Davies is a profound thinker, not afraid to talk like a philosopher , but staying within the bounds of observable reality. He is also much better at explaining his ideas than 99.9% of his fellow scientists.
He is very articulate taking subtle points of the quantum mechanical observer and unpacking those ongoing projects. He explained well the part about reducing the historical pathways from the past to the present by an act of observation of a quantum system in the present. In that technical sense , the past is affected by an observation in the present. Of course, this line of thought goes back to Wheeler - an amazing physicist.
Until I observed the comments section here just now, the possibilities to the nature of their content was infinite. Once I observed them, they collapsed into the ones I read.
Well, sort of...The comments would have collapsed even as they were typed by their authors. Moreover, their content was constrained by your prior expectations, and so could not have seemed infinite....So, not really,
Wow, he really understands quantum mechanics. I love this guy. No wonder the book he wrote with Gribbin was a great inspiration for me somewhat 15 years ago, at the beginning of my journey.
I'm not sure why an observer needs to have a model of itself. That wasn't fully explained. What I want to know is how a human observer is any different to a mechanical one. The problem of any observer, whether human or otherwise, is that even after it makes an observation, that observer would be in a superposition of all outcomes from the perspective of a second observer that is yet unaware of the observed information. This is known as the Wigners Friend thought experiment. Although the experiment was intended to show that observers must be conscious, I think it failed to do so, and alternative explanations have been given. What we need is some form of Bell Inequality experiment combined with a Wigner's Friend experiment, to determine whether decoherence only occurs for conscious observers, or whether it occurs for mechanical observers as well. If anyone knows of any efforts to do this, I'd love to see it - but to my knowledge the question is either still open, or there is nothing special about consciousness when it comes to observers (i.e. mechanical observers are indistinguishable from conscious ones w.r.t quantum decoherence/entanglement etc).
Geshtu the delayed choice quantum eraser proves that a mechanical object is not adequate to collapse the wave function. What matters is the information about the system that is available to an observer. Which doesn't help, but it's what the "science" says.
I disagree. By my understanding, the delayed choice quantum eraser only shows that the mechanical object's wave function is entangled with that of the human observer. Human observers are not outside of nor immune to quantum mechanics, which is why I fail to see the distinction between humans and machines as far as decoherence is concerned. I will look into this further though, because it may help me to refine my thoughts on this better. I get what you are saying about the wave function not being collapsed until the human observer makes a choice of what to observe, but that firstly assumes the copenhagen interpretation, and also assumes the point at which decoherence occurs is the point when the human observer makes a choice. Actually even after that point, a second human observer would see the first human observer in a superposition of quantum states, entangled with the experiment setup. Now assume the perspective of this second observer, and tell me what changes if the first observer is a machine vs a human. I don't know the answer to this. If I've made an error in my assumptions, please let me know.
Aaron, also note that the experiment setup at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_choice_quantum_eraser#The_experiment_of_Kim_et_al._(1999) does not include a human observer, and the experiment worked just fine.
Likewise physics.stackexchange.com/questions/214777/delayed-choice-quantum-eraser-am-i-missing-something-here "Consciousness is never part of any quantum mechanical explanation. Every experiment runs the same whether or not a person is in the room."
@@geshtu1760 "Consciousness is never part of any quantum mechanical explanation. Every experiment runs the same whether or not a person is in the room." The problem with this is: as soon as you look at the results of the experiment there is a conscious observer involved: You. So it is impossible to get results from a quantum experiment without involving a conscious observer. This however doesn't weaken your main point: that decoherence is not absolute but relative to the observer. It just means that we can't test it. But I think the same way you do because to me it just makes the most sense.
“What we do today affects the nature of reality as it was in the past, it doesn’t change the past … it does have an affect on what we can say about the past.” An important experiment done today will affect what we can say about the past by focusing our explanations, our theories of physics, and thus limiting the number of things we can say might have happened in the past. Fundamental to science in general, and thus to physics, is the belief that nature is consistent. If the nature of reality keeps changing then there is no point in trying to describe the nature of reality. Describing the nature of reality IS the project of science. Yes Quantum physics is fuzzy but that doesn’t mean nature is fuzzy, just that our understanding is. Quantum physics is an attempt to describe reality, it isn’t reality itself. Those things with both wave and particle like characteristics don’t obey the laws of physics, the laws of physics describe what they do. If they are observed doing other that what’s in the laws they aren’t fined or put in jail, rather the laws need to be changed to fit what they do. It makes no sense to say something “affects” another thing and at the same time saying it doesn’t change that other thing. Observations don’t change the past.
I agree that statement doesn't make sense if we restrict ourselves to the usual pattern of usage of words like "affect", "change" and "past". We usually assume there is one present and one past. But quantum mechanics tells us there are multiple versions of past, present and future, versions that in some sense coexist. Nevertheless I find it hard to accept that a conscious observer is necessarily involved.
