If a tree falls and no one is around...

[Polymath257]

No one understands quantum mechanics.

Simply false. Feynman, for example, understood it quite well. There are many textbooks going through the basics and even the deeper aspects.

To say that nobody understands it is ludicrous. Of course, there are aspects that are still being investigated and elaborated. But that is true of any subject.

 

[Revoltingest]

There's an interesting view counter to the OP.
In the movie Mystery Men, the Invisible Boy
is only invisible when no one is looking at him.
This turns out to be a useful superpower.
At 5:00 his invisibility allows him to pass a deadly
electronic sentry.

 

[Revoltingest]

Yes. Truth is paradoxical via the human perspective.

No paradox.
The sound exists.
But not everyone hears it.

 

[Polymath257]

Quantum theory is only applicable to the microscopically small.
It does not function in the macroscopic real world
It has nothing to say about trees falling.

Not completely true. QM reduces to Newtonian physics in the macroscopic approximation. But it still applies. And, in some cases, aspects of QM can be observed in macroscopic systems (josephson junctions, for example, or superfluid helium).

But, in a sense, you are correct. QM has nothing to say about trees falling that classical physics couldn't already say.

 

[Polymath257]

Yes. Truth is paradoxical via the human perspective.

Only if you insist that experience is all that is relevant.

 

[PureX]

That Feynman quote needs explanation.
What did Richard Feynman mean when he said 'No one understands quantum mechanics'? - Quora
Excerpted...
The quote comes from Feynman's book The Character of Physical Law, which is based on his Messenger Lectures at Cornell. If you look at the quote in context, it is very clear exactly what Feynman meant: He meant that quantum mechanical phenomena cannot be understood using concepts or models from our ordinary experience. They cannot be understood by analogy with anything familiar. But, of course, physicists do understand very well the mathematical formalism and how to apply it to physical systems and make predictions about the results of experiments.

I wasn't quoting Feynman. I was referring to the simple fact that no human has even the remotest idea if, how, or why "quantum reality" exists. None. It's a collection of theories based on observations that are based on presumptions that are based on other observations that are based on other presumptions.

Even at it's best science can only observe and presume causality. It is not and never will be a window into our knowing the truth of existence. So far we have catalogued an array of what we can loosely term "observed phenomena" that we choose to call "quantum particles". But the degree of speculation and imagination involved in this far outstrips anything that could be termed actual knowledge. And none of it has yet delivered even a clue to the actual foundations of existence.

I think science is a wonderful endeavor, but we are fooling ourselves if we are thinking it's the pathway to knowing the truth of existence.

 

[PureX]

Only if you insist that experience is all that is relevant.

I said "human perspective", not "human experience".

 

[Revoltingest]

I wasn't quoting Feynman.

And here I thought you were being erudite.

I was referring to the simple fact that no human has even the remotest idea if, how, or why "quantum reality" exists. None. It's a collection of theories based on observations that are based on presumptions that are based on other observations that are based on other presumptions.

The theories comport with experimentation, which is reality.

 

[metis]

If a tree falls and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? I know it's an old question.

When I was 19 I read a book called Biocentrism. It asserts that it does not in fact make a sound absent of an observer.

Biocentrism says that consciousness and biological creatures are a key component in the existence of the universe, or something like that. It attempts to use quantum mechanics and the entanglement experiment to support the logic.

Here is an article written by the author where he talks about his theory.

‘Biocentrism’: How life creates the universe

Excerpt from the article.

Take the seemingly undeniable logic that your kitchen is always present, its contents assuming all their familiar shapes and colors whether or not you are in it. But consider: The shapes, colors, and forms known as your kitchen are seen as they are solely because photons of light from the overhead bulb bounce off the various objects and then interact with your brain through a complex set of retinal and neural intermediaries. But on its own, light doesn’t have any color, nor any brightness, nor any visual characteristics at all. It’s merely an electrical and magnetic phenomenon. So while you may think that the kitchen as you remember it was “there” in your absence, the unquestionable reality is that nothing remotely resembling what you can imagine could be present when a consciousness is not interacting.

Quantum physics comes to a similar conclusion. At night you click off the lights and leave for the bedroom. Of course the kitchen is there, unseen, all through the night. Right? But, in fact, the refrigerator, stove and everything else are composed of a shimmering swarm of matter/energy. The results of quantum physics, such as the two-slit experiment, tell us that not a single one of those subatomic particles actually occupies a definite place. Rather, they exist as a range of possibilities — as waves of probability — as the German physicist Max Born demonstrated back in 1926. They are statistical predictions — nothing but a likely outcome. In fact, outside of that idea, nothing is there! If they are not being observed, they cannot be thought of as having any real existence — either duration or a position in space. It is only in the presence of an observer — that is, when you go back in to get a drink of water — that the mind sets the scaffolding of these particles in place. Until it actually lays down the threads (somewhere in the haze of probabilities that represent the object’s range of possible values) they cannot be thought of as being either here or there, or having an actual position, a physical reality.

