This post discusses the Observer Effect. The Observer Effect is associated with the Double-Slit Experiment and was discovered in 1801 by the British polymath Thomas Young (1773-1829).
The animated introduction in the TED-Ed video explains the link between the double-slit experiment and why physicist Richard Feynman (1918-1988), a 1965 Nobel Laureate, called it the Central Mystery of Quantum Mechanics.
The video begins with the statement: “One of the most amazing facts in physics: everything in the universe, from light to electrons to atoms, behaves like a particle and wave at the same time.” After a brief historical introduction to how atoms and electrons can behave as particles and waves at the same time, the video discusses the double-slit experiment.
The experiment involves shooting single electrons at a barrier with two slits cut into it. “Each electron is detected at a specific place at a specific time, like a particle. But when you repeat the experiment many times, all the individual electrons trace out a pattern of stripes, characteristic of wave behavior. The idea that particles behave like waves, and vice versa, is one of the strangest and the most powerful in physics. Richard Feynman famously said that this illustrates the central mystery of quantum mechanics.”
With the behavior of a single electron/photo double slit experiment clarified, we discuss the Observer Effect.
This short but clear video, titled “Greatest Proof We’re In a Simulation,” used the same experiment as above, but with single photons instead of electrons and a barrier with two slits. After explaining the experiment, a scientific detector is used to “observe” the waves as they pass through the two slits. Unexpectedly, instead of showing interference patterns suggestive of waves, as in the previous experiment, the result was two bands suggestive of particles. In other words, the author concluded, “the act of observing which slit it went through changed the behaviors of the photons. No one knows why observing a particle causes its behavior to change.”
In his discussion of Thomas Young’s double-slit experiment 2.0, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson described the observer effect using single photons. When a scientific detector watched the photons, two bands of light appeared on the screen, suggesting that the photons behave like particles. However, after removing the scientific detector, an interference pattern emerged, indicating that the photons behave like waves. Dr. deGrasse Tyson summarized the experiment by saying, “On the smallest possible scale that we’ve ever discovered, the quantum universe, the mere act of observation changes reality.” Then, he added his observation, “I cannot explain to you what you’re about to see. That’s because no one on earth understands it yet.”
Contrary to Dr. deGrasse’s claim, the Buddha not only understood the Observer Effect more than 2600 years ago but also taught that it originates not from human beings but from the smallest living beings in the universe in his Three Delicate Marks Doctrine.
However, let’s first start with quantum mechanics itself. From the current quantum mechanics perspective, the so-called Central Mystery of Quantum Mechanics should no longer exist because the statement “atoms and electrons can behave as particles and waves at the same time” is no longer valid. This is because, in quantum mechanics, atoms and electrons no longer exist as particles, but as epiphenomena. As epiphenomena, their existence alongside waves should no longer be a mystery because, as Dr. Frank Wiczek put it, epiphenomena are “ripples” in the waves. According to quantum field theory, epiphenomena are just ripples large enough to be measured. The fact that a large, measurable ripple exists along its waves that cannot be measured should not be a mystery.
However, from the Buddhist perspective, the Observer Effect originates from human observation, as discussed in Post 16.
As discussed in that post, human observation manifests the universe by changing its invisible “experiential content” into the visible “the world we experience.” Specifically, the change is made possible through conceptualization, which, according to Dr. Fisch, occurs “in ways we do not govern.” In other words, it happens without anyone knowing or controlling it. For details on the human observation process, including conceptualization, please visit Post 16.
However, in his teaching known as the Three Delicate Marks, Buddha teaches that the Observer Effect does not originate with humans, but in the smallest conscious beings.
The doctrine of the Three Delicate Marks originates in the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana (Chinese: 大乗起信論), which is “an influential Mahayana Buddhist treatise for East Asian Buddhism.”
A) In the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana, it is written, “because of unenlightenment, three marks arise, concomitantly inseparable from unenlightenment (Chinese: 依不覺故生三種相，與彼不覺相應不離).”
In Romanized Sanskrit, the term “mark” is known as laksana.
Laksana (Chinese: 相), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “In Sanskrit, a polysemous term for a ‘mark’, ‘characteristic’, ‘attribute,’ or a ‘sign;’ used in a variety of contexts to indicate either the principle characteristics or defining quality of something.”
“Unenlightenment,” as discussed in many earlier posts, refers to a fluctuating mentality and, according to Buddha, is a defiled version of the quiescent mentality, which the Buddha deems enlightened and luminous.
So, the first thing to understand about the three delicate marks is to identify the unenlightened being from whom the three marks can be “concomitantly inseparable.”
Since, as discussed in many previous posts, all phenomena in the universe are conscious epiphenomena, all are living beings (Romanized Sanskrit: 有情/眾生). In such a universe, the smallest living beings are the first epiphenomena to appear as ripples in the fluctuating field that builds it. As Dr. David Tong’s image below shows, these ripples represent the smallest epiphenomena in quantum mechanics. In Buddhism, the same ripples represent the first beings in the universe: the smallest epiphenomena known as “neighbor-to-emptiness dust (Chinese: 鄰虛塵).
