Re: The problem with physics

[Philip Thrift]

On Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 3:59:47 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 11/19/2019 1:43 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:
>
>
>  A diffraction pattern emerges in video recordings of single-photon 
> double-slit experiments whether anyone sees the video or not. what changes 
> is the image on the video frame-by-frame. If you take a video of a an arrow 
> shot from a bow, it follows a parabolic curve, and what changes is its 
> position frame-by-frame.
>
>
> So when your path integral formulation predicts various probabilities for 
> position of photon absorptions by the video camera nothing has changed when 
> positions are actualized in the recording.  All the same probabilities 
> obtain.  Which is the MWI view.
>
> Brent
>



In the cases of *Quantum Measure Theory* (Rafael Sorkin), *Real Path 
Quantum Theory* (Adrain Kent), or -- in another type of formulation -- 
*Cellular 
Automaton Interpretation* [of Quantum Mechanics] (Gerard 't Hooft), I don't 
see what "change" means in your terms.

@philipthrift

*The Schrödinger equation is not the only way to study quantum mechanical 
systems and make predictions. The other formulations of quantum mechanics 
include matrix mechanics, introduced by Werner Heisenberg, and the path 
integral formulation, developed chiefly by Richard Feynman. Paul Dirac 
incorporated matrix mechanics and the Schrödinger equation into a single 
formulation.*
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger_equation

@philipthrift 

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Re: The problem with physics

[Bruce Kellett]

On Wed, Nov 20, 2019 at 1:58 AM John Clark  wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 19, 2019 at 5:26 AM Bruce Kellett 
> wrote
> >> You can if the theory is deterministic but not realistic as Many
> Worlds is, that is to say if a deterministic interaction between 2
> particles always produces more than one outcome.:
>
>>
>> > Actually, I thought one of the attractions of the many worlds theory
>> was that it was realistic -- in the sense that the wave function really
>> exists a a physical object,
>>
>
> I don't know where in the world you got that idea. Even probability is
> pretty abstract but you don't even get that until you take the square of
> the absolute value of the wave function, which contains imaginary numbers
> by the way. How much more different from a physical object do you want?
>

I know that you like to play dumb, John, and act the troll. But I thought
that you had read Sean Carroll's recent book and might, therefore, have
known better than this. On page 32, Carroll writes "First, we take the wave
function seriously as a direct representation of reality, not just a
book-keeping device to help us organize our knowledge. We treat it as
ontological, not epistemic." That is what is meant by wave function realism.

*> How much more realistic do you want?*
>>
>
> It would need one hell of a lot more to be realistic! A theory is
> realistic if it says a particle is in one and only one definite state both
> before and after an interaction even if it has not been observed. Many
> Worlds is about as far from that as you can get.
>

That is not wave function realism as used in many worlds. That version of
realism is not even applicable to ordinary "text-book" quantum mechanics;
it is not even Eisteinian realism. The idea in many-worlds was to be
realist about the wave function, not epistemic as in the text-book
approach. That is what Carroll explains, and what I was talking about.

Look, John, it is not cute to act dumb and play with words in the way you
do. If you want to participate in an adult discussion list, it is time to
start acting like an adult..

Bruce

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Re: The problem with physics

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 11/19/2019 1:54 PM, John Clark wrote:



/>The Born rule is a way of predicting probabilities.   But how do
these probabilities apply in MWI.   Do they apply to
"observations"...but there are no observations in MWI;/


You can have observations in MWI if you want, it's just that 
observations don't change physical law so one set of laws is enough. 
Sean Carroll and others have shown that the square of the absolute 
value of the wave function is the only way for a rational being to 
assign unitary probability in a Many Worlds multiverse during the 
instant after a split has occurred, and if probability isn't unitary 
it's not of much use:


Many Worlds and the Born Rule 


The problem is not how to calculate probabilities, it's what do the 
probabilities refer to.  Observations?  Measurements?  Personal 
experience?  Which eigenstate the wave function collapses to? ...all 
things that MWI seeks to banish.


Brent

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Re: The problem with physics

[Bruce Kellett]

On Wed, Nov 20, 2019 at 8:55 AM John Clark  wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 19, 2019 at 2:30 PM 'Brent Meeker'  <
> everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> >>Anything that does not violate the laws of physics, particularly
>>> quantum physics, can happen.
>>
>>
>> * > That's not quite right.  Events inconsistent with the laws of physics
>> can't happen.  But also things inconsistent with initial or boundary
>> conditions (which are typically classical) can't happen. So it is not JUST
>> the SWE.*
>>
>
> Initial conditions rigidly determine the evolution of a system according
> to the laws of classical physics, but the SWE is not classical and it's not
> the only thing that isn't. As Richard Feynman said:
>

You fail to understand the role of initial conditions -- in quantum physics
as well as in classical physics.



> "*Nature isn't classical, dammit, and if you want to make a simulation of
> nature, you'd better make it quantum mechanical*".
>
> >> EVERY quantum interpretation assumes the Born Rule. I don't claim the
>>> MWI can solve every quantum problem but it can solve one, the mystery of
>>> the observer, and it is at least the equal of the other interpretations in
>>> explaining the other mysteries. In other words the Many Worlds
>>> Interpretation is the least bad idea anybody has come up with over the last
>>> century to explain the weird nature of the quantum world.
>>
>>
>> * >The Born rule is a way of predicting probabilities.   But how do these
>> probabilities apply in MWI.   Do they apply to "observations"...but there
>> are no observations in MWI;*
>>
>
> You can have observations in MWI if you want, it's just that observations
> don't change physical law so one set of laws is enough. Sean Carroll and
> others have shown that the square of the absolute value of the wave
> function is the only way for a rational being to assign unitary probability
> in a Many Worlds multiverse during the instant after a split has occurred,
> and if probability isn't unitary it's not of much use:
>

Where did the "being" come from? And what is rationality? And why does the
"being" have to be rational"?

Bruce

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Re: The problem with physics

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 11/19/2019 1:47 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:



On Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 12:29:35 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:



On 11/19/2019 12:59 AM, Philip Thrift wrote:



On Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 1:48:50 AM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:

Schrödinger says absolutely nothing about [wave function
collapse, it was tacked on by people who wanted only one world.
John K Clark





True about Schrödinger, but there are *one world* formulations in
which there is /no wave function collapse,/ or /no wave function/
at all to begin with.


Are there possibilities which have probabilities and of which only
one is realized?

Brent


If you roll a (6-sided) die you get any one of six possible outcomes 
(1 dot to 6 dots). You don't get say 2 dots and 5 dots as the single 
outcome.


That's the way probability works.


Which is why the Born rule implies the wave-function collapses, if it's 
something physical, or must be updated if it's epistemic.


