Re: The Ilusion of Branching and the MWI

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/5/2018 9:43 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 4 Aug 2018, at 23:32, agrayson2...@gmail.com 
 wrote:


AFAIK, no one has ever observed a probability wave, from which I 
conclude the wave function has only epistemic content.



Then you need to explain how that epistemic content interfere in nature.
??  The epistemic content IS how interference occurs in nature.  The 
wave function is one's estimation/knowledge of how events will infold, 
including intereference.


Your idea might make sense, and indeed if we believe in a collapse (as 
you have to do if you believe in QM and that the superposition does 
not apply to us) the idea that consciousness collapse the wave is 
perhaps the less ridiculous idea. That idea has indeed be defended by 
von Neumann, Wigner, and some others. But has been shown to lead to 
many difficulties when taken seriously by Abner Shimony, as well 
guessed by Wigner itself. Obviously that idea would be inconsistent 
with Mechanism.


There is no probability waves. There is only an amplitude of 
probability wave, and the weirdness is that we have strong indirect 
evidence that the amplitude of that wave is as physically real as the 
particles that we can observe, because the particle location is 
determined by that wave having interfered like wave usually do. In 
particular, even if send one by one, the particles will never been 
found where the wave interfere destructively, and the pattern on the 
screen will reflect the number of holes, and their disposition.


That's like arguing that the map is the territory because if you follow 
it you get where you want to go.


Brent



It is OK to say that probability comes from ignorance, and that the 
wave describe that ignorance, the extraordinary thing is then that 
 this ignorance interfere independently of you.






So I have embraced the "shut up and calculate" interpretation of the 
wave function.



That can be wise. Nobody can enforce the search of the truth. It is 
frustrating because we can’t be sure if we progress toward it or the 
contrary, and it is shocking because truth always beat fictions.




I also see a connection between the True Believers of the MWI, and 
Trump sycophants; they seem immune to simple facts, such as the 
foolishness of thinking copies of observers can occur, or be created, 
willy-nilly. AG


That remark deserves your point and diminish your credibility. It also 
suggests that you are a “True Believer” in something.


Assuming Mechanism in cognitive science, you don’t need quantum 
mechanics to understand that there are infinitely many relative 
computational states corresponding to you here and now emulated by 
infinitely many universal machines.


No, but you need to believe that abstractions like universal Turing 
machines exist and are running a UD and that you and your whole world 
are just computations.


Brent

Even without mechanism this is a theorem of arithmetic using only 
Church thesis. With mechanism, we have to derive the “guessable wave" 
from a statistics on those computations, and so we can test Mechanism 
if it leads to more, or less extravaganza than Nature. It fits up to 
now. So with Mechanism, we get the *appearance* of many interfering 
“worlds”, and this without any worlds, from just the natural numbers 
and the laws of addition and multiplication. I will show that with the 
combinators as it is much shorter (but still long) than showing this 
with the numbers. This is known by logicians since the 1930s (I mean 
that a universal Turing machine is an arithmetical object). 
Computationalism, or Indexical Digital Mechanism imposes a Many-Dreams 
internal interpretation of Arithmetic (or combinator theory, or 
game-of-life theory, … we have to assume only one universal machinery).


Bruno






--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google 
Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, 
send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com 
.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com 
.

Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.


--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google 
Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send 
an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com 
.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com 
.

Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.


--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To 

Re: Decoherence Theory according to Schlosshauer

[agrayson2000]

On Saturday, August 4, 2018 at 10:16:17 PM UTC, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> As long as the universe is not resolved into individual subsystems *(that 
> is, no tensor decomposition of the WF)*, there is no measurement problem.
>
> IMO, highly doubtful, or minimally outside the domain of quantum theory 
> where there is such a thing as measurements, and thus the dualism being 
> denied as the conceptual solution of the measurement problem. (
> https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0312059.pdf, page 8, bold added). AG
>

He does say that decoherence theory doesn't solve the measurement problem, 
yet he attributes it to decomposing the universe into individual 
subsystems. Why would the decomposition have that result? Am I misreading 
his position? AG 

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Re: The Ilusion of Branching and the MWI

[agrayson2000]

