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Mind made?
Victorious
Grim Veteran
This (creationists (yeah they had me fooled until the last minutes.)) video seems to suggest (you do not need to watch it just read my questions below) that ...
It is conscious observation that changes the outcome of the double slit experiment.
Quantum mechanisms also prevail in the macro world...
Does anybody know anything substantial that supports these two theories?
1
Comments
Hi! The double slit experiment has been done thousands of times. It is widely accepted that whilst under observation the particles behave differently.
I haven't yet heard a rebuttal about this?
Id say the first one is not a theory. Its along the same lines as gravity. Both are accepted as more than a theory.
The observer has an effect on the observed. Because at the end of the day, what your looking at is yourself.
Not sure what number 2 implies with macro world?
Another cool experiment was done with particles called quantum entanglement.
Once particles become entangled no matter how far apart they are they behave identically!
You could imagine it with two tennis balls. Once entangled you take the other to china it still rotates at the same time as it's partner in South America.
Spooky hey
No the question no 1 is if the observer needs to be a conscious being or if it is enough (as I always thought) that the proper equipment to measure is in place and is measuring for the test to change its behaviour?
The question no 2 is if there is any evidence/ test that quantum level interactions have some kind of correspondence at least in the macro world. The video hints at this.
Yepp that is cool. Even more cool is one of the explanations for this. It theorizes that all particles in the universe actually is one and that the universe we experience is due to a flaw in our perception. Like a hologram can appear as three dimensional in the same way our perception unfolds the single particle into multitude. That is the reason particles in opposite sides of the universe can behave as one...
Well who knows.
/Victor
The observer needs to be a sentient being, and even the camera poised in the place of the sentient being 'acts' in the place of the observer. There is some experiments that they've done to really test this, setting it up just so, so that one photon is being observed while the other photon is 'not'.
No they don't have evidence per se that the macro level corresponds with the micro, but I sense this is more a function of the inability to set up experiments with say, stars
or even trees.
There is a thingy called a 'bucky ball' which is a glob of molecules -- rather more complex than a single photon, that the physicists have been able to design experiments upon, and apparently the buckyball behaves similarly to the single photons. One can draw conclusions from this (just ask Deepak Chopra) but so far we don't know for sure.
Once we get the one light year long particle collider built in space between our solar system and Alpha Centauri, then we might be able to conduct experiments of bigger stuff than buckyballs
. I'm kind of joking, but considering our technological advances in the last 75 years, what my newborn granddaughter will take for granted when she is MY age is probably beyond our imagination right now 
@Victorious , yeah I've heard a similar explanation. The particle or quantum energy is all in a fourth dimension that humans cannot perceive. The particles coming through are the same as you said.
Humbling to think about.
Yes this experiment has always fascinated and confounded me. Just what exactly is the mechanism that allows us merely observing something, to affect the outcome? That gives credence to the whole "The human mind can directly effect the world around it without use of the physical body" thingy.
Wouldn't exactly call that a proper name for a theory but, hey, screw it.
Thanks for the answer!
But what do you mean by
What I am wondering is if there is merely a Camera and no sentient being watching. Will the particle behave as a wave or particle?
If the camera acts in the place of the observer then there is no real need for a sentient being at all right?
Do you have any ref to the said experiment?
Thanks again
Victor
@Earthninja and @Zayl
What I am trying to understand is if it really is the mind that creates the world, which would be the case if this experiment really required a sentient beings observation to change its behaviour.
I am pretty sure it does not. That that is just a popular misunderstanding of the experiment. I think it is the information exchange with the recording equipment that changes the outcome despite if there is a watcher or no.
Otherwise we would have a perfectly valid experiment to determine who is a sentient being or not. If for instance a tomato in front of the recording screen changes the experiment then the tomato is per definition sentient.
There could be some serious ramifications in the scientific as well as the religious world...
.
So I would be very interested in knowing what exact paper/text/reference you got your info from.
Thanks. Sorry for being so unclear.
/Victor
@Victorious I like the way you think, probably because it so closely mirrors my own thinking. We often stop questioning when there are still questions to ask; such is the case when we assume it's the presence of mind that is having any affect (or is it effect?), instead of the specialized equipment needed to make the observations in the first place. These are the most minute of particles... pretty much anything we do to observe them is going to change things! Perhaps that's why Quantum Theory is so screwy.
