I'm sorry I'm not sure I quite follow your argument. In the original experiment the detectors are placed at the slits and either turned on or off. They are present no matter what. Actually this experiment has been done with photons and electrons. You can't relate it back tennis balls. Large objects hold up to a degree. You can't know the exact location and velocity of any moving object whether big or small. But really small objects behave totally different in that our measurement can effect the outcome. The detectors don't interfere with the path of the electrons. The path is still random based on the emitter. The slit detectors simply measure the electrostatic energy as it passes through the slit. With detectors on lines form. With detectors off interference patters form.

Perhaps the electron isn't aware of us, but something is. Do you think you can intentionally collapse the wave function into a given slit? The answer is no. We can't control which slit they collapse to, but our observation makes them behave differently on a statistically significant level..ie the forming of lines and interference patters over the course of many shots.

So it's not our will that changes the electron. It's something the electron changes in response to us. It may not be aware in the sense that we think about awareness, but something very spooky is happening. These sorts of conversations are what made my graduate quantum chemistry class tolerable. The math was a bear, but the concepts were so fascinating.

No you are wrong. the detectors DO interfere with the path. The very fact that they can detect an electron proves that they can influence eachother.

The tennisballs where meant as an analogy of how the wave-function collapses because of external influences.

Observation is not a special kind of influence, it requires a special kind of influence. That's why it will always seem as if observation itself changes the course of things, because observation will always be encompassed by a form of interaction.

This collapsing of wave functions happens all the time, whether we are observing it or not.

...Ok. Me and all the other scientists out there that have arrived at this conclusion are WRONG. I'll make sure to give everyone the memo first thing Monday morning...

Do you know what a wave function is? It's a model. It's a best fit model to the observations that have been made. There are different levels of quantum theory that make better and better predictions using different basis sets such as 6-31G*, , 6-31G**, 6-31+G*, etc..but they are only models of how an electron behaves as a wave. The wave function is only a mathematical explanation for a physical phenomena. When the wave function collapses (goes to zero)...THAT HAPPENS ON PAPER. That's a mathematical phenomena...not a physical phenomena. Electrons don't have wave functions. Electrons just are. They are fundamental units of charge....what ever that REALLY is.

Based the evidence I've seen I say electrons behave differently when we measure their action....ie yes collapse their wave function. You can put the detector on only one slit and the electrons move through the other slit like...particles. No detector you get wave behavior. I agree that something strange is happening, but to brush it all way because the "wave function" goes to zero is accurate...yet laughable.

I'll stick to utter amazement.

OK, and how exactly does this contradict what i said before?

if a tree falls in the forest...

so i'm driving home the other day from san diego. a good couple hours behind the wheel to get back to my place and i decide to try an experiment. i try to be completely aware of my thoughts and not allow my mind to wander to any reality other than the one i am currently in.

...for two hours....



dude- that could have been one of the toughest challenges i've ever put myself to. essetntially i was meditating while functioning in this reality. like a walking meditation or a zen archery lesson....

what does this have to do with this thread? i'll tell you...

just because one is focussed exclusively on the present moment doesn't mean one's mind is absolutely blank. when undertaking an activity with this mindfulness of the present it is absolutley astounding what thoughts DO arise that have relevance to the now. such as....

i became very aware that everything i was experiencing: the cars around me, the car i sat in, the world that moved by.....all of it was nothing more than photons. photons of different vibrational frequencies all being detected by my eyes and instantaneously assembled into the 'reality' i beheld. it became apparent to my mind in that 2-hour moment that everything around me was the same stuff with slightly different vibrations here and there.

what was making things vibrate differently? what was making every 'thing' different from the next thing? making the roads, the cars, the land, the buildings.....the PEOPLE seperate from one another? was it MY mind? MY perception?

it became almost visual to me that electrons are like the most dense sea there is and, their potential being infinite, there is a mind at work that is calling them into a particular position, a particular vibration to create what we all agree to be 'reality'.

