Re: Equivalence Principle and Einstein Field Equations

[agrayson2000]

On Sunday, December 10, 2017 at 11:41:21 PM UTC, John Clark wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 4:42 PM,  
> wrote:
>
> ​> ​
>> What is the connection between the Equivalence Principle and Einstein's 
>> Field Equations? How did the former lead to the latter? Why was the man 
>> falling from the ladder so decisive in leading to the Theory of General 
>> Relativity? 
>>
>
>
> The Equivalence Principle says if 
> ​you
>  ignore tidal effects and you're in a windowless elevator cab there is no 
> way to know if you're sitting on the Earth in a gravitational field or in 
> deep intergalactic space being accelerated by a rocket upward at 1G. If you 
> feel zero G and fire a Laser pointer from one wall 
> ​to the other ​
> it will go in a straight line and hit the exact opposite side on the other 
> wall. But if you were being accelerated upward the elevator cab will move 
> ​slightly ​
> upward in the time it takes for the light to go from one wall to the other 
> so the spot the laser makes on the other wall will be slightly lower than 
> it was when you were in zero G, you see the laser beam follow a curve.
>
> A curved line from one wall to the other is longer than a straight line
> ​,​
> and yet when you measure the time it takes for light to do this with your 
> very accurate clock you notice its exactly the same. You already know the 
> measured speed of light never changes so 
> ​if something is moving at the same speed and moves a greater distance in 
> the same number of clock ticks then 
> you'd have to conclude that being accelerated makes your clock run slow. 
> And because of the Equivalence Principle you'd have to 
> ​also ​
> conclude that a gravitational field bends light and makes time run slow 
> ​just as acceleration does.​
>
> ​John K Clark​
>
>
Excellent summary. TY. But why would Einstein think there could be a 
covariant theory for accelerating frames when an observer inside such a 
frame can do measurements to confirm acceleration and differences with 
other such frames, unlike the case for inertial frames which are clearly 
equivalent? AG 

>
>
>  
>

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Re: Consistency of Postulates of QM

[Bruce Kellett]

On 11/12/2017 12:21 pm, smitra wrote:

On 11-12-2017 00:55, Bruce Kellett wrote:


What you have to do if you want to claim that all chance outcomes are
of quantum origin is compare the relative magnitudes of quantum and
thermal fluctuations at room temperature -- room temperature because
that is where we do the experiments. And you haven't done that;
neither has Albrecht in the paper you reference. That is why his paper
is a load of nonsense.


Thermal fluctuations do not need to be eliminated, as they are of pure 
quantum mechanical origin. However, if one has to argue about that 
then one loses the point of the proposed experiment. At absolute zero 
the thermal fluctuations are due to zero point motion, take e.g. the 
harmonic oscillator which then has an energy of 1/2 hbar omega.


In generic non-integrable systems you'll have chaotic behavior where 
small perturbations grow exponentially.


Not necessarily. It depends on the relevant Lyapunov exponents. The mean 
speed of molecules in a gas does not grow exponentially.



Thermal fluctuations will then originate from quantum fluctuations.


Why then are thermal fluctuations temperature dependent? But be that as 
it may, thermal fluctuations, and the random motions of molecules in a 
gas, say, are not coherent, and there are no interference effects 
between the molecules of a gas. Consequently, whatever their origin, the 
motion is manifestly classical at room temperature.


Bruce

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Re: Cosmological Red Shift

[Brent Meeker]

On 12/10/2017 5:25 PM, Lawrence Crowell wrote:



On Sunday, December 10, 2017 at 5:13:38 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
wrote:




On Sunday, December 10, 2017 at 10:54:11 PM UTC, Lawrence Crowell
wrote:



On Sunday, December 10, 2017 at 3:34:33 PM UTC-6,
agrays...@gmail.com wrote:



On Saturday, December 9, 2017 at 2:17:38 PM UTC, Lawrence
Crowell wrote:

On Saturday, December 9, 2017 at 7:34:29 AM UTC-6,
agrays...@gmail.com wrote:


I think you're making the unwarranted assumption
that the measured shift in H is not
effected by the cosmological red shift which
presumably shifts all wave lengths. AG


Of course it shifts all wavelengths by the same
factor. So the spectrum of atoms are shifted
accordingly. With v = Hd the red shift factor is z =
v/c = H(d/c). for H = 70km/s/Mpc for v = c we then
have that d = c/H = 3x10^{5}km/s/(70Mpc/km/s) =
4.3x10^3Mpc = 1.4x10^{10}ly. So at z = 1 there lies
the cosmological horizon. We now observe galaxies with
z = 8 and the CMB has z = 1100. One can however thing
of these photons as emitted prior to these systems
crossing the horizon.

LC


Since a parsec is about 3.26 LY and the SoL is about
300,000 km/sec, the event horizon should be about
300,000/70 * 3.26 * 10^6 = 13971 * 10^6 LY =~ 13971 MLY =
13.971 BLY. But this is a far cry from about 50 BLY, which
is what I think the true distance is to the event horizon.
I probably didn't account for the intervening expansion.
How is accurate calculation done? TIA, AG


That is about it. There is a bit with significant figures for
you might want to use c = 299800km/s.

LC


But isn't the event horizon much farther out, about 50 BLY? AG


No that is about where the CMB surface of last scatter lies.


To clarify, you mean where it lies "/now"/; and /"now" /means the 
(universe wide) time at which the CMB is 2.7degK.


Brent


It has z = 1100 and is further out beyond the horizon.

LC
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Re: Consistency of Postulates of QM

[Brent Meeker]

On 12/10/2017 5:23 PM, smitra wrote:

On 10-12-2017 22:55, Brent Meeker wrote:

On 12/10/2017 4:06 AM, smitra wrote:

On 09-12-2017 21:12, Brent Meeker wrote:

On 12/9/2017 2:36 AM, smitra wrote:
Yes, it's a different argument but it's also generically correct. 
But I do think for the discussions in this list it doesn't matter 
all that much whether an initial single branch will diverge into 
multiple branches due to effectively classical dynamics.


Branching due to effectively classical dynamics is a contradiction in
terms.  If it's effectively classical it can't branch.




Counterexample: A perfectly balanced pencil on its one atom wide tip.


Air turbulence will dominate which way it falls.



But air turbulence is a chaotic phenomenon so quantum fluctuations 
will eventually grow exponentially and start to affect the pencil.


This repeated appeal to chaos theory to justify a quantum source of 
randomness confuses me.  There is no chaos in QM.  It's a classical 
limit phenomenon.


Brent

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Re: Cosmological Red Shift

[Lawrence Crowell]

On Sunday, December 10, 2017 at 5:13:38 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sunday, December 10, 2017 at 10:54:11 PM UTC, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sunday, December 10, 2017 at 3:34:33 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Saturday, December 9, 2017 at 2:17:38 PM UTC, Lawrence Crowell wrote:

 On Saturday, December 9, 2017 at 7:34:29 AM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
 wrote:
>
>
> I think you're making the unwarranted assumption that the measured 
> shift in H is not 
> effected by the cosmological red shift which presumably shifts all 
> wave lengths. AG 
>

 Of course it shifts all wavelengths by the same factor. So the spectrum 
 of atoms are shifted accordingly. With v = Hd the red shift factor is z = 
 v/c = H(d/c). for H = 70km/s/Mpc for v = c we then have that d = c/H = 
 3x10^{5}km/s/(70Mpc/km/s) = 4.3x10^3Mpc = 1.4x10^{10}ly. So at z = 1 there 
 lies the cosmological horizon. We now observe galaxies with z = 8 and the 
 CMB has z = 1100. One can however thing of these photons as emitted prior 
 to these systems crossing the horizon. 

