Claiming that an apparatus constitutes an observer is the only ‘sophistry’ in play here. — Wayfarer
Whether or not 'someone' is around to record what happens has nothing to do with the phenomenon under consideration. — StreetlightX
All that is required is two physical systems that interact to produce information. Those physical systems need not have been constructed by anyone. — Andrew M
You are not wrong, but you are just giving one of a number of interpretations of what is going on. There are some interpretations of QM that explain the so-called wave function collapse whilst actually allowing for a real particle to exist all the time (it is supposed to be 'riding the wave').So up until that moment, there is no 'actual particle' - it's not as if it's somewhere in some definite place that hasn't been determined yet. Up until the measurement is taken, it's not in any place - literally all there is, is a field of possibilities (which is what the so-called 'super-position' describes). Then at the instant the measurement is taken, one possibility becomes 100% and all the others become 0. That is what 'the collapse of the wave-function' describes...Someone correct me if I'm wrong on that. — Wayfarer
it may be better not to use the word 'observation', but this is a trifling point — StreetlightX
you literally put words into the mouth of Andrew — StreetlightX
who nowhere speaks of physical measurement systems — StreetlightX
your understanding of the science is tenuous at best and nonexistant at worst, — StreetlightX
Every elementary text of physics will quite clearly specify that an observer is an apparatus — StreetlightX
This of course, is part and parcel of the your usual intellectual dishonesty, which, no, deserves no civility at all, and ought to be treated like the intellectual poison that it is. — StreetlightX
Of course, if you set the equipment up one way, you get one result, and so on - not at all relevant to my point. — Wayfarer
I don't think Wayfarer is misrepresenting the debate, but perhaps I'm being naive. — ProcastinationTomorrow
The debate as far as Wayfarer is concerned is about explaining the collapse of the wave function, which sometimes goes by the name "the measurement problem". — ProcastinationTomorrow
Wheeler conjectures we are part of a universe that is a work in progress; we are tiny patches of the universe looking at itself — and building itself. It's not only the future that is still undetermined but the past as well. And by peering back into time, even all the way back to the Big Bang, our present observations select one out of many possible quantum histories for the universe.
Does this mean humans are necessary to the existence of the universe? While conscious observers certainly partake in the creation of the participatory universe envisioned by Wheeler, they are not the only, or even primary, way by which quantum potentials become real. Ordinary matter and radiation play the dominant roles. Wheeler likes to use the example of a high-energy particle released by a radioactive element like radium in Earth's crust. The particle, as with the photons in the two-slit experiment, exists in many possible states at once, traveling in every possible direction, not quite real and solid until it interacts with something, say a piece of mica in Earth's crust. When that happens, one of those many different probable outcomes becomes real. In this case the mica, not a conscious being, is the object that transforms what might happen into what does happen. The trail of disrupted atoms left in the mica by the high-energy particle becomes part of the real world.
At every moment, in Wheeler's view, the entire universe is filled with such events, where the possible outcomes of countless interactions become real, where the infinite variety inherent in quantum mechanics manifests as a physical cosmos. And we see only a tiny portion of that cosmos. Wheeler suspects that most of the universe consists of huge clouds of uncertainty that have not yet interacted either with a conscious observer or even with some lump of inanimate matter. He sees the universe as a vast arena containing realms where the past is not yet fixed.
he entire universe is filled with such events, where the possible outcomes of countless interactions become real, where the infinite variety inherent in quantum mechanics manifests as a physical cosmos.
What is ‘sophistry’ about claiming that ‘an observer’ is in fact an observer? Claiming that an apparatus constitutes an observer is the only ‘sophistry’ in play here. — Wayfarer
Of course the introduction of the observer must not be misunderstood to imply that some kind of subjective features are to be brought into the description of nature. The observer has, rather, only the function of registering decisions, i.e., processes in space and time, and it does not matter whether the observer is an apparatus or a human being; but the registration, i.e., the transition from the `possible' to the `actual,' is absolutely necessary here and cannot be omitted from the interpretation of quantum theory. — Werner Heisenberg
Naturally, it still makes no difference whether the observer is a man, an animal, or a piece of apparatus, but it is no longer possible to make predictions without reference to the observer or the means of observation. — Niels Bohr
’It from bit’ symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom — at a very deep bottom, in most instances — an immaterial source and explanation; that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the resistering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe.
Does this entail some really cool philosophical implications? Definitely. But consciousness? Irrelevant noise. — StreetlightX
— John WheelerI think we are beginning to suspect that man is not a tiny cog that doesn’t really make much difference to the running of the huge machine but rather that there is a much more intimate tie between man and the universe than we heretofore suspected. … [Consider if] the particles and their properties are not somehow related to making man possible. Man, the start of the analysis, man, the end of the analysis—because the physical world is, in some deep sense, tied to the human being.
Is the very mechanism for the universe to come into being meaningless or unworkable or both unless the universe is guaranteed to produce life, consciousness and observership somewhere and for some little time in its history-to-be?
The universe does not exist “out there,” independent of us. We are inescapably involved in bringing about that which appears to be happening. We are not only observers. We are participators. In some strange sense, this is a participatory universe. Physics is no longer satisfied with insights only into particles, fields of force, into geometry, or even into time and space. Today we demand of physics some understanding of existence itself.
The main motivation for coming up with alternative interpretations of the measurement problem is to avoid idealism and retain realism. — ProcastinationTomorrow
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