Talk:Quantum mysticism

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"Quantum mysticism" vs. "Consciousness causes collapse"

There seems to be significant differences between this "Quantum mysticism" article and the last "Consciousness causes collapse" article at

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Consciousness_causes_collapse&oldid=193438546

Since the "Interpretation of quantum mechanics" article discusses "Consciousness causes collapse" in a serious manner, how does one recover/reinstate/etc. such useful info? I tried unsuccessfully to BOLDly "undo" the redirection at "Consciousness causes collapse"...

I hope that my mentioning it here doesn't cause the "Interpretation of quantum mechanics" article to get "vandalized"(?)...

Thanks.

.

there is so much POV in this article I could cut it with a knife —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.238.27.47 (talk) 02:47, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Cut it with a knife, then - be bold Adambrowne666 (talk) 21:04, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Consciousness causes collapse merger

I missed the original discussion, but the nature of the merger seems quire unjustified to me. There is basically no discussion at all of the original subject matter of consciousness causes collapse on Quantum Mysticism, (unlike Quantum mind, and Copenhagen interpretation. The reader is effectively being told that the subject is nonsense without being told why. That is not how good encyclopedias work. Some sort of merger might have been a good idea, but this is WP:POV and censorship.1Z (talk) 22:55, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Consciousness causes collapse/Archive 1 (posts from November 2005 through October 2007) may have some of what you meant by "the original discussion." — Athaenara ✉ 02:38, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

TO underline the point measurement in quantum mechanics includes a link to consciousness causes collapse which now redirects the reader to this article, which contains no information on the relationship between consciousness and measurement at all.1Z (talk) 00:24, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Someone needs to pick up the slack and actually do the merger. What happened to all those people who were defending CCC during the merger discussion? Dr. Morbius (talk) 21:37, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

1Z is right that the merger didn't take place correctly, but in the current WP climate, there is nothing to be done. Too many POV editors about. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 01:29, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

CCC is nonsense. There was no POV involved in having that article removed. The POV occurred when the article was first created. The fact that CCC was full of references to articles that are nothing but Quantum Mysticism was proof that the merger was correct. The CCC article might have stood a chance of surviving if there had been no references to junk like "What the Bleep do we know" and "The secret" and other religious metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. If the CCC article had been originally created with a purely scientific foundation it might have survived. Dr. Morbius (talk) 01:23, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

If the articles aren't labelled as Mysticism, they can't be held up as evidence that CCC is mysticsm. You are just appealing to your POV to support your POV edits Dr "I do not practice NPOV when it comes to scientific issues". 1Z (talk) 13:01, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

That's your POV. We were talking about the manner of the merge. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 05:10, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

1Z referred to the merger as "censorship" Dr. Morbius (talk) 23:29, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

There was no meger.1Z (talk) 13:01, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Then why don't you CCC proponents actually merge the content from the CCC article into this one? Dr. Morbius (talk) 23:54, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Because it does not belong in Quantum Mysticism, putting it under this section would falsely gives the impression that it is not based on sound logic. 162.18.76.206 (talk) 19:08, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

It's not. CCC only works if you assume that consciousness is somehow not a product of biochemical processes in the brain. That means that it would have to be supernatural and that's just nonsense. Dr. Morbius (talk) 20:18, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Why didn't you?1Z (talk) 23:11, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Here's a good quote from Quantum mind where David Chalmers states the most promising interactionist interpretation of quantum mechanics is what we were calling CCC. "The most promising version of such an interpretation allows conscious states to be correlated with the total quantum state of a system, with the extra constraint that conscious states (unlike physical states) can never be superposed. In a conscious physical system such as a brain, the physical and phenomenal states of the system will be correlated in a (nonsuperposed) quantum state. Upon observation of a superposed external system, Schrödinger evolution at the moment of observation would cause the observed system to become correlated with the brain, yielding a resulting superposition of brain states and so (by psychophysical correlation) a superposition of conscious states. But such a superposition cannot occur, so one of the potential resulting conscious states is somehow selected (presumably by a nondeterministic dynamic principle at the phenomenal level). The result is that (by psychophysical correlation) a definite brain state and a definite state of the observed object are also selected".

