How is there reality without God?

[EarthScienceguy]

Neils Bohr
"No Phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon." Or another way to say this is that a tree does not fall in a forest unless it is observed.

The only way for there to be an objective reality is if God is the constant observer everywhere.

Physicist John Archibald Wheeler: "It is wrong to think of the past as 'already existing' in all detail. The 'past' is theory. The past has no existence except as it is recorded in the present."

God is everywhere so He can observe everywhere and produce objective reality.

[Miles]

.

Actually it was Wheeler, not Bohr, who said "No Phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon."

In Wheeler’s words:

“The past has no existence except as it is recorded in the present. (…) we would seem forced to say that no phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon. The universe does not ‘exist, out there’ independent of all acts of observation. Instead, it is in some strange sense a participatory universe.”
source

And is tied in with the delayed-choice paradox of the double slit experiment:

"The double slit experiment, like the other six idealized experiments (microscope, split beam, tilt-teeth, radiation pattern, one-photon polarization, and polarization of paired photons), imposes a choice between complementary modes of observation. In each experiment we have found a way to delay that choice of type of phenomenon to be looked for up to the very final stage of development of the phenomenon, and it depends on whichever type of detection device we then fix upon. That delay makes no difference in the experimental predictions. On this score everything we find was foreshadowed in that solitary and pregnant sentence of Bohr, "...it...can make no difference, as regards observable effects obtainable by a definite experimental arrangement, whether our plans for constructing or handling the instruments are fixed beforehand or whether we prefer to postpone the completion of our planning until a later moment when the particle is already on its way from one instrument to another."

_______________________

One of the easiest ways of "making sense" of the delayed-choice paradox is to examine it using Bohmian mechanics. The surprising implications of the original delayed-choice experiment led Wheeler to the conclusion that "no phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon", which is a very radical position. Wheeler famously said that the "past has no existence except as recorded in the present", and that the Universe does not "exist, out there independent of all acts of observation".

However Bohm et al. (1985, Nature vol. 315, pp294–97) have shown that the Bohmian interpretation gives a straightforward account of the behaviour of the particle under the delayed-choice set up, without resorting to such a radical explanation. A detailed discussion is available in the open-source article by Basil Hiley and Callaghan, while many of the quantum paradoxes including delayed choice are summarized in Chapter 7 of the Book A Physicist's View of Matter and Mind (PVMM) using both Bohmian and standard interpretations.

In Bohm's quantum mechanics, the particle obeys classical mechanics except that its movement takes place under the additional influence of its quantum potential. A photon or an electron has a definite trajectory and passes through one or the other of the two slits and not both, just as it is in the case of a classical particle. The past is determined and stays what it was up to the moment T1 when the experimental configuration for detecting it as a wave was changed to that of detecting a particle at the arrival time T2. At T1, when the experimental set up was changed, Bohm's quantum potential changes as needed, and the particle moves classically under the new quantum potential till T2 when it is detected as a particle. Thus Bohmian mechanics restores the conventional view of the world and its past. The past is out there as an objective history unalterable retroactively by delayed choice, contrary to the radical view of Wheeler.

The "quantum potential" Q(r,T) is often taken to act instantly. But in fact, the change of the experimental set up at T1 takes a finite time dT. The initial potential. Q(r,T<T1) changes slowly over the time interval dT to become the new quantum potential Q(r,T>T1). The book PVMM referred to above makes the important observation (sec. 6.7.1) that the quantum potential contains information about the boundary conditions defining the system, and hence any change of the experimental set up is immediately recognized by the quantum potential, and determines the dynamics of the Bohmian particle."
source

.

[JoeyKnothead]

Neils Bohr
"No Phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon." Or another way to say this is that a tree does not fall in a forest unless it is observed.

The only way for there to be an objective reality is if God is the constant observer everywhere.

Physicist John Archibald Wheeler: "It is wrong to think of the past as 'already existing' in all detail. The 'past' is theory. The past has no existence except as it is recorded in the present."

God is everywhere so He can observe everywhere and produce objective reality.

Where has it been established that...

1. God is everywhere?
2. Has the ability to see?
3. Has sight enough to put a hawk to shame?

[Difflugia]

God is everywhere so He can observe everywhere and produce objective reality.

If that were true, then the double-slit experiment wouldn't produce the results it does because God would be observing the particle along its entire path. There would be no interference pattern. If your argument means anything, then the double-slit experiment is proof that God doesn't exist.

Does your argument mean anything?

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #4]

If that were true, then the double-slit experiment wouldn't produce the results it does because God would be observing the particle along its entire path. There would be no interference pattern. If your argument means anything, then the double-slit experiment is proof that God doesn't exist.

Does your argument mean anything?

1. Your argument according to the Copenhagen interpretation still leaves an unobserved tree in a state of superposition fallen and standing.
2. God in the Copenhagen interpretation God has to observe the universe that is consistent with the laws of nature. The double-slit experiment would show a basic law of nature. We do not even know what part of observations breaks the wave function. So it is possible for God to observe the particle without disturbing the wave function.

[Difflugia]

If that were true, then the double-slit experiment wouldn't produce the results it does because God would be observing the particle along its entire path. There would be no interference pattern. If your argument means anything, then the double-slit experiment is proof that God doesn't exist.

Does your argument mean anything?

1. Your argument according to the Copenhagen interpretation still leaves an unobserved tree in a state of superposition fallen and standing.
2. God in the Copenhagen interpretation God has to observe the universe that is consistent with the laws of nature. The double-slit experiment would show a basic law of nature. We do not even know what part of observations breaks the wave function. So it is possible for God to observe the particle without disturbing the wave function.

So, no then?

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #6]

Sure whatever

[JoeyKnothead]

Neils Bohr
"No Phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon." Or another way to say this is that a tree does not fall in a forest unless it is observed.

The only way for there to be an objective reality is if God is the constant observer everywhere.

Physicist John Archibald Wheeler: "It is wrong to think of the past as 'already existing' in all detail. The 'past' is theory. The past has no existence except as it is recorded in the present."

God is everywhere so He can observe everywhere and produce objective reality.

Where has it been established that...

1. God is everywhere?
2. Has the ability to see?
3. Has sight enough to put a hawk to shame?

Hello. Is this thing on?

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #1]

Or another way to say this is that a tree does not fall in a forest unless it is observed.

If that's another way to say it, then it has to be wrong. A tree can fall in the forest without any eyeballs or instrumentation around to observe it. To know it has fallen would require an observation or measurement of some sort, but for it to fall due to whatever cause (rot, death, etc.) there is no observation required.

The only way for there to be an objective reality is if God is the constant observer everywhere.

Was the point of this OP to claim that objective reality requires an observer, the only observer that could constantly observe everything, everywhere is a god of some sort, therefore for objective reality to exist there must be a god? If so, you're missing one key point in the argument ... what/where is this all-observing god being and how do you know it really exists? Without that, the argument completely falls apart.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #6]

2. God in the Copenhagen interpretation God has to observe the universe that is consistent with the laws of nature. The double-slit experiment would show a basic law of nature. We do not even know what part of observations breaks the wave function. So it is possible for God to observe the particle without disturbing the wave function.

In fact, to give man free will this would have to be the case.