No I feel their emotions. It's human

No I feel their emotions. It's human — Gregory

What emotion do I have right now? You claim you feel it. What emotion does a person feel who is not you? You can extrapolate, but I vehemently deny you feel their emotions. Empathy is not feeling their emotions... it is synchronizing their emotions and you know how they feel. But you don't actually feel their emotions.

What emotion does Mary Jakubinski feel right now? Or Greg Walker? Or Ngambani Ungemba? Please answer precisely.

I didn't say I feel everyone's emotions.

There can be as little doubt in Juliets mind that Romeo exists than that she exists, maybe less doubt even

Romeo can have much certainty Juliet exists. I feel lots of people's emotions as strongly as I feel my own

How, exactly, would any definition of reality that included anything else but matter read? At what point and how does the real either become or be other than real? — tim wood

Yes, we can now define Reality in terms of invisible intangible immaterial mental Information. Some physicists now define "reality" in terms of fundamental Fields, from which Energy emerges, and in turn Matter is formed. Matter is the stuff that we know via our physical senses. But the Energy from which matter is made, exists as immaterial potential until it converts into matter. For example, in space, invisible energy (photons) are whizzing past astronauts from every direction. Yet they are unseen until they directly impact the retina, which converts photons into electrons and thence into neural chemistry. Which we then perceive (interpret) as Reality. But Energy -- the essence of matter -- can only be conceived in imagination : Ideality.

Those hypothetical invisible energy fields also exist in the dark of space, yet they are nothing but statistical Potential (Virtual Particles, vacuum energy) until a random (stochastic) quantum "fluctuation", for no apparent reason, pops it into actuality. Hence, the Real world is fundamentally made of immaterial Fields ( that I call information fields) that are capable of becoming real Particles. But in their normal "uncertain" Virtual state, they exist as mathematical Probabilities, not as actual matter. And mathematics is the essence of Information. I could go on, but this is just a taste of the New Reality. As physicist John Wheeler asserted : "everything is information". Have you ever seen or touched a particle of Information? And yet, we "read" it as Reality. :nerd:


Virtual : In quantum physics, a virtual state is a very short-lived, unobservable quantum state.

Virtual Particles : "Real particles" are better understood to be excitations of the underlying quantum fields. Virtual particles are also excitations of the underlying fields, but are "temporary" in the sense that they appear in calculations of interactions, but never as asymptotic states or indices to the scattering matrix. The accuracy and use of virtual particles in calculations is firmly established, but as they cannot be detected in experiments, deciding how to precisely describe them is a topic of debate

https://evolutionnews.org/2017/08/is-information-the-basis-for-the-universe/

Information Field : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_field_theory

Everything is Information : https://evolutionnews.org/2017/08/is-information-the-basis-for-the-universe/

Everything is : Particles : Fields : Information : https://futurism.com/john-wheelers-participatory-universe

Before life ever existed, who was being informed? These theories seem to make the term information so encompassing and broad that it becomes almost useless.

Your poll is very vague. You ask if reality is either made up fundamentally of mind or matter but this is a false dichotomy. You could ask more specifically about the observable universe, in which case I believe the universe is fundamentally made up of matter/energy but that the mind is an achievable property of matter under the right conditions. I chose other.

Well Heidegger speaks of potentiality turning into actuality. Which would seem miraculous if potentiality was other than energy. Energy creates force out of nothing because motion causes time. That's my theory. I have at least one thread on it

The Copenhagen wavefunction is a mathematical encoding of what we know. If what we know about the past changes, that change is encoded in the past, not at the moment of discovering the change. — Kenosha Kid

That is what I mean when I said that it makes the mind necessary for matter to be definite

WHAT you look at is explicable all three ways — god must be atheist

Well materialists tend to have a hard time explaining how qualia exist but aside from that yes.

either made up fundamentally of mind or matter but this is a false dichotomy. — Francis

It would be if there wasn't a "Other" option

believe the universe is fundamentally made up of matter/energy but that the mind is an achievable property of matter under the right conditions. I chose other. — Francis

That sounds like option 3 to me to be honest. A classic dualism with mind being produced by matter.

Fair enough. I would just be careful using universe and reality interchangeably. For example, I think matter is the fundamental building block of the observable universe but reality could encompass more than the universe.

