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It turns out that the most popular and widely taught interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, so called Copenhagen interpretation, which states that the waves of probabilities somehow collapse as a result of measurement is mathematically untenable. Well, it was just about time... Author leaves us with two options: multiple worlds model (read parallel realities, which is mathematically valid) and his own interpretation called zero worlds model, which states that there is no underlying objective reality at all and we are all creations of our thoughts. He didn't say where those thoughts come from though, but that would probably be outside of the scope of his presentation.

So the bottom line is - be careful with what you read and who you trust in mainstream science. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc
Enjoy!

Credit of the two options goes to Hugh Everett III and JS Bell.But their astounding discoveries are ignored by the mainstream popular science.

I agree, but it seems that scientific evidence is more than just ignored, it is being actively suppressed and ridiculed. I see only one reason for such behaviour - competition. The real science is being developed under the closed doors, while big money do as much as possible to misguide the open popular science to keep the rest of the population uncompetitive and therefore easier to control. It's as simple as that.

Here is another few examples of how statistically verifiable data is not even being looked at because conclusions it leads to are considered to be impossible by definition. That's not how real science should approach things IMO, and surprisingly one big corporation gives those shouted down scientists a platform to talk to the world about these ideas and the data they have collected. So, Google seems to be a good guy so far.

"The Extended Mind: Recent Experimental Evidence" with Rupert Sheldrake
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnA8GUtXpXY

"Science and the taboo of psi" with Dean Radin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw_O9Qiwqew

And if you haven't yet watched the movie "The Thirteenth Floor" (1999), I welcome you to do so, it's quite on topic and it's brilliant!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139809/

This isn't new. Drug-addled hippies have been proposing this interpretation of quantum mechanics for over half a century now.

I'll be happy to accept this as true once I see some the slightest shred of evidence. If of these "zero worlds" proponents could jump out of a window and decide not to fall, or stand in front of a moving bus and decide not to be hit by it using only the power of their mind that would be pretty compelling.

Apparently, some of us do...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnLj8DMqaC8

There are dozens of unemployed immigrants in the city doing this. People are starting to be upset about them :D

Only to themselves though. From the perspective of your own mind (alternative QM translation: over all possible universes which you are likely to survive as an observer of), you're overwhelmingly likely to see them splattered on the pavement in more fragments than a Windows XP hard drive partition.

I found it very boring and the whole movie stuck at 13th floor.Time stops.How its on the topic ?

One word: Simulation argument (http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html).

---Nick Bostrom, Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University

In my admittedly limited understanding, I would guess that Quantum Mechanics ties in well will the simulation argument:

Wave function collapse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function_collapse)? ⇒ Game engine rendering at work.

Schrödinger's cat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat)? ⇒ Lazy evaluation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazy_evaluation).

Quantum entanglement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement)? ⇒ Pointers to the same object in the machine's memory.

 :o

We know that the most efficient possible computer could not count to 2^256 even if it could use 100% of the sun's output with perfect efficiency.

Has anyone ever calculated how much energy would be needed to simulate a universe to see if it's even remotely credible?

the simulations we'll run will be less complex than our world, at least in the beginning.

as above, so below, so the world that simulates us is more complex than ours.  8)

There's no conspiracy going on here, just a lot of richness you seem to be failing to appreciate.  Here's a good place to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_decoherence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_decoherence)

I should add: most adherents of the Copenhagen interpretation tack on decoherence to explain the appearance of wavefunction collapse.  Also, there are more interpretations than just many worlds and the author's mystical nonsense.  Check out consistent histories, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consistent_histories (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consistent_histories)

They lose me when physicists start talking about the mind. There needs to be more science done. There is plenty of cake. Personally, I think that the Big Bang theory is too assumptive, String Theory is too derivative, and Brane Theory is pure conjecture. More raw data is needed to analyze. We need a moon based radio telescope array and then probably one much larger. We need to look for self similar patterns on a cosmological scale. It will require a lot of computing power to analyze 3-dimensional data sets. I think we'll find some interesting things going on.