Brent

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Re: The problem with physics

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 11/19/2019 1:43 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:



On Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 12:27:21 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:



On 11/19/2019 12:30 AM, Philip Thrift wrote:



On Monday, November 18, 2019 at 6:50:38 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:



On 11/18/2019 4:33 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:



On Monday, November 18, 2019 at 3:48:35 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:


In using path integrals you arrive a probabilities for
various possible outcomes.  But that's not the end of
the science.  You also observe/measure/experience some
particular outcome.  And then you compute future path
integrals starting from the observed state...using the
observed state implies you went from a state of
uncertainty expressed by probabilities to a state of
certainty regarding the new stateaka using knowledge.

Brent





*Knowledge* is something having to do with human brains
("knowing"), and when they became the "engines" of speaking
and writing, then *knowledge* could be communicated between
intelligent beings. (Perhaps other primates too are
*knowledge*-able, but that's debatable.)

Now it seems to me that in the first few billion years at
least of the universe (after the Big Bang) there were no
knowledge-able beings, There hadn't been time for them to
evolve anywhere.

But during that time quantum processes (and chemical, and at
least somewhere at some point biological precesses) were
going along fine without any knowledge-able beings exiting,
and thus there was no knowledge changing" -- because there
was no knowledge during that time.

So how is knowledge needed as a concept in any way in QM
when QM processes were occurring in the universe fine before
knowledge existed?

Whoever put "knowledge: in QM screwed up.


You're dodging the question like you're running for office on
the know-nothing ticket.

I've already asked all the way I can think of what it is that
causes you to change your estimate of the future evolution of
a quantum system when you measure it.  I've concluded you
have no knowledge of this process.

Brent


You are dodging the question:

W/as there any knowledge to be changed (or updated) - or  my
"knowledge of this process" - or "my estimate of the future
evolution of a quantum process" - anywhere in he universe 10
billion years ago?/


Your knowledge of processes 10 billion years ago is based on
measurements done in telescopes and laboratories today and
inferences from them.




Knowledge (changing/updating knowledge) in any way whatsoever is
*completely irrelevant* to anything in quantum mechanics.


Forget "knowledge".  I'm not arguing about semantics.  I'm asking
what changes when there is a measurement of a quantum system?

Brent


The reality of processes 10 billion years ago are not dependent on any 
being ever measuring them and having their knowledge updated.


 A diffraction pattern emerges in video recordings of single-photon 
double-slit experiments whether anyone sees the video or not. what 
changes is the image on the video frame-by-frame. If you take a video 
of a an arrow shot from a bow, it follows a parabolic curve, and what 
changes is its position frame-by-frame.


So when your path integral formulation predicts various probabilities 
for position of photon absorptions by the video camera nothing has 
changed when positions are actualized in the recording. All the same 
probabilities obtain.  Which is the MWI view.


Brent

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Re: The problem with physics

[John Clark]

On Tue, Nov 19, 2019 at 2:30 PM 'Brent Meeker'  <
everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:

>>Anything that does not violate the laws of physics, particularly quantum
>> physics, can happen.
>
>
> * > That's not quite right.  Events inconsistent with the laws of physics
> can't happen.  But also things inconsistent with initial or boundary
> conditions (which are typically classical) can't happen. So it is not JUST
> the SWE.*
>

Initial conditions rigidly determine the evolution of a system according to
the laws of classical physics, but the SWE is not classical and it's not
the only thing that isn't. As Richard Feynman said:
"*Nature isn't classical, dammit, and if you want to make a simulation of
nature, you'd better make it quantum mechanical*".

>> EVERY quantum interpretation assumes the Born Rule. I don't claim the
>> MWI can solve every quantum problem but it can solve one, the mystery of
>> the observer, and it is at least the equal of the other interpretations in
>> explaining the other mysteries. In other words the Many Worlds
>> Interpretation is the least bad idea anybody has come up with over the last
>> century to explain the weird nature of the quantum world.
>
>
> * >The Born rule is a way of predicting probabilities.   But how do these
> probabilities apply in MWI.   Do they apply to "observations"...but there
> are no observations in MWI;*
>

You can have observations in MWI if you want, it's just that observations
don't change physical law so one set of laws is enough. Sean Carroll and
others have shown that the square of the absolute value of the wave
function is the only way for a rational being to assign unitary probability
in a Many Worlds multiverse during the instant after a split has occurred,
and if probability isn't unitary it's not of much use:

Many Worlds and the Born Rule 

 John K Clark

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Re: The problem with physics

[Philip Thrift]

On Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 12:29:35 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 11/19/2019 12:59 AM, Philip Thrift wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 1:48:50 AM UTC-6, John Clark wrote: 
>
> Schrödinger says absolutely nothing about [wave function collapse, it was 
>> tacked on by people who wanted only one world.
>>  
>> John K Clark
>>
>
>
>
>
> True about Schrödinger, but there are *one world* formulations in which 
> there is *no wave function collapse,* or *no wave function* at all to 
> begin with.
>
>
> Are there possibilities which have probabilities and of which only one is 
> realized?
>
> Brent
>

If you roll a (6-sided) die you get any one of six possible outcomes (1 dot 
to 6 dots). You don't get say 2 dots and 5 dots as the single outcome. 

That's the way probability works.

@philipthrift

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Re: The problem with physics

[Philip Thrift]

On Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 12:27:21 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 11/19/2019 12:30 AM, Philip Thrift wrote:
>
>
>
> On Monday, November 18, 2019 at 6:50:38 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote: 
>>
>>
>>
>> On 11/18/2019 4:33 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Monday, November 18, 2019 at 3:48:35 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote: 
>>>
>>>
>>> In using path integrals you arrive a probabilities for various possible 
>>> outcomes.  But that's not the end of the science.  You also 
>>> observe/measure/experience some particular outcome.  And then you compute 
>>> future path integrals starting from the observed state...using the observed 
>>> state implies you went from a state of uncertainty expressed by 
>>> probabilities to a state of certainty regarding the new stateaka using 
>>> knowledge.
>>>
>>> Brent
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *Knowledge* is something having to do with human brains ("knowing"), and 
>> when they became the "engines" of speaking and writing, then *knowledge* 
>> could be communicated between intelligent beings. (Perhaps other primates 
>> too are *knowledge*-able, but that's debatable.)
>>
>> Now it seems to me that in the first few billion years at least of the 
>> universe (after the Big Bang) there were no knowledge-able beings, There 
>> hadn't been time for them to evolve anywhere.
>>
>> But during that time quantum processes (and chemical, and at least 
>> somewhere at some point biological precesses) were going along fine without 
>> any knowledge-able beings exiting, and thus there was no knowledge 
>> changing" -- because there was no knowledge during that time.
>>
>> So how is knowledge needed as a concept in any way in QM when QM 
>> processes were occurring in the universe fine before knowledge existed?
>>
>> Whoever put "knowledge: in QM screwed up.
>>
>>
>> You're dodging the question like you're running for office on the 
>> know-nothing ticket.
>>
>> I've already asked all the way I can think of what it is that causes you 
>> to change your estimate of the future evolution of a quantum system when 
>> you measure it.  I've concluded you have no knowledge of this process.
>>
>> Brent
>>
>
> You are dodging the question:
>
> W*as there any knowledge to be changed (or updated) - or  my "knowledge 
> of this process" - or "my estimate of the future evolution of a quantum 
> process" - anywhere in he universe 10 billion years ago?*
>
>
> Your knowledge of processes 10 billion years ago is based on measurements 
> done in telescopes and laboratories today and inferences from them.
>
>
>
> Knowledge (changing/updating knowledge) in any way whatsoever is 
> *completely irrelevant* to anything in quantum mechanics.
>
>
> Forget "knowledge".  I'm not arguing about semantics.  I'm asking what 
> changes when there is a measurement of a quantum system?
>
> Brent
>
>
The reality of processes 10 billion years ago are not dependent on any 
being ever measuring them and having their knowledge updated.  

