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Are the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics Beginning to Dissolve?

quantamagazine.org

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Re: Are the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics Beginning to Dissolve?

#41

Post by Nevermark »

uh_uh wrote: post #14
Sharlin wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody is utterly confused by the hard problem of consciousness. That's just how it is.

I'd say we are confused about both the lowest (quantum) and highest level (consciousness) phenomena of the known Universe. Quite humbling.

We have a theory whose plain reading matches experiment at all scales.

Consciousness is something else. It is tempting for humans to pair mysteries up, pyramids and aliens, or whatever. But there isn't any factual basis for linking the experience of self-awareness with quantum mechanics.

Is there a factual reason we know digital minds couldn't be conscious? Where quantum effects have been isolated from the operations of mental activity. That seems like a premature constraint to assume.

Re: Are the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics Beginning to Dissolve?

#42

Post by [deleted] »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #39

Im fully willing to believe I just don’t “get it” but I took a pretty deep dive into quantum computing and the underlying mechanics and I kind of got the sense (with QC) that nobody really knows what they are talking about. I got this feeling so strongly that stopped studying the topic all together. I’m probably way off base and I’m probably missing some insights that I could get by going to school or something but t…

[deleted]

Re: Are the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics Beginning to Dissolve?

#43

Post by Nevermark »

uh_uh wrote: post #15
Nevermark wrote: post #3

> None of the leading interpretations of quantum theory are very convincing. They ask us to believe, for example, that the world we experience is fundamentally divided from the subatomic realm it’s built from. Or that there is a wild proliferation of parallel universes, or that a mysterious process causes quantumness to spontaneously collapse. Actually, the "many worlds" "interpretation", simply treats the highly suc…

Isn't there a magical moment needed still when a single qubit "touches" the rest of the universe?

It touches you, and you are just as quantum as the bit.

So two entangled versions of you follow, one entangled with each state. (Actually as many quantum versions of you that touched the qubit times two.)

Which is what happens, as we know from experiment when any one qubit interacts with another independent qubit. We get the product of entangled states, each now correlated. But different entangles states are now in superpostion with each other.

So correlation/entanglement happens and is experienced, despite no collapse of superposition. No information was destroyed or created.

Each of you thinks, wow now the qubit only has one state. But that is because there are two versions of you, correlated respectively with the two uncollapsed qubit states.

Complete conservation. That is the "experience" of collapse that needs no explanation, because it is a predicted experience not requiring an actual collapse. Just as spherical Earth models don't need a special explanation for the appearance of locally flat Earth, because spherical models predict a local flat Earth experience.

Re: Are the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics Beginning to Dissolve?

#44

Post by kikokikokiko »

To me, the fact that quantum mechanics is intrinsically "random" and unknowable beforehand, is what makes living bearable in this universe as a sentient being. If we, two legged viruses that we are, could reach a level of understanding that could show the universe to be fully deterministic and every future state to be knowable given that you know the current states, then this human condition would be impossible to stand. I love the fact that we just can't predict the future. It's what makes existing be a good thing instead of a bad one.

Re: Are the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics Beginning to Dissolve?

#46

Post by colechristensen »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #39

Im fully willing to believe I just don’t “get it” but I took a pretty deep dive into quantum computing and the underlying mechanics and I kind of got the sense (with QC) that nobody really knows what they are talking about. I got this feeling so strongly that stopped studying the topic all together. I’m probably way off base and I’m probably missing some insights that I could get by going to school or something but t…

>nobody really knows what they are talking about

The mathematics of QM works extremely well.

The interpretations of what the math is saying happens a varied and sometimes contradictory.

We can predict what's going to happen extremely well, we just can't tell the story of what's happening. And there's been a century of trying to avoid the weirdness and failing. The problem might just be our brains evolved in a world that behaves so much differently that we can't understand.

Re: Are the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics Beginning to Dissolve?

#47

Post by superposeur »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #39

Im fully willing to believe I just don’t “get it” but I took a pretty deep dive into quantum computing and the underlying mechanics and I kind of got the sense (with QC) that nobody really knows what they are talking about. I got this feeling so strongly that stopped studying the topic all together. I’m probably way off base and I’m probably missing some insights that I could get by going to school or something but t…

These debates over the interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (i.e. what ultimately happens when a “measurement” takes place) are important but don’t bear on the effectiveness of quantum computing. Regardless of your favorite interpretation (almost) everyone agrees that quantum computers should work and be able to do things classical computers cannot.

Re: Are the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics Beginning to Dissolve?

#48

Post by kykat »

kikokikokiko wrote: post #44

To me, the fact that quantum mechanics is intrinsically "random" and unknowable beforehand, is what makes living bearable in this universe as a sentient being. If we, two legged viruses that we are, could reach a level of understanding that could show the universe to be fully deterministic and every future state to be knowable given that you know the current states, then this human condition would be impossible to st…

Fully agree, feels good to say that it's all just kind of random.

Re: Are the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics Beginning to Dissolve?

#49

Post by tux1968 »

Noaidi wrote: post #11

"Thus the wave function can’t tell us what the quantum system is like before we measure it. " Nothing is a particle, all measured things are a probability that we make a certainty when we measure them. When you stop looking at things as things, but instead, see them as probabilities, it will all make sense. My hand and the beer bottle I pick up are both probabilities. Since the mind cannot navigate the world based on…

Why does a probability taste so good after work on a hot day?

Re: Are the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics Beginning to Dissolve?

#50

Post by scotty79 »

> How, for example, are we supposed to think about the domain in which all possibilities still exist before decoherence? How “real” is it?

The quantum function is the real object. Little balls we like to imagine the particles as are just perception of quantum functions very narrowed down by entangling with macroscopic objects. The way we measure anything is through the entanglement between the measured entity and our macroscopic instruments.

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