Chaos theory eliminates quantum uncertainty(iai.tv)
iai.tv
Chaos theory eliminates quantum uncertainty
https://iai.tv/articles/tim-palmer-quantum-theory-eliminates-quantum-uncertainty-auid-2263
22 comments
> I don't think anybody in the field of Quantum Mechanics doubts that it is possible for Quantum effects to be entirely deterministic.
That quantum effects cannot be deterministic is not only something people in the field believe, it is the majority position. The alternative goes under the name of "hidden variable" theory, and hidden variable theories aren't doing so well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden-variable_theory
That quantum effects cannot be deterministic is not only something people in the field believe, it is the majority position. The alternative goes under the name of "hidden variable" theory, and hidden variable theories aren't doing so well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden-variable_theory
In gp's particular case, it is the subclass of hidden variable theories known as pilot wave theories.
All the local ones are dead due to Bell. Except super determinism I guess (both "sides" dont agree on whether it is local or non local)
The nonlocal ones live, but have few real supporters
(The article, unlike the grandparent comment, is closer to superdeterminism)
All the local ones are dead due to Bell. Except super determinism I guess (both "sides" dont agree on whether it is local or non local)
The nonlocal ones live, but have few real supporters
(The article, unlike the grandparent comment, is closer to superdeterminism)
Bernardo Kastrup took Sabine Hossenfelder to task over this and to say that she did not like it would be an understatement.
What are you referring to?
They're a philosopher (Kastrup) and physicist (Hossenfelder) who have been having a long going back and forth internet debate about super determinism and hidden variables. Google it and you will find plenty of YouTube videos from both of them. It's quite interesting if you're into that sort of thing
It's the apparent (as it doesn't really happen) collapse of the wave function that seems to transcend determinism. However that's not intrinsic to the function itself. It's only a supervenience of subjective consciousness as it were. The wave function itself is very much deterministic and nothing can violate that.
The issue isn't that deterministic models are necessarily untrue. But that it's meaningless to investigate the phenomena as a deterministic one.
Even if we knew all of the hidden variables. And had the exact deterministic mathematical formula for the universe. The formula may still be so unstable that it would make exactly 0 predictions.
Even if we knew all of the hidden variables. And had the exact deterministic mathematical formula for the universe. The formula may still be so unstable that it would make exactly 0 predictions.
You'd think something like "the uncertainty principle" by it's name alone would be a pretty good hint.
The name of the "uncertainty" principle is pretty stupid and it has nothing to do with its meaning.
The so-called "uncertainty" is just a trivial property of the Fourier transform. It is the same property which requires a great frequency bandwidth for transmitting a pulse that is short in time.
The fact that certain quantities that appear in quantum mechanics are related by Fourier transforms is something that is completely orthogonal to the interpretation of the wave function amplitudes as probabilities of intrinsically random phenomena or as interaction efficiencies caused by real angles of rotation of the interacting particles/waves, which are unknown due to unknown initial conditions.
The so-called "uncertainty" is just a trivial property of the Fourier transform. It is the same property which requires a great frequency bandwidth for transmitting a pulse that is short in time.
The fact that certain quantities that appear in quantum mechanics are related by Fourier transforms is something that is completely orthogonal to the interpretation of the wave function amplitudes as probabilities of intrinsically random phenomena or as interaction efficiencies caused by real angles of rotation of the interacting particles/waves, which are unknown due to unknown initial conditions.
Technically you're correct, but you seem to be shortchanging the import of the uncertainty principle being a consequence of the Fourier transform.
That "trivial" property of the Fourier transform fundamentally limits our ability to measure both position and momentum, or time and energy of a particle. Without that aspect of QM we could get effectively unlimited certainty of those various properties. It deeply implies the universe is non-local in nature.
That "trivial" property of the Fourier transform fundamentally limits our ability to measure both position and momentum, or time and energy of a particle. Without that aspect of QM we could get effectively unlimited certainty of those various properties. It deeply implies the universe is non-local in nature.
What is the difference between "unknown (and unknowable) initial conditions" and "uncertainty"? You can't go back in time to check the initial conditions.
The uncertainty in the initial conditions has no relationship with the "uncertainty" word used in the phrase "uncertainty principle", which refers to the relationship between the variances of two functions, one of which is the Fourier transform of the other.
I have refrained from using a phrase like "uncertainty in the initial conditions" and I have said "unknown initial conditions", precisely to not imply any connection with "the uncertainty principle", because no such connection exists.
Moreover, "uncertainty" is typically used about the difference between the true value of a physical quantity and its estimated value, but in quantum mechanics problems there are many cases when a value is completely unknown (i.e. all the possible values are equi-probable at the initial time, like the angular coordinate of the position of an electron bound in an atom) and not only uncertain.
Saying "unknown initial conditions" covers such cases.
I have refrained from using a phrase like "uncertainty in the initial conditions" and I have said "unknown initial conditions", precisely to not imply any connection with "the uncertainty principle", because no such connection exists.
Moreover, "uncertainty" is typically used about the difference between the true value of a physical quantity and its estimated value, but in quantum mechanics problems there are many cases when a value is completely unknown (i.e. all the possible values are equi-probable at the initial time, like the angular coordinate of the position of an electron bound in an atom) and not only uncertain.
Saying "unknown initial conditions" covers such cases.
Max Bohr explained the uncertainty principle in his Nobel laureate speech quite well (and in nontechnical terms) - even though it might be interpreted as some law today, it definitely began as a practical obstacle.
Also, the hidden variable theories seem to be about practicality; for all intents and purposes, because it would be practically impossible to know that such hidden variables exist, they are deemed as non-existent.
Also, the hidden variable theories seem to be about practicality; for all intents and purposes, because it would be practically impossible to know that such hidden variables exist, they are deemed as non-existent.
> Also, the hidden variable theories seem to be about practicality; for all intents and purposes, because it would be practically impossible to know that such hidden variables exist, they are deemed as non-existent.
Definitely not. Everyone would strongly prefer a model of the universe that was deterministic. Hidden variables don't get ignored just because we don't need them to make predictions. We really really really want them, for their own sake, but we cannot make them work.
Definitely not. Everyone would strongly prefer a model of the universe that was deterministic. Hidden variables don't get ignored just because we don't need them to make predictions. We really really really want them, for their own sake, but we cannot make them work.
> We really really really want them, for their own sake, but we cannot make them work.
Sure we can. Bohmian mechanics showed how back in the 50s.
Sure we can. Bohmian mechanics showed how back in the 50s.
I think you are folding two things together that are related but not the same. Hidden variables are about the state of an entangled system. The uncertainty principle can be applied to measurements taken of an entangled system but can also just refer to two quantities of a single particle such as it's position and momentum.
> Max Bohr
Max Born
Max Born
I think the description in the article was actually good. In particular, the part where they say:
> This is the metaphor used to describe the unpredictability of chaotic systems:tiny uncertainties in the initial conditions of a system grow and grow until they completely destroy the accuracy of any forecast
This doesn't seem too far off from you say.
> This is the metaphor used to describe the unpredictability of chaotic systems:tiny uncertainties in the initial conditions of a system grow and grow until they completely destroy the accuracy of any forecast
This doesn't seem too far off from you say.
Chaotic systems are deterministic, but so sensitive to initial conditions that even slight perturbations will lead to wildly different, seemingly random outcomes. But if you could prepare two chaotic systems with exactly the same initial conditions, they would both follow the same trajectory. In practice, this is often impossible to do, since it requires drawing two real numbers within some absurdly small epsilon of each other (for the trajectories to be equivalent within some delta of each other, on some finite timescale Delta t. epsilon -> 0 as delta -> 0, Delta t -> infinity).
We think of quantum randomness as truly random because the states are quantized, so it’s easy to initialize a system with the exact same starting conditions and watch it follow unpredictable trajectories.
Is this basically arguing that if we treat the entire universe as some macroscopic quantum state, comprising all the individual states of each discrete quantum, it would evolve deterministically? However, since we are only powered to observe a few quanta at a time, they appear to evolve completely randomly, but only because we are not privy to the states of every other quantum state in the universe?
We think of quantum randomness as truly random because the states are quantized, so it’s easy to initialize a system with the exact same starting conditions and watch it follow unpredictable trajectories.
Is this basically arguing that if we treat the entire universe as some macroscopic quantum state, comprising all the individual states of each discrete quantum, it would evolve deterministically? However, since we are only powered to observe a few quanta at a time, they appear to evolve completely randomly, but only because we are not privy to the states of every other quantum state in the universe?
> Is this basically arguing that if we treat the entire universe as some macroscopic quantum state, comprising all the individual states of each discrete quantum, it would evolve deterministically?
Yes, I think in the end he is arguing for Superdeterminism, although for some reason he does not mention that concept in his article.
Yes, I think in the end he is arguing for Superdeterminism, although for some reason he does not mention that concept in his article.
Because he's trying to snow the layperson in his new pop science book, not call attention to old debunked ideas by naming them.
> We think of quantum randomness as truly random because the states are quantized, so it’s easy to initialize a system with the exact same starting conditions and watch it follow unpredictable trajectories.
With hidden variables—which by all accounts haven’t been ruled out—it means we cannot do this.
That is to say, there’s no way you can tell you’ve set the same initial conditions.
With hidden variables—which by all accounts haven’t been ruled out—it means we cannot do this.
That is to say, there’s no way you can tell you’ve set the same initial conditions.
> With hidden variables—which by all accounts haven’t been ruled out—it means we cannot do this.
Local hidden variables have been ruled out. So it's not really like chaotic systems at all, whose development is internal.
Local hidden variables have been ruled out. So it's not really like chaotic systems at all, whose development is internal.
The development of a fractal isn't internal. Its shape is completely predetermined by its mathematical description.
I think what the author is trying to say is that we could imagine the universe is a massively hyper-dimensional fractal that we are utterly hopeless to determine the initial starting point on. I can't immediately see a reason that model wouldn't work, but its descriptive power (relative to QM) is basically nil... To be consistent with the observations that demanded a quantum mechanical understanding of the universe, we have to introduce the idea that we can't know where we are on the fractal, so this is more a philosophical pondering than a physical one.
I think what the author is trying to say is that we could imagine the universe is a massively hyper-dimensional fractal that we are utterly hopeless to determine the initial starting point on. I can't immediately see a reason that model wouldn't work, but its descriptive power (relative to QM) is basically nil... To be consistent with the observations that demanded a quantum mechanical understanding of the universe, we have to introduce the idea that we can't know where we are on the fractal, so this is more a philosophical pondering than a physical one.
> Local hidden variables have been ruled out.
Superdeterminism is a local hidden variable theory, that has not been ruled out. Superdeterminism circumvents the Bell's theorem, by extending determinism not only to the things being measured, but also to the entities doing the measurements.
Superdeterminism is a local hidden variable theory, that has not been ruled out. Superdeterminism circumvents the Bell's theorem, by extending determinism not only to the things being measured, but also to the entities doing the measurements.
Superdeterminism isn't really local. It requires assuming that certain physical configurations are impossible for completely nonlocal and unobservable reasons (i.e. it's impossible for you to decide to measure this particle that you received from 1 light year away in this particular way, for reasons that no local measurement could ever possibly tell you - defenders will argue that it's "local" because those reasons were created when the particle was and came along with it when it was sent to you, but that's a fundamentally unphysical way of thinking).
> Superdeterminism isn't really local.
In this context, "local" means: No spooky action that is faster than light. However spooky you might think the superdeterministec correlations are, superdeterminism implements them entirely without breaking the speed of light, so in the established terminology, it is local.
In this context, "local" means: No spooky action that is faster than light. However spooky you might think the superdeterministec correlations are, superdeterminism implements them entirely without breaking the speed of light, so in the established terminology, it is local.
Technically yes, but only by positing a spooky magic correlation that is unobservable and obeys no regular physical law. I mean, you can produce a theory that's equivalent to superdeterminism by taking a regular nonlocal hidden variable theory and saying "no, the information doesn't travel faster than light, it travels backwards in time along one particle's worldline to the point where the particles were together and then forward in time along the other particle's worldline, so that it ends up in a different place at the same time. Totally different from travelling faster than light!"
Yes, superdeterminism is a theory that local and nonlocal hidden variables are the same.
Remember, Pell's inequality theorem is definitely true, mathematicallly. The only way to disagree with it physically is to say that the premises are not physical on our Universe.
Remember, Pell's inequality theorem is definitely true, mathematicallly. The only way to disagree with it physically is to say that the premises are not physical on our Universe.
I think it's detractors that argue that it's local, because that forces it to be impossible as per bells theorem.
That would be a poor argument to make, because clearly the maths of superdeterminism does work. It's just the whole concept that's insane.
More or less insane than Many Worlds? or supernaturally random Wave Function collapse?
Far more insane than either.
What exactly is the definition of sanity? I'm not sure that it's sane that the laws of physics are the same from moment to moment
Non-local hidden variables have not.
So it's not really like chaotic systems at all, whose development is internal.
If the entire universe is one system, nonlocality seems inherent. Why physicists are happy to embrace weird interpretations and not nonlocality is beyond me. It seems like an arbitrary choice to me, or even a poor choice.
Can you explain why non-locality means non internal?
The Lorenz Attractor pictured is a trajectory through pase space for a single initial condition; the key result from Lorenz (and from Smale with his Horseshoe maps) is that for ANY absurdly small epsilon you can find two initial positions within that epsilon that end up seperated down the track in time ...
ergo, your: > since it requires drawing two real numbers within some absurdly small epsilon of each other.
just won't do.
ergo, your: > since it requires drawing two real numbers within some absurdly small epsilon of each other.
just won't do.
Yup, I was sloppy with my writing. I just clarified it.
no worries - I see I typed "pase space" so <shrug> :-)
Sixty symbols did a video on spooky actions at a distance coinciding with the Nobel prize this year for the same thing.
It explains why we can show that it cannot be hidden variable / immeasurable initial state that causes the randomness.
Basically we can change the probabilities of experiment B, made on particle B, by changing the experiment we do on particle A.
I suppose that entanglement could still live in a deterministic world. E.g, given initial state/variable and interaction with entangled particle A, B will behave so and so. I’m sure you could work out a number of initial states for A and B and how each set of states react to each other, that could give the same proportions as the probabilities mentioned in the video.
But given that initial states cannot be measured, is it really a better explanation?
https://youtu.be/0RiAxvb_qI4
It explains why we can show that it cannot be hidden variable / immeasurable initial state that causes the randomness.
Basically we can change the probabilities of experiment B, made on particle B, by changing the experiment we do on particle A.
I suppose that entanglement could still live in a deterministic world. E.g, given initial state/variable and interaction with entangled particle A, B will behave so and so. I’m sure you could work out a number of initial states for A and B and how each set of states react to each other, that could give the same proportions as the probabilities mentioned in the video.
