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Is Quantum Mech deterministic?
- Thread starter questfortruth
- Start date
MNoBody
Well-Known Member
maybe they get contradictory results due to a bad theoretical model?
Einstein himself wasn't happy with his theory, which got kind of taken over and run the way that management group decided.....off into odd theoretical land where the theories are used to substantiate even more out there theories
Einstein himself wasn't happy with his theory, which got kind of taken over and run the way that management group decided.....off into odd theoretical land where the theories are used to substantiate even more out there theories
Skwim
Veteran Member
Is Quantum Mech deterministic?
I'm voting 'No' from the quantum observer effect and the double-slit experiments it seems consciousness is a player in reality in a way that makes no sense in the materialist-determinist worldview.
I'm voting 'No' from the quantum observer effect and the double-slit experiments it seems consciousness is a player in reality in a way that makes no sense in the materialist-determinist worldview.
questfortruth
Well-Known Member
Have you read the Dr. Martila's arguments in the first page of the paper? If no, then do I need to quote him?
exchemist
Veteran Member
It is a popular misconception that QM involves a role for a conscious observer. Virtually no modern physicist thinks that. It is "measurement" that converts probabilities into a specific outcome, via interaction of the means of measurement with the QM system being measured. The means of measurement is a detector of some sort, i.e. a physical thing. Not consciousness.
But QM is indeed certainly non-deterministic, since the outcome of an individual measurement cannot be exactly predicted. QM explicitly forbids this, in fact, as shown in such concepts as the uncertainty principle, which are intrinsic to the theory.
questfortruth
Well-Known Member
Have you read the Dr. Martila's arguments in the first page of the paper? If no, then do I need to quote him?
I think you are trying to bypass an important point, Why should passive measurement (just looking without interacting) affect anything in our normal understanding of reality. That is why the effect of an observer in Quantum Mechanics is counterintuitive to how we think about reality. When I look at the moon with my passive eyes (eyes only receive information they don't interact) I don't affect them moon. So why does not my passive observation force an electron to set itself in a certain state?
exchemist
Veteran Member
Your passive observation does not cause an electron to set itself in a certain state.
Well, it certainly appears to be the case. What is your better explanation then?
My thought is that this is so amazing that some people won’t believe it even if it’s true.
exchemist
Veteran Member
I addressed that in post 7. For you to detect the electron, it has to interact with your detector. It is this that determines its state. It occurs whether or not you are watching the dial.
Well we will have to end disagreeing on the implications of things like the double-slit experiment.
When the province of physical theory was extended to encompass microscopic phenomena through the creation of quantum mechanics, the concept of consciousness came to the fore again. It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness.
Eugene Wigner
Observations not only disturb what is to be measured, they produce it.
Pascual Jordan
exchemist
Veteran Member
Wigner went a bit funny towards the end. Nobody nowadays subscribes to that view. Consider: for consciousness to be involved, it would mean the needle on the dial changed when the experimenter went to get a cup of coffee. Do you really think that is what happens?
And what do you think happens if the dial is observed by a consciousness that is not human, for example the laboratory cat, or a passing wasp? It's absurd.
The prevailing modern view is that the interaction is what does it, not the mind of an observer.
I know for a fact that is not true about many modern physicists. I can spend the rest of the day producing quotes.
"The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment."
Bernard d'Espagnat
exchemist
Veteran Member
He died in 2015, at the age of 93. He is by no stretch a modern physicist.
I'll be more impressed by quotes from people currently practising physics who think consciousness is involved. As I say, I do not think you will find many of those.
MNoBody
Well-Known Member
personally I think based on what I have been seeing over the decades that if the tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, it still has an effect phenomenologically, existentially.....even if no people were there to witness it..
people die every day and the construct still carries on regardless of the presence of humanoids
which at the height of arrogance still carry on believing the entirety of the vast ALL was made just for them
man could go extinct entirely and the whole universe would continue.
is that wrong?
It may be right?
and the rub is there is no "human" authority which could absolutely validate that.
people die every day and the construct still carries on regardless of the presence of humanoids
which at the height of arrogance still carry on believing the entirety of the vast ALL was made just for them
man could go extinct entirely and the whole universe would continue.
is that wrong?
It may be right?
and the rub is there is no "human" authority which could absolutely validate that.
Agnostisch
Egyptian Man
The mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics is built onto the notions of an operators. When you do a measurement you perturb the system state by applying an operator on it. The eigenvalue of the operator corresponds to the measured value of the system observable. However, each eigenvalue have a certain probability, and therefore by measuring(applying) an operator on the state system there will be a finite(or infinite) number of final states, each of them with a given probability. This is the essence of non-deterministic in quantum mechanics.
The next question arises:how the non-deterministic applies on large scale universe and the "length" of the not-deterministic" phenomena in the universe?
Because in classical theory(like general relativity, electromagnetism), you have for example the Einstein equations which govern the dynamics and they are full deterministic.
The next question arises:how the non-deterministic applies on large scale universe and the "length" of the not-deterministic" phenomena in the universe?
Because in classical theory(like general relativity, electromagnetism), you have for example the Einstein equations which govern the dynamics and they are full deterministic.
questfortruth
Well-Known Member
I know text-book. But what about my thread?
Actually the uncertainty principle of Quantum Mechanic does not in and of it self determine whether Quantum Mechanics is the indeterminate or not. This attribute and other attribute of the Quantum World are predictably consistent in developing hypothesis for the nature of Quantum Mechanics.
At present the predictability and uniformity of our physical existence is determinate, but not rigidly determinate in a mechanistic manner.. Even though individual event outcome may appear random within the possible range of outcomes. The chain of cause and effect outcomes is not random, but follows a predictable fractal pattern with in the limits of Natural Laws. This is true in Quantum Mechanics and the macro physical world.
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