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HiggsBoson1
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I was wondering if consciousness really causes the wave-function to collapse, and if this is the reason why our behavior is not erratic. Thanks!
There is, as far as I am aware, no consensus of the solution to the measurement problem of Quantum Mechanics. So consciousness may cause collapse of the wave function, or it may not.HiggsBoson1 said:I was wondering if consciousness really causes the wave-function to collapse, and if this is the reason why our behavior is not erratic. Thanks!
StevieTNZ said:There is, as far as I am aware, no consensus of the solution to the measurement problem of Quantum Mechanics. So consciousness may cause collapse of the wave function, or it may not.
That doesn't disprove consciousness causing collapse.rootone said:Consciousness causing the wave-function to collapse isn't a very popular idea these days and there are alternative explanations, though as far as I know there isn't any evidence that it is involved or if it isn't.
The wave function collapse happens regardless of whether a human or any conscious being is present, all that is needed is something does an observation.
Imagine a scenario where a QM experiment is done, and the result is recorded by machines and stored as a data file.
Let 100 years pass then distribute copies of the file to a million people.
They will all see the same thing
I'm not really sure. I agree with your comments about GRW etc.atyy said:Is there any interpretation in which consciousness is not somehow involved in wave function collapse?
Edit: I guess collapse is real in GRW and CSL. But couldn't it be said that consciousness is involved in wave function collapse in Copenhagen, Bohmian Mechanics and Many-Worlds?
But it does prove that the outcome isn't dependent on a human being there when the experiment took place,StevieTNZ said:That doesn't disprove consciousness causing collapse.
atyy said:Is there any interpretation in which consciousness is not somehow involved in wave function collapse?
But couldn't it be said that consciousness is involved in wave function collapse in Copenhagen, Bohmian Mechanics and Many-Worlds?
craigi said:MWI has observer selection. Don't try this at home, but see quantum suicide.
bhobba said:MWI has nothing to do with 'observer selection'. Given the mixed state ∑pi |bi><bi| after decoherence, which is observer independent, each |b><bi| is interpreted as a world and everything just keeps on evolving.
rootone said:But it does prove that the outcome isn't dependent on a human being there when the experiment took place, and also what I consider to be the most ridiculous variation on that theme- which is that different (human) observers being present at the time the experiment was done might produce different results. It's pop-sci stuff, I know that, but still many seem to believe that's the idea.
atyy said:But there is no perfect decoherence, so there is no after decoherence.
bhobba said:Of course there isn't. But it makes no difference because in all situations in practice it is below detectability very very quickly. You can't ever detect those other worlds. It is generally thought detectability in this case is inherent ie is not technologically dependant ie is way below any level of current or future technology's ability to detect - but one never knows does one - that is the very essence of science.
Now if you want to attack MW I think the quantum eraser experiment may prove difficult to handle - what happens to those worlds when decoherence is unscrambled? I don't know the answer to that one in that interpretation - I will leave it up to those expert in it.
bhobba said:MWI has nothing to do with 'observer selection'. Given the mixed state ∑pi |bi><bi| after decoherence, which is observer independent, each |b><bi| is interpreted as a world and everything just keeps on evolving.
Thanks
Bill
bhobba said:Of course there isn't. But it makes no difference because in all situations in practice it is below detectability very very quickly. You can't ever detect those other worlds. It is generally thought detectability in this case is inherent ie is not technologically dependant ie is way below any level of current or future technology's ability to detect - but one never knows does one - that is the very essence of science.
Now if you want to attack MW I think the quantum eraser experiment may prove difficult to handle - what happens to those worlds when decoherence is unscrambled? I don't know the answer to that one in that interpretation - I will leave it up to those expert in it.
Thanks
Bill
craigi said:Which of those worlds you find yourself in is subject to an observation selection effect under the MWI.
bhobba said:Nope - its subject to the Born rule which MW adherents think can be derived from decision theory. I have gone though it from Wallice's book and believe there is a tacit assumption of basis independence which is the assumption of Gleason.
Thanks
Bill
bhobba said:This conciousness causes collapse stuff is, IMHO, silly in the extreme. It faces severe problems. But they can be overcome - a coherent (but very very weird) view of the world can be formed.
Here we face what science is about. Science is about TRUTH. But truth discovered by correspondence with experiment. Experiment is always the final arbiter. It just may be that one day we can prove that conciousness causes collapse. It can't be ruled out.
