A Universe From Nothing

[night912]

Ask a scientist as to what is current scientific knowledge.

I'm asking you. I responded to your post and you responded back, so would I go ask a scientist for the defense of your claims? If you can't defend your argument, just simply say that you can't defend your argument. That, I can accept and respect. And there's nothing wrong with that, but cowardly avoiding and sending me to ask someone not involved in this discussion does show a lot about ones character.

 

[Thief]

In Scripture, can't be spirit first because God sends forth his spirit........ - Psalms 104:30
Since God is from everlasting ( No beginning ) only God was first before anything else - Psalms 90:2.

I have always insisted....Spirit First

substance as creation

 

[URAVIP2ME]

I'm asking you. I responded to your post and you responded back, so would I go ask a scientist for the defense of your claims? If you can't defend your argument, just simply say that you can't defend your argument. That, I can accept and respect. And there's nothing wrong with that, but cowardly avoiding and sending me to ask someone not involved in this discussion does show a lot about ones character.

I want to apologize to you because I did Not think you would find the mention of a scientist as to a defence of my claims, just their view.
I am merely posting what I find in Scripture that the universe did Not come from nothing but that God used His Great Power, His Great Strength to create.
First, to create the invisible realm of existence (angelic realm) then late expanded creation to include the visible material/physical realm.
In the Bible ALL creation comes through God sending out His spirit as mentioned at Psalms 104:30.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

I have always insisted....Spirit First substance as creation

In Scripture there is Spirit and there is spirit.
God is a Spirit ( a Spirit person ) Angels are Spirit persons.
God, angels and humans have the ' spirit ' of life.
When Adam died his life's spirit went out just like a burnt-out light bulb.
When we die our spirit ( IT ) returns to God as per Ecclesiastes 12:7 B
Meaning that any future life then lies in God's safe hands.
So, to me Psalms 90:2 shows God is a Spirit person who was first.
Then, out of God's Great Power, God's Great Strength comes the substance we know as creation.- Isaiah 40:26.
God as a Spirit person supplied the necessary abundant dynamic energy to create both the invisible and then visible world. - Psalms 104:30

 

[ecco]

A central difference between Behe and those who view consciousness as fundamental to quantum theory is that in the case of Behe we have a well-established theory nearly universally accepted by those in relevant fields on the one hand and Behe with his own ideas and interpretations on the other. In the case of quantum theory, the relevance of human minds as “observers” is built into the basic mathematical structures of the theory, which takes as its fundamental components not the mathematical representation of the dynamical system but “observables” and their algebras. In the Heisenberg picture, the state itself is subsumed by the observables, while in the Schrödinger picture the actual attributes of any given physical system are again given by the observables associated with it. The orthodox interpretation of quantum theory is based primarily on the ideas of Bohr and Heisenberg, both of whom considered the (conscious) observer as again a fundamental, inescapable part of the nature of physical theories in general and quantum theory in particular.

In perhaps the most common formulation, pure states are described in terms of equivalence classes of elements in some complex finite or infinite dimensional space, but even for simple one-level, non-interacting systems any attribute or measureable property of interest is given either by the state preparation (and therefore encoded in the mathematical representation of the state) or by the statistical properties of the operator from the relevant observable algebra acting on the state and projecting it onto a subspace yielding the measurement outcome. But what constitutes a measurement and for whom does the observable yield a specific outcome? Wigner’s insight was to realize that there is no formal distinction (and neither perhaps a conceptual one) between the standard view of the quantum state in a particular experimental arrangement as a “black box” and that entire arrangement plus the experimenter from the perspective of an outsider. This is entirely consistent with the standard formulation emphasized initially by e.g., Bohr and Heisenberg in which we only ask of the theory that it consistently yield valid predictions rather than be understood as a description of any underlying physical processes (Bohr famously denied even the existence of a quantum world in favor of abstract mathematics).