What are your guy's thoughts on the theory?

I've read several books and numerous articles in Scientific American on quantum mechanics, and it still boggles my mind, especially "entanglement at a distance". Of course, the latter blows of the cosmologists and physicists as well, which makes me feel at least a tad better.

BTW, my oldest granddaughter is getting her graduate degree in quantum mathematics and quantum chemistry next month at the University of Michigan, and when I look at the formulas she works with, it's all "Greek" to me.

 

[PureX]

The theories comport with experimentation, which is reality.

**chuckling**

 

[Polymath257]

I wasn't quoting Feynman. I was referring to the simple fact that no human has even the remotest idea if, how, or why "quantum reality" exists. None. It's a collection of theories based on observations that are based on presumptions that are based on other observations that are based on other presumptions.

Yes, and that is precisely what it means to 'understand quantum mechanics'. Those theories are tested by observation, which is the only way we have to test. The presumptions are also tested by observation. Those theories that do not agree with observation are modified or discarded (depending on how severe the disagreement).

Nobody expects to have an answee to why 'quantum reality exists'. It may not even be an answerable question.

Even at it's best science can only observe and presume causality. It is not and never will be a window into our knowing the truth of existence.

I guess that depends on what you mean by 'the truth of existence'. We know that classical causality is false. We test our ideas by observation. That *is* a window into how the universe works.

So far we have catalogued an array of what we can loosely term "observed phenomena" that we choose to call "quantum particles". But the degree of speculation and imagination involved in this far outstrips anything that could be termed actual knowledge. And none of it has yet delivered even a clue to the actual foundations of existence.

What does the term 'foundations of existence' even mean? And why do you think existence needs a foundation?

if you disagree with a conclusion of science, just design an experiment or observation showing it is wrong.

I think science is a wonderful endeavor, but we are fooling ourselves if we are thinking it's the pathway to knowing the truth of existence.

I question whether there is any other way to find the 'truth of existence' than successive approximations based on observation and testing.

 

[Polymath257]

I said "human perspective", not "human experience".

And the difference is?

 

[Polymath257]

**chuckling**

You seem to disagree. Why? Can you give specifics?

 

[PureX]

You seem to disagree. Why? Can you give specifics?

Look, I know you're a "true believer" an all, but no one is "observing" anything on the quantum scale of existence. And there is no machine that we can build that can do that, either. It's all speculation based on pre-speculation based on machines that were designed to make happen what we speculated would happen when we turned the machine on. It's all so abstract and obscure and being determined by our own speculations that it very easily becomes a mythical world of it's own making.

 

[Polymath257]

Look, I know you're a "true believer" an all, but no one is "observing" anything on the quantum scale of existence. And there is no machine that we can build that can do that, either. It's all speculation based on pre-speculation based on machines that were designed to make happen what we speculated would happen when we turned the machine on. It's all so abstract and obscure and being determined by our own speculations that it very easily becomes a mythical world of it's own making.

We can't make machines that 'make things happen' unless the laws of physics allow such. the machines need to calibrated and their results verified against other, previous observations.

And yes, there are machines that can detect at the quantum level. For example, scanning tunneling microscopes resolve at atomic level.

 

[Revoltingest]

Look, I know you're a "true believer" an all, but no one is "observing" anything on the quantum scale of existence. And there is no machine that we can build that can do that, either.

Instead of claiming there are no such machines,
you should just say you don't know of any.
I read the news, & have heard of several

It's all speculation based on pre-speculation based on machines that were designed to make happen what we speculated would happen when we turned the machine on.

Wrongo pongo!
Experiments & machines also defy expectations
by regularly yielding unexpected results.

 

[Nimos]

Yes. It depends on how we understand humans and the rest of the whole. And we, as you and I do that differently.

What does that have to do with what sound is?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

What does that have to do with what sound is?

To say sounds is X requires a human to make that claim and to explain if it is objective or subjective. That is where the fun starts.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

To say sounds is X requires a human to make that claim and to explain if it is objective or subjective. That is where the fun starts.

Even bacteria react to sound waves.
They also cause inanimate objects to vibrate.
I doubt that there is nothing totally unaffected by sound waves.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Even bacteria react to sound waves.
They also cause inanimate objects to vibrate.
I doubt that there is nothing totally unaffected by sound waves.

Yeah, but sound have 2 meanings and to choose one over another is an subjective act.