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I remember the first time someone explained to me that the uncertainty principle was just a fact of waves. Decomposing a single event into frequency space makes

I remember the first time someone explained to me that the uncertainty principle was just a fact of waves. Decomposing a single event into frequency space makes no sense, and neither does the inverse, taking a frequency (a succession of regular events) and expecting it to have instantaneous meaning. When I heard this I felt a profound sadness. After I was told it seemed obvious, simple, intelligible, and the idea of a great cosmic darkness, Chaos disordering and underpinning the universe, had vanished and been replaced by a plain mathematical relationship. Alack.

lisper 10y ago
How odd. When I grokked the uncertainty principle (and later, entanglement) I felt a profound sense of euphoria and peace, because the world suddenly made sense. Can you elaborate on why achieving this understanding made you sad? Why is it so important to you to have chaos and disorder?
- astazangasta 10y ago
  Hard to say - it was a visceral reaction that mostly manifested as a brief resistance to the idea ("no, that can't be right"). I imagine some component of my thought wants a space in the universe that is claimed by mystery. I enjoyed reading Heisenberg's "Physics and Philosophy", where he discusses the quixotic nature of the double-slit experiment and so on, notably things like observation collapsing the wave function and removing the diffraction pattern. Heisenberg definitely colors these things with an air of mystery, the idea that the operation of the universe flies in the face of what we think of as sensible. I'm someone who has always enjoyed being on the margins, questioning, overturning, poking at consensus. Before I understood the uncertainty principle I think it was a door to a much blacker mystery, and thus a much greater rejection of the notion that "we understand", which I think is something I have always associated with evil, hubris, and folly.

lisper 10y ago

How odd. When I grokked the uncertainty principle (and later, entanglement) I felt a profound sense of euphoria and peace, because the world suddenly made sense. Can you elaborate on why achieving this understanding made you sad? Why is it so important to you to have chaos and disorder?

astazangasta 10y ago
Hard to say - it was a visceral reaction that mostly manifested as a brief resistance to the idea ("no, that can't be right"). I imagine some component of my thought wants a space in the universe that is claimed by mystery. I enjoyed reading Heisenberg's "Physics and Philosophy", where he discusses the quixotic nature of the double-slit experiment and so on, notably things like observation collapsing the wave function and removing the diffraction pattern. Heisenberg definitely colors these things with an air of mystery, the idea that the operation of the universe flies in the face of what we think of as sensible. I'm someone who has always enjoyed being on the margins, questioning, overturning, poking at consensus. Before I understood the uncertainty principle I think it was a door to a much blacker mystery, and thus a much greater rejection of the notion that "we understand", which I think is something I have always associated with evil, hubris, and folly.