Comments on: Real and Unreal

By: J. W. Helkenberg (@Helkenberg)

J. W. Helkenberg (@Helkenberg) — Sat, 08 Dec 2018 16:46:26 +0000

You never observer the Moon. You observer light striking the back of your retina.

By: penny

penny — Sun, 28 Oct 2018 19:04:59 +0000

Hmmm. I and others depend upon sites like this, and there does seem to be an inexplicable materialist bias. Superposition really actually does defy words such as ¨exist¨ or ¨real,¨ and there is absolutely nothing ¨quantum woo¨ about that. Zeilinger and Wineland are not able to be dismissed as easily as Planck, Bohr, and Schrodinger are here, in challenging locality and/or realism. Might want to look into Hoffman at UCI too. I came to a more serious understanding of nature as a strict materialist sort. It is the science that has blown me away abd changed my views, not the woo. I save locality by following causal set theory. I tend to agree with the poster up above who invokes the ¨for all practical purposes¨ view of science when it comes to governing life and resources, but some high-profile scientists who invoke expertise in some domains of nature to comment on the deeper mysteries of existence are using a model that is worthless at some energies. ¨Indeterminacy¨ is superposition and not subject to the meaning of exchange with surroundings that define reality as we conceive it.

By: fabiogarcia000

fabiogarcia000 — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 06:52:27 +0000

I don’t exactly agree that anyone has to observe anything for reality to exist. The experiments are conducted with sensory equipment not human beings, the results would be the same regardless of every living thing being alive or not. For example, if an experiment was conducted such that the experiment were to be performed in an hour from now, on an off-planet, completely sterile, autonomous laboratory, and President Trump blew planet earth to kingdom come by setting off all of the US’s nukes at once in the next 30 minutes — my bet is that the results would be the very same. That being said, not a single living thing discovered thus far would be around to confirm the results.

By: david

david — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 08:05:29 +0000

I am requesting to get an answer about why when one is running,his or her wavelength cannot be measured.

By: Frater Bovious

Frater Bovious — Tue, 17 Jul 2018 16:04:24 +0000

Just a brief comment and question about materialism and realism. If one operates from the belief that to be real is to be material, then all these apparent paradoxes are unavoidable. But when we are measuring something, we are measuring “something” – Can we in fact measure something that does not exist?

By: Frater Bovious

Frater Bovious — Tue, 17 Jul 2018 15:49:59 +0000

Way in over my head here – but this statement: “The logical result (not interpretation) of this experiment is that there is no objective reality before we measure it.” would seem to say that all reality is subjective – but in either case, what is being measured?

By: Brian Koberlein

Brian Koberlein — Fri, 22 Jun 2018 21:32:04 +0000

“This agenda includes despiriritualising humanity and denying any connection to the Divine” It is amazing how popular this trope is. It’s the ignorant claim that simply will not die. Do me a favor, send an email to the director of the National Institutes of Health (geneticist Francis Collins), and ask him if he believes in God. Or Antony Hewish, Nobel Laureate in Physics, or Brian Kobilka Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, or John Gurdon, Nobel Laureate in Medicine. Or tons of other people who are both scientists and Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim, or any of several other believers in a connection to the Divine. If there really were an agenda we wouldn’t put them in positions of power, or give them Nobel prizes.

“your a wilfully moronic, dishonest c*nt”… That’s Dr. wilfully moronic, dishonest c*nt to you.

God bless your heart.

By: physicsandmathsrevision

physicsandmathsrevision — Fri, 22 Jun 2018 19:48:11 +0000

You are not even honest. Calling Campbell’s work “quantum woo” is the same as the slithering way you called me a “vacuous troll”, You implying an absence of intellectual rigour while failing to specify in any challengeable detail where Campbell’s argument and theory fails. You PROJECT your own “woo” onto others suggesting that their ‘failure’ to grasp the issues is a matter of CHARACTER.
I didn’t say that scientists are a political elite who use materialism as a weapon. I said something that every sensible person, never mind scientist, knows … that the establishment that fund science and everything else, fund those things to serve their own interests and agenda. This agenda includes despiriritualising humanity and denying any connection to the Divine, a condition of mind that causes potential resistance to their propaganda and potential refusal to co=operate with their placemen authorities.. Every scientist I know understands what to bear in mind when chasing research funding and unfortunately you are a wilfully moronic, dishonest c*nt whose only discernable currency is abuse of those who disagree with you. Tou are a prick, a huckster and a fraud and the kind of person I am glad that I don’t know.

