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Consonant with the theme of deposing humanity from the center/top e.g. geocentric to heliocentric. Bergson's perspective, which I interpret as 'things don't ma

Consonant with the theme of deposing humanity from the center/top e.g. geocentric to heliocentric. Bergson's perspective, which I interpret as 'things don't matter until they matter to someone', strikes me as more like engineering or economics: use not truth. OTOH there's that quantum mechanics idea (that I don't understand) that a waveform only collapses into particles when observed by a conscious "observer"... seems very anthropocentric. Surely it can't be right.

makmanalp 11y ago
I always wondered about the observer and how the fuck the particles "know" (or detect) that they are being observed or what is even the criteria - is a human being an observer? What about a measuring device a la Schrodinger? Does the device measuring count as an observation, or is it when a human looks at the device? Turns out we're not the only ones confused: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_(quantum_physics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_(quantum_physics) Peruse that page and the external link at the bottom to some person's thesis that is a bit long but looks interesting.
- asimuvPR 11y ago
  This made me chuckle: Critics of the special role of the observer also point out that observers can themselves be observed, leading to paradoxes such as that of Wigner's friend; and that it is not clear how much consciousness is required ("Was the wave function waiting to jump for thousands of millions of years until a single-celled living creature appeared? Or did it have to wait a little longer for some highly qualified measurer - with a PhD?"[3]).
  - spacehome 11y ago
    It's observers all the way down.
mkl 11y ago
> OTOH there's that quantum mechanics idea (that I don't understand) that a waveform only collapses into particles when observed by a conscious "observer"... seems very anthropocentric. Surely it can't be right. It's not right; it's a nonsensical (yet common) misinterpretation. It's not possible to measure quantum things without affecting what happens - no consciousness needed, just really tiny experimental subjects that are affected by influences from outside the system being analysed. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics) and its Quantum mechanics section.
spacehome 11y ago
Of course it's not right. The Many Worlds interpretation is a much more elegant explanation that does not privilege humans or consciousness.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  I have always wondered what Hugh Everett would have done in physics if he was not so discouraged.
- coldtea 11y ago
  And why would that be "more elegant"? If, after merely a few centuries of industrial revolution, we are nearing to be able to make a good enough physics simulation, and thus it's conceivable that in th future (100-1000 years) we could create a very fine simulation of a world (with simulated humans in it too, a la Sims). Then the same (that they themselves will be eventually able to create a simulation) can be said for the inhabitants of the simulated world we've created. This means that in the end, there might be thousands or millions of such simulations inside a prior simulation. This begs the question: why would then our world not be a simulation itself? Certainly if there are 1000's of simulations, it's more probable that we're somewhere in the middle than on the top of the stack. Now consider the simulation above us: they create our universe as a simulation. It would then make sense that: 1) the simulation would be in final analysis discreet. 2) it would only spare computation cycles when it was worth it. So, (1) would involve something like Planks length (and related constants). And (2) would make it so that "reality" (active simulation) exists only when one of us (humans/consciousness) look at it.
  - spacehome 11y ago
    MWI is just the unitary, deterministic, local, continuous, linear evolution of a partial differential equation. There's no extra semantics that need to be added to tell you how to interpret it. It's the only interpretation of quantum mechanics that has all of these properties. Others fail most of those qualifications. I'm particularly bothered by the thought that we don't live in a deterministic universe. This is what I mean by "more elegant". As for whether our universe is a simulation, I'm familiar with Bostrom's argument, which you outlined. It's certainly an interesting idea and might be correct, but orthogonal to the original question of interpretations of quantum mechanics.
TheCartographer 11y ago
Mmmm, sort of. It's probably easier to understand the why of Bergson's theories in their historical context. In the early 20th century, General Relativity and Special Relativity had space and time 'figured out' and quantum mechanics wasn't really a thing yet. The common train of thought post-Einstein but pre-quantum mechanics was that physics was close to a theory of everything: that the universe could be described with a set of deterministic equations and everything, including human behavior, could be successfully predicted from the beginning of time to the end of time. Bergson's objections to Einstein are rooted in the concept of free will. They centered on Einstein's handling of time as another spatial concept. Physics would never be able to quantify human behavior, according to Bergson, because Einstein used the wrong model of time. Time (again, according to Bergson) isn't a countable and finite dimension like space is - and thus Einstein was wrong. Bergson was also had no small amount of mathematical understanding, although he certainly wasn't at Einstein's level. Prior to this debate, he wrote an entire book about Einstein's Twins Paradox, and why it the premise it started from - that of a countable, space-like time, was wrong. One reason that the Bergson-Einstein debate impacted the Nobel committee to such a degree was academic politics. At the time, many thought that physics had everything figured out and it wasn't long until everything, including human behavior, could be predicted using the scientific methods of physics and relativity. Not unsurprisingly, a LOT of non-physicists had a problem with this idea. Now off to read to the article, so I can see what was actually discussed there....

