Consciousness is a fundamental field of the Cosmos

 A new theory proposed by Maria Strömme, a Norwegian physicist is making headlines recently and the title of her paper says:

Universal consciousness as foundational field: A theoretical bridge between quantum physics and non-dual philosophy

 I have long argued that this paradigm shift is inevitable in my paper on academia titled:

Why the polytheistic mythos of the esotericists is inevitable?

Abstract: "A growing number of scholars, scientists and philosophers are leading us to an esoteric worldview without themselves being aware of this. While there seems to be much confusion on how to reconcile modern science with eastern and western esotericism most of the confusion seems to have come from choosing incompetent scholars for their study. The paper not only gives the correct approach for reconciling modern physics with Advaita Vedanta but also puts the hypothesis of the ontological and philosophical similarities between the two ancient monistic systems Valentinian Monism and Advaita Vedanta on a much firmer ground. An ancient method is also proposed to test this worldview and the paper concludes with the profound implications that it might have for religion, science and philosophy."

As you can see my claim in the abstract of my paper is turning out to be true mainly that, "A growing number of scholars, scientists and philosophers are leading us to an esoteric worldview without themselves being aware of this."

I think most of the ground work for connecting the bridge between quantum physics and non-dual philosophy should be credited to the French theoretical physicist, Bernard D'Espagnat for his work on Veiled Reality. 

Spacetime is a mental construct - Part II

In my earlier post titled Spacetime is a mental construct I had stated that the photon or the electron or a lump of atoms does not really pass through any or both of the slits in a double slit experiment and said that they just pop out into existence from nowhere.

Here is similar argument or work proposed by Jim Walker which adds support to my views.

Does Light Exist Between Events?

There is no classical world and the whole concept of causality has to be abandoned. Matter instantaneously affects other Matter no matter how far apart they are in the universe. This is how the cosmos was working since the beginning. You can see the birds flying in the sky not because a light ray reflected from them hits your retina instead a jiggling of the birds in the sky just jiggles the electrons in the retina and no light travels between you and the birds.

There are no trajectories between the influences of matter on one another instead there exist only inherent random probabilistic events which gets triggered from nowhere. This view resolves a hell lot of problems in quantum physics and it also explains the bizarre phenomena of quantum entanglement.

Falsifying Penrose's Orchestrated Objective state reduction

Sir Roger Penrose is of the opinion that quantum states reduces to a classical state in a non-random non-computational way due to mass displacements between entangled quantum systems.

In the below paper he has given an experiment to empirically falsify his viewpoint.

Quantum computation, entanglement and state reduction

I am a very big fan of his non-computable approach to human thought process but I am not a huge fan of his orchestrated objective state reduction. Nevertheless we must appreciate his willingness and courage to put his viewpoints to be tested against mother nature. Who knows he might be right of the opinion that quantum particles behave differently under the influence of gravity.

On the other hand Caslav Brukner and others is of the opinion that a gravitational wave will be no different from other waves and it too will end up in a superposition of states satisfying the quantum superposition principle. Penrose is of the opinion that it would contradict with the principles of general relativity in such a case. Its time we have a face off between these two giant successful scientific theories. 

Spacetime is a mental construct

The contextual nature of Quantum mechanics proves that Space and Time are not fundamental. Scientists and physicists should drop the view that the mathematical nature of their theories are actually describing the external physical world out there existing independent of us. 

Any new theory of Quantum Gravity combining Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity should be non-real. All the competing theories the Twistor theory of Penrose and the String theory fall short of this basic requirement. 

“It is not at all clear how to construct a theory of gravity that is not real, which is what we need to do if we want to quantise gravity.”

- Vlatko Vedral, Reality Check by Michael Brooks.

Modern physicists will have a clear picture of the world if they treat space and time as categories of mind as Kant argued in the 18th century rather than viewing spacetime as something which exists independent of us.

Quantum mechanics does not explain why events happen. The wavefunction or the probability wave should be treated just as a mathematical tool to predict the possible outcomes of our experiences and no greater reality should be attributed to quantum superposition of states.