I wish that I had a better sense of how one goes about editing/affecting things here, so apologies if this is unhelpful. Dr. Morbius' arguments here unfortunately show a very thin understanding of the history of philosophy, but since he claims to worship evidence, we'll put it this way: 1. Those who study errors in cognitive processes acknowledge that trained philosophers do reliably better at logic than those who are not so trained (including practicing scientists); 2. Trained philosophers believe that there are real questions involved about the nature of mind, even if they disagree. By his own principles, then, Dr. Morbius faces a very heavy burden of proof in demonstrating that viewpoints held by trained philosophers like David Chalmers and others, and repeatedly published in top philosophy journals edited by other such trained philosophers, are mere New Age nonsense. Before feeling fit to demolish this, Dr. Morbius ought to take the time to understand what is at stake. (Science, after all, does not entail the jumping to half-assed conclusions based purely on dogmatic presuppositions.) There is lots of mystic nonsense in the world, and it seems fair to mark it as such. When the trained experts in any given field regard something as a plausible and open question, however, it is deeply problematic to simply reject this as irrational and unconsidered on a priori grounds.

The normal article on consciousness-causes-collapse should be reinstated. If it is not reinstated, it should be removed entirely as a link, so that those interested in how others have presented these issues are not subjected to "quantum mysticism" instead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.182.110.35 (talk) 17:15, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

(Although, as a supplement to what I just said above, it does seem likely that some of the linked articles from the original site should be removed, and perhaps others added, to give a better sense of what the academic debate here looks like. The original article is, then, not as solid as one would hope. But this certainly is no reason for the current unhelpful merging.)

First of all philosophy is not science and secondly not all philosophical viewpoints are new age nonsense just some of them. Anyone who claims that consciousness is separate from the brain is implying that supernatural processes are real. The burden of proof of whether consciousness is affected by quantum mechanical effects lies with those who make that claim not with those who oppose it. So far all of the proponents who claim that QM is responsible for consciousness have failed to do so. And anyways the CCC article went way beyond claiming that QM affected consciousness. It implied that consciousness was somehow separate from the brain. This is typical of pseudoscientists. They take a legitimate scientific question and go off on a wild tangent making all sorts of preposterous claims. This is no different from the UFO believers who will take some strange unexplained natural occurrence and claim that it must have been the result of an alien spaceship rather than a simple natural process. Dr. Morbius (talk) 22:08, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Since Dr. Morbius responded in helpful ways to what I said (just above), and since my original post was a bit personalistic and unnecessarily aggressive, I appreciate the restraint. At stake is indeed the question of whether consciousness is separable from the brain, but not quite in the way it sounds.

Although this is somewhat off the necessary track, I don't think it's reasonable to hold that all plausible explanations of mind must say that it's reducible to brain functions. The standard argument for reducing mind to brain functions is a familiar one - science only deals with what we can study, and all of what we can study is physical: therefore mind must similarly be reduced to physical processes. The limit of this conclusion is that we *as consciousnesses* are in fact the ones who are studying things. Given certainty of one's own existence, it's logically possible that we're entirely wrong about the outside character of the universe (for reasons familiar from Descartes, or from brain-in-a-vat thought experiments, or the Matrix movies, and so on). Perhaps this isn't *likely*, but it doesn't qualify as nonsense. The problem is that the mind/brain relationship seems by its nature to be untestable by scientific means (thus the Hard Problem, as David Chalmers has laid it out). It might not serve as a conception that's useful for scientists to adopt (because it says that certain problems can't be resolved, and therefore might slow down research that may yield other benefits), but that's not what's generally meant by pseudo-science. So, I think one needs to be wary here - as was rightly pointed out above, philosophy isn't science, but neither does the scientific method serve as an epistemic tool for resolving all issues. So, claiming that consciousness is separate from the brain, contrary to what's suggested above, is not a disreputable position if done carefully. Thus I think the language of "supernatural" here is being used unhelpfully: people who claim that ghosts exist are not doing this as a way of grappling with a real problem in the character of the experiential data available to us (including among this data the subset of sensory data on which ordinary science works), while people who suggest a real gap between brain and mind are trying to do something careful and serious. Again, people who see this gap between brain and mind as irresolvable are in a minority. They're aren't, however, in enough of a minority position to make it reasonable to dismiss everything they say from the realm of legitimate intellectual space. Those who want to look at what the debate in academic philosophy has looked like in this regard, and to see its scope, might explore some of the papers here: http://consc.net/mindpapers/

In short, what I'm saying with the above is that David Chamlers, Thomas Nagel, and others who think the gap between mind and brain is real should not be lumped together with the likes of Deepak Chopra in an article. It is plausible to say that those like Daniel Dennett who focus only on the brain may be right; it is not plausible to say that those they oppose are all unworthy of being considered carefully. (Dennett, at least, has realized this in his work, and has struggled to engage the Hard Problem in consciousness, albeit without a lot of progress).

