Is The Uncertainty Principle Incompatible With Determinism?

This is what QM is saying. Nonlocal entanglement is just the stuff of nature. You activate one area of the cosmos, and another area changes automatically.

 

I wasn't referring to an entangled sense necessarily. Setting changes that are the precedent for others would be determinism I think, but since the hypothetical task is embarked in a limited space, it eventually may lead to some strange types of paradoxes I'm thinking.

 

What if it's both?

Probability is like a bubble or a net of sorts. Determinism is more like a straight arrow. What if the Quantum Jumps themselves are the trajectory of Deterministic causes? The arrows go straight out but through a bubble or net of possibilities.

 

The implications of the measurement problem are that we, as conscious beings, can shape reality based on our own choices. It is not a question of whether we can know for certainty all probabilities. The measurement problem gave us the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and this Principle provides the scientific rationale behind the measurement problem in terms of a formula, but the real implications are a thing of choice.

In the double slit experiment, we can choose to let a ‘particle stream’ (of light, electrons, protons, neutrons, atoms, molecules, etc) go through naturally in which case we get an interference pattern. Or we can choose to measure the particles in which case we get a reflection of the double slits. In the first case the particle stream acts as a wave, and we understand that it has a momentum. In the second case we identify a particle to have a position and it therefore acts as a particle.

We could stop right here for purposes of the argument, because it does not work any other way. There is not the case where we happen to measure particles but actually get an interference pattern (except, it has been shown, when we are unaware of the results and 'when' the measurement took place). There is never a time where the interference pattern of the wave switches to a reflection of the double slits. In fact the Wheeler Delayed Observation version of the experiment demonstrates that it does not even matter where or when we measure the particles, that the choice to measure them creates a double slit pattern. Scientists understand that we can even place the double slits at a light source, for example, several light years away from the screen, and that if we measure the particles right before it hits the screen we will still get the double slit pattern---several light years after the fact.

So now the argument would become---ok, but what if a scientist was predestined to make the measurement every time the double slit pattern was produced. After all, Oedipus did kill his father, even after all his efforts to prevent it, and did then marry his mother. …and had sex with her. ;-)

Here is the deeper implication for the double slit experiment----an implication Stenger, the guru for Materialism, claims is a New Age Quantum Myth (but it is not New Age-----it was even the initial reaction when scientists first measured the particles in the double slit experiment and were surprised to get the double slit pattern): the implication is that our conscious observation changes the outcome. This is very troubling for science, and there is a continuous push to write off the conscious observer.

The current argument is to suggest that the measurement itself creates the particle. In other words, that the probability wave collapse to a particle happens through decoherence because we are trying to measure the particle. (Decoherence is when two quanta interact causing their mutual positions to be determined resulting in probability wave collapse for both particles.) But there are several problems to that, especially when we consider the Wheeler Delayed Observation version of the experiment. First of all, we can measure the particle at any point in the experiment and produce the same results, this means that if the position is determined somewhere in the experiment that it is immediately lost because the particle continues on to the screen with momentum (as a wave). Also when measured after the double slits, we get a problem that many scientists say suggests we are changing the past, because it is getting a double slit pattern after it has passed through the slits, and that is even stranger, if you ask me, than having the observer cause the double slits. Now we can try to explain some of this away by such things as information is not destroyed in the quantum world and so forth-----but granted, it doesn’t quite solve the problem.

Then comes the biggest problem---------when the waves hit the screen decoherence occurs as the energy stream is absorbed by the atoms of the screen. That is the only way we can get the interference pattern, because, reflection (how we see the pattern) happens because the photon, for example, is absorbed into an atom within the screen which then emits a new photon. The same is true for particle detectors and all other means of using a target to receive and record the pattern. In other words, we should have never gotten an interference pattern to begin with, if decoherence causes the collapse to a particle. In fact, I might add, decoherence already happens within the experiment anyway----such as interference from particles within the air and so forth.