"So does the universe exist independently of measurements? That is a question we will have to face. Maybe it is time to revisit Einstein’s lost quest, if we are serious about uncovering the basic laws of the universe; the money spent on particle smashers such as the Large Hadron Collider certainly suggests we are. Perhaps we need to move quantum entanglement and the nature of reality to the centre of the quest to find a theory of everything. What was once a quirky side show may yet prove to be the main event." 

- Reality Check by Michael Brooks

Let's go back to the single particle double slit experiment, the photons or the electrons comes in two forms either in lumps or in waves as Richard Feynman explained in his lectures. How is that the electron or the photon behave as waves when we are not detecting them and behave as particles possessing a precise position and trajectory when we try to detect them? How does nature know about the choices we are going to make and decide to behave accordingly?

Its a serious problem for the objectivity of science. How do we know that when a photon or an electron when it leaves from its source is transiting as a wave or as a particle? Delayed choice experiments prove that the behavior of the photon in the past can be changed by the choices which we make at present or in the future. The future affects the past. There is one way to come out of this bizarre unreasonable weirdness of quantum physics it is to accept that the universe is super-deterministic and we have no choice in asking any questions to nature. Physicists do not want to take this road because it is the death of induction, the very foundation of science. Well I'm afraid if physicists have any chance of retaining an objective account of reality then they must give up the belief that they have free will.

"To track down a theory of everything, we might have to accept that the universe only exists when we’re looking at it." 

- Reality Check by Michael Brooks.

What I believe is that when you send a photon through two slits the photon neither passes through one of the slits or passes through both of the slits instead the photon doesn't go through any slit at all instead they just pop out into existence from no where just at the right moment when you place a detector near the slits or on the interference screen which acts as a detector eventually providing enough information to create the experience of a photon in our minds. What this means is that photons and electrons do not exist out there independent of us. Waves and particles are just concepts created by humans and it is unjustifiable to expect nature to behave or to work according to our pre-defined notions of reality. There is something else which exists in the external physical world which is causing the detectors to click giving us the experience of photons and electrons. Why do the detectors click the way they do is a theory which we are yet to understand.

“We need to rethink and radically revise our basic physical concepts before we can make the next big breakthrough in physics.”

- Caslav Brukner, Reality Check by Michael Brooks.

Think about it nature is using Quantum entanglement as we speak to communicate the state of a photon faster than the speed of light outside of spacetime but you stupid physicists (John Bell - "Who do we think we are?") who boast about creating the photons cannot use it for communication because you all are prisoners of the cave because what we call empirical reality is only a state of mind and when you are in this state of mind you are indeed a prisoner of the spacetime continuum. One has to escape the spacetime continuum or in other words one has to transform his mind and go into a different state in order to view the external physical world existing independent of us.

The dream of Stephen Hawking will never ever come true because physicists will always be vulnerable to dark mysterious forces since they are not certain of their own future or predict with certainty about any event. Quantum mechanics may be the most intellectual and successful theory human beings have ever come up with but it is actually a big embarrassment to physicists over mother nature. You physicists spent billions and countless hours on math just to figure out this? I mean this? A fact which the pagan mystery religions ushered us long ago when human beings were goat herders. 

Physicists must adopt panpsychism into their worldview rather than viewing rocks, rivers, mountains, light, air, space and time as dead non living entities they must start treating them as anthropomorphic beings who manifest themselves through their respective images in this world. In fact Conway and Kochen prove that if we human beings have free will then even photons and electrons must have the free will to choose a trajectory given a set of possible paths. They should start looking at a wholistic picture of the cosmos rather than viewing light as separable entities. They should treat it as a conscious being. There is only one photon in the universe and it behaves according to the cosmic plan of the creator of this universe. How does light know about the choices which we are going to make in advance and changes its appearance to us accordingly? Light knows it because it is a conscious being and that being can see our future actions which we do not have access to. Science will never ever reclaim its objectivity and realism if it does not accept the truth of platonic realism. The truth that everything has come to us in shadowy images rather than how they really are.