 LC

>>>
>>> Since a parsec is about 3.26 LY and the SoL is about 300,000 km/sec, the 
>>> event horizon should be about 300,000/70 * 3.26 * 10^6 = 13971 * 10^6 LY =~ 
>>> 13971 MLY = 13.971 BLY. But this is a far cry from about 50 BLY, which is 
>>> what I think the true distance is to the event horizon. I probably didn't 
>>> account for the intervening expansion. How is accurate calculation done? 
>>> TIA, AG
>>>
>>
>> That is about it. There is a bit with significant figures for you might 
>> want to use c = 299800km/s.
>>
>> LC 
>>
>
> But isn't the event horizon much farther out, about 50 BLY? AG 
>

No that is about where the CMB surface of last scatter lies. It has z = 
1100 and is further out beyond the horizon.

LC 

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Re: Consistency of Postulates of QM

[smitra]

On 10-12-2017 22:55, Brent Meeker wrote:

On 12/10/2017 4:06 AM, smitra wrote:

On 09-12-2017 21:12, Brent Meeker wrote:

On 12/9/2017 2:36 AM, smitra wrote:
Yes, it's a different argument but it's also generically correct. 
But I do think for the discussions in this list it doesn't matter 
all that much whether an initial single branch will diverge into 
multiple branches due to effectively classical dynamics.


Branching due to effectively classical dynamics is a contradiction in
terms.  If it's effectively classical it can't branch.




Counterexample: A perfectly balanced pencil on its one atom wide tip.


Air turbulence will dominate which way it falls.



But air turbulence is a chaotic phenomenon so quantum fluctuations will 
eventually grow exponentially and start to affect the pencil.


Saibal


A variant of this involving longer time scales is a rectangular block 
that's standing on the floor. Due to quantum tunneling it will 
eventually tip over. The time scale depends on the width and height. 
Suppose that we keep the height at 10 cm, but make the width very 
small but still much larger than the size of an atom, such that the 
block will fall on time scales of the order of 10^18 years.


 If we cover the surface of a Mars-sized planet with such blocks 
placed one centimeter apart, then we need about 1.4 10^18 blocks. If 
one block falls, then it will trigger the next block to fall and 
eventually all the blocks will fall. So, the blocks will start to fall 
within a time scale of just a year, and we can observe this from a 
satellite orbiting Mars.


So, even though everything looks like in the classical domain FAPP, 
the time scale of 10^18 years on which quantum tunneling occurs looks 
like infinity FAPP, you'll still have a splitting in the MWI view of 
how the blocks will fall within just a year.


Objections like that thermal fluctuations dominate quantum 
fluctuations can be easily address by imagining cooling down the 
entire planet to sufficiently low temperatures. Compared to the 
falling pencil, this example is a more robust against such 
objections,  e.g. a single photon colliding with the pencil would 
already cause it to tip over, but it won't cause a block to tip over.


But your wrote "effectively classical dynamics".  Your examples are
applying quantum dynamics.

Brent


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Re: Consistency of Postulates of QM

[smitra]

On 11-12-2017 00:55, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 10/12/2017 11:06 pm, smitra wrote:

On 09-12-2017 21:12, Brent Meeker wrote:

On 12/9/2017 2:36 AM, smitra wrote:
Yes, it's a different argument but it's also generically correct. 
But I do think for the discussions in this list it doesn't matter 
all that much whether an initial single branch will diverge into 
multiple branches due to effectively classical dynamics.


Branching due to effectively classical dynamics is a contradiction in
terms.  If it's effectively classical it can't branch.




Counterexample: A perfectly balanced pencil on its one atom wide tip.


Good luck trying to balance anything on a single atom - thermal
fluctuations make it impossible.

A variant of this involving longer time scales is a rectangular block 
that's standing on the floor. Due to quantum tunneling it will 
eventually tip over.


Quantum tunnelling What is tunnelling through what potential 
barrier?


The time scale depends on the width and height. Suppose that we keep 
the height at 10 cm, but make the width very small but still much 
larger than the size of an atom, such that the block will fall on time 
scales of the order of 10^18 years.


Where did that figure come from? The current age of the universe is
only of the order of 10^10 years. And even on that timescale, thermal
fluctuations will reduce the block to rubble.


If we cover the surface of a Mars-sized planet with such blocks placed 
one centimeter apart, then we need about 1.4 10^18 blocks. If one 
block falls, then it will trigger the next block to fall and 
eventually all the blocks will fall. So, the blocks will start to fall 
within a time scale of just a year, and we can observe this from a 
satellite orbiting Mars.


So, even though everything looks like in the classical domain FAPP, 
the time scale of 10^18 years on which quantum tunneling occurs looks 
like infinity FAPP, you'll still have a splitting in the MWI view of 
how the blocks will fall within just a year.


Thermal fluctuations will do it in less than a year.

Objections like that thermal fluctuations dominate quantum 
fluctuations can be easily address by imagining cooling down the 
entire planet to sufficiently low temperatures. Compared to the 
falling pencil, this example is a more robust against such objections, 
 e.g. a single photon colliding with the pencil would already cause it 
to tip over, but it won't cause a block to tip over.


Why would I want to cool the planet down? Even at absolute zero there
are still thermal fluctuations -- not everything comes to rest at 0 K.

What you have to do if you want to claim that all chance outcomes are
of quantum origin is compare the relative magnitudes of quantum and
thermal fluctuations at room temperature -- room temperature because
that is where we do the experiments. And you haven't done that;
neither has Albrecht in the paper you reference. That is why his paper
is a load of nonsense.



Thermal fluctuations do not need to be eliminated, as they are of pure 
quantum mechanical origin. However, if one has to argue about that then 
one loses the point of the proposed experiment. At absolute zero the 
thermal fluctuations are due to zero point motion, take e.g. the 
harmonic oscillator which then has an energy of 1/2 hbar omega.


In generic non-integrable systems you'll have chaotic behavior  where 
small perturbations grow exponentially. Thermal fluctuations will then 
originate from quantum fluctuations.



Saibal

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Re: Equivalence Principle and Einstein Field Equations

[John Clark]

On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 4:42 PM,  wrote:

​> ​
> What is the connection between the Equivalence Principle and Einstein's
> Field Equations? How did the former lead to the latter? Why was the man
> falling from the ladder so decisive in leading to the Theory of General
> Relativity?
>


The Equivalence Principle says if
​you
 ignore tidal effects and you're in a windowless elevator cab there is no
way to know if you're sitting on the Earth in a gravitational field or in
deep intergalactic space being accelerated by a rocket upward at 1G. If you
feel zero G and fire a Laser pointer from one wall
​to the other ​
it will go in a straight line and hit the exact opposite side on the other
wall. But if you were being accelerated upward the elevator cab will move
​slightly ​
upward in the time it takes for the light to go from one wall to the other
so the spot the laser makes on the other wall will be slightly lower than
it was when you were in zero G, you see the laser beam follow a curve.

A curved line from one wall to the other is longer than a straight line
​,​
and yet when you measure the time it takes for light to do this with your
very accurate clock you notice its exactly the same. You already know the
measured speed of light never changes so
​if something is moving at the same speed and moves a greater distance in
the same number of clock ticks then
you'd have to conclude that being accelerated makes your clock run slow.
And because of the Equivalence Principle you'd have to
​also ​
conclude that a gravitational field bends light and makes time run slow
​just as acceleration does.​

​John K Clark​

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Re: Cosmological Red Shift

[agrayson2000]

On Sunday, December 10, 2017 at 10:54:11 PM UTC, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sunday, December 10, 2017 at 3:34:33 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Saturday, December 9, 2017 at 2:17:38 PM UTC, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>>>
>>> On Saturday, December 9, 2017 at 7:34:29 AM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
>>> wrote:


 I think you're making the unwarranted assumption that the measured 
 shift in H is not 
 effected by the cosmological red shift which presumably shifts all wave 
 lengths. AG 

