—”God, I believe, in spite of all I know, all I understand. Irregardless of all I know, I know there is a god.

But throw a human ego in the mix, and well…”

However we both know that there is no such thing as objective scientific evidence of such an entity. Yet you (think you) “KNOW”.

You were saying something about human ego, Captain?

The Flying Spaghetti Monster, you heathen!!!

Exactly. All we want is to inform people that Chopra is an idiot so they will stop buying his books and giving him money for making crap up and pretending it is based on science that he doesn’t even understand.

Get this: we don’t (or Phil doesn’t anyway) care about him spreading whatever spiritual/mystical/religious message he wants to spread. What we object to, are his attempts to shoehorn his poor understanding of modern physics into this picture. He plainly does not understand the science, and yet writes many books dealing with it. He is a fraud, plain and simple. He is a snake oil salesman, and people deserve to know that he is full of b.s.

and I supoes you whant to slicence thoses who preach falsehoods like round them up and put them in a death camp?

What on Earth could possibly have lead you to this conclusion? If you are going to start accusing someone of plotting genocide, you better have some really strong evidence to back it up.

Oh, darn. Now I’ve put that on the net. I’m sure he’ll stumble across it and his next book will include THAT idea.

I’m a BAD boy,,,

Gary 7

PS: I wonder if he would pay me for that??? Yeah! Right!

“I know there is a god.”

No, you don’t KNOW. You Believe.

There is a difference.

I’ve been to the top of A mountain but I have no way of knowing if that had anything to do with a God. No one was around to take measurements and photos, therefore there was no possibility of creating a consensual reality. If I see pink elephants crawling on the walls and my buddy just sees a wall, that doesn’t mean he is blind(though he may be) but it may mean I’m just really tripping.

Internally generated imagery can be more precise and intense than our “normal” mundane reality but its “reality” may be indeterminate until an independent observer can verify what we’re perceiving.

Mystics rarely(if ever) have such confirmation. Still, such experiences are “real” to the one in the midst of such experience. That’s how religions get started.

We really don’t need any more religions. The ones we have provide all the justification anyone needs to rationalize bad behavior. Just ask any ruler who justifies their dictatorial excesses as the “devine right of kings” or a priest who abuses young boys. W/o their religion they would have to accept, they’re just jerks.

Gary 7

God, I believe, in spite of all I know, all I understand. Irregardless of all I know, I know there is a god.

How, exactly, do you know this?

The point of science was to unravel the mystery of the beauty of the Divine all around us, not to disprove it.

No, the point of science it to find the truth, whatever that may be. If the truth is there is no Divine, then that is fine. You are assuming there even is a “Divine” to begin with.

Isn’t it funny how good information can breed arrogance.

It is no where near as good at breeding arrogance as ignorance is.

Science is full of good information, but that doesn’t mean you should discount everyone elses ideas if they’re trying to assimilate and understand someone elses ideas and relate them to their own views.

But Deepak isn’t trying to assimilate and understand other ideas, he is trying to abuse and distort them so they conform to his pre-conceived notions when they really don’t.

All the different religions are of course pedaling the same thing. It’s just nomenclature.

As I said, ignorance breeds arrogance. Many religions have fundamentally different, mutually exclusive views of the world. This is not just differences in “nomenclature”, issues as fundamental as the existence of an afterlife, the existence of higher powers, and the existence of a soul are not agreed upon by all religions.

It’s shameful. I know you may want payback as a science minded individual, but rememeber spite is not right, but you might not know that because I don’t recall ever seeing a scientific paper on spite.

This has nothing to do with payback, it has to do with wanting to find the truth. We value the truth, therefore we get upset when someone says something that is demonstrably false.

Maybe ask a spiritually awakened individual. They’ll surely explain it to you if you have the attention span and openness and understanding to be able to relate to what you’re being told.

You would first need to establish that such people actually have something valuable to contribute, some deeper insight or understanding. This is not a forgone conclusion, you need to actually provide some reason we should treat their statements with more weight than we would those of anyone else.

Truly as a scientist you think the answer is out there. I assure you it’s not.

We are just supposed to take your word for it? Why should we believe you? Why should we throw away the most effective tool we have every devised for gaining knowledge about the universe just on the say-so of some anonymous poster on a blog on the internet?

The question is OUT THERE, the answer is INSIDE US and the mystery of God or Science or whatever term you coin to describe overly complex notions that need to be understood by following a certain path of explanation to get there is everywhere inbetween.

Science and religion are NOT the same thing. Science is a way of testing our knowledge to see if it actually holds water, religion is a way of avoiding any such tests.

If only we could see that we’re all on the same team, then maybe we’d all get along. Peace

Ah yes, you spend an entire post insulting and belittling us, but that is all our fault because we aren’t trying to be on “the same team”, then you end with a disingenuous “Peace”. How typical.

Quantum Mechanics, Interesting, and fun, but a mathmatics exercise (thus far). If the QM boys find something wrong with their math they create a new something and try to prove that. I still like it.

God, I believe, in spite of all I know, all I understand. Irregardless of all I know, I know there is a god.

But throw a human ego in the mix, and well… there are 62 responses about one man’s opinion on another’s opinion.

I believe paraphasing Montgomery Scot’s remark in Star Trek (2009) suits my opinion of BA Blog: “I like this Blog! You know, it’s exciting!”

