I was once srtuck by a little bolt of lightening, while I was walking through a field in Calgary, Alberta to play baseball. I was wearing my baseball cleats and the skies were looking ominous and I figured we would get rained out. As I climbed the crest of the last hill just before the ball diamond I was struck. It hit me on the top of my head in the form of circular rotation and burnt a hole in my hat.

I'll tell ya, I did a quantum jump that day.

Lightning Initiation and Forecast

An algorithm that is currently under active development is to use data from multiple sensors to forecast lightning initiation and to determine where the lightning is moving.

The upbuilding or unfolding of the knowable universe presents to our minds a series of gradual ascents each divided from the next by an apparent leap over what seems to be a chasm.

"Quantum Jumps," pg. 268 -269 from 'The Physics of Consciousness' by Evan Harris Walker. 2000

Quantum Jumps

".... It is the matter of what the term 'quantum jumps' means. We have just used this concept because in the context of the motions of atomic particles, it is commonly used to depict graphically the implications of quantum mechanics. But as with so much that is said about quantum mechanics, this world picture, quantum jumps, falls short of faithfulness to physics.
If any two particles collide, they do not bounce away with a single possible outcome; they bounce away with a collection of possible outcomes... All these possibilities exist simultaneously as potentialities, and when a measurement or observation is made on the object, it 'jumps' into one of the possible states as an actualization. If we could observe the atomic world, we would see something that indeed appeared to be the object jumping from one place to another discontinuosly, but the reality is different... Let us see what the reality is behind the appearance of things. The Schrodinger equation lets us see that these jumps are not there until our observation creates them. Hence we observe the object in one location when one particle of light (that let's us see the object) arrives to indicate the object's location. Then after its encounter with the particle of light, the object moves off like Lord Ronald who 'flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions' at once. The object would move off in an infinity of possible paths - all real but existing as potential states. Then the next particle of light illuminates the object, and our observation collapses these possibilities - collapses the state vector into one state, one actualization. We see this as a jump. What we observe, therefore, looks like objects jumping about as though we were looking at things with a syncopated strobe light with everything jumping and dancing wildly about.
If, however, we look at things not on the atomic scale but on the macroscopic scale, most of these jumps average out so that on the large scale we usually see a smooth motion, the classical smooth clock-like motion of planets gliding in their orbits about the sun, or billiard balls rolling deterministically across a pool table. That is what we usually see, usually."

The idea that human observation is required in order to "collapse" the quantum state bothers me. I know that according to Richard Feynman it's supposed to bother me, but it bothers me just the same. Here is the problem that I see with that interpretation:

We know that large stars eventually explode (supernovae). That explosion process is quantum-mechanical in nature. We see these explosions hundreds or thousands of years after they happen due to the slowness of light. If we observe them thousands of years after they happen, how do all those quadrillions of quantum reactions in the star's core get collapsed into the explosion event before they are observed?

Bridging the gap - begin to view the process in terms of "levels of consciousness."

Each level of consciousness denotes particular understandings and experiences that one might go through in order to 'move on' to the next level (rights of passage). With each new experiential understanding of an aspect of consciousness, one becomes freer to move to the next aspect of consciousness, or level of understanding. These passages are what is refered to as quantum jumps through which one passes. As one passes through one aspect of consciousness, new doorways are opened, new experiences explored, and one can move on through the next aspect of consciousness.

Stimulate new experiences in such a way that the window through which reality is observed begins to shift.

Quantum jumps in the context you are using are just a figure of speech. I'm not talking about levels of understanding or consciousness. I'm just talking about basic physics here. Quantum mechanical interpretations of the necessity of consciousness bother me.

It implies that life couldn't evlove because there was no one to observe (collapse) the quantum states that are undecided during chemical reactions of the first protein molecules. Hence, the interpretation that an observer is required in quantum mechanics is hogwash. Balderdash. Believed only by nincompoops. Horsefeathers. And so on.

Quantum jump is a specific term in physics that refers to the nature of change that occurs in particles: In place of a continuous change is a discontinuous leap. At one instance the elementary particle is inside the nucleus. At the next it has escaped. There is no intermediate state, no time in which the particle is actually in the process of getting out. Unlike a mouse, a quantum particle will never be discovered with its head poking out and its tail sticking in. Quantum theorists call this discontinuous transition, the quantum jump.

An instant before the jump, the elementary particle is occupying a given region of space. An instant later it is somewhere else and according to the quantum theory no physical process connects these two physical states of being, no duration of time seperates them. It is as if the elementary particle suddenly flickered out of existence, passed through a limbo of no time and no space and then reappeared somewhere else. At one instant the particle is inside the nucleus and the next it is travelling around at a high speed. Nothing happens in between. This is the mystery of the quantum jump.

