If you could have any question answered - what would it be?

Is the fabric of the Universe made from natural or man-made fibres and will it shrink in the wash?

What did happen to Schrödinger's cat?

quote:

Originally posted by FlyMe:
What did happen to Schrödinger's cat?

It's still here or is it?

quote:

Originally posted by droodzilla:

You beat me to it Sniper. For me it would have to be an answer to the hard problem of consciousness (how, at the end of a purely physical chain of causes and effects do sensations arise - the smell of coffee, the vivid colours of a sunset etc?). Closely followed by the measurement problem (anyone who says they understand quantum mechanics doesn't understand it!).

I'm not familiar with the "time" problem in QC - could you elaborate?[/QUOTE]

Dear Droodzilla,

First. 'how, at the end of a purely physical chain of causes and effects do sensations arise' - Well the problem is they ain't 'purely physical' according to some interpretations of quantum theory.

Second. 'anyone who says they understand quantum mechanics doesn't understand it!' - This (and other similar) statements (which have been made from time to time by various people since the earliest days of quantum theory)have been used (ad nauseum)by people such as the arch obfusticators Dennett & Dawkins to belittle the influence of QT on any of the their crude materialist arguments. The quote is misleading. The actual science or mathematics of QT is unproblematic - it is well understood and not at all contraversial. Tis the interpretations of what it all means that causes the heated debate. An example is as follows:

Professor Lee Smolin tells us that that:
I have worked on projects in quantum gravity where everything
went smoothly until the collaborators discovered one day over
dinner that we had radically different understandings of the
meaning of quantum theory. Everything went smoothly again
after we had calmed down and realised that how we thought about
the theory had no effect on the calculations we were doing.

He adds the following observation for emphasis:
It is true that there is only one mathematical formulism of quantum
theory. So physicists have no problem in going ahead and using
the theory even though they do not agree about what it means. Lee Smolin - Three Roads To Quantum Gravity p34

Third. Info re. the time problem in quantum cosmology- I have not read the article but I guess it will give you an idea of what it is about.

Perhaps Sniper could enlighten us as to of what exactly do the "non-material" bits of the universe consist?

Why is 'bra' singular and 'panties' plural?

Phil

Mike,

If you would like to re-phrase your question so as not to mis-quote me I will do my best to reply.

quote:

Originally posted by Sniper:
Mike,

If you would like to re-phrase your question so as not to mis-quote me I will do my best to reply.

"crude materialist arguments"

Mike does not actually give answers to questions, Sniper.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Dudley:

quote:

Originally posted by Sniper:
Mike,

If you would like to re-phrase your question so as not to mis-quote me I will do my best to reply.

"crude materialist arguments"

Well mabe there are sophisticated materialist arguments which the dymanic duo are not aware of? I will throw together some sort of an argument against Dawkin's and Dennet's drivel later today, if I get time.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Lacey:
Mike does not actually give answers to questions, Sniper.

So I have noticed.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Dudley:
Perhaps Sniper could enlighten us as to of what exactly do the "non-material" bits of the universe consist?

Mike, I see you want me to mention consciousness so you can dive in and savage my view and I won’t disappoint you as I love a good laugh but I doubt you will be able to muster much of an attack other than to appeal to the kind of Luddite argument Dennett is fond of (his deeply silly ‘skyhooks’ are a particular favourite of mine). I will let your beloved science enlighten you as to what the "non-material" bits of the universe consist. I don’t want to get into too much detail or I will have to write a whole chapter so I will let these chaps do the leg work for me. They are all professors of Physics and therefore they know more about quantum physics than Dawkins (who admits to not understanding it enough to explain it to a third party) and Dennett who is just too thick to understand anything. They are scientists and thus will have your respect as scientists don’t deal in matters of faith, leastways not according to you.

Remember the mathematics of quantum theory is not in dispute (as I said earlier) – it is the science that has given us all the gadgets of the modern world, radios, televisions, cdplayers,
computers, scanners, printers, game-boys, the list is endless, all
depend on our knowledge of the functioning of the quantum realm so let’s have no tedious ‘if you think you understand quantum theory you don’t understand quantum theory’ nonsense.