Prana is the cause of spatial and temporal quantum entanglement

I had said earlier that there is one thing which can travel faster than the speed of light and it is what causes instantaneous action at a distance or instantaneously disturbs the quantum system no matter how far apart in space and in time the ensemble of a quantum system is.

Here is an interesting read on the subject of Prana by Swami Vivekananda.

http://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/volume_1/raja-yoga/prana.htm

Quantum Physics and Veiled Reality

Reality is not what you make it instead reality is what has been constructively given to us to experience it. A view held by Immanuel Kant in the 18th century. Kant argued that the real world which we see has not been given to us to perceive it directly but the mind plays an active role in constructing a different reality for us. Kant made a very clear distinction between the noumenon (the thing in itself) and the phenomenon (the thing as it appears to us) claiming that it is impossible to know the noumenon.

One physicist figured out that quantum physics affirms Kantian views more than any other philosophical dictum and he was Bernard D'Espagnat who died out recently. Even Bohr held Kantian views when he said this, "There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about Nature." Bohr is right because experiments have confirmed that there is no reality independent of quantum measurements. To make the matters worse the phenomenon of Quantum Entanglement is forcing us to re-consider our notions of space-time pushing us to a Kantian worldview because Quantum Entanglement has been shown to exist independent of space-time. There are not only spatial correlations but in fact there exist timely correlations which begs the question whether the effect precedes the cause.

Shoot a beam of photons to a polarizer with a vertical orientation and quantum theory predicts that there is a 50% probability that a photon may pass through the slit vertically polarized and a 50% probability that a photon may be polarized horizontally. The real problem of interpretation arises when you send the vertically polarized photons to a second polarizer which is oriented diagonally in the z-direction and in this scenario the photons stream out of the second polarizer randomly either polarized vertically or horizontally as accurately predicted by QM. The property of the polarization of the photon depends on the choice of the experimental context chosen by the physicists in this case of adding a second polarizer. The vertically polarized photons lost its reality and emerged out of the second polarizer randomly with either a vertical polarisation or a horizontal polarization showing us that the properties of a quantum system does not exist prior to measurements. We cannot assign any values to the properties of a quantum system without actually performing a measurement on them and their properties depend on the choice of the experimental apparatus chosen by the physicist. Its as though that nature can answer to only one question asked to it at a time. Ask it whether a photon will appear vertically or horizontally polarized when passed through a polarizer oriented vertically it gives you an answer and when you add a second polarizer oriented diagonally and ask the same question again the previous answer given by nature makes absolutely no sense whatsoever because by adding a second polarizer you changed the rules of the game and therefore you need to modify your wavefunction accordingly. This is the blunder which is plaguing quantum physicists worldwide for well over a century. The fact that the properties of a quantum system are contextual and are dependent on our measurements raising the question what do we really mean by a measurement.

To add more trouble to the pain measurements not only disturb an entangled quantum system here but it also instantaneously disturbs the entangled system separated at a spatial distance from the other giving rise to non-locality. Send two pairs of entangled photons in two different tunnels separated by kilometers apart and let Alice measure one of the photon at her end and Bob at the other end. Now as soon as Alice finds that the photon as a spin up the other photon immediately changes to spin down no matter even if the other photon is at the other end of the Milkyway. We cannot use this for superluminal communication between Alice and Bob because both of them choose the orientation of the apparatus randomly and it is only when they both communicate classically through a cell phone that they will come to realize that the results of their experiment was correlated. Its true that this does not conflict with relativity but raises the philosophical objection raised by John Bell which I approve:

Do we then have to fall back on ‘no signaling faster than light’ as the expression of the fundamental causal structure of contemporary theoretical physics? That is hard for me to accept. For one thing we have lost the idea that correlations can be explained, or at least this idea awaits reformulation. More importantly, the ‘no signaling …’ notion rests on concepts that are desperately vague, or vaguely applicable. The assertion that ‘we cannot signal faster than light’ immediately provokes the question: 

Who do we think we are? 

