perceive. Just recognize the vector on our part toward these explanations for what it is ... or, as RM might say "who is it that inquires?". The next best thing is to perhaps recognize the tangled hierarchy between observer and observed that seems best stated as: Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form.
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Post by laughter on Mar 21, 2014 11:39:09 GMT -5
On a personal note, Goswami's "Self Aware Universe" was one of the last books I read a few years prior to Tolle and helped coalesce my conceptual world-view in a progression from a stark and closed atheistic realism to an open form agnostic material monism thru to what he refers to as monistic idealism. As Rainbow Dash might say, Amit was the dealer of my last identity poker hand. ![:D](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/grin.png)
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Post by laughter on Mar 21, 2014 11:45:53 GMT -5
The point I often like to make about the collapse of the wave function is that it's not the observation that collapses the wave function as much as it is the distinctions we make or ideas about what we see happening. If we open the box and look at Schroedinger's cat, what do we see if we don't imagine anything? Is the cat alive or dead? (This is a wonderful koan.) If we simply look at "what is," without making any distinctions, "what is" remains a superposition of infinite potentiality, and we are one-with it. The idea of a particle is a distinction, as is the idea of a wave. The supposed weirdness of the double-slit experiment arises out of the pre-suppositions of an observing scientist who has pre-conceived ideas about what "ought" to be happening at a level of reality than cannot be observed directly. Everything we infer about what is happening beyond our visual range is an inference based on a wide range of other distinctions. What we see when we look at the various double-slit experiments is "what is," but our ideas ABOUT "what is" do not correspond to other things that we imagine about "what is." If we assume that a subatomic particle is a particle that will behave like a sand grain behaves, we will be surprised by what we see when we do various things with what we imagine are subatomic particles. Same same with the idea of waves. Clearly, the idea of a subatomic particle is just that--an idea--, and whatever is happening does not correspond with how sand grains traditionally behave. IOW, the problem lies in how we think ABOUT what's happening. This is why visualization of subatomic phenomena is so ineffective. We have no visual analog for a sand grain that jumps from place to place without crossing the intervening space. We have no visual analog for a sand grain that acts like a sand grain one moment and a wave the next (or a vibrating string for that matter). This is why at a certain depth of mathematical understanding, the visual analogs are discarded entirely, and only the math continues. Problems arise when we try to understand what the math implies about the world of our ordinary senses. After watching the movie "Particle Fever," I had the intuitive sense that where the research with the hadron collider is pointing is toward what the Buddhists call "an inter-connected web or network of self-reflecting jewels." Perhaps the idea of a hologram incorporates this idea to some degree, and one of the matrix-type diagrams in the movie suggested as much. At a certain point it becomes "turtles all the way down" and we simply have to accept that there is no end to the turtles. AAR I had the sense that the math is becoming so deep that the human mind is heading toward a kind of intellectual boundary beyond which translation into everyday terms will become impossible. In one exchange between an older physicist and a younger physicist, the older guy says, in essence, that he has spent 40 years getting to his present understanding. The younger guy says, "Well, it will only take another two years or so to increase the power of the collider to a point that might answer some of our remaining questions." The older guy replies sort of sadly, "I won't be around to see it." The younger guy says, "Of course you will; it's only going to take another two years or so." I don't think the older guy meant that he would be dead; I think he meant that he wouldn't have the intellectual capacity to understand the implications of the results of the more powerful collisions. I think he meant that he had reached the limit of what he could mathematically comprehend or interpret. It's a fairly poignant segment, and I'll be interested to see if other folks on the forum will interpret that segment as I did. Elegantly expressed sir. <imagination> 'Cause 'o where I live, I gotta' wait fer DVD or web stream! </imagination>
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Mar 23, 2014 17:20:17 GMT -5
