# Website Outerplaces.com: Physicists Claim that Consciousness Lives in Quantum State After Death **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 8, 2015, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991 "2015-11-08T04:08:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2015, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991/61 "2015-11-09T18:27:31Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Let’s take two societies: One uses ignorance, wishful thinking and bullshit to advance with, and the other uses scientific principles. In five hundred years time, how do you envision each society’s progress? Am I being expected to defend something here ? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2015, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991/62 "2015-11-09T18:36:56Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#): > > In fact did Asimov ever write any smut ? I read a bunch of his books and never saw anything really wank worthy. Maybe the spirit of the sixties didn’t really resonate with him. He did write [The Sensuous Dirty Old Man](http://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/the-sensuous-dirty-old-man/author/isaac-asimov/). Not at all smutty, alas. He told a story at the first Noreascon about trying and failing to seduce Judy Lynn Benjamin (before here marriage to Lester del Rey) and I have a friend who still remembers him ogling her at a picnic. So who knows what he had hidden away. But he started writing long before Farmer. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2015, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991/63 "2015-11-09T18:37:17Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#): > > Am I being expected to defend something here ? When it comes to misusing philosophy as a substitute for science, there really isn’t much to defend, is there? > [@MrQwertyasd](#): > > Is this looking at a science as a tool in of survival, not as a tool for finding truth ? Nice strawman-who here has said that science is a tool for finding “truth”(whatever _that_ may be). Science is an excellent tool for finding out _facts_, however. Now, if I were looking for a tool for labeling things/ideas as “Truth”, I would turn towards philosophies and religions. ---
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2015, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991/64 "2015-11-09T18:41:35Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally Posted by **MrQwertyasd** [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/images/buttons/viewpost.gif](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=18844792#post18844792) > AH!! You said it - “let’s check this against reality” > As Galactic Emperor I decree that you pack that it and instead say “let’s check this with other aspects of a mentally constructed world” > [@](#): > > But, that obfuscates an important difference: Not all mentally constructed worlds are the same; that of science is the product of a much more rigorous and reliable process than that of pseudoscience or philosophy or religion or mysticism or “common sense.” I don’t see how it obfuscates things, really, it’s just making use of psychology to fill out the description of what people are really doing. Did I say anything technically wrong or unscientific ? > [@](#): > > [All we’re actually doing is seeing an internal model of the world](http://aminotes.tumblr.com/post/7722763662/david-eagleman-on-how-we-constructs-reality-time); we’re not seeing what’s out there, we’re seeing just our internal model of it. And that’s why, when you move your eyes around, all you’re doing is updating that model. That’s the current dogma I think. How a shared objective reality can be derived from that base, I can’t really figure. But the point about reality I wanted to raise was just to say that the brain itself is also a model. you can’t point to a brain and say “that creates reality” because the brain we see is part of the model. So we are stuck with an unseen brain made of unknowable matter somewhere beyond the reach of the senses. How could we prove such a thing really exists ? ---
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2015, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991/65 "2015-11-09T18:52:14Z")
Quote: Originally Posted by **MrQwertyasd** [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/images/buttons/viewpost.gif](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=18845041#post18845041) Am I being expected to defend something here ? > [@](#): > > When it comes to misusing philosophy as a substitute for science, there really isn’t much to defend, is there? So that means I am expected to defend something here, or not ? Quote: Originally Posted by **MrQwertyasd** Is this looking at a science as a tool in of survival, not as a tool for finding truth ? > [@](#): > > Nice strawman-who here has said that science is a tool for finding “truth”(whatever _that_ may be). Thanks for the compliment but I fear it is misplaced as I was asking a question not making an assertion. Your straw man seems to be that I was making a claim. > [@](#): > > Science is an excellent tool for finding out _facts_, however. > Now, if I were looking for a tool for labeling things/ideas as “Truth”, I would turn towards philosophies and religions. You can do that if you want, thanks for letting me know you have that option, but i did kind of assume it was open to everyone anyway. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2015, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991/66 "2015-11-09T19:12:00Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > “The Law Of Conservation Of Information” is a concept dreamed up by Intelligent Design promoter William Dembski, and is not regarded seriously by the vast majority of the scientific community. Seems like it causes some serious buzz with Stephan Hawkins and his theory about black holes, not something I would not think a ID proponent’s theory would gain any traction with. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2015, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991/67 "2015-11-09T19:17:45Z")
