Consciousness is NOT caused by the brain

[PolyHedral]

A mechanical object is not an observer.

Feel free to do the experiment if you don't believe me. Very complicated/unstable mechanical objects collapse the wavefunction just fine.

Look at Wigners thought experiment, the measurement chain only ends at a conscious observer, because matter, the detector and the experimental set up exist in a quantum entangled state and thus are unable to self-collapse themselves. It is only when a conscious observer is present that the collapse takes place.

I looked at the thought experiment. It's completely circular, and proves nothing. There's no reason to suppose that concious objects are any more immune to superpositions than non-concious objects are.

Multiple world theory is completely theoretical, unproven and unfalsifiable. We have plenty of empirical evidence to support Copenhagen QM

They make exactly the same physical predictions, so you've effectively claimed the sky to be green. The reason these are interpretations and not physical theories on their own right is because you can't use science to differentiate them, only logic. (And if you work from quantum up, instead of from macroscopic down, you end up with multiple worlds, which suggests it's right-er than Copenhagen.) Actually, that's not quite correct: Cophenhagen makes the physical prediction that there should be an upper limit to the size of a superposition. We haven't found one yet, though.

Yeah, of course consciousness is not something that can be objectified. QM entails consciousness as fundamental, it cannot actually describe it.

Standard Model QM describes the "fundamental" components of reality as 52 particles embedded in a 4D space. None of which represent conciousness. (SMQM isn't quite accurate to reality, but any improvements have to include those 52 things, and it doesn't make any sense for them to include conciousness.)

As I said it is not just the opinion of physicists, is actually formalized by the Copenhagen interpretation, by Wigner's paradox and by Legett inequalities.

How can conciousness be formalized if it cannot be described?

 

[Surya Deva]

Feel free to do the experiment if you don't believe me. Very complicated/unstable mechanical objects collapse the wavefunction just fine.

We only become aware that a collapse has taken place when there is a conscious observer to detect the collapse. So the measurement chain only ever ends at a conscious observer. The theory that collapse takes place prior to conscious observation known as hidden variable theory has been falsified again and again, all hidden variable theories have been falsified.

I looked at the thought experiment. It's completely circular, and proves nothing. There's no reason to suppose that concious objects are any more immune to superpositions than non-concious objects are.

It is not circular at all, please show it is circular? The argument is very similar to the Indian argument. The quantum state or moolprakriti is the primordial material substratum made up the fundamental quantum interactions which produce all material evolutes. When all evolutes of matter have been resolved back to the the quantum state moolaprakriti exists in a purely potential quantum state and gunas in a state of no activity. Nothing actually exists to collapse it. So what collapses it? Consciousness itself not being constituted of the gunas is the only efficient cause which can collapse it.

You said there is no reason to assume that conscious objects are no more immune to superposition than non-conscious objects are? In that case we would have an infinite regress, as nothing could exist outside of superposition to cause collapse. Therefore, there would never be a collapse. However, there is indeed a collapse and the the measurement chain only ends at the conscious observer. This is what Wigners thought experiment argues and it is very logical.

They make exactly the same physical predictions, so you've effectively claimed the sky to be green. The reason these are interpretations and not physical theories on their own right is because you can't use science to differentiate them, only logic. (And if you work from quantum up, instead of from macroscopic down, you end up with multiple worlds, which suggests it's right-er than Copenhagen.) Actually, that's not quite correct: Cophenhagen makes the physical prediction that there should be an upper limit to the size of a superposition. We haven't found one yet, though.

Multiple word is a bad theory by the definition of scientific theories because it is unfalsifiable. We cannot test whether there are parallel universes or that the universe makes infinite copies of itself for every choice and thus multiple world theory is a pseudoscientific theory. It is a fanatical attempt by materialist scientists to get rid of consciousness from quantum physics, so they decide to entertain this fantasy instead.

Consciousness based measurement theory however is strongly supported by empirical evidence and it is falsifiable. All you need to show that there are hidden variables that cause the collapse, but all hidden variables theories have been falsified and Wigners paradox eliminates hidden variables completely. The burden of proof is with the materialist.

