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Beware that in professional physics Rogers Penrose's view on QM and consciousness are not considered mainstream (to put it mildly). I had a great pleasure of ta

by stared 9y ago

Beware that in professional physics Rogers Penrose's view on QM and consciousness are not considered mainstream (to put it mildly). I had a great pleasure of talking him in person, and he falls into the Platonic trap. The best antidote is to talk with some actual neurobiologists, or read philosophy of mind (e.g. Daniel Dennett with Consciousness Explained). At the same time I recommend reading "How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival" by David Kaiser (http://www.hippiessavedphysics.com/ http://www.hippiessavedphysics.com/) - a general reading on the beginnings of quantum information (also, why quantum metaphysics is tempting but does not work); bear in mind it overvalues hippies - this field has also different, Soviet roots - vide Holevo’s theorem. Or even better - start actually interacting with some quantum mechanics, rather than considering it mystical or esoteric. As Griffiths put it in his Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (Chapter 4.4.1, https://archive.org/details/IntroductionToQuantumMechanics_718 https://archive.org/details/IntroductionToQuantumMechanics_7...): "To the layman, the philosopher, or the classical physicist, a statement of the form “this particle doesn’t have a well-defined position” [...] sounds vague, incompetent, or (worst of all) profound. It is none of these." ...an of course, play http://quantumgame.io/ http://quantumgame.io/ :) (a recent submit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14432176 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14432176)

zeotroph 9y ago
> Platonic trap. i.e. is a believer in the mind & body dualism, an idea first put forth by Aristotle and Plato, and later famously championed by Descartes. Though the "quantum" variant is not as far out as the "soul" one. However neither are supported by science, but the knowledge gap regarding consciousness is still large enough that something might still hide in it. Though Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle fell into many traps, this is probably the relevant one.
- stared 9y ago
  Well, once you start believing that mathematical objects (or any other concepts) exist in some abstract sense (rather than are some kind of emergent property of our bodies, minds and social interactions) it's an easy path to get to ridiculous conclusions. (Cf. a very naturalistic vision of science itself by Ludwick Fleck.) Sure, we don't understand consciousness yet (or maybe we never will). Still, it doesn't mean that it is good to fall into some plausible, and comforting, mental trap. Vide Feynman's "I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong".
  - zeotroph 9y ago
    Is there an name for this "reality first" or "reality triumphs" concept? The closest I can think of is The Talos Principle, it is the name of a game, but in its context the meaning is, paraphrasing: "At the end of the day, even the mightiest thinkers and philosophers are made of flesh and bone". On the other end, there is a Greg Egan (science fiction) novel where exactly this does not hold and pure maths can create virtual worlds in some abstract math universe, i.e. not running on a physical computer (though I think one was needed to bootstrap this into perpetual existence). The name escapes me at the moment. You might be able to weave the consciousness problem into there by following the simulation hypothesis and claiming that the brain (of humans or some smart enough ancestor?) was either created with a shortcut to the underlying compute power or that over the course of evolution (think the FPGA + evolutionary algorithm story) this link developed, possibly independently multiple times. And since most concepts underlying biology are understood, "Quantum-woo" is the last holdout (see Penroses microtubuli idea).
    - Twisol 9y ago
      > The name escapes me at the moment. You're referencing Greg Egan's "Permutation City", I think? http://www.gregegan.net/PERMUTATION/Permutation.html http://www.gregegan.net/PERMUTATION/Permutation.html
      - zeotroph 9y ago
        Exactly that one, thank you two walnut-shaped minds, both thinking alike. Greg Egan calls this concept (see the linked FAQ there) the Dust Theory, and again > > How seriously do you take the Dust Theory yourself? > Not very seriously, although I have yet to hear a convincing refutation of it on purely logical grounds. it juuuust might maybe true (however unlikely).
    - arethuza 9y ago
      Permutation City? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City
    - 9y ago
rnikander 9y ago
I tried to read Griffiths once, but I couldn't learn that way. I wish there were a path to learn quantum mechanics from a programmer's point of view, with "how to" knowledge rather than only the declarative language of mathematical equations. When I look at a differential equation like the wave function in the first pages of the Griffiths book, I don't see it. But when I look at the code to compute a derivative or integral, and can build up pieces and see it plotted on the screen, it starts to make sense. If anyone knows a good set of books to take this approach, please post.
- stared 9y ago
  You mean something in this line? http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/jrjohansson/qutip-lectures/blob/master/Lecture-0-Introduction-to-QuTiP.ipynb http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/jrjohansson/qutip-lecture... For QM my strong suggestion is to start with 2-level states anyway (vide http://p.migdal.pl/2016/08/15/quantum-mechanics-for-high-school-students.html http://p.migdal.pl/2016/08/15/quantum-mechanics-for-high-sch...).
  - rnikander 9y ago
    Thanks! Those links give me a lot to explore. I'm trying the game... level 4 just taught me something.