Decoherence therefore actually validates the argument that an observer changes the reality recorded. However decoherence might help us dispel the concept that the conscious observer causes the actual probability wave collapse. Instead the collapse may always be the result of decoherence, while the observer only changes how the collapse occurs---i.e. he changes the reality of the wave. This is why we may not be changing the past per se’ in the Delayed Observation---we are changing the reality of the wave which is already super-positioned across both time and space (actually that is throwing a little of my own philosophy into it, where the wave exists in the timeless 4th dimension, and only physical particles represent the actual present moment; time is purely our perception of the 4th dimension; and so forth…). The observer, for example, never sees the particle in question---he is always aware of it after the fact (which, based on the Wheeler Delayed Observation experiment, does not matter). However the observer is aware of the reality of the position and therefore alters the results of the experiment, even when he is not aware of what is happening. (This is why there is no change to the pattern when we are unaware of the measurements or when they took place.)

If our awareness changes how the wave presents itself, or how waves collapse into particles, then we are faced with the possibility that the volition of our choices shapes our reality. In other words, the level of our free choice is more significant than a strictly materialist view of reality would allow for. The universe is validated as one of potentiality rather than one of certainty.

But now comes the argument that the quantum world is not related to the Newtonian world we live in. This argument, to me, simply points to the ignorance of not understanding the real connection, or the fact that we have yet to come up with a unified theory. I think it was in this thread where I already demonstrated how the quantum world is very much a part of our everyday reality----or maybe it was in another thread related to free will.

But let me just say this, electrons exist in the quantum world. If we touch something, for example, for a very brief instant a very many superpositioned electrons will suddenly have a position, and then others will have a position for a moment, then more, and so forth. Most of the physical properties of everything around us---from the elements to the actual chemical compounds that make up everything, is determined by the electrons---including color, hardness, texture, boiling point, melting point, etc. etc. Yet they exist in a quantum reality. Any change we make in the world around us is going to manifest in the quantum world first. The quantum world is not some disconnected reality that has no bearing upon our own.

 

Yeah, I just don't really see what is so confusing or out-there about suggesting that the Quantum world is related to the Relative world, or that there is even a direct correspondence between the two. How couldn't there be? And I've also brought up how various tests have been done that have shown actual entanglement of macrocosmic objects, or even minds for that matter.

If everything is made out of Universe, then we as humans need to learn to stop pretending that we are somehow outside of that domain, merely observing a Universe that's somehow foreign or other than ourselves.

If QM shows anything, it highly suggests the connection of all things. Separating Relativity and QM just reflects our state of Consciousness, which dwells in separation, and not being able to come to grips with our creative potential as beings of the Universe.

 

I can sort of envision it being both in a sense but then I think the issue is how do we get from the quantum entangled bubbles of probability to the wave collapsed matter that sans rare exceptions such as apparently the millionth of a second in crystals you alluded to, is not behaving that way ? Any moment we are talking about defined trajectories, I think that can be classified as a deterministic system, but stuff like Quantum Jumps and Quantum Phase transitions are over my head.

 

Yes, I too have brought up the point of entanglement. I think the connection all lies in the 4th Dimension where everything is all just superpositioned energy. But then again, it may seem superpositioned from our perspective, trapped as we are within the three physical dimensions, but in the 4th Dimensional it is not much more than a physical object has a specific position in 3 dimensional space.

I really like your last 2 paragraphs---I think our problem----which is part of the root of what I call the Post-Modern crisis, is the Cartesian mentality we have, and our obsession with objective reality. The problem is everything and everyone becomes nothing more than a mere object in our world. The people in our lives have very little intrinsic value, but plenty of market value in terms of what they can provide us, or to stroke our egos, or to be shown off… Never mind the fact that we are all subjective beings, viewing the world from an entirely subjective viewpoint. (And I think that the potentiality of the universe and free will is rooted in the fact that there is so much subjectivity to the universe----down to the very subatomic particle (If we wanted to take subjectivity to the same level as the Ancient Greeks). But this subjectivity is not the disconnected cold-hearted objectivist subjectivity of Cartesian philosophy; it is not the self-centered and greedy industrial age individualism (which is more often really just an elitist group ethic); rather it is, at an existential level, a true individualism that places a focus on life---of oneself and of all others…)

Anyway----that’s my rant…

I can see decoherence in its natural state as being somewhat deterministic. Physical particles manifest from superpositioned probability waves based on the probabilities that are encoded into them. As a physical particle it has a specific position in space-time, but being a probability, the exact position is not determined, just the likely position, therefore it is not wholly deterministic.

