Re: Why are laws of physics stable?

[Bruce Kellett]

On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 2:21 PM smitra  wrote:

> On 02-07-2021 03:50, Bruce Kellett wrote:
> > On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 4:02 AM smitra  wrote:
> >
>
> >>
> >> This definition only works when you replace the real physical world
> >> by an approximation obtained by taking an appropriate infinite scaling
> >> limit that allows decoherence to involve an infinite number of
> >> degrees of freedom.
> >
> > This is not true. You can have decoherence with the involvement of
> > only a very small number of environmental degrees of freedom. The
> > buckyball experiments show precisely this -- it only takes the escape
> > of one or two IR photons of an appropriate wavelength to cause
> > complete decoherence and the destruction of interference.
>
> You are then considering the reduced density matrix by tracing out some
> of the degrees of freedom, in this case the IR photons. That's an ad-hoc
> way of defining the reduced system, not much better than interpreting
> part of a superposition as a world.
>


No, I am not tracing out anything. I am looking at whether an interference
pattern is formed or not. I don't have to detect the IR photons in order
for the interference to be destroyed.

>> You can do this by e.g. letting hbar tend to zero. While we
> >> as macroscopic observers are in some sense close to this limit, the
> >> world we actually live in only has a finite number of physical
> >> degrees of freedom in a finite volume. And locality implies that in a
> finite
> >> time after some experiment, only a finite volume can be physically
> >> affected by the experiments, therefore the decoherence is in reality
> >> nothing more than an entanglement with a finite number of
> >> environmental degrees of freedom.
> >
> > The important point to notice is that decoherence always involves the
> > escape of IR photons at the speed of light. These are never
> > recoverable, so the laws of physics ensure that the decoherence is, in
> > general, irreversible. You have to take extreme  care in very
> > controlled settings to have things reversible. And if they are
> > reversible, there can be no permanent environmental record of the
> > result of the experiment, so one could reasonably say that no
> > measurement has been made.
>
> It's implausible that escaping IR photons should be relevant for the
> question of what an observer is, what observations are etc.


How is it implausible? It is the inevitable existence of the IR photons
that ensures that the measurement process is irreversible. It is the
formation of permanent (irreversible) records in the environment that
determines the existence of a measurement. If no such records are made then
no measurement has been made.

How can it matter whether or not very far away all IR photons are captured
> and
> billions of years later the entire original state is restored?
>

Irreversibility means that this is not physically possible. The escaping
photons can never be restored with the correct phases.

>> The exact physical state of the system plus environment therefore
> >> does not become a mixed state. The fact that one cannot demonstrate that
> >> the state after measuring a superposition is still a superposition using
> >> an interference experiment does not mean that it isn't a superposition.
> >> The observer itself has become entangled with the measured system, which
> >> is the real reason why the observer cannot even in principle detect the
> >> superposition.
> >
> > No. The real reason is that decoherence, and the recording of a
> > result, is irreversible.
>
> These things are not irreversible in principle, only FAPP.


Says you. The laws of physics, principally the limitation of the speed of
light, means that the state cannot be restored, even in principle.

Decoherence
> only involves a finite number of degrees of freedom and can therefore be
> simulated by a large quantum computer. Observers implemented virtually
> in a  quantum computer can perform measurements, the system will
> decohere, but the entire setup can then be such that the original state
> gets restored. How can it matter for the measurements that much later
> the original state gets restored?
>


The trouble with this standard quantum computer response is that if no
permanent record of the result is made, no measurement has been performed.
And permanent records are, in principle, irreversible.


And in case of our real universe, how can it be relevant that time
> evolution is really irreversible? What if the universe is closed and
> will end up evolving back in time according to exact time reversal
> invariance in 10^40 years.  How can that be relevant for measuring a
> spin here and now?
>

This is just a fairy story. The universe is, in fact, open. Even if it were
closed, it would never evolve back in time.


>> The practical obstacle that the massive entanglement
> >> involves an astronomically large number of degrees of freedom is of
> >> course also true, but this cannot be physically relevant.
> 

Re: Why are laws of physics stable?

[smitra]

On 02-07-2021 03:50, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 4:02 AM smitra  wrote:


On 01-07-2021 02:04, Bruce Kellett wrote:


Worlds have to be carefully defined. According to decoherence

theory

(which is also a consequence of the linearity of the Schrodinger
equation), decohered worlds are truly separate and do not

recombine.

Non-decohered elements of a superposition do not constitute

separate

worlds.


This definition only works when you replace the real physical world
by
an approximation obtained by taking an appropriate infinite scaling
limit that allows decoherence to involve an infinite number of
degrees
of freedom.


This is not true. You can have decoherence with the involvement of
only a very small number of environmental degrees of freedom. The
buckyball experiments show precisely this -- it only takes the escape
of one or two IR photons of an appropriate wavelength to cause
complete decoherence and the destruction of interference.


You are then considering the reduced density matrix by tracing out some 
of the degrees of freedom, in this case the IR photons. That's an ad-hoc 
way of defining the reduced system, not much better than interpreting 
part of a superposition as a world.





You can do this by e.g. letting hbar tend to zero. While we
as macroscopic observers are in some sense close to this limit, the
world we actually live in only has a finite number of physical
degrees
of freedom in a finite volume. And locality implies that in a finite

time after some experiment, only a finite volume can be physically
affected by the experiments, therefore the decoherence is in reality

nothing more than an entanglement with a finite number of
environmental
degrees of freedom.


The important point to notice is that decoherence always involves the
escape of IR photons at the speed of light. These are never
recoverable, so the laws of physics ensure that the decoherence is, in
general, irreversible. You have to take extreme  care in very
controlled settings to have things reversible. And if they are
reversible, there can be no permanent environmental record of the
result of the experiment, so one could reasonably say that no
measurement has been made.


It's implausible that escaping IR photons should be relevant for the 
question of what an observer is, what observations are etc. How can it 
matter whether or not very far away all IR photons are captured and 
billions of years later the entire original state is restored?





The exact physical state of the system plus environment therefore
does
not become a mixed state. The fact that one cannot demonstrate that
the
state after measuring a superposition is still a superposition using
an
interference experiment does not mean that it isn't a superposition.
The
observer itself has become entangled with the measured system, which
is
the real reason why the observer cannot even in principle detect the

superposition.


No. The real reason is that decoherence, and the recording of a
result, is irreversible.


These things are not irreversible in principle, only FAPP. Decoherence 
only involves a finite number of degrees of freedom and can therefore be 
simulated by a large quantum computer. Observers implemented virtually 
in a  quantum computer can perform measurements, the system will 
decohere, but the entire setup can then be such that the original state 
gets restored. How can it matter for the measurements that much later 
the original state gets restored?


