The particle, as with the photons in the two-slit experiment, exists in many possible states at once, traveling in every possible direction, not quite real and solid until it interacts with something, say a piece of mica in Earth's crust. Suppose that on Earth, some astronomers decide to observe the quasars. Stanford University physicist Andrei Linde believes this quantum paradox gets to the heart of Wheeler's idea about the nature of the universe: The principles of quantum mechanics dictate severe limits on the certainty of our knowledge. Why does the universe exist? Let me explain this through a common thought experiment: the infamous two-slit experiment. The frogs were drowning in the cream. And my answer would be that the universe looks as if it existed before I started looking at it. The other one did not want to give up. Will we ever understand why the universe came into being? This is basically the essense of the mind-body problem in philosophy. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of consciousness states that no pure measurement is possible without creation. You may agree or disagree with his answers. "This point of view is what gives me hope that the question — How come existence? By the time the astronomers decide which measurement to make — whether to pin down the photon to one definite route or to have it follow both paths simultaneously — the photon could have already journeyed for billions of years, long before life appeared on Earth. If the particle is released, the Geigercounter will detect it and send a signal to a mechanism controlling the hammer, which will strike the vial and release the gas, killing the cat. You may opt-out by. Wheeler is short and sturdily built, with sparse white hair. More questions: Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Imagine, he says, a quasar — a very luminous and very remote young galaxy. Something cannot be of different colors, smells or sounds at the same time. We all learned from people like John Wheeler, who asks strange questions and gives strange answers. The entire universe can be defined in terms of matter or energy so all you're saying is that if the universe did not exist then time would not exist. Put a cat in a closed box, along with a vial of poison gas, a piece of uranium, and a Geiger counter hooked up to a hammer suspended above the gas vial. He just died. "You may ask whether the universe really existed before you start looking at it," he says. ", "I had a heart attack on January 9, 2001," he says, "I said, 'That's a signal. Wheeler is the first to admit that this is a mind-stretching idea. Such a pattern could be produced only if the photons are behaving like waves, with each individual photon spreading out and surging against both slits at once, like a breaker hitting a jetty. William Wootters, one of Wheeler's many students and now a professor of physics at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, sees Wheeler as an almost oracular figure. In this case the mica, not a conscious being, is the object that transforms what might happen into what does happen. The quasar could be very distant from Earth, with light so faint that its photons hit the piece of film only one at a time. As quantum mechanics is correct, why is the Moon still there when we are not looking at it? But, there is a branch of physics that looks at the question of whether any thing or event can exist without an observer. We are together, the universe and us. En route, however, the electron is not in a position eigenstate. If an internal monitor (e.g. It's got to generate at least some good ideas, even if the question doesn't get answered. It is absolutely not true that states of matter do not exist when they are not noticed. — can be answered," he says. While conscious observers certainly partake in the creation of the participatory universe envisioned by Wheeler, they are not the only, or even primary, way by which quantum potentials become real. Wheeler likes to use the example of a high-energy particle released by a radioactive element like radium in Earth's crust. It would be tempting to dismiss Wheeler's thought experiment as a curious idea, except for one thing: It has been demonstrated in a laboratory. At every moment, in Wheeler's view, the entire universe is filled with such events, where the possible outcomes of countless interactions become real, where the infinite variety inherent in quantum mechanics manifests as a physical cosmos. The experiment involves an electron gun that emits electrons which can go through one of two slits before impacting a screen. © 2021 Forbes Media LLC. Is the Multiverse Theory Science Fiction or Science Fact? To demonstrate, he sketches a diagram on a scrap of paper. "You can say that the universe is there only when there is an observer who can say, Yes, I see the universe there. And then all of a sudden, the sour cream was churned into butter. The gravity from massive objects like galaxies can bend light, just as conventional glass lenses do. (Quora discussion) If you are a Zinio, Nook, Kindle, Apple, or Google Play subscriber, you can enter your website access code to gain subscriber access. Think Fact here:This question can be answered