Why do you believe?

[nebulaJP]

That presumes that QM interactions are non-physical, yet they're not. Quantum particles exist over all spacetime by virtue of their wavefunction, which is heavily condensed at the point where the particle 'is'. Entangled particles are entangled only insofar as one cannot describe the wavefunction of one without reference to the wavefunction of the other.

I just realized that you consider the wave function to be "physical." I don't and that was leading to confusion over words.

It's physical only insofar as it has to do with the physical sciences. It's reality base isn't matter. How is a probability physical?

Edit: In the part I made bold above, you're saying these are physical right?

Edit: OK I guess you were using it in the phenomenal sense. The meaning of this word has changed a lot since Newton but I guess I got it confused with Olivia Newton-John's "Physical." It still kind of carries the connotation of "tangible."

Main Entry: physical  [fiz-i-kuhl] Show IPA

Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: tangible, material

Synonyms: concrete, corporeal, environmental, gross, materialistic, natural, objective, palpable, phenomenal, ponderable, real, sensible, solid, somatic, substantial, visible

Antonyms: immaterial, mental, spiritual

Edit: I guess my whole argument that the non-physical is real, is moot. What I'm trying to argue exists, you already believe exists, you just include it under the word physical. So my only remaining argument is that VRT is the best interpretation of QM.

Edit: At the beginning of the thread I didn't understand that the Schrödinger equation predicts a probability for all of space but thanks for explaining it and sorry for the endless requests for sources.

 

[nebulaJP]

And?
The theme of this is that the natural world must conform to our expectations, and so because what you're saying does that, it's more likely, or more accurate. But the natural world need not conform to our expectations.

I don't feel that's what I'm saying. I know the human mind has limits and I don't think it's capable of understanding everything in existence.

However, isn't it sound reasoning, that in an interpretation of QM, less veridical or logical paradox is better than more? What is the case for more paradox? Wiccan said that the contradiction of QM and CM doesn't make common sense according to his interpretation:

Does it make logical sense to you personally that a continuously existing billiard ball has a small but greater than 0 probability of passing through a continuously existing wall?

Yes. Does it not make logical sense to you?

Does it make common sense? No, but my beliefs aren't based on common sense, they're based on logic and evidence. As neat an idea as VRT is, there's ultimately no evidence for it.

Why is an interpretation that doesn't make common sense better than one that does?

Edit: Common sense : sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts

 

[nebulaJP]

At one time, the idea of a flat earth was common sense. Then the facts came in, and based on the facts, the idea of a spherical earth became common sense, though unintuitive.

QM and relativity are facts. Based on these facts, the idea of a virtual universe became common sense, though unintuitive.

Edit: Here is a chart showing two different interpretations of celestial observations, analogous to the different interpretations of QM. Mine from that list is the von Neumann interpretation, which is consistent with VRT.

 

[pjnlsn]

Do you think I'm saying quantum mechanics isn't proven? I'm not saying that at all. It's totally proven. So is relativity. What did I say that's not a part of that?

Well, you seemed to object to that something the size of a billiard ball could tunnel at all, that it was possible at all, even if the probability of it tunneling over a more than minuscule distance was itself minuscule.

You seemed to think that because QM allows this action to even be possible that such contradicts one's ordinary life. But unless you don't know what a probability is, the idea that it's possible for an object on the human scale to tunnel is only absurd if the probability of it doing so (over a significant distance) is high enough so that a human would notice it, not absurdly low, as QM says it is.

But that's part of QM, and not an interpretation in the sense of what Many-Worlds is.

 

[nebulaJP]

Well, you seemed to object to that something the size of a billiard ball could tunnel at all, that it was possible at all, even if the probability of it tunneling over a more than minuscule distance was itself minuscule.

You seemed to think that because QM allows this action to even be possible that such contradicts one's ordinary life. But unless you don't know what a probability is, the idea that it's possible for an object on the human scale to tunnel is only absurd if the probability of it doing so (over a significant distance) is high enough so that a human would notice it, not absurdly low, as QM says it is.

But that's part of QM, and not an interpretation in the sense of what Many-Worlds is.

There are degrees of probability but no degrees of possibility. Something is either possible or it isn't. If there is a .00000000001 probability of something happening it is just as possible as something that has a 50% chance of happening. The only difference is in the probability or likelihood.

