What constitutes “observation” (/“measurement”)

[Simon Adams]

It seems to me there is a fundamental question around an element of nature as an observer of itself, versus conscious/living observers. I keep seeing mixed versions of this, including in Adur’s comments in his recent QM post, and indeed from Bernardo.

Take his recent ‘Objections to Idealism’, around 47 mins in, on the question of cosmological history. Most of what he says is a clear refutation of a blatant misunderstanding of idealism. However he adds an additional point about there being no representation, indeed no “physical” reality at all, until there were ‘living’ observers;



This seems to me to be unnecessary and also potentially problematic. First off, what do we mean by physical properties? If two meteors hit each other in space, there is an impact. We know that this is just fields repelling each other, but equally this is something that would normally fall under the description of a physical event. The material properties play a critical role in determining the outcome of the collision. Is the suggestion that this event would be in any way different if it happened in a part of the universe that is further than 4 billion light years away from any planet that has life? If so, in what way would it be different?

If the suggestion is that nature in it’s raw form, the thing in itself if you like, always behaves in the same way, and by “physical” we purely mean how nature represents itself to the senses of biological organisms, then this problem goes away, but then many of the aspects of quantum mechanics used to support idealism by Bernardo and others become meaningless. What is ‘observation’ in this scenario? More than this, I think we have enough evidence from QM experiments to show that conscious observation is not necessary to cause “collapse” of the wave function. Adur tries to get around this by stating that there is an entanglement between the investigator and the instruments when they setup the experiment (even if they then place it in a ‘black box’, and the detectors self destruct/erase). However this seems to be invoking a kind of magic, as if the photons are interrogating the investigator’s mind to find out where they put the detectors. Why should the entanglement be any different when the investigator includes a detector when setting up the experiment, versus when they don’t? This just doesn’t seem feasible or likely to me.

If instead we say that nature is composed of substantial, mental, forms, and that when these interact in a meaningful way they represent to each other, these problems seem to me to go away. All interactions produce physical properties as part of the interaction. However you can’t then have a need for ‘living’ biological observation in order to have representation, as Bernardo, Adur and many others suggest as necessary.

Am I missing something?

[Jim Cross]

Most physicists do not think that consciousness or living organisms are involved in measurement or observation. That includes Carlo Rovelli whose RQM is cited by BK regularly. In this interpretation, a wave/particle hitting a detector creates a measurement whether anybody looks at it or not.

A few -physicists have a different interpretation.

[Simon Adams]

Yes I know some physicists think that consciousness is involved, but do any physicists still think it’s Von Neuman / Wigner style human/biological consciousness responsible? The first few billion years of the universe become problematic in that case, let alone the parts of it more than 4 billion light years away (depending on where else life exists).

I expect they are more likely to have some kind of view closer to this (although not necessarily based around IIT)? https://philosophynow.org/issues/121/Do ... m_Collapse

[AshvinP]

It seems to me there is a fundamental question around an element of nature as an observer of itself, versus conscious/living observers. I keep seeing mixed versions of this, including in Adur’s comments in his recent QM post, and indeed from Bernardo.

Take his recent ‘Objections to Idealism’, around 47 mins in, on the question of cosmological history. Most of what he says is a clear refutation of a blatant misunderstanding of idealism. However he adds an additional point about there being no representation, indeed no “physical” reality at all, until there were ‘living’ observers;



This seems to me to be unnecessary and also potentially problematic. First off, what do we mean by physical properties? If two meteors hit each other in space, there is an impact. We know that this is just fields repelling each other, but equally this is something that would normally fall under the description of a physical event. The material properties play a critical role in determining the outcome of the collision. Is the suggestion that this event would be in any way different if it happened in a part of the universe that is further than 4 billion light years away from any planet that has life? If so, in what way would it be different?

If the suggestion is that nature in it’s raw form, the thing in itself if you like, always behaves in the same way, and by “physical” we purely mean how nature represents itself to the senses of biological organisms, then this problem goes away, but then many of the aspects of quantum mechanics used to support idealism by Bernardo and others become meaningless. What is ‘observation’ in this scenario? More than this, I think we have enough evidence from QM experiments to show that conscious observation is not necessary to cause “collapse” of the wave function. Adur tries to get around this by stating that there is an entanglement between the investigator and the instruments when they setup the experiment (even if they then place it in a ‘black box’, and the detectors self destruct/erase). However this seems to be invoking a kind of magic, as if the photons are interrogating the investigator’s mind to find out where they put the detectors. Why should the entanglement be any different when the investigator includes a detector when setting up the experiment, versus when they don’t? This just doesn’t seem feasible or likely to me.

If instead we say that nature is composed of substantial, mental, forms, and that when these interact in a meaningful way they represent to each other, these problems seem to me to go away. All interactions produce physical properties as part of the interaction. However you can’t then have a need for ‘living’ biological observation in order to have representation, as Bernardo, Adur and many others suggest as necessary.