You are primarily what everyone else sees (a body) but you are also thought, therefore reality is the union of the ideal and the material

The Copenhagen wavefunction is a mathematical encoding of what we know. If what we know about the past changes, that change is encoded in the past, not at the moment of discovering the change. — Kenosha Kid

That is what I mean when I said that it makes the mind necessary for matter to be definite — khaled

That doesn't follow.

Without a measurement the electron is a wavefunction, in other words is not a definite particle. In the double slit experiment an electron acts as a wave and interacts with itself. A wavefunction isn't an epistimological limitation. It's not that "We don't know where the electron is" It's "The electron is simultaneously everywhere specified by the wave function" or at least acts like so. So without an observation the electron (matter) doesn't exist as a particle (definite).

Observation is used in a way in physics such as that it is not limited to conscious observation. Wave functions have been collapsing since before the earth was even formed.

So without an observation the electron (matter) doesn't exist as a particle (definite). — khaled

But this has nothing to do with mind, nor does knowing have anything to do with being. As described above, the measurement collapses the wavefunction, not knowing what the measurement is. It would be problematic if it came down to knowing, for reasons this conversation makes clear.

Knowing allows us to update what we know about the wavefunction. It is not a physical collapse mechanism. In the same way that knowing more about history doesn't change what happened in the past, merely changes our narrative about it.

Knowing the outcome of a measurement allows us to remove any inconsistent information in the wavefunction as of the time of measurement. For instance, a cat might make a measurement, but since we can't ask cats about experimental outcomes, we can't do anything about it. However if the radioactivity detector used to smash a vial of poison to kill a cat is also rigged up to a printer and we later discover that radioactive decay had been established before the cat was dead, we know that, when we open the box and the cat is dead, we didn't just collapse the wavefunction of the cat. If there's no such output, we do not know this so cannot assume the system to be in a pure alive or dead state before we open the box and check.

the purely mechanical measurement — Kenosha Kid

I don't know what you're trying to show with this phrase. How is the human body, including the brain, not mechanical? How do non-mechanical things interact with mechanical things? How is a non-mechanical observation made of a mechanical measurement?

A system begins in state A. An automatic spin measurement is made and printed a minute later that says it is in state B. A conscious measurement is a minute after that showing it to be in state A. A minute after that, someone reads the sheet of paper. — Kenosha Kid

And how do we know that the difference in states is a characteristic of quantum processes rather a difference in measuring devices being used to measure some state?

Wave functions have been collapsing since before the earth was even formed. — Francis

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.

As described above, the measurement collapses the wavefunction — Kenosha Kid

And this measurement is done by us, the conscious observer. If you do a double split experiment and no body looks at the results, the results remain uncollapsed. Because no one looking at the result = No one has made a measurement.

Knowing the outcome of a measurement allows us to remove any inconsistent information in the wavefunction as of the time of measurement. — Kenosha Kid

US knowing the value of the measurement. In other words US looking at the measurement is what collapses it. Right?

is also rigged up to a printer and we later discover that radioactive decay had been established before the cat was dead — Kenosha Kid

Again, when WE discover that the radioactive decay had been established. How do we do that? Why by looking at the experimental results through the printer. Which would also collapse the wavefunction of the cat, because the two are related.

If there's no such output, we do not know this so cannot assume the system to be in a pure alive or dead state before we open the box and check. — Kenosha Kid

Exactly. So when we do not observe the outcome of a quantum mechanics experiment, the outcome is not collapsed yet, it is simultaneously every outcome. In other words, our mind collapses the wave function, again.

I voted for matter. I just don't see how 'mind/matter' and 'mind' make any sense. Can someone who voted both explain? Are you saying that the mind constructs the physical?

I voted ‘other’.

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.

You have been corrected on what the Copenhagen interpretation says and been shown three thought experiments that demonstrate that your claim that only consciousness causes wavefunction collapse, and therefore that mind creates reality, is demonstrably false. Without actually disagreeing, you still seem to end up concluding that therefore your claim is true.

