Is quantum bunk?

[Coelho]

ah wow so basically reality is subjective to our perceptions and we are nothing more than holographic programs with a pre-programmed perception of the world around us...

I dont know if the universe is a hologram, as some recent theories says, or if it isnt... BTW, there is a VERY subtle point about the theories of the universe, that i must explain now:

When scientists say "the universe is made of vibrating strings", or "the universe is a hologram", or whatever, it does NOT mean that the universe is actually made of strings, or that its a hologram... it means ONLY that the mathematical equations that best describe the observed behavior of the universe are the same mathematical equations that describe the behavior of vibrating strings, or holograms, or whatever.
But they think, in their madness, that "well, if the math is the same of vibrating strings, then the universe MUST be made of vibrating strings..." Damn it! They should know better...

Thats one of the reasons of the endless mystery of the lights behavior... they say "sometimes light is a particle, sometimes its a wave"... and they got very confused by this. But the fact is, light is not a particle, nor a wave. Light is something else, that sometimes behaves in a way that can be mathematically described the same way a wave can be described, and sometimes behaves in a way that can be mathematically described the same way a particle can be described.

Thus delving back into the tried and true thoughtological experiment: when you and i look at red, do we see the same color interpreted in our minds? i mean, we see the same color, but does it register the same in our perception of it.

if i were able to see through the perceptions of another person, filtered through my own perceptions, would all the colors of the universe be scrambled? would the pitches and tones of sounds be transposed? would the "speed" at which i perceive the universe be any faster or slower?

not that anyone could ever provide an answer, it's just something fun to think about.

Well... ive thought a lot about it myself, and have no idea about the answer.
In the sentence before you says "we are nothing more than holographic programs with a pre-programmed perception of the world around us", and its interesting to the point i will discuss.

I wouldnt say that our mind has a pre-programed program to percieve the world. I would say that our brains works by recognizing patterns and naming them.

For example, our eyes has 3 color receptors, which i will call them R,G and B, for red green and blue. (Actually, the receptors does not percieve exactly this colors... the "red" percieves yellow instead red, but its not important to the point). So, when we look at a blue thing, our eyes send the signal "color:B" to the brain, when we look at a yellow (red+green) thing the eyes send the signal "color:RG", and when we look at a white (sum of all colors) thing, the eyes send the signal "color:RGB".

Then, the brain gets this signals and give them "names", or rather, assigns sensations for each pattern of signals. So for the pattern RG is assigned the "name" yellow (the sensation of color yellow as we see it), and for the pattern RGB it assigns the name "white". But the fact is, when we look at the white color, we cant discern into it the blues, greens or reds that make it. We see the white as a different color, which doesnt resemble any colors of which its made of. And it happens exactly because we are not seeing the white as it is, a sum of all colors, but we are seeing ONLY the name, the "label", the pattern ("color:RGB") called white.

So in fact everything we percieve are not the things itselves as they are, but ONLY the names that our brain gives to them.
And this goes for anything we percieve. Since our birth, our brains are very busy searching for patterns, naming them, and thinking only in terms of the names of the patterns, instead the patterns itselves. So we end thinking that the names of the patterns are the things itselves, we think that "the map is the territory".

So, i think the "program" our minds use to percieve the universe are not the same for everybody, a thing hardwired in our brains, but a result of the accumulation of patterns percieved by each one, in terms of which the brain constructs its "map" of the world.

Many of our perceptions are shared by everyone, for example, everybody who sees will unavoidably classify the patterns of electric signals from the eye as colors, and so all we humans will have the concept of "colors", even if the way we see them inside our minds can be very different from one to another.

But many of our perceptions are very different, because most of the perceptions are socially induced. Children percieves a LOT of things adults does not, but during our raising the adults says us which percieved things are important (they say "real") and which percieved things are not important (they say "unreal") and must be ignored. So, when we become adults, we learned to percieve the world in the exactly same way that everybody else does, and so we think the world is "real", because all of us percieve it the same way. But the fact is that we only percieve it the same way because we learned (or rather we were forced) to percieve the world the same way they do.

