(January 11, 2014 at 10:32 am)Theo Zacharias Wrote: All quantum phenomenons that are ever observed happen at a distance greater than a Planck length.
The Planck length is actually much smaller than any of our current instrument can measure.
More than that, many physicists believe that we can never measure anything with size less than the Planck length regardless of technology advances.
I think your "pet peeve" is about quantum mysticism, not about quantum phenomenon at distances greater than a Planck length.
I understand this and gave examples of such. You are perhaps right regarding quantum mysticism, but at a certain point it all becomes a form of mysticism due to the measurement problem and applying quantum mechanics to systems and particles larger than electrons.
I'm all for creative ideas that may help guide future research, but we simply don't yet have enough understanding to take any of the proposals seriously. The mathematical formalism places boundaries on scientists that mystics like Chopra can ignore; however, some ideas strain credulity; the problems with the von Neumann interpretation that you pointed out is an excellent example.
There isn't a shred of evidence that quantum phenomenon can be responsible for consciousness. I posit that if it were, we would expect to have evidence of consciousness in non living entities. The fact that a vast majority of living things don't display characteristics approaching what we call consciousness should be revealing when pondering this. To me this indicates that conscioiusness should be bounded by carbon based organic chemistry, not quantum physics (getting to the quantum is too regressive at this point and we would lose sight of the forest for the trees).
The danger in not taking a skeptical position like this is succumbing to some anthropic tug. This in turn results in ideas that are simply a few equations removed from mysticism and pure conjecture.
