|
Author
|
Topic: Cosmogony, Holography and Causality
|
Christopher M. Langan
Member
Member # 264
|
posted 08. October 2003 13:10
Since gedanken has unexpectedly taken to spelling my name correctly, I'll try to encourage his good behavior by posting a response.
The Copenhagen interpretation of QM is "falling out of favor with physicists" because it has been largely supplanted by the relative state formulation (the Many Worlds interpretation). It would be a terrible mistake to think that this is because MW is somehow on firmer ground. MW suffers from the same problem that CI does: no model, no supporting structure within the the spacetime manifold of neoclassical physics, i.e. General Relativity, and no overall explanation of its own (aside from an abstract mathematical criterion, "no messy wave function collapse"). The way to solve this problem is not by playing pick-and-choose among unsupported interpretations, but by providing a model enabling a simultaneous embedding of the key concepts of microscopic, mesoscopic and macroscopic physics.
Although nonlocality is indeed a problem in any manifold which fails to support it, this in no way rules out the existence of a manifold which does support it. As for the repugnance of CI to physical reductionism, i.e. the fact that physical reductionism doesn't work on the level of QM, there is absolutely no good reason to prefer stock physical reductionism over QM. As for the problematic definition of "observer", the only way to rule out such a definition "in principle" is with respect to a given class of models. But since QM, and thus physics in general, already lacks a consistent model, this is no objection at all. In any case, the problem is simply to produce a model supporting the concept of observation on all levels of generality and specificity. Papers already written, and papers now on the drawing boards, explain why the CTMU is that model.
The problem with describing all scientific theories as "useful fictions" is that there is a sense in which rational cognition itself is a "scientific theory". The thing about this particular theory, however, is that it cannot be changed; the paradigm can never be replaced from the viewpoints of cognitive entities like us. As I've repeatedly explained, this gives it a kind of "absoluteness". The fact that QM is extremely powerful and useful, and in substantial agreement with observation, suggests that if it is "logically inconsistent, incoherent (and) at some level fictional", this applies only in the absence of an adequate model. Since the CTMU can be shown to be an adequate model, it no longer applies (at least from where I'm sitting). In this model, the "approximate nature of the scientific (QM) result" is explained not merely by randomness or indeterminacy with respect to the localistic first-order Markovian restriction typical of inadequate models, but in terms of the self-configurative freedom of a self-generative system.
As for the apparent fact that MW does not require nonlocality, this is moot as long as MW lacks a consistent model of its own - something more substantial than a "multiverse" for which there is no better explanation than that which MW purports to offer for the universe itself. Unfortunately, it is impossible to meaningfully explain one entity by positing a larger unexplained entity allegedly supporting its existence. In contrast, the CTMU contains a new self-explanatory model of physical reality in which limited "nonlocality" is supported and wave functions can collapse. "Alternate universes", such as they may be, can then reside in the nomological syntax of the observable universe as abstract possibilities in no need of full realization.
In the absence of any reason to accept MW, there is no pressing need to give a reason not to accept it...except, for example, that it lacks a model, that it "explains" the decoherence of the wave function only by positing the existence of an inexplicable "multiverse", and that it uses an abstract mathematical criterion ("no messy wave function collapse") to posit the existence of a concrete meta-universe. In fact, when pursued to its logical conclusion, the idea that abstract mathematical criteria have the power to shape concrete reality leads directly to the CTMU, do not Pass Go, do not collect $200. As for how the CTMU avoids "standing on some of the same mistakes that lead to (the) Copenhagen (interpretation)", it does so by presenting a self-explanatory model in which these "mistakes" are logically grounded and thus no longer qualify as mistakes.
IP: Logged
|
|
Mark Szlazak
Member
Member # 391
|
posted 08. October 2003 13:34
Gedanken, sure orthodox QM views reality as fundamentally indeterministic. This has been the story for nearly a century and some may not like it. Nevertheless, it's still the best view, and has been extended into quantum field theory unlike the competition. For which Schwinger, Tomonaga, Feynman and Dyson won Nobel prizes??
I'm not a physicist, but the way I read it, that's not the case with MW. MW with decoherence doesn't even make it to first base. It's not an alternative since it doesn't fit the data which are those crisp observations. MW with enviromental decoherence requires us observing smeared out ones. Seems to me, it's just empirically false. Am I wrong about all this?
