Is the universe created from an "informationally-based" substance?

[Atla]

Thank you for your comments. I'm going to have to ask your indulgence because I just do not have the time to discuss this further, but I will suggest a this interesting treatment of the measurement problem witch also explains its relationship to radioactive decay. "The Measurement Problem," by John D. Norton, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh.

That's not a relationship between them, that's just using radioactive decay in the Schrödinger's cat. The measurement problem is a universal problem and the Schrödinger's cat is a case study.

Your link uses the interpretation (philosophy)

Measurement arises when a matter wave interacts with a macroscopic measuring device. That means that a matter wave interacting with a photographic plate collapses.

even though it's subjective what humans consider macroscopic and microscopic. Quantum behaviour has no known upper limit. And the measuring decive is also made of microscopic particles.

[Flannel Jesus]

I definitely thought that was an interesting point to bring up in the article.

Measurement arises when a matter wave interacts with a macroscopic measuring device. That means that a matter wave interacting with a photographic plate collapses. Sometimes it is said that the last collapse does not happen until an intelligent human agent actually looks at the plate. That last claim is extremely strange. Are we supposed to believe that human intelligence enters into the time evolution of fundamental particles in the same way as perturbing fields?

I do not think most quantum physicisits believe that consciousness, or human intelligence, is the thing causing collapse. In the no-collapse approaches, like Many Worlds, the idea is that "measurement" and "entanglement" are almost synonymous - as a quantum system becomes entangled with its environment, the wave functions you were tracking before done collapse into a single value, rather the different pieces of the wave function decohere. Because the measuring devices are ALSO made of quantum particles, and humans are ALSO made of quantum particles, so everything that makes us up must also be a part of the wave function.

I personally don't trust any interpretation of quantum mechanics that relies on demarcing when a 'macroscopic measurement' has taken place - as if the laws of physics have to be somehow aware of macroscopic objects and how the wave functions of various particles are interacting with them. I believe in strong locality in the universe, so the concept that any fundamental rules of the evolution of the universe would rely on knowledge of macroscopic objects, including humans, seems apriori extremely unattractive to me (actually not even apriori - Relativity surely demonstrates that strong locality should be a strong assumption for the mechanics of physical behavior).

[RCSaunders]

Thank you for your comments. I'm going to have to ask your indulgence because I just do not have the time to discuss this further, but I will suggest a this interesting treatment of the measurement problem witch also explains its relationship to radioactive decay. "The Measurement Problem," by John D. Norton, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh.

That's not a relationship between them, that's just using radioactive decay in the Schrödinger's cat. The measurement problem is a universal problem and the Schrödinger's cat is a case study.

Your link uses the interpretation (philosophy)

Measurement arises when a matter wave interacts with a macroscopic measuring device. That means that a matter wave interacting with a photographic plate collapses.

even though it's subjective what humans consider macroscopic and microscopic. Quantum behaviour has no known upper limit. And the measuring decive is also made of microscopic particles.

Thanks for you interesting view.

[seeds]

I do not think most quantum physicisits believe that consciousness, or human intelligence, is the thing causing collapse. In the no-collapse approaches, like Many Worlds, the idea is that "measurement" and "entanglement" are almost synonymous - as a quantum system becomes entangled with its environment, the wave functions you were tracking before done collapse into a single value, rather the different pieces of the wave function decohere.

I was under the impression that you realized that decoherence does not account for the "collapse" of the wave function.

As I suggested in an earlier post...

...even though decoherence seems to offer a possible clue as to why objects are separate from each other, it still does not solve the mystery of how the objects acquire their observable, touchable, hearable, tasteable, and smellable 3-D forms suspended in this spatial arena we call a "universe."

The point is that decoherence has nothing to do with the collapse of the wave function.

Because the measuring devices are ALSO made of quantum particles, and humans are ALSO made of quantum particles, so everything that makes us up must also be a part of the wave function.

That cannot be claimed about the human mind, which is the most essential aspect of what "makes us up."

The human mind, or, more specifically, the human "I Am-ness" that sits at the throne of our consciousness, cannot be measured by any conventional means, and therefore cannot be confirmed as being part of the wave function.

Indeed, that is one of the main problems with hardcore materialism, in that it treats the wondrous reality of a human mind as if it were no more significant than a single electron or photon.

