Quantum weirdness: What we call 'reality' is just a state of mind

[Swede]

What quantum mechanics tells us, I believe, is surprising to say the least. It tells us that the basic components of objects – the particles, electrons, quarks etc. – cannot be thought of as "self-existent". The reality that they, and hence all objects, are components of is merely "empirical reality".

This reality is something that, while not a purely mind-made construct as radical idealism would have it, can be but the picture our mind forces us to form of ... Of what ? The only answer I am able to provide is that underlying this empirical reality is a mysterious, non-conceptualisable "ultimate reality", not embedded in space and (presumably) not in time either.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2009/mar/17/templeton-quantum-entanglement

[BlueJazz]

1. I..I see..I see....

[islandmkl]

2. or, according to Mose Allison:

You sittin here and yakkin right in my face
I guess I'm gonna have to put you in your place
You know if silence was golden
You couldn't raise a dime
Because your mind is on vacation and your mouth is workin' overtime

You quotin' figures and droppin' names
You tellin' stories about the dames
You're overlaughin' when things ain't funny
You tryin' to sound like big money
You know if talk was criminal
You'd lead a life of crime
Because your mind is on vacation and your mouth is workin overtime


You know that life is short
Talk is cheap
Don't be makin' promises that you can't keep
You don't like this little song I'm singin'
Just grin and bear it
All I can say is if the shoe fits wear it
If you must keep talkin
Please try to make it rhyme
Because your mind is on vacation and your mouth is workin' overtime

--"Your Mind is on Vacation"

[county worker]

3. Is my reality and your reality the same thing? Do you see the same red as I see?

Is your hot the same feeling as my hot? You you hear and see the same frequencies I hear and see.

How do we know?

Explain where you are without a relation to something else.

These questions I had all my life

[Swede]

4. If a tree falls and no one is there,does it make a noise?

Or does the air just vibrate? The last line in the short story "All you zombies" was - I know who I am,but who are all you zombies?

[Duer 157099]

6. Whenever I ponder those kinds of questions

(and I do) the one thing I always come back to as an answer is: Republicans. That is the one and only proof I need that reality and truth are subjective. I can look at something I *know* is red and they will call it blue.

So either the equipment (receptors) are fundamentally different, or the interpretive algorithms are written differently.

Sigh. There is no consensus reality.

[InvisibleTouch]

7. People do in fact differ in their perception of the "same" colors...

...and across species it's even more extreme. Birds and insects, for instance, can see colors that primates can't, and the same color looks different to different species. I've often argued with people over what's red and what's orange, what's gray and what's green, what's blue and what's purple. We may have just learned to call differnt colors different things while growing up, but it's equally possible that we do see them differently. So which is the "true" color? Whose perception is valid?

[omega minimo]

16. "Whose perception is valid?"

the one who holds the crayons

[caraher]

25. How can that even be known?

I'm wondering what kind of research could possibly have led to those conclusions, because it strikes me that perception is not something directly accessible to science. I can see how one could study how colors get classified, note ways in which different observers do or do not make (measurable) distinctions between various stimuli. But that sorting task may or may not correlate with visual sensations as experienced by the organism.

[crimsonblue]

28. I've noticed this in myself...

My color comprehension at green-brown frequencies is different than anybody else I know. I am not color blind, but I view many brown colors as shades of green, of which nobody else I have compared the colors to can see. It is hard to explain: I see all of the colors, but they are not always at the expected spectrum.

[gtar100]

30. Even each eye can see differently

I noticed this under a microscope looking at crystals. With one eye a clear crystal had a slight blue to it and with the other a slight yellow. I could not believe my own eyes.

[On the Road]

33. My Ex and I Had a Running Joke

centered around whether something was purple or brown. We absolutely saw the same color differently, and AFAIK neither one of us was color-blind.

[CoffeeCat]

13. I wonder if people taste the same tastes..

When I taste a lemon, is it the same experience for you?

Could it be that people who don't like lemon--experience lemon differently than I--a person who loves lemon?

Great. Now my brain and my taste buds hurt.

[Occulus]

17. That color question has always made me wonder

Are the rod and cone cells on our retinas all exactly the same? Do all of them, collectively, as a species, absorb exactly the same intensities of wavelengths of light, and do all our brains interpret the generated signals as passed by the optic nerve in exactly the same way, excepting those that are color-blind?

I doubt it, and I'd be interested in reading any studies at all that even describe those differences. It could be a fascinating direction for research involving the eye and the brain.

Along related lines, here's something interesting.

[safeinOhio]

5. WOW

I took acid back in 1969 and already knew all that.

[Speck Tater]

8. Just like the Buddha said 2500 years ago. nt

[Orrex]

19. If only he'd shown his work

Incidentally, it's only "just like the Buddha said" in a reaching, metaphorical way. But that won't stop eager believers from making the same claim they've been making for years.

[gtar100]

32. For what it's worth, he did more than others.

Quite a bit more information about his life and his teachings is available. Far fewer lessons given in secret code than most religions.