One may have faith that it can someday be "fixed-up" to some preferred notions, but there is no guarantee of that and a pessimistic induction over the last fifty years points in a different direction. Doesn't it seem really "weak" to base anything on MW?
[ 08. October 2003, 14:14: Message edited by: Mark Szlazak ]
IP: Logged
|
|
gedanken
Member
Member # 594
|
posted 08. October 2003 15:07
quote:
Since gedanken has unexpectedly taken to spelling my name correctly, I'll try to encourage his good behavior by posting a response.
Full apologies (as I did not even know I had even made a change), and I will attempt to correct all occurrences that can be corrected.
--
Actually I could not find any, perhaps it was the spelling of “Mr.” that is being referred to. But if anyone sees any, let me know.
[ 08. October 2003, 15:22: Message edited by: gedanken ]
IP: Logged
|
|
gedanken
Member
Member # 594
|
posted 08. October 2003 20:33
quote:
I'm not a physicist, but the way I read it, that's not the case with MW. MW with decoherence doesn't even make it to first base. It's not an alternative since it doesn't fit the data which are those crisp observations. MW with enviromental decoherence requires us observing smeared out ones. Seems to me, it's just empirically false. Am I wrong about all this?
As I said I have problems with MW, but this is based only on my limited studies. But one must consider what these scientists see in MW:
Who believes in many-worlds? from the Everet FAQ.
And all these other views have their own problems. The issue is not abuout "indeterminism" which holds in all these views. What I am saying does not depend on MW being 'correct', rather it is based on the problems in Copenhagen that are addressed in studying alternatives like MW. I am quite confident that in the aspect of quantum indeterminacy being correct even in a further resolution of the issues. (Even MW has a form of "indeterminacy" in that a given thread in the 'worlds' is indeterminate, except to the extent that one might specify which thread is questioned.)
Also from the FAQ:
quote:
If a mechanism for collapse could be found then there would be no need for many-worlds. The reason why we doubt that collapse takes place is because no one has ever been able to devise a physical mechanism that could trigger it.
It appears the problem is not consistency with major observations in certain regards. (It most certainly makes it to "first base" and is consistent with an enormous number of observations.) The problem is rather its logical inconsistency in that definitional problems can't be solved, like what is an "observer" necessary for a "collapse" to be triggered.
I in fact like certain aspects of Mr. Langan's approach, but I think that there are major flaws, once again similar to the flaws in the basis of the Copenhagen approach.
[ 08. October 2003, 21:01: Message edited by: gedanken ]
IP: Logged
|
|
Rex Kerr
Member
Member # 632
|
posted 08. October 2003 22:48
An "observer" could be defined by whatever collapses a wavefunction.
For example, suppose you set up a double-slit experiment with a detector on one of the slits and some sort of photomultiplier array as an output. The data is fed into a computer, into two blocks in memory--one for the output, one for the detector on the slit.
With one set of experiments, you look at the output first, and the record of the detector if you wish. With another set of experiments, you overwrite the data from the detector in memory, and then look at the output. If you see interference in the second case and not in the first, then it a detector plus computer is not an observer. Otherwise, computer+detector counts as an observer.
By proceeding in this way, we can change the philosophical question of what an observer is into an empirical question. Therefore, I don't think we can hold the definitional problem against the Copenhagen interpretation as long as we allow something like this. (Of course, at the end of all these experiments, we may end up deciding that "observer" is misleading terminology.)
Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to do the same thing with, say, the CTMU as a whole, as it isn't really possible to observe the consequences of removing, say, humans from the universe.
IP: Logged
|
|
Mark Szlazak
Member
Member # 391
|
posted 09. October 2003 00:53
Ged, that link's not working.
I'm not so sure that we have the same type of indeterminacy between orthodox QM and MW. It's an ontological indeterminism that I'm talking about as in non-Laplacian/non-mechanistic. This quote of course is just a Red Herring.
quote:
If a mechanism for collapse could be found then there would be no need for many-worlds. The reason why we doubt that collapse takes place is because no one has ever been able to devise a physical mechanism that could trigger it.
Also, your betting in MW as an alternative, I'm betting that it's not and doesn't account for much of the data and for fun, I'll stick my neck out and say that it really doesn't account for no observations at all ![[Wink]](wink.gif) .
Now since we're both not physicists, I'll try to get Henry Stapp who wrote those things I referenced to join in. See if you can get your boys to play along.
