Hmm, I was thinking about writing something similar to your article here.
A pet peeve of mine is the Observer Effect in QM—not once, on any skeptical radio show, on any internet animation, or in any High School Class (and I am wagering that it is no different in University) have I ever heard it specifically pointed out that OE does not mean conscious observer—not even when it is a PhD talking to a lay audience.
And thus we have movies such as What the * do we know, and the myths keep spinning.
There are (bad) interpretations of QM, where they do mean “conscious” observer. This objection is very close to saying that MWI (multiple worlds) is “right”, and the others are “wrong”.
That may be the case, but it is far from universally acknowledged among practicing physicists. So, it’s a bit unfair to suggest this “error”, given that many prominent (but wrong) physicists would not agree that it is an error.
I devise a double-slit experiment where my electronowhazzit collapses the waveform for an hour-and-a-half, before shutting off; thus resulting in no diffraction pattern during the first portion of the experiment, and a propagated waveform during the second. I set it up to begin the experiment at midnight, and stop at 3AM; a computer automatically records all the data, which I then store on a CD for 1 year’s time, without looking at it.
At the end of the year, I present this data to a group of these physicists. They declare that it’s my conscious observation, going backwards in time, that creates the results; or that it’s my conscious intent in setting up the aparatus, or something like that?
I wish I were feeling incredulous right now, but to be honest I’m just kind of depressed.
Actually, I suspect, many physicists who believe in consciousness-causes-collapse might deny your logical consequence there. Being confused in the first place, why would you expect them to admit the logical consequences of what they say they believe? At least some would probably admit it, though.
“The Universe if funadmentally Newtonian-Relativisitc. All that Quantum mechanical stuff is just math—you plug it into the equations, but it doesn’t really mean anything. It doesn’t have any macro effects. What’s that you’re saying about computer-processors needing QM callibration dure to fluctuations at that level? Sorry, I’m not an Engineer. QM bomb detonator? Nah, just a toy, don’t worry about it.
“We’ll figure out that grand-unified-theory once we find the God Particle and plug in a simple equation, probably involving e (because e is a pretty cool guy), but that’s all.”
[I’m pretty sure my ignorance is shining through here, but at least I understand the implications of things.]
Very very few physicists have ever believed anything like that. Those who do are likely either New Agers, parapsychologists, or people whose private philosophical ruminations have landed them in an odd place.
Almost universally on this site, I see the presumption that the wavefunction exists. People should understand that for a significant fraction of physicists, wavefunctions are just like probability functions—they are regarded as calculational devices only.
I agree that that view is common (I am a grad student in quantum computation). But quantum mechanics admits nothing else besides the wave-function (or density operator). If there is anything “real”, it pretty much has be the wave-function.
My suspicion is that they would argue that in practice, the information would leak out before then and minutely affect your conscious perception (like, even if you don’t look at the disk, the light reflected from it or the light from the laser writing it will somehow affect your perception). Obviously this is just avoiding the problem.
I want to know how the idea ties in with evolution, though.
It doesn’t tie in directly to evolution, but the misconceptions are related.
I received my fair share of nonsense ‘facts’ growing up, and I had a hell of a time autodidacting myself as an adult—mostly because some of the consequences of our scientific knowledge base are never explicitly said. Here’s a brief list of high-probability truths I’ve had to infer:
-‘Observer effect’ is a quantum-level mechanism, not a conscious entity.
-Schrodinger’s cat would not be a superimposed waveform, the waveform would have collapsed immediately (likely leading to a many worlds split, but in our universe the cat is definitely something). As far as its a thought experiment, its been solved.
-Macro- and Micro-evolution are not actually science; all evolution is micro-evolution, and it’s a false distinction invented by creationists.
-c is a fundamental calibrant of the universe; it’s not a ‘speed’ per se, but rather it’s an aspect of space/time
-Gravity propagates at c
I’m about 98% certain that those points are correct; they mesh nicely with everything else I know (what I’d call common knowledge, though it probably ain’t that common). If any of them are incorrect, then all the other puzzle pieces get thrown into dissaray—and yet once you know these things, you can start predicting where the puzzle pieces will go with good accuracy.
But I’ve never seen any of them stated explicityly (until I started following LW and OB, anyway). It’s my contention that if these things were pounded into kids’ heads, then science education would be a lot easier. Instead they’re taught that entropy is “like when your room gets messy over time.” Barf.
It doesn’t tie in directly to evolution, but the misconceptions are related
What I mean is, if there’s some special feature of humans that collapses wave functions, do all living things have this feature, or was there an animal that had it whose mother didn’t have it?
Greg Egan wrote a book, Quarantine, specifically playing with that idea. (that is, the premise for the story is that it is specific features of the human brain that causes collapse… and those features can be artificially disabled)
Larry Niven mentioned something similar to this, regarding his… um… Future History books (the ones with Beowulf in them—and the three-legged centaur aliens).
At one point in the series he postulated that the centaurs had been breeding the humans for luck—we’d become the luckiest species in the Galaxy. He later on said that, if luck was an inheritable trait then it would be the best inheritable trait. Everyone would have it already.
Presumably the same thing would go for QM waveform non-collapsure; it must be useful somehow. Not that it makes any sense.
Hmm, I was thinking about writing something similar to your article here.
