New interpretation of QM, with new two-phase cosmology, solves 15 foundational problems in one go.

[marcin]

I have used AI to generate the maths (using two different models to cross-check), and I am now waiting for him to respond to that. Exciting times for us.

So you think that this time he won't reply with the eulogy given by other LLM?

 

[Geoff Dann]

So you think that this time he won't reply with the eulogy given by other LLM?

QCT is his theory. It is up to him to decide how to evaluate extensions to it.

 

[Gibsense]

Plants aren't dead, but they aren't conscious either, because they do not have brains.

That sort of rounds things up as Plant photogenesis depends fundamentally on quantum superposition and wavefunction collapse during the initial stages of light absorption."
If I understand you, this contradicts the need for Brains

 

[Geoff Dann]

That sort of rounds things up as Plant photogenesis depends fundamentally on quantum superposition and wavefunction collapse during the initial stages of light absorption."
If I understand you, this contradicts the need for Brains

I am not following you at all.

 

[marcin]

That sort of rounds things up as Plant photogenesis depends fundamentally on quantum superposition and wavefunction collapse during the initial stages of light absorption."
If I understand you, this contradicts the need for Brains

I bet you meant photosynthesis.

 

[Geoff Dann]

I bet you meant photosynthesis.

If so then the comment is irrelevant. Nothing I am saying implies plants should be conscious because they photosynthesise. It has nothing to do with information processing or recursive self-modelling. It's just a bog standard physical process.

My position on consciousness may seem metaphysically alien to many people (which is not surprising, because it is a radical shift from materialism), but intuitively it makes perfect sense. When we start talking about philosophy, or materialistic science of consciousness (which doesn't know whether it is science or philosophy and blurs them incoherently) then we end up with all sorts of bizarre claims about what might be conscious, from plants and fungi to inanimate objects like stars or even black holes. But we don't actually treat any of those things as if they were conscious. We do, however, treat higher animals as if they are, and most people will accept that this sort of thing applies, at least some extent, to all animals which intentionally move -- right back down to things like slugs and worms, but not sponges or amoebas. Jellyfish and comb jellies sit somewhere near the intuitive border.

My theory lines up perfectly with intuition. Trees are not conscious.

 

[marcin]

Nothing that @Gibsense said implies that plants should be conscious. On the contrary. He said, that they don't need brains and therefore consciousness for the collapse of the wave function of the absorbed photons.

Moreover, "There is evidence that cyanobacteria and multicellular thalloid eukaryotes lived in freshwater communities on land as early as 1 billion years ago,[2] and that communities of complex, multicellular photosynthesizing organisms existed on land in the late Precambrian, around 850 million years ago.[3]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_history_of_plants

 

[Geoff Dann]

Nothing that @Gibsense said implies that plants should be conscious. On the contrary. He said, that they don't need brains and therefore consciousness for the collapse of the wave function of the absorbed photons.

That just assumes a physical collapse theory is true.

Moreover, "There is evidence that cyanobacteria and multicellular thalloid eukaryotes lived in freshwater communities on land as early as 1 billion years ago,[2] and that communities of complex, multicellular photosynthesizing organisms existed on land in the late Precambrian, around 850 million years ago.[3]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_history_of_plants

Indeed they did. But what on Earth has this got to do with anything I've ever said on this forum? This is just standard science, which I 100% accept at face value.

 

[marcin]

That just assumes a physical collapse theory is true.

What do you think happens with the wave function of a photon when it's absorbed by the atom?

 

[marcin]

Indeed they did. But what on Earth has this got to do with anything I've ever said on this forum? This is just standard science, which I 100% accept at face value.

Everything. If the photon's wave function is collapsed by its absorption during the photosynthesis, then the plants were collapsing the wave functions before the first worm with the brain.

 

[Geoff Dann]

What do you think happens with the wave function of a photon when it's absorbed by the atom?

Whatever happens, it does not collapse. In 2PC collapse only occurs when knowledge of some physical event arrives in the consciousness of an observer. The whole system remains in superposition until it is actually observed (where "observed" means "actualised into phase 2 reality by consciousness".

You are trying to impose non-2PC assumptions onto 2PC. The result is what looks, from a 2PC perspective, like incomprehensible gibberish. You are assuming "absorbed by the atom" involves a timeline selection. It doesn't.

 

[Geoff Dann]

Everything. If the photon's wave function is collapsed by its absorption during the photosynthesis, then the plants were collapsing the wave functions before the first worm with the brain.