Stephan Hawkins? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2015, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991/68 "2015-11-09T19:26:29Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#): > > I don’t see how it obfuscates things, really, it’s just making use of psychology to fill out the description of what people are really doing. Did I say anything technically wrong or unscientific ? > > That’s the current dogma I think. How a shared objective reality can be derived from that base, I can’t really figure. > > But the point about reality I wanted to raise was just to say that the brain itself is also a model. you can’t point to a brain and say “that creates reality” because the brain we see is part of the model. So we are stuck with an unseen brain made of unknowable matter somewhere beyond the reach of the senses. How could we prove such a thing really exists ? What does any of this have to do with the question of whether personal consciousness can survive the death of the body? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2015, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991/69 "2015-11-09T19:53:52Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Seems like it causes some serious buzz with Stephan Hawkins and his theory about black holes, not something I would not think a ID proponent’s theory would gain any traction with. What you have there is the misuse of a tool in physics being misapplied in biology. [http://experimentalmath.info/blog/2009/08/misuse-of-probability-by-creation-scientists-and-others/](http://experimentalmath.info/blog/2009/08/misuse-of-probability-by-creation-scientists-and-others/) > [@](#): > > One central issue in this debate is the question of evolutionary novelty. The consensus of modern scientific research is that mutation and natural selection together can produce novel, beneficial features in biological systems. Scientists further postulate that this low-level novelty extends to entire populations, which can, over time (typically thousands of years), become entirely separate species. On the other hand, creationist and ID scholars have insisted that whereas minor changes may occur within an established kind, nothing fundamentally new can come through “random” evolution. For example, Dembski asserts that there is a “Law of Conservation of Information” that prohibits the generation of novel features [Dembski]. > > Ample and well-established experimental evidence supports the scientific view. For example, in a 1974 paper by biologists Barry Hall and Daniel Hartl, a gene was identified in the bacterium E. coli that is responsible for metabolizing lactose, using a complicated three-part process. They removed this gene, and then permitted the bacteria to multiply in a stressed environment containing lactose. Within 24 hours the bacteria had evolved a capability to utilize lactose, by means of a similar but distinct three-part biochemical pathway, involving two mutated genes [Hall; Miller, 1999, pg. 145-147]. This very similar to the very dumb creationist idea that evolution does not follow the laws of Thermodynamics by constantly ignoring that the earth is not a closed system regarding energy. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2015, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991/70 "2015-11-09T20:30:25Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#): > > Subtext: it’s all about the money, don’t disturb my lifestyle I get paid well for this stuff. Holy shitting crap, are you barking up the entirely wrong fucking forest. ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2015, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991/71 "2015-11-09T20:52:12Z")
When Stephanie Hawkwind (sorry **kanicbird**!:D) talk’s about the conservation of information he is talking about how when a quantum state undergoes unitary evolution it preserves information about the past and future states (i.e. knowing the state at one time allows you to know the state at any other time by evolving it backwards or forwards in time). To put it loosely it says knowledge of a quantum system’s microstate can’t evolve into knowledge of only its macrostate under unitary evolution. What Dembski claims is an appeal to how a system will tend to evolve towards those macrostates occupying the largest volumes in phase space. This is a loss of information in the sense that the larger the volume of the macrostate, the less the macrostate specifies the microstate. However Dembski’s interpretation is both at odds with theory and observation. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2015, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991/72 "2015-11-09T21:39:10Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Let’s take two societies: One uses ignorance, wishful thinking and bullshit to advance with, and the other uses scientific principles. In five hundred years time, how do you envision each society’s progress? Is progress the only measure of success? The wishful-thinking society might settle into a happy stasis, as unchanging as a tribal society, living in peace with the land. (No, not my kinda ideal, frankly. I think progress is the measure of a human society’s success. Tribal societies are terrifyingly oppressive.) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2015, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991/73 "2015-11-09T21:47:37Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Is progress the only measure of success? The wishful-thinking society might settle into a happy stasis, as unchanging as a tribal society, living in peace with the land. I take it their gods have wiped away all disease and illnesses, and provided shelter, and those that get “visions” about how to live pretty much agree with each other? ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991/74 "2015-11-10T00:24:30Z")
