Need help wondering if this makes sense
https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-possible-solutions-if-any-for-solipsism/answer/Bert-Leysath?comment_id=239393497&comment_type=2
So I got into an argument with someone else about solipsism. I'm not sure if the argument made sense, it was involving superposition, p-zombies, etc etc. A lot of stuff you can't prove, like consciousness being primary. My first point against it was that if you start with solipsism you can't have anything else by definition. It's pretty much giving up on knowledge more or less. The rest of the post doesn't get much better but I'm not sure if I'm in the right here or he is.
He mentioned anti-realism but it was hard to get a good definition of it since most of the google searches mention moral anti-realism which I don't think is what he meant. So I don't have an idea on what that is per se. If someone could tell me I'd appreciate it.
I did find Irrealism: https://web.archive.org/web/20190530211324/https://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/media/universityofexeter/collegeofsocialsciencesandinternationalstudies/research/conferences/The_consequences_of_living_in_a_virtual_world_generated_by_our_brain.pdf
By some guy named Jan Westerhoff. It's not anti-realism but it's a strange take. Apparently saying the brain is the maker and perceiver of the data it uses to build a virtual world, which to me is a pretty circular argument. I didn't really understand half of what he was on about though.
So I got into an argument with someone else about solipsism. I'm not sure if the argument made sense, it was involving superposition, p-zombies, etc etc. A lot of stuff you can't prove, like consciousness being primary. My first point against it was that if you start with solipsism you can't have anything else by definition. It's pretty much giving up on knowledge more or less. The rest of the post doesn't get much better but I'm not sure if I'm in the right here or he is.
He mentioned anti-realism but it was hard to get a good definition of it since most of the google searches mention moral anti-realism which I don't think is what he meant. So I don't have an idea on what that is per se. If someone could tell me I'd appreciate it.
I did find Irrealism: https://web.archive.org/web/20190530211324/https://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/media/universityofexeter/collegeofsocialsciencesandinternationalstudies/research/conferences/The_consequences_of_living_in_a_virtual_world_generated_by_our_brain.pdf
By some guy named Jan Westerhoff. It's not anti-realism but it's a strange take. Apparently saying the brain is the maker and perceiver of the data it uses to build a virtual world, which to me is a pretty circular argument. I didn't really understand half of what he was on about though.
Comments (80)
This caught my attention. Can one really experience solipsism? Or will solipsism remain just an interesting philosophical topic.
I think that psychopathic personalities exhibit something near to solipsism. For them, others don't exist, or aren't real. That is why psychopathic killers can exhibit such coldness. But then, psychopathology is a diseased state. I think the normal mind intuitively realises that 'others are like myself.'
I often think that all of these arguments about solipsism come from a particular reading of Descartes' 'cogito'. It is taking that argument to say that all I can know for certain is my own being. In a way, that is true, but it still takes a considerable effort to imagine that, on this basis, other beings are merely figments or projections of my imagination.
So in practice, empathy - which is 'the ability to understand and share the feelings of another' - is an obvious antidote to solipsism, and suggestive also of a philosophical answer to the challenge.
While I do not disagree, somehow it leaves me a feeling of dissatisfaction from the understanding that we are shifting the philosophical nature of solipsism (as a matter of principle) to a psychological one. Not that I disagree with talking about solipsism in the psychological sense. But that I find that we can't even justify talking about it philosophically even if we try. Does this make sense?
Some clarification: empathy is a subject of psychology. Or please enlighten me what philosopher has used empathy to argue about the nature of reality or perception.
....says the Quora poster (from Opening Post in this thread).
If yours is the only mind, then I am not writing this post. I am writing this post. So yours is not the only mind. If mine is the only mind, then you are not reading this post. You are reading this post. Therefore mine is not the only mind. That makes two of us. Wonder if there are any more?
As for panpsychism and the idea that we are all really one person with one mind, that's ok too until it comes to splitting the bill in the restaurant or defending plagiarism in your college essays. That is, it's ok for playful whimsy in online forums but it's not fit for use in human life and it's not coherent thinking.
Quoting Caldwell
[quote=SEP]Empathy and the Philosophical Problem of Other Minds[/quote]
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/empathy/
:up: Well said!
Interesting! As per solipsisim p-zombies are possible. Were they not, solipsisim has no leg to stand on.
