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No interpretation of quantum physics proposed by scientists ever required a conscious observer, that's more of a misinterpretation of what an observer is. It's

No interpretation of quantum physics proposed by scientists ever required a conscious observer, that's more of a misinterpretation of what an observer is. It's an interaction, not a person or animal. As for the theory of consciousness, of course we are not special, it's information-processing, and it looks like thermodynamics is responsible for the emergence of information-processing structures. https://arxiv.org/abs/1203.3271 https://arxiv.org/abs/1203.3271

snowwrestler 4y ago
A mental trick that helped me understand the concept of “an observer” in particle physics is to imagine it like playing billiards in a pitch black room. In normal human-scale billiards, there are immense numbers of photons flying around bouncing off everything. The photon interactions are far too small to affect the path of a moving billiard ball, but we can detect them easily with our eyes. So we can use photons to passively observe the balls rolling around. But when you’re trying to observe a photon itself… there are no tiny photon-equivalents flying around. It’s like playing billiards in pitch black: the only way to know which direction a ball is rolling is to touch it. And you can’t touch a rolling billiard ball without changing its path somehow. Likewise, you can’t “observe” a single photon without interacting with it in some way.
- JackFr 4y ago
  I know all analogies are imperfect, but that is a really great one. It really captures the problem of observing so elegantly.
- Dx5IQ 4y ago
  Observer effect while applicable is distinct from Quantum Weirdness aka Heisenberg Uncertainty
- Comevius 4y ago
  This is a great analogy, but also in experiments the presence or absence of the measuring device like a beamsplitter determines the outcome. The measuring device, the which-way detector is the observer, and it can be regarded as a quantum mechanical system. It's correlations with the rest of the system causes the particle behavior.
guerrilla 4y ago
> No interpretation of quantum physics proposed by scientists ever required a conscious observer, that's more of a misinterpretation of what an observer is. It's an interaction, not a person or animal. Are you saying that the Von Neumann–Wigner interpretation[1] does not explicitly postulate consciousness to be necessary for the completion of the process of quantum measurement? 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann%E2%80%93Wigner_interpretation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann%E2%80%93Wigner_int...
- Comevius 4y ago
  Those guys are excused, they were early on the floor, had no idea what's going on. They grew up believing that nature is deterministic, but quantum physics complicated that picture a great deal. I should've said no interpretation in the 21st century.
nemo44x 4y ago
> As for the theory of consciousness, of course we are not special, it's information-processing, and it looks like thermodynamics is responsible for the emergence of information-processing structures. That's a really interesting paper, thanks for that. It's also a bit depressing to consider that there's a good chance that everything we think that makes us special is really just an emergent property of a thermodynamics memory and prediction system.

snowwrestler 4y ago

A mental trick that helped me understand the concept of “an observer” in particle physics is to imagine it like playing billiards in a pitch black room. In normal human-scale billiards, there are immense numbers of photons flying around bouncing off everything. The photon interactions are far too small to affect the path of a moving billiard ball, but we can detect them easily with our eyes. So we can use photons to passively observe the balls rolling around. But when you’re trying to observe a photon itself… there are no tiny photon-equivalents flying around. It’s like playing billiards in pitch black: the only way to know which direction a ball is rolling is to touch it. And you can’t touch a rolling billiard ball without changing its path somehow. Likewise, you can’t “observe” a single photon without interacting with it in some way.

JackFr 4y ago
I know all analogies are imperfect, but that is a really great one. It really captures the problem of observing so elegantly.
Dx5IQ 4y ago
Observer effect while applicable is distinct from Quantum Weirdness aka Heisenberg Uncertainty
Comevius 4y ago
This is a great analogy, but also in experiments the presence or absence of the measuring device like a beamsplitter determines the outcome. The measuring device, the which-way detector is the observer, and it can be regarded as a quantum mechanical system. It's correlations with the rest of the system causes the particle behavior.

guerrilla 4y ago

> No interpretation of quantum physics proposed by scientists ever required a conscious observer, that's more of a misinterpretation of what an observer is. It's an interaction, not a person or animal. Are you saying that the Von Neumann–Wigner interpretation[1] does not explicitly postulate consciousness to be necessary for the completion of the process of quantum measurement? 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann%E2%80%93Wigner_interpretation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann%E2%80%93Wigner_int...

Comevius 4y ago
Those guys are excused, they were early on the floor, had no idea what's going on. They grew up believing that nature is deterministic, but quantum physics complicated that picture a great deal. I should've said no interpretation in the 21st century.

nemo44x 4y ago

> As for the theory of consciousness, of course we are not special, it's information-processing, and it looks like thermodynamics is responsible for the emergence of information-processing structures. That's a really interesting paper, thanks for that. It's also a bit depressing to consider that there's a good chance that everything we think that makes us special is really just an emergent property of a thermodynamics memory and prediction system.