But given that initial states cannot be measured, is it really a better explanation?
https://youtu.be/0RiAxvb_qI4
I’m curious why non-local hidden variables aren’t a bigger topic, given that we know there’s non-local quantum numbers, eg those carried by anyons.
If we believe reality is non-local, then why would we also believe it’s non-determinate?
If we believe reality is non-local, then why would we also believe it’s non-determinate?
>> f we believe reality is non-local, then why would we also believe it’s non-determinate?
I wonder if physicists are so impressed (rightly so) with their precision measurement capabilities that they can't accept nonlocality because it throws a monkey wrench into their whole way of observing things.
To any physicists reading, what's wrong with accepting nonlocality?
I wonder if physicists are so impressed (rightly so) with their precision measurement capabilities that they can't accept nonlocality because it throws a monkey wrench into their whole way of observing things.
To any physicists reading, what's wrong with accepting nonlocality?
That's a hard question to answer without importing a lot of bias or metaphysics. I'll try.
tl;dr: Non-locality tends to break causality. Merely relaxing locality is hard (as in nobody who has tried has done it successfully) to reconcile with astrophysical observations (e.g. radiation from periastron advances of binary pulsars, radiation from astrophysical megamasers, JEM-EUSO/Fermi-GLAST observations of gamma and cosmic rays).
A local (relativistic field) theory means that the solution to the field equations is locally Lorentz-invariant and generally covariant. I'll explain these briefly.
Local Lorentz-invariance essentially means evolving systems of matter must obey a fundamental speed limit that applies to all observers and observables. No-one will see matter suddenly appear out of thin vacuum, nor vanish into it without a trace. Everyone can relate certain quantities they observe (e.g. angular momentum), and understand (maybe with some effort) why the observed quantities differ for different observers. We can be rigorous about the immediate "before" and "after" of the arrival of matter at any given choice of here-and-now. This constraint on the fluxes of energy and momentum leads to conservation laws that are for all practical purposes completely accurate in any "small enough" patch of the whole spacetime. (And for particle physicists local Lorentz invariance gives a time-dependent spatial location of a centre of momentum.)
General covariance means that the theory does not require any particular choice of description of "here-and-now". We can solve the field equations if "here-and-now" is at a coordinate origin, and also if one or more of the dimensions is nonzero in some arbitrary system of coordinates. More importantly, the coordinate-dependent quantities in such a solution transform in a precise way as one switches from one system of coordinates to another. It also gives us a clue about what aspects of a system are coordinate-dependent and what are coordinate-independent, and that only the latter are reliably physical.
Locality in this sense gives us the strongest form of causality, which lets us move from solving the field equations for the entire "block universe" spacetime (and then examining pieces of it) to preparing an initial value problem on a single slice of that spacetime, and then extend from there to recovering the entire "block universe". The technical term for this is global hyperbolicity.
In general it is safe to conjecture that as one weakens the causality on a spacetime (i.e., from global hyperbolicity to one of the other choices at <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality_conditions#The_hiera...>), the less likely the spacetime is to model any part of our universe with useful accuracy. I'd sloganize it as "anything not forbidden by causality conditions is mandatory in a large enough patch of spacetime". Local Lorentz invariance turns out to forbid a surprisingly large number of possibilities (including lots of weird stuff that we have never seen).
The Standard Model of Particle Physics is a local theory, and it is updated as new experimental and observational evidence piles up. Despite many searches for LIV (Lorentz-invariance violation), it remains fully locally Lorentz-invariant. See <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard-Model_Extension> for some details.
I think one should be careful not to confuse locality with local realism. That imports the idea of "scientific realism" in the sense that at a point p there are definite properties which exist -- whether measured or not -- and that those properties can only transform locally as above.
One can get to a non-realistic theory which is still local by (for example) pursuing a (I think pretty metaphysical) claim that "what you don't measure isn't there", or perhaps more weakly, "if you don't measure it, you can't assume the value". Such a theory can still be local without having to philosophize much: "if you do measure a value at spacetime point p, then measure a value at timelike-separated spacetime point p', the values will turn out to be related by a representation of the Lorentz group; but you may not be able to predict p' only from the measurement of p". (The realistic position is that you don't have to measure p' -- by measuring p you already know what p' is. [1])
(The local constraint is interesting in the paragraph above in that it implies that quantities must be combinations of only four-tensors (and four-vectors and scalars) and spinors; c.f. my paragraph beginning with "General covariance").
- --
[1] Einstein is frequently alleged to have sloganized this as "I like to think that the moon is there even if I’m not looking at it." This comes from a broken-telephone-effect upon A. Pais, Rev. Mod. Phys. 51, 863 (1979), near bottom of first column p.907, <https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.51.863>, which you can feed into sci hub): 'We often discussed his notions on objective reality. I recall that during one walk Einstein suddenly stopped, turned to me and asked whether I really believed that the moon exists only when I look at it. The rest of this walk was devoted to a discussion of what a physicist should mean by the term "to exist."' I think that's an excellent topic for discussion and that it is not yet resolved.
tl;dr: Non-locality tends to break causality. Merely relaxing locality is hard (as in nobody who has tried has done it successfully) to reconcile with astrophysical observations (e.g. radiation from periastron advances of binary pulsars, radiation from astrophysical megamasers, JEM-EUSO/Fermi-GLAST observations of gamma and cosmic rays).
A local (relativistic field) theory means that the solution to the field equations is locally Lorentz-invariant and generally covariant. I'll explain these briefly.
Local Lorentz-invariance essentially means evolving systems of matter must obey a fundamental speed limit that applies to all observers and observables. No-one will see matter suddenly appear out of thin vacuum, nor vanish into it without a trace. Everyone can relate certain quantities they observe (e.g. angular momentum), and understand (maybe with some effort) why the observed quantities differ for different observers. We can be rigorous about the immediate "before" and "after" of the arrival of matter at any given choice of here-and-now. This constraint on the fluxes of energy and momentum leads to conservation laws that are for all practical purposes completely accurate in any "small enough" patch of the whole spacetime. (And for particle physicists local Lorentz invariance gives a time-dependent spatial location of a centre of momentum.)
General covariance means that the theory does not require any particular choice of description of "here-and-now". We can solve the field equations if "here-and-now" is at a coordinate origin, and also if one or more of the dimensions is nonzero in some arbitrary system of coordinates. More importantly, the coordinate-dependent quantities in such a solution transform in a precise way as one switches from one system of coordinates to another. It also gives us a clue about what aspects of a system are coordinate-dependent and what are coordinate-independent, and that only the latter are reliably physical.
Locality in this sense gives us the strongest form of causality, which lets us move from solving the field equations for the entire "block universe" spacetime (and then examining pieces of it) to preparing an initial value problem on a single slice of that spacetime, and then extend from there to recovering the entire "block universe". The technical term for this is global hyperbolicity.
In general it is safe to conjecture that as one weakens the causality on a spacetime (i.e., from global hyperbolicity to one of the other choices at <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality_conditions#The_hiera...>), the less likely the spacetime is to model any part of our universe with useful accuracy. I'd sloganize it as "anything not forbidden by causality conditions is mandatory in a large enough patch of spacetime". Local Lorentz invariance turns out to forbid a surprisingly large number of possibilities (including lots of weird stuff that we have never seen).
The Standard Model of Particle Physics is a local theory, and it is updated as new experimental and observational evidence piles up. Despite many searches for LIV (Lorentz-invariance violation), it remains fully locally Lorentz-invariant. See <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard-Model_Extension> for some details.
I think one should be careful not to confuse locality with local realism. That imports the idea of "scientific realism" in the sense that at a point p there are definite properties which exist -- whether measured or not -- and that those properties can only transform locally as above.
One can get to a non-realistic theory which is still local by (for example) pursuing a (I think pretty metaphysical) claim that "what you don't measure isn't there", or perhaps more weakly, "if you don't measure it, you can't assume the value". Such a theory can still be local without having to philosophize much: "if you do measure a value at spacetime point p, then measure a value at timelike-separated spacetime point p', the values will turn out to be related by a representation of the Lorentz group; but you may not be able to predict p' only from the measurement of p". (The realistic position is that you don't have to measure p' -- by measuring p you already know what p' is. [1])
(The local constraint is interesting in the paragraph above in that it implies that quantities must be combinations of only four-tensors (and four-vectors and scalars) and spinors; c.f. my paragraph beginning with "General covariance").
- --
[1] Einstein is frequently alleged to have sloganized this as "I like to think that the moon is there even if I’m not looking at it." This comes from a broken-telephone-effect upon A. Pais, Rev. Mod. Phys. 51, 863 (1979), near bottom of first column p.907, <https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.51.863>, which you can feed into sci hub): 'We often discussed his notions on objective reality. I recall that during one walk Einstein suddenly stopped, turned to me and asked whether I really believed that the moon exists only when I look at it. The rest of this walk was devoted to a discussion of what a physicist should mean by the term "to exist."' I think that's an excellent topic for discussion and that it is not yet resolved.
Thank you for responding! That goes to the edge of my understanding and a bit beyond. I'm not familiar with some definitions like Lorentz-invariant, so I'll be doing some reading. But let's use that (or something similar) and ask, when you make a statement like:
>> Despite many searches for LIV (Lorentz-invariance violation), it remains fully locally Lorentz-invariant.
Are bell inequality violations Lorentz-invariant? In other words, is the answer staring people straight in the face and they can't see it? If that's the wrong concept to be violated, substitute whatever one belongs in there. I completely admit to being lightyears out of my depth here, so I apologize if this is way off base.
>> Despite many searches for LIV (Lorentz-invariance violation), it remains fully locally Lorentz-invariant.
Are bell inequality violations Lorentz-invariant? In other words, is the answer staring people straight in the face and they can't see it? If that's the wrong concept to be violated, substitute whatever one belongs in there. I completely admit to being lightyears out of my depth here, so I apologize if this is way off base.
> edge of my understanding and a bit beyond
...
> Are bell inequality violations Lorentz-invariant?
Bell tests are tests of local realism, so no, not exactly.
Local Lorentz invariance guarantees local causality, which means that objects can non-negligibly influence each other only when they are in close proximity in spacetime. If we slice up spacetime into space and time, then objects together in a small test apparatus may give evidence of a certain interaction, whereas an object in the apparatus is not going to give similar evidence of interaction with an object in a laboratory across town. Likewise, if we put object one into the apparatus, then remove it, wait some time (minutes, months) and put object two into the apparatus, we won't expect evidence of interaction between the two to be registered by the apparatus.
Local realism is that concept of local causality combined with realism in the sense that objects can have persisting properties (over time) and that objects too far away to measure nevertheless "do" have persisting properties. The first is a "timelike" separation, the second can be "spacelike separation" at spatial distances so large that the travel time of light becomes impossible to ignore.
Achieving and proving spacelike separation is a frequent goal of Bell test experimenters. Usually this means that two objects interact and acquire a special property which persists as the objects are moved apart (in space and/or time) whereupon this property of each is examined by an apparatus that is forbidden to communicate the result of one examination to the apparatus doing the other examination. The apparatus or apparatuses must have no memory of whichever result happened first. The property is special in that the objects, when examined, show "opposite" values.
The intriguing issue is that results of the examinations of the entangled objects looks a lot like there is some memory or communication involved. If one apparatus, maybe the apparatus is somehow changed by the first examination in a way that determines the second examination; if two apparatuses, perhaps the first apparatus communicates its result to the second; if the two apparatuses are too far apart to communicate the result of the first examination before the second examination is made ("too far" limited by the speed of light), then perhaps it's the objects that have the memory, perhaps the entire universe somehow remembers, or perhaps the speed of light is not universal (which would be a clear Lorentz invariance violation). (There are other options available).
Clearly pinning down just a violation of local realism is hard enough -- over the past four decades there have been hundreds of different types of experiments attempting to prove local realism violation. One weakness is that entanglement decays with exposure to the environment, and isolating each entangled object during transport (or storage, if doing a separated-by-a-long-time experiment) is very difficult. The workarounds for this often muddy understanding of the results. But even as experiments are strengthened, they might not prove a violation of the principle of locality rather than that the combination of that principle and the principle of realism don't fit together in all circumstances. So while a Bell inequality violation is suggestive of a Lorentz-invariance violation (LIV), taking that to proof of LIV is tricky. (For example, the states, the Bell operator and the Bell observable do not need to be individually Lorentz-invariant when predicting a measurement outcome probability, and proving whether they individually are or are not is much harder than proving that the combination of these states and operators is (or isn't) Lorentz-invariant).
Semi-jokingly, perhaps the best way to prove a LIV with a Bell test is to have the scientist and half the entangled objects step into a faster-than-light (FTL) transporter which whisks them to a laboratory on Mars before the scientist and her collaborators can blink their eyes, then Earthbound-collaborators and on-Mars experimenter promptly perform the tests knowing they can prove the tests were at a spacelike-separation through e.g. during-experiment astrophysical observations (but that confidence arises because of the performs-measurement-while-on-Mars scientist's explicit FTL travel, and FTL travel is LIV in itself).
Bell tests are tests of local realism, so no, not exactly.
Local Lorentz invariance guarantees local causality, which means that objects can non-negligibly influence each other only when they are in close proximity in spacetime. If we slice up spacetime into space and time, then objects together in a small test apparatus may give evidence of a certain interaction, whereas an object in the apparatus is not going to give similar evidence of interaction with an object in a laboratory across town. Likewise, if we put object one into the apparatus, then remove it, wait some time (minutes, months) and put object two into the apparatus, we won't expect evidence of interaction between the two to be registered by the apparatus.
Local realism is that concept of local causality combined with realism in the sense that objects can have persisting properties (over time) and that objects too far away to measure nevertheless "do" have persisting properties. The first is a "timelike" separation, the second can be "spacelike separation" at spatial distances so large that the travel time of light becomes impossible to ignore.
Achieving and proving spacelike separation is a frequent goal of Bell test experimenters. Usually this means that two objects interact and acquire a special property which persists as the objects are moved apart (in space and/or time) whereupon this property of each is examined by an apparatus that is forbidden to communicate the result of one examination to the apparatus doing the other examination. The apparatus or apparatuses must have no memory of whichever result happened first. The property is special in that the objects, when examined, show "opposite" values.
The intriguing issue is that results of the examinations of the entangled objects looks a lot like there is some memory or communication involved. If one apparatus, maybe the apparatus is somehow changed by the first examination in a way that determines the second examination; if two apparatuses, perhaps the first apparatus communicates its result to the second; if the two apparatuses are too far apart to communicate the result of the first examination before the second examination is made ("too far" limited by the speed of light), then perhaps it's the objects that have the memory, perhaps the entire universe somehow remembers, or perhaps the speed of light is not universal (which would be a clear Lorentz invariance violation). (There are other options available).