I also don't understand what Irrealism is from the wayback article but it's mostly argued by this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Westerhoff
http://www.janwesterhoff.net/
All of this has my head spinning a bit as I don't have an answer for much of it except the Quora guy.
You don't need to engage in an argument about this. What Bert is saying is that he can only experience his own consciousness and his own feelings, but not yours.
Here are a few examples:
In other words, solipsism is a standpoint that you can embrace and try to understand, and it would teach you something without taking anything from you.
If solipsism is true, then it is an idea that cannot be communicated because there is nobody to communicate it to. So, given solipsism, if you wrote the above post, you did not communicate anything.
If you can get the idea of solipsism across to anyone or if anyone agrees with you or if anyone disagrees with you, it's false. If you understand what I've written here, or even if you don't, then it's false - because there is one to write and one to read, which is no longer solipsism.
That's the leglessness of solipsism.
He is a panpsychist who sees us all as collapsing forms of consciousness. All part of the universal consciousness. He denies the reality of material processes. That's the irrealism reffered to. The realism of the immaterial. The irrealism of the material.
All in all, his picture is coherent and he at least admits other solipsists. In fact, all 7 billion of them!
If anyone proves anything to anyone else, then solipsism is false.
That’s not 100% fair to solipsism. Would you keep posting in this thread if you learned that all participants were just AI driven bots? Some AI bots can generate pretty realistic comments nowadays. You cannot always assume that every thing that you meaningfully interact with has a mind. This will become even trickier in the future, as the AI technology advances. I generally agree with your argument, but it should also be taken with a grain of salt.
And welcome to the Forums, by the way.
If solipsism is true, you cannot obtain 100% evidence to confirm that I’m not a bot. This seems accurate to me. But I’m a man (or bot) of faith. I don’t need 100% evidence about things, so it doesn’t bother me :grin:
Thanks for the link.
And just as I've suspected, it remains problematic to use empathy as a counter argument for the existence of other minds, especially outside psychology. Note that the article never once mentioned "metaphysics" and "ontology". Rather, there is this inter subjectivity loophole we could use to argue, helplessly, that we could connect with other minds by way of analogy or mirroring.
Empathy cannot be used as a evidence-gathering against solipsism by the very fact that solipsism cannot recognize analogy, let alone, other minds.
If there is room for a meaningful conversation, then solipsism is false. If this is merely a semblance of a conversation then it is a person's train of thought. But whose? It can't be mine, if you posted. And if I posted, it can't be yours.
Ok, I'm putting the wrecking ball away for a bit and unpicking the point.
We can doubt whether, for example, a webchat with a company is with a person or a bot - and as bots get more sophisticated we might be completely uncertain and make the wrong call. But this doubt is predicated on our being able usually to make a distinction between bots and persons. When this possibility is presumed irretrievably absent and logically inaccessible, then both doubt and certainty are out of the question. We may only be ignorant of things that could be known if we only knew them.
He's bending solipsism a bit toward participatory realism. It's right in the sense it's his particular view on the matter. You are correct in saying that he's putting forward solipsism in a novel way. There's a form of solipsism that's fun to think about and a good framework for learning to develop arguments for things. What's more attractive than a seemingly obvious truth that you are surrounded by a world with things and at the same time if some one doubted it you might be pressed to prove it.
However there is also the result of combining 2 things most people poorly understand like the Copenhagen interpretation of QM and the moment of consciousness experience often adding some agreeable assumptions and trying to derive something coherent to say about it. I don't like signing into Quora so I can't comment beyond the initial statement.
It's an interesting question you raise; what is the "right" way to consider the most subjective thing.
To settle the other matter; odds are our technology has outpaced our evolution to the point we are receiving "good" information that surpasses our minds experience of the world. Ergo, it doesn't make sense.
What you are talking about is subjectivism in which I can admit. But that isn't what he's getting at. IF you take a look at the comments you see that he says everyone else is a p-zombie and that his mind made them all (im paraphrasing I think), because he insists that consciousness is primary just because Max Plank made some remark about it being so (and according to him "lots of bright people") and I said that doesn't mean anything.
In his scenario there is no communicating to others. I think you might want to read it again, as well as the follow ups he makes in the comments. He mentions anti-realism as well.
I eventually gave up because I found that there was no reasoning with him. Trying to get him to explain just resulted in him saying I didn't get it.
But I do know what he is saying isn't solipsism. He even tried to work superposition into it.
Like...would superposition have anything to do with it?