But that is the universe. As conscious individuals we have the ability to change how that particle will manifest. Therefore our free will can overcome the determinacy of the universe.

Another example of all of this: the Quantum Zeno Effect has recently been validated by researchers at Cornell. The Quantum Zeno Effect says that we should be able to suppress movement such as the movement of atoms, the spin of particles, or even the rate of radioactive decay through continued observation because we are continuously---or more accurately, frequently----causing a Probability Wave collapse, defining a position, by our observations. By determining positions we repress momentum, and thereby suppress the change that would normally take place. Atoms, for example, already experience many decoherent events, as they jostle against other atoms, or participate in forming a molecule, or whatever the case is. However if we are shaping how the decoherence takes place, or even causing the probability wave collapses, causing the Zeno Effect to occur, then we here again we have changed reality through our choices. The atoms (in this particular experiment) slow down or stop their movement. Previously other experiments have demonstrated the same thing with spin.

 

Interesting. Is this Greek subjectivity Platonic by chance?

 

I believe it is rooted in an ancestral animism. But it stretched all the way through Pre-Platonic, and Platonic philosophy to Aristotle. For example, Automaton, which had meanings related to the modern english version of a robot that appears to act of its own will, also meant chance. But to the Greeks chance was not a random event as we understand it today, but was something that would happen of its own will. A rock could break out of a cliff and come crashing down a mountainside to crush a house and kill its occupants---something that would happen out of chance. But to the Greeks this chance meant that it was a subjective (hupokeimenon) act happening of its own will. Accident is another translation of the word, but again, the meaning is clearly different than modern english. Auto meant 'self.'

Aristotle applied it to the nous as the cosmic mind----the self-moved, another translation of automoton

 

But certainly Relativity and Einstein's side to all of it aren't completely incorrect. After 100 years of searching, Gravitational Waves have finally been found, which could make Time Travel possible at some point. So perhaps Einstein is right that there is a hidden variable, but I just doubt that we will ever come up with a Unified theory without including Consciousness as part of it. Consciousness seems to be the hidden variable that can unify. Or, QM often talks of a Zero Point of energy, something that Einstein said was needed and also equated to the Aether. What if the Aether (aka Ether) is the hidden variable? And maybe this Aether is one and the same as nonlocal Consciousness?

 

We have already discussed this, the conscious observations is a particular interpretation. Most notably the erroneous implications I think of this view taken to a slippery slope conclusion is that, contrary to that view I do think there was a universe present around prior to conscious human observers. There is nothing of conscious observation as I have understood it's role in Double Slit experiments, that has persuaded me from that, but this is mostly relying on my layperson understanding and my judgement on sources I've read on the topic. Then on top of that with a fair amount of precision, there can be simulations going all the way back to mere fractions of seconds after the Big Bang. I don't know what it might take for me to budge from that position regarding observation in QM as equating to 'simply' measurement vs. conscious observers.

I'm not sure what "we have the ability to change how the particle will manifest" really means? I mean if we had that strong of conscious capabilities over them, I think I'd be flying and levitating some Pizza to my mouth while laying down. I've not seen anyone flying or levitating Pizzas, so it's more than just my skepticism here.

 

Warriorandhiskeeper:


That is actually my philosophy---I use Einstein's theories and QM to support a phenomenalist philosophy where in mind is the first cause (Arche). I call it Archephenomenalism. I believe that the mind is actually of a higher dimension---probably several dimensions---the higher one or ones being for the more nonlocal or universal levels of consciousness.

I incorporate a Jungian version of the ego---a filter with the purpose of maintaining a consistent personality that keeps us unaware of our higher dimensional selves. My higher level of mind could be compared to Aristotle's nous, but I prefer not to label it as it everyone has their own labels for such a thing. But part of the answer to the Post-Modern crisis, I believe, is a multiplistic philosophy that allows for multiple interpretations of reality, so I accomodate even an atheist interpretation.