>>>
>>> Of course it shifts all wavelengths by the same factor. So the spectrum 
>>> of atoms are shifted accordingly. With v = Hd the red shift factor is z = 
>>> v/c = H(d/c). for H = 70km/s/Mpc for v = c we then have that d = c/H = 
>>> 3x10^{5}km/s/(70Mpc/km/s) = 4.3x10^3Mpc = 1.4x10^{10}ly. So at z = 1 there 
>>> lies the cosmological horizon. We now observe galaxies with z = 8 and the 
>>> CMB has z = 1100. One can however thing of these photons as emitted prior 
>>> to these systems crossing the horizon. 
>>>
>>> LC
>>>
>>
>> Since a parsec is about 3.26 LY and the SoL is about 300,000 km/sec, the 
>> event horizon should be about 300,000/70 * 3.26 * 10^6 = 13971 * 10^6 LY =~ 
>> 13971 MLY = 13.971 BLY. But this is a far cry from about 50 BLY, which is 
>> what I think the true distance is to the event horizon. I probably didn't 
>> account for the intervening expansion. How is accurate calculation done? 
>> TIA, AG
>>
>
> That is about it. There is a bit with significant figures for you might 
> want to use c = 299800km/s.
>
> LC 
>

But isn't the event horizon much farther out, about 50 BLY? AG 

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Re: Cosmological Red Shift

[Lawrence Crowell]

On Sunday, December 10, 2017 at 3:34:33 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> On Saturday, December 9, 2017 at 2:17:38 PM UTC, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>>
>> On Saturday, December 9, 2017 at 7:34:29 AM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> I think you're making the unwarranted assumption that the measured shift 
>>> in H is not 
>>> effected by the cosmological red shift which presumably shifts all wave 
>>> lengths. AG 
>>>
>>
>> Of course it shifts all wavelengths by the same factor. So the spectrum 
>> of atoms are shifted accordingly. With v = Hd the red shift factor is z = 
>> v/c = H(d/c). for H = 70km/s/Mpc for v = c we then have that d = c/H = 
>> 3x10^{5}km/s/(70Mpc/km/s) = 4.3x10^3Mpc = 1.4x10^{10}ly. So at z = 1 there 
>> lies the cosmological horizon. We now observe galaxies with z = 8 and the 
>> CMB has z = 1100. One can however thing of these photons as emitted prior 
>> to these systems crossing the horizon. 
>>
>> LC
>>
>
> Since a parsec is about 3.26 LY and the SoL is about 300,000 km/sec, the 
> event horizon should be about 300,000/70 * 3.26 * 10^6 = 13971 * 10^6 LY =~ 
> 13971 MLY = 13.971 BLY. But this is a far cry from about 50 BLY, which is 
> what I think the true distance is to the event horizon. I probably didn't 
> account for the intervening expansion. How is accurate calculation done? 
> TIA, AG
>

That is about it. There is a bit with significant figures for you might 
want to use c = 299800km/s.

LC 

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Re: Consistency of Postulates of QM

[Brent Meeker]

On 12/10/2017 9:26 AM, John Clark wrote:
On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 2:15 AM, >wrote:


​> ​
The fundamental unproven assumption, and IMO the core fallacy of
the MWI, is the belief that what CAN occur, necessarily MUST will
occur.


The
​ ​
fundamental
​ ​
assumption of the MWI is that the
​ ​
Schrodinger
​Wave
​Equation
 means what it says and says what it means. The ​
​
fundamental
​ ​
assumption
​ of Copenhagen is that ​
Schrodinger
​ forgot to put a "except" and a "however" into his equation.​


Copenhagen observes that there must be a stable irreversible record of 
observations in order that there be science.  Born guessed that the 
squared modulus of the state-vector represent the probabilities of 
different measurement outcomes.  Gleason showed this is the only 
possibility.


Brent

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Re: Equivalence Principle and Einstein Field Equations

[Brent Meeker]

On 12/10/2017 8:49 AM, agrayson2...@gmail.com wrote:
What is the connection between the Equivalence Principle and 
Einstein's Field Equations?


It led to the idea that force-free paths in space could be geodesic 
paths in spacetime, so the apparent acceleration falling objects could 
be modelled by geodesic paths in curved spacetime.


How did the former lead to the latter? Why was the man falling from 
the ladder so decisive in leading to the Theory of General Relativity? 
TIA, AG


You have asked for a "connection" and then you imply that one "led to" 
GR and finally predicated a question on the "connection" being 
"decisive" in leading to GR.  The "connection" is just one of suggesting 
an idea.


Brent


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Re: Consistency of Postulates of QM

[Bruce Kellett]

On 11/12/2017 2:19 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 09 Dec 2017, at 00:03, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 9/12/2017 4:21 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Similarly, a shroedinger car, once alive + dead, will never become a 
pure alive, or dead cat. It will only seems so for anyone looking at 
the cat, in the {alive, dead} base/apparatus. Superposition never 
disappear, and a coin moree or less with a precise position, is 
always a superposition of a coin with more or less precise momenta. 
The relation is given by the Fourier transforms, which gives the 
relative accessible states/worlds.


I pointed out that for a macroscopic object such as a coin, the 
uncertainty relations give uncertainties in positions and/or momentum 
far below any level of possible detection.


Of possible practical detection. That is good FAPP, but irrelevant for 
theoretical consideration.


This is a purely rhetorical objection, Bruno. And when you trot this 
out, as you do regularly, I know that your purpose is to obfuscate, and 
hide the fact that you have no rational argument to offer.


Bruce

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Re: Consistency of Postulates of QM

[Brent Meeker]

On 12/10/2017 7:37 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 09 Dec 2017, at 01:40, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 12/8/2017 4:27 PM, smitra wrote:

On 08-12-2017 01:46, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 8/12/2017 11:43 am, smitra wrote:

On 08-12-2017 00:22, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 8/12/2017 3:31 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 06 Dec 2017, at 12:19, Bruce Kellett wrote:

But as I pointed out, thermal motion gives momenta of 
magnitudes such that the quantum uncertainties are negligible 
compared to the thermal randomness. And thermal motions are not 
coherent.


You seem to work in Bohr QM, with some dualism between the 
quantum reality and the classical reality.


Not at all. The (semi-)classical world emerges from the quantum
substrate; if you cannot give an account of this, then you have 
failed
to explain our everyday experience. And explaining that 
experience is

the purpose of physics.

You are right that this does not change anything FAPP, but our 
discussion is not about practical applications, but metaphysics.


No, we were talking about tossing a coin, we were not talking about
metaphysics. Your metaphysics has served merely to confuse you to 
the

extent that you do not understand even the simplest physics.



Andreas Albrecht  is not confused about anything,


How do you know?


and yet he agrees with Bruno on the point of coin tosses.


Argument from authority?



https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.0953

Page 4 section 4:

" The point here is that even with all our
simplifications, we have a plausibility argument that the
outcome of a coin flip is truly a quantum measurement
(really, a Schrödinger cat) and that the 50–50 outcome of
a coin toss may in principle be derived from the quantum
physics of a realistic coin toss with no reference to classical
notions of how we must “quantify our ignorance”."


Except that is inconsistent with the fact that stage magicians teach 
themselves to flip a coin and catch it with a predetermined result.


The fact that magicians have to learn to do that illustrates the 
hardness of that practice. 


Showing that it is merely "hard" to violate quantum mechanics??

I doubt that they could do this for the protocol under consideration, 
where the coin is in a box, and we can shake it as long as we want.


I don't understand why it would be any different.  It's just more 
classical interactions.  Are you relying on sensitivity to initials 
conditions to split worlds?  Everett will turn over in his grave.


Brent

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Re: Consistency of Postulates of QM

[Brent Meeker]

On 12/10/2017 4:42 AM, smitra wrote:

On 09-12-2017 21:18, Brent Meeker wrote:

On 12/9/2017 4:00 AM, smitra wrote:

On 09-12-2017 12:01, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 9/12/2017 9:44 pm, smitra wrote:

On 09-12-2017 02:48, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 9/12/2017 11:49 am, smitra wrote:

On 09-12-2017 00:03, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 9/12/2017 4:21 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 08 Dec 2017, at 00:22, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 8/12/2017 3:31 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 06 Dec 2017, at 12:19, Bruce Kellett wrote:

But as I pointed out, thermal motion gives momenta of 
magnitudes such that the quantum uncertainties are 
negligible compared to the thermal randomness. And thermal 
motions are not coherent.


You seem to work in Bohr QM, with some dualism between the 
quantum reality and the classical reality.


