1: the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is that until waveforms are resolved, overlapping quantum states actually exist as such simultaneously, so if there is no “observer” to collapse the waveforms, the entire Universe would be one big uncollapsed waveform, instead of all these stars, galaxies, etc.
2: The Anthropic Principle explains why the Universe’s parameters are set up such that conscious life is around to observe it: because if it wasn’t, we wouldn’t be here observing it! (i.e. there’s no physical principle that says that the parameters have to be set up just so, there are other random values they could be set to, but those do not lead to universes with a possibility of life.)
I didn’t say that. The material that is you will still be material when you die. It won’t be the you you are now. Your body won’t be a living human body, let alone ambulatory. But parts of it will still be semi-alive & semi-conscious for a while, & the atoms can become other living things. The steel of your car doesn’t vanish when it’s demolished, certainly not when it breaks down. I’ve used plenty of pieces of old cars to replace pieces of my car.
The water molecules still exist, but the raindrop? No way. The merged water no longer has a shape, or individuality, and the component molecules will be distributed thoughout the ocean.
You might as well ask if a program still is running when you disassemble your computer.
But you seem to be claiming that the component parts of your body can be conscious even when the body is dead. The matter/energy of your body doesn’t vanish when you die, but that doesn’t mean it still functions as a living body. It’s not your claim that the matter of your body still exists after you die that I disagree with, it’s the claim that you will still be conscious. To make a different analogy, it’s rather like claiming your computer can perform calculations when it’s unplugged.
EDIT: Sorry Voyager - didn’t mean to steal your analogy.
Metaphysical solipsism is an entertaining notion for dorm room bull sessions but, as Bertrand Russell observed, it has no real application or use. The external universe will continue to exist, or not, dependent not one whit whether you are paying it any mind. Any philosophy that states otherwise is built on the undisciplined egocentricism that the philosopher is manifestly important to anyone other than himself.
This is based on an outmoded and incorrect understanding of the Copenhagen interpretation. The notion that discrete states exist only as probability waveforms is an idealization, suitable for thought experiements, but in reality things do exist, and persist in existing, functioning in a manner that is entirely predictable on the macro scale by classical and statistical mechanics during an interim period while it is not under observation. (One can speculate that it disintigrated once attention was turned from it and reassembled by flying monkeys just before being re-examined, but this clearly falls under the heading of abnormal psychology rather than legitimate quantum theory.) Even under (most) Copenhagen interpretations, the system still exists; it merely exists in multiple (effectively infinite for any complex system) states which are reduced to a single, discrete state once it is observed.
There’s a bigger problem with Copenhagen, though. (I mean, besides the habitual feline abuse.) The term “observed” is habitually used in describing the behavior of a quantum system, but in fact there is no observation of any system on the quantum level without interaction; hence, an “observer” becomes an intrinsic part of the system just by looking at it. The alleged collapse of waveforms applies as much to the observer as to the system being observed, such that the system could be said to be intwined in the awareness of the observer, and lacking it, the observer has no context by which to be aware. In contrast to solipsism, this suggests that the observer doesn’t exist (in the sense of having sentience) without external stimuli about which to make reference. You don’t exist without the rest of the universe, and cannot seperate yourself from it, in either a physical or observational sense.
Consider Schrödinger’s Cat: we’re supposed to accept that the cat exists as the wavefunction (|dead> + |alive>)/√2 until we peek in on it, but what of the cat? It may not be aware of its own death, but surely it has at least some limited self-awareness that it is alive, and furthermore pretty pissed about being locked in this box over and over again. Wigner’s friend (who stays in the room with the cat while Wigner steps out) is even more problematic; clearly, his personal system exists definitively in one discrete state even if for the external observer it still must be indeterminate until he checks on it. Does Wigner’s friend also exist as a probabliity waveform until observed by the presumably authoritative and consious Wigner? Who bells the cat, so to speak, with regard to the ultimate definition of a collapsed waveform? Clearly, there is a larger mechanism at work which regulates the states and interactions of all actions, articles, and observers in the universe, and none of them are independent.
The Anthropic Principle is even worse, the height of bombastic ego; a mangling of Descartes famous proclaimation into “I am, therefore I think.” (Incidentially, talking about bombastic egos, this was one of Ayn Rand’s favorite sayings.) That the universe is suited to us is nothing but an indication of how we evolved into it. It’s not as if we were placed in it fully formed, complete with fig leaves over our nether regions.
The universe exists, and we exist (in physical form) as an indivisible part of it. Our self-awareness and catabolic processes are ephemeral, to be certain, but there is absolutely no basis for the notion that these neurological and biomechanical processes have any impact upon the progress or direction of the natural world except insofar as they are translated into the actions of our bodies.
As for the question posed by the o.p., it sounds suspiciously like a request for an explanation for life, the universe, and everything. I believe the answer is fairly well known, but I would suggest the o.p. demur from trying to formalize the question, as this could result in the universe suddenly disappearing and being replaced by something even more bizarrely inexplicable.
The universe will cease with your death to the exact extent that it 1) ceased when anyone who died previous to now died, and 2) failed to exist prior to your birth. Which is to say, not at all.
