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"Observer" notion from physics (does not matter if we are talking about neutonian or QM or whatever) have nothing to do with consciousness. "Observer" in physic
by Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
"Observer" notion from physics (does not matter if we are talking about neutonian or QM or whatever) have nothing to do with consciousness. "Observer" in physics is just a description of a certain point of view within the system. The connection of that to consciousness is usually done by popular quasi-philosophy books loosely based on physics and using some of the same terms, they do not come from the physics itself.
- Causality1 7y agoCorrect. "Observer" is just shorthand for "probability collapsing interaction".
- erikpukinskis 7y agoSaying there is no connection is an unfalsifiable claim, so you’ve departed the realm of science with that one.
- Erlich_Bachman 7y agoWhat I mean is, physics makes no claims about any such connection. I could have been more clear. People are free to explore any connection or lack thereof, but there isn't any claims to that coming from mainstream physics.
- erikpukinskis 7y agoHave you done a literature review? Have you searched for quantum effects and cognition in the literature?
- Erlich_Bachman 7y agoWell yeah, hence my statement. The word "observer" when used in physics usually refers to the instrumental measurement process, not to perception by a consciousness/human. There are of course outliers, scientists that will make the draw, but they are in a miniscule minority. There are also thought experiments that are common that will talk about this, but they almost always used in order to actually demonstrate the non-fitness of this line of reasoning for physical sciences. The people who make these claims are usually woo-woo writers who make money by writing popular culture books related to a subset of quantum mechanics phenomena and to a limited understanding thereof. This shouldn't be too hard to see either when you understand that consciousness is not well-defined yet by mainstream science, and so why would it study it using the well-defined methods like physics? That if anything would lead to unfalsifiable hypotheses, and mainstream physics luckily doesn't indulge in that so often.