Standard Model QM describes the "fundamental" components of reality as 52 particles embedded in a 4D space. None of which represent conciousness. (SMQM isn't quite accurate to reality, but any improvements have to include those 52 things, and it doesn't make any sense for them to include conciousness.)

That's not quantum physics, that non-quantum physics, reality after quantum decoherence. The quantum has no particles or space-time geometry.

How can conciousness be formalized if it cannot be described?

I never said it was. I said that it has been formally presented by many quantum physicists that consciousness causes the wavefunction collapse and even formal tests have been devised for it like Legetts inequalities

The evidence is overwhelming favouring consciousness based measurement collapse and this is why many pioneering quantum physicists have explicitly stated consciousness is fundamental. However, it is the burden of proof of other camps hidden variable and multiple world theory to provide actual evidence, and so far they are miserably failing.

Like I said earlier, it is a surprise how materialism could be taken seriously in the West for so long. Materialism is the most debunked philosophy in the Indian tradition, it is even called the philosophy of ignorant common people(not my words)

 

[idav]

I never said it was. I said that it has been formally presented by many quantum physicists that consciousness causes the wavefunction collapse and even formal tests have been devised for it like Legetts inequalities

The problem is the device(observer) being used to measure the particles are interfering with the experiment causing a collapse. How do you think we managed to observe both a collapse and non-collapse without ever being able to observe the probability aspect?

 

[Surya Deva]

The problem is the device(observer) being used to measure the particles are interfering with the experiment causing a collapse. How do you think we managed to observe both a collapse and non-collapse have been observed without ever being able to observe the probability aspect?

This is the assumption of hidden variable theories, and all hidden variable theories have been falsified. Again, the only logical conclusion to draw is consciousness causes the collapse because the measurement chain only ends at a conscious observer, otherwise if consciousness was superpositioned as well then it would never end.

 

[idav]

This is the assumption of hidden variable theories, and all hidden variable theories have been falsified. Again, the only logical conclusion to draw is consciousness causes the collapse because the measurement chain only ends at a conscious observer, otherwise if consciousness was superpositioned as well then it would never end.

It isn't the hidden variables theory, it's just clarifying the nature of trying to observe something that can't be seen with the naked eye.

As you consider interpretations of quantum mechanics, it is important to remember that none of the valid interpretations of quantum mechanics lead to quantum
mysticism. Much quantum mysticism— unfortunate parts of popular culture such as
the movie What The #$*! Do We Know? or the book The Secret— is based on a
misreading of the measurement problem. Two things are true: first, that quantum
particles can be in a mixture of states, where multiple outcomes are possible and
consistent with the laws of physics. Second, when we make a measurement, somehow
that act of measurement causes one of the outcomes to be realized. This leads many
people to conclude that we are affecting the state of the system, and that therefore
somehow we can influence these outcomes. This is not the case. The probabilities
for the outcomes are rigidly dictated by the probabilities that you can calculate from
the mathematical model that we call quantum mechanics. Countless experiments
have given us extremely good confidence that this is a good mathematical model.
Nowhere in that model is there anything that allows the observer to influence or
choose which particular outcome will be observed when an experiment with multiple
probable outcomes is observed. Nowhere has a valid, reproducible quantum experiment been performed to demonstrate this effect (despite what you will hear in things
such as the aforementioned movie).
http://www.sonic.net/~rknop/php/astronomy/enma/enma_v0.29_7.pdf

 

[Surya Deva]

The probabilities
for the outcomes are rigidly dictated by the probabilities that you can calculate from
the mathematical model that we call quantum mechanics. Countless experiments
have given us extremely good confidence that this is a good mathematical model.
Nowhere in that model is there anything that allows the observer to influence or
choose which particular outcome will be observed when an experiment with multiple
probable outcomes is observed. Nowhere has a valid, reproducible quantum experiment been performed to demonstrate this effect (despite what you will hear in things
such as the aforementioned movie).

