Physicists found a new quantum paradox that casts doubt on a pillar of reality • Hacker News Board

Re: Physicists found a new quantum paradox that casts doubt on a pillar of reality

#111

Post by keymone » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 11:03 PM UTC

felipeko wrote: post #105

keymone wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of brain’s responsibilities is to model the environment, which means modeling all it’s parts. Since each brain is unique - those models are different and “personal”. Physical stimuli evoke some of those models and that’s what we call “blue color” or whatever else we’re experiencing. I don’t think I understand the problem enough to understand why it’s a problem.

By inner experience, we mean that there's a subject which gets to have perception of such models. There's no need for such subject to exist. For example, most people assume that, so far, computers do not have any inner experience. A computer could, conceivably, execute the same functions as our brain, yet have no inner experience of anything. Numbers get in, numbers get out, without any inner experience being needed.

Sure, just like a thermostat doesn’t experience the feeling of temperature, there is no need for human to feel it, so I understand that we need to explain why is it that we still feel the feeling rather than just observe the signal and react.

So why is it wrong to explain this by the necessary recursiveness of predictive modeling that includes modeling “self”? We observe the temperature but we also observe ourselves observing the temperature. First is the signal, second is the introspection of the model evoked by that signal - the feeling.

Re: Physicists found a new quantum paradox that casts doubt on a pillar of reality

#112

Post by Tuna-Fish » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 11:11 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #93

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either you believe in collapse, so there are two of you, who each observed different things, and one of those will at some point cease to exist, or you embrace the Everett interpretation, and so there are two of you who each observe different things and go on to live their separate lives.

Both paths you laid out are built upon the idea that superposition happens. Is there any serious consideration these days that superposition itself is dead end?

In a word, no.

When people compare QM theories they often do so on basis of the original experiments that were used to develop them. But as a discipline physics has moved well past those. Superposition has been proven and tested to exist, and we have long since moved past that phase and started building things, like quantum computers, on top of it. At this point, pretty much the only way superposition doesn't exist is that every time a physicist does something that superposition needs to work, a devil figures out what kind of result is needed to fake it and does that.

Trying to challenge superposition would kind of get same kind of results from physicists as trying to challenge the existence of electrons would get from people who build circuits. Like, if you have some interesting new theory, I am intrigued, but do understand that to get people to follow it you will need to explain how it replicates the results of what superposition would do in so many different cases that you won't be able to enumerate them in a week.

Re: Physicists found a new quantum paradox that casts doubt on a pillar of reality

#113

Post by dencodev » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 11:21 PM UTC

Zenbit_UX wrote: post #98

sgillen wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem with this view is that “unobserved” particles still take up a large (possibly larger?) amount of computation. Rather than being in one position, it acts like a wave, being a little bit in every possible allowable position. These probability waves also interact with each other (which is what the double slit experiment demonstrates). That being said if it was demonstrated that un collapsed wave functions ar…

> That being said if it was demonstrated that un collapsed wave functions are somehow more efficient to calculate that would definitely give credence to the simulation hypothesis. Well said. I can certainly imagine a few functions that may prove to be more efficient at generating waves than fixed known positions + velocity for every subatomic particle in the universe. Here's the part that really takes us off the rail…

if we're a simulation i somewhat doubt whoever made our simulation is really worried about "resources" and "efficiency". Whatever real universe that may exist may not even follow our laws of physics. Maybe energy is actually unlimited and free in the "real world". Maybe matter can be made from nothing effortlessly.

Re: Physicists found a new quantum paradox that casts doubt on a pillar of reality

#114

Post by unishark » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 11:46 PM UTC

keymone wrote: post #111

felipeko wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By inner experience, we mean that there's a subject which gets to have perception of such models. There's no need for such subject to exist. For example, most people assume that, so far, computers do not have any inner experience. A computer could, conceivably, execute the same functions as our brain, yet have no inner experience of anything. Numbers get in, numbers get out, without any inner experience being needed.

Sure, just like a thermostat doesn’t experience the feeling of temperature, there is no need for human to feel it, so I understand that we need to explain why is it that we still feel the feeling rather than just observe the signal and react. So why is it wrong to explain this by the necessary recursiveness of predictive modeling that includes modeling “self”? We observe the temperature but we also observe ourselves…

Yes but where does this observer come from in the first place? Some theories do presume the thermostat experiences the temperature, just in a less-sophisticated form of consciousness. If an "observer" is nothing more than neurons firing in response to stimuli, then it's not fundamentally different from the thermostat.

Re: Physicists found a new quantum paradox that casts doubt on a pillar of reality

#115

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 11:51 PM UTC

Zenbit_UX wrote: post #96

rantwasp wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

disagree on the junior dev part and on the god part. what you’re describing is called “simulation theory” and it has been proposed and discussed at length i think lazy evaluation makes sense in that context. i also think that having a few basic rules and after that applying them consistently across your simulation space make sense. if your basic space unit of reality is way smaller than the sims in it can perceive an…

> disagree on the junior dev part and on the god part. Good lord, some people here are definitely on the spectrum. FYI that was an attempt at humor. In case you want to mimic human social behavior in the future: you don't _disagree_ with a joke, you either find it funny or you don't. > what you’re describing is called “simulation theory” and it has been proposed and discussed at length I'm aware of the theory, just l…

[deleted]