I am trying to live according to the Kalama sutta... so far it has proved most useful cutting through to the truth.
Our mental constructs often place pitfalls and walls in the way of seeing the world as it really is. Our clinging and desire entangle our minds and lead it astray all the time. It is one thing what we would like something to be and totally another what it is when we scrutinise it through clear comprehension devoid of the hindrances.
So please everybody do not mistake my scrutiny for critique. In this thread or others. I just like to get my hands dirty and make the evaluation myself like the Kalama sutta suggests. Believe in what you can evaluate for yourself!
/Victor
@Victorious Yeah I'm a Skeptic by nature, so that's pretty much automatic Kalama Sutra, and boy do people hate me for it.
Maybe hate's a strong word.
People want to believe a lot of things, and actually do believe a diverse array of contrary things. So people, broadly speaking, can't be trusted to tell me what I should believe. I leave them to their own beliefs while I try to figure out what's "really real". I trust my own judgment, but I don't expect anyone else to trust my judgment.
This is another quality that is most important on the path. To really really trust our own ability. It is much more difficult than people think.
:thumbsup: .
@Victorious , great point! That would be a cool test.
The only problem I can see with the entire experiment is how can any human objectively view anything? We are limited to our 6 sense doors. Even witnessing a computer is a creation of our own mind?
I don't see a way for this to ever happen.
Everything we see is light refracting on the lens in our eyes which hits the optic nerves and creates an image. Who knows what the real world looks like. A grasshoppers universe is certainly different to mine.
Sound doesn't exist outside of our selves. Our ears relationship to vibrations create it. No ears no
I'd say the same for all our senses. How can we ever observe something without our eyes? Hmmm
Experience is physically a subjective experience. The outer object might be the same and the medium of information might be the same, such as light or sound or taste/smell molecules... but the reacting cells of the brain are your own...
The pattern they make might be similar but is like the fingerprint different in every human.
What is perception of red or blue? Braincells reacting.
perception of a table or a bus? Again brain cells reacting... Rectangular or round? Yepp.
Our experience of the outer world is physically a subjective process...there is no circumventing it.
Different cells for different people.
Transposing mathematical concepts in isolation to broader, say philosophical concepts, doesn't provide a good comparison - it is a good selling point for popular science but I don't think it achieves much in headway as I think it needs to return to rest in mathematics again to make the sense it did within the mathematical framework - in a sense it is diluted / changed beyond recognition in the conversion.
Inevitably therefore, the understanding / appreciation is in the mathematics.
The double slit experiment in all its variations is a straightforward (somewhat startling) way of observing the limit of classical wave / particle modelling.
A photon is a distinct packet of data / energy in a single position and a wave function is the probability of absorption at a specific place. The uncertainty principle holds that it is not possible to simultaneously know an object's position and momentum - there is a probability element which itself is deeply problematic / contradictory to classical systems.
The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is a way of exploring the issue in strict relation to known theories and computations - in this way, quantum theories can be used to predict experimental results to a high level of accuracy however, the theory itself is straining against the classical leash, only allowed to stray as far as the experiments allow.
The observer need not be sentient however the paradox remains that one (as the sentient class) could not know any outcome unless it is observed! In a sense, who knows what the outcome would be if not observed in the framework of sentience?
The degree of certainty of any measurement seems to be a determining factor as to the degree of interference / classical wave interpretation. This seems to point to the nature of the observation itself rather than to the behaviour of the underlying object. In a sense therefore, the object is not changing any behaviour due to observation but that observation itself lends itself to one outcome or other.
As to your second point, I think quantum mechanics does prevail to the macro world to the extent that it explains or refines classical theories however it is itself limited by the extent of the theory and its interpretation - it is not a living breathing entity for example but just another (in this case experimentally accurate) way of approaching these mysteries at a certain state and for certain purposes.
