quantum reality

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With current understandings of quatum theory reality is just a soup of possabilites which are directly influenced by observation. This is a very simplified statement but sets the tone for the following postulation.

If you look at experiments like the double slit or schrodinger's cat thought experiment both display clear evidence that reality is decided by conscious perception.
The only consciousness you can know actually exists is your own as all others are just your perceptions.
All worldly knowledge including crazy mathmatical dimensions used to discover the most fundamental physics of our reality is already your knowledge, even as yet undiscovered knowledge is already part of you as you have perceived others to pocess this knowledge and will do in the future. You just dont know it yet.
Is death just the moment you realise reality for what it is?
Are users of psychedelic substances and some mental health conditions such as asd or schizophrenia accessing this higher knowledge causing distortions to their reality here?
is ignorance really the bliss consciousness is looking for in life?

in quantum theory, the prevailing theory is that the wave function collapses to a single state based on *anything* being aware of it ..... an ant , a rock, a molecule of water ....

"A poll was conducted at a quantum mechanics conference in 2011 using 33 participants (including physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers). Researchers found that 6% of participants indicated that they believed the observer 'plays a distinguished physical role (e.g., wave-function collapse by consciousness)'".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neuman ... #Reception

There may be a way to prove so - try to build an ansible.

Set up a double slit experiment, where whether the photon goes through the slit being determined by it's polarisation. Send a stream of entangled photons through, one at a time. Now, their polarisation should be measured by the filter at the slit, thus leading to no interference pattern.

However, it may not. If you get an interference pattern, start measuring their entangled partners. This should collapse the wave function down, leading the interference pattern to disappear - thus sending classical information at the same speed the wave function collapses (instantaneously).

The only way I can see that avoids sending classical information is if the photon only goes through one slit, regardless of what happens to the other. That is the most likely case, anyway, and doesn't involve a conscious mind collapsing the wave function...

But in your experiment the the results of which would only materialise into existance the moment you look, you have just bumped the wave function down the line to collapse at the moment you view the readings of you measuring device. Which ever slit it travels through and gets picked up by the filter until you observe the filter the same possabilites are present. Also conscious mind created the experiment. Its the one variable that can never be eliminated or have a control as there is no one set state of consciousness that is know mathematically to factor into any equations or experiments.

Ah, yes, I thought about that after posting it. I'd still like to see the experiment done, though. Just on the off chance that we get an ansible.

Correct me if I am wrong .. however ....

QM is fundamentally about the "observer" i.e., the measuring device affecting what is being observed. In QM literature when they say "observer" they generally mean "a light source" which imparts momentum (energy + trajectory) photons onto the particle/system being looked at, so the particle/system is unpredictably altered by the means used to observe it.

Thus a present state of particle/system cannot be determined, and a probability distribution is the only means of knowing the state for a particle/system.

So, if consciousness did affect reality, then it seems like one would need to show that consciousness itself imparts momentum/energy/whatever to the particle/system.

Actually... no. The whole thing about measurement imparting momentum is an analogy, but that's not actually how it works in reality. Before it's position is measured, it's actually position is spread out in space, with different probabilities of locating it. That goes for everything - the bread in the kitchen is overwhelmingly likely to be found in the kitchen where I put it, but there is a small - incredibly small, as in you would have to live for googols of universes in order to stand a good chance of observing it to be the case - but non zero probability that it's actually on Rockall. Of course, when it's observed to be in the kitchen, either by my own eyes or by the robot that determines whether to buy more (I don't actually have one yet, alas), that wave function collapses and it's determined to be in one case.

Or, the robot becomes part of the wave function, and it collapses when I observe that the robot has purchased more bread.

Or, I become part of the wave function, and it never collapses; instead, the world splits and my consciousness is spread out througout the multiverse. This is the many-worlds interpretation, and it means that I can't die - though given entropy, I will eventually wish I could.

I would think physically it's more than an analogy, because it's the basis for the Heisenberg Uncertainty principal i.e., that the measuring device of light affects what is being measured and uncertainty arises from the collision of the light particles and the measured particle.



I know you are reciting a textbook explanation. However, I have never found any information that is anything more than conjecture

The probability distribution appears to result not from "it being spread out in space", but rather from unpredicatable particle collision that occurs if one were to measure what state it really is in. HSU showed us this with regards to light as a measuring means.

Recently, scientists have used "weak microwaves" to try and see if they can detect superposition of quantum states (i.e, it being spread out in space as you say).
http://www.nature.com/news/physicists-snatch-a-peep-into-quantum-paradox-1.13899

However, I still see no evidence of superposition of quantum states. I see "it being spread out in space" being conjecture arising from the very basic principal of uncertain particle collision.

Also, from today, researchers have proven that HSU and the wave/particle duality are the same thing.
http://phys.org/news/2014-12-quantum-physics-complicated.html