I fully expected this to be crankery like some of this author’s other stuff. But this one makes a lot of sense.
> crankery like some of this author’s other stuff.
Link?
The Black Hole information loss problem is unsolvable
51–60 of 143 posts
Re: The Black Hole information loss problem is unsolvable
#52> And without data, the question is not which solution to the problem is correct, but which one you like best. I think this is correct to some extent, ultimately unavoidable, and some assumptions can be "inferred" as more reasonable than others, even in the absence of falsification. By Sabine's stance, the problem of induction [0] hasn't been "solved" because we actually have no reason to assume that past events are…
This is a problem with "philosophical" induction, not logical induction. I don't even know what it means "to believe in [philosophical] induction." Does it mean to believe that future things will behave like things similar to them in the past, except when they don't, in which case we made a mistake in thinking they were similar?
Re: The Black Hole information loss problem is unsolvable
#53The whole "information obeys the laws of physics" crap is just a fiction invented by modern physics to look cool in absence of any real progress for over a century, and to compete with software engineering.
Re: The Black Hole information loss problem is unsolvable
#54So this new result is derived semiclassically, right? Which means it was derived using more or less the same assumptions Hawking used to derive Hawking radiation. So couldn't the same objection be made about the claim that black holes evaporate at all? After all, we also have no empirical data about that, and likely won't have such data for a long long time.
Of course the criticism can also apply to Hawking radiation but it wouldn't be a particularly strong or even novel critique. Scientists already understand that an experimentally unverified prediction in theoretical physics could end up being wrong. If Hawking radiation does end up being wrong, however, it would most definitely result in some groundbreaking insights because Hawking radiation is itself built upon a set of assumptions that have a lot of experimental evidence.
The multiple solutions to the black hole information loss problem all depend on a set of assumptions that do not have that same degree of experimental evidence and so the concern is that physicists will converge on the solution that they find most comforting, likely based on ideology or whatever is fashionable, rather than converge on the solution that has the most evidence. The article says that getting actual empirical data to determine which competing solution is correct is virtually impossible.
So sure, Hawking radiation can be wrong and we have very little empirical data to support it, but it's not a theory that's competing with any other theories strictly on the basis of math equations derived from a set of assumptions. It's a theory that is almost uniquely derived from a pre-existing set of assumptions that do have a large body of empirical support whereas the solutions to the black hole information loss problem are not.
Re: The Black Hole information loss problem is unsolvable
#55I don't fully understand the claim that all quantum processes are time-reversible. Aren't there a lot of spontaneous quantum phenomena that aren't?
Re: The Black Hole information loss problem is unsolvable
#56> And without data, the question is not which solution to the problem is correct, but which one you like best. I think this is correct to some extent, ultimately unavoidable, and some assumptions can be "inferred" as more reasonable than others, even in the absence of falsification. By Sabine's stance, the problem of induction [0] hasn't been "solved" because we actually have no reason to assume that past events are…
> By Sabine's stance, the problem of induction [0] hasn't been "solved"
The "problem" of induction is a different kind of problem from the black hole information loss problem.
Induction can't be tested against experimental data. Induction isn't a testable hypothesis; it's a strategy we have no choice but to adopt if we want to plan for the future at all. So there is no "problem" of induction at all: it's just something we're stuck with.
Proposed solutions to the black hole information loss problem can be tested against experimental data; we just don't have the technical capability to acquire such data yet. That doesn't change the fact that until proposed solutions are tested against experimental data, and some proposed solution passes the test, the black hole information loss problem is not solved.
Re: The Black Hole information loss problem is unsolvable
#57Hawking radiation itself is not observed, but she seems willing to take that for granted on the basis of pure math. I don't see a notable difference between that and the theoretical work she's dismissing here.
I don't think so. She states clearly that the paradox simply means some of the underlying assumptions must be wrong. She does not claim to know which ones it must be.
Re: The Black Hole information loss problem is unsolvable
#58I don't fully understand the claim that all quantum processes are time-reversible. Aren't there a lot of spontaneous quantum phenomena that aren't?
Quantum processes are described by Schrodinger's equation, that is a linear differential equation in time. Consequently, it's solutions for every possible boundary conditions are always reversible.
Re: The Black Hole information loss problem is unsolvable
#59I still don't understand what they mean by "loss". Why is this even a problem? The information isn't gone, its right -there- in the black hole, which until proven otherwise, is part of the universe. Until someone can prove the universe cares whether the info is in a black hole or not, its not really a problem is it? If anything the universe usually shows it doesn't care what we humans think, its going to do its own t…
> The information isn't gone, its right -there- in the black hole
No, it isn't; it hits the singularity inside of the hole and gets destroyed. At least, that's what Hawking's original model, the one he used to predict that black holes evaporate, says.
One way of seeing why Hawking's model had to say this is to combine the following facts about the evaporating black hole and the Hawking radiation in Hawking's model:
(1) The hole itself cannot contain any information other than its mass, charge, and spin (because of the "black holes have no hair" theorem), which is far too little information to describe everything that fell into the hole.
(2) The Hawking radiation cannot contain any information about what fell into the hole because it is thermal, black-body radiation, i.e., the only information it contains is its temperature, which is related to the mass of the hole.
So the information can't be stored either inside the hole or outside the hole, which means it must be destroyed, and the only place it can be destroyed is by hitting the singularity inside the hole.
The black hole information loss problem is that the above is inconsistent with quantum unitarity. So Hawking's original model can't be right; but nobody knows what model should replace it.
Re: The Black Hole information loss problem is unsolvable
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe this was addressed in the first few paragraphs of the article: this problem is not about 'information', which is a vague phrase. Rather, it is about how black hole evaporation is fundamentally time irreversible.
but wasn't the evaporation of black holes a suggested solution by hawking for information being "lost forever" in a black hole? i.e., hawking radiation is itself unconfirmed, so its a "solution" for something that remains unproven :|
Right, but that is using a semi-classical calculation, whereas we know that ultimately any process (evolution of a closed system like the universe) compatible with quantum mechanics needs to be unitary/reversible.
That mismatch is what sets up the BH information “paradox”.