Hello! This is Cynthia Sue Larson, with realityshifters.com Today I'm
talking with you about observation and identity, and also the whole idea of
influence, and reality shifts. This concept of observation is critical. It's
pretty key to quantum mechanics, because of something called the 'measurement problem,'
and the 'observer effect.' And what all of this is getting at is the concept that
when you're not looking, is reality the same way everywhere, for everyone? And it
doesn't look like it is. At least based on what we're able to observe at the
so-called 'quantum scale.' Now, of course, anybody working toward the Theory of
Everything does not want to talk about the 'quantum scale' the 'Planck scale' and
what's in the realm of the so-called very, very small--but instead recognizes
that we do expect to see quantum influence at every so-called 'level of
reality.' What this means for observation is that to observe is to choose a
measurement system. This is something Henry Stapp has been writing about for a
long time, using his concept based along the lines of the original quantum theory
of the Copenhagen idea of the collapse of the wavefunction. The so-called
collapse, where the simple choice of a measurement system and apparatus and
observing system which would involve usually a person at some point, as well
as whatever equipment is involved--that that very selection and that very
choice that is made is already having an effect on what will be observed. This
runs counter to the classical vision of physics that we've seen throughout
hundreds of years in Western science. And it seems a little bit
counterintuitive to a lot of people-- the idea that the observer absolutely
has an effect on what's being observed. So what I've been
proposing and thinking about, is looking at influence, in addition to observation,
and recognizing that there is work being done by some of the physicists at the
Perimeter Institute--some of the same ones that I've talked about their work
in the past. They're definitely looking at quantum steering, where again in the
so called "quantum realm" they're able to have one observer, "Alice," affect the
observation of a quantum system being run by "Bob" just for the letters A and B,
and purposes of just hypothetical situation. And in these sorts of
circumstances, there are parabolas of influence. There are mathematical ways to
construct the sorts of influence you'd expect to see, when entangled quantum
particles are being observed over by Bob-- can Alice have an effect on that system?
And the answer is yes, she can. And then this has implications for quantum
computing, and also for artificial intelligence, down the road and so forth.
So these are big topics. And it also ties in with this idea of "Wigner's friend,"
which gets back to Schrodinger's cat. now Erwin Schrodinger was a
physicist, who contemplated what he thought was a sort of an outrageous
experiment--a Gedankenexperiment--a thought experiment. Where, if we were
imagining that a cat was placed in a box with a vial of poison, and there was some
kind of instrumentation set up so the random radioactive decay of some isotope
would be able to trigger the release of a poison capsule in the container with
the cat, the ridiculous part of the experiment that Erwin Schrodinger was
proposing was that it seems unlikely that we could conceive of a cat who's
both alive and not alive--who is dead and alive at the same time. Yet, that's what
quantum physics expects us to consider. This sort of a quasi state of unresolved
uncertainty, of a world of possibilities and when you
bring in Wigner's friend, then you've got an observer who is observing the system. So you
don't just have the Schrodinger's cat, but you've got Schrodinger's friend--
Wigner's friend--who is observing the whole system of someone observing the
cat. You can see where this is going! It has to do with how far does this go. How
deep does it go? And it's one of those things that looks like "turtles all the
way down." It's just a joke, which means
that no matter how far you look, you're going to see that someone else could be
observing the system. Therefore, someone could be influencing the outcome based
on their observation. So these are questions more than answers today, but
there are things that like you to think about when you recognize that you're
awake within this waking dream. You're not just an actor or just a puppet in life--
you're also an observer. You're paying attention. You're asking, "How good can it
get?" So, until next time, this is Cynthia Sue Larson, reminding you to keep asking
my favorite question: "How good can it get?" Take care!