This thread reminds me of a response to a Reddit writing prompt, in which it was discovered that consciousness did persist after death, but didn’t actually go anywhere, so it just hung out without any sensory input whatsoever for all eternity. _shudder_ ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991/75 "2015-11-10T00:30:57Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I take it their gods have wiped away all disease and illnesses, and provided shelter, and those that get “visions” about how to live pretty much agree with each other? No to the former, and, alas, yeah, pretty much, to the latter. The tribal elders make all the decisions, and the tribal youngers just gotta take it and shut up. It isn’t my idea of heaven on earth…but it wouldn’t be utterly hellish, either. It’s how we evolved. Don’t imagine I’m defending this as a good thing! I’m just saying it’s feasible. > [@Leaper](#): > > This thread reminds me of a response to a Reddit writing prompt, in which it was discovered that consciousness did persist after death, but didn’t actually go anywhere, so it just hung out without any sensory input whatsoever for all eternity. > > _shudder_ Shudder indeed! I think the consciousness would just slowly degrade, having nothing to operate upon. There’s some evidence for this from sensory-deprivation experiments. After a while, you either go mad or go to sleep. Or both. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991/76 "2015-11-10T00:52:21Z")
Asimov admits in his two-volume biography (_In Memory Yet Green_ and _In Joy Still Felt_) that he had lots of affairs during the last nineteen years of his first marriage, from 1954 to 1973. ---
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991/77 "2015-11-10T02:41:21Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > What does any of this have to do with the question of whether personal consciousness can survive the death of the body? You are correct, I was wandering off topic. Hard to stop once you’ve started 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991/78 "2015-11-10T02:53:47Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > Holy shitting crap, are you barking up the entirely wrong fucking forest. No. You were touching on the utility of science, as opposed to the uselessness of philosophy. Utility in our society boils down to money. Not only that but you seem to be confused about the limits of science. > [@](#): > > "It’s such a massive cop-out to claim that science just can’t handle the incredibly deep and philosophical ideas of existence, " …stands in opposition to … > [@](#): > > Science is science, and philosophy is philosophy, and there’s very little overlap. If there’s no overlap, then obviously science can’t handle the incredibly deep, and therefore I’m not copping out. Make your mind up, can science handle it or not ? > [@](#): > > I hate shit like this. i don’t see the relevance of what you hate or don’t hate. Maybe you feel that feelings of frustrated anger can aid debate or even be a guide to truth or reality. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991/79 "2015-11-10T03:33:12Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Let’s take two societies: One uses ignorance, wishful thinking and bullshit to advance with, and the other uses scientific principles. In five hundred years time, how do you envision each society’s progress? > [@Morgenstern](#): > > One would happily continue spreading _ignorance, wishful thinking and bullshit_ and the other would be extinct due to global warming? This sentence betrays which of those two societies you think you are already a part of. ---
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991/80 "2015-11-10T04:12:15Z")
> [@](#): > > Let’s take two societies: One uses ignorance, wishful thinking and bullshit to advance with, and the other uses scientific principles. In five hundred years time, how do you envision each society’s progress? > [@](#): > > One would happily continue spreading _ignorance, wishful thinking and bullshit_ and the other would be extinct due to global warming? > [@Sitnam](#): > > This sentence betrays which of those two societies you think you are already a part of. You get this weird thinking that science has no dark side or mistaken beliefs, yet science has a history of ignorance, wishful thinking and bullshit, stubbornly hanging on to outdated theories, serving of special interests, egotistic blindness to new information - big helpings of human vices. Is science itself to blame for such folly ? i don’t know - has it ever been a separate entity from human folly - science doesn’t kill people, people kill people - or has it always been in service of greed, ambition, selfishness ? And, so, Miami is in trouble, and that’s progress, apparently. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-outerplaces-com-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death/736991.md?page=5)