Perception is a process, not a thing. It is the process the brain uses to deal with information from the senses (and from within).
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Wavefunction Collapse and Dreams
- Thread starter Ostronomos
- Start date
Perception is a process, not a thing. It is the process the brain uses to deal with information from the senses (and from within).
And yet, quantum mechanics can be formulated entirely without it, and quantum theory more generally is inconsistent with it.
Also, since all of our evidence for any validity to or reality of the wavefunction depends upon observations made of objects in space and in time (not to mention the ways in which the wavefunction is dependent upon the time and space we experience), how can it be more fundamental?
Unless one is interested in what the wavefunction can do physically or mathematically, in which case the above is nonsensical.
Ostronomos
Well-Known Member
No, actually very little is. In particular, the dynamics of QM are essentially deterministic, both in the Schrödinger picture where one evolves the wavefunction forward in time and in the Heisenberg picture where one absorbs time as a parameter into the operators themselves (using, at least principally, unitarity to evolve what is now the operators acting on the state forward in time). The governing laws (symmetries, conservations, dynamics, etc.) are specific to the quantization scheme used, but the preference for one is a matter of convenience. And the are all dependent upon space and time even in terms of the formalism (perhaps if one uses the wavefunction as the dynamical object), so the wavefunction cannot be more fundamental then space and time which are required to define it even abstractly.
In fact, I suspect that it is the fact that the wavefunction is almost completely a classical system governed by classical, deterministic laws that makes it take center stage in so many explications, discussions, and so forth both for the layperson and among physicists working in e.g., quantum foundations (or even just writing textbooks or lecture notes). In the Schrödinger picture, only when one wishes to extract contextual information from the wavefunction formalism (along with the operators appropriate to the experimental situation at hand) does one need apply a different form of dynamical evolution that generally involves what is variously called a "collapse", "jump", "projection", etc. And in those interpretations of QM in which the wavefunction is most central, such as the many-worlds interpretation, there is no observer dependence because the wavefunction never collapses. In the de Broglie–Bohm approach, again there is no collapse but now two elements of the theory take on ontological meaning. In this approach, quantum mechanics (loosely speaking) concerns particle dynamics but the wavefunction exists independently, guiding the "particle" and remaining even after the "particle" is absorbed or otherwise registered via some apparatus (or naturally, all the time, during all physical interactions). Again, there is no observer dependence.
In the orthodox interpretation(s), and newer forms of it such as QBism, subjectivity plays a major role it is true. But in this case the wavefunction is not fundamental nor need it describe anything in reality at all. Generally speaking it encodes statistical information about the likelihood of experimental outcomes. That is, given a particular experimental design, systems prepared in a specified manner are then measured in a particular manner and the wavefunction encodes statistical information about the manner of specification (in particular, the degrees of freedom of the system).
But quantum mechanics cannot be fundamental as it is non-relativistic. Nor can it be made relativistic simply by attempting to "upgrade" the background arena to Minkowski space and demanding the system obey the requisite symmetries. The combination of non-commutativity of operators from quantum mechanics along with the energy-mass equivalence from relativity together (along with the demand that time be treated on similar footing as space) mean that any attempt at relativistic quantum mechanics will fail. This is where the Bohmian approach, for example, runs into extreme difficulty and possibly other interpretations as well. What is required is QFT, which allows for the creation and annihilation operators (or raising and lowering) as well as a way in which to demote the spatial operators to be on the same footing as time, promoting the operators from QM to the status of systems state which ultimately act upon the vacuum.
So, in general, the Hamiltonian formulation in which QM is rooted is replaced by the simpler, scalar-valued Lagrangian familiar from classical field theory. As in classical field theory, the use of fields in quantum theory ensures causal constraints and locality while also giving us CPT and spin statistics along with a way in which to allow for relativistic interactions (e.g., the exchange of photons by charged particles in QED satisfying the U(1) symmetries, where the covariant derivative is introduced into the interaction to satisfy invariance without the need for symmetry breaking arguments as in the electroweak sector because like gluons photons are massive and unlike the QCD lagrangian, we are dealing with an abelian group).