If an observer makes an observation it effects the reality of the past because the reality of the past is also dependent on our observations. By making an observation, we rule out possible alternative pathways - "...in that sense, what we do today effects the nature of reality as it was in past. It does not change the past. You can't send signals to the past., but it does have an effect on what you can say about the past." Our understanding of the past is affected by the observations we are making now.
What did the universe look like before anyone or anything was doing any looking? The truth is we don't know and can't know. There's no reason to assume it would look then as it looks to us now. Humans and other animals have particular sensoria that shape what they experience in particular ways. Existence w/o observers may have no detectable form whatsoever. In fact, w/o observers, the entire universe could have been held in superposition, an open vector of potential energy. Things in wavelength systems but have no form that can be observed. It takes an observer to "collapse" the wave-function of near-infinite possibilities into locatable photons or sub-atomic particles of matter-energy. There is nothing to observe until they are observers to participate in the reality of form, space, and time.
I think "observer" is a bit misleading. It suggests we're a passive spectator, rather than an active agent. But to observe anything we must measure, extract information from a system by interacting with it. But to interact with something means to influence its trajectory through its phase space. This is what the collapse of the wave function is about, as I understand it. So an "observer" can be any system that extracts/ exchanges information with another system and thereby alters the trajectory through phase space of both by entagling the two systems. The observer then "knows" something about that system at the cost of being transformed by it. To try to answer your excellent question, then, I'd say the extent to which something is an observer depends on the extent to which it can retain information about its past interactions of itself with other systems. The more complex that process is, the more complex the observer is. We are the most complex observers we know of.
While past cannot be changed, although seen differently from the present, through delayed choice experiment; is it possible that something in the future could change the present using delayed choice?
Not sure these two statements can both be true: 1) we can't change or effect the past 2) we what we do now constrains the past Constraining the past does effect it, which means it changes it. I don't see anyway around that. It might be the case that there are limitations on this, and that seems likely and logical. And Davies knows this. It's why he brought up retrocausality when discussing how the big bang was apparently not observed. He's saying we're observing it now. Which means we are in some way determining it.
@@schmetterling4477 There will certainly be some shocking fundamental new additions to our thought by then, something many people wouldn't dare to imagine now. I have no idea if retro-causality will be one of those additions, but one should not be so quick to dismiss, especially considering there is experimental evidence to back it up to some degree, at least at the quantum level. Cheers.
Paul Davies is brilliant. But the interviewer keeps bringing up the question that if an observing mind is fundamental to the universe we know, how could the universe have existed long before mind presumably appeared? Before the universe we know, recognize, and love appeared to us, there was no universe that we knew, recognized, and loved! There was no doubt quantum potential - say quantum field states described by wave patterns - but there were no particles or form of any kind, probably not even linear time. The universe - as we know it - could only come into being when we began to know it! It took conscious observers to collapse the wave-functions and change reality from potential to actual.
It's not as simple as that.One can put several people in the same situation and they will react differently. That's because we have souls and the soul makes its' choices.
if an alien race were using gravitational waves to measure the universe, those measurements would change our observations of gravitational waves from large objects in the universe. Would the alien race be the observer or would the waves be the observer?
The fundamentality of electrons is very different to "our fundamentality". The universe became what it is because electrons came into existence whereas our existence or non existence doesn't change the universe in any fundamental way.
I would say you are just as fundemental to the universe as an electron for sure. You are as fundamental to the universe, as the universe is fundamental to you. the division between you and the universe, is just an idea. when you was a child you new better.
@@mrbwatson8081 I should've said our consciousness. I don't think the universe needs our consciousness. It was just working just as well before human consciousness came into existence.
@@djgroopz4952 the universe produces consciousness, just like an apple seed produces apples. In both cases a long long process is required, the seed bares no resemblance to the apple neither do the roots it produces nor the stem or leaves bare any resemblance to an 🍎. Lots of time will go by the seed will grow at an amazing rate and become a massive tree 🌳 yet still no 🍎:) then the tree will make flowers 🌸 and still no apples :) you could say this tree grow just fine without ever producing 🍎:) Same goes for the universe it started its life un recognisably small. It expanded and formed stars galaxies planets 🪐 you could say like the apple tree this universe can exist just fine without consciousness. BUT NOTICE apples don’t just appear as if by magic, the whole process of seed to 🌸 and all the madness in between IS or BECOMES 🍎 . Without the process from seed to flower there can be no apple, the process from seed to flower IS the 🍎 the 🍎 was there all along, with correct awareness you could look at a young apple tree and see it’s apples just like you can look at a young boy and see the man he will become :) consciousness is the same like the apple, consciousness didn’t just appear out of no where, it was here all along. All what is in the universe, was always in the universe. Consciousness was there from the get go you just need awareness to see it.
