Quantum Mechanics

[DreamBliss]

I have always been interested in this subject but never bothered to crack a book. Yet I found this video:

 

I am left with a question... If a holographic (meaning non-solid) wall could be produced such that it could not be distinguished from a real wall, would people actually be able to pass through it, or would they be stopped by it?

 

If people would be stopped by it, then that means anything we could project (hologram) has the potential of becoming what we would call real. If we could build a holodeck, it could become as "real" a place as anywhere else.

 

Then there is a whole discussion about how "real" walls are not really solid either, that both a non-solid holographic wall and a concrete wall are really just projections of waves at varying frequencies.

 

After that we would have to talk about how initially our realistic holographic wall may be solid for one person and non-solid for another, making the concept in cartoons of running off a cliff and standing in the air not so silly after all, I mean if we don't know we can't do it, what is to stop us from doing it?

 

Thoughts? In layman's terms, of course so we can all understand it.

Edited February 3, 2016 by DreamBliss

[Bearded Dragon]

No because I can think of countless examples of this and it's never happened that way.

 

Kicking your toe on something you don't know is there.

That elevator prank with tvs on the floor where they made it look like the ground fell away (should fall through going by your logic).

etc etc. There is so many deceptive things that already exist which doesn't work in the way your described.

 

Your logic works in dreams though. Solid and non-solid walls depend on your faith in moving through them.

[Karl]

I go back to the old stick in a glass beaker of water. It looks as if it's bent, that's how the eyes perceive it. That perception is visually accurate, the vision hasn't been fooled, but the mind has made an error in translation. Eventually, even without more advanced scientific knowledge, it's possible to figure out it is something to do with the water causing an illusion. However, even if all the science is done and it can be known for definite how the water refracts light differently, the eyes don't then adapt to that new knowledge. The stick remains bent, even as the brain knows it isn't really bent and knows the precise scientific reason for it.

 

That can be applied to every visual illusion from films, to mirages. It would be applied equally to a perfect hologram. We might first act as if it was entirely real, but after a time we would just walk through it as we might a blinding beam of light on a stage.

 

Turning a hologram into a solid object is kind of possible. A projection of something physical such as high speed air, particles or liquid in a micro fine sheet would be impenetrable. In fact one of the car manufacturers created a pure air windscreen that could reportedly deflect a brick at 70mph so it's completely possible. I suppose if you could utilise powerful electro magnets and metal particles then a certain amount of bending is possible ?

Edited February 4, 2016 by Karl

[DreamBliss]

No because I can think of countless examples of this and it's never happened that way.

 

Kicking your toe on something you don't know is there.

That elevator prank with tvs on the floor where they made it look like the ground fell away (should fall through going by your logic).

etc etc. There is so many deceptive things that already exist which doesn't work in the way your described.

 

Your logic works in dreams though. Solid and non-solid walls depend on your faith in moving through them.

 

I think your examples are flawed. I wil demonstrate my theory, why I think this is so:

 

Place Thich Nhat Hanh in a dark room with an obstruction on the floor and have him walk through it. Record the results. Once he has finished, place any busy New York lawyer into the same room. Record the results. Compare what you have recorded. You will see that the results will be different.

 

Master Hanh will not have stubbed his toe, because he will have walked through the room completely aware and conscious, fully present. The lawyer will likely have not only stubbed his or her toe, but also fell on their face, depending if they rushed through the room, impatient to get on with the next thing, or walked through it haltingly. Either way there would be no awareness or consciousness, they would not be fully present.

 

There is that in our physical forms which senses things around us. This non-physical sense gives us a sort of knowing about any location we are in. Someone fully aware, conscious and present is more in tune to this sense. They will respond to what it tells them. Someone unaware, unconscious and not present is not tuned into this sense, and ignores any alarm bells going off that are informing them of an obstruction in the floor.

 

What this means is that we know, but may not know we know, if there is a hole in the floor or not, or an obstruction or not. Even when all physical senses are not used, we still have a sense about our location and its surroundings. No enlightened being has ever fell into an unseen hole or stubbed their toe over an obstruction on the floor. But just about every harried, rushing, unaware, unconscious and non-present person in New York has.

 

When I used the word know in my original post, I meant those things we have beliefs about and say we know. Walls and floors being solid is something we "know." We have beliefs we have adopted, learned behaviors, experience, that no matter what science tells us, proves to us the solidity of a concrete floor or ceiling. I would go so far as to say we don't even interact with the concrete floor or ceiling at all, only our beliefs about it. Furthermore, the concrete floor and ceiling respond to our beliefs. In some way we affect them and make them solid to us.

