201–210 of 248 posts
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No, he's asking how to fit the data we do observe , and why QM is the obvious conclusion compared to other theories that fit the data that we do observe .
What other theories fit the data that we do observe?
>> By my age, Einstein had completed general relativity, Turing had founded CS, won WWII, and proposed the Turing Test, and Galois, Ramanujan, and Ramsey had been dead for years. I fee confused when an article begins with a blatant exaggeration about a subject I am cognisant in right off the bat because then Idon't know how much I can trust it when it speaks of subjects I don't know. To wit, Turing did not win WWII a…
Perhaps this comes down to having more context on Scott Aaronson's work and writing, but this section to me came off as humorous front matter, not some attempt to precisely characterize the history of computer science. See the front matter of his book (Quantum Computing Since Democritus) for more context on this. On the actual meat of the post, Scott Aaronson is a definite authority figure (among others) on these top…
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> Life can still be fun even it is pre-rendered. Like a movie you don't know what's going to happen next anyways. What if my life isn't "fun"? A lot of people live out lives of complete suffering. Childhood cancer? Poverty? Disease? Genetic mental health issues? Inbreeding? Childhood trauma? That list goes on and on. That isn't a movie I signed up for. Does determinism think this is supposed to be a lesson of some so…
Nothing about superdeterminism says you can't find ways out of suffering... to use the movie example, the movie may play out such that your life gets better! Or it won't... superdeterminism just says that those frames are already printed on the film, we just don't know what they look like yet because we can't perceive the future.
Actually it does.
Your movie is going to play out the way it plays out, regardless of whatever you do. Throw your feet up in the recliner or struggle for that next promotion, doesn't matter. Brain cancer.
I just find this rubbish.
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this is absolutely not what he is asking. his questions explicitly say to take QM as a given, but then move on to "why couldn't the universe be some other way?" He is not asking about other theories to explain the data we have; he is asking whether a substantively similar universe could have conceivably been built without QM.
> he is asking whether a substantively similar universe could have conceivably been built without QM. thats what I wrote QM must be the obvious conclusion (compared to X)
He's asking why a creator/creation process would use QM in a universe rather than something else.
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Really interesting to read your post, despite half of it being a bit over my head. That is quite cool you got to have a long conversation with Penrose! As to your statement about platonism or mathematical realism, I'm curious about something. Surely most axiomatic systems are a choice, so I can understand why we would say they're man made (euclidean geometry, ZFC, etc). However we also know about 'meta axioms', which…
I am not sure what is a "meta axiom". Could you give an example for one?
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> he is asking whether a substantively similar universe could have conceivably been built without QM. thats what I wrote QM must be the obvious conclusion (compared to X)
But he's not asking whether or not QM is the obvious conclusion when trying to explain the data we have. He's asking why a creator/creation process would use QM in a universe rather than something else.
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... because it's a good idea? If a person with Tourette's said profanities to you during your Zoom meeting, would you hold them equally responsible as a person not having it? No, because it's a symptom and you assume it is out of their control and they didn't have a malicious intent. If both persons said "sorry it wasn't in my control", you'd think 1) the person A didn't do bad, because they have a tic and they defin…
> t is out of their control and they didn't have a malicious intent We just established nobody chooses what they do or how they feel, so at best it's like a matter of degree and at worst it's completely arbitrary.
And "can choose to" with "can go to else{} if rx is true" - and social interaction and reward/punishment can make rx == true.
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What other theories fit the data that we do observe?
That's the counterfactual Scott is asking us to consider. See this comment for elaboration on exactly what kind of relevance rhis counterfactual has for QM https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30117928
Putting that misgiving aside, I think I get what you're saying (correct me if I'm wrong): the question is whether the "simpler" or at least more naive classical rules of physics could be the foundation for a world that looks and feels exactly like ours, e.g. one that forms a substance that has the precise properties of water, one that can support a stable form of DNA with which to assemble living beings, and so on.
The answer to that depends on how far exactly you are willing to depart from perfect fidelity. To put it another way: what is exactly the set of invariants that you aim to preserve from QM to classical? Do you need them to be exactly the same? Probably not feasible. Do you want water to behave exactly the same? I would tend to say it couldn't. Do you want it to have stars? To be able to evolve humanoids? To be able to evolve life? These are all interesting questions on their own, but they may all have separate answers.
Show me a simpler theory that can explain chemistry. Without QM, slow electrons would just drop into the nucleus all the time. The question is odd and makes it seem almost like Aaronson knows all about theoretical QC, but little about actual physics.
I think you misunderstand the post, he's not arguing against QM in any way at all, this isn't QM denial. He's just asking _why_ the universe is built that way.
To make a comparison, the laws that determine the movement of celestial bodies are closer to classical physics. There is no order in these bodies: galaxies all look very different. But molecules all look very similar, thanks to QM. You need this property for life to exist (you need e.g. replication, which can only happen if things easily turn out to be the exactly same, as with molecules).
Therefore, my question: show me a theory simpler than QM that can explain chemistry. And then we can talk.
> Why didn't God just make the universe classical and be done with it? What would've been wrong with that choice? I hear it over and over and still don't understand the premise. Classical mechanics is not something sacred. It is our first serious model of physics. Our first approximation is based on the scales at which we operate and our senses as humans. Furthermore, even "regular" quantum mechanics is a non-relativ…
> waters above the filament *firmament