Re: Radioactive Decay States

[agrayson2000]

On Tuesday, July 10, 2018 at 8:30:26 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, July 10, 2018 at 8:17:14 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 7/10/2018 6:34 PM, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tuesday, July 10, 2018 at 5:08:30 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote: 
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 7/10/2018 3:30 PM, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>> *More and more, Dirac's claim seems to be an illusion that most everyone 
>>> has fallen in love with. Consider the example of a vector in a plane 
>>> decomposed as a superposition of unit vectors in some orthogonal basis, Not 
>>> an exact analogy to the quantum superposition of course, but worth thinking 
>>> about. How many decompositions are possible? Well, rotations of the 
>>> original orthogonal basis give an uncountable number of DIFFERENT 
>>> decompositions. In fact, the set of NON orthogonal pairs define another 
>>> uncountable set of bases, each of which results in a DIFFERENT 
>>> decomposition. So in this example, it makes no sense to say the original 
>>> vector is in two states simultaneously in some basis, when an uncountable 
>>> set of other bases exist, each with a different decomposition.  In the 
>>> quantum case, it is natural and convenient to restrict ourselves to the 
>>> basis in which the system is being measured. But even here, other bases 
>>> exist which allow other, different, decompositions of the system into 
>>> superpositions, sometimes countable, sometimes not, depending on the 
>>> system. *
>>>
>>>
>>> All true.  True of any vector space.  SO WHAT?
>>>
>>> *So, IMO, Dirac's claim fails, not to mention the fact that his 
>>> "argument" in favor of simultaneity*
>>>
>>>
>>> "simultaneity" doesn't appear in Dirac's paragraph.  So your rant is 
>>> unclear.
>>>
>>
>> *Why characterize my comment as a "rant"? *
>>
>>
>> It's a rant because you repeat several times that they're infinitely many 
>> possible basis.  Yet you make no argument nor recognize that while true it 
>> does nothing to contradict Dirac and is in fact a common fact about all 
>> vector spaces.  Yet you pretend you've scored some rhetorical victory by 
>> pointing out an absurdity.
>>
>
> *When I get no response, I assume I am not understood, or my point was not 
> well written. Moreover, I have stated several times that given the plethora 
> of bases, it makes no sense to single out a single basis and assert the 
> state of a system is simultaneously in the component states. AG *
>
>>
>> *Is the intent to mock to support your thesis? If you look a few messages 
>> above, to where I underlined part of Dirac's comment reproduced in Wiki, 
>> you will see he essentially says the two states in the superposition he 
>> uses for an example, is tantamount to simultaneous.  Here it is: *
>>
>> *It requires us to assume that between these states there exist peculiar 
>> relationships such that whenever the system is definitely in one state we 
>> can consider it as being partly in each of two or more other states.*
>>
>> *The "one state" he refers to is the superposition of the Up and Dn 
>> states. **AG*
>>
>>
>> No.  It would be the UP state.
>>
>
> *I think you're misreading Dirac's comment, which isn't clear, unless he's 
> referring to a change of basis. That would mean that when we measure Up, 
> the system remains in the superposed Up and Dn state. AG*
>
>>
>>> * of superposition states prior to measurement, is really just an 
>>> assertion. AG*
>>>
>>>
>>> Instead of picking on a paragraph of Dirac taken out of context, why 
>>> don't you go read a modern version.  Try Asher Peres, "Quantum Theory: 
>>> Concepts and Methods" pp 50, 116-117
>>>
>>
>>
>> *Dirac isn't a good source? I am using a library computer with limited 
>> time until my computer returns from repair. So, if you can, please copy and 
>> paste your reference above. AG *
>>
>>
>> Copy and paste doesn't work well with equations and symbols.  Just go to 
>>
>>
>> http://www.fisica.net/quantica/Peres%20-%20Quantum%20Theory%20Concepts%20and%20Methods.pdf
>>
>> and scroll down the relevant pages.  It doesn't take more than 10sec.
>>
>> Brent
>>
>
> *Thanks. Time's nearly up here. Will do it tomorrow. AG *
>

*Do you mean the first two pages of the chapter entitled, Composite 
Systems? This is page 115-116 on the numbered pages. AG *

>
>
>>
>>
>>> Brent
>>>
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Re: Bootstrapping Reality: The inconsistency of nothing

