31–40 of 48 posts
I'm always looking forward to them and read them with passion. There are two types though, the ones that make sense, and the ones I can't grasp. This is the latter :/
Every week or so there seems to be a new exciting theory/article on HN about the universe etc. I'm always looking forward to them and read them with passion. There are two types though, the ones that make sense, and the ones I can't grasp. This is the latter :/
If this interests you, I strongly recommend learning the very basics of quantum mechanics. It will involve math, but the math doesn't need to be very complicated. And you will learn how the universe is fundamentally different than you thought, in a way that these popular articles hardly even hint at.
There are many introductions, but I've found the lesswrong one to explain things well, while using as little math as necessary (read: no calculus required):
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7FSwbFpDsca7uXpQ2/quantum-ex...
Feynman's book QED is also an excellent introduction, while requiring only a bit more math:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QED:_The_Strange_Theory_of_Lig...
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Good read. >If your standards are low enough, yes. But I don’t think we should compromise on this idea of post-empirical physics. I think that’s appalling, really appalling… If there was any bit of experimental evidence that was decisive and in favor of the theory, you wouldn’t be hearing these arguments. You wouldn’t. Nobody would care. It’s just a fallback. It’s giving up and declaring victory. I don’t like that at…
> I wonder if we're starting to hit up against some sort of limitation or local maxima that is blocking our search to the global maxima. That and maybe also human cognitive ability limits.
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Wisdom lies in paradox as the Taoist say. Language is a gross reduction of reality and has a hard time expresssing non-local concepts. Our inability to philosophically explain QM and classical physics in a consistant way is a good example of that. My guess is that there are concepts which require the ability to express perspectives of reality we arent able to grok because they requira a non-local (no now, no me, no i…
Wittgenstein teaches us that we invented language to solve a particular set of problems. Depending on which book of his you read, language is designed to either: - talk about the configuration of objects in relation to each other in space and time. - perform social functions and to describe the actions humans take in the social world. In either case, I think it is totally clear that you are right and there are just c…
They're not. Non-locality is an artifact of certain interpretations / modifications of QM (where it isn't simply a misconception). See e.g. https://sci-hub.tw/10.1088/1751-8113/47/42/424011 and https://arxiv.org/abs/1411.2120 or the QBism intro https://arxiv.org/abs/1311.5253 or Ray Streater's old EPR webpage https://web.archive.org/web/20151117174141/http://www.mth.kc... or Gell-Mann's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNAw-xXCcM8 or...
Every week or so there seems to be a new exciting theory/article on HN about the universe etc. I'm always looking forward to them and read them with passion. There are two types though, the ones that make sense, and the ones I can't grasp. This is the latter :/
"Both monism and many worlds can be avoided, but only when one either changes the formalism of quantum mechanics—typically in ways that are in conflict with Einstein’s theory of special relativity—or if one understands quantum mechanics not as a theory about nature but as a theory about knowledge: a humanities concept rather than science." Tut-tut. There's nothing "humanities rather than science" about the understand…
Saying a physical phenomena is 'humanities rather than science' is such a stupid statement. Reality is just a complex computer.
> stupid statement.
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Wittgenstein teaches us that we invented language to solve a particular set of problems. Depending on which book of his you read, language is designed to either: - talk about the configuration of objects in relation to each other in space and time. - perform social functions and to describe the actions humans take in the social world. In either case, I think it is totally clear that you are right and there are just c…
> If foundations of QM are non-local They're not. Non-locality is an artifact of certain interpretations / modifications of QM (where it isn't simply a misconception). See e.g. https://sci-hub.tw/10.1088/1751-8113/47/42/424011 and https://arxiv.org/abs/1411.2120 or the QBism intro https://arxiv.org/abs/1311.5253 or Ray Streater's old EPR webpage https://web.archive.org/web/20151117174141/http://www.mth.kc... or Gell-…
What is interpreted is mostly the consequence of that philosophically (i.e. what does that mean).
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No, spatial dimensions have a very specific meaning. The universe has 3 big special dimensions and 1 temporal dimension (and perhaps 8 or additional "small" dimensions.) Here monism means another thing, I'm not sure what, I'm not sure that it even mean anything at all. The important thing is if it is possible or not to find any experiment that can refute the existence of monism. (It's easier to be a little less techn…
I believe roughly he's saying that we are a universe experiencing itself that is intrinsically a single quantum state. It has never made sense to me to separate the observer and the experiment, it's weird to suggest the observer is somehow more classical than the experiment, both are just evolving together in time as a quantum system. The idea of "collapse" makes no sense, there is no observer separate from the exper…
For example some years ago many people believe that it was possible to unify all the forces using the SU(5) group. It was a very nice theory, people like it, sadly experiments disagree. The idea that the universe is a single quantum state can't differentiate between the current standard model and the SU(5) model.
I really hate that the weak force only acts on left handled particles. Experiments disagree with my preferences. The idea that the universe is a single quantum state can't differentiate between the current version and the version where the weak force affect all particles.
So, how can be the idea that the universe is a single quantum state imply that the universe laws are beautiful?
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Nobody like the collapse and the almost magical properties of the observer (the observer can be a machine, it's not necessary a human). Anyway, it's very useful if you can shut up and do the calculations. I vote that the answer to the problem is something something decoherence. It's still a research topic (not my topic), so we have to wait a few years/decades/centuries to be sure.
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I think that "conscious" is like "alive". It's not magical. It's just an useful classification of some aggrupation of matter following the laws of physics.
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> If foundations of QM are non-local They're not. Non-locality is an artifact of certain interpretations / modifications of QM (where it isn't simply a misconception). See e.g. https://sci-hub.tw/10.1088/1751-8113/47/42/424011 and https://arxiv.org/abs/1411.2120 or the QBism intro https://arxiv.org/abs/1311.5253 or Ray Streater's old EPR webpage https://web.archive.org/web/20151117174141/http://www.mth.kc... or Gell-…
Maybe I am misunderstanding you but non-locality is not just an artifact. It's proven both experimentally and mathematically through Bells Theorem. It's as solid as Einstein's theory of relativity and gravity. What is interpreted is mostly the consequence of that philosophically (i.e. what does that mean).
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Maybe I am misunderstanding you but non-locality is not just an artifact. It's proven both experimentally and mathematically through Bells Theorem. It's as solid as Einstein's theory of relativity and gravity. What is interpreted is mostly the consequence of that philosophically (i.e. what does that mean).
Well, that is what I said: non-locality is just an artifact "of certain interpretations / modifications of QM" . Bell's theorem doesn't prove non-locality; what it proves is that no (alternative) theory (of mechanics) that's both classical, aka naively realist, and local could reproduce QM's successful predictions (of those experimental results).
I've seen a few alternatives like electrical universe theory which tries to take the spookiness out of QM but so far no other theory reconsile both clasically and QM and the two are proven to the extent that anything can be proven. Classical physics is not proven more than QM. You could easily reverse your argument starting with QM and saying classical physics doesn't prove locality.