Bernardo Kastrup?

With titles like "Why materialism is baloney" I am not surprised that he is not taken seriously.

Reply to SophistiCat Well, clearly it caught your attention, and dozens of reviewers on Amazon, so perhaps that's the intention. In any case, it's one title out of six, and I suggest the conclusion that he's not taken seriously seems a bit unwarranted, given that the editors of Scientific American find the ideas worthy of consideration -- hardly an obscure or unreliable source of information.

Reply to snowleopard I clicked on your thread, and spent maybe 10 minutes on the first page of Google results (most of which are this guy's sites or sites affiliated with him). That's about as much time as this crank warrants, sorry.

Reply to SophistiCat I came across him in book form, not via a cursory google search. However, forget google, did you check out even one of the several peer-reviewed papers that have been published in various academic journals, presumably not in the habit of publishing 'cranks'? Is not even one of them worth the time and effort?

Quoting snowleopard

So just wondering if anyone here is familiar with his ideas, and if so, what might one make of them as a viable alternative to physicalism or panpsychism?

I agree this is crank as science. Or can you point to the observable consequences that could falsify his story? If it adds nothing as a metaphysics, then it explains nothing either.

The weak bit for me is his reliance on a division between perceptions and thoughts. I’ve only skimmed a couple of his writings. But so far I get the feeling he only accepts this rather general distinction, where he would have to really justify it in terms of psychology theories and their evidence if he wants to claim it as a grounding metaphysics for a science-level idealism.

Where is the mathematical model of thoughts and perceptions that would give his idealism hard deductible consequences? A hand waving folk psychology just isn’t enough.

So in what sense would he offer an alternative to physicalism if he cannot point to any observables that would be different under his framework, and his framework in turn would seem to predict none of the observables of the physicalist framework it would claim to transcend?

Reply to apokrisis Thanks for your constructive analysis -- though I'm still a bit bemused that apparent 'cranks' get consideration in Scientific American, and seemingly reputable academic journals, albeit I suppose that they aren't necessarily precluded from having a lack of scientific acumen. But I appreciate your taking the time to respond, and will wait until I can take the time to carefully consider your response, before replying further.

Meanwhile, from a strictly metaphysical perspective, perhaps this interview will stimulate some further analysis, and help with my own edification, as I'm admittedly no adept when it comes to Ideallst ontology.

Cheers

Quoting snowleopard

though I'm still a bit bemused that apparent 'cranks' get consideration in Scientific American, and seemingly reputable academic journals

All the SciAm stuff looks like blog posts that talk around the subject. The papers are minor journal efforts again talking around the subject rather than advancing a thesis with clear consequences.

I admit I’ve only glanced at the abstracts so given him the most superficial of considerations. But crank academics are so numerous that the patterns are very easy to recognise.

You call him a hardcore CERN material scientist, but he is a computer engineer. That is another red flag.

The sociology of computer science permits a loose speculative approach to the questions of mind and reality. It won’t harm your career much to publish what is essentially crank science. A neuroscientist or physicist knows they will be judged far more harshly by their peers.

I personally don’t object to crank science in a strong way. But that is because I find it’s pathologies informative from a philosophy of science point of view. It reveals the paradigmatic nature of science. It really does have to rely on a socially constructed sense of what “smells right”.

So this guy - and how he is constructing an apparent publication record that includes SciAm and a track record at CERN - is another data point on that score.

For a rigorous, analytical summary of his philosophical ideas, see this freely available academic paper: http://www.mdpi.com/2409-9287/2/2/10

I took a gander at the paper he linked in his 'books' page.

I stopped reading at this point.

Let us start by neutrally and precisely stating four basic facts of reality, verifiable through observation, and therefore known to be valid irrespective of theory or metaphysics:
Fact 1: There are tight correlations between a person’s reported private experiences and the observed brain activity of the person.
We know this from the study of the neural correlates of consciousness (e.g., [5]).
Fact 2: We all seem to inhabit the same universe.
After all, what other people report about their perceptions of the universe is normally consistent with our own perceptions of it.
Fact 3: Reality normally unfolds according to patterns and regularities—that is, the laws of nature—independent of personal volition.
Fact 4: Macroscopic physical entities can be broken down into microscopic constituent parts, such as subatomic particles.

Seeing this I sort of gathered that the man is just not versed in philosophy very well. You can't just neutrally and precisely state four basic facts of reality without having at least some notional commitment to a metaphysics. "Fact" is even a controversial word. You can be precise, but why the claim to neutrality? And if something is verifiable by observation alone, then you haven't contended with philosophy of mind or science, by my lights. Surely you have to have a sort of idea, at a minimum, about perception (mind), or have a way of dealing with the underdetermination of evidence (science).

I don't think he means badly, at this point. But I also don't think he's really delved much into philosophy.

Reply to apokrisis You may indeed make a valid point, although even as a computer engineer he is also very dubious about the cyber-age culture that underlies the attempts to replicate consciousness in AI, and the now popular computational and/or virtual reality-based cosmologies. However, he does seem to have some affinity for the ideas of Donald Hoffman, a professor of cognitive science at U of C, so perhaps there is a bridge to be built there.

Reply to Moliere I suppose it’s true enough to say that many so-called facts are at best true enough under the provisional circumstances, and are thus always subject to change (after all, it was once considered a ‘fact’ that the sun revolved around the earth, and it’s still a ‘fact’, according to materialism, that there is a mind-independent world of matter ‘out there’), and so perhaps Kastrup should refer to apparent facts. However, with respect, that doesn’t seem reason enough to stop reading at that point.

Anyway, my intention here is not to defend his ontology on his behalf, but rather to get input on his version of idealism, and idealism in general, so as to make some sense of it, one way or the other. The main reason being that my intuitive feeling, being more mystical than analytical, is that materialism, as the prevailing metaphysical model, fails to adequately explain even ordinary experience, never mind extraordinary or paranormal experience, and hence the ongoing search for an alternate model -- e.g. Idealism. Clearly it is predicated on the premise of the primacy of Consciousness, as the ontological primitive, and thus avoids the ‘hard problem’ faced by materialism, as there is no longer any need to explain its emergence, there being no ‘prior to’ Consciousness, and therefore no point of origin or causation. From there -- this being an admittedly simplified synopsis -- as the word idealism implies, it posits the emanations of the ideations of Consciousness (Platonic forms/ideas), akin to a Cosmic Mind, as the basis for the phenomenal experience of the individuated loci of Consciousness, i.e. sentient beings, which comprises one’s apparent subject/object perception. Our thoughts then become the recapitulation, or iterations, of that greater cognitive process. But of course one realizes that, while this avoids the so-called ‘hard problem’, it has its own hard problems, the challenge being to tie it in with the findings of quantum theory, evolutionary theory, the origins of life, etc.

Needless to say, idealism is at best a metaphysical model, as is physicalism, panpsychism, Hoffman’s conscious realism, indeed all such ‘isms’, and ultimately the map is not the territory, and one must bow to the opening lines of the Tao Te Ching. Nonetheless, it somehow seems important to conceive of an ontological/cosmological model upon which to base a cultural ethos. The question becomes, which one?

Quoting snowleopard

However, with respect, that doesn’t seem reason enough to stop reading at that point.

I could be more fair than what I was, I agree. But I'd have to want to :D. There's a lot of junk out there so sometimes I'll be less-than-fair to an author if I start to get the feeling that the argument isn't going to address what look to me obvious flaws in it and continues to move forward as if they just aren't there.

Quoting snowleopard

Anyway, my intention here is not to defend his ontology on his behalf, but rather to get input on his version of idealism, and idealism in general, so as to make some sense of it, one way or the other. The main reason being that my intuitive feeling, being more mystical than analytical, is that materialism, as the prevailing metaphysical model, fails to adequately explain even ordinary experience, never mind extraordinary or paranormal experience, and hence the ongoing search for an alternate model -- e.g. Idealism. Clearly it is predicated on the premise of the primacy of Consciousness, as the ontological primitive, and thus avoids the ‘hard problem’ faced by materialism, as there is no longer any need to explain its emergence, there being no ‘prior to’ Consciousness, and therefore no point of origin or causation. From there -- this being an admittedly simplified synopsis -- as the word idealism implies, it posits the emanations of the ideations of Consciousness (Platonic forms/ideas), akin to a Cosmic Mind, as the basis for the phenomenal experience of the individuated loci of Consciousness, i.e. sentient beings, which comprises one’s apparent subject/object perception. Our thoughts then become the recapitulation, or iterations, of that greater cognitive process. But of course one realizes that, while this avoids the so-called ‘hard problem’, it has its own hard problems, the challenge being to tie it in with the findings of quantum theory, evolutionary theory, the origins of life, etc.

Cool. Idealism is an interesting topic to me, at least historically speaking.

I don't believe the world is only consciousness in some ultimate sense. But then, I have deep reservations about positing any sort of ultimate ontology -- be it physicalism or idealism or neutral monism or dualism or whatever. Not that I haven't believed some of these to be true at some point. But I've become more skeptical with regards to fundamental or foundational ontology, in general.

Why would you say that the hard problems of idealism are reconciling it with science? I guess it depends on the idealism, but it would seem to me that you could fashion an argument from the findings of science to idealism. If the world were consciousness then it would explain how we could know about the world -- there is no disconnect between our minds and the world, in that case. True beliefs would just be micro-reflections of the world we inhabit. Correspondence could make more sense -- to correspond is just to equal a true statement. So when I believe a true statement it corresponds to a fact in the world; that the Earth revolves around the sun. I believe "The Earth revolves around the sun", "The Earth revolves around the sun" is true, and The Earth revolves around the sun = The Earth revolves around the sun.

Theoretically we could come to know everything because everything just is the set of true statements. (in this hastily constructed kind of idealism)

So you could actually say because we know the world through science we can infer that the universe is ideal as it explains how we can come to know the world -- the world is made of propositions so we should expect our knowledge to reflect that.

Quoting snowleopard

Nonetheless, it somehow seems important to conceive of an ontological/cosmological model upon which to base a cultural ethos. The question becomes, which one?

If that's the motivation for constructing some ultimate ontology, then wouldn't it depend on the ethos, first, and then hashing out which ontology to believe based upon how believing in it practically effects the actions of human beings?

Reply to Moliere Thanks for the feedback ... all quite cogent insights, which I look forward to pondering more deeply. I certainly respect your caution regarding not wishing to fixate on any one model, as perhaps even a hybrid of such models may be more fitting -- insofar as there can ever be an ultimate, definitive model. I guess the reason I feel that Idealism should at least attempt to be reconcilable with current science, is that it may then make it more tenable for the scientific mindset to consider it as a premise on which to advance their scientific theories, most especially in QM, where there are currently several versions, and counting, competing for attention, with no unified theory in sight.

And this also speaks to your point about basing a cultural ethos on such a model, in that most folks don’t ever give ontology or cosmology much thought at all, if ever. And if the scientific revolution during the Age of Enlightenment is any indication, they just rely on the high priests of science to set the epistemological agenda, which then becomes the default foundation for all further indoctrination into the given paradigm, via mass education/media. Hence, if that paradigm is ever going to shift, it seems that it has to start with those who set the paradigmatic agenda, and the cultural ethos at large then follows suit. But you make a good point, and may well be correct, that it may start with a more grass-roots shift, and a mass rejection of the current prevailing model, when enough folks like myself no longer feel that it resonates with their experience, and their beliefs about the world are radically altered -- based upon who knows what mysterious ‘awakening’ events -- despite what the high priests are saying, culminating in some tipping point.

Quoting snowleopard

in that most folks don’t ever give ontology or cosmology much thought at all, if ever.

While I agree that formally speaking such thinking is unpopular, I'd say that informally it is not. People talk about their beliefs regarding the world and its beginning quite often, in the right setting. And I'm not so sure that people, at large, lap up scientific theses as a Biblical truth, either. Some people do -- it's something which some groups have fallen into the habit of doing without much critical reflection -- but I'd be pretty hesitant to say that there is a successful brainwashing program based on the sciences in practice, and much less so that it is successful even if there happens to be one.

This is 4 years old, but I don't think things have changed much: http://news.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx

Evolution is one of the most well founded scientific hypotheses. But in the U.S it's regarded with suspicion by a very large percentage of the population.

I find it hard to reconcile the notion that science is a priesthood brainwashing the population with facts like that.

Scientism is off the mark. But that doesn't mean that the dominant pardigm is scientistic either.

Reply to Moliere Once again, you make some valid points. No doubt it's not cut and dried why folks believe what they believe, but messy, complicated and nuanced. And it surely does seem that whatever the factors may be, scientific, religious, or the slings and arrows of fate, the truism may often be that believing is seeing, and not the other way around.

Quoting Moliere

Evolution is one of the most well founded scientific hypotheses. But in the U.S it's regarded with suspicion by a very large percentage of the population.

Not least because of its use by culture warriors such as Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins to attack religion at every possible opportunity. It’s perfectly true that religious beliefs ought not to be introduced into science class but the converse is equally valid.

I ran across Kastrup a couple of years ago and naturally am inclined to agree with him, but that’s because I have always held the view that scientific materialism was indeed baloney.

But I think Thomas Nagel’s is a more important voice than Kastrup, because he’s arguing from within the tradition that he’s criticising, whereas Kastrup is clearly counter-cultural. Not that there’s anything the matter with being counter-cultural, but it does mean that many of those who most need to consider such an argument will feel perfectly justified in ignoring him on those grounds.

Quoting Moliere

I'm not so sure that people, at large, lap up scientific theses as a Biblical truth, either. Some people do -- it's something which some groups have fallen into the habit of doing without much critical reflection -- but I'd be pretty hesitant to say that there is a successful brainwashing program based on the sciences in practice, and much less so that it is successful even if there happens to be one.

It's more a matter that a secular, non-religious outlook is normalised in a secular culture such as ours. As you say - this doesn't mean that holding this kind of view has necessarily entails 'scientism'. But many are more likely to accept that whatever answers there are to be sought, are best sought, or can only be sought, by scientific means. But even that has existential implications, in that the scientific stance is one in which there is an implicit separation between the object of knowledge and the knowing subject. Whereas in pre-modern cultures, there is a felt sense of 'relatedness' to the Cosmos; that sense of it being totally 'other' to the observer is not so pronounced as it has become in the modern age.

Anyway - I'm reading Kastrup's essay, Making Sense of the Mental Universe, and it seems pretty carefully reasoned to me.

Reply to Wayfarer I also resonate with what you have to say here. My point about how science may or may not influence the cultural ethos and narrative can be illustrated by one simple example. When we speak to our impressionable children and say 'Look darling, the sun is setting', this is a true enough 'fact' of our experience, now embedded into the language construct. However, according to scientific astronomy, it's not an actual fact at all, and the story we should be telling the child is 'Look darling, we are moving away from the sun on the rotating planet earth into the darkness of its shadow.' Yet the factual truth that science tells us, does not trump the quaint story that we tell our children, which they implicitly believe, until educated otherwise. So perhaps this example can also be extrapolated to the story that we tell ourselves about there being a mind-independent world of matter 'out there', which quantum physicists tell us is also not strictly factual.

Coincidentally, I just came upon Kastrup's latest paper, which speaks to the shiftiness of paradigms, which may be of interest here, if so inclined ...

Reply to snowleopard My considered view after about a decade of these debates is that knowledge has an irreducibly subjective pole. The notion of a ‘mind-independent reality’ is a mistaken belief that arises from drawing metaphysical conclusions from methodological premisses. What has happened is that physics has simply made this unarguable.

Reply to Moliere Agreed. Although as far as I am concerned he is probably on the side of the angels, he is a very good example of an excellent scientist and execrable philosopher.

Reply to jkg20 Wow, this is a tough crowd ! If Kastrup is execrable, what does that make me ?

Quoting Wayfarer

Anyway - I'm reading Kastrup's essay, Making Sense of the Mental Universe, and it seems pretty carefully reasoned to me.

Just some comments on his opening paragraph...

Bernardo Kastrup:Contextuality is a formidable challenge to the viability of realism.

It's actually not a challenge at all. Kastrup's claims depend on a narrow definition of realism as counterfactual definiteness, not as mind-independence. Bell's inequalities show that counterfactual definiteness and locality can't both be true, not that mind-independent realism and locality can't both be true.

Bohmian Mechanics, Many Worlds and RQM are all contextual realist theories (in the mind-independent sense). As Rovelli says:

Quoting Relational Quantum Mechanics - Carlo Rovelli

In order to prevent the reader from channeling his/her thoughts in the wrong direction, let me anticipate a few terminological remarks. By using the word “observer” I do not make any reference to conscious, animate, or computing, or in any other manner special, system. I use the word “observer” in the sense in which it is conventionally used in Galilean relativity when we say that an object has a velocity “with respect to a certain observer”. The observer can be any physical object having a definite state of motion. For instance, I say that my hand moves at a velocity v with respect to the lamp on my table. Velocity is a relational notion (in Galilean as well as in special relativistic physics), and thus it is always (explicitly or implicitly) referred to something; it is traditional to denote this something as the observer, but it is important in the following discussion to keep in mind that the observer can be a table lamp.

The conceptual issues that quantum mechanics raises are to due to classical assumptions like non-contextualism, not philosophical realism itself. So I can agree with Kastrup when he quotes Rovelli here:

Bernardo Kastrup:Carlo Rovelli’s relational interpretation [Rovelli, 2008], on the other hand, sticks to plain quantum theory and embraces contextuality. Instead of loading it with unnecessary baggage, it simply interprets what quantum theory tells us about the world and bites the bullet of its implications. Rovelli’s goal “is not to modify quantum mechanics to make it consistent with [his] view of the world, but to modify [his] view of the world to make it consistent with quantum mechanics” [Rovelli, 2008: 16].

I always think of ketchup when I see this title, just so y'all know...

Quoting Andrew M

Kastrup's claims depend on a narrow definition of realism as counterfactual definiteness, not as mind-independence

You lost me there, Andrew. Care to elucidate the distinction?