Clearly pinning down just a violation of local realism is hard enough -- over the past four decades there have been hundreds of different types of experiments attempting to prove local realism violation. One weakness is that entanglement decays with exposure to the environment, and isolating each entangled object during transport (or storage, if doing a separated-by-a-long-time experiment) is very difficult. The workarounds for this often muddy understanding of the results. But even as experiments are strengthened, they might not prove a violation of the principle of locality rather than that the combination of that principle and the principle of realism don't fit together in all circumstances. So while a Bell inequality violation is suggestive of a Lorentz-invariance violation (LIV), taking that to proof of LIV is tricky. (For example, the states, the Bell operator and the Bell observable do not need to be individually Lorentz-invariant when predicting a measurement outcome probability, and proving whether they individually are or are not is much harder than proving that the combination of these states and operators is (or isn't) Lorentz-invariant).
Semi-jokingly, perhaps the best way to prove a LIV with a Bell test is to have the scientist and half the entangled objects step into a faster-than-light (FTL) transporter which whisks them to a laboratory on Mars before the scientist and her collaborators can blink their eyes, then Earthbound-collaborators and on-Mars experimenter promptly perform the tests knowing they can prove the tests were at a spacelike-separation through e.g. during-experiment astrophysical observations (but that confidence arises because of the performs-measurement-while-on-Mars scientist's explicit FTL travel, and FTL travel is LIV in itself).
> the states are quantized, so it’s easy to initialize a system with the exact same starting conditions
That doesn’t seem right. Position, velocity and momentum etc. are not discrete values in quantum mechanics. It is not practically possible to repeatedly put particles into the same exact state.
That doesn’t seem right. Position, velocity and momentum etc. are not discrete values in quantum mechanics. It is not practically possible to repeatedly put particles into the same exact state.
We're OK (in the theoretical sense) if the relevant QM theory is special-relativistic. The items are prepared in the same state in their individual centre of momentum (COM) frames, and in those the (frame-dependent) quantities you are worried about vanish. The COM frames are related by a Lorentz transformation.
The COM frame is available thanks to the Lorentz group's boosts. The <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_group> at every point defines flat spacetime (General Relativity guarantees a small patch of flat spacetime around every point in a general curved spacetime), and relativistic quantum theories (of which the Standard Model is an example) have the Lorentz group fundamentally "baked in".
Further detail: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center-of-momentum_frame> and in a somewhat scattered usenet thread <https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/boosts.html>.
Experimentally one could set up a careful filtering mechanism (polarizers, traps, and so on). Each such particle will be in the measurement basis with 100% probability. We can attach a COM frame to each, and relate the COM frame and the laboratory frame to one another through a transform.
The COM frame is available thanks to the Lorentz group's boosts. The <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_group> at every point defines flat spacetime (General Relativity guarantees a small patch of flat spacetime around every point in a general curved spacetime), and relativistic quantum theories (of which the Standard Model is an example) have the Lorentz group fundamentally "baked in".
Further detail: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center-of-momentum_frame> and in a somewhat scattered usenet thread <https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/boosts.html>.
Experimentally one could set up a careful filtering mechanism (polarizers, traps, and so on). Each such particle will be in the measurement basis with 100% probability. We can attach a COM frame to each, and relate the COM frame and the laboratory frame to one another through a transform.
I think that last paragraph is right.
If everything shares some weak correlation with the stuff around it, then it might experience 10^-6 or whatever perturbation experiment to experiment, and accordingly the runs deviate according to some statistics about the system. Or the state of the early universe. Or something we don’t understand.
If everything shares some weak correlation with the stuff around it, then it might experience 10^-6 or whatever perturbation experiment to experiment, and accordingly the runs deviate according to some statistics about the system. Or the state of the early universe. Or something we don’t understand.
A correlation with only the stuff around it however does not solve the problem. Bell's inequality shows that the choice of the experimenter must be be able to affect particles separated by lightyears.
Either the experimenter's choice is an illusion (super-determinism), or somehow partial quantum states can be propagated at fast than light speed.
Either the experimenter's choice is an illusion (super-determinism), or somehow partial quantum states can be propagated at fast than light speed.
Can you give an example of what you mean?
If you take two entangled photons, send each a light year away in opposite directions. Now an satellite (which are 2ly from one another at each endpoint measures the polarization). Each satellite measures the spin along a specific axis.
The correlation in spin measured by the two satellites is dependent upon the difference in angle of the two measurements. Correlation with the local stuff around each satellite isn't enough. Somehow, the choice of measurement angle seems to be non-local (transmitted at large distances and at greater than light speed).
The correlation in spin measured by the two satellites is dependent upon the difference in angle of the two measurements. Correlation with the local stuff around each satellite isn't enough. Somehow, the choice of measurement angle seems to be non-local (transmitted at large distances and at greater than light speed).
>since it requires drawing two real numbers within some absurdly small epsilon of each other.
Not small, zero.
Not small, zero.
Definitely, if we care about the outcome of the trajectories as t\to\infty.
For certain systems, at smaller timescales, merely an absurd amount of precision will suffice [0,1].
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyapunov_exponent
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyapunov_time
For certain systems, at smaller timescales, merely an absurd amount of precision will suffice [0,1].
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyapunov_exponent
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyapunov_time
For the last part, I think so. You could imagine the universe as being operated on by some giant Hamiltonian operator with a basis of eigenstates, and then the amplitudes will just deterministically evolve according to the Schrödinger equation.
[deleted]
> Chaotic systems are deterministic
By definition, chaotic systems "are" deterministic, but it does not necessarily follow that all systems that have had a label of "chaotic" attached to them are necessarily deterministic. It can certainly cause them to take on that appearance from certain frames of reference though.
By definition, chaotic systems "are" deterministic, but it does not necessarily follow that all systems that have had a label of "chaotic" attached to them are necessarily deterministic. It can certainly cause them to take on that appearance from certain frames of reference though.
[deleted]
> it does not necessarily follow that all systems that have had a label of "chaotic" attached to them are necessarily deterministic.
Testing this is also impossible, correct? Either way we couldn’t set up the experiment precisely enough to rule out determinism. So, is this science or philosophy?
Testing this is also impossible, correct? Either way we couldn’t set up the experiment precisely enough to rule out determinism. So, is this science or philosophy?
> Testing this is also impossible, correct?
Possibly, I do not know, but the burden of proof lies with the one making the assertion, or writing the definitions that describe reality as it is (as opposed to reality as it is hypothesized).
> Either way we couldn’t set up the experiment precisely enough to rule out determinism.
Guessing when one reaches the limits of our epistemological limits and stating the guesses as facts (if(!) that is what has happened) does not seem very scientific.
> So, is this science or philosophy?
If science is not resilient to valid epistemic challenges, it should perhaps adjust its marketing message accordingly...although the genie seems to be well out of the bottle on that front, and I sense little intention or desire to put it back in (quite the opposite, if anything).
Possibly, I do not know, but the burden of proof lies with the one making the assertion, or writing the definitions that describe reality as it is (as opposed to reality as it is hypothesized).
> Either way we couldn’t set up the experiment precisely enough to rule out determinism.
Guessing when one reaches the limits of our epistemological limits and stating the guesses as facts (if(!) that is what has happened) does not seem very scientific.
> So, is this science or philosophy?
If science is not resilient to valid epistemic challenges, it should perhaps adjust its marketing message accordingly...although the genie seems to be well out of the bottle on that front, and I sense little intention or desire to put it back in (quite the opposite, if anything).
It kind of smells like superdeterminism? In which the universe is conspiring to make you choose the correct measurements during Bell tests to result in the observed correlations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdeterminism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdeterminism
> It kinds of smells like superdeterminism?
Yes. From your link: Physicists Sabine Hossenfelder and Tim Palmer have argued that superdeterminism "is a promising approach not only to solve the measurement problem, but also to understand the apparent non-locality of quantum physics".
(Tim Palmer is the author of the posted article.)
Yes. From your link: Physicists Sabine Hossenfelder and Tim Palmer have argued that superdeterminism "is a promising approach not only to solve the measurement problem, but also to understand the apparent non-locality of quantum physics".
(Tim Palmer is the author of the posted article.)
> Suppose the world is super-deterministic, with not just inanimate nature running on behind-the-scenes clockwork, but with our behavior, including our belief that we are free to choose to do one experiment rather than another, absolutely predetermined, including the "decision" by the experimenter to carry out one set of measurements rather than another, the difficulty disappears. There is no need for a faster than light signal to tell particle A what measurement has been carried out on particle B, because the universe, including particle A, already "knows" what that measurement, and its outcome, will be.
Layman here. This smells like handwaving all the complexity away with "This quantum particle when measured collapsed into state X because that was its destiny."
I struggle to see how "everything has already been decided since the Big Bang" is conceptually any different than saying it's fate we get an outcome instead of the other.
Layman here. This smells like handwaving all the complexity away with "This quantum particle when measured collapsed into state X because that was its destiny."
I struggle to see how "everything has already been decided since the Big Bang" is conceptually any different than saying it's fate we get an outcome instead of the other.
These are interpretations (metaphysics). It's arcane philosophy, science.
I think superdeterminism doesn't need to conspire to affect your choices (other than asserting they are deterministic, but it doesn't need to guide away from any particular choices in a conspiracy). It just needs to simulate both sides together on both side to know whether the measurements should correlate or not (say both sides have hidden state that resimulates the entire universe to see which measurement the other side would choose, this gets around it for Kochen-Specker/Conway freewill theorem at least, I'm not sure about for Bell's).
As long as everything was in causal contact at the start of the big bang, it can let every particle have machinery inside that resimulates everything else to decide whether a given measurements randomness is correlated with another's, without invoking non-locality. With non-locality allowed it can just do it superliminally with threads of entanglement. Both are equivalent unless something can leak out of the resimulation other than how correlated a measurement should be with another, xor if info can be sent through entanglement other than the degree of correlation, or if the numbers turn out to be truely random or at least not be algorithmically random, like maybe Chaitin's constant.
As long as everything was in causal contact at the start of the big bang, it can let every particle have machinery inside that resimulates everything else to decide whether a given measurements randomness is correlated with another's, without invoking non-locality. With non-locality allowed it can just do it superliminally with threads of entanglement. Both are equivalent unless something can leak out of the resimulation other than how correlated a measurement should be with another, xor if info can be sent through entanglement other than the degree of correlation, or if the numbers turn out to be truely random or at least not be algorithmically random, like maybe Chaitin's constant.
It is superdeterminism. "Conspiracy" is a feature of some superdeterministic theories, but not all.
Do you mean "theories" or "models"? If the former, please could you provide an example of a superdeterministic theory?
Or the observed correlations are caused by the measurement?
> Of course, this is such a startling conclusion that physicists have looked for other ways to explain Bell’s theorem. There is indeed an alternative interpretation, but it is too weird to be plausible. It assumes that the settings for the apparatus that measures the spin of one of the entangled particles somehow influence the measurement outcome for the other particle. It is a weird explanation because it implies what Einstein called “spooky action at a distance” – the idea that what happens to one particle can instantaneously influence another, distant particle. Einstein didn’t like spooky action at a distance, and neither do I, nor indeed most physicists I know.
I agree, nobody likes any of the current explanations.
> But to understand this, we have to think big, very big indeed. We have to suppose that the whole universe, and literally everything there is in it, is collectively a chaotic system evolving precisely on some cosmic fractal geometry. In this picture, there is no guarantee that hypothetical counterfactual worlds that you simply cooked up in your head, will lie on this fractal geometry. If they don’t, then these counterfactual worlds will be inconsistent with the assumed geometric laws of physics.
So the proposal is even worse. There are some universes that are possible and some universes that are impossible in spite they locally look good and you changed just a tiny thing from a possible universe. It's even more unintuitive and horrible that all the current proposals. It looks like a hidden global variable theory, but I'm, not sure.
I don't understand all the digression about chaos and fractals. If you assume that the possible universes is a dense subset of the imaginable universes (like the rational numbers in the real numbers), it will make the trick. Also any manifold would be probably fine.
I agree, nobody likes any of the current explanations.
> But to understand this, we have to think big, very big indeed. We have to suppose that the whole universe, and literally everything there is in it, is collectively a chaotic system evolving precisely on some cosmic fractal geometry. In this picture, there is no guarantee that hypothetical counterfactual worlds that you simply cooked up in your head, will lie on this fractal geometry. If they don’t, then these counterfactual worlds will be inconsistent with the assumed geometric laws of physics.
So the proposal is even worse. There are some universes that are possible and some universes that are impossible in spite they locally look good and you changed just a tiny thing from a possible universe. It's even more unintuitive and horrible that all the current proposals. It looks like a hidden global variable theory, but I'm, not sure.
I don't understand all the digression about chaos and fractals. If you assume that the possible universes is a dense subset of the imaginable universes (like the rational numbers in the real numbers), it will make the trick. Also any manifold would be probably fine.
If you have a red ball and a green ball, and you put each in a box, and you randomly pick one of the boxes and give the other to your friend, and you travel a trillion miles away and open the box, you instantly know what color ball your friend has. This is just classical correlation.
Or a more entanglement-like example, you randomly pick a pair of red socks or green socks from your drawer but don't know what you picked. Then put the socks you picked into two boxes and give one box to your friend. If you go a trillion miles away and look at your sock then your friend is guaranteed to have the same color. This isn't quite entanglement or the Bell pair since it's a mixed state, but the same idea of classical correlation holds and so these kinds of "action at a distance" scenarios aren't impossible from a classical perspective.
Or a more entanglement-like example, you randomly pick a pair of red socks or green socks from your drawer but don't know what you picked. Then put the socks you picked into two boxes and give one box to your friend. If you go a trillion miles away and look at your sock then your friend is guaranteed to have the same color. This isn't quite entanglement or the Bell pair since it's a mixed state, but the same idea of classical correlation holds and so these kinds of "action at a distance" scenarios aren't impossible from a classical perspective.
What you are describing is a "hidden variable" theory. They are disproved by the experiments of the Bell's inequality. It's more weird, much more weird.
Let's continue with your experiment about the pair of red or green socks. If you and your friend measure if they are red-or-green, both will get the same results. This can be explained with a classical theory. Nobody disagree with that.
The weird part is that you can measure if they are 50%red and 50%green! Can I call it yellow? This makes no sense with classical socks and colors, but it makes sense for quantum particles and other properties.