On Monday, August 6, 2018 at 6:22:45 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 6 Aug 2018, at 09:23, agrays...@gmail.com  wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sunday, August 5, 2018 at 5:50:56 PM UTC, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sunday, August 5, 2018 at 4:43:21 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On 4 Aug 2018, at 23:32, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>> AFAIK, no one has ever observed a probability wave, from which I 
>>> conclude the wave function has only epistemic content.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Then you need to explain how that epistemic content interfere in nature. 
>>> Your idea might make sense, and indeed if we believe in a collapse (as you 
>>> have to do if you believe in QM and that the superposition does not apply 
>>> to us) the idea that consciousness collapse the wave is perhaps the less 
>>> ridiculous idea. That idea has indeed be defended by von Neumann, Wigner, 
>>> and some others. But has been shown to lead to many difficulties when taken 
>>> seriously by Abner Shimony, as well guessed by Wigner itself. Obviously 
>>> that idea would be inconsistent with Mechanism.
>>>
>>
>> *Easy to show that consciousness doesn't collapse the wf. Just do 
>> repeated trials and don't look at the screen until the experiment is 
>> finished. I forget; what is mechanism? AG *
>>
>>>
>>> There is no probability waves.
>>>
>>
>
> *IIUC, the wf has the mathematical form of a wave, of which the amplitude 
> is part of. AG*
>
>
> The point is that it behave also like a wave. Even if I send only one 
> particle, the position of the screen is determine by a wave which take into 
> account all physical available path. 
>
> You have proposed an instrumentalist interpretation, and that is OK if you 
> goal is to build microscopic transistor or atomic bombs. Here we try to 
> make sense of a theory. The choice is between a non-local guiding 
> potential, the relative states or a (magical) collapse, also non local.
>
>
>
>
>  
>
>> There is only an amplitude of probability wave, and the weirdness is that 
>>> we have strong indirect evidence that the amplitude of that wave is as 
>>> physically real as the particles that we can observe, because the particle 
>>> location is determined by that wave having interfered like wave usually do. 
>>> In particular, even if send one by one, the particles will never been found 
>>> where the wave interfere destructively, and the pattern on the screen will 
>>> reflect the number of holes, and their disposition. 
>>>
>>
> *The fact that the wf gives information about the constructive and 
> destructive inference pattern on the screen, say, is within the meaning of 
> having an epistemic property. *
>
>
> Not at all. It is based on inter-observer sharable documentation. The 
> whole mystery is in the double slit, or all the many-slits elaboration, 
> like the “joke” of Feynman asking what if we put slit everywhere.
>
> *If you want to claim it has ontic property, you need to define what that 
> means. AG*
>
>
> That it predicts result sharable by many people, who can then repeat the 
> experience, and see indeed that te arrival or non arrival of one election 
> depend on the sum of the amplitude of the happening events relative to 
> sharable device and device plan.
>

*Epistemic has this property.You haven't distinguished epistemic from 
ontic. If you want to know what's "real", or ontic, compare an EM wave with 
a probability wave. In the former case it can be detected when it passes, 
say with an antenna, in the latter case not. No device exists that can 
detect a probability wave when it passes. AG* 

>
> If this contains epistemic (and it does with mechanism), that epistemic 
> part can share the fact that some happening, and perhaps all, is a sum on 
> infinitely many virtual path. With mechanism, there might still be too much 
> parts, but that is testable.
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
>
>>> It is OK to say that probability comes from ignorance, and that the wave 
>>> describe that ignorance, the extraordinary thing is then that  this 
>>> ignorance interfere independently of you.
>>>
>>> So I have embraced the "shut up and calculate" interpretation of the 
>>> wave function.
>>>
>>> That can be wise. Nobody can enforce the search of the truth. It is 
>>> frustrating because we can’t be sure if we progress toward it or the 
>>> contrary, and it is shocking because truth always beat fictions.
>>>
>>> I also see a connection between the True Believers of the MWI, and Trump 
>>> sycophants; they seem immune to simple facts, such as the foolishness of 
>>> thinking copies of observers can occur, or be created, willy-nilly. AG
>>>
>>> That remark deserves your point and diminish your credibility. It also 
>>> suggests that you are a “True Believer” in something.
>>>
>>> Assuming Mechanism in cognitive science, you don’t need quantum 
>>> mechanics to understand that there are infinitely many relative 
>>> computational states corresponding to you here and now emulated by 
>>> infinitely 

Re: The Ilusion of Branching and the MWI

[agrayson2000]

On Monday, August 6, 2018 at 6:22:45 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 6 Aug 2018, at 09:23, agrays...@gmail.com  wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sunday, August 5, 2018 at 5:50:56 PM UTC, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sunday, August 5, 2018 at 4:43:21 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On 4 Aug 2018, at 23:32, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>> AFAIK, no one has ever observed a probability wave, from which I 
>>> conclude the wave function has only epistemic content.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Then you need to explain how that epistemic content interfere in nature. 
>>> Your idea might make sense, and indeed if we believe in a collapse (as you 
>>> have to do if you believe in QM and that the superposition does not apply 
>>> to us) the idea that consciousness collapse the wave is perhaps the less 
>>> ridiculous idea. That idea has indeed be defended by von Neumann, Wigner, 
>>> and some others. But has been shown to lead to many difficulties when taken 
>>> seriously by Abner Shimony, as well guessed by Wigner itself. Obviously 
>>> that idea would be inconsistent with Mechanism.
>>>
>>
>> *Easy to show that consciousness doesn't collapse the wf. Just do 
>> repeated trials and don't look at the screen until the experiment is 
>> finished. I forget; what is mechanism? AG *
>>
>>>
>>> There is no probability waves.
>>>
>>
>
> *IIUC, the wf has the mathematical form of a wave, of which the amplitude 
> is part of. AG*
>
>
> The point is that it behave also like a wave. 
>