But regardless, the contextuality of QM is a matter of considerable debate. It is true that in general there is no easy way to understand the dynamics of the theory in full without introducing something additional that isn't found in classical physics, whether it be the branching universes of MWI, abandoning locality, or abandoning the idea that the physical systems described in QM have the same kind of ontological properties as in classical physics.
In none of these approaches, interpretations, or extensions do we find somehow that entanglement is supernatural or that large systems can be causally described using terms borrowed from quantum theory but devoid of any actual meaning as you use them in your OP and elsewhere.
^^ This.
Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
Interesting, can human consciousness interact with an electron, like flip its spin direction? If so, then it must be conscious, and it would thus follow that the whole universe is conscious.
https://0201.nccdn.net/4_2/000/000/06b/a1b/Extended-Consciousness---Electron-Interaction.pdf
https://0201.nccdn.net/4_2/000/000/06b/a1b/Extended-Consciousness---Electron-Interaction.pdf
That article made a very basic mistake right away: it talked about different wave packets from the double slit experiment.
No, consciousness doesn't flip the spin of an electron.
Ostronomos
Well-Known Member
Thank you.
I will just say that the wavefunction, while a dynamical object, causally determines everything we see and hear in the supernatural world.
Consider my take a new and improved application for the wavefunction.
Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
So far as you are aware.
So far as you are aware.
Well, no experiment has shown any such effect.
Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
I grant you that there may not be any published scientific proof, but what goes on with the shady orgs like CIA etc.. I am reminded that when the Americans met to negotiate some nuclear with the Russians in the days of VP Al Gore, Uri Geller was a part of the American delegation. He later revealed that his only role was to read minds to ensure the Russians were not trying to cheat..
s
Uri Geller with Yuli M. Vorontsov, First Deputy Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union and Anthony Lake,
then the National Security advisor, the head of the CIA, Senator Claiborne Pell, Chairman of
the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Vice President Al Gore.
https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Uri-Geller-Masterspy/dp/1780287615
I grant you that there may not be any published scientific proof, but what goes on with the shady orgs like CIA etc.. I am reminded that when the Americans met to negotiate some nuclear with the Russians in the days of VP Al Gore, Uri Geller was a part of the American delegation. He later revealed that his only role was to read minds to ensure the Russians were not trying to cheat..
s
Uri Geller with Yuli M. Vorontsov, First Deputy Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union and Anthony Lake,
then the National Security advisor, the head of the CIA, Senator Claiborne Pell, Chairman of
the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Vice President Al Gore.
https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Uri-Geller-Masterspy/dp/1780287615
Which mainly shows that politicians can be pretty stupid and subject to silly superstitions.
The problem is that, in order to use the wavefunction in applications (or in any way at all), one has to be able to actually write it down. That is, you are using words taken from a physical theory, but bereft of their appropriate mathematical and physical contexts. That is not, in and of itself, the problem. The real problem is that these words are shorthand for mathematically meaningful objects which, whether or not one situates them in a physical context, must still at the very least have some sort of formal expression.
You just have words. You can use words like entanglement, wavefunction, state vector, or whatever other terms from physics you wish to take but they are meaningless in the manner that you use them. You may as well speak of dreams as living in the cotagent space of a complex manifold correspond to a supernatural Lie Algebra representation of the gauge group of topologically nontrivial totally ramified collapse points (or throw in whatever verbiage you please). Equally, you could speak about the Hilbert space of dreams and how they get entangled with unicorns and rainbows in infinite-dimensional Leprechaun spaces.
When you completely divorce your usage of terms from both their mathematical and physical contexts, you may as well replace them with whatever other words you want to because they no longer have the meanings they would in the context of quantum theory or anywhere else.