[ 12. October 2003, 23:44: Message edited by: Mark Szlazak ]
IP: Logged
|
|
gedanken
Member
Member # 594
|
posted 09. October 2003 01:34
I hope the links come back online, the whole website went down this afternoon. Links should be OK if the web site comes back up.
(I do have at least one physics degree, but I am hardly any kind of expert.)
Now I completely agree with Mark that there won't be a measurable or observable result that distinguishes MW. There were claims that some interference effect might be detectable (see the FAQ), but my personal opinion is that might also have an alternate explanation.
I pose the MW, not because it can be distinguished, but because it is an alternative that does not require Copenhagen. The argument has been made against "emergent" processes of intelligence, etc., and to some extent Copenhagen-like claims were made as basic to that argument.
But then Rex's points are right on the mark, as far as I am concerned. They equally do the job in terms of the aspect of Copenhagen that is important. It matters not to my point which of these alternatives turns out to be more correct (if there ever develops a way to distinguish).
Rather the existence of these alternatives as at some level on vaguely useful footing gives the result that reference to the "observer" in the form of our own thinking processes is not required in QM. That is the point.
Another point is that the very diffusion of what is meant by "observer" that Rex mentions could be developed as a "fuzzy logic" based argument that supplants the observer with a macroscopically expanding result as the equivalent "observer". This is completely consistent with the lack of clarity of whether the Geiger counter meter blip was the "observer", or was it the person who observed the meter, or Schroedinger's cat. But this supports the very contention I made back page 3 or so about inexact knowledge and thus "useful fictions" nature of scientific knowledge. It demonstrates precisely a case of multiple interpretations with respect to issues found in CTMU.
Let me explain why the quote on mechanism of collapse is not a 'red herring'. The point of that quote is that observations are compatible with the various views, including MW. The only choice of MW is as the simplest explanation, not one that is distinguished by the observation. In other words all the views are consistent with observation at a certain level! (There was some dispute that MW was consistent with observation, and that was a statement that it was. For example it certainly gets to “first base” if it is totally consistent with observed experiments!) Just MW is not distinguished from some other views by present observation, except by adding personal or philosophical considerations. (Remainder of relevance thus accrues to previous paragraph or discussion.)
Now one of the aspects of “collapse” is the problem of it not being relativistic. Why is this relevant? Well if “collapse” is only a fuzzy concept in the first place (see “fuzzy logic” arguments) then collapse does not become relevant. But if it is a non-fuzzy concept, then one aspect is that it has to occur in an instant. Problem is that the observer has a brain that is of finite dimension. In different reference frames the brain perceiving the “collapse” does not do so in all portions with simultaneity as it does so in other reference frames. Sound like a “how many angels on the head of a pin” argument? Yes it is! Just the point. The collapse must necessarily, to avoid this problem, at least not be so crisp as to occur in an “instant”. But that is the first step on a slippery slope that has no end. (Can someone define the end of that?)
[ 09. October 2003, 01:54: Message edited by: gedanken ]
IP: Logged
|
|
chimp
Member
Member # 333
|
posted 09. October 2003 05:06
quote:
Gedankin:
The collapse must necessarily, to avoid this problem, at least not be so crisp as to occur in an “instant”. But that is the first step on a slippery slope that has no end. (Can someone define the end of that?)
A self including spacetime, would automatically resolve the nonlocality paradox.
A self including spacetime can proceed in discrete steps, yet, still be continuous.
[density 1]--->[density 2]--->[density 3]---> ... --->[density n]
The information density of self including hypersurfaces increases in the thermodynamic direction of time. Since the past [spacetime memory] must be in immediate contact with the present, no faster than light communication takes place.
There is no instantaneous collapse. Only resonance.
past [->[->[ future]<-]<-]past
IP: Logged
|
|
Aliet Jacob
Member
Member # 908
|
posted 09. October 2003 05:29
Sorry to butt in.
Something hit me yesterday when I was thinking about ME=PE (Mathematical Existence = Physical Existence) - per Max Tegmark:
I was examining Wheeler's four dimensional block, available in the link below:
http://www.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~suchii/extrem.aging.html.
Is that block an impossible figure like the one below?
If you want to Physicalize the drawing - is it possible? Please examine the drawing (wheeler's block) and tell me what you think.
