Modern physics already gives special status to observer objects and properties that “non-observer” objects don’t have, and every universe needs to be defined from some particular point of view instead of “objectively” from outside. There are a couple other weird things but those are two big ones to me.
And so a physicist from the 2100s where physics is defined in relation to consciousness asks a modern physicist, so why did you think it was all just atoms and numbers in an “objective” universe?
And the modern physicist says what the fuck are you talking about don’t get all weird and religious on me
And the future physicist says okay dude good luck then
You’re fundamentally misunderstanding the concept of an “observer” - it’s not a conscious entity literally observing something. It’s simply an object whose state depends on the quantum particle in question.
Why does the detector in the double slit experiment cause an interference pattern if its state depends on which slit the particle went through, but then it resets its internal state after, without transmitting the result?
There’s no way to fully erase the state, as information cannot be destroyed. There will always be consequences of the state measurement in the detector (e.g. through heat).
Absolutely false. You have apparently never heard of the exact aspects of quantum mechanics which so surprised physicists when they were first discovered? (which are pretty much its defining feature) IDK, it kind of sounds that way.
I’m honestly not saying it’s as simple as the pop science oversimplification of QM, even though my comment was kind of invoking exactly that oversimplification. But yes, things like having the detector erase its measurements without recording them were exactly the types of experiments which started to point to something much stranger going on than just one object’s state depending on another.
Wheeler’s delayed-choice experiments demonstrate that extracting “which path” information after a particle passes through the slits can seem to retroactively alter its previous behavior at the slits.
Quantum eraser experiments demonstrate that wave behavior can be restored by erasing or otherwise making permanently unavailable the “which path” information.
Emphasis is mine. If I’ve misunderstood something then fill me in, sure.
There is “observer-dependence” in quantum mechanics in a comparable way that there is observer-dependence in general relativity. It has nothing to do with some “fundamental role of consciousness” but comes from the fact that reality itself depends on how you look at it, it is reference frame dependent. The “observer” is just a chosen coordinate system in which to describe other things. I know, you probably got this from Kastrup too, right? Idealists have been getting desperate and resorting to quantum woo, pretending that something that changes based on coordinate system proves fundamental consciousnesses.
This is accurate, yes. The cat in the box is conscious presumably, in my opinion of cats at least, but still can be “not an observer” from the POV of the scientist observing the experiment from outside the box.
I have no idea who Kastrup is.
No idea what you’re talking about with getting desperate. I got a little more detailed in another comment about what I was and wasn’t claiming (“I’m honestly not saying it’s as simple as” etc). I stand by my statement that QM is about quite a lot more than coordinate systems, and in my opinion will make it look weird in retrospect once physics expands to a more coherent whole that includes the special properties of the observer in a way that’s something other than “yeah we don’t know WTF that’s about and we try not to think about it”.
This is accurate, yes. The cat in the box is conscious presumably, in my opinion of cats at least, but still can be “not an observer” from the POV of the scientist observing the experiment from outside the box.
“Consciousness” is not relevant here at all. You can write down the wave function of a system relative to a rock if you wanted, in a comparable way as writing down the velocity of a train from the “point of view” of a rock. It is coordinate. It has nothing to do with “consciousness.” The cat would perceive a definite state of the system from its reference frame, but the person outside the box would not until they interact with it.
QM is about quite a lot more than coordinate systems
Obviously QM is not just coordinate systems. The coordinate nature of quantum mechanics, the relative nature of it, is merely a property of the theory and not the whole theory. But the rest of the theory does not have any relevance to “consciousness.”
and in my opinion will make it look weird in retrospect once physics expands to a more coherent whole
The theory is fully coherent and internally consistent. It amazes me how many people choose to deny QM and always want to rush to change it. Your philosophy should be guided by the physical sciences, not the other way around. People see QM going against their basic intuitions and their first thought is it must be incomplete and needs to have additional complexity added to it to make it fit their intuitions, rather than just questioning that maybe their basic intuitions are wrong.
Your other comment was to a Wikipedia page which if you clicked the link on your own source it would’ve told you that the scientific consensus on that topic is that what you’re presenting is a misinterpretation.