In a self contained, continuously existing universe, with continuously existing physical laws like electromagnetism, it should not be possible for a billiard ball to tunnel through a wall, period. The probability should be 0. Yet, as we know, this isn't the case. Therefore, there is a contradiction of some kind between QM and CM when looking at it through the lens of metaphysical materialism (i.e. the universe is self-contained and continuous). Maybe the contradiction is veridical, maybe it's logical; in any event there is a contradiction. But when looking at it through the VRT lens, there is no contradiction.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

There are degrees of probability but no degrees of possibility. Something is either possible or it isn't. If there is a .00000000001% probability of something happening it is just as possible as something that has a 50% chance of happening. The only difference is in the probability or likelihood.

In a self contained, continuously existing universe, with continuously existing physical laws like electromagnetism, it should not be possible for a billiard ball to tunnel through a wall, period. The probability should be 0.

Why?

Yet, as we know, this isn't the case. Therefore, there is a contradiction of some kind between QM and CM when looking at it through the lens of metaphysical materialism (i.e. the universe is self-contained and continuous).

Well... yes QM is the successor to CM. Your statement is like saying there's a contradiction between Flat Earthism and Round Earthism.

Maybe the contradiction is veridical, maybe it's logical; in any event there is a contradiction.

Veridical paradoxes, by definition, aren't contradictions.

 

[nebulaJP]

Why?

Answer:

Electromagnetic fields don't let that happen. If EM is true and EM fields exist continuously, it can never happen. To say that it can never happen and that it also can happen because of QM is a paradox. Either something can happen or it can't happen. Both is a paradox.

Well... yes QM is the successor to CM. Your statement is like saying there's a contradiction between Flat Earthism and Round Earthism.

OK thanks I meant classical physics, not classical mechanics.

Veridical paradoxes, by definition, aren't contradictions.

I'll stay away from the word contradiction. Still, an interpretation of QM with no paradoxes of any kind is better than one that has paradoxes because it's more parsimonious. You don't need as much conceptualization to explain it; it makes common sense, less assumptions (when taking into account that metaphysical materialism is an assumption), is more succinct etc.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Electromagnetic fields don't let that happen. If EM is true and EM fields exist continuously, it can never happen. To say that it can never happen and that it also can happen because of QM is a paradox. Either something can happen or it can't happen. Both is a paradox.

I responded to that, but you never got back to me. Nevertheless, something else you said seems to fit:

"However, electromagnetic forces prevent solid objects from passing through each other. It is believed by the majority, but not in any way proven, that objects are self contained (they exist in and of themselves) and that they exist continuously. So if the electromagnetic forces exist continuously, how can solid objects pass through each other? This is at the very least, seemingly a paradox, or as Wiccan calls it, a "veridical paradox." Many things do not make sense to the thinking mind and this is one of them."

It seems that you're overextending a useful rule and making it an absolute law (rather like extending "Gravity pulls down" and then pondering why Australians don't float off into their sky). Electromagnetism prevents solid objects from passing through each other only insofar as matter contains charged particles that exert a repulsive force. This creates a potential barrier that can be overcome given sufficient energy.

By CM, particles exist as discrete points with absolute positions and momenta. By QM, particles have an associated wavefunction over all of space that designates a tiny, but non-zero, probability of measuring it at that place. The particle 'is' wherever you measure it to be, but prior to measurement we can only talk about the probability distribution (rather like saying, "Well, there's a 1/6 chance the die will come up '1', but until we roll it, we won't know").

The nature of wavefunction collapse is open to interpretation, but it's a mathematical consequence of QM that a) wavefunctions permeate all of space, b) the value of a wavefunction at a point in space corresponds to the probability of measuring the associated particle at that point, and c) such probabilities are non-zero (with the exception of infinite potential wells, which only exist in mathematical idealisations).

OK thanks I meant classical physics, not classical mechanics.

What's the difference? Is CP related to metaphysical, methodological, and/or historical materialism and/or physicalism?

I'll stay away from the word contradiction. Still, an interpretation of QM with no paradoxes of any kind is better than one that has paradoxes because it's more parsimonious. You don't need as much conceptualization to explain it; it makes common sense, less assumptions (when taking into account that metaphysical materialism is an assumption), is more succinct etc.

I disagree: VPT has to invoke a whole host of new things (processors, grids, nodes, overloading nodes, etc), while metaphysical materialism doesn't invoke anything at all - it says the material world is all there is, and all things arise from material interactions. Nothing new is posited, so Occam's Razor points to MM instead of VPT.

