Is The Uncertainty Principle Incompatible With Determinism?

Don't see what's so fluffy about it. Part of the argument of certain Quantum Physicists is exactly what I am arguing.

 

But if a recording device is responsible for the wave collapsing into a particle, then how do waves ever collapse into particles in the absence of a recorder? It's not as if there is always a recorder observing electrons. It seems the act of measurement itself collapses the wave function. But what is measurement, really, besides determining what is there -- where it is and what it's doing?

The conscious observer is always determining what is there...exactly where a thing is and what it's doing. Consciousness is a perfect recorder, in a way, even though there's no way (yet) to go back and verify what the conscious observer is processing. The idea that consciousness acts as a measuring device seems more likely to me than the idea that there is something analogous to our recorders that occurs in nature and causes electrons existing as waves to act as particles.

I am perfectly a novice at this stuff, though, so please forgive me if I'm making a common mistake.

I think Chinacat is making a good point, though, because if the act of measurement causes the wave to collapse, and an act of measurement can only be performed by a human, you're still saying that a human being caused the wave to collapse in a roundabout way, right? I mean, if something in nature were causing the wavefunction to collapse, then how would it ever even reach the double slits? Why does nature wait until the wave is at the double slit to allow the recorder to record it as a particle? Shouldn't it just collapse the wave right away?

 

I appreciate the assistance with the Quantum language. It's very Mercury in Sagittarius of me to not have the minute details down, which makes my ideas seem a bit dreamy. But I feel that we are talking about the same thing here.

 

I have Mercury in Sag too. But I also have the sun, moon, and Neptune all conjunct in Sagittarius. Don't know what that says about me, though. Maybe it counteracts the Mercury.

Anyway, I've been thinking, and I think a conscious observer is required to give the meaning to a wave that makes it a particle. The past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. The electron is linked to the future, so even when it's a recording, the wave knows to collapse into a particle because it knows that in the future a human will observe the data to give it meaning as a particle. And if no one ever observes the data the recorder records, there is no saying whether or not the wave collapsed into a particle, and the data itself only exists as a wave function.

 

Yet a whole universe has apparently unfolded over ~13.8 billion years and a few billion years of the existence of micro- and macroscopic life prior to humans, and humans setting up double slit experiments. FASCINATING!

 

I suppose the moment that first double slit experiment was performed, the entire history came into existence at that moment. </cycicism>

 

It's only apparently happened due to our Observation of the matter.

 

You literally can't prove that something is there without observing it. Even observing the Time of the Universe requires OBSERVATION. If this sounds absurd well then there are plenty of Quantum Physicists who agree with me.

 

So what are you arguing? That measurement doesn't collapse the wave function into a particle? So you must be saying that there's something analogous to our recording devices in nature that causes the wave function to collapse, if you're arguing that prior to consciousness, there existed a world made of particles. But again, why does the wave function wait until it's measured to collapse, then?

Why would you assume there was a world made of particles before consciousness and not just a world of wave functions, or probabilities? And how does one apply the concept of time to a probability?

haha at your cynicism. But yes, I am arguing that the advent of time coincided with the advent of consciousness. I think there were only probabilities before this, and I don't see why it would be less probable than more that the universe should seem to stretch out into the far distant past. It's just the way the information happens to seem, but it's completely arbitrary.

 

Already discussed..

 

^^ this to me looks lot like computer science.what does this mean in relation to physics, (referring to the predicate of the preceding sentence) it's gotta mean something.

 

I'm fairly competent with statistics but iirc there was the term "additive Modulo" on there. As far as I know, a Modulo is the remainder of dividing numbers so what might additive modulo mean?

If you can explain that, I might extrapolate a bit more on how I am understanding the implications.

 

So why does the wave function wait to collapse until it is recorded by a manmade device rather than immediately being recorded by nature and collapsing on its own? Has anyone actually observed a wave function collapsing due to being "recorded" by nature? It seems like if the wave function had been observed to collapse on its own, there wouldn't be the measurement problem in the first place, because it would be obvious that the recording device was just causing quantum decoherence.

It seems to me like you guys are just making up a frivolous explanation for something you don't understand. These are all just interpretations for something that can't directly be observed. I think I am with the Copenhagen Interpretation.