And if its an impossible drawing indeed - what does that mean - with respect to the theory? In spite of the eight cubes drawn around it, the placement of some cubes appear to make placement of other cubes, as illustrated, impossible. Even if one assumes the cubes can easily fuse into each other.
Maybe I am just tired - it looks impossible.
[ 09. October 2003, 05:34: Message edited by: Aliet Jacob ]
IP: Logged
|
|
Rex Kerr
Member
Member # 632
|
posted 09. October 2003 05:47
Brains are slow. Their immense computational power arises from massive parallelism using error-prone low-speed components.
Consequently, timescales less than about 10^-3s are irrelevant for perception.
Light can travel about 300km in a millisecond. That doesn't do much for constraining or collapsing wavefunctions. Thus, no interpretation of QM that relies on direct perception of a process by humans can really work.
This raises the question of whether it makes sense to ask whether processes on dE*dt < h_bar/2 are logical or not--or indeed, whether anything is constrained to be logical on a timescale shorter than our perceptions.
IP: Logged
|
|
Aliet Jacob
Member
Member # 908
|
posted 09. October 2003 07:13
About the observer, I remember reading Wheeler's article titled "Does the Universe Exist when we are not Looking?"
So as much as an detector could be regarded as an observer, common usage of the word "observer" at least per Wheeler and Schroendiger (in the formulation of Schroendigger's cat problem), seems to have a human dimension.
I think geds handling of the immateriality of the observer was pretty good.
IP: Logged
|
|
gedanken
Member
Member # 594
|
posted 09. October 2003 10:17
Everet FAQ back online—including “Who believes” link above. (At least as of 8:45AM Central).
Rex makes a good point!
And Russell makes a case for “continuous” collapse—e.g. “fuzzy”. But this of course is not only compatible with what I believe might be a consistent case or argument, but also supports exactly my contention about “fuzzy” truth value needing to be considered. If “collapse” is temporally extended, then Copenhagen can only be a “useful fiction”. But then MW is simply another argument of a form of extended collapse—one in which the collapse never actually ‘occurs’ and is extended over continuous time in some manner. Remember my point about the “slippery slope”! Once on that slope, my point is essentially made, and one has no clear way to stop the slippage. I would like to see an argument that the ‘collapse’ ever terminates, if it is temporally extended. And if so, what defines that?
Now of course the basically philosophical problem of “if a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it…” has not been changed. We cannot philosophically separate existence from observer in a way that can be agreed to in a universal way. What appears to be quite fundamental is shared experience—the whole basis for a rationality as Mr. Langan supposes, and also for science per se as pertaining to a single discernable reality. (My points of “fuzzy” perception are not denials of “reality” per se, rather speak about our mental processes of perception and documentation thereof.)
Aleit Jacob said something about my “handling of the immateriality of the observer was pretty good.” I hadn’t quite thought it through that way. Claiming an “immateriality” connected to human observation had not been something I had really considered. But I argue against that as a practical solution. It implies that the “collapse” depends on the following: Humans have some equivalent “spirit” (immaterial) which is beyond rules of space-time and which can exist in a manner so as that the collapse is defined to occur in an instant of perception.
The problem is that this view of the human requires that the human body (brain, etc.) is some sort of “antennae” for that “spirit”. I make no argument against this. Rather the point is that the perception, as a physical theory must occur in the physical observer before that “antennae” communicates to that supposed ‘spirit’. That’s fine, except that the physical explanation is thus back in the physical world of the perception in the physical human—we have not made a resolution. Rather we have simply made for an essentially spiritual requirement for the “collapse” to be defined. The regress thus has no end with regard to the issue of what is the physical “observer”—is the Geiger counter per se the “observer”, or is it the physical component of the human? I realize that the argument goes beyond that, but the physical component still obtains and thus in the physical world the “fuzzy” issues still obtain just as I originally postulated!
Consider, for example, all the physical occurrences that occurred on Earth, before the first human, or at least before the first lifeform existed on Earth. Does QM describe the progress of those systems? If so, then no “collapse” was necessary for QM to make such a description. That the progress of physical systems could proceed so far without a single “collapse” denies the necessity for collapse at all as a physical realized concept. (It is a “useful fiction”!)
