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Codswallop, you've not only not done so, you've made no serious attempt to do so.
Refute the science if you can.
Fact: In the experiment in question, electrons behave in a manner inconsistent with the theory that they are matter. Quite the opposite, they behave in a manner consistent with the theory that they don't exist as physical matter unless and until observed.
Young's experiment is a demonstration that matter and energy can display characteristics of both waves and particles, not that the results are inconsistant with the theory that they are matter. There are three different interpretations of the experiment, none of which posit that that electrons do not have characteristics of particles of matter.
Young's experiment is a demonstration that matter and energy can display characteristics of both waves and particles, not that the results are inconsistant with the theory that they are matter.
Except the idea of matter behaving as both waves and particles is contradictory. Waves are waves, matter is matter. Paradoxical even. One of these things is not like the other.
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There are three different interpretations of the experiment, none of which posit that that electrons do not have characteristics of particles of matter.
Perhaps you should read (or comprehend) the things you would like to use to refute my point before you use them, especially when they actually reinforce it.
The Copenhagen Interpretation
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The probability "wave" can be said to "pass through space" because the probability values that one can compute from its mathematical representation are dependent on time. One cannot speak of the location of any particle such as a photon between the time it is emitted and the time it is detected simply because in order to say that something is located somewhere at a certain time one has to detect it.
OK, so they didn't say, in so many words, that the particles don't physically exist between being "shot" and observed, nonetheless their conclusion is that it has to be detected in order to know where it is. That is more in line with my hypothesis than yours.
The Path-Integral formulation merely describes the probabilities mathematically, and is not germane.
Finally, the relational interpretation.
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According to the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics, first proposed by Carlo Rovelli, [30] observations such as those in the double-slit experiment result specifically from the interaction between the observer and the object being observed, not any absolute property possessed by the object. In the case of an electron, if it is initially observed at a particular slit, then the observer/particle interaction includes information about the electron's position. This partially constrains the particle's eventual location at the screen. If it is observed not at a particular slit but rather at the screen, then there is no "which path" information as part of the interaction, so the electron's observed position on the screen is determined strictly by its probability function. This makes the resulting pattern on the screen the same as if each individual electron had passed through both slits.
Once again, without actually positing the particle ceases to exist as a particle, this explanation supports my theory, including the fact that an observer, or lack thereof, determines the outcome.
With a piece of matter that exists objectively, the observer makes no difference.
You're so caught up thinking I'm nuts that you're not really analyzing the data. Every bit of it supports my hypothesis.
Except the idea of matter behaving as both waves and particles is contradictory. Waves are waves, matter is matter. Paradoxical even. One of these things is not like the other.
Perhaps you should read (or comprehend) the things you would like to use to refute my point before you use them, especially when they actually reinforce it.
The Copenhagen Interpretation
OK, so they didn't say, in so many words, that the particles don't physically exist between being "shot" and observed, nonetheless their conclusion is that it has to be detected in order to know where it is. That is more in line with my hypothesis than yours.
The Path-Integral formulation merely describes the probabilities mathematically, and is not germane.
Finally, the relational interpretation.
Once again, without actually positing the particle ceases to exist as a particle, this explanation supports my theory, including the fact that an observer, or lack thereof, determines the outcome.
With a piece of matter that exists objectively, the observer makes no difference.
You're so caught up thinking I'm nuts that you're not really analyzing the data. Every bit of it supports my hypothesis.
Nowhere in our discussion did I suggest that you are nuts. What I am suggesting is that you are conflating the data to fit your preconceived notion that everything is about us, when it isn't.
Your hypothesis is that matter doesn't exist unless and/or until we detect it. And that is not what Young's double slit experiment says. Just because we don't know where it is until we detect it doesn't mean that it didn't exist before we detected it. The answer to the double slit experiment is that electrons have characteristics of both a wave and a particle. Period. It is what it is.
I highly recommend you watch this video lecture by Lawrence Krauss:
Just because we don't know where it is until we detect it doesn't mean that it didn't exist before we detected it. The answer to the double slit experiment is that electrons have characteristics of both a wave and a particle.
At the risk of being repetitive, a physical particle cannot exist in two places at once, ergo a double slit experiment done with singly emmited electrons (matter) cannot produce an interference pattern.
Except that it does.
That said, I'll make an effort to view the video you suggested, though at best it will be tomorrow.
At the risk of being repetitive, a physical particle cannot exist in two places at once, ergo a double slit experiment done with singly emmited electrons (matter) cannot produce an interference pattern.