Even those who reject a hard mind/brain divide, however, acknowledge that some process of emergence seems to go on in the link between them - that is, features of mind somehow come about in a unique way that creates something essentially new. Even if mind is nothing but a *product* of brain, it seems to be a product that would not be easily expected from knowing all the constituent parts, and therefore something that we acknowledge to involve missing steps that we don't currently know how to think about usefully. (Chalmbers, by the way, takes this mainstream emergence position to be itself illogical and ad hoc, which leads him to weird notions of pan-psychism - Occam's Razor can cut in odd directions.) So the mainstream position in philosophy, that of emergence, says that something weird and unexplained goes on when the brain starts to process information, and that this *somehow* (but we don't know how) leads to experience as we know it.

As I understand the academic argument for thinking about consciousness-causes-collapse, it's something like this: we don't have a good explanation for consciousness, and since quantum phenomena seem to be oddly effected by observation, we should think of these together as potentially linked mysteries rather than separate ones. One doesn't have to believe that consciousness is created through quantum phenomena to believe this (contra Dr. Morbius's suggestion above). It could be instead that the series of causes goes: brain > mind > particular quantum outcomes after observation. (Those who reject this position may want to fall back on brain > particular quantum outcomes, but it's not clear that this position gains much either.) It may be that this is simply a mistaken theory. It may also be that it is not a helpful one for working scientists to adopt, because it doesn't yield a sufficient number of testable implications at the moment (and perhaps never will). But this is not the same as pseudo-science, which is characterized by no serious effort to comprehend the world as it is, and lots of wishful thinking about how one wishes it would be. This is a serious debate among intellectually careful people, and I think it deserves to be treated as such.

I think, then, that this is a place where the otherwise-admirable desire to root out nonsense is lumping together too many different things without sufficient attention to the details of the differences. I think the present merging of the two articles does a serious disservice to those, particularly undergraduate students, who may want to get an overview of a very complex set of debates. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.182.110.35 (talk) 19:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the above this one. Dr. Morbius is attempting to force his opinion on the discussion under review. By the definition of the National Science Foundation (WP reference) the paranormal is 'something which cannot be explained by science.' The physicalist perspective states that mind is entirely reducible to physical activity of the brain. How does this happen? Science cannot explain (nor can it explain dualism). The theory is therefore 'paranormal.' NSF does not accept the paranormal, therefore mind, which it cannot explain, does not exist.

I further object to the hijack of the CCC link to the quantum mysticism link and do not think the two articles should be merged for the reasons mentioned by the above post. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.142.129.186 (talk) 17:54, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not forcing my opinion on anybody. Opinion has nothing to do with it. I'm just demanding that any claims be backed up with solid evidence and not just a lot of hand waving and semantics. Just because something can't be explained now doesn't mean it will never be explained. You're assuming that science will never be able to explain consciousness and therefore you have to jump to conclusions and accept paranormal explanations. I, on the other hand, accept that the way the mind works is currently difficult to explain due to our current level of understanding and leave it at that. I'm going to wait until we acquire more information and then come up with an explanation rather than resorting to the paranormal. Dr. Morbius (talk) 20:26, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

What part of this don't you get Dr. Morbius. Calling the speculation of CCC, which if ever proved true would put the study of consciousness directly in the hands of physicist, resorting to the paranormal is as ignorant as saying Einstein’s speculation that time and space are relative was resorting to the paranormal. CCC was not made up by people trying to promote some pseudo-science; it was created as one of many logical explanations to a significant problem with our understanding of how things work. 162.18.76.206 (talk) 18:40, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

NPOV

The tone of this article does not meet Wikipedia standards. Example: "Quantum mysticism refers to the practice of selectively borrowing ideas from quantum physics to support New Age and pseudoscientific beliefs, or to draw metaphorical similarites between principles in quantum physics and principles in Eastern mysticism." (as opposed to "Quantum mysticism is a system of belief that seeks to explain metaphysical issues using the principles of quantum physics.")