Reply to snowleopard Perhaps I'm being a little harsh - although I did describe him as an excellent scientist. But even in the more reasonably argued artice Waferer talks about Kastrup makes a basic philosophical error:

There have been attempts to preserve some form of realism by finding a subset of
physical properties whose values can be determined in a non-contextual manner under certain circumstances. The idea is then to claim that this subset is the objective physical world. For instance, Philippe Grangier [Grangier, 2001], inspired by Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen’s view of what constitutes physical objectivity, contends that the quantum state of a system, defined by the values of a set of physical quantities, which can be predicted with certainty and measured repeatedly without perturbingin any way the system, is an objective physical entity.
The problem with this approach is highlighted by Grangier himself: the “definition [of
the quantum state] is inferred from observations which are made at the macroscopic level”. In other words, the supposedly physically objective quantum state of a system depends on the a priori existence of a physically objective classical world surroundingthe system. This begs the question of physical objectivity instead of rendering it viable under contextuality. Because “a quantum state‘involving the environment’ cannot be consistently defined” [Grangier, 2001: 4], Grangier’s approach fails to reconcile contextuality with a supposedly physically objective world

What's the philosophical error? The challenge Kastrup seems to think the realist must meet is to render realism a coherent position in the face of contextuality. Fine, but that is a very different challenge from proving that realism is true. The accusation of question begging Kastrup levels against Grangier would only undermine the attempt to do the latter, not the former. If your aim is to reconcile a position with another position you are perfectly entitled to assume both positions are true, you don't have to argue for or against either one of them.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no hardheaded realist, but sloppy reasoning does no favours for idealism.

Reply to snowleopard Perhaps I am being a little harsh, although I did also describe him as an excellent scientist. The problem scientists have when they venture into philosophy unprepared is that they make very basic errors, errors which undermine their whole point. Take, for instance, the following couple of paragraphs from the beginning of the paper Wayfarer provided the link to:
Quoting Kastrup

There have been attempts to preserve some form of realism by finding a subset of
physical properties whose values can be determined in a non-contextual manner under certain circumstances. The idea is then to claim that this subset isthe objective physical world. For instance, Philippe Grangier [Grangier, 2001], inspired by Einst
ein-Podolsky-Rosen’s view of what constitutes physical objectivity, contends that the qua
ntum state of a system, defined “by the values of a set of physical quantities, which can be predicted with certainty and measured repeatedly without perturbing in any way the system,” [Grangier, 2001: 1] is an objective physical entity.
The problem with this approach is highlighted by Grangier himself: the “defi
nition [of the quantum state] is inferred from observations which are made
at the macroscopic level” [Grangier, 2001: 2]. In other words, the supposedly physically
objective quantum state of a system depends on the a priori existence of a physically objective classical world surrounding the system. This begs the question of physical objectivity instead of rendering it viable under contextuality. Because “a quantum state ‘involving the environment’ cannot be consistently defined” [Grangier, 2001: 4], Grangier’s approach fails to reconcile contextuality with a supposedly physically objective world.

What's the fundamental philosophical mistake Kastrup is making? The point he is dealing with is the attempt to reconcile realism with contextuality (by which he seems to mean the alledged fact that in experimental realm of quantum mechanics, observation affects outcomes). Perhaps he is right that realism faces this challenge. However, that challenge is a very different challenge from attempting to prove that realism is true. Kastrup's claims about question begging would only undermine Grangier if Grangier were attempting to prove realism, not if he is simply trying to reconcile two apparently contradictory positions. When reconciling two positions you are perfectly entitled (in fact are probably obligated) to assume the truth of both positions and you do not have to argue non-circularly for either one of them.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no hardheaded realist, but it does no favours for idealism when its advocates make basic errors of this kind.

Quoting Relational Quantum Mechanics - Carlo Rovelli

it is traditional to denote this something as the observer, but it is important in the following discussion to keep in mind that the observer can be a table lamp.

Reply to Andrew M This would seem to be a radical redefinition of the word 'observer.' Surely any claim whatsoever can be rationalized, if you arbitrarily redefine words so that what you want to claim then ends up making linguistic sense.

'Observer' in QM has always meant a physical apparatus. Always. If this has caused confusion among those unversed in QM, then so much the worse for them.

Reply to StreetlightX I'm not sure that this is right - or at least it is part of the problem under discussion. Suppose we neutrally define "observer" as whatever takes measurements. Whilst physical apparatus might be used to take measurements, it is the experimenter him or her self that actually takes/records the measurements. At least that is a distinction that it is extremely natural to make. Rovelli saying that an observer can be a table lamp seems to be ignoring this distinction and thus stomping right over the fundamental metaphysical problems.

Reply to StreetlightX Do you mean, a self-assembling apparatus? The self-assembling apparatus that interprets the findings? That kind of observer?

Reply to jkg20 No, you misunderstand. The 'observer' in QM has a causal role: the physical set-up of the apparatus will determine, in a double-slit experiment, light to appear as either a wave or a particle. Whether or not 'someone' is around to record what happens has nothing to do with the phenomenon under consideration. There are, perhaps, metaphysical questions regarding the role of knowledge after-the-fact or whatever, but this would have nothing to do with the science, and would be a more general question regarding the role of any phenomenon whatsoever, and would not be QM-specific in the least.

Reply to Wayfarer Buzz off, sophist.

Reply to StreetlightX I'll concede that I'm not well-versed in quantum theory. So please elucidate: how does QM explain the process by which a table lamp is observing? I can see how a thermostat reacts to a change in temperature, so is that too an act of observance?

Reply to snowleopard

Everytime you see the word 'observation', replace it with 'interaction'. The specific physical set-up of a (quantum) measurement device will interact with the quantum phenomenon in a specific way, with one set-up leading to one (measurement) outcome, and another set-up leading to a different (measurement) outcome. This is what is meant - what has always been meant - when it is said that the measurement of a quantum system is observer-dependant. This would remain the case if every single living and conscious thing died in the next five minutes.

Reply to StreetlightX At the risk of being accused of sophism:

The 'observer' in QM has a causal role: the physical set-up of the apparatus will cause, in a double-slit experiment, light to appear as either a wave or a particle

If the event caused is an appearance (or a disjunction of appearances) then we still seem to have "observation" in a more psychological sense imported into QM don't we?

Reply to jkg20 It's curious that you describe him as an excellent scientist, while his science was dismissed earlier by apokrisis as being 'crank.' In any case, that some of his claims and opinions may be in dispute and controversial is hardly surprising, given the challenge of attempting to reconcile Idealism with current scientific models, and the profound implications that entails. Indeed, I should think it almost inevitable.

Observations are carried out by observers, who use apparatus to make their observations.

In 1958, Schrödinger, inspired by Schopenhauer from youth, published his lectures Mind and Matter. Here he argued that there is a difference between measuring instruments and human observation: a thermometer’s registration cannot be considered an act of observation, as it contains no meaning in itself. Thus, consciousness is needed to make physical reality meaningful.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2009-06-quantum-mysticism-forgotten.html#jCp

Quoting jkg20

If the event caused is an appearance (or a disjunction of appearances) then we still seem to have "observation" in a more psychological sense imported into QM don't we?

Only if you understand 'appearance' in a non-causal way, which of course, you shouldn't. One could say: 'will cause interference effects (wave) or non-interference effects (particle)' and you'll have the same thing. The alternative is of course to substitute primary-school grammar lessons in place of understanding the implications of the science, but no one with the slightest grain of integrity and intellectual honesty would, one hopes, do that.

Some further reading: http://steve-patterson.com/quantum-physics-abuse-reason/

Reply to StreetlightX But what exactly is a measurement absent a conscious agent to calculate a measurement from the reactive apparatus, if that apparatus itself is observer-dependent, without which isn't it all just in potentia?

Reply to snowleopard Perhaps that's a good question, but it is one that has nothing to do with quantum physics.

Quoting StreetlightX

Perhaps that's a good question, but it is one that has nothing to do with quantum physics.

Ok, you've totally lost me now. Lucky QM physicists who are exempt from answering good questions.

Reply to snowleopard It's pretty simple dude. Measurement means something very specific in the context of QM, and that specificity has nothing to do with 'consciousness'. If you want to ask a question about a different sense of the term measurement, that's your prerogative, but don't pretend that you're talking about the same thing.

Reply to StreetlightX Still not seeing how 'measurement' means anything different at all in QM, unless one arbitrarily decides that it does. But that is also one's prerogative.

Quoting snowleopard

Still not seeing how 'measurement' means anything different at all in QM

That much is clear.

Quoting StreetlightX

That much is clear.

Well at least something is clear.

That Patterson article SLX linked says: ‘In a nutshell: in order to “observe” things at a quantum level, it requires specialized devices, which necessarily “interact” with whatever is being observed in order to work.‘

In Fabric of the Cosmos, Brian Greene specifically dismisses this argument. He says something like: it’s not the effect of clumsy experimenters actually influencing how particles behave. There’s a genuine issue about the fact that ‘the act of observation’ determines the outcome. Like Bohr said, if you don’t find QM shocking, then you don’t understand it. Trying to explain that away by appeals to common sense isn’t going to cut it.

It’s big on umbrage, that piece, but not much else, as far as I can determine.

Greene is correct: it isn't the effect of clumsy experimenters, it is the [i]nature[/I] of quantum effects to be determined by the physical appartus in that manner. Greene is rightly inveighing against those who think such effects are incidental and not a necessary aspect of QM. Patterson of course, also doesn't say anything about 'clumsy exprimenters', so one can only wonder here about clumsy readers. Or, more likely, dishonest and deliberate bastardizations by peddlers of ignorance.

Quoting StreetlightX

Greene is correct: it isn't the effect of clumsy experimenters, it is the nature of quantum effects to be determined by the physical appartus in that manner

That’s not it. Darn, now I’ll have to go and dig it out.

Quoting StreetlightX

Patterson of course, also doesn't say anything about 'clumsy exprimenters

It’s exactly what he says:

In a nutshell: in order to “observe” things at a quantum level, it requires specialized devices, which necessarily “interact” with whatever is being observed in order to work.

= clumsy experimenters.

I’m sure that Patterson article is a lot worse than anything written by the writer referenced in the OP. It’s this kind of indignant railing against the anti-realist implications of quantum mechanics.

Quoting Wayfarer

In a nutshell: in order to “observe” things at a quantum level, it requires specialized devices, which necessarily “interact” with whatever is being observed in order to work.

= clumsy experimenters.

I've always wondered what it's like to not know how to read the English language while attempting to conduct discussion in it.

Reply to StreetlightX Probably not as bad as having to resort to condescension whenever argument fails.

Reply to StreetlightX Have a look at Quantum mysteries dissolve if possibilities are realities.This is a proposal which is not ‘fringe’ or alternative but which is philosophically interesting.

Oh dear, it seems we've succumbed to the fate of discussion forums ... conflict-mode.

Still somehow I can't ignore QM's redefining of the word 'observer' and applying it to an apparatus as just a convenient way of ignoring Chalmers' inconvenient 'hard problem.' With such oblivious attempts to get around it, no wonder I find myself attracted to Idealism.

Reply to snowleopard And in any case, idealism doesn't require support from the philosophically naive Kastrup, and it can be argued for entirely independently of any interpretative issues in QM.

Reply to jkg20 You're of course welcome to your subjective opinion. Sure, Kastrup may be thinking outside the academic boxes, however, I would expect that if Idealism is to ever infiltrate and supplant the prevailing materialist paradigm, it may need all the philosophical and scientific support it can get.

Reply to snowleopard I'm all for thinking outside academic boxes, and materialsim is very definitely one of those boxes. We have no disagreement there. I just think Kastrup does a disservice to the position he is arguing for by making "schoolboy" philosophical errors, and that he makes those errors is not a subjective opinion.

Reply to StreetlightX From where do you derive your certainty concerning the meaning to be given to terms like "observation" and "measurement" in QM? Heisenberg and Bohr advocated for the position that those terms invovled consciousness in some way or form. Other scientists disagreed with them (I think Einstein believed that QM could be developed without the notion of an observer at all). As far as I am aware the debate is not settled, and Carlo Rovelli cannot settle it by simply defining away the problem by equating "observation" with "interaction".

Reply to jkg20 From what I've gleaned from your other contributions in this thread, and elsewhere in the forum, I feel we probably agree on more than that upon which we may disagree.

Quoting jkg20

I just think Kastrup does a disservice to the position he is arguing

It may well be perceived as a disservice to those inside the academic boxes. I can forgive some incidental errors that can eventually be ironed out if the goal of shifting the paradigm is achieved.

Quoting Wayfarer

Kastrup's claims depend on a narrow definition of realism as counterfactual definiteness, not as mind-independence
— Andrew M

You lost me there, Andrew. Care to elucidate the distinction?

Sure. Counterfactual definiteness means that if a measurement of a physical property is not in fact performed, it nonetheless has a definite value. For example, if a particle is described as being in a superposition of spin up and spin down, counterfactual definiteness means that the particle nonetheless has a single definite spin value prior to any measurement being made.

Many Worlds rejects counterfactual definiteness since it says the particle has both spin values prior to measurement. RQM also rejects it, since it says the particle can only have a definite spin value with respect to an interacting system.

Quoting snowleopard

it is traditional to denote this something as the observer, but it is important in the following discussion to keep in mind that the observer can be a table lamp.
— Relational Quantum Mechanics - Carlo Rovelli

?Andrew M This would seem to be a radical redefinition of the word 'observer.' Surely any claim whatsoever can be rationalized, if you arbitrarily redefine words so that what you want to claim then ends up making linguistic sense.

It's a technical usage, but feel free to just substitute "quantum system". The key point in RQM is that there are two quantum systems that interact and it is that interaction that results in definite values. For example, a particle interacts with a measuring apparatus that consequently displays either "spin up" or "spin down". That process occurs independently of conscious observers being present.

Quoting Andrew M

This process occurs independently of conscious observers being present.

So says a conscious observer. Again, I repeat the question: What exactly is a measurement absent a conscious agent to calculate a measurement from the reactive apparatus, if that measurement apparatus itself is observer-dependent, without which isn't it all just in potentia?

Quoting jkg20

From where do you derive your certainty concerning the meaning to be given to terms like "observation" and "measurement" in QM?

I don't know what to tell you other than that that's just what those terms mean. Observation is measurement is interaction. And at no point in any of this is there any reference to conscious observers. Nothing in the theory implies it. Nothing in the data, or the formalisms, either. One can wrangle over semantics, but science will trump the dictionary every time. Unfortunately, there are those here who think the dictionary ought to decide the state of reality. It's understandable, of course. It's much easier to reach for the dictionary than it is to acquaint oneself with the basics of QM.

Quoting snowleopard

So says a conscious observer. Again, I repeat the question: What exactly is a measurement absent a conscious agent to calculate a measurement from the reactive apparatus, if that measurement apparatus itself is observer-dependent, without which isn't it all just in potentia?

A measurement is a physical interaction between quantum systems.

In the reference frame of the apparatus, a definite particle spin result has been recorded on its display.

In the conscious agent's reference frame, prior to interaction with the composite particle/apparatus system, there is no definite particle spin result recorded on the apparatus display (i.e., the composite system is in superposition).

Reply to Andrew M I could be misconstruing your worldview, but it would appear to be a QM interpretation that is still clinging to the materialist premise that there is a mind-independent world of matter 'out there', the very notion that Kastrup, or any idealist ontology, is dubious about ... as now am I.

To that point, curiously enough, I just learned that Mr. Kastrup has now been invited to a meeting of minds at the Vatican (not sure that's the most apropos venue), to discourse on the impact of science on culture and society. Perhaps, from the perspective of Idealism, a few more seeds thrown into the shifting winds of change.

Quoting Wayfarer

Not least because of its use by culture warriors such as Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins to attack religion at every possible opportunity.

Whether they are attacking religion or not -- evolution is a well-founded scientific theory. And a very large percentage of people do not believe it to be true (at least with respect to human beings). So it's just not the case that most people listen to science as the source of all truth, the way, and the light. By the link I provided it appears that the Bible is more influential in that regard.

Reply to StreetlightX

StreetlightX:Nothing in the data, or the formalisms, either.

Nobody - well certainly not me in any case - is saying that the formal aspects of QM include reference to conscious observers. That's not the point. Take the Schrodinger wave equation, for instance - absolutely no explicit reference to a conscious observer at all. The solutions to that equation for a given system provide us values that the Schrodinger wave function can take for that system, but the philosophical issues (where there are very real distinctions between observation, measurement and interaction) begin when physical interpretations of those values are proposed. It's generally agreed that the wavefunction values generate probability distributions, but probability distributions of what? One response is along the lines "the probability of finding a particle to be at a particular location" and straight away you see a notion involving conscious activity being introduced (i.e. "finding").

Quoting snowleopard

I could be misconstruing your worldview, but it would appear to be a QM interpretation that is still clinging to the materialist premise that there is a mind-independent world of matter 'out there', the very notion that Kastrup, or any idealist ontology, is dubious about ... as now am I.

Yes, I think the world exists independently of mind (per Aristotelian realism rather than materialism).

My initial comment in this thread was to point out that quantum contextualism doesn't challenge mind-independent realism as Kastrup claims. In fact the major realist QM theories are all contextual, including RQM which, ironically, Kastrup thinks implies idealism.

Quoting Wayfarer

It's more a matter that a secular, non-religious outlook is normalised in a secular culture such as ours. As you say - this doesn't mean that holding this kind of view has necessarily entails 'scientism'. But many are more likely to accept that whatever answers there are to be sought, are best sought, or can only be sought, by scientific means. But even that has existential implications, in that the scientific stance is one in which there is an implicit separation between the object of knowledge and the knowing subject. Whereas in pre-modern cultures, there is a felt sense of 'relatedness' to the Cosmos; that sense of it being totally 'other' to the observer is not so pronounced as it has become in the modern age.

I don't believe that the United States is a strictly secular culture. While religious life is in decline, it is still by the far the majority. I took a quick look over at gallup to make sure this was still the case and it seems to be.

I mean, you have an entire political block organized around religion with a fair amount of influence on how the state is run.

