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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

#81

Post by szvsw »

PTOB wrote: post #75
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…

The real question - which I do not intend to answer - is, "Are the same HN users who are receptive to the metaphysics here also providing the 'experts disagree' retorts?" If we were to categorize the different mindsets of HN users and study their reactions, we might be able to treat the whole as an organism and the different groups as organelles. Then we poke it with sticks for science!

Or even bodies without organs… uh oh, shhh, no Deleuze allowed on here I think!

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#82

Post by SilasX »

akira2501 wrote: post #64
dustingetz wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which experiment proves the universe uses lazy evaluation? this seems like interpretation

Wheeler suggested to expand the observations of the "double slit apparatus" into the "delayed choice experiment" which was then itself expanded into the "delayed choice quantum eraser experiment." From the Wikipedia article: "Wheeler pointed out that when these assumptions are applied to a device of interstellar dimensions, a last-minute decision made on Earth on how to observe a photon could alter a situation establ…

Which, to be clear, then invalidates at least one of the assumptions, right?

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#83

Post by abecedarius »

oersted wrote: post #12
nzzn wrote: post #3

Quanta is such a great resource! High value spend from Jim Simons vast pool of dollars. I came across MTW’s “Gravitation” as a student in the 70’s and it inspired a positively unreasonable desire to own a copy just because it looked so beautiful. Couldn’t afford the doorstop of a book at that time but happily it is still in print 50 years later.

They are good at framing advanced science as intuitive and engaging stories, context is always appreciated. Although, frankly, whenever I see the Quanta URL I tend to skip straight to the comments. It's too verbose to my taste, I just want to understand what the discovery is about, get an understanding of the substantive details without too much prerequisite knowledge, and understand the impact on other research and…

Similar. But I recently read this parody all the way through and lolled https://mathenchant.wordpress.com/2024/09/17/our-fractional-...

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#84

Post by bmitc »

hcarnot wrote: post #68

The source of his confusion is believing that all observers must share a single reality. This is not the case: as an observer of event A=a, you only share the same reality as all other observers who also measure A=a (or anything downstream of A=a). If some observer comes along and measures A=b, they split away from your reality. Only the version of that observer that saw A=a stays with you. There is no "remote synchr…

> The source of his confusion

That's a fairly strong claim when referring to one of the greatest physicists and deepest yet wide ranging thinkers of the 20th century.

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#85

Post by meowkit »

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…

As the other comments point out... most things are dynamical systems that respond to chaos theory (small inputs, big divergence in output). Many of the possible states can be reduced down to two or so poles (e.g. skepticism vs acceptance vs outrage vs indifference in our potential responses)

Trying to determine when or why a dynamical system like this goes to a specific state is Sisyphean if I put a word to it.

Novelty and memes play a part as well. If skepticism propagates faster around an idea (say Penrose's proposal) you'll get uncritical thinkers parroting. Same thing happens for the acceptance of ideas that often have no basis in reality.

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#86

Post by chadcmulligan »

ricksunny wrote: post #26
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…

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?

graphics engines do, they only display the visible pixels, the others are culled out of the calculation

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#87

Post by state_less »

bwood wrote: post #70
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…

I've been compiling a list of ways in which physical reality is similar to game engines or mechanical simulation in general. Here's my list so far: - The observer effect, quantum entanglement and wavefunction collapse --> lazy evaluation - Speed of light --> speed of causality to resolve the object interaction problem O(n^2) - Quanta of energy, Planck's length --> discretization of reality to limit computational prec…

The simulation framing tends to draw deterministic connotations. I think when people think of a simulation or perhaps physical interpretations, they imagine life as happening to them, rather than through them. I think it’s easy to perceive it one way or the other, and what you seek you will find.

But something like ‘lazy evaluation’ could provide a bridge between the two views. A choice is made AND a physically compatible path is observed as if it were always so from the past to the present.

Personally, I think of the universe is alive with choice and we do get to participate.

PS. I kept a copy of Kip Thorne’s Black Holes and Time Warps on my nightstand as a kid - it filled me with fascination. Thanks Kip!

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#88

Post by szvsw »

meowkit wrote: post #85
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…

As the other comments point out... most things are dynamical systems that respond to chaos theory (small inputs, big divergence in output). Many of the possible states can be reduced down to two or so poles (e.g. skepticism vs acceptance vs outrage vs indifference in our potential responses) Trying to determine when or why a dynamical system like this goes to a specific state is Sisyphean if I put a word to it. Novel…

This is probably one of the better descriptions of forum interaction (mid-size and up - ie past the point where you recognize some meaningful percentage of handles in any given thread)/social media that I have ever read. Much better said than my sibling comment!

It does seem like there are often strange attractors (loosely speaking), steady-states, collapse states etc that the heterogenous commenting population display organically.

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#89

Post by szvsw »

state_less wrote: post #87
bwood wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been compiling a list of ways in which physical reality is similar to game engines or mechanical simulation in general. Here's my list so far: - The observer effect, quantum entanglement and wavefunction collapse --> lazy evaluation - Speed of light --> speed of causality to resolve the object interaction problem O(n^2) - Quanta of energy, Planck's length --> discretization of reality to limit computational prec…

The simulation framing tends to draw deterministic connotations. I think when people think of a simulation or perhaps physical interpretations, they imagine life as happening to them, rather than through them. I think it’s easy to perceive it one way or the other, and what you seek you will find. But something like ‘lazy evaluation’ could provide a bridge between the two views. A choice is made AND a physically compa…

> The simulation framing tends to draw deterministic connotations.

I bristle at this because there is obviously a massive amount of probabilistic programming methodology and stochastic simulation techniques out there, but at the end of the day in terms of connotation you are probably correct…

Re: John Wheeler saw the tear in reality

#90

Post by artimaeis »

its_bbq wrote: post #22

On the blackboard he and his students wrote "Godel's Proof -- too important to be left to the mathematicians." As a mathematician, I'd love if anyone here knew the context

I think it's simply that Godel's incompleteness theorem had strong, foundation-shaking implications outside the context of mathematics alone. Philosophy and science were greatly affected.
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