Exactly. That's why he is not a true solipsist. A true s denies other s.
It honestly sounded like a VERY roundabout view of realism, or a version of it.
Exactly. He sees his way of being and his superposition states as reality. We are not only superpositions though. I think he is a very strict follower of the foundation fathers of QM. Only if an observer measures a quantum state, the wavefunction will collapse, be it yours or an electron's spin. Regardless what you feel. Maybe that's solipsistic, but clinging strictly to the quantum rules, you cannot conclude differently. That's why hidden variables seem more realistic.
But his only reply is "you don't understand superposition or solipsism" every single time. If you look at the replies he just name drops people but when you google it they don't truly back his points.
He just accused me of being a naive realist, like that had anything to do with it. And kept saying my worldview wouldn't understand his explanation or "you won't get it". It was all just a bunch of dodges to avoid having to show any sort of reasoning.
That is why I invite people to look through the thread I originally linked with my conversation about it because I can't do it justice how it was like talking to a wall.
Is that a bad thing? I think there are a whole lot more materialists. There is no difference between them. Except that materialists claim that consciousness is an illusion and panpsychists claim it's real, and material an illusion. Now who is right? I would say, both.
Superposition as used by strict followers of the Copenhagen view are a kind of solipsists too. This view is a direct, but irrefutable outcome of the rules of QM, and there is no proof it isn't right. He can always claim that the whole universe, including you, finds itself in a superimposed state. This only goes to show this is a weird view. The consequences of this view are debated and the only plausible way out are hidden variables. I suggest you use these against him.
I take the third option - no one fucking knows. :razz: I think I subscribe to mysterianism on consciousness (and some other issues). My point was simply it is in vogue, which is likely to mean people chose this option because it is cool not because they have thought about it.
No, that's usually not what it's called. But just imagine (and keep in mind it's no scientifically acclaimed and peer-reviewed forum): according to the standard way to interpret QM, as was decided by some hot shots in the field back then, a century or so ago (Einstein excluded), the only way a wavefunction collapses is because of "the observer". So if you don't look, everything and everyone is in superposition. If I don't look (observe) you and everything else exist, for me, in a superimposed state of many you's, and other you's. Regardless if yiu yourself observe or not. Which is solipsist. A solipsist denies other consciences, a superpositionist denies other wavecollapses when not looking.
Also if I understand "observer" is misunderstood to mean conscious observer which it does not. It can be anything measuring it even a sensor.
A sensor is no observer. QM says an observer is a human with the knowledge of QM measuring an outcome in an experiment. This collapses the wavefunction. Basically there are two interpretations. With and without hidden variables. The one without has evolved in a variety of a lot that are basically the same but all stumble on collapse. The only one for which collapse actually happens independently from us is the HV interpretation. You can say that the WF collapses during a sensor interaction but you can always maintain that happens only on us observing. It's a silly interpretation but it's what QM says, hence the countless and fruitless attempts to correctly interpret.
"The observer has, rather, only the function of registering decisions, i.e., processes in space and time, and it does not matter whether the observer is an apparatus or a human being; but the registration, i.e., the transition from the "possible" to the "actual," is absolutely necessary here and cannot be omitted from the interpretation of quantum theory."
So it's not a person at all which renders the whole consciousness part moot. Observer seems to be the most frequently misunderstood term in QM because it implies a conscious observer when it really doesn't.
That's simply not true either. You can always look at every measuring act as caused by a conscious observer. No claim of measuring devices can contest that. Only when a conscious observer looks, the wave function collapses. That's the weird stuff about QM. I don't buy it. But therre is no one to prove it's not like that. That's the reason for dozens of interpretations. The problem of wave collapse, of measurement. Only hidden variables claim an objective collapse.
Solipsism is more like a truman show type situation. How can I know people around me aren't actors?
I told him that you can't have solipsism, even if superposition applied to it, with other minds. To say "We are solipsists in superposition" (stupid but for the sake of argument lets say it isn't) directly contradicts solipsism's claim about not knowing other minds exist. As soon as you claim knowledge of other minds it ceases to be solipsism.
The article is prejudiced? How you know the super position has collapsed without you or an observer? Here your opponent is right. You don't know. You can just state it, like in the article you linked, but the basic principles say only a conscious observer can do it.