And the majority of people don't look strictly to science for what is knowable.

This monolithic secular view just does not exist in the United States. There are some secular people, and the state is meant to be secular. But the majority of people are still religious.

And, furthermore, while they are in a minority, there are still many scientists who are religious.

I'd say that there are other more likely culprits for a lack of relatedness to the Cosmos than a secular dogma.

And, to attempt getting back on topic, I don't think that a secular dogma is holding back idealism. Historically there have always been trends towards this or that metaphysical stance in philosophy -- including idealism!

From my perspective this all just seems way off the mark. I get that you have issues with a secular worldview. But I don't think that non-religious outlook is so normalized as you seem to believe, and I certainly don't believe that secular beliefs are the reason why Kastrup is being criticized here.

Reply to Moliere

Moliere: I certainly don't believe that secular beliefs are the reason why Kastrup is being criticized here.

:up: I, for one, am criticising him on the basis that he is a bad philosopher.

Reply to Andrew M

Andrew: My initial comment in this thread was to point out that quantum contextualism doesn't challenge mind-independent realism as Kastrup claims

Quite right - QM may or may not challenge mind-independent realism, but Kastrup certainly hasn't given us any reasons for thinking so.

Reply to Andrew M Well Kastrup posits that the 'world' of Ideas, in the platonic sense, does indeed still exist absent a finite locus of mind, insofar as it immanently exists in a Cosmic Mind-at-large -- along the lines of Berkeley's take, seemingly in sync with Kastrup, to quote Reply to jkg20 "Where does this leave the moon when everyone's gone to sleep? Berkeley's answer was that God never sleeps, and perceives all things at all times."

Reply to snowleopard One difference to note is that Berkeley didn't believe in platonic ideas at all, he held (at least, it seems to me he held) a pretty extreme form of nominalism: the only things that existed for him were minds and their immediate contents, and even for God those immediate contents were particular datable locatable items, not timeless abstract forms.

Reply to jkg20 Thanks for that edification, as it is clearly a critical distinction. Again, I'm not intending here to definitively defend Kastrup's model, which he must do himself, but rather to get feedback on his, or any version of Idealism that others here may offer for consideration, so as to be informed about all options. So I do appreciate the input.

Reply to jkg20 I suppose for many contemporary metaphysicians, Kastrup included, the issue with Berkeley, and others, is precisely that he brings those 18th century ideas of God into the equation, with all of the problematic baggage that now comes with that term. With that in mind, do you feel that Idealism can be cogently articulated, without resorting to some such Divine Beingness -- for lack of a better term?

Reply to snowleopard I think you are probably on to something that idealism tends to be regarded suspiciously because of its links with theism of one form or another. However, insofar as Berkeley is concerned, it's interesting to note that for him, at least, you could establish idealism independently of whether or not there was a God, and then use the fact that idealism is true to prove that there actually is a God. As for whether idealism can be cogently articulated, I believe it can - at least in its Berkeleian or phenomenalistic form (I cannot really speak to the Hegelian form, as I don't really understand Hegel). One recent academic philosopher who went against the grain and tried to do exactly that was John Foster. He is dead now, and as far as I know nobody has really picked up where he left off, but if you can get hold of a copy of his book A World for Us: The Case for Phenomenalistic Idealism, you might find exactly what you're looking for.

Quoting jkg20

but if you can get hold of a copy of his book A World for Us: The Case for Phenomenalistic Idealism, you might find exactly what you're looking for.

Reply to jkg20 Hmm ... at $100-plus Cdn for a hard copy, I'll have to pass, unless there's some less-expensive, less-than-material (ha,ha) source available in cyberspace -- albeit, there would appear to be very little online presence of Foster's body of work, other than some synoptic reviews and excerpts, which I will delve into ... Thanks nonetheless for the suggestion.

Quoting jkg20

One response is along the lines "the probability of finding a particle to be at a particular location" and straight away you see a notion involving conscious activity being introduced (i.e. "finding").

No, again, this is just equivocating on seemingly ambiguous words to create pseudo problems. 'Finding', of course, means being interacted with: probability is a question of the chance of physical interactions taking place at the time of measurement at a particular point, where measurement, again, just is physical interaction. It's telling that so many of the responses here hinge on basically abusing the English language, trying for 'gotchya' moments: 'ha, you used the word finding!', or 'ha! you used the word appear!'; 'observe!' - consciousness prevails! But these are nothing more than middling attempts to substitute elementary school word play for science. It's intellectual laziness at best, sophistic fraudulence at worst.

Reply to snowleopard Wow, that's expensive - I had no idea. I don't have a copy of that work, but did pick up a version of his The Case for Idealism secondhand for 20 pounds sterling a couple of years ago. Sounds like I should be looking to make a return on my investment! The Case for Idealism is a more technical academic work, but essentially makes the same points as the apparently more accessible A World for Us. If, after reading around the various reviews you are intrigued enough, we'll see if we can't find a cheaper way to get you a copy of one or the other, one way or another.

Reply to StreetlightX I'm not trying to substitute science with anything, let alone elementary school English. I'm a scientist by profession, and I like my pay packet. I don't even happen to believe that QM can be used to prove idealism. The only point I insist on, is that once you start making physical interpretations of QM equations, philosophical issues arise, and the great names of 20th century science share that opinion: Heisenberg, Bohr, Einstein, Schrodinger...... Take a moment to google "interpretation of quantum mechanics" to get a glimpse of what has gone on and is still going on.

Reply to jkg20 I absolutely agree that interpretations of QM have both relevant and interesting philosophical implications. But I would also insist that any attempt to wrangle those implications out of it do so with the utmost care. QM is a playground of intellectual abuse by those who harness its complexity to prey on the ignorant in favour of whatever pet metaphysics they'd like to peddle, so it's worth insisting, every now and then, on a bit of conceptual clarity.

Reply to StreetlightX The QM interpretation issue can be put like this. Any quantum system is in a superposition of quantum states until such time as a specific kind of interaction occurs, at which point only one of those quantum states prevails. What accounts for this apparent "collapse" of the system to one definite state? As far as I am aware, von Neumann was the first to propose that such collapse can only occur in the presence of a conscious observer - his idea was then taken up by Heisenberg - I'm not sure about Bohr. It is idealist to the extent that a definite world, as opposed to a world in a superimposed flux, requires consciousness. However, it still allows for quantum superimposed states to exist independently of minds, just not the "classical" world we are all familiar with where things have definite locations and velocities and masses etc. One alternative to von Neumann's suggestion is the so-called "many-worlds" interpretation: every time such an apparent "collapse" occurs, there is in fact no collapse but instead a splitting of worlds, each one taking one of the previously superimposed states. Very quickly many worlds become too many for some people's tastes, since this splitting happens every time something definite occurs. It can also make personal identity over time a tricky notion to account for.
That is just one way of putting the metaphysical quandry that QM presents. But jkg20 brought out another insofar as answers to the question "what does the wave function represent" will have metaphysical consequences, and those who want to answer that question should not just help themselves to everyday notions of "observation", "measurement" and so on since those everyday notions are very definitely wrapped up with the idea of their being acts performed by conscious beings. One would be using the word "observer" in a most unusual way if one were to say that "lamps are observers", and to avoid misunderstanding it would be better not to use that word at all in that context.

Quoting ProcastinationTomorrow

That is just one way of putting the metaphysical quandry that QM presents. But jkg20 brought out another insofar as answers to the question "what does the wave function represent" will have metaphysical consequences, and those who want to answer that question should not just help themselves to everyday notions of "observation", "measurement" and so on since those everyday notions are very definitely wrapped up with the idea of their being acts performed by conscious beings. One would be using the word "observer" in a most unusual way if one were to say that "lamps are observers", and to avoid misunderstanding it would be better not to use that word at all in that context.

That usage of "observer" is conventional in special relativity and quantum mechanics. From Wikipedia:

Quoting Observer (special relativity)

Physicists use the term "observer" as shorthand for a specific reference frame from which a set of objects or events is being measured. Speaking of an observer in special relativity is not specifically hypothesizing an individual person who is experiencing events, but rather it is a particular mathematical context which objects and events are to be evaluated from. The effects of special relativity occur whether or not there is a sentient being within the inertial reference frame to witness them.
...
In quantum mechanics, "observation" is synonymous with quantum measurement and "observer" with a measurement apparatus and observable with what can be measured.

Physicists are always going to develop technical language in ways that they find useful to them. So I think the key to avoiding misunderstanding is to be aware of how language terms are used differently in that context compared to the everyday context. That is what Rovelli was pointing out with his lamp example.

Along with "observer", terms like "measurement", "information" and "action" similarly don't imply consciousness or mind in a physics context. So note the use of "observer" in the first sentence of the RQM Wikipedia entry:

Quoting Relational quantum mechanics

Relational quantum mechanics (RQM) is an interpretation of quantum mechanics which treats the state of a quantum system as being observer-dependent, that is, the state is the relation between the observer and the system.

This simply means that, per RQM, the state of a quantum system is always indexed to some reference frame (termed an observer), rather than being absolute. It implies nothing about consciousness or mind.

Notwithstanding the fact that all apparatus are constructed by observers. (Sorry for intruding with a philosophical observation.)

Quoting ProcastinationTomorrow

One would be using the word "observer" in a most unusual way if one were to say that "lamps are observers", and to avoid misunderstanding it would be better not to use that word at all in that context.

Perhaps it would be better, and perhaps it might put a stop to the endless swarm of psuedo-scientific troglodytes who, too thick to understand that langage is what we make of it, aim to milk grammar from the stone of science to substantiate their idealist fantasies without a care in the world for the actual science. Perhaps. But then, that is their problem, and not science's. Witness Wayfarer, who thinks an irrelevancy is a 'philosophical observation', again content to play in toy-room of words as if there was any substance to it at all.

Quoting StreetlightX

swarm of psuedo-scientific troglodytes

Is it possible that you're over reacting?

Quoting Andrew M

Relational quantum mechanics (RQM) is an interpretation of quantum mechanics which treats the state of a quantum system as being observer-dependent, that is, the state is the relation between the observer and the system.

— Relational quantum mechanics

This simply means that, per RQM, the state of a quantum system is always indexed to some reference frame (termed an observer), rather than being absolute. It implies nothing about consciousness or mind.

So - it's acknowledged to be 'observer dependent', but by designating the observer as 'a reference frame' rather than as an actual scientist, then the pesky 'observer problem' with its attendant philosophical problems of 'mind' or 'consciousness' is removed from the equation. Or so it is said.

Quoting ProcastinationTomorrow

What accounts for this apparent "collapse" of the system to one definite state? As far as I am aware, von Neumann was the first to propose that such collapse can only occur in the presence of a conscious observer - his idea was then taken up by Heisenberg - I'm not sure about Bohr.

Von Neumann came later than Bohr and Heisenberg. The point is, I think the idea that 'consciousness causes the collapse' incorrectly suggests the whole question as being a matter in which the mind of the observer actually does something. The observer doesn't cause anything, in that sense, in the way that a spark ignites a flame. What it means is that all of the possibilities described by the wave equation are zeroed at the exact moment the measurement is taken - just by taking the measurement!

So up until that moment, there is no 'actual particle' - it's not as if it's somewhere in some definite place that hasn't been determined yet. Up until the measurement is taken, it's not in any place - literally all there is, is a field of possibilities (which is what the so-called 'super-position' describes). Then at the instant the measurement is taken, one possibility becomes 100% and all the others become 0. That is what 'the collapse of the wave-function' describes.

That's why I mentioned the Ruth Kastner article on 'potentia' - Heisenberg had the idea that the mode of the existence of sub-atomic particles was like the Aristotelian 'potentia' that are then 'actualised' by the act of measurement - as per this paper.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong on that.

Quoting Wayfarer

Notwithstanding the fact that all apparatus are constructed by observers. (Sorry for intruding with a philosophical observation.)

All that is required is two physical systems that interact to produce information. Those physical systems need not have been constructed by anyone.

Here's Rovelli in Edge:

Quoting Relative Information

We say that there is "relative information" between two systems anytime the state of one is constrained by the state of the other. In this precise sense, physical systems may be said to have information about one another, with no need for a mind to play any role.
...
The world isn’t just a mass of colliding atoms; it is also a web of correlations between sets of atoms, a network of reciprocal physical information between physical systems.

Quoting Wayfarer

So - it's acknowledged to be 'observer dependent', but by designating the observer as 'a reference frame' rather than as an actual scientist, then the pesky 'observer problem' with its attendant philosophical problems of 'mind' or 'consciousness' is removed from the equation.

It's removed from the Schrodinger equation, yes.

Quoting Wayfarer

So - it's acknowledged to be 'observer dependent', but by designating the observer as 'a reference frame' rather than as an actual scientist, then the pesky 'observer problem' with its attendant philosophical problems of 'mind' or 'consciousness' is removed from the equation. Or so it is said.

Step 1 in quantum sophistry: reverse the terms. Pretend that a reference frame designates the 'observer', rather than the other way around; Step 2: imply that some kind of problem has been removed, rather than created by the abuse of the English language.

With these two easy steps, you too could botch the science and pretend QM implies things it does not! Order now for an extra dose of snake oil.

Reply to ProcastinationTomorrow Still, I'm getting the impression that as long as there is an ongoing dismissing of a coherent explanation of consciousness as being of no significant consequence, there will be no end to the conundrum of multiple incongruent interpretations of QM precisely because the factoring in of such an explanation of consciousness is of paramount significance for arriving at a truly comprehensive theory.

Quoting StreetlightX

Perhaps it would be better, and perhaps it might put a stop to the endless swarm of psuedo-scientific troglodytes who, too thick to understand that langage is what we make of it, aim to milk grammar from the stone of science to substantiate their idealist fantasies without a care in the world for the actual science.

Reply to StreetlightX Is it possibly your intention here to create polemic, rather than engage in respectful debate?

Reply to StreetlightX What is ‘sophistry’ about claiming that ‘an observer’ is in fact an observer? Claiming that an apparatus constitutes an observer is the only ‘sophistry’ in play here.

Quoting Wayfarer

Claiming that an apparatus constitutes an observer is the only ‘sophistry’ in play here.

Reply to Wayfarer I'd even go so far as to say that panpsychism is in play

Quoting Wayfarer

Claiming that an apparatus constitutes an observer is the only ‘sophistry’ in play here.

Right, because your inability to get past how words were used in primary school means that science is other than it is. As if your failure of intellect meant anything other than that.

Reply to StreetlightX As I said yesterday, you resort to condescension because you can’t actually come up with an argument. It is a plain fact that in normal usage ‘an observer’ is taken to mean exactly that. Here you’re asserting that it’s not. And then resorting to schoolyard insults when you’re challenged.

Reply to Wayfarer Sure, and that normal usage is irrelevant when it comes to the issues at stake, so trying to leverage that normal usage to try and address those issues is a sign of either total incomprehension or vicious dishonesty.

Reply to StreetlightX I'm not so sure that what you are calling "normal" usage is irrelevant. Don't get me wrong, I'm no "cardboard cutout" of the later Wittgenstein - i.e. I don't believe that you can do metaphysics just by pointing out how we use words in ordinary language, but pointing out how those words are used is very definitely a useful metaphysical technique. Scientists can and do take terms from ordinary language and give them technical meanings, and there are no laws of grammar or metaphysics that forbid them from doing so. When this is done, however, either something is added to the original meaning, or something is taken away, or both. The issue is that it can become difficult (for scientists and philosophers alike) to keep track of which meaning is being used in which context, and all the more so when the issues are to do with interpretation of scientific results. If all a quantum scientist means by "observation" is simply "interaction" he or she would do much better to stick with the latter term than the former.

Reply to StreetlightX Not at all. The whole argument is about what constitutes 'an observer'. This is where you came into the argument:

Quoting StreetlightX

Whether or not 'someone' is around to record what happens has nothing to do with the phenomenon under consideration.

But this is the whole nub of 'the observer problem' which remains an outstanding problem in philosophy of physics. Whether the registration of some phenomenon by an apparatus in the absence of an observer is even 'a measurement' is a philosophical question, not a scientific problem at all. So, as far as physics is concerned, it makes no difference if it's an observer or an instrument. But I say, nevertheless, there is a real difference.

Note the following:

Quoting Andrew M

All that is required is two physical systems that interact to produce information. Those physical systems need not have been constructed by anyone.

What 'physical measurement systems' are not 'constructed by anyone'? Where do such devices exist, outside the imagination?

So, such an argument relies on a intrinsically realist view - that 'the instruments' and 'the measurements' are 'observation-independent' - that they go on their merry way, 'observing' and therefore being, to all intents, an outsourced service! One of those little satellites that has gone wizzing past Jupiter and lost contact with humans - is that still measuring anything, in the absence of anyone to read the dials?

It's an interesting question - but it's not a question for physics, as such.

So to my mind the assertion that 'the apparatus is an observer' is, from a philosophical point of view, an exercise in question-begging. After all, the whole point at issue is indeed the sense in which the act of observation actually causes something of quite momentous significance to happen, in the context of quantum mechanics. (And I notice nobody has corrected my description of the actual problem at hand, the 'wave-function collapse', above.)

And do try and maintain a civil attitude.

Reply to snowleopard There are some theorists working in the world of QM who do believe that experimentation can help decide which interpretation of quantum mechanics is the correct one. Then again there are some theorists in the world of QM who believe that theorists should just get on with making calculations and predictions using QM and not bothering with the metaphysics.

Reply to ProcastinationTomorrow Interestingly, later Wittgenstein was all about being attuned to the contexts of useage, and he too would have demanded that we pay strict attention to the language-game in which 'observation' is being used. If anything, the attempt to equivocate between meanings would be an exemplary instance of language-on-holiday, which he relentlessly and rightly criticized. Again, yeah, it may be better not to use the word 'observation', but this is a trifling point, and anyone with a mediocum of intelligence ought to be able to sort one usage from the other.