*Yes, we all know that, but above you assert there are no probability waves 
-- but mathematically they exist, but no one has ever seen one. That's MY 
point! AG*

Even if I send only one particle, the position of the screen is determine 
> by a wave which take into account all physical available path. 
>
> You have proposed an instrumentalist interpretation, and that is OK if you 
> goal is to build microscopic transistor or atomic bombs. Here we try to 
> make sense of a theory. The choice is between a non-local guiding 
> potential, the relative states or a (magical) collapse, also non local.
>
>
>
>
>  
>
>> There is only an amplitude of probability wave, and the weirdness is that 
>>> we have strong indirect evidence that the amplitude of that wave is as 
>>> physically real as the particles that we can observe, because the particle 
>>> location is determined by that wave having interfered like wave usually do. 
>>> In particular, even if send one by one, the particles will never been found 
>>> where the wave interfere destructively, and the pattern on the screen will 
>>> reflect the number of holes, and their disposition. 
>>>
>>
> *The fact that the wf gives information about the constructive and 
> destructive inference pattern on the screen, say, is within the meaning of 
> having an epistemic property. *
>
>
> Not at all. It is based on inter-observer sharable documentation. The 
> whole mystery is in the double slit, or all the many-slits elaboration, 
> like the “joke” of Feynman asking what if we put slit everywhere.
>
>
>
>
> *If you want to claim it has ontic property, you need to define what that 
> means. AG *
>
>
>
> That it predicts result sharable by many people, who can then repeat the 
> experience, and see indeed that te arrival or non arrival of one election 
> depend on the sum of the amplitude of the happening events relative to 
> sharable device and device plan.
>
> If this contains epistemic (and it does with mechanism), that epistemic 
> part can share the fact that some happening, and perhaps all, is a sum on 
> infinitely many virtual path. With mechanism, there might still be too much 
> parts, but that is testable.
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
>
>>> It is OK to say that probability comes from ignorance, and that the wave 
>>> describe that ignorance, the extraordinary thing is then that  this 
>>> ignorance interfere independently of you.
>>>
>>> So I have embraced the "shut up and calculate" interpretation of the 
>>> wave function.
>>>
>>> That can be wise. Nobody can enforce the search of the truth. It is 
>>> frustrating because we can’t be sure if we progress toward it or the 
>>> contrary, and it is shocking because truth always beat fictions.
>>>
>>> I also see a connection between the True Believers of the MWI, and Trump 
>>> sycophants; they seem immune to simple facts, such as the foolishness of 
>>> thinking copies of observers can occur, or be created, willy-nilly. AG
>>>
>>> That remark deserves your point and diminish your credibility. It also 
>>> suggests that you are a “True Believer” in something.
>>>
>>> Assuming Mechanism in cognitive science, you don’t need quantum 
>>> mechanics to understand that there are infinitely many relative 
>>> computational states corresponding to you here and now emulated by 
>>> infinitely many universal machines. Even without mechanism this is a 
>>> theorem of arithmetic using only Church thesis. With mechanism, we have to 
>>> derive the “guessable wave" from 

Re: The Ilusion of Branching and the MWI

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/6/2018 11:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 6 Aug 2018, at 09:23, agrayson2...@gmail.com 
 wrote:




On Sunday, August 5, 2018 at 5:50:56 PM UTC, agrays...@gmail.com 
 wrote:




On Sunday, August 5, 2018 at 4:43:21 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:



On 4 Aug 2018, at 23:32, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:

AFAIK, no one has ever observed a probability wave, from
which I conclude the wave function has only epistemic content.



Then you need to explain how that epistemic content interfere
in nature. Your idea might make sense, and indeed if we
believe in a collapse (as you have to do if you believe in QM
and that the superposition does not apply to us) the idea
that consciousness collapse the wave is perhaps the less
ridiculous idea. That idea has indeed be defended by von
Neumann, Wigner, and some others. But has been shown to lead
to many difficulties when taken seriously by Abner Shimony,
as well guessed by Wigner itself. Obviously that idea would
be inconsistent with Mechanism.


*Easy to show that consciousness doesn't collapse the wf. Just do
repeated trials and don't look at the screen until the experiment
is finished. I forget; what is mechanism? AG *


There is no probability waves.

*
IIUC, the wf has the mathematical form of a wave, of which the 
amplitude is part of. AG

*


The point is that it behave also like a wave. Even if I send only one 
particle, the position of the screen is determine by a wave which take 
into account all physical available path.