But there are two ways to combine 50%red and 50%green, the technical notation is (R+G)/sqrt(2) and (R-G)/sqrt(2), one with a plus and one with a minus. Can I call them good-yellow and bad-yellow? Or you prefer yellow and blue? In one of the experiments, red means vertical and green horizontal, so one of the combinations is a 45° diagonal like this / and the other is a 45° diagonal like this \. You don't need fancy equipment to measure the combinations, it's just a polarizer rotated 45°. Can I call them yellow and backyelow? I prefer good-yellow and bad-yellow because it's more clear that something weird is happening.
If you measure red-or-green and your friends measures good-yellow-or-bad-yellow, then the results will not be correlated. If you got "red", your friend has a 50% probability of getting good-yellow and a 50% probability of getting bad-yellow. There is nothing to explain here.
If you and your friend measure if they are good-yello or bad-yellow, both will get again the same results. This can be again explained with a hidden variable theory. Both socks "know" what to say if they are asked if they are red-or-green and what to say if they are asked if the are good-yellow-or-bad-yellow.
It get's more interesting when you pick more combinations, like 90%red and 10%green. Can I all it orange? And you can pick 10%red and 90%green. Can I call it lemon? If you measure red-or-green and your friends measures orange-or-lemon, then if you got red, your friend will get orange 90% of the time.
And there are good-orange, bad-orange, good-lemmon and bad-lemmon. And there are many more shades of orange-yellow-lemon. But this is getting too long.
You can have very smart socks that know what to answer for every possible combination of colors. So if you and your friend ask for the same color, whatever it is, both get the same result.
The problem is when you and your friend measure many times using the correct shades of orange and lemon. So the results don't agree 0% neither 100%. You can count how many times you get each combination of results, like (red-vs-dark-orange, or green-vs-bright-yellow), and then add and subtract some of them.
If you assume the socks can's communicate with the other socks before answering, then the result of the calculation is smaller then some number. But in the experiments disagree.
There are some videos with all of this, with a better and longer explanation by MinutePhysics and 3Blue1Brown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcqZHYo7ONs and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzRCDLre1b4&t=0s
Let's continue with your experiment about the pair of red or green socks. If you and your friend measure if they are red-or-green, both will get the same results. This can be explained with a classical theory. Nobody disagree with that.
The weird part is that you can measure if they are 50%red and 50%green! Can I call it yellow? This makes no sense with classical socks and colors, but it makes sense for quantum particles and other properties.
But there are two ways to combine 50%red and 50%green, the technical notation is (R+G)/sqrt(2) and (R-G)/sqrt(2), one with a plus and one with a minus. Can I call them good-yellow and bad-yellow? Or you prefer yellow and blue? In one of the experiments, red means vertical and green horizontal, so one of the combinations is a 45° diagonal like this / and the other is a 45° diagonal like this \. You don't need fancy equipment to measure the combinations, it's just a polarizer rotated 45°. Can I call them yellow and backyelow? I prefer good-yellow and bad-yellow because it's more clear that something weird is happening.
If you measure red-or-green and your friends measures good-yellow-or-bad-yellow, then the results will not be correlated. If you got "red", your friend has a 50% probability of getting good-yellow and a 50% probability of getting bad-yellow. There is nothing to explain here.
If you and your friend measure if they are good-yello or bad-yellow, both will get again the same results. This can be again explained with a hidden variable theory. Both socks "know" what to say if they are asked if they are red-or-green and what to say if they are asked if the are good-yellow-or-bad-yellow.
It get's more interesting when you pick more combinations, like 90%red and 10%green. Can I all it orange? And you can pick 10%red and 90%green. Can I call it lemon? If you measure red-or-green and your friends measures orange-or-lemon, then if you got red, your friend will get orange 90% of the time.
And there are good-orange, bad-orange, good-lemmon and bad-lemmon. And there are many more shades of orange-yellow-lemon. But this is getting too long.
You can have very smart socks that know what to answer for every possible combination of colors. So if you and your friend ask for the same color, whatever it is, both get the same result.
The problem is when you and your friend measure many times using the correct shades of orange and lemon. So the results don't agree 0% neither 100%. You can count how many times you get each combination of results, like (red-vs-dark-orange, or green-vs-bright-yellow), and then add and subtract some of them.
If you assume the socks can's communicate with the other socks before answering, then the result of the calculation is smaller then some number. But in the experiments disagree.
There are some videos with all of this, with a better and longer explanation by MinutePhysics and 3Blue1Brown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcqZHYo7ONs and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzRCDLre1b4&t=0s
It reminds me boxes with 3 green/red lights from the workshop "Quantum Mechanical View of Reality" by Richard Feynman https://youtu.be/ZcpwnozMh2U?t=18m20s
(there is a statement that 3 is the minimum, 2 lights won't work)
(there is a statement that 3 is the minimum, 2 lights won't work)
Berthlmann’s Socks[0]
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Bertlmann#Bertlmann...
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Bertlmann#Bertlmann...
This argument by Tim Palmer is in line with our intuitions, and his expertise while we are at it, but I'm pretty sure it's wrong. Quantum uncertainty is due to how quantum reality works, we just don't know exactly how quantum effects result in our classic reality, namely general relativity. I'm pretty sure the answer to that is something way less intuitive than chaos theory. I think Tim Palmer have spent his life chasing determinism in dynamical systems, and now everything is a nail to his hammer.
It also overlooks that humans exists in reality, and humans run on consciousness (so they say), and consciousness (and the motion and causality that emerges from it) remains somewhat of a black/invisible box to scientists.
That doesn't have anything to do with it, classical physics (for example gravity) exists independently from us.
If scientists were to explicitly state that they are only describing a subset of reality (the physical/material realm), I would be more forgiving.
But rather, they typically speak like this (from the article):
"Quantum mechanics is usually described as a theory of atoms and sub-atomic particles, but in truth it is believed to be a theory that underpins everything in the world, including the weather and the galaxies – all of reality."
Based on my observations, there seems to be a set of topics whereby most instances of human mind lose their ability to desire to know what is true. It if often easy to see this flaw in others (for example: non-theists observing theists), but seeing similar flaws in oneself is far trickier (say: materialists contemplating metaphysical ideas).
(Note: this phenomenon applies to me as well, although I suspect not to the same degree as most.)
But rather, they typically speak like this (from the article):
"Quantum mechanics is usually described as a theory of atoms and sub-atomic particles, but in truth it is believed to be a theory that underpins everything in the world, including the weather and the galaxies – all of reality."
Based on my observations, there seems to be a set of topics whereby most instances of human mind lose their ability to desire to know what is true. It if often easy to see this flaw in others (for example: non-theists observing theists), but seeing similar flaws in oneself is far trickier (say: materialists contemplating metaphysical ideas).
(Note: this phenomenon applies to me as well, although I suspect not to the same degree as most.)
The physical realm as you call it is the entire reality, it's the only thing you can interact with in an empirical manner. You don't need anything else to create consciousness, it's 100% physics, and would work quite differently if it wouldn't be.
It's actually thermodynamics. As it turns out there is a selection for information-processing structures due to the connection between energy efficiency and prediction. Any system interacting with it's environment has a state that's changed by the interaction, and some of that state happens to be predictive of the future. Turns out how much of that state is predictive is exactly how energy efficient the system is. It's called the thermodynamics of prediction.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1203.3271
But wait, there is more. Thermodynamics actually favors the creation of a hierarchy of dissipating structures. Lightning and fire and both such structures, and also stars that feed other dissipative structures, which feed other structures and so on, as entropy keeps increasing from minimum to maximum. Dissipating a star's energy all at once, going straight to heat death is not possible, instead dissipative structures help the system move from one meta-stable state to another. There is however a minimal cost to maintaining a dissipative structure, it's not free, so the feeding stops at structures that are barely left with enough potential energy to take care of themselves. In fact the cost increases the further away the structure is from the initial disequilibria, the star in this case. And yet these bottom feeders are still thermodynamically favored, there is free energy left to do something. Now however things are different, because the bottom feeders that are thermodynamically efficient, structures that only create a minimum amount of entropy tend to survive and dissipate another day, however slowly. These bottom feeders then tend to evolve toward information-processing, because they wouldn't be able to be efficient without predictive inference. Biology from molecular machines to the human brain are all such bottom feeders, their central tenet is efficiency, in energy and information processing.
Information itself is physical, it's like heat, in fact it has the same properties, it requires a medium to propagate and so on, and you can use the same statistical mechanics to describe it. In fact we are capable of experimentally demonstrating an information engine, an engine that converts information instead of energy to work. Physics now can be used to understand information-processing too.
Metaphysics is only interesting if you are a philosopher and you are trying to speculate about things we don't understand yet. But it's not an excuse for dismissing reality, which is much more interesting than any metaphysical nonsense. Yes, physics can create minds, but that doesn't mean that minds are mundane, material things, it means that physics is more awesome and powerful than we thought. It creates black holes, stars, planets, human brains and all thoughts and dreams we have in them. What's not to like?
It's actually thermodynamics. As it turns out there is a selection for information-processing structures due to the connection between energy efficiency and prediction. Any system interacting with it's environment has a state that's changed by the interaction, and some of that state happens to be predictive of the future. Turns out how much of that state is predictive is exactly how energy efficient the system is. It's called the thermodynamics of prediction.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1203.3271
But wait, there is more. Thermodynamics actually favors the creation of a hierarchy of dissipating structures. Lightning and fire and both such structures, and also stars that feed other dissipative structures, which feed other structures and so on, as entropy keeps increasing from minimum to maximum. Dissipating a star's energy all at once, going straight to heat death is not possible, instead dissipative structures help the system move from one meta-stable state to another. There is however a minimal cost to maintaining a dissipative structure, it's not free, so the feeding stops at structures that are barely left with enough potential energy to take care of themselves. In fact the cost increases the further away the structure is from the initial disequilibria, the star in this case. And yet these bottom feeders are still thermodynamically favored, there is free energy left to do something. Now however things are different, because the bottom feeders that are thermodynamically efficient, structures that only create a minimum amount of entropy tend to survive and dissipate another day, however slowly. These bottom feeders then tend to evolve toward information-processing, because they wouldn't be able to be efficient without predictive inference. Biology from molecular machines to the human brain are all such bottom feeders, their central tenet is efficiency, in energy and information processing.
Information itself is physical, it's like heat, in fact it has the same properties, it requires a medium to propagate and so on, and you can use the same statistical mechanics to describe it. In fact we are capable of experimentally demonstrating an information engine, an engine that converts information instead of energy to work. Physics now can be used to understand information-processing too.
Metaphysics is only interesting if you are a philosopher and you are trying to speculate about things we don't understand yet. But it's not an excuse for dismissing reality, which is much more interesting than any metaphysical nonsense. Yes, physics can create minds, but that doesn't mean that minds are mundane, material things, it means that physics is more awesome and powerful than we thought. It creates black holes, stars, planets, human brains and all thoughts and dreams we have in them. What's not to like?
> The physical realm as you call it is the entire reality, it's the only thing you can interact with in an empirical manner.
An opinion, stated in (and perhaps perceived as) a fact.
And as the saying goes: you may not be interested in metaphysics, but metaphysics may be interested in you (the poor folks in Ukraine are getting a lesson in this as we speak).
> You don't need anything else to create consciousness, it's 100% physics, and would work quite differently if it wouldn't be.
...the instance of human consciousness confidently exclaimed.
> It's actually thermodynamics.
Consciousness "is" thermodynamics? (And also 100% physics?)
It isn't only that physics is known to be involved (necessary), but it is known[1] to be sufficient[2]?
> As it turns out there is a selection for information-processing structures due to the connection between energy efficiency and prediction. Any system interacting with it's environment has a state that's changed by the interaction, and some of that state happens to be predictive of the future. Turns out how much of that state is predictive is exactly how energy efficient the system is. It's called the thermodynamics of prediction.
And you're saying that it is scientific consensus that this is the solution to The Hard Problem of Consciousness[3]?
> But wait, there is more. Thermodynamics actually favors the creation of a hierarchy of dissipating structures. Lightning and fire and both such structures, and also stars...
If the topic of discussion was stars, this would be more convincing.
> Information itself is physical, it's like heat, in fact it has the same properties, it requires a medium to propagate and so on, and you can use the same statistical mechanics to describe it.
It can be stored physically, but whether this is the only way in which it manifests is another matter.
> Physics now can be used to understand information-processing too.
In 2022, can physics perfectly reverse engineer and emulate the human mind?
> Metaphysics is only interesting if you are a philosopher...
Why do people complain about metaphyscal phenomena then, constantly? COVID, Iraq, religion, wealth inequality, Trump supporters, etc etc etc - the whining never ends.
>...and you are trying to think about things we don't understand yet.
It may seem like you have knowledge of what myself and others have knowledge of, but science suggests that this is an illusory side effect of consciousness[4], and on that particular matter I tend to agree with science.
> But it's not an excuse for dismissing reality...
Agreed - that responsibility tends to fall to culture, The Science, and consciousness, and I strongly recommend against it.
> ...which is much more interesting than any metaphysical nonsense.
Said the instance of consciousness, describing the flawed model of something within his mind, thinking he is talking about the thing itself[5].
> Yes, physics can create minds...
It certainly plays a role, but is it sufficient? [1][2]
> ...but that doesn't mean that minds became mundane, material things...
Culture is what does that, imho. Culture, propaganda, non-democratic power structures, etc - lots of things.
> ...it means that physics is astonishingly awesome and powerful.
And, perhaps, misleading. So impressive that it blots out other subtleties that we are surrounded by.
> It creates black holes, stars, planets, human brains and all thoughts and dreams we have in them. What's not to like?
The harm that comes when people come to believe that it is the answer to all, due to growing up in a culture that abhors logic and epistemology, while simultaneously worshipping disciplines that derive their power from these skills.
I suspect it is unlikely that you and I will see eye to eye on any of this, but I am ever curious and always enjoy such conversations.
[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessity_and_sufficiency
[3] https://iep.utm.edu/hard-problem-of-conciousness/
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics
An opinion, stated in (and perhaps perceived as) a fact.
And as the saying goes: you may not be interested in metaphysics, but metaphysics may be interested in you (the poor folks in Ukraine are getting a lesson in this as we speak).
> You don't need anything else to create consciousness, it's 100% physics, and would work quite differently if it wouldn't be.
...the instance of human consciousness confidently exclaimed.
> It's actually thermodynamics.
Consciousness "is" thermodynamics? (And also 100% physics?)
It isn't only that physics is known to be involved (necessary), but it is known[1] to be sufficient[2]?
> As it turns out there is a selection for information-processing structures due to the connection between energy efficiency and prediction. Any system interacting with it's environment has a state that's changed by the interaction, and some of that state happens to be predictive of the future. Turns out how much of that state is predictive is exactly how energy efficient the system is. It's called the thermodynamics of prediction.
