If you are aware of an interesting new academic paper (that has been published in a peer-reviewed journal or has appeared on the arXiv), a conference talk (at an official professional scientific meeting), an external blog post (by a professional scientist) or a news item (in the mainstream news media), which you think might make an interesting topic for an FQXi blog post, then please contact us at forums@fqxi.org with a link to the original source and a sentence about why you think that the work is worthy of discussion. Please note that we receive many such suggestions and while we endeavour to respond to them, we may not be able to reply to all suggestions.
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Please also note that we do not accept unsolicited posts and we cannot review, or open new threads for, unsolicited articles or papers. Requests to review or post such materials will not be answered. If you have your own novel physics theory or model, which you would like to post for further discussion among then FQXi community, then please add them directly to the "Alternative Models of Reality" thread, or to the "Alternative Models of Cosmology" thread. Thank you.
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RECENT POSTS IN THIS TOPIC
Thomas Ray: on 9/20/13 at 10:26am UTC, wrote Ruth, I went right to Amazon and ordered your book. I think that *any*...
Anonymous: on 9/20/13 at 5:10am UTC, wrote I appreciate Joselle's discussion of my proposal. But I do have to address...
Eckard Blumschein: on 8/1/13 at 5:31am UTC, wrote I quote from R. Kastner "Nature is never perfectly symmetric." Yes,...
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Jason Wolfe: on 7/17/13 at 3:07am UTC, wrote It could just be a point of view. From your point of view, you see random...
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Jason Wolfe: on 7/16/13 at 1:29am UTC, wrote "The speed of light just intertwines position and time. It is a conversion...
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Thomas Ray: on 9/20/13 at 10:26am UTC, wrote Ruth, I went right to Amazon and ordered your book. I think that *any*...
Anonymous: on 9/20/13 at 5:10am UTC, wrote I appreciate Joselle's discussion of my proposal. But I do have to address...
Eckard Blumschein: on 8/1/13 at 5:31am UTC, wrote I quote from R. Kastner "Nature is never perfectly symmetric." Yes,...
Jason Wolfe: on 7/17/13 at 8:11am UTC, wrote Higgs particles/Higgs field contradict Inflation theory. ...
Jason Wolfe: on 7/17/13 at 3:07am UTC, wrote It could just be a point of view. From your point of view, you see random...
Jason Wolfe: on 7/17/13 at 1:29am UTC, wrote Do physicists actually believe that mathematics causes the laws of nature...
Jason Wolfe: on 7/16/13 at 1:29am UTC, wrote "The speed of light just intertwines position and time. It is a conversion...
Lawrence Crowell: on 7/15/13 at 18:52pm UTC, wrote The constants c and ħ in naturalized units are just one. The speed of...
RECENT FORUM POSTS
Steve Dufourny: "How to formalise these couplings of scalar fields of the DE and DM in our..." in The Noise of Gravitons
Steve Dufourny: "even I d say that the numbers and the spheres are under specific partitions..." in The Noise of Gravitons
Steve Dufourny: "stop this please, FQXi is well moderated , so don t insist" in George Ellis - How can...
Martin Gray: "What are the different skin conditions that people often face? Every skin..." in George Ellis - How can...
Ulla Mattfolk: "In a statement posted on its website on 27 June, SNRIU said that "due to..." in Global Collaboration
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Steve Dufourny: "Jonathan Dickau ,hope you are well, always cool to have your points of vue,..." in 16th Marcel Grossmann...
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click titles to read articles
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Can We Feel What It’s Like to Be Quantum?
Underground experiments in the heart of the Italian mountains are testing the links between consciousness and collapse theories of quantum physics.
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FQXi BLOGS
July 3, 2022
Step by step, our ideas about the nature of our reality have moved far from the sensory constructions of space and time that define our immediate experience. And once fully outside the knowledge brought with sensation, we lose our footing. It’s difficult to manage ‘what can’t be sensed.’ But our conceptual difficulties with quantum mechanics are very reasonable if we imagine that, however abstract, the mathematics that got us there is rooted in our sensory experience--our sense of space and duration, our perception of quantity, and perhaps the cognitive mechanisms that manage these. The remarkable refinement of mathematical ideas has forced a reconsideration of what we think we see, and the conceptual possibilities that mathematics provides may indicate that we’ve enhanced our sensory apparatus in such a way that it has been made sensitive enough to ‘reach’ the edge of what is ‘sensible’ making us aware of the reality that escapes us. It is beginning to look like vast parts of our reality are not sensible.