Similarly, the existence of the universe could only be dependent on the existence of humanity if it failed to exist prior to the introduction of humanity. If there is some great observer upon whose interest the universe’s existence tenuously hangs, it certainly ain’t us.
As pointed out already, duh, we are part of the universe and we are aware of it so therefore the universe is aware of itself.
Is it also possible that the universe itself operates in some slow scale strange loop of a pattern that allows for some uber-awareness, as foreign to our miniscule selfness as our sentience is to a single brain cell? Sure. No reason to believe that awareness is limited to our scale or sort of awareness. Complex nonlinear systems, and none are more so that the entire universe and everything, are hotbeds of all sorts of emergent phenomena. Now our realizing it, that’s another story.
Does the universe exist without anyone to observe it? There must be a bad “if a tree falls in forest …” joke in here … the squirrels grab their nuts and run? If I say something and my wife isn’t around, am I still wrong?
Article of faith: some things exist whether I (or humanity in general) observe them or not. There is a reality beyond the curtain and limits of my perceptions (perceptual tools included) that we are just groping at and that would exist without us there ogling. I believe it; by definition I cannot prove it.
BTW Stranger, a hijacking quibble about the Copenhagen interpretation …
A quantum system usually refers to a system in coherence. Once such a system interacts with another system (and is thus “observed”) it becomes decoherent and the waveform collapses. The upper limit to coherency is not established but under most circumstances these systems are tiny compared to, say, me. My sentient self is actually a conglomeration of many seperate decoherent systems (resulting in the incoherent me :)) As such my system does not need to interact with that which I observe in order to have its waveform collapse, in order to exist in that sense.
Still the quibble is minor. All is, at its basis, information. What is is defined by its dynamic relationship with all else. My self may not be a single quantum system collapsing but I as a sentient self am still defined by my dynamic relationships to that around me.
Sure, any real world system is sufficiently decoherent that quantum effects are hidden in the fluff (with a few rare exceptions). The Schrödinger’s Cat experiment is an attempt to postulate the effect of a single quantum mechanical action on a larger system, i.e. the cat exists as a waveform that is simultaneously dead and alive until someone else looks at it. This presents an idealization of QM in the sense of simultaneous probabilities and waveform collapse, but in reality the cat is either dead or alive regardless of whether you’ve looked at it or not. Viewing the state of an atom, or by extension, the state of Schrödinger’s unfortunate feline, as existing as a smear of probability is a useful idea for coping with quantum mechanics, but it doesn’t mean that the cat doesn’t literally exist. I agree with Einstein: Og does not play dice with the universe, and the most rational explanation is that there are nonlocal hidden variables which govern the apparently random behavior of fundamental particles on the quantum level.
Actually Schrödinger (and his indeterminate cat) was with you and Einstein on this one, belittling the view that reality was indeterminate before it was “observed”. My understanding is that the other view is more commonly held today. It may not work with cats but there are definitely Schrödinger kittens.
Like Zoe, I like AHunter3’s eloquence on the matter. A few points I’d like to toss in:
My grandfather died many years ago. The Universe ceased to exist for him, because whatever self-awareness he had is gone. but for me and the rest of the population, the universe didn’t even flinch (in a strictly cosmological sense). What should make the last living consciousness so special that if that “soul” were to die it’ll cause the universe to wink out of existence?
Since we and our self-awareness are a subset of the universe as a whole, the universe had to exist BEFORE we did, in order to begat self-awareness. No one was around, before the first being said to themselves, “Hey! I’m aware.” Like the tree in the forest that fell when no one was around, was it ever really there to begin with, if it were never observed by humans? If not, how could it fall in the first place to create the cacophony no one was around to hear.
I find it way more fascinating that this universe wrought self-awareness when it could have just been nothing more that a bunch of random energy and matter never amounting to anything more. People, leaning on the multiple universes theory, rely on the argument that eventually there will be a configuration that will allow self-aware beings, and when that happens, it will seem immensely improbably for us humans and lead to say what I just said in the first sentence. But what if the IS the universes first configuration… and if not the first, but only possible?
I think you may have misunderstood what the other poster was saying about what he called the “Anthropic Principle.” (I say “what he called” because I also think you two may have different principles in mind.)
Here’s what that person said:
The point of the argument is not to say “The universe’s being how it is was caused by our being how we are,” but rather, to say “Our seeing the universe we see is made necessary by our being the way we are.” Do you see the distinction I’m making there?
I take the abovequoted passage to be saying that it is not suprising that the universe appears to be fine tuned for our kind of life to exist in it, because it would be impossible for us to witness any other possibility. When faced with any experience, we should be suprised at it only if we can imagine some plausible alternative that we might encountered instead. But there is no such alternative in this case–the alternatives are unencounterable, because they involve the existence of conditions which render our own existence as witnesses impossible.
The argument called here “The Anthropic Principle” amounts to an argument similar to the following: “It is nonsense to ask ‘how come wherever I am, it just so happens that I am there?’” The “Anthropic Principle” (as it is called by the poster above) tries to show that asking “why is the universe fine tuned” is as senseless as asking “why am I always exactly and only where I am?”
