Spirituality undefined and Science....
Spirituality is the mankind's quest to understand the underlying information behind the observable phenomena
And
"Quantum Mechanics is a technique to understand the underlying information behind observable phenomena."
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Excerpted from Spirituality Undefined Forum Topic (started by PuzzleSolver):
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Reply by John E. Mead yesterday to Captain Kumar
You did an excellent synthesis/summary sentence.
I need to reread Chapter 7 of the Gita.
Dr. Mermin never said it either <g> He has argued that QM talks about correlations (information between things) and can say nothing about what is being correlated (what particles are). So information is real, but particles we canot say anything about (from QM alone).
He said "Correlations are real, the Correlata are not"
i.e. the information is Known, and that is what the deeper study/interpretation of QM is really about.
In searching for Mermin's original quote I stumbled upon this paper:
"The Pondicherry interpretation of quantum mechanics,
Ulrich Mohrhoff, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry 605002, India"
The Pondicherry interpretation of quantum mechanics
(PDF) The Pondicherry interpretation of quantum mechanics
the author published the ideas in the American Journal of Physics (peer-reviewed). see
and
The whole discussions of these types of statements has been officially buried under the term "Counterfactual Definiteness." Scientists do this so they know exactly what a fuzzy idea covers. The idea itself is still fuzzy, kind of.
Wikipedia is a good place to start.
see:
Wiki Interpretations of quantum mechanics
For Counterfactual Definiteness see:
Wiki Counterfactual Definiteness
NOTE:
I have been accused of throwing these things out for dubious reasons. I explained to some people I put them in because I am trying to cover a wide range of possible readers for both now and in the future, It is supposed to cover people in various audiences:
1) The simplified gist of the article(s) exists in the first couple sentences/abstract and the last couple of sentences/conclusion. (for the major audience). The stuff I mention in posts is also mainstream physics.
2) the Intro Physics, or college Senior as well, may get interested in the topic and study some more physics.
3) the Intro Physics, or college senior as well, may understand better the subtleties in the article. It maintains the rigor of the post.
4) the reference for my thinking are well-documented for people down the road who stumble on the topic in Theosophy Network.
5) it may slowly permeate thinking and "offset" some of the junk-science thinking out there.
6) various other people whom I haven't realized exist or covered in the above.
just fyi
Reply by Capt. Kumar:
Amazing find! Thank You John.
Perhaps you will consider a separate discussion to explain the terms like 'universal wave function', 'counterfactual' etc. The wiki references are a little complicated for us.
The reason I find this amazing that while thinking about post-spirituality a couple of months ago the terms like potentialities, actualities etc. came to my mind too. I used the term virtualities as well and tried to make a super set containing all. Events then overtook and I have not been able to think along those lines for a while.
Perhaps it is not possible to figure out the true spirituality without a good background in Physics and Mathematics.
Reply by John Mead
As stated, QM violates Counterfactual definiteness. Only allowed correlations are Real.
from wiki on Counterfactual definiteness (two excerpts, examples given):
1) "A macroscopic example of CFD would be the assumption—without measurement—that a ball, thrown into the air, will return to the Earth due to gravity. CFD says that if a phenomenon (the return of an airborne ball to the Earth) has been reproducibly measured in the past, one can safely assume its presence in the future without having to refer to additional measurement events for proof of its existence."
and
2) "If the person has been made to stand then that person has no lap and neither of the statements "the person's lap is empty" nor "there is something on the person's lap" is true. Any statistical calculation based on values where the person is standing at some place in the room and simultaneously has a lap as if sitting would be meaningless.[CFD assumption]"
QM violates Counterfactual definiteness:
in case 1) you cannot assume the ball ever returned to earth. i.e. the assumption about reality made by you is meaningless. If QM says they are not correlated, they aren't. It says nothing else about what a ball is etc. not even if it exists/existed.
in case 2) You cannot assume anything about a "lap." If QM says they are not correlated, then both may be true. You can have a lap despite the fact you are standing.
Only direct correlations are known. An Observation is a direct correlation of a fact (something hit an inttrument e.g.). QM deals with correlations (information) only as Reality.
I can start a discussion in Science Group if people want. I have several examples there already posted. Otherwise, the above has the right idea.