 A diffraction pattern emerges in video recordings of single-photon 
double-slit experiments whether anyone sees the video or not. what changes 
is the image on the video frame-by-frame. If you take a video of a an arrow 
shot from a bow, it follows a parabolic curve, and what changes is its 
position frame-by-frame.

@philipthrift


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Re: The problem with physics

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 11/19/2019 6:57 AM, John Clark wrote:
On Tue, Nov 19, 2019 at 5:26 AM Bruce Kellett > wrote:


/>>> Only things that are nomologically possible given
your particular initial conditions can happen./


>> Or to say the exact same thing with different words,
everything that can happen does happen.


> /Hmmm! You have to be careful that you are not just saying the
hat happens, happens!/


Anything that does not violate the laws of physics, particularly 
quantum physics, can happen.


That's not quite right.  Events inconsistent with the laws of physics 
can't happen.  But also things inconsistent with initial or boundary 
conditions (which are typically classical) can't happen. So it is not 
JUST the SWE.



If you fire a electron at 2 slits observing it going through the left 
slit would be OK with Schrodinger's equation, and so would observing 
it going through the right slit, and if you don't observe the slits at 
all it would be OK with Schrodinger's equation to deduce from the 
resulting interference pattern that the single electron went through 
both slits. Yes that is absolutely ridiculous but don't blame me, 
blame God.


/>>> And that rules out things like "there is a copy of me
that turns left whenever I turn right"./


>> That would be true only if you assume the wave function
collapses, and Schrödinger says absolutely nothing about that,
it was tacked on by people who wanted only one world.


/> Nothing to do with collapse. /


It has everything to do with collapse. Copenhagen people say when the 
electron hits the photographic plate the wave function collapses and 
the electron makes up its mind where it is and assumes a discreet 
position, and that's why it makes a sharp spot and not a big smudge on 
the plate. Many Worlds people say otherwise, not because they enjoy 
being contrary but because they don't know how else to explain the 
bizarre results of the 2 slit exparament.


/> Why is it that you many-worlds advocates always accuse someone
who opposes you of assuming some collapse? Rubbish, it assumes no
such thing./


If the wave function collapses then an evolving quantum object, such 
as yourself, will be in one and only one state tomorrow. If the wave 
function does NOT collapse then you won't be ( "you" being defined as 
anything that remembers being Bruce Kellett today).


/>>> Additional assumptions are needed if you want to make
sense of questions like" "What will a being that remembers
being John Clark today see tomorrow."/


>> Like what?


/> That beings like John Clark, with identifiable characteristics,
actually exist at all./


The only assumption is that the Schrodinger equation means what it 
says, and it says nothing about it collapsing. You can add extra terms 
to the equation and make it collapse but Occam would not approve, 
those additional mathematical complexities do not improve predictions 
one bit, they do nothing but get rid of those other worlds.


>>>/ he /[Everett] /was something of an idiot because he did
not see that you could not get probabilities out of a
deterministic theory /


>> You can if the theory is deterministic but not realistic as
Many Worlds is, that is to say if a deterministic interaction
between 2 particles always produces more than one outcome.


> Actually, I thought one of the attractions of the many worlds
theory was that it was realistic -- in the sense that the wave
function really exists a a physical object,


I don't know where in the world you got that idea. Even probability is 
pretty abstract but you don't even get that until you take the square 
of the absolute value of the wave function, which contains imaginary 
numbers by the way. How much more different from a physical object do 
you want?


/> How much more realistic do you want?/


It would need one hell of a lot more to be realistic! A theory is 
realistic if it says a particle is in one and only one definite state 
both before and after an interaction even if it has not been observed. 
Many Worlds is about as far from that as you can get.


> /Nevertheless, the SWE does not give a probability without some
further assumptions. Why do you think that MWI advocates spend so
much time an effort trying to derive the Born rule? You cannot get
probabilities from the Schroedinger equation without some
additional assumptions./


Irrelevant for this discussion because EVERY quantum interpretation 
assumes the Born Rule. I don't claim the MWI can solve every quantum 
problem but it can solve one, the mystery of the observer, and it is 
at least the equal of the other interpretations in explaining the 
other mysteries. In other words the Many Worlds Interpretation is the 
least bad idea anybody 

Re: The problem with physics

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 11/19/2019 6:55 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 18 Nov 2019, at 22:14, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
> wrote:




On 11/18/2019 12:20 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:



On Monday, November 18, 2019 at 1:16:46 PM UTC-7, John Clark wrote:

On Sun, Nov 17, 2019 at 7:43 AM Philip Thrift
> wrote:

*> /Adrian Kent/*/'s/ https://arxiv.org/abs/1305.6565
 /"real path quantum
theory" *RPQT*/


If you fire electrons at 2 slits and observe the slits then each
electron takes a real path through one and only one slit and no
interference pattern is produced.  If you fire electrons at 2
slits and do NOT observe the slits then a interference pattern
is produced indicating that each electron went through both
slits. Thus real path quantum theory needs 2 sets of physical
laws, one for when things are observed and one when they are
not. Many Worlds only needs one set of physical laws, and one
set is more parsimonious than two.



That's what the evangelists for MWI say.  But in fact some more stuff 
is needed to explain why we see the world as we do, i.e. how 
probability comes into it and why is there a preferred basis.  Maybe 
this more stuff can be derived from Schroedinger's equation, but even 
to do so seems to require additional assumptions.


With mechanism: it requires *less* assumptions. Any physics accepting 
the mechanist theory of mind must explain the physical appearance from 
a measure on all (relative) computations.


You frequently use this unconditional form of "must" when you actually 
mean "must, if my theory is right"  which is trivial.