Except that it does.
That said, I'll make an effort to view the video you suggested, though at best it will be tomorrow.
The problem with your hypothesis is that you are assuming that the action of our waiting at the slit generates the particle. You can wait ther3e all day and it won't appear until you turn on the electron gun that generates the electron. If we were the ones generating the electrons, we wouldn't need the electron gun at all.
If we take Shrodingers equation at face value it tells us that a probability wave exists that travels through both slits, interferes with itself and then collapses to a point when the particle is detected at the screen. Observing the electron at the slit, causes the probability wave to collapse at the slit, thus eliminating the wave interference after the slit.
In effect this experiment tells us that Shrodinger's probability wave equation may be more than simply a measure of our uncertainty about a particle's postion but it may in fact reflect the physical manifestation of that particle during the period prior to the particle's detection.
Last edited by orogenicman; 09-28-2011 at 09:30 PM..
If we take Shrodingers equation at face value it tells us that a probability wave exists that travels through both slits, interferes with itself and then collapses to a point when the particle is detected at the screen. Observing the electron at the slit, causes the probability wave to collapse at the slit, thus eliminating the wave interference after the slit.
OK. But in an objective reality where matter exists whether or not it's being observed, probability waves don't. Electrons that exist as matter are incapable of creating an interference pattern. Matter cannot pass through both slits. It goes through one or the other whether we watch or not. The fact that it does, in reality, go through both means it doesn't exist as matter.
It's not a choice based belief, rather it's based on evidence, specifically the results of the double slit experiment, as well as the existence of a frame rate in the universe. (Google 'Planck time' for more on that.)
As for the DS experiment, the results indicate that matter doesn't exist until observed (measured). That stuff is only stuff when under observation (by a consciousness) means stuff isn't real stuff at all! Thus, when the tree falls and nobody is around to hear it, not only does it not make a sound, it didn't even actually fall, it just probably fell, and will be rendered as though it fell the next time an observer comes along.
That's not what the results indicate at all. What they indicate is something very characteristic of ELECTRONS.
Plus, if matter doesn't exist until observed, how on looney-ville did the first observer come about: to observe something observing? obviously, this "first observer" can't exist, unless it is observed. What then? exception? I'm quite sure we use matter to observe matter, and that the Earth is "aware" of the Moon's presence, after all, mindless inobservant oceans react to it. What the DS experiment tells us is that Feynman and Schrodinger's math was right about path integral formulations.
OK. But in an objective reality where matter exists whether or not it's being observed, probability waves don't. Electrons that exist as matter are incapable of creating an interference pattern. Matter cannot pass through both slits. It goes through one or the other whether we watch or not. The fact that it does, in reality, go through both means it doesn't exist as matter.
What? Probability Waves are flows of electrical energy that oscillate in such a way that they don't manifest a definite result in a given time period; rather they create a pattern over the course of a given time period. As such, they certainly do exist in reality. What you can't seem to grasp is that the electron has two properties, that of a wave, and that of a particle. These characteristics co-exist as part and partial of the same phenomenon whether or not we shoot them through two slits.
You'll get little argument from me on most points here, though I do believe there is an underlying design designed to create life (as we know it). If it is a simulation, as it appears to be, an underlying design is downright required. "Someone" had to program the thing.
I see no reason at all to assume there is a design, or a simulation. These are the very kinds of attributes I am talking about. We are agreed there is a lot that is unknown. We have no basis for attributing characteristics like design and simulation to that unknown.
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Originally Posted by DentalFloss
Each regression back eventually leads to an uncaused cause
Not really because you are insisting on applying temporal thinking to a non-temporal state. Time, and hence causality, was an attribute that came into being with the "big bang" expansion event. Therefore whatever discussion we have of the singularity "before" that event has to be devoid of the language of temporality.
Alas however not only our language, but our brains, are not equipped to imagine a timeless state of affairs which is one of the problems of explaining the origin of the singularity itself and why it moved from one state to another. Our best minds are working on it and I look forward to the results. In the interim however talking about "causes" and "miracles" is unhelpful and simply erroneous.
I have no idea what the answer will look like or how it will be described when we find it. I do not even know what language it will need to be described in. The only language we have that is sufficiently denuded of reliance on time is Mathematics. I trust whatever solution we discover will therefore be expressed in that language or one similar.
The main point however is that for now we simply do not know. Therefore pretending to know, or arbitrarily assigning characteristics to is like intent, design, simulation and more are just the work of fantasy. Nothing wrong with fantasy of course, once one is clear that is what it is.
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