I think the Emerald Tablet says you can go either route (below or above). They end up the same.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Capt. Anand Kumar on
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As one struggles to make sense of the Pondicherry Interpretation two questions keep cropping in the mind:
1. Is the Quantum Reality same as the Reality of traditional spirituality?
2. Is Quantum Reality Discrete or Analogue?
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ModeratorPermalink Reply by John on -
1) well, the whole paper is on Quantum Reality and if that even means anything. Mostly, he argues that everything is subjective not objective. So, that would probably put it closest to a spirituality framework, which we couldn't define either.
any part of the paper in particular?
I am not being rude here, just that the terms are all in discussion. literally.
2) both. mostly a continuum.
again it is a loaded question. it is like spinning a pointer around in a circle and asking what number to guess that it will land on. It lands on an exact number, but the possibilities are a continuous set. The probability of hitting a specific number is zero, or better said a meaningless question. this is not easy to express. If the pointer is a width of some measurable size, then you have a finite set of numbers in the wheel to select from. That makes it exact enough to answer those questions. ?? probably lost you.... ?? hard to describe without some pictures.
the above can be whole discussions by themselves as to what the meanings are. it is inherently tough.
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Many thanks John for those explanations.
1. Having no background in particle Physics the entire paper is out of the reach of the limits of my comprehension. However I had a nagging suspicion but could not put into words what you have described as "everything is subjective'. In that, yes it appears logical that the Quantum Reality is quite close to what we perceive as Spiritual Reality.
2. The second question was linked in a way that I thought if the Reality was analogue, it should conform to linearity. But if it was Discrete in any way then several possibilities open up. For example it it was analogue, then everyone should be able to see it in the same way and it may not be subjective.
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ModeratorPermalink Reply by John on -
after thinking about 2), I decided that the world behaves mostly in an analog way. Even the internals of a digital computer are analog.
>> " it it was analogue, then everyone should be able to see it in the same way and it may not be subjective"
that has confused me. I am not sure how you mean it. Even the interpretations of QM are thought to be subjective (In the Eyes of the Beholder). Also, the subjective nature would imply that some pieces may be always be seen as incomplete. The uncertainty principle has multiple ways to look at things. If you choose to assign a position, then the momentum is undefined (continuous set of possibilities) e.g. Another can view the momentum, and then the position is undefined. I am just throwing out questions... I think you have something more definite in mind.
also - continuous things are not always linear (Space-Time in relativity).
basically - I have confused myself. So which aspect were you concerned with...? if anything in particular.... I may be reading too much in this.
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Thanks John for taking the time to go so deeply into it. I am confused as well. And, no I do not have anything definite in mind as yet.
However there is an interesting paper as Arxiv.org that discusses it and concludes that Reality is both. Yet I am far from convinced as the author himself points out that while present contains information about the past, the past dos not contain information about the present. That asymmetry may point towards Reality being digital.
Or take an example of a gate device having eight gates, where the digital signals in the form of one and zero can exit through any of the gate as chosen by the driving software. If that choice is as wide (any of the eight, either in the form of one or zero) then can it be considered analogue? Once the signal exits the gate then its effect may appear as analogue, but that would not be the underlying Reality.
In short, in a Digital Reality, it is possible for the information to change form, and be unpredictable. Whereas in analogue Reality the information has to follow strict laws and be predictable. I thought understanding this distinction is the key to figuring out counterfactual.
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ModeratorPermalink Reply by John on -
it actually has nothing to do with analog vs digital.
(heuristic example)
counterfactual would be that if it was entering gate 1 a horizontal wave (0), it exits horizontal (0) at gate 1. similarly for the other gates. both are factual. QM takes the counterfactual result (same-in same-out) and violates it. It violates CFD. ie 0 FROM gate 1 does NOT mean 0 (or even 1) INTO gate 1.
in QM, you can EXIT gate one horizontal and it could have ENTERED ANY gate and may have been 0,1, or 1/2 upon ENTRY. The prior facts of experiences (probabilities) will not exist in reality anymore.
help?
counterfactual is a confusing term. make sure that is gotten right first (wiki? counterfactual). It has to do with applying logical facts in their logical (and true) negative. "IF A THEN B" versus "IF NOT B THEN NOT A". the statements are the same, just written counterfactually.
The counterfactual assumption is VIOLATED in QM.
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