Reply to Wayfarer

Wayfarer:So up until that moment, there is no 'actual particle' - it's not as if it's somewhere in some definite place that hasn't been determined yet. Up until the measurement is taken, it's not in any place - literally all there is, is a field of possibilities (which is what the so-called 'super-position' describes). Then at the instant the measurement is taken, one possibility becomes 100% and all the others become 0. That is what 'the collapse of the wave-function' describes...Someone correct me if I'm wrong on that.

You are not wrong, but you are just giving one of a number of interpretations of what is going on. There are some interpretations of QM that explain the so-called wave function collapse whilst actually allowing for a real particle to exist all the time (it is supposed to be 'riding the wave').

Quoting StreetlightX

it may be better not to use the word 'observation', but this is a trifling point

That is a world-class dodge, even if there were nobody around to comment on it :smile:

Reply to ProcastinationTomorrow There’s pilot-wave theory, and many-worlds. To which my question would be, if you can explain the ‘observation’ problem by simply outsourcing it to a machine, why bother with these extravagant speculations?

Reply to Wayfarer The main motivation for coming up with alternative interpretations of the measurement problem is to avoid idealism and retain realism. Whether they are any more or less extravagant that idealistic interpretations, well that might be just a matter of taste.

Reply to Wayfarer But I take your point that you cannot avoid the issue just by claiming that "observation" means "interaction".

Reply to Wayfarer Sorry, but this entire post is hogwash. First, you literally put words into the mouth of Andrew, who nowhere speaks of physical measurement systems, but of physical systems tout court. The upshot being that 'measurement' systems are a subclass of physical systems that are designed to capture what happens out there 'in the wild' anyway. So your question about 'physical measurement systems' being 'constructed' has no force at all. This of course, is part and parcel of the your usual intellectual dishonesty, which, no, deserves no civility at all, and ought to be treated like the intellectual poison that it is.

Second, to say that an apparatus is an observer is not question begging because it is a scientific result. I realize that your understanding of the science is tenuous at best and nonexistant at worst, but the basic point is that if you set the apparatus up in one manner, you will get one result, and if you set the apparatus up in another manner (with or without a which-path detector) you will get another result (wave or particle). The observer is the apparatus because it can be shown that the set-up of the apparatus exerts a causal influence on the measurement outcomes of a quantum system. This is not a 'speculative point', despite your attempt to muddy the waters and flat-out misrepresent the debate.

To put it quite shortly: there is no debate about what constitutes an observer, expect in the minds of the ignorant. Every elementary text of physics will quite clearly specify that an observer is an apparatus (or a physical system) and that this follows as a matter of fact, and not interpretation. Again, none of this is to say that QM does not raise interesting philosophical questions, but they are not of the kind that you try and foist on it with your bad faith misrepresentations and ignorant fabulations.

Quoting StreetlightX

you literally put words into the mouth of Andrew

Who, nevertheless, agreed with my analysis here.

Quoting StreetlightX

who nowhere speaks of physical measurement systems

The whole issue is about 'the measurement problem'. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a debate. Of course, if you set the equipment up one way, you get one result, and so on - not at all relevant to my point.

Quoting StreetlightX

your understanding of the science is tenuous at best and nonexistant at worst,

Better than your spelling, I expect.

Quoting StreetlightX

Every elementary text of physics will quite clearly specify that an observer is an apparatus

I did study elementary physics, but that particular phrase eluded me.

Quoting StreetlightX

This of course, is part and parcel of the your usual intellectual dishonesty, which, no, deserves no civility at all, and ought to be treated like the intellectual poison that it is.

I don't personally think you understand what it is about my posts that continues to elicit this response from you, but nevertheless I will report it as flaming.

Reply to StreetlightX I don't think Wafarer is misrepresenting the debate, but perhaps I'm being naive. The debate as far as Wayfarer is concerned is about explaining the collapse of the wave function, which sometimes goes by the name "the measurement problem". Also, "the observer is the apparatus" is not a scientific result, although it might be a scientific definition - the results are just data.

Quoting Wayfarer

Of course, if you set the equipment up one way, you get one result, and so on - not at all relevant to my point.

This is the only relevant point in the debate, and if you can't see that, then you don't understand the debate.

Quoting ProcastinationTomorrow

I don't think Wayfarer is misrepresenting the debate, but perhaps I'm being naive.

No, you're not being naive. StreetlightX, for some reason, has an intense dislike of my posts, and often goes off like this. Apparently I spread 'intellectual poison'. I really have to bow out of this debate, as when it gets to actual rock fights, it upsets my equanimity.

I have an intense dislike of charlatans.

Reply to StreetlightX Unfair, and I think it says more about you. You have an intense, emotional commitment to a philosophical outlook that I regularly challenge, and whenever I do, it produces vitriol. That’s all there is to it.

Quoting ProcastinationTomorrow

The debate as far as Wayfarer is concerned is about explaining the collapse of the wave function, which sometimes goes by the name "the measurement problem".

The question is largely over the exact status of the states in superpositon: is it epistemic or ontological? And if it is either, what would it imply for our understanding of reality? These are real, interesting, and productive questions. But they do not turn, except in the most banal formulations, upon understanding 'measurement' as an act of consciousness. The quote from Rovelli makes this quite clear. John Wheeler, whose 'participatory universe' idea is often taken up by quantum mystifiers, is even more explicit: "'Consciousness' has nothing whatsoever to do with the quantum process'". One can of course wheel out physicist after physicist who will say the same thing, and you will still have sophists like Wayfarer who think the QM problem is located somewhere where it is not.

Reply to StreetlightX I was actually going to refer to an article about Wheeler called Does the Universe Exist if we're Not Looking?

Any idea why that article might be called that?

Anyway, the salient paragraphs are these:

Wheeler conjectures we are part of a universe that is a work in progress; we are tiny patches of the universe looking at itself — and building itself. It's not only the future that is still undetermined but the past as well. And by peering back into time, even all the way back to the Big Bang, our present observations select one out of many possible quantum histories for the universe.

Sure sounds like he says consciousness plays a role there to me.

It goes on:

Does this mean humans are necessary to the existence of the universe? While conscious observers certainly partake in the creation of the participatory universe envisioned by Wheeler, they are not the only, or even primary, way by which quantum potentials become real. Ordinary matter and radiation play the dominant roles. Wheeler likes to use the example of a high-energy particle released by a radioactive element like radium in Earth's crust. The particle, as with the photons in the two-slit experiment, exists in many possible states at once, traveling in every possible direction, not quite real and solid until it interacts with something, say a piece of mica in Earth's crust. When that happens, one of those many different probable outcomes becomes real. In this case the mica, not a conscious being, is the object that transforms what might happen into what does happen. The trail of disrupted atoms left in the mica by the high-energy particle becomes part of the real world.

At every moment, in Wheeler's view, the entire universe is filled with such events, where the possible outcomes of countless interactions become real, where the infinite variety inherent in quantum mechanics manifests as a physical cosmos. And we see only a tiny portion of that cosmos. Wheeler suspects that most of the universe consists of huge clouds of uncertainty that have not yet interacted either with a conscious observer or even with some lump of inanimate matter. He sees the universe as a vast arena containing realms where the past is not yet fixed.

Regarding 'the participatory universe' - the latter point is about the very fact that the conscious observer has a role to play in the nature of reality - hence the name of the article.

So, this is actually an embarrassment for scientific realism, so I get why one would be piqued about it. After all physics was supposed to show that everything was ultimately dumb stuff - but it hasn't worked out that way. It seems that the mind of the observer does have a real foundational role in the scheme of things.

he entire universe is filled with such events, where the possible outcomes of countless interactions become real, where the infinite variety inherent in quantum mechanics manifests as a physical cosmos.

So, I find this philosophically meaningful, myself. I think it has some resemblance with the idea of 'the Unmanifest' which the human mind plays a role in 'making manifest'. That too ties in with the Ruth Kastner article on 'potentia' that I linked to before.

Reply to Wayfarer Yes, I've seen you link to that article before, and I scoured it to see if it actually sourced that headline quote from Wheeler himself, given that I knew before hand his stance on the role of consciousness. And lo and behold it does not. It, like you, puts words into people's mouths, words which impute the exact opposite of the views held by those to whom it attributes. Wheeler's own words, the words of his I actually quoted, couldn't be more explicit about repudiating the role of consciousness in the quantum process, and you can find them here, which is from an actual paper of his, and not some after-market, hand-me-down source.

Stupifyingly superficial pieces of yellow journalism like that one - which, like you, confuse the understanding of 'observer' at play in QM with what they were thought in school - are responsible in a large part for the very sad public understanding of QM by laypeople.

Quoting Wayfarer

What is ‘sophistry’ about claiming that ‘an observer’ is in fact an observer? Claiming that an apparatus constitutes an observer is the only ‘sophistry’ in play here.

Do you include Heisenberg and Bohr in that assessment?

Quoting Werner Heisenberg

Of course the introduction of the observer must not be misunderstood to imply that some kind of subjective features are to be brought into the description of nature. 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.

Quoting Niels Bohr

Naturally, it still makes no difference whether the observer is a man, an animal, or a piece of apparatus, but it is no longer possible to make predictions without reference to the observer or the means of observation.

Reply to Andrew M Fair enough, I stand corrected. But I still think it’s a legitimate question as to whether any actual ‘registration’ has occurred in the absence of an observer, who in such cases, creates the very machine which records the observation.

Reply to StreetlightX The quote on ‘participatory universe’ is this:

’It from bit’ symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom — at a very deep bottom, in most instances — an immaterial source and explanation; that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the resistering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe.

"Information, Physics, Quantum: The Search for Links" in Complexity, Entropy and the Physics of Information (1990) ed., Wojciech H. Zurek, p. 5.

Bohr actually commented on the ambiguity of the word 'observer', and simply resolved to affirm that at the end of the day, whatever we call it, it was a matter of how our instruments are set up:

"These problems were instructively commented upon from different sides at the Solvay meeting... On that occasion an interesting discussion arose also about how to speak of the appearance of phenomena. ... The question was whether, as to the occurrence of individual effects, we should adopt a terminology
proposed by Dirac, that we were concerned with a choice on the part of ‘‘nature’’ or, as suggested by Heisenberg, we should say that we have to do with a choice on the part of the ‘‘observer’’ constructing the measuring instruments and reading their recording.

Any such terminology would, however, appear dubious since, on the one hand, it is hardly reasonable to endow nature with volition in the ordinary sense, while, on the other hand, it is certainly not possible for the observer to influence the events which may appear under the conditions he [or she] has arranged. To my mind, there is no other alternative than to admit that, in this field of experience, we are dealing with individual phenomena and that our possibilities of handling the measuring instruments allow us only to make a choice between the different complementary types of phenomena we want to study."

This being in keeping with Bohr's very specific understanding of what a 'phenomenon' is, which Wheeler glosses: 'A phenomenon is not yet a phenomenon until it has been brought to a close by an irreversible act of amplification such as the blackening of a grain of silver bromide emulsion or the triggering of a photodetector ... What answer we get depends on the question we put, the experiment we arrange, the registering device we choose'. Does this entail some really cool philosophical implications? Definitely. But consciousness? Irrelevant noise.

Quoting StreetlightX

Does this entail some really cool philosophical implications? Definitely. But consciousness? Irrelevant noise.

Anyone else here in agreement with this?

Because all of those actions - every one, which experiment, how to set it up - they are all set up by an observer. Yet apparently, the observation is itself ‘the silver bromide emulsion’. Do I have that right?

Reply to Wayfarer Wheeler is certainly in agreement with 'this'. It's from the same paper I quoted which states that ''Consciousness' has nothing whatsoever to do with the quantum process'".

Reply to Wayfarer

Yes, consciousness just isn't interesting because it ignores the logical definition of whatever we might be talking about in concepts. The consciousness argument is akin to asking things like: "Is a tree really a tree?" when no-one is thinking about it or looking at it.

It doesn't respect how what we talk about has a definition in logic, a definition beyond the presence of our conscious experience.

Reply to StreetlightX So, what is the meaning of ‘participatory universe’?

Some other random Wheeler quotes that seem relevant. You can knock them all off, like a coconut shy:

I think we are beginning to suspect that man is not a tiny cog that doesn’t really make much difference to the running of the huge machine but rather that there is a much more intimate tie between man and the universe than we heretofore suspected. … [Consider if] the particles and their properties are not somehow related to making man possible. Man, the start of the analysis, man, the end of the analysis—because the physical world is, in some deep sense, tied to the human being.

— John Wheeler
In The Intellectual Digest (Jun 1973), as quoted and cited in Mark Chandos, 'Philosophical Essay: Story Theory", Kosmoautikon: Exodus From Sapiens (2015).

Is the very mechanism for the universe to come into being meaningless or unworkable or both unless the universe is guaranteed to produce life, consciousness and observership somewhere and for some little time in its history-to-be?

— John Wheeler
Quoted in P.C.W. Davies, God and the New Physics (1984), 39, from J.A. Wheeler, 'Genesis and observership', Foundational Problems in the Special Science (1977), 39.

The universe does not exist “out there,” independent of us. We are inescapably involved in bringing about that which appears to be happening. We are not only observers. We are participators. In some strange sense, this is a participatory universe. Physics is no longer satisfied with insights only into particles, fields of force, into geometry, or even into time and space. Today we demand of physics some understanding of existence itself.

— John Wheeler
Quoted in Denis Brian, The Voice Of Genius: Conversations with Nobel Scientists and Other Luminaries

Reply to TheWillowOfDarkness You have always been the most aptly-named poster here, Willow.

Quoting ProcastinationTomorrow

The main motivation for coming up with alternative interpretations of the measurement problem is to avoid idealism and retain realism.

Reply to ProcastinationTomorrow In other words, it's a convenient way to not have to factor in the inconvenience of a coherent accounting for consciousness?

Reply to Wayfarer

To turn the tables here, I'm more or less against humanity and its power here.

How arrogant to we have to be to be to say that the presnece of our own experiences is what makes the existence of other things, of other beings, of all the other things in the world? Far too much, that's akin to the fantasies reductionistic accounts of everything under scientism. Our consciousness does not have that much power, to be the ruler of whether things other than ourselves be or not.

The world is not just there for us.

Reply to Wayfarer But - and this is the audacity of QM - Wheeler is entirely right. Of course we participate in the universe. We participate in the universe just like everything else participates in the universe. We do not stand apart from the universe as though we are not of the same stuff as it. This is why consciousness is irrelevant. We are physical systems no different to other physical systems, which means that physics can teach us something about ourselves and not just things that are 'out there, independent of us'. I don't think you even realise just how horrible this line of thought is for people like you, and that you're basically defending the noose from which idealism will hang. This is the real lesson of QM, and I'm quite glad that you've stumbled across it.

Reply to TheWillowOfDarkness ON the contrary - as Wheeler says [although SLX says I don’t understand anything he says] - that we are ‘a patch of the Universe coming to know itself’. And I can’t see how that can possibly be incorrect? What else is there for us to be?

Oh, and sorrry I was impolite, I take it back.

Reply to Wayfarer

We are a patch of the universe coming to know itself. No-one is disagreeing with Wheeler there.

It in being that minute patch of the universe which kills these sort of issues of consciousness. If our consciousness were to be the definition of other parts of the world, of anything we might observe, encounter or be in relation with, we would be claiming to be more than one small patch of the universe.

If my consciousness is going to define the existence of almost other things, I am literally claiming all those things belong to my patch, that they are there by my existence. It would mean I was no one small patch, but a huge patch of everything, a sort of small scale solipsism, where everything I see (for example) is literally my existence.

Reply to TheWillowOfDarkness You make a valid point that this quest for a coherent explanation for consciousness should not be reduced to solipsism. Kastrup, for those who may be inclined to read him, makes the case against solipsism in his model, which at least attempts to put that argument against idealism to rest.

Quoting StreetlightX

This is why consciousness is irrelevant. We are physical systems no different to other physical systems, which means that physics can teach us something about ourselves and not just things that are 'out there, independent of us'. I don't think you even realise just how horrible this line of thought is for people like you, and just how much this totally and utterly ruins idealist thought. This is the real lesson of QM, and I'm quite glad that you've stumbled across it.

As I just said to Willow, and as I read Wheeler as saying - humans are 'the universe coming to know itself'. But that is not something 'physical' - or rather, the realisation that this is the case means that what we previously thought of as physical, actual stuff, entities and particles and the like, are not actually fundamental. What is fundamental? Well, Wheeler says that our participation actually creates the Universe out of the cloud of possibilities. He said, and I quoted it, that the source of all physical things is an 'immaterial mystery'. 'No phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon'. John Archibald Wheeler

What kind of 'physicalism' is that?

And what other 'physical systems' are we 'no different to'? Which other 'physical systems' can you nominate, that discover physics, argue philosophy on forums, weigh and measure the Universe?

You know that many of the first-generation quantum physicists were idealist philosophers in their own right? Arthur Eddington, James Jeans ('the universe appears more a great mind than a great machine'), Schrodinger (lifelong student of Schopenhauer and Vedanta)? Right? (See this review). Are you familiar with Heisenberg's Physics and Philosophy, which is a pretty well full-blown endorsement of 'Plato over Democritus'? Are you familiar with Neils Bohr's Coat of Arms, which he devised because he felt his 'principle of complementarity' was reflected by the Tao?



So - what can you possibly mean by 'not idealist'?

Wayfarer:Well, Wheeler says that our participation actually creates the Universe out of the cloud of possibilities. What kind of 'physicalism' is that?

I don't know Wheeler's self-identification on such a metaphysical issues, but going on the content given, the best kind: some sort non-reductive physicalism or materialism which recognises materiality is in being a state of existence, as opposed to underlying particles which explain everything.

In this the supposed problem of materiality is deflated because each existing thing is defined in its meaning. An instance of a red light, for example, would be a material state. The conceptual meaning is of the state itself rather than just our consciousness. No longer is our experience need to ground the definition of the object. It can be there when no-one is looking at it because the concept is of the existing state itself. We are not required for it to be.

