3 ms·

I don't think it solves anything, it just "moves the cheese" by referencing (requiring?) an undefinable "consciousness". In the spirit of Gestalt, let's break t

I don't think it solves anything, it just "moves the cheese" by referencing (requiring?) an undefinable "consciousness". In the spirit of Gestalt, let's break this down a bit further to try to find the fine line. A person is a conscious being. What if said person is asleep or intoxicated and observes the The Double-Slit Experiment? What if person is sedated ("unconscious")? What if there is damage to the optic center of the brain limiting perception? What about those who believe they can see but are quite blind (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton%E2%80%93Babinski_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton%E2%80%93Babinski_syndrom...) ? And what about those who can see but falsely believe they cannot?(https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-blindness-is-in-the-mind/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-blindness-is...) Does this still impart consciousness upon the system? What if one's optic nerve is severed but the eye is otherwise functional? Is a dissected eyeball sufficient to cause wave collapse. If not, what additional elements of the mind are required? How much additional processing is enough? Must it be an advanced, self-aware mind with a complex eye as found in a mammal or a cephalopod? What about a single-celled organelle in plankton which can observe light and react? (https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/plankton-s-eye-made-up-of-organelles-study-suggests-1.3136018 https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/plankton-s-eye-made-up-of...) I think you're proposing that this is sufficient. And what is special about just the visible spectrum of energy? What about radio waves? Does my Sony Walkman or a cat-whisker radio collapse the quanta? What about Infrared? etc? Do the leaves of a houseplant perform this act? What about physical vibration? Does a seismometer or accelerometer perform this quantum task? >>consciousness is better defined as something that is capable of updating its state as a result of observation This is extraordinarily broad. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle would then seem to illustrate that every subatomic particle is conscious. This seems a most unsatisfactory conclusion.

x0n 7y ago
I'll not address your points individually, but instead deal with your final notes. Yes, I believe that every quantum entity may observe and cause wave function collapse _in their subjective view of the universe_. It's easy to believe everything is objectively real whether observed or not because our local views - when compared - are highly correlated/decohered. If you find yourself talking about what it means to observe by breaking down how the eye works, then you're aligned with Wigner's thoughts on it. I am not; an observation in my world is akin to an interaction with. It does not mean "awareness" in the sense that a brain might acknowledge something detected by the eye.

x0n 7y ago

I'll not address your points individually, but instead deal with your final notes. Yes, I believe that every quantum entity may observe and cause wave function collapse _in their subjective view of the universe_. It's easy to believe everything is objectively real whether observed or not because our local views - when compared - are highly correlated/decohered. If you find yourself talking about what it means to observe by breaking down how the eye works, then you're aligned with Wigner's thoughts on it. I am not; an observation in my world is akin to an interaction with. It does not mean "awareness" in the sense that a brain might acknowledge something detected by the eye.