Matter theory. The necessary and sufficient unifying physics theory of everything. No observer required. No nonsense to argue about. Pure physics for a much better understanding of everything in our universe. Search keywords: matter theory marostica.
rupak rokade yes, I’ve heard many of these physicists talk about the theory of needing an observer to create the universe but dancing around the topic of a BEING outside of time and space observing creation
@@Bradmhj Yes. It is difficult though but it certainly cannot be completely ruled out. For instance, the double slit experiment does show that measurement (observation in layman's) of a particle does collapse its wavefunction converting it from a probabilistic existence to a more Real existence. This act of measurement can be analogous to creation.
@@rupakrokade Where did you find Planck's constant in the double slit experiment? If you can't find Planck's constant in there, what makes you think that the double slit experiment is a quantum experiment?
I'm not saying that Bernardo Kastrup is right, but his views make it possible for observer(s) to be present from the beginning of the universe. And Philip Goff's probably too. Before we have tools to "measure" consciousness as such, we can only talk about correlates of consciousness and speculate. We can only say that there were no observers as we know them at the beginning of the universe. It's philosophically naive to claim to be open to possibilities and then preclude some of them by making hidden assumptions, like "it's obvious that there were no observers at the beginning of the universe". Say at least "according to modern science with its physicalist assumptions there were no observers at the moment of the Big Bang."
The mind is not a magical phenomenon, so it is not really hocus pocus. There are over 10E14 synapses in the human brain, equivalent perhaps to 'connections', but each of these synapses is probably also computing. So maybe the human mind is significant, at least in terms of its complexity, and perhaps because intelligence itself could be vanishingly rare in the universe.
3:17 "What is an illusion or hallucination? It's erm an impression created by the brain." Is this the only tenable definition? It seems to me that "the brain" and "the self" are equally illusory. Both are human, flawed representations of something ineffable. They become illusory when we presume that they hit the mark which is believing that self-reference is possible. 3:26 "That is simply saying the self is created by the brain. Well sure, what else do you suppose it is created by? (laughs)" The illusion or hallucination position holds that there is a something else that can only be nodded to, or named impressively with special this-name-is-imprecise names such as God/Buddha-nature/satori/mind/an or "ineffable" which creates the illusions of both the brain and the self. This is to argue that human physics is human, and flawed, and incapable of being anything more than an approximation. If one believes in the fundamental particles then one is believe in an illusion. They are, as Bohm said, no more fundamental than other approximations such as measurements.
They keep saying that the “observer” is conscious, therefore the observer must be a being of some sort? Also how would the observer even begin to explain how it observes? How would we even comprehend that, like how could the observer ever prove that they are the actual observer?
is time the ultimate observer? watches all, objects to nothing, records everything. time ... everywhere and nowhere at once. supposedly all things are subject to it's will. but now we're all here watching each other - so who watches time? The-O. the quantum archaeologist who whispers to our inner ear - "don't worry. in this game - eventually everything & everyone gets saved" there's always been sum 1 looking ..... after you .
The randomness of quantum mechanics really is random and uncontrollable. The typical nonlocal signal breaks a symmetry rather than conveys information, and does not even convey information of the type to be found on a pre-existing one-time pad. Concepts like causality and Lorentz invariance need careful treatment and we cannot blithely assume that we can do a Lorentz transformation, go back to the same random event, and then claim that cause and effect have been exchanged. That is merely a metaphysical Lorentz transformation. Causality is an anthropocentric concept of questionable value in this context. In computer simulation, the random number generator that we use to simulate random events is reseeded every time we do a new run of the simulation, and we cannot do a Lorentz transformation without doing a new run. We can just shut up and calculate without worrying about causality or Lorentz invariance on an individual run, though of course we should be hoping that the ensemble of runs is Lorentz invariant and matches the ensemble of experiments. What's true of the ensemble is not automatically true of the individual event.
Science is an epistemological endeavor. How do WE know... Of course it would beg a KNOWING observer. "Internal representation". Scientific knowledge is ALL internal representation.
Agreed that observers amplify a signal. In the process they make it definite. For example, a grain of silver halide in a piece of photographic film absorbs a photon and in the process undergoes an irreversible chemical change that causes it to become a silver grain when the film is bathed in an aqueous solution of developer chemicals. Here there is no consciousness in the "observer".
Ralph Dratman I’ve heard many of these physicists talk about the theory of needing an observer to create the universe but dancing around the topic of a BEING outside of time and space observing creation
@@RalphDratman but then why call that piece of film an "observer". In other words can we really maintain the concept of information without the concept of "interpreter"-- something for which the signal is a signal.