In psychological terms, 'quantum jumps' points to a change that has taken place that cannot be tracked. Something happens that we can't identify and the person has moved from one state (emotional block) to another, less limited state (no emotional block).

So it is with each level of understanding that successively 'removes' a level of limitation. At some point a change occurs and you find yourself at a new level of consciousness. with each step, the radius of your perception widens to encompass an ever-expanding horizon.

it seems to me the term 'quantum jump' is being used to describe two distinct physical ideas besides the 'psychological' interpretation. The first of the physical ideas has to do with the transition of an atom from one definite electronic quantum state to another accompanied by the emission or absorption of an energy quanta (as I originally posted on this thread). The second of the physical ideas has to do with the collapse of a quantum state from a superposition of quantum basis states to a definite quantum basis state (which Rick is rightly concerned with). I believe is the proper use of the term in terms of physics is the first one as can be seen in the following definition:
http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/we...rd=quantum+jump
The second use of the term in terms of physics, being technically inaccurate, should instead be replaced by 'collapse of the wavefunction' or maybe just 'quantum collapse'. the psychological use is simply refers to an apparent functional similarity to the physical process of a rapid transition from one state to the next, as illustrated by Trip.

Level 1

"As the observer of the contents of my mind (thoughts, feeling, emotions, sensations, associations), I am more than the contents of my mind."

Anyone who has studied Eastern traditions will recognize the obvious origins of this first level. The cornerstone of most meditation disciplines is the practice of observing, or being mindful of the contents of one's mind or state-of-being. Thus one observes specific thoughts, images, sensations, feelings, and emotions as they occur and, in the process, gains a sense of being seperate from more than the flow of these contents.

Once an observer begins to appreciate that he is not his thoughts, feelings, and emotions, but rather an observing presence, a process of disidentification is inaugurated that gradually constellates as the first bridge to quantum consciousness.

Level 2

Everthing (thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations, associations) is made of energy.

Here we approach the first aspect of the work of noted physicist Dr. David Bohm. Bohm says that the world is made of energy, space, mass, and time.

Once you have experienced yourself as the observer, then you can begin to experience how all the things you observe going on in 'your mind' are made of the same underlying energy. Anger is made of the same energy that joy is. Level 2 allows you to remove the labels or content that typically categorize various facets of experience as being different, thus automatically diffusing or neutralizing the charge of whatever experience you are observing.

"I'm just sittin here watching the wheels go round and round...I really love to watch them roll...no longer ridin on the merry-go-round...I just had to let it go...I just had to let it go...I just had to let it go." John Lennon

The issue of an "observer" in the mind is a piece of old fashioned discredited mental theory. There is no homunculus. Hypothesizing a "little man" in the mind merely removes the problem one step and gets one nowhere (like Lennon's "nowhere man").

In a 'zen' sort of way, I say that one must eventually let go of self-observation as a vehicle of 'enlighenment' as such self-observation can only lead to the development of pathological thinking and increasing decoherence of the 'tao' within or some such nonsense

It takes a special skill to spout convincing psychobabble. You obviously don't have it.

curses!

Level 3

I am the creator of what I observe.

Dr. Werner Heisenberg - Uncertainty Principle.

Heisenberg demonstrated that the observer creates that which he/she observes (we create our subjective experience).

In the Eastern tradition emphasis is placed solely on the person doing the witnessing. There is no mention of any causal relationship between the thoughts that are observed and the person doing the observed. Thought and observer of thought are quite seperate in essence.

Observer created reality states: (1) There is no reality in the absence of observation and, (2) observation creates reality. Put simply, you as the observer create the subjective reality you are observing.

Level 3 empowers one beyond the passive position of witness to the active position of creator. Once you understand, for example, that you create your own sadness, or depression, or anxiety, you can stop creating it. This bridge leads us further out of the dense forest of Newtonian thought toward the ranging freedom of quantum consciousness.

Contrary to prevalent misunderstanding of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, we do not "create" reallity as observers; rather, we force reality to choose from an infinite series of possibilities. We do not, again, decide which of these possibilities reality's wavefunction collapses to.

Can someone clarify this 'observation' thing for me?

If a dead man is taken to a remote, unvisited island and the takers then depart, does his body not decay until somebody goes back to the island to see if it has decayed?

And does it then, instantly decay by an amount that would have taken 10 years if someone had stayed and watched?

In particular I am having difficulty with 'there is no reality in the absence of observation.
Reality for me is what actually happens, not what we think happens!

If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

In psychological terms, 'quantum jumps' points to a change that has taken place that cannot be tracked.

