On 09 Sep 2016, at 16:08, agrayson2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Friday, September 9, 2016 at 7:56:27 AM UTC-6, Alan Grayson wrote:
On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 7:46 AM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
wrote:
On 08 Sep 2016, at 21:43, agrayson2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Thursday, September 8, 2016 at 1:15:15 PM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal
wrote:
On 08 Sep 2016, at 18:22, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
On Thursday, September 8, 2016 at 7:53:23 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal
wrote:
On 07 Sep 2016, at 20:06, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, September 7, 2016 at 11:16:38 AM UTC-6, Bruno
Marchal wrote:
On 06 Sep 2016, at 17:42, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, September 6, 2016 at 4:38:53 AM UTC-6,
agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
I understand your pov. It has but one problem. You ignore the
elephant in the room; namely, those other worlds or universes
necessary for the outcomes not measured in this world to be
realized. But you have an out, stated in another post. They form
part of your imagination. Not good enough from my pov. AG
I should also add that the MWI sheds no light, AFAICT, on the
measurement problem; that is, why we get the outcome we get. As
far as collapse contradicting SR via the result of Bell
experiments, I am not sure about that conclusion. If FTL occurs,
it may be the case that in some frames Alice's measurement
occurs first, in other frames Bob's measurement occurs first. I
tend to think this muddies the waters on the issue of FLT
transmission and contradictions with relativity. AG
The "MWI" explains already a part of the mind-body problem when
formulated in the Digital Mechanist Frame. You don't need to even
know QM to understand the high plausibility of the "many-
computations".
If FTL occurs, and you keep both QM and SR, then an action in the
future can change the past, and physical causility becomes
meaningless. With mechanism, physical causality is not yet
guarantied, to be sure, but I would throw digital mechanism if it
could lead to future -> past physical action (it does not make
sense).
Ah, you wrote:
Possible correction: my remark about relativity might apply to
how events are seen from a frame moving FTL -- that is, a
breakdown in causality -- and might not apply to Alice/Bob
situation. AG
Well, OK, then. But it would apply if there were a collapse (in
one universe), even if Alice needs to send two bits of
information to transformed the effect (and send or get one qubit).
The "collapse" does not even refer to anything I can make sense
of. It looks like a continuous invocation of God. As an
explanation, it looks like a continuum of blasphemes (in the
theology of the universal machine).
Here's what collapse means to me; the wf evolves from a solution
of SWE, namely a superposition, to a delta function centered at
the measurement value. No one knows, or has a model how this
transformation occurs.It's in the category of a TBD, possibly
unknowable. It seems empirically based since repeated
measurements of the same system result in the same outcomes. I
don't necessarily believe in primary matter's existence. But its
statistical persistence seems undeniable, whereas the many worlds
has yet to manifest any persistence except in the minds of its
advocates. AG
The MWI is only the SWE taken literally.
Maybe that's the problem; taking a calculational tool too
seriously. AG
If an observer O observes a cat in the superposition d + a (dead +
alive),
But that never happens. The state of superposition exists, if it
does, when the box is closed, and ceases when the box is opened.
Then the SWE is wrong.
You beg the question by postulating that QM is wrong outside the
box, but there are no evidence for that, given that Everett showed
the consistency of QM-without-collapse with the facts, using the
simplest known antic theory of mind (mechanism)
The fact is the cat is dead OR alive when the box is opened, and
presumably alive before the box is closed. So all I am doing is
refuting your claim that any observer observes a superposition of
states. AG
In QM+collapse, which assumes that QM is wrong somewhere (but where?
No unanimity of collapse-defenders agree on this).
Without collapse, the cat is in the superposition state (dead
+alive), and when an observer look at the cat, he entangles itself
with the cat state, and the final state is O-a alive + O-d dead
(linearity of tensor product). Then by linearity of the SWE, O-a
lives a *phenomenological collapse" like if the cat was reduced to
"alive", and O-b lives a phenomenological like if the cat was
reduced to "dead", but in the 3p picture, no reduction ever occurred.
Bruno
Sorry, but what you write makes no sense. When you look at the cat,
presumably after box is opened, the cat is either alive or dead. You
may be entangled with it, but at that point in time there is no
superposition of alive and dead. AG
I don't see how you can apply the SWE to this problem. It's a
function of space and time and its solutions have nothing to do with
alive or dead. And if you can't do so, your analysis makes no sense.
AG
We usually judged if an animal is dead or alive by a (rough and macro)
analysis of the position of the atoms of its body.
If the cat lies down: it is dead. If the cat walks: it is alive. No
need to go beyond the space and time descriptions.
