A Conversion about the Observer Effect
I recently had the opportunity to appear on Exus the Podcast, interviewed by the host, Bryan Marcus. The requested topic was The Observer Effect in the Context of Consciousness, a reference to a post I uploaded on this blog in June 2022. I’ll upload a link to the interview on YouTube as soon as it’s available.
By way of background, I have written on this platform and on my website about the idea that the world we experience is not billions of years old, as is commonly thought. Rather, it comes into being moment by moment as a result of interpretation of sensory input.
Wait… isn’t the evidence for the Big Bang incontrovertible? Yes, I think so. But we don’t experience that world, the one that began 14 billion or so years ago, the one that started with a bang, underwent ‘inflation’, expansion, and so on. That’s a story, a model that fits what we’ve been able to observe. The world we experience is the one we’re perceiving right now, in this present moment, using the input from all of our senses.
I will begin this article by quoting from my original post, followed by selected questions from the host along with my answers.
The observer effect in the context of consciousness
“How, then, does the “observer effect” show up when the world of objects is recognized to be the result of an interpretive process?
“The default or classical understanding of the observer effect is the phenomenon of changing the situation from the way it was before being observed to something different. But when the world and all its components are viewed as the result of interpretation by the observer, the observer effect is no longer an agent of change but rather an agent of creation. The observer brings the world he/she is experiencing into being through interpretation. There is no situation prior to its observation, and therefore there can be no effect on the situation in the usual sense.
“This inversion of the relationship between the world and the observer has numerous benefits. Psychologically, it puts the observer in a position of personal power with respect to the world of one’s experience which is unavailable in the classical view. Most of us have found that changing the world is difficult at best. However, interpretations can be changed or replaced, and thus the world as a product of interpretation can be changed as well.”
The questions and answers
Do Things Exist in the Universe If They’re Not Observed?
In depends on what we mean by “things.” If we mean objects that are distinct from their surroundings, my answer is no.
If we mean fields, or possibilities, my answer would be yes. If we mean the world as something mysterious that we don’t have direct access to, again yes, but not in the way we think about objects. Those objects exist as vibrational or probabilistic possibilities. Or, you could say they exist as ideas.
Let’s step back a bit. When we were taught our native language, we didn’t realize that we were also learning a story about, or a description of, the world. It’s a story about what the world is, how it works and how to deal with it effectively. As we grew and became more independent, we internalized that story and began a lifelong process of retelling it to ourselves, often with embellishments and with increasing complexity. In the process, we forgot that the story, the description of the world, is something we learned. We forgot that the description is, in effect, superimposed over our perception of sensory information in the same way that boundaries are superimposed over topological information to create a map.
Bryan Marcus refers to the koan that goes, “If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?” A more interesting question to me is, “If all sentient creatures somehow disappeared, would there still be a planet, revolving through space and time around a star?” We all “know” the answer to that question… right? Well… read on.
Tell us about the connection of your thesis, if any, to Biocentrism per Robert Lanza. Do you go this far?
Here are some quotes from Lanza:
“Life is not an accidental byproduct of the laws of physics” - Robert Lanza
I couldn’t agree more!
“The whole of Western, natural philosophy is undergoing a sea change again, increasingly being forced upon us by the experimental findings of quantum theory” - Robert Lanza
I doubt that quantum theory is forcing any kind of a sea change in natural philosophy. Most physicists seem inclined to ignore the quantum enigma entirely. Instead, I would say the “sea change” is being forced upon us by the inability of our current descriptions of the world and ourselves to allow us to live lives full of joy and fulfillment.
“[Biocentrism] will release us from the dull worldview of life being merely the activity of an admixture of carbon and a few other elements; it suggests the exhilarating possibility that life is fundamentally immortal” - Robert Lanza
I agree, and I find this inspirational!
Tell us about the connection, if any, to the work of Donald Hoffman. Do you go this far?
