What is it that we can know or have learned about actual reality according to quantum mechanics???

How are all possible answers an answer????

I would have to say that the main thing we have learned is that the world is not as it seems to our everyday experience. On the quantum level the rules of physics change. They simply aren't the same as we are used to in the everyday world that we experience. This is the main thing that we have learned. The universe is not Newtonian in it's fundamental nature.

What do we actually know about the quantum world?

To begin with let me quite Richard Feynman who was a leading scientist in Quantum Electrodynamics (QED).

"I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, 'But how can it be like that?' because you will go 'down the drain' into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that." - Dr. Richard P. Feynman

So right off the bat you need to understand that no one knows why it is the way it is, all we can know is how it is. But we can't explain why it is that way.

On a personal note, let me share a few things with you right off the bat.

One reason we can't explain it, is because we can't do it using ideas that seem intuitively correct to us. But hose ideas may be wrong.

For example, we love 'cause and effect'. We can't imagine a sensible world that is not drive by 'cause and effect', yet to explain Quantum Mechanics it appears that we must give up 'cause and effect'. Well from our point of view giving up 'cause and effect' is the same as saying Merlin the Magician is doing it. In other words, to give up the idea of 'cause and effect' seems to us to be no explanation at all. Yet it certainly seems that we must abandon the idea of 'cause and effect' on the quantum level.

Things in the quantum world appear to happen for no reason at all. Totally randomly! Except not exactly with total chaos. Allow me to explain,....



Because that's the way the universe works. It's like throwing dice. The outcome is totally random, but not totally chaotic. It's not that all possible answers are an answer. That's actually incorrect. It only seems that way.

It's not true that 'anything can happen' in quantum mechanics. It's much like rolling dice. In fact it's very similar. When you roll dice you might be tempted to say, "all possible answers are an answer", but that really isn't true. There are only certain numbers that can come up on the dice. For example, you can roll a 2 thru 12 or any whole number in between. But you can't roll less than a 2 or more than a 12, nor can you roll fractional numbers in between those extremes. Furthermore, there is a higher probability that you'll roll a 7 than a 2 or a 12, simply because there are more ways to get a 7 on a pair of dice than there are to get a 2 or a 12. So not only do you know what is possible, but you can even work out the probabilities of getting certain numbers. You can say with confidence that given enough rolls 7 will come up more often than 2 and so forth. In fact, you can work out the probability for all the numbers between 2 and 12. Then given enough rolls those probabilities will hold.

However, for any single roll of the dice you can't say diddy squat in terms of which of the possible numbers might come up. For a single solitary roll static are meaningless. If you had to bet your entire life on one roll of the dice you couldn't know which number to pick. You'd probably pick a 7 because you think it's most likely to come up, but you'd have no guarantee that it will come up.

This is the way it is in quantum mechanics. It's impossible to say precisely what will happen next. Precise science as we know it breaks down. The universe is a crap shoot.

That's what we know!. Why it is that way, we can't explain, and the brightest minds of humanity have been working on this problem for close to a century now! In fact, it has already been proven that no answer can be found that is consistent with our cherished notions of classical physics.

In other words, it's already been proven that we've got to give up some treasured notions. We simply cannot keep them all, and explain the behavior of the universe on the quantum level.

We must either give up 'cause and effect'. This is also known as the 'locality' problem. John Stewart Bell has shown that the universe is necessarily 'non-local'. This means that either 'cause and effect' has to go, or information can indeed travel faster than the speed of light (same difference). If information can travel faster than the speed of light, (i.e. instantaneously), then the idea of cause and effect goes out the window. The reason being simple. If there is no time delay between a cause and an effect then it's impossible to say which was the cause and which was the effect. If you can't say which is which then they can both be viewed as the cause, or both be viewed as the effect. In other words, it would be impossible to say which happened "first".