And you're saying that it is scientific consensus that this is the solution to The Hard Problem of Consciousness[3]?
> But wait, there is more. Thermodynamics actually favors the creation of a hierarchy of dissipating structures. Lightning and fire and both such structures, and also stars...
If the topic of discussion was stars, this would be more convincing.
> Information itself is physical, it's like heat, in fact it has the same properties, it requires a medium to propagate and so on, and you can use the same statistical mechanics to describe it.
It can be stored physically, but whether this is the only way in which it manifests is another matter.
> Physics now can be used to understand information-processing too.
In 2022, can physics perfectly reverse engineer and emulate the human mind?
> Metaphysics is only interesting if you are a philosopher...
Why do people complain about metaphyscal phenomena then, constantly? COVID, Iraq, religion, wealth inequality, Trump supporters, etc etc etc - the whining never ends.
>...and you are trying to think about things we don't understand yet.
It may seem like you have knowledge of what myself and others have knowledge of, but science suggests that this is an illusory side effect of consciousness[4], and on that particular matter I tend to agree with science.
> But it's not an excuse for dismissing reality...
Agreed - that responsibility tends to fall to culture, The Science, and consciousness, and I strongly recommend against it.
> ...which is much more interesting than any metaphysical nonsense.
Said the instance of consciousness, describing the flawed model of something within his mind, thinking he is talking about the thing itself[5].
> Yes, physics can create minds...
It certainly plays a role, but is it sufficient? [1][2]
> ...but that doesn't mean that minds became mundane, material things...
Culture is what does that, imho. Culture, propaganda, non-democratic power structures, etc - lots of things.
> ...it means that physics is astonishingly awesome and powerful.
And, perhaps, misleading. So impressive that it blots out other subtleties that we are surrounded by.
> It creates black holes, stars, planets, human brains and all thoughts and dreams we have in them. What's not to like?
The harm that comes when people come to believe that it is the answer to all, due to growing up in a culture that abhors logic and epistemology, while simultaneously worshipping disciplines that derive their power from these skills.
I suspect it is unlikely that you and I will see eye to eye on any of this, but I am ever curious and always enjoy such conversations.
[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessity_and_sufficiency
[3] https://iep.utm.edu/hard-problem-of-conciousness/
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics
I think we are over the hard problem of consciousness, and the problem was only hard because we are emotional about it and think that it should be more special than it's humble information-processing origin suggests. We are biased when it comes to consciousness because we are right in the middle of it, it compels us to take it seriously, in fact it lies to us for practical reasons. In a way the entire subjective experience of having a self that makes a decision is an illusion, every subjective experience is. We feel cold, we see images, but it's all an information-processing machine convincing us that we feel it, that we see them. What actually happens is different, and we are not privy to it, but we are starting to understand it. For example the self itself doesn't make decisions, it's a report from all over the brain integrated into a coherent story, which is fed back to the memory and the rest of the brain. Our memory too is not what it feels like, for example we can't simply recall things, to do that we have to create a new memory with a new coherent story that integrates some of the original memory, reinterpreted. But your brain doesn't tell you this, it just makes you believe that you remember things. You often remember them wrong though. Humans are very unreliable witnesses for this reason. We have an entire bouquet of cognitive biases and heuristics, we don't even notice them. Our brain have to use shortcuts, but it lies about them. Turns out we are quite predictable actually, and therefore exploitable by marketing, politics or religion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
Consciousness is a tower of practical lies hiding the machinery, which is basically an information-processing machine capable of manipulating information. All we are privy to is the manipulated information. Our brain is in control of the entire process, our subjective experiences feel real, because we are made to believe that they feel real. We have no choice in the matter. When you are seeing a red door you are processing information, you are not seeing a red door, the information is just manipulated that way. And of course if you are seeing a red door, there is a door in reality, since brains evolved to be practical. It wouldn't lie you about a door being there, though it may lie about the the size for practical reasons. Objects with saturated colors look larger for example. See color psychology.
https://www.nickkolenda.com/color-psychology/
Physics is not only sufficient to create minds, it's why they work this way, otherwise I would imagine God could have done better.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
Consciousness is a tower of practical lies hiding the machinery, which is basically an information-processing machine capable of manipulating information. All we are privy to is the manipulated information. Our brain is in control of the entire process, our subjective experiences feel real, because we are made to believe that they feel real. We have no choice in the matter. When you are seeing a red door you are processing information, you are not seeing a red door, the information is just manipulated that way. And of course if you are seeing a red door, there is a door in reality, since brains evolved to be practical. It wouldn't lie you about a door being there, though it may lie about the the size for practical reasons. Objects with saturated colors look larger for example. See color psychology.
https://www.nickkolenda.com/color-psychology/
Physics is not only sufficient to create minds, it's why they work this way, otherwise I would imagine God could have done better.
> Physics is not only sufficient to create minds, it's why they work this way, otherwise I would imagine God could have done better.
Is this proposition subject to all the unreliability you note?
Is this proposition 100% unanimous scientific consensus?
Is this proposition subject to all the unreliability you note?
Is this proposition 100% unanimous scientific consensus?
The unreliability can be weeded out, cross-examined, this is what science does basically. We ourselves are unreliable observers, but you can work with it if you manage to eliminate the biases. The classic double blind used widely in experiments would be an example of that. Airline pilots using checklists is another example.
As for the theories for consciousness science is dealing with the details of it, not whether it's information-processing or not, It's kind of a given that no magic is involved, because of how the brain works and because of how thermodynamics works, but also because of computers. A red door in a video game is also manipulated information. But the great thing about science is that it's not set on excluding magic, or rather some weird new science if it's required to explain things, but there is also no reason to speculate about it when it's not needed.
As for the theories for consciousness science is dealing with the details of it, not whether it's information-processing or not, It's kind of a given that no magic is involved, because of how the brain works and because of how thermodynamics works, but also because of computers. A red door in a video game is also manipulated information. But the great thing about science is that it's not set on excluding magic, or rather some weird new science if it's required to explain things, but there is also no reason to speculate about it when it's not needed.
> The unreliability can be weeded out, cross-examined, this is what science does basically.
Science can try, but can a correct answer necessarily be reached?
Has a correct answer been reached, or might you be engaged in some speculation, perhaps unintentionally?
> We ourselves are unreliable observers, but you can work with it if you manage to eliminate the biases.
Have you eliminated your biases?
> The classic double blind used widely in experiments would be an example of that. Airline pilots using checklists is another example.
Some techniques work on some problems, but not all techniques work on all problems.
Do these techniques work on this problem?
> As for the theories for consciousness science is dealing with the details of it...
They are certainly working on some details of it, but "the" details is an ontological claim that implies a comprehensive understanding.
Also, there are known aspects like phenomenology and causality that it is a bit of a stretch to say that science is "working on the details" of (as compared to the level of quality and magnitude they are reputed and perceived to work on things at).
> ...not whether it's information-processing or not, It's kind of a given that no magic is involved...
Does "kind of a given" mean "it is conclusively known, in an epistemically flawless manner"?
> ...because of how the brain works and because of how thermodynamics works, but also because of computers.
It is not known how the brain works, comprehensively. Only some things are known, and one of which is that most brains are not able to skilfully identify the boundaries of their knowledge, and what lies beyond - in such cases, "reality" is generated on the fly and injected into the stream, typically with no indication that it is a simulated reality.
> But the great thing about science is that it's not set on excluding magic...
Science itself, in that it has no volition - scientists on the other hand, they do have volition, as well as not well constrained or understood imaginations.
> ...or rather some weird new science if it's required to explain things, but there is also no reason to speculate about it when it's not needed.
And yet, speculation (not realized as such) is extremely common, particularly among the fan base.
When religious people do this they get mocked relentlessly, it's an interesting double standard.
Science can try, but can a correct answer necessarily be reached?
Has a correct answer been reached, or might you be engaged in some speculation, perhaps unintentionally?
> We ourselves are unreliable observers, but you can work with it if you manage to eliminate the biases.
Have you eliminated your biases?
> The classic double blind used widely in experiments would be an example of that. Airline pilots using checklists is another example.
Some techniques work on some problems, but not all techniques work on all problems.
Do these techniques work on this problem?
> As for the theories for consciousness science is dealing with the details of it...
They are certainly working on some details of it, but "the" details is an ontological claim that implies a comprehensive understanding.
Also, there are known aspects like phenomenology and causality that it is a bit of a stretch to say that science is "working on the details" of (as compared to the level of quality and magnitude they are reputed and perceived to work on things at).
> ...not whether it's information-processing or not, It's kind of a given that no magic is involved...
Does "kind of a given" mean "it is conclusively known, in an epistemically flawless manner"?
> ...because of how the brain works and because of how thermodynamics works, but also because of computers.
It is not known how the brain works, comprehensively. Only some things are known, and one of which is that most brains are not able to skilfully identify the boundaries of their knowledge, and what lies beyond - in such cases, "reality" is generated on the fly and injected into the stream, typically with no indication that it is a simulated reality.
> But the great thing about science is that it's not set on excluding magic...
Science itself, in that it has no volition - scientists on the other hand, they do have volition, as well as not well constrained or understood imaginations.
> ...or rather some weird new science if it's required to explain things, but there is also no reason to speculate about it when it's not needed.
And yet, speculation (not realized as such) is extremely common, particularly among the fan base.
When religious people do this they get mocked relentlessly, it's an interesting double standard.
When I mean science I mean the scientific method, which is pretty universal, and you won't find a better tool to get to the bottom of things. You don't need a comprehensive understanding to find objective truth either. Newton's theory of gravitation is a really crude approximation to general relativity, and yet it's all true. Unfortunately for us the world doesn't exactly work like our intuitions suggests, so relying on them is not enough to understand it.
I don't think religious people are mocked for speculating, they are mocked for being dogmatic, but at the same time completely changing the interpretation of their dogma to serve their purposes, for power no less.
I don't think religious people are mocked for speculating, they are mocked for being dogmatic, but at the same time completely changing the interpretation of their dogma to serve their purposes, for power no less.
> When I mean science I mean the scientific method, which is pretty universal
The scientific method does not have volition, it must be implemented by humans.
> ...and you won't find a better tool to get to the bottom of things.
It's an extremely popular meme, but how did you go about determining that it is comprehensively true?
> You don't need a comprehensive understanding to find objective truth either.
You do of variables that have causal influence on the problem space you're making claims of fact about.
> Newton's theory of gravitation is a really crude approximation to general relativity, and yet it's all true.
It is true that it exists, but the results that it produces are not necessarily true.
> Unfortunately for us the world doesn't exactly work like our intuitions suggests, so relying on them is not enough to understand it.
But is that not what you are doing here today? Your ability to provide proof of your claims may shed some light, let's wait and see.
> I don't think religious people are mocked for speculating...
They are. Perhaps you've never witnessed it, or perhaps your biases do not allow you to see it.
> ...they are mocked for being dogmatic, but at the same time completely changing the interpretation of their dogma to serve their purposes, for power no less.
Indeed - a lot like Scientific Materialists! My interest is in why there is such a substantial double standard when it comes to people discussing the flaws of the different people. Does it not seem weird that people will criticize their outgroup members for flaws that they themselves suffer from, while representing that they have superior intellectual capabilities?
The scientific method does not have volition, it must be implemented by humans.
> ...and you won't find a better tool to get to the bottom of things.
It's an extremely popular meme, but how did you go about determining that it is comprehensively true?
> You don't need a comprehensive understanding to find objective truth either.
You do of variables that have causal influence on the problem space you're making claims of fact about.
> Newton's theory of gravitation is a really crude approximation to general relativity, and yet it's all true.
It is true that it exists, but the results that it produces are not necessarily true.
> Unfortunately for us the world doesn't exactly work like our intuitions suggests, so relying on them is not enough to understand it.
But is that not what you are doing here today? Your ability to provide proof of your claims may shed some light, let's wait and see.
> I don't think religious people are mocked for speculating...
They are. Perhaps you've never witnessed it, or perhaps your biases do not allow you to see it.
> ...they are mocked for being dogmatic, but at the same time completely changing the interpretation of their dogma to serve their purposes, for power no less.
Indeed - a lot like Scientific Materialists! My interest is in why there is such a substantial double standard when it comes to people discussing the flaws of the different people. Does it not seem weird that people will criticize their outgroup members for flaws that they themselves suffer from, while representing that they have superior intellectual capabilities?
This title is not remotely true. In order for chaos theory to explain quantum uncertainty there would have to be hidden information that leads to the uncertainty which would be explained by chaos theory if we knew the hidden information.
The Nobel Prize in Physics was just given to three people who contributed to proving that hidden variables are pretty much ruled out. As uncomfortable as it is for some people, reality is inherently probabilistic on the smallest scales.
So no, this title is just wrong.
The Nobel Prize in Physics was just given to three people who contributed to proving that hidden variables are pretty much ruled out. As uncomfortable as it is for some people, reality is inherently probabilistic on the smallest scales.
So no, this title is just wrong.
> The Nobel Prize in Physics was just given to three people who contributed to proving that hidden variables are pretty much ruled out.
I assume you read the part in the article where he talked about that result and Bell's Theorem and the extra assumption in that theorem which is where he believes the loophole lies.
To quote:
> That is to say, Bell’s Theorem assumes counterfactual quantum measurements are necessarily consistent with the laws of physics. This is the assumption that physicists don’t like to think might be wrong. If these counterfactual worlds turn out to be inconsistent with the laws of physics, then our intuitive ideas about causality will also turn out to be wrong.
> Chaos theory provides a simple way to understand situations where counterfactual worlds are indeed inconsistent with the laws of physics.
It's an interesting idea and not one that can be dismissed as easily as you seem to think.
I assume you read the part in the article where he talked about that result and Bell's Theorem and the extra assumption in that theorem which is where he believes the loophole lies.
To quote:
> That is to say, Bell’s Theorem assumes counterfactual quantum measurements are necessarily consistent with the laws of physics. This is the assumption that physicists don’t like to think might be wrong. If these counterfactual worlds turn out to be inconsistent with the laws of physics, then our intuitive ideas about causality will also turn out to be wrong.
> Chaos theory provides a simple way to understand situations where counterfactual worlds are indeed inconsistent with the laws of physics.
It's an interesting idea and not one that can be dismissed as easily as you seem to think.
I did and did not find that passage at all convincing or even completely coherent. Like I tried to gently indicate I think this article is very bad.
>In a series of technical papers I have developed a mathematical model where the counterfactual worlds which arise when you try to prove Bell’s theorem do not lie on the assumed fractal geometry of the universe.
If I'm reading this correctly, the author is describing a model of superdeterminism — although it's not clear where fractal geometry comes into play.
If I'm reading this correctly, the author is describing a model of superdeterminism — although it's not clear where fractal geometry comes into play.