Quoting Wayfarer

'No phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon'. John Archibald Wheeler

Yep, where 'observation' is 'an irreversible act of amplification such as the blackening of a grain of silver bromide emulsion or the triggering of a photodetector' (Wheeler's words). Which of course is physical. Coupled with the fact that '''Consciousness' has nothing whatsoever to do with the quantum process' - again, Wheeler's line - it doesn't leave much room for equivocation indeed. Our participation does indeed 'create the Universe out of the 'cloud of possibilities'' - but then, so does the participation of everything else, of which we are just a 'patch'. Observation = measurement = interaction, where our interaction - that of a bunch of moderately clever apes on a small watery rock in the middle of nowhere - is the same as all interaction, everywhere.

The implications of QM count among the most radically anti-humanist, non-anthropormophic levelling operations I know. It places us smack bang in the middle of the universe, and because of which, make of us perishable, finite, and contingent 'patches' destined to irredeemable extinction, just like all the other patches, of which we do not differ from in any interesting way.

Reply to Wayfarer Not to mention "There is no out there out there" ... Was that not Wheeler? Does this not implicitly bring into doubt the notion of a consciousness-independent cosmos?

[quote=StreetlightX]Which of course is physical. [/quote]

It’s an act of interpretation - which is the entire point.

Reply to Wayfarer Sure, if you want to call bromide emulsion 'interpretation', be my guest. But you no longer get to whine about 'observation' being used in a way in which mummy and daddy didn't teach you. Turns out, you can do violence to language too.

Quoting StreetlightX

Observation = measurement = interaction, where our interaction - that of a bunch of moderately clever apes on a small watery rock in the middle of nowhere - is the same as all interaction, everywhere.

:roll:

Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness

It can be there when no-one is looking at it because the concept is of the existing state itself. We are not required for it to be.

Reply to TheWillowOfDarkness Again, the Idealist take on this is that there is an existing state in itself that remains in the absence of a finite locus of mind, and yet exists as an emanation of some some source that transcends that finite locus of mind, while at the same time not being separate from it. In other words, a model of a self-observing cosmos, as per Wheeler ...

As usual, the fact that Wheeler explicitly disavows the role of consciousness is quietly ignored, as though a minor inconvenience to a position trying to ventriloquize others to say the opposite of what they do. The usual mendaciousness from a position defined by its dishonesty.

Here it is again, for good measure: '''Consciousness' has nothing whatsoever to do with the quantum process'.

It's also perhaps worth mentioning that when a picture of a coat of arms becomes one's lynchpin for a discussion of quantum physics, one can only presume that the barrel of argument has been scraped so low that the floor is now showing.

Quoting Wayfarer

?Andrew M Fair enough, I stand corrected. But I still think it’s a legitimate question as to whether any actual ‘registration’ has occurred in the absence of an observer, who in such cases, creates the very machine which records the observation.

Isn't that just a question of the logic of the language used? But whether or not a conscious observer is present (say, before life emerged on Earth), physical systems interact as described by the rules of quantum mechanics. Would you agree?

Reply to StreetlightX Can you explain what Wheeler is referring to in this interview, when he speaks of "We by our choice of observing device ...", if not an inextricable connection between the device and the conscious entity that is using it as an extension of one's sensory capacity, since the device itself, being comprised of nothing but quantum interaction, must also be observer-dependent.

Reply to snowleopard Sure. The measurement we get is defined by how we set up our devices for measurement. We may choose one way, or another way, but whatever we choose, the measurement is determined, for all that, by the set-up of the apparatus. That this process is an entirely determined one is important to understand: our choice of this or that apparatus may be arbitrary, but once we've chosen the set-up, the results will always be consistent and determined by that set up. This is what makes quantum measurement always a matter of pure objectivity: the results will always be invariant relative to the particular physical set-up. Bohr himself was very clear about this:

"In the first place, we must recognize that a measurement can mean nothing else than the unambiguous comparison of some property of the object under investigation with a corresponding property of another system, serving as a measuring instrument, and for which this property is directly determinable according to its definition in everyday language or in the terminology of classical physics."

And elsewhere: "In the system to which the quantum mechanical formalism is applied, it is of
course possible to include any intermediate auxiliary agency employed in the measuring processes. Since, however, all those properties of such agencies which, according to the aim of the measurement, have to be compared with corresponding properties of the object, must be described on classical lines, their quantum mechanical treatment will for this purpose be essentially equivalent with a classical description. The question of eventually including such agencies within the system under investigation is thus purely a matter of practical convenience, just as in classical physical measurements; and such displacements of the section between object and measuring instruments can therefore never involve any arbitrariness in the description of a phenomenon and its quantum mechanical treatment.

The only significant point is that in each case some ultimate measuring instruments, like the scales and clocks which determine the frame of space-time coordination—on which, in the last resort, even the definitions of momentum and energy quantities rest—must always be described entirely on classical lines, and consequently kept outside the system subject to quantum mechanical treatment". (quoted in Barad, Meeting The Universe Halfway, my bolding). Or to put it otherwise, there is no role - at all - for subjectivity in the measurement of quantum phenomena.

Reply to StreetlightX Well I remain unconvinced ... Since the device itself is not other than a potential field of possibilities unless an observer is factored in, the idea that the device is 'observing' something seems entirely dependent upon the conscious agent that is observing it, making the whole system of wave-function collapse, measuring device and conscious agent inextricably entangled, in turn making the distinction between a self-observing system and a self-conscious system rather ambiguous. But we may never resolve this while we are coming at it from completely different and incongruent ontological premises. And so, alas, I'm not sure that I'm much further ahead in my search for a model that adequately explains one's conscious experience, or that much progress is going to made in this debate. But it has fostered some very interesting, entertaining and much appreciated discussion, input and feedback if nothing else.

Quoting snowleopard

Since the device itself is not other than a potential field of possibilities unless an observer is factored in...

This sentence doesn't make any sense.

Still, there is narrow sense in which you are right about your general point: that we are inextricably involved in the set-up of a particular apparatus plays a role - however ambiguous and distant - in the realization of one measurement outcome rather than another. But this doesn't warrant any philosophical generalization insofar as it's ultimately a tautology: we are involved in the things that we are involved in. To which one must add: and we are not involved in the things that we are not involved in.

And short of begging the question that we are involved in all quantum processes everywhere - as if this statement could even mean anything - there's no warrant to move from this to the idea that quantum processes require human or conscious intervention. Tautologies don't licence valid conclusions.

Quoting snowleopard

Well I remain unconvinced ... Since the device itself is not other than a potential field of possibilities unless an observer is factored in, the idea that the device is 'observing' something seems entirely dependent upon the conscious agent that is observing it,

One thing to note is that this discussion isn't really about the way the world works, its about what constitutes quantum theory. Therefore, the best resource would just be state of the art scientific opinions.

If it were about the way the world works, the resource would be the wider world of speculative physics, which is anything but static.

The nice thing about backing out of science into pure logic is that your opinion really does matter in that domain, plus its much less likely that the whole landscape will be washed away by the next successful theory (as is true in science).

Quoting StreetlightX

This sentence doesn't make any sense.

How so? According to QM, is the device not comprised of nothing other than interacting quantum fluctuations in the zero-point field? What is rendering that process observable, if not a conscious agent?

Reply to frank Yeah, I get that. The OP is really about accounting for conscious experience, and if and how idealism might account for it, which then became about how quantum theory might account for it, which apparently for some QM theorists is irrelevant and of no significant consequence. Kastrup and other idealists positing the primacy of consciousness happen to disagree with those theorists, but that's not likely to convince them otherwise, or vice versa. And thus I remain in a quandary, until some more convincing case can be made, whatever the ontological premise.

Reply to Wayfarer I am. The double-slit experiment does not imply that its outcomes are the result of consciousness.

If, for instance, a photon came across a double slit without it being built by anyone then the interference pattern would be the same. It's not that our setting up the double slit made the interference pattern -- any double slit would do, seen or not.

And if it's being seen is what's at issue here, then any old example would work just as well -- QM wouldn't need to be invoked. QM would be just as pertinent as any other example, such as a tree falling in a forest where no one is around.

Reply to snowleopard I'm curious what you mean by 'accounting for consciousness.'

Reply to Moliere Again, as long as the mindsets involved are coming at this from different and incongruent ontological premises, one that includes the primacy of consciousness, and one that excludes it, it seems that unless those premises can somehow be reconciled, then this debate will not be resolvable, no?

Quoting snowleopard

According to QM, is the device not comprised of nothing other than interacting quantum fluctuations in the zero-point field?

Huh? QM has nothing to say about what a device 'is'. A double slit experiment might involve a device that includes a photographic plate, a light source, a double slit diaphragm, a single slit diaphragm, and ideally a dark room. This is what Bohr had in mind when he spoke of an apparatus:



This being, after all, his drawing. Perhaps you might want a mirror or a spring to create a 'which-path' detector. Bohr actaully spends a great deal of timing describing and talking about the apparatus, because he understood very well that the results one would see where vitally all about the apparatus set up.

Quoting frank

I'm curious what you mean by 'accounting for consciousness.'

Reply to frank More specifcally, I'm asking about how to account for the 'hard problem of consciousness' insofar as physicalist models based on mind being an epiphenomenon of brain activity have so far been unable to adequately account for it, and therefore I'm inquiring into other possible ways to account for it, such as from the perspective of idealism, which posits consciousness, in the sense of a Mind-at-large, as the ontological primitive, and not as an emergent phenomenon. There could be other ways, such as Donald Hoffman's 'conscious realism', or some analogous VR-based models, digital informational models, etc.

Quoting StreetlightX

QM has nothing to say about what a device 'is'

Huh? Quantum theory has nothing to say about what the device is in essence?! How else would a physicist explain what it is?

Reply to snowleopard Yes. In fact I'd say that it's not a resolvable debate at all. We can always save a belief from refutation. That would include beliefs about the fundamental nature of reality.

But a debate need not be resolvable in order for it to be fruitful. For it to be fruitful we would need to have some points on which we do agree.

With respect to QM, though, I'd say I fall more in line with SX in that it just does not say anything about consciousness somehow being involved. There are seven posultes of QM -- http://web.mit.edu/8.05/handouts/jaffe1.pdf

"Observable" has a lot to do with classical mechanics. As in, the wave-equation on which an operator acts is not an observable (edit: and the operator functions a lot like an apparatus -- it operates on the unobservable and, when solved, derives what is observed). It has nothing to do with consciousness. Or, insofar that it does, there are just more straightforward ways of putting the same point without referencing something which most people do not have a good familiarity with -- such as a tree falling in the woods.

I'd say that with respect to physicalism/idealism one such necessary point of agreement in order that we may fruitfully disagree is that we at least understand the facts of a discipline as that discipline understands them before we use it as a point in our argument.

So we might say that QM supports a notion of idealism, but not because consciousness is somehow involved in the outcomes of QM experiments. That's just a misunderstanding of what is being said. (and, truth be told, I'd say that if one can't do the math of QM, then it's fair to say that that person doesn't understand QM -- the formalism is a big part of the theory)

Reply to snowleopard

Here is Schrodinger's equation. Where is the device in it?

Quoting StreetlightX

Where is the device in it?

Until it is observed by a conscious agent, everywhere and nowhere, aka non-locality.

Reply to snowleopard Sigh, I thought you were at least a tad bit serious. Turns out I was wrong. How unfortunate.

Reply to StreetlightX Sigh ... Once again resorting to condescension here will not convince me of any superior understanding of the implications of quantum theory. Anyway, and I'll direct this to @Moliere as well, we've gone off on a tangent here from the intended point of the OP, which was to discuss idealism as an ontological alternative to physicalism and/or panpsychism, or any other model that others here may offer, in terms of their explanatory power with respect to conscious experience. Since QM apparently has no regard for such an explanation, and considers it irrelevant to its outcomes, I'm not even sure it's pertinent to the intended conversation. But carry on, if you feel that it is.

Reply to snowleopard Yeah, I think it's something that comes up mostly out of misunderstanding. I don't think QM has much to say on idealism, either way.

Quoting snowleopard

More specifcally, I'm asking about how to account for the 'hard problem of consciousness' insofar as physicalist models based on mind being an epiphenomenon of brain activity have so far been unable to adequately account for it, and therefore I'm inquiring into other possible ways to account for it, such as from the perspective of idealism, which posits consciousness, in the sense of a Mind-at-large, as the ontological primitive, and not as an emergent phenomenon. There could be other ways, such as Donald Hoffman's 'conscious realism', or some analogous VR-based models, digital informational models, etc.

I see. I've been trying out ontological anti-realism lately. I like the flexibility it provides. It reminds me to keep in mind what we know and what we don't. For instance: if we're looking to science to outline what consciousness has to do with the happenings of the world, maybe we should ask if science even has a working theory of consciousness to build on. Ya know?

Reply to Moliere Yes, it seems we might just as well be discussing the fate of the Cheshire cat rather than Schrodinger's imaginal pussy, in regards to their respective reality 'out there' somewhere indeterminable.

Reply to frank Yes, it appears that we may be at a similar metaphysical crossroad :wink:

Reply to StreetlightX

StreetlightX:Does this entail some really cool philosophical implications? Definitely. But consciousness? Irrelevant noise.

I'm not quite sure I follow you. I thought we were at least all agreed that one of the interesting questions QM invites is how to explain the so-called collapse of the wave function. One answer to that question, with a pedigree almost as old as QM itself, is that it collapses at the moment of conscious observation. Now, whatever role that gives consciousness in QM phenomena is another question, but I don't see why you think it is irrelevant noise. Are the only "cool" implications, as far as you are concerned, implications that ignore the possibilty that idealism might be true?

Reply to Moliere

Moliere:I don't think QM has much to say on idealism, either way.

Interpretations of QM have a lot to say about realism or idealism. Interpretations don't prove realism or idealism, of course, which is perhaps what you mean.

Quoting jkg20

One answer to that question, with a pedigree almost as old as QM itself, is that it collapses at the moment of conscious observation.

No, this doesn't even qualify as a possible answer because a) saying 'consciousness does it' does not explain by what mechanism it would carry out that function, which means that 'consciousness' would be an explanandum and not an explanans; it doesn't even satisfy the minimal criteria for what an explanation - for anything, let alone QM - would be; and 2) That the wave function collapses differentially depending on the physical set of up an apparatus is an actual, testable result of running the experiments. The question is how to interpret this data, a difference in two - or more - outcomes whose parameters we know and can measure objectively. If one admits 'consciousness' as even a possible explanation, one may as well admit 'flufflewumps'; they are both empty words which have no correlate in either the data, or the formalisms, and are as good as meaningless as explanations.. At best, it simply kicks the can down the road. At worst, it is literally bullshit.

Allow be to be a little clearer. If one accepts that the wave function does collapse, then that it collapses in different ways in different circumstances is not in question: the question is why it collapses at all. An answer to that question begins with the idea that it collapses at the moment of conscious observation. If one is a proponent of this type of response you certainly owe an account of exactly how consciousness is involved in the process, but I still don't see why you believe it is meaningless noise right from the word go.
Anyway, there are QM theorists who believe that the wave function doesn't collapse in the first place.

Quoting jkg20

Anyway, there are QM theorists who believe that the wave function doesn't collapse in the first place.

I happen to be one in the 'no collapse' camp, though I'm happy to simply refer to the measurement problem in general by that name because it's so widely referred to as that. Again, consciousness qua explanation is meaningless noise in the same way that flufflwumps is meaningless noise. I could ask you why flufffwumps is meaningless noise as an explanation, and no doubt you could feign open-mindedness by saying 'oh it's just a beginning of an answer', but that would be a bullshit response to an equally bullshit question. If one loosens one's intellectual standards enough, I'm sure anything might be ruled-in as a 'beginning'; one is free to wave hands all day in a promissory manner.

I mean, people can't even agree on a mere definition of consciousness, let alone attempt to even speculate as to how - via what mechanism, or through what specific features - it might play a role in QM. That the toenail on my foot causes the collapse would, on a hierarchy of possible explanation, rank higher than consciousness insofar as I can at least tell you more or less exactly what my toenail is, and describe its features. It doesn't leverage the unexplained to explain the unexplained, unlike the appeal to 'consciousness', which is no doubt why the latter even has the veneer of plausibility, and is so popular among purveyors of quantum woo and other magical thinking, for whom ignorance is a virtue - one can't definitively argue against a position that is literally empty of content.

Reply to jkg20 I don't see it. What's the argument?

Wiki doesn't give a very good overview, from my perspective. Not one that utilizes QM specifically -- we could just say that objects ultimately reside in our conscious experience of objects, and say the same thing as the wave-function collapses at the point in the causal chain within the mind.

The reference to QM adds nothing to that point.

What I see is sort of more of the same here as I see in Kastrup -- scientists too naive in philosophy doing bad philosophy.

Heisenberg, at one point after Copenhagen Interpretation had been "unveiled", told a room of philosophers that QM demonstrated how Kant was wrong because it showed we could know the thing-in-itself. Heisenberg was a brilliant mind. He even has some interesting philosophical speculations. But just because he was a founder doesn't mean everything he had to say on the topic was correct. This is one of those times.

I sort of get the same feeling here. When I look at the basic formalism and seminal experiments of QM I don't see how a reference to consciousness or idealism in interpreting that formalism makes sense of it. So maybe some physicists smarter than me believed such-and-such -- at the end of the day I just don't see how the argument follows. What lends this interpretation credence? Why should I believe it?

It seems to me that references to consciousness in interpreting QM just obfuscates rather than clarifies -- and from the examples I've seen in this thread and links it seems that the argument for idealism could be accomplished just as well without referencing QM.

It seems ever more apparent that given the absence of any consensus as to however or whatever consciousness may be, it's no wonder QM physicists can't rule it in ... and yet how can it be ruled out? As such, one wonders if they are destined to go ever deeper into a maze of quasi-interpretations with apparently no way out, missing some crucial unitary lead. From what I've gathered here, somehow I'm not optimistic.

Reply to Moliere

Moliere: the argument for idealism could be accomplished just as well without referencing QM.

