What I am presenting here is just philosophy. It isn't hard but it is based on quantum mechanics but no math below. Christians, however, have missed one of the most amazing arguments for our world view by ignoring this area. Sadly, in this thread, I do not want Shunya dragon participating. Last time I discussed this kind of material he hijacked the thread with tangential undocumented claims.
I had toyed with this idea for years but it wasn't until a week after my cancer reached my bones last July, and I was a wee bit depressed that I read the passage in a Scientific American article which confirmed that there is indeed strong evidence for the existence of the soul and there was no escape from the argument. . I viewed this as a divine cheer up message to me. This issue destroys materialism so even though it is not the easiest reading, it is well worth the effort. Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg wrote:
If this is true, and no one can doubt Weinberg's expertise in this field, then humans are something integral to quantum mechanics. Humans make choices that affect the material world. When we observe a quantum system, we obtain one answer for, say, where the electron is in space. But the math of quantum says that the electron is in all possible places at once, prior to the observation. This state is call superposition. While the system is in superposition, the electron is everywhere at once. Our observations, however, will see the electron at only one spot; we see the electron in one place, not everywhere at once. This difference between what quantum math says is happening and what we see is called the collapse of the wavefunction to one of the possible answers. It happens when we observe the system according to the still quite popular Copenhagen interpretation.
In order to understand it, one first needs to understand the von Neumann chain. Rosenblum and Kuttner explain:
Von Neumann showed that anything subject to the laws of quantum will go into superposition with the quantum system it interacts with. Wigner's friend paradox asks what happens when one uses a friend to observe a quantum system and you are eagerly awaiting the answer? Does the friend go into superposition with the quantum system? If it does, it creates a paradox.
Wigner's friend is a paradox which got its name from Nobel Laureate Eugene Wigner who presented it in the early 1960s, but the first appearance of this paradox in the literature is found in Hugh Everett's dissertation in 1957. A friend looks to see if Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead. He has observed the system. For him the wavefunction has collapsed to a particular state or answer. But Wigner, not having observed the cat doesn't know whether the cat is alive or dead. This gives rise to a paradox. Two observers describing the same event (the friend's observation of the cat), describe it differently. They don't see the same thing using a rigorous application of quantum mathematics. Remember, according to von Neumann, anything subject to the laws of quantum will go into superposition when it interacts with a quantum system. This is important for IF the laws of quantum mechanics apply to his friend's consciousness, then before Wigner's friend tells him whether the cat is alive or dead, the friend is in a superposition state of friend knows cat alive plus friend knows cat dead. Wigner doesn't know whether the cat is alive or dead so Wigner is forced to use quantum math to describe his friend in this superpositional state. But to the friend, he sees no superposition at all. He sees either a cat that is alive or a cat that is dead. ONLY when the friend gives an answer to Wigner does the quantum math collapse to one state or another--cat is alive or cat is dead, and the observers then can describe the event in similar terms.
Wigner states:
After mathematically proving his position, Wigner states:
Wigner goes on to make two very important points about his friend paradox. First, materialism is false. he says:
Secondly he states that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality.
By an 'ultimate reality', Wigner is implicitly stating that the laws of quantum do not apply to consciousness.
In my next post, I will discuss an extension of Wigner's friend paradox that has been tested experimentally. It explicitly states that consciousness is not subject to the laws of quantum and thus does not arise from the material. Further the experiment shows a fundamental logical paradox which, if you believe in the multiverse, requires a privileged observer for its solution--that is, a God.
My friend Gordon Simons and I have written up a comprehensive and understandable (we have tested it) paper which I have placed on my blog which can be found here.
I had toyed with this idea for years but it wasn't until a week after my cancer reached my bones last July, and I was a wee bit depressed that I read the passage in a Scientific American article which confirmed that there is indeed strong evidence for the existence of the soul and there was no escape from the argument. . I viewed this as a divine cheer up message to me. This issue destroys materialism so even though it is not the easiest reading, it is well worth the effort. Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg wrote:
Originally posted by Steven Weinberg cited by Tim Folger, How Does the Quantum World Cross Over?, Scientific American, July 2018, p. 32
In order to understand it, one first needs to understand the von Neumann chain. Rosenblum and Kuttner explain:
Originally posted by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner, Quantum Enigma, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 184
Wigner's friend is a paradox which got its name from Nobel Laureate Eugene Wigner who presented it in the early 1960s, but the first appearance of this paradox in the literature is found in Hugh Everett's dissertation in 1957. A friend looks to see if Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead. He has observed the system. For him the wavefunction has collapsed to a particular state or answer. But Wigner, not having observed the cat doesn't know whether the cat is alive or dead. This gives rise to a paradox. Two observers describing the same event (the friend's observation of the cat), describe it differently. They don't see the same thing using a rigorous application of quantum mathematics. Remember, according to von Neumann, anything subject to the laws of quantum will go into superposition when it interacts with a quantum system. This is important for IF the laws of quantum mechanics apply to his friend's consciousness, then before Wigner's friend tells him whether the cat is alive or dead, the friend is in a superposition state of friend knows cat alive plus friend knows cat dead. Wigner doesn't know whether the cat is alive or dead so Wigner is forced to use quantum math to describe his friend in this superpositional state. But to the friend, he sees no superposition at all. He sees either a cat that is alive or a cat that is dead. ONLY when the friend gives an answer to Wigner does the quantum math collapse to one state or another--cat is alive or cat is dead, and the observers then can describe the event in similar terms.
Wigner states:
Originally posted by Eugene Wigner, Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, Eugene Wigner, in John Wheeler and Wojciech Hubert Zurek,Quantum Theory and Measurement, , (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1983), p. 176
Originally posted by Eugene Wigner, Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, Eugene Wigner, in John Wheeler and Wojciech Hubert Zurek,Quantum Theory and Measurement, , (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1983), p. 180
Wigner goes on to make two very important points about his friend paradox. First, materialism is false. he says:
Originally posted by Eugene Wigner, Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, Eugene Wigner, in John Wheeler and Wojciech Hubert Zurek,Quantum Theory and Measurement, , (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1983), p. 176
Originally posted by Eugene Wigner, Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, in Eugene Wigner, Philosophical Reflections and Syntheses, Springer, 2012, p. 172
In my next post, I will discuss an extension of Wigner's friend paradox that has been tested experimentally. It explicitly states that consciousness is not subject to the laws of quantum and thus does not arise from the material. Further the experiment shows a fundamental logical paradox which, if you believe in the multiverse, requires a privileged observer for its solution--that is, a God.
My friend Gordon Simons and I have written up a comprehensive and understandable (we have tested it) paper which I have placed on my blog which can be found here.
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