Please edit to present a balanced review of the topic and related issues, or remove this article. Grammargal (talk) 12:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

No-body self identifies as practicing quantum mysticism. It's a perjoritive term used to describe various beliefs which purport to be based in quantum dynamics. Since they do not believe that they are practicing "quantum mysticism", it is not PoV to describe the subject as we have done. Jefffire (talk) 13:47, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Jefffire, it dose not say that New age beliefs etc are wrong, or even that using particular scientific ideas to support them is. It jsut says this is how it is described. Only if there are people who say they are 'quantum mystics' themselves would the alternate wording be appropriate, and though I would not be surprised if that did happen one day it hasn't yet--Nate1481(^t/_c) 15:35, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I see your point. But it seems to me, then, that the entire article is biased according to NPOV standards, specifically the requirement to "Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves." If "Quantum Mysticism" is a pejorative term, how is it appropriate for the title, and subject, of an article? How is it different from an article called "The Catholic Cult"? That would clearly be an inappropriate title because it defines Catholicism according to a single belief rather than examining Catholicism in the larger context of all religious thought. In that larger context there are surely some who believe that Catholicism is a cult, but that opinion would most appropriately be reported as one belief among many. When an article presents as fact the definition of someone else's belief as a cult (or as mysticism) I don't see how the point of view can be called neutral. According to your argument, Nate, the article "The Catholic Cult" would be acceptable because no one defines him/herself as a "Catholic Cultist". Grammargal (talk) 15:48, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I've just seen that you removed the NPOV flag from the article -- please leave it until this dispute is settled. I have no particular feelings about Quantum philosophy one way or the other, but I am quite serious about issues that affect freedom of thought and religion. As far as I can see, the purpose of this article is to demean the adherents to a particular system of thought, and that can't be acceptable. Grammargal (talk) 18:18, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Or it is to describe a notable cultural phenomenon, namely drawing parallels between quantum mechanics and mysticism. These parallels are generally regarded by the scientific community as spurious and as treating physics on only a very superficial level. This subject matter is not really appropriate in Interpretations of quantum mechanics, and Misinterpretations of quantum mechanics would certainly not fly under NPOV. A fair description of the ideas put forth must include context but refrain from editorializing. If the context asserted by adherents is unsupported "quantum" speculation then it has to be treated using the tools of science. If the context asserted is religion, then it falls beyond the scope of this article unless testable predictions are made. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 20:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

To give an example, it is a philosophical assertion to state that nothing exists until a human sees it. This form of solipsism is not treated by this article. It is another matter entirely, however, to assert that quantum mechanics shows that nothing really exists until a human observes it. This is a misinterpretation of the meaning of observation in the context of quantum mechanics, and has been shown by experiment not to be true. If this latter statement further asserts a mystical association, then and only then will it fall within the proper purview of this article. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 20:56, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

"Or it is to describe a notable cultural phenomenon, namely drawing parallels between quantum mechanics and mysticism."

I think that would be a very interesting topic.

But I'd also like to address the issue of calling it "mysticism" or "a misinterpretation" at all. There are people who firmly believe that quantum mechanics has philosophical elements, including the folks at the Center for Quantum Philosophy (http://www.quantumphil.org/), and it wouldn't be any more appropriate to omit their perspective than to write a dismissive article of the philosophy of Buddhism and leave out a Buddhist perspective. As I say, I have no personal opinion for or against, I'm just addressing the larger issue of bias.

OK, stepping off my soapbox, can we agree on the right course with this? I'd propose rewriting it to present the cultural phenomenon objectively, with a fair representation of each side. Grammargal (talk) 22:11, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that that could make for an interesting addition to or refocus for this article. I do think, though, that there is an important difference between saying that quantum mechanics has philosophical implications (true for everyone except the most hardcore positivists), and saying that it has mystical connections (not generally mentioned at physics conferences). There must be room in any article that makes reference to experimental results for commonly the accepted interpretation of the corpus.

That said, I think perhaps wait a day or two to make sure there is consensus, and then go for it. As long as NPOV and WEIGHT are maintained, it goes without saying.