The quality dead and alive are sort of biophysical macro (in the
computer science sense).
The superposition of the decaying atom contaminates all particles
around and that contagion of superposition propagates to the whole
box, and beyond if the box leaked or is opened.
The propagation speed is subliminal (interaction-time).
With Everett theory, which is just Copenhagen theory minus a postulate
(collapse), we get back determinacy, locality, realism (although not
at the usual mundane level, which I admit can seem shocking).
My point, or result, is that IF we postulate Mechanism, an assumption
in the cognitive science, or in philosophy of mind, or in psychology,
or in theology, THEN we get Everett minus, yet again, a postulate: the
SWE itself. It *has to*became explained as providing the unique
measure for the first person plural emerging view on all computations
in elementary arithmetic, or combinator algebra (etc.). And this
works, in the sense that the modal, intensional, variant of self-
reference available to any "sufficiently rich" (Löbian, or Gödelian)
machine provides a quantum logic and a quantization on the states
accessible by a Universal Dovetailer (the sigma_1 arithmetical
reality, in logician's terms) relatively to itself.
That provides an utterly clear arithmetic interpretation of a theory
due to a neopythagorean of the first century of the C. era: Moderatus
of Gades, but also of the main Enneads of Plotinus.
And this 'machine's theology' contains physics, and so is testable.
The conception of matter becomes weird and quite counter-intuitive,
and without quantum mechanics, I would have judged it highly
unplausible. But both the theology of the universal machine, and the
verifiable measurable facts points toward a Platonist like theology.
The Enlightenment Period will be transformed when theology, the modest
and humble, and highly skeptical, science, will return at the faculty
of science where it was born. Until then we are still in the middle-
age like we can see by looking around us.
Bruno
Maybe you have a fundamental misunderstanding of Schrodinger's
Cat. AG
It is the measurement problem, and you talk like if the collapse
solves it, but then tell me precisely the range of QM.
I read de Broglie who suggested that entanglement would no more
operate at the distance of an atom diameter. People give criteria
for the collapse, but the experience refutes them. I share
Feynman's idea that the collapse is a collective hallucination, and
the math shows that if comp is true then that hallucination is
somehow necessary.
With computationalism we have to generalize Everett's embedding of
the physicist in the physical reality to the embedding of the
mathematician in arithmetic (which is actually what Gödel begun).
Mechanism explains both the origin of consciousness and the origin
of the appearance of matter, and this in a way enough precise so
that we can test it, and thanks to QM, mechanism is not (yet)
refuted, and is, I think, the only theory explaining consciousness,
including why it cannot be completely explained in any first person
convincing way (the so called hard problem, which is only the antic
mind-body problem after mechanism solved the "easy part" (AI)).
I do not defend any theory. You should not been able to guess what
I might believe true or not. Computationalism has an advantage in
philosophy, which is that it can rely on theoretical computer
science which is a branch of both mathematical logic and number
theory. It is a good lantern to search the key around, not more.
My main point is that we can study the highly non trivial relation
between machines' belief and diverse notion of truth they can
discover and guess. They got a theology closer to Plotinus (300
after C., neoplatonism) and Moderatus of Gades (neopythagoreanism,
2 centuries before Plotinus) than the materialist Aristotelians.
I say this being aware that some scientists still take the
Aristotelian metaphysics for granted, but of course science is just
beginning to be able to formulate the problem (which of Plato or
Aristotle is closer to reality). The discovery of the universal
machine/number is still a very recent event and few get really the
Church-Turing idea and their relation with Gödel's completeness and
incompleteness fundamental results.
I can suggest you some good books if you are interested. But if you
dislike Everett, it might take some work before liking the
consequences of the digital mechanist hypothesis. The bible is
Martin Davis "Undecidability", and its own introduction to
computability and logic (both published by Dover) is excellent if
you are enough mathematically minded.
Bruno
we know that, before interaction, the physical state is well
described by the expression O(a + d), with the tensor product
noted multiplicatively, and that it is equivalent with Oa + Od. So
even at this stage the "O" can be considered being in a
superposition state. That is what I called the linearity of the
tensor product. Now, by the linearity of the wave evolution we get
O-a a + O-b b, that is each branch behaves classically (P-i = O
with i in its memory. And both 0-a and O-b can repeat their
measurement, and the linearity of the wave evolution implies that
they will always find the same measurement result. So the MWI
explains the persistence as much well as classical physics, or QM
+collapse (if that means something precise).