We who make ‘measurements,’ we who can manipulate ‘external fields,’ we who can ‘signal’ at all, even if not faster than light. Do we include chemists, or only physicists, plants, or only animals, pocket calculators, or only mainframe computers? (Bell 1990)

I am with John Bell, Einstein, Gerard 't Hooft and Roger Penrose here and I believe that some deeper superdeterminstic theory will explain those correlations and do away with the inherent randomness of Quantum mechanics. Correlations cry for explanations and such a super-determinstic theory might come from religion. The Aryan religion and even the Biblical religion teaches us that the external physical world was made up of just five elements: Space, Air, Water, Fire and Earth and these five elements mixed with each other to form the gross elements. Since we have found that the elements perceived by us is not made of these five subtle elements we can safely conclude that all the particles of the Standard model does not exist in the external physical world as it really appears to us. I am not claiming that those particles do not exist but that it doesn't exist in a way we imagine it to exist. All the properties of these particles like mass, color, parity, spin, position, velocity, angular momentum etc is assigned to it by the mind. We all know that there is no such thing as red photons or blue photons it is the mind which adds all these additional properties to a particle and retrospectively creates a reality for us. There is indeed an external physical world but it is actually made up of the above five elements and not by the particles of the Standard Model. Nature knows what choice you are going to make in advance and it stimulates the mind to make us perceive a reality accordingly.

Majority of the stupid physicists think that relativity and quantum physics describes the external physical world out there independent of us and there in lies their root problem but actually no, they do not, they describe only the perceived reality of the mind and it is with this foolishness that they think that they cannot do superluminal communication even though nature is using it every time as we speak. Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are not the laws of the external physical world but instead they are the laws which can be applied only when the mind is in a particular state of affairs. Physicists fool themselves taking their models of reality with reality itself. There is one thing which can travel faster than the speed of light in the external physical world which physicists are not aware of and that is the elan vital life force Prana which pervades the entire cosmos and it is what causes the action at a distance.

Panchikaran - How matter was created from the five subtle elements?

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)

- The Theory of Perception

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

Macroscopic Realism Emerging from Quantum Physics

 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) 

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

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?

The universe is non-local, non-real and super-deterministic

The Kochen-Specker Theorem and the Measurement Problem

Experimenter's Free Will and Quantum Certainty

Quantum Physics and Free Will

Locality, Realism (Value Definiteness + Non-contextuality)  and freedom of choice all three premises should be abandoned. The Universe is 

1. Non-local - instantaneous communication is possible between the two opposite ends of the universe outside of the space-time continuum.

2. Non-real  - The universe is only a state of mind and empirical reality does not exist independent of observers.

3. Super-deterministic - Everything in the universe is predetermined and we have no freedom of choice to choose between different measurement settings or different polariser orientations without in any way affecting the prepared quantum ensembles.

We need to give up local-realism, non-local realism as well as our freedom of choice to be consistent with nature.

 

Quantum Mechanics does not apply to me

I have repeatedly stated that Science cannot give an objective account of reality because Quantum mechanics proves that Scientific realism is false. While the sadist alternative is to resort to solipsism there is still one optimism for realists like me which is Platonic Realism which has withstood the test of times.

In this 1939 paper London and Bauer question the validity of scientific objectivity and claim that consciousness or our "faculty of introspection" is a distinct property possessed by systems like us who can treat ourselves as alien external observers who can modify the Schroedinger's wavefunction without ourselves being subjected to it.

Consciousness is the only true measurement apparatus and leads to mind over matter. The fact that physicists cannot solve the measurement problem even after eight decades proves that non-physical minds exists and quantum mechanics even gives us a clue that the evolution of such non-physical minds should be non-linear or even non-computable as Penrose argues.

The Theory of Observation in Quantum Mechanics by Fritz London and Edmond Bauer (1939)

SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY AND OBJECTIVITY

At first sight it would appear that in quantum mechanics the concept of scientific objectivity has been strongly shaken. Since the classic period, the idea has become familiar that a physical object is something real, existing outside of the observer, independent of him, and in particular independent of whether or not the object has been subjected to measurement. The situation is not the same in quantum mechanics. Far from it being possible to attribute to a system at every instant its measurable properties, one cannot even claim that to attribute to it so much as a wave function has a well-defined meaning, unless referring explicitly to a definite measurement. Moreover, it looks as if the result of a measurement is intimately linked to the consciousness of the person making it, and as if quantum mechanics thus drives us toward complete solipsism.

