Quantum Enigma

[GDR]

Mitch:

I would think disproving the theory would be technically impossible since, in order to preove it, it must be observed. when something is observed it takes on the observed state. How can you test without testing?

Now I have gone and broke my brain. I need a drink?

In addition to what Mitch said they can actually test empirically that the result of the observation made it necessary to go back in time and create the history to bring about the result of the observation. Mind numbing stuff. Nothing is as it seems.

[Check Pilot]

Or maybe more importantly, Michael Brooks asks in his book "13 Things That Don't Make Sense" - just what exactly is "life". It seems the answer to that will remain unanswered for a long time.

Now my head hurts and I now need a drink too.

[Kip Powick]

just what exactly is "life"

Quite simple when you think about it...."Life is what happens when you are making plans"

Trying to see the entire "big picture", no matter what the issue, is just a PITA in my opinion.

[GTFA]

Excuse me for interjecting. I try to read as much as I can stand on this type of subject and share in your fascination and frustration. I have a question:

If a particle requires an observer to exist what qualifies as an observer? Does the observer require a conscience? If so, does the observation exist if there is no one with whom to share the event? If not what reality exists for the animal kingdom? What reality exists for the stone that is eroded by bombardment of particles over time?

I would be delighted if anyone could make any sense of my quandary.

GTFA

[Mitch Cronin]

Those are excellent questions GTFA... I think no one can answer them though. It appears that consciousness may be a factor in creating the existence of a particle, however whatever theories develop, so far none can be tested. Does Schroedingers cat qualify as an observer?, for instance....

Is a stone conscious? Does the tree that falls in the forest exist if no beast has ever laid eyes on it?

[GTFA]

Strings. I found that one of the most mind boggling concepts in the string theory is that they can exist in so many different dimensions. Are we capable of observing other dimensions?

[conehead]

Does the tree that falls in the forest exist if no beast has ever laid eyes on it?

When Man makes an observation, and Woman does not hear it, is he still wrong?

[Canus Chinookus]

QUANTUM TO THE CORE

Stuart Hameroff, an anesthesiologist and director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona, argues that the highest function of life—consciousness—is likely a quantum phenomenon too. This is illustrated, he says, through anesthetics. The brain of a patient under anesthesia continues to operate actively, but without a conscious mind at work. What enables anesthetics such as xenon or isoflurane gas to switch off the conscious mind?

Hameroff speculates that anesthetics “interrupt a delicate quantum process” within the neurons of the brain. Each neuron contains hundreds of long, cylindrical protein structures, called microtubules, that serve as scaffolding. Anesthetics, Hameroff says, dissolve inside tiny oily regions of the microtubules, affecting how some electrons inside these regions behave.

He speculates that the action unfolds like this: When certain key electrons are in one “place,” call it to the “left,” part of the microtubule is squashed; when the electrons fall to the “right,” the section is elongated. But the laws of quantum mechanics allow for electrons to be both “left” and “right” at the same time, and thus for the micro­tubules to be both elongated and squashed at once. Each section of the constantly shifting system has an impact on other sections, potentially via quantum entanglement, leading to a dynamic quantum-mechanical dance.

It is in this faster-than-light subatomic communication, Hameroff says, that consciousness is born. Anesthetics get in the way of the dancing electrons and stop the gyration at its quantum-mechanical core; that is how they are able to switch consciousness off.

It is still a long way from Hameroff’s hypo thetical (and experimentally unproven) quantum neurons to a sentient, conscious human brain. But many human experiences, Hameroff says, from dreams to subconscious emotions to fuzzy memory, seem closer to the Alice in Wonderland rules governing the quantum world than to the cut-and-dried reality that classical physics suggests. Discovering a quantum portal within every neuron in your head might be the ultimate trip through the looking glass.

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/feb/13-is...m=consciousness

[GTFA]

So does the introduction of hallucinogens cause the opening of quantum portals of our neurons? Or does it merely re-arrange the interaction?

[GDR]

Hi Mitch

Thought I'd go back to this thread and add this.

I just read a book by Gerald Schroeder who has Ph.D's in two fields from MIT, (Physics and Earth Sciences), and now works out of research centres in Jerusalem.

Here are some excerpts from one of his books:

“Werner Heisenberg, Nobel laureate in physics and one of the parents of all modern quantum mechanics, in his book 'Physics and Beyond' suggests the philosophical implications of the metaphysical giving rise to the physical.

[Heisenberg writes:] Inherent difficulties of the materialist theory of existence have appeared very clearly in the development of physics during the 20th century. This difficulty relates to the question whether the smallest units of matter such as atoms, (of which we and all objects are composed), are ordinary physical objects, whether they exist in the same way as stones or flowers. Here quantum theory has created a complex change in the situation......The smallest units of matter are, in fact, not physical objects in the ordinary sense of the word; they are – in Plato's sense – ideas.

[schroeder goes on to say:] These are not the speculative words of science fiction. And don't let the exotic technical name “quantum mechanics” deceive you. Quantum mechanics is not some idle theory waiting in the wings for an esoteric application. Every time you turn on your TV, start your car engine, or place a phone call, you are putting into operation the insights of Heisenberg. The products of his mind are part of your everyday life.

