Does Quantum Physics "prove" magick?

Question

I was reading an Article on Witchvox and someone said that; and i quot "quantum physics allows a lot of breathing room for the concept of magick. Despite the many scientists who would erupt in anger of such an idea."

Now i'm not going to pretend i know anything about Quantum Physics, in fact this was the first i heard of it.

Thanks for your help!

Also, does anyone know why i can't log into my e-mail? (I had to use my Backup Answers account to ask this question!)

My 360º is still there i was able to look it up, but i can't log into it! did Yahoo delete me?

Answer 1

A lot of breathing room is a very good way to put it.

I don't want to put you off by going into Quantum Physics too much, but I can explain what your author means.

When faced with a situation (like rolling a dice), there are several possible outcomes. In quantum physics all of those outcomes are simultaneously true, and when an observation is made the act of observing determines, in fact forces a result.

(aside to any scientists reading this-the outcome of the dice rolling is indeterminate, and no, I am not talking about a hidden variable in wavefunction collapse. I am talking about the mind being part of the make up of the hermitian operator applied to the wavefunction)

As Diane described very well before, QP allows for just about any outcome, however, what is unknown is what causes an outcome to be what it is...and in this lies some scope.

If it is possible that the human mind interacts in the Quantum system, and there are good reasons to believe it may, then it is also possible that exerting ones will towards an outcome may influence it. In other words "Magick".

Don't mistake this answer to mean that Quantum Physics proves magick, far from it. The witchvox quote is very well worded. No experiment that I know of has ever successfully shown that the human will can shape wavefunction collapse (outcomes).

Answer 2

My first response is to snort derisively, but I suppose it depends on what you mean by "magick". Quantum physics allows for things that we would normally consider impossible to happen, but those things are rather sharply limited. For instance, a professor of mine used to say that quantum would allow a hippopotamus from the Philadelphia zoo to appear suddenly in the lecture room. It also says that the probability of that happening was vanishingly small. Quantum really works best when you're describing atomic and sub-atomic particles. There are quantum effects in the macroscopic world - the Meissner effect, for instance, which leads to magnetic levitation - but they depend on the behavior of very small particles.

I guess a snort is an inappropriate response to the idea, but I still think a qualified "no" is justified.

Edit: To Mack, Bravissimo!

To Matthew T: Take away the word "suddenly" and you take away the point. Get me a truck and give me time and I can make the hippo appear in the lecture room. We're talking here about quantum tunneling on the macroscopic level - something I really don't expect to see happen any time soon. Or, I suppose, ever.

Answer 3

It's hoopla. Quantum physics can't "prove" anything, because (like most scientific theories) it is itself unproveable. Which is not at all the same thing as saying that scientists don't have more than enough reason to suppose that it is true.

Answer 4

Resoundingly, no. That's what we call "quantum hype". In quantum mechanics, there are uncertainties associated with observable physical quantities. Many unscrupulous or self-deluded folks have interpreted these uncertainties as leaving room for human interaction with matter by thought alone. It's not more complicated than that. It's really just a claim of telekinesis, or at best, the power of positive thinking, quantum edition. Whenever you see a book with "Quantum" in the title (and there are hundreds), be skeptical. What is the book about? What are the author's credentials?

"Despite the many scientists who would erupt in anger of such an idea."

That's simply an assertion, and a bold one, at that. It would be like me saying, "I have proof that Einstein was wrong, even though most scientists would call me a crackpot". In whom should you put your trust?

Quantum mechanics is a fantastically-accurate theory of matter, but it requires a LOT (i.e. years) of mathematical and physics groundwork to understand how it fits together.

There are a handful of decent popular science accounts of QM, and a lot of garbage.

Good:
http://www.amazon.com/QED-Strange-Princeton-Science-Library/dp/0691125759/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7749407-8207066?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191402642&sr=1-1

Garbage:
http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Success-Astounding-Science-Happiness/dp/1401907326/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7749407-8207066?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191402835&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/What-Bleep-Do-We-Know/dp/B0006UEVQ8/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/103-7749407-8207066?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1191402513&sr=8-2

EDIT:
Alleycat's answer is a perfect example of quantum hype. That there is an objective reality is a foundational doctrine of science. Without this, there would be no role for an observer, as we would all be "creating reality", or whatever they call it.

Answer 5

I'd like to comment on answer 1: "For instance, a professor of mine used to say that quantum would allow a hippopotamus from the Philadelphia zoo to appear suddenly in the lecture room. It also says that the probability of that happening was vanishingly small."

It is not vanishingly small if you take away the word "suddenly". Small changes cause large changes over time (chaos theory). The smallest, lightest changes over time could easily engineer that hippo to the lecture room.

Answer 6

not really "magic" as in you can pull a rabbit out of a hat or saw a girl in half. more like you when you believe it you will see it. your thoughts send information to atoms that are literally everywhere and it becomes what you "know" it to be. book, chair, computer.

given that information, you know you are in control and you see the world as it is. atoms filled with information. making stuff appear is called sidha consienceness or something like that. kinda like jedi mind trick sort of stuff. theory suggests that having this knowledge will lead to real life magic.religous people believe that certain profits performed miracles because they were devine, logic will tell you other wise, this form of science would say that the prophets believed it so much that they made it happen.