[Bruce Kellett]

From: *Bruno Marchal* mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>>
On 9 Jul 2018, at 14:07, Bruce Kellett > wrote:
Sure, this is a property of the singlet state in standard QM, because 
Alice's measurement collapses the state so that only the correlated 
part is available to Bob. It is that part of the explanation that is 
lacking in your account. You do not see any non-locality, basically 
because you are assuming it with being aware of what you are doing. 
Don't despair -- many other highly trained physicists do exactly the 
same thing. But this does mean that you have not explained anything 
-- you have simply assumed the result. The individual measurements of 
Alice and Bob do influence each other, or else no correlation could 
ever arise.
If there was a collapse? OK. But without collapse, the correlation are 
just due to the fact that the singlet state put Alice and Bob in 
infinities of branches, and only when they make a measurement they 
know in which branches they are. Up-down + down-up is the same state 
as up’-down +down’-up’. That is what you are not taking into account, 
I think.


There are no infinities of branches. There are only two branches for 
each measurement, when Alice and Bob can only ever get 'up' or 'down', 
two possibilities on each measurement. After N trials, there are 2^N 
possible histories for Alice and 2^N histories for Bob. There are no 
infinities, and no branches are created for magnet orientations in which 
no one made a measurement. In the words of Asher Peres: "Unperformed 
experiments have no results." There are no counterfactuals, all that is 
ever used is actual data obtained by actual experimenters. When they 
make a measurement, they create the branching. Because the result of the 
measurement is unknown to them beforehand (no superdeterminism), they 
locate on either the up or down branch. There are no up' or down' 
branches. You are just making this up.


Each copy of Alice has a unique history consisting of a sequence of up 
and down results recorded in her lab book. Similarly for Bob. All of 
these results were obtained in the /same branch/ of the ever-branching 
Everettian tree. Each measurement splits a branch, but branches never 
meet or recombine. So the Alice that meets a Bob over coffee after the N 
trials is the Alice with one particular branching history. The Bob she 
meets is necessarily in the same world, and he has a similar particular 
branching  history corresponding to just one world. There are 2^N such 
meetings, each with unique branching histories. The wonder of the 
singlet state is that for all these Alice/Bob meetings, comparison of 
the data recorded in their lab books /always/ gives correlations that 
agree with quantum theory and violate the Bell inequalities. This 
mystery of many branches that always give the correct results is the 
mystery that is to be explained. Introducing infinities of branches, and 
infinities of measurements that were never made and therefore have no 
results does not offer any explanation. In fact, it is just plain silly. 
We only ever have data from experiments that were actually performed by 
real people. There is no fantasy data, and no fantasy branches floating 
around that have to be eliminated by some magic or the other.  The magic 
of the singlet state is that no results counter to quantum mechanics can 
ever be generated. And this can only be explained non-locally. All other 
attempts flounder on stupidities.


Bruce



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Re: Radioactive Decay States

[agrayson2000]