more simply than you may think. And what does the oracle of High Island himself think? Simply put, it cannot be described by ordinary numbers. The correct statement is that a quantum system usually exists in a state that is not at all like the states of the classical world. The only universe you have ever experienced is the shadow of the real one projected onto your mind. Alternating light and dark bands would appear on the film, identical to the pattern found when photons passed through the two slits. Does Wheeler think that physicists might one day have a similarly clear understanding of the origin of the universe? The Universe is not Observer-Dependent And this is the final part we have arrived at concerning my view on consciousness and possibilities in the realm of physics concerning it. Why Is The Future Of Business About Creating A Shared Value For Everyone? And that's not all. Now imagine that there are two other large galaxies between Earth and the quasar. An astronomer verifies it this way: “The universe brought forth life in order to exist; the very cosmos does not exist unless observed”. Sometimes light behaves like a compact particle, a photon; sometimes it seems to behave like a wave spread out in space, just like the ripples in a pond. Why Is January 1 the Beginning of a New Year? It is absolutely not true that states of matter do not exist when they are not noticed. The observer simultaneously plays a part in creating the reality he is observing. "Or at least how," he says. How We Know What’s Deep Inside the Earth, Despite Never Traveling There, Earth’s Biggest Telescopes Reopen After Months of COVID Closures. That experiment is exceedingly strange in its own right, even without Wheeler's extra kink thrown in. Wheeler's son, who lives on a cliff a few hundred yards away, has fired a small cannon, a gift from Wheeler. When physicists use the photon detectors, the result is unsurprising: Every photon is observed to pass through one slit or the other. To illustrate his idea, he devised what he calls his "delayed-choice experiment," which adds a startling, cosmic variation to a cornerstone of quantum physics: the classic two-slit experiment. It is constructed of what is called qualia, or the subjective conscious experience - that which you experience but which has no external existence. The universe could probably exist without an observer, but for this existence to mean something there would have to be an observer who is conscious of it. Yes, I've heard of quantum mechanics. When you open the cat's box after a week, you're going to find either a live cat or a smelly piece of meat. The observer effect is way more complicated than that. To Wheeler we are not simply bystanders on a cosmic stage; we are shapers and creators living in a participatory universe. In one case the astronomers create a past in which a photon took both possible routes from the quasar to Earth. As Wheeler voices his thoughts, he laces his fingers behind his large head, leans back onto a sofa, and gazes at the ceiling or perhaps far beyond it. With that observation, an entire consistent sequence of events— the particle jettisoned from the uranium, the release of the poison gas, the cat's death— at once becomes real, giving the appearance of something that has taken weeks to transpire. Our observations, he suggests, might actually contribute to the creation of physical reality. Wheeler takes the quantum view and runs with it. The fluorescent screen has no consciousness at all, but it does confine the electron to an eigenstate because it itself is a classical object (or so close to being classical as to be indistinguishable from it). "The universe and the observer exist as a pair," Linde says. Does an odour continue to exist the way one observer smells it or the way another smells it? The striped pattern would still show up, meaning that a lone photon not observed by the telescope traveled both paths toward Earth, even if those paths were separated by many light-years. If you want to try to claim that God existed prior to the creation of the universe and therefore there has always been an observer then your question answers itself. Simply put, it cannot be described by ordinary numbers. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. This is according a famous theory in quantum mechanics which argues that a particle's past behaviour changes based on what we see. If there were no such thing as quantum mechanics, the answer would be simple: The cat is either alive or dead, depending on whether a particle hit the Geiger counter. "Why is a trickier thing." Science does not know if there was any universe before conscious man, Adam, opened his eyes to look at it. "We are participators," Wheeler said "in bringing about something of the universe in the distant past." The question from the human perspective should be "Does the conscious observer needs a universe to exist?" Now it is true that there is no such thing as a truly classical object: that even people, cats, cannonballs or planets are made of a large number of quantum particles. In his concern for the nature of quantum measurements, Wheeler is addressing one of the most confounding aspects of modern physics: the