Yeah I know that the probabilities are rigidly defined by quantum probability mechanics, come on guys haven't you already guessed I am far more sophisticated than the likes of Deepak Chopra, What the Bleep do we know, Secret and Law of attraction new age stuff Those of us who argue for a consciousness-based measurement camp are not necessarily all with the likes of Deepak Chopra etc

The probabilities are indeed rigidly defined but the collapse only takes place when it ends at a conscious observer.

 

[Willamena]

The probabilities are indeed rigidly defined but the collapse only takes place when it ends at a conscious observer.

...That you know.

 

[idav]

Yeah I know that the probabilities are rigidly defined by quantum probability mechanics, come on guys haven't you already guessed I am far more sophisticated than the likes of Deepak Chopra, What the Bleep do we know, Secret and Law of attraction new age stuff Those of us who argue for a consciousness-based measurement camp are not necessarily all with the likes of Deepak Chopra etc

The probabilities are indeed rigidly defined but the collapse only takes place when it ends at a conscious observer.

Your last sentence makes it sound just like something Chopra might say and it is your repeated statements that "consciousness creates reality" which spell this out.

Lets look at the Schrodinger cat for example. The thought experiment says that the cat is both alive and dead until observed. How far would you take it though? Would you go as far as to say that once the cat is observed as dead that the rigor mortis all of a sudden displayed as well as if you consciousness creates the past events as well?

 

[Skeptisch]

A fully accomplished yogi can become omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent.

Anima: Anu means atom and anima is the ability to make one’s body extremely small.

Mahima: This is the opposite of anima and is the ability to make one’s body very large.

Laghima: Laghu means light and laghima is the power to render one’s body almost weightless.

Garima: This is the opposite of laghima and is the ability to make one’s body very heavy.

Prapthi: This is the ability to acquire any material object in the world.

Prakamya: This means the ability to satisfy any desire one has.

I****va: This is the power of lordship. A person with power can create new things, sustain them and also make them disappear

Va****va: This is the ability to bring anything under one’s control.

Other miraculous powers which have been given specific names are as follows.

Parakaya pravesa: An advanced yogi can enter into the body of another person. By entering a dead body he can bring it back to life. This has been described in the life of Adi Shankarachary. Swami Rama has also mentioned one such incident in his book.

Kama rupa: The yogi can assume any form he wants. It may be that of another human being or that of any creature.

miracles, paranormal

 

[Surya Deva]

Your last sentence makes it sound just like something Chopra might say and it is your repeated statements that "consciousness creates reality" which spell this out.

It is also something which Max Plank, Schrodinger, Eddington, Bohr et al also said, so what's your point

Lets look at the Schrodinger cat for example. The thought experiment says that the cat is both alive and dead until observed. How far would you take it though? Would you go as far as to say that once the cat is observed as dead that the rigor mortis all of a sudden displayed as well as if you consciousness creates the past events as well?

Schordinger's thought experiment was not to prove that conscious observation collapses the wavefunction. In fact Schodinger was dead against the Copenhagen interpretation and this is why he presented the thought experiment to show that it would lead to an absurd conclusion where the cat is both alive and dead. Schrodinger, did in fact argue that consciousness does collapse the wavefunction, not a particular consciousness, but consciousness itself. In Wigner's modified version with a conscious observer inside the box and one outside the box, Wigner argues more directly that it is not the conscious observer outside the box that collapses the quantum, but the conscious observer inside the box i.e., it is a transcendental consciousness which collapses the wavefunction, and not the empirical consciousness. The empirical consciousness is merely where the measurement chain ends.

Both Schodinger and Wigner are inspired by Advaita explanations where quantum collapse takes place due to a singular universal transcendental consciousness.

 

[PolyHedral]

We only become aware that a collapse has taken place when there is a conscious observer to detect the collapse.

I could set up a computer to do the detection if you really wanted.

The theory that collapse takes place prior to conscious observation known as hidden variable theory has been falsified again and again, all hidden variable theories have been falsified.

Hidden variable theories have nothing to do with wavefunction collapse.