You mean the mystical nonsense?  Not All Physicists Are Like That...

Very good point!
There is no objective proof that the person who attempted to stop the bus with the power of his mind and the person who got splattered on the pavement is the same "observer" (even though we perceive them both as the same human body). So maybe he actually succeeded and is alive somewhere, but we forked into a possible universe and observed a version of that experiment where he failed because this is what our beliefs suggest should happen.

So the real experiment turns from "can this ever happen?" to "can somebody change my beliefs so that I can observe it?" and it is more up to you than the person conducting the experiment. What we see is only there for us to see.


Well It's a matter of taste. I personally liked it.
it's on topic because the video in the OP mentions one of the interpretations to be a simulation on a quantum computer (when stretching the analogy to a breaking point) and that's what the whole movie is about.


I like this idea a lot, but it seems that consciousness playing the game would still be a singularity and can transcend any such system. So in that sense the simulation would still be an illusion and not the thing onto itself and that's what the movie demonstrated very well.


Well obviously the computer needed to simulate physical reality would need to be built from something other than matter and operate in something other than space :)

Also we shouldn't extrapolate our experience of starving for energy based on our little knowledge of where we are and how things work to the conclusion that energy is somehow not abundant.


Thanks, I will look into that.

From the presentation in the OP author suggests that "measurement" and "entanglement" are mathematically the same process. So we can only measure something by becoming entangled with the system we are measuring and that makes our state (what ever we are) part of the overall equation and therefore affects the outcome of the measurement (only for us). Also in the same sense as we measure the system the system is measuring us, since entanglement is a symmetric state. So in an attempt to find greater degree of unification one can assume that if we are conscious and our relationship with the system is symmetric then the rest of system is made of consciousness as well (it wasn't mentioned in the video but is an extrapolation on my part)

As I understand decoherence model still doesn't give a complete solution of the measurement problem and requires extra layers of interpretation as opposed to many-worlds theory, which seems to be gaining some experimental evidence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMoyu3K0wtY

How is "consistent histories" different from "multiple worlds" interpretation in brief?
They both seem to avoid the term "wave-function collapse" which was artificial to begin with, but the former still suggests that "classical measurements" are irreversible macroscopic phenomena while the mathematics presented in the video in OP says that everything is reversible.


I guess it would be interesting to find different laws of physics in different galaxies. That would put the nail on the idea of a Universe as some objective underlying reality and focus our attention back to who we are and what we do about it.

Does statistically significant result (as in Dean Radin and Rupert Sheldrake videos i posted earlier) qualify as mystical nonsense?
I'm not sure who is talking science here :)

So nothing can be objectively determined either true or false because for every event there may or may not be an alternate universe somewhere in which something else happened.

In other words, unfalsifiable sophistry.

Can you objectively tell me how I see colors?

The many-worlds interpretation is a second leading among the physicists after the Copenhagen interpretation which turns out to be a hoax.



It's the other way around.
The experimental data demonstrates that you can change the result of a measurement with your intent. Google "random number generators experiments" or watch the videos that I posted in my second post.

So you in fact are shifting between parallel realities with your intent although the immediate effect isn't as big as you might expect. That comes with training. ;)

How do you know? Maybe this is an alternate reality in which parallel realities don't exist?

Or does it just work that only the truth statements you agree with are objectively true?

Everett's interpretation is actually quite popular amongst physicists IIRC.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.1069

See question 12.

Copenhagen 42%
Information   24%
Everett         18%

That sounds like a paradox.
I don't see how one parallel reality can affect the existence of other parallel realities (or somehow make them non-existent).
What I can imagine is that such a reality would restrict you from shifting to other parallel realities for some time and create an illusion for you that they don't exist. But if there is a way in, then there always is a way out (even if through the same gateway).

How do I know?
Well there aren't many options here. The experimental evidence suggests that either we can affect the laws of physics with our intent in the same one reality, or we don't actually affect anything with our intent but instead are shifting ourselves to a slightly different parallel reality where the outcome of the experiment is slightly more inline with our intent. But from our perspective there seems to be only one line of continuity of those shifts that we perceive as our past. I prefer to think of it as we are shifting billions times per second from static frame of one parallel reality to a static frame of another parallel reality and the compass indicating where we shift to is in fact our intent.