As explained above, from a 2PC perspective this is incomprehensible gibberish. The idea that a wave function can be collapsed by a physical process like photosynthesis is metaphysical nonsense, not science.

It is not science at all. This is materialistic metaphysics masquerading as science. It's pseudoscience.

 

[marcin]

As explained above, from a 2PC perspective this is incomprehensible gibberish. The idea that a wave function can be collapsed by a physical process like photosynthesis is metaphysical nonsense, not science.

It is not science at all. This is materialistic metaphysics masquerading as science. It's pseudoscience.

Geoff, do you think, that if you close your eyes while conducting the double-slit experiment with the detectors placed on both slits, then the wave function does not collapse on one of them?

 

[Geoff Dann]

Geoff, do you think, that if you close your eyes while conducting the double-slit experiment with the detectors placed on both slits, then the wave function does not collapse on one of them?

If there is no causal connection between any consciousness (not just mine) and whatever is happening in the physical world, including any version of the double-slit experiment, then the entire thing remains in phase 1 superposition. That doesn't rule out mathematical decoherence -- maybe the wave function can split into more than one part, such that whenever they are eventually observed by consciousness then this split is necessarily incorporated into the outcome -- but there is no actual collapse - no timeline selection - until consciousness is involved.

You appear to think that if you keep giving me more examples of this then I will somehow "get confused" or suddenly realise this makes no intuitive sense...but that just demonstrates that you don't understand what this looks like from my perspective. I am acutely aware of the implications of what I am saying. These aren't just empty words or half-baked ideas. I mean exactly what I am saying. What you think of as "the physical world" is a critically unexamined mixture of "the physical world as we experience it" and "the physical world as it is in itself, independent of our experiences of it". For me, these things have been very clearly separated since I rejected materialism at the age of 33 (I am now 56). In the intervening years I have both studied philosophy academically, and spent 17 years (4 attempts) writing a book about this.

Now, given all that, do you really think you can prompt me to completely revise my current views based on the most basic questions about the double slit experiment? Do you seriously think I am still operating at that conceptual level? For me, that way of thinking is ancient history.

 

[marcin]

If there is no causal connection between any consciousness (not just mine) and whatever is happening in the physical world, including any version of the double-slit experiment, then the entire thing remains in phase 1 superposition.

Geoff, but we live in the 2nd, conscious phase of your 2 Phase Cosmology, remember?

 

[marcin]

You said it yourself, that if you close your eyes while conducting the double-slit experiment with the detectors placed on both slits, then the wave function does not collapse on one of them. Do you think that after you open your eyes you'll see the interefence pattern on the screen - after you shot multiple, single particles with your eyes closed? Or that you'll see absolutely nothing on the screen?

 

[Geoff Dann]

Geoff, do you think, that if you close your eyes while conducting the double-slit experiment with the detectors placed on both slits, then the wave function does not collapse on one of them?

A second answer may help.

What is crucial to understand about this whole system is that it takes a radically different approach to materialistic science to time. In current physics, there is no "now", and no coherent understanding of how time relates to reality -- one of the big problems 2PC solves is the arrow of time and status of the present.

From a 2PC perspective, phase 1 is time-neutral or time-symmetric. Nothing is actually happening. Phase 1 is just an informational structure -- a massively branching MWI-like structure. When you say "close your eyes", what you actually mean (functionally) is "isolate the physical system from consciousness" -- it is directly analagous to sealing Schrodinger's box shut. Under 2PC, that does indeed mean that system is in phase 1 -- it does not exist in the way phenomenal physical reality exists. It is literally just a structure of information until it is observed, at which point the history is selected backwards from the point of observation. That is wave function collapse in 2PC.

 

[Geoff Dann]

You said it yourself, that if you close your eyes while conducting the double-slit experiment with the detectors placed on both slits, then the wave function does not collapse on one of them. Do you think that after you open your eyes you'll see the interefence pattern on the screen - after you shot multiple, single particles with your eyes closed? Or that you'll see absolutely nothing on the screen?

You are still asking questions which don't make sense from a 2PC perspective, so there is no point in me trying to answer them on your terms.

From a 2PC perspective, asking what pattern appears on the screen while your eyes are closed is like asking what the ending of a book is before it's written — the system isn’t “running” in a classical sense; it’s in Phase 1, a timeless informational structure with no determinate outcomes. Only when consciousness engages — when you open your eyes — does a consistent classical history get selected and retroactively actualized. There is no physical screen, no pattern, no “happening” before that. The question assumes a continuous material reality, but 2PC replaces that with collapse-based emergence: the present doesn't pass through time — it generates it.

