Does Quantum Physics Point To An Afterlife?

[lionelf]

It's a year or two old but I've just been made aware of the scientist Robert Lanza and his book on Biocentrism. For some reason the press are just beginning to talk about it over the last day or two as well which is rum

You can google 'Quantum Physics Afterlife' to get many articles on this but here are one or two that seem to cover it

https://www.sott.net/article/271933-Scientists-cla...

http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/scientist-quantum-phys...

Here's a YouTube thingy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSpTdOS3ZAA

In a nutshell my understanding of the argument (and I'm likely wrong) is that as the Schrodingers Cat example shows everything in the universe is just probable until somebody looks at it whereupon it solidifies into reality. Therefore all matter is simply probable and the only thing that is truly real is therefore consciousness. Consciousness can never be destroyed as with nobody to witness it the universe would cease to exist as our consciousness is the thing that has created it in the first place. It's certainly a rather left-field speculative philosophical interpretation of Quantum Theory.

Interesting no other big guns in the science community appear to be riding to side on this so it's likely BS but it is an interesting hypothesis/head f**k.

Edited by lionelf on Friday 20th May 12:41

[Boring_Chris]

Maybe I'm missing something, but surely if that were the case, Earths core would be something of a bind - given that it's supporting everyone here and yet nobody's there to look at it?

Maybe that could be Community Service for the future? Send a couple Crims down there via some whizzy future drills / tunnels to keep an eye on stuff?

"If you take your eyes off it, it'll cease to exist and the Earth will implode!"
"Ahh fking hell!"

• stares at it long and hard *

Sounds a bit Religiousy to me... I'm not sold!

[Monty Python]

If that's true then does Lanza actually exist, after all I can't see him at this precise moment, and if he doesn't exist, who wrote the article in the first place?

Sounds like another of these "what if" thought experiments that usually end up nowhere.

[HOGEPH]

Of course there's an afterlife, the vicar told me....

[Dr Jekyll]

I think this 'hypothesis' comes under the heading of 'not even wrong'.

First of all saying matter is a matter of probabilities isn't the same as saying it isn't real. Even if the probabilistic interpretation is correct it isn't that 'consciousness' makes things solidify into one of the possibilities. It's that by observing something you are locking yourself into the possible universe where it occurs. If a particle can go through either of two slots then arguably there are now 2 universes, one with each possibility. If nothing else is different you can be in both at the same time and not even notice anything spooky until you study your two slot experiment. As soon as you spot the particle in one slot you are restricting yourself to one possibility and the spooky stuff disappears.

Secondly, why should consciousness be any more real than anything else? What is consciousness anyway? Without a definition the whole argument is meaningless.

[lionelf]

Dr Jekyll said:

It's that by observing something you are locking yourself into the possible universe where it occurs.

So up until that point you are 'free floating' between 'many worlds or possible universes' yes? That kinda gels with what he's saying no? Your point about consciousness is, of course, valid. His point is, if I read it correctly, that consciousness exists outside of the Physical realm so cannot, in any meaningful sense, be destroyed or subject to death.

Hey, I don't believe this stuff but it seemed an interesting thread-in-the-making.

[Russian Rocket]

its pseudo scientific bks

[Dr Jekyll]

ash73 said:

Dr Jekyll said:

Even if the probabilistic interpretation is correct it isn't that 'consciousness' makes things solidify into one of the possibilities. It's that by observing something you are locking yourself into the possible universe where it occurs.

I think the basic idea is the waveform never collapses in reality only in your concsciousness, in other words it's your mind making sense of a jumble of probability waves by creating a model of reality in your head. The probability waves are always there whether or not someone is making sense of them (instantiating a reality) by observing; and this may negate the requirement for multiple universes.

That would certainly be an improvement.

[Moonhawk]

lionelf said:

In a nutshell my understanding of the argument (and I'm likely wrong) is that as the Schrodingers Cat example shows everything in the universe is just probable until somebody looks at it whereupon it solidifies into reality.

Schrodinger's cat isn't really an "example".

It's an analogy to try and illustrate to the layman the concept of the superposition of states within quantum systems and the collapsing of a wave function upon observation.

I think you may be taking it a little too literally.

Edited by Moonhawk on Wednesday 25th May 20:47