Let’s have a look at what Dennett actually says about brains: ‘An impersonal, unreflective, robotic, mindless little scrap of molecular machinery is the ultimate basis of all the agency, and hence meaning, and hence consciousness, in the universe’.

Dennett, and those of his persuasion, think that tiny scraps of ‘mindless matter’ club together (so to speak) to (form what we know as a brain) and miraculously produce ‘all the agency, and hence meaning, and hence consciousness, in the universe.’Although naturally he fails explains how mind comes from mindlessness. He’d have a big fat Nobel prize if he could. Let's call Dennett's argument the 'Mindless theory' shall we?

Professor Henry Stapp and a great many other significant quantum physicists, on the other hand, taking into consideration the evidence of quantum physics, consider that it is the functioning of consciousness which‘injects meaning’ into the universe; and this process produces the subjective experiences of what appears to be an independent material reality including the appearance of a brain itself. The quantum viewpoint that is now emerging is that it is consciousness which is the ontological ground of reality; which in some fashion creates the‘stuff’ of the material world.


Professor Henry Stapp completely disagrees with Dennett’s anachronistic materialist ontology:

‘We live in an idea-like world, not a matter-like world.’ The material
aspects are exhausted in certain mathematical properties, and these
mathematical features can be understood just as well (and in fact
better) as characteristics of an evolving idea-like structure. There
is, in fact, in the quantum universe no natural place for matter.
This conclusion, curiously, is the exact reverse of the
circumstances that in the classical physical universe there was no
natural place for mind’.In other words Dennett has it completely arse-about-face. His physics belong to the mid nineteenth century.


Ok so Stapp is but one physicist I hear you say and maybe a nutter despite impressive academic credentials and being published by the most respected scientific publishing house so here is the greatly admired physicist Professor John Wheeler, considered to be one of the twentieth century’s great physicists:

‘Directly opposite to the concept of universe as machine built on law
is the vision of a world self-synthesized. On this view, the notes
struck out on a piano by the observer participants of all times and
all places, bits though they are in and by themselves, constitute the
great wide world of space and time and things.

And: ‘The universe does not ‘exist, out there,’ independent of all acts of
observation. Instead, it is in some strange sense a participatory
universe’.

And: …no phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed
phenomenon.



Stapp again:

One might try to interpret the ‘matter’ occurring in this formula as the ‘matter’ that occurs in classical physics. But this kind of ‘matter’ does not exist in nature.

And: ‘…variables can no longer provide us with a definite, unique and unambiguous concept of matter in the quantum domain. Only in the classical domain is such a concept an adequate approximation’.

- professor Henry Stapp

‘[Physicists] do use the ideas of fields and particles and so on, but
when you press them they must agree that they have no image
whatsoever what these things are and they have no content other
than the results of what they can calculate with their equations’.

- Professor David Bohm



‘Quantum theory provides a superb description of physical reality on a small scale, yet it contains many mysteries. Without doubt, it is hard to come to terms with the workings of the theory, and it is particularly difficult to make sense of the kind of ‘physical reality’ – or lack of it – that it seems to imply for our world. ‘

- ( a slightly confused) Professor Roger Penrose



‘…because experiments confirm that quantum mechanics does describe fundamental physics, it presents a frontal assault on our basic beliefs as to what constitutes reality.’

- Professor Brian Greene



‘The laws of physics were saying that matter as we know it simply can’t exist. It was time for some new laws of physics’.

- Professor Robert Oerter

Professor Anton Zeilinger refers to ‘the obviously wrong notion of a reality independent of us’

How about this?

‘We must now come to terms with the fact that there is no hard
evidence for this common sense reality to be gained from the
entire history of human thought. There is simply nothing we can
point to, hang our hats on and say this is real’.
- Professor Jim Baggott

.



award winning physicist professor Freeman Dyson:

‘…the architecture of the Universe is consistent with hypothesis
that the mind plays an essential role in its functioning’.