On Tuesday, July 10, 2018 at 11:23:55 PM UTC-6, scerir wrote:
>
>
> Il 11 luglio 2018 alle 0.01 agrays...@gmail.com  ha scritto: 
>
>
>
> On Monday, July 9, 2018 at 11:55:45 PM UTC-6, scerir wrote:
>
>
> Il 9 luglio 2018 alle 22.46 agrays...@gmail.com ha scritto: 
>
>
>
> On Saturday, July 7, 2018 at 4:48:51 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> On Saturday, July 7, 2018 at 12:19:23 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> On Friday, July 6, 2018 at 1:56:12 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> On Friday, July 6, 2018 at 1:22:03 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 7/6/2018 11:44 AM, agrays...@gmail.com wrote: 
>
>
>
> On Thursday, July 5, 2018 at 5:14:34 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 7/5/2018 3:55 PM, agrays...@gmail.com wrote: 
>
>
>
> On Thursday, July 5, 2018 at 2:03:46 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 7/5/2018 11:27 AM, agrays...@gmail.com wrote: 
>
>
>
> On Wednesday, July 4, 2018 at 10:57:06 AM UTC-6, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 7/4/2018 1:57 AM, 'scerir' via Everything List wrote: 
>
>
> *No. I am asserting that the INTERPRETATION of the superposition of states 
> is wrong. Although I have asked several times, no one here seems able to 
> offer a plausible justification for interpreting that a system in a 
> superposition of states, is physically in all states of the superposition 
> SIMULTANEOUSLY before the system is measured. If we go back to those little 
> pointing things, you will see there exists an infinite uncountable set of 
> basis vectors for any vector in that linear vector space. For quantum 
> systems, there is no unique basis, and in many cases also infinitely many 
> bases, So IMO, the interpretation is not justified. AG* 
>
> ***SIMULTANEOUSLY*** was used by EPR in their paper, but that did not have 
> much meaning (operationally, physically).
>
> Can we say that the observable, in a superposition state, has a 
> ***DEFINITE*** value between two measurements?
>
> No - in general - we cannot say that.
>
>
> It's in some definite state.  But it may be a state for which we have no 
> measurement operator or don't intend to measure; so we say it is in a 
> superposition, meaning a superposition of the eigenstates we're going to 
> measure.  So it does not have one of the eigenvalues of our measurement. 
>
> Brent 
>
>
> *So for the radioactive source, the superposed state, Decayed + Undecayed, 
> does NOT imply the system is in both states simultaneously? *
>
>
> No, it is in a state that consists of Decayed+Undecayed.  So in a sense it 
> is in both simulatnaeously.  If you are sailing a heading of 45deg you are 
> on a definite heading.  But you are simultaneously traveling North and 
> East.  And if someone was watching you with a radar that could only output 
> "moving north" or "moving east" it would oscillate between the two and you 
> might call that a superposition of north and east motion. 
>
> Brent 
>
>
> *I see. But as I have pointed out, there are uncountably many sets of 
> basis vectors that result in the same vector along the 45 deg direction. 
> Thus, it makes no sense to single out a particular basis and claim it is 
> simultaneously in both. *
>
>
> That's where you're wrong.  It makes perfect sense if that's the only 
> basis you can measure in.  That's why I gave the hypothetical example of a 
> radar that could only report motion as northward or eastward.  In some 
> cases, like decayed our not-decayed, we don't have instruments to measure 
> the superposition state.  In other cases like sliver atom spin we can 
> measure up/down or left/right or along any other axis. 
>
> *ISTM, this is the cause of many of the apparent paradoxes in QM such as 
> Schroedinger's cat, or a radioactive source which is decayed and undecayed 
> simultaneously. I have no objection using such a state to do a calculation, 
> but I think it's an error to further interpret a superposition in terms of 
> simultaneity of component states. What say you? AG*
>
>
> I say use what's convenient for calculation.  Don't imagine your 
> calculation is the reality. 
>
>
>
> *But the consensus, perhaps unstated or subliminally, is that the 
> superposition is imagined as reality, which leads to cats and radioactive 
> sources being (respectively) alive and dead, and decayed and undecayed, 
> simultaneously. Isn't this what Schroedinger was arguing against? I have 
> rarely, if ever, seen it argued NOT to interpret a superposition as reality 
> as a proposed solution to these apparent paradoxes. AG *
>
>
> You just go around and around.  You never put together the explanations 
> you get.  Decoherence shows that, in the presence of an environment, the 
> wave function FAPP collapses into orthogonal quasi-classical states in 
> fractions of a nano-second.  That's why the Schroedinger cat story doesn't 
> show what Schroedinger thought it did.  BUT there are experiments, like 
> silver atoms thru and SG in which superpositions of left+right persist, 
> they are up polarizations for 

Re: Bootstrapping Reality: The inconsistency of nothing

[Bruce Kellett]

From: *Brent Meeker* mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>


On 7/9/2018 5:07 AM, Bruce Kellett wrote:


Where you are going wrong is in saying that they were in the right 
branch at the start -- due to the properties of the singlet state. 
This is misleading you, because you are not explaining how the 
correlations arise at spacelike separations when the polarizer angles 
are set at random. Sure, this is a property of the singlet state in 
standard QM, because Alice's measurement collapses the state so that 
only the correlated part is available to Bob. It is that part of the 
explanation that is lacking in your account. You do not see any 
non-locality, basically because you are assuming it with being aware 
of what you are doing. Don't despair -- many other highly trained 
physicists do exactly the same thing. But this does mean that you 
have not explained anything -- you have simply assumed the result. 
The individual measurements of Alice and Bob do influence each other, 
or else no correlation could ever arise. This a logical consequence 
of a correlation between two independent events. /Independent/ means 
/no correlation/. Here we have spacelike separated events that do 
show a correlation. Consequently, the assumption of locality is not 
tenable, even though we appear to have only local interactions. 
Whatever you say about branching or Everett is not going to alter the 
basic logic of this situation.


