Quantum stuff facinates me.

I want to know more...

I was kinda wondering why it has to be both... Why can it not be that a quantum event is the signature of something that happened 'elswhere'.

and left behind (in the form of moving particles) the waveform of the event at the moment of the event.

A particle for each part of the wave form.

Not a quantum foam but a quantum ocean.

It does fascinate me too...unfortunately our technological capabilities are far too young to grasp it(quantum stuff)..at least the theories are there. :(

I had to take a QM class last semester, and trust me...it's a HUGE headache! But you are right, photons and electrons either appear as a waveform or just a huge collection of particles moving along with no coherent form,like static on the TV, and different experiments yield these results...strange, but true.

What do you mean by 'elsewhere'?

If you allow 'elsewhere' to exist outside of spacetime as we know it, then that's a perfectly valid explanation. In fact, that particular explanation is called the "Many Worlds" interpretation.

But that implies that there are infinitely many parallel universes and that all possible futures actually unfold. You only experience one of them.

Most physicists find the "Many Worlds" interpretation to be utterly absurd. Most of them would also appeal to Ocaam's Razor to dismiss this interpretation as being far too complicated. Yet, it's still recognized as a 'plausible' philosophy.

On the other hand if you require that 'elsewhere' exist within this universe but is 'non-local'. In other words, you allow for different parts of the universe to affect each other at supraluminal speed, then you have the "Hidden Variable" interpretation which actually allows for supraluminal interactions. (i.e. Pilot Waves that travel faster than the speed of light to decide what's going to happen ahead of time). You might call them "Look-ahead waves".

So it all depends on what you mean by 'elsewhere'.

Both the "Many Worlds" interpretation, and the "Hidden Variable" interpretations are attempts at preserving 'determinism'. (i.e. absolute cause and affect without randomness). However they have extreme costs for doing this.

The most popularly accepted interpretation is the Copenhagen Interpretation and that is to just do away with cause and effect at the quantum level altogether and accept that at the quantum level things truly do occur randomly. Although, not totally unaffected by the environment in which they occur.

In fact it is that last point about the role of the immediate environment which brings up the idea of an "observer-created" reality. As the observer of the universe (as well as being a participant in the immediate environment) we affect those random quantum outcomes. So there is a mixture (or blending) of randomness along with cause and effect. This gives rise to the predicable probabilities that we can calculate. Change the environment and you change the probability of the outcome (i.e. observer-created probability curves).

This is the most well-accepted current view.

No 'elsewhere' is required if you simply accept randomness. This is the idea behind the Copenhagen interpretation. Just give up determinism, accept FREE WILL, and you're off and running with a workable universe.

Hope this helps a little.


~ Edited a million typos

Oceans are foamy when the water is rough.

Mental visualizations are only representative insofar as the behavior's are parallel.

Wave like behavior is found in particular tests, and particle like behavior is found in other tests.

Abra I do not think he meant elsewhere as in many worlds ect. I think he meant elsewhere as in quantum tunneling. The words foam and ocean are what clued me into that. Perhaps I am mistaken . . .

Perhaps the OP can further explain and relate this by giving an example of the particular quantum behavior(s) he was referencing. I would rather stay specific rather then trying to shot gun this rather vast topic or dealing with the speculation rather then the objective details.

If you where only referencing particle-wave duality and the idea's behind the causation for superpositions and other quantum behavior then ignore me and just read abra's post. If you want to speak to details instead of the speculation of why then lets get specific.

I myself favor no explanation and really see them all as fantasy until we have some phenomena, or data that would exclude one or the other . . . currently the phenomena do not exclude any of these ideas, nor other ideas as of yet not thought of . . .

Jeremy.

For most of my life I rejected the Copenhagen interpretation. I felt like Einstein that there must be a rational explanation. Where rational means "cause and effect" in a standard linear idea of time, which requires that the speed of light as a limiting factor must be preserved.

