[Melchior]

Originally Posted by joelr

I see what you are saying. The Copenhagen Interpretation is saying that consciousness SEEMS to be the important factor, Bohr, Heisenburg, Pauli and others have looked at the evidence and decided this is the most likely. That humans and detectors are different in this case.
The other thing is that if human consciousness responded just like a detector (destroying the scientist and having the particle pattern switch back to a wave interference pattern) would likely be a violation of special relativity as there would be multiple different accounts of the particle being wave or particle (interference pattern or direct hit from a particle on the screen). I haven't yet taken into account moving observers, I think this would create more problems. Even if the information traveled instantly there would be some possible paradoxes. You have to perform a thought experiment that involves scenes of the scientist, detector and screen traveling at light speed to observers at different locations and an observer at the location who was protected from the blast.

Say there is one scientist who collapsed the wave and saw the particle pattern. He and all information are then vaporized 1 min later and the detector went back to wave like you suggested. Another scientist comes into the room and sees the wave behavior on the screen. But now there is an image of the detector screen reading a particle pattern (from 1 min ago) speeding towards another observer 10 light minutes away. He will see the particle pattern while the scientist in the room sees a wave.

There are other more complicated scenarios, this is just to give you the basic idea. The solution to all paradoxes so far is to have the particle pattern remain even after the scientist is..uh..removed from the scene. So any one of the scientists consciousness's are unique.

...

No the mystery is that there are no carrier particles that are known that eminate from a person after they have learned information about the particles location. This knowledge then goes on to collapse the wave. Even if the person is on the other side of he planet in the future
The detector can have the information but if we program the detector to spit it out using random numbers or we somehow garble the symbols the detector uses to communicate, there will be no collapse. It's a matter of us having he information.
In physics that type of communication is magic. EVERY other interaction we know of (except entanglement) is accounted for by quantum mechanics, Q. electrodynamics and Q. chromodynamics.

You probably already know about this then: Delayed Choice Experiment, (alternatively by the same guy in the paper you gave me earlier: Ross Rhodes on Delayed Choice ), I only stumbled upon it a few days ago when looking further into the topic... >.>

Pretty much this has solidified my stance that if the information is not available/can't get to you (and it can only travel at the speed of light at maximum), then it behaves as though it never existed (and this may have been what you were after in the first place as well . hear me out though, I think I still have a different interpretation after that 'fact'). This of course, isn't to say that the information didn't exist (because just as in the case of the scientist experiment, that information existed for the scientist, but that scientist also would not be able to relay that information to the others, for whatever reason), just that you will never know what it is (and I think this is where we differ? maybe not, maybe we don't, that would be excellent ). It reminds me somewhat actually of that idea that there are no rigid bodies in nature (i.e. the tail end of a clock hand doesn't 'move' until it get's the information to by way of the 'ripple' of movement through the length of the hand. granted, for a clock hand, this is rather quick) In other words, it takes 'time' or an 'interval' for any information from a source to reach any destination... It's all the same universe, but different parts of the universe see different things by way of different interactions going on.

Another thought that occurred to me, probably also partially spurred on by your response, while pondering all this stuff was that there are no simultaneous interactions. Because the 'virtual particles' that must travel and essentially get 'absorbed'/destroyed on the receiving end, no two interactions can have the same virtual particle causing it. Later on, for that information to transfer onto other particles, it is either up to the original particle to continue to project information or for the affected particle to project information that would indicate the first interaction. For example, in the case of the electron detector, we read data off the detector which is able to sufficiently record and relay the information (such as a blip on the screen) it received about the electron. If that information is not available, then we 'see' something different (due to lack of information to make things clearer? Not sure at the moment... >.>). Speaking of which, we see things with our eyes and that relays information to our brain (which I would like to point out, features an enormous amount of redundancy). (please, if you know more about these things, correct me if I'm wrong in this, but I'm pretty certain that logically it make sense, and I don't think the assumptions are wrong either). In other words, I would agree with that statement of yours that each scientist's consciousness is unique, but perhaps without the paradox if you can accept that.

Thank you too. I have seen some of the alternative interpretations. If you include just scientific papers there are 1000's. Some places archive them.

*Groan...* not more reading....

The last statement is a meta-statement. But then you can have a meta-meta statement. Infinite regress. I love Godel and the world of set theory and logic.

It's all in the system but we can't access the whole system. There are a few things peering out at us from the other part like the strange meta-physical connection consciousness and entangled particles have.Some believe that consciousness will have a large role in the totality of the system.

hmm... entangled particles too, same rules perhaps as what I described above? This is sounding more like the whole sort of general mish mash than anything out of a standard physics interpretation... I'm wondering if Douglas Adams knew more than he was letting on. I'm going to go blither now...