Question about quantum physics

[FredFred]

I don't know how I feel about this question, but I won't have answers if I don't ask it first. Please correct me if I got anything wrong, I probably will. Hell, I don't even know if even the most basic knowledge I have about this stuff is true.

So quantum physics tells us something 'isn't' before having direct contact with it. An atom isn't an atom, it's a cloud of possibility, and it won't be an atom until the cloud collapses into an atom.

Let's say everything that has the capability to have direct experience with anything there 'is' stops to look at the moon for an hour. During that hour I make some calculations on paper and understand that the moon will be at a certain place in the sky when I will look at it later. One hour pass, I turn my head and boom! it's right where I figured it would be. How come?

I feel like I'm stuck in stage orange, can someone help me understand if I got something wrong?

Thanks!

[How to be wise]

@FredFred Why not? Reality happens? You don’t question why the sun exists, or why we exist, so why should you question ‘why’ certain phenomena happens. It happened because it did. That’s it.

Btw quantum mechanics will not take you to the truth. Ever. The mind can never take you to the truth. Give up on that shit and turn inward.

[Forestluv]

@FredFred Great questions! I’ve thought about this myself. Does quantum phenomena apply at the macro level?

We are begging to realize it may at the molecular level. Quuantum biology has recently begun to emerge. Exciting times!

[Viking]

13 minutes ago, FredFred said:

So quantum physics tells us something 'isn't' before having direct contact with it. An atom isn't an atom, it's a cloud of possibility, and it won't be an atom until the cloud collapses into an atom.

that cloud of possibility can change when you're not looking at it.

15 minutes ago, FredFred said:

I feel like I'm stuck in stage orange, can someone help me understand if I got something wrong?

dont know what that has to do with anything

[FredFred]

@Serotoninluv That is really cool! Small wikipedia page here I come!

@Viking In the sense that I fell like I'm unable to see the bigger picture.

[Viking]

1 minute ago, FredFred said:

In the sense that I fell like I'm unable to see the bigger picture.

personally i dont find quantum mechanics understanding as something that expands the big picture much. something that advances you better along the spiral, especially into stage green is interacting with green people, and when you have resistance to anything they say question that resistance.

[graded24]

I would like to contribute to this community with one expertise I have, and that is quantum mechanics. With the risk of stroking my own ego, let me mention that I have a doctorate in what would be called 'many- body quantum systems'. I have spent considerable time studying Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics as well. At this point you might suspect that  the doctorate was  from Trump university and that's why I am here-- but, no, it was from Caltech.  I mention this because I think, as a general rule, we should always give more careful consideration to what the "experts" are saying. Just a more careful consideration, no blind acceptance of course.  

Quantum Mechanics is very mysterious and it is not a stretch to say that even physicist do not understand it's implications for 'reality'. There are several proposals on what to 'make of' quantum mechanics and it is by no means settled yet. Note that this allows for people to choose an interpretation from the zoo of possibilities to meet their preconceived metaphysics. And that is true of physicists and non-physicists alike.  

Now with this background, the very first thing I would like everyone here to know is that 'wavefunction collapse', or the so called Copenhagen interpretation, a term coined in mystic circles a lot, is not the only, or an uncontested leading interpretation of quantum mechanics.  Yes, it is also not a fringe interpretation. In fact, when we do quantum mechanical calculations for any practical purposes in physics, we are by default working with the collapse interpretation. But it is because no matter which interpretation is correct, for practical purposes, any of them do for now, so we stick with the collapse one as it is both traditional and easiest. 

Having said that, the way collapse interpretation is used in mystic circles is almost always a misrepresentation. (Leo's one was a better one among them though. I did not find anything obviously wrong.)  For example, nowhere in physics does it say that things collapse only when a conscious observer interacts with a system. Collapse results when any 'classical' (something macroscopic that exists in single state not in superposition of multiple possibilities) object interacts with a quantum mechanical object. There is a rough (but clearly incomplete) understanding of why this collapse happens. There is no need to invoke consciousness for it. It happens because in interaction, the 'big' classical object gets entangled with the small quantum object, making it classical as well. 