The point about distinguishing between veridical and logical paradoxes is that the latter disprove QM (fortunately none are known to exist), while the former are simply curios that don't actually affect the veracity of QM. So an interpretation that contains veridical paradoxes is more counter-intuitive, but no less likely to be true.

 

[pjnlsn]

There are degrees of probability but no degrees of possibility. Something is either possible or it isn't. If there is a .00000000001 probability of something happening it is just as possible as something that has a 50% chance of happening. The only difference is in the probability or likelihood.

In a self contained, continuously existing universe, with continuously existing physical laws like electromagnetism, it should not be possible for a billiard ball to tunnel through a wall, period. The probability should be 0. Yet, as we know, this isn't the case. Therefore, there is a contradiction of some kind between QM and CM when looking at it through the lens of metaphysical materialism (i.e. the universe is self-contained and continuous). Maybe the contradiction is veridical, maybe it's logical; in any event there is a contradiction. But when looking at it through the VRT lens, there is no contradiction.

In most of your posts, there's the great sense you don't really know what your point is, or have a great sense of what you're talking about.

For example, the task of uniting QM, GR, and ordinary physics is not what the so-called interpretations of QM set out to do. QM is what it is, Classical physics is what it is, GR is what it is, and the apparent contradictions between either are another issue.

In any case, per your other post, and speaking of confusion, VRT apparently involves more assumptions than any other interpretations of QM, and yet while advocating for it you acknowledge that it's better to assume less. This is apart from the sources you linked having the appearance of being a religious vehicle, employing one or more deception and fallacious arguments, if only by implication, and then of course not really spelling out what the point of the whole thing is, but simply listing off examples of current science and commenting on how 'strange' it all is.

This obviously is of little value, and is, in more than a few ways, just wrong.

 

[nebulaJP]

It seems that you're overextending a useful rule and making it an absolute law (rather like extending "Gravity pulls down" and then pondering why Australians don't float off into their sky). Electromagnetism prevents solid objects from passing through each other only insofar as matter contains charged particles that exert a repulsive force. This creates a potential barrier that can be overcome given sufficient energy.

But doesn't the energy have to be in the form of matter such as firing the billiard ball out of a canon through the wall? How is a mathematical formulation like the wave function "energy?"

What's the difference? Is CP related to metaphysical, methodological, and/or historical materialism and/or physicalism?

Metaphysical. On the macro scale, forces, such as gravity and electromagnetism, prevent tunneling of macro sized objects. For example, because of gravity and electromagnetism, the ball should not end up on the other side of the hill:

"In classical physics, when a ball is rolled slowly towards a large hill, it will come to a stop and roll back, because it doesn't have enough energy to get over the top of the hill to the other side. However, the Schrödinger equation predicts that there is a small probability that the ball will get to the other side of the hill, even if it has too little energy to reach the top. This is called quantum tunneling. It is related to the uncertainty principle: Although the ball seems to be on one side of the hill, its position is uncertain so there is a chance of finding it on the other side."

Schrödinger equation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So my argument is that if macro sized objects exist in and of themselves and exist continuously, tunneling cannot happen. The physical laws like gravity and electromagnetism are never suspended for objects under these circumstances, therefore they have no basis to tunnel anywhere. So it would appear that objects do not exist continuously and that they are not self existent. If you assume there are, then you have a paradox. The physical forces (CP) prevent tunneling but QM allows it.

 

[nebulaJP]

I disagree: VPT has to invoke a whole host of new things (processors, grids, nodes, overloading nodes, etc), while metaphysical materialism doesn't invoke anything at all - it says the material world is all there is, and all things arise from material interactions. Nothing new is posited, so Occam's Razor points to MM instead of VPT.

I said: "an interpretation of QM with no paradoxes of any kind is better than one that has paradoxes." Metaphysical materialism isn't an interpretation of QM. It's the assumption that leads the majority of physicists to favor Many Worlds. MWT invokes a lot more than VRT does. It has many more assumptions. For one thing, VRT has only one real world while MWT has an almost infinite number.

The point about distinguishing between veridical and logical paradoxes is that the latter disprove QM (fortunately none are known to exist), while the former are simply curios that don't actually affect the veracity of QM. So an interpretation that contains veridical paradoxes is more counter-intuitive, but no less likely to be true.

I don't think the curios are a good sign. Most of the time paradoxes indicate falsehood, like a square circle. So if your interpretation has paradoxes, it's more likely to be wrong IMO.