You have proposed an instrumentalist interpretation, and that is OK if 
you goal is to build microscopic transistor or atomic bombs. Here we 
try to make sense of a theory. The choice is between a non-local 
guiding potential, the relative states or a (magical) collapse, also 
non local.


You want to make sense of a theory that is defined by complex valued 
fields in a Hilbert space built on spacetime.  You begin by assuming 
mechanism, which implicitly replaces everything physical, including the 
spacetime, with conscious thoughts which are realized as theorems in 
arithmetic (or equivalent computation).  You have not shown how this 
entails conscious thoughts about a quasi-classical world, i.e. one in 
which there appears a shared reality. So wouldn't it be simpler to just 
adopt the interpretation of QBism.  It seems compatible with the idea of 
a computational substrate, but it doesn't need to assume one.  That fact 
tells me the computational substrate is an independent assumption that 
does not follow from QM.


Brent

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Re: The Ilusion of Branching and the MWI

[agrayson2000]

On Monday, August 6, 2018 at 5:50:58 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 5 Aug 2018, at 19:50, agrays...@gmail.com  wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sunday, August 5, 2018 at 4:43:21 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 4 Aug 2018, at 23:32, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>> AFAIK, no one has ever observed a probability wave, from which I conclude 
>> the wave function has only epistemic content.
>>
>>
>>
>> Then you need to explain how that epistemic content interfere in nature. 
>> Your idea might make sense, and indeed if we believe in a collapse (as you 
>> have to do if you believe in QM and that the superposition does not apply 
>> to us) the idea that consciousness collapse the wave is perhaps the less 
>> ridiculous idea. That idea has indeed be defended by von Neumann, Wigner, 
>> and some others. But has been shown to lead to many difficulties when taken 
>> seriously by Abner Shimony, as well guessed by Wigner itself. Obviously 
>> that idea would be inconsistent with Mechanism.
>>
>
> *Easy to show that consciousness doesn't collapse the wf. Just do repeated 
> trials and don't look at the screen until the experiment is finished.*
>
>
> The idea that consciousness collapses the wave is that the wave is 
> described by a sum of two waves which are the one diffracted by the two 
> slits. The *final* probability is the square of the amplitude on that 
> screen, and the absence of particles ever on some part of the screen is due 
> to the destructive interference of the wave. We have a superposition, and 
> it works because I have not been conscious of which path the particle has 
> chosen. It is the unconsciousness of which hole took the electron which 
> interferes in this picture, and consciousness which select the eigenstate 
> in its favourite base.
>

*Consciousness used to be the explanation for collapse. When it doesn't 
work, try unconsciousness. AG*

>
> The idea is that if I look at u + d, QM describes that as O(u+d) = O u + O 
> d. The collapse is the inference that [1/sqrt(2)Ou + 1/sqrt(2)Od] collapses 
> into either Ou or Od with a probability (1/sqrt(2)^2. Everett is the theory 
> that there is no collapse, and it explains why the observer O will still 
> describes in its diary something like a collapse, using Mechanism 
> (identifying a person with its personal memory sequences of experiences, 
> like looking at a particle state)..
>
> I think more and more that the appellation “Relativise state theory” is 
> better that many-worlds, because the notion of worlds is more tricky to 
> defined than the word “state”.
>
> With mechanism we know at the start that the notion of world does not make 
> sense, there are only relative sharable dreams.
>
>
> * I forget; what is mechanism? AG *
>
>
>
> It is the hypothesis/theory/assumption that it exists a level of 
> description of your brain, or body (including any finite part of the 
> environment if you insist), such that a digital emulation executed by some 
> physical computer, at that level, would support your consciousness and 
> subjective life and character, etc. To simplify the reasoning I use often 
> the brain metabolical level, allowing you to survive with a digital brain. 
> My contribution is that entails you do survive also in the arithmetical 
> reality, and that we have to explain the origin of the wave trough a 
> Pythagorean theology, and the work of Gödel, Löb and Solovay provides 
> exactly that, and the tests (the comparison between the theological physics 
> of the universal Turing machine with the observation fits. The wave itself 
> is a phenomenological first person plural product on the sum of all 
> universal machine computations/dreams.
>
> Let me describe you the possible progress in the field, 
>
> I. Copenhagen: the assumptions are
>
> 1) the sigma_1 true propositions (a little part of arithmetic)
> 2) The SWE
> 3) a dualist unintelligible theory of mind
>
> II. Everett: the assumptions are
>
> 1) the sigma_1 true propositions
> 2) The SWE
> 3) Mechanism
>
> III) … and you can see this as a problem to solve, but the propositional 
> parts can be shown offered on a plate by the (Löbian) Universal Machine:
>
> 1) the sigma_1 true propositions
> 2) Mechanism
>
> Both the wave and the collapse should be (and is already up to further 
> verifications) explained the origin of the universal wave. Eventually it is 
> all in the head of all universal machine/machinery.
>
> Do you know a programming language? If yes, an example of a universal 
> machinery is provided by the enumeration of all programs in that 
> programming language. Another example: the enumeration of all Turing 
> machines. Another example: the enumeration of all combinators K S KK KS SK 
> SS KKK K(KK) …, or the numbers 0 S0 SS0 SSS0 0 …(S = successor here, 
> nothing to do with the Starling S, I mean the combinator S).
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>> There is no probability waves. There is only an amplitude of probability 
>> wave, and the weirdness is that we have 