Naturally, many physicists in later years and generations have grown increasingly uncomfortable with the received interpretation.

But once again, rather than (as with Behe) a situation in which a few physicists stand against some consensus, we have instead no consensus at all but a diverse number of interpretations and a number of working FAPP schemes. For some, quantum theory only makes sense in terms of an observer. For some, it is clearly a subjective tool for conscious agents in the form of a non-classical probability framework. For others, like Stapp (whose views are built on Heisenberg’s) it is the natural progression of physics in that it finally includes us as conscious observers and the role we play. For others, it is best understood in a simpler form in which all probabilies are yielded in some possible world/universe or in some “mind” (the many-world and many-mind interpretations, respectively). For others, we should take information as fundamental an interpret quantum theory in this light (but information for whom?). The list goes on and on.

But there are many interpretations and formulations (many of which are inaccessible to the layperson, unlike your typical popular nonsense on quantum minds or similar balderdash) going back to the origins of the theory in which conscious observers are a central component to the theory.

That's a lot of words to avoid answering the question:
How would conscious observers have formed before there were conscious observers?

 

[gnostic]

A central difference between Behe and those who view consciousness as fundamental to quantum theory is that in the case of Behe we have a well-established theory nearly universally accepted by those in relevant fields on the one hand and Behe with his own ideas and interpretations on the other.

Behe has “a well-established theory nearly universally accepted by those in relevant fields on the one hand”?

That’s news to me.

As far as I know, the majority of scientists (except those few scientists who are followers of the Discovery Institute’s Intelligent Design), have rejected his Irreducible Complexity (IC) concept, as pseudoscience.

Behe is one of the senior members of Discovery Institute. And he was the so-called expert witness to Kitzmiller vs Dover case in 2005, supporting the use “Of Pandas and People” that were being used schools’ science classrooms, to teach a non-scientific Intelligent Design.

Instead of providing falsifiable hypothesis along with methodology to find or test his IC model, that provide observation/evidence and data to back his concept, he used analogies of machines as biological parts.

Since his work on Irreducible Complexity have been rejected and debunked, because he have no verifiable evidence and data, it isn’t “a well-established theory”. So, he resorted to appealing to the public, through mass media, publishing Darwin’s Black Box, to explain his concept of IC to generally largely science illiterate readers.

Only those idiots and sorry excuses for scientists from Discovery Institute have endorsed his Irreducible Complexity, and that’s not even remotely being “nearly universally accepted”.

Nothing about Irreducible Complexity and Darwin’s Black Box is scientific or falsifiable.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

That's a lot of words to avoid answering the question:
How would conscious observers have formed before there were conscious observers?

The question is irrelevant. It assumes, contrary to the standard and perhaps most other interpretations of quantum theory, that it makes sense to ask what quantum theory (or physical theories more generally) says about observations never made or about an observer-independent world.
It is true that many physicists (and others) remain deeply uncomfortable about a fundamental physical theory that inherently distinguishes us as observers. This is why John Bell, for example, wished to call them "be-ables". But the point is not that this view is correct, or that consciousness is required for quantum theory, merely that it is ridiculous to equate a mainstream view in physics that has roots going back to its foundations and that is written into its mathematical structure with the views of Behe.
Its one thing to equate quantum mysticism and pseudoscience more generally with Behe's views, and another to do what you did.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Behe has “a well-established theory nearly universally accepted by those in relevant fields on the one hand”?

No. Just the opposite, in fact. Reread my post. Evolutionary theory is well-established and nearly universally accepted, not Behe's views.

 

[gnostic]

No. Just the opposite, in fact. Reread my post. Evolutionary theory is well-established and nearly universally accepted, not Behe's views.

My mistake, sorry.

 

[ecco]

That's a lot of words to avoid answering the question:
How would conscious observers have formed before there were conscious observers?