And in case of our real universe, how can it be relevant that time 
evolution is really irreversible? What if the universe is closed and 
will end up evolving back in time according to exact time reversal 
invariance in 10^40 years.  How can that be relevant for measuring a 
spin here and now?



The practical obstacle that the massive entanglement
involves an astronomically large number of degrees of freedom is of
course also true, but this cannot be physically relevant.


Of course the irreversibility, even without involving a large number
of degrees of freedom, is physically relevant. Whereas, the presumed
persistence of the superposition in the mythical "universal wave
function" is, indeed, physically irrelevant.


So, if you measure the z-component of a spin polarized in the
x-direction and I'm not aware of the measurement result, then my
mind
will not have been entangled with the measurement result (you can
also
put me outside your light cone for argument's sake).


That does not always work -- consider entanglement and Bell pairs.
Locality is not always true.


Locality in the sense needed here is always valid, it's not violated in 
Bell-type experiments. In those experiments you have to create an 
entangled pair using local interactions and then bring those some 
distant away from each other. But then then what is demonstrated in such 
experiments is that local hidden variables don't exist in general. So, 
we can then make use of the fact that when you measure the 

Different Physical Laws in Each Universe

[Samiya Illias]

فَقَضَاهُنَّ سَبْعَ سَمَاوَاتٍ فِي يَوْمَيْنِ وَأَوْحَىٰ فِي كُلِّ سَمَاءٍ
أَمْرَهَا ۚ وَزَيَّنَّا السَّمَاءَ الدُّنْيَا بِمَصَابِيحَ وَحِفْظًا ۚ
ذَ‌ٰلِكَ تَقْدِيرُ الْعَزِيزِ الْعَلِيمِ

[Al-Qur’an Chapter 41:12, Translator: Sahih International] And He completed
them as seven heavens within two days and inspired in each heaven its
command. And We adorned the nearest heaven with lamps and as protection.
That is the determination of the Exalted in Might, the Knowing.

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Re: Why are laws of physics stable?

[Bruce Kellett]

On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 4:02 AM smitra  wrote:

> On 01-07-2021 02:04, Bruce Kellett wrote:
> >
> > Worlds have to be carefully defined. According to decoherence theory
> > (which is also a consequence of the linearity of the Schrodinger
> > equation), decohered worlds are truly separate and do not recombine.
> > Non-decohered elements of a superposition do not constitute separate
> > worlds.
>
>
> This definition only works when you replace the real physical world by
> an approximation obtained by taking an appropriate infinite scaling
> limit that allows decoherence to involve an infinite number of degrees
> of freedom.



This is not true. You can have decoherence with the involvement of only a
very small number of environmental degrees of freedom. The buckyball
experiments show precisely this -- it only takes the escape of one or two
IR photons of an appropriate wavelength to cause complete decoherence and
the destruction of interference.


You can do this by e.g. letting hbar tend to zero. While we
> as macroscopic observers are in some sense close to this limit, the
> world we actually live in only has a finite number of physical degrees
> of freedom in a finite volume. And locality implies that in a finite
> time after some experiment, only a finite volume can be physically
> affected by the experiments, therefore the decoherence is in reality
> nothing more than an entanglement with a finite number of environmental
> degrees of freedom.
>


The important point to notice is that decoherence always involves the
escape of IR photons at the speed of light. These are never recoverable, so
the laws of physics ensure that the decoherence is, in general,
irreversible. You have to take extreme  care in very controlled settings to
have things reversible. And if they are reversible, there can be no
permanent environmental record of the result of the experiment, so one
could reasonably say that no measurement has been made.


The exact physical state of the system plus environment therefore does
> not become a mixed state. The fact that one cannot demonstrate that the
> state after measuring a superposition is still a superposition using an
> interference experiment does not mean that it isn't a superposition. The
> observer itself has become entangled with the measured system, which is
> the real reason why the observer cannot even in principle detect the
> superposition.



No. The real reason is that decoherence, and the recording of a result, is
irreversible.

The practical obstacle that the massive entanglement
> involves an astronomically large number of degrees of freedom is of
> course also true, but this cannot be physically relevant.
>

Of course the irreversibility, even without involving a large number of
degrees of freedom, is physically relevant. Whereas, the presumed
persistence of the superposition in the mythical "universal wave function"
is, indeed, physically irrelevant.


So, if you measure the z-component of a spin polarized in the
> x-direction and I'm not aware of the measurement result, then my mind
> will not have been entangled with the measurement result (you can also
> put me outside your light cone for argument's sake).


That does not always work -- consider entanglement and Bell pairs. Locality
is not always true.

The spin entangled
> with you and a large but finite number of degrees of freedom will
> therefore be in a superposition. The fact that hidden variables don't
> exist means that it cannot be the case that you have made a definite
> observation that I'm unaware of.



Of course that can be the case. It is the formation of a permanent record
in the environment that is relevant to the existence of the measurement,
whether you are aware of the result or not. You can be entangled with the
spin-up state without being aware of it.

But obviously if I ask what you've
> measured I'll always get an answer that I can verify to be correct. So,
> the only way out of this problem is to assume that these suppositions
> after measurements exist as different worlds where different
> experimental outcomes have been found.
>


That conclusion does not follow.



> >
> > Not really. You can accept the Schrodinger equation as fundamental
> > without agreeing to MWI. The fact that you can't derive the Born rule
> > from the Schrodinger equation in a non-circular fashion is quite
> > telling. It means that the Schrodinger equation is more naturally seen
> > as a way of calculating the time evolution of probabilities. QM is a
> > probabilistic theory, so its fundamental laws give probabilities. And
> > probabilities are not worlds.
> >
> > Bruce
>
> Probabilities only become rigorously defined after an infinite number of
> measurements and cannot therefore be invoked to define real physical
> quantities.



I do not accept the frequentist definition of probability as the limit of
an infinite number of trials. If probability is a primitive (as in the
propensity interpretation), then 

Re: Why are laws of physics stable?

[Lawrence Crowell]

Think of a piece of music. There is a sequence of notes that occur in time 
and we perceive different sets of frequencies in time. Yet we are trained 
to think according to the Fourier logic that there is a time domain, where 
we hear no tones of different pitch, or there is the frequency domain where 
we would get all the tones and harmonics in "no time." Something is more 
general, and in a theory of overcomplete states the phase has structure for 
the symplectic group of dynamics and the Riemannian geometry of geodesic 
flow. These two have different algebraic structures.