Also in response to the Post-Modern crisis I preach freeing ourselves from what I refer to as the Post-Planter cultural ethics----group ethic, dualism, objectivism, and so forth. They have served their purpose for our species. Also that it is time to resolve the Kantian split between empirical science, and what were referred to as the sciences of the mind, that split too has served our species for all that it could leaving us now in a state of Nihilism. This does not mean returning science to the fetters of religion. But I do agree that mind could very well be the missing piece to the Unified Theory.

I put a strong emphasis on the individual, and yes, a subjective level to the universe akin to the Ancient Greeks. (I personally have seen a universe that is very much alive through Native American ceremony which I particpate in fairly regularly. In fact my philosophy largely developed by trying to come to terms with such things at a rational level after a giving up on them in the 1980's.) It is an essentialist philosophy using essence as the ground of being rather than existence, however it is very much influenced by existentialism---so much so that I refer to it as existentialist essentialism (but it has many philosophical influences).

Some other quick points---my philosophy supports the holographic theories of the universe, and I place the wave as a thing of the 4th dimension, and therefore non-physical (We experience the wave, in the double slit experiment for example, only as the phenomena of the wave, after it has manifested as physical particles through decoherence). Time is our understanding of the 4th dimension, but the 4th dimension is timeless, while the three physical dimensions represent a only a physical present---an eternal Now (except that the Now represents all simultaneous probability wave collapses across the universe, and lasts probably no longer than one Planck time before the next set of simultaneous probability wave collapses. (In terms of space-time at Planck levels it would take 100 Quintillion such moments of Now to equate to the diameter of 1 proton. But in a holographic universe, we wouldn't need a whole proton to experience the phenomena of a proton.)

The present is experienced locally, and such aspects of the Theories of Relativity as relative time at opposite ends of the universe, I say, are theoretical abstractions of reality, and seem valid due to the localized nature of the present. Whether or not time travel is even possible would depend on whether we can show up as conscious beings in a separate time and cause probability wave collapses by our presence there. But this means breaking the speed of light barrier---which I talk about in the thread on traveling at the speed of light in the science section of the forum. All we can currently know to exist in the physical sense is the present. But we do bend space-time, stretching or shortening the present moment of now---what I refer to as the Quantum Now.

It is very much a hippie philosophy----in fact I would say that the hippies were the closest mankind has ever come to Nietzsche's ubermensch (superman).

Anyway, that is a snapshot summary of Archephenomenalism.

 

So you don't think that your awareness would have the power to influence the very delicate electrons? The most minute movements already interfere with it. There are countless tests done of people being able to tell that someone is looking at them from behind. Consciousness definitely has power.

You need to look further into Alain Aspect's tests of 1982. This is some of the best lab proof that the Consciousness collapses the wave.

Regarding the Big Bang, those simulations mean nothing without a Conscious observer.

 

​"All matter originates and exists by virtue of a force...we must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter." -Max Planck

"Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of Nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve." -Max Planck

There are many other similar quotes by various 20th century Quantum Physicists. But as a species, we haven't accepted full responsibility for its implications yet.

 

The universe being deterministic does not mean that everything has an influence on everything the way you are thinking. For example the warmth of my soup may not actually have an effect, in any sense of the word effect, on the density of Pluto's moon Charon.

I agree with this position; I believe the argument between free will and determinism is actually a verbal exercise; a cognitive ballet which is actually not yielding answers but allows us to dance gracefully through a repetoire of ideas. The universe simply is; any notions of "free will" are missing the mark, imbuing just one corner of this universe "my mind" with a property called "volition".

You would be determined to take part in actions which you perceive to be mistakes, just as you are determined to take part in actions which you perceive to have gone according to plan.

Actually no; one of the implications of the measurement problem is that the events constituting measurement shape the behaviors of quantum events. It does not prove there is such a thing as choice; you merely smuggle in the word as an interpretation, the data is far more general and inconclusive.

This interpretation is already phrased much better; notice that a conscious observer does not need to "have free will".

Conscious observation of a quantum even is exactly the kind of thing as a quantum event; determined.

I would gently suggest that to say that more data is needed before coming to a comfortable conclusion would be to comically understate the situation.

Tell you what, if you're really interested in playing the Quantum Physics game, can you help me Fourier Transform this equation?



I can't. I know I can't, because I'm not a quantum physicist. And I know I'm not a quantum physicist, because I haven't spent a decade learning the most advanced mathematics on earth coupled with the more profound material science ever conceived.