 

However we have no such knowing about a realistic, projected surface. So we don't know we can or can not walk through it, because we have not encountered a realistic hologram yet. At least I haven't. If we have no beliefs to interact with about some new thing (meaning new to the human race, not just new to us) it seems to me it is likely we will interact with the new thing as it is, at least until we have developed beliefs about it. Likely they would be that we could walk through a holographic image but not through a concrete wall.

 

Then the question is... What happens if we can control the solidity of the hologram? Does the beliefs about the solidity of the hologram on the part of those observing those interacting with the hologram affect it so that it becomes solid? What if we have four identical holographic walls and only one of them is made solid, but nobody knows which one it is?

 

What if we raised a child in a house with a realistic holographic wall between them and some room, but never told them about it? Then later introduced a concrete wall that looks the same, leading to yet another room, again never telling them about it? Never observing it either, never knowing when they are interacting with the walls, so we can not affect them? What of someone came, unknown to us, and switched the walls? So the one the child has come to "know" is non-solid is now a real concrete wall, while the other one that we "know" is solid is now non-solid?

 

We really need to stop assuming things and to start asking more questions. This video demonstrates very well how we learn something then assume it is always true, without ever investigating or questioning it:

Edited February 4, 2016 by DreamBliss

[DreamBliss]

I can allow for this viewpoint, but I have some harsh words to say about it. There are those who have said this much more eloquently, but I will say it like this: Mathematics is mental masturbation.

 

Until mathematics can be used to define God, it is of little more use than our beliefs, thoughts and words about whatever or whoever this energy or entity may be.

 

As a result mathematics is also of little use in concretizing "reality." Try using it, for example, to detail the experience of a banana. You can no more use math than you can use words.

Edited February 4, 2016 by DreamBliss

[Michael Sternbach]

I have always been interested in this subject but never bothered to crack a book. Yet I found this video:

 

I am left with a question... If a holographic (meaning non-solid) wall could be produced such that it could not be distinguished from a real wall, would people actually be able to pass through it, or would they be stopped by it?

 

If people would be stopped by it, then that means anything we could project (hologram) has the potential of becoming what we would call real. If we could build a holodeck, it could become as "real" a place as anywhere else.

 

Then there is a whole discussion about how "real" walls are not really solid either, that both a non-solid holographic wall and a concrete wall are really just projections of waves at varying frequencies.

 

After that we would have to talk about how initially our realistic holographic wall may be solid for one person and non-solid for another, making the concept in cartoons of running off a cliff and standing in the air not so silly after all, I mean if we don't know we can't do it, what is to stop us from doing it?

 

Thoughts? In layman's terms, of course so we can all understand it.

 

Yes, there is a lot of talk about things not being real, most of the space they occupy being empty, their being energy waves at best etc. And I am often taken aback by the confusion of levels here. It were all true if only we were the size of a particle, existing in a very microscopic world. But that's not where we are. To us, a wall is still solid, even if it may not be solid "all the way down". That doesn't change a thing about the fact of its solidity to us. At most, it may affect the way we think of what solidity means.

 

It is not simply a matter of belief either. Right from the beginning of our physical existence, before anybody had the chance to indoctrinate us. we experience the solidity of walls and other objects. Animals experience it too. Even objects "experience" the solidity of other objects. There are good reasons for it.

 

The mind boggling rules of the quantum world don't apply to the macroscopic world - under most circumstances. Yet it is known that our bodies are "quantum objects" too. Not only single particles can be considered waves (as your nice little video showed), but massive objects too. All these are De Broglie matter waves, to get a little technical. However, the wave length of macroscopic objects is so short that this aspect can be safely ignored, for all practical intents and purposes.

 

Now, it has been said that there are some individuals that can do wondrous stuff on the physical level, the very things that are more or less everyday business for the particles in the quantum world. Such trifles like moving through a solid wall as if it weren't there, being in two different places at once, and teleportation.

 

What seems to be going on is that those individuals are somehow able to amplify the characteristics of the quantums that their bodies are composed of to a degree that they manifest on the macroscopic level. This certainly ties in with concepts like the subtle bodies, the vital force etc, things that esotericism has been comfortable to study and work with since time immemorial, and that modern sciences are only tentatively starting to appreciate. There is still a long way to go, some modern concepts in  physics are a step in the right direction, but not more than that, so far.

 

As Arthur C. Clarke stated, the technology of a truly advanced species will be undistinguishable from magic.

 

Talking about teleportation, my personal record is a measly one-hundred miles from where I live, plus I had to get on a train to go back home.

[Michael Sternbach]

Well, I had started a few replies and then I had browser troubles (I use a probably unstable rolling release version of linux and things don't always work without problems).

