It is time for another quasi-educational rant!

Hello loyal viewers! It is time for another quasi-educational rant! This one will be about the quantum enigma.

For everyone who does not know the puzzle that is quantum mechanics, you must read: The Quantum Enigma by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner. I promise that it is not a difficult or dry book. It was written for the intelligent non-physicist who wants to understand a little bit of the weirdness.

Okay. So Newton gave us Classical Physics. Classical Physics is very pretty. It is neat, tidy, and ordered. It gives us the understanding that there are objective facts and empirical laws that determine the way things are. Math is derived from these laws. Physics is derived from math. Chemistry is derived from Physics. Biology is derived from Chemistry. Psychology is derived from Biology. Basically, it is a big pyramid scheme of derivation, and LAWS and FACTS that are objective govern the universe.

Then, one day (well... series of days. Or years.) some physicists realized that classical physics did not really explain uncertainty principles and all the weirdness that is sub atomic particles. However, when they took the view that atoms ( which make up everything) exist at several states, AT THE SAME TIME and then collapse into a certain state or another, everything was magical and worked out.

As everything was magical and quantum physics was okey-dokey for practical applications, people decided not to think of the implications. Implications are scary.

BUT, some people* will stare the universe and go, "Why is this the case? What is going on? WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS?" The other physics people did not like these people. They wanted to USE the quantum physics (without even buying dinner first) but keep the LAWS given by Classical Physics.

Because you know what? Something has to collapse the atoms into one state or another and, as far as we can tell, observation is what does this. To make things even weirder, observation seems to act ACROSS TIME. We can also set up an experiment to show what we want to see. This means that I can set up an experiment to see light as a wave. I will then observe light to be a wave. My observation will reach BACKWARDS across time and space, making it so that the light I was observing was always a wave.

But who can make observations? Some physicists say machines can. But many insist that only a conscious observer (a human) can make the observations.

This means that human consciousness is what collapses atoms into a certain state, and reaches backwards across time so that they were always in this certain state. Atoms make up everything. This implies that consciousness, NOT THE LAWS given to us by classical physics is what creates the universe.

Now can you see the issue? This puts humans at the center of the universe again. Everything exists and has existed as it does due to our observation of it. Without the conscious observation of us humans, everything exists in multiple uncollapsed states. Instead of facts and laws being at the base of the pyramid, we have consciousness.

OMG. This is amazing! This means that the dinosaurs existed because I made them exist! My conscious observation collapsed the atoms that made up their skeletons into skeletons and reached BACKWARDS ACROSS TIME to create them! I am the queen of the velociraptors and all other dinosaurs!

I hope that you are all thoroughly confused by my immature treatment of this perplexing and awesome puzzle and will read the book I mentioned at the beginning of the blog post to get more clarification! I promise to not try to be educational again for at least another five posts.

ModernHelen


* I am one of those people. That is why I will be a philosopher. A philosopher's job is to stare the universe until something stares back. Or until he is killed by the Athenians. Whatever happens first.