EXTERMINATE THE OBSERVERS: EXTERMINATE, EXTERMINATE!
Quantum physics is a world where we're told that probability and uncertainty rule and causality is thrown to the winds. However, I think it's the observer that's the real fly in the quantum physics ointment. Left to its own devices, the micro (quantum physics) would (certainly should) mirror the macro (classic physics) and thus causality rules both realms. Whatever applies to the micro must apply to the macro since the macro is made up of the micro (and thus I feel free to sometimes use more familiar macro examples in the following text). It's the observer who is interpreting, albeit through no fault of her own, things as being in a state of uncertainty or as just probability.
An electron has mass. An electron can collide with other particles. Electrons travel along your copper wires, impact the insides of your TV/computer monitors giving you your pictures, and of course are the backbone of your nervous system and brain activity. That makes an electron to my way of thinking a little billiard ball. Just like a real billiard ball can be bounced around by other objects, and end up predictably in another place (the side pocket?), so too can an electron be bounced around by interactions with other bits and pieces. It's those bits and pieces, the photons that our senses can detect, all bouncing off and thus bouncing around electrons, photons that ultimately bounce into our eyes, and thus tell us where the electron is and how it is moving. Alas, that same photon that conveys to us that information has also bounced the electron off on some other path at some other velocity, so we're still none the wiser about where the electron is. It's uncertain, but it's probably somewhere close by; and even more probably somewhere reasonably near by, but it could be far, far away. You just don't know. And a further observation will just repeat the process - Endlessly. The question really is, is our elusive electron only probably somewhere, or is it actually somewhere? At any given nanosecond, does it have coordinates in space and a specific velocity or is it fuzzy? If you are an observer, it is fuzzy. But, if there is no observer, then I suggest that electron is as fixed in space as our billiard ball heading towards the side pocket. The electron 'knows' where it is and where it is heading and how fast, even if you don't.
Okay, that's the electron as particle. When you wish to interpret an electron as a wave (all particles - for that matter all matter - has wave-particle duality), say doing the double slit experiment but with electrons instead of light photons, and thus getting classic wave interference patterns, then it is logical to consider the electron as more defuse or spread out - but not infinitely so. If the experiment is being carried out in New York, no part of the electron wave will appear in L.A., far less on Mars or at a distant star or galaxy. That's just common sense - a trait not to be dismissed out of hand or totally ignored even in the weirdness that is quantum physics. In fact, I doubt if there is really much probability of finding any part of the wave activity outside the lab walls!
Of course a wave can be in two or more places at the same time, but there are limits, as suggested above. You could have an ocean wave hundreds even thousands of kilometres long, but what is the probability any of that wave activity is detectable in Kansas?
A seismic wave may rock the Earth and clang it like a bell, but it's a non-event to an inhabitant on an extra-solar planet. It won't feel a thing. No shake; no rattle; no roll.
You can scream your head off and be heard vast distances away (and all points in between), but on Mars no one can hear that scream (the vacuum of space sorts of cramps sound wave activity).
Wiggle a string - that's wave action, but it stops at the ends of the string.
Shine a flashlight at the ground. Does the light wave, wave its way through the planet and exit on the other side?
Waves, no matter what's waving, can ultimately be blocked, even those ghostly neutrinos which, as particles, can also be interpreted under the right conditions as wave phenomena. Anyway, once blocked, the probability of the wave being on the other side is zero. In other words, wave activity is confined and isn't infinite in scope.
An electron, as particle, can not be in two places at the same time, any more than you (as 'particle') can be (unless you allow for time travel of course). An electron could probably be in any one of a zillion locations for all the observer knows, but the operative word here is 'one'. An electron wave can be in two (or more) places at the same time, but, I suggest those locations are in pretty close proximity. Say your TV set emits an electron (as particle) and your TV screen receives that electron (as particle). However, one can imagine that in-between the electron is exhibiting wave properties. However, if that in-between wave waved all over creation, instead of following the shortest distance between two points - a straight line - your TV picture would be an unholy mess!
I suggest that this example makes nonsense of the idea that all things quantum revolves around uncertainty and probability. That's only the case from the point of view of the observer. Things are certain and fixed when the observer is removed from the picture as far as Mother Nature* is concerned.
Even if just one quantum phenomenon is based on probability without any underlying causality, even when no observer is present, then - well I'm not prepared for the world to end quite yet!