being part of this mind, we struggle with the fact that we are at once creating this AND we have no readily accessible way of changing it that we have perfected. a part of me KNOWS that i have within me the ability to literally transform what i see and yet the context of that change is where the confusion lies. is it the thing that changes when we observe it, or is it ourselves that change by the act of observing?

the buddhists speak of how we are unable to change others or the world around us, but how we-in every moment- have the capacity to change ourselves and by so doing, OUR world changes.

so here i am, driving up the highway 5 CHANGING myself in every moment by simply not allowing my mind to wander. trust me, that is a truly herculean feat! now that i'm home and thinking about double slits and entanglements, i am starting to wonder about these very electrons and photons we observe...

are they really just particles of ourselves we affect by our very observation? is it like seeing our reflection in a mirror and noticing our hand at our side, then wanting to look closer at our hand we pick it up and look down at it. now our hand is in a different location and our head is pointed differently and everything we thought we wanted to look at has changed. but it is still our hand and we are still looking at it...

i know this is a bit rambling and 'loose' in it's point. i guess in relation to the video i posted i would say that the confusion starts when we begin attributing qualities of a reality we 'know' to matter that does not have even remotely the same parameters. tennis balls and electrons....that's like comparing a work of art with the inspriation that bore it...

sometimes quantum physics seems like a ridiculous waste of time and focus to me. like masturbation. feels good but doesn't really accomplish much in the end result. trying to name that which can never be named.... like a microcosmos of our biggest shortcoming/challenge as humans.

vovin- you were wrong about one thing. the movie 'what the bleep..' has one other excellent chunk of mindfood in it.... it's the line that the one crazy-looking physicist says about midway through the flim. he states:

"the point is not to be in the know, but to be in the mystery".

i'm behind that line of thinking 100%.

L&G!!

You are right. The electron emits energy and thus interacts with the detector. If the experiment is done with 3 slits. With only 1 having a detector you will still get three single lines. The electron's that pass through the other two slits (without detectors) will still act like particle. You will indeed get three lines on the final screen and not an interference patter. Tell me exactly how the detector interferes with the electrons that pass through the undetected slits...whether we use 2 slits or x slits?


My only point is you are trying to brush away this phenomena as though it's not completely and utterly amazing....that's it. I'm amazed. I can live with you not being amazed by it. It's all good.

I don't know how the electron does that. We could speculate.... that could bring forth some interesting thoughts.

But don't tell me you believe that the electron's behave differently when we're not watching.
Because maybe i'm wrong but that was what you seemed to be sugesting: that the electron is somehow connected with our counscious minds or something...and then we're gonna get into that new-age crap like: we make reality, it's all subjective, if we think positive then positive things will happen, if you believe that you will win the lotery it will happen except that you only have to buy the guru's book first, blablabla...

I am just as amazed as you, by the way.

To me it seems to be sugesting that space and time as we know it is an illusion rather than anything else. It looks like the phenomenon that light always travels the shortest distance between two points, so you would think that the photon 'knows' where it is, etc. I don't think photons or electrons know anything. I rather think that their nature is somehow interwoven with the fabric of space and time and that you have to look in that direction if you want the answers...And that you'll have to come up with some immensely complex math as well.

http://topdocumentaryfil...rimacy-of-consciousness/

fast forward to 45:40 and get ready...

L&G!

I do indeed believe they behave differently when we are not watching/detecting/perceiving/being-aware-of/etc. That is exactly what this experiment suggests to me.

I agree it's pointing to an illusions as well. I personally think the illusion is that our perception is also woven into the fabric of space-time. Perception is everything. So in effect our perception is interacting with the electron...collapsing it's wave function if you will. Without perception/detecting/perceiving/being-aware-of/etc there is nothing....

Didn't berkeley believe that as well? it went something like: everything is perception. So then, would everything be gone and become nonexisten when we stop watching? And then he came with the brilliant answer.....god sees everything!

"To be is to be perceived", Bishop Berkeley, the father of modern subjective idealism.

Ideas like these even contaminate the minds of scientists. One of the most recent cases was the physicist Ernst Mach, a contemporary of Einstein.

In Mach, the perception was put aside in the name of Sensations and Complex of Sensations, which means the same shit only lacking the originality of Berkeley.