 

[marcin]

I'm asking what you will see AFTER you open your eyes.

 

[Geoff Dann]

Geoff, but we live in the 2nd, conscious phase of your 2 Phase Cosmology, remember?

No, although this is an understandable misunderstanding.

I am using "phase 1" and phase 2" in two different ways. Firstly they refer to cosmological history -- before and after the phase shift 555mya. In phase 1 of cosmic history the entire cosmos is in phase 1.

In cosmic phase 2 then conscious observers like humans exist, and phase 2 is all we ever experience. BUT...phase 1 is still there, chugging away in the background as "the uncollapsed wave function". The difference is that now instead of teleological selection effects operating on a cosmos-wide scale, they are operating specifically with respect to conscious observers.

 

[Geoff Dann]

I'm asking what you will see AFTER you open your eyes.

And I am telling you that if you still think this question is important, then you have not understood the core idea of what I am proposing. What I am trying to get you to understand is that it does not matter which answer I give, and it does not matter what I actually see. Neither outcome and neither answer causes a problem to my system. The very fact that you keep asking the question just confirms you have still not understood.

Which outcome do you think falsifies 2PC?

Why do you think this question is so important? Maybe if you answer that then this will become clearer. I suspect you will not want to do so, which will reveal the deceptive nature of the question.

The way you just keep asking this question, without explaining the thinking behind it, marks it out as an attempted "trick question" -- an attempted "trap". I'm refusing to walk into the the trap partly because I don't understand what your thinking is behind asking the question. So, in good faith, and in the interests of everybody reading this, please explain WHY you are asking this question, and how the different answers play out. Then it no longer looks like a trick and begins to be genuine mutual enquiry.

 

[marcin]

You said it yourself, that if you close your eyes while conducting the double-slit experiment with the detectors placed on both slits, then the wave function does not collapse on one of them. Do you think that after you open your eyes you'll see the interefence pattern on the screen - after you shot multiple, single particles with your eyes closed? Or that you'll see absolutely nothing on the screen?

Which outcome do you think falsifies 2PC?

Why do you think this question is so important? Maybe if you answer that then this will become clearer. I suspect you will not want to do so, which will reveal the deceptive nature of the question.

The lack of interference pattern totally falsifies your theory in the described experiment with your eyes closed and opened after you shot all the single particles.

 

[Geoff Dann]

The lack of interference pattern totally falsifies your theory in the described experiment with your eyes closed and opened after you shot all the single particles.

I didn't understand that explanation. Please expand it to a paragraph so it is clear.
It seems like you are saying

(1) This experiment has been done, and there is no interference pattern.
and
(2) This experimental result is inconsistent with 2PC.

But you have not explained why. Please confirm (1) and and explain why you think (2) follows.

 

[marcin]

It seems like you are saying

(1) This experiment has been done, and there is no interference pattern.

I have no idea if someone has done it, but it's child's play to imagine such a modification of this experiment and think of the result.

It seems like you are saying

(2) This experimental result is inconsistent with 2CP.

But you have not explained why. Please confirm (1) and and explain why you think (2) follows.

If each and every particle collapses on one of the detectors on the slits even though you can't see it, because you closed your eyes, then it can't interefere with itself, so there is no interference pattern.

 

[Geoff Dann]

I have no idea if someone has done it, but it's child's play to imagine such a modification of this experiment and think of the result.

OK, that helps. So we do not know the outcome of the experiment.

If each and every particle collapses on one of the detectors on the slits even though you can't see it, because you closed your eyes, then it can't interfere with itself, so there is no interference pattern.

That helps greatly, because it just makes clear that you still haven't understood what I am proposing, which is astonishing given how many times I have explained it.

The moment you said "each and every particle collapses on one of the detectors" you inserted an assumption of physical collapse into the thought experiment. You assumed your conclusion -- that collapse occurs as the result of purely physical interactions, which have nothing to do with consciousness. From 2PC that assumption is metaphysically incorrect, so this cannot falsify 2PC.

I am not sure what is so difficult to understand about this. I am saying that until consciousness is involved, there can be no collapse, and the entire physical system remains in a timeless (or time-neutral, or time-symetric) superposition. Until you are willing to accept this proposal and actually think about the implications on its own terms, then all you are doing is refusing to even consider what I am proposing.

So far we have not reached the start line. You do not understand 2PC.

Think of it more like this maybe: until consciousness is involved, MWI is true.

Does that help? In MWI there is no collapse, so saying "particles collapse on to the detectors" makes no sense, right?