Brent

The math required for doing this requires more axioms (like the 
distribution of prime number studies seems to require analytical 
axioms). That is normal, given incompleteness.


Bruno





Brent


And if everything that can happen does happen then unlike its
competition Many Worlds doesn't have to explain exactly what a
"observation" is or worry about the true nature of consciousness
because it has nothing to do with it.

John K Clark


You're hopelessly deluded. AG
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Re: The problem with physics

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 11/19/2019 12:59 AM, Philip Thrift wrote:



On Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 1:48:50 AM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:

Schrödinger says absolutely nothing about [wave function collapse,
it was tacked on by people who wanted only one world.
John K Clark





True about Schrödinger, but there are *one world* formulations in 
which there is /no wave function collapse,/ or /no wave function/ at 
all to begin with.


Are there possibilities which have probabilities and of which only one 
is realized?


Brent

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Re: The problem with physics

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 11/19/2019 12:30 AM, Philip Thrift wrote:



On Monday, November 18, 2019 at 6:50:38 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:



On 11/18/2019 4:33 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:



On Monday, November 18, 2019 at 3:48:35 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:


In using path integrals you arrive a probabilities for
various possible outcomes.  But that's not the end of the
science.  You also observe/measure/experience some particular
outcome. And then you compute future path integrals starting
from the observed state...using the observed state implies
you went from a state of uncertainty expressed by
probabilities to a state of certainty regarding the new
stateaka using knowledge.

Brent





*Knowledge* is something having to do with human brains
("knowing"), and when they became the "engines" of speaking and
writing, then *knowledge* could be communicated between
intelligent beings. (Perhaps other primates too are
*knowledge*-able, but that's debatable.)

Now it seems to me that in the first few billion years at least
of the universe (after the Big Bang) there were no knowledge-able
beings, There hadn't been time for them to evolve anywhere.

But during that time quantum processes (and chemical, and at
least somewhere at some point biological precesses) were going
along fine without any knowledge-able beings exiting, and thus
there was no knowledge changing" -- because there was no
knowledge during that time.

So how is knowledge needed as a concept in any way in QM when QM
processes were occurring in the universe fine before knowledge
existed?

Whoever put "knowledge: in QM screwed up.


You're dodging the question like you're running for office on the
know-nothing ticket.

I've already asked all the way I can think of what it is that
causes you to change your estimate of the future evolution of a
quantum system when you measure it.  I've concluded you have no
knowledge of this process.

Brent


You are dodging the question:

W/as there any knowledge to be changed (or updated) - or my "knowledge 
of this process" - or "my estimate of the future evolution of a 
quantum process" - anywhere in he universe 10 billion years ago?/


Your knowledge of processes 10 billion years ago is based on 
measurements done in telescopes and laboratories today and inferences 
from them.





Knowledge (changing/updating knowledge) in any way whatsoever is 
*completely irrelevant* to anything in quantum mechanics.


Forget "knowledge".  I'm not arguing about semantics.  I'm asking what 
changes when there is a measurement of a quantum system?


Brent



That;s been stated at least 100 times, and that that was stated 20 
years ago on Vic's Atoms and Void. You keep objecting. OK. We get it.


@philipthrift





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Re: The problem with physics

[John Clark]

On Tue, Nov 19, 2019 at 3:59 AM Philip Thrift  wrote:

>> Schrödinger says absolutely nothing about [wave function collapse, it
>> was tacked on by people who wanted only one world.
>>
>
> *> True about Schrödinger, but there are one world formulations in which
> there is no wave function collapse, or no wave function at all to begin
> with.*
>

It has been proven that Schrödinger's Wave Equation and Heisenberg's Matrix
Mechanics are mathematically equivalent, what is true for one is true for
the other and which you use is entirely a matter of taste. Most prefer
Schrödinger  because most of the time it's easier to use.

John K Clark

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Re: Experiential Realism

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 14 Nov 2019, at 19:35, Philip Thrift  wrote:
> 
> 
> A Defense of Experiential Realism: The Need to take Phenomenological Reality 
> on its own Terms in the Study of the Mind
> Stan B. Klein
> Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences
> University of California at Santa Barbara
> https://philpapers.org/archive/KLEADO-3.pdf
> 
> 
> Abstract
> 
> In this paper I argue for the importance of treating mental experience on its 
> own terms. In defense of “experiential realism” I offer a critique of modern 
> psychology’s all-too-frequent attempts to effect an objectification and 
> quantification of personal subjectivity. The question is “What can we learn 
> about experiential reality from indices that, in the service of scientific 
> objectification, transform the qualitative properties of experience into 
> quantitative indices?” I conclude that such treatment is neither necessary 
> for realizing, nor sufficient for capturing, subjectively given states (such 
> as perception, pain, imagery, fear, thought, memory) – that is, for 
> understanding many of the principle objects of psychological inquiry. A 
> “science of mind” that approaches its subject matter from a third-person 
> perspective should, I contend, be treated with a healthy amount of informed 
> skepticism.

Nice!



> 
> In my view, science needs to adopt a new, more inclusive, metaphysics,  one 
> in which reality is not reduced to only that which can be captured by current 
> scientific methods.

In other terms: … one in which reality is not defined by what we see, observe, 
measure. 
In other terms: we need to come back on Plato’s skepticism on the idea that 
matter is primary, perhaps, as enforced by taking Descartes and Turing 
seriously into account.

No need of a new metaphysics: the preceding one was working very well, and the 
Theaeteus’ nuance of belief versus knowledge leads to an arithmetical 
interpretation of the five main hypostases of Parmenides and Plotinus. And the 
Observable one is testable, and indeed gives rise two a triple of quantum 
logics, with justifiable and non justifiable parts, knowable and not knowable 
parts, as well as believable and non believable, with all the math to get 
quanta and qualia.

Bruno



> 
> I thank Galen Strawson for suggesting the quote at the beginning of this 
> article, as well as for insightful comments on the text.
> 
> 
> @philipthrift
> 
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Re: The problem with physics

[Philip Thrift]

On Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 8:46:18 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 18 Nov 2019, at 15:28, Philip Thrift > 
> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Monday, November 18, 2019 at 8:01:12 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> Then a huge technical problem is that the term “model” is used in 
>> opposite sense by physicists and logicians, and the sense of “model” used 
>> by logicians is technical and required some good understanding of what is a 
>> theory as considered in logic (basically a finite machine, actually).
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>>
> I have thought about this almost 50 years, and have come to the conclusion 
> that 'model' as used in physics to mean a mathematical formulation of a 
> theory is correct, and that mathematical logicians should have never used 
> that word for what they are using it for. It should be 'interpretation', 
> 'semantics', or domain' instead.
>
> So *Peano axioms is a model of arithmetic*, and is ℕ a possible 
> interpretation (or semantics, or domain).
>
>
> Usually the domain is the set from which the model is built. N is the 
> domain, But the Model is the whole structure set (N, 0, +, *). The 
> interpretation is the function going from the syntactic symbol to diverse 
> object or construction made on the domain.
>
> In some more vague context, we can use “interpretation”, “semantic” and 
> “model” as quasi synonym. The term “domain” has acquired a more technical 
> sense in the theory of domain by Scott, but very often is used to described 
> the set used in the model.
>
> Logicians use “model" like painters. The naked model is the reality, and 
> the painting is the syntax or theory pointing to that reality. Physicists 
> use model, like in Toy model, a simplification, or a theory, and is used 
> most of the time as both a theory or its interpretation (taken for granted 
> most of the time, although this has evolved a little bit, notably through 
> the difficulties to interpret QM).
>
>
>
>
> Mathematical logicians just goofed up, that's all.
>
>
> Logic is mainly the study of proof theory, model theory, and the relations 
> between both. “Model” has acquired a technical meaning. I think the term 
> has been introduced by Löwenheim, probably in his "cornerstone paper” on 
> this subject “Über Möglichkeiten im Relativkalkül” (“On Possibility In the 
> Relative Calculus” in German). 
>
> A good interesting book on the birth of Model Theory is the book by 
> Calixto Badesa: “The Birth of Model Theory”, 2004, Princeton University 
> Press (translated from Spanish).
>
> Bruno
>
>
> The transition from syntax to semantics is not not as clean as may be 
thought, but there is mathematical logic and programming language theory 
and theorem proving systems, each with some different perspective and 
vocabularies. 

In my own formulation 

   Program
   Language
   Translation
   Object
   Substrate

I could identify Substrate with Model (in the mathematical logic sense).

@philipthrift

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Re: Distinguishing between dreams and "real world"

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 16 Nov 2019, at 11:35, Eva  wrote:
> 
> If you want to know if you are sleeping right now, look at your hands :)
> In dreams, they always have strange shapes.


Unfortunately strangeness is not enough. To test if I a dream, I often test if 
I am able to fly. Once I made a dream, which I suspected to be a dream, so I 
decided to fly (going to my school). I did fly indeed, but with some 
difficulties, so that I concluded that I was not dreaming, because I was not 
flying very well. Then I woke up, notice the illogical conclusion, and asked 
myself how we could be so wrong. I felt completely awake, and after noting all 
those reflexion, I woke up again. False awakening are frequent when doing lucid 
dreaming, and it leads very often to “contra-lucid dream”, in which we get 
convinced to be awake (and notice it consciously) just to be refuted a second 
after. Experimentally, I don’t know any state of consciousness not capable of 
being lived in a dream.

Bruno



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Re: Distinguishing between dreams and "real world"

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 14 Nov 2019, at 23:44, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List 
>  wrote:
> 
> But maybe there is a kind of experience that cannot be simulated in a dream, 
> for reasons having to do for example with consciousnesses interactions.

Of course, this would require the Mechanist hypothesis to be false.

Bruno




> 
> On Thursday, 14 November 2019 20:49:28 UTC+2, Philip Thrift wrote:
> 
> 
> From the perspective of experiential realism (ER)
> 
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/5Vzj0mFW4KM/_qZECzTTAwAJ 
> 
> 
> the experience that occurs in a dream could be the same as an experience that 
> occurs when awake.
> 
> Say the experience is DaCoT = drinking a cup of tea (the feel of the cup, the 
> warmth and taste of the tea).
> 
> A tea drinker knows a DaCoT experience when awake. They could have a DaCoT 
> experience in a dream.
> 
> (This presumes experiences are real in the sense of ER.)
> 
> @philipthrift
> 
> On Thursday, November 14, 2019 at 3:50:45 AM UTC-6, Cosmin Visan wrote:
> What would be a sure phenomenon that can help us distinguish between dreams 
> and "real world" ? Because no matter how illogical a dream world might be, 
> this doesn't make us realize that we are in a dream. So the randomness of a 
> dream world is not a phenomenon that can help us distinguish between dreams 
> and "real world". What I'm thinking that can help us make the discrimination 
> is the phenomenon of sense disappearance. If we keep a sense on only 1 
> stimulus, eventually we will stop perceiving the stimulus. For example, if we 
> hold our hand on the leg of a girl, at first it is pleasant, but after a time 
> we will stop feeling anything. We will have to pet the leg of the girl in 
> order to feel it again. Would such a phenomenon happen in dreams ? If not, 
> then this would be a distinguishing hallmark between dreams and "real world". 
> Do you have other ideas ?
> 
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Re: Distinguishing between dreams and "real world"

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 14 Nov 2019, at 19:49, Philip Thrift  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> From the perspective of experiential realism (ER)
> 
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/5Vzj0mFW4KM/_qZECzTTAwAJ
> 
> the experience that occurs in a dream could be the same as an experience that 
> occurs when awake.

Yes indeed. That is confirmed experimentally. The lucid dreaming state allows 
the dreamer to communicate with “outside” in a laboratory, by moving his eyes, 
or the time of the fingers. The dream-REM-paralysis does not act on the ocular 
muscle. That has been used to test different type of activity, like counting, 
singing, imagining colours, etc. and the activity in the brain is exactly the 
same as in the waken state. When we order a muscle, that order is given during 
the dream, and is just not executed thanks to this paralysis. That is how 
Jouvet discovered the REM state of sleep (in which the long vivid nocturnal 
dream occurs) with cats who were treated to bypass the paralysis. Even hungry 
they hunt for imaginary mouse and fail to see a plate full of cat food. 



> 
> Say the experience is DaCoT = drinking a cup of tea (the feel of the cup, the 
> warmth and taste of the tea).
> 
> A tea drinker knows a DaCoT experience when awake. They could have a DaCoT 
> experience in a dream.
> 
> (This presumes experiences are real in the sense of ER.)

In some dream we can know that we dream (lucid dream), but in all awaken state 
we cannot know for sure that we are awake. Of course we can know it in the 
sense of Theaetetus (that is: we can believe that we are awake, and be awake).

Bruno 





> 
> @philipthrift
> 
> On Thursday, November 14, 2019 at 3:50:45 AM UTC-6, Cosmin Visan wrote:
> What would be a sure phenomenon that can help us distinguish between dreams 
> and "real world" ? Because no matter how illogical a dream world might be, 
> this doesn't make us realize that we are in a dream. So the randomness of a 
> dream world is not a phenomenon that can help us distinguish between dreams 
> and "real world". What I'm thinking that can help us make the discrimination 
> is the phenomenon of sense disappearance. If we keep a sense on only 1 
> stimulus, eventually we will stop perceiving the stimulus. For example, if we 
> hold our hand on the leg of a girl, at first it is pleasant, but after a time 
> we will stop feeling anything. We will have to pet the leg of the girl in 
> order to feel it again. Would such a phenomenon happen in dreams ? If not, 
> then this would be a distinguishing hallmark between dreams and "real world". 
> Do you have other ideas ?
> 
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Re: The problem with physics

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 19 Nov 2019, at 09:59, Philip Thrift  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 1:48:50 AM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
> 
> Schrödinger says absolutely nothing about [wave function collapse, it was 
> tacked on by people who wanted only one world.
>  
> John K Clark
> 
> 
> 
> 
> True about Schrödinger, but there are one world formulations in which there 
> is no wave function collapse, or no wave function at all to begin with.

