Electron Shells

@Suzianne said
No.

Google it some time.

Instead of depending on a third-grade treatise on Heisenberg.

The idiot's reply. Google it so I don't have to prove anything response.
It is the idiot's go to response.

@Metal-Brain said
The idiot's reply. Google it so I don't have to prove anything response.
It is the idiot's go to response.

Actually, no. It's the response to people who should just shut up and learn something instead of relying on non-facts.

@Metal-Brain said
" It won't "make up its mind" where it wants to be until it is observed"

What you call an observation is an interaction. And I thought the observation is what causes the uncertainty and not make up it's mind where it wants to be. That is why it causes wave patterns. Right?

If the interaction is between two particles with wave particle duality shouldn't we expect a wave pattern to emerge?

Yes, observations are a type of interaction, inevitably. But to make an observation requires a conscious agent, otherwise what's doing the "observing"? In any case, observations of quantum phenomena introduce uncertainties in and of themselves, just because one can only "zoom in" with a microscope so much. The act of observing necessarily affects the state of the thing being observed. Such uncertainties are epistemic in nature, which is to say they reflect the limitations of what we can observe using our senses and instrumentation.

However, even if we could magically observe things with perfect precision without affecting the things observed, uncertainties would remain. This is because quantum mechanics has ontic uncertainties built right into it. These uncertainties reflect something inherent in nature quite apart from observers and interactions. The wave function of a quantum system is an intrinsically probabilistic description of the system, and that's precisely because the system's behavior is intrinsically probabilistic. That is, the system is not deterministic by nature, and not because of the limitations of our measuring devices.

Now, you could dispute this, but it is what quantum theory as its usually interpreted says. There are some, like Roger Penrose, who say quantum theory is incomplete, and we're missing something. There's always that chance.

In my opinion what quantum theory is trying to tell us is that reality is not objective, but subjective. That a quantum particle literally "does not know for sure" what it's going to do from moment to moment should have been the death blow to the physicalist metaphysical religion a century ago, but like most religions physicalism dies hard, and the faithful have been busily redefining what it means for something to be "physical" ever since, so as to avoid facing up to the strong suggestion by nature that reality is, at its foundation, more amenable to an idealist metaphysics.

I happen to believe reality is mental, not physical, and the universe is a mental construction that to our senses "seems solid." Existence is experience, and experience happens only in consciousness. What the universe is, most likely, is a sort of "consensus reality" that emerges from the experiences of conscious agents that are all grounded in a unitary, universal field of consciousness.

Wouldn't it be weird that existence can only exist, and a reality could only become real, because of some arbitrary zoo of subatomic particles or fields that just happen to be lying around? I mean, for such things to be lying around at all would suggest that space and time also just happen to be lying around---but lying around where? And when? And then, weirder still, these mindless particles can assemble in certain arrangements that then possess awareness? Wouldn't it be simpler, really, to suppose that consciousness itself---experience---is at the bottom of it all, and that consciousness can differentiate and become structured to allow for more sophisticated forms of cogitation?

I tell you, man, physicalism is a frickin' weird witches' brew. It limps along to this day because it was beaten by the Church as a child, and now people don't introspect on the strangeness and mystery of their own introspection. The current disregard for philosophy does great detriment to science.

@Soothfast said
Yes, observations are a type of interaction, inevitably. But to make an observation requires a conscious agent, otherwise what's doing the "observing"? In any case, observations of quantum phenomena introduce uncertainties in and of themselves, just because one can only "zoom in" with a microscope so much. The act of observing necessarily affects the state of the thing bein ...[text shortened]... ry of their own introspection. The current disregard for philosophy does great detriment to science.

"But to make an observation requires a conscious agent, otherwise what's doing the "observing"?

I reject that. You could build a robot to do the observing and it would not be a conscious agent. The uncertainty would still exist. The interaction is between 2 wave functions so a wave pattern is not surprising. Water waves can cause a wave pattern if there are two waves in the same pool of water.

It is an interaction. Not a true observation since you cannot see what is hitting an electron. You cannot see the electron either. You require instruments to detect it. It really has nothing to do with a conscious mind.

@Suzianne said
Actually, no. It's the response to people who should just shut up and learn something instead of relying on non-facts.

Prove it. Stop telling people to prove it themselves.

It is like saying bigfoot exists. I say bigfoot does not exist and you say google it. Makes no sense at all.

Prove it. Provide your source of info. If you cannot you have failed.

@Metal-Brain said
Prove it. Stop telling people to prove it themselves.

It is like saying bigfoot exists. I say bigfoot does not exist and you say google it. Makes no sense at all.

Prove it. Provide your source of info. If you cannot you have failed.