It is in the main treated as a (or one of many) precursor to a unified theory - so moving from classical: quantum to something that takes both into account - currently, I think there is a fair amount of weight behind particle wave expositions and quantum wave expositions (so a move to incorporating the wave as a universal to all particles) - I suppose string theory (and by extension m-theory) is by its nature a stab at a possible unifying theory (as the same superstrings vibrate at the bottom and top of the dimension hierarchy) however as far as I'm aware, we are still impossibly far away from a coherent unified theory.
None of these issues approach the issue of consciousness, sentience etc however they are utilised in such terms as 'collapsing the wave function' or 'quantum entanglement' to bring them to 'life' for the mathematically uninitiated. Their exposition outside of the mathematical framework is, in my mind, akin to a curiosity / spectacle / show as the concepts do not translate into a thought process that can assimilate them for the purpose for which they were created.
Quantum mechanics and quantum computing iz hard.
I recommend the video at the end of this article which tries to explain the exploitation of the dual state being exploited to make the next generation of digital computers.
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-quantum-computing-2013-7
The exploitation of the software and hardware on the macro level begins . . .
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1QB_Information_Technologies_(1QBit)
Here is some info I created earlier
http://web.archive.org/web/20130518224350/http://tmxxine.posterous.com/
So you place a camera or piece of mechanical slow-motion hour glass of matter (aka detector) in some isolated space
But ultimately, a human is going to read the recorded data. Whether it's a video or a set of numbers or a wave pattern.
There's no way to get around that, and you could argue empirically that none of the accumulated data has been Decided until a consciousness encounters it. That is, it doesn't settle into a specific state until observed. Even this language is misleading because it implies that there is data separate from observation. This is logically impossible. Such data could never be known and would not ever become an object of knowledge.
(For contrast: A Buddha knows all that can be known.)
Schrodinger had a reasonable approach. What is the status of an experiment before it is observed? This is an impossible question to pinpoint. To help ordinary people like us understand, Schrodinger claimed that the experiment is actually undifferentiated, like a nascent stem cell, it is potential embodied. Thus, the experiment is actually all possible results simultaneously until observed. It's like saying that the dice are every outcome until they actually halt and can be measured.
The difficulty with using any medium (middle man)
to measure something is that it uses an archaic base ideology: that we are looking through a window into the cosmos, that our observer-ness is separate, noninfluencing, and simply peering into a lovely snowglobe of natural forces at play.
But when you look deeply, what is ultimate knowing? Bruce Lee said that "all knowledge is self knowledge" .. this is a very profound statement.
Your eyes are a sense-gate. Same for your skin/body, etc. Yet it's not separate from physical reality, nor can it ever be apart from Mind.
Mind over matter.
In fact, mind is necessarily integral to every observation, whether you take it via camera lens, computer, or elaborate stones and weights and see-saws. To postulate an alternative form of observation apart from mind or more commonly "consciousness" is like asking how far the shell can walk away from the snail.
All observations must ultimately come through the sensory gates. Then we say something is observed. Until then the bottom of your bag of chips could very well have a squirrel living happily or have a 300 foot-tall treehouse entranceway. Not the most likely of outcomes, but all possibilities are there, and through meditation one can allow space for our habitually narrowed vision of outcomes to relax and allow a vaster picture to unfold.
Another closing remark, sayin that an outcome "changes" when it's obserbed is not completely false, but very misleading as to how perception and reality are interleaved. The outcome wasn't first "blue" and then "became red" when a human looked at the tape. The outcome was actually not an outcome yet. Schrodinger would explain that you can think of it as "the outcome was already blue AND red AND giraffe, etc" until observation .. and now pardon the jargon.. the state of the energy "settled" into something like "quantum equilibrium" for a split atomic moment while "observing" happened. All this fancy talk to say that perception is indeed flexible and changeable (there is a sutra on this, happy kind people here pointed me to it long ago) and if you are wondering "Okay I agree I guess, what can I skillfully do with this new info?" You should cultivate the perception of all phenomena as utterly pure. More on Vajrayana if you want to talk about it.
Are you peeking into a snowglobe?
(no)
Are you inside a big snowglobe and actually part of it like everyone else?
(yeah sorta)
Is Buddhism about relieving stress?
(yup)
So why all this talk about nonduality all the time?
Or is the perspective of "ultimate reference point" starting to make sense?
Not two, nope never.
Not a whole, not untogether.
