Quantum physics proves that there IS an afterlife, claims scientist

[fractional slacker]

First off, big thanks to Bulbasaur and others for sharing thoughts on this subject. Lanza has some radical ideas even if only to spur discussion rather than to honor science.

 

I came across the following video and thought it might serve as an adjunct to this thread. It's 11 minutes long and touches on the relationship between science and philosophy in regards to consciousness and the soul (and consciouness without matter; eek!)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytcew7PvQsw.

[Bulbasaur]

A lot of problems with that video, but foremost is the same abuse of the "observer effect" that plagues all these arguments. There's just no basis in quantum mechanics that existence requires conscious perception. This only arises from misunderstanding the theory or lying about it. I imagine a physicist who promotes these ideas can sell a lot of books, though. 

[SoberEnough]

Interpretations of quantum mechanics are not quantum mechanics. It is best to stay away from that stuff. It even motivated people like von Neumann and Wigner to say some absolutely insane shit.

[Pepin]

The conclusion that consciousness is relevant to the observation of quantum states is not relevant. The term "observe" is a little confusing out of context because it sounds like something that it has to do with people/consciousness, but the term really has no connection. For instance, an electron can be orbiting a nucleus as a wave and because of this its position is spread out everywhere, but when a photon collides with an electron, the photon will observe the electron as the wave function will collapse to a single position. Particles are constantly observing each other and have done so prior to humans ever existing.

[SoberEnough]

Sidney Coleman was always the voice of reason:

 

http://media.physics.harvard.edu/video/?id=SidneyColeman_QMIYF

[Pepin]

A physicist address the article.

 

[SoberEnough]

I think that venturing into the world of interpretation of QM is borderline crackpottery in general.

 

My first quarter TAing for an undergrad CM course I was able to convince my class (many of them were the wiser) that Lagrangian mechanics implies that that inanimate matter are conscious as they have the capability to choose GLOBAL trajectories which minimize the action for a system when Newtonian mechanics seems to imply that trajectories are formed locally. Same physics, different formulation.

 

It was a huge digression nearing the end of the quarter but the point was that it is difficult to "interpret" even classical mechanics as in actuality the formalization of classical mechanics is in some sense more complex than QM.

 

There are legitimate anomalous things that occur in QM, such as the Stern-Gerlach experiment (which I think is pedagogically superior to multi-slit apparati for demonstrating weird characteristics in QM) but there are actually bizarre concepts in formal classical mechanics that get swept under the rug by pop sci.

 

There is a divide between philosophy and science, there just is. They are non-overlapping magisteria and as such, it is likely to be in your best interest as a scientist not to encumber yourself with philosophical thoughts as you formulate theory. Einstein (despite what you have been told), did not give a damn about philosophy when formulating his theory of relativity (special or general). In fact, it was Einstein's philosophical objections to the non-deterministic aspects of QM that led him to posit for a long time that there MUST exist a local hidden variable theory that reformulated quantum mechanics with absolute outcomes. Bell put that to rest and we thank him for it.

 

Whenever someone uses QM for the basis of ANY philosophical assertion, you know they are full of shit. This type of stuff just reminds us.