Friday 22 January 2016

Measurement problem: A big thorn at the heart of quantum mechanics

Quantum Mechanics blurs the distinction between the observer and the observed. Even after eighty decades since the inception of Quantum Mechanics the measurement problem is not resolved and still haunts the theory in every imaginable way. Physicists however have no problems in continuing to carry out their experiments and making predictions from quantum theory because they can safely ignore the measurement problem for all practical purposes.

Schroedinger devised his cat paradox to show the absurdity of the Copenhagen Interpretation which was the instrumentalist view of Neil Bohr. It was here that he coined the term entanglement. The quantum state of the radioactive atom |psi> = |decayed> + |not decayed> and the quantum state of the poisonous gun |psi> = |fired> + |not fired> and the quantum state of the cat |psi> = |dead cat> + |live cat> are all entangled and exist in a superposition of states and evolve according to the Schroedinger equation. Quantum particles behave like ghost particles where each particle passes through both the slits at once and tunnel through walls and change their properties according to the context of the choice of measurements we make on them. Matter exists in a state of potentialities and not in a state of actualities. 

If this is the true nature of matter then why does our world which is made up of matter appears to us in a state of actualities rather than in a state of potentialities. What prevents billiard balls from being smeared out as waves and existing at multiple locations all at once or what prevents them from tunnelling through walls? Physicists have sought to answer this question in many ways while some propose decoherence through environment and while others speculate the existence of parallel worlds and few others taking the wavefunction to be real postulate that the weavefunction collapses to produce a specific outcome which can be recorded in the form of detector clicks and events none of these answers solve the question in hand. Decoherence theory fails to account for Quantum interference observed in molecules as big as Buckminster fullerenes which are so hot so much that it is never isolated from the environment. Quantum entanglement has been observed in room temperatures. The parallel worlds carry too much baggage and no experimental evidence supports them and it is highly unlikely for the wavefunction to be real and objective collapse theories are not the way to move forward.

The contextuality of Quantum Mechanics can be explained by a pair of colourless cosco balls. Let a bowling machine emit a pair of colourless cosco balls which will travel through different tunnels where it passes through a color detector at the each end of a tunnel. Let there be a mathematical constraint in the theory such that if you see one pair of a ball having one color the other ball at the other end of the tunnel should also have the same color. What quantum mechanics is saying to us is that matter does not possess any objective properties prior to measurements or in other words it is the very act of measuring the ball by the color detector which assigns a value say the color red to the ball in an absolutely random way, we just don't know in what color the ball will pass out through the tunnel, it may be red, pink, yellow, blue or green and there is no way of knowing it which is the presence of inherent randomness in the quantum system. The weirdness does not stop here the measurement made by the color detector not only assigns a color to the ball at this end of the tunnel it also instantaneously assigns a color value to the ball at the other end of the tunnel which might be hundreds of kilometres apart violating locality. Numerous experiments have confirmed this behaviour and quantum entanglement is an empirical fact now that measurements not only changes the system which is being measured here it also changes the system which may be situated at the other end of the universe.

All the strangeness, randomness and weirdness of Quantum mechanics is not because of the Schroedinger equation which is perfectly deterministic instead it is due to the measurement made on the quantum system. Every quantum physicist knows that they have to understand what is meant by measurement if they have any chance of clearly understanding quantum mechanics. Given the importance of measurement and observation in the theory of quantum mechanics which was recognized by Fritz London and Edmond Bauer who advocated for the advent of Phenomenology we certainly need to reconsider our notion of perception.

Below I will speculate a lot on how this measurement problem may be connected to the theories of perception in Indian philosophy.

“According to Western medical science, light vibrations from outside strike the retina and an inverted image is formed there. These vibrations are carried through the optic tract and optic thalamus to the centre of vision in the occipital lobe of the brain in the hind part of the head. There a positive image is formed. Only then we see the object in front of us. The Vedanta theory of perception is that the mind comes out through the eye and assumes the shape of the object outside.” (Mind and Its Mysteries: p. 70)

“The mind assumes the shape of any object it intensely thinks upon.” “When you pass through a mango garden, a ray of the mind comes out through the eye and envelops the mango. It assumes the shape of the mango. The ray is termed a Vritti. The enveloping process is called Vritti-vyapti. The function of a Vritti is to remove the Avarana (veil) that envelops the object and the Upahita-chaitanya (consciousness defined by an adjunct). The veil that envelops the mango is removed by the Vritti or the mental ray. There is Chaitanya (consciousness) associated with the Vritti. This Chaitanya illuminates the object ‘mango.’ This result is termed Phala-vyapti. Just as a torch-light illuminates an object in a flash, this Vritti-chaitanya (consciousness conditioned by the mental mode) illumines the object. Only then does perception of the mango take place” (Mind and Its Mysteries: P. 194). “According to the Advaita theory of perception, it is the Chaitanya within us that makes perception possible. The Chetana (intelligence) within us unites with the Chetana (intelligence) in the object, and the result is perception. It does not follow from this that the mind and the senses are useless,…..for they serve the purpose of determining the special object of each sense” (Ibid, p. 205)


Indian philosophy does recognize the existence of a physical world independent of observers which is made up of five elements: fire, earth, water, air and space called as Panchabhoothas and all the objects including our bodies which we can see are made from the mixtures of these five elements. The non-physical mind along with its sense organs which exists in the subtle body reaches out to the external objects made up of Bhoothas and alters the Bhoothas giving rise to the appearance of a classical world and these Panchabhoothas does not possess any objective properties with in themselves and all objective and cognitive properties of an object like speed, position, momentum, spin, angular momentum, velocity, mass, color, smell, dimension and time etc etc are assigned to this object by the mind and in turn alters the state of these Panchbhoothas. It is not that reality is what you make it or that you can change your reality just by observing it differently instead reality is what has been constructively given to us by the external non-physical mind. We don't construct reality inside our brains in fact brain is just a construct of the mind.

Immaneul Kant long argued this in his theory of transcendental Idealism where the categories of the mind constructs the phenomenal reality including the space-time continuum and quantum mechanics upholds this view more strongly than anything ever has.

"Kant taught that space and time are not part of external reality but are rather preexisting structures in our minds that allow us to relate objects and events."

- Steven Weinberg

So again why does billiard balls appears to us to always possess objective properties irrespective of whether we observe them or not while the same is not true for electrons and photons when both billard balls and electrons and photons are made from the same Panchabhoothas? Caslav Brukner and Kofler have explained the emergence of the classical world from the quantum world in their paper answering this very question.

Do classical laws arise from quantum laws?
A coarse-grained Schrödinger cat
“The physics community is mostly divided into two groups,” Johannes Kofler tells PhysOrg.com. “One group believes that quantum theory is underlying the classical world, and that classical physics comes from the quantum. The other group thinks that quantum physics has to be altered. It forbids that quantum mechanics works on a macro level in the classical world by postulating additional laws.”

Kofler belongs to the former group


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2007-11-classical-laws-quantum.html#jCp
“The physics community is mostly divided into two groups,” Johannes Kofler tells PhysOrg.com. “One group believes that quantum theory is underlying the classical world, and that classical physics comes from the quantum. The other group thinks that quantum physics has to be altered. It forbids that quantum mechanics works on a macro level in the classical world by postulating additional laws.”

Kofler belongs to the former group


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2007-11-classical-laws-quantum.html#jCp

“The physics community is mostly divided into two groups,” Johannes Kofler tells PhysOrg.com. “One group believes that quantum theory is underlying the classical world, and that classical physics comes from the quantum. The other group thinks that quantum physics has to be altered. It forbids that quantum mechanics works on a macro level in the classical world by postulating additional laws.”

Kofler belongs to the former group


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2007-11-classical-laws-quantum.html#jCp
“The physics community is mostly divided into two groups,” Johannes Kofler tells PhysOrg.com. “One group believes that quantum theory is underlying the classical world, and that classical physics comes from the quantum. The other group thinks that quantum physics has to be altered. It forbids that quantum mechanics works on a macro level in the classical world by postulating additional laws.”

Kofler belongs to the former group


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2007-11-classical-laws-quantum.html#jCp




 Above image taken from Caslav Brukner and Kofler paper.

So the classical world is classical because the mind by making coarse grained measurements on external objects has constructed a classical world to us. This view obviously introduces problems for quantum cosmology and also a classical detector can act as a measuring device and there is no need for conscious observers or human beings. So does this mean that even measuring devices have a mind of their own and this leads to some kind of panpsychism? I do not wish to speculate further on this path but the world might be like this who knows but the conclusion of this article is very much this:
It from bit. Otherwise put, every 'it'—every particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself—derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely—even if in some contexts indirectly—from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits. 'It from bit' symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom—a very deep bottom, in most instances—an immaterial source and explanation; that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe.