By the way, “a Stuffed Purple Bunny” sits in the back seat of my car, since I found Him ten or so years ago, Her name is Worship Me.

Enjoy
Captn Tommy

http://www.bureau42.com/view/6841/summer-school-2010-1-quantum-physics

They are what make it possible for us to build computers.

It doesn’t have to “make sense”. It just has to accurately predict what will happen when we turn on our machines.

Gary 7

I am genuinely trying to get my head around it. How can the description of particles, the wave function, also at the same time be a particle? How does that make sense? How can what I say something is also be what that something is?

Because it’s something that’s neither a wave function nor a particle that behaves like both.

Is a wave function real or not?

It’s a model to describe how subatomic particles behave.

It is also inherently probabilistic, where do the probabilities come from?

I don’t understand the question. Why would probabilities “come from” anything?

Does consciousness cause the collapse of the wave function? Most here would I guess say no but that is just one opinion. On what objective basis do people say that?

On the basis that there is no evidence that consciousness has anything to do with collapsing the wave function.

And that evidence, based as it is on well document experiment, says that things, from particles to people, have no objective reality until they are measured.

No, it doesn’t say that.

You seem to be making the mistake of thinking of subatomic “particles” as particles like particles of dust. They’re not. They’re weird little things with properties that seem strange to us because we’re used to dealing with matter composed of molecules. But those molecules are made of atoms, and those atoms are made of weird little things that don’t have a precise position, velocity, and spin all at the same time.

“I am genuinely trying to get my head around it. How can the description of particles, the wave function, also at the same time be a particle? How does that make sense? How can what I say something is also be what that something is? ”
The wave function is NOT the particle, it is a property that the particle has, kind of like position is a property of a proton, not the proton itself. That was admittedly a bad example that will be misrepresented some way, but good enough for what I was trying to get at.

“Is a wave function real or not? It is also inherently probabilistic, where do the probabilities come from?”
Technically, it is isn’t real, it’s complex (meaning it takes the form a+bi), and so cannot describe an observable quantity. It is also not entirely probabilistic either. The square of the magnitude of the wave function. on the other hand, is real and is the probability of finding the particle at a certain time and position.

“Does consciousness cause the collapse of the wave function? Most here would I guess say no but that is just one opinion. On what objective basis do people say that?”
I don’t think there is an objective definition of consciousness. Depending on the definition, consciousness might be the cause of wave function collapse, be a result of the wave function collapse, or be completely independent.
Subjectively, consciousness is probably one of many possible ways to collapse the wave function.

“And that evidence, based as it is on well document experiment, says that things, from particles to people, have no objective reality until they are measured. Full stop. That makes no sense to me.”
All particles have an objective reality, it either exists or it doesn’t (I’m not talking about virtual particles or quantum vacuums right now). What don’t exist until it is measured are the properties of the particle (ex: position, momentum), just a probability dictated by the wave function.
Also, you cannot apply QM concepts to human scale situations (eg: the buckyballs mentioned earlier). It would be like saying something like “since bacteria can reproduce by splitting in half, elephants should be able to as well.”

“You don’t understand that it’s weird?”

I am genuinely trying to get my head around it. How can the description of particles, the wave function, also at the same time be a particle? How does that make sense? How can what I say something is also be what that something is?

Is a wave function real or not? It is also inherently probabilistic, where do the probabilities come from?

Does consciousness cause the collapse of the wave function? Most here would I guess say no but that is just one opinion. On what objective basis do people say that?

“Because it has evidence, based on documented, repeatable experiments, backing it up.”

And that evidence, based as it is on well document experiment, says that things, from particles to people, have no objective reality until they are measured. Full stop. That makes no sense to me.

Science … commits suicide when it adopts a creed.

noen Says:
October 5th, 2010 at 5:20 pm

truthspeaker Says:

So do please tell, are wave functions representations of particles or are they particles themselves?

“Neither.”

Is the wave function of an electron an electron?

“No, it’s a model for representing one.”

So…. lemme get this straight. Wave functions neither represent particles nor are they particles themselves but they do model (i.e. represent) particles.

Do you see the problem here?

No. I don’t see a problem at all.

I experience the reality of which the Euclidean mathematics is but one possible description every moment of ever day. Mathematical descriptions do not exist “out there”. They are human created languages that describe the world. They are not the world itself. The map should not be confused with the territory. In your reply above though that is exactly what you’re doing.

No, that’s what you were doing when you asked the question. Hilbert space is the map, not the territory.

So…. no, I can never experience Hilbert space or Euclidean space but… if these abstractions are based on real physical phenomenon then I should be able to point to something which constitutes that space. (I don’t have to directly perceive it any more than I must directly perceive X-rays. I still know they exist because I can point to something which registers their existence.) Where would I look to find Hilbert space?

You would look at subatomic particles.

What I am really trying to do is to bring out just how weird QM is.

We all already know that. You might as well go to a swimmers’ blog and tell them water is wet. “Weird” is not synonymous with “incomprehensible”.

I sure don’t understand that.

You don’t understand that it’s weird? Or you don’t understand how something can be weird and still be a good model of reality?

I mean, if science is really giving us a model of the world then that model really ought to be free of self contradiction should it not? And yet you flat out contradict yourself trying to explain it to me.

In what way have I contradicted myself? More importantly, what is self-contradictory about quantum mechanics?

Why is your woo better than Deepak’s?

Because it has evidence, based on documented, repeatable experiments, backing it up.