Wigner was roundly refuted by everyone including himself, including for the above reasons: necessitating consciousness for wavefunction collapse cannot reproduce statistical experimental outcomes. — Kenosha Kid

It can, with some footwork, but at the cost of metaphysical extravagance. But then mind/matter dualism is already pretty extravagant, and if you've already payed that price, then Wigner comes at little additional cost.

I think it might have been him that also pointed out that conscious observers are high-temperature bodies and cannot mediate coherent superpositions. — Kenosha Kid

So like I said, you have to go with Everett up to a point, assuming that decohered states continue to exist side by side until the mind cognates the "true" state, at which point the "counterfactual" state (along with the counterfactual observer's body!) vanishes. Or something like that. Heady stuff, but so is dualism.

According to the copenhagen interpretation (as i understand it) You can't know that so don't assume it it's unscientific. Had the wavefunction only began to collapse when the first human opened his eyes you'd get the same universe. — khaled

Sounds to anthropomorphic to me. Humans weren't the first organisms with eyes, nor are eyes the first sensory organ (measuring device) to have evolved.

If you think about it, the idea that physics is materialistic is nonsense. physics has a menagerie of particles, but it also has immaterial laws. They are immaterial because it would be a category error to ask what the laws are made of. The laws are discovered in nature, and so they are not human constructs. Nor are the laws our descriptions of them, for to describe something that does not exist is to spin fiction.

In the same way, humans have physical operations and intentional operations. We effect changes to the world, not by only by raw physical movement, but by intentional movement. As there is no primitive in natural science that corresponds to intention or awareness, no matter how we inter-relate the basic concepts of natural science, we will never construct a theory that concludes "and therefore there is awareness."

It is the same human being, a unified being, that performs both physical and intentional operations. Duality does not exist in nature, it arises in the mind. We separate the physical and intentional in thought, but it is not separated in nature. I decide to go shopping and effect that decision by walking, riding or driving to the store.

Every act of knowing has both a known object and a knowing subject, but when we do natural science, we decide to fix our attention on the known object to the exclusion of the knowing subject. As a result, and by choice, science has no data on subjects as subjects, but only as objects. As it has no data on subjective awareness, it can draw no conclusion about it. Failing to recognize this gives rise to the so-called "hard problem of consciousness." Of course, it is not a problem at all, for it has no possible solution. Instead, it is the result of forgetting that we left the relevant data on the table when we started.

So, we live in a world in which some acts are physical, some intentional, and many both physical and intentional. Separating physicality and intentionality in our mind is no more a warrant for dualism than our ability to separate the sphericity from the rubber of a ball in our mind is a warrant to say the ball is made of spherical stuff and rubber stuff.

Precisely! But, since Causal Information, or as I call it Enformy, includes both cause & effect, it is responsible for both Mind and Matter. Matter is the result of energy relationships (e.g. E=MC^2; hot/cold), while Mind is the awareness of those relationships (e.g. meaning). So, in answer to the OP, Information is "dualistic" in nature : both Matter and Mind, both Energy and Entropy. But it's much more than that. Information is Matter & Mind & Life, and everything else in the world. :smile: — Gnomon

I think it is a practice in anthropomorphism to single out mind from the rest of reality. Mind is just one type of processing information and matter is the other types of processes.

Information and meaning are the same thing. They are both the relationship between cause and effect. So you could say that meaning is fundamental.

Intentionality is the process that uses information, or values information. The information/meaning is there prior to interacting with intention, and coupled with the process of memory, the process of mind emerges.

While I understand the notion of ‘information’, it is the question of what information is without the existence of mind that is problematic.

In my view it is relation that is fundamental. — Possibility

Relationships (cause and effect), process, information, are all terms I think more accurately get at what is fundamental.

They are immaterial because it would be a category error to ask what the laws are made of. — Dfpolis

Quantum fields.

In modern physics, the concept of physical law is archaic. Instead, you have interaction fields. These are ambiguous, but considered material. That is, they have properties, state, dynamics, etc.