> If I'm reading this correctly, the author is describing a model of superdeterminism — although it's not clear where fractal geometry comes into play.
My (limited) understanding was that the fractal geometry was part of the hidden variable system which is limiting the possible universes. The idea being that if a potential universe needs to correspond to a point in a fractal, then making a small change (via a counterfactual) could easily result in a universe which is not a point in the fractal.
My (limited) understanding was that the fractal geometry was part of the hidden variable system which is limiting the possible universes. The idea being that if a potential universe needs to correspond to a point in a fractal, then making a small change (via a counterfactual) could easily result in a universe which is not a point in the fractal.
Is it possible to have a quantum theory where there is no "measurement"? The universe simply evolves according to the Dirac or Shroedinger equations, and the phenomenon that we call measurement is an emergent, statistical property?
The motivation for the question is that in quantum physics there are two phases:
1. The phase where everything is quantum, and things evolve according to Dirac or Schroedinger. The state of a system at any given time then determines its state at all times in the future and in the past. Everything is in all possible classical states at once.
2. Some measurement happens that is irreversible. The quantum state collapses, and information about the quantum state before the collapse is lost. The result is a single classical state.
I haven't read TFA, but having something like phase 2 be emergent from phase 1 seems like a major breakthrough. Phase 2 is then an illusion. This seems better than the status quo. (I am not a physicist).
The motivation for the question is that in quantum physics there are two phases:
1. The phase where everything is quantum, and things evolve according to Dirac or Schroedinger. The state of a system at any given time then determines its state at all times in the future and in the past. Everything is in all possible classical states at once.
2. Some measurement happens that is irreversible. The quantum state collapses, and information about the quantum state before the collapse is lost. The result is a single classical state.
I haven't read TFA, but having something like phase 2 be emergent from phase 1 seems like a major breakthrough. Phase 2 is then an illusion. This seems better than the status quo. (I am not a physicist).
> Is it possible to have a quantum theory where there is no "measurement"? The universe simply evolves according to the Dirac or Shroedinger equations, and the phenomenon that we call measurement is an emergent, statistical property?
Doesn't the many-worlds interpretation fit your description? It of course has it's own weirdness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation
Doesn't the many-worlds interpretation fit your description? It of course has it's own weirdness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation
Yes.
My preferred version is something-something-decoherence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_decoherence The people that work in that are call it "Decoherence", but it's not finished, there are still a lot of details to fix, and perhaps it will need still like 50 or 100 years of hard work before it's completed. So it's too green and I prefer a funny name like "something-something-decoherence" to avoid confusion. And perhaps it's the wrong explanation.
My preferred version is something-something-decoherence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_decoherence The people that work in that are call it "Decoherence", but it's not finished, there are still a lot of details to fix, and perhaps it will need still like 50 or 100 years of hard work before it's completed. So it's too green and I prefer a funny name like "something-something-decoherence" to avoid confusion. And perhaps it's the wrong explanation.
I'm very far from an expert on quantum theory but I do think it's interesting how this approach takes the "large scale patterns, small scale unpredictable" model of the Lorenz attractor, and how similar that is to the (very controversial!) Wolfram physics project.
Compare this model: We have to suppose that the whole universe, and literally everything there is in it, is collectively a chaotic system evolving precisely on some cosmic fractal geometry.
and the Wolfram model: From the multiway causal graph, one can project out the specific causal graph for each possible evolution history
I don't think Stephan Wolfram has gone so far as to claim the universe is physically made of his "causal graph of rules" idea, but he does argue that you can model both quantum physics and relativity using this model with no "special cases".
Compare this model: We have to suppose that the whole universe, and literally everything there is in it, is collectively a chaotic system evolving precisely on some cosmic fractal geometry.
and the Wolfram model: From the multiway causal graph, one can project out the specific causal graph for each possible evolution history
I don't think Stephan Wolfram has gone so far as to claim the universe is physically made of his "causal graph of rules" idea, but he does argue that you can model both quantum physics and relativity using this model with no "special cases".
What seems clear, so far, is that our models are still not perfect and can’t describe all of our observations or experiments.
We’re talking about the map, not reality.
Given that after quite a bit of time we have almost reached scientific consensus, but not quite, I think humility is required.
There are a few hints showing that QM is not the end game.
We’re talking about the map, not reality.
Given that after quite a bit of time we have almost reached scientific consensus, but not quite, I think humility is required.
There are a few hints showing that QM is not the end game.
Curious, what are those hints?
Do the double slit experiment in a non-uniform gravitational field. Nobody knows how to calculate that.
We have two perfectly good and internally consistent theories: Quantum mechanics and general relativity. But they are inconsistent with each other.
We have two perfectly good and internally consistent theories: Quantum mechanics and general relativity. But they are inconsistent with each other.
Ah yes. My understanding is more that we have to make gravity fit within QM as opposed to the other way around, but perhaps a unified theory would require changes to QM also?
Gravity
Science was pretty much agreed upon in the Middle Ages. Most philosophers agreed that Aristotle and the Greeks had pretty much worked everything out. Point is a consensus can be very far from the truth. As it stands the Standard Model is, to quote somebody 'a hideous cludge'. It relies on many invisible, undetectable entities such as 'dark matter', 'dark energy' all kinds of subatomic particles, yet it cannot explain gravity. It also introduces concepts such as inflation. Worse still, it is contradicted by qm!
I think it's still possible that the entire standard model might still be uprooted in favour of something simpler.
I think it's still possible that the entire standard model might still be uprooted in favour of something simpler.
Dark matter and dark energy aren’t part of the standard model.
You object to it allegedly including those things (it doesn’t), despite apparently not knowing what those phrases refer to? As, dark energy and dark matter are both ideas relating to gravity. So, why would you think that the standard model includes those things, given that the purpose of those ideas is to describe/explain some observations about gravity, and that the standard model does not attempt to describe gravity?
Or... possibly it is more that you don’t know what “the standard model” refers to?
Yeah, that seems to be it.
You object to it allegedly including those things (it doesn’t), despite apparently not knowing what those phrases refer to? As, dark energy and dark matter are both ideas relating to gravity. So, why would you think that the standard model includes those things, given that the purpose of those ideas is to describe/explain some observations about gravity, and that the standard model does not attempt to describe gravity?
Or... possibly it is more that you don’t know what “the standard model” refers to?
Yeah, that seems to be it.
The article seems to distill the concept of quantum uncertainty into this statement:
I'm not sure if with "quantum uncertainty", they refer to the same thing as Wikipedias "uncertainty principle" page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle
The Wikipedia page sounds somewhat different (and harder to grasp) to me. It talks about predicting future states of pairs of physical quantities after knowing the initial conditions.
there is an inherent uncertainty
about what happens to a quantum
system when we attempt to observe it
I'm not sure if with "quantum uncertainty", they refer to the same thing as Wikipedias "uncertainty principle" page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle
The Wikipedia page sounds somewhat different (and harder to grasp) to me. It talks about predicting future states of pairs of physical quantities after knowing the initial conditions.
Not at all. There's no uncertainty, even.
Unless we're talking subjective uncertainty, in which case yeah, not literally everyone has landed on many-worlds yet.
Unless we're talking subjective uncertainty, in which case yeah, not literally everyone has landed on many-worlds yet.
if this is true and the experiment can be explained away, this would not tell us anything about the world, but shift the question about ontological determinism back to metaphysics and outside of the reach of empirical knowledge
> if this is true and the experiment can be explained away, this would not tell us anything about the world
Actually, it would tell us something very important, namely that at the quantum level measurements are not statistically independent.
> shift the question about ontological determinism back to metaphysics and outside of the reach of empirical knowledge
Assuming by "ontological determinism", you mean to what extent we can truly discover natural laws, I don't know why anyone thinks this is a problem. Turing machines are simple and deterministic and yet have undecidable problems; and yet we can create a Turing machine that can enumerate the space of all possible programs. It trivially follows that humans obviously have enough degrees of freedom to enumerate all possible theories that can explain some set of observations, so this objection is a total nothingburger.
Actually, it would tell us something very important, namely that at the quantum level measurements are not statistically independent.
> shift the question about ontological determinism back to metaphysics and outside of the reach of empirical knowledge
Assuming by "ontological determinism", you mean to what extent we can truly discover natural laws, I don't know why anyone thinks this is a problem. Turing machines are simple and deterministic and yet have undecidable problems; and yet we can create a Turing machine that can enumerate the space of all possible programs. It trivially follows that humans obviously have enough degrees of freedom to enumerate all possible theories that can explain some set of observations, so this objection is a total nothingburger.
I had the impression it was set up mainly to assert a metaphysical position by inventing uncertainty about quantum physics' certain-uncertainty. I like outsider ideas more than most people, but this one seemed like a pitch for something self-centering. A lot of ideas about uncertainty are mainly rhetorical devices for neutralizing concrete arguments and opposition to the speakers underlying ideology, so personally I read the article as a kind of propaganda.
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I like the idea of digging deeper into counterfactuals at foundational levels. Science that has any use needs valid counterfactuals. It tells us that if we arrange stuff just like so, we can engineer things. Or that no matter what action we take, the heat death of the universe will happen.
But counterfactuals and foundations don't mix easily, especially in QM where "what if I had measured X" isn't a really valid question in the standard view (the quantum zeno effect is an example of how hypothetical measurements and actual measurements aren't the same in QM).
But counterfactuals and foundations don't mix easily, especially in QM where "what if I had measured X" isn't a really valid question in the standard view (the quantum zeno effect is an example of how hypothetical measurements and actual measurements aren't the same in QM).
I haven't read his papers but isn't a fundamental mechanism of uncertainty basic to the very real and measured phenomena like the Casimir effect? Objects and "space" themselves appear to have a limit on their certainty of themselves, so yes, the butterfly is uncertain about its wings, as well as the existence or levels of energy concerning them. That's why we have "particles" appearing out of "nothing".
"Philosophers call this “epistemological” uncertainty – uncertainty to do with lack of knowledge."
Nature is self-similar. If we observe epistemological uncertainty in the macro world, the same will be true for the micro world.
This is an example of physicists appropriating a philosophical question and trying to solve it by data analysis.
Nature is self-similar. If we observe epistemological uncertainty in the macro world, the same will be true for the micro world.
This is an example of physicists appropriating a philosophical question and trying to solve it by data analysis.
Physics is just “natural philosophy.”
«Physics is just “natural philosophy.”»
Used to be but not anymore. The difference is, natural philosophers, like Henry Cavendish, were amateurs, physicists are professionals. They are "Doctors of Philosophy", the professional offsprings of Scholastic Doctors of Philosophy. The switch from amateur to professional occurred with the advance of the science of electricity. Physicists were seen as the experts and they built the foundation of electrical industrial applications. But there is academic physics, which is like fine arts with no rules and restrictions and there is applied physics with strict rules.
Used to be but not anymore. The difference is, natural philosophers, like Henry Cavendish, were amateurs, physicists are professionals. They are "Doctors of Philosophy", the professional offsprings of Scholastic Doctors of Philosophy. The switch from amateur to professional occurred with the advance of the science of electricity. Physicists were seen as the experts and they built the foundation of electrical industrial applications. But there is academic physics, which is like fine arts with no rules and restrictions and there is applied physics with strict rules.
In one of his papers (Undecidability, Fractal Geometry and the Unity of Physics, 2020), he dismisses Schrödinger's equation as being problematic for his theory (because it's linear so I guess "easy" to work with). And I'm no physicist, but I don't really get it: isn't the equation essentially the culmination of the physical reality of particles having complementary properties?
So in that sense, isn't uncertainty baked into our reality (and thus still ontological)? Even ignoring all the weird stuff that happens with entangled particles, spooky action at a distance, and all that. I literally cannot measure both the momentum and the position of a particle to an arbitrary position simultaneously.
So in that sense, isn't uncertainty baked into our reality (and thus still ontological)? Even ignoring all the weird stuff that happens with entangled particles, spooky action at a distance, and all that. I literally cannot measure both the momentum and the position of a particle to an arbitrary position simultaneously.
Quantum parallax with observer based views creates an infinite series of state changes.
I can't get past the paywall, but I'd be curious to know what his solution to the violation of the Bell inequality is.
"Counterfactual Fractal Geometry" , so Bell's inequality only applies in a reality that is different from our true reality.
> We have to suppose that the whole universe, and literally everything there is in it, is collectively a chaotic system evolving precisely on some cosmic fractal geometry. "
I guess one way of trying to make it make sense is that he believes in global hidden variables (non-locality), which reduces physics to "things are exactly this kind of weird because all the complexity of the universe is encoded in one giant number present at the big bang that is available to every particle forever.
> We have to suppose that the whole universe, and literally everything there is in it, is collectively a chaotic system evolving precisely on some cosmic fractal geometry. "
I guess one way of trying to make it make sense is that he believes in global hidden variables (non-locality), which reduces physics to "things are exactly this kind of weird because all the complexity of the universe is encoded in one giant number present at the big bang that is available to every particle forever.
He explains it in the article. Questioning one of the assumptions in the Bell theorems
Indeed, he's on the superdeterminism train with Sabine Hossenfelder:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2020.00139...
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2020.00139...
I am not aware of any superdeterministic theory that can explain the violation of Bell's inequality. They only argue that a violation of Bell's inequality is not impossible in a superdeterministic local hidden variable theory (but no such theory has been formulated). I suspect this is why Hossenfelder just knocks down a few strawmen in her video on superdeterminism [1], instead of addressing the elephant in the room (experimental violations of Bell's inequality).
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytyjgIyegDI
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytyjgIyegDI
Of course there are:
* Hossenfelder's own toy model, https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.01327v5
* Gerard 't Hooft's cellular automata model: https://webspace.science.uu.nl/~hooft101/gthpub/FFP11_2010.p...
* https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/714819
Models that violate Bell's theorem are in fact simple to construct. Everyone agrees that superdeterminism can evade Bell's theorem, the key is making this evasion as plausible or more plausible than accepting many worlds or the absence of counterfactual definiteness.
Given so little effort has been expended in this direction because of incorrect assumptions of superdeterminism, it's not surprising that these models are still rudimentary proofs of concept, but the notion that Bells' theorem is some insurmountable obstacle is just incorrect.
* Hossenfelder's own toy model, https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.01327v5
* Gerard 't Hooft's cellular automata model: https://webspace.science.uu.nl/~hooft101/gthpub/FFP11_2010.p...
* https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/714819
Models that violate Bell's theorem are in fact simple to construct. Everyone agrees that superdeterminism can evade Bell's theorem, the key is making this evasion as plausible or more plausible than accepting many worlds or the absence of counterfactual definiteness.