@@kvaka009 In this case what makes the film grain an "observer" is that it absorbs a photon. The photon is the signal and the grain is the interpreter. The grain interprets the photon by undergoing a chemical change that will eventually become visible by a human. The human need not be involved for the grain to be a receiver, but the human's perception illustrates the fact that a signal was passed. That is my best understanding.
@@RalphDratman yes, agreed. But you see my concern is that, even if the film is an interpretent, "what" it interprets as signal is not what we interpret when we look at the film. I mean it is obvious that we interpret more than the film does, but do we interpret the entire signal that the film does? Here I'm not sure what to say.
So what exactly is an observer? Can someone please explain it in simple terms? Is it a person, place or thing? Is it a conscious human being? Like what the actual fuck?
There are no observers in physics. There are only reversible and irreversible processes. What we mean by "measurement" is an irreversible energy transfer from the quantum system to the environment. Everything else that you may have heard about it is unscientific nonsense.
I wonder, ( I am an atheist) when Mr. Davies says that consciousness was instrumental in the beginning of the universe, that this is a sideways confirmation of a super intelligence? He says consciousness means something different at the quantum level than at the macroscopic level..does it even really deserve the name consciousness, then? Or even observer? Does not the language here become more of a detriment? Wouldn't it be better to find a word with less "macroscopic" meaning to it? I am sure science has a lexicon of words that might be better suited to it, no?
yes, I’ve heard many of these physicists talk about the theory of needing an observer to create the universe but dancing around the topic of a BEING outside of time and space observing creation. Interesting how it would point to a God type creator
this guy seems still caught in classical egocentric thinking, about something being 'internal' and even our current narrow understanding of life or what could be 'alive'.
My Christan faith has become more seemlessly scientific in recent years. Once we are free from the tyranny of dead religion even god botherers like me can enjoy our faith and science together as one and the same.
love your phrase 'hokus bogus '!! Some deny that mind and consciousness even exists, and this may be right. Others believe that mind is a physical phenomenon needing scientific study. I think this question is not yet answerable. Also currently unanswerable is the question of the significance or lack of significance of mind in the universe. The universe may be 10E24 times the size of the observable universe....so let's not get too big for our boots.
@@schmetterling4477 scientific method is Self Contradictory. It claims that it only deals with what's Observable. Yet, its theories comprise unobservable stuff like Singularity, plank length, 4th and higher dimensions, infinity etc nonsense
Fluid theory (Reproduction/Feed/Reasoning) decanted selfmultidimentionalover... The polydynamics of the movement generates pseudo-autonomy as material property, of the autogenous phenomenon; existing.(...) Simultaneous as my unidimensional variability... unidimensional variability = live-beings
The biggest observer of all is the federal government...no, wait, it's Google..uh-oh, now i've done it. Stop! Stop! I didn't mean it!! HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No, not google. Isn't the "biggest observer" (old Father) TIME itself ? ...you exist within time & thus you are always being "watched" .... simple really!.
Davies is a profound thinker, not afraid to talk like a philosopher , but staying within the bounds of observable reality. He is also much better at explaining his ideas than 99.9% of his fellow scientists.
The best of the Observer Interviews I think
David Chalmers was pretty good, but he missed the point made by Mr Ron above.
He is very articulate taking subtle points of the quantum mechanical observer and unpacking those ongoing projects. He explained well the part about reducing the historical pathways from the past to the present by an act of observation of a quantum system in the present. In that technical sense , the past is affected by an observation in the present. Of course, this line of thought goes back to Wheeler - an amazing physicist.
The best explanation I have ever heard for fundamental things!
That's cool, but what if I tell you that it was entirely wrong?
@@schmetterling4477 Entirely?
Smart man. Davies, you know something many don't know.
Until I observed the comments section here just now, the possibilities to the nature of their content was infinite. Once I observed them, they collapsed into the ones I read.
Yes, I just replied similarly in more detail above, but I believe I had the same thing in mind.
Well, sort of...The comments would have collapsed even as they were typed by their authors. Moreover, their content was constrained by your prior expectations, and so could not have seemed infinite....So, not really,
Wow, he really understands quantum mechanics. I love this guy. No wonder the book he wrote with Gribbin was a great inspiration for me somewhat 15 years ago, at the beginning of my journey.
This guy made the most sense regarding observers
On-demand rendering.
Indeed. But they refuse to accept this.
Only way to properly observe is to look within 😊
I'm not sure why an observer needs to have a model of itself. That wasn't fully explained. What I want to know is how a human observer is any different to a mechanical one. The problem of any observer, whether human or otherwise, is that even after it makes an observation, that observer would be in a superposition of all outcomes from the perspective of a second observer that is yet unaware of the observed information. This is known as the Wigners Friend thought experiment. Although the experiment was intended to show that observers must be conscious, I think it failed to do so, and alternative explanations have been given. What we need is some form of Bell Inequality experiment combined with a Wigner's Friend experiment, to determine whether decoherence only occurs for conscious observers, or whether it occurs for mechanical observers as well. If anyone knows of any efforts to do this, I'd love to see it - but to my knowledge the question is either still open, or there is nothing special about consciousness when it comes to observers (i.e. mechanical observers are indistinguishable from conscious ones w.r.t quantum decoherence/entanglement etc).