My point is that at this stage, QM (without collapse) is
compatible with Mechanism (used implicitly above) only insofar as
the persistence is explained from a statistics on *all*
computations (which exist once you agree that 2+2=4 independently
of you and me).
My technical point is that this work in the sense that we can
derive quantum logic (and normally physics) from the logical
structure that the computations inherit from the logic of
(machine) self-reference.
That is elegant because at this stage the "theory of everything"
needs no less and no more than very elementary axioms (and
mechanism in the meta-background).
The only axiom that I use are the following:
0 ≠ (x + 1)
((x + 1) = (y + 1)) -> x = y
x = 0 v Ey(x = y + 1)
x + 0 = x
x + (y + 1) = (x + y) + 1
x * 0 = 0
x * (y + 1) = (x * y) + x
Actually I could even just use the two combinators axioms:
Kxy = x
Sxyz = xz(yz)
Such axioms are Turing complete, and you can prove the existence
of the UD from them (and *in* them if you add some induction
axioms, but I prefer to put them in the epistemology of the
observers).
The Turing-Church thesis rehabilit the neopythagorean theology,
and we get physics exactly when we use the antic definition of
knowledge and matter provided by them (notably by Moderatus of
Gades).
On the contrary, if primary matter or if physicalism would be
true, we remain with the task of explaining what is their role for
consciousness (or just first person experience).
Aristotle idea of naturalism or (weak) materialism (the existence
of a physical primary reality) has only been a tool for letting
the mind-body problem sleep a bit, and that has been a very
fertile simplifying hypothesis, but now, with mechanism, and
plausibly with only quantum mechanics, we get the (predicted by
the Platonist) problem of justifying the relation between first
person discourse and third person discourse. We can't use the
simple mind-brain identity theory, because we have an infinity of
quasi identical brains in arithmetic, and we can't use a selection
principle based on a substance without damaging the mechanist
hypothesis.
Keep in mind that my origianl goal is to solve the mind-body
problem, and with mechanism, we have no choice other than
justifying the appearance of physicalness from a statistic based
on the mix of "*all* computations + machine self-reference when
distributed in those computations. It works (till now). Non-
mechanism does not work, and it is well known that the mind-body
problem has been put under the rug since Aristotle (except by the
Platonists, who were just banned from our civilisation 1500 years
ago).
In Soccer terms: Plato 1, Aristotle 0. I don't pretend it is the
last match.
Bruno
Bruno
On Tuesday, September 6, 2016 at 2:23:39 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal
wrote:
On 05 Sep 2016, at 19:31, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
On Monday, September 5, 2016 at 8:08:12 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal
wrote:
On 04 Sep 2016, at 20:27, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
Bruno, thank you for a detailed response. Most of it is above
my pay grade, but I will check some of your links and see what
I can make of them.
OK.
As for the MWI, I have a simple approach. If I went to LV and
played a slot machine for a single trial or outcome, and
someone asked me what happened to the other thousands of
outcomes I didn't get, I'd think that would be a crazy question.
I mainly agree, because there is no unanimity on which
counterfactual or conditional non standard logic to use.
Isn't it really much simpler? Just because something *could*
exist, like those thousands of other outcomes of the slot
machine, doesn't mean they *must* exist. The MWI insists all
outcomes MUST exist. I see no necessity for that. AG
You need it to get the interference between the terms of the
wave. I agree with Deutsch: QM is the science of multiple
interfering histories. The collapse is an addition to avoid that
multiplication/differentiation consequence.
But that's the question some physicists ask when they are
confronted with the non-linearity of collapse in the
Copenhagen Interpretation.
I tend to disagree here. The quantum situation is different
because with quantum mechanics, different outcomes can
interfere and thus have some physical underpinning which is
hard to avoid, especially without assuming the collapse of the
wave.
How can you disagree? Many prominent physicists -- Greene,
Deutsch, Carroll -- when confronted with the non-linearity of
collapse, believe the MWI avoids or solves this problem. AG
?
I agree with them. MWI entails no-collapse, and the evolution is
purely linear. Just a "rotation" in the Hilbert space.
Accepting non linearity
There are work by Steinberg and Plaga which shows that if the
QM wave is slightly non linear, then we get the WW with a
revenge: interactions becomes possible in between terms of the
wave. This makes wrong special relativity, but also
thermodynamics, etc.
The wf before measurement is linear insofar as it satisfies a
linear DE, and relativity is well tested. So I don't see any
issue here. AG
OK, but then there is no collapse. We agree, then, only the
collapse leads to non-linearity.
So I guess you mean that there is a (non linear) collapse, and
that, strictly speaking the SWR is false.
SWR = ?