Given so little effort has been expended in this direction because of incorrect assumptions of superdeterminism, it's not surprising that these models are still rudimentary proofs of concept, but the notion that Bells' theorem is some insurmountable obstacle is just incorrect.
Accepting the very simple assertion that the thing being measured is not independent from the act of measurement already renders the bell inequality invalid.
Everett interpretation solves it all.
I don't think Palmer has ever published anything on quantum mechanical systems, so this claim seems questionable and might be some kind of ideological viewpoint. Seems to wander well beyond the author's sphere of expertise.
Palmer has nevertheless done a lot of interesting work in atmospheric and oceanic systems. Here's one, which also explains why current warming trends would persist for decades even if we halted all fossil fuel use tomorrow, something many seem to not have grasped:
"Uncertainty in Weather and Climate Prediction", Slingo & Palmer (2011)
> "In terms of seasonal to decadal prediction, the predictability of the system resides primarily in the oceans, where the greater thermal capacity and the much longer dynamical time scales for adjustment impart a memory to the coupled ocean–atmosphere system, which exceeds that for the atmosphere alone by several orders of magnitude. Nevertheless, the ocean, like the atmosphere, is a chaotic, nonlinear system, and so an ensemble approach to seasonal to decadal prediction is fundamental to forecasting on these time scales also."
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsta.201...
Anyone wanting a solid introduction to the notion of chaos in fluid dynamics should look at work of the original researcher who discovered the phenomenon, Ed Lorenz (1995) The Essence of Chaos.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/154291.The_Essence_of_Ch...
Palmer has nevertheless done a lot of interesting work in atmospheric and oceanic systems. Here's one, which also explains why current warming trends would persist for decades even if we halted all fossil fuel use tomorrow, something many seem to not have grasped:
"Uncertainty in Weather and Climate Prediction", Slingo & Palmer (2011)
> "In terms of seasonal to decadal prediction, the predictability of the system resides primarily in the oceans, where the greater thermal capacity and the much longer dynamical time scales for adjustment impart a memory to the coupled ocean–atmosphere system, which exceeds that for the atmosphere alone by several orders of magnitude. Nevertheless, the ocean, like the atmosphere, is a chaotic, nonlinear system, and so an ensemble approach to seasonal to decadal prediction is fundamental to forecasting on these time scales also."
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsta.201...
Anyone wanting a solid introduction to the notion of chaos in fluid dynamics should look at work of the original researcher who discovered the phenomenon, Ed Lorenz (1995) The Essence of Chaos.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/154291.The_Essence_of_Ch...
> I don't think Palmer has ever published anything on quantum mechanical systems, so this claim seems questionable and might be some kind of ideological viewpoint.
People are so quick to dismiss without any evidence. Why not look at his actual publications:
https://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/our-people/palmer/publications
Some choice excerpts:
* Bell's theorem, non-computability and conformal cyclic cosmology: A top-down approach to quantum gravity, https://avs.scitation.org/doi/10.1116/5.0060680
* Supermeasured: Violating Bell-Statistical Independence Without Violating Physical Statistical Independence, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10701-022-00602-9
* Discretization of the Bloch sphere, fractal invariant sets and Bell’s theorem, https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspa.2019.035...
* The Invariant Set Postulate: a new geometric framework for the foundations of quantum theory and the role played by gravity, https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspa.2009.008...
The last is when he first started publishing about quantum mechanics back in 2009, in which he described "invariant set theory" as a new approach to quantum foundations that was well received. He actually worked with Stephen Hawking on developing supergravity before he switched to climate modelling.
People are so quick to dismiss without any evidence. Why not look at his actual publications:
https://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/our-people/palmer/publications
Some choice excerpts:
* Bell's theorem, non-computability and conformal cyclic cosmology: A top-down approach to quantum gravity, https://avs.scitation.org/doi/10.1116/5.0060680
* Supermeasured: Violating Bell-Statistical Independence Without Violating Physical Statistical Independence, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10701-022-00602-9
* Discretization of the Bloch sphere, fractal invariant sets and Bell’s theorem, https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspa.2019.035...
* The Invariant Set Postulate: a new geometric framework for the foundations of quantum theory and the role played by gravity, https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspa.2009.008...
The last is when he first started publishing about quantum mechanics back in 2009, in which he described "invariant set theory" as a new approach to quantum foundations that was well received. He actually worked with Stephen Hawking on developing supergravity before he switched to climate modelling.
I guess that's what I get for only looking at the top page of Google Scholar results for 'Palmer quantum chaos climate'. However, Palmer's view on quantum systems does seem to be pretty set and fairly ideological in nature (i.e. experimental verification doesn't seem to be much of a concern). For example:
(2005) "Quantum Reality, Complex Numbers, and the Meteorological Butterfly Effect "
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/86/4/bams-86...
> "By considering an idealization of the upscale cascade (which provides a novel representation of complex numbers and quaternions), a case is made for reinterpreting the quantum wave function as a set of intricately encoded binary sequences. In this reinterpretation, it is argued that the quantum world has no need for dice-playing deities, undead cats, multiple universes, or “spooky action at a distance.”"
At this point, I think anyone pushing this view of how QM works without experimental results to back it up is just tilting at windmills.
(2005) "Quantum Reality, Complex Numbers, and the Meteorological Butterfly Effect "
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/86/4/bams-86...
> "By considering an idealization of the upscale cascade (which provides a novel representation of complex numbers and quaternions), a case is made for reinterpreting the quantum wave function as a set of intricately encoded binary sequences. In this reinterpretation, it is argued that the quantum world has no need for dice-playing deities, undead cats, multiple universes, or “spooky action at a distance.”"
At this point, I think anyone pushing this view of how QM works without experimental results to back it up is just tilting at windmills.
> However, Palmer's view on quantum systems does seem to be pretty set and fairly ideological in nature (i.e. experimental verification doesn't seem to be much of a concern).
I don't understand this objection. Palmer's theory would have to be consistent with all existing evidence for quantum mechanics. There's a rich unexplored area in quantum foundations (superdeterminism), and he's found a novel, plausible model for how it could work, so why wouldn't he explore it fully until it's been contradicted?
A different interpretation on QM might also imply some new experiments that orthodox QM wouldn't consider interesting. For instance, Hossenfelder has suggested that there might be some unusual regularities in repeated low temperature experiments if superdeterminism is true, regularities that would be implausible if reality is actually indeterministic. Palmer's theory has testable predictions for large-scale cosmology, so it's not like his ideas are unfalsifiable in principle.
Furthermore, Palmer is a theoretician not an experimentalist. Bell created his theorem but experimentalists designed and ran the actual experiment.
I don't understand this objection. Palmer's theory would have to be consistent with all existing evidence for quantum mechanics. There's a rich unexplored area in quantum foundations (superdeterminism), and he's found a novel, plausible model for how it could work, so why wouldn't he explore it fully until it's been contradicted?
A different interpretation on QM might also imply some new experiments that orthodox QM wouldn't consider interesting. For instance, Hossenfelder has suggested that there might be some unusual regularities in repeated low temperature experiments if superdeterminism is true, regularities that would be implausible if reality is actually indeterministic. Palmer's theory has testable predictions for large-scale cosmology, so it's not like his ideas are unfalsifiable in principle.
Furthermore, Palmer is a theoretician not an experimentalist. Bell created his theorem but experimentalists designed and ran the actual experiment.
>I don't think Palmer has ever published anything on quantum mechanical systems, so this claim seems questionable and might be some kind of ideological viewpoint. Seems to wander well beyond the author's sphere of expertise.
Indeed.
The question of whether quantum uncertainty is epistemological or ontological is formally undecidable (on the assumption that quantum mechanics is actually true). For starters, there already exists a quantum interpretation where uncertainty is ontological: Bohmian mechanics. But you don't even need that. All you need is to hypothesize a "cosmic Turing machine" computing the digits of pi or some other normal number and the stipulation that every time you do a quantum experiment the result is the next digit that the TM writes to its tape. That is an ontologicical interpretation of QM that is every bit as valid as Bohmian mechanics, and every bit as useless.
It doesn't matter whether quantum uncertainty is ontological or epistemological. What matters is that the outcomes of quantum measurements are fundamentally unpredictable for the entity conducting the experiment. It doesn't matter whether the information generated by the experiment was pre-existing or somehow magically came into existence by wave function collapse or whatever, what matters is that the outcome is not predictable even in principle. And so it doesn't matter what mathematical model you put underneath this unpredictability. It can be axiomatic, it can be chaotic, or it can be a cosmic Turing machine computing the digits of pi. It doesn't matter because one of the things we cannot know, even in principle, is which of these hypotheses are correct. It's a non-scientific question.
[UPDATE] The general principle is that quantum experiments produce an unbounded amount of information which cannot be predicted from the finite information available to any observer before those observations are made, so there has to be an unbounded amount of "hidden" information "out there" somewhere that in inaccessible except by performing quantum experiments. Different interpretations hide this inaccessible information in different places. Copenhagen hides it in wave function collapse. Bohm hides it in the particle positions, which are posited to be real numbers, every one of which contains an infinite amount of information. Chaotic dynamics hides it in the initial conditions which, like Bohmian positions, are real numbers which contain an infinite amount of information. If you look at how the math plays out, they are literally reading out digits of real numbers as if they were written on a TM tape.
I think physics would benefit from the study of information theory.
Indeed.
The question of whether quantum uncertainty is epistemological or ontological is formally undecidable (on the assumption that quantum mechanics is actually true). For starters, there already exists a quantum interpretation where uncertainty is ontological: Bohmian mechanics. But you don't even need that. All you need is to hypothesize a "cosmic Turing machine" computing the digits of pi or some other normal number and the stipulation that every time you do a quantum experiment the result is the next digit that the TM writes to its tape. That is an ontologicical interpretation of QM that is every bit as valid as Bohmian mechanics, and every bit as useless.
It doesn't matter whether quantum uncertainty is ontological or epistemological. What matters is that the outcomes of quantum measurements are fundamentally unpredictable for the entity conducting the experiment. It doesn't matter whether the information generated by the experiment was pre-existing or somehow magically came into existence by wave function collapse or whatever, what matters is that the outcome is not predictable even in principle. And so it doesn't matter what mathematical model you put underneath this unpredictability. It can be axiomatic, it can be chaotic, or it can be a cosmic Turing machine computing the digits of pi. It doesn't matter because one of the things we cannot know, even in principle, is which of these hypotheses are correct. It's a non-scientific question.
[UPDATE] The general principle is that quantum experiments produce an unbounded amount of information which cannot be predicted from the finite information available to any observer before those observations are made, so there has to be an unbounded amount of "hidden" information "out there" somewhere that in inaccessible except by performing quantum experiments. Different interpretations hide this inaccessible information in different places. Copenhagen hides it in wave function collapse. Bohm hides it in the particle positions, which are posited to be real numbers, every one of which contains an infinite amount of information. Chaotic dynamics hides it in the initial conditions which, like Bohmian positions, are real numbers which contain an infinite amount of information. If you look at how the math plays out, they are literally reading out digits of real numbers as if they were written on a TM tape.
I think physics would benefit from the study of information theory.
> And so it doesn't matter what mathematical model you put underneath this unpredictability. It can be axiomatic, it can be chaotic, or it can be a cosmic Turing machine computing the digits of pi.
I don't think this is correct. Each formal model will allow you degrees of freedom that are ruled out by other models because the axioms differ. This is why a quantum field theory for Bohmian mechanics has been much harder to formulate than it was for Copenhagen, for example.
Unifying quantum mechanics with general relativity could actually be easier under a "fractal model" of quantum mechanics than it is with Copenhagen.
Edit on your [update]:
> [UPDATE] The general principle is that quantum experiments produce an unbounded amount of information
That doesn't sound correct either. No experiment can produce an unbounded amount of information. I'm not sure where you're getting this idea.
I don't think this is correct. Each formal model will allow you degrees of freedom that are ruled out by other models because the axioms differ. This is why a quantum field theory for Bohmian mechanics has been much harder to formulate than it was for Copenhagen, for example.
Unifying quantum mechanics with general relativity could actually be easier under a "fractal model" of quantum mechanics than it is with Copenhagen.
Edit on your [update]:
> [UPDATE] The general principle is that quantum experiments produce an unbounded amount of information
That doesn't sound correct either. No experiment can produce an unbounded amount of information. I'm not sure where you're getting this idea.
> Each formal model will allow you degrees of freedom that are ruled out by other models because the axioms differ.
Nope. All QM interpretations produce the same predictions. They are formally equivalent in the same sense that lambda calculus and TMs are equivalent.
The reason it is hard to unify Bohm and relativity to produce a Bohmian quantum field theory is that Bohm is committed to an intuitionistic metaphysics that requires there to be an answer to which measurement of an entangled system was performed first, and so it requires the imposition of an arbitrary foliation of space-time. This is a metaphysical requirement, not a physical one. That is what makes it hard to extend Bohm to a field theory.
> No experiment can produce an unbounded amount of information.
No single experiment can, but over time you can do an unbounded number of experiments. Note that I am deliberately using the term "unbounded" rather than "infinite". These are not the same. An unbounded quantity is finite at any given time, but it can keep growing without an upper bound.
(In actual fact all of these numbers are probably finite and bounded because the observable universe is finite and the second law of thermodynamics puts a limit on how many experiments you can do.)
Nope. All QM interpretations produce the same predictions. They are formally equivalent in the same sense that lambda calculus and TMs are equivalent.
The reason it is hard to unify Bohm and relativity to produce a Bohmian quantum field theory is that Bohm is committed to an intuitionistic metaphysics that requires there to be an answer to which measurement of an entangled system was performed first, and so it requires the imposition of an arbitrary foliation of space-time. This is a metaphysical requirement, not a physical one. That is what makes it hard to extend Bohm to a field theory.
> No experiment can produce an unbounded amount of information.
No single experiment can, but over time you can do an unbounded number of experiments. Note that I am deliberately using the term "unbounded" rather than "infinite". These are not the same. An unbounded quantity is finite at any given time, but it can keep growing without an upper bound.
(In actual fact all of these numbers are probably finite and bounded because the observable universe is finite and the second law of thermodynamics puts a limit on how many experiments you can do.)
> Nope. All QM interpretations produce the same predictions.
Correction: the same observable predictions in the domains we've tested. They all have different metaphysical implications which impact the plausibility.
> They are formally equivalent in the same sense that lambda calculus and TMs are equivalent.
No, that's not strictly correct. Bohmian mechanics allows the existence of quantum non-equilibrium, as but one example. Isomorphism is fine as an informal analogy, but it's not strictly true.
> This is a metaphysical requirement, not a physical one. That is what makes it hard to extend Bohm to a field theory.
