Wave-particle duality is an illusion

[Karl]

You don't understand how I think.  If you did you wouldn't use your stubbing your toe example.

 

I can't tell you how I think.  It can't be communicated.  if you think I'm some kind of mystic you will be woefully missing the point.

 

To stub our toe is an intrinsically real and dreamlike experience.  But who sees it both ways?

 

The point is that it doesn't matter. I can accept the subjective along with the perceptive. If you can be at peace with things as they are then why get concerned about things as they might be ?

 

It doesn't really matter what light is, what stubbed the toe or if any of it is real, not real or both at the same time.

 

I know you are going to dismiss it, but I experienced that same thing. Everything being both there and not there at the same time. For a long time it was very novel, it seemed to offer some special insight or way of being. I kind of floated through life. I chose not to continue. I can't say one is right or one is wrong, just that there didn't seem much benefit in being both.

[Michael Sternbach]

Or that energy from a photon goes through both slits whilst the photon itself only goes through one ?

 

The photon is pure energy, it doesn't exist independently from it.

 

However, there is something called "soliton" that may offer a way out of the dilemma.

 

By the way, I like Tesla too, and alternative scientific theories in general. I feel that in many cases, there is truth to them. The problem is that when such alternative models can't explain certain experimental evidence, their inventors often choose to simply ignore it, call it irrelevant, resort to a general rant against mainstream science etc. That way they only "convince" those who are of the same mind already.

[Karl]

Lots of evidence has been offered in various threads but you choose to ignore, deny and reject it.

Ever watch the movie named Idiocracy?

 

Several times.

 

 

 

 

[Karl]

The photon is pure energy, it doesn't exist independently from it.

 

However, there is something called "soliton" that may offer a way out of the dilemma.

 

By the way, I like Tesla too, and alternative scientific theories in general. I feel that in many cases, there is truth to them. The problem is that when such alternative models can't explain certain experimental evidence, their inventors often choose to simply ignore it, call it irrelevant, resort to a general rant against mainstream science etc. That way they only "convince" those who are of the same mind already.

 

We have got into this mind rot of believing contradictions are fine. If we can't Resolve them, then we resort to quantum explanations and try and entangle consciousness with matter in an easily interchangeable manner. People seem to want to believe it's true. It seems to me a kind of religious surrender. The grand quantum religion. I liked it better when chariots pulled the Sun across the sky.

 

 

[Michael Sternbach]

We have got into this mind rot of believing contradictions are fine. If we can't Resolve them, then we resort to quantum explanations and try and entangle consciousness with matter in an easily interchangeable manner. People seem to want to believe it's true. It seems to me a kind of religious surrender. The grand quantum religion.

The thing is that quantum mechanics agrees with and predicts observations with uncanny exactness. There are however a number of different interpretations possible in various areas, but yes, they all take the existence of quantums (in some form) for granted. If you have a theory that doesn't presuppose them, yet still satisfactorily explains the observed phenomena (WITHOUT the contradictions you abhor), do let me know, please.

 

I liked it better when chariots pulled the Sun across the sky.

But we know this to be factually incorrect nowadays. You are entitled to believe whatever you like, of course, but I am afraid you won't get a lot of followers if your theses are obviously out of touch with what we know to be real.

 

Of course, there are some people who believe all research to be superfluous and maintain that our ancestors shouldn't ever have descended from the trees in the first place. Which would be a respectable position, had it not been found very recently by scientists that our ancestors were not tree climbers at all, in fact...

Edited September 2, 2015 by Michael Sternbach

[Nikolai1]

 I know you are going to dismiss it, but I experienced that same thing. Everything being both there and not there at the same time. For a long time it was very novel, it seemed to offer some special insight or way of being. I kind of floated through life. I chose not to continue. I can't say one is right or one is wrong, just that there didn't seem much benefit in being both.

You don't remain forever stuck in some kind of equipoise, that's for sure.  The equipoise can't be tolerated by anyone for long.

 

The first solution is to go back, that is, to become convinced that your equipoise was created by your accepting what should have been dismissed.  For example, we realise in a great flash that our notion that things might be impermanent is and always was an illusion.  A temporary aberration which we snapped out of, which then allowed us back to the usual view of things.  It feels great to back, safe and dry, not too much harmed.

 

The second solution is to stop asking whether things are permanent or impermanent.  Our life is no longer lived according to big intellectual worldviews.  We switch between things whimsically.  Our aim is to live in each moment according to our instincts.  

 

The first solution is to stay within the intellectual worldview.

 

The second solution is to move into a heart-based worldview.