No one here is as big a failure as you. No one listens to you any more, except people like me who eventually get fed up with the stupid.

@Metal-Brain said
"But to make an observation requires a conscious agent, otherwise what's doing the "observing"?

I reject that. You could build a robot to do the observing and it would not be a conscious agent. The uncertainty would still exist. The interaction is between 2 wave functions so a wave pattern is not surprising. Water waves can cause a wave pattern if there are two waves i ...[text shortened]... ron either. You require instruments to detect it. It really has nothing to do with a conscious mind.

Nope.

@Metal-Brain said
"But to make an observation requires a conscious agent, otherwise what's doing the "observing"?

I reject that. You could build a robot to do the observing and it would not be a conscious agent. The uncertainty would still exist. The interaction is between 2 wave functions so a wave pattern is not surprising. Water waves can cause a wave pattern if there are two waves i ...[text shortened]... ron either. You require instruments to detect it. It really has nothing to do with a conscious mind.

Why throw a robot into the mix? A measuring device by itself would suffice.

I'll freely admit that I use the term "observation" differently than most (though not all) physicists. Most days I'm comfortable with going with the flow and taking "observation" as being synonymous with "measurement" or even "interaction" when talking physics, but when things get metaphysical I insist on taking an observation as being a conscious act, otherwise the waters get quite muddy.

Your definition of an observation as being a literal "seeing" of something with your eyes, without the mediation of instruments, is problematic here. After all, your eyes are also "instruments." They have "screens"--the retinas--and photons impinging those screens generate electrochemical signals that course through the optic nerves to the visual cortex in the brain. Then and only then does some kind of image present itself in your conscious awareness, which one could call an "observation."

Presumably you still count looking at an amoeba in a microscope as a proper observation, even though the amoeba is too small to see without the microscope. If not, then what about someone who is nearsighted and can only see an acorn on a flagpole with the aid of glasses? Are they not "observing" the acorn, despite the use of an instrument to aid them?

@Metal-Brain said
"But to make an observation requires a conscious agent, otherwise what's doing the "observing"?

I reject that. You could build a robot to do the observing and it would not be a conscious agent. The uncertainty would still exist. The interaction is between 2 wave functions so a wave pattern is not surprising. Water waves can cause a wave pattern if there are two waves i ...[text shortened]... ron either. You require instruments to detect it. It really has nothing to do with a conscious mind.

Wave functions are tricky things. Only a proper quantum system can have a wave function, and identifying the boundaries of such a system is one of the big outstanding problems in physics. Absolutely any object X that influences the state of an object Y must belong to the same system as Y, in which case the states of X and Y are governed by the same wave function, and not two different ones. A quantum system is holistic, irreducible--meaning its properties as a whole cannot be derived from the properties of its parts.

What can happen is that you have two separate quantum systems, and they come to interact with one another. Then sure, the wave functions "interact" as well, like you say. The interference pattern on a screen in the double-slit experiment would be illustrative of this.

Of more interest, though, are the situations when the wave function "collapses." This is the "measurement problem." It seems to be a phenomenon that inextricably involves conscious observers, and that, to me, is where things get quite weird. But I think I'm digressing...

You said this earlier:

What you call an observation is an interaction. And I thought the observation is what causes the uncertainty and not make up it's mind where it wants to be. That is why it causes wave patterns. Right?

You might need to specify an example, or give some context. The screen in the double-slit experiment allows us to "observe" an interference pattern--what I assume you mean by "wave pattern." Do that fit your definition of an observation, by the way? Putting that aside, assume electrons are being shot through the double-slit. It's possible to detect which slit individual electrons go through, through a photon-mediated interaction. But doing that causes the interference pattern on the screen to not materialize, and instead two blobs result. It's as if the electrons were literally tiny billiard balls--classical objects, not quantum objects. This is an example of a collapsing of the wave function.

Clearly, interacting with the electrons at the double-slit, before they reach the screen, alters the game. The photons interacting with the electrons to enable the detection of which slit they go through are very tiny compared to the electron, and shouldn't drastically change the dynamic--or so classical physics and our intuition say.

It's as if the mere observation of which slit an electron has gone through "commits" it to a specific course. It's mind has been made up for it, just by being observed--and it is an observation, because the interaction in question informs the experimenter which slit the electron passed through. That's firm information there, or data. In science, data can only be collected through empirical observation.

This is where consciousness gets mucked up in the gears of quantum mechanics. Here's an interesting quote from the quantum physicist Wojciech Zurek (one of the "fathers" of decoherence theory):

An exhaustive answer to [the question of why we perceive a classical world instead of superposed potentialities] would undoubtedly have to involve a model of "consciousness," since what we are really asking concerns our impression [as observers] that "we are conscious" of just one of the [possible] alternatives.

