Wonder if the movie Interstellar was inspired by Wheeler.
John Wheeler saw the tear in reality
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Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality
#52> 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?
Not specifically physics engines but graphics engines use "hidden surface determination" to avoid rendering what's outside the camera view. Frustrum culling, occlusion culling, LOD optimization, space-partition based clipping, etc. This video does an amazing job explaining some of those. https://youtu.be/C8YtdC8mxTU (highly recommended channel too)
Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Which raises the question, if a tree falls in-game, but only non-playable characters are there. Does the falling tree make a sound when it hits the ground?
In most games I would suspect the tree doesn't fall. Philosophy bypassed!
Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality
#54“Hope produces space and time?” The longer I live the more I appreciate Kurt Gödel’s proof that we can never know everything about the universe. https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-godels-proof-works-202007...
You’d need something bigger than the universe to represent everything in the universe.
We don't know if the Universe is finite or infinite, and also if it works in a completely logical way.
Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality
#55/? "Wheeler's bags of gold" https://www.google.com/search?q=wheelers+bags+of+gold
Holographic principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle :
> The existence of such solutions conflicts with the holographic interpretation, and their effects in a quantum theory of gravity including the holographic principle are not yet fully understood.
Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality
#56> 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…
which experiment proves the universe uses lazy evaluation? this seems like interpretation
Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality
#57[flagged]
Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality
#58Wonder if the movie Interstellar was inspired by Wheeler.
Not exactly, but they had Kip Thorne as their science advisor and Wheeler was his Phd supervisor!
Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Compare Gravity Total pedantipoint but the book's title is Gravitation of which he was one of three authors.
> he was one of three authors Indeed, but the other two (Charles Misner and Kip Thorne) were Wheeler's former students.
Sure, but Thorne once bought me pizza so he's the most important co-author.
Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality
#60Having 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's not like we are any closer to resolving the measurement problem today. I wouldn't be quick to dismiss Wheeler, all alternative theories for this problem are radical or "unattractive".
It's not like being radical or unattractive has anything to do with validity though.