Words can point, but faith won't fail you;
across the sea the Three Jewels can sail you.
Boats and words, however, are heavy,
So abandon them like you would an old chevy.
A wolf sees a child as food and a mother sees as something to be protected. Palestinians and the Israelis ....
We create our worlds, heaven, hell, maths, science. Everything is to be found within, no where else. What is left when this process of fabrication (sankhara) stops?
And then there is a Zen story about a monk who was an incredible artist. The monk takes up residence in a cave & begins painting a tiger on his wall - an incredibly realistic tiger which takes him years to finish, and when he does finish it, it's so realistic that he becomes frightened by it. It's not real, it's something he thought up in his own head, but he allows himself to become frightened.
@pegembara ok but then what is mind?
Hmm think I'm off topic, I like the zen story. Reminds me of how our perception of reality is important!
@Zero that is more or less how I see it.
@lobster Thanks. I wrote a small paper and made a presentation on quantum computing in school. Nice to see that it has progressed so far since.
@sova said
Na since there are two observations. One records which slit the electron passes through and the other records where on the wall the electron hit. It is possible to observe only one of these and leave the other unobserved.
Thanks everyone.
It's just the equipment, the act of measuring. It doesn't matter whether anyone is looking at the equipment.
Apologies if my above post was bombastic. Science gets my loins all fiery.
Check out this awesome thread from a while back
http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/17407/the-holographic-universe
Yadonashi posted a link to this wonderful read
http://rense.com/general69/holoff.htm
No sweat. Thanks.
My favorite college physics Prof put it this way, if I can remember his point. Not word for word, of course:
Don't get hung up about the "observation" part of quantum physics, and how that seems to imply some supernatural or mystical connection between our conscious minds and the universe. What quantum entanglement means is that properties of subatomic and even some atomic particles only get set between potential states when the particle makes a change in the universe. It could be a change from a measuring device, or hitting another particle, or even causing a change in the neurons of your brain. The particle doesn't know you're watching it, but you're connected together through the fundamental fields and forces of the universe, just as you are to everything in the universe. The connection is there, but it's as natural as any other connection in nature.
Still mind blowing, isn't it?
Very much so! Reality often outdo fiction.
Even if the observer was a camera we would still need a mind to observe the footage. Just as there is no actual sound when there is no eardrum for the wave to reverberate off of, there can be no observation until the data is received by the senses.
Some people may be predisposed to observing a wave.
What I want to know is whether or not there could be a third option. Could there be something that mimics either a wave or a particle depending on who's around?
A party wave.
That last post was the result of needing a coffee very badly. I have to remember to be up for at least half hour before sharing my thoughts.
IF no one is observing how can we find experimental evidence?
There are two observations @Jeffrey and @ourself. One is of which slit the electron passes and the other is of the resulting pattern on the wall.
It is the observation of the particle/wave at the slit that makes it collapse into a particle.
If you record it and never watch it...you can still look at the resulting pattern and know if the "camera" at the slit was recording or not.
As has been commented here it is commonly understood that it is the observation itself that changes the experiment. That is the information exchange with the recording equipment and the particle/wave.
But I am not sure if this is only a thing that people suppose and there really is no experiment to verify this? I mean that sort of verification wouldn't be the foremost thing in a scientists head...
So it would be interesting if there is some evidence to support that a sentient being must be involved in some manner for the experiment to work...
See how complicated I can make a thing if I want to?
/Victor
What's REALLY fascinating is what our brains perceive and organize sense data INTO. What we perceive is only a creation, maybe even a kind of fiction dependent upon the 'mechanics' of our sense organs? You know, light waves bouncing off the retina results in neuronal signals to the back of our brains, turn the image right side up, then are processed 'in such a way' as to distinguish light/dark, foreground/background, lines, space . . .
I think you might find this informative? Look specially at the computer vision link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_learning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_vision
I did some labs in this kind of thing in the University. It is very interesting since some of the experiments in these fields try to mimic human learning as closely as possible.
/Victor.
Mind(consciousness) is not a thing but process. Mind(subject) is only known when there is an object. It doesn't exist independently on its own. There is no entity(atta) called the mind. The observer and the observed are not separate in the ultimate sense. That is what dependent co-arising is about.