The question is irrelevant. It assumes, contrary to the standard and perhaps most other interpretations of quantum theory, that it makes sense to ask what quantum theory (or physical theories more generally) says about observations never made or about an observer-independent world.

Aha! A scientific theory, or at least a concept, that does not allow questions. Hmm, that sounds more like a religious edict than a scientific theory.

However, I think that is just something that you made up. I can't see any respectable scientist putting forth a theory and stating: "Your question is irrelevant" when the question is not only relevant, but crucial.

Is it an irrelevant question to ask how water could have formed before there was oxygen?

 

[ecco]

Its one thing to equate quantum mysticism and pseudoscience more generally with Behe's views, and another to do what you did.

Pseudoscience is pseudoscience. Woo is woo.

You referred to Wigner about whom we read...

dedicated to the new information philosophy
Wigner claimed that a quantum measurement requires the mind of a conscious observer, without which wave functions never collapse and nothing ever happens in the universe.

About which I asked...

How would conscious observers have formed before there were conscious observers?

• Wave functions cannot collapse without the mind of a conscious observer.
• If wave functions do not collapse, nothing ever happens in the universe.
• If nothing ever happens in the universe, conscious observers cannot come into existence.
• Rinse and Repeat - ad infinitum

Pseudoscience is pseudoscience. Woo is woo.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Aha! A scientific theory, or at least a concept, that does not allow questions. Hmm, that sounds more like a religious edict than a scientific theory.

The question you had made assumptions that the theory doesn't and then asked about those assumptions. It is akin to creationists asking how evolutionary theory can account for the origins of life if it requires life already. Quantum theory, according to the standard and many other interpretations, deals with what we can consistently predict about observations. Without observers, there can be no observations. Mermin puts it succinctly, in language simple enough perhaps you can understand (nothing technical)
"The questions with which Einstein attacked the quantum theory do have answers [does the moon exist only when it is looked at]; but they are not the answers Einstein expected them to have. We now know that the moon is demonstrably not there when nobody looks."
Mermin, N. D. (1981). Quantum mysteries for anyone. The Journal of Philosophy, 78(7), 397-408.

Quantum theory shows us that the reality which is taken to be objective in classical physics is observer dependent. This does not mean that reality is subjective or that there exists no reality independent of us. It DOES mean that what appears to be objective reality is in part caused by our being here to observe it and would be different were we not. Reality is counterfactually indefinite.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

• Wave functions cannot collapse without the mind of a conscious observer.
• If wave functions do not collapse, nothing ever happens in the universe.
• If nothing ever happens in the universe, conscious observers cannot come into existence.
• Rinse and Repeat - ad infinitum

Pseudoscience is pseudoscience. Woo is woo.

Wave functions in the standard intepretation are taken to be irreducibly statistical and non-realist. Without observers, there are no wavefunctions (and this is not limited to versions of quantum theory dependent upon consciousness or minds, but upon everything from the Copenhagen interpretation to QBism). You are taking a realist interpretation of a theory you are apparently barely acquainted with if at all. I would suggest familiarizing yourself with the basics before making bald and clearly incorrect statements about a 100+ year old debate on quantum foundations. In realist, ontological interpretations we generally must rid ourselves of wavefunction collapse or the projection postulate, so even taking quantum theory in an ontological or objectively realist sense with the appropriate modifications (i.e., as in the de Boglie-Bohm pilot wave ontologies) we don't have wavefunction collapses. The same is true, BTW, of the many-minds and many-worlds interpretations. A fundamental issue with collapse interpretations is the requirement of observations. Bell rejected the standard interpretation for much the same reason you seem to wish to, but just happened to be far more informed:

"It would seem that the theory is exclusively concerned about 'results of measurement', and has nothing to say about anything else. What exactly qualifies some physical systems to play the role of 'measurer'? Was the wavefunction of the world waiting to jump for thousands of millions of years until a single-celled living creature appeared? Or did it have to wait a little longer, for some better qualified system... with a PhD?"
Bell, J. (1990). Against ‘measurement’. Physics world, 3(8), 33.