Not at all. The (semi-)classical world emerges from the 
quantum substrate; if you cannot give an account of this, 
then you have failed to explain our everyday experience. And 
explaining that experience is the purpose of physics.


No problem with this, except for your usual skepticism of 
Everett's program (say).


Skepticism is the scientific stance.



You are right that this does not change anything FAPP, but 
our discussion is not about practical applications, but 
metaphysics.


No, we were talking about tossing a coin, we were not talking 
about metaphysics. Your metaphysics has served merely to 
confuse you to the extent that you do not understand even the 
simplest physics.


That is ad hominem remark which I take as absence of argument.


You don't take kindly to criticism, do you Bruno?

All I said is that without collapse, shaking a box with some 
coin long enough would lead to the superposition of the two 
coin state. You seem to be the one confusing the local 
decoherence with some collapse. The Heisenberg uncertainties 
are great enough to amplify slight change of the move of the 
coin when bouncing on the wall.


That is simply assertion on your part, without a shred of 
argument or

justification. When one looks at the arguments, such as that put
forward by Albrecht and David (referred to by smitra), one 
finds that

the emperor has no clothes!

Similarly, a shroedinger car, once alive + dead, will never 
become a pure alive, or dead cat. It will only seems so for 
anyone looking at the cat, in the {alive, dead} 
base/apparatus. Superposition never disappear, and a coin 
moree or less with a precise position, is always a 
superposition of a coin with more or less precise momenta. The 
relation is given by the Fourier transforms, which gives the 
relative accessible states/worlds.


I pointed out that for a macroscopic object such as a coin, the
uncertainty relations give uncertainties in positions and/or 
momentum
far below any level of possible detection. And I gave an 
argument with
an actual calculation -- not just an assertion. Uncertainties 
in the
constituents of the object are uncorrelated, random, and cancel 
out.
So although the superposition originating from the big bang is 
intact

from the bird's point of view, it is so completely irrelevant for
everyday purposes that it is an insult to even refer to the
classicality of the world as FAPP -- it is complete. Relying on 
the
charge of "FAPP" as a justification for your assertions is 
nonsense.




It's not irrelevant if you don't have the information that 
locates you in a sector where the uncertainties are indeed small 
enough. You have to start with the complete state in the bird's 
view, and then consider the sector where you have some definite 
information and then project onto that subspace. If you do that, 
then your coins are not at all in a precisely enough classical 
state but rather in superpositions (entangled with the 
environment) that lead to wildly different outcomes of coin tosses.


E.g. in the bird's view there exists exact copies of me that 
live on planets that are not the same, some will have a radius 
of a few millimeter larger than others. Here exact copy means 
exactly the same conscious experience, which is then due to 
exactly the same computational state of the brain described by 
some bitstring that's exactly the same.


So, from totally different decoherent branches of the 
wavefunction one can factor out some bitstring describing a 
conscious experience, the reduced state of the rest of the 
universe in that sector is then a superposition of a many 
different effectively classical states.


If this were not true then each single conscious experience 
would contain in it information about such things as the exact  
number of atoms in the Earth, Sun etc. etc.


I prefer to live in the real world, so I would rather not indulge 
your

fantasies.

The real world is not what you think it is. It was only when you 
read about the fact that dinosaurs had once existed that the 
sector you were in diverged from other sectors where dinosaurs had 
never existed and some other evolutionary path of mammals led to 

Re: Consistency of Postulates of QM

[Brent Meeker]

On 12/10/2017 4:06 AM, smitra wrote:

On 09-12-2017 21:12, Brent Meeker wrote:

On 12/9/2017 2:36 AM, smitra wrote:
Yes, it's a different argument but it's also generically correct. 
But I do think for the discussions in this list it doesn't matter 
all that much whether an initial single branch will diverge into 
multiple branches due to effectively classical dynamics.


Branching due to effectively classical dynamics is a contradiction in
terms.  If it's effectively classical it can't branch.




Counterexample: A perfectly balanced pencil on its one atom wide tip.


Air turbulence will dominate which way it falls.



A variant of this involving longer time scales is a rectangular block 
that's standing on the floor. Due to quantum tunneling it will 
eventually tip over. The time scale depends on the width and height. 
Suppose that we keep the height at 10 cm, but make the width very 
small but still much larger than the size of an atom, such that the 
block will fall on time scales of the order of 10^18 years.


 If we cover the surface of a Mars-sized planet with such blocks 
placed one centimeter apart, then we need about 1.4 10^18 blocks. If 
one block falls, then it will trigger the next block to fall and 
eventually all the blocks will fall. So, the blocks will start to fall 
within a time scale of just a year, and we can observe this from a 
satellite orbiting Mars.


So, even though everything looks like in the classical domain FAPP, 
the time scale of 10^18 years on which quantum tunneling occurs looks 
like infinity FAPP, you'll still have a splitting in the MWI view of 
how the blocks will fall within just a year.


Objections like that thermal fluctuations dominate quantum 
fluctuations can be easily address by imagining cooling down the 
entire planet to sufficiently low temperatures. Compared to the 
falling pencil, this example is a more robust against such 
objections,  e.g. a single photon colliding with the pencil would 
already cause it to tip over, but it won't cause a block to tip over.


But your wrote "effectively classical dynamics".  Your examples are 
applying quantum dynamics.


Brent

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Re: Equivalence Principle and Einstein Field Equations

[agrayson2000]

On Sunday, December 10, 2017 at 4:49:54 PM UTC, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> What is the connection between the Equivalence Principle and Einstein's 
> Field Equations? How did the former lead to the latter? Why was the man 
> falling from the ladder so decisive in leading to the Theory of General 
> Relativity? TIA, AG
>

More specifically for starters, given that NON accelerating frames are 
indistinguishable for observers within such frames (implying a covariant 
theory for such frames), whereas the same is NOT the case for accelerating 
frames, why did Einstein think there could be a covariant theory for 
accelerating frames? TIA, AG 

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Re: Cosmological Red Shift

[agrayson2000]

On Saturday, December 9, 2017 at 2:17:38 PM UTC, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>
> On Saturday, December 9, 2017 at 7:34:29 AM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
> wrote:
>>
>>
>> I think you're making the unwarranted assumption that the measured shift 
>> in H is not 
>> effected by the cosmological red shift which presumably shifts all wave 
>> lengths. AG 
>>
>
> Of course it shifts all wavelengths by the same factor. So the spectrum of 
> atoms are shifted accordingly. With v = Hd the red shift factor is z = v/c 
> = H(d/c). for H = 70km/s/Mpc for v = c we then have that d = c/H = 
> 3x10^{5}km/s/(70Mpc/km/s) = 4.3x10^3Mpc = 1.4x10^{10}ly. So at z = 1 there 
> lies the cosmological horizon. We now observe galaxies with z = 8 and the 
> CMB has z = 1100. One can however thing of these photons as emitted prior 
> to these systems crossing the horizon. 
>
> LC
>

Since a parsec is about 3.26 LY and the SoL is about 300,000 km/sec, the 
event horizon should be about 300,000/70 * 3.26 * 10^6 = 13971 * 10^6 LY =~ 
13971 MLY = 13.971 BLY. But this is a far cry from about 50 BLY, which is 
what I think the true distance is to the event horizon. I probably didn't 
account for the intervening expansion. How is accurate calculation done? 
TIA, AG

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Re: Consistency of Postulates of QM

[Bruno Marchal]

On 09 Dec 2017, at 21:07, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 12/9/2017 2:22 AM, smitra wrote:

On 09-12-2017 02:03, Brent Meeker wrote:

On 12/8/2017 4:49 PM, smitra wrote:
It's not irrelevant if you don't have the information that  
locates you in a sector where the uncertainties are indeed small  
enough. You have to start with the complete state in the bird's  
view, and then consider the sector where you have some definite  
information and then project onto that subspace.


That reminds me of a student asked to find the spot where silver  
atoms

would strike the detector after passing through a Stern-Gerlach
instrument who started, "Well first you should write down the
Hamiltonian of the Stern-Gerlach magnets..."