Why does a non-linear collapse falsify SR? AG
By Bell's violation, if there is a collapse, it affects elements
which are space-separated. Einstein explained this already at
the Solvay congress.
You introduce a duality between observer and observed, or
between macro and micro-physics. And, you assume non-mechanism
in cognitive science.
How can we test our models without the duality of observer and
observed? You demand the impossible.
Read the book by Hans Primas on the foundation of chemistery. It
explains well why Everett restores monism in the philosophy of
mind (but he missed this happens directly with Mechanism).
What "non mechanism" have I assumed? QM just gives us
probabilities. It's not a causal theory. AG
With the collapse.
That is lot of things for which we don't have evidence.
Cosmologists applies QM on very big object, like black holes,
if not the entire universe, and people trying to justify a
physical collapse get a lot of problem, like non-locality, to
cite the one Einstein disliked the most, and I share a bit that
opinion.
and actual time irreversibility (not FAPP) is an easier
concept to accept than the real or fictional other worlds
necessary to support the MWI.
Well, with mechanism, in all case (with or without QM) we get
the many histories/dreams/computations, and they exist like
natural numbers. We don't have to take the "worlds" as
primitive ontological reality. I tend to not really believe in
*any* world. Those belongs to the imagination of the relative
universal numbers, whose proof of existence can already be done
in elementary arithmetic.
Physics is about constructing and testing models of physical
reality, not about dreams.
Assuming there is a physical reality per se, but with Mechanism,
the physical reality is "only" a persistent statisticl illusion
emerging from all computational histories.
You can call the MWI a dream, but for me it's a nightmare. LOL.
AG
BTW, the time irreversibility is not FAPP since the collapsed
wf, when inserted back into the SWE, recovers only itself
exactly at an earlier time, but not the original wf which
collapsed. AG
Yes, OK. If there is such a collapse, but I don't see evidence.
If you measure a system repeatedly, you get the same
measurement. That's the evidence for collapse;
Not at all. That is what Everett explains in all details. You
don't need the collapse to explain, using only the SWE that in
each branch the observer feel like there has been a collapse,
using only a notion similar to the First Person Indeterminacy
that we have anyway in arithmetic.
that the system remains in the same eigenstate after
measurement, not in the original superposition. AG
Yes, with a collapse which is not explained, nor even well
defined, and which contradicts the SWE.
Computationalism and QM without collapse leads to immaterial
monism, which is nice as we don't have any evidence for primary
matter.
Bruno
I think it is human coquetry (grin). Nature loves to do things
in many exemplars, and elementary arithmetic loves that to.
Personal uniqueness is an illusion (provably so in the
mechanist theory of mind). The evidences are more on the side
of reversibility, and unitary evolution. But of course that
might be false, and is still an open problem in the
computationalist theory. But there too, we already got some
evidence for linearity and a core symmetrical physical structure.
Bruno
On Sunday, September 4, 2016 at 8:16:48 AM UTC-6, Bruno
Marchal wrote:
On 03 Sep 2016, at 21:02, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
On Friday, September 2, 2016 at 11:52:55 AM UTC-6, Alan
Grayson wrote:
On Fri, Sep 2, 2016 at 11:27 AM, <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Friday, September 2, 2016 at 11:07:09 AM UTC-6, Bruno
Marchal wrote:
On 31 Aug 2016, at 20:30, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 11:17:22 AM UTC-6, Bruno
Marchal wrote:
On 30 Aug 2016, at 18:23, Alan Grayson wrote:
On Friday, June 10, 2016 at 6:10:41 PM UTC-6, Bruce wrote:
On 11/06/2016 3:56 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> On 10 Jun 2016, at 03:02, Bruce Kellett wrote:
>> On 10/06/2016 1:41 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>> On 09 Jun 2016, at 01:28, Bruce Kellett wrote:
>>>> In other words, FPI is just the statement that Alice
and Bob have
>>>> to look to find out which of the (+,+'), (+,-'), (-,
+'), or (-,-')
>>>> worlds they are in. I don't think that actually adds
anything
>>>> significant to the discussion.
>>>
>>> That eliminates the physical spooky action at a
distance which are
>>> necessarily there in QM+collapse.
>>
>> You have yet to prove that -- assertion is not proof.
>
> By defining world by "closed for interaction", locality
follows from
> linearity.
Bruno, you specialize in these oracular pronouncements that
mean
absolutely nothing.
This is just insulting, and add nothing but confusion.
Avoid ad hominem patronizing tone and focus on what you do
not understand or disagree with.
"locality follows from linearity" -- what a load of
total nonsense.