 

Now you Karl, have a tendency to think that seeing impermanence and having a 'heart view' are the same thing.  You do not see that impermanence is as much an intellectual conclusion as your own permanence and objectivism.  To be fair, this is a very common misconception.  Spiritual teachers can't talk about the the life of the heart, the best they can do is practically demonstrate it.  With words they are only capable of trying to dismantle single-minded objectivism.  They therefore speak of impermanence...and others think they are speaking the final truth.

[manitou]

I've only read one book on this, The Tao of Physics (Capra).

 

But looking at this conversation with long eyes, I don't think there is a disparity.  If you think about it, a particle denotes space.  It takes up space.  A wave, on the other hand, takes up time.  Time to get from point A to point B, even if we are actually only measuring probability.  It seems like we're sitting at the intersection of time and space, if you follow this formula.  Does this not denote a reality of sorts, even if it is temporal?  Perhaps one of many realities.

 

It's interesting to remember that no thing observed will look the same to me or to you at the same moment.  Even if we are standing next to each other and looking at the same object, it will look slightly different to me than it does to you.  The angle will be slightly different, depending on the position of our eyes.  You can describe it, I can describe it, and it will sound as though it's identical.  But if you took a measurement as to the actual width of the thing I'm seeing, as opposed to the actual width of it from where you're standing, it will always be slightly different.  Even if we're both looking at a the moon, it will look slightly different, although not measurable.

 

Does Schroedinger's kitty figure into this conversation at all?

Edited September 2, 2015 by manitou

[Brian]

We have got into this mind rot of believing contradictions are fine. If we can't Resolve them, then we resort to quantum explanations and try and entangle consciousness with matter in an easily interchangeable manner. People seem to want to believe it's true. It seems to me a kind of religious surrender. The grand quantum religion. I liked it better when chariots pulled the Sun across the sky.

You think it "mind rot" because you haven't put in the effort to understand it.

 

Aristotle maintained that sometimes things fall and others float because it is their nature. Newton demonstrated otherwise but understanding this new theory required learning both the concept and the math.

[Nikolai1]

I've only read one book on this, The Tao of Physics (Capra).

 

But looking at this conversation with long eyes, I don't think there is a disparity.  If you think about it, a particle denotes space.  It takes up space.  A wave, on the other hand, takes up time.  Time to get from point A to point B, even if we are actually only measuring probability.

Yes I've come to the same conclusion.  In my own head I framed is as the choice to see things as discrete entities or in terms of their connectedness.  Particle, discrete...wave connected.

 

Everything can be viewed in these two contexts.  They are fundamental epistemological categories.

[Michael Sternbach]

Does Schroedinger's kitty figure into this conversation at all?

 

Not directly, as far as I know. Although there is a theory that models particles as pure "probability waves" - which also have relevance for Schroedinger's hapless kitty.On some level, everything relates to everything else, I suppose.

[Nikolai1]

Hi all,

 

Another reason why we get so confused about the wave-particle duality is that the same types of people, sometimes the same individuals of genius, have come up with the two contrasting interpretations.

 

If the two theories had been generated from different epochs in time, or from different disciplines we would find it much easier to either a) see them as two different approaches (as in the chemist and the art critic approaching the banana in the painting) or we would be more able to see one theory as right and one as wrong (for example, the older theory is often considered wrong when compared to the newer theory)

 

But when the same individuals generate two different approaches in the same epoch it is more likey to present itself as a paradox.

[Marblehead]

... shouldn't ever have descended from the trees in the first place.

Yeah, my tree house was very safe and peaceful.  Too bad I descended from that tree.

[Brian]

Several times.

I would imagine you have frequently found yourself in a situation where you are telling people to just put water on the plants and they'll grow. In this case, however, you sound more like the guy saying, "'Cause Brawndo's got electrolytes."

 

Seriously -- no one here really cares whether you understand any of the curious results from modern science... until you try to explain why it is all wrong.

[dust]

Recently reading Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, I've been struck by 2 things (aside from the obvious wonder at the nature of things and the brilliance of those great thinkers who've furthered our understanding of the nature of things).

 

Firstly, I find it funny to think that so much of what I think of as simple and obvious was not known or understood by anyone until very recently. Even a process like plate tectonics, which I grew up learning about and has always seemed very much like common sense to me, was not properly theorized until the mid-20th Century, and not universally accepted until the 1980s. Preposterous, it was.

 

Secondly, what really stands out is the dogmatic tendency of the majority. Almost everything that we now 'know' (or believe ourselves to understand) about the nature of things was, at some time and to some people, absolutely unthinkable. Pretty much every subsequently accepted theory was, at one point, opposed (or just ignored) by some portion of the scientific community, and some of the most brilliant thinkers fought decades- or even life-long battles in order to be able to throw out all sorts of (what now seems like completely laughable) religious and 'scientific' dogma.

 

Point being: what seems like nonsense often isn't, and what seems like truth is often based on a fundamental but inescapable lack of understanding about the 'deeper' nature of things. Don't disbelieve purely because the theory sounds outlandish.