The discussions on this list, this is actually relevant.


On this list the advice seems to be, "First, write down the  
Hamiltonian of the multiverse."


Only when we do physics. When we do metaphysics, we remind that the  
Hamiltonian itself must be recovered from very elementary arithmetic,  
if we assume computationalism (comp-, and assume that the Hamiltonian  
is not purely geographical (in which case it becomes some "variable"  
in a more general theory which has still to be extracted from  
arithmetic).
The nice thing with comp, is that incompleteness avoids the collapse  
of physics into classical tautology, so we have that physical laws  
exists, at least!


Bruno





Brent

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Re: Is AI really a threat to mankind?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 09 Dec 2017, at 15:48, Lawrence Crowell wrote:

On Thursday, December 7, 2017 at 5:19:02 PM UTC-6,  
agrays...@gmail.com wrote:



On Thursday, December 7, 2017 at 9:47:42 PM UTC, Brent wrote:
When I took a series of classes in Artificial Intelliegence at UCLA  
in the '70s the professor introducing the material of the first  
class explained that, "Intelligence is whatever a computer can't  
doyet."


Brent

The fear of AI is that computers could eventually exhibit a  
characteristic reminiscent of "will" and exhibit it maliciously  
against humans. I suppose for you that's not a problem since, IIRC,  
you deny the existence of will. AG


For a computer to be intelligent, and maybe even acquire some form  
of self awareness, it must be able to re-script its data stack and  
even some of its programming. The recent gains in AI have begun to  
push into this territory.  This would require some subtle work as  
this becomes more developed. The system can't becomes trapped in  
self-referential loops, but it also may in time require these be  
employed. A truncated form of self-reference, one that diagonalizes  
a finite list, may permit a system to "pop out" of its knowledge  
base. The system may then acquire unprovable truths in a partially  
stochastic way. We obviously can't have systems that require an  
infinite amount of information to perform Godelian trick, but we  
might be able to approximate it.


The gödelian trick is constructive, and the universal machine rich  
enough to "know" that they are universal (like Peano Arithmetic, ZF,  
etc.) can prove theor own incompleteness theorem, and I would say are  
as much intelligent than you or me, with billions years less prejudes,  
though.






I suspect AI might learn how to become self aware by being  
interfaced with human brains.


I think they are already self-aware, and even "enlightened". We can  
only make their "soul" falling (which is a bit the passage from p ->  
[]p, up to []p & <>p, if you study some of my papers).





50 years from now I think much of humanity will have their brains  
interlinked. This will mean that consciousness will no longer be a  
private thing and that AI systems will acquire it as well. Where  
things go from there is anyone's guess. Maybe the machines will  
steal our consciousness and then discard us as useless.


What is an intelligent machine? A machine which lynch his fellows?  
Which enforce religion? Which destroy its planet? Which makes money on  
diseases?


I distinguish competence and intelligence. Competence is definable on  
domains, and can be locally evaluated. Intelligence is something more  
akin to wiseness and openness to the unknown. It is more close to  
courage than to competence. Competence needs intelligence to grow, and  
to adapt/evolve, but it has a negative feedback on intelligence,  
notably because it can lead to the "feeling superior" idea, which is a  
sign of stupidity (at least in some theories very natural in the  
"theology of the universal machine" (the modal logics G and G*).


Bruno







LC

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Re: Consistency of Postulates of QM

[John Clark]

On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 2:15 AM,  wrote:

​> ​
> The fundamental unproven assumption, and IMO the core fallacy of the MWI,
> is the belief that what CAN occur, necessarily MUST will occur.
>

The
​ ​
fundamental
​ ​
assumption of the MWI is that the
​ ​
Schrodinger
​Wave

​Equation
 means what it says and says what it means. The ​
​
fundamental
​ ​
assumption
​ of Copenhagen is that ​
Schrodinger
​ forgot to put a "except" and a "however" into his equation.​


> ​> ​
> I don't object to unknown natural processes creating universes, but when a
> human is claimed to have the ability to do it
> ​ 
>

​A human is just as natural as any other process.​

​


> ​> ​
> how do you justify this apparent absurdity?
>

​Experimental results have proven beyond all doubt that the fundamental
laws of physics *ARE* absurd but don't complain to me, complain to God
about it if you know His current Email address, He used to be on AOL but I
think He changed it.


> ​> ​
> I was asserting is that in Copenhagen you don't need a conscious observer
> to get a measurement outcome.
>

​Show me how to measure something without anybody doing any measuring and
show me the new term you added to the Schrodinger Equation that causes it
to collapse when a measurement is taken.


>> ​>> ​
>> T
>> he Schrodinger Wave Equation
>> ​ says absolutely nothing about collapsing and yet you insist it does,
>>
>
> ​> ​
> I never made that assertion. I just said we observe a collapse
>

So
​ ​t
he Schrodinger Wave Equation
​ doesn't collapse we just observe it collapsing but conscious observers
have nothing to do with it?? I said the laws of physics were absurd I did
not say they were paradoxical. ​



> ​>> ​
>> He proved the mathematical consistency of this idea by adding up all the
>> probabilities in all the branches of the event happening and getting
>> exactly 100%.
>>
>
> ​> ​
> Interesting. But how can he add them up if there are uncountably many
> universes?
>

​That's what calculus is for.​

​

 John K Clark​

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Re: Consistency of Postulates of QM

[Bruno Marchal]

On 09 Dec 2017, at 13:00, smitra wrote:


On 09-12-2017 12:01, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 9/12/2017 9:44 pm, smitra wrote:

On 09-12-2017 02:48, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 9/12/2017 11:49 am, smitra wrote:

On 09-12-2017 00:03, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 9/12/2017 4:21 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 08 Dec 2017, at 00:22, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 8/12/2017 3:31 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 06 Dec 2017, at 12:19, Bruce Kellett wrote:
But as I pointed out, thermal motion gives momenta of  
magnitudes such that the quantum uncertainties are  
negligible compared to the thermal randomness. And thermal  
motions are not coherent.
You seem to work in Bohr QM, with some dualism between the  
quantum reality and the classical reality.
Not at all. The (semi-)classical world emerges from the  
quantum substrate; if you cannot give an account of this,  
then you have failed to explain our everyday experience. And  
explaining that experience is the purpose of physics.
No problem with this, except for your usual skepticism of  
Everett's program (say).

Skepticism is the scientific stance.
You are right that this does not change anything FAPP, but  
our discussion is not about practical applications, but  
metaphysics.
No, we were talking about tossing a coin, we were not talking  
about metaphysics. Your metaphysics has served merely to  
confuse you to the extent that you do not understand even the  
simplest physics.

That is ad hominem remark which I take as absence of argument.

You don't take kindly to criticism, do you Bruno?
All I said is that without collapse, shaking a box with some  
coin long enough would lead to the superposition of the two  
coin state. You seem to be the one confusing the local  
decoherence with some collapse. The Heisenberg uncertainties  
are great enough to amplify slight change of the move of the  
coin when bouncing on the wall.
That is simply assertion on your part, without a shred of  
argument or

justification. When one looks at the arguments, such as that put
forward by Albrecht and David (referred to by smitra), one  
finds that

the emperor has no clothes!
Similarly, a shroedinger car, once alive + dead, will never  
become a pure alive, or dead cat. It will only seems so for  
anyone looking at the cat, in the {alive, dead} base/ 
apparatus. Superposition never disappear, and a coin moree or  
less with a precise position, is always a superposition of a  
coin with more or less precise momenta. The relation is given  
by the Fourier transforms, which gives the relative accessible  
states/worlds.

