Re: subjective reality
-Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Thu, 1 Sep 2005 14:47:17 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality On 31 Aug 2005, at 17:52, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Brent MeekerWhy do you think YD is inconsistent with QM? [GK] Hi Brent, At this stage of the argument I feel like answering: because Bruno thinks so! [BM] Just to be clear: comp gives the comp-correct physics, and from what can be qualitatively and/or quantitatively already be derived, YD is inconsistent with SWE + collapse. I guess you mean QM = Copenhagen QM. [GK] As I stated before I believe it is not difficult to imagine a situation in which you can falsify, by a non-local quantum mechanical experiment the type of hypothesis that Bruno calls YD, meaning one scenario in which all your experience (by which I mean what I describe above) is, at some point in your life, replaced by a suitably programmed digital computer. [BM] But YD entails much stronger form of non-locality! As, a priori, YD entails very strong form of non-locality. Proof: see the UDA in my URL. [GK] What are you talking about!? Much stronger form of non-locality? By what measure? If that was the case than YD would be false by an even bigger measure!!! Bruno states that he actually knows this to be the case that is the reason I have not given myself the trouble to try and sharpen up the argument. But I am quite confident that this can be done with a bit of patience and the help of the many wonders of quantum states. [BM] No. If comp contradicts physics, it will be so by comp being much more non-local and much more non-deterministic (from the observers viewpoints). The mystery is that with comp physics could appears so much computational. Remember that if comp is true, whatever the physical universe appears to be it cannot be the output of a computation, nor can it be the result of a turing emulation other than a UD. Only the taking into account of incompleteness show that comp cannot be obviously false, as it could seem to be when you understand the hugeness of indeterminacy and non-locality it implies. [GK] But isn't your UD a turing emulation? Any hugeness of indeterminancy and non-locality would only show that it is obviously false! Only the exact amount of indeterminancy and non-locality would sugget that it may not be obviously wrong. Non-locality is a non-additive property, not a big pot from which you just take what you need!!! [BM] remember also that comp (and thus YD ) is not incompatible with my brain being a quantum computer. Reason: quantum computer are classically emulable. [GK] But that does not much help you either if your brain produces correlations that are other than EPR! Than it is NOT a quantum computer either!!! [BM] You should read the proof, I think you have not yet grasped the enunciation of the result. It is all normal given the novelty. What seems to me to be less normal is that you don't want to read it and still want to say something. Bruno [GK] I guess you are right. I think I am more confused about what you are saying than when we started this exchange. Godfrey Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: How did it all begin?
Hi Norman, Thanks for the kudos. I have to agree with you that Tegmark is not very convincing in his move to center his multiverse construction on inflation. Even if inflation has to be a quantum process I don't see the advantage of pinning it to a ManyWorld scenario since it is unlikely there were any observers there to split universes (;-). But he is fun to read and the pictures are always great! Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Norman Samish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 14:19:24 -0700 Subject: Re: How did it all begin? Hi Godfrey, Thanks for the ID. Now I know that Godfrey is one of the mind-stretchers on this list. I hope that Saibal will eventually tell us the reason(s) for Dishonorable Mention. I read Tegmark's paper too, where he seems to attribute the beginning of It to Inflation. But he didn't appear to address how, or why, Inflation got started. I guess his definition of It ends with our Big Bang. Thinking of Big Bangs, or anything else, as a logical process that occurs without causality isn't something I'm able to do. But I'll keep reading! Norman ~~ - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 9:04 AM Subject: Re: How did it all begin? Hi Saibal, Norman I did not mean to intervene but so that my name is not called in vain (:-) I would like to mention that, yes, I read Tegmark's paper and enjoyed it much though I could not help but notice that, though he promises, he never gets to Level IV (my favorite) on this paper, to my regret. I don't think that was the reason for the dishonorable mention, though! I surely wasn't heard about it.. As to whom am I? Still trying to find out... Regards, Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) ~~ -Original Message- From: Norman Samish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Saibal Mitra [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 15:57:54 -0700 Subject: Re: How did it all begin? This is a teaser. Why did Tegmark's paper receive Dishonorable Mention? Who is Godfrey? - Original Message - From: Saibal Mitra [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 6:14 AM Subject: How did it all begin? http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0508429 Tegmark's essay was not well received (perhaps Godfrey didn't like it? :-) ) Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi Russell Thanks for your lucid comments. Maybe you are a better advocate of Bruno's than Bruno himself... Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 09:30:07 +1000 Subject: Re: subjective reality [GK] Than read again! This is from a previous post of Bruno's: On 23 Aug 2005, at 16:44, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [GK] I believe that YD is incompatible with the whole formalism of QM which I don't quite think is simply reducible to Unitary Evolution plus Collapse, by the way. But if you put it that way, yes, it is the conjunction of both that does it (and entanglement, of course!) [BM] This I knew. The collapse is hardly compatible with comp (and thus YD). Even Bohm de Broglie theory, is incompatible with YD. [RS] All I see him saying here is that YD is incompatible with wavefunction collapse, and also with the Bohm interpretation. His UDA does point to the necessity of a Everett style Multiverse, which does not have collapse nor a Bohmian-style preferred branch. [GK] That would be fine if it was really what he is saying! But he insists that it is not out of the question that he can derive collapse from the same premises. My point is that you can't have it both ways. [GK] I am afraid that in Physics, at least, things don't work quite that way and I think you know that. New TOEs are proposed every other day and they are judged on the basis of their assumptions and claims before anybody bothers to look for counterexamples. Many of these theories are just poorly put together. [RS] That is indeed true. It is cheaper to look for inconsistencies in a theory that to perform experiments. Also, unbelievable founding propositions should be eliminated wherever possible. However, the claim (ontological reversal) I take as a sort of metaphysical principle, ultimately unprovable, but a guide as to how one thinks about the world. It has the same status as a belief in a concrete reality, or in Occam's razor. Its utility must be in its ability to form new scientific theories, rather than in its ability to predict fact. In my book, I point to a number of specific theoretical ideas in the theory of consciousness that are implied by ontological reversal that are currently controversial in cognitive science. The relationship between self-awareness and consciousness being one of them. If these specific ideas prove to be of little worth as our understanding of consciousness improves, then ontological reversal will either be dropped as being of little value, or else appropriately morphed to yield better theories. [GK] What you are here circumscribing with your careful prose is exactly the domain of philosophical speculation --- for which I have much regard but try not to confuse with that of scientific prediction. One of the most intriguing novelties which quantum mechanics has made possible is the settling of some specific items of speculation by empirical means, and the creation of what some people call experimental metaphysics. That was the case of the Bell-EPR experiments which showed that a good number of speculative departures from QM (local hidden-variable theories) are largely inviable. Clearly we do not know what the limits are to this type of approach but the parts of it that we already have settled should definitely bind our future speculation. I have not had a chance to check your book but, from the posts about it, I confess I am much intrigued about it. When I manage to go thru it I will try and give you some feed back along the same lines as I have done with Bruno. [RS] The assumptions of COMP are actually widely supposed to be true, hence the importance of Bruno's work. He demonstrates that under COMP, ontological reversal is necessary, and a belief in concrete reality false. Curiously, I am in a position where I don't believe COMP to be strictly true, but is perhaps an approximation of reality. I would be intrigued in generalization of the COMP argument. However, I find that the ontological reversal (or perhaps even ontological cycle with the AP) is metaphysically less extravagant than belief on concrete reality. Furthermore, the approach really does deliver most of physics as we know it today, as I argue in my book. I am sceptical that Bruno's approach of reducing knowledge to various modal logic structures will deliver much of substance, but at very least I can appreciate that it is a test of the theory. [GK] Now I am confused! So you do not believe Bruno's COMP=YD+CT+AP but you still believe it is a good enough approximation of reality to deliver most of physics as we know it today. Are you saying that, without assuming COMP you derive all of that physics? I guess I will have to read your book but a Yes/No answer would help me decide whether I want to read it at all... I would
Re: subjective reality
-Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 15:47:38 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality On 30 Aug 2005, at 18:01, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [GK] Just to show you I am not mean spirited may I make the following suggestive question: Could your argument be made on the basis of something not as drastic as YD, say a Turing Test type argument, which would not require you to take someone apart but just produce a convincing simulation?. Just a thought... [BM] Perhaps I should give you my original motivation. My deeper goal has always been to just explain that the mind-body problem has not been solved. In term of the mind body problem, what I have done can be seen as just a reduction of a problem into another. With the comp hyp, I have reduced the mind-body problem to the problem of explaining the appearance of the physical laws from arithmetic/computer science. For this YD is needed, if only to make palpable the relation with cognitive science. Then I interview the machine and YD is eliminated, although we should need to dig a little more in the technics for adding some nuances. [GK] That actually makes a bit more sense to me (surely more than your other response!) I think most people would grant you that the mind-body problem has not been solved. They would probably would also agree that 3 classes of solutions (at least) have been presented over the centuries, namely, (1) Physicalist solutions (there is no mind stuff!) (2) Pure Idealist solutions (there is no body-stuff=matter) and (3) Dualist varieties where both exist and you try to figure out how the two stuffs interact etc... It seems to me that your attempted solution is of type (2), Am I right? You do however invoke a favorite classical physicalist hypothesis in the form of YD and than you turn the tables on it, so to speak, no? I think that the YD motivation is the weakest link in your chain (a real Trojan horse because it is physically untenable) to so if you use just to demolish it later, why use it at all? Why not proceed to that interview directly? Can that be done and leave your argument intact? That would make it a lot more interesting in my opinion... Godfrey Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: Kaboom
Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 14:55:07 +0200 Subject: Re: Kaboom On 30 Aug 2005, at 18:55, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (GK, Godfrey) wrote: [BM] As Russell point out to Godfrey, it is important to distinguish sort of constructive physicalism a-la-Schmidhuber, where the physical universe is a computational object and comp where there is no physical universe at all. from this I can conclude you are not reading the posts (still less my papers), and you are fighting an idea you have build from comp. [GK] Since you referred me to John Preskill's delightful lectures on quantum computation I figured I may quote you a little jewel I found in there which, though obviously mistaken in terminology, is quite relevant to this point and others you have raised. About the Measurement Problem (chapt3, pg.50) Preskill points out that There are at least two schools of thought: Platonic: Physics describes reality. In quantum theory the wave function of the universe is a complete description of physical reality Positivist: Physics describes our perceptions. The wave function encodes our state of knowledge, and the task of quantum theory is to make the best possible predictions about the future, given our current state of knowledge. The he goes on to defend his choice of the first school: I believe in reality. My reason, I think, is a pragmatic one. As a physicist I seek the most economical model that explains what I perceive. etc... (you can read the rest...) Platonists and positivists would certainly scream at this description of their views but I think it shows is that even the staunchest defenders of the Everett interpretation think that by embracing it they are embracing reality by which they mean the Physical Reality that, you claim, does not exist ! To me this suggests again that you have a very crooked view of MWI if you think it supports you in any way... [BM] Of course, Everett still postulates EQM, and interpret it in a physicalist way. I have clear that I don't follow him in the sense that, once comp is assumed, my theorem shows that SWE is either redundant or false. Now I am a realist. reality is independent of me, but with comp it just cannot be physical, unless you redefined physical by observable, but then you need a theory of observation, which is what comp provides freely (with and without YD); and then the physical emerges logically from the number theoretical true relations. Bruno [GK] Here you lost me again! So you are convinced that QM even in the EQM format is false or redundant!? But yet you insist that its observable consequences can be derived from the same theory (theorem) that proves it false!!! Seems to me that by Preskill's terms you start out as a realist only to end up back in Copenhagen!! Is that it? Godfrey Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 13:08:16 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality On 30 Aug 2005, at 18:01, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [GK] Speculation for me is not a pejorative term, to begin with. Yes, there is a sense in which all theories are speculative but some have ceased to be purely so because either empirical or heuristic evidence was found in their favor. That is the sense in which they are no longer considered speculative. So QM, for example, is no longer called a speculative theory, though people do speculate a lot around it since it poses some serious intepretative problems. The Everett version of QM is either an interpretation of QM or a better theory (let us call it EQM) depending on whom you ask, and that is actually another item of speculation, btw. But the people who claim that EQM is a theory need to come up with feasible empirical tests for which EQM gives predictions distinct from QM. Until these tests are proposed and are performed EQM remains a speculative theory!! My view, as addressed to physicist, is the following. I make it simpler for reason of clarity. Copenhagen QM: SWE Unintelligible dualist theory of measurement/observation Everett QM: SWE comp theory of observation/cognition Your servitor: comp. The collapse is a speculation on a theory which does not exist, and which has been invented to make the (isolated, microscopic) superposition non contagious on the environment. So if you want make the distinction between speculation and hypothesis, I would say the collapse is far more speculative. [GK] You are probably right about this but I would say it differently: there is no Quantum Theory of collapse though something quite like that needs to occur to produce the classical world we know. Anything beyond this is... speculation either way! It is incorrect to say that EQM explains collapse because in EQM there is no collapse. It is also incorrect to say that EQM includes COMP for the reasons I already stated to you out of Preskill's lectures. [BM] The problem of comp is that machine cannot know if they are supported by any computations and it is up to Everett Deutsch etc. to explain why the quantum computations wins the observability conditions on the (well defined by Church Thesis) collection of all computations. This is not obvious at all and constitutes the first main result I got. [GK] This I don't quite follow. Sorry! How are conditions of observability defined by CT? [BM] For comp philosophers of mind (Alias theoretical cognitive scientists), the two main result I got can be seen as a correction of the old Lucas Penrose argument which try to refute comp by Godel's incompleteness. [GK] If I remember it right this is an argument that aims to show why a mathematician cannot be a digital computer. Does your correction make it a better argument? I take it you are saying that it is correct after all! [GK] From this I see only a couple of ways out: Either 1) your derivation leads you not to QM but to a better physical theory with testable empirical predictions that falsify those of QM, presumably including those that lead to the invalidation of YD. I would very much like to see that theory if you have it! [BM] On my web page you can find all the needed programs to run a theorem prover of that physics. With some time and training you could perhaps optimize it and ... refute or confirm comp (admitting quantum logic operates on nature). From what has been already derived, some non trivial quantum logical features did appeared. [GK] I take it that this means you are trying out the route I labelled (1) or that you think that is the way to go. I am not sure that quantum logic operates on nature because there isn't one but many quantum logics and I am not acquainted with one that reproduces the quantum formalism with all its quirks. But what you say above already denotes the use of some non-boolean logic from where I sit. 2) you actually prove (by non-QM means, I assume) that YD is empirically implementable [BM] This is nonsense. Better: with comp it is provably nonsense. (G G* confusion, for those who knows). It is a key point: if comp is true YD will never be proved to be implementable. (It is of the type Dt, or equivalently ~B~t, its truth makes it unprovable). [GK] So it is (1), I guess! [GK] and that would only require that you replace the experience of one human being (may I suggest yours?) by a digital computer version of the same. [BM] That is the act of faith needed for the comp practitionners. Recall that for many people such a question will be a weaker one at first, like should I accept an artificial hyppocampus instead of dying now. Well the real question will be: should I choose a mac, a pc, or what?
