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John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

quantamagazine.org

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Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#21

Post by kps »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #2

Having every ‘observer’ also ‘participate’ seems to just make it even more intractably complex? Since presumably ‘participators’ can influence each other simultaneously. So I just don’t see how any of these theories are attractive prospects, the infinite regress seems even more severe than superdeterminism theories. It’s quite a shame this man got stuck on something that may be literally impossible to prove.

There is no other kind of observation. You observe a photon when it and your retina (or device) participate in a physical interaction.

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#23

Post by jrussino »

excalibur wrote: post #14

Seriously, this article brings to mind the classic short story about a simulated universe: https://qntm.org/responsibility And also the wildly speculative conjecture that our universe will be retroactively created by a super intelligent AI in the precise manner necessary to facilitate its own existence, from which it follows that we exist for the express purpose of creating it. (If anybody knows the source I might ha…

Funny, one of my first thoughts upon seeing this article was that the protagonist of the story "There Is No Antimimetics Division" (by the same author) is named "Marion Wheeler" and I wondered if there was an intentional connection.

https://qntm.org/scp

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#24

Post by openrisk »

The really tough problems require minds that are wired differently and John Wheeler's mind was definitely a thing apart. Its the sort of unique mental fingerprint or aesthetic that characterizes great talents in this space (Feynman and Penrose are other examples of this trait, imho).

Compare Gravitation (the bible) and its boldness, inventiveness and playfulness with the sterile presentation of most theoretical physics textbooks before and after.

Anyway, he failed to bring on a new paradigm for "deep" physics. The intersection of geometry and quantum mechanics seems to be as elusive and mysterious as ever. But hope produced all our mental breakthroughs and, who knows, it may do so again.

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#25

Post by qingcharles »

bumbledraven wrote: post #16
rbanffy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’d need something bigger than the universe to represent everything in the universe.

Not if compression is involved.

This is why I have a totally unhinged belief that it might be possible to emulate the universe inside the universe itself.

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#26

Post by ricksunny »

rbanffy wrote: post #9

> It is not a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon. It’s more palatable when we consider not the observation, but the information that was collapsed out of the superimposed states at the time of the observation. The universe uses lazy evaluation, and things only happen when they have effects on other things, and what we see as past depends on what we observe now, as both need to be consistent with each other…

If I'm not mistaken some gaming physics engines work this way too, am I mistaken? Something akin to avoiding calculating the details of a voxel until it is observed by the gamer?

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#27

Post by krunck »

rbanffy wrote: post #9

> It is not a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon. It’s more palatable when we consider not the observation, but the information that was collapsed out of the superimposed states at the time of the observation. The universe uses lazy evaluation, and things only happen when they have effects on other things, and what we see as past depends on what we observe now, as both need to be consistent with each other…

> The universe uses lazy evaluation

Brilliant.

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#28

Post by Finnucane »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #2

Having every ‘observer’ also ‘participate’ seems to just make it even more intractably complex? Since presumably ‘participators’ can influence each other simultaneously. So I just don’t see how any of these theories are attractive prospects, the infinite regress seems even more severe than superdeterminism theories. It’s quite a shame this man got stuck on something that may be literally impossible to prove.

It also seems a little narcissistic to assume that humans are the only 'observers' or 'participants' who are determinative.

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#29

Post by rbanffy »

0xdeadbeefbabe wrote: post #13
rbanffy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’d need something bigger than the universe to represent everything in the universe.

It would be funny to find this out empirically. Like in the tower of Babel?

According to the legend, they didn’t find it amusing.

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#30

Post by [deleted] »

openrisk wrote: post #24

The really tough problems require minds that are wired differently and John Wheeler's mind was definitely a thing apart. Its the sort of unique mental fingerprint or aesthetic that characterizes great talents in this space (Feynman and Penrose are other examples of this trait, imho). Compare Gravitation (the bible) and its boldness, inventiveness and playfulness with the sterile presentation of most theoretical physi…

[deleted]
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