Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism

[Music] materialism was a view of many scientists at the turn of the 20th century this simplistic view that all that existed was matter energy and the rearrangements of it is the extreme view of realism realism is a general belief accepted by many today that a physical reality exists independent of observation and roughly 100 years ago most held a one of these two views rejecting the opposing view idealism The View that reality is a mental construct and doesn't exist independent of observation for many back then their understanding of physics seemed to favor this side of the

spectrum firmly believing it buried idealism however this realistic worldview was shaken with the Advent of quantum mechanics the realization of how the quantum World behaved began to eat away the materialist and realist beliefs matter was thought to be particles that existed independent of our observation however the equations of quantum mechanics and the results of the double slit experiment changed that to understand what this experiment showed a simple explanation is given subatomic particles were thought to exist like tiny bits of matter not like continuous waves of energy however sending electrons through a double slit show they

acted like waves of energy instead of tiny bits of matter even sending one electron through at a time the same result happen however when one set up a a measuring device at one slit the results changed and electrons acted as one would expect as Tiny bits and not spread out waves when they observed the electron went back to behaving like a little marble It produced a pattern of two bands not an interference pattern of many the very Act of measuring or observing which slit it went through meant it only went through one not both the

electron decided to act differently as though it was aware it was being watched the conclusion was drawn that the very Act of observing caused a wave function to collapse and create the existence of matter either in the state of particles or as a w according to the Schrodinger equation independent of observation particles exist in a state of a wave function which is a series of potentialities rather than actual objects the very AC of observing caus this wave of potentialities to collapse to a state of matter the results inferred was that matter didn't exist independent of

observation or measurement flipping materialism up on its head to better explain this in the quantum Enigma Rosen Bloom and cutner explained with a simple scenario representing what is actually happening if you were to take an electron and isolate it in a super position of two boxes and open one box the electron will collapse in either one or the other box so if you don't see it in one it will definitely exist in the other however if you were to take another pair of boxes and open both simultaneously the electron would come out of both as

a spread out wave it would display the wave of potentialities as an actual spread out wave the key to understanding what is happening is that matter doesn't exist as a wave of energy prior to Observation but as a wave of potentialities prior to Observation the waviness in a region is the probability of finding the object in a particular place we must be careful the waviness is not the probability of the object being in a particular place there is a crucial difference here the object was not there before you found it there these were the conclusions

drawn from the Shing gear equation and the experimental results at the time it was only reconfirmed in the 1960s by Claus jonsen at that time though not everyone liked the conclusion that was playing out some like Einstein and shinger were deeply troubled by the results of quantum mechanics so in 1935 Einstein and two of his colleagues proposed a thought experiment to debunk quantum mechanics they proposed that if you plac two particles in a joint super position and then separated them by a great distance an observation of one would instantly affect the other which Einstein called

a spooky action at a distance the point was the observation of one couldn't affect the other instantly because information couldn't travel faster than the speed of light if it did then relativity would be violated which didn't seem possible at the time so instead there must be some physical undiscovered local hidden variable that was actually affecting them instead of our observation that matter acted independent of observation and only appeared to be observing dependent from our perspective however in the 1960s John Bell began to explore this thought experiment and propose an inequality if this inequality was shown

to be false then the local hidden variable theories would be debunked and matter would be dependent on observation this was put to experimental test in 1982 by the physicist Alan ASPC and the results confirm Bell's prediction Bell's inequality was violated Einstein's spooky action at a distance was real this confirmed what quantum mechanics was telling us prior to measurement objects of no defined Properties or location the act of a conscious Observer creates the existence of the physical objects and the properties they entail instantly who deserves to trust their intuition more than Einstein and Einstein's intuition told

him like everybody's intuition tells them that things are really there when you're not looking at them well he was wrong right you know that intuition is incorrect but it doesn't end there because many propose the existence of non-local hidden variables in legat inequality however in 2007 they were also falsified This Time by Anton zelinger and his team the results sent shock waves in physics World went so far as to say this means quantum physics says goodbye to reality so recent experiments led by the group at the University of Vienna Austria provide the most compelling evidence