Also I don't like the idea (as some physicists suggest) that the Universe is forking into parallel realities. It seems more likely that all those parallel realities are already there and have always been there, what really forks (or shifts) is our attention, our point of view or awareness.


Any objectivity exists there only by agreement.
If we both look at the sky on a sunny day and agree that the color of the sky is "blue", then what we have created is a shared token of our experience of that color, however the actual representation of how we see it in our mind's eye might be very different from one another. I will never be able to explain to you how I actually see it. Never.

And as crazy as it might sound, as we are looking at the sky (and therefore measuring it in QM terms), the sky is looking at us (that's what symmetry in QM math suggests) and therefore it might as well be very well conscious, though it wouldn't always give us a hint about it. :)

That's what the presenter in the OP video meant when he said: "we're correlations without correlata". What we perceive is the difference in vibrations between each other, but not the vibrations themselves, if that makes more sense.


Yes, and mathematically it is way more elegant and consistent.

Sure, but unfortunately it's not mathematically fully convincing according to Brian Greene for instance.  Otherwise all physicists would be Everettian.

Most people are not British. Therefore, I should assume that I am likely not British?

His final statement also ignores the part where he "Suppose that these simulated people are conscious".

Let's not forget Occam's razor either.

And as to being suppressed, multi-worlds was put forth as a possible alternative to the Copenhagen interpretation when I was at University. Many physicists are not really happy with Copenhagen in any case since it leaves too much unanswered. So does multi-worlds though. My own interpretation is that they are likely direct equivalents with no real differences though if there really is mathematical proof against one or the other, that would be interesting.

Zero worlds is just solipsism which is fun to play with mentally but ultimately leads nowhere useful.

whatever gets the job done!  :o ;D

"Zero worlds" is just another name for solipsism, which philosophers have debated for centuries. Most have concluded it is not a particularly useful model for describing (or predicting) reality; it has all kinds of Ockham's Razor problems.

Thanks for reviving the interest to this weeks old thread.
I agree that all these interpretations are just different ways to look at the same one thing.

Here is a fragment of the video that makes an explanation of the "quantum eraser" experiment mentioned in the OP video a little bit easier to conceive: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU6yCD_sEvU#t=67m15s

In short its says that if we perform the measurement for the double slit experiment and record both:
1) which slit an electron went through and put the result in one envelope (but never look at it)
2) the resulting pattern on the screen (either two bands or an interference pattern) and put it in another envelope (but never look at it)
then one might think that the picture of the resulting pattern is already determined at this point (wave-function collapsed), but it turns out that if instead of opening up the first envelope and seeing which way an electron went through we erase it (vaporize it into dust) then when we open the second envelope for the first time we will see an interference pattern instead of expected two bands. So the result in the second envelope which has already been recorded (and is in your hands) would actually depend on whether you open up the first envelope and see which way an electron went through or destroy it and never look at the data.

In general the video I just linked attempts to bind together various points of view and experimental data from both the mainstream research in neuroscience (BBC documentary) and the alternative research into presentiment (by Dean Radin) into an idea that the reality is first projected out by the brain and only then perceived back by it (which is also somewhat consistent with Rupert Sheldrake research I linked earlier in this thread, when he talks about experience of being watched). I haven't watched the whole series yet (have only gotten to the part 2) so I don't know if the conversation goes beyond talking just about the brain which it should if it purports to be a complete model (we are definitely more than our brains and even our language suggests so), but it already seems interesting. I will post my opinion here once I finish watching all the rest of it.