-- Wheeler, John A. (1990), W. Zurek, ed., "Information, physics, quantum: The search for links", Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information (Redwood City, California: Addison-Wesley) 

Wednesday 20 January 2016

Realism is going to stay for a while

What Bell did by Tim Maudlin.

"EPR had already ruled out local indeterministic theories, and “On the Einstein-Podolosky-Rosen paradox” ruled out local deterministic theories. Between the two of them, they licked the platter clean. Locality must be abandoned."

So as long as there is no inequality theorem which rules out the theory of Bohmian mechanics (a non-local deterministic theory), realism is going to stay for a while. Thanks to Tim Maudlin for clearing out some of the misconceptions of what Bell's theorem proves and what are its implications to our place in the cosmos.

Kochen-specker theorem does not rule out hidden variable theories as long as the hidden variable theories are Contextual. Bohmian mechanics is one such theory which fully reproduces the behaviour of standard quantum mechanics where all other properties of the system are contextual in nature except the position of the particles.

Contextuality in Bohmian Mechanics

Sunday 17 January 2016

God Became Man that Man Might Become God


The above image was created by Ron Goetz and you can read his full article here which makes a lot of sense. I specifically love this passage from him where he shares his experience of what happened to him after he understood the in depth teachings of Pauline and the Johnian traditions.

I was stopped cold. My accomplishment and goals were, as Paul said of his own in his letter to the Philippians, simply σκυβαλα, skubala, just so much shit. My degrees, my shiny little victories, my goals and aspirations, were nothing. My loss of enthusiasm was “spontaneous and unrehearsed.”

I was reminded of those motivational shutdowns recently when I saw something in Corinthians I hadn’t noticed before. The old way, with laws chiseled in stone, led to death, though it began with such glory that the people of Israel could not bear to look at Moses’ face. On those previous occasions, when I caught a glimpse of the mystery of the new covenant, the glory was unbearable.

- Ron Goetz

Friday 8 January 2016

Arrogance: My problems with the western world

“The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.” 

― Martin Luther King Jr., The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.


Martin is right here because when I was discussing esoteric concepts which most westerners have no knowledge of one of the person immediately threw at me a rhetoric question asking "You're educating us?" which echoes with what Martin said above. Either the person was extremely jealous of me that I knew more on this subject compared to all of them put together or he was extremely arrogant and did not wanted to learn anything from an easterner.

God hates arrogance and I am a believer in God which in turn makes me hate all those people who are arrogant. Since the person cannot be separated from his arrogance one has to inevitably attack the person to teach them a lesson and to bring them back on the path of humility and righteousness.

Another problem with the western world is their cultural misappropriation of Yoga. According to them Yoga is just a stretch, one of them said, "We just practice Yoga and we don't give a damn fuck about its spiritual nature, we are not indoctrinated by anything." which contradicts with loads of evidence that Yoga is more than just a stretch and actually it is a pagan ritual practice to unify oneself with the pagan Sun God despite this blatant fact they continue to abuse the roots of Yoga and the Sun God while taking all the benefits from him. Well, what shall we say to this kind of arrogance? Mind you if there is ever a reason for the next world war it could be for this reason, it will be for the War on Yoga. Its real and its coming.


Just as evil should be fought with evil even arrogance should be fought with arrogance. We have to believe that the western world can be beaten and believe that they can be easily brought to their knees just as Jehovah wanted to see the Egyptian Pharaoh on his knees because they are ordinary men and women like us and are no special as they often boast and behave themselves to be. As long as the western world does not believe that all knowledge has come down to us from God and give up Intellectual property rights and their pride in having discovered technology it will never win the grace of God and the wrath of God will be surely on its head. 

The root culprit for this isolation from other cultures and this kind of mindless arrogance is not due to their wealth, science or even militant atheism. The main culprit for the current state of the western world is the Roman Catholic Church and its other orthodox Christian offshoots. Majority of the westerners just don't like to even read any other religious scripture other than the Bible because according to them anything which is not from the Bible has come from the Devil. Bible is not the only religious scripture in the world. If you do not even make an attempt to read the literature of other people how can you even understand their values, culture or even appreciate it for that matter. Its not that other cultures are incompatible with the western world it is the western people who with their arrogant mindset are intolerant of other cultures. This kind of attitude and cultural isolation to demonize other cultures is the prime culture which the western world has learnt itself from Catholicism and its ilks.