This brings us to our cherished notions of time. The very notion of before and after, or 'cause and effect' is entirely based on out cherish notion of past and future. So the other explanation is to give up the notion of time altogether. Everything is happening at once in 'reality' and our notion that there is a past and future it a mere illusion. Well, many people actually believe this. In fact, Einstein's Relativity pretty much confirms this and even shows how the illusion of time works to some degree. That illusion is dependent upon the concept of space. But space itself is dependent on time. They are inescapable linked. If you could be everywhere at once there's be no such thing a distance. The only thing that creates the illusion of distance is that fact that you can only be at one location at a 'time'. Time and space are necessary for each other to exist. One had no meaning without the other. They are two facets of the same fabric "spacetime". This is what Albert Einstein has shown us.

In fact, scientists have not yet to be able to make sense of General Relativity (GR)and Quantum Mechanics (QM) as a single seamless theory, and this is the reason. General Relativity demands that spacetime exists. Quantum Mechanics demands that it does not!

So far no one has been able to make any progress with this situation. String theory makes certain promises, but it's promises are empty IMHO. I'm not the only one who feels this way to be sure. There are many scientists who feel that String Theory is not as promising as String Theorists would like to believe. For one thing it says nothing about the 'collapse of the way function' in quantum mechanics. It just assumes that QM is true. And then it tries to spread the effects of QM out into the macro world by using strings to being QM into the realm of GR. I'm not impressed.

There is another possibility though that I have personally given much thought to, and that is that the problem doesn't lie in physics at all. It's not a problem for QM or GR. Where the real problem lies is in mathematics. I even have the answer! But I'm too lazy to write it up. (ha ha)

Just knowing the answer is enough for me. I don't think the rest of the world is ready for it anyway. They are too busy having religious wars in the Middle East. (ha ha)

Quantum Mechanics supposely explains how reality is shaped on a sub-atomic level and that nothing in the universe above that sub-atomic level exist as absolute truth ..

Quantum Mechaincs is not the answer to everything but only to that in this universe and suggest that the universe exist in a vacuum of energy that can be altered manipulated or cancel out which makes up the illusion we know as "reality"

For me, quantum theory is the scientific validation of my own personal beliefs. It simply says that all answers a possible, and that the "one answer" is what we choose/decide. That is, the act of choosing/deciding is what makes one of the possible answers into THE answer.

I think on a pure philosophical level this is precisely what QM is saying.

It's saying that physical reality is indeed a 'magical' illusion in that it's not what we had first imagined it to be. Life is not what meets the eye (or any of the senses for that matter).

The 'physical' universe does not exist. There is no such thing as 'physical material'. It's all done with waves. We're just ripples in a quantum pond in a timeless world that has been stretched out to appear to be temporal.

Like I've been telling you. We live in a holographic universe.

JB

Just a little nit-pick on “Quantum Mechanics supposely explains how reality is shaped on a sub-atomic level” – I think it shows THAT reality is shaped on a quantum level, not HOW. In my opinion, the HOW is through the process of choice/decision.

And on “We're just ripples in a quantum pond in a timeless world that has been stretched out to appear to be temporal.” In my opinion, “we” are not the ripples – we are what causes the ripples via the act of deciding/choosing.

Yes Jeannie, we know that, but that isn't satisfying for philosophers and scientists.

They want to know how the projector works and how it came to be.

You're happy with just being the projection!

And that's great!

That's how we enjoy life.

But one of the ways of enjoying life is through the mind. And inquiring minds want to know about the projector.

I'm reading a book by Alan Guth on the Inflationary model of the Big Bang. He's answering questions that science at one time thought were impossible to answer in any meaningful way. This isn't to imply that his answers are necessarily correct, but the important thing is that they appear to make sense.

In other words, it appears that "sensible answers" do exist for questions that were once thought to be unanswerable.

The same is true in the study of Dark Matter and Dark Energy. We are making headway in areas that were once thought to be impossible to make headway in.

Maybe it is possible to understand how the projector works after all!