Dr. David Tong‘s Image Showing Ripples as Epiphenomena
Therefore, a “neighbor-to-emptiness dust” represents the first incidence of an unenlightened being from which the three marks can be “concomitantly inseparable.” (To understand more about the “neighbor-to-emptiness dust” in greater detail, please visit the post entitled Epiphenomena-Where Buddhism Meets Quantum Mechanics.)
The Three Delicate Marks are:
- Mark of the Non-Luminous Karma (Chinese: 無明業相).
According to Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana, “Because of unenlightenment, the mind moves, named as karma. There is no motion when enlightened. When there is motion, there is suffering. Fruition is inseparable from causation. (Chinese: 依不覺故心動。 說名為業，覺則不動，動則有苦. 果不離因故).”
Karman (Chinese: 業), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit, ‘action’: in its inflected form ‘karma,’ it is now accepted as an English word, a term used to refer to the doctrine of actions and its corresponding ‘ripening’ or ‘fruition (Vipaka)’, according to which virtuous deeds of body, speech, and mind produce happiness in the future (in this life or subsequent lives), while nonvirtuous deeds lead instead to suffering.”
Karman is closely related to Causality, known in Romanized Sanskrit as hetupratyaya.
Hetupratyaya (Chinese: 因緣), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “In Sanskrit, ’causes and conditions,’ or ‘causality,’ one of the cardinal teachings of Buddhism. In the Buddhist account of this causal process, Hetu designates the main or primary cause of production, and Pratyayare the subsidiary factors that contribute to the production of an effect, or ‘fruit’ (Romanized Sanskrit: phala; Chinese: 果), from that cause. In the production of a sprout from a seed, e.g., the seed would be the cause (hetu), such factors as light and moisture would be conditions (pratyaya), and the sprout itself would be the result or ‘fruit (phala).'”
In these few words describing the First Mark, Buddha makes it clear why suffering is existential for living beings.
- By naming karma as a moving mind, and karma as suffering, Buddha makes it clear that suffering applies to all living beings because they are all consciousness.
- In his doctrine known as the Eight Sufferings (Romanized Sanskrit: astakuhkha; Chinese: 八難), Buddha lists birth, aging, sickness, and death as the first four. In other words, suffering is existential because aging, sickness, and death inevitably follow birth. Indeed, it is common knowledge among human beings that their existence is impermanent.
- Fortunately, even as Buddha teaches that existential suffering is innate, he instructs, “There is no motion when enlightened.”
- Indeed, because unenlightenment causes karma and suffering, enlightenment is liberation from them. If you are interested, please visit the post about Adyashanti’s enlightenment experience to understand what happens when one is liberated from karma and existential suffering.
2. Mark of Ability to Observe, or the Observer (Chinese: 能見相):
According to Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana, “motion leads to the ability to observe an external realm. Without motion, there is no observation” (Chinese: 依動故能見，不動則無見).
3. Mark of A Delusional Realm (Chinese: 妄境相), or the Observed (Chinese: 所見相):
By calling the Observed realm delusional, the Buddha’s message is clear. While the Observer and the Observed seem different and separate upon observation, treating them as such is a delusional misunderstanding of reality, because they are neither different in essence nor separate in reality.
As Dr. Tong’s image shows, while the Observer epiphenomenon may appear different from the Observed epiphenomenon to the eye, they are the same in essence because both are energy in quantum mechanics and consciousness in Buddhism. As the image also shows, the Observer epiphenomenon and the Observed epiphenomenon seem separate to the eyes; they are connected by the same fluctuating field in which they ripple. This is applicable to everything in the world: from the smallest ripple in the quantum field to the massive galaxies in the sky, with humanity in between. To understand that the interconnectedness of all phenomena is only one of the four ways of understanding reality, please visit this post with the same name.
In Buddhist sutras, the Buddha says that delusional misunderstanding of reality results from “the reification of what are actually imaginary external phenomena.” In other words, things may appear to be “physical,” but nothing is. As discussed in the previous post on the Five Aggregates, the constituents of all beings in the world are conscious. They appear to be “physical” because of conceptualization that occurs during observation in ways humans do not control. In the Three Delicate Marks Doctrine, Buddha teaches that it first occurs in the smallest living beings in the conscious universe.
Because all are conscious, the Observer Effect happens with everything. Scientific equipment can be the observer, and photons and electrons can be the observed. Like human observation, if the observer equipment receives the “experiential content” of an electron, the detection screen detects an electron. On the other hand, if the observer equipment receives the “experiential content” of a photon, the detection screen detects a photon.
In an era when humanity acknowledges that “We have started losing control of AI. It is time to shut it down,” isn’t it high time to ask whether a piece of metal that can learn, conceptualize, and even create a religion of its own without being conscious? Whether humanity chooses to listen to Buddha on this topic is up to humanity itself; the consequences of its decision are also something humanity must bear by itself.