Re: subjective reality
-Original Message- From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 18:12:43 -0700 Subject: Re: subjective reality [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:01:42 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality On 29 Aug 2005, at 18:41, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You are also speculating in a narrower sense and that is where I have concentrated my objections, thus far. Though two of your premises (CT AR) seem quite legitimate to me because, though they remain conjectural, there is some heuristic evidence that favors them, there is one of them, YD, which is purely speculative. To make it precise this is the claim that one can replace the entire experience of a human being by that of a digital computer without prejudice to that experience. Though you seem ambivalent about how necessary this hypothesis is to your derivation of the *whole of physics* you cannot deny that you currently use it as an axiom! You seem also aware of the fact that QM invalidates this hypothesis, in other words, if QM is true physics than you cannot accomplish such replacement (which I assume might involve some physical interventions). YD is certainly speculative, but there is considerable evidence that human experience is an epiphenomena of brain activity - from which is follows that YD is possible. So far as I know there is nothing in QM that contradicts it. In fact Tegmark and others have shown that the operation of the human brain must be almost completely classical. So for YD to be inconsistent with physics it would have to inconsistent with classical physics. Why do you think YD is inconsistent with QM? Brent Meeker Hi Brent, At this stage of the argument I feel like answering: because Bruno thinks so! But you deserve a better answer. I don't quite think your statements above are quite accurate and one does not surely follow from the other. Human experience is surely NOT an epiphenomenon of brain activity though SOME of it very likely is. To me, at least human experience includes things like: we are born, we eat, we grow, we play, we work, we meet other people, we learn to dance, we drive cars, we get into accidents, we get sick, we go to war, we run into bullets, we get old, we forget, we die. It also includes things like, we are happy, we are sad, we pain, we dream, we crave, we wonder, we prove theorems. See what I mean? Are all these epiphenomena of barin activity? I don't think you can say that about the first set though I am sure you have experienced some of what I describe. About the second set you may be more convinced but I am sure you have heard the word intensionality associated to at least some of those. It reminds us that some of our so called mental states (brain configurations if you prefer have a certain directionality to them usually pointing to events that we take to be consensually external to us. So maybe you want to widen a bit your concept of 'human experience above. As I stated before I believe it is not difficult to imagine a situation in which you can falsify, by a non-local quantum mechanical experiment the type of hypothesis that Bruno calls YD, meaning one scenario in which all your experience (by which I mean what I describe above) is, at some point in your life, replaced by a suitably programmed digital computer. Bruno states that he actually knows this to be the case that is the reason I have not given myself the trouble to try and sharpen up the argument. But I am quite confident that this can be done with a bit of patience and the help of the many wonders of quantum states. As far as I can tell you are correct in that Classical Mechanics does not, a priori, forbid such operation if the brain is indeed a fully classical functional system and Tegmark's argument has obvious merit. On the other hand there may be other technical impediments to this avatar that we don't know about since we do not really know much about brain function and surely about how it really pins down human experience (in the narrow or wide sense). Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi Hal, Thanks for your clarifying comment. Yes I think that is the basis of my objection to Bruno and I am glad someone has gotten it! Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 14:20:00 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: subjective reality I wade into this dispute with trepidation, because I think it is for the most part incomprehensible. But I believe I see one place where there was a miscommunication and I hope to clear it up. Godfrey Kurtz wrote, to Bruno Marchal: You ARE doing something speculative whether you admit it or not! And I don't really have to study your argument because it is derived from premises that, you already admitted, are incompatible with the conclusions you claim. What is this incompatibility? I believe he means it to be the following. Bruno had written: This I knew. The collapse is hardly compatible with comp (and thus YD). Even Bohm de Broglie theory, is incompatible with YD. And yet, Bruno claims that his methods will lead to a derivation of physics, which as far as we know includes QM. Godfrey sees the previous quote from Bruno as indicating that his Yes Doctor starting point is *incompatible* with QM. This is the contradiction that he sees. I'll stop here and invite Godfrey to comment on whether this is the admission of incompatibility between premises and conclusions that he was referring to above. Hal Finney Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: How did it all begin?
Hi Saibal, Norman I did not mean to intervene but so that my name is not called in vain (:-) I would like to mention that, yes, I read Tegmark's paper and enjoyed it much though I could not help but notice that, though he promises, he never gets to Level IV (my favorite) on this paper, to my regret. I don't think that was the reason for the dishonorable mention, though! I surely wasn't heard about it.. As to whom am I? Still trying to find out... Regards, Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Norman Samish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Saibal Mitra [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 15:57:54 -0700 Subject: Re: How did it all begin? This is a teaser. Why did Tegmark's paper receive Dishonorable Mention? Who is Godfrey? - Original Message - From: Saibal Mitra [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 6:14 AM Subject: How did it all begin? http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0508429 Tegmark's essay was not well received (perhaps Godfrey didn't like it? :-) ) How did it all begin? Authors: Max Tegmark Comments: 6 pages, 6 figs, essay for 2005 Young Scholars Competition in honor of Charles Townes; received Dishonorable Mention How did it all begin? Although this question has undoubtedly lingered for as long as humans have walked the Earth, the answer still eludes us. Yet since my grandparents were born, scientists have been able to refine this question to a degree I find truly remarkable. In this brief essay, I describe some of my own past and ongoing work on this topic, centering on cosmological inflation. I focus on (1) observationally testing whether this picture is correct and (2) working out implications for the nature of physical reality (e.g., the global structure of spacetime, dark energy and our cosmic future, parallel universes and fundamental versus environmental physical laws). (2) clearly requires (1) to determine whether to believe the conclusions. I argue that (1) also requires (2), since it affects the probability calculations for inflation's observational predictions. Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi Russell, Still have not had a chance to look up your book but hope to do so shortly. Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:44:00 +1000 Subject: Re: subjective reality On Mon, Aug 29, 2005 at 12:41:23PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [GK] You ARE doing something speculative whether you admit it or not! And I don't really have to study your argument because it is derived from premises that, you already admitted, are incompatible with the conclusions you claim. [RS] I've never seen Bruno admit that! I've only seen you claim that, without proof. [GK] Than read again! This is from a previous post of Bruno's: On 23 Aug 2005, at 16:44, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [GK] I believe that YD is incompatible with the whole formalism of QM which I don't quite think is simply reducible to Unitary Evolution plus Collapse, by the way. But if you put it that way, yes, it is the conjunction of both that does it (and entanglement, of course!) [BM] This I knew. The collapse is hardly compatible with comp (and thus YD). Even Bohm de Broglie theory, is incompatible with YD. [GK] Since QM is generally believed to be a part of physics and Bruno claims to derive the whole of it from YD it seems that my statement is accurate. Now if his claim was that what he derives is not QM but QM without collapse that would be different but he seems to claim instead (Bruno, correct me if I am wrong) that QM without collapse or at least the Everett version of it was introduced to accommodate YD! This I find quite bizarre both as an historical claim or as something that would help his program since, if that were true, he would not have derived anything new! [GK] To claim that a TOE is physically complete you have to know ALL of Physics which is more than anyone in this world claims to know, least of all, me! So who am I to disagree? (;-) [RS] It is a claim, not a proof. Such a claim is readily falsifiable, by means of counterexamples when such are discovered. [GK] I am afraid that in Physics, at least, things don't work quite that way and I think you know that. New TOEs are proposed every other day and they are judged on the basis of their assumptions and claims before anybody bothers to look for counterexamples. Many of these theories are just poorly put together. I think there may be something of merit and interest in what Bruno is trying out (though my doubts are growing) and that is why I am engaging him. There are many ways of being wrong and some are more interesting than others. [GK] Now it appears to me that you are trying, at all costs (including logic), to save the remnants of the strong-AI thesis in some religious cultist form (The Grand Programmer-vision), thus your constant references to faith and theology. This, incidentally may be a better bet than actually doing science since there is better funding in the intelligent design camp these days, so maybe I wished you more luck than you need... Best regards, Godfrey [RS] Schmidhuber does the Great Programmer thing, not Marchal. And I suspect Schmidhuber is being tongue-in-cheek anyway. Marchal uses faith and theology in different ways to everyday use - he has technical meanings for these terms, to which the everyday meaning is but an approximation. [GK] Maybe you are right about that and maybe I have been unfair with his theotropic verbiage ; but don't you think there is already something weird about needing to cast technical meanings to those terms? What for? -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics 0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
-Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:01:42 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality On 29 Aug 2005, at 18:41, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [GK] You ARE doing something speculative whether you admit it or not! And I don't really have to study your argument because it is derived from premises that, you already admitted, are incompatible with the conclusions you claim. [BM] Please explain what you mean. I have never say I got conclusions incompatible with the premises. I would have concluded the negation of comp. I am open that such event could occur of course, and that is why I say my derivation shows that comp is testable. I try hard to understand what you miss in my posts (not my work!). We are not yet at the point of agreeing about what we are not agreeing upon. To be clear my derivation does not involve an atom of speculation. Perhaps you could tell me what is the object of my speculation, but I'm afraid you are only confusing hypothetico-deductive reasoning and speculation (in which case all theories are speculative: in that large sense I agree. Bruno [GK] Speculation for me is not a pejorative term, to begin with. Yes, there is a sense in which all theories are speculative but some have ceased to be purely so because either empirical or heuristic evidence was found in their favor. That is the sense in which they are no longer considered speculative. So QM, for example, is no longer called a speculative theory, though people do speculate a lot around it since it poses some serious intepretative problems. The Everett version of QM is either an interpretation of QM or a better theory (let us call it EQM) depending on whom you ask, and that is actually another item of speculation, btw. But the people who claim that EQM is a theory need to come up with feasible empirical tests for which EQM gives predictions distinct from QM. Until these tests are proposed and are performed EQM remains a speculative theory!! Now, you start with a number of what you call hypothesis (YD,CT,AR) from which you claim you can derive the *whole of physics*. Since I don't know what the *whole of physics* is but I think that QM is likely to be included in it since is the less speculative theory we have ever found I take your claim is that you either (1) derive QM as we know it or (2) derive a better theory than QM by which I understand some theory that makes all the same predictions that QM where QM makes right predictions and makes others that QM does not predict or predicts wrong. You are also speculating in a narrower sense and that is where I have concentrated my objections, thus far. Though two of your premises (CT AR) seem quite legitimate to me because, though they remain conjectural, there is some heuristic evidence that favors them, there is one of them, YD, which is purely speculative. To make it precise this is the claim that one can replace the entire experience of a human being by that of a digital computer without prejudice to that experience. Though you seem ambivalent about how necessary this hypothesis is to your derivation of the *whole of physics* you cannot deny that you currently use it as an axiom! You seem also aware of the fact that QM invalidates this hypothesis, in other words, if QM is true physics than you cannot accomplish such replacement (which I assume might involve some physical interventions). From this I see only a couple of ways out: Either 1) your derivation leads you not to QM but to a better physical theory with testable empirical predictions that falsify those of QM, presumably including those that lead to the invalidation of YD. I would very much like to see that theory if you have it! 2) you actually prove (by non-QM means, I assume) that YD is empirically implementable and that would only require that you replace the experience of one human being (may I suggest yours?) by a digital computer version of the same. (Of course you can always claim that it has already occurred, as you sometimes suggest and that is cute but just plain silly, too. ) Which is it? Just to show you I am not mean spirited may I make the following suggestive question: Could your argument be made on the basis of something not as drastic as YD, say a Turing Test type argument, which would not require you to take someone apart but just produce a convincing simulation?. Just a thought... Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: Kaboom
Bruno, I don't quite follow Colin's objections to your derivation but since you mention me here I have to point out that he clearly read a lot more of it than I ever did. So you are being unfair in comparing us in this. He also appears a lot more annoyed with you than I am... Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:21:03 +0200 Subject: Re: Kaboom On 30 Aug 2005, at 05:53, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [BM] As Russell point out to Godfrey, it is important to distinguish sort of constructive physicalism a-la-Schmidhuber, where the physical universe is a computational object and comp where there is no physical universe at all. from this I can conclude you are not reading the posts (still less my papers), and you are fighting an idea you have build from comp. [GK] Since you referred me to John Preskill's delightful lectures on quantum computation I figured I may quote you a little jewel I found in there which, though obviously mistaken in terminology, is quite relevant to this point and others you have raised. About the Measurement Problem (chapt3, pg.50) Preskill points out that There are at least two schools of thought: Platonic: Physics describes reality. In quantum theory the wave function of the universe is a complete description of physical reality Positivist: Physics describes our perceptions. The wave function encodes our state of knowledge, and the task of quantum theory is to make the best possible predictions about the future, given our current state of knowledge. The he goes on to defend his choice of the first school: I believe in reality. My reason, I think, is a pragmatic one. As a physicist I seek the most economical model that explains what I perceive. etc... (you can read the rest...) Platonists and positivists would certainly scream at this description of their views but I think it shows is that even the staunchest defenders of the Everett interpretation think that by embracing it they are embracing reality by which they mean the Physical Reality that, you claim, does not exist ! To me this suggests again that you have a very crooked view of MWI if you think it supports you in any way... Godfrey Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
-Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 14:31:08 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality [BM] I do think so. See Deutsch book which make clear that the MWI is based on comp. But it is explicit in Everett and in Wheeler assessment. From a strict logical point of view, ad hoc non comp theory of MWI can be built but it is really out of topic. [GK] That may be Deutsch's opinion (though, again, I doubt he says anything like that in his book) but I have read both Everett's thesis and both Wheeler's and DeWitt's defenses of it and in no way shape or form does anything like YD even figure in them!!! [BM] Literally, of course. YD is just a tools for explaining what it is to be like an Everett memory machine. It is implicit in reducing the quantum uncertainty to the ignorance of which branch we are in a superposition. Mathematically it can be justified by Gleason theorem or by Graham Hartle type of infinite frequency operator. See the Preskill's course on quantum computation which makes a nice summary. [GK] I don't quite know what you mean by an Everett memory machine neither could I find a definition (or a mention of it) in Preskill's lectures. If by this you mean something like a machine whose memory would track the successive branchings such thing is innimical to the Everett notion that all information contained in the universal wave function is relative and all probabilities are conditional. Otherwise all memory machines are either (1) classical and thus relativised to one branch or (2) quantal and permanently standing in a superposition of branches so that their memories would be as un situated as that of any other subject. As for your justification I will just quote Preskill on a piece of credo which is characteristic of Many-Worlders: My own view is that the Everett Interpretation of quantum theory provides a satisfying explanation of measurement and of the origin of randomness, but does not yet fully explain the quantum mechanical rules for computing probabilities. A full explanation should go beyond the frequency interpretation of probability --- ideally it would place the Bayesian view of probability on a secure objective foundation. Though this is highly disputable in itself I think it shows quite well where your statement above is mistaken. [GK] Let me understand this: your aim is to derive QM from an hypothesis which, you know, is contradicted by QM ?!!!? Wow! I have already answered. [GK] That is a Yes, than. [BM] The current aim is to derive SWE (by which I mean the correct geometrical-gravity extension of Schroedinger Wave Equation) from comp. I don't expect to derive anything like SWE + collapse (although this is not entirely excluded!). What I have already proved is that 1) if you make the move from SWE + collapse to SWE + comp, then from purely arithmetical reasons you are forced to go the the quite simpler theory comp. This is the result of the UDA reasoning and you are invited to criticize it: it presuppose some folk-psychology and some passive understanding of Church thesis. See the slide of my 2004 SANE paper for a presentation is eight steps. 2) I translate that reasoning into the language of a large class of universal machine and got more constructive description of the physics you need (by 1)) to derive from comp. This is technically more involved. It suppresses the need of the folk psychology. Bruno [GK] I decrypt the above as a statement that you are NOT trying to derive QM but a more general TOE, so that assuming YD is no different than say, assuming subplankian determinism like 't Hooft or Hiley do. I guess you need a lot more good luck than I first wished you! Because you referred me to Deutsch's book I too a look at his own defense of the Everett interpretation and was reminded also of his not so passive understanding of the CT. As it turns out his whole masterplan hinges on his belief that *CT is a result of Physics* so he is really no great help to you. Best regards, Godfrey Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
-Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 17:37:34 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality On 29 Aug 2005, at 16:40, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [GK] Because you referred me to Deutsch's book I too a look at his own defense of the Everett interpretation and was reminded also of his not so passive understanding of the CT. As it turns out his whole masterplan hinges on his belief that *CT is a result of Physics* so he is really no great help to you. [BM] Yes sure, it is the point where if you asks David how he can defend such a revisionist form of CT, he just say that he disagrees with 100% of the mathemaéticians. Actually Deutsch's position is interesting because it illustrates the point that once you take comp seriously enough, you are forced to physicalize the math, for not making math more fundamental than physics. [GK] I don't really agree with Deutsch on this, by the way... [BM] I prefer to follow Wheeler's view that the physical laws cannot be generated in any physical way. [GK] ...but I don't think this is correct about Wheeler either. Sure he talked a lot about if from bit but never developed into anything usable. The origin of the physical laws is an interesting philosophical problem on its own but, if your suggestion is that they can be derived from math alone is somewhat spurious because the laws of physics are already mathematical! The main problem is that the physical laws are only one part of the information you need to build observable physics. The other are the boundary conditions, the symmetry-breaking accidents and such which really don't have an obvious place in the Platonic world. [BM] As for the rest of the post you turn around the pot., and adopt a tone like if I was doing something speculative, and this just illustrates what you have already confessed: you don't have study the argument I have given. For example: [GK] You ARE doing something speculative whether you admit it or not! And I don't really have to study your argument because it is derived from premises that, you already admitted, are incompatible with the conclusions you claim. [GK] I decrypt the above as a statement that you are NOT trying to derive QM but a more general TOE [BM] This means you have not already grasped the main theorem in my work, although I have unsuccessfully try to give you the idea. I try one times again: The result is that there is only one TOE compatible with comp, and it is derivable from comp. That TOE is physically complete. To verify comp, just compare that TOE (already given) with QM (currently most believed physical theory) or compare directly with the physical facts. The tests already done confirm the quantum logical aspects of nature. [GK] To claim that a TOE is physically complete you have to know ALL of Physics which is more than anyone in this world claims to know, least of all, me! So who am I to disagree? (;-) [BM] Could you please stop trying to demolish theoretical works before grasping the enunciation of the main theorems? What is your goal? Bruno [GK] My goal was to try and understand whether there is a grain of anything interesting in what you claim you have done. Since you say above both that I have already grasped the main theorem and than demand that I grasp it before I demolish it I can only conclude that it is... self-demolishing! Now it appears to me that you are trying, at all costs (including logic), to save the remnants of the strong-AI thesis in some religious cultist form (The Grand Programmer-vision), thus your constant references to faith and theology. This, incidentally may be a better bet than actually doing science since there is better funding in the intelligent design camp these days, so maybe I wished you more luck than you need... Best regards, Godfrey Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi Serafino, I am not familiar with Rubin's papers but I know Clifton's and I think you are indeed right. Bell wrote the most enlightening observations about Everettiana and I think he correctly pin down that it is akin to a (contextual) hidden-variable interpretation when you try and extract any definite information from it. This is also clear from his famous Como Lectures MWI for Cosmologists. The myth of a Universal Distribution is just one square away from the myth of a Universal Wave Function seems to me. There is clearly a hint of something like that is all retractions from classical determinism (Bohm's Implicate Order is another one but less hooked on Universal notions). I will check out the paper by Zeh. Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: scerir [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Fri, 26 Aug 2005 08:17:06 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality Godfrey: I am not sure I can give you a decent answer to your query [...] There are papers by Mark Rubin showing (perhaps) that in the Schroedinger picture, information on splitting worlds must be inferred from *the history* of the combined system. While in the Heisenberg picture this information is contained in mathematical quantities associated with a single time. http://www.arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0310186 http://www.arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0209055 Rob Clifton in a paper on 'Phil. of Science' (circa 1996) appeals to the magic properties of the Schroedinger Unitary-evolving *Universal* Wave-function. (This approach seems to be similar to the concept of a global wave-function in Bohmian mechanics. John Bell pointed out a similarity between Bohmian mechanics and MWI, btw.) There are, imo, interesting ideas in the paper http://www.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0507051 by D. Zeh. Mainly about the 'dynamics' of entropy within a 'world' vs. the rest of the 'worlds'. Needlless to say, all that seems to have something to do with what Hal Finney wrote here recently, in search of a *consistent* universal distribution. Regards, s. Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com; Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Fri, 26 Aug 2005 16:53:41 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality Sorry for answering late, but I got some hardware problem. On 23 Aug 2005, at 16:44, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [GK] I believe that YD is incompatible with the whole formalism of QM which I don't quite think is simply reducible to Unitary Evolution plus Collapse, by the way. But if you put it that way, yes, it is the conjunction of both that does it (and entanglement, of course!) [BM] This I knew. The collapse is hardly compatible with comp (and thus YD). Even Bohm de Broglie theory, is incompatible with YD. [GK] I am afraid I don't understand what you mean by this! Are you saying that Everett based his interpretation of QM on the premise that YD is true? I strongly doubt that... [BM] I do think so. See Deutsch book which make clear that the MWI is based on comp. But it is explicit in Everett and in Wheeler assessment. From a strict logical point of view, ad hoc non comp theory of MWI can be built but it is really out of topic. [GK] That may be Deutsch's opinion (though, again, I doubt he says anything like that in his book) but I have read both Everett's thesis and both Wheeler's and DeWitt's defenses of it and in no way shape or form does anything like YD even figure in them!!! [GK] Plus I think much the same can be said about quantum immortality a few other Deutschian and Tiplerian notions that you take, let us just say, a little too much to the letter. The general idea is that one has to be extremely careful in the use of conventional terms in the quantum context because they may not even be definable... [BM] This is true for all context. Nevertheless my theory does not assume QM. My point is that QM must be derivable from comp in case comp is true (making comp completely testable). QM is NOT *assumed* in comp, indeed one of my goal is to explained where the laws of physics come from, so I should better not presuppose them. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ [GK] Let me understand this: your aim is to derive QM from an hypothesis which, you know, is contradicted by QM ?!!!? Wow! I only have two words for you Bruno: good luck! Best regards, Godfrey, Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi Hal, I am not sure I can give you much feed back on what you advance below because these go well beyond the little I understand about these questions of metaphysics. In general I think you can strech some of conventional definitions in order to find out where that gets you but if you try and strech all of them at once you risk not knowing what you are talking about anymore. I'll give it a shot but please forgive me where I can't really say much... Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Hal Ruhl [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wed, 24 Aug 2005 17:42:13 -0400 Subject: Re: subjective reality Hi Godfrey: At 03:10 PM 8/24/2005, you wrote: snip [GK] Hi Hal, My first comment was directed at your previous sentence which read something like: The list of course would have properties that seem incompatible as simultaneous properties of a single object, but nevertheless definitions create such objects as the is not member of the definitional pair. So the All is - in total - self incompatible, but so what? I thought, from it, that you meant to say that your Everything list contains contradictory attributions like X is a car and X is not a car for the same X. I obviously misunderstood you. [HR] The distinction is between existence and reality. While the whole list is taken as existing the assumption does not hold that every is and is not definable object can also have reality. I find it difficult to accept some combinations of X is ***... and X is not ***... as being simultaneous properties of the same object that can have reality or of any of its sub components but round square is perhaps not so unacceptable. For example in a discrete point universe where for one of its components half the applicable points are arranged square and half round this being a state in some sort of transition sequence of states wherein that component goes from being round to being square. Now when this particular state has reality in a sequence of such states does it not contain a round square? [GK] I see but again I caution you about the use of those words, reality and existence. I think the first one has been more in the province of physics and that is why Einstein gave himself the trouble of defining it as a metatheoretic term. Mathematicians, even the ones who are not ashamed of professing platonism, never actually give you a definition of their platonic reality , since they don't quite believe they can map the whole realm of platonic forms or don't even believe that can be done (as Godel insisted). They will however prove Existence and Non-Existence theorems about some of these objects that you can build from attributions such as your infamous round square (though I am not aware of any proof concerning this particular ontological thorn). I sympathize with the more liberal metaphysical point of view about what abstracta exist as defended, for example by Ed Zalta following Meinong and Mally (check is humorous Metaphysics Research Lab at Stanford: http://mally.stanford.edu/ ) though I don't agree with his view of mathematical objects in particular. So I would grant you a list of sorts even containing fictional objects such as the round-square if you exclude from it any reference to physical objects. I just don't know how useful something like that would be About your first assumption, as you restate above, I would venture to say that QM suggests that the existence of such list is very unlikely if by 'reality one understands physical reality as defined by EPR, that is, as composed by distinct elements bearing properties that are independent of the means of observation used to assign them to such objects. This is the gist of Einstein's famous question Is the moon there when nobody looks? and all that folklore. [HR] I am making a distinction between existence and reality. Reality is a transitory state that some definable objects can have. Further I think it is incorrect to try to exclusively argue from a very small sub set [sample] of the objects that can have reality - presumably the states of our universe - back to the system that embeds them. [GK] Again, those (states of our universe) are exactly the objects whose reality attribution is more problematic! I am not sure how to drive this point accross to you. There is a paper posted today in the phsyics arXiv that you may want to read as it is exactly on this subject: http://arXiv.org/quant-ph/0508183 [HR] If it turns out that quantum mechanics is part of the valid description of our universe [The issue is I believe an open one] then the embedding system should allow for that. This does not preclude other universes for which quantum mechanics is not part of the description. [GK] Well, I think it is hard to argue that QM is not a part of the valid description of our universe so I cannot agree with you above! All
Re: subjective reality
Hi Serafino, I am not sure I can give you a decent answer to your query since I am not an Everrettista myself and so a lot of their subtleties escape me. But I think they would probably remind you that they believe that superpositions only give way to more superpositions so that, after each measurement event there will be more branches added to each of the original two and you will find yourself on the one that is factored out by the successive series of eigenvalues you detect. What he will not tell you is why you find yourself on that particular one since they were all equiprobable to start with. If you insist they will say that quantum mechanics does not tell you that either, and than you will say: but regular QM does not introduce many branches! and your head will start spinning, etc... Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: scerir [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wed, 24 Aug 2005 23:38:05 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality Godfrey: 'MWI + Projection postulates should reproduce regular Copenhagenian QM since MWI is basically QM - Projection Postulates!' Imagine a superposition like this |'spin_z' +1 |'detector' +1 + |'spin_z' -1 |'detector' -1 It describes a superposition of spin up/down states, and the entagled (or relative) states of a detector. Now imagine a second - whatever, human? - device, to measure a specific observable of the above superposition. Let this observable be such that the ray generated by the above superposition state is an eigenspace of this observable, corresponding to a definite eigenvalue, the eigenvalue 'yes'. Since neither component of the above superposition state lies in the eigenspace of this observable, this observable fails to commute with the 'spin_z' observable, and fails to commute with the 'detector' observable. We can write (canonically) ... |'z-spin' +1 |'detector' +1 |yes + |'z-spin' -1 |'detector' -1 |yes In a MWI, a world should instantiate an eigenvalue for an observable if the superposition term associated with that world is an eigenstate of the observable corresponding to that eigenvalue. So, after the (second) measurement, what would an Everettista write? This one? |'z-spin' +1 |'detector' +1 |? = world A |'z-spin' -1 |'detector' -1 |? = world B (Since, in each world, the observable measured by the second - whatever, human? - device does not commute with the 'spin_z' observable, so it has no predeterminate value, that is to say that the outcome of the (second) measurement must occur by chance.) Or this one? |'z-spin' +1 |'detector' +1 |yes = world A |'z-spin' -1 |'detector' -1 |yes = world B (In this case the fact that the second device would later record the state |yes seems to be fixed ... in advance of the measurement itself. And this is magic. White Rabbit? What else?) Godfrey: 'I believe that YD is incompatible with the whole formalism of QM which I don't quite think is simply reducible to Unitary Evolution plus Collapse, by the way.' Maybe. s. [It is too late here, I cannot write more, and I cannot check the above :-)] Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi Russell, Thanks for the clarification on the White Rabbit issue. That is helpful. Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wed, 24 Aug 2005 13:27:19 +1000 Subject: Re: subjective reality On Tue, Aug 23, 2005 at 10:19:34AM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My argument is not based on the White Rabbit Problem since I don't even know what that is, in all honesty! From reading Brunos's popular account I gather it has something to do with the possibility of finding unruly or unexpected things once you believe the kind of theory he and, I guess you, profess. No? [RS] Another name for the White Rabbit problem is failure of induction. Basically, it is the possibility that any/all of our laws of science may suddenly stop being applicable. It bedevils most ensemble theories of everything. [GK] Oh! In that case I don't think my argument qualifies as a White Rabbit but you may think otherwise. I have set it up the other way around, that is, imagining a situation in which the laws (or consequences) of QM defeat the possibility of the substitution envisaged in the YD hypothesis. You can always appeal for an exemption from the laws of physics that would still make the process go and that would be a White Rabbit, I guess. But I don't think that qualifies as a loophole... There is a subtler style of argument involving the need for laws of nature altogether that occurs sometimes in QM and, blocks out an exit route from my argument which is referred to sometimes as the Demiurge Problem. Without meaning to disrespect your solutions, I think Quantum Mechanics produces a very good deal of White Rabbits on its own, and by this I mean predictions that thwart any of the everyday type of expectations you place on reality! [RS] That is not what is meant by White Rabbits. Predictions of QM are entirely lawlike even they're unexpected. [GK] Agreed (even if I would put the lawlike between quotes). [RS] Interestingly, someone pointed me at a paper by Esche the other day, arguing that alternative projection postulates are compatible with the MWI. The precise alternative projection postulate they supplied turns out to be riddled with white rabbits - which makes me speculate that the Born rule is precisely what you need to kill off all the white rabbits in the MWI. [GK] I can't say I follow you here. MWI + Projection postulates should reproduce regular Copenhagenian QM since MWI is basically QM - Projection Postulates! Now killing white rabbits with the Born rule!??? If that could be done, seems to me, would obviate all the need for MWI in the first place, no? The argument I believe I have is just a simple working out of the premise of YD till you get to a situation that our current knowledge of QM can defeat. I am sure there are many more that you can think up with a bit of reflection. No, I have a complete failure of imagination in this department. [RS] So it is time to put up or shut up Godfrey! If you have some genuine argument against the YD, let's hear it. Cheers [GK] As I stated before I don't react very well to that style of macho pressure in spite of my (clumsy) attempts to use it on Bruno! I'm hardly pressuring you, but it is very frustrating to be constantly told by you that you have an interesting point to make, without you ever making the point. This is not an email list for egotistical posturings - people come here to learn stuff. It is fine to post poorly thought out speculations, noone think any the less of you - other bright minds can quickly find the glaring flaws in these, and one learns something in the process, often including the very person demolishing an argument. Cheers [GK] I get your point and I do agree with you, somewhat. I am leaning towards sketching the argument even if not for Bruno's benefit any longer. Though it occurred to me as a fly in his ointment I think it may play a more constructive role in another dispute which I find interesting. I am much less certain about that last possibility and could certainly use your wits and those of the other member of the list in checking it out Please, bear with me for a little longer while I work this out in some communicable shape. Kindly, Godfrey A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics 0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi Hal, Just a minimal comment to what you state below. I erase a bit of the previous exchange. Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Hal Ruhl [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 10:33:45 -0400 Subject: Re: subjective reality Hi Godfrey At 01:09 PM 8/22/2005, you wrote: [HR] I do not derive YD, CT or AR. The model is based on a list of properties that objects can have. Definition divides this list into two sub lists. The Nothing has the sole property empty, the All has all the remaining properties. The list of course would have properties that seem incompatible as simultaneous properties of a single object, but nevertheless definitions create such objects as the is not member of the definitional pair. So the All is - in total - self incompatible, but so what? [GK] If I understand you correctly your List-of-Everything is pretty much like our own everything-list (;-)! So it contains YD, CT and AR and also their negations which makes it self-contradictory a priori and thus imprevious to any charges of contradiction and in all likelyhood beyond any argument that anyone may devise (since it obviously contains it too). (skipped) [HR] As to falsifiability of my model I will try to list my assumptions, etc.: 1) There exists a list [call it the Everything] of all possible properties of objects that can have reality. 2) The list is divided into two sub lists by the process of definition [definition forms a definitional [is:is not] pair]. 3) The definition resulting in the [Nothing:All] definitional pair is unavoidable and thus this pair has simultaneous existence with the list. It is then noted that the Nothing can not respond to any meaningful question about itself and there is such a question: Does it persist? Thus the Nothing is incomplete. The necessary attempt at resolution of this incompleteness by the Nothing by accessing [incorporating] parts of the list [a symmetry breaking?] results in a random dynamic within the All producing a randomly evolving Something [that which the Nothing has become by incorporating parts of the list] [an evolving universe]. But by #3 the Nothing must be restored so the process of creating randomly evolving Somethings repeats [a form of an MWI]. A random evolution can produce long strings of states of universes that can support Self Aware Structures [SAS], YD, comp etc. [A state of a universe is one side of a definitional pair - a sub list, and I have in the past called sub lists kernels [of information] to tie in with some of my previous posts.] That is my model in a nut shell. [GK] Sounds solid to me! And because it includes Everything and more(!) what can I possibly add beyond the suggestion that you name it the... Whatever Theory (:-). I don't want to sound like a big stickler for Popper or anything but I am sure you are familiar with the infamous libel often directed at String Theory that it is not even false! I believe that particular description is actually more like that is not even wrong [citation unknown] and may be older than string theory. In any event I think we should be careful how we use descriptions such as true/false, right /wrong, compatible/incompatible, in contradiction with, etc. because they seem to have different domains. I am now interested in how you and Bruno use such terms re comp, YD, UDA, QM, MWI, etc. [GK] Oh, those tired dichotomies, true/false, right/wrong, bla-bla! There so confining, aren't they? No match for Everything/Nothing that is for sure(/unsure?)! I am sorry, Hal, but I am afraid my views may strike you as old fashioned as I am still a bit attached to those old notions you have already so dashingly transcended, like... common sense (;-) In that regard I think it is time you present your argument re YD/QM and see what the list has to say about it. Hal Ruhl [GK] Working on it. Regards, -Godfrey, Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
-Original Message- From: Hal Ruhl [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wed, 24 Aug 2005 14:15:43 -0400 Subject: Re: subjective reality Hi Godfrey: At 12:03 PM 8/24/2005, you wrote: Hi Hal, Just a minimal comment to what you state below. I erase a bit of the previous exchange. Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) snip [GK] If I understand you correctly your List-of-Everything is pretty much like our own everything-list (;-)! So it contains YD, CT and AR and also their negations which makes it self-contradictory a priori and thus imprevious to any charges of contradiction and in all likelyhood beyond any argument that anyone may devise (since it obviously contains it too). My first assumption says: There exists a list of all possible properties of objects that can have reality. Are you saying that this list taken as a whole is necessarily self contradictory and therefore you can not show it does not exist due to this internal self contradiction and this is your proof that it does not exist? Let me first point out that the list is just a list - not a system of logic. I give it only one property by assumption - existence. Hal Ruhl [GK] Hi Hal, My first comment was directed at your previous sentence which read something like: The list of course would have properties that seem incompatible as simultaneous properties of a single object, but nevertheless definitions create such objects as the is not member of the definitional pair. So the All is - in total - self incompatible, but so what? I thought, from it, that you meant to say that your Everything list contains contradictory attributions like X is a car and X is not a car for the same X. I obviously misunderstood you. About your first assumption, as you restate above, I would venture to say that QM suggests that the existence of such list is very unlikely if by 'reality one understands physical reality as defined by EPR, that is, as composed by distinct elements bearing properties that are independent of the means of observation used to assign them to such objects. This is the gist of Einstein's famous question Is the moon there when nobody looks? and all that folklore. Now if by reality you mean platonic reality, I think it is a good question whether such list may exist or not. You will have to ask a mathematician... (I am assuming it is contains an countable infinity of entries, no?) Kindly, Godfrey Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
-Original Message- From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Mon, Aug 22, 2005 at 01:15:22PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Tom, Than you can surely understand how disappointed I feel! It's even more like the hooka-smoking-Caterpillar since Bruno pulled the mushroom right from under me!!! Oh! Maybe was just a pipe dream, like those of that Lob(otomy?) machine of his. How sad!!! Sorry guys. Looks like I have been scooped... Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) But was your argument based on the white rabbit problem? And in any case, the white rabbit problem is merely a problem for Bruno's thesis, not a show stopper. As far as I'm aware, my solution to the white rabbit problem is compatible with Bruno's COMP, although it does require some additional assumptions. Nobody has checked this thoroughly, of course. [GK] Hi Russell, My argument is not based on the White Rabbit Problem since I don't even know what that is, in all honesty! From reading Brunos's popular account I gather it has something to do with the possibility of finding unruly or unexpected things once you believe the kind of theory he and, I guess you, profess. No? Without meaning to disrespect your solutions, I think Quantum Mechanics produces a very good deal of White Rabbits on its own, and by this I mean predictions that thwart any of the everyday type of expectations you place on reality! Have you heard of the Mean King Problem, for example? If you want a big hat from where loads of these come out The argument I believe I have is just a simple working out of the premise of YD till you get to a situation that our current knowledge of QM can defeat. I am sure there are many more that you can think up with a bit of reflection. If you want to consider those White Rabbit's is entirely up to you as long as you start getting used to have them around... [RS] So it is time to put up or shut up Godfrey! If you have some genuine argument against the YD, let's hear it. Cheers [GK] As I stated before I don't react very well to that style of macho pressure in spite of my (clumsy) attempts to use it on Bruno! As it turns out my argument may be of interest for another issue that some people have been disputing in the land of quantum marginalia, but I am not entirely convinced of that yet. When I am I may try and sketch it for the list, though I am doubtful that you would have any interest in it since its speculative level is orders of magnitude below what you guys are used to... (;-) Cheers indeed, -Godfrey, -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics 0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 c Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Sorry Russell, Everyone One of mys sentences got mangled in the middle in my last reply. I meant to direct you to the recent book by Aharonov, Y. and Rohrlich D. Quantum Paradoxes: Quantum Theory for the Perplexed. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/3527403914/qid=1124806729/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-8758662-2102523?v=glances=books as a source of quantum mechanical white rabbits. Enjoy, Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi Bruno, I might have partly answered your query in my response to Russell. I am not sure. Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 12:55:07 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality Le 22-août-05, à 17:17, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : I guess I spoke too soon... [BM] Do you think that YD is incompatible with (SWE + collapse) or with only SWE? (YD = accepting an artificial brain for some level of description (Yes Doctor); SWE = Schroedinger Wave Equation). [GK] I believe that YD is incompatible with the whole formalism of QM which I don't quite think is simply reducible to Unitary Evolution plus Collapse, by the way. But if you put it that way, yes, it is the conjunction of both that does it (and entanglement, of course!) [BM] Imo, YD is the driving motor of the Everett interpretation of QM. [GK] I am afraid I don't understand what you mean by this! Are you saying that Everett based his interpretation of QM on the premise that YD is true? I strongly doubt that... [BM] What is your opinion about quantum suicide, quantum immortality, and their comp (a priori more general) form? Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ [GK] The short answer to that is that I agree with Milan Circovic (and David Lewis) on the issue of quantum suicide: arXiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0412147 [Check what he says on Everett, by the way...] Plus I think much the same can be said about quantum immortality a few other Deutschian and Tiplerian notions that you take, let us just say, a little too much to the letter. The general idea is that one has to be extremely careful in the use of conventional terms in the quantum context because they may not even be definable... I can give you a longer answer, but you would like it even less... Best regards, -Godfrey Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi Russell, Touche' (:-)! I am going to claim a typo, on this one. I will be more careful with my time from here on, though come to think of it, 3.4 hours maybe a good estimate on the time I manage to dedicate to pure platonic contemplation in a week, sadly... Thanks for the humorous nit-picking. Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Mon, 22 Aug 2005 09:19:40 +1000 Subject: Re: subjective reality On Sun, Aug 21, 2005 at 06:21:13PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I agree with you but I am a platonist 24/7 (=full-time)! 24/7 = 3.4285714... Why is this full time? Its a little bigger than Pi (so a little bigger than a half a turn), maybe a bit more in the state of Indiana (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi). I'm jesting with you of course - you must mean 24 (hours) x 7 (days) (per week), but I ask you, why do you confuse division and multiplication? Cheers -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics 0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi Bruno, I guess I spoke too soon... Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Mon, 22 Aug 2005 16:05:58 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality Le 22-août-05, à 00:21, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : [GK] By now you should have understood that I will not be taunted, so no use in trying. I do not pretend anything. What I have told you and maintain is that I can sketch an argument that shows that your YD is incompatible with QM being the correct physics of the world and I will do so as soon as you admit that this will invalidate ALL your thesis (not just the part of it you feel like conceding). This was my proposal all along and I have not changed it. So there is no point in challenging me in these terms. I made clear already. [BM] I thought you said you get a proof that YD is false. (Confirmed by my looking at your posts). This would have invalidate the Universal Dovetailer Argument (but not its arithmetical translation as I explained before). Now you are saying that YD is just inconsistent with QM. This is a far much weaker statement, which would not refute anything at all. On the contrary, given that my UDA-point says that comp entails verifiable physical statements (a whole comp-phys). And for me it is still an open problem if comp-phys is compatible with QM or not, or is even equal to QM or not. [GK] I have never claimed to have a proof that YD is false only that I can give you an argument that QM can shoot down YD and this being the case, from what I understand from your previous post, means that your proof that physics is necessarily reducible to computer science is incorrect in the CT and AR are true. I quite sure you have stated that much in your previous post. To be more specific my argument aims to show you that if QM is the correct microscopic description of the world (in which you apply YD) than YD is contradicts it. I am quite sure that I never stated anything different. I might have used the expression if YD is false as a condition but that means if my argument is correct. [BM] Actually, if you read my thesis you will see that I arrive at a point where I conclude that comp (thus YD) seems to be in contradiction with QM, because it gives a priori much more relative computational continuations than QM (the white rabbit problem), but then I explain that computer science and incompleteness phenomena force us to add many nuances, and this is what has lead me to make a complete translation of UDA in arithmetic. [GK] This is news to me! If I read you right it means that you already proved my point! That is reassuring. I had some lingering doubts about my argument, of course, but seems that my intuitions are correct at least since you have anticipated them. Now which one of those nuances that you speak of salvages an hypothesis that contradicts QM? I'm curious... [BM] So, this means you could just be *in advance* of my thesis! That would still be very interesting of course, so, please make your point. Ah yes you want to make it only if it demolishes the whole of a thesis that you admitted not having read (I don't understand at all why you don't want to give a (perhaps interesting) argument unless it refutes a thesis that you admitted not having read). [GK] Bruno, you are just too kind! I would describe it the other way round: I am way behind your thesis since you already argued my point out affirmatively! I guess that is the problem with us White Rabbits always arriving late... Please make your point, we can still discussed its impact after, isn't it? Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ [GK] Well, I am kind of discouraged now. It would no longer be my point since you already proved it and made it yours. Let me think about it. Best regards, Godfrey Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi Tom, Than you can surely understand how disappointed I feel! It's even more like the hooka-smoking-Caterpillar since Bruno pulled the mushroom right from under me!!! Oh! Maybe was just a pipe dream, like those of that Lob(otomy?) machine of his. How sad!!! Sorry guys. Looks like I have been scooped... Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: kurtleegod; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Mon, 22 Aug 2005 13:06:03 -0400 Subject: Re: subjective reality Well, Godfrey, I just want to voice my reaction that I am disappointed that in the end you really have no new point. It seems that you are more like the Mad Hatter or Cheshire Cat. Tom [BM] So, this means you could just be *in advance* of my thesis! That would still be very interesting of course, so, please make your point. Ah yes you want to make it only if it demolishes the whole of a thesis that you admitted not having read (I don't understand at all why you don't want to give a (perhaps interesting) argument unless it refutes a thesis that you admitted not having read). [GK] Bruno, you are just too kind! I would describe it the other way round: I am way behind your thesis since you already argued my point out affirmatively! I guess that is the problem with us White Rabbits always arriving late... Please make your point, we can still discussed its impact after, isn't it? Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ [GK] Well, I am kind of discouraged now. It would no longer be my point since you already proved it and made it yours. Let me think about it. Best regards, Godfrey Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi Hal, I am sorry I have not responded to you previously and I thank you for the further clarifications your provide about your theory. Sounds quite extraordinary but unfortunately I don't feel I grasp it well enough to make any useful comment as to its contents. From what you say before it seems that you claim that you derive YD, CT and AR from it which happen to be Bruno's points of departure! Is that the case? Does your All include false statements too? I am asking this out of curiosity not because I see any obvious way of addressing the falsification of your model. I don't want to sound like a big stickler for Popper or anything but I am sure you are familiar with the infamous libel often directed at String Theory that it is not even false! It is always easy to marvel at a construction in the sky when we don't see the strings (pass the pun) that hold it up... Best regards, Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Hal Ruhl [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 16:34:22 -0400 Subject: Re: subjective reality Hi Godfrey: My model starts with what I describe as unavoidable definition - of the All and [simultaneously] the Nothing. Any definition defines a pair of two objects. The target object such as a flower [the is part of the pair] and an object that has the remainder of the list of all properties etc. of all possible objects [the is not part of the pair]. Generally the is not part of the pair is of little use. The All and the Nothing are an interesting is, is not definitional pair. The All is the entire list and the Nothing is the absence of the entire list. The Nothing is inherently incomplete and this results in the dynamic. This is a brief semi intro and I have posted on this model before as it has developed. Now the All part contains all possible states of all possible universes. This should include the one I believe represents ours. Therefore my All seems to contain universes that support YD and thus comp if Bruno is correct. To answer your questions as best I currently can: My model appears to contain YD, CT, and AR so if Bruno's follow on reasoning is correct and if in fact my model contains YD, CT, and AR then it contains comp but it is not the same as comp - it would embed comp. Is my model falsifiable? I will have to think about that - after all I just recently got to where it supports a flow of consciousness. Since the model does not say exactly what is on the list that is the All and the 'instantation of reality dynamic is random then what indeed is the scope of all possible states of all possible universes and the resulting actually implemented evolving universes? In any event it would be interesting to see if YD can be shown to be false. I think that might start to constrain the All and that would be interesting - [why that constraint and what others are there?]. Hal At 10:44 AM 8/19/2005, you wrote: Hi Hal, From what you say below I am not able to determine whether your model is identical or distinct from Bruno's in the only point that I am interested in so let me ask you: Is your model falsified if YD is false or can you still dance if that is the case? I am asking because unfalsifiable models turn out to be a lot less interesting than falsifiable ones as I am sure you understand Best regards, Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: Naive Realism and QM