 

Anyways, the biggest problem is related to an understanding of mind. Physicists, in general, are not psychologists, neurologists, or philosophers of mind. It'd be cool of they were because they might be less likely to publish the garbage that's floating around these days.....

 

Even so, the main problem is that people say that consciousness collapses the waveform and very few people actually make a respectable effort to identify what "consciousness" is in the process. So, on the one hand, we get people like Hugh Everett with his multiverse theory and the idea that a person's consciousness includes all the stuff in their mind at a given point in time. I consider this a "left-cheek-sneak" theory. it throws out into right field a lot of fun stuff with probabilities, origin points for sequences of events, and a gratifying meta-narrative where everyone gets to author their experience of reality. This is all well and good, but left field stinks: statistics is appallingly applied (basically, it's mathematical and philosophical foundations are ignored and every point---even the ones that don't hit---are given full onotlogical status); consciousness itself is never defined; the continua of the process have no measurable components... It's not the greatest approach.

 

On the other hand, we have people who approach the issue in a more stringently mathematical style. They define reality cybernetically and as a self-excited circuit where consciousness is both a transmitter and receiver of itself and this is the process that defines reality. The idea is expanded upon in practical means, also, where consciousness is defined in a particle form and it is named as a Noeon or Deltron (depending on which model we're looking at). It might sound abstract, but it is wholly better science because it answers more relevant cosmological questions, actually builds upon a mathematically defined framework (rather than casting a framework over nebulous and undefined ideas), actually interfaces with existing theories and makes testable predictions....In general, this approach is a lot better.

 

If we look at it like this, though, the contents of the mind are not causally efficacious. Awareness is formless and immaterial and it is responsible for the formation of the thoughts that you have. Therefore quantum mechanics doesn't meaningfully relate the stuff of your conscious mind to material reality.

 

Great post, Apeiron, with the reservation that quantum mechanics has the potential to "relate the stuff of your conscious mind to physical reality", imo. It hasn't gone into this very far due to its ignorance of the meaning of consciousness (as you mention yourself), let alone the role of the subtle bodies etc, but as I said in my reply to DreamBliss, it is a step in the right direction.

[Michael Sternbach]

I can allow for this viewpoint, but I have some harsh words to say about it. There are those who have said this much more eloquently, but I will say it like this: Mathematics is mental masturbation.

 

Until mathematics can be used to define God, it is of little more use than our beliefs, thoughts and words about whatever or whoever this energy or entity may be.

 

As a result mathematics is also of little use in concretizing "reality." Try using it, for example, to detail the experience of a banana. You can no more use math than you can use words.

 

Not quite on the same wavelength with you here, Dream Bliss. If mathematics is mental masturbation, quantum physics must be too, because it is interwoven by mathematics wherever you look which you will be quick to find out once you investigate it a little further than by watching pop science videos.

[Brian]

Not quite on the same wavelength with you here, Dream Bliss. If mathematics is mental masturbation, quantum physics must be too, because it is interwoven by mathematics wherever you look which you will be quick to find out once you investigate it a little further than by watching pop science videos.

Yeah, I found the juxtaposition of that post with the opening post quite ironic.

 

"Let's talk in depth about sewing but don't waste my time with any language involving needles, bobbins, thread, fabric or stitches..."

[Karl]

Not quite on the same wavelength with you here, Dream Bliss. If mathematics is mental masturbation, quantum physics must be too

 

Mathematics has its place as as a tool to describe empirical knowledge. It's the language of empiricism. Yet, like any language it is capable of distortion and misuse. Because it is of necessity, purely an abstraction, it is capable of flights of fancy that are difficult for the mathematicians themselves to understand are false abstractions. Such is quantum physics when it crosses then attempts to destroy the boundary between existence and consciousness.

 

Existence is identity; consciousness is identification.

 

Consciousness does not change the absolutes inherent in the universe, it can only appreciate them and work within those boundaries. Existence exists prior to consciousness. No amount of mathematical abstractionism will change that. It is a modern version of the story of King Canute.

[Junko]

How do you define love（banana)from quantum physics?

[Karl]

How do you define love（banana)from quantum physics?

 

Ive heard of the love shack, but not the love banana. It's not a euphemism is it Junko ? :-)

[Michael Sternbach]

Ive heard of the love shack, but not the love banana. It's not a euphemism is it Junko ? :-)

 

Junko was born in the Chinese year of the monkey, that's why she associates love with bananas.

[Junko]

Michael Sternbach was born in the Chinese year of the rooster.

[Karl]

Year of the rat for me.