This is where I see a different possible story. That all the branching 
world lines of Alice and Bob exist in the same Hilbert space and that 
only those that have consistent measurements can meet, those with 
inconsistent measurements are the off diagonal terms of the density 
matrix.  This is still non-local because the Alice and Bob that can 
meet have this element of coherent results which allows them to be in 
the same "world"; this coherence came from measurements which were 
space-like events.  So are there Alice/Bob pairs that are 
inconsistent.  Sure, if they're measuring a singlet state there's (per 
MWI) an Alice-up and a Bob-down that are consistent and there's also 
an Alice-down and a Bob-up who are consistent.  But that implies that 
the other two pairings, Alice-up/Bob-up and Alice-down/Bob-down, exist 
but are inconsistent.  Bruce says they never exist, because the wf is 
a single non-local object that doesn't allow those measurement events; 
which I understand.  But is it any different to say the incoherence of 
wrong pairings just prevents them existing in the same world, i.e. 
zeroes them out as part of the of diagonal terms?  I'll have to see if 
I can make the math work.


I thought it was clear that when you work back from the meeting pf Alice 
and Bob, their lab books contain all possible measurement results -- 
there are no sets of measurements that  Alice can make are not in one or 
other of the 2^N 'Alice' log books. Similarly there is no set of 
measurements that a Bob can make that is not in one of the 2^N 'Bob' log 
books. So there is nothing off diagonal to be zeroed out -- even if that 
concept makes any sense at all.


I wish you luck with trying to get the maths to work out on that 
one. Incompatible pairings of up/up or down/down for aligned 
polarizers have zero probability in the wave function, so they do not occur.


Bruce




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Re: Bootstrapping Reality: The inconsistency of nothing

[Brent Meeker]

On 7/9/2018 5:07 AM, Bruce Kellett wrote:


Where you are going wrong is in saying that they were in the right 
branch at the start -- due to the properties of the singlet state. 
This is misleading you, because you are not explaining how the 
correlations arise at spacelike separations when the polarizer angles 
are set at random. Sure, this is a property of the singlet state in 
standard QM, because Alice's measurement collapses the state so that 
only the correlated part is available to Bob. It is that part of the 
explanation that is lacking in your account. You do not see any 
non-locality, basically because you are assuming it with being aware 
of what you are doing. Don't despair -- many other highly trained 
physicists do exactly the same thing. But this does mean that you have 
not explained anything -- you have simply assumed the result. The 
individual measurements of Alice and Bob do influence each other, or 
else no correlation could ever arise. This a logical consequence of a 
correlation between two independent events. /Independent/ means /no 
correlation/. Here we have spacelike separated events that do show a 
correlation. Consequently, the assumption of locality is not tenable, 
even though we appear to have only local interactions. Whatever you 
say about branching or Everett is not going to alter the basic logic 
of this situation.


This is where I see a different possible story.  That all the branching 
world lines of Alice and Bob exist in the same Hilbert space and that 
only those that have consistent measurements can meet, those with 
inconsistent measurements are the off diagonal terms of the density 
matrix.  This is still non-local because the Alice and Bob that can meet 
have this element of coherent results which allows them to be in the 
same "world"; this coherence came from measurements which were 
space-like events.  So are there Alice/Bob pairs that are inconsistent.  
Sure, if they're measuring a singlet state there's (per MWI) an Alice-up 
and a Bob-down that are consistent and there's also an Alice-down and a 
Bob-up who are consistent.  But that implies that the other two 
pairings, Alice-up/Bob-up and Alice-down/Bob-down, exist but are 
inconsistent.  Bruce says they never exist, because the wf is a single 
non-local object that doesn't allow those measurement events; which I 
understand.  But is it any different to say the incoherence of wrong 
pairings just prevents them existing in the same world, i.e. zeroes them 
out as part of the of diagonal terms?  I'll have to see if I can make 
the math work.


