The Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics

Originally Posted by JaysonR

Let me try to erase the drawing board and start over simply.

Energy is a property of objects, not an object itself.
Specifically, energy is the property an object has in measure to affect other objects. Or said traditionally, "the capacity to do work" (even though I think that is a severely lacking description).

A photon is not a property; it is an object independent unto itself. Specifically, it is a type particle.

Saying that energy is a photon is akin to stating that red is a shirt.
A photon has the property of energy like fashion that a shirt has the property of being red.

Just because every object has energy doesn't mean that everything is energy.
To state the latter is to fundamentally change the definition of energy scientifically.

I do understand what you are saying about energy as a purely abstract entity.

Still, there is a type of energy categorized as luminous energy which is light.
You can have red without having a shirt but you cannot have light without having EM energy.

I see statements like this too often:
"Under the photon theory of light, a photon is a discrete bundle (or quantum) of electromagnetic (or light) energy."

Seeing it written doesn't make it correct but I've seen it referenced this way in enough technical and pop-science books (written by physicists or cosmologists) to feel there is something too it.

I understand there is some sense of mystery about energy that leads to this contradiction.
I'm basing that on what Feynman says in Six easy Pieces about not understanding what energy actually is.

[JaysonR]

I think that you are reading implied physics as if it were explicit physics.
The conversation that you are refrencing is one that classes photons essentially as em.
This is due to qed, but should be careful to not be thought of as literal of the face value of the words.
The photon is capable of being the gauge boson of the emf, but it is not the emf.
A gauge boson is the carrier between two other constituents.
In qed the photon carries the charge given from an electron.
This happens when the electron and photon essentially have a t-bone intersection accident.
The photon is captured and later thrown from the electron.
It can be arced to another if its vilocity is right, where in this application the vilocity is the frequency of the photon.

The emf is not photons, however.
The emf is electric (stationary charge) and magnetic (moving charge) properties of conductive particles.
The photon has no charge.

It can carry a charge given to it by way of its frequency somewhat in a manner like converting analog signal to digital signal and then sending the digital signal far faster than the analog could travel. Then on the reception the increased frequency of the digital signal is translated into an analog signal again and the current is complete.
The byproduct of increasing this exchange, then, is higher frequency light.
Higher frequency light is brighter. The exchange therefore provides an increase of light into the system.
But this does not mean photons are literaly em.
It means for the purposes of qed one can essentially think of a photon as the facilitator of emf and therefore could think of them as equal to emf (though I disagree, for exactly the confusion it is causing here).

This thread is a quantum mechanical headache

Anyone fancy taking my QM exam in a few weeks for me? *bats eyelashes*

Originally Posted by SpiralNature

This thread is a quantum mechanical headache

Anyone fancy taking my QM exam in a few weeks for me? *bats eyelashes*

I'll trade you for my statistical mechanics exam, haha.

What level? Undergrad?

Ha i did ok in mechanics exams actually, but aced theoretical if you have one of those lol

Yeah year 2 physics, one more year to go! how about you?

Originally Posted by SpiralNature

Ha i did ok in mechanics exams actually, but aced theoretical if you have one of those lol

Yeah year 2 physics, one more year to go! how about you?

Nice. I'm graduating this May and starting a physics MS program in the summer. I plan on eventually doing something in computational condensed matter physics / quantum chemistry.

Anyway, back on track. Here's a recent paper discussing the role of consciousness in QM:

Quantum mechanics needs no consciousness

Abstract:

It has been suggested that consciousness plays an important role in quantum mechanics as it is necessary for the collapse of wave function during the measurement. Furthermore, this idea has spawned a symmetrical proposal: a possibility that quantum mechanics explains the emergence of consciousness in the brain. Here we formulated several predictions that follow from this hypothetical relationship and that can be empirically tested. Some of the experimental results that are already available suggest falsification of the first hypothesis. Thus, the suggested link between human consciousness and collapse of wave function does not seem viable. We discuss the constraints implied by the existing evidence on the role that the human observer may play for quantum mechanics and the role that quantum mechanics may play in the observer’s consciousness.

