quantum mechanics: at another level (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, June 29, 2013, 08:26 (4167 days ago) @ David Turell

David has referred us to an article on quantum mechanics.-dhw: If I've understood this correctly, it means that quantum mechanics can only take on reality when it is within our own spacetime reality. Otherwise it remains an unreal potential. In that case, isn't it true that the theory does not describe "anything objectively real"? Besides, how can we ever know what is objectively real?-DAVID: Our biological capacities allow us to perceive the world as we do, but your point is why some materialists say we do not have free will, as the quantum world underlies our brains and bodies just as it underlies the material world outside our living world. We are left with we can only know what we can observe and what we can feel. When the lady told Stephen Hawking "it is turtles all the way down" she was right on the mark in quantum theory, although she was referring to support of the Earth. Feynman admitted no one understands it.-I wonder, then, why our author should have bothered with her "Transactional Interpretation" in the first place, since it fails to tell us anything at all about what is and isn't real.-DAVID: Reasonable and hairbrained beliefs abound. Such as, if we were not here to observe the universe it would not exist! Remember, the results we get are the ones we look for. Consciousness always plays a role in the studies. That is why the proposal that the universe is conscious is not unreasonable.-You and I both believe the universe would still exist even if we were not here to study it. And so the proposal that the universe is non-conscious is also not unreasonable.-dhw: Let me repeat, though, this is a field that leaves me floundering, and so I'd be grateful for any corrections you can make to my interpretation of the above.-DAVID: Your interpretations are as valid as anyone else. Welcome to the world of the quantum.-Thank you. I'm reassured and not reassured. I presume that's the way one should express oneself in the quantum world.