The laws are discovered in nature, and so they are not human constructs. Nor are the laws our descriptions of them, for to describe something that does not exist is to spin fiction. — Dfpolis

Laws evolve. It's not a 'exactly true'/'complete fiction' dichotomy. You can send a probe bouncing around the solar system and landing in your back garden with Newton's laws alone. But they are still only approximations to Einstein's, which in turn will be approximations to something else like string theory, which will be an approximation to etc.

As there is no primitive in natural science that corresponds to intention or awareness, no matter how we inter-relate the basic concepts of natural science, we will never construct a theory that concludes "and therefore there is awareness." — Dfpolis

This is a fallacy. If you want to make God laugh, start a sentence with 'Science will never'.

it might have been him that also pointed out that conscious observers are high-temperature bodies and cannot mediate coherent superpositions. — Kenosha Kid

Tegmark, 2000, “Importance of Quantum Decoherence......” in refutation of Orch-OR, Penrose/Hameroff, 1994.

Unless you’re talking about something else, in which case.......never mind.

Boom! Thank you!

They are immaterial because it would be a category error to ask what the laws are made of. — Dfpolis

Quantum fields. — Kenosha Kid

No. Quantum fields are subject to the laws of nature. The laws themselves have no extension that can be measured, while quantum fields do. To have extension is to have parts outside of parts, but the laws of nature do not have such parts.

In modern physics, the concept of physical law is archaic — Kenosha Kid

Baloney. If you think this is true, provide a reputable reference.

Instead, you have interaction fields. — Kenosha Kid

Bosonic fields, like all physical fields, are subject to the laws of nature. They correspond to the propagators (Green's functions) in the equations describing the laws of motion.

That is, they have properties, state, dynamics, etc — Kenosha Kid

Indeed, they do. Most also have mass and all interact gravitationally. The laws of nature have no mass and have no gravitational interactions.

Laws evolve. — Kenosha Kid

There is no evidence of this. What has evolved is our understanding off the laws. You are confusing the laws of physics, which are approximate descriptions, with the laws of nature they seek to describe.

This is a fallacy. If you want to make God laugh, start a sentence with 'Science will never'. — Kenosha Kid

It is not a fallacy to say that if a theory contains no term x, it will never have a proposition containing x as a term. For example, Euclidean geometry has no mass concept, and so you will never deduce from it alone that something has mass.

No, quantum fields are subject to the laws of nature. — Dfpolis

And which laws are they?

Baloney. If you think this is true, provide a reputable reference. — Dfpolis

That's quite lazy. I just Googled 'physical law in quantum theory' and there's plenty of reputable references on page 1'. First result is: https://www.quantamagazine.org/there-are-no-laws-of-physics-theres-only-the-landscape-20180604/

They correspond to the propagators (Green's functions) in the equations describing the laws of motion. — Dfpolis

Propagators are not laws. They are tools.

The laws of nature have no mass and have no gravitational interactions. — Dfpolis

W bosons. Z bosons. Gluons possibly. The Higgs boson definitely. In fact, pretty much all of them. Even photons have gravitation. You might have heard of Einstein and Eddington?

What has evolved is our understanding off the laws. You are confusing the laws of physics, which are approximate descriptions, with the laws of nature they seek to describe. — Dfpolis

This is the exact opposite of your earlier claim that I responded to, in which you said:

to describe something that does not exist is to spin fiction — Dfpolis

All descriptions of laws are approximate: neither exact nor fiction. Youre employing a false dichotomy fallacy.

It is not a fallacy to say that if a theory contains no term x, it will never have a proposition containing x as a term. — Dfpolis

Science is not a theory, so this is irrelevant. To say that because there is no theory containing the term X, there will never be a theory containing the term x, is fallacious. Compounding it with a straw man fallacy doesn't help.

Intentionality is the process that uses information, or values information. The information/meaning is there prior to interacting with intention, and coupled with the process of memory,the process of mind emerges. — Harry Hindu

Yes. In the Enformationism thesis, human "Mind" is defined as the emergent function of human Brain, as it processes Information. But the ultimate "Cosmic Mind", as some call it, is defined as the Enformer or Creator of the whole system that we call "Nature". This is not an anthro-morphic concept, but a philosophical, perhaps mathematical, Principle similar to Plato's metaphorical non-personal rational Logos, and to the Hindu universal principle Brahman. But, since Intention is an emergent property (qualia) of our universe, the creative principle of the universe must necessarily possess the Potential for Intention, which on a local scale we experience as human Will, projecting personal power into the world and into the future. But is our Will free? You are free to decide for yourself.

I have no idea how that future-oriented teleological creative aspect of Logos/Brahman works. But the same necessity applies to the hypothetical Multiverse, which is simply Universe (mind & matter) multiplied by infinity. Both of those explanations for the sudden emergence of our world from a pinpoint of Potential are educated guesses, and both require that the First Cause of the Big Bang must be self-existent. Multiverse proponents must assume as axiomatic that the Laws of Nature, and Nature's enforcer Energy exist eternally. Hence organized Power & Intention are inevitable. Call it "Nature", or "God", or "G*D", or "Brahman", or "Logos", all local processing of Information, and values (meaning) attached to it, can be traced back via cause & effect to the eternal creative power of Intention. :nerd:


Note : "Logos" and "Brahman" have been given many different interpretations over the millennia. Some view them as a> gods themselves, others as b> the servant of gods, and others simply as c> the inherent Causal Principle (organizing, enforming, creating) of Nature, that results in progressive Evolution, including the eventual emergence of rational human minds. Since I have no knowledge of anything outside our world, the latter <c> is my intended meaning.

I don't appreciate how you make me out to be some sort of religious fanatic being forcefully ignorant of how QM works. I'm not an expert. Every 2 lines I say "In my understanding". I'm not trying to rewrite or misinterpret on purpose, I just don't have a degree, so don't be an ass about it.

Without actually disagreeing, you still seem to end up concluding that therefore your claim is true. — Kenosha Kid

You hadn't cited a case of a wavefunction collapsing WITHOUT conscious observation until now. Check it. Even if we printed the results of an experiment on paper you have not shown that our conscious observation is not what collapsed it but rather that it was the recording of the results.

Perhaps observation of the film collapsed the state, I hear you ask! But no. If the film was in a superposition of a*|stripes> + b*|boobies>, then we would expect to see stripes a/(a+b)*100% of the time as we repeat the experiment. We see boobies 100% of the time. We can never get stripes with this experimental setup. Ergo each wavefunction is collapsed at the slit without consciousness of it. — Kenosha Kid

This is literally the first example you have given where "observation" is done without a conscious human. Why couldn't you just start with that?

So like I said, you have to go with Everett up to a point, assuming that decohered states continue to exist side by side until the mind cognates the "true" state, at which point the "counterfactual" state (along with the counterfactual observer's body!) vanishes. — SophistiCat

Now I'm interested in how this would hold up. In the example given, even before the mind cognates the "true" state, it had already been decided by the measurement devices placed. If a measurement device measures which slit the electron goes through, and we NEVER get a case of a striped pattern, isn't it safe to assume that the measurement is what collapsed the wave function not us? If it were us we should get a striped pattern.

And which laws are they? — Kenosha Kid

Those of quantum field theory, e.g. the Dirac and Klein-Gordon equations.

First result is: https://www.quantamagazine.org/there-are-no-laws-of-physics-theres-only-the-landscape-20180604/ — Kenosha Kid

I am truly unimpressed. I already said you are confusing the laws of nature with the laws of physics. The fact that you have no more than a title is a sure sign of intellectual slackness.

Propagators are not laws. They are tools. — Kenosha Kid

They are a mathematical mechanism used to represent the mediation of Fermion-Fermion interactions by Boson fields -- in other words, to describe the laws by which quanta interact.

W bosons. Z bosons. Gluons possibly. — Kenosha Kid

I am getting tired of this. You do not know what you're talking about, The particles you mention are extremely massive.

Don't concern yourself with Kenosha. He knows virtually nothing about how advanced physics works.

Separating the (science) signal from the (pseudo-science) noise ...