Its like solipsism - nearly everyone rejects it as being silly - which it is - I certainly laughed my head of when I heard about it and thought how could anyone be gullible enough to believe such obvious rot. But science, correctly, has a different standard - rot it may be - but if experiment shows it is true rot we must accept it. Isaac Asimov expressed it this way. Religious cults, like for example Scientology, say 2+2 = 5 and make no mistake about it, science says almost certainly 2+2 = 4, but we need constantly to check it.
You will find once you integrate this into your world view many things become a lot clearer including the shenanigans of politicians - but that is for you to discover.
Thanks
Bill
HiggsBoson1 said:I was wondering if consciousness really causes the wave-function to collapse, and if this is the reason why our behavior is not erratic. Thanks!
carllooper said:Regarding consciousness causing wave function collapse - this assumes, apart from anything else, that wave functions undergo collapse. When "wave function collapse" was first proposed it wasn't proposed as some sort of scientific theory, but as a kind of interpretational crutch that one could lean on, until one better understood the underlying logic. I don't recall who, but in the early conferences someone voiced an objection to the concept of collapse - the response to which was that if they were understanding the theory in the first place they wouldn't need such a crutch (and therefore wouldn't be complaining about such).
Nevertheless, ever since, this crutch has been recast as some sort of "problem" in search of a solution, one of which is the idea of consciousness causing such. But in any case let's assume "collapse" does occur (or the term "collapse" otherwise refers to that which does occur) well it should be obvious that it doesn't require consciousness insofar as a photographic plate can register such collapses without having any consciousness. Unless, of course, we assign consciousness to a photographic plate (and why not I guess).
More relevant is the question as to what such a theory (for want of a better description) might tells us. And in short it doesn't tell us much of anything at all. Even if consciousness did cause collapse (and photographic plates were examples of consciousness) in what way could we exploit such a theory? The answer to that question will tell us if we're moving closer towards understanding the physics or moving further away instead - into some other disciplinary bracket. As far as I can tell, it moves us into theories of consciousness rather than theories of physics.
A more difficult question is how to understand the model without such a crutch. I'm not sure I do. I still need the crutch from time to time. But I'm happy enough using it - it works for me.
C
craigi said:It is the lack of any evidence for any mechanism for wavefunction collapse that leads to the MWI.
craigi said:The Born rule of course applies, to outcome prediction. However testing predictions is subject to observation selection bias. Ignoring it leads to invalid conclusions.
atyy said:I wasn't trying to attack MWI. I'm mainly trying to understand Zurek's statement in http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.5206: "Quantum Darwinism shows why only such redundantly recorded pointer states are accessible to observers|it can account for perception of `quantum jumps'. However, full account of collapse involves `consciousness', and may have go beyond just mathematics or physics. "
Although he mentions collapse, I think he is operating within his "existential interpretation", which as far as I can tell is a version of MWI, and he is trying to explain why although there is no collapse in the full interpretation, individual observers experience or use collapse.
atyy said:I wasn't trying to attack MWI. I'm mainly trying to understand Zurek's statement in http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.5206: "Quantum Darwinism shows why only such redundantly recorded pointer states are accessible to observers|it can account for perception of `quantum jumps'. However, full account of collapse involves `consciousness', and may have go beyond just mathematics or physics. "
Although he mentions collapse, I think he is operating within his "existential interpretation", which as far as I can tell is a version of MWI, and he is trying to explain why although there is no collapse in the full interpretation, individual observers experience or use collapse.
bhobba said:I don't understand what is necessary to test a theory has to do with the theory itself.
Thanks
Bill
julcab12 said:... Is it "any interaction" that causes the wave to collapse or just particular to observer in a crude way?
julcab12 said:... Is it "any interaction" that causes the wave to collapse or just particular to observer in a crude way?
craigi said:It's not so much of a test of a theory as noting that the theory leads to results that that depend upon the state of the observer. It wouldn't be of any interest were it not for the fact that it his highly unusual.
craigi said:There is only one other discipline where such an observer effect is so notable, that I am aware of, and that is the field of psychoanalysis. It's no coincidence that it also uses the term, entanglement.
Ok. Can you please elaborate on "Not all interactions and nothing to do with an observer" Thanks in advance.bhobba said:Not all interactions cause decoherence and it has nothing to do with an observer.
Thanks
Bill
vanhees71 said:Seriously, it's not even clear that there is something like a collapse in nature. I'm a follower of the minimal statistical interpretation, and there's no collapse necessary, which avoids a lot of problems with Einstein causality etc. For me "Collapse" is just a word for adjusting the state after the interaction of the system under consideration with a preparation apparatus in the sense of an ideal von Neumann "filter measurement"...