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Reality doesn’t exist until it is measured, quantum experiment finds

anu.edu.au

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Re: Reality doesn’t exist until it is measured, quantum experiment finds

#231

Post by hasenj »

drdeca wrote: post #229
hasenj wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people talk about hidden variable theories they still assume a definite answer exists. I'm saying the answer doesn't exist because the question is not really valid in some sense. Which kind of coincides with the idea that "the observable doesn't exist until measured", but I'm taking a little further and saying, it doesn't exist even when "measured" because you're not really measuring the thing you think you're m…

It seems to me there would still be a fact of the matter as to whether the person would enjoy a particular type of food prepared in a certain way, in a certain context, even if that situation never occurs or is considered?

That's the point. Something is the matter of fact, but it's not what the original question was. The original question is bogus. The way you perform the "measurement" influences the answer you get.

Also if you repeat the measurement multiple times, results will change.

From my personal experience, I didn't like soy sauce at first, but then I got used to it and started to really like it.

Re: Reality doesn’t exist until it is measured, quantum experiment finds

#232

Post by phaemon »

dschiptsov wrote: post #138

So, the Sun doesn't exist when experimenter is unconscious? I see. It seems like at least Philosophy 101 should be mandatory to quantum physicists.) Reality doesn't depend on an observer (who distorts it by his observation). Reality just is. There are light and other temporary states of what we call "energy". That's it. Time, space, relativity are human concepts - the hard-wired modes of perception which conditions o…

Photons can't have "temporary states" because photons don't experience time. That's where the word "temporary" comes from, the Latin "tempus" meaning "time".

Re: Reality doesn’t exist until it is measured, quantum experiment finds

#233

Post by kale »

nitrogen wrote: post #45
gall wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out Greg Egan's Permutation City in which sort of the opposite happens.

I'm reading that book right now, and so far it's good. One can also read: Anathem, Snow Crash, http://qntm.org/ra , or (extremely NSFW) The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. All of them explore the nature of reality and consciousness in some way. To the parent commenter, please write your story. The world always needs good fiction.

Yahtzee (of Zero Punctuation) wrote a novel that used simulation as a plot device. It's called "Mogworld". I thought it was well done.

Re: Reality doesn’t exist until it is measured, quantum experiment finds

#234

Post by lowbloodsugar »

antimagic wrote: post #154
zw123456 wrote: post #86

And perhaps someday we'll get to meet the great programmer in the sky the developed the simulation we are living in and we will ask him why he designed it that way and he will say something like "oh I just wanted to optimize the code so I simply excluded reality subroutines when there were no beings looking. I just never thought you guys would notice. As soon as I saw that you guys noticed the flaw, I was going to lo…

I always find it fascinating at just how much of our fundamental physics ends up being constraints on information movement. The laws of thermodynamics are about entropy, general relativity puts constraints on the movement of information (for example, Spooky Action as a Distance(tm) is faster than light, but you can't transmit information with it), the Uncertainty Principle puts limits on how much information you can…

Sharding. =)

Re: Reality doesn’t exist until it is measured, quantum experiment finds

#235

Post by dghf »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #71

Let us not forget about Pilot-Wave theory, where it has both particle and wave-like properties simultaneously. In fact, I don't quite get why people are so enamored by these fanciful interpretations when Pilot-Wave is so much more down-to-earth.

> In fact, I don't quite get why people are so enamored by these fanciful interpretations when Pilot-Wave is so much more down-to-earth.

I thought the difficulty with pilot-wave theory was that it was difficult, perhaps impossible, to reconcile with special relativity.

Re: Reality doesn’t exist until it is measured, quantum experiment finds

#238

Post by eru »

tempodox wrote: post #158
DennisP wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the purpose of the simulation is to simulate us, then it would make sense for it to not bother computing anything we don't measure.

True in principle, but you run the risk of premature optimization. Spontaneous changes of will would be impossible.

> Spontaneous changes of will would be impossible.

We don't even know what (free) will is, yet alone whether anyone has it.

Re: Reality doesn’t exist until it is measured, quantum experiment finds

#239

Post by eru »

Kequc wrote: post #220
dghf wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It isn't that particles exist in multiple states until they are measured. I thought it was exactly that. Or rather, particles exist in multiple states, and when they are measured, either those multiple states collapse into one (Copenhagen Interpretation) or you, the measurer (who also exists in multiple states), gets entangled with them, causing each of your states to perceive exactly one of the particles' states (…

I'm personally a really big fan of the Many-Worlds Interpretation. Because a brief abstraction would mean every person will live as long as is physically possible. To outside observers, you may have died at any point along the way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortalit... But, regardless. The copenhagen interpretation is from the 1920's. That isn't to say it's wrong, it's just out of date. It h…

> Because a brief abstraction would mean every person will live as long as is physically possible. To outside observers, you may have died at any point along the way.

Though your `life' might not be pretty. It can be maximally awful as long as you can still perceive.

Re: Reality doesn’t exist until it is measured, quantum experiment finds

#240

Post by tiatia »

graycat wrote: post #203
tiatia wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The light may be in a state of being bended and being not bended until you observe it...

I doubt it: What is bent is the wave function . There's no ambiguity there.

It addresses the inability of the classical concepts "particle" or "wave" to fully describe the behavior of quantum-scale objects. As Einstein wrote: "It seems as though we must use sometimes the one theory and sometimes the other, while at times we may use either. We are faced with a new kind of difficulty. We have two contradictory pictures of reality; separately neither of them fully explains the phenomena of light, but together they do"
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