That's not true. The computer sensor stays in a superposition. It only collapses after a conscious act of observation. Even if someone else looks at the computer, then he is for you still in a superposition Read about Wigner's friend or Schrödinger's cat. So your friend is right in claiming that the world is in a superposition if he doesn't look. There are all kind of ways constructed to circumvent exactly what you are against, but not successfully. Many worlds, decoherence, knowledge collapse, etc. Only hidden variables offer objective collapse. So if you hold this against him, you can take him down. It's the orthodox view (the ruling view) that gave rise to it. Let the guy think what he wants. If he wants to be solipsist, just tell him that according to you he is non-existent or in any case, you can't be sure of his reality.
Quoting Raymond
Except he isn't. He isn't using superposition right because it's not applicable to solipsism. It doesn't mean either-or, it's something new entirely which is why I know he's not using it right and neither are you. I can only assume you don't have a degree in this stuff if you keep insisting consciousness has something to do with it and it doesn't. Any act of measurement will collapse it, conscious or not. You know it collapsed because the sensor tells you, so you know the result but you had no hand in it. They didn't really explain it much to me because they said it required teaching me quantum physics but suffice to say consciousness doesn't play a part. I trust them.
Quoting Raymond
He's not though because that's not what superposition is, that's another thing people misunderstand. It doesn't mean "either-or".
Quoting Raymond
Many worlds is just an interpretation not really fact. And that doesn't really stop his argument either, it would just be admitting he is right. I can only know he is wrong by definition. You can't have other minds under solipsism because they are at best uncertain. Claiming to know there are others in superposition (which by the way is wrong and he doesn't bother to explain himself) is essentially nullifying solipsism.
Not to mention taking the p-zombie thought experiment and citing it as a fact.
Actually to claim anything existing in superposition (which again isn't how you use the term) would nullify solipsism because it's acknowledging something else existing (or at the very least knowing) apart from you. So in a sense he can't have solipsism AND superposition in his argument.
Of course they tell you that. I have thought about it a lot. I thought the same as you. Precisely because I don't do it for a living, I know that people who say that a measuring device measures or collapses independently of us are wrong. That's because, again, the basic interpretation says that an observer (so not a measuring device) is needed to collapse the wavefunction. Bell, in his quest for hidden variables, said he couldn't imagine that only an observer with knowledge of QM could collapse the wavefunction retroactively (in the past). Which is indeed hard to imagine, but if you stick to the rules, the measuring device stays in superposition untill measured by an observer. That's the fucked up feature of QM, and anyone claiming that the world collapses independently of us hasn't understood QM. Of course, when you work in the field, you want your collapses to exist independently of yourself. But then you silently presume hidden variables causing objective collapse (Bell's experiment allowed for the non-local hidden variables).
But the something existing apart from you can be said to be still in a superposition. Which means you are a kind of solipsist, denying the collapse you or I see.
A measuring device is an observer.
Quoting Raymond
No it can't because that isn't what existing in a superposition is. It's not either-or it's something new entirely, like a weird form of probability. You can't claim it to be in superposition because it's not at the quantum level, this stuff doesn't apply to the macro world. It's also only in very specific situations.
Quoting Raymond
Sorry but if you don't have a degree on the stuff you don't really have business calling the guys who actually do the math right or wrong, that's why philosophy on this stuff is useless. Whether you want to admit it or not "Observer" doesn't mean what you want it to mean in QM. You're just wrong here.
How do you know I haven't got a degree? What is so important about a degree? I actually studied physics if you put so much value in that. Quantum field theory was my last year's choice subject. And let me tell you, your opponent is right. All people claiming an actual collapse is occurring in a measuring device, or in any interaction, are fooling themselves. And you also. That's the whole point of interest of the interpretation of QM. The Copenhagen rules are clear. Had they decided back then to stick to hidden variables, the problems wouldn't have arisen and Hugh Everett wouldn't have eaten, drunk, and smoked himself to death. And his daughter wouldn't have killed himself. His many worlds interpretation was invented exactly to account for the non-unitary behavior of collapse, and he thought he continued living in a parallel world, like his daughter thought she would meet him there if she killed herself...
So the lesson to be learned: everyone claiming that collapse is an objective event hasn't understood QM. It's hard to believe. That's why I think hidden variables are real and actually constituting space.
It's not the math telling you that. That's the easy part. It's the interpretation that's the hard part.
The interpretation is just a way to simply the math behind it. It's one of the large problems of quantum physics to be honest, to even understand what is meant requires a lot of high level math.
