I wonder if Fraa Jad will have anything to say about this.

ultimately they will find themselves trying to describe the infinite in finite terms
and assplode

I'm not sure I buy into this yet. The wave-particle duality, IMHO, is basically the equivalent of observing a motorized fan and sometimes observing the fan moving as a unit and sometimes zeroing in on an individual blade and seeing it move through space. If I see evidence to the contrary I'll gladly reconsider it, but the whole of reality existing as a wave function sounds far-fetched.

It sounds like a quantum leap in quantum theory.

pizen: LDM90: I wonder if Fraa Jad will have anything to say about this.

Probably, but you'll have to wait for 989 more years for the next Apert to include Millenarians to ask him. You might also need to be in a narrative where he wasn't evoked.

Today, you're my favorite person. Thank you.

Sounds like they finally figured out that photons are actually differing sized nothing bubbles frozen in time.
If so, welcome to 2003.

A person who understands and believe in quantum mechanics as well as the multiverse must also acknowledge that in one of those alternate reality universes, lab results have conclusively shown these theories to be garbage.

Now that is how you divide by zero.

Pussy science

It's like...we're all made of waves, man...

You know, I was about to ask how someone could write a headline with the name "Pusey" in it and not come up with something good. Then I realized this is the Geek tab.

The physical reality of pussy can collapse my wavefront.

ZAZ: Whatever happened to that guy who was about to prove that the many worlds interpretation was true? Can they both be right?

I'm not certain, I'm not a quantum physicist or anything, but I think this might be construed as evidence for many-worlds.

bk3k: A person who understands and believe in quantum mechanics as well as the multiverse must also acknowledge that in one of those alternate reality universes, lab results have conclusively shown these theories to be garbage.

Now that is how you divide by zero.



A person who understands Godel's incompleteness theorem might be able to come up with a reasonable retort to such an argument.

Terrified Asexual Forcemeat: bk3k: A person who understands and believe in quantum mechanics as well as the multiverse must also acknowledge that in one of those alternate reality universes, lab results have conclusively shown these theories to be garbage.

Now that is how you divide by zero.

[3.bp.blogspot.com image 222x248]

A person who understands Godel's incompleteness theorem might be able to come up with a reasonable retort to such an argument.

Goedel's theorem boils down to "You're all full of shiat."

/Not totally kidding.

This week, DARPA began funding research on the groundbreaking "de-observinator" weapon which restores the wavefunction of distant targets, rendering macro-scale objects diffuse and indeterminate.

Peki: You know, I was about to ask how someone could write a headline with the name "Pusey" in it and not come up with something good. Then I realized this is the Geek tab.

You don't see what smitty did there.

/I do
//+1

Something Unironic: The wave-particle duality, IMHO, is basically the equivalent of observing a motorized fan and sometimes observing the fan moving as a unit and sometimes zeroing in on an individual blade and seeing it move through space.

Wave-particle duality is more like a fiction we get when trying to apply classical macroscopic concepts at quantum scales. The reality is, there is no duality of matter. All matter is quanta, singly. Quanta sometimes partially behave similar to the waves or particles of classical physics, but quanta always behave as quanta.

I'm gonna need more information here. I thought the wave function was just a mathematical description of quantum effects in the same way Fg=GMm/R^2 is a mathematical description of the gravitational attraction between two masses. It's silly to say the wave function is real. Wouldn't the appropriate language be that it represents something real instead of a merely being a statistical tool? There's a large distinction there.

Now I just need to know what the fark it means for a wave function to be a real property like mass or charge. Damn you quantum mechanics!

So like a wave in the sea being made from many many subatomic particles which allow deformity thereby giving the semblence of a larger object that changes shape and moves, does that mean that the quantum wave is made from many many smaller elements which appear to deform and move thereby giving the semblence of a larger object that changes shape and moves?

Quantum foam in your bath anyone?

Ok, where are the Schrodinger's cat jokes?

erewhon: This week, DARPA began funding research on the groundbreaking "de-observinator" weapon which restores the wavefunction of distant targets, rendering macro-scale objects diffuse and indeterminate.

i thought i read this post... but maybe i retroactively didn't.

lol, good stuff there.

nerdoverlord: erewhon: This week, DARPA began funding research on the groundbreaking "de-observinator" weapon which restores the wavefunction of distant targets, rendering macro-scale objects diffuse and indeterminate.

i thought i read this post... but maybe i retroactively didn't.

lol, good stuff there.

Well, while I'm not sure I buy into his entire theory, I do think that there are tiny bits of it here and there that could be of use, even if they only serve to stimulate the imagination. As they say, a little Pusey never hurt anyone.

Ambitwistor: Ok, where are the Schrodinger's cat jokes?

We're... not certain.