We tend to think of the wave as having no measurable content, but in recent 
times experiments have showed wavy physics. The Cheshire cat experiment 
that delocalizes a wave so that charge and mass occurs "here"" and the spin 
occurs "there," clearly demonstrates the waveiness of quantum physics. The 
usual is a localization of quantum states, what we call collapse. The loss 
of quantum phase is a situation where t → it = ħ/kT and the phase with Lie 
algebraic properties has its complexity or information converted to a 
Jordan algebraic form. In this way we can have our cake and eat it too, or 
listen to a piece of music without it being a clash of various tones or 
conversely a dull endless monotone bass note. 

LC

On Thursday, July 1, 2021 at 4:13:14 PM UTC-5 Brent wrote:

>
>
> On 7/1/2021 12:22 PM, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 2:18 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <
> everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> * > The math says the wave function travels thru both slots. *
>>
>
> But when a single electron hits a photographic plate it doesn't produce a 
> vague smudge that a wave would, it produces a discreet spot. 
>
>
> First, why do you think a probability amplitude wave would not produce a 
> discreet spot?  Do you imagine it should produce smear werever it is 
> greater than 10% or 1% or what?  Second, in an actual experiment, it 
> doesn't produce a discreet spot.  On film it produces a cluster of silver 
> atoms.  And since an electron is a point particle, any spot at all is much 
> bigger than the electron.
>
>
> That's because the complex wave function, which contains the square root 
> of -1 in it,  is NOT an observable quantity, 
>
>
> Right, only the amplified and decohered effect of the probabilistic event 
> is observable.  That's why Bohr insisted that a classical world was 
> necessary in order that science be possible, since only classical 
> observables could be objectively agreed upon.
>
>
>
>
> only the square of the absolute value of it is, and even then only as a 
> probability. And that is exactly what you would expect things to be like if 
> when an electron encounters two slits everything in the universe splits, 
> including you the observer. In the instant after the universe is split into 
> 2 when an observer does not yet know which branch he is in, Born's rule 
> is the only one that produces the correct probabilities in Everett's 
> multiverse.
>
>
> It's actually the only rule that provides a probability measure on a 
> Hilbert space (Gleason's theorem).  But there's a disconnect between the 
> mechanism of decoherence and the assignment of probabilities to different 
> worlds, as Bruce has pointed out.  There has to be a separate axiom that 
> says there is this splitting into worlds that is probabilistic.  
> Self-locating uncertainty was invented to explain this, but it seems 
> incoherent in that it supposes there is some "self" that could be here or 
> there, independent of the physical being which is both places.
>
> Brent
>
>
>
>> *> That happens in the same world and so the two paths produce 
>> interference patterns. *
>>
>
> True, the interference is only observable if the two worlds recombine 
> back into one.  
>  John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis 
> 
> n8va
>
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>  
> 
> .
>
>
>

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Re: ALCOR in the New York Times

[Tomasz Rola]

On Fri, Jul 02, 2021 at 12:09:39AM +0200, Tomasz Rola wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 01, 2021 at 11:43:30AM -0700, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
> wrote:
> > 
> > 
[...]
> > 
> > 4) It doesn't work very well, but your brain can be installed in a
> > robot to handle packages at the Amazon warehouse.
> 
> 4b) You will work in a helpdesk. For so long as they need English
> native speakers...

Jokes aside, while I have nothing against adults doing things to
themselves, especially when paid from their own pocket and not
touching other people, yet I still have some objections about
cryopreservation. Technical difficulties may one day be worked out, or
not. But the main problem as I see it is cultural change. Cryo, in my
opinion, will only work for the folks who can live well in any kind of
society. And I literally mean it. Cannibalism and zoophilia are two
things that come to my mind which could put me off. Well, a dog,
maybe, but a crocodile? Actually, neither a dog nor a croc. And I am
quite sure that over long enough period, everything will become a
cultural norm. I could think about other off putters, but the two
might be good enough for a start...

Above, I made an assumption that unfreezed human will be dominating
side of relationship. How about being partly consumed in exchange of
more prestige points and societal acceptance? How about being married
to upgraded alfa crocodile?

See? Only two small ideas. Now my brain is trembling.

Of course I am not going to deny it to other people who want to do
"the jump", if this is what they want. Chances are, they will make it
into a garden of earthly delights.

-- 
Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.  **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home**
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...  **
** **
** Tomasz Rola  mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.com **

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Re: ALCOR in the New York Times

[Tomasz Rola]

On Thu, Jul 01, 2021 at 11:43:30AM -0700, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
wrote:
> 
> 
> On 7/1/2021 8:19 AM, John Clark wrote:
> >Actually scientific andtechnological considerations are only
> >number 4 on my list of reasons why I think cryonics might not
> >work, my first three reasons are:
> >
> >1) I might not get frozen quickly after I am declared legally dead.
> >2) I might not be retained at liquid nitrogen temperatures until
> >the age of Drexler style nanomachines arrives.
> >3) Mr. Jupiter brain, or whoever's around at the time, might not
> >think I'm worth reviving; I am realistic enough to know that my
> >value to it will be almost zero, my hope is that it will not be
> >exactly Zero. I do have one thing going for me, in the age of
> >Nanotechnology everything could be put into one of two categories,
> >impossible to obtain at any price, or dirt cheap, nothing will be
> >expensive.
> 
> 4) It doesn't work very well, but your brain can be installed in a
> robot to handle packages at the Amazon warehouse.

4b) You will work in a helpdesk. For so long as they need English
native speakers...

-- 
Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.  **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home**
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...  **
** **
** Tomasz Rola  mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.com **

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Re: Why are laws of physics stable?

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 7/1/2021 12:22 PM, John Clark wrote:
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 2:18 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
> wrote:


/> The math says the wave function travels thru both slots. /


But when a single electron hits a photographic plate it doesn't 
produce a vague smudge that a wave would, it produces a discreet spot.


First, why do you think a probability amplitude wave would not produce a 
discreet spot?  Do you imagine it should produce smear werever it is 
greater than 10% or 1% or what?  Second, in an actual experiment, it 
doesn't produce a discreet spot.  On film it produces a cluster of 
silver atoms.  And since an electron is a point particle, any spot at 
all is much bigger than the electron.


That's because the complex wave function, which contains the square 
root of -1 in it, is NOT an observable quantity,


Right, only the amplified and decohered effect of the probabilistic 
event is observable.  That's why Bohr insisted that a classical world 
was necessary in order that science be possible, since only classical 
observables could be objectively agreed upon.




only the square of the absolute value of it is, and even then only as 
a probability. And that is exactly what you would expect things to be 
like if when an electron encounters two slits everything in the 
universe splits, including you the observer. In the instant after the 
universe is split into 2 when an observer does not yet know which 
branch he is in, Born's rule is the only one that produces the correct 
probabilities in Everett's multiverse.