It is not circular at all, please show it is circular? The argument is very similar to the Indian argument. The quantum state or moolprakriti is the primordial material substratum made up the fundamental quantum interactions which produce all material evolutes. When all evolutes of matter have been resolved back to the the quantum state moolaprakriti exists in a purely potential quantum state and gunas in a state of no activity. Nothing actually exists to collapse it. So what collapses it? Consciousness itself not being constituted of the gunas is the only efficient cause which can collapse it.

It, like the Indian argument you just laid out, assumes that a superposition of conciousness is impossible, without justifying that assumption.

You said there is no reason to assume that conscious objects are no more immune to superposition than non-conscious objects are? In that case we would have an infinite regress, as nothing could exist outside of superposition to cause collapse. Therefore, there would never be a collapse. However, there is indeed a collapse...

Collapse is not a physically measurable thing. How can you say there was a collapse?

Multiple word is a bad theory by the definition of scientific theories because it is unfalsifiable. We cannot test whether there are parallel universes or that the universe makes infinite copies of itself for every choice and thus multiple world theory is a pseudoscientific theory.

Ah, but we can: Shor's algorithm works. Although it hasn't been tested on large numbers, we have every reason to believe quantum computation can use more resources than there are in the universe. In fact, more than there are in many universes. The question is, how?

MWI is the simple answer: it uses the resources of 2^n universes, instead of just one. Conciousness, meanwhile, provides no answer at all.

Consciousness based measurement theory however is strongly supported by empirical evidence and it is falsifiable. All you need to show that there are hidden variables that cause the collapse, but all hidden variables theories have been collapsed and Wigners paradox eliminates hidden variables completely. The burden of proof is with the materialist.

As mentioned, hidden variables have nothing to do with Copenhagen wave collapse. They are a relic of trying to hold on to defined observables.

That's not quantum physics, that non-quantum physics, reality after quantum decoherence. The quantum has no particles or space-time geometry.

The Standard Model is the quantum field theory at this time. Spacetime is, unfortunately, still involved.

I never said it was. I said that it has been formally presented by many quantum physicists that consciousness causes the wavefunction collapse and even formal tests have been devised for it like Legetts inequalities

The Legetts inequalities are, AFAIK, just more disproof of hidden variables. I know hidden variables didn't work already. If you have a better interpretation of what they mean, feel free to provide an argument for it.

However, before you do, please note that a lack of hidden variables does not mean that reality doesn't exist until we observe it. It just means that the wave function is the thing which is real. (Specifically, it means that physically observable quantities are not the basis of reality. Since the wavefunction gives rise to these observables, and dictates how they change, it logically means that the wavefunction is "real"er, than the reality we experience.)

A fully accomplished yogi can become omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent.

None of these things are coherent.

 

[idav]

Both Schodinger and Wigner are inspired by Advaita explanations where quantum collapse takes place due to a singular universal transcendental consciousness.

All good until the bold part. That is a mystical way of viewing it which goes well beyond the scope of what the experiments show.

 

[1137]

A fully accomplished yogi can become omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent.

Give one single recorded example of this happening.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

The violation of the EPR thought experiment

The passages you cited all are reinterpretations offered by various authors of the results of Bell's experiments, and these are interpolation coming from authors holding onto the principle of complimentarity. This doctrine holds that that there are two levels of reality: The fundamental quantum describing the quantum microscopic world through quantum physics and the atomic macoscopic world describing the macroscopic world, which from the perspective of quantum physics is indeed described as classical physics:

Wiki: Classical theory has at least two distinct meanings in Physics:
In the context of quantum mechanics, "classical theory" refers to theories of physics that do not use the quantisation paradigm, particularly Newtonian mechanics (which is also known as classical mechanics). General relativity and special relativity are also considered to be "classical" in this sense.
​

1) A number of the books which I have cited are adamantly stressing that the quantum world is not limited to the microscopic realm. Actually, most of them are precisely concerned with demonstrating this.

2) Wikipedia, as useful as it may be, is not authoritative in any way whatsoever, and as its accuracy depends upon how well it reflects the academic literature, using it to contradict that literature doesn't demonstrate anything other than that wikipedia just a starting point (if that).