These thoughts came to mind after reading a few discussions concerning the reconciliation of quantum mechanical strangeness. A New Scientist article addresses, specifically, questions about the meaning of space and time and their place (or lack of it) in modern physics. Space and time are constructed by the body and further explored by mathematics. But questions about whether or how they are real are very old. As the article’s author Anil Ananthaswamy says:
“…arguments about the nature of space and time swirl on. Are both basic constituents of reality, or neither – or does one perhaps emerge from the other in some way? We are yet to reach a conclusive answer, but it is becoming clear that if we wish to make further progress in physics, we must. The route to a truly powerful theory of reality passes through an intimate understanding of space and time.”
I like the phrase ‘intimate understanding.’ It suggests getting very close to their source. The difficulty in physics, more specifically, as described in the New Scientist article, is this:
“A quantum object’s state is described by a wave function, a mathematical object living in an abstract space, known as Hilbert space, that encompasses all the possible states of the object. We can tell how the wave function evolves in time, moving from one state in its Hilbert space to another, using the Schrödinger equation. In this picture, time is itself not part of the Hilbert space where everything else physical sits, but somehow lives outside it…As for space, its status depends on what you are measuring. The wave function of an electron orbiting the atomic nucleus will include properties of physical space such as the electron’s distance from the nucleus. But the wave function describing the quantum spin of an isolated electron has no mention of space: according to the mathematics, the picture we often paint of an electron physically
rotating is meaningless.”
Although a Hilbert space is a vector space whose structure is completely abstract, it rests on the meaning that it borrows from the relationships among vectors that we imagine in two and three dimensional Euclidean space. And so it is grounded in a familiar spacial idea. But mathematics has grown in such a way that the vectors of a Hilbert space can be used to represent possible states of a quantum mechanical system.
In a recent Scientific American blog, science journalist and FQXi member George Musser gave University of Maryland philosopher Ruth Kastner the opportunity to discuss her ideas about how to resolve the difficulties with what is called the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics. She begins with a reference to physicist and writer Han Christian von Baeyer’s article in the June issue of Scientific American. She says about his article that in response to the deep questions about the meaning of quantum theory von Baeyer “discusses one proposal -- a denial that the theory describes anything objectively real …”
This is a very misleading summary of what von Baeyer discusses. I also wrote a few weeks ago about this article. It’s the *wave function* that is thought to have no objective reality from the point of view that von Baeyer discusses. This perspective (called Qbism) combines quantum theory and probability theory and sees the wave function as a powerful mathematical tool that provides the observer a way to make decisions about the surrounding quantum world. I took note, in my post, of the fact that Bayesian statistics (the ones used in Qbism) are also used by cognitive scientists to model how we build our very immediate expectations of our world from sensory data. And I quoted physicist Christopher Fuchs, a prominent proponent of Qbism, who said:
“…even if quantum theory is purely a theory for apportioning and structuring degrees of belief, the question of “Why the quantum?” is nonetheless a question of what it is about the actual, real, objective character of the world that compels us to use this framework for reasoning rather than another.””
This doesn’t sound like a denial that the theory describes anything real.
The transactional Interpretation that Kastner discusses in her blog was first proposed, she tells us, by physicist John Cramer in the 1980s and can be traced back to physicists John Wheeler and Richard Feynman. She says the following:
“My development of the Transactional Interpretation makes use of an important idea of Werner Heisenberg: “Atoms and the elementary particles themselves … form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than things of the facts.” This world of potentialities is not contained within space and time; it is a higher-dimensional world whose structure is described by the mathematics of quantum theory.”