Another issue—does the “collapse” occur for the first (spiritual) observer? Or does it occur separately for each observer? I would argue the second, taking “collapse” and QM per se as a “useful fiction”, it is equally useful for each observer as a computational mechanism for predicting real-world outcomes. By using this as a “fiction” that produces a predictive observation, we can agree on the observation yet defining different ‘collapse’ points. One person sees the collapse occurring when he sees the Geiger counter click. Another sees the ‘collapse’ occur when he sees the recording of the Geiger counter activity. Each view is ‘correct’ in the sense of agreeing on consistency of the physical evidence, and upon the usefulness of the QM “useful fiction”.
This really demonstrates further the point I have made repeatedly from the Everet FAQ:
quote:
If a mechanism for collapse could be found then there would be no need for many-worlds. The reason why we doubt that collapse takes place is because no one has ever been able to devise a physical mechanism that could trigger it.
Since this all points to the “useful fiction” nature of collapse as a computational fiction, it also demonstrates how the MW is itself a “useful fiction” computational device. It is simply a different way to access the computation by a descriptive mechanism, and differs in that no ‘collapse’ needed to be calculated. (To me the quote’s significance is a recognition by various scientists that the calculation can proceed meaningfully without ‘collapse’ since MW can proceed meaningfully and produce the QM computational result.) So we have different “useful fictions” that all predict actual observations. “Collapse” is part of some of those fictions, but not part of others. They can’t be distinguished by observation. And there is no particularly useful parsimony or “Occam’s Razor” argument here, because each of the “useful fiction” views has problems and yet provides comparable simplicity in some manner. The key point here is with regard to their being “useful fictions”. I consider classical mechanics to be an equivalent “useful fiction”. We know that it is simply a reduction or simplification equivalent to both QM and relativity theories, yet find it most useful in many calculations. Similarly QM per se in our context. All “useful fictions”.
[ 09. October 2003, 11:07: Message edited by: gedanken ]
IP: Logged
|
|
Mark Szlazak
Member
Member # 391
|
posted 09. October 2003 19:35
Dr. Stapp was kind and generous enough to answer two of my emails and here they are:
quote:
I have looked over the thread you sent, which started with Langan's posting of 08 October 13:10, and ended with that of "gedanken" on 09 October 10:17. I do not know what CTMU is, and hence do not really understand the context well enough to make comments that are exactly on target. Also, I do not have the time now to research the origins of quotes. But I am willing to make a few quick comments, for what they are worth in view of my lack of knowledge of some of the relevant background.
The comment about the CI "falling out of favor with physicists" sounds like David Deutsch (or maybe W. Zurek) and reflects, I believe, the views of a small coterie who are out of line with the huge bulk of practicing physicists. The majority, I believe, go along with the CI view that science in general, a quantum theory in particular, is about what we scientists know or can know: it is about doing experiments that reveal apparent regularities in the structure of human experiments, and the mathematical codification of these regularities that allow useful predictions to be made about what our experience are likely to be under various alternative possible empirical conditions that we (humans) might choose to create. "Science", from this perspective that is inculcated into the minds of physicists during their training to do quantum theory, is fundamentally epistemological, not ontological. Questions about how the world can possibly be, in order to yield relations among experiences that are in accord with the predictions of QM, need not be resolved in order to do good science. That is the Copenhagen view, and the many-worlds attempt to provide an ontology so extravagant is surely not "accepted" as the real truth by most practicing physicists.
But beyond this issue of what constitutes good science there is the question of the technical adequacy of MW. The reason that the founders of quantum theory found it expedient to abandon the 200-year-old policy of keeping our experiences out of the physical theory was that that policy seemed difficult to reconcile with the discrete (Yes-No) character of our observation when experiments probing quantum properties were performed. In order to make the formulas work some paricular way of probing the quantum system had to be specified. But if one followed the Schroedinger equation for the entire unviverse, including ourselves, one gets continuous features, not discrete ones: no sufficiently definite way of probing is singled out. This is known as "the basis problem," and the way it was resolve in CI was to accept the practical fact that we ourselves do in fact choose which experiment we will perform. This crucial-to-the-theory choice, attributed to "us," was formalized by von Neumann as "Process 1." It does not come out of the Schroedinger evolution. This difficulty is not solved by MW! I have elaborated upon this flaw in MW in my paper in Canadian Journal of Physics (80, 1043-1052 2002). Also in http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/stappfiles.html
I myself believe that trying to go beyond the epistemological level, and striving to achieve an ontological understanding, though not feasible during the twentieth century, may bear fruit during the twenty-first. Bohr, Heisenberg, and Pauli, the three principal founders of CIQT, all made some strivings for, or indicated the need for, eventual progress in this direction.