Brent

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Re: Radioactive Decay States

[agrayson2000]

On Tuesday, July 10, 2018 at 4:42:44 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 7/10/2018 3:01 PM, agrays...@gmail.com  wrote:
>
> *IIRC, the above quote is also in the Wiki article. It's not a coherent 
> argument; not even an argument but an ASSERTION. Let's raise the level of 
> discourse. It says we always get a or b, no intermediate result when the 
> system is in a superposition of states A and B.. Nothing new here. Key 
> question: why does this imply the system is in states A and B 
> SIMULTANEOUSLY before the measurement? AG  *
>
>
> Because, in theory and in some cases in practice, there is a direct 
> measurement of the superposition state, call it C, such that you can 
> directly measure C and always get c, but when you have measured and 
> confirmed the system is in state c and then you measure A/B you get a or b 
> at random.   The easiest example is SG measurements of sliver atom spin 
> orientation where spin UP can be measured left/right and get a LEFT or a 
> RIGHT at random, but it can be measured up/down and you always get UP.  Any 
> particular  orientation can be *written* as a superposition of two 
> orthogonal states.  
>

*When you're trying to explain esoteric issues to a moron in physics, you 
need to be more explicit. These are the issues that cause confusion and 
caused me to fail to "get it". After some subsequent posts, you seem to be 
saying that in an SG spin experiment where the measurement base is UP/DN, 
the system being measured is ALSO in a superposed LEFT/RIGHT state which is 
also measured (by an SG device designed to measured spin?), and that the 
LEFT/RIGHT superposed state persists with some persistent eigenvalue after 
UP/DN is measured. It's murky for us morons.  How does one get the system 
to be measured in a superposition of RIGHT/LEFT; what is the operator for 
which that superposition is an eigenstate, and what is the value of the 
persistent eigenvalue?*

*Furthermore, you finally assert that since the RIGHT/LEFT state persists 
-- meaning that particle is in some DEFINITE state after the spin is 
measured -- and since (as you finally, finally assert) that that state can 
be written as a superposition of UP/DN, all is well -- in the sense that we 
can now be certain that the system is physically and simultaneously in the 
UP and DN states (which I am claiming is a fallacy). *

*HOWEVER, assuming that I understand your argument after filing the gaps in 
your presentation (and pointing to some unanswered issues), I now must 
"rant" again that the UP/DN superposed representation is NOT unique. Thus, 
since there are finitely many or uncountable many such representations, and 
since (as per LC) QM has no preferred basis, your argument for the physical 
simultaneity of UP and DN states fails. I mean, I could write the 
superposed states in the basis (UP + DN) and (UP - DN), or in many other 
bases. Absent uniqueness of bases, one cannot assert that the system is 
physically and simultaneously in any particular pair of basis vectors.*

*AG*

>
> This is true in general.  Any state can be written as a superposition of 
> states in some other basis.  But it is not generally true that we can 
> prepare or directly measure a system in any given state.  So those states 
> we can't directly access, we tend to think of them as existing only as 
> superpositions of states we can prepare.
>
> Brent
>

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Re: Primary matter

[Telmo Menezes]

Hi Bruno,

Another long delay...

> I am not sure I commented your first paragraph, which might be a key for 
> trying to define what could be an explanation. What would be like a 
> satisfying explanation of consciousness, meaning, reality, etc.
>
>
>
>> On 20 Jun 2018, at 13:51, Telmo Menezes  wrote:
>>
>> Hi Bruno,
>>
 I follow your reasoning, from one of your recent articles. This leaves
 me dissatisfied, but if I try to verbalize this dissatisfaction I feel
 stuck in a loop. Perhaps this illustrates your point.
>>>
>>>
>>> We might need to do some detour about what it would mean to explain 
>>> consciousness, or matter.
>>> I might ask myself if you are not asking too much, perhaps. Eventually, 
>>> something has to remain unexplainable for reason of self-consisteny. I 
>>> suspect it will be just where our intuition of numbers or combinators, or 
>>> of the distinction finite/infinite comes from (assuming mechanism), or just 
>>> why we trust the doctor!
>>
>> I thought about it for some time. It seems that at a meta level, we
>> are always stuck in this situation of "give me one miracle for free
>> and everything else becomes explainable". The miracle can be matter,
>> or consciousness, or arithmetic. I believe I have to accept this state
>> of affairs for the reason of self-consistency that you express above,
>> but I'm human and I still feel the curiosity. Epistemic limits are
>> hard to accept.
>
>
> Yes that is hard to accept, but that is why and how the universal machines 
> create all the time.
>
> I would not put on the same par complex metaphysical notions like matter 
> (taken as primary) or consciousness (that nobody ever agree on a definition) 
> and arithmetic, which is taught without problem, and I think, usually well 
> understood.
>
> The mathematicians agrees, explicitly sometimes, on the meaning of “and”,and  
> “or”, and “if … then”, etc.
>
> To begin an explanation, we have to acknowledge some understanding, without 
> which no explanation at all is possible. But that would be like telling to 
> Einstein “Look, your theory assumes without much motivation the existence of 
> the number 2, your project thesis is rejected”. Only in a theocracy, or 
> philocracy or whatever-cracy can we do that. I think that’s why Orwell said 
> that freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4. The truth tellers get burned 
> alive more often than the liars.