Kastrup is entirely unconvincing because he pretends the only two schools of philosophy in the whole universe are his specific idealism and metaphysical realism which he falsely calls the latter “materialism.” He thus never feels the need to ever address anything outside of a critique of a single Laymen understanding of materialism which is more popular in western countries than eastern countries, ignoring the actual wealth of philosophical literature.
Anyone who actually reads books on philosophy would inevitably find Kastrup to be incredibly unconvincing as he, by focusing primarily on a single school, never justifies many of his premises. He begins from the very beginning talking about “conscious experience” and whatnot when, if you’re not a metaphysical realist, that is what you are supposed to be arguing in the first place. Unless you’re already a dualist or metaphysical realist, if you are pretty much any other philosophical school like contextual realist, dialectical materialist, empiriomonist, etc, you probably already view reality as inherently observable, and thus perception is just reality from a particular point-of-view. It then becomes invalid to add qualifiers to it like “conscious experience” or “subjective experience” as reality itself cannot had qualifiers.
I mean, the whole notion of “subjective experience” goes back to Nagel who was a metaphysical realist through-and-through and wrote a whole paper defending that notion, “What is it like to be a Bat?”, and this is what Kastrup assumes his audience already agrees with from the get-go. He never addresses any of the criticisms of metaphysical realism but pretends like they don’t exist and he is the unique sole critic of it and constantly calls metaphysical realism “materialism” as if they’re the same philosophy at all. He then builds all of his arguments off of this premise.
We are all the same entity, just different instances, existing inside of the greater consciousness that is the universe. We have performed every great and evil act to ourselves, as we are all the same entity.
I dont mean that we are the same as in each human is exactly like one another.
I mean we are the same as in there is no “we”, “we” is an illusion. There is only one of us, experiencing existence through the lens of each living creature simultaneously. “We” are the universe itself. The humans, the animals, all of the matter and energy are just perturbations in our collective fabric. The current body in which you are experiencing life is just one of many appendiges.
You are yourself and you are your parents. You are the primordial cavemen. You are hitler, and you are ghandi.
All of these experiences of each life feed back into the greater consciousness.
Consciousness being an emergent property of the universe instead of the universe being an emergent property of consciousness.
I came here to say this.
Modern physics already gives special status to observer objects and properties that “non-observer” objects don’t have, and every universe needs to be defined from some particular point of view instead of “objectively” from outside. There are a couple other weird things but those are two big ones to me.
And so a physicist from the 2100s where physics is defined in relation to consciousness asks a modern physicist, so why did you think it was all just atoms and numbers in an “objective” universe?
And the modern physicist says what the fuck are you talking about don’t get all weird and religious on me
And the future physicist says okay dude good luck then
You’re fundamentally misunderstanding the concept of an “observer” - it’s not a conscious entity literally observing something. It’s simply an object whose state depends on the quantum particle in question.
Why does the detector in the double slit experiment cause an interference pattern if its state depends on which slit the particle went through, but then it resets its internal state after, without transmitting the result?
There’s no way to fully erase the state, as information cannot be destroyed. There will always be consequences of the state measurement in the detector (e.g. through heat).
Absolutely false. You have apparently never heard of the exact aspects of quantum mechanics which so surprised physicists when they were first discovered? (which are pretty much its defining feature) IDK, it kind of sounds that way.
I’m honestly not saying it’s as simple as the pop science oversimplification of QM, even though my comment was kind of invoking exactly that oversimplification. But yes, things like having the detector erase its measurements without recording them were exactly the types of experiments which started to point to something much stranger going on than just one object’s state depending on another.
Citation
Emphasis is mine. If I’ve misunderstood something then fill me in, sure.
There is “observer-dependence” in quantum mechanics in a comparable way that there is observer-dependence in general relativity. It has nothing to do with some “fundamental role of consciousness” but comes from the fact that reality itself depends on how you look at it, it is reference frame dependent. The “observer” is just a chosen coordinate system in which to describe other things. I know, you probably got this from Kastrup too, right? Idealists have been getting desperate and resorting to quantum woo, pretending that something that changes based on coordinate system proves fundamental consciousnesses.
