Page 331
KimLuster on Aug. 21, 2016
The ‘Observer Effect’ (google it if you're interested - fascinating stuff, with profound implications). The basics is that a photon (or electron, or any other sub-atomic particle) behaves as a wave (think wave of water) UNLESS a conscious observation ‘causes’ it to behave as a particle (think tiny billiard ball). This is most easily seen with the double-slit experiment. If you direct a photon at a panel with two slits in it, it will form an interference pattern (which you would expect if it were a wave), but if you try to record which of the slits the photon is traveling through, the very act of trying to find that out causes the photon to ‘collapse’ to a tiny point, and the interference pattern disappears…
The implications are profound (and a little disturbing). How does a conscious observer have such an effect on reality? What is a conscious observer (you, I, a cat, an AI)? Most scientists these days believe that consciousness is ultimately based on physical reality (you don't have a soul or mind separate from your brain, which is made of matter, and ultimately sub-atomic particles). A dilemma is posed - how does physical reality (your ‘consciousness’) affect physical reality from a distance without physically interacting with it (cause a photon to collapse)…?
As the ‘Godstrain Manifestation’ says, it's seems an illogical loop (there's our circle motif). ‘She’ proposes that, in its timeless existence, a photon actually did it all, behaved as both a particle and as a wave (and many other things besides), Being ‘timeless’, it had all the time in the world to do it…!! Our ‘collapse-causing observation’, in one particular moment in time, is really only noticing one out of the infinite paths the photon took… El Cid sorta hit on thoughts in that same neighborhood a few pages back!
Taking all this to its logical conclusion, it seems the universe really is a ‘determined’ universe. Everything, from the photon's point-of-view, including future events, have already happened; reality, past, present, future, is just one single ‘thing’. And if that includes our future decisions and choices, then… well, we don't really have consciousness and freewill… That implications makes some of us scream with frustration and angry denial into the void!
But if it is true, that has implications of its own, as Kimber Lee has just latched on to…
I've also noticed the Godstrain Manifestation's nipples have gotten more detailed… Hrmmmm
Note and Disclaimer: many scientists will point out (rightly so) that it isn’t some sort mental power that’s causing wave collapsing, but rather, it is the actual measuring instruments (which are large and cumbersome on the quantum level). I’m not arguing otherwise… I just know that, by whatever method we ‘observers’ use to glean information about the quantum world, it changes it… And I don’t fully get how an Instrument can affect an entangled particle’s pair on the other side of the room (or the other side of the universe)… Efforts to explain that in a totally materialistic way always sound sort of ‘airy’ to me, almost hopeful in their attempt to remove consciousness from the equation… Anyhow…
Thanks for Reading Everyone!
KimLuster at 5:25PM, Aug. 21, 2016
@Paul: Yes, is this huge urge by many notable minds to remove the Observer from Reality. Einstein was almost obsessive in wanting the universe to be exactly as it is, regardless of whether he or any other observer was there to ‘see’ it. I get it! Consciousness is incredibly hard to explain, to nail down – and many explanations have a waaaay too metaphysical feel to them… For Consciousness to actually have a tangible effect on reality is just way too big a pill to swallow for some thinkers. While it may not fully undermine materialism, it can certainly sink some unwanted roots in there… All attempts to refute it end up in theories that remove human will… at least what I’ve read so far!
KimLuster at 5:14PM, Aug. 21, 2016
@Jerrie: Even worse… I know that Leia is Luke’s sister… And they kissed… with tongues!!
KimLuster at 5:09PM, Aug. 21, 2016
@Bravo: you sound so certain…! :D Some would disagree with you about a photon having no awareness! It certainly seems to have an awareness of when it’s being observed by a conscious being, because then it acts completely different, collapsing to a particle, when, unobserved, it seems content to behave as a wave…! I’m not saying a photon is conscious like we are, but somehow, it ‘knows’…!! How it knows, I haven’t a real clue, and I’ve yet to read a fully satisfactory explanation by anyone, scientist or layman…! Even so, I largely agree with you… I think consciousness is linked to Time, and you are correct when you say Mass because only an object that has Mass experiences Time… I really love your comments and hope you never stop with them! :D
Banes at 3:34PM, Aug. 21, 2016
Intriguing! I shall Google this Observer Effect and try to understand it. Good point about the nipples, too; I may google those as well!
Whirlwynd at 10:18AM, Aug. 21, 2016
Interesting expression Mrs. Photon has in the last panel there
PaulEberhardt at 9:35AM, Aug. 21, 2016
The observer always changes the thing that is observed, as well as the observer - even if you don't always notice in what way. Everyone knew that even before science was invented, it's just common sense, and it only shows that it's a mistake to mistake scientific models for the barenaked truth - and this page does a great job of illustrating that (in a pretty literal sense even). It'd be arrogant to presume that this mess of a universe could be grasped with deliberately narrowed-down human concepts like logic and empiricism and such. And now, not unlike bravo1102, I'm just waiting for some Douglas Adamses and Stanisław Lems to pop up and have a fit of mischiveous sniggering. ;)
jerrie at 9:26AM, Aug. 21, 2016
wow! You...El Cid...and Bravo, are all smart and everything!!!!!HAH! I got one for you three....Darth Vader...is Lukes FATHER!!!! HAH! You three wise guys know THAT!!!! Jerrie has trumped you....MUhahahaa...what? You DID know that? AH nuts!
bravo1102 at 9:01AM, Aug. 21, 2016
Great visuals here for what is essentially the theory of Life the Universe and Everything. Hey is this when Douglas Adams pops out with Richard Dawkins and says "April Fool"?
bravo1102 at 9:00AM, Aug. 21, 2016
So we're back to the Fig Newton. The inside is the outside and thus the supreme being's last message to creation: "Sorry for the inconvenience" It didn't make any sense to him either and he created it. It was never supposed to make sense and making sense of that which doesn't make sense says something about the evolutionary process that led to human intelligence, not the universe. It doesn't have to make sense. All is at the same time, but you experience it one moment at a time, so live within your moment and let the universe be.
bravo1102 at 8:56AM, Aug. 21, 2016
To the photon all of this is meaningless because a photon has no mass. No mass means no consciousness and therefore no awareness. So it is not aware of anything since it is a byproduct of awareness not the awareness itself. In other words none of this matters because things are the sum of photons and electrons not the subatomic particles themselves. The numbers themselves mean nothing all that matters is what they add up to. But then you get to irreducible machines that smack of intelligent design.