The startling, totally counterintuitive, yet scientifically proven discoveries of physics reveal that our world, at its deepest level, is not built of tangibly discrete objects. Rather, when we look closely we find that reality is as gossamer as a thought, that existence is closer to being an association of ideas than a conglomeration of atoms.

Again in the words of Nobel laureate and biologist George Wald, “The stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is mind that has composed a physical universe.”

[Further on Schroeder writes:]

The brain, built of flesh and blood, receives the mind's thoughts, just as a radio or TV receives the radiant broadcast signals and transcribes them into audibles sound and perceived vision. The brain takes in information and stores and analyzes data. All our bodily senses are experienced in the brain, stored on the multiple maps of our bodies sequestered within our brains. We wiggle our toes and feel that motion in our brains, even though every bit of logic tells us we are feeling the motion in our feet. If you doubt this, just ask people who have had the misfortune of losing a limb and yet continue to feel the lost body part as the well known “phantom limb”.

The puzzle of the mind-brain interface is not in the recording and biochemical storage of the incoming sensory data. That is brain work. Specific regions of the brain are well known to be devoted to the processing of speech and vision. The paths of the incoming data have been largely identified. The puzzle is in the replay. There is no hint in the brain of how you hear or see what you have heard or seen. There is no sound in your brain and all that is heard is the gurgling of the blood as it moves through the vessels. No voices. No music. But I hear voices and music. But where is an unknown.

There is not a peep or whisper or glimmer of light anywhere in your brain. And even as you read these words you're hearing them. The brain receives information from the body. From that information emerges sensations of our emotions and the awareness of being our selves. The mind appears as a virtual reality, existing fully in another dimension, but manifesting itself as an emergent property of the brain. The brain calculates what the next move on the chessboard should be. The mind experiences the tension in making that decision. I am not suggesting here any radical departure from our current understanding of the world. Emergent virtual realities are fully a part of the concepts of modern physics. The most common of these would be the positive and negative charges that enigmatically emerge from protons and electrons.

[schroeder the quotes Sir John Maddox the former editor of the journal Nature.]

“Nobody understands how decisions are made or how imagination is set free. What consciousness consists of, or how it should be defined is equally puzzling. Despite the marvelous successes of neuroscience in the past century, we seem as far from understanding cognitive processes as we were a century ago”.

[schroeder also quotes Erwin Schroedinger of Schroedinger's Cat fame.]

“So in brief we do not belong to this material world world that science constructs for us. We, (our personal awareness of ourselves). Are not part of it. The reason why we believe that we are in it, that we belong to the picture, is that our bodies are in the picture....And this is the only way of communicating with them.”

That is the end of the quotes. If all that doesn't cause your head to spin I guess nothing well.

[GTFA]

[schroeder also quotes Erwin Schroedinger of Schroedinger's Cat fame.]

“So in brief we do not belong to this material world world that science constructs for us. We, (our personal awareness of ourselves). Are not part of it. The reason why we believe that we are in it, that we belong to the picture, is that our bodies are in the picture....And this is the only way of communicating with them.”

Yes, head-spinning stuff. What struck me about this last quote is the question: could this statement suggest that we are actually part of a different dimension than the physical world? A dimension called consciousness?

With the different theories of how many dimensions there may be, are there any suggestions that each dimension is dependent on all the others, or could you take one away. Thus the age old question if you took away the dimension of consciousness would the universe still exist?

[GDR]

Yes, head-spinning stuff. What struck me about this last quote is the question: could this statement suggest that we are actually part of a different dimension than the physical world? A dimension called consciousness?

With the different theories of how many dimensions there may be, are there any suggestions that each dimension is dependent on all the others, or could you take one away. Thus the age old question if you took away the dimension of consciousness would the universe still exist?

I've only got a second but it is my opinion based on what I've read that without consciousness the universe as we perceive it doesn't exist.

Take the two parts of the quotes from Scroeder together. The first part says that everything we perceive is made up of dimensionless particles. Even string theory claims that particles are one dimensional strings. How do we perceive something that has no width or depth. In other words no matter how powerful a microscope we had we could never actually see a particle. (We see them in particle accelerators by the results when they collide as I understand it.)

Then combine that with the idea that our consciousness is something that is not part of the physical world and I'm left believing that consciousness is fundamental to the world that we perceive. No consciousness - no world. That is only how I see it but it all seems to fit.

[Mitch Cronin]

But there is consciousness! So the universe is real. These may just be the beginnings of scientific study of consciousness. "Leave it to the philosophers" may be a dying phrase.

Maybe one day we will learn to communicate telepathically. ...or that the hippies were right, and you can send out positive vibes to someone... and maybe there is something rooted in truth in a medicine man's magic, or a witch doctor's voodoo...

[DEFCON]

If the individual ‘observer' wasn't able to take the ‘observation’ of life 'anywhere' upon his passing, how would it be possible for him to ‘exist’ consciously or otherwise in the present sense?

[Moon The Loon]

This thread is making my brain hurt.

[Say Again, Over!]

But there is consciousness! So the universe is real. These may just be the beginnings of scientific study of consciousness. "Leave it to the philosophers" may be a dying phrase.

Maybe one day we will learn to communicate telepathically. ...or that the hippies were right, and you can send out positive vibes to someone... and maybe there is something rooted in truth in a medicine man's magic, or a witch doctor's voodoo...

Or... or... maybe there is a God!!

Cheers, friend!

Felix