Geshtu the delayed choice quantum eraser proves that a mechanical object is not adequate to collapse the wave function. What matters is the information about the system that is available to an observer. Which doesn't help, but it's what the "science" says.
I disagree. By my understanding, the delayed choice quantum eraser only shows that the mechanical object's wave function is entangled with that of the human observer. Human observers are not outside of nor immune to quantum mechanics, which is why I fail to see the distinction between humans and machines as far as decoherence is concerned. I will look into this further though, because it may help me to refine my thoughts on this better.
I get what you are saying about the wave function not being collapsed until the human observer makes a choice of what to observe, but that firstly assumes the copenhagen interpretation, and also assumes the point at which decoherence occurs is the point when the human observer makes a choice. Actually even after that point, a second human observer would see the first human observer in a superposition of quantum states, entangled with the experiment setup. Now assume the perspective of this second observer, and tell me what changes if the first observer is a machine vs a human. I don't know the answer to this. If I've made an error in my assumptions, please let me know.
Aaron, also note that the experiment setup at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_choice_quantum_eraser#The_experiment_of_Kim_et_al._(1999) does not include a human observer, and the experiment worked just fine.
Likewise physics.stackexchange.com/questions/214777/delayed-choice-quantum-eraser-am-i-missing-something-here
"Consciousness is never part of any quantum mechanical explanation. Every experiment runs the same whether or not a person is in the room."
@@geshtu1760 "Consciousness is never part of any quantum mechanical explanation. Every experiment runs the same whether or not a person is in the room." The problem with this is: as soon as you look at the results of the experiment there is a conscious observer involved: You. So it is impossible to get results from a quantum experiment without involving a conscious observer. This however doesn't weaken your main point: that decoherence is not absolute but relative to the observer. It just means that we can't test it. But I think the same way you do because to me it just makes the most sense.
The observer is the observed, the observed is the observer
“What we do today affects the nature of reality as it was in the past, it doesn’t change the past … it does have an affect on what we can say about the past.”
An important experiment done today will affect what we can say about the past by focusing our explanations, our theories of physics, and thus limiting the number of things we can say might have happened in the past.
Fundamental to science in general, and thus to physics, is the belief that nature is consistent. If the nature of reality keeps changing then there is no point in trying to describe the nature of reality. Describing the nature of reality IS the project of science.
Yes Quantum physics is fuzzy but that doesn’t mean nature is fuzzy, just that our understanding is. Quantum physics is an attempt to describe reality, it isn’t reality itself. Those things with both wave and particle like characteristics don’t obey the laws of physics, the laws of physics describe what they do. If they are observed doing other that what’s in the laws they aren’t fined or put in jail, rather the laws need to be changed to fit what they do.
It makes no sense to say something “affects” another thing and at the same time saying it doesn’t change that other thing. Observations don’t change the past.
I agree that statement doesn't make sense if we restrict ourselves to the usual pattern of usage of words like "affect", "change" and "past". We usually assume there is one present and one past. But quantum mechanics tells us there are multiple versions of past, present and future, versions that in some sense coexist. Nevertheless I find it hard to accept that a conscious observer is necessarily involved.
Paul Davies 👍
Observers are consciously aware internally as well as externally?
If an observer makes an observation it effects the reality of the past because the reality of the past is also dependent on our observations. By making an observation, we rule out possible alternative pathways - "...in that sense, what we do today effects the nature of reality as it was in past. It does not change the past. You can't send signals to the past., but it does have an effect on what you can say about the past." Our understanding of the past is affected by the observations we are making now.
What did the universe look like before anyone or anything was doing any looking? The truth is we don't know and can't know. There's no reason to assume it would look then as it looks to us now. Humans and other animals have particular sensoria that shape what they experience in particular ways. Existence w/o observers may have no detectable form whatsoever. In fact, w/o observers, the entire universe could have been held in superposition, an open vector of potential energy. Things in wavelength systems but have no form that can be observed. It takes an observer to "collapse" the wave-function of near-infinite possibilities into locatable photons or sub-atomic particles of matter-energy. There is nothing to observe until they are observers to participate in the reality of form, space, and time.
Do creatures who are not aware of themselves observe?