Actually, however, we know that the relations between physicists have undergone practically no change since the discovery of quantum mechanics. No physicist has retired into a solipsistic isolation. Physicists use the same means of scientific exchange as in the past and are capable of cooperation in studying the same object. Thus there really exists something like a community of scientific perception, an agreement on what constitutes the object of the investigation, and it is this that still has to be looked into.

First of all, it is easy to recognize that the act of observation, that is, the coupling between the measuring apparatus and the observer (see our example in §11), is truly a macroscopic action and not basically quantal. Consequently one always has the right to neglect the effect on the apparatus of the “scrutiny” of the observer. Tracing things back in time, one will obtain definite conclusions about the state of the apparatus (or the photographic plate) and consequently the state of the object before the observation (but of course after the coupling is turned off). Moreover, nothing prevents another observer from looking at the same apparatus; and one can predict that, barring errors, his observations will be the same. The possibility of abstracting away from the individuality of the observer and of creating a collective scientific perception therefore in no way comes seriously into question.

It might appear that the scientific community thus created is a kind of spiritualistic society which studies imaginary phenomena—that the objects of physics are phantoms produced by the observer himself. In classical physics, one can picture a system at every instant in a unique and continuous way by the set of all of its measurable properties, even when it is not subjected to observation. It is exactly the possibility of this continuity of connection between properties and object that has ordinarily been considered as proof that physics deals with something “real,” that is, having in principle an existence “independent of all observers.” In quantum mechanics an object is the carrier, not of a definite set of measurable properties, but only a set of "potential" probability distributions or statistis referring to measurable properties, statistics which only come into force on the occasion of an effective well-defined measurement. If one abstracts away from all acts of measurement, it is meaningless to claim these measurable properties as realized; the very mathematical form of the statistics does not allow it (see §8).

But that does not keep us from predicting or interpreting experimental results. Theory fixes the rules. It teaches us first of all how to filter an object to get a pure case —that is, reproducible conditions, then it suggests how to make measurements, either to check theoretical predictions or to discover new empirical regularities. The theory adapts itself truly marvelously to the realities of experiment. It gives answers on all desired details and is silent on hypothetical questions with out experimental meaning.

In present physics the concept of “objectivity” is a little more abstract than the classical idea of a material object. Is it not a guarantee of “the objectivity” of an object that one can at least formally attribute measurable properties to it in a continuous manner even at times when it is not under observation? The answer is No, as this new theory shows by its internal consistency and by its impressive applications. It is enough, evidently, that the properties of the object should be present at the moment they are measured and that they should be predicted by theory in agreement with experiment.

In the limiting case of macroscopic phenomena, quantum theory rejoins classical theory. Thus it justifies the use of the “naive” concept of “objectivity” and at the same time specifics the limitations of this concept.

What has just been said relates to an important philosophical problem that we cannot enter into here: the determination of the necessary and sufficient conditions for an object of thought to possess objectivity and to be an object of science. This problem was perhaps posed for the first time in any general way by such mathematicians as Malebranche, Leibniz, and especially by B. Bolzano. More recently Husserl (1901, 1913; see also the rather similar ideas in Cassirer, 1910, 1936) has systematically studied such questions and has thus created a new method of investigation called Phenomenology.”

Physics insofar as it is an empirical science cannot enter into such problems in all their generality. It is satisfied to use philosophical concepts sufficient for its needs, but on occasion it can recognize that some of the concepts that once served it have become quite unnecessary, that they contain elements that are useless and even incorrect, actual obstacles to progress. One can doubt the possibility of establishing philosophical truths by the methods of physics, but it is surely not outside the the competence of physicists to demonstrate that certain statements which pretend to have a philosophical validity do not. And sometimes these “negative” philosophical discoveries by physicists are no less important, no less revolutionary for philosophy than the discoveries of recognized philosophers.