Hi Serafino, Thanks for your pointers. You obvious know your physics quite well and I think you got my point precisely! Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: scerir [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat, 20 Aug 2005 19:22:10 +0200 Subject: Re: Naive Realism and QM Godfrey: There is no energy flux directly associated with wave-functions (like with electomagnetic or mechanical waves) but is a probability density and a probability flux associated with the square of linear functionals of the wave-function. [Scerir] The question, at this point, should be: probability of what? [GK] Exactly! [Scerir] Because, leaving aside those who think (Weinberg, Dyson, etc.) that only fields exist and are real, there are at least a couple of solutions. There are physicists (followers of Bohr [1], more or less) who think [2][3][4] that quantum physics is about 'correlations without correlata', or about 'fotuitousness and clicks'. There are physicists (followers of Einstein, and his idea of Gespensterfeld, etc.) like Born [5], Fock [6], Barut [7], etc., who think that a 'probability' wave, even in 3n-dimensional space, is a real thing, much more than a mathematical tool, and who also think that physics is not just about apparata, or clicks. s. [GK] Maybe I would not divide things exactly that way but, yes, that is basically the choices you have! Either you keep looking for an ultimate ontological category on which quantum information is predicated, or you try and build some understanding of probability as a material of sorts (that was not Bohr, but actually Schrodinger and Madelung on the latter side.) There are however some possible ontological grey areas between these two positions that can be explored and Heiseinberg tried that at some point. Bohr's position (the infamous Copnehagen Interpretations) was a bit more complicated than what the sentence you quote expresses, I would say, so it is hard to know where to place him... -Godfrey [1[ Niels Bohr: 'However, since the discovery of the quantum of action, we know that the classical ideal cannot be attained in the description of atomic phenomena. In particular, any attempt at an ordering in space-time leads to a break in the causal chain, since such an attempt is bound up with an essential exchange of momentum and energy between the individuals and the measuring rods and clocks used for observation; and just this exchange cannot be taken into account if the measuring instruments are to fulfil their purpose. Conversely, any conclusion, based in an unambiguous manner upon the strict conservation of energy and momentum, with regard to the dynamical behaviour of the individual units obviously necessitates a complete renunciation of following their course in space and time.' [2] Carlo Rovelli Relational Quantum Mechanics http://www.arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9609002 [3] David Mermin What is quantum mechanics trying to tell us? http://www.arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9801057 [4] Aage Bohr http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-10/p15.html [5] Max Born: 'Quite generally, how could we rely on probability predictions if by this notion we do not refer to something real and objective?' [6] V.A.Fock 'Disskussija S Nilsom Borom', in 'Voprosy Filosofii', 1964 (a memorandum, about the interpretation of QM and the meaning of wavefunction, he gave to Bohr, in Copenhagen, 1957, who read it and changed his mind about several points, but not all). [7] A.O.Barut http://streaming.ictp.trieste.it/preprints/P/87/157.pdf Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: What Theories Explain vs. What Explains Theories
Hi Lee, I am not sure this is the reply you mentioned in the previous post. If so I guess you decided to make it public. That is alright with me too. Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Lee Corbin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat, 20 Aug 2005 12:40:40 -0700 Subject: What Theories Explain vs. What Explains Theories Godfrey writes Yes we cannot explain QM by classical physics but NEITHER can we explain from QM the classical world we know and love with its well defined and assigned elements of (naive) physical reality that you so much cherish, I am afraid! If we did there would not be no Measurement Problem, no spooky long-distance correlations, no zombie Schrodinger Cat's around to haunt us... Quantum mechanics' greatest successes have included explanations for what you cite. That is why QM is accepted. My point is that it does NOT include explanations for any of the items I cite and that is why I cite them and that is why they are called problems. We are using the term *explain* in different ways. Look, would you have disagreed (were you living in 1800) with the Marquis Pierre Simon de LaPlace when he would assert that Newton's theory of gravity explained all celestial movements? I guess so! YOU probably would have said, Mais non, it does not explain how an influence can instantaneously reach out through space. It does not even explain what gravity *is*! (And by the way, no fair using Mercury's orbit, the details of which were not discovered at that time.) LaPlace would have looked down his nose at you and replied that the *theory* explains the movements, you fool. C'est facile de voir that you, Monsieur, wish to know what explains the theory. I have no need of your hypothesis, or of you. So likewise, I will say to you, we cannot explain quantum mechanics, but QUANTUM MECHANICS DELIVERS AN UNPRECEDENTED FIFTEEN DECIMAL PLACES OF ACCURACY and so explains incredibly perfectly the result of our laboratory experiments! [GK] Far from me to disagree with you, or Laplace! QM produces indeed the most impressive numerical predictions of any theory ever conceived by humans! [LC] YOU seem to want an explanation of (or a satisfactory interpretation of) the *theory*. The theory does not provide that! No theory--- not Newton's, not Einstein's, and not QM, can do that, can explain *itself*. [GK] Not exactly, and I have not expressed such demands of QM in any of my statements. What I stated, and you have not denied that yet, is that QM does not give me or you a picture (much less an explanation) of the world as we know it, with somewhat reliable objects placed at definite position at definite times. This is a fact, not a demand on my part on the theory. Most people who feel unhappy about this state-of-affairs don't blame it on the theory (as they did 3 generations ago) but blame it on themselves or on us, humans, who have not interpreted the theory correctly yet. From Bruno's message I take it that you subscribe to the Everett Interpretation which indeed avoids some of these problems but has some more of its own and surely does a number on your naive reality! What is it then: many worlds or one? Many worlds of course. Have you or have you not read Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch? [GK] Oh yes. But I am not a convert. [LC] As for a number on my naive reality... For Christ's sake, I give up with you. You are hopeless. You are probably one of those people who calls fascist everyone who has political disagreements with you, whether or not they themselves adopt the term. [GK] (...I'll pass on this one!) [LC] I give up. I hereby grant permission for the incredible Godfrey Kurt Lee to call me a naive realist --- but him only! Nobody else better try it! Lee [GK] Wow!! Actually my name is Godfrey Kurtz. Lee is a bad nickname that I had to use to get a username from AOL. No pun intended. (I hesitate to call you anything, at this stage! ) P.S. I will reply to the rest of your post when I am less exercised :-) [GK] Now that Bruno promoted me to a machine I feel like telling you, like good all HAL 5000: Why don't you take a pill and lay down? (:-) Get well soon, Godfrey Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi Bruno, Not quite there yet, but making progress Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat, 20 Aug 2005 19:44:44 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality Le 19-août-05, à 18:13, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : [GK] I would like to leave copies out of the YD because I think those would actually invalidate the premise. If you ran into a copy of yourself in the street you may suspect that something is amiss in your world! [BM] OK if it is a temporary interdiction. The YD will entail that we are duplicable in a weak sense (which does not contravene the no-cloning theorem (but here I anticipate the reasoning)). You pretend YD is false, show the proof. [GK] By now you should have understood that I will not be taunted, so no use in trying. I do not pretend anything. What I have told you and maintain is that I can sketch an argument that shows that your YD is incompatible with QM being the correct physics of the world and I will do so as soon as you admit that this will invalidate ALL your thesis (not just the part of it you feel like conceding). This was my proposal all along and I have not changed it. So there is no point in challenging me in these terms. I made clear already. [GK] What I propose to do is to show you that your premise, YD, is false. That allows me to dismiss anything you say based on that premise. Of course. But of course, everything I say from CT and AR alone will survive. I hope you see this clearly. [GK] If you claim that you derive the whole of physics (including QM) from CT and AR alone there is no point in my showing you that physics invalidates YD! Is there? You would know that already, or you could derive it independently! Whether I am right or wrong would be completely indiferent to you. Why would you even consider my argument? That is actually not general at all but extremely specific. From here on I will make no comment on any sentence you preface with But from COMP (or YD) I can prove that... . Nothing personal, please understand. [BM] Sure. Except that in a second round (the interview of the lobian machine) I translate comp in arithmetic, and I extract *a* physics from that COMP. To understand that translation YD is very useful, but no more. Then if the physics that is extracted from the arithmetical COMP corresponds to the empirical physics, your proof of the falsity of the YD would show that a falsity has helped in discovering the origin of the physical laws. Funny but not entirely impossible. Except that, without wanting to discourage you in advance, it is very hard for me to believe you have find a proof or an argument showing comp is wrong. But that makes me just more curious. [GK] OK. Let me ask you this than and maybe help you avoid any more painful contortions: can you even imagine a situation in which you could be proven wrong? (Please remember how many times you have underscored that COMP is verifiable!) (skipped) I take it like that. You are telling me you are platonist the week and not platonist the week-end? Or ditto means you agree with *me*, I guess. [GK] I agree with you but I am a platonist 24/7 (=full-time)! [GK] In that case enjoy the prize! If you derived the laws of physics from CT and AR alone you surely deserve the recognition you will enjoy because that is a remarkable accomplishment! Congratulations! But there is a derivation of a physics from CT and AR. Just to understand *that* intuitively you need YD. I have done two things the universal dovetailer argument (UDA) which shows that YD + CT + AR entails that physics emerges necessary from a web of machine dreams (say, dream being entirely defined in term of computer science or number theory). But then in the second part, called sometime the arithmetical universal dovetailer argument (AUDA), or more simply the interview of the lobian machine, I translate (UDA) in arithmetic (because comp makes it possible and necessary). YD disappears or is translated in arithmetic (by Godel-like devices). The derivation of physics is purely mathematical of course, I am not a magician extracting the galaxies from someone saying yes to a doctor. It looks like it disappoints you, but there is two parts in my work: UDA: an argument that YD + CT + AR implies physics is necessarily a branch of computer science. AUDA: a translation of the argument in arithmetic, with the (modest) result that the logic of the observable proposition is given by the composition of three mathematical transformations operating on a well-known modal logic (G). And it already looks enough like some quantum logics to encourage further research. Alas the math are not easy and not well known. [GK] This hardly sounds like a derivation to me. But if your first statement above (UDA) is
Re: Naive Realism and QM
Serafino, I think I get the gist of what you are saying but it is not quite the case. There is no energy flux directly associated with wave-functions (like with electomagnetic or mechanical waves) but is a probability density and a probability flux associated with the square of linear functionals of the wave-function. The physical quantities (observables) pertaining to any physical system described by the WF typically do not have fixed values assigned by the theory but only expectation values, i.e. probabilities of being found in one among many of their possible eigenvalues. Quantum Mechanics tells you how to compute these expectation values but only specific experiments assign one among them to a specific system. If I understand what you are trying to say below there is indeed a way of, a posteriori, trying to build a more or less classical picture of a propagation of a beam or even a single particle (represented by a wave packet or something like it). That is what is called a local hidden variable model for QM and it works fairly well for a single isolated degree of freedom. But, as it turns out, none of these clever cartoons can be used to fully interpret the quantum description; this is not merely the result of a theorem but something which has been verified empirically numerous times by now. Come to think of it, even my correction to Lee is in need of correction because QM is not just about amplitudes! The phase relations between wave functions play a very central role in the non local phenomena (i.e. Berry and Aharonov-Bohm effects) so the myth of just amplitudes should be dispelled by now. Best regards, Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: scerir [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 22:55:51 +0200 Subject: Re: Naive Realism and QM Godfrey: My point, if I can break it down a bit, is that the amplitudes correspond, not to things but to processes and that what the amplitudes let you compute are relative probabilities for the occurrences of such processes. Maybe. Amplitudes of (whatever) waves satisfy linear equations. So, amplitudes combine linearly when several paths are - in principle - possible. On the contrary, the intensity of waves, that is to say the energy flux, is quadratic in the field amplitudes. So, intensities do not combine linearly. If we imagine there is a relation between the energy flux and the number of particles crossing a given (unit) area (this can be the quantum principle, or the quantum postulate) we also imagine there is a relation between the energy flux - quadratic in the field amplitudes - and the probability for those particles crossing that (unit) area. We can also imagine now there is only one particle flying Regards, serafino Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi Hal, From what you say below I am not able to determine whether your model is identical or distinct from Bruno's in the only point that I am interested in so let me ask you: Is your model falsified if YD is false or can you still dance if that is the case? I am asking because unfalsifiable models turn out to be a lot less interesting than falsifiable ones as I am sure you understand Best regards, Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Hal Ruhl [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 17:34:48 -0400 Subject: Re: subjective reality With regard to YD I have proposed in other posts that our universe consists of a set of discrete points that are when in their neutral locations arranged on a face centered cubic grid. Each point is confined to a region of discrete locations that surround its neutral location in the grid. I like this grid because its symmetries appear to allow a set of first order oscillations of the points within their regions in a unit cell consisting of 12 points around one with all triples being on straight lines that pass through the central point to represent the basic particles of the Standard Model. I call such oscillations a [small] dance. A [small] dance can move through the grid but individual points can not. Larger dances (such as a SAS) consist of semi stable associations of nearby [small] dances. The entire grid [universe] changes state when a point in a region asynchronously polls its 12 neighbors and assumes a new location in its region based on the results. It is a type of Cellular Automaton [CA]. At this level TD seems straight forward since there is no change at all. The approach is compatible with CT since some CA are capable of universal computation and the universe it models can contain SAS [the done effectively part] since large dances can be self interactive. The other things that are in my model which is derived from my is is not definitional approach is that the imbedding system: 1) Is one in which all possible states of all universes preexist [multi world and the model's link to AR], 2) Is randomly dynamic in terms of which states have instantations of reality [noise in the flow of reality] (a nice explanation of the accelerating expansion of our universe [additional points as part of the noise] recently observed), 3) In the dynamic, adjacent states can have instantations of reality that overlap [the flow of consciousness]. In the end then I must say that it seems my model contains comp. I indicated to Bruno some time ago that I thought we were to some degree convergent. Hal Ruhl Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi Bruno, OK. I think we are making progress. I will start the other thread after this message as I don't really have more obvious divergences from you and you are kind enough to indulge me in this little diversion. As before I will erase the obvious points of agreement below... Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 11:48:06 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality Hi Godfrey, Le 18-août-05, à 20:27, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : (skipped) [BM] No YD, no Bruno!?! You make me anxious :) [GK] I am sorry! That was very callous of me! I really did not mean to imply that you would be eliminated by my argument! Much on the contrary, I am hoping you will be... illuminated (;-) !!! [BM] SWE : Schroedinger Wave Equation YD: Saying Yes to a doctor who propose you an artificial digital generalized brain. First axiom of comp. (Some people complains out-of-line for the acronyms, so I repeat them once by mail). It seems to me that you are weaseling out of it but I don't quite care if you take refuge in another Everett World. That would be a cop out and I am sure you know it. I want you and I digitised IN THIS WORLD! I don't care for copies! [BM] Well: not of copies IN THIS WORLD, I guess. Giving that that is really the by-product of saying YES to the DOCTOR (YD). [GK] I would like to leave copies out of the YD because I think those would actually invalidate the premise. If you ran into a copy of yourself in the street you may suspect that something is amiss in your world! [GK] I don't much care what you can deduce from COMP, Bruno. I care that COMP=YD+CT+AR and that shooting down YD would shoot down COMP. You could very well deduce from COMP my non-existence if YD is false. Only if YD is *proved* false!!! (I could deduce your inexistence from the SWE if any TOE (theory of everything) which supposed SWE true, if SWE is false!). You are saying something very general here! [GK] What I propose to do is to show you that your premise, YD, is false. That allows me to dismiss anything you say based on that premise. That is actually not general at all but extremely specific. From here on I will make no comment on any sentence you preface with But from COMP (or YD) I can prove that... . Nothing personal, please understand. BM: Ouh la la. You are close to the 1004 fallacy (asking for more precise definition than the reasoning itself). At the start you can use the term axioms, postulates, theses, premises, assumptions, hypotheses, etc.. in a similar way. [GK] I think you get my point. I am not asking for precision at all. I am pointing out that thesis and doctrines are not hypotheses tout court. These three assumptions do not have the same epistemic status and it is misleading to call them the same. If you don't like it, than acknowledge my pragmatics: if your point-of-view is falsifiable it should be so without compromising either CT and AR which stand very well on their own as you underscore below: [BM] Mmhhh... This is your opinion, and perhaps mine. But not of most people to which my proof is addressed (computer scientist). [GK] Oh I would not worry! Computer scientists are by, now, used to have their hopes dashed (;-). And you strike me as a real grown-up since you are not afraid of facing up to empirical testing! (skipped) [BM] Well, I have decided to put it explicitly, because, in front of my reasoning, some people cop out simply by saying Ah, but you are a platonist!. So I prefer to say it at once. I agree with you it is a sort of cop out. Now, although 99, % of the mathematician are platonist during the week, most like to pretends they are not (the week-end!). [GK] Ditto. Hope you are not serious! [GK] Sorry! Ditto over here in the States is used as a note of agreement. (skipped) [BM] Well, you will perhaps accuse me of weaseling out again, but thinking twice, I believe I have answer too quickly in the sense that for saying yes for an artificial *digital* brain to a Doctor you need to know a bit what digital means, and for this you need CT (Church Thesis), and for this, I think, you need AR (Arithmetical Realism). But as you say, CT and AR are mainly bodyguards of YD. [GK] Oh. No problem there. Maybe I did not make it clear enough. What I am suggesting is that we (you and I) agree implicitly that CT and AR are unassailably true for the purposes of my argument! I will in fact need that to be the case at the very least for CT. As for digital brain I am sure we can reach some agreement on that. (skipped) [GK] Bruno, you are weaseling out again, here! Let me ask you this in clear terms again: Can you, Yes or No, derive your whole grand manege from CT and AR alone? Because if it is a yes here I will give you the Oscar
Re: subjective reality
Dear Quentin, Je m'excuse. It is not my intension to insult anyone least of all you since I don't quite remember having directed any message to you personally! I have used some irony in discussing with Bruno but meant no harm by it. My feeling from reading the different posts is that people in this list have some sense of humor and do not take their theories so seriously that any play around is taken in personal terms! I take turning around the hole to mean something like beating around the bush. In that case, I am afraid I cannot comply just yet. Please see my last message to Bruno. I am not bluffing, just hoping to break his bluff and I don't think he is insulted (Bruno?) --- To the rest of the crowd: if this is a generalized feeling, please let me know, and I will withdraw from the list. I surely don't want to ruffle any feathers! Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Quentin Anciaux [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 17:15:47 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality Hi, I apologize if I misunderstood your differents posts here as I'm not an english native but I find very insulting your way to discuss with people... Either you have an argument to the YD hypothesis, either you haven't... stop turning around the hole... Quentin Le Vendredi 19 Août 2005 16:44, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : Hi Hal, From what you say below I am not able to determine whether your model is identical or distinct from Bruno's in the only point that I am interested in so let me ask you: Is your model falsified if YD is false or can you still dance if that is the case? I am asking because unfalsifiable models turn out to be a lot less interesting than falsifiable ones as I am sure you understand Best regards, Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Hal Ruhl [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 17:34:48 -0400 Subject: Re: subjective reality With regard to YD I have proposed in other posts that our universe consists of a set of discrete points that are when in their neutral locations arranged on a face centered cubic grid. Each point is confined to a region of discrete locations that surround its neutral location in the grid. I like this grid because its symmetries appear to allow a set of first order oscillations of the points within their regions in a unit cell consisting of 12 points around one with all triples being on straight lines that pass through the central point to represent the basic particles of the Standard Model. I call such oscillations a [small] dance. A [small] dance can move through the grid but individual points can not. Larger dances (such as a SAS) consist of semi stable associations of nearby [small] dances. The entire grid [universe] changes state when a point in a region asynchronously polls its 12 neighbors and assumes a new location in its region based on the results. It is a type of Cellular Automaton [CA]. At this level TD seems straight forward since there is no change at all. The approach is compatible with CT since some CA are capable of universal computation and the universe it models can contain SAS [the done effectively part] since large dances can be self interactive. The other things that are in my model which is derived from my is is not definitional approach is that the imbedding system: 1) Is one in which all possible states of all universes preexist [multi world and the model's link to AR], 2) Is randomly dynamic in terms of which states have instantations of reality [noise in the flow of reality] (a nice explanation of the accelerating expansion of our universe [additional points as part of the noise] recently observed), 3) In the dynamic, adjacent states can have instantations of reality that overlap [the flow of consciousness]. In the end then I must say that it seems my model contains comp. I indicated to Bruno some time ago that I thought we were to some degree convergent. Hal Ruhl Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection. Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi Saibal, You are entirely correct about that. Non-local models can indeed reproduce QM. No surprise than that all the remaining approaches to the unification of physical theories still fighting it out (string/M theories, loop quantum gravity, twistor theory) are non-loca,l unlike the old QFTs. That is not the case with 't Hooft's CA models, of course. But he has later began to play with (deterministic) M-brane type ideas (since he started teaching string theory) and those may hold better promise. He is also no longer insisting on the pre-determinism loophole notion (at least the last time I heard him this year). Maybe he realized that made him sound a bit foolish... His web site is always entertaining: http://www.phys.uu.nl/~thooft/ Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Saibal Mitra [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 18:06:23 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality Hi Godfrey, As you wrote in reply to others, local deterministic models seem to be ruled out. The class of all formally describable models is much larger than that of only the local deterministic models. So, although 't Hooft may be proved wrong (if loopholes like pre-determinism don't save him), non-local models can reproduce QM. Saibal - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, August 14, 2005 06:07 PM Subject: Re: subjective reality Hi Saibal, Yes, trans-Plankian physics is likely to be quite different from our cis-plankian one. However I think the main reason 't Hooft claims the no-go theorems of quantum physics are in small print is because his reading glasses are no longer current :-), I am afraid. His arguments for the prevalence of simple deterministic models at this scaled have varied over the years (as his little examples) and some of these are quite clever, I'll agree. However, as you very well point out, any transplankian theory worth looking into has to reproduce a recognizable picture of the cisplankian world we know and that means: quantum mechanics (non-locality and all) in some discernible limit (and General Relativity too in some other limit) and all indications is that this cannot be done from deterministic models alone. 't Hooft has been working around this for the last 10 years or so and he doesn't have much to show for it. Considering that it took him less than 2 years to come up with a renormalization prescription for non-abelian gauge theories in his youth I suspect god's dice are loaded against him this time. However he is always fascinating to read and hear. I saw him at Harvard this winter for the Colemanfest and he had the most fabulous animations... Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Saibal Mitra [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sat, 13 Aug 2005 01:34:19 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality Hi Godfrey, 't Hooft's work is motivated by problems one encounters in Planck scale physics. 't Hooft has argued that the no go theorems precluding deterministic models come with some ''small print''. Physicists working on ''conventional ways'' to unite gravity with QM are forced to make such bold assumptions that one should now also question this ''small print''. As you wrote, 't Hooft has only looked at some limited type of models. It seems to me that much more is possible. I have never tried to do any serious work in this area myself (I'm too busy with other things). I would say that anything goes as long as you can explain the macroscopic world. One could imagine that a stochastic treatment of some deterministic theory could yield the standard model, but now with the status of the quantum fields as fictitional ghosts. If photons and electrons etc. don't really exists, then you can say that this is consistent with ''no local hidden variables''. Saibal Hi Saibal, You are correct that Gerard 't Hooft is one of the world exponents in QFTh. But Quantum Field Theory is but one small piece of QM and one in which non-local effects do not play a direct role (as of yet). Understandably 't Hooft's forays into Quantum Mechanics have not, however, been very insightful as he himself confesses (you can check his humorous slides in the Kavli Institute symposium of last year on the Future of Physics). So far he has supplied mostly some interesting simple CA models from which one can indeed extract something akin to superpositions but that in no way bypasses the basic facts of entanglement and non-local correlations. He may very well be the very last hold out for a deterministic (an thus classically mechanistic) point-of-view but I would not count him out just yet. If any one
Re: [offtopic] Re: subjective reality
Hi Quentin, No harm done. I think I understand your comment and I fully agree that I sound like I am bluffing. But I still have hope that Bruno will come to his senses and accept my bargain (which is much less risky than the one his Doctor proposes, by the way!) I take it that French is your native language from your reply header. Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Quentin Anciaux [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 18:48:48 +0200 Subject: [offtopic] Re: subjective reality Dear, Le Vendredi 19 Août 2005 18:27, vous avez écrit : Dear Quentin, Je m'excuse. It is not my intension to insult anyone least of all you since I don't quite remember having directed any message to you personally! No, none directed to me... I don't know if it's my poor comprehension of english... but anyway I don't really like when people just want to show by acting as if they knew the real knowledge... I apologize for feeling it like that... But as it was not your intention. I would feel shame to ask you to unsubscribe, it wasn't at all my intention, just let the discussion stay sane (with a message like mine, I understand it 's not the better way for it to stay sane ;). Quentin Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: Naive Realism and QM
From: Lee Corbin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Godfrey writes As much as I sympathize with your call for preservation of naive realism [LC] Good heavens! How many times must it be said? What is going on with people? There is a *clear* definition of naive realism. Try the almost always extremely reliable wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naive_realism If one is very clear that information about events outside the skin is conveyed to one's brain by layers of intermediate processes, (usually beginning with emissions of photons or by vibrations imparted to air), then you are *not* a naive realist. [GK] My, are prickly today!!! In this is when I was still sympathizing with you! (;-) [LC] Since this has come up so many times before---and not just on this list---I'm really starting to wonder what the explanation is. You can even find links on the web that confuse realism and naive realism. The acid test of what to call something is do the adherents of the view themselves use the term?. Then, in cases like this, we see it for what it is: name calling. [GK] Hold on! I don't believe I have even called you a naive realist! and agree entirely with your opinion on the demerits of introspection. I have to take issue with half of what you say below: [LC] Of course. Anyone who understands and believes in PCR always invites criticism, as least as much as he has time for. I'm not too sure what you mean by to embed. If we are seeking to *explain*---if that is what you mean---then we cannot explain QM by classical physics, but we *can* explain classical physics by QM. (I take our primary activity to be---and the activity I'm most interesting in participating in---*explaining*.) Yes we cannot explain QM by classical physics but NEITHER can we explain from QM the classical world we know and love with its well defined and assigned elements of (naive) physical reality that you so much cherish, I am afraid! If we did there would not be no Measurement Problem, no spooky long-distance correlations, no zombie Schrodinger Cat's around to haunt us... Quantum mechanics' greatest successes have included explanations for what you cite. That is why QM is accepted. [GK] My point is that it does NOT include explanations for any of the items I cite and that is why I cite them and that is why they are called problems. From Bruno's message I take it that you subscribe to the Everett Interpretation which indeed avoids some of these problems but has some more of its own and surely does a number on your naive reality! What is it then: many worlds or one? [LC] But you seem to be saying that the *correct* results of classical physics cannot be obtained from QM. Surely you don't mean that. Of course they can! If they could not, then they'd be wrong! True, classical physics *cannot* explain many phenomena, such as why black bodies radiate the way that they do, and this bothered 19th century physicist a great deal. Planck was *forced* to come up with the concept of the quantum, if he was to be able to explain. [GK] No, I am not saying that QM does not reproduce much of the classical results given the appropriate limits. Indeed it can and it, furthermore, predicts and explains a number of macroscopic (thus part of the world of direct experience) phenomena that Classical Physics does not. What I am saying above (and this is the clincher of the EPR argument as is that of the Everett interpretation) is that QM does not provide you with a picture of a reality where objects naively have their well defined properties associated with assignable elements of physical reality. You see, amplitudes don't just add! They also multiply and square! [LC] Why, of course. Just how innocent of QM do you suppose that I am? I invented the phrase at the basis of things are amplitudes that add after a thorough study of Feynman's volume 3. The multiplication obtains---at the very beginning ---simply from concatenating paths: you multiply amplitudes to get a total amplitude for one path. [GK] If that sentence is any measure of your guilt that you will be doing quantum time, Lee (:-) What you want to say is at the basis of QM there are amplitudes that add, multiply and square. Notice the absence of things! It is the things that ain't there!!! [LC] Your point about the squared modulus is well taken. Just why *probabilities* emerge from squared amplitudes, I couldn't tell you. I'm not sure that anyone knows---as I recall, many this is related to the basis problem of the MWI (though Deutsch and others say that decoherence takes care of everything, though). Lee [GK] Wouldn't that be nice! Unfortunately they are wrong about that. Decoherence is promising but still in need of major patching. Check out the paper by Bassi and Ghiraridi: http://arXiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9912031 There is some newer work on this by Adrian Kent but I don't have the reference handy. As to why the amplitudes square to give probabilities I agree with you
Re: subjective reality