Right. And with Mechanism that “one world” is the arithmetical combinatory 
algebra, or anything Turing equivalent to it. The physical world is retrieved 
from the observable phenomenology of the universal machine. The Löbian machine 
(which already know that they are universal) already know this.

Bruno


> 
> @philipthrift
> 
> 
> 
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Re: The problem with physics

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 19 Nov 2019, at 01:33, Philip Thrift  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Monday, November 18, 2019 at 3:48:35 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:
> 
> In using path integrals you arrive a probabilities for various possible 
> outcomes.  But that's not the end of the science.  You also 
> observe/measure/experience some particular outcome.  And then you compute 
> future path integrals starting from the observed state...using the observed 
> state implies you went from a state of uncertainty expressed by probabilities 
> to a state of certainty regarding the new stateaka using knowledge.
> 
> Brent
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Knowledge is something having to do with human brains ("knowing"), and when 
> they became the "engines" of speaking and writing, then knowledge could be 
> communicated between intelligent beings. (Perhaps other primates too are 
> knowledge-able, but that's debatable.)


If it is communicated through words, what is communicated is only a belief, 
which might be true (and in that case it is a knowledge, but only a belief has 
been communicated. 
This is a small nuance which has a big importance for understanding how the 
laws of the observable have top emerge from a statistics on all relative 
computations. Knowledge is something private, and is not communicable *as such*.



> 
> Now it seems to me that in the first few billion years at least of the 
> universe (after the Big Bang) there were no knowledge-able beings, There 
> hadn't been time for them to evolve anywhere.
> 
> But during that time quantum processes (and chemical, and at least somewhere 
> at some point biological precesses) were going along fine without any 
> knowledge-able beings exiting, and thus there was no knowledge changing" -- 
> because there was no knowledge during that time.
> 
> So how is knowledge needed as a concept in any way in QM when QM processes 
> were occurring in the universe fine before knowledge existed?
> 
> Whoever put "knowledge: in QM screwed up.

You can blame the “unique-worlders” who added to QM the wave-collapse axiom, 
which makes sense in Nature only if it is done by consciousness. But then they 
need a non computational theory of mind (which will required some actual 
infinities in Nature, etc.).

Without wave-collapse axiom, the superposition are there for ever, and are 
contagious to anything interacting or not with them. QM (that is the SWE) 
explains why a machine with memory will memorise only one particular outcome 
when interacting with a superposition. This SWE explains entirely why the 
machine will at first believe in some collapse, and then understand that it 
does not need it, which simplify a lot the theory.

Bruno



> 
> @philipthrift
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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Re: The problem with physics

[John Clark]

On Tue, Nov 19, 2019 at 5:26 AM Bruce Kellett  wrote:

*>>> Only things that are nomologically possible given your particular
>>> initial conditions can happen.*
>>>
>>
>> >> Or to say the exact same thing with different words, everything that
>> can happen does happen.
>>
>
> > *Hmmm! You have to be careful that you are not just saying the hat
> happens, happens!*
>

Anything that does not violate the laws of physics, particularly quantum
physics, can happen. If you fire a electron at 2 slits observing it going
through the left slit would be OK with Schrodinger's equation, and so would
observing it going through the right slit, and if you don't observe the
slits at all it would be OK with Schrodinger's equation to deduce from the
resulting interference pattern that the single electron went through both
slits. Yes that is absolutely ridiculous but don't blame me, blame God.

* >>> And that rules out things like "there is a copy of me that turns left
>>> whenever I turn right".*
>>>
>>
>> >> That would be true only if you assume the wave function collapses,
>> and Schrödinger says absolutely nothing about that, it was tacked on by
>> people who wanted only one world.
>>
>
> *> Nothing to do with collapse. *
>

It has everything to do with collapse. Copenhagen people say when the
electron hits the photographic plate the wave function collapses and the
electron makes up its mind where it is and assumes a discreet position, and
that's why it makes a sharp spot and not a big smudge on the plate. Many
Worlds people say otherwise, not because they enjoy being contrary but
because they don't know how else to explain the bizarre results of the 2
slit exparament.

*> Why is it that you many-worlds advocates always accuse someone who
> opposes you of assuming some collapse? Rubbish, it assumes no such thing.*
>

If the wave function collapses then an evolving quantum object, such as
yourself, will be in one and only one state tomorrow.  If the wave function
does NOT collapse then you won't be ( "you" being defined as anything that
remembers being Bruce Kellett today).

*>>> Additional assumptions are needed if you want to make sense of
>>> questions like" "What will a being that remembers being John Clark today
>>> see tomorrow."*
>>>
>>
>> >> Like what?
>>
>
> *> That beings like John Clark, with identifiable characteristics,
> actually exist at all.*
>

The only assumption is that the Schrodinger equation means what it says,
and it says nothing about it collapsing. You can add extra terms to the
equation and make it collapse but Occam would not approve, those additional
mathematical complexities do not improve predictions one bit, they do
nothing but get rid of those other worlds.


> >>>* he *[Everett] *was something of an idiot because he did not see that
>>> you could not get probabilities out of a deterministic theory *
>>>
>>
>> >> You can if the theory is deterministic but not realistic as Many
>> Worlds is, that is to say if a deterministic interaction between 2
>> particles always produces more than one outcome.
>>
>
> > Actually, I thought one of the attractions of the many worlds theory
> was that it was realistic -- in the sense that the wave function really
> exists a a physical object,
>

I don't know where in the world you got that idea. Even probability is
pretty abstract but you don't even get that until you take the square of
the absolute value of the wave function, which contains imaginary numbers
by the way. How much more different from a physical object do you want?


> *> How much more realistic do you want?*
>

It would need one hell of a lot more to be realistic! A theory is realistic
if it says a particle is in one and only one definite state both before and
after an interaction even if it has not been observed. Many Worlds is about
as far from that as you can get.

> *Nevertheless, the SWE does not give a probability without some further
> assumptions. Why do you think that MWI advocates spend so much time an
> effort trying to derive the Born rule? You cannot get probabilities from
> the Schroedinger equation without some additional assumptions.*
>

Irrelevant for this discussion because EVERY quantum interpretation assumes
the Born Rule. I don't claim the MWI can solve every quantum problem but it
can solve one, the mystery of the observer, and it is at least the equal of
the other interpretations in explaining the other mysteries. In other words
the Many Worlds Interpretation is the least bad idea anybody has come up
with over the last century to explain the weird nature of the quantum world.