Re: The Ilusion of Branching and the MWI

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 6 Aug 2018, at 09:23, agrayson2...@gmail.com wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Sunday, August 5, 2018 at 5:50:56 PM UTC, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
> 
> 
> On Sunday, August 5, 2018 at 4:43:21 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
>> On 4 Aug 2018, at 23:32, agrays...@gmail.com <> wrote:
>> 
>> AFAIK, no one has ever observed a probability wave, from which I conclude 
>> the wave function has only epistemic content.
> 
> 
> Then you need to explain how that epistemic content interfere in nature. Your 
> idea might make sense, and indeed if we believe in a collapse (as you have to 
> do if you believe in QM and that the superposition does not apply to us) the 
> idea that consciousness collapse the wave is perhaps the less ridiculous 
> idea. That idea has indeed be defended by von Neumann, Wigner, and some 
> others. But has been shown to lead to many difficulties when taken seriously 
> by Abner Shimony, as well guessed by Wigner itself. Obviously that idea would 
> be inconsistent with Mechanism.
> 
> Easy to show that consciousness doesn't collapse the wf. Just do repeated 
> trials and don't look at the screen until the experiment is finished. I 
> forget; what is mechanism? AG 
> 
> There is no probability waves.
> 
> IIUC, the wf has the mathematical form of a wave, of which the amplitude is 
> part of. AG

The point is that it behave also like a wave. Even if I send only one particle, 
the position of the screen is determine by a wave which take into account all 
physical available path. 

You have proposed an instrumentalist interpretation, and that is OK if you goal 
is to build microscopic transistor or atomic bombs. Here we try to make sense 
of a theory. The choice is between a non-local guiding potential, the relative 
states or a (magical) collapse, also non local.



>  
> There is only an amplitude of probability wave, and the weirdness is that we 
> have strong indirect evidence that the amplitude of that wave is as 
> physically real as the particles that we can observe, because the particle 
> location is determined by that wave having interfered like wave usually do. 
> In particular, even if send one by one, the particles will never been found 
> where the wave interfere destructively, and the pattern on the screen will 
> reflect the number of holes, and their disposition. 
> 
> The fact that the wf gives information about the constructive and destructive 
> inference pattern on the screen, say, is within the meaning of having an 
> epistemic property.

Not at all. It is based on inter-observer sharable documentation. The whole 
mystery is in the double slit, or all the many-slits elaboration, like the 
“joke” of Feynman asking what if we put slit everywhere.




> If you want to claim it has ontic property, you need to define what that 
> means. AG 


That it predicts result sharable by many people, who can then repeat the 
experience, and see indeed that te arrival or non arrival of one election 
depend on the sum of the amplitude of the happening events relative to sharable 
device and device plan.

If this contains epistemic (and it does with mechanism), that epistemic part 
can share the fact that some happening, and perhaps all, is a sum on infinitely 
many virtual path. With mechanism, there might still be too much parts, but 
that is testable.

Bruno




> 
> It is OK to say that probability comes from ignorance, and that the wave 
> describe that ignorance, the extraordinary thing is then that  this ignorance 
> interfere independently of you.
>> So I have embraced the "shut up and calculate" interpretation of the wave 
>> function.
> That can be wise. Nobody can enforce the search of the truth. It is 
> frustrating because we can’t be sure if we progress toward it or the 
> contrary, and it is shocking because truth always beat fictions.
>> I also see a connection between the True Believers of the MWI, and Trump 
>> sycophants; they seem immune to simple facts, such as the foolishness of 
>> thinking copies of observers can occur, or be created, willy-nilly. AG
> That remark deserves your point and diminish your credibility. It also 
> suggests that you are a “True Believer” in something.
> 
> Assuming Mechanism in cognitive science, you don’t need quantum mechanics to 
> understand that there are infinitely many relative computational states 
> corresponding to you here and now emulated by infinitely many universal 
> machines. Even without mechanism this is a theorem of arithmetic using only 
> Church thesis. With mechanism, we have to derive the “guessable wave" from a 
> statistics on those computations, and so we can test Mechanism if it leads to 
> more, or less extravaganza than Nature. It fits up to now. So with Mechanism, 
> we get the *appearance* of many interfering “worlds”, and this without any 
> worlds, from just the natural numbers and the laws of addition and 
> multiplication. I will show that with the combinators as it is much shorter 
> (but still long) than showing 