I wasn’t able to get a very clear picture of the history of the idea, nor her development of it from the blog, but the punch line is clear enough. Her transactional picture assumes that “there is more to reality than what can be contained within space-time.” It is somehow with the encounter of “potential events” (not contained within space-time) that “real energy may be conveyed within spacetime…” and “delivered in the normal future direction.”
She goes on to say:
“The transactional picture is conceptually challenging because the underlying processes are so different from what we are used to in our classical world of experience, and we must allow for the startling idea that there is more to reality than what can be contained within spacetime.”
I had the impulse to bring these ideas together because of what they have in common, specifically, that what we see (in the most abstract sense of that word) consistently indicates how much we don’t see. And, perhaps that there is even a strain on our mathematical ways because mathematics itself may have its roots in how the body ‘perceives.’ This doesn’t mean that progress can’t be made. Bringing back a little bit from Christopher Fuchs:
“For the Qbist, the lesson that the structure of quantum theory calls out to be interpreted in only this way is that the world is an unimaginably rich one in comparison to the reductionist dream. It says that the world has excitement, risk, and adventure at its very core.”
Considering how our mathematics brings us closer to this core is equally exciting.
--
Joselle DiNunzio Kehoe is a writer and Lecturer of Mathematics at the University of Texas at Dallas. This post is reproduced from her blog at Mathematics Rising.
this post has been edited by the author since its original submission
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These thoughts came to mind after reading a few discussions concerning the reconciliation of quantum mechanical strangeness. A New Scientist article addresses, specifically, questions about the meaning of space and time and their place (or lack of it) in modern physics. Space and time are constructed by the body and further explored by mathematics. But questions about whether or how they are real are very old. As the article’s author Anil Ananthaswamy says:
“…arguments about the nature of space and time swirl on. Are both basic constituents of reality, or neither – or does one perhaps emerge from the other in some way? We are yet to reach a conclusive answer, but it is becoming clear that if we wish to make further progress in physics, we must. The route to a truly powerful theory of reality passes through an intimate understanding of space and time.”
I like the phrase ‘intimate understanding.’ It suggests getting very close to their source. The difficulty in physics, more specifically, as described in the New Scientist article, is this:
 |
Although a Hilbert space is a vector space whose structure is completely abstract, it rests on the meaning that it borrows from the relationships among vectors that we imagine in two and three dimensional Euclidean space. And so it is grounded in a familiar spacial idea. But mathematics has grown in such a way that the vectors of a Hilbert space can be used to represent possible states of a quantum mechanical system.
In a recent Scientific American blog, science journalist and FQXi member George Musser gave University of Maryland philosopher Ruth Kastner the opportunity to discuss her ideas about how to resolve the difficulties with what is called the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics. She begins with a reference to physicist and writer Han Christian von Baeyer’s article in the June issue of Scientific American. She says about his article that in response to the deep questions about the meaning of quantum theory von Baeyer “discusses one proposal -- a denial that the theory describes anything objectively real …”
This is a very misleading summary of what von Baeyer discusses. I also wrote a few weeks ago about this article. It’s the *wave function* that is thought to have no objective reality from the point of view that von Baeyer discusses. This perspective (called Qbism) combines quantum theory and probability theory and sees the wave function as a powerful mathematical tool that provides the observer a way to make decisions about the surrounding quantum world. I took note, in my post, of the fact that Bayesian statistics (the ones used in Qbism) are also used by cognitive scientists to model how we build our very immediate expectations of our world from sensory data. And I quoted physicist Christopher Fuchs, a prominent proponent of Qbism, who said:
“…even if quantum theory is purely a theory for apportioning and structuring degrees of belief, the question of “Why the quantum?” is nonetheless a question of what it is about the actual, real, objective character of the world that compels us to use this framework for reasoning rather than another.””
This doesn’t sound like a denial that the theory describes anything real.
The transactional Interpretation that Kastner discusses in her blog was first proposed, she tells us, by physicist John Cramer in the 1980s and can be traced back to physicists John Wheeler and Richard Feynman. She says the following:
“My development of the Transactional Interpretation makes use of an important idea of Werner Heisenberg: “Atoms and the elementary particles themselves … form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than things of the facts.” This world of potentialities is not contained within space and time; it is a higher-dimensional world whose structure is described by the mathematics of quantum theory.”
