I must say I posted before I saw your recent link to the explanation of wavefunction collapse, Question.
Wavefunction collapse affects particles on a quantum level, that is on the subatomic level at which quantum mechanics applies. If you start applying it to life on a macro scale, then you must believe that before you woke up this morning, you were both dead and alive, in Albuquerue and Paris, and both a frog and a human. It falls apart once you apply it to anything larger than a molecule. At least, so my non-physicist understanding of the subject tells me.
My understanding of this concept is not a deep as I would like, so someone with more knowledge is free to correct me at any time. However, based on my level of understanding…
It’s not our observation that collapses the wave function, but interaction with other particles/wavefunctions. In the case of our perceptions, it is those interaction that result in the release of a photon that we can perceive with our eyes. It may appear that our observation collapsed the wavefunction, but in reality, our observation was made possible by the prior collapse of the wave function and the resultant release of a photon.
Just to reiterate, our (visual) observations are based on intercepting photons with our eyes. For a photon to be produced by an interaction, the wavefunction must have already collapsed.
I’d imagine that there’s not enough evidence to even warrant a study.
reincarnation is just something i latched onto for personal reasons. it is just one thing that is possible if you accept that “consciousness” exists outside of space and time …
according to physics we exist in a state that is not subject to the influence of time, right? i guess you could call it a quantum state, but the key fact is that it is what is before the collapse of the wavefunction that creates time. more scienece; apparently our long-term memories are based on synaptic density, shape and whatever other factors are involved… it’s not improbable that the force that scientists refer to as “dark energy” could influence how matter groups before the collapse of the wavefunction, thus influencing our memory of any event.
all i am saying is that i believe this is material for “General Questions” and i think that science should at least try to see if reincarnation(and other “superstitions”) exist.
exactly! this means that something must observe an event before the collapse. god maybe? the hive mind? i don’t know, but that is what i’ve been trying to elucidate…
Unless I’m very mistaken (and I don’t think I am), any interaction at all will cause the wavefunction to collapse. Thus, any interaction with “dark energy” would necessarily result in the collapse of the wavefunction as part of that interaction.
So we need a team of scientists to research things like whether the Tooth Fairy exists or not, or whether breaking a mirror really causes seven years of bad luck?
Many things do not lend themselves to scientific research, like God or the soul. Many other things have insufficient evidence to warrant research in the first place, like the Tooth Fairy. I suspect that reincarnation fits into both of those categories.
No, nothing has to observe the event. The event itself causes the collapse. No observation is necessary.
I think the confusion comes from the fact that many of our methods of observation include, as part of their nature, an interaction that causes a collapse of the wavefunction. However, it is not the observation that causes the collapse, nor is any observation necessary to cause a wavefunction to collapse.
but measurement is observation. even if you record the sound of a tree falling the tape recorder was there to observe it. the act of observing collapses the wave function.
this leads to the “god question” … if in order to for something to exist it must be observed than there had to be something there to observe the reality before it could possibly be created. we know that reality did not suddely spring into existence upon our observation of it. so, something else is observing it for us and we are just interpreting it.
This comment indicates to me that you did not understand the nature of the question.
[quote] Joe: Many things do not lend themselves to scientific research, like God or the soul. Many other things have insufficient evidence to warrant research in the first place, like the Tooth Fairy. I suspect that reincarnation fits into both of those categories.
Your analogy is extremely poor. The Tooth Fairy is not out of the range of scientific study because of insufficient evidence! There is plenty of evidence that the Tooth Fairy is fiction. No further evidence is needed! That is very unlike adult religious experiences and beliefs, although I do agree that scientific research is at least somewhat limited. (An exception would be the work of Persinger.)
A good skeptic remains open-minded until the evidence is overwhelming – as in the Tooth Fairy. To say that there is no solid evidence of something, therefore it does not exist, is not very scientific.
I disagree. To study reincarnation would be to examine the scientific evidence “that our conscious minds are formed by specific neural patterns and organic chemical reactions that remain contained within one’s cranium” and to question if it is possible that thought patterns and memories are capable of existence independent of the brain matter from which they arose.
Ha! Love this description! And the shoe fits, I confess. Just keep in mind that just because a quack says it, that doesn’t mean that it is false.
You explanation is excellent. You should be a teacher.
Question, I understand your question and take a more optimistic view of the potential for science to answer some of these questions eventually.
it’s good to know that some people think like me… it assures me that i’m not yet totally crazy
i was thinking that we are in communication with some higher power. our reality is really a quantum state, sort of a slice of reality… i think our minds our our interpret this quantum state and make sense of associations between energy so that we can go about our daily existence… if all matter is interconnected and time and the pervasive ego and our sense of being somehow different from everything else is just an illusion then it makes sense that the physical brain is able recall past existences because its job is to understand how things relate to each other…
Not exactly. All observations are measurements, but not all measurements are observations.
You’re hung up on this “observer” notation. An observer is not necessary to collapse a wavefunction. Measurement is necessary, but all measurement is is the interaction of a wavefunction with another wavefunction in such a way that a measurable change of one or both of the wavefunctions is the result. We use the term “measurement” because our measurement techniques all result in the collapse of the wavefunction, but it would better be termed “interaction”. “Interaction” collapses the wavefunction.