I pointed out that for a macroscopic object such as a coin, the
uncertainty relations give uncertainties in positions and/or  
momentum
far below any level of possible detection. And I gave an  
argument with
an actual calculation -- not just an assertion. Uncertainties  
in the
constituents of the object are uncorrelated, random, and cancel  
out.
So although the superposition originating from the big bang is  
intact

from the bird's point of view, it is so completely irrelevant for
everyday purposes that it is an insult to even refer to the
classicality of the world as FAPP -- it is complete. Relying on  
the
charge of "FAPP" as a justification for your assertions is  
nonsense.
It's not irrelevant if you don't have the information that  
locates you in a sector where the uncertainties are indeed small  
enough. You have to start with the complete state in the bird's  
view, and then consider the sector where you have some definite  
information and then project onto that subspace. If you do that,  
then your coins are not at all in a precisely enough classical  
state but rather in superpositions (entangled with the  
environment) that lead to wildly different outcomes of coin  
tosses.
E.g. in the bird's view there exists exact copies of me that  
live on planets that are not the same, some will have a radius  
of a few millimeter larger than others. Here exact copy means  
exactly the same conscious experience, which is then due to  
exactly the same computational state of the brain described by  
some bitstring that's exactly the same.
So, from totally different decoherent branches of the  
wavefunction one can factor out some bitstring describing a  
conscious experience, the reduced state of the rest of the  
universe in that sector is then a superposition of a many  
different effectively classical states.
If this were not true then each single conscious experience  
would contain in it information about such things as the exact   
number of atoms in the Earth, Sun etc. etc.
I prefer to live in the real world, so I would rather not indulge  
your

fantasies.
The real world is not what you think it is. It was only when you  
read about the fact that dinosaurs had once existed that the  
sector you were in diverged from other sectors where dinosaurs had  
never existed and some other evolutionary path of mammals led to  
you and the exact same information in your brain 

Equivalence Principle and Einstein Field Equations

[agrayson2000]

What is the connection between the Equivalence Principle and Einstein's 
Field Equations? How did the former lead to the latter? Why was the man 
falling from the ladder so decisive in leading to the Theory of General 
Relativity? TIA, AG

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Re: Consistency of Postulates of QM

[Bruno Marchal]

On 09 Dec 2017, at 11:29, smitra wrote:


On 09-12-2017 02:15, Brent Meeker wrote:

On 12/8/2017 4:49 PM, smitra wrote:
If this were not true then each single conscious experience would  
contain in it information about such things as the exact  number  
of atoms in the Earth, Sun etc. etc.

That sounds like a reductio against the comp theory of consciousness.



I'll let Bruno handle that :).


Well, I will let Brent handle that, hopefully :).

Bruno




Saibal

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Re: Consistency of Postulates of QM

[Bruno Marchal]

On 09 Dec 2017, at 02:48, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 9/12/2017 11:49 am, smitra wrote:

On 09-12-2017 00:03, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 9/12/2017 4:21 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 08 Dec 2017, at 00:22, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 8/12/2017 3:31 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 06 Dec 2017, at 12:19, Bruce Kellett wrote:

But as I pointed out, thermal motion gives momenta of  
magnitudes such that the quantum uncertainties are negligible  
compared to the thermal randomness. And thermal motions are  
not coherent.


You seem to work in Bohr QM, with some dualism between the  
quantum reality and the classical reality.


Not at all. The (semi-)classical world emerges from the quantum  
substrate; if you cannot give an account of this, then you have  
failed to explain our everyday experience. And explaining that  
experience is the purpose of physics.


No problem with this, except for your usual skepticism of  
Everett's program (say).


Skepticism is the scientific stance.



You are right that this does not change anything FAPP, but our  
discussion is not about practical applications, but metaphysics.


No, we were talking about tossing a coin, we were not talking  
about metaphysics. Your metaphysics has served merely to confuse  
you to the extent that you do not understand even the simplest  
physics.


That is ad hominem remark which I take as absence of argument.


You don't take kindly to criticism, do you Bruno?

All I said is that without collapse, shaking a box with some coin  
long enough would lead to the superposition of the two coin  
state. You seem to be the one confusing the local decoherence  
with some collapse. The Heisenberg uncertainties are great enough  
to amplify slight change of the move of the coin when bouncing on  
the wall.


That is simply assertion on your part, without a shred of argument  
or

justification. When one looks at the arguments, such as that put
forward by Albrecht and David (referred to by smitra), one finds  
that

the emperor has no clothes!

Similarly, a shroedinger car, once alive + dead, will never  
become a pure alive, or dead cat. It will only seems so for  
anyone looking at the cat, in the {alive, dead} base/apparatus.  
Superposition never disappear, and a coin moree or less with a  
precise position, is always a superposition of a coin with more  
or less precise momenta. The relation is given by the Fourier  
transforms, which gives the relative accessible states/worlds.


I pointed out that for a macroscopic object such as a coin, the
uncertainty relations give uncertainties in positions and/or  
momentum
far below any level of possible detection. And I gave an argument  
with

an actual calculation -- not just an assertion. Uncertainties in the
constituents of the object are uncorrelated, random, and cancel out.
So although the superposition originating from the big bang is  
intact

from the bird's point of view, it is so completely irrelevant for
everyday purposes that it is an insult to even refer to the
classicality of the world as FAPP -- it is complete. Relying on the
charge of "FAPP" as a justification for your assertions is nonsense.



It's not irrelevant if you don't have the information that locates  
you in a sector where the uncertainties are indeed small enough.  
You have to start with the complete state in the bird's view, and  
then consider the sector where you have some definite information  
and then project onto that subspace. If you do that, then your  
coins are not at all in a precisely enough classical state but  
rather in superpositions (entangled with the environment) that lead  
to wildly different outcomes of coin tosses.


E.g. in the bird's view there exists exact copies of me that live  
on planets that are not the same, some will have a radius of a few  
millimeter larger than others. Here exact copy means exactly the  
same conscious experience, which is then due to exactly the same  
computational state of the brain described by some bitstring that's  
exactly the same.


So, from totally different decoherent branches of the wavefunction  
one can factor out some bitstring describing a conscious  
experience, the reduced state of the rest of the universe in that  
sector is then a superposition of a many different effectively  
classical states.


If this were not true then each single conscious experience would  
contain in it information about such things as the exact  number of  
atoms in the Earth, Sun etc. etc.


I prefer to live in the real world, so I would rather not indulge  
your fantasies.


In (serious) metaphysics, invoking a "real world" automatically beg  
the question. It is like criticizing the theory of evolution because  
despite all its appeal it obviously fails to explain how God made all  
that in six days as everyone know well.


The "real world" is what we search.

What Everett has shown, basically, is that the measurement paradox  
arises from the addition of the axiom "one universe" 

Re: Consistency of Postulates of QM

[Bruno Marchal]

On 09 Dec 2017, at 02:15, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 12/8/2017 4:49 PM, smitra wrote:
If this were not true then each single conscious experience would  
contain in it information about such things as the exact  number of  
atoms in the Earth, Sun etc. etc.


That sounds like a reductio against the comp theory of consciousness.



I would have argued the contrary here. Maybe you could elaborate? With  
mechanism, the reason why there are laws of physics depends only of  
the fact that we are intrinsically ignorant of all histories/ 
computations which brought our actual mental state at a finer  
description level.


Bruno





Brent

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Re: Consistency of Postulates of QM

[Bruno Marchal]

On 09 Dec 2017, at 01:40, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 12/8/2017 4:27 PM, smitra wrote:

On 08-12-2017 01:46, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 8/12/2017 11:43 am, smitra wrote:

On 08-12-2017 00:22, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 8/12/2017 3:31 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 06 Dec 2017, at 12:19, Bruce Kellett wrote:

But as I pointed out, thermal motion gives momenta of  
magnitudes such that the quantum uncertainties are negligible  
compared to the thermal randomness. And thermal motions are  
not coherent.


You seem to work in Bohr QM, with some dualism between the  
quantum reality and the classical reality.


Not at all. The (semi-)classical world emerges from the quantum
substrate; if you cannot give an account of this, then you have  
failed
to explain our everyday experience. And explaining that  
experience is

the purpose of physics.

You are right that this does not change anything FAPP, but our  
discussion is not about practical applications, but metaphysics.


No, we were talking about tossing a coin, we were not talking  
about
metaphysics. Your metaphysics has served merely to confuse you  
to the

extent that you do not understand even the simplest physics.