I wasn’t able to get a very clear picture of the history of the idea, nor her development of it from the blog, but the punch line is clear enough. Her transactional picture assumes that “there is more to reality than what can be contained within space-time.” It is somehow with the encounter of “potential events” (not contained within space-time) that “real energy may be conveyed within spacetime…” and “delivered in the normal future direction.”
She goes on to say:
“The transactional picture is conceptually challenging because the underlying processes are so different from what we are used to in our classical world of experience, and we must allow for the startling idea that there is more to reality than what can be contained within spacetime.”
I had the impulse to bring these ideas together because of what they have in common, specifically, that what we see (in the most abstract sense of that word) consistently indicates how much we don’t see. And, perhaps that there is even a strain on our mathematical ways because mathematics itself may have its roots in how the body ‘perceives.’ This doesn’t mean that progress can’t be made. Bringing back a little bit from Christopher Fuchs:
“For the Qbist, the lesson that the structure of quantum theory calls out to be interpreted in only this way is that the world is an unimaginably rich one in comparison to the reductionist dream. It says that the world has excitement, risk, and adventure at its very core.”
Considering how our mathematics brings us closer to this core is equally exciting.
--
Joselle DiNunzio Kehoe is a writer and Lecturer of Mathematics at the University of Texas at Dallas. This post is reproduced from her blog at Mathematics Rising.
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"The route to a truly powerful theory of reality passes through an intimate understanding of space and time."
Science has been going in the opposite direction for a century. Once you accept that "a sentient being can jump, "within a minute" (of his experienced time) arbitrarily far in the future, say sixty million years ahead", any further discussion of space and time is meaningless and even harmful:
Thibault Damour: "The paradigm of the special relativistic upheaval of the usual concept of time is the twin paradox. Let us emphasize that this striking example of time dilation proves that time travel (towards the future) is possible. As a gedanken experiment (if we neglect practicalities such as the technology needed for reaching velocities comparable to the velocity of light, the cost of the fuel and the capacity of the traveller to sustain high accelerations), it shows that a sentient being can jump, "within a minute" (of his experienced time) arbitrarily far in the future, say sixty million years ahead, and see, and be part of, what (will) happen then on Earth. This is a clear way of realizing that the future "already exists" (as we can experience it "in a minute")."
Pentcho Valev
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Science has been going in the opposite direction for a century. Once you accept that "a sentient being can jump, "within a minute" (of his experienced time) arbitrarily far in the future, say sixty million years ahead", any further discussion of space and time is meaningless and even harmful:
Thibault Damour: "The paradigm of the special relativistic upheaval of the usual concept of time is the twin paradox. Let us emphasize that this striking example of time dilation proves that time travel (towards the future) is possible. As a gedanken experiment (if we neglect practicalities such as the technology needed for reaching velocities comparable to the velocity of light, the cost of the fuel and the capacity of the traveller to sustain high accelerations), it shows that a sentient being can jump, "within a minute" (of his experienced time) arbitrarily far in the future, say sixty million years ahead, and see, and be part of, what (will) happen then on Earth. This is a clear way of realizing that the future "already exists" (as we can experience it "in a minute")."
Pentcho Valev
Thank you for this interesting article Joselle,
One disquiet about considering all sorts of possibilities as a higher level reality; In what way are possibilities reality? aren't they sometimes more akin to not yet real imaginings, might be's rather than things that are or were. The higher level reality proposed in the article is not even a future realm as many of the possibilities will not...
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One disquiet about considering all sorts of possibilities as a higher level reality; In what way are possibilities reality? aren't they sometimes more akin to not yet real imaginings, might be's rather than things that are or were. The higher level reality proposed in the article is not even a future realm as many of the possibilities will not...
view entire post
Following on from my previous post. The problem seems to me to stem from the English language in which we talk about possibilities *existing*. Though there is clearly a difference between real possibilities that exist, just because selection has not yet been made, and possibilities that are just imagined or calculated but do not have an actualised ( made actual) existence, in Object reality, or manifest ( an appearance ) existence, in Image reality.