From wiki:

 

For me it's more of a cautious, conservative view based on reading, a couple videos and the overwhelming consensus I've seen on the topic on physics forums.

There is this quote which has already been posted here...

So With that in mind, I take the particles 'decisive' aspect as an enigmatic quirk (cheesy pun) of the quantum level of reality. Usually in science, the goal is to minimize extraneous variables which can influence an experiment. I am assuming (probably even read) that physicists are careful in monitoring outside variables and try to keep them to a minimum, limiting variables such as the photons to be the primary interaction prior to screen observation.

While I see the spirit of Descartes in some of yours and ChinaCat's post, that reductionism to borderline solipsism is difficult for me to follow, particularly in the age of internet, and controlled scientific experiment. But if quantum computers get off the ground and We are required to consciously observe them to keep them on or something, then you might be onto something.

 

Physicists are naturally predisposed to believing there are underlying causes for things, even if such causes can't be directly observed. I think it's a natural bias on their part, because that is where their curiosity lies. But I don't trust them just because they're physicists. Where it comes to what can't be observed, I tend not to trust them because they're physicists, and are thus inclined to believe everything is physical and deterministic. It's like elves in Santa's workshop all agreeing that toy making is the most noble occupation.

Shouldn't they just perform the experiment in an uncontrolled environment?

I'm certainly not a borderline solipsist. As in, I don't think I'm the most important thing ever. If consciousness has some role in creating physical reality, that goes for everyone. I don't want it to be true because I want to feel like Saruman.

 

Modular arithmetic, you are correct in that modulo is the remainder after a division (or more specifically, the modulo operation yields the remainder of division). A dividend divided by a divisor yield a quotient and a remainder where the product of the quotient and the divisor plus the remainder equals the dividend. Modular arithmetic has some interesting properties and uses, where the result of the modulo operation will kind of "wrap around" or roll over, never exceeding one less than the divisor.

By additive modulo, I *think* they may be referring to modular addition, where values wrap back around never exceeding some max value. For example with computers you may have a 16 bit register, holding an unsigned value 0xFFFF (the max value that can be stored in 16 bits, where all bits are 1's). If you add to this register the value 0x000A, due to overflow, the value willl wrap, and the the register will now contain 0x0009 due to the overflowed bits essentially being thrown away because they can't fit.

Now take that result 0x0009 and subtract what you added, which was 0x000A, what will happen is end up with the original 0xFFFF as a result, as some bits are discarded (overflow). That's pretty much what modular addition is as I understand it. The values wrap, always being within a certain range. Modular arithmetic is pretty commonly used in CS when implementing algorithms in code. Of course this is all purely mathematics, and CS certainly isn't the only place it's used, i'm sure its' used in lots of just pure mathematics, as well as physics and engineering ... mathematics is pretty crucial to all of science and engineering. Everything boils down to math, its the programming language of the universe perhaps. If you pull up the calculator program on your computer, there should be a programmers mode, where you can use hexadecimal (and convert hex to binary, octal and decimal as well) and do MOD (modulo), AND, OR, XOR, NOT, etc and test this out to see how it works. Usually hex is used in computing because it's easy to see how many bits or bytes a value takes up and easy to convert from binary to hex, as well as being able to quickly determine the value of a specific byte in a longer word, say 32 bits, without having to be concerned with the rest of the number as each hexadecimal digit can be converted directly into 4 bits of binary, two hex digits being one byte.

You may want to wikipedia it for a better explanation.

 

The scientific method doesn't work that way, you wouldn't be able to yield the information you were looking for unless you control the experiment in specific ways to zero in on the effects you are looking for.

 

Well I mean you would control it in such a way that it would mimic the way a wave function supposedly collapses in the absence of a manmade measuring device. If you were to fire an electron in a perfectly ordinary environment, would it still exhibit an interference pattern in the absence of a measuring device?

 

I have been too lazy to read all the posts the past few days but I figure I'll give people a break from my POV...maybe i'll chime in later

 

And it was also already discussed that this "recording" of info is still completely meaningless without a conscious observer. The conscious observer is what defines it as a recording and having meaning.