Quoting Raymond
I have talked to people who studied the matter. Also saying you took physics is laughable as that has nothing to do with what is going on in the quantum level. I'm also surprised you took QFT and still insist an observer is conscious. This leads me to believe you don't know what you are talking about.
And my opponent isn't right because he isn't using superposition correctly, he's a software engineer he doesn't understand it.
Quoting Raymond
They really aren't. You just keep insisting otherwise when the facts show it's nothing to do with consciousness. Observer doesn't mean what we think when we hear it. I also know you don't understand what you are talking about because superposition has to do with probability, so saying we are solipsists in superposition doesn't make any sense. It would still be wrong because it's admitting there is something else outside of you which can be observed and recorded. You can't have superposition if it's just you.
Quoting Raymond
Well you are right in that people don't understand it, but you're wrong about the collapse not being objective. There is also no such thing as hidden variables with it either, it's just weird and counter to how physics in the macro world works.
I'm beginning to think you don't get it either. I only know enough to know when folks get it wrong and you definitely have got it wrong. I doubt you actually took QFT.
The measurement problem exists in QFT all the same. QM is a cross section, for free fields, of QFT. However complicated you make the math, the problem of collapse is not solved. You merely use the so-called authority of math to strengthen your case. But the interpretation is not about math. It's about what math describe (a unitary evolution operator can't be applied to collapse. In QFT, the creation and destruction operators, create states in Fock space, but the states of real particles still evolve and there is a collapse if the actually are observed. If you apply the probabilistic interpretation of QM. The only objective way out are hidden variables. So the guy is just right. Because you don't understand the problem and secretely project an objective collapse on nature.
Unfortunately there has yet to be an agreement on which one accurately explains the math. Quoting Raymond
Again no it isn't and trying to posit such a thing is useless if you have no way to measure it. There is no problem of the collapse either.
Quoting Raymond
No, he is still in the wrong and so are you. You still use observer incorrectly just like he uses superposition incorrectly. If he did know how it's used his argument would make no sense. I'm also getting the sense you don't understand superposition either. Oddly enough it has nothing to do with location, it's not either-or, it's not we don't know either. In a sense it's both, but it runs counter to our understanding in the macro world. It is an objective collapse, it's not my fault you haven't grasped what is meant by observer in QM.
It's one thing to cite the measurement problem because that is inevitable in science, measuring something alters it (taking tire pressure lets air out, etc). But it's another to think observer in QM has anything to do with consciousness when it does not, no matter what YOU think.
To say solipsists in superposition is just nonsense to people who ACTUALLY know what superposition means.
You have to be an idiot to think that has anything to do with solipsism. If anything it runs counter to it.
Again, you direct your nose to authority. You don't understand the matter, which is easy to understand. You say, "but these and these say this and that". The fact is that collapse cannot be understood mathematically. The process of collapse, say a superposition of a spin up spin down state, is induced by a measurement, but before someone actually sees the outcome, the whole is still in a superposition, like the cat and the poison in the covered cage of Schrödinger. You can simply state there is collapse regardless of looking (like Heisenberg does), but you can just as well maintain that only when you look there is collapse. By your logic the superposition would always be in one of the two states. Which isn't the case according to standard interpretation. Maybe you should educate yourself first, before pointing at "authority" without understanding the subject. I too once thought a collapse is objective but the very Copenhagen interpretation gives the possibility to always maintain that nature is in a superposition until measured by us (in the many worlds interpretation there is no collapse at all).There is no unitary operator that causes objective collapse. It's the observer that causes collapse. Prove the guy wrong. You can't. How do you know there is a collapse if you don't look? You can simply claim it to happen, he can simply claim the whole is still in a superposition of which you are not aware. So you measure a spin direction, and he claims you are still in a superposition of two worlds, one in which you measure spin up, and one in which you measure spin down. The many world interpretation even backs him up on this. His state is still a one in which you are in superposition. So, your claim to authority is an empty one because authority just doesn't know and any claim on objective collapse is just an assumption which with math has nothing to do. Objective collapse theory is equivalent to hidden variables. Only hidden variables cause objective collapse. The theory is deterministic and avoids the probabilistic interpretation, causing all the confusion and interpretation problems. So again, the guy is right, and if you like there is authority claiming collapse is not caused by us, and there is authority claiming it is. We just don't know, by the very nature of superposition and their attachment with the observer. Only hidden variables offer an objective mechanism for collapse (or objective collapse theory, which is equivalent). However you may not like it, you can't prove the guy wrong. But I can, as I'm sure hidden variables exist. There can't be something like pure chance, as QM implies, and which directs collapse. Chance needs a deterministic substrate.