There is one very interesting quantum uncertainty/probability phenomenon we're all familiar with via watching television shows. We've all seen those half-way mirrors where you can be observed but you can't observe in return (so that the powers-that-be can monitor you from another adjacent room but all the while you can't see them). Another example is from your own home (or office) window where some of an internal light will go though the window but some will be reflected back at you. In either case, how does any individual photon 'know' whether to reflect or pass through since the entire surface of the one-way mirror or the window glass is identical? Actually in the case of the glass, it is actually surfaces - one on the inside; one on the outside. It should be a 100% either pass/or reflect situation. Tis a puzzlement! One would assume that eliminating the observer wouldn't alter the physics any.
I don't think there's a great mystery here. When a photon hits the surface, it actually will be interacting with the electrons in 'orbit' around the molecules of glass. The electrons will absorb the photon increasing their energy state and jumping up to a higher 'orbit'. That situation doesn't last, and in quick-smart time, the electron jumps back to a lower energy state and gives off a photon in the process. That photon may be then facing further on into the glass, or it might be facing away (i.e. - reflected back). That process is repeated again and again until some of the photons escape the glass to the outside (pass through the glass), or escape from the glass by 'reflecting 'back inside. No mystery. There's probability involved, but also causality.
Anyway, as suggested above, it's not entirely true that quantum physics is all about probability and uncertainty. Not everything quantum has or is measured as probability or uncertainty. In the world of the quantum, all things come in packets or quanta of discrete and individual units. An electron has a charge of negative one unit. An electron never has a charge of negative one-half unit, or at one and a half units. An electron can 'orbit' a nucleus at this energy level one, or that energy level two, or the next energy level three, but not just at any old energy level, like one corresponding to level 2.739. An electron can jump between energy levels like you can travel between floors in a building, but just like you can't occupy the 11 7/8ths floor, neither can an electron jump to the 11 7/8ths energy level. An electron might be spin-up or spin-down, but not somewhere in-between. In all things quantum, there is such a thing as a fundamental lowest possible unit of time, of length and of energy.
There are other ways all things quantum are 100% certain and predictable. An electron, as noted above, has a fixed rest mass. Unlike humans, that mass doesn't alter. Humans can be 50 kg or 100 kg, even more or even less, and of course in-between. An electron has a mass of one unit, not one half unit or ten units, just one and one only unit. Ditto the proton and the neutron. There's no probability here. It's fixed; absolute; quantified. Every fundamental particle is an absolute clone of every other fundamental particle of its kind (i.e. - all positrons are absolutely identical).
Now while any particular radioactive atom has just a probable value of decaying and going poof in any given time frame (though I suspect there are hidden variables which we're as yet unawares and which will govern the decay process from one of probability to one of causality and predictable certainty), when that decay happens, it happens in a fixed and unalterable way, one step at a time (assuming several intermediary steps that do occur in some decay processes). Regardless, the upshot is that radioactive A always yields B which always yields C which in turn yields stable D. One uranium atom doesn't decay ultimately to lead, while another becomes gold, and a third mutates to oxygen. That doesn't happen - ever.
The vacuum energy (quantum fluctuations) will produce virtual particle matter - antimatter pairs, like an electron - positron. It will not produce a positron - proton pair or a neutron - neutrino pair. There's no probability here - well actually there is - it's zero percent.
Four hydrogen atoms (or two hydrogen molecules) can fuse together to form a helium atom plus neutrinos and energy. Not five hydrogen atoms or three - it's four all the time, every time. There are no quarks emitted instead of neutrinos, and not just any old energy amount is given off but a predetermined and fixed amount, every time, all the time, full stop.
Your compass doesn't statistically or probably point towards the magnetic north, it points towards magnetic north, yet the entirety of electromagnetic phenomena is quantum based.
To repeat, it is claimed by some that it is nonsense to talk about the existence and properties of anything in time and space until such time as an actual observation or measurement is made. (I assume here that previous observations/measurements recorded in some manner or other, by observers who no longer exist, is taken as valid.) Anyway, everything is just probability until that measurement/observation happens. The old quandary that revolves around that tree in a forest falling - if there is nobody around, is there any sound? Well, claimants of the no observation - no reality philosophy would have to conclude 'no' because the tree doesn't exist in the first place (neither does the forest) because nobody is observing it!