John K Clark

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Re: The problem with physics

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 18 Nov 2019, at 22:14, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
>  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 11/18/2019 12:20 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On Monday, November 18, 2019 at 1:16:46 PM UTC-7, John Clark wrote:
>> On Sun, Nov 17, 2019 at 7:43 AM Philip Thrift > > wrote:
>> 
>> > Adrian Kent's https://arxiv.org/abs/1305.6565 
>> >  "real path quantum theory" RPQT
>> 
>> If you fire electrons at 2 slits and observe the slits then each electron 
>> takes a real path through one and only one slit and no interference pattern 
>> is produced.  If you fire electrons at 2 slits and do NOT observe the slits 
>> then a interference pattern is produced indicating that each electron went 
>> through both slits. Thus real path quantum theory needs 2 sets of physical 
>> laws, one for when things are observed and one when they are not. Many 
>> Worlds only needs one set of physical laws, and one set is more parsimonious 
>> than two.
> 
> That's what the evangelists for MWI say.  But in fact some more stuff is 
> needed to explain why we see the world as we do, i.e. how probability comes 
> into it and why is there a preferred basis.  Maybe this more stuff can be 
> derived from Schroedinger's equation, but even to do so seems to require 
> additional assumptions.

With mechanism: it requires *less* assumptions. Any physics accepting the 
mechanist theory of mind must explain the physical appearance from a measure on 
all (relative) computations. The math required for doing this requires more 
axioms (like the distribution of prime number studies seems to require 
analytical axioms). That is normal, given incompleteness.

Bruno



> 
> Brent
> 
>> And if everything that can happen does happen then unlike its competition 
>> Many Worlds doesn't have to explain exactly what a "observation" is or worry 
>> about the true nature of consciousness because it has nothing to do with it.
>> 
>> John K Clark  
>> 
>> You're hopelessly deluded. AG 
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Re: The problem with physics

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 18 Nov 2019, at 21:08, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
>  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 11/18/2019 7:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> Testing Z1* or X1*, or even just S4Grz1 would be enough to see if QM is 
>> Turing-epistemic or not. The test done so far confirms it Turing-epistemic 
>> character.
> 
> What does "Turing-epistemic" mean?


It means “epistemic” with an emphasis on the fact that the subject is any 
universal machine/number, not just the humans. It is epistemic in the sense of 
the Theaetetus, with “rational opinion” replaced by Gödel’s arithmetical 
predicate of provability.

Bruno


> 
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> 
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Re: The problem with physics

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 18 Nov 2019, at 15:28, Philip Thrift  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Monday, November 18, 2019 at 8:01:12 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
>> Then a huge technical problem is that the term “model” is used in opposite 
>> sense by physicists and logicians, and the sense of “model” used by 
>> logicians is technical and required some good understanding of what is a 
>> theory as considered in logic (basically a finite machine, actually).
> Bruno
> 
> 
> 
> I have thought about this almost 50 years, and have come to the conclusion 
> that 'model' as used in physics to mean a mathematical formulation of a 
> theory is correct, and that mathematical logicians should have never used 
> that word for what they are using it for. It should be 'interpretation', 
> 'semantics', or domain' instead.
> 
> So Peano axioms is a model of arithmetic, and is ℕ a possible interpretation 
> (or semantics, or domain).

Usually the domain is the set from which the model is built. N is the domain, 
But the Model is the whole structure set (N, 0, +, *). The interpretation is 
the function going from the syntactic symbol to diverse object or construction 
made on the domain.

In some more vague context, we can use “interpretation”, “semantic” and “model” 
as quasi synonym. The term “domain” has acquired a more technical sense in the 
theory of domain by Scott, but very often is used to described the set used in 
the model.

Logicians use “model" like painters. The naked model is the reality, and the 
painting is the syntax or theory pointing to that reality. Physicists use 
model, like in Toy model, a simplification, or a theory, and is used most of 
the time as both a theory or its interpretation (taken for granted most of the 
time, although this has evolved a little bit, notably through the difficulties 
to interpret QM).


> 
> 
> Mathematical logicians just goofed up, that's all.

Logic is mainly the study of proof theory, model theory, and the relations 
between both. “Model” has acquired a technical meaning. I think the term has 
been introduced by Löwenheim, probably in his "cornerstone paper” on this 
subject “Über Möglichkeiten im Relativkalkül” (“On Possibility In the Relative 
Calculus” in German). 

A good interesting book on the birth of Model Theory is the book by Calixto 
Badesa: “The Birth of Model Theory”, 2004, Princeton University Press 
(translated from Spanish).

Bruno






> 
> @philipthrift
> 
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Re: Interesting lady; Susan Schneider

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 3 Nov 2019, at 22:31, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
>  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 11/3/2019 5:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> We can diabolise to bring a more faster one, in theory.
> 
> You're letting more theological concepts corrupt your thinking.  :-)

Lol. You are right. I meant “diagonalise” of course. What a lapsus!

 Maybe the devil is in the diagonal, not just Cantor one. The diagonal of a 
square already troubled the Pythagorean (according to some legend), for its 
incommensurability with the square’s sides.
Then diagonalisation plays also a key role in defining mathematically the 
3p-self, which is at the heart of the development of the “little ego”, so close 
to the devil, so far from the higher self without a name!

The diagonal might be diabolical. Sometimes truth emerges from Lapsus!  :)

Bruno



> 
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> 
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Re: The problem with physics

[Bruce Kellett]

On Tue, Nov 19, 2019 at 6:48 PM John Clark  wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 18, 2019 at 6:48 PM Bruce Kellett 
> wrote:
>
> >> If the Schrödinger equation really means what it says and everything
>>> that can happen does happen
>>>
>>
>> *> The Schroedinger equation says nothing of the sort.. Only things that
>> are nomologically possible given your particular initial conditions can
>> happen.*
>>
>
> Or to say the exact same thing with different words, everything that can
> happen does happen.
>

Hmmm! You have to be careful that you are not just saying the hat happens,
happens! If there is a world in which I turn left, there is no necessity
for there to be a world in which a copy of me turns left at that moment.

> * > And that rules out things like "there is a copy of me that turns left
>> whenever I turn right".*
>>
>
> That would be true only if you assume the wave function collapses, and
> Schrödinger says absolutely nothing about that, it was tacked on by people
> who wanted only one world.
>

Nothing to do with collapse. Why is it that you many-worlds advocates
always accuse someone who opposes you of assuming some collapse? Rubbish,
it assumes no such thing.