We'll never know unless we think about these questions.

I think the LHC project will definitely be a move forward overall.

Some people say that it's a waste of money and resources. But humanity isn't working to better the world anyway, so what else would we spend the money on. Wars?

I'm mean if people were truly working to make the world a better place then maybe the money could be better spent.

But it just doesn't appear that anyone is interested in making the world a better place. They'd all rather argue and fight about converting everyone to their religious belief system.

I agree it doesn't really say HOW, other than to suggest that it appears to be random (and based on very stable and predicable probabilities).

You say that, in your opinion, the HOW is through the process of choice.

It's possible that this could be the case, but I would argue that the evidence is against this.

Why?

Because even though quantum events appear to be 'random', they still appear to adhere to the laws of probablity. Like dice!

In other word, if I roll dice for you and you CHOOSE the outcome. Your choice is not going to affect the outcome. By this I mean, let's say you choose to always pick a 7 every time. That CHOICE isn't going to change the probabilities of the numbers that come up on the dice.

The idea that your choices in life are changing the quantum probabilities has not be shown to be true. And as far as I know there is no reason to believe that your choices would change the probability of quantum outcomes.

So I personally don't believe that an 'observation-created' universe necessarily has any scientific merit.

That's clearly open to debate and can be quite controversial.

But to claim that we can change the outcome by mere choice is to claim that we can change the quantum probabilites (which hasn't been indicated by science as even being possible).



Yes I have to agree with you here. I tend to think that we are what causes hte ripples too.

But I can't say that for sure. Thus I must remain "agnostic" on this issue.

For me that's still a huge unanswered question.

Are we merely the form? The ripples? (atheism)

Or are we the thing that is taking the form? The thing that is causing the ripples? (spiritual theism)

I haven't yet decided which is more likely.

I'd like to believe the latter, but I can't rule out the former.

In my opinion, "self" is the projector. (Which I believe it Jeannie's view also.) But that's not indended to be a hard-line solipsistic stand either. There's no reason to exclude other projectors from the equation. That is, there's no reason that two projectors can't agree to project the same thing. And THAT, in my opinion, is what "realty" is - the mutually agreed upon projection

That's an interesting thought too.

If we stop and think about it, the idea of a monotheistic god-like entity is strange. If there can be one such entity, then why not two? Why not infinitely many?

But then we come to the question of what divides them? What would make them separate or 'individual'?

This actually may be answered in mathematics! But not by our currently accepted mathematical formalism which is actually wrong.

In 'true mathematics' it may actually make sense why their can only be one "god" one entity. There's simply no way to 'divide it up' other than by creating a physical illusion of division!

Maybe solipsism has more validity than we'd like to believe! If there is only One God, that God would be a solipsitic God!

Before it created anything it would have been the only thing that existed.

Therefore everything that it creates is of itself.

How could it possibly create something other than itself if it is all that exists?

That would me that we are it.

This is what pantheism is saying.

This is what Christians vomit at.

They'd rather believe that we are pets of an angry God that we have grossly displeased than to believe that we are all one.

They hate their neighbors so much that the thought they are their neighbors makes them puke.

For me, the simple answer to that is “the ability to make ‘separate’ or ‘individual’ choices/ decisions.” (Although multiple entities may decide to project the same realities, the choice/decision to agree on what to project is still an individual choice/decision.)

If each one is but “part of a whole”, then the whole argument comes full circle right back to , the “monotheistic god” concept – only now with a “cosmic multiple personality disorder”.

Yes exactly. "SELF" is the projector. Yes we are all connected and we are all one.

So what causes it to seem that we are individuals? -- Because self is divided and creation and observation is delegated to these divided parts.

We are the eyes of infinity.

We are individual thinking data centers within other individual thinking data centers.

We are self.

I am that, you are that, this is that, and that's all there is.

I AM.

We Are.

God is us.

JB

Personally, I see that explanation as being just as difficult to justify as the Christian Trinity.