Even though a whole category of possibilities ought to be excluded from reality they still say something very important about nature.Hans Christian von Baeyer, in "information the new language of science" writes "The ultimate reality, according to Bohr, is not the thing itself, but the sum total of our information, quantified as probabilities about the thing" Not ontology but epistemology. Accumulated information tells us about likelihoods of outcomes.
Perhaps it can be helpfully compared to the accumulated behavioural data on an animal, which is very useful for predicting what it , the animal, will do. The collection itself, which simultaneously incorporates the data about animal performing all behaviours does not have a real 'contortionist' animal counterpart in existence. The knowledge is real, it seems to me, but not what the accumulated data might seem to depict.
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Even though a whole category of possibilities ought to be excluded from reality they still say something very important about nature.Hans Christian von Baeyer, in "information the new language of science" writes "The ultimate reality, according to Bohr, is not the thing itself, but the sum total of our information, quantified as probabilities about the thing" Not ontology but epistemology. Accumulated information tells us about likelihoods of outcomes.
Perhaps it can be helpfully compared to the accumulated behavioural data on an animal, which is very useful for predicting what it , the animal, will do. The collection itself, which simultaneously incorporates the data about animal performing all behaviours does not have a real 'contortionist' animal counterpart in existence. The knowledge is real, it seems to me, but not what the accumulated data might seem to depict.
Joselle, you wrote "And I quoted physicist Christopher Fuchs, a prominent proponent of Qbism, who said:"...even if quantum theory is purely a theory for apportioning and structuring degrees of belief, the question of "Why the quantum?" is nonetheless a question of what it is about the actual, real, objective character of the world that compels us to use this framework for reasoning rather than another." "This doesn't sound like a denial that the theory describes anything real."
According to "Collins concise dictionary of the English language", in philosophy "real" means "existent or relating to actual existence, as opposed to non existent, potential, contingent or apparent"; whereas the everyday meaning is "1.existing or occurring in the physical world, not imaginary, fictitious or theoretical:actual"
Which leaves a bit of a dilemma. What does real mean in science? If one regards the accrued results that form probabilities to *have occurred* in the physical world even though spread over time or a number of iterations of the object universe, then they might be regarded as real according to the everyday meaning of the word. Though one might also exclude them from the category of real things because they are theoretical things which are excluded under that definition.
Likewise they might be included as real according to the philosophical definition as they *relate* to actual existence but excluded because probabilities are potential and potential is excluded. Isn't this a problem with trying to fit ideas into existing language. Perhaps it would be better just to regard quantum objects and probabilities as quasi-real, almost but not really real. They relate to things that have occurred in the physical world but are not themselves part of that world of real things.
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According to "Collins concise dictionary of the English language", in philosophy "real" means "existent or relating to actual existence, as opposed to non existent, potential, contingent or apparent"; whereas the everyday meaning is "1.existing or occurring in the physical world, not imaginary, fictitious or theoretical:actual"
Which leaves a bit of a dilemma. What does real mean in science? If one regards the accrued results that form probabilities to *have occurred* in the physical world even though spread over time or a number of iterations of the object universe, then they might be regarded as real according to the everyday meaning of the word. Though one might also exclude them from the category of real things because they are theoretical things which are excluded under that definition.
Likewise they might be included as real according to the philosophical definition as they *relate* to actual existence but excluded because probabilities are potential and potential is excluded. Isn't this a problem with trying to fit ideas into existing language. Perhaps it would be better just to regard quantum objects and probabilities as quasi-real, almost but not really real. They relate to things that have occurred in the physical world but are not themselves part of that world of real things.