’

Heres Edward Teller, the physicist in large part responsible for the
development of the hydrogen bomb:

‘In order to understand atomic structure, we must accept the idea that
the future is uncertain. It is uncertain to the extent that the future is
created in every part of the world by every atom and every living
being’. If a Buddhist said that (and they do) you would no doubt say they were ‘unscientific’?

Heres Martin Rees, Cambridge University professor and Astronomer Royal:
‘In the beginning there were only probabilities. The universe could
only come into existence if someone observed it. … The universe
exists because we are aware of it’.



According to Schrodinger one of the founding fathers of quantum theory:

‘Mind has erected the objective outside world … out of its own
Stuff’.

Here is one for JWM:

All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force... We
must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and
intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.

Professor Max Plank


More recently, in an article in the New Scientist (23th June 2007) Michael
Brooks, commenting on quantum entanglement experiments carried out by
teams led by Markus Aspelmeyer of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and
Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna, tells us that the conclusion
reached by the physicists involved is that:

‘… we now have to face the possibility that there is nothing
inherently real about the properties of an object that we measure.
In other words measuring those properties is what brings them into
Existence’.

And Professor Vlatko Vedral, quantum researcher at the University of Leeds
commented that:
‘Rather than passively observing it, we in fact create reality’.
The headline for the article proclaims that:
‘To track down a theory of everything, we might have to accept that the universe only exists when we are looking at it..’

I could go on quoting this stuff all day but I’m beginning to bore myself.

So, Mike, who is right - Dennett the philosopher with his near religious faith in his ‘mindless’ argument or the many scientists quoted above whose business is hard facts? This is the question I put to you and I await your answer and arguments etc. Feel free to quote some experts on the subject.

quote:

Originally posted by FlyMe:
What did happen to Schrödinger's cat?

Curiosity killed it.

Very abstruse.

I banged my knee on the table yesterday, which of course I didn't because my knee and the table don't exist, right?

In fact, you don't exist either, obviously. Only as a part of my diseased imagination...

Like I said, Sniper.

Sniper,

Definition of answer (verb)
to make a statement after being asked a question; to respond; to reply; to solve

I guess it's the 3rd one you are trying to get?

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Dudley:
Very abstruse.

I banged my knee on the table yesterday, which of course I didn't because my knee and the table don't exist, right?

In fact, you don't exist either, obviously. Only as a part of my diseased imagination...

Mike,

Oh dear, looks like you are losing faith with science. Losing faith can be so unsettling. First you think you know it all then it turns out you know nothing and you lose your bearings for awhile (and sometimes your marbles). I hope it is not permanent and that you get your faith back soon - science has alot to offer us.

QED.

The quotes you provide are some samples of opinion about what quantum mechanics allegedly indicates, not generally accepted peer-reviewed theory.

It rather depends on which "Scientist" you listen to, in my opinion.

Some of them claim to believe in god. It looks to me like they're trying to use this hypothesis of "conciousness itself" to justify their rag-end of a superstition.

Problem with that is, what created the "conciousness"?

Or, to translate it into terms that the religious would apply - if god created the universe, what created god?

However, rather than start that thread all over again, I'll just leave you to disappear up your own pompous, patronising rear entrance, taking your pal ML with you...

Such a charmer.

I suspect you actually think you are being clever, witty or smart.

You are not.

So what.

Anyway, to get away from this tedia and back to the question "If you could have any question answered..." :

Mike Dudley admits defeat and scarpers (avoiding the question and lobbing some insults on his way - as usual)

quote:

Originally posted by Sniper:
Mike Dudley admits defeat and scarpers (avoiding the question and lobbing some insults on his way - as usual)

Sniper the last word freak talks b*llocks, liking to dish it out, but not take it...


As usual.

quote:

Originally posted by munch:
Why is it as soon as you turn 50, Ones nose and ears turn into grow bags for hair?
If i am aloud two?
Why do my vertebrae have to collapse?
Stu

munch - It's called "Intelligent Design". Apparently...

How the fcuk does Blair keep getting off the hook?