Re: The Ilusion of Branching and the MWI

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 5 Aug 2018, at 20:47, 'scerir' via Everything List 
>  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> Il 4 agosto 2018 alle 23.32 agrayson2...@gmail.com ha scritto: 
>> 
>> AFAIK, no one has ever observed a probability wave, from which I conclude 
>> the wave function has only epistemic content. So I have embraced the "shut 
>> up and calculate" interpretation of the wave function. I also see a 
>> connection between the True Believers of the MWI, and Trump sycophants; they 
>> seem immune to simple facts, such as the foolishness of thinking copies of 
>> observers can occur, or be created, willy-nilly. AG 
>> 
> Frankly I cannot understand, from the following famous page, whether 
> Schroedinger thinks the wavefunction as ontic or epistermic or both!
> 

Schroedinger just expressed the difficulties, the seemingly contradiction. He 
witness that measurement seems to not obey to the wave. He is troubled, and it 
is normal. He is on the good direction, hesitating between the ontic and the 
epistemic.

Bohr rejected Everett literally, but Schroedinger would have offered a cup of 
coffee at least, perhaps listen, and get troubled. It is normal.

Bruno


> Erwin Schroedinger - § 7. The psi-Function as a Catalogue of Expectations. 
> 
> Continuing with the exposition of the official teaching, let us turn to the 
> psi-function
> mentioned above (§ 5). It is now the instrument for predicting the 
> probability of
> measurement outcomes. It embodies the totality of theoretical future 
> expectations, as laid
> down in a catalogue. It is, at any moment in time, the bridge of relations 
> and restrictions
> between different measurements, as were in the classical theory the model and 
> its state at
> any given time. The psi-function has also otherwise much in common with this 
> classical
> state. In principle, it is also uniquely determined by a finite number of 
> suitably chosen
> measurements on the object, though half as many as in the classical theory. 
> Thus is the
> catalogue of expectations laid down initially. From then on, it changes with 
> time, as in
> the classical theory, in a well-defined and deterministic ("causal") way - 
> the development
> of the psi-function is governed by a partial differential equation (of first 
> order in the time
> variable, and resolved for dy/dt). This corresponds to the undisturbed motion 
> of the
> model in the classical theory. But that lasts only so long until another 
> measurement is
> undertaken. After every measurement, one has to attribute to the psi-function 
> a curious,
> somewhat sudden adaptation, which depends on the measurement result and is 
> therefore
> unpredictable. This alone already shows that this second type of change of 
> the psi-function
> has nothing to do with the regular development between two measurements. The 
> sudden
> change due to measurement is closely connected with the discussion in § 5, 
> and we will
> consider it in depth in the following. It is the most interesting aspect of 
> the whole theory,
> and it is precisely this aspect that requires a breach with naive realism. 
> For this reason,
> the psi-function cannot immediately replace the model or the real thing. And 
> this is not
> because a real thing or a model could not in principle undergo sudden 
> unpredictable
> changes, but because from a realistic point of view, measurements are natural 
> phenomena
> like any other, and should not by themselves cause a sudden interruption of 
> the regular
> evolution in Nature. 
> 
> 
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com 
> .
> To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com 
> .
> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list 
> .
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout 
> .

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Re: The Ilusion of Branching and the MWI

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 5 Aug 2018, at 19:50, agrayson2...@gmail.com wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Sunday, August 5, 2018 at 4:43:21 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
>> On 4 Aug 2018, at 23:32, agrays...@gmail.com  wrote:
>> 
>> AFAIK, no one has ever observed a probability wave, from which I conclude 
>> the wave function has only epistemic content.
> 
> 
> Then you need to explain how that epistemic content interfere in nature. Your 
> idea might make sense, and indeed if we believe in a collapse (as you have to 
> do if you believe in QM and that the superposition does not apply to us) the 
> idea that consciousness collapse the wave is perhaps the less ridiculous 
> idea. That idea has indeed be defended by von Neumann, Wigner, and some 
> others. But has been shown to lead to many difficulties when taken seriously 
> by Abner Shimony, as well guessed by Wigner itself. Obviously that idea would 
> be inconsistent with Mechanism.
> 
> Easy to show that consciousness doesn't collapse the wf. Just do repeated 
> trials and don't look at the screen until the experiment is finished.

The idea that consciousness collapses the wave is that the wave is described by 
a sum of two waves which are the one diffracted by the two slits. The *final* 
probability is the square of the amplitude on that screen, and the absence of 
particles ever on some part of the screen is due to the destructive 
interference of the wave. We have a superposition, and it works because I have 
not been conscious of which path the particle has chosen. It is the 
unconsciousness of which hole took the electron which interferes in this 
picture, and consciousness which select the eigenstate in its favourite base.