In this connection, it is I think important that the status of mathematics, and mathematics-based physical theories, is already somewhat cloudy: to what extent is mathematics, and the concepts of probability and knowledge, something belonging to a mental realm? The separation between mental and physical, between subjective and objective, is, I think, in need of careful scrutiny. I suspect that
nature has a unity that has "objective physical" aspects that can be represented by the mathematical descriptions provided by quantum theory, and has "subjective experiential" aspects that can be described as elements of "streams of consciousness," but that the "objective physical"
descriptions are features of an imbedding reality that is basically both objective and experiential, and that our "subjective experiences" are aspects of this objective-experiential-physical world. But I shall not attempt here to describe the reconciliation of what Descartes and classical physics has set asunder, but quantum theory mends. Let me say only that the experiential aspect is the definite
settling or fixing of physical features that are not fixed by the physical aspects determined by the Schroedinger equation.
I was being provocative but I think accurate in the this thread by saying that MW with decoherence doesn't make any predictions that are actually observed. What I meant by this is that you don't observe everything being "smeared-out"
like you would if you had permanent double/multiple-vision or blurred-vision, but that's all that MW with decoherence gives you! So it's really not an alternative interpretation to orthodox QM. This is the way that I read your articles. Is this correct or close?
quote:
I think a many-worlder would say that the smearing out would not be observed because it would be too small. My point was different: it is that the discrete set of orthogonal subspaces needed for the application of the probability rules of QM is not fixed by the Schroedinger evolution. Think of a spinning Stern-Gerlach device that is stopped at a time specified by the detection of a radioactive decay. According to the Schr. Eqn the device is in a superposition of overlapping states. So how does one get a favored basis of orthogonal states from the Schr. Eqn alone? The Human Observers would themselves be in superpositions of overlapping states. Copenhagen breaks the impasse by asserting that observers can in fact make choices about which experiments they will perform: *they* inject the extra information needed to make the theory work *in practice* (for all practical purposes.) By adopting an epistemological stance about science
the CI evades the need to explain what is "really going on": that problem is handed off to speculative philosophers.
You can post these responses if in your judgement they will be useful. But I am not interested in being diverted from my research. A second edition of my book Mind, Matter, and Quantum Mechanics is due out this month, and my views are explained in detail therein.
IP: Logged
|
|
gedanken
Member
Member # 594
|
posted 09. October 2003 20:33
[PS: Everet FAQ has been up and down today, just now tried Who Believes and it was working again.]
One could check on “(The extract is taken from the book “The Physics of Immortality” by Frank J. Tipler, page 218.)” from this link for the details of “who believes” quotes, and report back, if someone has the book. (Or possibly page 170?) Quote is supposed to be in that book.
Mark,
Thank you very much for that response from Dr. Stapp, especially continuing to probe for the second response. Without the second message much would be unclear.
In my inexpert way I had the notion that “the smearing out would not be observed because it would be too small.” The reason that I would come to that conclusion is not direct knowledge of the QM, but because of the correspondence principle. That principle is that QM must reduce to classical observation in gross cases in which the detailed quantum behavior is not significant. In other words in “classical” scale one must get the “classical” result as a result of the QM calculation. That implies that the “smearing” cannot be of large scale, or else—and this is extremely important—QM would not be consistent with scientific observation! (Simply because we have a very large number of classical observations which must be considered by “correspondence” to also be QM observations and must be consistent with QM. In fact the original assertion that MW posed a problem because we did not observe the “smearing” is such a case.)
Now consider the Geiger counter case. This is not a “classical” case, rather the “classical” component plays in when the effects of the individual “click” are traced through the system without declaring an “observer”. This really points to Rex’s point above, that Rex’s interpretation is more correct. The “observer” is really calculated at the equipment level, and not at the human level at all. The “observer” is simply our position in making the observation. If one followed the enormous continuation of QM calculations of all the subsystems to the recording, from the perspective of any of the ‘observers’, one would get the same result for the individual click, with very little “smearing” of that resulting “click”. Now I understand a little better—and significant for our “fuzzy logic” argument.