The "classical world," to be clear, is the everyday, macroscopic world. The world of tables and chairs, it's often said.

What Zurek is touching on is the fact that everything we observe empirically is done so in consciousness, and so to explain why reality appears to behave the way it does must in some way or another involve an explanation of consciousness itself. Every empirical observation is a conscious experience, and consciousness is the only thing we have first-hand knowledge of. Everything else is an abstraction.

@Soothfast said
Wave functions are tricky things. Only a proper quantum system can have a wave function, and identifying the boundaries of such a system is one of the big outstanding problems in physics. Absolutely any object X that influences the state of an object Y must belong to the same system as Y, in which case the states of X and Y are governed by the same wave function, and not tw ...[text shortened]... consciousness is the only thing we have first-hand knowledge of. Everything else is an abstraction.

"It's mind has been made up for it, just by being observed--and it is an observation, because the interaction in question informs the experimenter which slit the electron passed through."

No, you have not proven that at all. Both electrons and photons have waves. The interaction is causing the uncertainty, not a conscious mind. The interaction does not require a conscious mind. As I said before you could program a robot do do the observing and a robot does not have a conscious mind.

You are not seeing the electron. You are detecting it by hitting the electron with a photon, so it isn't really an observation. It is a result of 2 waves interacting with each other. Drop 2 rocks into a pool of water and you will get a wave pattern there too when the waves interfere with each other.

This is usually where people argue that an interaction is an observation and it is not. It is not the same thing. You do not need a conscious mind to detect the results of the interactions. A robot can do that. Now what are you going to say? That a robot has a conscious mind because a conscious mind programed the robot?

This debate is getting silly. You are just repeating a myth from people who have poor critical thinking skills. Parroting people who don't understand the observation is really an interaction is failing you and others. Calling the interaction an observation is simply wrong. Physicists should stop calling it an observation and call it what it is, an interaction. That way we can do away with the falsehood that a conscious mind is required to detect the result of the double slit experiment.

@Soothfast said
Why throw a robot into the mix? A measuring device by itself would suffice.

I'll freely admit that I use the term "observation" differently than most (though not all) physicists. Most days I'm comfortable with going with the flow and taking "observation" as being synonymous with "measurement" or even "interaction" when talking physics, but when things get metaphysical I ...[text shortened]... he aid of glasses? Are they not "observing" the acorn, despite the use of an instrument to aid them?

"Why throw a robot into the mix? A measuring device by itself would suffice."

There you go. A measuring device does not have a conscious mind. You just proved yourself wrong. Why are you throwing a conscious mind into the mix?

@Metal-Brain said
"It's mind has been made up for it, just by being observed--and it is an observation, because the interaction in question informs the experimenter which slit the electron passed through."

No, you have not proven that at all. Both electrons and photons have waves. The interaction is causing the uncertainty, not a conscious mind. The interaction does not require a consci ...[text shortened]... the falsehood that a conscious mind is required to detect the result of the double slit experiment.

Don't conflate metaphysical propositions with scientific ones. Metaphysical models are not necessarily subject to verification by the methods of science. It may indeed be forever beyond the reach of science to definitively determine what role consciousness has in the workings of reality.

The reason why I nowadays frequently bring idealist metaphysics to science forums is because scientists and science enthusiasts bring their physicalist (a.k.a. materialist) metaphysics to science forums every minute of every day. There is no more scientific proof to back up physicalism that there is idealism.

I do not claim to have proven anything. I'm presenting alternative viewpoints that "flip the script" and, I hope, get people to question the received wisdom peddled by the scientific establishment that somehow these forms we see floating in our field of vision, and we experience exclusively in our consciousness, are without doubt representations of things existing apart and independent of consciousness. That's all there is to it.

If you want to debate physicalism versus idealism, I'll engage you as my time allows. But that's metaphysics, and not everyone is keen on discussing it. My wife, for instance.

@Metal-Brain said
"Why throw a robot into the mix? A measuring device by itself would suffice."

There you go. A measuring device does not have a conscious mind. You just proved yourself wrong. Why are you throwing a conscious mind into the mix?

There's some points I would like to make, but first I'd like you to do something. Could you please precisely define, in a single post (it can be brief) what your definition is for the following terms:

* Observation
* Measurement
* Interaction
* Detection

So, just a quick definition of each, followed maybe by a real simple example. I'll then use the words the way you do. We won't get anywhere if we aren't using a common vocabulary.

And to answer one of your questions, no, I do not take a robot to be conscious just because a conscious agent programmed it. Loosely speaking, to be conscious means to be innately capable of having experiences—felt experiences. To quote David Chalmers, an entity is conscious if there is "something it is like" to be that entity.