D
Duder
Guest
.............
Greetings, all -
I am directing this question especially to theists with at least a passing familiarity with the broad outlines of quantum mechanics. While anyone is free to join discussion, be forewarned that quantum mechanics is full of concepts that seem very strange (even absurd) when you first hear about them. Those who have not been introduced to these ideas before may be tempted to post comments like "that is just stupid" or "only a looney could believe that". I hope to minimize that sort of thing, because bringing the uninitiated up to speed would be a long and difficult discussion.
Let me set up my question with a brief review of the situation I want to discuss. Here is the first strange quantum idea I want to look at:
............."Objects that have not been observed are in many
.............different places at once, are doing many different
.............things at once."
This is called "quantum superposition". The basic idea is that before you observe (or "measure") an object, it is in a very strange state. It is right here, it is over there, and it is in every other place it could possibly be, all at the same time. It is also in possession of attributes that are mutually exclusive.
Take the example of the double-slit experiment. We have an electron gun (the thingy in the back of your TV's picture tube) that will fire electrons at a detector screen. When an electron hits the screen, a little mark will appear on the screen to show us where the electron hits.
Between the gun and the screen we place a barrier with a slit cut in it. The electron gun begins to shoot electrons one at a time toward the screen. Some electrons hit the barrier and go no farther. Other electrons find the slit, pass through it, and arrive at the detector screen. After the gun has fired a very large number of electrons, we turn off the equipment and look at the screen.
We will see a fuzzy, blobbish pattern of electron hits, just as we expected. But let's cut two slits into our barrier and repeat the experiment. We might now expect to see two fuzzy patterns of electron hits on our screen , but that is not the case. What we see this time is that the electron hits on the screen form a distinctive wave interference pattern that looks like concentric circles. Lots of electrons have hit on the circles, and no electrons have hit between the circles.
The pattern we see looks just like what we find when we shine a beam of light between two slits. The beam of light is split into two beams. These two beams interfere with each other, because light is a wave. Where the two waves are in phase, you get bright bands. Where the waves are out of phase, you get dark bands. This is perfectly understandable if we are talking about beams of waving light.
But how can this pattern of wave interference appear on a detector screen when we were not firing beams of light, but rather, one single particle at a time?
The answer is, each particle is actually going through both slits, and it is thus "interfering with itself", giving us the interference pattern on the screen after many electron firings.
That is quantum superposition. Things are in two (or more) places at once. The electron has taken more than one path from the gun to the screen. Quantum physics forces us to say that objects take every path they can take, and they take all these different paths at the same time.
How can that be? When we look at things, we only see one thing in one place. The standard explanation from quantum physics says that,
............."When you observe the object, it stops being in many
.............in many places at once . It's "wave" collapses, and it
.............settles down to being in one position and in one state."
Now, we do not think of actual objects as having this ability to be in many places at once. There is something ghostly and non-concrete about an object that can do this. In a sense, what we are saying is that when we observe an object, we are changing it from a ghost that can fuzz-out over a wide range of possibilities to a real thing with a single set of real attributes and a single real position.
In other words, when you look at it you "collapse the wave function" and make it real. This is very problematic to our common sense, isn't it? In quantum physics, this is called "the measurement problem".
Now I can get to my question:
Let's assume that all of this is correct. Objects are not "actualized" before someone observes them. Let's further assume that we, the observers, are made of particles that obey quantum rules. So the question is, how did we human observers become real if there was no one around to observe us? Who collapsed the first observer's quantum wave function so that the first observer could observe things?
If observation is required to collapse wave functions, is it proof of God that any observers exist? Somebody had to observe the whole thing into being at the beginning.
.............
Greetings, all -
I am directing this question especially to theists with at least a passing familiarity with the broad outlines of quantum mechanics. While anyone is free to join discussion, be forewarned that quantum mechanics is full of concepts that seem very strange (even absurd) when you first hear about them. Those who have not been introduced to these ideas before may be tempted to post comments like "that is just stupid" or "only a looney could believe that". I hope to minimize that sort of thing, because bringing the uninitiated up to speed would be a long and difficult discussion.
Let me set up my question with a brief review of the situation I want to discuss. Here is the first strange quantum idea I want to look at:
............."Objects that have not been observed are in many
.............different places at once, are doing many different
.............things at once."
This is called "quantum superposition". The basic idea is that before you observe (or "measure") an object, it is in a very strange state. It is right here, it is over there, and it is in every other place it could possibly be, all at the same time. It is also in possession of attributes that are mutually exclusive.
Take the example of the double-slit experiment. We have an electron gun (the thingy in the back of your TV's picture tube) that will fire electrons at a detector screen. When an electron hits the screen, a little mark will appear on the screen to show us where the electron hits.
Between the gun and the screen we place a barrier with a slit cut in it. The electron gun begins to shoot electrons one at a time toward the screen. Some electrons hit the barrier and go no farther. Other electrons find the slit, pass through it, and arrive at the detector screen. After the gun has fired a very large number of electrons, we turn off the equipment and look at the screen.
We will see a fuzzy, blobbish pattern of electron hits, just as we expected. But let's cut two slits into our barrier and repeat the experiment. We might now expect to see two fuzzy patterns of electron hits on our screen , but that is not the case. What we see this time is that the electron hits on the screen form a distinctive wave interference pattern that looks like concentric circles. Lots of electrons have hit on the circles, and no electrons have hit between the circles.
The pattern we see looks just like what we find when we shine a beam of light between two slits. The beam of light is split into two beams. These two beams interfere with each other, because light is a wave. Where the two waves are in phase, you get bright bands. Where the waves are out of phase, you get dark bands. This is perfectly understandable if we are talking about beams of waving light.
But how can this pattern of wave interference appear on a detector screen when we were not firing beams of light, but rather, one single particle at a time?
The answer is, each particle is actually going through both slits, and it is thus "interfering with itself", giving us the interference pattern on the screen after many electron firings.
That is quantum superposition. Things are in two (or more) places at once. The electron has taken more than one path from the gun to the screen. Quantum physics forces us to say that objects take every path they can take, and they take all these different paths at the same time.
How can that be? When we look at things, we only see one thing in one place. The standard explanation from quantum physics says that,
............."When you observe the object, it stops being in many
.............in many places at once . It's "wave" collapses, and it
.............settles down to being in one position and in one state."
Now, we do not think of actual objects as having this ability to be in many places at once. There is something ghostly and non-concrete about an object that can do this. In a sense, what we are saying is that when we observe an object, we are changing it from a ghost that can fuzz-out over a wide range of possibilities to a real thing with a single set of real attributes and a single real position.
In other words, when you look at it you "collapse the wave function" and make it real. This is very problematic to our common sense, isn't it? In quantum physics, this is called "the measurement problem".
Now I can get to my question:
Let's assume that all of this is correct. Objects are not "actualized" before someone observes them. Let's further assume that we, the observers, are made of particles that obey quantum rules. So the question is, how did we human observers become real if there was no one around to observe us? Who collapsed the first observer's quantum wave function so that the first observer could observe things?
If observation is required to collapse wave functions, is it proof of God that any observers exist? Somebody had to observe the whole thing into being at the beginning.
.............