It's actually the only rule that provides a probability measure on a 
Hilbert space (Gleason's theorem).  But there's a disconnect between the 
mechanism of decoherence and the assignment of probabilities to 
different worlds, as Bruce has pointed out.  There has to be a separate 
axiom that says there is this splitting into worlds that is 
probabilistic.  Self-locating uncertainty was invented to explain this, 
but it seems incoherent in that it supposes there is some "self" that 
could be here or there, independent of the physical being which is both 
places.


Brent



/> That happens in the same world and so the two paths produce
interference patterns.
/


True, the interference is only observable if the two worlds 
recombineback into one.
//John K Clark    See what's on my new list at Extropolis 


n8va

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Re: Why are laws of physics stable?

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 7/1/2021 12:34 PM, John Clark wrote:
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 2:03 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
> wrote:


/>>> It's more that a particle or a system of particles
exist in a single physical state, which is represented by
different components in our basis for the Hilbert space. /


>> To me that sounds like a basically correct but needlessly
convoluted euphemism for sayingthe universe splits. I mean…
How would things be different if instead ofthe "/a particle or
a system of particles exist in a single physical state, which
is represented by different components in our basis for the
Hilbert space/", the universe just split?  Seems to me that if
one thing needstwo "/different components in our basis for the
Hilbert space/" then you don't have 1 thing, you have 2 things.


> No, it's just like a representation of a vector.  It has an
x-component and y-component but it's one thing,


The electron's wave function may be just one thing but I'm far more 
interested in the electron than I am with its wave function. The 
electron is observable,


Actually it's not.  Only the decohered effect of an electron is ever 
observed, silver atoms on a film, click of detector.


the electron's wave function is not, and the wave function is not 
fundamental either, you can do quantum mechanics and not use 
Schrodinger's equation at all, matrix mechanics doesn't need it.


And you can use path-integrals too in which case the electron goes thru 
both slots and interferes with itself to produce the probabilistic 
interference pattern.



/> a Hilbert space can have countably many dimensions.  This
doesn't directly have anything to do with the world splitting. 
That comes from making a measurement. /


Exactly what I've been saying, you can't make a measurement without 
making a difference and you can't make a difference without splitting 
the universe.


Which is why the universe splits when the electron interacts a silver 
halide molecule at a spot on the screen...not when it goes thru both slots.


Brent



John K Clark    See what's on my new list at Extropolis 


pwe2


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Re: Why are laws of physics stable?

[John Clark]

On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 2:03 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <
everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:

*>>> It's more that a particle or a system of particles exist in a single
>>> physical state, which is represented by different components in our basis
>>> for the Hilbert space. *
>>
>>
> >> To me that sounds like a basically correct but needlessly convoluted
>> euphemism for saying the universe splits. I mean… How would things be
>> different if instead of the "*a particle or a system of particles exist
>> in a single physical state, which is represented by different components in
>> our basis for the Hilbert space*", the universe just split?  Seems to me
>> that if one thing needs two "*different components in our basis for the
>> Hilbert space*" then you don't have 1 thing, you have 2 things.
>
>
> > No, it's just like a representation of a vector.  It has an x-component
> and y-component but it's one thing,


The electron's wave function may be just one thing but I'm far more
interested in the electron than I am with its wave function. The electron
is observable, the electron's wave function is not, and the wave function
is not fundamental either, you can do quantum mechanics and not use
Schrodinger's equation at all, matrix mechanics doesn't need it.


> *> a Hilbert space can have countably many dimensions.  This doesn't
> directly have anything to do with the world splitting.  That comes from
> making a measurement. *
>

Exactly what I've been saying,  you can't make a measurement without making
a difference and you can't make a difference without splitting the universe
.

  John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis

pwe2

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Re: Why are laws of physics stable?

[John Clark]

On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 2:18 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <
everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:

* > The math says the wave function travels thru both slots. *
>

But when a single electron hits a photographic plate it doesn't produce a
vague smudge that a wave would, it produces a discreet spot. That's because
the complex wave function, which contains the square root of -1 in it,  is
NOT an observable quantity, only the square of the absolute value of it is,
and even then only as a probability. And that is exactly what you would
expect things to be like if when an electron encounters two slits
everything in the universe splits, including you the observer. In the
instant after the universe is split into 2 when an observer does not yet
know which branch he is in, Born's rule is the only one that produces the
correct probabilities in Everett's multiverse.


> *> That happens in the same world and so the two paths produce
> interference patterns.*
>

True, the interference is only observable if the two worlds recombine back
into one.
 John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis

n8va

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Re: ALCOR in the New York Times

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 7/1/2021 8:19 AM, John Clark wrote:
Actually scientific andtechnological considerations are only number 4 
on my list of reasons why I think cryonics might not work, my first 
three reasons are:


1) I might not get frozen quickly after I am declared legally dead.
2) I might not be retained at liquid nitrogen temperatures until the 
age of Drexler style nanomachines arrives.
3) Mr. Jupiter brain, or whoever's around at the time, might not think 
I'm worth reviving; I am realistic enough to know that my value to it 
will be almost zero, my hope is that it will not be exactly Zero. I do 
have one thing going for me, in the age of Nanotechnology everything 
could be put into one of two categories, impossible to obtain at any 
price, or dirt cheap, nothing will be expensive.


4) It doesn't work very well, but your brain can be installed in a robot 
to handle packages at the Amazon warehouse.


Brent

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Re: Why are laws of physics stable?

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 7/1/2021 6:47 AM, John Clark wrote:
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 8:19 AM Bruce Kellett > wrote:


/> In the two slit experiment the two paths are different./


Yes, and that's why there are two universes, thereis a difference 
between them. As Sesame Street says, one of these things is not like 
the other.


/> How, then, are they the same so that they can interfere?/


When the photon in both universes hits a photographic plate, or a 
brick wall, they are destroyed in both universes and thus there's no 
longer any difference between the two universes, so it would be silly 
to say there are still two of them. There once was a difference 
between them but there no longer is, however a memory of that 
difference remainsin the single newly emerged universein the form 
of evidence the photon went through slot A and also evidence the 
photon went through slot B. And the word we used to describe that sort 
of thing is "interference". And if you removed the photographic plate, 
or the brick wall, and just let the photons travel out into infinite 
space after they pass the slots then there is of course no 
interference detected because the two universes never become the same 
again and thus never merged back together.