Having established that, in your view, even NOT X leads to the conclusion X, I'll relieve myself of the burden of explaining my field to you, but as a scientific communicator myself, I do have a responsibility to pipe up when unscientific people attempt to appropriate and misrepresent scientific theory for, what amounts to in this case, religious ends. (Your belief that QM proves that mind creates reality is religious insofar as it is impervious to evidence or indeed what QM really tells us, and driven by belief.) Not for your benefit; for others who might take you seriously.

Just as, when we discover a historical artefact of importance, we change our knowledge of history but don't actually change the past, when we obtain information about what a quantum system was doing in the past, we change our knowledge about it but not the system itself.

This is exemplified in the double-slit experiment. Without the possibility of measurement of which electron goes through which slit, the electrons pass through both slits. On the other side of the slits, the wavefunction interferes with itself. We can see this by placing a film on the other side of the slits to capture the overall distribution of electrons after a number have gone through. When we measure this film without measuring what happens at each slit, we see stripes on the film.

If we instead place a different coloured light source at each slit, and have a photon detector detect which coloured light was scatted by which electron, we can measure which slit each electron went through. This results in a different pattern on the film: instead of stripes, we see a double bell curve (kinda like a pair of boobies). This is because each electron wavefunction is collapsed before it can interfere with itself: no interference effects = no stripes.

We can turn these photon detectors off and on with one switch and we can turn the light sources off with another, which means we can turn our consciousness of which slit each electron went to off and on without effecting how each electron scattered light.

1. Lights off, detector off -> stripes, whether consciousness collapses states or not
2. Lights off, detector on -> stripes, whether consciousness collapses states or not
3. Lights on, detector on -> boobies, whether consciousness collapses states or not
4. Lights on, detector off -> ???

According to khaled's religious-like faith in the power of consciousness over reality, the pattern must be stripes because there was no conscious observation of which slit each electron went through. Without consciousness, each electron must have remained in the state of going through both slits.

In fact, the pattern is boobies. Even without an observer, the experimental setup resolves the question of which electron went through which slit, reason being that the experimental setup itself cannot possibly know whether we look at experimental outcomes or not. Consciousness is irrelevant: what matters is experimental set-up. Or, to put it another way, quantum mechanics is a science.

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.

in space, invisible energy (photons) are whizzing past — Gnomon

Those hypothetical invisible energy fields — Gnomon

Is that photons or hypothetical photons. For the rest, ask yourself what that stuff in the ocean is. Go ahead and answer. What did you answer? Did you answer water, or seawater? And when the scientist sits down at his desk, what does he sit on?

Given the convertibility of matter and energy, one supposes that fundamental reality comprises both. As to mind, potential, information, if they exist, they exist as matter-(energy) - as ideas - which is not to say that's how they're perceived. The idea of potential being in any sense itself actual - well, you have to show me.

What @khaled attributes (inexplicably) to the Copenhagen interpretation sounds like the von Neumann-Wigner interpretation, in which only minds have the power to collapse the wavefunction. If my understanding is correct, the interpretation would say that in the double slit experiment the system (along with the portion of the world that interacts with it) remains in a superposition right until the moment when a conscious being observes the result, at which point the "counterfactual" branch of the wavefunction vanishes. Without that vanishing act, this would be the same as the Everett interpretation. Indeed, before conscious minds entered the world, the world was entirely Everettian. (Either that, or God was extremely busy, collapsing wavefunctions right and left!)

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

Other reasons why Wigner was wrong... His argument was not valid. He was fine with measurement devices reporting contrary outcomes in superposition, he was fine with cats being alive and aware they are in boxes and simultaneously dead and aware of nothing, and yet his argument was that a human being couldn't possibly report that an outcome was one value and another. His theory was based on taste and ignorance. He couldn't seem to get his head around the idea that

<friend saw dead cat | friend told me cat was alive> = 0

Penrose pointed this out, and the paradox of a universe needing consciousness to collapse the universal wavefunction into a state that contained consciousness. A teeny weeny term in the wavefunction (representing the improbability of life on Earth) would be the only consciousness available to yield consciousness capable of collapsing wavefunctions.