I think that you, like many in this thread and out in the world, have fallen into the trap of thinking that they can understand and discuss QM, when really, all you can understand and discuss is second or third order QM; that is, QM which has been dumbed down, analyzed, and simplified already for you by someone else.

Until you are sitting in CERN after devoting a quarter of your life to this and deriving quantum field equations, you really are not in a position to be discussing this. This is akin to a person who's watched a few youtube videos about gluten and now thinks that they are qualified to diagnose and treat carcinomas.

Please don't mistake this for an ad hominem; I actually think you're a very interesting, well read, and bright person. You're just really, really not a quantum physicist. To begin with, QM is a field which is built upon a daunting foundation of mathematics. Heck, Einstein derived our understanding of general relativity and space time using only mathematics; no experiments.

Playing this game is like thinking you're a doctor when you can't even tell me how a cell works.

I agree completely; that's why many scientists feel that we are missing something HUGE. That's why being an armchair quantum physicist is to miss the mark twice; not only do you have a NEAR ZERO understanding of quantum mechanics, truly, but actually QM itself is likely deeply flawed.

Deterministic does not mean that probability does not play a role. Consider flipping a coin; it has a roughly 50/50 probability of being heads or tails, yet the outcome is completely determined by the universe; how could it be otherwise? You are also part of that universe, and there are certain events in which your act of observing play a role in the outcome, yet because you are part of the universe, you too are determined. Observation affecting outcomes =/= free will.

Last sentence is literally non-sensical. By that I mean that the words on their own each make sense but stringing them together yields a sentence with correct grammar and syntax and yet yielding 0 meaning. Show me your free will. Show me the part of you that is outside the determinism of the universe acting upon the universe.

Through what we perceive as choices; actually more specifically through our observations. Observations which there is no reason to believe are any less determined than any other part of the universe.

 

The delicacy is precisely part of the problem, I don't see any reason to think that consciousness influences electrons in any special way beyond the myriad of other influences, if you believe that consciousness can trump all this, then the levitating pizza and flying challenge is to you, otherwise I don't think trying to twist QM experiments and put forth mysticism is going to be very convincing for me and so we're probably talking past each other.

A brief search made it sound like something to do with entanglement, if there is anything beyond that worth noting, how about you provide it with your explanations of the tests.

Meaning may very well be a unique phenomena to conscious observers, perhaps even solely the realm of the human domain in fact, regardless there is still a whole universe (multiverse?) out there.

 

Well you're saying that we are talking past each other. Take a look here and see for yourself. Go to the 16 minute mark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFvJOZ51tmc

 

The Scientists that are still searching for something missing are the ones still trying to find a Deterministic cause for the apparent paradoxes of the Double Slit Experiment. The ones searching are the ones that are in agreement with the EPR. To not be searching further is to accept the Nonlocal reality of QM, and agreeing with what Bohr, Aspect, and others have come to terms with.

Why do you say how the free will problem is of no importance and then yet go back to reinforce your conviction that there is no free will? Seems that you are a little attached to this notion.

When the Universe is Determining your every action, including your observation in the Double Slit Experiment, something also called Superdeterminism, what is it that is determining your actions? Are those initial causes determined by something else? What is the root of this determination?

As far as choice goes in the Double Slit Experiment, I have yet to actually come across experiments where one goes beyond simply observing and prior to the experiment CHOOSES which outcomes that are desired. That would be very interesting, however.

Sometimes experimental observations from a different point of view are exactly what's needed to solve the problem. So I disagree with this notion that we can't discuss our views on QM. If that isn't allowed, then why are you discussing it? You already said that you can't solve that Schrodinger equation.

Regarding the coin flip...a friend once told me that tests have been done regarding the coin flip, with the user CHOOSING which side they would like to see happen more often prior to the ensuing of the experiment. According to the friend, more often than not, in a series of flips, the coin will land to the side that you have focused and meditated on more often than the opposite end. I decided to carry out one experiment by myself tonight, and it confirmed this in a series of 20 flips. I will continue to carry out this experiment. Is it mere chance, or determinism? Doesn't really matter. It's in between, and the determining factor very well could be the will of your Consciousness.

