Who made who?

[yukoncpa]

In order for reality to exist, a wave function must collapse ( Copenhagen interpretation ). For a wave function to collapse there must be an observer. Who made who? If I made you, I must know everything that you know. Something knows more than all the rest of us ( in order for us all to exist ). Perhaps God.

[cambraceres]

Why is it neccessary for a creator to possess complete knowledge of those things he/she has brought into existence?
A parent does not know everything his/her child knows, their experience has been discrete.

If we assume the Copenahgen Interpretation to be correct, then it is indeed a prequisite to wave function collapse, that a measurement take place. But this measurement need not be an exhaustive definition of the subject, only one single measurement must take place, but I sense you have no dificulty here.

Now this leaves us with a simple first cause argument, or does it?

Cambraceres

[yukoncpa]

[ QUOTE ]
Now this leaves us with a simple first cause argument, or does it?



[/ QUOTE ]

I have no idea Cambraceres, I'm throwing this idea out late at night for people like you and Metric to respond to. I'm a layman who is a deist/agnostic and I think it would be wonderful if the Deist side had some good arguments.

Edit: I would like to be sainted by the Catholic church if I'm on to something.

[cambraceres]

Who has to be on to something just to be canonized?

I'm not sure what we will get from the deist side, should be fun.

Cambraceres

[yukoncpa]

Just to be clear, I’m saying that the ultimate collapser of the wave function must be . . . God.

[Copernicus]

Your conundrum is resolved without introduction of a god by the many universes interpretation.

Alternatively it is resolved without a god by analogy with the delayed two slit experiment. Sentient beings are observing you now, and their observatio of your existence collapses the wave functions of your conception/sperm/egg "after the fact". That of course opens up questions of what is real and what is the product of the imaginations of the "observers".

[3 minute hero]

Facile answer - who made who? AC/DC have the answer, but i can't find the CD!

[yukoncpa]

[ QUOTE ]
Your conundrum is resolved without introduction of a god by the many universes interpretation.


[/ QUOTE ]

I personally prefer the many worlds interpretation. But this is not what I’m talking about.

I may be wrong, but I don’t think that the delayed 2 slit experiment has anything to do with an observer present at the beginning point. It has everything to do with an observer at the receiving point. Please explain to me where I'm wrong about this.

edit: Actually, I understand that these two observers are entangled, but if you could please elaborate in laymans language. Thanks

[cambraceres]

The two slit experiment can not be thought of properly as a system of discrete parts. Although it is one, it behaves as one unified system. This is at the heart of quantum weirdness, the relationship between part and whole is skewed in a material way. Distinguishing between starting points and exit points can only be valid in respect to some particular measurement, in the deinition of a value. Entaglement is far more complex than can easily be explained, and certainly I lack the powers of comprehension and articulation to convey this concept properly.

The typical misunderstanding is in seeing the ending measurement as the essential characteristic, as if it were all that mattered, crap go to do work.

Cambraceres

[RJT]

I have no idea what this means. But, this is exactly on point of something I posted a while back to DS when all this religion stuff started. The great scientific minds (who we had pretty much agreed are for the most part atheist) are not spending enough time on this type of thinking.

I opined that instead of dismissing (a) God out of hand they should be spending time with ideas such as yours. They should be studying things like the Bible (or whatever) with a scientific mind to see if anything can become of it.

This is the only way we are ever going to find out what is what (if in fact we ever will).

RJT

[RJT]

Yukon,

It appears that both of our hopes are in vain. (Your quest for sainthood and my hope that science will ever study the God question.)

RJT

[yukoncpa]

[ QUOTE ]
It appears that both of our hopes are in vain. (Your quest for sainthood and my hope that science will ever study the God question.)

RJT



[/ QUOTE ]

Hi RJT,

People who believe in observer based reality, must believe there is no starlight on the dark side of the moon. This sounds like BS to me, so my heart isn’t into pursuing my “Anselm through the eyes of quantum physics” argument. Besides, I don’t understand enough of quantum physics. I just thought the whole thing was fun the other night. Good luck on your quest. Although, I think there are certain things that science just flat out will never answer.

[RJT]

Right, science don't got game.

