Re: [asa] Quantum physics, measurement problems, other implications?

On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 5:32 AM, Schwarzwald <schwarzwald@gmail.com> wrote:

> Heya Michael,
>
> Oh yes, I think 'science leads into philosophy' is entirely clear here. I
> think we're also getting there with cosmology (witness the recent talk of
> multiverses, and what the alternative is to such), but QM has had some major
> repercussions for philosophy for quite some time now.
>
> As for 'mind might control energy', I'm not sure I'd put it like that. It's
> possible, but I try to remain very conservative in how I view these things
> so as not to go further than is warranted. More that 'mind may be intimately
> related to 'physical reality'' in a way that, yes, upends the traditional
> claims of materialism. Paul Davies has said that QM has shown us
> 'materialism is dead'. Other physicists have suggested that consciousness
> and minds may be fundamental to reality, such that you just can't have a
> universe without 'observers'. These were unthinkable concepts for science to
> entertain prior to QM. Now they're concepts that are hard to ignore.
>
> QM seems to challenge (perhaps even overturn outright) a number of old
> claims about the universe: That it is materialistic, that it is mechanistic,
> that humans have no special place in it. QM has made classic materialism so
> untenable that the position has been quietly evacuated. Claims of being
> mechanistic have become a line in the sand, an insistence that minds 'behave
> classically' and that QM somehow doesn't 'count' above a certain level of
> reality - it's a defensive posture. And the 'special place' for humans, due
> to consciousness, has become so apparent that even religion-hostile
> scientists involved in QM are ready to concede a fundamental place for
> consciousness.
>
> In regards to the latter, I'm thinking of Andrei Linde's concession in the
> recent Discover magazine article "Science's Alternative to an Intelligent
> Creator: The Multiverse Theory". I'll note that, despite the considerable
> attention this issue has garnered among christians online (For good reason,
> since it largely deals with the universe seeming so fundamentally
> 'fine-tuned' that scientists feel they're forced to find ways to 'increase
> the odds' of it), Linde's concession was almost entirely ignored.
>
> "As for Linde, he is especially interested in the mystery of consciousness
> and has speculated that consciousness may be a fundamental component of the
> universe, much like space and time. He wonders whether the physical
> universe, its laws, and conscious observers might form an integrated whole.
> A complete description of reality, he says, could require all three of those
> components, which he posits emerged simultaneously. "Without someone
> observing the universe," he says, "the universe is actually dead.""
>
> Let me remind you: Linde is endorsing the multiverse hypothesis. He's not
> exactly religion- or God-friendly. Yet here is Linde, arguing in essence
> that if you have no consciousness, you have no universe. Consciousness has a
> special place in it. I submit that Linde is not doing this out of a poetic
> attachment to humanity or consciousness, but because the science and QM
> seems to strongly infer this position.
>
> Between you and me, this is just one more reason why I think QM gets
> practically ignored by so many in the 'science education' community: Because
> QM as a field single-handedly damaged and fundamentally challenged a
> cherished worldview. It doesn't matter that QM asks questions that have no
> definitive answers. The mere fact that the science can lead people to ask
> those questions, and so fundamentally, is disturbing to some.
>
> Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Hi Schwarzwald,

 Have you read Ted Davis' reply to Timaeus on the 25th? I have been thinking
that evolution could be looked at as a quantum system for some time. It
appears I'm not the only one who thought so. This type of crossing over was
bound to happen with physicists looking into consciousness and
biologists using mathematical models that actually replicate natural
conditions. As i mentioned before a lot of physicists have moved into
biology.

I've just caught up with my mail from the last few days. You have been busy.

I've just started reading Paul Davies, 96, God and the New Physics. I've
read quite a bit of physics but I've been tuned into things that related to
my project. I assume that there is a consciousness in the universe and I
have not been sensitive to physicists also making that claim. But you are
right this makes a fundamental break with strict materialism and mechanics.
But if materialist had realized that the properties of water were
emergent and could not be determined by an analysis of its component parts,
they never would have gone down the road of determinism, and machanicism.

Your right I don't think that most physicists are willing to concede to a
theist universe but I think that we have seen the worst of materialism.
There are simply too many points like QM, the universe and consciousness
where strict materialism can not or does not supply the answer.

Materialism may just peeter out in the next fifty years or it may go on for
another thousand (scientific atheism in a new form) but it sure feels like
we are in a transition.

Later,

Michael Mc

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Received on Sun Nov 30 01:25:54 2008