[Karl]

You think it "mind rot" because you haven't put in the effort to understand it.

Aristotle maintained that sometimes things fall and others float because it is their nature. Newton demonstrated otherwise but understanding this new theory required learning both the concept and the math.

 

It's not just in one area. It really doesn't matter to me if light is particle, wave or Swiss cheese. It's just causally interesting. I'm not sure we have even solved the old spinning bucket of water even after all these years.

 

I wish you would stop with the 'aristotle' thing. He took logic to a new level of coherent understanding but I don't look to him to solve every puzzle in the universe. I'm no more attached to Aristotle than I am to the Tao.

 

See, newtons proofs aren't contradictions and I suppose, neither were Aristotles theories even though wrong and that's where I'm coming from. If we allow contradiction then we aren't going to get anywhere except a world in which logic has no place at all. It's Alice in Wonderland where everything adds up to anything else. It's not the theories that are the problem-although I probably will never understand the maths-it's this consistent half truth type science which no longer seems capable of actually proving anything beyond some percentage or other. It's like the Bosun Higgs particle. At enormous cost and effort we have discovered exactly what ? Everything seems to promise some fantastic thing will come of it, but nothing ever does. The scientists go off to spend ever greater amounts of tax payer funding on some new particle chase having determined that the half truth just discovered now means they have the need to go off chasing the next.

 

What happened to the scientist in the shed who developed thongs that had almost immediate significance ?

[Brian]

Nicely stated, dustybeijing!

[Karl]

I would imagine you have frequently found yourself in a situation where you are telling people to just put water on the plants and they'll grow. In this case, however, you sound more like the guy saying, "'Cause Brawndo's got electrolytes."

Seriously -- no one here really cares whether you understand any of the curious results from modern science... until you try to explain why it is all wrong.

 

I don't say 'it's all wrong'. I ask questions and probe based on the few things I know and what reasoning ability I have. If you say a bike is a tree then I shall disagree. I don't like contradictory things and neither does nature. Should I just stand in awe of the amazing theories that have yet to show any authentic usefulness. I don't understand an atom bomb, but I can certainly see its affects, same with gravity, electricity, magnetism and light. I am the complete antithesis to the guy saying Brawndo has electrolytes-the problem is that this is what you are saying and I'm asking if it can be right, but you think I'm stupid for asking because 'science knows that Brawndo has electrolytes'.

[Brian]

<snip>

...it's this consistent half truth type science which no longer seems capable of actually proving anything beyond some percentage or other...

<snip>

Not "half truth type science" but continued attempts at better explaining observed reality -- just as has been the case since long before "science" was given a name. Nothing is ever, can ever, be "proven" beyond some certain percentage or other. A scientific theory or model is useful if it does as good a job or better of explaining experience and can be used to predict some future results. It may continue to be useful even if proven "wrong" or it may be entirely superseded by some later work (among other possibilities). The perception of contradiction just means the person perceiving the contradiction isn't seeing the full picture (which is always the case, BTW, even when the perception of contradiction doesn't appear or is dissolved...)

[Karl]

And don't 'believe' something just because it's outlandish.

 

Go on and show me that a bicycle is a fish and Douglas Adams was right all along.

[Nikolai1]

 Almost everything that we now 'know' (or believe ourselves to understand) about the nature of things was, at some time and to some people, absolutely unthinkable. Pretty much every subsequently accepted theory was, at one point, opposed (or just ignored) by some portion of the scientific community, and some of the most brilliant thinkers fought decades- or even life-long battles in order to be able to throw out all sorts of (what now seems like completely laughable) religious and 'scientific' dogma.

Yes, but I think in the case of quantum physics the theory is so strange that the scientists aren't really able to come to terms with it.  I've heard it said that the field is in a state of trauma, so unable it is to come to terms with the paradoxes they are facing.  Let's face it, it's nearly  hundred years since these major discoveries - we are no nearer to theoretical unification and everyday people don't really incorporate, say, quantum entanglement in their everyday worldview.

 

The paradoxes can't actually be overcome as long as the scientist clings on to the idea that through their theory they are capturing reality. Reality can't be illogical, so say the people. This is why I predict that the future will see a political resolution of the paradox of the photon.  Wave-particle duality will slowly come to be viewed as an error of measurement.  Human reason needs this to happen.

 

We do have parallels in history but they occurred within a theological context.   A good example from early Christianity is whether God was outside nature or immanent in nature...and in us: another classic paradox.  It was the 'outside' camp that had the power, they won the day, compiled the Bible and anything that smacks of pantheism or Gnosticism was deemed heretical.  What never happened was the widepsread resolution of the paradox, which, going by their writings, individual and private mystics achieved for themselves.