 

[nebulaJP]

..but simply listing off examples of current science and commenting on how 'strange' it all is.

This obviously is of little value, and is, in more than a few ways, just wrong.

I said that certain phenomena do not make common sense when you start from the assumption of metaphysical materialism. That is not "commenting on how 'strange' it all is."

 

[pjnlsn]

I said that certain phenomena do not make common sense when you start from the assumption of metaphysical materialism. That is not "commenting on how 'strange' it all is."

This is apart from the sources you linked having the appearance of being a religious vehicle, employing one or more deception and fallacious arguments, if only by implication, and then of course not really spelling out what the point of the whole thing is, but simply listing off examples of current science and commenting on how 'strange' it all is.

See first sentence. And also:

In any case, per your other post, and speaking of confusion, VRT apparently involves more assumptions than any other interpretations of QM, and yet while advocating for it you acknowledge that it's better to assume less.

The task of uniting QM, GR, and ordinary physics is not what the so-called interpretations of QM set out to do. QM is what it is, Classical physics is what it is, GR is what it is, and the apparent contradictions between either are another issue.

For you also talk about how much more 'parsimonious' VRT is, when it comes to the apparent contradictions between the different systems referenced above.

 

[nebulaJP]

This is apart from the sources you linked having the appearance of being a religious vehicle,

Do you mean this picture?



It's just a picture. Brian Whitworth doesn't know or speculate on what the nature of the quantum reality is. The processing of our world could be a natural process in the quantum reality. This doesn't change that debate.

 

[pjnlsn]

Do you mean this picture?

View attachment 130350

It's just a picture. Brian Whitworth doesn't know or speculate on what the nature of the quantum reality is. The processing of our world could be a natural process in the quantum reality. This doesn't change that debate.

I mean all of this:

This is apart from the sources you linked having the appearance of being a religious vehicle, employing one or more deceptive and fallacious arguments, if only by implication, and then of course not really spelling out what the point of the whole thing is, but simply listing off examples of current science and commenting on how 'strange' it all is.

And from all of that together (and the picture) and what it correlates with, I'm pretty sure that, deep in his heart, Brian Whitworth believes that God runs the universe, and that all unusual aspects of reality are created by God so that man might have something to amuse himself with.

Not that this is the most relevant thing here though....it's just annoying. More relevant is just the simple observation of the flawed nature of his writing.

And even more relevant than that is:

In any case, per your other post, and speaking of confusion, VRT apparently involves more assumptions than any other interpretations of QM, and yet while advocating for it you acknowledge that it's better to assume less.

The task of uniting QM, GR, and ordinary physics is not what the so-called interpretations of QM set out to do. QM is what it is, Classical physics is what it is, GR is what it is, and the apparent contradictions between either are another issue.

For you also talk about how much more 'parsimonious' VRT is, when it comes to the apparent contradictions between the different systems referenced above.

 

[nebulaJP]

And even more relevant than that is:

In any case, per your other post, and speaking of confusion, VRT apparently involves more assumptions than any other interpretations of QM, and yet while advocating for it you acknowledge that it's better to assume less.

The task of uniting QM, GR, and ordinary physics is not what the so-called interpretations of QM set out to do. QM is what it is, Classical physics is what it is, GR is what it is, and the apparent contradictions between either are another issue.

For you also talk about how much more 'parsimonious' VRT is, when it comes to the apparent contradictions between the different systems referenced above.

Sometimes they set out to reconcile phenomena from from other disciplines with QM. For example, random radioactive decay belongs to nuclear physics, not quantum physics:

"Many-worlds claims to reconcile the observation of non-deterministic events, such as the random radioactive decay, with the fully deterministic equations of quantum physics."

Third paragraph: Many-worlds interpretation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[nebulaJP]

For you also talk about how much more 'parsimonious' VRT is,

Why is that in quotation marks? I've never heard that word in my life until Wiccan started using it in this thread. I was just sticking with his terminology.

 

[pjnlsn]

Sometimes they set out to reconcile phenomena from from other disciplines with QM. For example, random radioactive decay belongs to nuclear physics, not quantum physics:

"Many-worlds claims to reconcile the observation of non-deterministic events, such as the random radioactive decay, with the fully deterministic equations of quantum physics."