To me, the key question is "WHY would this "all" want to divide itself?" Simply to play a cosmic game of solitaire? Is the whole of reality simply god playing with himself? (pun intended)

Doesn't make much sense to me.

Why do cells divide? To expand and grow.

The division is not a division of self. Everything is still connected. But individuality of thought and person is necessary to expand in different directions. If everyone thought the same, we would be more like one mind, more like the idea of the BORG.

We are Borg.

It has to do with point of view, preferences and choice. In order to expand there must be many points of view, preferences and choice along with a creative faculty.

This is necessary for expansion and creation of new and different things.

It also has to do with the ordering and processing of information and idea.

It is necessary to allow the development of individual points of view and they must be free to choose different things and have different ideas and preferences in order to expand and grow. It is a delegation of creativity.

It seems very logical and necessary to me. A cell divides in order to grow an organism. Self divides in order to grow also.

JB

I just don't see any reason why self has to "divide" in order to take on different viewpoints. Unless you're saying that "the taking on of different viewpoints" IS "self dividing", in which case we're not really talking about the same thing when using the word "self". To me, there is only one "self". Anything else is "not self".

Well, what's the ulternative?

That some all-perfect supreme being created us as eternal pathetically inferior beings to be it's pets and worship it?

That's even sicker than playing with itself IMHO.

Another possiblity is that we are all equalitarian spirits who enjoy coming into incarnations just like we as humans enjoy going to a movie.

Why not?

Then all life would be is an interactive movie where the exit doors have been hidden from us (disguised as death).

It seems to me that the idea that we are all egalitarian spirits is certainly nicer than the idea that we are all pathetically inept inferior beings to some supreme deity that's hung up on being worshiped. That's like something straight out of Freddy's Nightmares.

And the other thing that we truly aren't facing is the possiblity that atheism is true!

There's nothing to it!

We truly are just the ripples and that's that. When the ripples are gone so are we!

It was all for naught. We just wanted it to be something more than it truly was.

I can't seriously rule out that possiblity.

The main thing that bothers me about a 'spirit' world. Is that if such a thing exists then it seems to me there would be some way to contact it, or intervention would be a more likely event than it actually seems to be.

I mean, if we are spirit beings who have decided to blind ourselves to our true essence in a hallucination, we did a damn good job of it! I got to hand it to us for that one.

Yes I guess I am saying that taking on different view points is self dividing.

Self divided into separate points of view, so obviously there must be a reason for it.

Unless you can claim to have my point of view, then there is more than one "individual" and those individuals each have a personal unique point of view.

The one self is divided into many individuals with uniques points of view. I don't think you can deny this.

You don't have my point of view and you don't see through my eyes and you have not experienced what I have experienced and until we are joined together in the great nirvana beyond this reality, you will appear to be separate from me, and you will continue to hold separate opinion, preferences, beliefs, likes, dislikes, interests, etc.

We are connected and are part of the one self but we are individual points of veiw with our own memories, experiences, opinions etc.

If self has not divided into separate points of observation and experience, then you would be saying "We are borg." instead of "I am."

JB

PS.

I also believe that these separate individuals will maintain their individuality for the most part, unless they agree to melt into another part of them selves on a more permanent basis. (I have many parts to my personal psyche and I see them as different individuals or points of view.)

I absolutely agree with that. But I don't think that's necessarily "bad". No more "bad" than deciding not to touch the ball with your hands while playing soccer. It's just one of the "rules of the game" that was agreed to by everyone playing it. The rule is simply that you have a score of zero when you start the game.

Ok, well it sounds like you are defining "self" as something like "an agregate of experiences", which is completely different from what I define as "self". To me, "self" is "the thing that does the experiencing", not "the sum of the experiences". In other words, "self" is separate from the experinces. It HAS experiences, but it is not those experiences. Just as it HAS a body and a mind and viewpoints, but it is not the body or the mind or the viewpoints.