makmanalp 11y ago

I always wondered about the observer and how the fuck the particles "know" (or detect) that they are being observed or what is even the criteria - is a human being an observer? What about a measuring device a la Schrodinger? Does the device measuring count as an observation, or is it when a human looks at the device? Turns out we're not the only ones confused: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_(quantum_physics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_(quantum_physics) Peruse that page and the external link at the bottom to some person's thesis that is a bit long but looks interesting.

asimuvPR 11y ago
This made me chuckle: Critics of the special role of the observer also point out that observers can themselves be observed, leading to paradoxes such as that of Wigner's friend; and that it is not clear how much consciousness is required ("Was the wave function waiting to jump for thousands of millions of years until a single-celled living creature appeared? Or did it have to wait a little longer for some highly qualified measurer - with a PhD?"[3]).
- spacehome 11y ago
  It's observers all the way down.

mkl 11y ago

> OTOH there's that quantum mechanics idea (that I don't understand) that a waveform only collapses into particles when observed by a conscious "observer"... seems very anthropocentric. Surely it can't be right. It's not right; it's a nonsensical (yet common) misinterpretation. It's not possible to measure quantum things without affecting what happens - no consciousness needed, just really tiny experimental subjects that are affected by influences from outside the system being analysed. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics) and its Quantum mechanics section.

spacehome 11y ago

Of course it's not right. The Many Worlds interpretation is a much more elegant explanation that does not privilege humans or consciousness.

danieltillett 11y ago
I have always wondered what Hugh Everett would have done in physics if he was not so discouraged.
coldtea 11y ago
And why would that be "more elegant"? If, after merely a few centuries of industrial revolution, we are nearing to be able to make a good enough physics simulation, and thus it's conceivable that in th future (100-1000 years) we could create a very fine simulation of a world (with simulated humans in it too, a la Sims). Then the same (that they themselves will be eventually able to create a simulation) can be said for the inhabitants of the simulated world we've created. This means that in the end, there might be thousands or millions of such simulations inside a prior simulation. This begs the question: why would then our world not be a simulation itself? Certainly if there are 1000's of simulations, it's more probable that we're somewhere in the middle than on the top of the stack. Now consider the simulation above us: they create our universe as a simulation. It would then make sense that: 1) the simulation would be in final analysis discreet. 2) it would only spare computation cycles when it was worth it. So, (1) would involve something like Planks length (and related constants). And (2) would make it so that "reality" (active simulation) exists only when one of us (humans/consciousness) look at it.
- spacehome 11y ago
  MWI is just the unitary, deterministic, local, continuous, linear evolution of a partial differential equation. There's no extra semantics that need to be added to tell you how to interpret it. It's the only interpretation of quantum mechanics that has all of these properties. Others fail most of those qualifications. I'm particularly bothered by the thought that we don't live in a deterministic universe. This is what I mean by "more elegant". As for whether our universe is a simulation, I'm familiar with Bostrom's argument, which you outlined. It's certainly an interesting idea and might be correct, but orthogonal to the original question of interpretations of quantum mechanics.

TheCartographer 11y ago

Mmmm, sort of. It's probably easier to understand the why of Bergson's theories in their historical context. In the early 20th century, General Relativity and Special Relativity had space and time 'figured out' and quantum mechanics wasn't really a thing yet. The common train of thought post-Einstein but pre-quantum mechanics was that physics was close to a theory of everything: that the universe could be described with a set of deterministic equations and everything, including human behavior, could be successfully predicted from the beginning of time to the end of time. Bergson's objections to Einstein are rooted in the concept of free will. They centered on Einstein's handling of time as another spatial concept. Physics would never be able to quantify human behavior, according to Bergson, because Einstein used the wrong model of time. Time (again, according to Bergson) isn't a countable and finite dimension like space is - and thus Einstein was wrong. Bergson was also had no small amount of mathematical understanding, although he certainly wasn't at Einstein's level. Prior to this debate, he wrote an entire book about Einstein's Twins Paradox, and why it the premise it started from - that of a countable, space-like time, was wrong. One reason that the Bergson-Einstein debate impacted the Nobel committee to such a degree was academic politics. At the time, many thought that physics had everything figured out and it wasn't long until everything, including human behavior, could be predicted using the scientific methods of physics and relativity. Not unsurprisingly, a LOT of non-physicists had a problem with this idea. Now off to read to the article, so I can see what was actually discussed there....