I therefore favored the "Hidden variable" interpretation and tried to make sense of the world through that view. However, the more I thought about it, the less sensible it was. In fact, I finally concluded that all it really does is say that somehow information can travel faster than light in some hidden dimensions. But ultimately that doesn't truly save 'cause and effect' because if information can travel faster than lightspeed then effects can affect causes before those causes can effect the effects. In short, it truly doesn't solve anything. It just seems like a desperate attempt to imagine a 'cause and effect' world where the effects can actually affect the causes before the causes affect the effects. In other words, it ultimately ends up being a circular 'cause and effect' where effects cause causes just as much as causes cause effects.

It seems to me to ultimately be a circular and useless description.

I've never accepted the "Many Worlds" interpretation for similar reasons. It just seems to complicate things unnecessarily and doesn't truly offer any solution really. It only gives the illusion of explaining this one universe in terms of infinitely many other parallel universe. However, if we stand "outside" of the whole "Many Worlds" model and look at all the infinitely many universes as one huge system, we're still stuck with the question of whether or not the whole thing unfolded 'randomly' or not. I mean, the whole model was designed to salvage determinism, but has it truly even done that? What is the cost of determinism and is determinism even desirable truly?

I finally came to the conclusion that randomness not only makes sense to me, but it seem like a very inviting concept. After all, a universe that has random potentiality can indeed provide FREE WILL.

A purely deterministic universe ultimately denies FREE WILL. If everything is ultimately determined by cause and affect then there can be no such thing as FREE WILL.

In short I believe in FREE WILL.

The Copenhagen interpretation provides a mechanism for FREE WILL. To accept the Copenhagen interpretation all we need to accept is an element of genuine random potentiality. Once that's been accepted the model works just fine and has no problems.

So from my point of view, people who are demanding a better explanation are simply demanding that there must be some deterministic explanation underlying the whole thing.

As far as I'm concerned it's already been shown that this isn't even possible. Both quantum complementarity and Bell's theorem along with the EPR experiment of quantum entanglement have basically verified that no cause and effect explanations are even possible.

It's not that we're not smart enough to come up with an explanation. These observations demand that there can be no 'logical' explanation where 'logical' requires a 'cause and effect' explanation.

So at this point in my life I have completely accepted the Copenhagan interpretation as simply being the true nature of the universe. I accept that the universe is driven by an underlying random potentiality. And once that has been accepted there are no more questions required. The answer is simply that it truly is random. That's the answer. No further explanations are required because that is the answer. Random potentiality is the answer. That's it. This was Niels Borh's conclusion. We have found all there is know. The universe ultimately arise from totally random potentiality. That's the answer. Done.

There's no need for further explanation because that is the answer. That is the true nature of reality.

This is what I've come to accept.

It can never be described using 'deterministic logic' because that's not how the universe works at the quantum level. It's not a 'logical' universe in that 'deterministic' sense. It's only 'logical' if you can accept that pure random potentiality is possible. Then you can accept that as being 'logical'.

I accept it.

So from my point of view the people who are waiting for a 'better' explanation are waiting for something that is never gonna happen.

The universe arises from random possibility. That's it. Period.

Well, from a metaphysical point of view we can imagine a cosmic consciousness that selects from the pool of quantum randomness to create physical reality.

In fact, many people would say there is nothing 'metaphysical' about this at all. Just realize that you are that cosmic consciousness. It's not like you need to go into a lab to look for it. You are it. You are the living essence of what you seek.

Quantum--- The electrons from light and their behavior. Are they particles or waves. It has been suggested that their behavior is governed by the observers consciousness. Wild! Can we control our enviroments.

How about Entanglement Theory. Everything was "one" at one time, so that what ever you do to an electron another electron across the expanse will be affected in the same like manner.

in my opinion, this is the single most important sentence in this thread:



For example, light is not a wave, light is not a particle, light is light.

Couldn't light be a particle that is merely showing that a wave has passed it?