I think it might have been him that also pointed out that conscious observers are high-temperature bodies and cannot mediate coherent superpositions. There's simply no way to get the information from a superposed live/dead sheet of paper through a human eyeball to a brain to collapse it to alive or dead. So even if consciousness could collapse wavefunctions and nothing else could, we'd never be able to test it because there are no coherent superpositions possible in conditions that human consciousnesses exist in. For that reason, Wigner's conjecture cannot be considered a scientific one.

Ultimately, any interpretation has to obey both the mathematics of QM and yield experimentally verifiable statistical outcomes. Wigner's does the first, but fails the second.

A fundamental problem I see is that one cannot think an object which cannot be thought coherently. Either the object is constituted by the mind, which means the mind must be able to comprehend it's essence and behaviour in all it's negativity as thinking the object is what defined it in first place; Or the negativity has a source which is not rooted in the mind. A mere statistical probability cannot be a result of thought.

Before life ever existed, who was being informed? These theories seem to make the term information so encompassing and broad that it becomes almost useless. — Francis

Is the term "All" useless or meaningless? Is the term "Whole" too broad for understanding? "Information" originally referred to the meaningful contents of a Mind. Then Claude Shannon applied that term to the 1s & 0s that computers process in the form of containers that can mean anything the programmer wishes. Now physicists and cosmologists are using that same term to describe the immaterial mathematical values (ratios; relationships) that define our reality.

So, it seems to me that "Information" is a very useful concept. And I have simply extended the essential meaning of Information [en-form-action : the ability to enform, to create order, to create meaning] to include the spooky stuff that ancient thinkers called "Spirit" or "Soul", as analogy with invisible life-giving Breath, and powerful Wind. That's because Information now seems to be the essence of everything in the world, both Matter & Mind, both Body & Soul, both Quanta and Qualia. However, by defining that essence in modern scientific terms, it no longer seems to be so mysterious & magical. Instead, it is simply natural --- Information is the essence of Nature. But, in order to distinguish that all-inclusive meaning from Shannon's particular usage, I spell it "Enformation", where the "E" stands for Energy, which is EnFormAction, and for Essence, which the substance of each thing.

Regarding "who was being enformed", the answer is "everything & everyone". The original Singularity contained only Potential. But from the Information in that Program was created Energy, Matter, Life & Mind. In other words, everything that is included under the heading of "Universe" . . . that's who. :smile:

Mass, Energy, Information equivalence : https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.5123794

Spirit :
1.the nonphysical part of a person which is the seat of emotions and character; the soul.
2. those qualities regarded as forming the definitive or typical elements in the character of a person, nation, or group or in the thought and attitudes of a particular period.
___Wiki

Synonyms for Spirit :
2 life, mind, consciousness, essence.
5 apparition, phantom, shade.
6 goblin, hobgoblin.
7 genius.
14 enthusiasm, energy, zeal, ardor, fire, enterprise.
15 attitude, mood, humor.
17 nature, drift, tenor, gist, essence, sense, complexion.
19 intention, significance, purport.
___https://www.dictionary.com/browse/spirit

As verbs, the difference between inform and enform :
is that Inform is (archaic|transitive) to instruct, train (usually in matters of knowledge) while Enform is (obsolete|transitive) to form; to fashion.
https://wikidiff.com/enform/inform
Note : to fashion (verb) -- construct, create, shape, form

Is that photons or hypothetical photons. — tim wood

Actually, a Photon is a hypothetical particle. No one has ever seen or touched an elemental photon. Like Energy, we know that photons exist only by their effects on matter. We know photons by the sixth sense of Reason, not by the five senses of matter. :smile:

What are photons? Are these particles real or it's a hypothetical particle? : "Mainstream science theories seem to always try to explain things in terms of physical material, even when certain things (like photons) are not physical material."
https://www.quora.com/What-are-photons-Are-these-particles-real-or-its-a-hypothetical-particle

Given the convertibility of matter and energy, one supposes that fundamental reality comprises both. As to mind, potential, information, if they exist, they exist as matter-(energy) - as ideas - which is not to say that's how they're perceived. The idea of potential being in any sense itself actual - well, you have to show me. — tim wood

See my reply to Francis above. :nerd:

Why is light not matter? : Now I emphasize, what we call “matter” is a human choice, a lexicographical choice.
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-light-not-matter/answer/Viktor-T-Toth-1?ch=99&share=af0a9a64&srid=ozk3M