Okay, lets say that's true and say, as a thought experiment that nobody (human anyway) has even seen, measured, recorded, photographed, etc. the Moon (there was no Apollo program and no lunar landings). Some theorist speculating about a Moon could only say it existed with such and such probability. Mother Nature may, or may not have blessed us with a Moon. Since nobody has observed a Moon, the probability is probably close to zip and our theorist is headed towards a career meltdown!
What about indirect observations? Are they sufficient to prove the Moon exists and save the theorist's bacon? I mean observers have observed such things as how the Earth is highly stable in its revolving about its axis. Observers have noted that sometimes at midnight it's pretty bright outside (full Moon) yet two weeks later it's pretty dark at midnight (new Moon). Observers have noted that sometimes when it's very bright outside at midnight, for a few hours that brightness dims and turns a reddish colour (lunar eclipse). Observers have noted that sometimes it gets partially, sometimes totally dark during broad daylight (solar eclipse). Observers have noted lots of phenomena that have a 27 to 28 day cycle without any apparent reason(s). Observers have noted and measured the tides and tidal cycles. From all this indirect evidence, sceptics have concluded our theorist is right and that a Moon must be orbiting Earth with such and such properties. Those being the case, direct observations of the Moon are irrelevant in terms of proving its existence. The Moon exists without being stared at**.
In real life the existence of many unobserved objects has been proven to exist - indirectly - without any direct observation. Black Holes are a case in point. The nature of the Earth's core is another. Now if something can exist with just indirect observation, then things can exist without any observation at all. A planet hasn't just popped into existence around a distant star just because our technology has reached a certain degree of sophistication, sophistication now able to detect (observe/measure) it.
To take a more everyday example familiar to us all, throw a dice. Examine the five sides visible to you - you don't have to be a rocket scientist to deduce the value of the unobserved (face down) side!
There's another quantum category that suggests that observation is not always necessary. That's the phenomena of quantum entanglement. Okay, it's necessary to observe one thing, but in doing so you don't have to observe something else in order to know something about it. Its phenomena where by two things are entangled and knowing the state of one thing tells you the properties (some of them at least) of the other.
Actually I quite love this idea of entanglement and to know the properties of something without ever having to actually observe or measure it. Let's return to my favourite imaginary couple, Jane and Clive, who, as we all know, are a bit weird. So, I can imagine this hypothetical macro example from the Jane and Clive archives, where Jane and Clive agree that on any given day, whatever colours Clive wears, Jane won't (or vice versa). So, if Clive is dressed in a blue suit, with white shirt and red tie, grey socks and hat, with black shoes, I can be sure, without observing, that Jane's outfit will consist of nothing that is black, white, blue, red or grey. So, I know something about Jane's properties without any observation because in this case Jane and Clive were entangled! In actual fact it is way weirder than that. If this were a real quantum entanglement example, then if Clive and Jane were on opposite sides of the Universe, and Jane had on a green outfit and Clive had on a red outfit, and Clive changed outfits to one of green, then Jane would have to also change - instantaneously. Now that's really spooky!
Or, say Jane and Clive are expecting company, but don't know when that company will arrive. Therefore, one or the other of them has to be home at all times - in case. So, if I see Jane shopping, I know, without observation, that Clive is home. Now let's take a micro example. The vacuum energy spits out a matter-antimatter particle pair, but they separate and escape and head off in opposite directions. Jane captures one in her particle trap (box); Clive gets the other one in his particle trap (box). Jane peeks into the box and sees a positron. That alone spoils the surprise for Clive, for without any need to look; he now knows his box contains an electron.
So classical (macro) reality, as well as quantum (micro) reality (IMHO), is the same reality whether or not there is an observer around, so I repeat, it's nonsense to say that they - observers - are the be all and end all of what's real.
Still, when it comes to the nitty-gritty of trying to pin down the specifics of quantum activities, all is probability, and things can both be and not be (the technical phrase is superposition of state) at the same time with equal probability, only becoming either/or when the observer struts her stuff and observes. [The observer can be an instrument, but ultimately that instrument transmits the observation to the human that operates the instrument.] The case of Schrodinger's Cat is the best known example. A Rube Goldberg device is constructed and operated by a probabilistic quantum process that will subject a cat to a life or death fate with a 50/50 probability of either life/or death after a fixed interval of time has passed (then the device turns off). The idea is that all remains probability until such time, and only until such time, as an observer actually looks and sees an animated cat, or a dead cat. Until that observation, the cat is in a limbo state of being both alive and dead simultaneously. But what if there is no observer? Would the cat remain in a limbo state for all eternity? Clearly that's not, and can not be, the case. The cat is either alive, or it is dead, and the observer be damned! The observer is irrelevant.