I think "observer" is a bit misleading. It suggests we're a passive spectator, rather than an active agent. But to observe anything we must measure, extract information from a system by interacting with it. But to interact with something means to influence its trajectory through its phase space. This is what the collapse of the wave function is about, as I understand it. So an "observer" can be any system that extracts/ exchanges information with another system and thereby alters the trajectory through phase space of both by entagling the two systems. The observer then "knows" something about that system at the cost of being transformed by it. To try to answer your excellent question, then, I'd say the extent to which something is an observer depends on the extent to which it can retain information about its past interactions of itself with other systems. The more complex that process is, the more complex the observer is. We are the most complex observers we know of.
While past cannot be changed, although seen differently from the present, through delayed choice experiment; is it possible that something in the future could change the present using delayed choice?
Excellent.... thanks 🙏.
Not sure these two statements can both be true:
1) we can't change or effect the past
2) we what we do now constrains the past
Constraining the past does effect it, which means it changes it. I don't see anyway around that.
It might be the case that there are limitations on this, and that seems likely and logical.
And Davies knows this. It's why he brought up retrocausality when discussing how the big bang was apparently not observed. He's saying we're observing it now. Which means we are in some way determining it.
Anybody who brings up retro-causality might as well insert pink unicorns.
@@schmetterling4477 Scientists would have said the same thing 120 years ago about space-time.
@@kevinlenihan4074 I will see you in 120 years, then. ;-)
@@schmetterling4477 There will certainly be some shocking fundamental new additions to our thought by then, something many people wouldn't dare to imagine now. I have no idea if retro-causality will be one of those additions, but one should not be so quick to dismiss, especially considering there is experimental evidence to back it up to some degree, at least at the quantum level. Cheers.
@@kevinlenihan4074 Why don't you make a nice crayon painting of your hopes and dreams and we hang it on the fridge for the next 100 years. ;-)
might expansion of space / cosmological constant produce measurement / causation?
Paul Davies is brilliant. But the interviewer keeps bringing up the question that if an observing mind is fundamental to the universe we know, how could the universe have existed long before mind presumably appeared? Before the universe we know, recognize, and love appeared to us, there was no universe that we knew, recognized, and loved! There was no doubt quantum potential - say quantum field states described by wave patterns - but there were no particles or form of any kind, probably not even linear time. The universe - as we know it - could only come into being when we began to know it! It took conscious observers to collapse the wave-functions and change reality from potential to actual.
Does that mean at the moment of the Big Bang there needed to be an observer?
I agree. Well put.
That is profound! Love it 😍
Since cosmology has space-time, and quantum mechanics has time - energy uncertainty, could time have something to do with observation of both?
It's not as simple as that.One can put several people in the same situation and they will react differently. That's because we have souls and the soul makes its' choices.
Is energy required for the measurement of quantum fields, and nature in general?
Yes. :-)
love to listen Paul
So brilliant, thanks.
Observers have conscious awareness of real phenomenom, usually external reality but could also be internal.
What can observe not only information, also observation?
For the measurement of a quantum field / interaction, could the mathematics of physical laws of nature be considered an observer?
No. :-)
How might time relate to observation?
The observer is a living individual (or a representative) - he is always in a observersystem.
Are the physical laws of nature related to energy in any way?
Yes. :-)
measurements develop conscious observers?
if an alien race were using gravitational waves to measure the universe, those measurements would change our observations of gravitational waves from large objects in the universe. Would the alien race be the observer or would the waves be the observer?
The fundamentality of electrons is very different to "our fundamentality". The universe became what it is because electrons came into existence whereas our existence or non existence doesn't change the universe in any fundamental way.
I would say you are just as fundemental to the universe as an electron for sure. You are as fundamental to the universe, as the universe is fundamental to you. the division between you and the universe, is just an idea. when you was a child you new better.
@@mrbwatson8081 I should've said our consciousness. I don't think the universe needs our consciousness. It was just working just as well before human consciousness came into existence.
@@djgroopz4952 the universe produces consciousness, just like an apple seed produces apples. In both cases a long long process is required, the seed bares no resemblance to the apple neither do the roots it produces nor the stem or leaves bare any resemblance to an 🍎. Lots of time will go by the seed will grow at an amazing rate and become a massive tree 🌳 yet still no 🍎:) then the tree will make flowers 🌸 and still no apples :) you could say this tree grow just fine without ever producing 🍎:) Same goes for the universe it started its life un recognisably small. It expanded and formed stars galaxies planets 🪐 you could say like the apple tree this universe can exist just fine without consciousness. BUT NOTICE apples don’t just appear as if by magic, the whole process of seed to 🌸 and all the madness in between IS or BECOMES 🍎 . Without the process from seed to flower there can be no apple, the process from seed to flower IS the 🍎 the 🍎 was there all along, with correct awareness you could look at a young apple tree and see it’s apples just like you can look at a young boy and see the man he will become :) consciousness is the same like the apple, consciousness didn’t just appear out of no where, it was here all along. All what is in the universe, was always in the universe. Consciousness was there from the get go you just need awareness to see it.