[Butch350]

9. Weed is still not legal and lay off the Crack Pipe!

[jamieque]

11. Reality of Fate or Is it our Destiny?

Actually, REALITY as a whole is much more complicated then the current scientific theories can figure out. There is more to reality then is currently known.

The fact that currently it is only theory that alternate timelines-realities-universes exist. In truth is much more complicated when it comes to our existence.

The universe has a plan for Humanity. There is much potential in this species. The only question remains...

Will we survive long enough to realize our true potential?

[FiveGoodMen]

21. "The universe has a plan for Humanity" -- Did the Universe tell you that?

[and-justice-for-all]

26. "The universe has a plan for Humanity"? ! Really?

There is no plan, there never has been a plan and there never will be a PLAN.

Look at it this way....The next time your on a beach, pick up one grain of sand...that is the earth. The rest of the sand on the beach is the universe. If we were here or not, does not matter to the Universe.

[gtar100]

31. Shh! Don't talk about the universe's plan around scientists. They get cranky.

;-)

[Codeine]

35. So if it's all so complicated n' stuff,

how do you know there is a plan?

Just askin'. ;)

[Trajan]

10. I suppose it all depends on what you consider 'real' to mean ....

Can something be existent but not 'self' existent ?

What is 'empirical' reality as compared to simple 'reality' ?

Is some thing real when you think it? or when it occurs in nature in spite of your status as an observer ?

Can a 'mind-made construct' represent a 'reality' ? .... Can your image of a pigeon bill BE a pigeon bill ?

Is this a pipe ?



Or is it a picture of a pipe ?

Is it a range of pixels in your computer display ?

Electrons flowing hither and thither through wires ?

Briarwood ?

Canvas and pigments ?

A JPEG file ?

Rods and cones firing in a specific order ?

What is 'real' ?????

--------------

I object to these types of discussions: They lead nowhere .... really just a bit mental masturbation that is so ephemeral that it will be forgotten by all of us within days ...

The ANSWER to the question "Is this a pipe?" is simple: It is not a pipe: It is an image of a pipe ...

THAT is the 'reality' .... but does it 'really' matter to anyone that it is an 'existent' image of a pipe founded on energetic photons emitted in a pattern and spinning with a specific range of rotational frequencies as it enters the iris of the viewer, stimulating elements within the eye that become 'color' and 'shape' in the mind ?

Whatever you think you 'see' .... There is an 'empirical' basis for belief in the existence of the image of a pipe being presented : It resides on a museum wall as a work of art by Rene Magritte ....

Somebody captured an image of that 'real' object, and I presented it to your computer screen as a range of stimulated picture elements derived from that capture ....

[Swede]

12. As county worker posted,these are life long questions for some of us.

Not to be forgotten.

[Avalux]

14. Sounds like Buddhism to me. n/t

[omega minimo]

15. implicate/explicate

[YankeyMCC]

18. Form is exactly emptiness

Emptiness is exactly form ...

;)

:bows:

[Sandrine for you]

20. Exactly Kant.

[FiveGoodMen]

22. Can we change the things we're most unhappy about just by changing our minds?

If I can't get rid of republicans and I can't escape the results of their crimes, then they're real.

[silverweb]

23. Love it!

Bookmarked to savor in greater detail later.

[RagAss]

24. Or...in the metaphysical sense.....

"All basic measuring is from here to there; all measurements have a point from which they are made. Ultimately that point is inevitably I, and so whatever I may be.

Therefore I am the point of departure of all dimensions. And as each is at right-angles to all others I must be their mutual centre wherever and whenever that may be."
-Wei Wu Wei
1968

[SlingBlade]

27. Just a state of mind ! I knew that

[crimsonblue]

29. Wow. The author is explaining in modern terms the exact beliefs of Plato..

Plato believed in an ultimate reality, and constructed it as a cave metaphor. Outside the cave, the images of the Ultimate reality are projected into the cave, but average man is changed down by his own limitations such that he can only see the shadows of reality on the cave wall. He cannot see that there is an ultimate reality. More advanced man can see that man is chained down, but still cannot see that the images are but shadows. The truly enlightened (philosophers, scientists, and the like) can see that we are chained down and can see that the images are shadows. The truly enlightened can see the faint forms of reality, but cannot reach out and fully discern them.

Is it possible that science and philosophy are on parallel paths? I think yes. What is human thought but a collection of neural synapses firing off according to the neural network pattern of the brain. Like all other matter, the brain is regulated by the laws of physics. It is possible that our perceptions of reality are based upon the laws by which the Universe exists.

This just totally blew my mind, and I'm not even high. :D

[LynzM]

34. Have you read Anathem? (Neal Stephenson)

Just finished it, and if you like this kind of stuff, you ought to love it. :D I thought it was excellent.

[SlingBlade]

36. "What we call 'reality' is just a state of mind"

And THAT my Friends is the secret of life :)

[backtoblue]

37. What I would like to know

is why my "reality" is so fucked up... Why did I choose this reality? Or is it a fluke, like I accidentally rubbed up against someone else's presumed fucked up world???


Edit: Sorry for the F bombs...not such a great day