Also, if the discussion seemed initially more combative than your words would seem to warrant, please understand that this article has had in the recent past problems with editors who seemed to wish to present as objective fact or well-accepted interpretation matters which have been invalidated or are otherwise not consistent with experiment. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 01:08, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I think you have misunderstood the point, as people do claim to be Catholics, but I don't believe any religious group self identifies as 'cultist'. So while I can see you point, on "The Catholic Cult" as a title we do have Criticism of the Catholic Church and an article on cults. The title dose not specifically denote any group as dose the former and, no any group claim that 'Quantum mysticism' is included in their philosophy, the same as not group climes to be a cult. The term is explicitly external to any individual group, saying "to support New Age and pseudoscientific beliefs" i.e. it is not about the beliefs but the support for them. I have been focusing on the lead so if you can point to examples of this not been the case they should be corrected probably only needing to be rephrased. --Nate1481(^t/_c) 13:53, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I think we might be saying the same thing, Nate, just coming to different conclusions. I'll just continue with the Catholicism example with the understanding that the conclusions reached from the example apply to the Quantum philosophy issue:

There are many faithful, believing Catholics in the world. There are also many people who think Catholicism is a cult ("cult" being a pejorative term). Calling an article "The Catholic Cult", and omitting the perspective of the Catholics themselves, would show a heavy bias on the part of the author: basically, the author is taking sides. An author on Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral. Therefore, anything stated in the author's own voice in a Wikipedia article is presented as fact.

You've asked for examples of what I see as bias, and in light of the author = fact idea I'd start with the title, as we've discussed. An author calling any philosophy "mysticism" is biased because it presents an opinion as accepted fact. A more neutral treatment would say that "some scientists think Quantum philosophy is mysticism". In that case the author is neutral, just presenting a fact. The balancing fact would be "Adherents to Quantum philosophy think that philosophical truths can be derived from Quantum Physics."

Beyond the title, I think that bias shows up in terms like "quantum quackery," and in the first line: "Quantum mysticism refers to the practice of selectively borrowing ideas from quantum physics to support New Age and pseudoscientific beliefs..." I understand that your intention there is to define the term "Quantum Mysticism" as used by the scientists you quote (is the part about hijacking and having little understanding a direct quote?) But saying that Quantum mysticism is a practice, as if people were selectively borrowing ideas on purpose, doesn't present even the term in a neutral way.

OK, just clarifying, I think I've held forth long enough. I'd be proud to do the research and rewrite the article unless someone else wants to do it. Consensus? Grammargal (talk) 20:11, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I can understand what your getting at, but the point is it is not a set of beliefs, or a religious- (or pseudo-religious) practice. Regardless of the name used for it, no one states there beliefs are in part or fully derived from a misinterpretation (deliberate or otherwise) of quantum theory/mechanics; people pointing out that that is what they are doing use the term 'Quantum mysticism' to describe it, so the initially suggested alternate 1st line would actually be incorrect the use of the word 'Mysticism' is deliberately derogatory as that is how the term is used. My point is that Catholicism is a bad metaphor, people starting cult based on some ideas of the catholic church as depicted in The Da Vinci Code would be nearer as it would be a misinterpretation/representation of catholic teaching; in the case catholic teaching would the equivalent to quantum theory, I don't believe I just drew that parallel!

I would be more than happy to help with re-writing some bit that you feel need it to make it more balanced, I'd would suggest we start a sub page then replace the article on mass, as it would be more of an over hall.--Nate1481(^t/_c) 11:26, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

The article was once unilaterally renamed "quantum pseudomysticism" by an editor who believed that calling this material "mysticism" was PoV. I think that Grammargal is perhaps making the same nature of error. It is verifiable that "quantum mysticism" exists as a term, and has defined meanings. It is not PoV to describe those since no-ones is being specificially identified. As mentioned above, Cults is a perfect comparison. It would be nonsense to rename cult as "disputed religions", even though it is a perjoritive. Jefffire (talk) 11:43, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, just so. 'Quantum mysticism' is a term if not coined by Margaret Wertheim, then at least popularised by her, and always used by her as a pejorative. This article reflects that. I suggest a NPOV article on metaphysical interpretations of quantum physics should be separate from this. Adambrowne666 (talk) 22:22, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I doubt there is enough material to justify the creation of such an article without seriously treading on WP:SYNTH. Jefffire (talk) 22:33, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Is "Quantum mysticism" as a term really notable?? ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 23:01, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure all the people who have made attacks on this article would look on it very favourably if it was decided the term wasn't notable, but I think it's sufficiently notable - it gets a lot of google hits - and it's a useful umbrella term to describe the social phenomenon of the new age annexing of quantum physics. Adambrowne666 (talk) 09:12, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

It has several high quality sources including newspapers books and a journal + g-hits for this term being used as a catch all would mean it would sand a snowball's chance in hell of being deleted by AfD, a rename could be argued but 'Quantum mysticism' is a term in use and it would mean creating a term or being wordy, (Criticisms of perceived pseudoscientific uses of quantum theory is the only neutral version I can think of) and this would still be a redirect and the term would need mentioning in the article. --Nate1481(^t/_c) 08:32, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Should we also move cults to criticisms of minority religions with extreme views, and dictator to criticisms of world leaders of an authoritarian nature? No, absolutely not. Just because the title is a pejorative doesn't mean that the article is. Jefffire (talk) 11:10, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

While it is not a pronounced as those, I agree entirely, that is would not be appropriate. P.S. beware Godwin's law :D --Nate1481(^t/_c) 14:57, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking of Stalin :P Jefffire (talk) 17:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, all -- vacation.