If you want to make God laugh, start a sentence with 'Science will never'. — Kenosha Kid

:sweat:

:up: :up: :up:

:clap:

Indeed, before conscious minds entered the world, the world was entirely Everettian. (Either that, or God was extremely busy, collapsing wavefunctions right and left!) — SophistiCat

:100:

Now I'm interested in how this would hold up. In the example given, even before the mind cognates the "true" state, it had already been decided by the measurement devices placed. If a measurement device measures which slit the electron goes through, and we NEVER get a case of a striped pattern, isn't it safe to assume that the measurement is what collapsed the wave function not us? If it were us we should get a striped pattern. — khaled

Right, that would be the orthodox Copenhagen interpretation: the electron interacts with the detector and the wavefunction collapses from a superposition of two states into a single pure state right at that moment, way before anyone conscious can come to know about what happened.

The Everett (Many Worlds) interpretation does away with the wavefunction collapse, so that the superposition persists, but now the two states are effectively independent and non-interacting - decohered. If you would like to play along with the mind collapse theory, this parallel-world state would allow you to stall for as long as it takes a person to read off the result from the paper - only there are now effectively two persons, one in each of the two decohered branches of the wavefunction. One of the two, the ensouled one, then collapses the other branch of the wavefunction, together with her mirror twin, and the sanity is restored.

I am just making shit up here, as you've probably guessed. I don't know how the actual proponents of mentalist interpretations deal with decoherence, and can't be bothered to look it up, to be honest, because I don't take this very seriously. But if you are interested, the information must be out there. I'd wager that a deft and committed theoretician can come up with a robust enough interpretation - if you can swallow the metaphysics. It is ultimately a matter of taste.

I don't appreciate how you make me out to be some sort of religious fanatic being forcefully ignorant of how QM works. I'm not an expert. Every 2 lines I say "In my understanding". I'm not trying to rewrite or misinterpret on purpose, I just don't have a degree, so don't be an ass about it. — khaled

I haven't been an ass about your ignorance at all. Your mode of conversation is: anything goes in; the same thing comes out. This is good for making sausages and nothing else. As I said, always interpreting NOT X as evidence for X demonstrates not ignorance but a complete indifference toward facts that conflict with your belief.

This is literally the first example you have given where "observation" is done without a conscious human. Why couldn't you just start with that? — khaled

All my examples demonstrated the same thing. But glad this one nailed it for you.

And which laws are they?
— Kenosha Kid

Those of quantum field theory, e.g. the Dirac and Klein-Gordon equations. — Dfpolis

You're really flip-flopping on this issue. First you say that theory must be accurate or else complete fiction, i.e. you cannot have a good theory that isn't perfectly representative of nature, then you say:

You are confusing the laws of physics, which are approximate descriptions, with the laws of nature they seek to describe. — Dfpolis

And now you're back to theory being law itself. Can you have this argument by yourself and let me answer the winner? It will save time.

Quantum field theories do not have 'laws'. As I said, this is archaic language. Instead, it has fields and those fields have properties and those properties dictate classical physical law.

You do have a general mathematical framework which dictate other laws like conservation laws, but again these are categories (symmetry groups), not independent dictates on behaviour. You have probability laws too, though those aren't unconnected to symmetry groups.

They are a mathematical mechanism used to represent the mediation of Fermion-Fermion interactions by Boson fields -- in other words, to describe the laws by which quanta interact. — Dfpolis

Greens functions tell us the probability of a particle being at position (x, y, z) at time t given that it was at position (X, Y, Z) at time T. It is a function of the time-dependent wavefunction. So you're effectively saying that each wavefunction is a law.

The particles you mention are extremely massive. — Dfpolis

Yes, that was the point. Your argument was that mediators of physical law aren't massive and don't gravitate. Most of them are massive and all if them gravitate. In QFT these are what replace the laws of physics like Coulomb's law. As I keep saying, at the level of the quantum field, the idea of these being laws is not useful. They are *things*.