Matter theory. The necessary and sufficient unifying physics theory of everything. No observer required. No nonsense to argue about. Pure physics for a much better understanding of everything in our universe. Search keywords: matter theory marostica.
Is the very existence of our universe a result of someone's observation? If yes somehow, isn't THAT observer is the GOD we have been referring to?
rupak rokade yes, I’ve heard many of these physicists talk about the theory of needing an observer to create the universe but dancing around the topic of a BEING outside of time and space observing creation
@@Bradmhj Yes. It is difficult though but it certainly cannot be completely ruled out. For instance, the double slit experiment does show that measurement (observation in layman's) of a particle does collapse its wavefunction converting it from a probabilistic existence to a more Real existence. This act of measurement can be analogous to creation.
@@rupakrokade Where did you find Planck's constant in the double slit experiment? If you can't find Planck's constant in there, what makes you think that the double slit experiment is a quantum experiment?
maybe external consciousness from physical interactions?
I'm not saying that Bernardo Kastrup is right, but his views make it possible for observer(s) to be present from the beginning of the universe. And Philip Goff's probably too. Before we have tools to "measure" consciousness as such, we can only talk about correlates of consciousness and speculate. We can only say that there were no observers as we know them at the beginning of the universe. It's philosophically naive to claim to be open to possibilities and then preclude some of them by making hidden assumptions, like "it's obvious that there were no observers at the beginning of the universe". Say at least "according to modern science with its physicalist assumptions there were no observers at the moment of the Big Bang."
The mind is not a magical phenomenon, so it is not really hocus pocus. There are over 10E14 synapses in the human brain, equivalent perhaps to 'connections', but each of
these synapses is probably also computing. So maybe the human mind is significant, at least in terms of its complexity, and perhaps because intelligence itself could be vanishingly rare in the universe.
3:17 "What is an illusion or hallucination? It's erm an impression created by the brain." Is this the only tenable definition? It seems to me that "the brain" and "the self" are equally illusory. Both are human, flawed representations of something ineffable. They become illusory when we presume that they hit the mark which is believing that self-reference is possible.
3:26 "That is simply saying the self is created by the brain. Well sure, what else do you suppose it is created by? (laughs)" The illusion or hallucination position holds that there is a something else that can only be nodded to, or named impressively with special this-name-is-imprecise names such as God/Buddha-nature/satori/mind/an or "ineffable" which creates the illusions of both the brain and the self. This is to argue that human physics is human, and flawed, and incapable of being anything more than an approximation. If one believes in the fundamental particles then one is believe in an illusion. They are, as Bohm said, no more fundamental than other approximations such as measurements.
Your idea of something really existing behind the illusion is the illusion. There is no God. Only you and your infinite illusions.
@Zac Atkinson Thus spake Zac
@@kvaka009 I am, we are, definitely an illusion. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
observers consciously experience classic reality from measurements of quantum waves / fields?
They keep saying that the “observer” is conscious, therefore the observer must be a being of some sort? Also how would the observer even begin to explain how it observes? How would we even comprehend that, like how could the observer ever prove that they are the actual observer?
I observe, therefore I am
"They" keep saying that because they don't know actual physics. Don't listen to "them".
Consciousness is fundamental
What if after the observer started to observe, back history had been loaded (like in Delayed Choice experiment) for the macro universe
But what is the macro universe? We can only ever observe our own part, a horizon from the edge of which light/information can reach us.
Only Liveng Beings can be Observers,
and their Observations is limited by their
Sensing-Ability, and Perspectiv-Principle.
is time the ultimate observer? watches all, objects to nothing, records everything. time ... everywhere and nowhere at once. supposedly all things are subject to it's will. but now we're all here watching each other - so who watches time? The-O. the quantum archaeologist who whispers to our inner ear - "don't worry. in this game - eventually everything & everyone gets saved" there's always been sum 1 looking ..... after you .
There is a self but it has no essence.
The randomness of quantum mechanics really is random and uncontrollable. The typical nonlocal signal breaks a symmetry rather than conveys information, and does not even convey information of the type to be found on a pre-existing one-time pad. Concepts like causality and Lorentz invariance need careful treatment and we cannot blithely assume that we can do a Lorentz transformation, go back to the same random event, and then claim that cause and effect have been exchanged. That is merely a metaphysical Lorentz transformation. Causality is an anthropocentric concept of questionable value in this context.
In computer simulation, the random number generator that we use to simulate random events is reseeded every time we do a new run of the simulation, and we cannot do a Lorentz transformation without doing a new run. We can just shut up and calculate without worrying about causality or Lorentz invariance on an individual run, though of course we should be hoping that the ensemble of runs is Lorentz invariant and matches the ensemble of experiments. What's true of the ensemble is not automatically true of the individual event.