Eg. In the seen, there is a seer(I see). In the heard, there is a hearer(I hear). In the experience, there is the one who experiences(I experience). At least that is what most people feel and believe.
Yes, it's a bit of a paradox! It seems that it's the measuring device which causes the particles to "make up their mind". So an exterior influence causes a change in their behaviour, regardless of whether a sentient being is acting observing.
But then without a sentient being, the device wouldn't be there in the first place, so...???
@pegembara cool, just trying to clarify what you mean by mind.
I'm more inclined to the non duality / Anatta understanding. There is no seer just seeing.
Mind(subject) is only known when there is an object.
That's true, but the object could be an "internal" mental object, it doesn't have to be an impression via the 5 senses. So it could be "my thoughts" or whatever.
But the sun will still rise...no? how does a tree falling in the woods sound when there is no one there to hear it?
EDIT: lets Zen this one out shall we?
If I may join the fray...
. MN 22 I think:
@Victorious I particularly like "I have no Self". Who has no what again?
Not to be a killjoy but the tree in the woods makes no sound when nobody is there to hear it. It makes a wave but that wave isn't actually a sound until it reverberates off an ear drum.
The transmission isn't complete until the signal is received.
As for the experiment, does the certain measuring device record consistently or is it still sometimes a wave and sometimes a particle?
It is an odd discovery to be sure. It's like finding out shadows have their own texture.
Birds and other animals still react to sounds in the forest. Separating humans from nature doesn't separate nature from nature.
The detail that helps to make sense of the "observation changes things" is to realize that the only way to observe a subatomic particle, or anything for that matter, is to somehow interfere or interact with it. How do you measure or otherwise "see" a photon? The photon has to hit something or be touched by something or have something bounce off of it, and then you've made a change in the path and conditions by the act of observation. See how tricky it is? This is what quantum means by "the act of observing changes the thing being observed". It's a physical limitation on what it means to observe. At this level, to observe means to affect.
Birds and other animals still have ear drums though, right?
Nobody to hear a sound means no animals, lol.
@ourself Yeah but nobody to hear a sound is making an artificial situation in the first place. There's almost always going to be somebody, if we're including birds and chipmunks and all other forest animals, when a tree falls in the forest. That "sound wave" is going to get produced and likely heard... and even if not, it's still a disturbance in the air that would be sound to any mind perceiving it. Mind perceives the "sound" a certain way, but it's the same as saying there's no light if no one's around to see it. I contend that there is light, there just hasn't evolved an apparatus capable of perceiving it.
Well it doesn't matter. This is philosophical. I just think that since mind is intrinsic to the universe, it's pointless to try and separate it out from everything that's not mind to make a point.
Hmm what is a wave...would you say?
. Not really possible to talk about this is it? He he.
This is most certainly true. It is detailed in suttas about the types of consciousness. Only when there is contact there will be consciousness
In this experiment I would say it is consistent. The observation nudges the electron to come out of exactly one slit every time.
But it would be interesting to see the probability function for this, to see if there is a remote possibility that the electron emerges from both slits on occasion...
/Victor
Well, in this instance I would call a wave the signal that must be received in order for a sound to be made.
In the case of photons, I'd guess the difference between a particle and a wave is purely behavioral depending on how it's detected.
Just guessing but it's fun to play, thanks!
See, I would say there is only the potential for light until it is perceived. Up until then it's information yet to be shared. A seed, waiting for such conditions which will allow it to come to fruition.
Other than that, I think we are pretty well saying the same thing now.
@ourself Yeah probably. I mean everything that's real has the potential to either be part of the perception itself, or to be perceived. We can't see wavelengths of light that other sentient beings can. That we see it, and see it a certain way, doesn't negate the fact that it exists.
You guys are really debating whether or not a tree makes a sound when it falls in the woods? I love this forum, I truly do. You're my kind of folks.
@Cinorjer I think the best answer is "The sound is there, it just won't be recognized as a sound without a mind to perceive it. You could set up a recording device and capture the sound the tree makes, and listen to it later... yep, it makes a sound!". Any other arguing about it really is plain philosophy without any meat to it. I'd rather stick to realistic, pragmatic approaches.