The other thing I'm yet to wrap my mind around is how one consciousness can split into many and experience itself as multitude of facets of creation (as seemingly separate autonomous beings) and where I (or you) come into this picture. Am I the part of the whole (then who decided which part I should be) or am I already the whole but simply pretending to be a part of it creating an illusion of forgetfulness about the other parts and trying to find my way back to full remembrance? Which way do you think it is and what is mechanizm of the split?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMYZlCzdIMU#t=2m06s

That is a good question to ask someone with (for lack of a better term) multiple personality disorder. There really is no I. There is only the stimuli of brain cells and centers that evolve adaptation behaviors for the organism. If you have a hemispherectomy, you will still be you to you, but not the same you to us. As individuals, perceptions are what drive the organism through the optics of learning behaviors. As a socially communicating species, we develop those optics through the adaptive behavior of others. If you want to experience this for yourself, go back and read things you have written years ago. You may find the thoughts you expressed quite estranged.

you are wrong. there is no minimum amount of energy needed to perform a calculation.
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/422511/the-fantastical-promise-of-reversible-computing/

You might want to consider refraining from throwing around words that you don't understand.

What you've done there is called "confirmation bias". You decided something is true, so then you searched the Internet looking for something that supported your preconceived notions. That's not a valid approach to epistemology.

In any case, what did you find?


Their findings can be summarized as follows: "If some process which is impossible exists, then other processes which are also impossible could be performed."

That's not exactly revolutionary. I can write a paper proving that if we discover magic, then I would the most powerful wizard in the universe. Unless somebody proves the existence of magic though it would just be a wish fulfillment fantasy.

ah, then you might want to explain which word is it that I do not understand? :)

the link I submitted is indeed the one I could find quickly, however I did read on the subject a few years (decade?) ago in a book by late Mr. Feynman, who I'm sure did understand a lot of words.

bottom line is: way we do computation, on a computer you bought in a shop today, is such that we need to spend energy and increase entropy to do it. Much in the same way we need to spend energy to push energy down a wire due to electrical resistance of the same. Both of these are not "optimal" ways of doing things. We can have supercouducting wires and reversible machines. Both of these are not impossible by contradicting any known physical laws. If so please state which one.

BR

This is interesting indeed, we would have to ask each personality independently though and might get a different answer from each :)
There are documented cases where different personalities (sharing the same body), might have different eye color or even have cancerous tumour show up and disappear as soon as they shift between each other.

From the model where consciousness exists outside of the physical realm, it can be explained that multiple consciousnesses have access (private key collision?) to the same receiver (human brain) and adjust the body to their way of expressing themselves.


I believe consciousness (as a sense of awareness) goes far beyond social behaviour or reacting to stimuli.

If you sit quietly not moving a muscle, not reacting to any noise around, you might look like a piece of rock to the "outside world", but you would still be conscious about yourself. It seems that you are not the one who thinks the thoughts, but the "inner being" inside who listens to them, who observes everything that's going on, and even if your reactions, your behaviours, your thought patterns change overtime, the "inner you" itself never does or it wouldn't be able to tell the difference. When you say I'm a different person now than I was 10 years ago, then who is making the comparison? If you subtract from yourself the personality you were 10 years ago and the one you are now and any in between and before that, you will be left with a "pure you", who was just observing all of the experiences you've had to this point. This "pure you" doesn't have any flavour or personality traits attached to it, it's just a singular observer whose only job is to be present. So the consciousness has more to do with being rather than doing. We are "human beings" after all not "human doings" :)

Another challenge that comes from trying to explain consciousness (as a sense of awareness) from materialistic point of view is two fold. Firstly, it seems that matter itself (including the cells constituting your brain) does not exist independently of an observer and QM is very clear about that (no matter the interpretation). Secondly, if this "pure you" consciousness (the one "inside" that witnesses you reading this post right now) comes from complexity of material manifestation, then there must be a map in the Universe that says: if atoms and molecules of certain type coalesce in a certain specifically predefined pattern under the right temperature and other physical conditions, then the resulting consciousness will be "you", otherwise it will be some other consciousness. That sounds strange, isn't it? Who would give the Universe this kind of map, and why "you" and "I" (as a sense of awareness that we are) would need to be there at all?