After watching the movie "Particle Fever," I had the intuitive sense that where the research with the hadron collider is pointing is toward what the Buddhists call "an inter-connected web or network of self-reflecting jewels." Perhaps the idea of a hologram incorporates this idea to some degree, and one of the matrix-type diagrams in the movie suggested as much. At a certain point it becomes "turtles all the way down" and we simply have to accept that there is no end to the turtles. I finished the book. I want to preface this post by saying that Amanda didn't wander into the realm of metaphysics, if she had any conception her investigations had anything to do with what we mean by non-duality (on ST's), she didn't give a hint of it. I want to go back to the beginning and then wrap-up. Amanda's father's idea of nothing was "an infinite, unbounded homogeneous state", what they came to call the H-state (pg 11, this seems very like zd above). He didn't mean by nothing, nothing, but no distinctions. On their journey their strategy was to eliminate everything that wasn't invariant. Through the years they dropped everything that was observer-dependent, "spacetime, gravity, electromagnetism, the nuclear forces, mass, energy, momentum, angular momentum, charge, dimensions, particles, fields, the vacuum, strings, the universe, the multiverse and lastly the speed of light. .....one by one they had been downgraded to illusion. As the surface appearance of reality fell away, only one thing remained. Nothing. The message was clear: having a finite frame of reference creates the illusion of a world, but even the reference frame itself is an illusion. Observers create reality, but observers aren't real". (pg 392) "My father's definition of nothing had made it possible to cross that ontological divide between nothing and something, and the radical observer-dependence of every ingredient of reality down to reality itself made it possible to cross back. We had found the universe's secret: physics isn't the machinery behind the workings of the world; physics is the machinery behind the illusion that there is a world". (pg 393) So it turns out that Wheeler was right, everything is observer-dependent and everything that is, is an illusion, even according to physics up to the minute (backed up by numerous conversations Amanda had with numerous top physicists today including Leonard Susskind, Alan Guth, Kip Thorne, Lee Smolin and even a few e-mail exchanges with Stephen Hawking. In the acknowledgements she names seven other physicists who helped her, not named here as you wouldn't recognize the names). The quantum nature of the homogeneous state is what breaks the symmetry (I think you could say turns the Tao [that can't be named] into yin and yang, as it says in the Tao Te Ching) and creates a boundary which leads to the illusion of duality. Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn, Amanda Gefter, 2014 sdp
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Post by teetown on Mar 23, 2014 17:56:16 GMT -5
AAR I had the sense that the math is becoming so deep that the human mind is heading toward a kind of intellectual boundary beyond which translation into everyday terms will become impossible. In one exchange between an older physicist and a younger physicist, the older guy says, in essence, that he has spent 40 years getting to his present understanding. The younger guy says, "Well, it will only take another two years or so to increase the power of the collider to a point that might answer some of our remaining questions." The older guy replies sort of sadly, "I won't be around to see it." The younger guy says, "Of course you will; it's only going to take another two years or so." I don't think the older guy meant that he would be dead; I think he meant that he wouldn't have the intellectual capacity to understand the implications of the results of the more powerful collisions. I think he meant that he had reached the limit of what he could mathematically comprehend or interpret. It's a fairly poignant segment, and I'll be interested to see if other folks on the forum will interpret that segment as I did. Haven't seen the video, but your description is indeed very poignant. I would imagine that was a bit humbling for the older physicist fella. Reminds me of a biography of Einstein I read recently. Einstein almost single-handedly catapulted physics from the classical model into the quantum world. But by the time he won the Nobel prize and became a mainstream celebrity in the United States, he was already irrelevant in the world of physics, because he was either unable or unwilling to accept the ramifications of his own work. His mind/thinking had taken on the same rigidity that he had rebelled against in his younger days.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Mar 23, 2014 20:13:58 GMT -5
AAR I had the sense that the math is becoming so deep that the human mind is heading toward a kind of intellectual boundary beyond which translation into everyday terms will become impossible. In one exchange between an older physicist and a younger physicist, the older guy says, in essence, that he has spent 40 years getting to his present understanding. The younger guy says, "Well, it will only take another two years or so to increase the power of the collider to a point that might answer some of our remaining questions." The older guy replies sort of sadly, "I won't be around to see it." The younger guy says, "Of course you will; it's only going to take another two years or so." I don't think the older guy meant that he would be dead; I think he meant that he wouldn't have the intellectual capacity to understand the implications of the results of the more powerful collisions. I think he meant that he had reached the limit of what he could mathematically comprehend or interpret. It's a fairly poignant segment, and I'll be interested to see if other folks on the forum will interpret that segment as I did. Haven't seen the video, but your description is indeed very poignant. I would imagine that was a bit humbling for the older physicist fella. Reminds me of a biography of Einstein I read recently. Einstein almost single-handedly catapulted physics from the classical model into the quantum world. But by the time he won the Nobel prize and became a mainstream celebrity in the United States, he was already irrelevant in the world of physics, because he was either unable or unwilling to accept the ramifications of his own work. His mind/thinking had taken on the same rigidity that he had rebelled against in his younger days. I'm going to have to disagree with this. He actually promoted quantum theory by attacking it in his discussions with Bohr. Bohr had to dig deeper to work around Einstein's objections, especially throughout the later '20's. Einstein was effective in this manner at least until the 1935 E(instein)PR paper. Einstein won the 1921 Nobel Prize. .......I'm curious as to the name of the biography and the biographer? sdp