Couldn't agree more - in fact I think I wrote somewhere at the beginning of this thread that idealism can be argued for entirely independently of QM. I've never seen a convincing argument of the form: if QM is true, idealism is true; QM is true, therefore idealism is true. Of course, if idealism is true, then there will presumably have to be some correct idealistic interpretation of QM to be given.

Quoting snowleopard

It seems ever more apparent that given the absence of any consensus as to however or whatever consciousness may be, it's no wonder QM physicists can't rule it in ... and yet how can it be ruled out?

And there we go: ignorance as a virtue. The ever thinning breathing room for idealism measured by the distance between what we know and what we don't: the space of unironically celebrated incomprehension where it has always lived.

Reply to StreetlightX Well I await with bated breath some alternate coherent explanation that will resolve it .. but I won't hold my breath waiting for yours.

Quoting Andrew M

Isn't that just a question of the logic of the language used? But whether or not a conscious observer is present (say, before life emerged on Earth), physical systems interact as described by the rules of quantum mechanics. Would you agree?

The whole import of the ‘delayed choice experiment’ seems anti-realist.

At issue, is the very meaning of the word ‘physical’. The difficulty is that the precise nature of whatever it is that is being measured can’t be ascertained with certainty prior to the act of measurement.

Again the whole question assumes a realist perspective which is the very thing being called into question.

Reply to StreetlightX

I mean, people can't even agree on a mere definition of consciousness, let alone attempt to even speculate as to how - via what mechanism, or through what specific features - it might play a role in QM.

Sure, people might not be able to agree about a definition, but - unless you are a cranky eliminative materialist - there is something being disagreed about. "flufffwumps" - well, if I were to ask you what that was, you wouldn't even be able to point me to a literature of disagreement with which to get started. That's one difference between "consciousness" and "flufffwumps", and its a pretty significant one, and goes someway to saving the former from "meaninglessness" whilst leaving the latter as drivel.

Reply to jkg20 Indeed, a google search of flufffwumps reveals zero results, while consciousness reveals 133,000,000 ... no contest.

Reply to snowleopard Could always be 133,000,000 pieces of drivel :wink:

Reply to jkg20 No doubt much of it may well be. But whatever portion of it may be the due to the viable attempts of those who are willing to risk going into unknown territory, as opposed to those who criticize and jeer and laugh at them while offering no attempt of their own, I will welcome and encourage.

Quoting Moliere

I don't think QM has much to say on idealism, either way.

Not being a physics graduate, I am restricted to reading popular books on the topic, the two most recent being Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality, Manjit Kumar, and David Lindley: Uncertainty - Einstein, Heisenberg and Bohr and the Struggle for the Soul of Science. Notice the dramatic nature of the titles - ‘struggling for the soul’ of science, and ‘debating the nature of reality’. Both books relate the anecdote of a young Heisenberg being reduced to tears on one occasion by the passion of the debate. Both books also note that the big questions remain.

There’s a good review of Kumar’s book here and Lindley’s here. The essential argument between Bohr and Einstein was precisely about scientific realism - the sense in which the objects of analysis [which after all were supposed to be the “building blocks” of the Universe] could be said to exist in the absence of their being observed. As the first review notes:

Bohr's "Copenhagen interpretation", which became orthodoxy for most of the century, still has the power to shock. What it states, baldly, is that reality is determined by the experiment the scientist chooses to perform. One kind of experiment will cause light to behave like a particle; another kind will make it act as a wave. There is no underlying truth about what light "really" is. And an electron doesn't have a definite position in space before you choose to measure it: in measuring it, you somehow oblige it to make up its mind as to where it is.

So - the ‘ontological implications’ of this are what was at issue in the debates between Bohr and Einstein. It’s all about what is really there, prior to it being measured. Is it a wave or a particle? Is it in a particular place? I think the so-called ‘copenhagen’ view is that there is no ‘it’ until it is measured. And that’s why it has a philosophical dimension: we’re purportedly debating the most fundamental reality, and yet can’t say what it is independent of the act of measuring it.

Einstein would pose sophisticated thought experiments intended to show that quantum mechanics could not be correct or complete; and the Kumar book shows how Bohr met each of those challenges. This culminated in the so-called ‘EPR paradox’ which Einstein posed as an iron-clad defeater of ‘spooky action at a distance’. And it was that which eventually lead to John Bell and then Alain Aspect experiments, which worked out against Einstein’s realist views. [Indeed the very principle discovered by this means is now being exploited by science for cryptography - see this article].

As for idealism - as I said before, there are numerous physicists who have an adopted an idealist view of philosophy as a consequence of the discoveries of QM. Of course, there are also those who are opposed to such views. The whole point is that whoever is right or wrong is not a scientific question but a metaphysical one - and this is very much still a live debate, it is by no means settled and doesn’t look like being so anytime soon.

[There’s also a political dimension to this whole debate which I think is being amply demonstrated by some of the comments being made.]

Wayfarer, you might enjoy "What is Real" by Adam Becker.

Reply to Torbill Thanks! I'll look into it. Notice the first sentences of the jacket blurb:

Every physicist agrees quantum mechanics is among humanity's finest scientific achievements. But ask what it means, and the result will be a brawl.

Ain't that the truth! :grin:

Quoting Wayfarer

The whole import of the ‘delayed choice experiment’ seems anti-realist.

It isn't. The results are just what one would expect from QM.

Quoting Wayfarer

At issue, is the very meaning of the word ‘physical’. The difficulty is that the precise nature of whatever it is that is being measured can’t be ascertained with certainty prior to the act of measurement.

It can if the assumption of counterfactual (value) definiteness is dropped. Which is what both Many Worlds and RQM do. Which is to say, they reject classical realism and accept quantum realism.

Quoting Wayfarer

Again the whole question assumes a realist perspective which is the very thing being called into question.

A realist perspective is assumed because that is the way to construct a physical theory that is conceptually coherent.

Reply to Andrew M

A realist perspective is assumed because that is the way to construct a physical theory that is conceptually coherent.

A realist interpretation (quantum or otherwise) may be coherent, but this comment sounds like you are suggesting that anything other than a realist interpretation of physical theory (for instance, an instrumentalist one) would be incoherent. You would need to have a strong argument for that, independent, of course, of the bare (and ceded) fact that a realist interpretation of QM is coherent.

Quoting Andrew M

A realist perspective is assumed because that is the way to construct a physical theory that is conceptually coherent.

Ontological realism isn't necessary to physics. There are idealistic and physical schemes that are compatible with any sort of physics. Scientists don't need to sort that kind of issue out. They dont need an extra label: idea stuff vs physical stuff.

Or were you talking about some other kind of realism?

Quoting Wayfarer

So - the ‘ontological implications’ of this are what was at issue in the debates between Bohr and Einstein. It’s all about what is really there, prior to it being measured. Is it a wave or a particle? Is it in a particular place? I think the so-called ‘copenhagen’ view is that there is no ‘it’ until it is measured. And that’s why it has a philosophical dimension: we’re purportedly debating the most fundamental reality, and yet can’t say what it is independent of the act of measuring it.

I don't deny that there is a philosophical dimension. Heck, I don't think there's a reasonable difference between science and philosophy.

Specifically, though, I don't see any connection between idealism and QM. The position of a photon is unknown until it is measured. Therefore, Idealism. What's missing in between to connect the two?

There's a big difference, from my view, between scientific realism, realism, physicalism, and idealism. All of these say different things. So when Bohr and Einstein argue over whether or not the probability in QM is due to the apparatus alone or because reality itself behaves in accord with probability that just does not say the same thing as the wave-function collapses because of consciousness is the fundamental nature of reality.


Something you start off with but I want to address:

Quoting Wayfarer

Not being a physics graduate, I am restricted to reading popular books on the topic

While I do believe QM is difficult, I do not believe that you have to be a physics graduate to speak intelligibly on QM. There is something more to the knowledge produced than the mere certification of an institution. All you need to do is be knowledgeable, which takes work. Histories are great. I actually own one of the books you recommended there :D (the one by Kumar). I don't think science can be understood apart from its history. But neither can it be understood strictly as stories of great scientific men. There is also a theory to understand as well.

And you don't need some degree to say you understand it. You just need to learn it, and you can do so with time and effort.

Not that you have to do so. But it makes sense for someone to know something before they have an opinion on its implications, doesn't it?

I certainly don't understand all of QM. I have no problem admitting that. But from the get-go it just seems a strange thing to say that the statement ,"Consciousness is the fundamental base of all existence" has anything to do with it, from what I do know about it.

Quoting jkg20

A realist interpretation (quantum or otherwise) may be coherent, but this comment sounds like you are suggesting that anything other than a realist interpretation of physical theory (for instance, an instrumentalist one) would be incoherent. You would need to have a strong argument for that, independent, of course, of the bare (and ceded) fact that a realist interpretation of QM is coherent.

I'm just referring to realism vs idealism here where we are looking for a coherent mechanism, not just an instrumental use of a formalism.

Quoting frank

Ontological realism isn't necessary to physics. There are idealistic and physical schemes that are compatible with any sort of physics. Scientists don't need to sort that kind of issue out. They dont need an extra label: idea stuff vs physical stuff.

Or were you talking about some other kind of realism?

Yes. I'm not drawing a distinction between physical stuff and idea stuff - I think that (dualistic) idea is incoherent as well. My view is Aristotelian realism, which is that substance is primary and ideas about substance are secondary. That doesn't necessarily commit to what the nature of this or that substance is - and so may accord with, say, a Berkelyean idealism in many respects. But conceptually, the stuff comes first, the awareness of that stuff second.

What I think is incoherent is the idea that awareness of stuff somehow causes it to exist.

Quoting Moliere

I don't see any connection between idealism and QM. The position of a photon is unknown until it is measured. Therefore, Idealism. What's missing in between to connect the two?

The role of observation in determining an outcome - not by 'interfering with' or physically causing an effect, but simply observing. It seems to implicate the mind of the observer.

Quoting Moliere

from the get-go it just seems a strange thing to say that the statement "Consciousness is the fundamental base of all existence" has anything to do with it, from what I do know about it.

I think the deployment of the word 'consciousness' itself muddies the waters somewhat. Also, in my considered view, there are many uninformed criticisms of what people understand 'idealism' to mean on this forum. Anyway, there's an address by Heisenberg called 'The Debate between Plato and Democritus'. Heisenberg has this to say (and sorry for the length of the excerpt, but it is relevant to your question):

[i]During the nineteenth century, the development of chemistry and the theory of heat conformed very closely tot he ideas first put forward by Leucippus and Democritus. A revival of the materialist philosophy in its modern form, that of dialectical materialism, was this a natural counterpart to the impressive advances made during this period in chemistry and physics. The concept of the atom had proved exceptionally fruitful in the explanation of chemical bonding and the physical behavior of gases. It was soon, however, that the particles called atoms by the chemist were composed of still smaller units. But these smaller units, the electrons, followed by the atomic nuclei and finally the elementary particles, protons and neutrons, also still seemed to be atoms from the standpoint of the materialist philosophy. The fact that, at least indirectly, one can actually see a single elementary particle—in a cloud chamber, say, or a bubble chamber—supports the view that the smallest units of matter are real physical objects, existing in the same sense that stones or flowers do.

But the inherent difficulties of the materialist theory of the atom, which had become apparent even in the ancient discussions about smallest particles, have also appeared very clearly in the development of physics during the present century.

This difficulty relates to the question whether the smallest units are ordinary physical objects, whether they exist in the same way as stones or flowers. Here, the development of quantum theory some forty years ago has created a complete change in the situation. The mathematically formulated laws of quantum theory show clearly that our ordinary intuitive concepts cannot be unambiguously applied to the smallest particles. All the words or concepts we use to describe ordinary physical objects, such as position, velocity, color, size, and so on, become indefinite and problematic if we try to use then of elementary particles. I cannot enter here into the details of this problem, which has been discussed so frequently in recent years. But it is important to realize that, while the behavior of the smallest particles cannot be unambiguously described in ordinary language, the language of mathematics is still adequate for a clear-cut account of what is going on.

During the coming years, the high-energy accelerators will bring to light many further interesting details about the behavior of elementary particles. But I am inclined to think that the answer just considered to the old philosophical problems will turn out to be final. If this is so, does this answer confirm the views of Democritus or Plato?

I think that on this point modern physics has definitely decided for Plato. For the smallest units of matter are, in fact, not physical objects in the ordinary sense of the word; they are forms, structures or—in Plato's sense—Ideas, which can be unambiguously spoken of only in the language of mathematics.[/i]

I underlined that phrase as to whether 'they exist in the same way' as ordinary objects, because I think it's important. And overall, I think it's fair to say that Heisenberg's attitude to the philosophy of physics favoured some form of idealist philosophy, as did some (but not all) of his peers.

Quoting Moliere

But it makes sense for someone to know something before they have an opinion on its implications, doesn't it?

Put it this way, I try to remain aware of my limitations, which are considerable.

Quoting Andrew M

Yes. I'm not drawing a distinction between physical stuff and idea stuff - I think that (dualistic) idea is incoherent as well.

Dualism isn't incoherent, it's just problematic.

Quoting Andrew M

What I think is incoherent is the idea that awareness of stuff somehow causes it to exist.

But that isn't what measuring devices are supposed to do in the Copenhagen interpretation is it? The stuff is there. It just doesnt have any location and so forth.

So the quantum idealist (if that's what they should be called) are realists in the sense you're using.

Quoting Andrew M

What I think is incoherent is the idea that awareness of stuff somehow causes it to exist.

Stuff?! ... There's stuff?! How come physicists haven't found it? :wink:

Quoting jkg20

Sure, people might not be able to agree about a definition, but - unless you are a cranky eliminative materialist - there is something being disagreed about. "flufffwumps" - well, if I were to ask you what that was, you wouldn't even be able to point me to a literature of disagreement with which to get started. That's one difference between "consciousness" and "flufffwumps", and its a pretty significant one, and goes someway to saving the former from "meaninglessness" whilst leaving the latter as drivel.

Ah, so the argument is that because consciousness isn't literally meaningless, it ought to be a contender for explanation? That's the bar you've set? Not, of course, that this in any way addresses the fact that it remains a case of appealing to the unexplained to explain the unexplained. Nor the fact that conciousness is as functionally useless as an explanation for QM as flufflwumps, regardless of the dexterousness of one's Googling. I suppose one looks for consolation anywhere one can get it, when everything else about a position is literal trash.

Quoting Wayfarer

The role of observation in determining an outcome - not by 'interfering with' or physically causing an effect, but simply observing. It seems to implicate the mind of the observer.

So in what way is this example any different than, say, that of a tree falling in a forest?

Because the word "observe" you use here really does mean something different, as SX pointed out. "observation from a mind determines the outcome" is not what's being said.

Quoting Wayfarer

I underlined that phrase as to whether 'they exist in the same way' as ordinary objects, because I think it's important. And overall, I think it's fair to say that Heisenberg's attitude to the philosophy of physics favoured some form of idealist philosophy, as did some (but not all) of his peers.

He did, yes. But here's the mistake in the quote -- there are more options than between Democritus and Plato. We don't have two choices, either Democritus or Plato, between which we must choose. There are more options. We are even free to create our own.

Also this still doesn't relate to a notion of "observer" as you are using the word. It's not just that there is a mind passively observing which causes an outcome, therefore Plato. Heisenberg had some idealist notions as did Bohr about the world. But that doesn't mean that QM automatically implies idealism, either. We don't have to bow before the masters and follow them in everything they believed. We are right to ask why they came to their conclusions.

Quoting Wayfarer

Put it this way, I try to remain aware of my limitations, which are considerable

That's not exactly answering my question.

Before we can reasonably infer what some bit of knowledge implies, we must first know that bit of knowledge. Yes or no?

Quoting Moliere

The role of observation in determining an outcome - not by 'interfering with' or physically causing an effect, but simply observing. It seems to implicate the mind of the observer. — Wayfarer

Because the word "observe" you use here really does mean something different, as SX pointed out. "observation from a mind determines the outcome" is not what's being said.

You can tell Wayfarer he is literally, factually wrong about this till you're blue in the face, and he'll still insist, against all reality, the the question of observation is 'ambigious'. Reality doesn't suit his preconceived notions, see. So he will flat out lie and fudge it instead. Some dishonest misquoting here, some fluff about Plato there, all par for the charlatan course.

Quoting Moliere

The role of observation in determining an outcome - not by 'interfering with' or physically causing an effect, but simply observing. It seems to implicate the mind of the observer.

— Wayfarer

So in what way is this example any different than, say, that of a tree falling in a forest?

The hypothetical question 'if a tree falls in the forest' is another way of posing the question and is often used to stimulate discussion on this very topic. It is a 'thought experiment' in philosophy, and again, not a question answerable by physics.

Wikipedia has this to say:

[quote=Wikipedia]The Copenhagen interpretation is the oldest and probably still the most widely held interpretation of quantum mechanics.[4][5][6] Most generally it posits something in the act of observation which results in the collapse of the wave function. According to the von Neumann–Wigner interpretation the causative agent in this collapse is consciousness.[7] How this could happen is widely disputed. [/quote]

Which is indeed what is being disputed here. So - this Wikipedia article is wrong in stating that 'something in the act of observation results in the collapse of the wave function?' Perhaps, Wikipedia being a user-edited resource, someone here might correct it.

Regarding Many Worlds:

Hugh Everett's many-worlds interpretation attempts to solve the problem by suggesting there is only one wave function, the superposition of the entire universe, and it never collapses—so there is no measurement problem. Instead, the act of measurement is simply an interaction between quantum entities, e.g. observer, measuring instrument, electron/positron etc., which entangle to form a single larger entity, for instance living cat/happy scientist. Everett also attempted to demonstrate the way that in measurements the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics would appear; work later extended by Bryce DeWitt.

So when an MWI advocate says that:

Quoting Andrew M

A realist perspective is assumed because that is the way to construct a physical theory that is conceptually coherent.

...it ought to be said that this 'conceptual coherence' is maintained at the cost of accepting that:

... all possible alternate histories and futures are real, each representing an actual "world" (or "universe"). In layman's terms, the hypothesis states there is a very large—perhaps infinite —number of universes, and everything that could possibly have happened in our past, but did not, has occurred in the past of some other universe or universes.