Am I missing something?

Simon,

All of this confusion comes from the "3rd person spectator" perspective which arose from flawed Cartesian dualism. I don't say that to trivialize the questions you are asking, because that perspective is endemic to the West (including idealist philosophy) and must be guarded against continually by everyone so as not to fall into these metaphysical-spiritual traps. So these questions should be asked and addressed whenever there is doubt. The questions in bold can only be meaningful from that hypothetical perspective which simply does not exist anywhere in Reality. That being said, I do think BK fails to address this issue properly in the video, because he also speaks in terms of a "non-living" Universe which existed prior to representation by living beings. Therefore, he is also relying on the 3rd person perspective for his answer to the objection.

At the end of the day, if we simply do not assume perspectives which cannot exist or, in any case, cannot be known by definition, then we realize why question of Universe in the absence of living beings who represent the Universe is meaningless. What we know and can ever know from the givens of our experience is that there is a Universe, that it is either experienced or represented by living beings at all times, and that no aspect of the Universe can be said to exist independently of the experience and activity of living beings. Therefore, the answer to the person's objection is simply "no, there is no evidence for the existence of the Universe before conscious life arose, and there can never be any such evidence in principle". And it may help to add that, fortunately, the inability to speculate on such things will never have any practical significance for our life and its development.

[Simon Adams]

Simon,

All of this confusion comes from the "3rd person spectator" perspective which arose from flawed Cartesian dualism. I don't say that to trivialize the questions you are asking, because that perspective is endemic to the West (including idealist philosophy) and must be guarded against continually by everyone so as not to fall into these metaphysical-spiritual traps. So these questions should be asked and addressed whenever there is doubt. The questions in bold can only be meaningful from that hypothetical perspective which simply does not exist anywhere in Reality. That being said, I do think BK fails to address this issue properly in the video, because he also speaks in terms of a "non-living" Universe which existed prior to representation by living beings. Therefore, he is also relying on the 3rd person perspective for his answer to the objection.

At the end of the day, if we simply do not assume perspectives which cannot exist or, in any case, cannot be known by definition, then we realize why question of Universe in the absence of living beings who represent the Universe is meaningless. What we know and can ever know from the givens of our experience is that there is a Universe, that it is either experienced or represented by living beings at all times, and that no aspect of the Universe can be said to exist independently of the experience and activity of living beings. Therefore, the answer to the person's objection is simply "no, there is no evidence for the existence of the Universe before conscious life arose, and there can never be any such evidence in principle". And it may help to add that, fortunately, the inability to speculate on such things will never have any practical significance for our life and its development.

Hi Ashvin

I really don’t understand this at all, it seems to contradict basic science (not just the physicalist ontology). We know that young earth creationist ideas are nonsense for many unambiguous reasons. We see evidence of seabed sediments being laid down in lakes and oceans across the planet today, and then we see the same sedimentary layers in stones and rocks going back millions of years. We see tectonic plates moving over the surface of the planet, and then we see fossils of shell fish at the top of the highest mountains, showing this same tectonic process going back millions of years etc etc

In the same way, we see stars forming in cloud nebulas all around the universe, and have good reason to believe that our sun formed in a similar way. We see some stars for the first time at the end of their ‘lives’, and other times just from what is left after they go supernova. We see many stars that were dead and gone long before there were any “living beings”. In a similar way we see galaxies forming all over the universe, and solar systems, old and new. It’s just not feasible or reasonable at all to think that these processes changed in any way whatsoever once there were living beings there to observe them. That would contradict a fundamental principle of science itself, that nature is consistent.

[AshvinP]

Simon,

All of this confusion comes from the "3rd person spectator" perspective which arose from flawed Cartesian dualism. I don't say that to trivialize the questions you are asking, because that perspective is endemic to the West (including idealist philosophy) and must be guarded against continually by everyone so as not to fall into these metaphysical-spiritual traps. So these questions should be asked and addressed whenever there is doubt. The questions in bold can only be meaningful from that hypothetical perspective which simply does not exist anywhere in Reality. That being said, I do think BK fails to address this issue properly in the video, because he also speaks in terms of a "non-living" Universe which existed prior to representation by living beings. Therefore, he is also relying on the 3rd person perspective for his answer to the objection.

At the end of the day, if we simply do not assume perspectives which cannot exist or, in any case, cannot be known by definition, then we realize why question of Universe in the absence of living beings who represent the Universe is meaningless. What we know and can ever know from the givens of our experience is that there is a Universe, that it is either experienced or represented by living beings at all times, and that no aspect of the Universe can be said to exist independently of the experience and activity of living beings. Therefore, the answer to the person's objection is simply "no, there is no evidence for the existence of the Universe before conscious life arose, and there can never be any such evidence in principle". And it may help to add that, fortunately, the inability to speculate on such things will never have any practical significance for our life and its development.