Here are some quotes from Hoffman:
“Consciousness causes brain activity and, in fact, creates all objects and properties of the physical world” - Donald Hoffman
Yes, I’m saying that consciousness is the source of all objects in the physical world, and this includes the brain and the body it is part of!
“Some form of reality may exist but may be completely different from the reality our brains model and perceive” - Donald Hoffman
Some form of reality does exist. The world is not imaginary. However, it’s unknowable, mysterious and magical! In that sense, it is entirely different from the reality our brains model and perceive.
“The causal notion of non-sentient matter developing into sentient beings is open to question” - Donald Hoffman
That notion is not just open to question; it’s completely untenable. The causal notion of non-sentient matter developing into sentient beings is imaginary. It exists because of our commitment to at least two ideas. First, that the world is senior to who we are (in other words, that it continues to exist while we come and go). And second, that all that we perceive, including the presence of sentient beings, is the result of the world evolving according to the principles of physics. These two ideas, and others, keep us locked into descriptions of the world and ourselves that virtually preclude us from living fulfilling lives.
What evidentiary basis is there for the “observer as creator” thesis?
Personal experience is the only domain in which this evidence can be gathered. If the world we experience is a product of interpretation, evidence in the classic sense would have to be collected from outside the system of interpretation, and there’s no way to get there. We have only our interpretations of sensory information. There is no other place to look for information about the world.
Beyond that requirement that we stay within personal experience to answer this question, we can conduct a scientific inquiry into what factors influence what we wind up observing. My inquiry has suggested that our attitudes, opinions, beliefs, and what we can accept as being real all affect what we observe. Those factors are all within our control. Then, if we change one or more of those factors, we may see a change in what we observe. That would be powerful evidence that we are in fact creating the world of our experience through observation.
As counterpoint… what is the evidentiary basis for an external world independent of our observations of that world? Our bodies can be viewed as a special type of virtual reality headset, but a headset that’s generating input to our brains representing all of our senses instead of just sight and sound. Our brains create pictures out of this sensory input, and our bodies and minds react accordingly. The only way to know that you’re wearing a virtual reality headset is to take it off, and in the case of our bodies, we can’t do that!
What is the experimental evidence for “quantum weirdness” effects showing up in the macro world setting?
First of all, “quantum weirdness” is weird only because it violates common sense, or “what everybody knows.” But “what everybody knows” has been proven wrong over and over again in human history. See flat earth and geocentrism.
We could say that experimental evidence for experiencing “quantum weirdness” would include what our collective culture would call ‘miracles’. Our written and oral histories, including our cherished religious texts, are full of stories about these miracles. I experienced one myself in answer to a long-ago fervent prayer.
There are instances in which my wife and I clearly have the same thought at the same time with no conversation occurring. Is that telepathy, or is it the quantum weirdness called entanglement (i.e., she and I behave sometimes as if we are one thing…)?
What are some features of the reality/consciousness connection?
Consciousness is the container in which everything else exists. It always was, is, and always will be. Knowing that consciousness creates our reality makes reality increasingly fluid and under our conscious, deliberate control (the only real control we’ll ever have).
Consciousness is infinite, in that it is not limited by time or space or the need to be contained in a physical body. If consciousness perceives scarcity and lack, inevitability, or no-solutions, it is our observations, conditioned by the factors such as beliefs I mentioned earlier, that produce those perceptions. There is no scarcity or lack of consciousness, nothing is inevitable for consciousness, and because consciousness is infinite, there is never a situation in which there are no solutions.
Is there a line between the quantum and classical worlds?
That is, what causes “creation” in the quantum realm - - what causes a quantum entity that is in a superposition to “snap” into a single, real/classical thing? Is it observation in the first place? If not - what does that say about the Observer Effect as applied to the macro world?
The Measurement Problem in general
The measurement problem is the name given to the enigma that an observation of a system in superposition (composed of many possible outcomes of a given experiment or observation) causes one of those possible realities to become real and observable. In most interpretations of quantum mechanics, this is referred to as the ‘collapse of the wave function’. Is that what happens? What could cause that? There is no widespread agreement on these questions, even after over 100 years of successfully using quantum mechanics to design all manner of technologies from transistors to GPS to cell phones.
