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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

#191

Post by ddgflorida »

Vegenoid wrote: post #185
ricksunny wrote: post #48

It's interesting we have such receptivity in the HN community here on physicist-proposed metaphysics (yay!), yet in an entirely similar light - an article covering physicist Roger Penrose's 'microtubules' on HN a couple days ago, we get the reflexive "but experts say this is bunk' treatment. Personally I don't know from Sam on either hypothesis. I'm just wondering for all things seeming equal, when do we get receptiv…

Maybe I am missing something, but I don’t see why it’s surprising that one idea would be received with curiosity and interest, while another would be received with skepticism based on analysis from the scientific community, even though they are both ideas from prominent scientists.

It's how far either may have strayed from a materialistic viewpoint.

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#192

Post by Vecr »

gom_jabbar wrote: post #189
Vecr wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roko's basilisk isn't retrocausal, maybe you're thinking of some Nick Land thing? But even there it's hard to tell how literal he is being with the Terminator analogies (if you haven't seen the movie it has time travel in it), the sanewashed version of his thesis revolves around thermodynamics, chaos theory, and strange attractors.

For a detailed discussion of retrocausality in Nick Land's work, check out the https://retrochronic.com/ introduction. There's even a dedicated Terminator section. Nick Land interprets Roko's Basilisk as "retrochronic AI infiltration".

Yes, well. At this point I'm mostly convinced by multiple high quality arguments that Roko's Basilisk is non-functional against any reasonable theory of rationality.

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#193

Post by Vecr »

joshuamcginnis wrote: post #186
esperent wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you start with the conclusion ( therefore God exists ), you'll always be able to find a logical chain that seems to prove it true.

Why don't you provide your own logic chain for why God doesn't exist and I'll read and respond to your arguments.

Obviously that can't be done absolutely, but

1) theoretically there are a huge number of explanations that fit the evidence, possibly an infinite number

2) almost none of them will contain your God

Done.

You can argue about what system should should be used to assign credibility to those explanations, but I'm not sure if you're read up on various Bayesian and non-Bayesian prior systems.

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#194

Post by joshuamcginnis »

Vecr wrote: post #193
joshuamcginnis wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you provide your own logic chain for why God doesn't exist and I'll read and respond to your arguments.

Obviously that can't be done absolutely, but 1) theoretically there are a huge number of explanations that fit the evidence, possibly an infinite number 2) almost none of them will contain your God Done. You can argue about what system should should be used to assign credibility to those explanations, but I'm not sure if you're read up on various Bayesian and non-Bayesian prior systems.

Simply pointing out that there are alternative possibility is not an argument against a creator. It's possible the creator is a pink unicorn, but it's not likely.

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#195

Post by nickpsecurity »

Kbelicius wrote: post #170
nickpsecurity wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add a few more observations: 1. The laws of the universe require unimaginable power, knowledge, and precision to implement. Its Creator must have these traits. 2. It doesn’t fail. Everything humans build requires maintenance but still fails. That this universe runs with a 100% reliability rate shows its maintainer’s power, knowledge, and perfection. It also shows He is sustaining us every second. He’s thinking about…

> 1. The laws of the universe require unimaginable power, knowledge, and precision to implement. Its Creator must have these traits. Since you are adding these observation in the context of the universe being a simulation none of the above need to be true. The one who designed the universe did not necessarily have the knowledge to implement (code the universe), build the hardware that it runs on or built the power so…

Good observations. I’ll try to address a few of them.

Re reliability. We know what we can observe. We see the machinery doing billions of billions of things with perfect consistency. The amount of interactions required is staggering. Whereas, humans quit trying to prove code correct after many 10,000 lines.

The being is either keeping it running without failures being possible (God’s power) or is doing the equivalent of preventative maintenance. Both are logically possible.

Re hardwired. That is a good hypothesis. I’d counter along C.S. Lewis’s lines that some things we seek aren’t merely imaginative. We have a strong, unique urge for specific things we need or are critical to our species, like food or sex. Those urges are tied to objective, real things. Our urges for God, love, and justice are just as strong and global. That’s because we’re designed for it.

Re: how do I know. Well, there’s multiple forms of knowledge. They include evidentiary (eg historical), phenomenological (eg sensation of pain), logical, empirical, and revelatory. That last one is important because we can’t really know anything outside the universe unless told by those outside it. That God chose to reveal Himself to His creation solves some big problems we could never solve without that.

“ Did not share it with me. Why?”

