On 4/29/2014 12:02 PM, John Mikes wrote:
*/Brent(?) wrote/*:
Nope. Wasn't me, I wrote:
/
//Chris Fuchs is the main proponent of quantum Bayesianism, which also takes the
wave-function to just be a summary of one's knowledge of the system - and so there is
nothing surprising about it "collapsing" when you get new information.//
//
//Of course another alternative is an objective collapse theory like GRW. I'm just now
reading a book by Ghirardi,"Sneaking a Look at God's Cards" which surveys the experiments
that force the weirdness of QM on us and the various interpretations. Of course he
devotes a special chapter to GRW theory, but he is very even handed.//
//
//I'm not sure why you're worried about MWI though. Is it because you read "Divide by
Infinity"? I don't think that's what MWI really implies.//
/
Brent
No I never read that, but hell yeah, MWI worries me! Doesn't it worry you? I mean I know
at one level that in a very real sense it doesn't matter whether it's true or not, since
the other universes can never affect me, but at another the reality that everything
happens to me that I can imagine is just plain terrifying. And the 'me' isn't just the
versions of me that are still called by my name, I can't escape the conclusion that I am
everyone and everyone is me and that *everyone's* experience is my experience at some
level. If MWI ever does become the accepted conception of reality, we have a huge amount
of philosophical reorientation ahead of us. For instance, if I take some risk (like
drink-driving, a relevant topic on another thread), and 'get away with it', MWI suggests
I am still responsible for other realities in which I crashed and injured or killed
myself and/or others. My whole approach to risk management becomes quite different if
all outcomes are realised. It no longer makes sense to think about "if" something will
happen to me in the future. I have to accept that it all will happen, it's just that all
those future mes won't know about the other ones, so they will all have the impression
of a single outcome. It's a disorienting and disturbing thought. Of course it should't
lead to fatalism, since one's choices are part of the deterministic system that
determines the 'weight' of certain futures - and I suppose it should actually lead to a
kind of 'radical acceptance'. There's no point thinking "why me?" or "what bad luck",
since your experiencing this, and indeed everything, is inevitable. But then I console
myself by thinking that any human-level qualitative interpretation of this level of
reality is mistaken, a kind of confusion of levels. And still it horrifies me...
(But like Bruno, my dedication to truth keeps me from rejecting it purely because I hate
it. The logic is very compelling.)
*/Stathis: /*
We accept as a society the risk of death by motor vehicle accident because there is a
1/10,000 chance per year it will happen to an individual, even though that means that in
a large city a person will on average be killed every day. I think this situation is
analogous to the moral question of MWI versus a single world interpretation of QM.*/
/*
*/Me:/*
#1: I do not consider quantitative chance (probability) because of its unidentified
sequence of occurrence .
#2: I take MWI as a potentially valid idea - with the proviso that the unverses are
DIFFERENT. In my narrative I give an idea to occur infinite universes of infinite
qualia - ours seems to be a moderate one with no structural access to others, what
does not mean the same vice versa. Hence: the "ZOOKEEPER" theories and the
unexplained occurrences.
#3: I take exception to any extension of anthropocentric ideas to the "everything" of
which we are not equipped to know a lot. - That pertains to quantizing (math?) and
drawing conclusions upon observations of phenomena we don't know indeed.
JM
On Mon, Apr 28, 2014 at 12:17 AM, Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com
<mailto:stath...@gmail.com>> wrote:
On 23 April 2014 21:33, Pierz <pier...@gmail.com
<mailto:pier...@gmail.com>> wrote:
On Tuesday, April 22, 2014 11:12:53 PM UTC+10, Brent wrote:
On 4/22/2014 4:54 AM, Pierz wrote:
Thanks Brent. I read Mermin and am both wiser and none-the. It
seems to me
in this paper he is chickening out by saying that QM shouldn't
really think
about the conscious observer, because that leads to the "fairy
tale" of
many worlds. Instead it should consider consciousness to reside
outside the
competent scope of a physical theory.
I don't think he means that. He just means that it's a separate
question
from the interpretation of QM and that it's a mistake to mix them
together.
It's kind of like his answer is to say "don't ask those questions".
And he
explicitly repudiates the notion that "it's all in your head" or
that a
quantum state is a "summary of your knowledge of the system". The
correlations are objective. What I liked about the paper though was
the
notion of correlations without correlata (which Garrett invokes) -
the idea
that quantum theory is about (and only about) systemic
relationships makes
a lot of sense. To take the answer to "what is QM telling us?" just
a
little further philosophically than what Mermim is prepared to, I'd
say
it's telling us (for one thing) that we've hit the limits of
atomism. We're
bouncing off the boundary of the reductionistic epistemology.
Anyway, sadly I haven't yet seen anything that could supply a cogent
alternative to MWI. I'll move on to the other papers tomorrow
night... :)
Chris Fuchs is the main proponent of quantum Bayesianism, which
also takes
the wave-function to just be a summary of one's knowledge of the
system -
and so there is nothing surprising about it "collapsing" when you
get new
information.
Of course another alternative is an objective collapse theory like
GRW. I'm
just now reading a book by Ghirardi,"Sneaking a Look at God's
Cards" which
surveys the experiments that force the weirdness of QM on us and
the various
interpretations. Of course he devotes a special chapter to GRW
theory, but
he is very even handed.
I'm not sure why you're worried about MWI though. Is it because
you read
"Divide by Infinity"? I don't think that's what MWI really implies.
No I never read that, but hell yeah, MWI worries me! Doesn't it worry
you? I
mean I know at one level that in a very real sense it doesn't matter
whether
it's true or not, since the other universes can never affect me, but at
another
the reality that everything happens to me that I can imagine is just
plain
terrifying. And the 'me' isn't just the versions of me that are still
called by
my name, I can't escape the conclusion that I am everyone and everyone
is me and
that *everyone's* experience is my experience at some level. If MWI
ever does
become the accepted conception of reality, we have a huge amount of
philosophical reorientation ahead of us. For instance, if I take some
risk (like
drink-driving, a relevant topic on another thread), and 'get away with
it', MWI
suggests I am still responsible for other realities in which I crashed
and
injured or killed myself and/or others. My whole approach to risk
management
becomes quite different if all outcomes are realised. It no longer
makes sense
to think about "if" something will happen to me in the future. I have
to accept
that it all will happen, it's just that all those future mes won't know
about
the other ones, so they will all have the impression of a single
outcome. It's a
disorienting and disturbing thought. Of course it should't lead to
fatalism,
since one's choices are part of the deterministic system that
determines the
'weight' of certain futures - and I suppose it should actually lead to
a kind of
'radical acceptance'. There's no point thinking "why me?" or "what bad
luck",
since your experiencing this, and indeed everything, is inevitable. But
then I
console myself by thinking that any human-level qualitative
interpretation of
this level of reality is mistaken, a kind of confusion of levels. And
still it
horrifies me...
(But like Bruno, my dedication to truth keeps me from rejecting it
purely
because I hate it. The logic is very compelling.)
We accept as a society the risk of death by motor vehicle accident because
there is
a 1/10,000 chance per year it will happen to an individual, even though
that means
that in a large city a person will on average be killed every day. I think
this
situation is analogous to the moral question of MWI versus a single world
interpretation of QM.
--
Stathis Papaioannou
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
email to
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
<mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com>.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com
<mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com>.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything
List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
<mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com>.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com
<mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com>.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