I have a question for you, if the mathematics says a photon COULD 
travel through slot A and a photon COULD travel through slot B why do 
you insist that the mathematics does not really mean what it says so 
the photon doesn't "really" travel through slot A  and only "really" 
travels through slot B? I think anything not forbidden by the laws of 
physics is mandatory, and I am aware of no experimental results to 
indicate I'm wrong about that.


The math says the wave function travels thru both slots.  That happens 
in the same world and so the two paths produce interference patterns.


Brent



John K Clark    See what's on my new list at Extropolis 



tnq

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Re: Why are laws of physics stable?

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

To split the worlds the difference must be that the state vector 
projects onto two (or more) orthogonal subspaces which correspond to the 
different possible values of the measurement.


Brent

On 7/1/2021 4:55 AM, John Clark wrote:
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 7:38 AM Bruce Kellett > wrote:


 "superposition" is just a word that means a
collection of particles that exist in very different
physical states at exactly the same time, in other
words it's a word that people like to use when they
just don't want to say that the universe has split. 
In Many Worlds if the mathematics says that 2 things
could happen then 2 things do happen. Usually when a
universe splits the two never recombine again, that's
why we usually don't see weird quantum effects in our
everyday lives, and that's why making a Quantum
Computer is hard. But If the difference between
universes is very very small


/>>>That seems a bit arbitrary. Exactly how is this "very
very small difference" quantified?/


>> Exactly what is the definition of "quantified" and exactly
what does that question mean?


> /Don't play silly bugger games. You know perfectly well what I
mean. /


*And you know perfectly well what the difference is between**"the 
same" and "different "!* Or at least I think you do. I learned the 
difference sometime ago by watching Sesame Street,


One of these things is not like the other 



John K Clark    See what's on my new list at Extropolis 



qba



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Re: Why are laws of physics stable?

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 7/1/2021 4:20 AM, John Clark wrote:
On Wed, Jun 30, 2021 at 5:55 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
> wrote:


>> "superposition" is just a word that means a collection of
particles that exist in very different physical states at
exactly the same time,


/> It's more that a particle or a system of particles exist in a
single physical state, which is represented by different
components in our basis for the Hilbert space. /


To me that sounds like a basically correct but needlessly convoluted 
euphemism for sayingthe universe splits. I mean… How would things be 
different if instead ofthe "/a particle or a system of particles exist 
in a single physical state, which is represented by different 
components in our basis for the Hilbert space/", the universe just 
split?  Seems to me that if one thing needstwo "/different components 
in our basis for the Hilbert space/" then you don't have 1 thing, you 
have 2 things.


No, it's just like a representation of a vector.  It has an x-component 
and y-component but it's one thing, and if you choose a coordinate basis 
aligned with it, it would only have, say an x'-component.  And of course 
a Hilbert space can have countably many dimensions.  This doesn't 
directly have anything to do with the world splitting.  That comes from 
making a measurement.  It enters indirectly into measurements because in 
general we can't make a measurement along that x' direction, in which 
case we'd just get probability=1 that the vector is along x'.  Instead 
our instruments may only measure in the x,y axes and so with some 
probability we get either x or y and that's where Everettians say the 
world splits.


Brent
John K Clark    See what's on my new list at Extropolis 


o06
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Re: Why are laws of physics stable?

[smitra]

On 01-07-2021 02:04, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 2:29 AM smitra  wrote:


On 29-06-2021 01:46, Bruce Kellett wrote:


I think John's trouble here is that he still adheres to David
Deutsch's concept of worlds. Deutch talks as though every

component of

a superposition is a separate world. This leaves Deutsch no

language

to talk about decohered worlds, pointer states, and all the other
usual apparatus of quantum interpretations. The trouble with

taking

every component of a superposition as a separate world is that in
Hilbert space  (as in any vector space) you can define an infinite
number of different sets of basis vectors, so any vector in the

space

is represented by an infinity of different worlds, and there is no

way

to distinguish between these.

I think Bruno has flirted with this idea as well. Deutsch, through

his

popular writings, has done an immense amount of harm to the cause

of

quantum interpretations.

Bruce






There ids a large body of rigorous work in this field, it's not that
you
have just a handful of advocates who are defending  the MWI based on

dodgy nonrigorous arguments. Of course, you can't just take nay
component of a superposition as a separate world.


But that is precisely what people like John, Deutsch, and Bruno do.


But given that Worlds
do exist


A world exists. That is all that we can be sure of.


and given that time evolution is given as a linear operator, it
follows that if QM is a fundamental theory that also describes
observers, that you inevitably end up with superpositions of entire
Worlds.


Worlds have to be carefully defined. According to decoherence theory
(which is also a consequence of the linearity of the Schrodinger
equation), decohered worlds are truly separate and do not recombine.
Non-decohered elements of a superposition do not constitute separate
worlds.



This definition only works when you replace the real physical world by 
an approximation obtained by taking an appropriate infinite scaling 
limit that allows decoherence to involve an infinite number of degrees 
of freedom. You can do this by e.g. letting hbar tend to zero. While we 
as macroscopic observers are in some sense close to this limit, the 
world we actually live in only has a finite number of physical degrees 
of freedom in a finite volume. And locality implies that in a finite 
time after some experiment, only a finite volume can be physically 
affected by the experiments, therefore the decoherence is in reality 
nothing more than an entanglement with a finite number of environmental 
degrees of freedom.


The exact physical state of the system plus environment therefore does 
not become a mixed state. The fact that one cannot demonstrate that the 
state after measuring a superposition is still a superposition using an 
interference experiment does not mean that it isn't a superposition. The 
observer itself has become entangled with the measured system, which is 
the real reason why the observer cannot even in principle detect the 
superposition. The practical obstacle that the massive entanglement 
involves an astronomically large number of degrees of freedom is of 
course also true, but this cannot be physically relevant.


So, if you measure the z-component of a spin polarized in the 
x-direction and I'm not aware of the measurement result, then my mind 
will not have been entangled with the measurement result (you can also 
put me outside your light cone for argument's sake). The spin entangled 
with you and a large but finite number of degrees of freedom will 
therefore be in a superposition. The fact that hidden variables don't 
exist means that it cannot be the case that you have made a definite 
observation that I'm unaware of. But obviously if I ask what you've 
measured I'll always get an answer that I can verify to be correct. So, 
the only way out of this problem is to assume that these suppositions 
after measurements exist as different worlds where different 
experimental outcomes have been found.








