On Monday, June 18, 2018 at 3:23:12 PM UTC, John Clark wrote: > > On Sun, Jun 17, 2018 at 9:54 PM, <[email protected] <javascript:>> > wrote: > > >> What about it, what is your theory of decoherence and how does it make >>> the CI less dumb? >> >> >> > *Not that I'm a great fan of decoherence theory, but it doest includes >> the apparatus, observer, and the rest of the environment in the measuring >> process.* > > > I know what quantum decoherence is but I've never heard of the term > "decoherence theory" before and I don't see how anyone can talk about > decoherence without referring to the rest of the environment. >
*This subject has been discussed on this MB with reference to the environment. Do you really expect me to rehash all the pros and cons of the theory or interpretation before I can reference it in any way? Odd that you complain about no reference to the environment when I did just THAT in my comment you are responding to. AG* > If X is the only thing in the universe or the only thing that’s important > then there is nothing X can become cohered or de-cohered from. > > *>>> I have always regarded Bell results as paradoxical, or if you prefer >>>> unintelligible,* >>> >>> > > >>It's not paradoxical because its not self contradictory and its not >>> unintelligible because the results are clear as a Bell (pun intended), they >>> are just very very odd. >> >> >> > *Do us all a favor and stop playing word games. * > > > Now you sound like Bruno. Do you really thing you can give words vague > ephemeral meanings and still do science? > *Well, Bruno is right at least about one thing; you're a bully. In this context, you insist on splitting hairs about specific definitions of words, when you know what I mean. AG * > > > *>What you call "odd", can easily been seen as paradoxical or >> unintelligible * > > > I don’t think we’re ever going to be able to figure out anything if the > meanings of words change at our whim from day to day. The reductio ad > absurdum proof is actually poorly named because it is not good enough to > show that a proposition will lead to something odd or even very odd to > prove that the proposition must be untrue, you’ve got to show it is > paradoxical, that is to say self contradictory. If Many World’s or the > Transactional Interpretation was true it would means some very odd things > were going on behind the scenes, but that doesn’t prove either of them is > untrue. In fact now that the Bell experiments have been performed one thing > we know for sure is that some very odd things ARE going on behind the > scenes, we’re just not sure exactly what they are. So if your explanation > is not very very odd it can’t be right. > *I'm not saying the explanation of copying can't be odd if it exists; rather, to make the case for the MWI, it's up to the advocates to offer some plausible proposals about the mechanism. But so far, in years of discussing this issue with advocates, I've never seen any proposal that has any teeth, or indeed any proposal whatsoever. AG* I don’t know what it would mean if Copenhagen turned out to be true because even those who say they believe in it can’t agree among themselves what exactly the Copenhagen Interpretation is saying other than “shut up and calculate”. *The advocates of the MWI more or less do the same. They're all over the map about the copying issue, role of branches, etc. AG * > > > *> insofar as it can't be understood in terms of how we perceive space, or >> spatial extent, and of course causality * > > > So to have any hope of understanding what’s going on we’re going to have > to abandon comfortable concepts like causality and the normal way we > perceive space and embrace something much stranger. > > >> Are you confusing plane waves with advanced waves? >> >> >> >*Definitely not. Plane waves don't exist except possibly in your >> imagination. AG* > > > To a good approximation a Laser produces plane waves, the electromagnetic > wave fronts form parallel planes, that’s why a Laser beam spreads out very > little with distance unlike a light bulb which produces a spherical wave. > But I don’t see what this has to do with quantum interpretation and I don’t > know of any physicists who thinks plane waves are more controversial than > spherical waves. > *Spherical waves exist. They start of out with a zero radius, which increases with time. Plane waves start out with infinite extent in every direction, so they don't exist. This isn't an issue for physicists since they haven't considered the subtle gap between mathematics and reality. I offered the example just to point out the fallacy or error in excessive reliance on mathematics, as you do wrt the Schroedinger equation and what it implies. AG * > -- 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 [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