A pet peeve of mine is the Observer Effect in QM—not once, on any skeptical radio show, on any internet animation, or in any High School Class (and I am wagering that it is no different in University) have I ever heard it specifically pointed out that OE does not mean conscious observer—not even when it is a PhD talking to a lay audience.
And thus we have movies such as What the * do we know, and the myths keep spinning.
There are (bad) interpretations of QM, where they do mean “conscious” observer. This objection is very close to saying that MWI (multiple worlds) is “right”, and the others are “wrong”.
That may be the case, but it is far from universally acknowledged among practicing physicists. So, it’s a bit unfair to suggest this “error”, given that many prominent (but wrong) physicists would not agree that it is an error.
Let me see if I have this straight:
I devise a double-slit experiment where my electronowhazzit collapses the waveform for an hour-and-a-half, before shutting off; thus resulting in no diffraction pattern during the first portion of the experiment, and a propagated waveform during the second. I set it up to begin the experiment at midnight, and stop at 3AM; a computer automatically records all the data, which I then store on a CD for 1 year’s time, without looking at it.
At the end of the year, I present this data to a group of these physicists. They declare that it’s my conscious observation, going backwards in time, that creates the results; or that it’s my conscious intent in setting up the aparatus, or something like that?
I wish I were feeling incredulous right now, but to be honest I’m just kind of depressed.
People are crazy, the world is mad.
Actually, I suspect, many physicists who believe in consciousness-causes-collapse might deny your logical consequence there. Being confused in the first place, why would you expect them to admit the logical consequences of what they say they believe? At least some would probably admit it, though.
“The Universe if funadmentally Newtonian-Relativisitc. All that Quantum mechanical stuff is just math—you plug it into the equations, but it doesn’t really mean anything. It doesn’t have any macro effects. What’s that you’re saying about computer-processors needing QM callibration dure to fluctuations at that level? Sorry, I’m not an Engineer. QM bomb detonator? Nah, just a toy, don’t worry about it.
“We’ll figure out that grand-unified-theory once we find the God Particle and plug in a simple equation, probably involving e (because e is a pretty cool guy), but that’s all.”
[I’m pretty sure my ignorance is shining through here, but at least I understand the implications of things.]
Very very few physicists have ever believed anything like that. Those who do are likely either New Agers, parapsychologists, or people whose private philosophical ruminations have landed them in an odd place.
Almost universally on this site, I see the presumption that the wavefunction exists. People should understand that for a significant fraction of physicists, wavefunctions are just like probability functions—they are regarded as calculational devices only.
I agree that that view is common (I am a grad student in quantum computation). But quantum mechanics admits nothing else besides the wave-function (or density operator). If there is anything “real”, it pretty much has be the wave-function.
My suspicion is that they would argue that in practice, the information would leak out before then and minutely affect your conscious perception (like, even if you don’t look at the disk, the light reflected from it or the light from the laser writing it will somehow affect your perception). Obviously this is just avoiding the problem.
I want to know how the idea ties in with evolution, though.
It doesn’t tie in directly to evolution, but the misconceptions are related.
I received my fair share of nonsense ‘facts’ growing up, and I had a hell of a time autodidacting myself as an adult—mostly because some of the consequences of our scientific knowledge base are never explicitly said. Here’s a brief list of high-probability truths I’ve had to infer:
-‘Observer effect’ is a quantum-level mechanism, not a conscious entity.
-Schrodinger’s cat would not be a superimposed waveform, the waveform would have collapsed immediately (likely leading to a many worlds split, but in our universe the cat is definitely something). As far as its a thought experiment, its been solved.
-Macro- and Micro-evolution are not actually science; all evolution is micro-evolution, and it’s a false distinction invented by creationists.
-c is a fundamental calibrant of the universe; it’s not a ‘speed’ per se, but rather it’s an aspect of space/time
-Gravity propagates at c
I’m about 98% certain that those points are correct; they mesh nicely with everything else I know (what I’d call common knowledge, though it probably ain’t that common). If any of them are incorrect, then all the other puzzle pieces get thrown into dissaray—and yet once you know these things, you can start predicting where the puzzle pieces will go with good accuracy.
But I’ve never seen any of them stated explicityly (until I started following LW and OB, anyway). It’s my contention that if these things were pounded into kids’ heads, then science education would be a lot easier. Instead they’re taught that entropy is “like when your room gets messy over time.” Barf.
What I mean is, if there’s some special feature of humans that collapses wave functions, do all living things have this feature, or was there an animal that had it whose mother didn’t have it?
Greg Egan wrote a book, Quarantine, specifically playing with that idea. (that is, the premise for the story is that it is specific features of the human brain that causes collapse… and those features can be artificially disabled)
Ooooooh!
Larry Niven mentioned something similar to this, regarding his… um… Future History books (the ones with Beowulf in them—and the three-legged centaur aliens).
At one point in the series he postulated that the centaurs had been breeding the humans for luck—we’d become the luckiest species in the Galaxy. He later on said that, if luck was an inheritable trait then it would be the best inheritable trait. Everyone would have it already.
Presumably the same thing would go for QM waveform non-collapsure; it must be useful somehow. Not that it makes any sense.
Back to our regularly scheduled reasoning...