Again, not entirely. Also the point of the Schrodinger experiment was to show how it doesn't apply to the macro world. Again, the collapse happens at measurement or according to the double slit experiment by the particle itself. It doesn't need someone, why is that so hard to understand. It's a fairly objective collapse, not subjective. In this case observation just means interaction with the outside world, which could be anything. It, again, has nothing to do with a person or consciousness.
But again collapse only refers to isolated systems, it has nothing to do with solipsism.
Quoting Raymond
No, no, no no no. I also point to authority because these people do the math and actually use the terms right which you don't. Also that is not what it says, it doesn't suggest that nature is in a superposition unless measured. Also to just refer to the interpretation as a blanket statement that is generally agreed on is wrong. Even within that particular field there isn't an official agreement on what it IS and there are some disagreements depending on the school of thought in it. Regardless observer in that school doesn't mean conscious person either way.
Quoting Raymond
Again with the hidden variables nonsense, you have no evidence for it.
Quoting Raymond
Again, no he isn't. Because, AGAIN, he isn't using superposition correctly and neither are you. And it is known that collapse isn't caused by us, it's caused by anything interacting with the system. Observer does not mean us, it means any interaction with a quantum system with the external world. That by itself disproves solipsism.
Quoting Raymond
Yes there can and quantum physics is evidence of it. It doesn't need a deterministic substrate. You're still stuck in classical physics thinking which is your first error.
Quoting Raymond
Many worlds is just one of many and a minority view at that. IT doesn't prove anything. It's also never been proven. And again you are putting words in his mouth, he never said any of that and even if he did it does NOT prove solipsism.
Quoting Raymond
Because it has been measured, duh.
Quoting Raymond
Wrong again, at least in the sense of using it. Observation causes collapse, which can mean any THING and not a conscious entity.
It's clear from your writing you don't understand the subject, much like the guy in the Quora link. The appeal to authority works here because unless you have a degree in the subject you have no business "doing your research" or "thinking of this stuff yourself". It just perpetuates the same nonsense that they have to deal with. Stop embarrassing yourself and actually talk to the people who do this stuff. Philosophy can't help you here. The other errors is that you're citing the interpretations as facts when really they're just attempts to explain the math that is rock solid. They are far from settled. So saying "many worlds backs him up" is just empty because you pick a theory you agree with (and a fringe one at that).
Sorry dude, you're just wrong here and so is the guy. QM has nothing to do with solipsism.
How do you know?
Authority says:
"This is actually an unresolved question in QM. There are many interpretations of QM. Some attempt to define what constitutes measurement and what causes collapse. In some interpretation, wavefunctions never collapse. In some others, wavefunctions are not a good enough description for quantum systems. The canonical interpretation, Copenhagen interpretation, simply dodges this question"
just tell him to go on a rollercoaster. I think he'll find that rollercoasters are in fact, quite real.
He doesn't the deny the reality of roller-coasters, but he denies there are actually other people in the roller-coaster having the same experience. The guy in this polemic says there are other solipsists rolling along, so he's not a solipsist.
Huh. So he's like Neo in the Matrix, if I understand correctly?
It's you who doesn't understand. I'm sorry to say because I'm not a solipsist either.
An observation is not an interaction. Every interaction is a virtual process and an observer looking at what he measures too. The photons reaching your retina are virtual ones too. They might have momentum and energy almost on shell (meaning the both obey the relativistic relation between them) but they are still not observed themselves.The system (process-observer-measuring device) remains in a superposition if it stays isolated from a second observer (which means the second observer is in a superposition too), the guy in your polemic. It could even be that there is only superposition, without collapse. The talk about objective collapse, uttered by some are put on your barricade just to back up your presumption. The claim to authority is just to hide your ignorance. Authority simply uses a priori assumption too. There simply is no objective collapse when you stick to the basic principles. You can even consider the whole universe as a developing superposition, like is done in the many worlds interpretation, which was invented exactly to evade the problem of collapse (if collapse was objective, this wouldn't have been done, but collapse is problematic in the standard interpretation, giving rise to a non-unitary evolution of the wavefunction). And the guy is justified in using this interpretation. Let me explain.