By: Brian Koberlein

Brian Koberlein — Mon, 18 Jun 2018 13:27:55 +0000

You keep making incorrect and unfounded assertions. To begin with, an ad hominem is an attack on a person personally, not their ideas. So calling Campbell’s claims “quantum woo” isn’t ad hominem. Calling you a “vacuous troll” would be. Second, quoting famous scientists does not support your claim. It’s a logical fallacy known as argumentum ad verecundiam, or appeal to authority: If great scientists made statements that seem to support my claims, then surely I must be right! That’s not how science works. Lots of eminent scientists have gone of the deep end making wild claims that were completely wrong.

Not surprisingly, you see this fallacy a lot in Campbell’s work, and it clearly demonstrates that he doesn’t understand quantum theory. The quotes you cite are largely from the early period of quantum theory, when we were still trying to figure out what all of this meant. They were putting together ideas to see how to form a quantum framework. But we’ve now had a century to do better experiments and we now know the “conscious observer” idea fails to hold up. Campbell conveniently ignores these, and instead focuses on philosophers to buttress his woo.

We could discuss details further, but I don’t suspect you’re really interested in that. Nice touch, by the way adding the conspiracy theory that scientists are “…a political elite who use materialism as a weapon against their subjects…” You win today’s pseudoscience bingo.

As I mentioned earlier, when Campbell is ready to act like a scientist, then we can talk.

By: physicsandmathsrevision

physicsandmathsrevision — Mon, 18 Jun 2018 10:11:50 +0000

So when real experiments in the physical world yield results that contradict our fundamental assumptions about physical (e.g. when effect is observed to precede cause) we must continue looking for a material cause for this anomaly rather than suspect that there is some ‘big picture’ element absent from our understanding of perceived reality? This sounds to me like the protestation of a “flat earther” before humanity was introduced to Newton’s Law of Gravity. The offhand adhominems add to this impression.

Some of history’s very greatest physicists ‘got it’:

Max Planck (in 1931): “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”

Schrödinger: “Some of you, I am sure, will call this mysticism. So with all due acknowledgement to the fact that physical theory is at all times relative, in that it depends on certain basic assumptions, we may, or so I believe, assert that physical theory in its present stage strongly suggests the indestructibility of Mind by Time.”

Pauli favored a hypothesis of “lucid mysticism,” a synthesis between rationality and religion. He speculated that quantum theory could unify the psychological/scientific and philosophical/mystical approaches to consciousness

Neils Bohr said: “THERE IS NO QUANTUM WORLD. There is only an abstract quantum physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature.”…and to Wolfgang Pauli: “Your theory is crazy, the question is whether it’s crazy enough to be true.”

It is extremely unlikely that the blinkered stubborness of die-hard materialists (even with the aid of a political elite who use materialism as a weapon against their subjects in order to blind them to to their own connection to and relationship with the Divine) will win the day in this argument.

By: Brian Koberlein

Brian Koberlein — Mon, 18 Jun 2018 00:25:31 +0000

Campbell uses quantum woo to sell self-published books and raise kickstarter funds. When he makes a clear and testable assertion we can talk about the validity of his claims. Until then it is reasonable for a rational person to assume he is wrong.

By: physicsandmathsrevision

physicsandmathsrevision — Sun, 17 Jun 2018 22:41:01 +0000

His analysis is coherent and makes sense. Yours doesn’t. It just makes an unfounded assertion. Therefore, until you come up with a credible justification for your assertion or a definitive rebuttal of his theory it is reasonable for the rational person to assume that he is rght and you are wrong.