When an electron is emitted (A) we know the details. When the electron hits its target (B), we know the details. Where is the electron in-between? Who knows? It's all probability. But, does that mean that the electron has actually taken all possible pathways between A and B, or just one? The observer is hapless in such an experiment because observing the electron in mid-path not only changes that path, but says nothing about what path the electron took between A and the in-between observation.
This is weird. In one case, trying to observe an electron (which I'm certain had a precise set of coordinates at the time the observation was made) results in the observer only being able to conclude that the electron's location is only just an observation of probability; while observing the cat changes probability to certainty.
Smite the observer! Off with her head! In Dalek-speak, "Exterminate!" At all times the electron is at certain fixed place and moving at a certain velocity and interacting with other things, like the little billiard ball it is, much like a real billiard ball that's at a fixed set of coordinates, moving at a certain velocity as a result of interacting with other things, like the cue ball. From the electron's point of view, there's no probability or uncertainty. Screw the observer - she's an uninteresting and unnecessary complication that has no bearing on reality, even at the quantum level. Ditto the cat. The cat is alive, or the cat is dead, and the cat 'knows' what state it is in even if the observer hasn't a clue because she hasn't yet made the relevant observation.
It is also claimed that the very act of observing or measuring alters the properties or values of what you are observing or measuring. Well, yes and no. Let's take the 'yes' case first. If you put a photon detector between the photon emitter and its target (say at the point of the double slit to try and pin down which slit the photon is going through, then of course the act of doing that, the act of measuring or observing in midstream disrupts the otherwise natural state of affairs.
A biologist monitoring wildlife populations, movements and interactions may, if not very careful, influence those very parameters by her presence, just like human behaviour is altered if you know you're in the spotlight.
Is a grain of salt that goes untasted salty? Presumably the act of tasting (an observation or measurement) alters the properties of what is being tasted - in the case of table salt, it dissolves when tasted.
Sticking some sort of device into flowing water to measure its rate of velocity, force, etc. will subtly change that flow and its properties. Stick a thermometer into a bowl of soup to measure its temperature - well that very act will of course change the temperature of the soup!
Now examples from the 'no' side: observing a star through a telescope doesn't change the properties of the star. Placing a seismometer on the ground to measure earthquake activity and intensity isn't going to cause any change in seismic activity. Hearing the thunder doesn't alter the properties of the lightning bolt.
Of course it could also be a 'yes' or a 'no' depending. You'd think that observing an electron because the photon has to bounce off it in order for you to measure it, must thus alter its course, and thus has affected the direction-of-motion property of that electron. But, it depends - would it have happened anyway or did you deliberately introduce the photon. If the former, your observation didn't affect the electron; if the latter, it did.
Upgrading the issue to the broadest of scales, if something is only known or has reality or is created by observation, then which came first, the observer, or the Universe? Since observers, of the flesh and blood kind, could not survive the reality of the Big Bang event (whether or not they created that reality) and conditions that existed shortly after the Big Bang - even long after the Big Bang in fact until the heavier elements like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, etc. were manufactured inside stars - and since one can explain how an observer-less Universe can evolve observers, it seems the simplest explanation (simplicity, all else being equal, being one of the core philosophies in science) is that the Universe created the observer and not the other way around. I suspect that if all observers were to become extinct, the Universe would go on its merry way, caring not one bit.
Now if one has an observer as creator of the universe and its reality, that seems to be just a sleight-of-hand way of replacing the term 'God' with the term 'observer', and as physicist Victor Stenger and biologist Richard Dawkins (among others) have recently argued, there is no scientific evidence for a 'God' existing far less creating anything.
However, I can think of (not as my original thoughts I must add) two scenarios where our Universe and its reality were created by 'observers'. The first is a variation on physicist Lee Smolin's idea that a universe can 'reproduce' via black holes. Black holes can create or spawn baby universes, and so a universe that has physics that maximise the production of black holes maximises its own reproductive fitness. My variation is that an ultra advanced extraterrestrial civilization/technology could in fact have the ability to manipulate matter/energy into forming a black hole and thus creating a new universe - like our Universe!