[Michael Sternbach]

Michael Sternbach was born in the Chinese year of the rooster.

Karl,

 

No jokes about cocks now, alright?

[Karl]

Karl,

No jokes about cocks now, alright?

I shall stiffly resist ;-)

Edited February 4, 2016 by Karl

[Michael Sternbach]

I shall stiffly resist ;-)

 

It's not the first time you come across as somewhat stiff.

[Karl]

It's not the first time you come across as somewhat stiff.

 

Very, not somewhat ;-)

[DreamBliss]

When I said what I did about math, I was trying to avoid stuff like this (additional material is in the comments):

 

That is what you get when you think you can boil the universe down to numbers, which is a human construct like language.

 

The way I see it, the universe is mathematical to humans because when human scientists study the universe they expect it to be mathematical in nature.

 

If the D'ni from the Myst series existed, their scientists would have expected the universe to boil down to the language they use to create entire worlds.

Edited February 5, 2016 by DreamBliss

[Junko]

Edited February 5, 2016 by Junko

[Karl]

When I said what I did about math, I was trying to avoid stuff like this (additional material is in the comments):

http://youtu.be/HGG4HmlotJE

 

That is what you get when you think you can boil the universe down to numbers, which is a human construct like language.

 

The way I see it, the universe is mathematical to humans because when human scientists study the universe they expect it to be mathematical in nature.

 

If the D'ni from the Myst series existed, their scientists would have expected the universe to boil down to the language they use to create entire worlds.

 

Yes, abstract, but also concrete. We can count on paper and in the physical world. Maths can describe some aspects as conceptual abstractions as can language. There is a danger of taking it things to nominalism and then throwing away all maths away because it is abstract, just as nominalists throw away language because it isn't the perfect concretised object. All communication is necessarily abstract, maths is no different, it has limitations. Language can describe Love, but Love as a word contains no amount of the emotion. The number five does not contain the elements of five fingers, it's an abstraction, but no less valid because of that. Five to you is five to me.

[DreamBliss]

But I can see the value of math in describing certain things. Trying to write in words some complex physics equation would probably be a lot clunkier and less elegant than e=MC²

[Michael Sternbach]

When I said what I did about math, I was trying to avoid stuff like this (additional material is in the comments):

 

That is what you get when you think you can boil the universe down to numbers, which is a human construct like language.

 

The way I see it, the universe is mathematical to humans because when human scientists study the universe they expect it to be mathematical in nature.

 

If the D'ni from the Myst series existed, their scientists would have expected the universe to boil down to the language they use to create entire worlds.

 

I also don't agree to the view represented by this video. It's very reductionist: Living beings are nothing but a bunch of particles, particles are nothing but a bunch of numbers...

 

But neither do I agree to the view that numbers are human constructs. To the ancient occult philosophers like Pythagoras and Plato, numbers were Archetypes: Divine ideas. And if you study sacred sites like the pyramids of Giza, you can't help being deeply impressed by the advanced mathematical knowledge they incorporate.

 

The problem is not mathematics per say, but the uninspired, dry and completely profane ways in which it is being used and taught by most academics nowadays. But maybe Donald will help us to put things in perspective...

 

 

You can't do any serious physics without maths. The reason maths works so well describing the physical world is because geometry and algebra are not human inventions but expressions of the noetic level of reality. Once science comes to understand this (anew), it will have taken a great step in its transformation from a materialistic to a spiritual view of the world.

[Karl]

But I can see the value of math in describing certain things. Trying to write in words some complex physics equation would probably be a lot clunkier and less elegant than e=MC²

 

Its not just that. We have abstract physical laws and quantities that are entirely particular to maths.

 

For instance we can hold a concept of a forest of trees. We can give it further descriptors of course but we all get the idea of a forest. However there are no quantifiers applied to that abstract. We must apply empiric values such as height, width, number, density to the forest if we wish to do anything with it, such as create timber from it, farm it, or navigate it. The numbers are then numeric descriptors of an abstract concept of a forest. Without the abstract concept then the numbers could not define anything, they would appear as random symbols of no value or determinant.

 

It seems almost idiotic to say what is obvious, but it's important to understand maths place in human cognition. We must first hold the concept before we can measure it. In some circumstances the numbers represent a new concept, but always based on other concepts first. Numbers don't happen prior to concepts, but they may well form the basis of integration of concepts and describe them empirically.

 

I love this stuff. :-) I can see it as clearly as I see my hand and it is absolutely fascinating to generate the minds cognitive method.

 

People like to say that the universe is built on numbers, but this is a false a priori statement. It is we humans who describe the conceptual universe with numbers. It is a method of making it to our understanding and not a fact in itself.