[Metric]

I no longer subscribe to the Copenhagen interpretation -- not for its well-known philosophical distaste, but for practical reasons regarding research. It is not easy to generalize a notion of "wave function collapse" to a closed, generally covariant system. Instead, I prefer a relatively recent but little-known information theoretic interpretation of measurement due to Christoph Adami, which appears to me to be readily generalizable to covariant quantum mechanics. (in this picture there is no collapse, but classical probabilities and an illusion of collapse arise anyway)

http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9605002

[yukoncpa]

This is an interesting paper ; an interpretation that doesn’t rely on a measuring device or consciousness. When I got to section 6, the interpretation looks to be as bazaar as everything else in QM, unless I’m not understanding. It says that the wave function is fundamental and there is no particle/wave duality, only an apparent one. We’re just a collection of particles, does this mean we are just an illusion? I thought the wave function was just a mathematical construct. How is it that the wave function is the thing that’s real? What is it? What’s doing the waving?

[siegfriedandroy]

Can you explain your first sentence? What is a wave function, and why must it collapse for reality to exist?

[cambraceres]

This is basic QM, one post can't do it justice, try google, search for the Two-Slit experiment.

Cheers
Cambraceres

[yukoncpa]

A wavefunction is a mathematical description of the state of a physical system by expanding it in terms of other states of the same system. Literally, it is a description in mathematical terms of any wave - an air wave, a wave of water, etc.
According to one interpretation of quantum mechanics, everything around us can be very accurately described as a wave until a sentient being actually observes the wave, at which time it ceases being a wave and “collapses” into the reality that we are familiar with. Experimentation in the form of a double slit experiment demonstrates what I’m talking about. You’ll need to google the double slit experiment for more explanation. If you’re wholly unfamiliar with this, I’d recommend buying a book on the subject such as, In search of Schrodinger’s Cat or Six Easy Pieces, by Feynman.

Let me make a disclaimer that if an expert such as Metric disagrees with anything I've said above, then listen to him, not me.

[Metric]

[ QUOTE ]
This is an interesting paper ; an interpretation that doesn’t rely on a measuring device or consciousness. When I got to section 6, the interpretation looks to be as bazaar as everything else in QM, unless I’m not understanding. It says that the wave function is fundamental and there is no particle/wave duality, only an apparent one.

[/ QUOTE ]
I didn't particularly like section 6 as far as "conclusion sections" go -- it seems overly concerned with vague notions like "duality" and "complementarity" which are not really needed to understand what is going on. The real power of the idea is demonstrated in section 5 -- probabilities emerge only when part of the system is ignored (leaving a mixed state), and consecutive measurements naturally lead to correlations between observers which give the impression that some kind of "collapse" has happened, though no such dramatic change to the wave function has actually taken place.

[ QUOTE ]
We’re just a collection of particles, does this mean we are just an illusion?

[/ QUOTE ]
He's not really saying that particles don't exist -- only that local, particle-like behavior is a consequence of the way information is handled in this approach. So I suppose if you wanted to dig really deep for a profound statement, you could say something like "we are information between quantum degrees of freedom" or something like that... (but as usual, statements like this have to be constantly compared to what the theory actually says, to prevent philosophical flights of fancy based on a glib sentence or two)

[ QUOTE ]
I thought the wave function was just a mathematical construct. How is it that the wave function is the thing that’s real? What is it? What’s doing the waving?

[/ QUOTE ]
It is a mathematical construct, just like anything else you perform computations with in physics. What he's saying is that you don't have to subordinate the whole beautiful construction of wave functions, Hilbert spaces, unitary evolution, etc. to something "weird" like "collapse" that has to be there to make it all work correctly. Everything works as before (the waving of the wave fuction, etc.), but you no longer need the notion of "collapse" -- just a correct understanding of information.

[yukoncpa]

Thanks Metric,
I like the way you explain things. You should write books.

[atrifix]

[ QUOTE ]
In order for reality to exist, a wave function must collapse ( Copenhagen interpretation ). For a wave function to collapse there must be an observer. Who made who?

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not sure why the necessity of a creator follows from having an observer.

[ QUOTE ]
If I made you, I must know everything that you know.

[/ QUOTE ]

And I certainly don't see how this follows. According to the CHI, you only need to make some kind of observation for something to be real--not to observe it exhaustively.

[ QUOTE ]
Something knows more than all the rest of us ( in order for us all to exist ). Perhaps God.

[/ QUOTE ]

Alternatively, everyone can observe each other and themselves. It seems nonproblematic for a person to collapse his own wavefunction on CHI. For there to be a "God" in this sense seems not only unnecessary but altogether contradictory, for if God knew everything, wouldn't he collapse all the wavefunctions? And then QM would be unnecessary because classical mechanics would hold.