>> Additional assumptions are needed only if you insist on getting rid of
>>> those other worlds,
>>>
>>
>> *> Additional assumptions are needed if you want to make sense of
>> questions like" "What will a being that remembers being John Clark today
>> see tomorrow."*
>>
>
> Like what?
>

That beings like John Clark, with identifiable characteristics, actually
exist at all.

> >> Hugh Everett's genius wasn't that he added something new to Quantum
>>> Mechanics, his genius was in getting rid of useless junk.
>>>
>>
>> *> And he was something of an idiot because he did not see that you could
>> not get probabilities out of a deterministic theory *
>>
>
> You can if the theory is deterministic but not realistic as Many Worlds
> is, that is to say if a deterministic interaction between 2 particles
> always produces more than one outcome.
>


Actually, I thought one of the attractions of the many worlds theory was
that it was realistic -- in the sense that the wave function really exists
a a physical object, and that all possibilities contained in that equation
are realized. How much more realistic do you want?

Nevertheless, the SWE does not give a probability without some further
assumptions. Why do you think that MWI advocates spend so much time an
effort trying to derive the Born rule? You cannot get probabilities from
the Schroedinger equation without some additional assumptions.

Bruce

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Re: The problem with physics

[Philip Thrift]

On Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 3:08:02 AM UTC-6, scerir wrote:
>
>
> True about Schrödinger, but there are *one world* formulations in which 
> there is *no wave function collapse,* or *no wave function* at all to 
> begin with. 
>
> @philipthrift 
>
> “The idea that they [measurement outcomes] be not alternatives but all 
> really happen simultaneously seems lunatic to him [the quantum theorist], 
> just impossible. He thinks that if the laws of nature took this form for, 
> let me say, a quarter of an hour, we should find our surroundings rapidly 
> turning into a quagmire, or sort of a featureless jelly or plasma, all 
> contours becoming blurred, we ourselves probably becoming jelly fish. It is 
> strange that he should believe this. For I understand he grants that 
> unobserved nature does behave this way – namely according to the wave 
> equation. The aforesaid alternatives come into play only when we make an 
> observation - which need, of course, not be a scientific observation. Still 
> it would seem that, according to the quantum theorist, nature is prevented 
> from rapid jellification only by our perceiving or observing it. [] 
> The compulsion to replace the simultaneous happenings, as indicated 
> directly by the theory, by alternatives, of which the theory is supposed to 
> indicate the respective probabilities, arises from the conviction that what 
> we really observe are particles - that actual events always concern 
> particles, not waves."
> -Erwin Schroedinger, The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Dublin 
> Seminars (1949-1955) and Other Unpublished Essays (Ox Bow Press, 
> Woodbridge, Connecticut, 1995), pages 19-20.
>



Yes, I should add:

True about Schrödinger, but there are *one world* formulations in which 
there is *no wave function collapse,* or *no wave function* -- and *no 
observers *-- at all to begin with.


@philipthrift 

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Re: The problem with physics

['scerir' via Everything List]

> True about Schrödinger, but there are one world formulations in which 
> there is no wave function collapse, or no wave function at all to begin with.
> 
> @philipthrift
> 

“The idea that they [measurement outcomes] be not alternatives but all really 
happen simultaneously seems lunatic to him [the quantum theorist], just 
impossible. He thinks that if the laws of nature took this form for, let me 
say, a quarter of an hour, we should find our surroundings rapidly turning into 
a quagmire, or sort of a featureless jelly or plasma, all contours becoming 
blurred, we ourselves probably becoming jelly fish. It is strange that he 
should believe this. For I understand he grants that unobserved nature does 
behave this way – namely according to the wave equation. The aforesaid 
alternatives come into play only when we make an observation - which need, of 
course, not be a scientific observation. Still it would seem that, according to 
the quantum theorist, nature is prevented from rapid jellification only by our 
perceiving or observing it. [] The compulsion to replace the 
simultaneous happenings, as indicated directly by the theory, by alternatives, 
of which the theory is supposed to indicate the respective probabilities, 
arises from the conviction that what we really observe are particles - that 
actual events always concern particles, not waves."
-Erwin Schroedinger, The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Dublin Seminars 
(1949-1955) and Other Unpublished Essays (Ox Bow Press, Woodbridge, 
Connecticut, 1995), pages 19-20.

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Re: The problem with physics

[Philip Thrift]

On Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 1:48:50 AM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:

Schrödinger says absolutely nothing about [wave function collapse, it was 
> tacked on by people who wanted only one world.
>  
> John K Clark
>




True about Schrödinger, but there are *one world* formulations in which 
there is *no wave function collapse,* or *no wave function* at all to begin 
with.

@philipthrift


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Re: The problem with physics

[Philip Thrift]

On Monday, November 18, 2019 at 6:50:38 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 11/18/2019 4:33 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:
>
>
>
> On Monday, November 18, 2019 at 3:48:35 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote: 
>>
>>
>> In using path integrals you arrive a probabilities for various possible 
>> outcomes.  But that's not the end of the science.  You also 
>> observe/measure/experience some particular outcome.  And then you compute 
>> future path integrals starting from the observed state...using the observed 
>> state implies you went from a state of uncertainty expressed by 
>> probabilities to a state of certainty regarding the new stateaka using 
>> knowledge.
>>
>> Brent
>>
>
>
>
>
> *Knowledge* is something having to do with human brains ("knowing"), and 
> when they became the "engines" of speaking and writing, then *knowledge* 
> could be communicated between intelligent beings. (Perhaps other primates 
> too are *knowledge*-able, but that's debatable.)
>
> Now it seems to me that in the first few billion years at least of the 
> universe (after the Big Bang) there were no knowledge-able beings, There 
> hadn't been time for them to evolve anywhere.
>
> But during that time quantum processes (and chemical, and at least 
> somewhere at some point biological precesses) were going along fine without 
> any knowledge-able beings exiting, and thus there was no knowledge 
> changing" -- because there was no knowledge during that time.
>
> So how is knowledge needed as a concept in any way in QM when QM processes 
> were occurring in the universe fine before knowledge existed?
>
> Whoever put "knowledge: in QM screwed up.
>
>
> You're dodging the question like you're running for office on the 
> know-nothing ticket.
>
> I've already asked all the way I can think of what it is that causes you 
> to change your estimate of the future evolution of a quantum system when 
> you measure it.  I've concluded you have no knowledge of this process.
>
> Brent
>

You are dodging the question:

W*as there any knowledge to be changed (or updated) - or  my "knowledge of 
this process" - or "my estimate of the future evolution of a quantum 
process" - anywhere in he universe 10 billion years ago?*


Knowledge (changing/updating knowledge) in any way whatsoever is 
*completely irrelevant* to anything in quantum mechanics.

That;s been stated at least 100 times, and that that was stated 20 years 
ago on Vic's Atoms and Void. You keep objecting. OK. We get it.

@philipthrift





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