The second scenario is again of an extraterrestrial intelligence nature. I can imagine some alien Ph.D. student doing a thesis along the lines of "Planet Earth and Associated Universe: A Simulated Construction". In other words, we are all, and our reality is all, just a simulation - a software package. But that's not so strange an idea. By analogy, there are multi-thousands of software simulation packages right here available for our scientific use, as a training tool (say for pilots, astronauts, medical doctors), and just for fun (video games). I actually find this quite plausible. Simulated universes can greatly outnumber a real universe, so what odds that we're in a real universe instead of a simulated one? I find one piece of evidence suggestive. That is, there are apparently two independent sets of software that together, but apart, run the cosmos - classical physics and quantum physics. I have sometimes wondered whether the quest for a Theory of Everything, for quantum gravity, is a futile exercise. See, our extraterrestrial Ph.D. student is a computer geek, not a physics geek!
If either of these above scenarios are correct, one can readily equate a supernatural God with a flesh-and-blood extraterrestrial whose technology is, from our point of view, indistinguishable from magic (i.e. - supernatural happenings), as Arthur C. Clarke would postulate.
What's at stake here? The macro universe, which is made up of by the micro (quantum) universe, at the level of billiard balls and pussy cats is anything but a universe measured in probabilities and degrees of uncertainty. The micro universe, from the point of view of observers, is everything probability and uncertainty. But, is the micro universe really that way or does it only give an illusion of that? If there were no observers (which would unfortunately mean we wouldn't have any ways and means of discussing the issue) I would maintain that the micro would mirror the macro. In short, causality rules at the most fundamental of levels.
Einstein fought this battle and lost. There's currently experimental evidence that quantum physics is at the heart an uncertain world and a measure of all things that are just probability. That's the sort of environment that allows for free will - you just can't predict in advance which way you're brain is going to jump, brain activity being chemical, thus physical, thus ultimately quantum. But perhaps there's yet an undiscovered level of reality that governs al things quantum and eliminates probability and uncertainty, even though to us, as observers, that's what things look like - now. But even if some deeper level of reality within the quantum world exhibits real causality, if electrons have coordinates; if cats are alive or dead and not in-between, then there can't be free will. Perhaps that's what's ultimately at stake.
CONCLUSION: Things are only in-deterministic or uncertain (as in Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal) or have probability (as in the cat is probably dead but equally probably alive) to the observer - or to use a layman's term, all things (well, some things) quantum are 'fuzzy'. However, from the point of view of Mother Nature, all things are deterministic, certain, and absolute. She knows where the electron is; and She knows all about that cat's state of animation. My bottom line is that if there were no observers, no life of any kind, no measuring devices like photographic film or Geiger counters or rulers or thermometers, the Universe would still exist. It would have an absolute physical reality. It would have to have that in order to bring forth into being observers who could and would observe and construct measuring devices to measure.
And with that statement, I've been expelled from Quantum Physics 101 - again.
* No, I'm not equating natural Mother Nature with a supernatural God or gods. They are two entirely different concepts.
** In another way, quite a valid way I might add, you do constantly observe the Moon - just not with your eyes (or ears that hear, or a nose that smells, or mouth that tastes for that matter). You 'feel' the Moon (and the Moon 'feels' you too). You have mass and therefore gravity - ditto the Moon. So, you and the Moon are attracted gravitationally to each other, albeit it's a very tiny attraction, but it is not zero, and tiny doesn't negate the reality of that dual attraction. You have directly observed the Moon! Therefore the Moon exists. It's observation via gravitations instead of photons. Since everything with mass has gravity and since gravity extends its influence out to infinity in theory (in theory because it travels at a finite velocity - the speed of light) and since gravity acts on all other masses, all objects with mass 'observe' all other masses. Now electrons, protons, neutrons, in fact all fundamental particles have mass, therefore gravity, and therefore participate in this universal 'observation' process because gravitational attraction is a universal 'observer'! Therefore, to exterminate all observers means exterminating the entire Universe! Of course this use of the word 'observer' is probably somewhat outside the usual and traditional meaning of the word 'observer' and that's why I've consigned it to this footnote. But, I suggest the argument isn't trivial and is a valid one.