Third paragraph: Many-worlds interpretation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I mean the point of the interpretations is not to unite discrete disciplines, like GR and QM, but sometimes they seek to explain elements of QM by uniting it with or referencing classical physics. For example, Many-worlds essentially seeks to explain why it is that physics on the small-scale is so radically different than physics above the molar scale (more or less) by saying that alternate realities exist, and that very small particles are experiencing interference from very small particles in other universes.

The point, you say you have another interpretation, but you've never just described it directly and plainly, like I did above.

However, if I gather what you're suggesting correctly, it's insuperior to, for example, Many-worlds because has less, if it were true, predictive power, even only in the general sense. It dosen't tell us anything more about the universe itself (even if the universe *is* inside a computer simulation). It doesn't suggest anything more about the nature of the simulation/universe.

That is to say, I gather that you are suggesting that the universe is a simulation, and that in between Planck time, new values for the state of the universe are calculated and set. But this doesn't tell us anything more about the universe(/simulation) or indeed about why physics on the small-scale is different than physics on the molar scale, or anything specifically about QM.

I mean, the reason why, in what you're suggesting, that Q-scale physics is different is because what? The controller of the simulation just decided that's how it should be?

It doesn't explain what a QM interpretation is designed to explain, much like when one of the more informed religious believers says that God is actually 'outside' the universe, it doesn't explain anything.

 

[nebulaJP]

And even more relevant than that is:

In any case, per your other post, and speaking of confusion, VRT apparently involves more assumptions than any other interpretations of QM, and yet while advocating for it you acknowledge that it's better to assume less.

What post? Why do you say it has more assumptions than any other interpretation? It's similar to PAP:

• "Observers are necessary to bring the Universe into being."

Barrow and Tipler believe that this is a valid conclusion from quantum mechanics, as John Archibald Wheeler has suggested, especially via his idea that information is the fundamental reality, see It from bit, and his Participatory Anthropic Principle (PAP) which is an interpretation of quantum mechanics associated with the ideas of John von Neumann and Eugene Wigner.

Interpretations of quantum mechanics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Wiccan_Child]

But doesn't the energy have to be in the form of matter such as firing the billiard ball out of a canon through the wall? How is a mathematical formulation like the wave function "energy?"

It's not. One way to traverse the barrier is to have sufficient energy to go up it (pushing a boulder up a hill requires a minimum threshold energy), but it turns out that the queerness of QM gives us another way.

Metaphysical. On the macro scale, forces, such as gravity and electromagnetism, prevent tunneling of macro sized objects. For example, because of gravity and electromagnetism, the ball should not end up on the other side of the hill:

"In classical physics, when a ball is rolled slowly towards a large hill, it will come to a stop and roll back, because it doesn't have enough energy to get over the top of the hill to the other side. However, the Schrödinger equation predicts that there is a small probability that the ball will get to the other side of the hill, even if it has too little energy to reach the top. This is called quantum tunneling. It is related to the uncertainty principle: Although the ball seems to be on one side of the hill, its position is uncertain so there is a chance of finding it on the other side."

Schrödinger equation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So my argument is that if macro sized objects exist in and of themselves and exist continuously, tunnelling cannot happen. The physical laws like gravity and electromagnetism are never suspended for objects under these circumstances, therefore they have no basis to tunnel anywhere. So it would appear that objects do not exist continuously and that they are not self existent. If you assume there are, then you have a paradox. The physical forces (CP) prevent tunnelling but QM allows it.

Because QM has superseded CP. What CP says about potential barriers like electro magnetism and gravity is still more or less accurate, but it turns out to be woefully inadequate at describing the very small, the very large, or the very fast.

So if classical physics and quantum mechanics contradict, then so much for classical physics. The whole point is that CP is known to be wrong, so we developed QM to provide a much more accurate description of what's going on. CP clearly says that tunnelling cannot occur - but it does occur, so so much for CP.

I said: "an interpretation of QM with no paradoxes of any kind is better than one that has paradoxes." Metaphysical materialism isn't an interpretation of QM. It's the assumption that leads the majority of physicists to favor Many Worlds. MWT invokes a lot more than VRT does. It has many more assumptions. For one thing, VRT has only one real world while MWT has an almost infinite number.

MWT is a minority interpretation among physicists; most subscribe to the Copehagen interpretation.

I don't think the curios are a good sign. Most of the time paradoxes indicate falsehood, like a square circle. So if your interpretation has paradoxes, it's more likely to be wrong IMO.

Why?