This conclusion does not depend on any assumptions of how observers
should be defined rigorously, how experiments and ultimately
observations arise out of the physics. These issues that are not yet

100% solved, are totally irrelevant provided QM is indeed a
fundamental
theory.

It's not any different from someone claiming that conservation of
momentum may not be true. How do we convince this person that it is
true? We can appeal to fundamental laws of physics and argue on the
basis of symmetries, Noether's theorem and then say that this
rigorously
establishes conservation of momentum. But the skeptic can then take
issue with the assumption  about the validity of the fundamental
laws,
he will insist that it's still possible for momentum to get lost. If
he
does an experiment involving many particles, then he'll say that
unless
you measure the momentum of each particle to infinite accuracy, you
can't really tell that momentum is conserved. 

Re: ALCOR in the New York Times

[John Clark]

On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 9:13 AM Lawrence Crowell <
goldenfieldquaterni...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
*> I think this is a modern version of entombment with ideas of
> resurrection. We might think of it as similar to what the Egyptians
> thought.*


In a way yes, but the Egyptian's relied on magic for the process to work
and the basic difference between magic and science is one of them works and
the other one doesn't. And the Egyptian's carefully preserved every part of
the body as best they could EXCEPT for the brain, they didn't even try to
preserve the brain, they just yanked it out of the skull with an iron hook
pushed up the nose and threw the brain away. I think we can do a little
better than that these days.

*> **Cryogenic preservation works best with small organisms. *
>

Yes.

*> This is in part because ice crystallization occurs at a lower ratio to
> body mass. Single cells, sperm, ovum or even fetuses at very early stages
> can be preserved. This low rate of differential crystallization reflect how
> the freezing occurs very quickly. *
>

Absolutely true. There are advantages in being a tardigrade, or a fetus.
The most impressive demonstration of this that I know of is  a report of
nematode worms being frozen for two weeks at -80 degrees centigrade, and
the worms not only survived they retained a memory too.

Persistence of Long-Term Memory in Vitrified and Revived Caenorhabditis
elegans 


> > If there is any way to make this scheme work it will require some field
> effect or something that is able to localize the thermal motion of every
> atom and molecule almost instantly at once and the thermal energy rapidly
> extracted.
>

First of all it's almost certain that the brain information would not need
to be preserved with atomic precision, even molecular precision would
probably be overkill, cellular precision would probably be sufficient, and
we already know single cells can be frozen with little or no damage. The
difference between being alive and being dead is putting cells in the right
place.  And actually rewarming is a greater problem than freezing because
during freezing if a piece of a cell breaks off it won't be able to diffuse
very far away because the liquid environment will soon freeze, so you can
figure out where it came from, but with rewarming the environment will turn
from solid to liquid so that piece could end up anywhere. With freezing the
damage automatically stops when things become solid, and there are no time
constraints so we can leave the problem of rewarming and repairing the
damage that has occurred to future technology. Or at least we can provided
the brain information has not been so scrambled that even Nanotechnology
can't unscramble it, and that could happen if turbulence sets in.

So the key question is "will the micro-currents in my brain be in a
turbulent state when it is in the process of being frozen or will the flow
be laminar?". If it's turbulent then very small changes in initial
conditions will result in large changes in outcome and I'm dead meat, even
nanotechnology couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again; but if the
flow is laminar figuring out what things were like before they were frozen
would be pretty straightforward.

Fluid flow stops being smoothly Laminar and starts to become chaotically
turbulent when a system has a Reynolds number between 2300 and 4000,
although you might get some non chaotic vortices if it is bigger than 30.
When chaotic turbulence starts a very small change in initial conditions
will result in a huge difference in outcome and that is exactly what we
want to avoid because we want to be able to figure out what the brain was
like before it was frozen.

We can find the approximate Reynolds number by using the formula LDV/N.  L
is the characteristic size we're interested in, we're interested in cells
so L is about 10^-6 meter. D is the density of water, 10^3 kilograms/cubic
meter.  V is the velocity of the flow, during freezing it's probably less
than 10^-3 meters per second but let's be conservative, I'll give you 3
orders of magnitude and call V 1 meter per second.  N is the viscosity of
water and at room temperature N is 0.001 newton-second/meter^2, it would be
less than that when things get cold and even less when water is mixed with
glycerol as it is in cryonics but let's be conservative again and ignore
those factors. If you plug these numbers into the formula you get a
Reynolds number of about 1. 1 is a lot less than 2300 so it looks like any
mixing caused by freezing would probably be laminar not turbulent, so you
can still deduce the position where things are were from the position of
where things are now, you can figure out how the parts of the puzzle are
supposed to fit together.

> > These people in liquid nitrogen bottles are not much more than
> high-tech mummies that are completely dead.
>

Maybe. Maybe not. Cryonics is an unproven technology and it will remain

Re: Why are laws of physics stable?

[John Clark]

On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 8:19 AM Bruce Kellett  wrote:

*> In the two slit experiment the two paths are different.*
>

Yes, and that's why there are two universes, there is a difference between
them. As Sesame Street says, one of these things is not like the other.

* > How, then, are they the same so that they can interfere?*
>

When the photon in both universes hits a photographic plate, or a brick
wall, they are destroyed in both universes and thus there's no longer any
difference between the two universes, so it would be silly to say there are
still two of them. There once was a difference between them but there no
longer is, however a memory of that difference remains in the single newly
emerged universe in the form of evidence the photon went through slot A and
also evidence the photon went through slot B. And the word we used to
describe that sort of thing is "interference". And if you removed the
photographic plate, or the brick wall, and just let the photons travel out
into infinite space after they pass the slots then there is of course no
interference detected because the two universes never become the same again
and thus never merged back together.

I have a question for you, if the mathematics says a photon COULD travel
through slot A and a photon COULD travel through slot B why do you insist
that the mathematics does not really mean what it says so the photon
doesn't "really" travel through slot A  and only "really" travels through
slot B? I think anything not forbidden by the laws of physics is mandatory,
and I am aware of no experimental results to indicate I'm wrong about that.

John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis


tnq

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Re: ALCOR in the New York Times

[Lawrence Crowell]

I think this is a modern version of entombment with ideas of resurrection. 
We might think of it as similar to what the Egyptians thought. The 
preservation of bodies as mummies meant they could reassume life at a later 
time and join the pantheon of gods. In this case it is a far more complete 
preservation of a body, but at a cost (those pyramids and tomb cities cost 
a lot too), with the idea they can be reconstructed by technological means 
in the future. 