by stared 9y ago

zeotroph 9y ago

> Platonic trap. i.e. is a believer in the mind & body dualism, an idea first put forth by Aristotle and Plato, and later famously championed by Descartes. Though the "quantum" variant is not as far out as the "soul" one. However neither are supported by science, but the knowledge gap regarding consciousness is still large enough that something might still hide in it. Though Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle fell into many traps, this is probably the relevant one.

stared 9y ago
Well, once you start believing that mathematical objects (or any other concepts) exist in some abstract sense (rather than are some kind of emergent property of our bodies, minds and social interactions) it's an easy path to get to ridiculous conclusions. (Cf. a very naturalistic vision of science itself by Ludwick Fleck.) Sure, we don't understand consciousness yet (or maybe we never will). Still, it doesn't mean that it is good to fall into some plausible, and comforting, mental trap. Vide Feynman's "I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong".
- zeotroph 9y ago
  Is there an name for this "reality first" or "reality triumphs" concept? The closest I can think of is The Talos Principle, it is the name of a game, but in its context the meaning is, paraphrasing: "At the end of the day, even the mightiest thinkers and philosophers are made of flesh and bone". On the other end, there is a Greg Egan (science fiction) novel where exactly this does not hold and pure maths can create virtual worlds in some abstract math universe, i.e. not running on a physical computer (though I think one was needed to bootstrap this into perpetual existence). The name escapes me at the moment. You might be able to weave the consciousness problem into there by following the simulation hypothesis and claiming that the brain (of humans or some smart enough ancestor?) was either created with a shortcut to the underlying compute power or that over the course of evolution (think the FPGA + evolutionary algorithm story) this link developed, possibly independently multiple times. And since most concepts underlying biology are understood, "Quantum-woo" is the last holdout (see Penroses microtubuli idea).
  - Twisol 9y ago
    > The name escapes me at the moment. You're referencing Greg Egan's "Permutation City", I think? http://www.gregegan.net/PERMUTATION/Permutation.html http://www.gregegan.net/PERMUTATION/Permutation.html
    - zeotroph 9y ago
      Exactly that one, thank you two walnut-shaped minds, both thinking alike. Greg Egan calls this concept (see the linked FAQ there) the Dust Theory, and again > > How seriously do you take the Dust Theory yourself? > Not very seriously, although I have yet to hear a convincing refutation of it on purely logical grounds. it juuuust might maybe true (however unlikely).
  - arethuza 9y ago
    Permutation City? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City
  - 9y ago

rnikander 9y ago

I tried to read Griffiths once, but I couldn't learn that way. I wish there were a path to learn quantum mechanics from a programmer's point of view, with "how to" knowledge rather than only the declarative language of mathematical equations. When I look at a differential equation like the wave function in the first pages of the Griffiths book, I don't see it. But when I look at the code to compute a derivative or integral, and can build up pieces and see it plotted on the screen, it starts to make sense. If anyone knows a good set of books to take this approach, please post.

stared 9y ago
You mean something in this line? http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/jrjohansson/qutip-lectures/blob/master/Lecture-0-Introduction-to-QuTiP.ipynb http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/jrjohansson/qutip-lecture... For QM my strong suggestion is to start with 2-level states anyway (vide http://p.migdal.pl/2016/08/15/quantum-mechanics-for-high-school-students.html http://p.migdal.pl/2016/08/15/quantum-mechanics-for-high-sch...).
- rnikander 9y ago
  Thanks! Those links give me a lot to explore. I'm trying the game... level 4 just taught me something.