You hadn't cited a case of a wavefunction collapsing WITHOUT conscious observation until now. — khaled

Who says that actually cited a case of a wavefunction collapsing without consciousness? Wouldnt they have to provide a theory of consciousness to assert such a thing? Its interesting that KK is avoiding that, yet still want to assert that consciousness doesnt necessarily collapse the wave function. KK has to assume that some measuring device isn't conscious - whatever that means as KK is unwilling to address it so they are leaving a huge gap of an explanation in their explanation.

Isn't the film another measuring device in the experiment? Is not every process some electron interacts with a measuring device as the effect some electron has on something else is a measurement of some kind if state of the electron at some point in time. But then isnt it also a measurement of the state of the detector as well? Is not the human body and other measuring devices composed of electrons? In other words, and interaction between 2 or more things results in effect that provides information, or a measurement, about all those things not just one of them.

So what is it about consciousness that allows it to collapse the wave function sometimes but not other times? What is it about measurements that collapses the wave function?

What if we replaced some of our biological parts with mechanical parts and observed the experiment? Would the wave function collapse for an observing cyborg?

Who says that ↪Kenosha Kid actually cited a case of a wavefunction collapsing without consciousness? Wouldnt they have to provide a theory of consciousness to assert such a thing? — Harry Hindu

Why would you need a theory of consciousness to examine an experimental setup where consciousness is absent? That's absurd.

KK has to assume that some measuring device isn't conscious - whatever that means as KK is unwilling to address it so they are leaving a huge gap of an explanation in their explanation. — Harry Hindu

There's no gap. Not assuming that non-living objects are unconscious is consistent with every single element of scientific understanding of consciousness. Yours is the outrageous claim. I defend your freedom to believe incredible things, but don't push your burden of proof onto me.

Why would you need a theory of consciousness to examine an experimental setup where consciousness is absent? That's absurd. — Kenosha Kid

Again, you'd have to define consciousness to assert when it absent and when it isn't. If it were absent at what point do you observe the results. If the results are on a sheet of paper, is not the paper composed of electrons? When does the wave function of the paper containing ink marks collapse - when looked at by human eyes or when it was printed out? Did the printer collapse the wave function?

When the doctor asks you to look at a sheet of paper on the wall and report what you see, they are trying to get information on the state of your visual system, not the sheet of paper. This is because your measurement of what is on the wall contains information about the state of your measuring devices - your eyes. The same goes for the results of the experiment.

There's no gap. Not assuming that non-living objects are unconscious is consistent with every single element of scientific understanding of consciousness. Yours is the outrageous claim. I defend your freedom to believe incredible things, but don't push your burden of proof onto me. — Kenosha Kid

So no, my idea that consciousness is a measurement isn't outrageous. The fact that you claim that there is a scientific understanding consciousness when there Is no scientific theory of consciousness is a joke. Don't confuse me with Khaled. I am not proposing that consciousness is fundamental or creates reality.

Again, you'd have to define consciousness to assert when it absent and when it isn't. If it were absent at what point do you observe the results. If the results are on a sheet of paper, is not the paper composed of electrons? When does the wave function of the paper containing ink marks collapse - when looked at by human eyes or when it was printed out? Did the printer collapse the wave function? — Harry Hindu

None of this impacts the particular thought experiment described. QM is a statistical theory. If there is a possibility of getting stripes instead of boobies, then as you repeat the experiment you ought to get stripes some of the time. Claiming the film is in superposition until observed is experimentally falsifiable.

So no, my idea that consciousness is a measurement isn't outrageous — Harry Hindu

I have never disputed that a conscious observation can or would collapse a wavefunction. The claim was that consciousness is essential for wavefunction collapse. This is what I hope I have demonstrated is false.

There is no scientific theory of consciousness? Are you absolutely sure about that? Do you not instead mean there is no complete theory? That is true, and my wording reflected that.

Why would you need a theory of consciousness to examine an experimental setup where consciousness is absent? — Kenosha Kid

True enough, but what experiment can be set up, and by association, what experimental setup can there be, that doesn’t have a conscious agency for its causality?

True enough, but what experiment can be set up, and by association, what experimental setup can there be, that doesn’t have a conscious agency for its causality? — Mww

The several I mentioned above. Sure, a person needs to set it up at the start and, sure, a person needs to check something at the end. But there are variables in between in which we can retrospectively determine whether a system remained in superposition or collapsed without conscious intervention.

