On Wednesday, September 25, 2024 at 1:34:35 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:
On Wed, Sep 25, 2024 at 9:11 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote: > *You go off on ridiculous tangents. I was just informing you that the measurement problem is the collapse of the wf. It isn't that we don't know what a measurement is. It's just an action to discover the value of some observable.* *A** measurement is an observation, and an observation is a measurement. Glad you cleared that up. * That's what you needed. Unfortunately, you don't know the difference between a measurement, and the measurement problem in QM. AG *> Next time you see a cockroach make a measurement, be sure to inform the List. AG * *OK so a cockroach isn't smart enough to collapse the wave function, what about a frog, or a dog, or a chimpanzee? When a photographic film records an image is that enough of an "action" to collapse the wave function or does a conscious being need to look at the picture? If you open Schrodinger's box and observe the cat you collapse the animal's wavefunction, but if I am in the next room and not looking at you then your wave function has not collapsed, so has the cat's wave function collapsed or not? And when nobody is observing (a.k.a. measuring) the Moon does it still exist? Copenhagen has no answers to any of these questions and apparently you don't either. * The same problem persists; your inability to understand English! The fact is animals make measurements all the time. Otherwise they couldn't survive. But *the measurement problem in QM* is a totally different issue, involving wf collapse, and I made no claim to be able to solve it. AG *>> I can observe the observable universe by definition, and if I can observe something then it must be finite. * *> Sure, what you can observe, can't be infinite. But there's no guarantee that observations necessarily implyt what's being observed isn't part of something infinite. AG * *I agree completely, there's no guarantee that "what's being observed isn't part of something infinite" but.... you were claiming that the entire universe, observable plus unobservable, must be finite.* Actually not. I think our bubble, both parts, are finite, but the substratum from whence it originated, is likely infinite, uncreated, and eternal. AG * Have you changed your mind and come over to my position that we just don't have enough information to determine if the universe is finite or infinite? * Well, of course, we don't know for sure, but I think our bubble is finite, and if you could run the clock back, the galaxies now out of view, would reappear. AG > *Obviously, one can't observe infinity. Neither can one know whether what is being observed is part of something infinite. AG * *Well I guess you have changed your mind. Good for you! * No, haven't changed my mind. Just responding to your unnecessary and obvious claim that we can't observe the infinite. AG *>> Do you believe the observable universe is the only part of the universe that exists? * *> No. I don't see why you bring this up.* *I keep bringing this up because you don't seem to understand the implications. * The problem lies entirely with your misreading my words. AG *> There's likely a huge unobservable part, but I think it's finite,* *OK let's see where that leads. Obviously if the universe is infinite then it can't have a center, BUT it can if it's finite.* Not if it's spherically shaped, which is what think. AG * And we know that our best observations made by the Planck Satellite are consistent with space being absolutely flat, * Not absolutely flat. There are always measurement errors, so if the bubble is huge, the difference between flat and slightly curved positively, can't be determined. AG *and if it does have zero curvature and it's finite then **the Pope was right and Galileo was wrong, **Earth really is the center of the universe; * This is an example of why it's virtually impossible to have an intelligent discussion with you. You come to conclusions which are not in the ballpark of what I mean or intend to posit. AG *and if you travel 13.8 billion light years you'd reach a wall that was impenetrable because there was nothing on the other side, in fact the wall didn't even have another side. * Our bubble has no edge or boundary, like a sphere. AG * >> **As I said before, even if inflation never happened there would still be galaxies expanding away from us faster than the speed of light,* *> That doesn't necessarily imply an infinite universe.* *I never said or implied that it did. If I was a bookie I'd give you 100 to 1 odds that the Big Bang happened, but on the infinite versus finite question I couldn't do better than 50-50. I don't pretend to know the answer. * *> Sometime, hopefully, you will deal with my main point; my claim that IF the universe is infinite in spatial extent, there was no BB.* *If that is your main point then your main point is nonsense. There almost certainly was a Big Bang, but that information is of no help whatsoever in determining if the universe is finite or infinite. * All I claimed is that IF our bubble were infinite, there was no BB, and that from which it emerged was likely infinite. But I believe our bubble is finite, so there was likely a BB. AG John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis> rpi -- 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. 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