GR is also considered classical from the perspective of QM, because GR includes Newtonian mechanics as a special case of relativity.

GTR doesn't "include" Newtonian mechanics. Newtonian mechanics is fundamentally based on a 3-dimensional reality in which time is distinct from space. Just as one can approximate reality in most cases with classical mechanics, so to can one treat space and time seperately in most instances, because the effect of movement through spacetime for anything occuring on earth doesn't change the frame of reference enough to make a difference. However, for astrophyicists and cosmologists, GTR is essential. Everything from the curvature of space to understanding how and what we can observe in distant space and when we can observe it comes from GTR. Like QM, it is has continually been confirmed by every experimental result performed. In other words, we have just as much reason to reject QM as we do GTR. The only possibly "contradictory" evidence for either theory is the other theory.

The QM does not operate with the assumptions held by classical physics: space-time geometry, fundamental forces, particles and objective reality, locality, causal determinism.

It absolutely does operate with most of these. And where it doesn't, this is simply a matter of the mathematical descriptions used, not observation or empirical evidence. In other words, the fact that an equation which models a quantum system holds up wonderfully under observation as a model, but I can mathematically rearrange things such that time seems irreleveant, doesn't mean it is. That's the reason for so much disagreement concerning QM. The experimental evidence depends upon the mathematical formalisms and is determined by the experimental design (after all, the fundamental notion here is that observation changes things). The reason physicists seek to unite QM and relativity isn't because they're clinging desperately from realizing the implications of QM. It's because most of what QM really is for all intents and purposes is math.

The fact remains the EPR was set up as originally as a thought experiment to challenge the predication of non-locality by quantum physics and its challenges to the laws of physics.

It wasn't. It was to prove that Bohr's interpretation of quantum formalism and its relation to physical reality entailed nonlocality. EPR began the idea of nonlocality; they didn't challenge it. The attempt was to prove that the current interpretation of QM formalism meant that nonlocality was part of physcial reality. The hope was that proving this would show that QM was flawed, or the interpretation was.

Bell was attempting to do the same: prove that EPR was wrong and that nonlocality was as well. Both EPR and Bell failed to do what they intended and succeeded in setting up the ability for empirical investigation via measurements, which Aspect and others carried out.

However, the problem about interpretation and in what way (if any) relativity is "violated" remains open because
1) experiments like those of Aspect are too closely tied with theoretical frameworks within quantum field theory and the accompanying formalism (the specifications on the system are set to begin with by transcribing them into a probability function (wavefunction), which means that it's very difficult to seperate the mathematical models and what's actually happening
&
2) GTR is just as successful (and in far more measurable ways) at describing physical reality and has just as much empirical support as QM.

It was maintained by its proponents of classical physical view as direct proof against quantum physics by logically showing through reductio-ad-absurdum that quantum physics was absurd(flawed or incomplete) Well, the violation of Bells experiment has proven them wrong: The classical view has been falsified. There are no two ways of thinking of this: Einstein was wrong, period.

You clearly haven't read enough about this. Einstein (or EPR) were the first to show that QM entailed nonlocality. That was their "reductio-ad-absurdum" proof. The "absurd" result was nonlocality. Bell also tried to prove that locality underlay all realigy, and ended up (like EPR) showing the opposite (more or less).

The results we now understood is there is no separability actually in reality i.e., no space-time geometry and no discreet particular entities and probably no reality either.

You've asserted many times that this (and things like it) have been demonstrated over and over again. You haven't, however, said how they have been demonstrated. And, as you asserted that Einstein was wrong (when it was his thought-experiment which first demonstrated that QM entailed nonlocality), I wonder if you actually know how.

So, here's a rather fundamentally important thing for you to demonstrate, given your claims (and how much at odds with the work and opinion of physicists they are):

We have certain experimental evidence which supports that nonlocality of some sort is in some way entailed in quantum field theory. We have at least as much evidence (and evidence which is far less dependent on the mathematical models used) supporting relativity. The only evidence we have that the relativity is flawed or wrong comes from the results of measurements taken at a level at which nothing can be measured directly and any measurement determines the result. This is not true of the evidence for relativity.

