David Chalmers was pretty good, but he missed the point made by Mr Ron above.

That's cool, but what if I tell you that it was entirely wrong?

@@schmetterling4477 Entirely?

Yes, I just replied similarly in more detail above, but I believe I had the same thing in mind.

Well, sort of...The comments would have collapsed even as they were typed by their authors. Moreover, their content was constrained by your prior expectations, and so could not have seemed infinite....So, not really,

Indeed. But they refuse to accept this.

Geshtu the delayed choice quantum eraser proves that a mechanical object is not adequate to collapse the wave function. What matters is the information about the system that is available to an observer. Which doesn't help, but it's what the "science" says.

I disagree. By my understanding, the delayed choice quantum eraser only shows that the mechanical object's wave function is entangled with that of the human observer. Human observers are not outside of nor immune to quantum mechanics, which is why I fail to see the distinction between humans and machines as far as decoherence is concerned. I will look into this further though, because it may help me to refine my thoughts on this better. I get what you are saying about the wave function not being collapsed until the human observer makes a choice of what to observe, but that firstly assumes the copenhagen interpretation, and also assumes the point at which decoherence occurs is the point when the human observer makes a choice. Actually even after that point, a second human observer would see the first human observer in a superposition of quantum states, entangled with the experiment setup. Now assume the perspective of this second observer, and tell me what changes if the first observer is a machine vs a human. I don't know the answer to this. If I've made an error in my assumptions, please let me know.

Aaron, also note that the experiment setup at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_choice_quantum_eraser#The_experiment_of_Kim_et_al._(1999) does not include a human observer, and the experiment worked just fine.

Likewise physics.stackexchange.com/questions/214777/delayed-choice-quantum-eraser-am-i-missing-something-here "Consciousness is never part of any quantum mechanical explanation. Every experiment runs the same whether or not a person is in the room."

@@geshtu1760 "Consciousness is never part of any quantum mechanical explanation. Every experiment runs the same whether or not a person is in the room." The problem with this is: as soon as you look at the results of the experiment there is a conscious observer involved: You. So it is impossible to get results from a quantum experiment without involving a conscious observer. This however doesn't weaken your main point: that decoherence is not absolute but relative to the observer. It just means that we can't test it. But I think the same way you do because to me it just makes the most sense.

I agree that statement doesn't make sense if we restrict ourselves to the usual pattern of usage of words like "affect", "change" and "past". We usually assume there is one present and one past. But quantum mechanics tells us there are multiple versions of past, present and future, versions that in some sense coexist. Nevertheless I find it hard to accept that a conscious observer is necessarily involved.

Yes. :-)

No. :-)

Does that mean at the moment of the Big Bang there needed to be an observer?

I agree. Well put.

That is profound! Love it 😍

I would say you are just as fundemental to the universe as an electron for sure. You are as fundamental to the universe, as the universe is fundamental to you. the division between you and the universe, is just an idea. when you was a child you new better.

@@mrbwatson8081 I should've said our consciousness. I don't think the universe needs our consciousness. It was just working just as well before human consciousness came into existence.

@@djgroopz4952 the universe produces consciousness, just like an apple seed produces apples. In both cases a long long process is required, the seed bares no resemblance to the apple neither do the roots it produces nor the stem or leaves bare any resemblance to an 🍎. Lots of time will go by the seed will grow at an amazing rate and become a massive tree 🌳 yet still no 🍎:) then the tree will make flowers 🌸 and still no apples :) you could say this tree grow just fine without ever producing 🍎:) Same goes for the universe it started its life un recognisably small. It expanded and formed stars galaxies planets 🪐 you could say like the apple tree this universe can exist just fine without consciousness. BUT NOTICE apples don’t just appear as if by magic, the whole process of seed to 🌸 and all the madness in between IS or BECOMES 🍎 . Without the process from seed to flower there can be no apple, the process from seed to flower IS the 🍎 the 🍎 was there all along, with correct awareness you could look at a young apple tree and see it’s apples just like you can look at a young boy and see the man he will become :) consciousness is the same like the apple, consciousness didn’t just appear out of no where, it was here all along. All what is in the universe, was always in the universe. Consciousness was there from the get go you just need awareness to see it.

I think "observer" is a bit misleading. It suggests we're a passive spectator, rather than an active agent. But to observe anything we must measure, extract information from a system by interacting with it. But to interact with something means to influence its trajectory through its phase space. This is what the collapse of the wave function is about, as I understand it. So an "observer" can be any system that extracts/ exchanges information with another system and thereby alters the trajectory through phase space of both by entagling the two systems. The observer then "knows" something about that system at the cost of being transformed by it. To try to answer your excellent question, then, I'd say the extent to which something is an observer depends on the extent to which it can retain information about its past interactions of itself with other systems. The more complex that process is, the more complex the observer is. We are the most complex observers we know of.