My only problem with this is that I think your theory relies on
numbers in a deeper way than Einstein's. You can accept Einstein's
theories without accepting mathematical realism. It could be that
certain regularities in nature are feasibly described by math -- just
as a human language and human thinking device.

You ask more from the numbers, and you ask us to assume that
arithmetic is fundamental. I think it might be, but shortly I am not
convinced by the above equivalence that you propose.

> For arithmetic, we must not confuse arithmetic (that kids understand very 
> well) and “understanding how a machine can understand arithmetic”, still with 
> “doing that “truly”, “consciously”" etc.
>
> The beauty and grandiosity of the discovery of the universal machine is that 
> we can formulate and solve partial the problem, and this using very classical 
> definition, and just arithmetic, or just Kxy = x, and Sxyz = xz(yz), or any 
> essentially undecidable theory, or sigma_1 complete set of numbers.
>
> Then there is the key point that without assuming one universal machine or 
> machinery, you cannot derived the notion from anything simpler. It is an 
> important recursive invariant. This includes universal machine + some oracle 
> (and the first person indeterminacy do suggest the possibility of oracles, 
> and the necessity of the random oracle).
>
> The miracle is not the incompleteness theorem. The miraculous theorem is that 
> the machine believing in induction axioms and simple laws can justify their 
> own conditional incompleteness theorem, so that they are aware of their 
> incompleteness, but not in any assertable way.

A perhaps naive question: the logic system within which the
incompleteness theorem is proved is itself bound to incompleteness.
Doesn't this force us to doubt incompleteness? But if we do, we are
basing our doubt on the thing that we are doubting. Is there a way out
here? It looks like a version of the "This sentence is false"
paradox...

> What would be like an explanation of the natural numbers? I have a lot of 
> them: you can explain them as n-times iteration function n is lambda f lambda 
> x ffx, or you can explain them by the successive applications of 
> reflexion and comprehension in set theory, etc. All this *are* interesting 
> views of the numbers, but logically they are assuming richer and more complex 
> theories (second order arithmetic, analysis, set theory, …).

I am ok with that. I accept that in any explanatory attempt, one
either reaches a brute fact of finds more turtles...

> With 

Re: Bootstrapping Reality: The inconsistency of nothing

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 9 Jul 2018, at 14:18, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
> 
> From: Bruno Marchal mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>>
>> 
>> You claim otherwise by identifying the persons who meet with the original 
>> person, which would indeed force some FTL in Everett to make sense. I just 
>> say that with Everett, + covariance, this has to be false.
> 
> You don't like the conclusion so you assert that it has to be false. That is 
> not a very open minded or scientific attitude.

OK. Here it looks like that, but I was summarising my argument. You were using 
an first-person-third person identity thesis which makes no sense in Everett + 
covariance, but I have shown and often explained in this list that such an 
identity thesis breaks already down with “simple Mechanism”.