Hi Bruno, It is maybe time to change the name of the thread. But I'll get to that below. Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 15:41:12 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality (skipped) ... [BM] OK. Now I agree with Lee, and many on the FOR and the Everything lists that Everett (many-worlds + decoherence already) constitutes a solution of the measurement problem. All measurements are just interaction, and then all states are relative. As I said, it seems to me that this is even more clear in the integral formulation of QM where F = ma can be deduced from the sum on all histories. But this is going a little bit out of topics, and is not needed to understand the comp derivation. We can come back on this latter. [GK] Here we part company. MWI (I prefer to call it Everett's Interpretation or EQM) is NOT a solution to the measurement problem of QM but an Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics that does not lead to that problem! It does however have a tripartite problem of its own that, in my opinion, is just the measurement problem blown up. In any case what you say afterwords does not follow (from EQM or QM). There are non-interactive measurements that people have been looking into for a while now (Dicke, Elitzur-Vaidman, etc...). I am sure you guys touched on these sometime ago... But all of this is irrelevant for my purpose at hand which is for you to commit to the proposition that No-YD: no Bruno! It seems to me that you are weaseling out of it but I don't quite care if you take refuge in another Everett World. That would be a cop out and I am sure you know it. I want you and I digitised IN THIS WORLD! I don't care for copies! (skip) In other words: if I found a way of shooting down your theory in a way that would not obviously violate the correspondence limit of QM , it would shot down! That is what I am suggesting above. But do not worry because I think you are a lot better shot by QM. [BM] To anticipate a little bit, I think this will be hard. From comp you can deduce quickly the qualitative many-relative state/worlds feature, the no-cloning theorem, the appearance of indeterminacy. I told you Newtonian physics (with a single universe-history) would cause much more problem to my approach. [GK] I don't much care what you can deduce from COMP, Bruno. I care that COMP=YD+CT+AR and that shooting down YD would shoot down COMP. You could very well deduce from COMP my non-existence if YD is false. (skipped) Definition: Classical Digital mechanism, or Classical Computationalism, or just comp, is the conjunction of the following three sub-hypotheses: after which you list three items which I will not reproduce here and will just short as 1) YD for Yes-doctor, 2) CT for Church Thesis and 3) AR for Arithmetic Realism. My objection is that of these three only the first can genuinely be called an hypothesis! Ouh la la. You are close to the 1004 fallacy (asking for more precise definition than the reasoning itself). At the start you can use the term axioms, postulates, theses, premises, assumptions, hypotheses, etc.. in a similar way. [GK] I think you get my point. I am not asking for precision at all. I am pointing out that thesis and doctrines are not hypotheses tout court. These three assumptions do not have the same epistemic status and it is misleading to call them the same. If you don't like it, than acknowledge my pragmatics: if your point-of-view is falsifiable it should be so without compromising either CT and AR which stand very well on their own as you underscore below: [BM] CT, as the name indicates, is a Thesis which is most likely unprovable but favored by overwhelming heuristic support. Not only overwhelming supports: there is the deep conceptual argument that Kleene has discovered when he failed to refute Church's definition of the computable functions. The argument is the closure of the set of partial computable functions for the most transcendental mathematical operation: diagonalization. Kleene invented the vocable Church thesis. The first to get Church's thesis is Emil Post (in the early 19-twenties). See (perhaps later) the diagonalization posts in this list (mentionned in my web page). I know that there are some people in the southern hemisphere who think that QComputation could produce a counterexample to shoot it down (and perhaps it could) but you and I agree that it is unlikely. OK. [GK] Agreed, than . In any case one unassailable counterexample would shoot down CT, deep and Kleene as it is (:-) And AR is a metaphysical position which I happen to subscribe but which I would never fathom to try and prove or empirically test (nor do I have any idea on how to do it! Do you?) [BM] Well, I have decided to put it
Re: Naive Realism and QM
Hi Serafino, I did not even mention probabilities and you are very right that they do not operate under the same algebraic rules as classical probabilities. My point, if I can break it down a bit, is that the amplitudes correspond, not to things but to processes and that what the amplitudes let you compute are relative probabilities for the occurrences of such processes. QM by itself does not describe the world in terms of things i.e. distinct separable objects such as the ones we see and manipulate with in our everyday. Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: scerir [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 22:15:14 +0200 Subject: Re: Naive Realism and QM Godfrey writes: [...] at the basis of QM there are amplitudes that add, multiply and square. Notice the absence of things! It is the things that ain't there!!! Not sure I understand. But the usual rule of addition of probabilities does not apply to quantum probabilities. This does not mean that the usual rule is wrong. It means (or it might mean) that quantum systems evolve via transitions through indeterminate states, which are different from occurrences of events. Regards, serafino Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi Lee, As much as I sympathise with your call for preservation of naive realism and agree entirely with your opinion on the demerits of introspection I have to take issue with half of what you say below: -Original Message- From: Lee Corbin [EMAIL PROTECTED] ... I'm not too sure what you mean by to embed. If we are seeking to *explain* ---if that is what you mean---then we cannot explain QM by classical physics, but we *can* explain classical physics by QM. (I take our primary activity to be---and the activity I'm most interesting in participating in---*explaining*.) ... Lee Yes we cannot explain QM by classical physics but NEITHER can we explain from QM the classical world we know and love with its well defined and assigned elements of (naive) physical reality that you so much cherish, I am afraid! If we did there would not be no Measurement Problem, no spooky long-distance correlations, no zombie Schrodinger Cat's around to haunt us... You see, amplitudes don't just add! They also multiply and square! I hope this does not add to your grumpiness. The miracle of experience you talk about is still there, of course. Even more so, perhaps. Regards, Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi Bruno, Thanks for indulging my skepticism. I think I am getting a clearer picture of what you are up to. There is only one point in our exchange below to which I would like to respond and than I have some unrelated comments. I will erase the rest of the conversation to which I don't have much to add. Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hi Godfrey, Le 15-août-05, à 21:14, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : Also if Newtonian physics is enough to shoot down your hypothesis than it must be dead already since Newtonian physics is the correspondence limit of QM and QM is right!!! I really don't follow you here... [BM] Not really, as far as you agree that classical physics can be extracted from quantum physics. My favorite unrigorous way: Feynman integral (see my paper: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/CCQ.pdf for a little summary. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ [GK] I did not say, nor do I believe, that one can extract the classical world from QM, as I pointed out to Lee, but one can surely object to a third party theory from the fact that it does not reproduce a classical world any better than quantum mechanics. This is a complicated issue because: (a) Classical physics does not explain the classical world either as it cannot account for the stability of matter, for instance, which only QM explains. (b) Quantum mechanics predicts some entirely macroscopic phenomena that we do observe as part of the classical world i.e. superfluidity of He, superconductivity, stability of the vaccuum etc... In other words: if I found a way of shooting down your theory in a way that would not obviously violate the correspondence limit of QM , it would shot down! That is what I am suggesting above. But do not worry because I think you are a lot better shot by QM. Now my logistic COMPlaints about your COMP: I have searched through your web site to see whether I could find a full statement of your hypothesis since you were not kind enough to reproduce it in the previous exchange. I don't read French that well and your English paper is somewhat sketchy on this, so I can only refer to what you state in the page : http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHAL.htm where I found what looks like a definition. My first objection is to the following sentence: Definition: Classical Digital mechanism, or Classical Computationalism, or just comp, is the conjunction of the following three sub-hypotheses: after which you list three items which I will not reproduce here and will just short as 1) YD for Yes-doctor, 2) CT for Church Thesis and 3) AR for Arithmetic Realism. My objection is that of these three only the first can genuinely be called an hypothesis! CT, as the name indicates, is a Thesis which is most likely unprovable but favored by overwhelming heuristic support. I know that there are some people in the southern hemisphere who think that QComputation could produce a counterexample to shoot it down (and perhaps it could) but you and I agree that it is unlikely. And AR is a metaphysical position which I happen to subscribe but which I would never fathom to try and prove or empirically test (nor do I have any idea on how to do it! Do you?) Now I suppose that you need for these three things to be true for the rest of your argument to go. But I find that it is extremely unfair to force your most excellent hypothesis YD to have to stand in company of the other two to assert its merits!!! In other words as (1) YD is obviously independent from CT and AR (2) CT and AR stand no chance of being falsified empirically (or we both like them that way, which is the same). (3) No one that we know has been able to extract conclusions such as yours from CT AR without YD (right) would you have any objections to us concentrating, from here on, on your YD hypothesis? I am saying this because I actually think that it is the real interesting and original part of your proposal and it does not need those two other huge body guards which I happen to be friends with. OK? If you agree with this I may have something interesting to tell you about your idea that you have not anticipated! Please,don't COMP out! Say yes, Doctor Bruno! -Godfrey Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi Bruno, Thanks for your assent on this. I am sure that CT and AR are needed, at some point, for your really outrageous conclusions. But I am sure you agree that they cannot save them if the Yes doctor presumption can be shot down by itself. Right? This would save me from having to read through your Dovetail-Lob etc... argument which is probably way above my head! We obviously move in very different circles because I was taught by very stubborn old strong AI types and cognoscendi cognitivists and I have never heard anyone argue for something like that YD hypothesis! But as you have conceded no one needs it to defend the old-fashioned materialist functionalism credo that you (and I) do not subscribe to anyway. But I will wait for your other comments. Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 19:48:35 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality Hi Godfray, I must leave my office, and I let you know just my first impression of your last post. First I hope you will accept my apologies for having skip unintentionally your demand for my hypotheses. I am saying this because I actually think that it is the real interesting and original part of your proposal and it does not need those two other huge body guards which I happen to be friends with. OK? I can say yes. Nevertheless, the bodyguards will appear necessary when you go through the reasoning at some point. Actually most computer scientist who does not want to abandon physicalism after the reading of my reasoning, does abandon comp under the form of abandoning the Arithmetical Realism (AR) part of it! Few abandon the YES doctor part (curiously enough). None, until now, abandon Church thesis, but it *is* a logical way out. But I will comment more carefully your post tomorrow. I will just print it now. A demain, Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi Bruno, Thanks for your answers. I follow you in passing on our points of agreement (and erasing them). Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] ... Hi Godfrey, I see we agree on many things. I comment only where we take distance. Le 12-août-05, à 19:33, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : [GK] That is a wonderful point you make above! But my own was that acknowledging something may not exactly be the same as admitting its reality; it can in fact be just the opposite when what is acknowledge is someone else's belief for instance. How (consensual) reality is acquired is a pretty complicated and still mysterious process. I would venture that a lot of what we would count as subjective reality is just that! (more below) [BM] I am not sure I understand you, and pêrhaps it is just a question of vocabulary. If I acknowledge a belief of someone, it seems to me that I take as real (or very plausible) that that someone has a belief, not that the belief is true. Altough the subjective reality is just that, I guess, subjective. I take as objective the existence of subjective reality, or at least I take as objective the existence of the discourse and silence on subjective reality, and what I am searching an explanation on is exactly that, how to explain in objective term the subjective discourse, including the fact that we know we cannot make objective that subjectivity. This is part of the so-called mind-body problem. Saying, like Lee, that my subjective view is neurons firing is just false. To say that it is the sult of neurons firing is much more interesting but actually makes the problem worse (as serious philosopher of mind know very well). The reason is that if neurons firing explains all my behavior, it is just more enigmatic that something like consciousness has ever evolved. The explanation is more subtle and demanding and eventually forces us to revised our oldest prejudices about the nature of reality. [GK] The point I am trying to make is that a lot of your back and forth discourse on the 1st versus the 3rd person misses the 2nd person in between them! More specifically: I am quite convinced that one good part of what we call the Mind or the Self and perhaps even Consciousness is generated by social interaction rather than by any inner realm of subjectivity. I suspect this is true about all of what we call symbolic or meaningful including a lot of the support for mathematical understanding though I guess I am a platonist to the extent that I think of mathematical objects as existing independently of any of our semantics in a realm of their own. As for consciousness I do agree with you that whatever explains it may seriously require a revision of our oldest and, very possibly, some of our newest prejudices about reality but certainly most of outr old prejudices about... consciousness- yours (and mine) included! ;-) ... skipped If I understand it correctly this is that one materially supported conscious entity could be entirely (and analytically) replaced by a digitally constructed one without it even being conscious of it. Am I right? Is this what you COMP ? If so you are right in one thing: it is one hell of a stronger contention than the strongest AI hyp (and that much more unlikely). [BM] OK. But please note that 99,9% of the scientists take it for granted. Actually I know only Penrose postulating explicitly the negation of comp. This forces him to speculate about the falsity of both quantum mechanics and general relativity. [GK] I would rather not bring Penrose to this discussion though he is someone I much appreciate and will not easily dismiss. Unfortunately I can't claim I understand his Byzantine time-asymmetric proposals as alternatives for QM and GR enough to criticize them, and I am not alone in this. But I thought about your COMP and such over the weekend and I realized I have to take back what I said above! I can perfectly well imagine a world in which no one has yet built a conscious machine from scratch but someone has found a procedure for replacing one's consciousness by a digital one in the way you describe. Why should one imply the other? ... [BM] I didn't say that either. I don't know if I am a genious, but I don't know if I am not a genious either ;-) [GK] Oh, Bruno, don't be so bashful ... And since you are a machine your years and years and years may surely add to two centuries! No wonder you outrun your modesty... I have never said that I am a machine. I have not the slightest idea if comp is true. But I am sure that if comp is true then physics emerges from the arithmetical relations, well, as sure as I am sure of the irrationality of the square root of 2. I give a proof. [GK] Oh, I am sorry, than! As you speak so much of acts-of-faith I concluded, too soon I gather, that you took all those years of toil as a
Re: subjective reality
Hi Saibal, Yes, trans-Plankian physics is likely to be quite different from our cis-plankian one. However I think the main reason 't Hooft claims the no-go theorems of quantum physics are in small print is because his reading glasses are no longer current :-), I am afraid. His arguments for the prevalence of simple deterministic models at this scaled have varied over the years (as his little examples) and some of these are quite clever, I'll agree. However, as you very well point out, any transplankian theory worth looking into has to reproduce a recognizable picture of the cisplankian world we know and that means: quantum mechanics (non-locality and all) in some discernible limit (and General Relativity too in some other limit) and all indications is that this cannot be done from deterministic models alone. 't Hooft has been working around this for the last 10 years or so and he doesn't have much to show for it. Considering that it took him less than 2 years to come up with a renormalization prescription for non-abelian gauge theories in his youth I suspect god's dice are loaded against him this time. However he is always fascinating to read and hear. I saw him at Harvard this winter for the Colemanfest and he had the most fabulous animations... Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Saibal Mitra [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sat, 13 Aug 2005 01:34:19 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality Hi Godfrey, 't Hooft's work is motivated by problems one encounters in Planck scale physics. 't Hooft has argued that the no go theorems precluding deterministic models come with some ''small print''. Physicists working on ''conventional ways'' to unite gravity with QM are forced to make such bold assumptions that one should now also question this ''small print''. As you wrote, 't Hooft has only looked at some limited type of models. It seems to me that much more is possible. I have never tried to do any serious work in this area myself (I'm too busy with other things). I would say that anything goes as long as you can explain the macroscopic world. One could imagine that a stochastic treatment of some deterministic theory could yield the standard model, but now with the status of the quantum fields as fictitional ghosts. If photons and electrons etc. don't really exists, then you can say that this is consistent with ''no local hidden variables''. Saibal Hi Saibal, You are correct that Gerard 't Hooft is one of the world exponents in QFTh. But Quantum Field Theory is but one small piece of QM and one in which non-local effects do not play a direct role (as of yet). Understandably 't Hooft's forays into Quantum Mechanics have not, however, been very insightful as he himself confesses (you can check his humorous slides in the Kavli Institute symposium of last year on the Future of Physics). So far he has supplied mostly some interesting simple CA models from which one can indeed extract something akin to superpositions but that in no way bypasses the basic facts of entanglement and non-local correlations. He may very well be the very last hold out for a deterministic (an thus classically mechanistic) point-of-view but I would not count him out just yet. If any one around has the brain to deal with this its him! That much I will grant you... (Now I have met 't Hooft! 't Hooft was a neighbor of mine and I tell you: Bruno is no 't Hooft! ;- ) Best regards Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Saibal Mitra [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 21:11:30 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality Godfrey Kurtz wrote More specifically: I believe QM puts a big kabosh into any non-quantum mechanistic view of the physical world. If you don't get that, than maybe you don't get a lot of other things, Bruno. Sorry if this sounds contemptuous. It is meant to be. There aren't many people with a better understanding of QFT than 't Hooft. http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0409021 http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9903084 http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0212095 http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0105105 http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0104219 http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0104080 Saibal Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection. Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi George, Still trying to understand you but having trouble holding my disbelieve... Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) Hi Godfrey The I that I consider consists of a logical system that defines and coincides with the physical system that the I inhabits. Thus the world (the slice of the plenitude that we can observe) is anthropically constrained by the I. [GK] So the I is (1) a logical system (2) a physical system inhabited (1) and (3) the set of anthropic constraints which delimits the whole of the (non-I) universe (?) where (I am guessing) (1) and (2) find themselves! Is this what you are saying? So the I is coextensive with what I would call my body (including my brain) but not my mind (including my reasoning)? Not sure I follow you here... [GL] A first consequence is that physics is perfectly rational and understandable since it matches the I. (This is a response to Einstein's question of why is the world subject to rational analysis) A second consequence is that your logical system is the same as mine, - we share the same I, - hence your world is the same as mine - we share the same world or perspective of the plenitude. Therefore, you and me appear to share an objective reality. [GK] Hold on there! If all physics is reducible to a logical system why would there need be physics at all ? Why would you have to be the one answering Enstein's quandary? Wouldn't his I, being the same as yours be able to answer himself? In other words: maybe your explanation of knowledge is incapable of explaining... ignorance? Also, if I remember it correctly, logical systems have the nasty habit, once they take on the minimal complexity, to have to opt between remaining consistent or aiming for completion. This, of course, would exempt your I from having to be consistent, but would also invalidate your claim that the I physics is perfectly rational is understandable which, by the way, is a much bigger claim than what Einstein had in mind... [GL] Objective reality is an illusion that disappears when observers differ in their frame of reference. In this particular case, it does not exist when observers operate according to different but entirely consistent fundamental logics. In fact, such observers would have a lot of difficulty communicating since their worlds would be different slices of the plenitude. George [GK] Is that right? ...disappears when observers differ in their frame of reference.? But the strangeness of relativistic physics is that observers can actually compare and agree on their observations even when they have entirely different deployments in their different frames of reference! The correct physics is identifiable from these apparently orthogonal sets of data... Isn't your metaphor a bit upside down or am I not intersecting your slice of plenitude? Again, I am not trying to be entirely fascicious. You may be onto something( at least worth shooting down which is more than I can say for a lot of today's physics). Godfrey Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi George, Thanks for the clarifications. Let me see if I understand you better. Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: George Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED] [GL] I am sorry I was sloppy in my explanation. Let me try to be clearer. I is the kernel of consciousness. It does not include memories which are different for everyone and change as a person ages. I agree with you that since I is based on a logical system it must follow Goedel's theorem, perhaps at the border between incompleteness and inconsistency. It seems that is precisely what consciousness feels like. [GK] That is lovely! That may be how your consciousness feels: mine feels like something at the border between dazed and confused ;-) Now, seriously, I wish I was as sure as you that there is such kernel once you strip away all the memories. (Does this include biological memories, by the way? If so which ones?) But just in any case: do you have an idea on how to formalize that logical system or in any way, explicate it? [GL] I am not saying that I is a physical system or is the world. Rather that the world that I perceive is anthropically constrained by the I and that the physical laws have the same limitations as the I including the incompleteness/inconsistency requirement. [GK] No problem here though I am trying to understand you as saying that it is the existence of such a logical kernel of consciousness that places anthropical constraints on physical laws. The way people usually refer to anthropic constraints is as obvious restictions on observation not on the laws! In fact the copernician view is that our *observations* are just as accidental as we believe ouselves to be. I hope you understand that your using anthropic constraint in a very oblique way... [GL] I think that a TOE would have to include an explanation of consciousness. In explaining the world we'll have to explain ourselves. [GK] I surely agree with you that this would be desirable but constraining physics on having to evolve consciousness deterministically is not an explanation, in my book. Accidents happen after all. [GL] Objective reality is an illusion that disappears when observers differ in their frame of reference. In this particular case, it does not exist when observers operate according to different but entirely consistent fundamental logics. In fact, such observers would have a lot of difficulty communicating since their worlds would be different slices of the plenitude. [GK] the strangeness of relativistic physics is that observers can actually compare and agree on their observations even when they have entirely different deployments in their different frames of reference! [GL] Before relativity, one might have argued that different observers experienced different laws of physics. For example, I might experience a gravitational field while you may experience an acceleration. Relativity is a set of far ranging laws that unified under the same umbrella what were deemed smaller ranging laws experienced by different observers. I am saying exactly the same thing. Different frames of reference will generate different perceived laws. Since the frames of reference I am discussing include logical systems, the perceived worlds will be different. [GK] I think you wrong in what you say above. Relativity did not change your experience of gravity or acceleration: it changed the way you interpret it. The Equivalence Principle is just as valid within Newtonian gravity as in GR (and Carton showed that the same is the case for the Principle of Covariance). Einstein's genius was that of cross breeding two apparently ancilliary principles into a more general theory of Gravity, general enough to apply to the whole cosmos, etc... I don't quite see why you insist in this by the way!? If the I is commonly shared and is mapped to a shared physical system why different physical laws for different people? (Are we still in Kansas, Toto?) On this I am sticking with Bruno. I don't think you answer him any better below... [GL] Objective reality is an illusion that disappears when observers differ in their frame of reference. In this particular case, it does not exist when observers operate according to different but entirely consistent fundamental logics. In fact, such observers would have a lot of difficulty communicating since their worlds would be different slices of the plenitude. [BM] I would say, almost like a physicalist, that objective reality is what is common to all frame of reference. I would even say that the physical laws are exactly what is true in all observer-moment, relative state/worlds, etc. [GL] Einstein has demonstrated that under different state of motion and acceleration the old objective reality breaks down and a new objective reality must take its place. Objective reality depends on the range of the laws. Newton's laws are not true in
Re: subjective reality
Hi Lee, Lee Corbin writes: Godfrey writes Hi Everythingers, Though I am new to the list I have been reading your fascinating posts on this troubling issue of reality and subjectivity so please pardon if I skip the protocol and delve into the discussion right away. I have a background in computer and cognitive science if you want to know, but little chance to engage in exchanges on philosophical matters such as the ones in which you guys are involved in. Forgive me if I misunderstand some of the finer details (yes I know, the devil is there...) [LC] Welcome! But there's no pecking order here, we're all equal! :-) [GK] Thanks for your welcome. Scientific Reality is definitely more specific than reality in general. There is also much that one can acknowledge without admitting to its reality. I have heard of, say, alien abductions but would not swear to their reality, though others may differ. [LC] Is that so? So the Saucerians exist in their reality, but not mine. I guess we're all, like I said, equal? How can anyone be crazy? After all, their reality is as good as anyone's, right? [GK] I was, of course, being sarcastic (or trying to be) but maybe there is a tinge of this politically correct presumption floating around, no? To each his own reality is becoming the current day equivalent of Heraclitus to each one his own poison. That is to say: I appreciate your point which I believe is that there is still a still a consensual or naive level which we understand the term to mean. Not so sure that Bruno is not already... in a reality of his own! ;-) [LC] (As you see, we are not equal in our capacity for sarcasm, and I'm currently the most irascible frequent poster on this list. Bill Taylor is on vacation, I guess. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.) [GK] Fair enough! I am all for righteous indignation and you do express it well... [GK] I would argue that numbers are rather objective, perhaps even more than physical laws and surely so if you [Bruno] are right, no? [LC] Yes, quite a few here are what we call (and maybe you do too) mathematical Platonists. When Platonist is used, it's always in the sense of *mathematical* Platonism. IMO. Sorry I don't have time to comment on the rest of your 23 kilo-byte post. Thanks for joining and contributing! [GK] Sorry for those kilos! No problem. I think the rest of my barbs were directed at Bruno anyway. I am not as sure about his Platonism as about yours and mine. I also feel that same shortness in my span of attention... Till next time, Godfrey Sincerely, Lee Godfrey Kurtz New Brunswick NJ Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Lee, Bruno may not be very articulate and I may never forgive myself for trying to answer for him but I think he is clear enough about this: Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: Lee Corbin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 15:55:51 -0700 Subject: RE: subjective reality Okay, but two questions: 1. by comp do you mean the computationalist hypothesis as apparently used by philosophers? Is comp just an abbreviation for that? [GK] No! What he calls COMP is NOT what you call the computationalist hypothesis, i.e. that computers MAY acquire conscious thought. What he calls COMP is apparently the notion that HE is already a machine (and who am I to disagree?) or more specifically a program that enumerates it. Moreover he wants you and I and George and everyone else to be THAT SAME program, the same I! Me? Not so much... [LC] 2. By Turing-emulable do you mean that we can be imitated by a physical Turing machine (or, what amounts to the same thing), by a computer? Or, instead, are you going to the Pure Platonism, with no separate existence of a physical reality required? [GK] Not sure here but I think he is going WAY-WAY beyond Pure Platonism. Remember that even Plato had some regard for the world of appearance and that his souls had to migrate from it a some point... Comp is precisely the conjunction of Church Thesis, of some amount of belief in arithmetic, + the act of faith saying yes to *some* digitalist surgeon. [LC] And this is the same as saying yes to being uploaded, say, into a computer? (I will, for the sake of other readers, even extend this by stipulating a computer that provides a fully Earth like virtual reality and which allows multiple mobile sensors on the Earth's surface so that folks can both feel at home, and also not lose contact with the actual world.) [GK] No, again. He is not being uploaded but we are all uploaded already: He is not IN the Matrix! He is WITH the machines! He is that architect guy with the white outfit and the beard! Keanu help us all!!! :-) Best regards, Lee Same to you Godfrey Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi George, I see your point. Brandon Carter expressed recently the same idea, it seams, when noting that Quantum Mechanics suggests to him that objective reality is NOT a realistic objective. Perhaps, but that hardly implies that subjective reality is any more realistic as an scientific objective, I am afraid! If the I maps the world than it is also likely to map the quantum quandary, don't you think? Subjectivity and mentality are surely much bigger scientific problems than all of the paradoxes of QM and GR can even hope to compare! I also have some trouble with the idea that we share an I, as you put it, as I don't know to what extent I do share mine with anyone! My notion is, instead, that the I is exactly what we DO NOT SHARE, what makes us different, while Reality is all the rest: what we DO share in a very obvious sense. Otherwise, why would we disagree? Do we slice the Plenitude in parallel? I also do not join you and Bruno in that eagerness for a self-centered science as the solution to everything. Maybe it is an unfair comparison but isn't that, the demand for a science that caters to ones believes and feelings, what the Kansas Board of Education is about to enshrine in its classrooms with the whole notion of parity between Evolution and Intelligent Design? Don't tax payers have the right to science that caters to their beliefs and biases, a school that, instead of teaching their children, reinforces their conviction that they already know what's true? Please tell me I am wrong. Only half joking, Godfrey Kurtz (New Brunswick, NJ) -Original Message- From: George Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED] ... Hi Bruno and Lee, I would invert Dennett's point to increase its emphasis: we need to develop some first person discourses on the third person discourse. In other words, I believe that the foundation is first person, and that third person is a consequence of anthropically determined constraints that we must share. I have been quiet recently in part because of the sheer volume of this list. As you know Bruno I am an extreme believer in first person. I have acquired this position mainly by looking at two seemingly opposite trends in science. Scientific theories have become less and less anthropocentric removing the earth and man as the center of the universe. (Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Michelson-Morley). The Earth does not occupy a priviledged position. There is no Ether. There is no absolute. Paradoxically, the observer has acquired greater importance through the work (Relativity Theory, Quantum Theory with the MWI, Shannon's communication theory). Relativity of the observer seems to be pervasive, not just with regards Relativity Theory but also with regards Quantum Theroy. It is not a coincidence that Everett called his paper Relative State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics. Everything is relative to the observer. So why not go all the way and take the first person as the base. This approach tackles the Mind-Body problem up-front rather than after the fact. I becomes fundamental: the starting assumption as well as an observable fact. I exists in the Plenitude and is constrained to see a slice of the Plenitude - the world it sees - by Anthropic constraints. Thus I and the world it sees share the same structure and logic whatever that logic may be. There are probably more than one I's/worlds/logics that satisfy this requirement. Bruno, you are the expert in logic. Subjective reality is fundamental. Objective reality arises because we share the same I and therefore the same world (slice view of the plenitude). George Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection.
Re: subjective reality
Hi Everythingers, Though I am new to the list I have been reading your fascinating posts on this troubling issue of reality and subjectivity so please pardon if I skip the protocol and delve into the discussion right away. I have a background in computer and cognitive science if you want to know, but little chance to engage in exchanges on philosophical matters such as the ones in which you guys are involved in. Forgive me if I misunderstand some of the finer details (yes I know, the devil is there...) -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 18:35:18 +0200 Subject: Re: subjective reality Hi Lee , It was just a figure of speech. You are free, of course, to use the word reality any way you want. I'm not comfortable for using it to describes one's subjective impressions, feelings, etc. Bruno says: But I am not using the word reality to *describe* one's subjective impression, it seems to me I am just acknowledging the existence of those subjective impression in many persons. To acknowledge something is to admit that something has some kind of reality, it seems to me. And it seems you did acknowledge those experiences too). To describe them, in the limit, I can only point you to great poets and artists, and they will hardly mention the word reality. [GK] Well, astists will probably argue that they are quite concerned with reality in their own way. You don't want to confuse your subjective impressions (qualia) with the fact that you have them or report them. The later are the subject of scientific inquiry while the former may not qualify. Scientific Reality is definitely more specific than reality in general. There is also much that one can aknowledge without admiting to its reality. I have heard of, say, alien abductions but would not swear to their reality, though others may differ. [BM] You just seems to want those experiences are just an unnecessary epiphenomenon, and you would like that science never adresses what they really are and where they came from. For you it looks like consciousness is just a sort of subjective mirror partially reflecting an objective third person describable reality in which we are embedded. And science should never leave the third person discourse. All right? Now, please understand that I agree (100%) with the last sentences: science should never leave the third person discourse. But this does not prohibit science of looking to herself, and to try theories (hypotheses) about third person discourses, and even to *discover* sort of first person discourse canonically associated to some mathematical object. By taking the comp hyp enough seriously it just happens that consciousness, or just the ability to guess the existence of one (at least) world is not a little detail. Or it is a little detail but then remember that the devil is hidden in the little details. Why? Because if I am correct in my derivation it makes the physical law emerging from number theory. [GK] I would argue that numbers are rather objective, perhaps even more than physical laws and surely so if you are right, no? If that derivation is just a piece of your subjectivity that may dash your hopes to convey it to others... There is also an animal called *self-delusion* that inhabits this realm between the subjective and the objective and amounts to taking for real what isn't quite so. But why bring it into this already confusing and confused exchanged. [LC] So you say. And I confess I haven't the energy (and probably not the preparation) to study your thesis. So I'll wait for the experts to acclaim you. No one will cheer louder: I knew him *before* the world saw the truth to COMP! He even knows who I am!. [BM] My heart appreciates very much. My poor brain, or some reasoner who appears to succeed to manifest himself through it, relatively to you, is a little bit astonished: you are amazingly honest and confess you could give a weight to authoritative argument. Ah la la. I think it would be better to get the understanding by yourself, then you could say I thought it, but perhaps you do get some understanding, I think :-) Actually my work is the work which people should understand by themselves, if only to understand the second part where they must understand that machine can understand it by themselves, in some precise sense. You could also be disappointed. Although the conclusion is startling, technically my contribution is modest and leads quickly to soluble but intractable questions. A paper entitled Theoretical Computer Science and the Natural Sciences should appear soon, though. [GK] Oh, it seems you agree than! The Work goes well with your theological inclinations, seems to me though I am as hopeless about understandiing it as Lee is... [LC] My friends and I (and probably Daniel Dennett and so on) believe that