Hi Georgina,
I agree with you that wave-functions are quasi-real objects that exist in nature. Or at least wave-function mathematics acts very similarly to some invisible phenomenon of nature. But I think the physics community has no choice but to ignore this fact for as long as they can. Science has to avoid this issue. You know why? Because if science announces there are quasi-existent field like phenomena that behave like probabilities, layperson culture is going to immediately equate that with ghosts, spirit like phenomena and magical fields that exist all around us. All those aether loving, astral projecting, NDE experiencing fruit cakes are going to be running down the street with glee proclaiming: Yay! God exists! Paranormal phenomena is real! Spiritual phenomena is real! Yay!
What do you think is going to happen when the psychic weirdos come out of the woodwork proclaiming that physics supports their beliefs in the paranormal? It will truly be the end of life as we know it.
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I agree with you that wave-functions are quasi-real objects that exist in nature. Or at least wave-function mathematics acts very similarly to some invisible phenomenon of nature. But I think the physics community has no choice but to ignore this fact for as long as they can. Science has to avoid this issue. You know why? Because if science announces there are quasi-existent field like phenomena that behave like probabilities, layperson culture is going to immediately equate that with ghosts, spirit like phenomena and magical fields that exist all around us. All those aether loving, astral projecting, NDE experiencing fruit cakes are going to be running down the street with glee proclaiming: Yay! God exists! Paranormal phenomena is real! Spiritual phenomena is real! Yay!
What do you think is going to happen when the psychic weirdos come out of the woodwork proclaiming that physics supports their beliefs in the paranormal? It will truly be the end of life as we know it.
Nice article.
My own essay 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
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My own essay 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,
By definition, Mysticism is the pursuit of communion with, identity with, or conscious awareness of an ultimate reality, divinity, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, instinct or insight.
We have experience with consciousness,, divinity, spiritual truth and God. What we don't have is experience with 26 rolled up dimensions.
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By definition, Mysticism is the pursuit of communion with, identity with, or conscious awareness of an ultimate reality, divinity, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, instinct or insight.
We have experience with consciousness,, divinity, spiritual truth and God. What we don't have is experience with 26 rolled up dimensions.
Jason, for mysticism as you describe it to have scientific value, would require us all to experience it in the same way.
Tom
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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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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.
The question is posed, is time a fundamental constituent of reality or not.
This is actually a false dilemma. My essay Programming Bits and Getting Its explains why.
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This is actually a false dilemma. My essay Programming Bits and Getting Its explains why.
My own emphasis is not so much on the presence of unseen things, as it is on how mathematics has somehow validated the conceptual difficulties we have with what physics tells us. I think it likely that mathematics is a symbolic formalization (or externalization) of biological processes involved in perception and learning. And physics is certainly about our perceived reality. So maybe we shouldn't only ask questions about the nature of that reality, but also about what mathematics may be expressing about what it means to perceive something.
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Joselle,
You wrote- "And physics is certainly about our perceived reality." It is an important point that you make. The question, 'what is meant by reality in physics?" is important IMHO.
Space-time physics/ Einstein's relativity are about perceived reality not what *exists* independently of observers. The mathematics has validated the conceptual difficulties, as you say, but along with a mistaken understanding; the thought that we see objects rather than just images of them. Even the thought that *material things* come into existence when they are observed, rather than just image manifestations of material things being fabricated. This differentiation is important for overcoming the Andromeda, Barn pole and Grandfather paradoxes.
The mathematics of quantum physics may have validated the conceptual difficulties too but it seems to me in numerous discussions the quasi real in imagined mathematical space is being taken as real. The quasi real can be about nature but at the same time not be a constituent of nature.
So do you think physics need a broader definition of reality than the everyday and philosophical definitions,( see my earlier posts), that will allow such things (that are 'outside of' space and time, are theoretical and to do with potential and so can not be perceived) to qualify?
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You wrote- "And physics is certainly about our perceived reality." It is an important point that you make. The question, 'what is meant by reality in physics?" is important IMHO.
Space-time physics/ Einstein's relativity are about perceived reality not what *exists* independently of observers. The mathematics has validated the conceptual difficulties, as you say, but along with a mistaken understanding; the thought that we see objects rather than just images of them. Even the thought that *material things* come into existence when they are observed, rather than just image manifestations of material things being fabricated. This differentiation is important for overcoming the Andromeda, Barn pole and Grandfather paradoxes.