Bruno




> 
> Bruce
> 
> 
>> That provides an interpretation of QM entirely local, despite Bell’s 
>> theorem. It is also what we get when developing the linearities 
>> of the SWE and tensor products, which is exemplified by Price on its FAQ.
> 
> 
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Re: Bootstrapping Reality: The inconsistency of nothing

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 9 Jul 2018, at 14:07, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
> 
> From: Bruno Marchal mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>>
>> 
>> We both agree that there is FTL signalling. What I say is that there is no 
>> FTL influence at all, in EPR, when developed in the Everett theory. I don’t 
>> see it. When they are space-separated, given they don’t know in which branch 
>> they are, they can find result which would violate Bell’s inequality, but 
>> this means that they will never met. Each Alice and Bob will only met those 
>> correlated to them. All interactions are local. No mysterious magic forcing 
>> the result of Bob or Alice to influence the outcome of the others. We need 
>> to take into account the many numbers of Alice (Bob), because none knows in 
>> which branch they are. They know only that they are correlated, and that 
>> means only that when they come back they will observe those correlations, 
>> but as there has not been any collapse, that is explained entirely by local 
>> interactions, as they were in the right branch at the start, due to the 
>> preparation of the singlet state. 
> 
> I think you mean 'no' FTL signalling in the first sentence.

Right.



> 
> It is not really a matter of branches when looked at from the point at which 
> Alice and Bob meet. They bring to this meeting a world line -- a personal 
> history, a path through these branching events. They are each like someone 
> who has undergone multiple duplications, ending in either M or W each time. 
> Each diary will contain some sequence of WWMWMM and so on. There are 2^N 
> such sequences for N duplications, each of the 2^N copies at the end of this 
> has one sequence. It is exactly the same for a sequence of binary quantum 
> measurements in MWI. At the end, when an Alice and a Bob meet, they carry 
> with them their world lines -- their particular sequences of '1' and '0' 
> results.
> 
> By starting from the final meeting point, we can unravel the chain of events 
> without getting confused as to which branch anyone is in. After N trials, 
> there are 2^N such meetings. The recording in lab books and walking to the 
> meeting between the experimenters is all local. No question about this. And 
> in every such meeting, the comparison of lab books will reveal results that 
> always agree with the quantum correlations and violate the Bell inequalities. 
> There are no surplus branches that have to be discarded by some mechanism. 
> All branches at this stage are good.
> 
> Where you are going wrong is in saying that they were in the right branch at 
> the start -- due to the properties of the singlet state. This is misleading 
> you, because you are not explaining how the correlations arise at spacelike 
> separations when the polarizer angles are set at random.


If Alice find up, she knows that she is in the branch where Bob will or has 
found down. The correlation are like Belman socks, with the MWI. The violation 
of Bell’s inequality are due to the fact they none can know chip branches they 
are in. The singlet state does not allow to single out the direction where a 
result would be definite.






> Sure, this is a property of the singlet state in standard QM, because Alice's 
> measurement collapses the state so that only the correlated part is available 
> to Bob. It is that part of the explanation that is lacking in your account. 
> You do not see any non-locality, basically because you are assuming it with 
> being aware of what you are doing. Don't despair -- many other highly trained 
> physicists do exactly the same thing. But this does mean that you have not 
> explained anything -- you have simply assumed the result. The individual 
> measurements of Alice and Bob do influence each other, or else no correlation 
> could ever arise.

If there was a collapse? OK. But without collapse, the correlation are just due 
to the fact that the singlet state put Alice and Bob in infinities of branches, 
and only when they make a measurement they know in which branches they are. 
Up-down + down-up is the same state as up’-down +down’-up’. That is what you 
are not taking into account, I think. 




> This a logical consequence of a correlation between two independent events. 
> Independent means no correlation. Here we have spacelike separated events 
> that do show a correlation. Consequently, the assumption of locality is not 
> tenable, even though we appear to have only local interactions. Whatever you 
> say about branching or Everett is not going to alter the basic logic of this 
> situation.
> 
> I think that after all these exchanges it is unlikely that you are ever going 
> to be able to accept this fact. But I do assure you that it is a fact.

The fact that Bob and Alice can measure the “spin" in non “orthogonal” 
directions can provide them clue about which partition of the multiverse they 
are in, and were at the start, but only among infinitely many directions. You 
talk like if there is one Alice with a definite spin, 

Re: Do we live within a Diophantine equation?

