Pseudoskeptism and acceptable versus unacceptable science [split from "infant consciousness"]

You mean "quantum fathers" like Heisenberg, Schrodinger and Pauli? Perhaps you should brush up on their biographies. Agnostic in terms of organised religion, perhaps, but for these luminaries, they might better be described as the fathers of quantum mysticism. Add to their ranks the likes of Eddington, Wigner and Bohm and you have quite a team of quantum physicists who were also mystics. 

https://phys.org/news/2009-06-quantum-my...otten.html

I’m reffering to the ‘Copenhagen interpretation’. Quantum mysticism is as baseless as MWI.

I’m reffering to the ‘Copenhagen interpretation’. Quantum mysticism is as baseless as MWI.

Are you aware that the physicist Henry Stapp has built a model of exactly how consciousness may control the physical world via something known as the Quantum Zeno Effect? This uses the fact that a quantum state that is subject to a gentle time-dependent perturbation can be locked into a given state by repeated observation. For example, the wave function of a free electron would, if left alone, gradually spread out so the probability of detecting the particle at any given point would follow a Gaussian function. This means that a sequence of fast detections (measurements) could guide an electron along any desired path!

You should think a little more before writing something like that. The Copenhagen interpretation was developed by top physicists from the early 20'th century, and THEY included that interpretation.

David

There’s plenty within the scientific community who views many worlds as a pseudo science. It’s not as black and white as you put it here.

I have never believed in many worlds. Taken literally, it implies that the whole universe bifurcates into 2 whenever a quantum state collapses - which is obviously a mathematical abstraction. There are also quantum states that are 'degenerate', which means they can decay into an infinite number of possible states of the same energy. Think of a pencil balanced on its point!

I also don't believe the mystery of QM can be swept aside by a purely statistical theory. What is your preferred interpretation, SBU?

David

I’m reffering to the ‘Copenhagen interpretation’. Quantum mysticism is as baseless as MWI.

Well I agree that listening to Sean Carroll would be unhelpful to my understanding of things, as would listening to people like Dean Radin...

I don't like the term consciousness either...

I’m reffering to the ‘Copenhagen interpretation’. Quantum mysticism is as baseless as MWI.

You keep making statements like these as though you are an authority but the (lack of) content of your statements suggests to me that your actual knowledge leaves a lot to be desired. I'm not claiming to know that much either but I am aware of my lack of scientific training and try to avoid making definitive claims. 

From the little I have read, Copenhagen is regarded by many as the interpretation which links mind (consciousness) to the collapse of the waveform and it is the MWI that was introduced to eliminate mind from the physics. Nevertheless Bohr himself, one of the originators of Copenhagen was uneasy with the role of mind although Heisenberg, his collaborator, was more subjective and placed more emphasis on mind, as did later contributors such as Schrodinger, Wigner and, as mentioned above, von Neumann. It is the role of mind which is the basis for what became known as quantum mysticism and which prompted the reaction to that mysticism in the form of MWI.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/obs...mechanics/

I have never believed in many worlds. Taken literally, it implies that the whole universe bifurcates into 2 whenever a quantum state collapses - which is obviously a mathematical abstraction. There are also quantum states that are 'degenerate', which means they can decay into an infinite number of possible states of the same energy. Think of a pencil balanced on its point!

I also don't believe the mystery of QM can be swept aside by a purely statistical theory. What is your preferred interpretation, SBU?

David

My understanding of degenerate quantum states differs from yours. Degenerate quantum states simply means (in mathematical terms) that for a particular measurement operator (e.g. Energy level) the same eigenvalue corresponds to multiple eigenstates. The states are indistinguishable from each other, by measurement in other words. There can be an infinity of states in a QM system without these being degenerate.

My favorite QM interpretation (from the subset I feel I sort of understand, I don’t understand Bohm’s mechanics for example) is the Copenhagen Interpretation. It sticks to the bare minimum that can be inferred from actual empirical evidence without making extrapolations.

By the way, it occurs to me that the term ‘baseless’ might be very negatively loaded for a native english speaker (with my flimsy english any subleties are lost in translation). My previous comment merely suggested that both many worlds and quantum mysticism lacks experimental backing. Both concepts may be wonderful ideas, but without evidence how would we ever know which metaphysical idea is the correct one?

Well I agree that listening to Sean Carroll would be unhelpful to my understanding of things, as would listening to people like Dean Radin...

I don't like the term consciousness either...