He did. He works through people who carry His message of reconciliation, the Gospel. It was in the quote:

https://www.gethisword.com

His Word says God draws us to Him, faith is a gift, it comes by hearing His Word, and (per Jesus) His sheep hear His voice. If people are humble, and truly seeking Him, He supernaturally tells them the message is true. Convicted of their sin, they have a choice to make that determines if they face eternal punishment or receive the mercy of eternal life.

God could’ve made it hard. He could’ve required people to be geniuses, know important people, be star athletes, or live perfectly on their own. Instead, Christ paid the price for our sins. Then, gave anyone who acts on a simple message to be saved. Anyone who shares that message might pull others out the fire, too.

Believe, repent, and live for and like Him. He’s worth it. Hell’s not.

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#196

Post by Vecr »

joshuamcginnis wrote: post #194
Vecr wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously that can't be done absolutely, but 1) theoretically there are a huge number of explanations that fit the evidence, possibly an infinite number 2) almost none of them will contain your God Done. You can argue about what system should should be used to assign credibility to those explanations, but I'm not sure if you're read up on various Bayesian and non-Bayesian prior systems.

Simply pointing out that there are alternative possibility is not an argument against a creator. It's possible the creator is a pink unicorn, but it's not likely.

Absolutely it's an argument against God that almost none of those explanations contain God.

If you want to enter more evidence or argue priors you can, but in the argument's current state it's highly effective.

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#197

Post by jdblair »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #119
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 That's a crazy assertion to me. Is this something proven using experiments or your conjecture? I would think a pebble floating in deep space, not interacting with anything, would still exist. If you go out there you would see it having a position and velocity. That information has to be preserved and processed continuously to ensure that an observer after 10000s of years still sees…

> you would see it having a position and velocity

but not at the same time!

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#198

Post by n4r9 »

tananan wrote: post #188
n4r9 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing you're referring to my HN comment here (and the resulting discussion): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41696559 Well... not all hypotheses are equal! I'm not necessarily a fan of Wheeler's "participatory universe" either, but I would note a few important differences: - Orch-Or claims to explain the origins of consciousness and free will. This overlaps with philosophy, which is concerned with what it…

> Orch-Or appears to be based on a misunderstanding of Godel's Theorem and computationalism, as has been pointed out by mathematicians and computer scientists. When I was looking for this, I failed to find or agree with anything conclusive for either side. Admittedly, I am not knowledge enough to be a good judge. Do you have any pointers?

The SEP page on Godel Incompleteness has a section 6.3 on "arguments against mechanism": https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel-incompleteness/

There is also the "Criticism" section of the Wikipedia page on the Penrose-Lucas argument: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose%E2%80%93Lucas_argume...

Those and the citations therein look like a good starting point.

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#199

Post by gigatree »

Vecr wrote: post #193
joshuamcginnis wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you provide your own logic chain for why God doesn't exist and I'll read and respond to your arguments.

Obviously that can't be done absolutely, but 1) theoretically there are a huge number of explanations that fit the evidence, possibly an infinite number 2) almost none of them will contain your God Done. You can argue about what system should should be used to assign credibility to those explanations, but I'm not sure if you're read up on various Bayesian and non-Bayesian prior systems.

Do you mean that for like a specific person’s made up god, or would you replace “your God” with “a God, an entity, or a mind of some kind”. Because in that case I assume those two points wouldn’t apply, right?

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#200

Post by n4r9 »

ricksunny wrote: post #101
sameoldtune wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Penroses theories about cognition smell like bunk and I only got a physics undergraduate degree. I’m glad he has found things to do in his old age but there are not a lot of physics departments jumping to put those theories to the test. This isn’t a “both sides” issue, it’s two separate physicists and two separate theories about different areas of physics.

> it’s two separate physicists and two separate theories about different areas of physics. They're both touching on consciousness. Wheeler's participatory universe (least several paras of the article) & Penrose's (& coauthor's) microtubules. Penrose was (just days ago) on Theory of Everything talking about whether consciousness affects observation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPH-SzWF46w&t=83s (tl;dw: he doesn't…

In that video, Penrose explicitly claims that quantum mechanics "is wrong". He means that the equations of quantum mechanics are not sufficient to describe the universe. He thinks you need some additional mechanics to cause wave function collapse.

Wheeler, on the other hand, does not claim that quantum mechanics is wrong or incomplete, but suggests an interpretation of the equations. So in my mind they are taking very different approaches.

I watched the later part of the video you linked where Penrose describes the thought experiment with the planet without any conscious agents. He describes wave function collapse as an objective process that is "caused" by conscious measurement. Whereas my understanding of Wheeler's ideas is that wave function collapse is a subjective process.

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