...
Quoting Moliere

We don't have to bow before the masters and follow them in everything they believed. We are right to ask why they came to their conclusions.

But if you say flat-out, outright, that 'philosophical idealism is not relevant to the issues raised by quantum mechanics', then you'd be mistaken. And furthermore, it is not a resolved issue, and may never be. The 'copenhagen interpretation', which is not a philosophical school of thought, or scientific theory, but simply a collection of aphoristic observations, is one amongst various others. But it remains a vexed question (and I think will always be, fortunately.)

The second point is that what is at stake, again, is the notion of an independently-existing, real, physical entity, the 'point-particle' that acts as a 'building block of reality'. The reason this is a vexed question at all, is because of that. The question is, what is the nature of reality? That's why it's a philosophical issue.

Quoting Moliere

There's the mistake in the quote

There may be more choices, but Heisenberg chose 'Plato and Democritus' as representative of idealism and materialism, respectively. (Apparently there is considerably more detail in his book, On Physics and Philosophy, but I haven't read it. The article I am referring to is here.)

By the way - in doing a bit more reading on this issue, I have discovered yet another model, called QBism, Quantum Bayesianism. There's a Quantum Magazine interview with Christopher Fuchs on it here. I find this a congenial attitude:

[b]In one of your papers, you mention that Erwin Schrödinger wrote about the Greek influence on our concept of reality, and that it’s a historical contingency that we speak about reality without including the subject — the person doing the speaking. Are you trying to break the spell of Greek thinking?
Schrödinger thought that the Greeks had a kind of hold over us — they saw that the only way to make progress in thinking about the world was to talk about it without the “knowing subject” in it. QBism goes against that strain by saying that quantum mechanics is not about how the world is without us; instead it’s precisely about us in the world. The subject matter of the theory is not the world or us but us-within-the-world, the interface between the two.[/b]

It’s so ingrained in us to think about the world without thinking of ourselves in it. It reminds me of Einstein questioning space and time — these features of the world that seemed so absolute that no one even thought to question them.

It’s said that in earlier civilizations, people didn’t quite know how to distinguish between objective and subjective. But once the idea of separating the two gained a toehold, we were told that we have to do this, and that science is about the objective. And now that it’s done, it’s hard to turn back. I think the biggest fear people have of QBism is precisely this: that it’s anthropocentric. The feeling is, we got over that with Copernicus, and this has got to be a step backwards. But I think if we really want a universe that’s rife with possibility with no ultimate limits on it, this is exactly where you’ve got to go.

How does QBism get you around those limits?

One way to look at it is that the laws of physics aren’t about the stuff “out there.” Rather, they are our best expressions, our most inclusive statements, of what our own limitations are.

So the point here is that this is a philosophy that explicitly accepts that 'the subject' has a role, is part of the landscape. Whereas, the whole conceit of a lot of science is that things are seen from a viewpoint of ultimate objectivity. So I think this is a promising development, from my perspective at least.

//ps// also a brief review by Peter Woit of one of the books mentioned a page back or so, Adam Becker's 'What is Real?' (hey, note the title, again), with some responses to the review by the author.

Oh look, when challanged about a concrete point - the meaning of observation - pivot entirely and bring in some last-minute Googled irrelvencies passed off as 'reading'. A master-class in having to never commit or defend a point. Should have posted another coat-of-arms picture again, just to further distract from your inability to actually say anything of relevance.

Hey, StreetlightX, as you're one of

Quoting StreetlightX

a bunch of moderately clever apes on a small watery rock in the middle of nowhere

Then I deem your contributions unworthy of further response. I'm sure you'll understand.

Of course I understand. Sophists don't like being called out on their bullshit. It's embarrassing to be shown up time and time again for your know-nothingisms. Speaking of, it's worth mentioning also that the idea that one has to buy into the MWI to maintain realism is also a falsehood, and yet another total fabrication on your part. Not of course that you actually put forward any arguments for the idea so much as it just spilled out of you as so much of your other trash.

Seriously. Explicit misquotations. Articles that misrepresent their subjects. Essays on Plato and Democritus that have nothing to do with the science. Obfuscations and lies about what 'observation' entails. Pictures of coats-of-arms. And now falsehoods about realism and MWI. Literally everything you say is either a lie or an irrelevancy, and you think you're taking some sort of high ground? Better to dodge than to have any substance I guess.

Quoting Wayfarer

The hypothetical question 'if a tree falls in the forest' is another way of posing the question and is often used to stimulate discussion on this very topic. It is a 'thought experiment' in philosophy, and again, not a question answerable by physics.

If it's the same, then what is the point in referencing QM? What does that add to the thought experiment?

Quoting Wayfarer

But if you say flat-out, outright, that 'philosophical idealism is not relevant to the issues raised by quantum mechanics', then you'd be mistaken.

As far as the arguments I see being offered I'd say that this is the appropriate conclusion. A conclusion which may be modified in light of more argument, but I see no good reason to believe that QM implies idealism. It seems to me to remain entirely open, and I suspect ultimately unresolvable by QM. I'll just note real quick here that this is a separate issue from the notion of "observer" in QM though.

Quoting Wayfarer

There may be more choices, but Heisenberg chose 'Plato and Democritus' as representative of idealism and materialism, respectively

And there are more options than idealism vs. materialism. Personally I don't believe either are the case. That's the error Heisenberg is making.

A master, a brilliant mind, but just as human as you or I. It's not like he's alone in making said error. I've made the exact same error before, and probably will again.

But surely you understand that there's more options? It's not like by disproving materialism we suddenly gain idealism, or vice-versa.

Quoting Wayfarer

The second point is that what is at stake, again, is the notion of an independently-existing, real, physical entity, the 'point-particle' that acts as a 'building block of reality'. The reason this is a vexed question at all, is because of that. The question is, what is the nature of reality? That's why it's a philosophical issue.

I don't think I'm disagreeing with any of this. I agree it is a philosophical issue. I agree that these points are debated by Bohr and Einstein.

Where I disagree is that the double slit experiment, and use of the word "observer", implies idealism. That's the specific misreading I'm getting at. It's OK to have misread. I certainly do, and have misread on this very topic. It's complicated after all, yeah?

On a second point unrelated to the misreading, I just don't see a good argument to believe that idealism is implied by QM. For what it's worth, I don't think physicalism is implied either. I simply do not think either are implied. But that's the other disagreement that requires some kind of commitment to the knowledge.

Which brings me to a very simple question I've asked --

In order to reasonably infer what some bit of knowledge implies, we must first know that bit of knowledge. yes or no?

I'm not being rhetorical here. I would answer "Yes". And I would even say we can acquire said knowledge sans-certification. But it seems to me that this is a sticking point between ourselves.

Quoting Wayfarer

So the point here is that this is a philosophy that explicitly accepts that 'the subject' has a role, is part of the landscape. Whereas, the whole conceit of a lot of science is that things are seen from a viewpoint of ultimate objectivity

Isn't this here specifically what concerns you?

You believe the subject has a role in the world. You also believe that certain widespread conceits of science eliminate said subject. So you prefer to present and express scientists who do not, by your view, express that conceit.

I don't have a problem with biases like this. Everyone has them. But it is a problem when said biases get in the way of understanding what's actually being said, such as the case of the observer being interpreted as a mind causing an outcome, because then we're no longer talking about knowledge.

That is important, isn't it? Not rhetorical. I'm looking for that common ground upon which disagreement can take place. You do care that some bit of knowledge is true, don't you? And must we actually understand some knowledge in order to reasonably infer implications from it?

Quoting Moliere

Where I disagree is that the double slit experiment, and use of the word "observer", implies idealism. That's the specific misreading I'm getting at. It's OK to have misread. I certainly do, and have misread on this very topic.

I think the Manjit Kumar book lies out in some detail why it could be considered 'idealist'. Leave out 'consciousness' and leave out 'idealism' - the fact is that in this case, looking at something - i.e. measuring it - has the effect of causing it to exist. That is what is said to be 'outrageous' about it. Bohr said, as I know that you know, 'if you are not shocked by quantum physics then you haven't understood it'. That is why it has remained such a large controversy, to this day. It's part of the 'culture wars' that are going on.

So the reason it can be considered idealist at all, is because it undermines the idea of a mind-independent object, an ultimately-existing particle. Hence many of those Wheeler quotes that were already mentioned. There are many, many more. Have you read about Bernard D'Espagnat? Richard Conn Henry?

Quoting Moliere

That is important, isn't it? Not rhetorical. I'm looking for that common ground upon which disagreement can take place. You do care that some bit of knowledge is true, don't you?

Of course. I think the issue that causes so much heat around this, is that it's a debate about 'what is real' - after all, that is what all the books we're discussing are called! And the de facto view of the secular intelligentsia is that this is a question for science. But the inconvenient truth is that the hardest of hard sciences, namely physics, has now torpedoed this beneath the waterline. That is the cause of all the sturm und drung that you're seeing here.

Yeah, can't have anything to do with your consistent dodging of questions, and your peddling of lies and falsehoods.

Quoting Wayfarer

Have you read about Bernard D'Espagnat? Richard Conn Henry?

I have not.

Two questions.

If invoking a tree falling in the woods is the same as invoking QM, why invoke QM to start a thought experiment on idealism?

In order for us to reasonably infer implications of some knowledge we must first know it. Is that true or false?

Quoting Moliere

If invoking a tree falling in the woods is the same as invoking QM, why invoke QM to start a thought experiment on idealism?

As is well known, one afternoon whilst walking in the woods in the 1920's, Einstein suddenly stopped and asked his friend Michele Besso, 'does the moon not continue to exist when nobody's looking at it?' And that's basically the same question as the above. So - why was Einstein compelled to ask such a question? (Incidentally, I believe it was asked rhetorically i.e. of course Einstein believed that the moon continues exist when not perceived. But the point is, he felt compelled to ask the question!)

Quoting Moliere

In order for us to reasonably infer implications of some knowledge we must first know it. Is that true or false?

Well, yes, but there are levels of understanding. When I said I wasn't a physics graduate, I'm acknowledging that I don't understand the mathematics behind quantum physics. And as it's a mathematical theory, then obviously that's a deficiency.

But on the other hand, there has been considerable commentary on this issue from the viewpoint of history and philosophy of science. I try to confine my comments to that perspective.

BTW - Richard Conn Henry is a professor of astrophysics at Johns Hopkins' University. His Nature opinion piece, which the OP references, was called The Mental Universe. D'Espagnat's Wikipedia entry is here.

Quoting Wayfarer

As is well known, one afternoon whilst walking in the woods in the 1920's, Einstein suddenly stopped and asked his friend Michele Besso, 'does the moon not continue to exist when nobody's looking at it?' And that's basically the same question as the above. So - why was Einstein compelled to ask such a question? (Incidentally, I believe it was asked rhetorically i.e. of course Einstein believed that the moon continues exist when not perceived. But the point is, he was compelled to ask the question.)

I feel like the answer is supposed to be "Because of quantum mechanics" -- but I'm not sure.

Quoting Wayfarer

Well, yes, but there are levels of understanding. When I said I wasn't a physics graduate, I'm acknowledging that I don't understand the mathematics behind quantum physics. And as it's a mathematical theory, then obviously that's a deficiency.

But on the other hand, there has been considerable commentary on this issue from the viewpoint of history and philosophy of science. I try to confine my comments to that perspective.

Sure, there are levels of understanding. I agree with that.

With QM especially, though, the formalism and the math are really important. There's more I could know, but I know the introductory stuff. And when I say I don't see where idealism enters as an implication to the theory it's this formalism that I'm talking about -- the stuff which scientists actually use and debate on how to interpret.

That's why I linked a pdf that at least introduced the formalism in the way of postulates of QM. I don't expect someone to understand them just by reading that paper -- it's just where I'm starting from in understanding this stuff.

Commentary is just secondary to this, from my perspective. It's what the commentary is about. And you can learn that part of QM without a degree -- it's open to you.


EDIT: Like, imagine someone who believed they understood Aristotle because they read Aquinas' commentary on Aristotle. Surely they know something of Aristotle, but wouldn't it make sense to also read Aristotle?

You folks have been busy ... Even accounting for time zone variation, I'm beginning to wonder when some of you may sleep. But mainly more and more of the same to ponder, all of which from every contributor bar none, albeit for different reasons, seems to be building the case for leaning toward idealism, although not quite there yet ... Anyway, carry on carrying on.

Quoting StreetlightX

Not, of course, that this in any way addresses the fact that it remains a case of appealing to the unexplained to explain the unexplained.

P1. Quantum mechanics is mysterious.
P2. Consciousness is mysterious.
C. The two have to be related somehow.

You can't argue with the logic!

Reply to SophistiCat Yeah, and it conveniently works both ways too - 'why consciousness?' 'because quantum!'. And intellectual con-men like Wayfarer will milk both to say whatever half-baked woo they think appropriate.

Reply to Andrew M

That doesn't necessarily commit to what the nature of this or that substance is - and so may accord with, say, a Berkelyean idealism in many respects. But conceptually, the stuff comes first, the awareness of that stuff second.

Berkeley denied the existence of substance - so whatever account you have of it cannot possibly accord with Berkelean idealism. You might need to revisit what you believe to be the difference between idealisms and realisms (and notice that there are several versions of both).

Quoting ProcastinationTomorrow

Berkeley denied the existence of substance

This is to me perhaps the most profound implication of idealism, that there is no such substrate producing any such substance. Apparently just untold possible 'emanations' from which to conceive a mindset-specific 'reality' that most meaningfully resonates with each unique finite locus of mind within any given consensus construct.

As far as I can tell, the heart of the dispute here is about the following statement:
A coherent interpretation of QM must require that the mathematical formalism quantify over actual or possible conscious observations.
Even if that were true - and I'm not suggesting for one moment that it is - one would not have established that idealism is true unless you had already established that QM is true. How, though, are you going to establish that QM is true unless you already have your coherent interpretation of it? Mathematical formalisms only get to be true or false under interpretations.
That might be why this particular discussion forum seems to be an exercise in tail-chasing.

Reply to StreetlightX Indeed, and there is a whole literature on the idea that one can use QM to explain consciousness (and by QM I mean QM interpreted non-idealistically). Which I presume you believe to be just as meaningless as trying to explain QM in terms of consciousness.

Guilty.

That said, I don't see any problem with saying that quantum processes might play certain roles in 'explaining consciousness'. Quantum electron tunneling, for instance, plays a part in explaining the act of cellular respiration, though only one part in a larger and multi-faceted story. Given the complexity of our neurology, I wouldn't be surprised if quantum processes also played defining roles in our being conscious, at least in some capacity. But 'because quantum!' is not, on its own, an explanation of anything. Similarly, 'because consciousness' would be an equally facile flag to rally anything under.

Reply to StreetlightX

That said, I don't see any problem with saying that quantum processes might play certain roles in 'explaining consciousness'.

Now I'm confused. I thought your position was that the very term "consciousness" was drivel, by which I presume you meant "devoid of content". If it is devoid of content, there is nothing to explain, by QM or by anything else for that matter. Perhaps, though, you do not believe that the term is literally devoid of content.

Reply to ProcastinationTomorrow No, I said it was meaningless as far as it playing a role in explaining anything about QM. It could be substituted for nonsensical words without loss because the specific features or manner in which consciousness would function as a mechanism is, and on all accounts remains, entirely unelucidated. It is a claim that literally cannot be made sense of, in other words. Language on holiday and all that.

Reply to StreetlightX Ah, okay, so you were just laying down a challenge to fill out the content of the term rather than stating point blank that the task could not be accomplished. That makes more sense.

I mean if you want to call meeting the literal bare minimum criteria for constituting an explanation in any field whatsoever a 'challenge', then yeah sure, lets go with that.

I'm still not so sure why you are apparently so closed-minded about the role of conscious observers in QM. Adrian Kent - by all accounts an exceptional QM theorist and practician - seems to be open to the possibility that there is fruitful terrain to be investigated. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1608.04804.pdf There are certain realist assumptions lying behind much of what he says, with which an idealist would take issue, but nevertheless here is a serious scientist taking seriously the idea that conscious observation (whatever that might be) might have experimentally observable effects on quantum systems. Just closing off any such line of investigation seems unscientific.

I've said my piece. If close-mindedness means rejecting equivocations, appeals to ignorance, and the falsities and fantasies of cranks like Wayfarer, then so be it. Would it be the case that such a rejection is unscientific, then I suggest you need a new definition of the scientific.

Quoting ProcastinationTomorrow

A coherent interpretation of QM must require that the mathematical formalism quantify over actual or possible conscious observations.

That's part of the disagreement I think. Though I'm sure there are other ways one could argue for idealism, too.

But also there's the bit about the word "observer" -- even if QM implies idealism is true, it wouldn't be because a mind set up an experimental apparatus to determine the outcome of an experiment because that's just not what "observer" means.

So, sure, I don't think there's a good argument to be had (yet) that states QM implies idealism.

But I also think it's a misunderstanding of what's being said to say that "observer" indicates a mind which determines outcomes by the mere act of observing and not interacting. That's just a wild misreading. The closest interpretation I see here that comes to saying that was the one I linked previously by Neumann which speculated that the wave-function collapses in consciousness. But to get to that point you still need to understand "observer" in the specific way being used in the theory.

Any argument which argues for idealism from QM should at least understand QM. That's the main point I'm trying to get at -- there's already enough unnecessary magical thinking surrounding QM as it is, we don't need to add more.

Secondarily, I don't see a good argument to conclude idealism from QM.

Quoting ProcastinationTomorrow

Even if that were true - and I'm not suggesting for one moment that it is - one would not have established that idealism is true unless you had already established that QM is true. How, though, are you going to establish that QM is true unless you already have your coherent interpretation of it? Mathematical formalisms only get to be true or false under interpretations.

I think there are parts of QM that are not disputed. While they include the formalism, they are not strictly formal mathematical entities -- we understand they are about electrons and photons and things like that which brings more to the matter than just the math.