Yes. :-)

But what is the macro universe? We can only ever observe our own part, a horizon from the edge of which light/information can reach us.

Anybody who brings up retro-causality might as well insert pink unicorns.

@@schmetterling4477 Scientists would have said the same thing 120 years ago about space-time.

@@kevinlenihan4074 I will see you in 120 years, then. ;-)

@@schmetterling4477 There will certainly be some shocking fundamental new additions to our thought by then, something many people wouldn't dare to imagine now. I have no idea if retro-causality will be one of those additions, but one should not be so quick to dismiss, especially considering there is experimental evidence to back it up to some degree, at least at the quantum level. Cheers.

@@kevinlenihan4074 Why don't you make a nice crayon painting of your hopes and dreams and we hang it on the fridge for the next 100 years. ;-)

I observe, therefore I am

"They" keep saying that because they don't know actual physics. Don't listen to "them".

Consciousness is fundamental

rupak rokade yes, I’ve heard many of these physicists talk about the theory of needing an observer to create the universe but dancing around the topic of a BEING outside of time and space observing creation

@@Bradmhj Yes. It is difficult though but it certainly cannot be completely ruled out. For instance, the double slit experiment does show that measurement (observation in layman's) of a particle does collapse its wavefunction converting it from a probabilistic existence to a more Real existence. This act of measurement can be analogous to creation.

@@rupakrokade Where did you find Planck's constant in the double slit experiment? If you can't find Planck's constant in there, what makes you think that the double slit experiment is a quantum experiment?

Agreed that observers amplify a signal. In the process they make it definite. For example, a grain of silver halide in a piece of photographic film absorbs a photon and in the process undergoes an irreversible chemical change that causes it to become a silver grain when the film is bathed in an aqueous solution of developer chemicals. Here there is no consciousness in the "observer".

Ralph Dratman I’ve heard many of these physicists talk about the theory of needing an observer to create the universe but dancing around the topic of a BEING outside of time and space observing creation

@@RalphDratman but then why call that piece of film an "observer". In other words can we really maintain the concept of information without the concept of "interpreter"-- something for which the signal is a signal.

​@@kvaka009 In this case what makes the film grain an "observer" is that it absorbs a photon. The photon is the signal and the grain is the interpreter. The grain interprets the photon by undergoing a chemical change that will eventually become visible by a human. The human need not be involved for the grain to be a receiver, but the human's perception illustrates the fact that a signal was passed. That is my best understanding.

@@RalphDratman yes, agreed. But you see my concern is that, even if the film is an interpretent, "what" it interprets as signal is not what we interpret when we look at the film. I mean it is obvious that we interpret more than the film does, but do we interpret the entire signal that the film does? Here I'm not sure what to say.

Re--presentation

Nope.

n schulz think about how god felt

How?

Exactly! We better not eff this up. The entire (multi)universe depends on us.

yes, I’ve heard many of these physicists talk about the theory of needing an observer to create the universe but dancing around the topic of a BEING outside of time and space observing creation. Interesting how it would point to a God type creator

There are no observers in physics. There are only reversible and irreversible processes. What we mean by "measurement" is an irreversible energy transfer from the quantum system to the environment. Everything else that you may have heard about it is unscientific nonsense.

Your idea of something really existing behind the illusion is the illusion. There is no God. Only you and your infinite illusions.

@Zac Atkinson Thus spake Zac

@@kvaka009 I am, we are, definitely an illusion. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Not at the center, just not unimportant.

love your phrase 'hokus bogus '!! Some deny that mind and consciousness even exists, and this may be right. Others believe that mind is a physical phenomenon needing scientific study. I think this question is not yet answerable. Also currently unanswerable is the question of the significance or lack of significance of mind in the universe. The universe may be 10E24 times the size of the observable universe....so let's not get too big for our boots.

Proves we are all god

Well, this is not profound, but everybody in this interview is certainly confused. ;-)

@@schmetterling4477 scientific method is Self Contradictory. It claims that it only deals with what's Observable. Yet, its theories comprise unobservable stuff like Singularity, plank length, 4th and higher dimensions, infinity etc nonsense

@@1stPrinciples455 Yes, that is the amateur's false understanding of how physicists work with theories. :-)

Michael Rhizal bahahahah, that was great!

No, not google. Isn't the "biggest observer" (old Father) TIME itself ? ...you exist within time & thus you are always being "watched" .... simple really!.

Mr Dunning Kruger biggest observer is the one outside of time that is in the original eternal dimension