Roger Penrose: Quantum Mechanics is internally inconsistent

Uncertainty in quantum mechanics: faith or fantasy?

Yet there remains a profound conundrum in the contradiction between the continuous deterministic U-evolution and the discontinuous probabilistic R-evolution, as we shall be seeing in §6. In any case, a probabilistic and discontinuous outcome (R) certainly could not be the result of a continuous deterministic process (U), unless some approximation procedure is involved. Most physicists appear to take refuge in the puzzling issues involved in finding the right ‘physical interpretation’ of the quantum state and its modes of evolution. For my own part, I would regard it as likely that the linear quantum mechanics that we now use is merely an approximation to some more refined nonlinear evolution that we shall someday discover, and according to which both the U- and R-evolutions would arise as excellent approximations in their respective contexts. If this proves to be the case, then the present-day inconsistency between the U and R procedures could be removed.

This is a banging paper by Sir Roger Penrose which clearly outlines his take on Quantum Mechanics.

My take on this is along with the arguments of John von Neumann and Eugene Wigner that a non-physical mind collapses the wave function since it doesn't obey the Schrödinger's equation and influences matter to behave differently when it encounters itself with the former.

Winger's friend paradox by Eugene P Wigner 

"Consciousness causes collapse"

In his 1932 book The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, John von Neumann argued that the mathematics of quantum mechanics allows for the collapse of the wave function to be placed at any position in the causal chain from the measurement device to the "subjective perception" of the human observer – the notion of such a chain, more specifically a chain of interacting systems in which the values of one system is correlated with that of the immediately following system, has since become known as the von Neumann chain. In 1939, F. London and E. Bauer argued for the latter boundary (consciousness). In the 1960s, Eugene Wigner reformulated the "Schrödinger's cat" thought experiment as "Wigner's friend" and proposed that the consciousness of an observer is the demarcation line which precipitates collapse of the wave function, independent of any realist interpretation. See Consciousness and measurement. Very technically, Wigner identified the non-linear probabilistic projection transformation which occurs during measurement with the selection of a definite state by a mind from the different possibilities which it could have in a quantum mechanical superposition. Thus, the non-physical mind is postulated to be the only true measurement apparatus. This interpretation has been summarized thus:

The rules of quantum mechanics are correct but there is only one system which may be treated with quantum mechanics, namely the entire material world. There exist external observers which cannot be treated within quantum mechanics, namely human (and perhaps animal) minds, which perform measurements on the brain causing wave function collapse.

Embarrassment among Physicists grows

One doesn't have to dig far too deep inside the scientific literature in order to see how bizarre the current state of Physics is today just a glance on to their blogs will suffice.

The Most Embarrassing Graph in Modern Physics

Think about it — quantum mechanics has been around since the 1920’s at least, in a fairly settled form. John von Neumann laid out the mathematical structure in 1932. Subsequently, quantum mechanics has become the most important and best-tested part of modern physics. Without it, nothing makes sense. Every student who gets a degree in physics is supposed to learn QM above all else. There are a variety of experimental probes, all of which confirm the theory to spectacular precision.

And yet — we don’t understand it. Embarrassing. To all of us, as a field (not excepting myself).

- Sean Caroll

Physics is in a state of crisis. (Lee Smolin)

The trouble with Physics. (Lee Smolin)

Discover Interview: Roger Penrose Says Physics Is Wrong, From String Theory to Quantum Mechanics

One of the greatest thinkers in physics says the human brain—and the universe itself—must function according to some theory we haven't yet discovered.

Now adding more oil to their wounds.

Superdeterministic - Conspiracy theories (LOL)

Local realism might not be dead yet because there is still one last loophole in Bell's theorem which is not ruled out yet i.e. the assumption that the experimenters have the degree of freedom to prepare a quantum ensemble of states independent of the detector settings.

Experimenter's Freedom in Bell's Theorem and Quantum Cryptography

by Johannes Kofler, Tomasz Paterek, Caslav Brukner

A view which I touched on in a post long time back.