Anyway, I just watched the third part of the Holographic Universe series (I linked the second part in my previous post) and it seems that conversation turns in the right direction (though making a few surprising twists along the way). They attempt to discern various interpretation of the word consciousness and call semantically different things with different words. They also recommend to watch a movie in the end of every part (which I enjoyed watching so far) as a good background for the conversation at hand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3EnFYnX6Wo

Can you give some examples of the Occam's Razor type problems this gives?

So? Quantum Mechanics is supposed to be a method for finding approximate solutions to Quantum Field Theory equations. Quantum Field Theory is based on unsound mathematics. One attempt to resolve some (not all) of the inconsistencies is String Theory. String Theory is not developed well enough to take it into account. The entire thing is pretty much work in progress. You can accept it, you can reject it, or you can try to improve it. If you accept it, you are insane. If you reject it completely, you cannot reap the benefits of the existing, even though inconsistent, theory. The only reasonable approach is to accept it partially, with all its limitations and inconsistencies, and try to improve on it.


Almost correct, and mostly obvious. The objective reality may or may not exist, we cannot even know that. Our minds are receiving some inputs, we construct theories based on those inputs, we modify or reject these theories if necessary. Partial and inconsistent theories are fine, if you don't have a better alternative. I don't see how one can make a statement that a theory corresponds to "objective reality" in any way. Objective reality, if it exists, cannot be perceived directly. Theories, and inputs of unknown nature, is all we have. Copenhagen interpretation is one of the theories. Doesn't matter if it is consistent or not. What matters is if it is useful to me, in a particular situation.

Let me add a few more challenges to those wandering around this topic.

First, now that I mentioned it in my previous post, I got curious about it myself, so here it goes:
 - Are we thinking our thoughts ourselves (active perspective) or
 - Are we just observing the thoughts popping up in our heads seemingly out of nowhere (passive perspective)?
 - Something in between, some thoughts are ours and other are coming from elsewhere and we have to deal with them
It seems like that silhouette picture of a woman that you can look at both ways - facing front or facing back and there is no right way of looking at it.

Second, what happens when we go to sleep and wake up?
 - Is it the same sense of awareness that wakes up each morning? Then why the same sense of awareness wakes up in a slightly different body? (atoms and molecules rearrange themselves during the night a bit, so technically the body is different) or
 - Is it new sense of awareness that wakes up each morning and the perceived continuity is just an illusion (created in memory)? Then can going to sleep and waking up be compared to reincarnation? What if some day you wake up in a completely different body which is very young and cries all day long pissing their pants and you have no idea how you got there? :)

Anyway, I've just finished watching the rest of the workshop series about The Holographic Universe (part 4 and 5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BshVgi-KTwI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnrPZhbnpmU
They don't insist that this is how it is, but they came up with a model that seems to match the most recent scientific research and might be workable for some. It seems interesting but I'm sure there are still plenty of white spots in that model to colour. You can find the first three videos in the same channel if you want to watch from the beginning.


This is a good point!
I would pick a model with just one singularity (Consciousness) over any model with two singularities (physical Universe out of Big Bang and then Consciousness in a physical Universe). At least that's what Occam's Razor suggests, and remember that consciousness is an observable fact, compared to the physical Universe that might be just a dream. :)

I've posted this before, but it seems to fit the conversation once again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d4ugppcRUE

Now if consciousness is primary, how does it split to create an illusion of physical reality?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4DkBWC4Bp4


Yes, it's ok to play with different models and see which one works for you, many people don't even bother doing that and that's ok too!

The real question is how far are you willing to go?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiIEyxZFtxw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KaBPBzlX2Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq5KO-uQack

Are you willing to face the ultimate question?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyf38s4pjD0

PS: I will be away from the Internets for the next few weeks, so I won't be posting too often during that period.

Thoughts are alternate realties we observe and connect to.

What a thought! You should post that sometime in a thread called Quantum Conspiracy!

As poster above said, it IS actively suppressed, or stolen and hidden, or the scientists threatened, beaten, or killed.

I'll say no more on that, as I'm ready to take a bullet to help destroy the fiat system, science will have to be done by another person :)