Various interpretations of quantum mechanics
The so-called Copenhagen Interpretation:
“Shut up and calculate” – avoid the whole issue of what quantum physics means.
Decoherence (environment) (H. Dieter Zeh/Wojciech Zurek) and
Decoherence (Killing Horizons) (Daine Danielson)
Decoherence theories explain the loss of superposition by citing the interaction between the micro-scale superposition and the larger environment, including the apparatus used to detect the superposition.
Explanations of how decoherence allows classical measurements to arise from quantum systems seek to explain the quantum enigma, or the wavefunction as a real entity. However, it’s the enigma itself that offers the most powerful lessons.
The urge or compulsion to eliminate enigma or mystery in the physical world blocks magical and mysterious experiences. It overemphasizes rationality over intuition, i.e. listening with the heart or “gut.” Rationality is very useful in certain problem-solving domains, but I would argue that it fails miserably when we use it to try to answer questions about how to live fulfilling lives.
Many Worlds (Hugh Everett)
The world is made up not of particles but of fields, or possibly one field, which I like to call the quantum field. Each ‘fundamental particle’ (electron, proton, etc.) corresponds to a particular vibrational mode of a field. The perception of “the world” is a function of tuning to one vibrational frequency or channel, much like happens in a television set. Another way of saying that is that we tune ourselves to a particular reality among uncountable others by choosing our beliefs, attitudes and what we are committed to.
Hidden Variables (David Bohm)
‘Hidden variables’ postulates an invisible phenomenon like a ‘pilot wave’, a supposed hidden agent that guides the path of each particle. Again, this can be viewed as an unnecessary complication that has so far eluded detection.
What is the source of consciousness, or the source of the observer?
There is no source of consciousness. It just is. An observer is an individuation of consciousness with a particular point of view, and consciousness itself is the source of the observer.
What is the impact of the Observer Effect, or the “Observer As Creator” thesis
A. Theoretical - Does it solve mysteries of the universe/reality?
Solving the mysteries of the universe… that quest undertaken with rationality is likely to remove the possibility of magical experience. The ‘observer as creator’ idea is an alternative to the classical understanding of the world as real, external and permanent, while we observers (humans) come and go. It is an explanation of what we perceive that restores to us our agency, our freedom to create, our ability to live in joy and satisfaction no matter what anyone else is doing, thinking or feeling.
The Double Slit Experiment
Demonstrates the wave nature of matter, interpreted as proving that the world exists in a superposition of multiple possibilities until one of them is observed.
Entanglement
Entangled objects behave as one entity, even if they are entangled and then separated by arbitrarily large distances. Physicists’ consistent demonstrations of this property of quantum systems means either that instantaneous communication is possible across distance (thus violating special relativity), or objects aren’t really separated. In that case, separation would then be simply an idea or a projection.
The Uncertainty Principle
Correlates with the quantum enigma and allows for unexpected experiences. It is also consistent with the mysterious nature of the world in that it shows that the world cannot be completely known.
B. Practical - How would adoption of the thesis impact peoples’ lives?
To sum up, the world is magical and mysterious, it’s awesome and unfathomable. It is our certainty that we already know what the world is and how it works that blinds us to the magic and the mystery. Our certainty blocks the awe that we could feel in experiencing the wonder of it all. And our belief that we can fully understand the world deprives us of the joy of appreciating its mysteries… especially the mysteries about ourselves.
The observer gives rise to the world and not the other way around. This inversion of the relationship between the world and the observer has numerous benefits. Psychologically, it puts the observer in a position of personal power with respect to the world of one’s experience which is unavailable in the classical view. Most of us have found that changing the world is difficult at best. However, interpretations can be changed or replaced, and thus the world as a product of interpretation can be changed as well.