Cryogenic preservation works best with small organisms. This is in part 
because ice crystallization occurs at a lower ratio to body mass. Single 
cells, sperm, ovum or even fetuses at very early stages can be preserved. 
This low rate of differential crystallization reflect how the freezing 
occurs very quickly. With a human body, that has a fairly high temperature 
at the time of death, will take considerable time to  freeze, leading to 
lots of local crystal formation. If there is any way to make this scheme 
work it will require some field effect or something that is able to 
localize the thermal motion of every atom and molecule almost instantly at 
once and the thermal energy rapidly extracted. 

These people in liquid nitrogen bottles are not much more than high-tech 
mummies that are completely dead.

LC
On Sunday, June 27, 2021 at 9:07:59 AM UTC-5 johnk...@gmail.com wrote:

> The following article about ALCOR was on the front page of today's New 
> York Times: 
>
> The Cryonics Industry Would Like to Give You the Past Year, and Many More, 
> Back 
> 
>
> It's a pretty good article except for a picture that to my eye makes Max 
> More look like Marlon Brando in the Godfather, and I've seen Max and he 
> doesn't look like that.
> ===
>
> *The Cryonics Industry Would Like to Give You the Past Year, and Many 
> More, Back*
>
> *The business of cryopreservation — storing bodies at deep freeze until 
> well into the future — got a whole lot more complicated during the 
> pandemic.*
>
> *By Peter Wilson*
> *June 26, 2021*
>
> When an 87-year-old Californian man was wheeled into an operating room 
> just outside Phoenix last year, the pandemic was at its height and medical 
> protocols were being upended across the country.
>
> A case like his would normally have required 14 or more bags of fluids to 
> be pumped into him, but now that posed a problem.
>
> Had he been infected with the coronavirus, tiny aerosol droplets could 
> have escaped and infected staff, so the operating team had adopted new 
> procedures that reduced the effectiveness of the treatment but used fewer 
> liquids.
>
> It was an elaborate workaround, especially considering the patient had 
> been declared legally dead more than a day earlier.He had arrived in the 
> operating room of Alcor Life Extension Foundation — located in an 
> industrial park near the airport in Scottsdale, Ariz. — packed in dry ice 
> and ready to be “cryopreserved,” or stored at deep-freeze temperatures, in 
> the hope that one day, perhaps decades or centuries from now, he could be 
> brought back to life.
>
> As it turns out, the pandemic that has affected billions of lives around 
> the world has also had an impact on the nonliving.
>
> From Moscow to Phoenix and from China to rural Australia, the major 
> players in the business of preserving bodies at extremely low temperatures 
> say the pandemic has brought new stresses to an industry that has long 
> faced skepticism or outright hostility from medical and legal 
> establishments that have dismissed it as quack science or fraud .In some 
> cases, Covid-19 precautions have limited the parts of the body that can be 
> pumped full of protective chemicals to curb the damage caused by freezing.
>
> Alcor, which has been in business since 1972, adopted new rules in its 
> operating room last year that restricted the application of its 
> medical-grade antifreeze solution to only the patient’s brain, leaving 
> everything below the neck unprotected.
>
> In the case of the Californian man, things were even worse because he had 
> died without completing the normal legal and financial arrangements with 
> Alcor, so no standby team had been on hand for his death. By the time he 
> arrived at Alcor’s facility, too much time had elapsed for the team to be 
> able to successfully circulate the protective chemicals, even to the brain.
>
> That meant that when the patient was eventually sealed into a sleeping bag 
> and stored in a large thermos-like aluminum vat filled with liquid nitrogen 
> that cooled it to minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 196 Celsius), ice 
> crystals formed between the cells of his body, poking countless holes in 
> cell membranes.
>
> Max More, the 57-year-old former president of Alcor, said that the damage 
> caused by this patient’s “straight freeze” could probably still be repaired 
> by future scientists, 

Re: Why are laws of physics stable?

[Lawrence Crowell]

On Wednesday, June 30, 2021 at 6:24:32 PM UTC-5 Bruce wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 7:13 AM Lawrence Crowell  
> wrote:
>
>> On Tuesday, June 29, 2021 at 5:24:06 PM UTC-5 Bruce wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, Jun 30, 2021 at 4:50 AM Lawrence Crowell <
>>> goldenfield...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
 The argument is a bit difficult, but the dS vacuum has positive energy 
 and there is some probability of it tunneling to a lower value.
>>>
>>>
>>> In order for this to be possible, there must be some  "landscape" of 
>>> possible values for the vacuum energy. There is no evidence for any such 
>>> thing. The data are best described by a cosmological constant -- that is, a 
>>> fixed constant function. In order for there to be some "landscape", or some 
>>> lower possible value for the vacuum energy, there must be some function 
>>> that describes this. That would require a dynamical origin for vacuum 
>>> energy, and be the opposite of a simple constant. 
>>>
>>> Any theory that goes in this direction is necessarily unevidenced 
>>> speculation, no matter how arcane the mathematics might be.
>>>
>>
>> It is tied to inflationary cosmology, which has some empirical support.
>>
>
>
> Eternal inflation is not a generic prediction of inflationary cosmology. 
> It all depends on the inflaton potential. The best fits to the cosmological 
> data come from slow roll potential models with finely adjusted parameters. 
> These do no give eternal inflation.
>

Eternal inflation is just field locality and the tunneling of the inflaton 
field to a new configuration that propagates in a region bounded by null 
geodesics. Non-eternal inflation is trickier in that the inflaton tunnels 
into a lower energy configuration globally.
 

>
> It does give predictions on the CMB and ΛCDM, which has a fair amount of 
>> empirical support. The B-modes for gravitational waves induced by inflation 
>> seemed a good bet back in 2015, but the problem is that polarization from 
>> galactic dust leaves a similar signature. So the data fell from 6-sigma to 
>> 3-sigma. The situation though is improving. It is turning into a very 
>> difficult signal processing issue.
>>
>
> Whether inflation occurred or not is not the issue. The problem is with 
> the assumption that inflation is eternal.
>
>
Eternal inflation is less problematic to assume than to assume the inflaton 
field quantum tunnels globally on the de Sitter (like) manifold of 
inflation.
 