Its shocking to believe that they claim themselves to be Christians and yet behave so arrogantly which is so unlike of Saint Paul and Jesus Christ. If Saint Paul if by any chance was teleported to two thousand years ahead in future which is the present time now since the era of Saint Paul he surely would have been saddened seeing the arrogance of his fellow Christians and would have immediately started a polemic campaign against the Roman Catholic Church in having hijacked and corrupted his true teachings. As long as Saint Paul is falsely associated to the Roman Catholic Church his true legacy will never be known to people. Catholicism is the most ridiculous of all religions in having combined elements from both Peterine Christianity and Pauline Christianity into an incoherent whole which were poles apart from one another at the time of early Christianity. Saint Paul would have been devastated seeing that the church which he established is actually preaching and spreading a good news which is very different from the one he intended to spread.

Why is church attendance is declining and atheism is growing in the west? The Roman Catholic Church has utterly failed to bring back atheists into Christianity. In fact its ridiculous nature is pushing many people to convert to atheism instead and with no God in their lives its quite easy for the evil archons to enamour them with worldly pleasures and make them arrogant and lead them to a sinful life. The problem of the western world is not due to lack of good political leaders who have a stiff backbone rather it is due to the lack of knowledge in the matters of the divine.

 Look who have the highest retention rates and this says it all.

Monday 4 January 2016

Stop Google and Facebook from tracking your interests and activities

Google and Facebook are tracking everything about you. Google tracks your every search and identifies your interests and based on that it filters ads which interests you the most. Sorry Google and Facebook you can't own the World Wide Web and we want to use the web safely and with a lots of privacy.

How To Stop Facebook From Tracking You
How to see all the companies tracking you on Facebook - and block them
How to Stop Google From Tracking You on the Web
Stop Google from tracking you on Google Maps

Friday 1 January 2016

Bernard D'Espagnat is no more with us

Bernard d’Espagnat, 93, Physicist, Dies; Sought Implications of Quantum Theory


I thank the Templeton Foundation for recognizing the work of Bernard D'Espagnat and for honouring him. He was the only Physicist who openly proclaimed that Quantum Mechanics is a pointer to an independent reality that exists independent of us. He was the only one who truly understood the implications of Quantum Mechanics and the famous Bell's theorem. Quantum Mechanics is pointing towards Platonic Realism which can be read from Bernard's own words.
“Plato’s ideas do not belong to space-time but they exist independently of the human mind and are the cause of phenomena. This is why, when we talk of Plato, we sometimes talk of the realism of essences. In this sense (a distant independent reality, probably not situated in time and space-time), it is difficult for the philosophical realism of a physicist to avoid being a little bit Platonist. Bohm himself, previously a standard bearer of the “materialist” physicists, even says now that perceived objects are only projections of what exists (4).”

Thus we see a legitimization of a scientific Platonism which is a philosophical consequence of the scientific demonstration of our world’s non-ontological character.

        - Speech for the diner in honor of Bernard D'Espagnat
 


I am feeling sad that Bernard D'Espagnat is no more with us to provide rigorous analysis on the development of new physics and its implications on Philosophy and Reality when fucktards like Stephen Hawking are saying that "Philosophy is dead". We need to carry forward his good works from where he left us.


Bernard d’Espagnat (2009)

PDF
Scientists Statements about Bernard d'Espagnat
Statement by Professor Bernard d'Espagnat
Fact Sheet
Reflections on Key Books and Publications
Books and articles by Bernard d'Espagnat
Career of Bernard d'Espagnat
links
Reality and the Physicist
Veiled Reality
On Physics and Philosophy
"The Quantum Theory and Reality," Scientific American, November 1979
Invisible Reality: A dialogue on nonlocal quantum entanglement World Science Festival, New York City, May 30, 2008
More Information on physicist John Bell
More information on Bell's Theorem
More information on Bell Test Experiments
BIG QUESTIONS – VIDEOS
Is it possible that not all of reality can be observed?
Can scientific research encourage spirituality?
What do we learn about the nature of reality from quantum physics?