Can you supply an accessible reference for that colored light/boogie double slit experiment? Accessible meaning free.....I’m a YankeeVirgoBabyboomer, and paying for stuff for which I have no real use is anathema to me. But it is new and therefore interesting, so.....I’d appreciate it.

I grant the notion that consciousness in and of itself doesn’t necessarily collapse a wavefunction, but at the same time, I find it entirely irrelevant what happens in Nature, if no consciousness is aware of it, and is capable of relating such natural events to itself.

Can you supply an accessible reference for that colored light/boogie double slit experiment? Accessible meaning free.....I’m a YankeeVirgoBabyboomer, and paying for stuff for which I have no real use is anathema to me. But it is new and therefore interesting, so.....I’d appreciate it. — Mww

It's in Feynman's Lectures on Physics Vol 3 which, far from free, is quite expensive. I'll find something though when I get a mo.

Thanks. I had a feeling it would be Feynman, from your statement on fields being real, which Feynman declared by “...By a field, you remember, we mean a quantity which depends upon position in space....” (CalTech lectures, Vol2, Ch2), which would seem to make explicit fields are indeed real, at least in some particular sense.

That, and this wonderful piece of intellectual incredulity: “....They split in half and …” But no!...”, the exclamatory part which you repeated herein. Pretty easy to see where your sympathies lay, I must say.

Those lectures are here: https://feynmanlectures.caltech.edu, In which Vol3 has a nice easy dissertation on varieties of double slits , but nothing about......er......boobies. Or colored lights.

Anyway.....I just want to satisfy myself that bell curves aren’t merely a different manifestation of the standard interference pattern.

Oh, you want boobies? Why didn't you just say so? :)

Anyway, to your point that an experimenter has to be involved, that's true of literally everything, ever, even when we are not talking about scientific experiments. You cannot come to know something without your mind being involved in the process one way or another. But why then make it a special point about quantum mechanics?

Pretty easy to see where your sympathies lay, I must say. — Mww

I am a fine Feynman man!

Those lectures are here: https://feynmanlectures.caltech.edu, In which Vol3 has a nice easy dissertation on varieties of double slits , but nothing about......er......boobies. Or colored lights. — Mww

The lights are in there. The boobies are not, however they do feature in 'Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman' viz. his nude portrait of Marie Curie discovering radium.

You're really flip-flopping on this issue. First you say that theory must be accurate or else complete fiction — Kenosha Kid

I never said any such thing. In fact, I have said that Newton's theory, being adequate in the classical domain is true in that domain.

And now you're back to theory being law itself. — Kenosha Kid

No. I am using the description to identify an the of reality it seeks to describe.

Quantum field theories do not have 'laws'. — Kenosha Kid

I suggest that you reflect on your willingness to make categorical claims that every physicist recognizes as false. QFT conserves charge, momentum and energy among other quantities.

In light of your lack of qualification, there is no point in responding further.

I think the special point with respect to QM is direct experience, and the habitual proclivity of human intelligence to mandate empirical knowledge on it alone. Because direct experience is impossible on some small scale, the experimenter inserts himself, by the construction of his experiments, into situations he cannot actually witness, and he experiments in compliance to the mathematics he has himself invented. In effect, he justifies his inventions, but doesn’t witness Nature as it actually is, the classic example being the collapsing wavefunction, which of course, does not exist.

Another one is “spooky action at a distance”, which, last I knew, was up to a whopping 11 miles!!! So we end up with the altogether classical connundrum of knowledge that (spooky action is a fact), but not the knowledge of (wtf IS it?). So, the mind is certainly involved, but at the same time is completely left out.

Carrying the involvement of the mind to extremes, we arrive at stuff like....e.g., electrons, don’t even exist as real objects....as opposed to non-contradictory objects of reason....until they are determined by measurement of the effect of their intrinsic causality. This only makes sense if it is true human empirical knowledge is absolutely predicated on direct experience and experience has intuitive structure, which QM has shown to be suspect.