The axioms of every interpretation are metaphysical. The axioms are what let you make certain steps in one interpretation that cannot be done in another. This is why unifying GR with Bohmian mechanics is hard but isn't with Copenhagen, which is exactly what I said.
Correction: the same observable predictions in the domains we've tested. They all have different metaphysical implications which impact the plausibility.
> They are formally equivalent in the same sense that lambda calculus and TMs are equivalent.
No, that's not strictly correct. Bohmian mechanics allows the existence of quantum non-equilibrium, as but one example. Isomorphism is fine as an informal analogy, but it's not strictly true.
> This is a metaphysical requirement, not a physical one. That is what makes it hard to extend Bohm to a field theory.
The axioms of every interpretation are metaphysical. The axioms are what let you make certain steps in one interpretation that cannot be done in another. This is why unifying GR with Bohmian mechanics is hard but isn't with Copenhagen, which is exactly what I said.
> Correction: the same observable predictions
"Observable" is redundant. A prediction in science is understood to mean a prediction about the outcome of an experiment, i.e. a prediction about an observation.
> in the domains we've tested.
No. The predictions of all QM interpretations are the same, full stop. If this were not the case we would not be having this conversation at all, we could determine which interpretation was correct by doing an experiment.
(There is one exception to this, and that is GRW collapse, which predicts that there is some macroscopic scale at which systems stop exhibiting quantum behavior because of internal spontaneous collapse. But so far all experiments have falsified this.)
> The axioms of every interpretation are metaphysical.
No, that's not true. Bohmian positions are physical. Collapse is physical. Multiple worlds are physical.
The thing that makes Bohmian foliations metaphysical is not that they are unmeasurable, it is that they are arbitrary. You cannot tell which foliation is correct even in principle.
"Observable" is redundant. A prediction in science is understood to mean a prediction about the outcome of an experiment, i.e. a prediction about an observation.
> in the domains we've tested.
No. The predictions of all QM interpretations are the same, full stop. If this were not the case we would not be having this conversation at all, we could determine which interpretation was correct by doing an experiment.
(There is one exception to this, and that is GRW collapse, which predicts that there is some macroscopic scale at which systems stop exhibiting quantum behavior because of internal spontaneous collapse. But so far all experiments have falsified this.)
> The axioms of every interpretation are metaphysical.
No, that's not true. Bohmian positions are physical. Collapse is physical. Multiple worlds are physical.
The thing that makes Bohmian foliations metaphysical is not that they are unmeasurable, it is that they are arbitrary. You cannot tell which foliation is correct even in principle.
> If this were not the case we would not be having this conversation at all, we could determine which interpretation was correct by doing an experiment.
No, that's not correct. Again, Bohmian mechanics allows for quantum non-equilibrium, but we're not yet sure how to create such a state. So it is does make observably different prediction, in principle. This prediction is just not within experimental reach at the moment.
Most interpretations make equivalent predictions, but not all. Those predictions that differ are outside of domains we've tested.
> No, that's not true. Bohmian positions are physical. Collapse is physical. Multiple worlds are physical.
They are physical by virtue of metaphysical assertions about what does and does not exist, ie. the axioms.
> The thing that makes Bohmian foliations metaphysical is not that they are unmeasurable, it is that they are arbitrary. You cannot tell which foliation is correct even in principle.
A preferred foliation can be derived from the wave function in Bohmian mechanics. You can arguably do without one. Both references are cited here:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10955-015-1369-8
No, that's not correct. Again, Bohmian mechanics allows for quantum non-equilibrium, but we're not yet sure how to create such a state. So it is does make observably different prediction, in principle. This prediction is just not within experimental reach at the moment.
Most interpretations make equivalent predictions, but not all. Those predictions that differ are outside of domains we've tested.
> No, that's not true. Bohmian positions are physical. Collapse is physical. Multiple worlds are physical.
They are physical by virtue of metaphysical assertions about what does and does not exist, ie. the axioms.
> The thing that makes Bohmian foliations metaphysical is not that they are unmeasurable, it is that they are arbitrary. You cannot tell which foliation is correct even in principle.
A preferred foliation can be derived from the wave function in Bohmian mechanics. You can arguably do without one. Both references are cited here:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10955-015-1369-8
> Bohmian mechanics allows for quantum non-equilibrium,
Yes, of course. In Bohmian mechanics, particles have actual locations, and so of course those locations cannot be required to obey the Born rule except by hypothesis. But it does not follow that...
> it ... does make observably different prediction, in principle
> but we're not yet sure how to create such a state
> This prediction is just not within experimental reach at the moment
It is not just that we "don't know" how to create these non-Born states, it is that creating such a state would falsify quantum mechanics. Creating such a state would necessarily involve some physical process that violates the Schroedinger equation. No such process has ever been observed. It is possible that this could change, but it's extremely unlikely. And there is absolutely no reason to believe that such a new process, were it to ever be discovered, would have anything to do with Bohmian mechanics. It is as likely that we will discover a violation of conservation of energy or the second law of thermodynamics as we are to discover a violation of QM.
> They are physical by virtue of metaphysical assertions about what does and does not exist, ie. the axioms.
Well, yeah. The whole idea of "physical" is itself a metaphysical assertion. We could be living in a simulation.
> A preferred foliation can be derived from the wave function in Bohmian mechanics. You can arguably do without one.
OK, that's news to me, but I don't have time to read that paper right now. I'll put it on my reading list.
[UPDATE] They want $40 to access that paper. If you want to send me a copy I'll read it, but I won't pay that much for access to one paper. Sorry.
Yes, of course. In Bohmian mechanics, particles have actual locations, and so of course those locations cannot be required to obey the Born rule except by hypothesis. But it does not follow that...
> it ... does make observably different prediction, in principle
> but we're not yet sure how to create such a state
> This prediction is just not within experimental reach at the moment
It is not just that we "don't know" how to create these non-Born states, it is that creating such a state would falsify quantum mechanics. Creating such a state would necessarily involve some physical process that violates the Schroedinger equation. No such process has ever been observed. It is possible that this could change, but it's extremely unlikely. And there is absolutely no reason to believe that such a new process, were it to ever be discovered, would have anything to do with Bohmian mechanics. It is as likely that we will discover a violation of conservation of energy or the second law of thermodynamics as we are to discover a violation of QM.
> They are physical by virtue of metaphysical assertions about what does and does not exist, ie. the axioms.
Well, yeah. The whole idea of "physical" is itself a metaphysical assertion. We could be living in a simulation.
> A preferred foliation can be derived from the wave function in Bohmian mechanics. You can arguably do without one.
OK, that's news to me, but I don't have time to read that paper right now. I'll put it on my reading list.
[UPDATE] They want $40 to access that paper. If you want to send me a copy I'll read it, but I won't pay that much for access to one paper. Sorry.
> and there is absolutely no reason to believe
Logic and epistemology seem to often take a backseat when the mind comes in close contact with the unknown.
> Well, yeah. The whole idea of "physical" is itself a metaphysical assertion. We could be living in a simulation.
Similarly, when it finds itself in these circumstances, it can often be observed flipping between 100% certainty and 100% uncertainty (the middle ground, the unknown, seems a "highly undesirable" place to be). On one hand, you might say this is "just people being people", but I am suspicious whether it is actually that simple.
It's called the Hard Problem of Consciousness for good reason, I think.
Logic and epistemology seem to often take a backseat when the mind comes in close contact with the unknown.
> Well, yeah. The whole idea of "physical" is itself a metaphysical assertion. We could be living in a simulation.
Similarly, when it finds itself in these circumstances, it can often be observed flipping between 100% certainty and 100% uncertainty (the middle ground, the unknown, seems a "highly undesirable" place to be). On one hand, you might say this is "just people being people", but I am suspicious whether it is actually that simple.
It's called the Hard Problem of Consciousness for good reason, I think.
"It doesn't matter whether quantum uncertainty is ontological or epistemological"
It matters for a lot of people, they want to know und understand. And maybe somebody comes up with an experiment.
"What Bell’s Theorem really shows us is that the foundations of quantum theory is a bona fide field of physics, in which questions are to be resolved by rigor- ous argument and experiment, rather than remaining the subject of open-ended debate.
In other words, it is a mistake to crudely divide quantum theory into its practical part and its interpretation, and to think of the latter as metaphysics, experimental or otherwise."
Matt Leifer: "Is the Quantum State Real?..."
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1409.1570.pdf
It matters for a lot of people, they want to know und understand. And maybe somebody comes up with an experiment.
"What Bell’s Theorem really shows us is that the foundations of quantum theory is a bona fide field of physics, in which questions are to be resolved by rigor- ous argument and experiment, rather than remaining the subject of open-ended debate.
In other words, it is a mistake to crudely divide quantum theory into its practical part and its interpretation, and to think of the latter as metaphysics, experimental or otherwise."
Matt Leifer: "Is the Quantum State Real?..."
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1409.1570.pdf
> maybe somebody comes up with an experiment.
Yes, it all turns on that. But the point is that coming up with an experiment would in and of itself falsify QM. To call that a major breakthrough would be quite the understatement, and so I predict with great confidence that it is not going to happen any time soon.
> it is a mistake to crudely divide quantum theory into its practical part and its interpretation
That's true, but I am not dividing it crudely. I am simply pointing out things that are logically implied by the mathematical structure of the theory, and one of those things is that quantum measurements bring new information into the world. If anyone figures out a way to access the source of that information, that information would no longer be new, and that would falsify the theory. That is, of course, possible. But again, I'll give long odds against.
Yes, it all turns on that. But the point is that coming up with an experiment would in and of itself falsify QM. To call that a major breakthrough would be quite the understatement, and so I predict with great confidence that it is not going to happen any time soon.
> it is a mistake to crudely divide quantum theory into its practical part and its interpretation
That's true, but I am not dividing it crudely. I am simply pointing out things that are logically implied by the mathematical structure of the theory, and one of those things is that quantum measurements bring new information into the world. If anyone figures out a way to access the source of that information, that information would no longer be new, and that would falsify the theory. That is, of course, possible. But again, I'll give long odds against.
> It doesn't matter whether quantum uncertainty is ontological or epistemological. What matters is that the outcomes of quantum measurements are fundamentally unpredictable for the entity conducting the experiment. It doesn't matter whether the information generated by the experiment was pre-existing or somehow magically came into existence by wave function collapse or whatever, what matters is that the outcome is not predictable even in principle. And so it doesn't matter what mathematical model you put underneath this unpredictability. It can be axiomatic, it can be chaotic, or it can be a cosmic Turing machine computing the digits of pi. It doesn't matter because one of the things we cannot know, even in principle, is which of these hypotheses are correct. It's a non-scientific question.
Thanks. That was actually really insightful. I never thought about it like that. It's beyond the scope of science and what models are for. We'd be switching purposes at that point. The tools only do what they are meant to: predict; it doesn't make sense to them for to do something else (unless we specify that new purpose), especially when we do so as if we're not.
Thanks. That was actually really insightful. I never thought about it like that. It's beyond the scope of science and what models are for. We'd be switching purposes at that point. The tools only do what they are meant to: predict; it doesn't make sense to them for to do something else (unless we specify that new purpose), especially when we do so as if we're not.
> I don't think Palmer has ever published anything on quantum mechanical systems, so this claim seems questionable and might be some kind of ideological viewpoint. Seems to wander well beyond the author's sphere of expertise.
I don't think anyone can be an that much of an expert in quantum foundations. It's a research topic full of questions and not much answers, so you don't need deep expertise to grasp the current situation and the limits of current knowledge. In that sense, it should be a free game for almost anyone with a PhD in physics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_foundations
I don't think anyone can be an that much of an expert in quantum foundations. It's a research topic full of questions and not much answers, so you don't need deep expertise to grasp the current situation and the limits of current knowledge. In that sense, it should be a free game for almost anyone with a PhD in physics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_foundations
One word: 'Devs'
This is a climate scientist saying (without justification) that a century of physicists missed the obvious trivial explanation. A little humility is in order.
The whole crux of QM, as shown by actual experiments in lab, is that it really is different from just really complicated classical mechanics.
The whole crux of QM, as shown by actual experiments in lab, is that it really is different from just really complicated classical mechanics.
> This is a climate scientist saying (without justification) that a century of physicists missed the obvious trivial explanation. A little humility is in order.
He's a mathematical physicist [1] that happens to work on non-linear dynamical systems that apply to climate models. You know, like the non-linear dynamics seen in a quantum measurement. Maybe don't be so dismissive. He won the Dirac gold medal for theoretical physics in 2014, for instance.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Palmer_(physicist)
He's a mathematical physicist [1] that happens to work on non-linear dynamical systems that apply to climate models. You know, like the non-linear dynamics seen in a quantum measurement. Maybe don't be so dismissive. He won the Dirac gold medal for theoretical physics in 2014, for instance.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Palmer_(physicist)
> This is a climate scientist saying (without justification) that a century of physicists missed the obvious trivial explanation.
As far as I understand, and even though the article doesn't call it by name, he is making a case for superdeterminism. Which hasn't been missed, but has it's own Wikipedia article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdeterminism
In fact, Bell (of Bell's theorem fame) himself discussed (super)determinism as a way to escape Bell's theorem.
As far as I understand, and even though the article doesn't call it by name, he is making a case for superdeterminism. Which hasn't been missed, but has it's own Wikipedia article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdeterminism
In fact, Bell (of Bell's theorem fame) himself discussed (super)determinism as a way to escape Bell's theorem.
> This is a climate scientist saying (without justification) that a century of physicists missed the obvious trivial explanation.
Actually he's published extensively in quantum physics: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=TN+P...
> A little humility is in order.
Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose both cited him on quantum theory:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/JHEP05(2017)161
https://i-share-ctu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/openur...
Actually he's published extensively in quantum physics: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=TN+P...
> A little humility is in order.
Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose both cited him on quantum theory:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/JHEP05(2017)161
https://i-share-ctu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/openur...
Chaos theory in general states that for some deterministic systems, small changes in the initial conditions can lead to a wildly different deterministic outcome.
A closer metaphor than the butterfly metaphor is a car on a wet road.
Think of driving your car on a wet road. This is a completely deterministic system, there is nothing we don't know about how cars handle on wet roads. When you take that one corner too fast however, your car loses traction on the road, whether your car spins out or just fish tails for a bit before straightening out depends a great deal on the speed and angle that you entered the corner at. If you don't know the speed or angle that you entered the corner accurately, you don't know if you can bring the car back under control again or not.
I don't think anybody in the field of Quantum Mechanics doubts that it is possible for Quantum effects to be entirely deterministic. But it may be so sensitive to small changes in initial conditions (which may be as far back as the birth of the universe), that even if we knew the exact deterministic equations to solve for Quantum Mechanical systems, they would never make an accurate prediction.