We must also describe the states of the observer along with the quantum system to fully understand the evolution of the wave and its further collapse. Both the choice of the observer as well as the observed system are responsible for the results that are observed. The measurement problem is at the heart of quantum physics and it is one of the cornerstone of QM even though it has with stood the test of times, accurately predicting the possible outcomes of the system but science is more than just finding probabilities physicists like John Bell, Einstein, Penrose will not be satisfied by the positivist approach and one has to make deep in routes into its philosophical implications and look for an alternative world view and move forward.

- Author of the Blog,  A new world view.

This is where it gets really funny where one camp takes the idea of Super-determinism very seriously while the other camp is dumbfounded as to what the other camp believes in.

Testing Conspiracy Theories - Sabine Hossenfelder

I'm about to fly to Vienna where I'll be attending a conference on Emergent Quantum Mechanics. I'm not entirely sure why I was invited to this event, but I suspect it's got something to do with me being one of the three people on the planet who like superdeterministic hidden variables theories, more commonly known as "conspiracy theories".

- Sabine Hossenfelder

Soon came the Back-reaction from the orthodox camp.

Superdeterminism: The ultimate Conspiracy Theory - Lubos Motl

A recommendation both for men and women (because I don't want to discriminate against anyone): if you're lying pregnant in the hospital, don't write physics papers because they are likely to be even stinkier bullshit than what you write most of the time. And make no doubt about it: none of Sabine's 10 most recent papers is correct.

 - Luboš Motl

 ROFL 

None the less the pagan mystery religions long knew that the world is superdeterministic. If not what was the whole point of the existence of the Oracles and the precognition of the future. We would welcome a superdeterministic world but I don't think the answer to the current problems of Physics lies in some kind of Superdeterministic theory yet unknown to us. In fact the whole endeavour of Science has reached a dead end. The reason why passionate young people like me who loved science once abandoned it long time ago and have turned to Esotericism, Magic and Theurgy.

Bernard d'Espagnat's interpretation of Quantum mechanics

Finally after years of research I can cite a paper which fully conforms with my view on Quantum mechanics and why such an interpretation of QM has a huge significance for all those religious oral traditions and traditionalists who emphasize a great deal on revelation.

Quantum mysticism is quite often misunderstood by both New Age spiritualists and also by the scientific community, while the former rely on pseudo-scientific and pseudo-religious claims without getting neither science nor religion right on the other hand the latter simply rubbish away any such arguments by saying its all woo woo.

While people like Richard Jones have argued that neither quantum mechanics nor mysticism has given the ultimate nature of reality at this current time that doesn't stop optimistic ones like me to correctly lay down each ones domain and explain how both science and religion converge at a single point when both are interpreted correctly differentiating their epistemology and ontology precisely.

Many non-physical minds exist in the platonic realm.

One solution to Wigner's friend problem is to take seriously the dualistic theories of mind and body and argue that quantum mechanics applies to all the universe, our bodies and brain but not to the non-physical mind treating only minds as real having a dynamics of their own. This doesn't mean this view endorses solipsism or absolute idealism but a form of Platonic realism or in the words of Bernard d'Espagnat, a Veiled Reality.

Platonic forms are what exists in the noumena and give rise to phenomena, a distinction which Kant affirmed long time back. We have to take seriously the idea that minds are prior to time, space and other Kantian categories as Kant said and give rise to phenomena which is only in a state of inter-subjective agreement between minds. The correct formulation of quantum mechanics which is the quantum information theoretic framework is in complete agreement with this view and it is the only reasonable view possible which otherwise leads to unavoidable paradoxes if one believes that the quantum states have objective existence rather than interpreting it as representing our knowledge of the quantum system. This view is reasonable and highly intellectual and should be considered very seriously as these papers show. Thanks to the John Templeton foundation for recognizing the importance of Bernard's works and its implications to our world.

Consciousness and the Wigner’s friend problem - Bernard D'Espagnat

Information and fundamental elements of the structure of quantum theory - Caslav Brukner and Anton Zeilinger

Does the Universe only exists when we're looking at it?

Many believe that the Big Bang theory and the discovery of God particle have confirmed creation out of nothing. But that's not how the story ends.