relationship between the observations and the outcomes of experiments on quantum systems. "That rock is about 200 million yearsold," says Wheeler. If someone tells you this, he is talking nonsense. Wheeler suspects that most of the universe consists of huge clouds of uncertainty that have not yet interacted either with a conscious observer or even with some lump of inanimate matter. Using a light source and an arrangement of mirrors to provide a number of possible photon routes, the physicists were able to show that the paths the photons took were not fixed until the physicists made their measurements, even though those measurements were made after the photons had already left the light source and begun their circuit through the course of mirrors. Wheeler's hunch is that the universe is built like an enormous feedback loop, a loop in which we contribute to the ongoing creation of not just the present and the future but the past as well. Outside, the fog is beginning to lift on what promises to be a hot summer day. The photons, in other words, act like particles. In the absence of observers, our universe is dead. It's not only the future that is still undetermined but the past as well. So you look at the sour cream and you think, 'There is no way I can do anything with that.' So no, the existence of the universe does not depend on the presence of life. However, what is interesting is the nature of that existence (the external observable reality )and how it is … The Big Bang is still a theory, so why is everyone so certain of the age of the universe? He retains an impish fascination with fireworks— an enthusiasm that cost him part of a finger when he was young— and has on occasion lit Roman candles in the corridors of Princeton, where he became a faculty member in 1938 and where he still keeps an office. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of everything that ignores consciousness. Wheeler is gracious to a fault; one colleague describes him as "a gentleman hidden inside a gentleman." Neither becomes real until someone opens the box and looks inside. It exists all along… its position is just not describable by ordinary numbers. One outcome includes a dead cat; another, a live one. It is absolutely not true that states of matter do not exist when they are not noticed. It illustrates a key principle of quantum mechanics: Light has a dual nature. The way one observer hears the sound or the way the other observer hears it? Physicists who deal in quantum mechanics state: “You cannot (objectively) observe something without changing it in the process.” You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. Wheeler points to the example of Charles Darwin in the 19th century and how he provided a simple explanation — evolution through natural selection — for what seemed an utterly intractable problem: how to explain the origin and diversity of life on Earth. This question demonstrates the dangers of trying to comprehend modern physics from popularizations. I would say consciousness is outside the realm of physical matter and exists independently of it (which can give rise to something observing the beginning of the universe). But the results of the experiment wouldn't change. How Do Employee Needs Vary From Generation To Generation? Wheeler conjectures we are part of a universe that is a work in progress; we are tiny patches of the universe looking at itself — and building itself. But he differs with Wheeler on one crucial point. In fact, the Copenhagen interpretation contains no such requirement. "The universe and the observer exist as a pair," Linde says. Your email address is used to log in and will not be shared or sold. If you say that we're not smart enough, that is a very humiliating thought. The act of observing is not a requirement of existence. It's a tenuous lead, a clue that the mystery of creation may lie not in the distant past but in the living present. And by peering back into time, even all the way back to the Big Bang, our present observations select one out of many possible quantum histories for the universe. It had an observer - me. After a lifetime of fundamental contributions in fields ranging from atomic physics to cosmology, Wheeler has concerned himself in his later years with what he calls "ideas for ideas. Your website access code is located in the upper right corner of the Table of Contents page of your digital edition. Here's the odd part. It's necessary for somebody to look at it. Instead of shying away from questions about the meaning of it all, Wheeler relishes the profoundand the paradoxical. "One revolution of our galaxy.". It does not have a position in the classical sense at all. There might be higher levels later. "I think asking this question — How come existence? Scientists say nothing definate ever happens outside of our observation and that without an observer only random possibilities exist. The double slit experiment would indicate that there was nothing, without conscious man to observe it. When the electron finally arrives at the screen, the screen (a classical object) measures the electron’s position: the electron is now in a “position eigenstate”. 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