Its a wave that exhibits particle behavior at times.

Its a particle that exhibits wave behavior at times.

This particular image was captured by hitting a cloud of, don't quote me on this, but I think it was a cloud of argon with a high powered laser at very nearly 0 Kelvin, all that just to slow it down enough to be captured on the worlds fastest digital camera.

Simply amazing image.

And no explanation is what you will have, probably for the duration of your life. Do you see everything that has not been proven as fantasy?

Do you look for answers or consider ideas or are you just waiting for some unknown pioneer to discover something and prove it?

It may be a very long wait.

In the meantime we have philosophers and dreamers working on it.

Light is a particle, though. I QM and classical mechanics, it has ZERO rest mass. But the faster a particle travels, the more "mass" it appears to have. I think the last time a looked, light had a "mass" of something like 1.something x 10^-43 kg.

Niels Bohr simply says that to accept randomness is the answer.

Period.

What so 'fantasy' about that?

Also, to hold out for 'explanations' beyond this seems ludicious in fact of the fact that between the observations of complmentarity, the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle, Bell's Theorem and quantum entanglement, there can be no other explanation.

It's basically already been proven that there can be no explanation beyond that.

This is what the Copenhagen interpretations is saying.

The Copenhagen interpretation is simply saying, "There are no unanswered questions. The answer is randomness. Period."

That is the answer.

What's so 'fantasy' about that?

Why is that so hard to accept?

Most everyone would like to believe in free will, yet they reject the very thing that can provide free will.

Take away all randomness and demand precisely logical cause and effect determinism, and free will has no place left to go but down the toilet.

As soon as randomness is accepted as 'the answer', then the question has been answered. It's just random. Period.

Waiting around for a 'better' explanation is futile. If randomness is reality, then there is no better explanation to wait for.

Neils Bohr alreally gave us the answer. It's just random. Accept it and move on.

I think you mean to say "light has the qualities of particles" and you are correct. It also has the qualities of a wave.

Having mass does not make something a 'particle', it just means that something has mass. This is a great example of why we should be careful about applying our macro-scale intuition to events on that scale

But since we are dealing on the atomic and sub-atomic scales, everything I've seen in QM and nuclear physics has been called a "particle", but you are correct, having mass does not make something a particle...

the really cool thing is the effect of virtual particles

take the thin slit experiment

shoot a beam of photons through a set of thin slits and the resulting constructive and destructive interference will create a diffraction pattern like this,



or another example


BUT if you shoot a single photon through the slit one at a time you should just get a reproduction pattern of the slit.

but nooooooo...

you get the SAME pattern from a single photon. The potential photons are STILL interfering with each other

quantum stuff scares me. it means there ARE no rules

and lets not even get into dceay of neutrons and other particles, that use "virtual" particles in their dacay process...see, a HUGE headache!

ummmm no

to make a photon you have to bump an electron from its normal energy level (with more energy) to a higher level, and as the electron falls back to it's original level the excess energy is shed as a photon whose wavelength is a function of the energy level

fer instance, to make a material lase you have to bump enough electrons to higher energy levels to get a "population inversion" where more electrons are at higher levels than are at normal levels and then you have have to have mirrors to focus the resulting photons back into the lasing material to bump more electrons and maintain the reaction.

photons are particles but they exhibit wave behavior

Yes! The old problem of shifting meaning in language! When one physicist talks to another physicist and says a such-n-such particle was ejected with a velocity of blah, and they are talking about matter on an atomic scale, the KNOW that both people KNOW what they are really talking about, and they don't have to get into the failures of the macroscale model of a 'particle'... and, in that context, even the macroscale model of 'particle' is USEFUL in discussing the 'particles' behavior.

I was rejecting 'light is a particle' in the context of 'understanding light using intuitive macroscale models'.

And thus conceiving of light (or photons) as 'particles' in using the macroscale intuition for 'particle' would deny certain qualities of light.