And that is precisely why we are subjected to such ridiculous theories as Everett's "Many Worlds Interpretation" (MWI), which assumes that a unique human mind (soul/consciousness) can be duplicated faster than you can make copies of your résumé at Kinkos.

I personally don't trust any interpretation of quantum mechanics that relies on demarcing when a 'macroscopic measurement' has taken place - as if the laws of physics have to be somehow aware of macroscopic objects and how the wave functions of various particles are interacting with them. I believe in strong locality in the universe, so the concept that any fundamental rules of the evolution of the universe would rely on knowledge of macroscopic objects, including humans, seems apriori extremely unattractive to me...

That's fine, you can "believe" whatever you wish.

However, all you have to do now is resolve the mystery of the "measurement problem" by providing an irrefutable explanation as to what the mechanism is that transforms nebulous fields of quantum waves into positionally-fixed phenomena that we can see, and touch, and hear, and smell, and taste.

(And again, no, "decoherence" is not the answer.)
_______

[Flannel Jesus]

Well, I think you're being very much overly rejective of decoherence. You may not believe it, I don't expect you to accept that it's TRUE, but your overconfidence that decoherence over collapse isn't even a possibility worth considering, and that anybody who is considering so must be making a very foolish mistake, is I think unwarranted.

Decoherence IS an alternative to collapse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_d ... nvironment.

Decoherence has been used to understand the possibility of the collapse of the wave function in quantum mechanics. Decoherence does not generate actual wave-function collapse. It only provides a framework for apparent wave-function collapse, as the quantum nature of the system "leaks" into the environment. That is, components of the wave function are decoupled from a coherent system and acquire phases from their immediate surroundings. A total superposition of the global or universal wavefunction still exists (and remains coherent at the global level), but its ultimate fate remains an interpretational issue. With respect to the measurement problem, decoherence provides an explanation for the transition of the system to a mixture of states that seem to correspond to those states observers perceive. Moreover, our observation tells us that this mixture looks like a proper quantum ensemble in a measurement situation, as we observe that measurements lead to the "realization" of precisely one state in the "ensemble".

It's not some crackpot idea I made up man haha. It's totally fine if your opinion is (And again, no, "decoherence" is not the answer.) But it seems more like you're demanding I reject decoherence as the answer, rather than just stating that as your own personal position. I don't need you to demand anything of me.

[Atla]

Decoherence IS an alternative to collapse.

Doesn't look like it is, there are many physicists who claim that decoherence solves everything and there are many other physicists who claim that that's plain wrong. Apparently there are papers showing that they can't be the same thing.

Looks like they are two different processes with the same end result from our "already collapsed" perspective. Although it's possible that decoherence takes time and collapse doesn't (which would be pretty strange in itself). The question is why do we have an "already collapsed" perspective in the first place?

So any idea is still on the table, including that a mental mind is collapsing an informationally-based substance (I just think that's very unlikely).

[Flannel Jesus]

So any idea is still on the table, including that a mental mind is collapsing an informationally-based substance (I just think that's very unlikely).

Sure, I'm not trying to make it seem like decoherence-instead-of-collapse is the ONLY proven reality that we live in. I think I tried to present it as the position I hold and prefer, but many possibilities are on the table. I also think anything placing the mind in some sort of special place in the universe is unlikely.

[Atla]

So any idea is still on the table, including that a mental mind is collapsing an informationally-based substance (I just think that's very unlikely).

Sure, I'm not trying to make it seem like decoherence-instead-of-collapse is the ONLY proven reality that we live in. I think I tried to present it as the position I hold and prefer, but many possibilities are on the table. I also think anything placing the mind in some sort of special place in the universe is unlikely.

I'll be more blunt then, your position can be experimentally disproven. Decoherence doesn't produce "collapses" yet we see them in experiments.

[Flannel Jesus]

I haven't seen that experimental disproof, and a huge portion of the actual professional QM community apparently hasn't either.

[Flannel Jesus]

If you're saying that normal quantum experiments where we just see a single result, eg a photon here instead of there, is proof enough on its own, then...

That's just begging the question. That is the very thing that Decoherence was developed as an explanation for. Seeing singular experimental results isn't contrary to Decoherence, it's literally the thing Decoherence tries to explain!