The mathematics of quantum physics may have validated the conceptual difficulties too but it seems to me in numerous discussions the quasi real in imagined mathematical space is being taken as real. The quasi real can be about nature but at the same time not be a constituent of nature.
So do you think physics need a broader definition of reality than the everyday and philosophical definitions,( see my earlier posts), that will allow such things (that are 'outside of' space and time, are theoretical and to do with potential and so can not be perceived) to qualify?
I don't think I would begin with trying to create a 'broader definition of reality.' All perception and learning happens with the building of structure. 'Space' and 'time' (and other things) are the names we give to some of this structure. There may be value in focusing on what that structure-building is really about, how does it happens, what is it meant to accomplish, and how has it gotten extended in the sciences. In other words, what's the relationship between the shape our world is given in our immediate experience, and the shape the universe is given in our scientific experience.
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The constants c and ħ in naturalized units are just one. The speed of light just intertwines position and time. It is a conversion factor. In addition the proper time for a photon is zero. A set of null rays through a point gives the light cone, and we can rescale these rays any way we wish and that proper time is still zero. The light cone is then a projective space in Lorentz space. This freedom to rescale the speed of light to anything we want can further be seen in most equations that involve the speed of light. If we change the Planck length or the Bohr radius of the H-atom by rescaling c the size of any ruler changes as well. This completely cancels out any rescaling of the speed of light.
The Planck constant is similar. This intertwines the uncertainty in position and momentum. Further any rescaling of ħ has the same effect on various fundamental equations involving this constant.
The gravitational constant has naturalized units of area. Other gauge charges are similar, for we can express Coulomb’s law as
F = kqq’/r^2
so that q has units of length and qq’ is area. This connection to area has a bearing on the holographic principle.
We measure c and ħ with physical objects that are defined by things like charges and so forth. The number we assign to the speed of light c = 299,997km/sec is really a manifestation of these other constants. These constants are the result of renormalization group and the hierarchy problem with unification of gauge couplings. This is an active area of research.
LC
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The Planck constant is similar. This intertwines the uncertainty in position and momentum. Further any rescaling of ħ has the same effect on various fundamental equations involving this constant.
The gravitational constant has naturalized units of area. Other gauge charges are similar, for we can express Coulomb’s law as
F = kqq’/r^2
so that q has units of length and qq’ is area. This connection to area has a bearing on the holographic principle.
We measure c and ħ with physical objects that are defined by things like charges and so forth. The number we assign to the speed of light c = 299,997km/sec is really a manifestation of these other constants. These constants are the result of renormalization group and the hierarchy problem with unification of gauge couplings. This is an active area of research.
LC
"The speed of light just intertwines position and time. It is a conversion factor. "
I can't comprehend the idea that the physics constants are what they are for no reason; I can't comprehend lack of a cause or mechanism. I keep looking at wave-functions and Casimir effect, and I see the e^i thing that looks like it should be some fundamental phenomena of nature. It's like you're all walking right by a secret door that leads to new physics.
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I can't comprehend the idea that the physics constants are what they are for no reason; I can't comprehend lack of a cause or mechanism. I keep looking at wave-functions and Casimir effect, and I see the e^i thing that looks like it should be some fundamental phenomena of nature. It's like you're all walking right by a secret door that leads to new physics.
Do physicists actually believe that mathematics causes the laws of nature and the physics constants to exist? Physicists swear, on a stack of Stephen Hawkings books, that mathematical physics only describes natural law and doesn't cause natural law. Yet physicists like Hawking will laugh and snicker at the idea that anything like spirit or aether exists. I have tried very hard to point out that wave-functions and wave-amplitudes act like that which causes physics constants/laws to work, and that wave amplitudes have a spirit like quality to them. And every time I have raised this point, I have been ignored like some mad fool.
If mathematics causes physics to work, then why can't I write F=ma on a piece of paper and cause a magical wall of force to pop into existence? If mathematics causes the laws of physics to exist, then why can't I write down some mathematics and change the laws of physics?