OK, I was quick there, but I provided more details in *many*
other posts. Please read most of a thread, not just a a
sentence here and there and then adding to the prejudices.
To be slightly less short, and explain, I was talking in the
frame of the non collapse formulation of QM, and I was just
saying that without any collapse, the linearity of the
tensor product with the linearity of the SWE ensure that at
any time everything is local, even computable, in the global
third person picture.
Basically, "physical non locality" needs to put some amount
of 3p sense in the collapse of the wave, where in the MWI
(and in arithmetic) the indeterminacies and the non local
appearances are purely epistemic (first person or first
person plural).
> There are 1p statistical interference, but Bell's
inequality violation
> is accounted without FTL, which is not the case with
collapse, or
> Bohmian particules.
> I gave the proof with others, and eventually you admitted
that there
> was no real action at a distance. But with one world,
those are real
> action at a distance. So I think the point has been made.
There is no FTL mechanism in action in one world or many:
Bell
non-locality obeys the no-signalling theorem. You have to
get over
thinking that non-locality means FTL action.
Here's an article of interest. FWIW, I don't believe the no-
signalling theorem puts this issue
to rest. AG
In all the thread we (me and Bruce) were agreeing with this,
I haven't read every post in this thread, but from Bruce's
remark above, he apparently believes that you believe in FTL
transmission of information, and that since the no-signal
theorem denies that, your claim (or any claim of FTL
transmission) is falsified.
Guess what, you were completely wrong.
I was the one who denies the FTL.
My text may have confused you. I thought you went to the MWI
to deny FTL in this one-world. That's what I meant. But Bruce
seems to deny FTL in this world, by saying the phenomenon is
just a property of the wf, and in his appeal to the no-
signalling theorem; as if to say, if you can't send
information, there can't be FTL. But here "send information"
in the context of no-signalling theorem just means you can't
send a message of choice. AG
What does FPI stand for? TIA, AG
The article I posted denies that the apparent contradiction
between relativity and non locality can be resolved simply
by appealing to the non-signalling theorem, which Bruce
seems to assert.
I was the one asserting that with the MWI, even the Bell's
violation does not force FTL, even without signalling possible.
My point, shared by others in the thread, was that with the
MWI restores both 3p determinacy, and 3p locality. The point
of Clark and Bruce is that even with the MWI, Bell's
inequality violation proves that nature is 3p non local, and
that action at a distance exists.
I can only go by his words. So I don't see that the article
I posted is irrelevant to the discussion. AG
It was Bruce who claims that Bell's inequality violation
shows that FTL exists, even without possible signalling.
Then why does he tell you to "get over it", it being FTL? AG
Maybe he means that FTL exists in this world, so why resort
to the MWI to deny it. But then why does he bring up the no-
signalling theorem? AG
Hope I didn't offend any true believers in the MWI,
MWI is a theory. I have often explain, as a logician, that MWI
is not an interpretation but a different theory than
Copenhagen. MWI = wave-function postulate. Copenhagen-QM =
wave function postulate + collapse postulate. Of course both
have some problem of interpretation (like all theories). I
tend to not accept the notion of "physical world", and working
in arithmetic I use only the notion of computation. Indeed, my
result is that both the collapse of the wave and the wave
itself are universal number's First Person phenomenologies,
when we assume a form of Mechanist Hypothesis in cognitive
science. Mechanism makes physicalism wrong.
but in extensive discussions about this on another MB, none
of the true believers could give a coherent account of these
other worlds; for example, where the energy comes from,
Energy is a "one-world" notion, but anyway, I don't believe in
worlds, at least not until someone explains what they mean.
For me, it is a convenient fiction. With Mechanism, a world is
an extrapolation made by numbers sharing sheaves of
computation verifying some measure weight, and such measure
weighting must be explained through the logic of self-
reference. You might take a look at my papers, like this one:
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html
Or this one, if you can access it:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2013.03.014
and whether an observer in this world is reproduced in other
worlds, and if so, with what memories. The MWI seems like a
desperate attempt to avoid non-locality and/or non-linearity
of QM. AG
Well, it avois the non linearity of the collapse, and its
dualism. OK. But the "other worlds" are only a consequence of
the contagion of the superposition of the particle (say) to
the observer. If you look at a cat in the dead+alive state,
you end yourself looking at a dead cat + looking at a alive
cat. The given brain states are orthogonal and do not
interact, but can still interfere statistically. This list is
for people believing that "everything" is a simpler conceptual
notion than any particular thing, and so welcome both the MWI
in quantum physics, and the "many-computations" in
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.