The idea is that if I look at u + d, QM describes that as O(u+d) = O u + O d. 
The collapse is the inference that [1/sqrt(2)Ou + 1/sqrt(2)Od] collapses into 
either Ou or Od with a probability (1/sqrt(2)^2. Everett is the theory that 
there is no collapse, and it explains why the observer O will still describes 
in its diary something like a collapse, using Mechanism (identifying a person 
with its personal memory sequences of experiences, like looking at a particle 
state)..

I think more and more that the appellation “Relativise state theory” is better 
that many-worlds, because the notion of worlds is more tricky to defined than 
the word “state”.

With mechanism we know at the start that the notion of world does not make 
sense, there are only relative sharable dreams.


> I forget; what is mechanism? AG 


It is the hypothesis/theory/assumption that it exists a level of description of 
your brain, or body (including any finite part of the environment if you 
insist), such that a digital emulation executed by some physical computer, at 
that level, would support your consciousness and subjective life and character, 
etc. To simplify the reasoning I use often the brain metabolical level, 
allowing you to survive with a digital brain. My contribution is that entails 
you do survive also in the arithmetical reality, and that we have to explain 
the origin of the wave trough a Pythagorean theology, and the work of Gödel, 
Löb and Solovay provides exactly that, and the tests (the comparison between 
the theological physics of the universal Turing machine with the observation 
fits. The wave itself is a phenomenological first person plural product on the 
sum of all universal machine computations/dreams.

Let me describe you the possible progress in the field, 

I. Copenhagen: the assumptions are

1) the sigma_1 true propositions (a little part of arithmetic)
2) The SWE
3) a dualist unintelligible theory of mind

II. Everett: the assumptions are

1) the sigma_1 true propositions
2) The SWE
3) Mechanism

III) … and you can see this as a problem to solve, but the propositional parts 
can be shown offered on a plate by the (Löbian) Universal Machine:

1) the sigma_1 true propositions
2) Mechanism

Both the wave and the collapse should be (and is already up to further 
verifications) explained the origin of the universal wave. Eventually it is all 
in the head of all universal machine/machinery.

Do you know a programming language? If yes, an example of a universal machinery 
is provided by the enumeration of all programs in that programming language. 
Another example: the enumeration of all Turing machines. Another example: the 
enumeration of all combinators K S KK KS SK SS KKK K(KK) …, or the numbers 0 S0 
SS0 SSS0 0 …(S = successor here, nothing to do with the Starling S, I mean 
the combinator S).

Bruno


> 
> There is no probability waves. There is only an amplitude of probability 
> wave, and the weirdness is that we have strong indirect evidence that the 
> amplitude of that wave is as physically real as the particles that we can 
> observe, because the particle location is determined by that wave having 
> interfered like wave usually do. In particular, even if send one by one, the 
> particles will never been found where the wave interfere 

Re: The Ilusion of Branching and the MWI

[agrayson2000]

On Sunday, August 5, 2018 at 6:47:55 PM UTC, scerir wrote:
>
>
> Il 4 agosto 2018 alle 23.32 agrays...@gmail.com  ha scritto: 
>
> AFAIK, no one has ever observed a probability wave, from which I conclude 
> the wave function has only epistemic content. So I have embraced the "shut 
> up and calculate" interpretation of the wave function. I also see a 
> connection between the True Believers of the MWI, and Trump sycophants; 
> they seem immune to simple facts, such as the foolishness of thinking 
> copies of observers can occur, or be created, willy-nilly. AG 
>
> Frankly I cannot understand, from the following famous page, whether 
> Schroedinger thinks the wavefunction as ontic or epistermic or both!
>
> Erwin Schroedinger - § 7. The psi-Function as a Catalogue of Expectations. 
>
> Continuing with the exposition of the official teaching, let us turn to 
> the psi-function
> mentioned above (§ 5). It is now t*he instrument for predicting the 
> probability of*
> *measurement outcomes. It embodies the totality of theoretical future 
> expectations, as laid*
> *down in a catalogue*. It is, at any moment in time, the bridge of 
> relations and restrictions
> between different measurements, as were in the classical theory the model 
> and its state at
> any given time. The psi-function has also otherwise much in common with 
> this classical
> state. In principle, it is also uniquely determined by a finite number of 
> suitably chosen
> measurements on the object, though half as many as in the classical 
> theory. Thus is the
> catalogue of expectations laid down initially. From then on, it changes 
> with time, as in
> the classical theory, in a well-defined and deterministic ("causal") way - 
> the development
> of the psi-function is governed by a partial differential equation (of 
> first order in the time
> variable, and resolved for dy/dt). This corresponds to the undisturbed 
> motion of the
> model in the classical theory. *But that lasts only so long until another 
> measurement is*
> *undertaken. After every measurement, one has to attribute to the 
> psi-function a curious,*
> *somewhat sudden adaptation, which depends on the measurement result and 
> is therefore*
> *unpredictable*. This alone already shows that this second type of change 
> of the psi-function
> has nothing to do with the regular development between two measurements. 
> The sudden
> change due to measurement is closely connected with the discussion in § 5, 
> and we will
> consider it in depth in the following. It is the most interesting aspect 
> of the whole theory,
> and it is precisely this aspect that requires a breach with naive realism. 
> For this reason,
> the psi-function cannot immediately replace the model or the real thing. 
> And this is not
> because a real thing or a model could not in principle undergo sudden 
> unpredictable
> changes, but because from a realistic point of view, measurements are 
> natural phenomena
> like any other, and should not by themselves cause a sudden interruption 
> of the regular
> evolution in Nature. 
>