I think the honest answer to atheists like Hawking is that, there is no way to be entirely sure that wave-functions (wave amplitudes) are nothing more than some innocent nothingness, a form of nothingness that gave birth to the universe. There is no way to know that such wave-functions are not some form of metaphysical aether spirit that is itself Creator of the universe, God and our collective souls.
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If mathematics causes physics to work, then why can't I write F=ma on a piece of paper and cause a magical wall of force to pop into existence? If mathematics causes the laws of physics to exist, then why can't I write down some mathematics and change the laws of physics?
I think the honest answer to atheists like Hawking is that, there is no way to be entirely sure that wave-functions (wave amplitudes) are nothing more than some innocent nothingness, a form of nothingness that gave birth to the universe. There is no way to know that such wave-functions are not some form of metaphysical aether spirit that is itself Creator of the universe, God and our collective souls.
It could just be a point of view. From your point of view, you see random fluctuations that spit out the whole universe once, long long ago. You dodge the existence of aether (spirit) by arbitrarily deciding that, if aether existed, then one could measure the earths movement through it. When M&M disproved that arbitrary characteristic, it allowed physicists to abandon the aether, to abandon spirit. Then you all hyper-focused on mathematics, which is defined as being devoid of God, devoid of anything supernatural or paranormal. You are all too clever.
I'm just one lone man who sees your mistake.
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I'm just one lone man who sees your mistake.
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I quote from R. Kastner
"Nature is never perfectly symmetric."
Yes, the many apparent symmetries in our theories up to retro-causality are unnatural artifacts.
With "reversibility we would have time-symmetric (isotropic) processes, which would fail to transfer energy, preclude change, and therefore render the whole notion of time meaningless."
Well this is obvious to common sense.
I merely maintain my view that the symmetry of the laws is a result of abstraction, and continuation from traces that are non-symmetric but unilaterally extended only in past time. "In future time" refers to mere potentialities, a notion used by Peirce as to characterize real numbers in contrast to what we may call the finitist Hilbert's space of states.
Eckard, 1793
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"Nature is never perfectly symmetric."
Yes, the many apparent symmetries in our theories up to retro-causality are unnatural artifacts.
With "reversibility we would have time-symmetric (isotropic) processes, which would fail to transfer energy, preclude change, and therefore render the whole notion of time meaningless."
Well this is obvious to common sense.
I merely maintain my view that the symmetry of the laws is a result of abstraction, and continuation from traces that are non-symmetric but unilaterally extended only in past time. "In future time" refers to mere potentialities, a notion used by Peirce as to characterize real numbers in contrast to what we may call the finitist Hilbert's space of states.
Eckard, 1793
I appreciate Joselle's discussion of my proposal. But I do have to address the charge that my characterization of 'Qbism' is misleading: proponents of Qbism apparently have an evolving view. They certainly have been explicitly antirealist. Kate Becker quotes from a paper by CF and AP and comments as follows: "There is no logical necessity of a realistic worldview to always be obtainable," wrote...
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Ruth, I went right to Amazon and ordered your book.
I think that *any* imposition of Bayesian philosophy on statistics, whether classical or quantum, is anti-realist. The supposition that there always exists a definite probability on the closed interval [0,1] independent of measured events assumes a priori that reality is inherently probabilistic.
"I don't think that one should have to consider it 'off limits' to try to gain some understanding about quantum 'stuff', as long as one doesn't try to hammer it into a classical sort of picture."
If the quantum stuff is classical to begin with, one doesn't need a hammer.
I'll look forward to reading your book, and thanks for dropping by here.
All best,
Tom
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I think that *any* imposition of Bayesian philosophy on statistics, whether classical or quantum, is anti-realist. The supposition that there always exists a definite probability on the closed interval [0,1] independent of measured events assumes a priori that reality is inherently probabilistic.
"I don't think that one should have to consider it 'off limits' to try to gain some understanding about quantum 'stuff', as long as one doesn't try to hammer it into a classical sort of picture."
If the quantum stuff is classical to begin with, one doesn't need a hammer.
I'll look forward to reading your book, and thanks for dropping by here.
All best,
Tom
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