"To track down a theory of everything, we might have to accept that the universe only exists when we're looking at it" - Michael Brooks, New Scientist.

This is about what science is and how it should be taught. We need to abandon the notion of an objective reality.

"So does the universe exist independently of measurements? That is a question we will have to face. May be it is time to revisit Einstein’s lost quest, if we are serious about uncovering the basic laws of the universe; the money spent on particle smashers such as the Large Hadron Collider certainly suggests we are. Perhaps we need to move quantum entanglement and the nature of reality to the centre of the quest to find a theory of everything. What was once a quirky side show may yet prove to be the main event."

The answer to the question "where do we come from?" not only lies on particle smashers but also on quantum entanglement and the nature of reality and drastically changes our view on science. Science is not a description of an objective world of things independent of human minds instead it is just a set of predictive rules to predict the possible values that we can assign to a physical system and it cannot in any way claim anything on the nature of the physical objects itself.

Are particles even things? An extreme view of the plasticity of electrons and other particles is expressed in this famous quote of Heisenberg: “The invisible elementary particle of modern physics does not have the property of occupying space any more than it has properties like color or solidity. Fundamentally, it is not a material structure in space and time but only a symbol that allows the laws of nature to be expressed in especially simple form.”  

Are you satisfied with viewing science as a set of predictive rules or do you prefer to see science as a description of an objective world of things—in the case of particle physics, tiny, scaled-down things? What problems are associated with each point of view? 

- Modern Physics - Serway, Moses and Moyer.

This is what should be taught and there are serious problems or you'll get into lot of troubles if you view science as a description of an objective world of things, physicists don't have an objective account of reality. It is the business of science to explain an objective world as it is independent of a human mind but physicists just don't have it and other branches of philosophy which can give an objective account of reality should be considered very seriously.

This lecture by David Mermin sums it up quite nicely.

Now you replace those Red and Blue color properties with the property of an object called the spin, say spin up and spin down and those A, B and C with the X, Y, Z spin components of an object then as Mermin shows these properties cannot exist in prior to the measurements and the observed correlations are infact instantaneous. Its not that one physicist was right or the other one was wrong but instead their intellectual arguments and facts established from experiments have concluded that we need to abandon the notion of an objective reality. Einsteinian realism or the commonsense view of the world is simply unattainable.

As Bohr says "There is essentially the question of an influence on the very conditions that define the possible types of prediction regarding the future behaviour of the system". According to Bohr the polarisation of a photon is an idealistic concept extrapolated from the results of our observations and no greater reality should be attributed to it. There is no element of physical reality corresponding to a physical quantity and Einsteinian objective world or his mathematical realism is just isn't out there. What ever is out there science cannot know what it is.

As Bernard D'Espagnat writes in his paper 'Reality and Physicists' pleading the physics community that there should be a philosophy with in science guiding the debates of physicists and says,

"Unless we discard altogether the very idea of reality that is independent of our knowledge, we have to accept that such a reality cannot be identified with the ensemble of phenomena. This in turn means that we cannot escape what I claim is the fundamental distinction between reality in itself or as such - reality independent of the human minds - and the ensemble of phenomena - or empirical reality. As we shall see, this distinction is not for the use of philosophers alone. Scientists seeking to understand in depth the nature of certain debates internal to the scientific community will also find it useful."

Bernard d'espagnat nicely puts it this way that "what we call empirical reality is only a state of mind".

"We have always had a great deal of difficulty

understanding the world view

that quantum mechanics represents. 

At least I do,

because I’m an old enough man

that I havent’ got to the point

that this stuff is obvious to me. 

Okay, I still get nervous with it…. 

You know how it always is,

every new idea,

it takes a generation or two

until it becomes obvious

that there’s no real problem. 

I cannot define the real problem, 

therefore I suspect there’s no real problem,

but I’m not sure

there’s no real problem." 

- R.P.Feynman, Int. J. Theor. Phys. 21, 471 (1982)

Scientists are simply quite hesitant to state the obvious the universe is inevitably anthropocentric. Only God can give an objective account of reality.