Nice article.
in this year's contest speaks to the difficulties of implementing deterministic numerical results in a probabilistic Hilbert space with no time parameter.
Going a little tangential to the subject: It continues to amaze me that many critics of string theory, which is a very soundly constructed physical theory with no mystical connotations, deride the theory's lack (so far) of experimental predictions -- while wholly accepting the self-fulfilling results of quantum experiments.
Tom
Tom,
I've been discussing the wave-function on Spiritual Forums. I, like others, are very partial to ideas of alchemy, aether, mysticism and magic. Having straddled the fence that separates science and mysticism, the closest thing I can find to an aether, to spirit, is the wave-function. To physicists, the wave-functions is just a mathematical description of a quantum system. But some have speculated that the wave-function is describing very closely an invisible and undetectable phenomenon of nature, something beyond fermions and bosons. Physicists have argued that the big bang emerged as a singularity. They seem to imply that there was some kind of quantum event that caused it. So one would expect there to be some kind of quantum vacuum that existed before the big bang event.
There is this scientific dogma, called scientisim, that nothing exists in nature that behaves like spirit, aether, alchemy, or has mystical properties, yet physicists say, with a straight face, that the universe just popped into existence out of nothingness. It is my firm opinion that the quantum vacuum behaves exactly like some kind of magical aether. If universes can pop into existence from nothing, that what else can pop into existence? Pop into existence as if by magic or the design of some impossible to comprehend Cosmic God?
I told the people on the Spiritual Forum website that if the scientific community ever admitted that the wave-function is a real phenomena of nature, that it would be equivalent to admitting that "magical mystical fields", called the quantum vacuum, exist.
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Thomas Howard Ray replied on Jul. 10, 2013 @ 11:40 GMT
" ... some have speculated that the wave-function is describing very closely an invisible and undetectable phenomenon of nature ..."
Think about what you're saying, Jason. A phenomenon is something we observe (measure). If it's invisible and undetectable, it isn't a physical phenomenon. So whether it exists, or not, isn't a subject for physics.
A realist such as I expects that phenomena not observed are metaphysically real, allowing that causality is not violated; however, assigning reality to things that in principle are undetectable and unobservable is something else altogether. I agree with Murray Gell-Mann that "something else" is unnecessary for understanding the physical world.
Tom
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Jason Mark Wolfe replied on Jul. 10, 2013 @ 18:25 GMT
Tom,
What sorts of things are responsible for sustaining physics constants like h and c?
"I agree with Murray Gell-Mann that "something else" is unnecessary for understanding the physical world."
That sort of opinion is completely arbitrary, based on personal choice and faith. And why not? Physicists are allowed to think of physics constants and the singularity/big bang as things caused by magic or caused by deity. You don't have to explain it. For all anyone knows, particle-wave duality, 2 slit diffraction experiments, quantum entanglement, quantum tunneling even time dilation are the behavior of some unseen mystical magical aether that might spit out a singularity someday for no apparent reason that scientists can understand.
It's probably best if physicists get comfortable with the idea that the known laws of physics, standard model and space-time continuum are just domains nestled within a magical aether beyond our ability to conceive.
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Thomas Howard Ray replied on Jul. 10, 2013 @ 22:52 GMT
It seems you're trying to sell me something, Jason. Why do you assume that I want to buy it? -- I'm not arguing with you, just making the point that for any phenomenon to be tractable to scientific investigation, it has to be: 1. Detectable 2. Replicable 3. Correspondent to some structure that exists in an objective formal language
You may be right about everything you say. At least, acknowledge that I am right about how science works.
Tom
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Jason Mark Wolfe replied on Jul. 10, 2013 @ 23:15 GMT
Hi Tom,
I guess it's a situation where your science is trespassing on my world view, please move it. The scientific methodology is fine. But I disagree strongly with the idea that science is complete. I disagree with the idea that science can dictate to me what exists and what doesn't exist. I disagree very strongly with the idea that consciousness is "nothing more than" neurons and charges moving about. Scientism is trespassing on my spiritual convictions. My consciousness is not this unimportant thing that dies when the body dies.
Consciousness is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING that survives the death experience.
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Thomas Howard Ray replied on Jul. 10, 2013 @ 23:35 GMT
Jason, neither I nor the rationalist enterprise known as science are responsible for your world view, or what you do with it.