If you don't accept that explanation, obviously that's your right. But right now, you're just begging the question, if that is your line of argument.

[Atla]

If you're saying that normal quantum experiments where we just see a single result, eg a photon here instead of there, is proof enough on its own, then...

That's just begging the question. That is the very thing that Decoherence was developed as an explanation for. Seeing singular experimental results isn't contrary to Decoherence, it's literally the thing Decoherence tries to explain!

If you don't accept that explanation, obviously that's your right. But right now, you're just begging the question, if that is your line of argument.

For example collapse is irreversible and decoherence is reversible.
As for being an explanation, decoherence can only explain that single states can happen or can appear to happen, but that doesn't explain why they happen with us.

[Flannel Jesus]

Decoherence is an explanation of how, when a quantum "thing" interacts with an environment, that interaction makes it entangled with that environment, and therefor it's superpositional possible states are also entangled with the environment, and once a quantum state becomes "overly entangled", it can no longer interfere with itself. It happens with US because we're part of the environment - it happens with any environment.

The point isn't to explain why it happens with US - that puts US at some sort of privileged position, which is actually the exact opposite of the point of quantum decoherence. Any concpetion of QM which implies collapse happens because of Human Minds or observeration or whatever puts US at a special unique place in the universe - and I don't think there's much reason to believe the universe cares about us. Decoherence actually REMOVES us as a special thing causing a special unique phenomenon called 'collapse'.

Decoherence happens when we become entangled with the state of a photon, because decoherence happens generally any time a photon becomes entangled with an environment. WE are not special, we are not the center of the univerese.

[Atla]

Decoherence is an explanation of how, when a quantum "thing" interacts with an environment, that interaction makes it entangled with that environment, and therefor it's superpositional possible states are also entangled with the environment, and once a quantum state becomes "overly entangled", it can no longer interfere with itself. It happens with US because we're part of the environment - it happens with any environment.

The point isn't to explain why it happens with US - that puts US at some sort of privileged position, which is actually the exact opposite of the point of quantum decoherence. Any concpetion of QM which implies collapse happens because of Human Minds or observeration or whatever puts US at a special unique place in the universe - and I don't think there's much reason to believe the universe cares about us. Decoherence actually REMOVES us as a special thing causing a special unique phenomenon called 'collapse'.

Decoherence happens when we become entangled with the state of a photon, because decoherence happens generally any time a photon becomes entangled with an environment. WE are not special, we are not the center of the univerese.

All this explanation does, is postpone the measurement problem by using "environment" in a dishonest way. And the trick doesn't even work, because it looks like the majority of the professional QM community too thinks by now, that decoherence doesn't solve the measurement problem.

When we look at the whole picture, what "environment" or "environments" are there in physics? There is only the known universe, and it's not "in" an environment. The universe IS everything, and it can't be divided into things and their environments.

Not only don't these "environments" exist that decoherence is relying on, even if they would exist we would still have the problem of why these "environments" are single-state regions.

[bahman]

However, it brings us to that perennial issue regarding the question of what it is that transforms that "raw data" into the phenomenal (physical) features of the universe.

The mind has the ability to experience the qualia, qualia have form therefore it carries information.

[Atla]

WE are not special, we are not the center of the univerese.

Now of course we are a cosmic center. The fine-tuning of our universe is improbable far beyond comprehension. And even within our own universe, Earth and the evolution on it, is just right in every possible sense, which is again improbable far beyond comprehension. The world is sort of understanding itself through us.

That doesn't automatically mean that "human minds" are the cosmic centre, but maybe something about humans, or something about one or more humans (contrary to popular belief this is far more likely), or something about the human world, or something that humans will create or have created, could be a centre or at least in the direction towards a centre.

And the measurement problem also seems to point towards this direction. Some tried to crawl away from this by saying that "it's because at big scales objects are single-state" but the universe has no such known scales.

Which is of course the central problem of philosophy, what is all this above, pointing to?

Funny however, that there is this death cult out there that just flat out declares that there's nothing extraordinary going on here in this world. Nothing to see here, nothing special going on here. They think this is true just because we are bound by the laws of physics like the rest of the universe?