If you observe a spin up thee is a second you observing a spin down. For the guy not observing you yet you are in a state of superposition of both outcomes in both parallel worlds (the one where you measured spin up and the one where you measured spin down). Simply because you always are in superposition. In the world where you measured up, he is justified to see you as a superposition still because he is in superposition too. He is present in the world where you observed up, as well in the world where you observed down. Only when he observes you, the world will evolve in a new state that consists of four superimposed ones. Two in which you observed up and he observes up or down, and two where you observed spin down and he up or down. So you as well as him are always in superposition, and observing causes the superposition to live happily after observing but in separate worlds. So either nothing is in superposition or all is. If he claims the world is in superposition if he doesn't observe it, he himself is in a superposition too.
To put it differently. If you observe a superimposed state of spin up and spin down, the superposition of you measuring up and down is still attached to the guy, in both the world where you measured up as in the world where you measured down. Only when the guy observes you, the two separate worlds will each split further in two separate states in which he observes you observing up and down. So in your world you might actually have observed up or down, but these two distinct outcomes will still be in superposition. For the guy, in both of these worlds with distinct outcomes for you, you are still in superposition and only when he observes you, he will see you have measured up or down. So from the state where you measured up, as well from the state where you measured down, two new states follow, because a superposition of you measuring up and down (apart from the actual outcomes you observe) is still contained in the both of them. Your observations might have caused two separate states (up and down), but the state of you observing the spin is still a superimposed one, and only the guy observing you causes a split into two separate worlds in which he sees you observing up and down.
So the whole state is initially a superposition of the up and down spin of an electron and you observing up or down spin. The total state is a product of these two states, with four outcomes, all superimposed firstly. If you observe firstly, there is a split between a spin up and a spin down state. From each of these two, up as well as down, the observation of the guy creates a split of you observing up and you observing down. This doesn't mean though that he observes up while you observed down. He will always observe the same spin as you observed.
To put it differently, for TG (the/that guy) you are still in a superposition of observing up and down. Your observation causes a local split, but only when TG observes the superposition of you observing up and down, the global splits in two distinct states. TG can't observe one of the two you's (one observing up and one observing down) if you did not actually observe. He can't observe something that doesn’t actually exist. The superposition of you observing up and down, is different from the superposition of the two spins, obviously. For TG you are still in a superposition, and you are, actually! Only when he observes you, from both the states with spin up and spin down, two new states will appear when TG observes you, one in which you have observed spin up and one in which you have observed spin down, no matter if the state it comes from contains up or down only. The states of spin up and down couple with the states of you observing up and observing down, and the product of these states gives rise to a state of four substates. One with spin up and you measuring up and down (which means you observe up while TG can observe you observing up as well as down) and one with spin down and you measuring up and down (which means you observe down while TG can observe you observing up as well as down). It may sound counterfactual that when you observe up TG can still observe you observing up as well as down, but that's exactly what the math tells us. There is a product state of spin up and you measuring up and down, as well as a product state of down with you measuring up and down. The sum of these two existed as a superposition first. Your observation of the spin led the separation of this sum into two distinct superpositions, the two products. Each product is a sum: spin up and you measuring up or down, and spin down and you measuring up and down.
So. At the start, the wavefunction is:
(up+down)(YOu+YOd),
Ignoring normalization factors. wher u is spin up and YOu is the state you observe (YO) up.ikewise for spin down.
Which can be written:
up(YOu+YOd)+down(YOu+YOd).
After you observed the spin, there are two states, each in a separate world:
up(YOu+YOd), and
down(YOu+YOd).
From these two worlds, TG's observation causes four worlds to come into play:
up(YOu) and up(YOd)
down(YOu) and down(YOd).
Now how the hell can a state whit spin up can go together with you observing spin down, up(YOd)? Following the rules we can nothing but conclude exactly that.
The only alternative: objective collapse theory or hidden variables.
Quoting Raymond
Again, because it has been measured. What is so hard to understand about that? You are taking the effects of collapse to mean that observing the effect means you caused it, but you don't have the evidence to show that you caused the collapse, you're just observing the effects of it.
Quoting Raymond
Except it doesn't because quantum principles don't apply to macro level objects. Also you're using the weakest interpretation of QM as fact.