>
> Inflationary cosmology implies the sort of multi-cosmogony or multiverse 
>> (I never liked that term) model. If B-modes are found this will gives some 
>> support for that. In that case we will have some data to support work on 
>> different vacua for cosmogonies.
>>
>
> The question of multiple vacua is like that of eternal inflation. It all 
> depends on the inflaton potential, and we have no direct way of determining 
> that.
>

This is complicated, but the sum over all fields in an inflationary bubble 
may not necessarily be equivalent and this reflects different physical 
vacuum configurations for the inflaton scalar field. How this works in the 
swampland setting is less clear. The landscape requires an AdS vacuum, and 
we of course are not in that sort of spacetime.  Inflationary bubbles occur 
on a de Sitter vacuum and how the huge diversity of vacuum configurations 
in string/M-theory work in this picture is not at all clear. As I have 
said, the local spacetime between two near colliding black holes is AdS_4 
and this in a BPS bound will define string/M-theory fields. This means 
string theory may have something to do with vertex functions for quantum 
black holes and how they generate gravitons. However, this has a weak or 
nonexistent connection with the spectrum of elementary particles. So there 
are a lot of open questions here. 

It is a bit to get stringy people to think my way, and they are reluctant. 
However, the weak connection to the spectrum of elementary particles may 
have to do with black holes. Arkani-Hamed wrote an interesting paper on how 
the Kerr black hole has elementary particle properties. The vacuum 
configuration is such that the masses of elementary particles are very 
small compared to the the Planck mass. I think the gravitation coupling 
constant should be thought of as (m_h/m_p)^2 ~ 10^{-34}, and this value may 
be local. The mass of the Higgs particle may be tied to the mass of the 
inflaton and some general and as yet unknown theory of scalar fields. This 
may be some unified theory of phase transitions, which is a program in 
solid state physics.

In general though, to assume there is a single global configuration for the 
inflaton is more troubling. Now if we take the black hole AdS duality, and 
say that even outside the BPS bound of a black hole in the AdS, then maybe 
the nonlocality in the AdS confers a nonlocality to the scalar field. 
However, the CFT boundary is still local, and this is where we might expect 
scalar fields to live. in fact an 

Re: Why are laws of physics stable?

[Bruce Kellett]

On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 9:56 PM John Clark  wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 7:38 AM Bruce Kellett 
> wrote:
>
>   "superposition" is just a word that means a collection of particles
> that exist in very different physical states at exactly the same time, in
> other words it's a word that people like to use when they just don't want
> to say that the universe has split.  In Many Worlds if the mathematics 
> says
> that 2 things could happen then 2 things do happen. Usually when a 
> universe
> splits the two never recombine again, that's why we usually don't see 
> weird
> quantum effects in our everyday lives, and that's why making a Quantum
> Computer is hard. But If the difference between universes is very very 
> small
>

 *>>>That seems a bit arbitrary. Exactly how is this "very very small
 difference" quantified?*

>>>
>>> >> Exactly what is the definition of "quantified" and exactly what does
>>> that question mean?
>>>
>>
>> > *Don't play silly bugger games. You know perfectly well what I mean. *
>>
>
> *And you know perfectly well what the difference is between** "the same"
> and "different "!* Or at least I think you do. I learned the difference
> sometime ago by watching Sesame Street,
>

Maybe you would be better off watching some adult television!
In the two slit experiment the two paths are different. How, then, are they
the same so that they can interfere?

Bruce

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Re: Why are laws of physics stable?

[John Clark]

On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 7:38 AM Bruce Kellett  wrote:

  "superposition" is just a word that means a collection of particles
 that exist in very different physical states at exactly the same time, in
 other words it's a word that people like to use when they just don't want
 to say that the universe has split.  In Many Worlds if the mathematics says
 that 2 things could happen then 2 things do happen. Usually when a universe
 splits the two never recombine again, that's why we usually don't see weird
 quantum effects in our everyday lives, and that's why making a Quantum
 Computer is hard. But If the difference between universes is very very 
 small

>>>
>>> *>>>That seems a bit arbitrary. Exactly how is this "very very small
>>> difference" quantified?*
>>>
>>
>> >> Exactly what is the definition of "quantified" and exactly what does
>> that question mean?
>>
>
> > *Don't play silly bugger games. You know perfectly well what I mean. *
>

*And you know perfectly well what the difference is between** "the same"
and "different "!* Or at least I think you do. I learned the difference
sometime ago by watching Sesame Street,

One of these things is not like the other


 John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis


qba

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Re: Why are laws of physics stable?

[Bruce Kellett]

On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 9:04 PM John Clark  wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 30, 2021 at 7:48 PM Bruce Kellett 
> wrote:
>
>  >> "superposition" is just a word that means a collection of particles
>>> that exist in very different physical states at exactly the same time, in
>>> other words it's a word that people like to use when they just don't want
>>> to say that the universe has split.  In Many Worlds if the mathematics says
>>> that 2 things could happen then 2 things do happen. Usually when a universe
>>> splits the two never recombine again, that's why we usually don't see weird
>>> quantum effects in our everyday lives, and that's why making a Quantum
>>> Computer is hard. But If the difference between universes is very very small
>>>
>>
>> *>That seems a bit arbitrary. Exactly how is this "very very small
>> difference" quantified?*
>>
>
> Exactly what is the definition of "quantified" and exactly what does that
> question mean?
>


Don't play silly bugger games. You know perfectly well what I mean. Your
response indicates that you have no sensible answer to the question.

Bruce

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Re: Why are laws of physics stable?

[John Clark]

On Wed, Jun 30, 2021 at 5:55 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <
everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:

 >> "superposition" is just a word that means a collection of particles
>> that exist in very different physical states at exactly the same time,
>
>
> * > It's more that a particle or a system of particles exist in a single
> physical state, which is represented by different components in our basis
> for the Hilbert space. *
>

To me that sounds like a basically correct but needlessly convoluted
euphemism for saying the universe splits. I mean… How would things be
different if instead of the "*a particle or a system of particles exist in
a single physical state, which is represented by different components in
our basis for the Hilbert space*", the universe just split?  Seems to me
that if one thing needs two "*different components in our basis for the
Hilbert space*" then you don't have 1 thing, you have 2 things.
 John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis

o06

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Re: Why are laws of physics stable?

[John Clark]

On Wed, Jun 30, 2021 at 7:48 PM Bruce Kellett  wrote:

 >> "superposition" is just a word that means a collection of particles
>> that exist in very different physical states at exactly the same time, in
>> other words it's a word that people like to use when they just don't want
>> to say that the universe has split.  In Many Worlds if the mathematics says
>> that 2 things could happen then 2 things do happen. Usually when a universe
>> splits the two never recombine again, that's why we usually don't see weird
>> quantum effects in our everyday lives, and that's why making a Quantum
>> Computer is hard. But If the difference between universes is very very small
>>
>
> *>That seems a bit arbitrary. Exactly how is this "very very small
> difference" quantified?*
>

Exactly what is the definition of "quantified" and exactly what does that
question mean?

John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis

v4
wxs




>

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