Edited September 2, 2015 by Nikolai1

[Marblehead]

Don't disbelieve purely because the theory sounds outlandish.

But then, question everything that is not obvious or logical.

[Karl]

I think the only paradox is the one about funding.

Edited September 2, 2015 by Karl

[Brian]

I don't say 'it's all wrong'. I ask questions and probe based on the few things I know and what reasoning ability I have. If you say a bike is a tree then I shall disagree. I don't like contradictory things and neither does nature. Should I just stand in awe of the amazing theories that have yet to show any authentic usefulness. I don't understand an atom bomb, but I can certainly see its affects, same with gravity, electricity, magnetism and light. I am the complete antithesis to the guy saying Brawndo has electrolytes-the problem is that this is what you are saying and I'm asking if it can be right, but you think I'm stupid for asking because 'science knows that Brawndo has electrolytes'.

No, I'm saying, look beyond Brawndo.

 

You discount quantum mind rot because you don't understand it, not because it doesn't "show any authentic usefulness."

 

The semiconductors used to build virtually every electronic device you have encountered in the last 40 years (unless you still use vacuum tubes) are the direct result of quantum theory. Computers, calculators, watches, TVs, clocks, LED lights, flat-panel displays, you name it.

 

Lasers are the direct result of quantum theory. This then extends to everything from a CD player or laser pointer to instrumentation, optics-based communications, etc.

 

Electron microscopes are the direct result of quantum theory. Other diagnostic devices like MRIs and such depend on it, too.

 

Atomic clocks are the direct result of quantum theory. NIST now uses a quantum-logic clock accurate to a second every 3.7 billion years. A new strontium clock unveiled last year bumps that to a second every 5 billion years. HUGE implications for surveying, navigation, communications, etc.

 

Quantum entanglement is already being used for encryption -- Switzerland used it in 2007 for tamper-proof voting and Austria used it for secure bank transfer a couple years earlier. Some practical issues remain but it is coming soon to a location near you.

 

Quantum computing is now a reality, in which "binary digits" (or "bits") are replaced with "qubits" (or "quantum bits") in which the states are not just "0" or "1."

 

The list goes on and on -- some already in such widespread use as to be taken for granted and others emerging technologies which will have profound impact in the next few years. The point, though, is that it is nonsensical to claim these principles don't bear practical fruit.

[Silent Answers]

The double slit and quantum physics in general, along with spiritual views, all pretty much suggest we are an active holographic multi-dimensional projection of some sort.

Edited September 2, 2015 by Silent Answers

[Karl]

No, I'm saying, look beyond Brawndo.You discount quantum mind rot because you don't understand it, not because it doesn't "show any authentic usefulness."The semiconductors used to build virtually every electronic device you have encountered in the last 40 years (unless you still use vacuum tubes) are the direct result of quantum theory. Computers, calculators, watches, TVs, clocks, LED lights, flat-panel displays, you name it.Lasers are the direct result of quantum theory. This then extends to everything from a CD player or laser pointer to instrumentation, optics-based communications, etc.Electron microscopes are the direct result of quantum theory. Other diagnostic devices like MRIs and such depend on it, too.Atomic clocks are the direct result of quantum theory. NIST now uses a quantum-logic clock accurate to a second every 3.7 billion years. A new strontium clock unveiled last year bumps that to a second every 5 billion years. HUGE implications for surveying, navigation, communications, etc.Quantum entanglement is already being used for encryption -- Switzerland used it in 2007 for tamper-proof voting and Austria used it for secure bank transfer a couple years earlier. Some practical issues remain but it is coming soon to a location near you.Quantum computing is now a reality, in which "binary digits" (or "bits") are replaced with "qubits" (or "quantum bits") in which the states are not just "0" or "1."The list goes on and on -- some already in such widespread use as to be taken for granted and others emerging technologies which will have profound impact in the next few years. The point, though, is that it is nonsensical to claim these principles don't bear practical fruit.

 

Right, but that has been true of a million things for which we once formulated theories which later turned out to be incorrect, but the maths seemed to work well enough. We can say a light switch is a quantum device, but it isn't quantum mechanics that discovered it, but it certainly tries to explain it.

 

I don't like 'spookiness' in theories, you can call me 'a stick in the mud' or a Luddite as much as you like. To me it's like one mistake is compounding another and there is now so much invested in the theory that it nobody risks trying to refute it. Even in my life time I remember centrifugal force being replaced by centripetal and the change in current flow direction in a circuit. All the maths worked fine but the theories were incorrect.

 

So, for the moment it's the best explanation we have and the maths works sufficiently well to make design possible, however it's inherent spookiness has found a cross over into everything and anything. My mum bought into a quantum energy egg-who's is to say she is wrong in a land in which probability is everything.