So, given that:

More tests have been devised and conducted

which in some way support nonlocality, but these again are all intricately tied to the mathematical formalism and theoretical framework used by the researchers, and meanwhile GTR continues to be supported by every other method of experimentation and observation we have,

why do you suggest it is relativity which should be discarded? What about the QM experimental results has you (rather than physicists) convinced that all the support for relativity is spurious?

 

[Skeptisch]

Give one single recorded example of this happening.

There is no scientific evidence for any of these things. However, if one starves himself down to skin and bone maybe one’s brain would lack some nutrients for functioning in the traditional way and subjective reality would seem to make all these bizarre things possible.

 

[Skeptisch]

None of these things are coherent.

A brain that asks for scientific evidence, logic and reason would react like that but how about a brain that was brought up in a Sanatana Dharma environment? Maybe Surya Deva could give us his or her take on that?

 

[Surya Deva]

I could set up a computer to do the detection if you really wanted.

However, the end result whether 'detection' has happened depends on a conscious observer. Can you prove it happened before the conscious observer came to know about it?

Hidden variable theories have nothing to do with wavefunction collapse.

As far as I understand, hidden variables are unseen variables that self-collapse the wavefunction before the observer comes to know. However all hidden variable theories have been falsified.

It, like the Indian argument you just laid out, assumes that a superposition of conciousness is impossible, without justifying that assumption.

No, the argument is perfectly sound. If all matter exists in a superpositioned state, then there is nothing existing outside of it collapse it, so then what collapses it? Self-collapse is absurd. There would be an infinite regress of measurement without positing that something exists which is superpositioned itself and can collapse it.

Collapse is not a physically measurable thing. How can you say there was a collapse?

We detect collapses based on the results of the interference pattern, so we know when the the particle becomes a wave or the wave becomes a particle.

Ah, but we can: Shor's algorithm works. Although it hasn't been tested on large numbers, we have every reason to believe quantum computation can use more resources than there are in the universe. In fact, more than there are in many universes. The question is, how?

MWI is the simple answer: it uses the resources of 2^n universes, instead of just one. Conciousness, meanwhile, provides no answer at all.
As mentioned, hidden variables have nothing to do with Copenhagen wave collapse. They are a relic of trying to hold on to defined observables.
The Standard Model is the quantum field theory at this time. Spacetime is, unfortunately, still involved.

Multiple world theory is unproven. Please show me a parallel universe first. A theory based purely on mathematics is not proof. String theory is also based purely on mathematics and there isn't just one string theory.

The Legetts inequalities are, AFAIK, just more disproof of hidden variables. I know hidden variables didn't work already. If you have a better interpretation of what they mean, feel free to provide an argument for it.

However, before you do, please note that a lack of hidden variables does not mean that reality doesn't exist until we observe it. It just means that the wave function is the thing which is real. (Specifically, it means that physically observable quantities are not the basis of reality. Since the wavefunction gives rise to these observables, and dictates how they change, it logically means that the wavefunction is "real"er, than the reality we experience.)

The Legetts inequality specifically tests for the variable of reality i.e., whether reality exists without conscious observation. I completely agree with you reality really is the wavefunction, and the that there are observables is only an illusion that is produced through the engagement of a conscious observer.

None of these things are coherent.

They are incoherent only in a materialist paradigm. The materialism paradigm is itself incoherent.

 

[1137]

Give one single recorded example of this happening.

Didn't think so.

 

[idav]

They are incoherent only in a materialist paradigm. The materialism paradigm is itself incoherent.

Materialism isn't what you think it is then. It accounts for all of physics whether they are particles, waves, forces etc.

 

[Skeptisch]

They are incoherent only in a materialist paradigm. The materialism paradigm is itself incoherent.

Are these not materialistic claims?

“An advanced yogi can enter into the body of another person. By entering a dead body he can bring it back to life. This has been described in the life of Adi Shankarachary. Swami Rama has also mentioned one such incident in his book. The yogi can assume any form he wants. It may be that of another human being or that of any creature.”