This is accurate, yes. The cat in the box is conscious presumably, in my opinion of cats at least, but still can be “not an observer” from the POV of the scientist observing the experiment from outside the box.
I have no idea who Kastrup is.
No idea what you’re talking about with getting desperate. I got a little more detailed in another comment about what I was and wasn’t claiming (“I’m honestly not saying it’s as simple as” etc). I stand by my statement that QM is about quite a lot more than coordinate systems, and in my opinion will make it look weird in retrospect once physics expands to a more coherent whole that includes the special properties of the observer in a way that’s something other than “yeah we don’t know WTF that’s about and we try not to think about it”.
“Consciousness” is not relevant here at all. You can write down the wave function of a system relative to a rock if you wanted, in a comparable way as writing down the velocity of a train from the “point of view” of a rock. It is coordinate. It has nothing to do with “consciousness.” The cat would perceive a definite state of the system from its reference frame, but the person outside the box would not until they interact with it.
Obviously QM is not just coordinate systems. The coordinate nature of quantum mechanics, the relative nature of it, is merely a property of the theory and not the whole theory. But the rest of the theory does not have any relevance to “consciousness.”
The theory is fully coherent and internally consistent. It amazes me how many people choose to deny QM and always want to rush to change it. Your philosophy should be guided by the physical sciences, not the other way around. People see QM going against their basic intuitions and their first thought is it must be incomplete and needs to have additional complexity added to it to make it fit their intuitions, rather than just questioning that maybe their basic intuitions are wrong.
Your other comment was to a Wikipedia page which if you clicked the link on your own source it would’ve told you that the scientific consensus on that topic is that what you’re presenting is a misinterpretation.
A simple search on YouTube could’ve also brought up several videos explaining this to you.
This is a good answer. Bernardo Kastrup argues this; check out his very eloquently titled book Why Materialism is Baloney.
Kastrup is entirely unconvincing because he pretends the only two schools of philosophy in the whole universe are his specific idealism and metaphysical realism which he falsely calls the latter “materialism.” He thus never feels the need to ever address anything outside of a critique of a single Laymen understanding of materialism which is more popular in western countries than eastern countries, ignoring the actual wealth of philosophical literature.
Anyone who actually reads books on philosophy would inevitably find Kastrup to be incredibly unconvincing as he, by focusing primarily on a single school, never justifies many of his premises. He begins from the very beginning talking about “conscious experience” and whatnot when, if you’re not a metaphysical realist, that is what you are supposed to be arguing in the first place. Unless you’re already a dualist or metaphysical realist, if you are pretty much any other philosophical school like contextual realist, dialectical materialist, empiriomonist, etc, you probably already view reality as inherently observable, and thus perception is just reality from a particular point-of-view. It then becomes invalid to add qualifiers to it like “conscious experience” or “subjective experience” as reality itself cannot had qualifiers.
I mean, the whole notion of “subjective experience” goes back to Nagel who was a metaphysical realist through-and-through and wrote a whole paper defending that notion, “What is it like to be a Bat?”, and this is what Kastrup assumes his audience already agrees with from the get-go. He never addresses any of the criticisms of metaphysical realism but pretends like they don’t exist and he is the unique sole critic of it and constantly calls metaphysical realism “materialism” as if they’re the same philosophy at all. He then builds all of his arguments off of this premise.
Thank you for this. I was just thinking about it and how it implies consciousness is shared or linked in some way.
We are all the same entity, just different instances, existing inside of the greater consciousness that is the universe. We have performed every great and evil act to ourselves, as we are all the same entity.
This is an idea explored in The Egg by Andy Weir.
Well said, me. Bravo!
I can’t say we are the same. Not definitively. Only similar.
I dont mean that we are the same as in each human is exactly like one another.
I mean we are the same as in there is no “we”, “we” is an illusion. There is only one of us, experiencing existence through the lens of each living creature simultaneously. “We” are the universe itself. The humans, the animals, all of the matter and energy are just perturbations in our collective fabric. The current body in which you are experiencing life is just one of many appendiges.
You are yourself and you are your parents. You are the primordial cavemen. You are hitler, and you are ghandi.
All of these experiences of each life feed back into the greater consciousness.