Andreas Albrecht  is not confused about anything,


How do you know?


and yet he agrees with Bruno on the point of coin tosses.


Argument from authority?



https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.0953

Page 4 section 4:

" The point here is that even with all our
simplifications, we have a plausibility argument that the
outcome of a coin flip is truly a quantum measurement
(really, a Schrödinger cat) and that the 50–50 outcome of
a coin toss may in principle be derived from the quantum
physics of a realistic coin toss with no reference to classical
notions of how we must “quantify our ignorance”."


Except that is inconsistent with the fact that stage magicians teach  
themselves to flip a coin and catch it with a predetermined result.


The fact that magicians have to learn to do that illustrates the  
hardness of that practice. I doubt that they could do this for the  
protocol under consideration, where the coin is in a box, and we can  
shake it as long as we want.






Experience trumps theory.


Only with a professional stage magician which are expert in delusion.  
May be the coin has two faces!


Bruno



Brent

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Re: Is AI really a threat to mankind?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 09 Dec 2017, at 01:07, agrayson2...@gmail.com wrote:




On Friday, December 8, 2017 at 5:54:51 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 08 Dec 2017, at 03:37, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:




On Friday, December 8, 2017 at 1:42:01 AM UTC, Brent wrote:


On 12/7/2017 3:19 PM, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:



On Thursday, December 7, 2017 at 9:47:42 PM UTC, Brent wrote:
When I took a series of classes in Artificial Intelliegence at  
UCLA in the '70s the professor introducing the material of the  
first class explained that, "Intelligence is whatever a computer  
can't doyet."


Brent

The fear of AI is that computers could eventually exhibit a  
characteristic reminiscent of "will" and exhibit it maliciously  
against humans. I suppose for you that's not a problem since,  
IIRC, you deny the existence of will. AG


I don't deny the existence of will.  I deny the existence of what  
is commonly called "free will".


Brent

Then what we call "free will" is really just a DNA determined  
behavioral outcome. So if computers will eventually mimic human  
behavior, the fear of AI might be well founded. AG



We should learn to fear only stupidity, be it natural or artificial  
(which is BTW an artificial separation,


Not an artificial separation. Everyone knows what "artificial"  
means. If you don't, check any English dictionary. Please save your  
private language for your dreams. OK? AG


I don't believe in dictionary, especially during an argumentation. The  
definitions there are culturally based and very temporary, and often  
human based, for obvious purposes.


Now, the fact that artificial makes sense for all humans illustrates  
my point that the notion is relative to human, and not a general  
concept.


Bruno




... done naturally by the entities developing a big ego).

I fear more the disappearance of the Net Neutrality, and that one  
day we have to pay much more to chat on the net.


The human stupidity has still some avenir, if it does not destroy  
itself before.


It will take some time before the man-made machines get as stupid as  
us.


Bruno





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Re: Consistency of Postulates of QM

[Bruno Marchal]

On 09 Dec 2017, at 00:03, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 9/12/2017 4:21 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 08 Dec 2017, at 00:22, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 8/12/2017 3:31 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 06 Dec 2017, at 12:19, Bruce Kellett wrote:

But as I pointed out, thermal motion gives momenta of magnitudes  
such that the quantum uncertainties are negligible compared to  
the thermal randomness. And thermal motions are not coherent.


You seem to work in Bohr QM, with some dualism between the  
quantum reality and the classical reality.


Not at all. The (semi-)classical world emerges from the quantum  
substrate; if you cannot give an account of this, then you have  
failed to explain our everyday experience. And explaining that  
experience is the purpose of physics.


No problem with this, except for your usual skepticism of Everett's  
program (say).


Skepticism is the scientific stance.


Sure. But then you need to be skeptical on "n universes" to, whatever  
n is (0, 1, ..., omega, ... aleph_one, ...).








You are right that this does not change anything FAPP, but our  
discussion is not about practical applications, but metaphysics.


No, we were talking about tossing a coin, we were not talking  
about metaphysics. Your metaphysics has served merely to confuse  
you to the extent that you do not understand even the simplest  
physics.


That is ad hominem remark which I take as absence of argument.


You don't take kindly to criticism, do you Bruno?


I appreciate criticism of idea and argument, not of person, which move  
I take indeed as a sign of losing an argument.







All I said is that without collapse, shaking a box with some coin  
long enough would lead to the superposition of the two coin state.  
You seem to be the one confusing the local decoherence with some  
collapse. The Heisenberg uncertainties are great enough to amplify  
slight change of the move of the coin when bouncing on the wall.


That is simply assertion on your part, without a shred of argument  
or justification. When one looks at the arguments, such as that put  
forward by Albrecht and David (referred to by smitra), one finds  
that the emperor has no clothes!


I don't see this. You might elaborate.




Similarly, a shroedinger car, once alive + dead, will never become  
a pure alive, or dead cat. It will only seems so for anyone looking  
at the cat, in the {alive, dead} base/apparatus. Superposition  
never disappear, and a coin moree or less with a precise position,  
is always a superposition of a coin with more or less precise  
momenta. The relation is given by the Fourier transforms, which  
gives the relative accessible states/worlds.


I pointed out that for a macroscopic object such as a coin, the  
uncertainty relations give uncertainties in positions and/or  
momentum far below any level of possible detection.


Of possible practical detection. That is good FAPP, but irrelevant for  
theoretical consideration.




And I gave an argument with an actual calculation -- not just an  
assertion. Uncertainties in the constituents of the object are  
uncorrelated, random, and cancel out.


Once the coin meet just one molecule, that molecule is entangled with  
the coin, and that spread quickly to all molecules. At no point get we  
a reduction, as we asssume SWE without reduction, and tiny change get  
locally amplified. If that was impossible, measurement would not exist.




So although the superposition originating from the big bang is  
intact from the bird's point of view, it is so completely irrelevant  
for everyday purposes that it is an insult to even refer to the  
classicality of the world as FAPP -- it is complete. Relying on the  
charge of "FAPP" as a justification for your assertions is nonsense.


That seems to me being non-sense. You can't deduce something in the  
theory from the fact that in practice we nullify some terms, when the  
theory explains they cannot be null.


Bruno







Bruce

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Re: Dreamless Sleep?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 08 Dec 2017, at 19:30, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 12/8/2017 2:09 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 4:08 PM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:

On 07 Dec 2017, at 10:01, Telmo Menezes wrote:

On Wed, Dec 6, 2017 at 11:50 PM, Brent Meeker  


wrote:



On 12/6/2017 1:46 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


I suspect that this is perhaps why Brent want to refer to the
environment
for relating consciousness to the machine, and in Artificial
Intelligence,
some people defend the idea that (mundane) consciousness occur  
only when

the
environment contradicts a little bit the quasi automatic  
persistent

inference we do all the time.



That's Jeff Hawkins model of consciousness: one becomes  
conscious of
something when all lower, more specialized levels of the brain  
have found

it
not to match their predictions.


In that sort of model, how does matter "know" that it is being  
used to

run a forecasting algorithm? Surely it doesn't right?


Imagine a society which builds some objects. When everything go  
well, the
boss can sleep in his office. But then there is some accident or  
something

unusual. That is the time to wake up the boss. In this analogy,
consciousness is played by the (incorrigible) boss.



The only way this could work is if the forecasting algorithm and  
the

cascading effects of failing predictions have the side effect of
creating the "right" sort of interactions at a lower level that
trigger consciousness.


After a moment of panic, the sub-entities dare to awake the  
ultimate judge:
the one capable of "going out of the box" to take a (perhaps  
risky) decision

in absence of complete information, and to take on its shoulder the
responsibility.




Then I want to know what these interactions
are, and what if the "atom" of consciousness, what is the first
principle. Without this, I would say that such hypothesis are not  
even

wrong.


The sub-unities have specialized task, and does not need evolved  
forecasting
ability. You can think them as ants, when they do their usual jobs  
triggered
by the local pheromones left by their close neighbors. But if the  
nest is
attacked, or if some important food is missing, some species will  
needs some

order of the queen (ike to fight or to move away. Some societies can
delegate most of the power to the sub-unities, but in complex  
unknown

situation, if they have to make important decision, they will need a
centralization of the power, which can act much more quickly to  
convince the
whole society of some unusual option, like running away, closing  
the doors,
fighting the enemy, etc. That will happen when *many* ants  
complain on

something.