Then there are interpretations of said undisputed. What is not disputed is still factual, so they can be true.

In that way I think we can determine QM is true without necessitating an interpretation, and then argue over whether this or that interpretation is true.

Quoting frank

But that isn't what measuring devices are supposed to do in the Copenhagen interpretation is it? The stuff is there. It just doesnt have any location and so forth.

So the quantum idealist (if that's what they should be called) are realists in the sense you're using.

I would classify the Copenhagen Interpretation as anti-realist since it doesn't provide an explanation of what is going on, just probabilities. Bohr's view, as far as I can tell, was that it was meaningless to talk about objects prior to measurement.

Quoting ProcastinationTomorrow

Berkeley denied the existence of substance - so whatever account you have of it cannot possibly accord with Berkelean idealism.

Berkeley was rejecting Locke's material objects (and representationalism). But Aristotle's substance is more like Berkeley's sensible objects, except situated in the world not mind. And I agree with Berkeley's empiricism, rejection of Cartesian dualism and rejection of Lockean primary/secondary qualities.

Reply to Wayfarer

Yeah.

It’s a terribly confusing topic, but this book is well written. The author tries hard to make the key ideas clear, as well as to give a detailed sense of the history, which is as interesting as the science. I was shocked to learn how much twisting and spinning the Copenhagen crowd did to protect their baby, including stunting the careers of some top physicists who didn’t want to go along.

I wouldn’t necessarily give full credence to some of the stated history in this book, because it is unflattering to some big names, except for the fact that I had just finished reading Heisenberg’s Physics and Philosophy (trying to read, is more like it), and it made me wonder if Heisenberg actually understood what he, Bohr and friends were selling - his language was so convoluted that it made me wonder if he really had any clear sense of the measurement problem.

I’m not done with the What is Real, but it is likely going to tell me that Bell was the central figure in foundational thinking re. Copenhagen. Bell concluded that Einstein was right, that the moon is there when nobody is looking, but that Einstein was also wrong, because the world is inherently non-local. It’s an interesting read. I have read a number of your ideas, and I’m pretty sure you would enjoy it. And it bears directly on the present conversation.

Quoting Moliere

I don't see a good argument to conclude idealism from QM.

I do have to concur that I'm not sure of any necessary relevance to tying in QM with Idealism, except insofar as any given theoretical physicist, playing metaphysicist, might consider that as a way to advance one's specific theory to make it congruent with metaphysics, insofar as possible.

If I may be excused here for copying my comment from another thread, I see no necessity for evoking QM, in a version of Idealism, as follows: In this variation of Idealism, Mind becomes an apparent plurality of individuated, 'dissociated' loci or iterations of itself, an essentially cognitive event. Meanwhile, there is still some ultimate state it is like to be the Unitary Mind, which its human self-expressions, normally focused in their veiled imaginal, phenomenal, experiential state, might at least approximate as a samadhi state awareness, wherein the maya-spell is dispelled, revealing a pure Awareness or Beingness or Knowingness, or some such descriptor for the nameless. I suppose this could also be equated with the triune attributes of Brahman, satchitananda, i.e. Being/Consciousness/Bliss. Beyond that we're headed into noumenon territory, where I must bow to the opening lines of the Tao Te Ching about the ineffability of the Eternal Tao.

Reply to snowleopard Schopenhauer takes an interesting route to multiplicity. Check him out.

Reply to frank Yes, I have delved into Schopenhauer, though not as deeply as one might. Since we're sharing links, you and others inclined toward Idealism may be interested in this take on multiplicity ... Plotinus and the Problem of Absolute Self-Consciousness

Reply to snowleopard I wouldn't say I'm inclined toward idealism. I don't really have an inclination. :)

Reply to frank Ok, fine, sit on the fence -- may be a wise choice. In my case, it may well be that metaphysical curiosity will kill this 'cat', so to speak. But then, in keeping with the QM theme that has sustained this thread, one could ask, as per Schrodinger, is the cat dead or alive? And what the hell, apparently I do have 9 lives ... albeit I may be working on my last one by now :wink:

Reply to snowleopard Idealistic monism is a mirror image of physicalism. Instead of consciousness being emergent, matter is. Or matter is complete privation of the Good (wasn't that Plotinus' view?) Any which way we cut it, matter is a problem for idealism in the same way consciousness pesters physicalism.

What benefit do you see in idealism?

Reply to frank In the variation of Idealism I lean toward, Unitary Mind is the ontological primitive, so there can be no 'prior to' that state -- being trans-spatiotemporal there is no point of origin or causation, thus no emergence needed. I'm not quite yet sure what physicalism posits as the ontological primitive, but it surely isn't consciousness, hence having to explain its emergence. So that would seem to be a significant distinction. And doesn't even physicalism have to draw the line somewhere? Otherwise one is left with having to endlessly explain whatever exists, in terms of whatever existed before that, ad infinitum.

As for matter being a problem for Idealism, well that depends on how to interpret the experience of whatever it is one conceives matter to be. Unlike physicalism, Idealism does not consider it to be a mind-independent substance 'out there,' but rather the phenomenal image or appearance of some cognitive emanations/thought forms, akin to Plato's ideas/forms. To me, the problem for Idealism is to explain how Unitary Mind individuates, or 'dissociates' into a multiplicity of finite loci or iterations of mind, to which those 'emanations' come to appear as their experiential, phenomenal content -- such as how it feels to watch an exquisitely beautiful sunset. But whatever Idealism's explanation for that mystery, it seems it would have to be an entirely cognitive event, otherwise what could be the tangible substrate from which any apparently separate form could emanate. Buddhism's take on this seeming dilemma is that emptiness, or formlessness, is not other than form, but that's a whole other metaphysical/spiritual exploration and inquiry into non-duality.

Quoting Torbill

I have read a number of your ideas, and I’m pretty sure you would enjoy it. And it bears directly on the present conversation.

Thanks! I really appreciate the feedback. The Becker book is definitely being added to my 'to read' list.

Quoting snowleopard

To me, the problem for Idealism is to explain how Unitary Mind individuates, or 'dissociates' into a multiplicity of finite loci or iterations of mind, to which those 'emanations' come to appear as their experiential, phenomenal content -- such as how it feels to watch an exquisitely beautiful sunset

Again, have a read of this article.. This is not fringe or alternative science - Fuchs is a physics academic. His one-liner is that “Quantum mechanics is a law of thought.” He says that the probability wave 'encodes the probabilities for the outcomes of any measurements an observer might perform' but without actually describing something objectively real.

'But how, we might ask, does a measurement here affect the outcome of a measurement a second observer will make over there? In fact, it doesn’t. Since the wavefunction doesn’t belong to the system itself, each observer has his/her own. My wavefunction doesn’t have to align with yours....QBism treats the wave function as a description of a single observer’s subjective knowledge. It resolves all of the quantum paradoxes, but at the not insignificant cost of anything we might call “reality.”

I think this exposes a very deep assumption: namely, we assume that reality is 'out there', whilst the subjective world is 'internal' and 'private'. So what is 'out there' is said to be 'objective' which is 'the same for everyone' - whereas this approach is calling that into question.

[cont]...However, I can't see how there can't be a kind of 'pre-established harmony' between all the individual subjects who are measuring the same thing. Even if it's true that the wave-function is describing a law of thought, we are all sufficiently alike at the level of such measurements so that it will not tend to produce divergent results when made by different individuals. Or so I would have thought.

Incidentally a comment from Kastrup's blog:

[quote]Bernardo KastrupFriday, October 30, 2015 1:41:00 PM

Hi Matthew,
I explore more of this in an upcoming book titled "More Than Allegory." It's a book about religious myths but, in Part III, I take an opportunity to return to the measurement problem with a more specific and detailed perspective. The book should be out early next year! To anticipate it, I can say that I am sympathetic to the QBism interpretation, for reasons that I can't really explain in a comment but are clear in the book.
Cheers, B.

Quoting snowleopard

As for matter being a problem for Idealism, well that depends on how to interpret the experience of whatever it is one conceives matter to be.

It's a logical problem.

snow leopard:Again, the Idealist take on this is that there is an existing state in itself that remains in the absence of a finite locus of mind, and yet exists as an emanation of some some source that transcends that finite locus of mind, while at the same time not being separate from it. In other words, a model of a self-observing cosmos, as per Wheeler ...

This would seem confused becasue it's basically stating realism.

The realist poses there is an existing states itself (the object "independent" form experience- it is not the experience, but a different object), which exists as something that transcends the finite locus of a mind (the infinite definition of an existing state in concept, such that it is defined even when a finite mind is absent), while at the same time the given state is never separate form the finite mind (the finite mind that experiences the definition of the state in question is always in relation. The mind has an understanding of what the state is in these instances).

And such experiences are involve descriptions of states of the universe, making them "models of the universe" to part of the universe that observes (part of) the universe.

When the realist talks about the mountain that exists when on-one is looking, they are describing these elements of the state itself, that it and its form transcends finite consciousness and that our experiences are just their own seeing of the part of the world in question.

Reply to Wayfarer

Measurement may be understood to be an activity of minds, and the commonality of the characteristics of minds could plausibly give rise to a "pre-established harmony" when it comes to the forms and procedures of measurement; but it wouldn't seem to be able to explain the commonality of the content of what is measured if there is nothing independent of the measuring minds that is being measured. Unless of course, what is being measured is a product, not of individual minds, but of Mind; but then this would be subjective idealism (with the ultimate 'subject' being God or Universal Mind or Collective Mind or some such).

Quoting Janus

but it wouldn't seem to be able to explain the commonality of the content of what is measured if there is nothing independent of the measuring minds that is being measured.

But I think that still assumes that there is thought 'in here' which corresponds with something 'out there' - that thought is one thing, and the object another - so it’s the division between mental and physical again. And the problem lies with taking ‘the external object’ to be real in its own right, in other words, insisting that only ‘the object’ is real - which is, to all intents, what ‘materialism’ means. And I think that’s why physics has undermined materialism - by throwing into doubt the status of the presumed ‘ultimate object’. Hence all the talk, in this subject, of ‘battles over reality’ and ‘struggles for the soul of science’ and so on.

But QBism argues that reality has an irreducibly subjective aspect, that it always includes the observer:

quantum mechanics is not about how the world is without us; instead it’s precisely about us in the world. The subject matter of the theory is not the world or us but us-within-the-world, the interface between the two. ...

QBism would say, it’s not that the world is built up from stuff on “the outside” as the Greeks would have had it. Nor is it built up from stuff on “the inside” as the idealists, like George Berkeley and Eddington, would have it. Rather, the stuff of the world is in the character of what each of us encounters every living moment — stuff that is neither inside nor outside, but prior to the very notion of a cut between the two at all.

Actually the nearest analogy I can think of is Buddhist abhidharma - that what is real are ‘dharmas’ which are moments of experience [which bears a resemblance to Whitehead’s ‘actual occasions’]. But they’re not ‘atoms’ in the sense of enduring physical entities.

Reply to Wayfarer Thanks for the suggested article; I will get around to it. I actually read More Than Allegory a while back, and don't off hand recall the mention of QBism, so I expect it was quite incidental. Overall it was not a science-based exposition of Idealism, but mostly to do with the psychological implications, so not the one to read for its QM implications. I did enjoy it though.

Reply to TheWillowOfDarkness Not sure we're on the same page here, in terms of what I was trying to convey. But that may be that I didn't make it explicit enough. I don't have time to go over it right now, so let me get back to you on that.

Quoting frank

It's a logical problem.

@frank Somehow I missed this snippet last night. These days, as the physicalist paradigm seems to be melting away before my eyes, I must concede that the mystical is more and more supplanting the logical, as it becomes my felt sense that what I'm experiencing is some 'self'-perpetuating Dream -- I know not how else to word it -- which this individual version of a self is somehow sharing with all these other such selves. And really, I've no idea how this could be. :)

Reply to snowleopard 'We are such stuff as dreams are made of.'

Reply to frank Yes, could it be perchance that WS was positing idealism? :wink:

Quoting Wayfarer

but it wouldn't seem to be able to explain the commonality of the content of what is measured if there is nothing independent of the measuring minds that is being measured. — Janus


But I think that still assumes that there is thought 'in here' which corresponds with something 'out there' - that thought is one thing, and the object another - so it’s the division between mental and physical again.

Well, in the passage I was responding to you spoke of "individual subjects who are measuring the same thing". And you often say things like "measuring is an activity of a mind". So, I was trying to address this in terms of your own language. If you speak of "individual subjects" I would presume you mean "individual minds", and the term "individual' indicates that those minds are not one and the same mind. The thing being measured obviously cannot be identical to any one of the measuring minds, since they have already been defined as different from one another.

I don't think "in here' and "out there" specifically come into it at all; except in the obvious logical sense that if one thing is different to another then they must be 'external' to one another.

The point is that if the minds are all different, separate minds, then the commonality of the content of what they measure can only be explained in terms of something independent of all of them, and which they all have access to, unless you want to posit a 'level' on which they are not actually individual minds at all. But this would be to invoke the idea of a universal or collective mind, which was one of the options i already mentioned.

Quoting Wayfarer

Actually the nearest analogy I can think of is Buddhist abhidharma - that what is real are ‘dharmas’ which are moments of experience [which bears a resemblance to Whitehead’s ‘actual occasions’]. But they’re not ‘atoms’ in the sense of enduring physical entities.

Yes, but Whitehead's actual occasions are all external to, or transcendent of, one another and that is what allows them to be defined as fundamental entities. Whitehead's system still requires God to unify all the actual occasions, or to put it another way, to eternalize their temporality. Even under the aspect of eternity all things are one in the same and yet, paradoxically, eternally different.

Quoting Janus

If you speak of "individual subjects" I would presume you mean "individual minds", and the term "individual' indicates that those minds are not one and the same mind. The thing being measured obviously cannot be identical to any one of the measuring minds, since they have already been defined as different from one another.

But isn't the whole point of mathematics and standard units of measurement and shared meanings to facilitate this? Isn't that what culture and language do? When you and I look at a collection of objects, there are X objects, regardless of your or my opinion of the matter. What you think about them or whether you like them or not, is another thing altogether, but their number is not a matter of opinion.

Quoting Janus

The point is that if the minds are all different, separate minds, then the commonality of the content of what they measure can only be explained in terms of something independent of all of them, and which they all have access to

For example: number. Recall that (rather acrimonious) exchange from a few months back, when I was trying to make the point in respect of Einstein - that whilst the Pythagorean Theorem is not dependent on the individual mind, it can nevertheless only be comprehended by a mind? Recall that Einstein said:

I cannot prove scientifically that Truth must be conceived as a Truth that is valid independent of humanity; but I believe it firmly. I believe, for instance, that the Pythagorean theorem in geometry states something that is approximately true, independent of the existence of man.

So the point I am making is that, until intelligence has evolved to a certain point, then the Pythagorean theorem (among many other things!) can't be grasped or understood at all. So I question that it's 'independent of humanity', when it is the distinctive attribute of h. sapiens to be able to grasp these very kinds of truth. It can only be grasped by a mind, ergo, is not actually 'mind-independent'. That is close to the meaning of 'objective idealism'.

So - it's not a 'universal mind' or 'collective intelligence' in the sense of being a single entity, but in the sense that any mind will work according to these principles. That is what 'reason' is, after all, isn't it? You can't ask 'which version of the Pythagorean Theorem do you mean'? (There was a thread I created on the previous forum, 'A Unity which is not an Entity' which explored this idea.)

Reply to tim wood put me on to a very interesting book, The Phenomena of Awareness: Husserl, Cantor, Jung, Cecile Tougas. (Intending to borrow from library today.) Have a quick scan of the beginning of Chapter 2, 'The Equal', in the Amazon Preview. It makes a point that we have often discussed here, albeit much more clearly than I have been able to make it.

Quoting Wayfarer

But isn't the whole point of mathematics and standard units of measurement and shared meanings to facilitate this? Isn't that what culture and language do? When you and I look at a collection of objects, there are X objects, regardless of your or my opinion of the matter. What you think about them or whether you like them or not, is another thing altogether, but their number is not a matter of opinion.

Yes, but the "standard units of measurement and shared meanings" do not determine how many objects there are. Units of measurement and shared meanings determine the forms of measurement and meanings but not the content, and that has been precisely my point.

What is it that determines the content, that determines how many objects there are?

Reply to Janus ‘How many objects there are’ is a given; what number and language provide is a common way of counting and measuring said objects. This is why numerical logic is one of the foundations of scientific method. And how could it be otherwise?

Quoting Janus

The point is that if the minds are all different, separate minds, then the commonality of the content of what they measure can only be explained in terms of something independent of all of them, and which they all have access to, unless you want to posit a 'level' on which they are not actually individual minds at all.

As far as I’m concerned, I had addressed this point. An example of ‘something which is independent of them, but which they have access to’, is number. Your mind and my mind are not the same mind, but if we consider the same mathematical unit, then in that respect we arrive at the very same understanding. This is the subject of the passage in the Touglas book that I mentioned above.

Reply to Wayfarer

You still seem to be missing the point here. The "something which is independent of them, but which they have access to" is not number, per se, because number per se cannot determine how many objects there are in any particular grouping. You might say that number makes it generally possible that there could be different groupings, with different numbers and kinds of objects; but on the other hand the concept of number only arises because there are different groupings of similar or different kinds of objects. What requires explanation is the fact that when we are confronted with a group of objects we can agree on precisely how many there are in that specific group.

Of course agreement is made generally possible by our common conception of number, but it is the actual number of objects in a particular group of objects which is the determinant in any particular case. The metaphysical question is as to what that actual number of objects consists in. If it is independent of all our minds, which you have already acknowledged, then it must be independent of mind altogether or it must be determined by a universal or collective mind. What other possibilities can you imagine?

The only attempt at an answer that you have offered is that how many objects there are is a given. What does that mean? What makes such givenness possible. This is the metaphysical question to which materialism is one answer and idealism is another. The way I see it these are really two forms of realism. There is also neutral monism, but what would that entail? Is there another possible answer that isn't some form of realism?