yet that there is no objective reality beyond what we observe so it's really the observation that creates the reality what they found is that legats inequalities violated as well as bells even if you allow for instantaneous influences Quantum measurements do not fit with the idea of an objective reality so as they say in the magazine rather than passively observing it we in fact create reality a reality independent of observation doesn't exist but it doesn't stop here prior to this in 1999 the delayed Choice Quantum eraser experiment was performed if I'm going to simplify and explain

this complex experiment we need to do so with a hypothetical scenario of modifying the original double slit experiment instead of placing the detector at the slit it is placed past where the particles land but just before the particles hit the film it is pulled away and the camera captures the results after they went through the double slit if they observe a wave then particles went through the double slit as a wave and just adding a measuring device doesn't cause them to collapse to particles but if they collapse to a state of particles at the moment

of detection then even though they went through the slit unobserved and should produce a wave pattern the very Act of observing instantly transforms them into particles but not only that a back history is loaded up so that particles went through the double slit instead of a wave well to the dismay of materialists the results would display particles observation creates the existence of particles and loads up a back history so they went through the double slit as particles thus it follows particles do not exist unless there is an observer but the problems don't end there for

realists many try to explain this away and hold to naive realism which holds to the belief that a reality exists independent of observation just that our perceptions are just a representation of something that is actually there but not a perfect representation however this view was also falsified in 2011 This Time by confirming the coach inspector theorem the outcome observe reality depends on the measurements of the time and cannot be predicted prior to that which would be essential for naive realism C sper theorem talks about properties of one system only so we know that we cannot

as to put it precisely we know that it is wrong to assume that the features of a system which observe in the measurement exist prior to the measurement not always I mean in certain cases so in a sense uh what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure which is a very very deep uh message about about the nature of reality and about our role in the universe we are not just passive observers then there was also the experiment in 2012 the non-local delayed Choice Quantum eraser experiment and the results

were quite astonishing it concluded no naive realistic picture is compatible with our results because whether a Quantum could be seen as showing particle or wav likee Behavior would depend on a causally disconnected Choice it is therefore suggested to abandon such pictures altogether thus the conclusion is inescapable this is why Eugene wigner could safely say years ago that materialism is not compatible with quantum mechanics and now with these recent experiments we can also Roll Out versions of local realism and naive realism not only not only is materialism incompatible with quantum mechanics but so is realism as

zelinger said we have to give up the idea of realism to a far greater extent than most physicists believe today now if one wishes to just dismiss all of this I can simply refer you to the quantum Randy challenge where you can win a Nobel Prize and prove naive realism or local realism is true and not observation dependent until then to just dismiss all the science pointing in the opposite direction is nothing more than a faith-based opinion now many have tried to get around this by trying to separate the quantum World from the macro world

but that was also falsified in 2010 by violations of the leg of gargon equality and in 2011 Brookner and coffler showed that macro realism does emerge from quantum physics so you cannot separate the two this should be obvious since double slot experiments have been performed successfully with larger things like atoms or molecules and experiments are being devised on how to do this with midsize proteins and viruses and no one doubts the results will be different other elements of quantum weirdness have been seen in macro objects as well such as Quantum and tanglement between two aluminum

chips big enough to be seen by the naked eye and putting a small metal paddle in a Quantum super position so the idea that we can escape by postulating the macro world is separate from the quantum world doesn't work either the macro world is built by the quantum World another Escape Route many materialists use is to hold to the many world interpretations of quantum mechanics which basically argues there is no collapse of the wave function upon measurement but that every possibility splits off into different worlds so every Quantum probability actually does play out they just

split off into different worlds and in each one I'm observing each different outcome but it is riddle with problems unlike the idealist understanding and it is an apparent violation of aam's Razor as entities are not to be multiplied Beyond necessity introducing a large number of Worlds that we also cannot detect is an extreme violation of this especially since this can be explained by accepting all these possibilities just exist in a mathematical probability as a wave function instead of as actual worlds that can never be verified or falsified in ideally misunder understanding can explain this just

fine with much less and other aspects of reality that we dealt with in our last video the many worlds interpretation doesn't have enough explanatory power and has to postulate so much more in order to explain the little it can as Bernard hos says one tiny atom's Quantum Behavior replicates the entire universe and defines each alternative by all the possible consequences of that behavior but at any moment within each human body there are on the order of a billion time a billion time a billion atoms each making Quantum transitions in the many worlds interpretation of quantum