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Post by teetown on Mar 24, 2014 11:08:01 GMT -5
Haven't seen the video, but your description is indeed very poignant. I would imagine that was a bit humbling for the older physicist fella. Reminds me of a biography of Einstein I read recently. Einstein almost single-handedly catapulted physics from the classical model into the quantum world. But by the time he won the Nobel prize and became a mainstream celebrity in the United States, he was already irrelevant in the world of physics, because he was either unable or unwilling to accept the ramifications of his own work. His mind/thinking had taken on the same rigidity that he had rebelled against in his younger days. I'm going to have to disagree with this. He actually promoted quantum theory by attacking it in his discussions with Bohr. Bohr had to dig deeper to work around Einstein's objections, especially throughout the later '20's. Einstein was effective in this manner at least until the 1935 E(instein)PR paper. Einstein won the 1921 Nobel Prize. .......I'm curious as to the name of the biography and the biographer? sdp Yep that's right. I don't disagree although I would add that I don't think it was Einstein's intention to help Neils Bohr further qt. That's just the way it played out. Einstein was very uncomfortable with the uncertainty suggested by qt. Hence the famous quote about God/the universe doesn't play dice. He was unable to contribute to qt except indirectly except as a "devil's advocate" for younger scientists like Bohr. The one I read was by Walter Isaacson.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Mar 24, 2014 18:33:00 GMT -5
I'm going to have to disagree with this. He actually promoted quantum theory by attacking it in his discussions with Bohr. Bohr had to dig deeper to work around Einstein's objections, especially throughout the later '20's. Einstein was effective in this manner at least until the 1935 E(instein)PR paper. Einstein won the 1921 Nobel Prize. .......I'm curious as to the name of the biography and the biographer? sdp Yep that's right. I don't disagree although I would add that I don't think it was Einstein's intention to help Neils Bohr further qt. That's just the way it played out. Einstein was very uncomfortable with the uncertainty suggested by qt. Hence the famous quote about God/the universe doesn't play dice. He was unable to contribute to qt except indirectly except as a "devil's advocate" for younger scientists like Bohr. The one I read was by Walter Isaacson. Agreed. sdp
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Post by runstill on Mar 25, 2014 2:12:40 GMT -5
Well the news has been out there over a week now and no one has bought it up so I will, a group of physicists have found evidence for the existence of gravitational waves ,some more work is being done right now that will verify their findings but I'm betting it's a done deal. I'll back this up with more information if asked but right now I'm going talk about what this means if true. Alan Guth the theoretical physicist theory of inflation is now proven, the short version of the theory is in one trillionth of one trillionth of one trillionth of a second the universe was created, that's 10 to minus the 32nd power, this is my thought here ( but is that calculation any different than saying 10 to minus the power of Infiniti) the thought came up as I was typing ... Then or while in that time frame the universe expanded at many times faster than the speed of light !! from something smaller than the nucleus of an atom to the size of your computer monitor or a big grapefruit depending on who you read.... ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) What may now be the case is that the multi-universe theory is correct and that these other universes operate under different physics... wow wow wow! Some one told me the other day that some religious prophet made a prophecy that when science proves that god exists its all over. I guess no one told him he was god , hehe.... Any way I digress if the inflation theory is correct that means the four forces that govern the universe, the weak force , strong force, electromagnetic force and gravity came out of a one something! Also gravity is now proven to be made up of a particle called a graviton , hah and I thought non-duality was hard to get my mind around ![???](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/huh.png)
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Post by tzujanli on Mar 25, 2014 5:19:49 GMT -5
All of which exists as a function of the fundamental principle of 'self-organization', that order emerges from chaos spontaneously and uncaused.. from which consciousness is self-created, emerging as the volition of evolution, the driver of this short-bus we call the human experience..
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