When patients enter an MRI machine or participants in some neuroscience study do so for fMRI scans, the signal is generated quantum mechanically using the spin of hydrogen atoms. For example, blood-oxygen level dependent signals are generated from fluxes in the hemodynamic neuronal activity in specific brain regions that can be quantified. What makes this possible is the NMR property of hydrogen in the blood, namely the manner in which one can manipulate the spin orientation. If there were a direct causal connection between electron spin and consciousness, then this would make such scans potentially life-threatening instead of harmless. It would also cause issues with the signal generation that we don't find.So far as you are aware.
Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
No, either way the electrons are/would be being flipped without harm. In the theory of human consciousness flipping electron spin, no harm is predicted. Concerning unwanted signal generation, any electron flipping capable patients would be told to desist during the scan.
No, you don't get it. if consciousness could flip the spins, the scans wouldn't give correct information. THAT would be life threatening.
the fact that no problems have been detected (and so no patients have to be told to not think about it) shows that consciousness isn't involved.
Ostronomos
Well-Known Member
Consciousness may not be involved in the flip of an electron's spin, but the probabilistic outcome of spin though related to the wavefunction, is very limited. Therefore you have no conclusive evidence that consciousness does not qualify as having a role in the probabilistic outcome of other appearing properties as determined by the evolution of the wavefunction, which it does. The possibilities are not infinite for the electron's properties, but there are far more in the supernatural dimension.
At this point, I'm just going to ask for actual evidence of this. Without such, this is your opinion. Since you don't know the basics of QM (the math involved), I'll weigh your opinion appropriately.
Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
Think about it, the flipping of electrons by human consciousness would be under a person's conscious control, so the patient isn't going to be exercising any flipping of electrons for no reason.
The fact may simply be that no one undergoing a scan is consciously trying to flip electrons during scans.
How would you consciously go about trying to flip electrons? Firstly, the space in which they are flipped is not one we can consciously access, as the nature of spin makes "spin" something of a misnomer. Secondly, the bigger issue is that, if somehow consciousness were capable of producing an effect that influences spin, then it has to do so (as in e.g., the paper you referred to) using some kind of field. That is, consciousness has to be capable of producing some kind of influence that can propagate in such a way as to influence spin. But, as even your source points out (if indirectly), spin is influenced by observations or experiments in a non-trivial manner. When one speaks of preparing an electron (or similar system) in a "spin-up" state one means in general that one has interfered with a system+apparatus configuration in such a way as to ensure that one will register upon measurement that the state corresponds with the effect of applying a particular operator to the representative element of spin space in such a way as to "project" onto the "projection" (which, as we know from even elementary linear algebra, simply means that when one has already acted on an element of a vector space with a linear operator that projects the element into a subspace of the vector space, then a repeated application will not change this).
More basically (and more simply but inaccurately), if one asserts that consciousness can flip the spin of a quantum system then one cannot be claiming that this is due to a conscious intent but rather to a property of consciousness. And if it were a property of consciousness that said consciousness causally interacts with spin systems such that consciousness can "flip" electron spin, then this would be a constant property of the conscious state, and anything that drastically, demonstrably, and completely alters the general orientation of spin systems within the consciousness-generating system itself would be seen to have an effect.
One cannot be conscious of electron spins. Nor does your source seem to claim that this is so. Rather, such sources claim that consciousness is capable of having an effect such that in experiments in which seemingly counterintuitive or even paradoxical results are encountered actually occur, one can ascribe consciousness to these results. That is, such sources claim that consciousness has a property unique or special to it such that it has the capacity to causally effect systems such as electrons in such a way as to change their spin space state. But this cannot be a result of concentration or conscious effort. Apart from anything else, the conscious effort any particular individual makes is different from that of any other, in a manner similar to the way in which personal conceptions of e.g., electron spins differ from individual to individual.
So the capacity of consciousness to "flip" electrons cannot be a matter of conscious control, as one cannot concentrate on an electron, let alone its abstract state in spin space. Therefore, if the causal effect were real, it must be due to a more general property of consciousness, in which consciousness affects (and its ability to affect is influenced by other affects) such systems. But if this were the case, drastically altering the spins of electrons in the brain and surrounding environment would have some measurable effect.
It doesn't.