Tom
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Jason Mark Wolfe replied on Jul. 11, 2013 @ 01:20 GMT
Tom,
Science is completely rational. Nature, particularly quantum mechanics, is weird. The two slit experiment is weird. The quasi-existence of wave-functions that produce interference patterns when the second slit is open, is weird. There is nothing at all rational or reasonable about particle-wave duality. Why should the laws of nature be effected in the least by an experiment in which a second slit creates this "we don't know which slit the particle passed through" situation? But it is.
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Thomas Howard Ray replied on Jul. 11, 2013 @ 10:42 GMT
Jason, weirdness is in the eye of the beholder. I acknowledge that much that has been popularly written reinforces the perception that quantum mechanics is impenetrably mysterious -- that's unfortunate. Quantum mechanics is founded solidly in statistical mechanics, whose mathematics we understand, even when precise solutions are elusive.
"There is nothing at all rational or reasonable about particle-wave duality."
Of course there is. Experiments testing for particles get particle results, as predicted. Those testing for waves get wave results, as predicted. That's what "rational" means. That duality in nature is *philosophically* disagreeable has led to models that prevent collapse of the wave function, such as the Everett many worlds hypothesis. The foundational question is that of continuous measurement functions vs. discrete measurement. My
essay explains why I personally favor a non-collapsing model of continuous measurement functions.
"Why should the laws of nature be effected in the least by an experiment in which a second slit creates this 'we don't know which slit the particle passed through' situation? But it is."
Not why, but how. This is the reason that #3 in my list of scientific criteria demands a formalized description of phenomena. We can't say that we understand how something happens unless we fulfill this step. It's the reason that quantum theory became as successful a scientific theory as it is.
Tom
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Jason Mark Wolfe replied on Jul. 12, 2013 @ 00:55 GMT
Tom,
I read your essay. I appreciate that you acknowledged that quantum mechanics is similar to, perhaps more developed form of, the I Ching, Tarot cards, dice, as a way of using many "states" to attempt to predict the future. Of course quantum mechanics has things like superposition of wave-functions while I Ching, Tarot, etc., rely upon some magical aether to convey answers from "the spirits". All of these forms of prediction are BIT, descriptions and quantifications of states. But I wish you could see the IT; I wish you could see what I see.
Let your imagination run free for a few minutes, as if you had unlocked some magical tome and discovered it's secrets. Allow yourself to see invisible things that exist in the universe. Light is both a wave and a particle. How is this possible? Because quantum waves are not real to us, but are real to other quantum waves. The speed of light, permittivity and permeability are inherent characteristics to these waves. These waves are not made of energy; we don't know what they're made of. These waves convey and transmit energy as photons and as other particles. These waves convey energy according to their own intrinsic characteristics. While these waves are hidden from us, they are what interfere in two slit diffraction experiments. All standard model particles are made out of these waves; in fact no particle in the realm of space-time can exist without these waves.
These waves oscillate and infuse every particle, every object, every reference frame with the heartbeat of time. These waves are at the very cause of time itself.
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Anonymous replied on Jul. 12, 2013 @ 10:23 GMT
Hi Jason,
I don't see oracle systems -- whether originating in folklore or in scientific and mathematical laboratories -- as ways to predict the future; rather, I see them as ways to clarify the present, in line with the de Saint-Exupery quote in the beginning: "Your task is not to predict the future, but to enable it."
That's what all forms of computation do -- they expose, i.e., enable, elements of reality that lie hidden in related patterns. My argument is that those patterns are self similar to infinity, so that what we call the future is simply expansion of knowledge in the present. This is consistent with a continuum of spacetime in general relativity, where time (in the conventional meaning of past, present, future) is illusion.
Tom
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Thomas Howard Ray replied on Jul. 12, 2013 @ 10:26 GMT
I guess there's no way to prevent this log-in problem. I specifically logged out and logged back in to try and keep this from happening -- the occurence appears random. That last was mine, of course.
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Jason Mark Wolfe replied on Jul. 12, 2013 @ 20:34 GMT
Hi Tom, this is me, Jason Wolfe.
I think the IT from BIT situation really comes down to this. Physicists can't do anything with IT, only BIT. If physicists tried to do something other than creating mathematical models, they wouldn't be doing physics. Nature itself is both IT and BIT. IT would be the invisible waves that produce statistical effects like particle-wave duality, two slit diffraction, etc.
To those who are mystics, who can "feel the force" or "feel the IT", to those who can commune with spirit, the IT is for them. BIT is for computer modelers and mathematical physicists.