Nice mr. ant! I love experiences of clarity like you describe. It is like the trance a musician enters when they are not forcefully creating sounds, but putting their awareness and perception into the room and releasing beautiful flowing rhythms, and it becomes impossible to make a "mistake". It takes a lot of work and effort, but once that state is achieved the resistance to work and action is abandoned and "ease" becomes irrelevant.

A good thing to remember when considering physics: people invented physics to make sense of their perception of the world. It is a human construct that is useful to predict what people will perceive in the future, and what influence people can have on what they will eventually perceive in the future, it is not reality. The most valuable lesson of QM imo is only metaphorical, and it is that there is a theoretical limit on how well people can predict the future and even perceive reality. Its poetic that this lesson was born out of western societies obsessive efforts to own reality via science.

As far as whether I am creating my reality, whether my existence is insignificant or divine, these questions are ultimately irrelevant in my life, currently. I know what are the right actions to take in life if I just listen, and most of those thoughts typically just make disruptive noise. Of course I spent a lot of time thinking about those things to get to this point, and I may change my mind again if my current philosophy fails to serve me. Ultimately physics, philosophy, and consciousness itself were all developed to help propagate life, and I find using mine in this way gives me the most satisfaction.

oh yeah, about the special relativity speed addition paradoxes: imo all of that amounts to 1 thing: the preservation of causality. In order for reality to make any sense as we know it, it is crucial that future events have well defined causes in the past/present. This is only possible if there is a maximum speed information (hence causes for future events) can travel that is the same for every possible observer, which interestingly turns out to be the speed of light. Again, the results only seem bizarre because the normal human experience doesn't involve any two observers moving anywhere near the speed of light relative to each other.

First off nothing is a fact in quantum physics at this point just the best current running theory. Second the probability of quantum reactions are reflected not only in the double slit but other experiements on the quantum level as well. From this probability string theory ->supertring theory-> M theory came about. It is one of the primary goals of the LHC at cern to unlock this secret. Even the greatest minds in the wolrd cant fully understand what occurs at the quantum level a bunck of knuckleheads like us can just bandy about conjecture but in truth it's a vast undiscovered territory at least until I get my degree and solve everything.

Find the flaw...

What physisits call particle is part of a wave. The wave is hyperdimensional. We can see only the part or spectrum of the wave that is 3 dimensional. This is because of our perception. We perceive in 3d. Since we perceive only in 3d, we can not perceive the part of the spectrum that is hyperdimensional. In our world (our perception) we see only the 3d spectrum of the hyperdimensional wave. This 3d spectrum of the wave can be seen as a sphere in space. As a particle.

So when we zoom into the quantum world of dr. quantum (see link by ant) and start firing particles at the screen, we are actually firing waves at the screen. When fired one by one at the screen, there will eventaully form a band inline with the slit on the blackboard behind the screen. This is where the part of the wave with the most intensity hits the blackboard. Then the screen with two slits is put in place. After firing one by one there will form an interference pattern. As to be expected when you think of waves.

The mistake is in thinking one is shooting particles. Im not denying that we see particles, im just saying this is the result of our limited perception. Our perception molds its sensory input into a 3d framework that we call the universe. What we perceive as consensus reality is a 3d world consisting of organized 3d structures that we call particles.

When i look around then i am not thinking that since everythingis organized in 3d, then everyhting must exist in 3d, and everything that exists is defined in and by this structure. No. When im looking around i am thinking my perception is in 3d, and i am therefore limited to the 3d spectrum. In order to give us a cohesive consensus reality, so we can survive, the mechanism of perception makes certain corrections. Im suggesting that in this way our perception corrects for hyperdimensionality. Our perception gathers a certain 3d input through its senses and than constructs a 3d world, that we can dissect into particles in a 3d framework of empty space.

Well empty? ...must be masses of light passing through. Why cant we see this complex ever changing network of different intensities flowing in and through each other? Im thinking here that the light in what we call empty space, is not in a 3d form. It is in hyperdimensional form. And yes, since we can perceive only in 3d, we will not see the rays of light 'fly' in empty space. But you are looking at it. The light is there.. it must be! I just cant see (sense) it. Because of my limited 3d perception. Empty space is not empty. No big surprise.