Now I had not expected exactly that understanding of the “smearing out” becoming “too small” to measure, but that is still consistent with the fuzzy logic interpretation. It only requires as much “fuzz” to the statements as is found in the measurement error. That it is lost in the noise only strengthens my point, in that the other “fuzzy” aspects of measurement, such as other possible errors, etc., only complicate and make our knowledge even less certain about the individual event. (Of course I am speaking of both “certainty” and “degree” issues, both of which can be rather crisply resolved as in very little uncertainty and very little matter of “degree” coming into play in the question of whether there was a “click” or not.)
What is most important in the second entry by Dr. Stapp is that it supports the “useful fiction” nature of QM:
quote:
By adopting an epistemological stance about science the CI evades the need to explain what is "really going on": that problem is handed off to speculative philosophers.
(Emphasis mine).
Now with regard to:
quote:
... and reflects, I believe, the views of a small coterie who are out of line with the huge bulk of practicing physicists. The majority, I believe, go along with the CI view that science in general, a quantum theory in particular, is about what we scientists know or can know: it is about doing experiments that reveal apparent regularities in the structure of human experiments, and the mathematical codification of these regularities that allow useful predictions to be made about what our experience are likely to be under various alternative possible empirical conditions that we (humans) might choose to create.
I think it is a mistake to relegate the CI/MW views to one of philosophical distinctions, though it is very close to that realm. But it is not completely, because (in my opinion) the issue is relevant to the parsimony (or Occam’s Razor) principle. The requirement of the “observer” is a complication in the calculation, from a certain viewpoint. From the strictly practical, as Dr. Stapp shows, is that this distinction is irrelevant, because the calculation proceeds in the same way in either interpretation. (In fact, the calculation proceeds as though the “observer” were the equipment, as Rex suggests. No calculation ever traces the QM functions through the electronics of the Geiger counter and the transmission to the senses of the ‘observer’, rather they are cut off at the Geiger tube (etc.) as though that equipment stood in for ‘observer’.) The issue is “scientific” one (not philosophical) however, in that the understanding that the “observer” was placed at the “Geiger tube” level is not made explicit when one says that the “observer” causes the “collapse”. This is thus a slight fuzziness (as per my point) in the clarity of the QM methodology.
My point does not stand on the correctness of MW (in fact I believe that MW is also incorrect). Rather the fact that MW is considered a valid topic of discussion among some top physicists is all that is necessary. I think that the demonstration that scientists themselves take the science (like QM) as “useful fiction” is quite relevant to Mr. Langan’s issues above.
[ 09. October 2003, 21:28: Message edited by: gedanken ]
IP: Logged
|
|
Mark Szlazak
Member
Member # 391
|
posted 10. October 2003 00:59
Gedanken, it's been years but I vaguely remember Prof. Stan Klein having a discussion with Prof. Stapp on the "movability" of the classical/quantum "cut", so check Stapp's website for an entry with Klein's name. I think in the von Neumann version of orthodox QM that only occurs at the interface of the consciousness of the observer and their "smeared out" brains. Not sure so check.
Now on the small "smearing", isn't it the case that the Sch. Eq. expands with time unless some other process stops it? So something that's small as a rock can later become large enough to fill the sky. I'm sure I've read that somewhere.
Gedanken, we're not physicists, so I can say all kinds of things just like you about QM, but I'm not sure at times what to make of them. Also, I too feel the tug of theoretical or explanatory simplicity but am wary of leaning to heavily on our intuitions about it in this case.
However, I'll say this in general about parsimony/simplicity in science. Besides not being entirely confident that nature will conform to a preferred standard, our understanding that may seem at first to unite great simplicity with entire sufficiency can later be greatly complicated and even shattered with further understanding. Besides, we typically pay a price for theoretical simplicity by causing theoretical complexity somewhere else. Furthermore, it's doubtful that one form of simplicity is inherently preferable to the other. I have one you may have another. Having said that, my gut feeling is that MW is much more complex than CI. I think Dr. Stapp gives an example in the "Mindful Universe" link on his site on how many alternative "Worlds" would occur in a every simple example/analogy.
But for an expert assessment just ask an expert--or two. If you've got an email I'll send you Dr. Stapp's email addresses and you can see if he'll join in to take up these very interesting issues. He's very kind and I'd do it but I don't want to press my luck. I've bugged him enough times over the years.
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
[ 10. October 2003, 01:49: Message edited by: Mark Szlazak ]
IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view of this topic