So in short, we must measure to observe, and all of our measurement techniques change the system being measured in such a way that the wavefunction collapses. Yet you cannot say that observation collapses the wavefunction. For example:
In order to eat a steak, we must first (hopefully) cook it. Let’s pretend that all of our cooking techniques involve preheating an oven. Now, even though you will have to preheat an oven in order to eat a steak, you cannot say “eating steak preheats ovens”. It’s just that, if we want steak, we have to preheat the oven to cook it.
Likewise, if we want to observe something, we must collapse the wavefunction to measure it. The observation isn’t the cause, it’s the result.
I was not responding to a question. I was responding to a [statement. Specifically:
Bolding mine.
Question is proposing that scientists put effort into researching superstitions, and that is what I responded to.
I always assume everything to not exist until some evidence of its existence is presented. The amount of evidence I require to change my mind from “doesn’t exist” to “does exist” is directly proportional to how much the entity in question deviates from everything else I have concluded “does exist”.
If you said, “I have a red couch at my house”, that would be enough to convince me that the red couch exists (assuming that you have no history of dishonesty when telling me things". However, if you said “I have a red couch that walks around the room on its own”, I would inquire further as to the nature of its locomotion. If you are unable to provide enough supporting evidence – such as “A friend of mine designs animatronics for Disney World, and he rigged my couch. See? Here’s a picture of the couch showing the exposed pneumatic legs, and here’s the control mechanism.” – then I would not be inclined to believe that such a couch exists.
I quite believe that thought patterns and memories are capable of existence independent of the brain matter from which they arose. For instance, if I were to run a perfect simulation of my brain on a computer, it would, for all intents and purposes, be me in that computer.
However, the problem is that there is no evidence whatsoever that thought patterns and memories actually have an existence independent of the brain matter from which they arose. Nor is there any proposed mechanism for how this might work. Thus there is no starting point for any sort of scientific research.
To oversimplify a bit, the notion that an observation of some type is needed to collapse the wave function is an outgrowth of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory.
However, there are other interpretations (the Many-Worlds Theory is one gaining acceptance) that do not require this and provide other mechanisms for the wave functions collapse.
All of these Interpretations are mathematically equivalent to one another, so it is a metaphysical choice at the present to choose one over the others.
There is also no good explanation at present for why the quantum world sees effects that are not apparent in the macro world, like non-locality. This is also a matter of much argument and controversy. But the consensus is that one cannot use quantum explanations for macro world behaviors.
And let’s not even get into consciousness or the way the brain works. For all the wordage spilled on this, nobody has any compelling argument that has gained the high ground. We need to get a grip on how our current lives happen before we can start throwing around mechanisms for a past life recurring.
I believe you are speaking about Bell’s Inequality, but the change in state that you mention does not get communicated across the distance as you say.
What happens is that you get information about a system at a distance, which then theoretically collapses the wave equation of that distant system. This would seem to imply that either you are causing this collapse at a distance by faster-than-light means, which is unlikely, or that there are some “hidden variables” that fully describe each system’s state, and the wave equation is merely a mathematical construct.
Here, physicists usually lose me in explaining how the collapse of the distant system doesn’t really contradict special relativity, but in any case, by measuring the local system, you are in no way altering the remote system, just altering your knowledge of the remote system.
there is a scientific starting point. science says that memory depends on the structure of synapses in our brain. our synapses exist in a quantum state and thus exist outside of time, which is just a concept of the mind anyway… the wavefunction collapses and reality is created… if memories are just the shape of synapses than it’s possible some of the raw data of reality could get past the ego and make us see how we existed previously and the synapse would alter its shape as a result, forming the long-term memory…
QUOTE]*Originally posted by Question * our synapses exist in a quantum state and thus exist outside of time
[/quote]
There is no indication that quantum states exist outside of time, though.
Cart before the horse. Reality causes the wavefunction to collapse (which would happen even if no one were there to see it), and we observe the result.
That’s way to many assumptions and undefined terms. What is the “raw data of reality”? What is the “ego”, and how could this data be “get past it”? In fact, what does that even mean? What evidence is there that anyone “existed previously”, and what is the evidence that synapses are altering their shapes due to these time-traveling quantum wavefunctions?
No offense, but you’re just throwing out a mishmash of pseudoscience (using the guise of real scientific terms) and metaphysics that make no sense together (or even separately).
We don’t know that there is a huge quantity of dark matter out there. For all we know it might just be matter with an extraordinary gravitational pull.
i’m here so you can shoot holes in my theory. i enjoy thinking about the meaning of life and i am personally convinced in the truth of reincarnation. all of this is an attempt to put a logical spin on something i have already accepted. i am aware of the possibility that i’m wrong but that just means i need to go back to the drawing board not that i discard the belief that i have personally experienced past lives…
Question, look, if you believe you’ve been reincarnated, fine. However all the information that’s been offered in this thread boils down to this: no, current scientific thinking doesn’t include any mechanism that could achieve reincarnation, nor is there any good evidence that reincarnation has ever happened.
It’s hard to accept the idea that everything that makes up our minds, our memories, our thoughts, feelings and dreams, exists in the physical (normal matter) structure of our brains. Three pounds of soft tissue. If it’s destroyed, we go out like a light. If a belief in some sort of afterlife gives you comfort, I’m not going to try and argue you out of it; but you’ve got nothing that qualifies as a scientific theory.