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Jason Mark Wolfe replied on Jul. 12, 2013 @ 22:40 GMT
Tom,
Wave-functions are describing aether/spirit that interpenetrates geometry, standard model particles, everything. It is simply a point of view. The scientist uses mathematics to describes the phenomenon of nature and physics constants. It is aether/spirit that intrinsically sustains the physics constants c, h, G, as characteristics. Mystics can feel the wave-function aether/spirit moving through them. They are different points of view.
The significance of the two slit experiment is this: when two slits are open, each particle is interconnected with the wave-function field, thus the interference patterns. But when we try to know which slit the particle passes through, then the particle is not connected to the wave-function because the wave-function vanishes.
When we have faith in deity, faith in God, faith in spirit, then spirit guides us. But when we are skeptical/agnostic and atheist, spirit leaves us and we are alone.
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Thomas Howard Ray replied on Jul. 12, 2013 @ 22:48 GMT
" ... when we are skeptical/agnostic and atheist, spirit leaves us and we are alone."
And that's to be preferred over a spirit that never leaves you, no matter who you are?
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Jason Mark Wolfe replied on Jul. 13, 2013 @ 00:12 GMT
It depends. sometimes its nice to be alone. sometimes its nice to connect with spirit. quantum mechanics affords us a choice.
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Jason Mark Wolfe replied on Jul. 13, 2013 @ 09:29 GMT
The physics community has a blind spot. You're not able to see (or willing to admit) that physics constants like c, h and G are the result of: nothing. That is your blind spot.
It makes perfect sense to me that physics constants are characteristics of some unseen aether or inter-penetrating spirit. But to physicists who demand proof of everything, you are satisfied with NOTHING causing the physics constants.
I wish someone would tell me that I am talking crazy talk, unless I'm not. Alternatively, I wish someone could tell me that the physics community has no idea why the physics constants are what they are.
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Peter Jackson replied on Jul. 13, 2013 @ 13:54 GMT
Jason,
Hope you're well. I'm afraid I can't tell you you're talking crazy, not completely anyway. But I can agree current doctrine does not know any mechanistic cause for most of the 'constants' we use.
In fact some are found not constant. The Aberration Constant for instance has always proven to be a troublesome issue, varying by a minimum of 5% in more than one way with no discernible reason or cause. It was finally officially 'abandoned' in 2000 by the IAU symposeum resolutions. I have identified a consistent cause, but it's not quite in line with the assumptions of current doctrine so remains eschewed.
Of course in practice the (anti relativity interpretation) refraction has to be added by the shovel load to arrive at accurate predictions, as they did with Shapiro's supposed 'Radar delay bouncing of Venus', concocted to support current doctrine just as Hafele's results were 'massaged' before being allowed into print. Such is 'science'!
That solution also then suggests a consistent explanation of the fine structure constant, which has been said; "all physicists have it written in the top corner of their blackboard and ponder..." A slight exaggeration?! This solution is directly related to dark matter and photoionization, being then the energy required to ionize a massive particle, or more conventionally, to 'strip an electron from a helium atom'. At least that last bit has been kind of agreed to date.
No essay this year?
Very best wishes.
Peter
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Jason Mark Wolfe replied on Jul. 13, 2013 @ 17:14 GMT
Hi Peter,
Great to hear from you. No paper this year; just me screaming my ideas from the bleachers.
I am glad to be able to find chinks in the armor of science. That's where I insert my own occult and metaphysical ideas. When I do, I'll usually get this uneasy feeling it can be explained without resorting to the paranormal or supernatural. My mind will throw me a mundane explanation (one that I didn't want). Then, I have to find a chink in that. And the process goes on and on like climbing a mountain with no peak. But if you tell me that the physics constants cannot be explained with mundane explanations, then I can introduce a paranormal explanation, one to my liking. So at the top of this proverbial mountain I've been climbing, I'll put disembodied spirit entities, spirit (as a field like phenomena - not unlike a Higgs field), gray aliens, astral body, sleep paralysis creatures, God and other observed spirit life forms.
In doing so, there are science experts who are outraged at my scientific blasphemy, and will climb to the top of this mountain (explain how the physics constants c, h, G are caused to happen) and chase me and my paranormal minions off the mountain. But to do so, they have to tear into the very guts of the space-time continuum itself. If you find a mechanism, you can tamper with it. They make science fiction movies about accidents of people who fall out of the space-time continuum.
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