The questions are rhetorical, because for Bell such a situation was unacceptable. But the point is that especially at the time he was writing it seemed like nobody really was prepared to say that it was meaningful to ask about what a wavefunction encoded about reality, as the standard interpretation views such questions as about as meaningful as asking whether or not invisible monkeys are standing behind you as long as you don't turn around (that example was taken from an MIT lecture on introductory quantum mechanics).

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

My mistake, sorry.

No problem! I do it all the time

 

[gnostic]

No problem! I do it all the time

It was the way you worded that sentence.

 

[ecco]

previously...

How would conscious observers have formed before there were conscious observers?

The question you had made assumptions that the theory doesn't and then asked about those assumptions.

The theory doesn't require humans? But you asserted...

In the case of quantum theory, the relevance of human minds as “observers” is built into the basic mathematical structures of the theory,

​

...according to your post, the theory requires human observers. Therefore it is entirely acceptable to ask...

How would conscious observers have formed before there were conscious observers?

...since without conscious observers...

Wigner claimed that a quantum measurement requires the mind of a conscious observer, without which wave functions never collapse and nothing ever happens in the universe.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

previously...
​

The theory doesn't require humans?

The mistaken assumption was that quantum theory is intended or even capable of describing an objectively existing reality independent of observations and that therefore Wigner and others fail in their approach. This assumption fails not only when applied to Wigner but to a far broader class of interpretations going back to Bohr and Heisenberg and realized today especially in the most modern interpretations.
In particular, your failure to adequately appreciate or even coherently criticize Wigner is shown by the following:

How would conscious observers have formed before there were conscious observers?

In short, you take it as given the incredibly controversial view that quantum theory is a realist, objective description of an external reality independent of observers and therefore that Wigner's view falls because the physical systems that form conscious observers must themselves be identified with the quantum physics that requires them. Only this is doubly wrong. First, because (strictly speaking) in standard/orthodox QM (among other formulations) the "collapse" describes changes of state fundamentally differently than does the unitary evolution governing quantum systems. Put more simply, the physical systems in quantum theory evolve dynamically according to rules that themselves change upon measurement, and the state of the system itself changes in addition. It is possible (and indeed characteristic of many so-called "no collapse" interpretations) to get around the issue Wigner describes in terms of measurement by a conscious observer by rejecting collapse entirely.
Second, the criticism of Wigner is wrong because of the assumption described above. According to the standard/orthodox view, quantum theory isn't a realist description of an objectively existing external reality independent of observation. It doesn't and cannot describe a world independently of observation. It is built from the ground up via combination of i) an irreducibly probabilistic description of a physical state that encodes information about the manner of specification of particular systems in particular ways and ii) the relevant observables which encode the outcomes of measurements when applied to this abstract "system". It does not seek to and cannot (according to these views) be taken to describe an objective, observer-independent physical reality. Indeed, the moment one starts to take the representations of physical states in quantum theory seriously one runs into the immediate problems that these descriptions evolve into states never seen in ways impossible even in principle to observe and yield outcomes with some probability.

I want to make clear here that I do not buy into the idea that quantum theory requires consciousness or that we should understand either the mind or quantum theory in terms of one another. I set out early in my graduate career to do my dissertation on exactly how completely wrong this view is. But the requirement of conscious observers is subtly involved in many different approaches to quantum theory and it is ridiculous to claim that proponents of views like Wigner's are akin to Behe. I don't agree with the many-worlds interpretation either, but I don't call it woo even if I find it more ludicrous than a take on quantum theory like Stapp's or Penrose or Wigner or many, many others.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

It was the way you worded that sentence.

Yeah, I do that. One of the reasons I like the mathematics in physics is because my prose can be obscure. Putting in the formal symbols helps clarify what I am saying in addition to forcing me to include more breaks in what I write.