In this case, the role of consciousness is focusing the attention  
on what is
important (with respect to survival), and to speed-up planning,  
decision,

etc.

I am not sure this answer the question (we are in the "easy" part  
of the

problem here).

But you will help me by telling me what is missing. I am not sure  
we need to
dig on the difficult part of the consciousness problem here, which  
is handed
at a different level, and concerned with the fact that the boss/ 
queen is
confined in his office/chamber and can never be sure if the ants  
panic is

genuine, or an illusion, and still decide ...

Yes, I agree with this model and what you say. I am just criticizing
the "trick" of confusing the several meanings of consciousness.
I would say that here we are in the realm of intelligence / learning.
This is about attention, and how attention is directed. Several AI
models already work like this. When an artificial neural network  
fails

a prediction, this triggers a cascade of changes. It wakes up the
boss, as you say.

In short, I feel that some scientists tend to propose an answer to  
the

easy problem and that try to smuggle it as a solution for the hard
problem, by relying on the overloading of terms.


Progress is made by solving the problems you can.  But as you know I  
think "the hard problem" will go away when the "easy problem" is  
solved.  When we can produce AI's that are creative, humorous,  
compassionate, imaginative, etc  and adjust those attributes and  
understand how they are implemented...the "hard problem" will be  
seen as the wrong question.  Instead AI engineers will ask, "Well,  
how much consciousness do you want?  We recommend more subconscious  
competence for that task,"


Already there seems to be a consensus that a philosophical zombie is  
impossible.  That entails that any AI with human level (or greater)  
intelligence must be conscious.  The AI engineers will develop  
different realizations of intelligent machines and invent terms for  
the different ways in which they are conscious.  Then  
"consciousness" will be seen as a vague generalization covering many  
somewhat different processes.


The "easy problem" will be solved when the AI will understand that  
there is an hard problem.


Then with mechanism, I would 

Re: Consistency of Postulates of QM

[smitra]

On 09-12-2017 21:18, Brent Meeker wrote:

On 12/9/2017 4:00 AM, smitra wrote:

On 09-12-2017 12:01, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 9/12/2017 9:44 pm, smitra wrote:

On 09-12-2017 02:48, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 9/12/2017 11:49 am, smitra wrote:

On 09-12-2017 00:03, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 9/12/2017 4:21 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 08 Dec 2017, at 00:22, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 8/12/2017 3:31 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 06 Dec 2017, at 12:19, Bruce Kellett wrote:

But as I pointed out, thermal motion gives momenta of 
magnitudes such that the quantum uncertainties are negligible 
compared to the thermal randomness. And thermal motions are 
not coherent.


You seem to work in Bohr QM, with some dualism between the 
quantum reality and the classical reality.


Not at all. The (semi-)classical world emerges from the quantum 
substrate; if you cannot give an account of this, then you have 
failed to explain our everyday experience. And explaining that 
experience is the purpose of physics.


No problem with this, except for your usual skepticism of 
Everett's program (say).


Skepticism is the scientific stance.



You are right that this does not change anything FAPP, but our 
discussion is not about practical applications, but 
metaphysics.


No, we were talking about tossing a coin, we were not talking 
about metaphysics. Your metaphysics has served merely to 
confuse you to the extent that you do not understand even the 
simplest physics.


That is ad hominem remark which I take as absence of argument.


You don't take kindly to criticism, do you Bruno?

All I said is that without collapse, shaking a box with some 
coin long enough would lead to the superposition of the two coin 
state. You seem to be the one confusing the local decoherence 
with some collapse. The Heisenberg uncertainties are great 
enough to amplify slight change of the move of the coin when 
bouncing on the wall.


That is simply assertion on your part, without a shred of 
argument or

justification. When one looks at the arguments, such as that put
forward by Albrecht and David (referred to by smitra), one finds 
that

the emperor has no clothes!

Similarly, a shroedinger car, once alive + dead, will never 
become a pure alive, or dead cat. It will only seems so for 
anyone looking at the cat, in the {alive, dead} base/apparatus. 
Superposition never disappear, and a coin moree or less with a 
precise position, is always a superposition of a coin with more 
or less precise momenta. The relation is given by the Fourier 
transforms, which gives the relative accessible states/worlds.


I pointed out that for a macroscopic object such as a coin, the
uncertainty relations give uncertainties in positions and/or 
momentum
far below any level of possible detection. And I gave an argument 
with
an actual calculation -- not just an assertion. Uncertainties in 
the
constituents of the object are uncorrelated, random, and cancel 
out.
So although the superposition originating from the big bang is 
intact

from the bird's point of view, it is so completely irrelevant for
everyday purposes that it is an insult to even refer to the
classicality of the world as FAPP -- it is complete. Relying on 
the
charge of "FAPP" as a justification for your assertions is 
nonsense.




It's not irrelevant if you don't have the information that locates 
you in a sector where the uncertainties are indeed small enough. 
You have to start with the complete state in the bird's view, and 
then consider the sector where you have some definite information 
and then project onto that subspace. If you do that, then your 
coins are not at all in a precisely enough classical state but 
rather in superpositions (entangled with the environment) that 
lead to wildly different outcomes of coin tosses.


E.g. in the bird's view there exists exact copies of me that live 
on planets that are not the same, some will have a radius of a few 
millimeter larger than others. Here exact copy means exactly the 
same conscious experience, which is then due to exactly the same 
computational state of the brain described by some bitstring 
that's exactly the same.


So, from totally different decoherent branches of the wavefunction 
one can factor out some bitstring describing a conscious 
experience, the reduced state of the rest of the universe in that 
sector is then a superposition of a many different effectively 
classical states.


If this were not true then each single conscious experience would 
contain in it information about such things as the exact  number 
of atoms in the Earth, Sun etc. etc.


I prefer to live in the real world, so I would rather not indulge 
your

fantasies.

The real world is not what you think it is. It was only when you 
read about the fact that dinosaurs had once existed that the sector 
you were in diverged from other sectors where dinosaurs had never 
existed and some other evolutionary path of mammals led to you and 
the exact same information in your 

Re: Consistency of Postulates of QM

[smitra]

On 09-12-2017 21:12, Brent Meeker wrote:

On 12/9/2017 2:36 AM, smitra wrote:
Yes, it's a different argument but it's also generically correct. But 
I do think for the discussions in this list it doesn't matter all that 
much whether an initial single branch will diverge into multiple 
branches due to effectively classical dynamics.


Branching due to effectively classical dynamics is a contradiction in
terms.  If it's effectively classical it can't branch.




Counterexample: A perfectly balanced pencil on its one atom wide tip.

A variant of this involving longer time scales is a rectangular block 
that's standing on the floor. Due to quantum tunneling it will 
eventually tip over. The time scale depends on the width and height. 
Suppose that we keep the height at 10 cm, but make the width very small 
but still much larger than the size of an atom, such that the block will 
fall on time scales of the order of 10^18 years.


 If we cover the surface of a Mars-sized planet with such blocks placed 
one centimeter apart, then we need about 1.4 10^18 blocks. If one block 
falls, then it will trigger the next block to fall and eventually all 
the blocks will fall. So, the blocks will start to fall within a time 
scale of just a year, and we can observe this from a satellite orbiting 
Mars.


So, even though everything looks like in the classical domain FAPP, the 
time scale of 10^18 years on which quantum tunneling occurs looks like 
infinity FAPP, you'll still have a splitting in the MWI view of how the 
blocks will fall within just a year.


Objections like that thermal fluctuations dominate quantum fluctuations 
can be easily address by imagining cooling down the entire planet to 
sufficiently low temperatures. Compared to the falling pencil, this 
example is a more robust against such objections,  e.g. a single photon 
colliding with the pencil would already cause it to tip over, but it 
won't cause a block to tip over.


Saibal

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