Re: Physicists found a new quantum paradox that casts doubt on a pillar of reality

#116

Post by meroes » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 11:52 PM UTC

Zenbit_UX wrote: post #96

rantwasp wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

disagree on the junior dev part and on the god part. what you’re describing is called “simulation theory” and it has been proposed and discussed at length i think lazy evaluation makes sense in that context. i also think that having a few basic rules and after that applying them consistently across your simulation space make sense. if your basic space unit of reality is way smaller than the sims in it can perceive an…

> disagree on the junior dev part and on the god part. Good lord, some people here are definitely on the spectrum. FYI that was an attempt at humor. In case you want to mimic human social behavior in the future: you don't _disagree_ with a joke, you either find it funny or you don't. > what you’re describing is called “simulation theory” and it has been proposed and discussed at length I'm aware of the theory, just l…

> Good lord, some people here are definitely on the spectrum. FYI that was an attempt at humor. In case you want to mimic human social behavior in the future: you don't _disagree_ with a joke, you either find it funny or you don't.

Maybe he was disagreeing with your entire assesment and that your joke was neither funny or unfunny, but incorrect

Re: Physicists found a new quantum paradox that casts doubt on a pillar of reality

#117

Post by njarboe » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 12:02 AM UTC

keymone wrote: post #111

felipeko wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By inner experience, we mean that there's a subject which gets to have perception of such models. There's no need for such subject to exist. For example, most people assume that, so far, computers do not have any inner experience. A computer could, conceivably, execute the same functions as our brain, yet have no inner experience of anything. Numbers get in, numbers get out, without any inner experience being needed.

Sure, just like a thermostat doesn’t experience the feeling of temperature, there is no need for human to feel it, so I understand that we need to explain why is it that we still feel the feeling rather than just observe the signal and react. So why is it wrong to explain this by the necessary recursiveness of predictive modeling that includes modeling “self”? We observe the temperature but we also observe ourselves…

I like this idea. From my limited reading and understanding, the nervous system/brain and body seems to function as a huge number of feedback loops where the nerves are predicting a response in the body to a nerve firing event, doing the event, and then comparing what happened to the prediction. Moving your hand is a huge number feedback loops. Seems like a similar thing probably happens for abstract things like words. Building up all these sub models to a model of the self seems like a natural progression and could be very evolutionary beneficial, although with drawbacks also (paralyzing self doubt, depression, neuroticism, etc)

Re: Physicists found a new quantum paradox that casts doubt on a pillar of reality

#118

Post by sooheon » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 12:04 AM UTC

keymone wrote: post #111

felipeko wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By inner experience, we mean that there's a subject which gets to have perception of such models. There's no need for such subject to exist. For example, most people assume that, so far, computers do not have any inner experience. A computer could, conceivably, execute the same functions as our brain, yet have no inner experience of anything. Numbers get in, numbers get out, without any inner experience being needed.

Sure, just like a thermostat doesn’t experience the feeling of temperature, there is no need for human to feel it, so I understand that we need to explain why is it that we still feel the feeling rather than just observe the signal and react. So why is it wrong to explain this by the necessary recursiveness of predictive modeling that includes modeling “self”? We observe the temperature but we also observe ourselves…

> So why is it wrong to explain this by the necessary recursiveness of predictive modeling that includes modeling “self”?

It's not "wrong", it's just not parsimonious. A system can model itself without being conscious, any time you have state in a program you are doing this.

Re: Physicists found a new quantum paradox that casts doubt on a pillar of reality

#119

Post by narag » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 12:18 AM UTC

lisper wrote: post #30

> if the "friend" is a human-level artificial intelligence running in a massive quantum computer. Well, there's your problem right there. No AI can run on a quantum computer. Intelligence is inherently a classical phenomenon because it requires copying information, and quantum states cannot be copied, only classical states can be copied. The classical world "emerges" from the quantum world when you take a quantum sys…

So in your opinion, does this thought experiment can be translated to a "real" experiment now or in a not-so-distant future, like in our lifetimes?

Re: Physicists found a new quantum paradox that casts doubt on a pillar of reality

#120

Post by Thorentis » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 12:43 AM UTC

bondarchuk wrote: post #6

The original Wigner's friend paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner%27s_friend The paradox seems to rest on magical thinking about consciousness, and if one simply accepts that a conscious observer can be in a superposition like any other piece of matter, the paradox is resolved. And, from the article: For Wigner, this was an absurd conclusion. Instead, he believed that once the consciousness of an observer be…

From the Wikipedia:

> "From the point of view of the friend, the measurement result was determined long before Wigner had asked about it, and the state of the physical system has already collapsed. When now exactly did the collapse occur? Was it when the friend had finished their measurement, or when the information of its result entered Wigner's consciousness?"

This to me, shows just how hand-wavy the whole superposition/quantum collapse stuff really is. I have to say I side with Einstein with his view that everything is already in one state or the other. We don't cause the system to choose a state when we measure it. We simply discover the state it was already in. It is one thing to assign a probability to which state we will find it in. It is quite another to create an entire theory around quantum measurement.

There is nothing mysterious about this paradox. The friend performs the measurement ans discovers the state of the particle/system. Wiger doesn't know about it, but that doesn't mean it's not in that state, he just isn't aware of it yet. The fact this is a paradox just seems like silly mind games.