Understood that way, the “Anthropic Principle” doesn’t claim (as you seemed to think it does) that there’s anything special about human beings, or that their existence is necessary in some way that actually caused the universe to be how the universe is.
Lots of people have responded positively to this passage.
I do not respond negatively to it, but on the other hand, I don’t think I understand it well enough to respond either way to it, positively or negatively.
What is meant by “subset” here? What does it mean to say my awareness is “a subset of” universe?
What does it mean for one quality to be “subsumed within” another?
What is the metric on qualities, such that consciousness is one quality, and there is another quality posessed by the universe which is “larger,” and there could be qualities “smaller” than consciousness? In other words, what is meant by calling some qualities “larger” and some “smaller?” Examples and/or analogies might help make this more clear.
Under what conditions should we choose not to say either “A” or “not-A,” but instead, to say “Neither ‘A’ nor ‘not-A’ suffice, though ‘A’ is a far closer rendition than ‘not-A’”?
I’m not issuing a challenge. I’m attempting to clarify the meaning of the above passage. I believe it very likely reflects a genuine and interesting thought, I just find I can’t get a hold of the thought myself, as it has been so far presented.
I think it is wrong to say the universe will no longer exist “for me” once I am dead.
Usually when we say such-and-such “for me,” we mean that, “in my opinion,” such-and-such is the case, or else, “according to my standards of taste,” such-and-such is how good/bad something seems.
But I doubt anyone of us thinks “the universe exists” is a matter of opinion. It is a fact whether it exists or not, and its truth or falsity is not relative to the person making the judgment. Similarly, “the universe exists” is not a judgment of taste.
So, instead of saying “The universe will cease to exist for me after I die,” I think I should say, “My experience of the universe will cease to exist after I die.”
That phraseology should make the question “does the universe exist after I die” seem much less sensible to ask.
(This isn’t really directed to you specifically, cmyk. I’m just using your thought as launching point for my own.)
The universe is only more fascinating for having wrought self-awareness to those with self-awareness. There’s a Steven Wright (or Emo Phillips, maybe) line that goes something like “the brain is the most impressive of all human organs. Of course, look what’s telling you that.”
Try to imagine what it would be like to be unbiased, dispassionate about self-awareness. Do a quick assessment of the fractions of time and matter where it exists. Is the universe really more than just “a bunch of random energy and matter” for having recently produced some small number of self-aware creatures tucked away on a spec of a rock somewhere? Then, forget about all that and get on with enjoying the here and now. We amuse only ourselves.
Useful questions. The accurate, but probably not particularly helpful answer is that somewhere around 12-15 billion years ago a process began, and unless you arbitrarily pick up one of Robert Pirsig’s knives of distinction and make a cut and declare everything on this side of the cut to be a different process (which is an act of analysis on your part, it’s not just there in the data), you and your consciousness are part of that process. As is everything else we call “universe”.
That justifies my statement but in no way answers your question “What does it mean?”
Again, the literal meaning is akin to saying “Members whose usernames start with ‘F’ are subsumed within the larger set of All Members”. And again that defines the phrase without adequately explaining what it could or should mean to you, or to anyone else.
In both cases, you may shrug and say: “Yeah, so?” Or it may hit you as it has hit others, who have concluded something along the lines of “Aha, the universe is meta-conscious, something we don’t fully understand but it’s as if the universe is here, and is what it is, ‘on purpose’, and the laws of physics and nature are its ‘intentions’, and embedded in them are the rules that govern how things may unfold, and OUR intentions interact with that, giving us a choice in how we are to fit, or fail to fit, into the broader structure of physical law as it applies to how consciousnesses and individuals and societies might thrive or perish”.
I’m doing my best. Keep in mind what communication is: language usage is inherently an art form, not a rigorous engineering exercise; I paint meanings as best I can with the words at my disposal, having no control over your visceral and intellectual response to my phrases. If and when you say “That statement means nothing to me”, all I can do is try a different verbal expression. I can’t prove that I am right; nor can you prove that I am wrong.
Stomu Yamashta’s Sea and Sky is neither precisely classical music nor best described as electronic new age, but I’d say it comes closer to classical.
Teal is neither a blue color nor a green color, exactly, but I guess I’d say it’s more of a shade of blue.
Protestantism is neither Catholic Christianity as the world had known it prior to Luther, nor profoundly other, but after a careful and thoughtful consideration of what makes Christianity what is is, and the ways in which those religions that are entirely other differ from it, the Pope accepts Protestant Christianity as another form of Christianity rather than considering it to be another religion.
Obviously it’s all opinion; obviously the categories themselves are generated by human analysis rather than simply “being out there”; the human analysis, on the other hand, does not take place in a vacuum: the humans doing the analysis and the category-creation are interacting with reality and interpreting it as best they can. So the category-structure is not arbitrary and meaningless and happenstance; but it is nevertheless an artwork. At any given moment a new artist can say “Oh, but what if we categorize things thusly instead?”