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 9 Jul 2018, at 19:23, John Clark  wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Jul 9, 2018 at 7:03 AM, Bruno Marchal  > wrote:
> 
> ​>>​By using p-adic numbers mathematicians found more than a century ago 
> there are a infinity of ways the numbers could be arranged because there are 
> a infinity of ways distance between numbers could be defined and all of them 
> are logically consistent. If you want to use Euclidean geometry or even the 
> sort of non-Euclidean geometry Einstein used you've got to use standard 
> arithmetic, but there are other ways. For example, in the 7-adic system the 
> distance between 5 and 6 is smaller than the distance between 5 
> and 6; and 28814 is closer to 2 than 2 is to 3.
> 
> ​>​All Turing universal system would do. p-adic numbers presupposes 
> elementary arithmetic.
> 
> It would be equally true to say elementary arithmetic presupposes p-adic 
> numbers, although humans were not smart enough to figure that out until 1897.


I doubt this. I am not sure you can define p-adic number without assuming 
natural number.s If you can, show me.




> Out of all the ways numbers could be manipulated there is only one thing that 
> is unique about arithmetic, its not unique because its the only one that is 
> self consistent, its unique because its the only one that is consistent with 
> physical reality and the laws of physics.

Non standard model of arithmetic are also consistent with the laws of physics.







> 
> ​> ​The notion of computations do not rely not on heaven either. Robinson 
> arithmetic is Turing universal, and that can be proved in Peano Arithmetic.
> 
> ​And there are only 2 instances when Robinson arithmetic or Peano Arithmetic 
> exists:
> 1) In heaven.
> 2) When they are implemented in matter that obeys the laws of physics.
>  
> ​>​If a computation is physical, it has to admit a physical definition. But 
> apparently you cannot find it.
> Apparently you can't find a definition of “definition”. But never mind, I 
> have something vastly superior to a definition of a physical computation, I 
> can point to an actual example of a physical computation
> 

That is a version of the knowing table argument. You can do this in my dreams 
too.




> and all you can do is point to a book full of ASCII characters.
> 

I was pointing on the content of the book.



> You can not point to one single example of a non-physical computation. Not 
> one.
> 
> 

Here is one:

s(0) +s(0)
s(s(0) + 0)
s(s(0))

Here is another one:

SB(S(K(SM))K)AB
Bx((S(K(SM)K)A)B
A(S(K(SM))KAB)
A(K(SM)A(KA)B)
A(SM(KA)B)
A(MB)(KAB)
A(BBA)





> Examples are far more important and vastly more fundamental than definitions 
> because examples always come first, it is only later that somebody dreams up 
> a definition that fits all the examples in a class. And sometimes a 
> definition never comes at all, most people live their entire lives and manage 
> to communicate just fine in this ultra complex physical world and yet have 
> never seen a dictionary in their lives. That was the error early AI 
> researchers made, they tried to give their machines definitions of everything 
> in the physical world and that didn’t work out very well, today they use 
> examples. 
> 
> ​> ​something is primary if we have to assume it 
> 
> It's so ubiquitous there is no choice but to assume matter, otherwise you 
> couldn't read a book because that is made of matter, you couldn't even think 
> because your brain is made of matter.

Nobody doubt Matter. But that does not make it primary, which is the debated 
point.






> Heaven is not made of matter and neither is the Luminiferous Aether but our 
> physical world is indifferent to the existence or non-existence of them, in 
> other words physics can't prove they don't exist but it can prove the idea is 
> silly. 


Physics is not concerned with fundamental existence. Metaphysics is. Confusing 
physics and metaphysics is the “error" of Aristotle, which is debunked in the 
frame of computationalism. This why we have to backtrack to the greeks, we have 
adopted that mistaken view since long.




> 
> ​> ​He is uncertain about where he will find itself after the duplication.
> 
> That would be true if the man were like you and didn't understand what the 
> words "YOU WILL BE DUPLICATED"   mean.


But the guy has bet on comp, and so he knows that once duplicated, the two 
copies will feel to be unique, and see only once city, and understand that it 
was impossible to write that unique city name in his diary in Helsinki.



> 
> ​​>>​Bruno, you're always talking about definitions but this is one of those 
> rare occasions where one is desperately needed, so if you want me to answer 
> that question you must first give me a PRECISE definition of exactly what you 
> mean by "the Helsinki man". ​
> 
> ​>​It is guy who will survive in both Moscow and Washington,
> 
> ​If that's what "the guy" means then obviously "the guy" will see 2 cities.

At