*The way I read it, he seems more worried about what has come to be called 
the collapse of the wf, than to the extent, if any, it is ontic, though at 
the end he seems denying it is "the real thing".  His language is fairly 
obtuse; maybe caused by translation from German, or something he acquired 
from Bohr. AG*

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Re: The Ilusion of Branching and the MWI

[agrayson2000]

On Sunday, August 5, 2018 at 5:50:56 PM UTC, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sunday, August 5, 2018 at 4:43:21 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 4 Aug 2018, at 23:32, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>> AFAIK, no one has ever observed a probability wave, from which I conclude 
>> the wave function has only epistemic content.
>>
>>
>>
>> Then you need to explain how that epistemic content interfere in nature. 
>> Your idea might make sense, and indeed if we believe in a collapse (as you 
>> have to do if you believe in QM and that the superposition does not apply 
>> to us) the idea that consciousness collapse the wave is perhaps the less 
>> ridiculous idea. That idea has indeed be defended by von Neumann, Wigner, 
>> and some others. But has been shown to lead to many difficulties when taken 
>> seriously by Abner Shimony, as well guessed by Wigner itself. Obviously 
>> that idea would be inconsistent with Mechanism.
>>
>
> *Easy to show that consciousness doesn't collapse the wf. Just do repeated 
> trials and don't look at the screen until the experiment is finished. I 
> forget; what is mechanism? AG *
>
>>
>> There is no probability waves.
>>
>


*IIUC, the wf has the mathematical form of a wave, of which the amplitude 
is part of. AG *

> There is only an amplitude of probability wave, and the weirdness is that 
>> we have strong indirect evidence that the amplitude of that wave is as 
>> physically real as the particles that we can observe, because the particle 
>> location is determined by that wave having interfered like wave usually do. 
>> In particular, even if send one by one, the particles will never been found 
>> where the wave interfere destructively, and the pattern on the screen will 
>> reflect the number of holes, and their disposition. 
>>
>
*The fact that the wf gives information about the constructive and 
destructive inference pattern on the screen, say, is within the meaning of 
having an epistemic property. If you want to claim it has ontic property, 
you need to define what that means. AG *

>
>> It is OK to say that probability comes from ignorance, and that the wave 
>> describe that ignorance, the extraordinary thing is then that  this 
>> ignorance interfere independently of you.
>>
>> So I have embraced the "shut up and calculate" interpretation of the wave 
>> function.
>>
>> That can be wise. Nobody can enforce the search of the truth. It is 
>> frustrating because we can’t be sure if we progress toward it or the 
>> contrary, and it is shocking because truth always beat fictions.
>>
>> I also see a connection between the True Believers of the MWI, and Trump 
>> sycophants; they seem immune to simple facts, such as the foolishness of 
>> thinking copies of observers can occur, or be created, willy-nilly. AG
>>
>> That remark deserves your point and diminish your credibility. It also 
>> suggests that you are a “True Believer” in something.
>>
>> Assuming Mechanism in cognitive science, you don’t need quantum mechanics 
>> to understand that there are infinitely many relative computational states 
>> corresponding to you here and now emulated by infinitely many universal 
>> machines. Even without mechanism this is a theorem of arithmetic using only 
>> Church thesis. With mechanism, we have to derive the “guessable wave" from 
>> a statistics on those computations, and so we can test Mechanism if it 
>> leads to more, or less extravaganza than Nature. It fits up to now. So with 
>> Mechanism, we get the *appearance* of many interfering “worlds”, and this 
>> without any worlds, from just the natural numbers and the laws of addition 
>> and multiplication. I will show that with the combinators as it is much 
>> shorter (but still long) than showing this with the numbers. This is known 
>> by logicians since the 1930s (I mean that a universal Turing machine is an 
>> arithmetical object). Computationalism, or Indexical Digital Mechanism 
>> imposes a Many-Dreams internal interpretation of Arithmetic (or combinator 
>> theory, or game-of-life theory, … we have to assume only one universal 
>> machinery).
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
>> "Everything List" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
>> email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
>> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
>> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>>
>>
>>

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options,