There are two other main contending interpretations, 'many-world interpretation' and 'Qubism' . Good news is though, none of these interpretation is in any obvious conflict with the Nondual metaphysics.  If you ask me, I would say that actually Qubism is the one most in line with the Nondual understanding of reality. In some sense Qubism is the only one that directly invokes a conscious observer in its formalism. So look this one up. Actually qubism seems to directly spawn from a nondual understanding of humans.  Paradoxically, it would be somewhat of a bad news for mystic circles if qubism turns out to be the correct interpretation, because it kinda dymystifies quantum mechanics, but I digress..

With all this, coming to your question.  

4 hours ago, FredFred said:

So quantum physics tells us something 'isn't' before having direct contact with it. An atom isn't an atom, it's a cloud of possibility, and it won't be an atom until the cloud collapses into an atom.

I strongly disagree that quantum mechanics says that. Here I would agree with my dirty materialists colleagues like Sean Carroll. Atom did exist before it 'collapsed' , it's just that it existed as a quantum object not as a classical one.  I cannot stress enough how important it is to understand this point. Much of this tomfoolery around Quantum mechanics arises because we conflate 'existence' with 'classical existence'. Believe it or not, an atom, as a 'cloud of possibilities' , is a very well defined object that exists in a very very precise way.  it is more precise than our classical minds can fathom. (Here I am using 'existence' in the dual sense, not Nondual sense) In fact, to a physicist, it  has a more concrete existence than a chair or a table. More precise things can be said, calculated and measured about an atom than you can ever do for a chair or a table.    Call it 'quantum existence' if you like to differentiate it from 'common sense existence'. But dont take its existence away from it. 

When 'you look at it', as far as physics is concerned, all that happened was, you, a macroscopic classical object, got entangled with the atom and made it a classical object like yourself. Classical objects of course are also quantum objects, just of a  special kind. So from quantum mechanics' perspective nothing radical really happened. Things change when they interact. 

Now you can also see why many physicists disregard (unjustifiably so in the final analysis) this whole question of interpretation. Because to them the debacle only arises if you try to force classical existence on quantum objects, and there is no apriori reason why you should be able to do that. 

Hope this very long post helped. I, as the in house physicist, would be happy to be of any use and entertain more questions..   
 

Edited October 15, 2018 by graded24

[FredFred]

@graded24 Thank you for your response, I'll try to wrap my head around that!

[Forestluv]

@graded24

Welcome to the forum! There are plenty of people here interested in learning more about quantum mechanics and metaphysics. It’d be cool to start a mega-thread.  

 Your post is sooo awesome. I need some time to contemplate it and will return with questions.

[Naturalist]

Everything has its own vibrational frequency – our thoughts, our feelings, the rock, the table, the car, the animal, the plant, the tree, etc.  Even colours are merely expressions of certain vibrational frequencies.  This means both the perceiver and the perceived must fall within the ambit of vibrational frequency.  

In the realm of duality or multiplicity, the mind consciousness is known as the perceiver, whereas, the object or matter is known as the perceived.  It is the perceiver’s mind as a non-physical faculty integrating with the five physical faculties namely, eyes, ears, nose, tongue and body that provides the observation and the interpretation, thus the arising of the conditional phenomena.  Phenomenon is thing that appears to or is perceived by senses.  In other words, phenomenon is thing that appears to or is perceived by the mind senses.  When there is a mind arising, the phenomenon would arise.

In other words, everything that exists is empty because there is no essence to anything and nothing has ever existed in its own quality – nothing is permanent and unchanging.  All objects exist conditionally without an eternal essence.  They only exist in relation to each other as appearances that in turn vary as per the perceptions of the beholders.  The saying goes, when this arising, that arises; when this ceasing, that ceases.