Sean Carroll is definitely a hardliner. On his blog he has this piece

The only problem is, parapsychology is not science. It’s pseudoscience. From a completely blank-slate perspective, one can certainly pose scientific questions about whether the human mind can tell the future or read minds or move objects around without touching them. The thing is, we know the answer: no. The possibilities have been investigated and found wanting; more straightforwardly, they would violate the known laws of physics. Alchemy was science once, but it’s not any more. Not all hypotheses are equally worthy of our respect and attention; sometimes we learn that a particular idea doesn’t work, and move on with our lives.

I dare say he is firm in his convictions. I wonder if this claim has been verified among his peers?

I’m not so familar with the work of Dean Radin. It’s too much statistics for my taste (and understanding)

My understanding of degenerate quantum states differs from yours. Degenerate quantum states simply means (in mathematical terms) that for a particular measurement operator (e.g. Energy level) the same eigenvalue corresponds to multiple eigenstates. The states are indistinguishable from each other, by measurement in other words. There can be an infinity of states in a QM system without these being degenerate.

Well if H Ψ_1 = E Ψ_1

and

if H Ψ_2 = E Ψ_2

(Ψ_1 not equal to Ψ_2)

Then any linear combination of Ψ_1 and Ψ_2 is also a valid solution - so the number of universes becomes infinite!

It isn't too interesting because we both seem to agree that MWI is nonsensical.

David

Yeah there is a weird "approved by committee" feel to what gets put out as "acceptable" vs "unaccpetable" science.

It apparently is pseudoscience to talk about consciousness being irreducible/fundamental but acceptable to talk about uploading your mind into a computer to live forever, pseudoscience to talk about any kind of supernatural influence/design but ok to talk about how some random alien coders might have made our reality...

The public seems to take scientific pronouncements only half-seriously now, if that...

Physicalists / Materialists cannot seem to comprehend the severity of their hypocrisy.

I've spent too much time on r/consciousness arguing with this crowd, and they always dodge the questions put to them. It drove me slightly insane...

In this thread I submitted ~ https://old.reddit.com/r/consciousness/c...o_neurons/ ~ I got not a single meaningful answer from any of them. So much dodging, handwaving and vague-nothing answers. So much frustration. It really is like trying to get blood from a stone.

Physicalists / Materialists wonder why science is less trusted these days... no, no, it must the public who are too stupid to understand how great their perfect, flawless science is. /s

Well if H Ψ_1 = E Ψ_1

and

if H Ψ_2 = E Ψ_2

(Ψ_1 not equal to Ψ_2)

Then any linear combination of Ψ_1 and Ψ_2 is also a valid solution - so the number of universes becomes infinite!

It isn't too interesting because we both seem to agree that MWI is nonsensical.

David

While it's true that for degenerate eigenstates, such as Ψ_1 and Ψ_2 in your example, any linear combination is also a valid eigenstate with the same eigenvalue, this is actually a manifestation of a more general property in quantum mechanics, not restricted to degenerate states. The principle of superposition tells us that if Ψ_1and Ψ_2 are any solutions (eigenstates) to the Schrödinger equation (or any eigenstates of an operator), then any linear combination of Ψ_1 and Ψ_2is also a solution. This holds true even if the eigenstates have different eigenvalues. It's just that in the case of degenerate eigenstates, the linear combinations share the same eigenvalue as the individual states.

After delving deeper into Sean Carroll's biography, I wonder if his endorsement of the Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) might be driven by a desire to challenge traditional theological views.

The traditional Copenhagen Interpretation does not mention consciousness. There's a Phd in applied math who recently wrote this comment on the Skeptiko forum regarding the issue of linking quantum mechanics and consciousness:

http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/di...ost-167806

What I want to challenge is the idea that quantum mechanics is evidence of the primacy of consciousness, and therefore evidence for spiritual reality. Unless I’m missing something, I don’t think there’s any evidence for this at all. I do believe that consciousness is fundamental, but I see no reason to believe that QM supports that idea. First off, what we call the “observer effect” really just has to do with the limitations on our ability to measure certain quantum-mechanical properties–after all, when’s the last time you were just conscious of the position of an electron? You’d have to have done a measurement to be conscious of it, and it’s in the measuring that we have some effect on the position.

...


I guess the upshot of all this is, if we misconstrue quantum physics as evidence of the spiritual when it actually isn’t, then we can easily fall into a materialist trap, like the one I’ve used NDT to illustrate above. Incidentally, some version of this might be an answer to Alex’s question about why quantum thinking doesn’t protect us from materialist thinking.