[Chris Noble]

Originally Posted by Tor

OK.. Let me quote some quotes. They are from Stapp's recent book, but I know of many of them from before. Few textbooks even talk about what QT really means. The one I used didn't either, but there are those that do. Anyway, the founders of QT talked about these things:



Human consciousness was the only thing they considered to be relevant in this regard. But I guess it was because they couldn't ask animals if they were conscious.

Btw Paul, I think the link you posted (http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/WallaceComments.doc) was very informing when it comes to the deeper issues of Stapp's theory. Wallace seems like the right guy to pair Stapp up with.

David, I'd recommend you read the Wallace comments.

It's ironic that you quote somebody quoting Heisenberg but seem to have forgotten to read Heisenberg himself.

Read "Physics and Philosophy" by Heisenberg. He actually goes to great lengths to dispel the misunderstandings that arose from the Copenhagen interpretation.

You quote Stapp quoting Heisenberg.

...the act of registration of the result in the mind of the observer. The discontinuous change in the probability function?takes place with the act of registration, because it is the discontinuous change in our knowledge in the instant of registration that has its image in the discontinuous change of the probability function.

I wonder who is responsible the ellipsis in the quotation because the words immediately before the ellipsis are "it is not connected" and directly contradict the woo assertion that the conciousness by itself alters reality.

The full quote is

Therefore, the transition from the "possible" to "actual" takes place during the act of observation. If we want to describe what happens in an atomic event, we have to realize that the word "happens" can apply only to the state of affairs between two observations. It applies to the physical, and not the psychical act of observation, and we may say that the transition from the "possible" to the "actual" takes place as soon as the interaction of the object with the measuring device, and thereby with the rest of the wrold, has come into play; it is not connected with the act of registration of the result by the mind of the observer. The discontinuous change in the probability function?takes place with the act of registration, because it is the discontinuous change in our knowledge in the instant of registration that has its image in the discontinuous change of the probability function.

Also note other quotations from the same book.

Certainly quantum theory does not contain genuine subjective features, it does not introduce the mind of the physicist as a part of the atomic event.

Of course the introduction of the observer must not be misunderstood to imply that some kind of subjective features are to be brought into the description of nature. The observer has, rather, only the function of registering decisions, i.e., processes in space and time, and it does not matter whether the observer is an apparatus or a human being;...

In all of Heisenberg's examples the "measurement" involves an interaction between a measurement apparatus and the object in question. His main example is using a photon to detect the position of an electron. The measurement is not some purely subjective mind field reaching out to obsevre nature.

If you read the actual scientifc papers on the Quantum Zeno effect you will see that the "observations" in this case are the same. They typically involve a rapid train of light pulses. It is not some kind of mind stuff that is observing the atoms. In all of Stapp's smoke and mirrors verbiage the one question that remains is how does the mind stuff interact with the physical world. the Quantum Zeno effect does not help. You need something like photons to make the observations not mind stuff