So. You've convinced me that the title is ok if this is an article about the term "Quantum Mysticism" and the fact that it is a derogatory term for a certain system of thought. It's ok to quote people using the term in a derogatory manner. It's just not ok for the author to imply "and those people are right -- thinking that there's a philosophical connection is kinda stupid."

And Nate -- I understand your comment about the DaVinci Code/Catholicism thing -- my point was that "misinterpretation" is in the eye of the beholder. If you're a DaVinci Code-ist, you're not going to think it's a misinterpretation at all... and Martin Luther certainly thought Catholicism was a misinterpretation! (I'm really enjoying debating this with you guys, by the way, but I'll restrain myself from now on.)

So I'm with AdamBrowne -- How about this article becomes an objective overview of the term "Quantum Mysticism", its definition and context. It has a link to a new article called Quantum Philosophy (or whatever adherents would call it). I'd be glad to write the philosophy article or contribute a section to the other article mentioned above if that's deemed appropriate. Grammargal (talk) 23:40, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Recent ScienceApologist edit

Re these edits, I agree with him for once. This is correct. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 17:34, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

This Page vs. CCC Page

here is the issue as I see it: 1. CCC is a real theory proposed by none other than Wheeler himself and supported by Chalmers and, I think, Penrose. WIKI should have a page about it. It is not quantum mysticism. 2. CCC has drawn a bunch of pseudoscientific wackos, they and their views should not seriously be part of the CCC page (exccept to mention they have sprung up and that they are not seriously considered by scientists). 3. This quantum mysticism page is good like it is. QM is indeed the selective drawing of poorly understood facts of quantum mechanics, exactly as described in the article, and is not taken seriously by any peer-review-published scientists OR philosophers. (Unfortuneately for me, I read 'The Tao of Physics') 208.54.15.1 (talk) 09:49, 6 May 2008 (UTC)artman772000

You are correct but the problem was that the CCC article was full of pseudoscientific garbage. If the article had lacked references to new age nonsense, ESP, religion, etc. it would probably still exist. Although I disagree that CCC is a theory. It is barely a hypothesis and it treads into the supernatural. The original article looked like it was created by someone with an agenda to promote new age nonsense. Dr. Morbius (talk) 20:27, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

For the first time I find myself agreeing with Dr. Morbius. I think we're all on the same page then. So my question is, once one of us has time to do the CCC page the justice it deservers, how do we go about getting the page un-deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.18.76.206 (talk) 16:53, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

E. H. Walker

walker's book specifically notes where the line between mysticism and science can be drawn, and includes a thought experiment about a possible mathematical modelling of consciousness. to list it as a book "dealing with mysticism" in this new and highly snobby article is suspect; over half of the book explains in not-so-simple terms how the microscopic world is described in the realm of quantum physics totally separately from the alternative storyline in which he describes the story of his motivation to research these things. there is no mystic correlation asserted therein. whoever has listed this book likely hasn't read it at all, or is simply not a particularly good editor. 72.93.2.187 (talk) 00:04, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Consciousness causes collapse

Consciousness causes collapse redirects here, but there is absolutely no information in this article about this theory, or pseudoscientific notion, or whatever it is. There was a consensus at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Consciousness causes collapse that the old consciousness causes collapse article should be merged here, but it never was merged, instead there's just the protected redirect. There are many links to consciousness causes collapse from other quantum physics articles, such as Wigner's friend, which claims that it is a serious theory proposed by none other than the Nobel laureate Wigner. The redirect implies that the idea is nonsense that is false on its face, not even in need of a rebuttal. I have no idea who's right, but as a reader I find this very confusing. Maybe the redirect should go to some more informative, maybe the merge should have been completed, or maybe consciousness causes collapse should just be deleted to avoid confusion. But the status quo is unacceptable.