Quoting Raymond
For him to observe me I would have to exist outside of him, which would render solipsism false. Quoting Raymond
No we aren't. Superposition doesn't apply at the classical level, at least in terms of the quantum way. Stop citing many worlds as though it's fact, it's the weakest interpretation out there which posits something it cannot prove. Also it would disprove solipsism.
Quoting Raymond
Solipsism is saying that one's own existence or mind (depends on the degree of doubt) is the only thing that can be sure to exist. So if you accept the reality of rollercoasters then you aren't a solipsist because you believe something besides you exists. There also, by definition, CANNOT BE OTHER SOLIPSISTS.
Quoting john27
Sort of, except unlike the matrix where there are other minds but in virtual bodies solipsism says one cannot know about the existence of other minds. Most find the concept absurd though and there is no way to prove it.
Ray on the other hand is jumping through hoops trying to show what the guy in the original Quora link is trying to say and failing. As I said, when asked he didn't explain anything just defaulted to saying "you don't get it" each time, so to say "he's actually saying X" is giving him way more credit then is due and putting words in his mouth. If you read the same link I did you'll find no explanation of his reasoning, and I spent rows trying to get it out of him only to be met with irrelevant quotes and him just insisting it's right with no reasoning.
Quantum physics has nothing to do with solipsism, they are completely different matters entirely and you have to be an idiot to think otherwise. Not to mention the obvious flaw with being a solipsist and posting on the internet.
You cannot have minds in superposition (again using superposition incorrectly since it's not about location or anything you're trying to use) with solipsism because that would be admitting other minds exist and therefor it ceases to be solipsism.
Oh, then couldn't you say absence of proof isn't proof of absence or something like that?
Like just because I can't see a tiger in the Sahara desert doesn't mean a tiger isn't in the Sahara desert.
Edit: I don't know if tigers actually live in the Sahara desert...but you get my point.
It's also not a case of absence of evidence but more like reasonable doubt. Like in the case of unicorns I can say there are none within reasonable doubt, because there are no bones or anything like that of them. I can't say it's beyond all possible doubt, I mean...no one can because there is always going to be SOME degree of doubt.
In the case of other people I assume they have minds because they are humans like me and I know I have a mind. To me I go with parsimony and the simplest explanation is that they are humans like me and so they have a mind.
One could say I made them, but they need evidence for that. Or that they are p-zombies, but then that also raises doubts about me as well. If they look and do everything as a normal human would do then how do I know I'm not a p-zombie?
I think any reasonable conclusion would show that other people exist and have minds. Anything else would honestly make me question the motivation of the other person. Even if you did believe other folks didn't have minds it doesn't change anything about how they act.
They still act and behave as though they have minds, which to me is the same thing. It would also pose the question of what use or importance is there of a mind if other beings can behave in all the same ways without one. Then you would have to explain how these things behave as though they have minds but they don't.
Solipsism just needlessly complicates things and calls it "doubt" but really it's a dead end philosophy.
It's you who doesn't get it. Gnight!
No...no...just you. Using just one interpretation you agree with, and a fringe one at that. Enough said.
I mean...you still think observation has anything to do with consciousness.
Mm. It doesn't seem very productive, this solipsism thing...
Which to me seem...unnecessary. I mean if you're gonna behave and treat everything as real just say it's real. I get the uncertainty but our lives are mired in uncertainty and we just take somethings for granted whether we want to or not.
But yes, it is a useless theory. It changes nothing about reality.
What I also find interesting is that it's swamped in...ignorance? Naivety? It's kind of banking on the fact that we won't ever know what consciousness is/prove consciousness is a thing. Which in my opinion, while plausible, is not entirely er...seems a little biased.
Sure all I have are their actions and behaviors and that they are humans like me. But why is that not enough. I mean if one's behavior isn't enough to prove consciousness then that spells trouble for me, because then how do I know I am conscious and not just acting in such a manner.
It's just an absurd conclusion to a very old problem.
Says one solipsist to another: "you don't exist!" The other solipsist kicks his ass. "And what about that?" Says the other one: "That's only me thinking you kicked and my body being in pain"
Solipsists use this reasoning to feel themselves superior, making reality happen themselves, thereby being above the others.
There will never be real contact. I think you can't stand it he ignores your consciousness and can't prove him wrong. If he claims you are in superposition before he observes you then he at least says your existence is as real as yours. You can just say to him that according to you his existence is utterly unreal. If you do that, his argument doesn’t hold, as he is unreal...
There is no reason to believe his premises.