Quantum jump is a specific term in physics that refers to the nature of change that occurs in particles: In place of a continuous change is a discontinuous leap. As of yet, cannot be tracked.

The Quantum Self: Human Nature and Cosciousness Defined by The New Physics," Danah Zohar.

"....at the Quantum level of reality, the whole picture of continuous movement through space and time breaks down. Quantum physics is of 'lumps' and 'jumps'. The lumps appeared in the early days of Quantum theory when Max Planck proved that all energy is radiated in individual packets, called Quanta, rather than in flowing streams over a continuous spectrum; the jumps appeared later when Niels Bohr demonstrated that electrons jump from one energy state to another in discontinuous 'quantum leaps,' the size of which depending on how much quanta of energy they have absorbed or given off.
The original Bohr atom was like a minute solar system. It had a comparitively large nucleus at the centre in the place of the sun and the various electrons circling about in their individual orbits, each orbit representing a given energy state that an electron can occupy. There was no rhyme or reason as to when an electron might leap from one orbit to another, or how big of a leap it might take."

Turning out to be a bit outdated, for it was written in 1990.

· It still is a great read, I'd recommend it to anyone trying to catch up to where the latest developments in Quantum research developed and derived from, of course not solely from this source, but I'm sure it was a contributor to the present Quantum phenomena. The author seems to have impressive credentials and valid support, of which includes Erik Erickson, of whom she was a student at Harvard.
· This book purports to cover Quantum psychology, Quantum responsibility, Quantum morality, Quantum aesthetics, Quantum immorality, the Quantum worldview, and Quantum theology.
· Before, and during reading of any material, one should cognisize the fact of the enclosed information’s' relativity, i.e. date published, author (male or female biased), publishers, location, and the current social collective mental paradigm.
· And then ask what is this information in front of you trying to propagandize and does it fit into your current schematical structure.
· She drew some good analogies.
· Wrote about Cartesian doubt and Newtonian classical physics of the 17th century.
Both changed reality and the way 17th century perceptions were formed of individuality and collectiveness. Cartesian philosophy = "I" centered culture dominated by egocentricity with emphasis on the "I" and "mine".
· Classical physics - were Newton's vision tore us out from the fabric of the universe itself. It transformed the Greek orientated Cosmos, filled with intelligence and driven by the love of God for the benefit of Man, into a dead clockwork machine.
· Human beings and their struggles were irrelevant to the workings of the vast universal machine.

· I've posted info on other threads referring to this global mechanization that occurred during these times. Check out the Velikovsky thread and posts on Lewis Mumford.

· Marx, Darwin, and the forces of Freud’s dark psyche all owe their inspiration to Newtonian physical theory. Throughout history we have drawn our conception of ourselves and our place in the universe from the current physical theory of the day.
· Relativity itself is about the physics of high velocities and very great distances. Quantum physics is that tiny micro world within the atom, it describes the inner workings of everything we see and, at least, physically are.
· The whole world of matter is made up of atoms and their even smaller components. I.e. a single photon of light affects the sensitivity of the optic nerve.
· Quantum leaps (analogies).
· Asserts consciousness, like matter, emerges from the world of quantum events.
Our thought patterns may be explained and mirrored (sounds so narcissistic) by the same laws and behaviour patterns that govern the world of electrons and photons.
· Does our intellect derive its laws from nature?

The spirit of the new physics combats the estrangement and segmentation of life in the twentieth century and supplants it with a view of reality in which the human consciousness is just one form of consciousness within a wider cosmic consciousness.

Such a quantum worldview goes beyond the two poles of individual and relationship by demonstrating that human beings can only be the persons they are within a framework.

A therapeutic universal narrative is now coming into consciousness from many diverse fields of science and telling us that it is futile to be disconnected.

The cosmos is "one system of which we're one part integrated into the totality.... The fate of the earth is our fate as we're part of the same totality." (Coelho, 1993)

Please, elaborate.

Enlighten me/us.

There is my reality. What I observe/perceive/interpret (percept/recept/concept).

There is a reality that I do not partake in. Reality that I do not observe/perceive/interpret.

There is collective reality. Reality that we all observe/perceive/interpret.

Again, "If a tree falls in the forest....?"

If human kind did not exist and there was nobody to observe/perceive/interpret, would quantum jumps still occur, would any celestial dynamics exist and occur?

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-uncertainty/

In the early 1930's, the Copenhagen debates took place in an attempt to hash out the nature of reality according to the newly developed quantum physics.

The Copenhagen interpretation consists of two distinct parts: (1) There is no reality in the absence of observation; (2) Observation creates reality.

You create your own reality is the theme of Fred Wolf's 'Taking the Quantum Leap'.