4 ms·

The answer is: we are not things, we are states (and so are particles). I quickly read your article - and I think I read it before - and you make some points I

The answer is: we are not things, we are states (and so are particles). I quickly read your article - and I think I read it before - and you make some points I agree with and some with which I disagree. But I think this condensed statement you made in your comment is wrong. Not everything can be a state, you need something that can be in a state or in different states. Less importantly I don't think state is a good word to describe what I am, the usual meaning of state is something that does not change. I obviously change, my body as well as my personality, so it seems more appropriate to me to talk about sequence of states over time. Maybe even my first point is just due to a disagreement on terminology but it seems at the very least very confusing to describe fundamental particles, macroscopic objects, and persons with the same term implying identical or at least similar nature.

lisper 8y ago
> you need something that can be in a state or in different states No, you don't. That's the erroneous thinking that led people on the fruitless search for the "luminiferous aether" in the late 19th and early 20th century. Ultimately, everything in our universe emerges from the quantum wave function. I suppose you could say that the wave function is "something" but it is definitely not "some thing".
- danbruc 8y ago
  If the universe is just the wave function of the universe, then nothing is really a thing with the naive interpretation of a material thing. But that is essentially the distinction I meant, there must be a fundamental thing that we can then chop up into pieces to get the things we are talking about in everyday life. And there would probably still be good reasons to distinguish between fundamental particles and humans because fundamental particles would still be atomic things emerging from the wave function while I would be a certain, slowly changing over time, arrangement of fundamental particles. What I am not really sure about is whether it is consistent with our understanding to say that an electron is just its wave function. We usually use the wave function to describe the state of the electron but we think about the electron as a separate entity with different possible states and the wave function only describes the state the electron is in at a specific point in time. More importantly the wave function of an electron is not a unique thing, if an electron really was just its wave function, which one is it, the one in location space or the one in momentum space or yet another one?
  - lisper 8y ago
    That is an excellent question. The answer is that electrons really are their wave functions. They are not "particles". The explanation is too long for an HN comment but here's a reference: http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf or if you prefer a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc
    - danbruc 8y ago
      I have seen the talk and may have read the paper, but I remember it mostly for talking about the relation between entanglement and measurements but not for addressing the fundamental nature of particles. But even without rereading the paper I have another point that may cast some doubt onto the idea of the wave function being fundamental. There seems to be growing evidence that space and time are not fundamental which, in my opinion, makes it sound rather unlikely that the wave function will turn out to be the fundamental building block of the universe given the extend to which it depends on these concepts. Essentially I think the most honest answer right now would be to say that our understanding of physics is far from good enough to tackle the question of what is really fundamental and what is just emergent.
      - lisper 8y ago
        The "fundamental nature of particles" (according to QIT) is that there are no particles. > There seems to be growing evidence that space and time are not fundamental Yes. Time actually emerges naturally from QIT. See: http://blog.rongarret.info/2014/10/parallel-universes-and-arrow-of-time.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2014/10/parallel-universes-and-ar...
    - whatshisface 8y ago
      There are models where electrons are particles always, they are classified under the group of "pilot wave theories." At present we have proofs that these metaphysical questions are at present unanswerable, which came out many years ago. For some reason nobody wants to take the equivalency proofs seriously, and the ontological debates continue.

lisper 8y ago

> you need something that can be in a state or in different states No, you don't. That's the erroneous thinking that led people on the fruitless search for the "luminiferous aether" in the late 19th and early 20th century. Ultimately, everything in our universe emerges from the quantum wave function. I suppose you could say that the wave function is "something" but it is definitely not "some thing".

danbruc 8y ago
If the universe is just the wave function of the universe, then nothing is really a thing with the naive interpretation of a material thing. But that is essentially the distinction I meant, there must be a fundamental thing that we can then chop up into pieces to get the things we are talking about in everyday life. And there would probably still be good reasons to distinguish between fundamental particles and humans because fundamental particles would still be atomic things emerging from the wave function while I would be a certain, slowly changing over time, arrangement of fundamental particles. What I am not really sure about is whether it is consistent with our understanding to say that an electron is just its wave function. We usually use the wave function to describe the state of the electron but we think about the electron as a separate entity with different possible states and the wave function only describes the state the electron is in at a specific point in time. More importantly the wave function of an electron is not a unique thing, if an electron really was just its wave function, which one is it, the one in location space or the one in momentum space or yet another one?
- lisper 8y ago
  That is an excellent question. The answer is that electrons really are their wave functions. They are not "particles". The explanation is too long for an HN comment but here's a reference: http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf or if you prefer a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc
  - danbruc 8y ago
    I have seen the talk and may have read the paper, but I remember it mostly for talking about the relation between entanglement and measurements but not for addressing the fundamental nature of particles. But even without rereading the paper I have another point that may cast some doubt onto the idea of the wave function being fundamental. There seems to be growing evidence that space and time are not fundamental which, in my opinion, makes it sound rather unlikely that the wave function will turn out to be the fundamental building block of the universe given the extend to which it depends on these concepts. Essentially I think the most honest answer right now would be to say that our understanding of physics is far from good enough to tackle the question of what is really fundamental and what is just emergent.
    - lisper 8y ago
      The "fundamental nature of particles" (according to QIT) is that there are no particles. > There seems to be growing evidence that space and time are not fundamental Yes. Time actually emerges naturally from QIT. See: http://blog.rongarret.info/2014/10/parallel-universes-and-arrow-of-time.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2014/10/parallel-universes-and-ar...
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    There are models where electrons are particles always, they are classified under the group of "pilot wave theories." At present we have proofs that these metaphysical questions are at present unanswerable, which came out many years ago. For some reason nobody wants to take the equivalency proofs seriously, and the ontological debates continue.