It shouldn't surprise us that the scientist's choice of measurement is not independent of the universe he is trying to measure.
Science is an epistemological endeavor. How do WE know... Of course it would beg a KNOWING observer. "Internal representation". Scientific knowledge is ALL internal representation.
Re--presentation
Nope.
Observers are systems which amplify a signal
Agreed that observers amplify a signal. In the process they make it definite. For example, a grain of silver halide in a piece of photographic film absorbs a photon and in the process undergoes an irreversible chemical change that causes it to become a silver grain when the film is bathed in an aqueous solution of developer chemicals. Here there is no consciousness in the "observer".
Ralph Dratman I’ve heard many of these physicists talk about the theory of needing an observer to create the universe but dancing around the topic of a BEING outside of time and space observing creation
@@RalphDratman but then why call that piece of film an "observer". In other words can we really maintain the concept of information without the concept of "interpreter"-- something for which the signal is a signal.
@@kvaka009 In this case what makes the film grain an "observer" is that it absorbs a photon. The photon is the signal and the grain is the interpreter. The grain interprets the photon by undergoing a chemical change that will eventually become visible by a human. The human need not be involved for the grain to be a receiver, but the human's perception illustrates the fact that a signal was passed. That is my best understanding.
@@RalphDratman yes, agreed. But you see my concern is that, even if the film is an interpretent, "what" it interprets as signal is not what we interpret when we look at the film. I mean it is obvious that we interpret more than the film does, but do we interpret the entire signal that the film does? Here I'm not sure what to say.
Yikes, being an "observer" carries a huge responsiblity
n schulz think about how god felt
How?
Exactly! We better not eff this up. The entire (multi)universe depends on us.
So what exactly is an observer? Can someone please explain it in simple terms? Is it a person, place or thing? Is it a conscious human being? Like what the actual fuck?
There are no observers in physics. There are only reversible and irreversible processes. What we mean by "measurement" is an irreversible energy transfer from the quantum system to the environment. Everything else that you may have heard about it is unscientific nonsense.
I wonder, ( I am an atheist) when Mr. Davies says that consciousness was instrumental in the beginning of the universe, that this is a sideways confirmation of a super intelligence? He says consciousness means something different at the quantum level than at the macroscopic level..does it even really deserve the name consciousness, then? Or even observer? Does not the language here become more of a detriment? Wouldn't it be better to find a word with less "macroscopic" meaning to it? I am sure science has a lexicon of words that might be better suited to it, no?
yes, I’ve heard many of these physicists talk about the theory of needing an observer to create the universe but dancing around the topic of a BEING outside of time and space observing creation. Interesting how it would point to a God type creator
this guy seems still caught in classical egocentric thinking, about something being 'internal' and even our current narrow understanding of life or what could be 'alive'.
Does a photomultiplier observe or just fuck it?
My Christan faith has become more seemlessly scientific in recent years. Once we are free from the tyranny of dead religion even god botherers like me can enjoy our faith and science together as one and the same.
🕉
Again we are back at us being the center I'm sorry hokus bogus
Not at the center, just not unimportant.
love your phrase 'hokus bogus '!! Some deny that mind and consciousness even exists, and this may be right. Others believe that mind is a physical phenomenon needing scientific study. I think this question is not yet answerable. Also currently unanswerable is the question of the significance or lack of significance of mind in the universe. The universe may be 10E24 times the size of the observable universe....so let's not get too big for our boots.
Does the need for an observer prove there is no God observing?
Proves we are all god
Nothing is profound except when you dont know
Well, this is not profound, but everybody in this interview is certainly confused. ;-)
@@schmetterling4477 scientific method is Self Contradictory. It claims that it only deals with what's Observable. Yet, its theories comprise unobservable stuff like Singularity, plank length, 4th and higher dimensions, infinity etc nonsense
@@1stPrinciples455 Yes, that is the amateur's false understanding of how physicists work with theories. :-)
If you didn't know,This is what they call "Mindfuckery" !
Nah
That is a very confused physicist. They should have asked somebody who knows quantum mechanics.
Fluid theory (Reproduction/Feed/Reasoning) decanted selfmultidimentionalover...
The polydynamics of the movement generates pseudo-autonomy as material property, of the autogenous phenomenon; existing.(...)
Simultaneous as my unidimensional variability...
unidimensional variability = live-beings
The biggest observer of all is the federal government...no, wait, it's Google..uh-oh, now i've done it. Stop! Stop! I didn't mean it!! HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Michael Rhizal bahahahah, that was great!
No, not google. Isn't the "biggest observer" (old Father) TIME itself ? ...you exist within time & thus you are always being "watched" .... simple really!.
Mr Dunning Kruger biggest observer is the one outside of time that is in the original eternal dimension
A content free talk. Quantum Physics is strange, get over it, Paul.