"Beating fate" is something I think is possible. There were others who felt the same at certain times in the past. Your free will can master the probabilistic nature of reality. Even if everything is already "Superdetermined", you might as well throw away that concept right then and there. You can still master the probabilities of reality with your free will and Consciousness. Choice is still there, even if this concept of Choice was Superdetermined. I can still make my own conscious decision of whether I am going to get up and pee right now or 10 minutes from now. Adding on "well it's not free will, though. It's all determined." is literally meaningless in regards to your experience of life; it is a philosophical after-thought and nothing more.

 

"We are to do with a Wholeness which is completely foreign to Classical Physics" -Niels Bohr

You seem to be able to accept that we are part of the Universe and that there is nothing but Universe, but somehow, Free Will isn't part of the Universe? May I ask why? Whether your Free Will is determined or not, that's nothing more than a perspective, a perspective that you have the CHOICE to be attached to or not.

Who cares if it is all determined in fact? Choice is still there, Observation is still there, and Observation is still affecting the outcome. Why is this? Because "We are to do with a Wholeness which is completely foreign to Classical Physics".

Writing off the fact that your observation plays a role in the outcome, and is nothing but Determination isn't in alignment with the EPR that you referenced. Einstein was actually searching for a hidden variable that wasn't your Consciousness. "I would like to think that the moon is there when I'm not looking at it", he said. But QM has shown time and time again that this simply isn't the case.

If the Universe is in fact determining all your actions, and you are part of the Universe, and to be specific, LITERALLY NOT SEPARATE FROM THE UNIVERSE IN ANY WAY, then why is this determination anything other than yourself? Where is this imaginary dividing line between The Universe determining your actions and You determining your actions? The answer is that there isn't a dividing line, except in your imagination.

You are not in any way, shape, or form, actually separate from the Universe, which means and only means that you aren't observing a Universe foreign or outside of you, which means that the Universe isn't some outside force which is alien to yourself that is determining your actions. If there IS some determining factor, it can't possibly be something other than something that's one with yourself. No wonder your Consciousness plays a huge role in all of it, even if that role is to believe that you are separate and not participating in the Quantum outcomes.

The Universe isn't happening TO you. You, on the other hand, are an extension or instrument of the Universe, and are either unconsciously allowing yourself to be blown around by various and random forces, or you are a conscious Participator.

 

Ok so here are some notable quotes I got from the documentary:

6:10 "To observe atomic particles you have to use measuring instruments."

16:07 "We are therefore incapable of forming a picture of the atomic world"

16:54
"Bohr said that you cannot consider separately the various pieces of an experiment"
"In Einstien et al, on one hand they were considering the system which bears measurements..."
"On the other hand, the measuring apparatus"
"Bohr said you have to consider everything as a whole, the system that is measured and the system that you measure."

28:00 "The quantum correlations exist in the world and if we are to explain them, we are obliged to invoke something like actions going faster than light from one place to another... but there is this very curious feature, I am also obliged to admit there is nothing I can do with these. I cannot use these long range effects to send messages faster than light for example. That also emerges from the Quantum formula."


30:27 "One of the most fundamental, if not the most fundamental results of Aspect, is that this entanglement is objective, not merely a matter of human knowledge. Nature is constituted in such a way that systems, two well distinguished systems can have entangled states.

​34:10 "As Bohr's position could be surmised today, no elementary quantum phenomena is a phenomena till it has been brought to a close by an irreversible act of amplification. Like the triggering of a Geiger Counter, or the click of a photodetector, or the blackening of a grain of photographic emotion. Until that happens this phenomena to be, is not yet a phenomena..."




The part that I have mostly color coded is the one that I think you are having difficulties with, if not that, then I have no clue what you are talking about regarding conscious observers, as pretty much most the other quotes are extremely clear to me that that is not what they mean as far as observers go in QM experiments. So for the color coded part, it's prefaced with the fact that Aspect is talking about the experiment. Experimenters are not part of controlled experiments, this is a pretty basic fact of science experiments, one of the knock on Freud's work in fact. 'Observing' Measuring instruments are however, which is noted in the first quote I pulled, so as far as I can tell that is what is being considered in part of the whole experiment which is in contrast to Einstien's views.