Something Unironic: I'm not sure I buy into this yet. The wave-particle duality, IMHO, is basically the equivalent of observing a motorized fan and sometimes observing the fan moving as a unit and sometimes zeroing in on an individual blade and seeing it move through space. If I see evidence to the contrary I'll gladly reconsider it, but the whole of reality existing as a wave function sounds far-fetched.

Not really. It's not a variation in our levels of detail observed- it's a real statement aout physical objects. Sometimes it's a whole fan, sometime's it's only a blade. It actually changes form.

I like to think of it this way: the universe uses lossy compression and probabilistic collision detection. When a particles isn't interacting with anything else, the universe discards most of its state information. It doesn't need it. When the particle is probably close to where another particle is the universe derives a new state for the particle by applying the wave function.

Also, to some other commenters: the idea that the Many Worlds interpretation means that there are parallel universes (as popularized by science fiction) is not entirely accurate. The Many Worlds interpretation grows out of the fact that we can't just collapse wave functions without bumping into informational issues arising from entropy. While it's very unlikely that your coffee and cream will unmix themselves, it's entirely possible. The Many Worlds interpretation proposes not universes-as-real-things, but universes-as-a-place-to-store-state-information-we-might-need-someday.

RandomAxe: In any case, the distinction between 'real things' and 'information' may be purely semantic.

This is what I took away from TFA. It's also what I've taken away from the various "branes" of cosmology. We, as observers, can only get so close to an objective physical "reality" in some domains and so for us the line between what is objectively real and what can be known is blurred. Which is why Bohr et al discouraged speculation about the "realness" of the wave function in the first place. This thinking went out of fashion as technology enabled more and more detailed observations, now it's coming back as our ability to describe the observations runs into completeness issues.

Personally, I think a lot of the 'at a distance' problem is just a question of math; the spookiness of an action is probably a relative problem that has to do with the observer, not any classically objective distance.

I think I'm with you on this one; why should there even be such a thing as a classically objective distance in the first place? We've been on that paradigm by virtue of the way our observation tools work, be the tools eyes, radio telescopes or electron microscopes.

And the many-worlds problem probably partly derives from a mistaken application of the apparent local nature of cause and effect and a presumption of static behavior within the light cone. The past might be the way it was, but that doesn't mean it isn't still happening, and that applies in both (all?) directions.

Same issue, different dimensions. The notions of distance and time are anthropomorphic.

That said, we have the tools we have and they work well within the domains in which we are aware. When you read Hawking et al and they say the world "is" one way or another, I think it's important to remember that what they really mean when they say "the world is." The complete clause would be "the world as we observe it is." The paper in question seems to be asserting that there really is nothing deeper to look for beyond what we observe and describe, and that any weirdness inherent to the world is a function of our limits as observers and describers. Which is not so revolutionary an idea unless you make your living by observing and describing in ever more refined ways.

/I think Fraa Jad would say he's simply found a way to make observations in a different domain than the rest of us, in which his perceptions of space and time are not subject to some of the limits of standard humans, and somehow he is able to cause others to shift their perceptions to the domain of his choice. The apparent effects on causality are no more real than time or space.
//But he would say it in six words

RandomAxe: Personally, I think a lot of the 'at a distance' problem is just a question of math; the spookiness of an action is probably a relative problem that has to do with the observer, not any classically objective distance.

Not sure what you mean by this, as relative has a very specific meaning regarding physics and QM... butttttt-

The only way that 'action at a distance' could be simply a math problem is if the most recent findings at CERN prove that c is not an intrinsic upper speed-limit for travel, meaning that information could travel faster than the speed of light allowing particles to communicate. Even so, it seems as if particles are entangled, as it appears collapse of the wavefunction leads to instaneous changes between entangled particles over a classical notion of 'distance'.

It's been a while since I took QM, but I would argue that the disconnect here is one of human intuition. If you are familiar with Young's experiment aka the double-slit experiment, it becomes very interesting to observe the disapearance of the interference pattern based upon where the detector is placed. If it is measured which slit a photon (or electron, etc) passes through, the wavefunction collapses and an interference pattern is no longer observed as if the particles 'know' they are being watched.

I love this stuff. Just when I start getting comfy with reality, all I have to do is wonder, what is reality? then I start quoting Sgt. Barnes in Platoon. Dancing Wu Li Masters is the best book ever. Luckily doesn't bother me much that I don't know how reality works.

Crosshair: ZAZ: Whatever happened to that guy who was about to prove that the many worlds interpretation was true? Can they both be right?

The many words theory is largely a contrived scenario by Atheists to get around the observed fine tuning of the physical constants and quantities of the universe for any life at all to exist. Atheists are in a tight spot, since they must find an natural/materialist alternative to design to explain the fine tuning, chance or physical necessity can't explain the observed fine tuning.

Why is that, exactly? Out of hand dismissals don't count.