Hi Ashvin

I really don’t understand this at all, it seems to contradict basic science (not just the physicalist ontology). We know that young earth creationist ideas are nonsense for many unambiguous reasons. We see evidence of seabed sediments being laid down in lakes and oceans across the planet today, and then we see the same sedimentary layers in stones and rocks going back millions of years. We see tectonic plates moving over the surface of the planet, and then we see fossils of shell fish at the top of the highest mountains, showing this same tectonic process going back millions of years etc etc

In the same way, we see stars forming in cloud nebulas all around the universe, and have good reason to believe that our sun formed in a similar way. We see some stars for the first time at the end of their ‘lives’, and other times just from what is left after they go supernova. We see many stars that were dead and gone long before there were any “living beings”. In a similar way we see galaxies forming all over the universe, and solar systems, old and new. It’s just not feasible or reasonable at all to think that these processes changed in any way whatsoever once there were living beings there to observe them. That would contradict a fundamental principle of science itself, that nature is consistent.

I am not arguing for any sort young Earth creationist view and I really don't know where that impression came from. Let me try to rephrase:

All of these issues related to the person's objection in the BK video come down to the following - what do we have any warrant to claim about existence? The cliché question is as follows - "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to see it, does it make a sound?" The meaning of that question is not any different than the meaning of your question about the "two meteors colliding in space". Both questions, if they want serious answers, assume that there can exist a third-person perspective standing apart from the trees or meteors and determining what happens without actually 'being there' and therefore itself participating in the process at issue. Such a perspective for observation does not exist and cannot ever exist (or cannot ever be known to exist, which is basically the same claim under idealism). That is what I mean by saying these are "meaningless" questions. And I think BK fell into the same trap with his answer, which then leads to all sorts of confusions such as those prompting your post about what exactly BK is trying to say. So I hope that clears my point up.

[findingblanks]

"The material properties play a critical role in determining the outcome of the collision."

Bernardo is siding with the interpretations that say the physical properties are generated by perception, but that doesn't in anyway suggest that the intricacy of a given facet of mind-at-large would be any less precise. In a virtual reality game, even when you look away from the rock slamming into the water, there is still a reality of which that image is the translation. That reality is objective, too.

Just because two meteors slamming into each other may not be anything like how it appears objectively to perception doesn't mean it isn't an event or an aspect of an event itself.

Also, I don't think Bernardo's model insists it is human consciousness that explicates nature into physicality. It seems to me he would say that any perception by any form of life is an instance of that translation process.

[findingblanks]

"We see evidence of seabed sediments being laid down in lakes and oceans across the planet today, and then we see the same sedimentary layers in stones and rocks going back millions of years."

Right but we don't believe that the images or appearances we imagine in our minds took place. We realize that those are the result of a human nervous system and a relatively modern mind. But I guess if you believe that when the lights go off there is still color hiding in the room, then I can see why you might think that the earth billions of years ago (before life) had some kind of hiding qualities. It seems more reasonable to me to realize that in itself it was merely another ever changing part of the universe as a whole, having no perceptual qualities because it wasn't being perceived. Heck, it wasn't really an it yet. But many people merely imagine that if their mind sees something as a separate part then it must ontologically be an actual part. Some people think cars are ontological objects. Hard to argue them out of it.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Under idealism, the problem is not how do transpersonal, trans-spatiotemporal, endogenous mental events of M@L become actual objects colliding in space (which never happens), but rather how do such events come to be rendered as the appearance of objects colliding in space, from the perspective of any given partitioned, subjectified locus of M@L. And given that the 'observer', however myriad its partitioning may be, is in essence never other than M@L, one is left with how to determine a point of origin for the partitioning. One take: that point of origin is immanent, and can't be other than—as Gebser states it—an ever-present Origin. Thus it would be the case that such partitioning can't be limited to only corporeal expressions ... or so a daimon told me.

[Jim Cross]

Yes I know some physicists think that consciousness is involved, but do any physicists still think it’s Von Neuman / Wigner style human/biological consciousness responsible? The first few billion years of the universe become problematic in that case, let alone the parts of it more than 4 billion light years away (depending on where else life exists).

I expect they are more likely to have some kind of view closer to this (although not necessarily based around IIT)? https://philosophynow.org/issues/121/Do ... m_Collapse

What other type of consciousness would apply when we are talking about physics (emphasis on "physics")?

Any physicist who thinks there is a mind at large isn't basing that belief on physics but on metaphysics or maybe religious belief. There is no scientific evidence of a mind at large.

I'm more and more inclined toward Rovelli's interpretations. He has a good book out on it.