1) So what happens when you put the observer (or measuring device) near the two slits to see what slit the supposed particle actually goes through? You see two bands. The interference pattern will not form. Your perception has corrected for the event at the entrance of the slit. You have by the rules of your perception seen (only) the 3d spectrum of the wave pass through one slit. At this moment, and exactly at this moment, your perception corrects for its input. The perception constructs a 3d world and therefore the wave appears as a particle going through only one slit. Since the perception constructs the 3d world you see, and it must be cohesive in order to make plans to survive, there will be no abnormalities in your 3d world of perception. Since you have seen a 3d particle appear in 3d world (at the moment of measuring) you will also see the pattern of that particle (band) appear on the blackboard (when you keep on firing the supposed particles at the slits, one by one, measuring/observing all). The hyperdimensional spectrum of the wave (that has gone through both slits) does not anymore interfere with the observed particle, because the 3d world has been determined by the mechanism of perception. During perception (measuring at the entrance of the slits) the correction for hyperdimensionality has taken place, literally.

2) If you dont place the observer (or measuring device) near the slits to see what slit the supposed particle actually goes through, than something else happens... In this scenario perception does not correct for the event at the moment the wave passes through the slits. So the undetermined (unmeasured, unperceived) wave in its hyperdimensional form goes through the empty space of both slits, forms two waves and forms an interference pattern on the blackboard. Since at the point of the slits there is no observer that measuring (correcting for 3d), the wave is not 'forced' by our perception into a 3d structure at that point. But, when the wave, after passing the slits, hits the blackboard it is thereby measured. At that point (the blackboard) where the wave interacts with a 3d structure, the hyperdimensional wave is by (the rules of) perception forced into 3d structure.

The point of measurement at the slits and the point of interaction at the blackboard are the two events in these scennarios where the construction of a 3d world takes place. You perceive when you measure = you perceive when the wave interacts. Perception will correct for the event to give a cohesive 3d world, so we can adapt, evolve and stay alive.

ouro- you are a wise, wise monkey...

vovin- ditto. now hurry up and get your degree so we can all finally know the great answer at the root of it all!!

virola- as far as scientific explanations go, i think you might be closest to that million bucks so far!

man... i freakin´ love you guys...

L&G!!

[/quote] the detectors DO interfere with the path. The very fact that they can detect an electron proves that they can influence eachother.



this is correct and the accepted scientific explanation rebuking the new age "obserever role" conclusion. the new age movies like what the bleep take great libertys when reporting this view as science.

science says "the act of measuring the particle collapses the wave function effecting the outcome of the experiment"

alternate explanation " "the act of observing the particle collapses the wave function and effects the outcome of the experiment"

they are very close but one is esoteric and one is not.

"collapses the wave function" still sound very esoteric to me

and "the outcome of the experiment".... is that the universe?

Great experiment. Good stuff for thoughts.

I always enjoy a good Patrick Swayze/Ghost analogy...I've always thought he was the answer to all the great questions in our universe Now if only my head would stop spinning from the rest of the posts...

Well if science says that "the act of measuring the particle collapses the wave function effecting the outcome of the experiment", then doesnt this mean that when one is not measuring the particle is (also) going through both slits, and none, etc? Isnt that absurd? On the other hand, the results would be easy to explain if one thinks of waves instead of particles.

At the moment im thinking looking, observing and measuring are in effect the same because they all involve interaction of light with the eyeball.
So im thinking that the alternate explanation "the act of observing the particle collapses the wave function and effects the outcome of the experiment" is very much true. I mean, how can observing and measuring not be the same? Observing is always measuring by sense. And measuring is always measuring by sense. Perception of a physical reality is always an act of measuring (interacting with) light by sense. Not?

Maybe the particles are only in the 3d mind.
It would explain everything for so far as i can see

Maybe this explains it. It is a rather compelling idea and would explain many other things as well.

http://www.crystalinks.com/holographic.html


Pokey the Hologram