You can't say the universe is fined tuned when we don't know if there are other possible states. It could be that the current set of physical laws is the only possible one. It's also completely unsurprising that we exist in a universe that has a set of physical laws that make it possible for us to exist. Assuming design due to this is an unsupportable leap in logic.

Crosshair: ZAZ: Whatever happened to that guy who was about to prove that the many worlds interpretation was true? Can they both be right?

The many words theory is largely a contrived scenario by Atheists to get around the observed fine tuning of the physical constants and quantities of the universe for any life at all to exist. Atheists are in a tight spot, since they must find an natural/materialist alternative to design to explain the fine tuning, chance or physical necessity can't explain the observed fine tuning.

It is POSSIBLE that a multiverse exists, but no direct evidence thus far. The fatal flaw with the theory, at least for Athiests, is that a multiverse still requires fine tuning to get the many different randomly ordered universes AND the multiverse theory is subject to the 2003 Borg-Guth-Vilenkin theorem which, to greatly simplify the theorems results, proves that a past eternal universe is impossible. Thus, for the Atheist, the multiverse theory explains nothing, since it can't explain the fine tuning and can't explain the origin of the universe a finite time ago.

Could a multiverse exist? it could. Would it help the atheist if it did? No. Would it hurt the theist? Only those who take a literal interpretation of all scripture.

Multiverse existence would actually require much less fine-tuning. You see, we're in this universe, with the properties we've come to know and love. Directly adjacent to us is a nearly identical universe. As you look farther away, the universes become more and more dissimilar from our own, until, at some vast distance from our universe, they don't even have similar physical laws.

So, we're here in this one, and it has these properties, but since all possible universes exist, we were certain to be here anyway, instead of in the universe with exactly equal proportions of matter to antimatter, or the one where all the matter decays at temperatures above 2 Kelvin. We were extremely unlikely to appear there.
So really, is it hard to see light as a probabilistic function? We've never seen a photon anyway. We've observed its effects only after it stops being a photon. Even in your eye, interaction with matter in the retina would collapse the light's probability function in such a way that the most likely location would be impacted by a larger number of photon effects than one in a different location that was less likely. Light reflecting off of your teeth is unlikely to make it into your own eyes without a reflecting surface, which is the only reason you can't normally see your own teeth. But SOME photons from your teeth must actually make it to your eyes, because light is a wave, and because its position depends on probability.

I would predict that at some point in your life, light from your teeth has gone through your cornea without either reflection or refraction. I am sure, though, that it would never be observed to happen because of the improbability of that path.

Quantum mechanics is downright weird, folks. And given that it describes what we observe highly accurately, sooner or later we're going to have to accept that the universe is a weird place that doesn't conform to intuition. Some of us will go kicking and screaming, but you can't change the evidence...

sbcbmx112: the double-slit experiment

...Quantum Eraser notwithstanding.

ZAZ: Whatever happened to that guy who was about to prove that the many worlds interpretation was true? Can they both be right?

They better be. I'm counting on a variation of quantum immortality in my financial planning.

t3knomanser: The Many Worlds interpretation proposes not universes-as-real-things, but universes-as-a-place-to-store-state-information-we-might-need-someday.

No, but Many Worlds is an important principle in several Multiverse scenarios.

Baryogenesis: You can't say the universe is fined tuned when we don't know if there are other possible states. It could be that the current set of physical laws is the only possible one. It's also completely unsurprising that we exist in a universe that has a set of physical laws that make it possible for us to exist. Assuming design due to this is an unsupportable leap in logic.

Ironically, the flaw in crosshair's reasoning is a perfect illustration of the waveform-as-reality issue TFA is dealing with. Quite the Catch-22 for him, no?

First, thanks to everyone posting in this thread. I love reading about this stuff but TFAs usually assume I know more than I do. Since I started looking at the comments on Fark, the discussions you all have do much to increase my knowledge on certain subjects and are invaluable for pointing me in a direction (via search words I usually need to look up, and good books too, thanks for Anathem LDM90 I'll be reading that soon ) for good information on a certain subject, so thank you all for taking to time to explain this shiat, I know more because of you. I have a question though. Above Crosshair states that;
The many words theory is largely a contrived scenario by Atheists to get around the observed fine tuning of the physical constants and quantities of the universe for any life at all to exist. Atheists are in a tight spot, since they must find an natural/materialist alternative to design to explain the fine tuning, chance or physical necessity can't explain the observed fine tuning.

Is there observed fine tuning? This is the first I've heard of that concept being observed. Even if there is fine tuning, why does that pose a problem for atheists? The Kardashev scale (don't really know if people think this is bs or not) says a Type III civilization could harness the power from an entire galaxy (hinting at galactic manipulation). Couldn't the atheist just as soon assume a type three or higher civilization did the "fine tuning" a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, or for that matter from a different universe altogether, just as the theists blame God? Or Maybe I just need to read more about this shiat before I start asking possibly dumb questions.