Conclusion:

The available evidence does not indicate that the observer’s explicit phenomenal representation about the outcome of a measurement plays a role in collapsing the wave function. Thus, the idea that by mere observation the experimenter creates physical reality does not seem viable. This supports Wigner’s opinion in his later years and promises to fulfill his hopes – that we “will not embrace solipsism” and “will let us admit that the world really exists” (cited from [4]). Perhaps equally importantly, we can add our own hope that the rejection of the role of consciousness in quantum mechanics will also lead us to re-evaluate the proposals that quantum mechanics is vital for explaining the consciousness. Having these two deep mysteries disentangled one from the other might be an important step forward towards understanding each of them.

[JaysonR]

I have a simple issue with the consciousness tangent in QM.
The collapsing is a collapsing probability.

The probability is inverse; where a thing is not.
From that, we know where it likely is in area.
Until it is directly observed; where the probability then collapses.

However, I could assert the same thing about mortar fire.
The probability is inverse; where the enemy is not.
From that, we know where the enemy likely is in area.
Until the enemy is directly observed; where the probability then collapses.


I think allot of confusion takes place in QM regarding the state of matter because the focus is on the maths; which offer predictions that are then seen as reality rather than representative prediction models of reality.
There is a radical difference between the two.

Chiefly; the location of a given particle is finite in reality.
Our knowledge of where a given particle is in reality is the very large grey area that wobbles until observation is made.

The cat is really either alive or dead.
The observation simply confirms the probability computed about the matter of the cat's state of life.

As such; no...I agree fully with the conclusion of their work; consciousness/observation hasn't a direct affect on the particles themselves, but instead upon our probabilities which contain our knowledge of the particles.

[hybrid]

Originally Posted by Kepler

Anyway, back on track. Here's a recent paper discussing the role of consciousness in QM:

Quantum mechanics needs no consciousness

Abstract:

It has been suggested that consciousness plays an important role in quantum mechanics as it is necessary for the collapse of wave function during the measurement. Furthermore, this idea has spawned a symmetrical proposal: a possibility that quantum mechanics explains the emergence of consciousness in the brain. Here we formulated several predictions that follow from this hypothetical relationship and that can be empirically tested. Some of the experimental results that are already available suggest falsification of the first hypothesis. Thus, the suggested link between human consciousness and collapse of wave function does not seem viable. We discuss the constraints implied by the existing evidence on the role that the human observer may play for quantum mechanics and the role that quantum mechanics may play in the observer’s consciousness.

Conclusion:

The available evidence does not indicate that the observer’s explicit phenomenal representation about the outcome of a measurement plays a role in collapsing the wave function. Thus, the idea that by mere observation the experimenter creates physical reality does not seem viable. This supports Wigner’s opinion in his later years and promises to fulfill his hopes – that we “will not embrace solipsism” and “will let us admit that the world really exists” (cited from [4]). Perhaps equally importantly, we can add our own hope that the rejection of the role of consciousness in quantum mechanics will also lead us to re-evaluate the proposals that quantum mechanics is vital for explaining the consciousness. Having these two deep mysteries disentangled one from the other might be an important step forward towards understanding each of them.

in the world of the very small, all conscious measurements and experimentation "interfere" with what is being measured. but this is not the same to say that consciousness affects or create reality. prior to the emergence of human consciousness, there is already a universe so waves are collapsing without the influence of consciousness .

so i agree with the first proposition, but on the second one ... i think that if consciousness is also a physical phenomena like matter, it should obey also the law of QM.

some similarity between matter and consciousness ....

1. in wave/particle duality - consciosuness can be considered as spacelike and thoughts and feelings are particle objects floating in it.

2. observation affects reality - by watching the thoughts and feelings in equanimity, thoughts and feelings can change willfully. so looking interferes with what is being looked at.

3. non-locality - consciousness are known to display non-local characteristic. that an individual consciousness can revert to a non-local state of oneness.

[JaysonR]

Consciousness is definitely physical, but the context of the subject matter is whether measures can be done without consciousness affecting the results.
Can we empirically measure the particles, or are we damned to constantly alter their behavior by doing no more than observing them?

In this context, the answer should be clearly, no; consciousness does not contaminate the results; or said otherwise, it does not do anything physical to the test (unless you are sticking your head in the accelerator).