mechanics every human being therefore creates a billion times a billion times a billion alternative universes every second so this is absurd to postulate and unnecessary to do so the last and important objection that many bring up is that this leads to solipsism which is false solipsism for our purposes in this case would be the extreme skeptical version of idealism which says only your mind exists and everything else is an illusion but that doesn't have to be the case as general forms of ontological idealism just say the appearance of the physical world is created by the

activity of the mental world not that only your mind exists in a short article ranting about why materialists cling to false Notions of an independent material reality Richard con Henry and Steven Palmquist say why do people cling with such ferocity to the belief in a mind independent reality it is surely because if there is no such thing as reality then ultimately as far as we can know mind alone exists and if mind is not the product of real matter but rather is the creator of the illusion of material reality which has in fact despite the

materialist been known to be the case since the discovery of quantum mechanics in 1925 then a theistic view of our existence becomes the only rational alternative to solipsism and now let Miki ukaku explain why this is the case Ern Schrodinger one of the founders of quantum mechanics designed a thought experiment to drive home the strange rules of his theory let's say we put a cat and a v of poison in a box we add an atom of radioactive uranium and a giga counter if the uranium decays it sets off the Giga counter which then releases

the poison and silently kills the cat before we open the box and look we can't actually know whether the uranium has Decay or not since radioactive decay is a probabilistic Quantum event here's the question is a cat Dead or Alive well according to Quantum Mechanics the cat is neither dead nor alive but the sum of the two states well at that point you say well that's nonsense that's preposterous how can you be both dead and alive simultaneously shus cat was supposed to show that nothing in this universe is certain until someone makes a measurement but

another Pioneer of quantum mechanics Eugene vigner believed it could teach us something else about the working of the universe that Consciousness controls everything bner said let's take it one step farther if I a human being looks at the cat I am conscious therefore Consciousness determines existence at that point Einstein went ballistic and said what you're saying that the fact that you are a conscious being determines the fact that the cat is alive answer is yes and Bard made one more step and that is how do I know I'm alive you see the cat and me

we're part of the same universe if I don't know if the cat is alive or dead I could also be dead at the same time and not even know it so who determines that I'm alive well vness fan looks at me I look at the cat and we exist but then who looks at Benner's friend and there's an infinite chain of people looking at people looking at people until finally you hit Cosmic Consciousness some Consciousness that's ethereal that envelops the Universe which looks at us and says aha the cat is alive I would even go

as far to say that this position is more logical than the susus position because in this case one can point out that our mind doesn't create reality it only participates in it in other words we are not the architect or of the ability to change the structure of the world through mental processes remember the scenario set up in the quantum Enigma about opening the box if we decide to look in one box and find where the atom is we do not actually decide where it will end up we just use our free will to participate

in deciding what the outcome will be whether a wave or a particle result but we don't get to choose the specifics so the evidence suggests we are just lesser Minds dependent on a much larger one that is actually in control the structure of the experience and we are allowed to operate and be able to participate in the outcome of the idealist experience now one objection to the theistic perspective is raised in the quantum Enigma if God is observing the physical world and Us in it then how come we can do experiments showing something unobserved is

in a superposition in other words if God is looking down at everything the strange rules of quantum mechanics should never have been verified since they are always being observed by God well this is a misunderstanding God is Not separate from us someplace in space observing us as space the matter are illusions of our conscious observation as the falsification of realism shows the existence of the physical world is created by our observation of it and it doesn't exist other than that so what is there for God to observe other than what we see Consciousness is what

is fundamental and our Consciousness would be dependent on a larger one God is in a sense observing us having an experience of the physical world and apart from our experience there is nothing that needs to be observed as it exists in the state of a wave function so he is not separate from us as our Consciousness is dependent on him is and he doesn't need to see an independent experience of the physical world so thus we can conclude no other given the scientific evidence that has led us this far what other inference does this lead

to of course one can always refuse to go with us to The Logical conclusion but that does not refute the conclusion or change it science has not buried God it has revealed him and with it buried materialism it remains now only in the fantasy of materialists