A proof that the perceptions are socially induced is that there are primitive societies of indians (for example), who can usually see and interact with "spirits", that are completly invisible for us, "civilizated" ones. Everybody, when is a child, can percieve this "spirits". But in some societies (as ours) this perceptions are disregarded, and in others (theirs) they are reinforced. So, after years of this conditioning, we end being completly unable to see this "spirits", while they can.

ok so hold on... the cameras are not observers unto themselves, they have no perceptions, no awareness of what they are recording, so the real question, i guess, would be when would the particle "order" be jumpped into action? by watching the tapes, or by opening the box, or do the tapes, in fact, have the ability to observe and affect the particles instantly?

Well... the quantum mechanics says that even the tape would record the cat as being alive and dead "at the same time". But, the moment it were watched, the tape would suffer a "wavefunction collapse", which means it would have to choose a definite state to be. Like, the tape would have the record of the two possibilities, but when the first person watched it, it would choose only one state, and so the person would watch the cat as being alive or dead.

I think it's a virtually impossible task.

The "cat" would have to be in a perfect vaccum with no light, no radio waves, no neutrinos or other subatomic particles or waves of energy that can go through stuff. It would have to be totally isolated from everything.... even "dark matter".

Indeed... the cats experiment is only an illustration of the "absurdity " (or rather, conter-intuitiveness) of some quantum mechanics behaviors, and not a feasible experiment.
But the atoms indeed behave this way, and can be "alive" or "dead" at the "same time", until some measurement force them to choose only one single state to be at.

Cameras work by observing the interaction of energy bombarding and reflecting off of an object so that won't work. Would an emotionless person be any different than a camera? Oh yeah, and absolutely nobody can have any knowledge of it as it's taking place. It's a crazy theory but there's no way to really test it.

Plus if we could test it, once we start to observe the outcome it can instantly change and we won't know exactly how it was before we started to take a peek inside the box.

To disallow any interaction with it, or study it, would be the only way to preserve the quantum virginity of the experiment. Celibate blind faith in science. hahaha

Well... the interation itself does not destroy the alive-deadness of the cat... a camera would record a cat alive and dead at the same time, without any troubles... the camera and the tape wouldnt mind it... only when our conscious minds enters the system is that the system is forced to choose only one state to be at. Because is our consciousness that cant admit the possibility of a thing being in two states at the same time, and so it forces the thing to choose only one state.

It's like saying that dinosaur fossils do not exist until we dig them up.

or saying that Galaxy #127398127 didn't exist until our telescopes caught the light coming from it and THEN we looked at the pictures. Point to one spot in the sky and it might be empty. Point to another and discover a new galaxy, but the pictures collected didn't exist until we decided to look at it? I wouldn't believe that.

Well... it doesnt exist for us. But there may be other observers somewhere else that observed it, and noticed its existence.
BUT what if we humans were the only conscious observers of the universe? How would we be sure that the galaxy existed before if no one was there to observe it? We can assume that it existed, but its only an assumption, and not a sure thing.

You'll start to fall into madness if you go on to read about RetroPsychoKinesis. I have a hard time believing that stuff but I'm willing to experiment with it some day...

Its a nice thing, i already read about this... in an experiment, someone is asked to psychokinetically interfere with the generation of a sequence of random numbers, for example. Then they analise the numbers generated and see if the people succedeed in interfering it. Many people actually does.

Then, they did a weirder experiment. They generated a sequence of random numbers, recorded it somewhere (a tape, for example), and only AFTER the tape being recorded they asked the person to interfere with the random number generation. Of course they didnt tell the person the tape was already recorded, so the person thought it was interfering with a thing that would happen, instead a thing that already had happened.

And when they looked at the results... the person HAD suceeded in interfering with the random numbers generation, even if it happened BEFORE the person started to interfere... LOLOLOLOL!!!!!! I can only imagine the faces of the experimenters when did see this!!! LOLOLOL!!!!! They thought they were very smart trying to fool around with things they doesnt understand and that are far greater than they imagine... LOLOL!!!! :S2:

But for me it isnt a surprise. Time is only a human minds construct, and so it isnt hard to transcend it, if one knows how to do this.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy" :rastasmoke: