4 ms·

It's only solipsism in the sense that my wavefunctions do not have to agree with yours. There is a correlation between us, still. So it isn't like our wavefunc

It's only solipsism in the sense that my wavefunctions do not have to agree with yours. There is a correlation between us, still. So it isn't like our wavefunctions are going to be radically different. We both are entangled since the Big Bang and even after that many times over as shared information exchanges between us. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner%27s_friend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner%27s_friend

tsimionescu 5y ago
The article you cite provides various alternatives to this world view. It even contains the fun observation that the experiment has actually been performed, but with photons instead of observers - showing just how important consciousness really is in physical theories. In general, I believe the most obvious interpretation of consciousness is simply as a computational process, so looking at consciousness as a key to QM is incompatible with my beliefs. Furthermore, given the classical-ness of the world we see everyday, I have huge problems believing theories like MWI or these consciousness-based ones that claim the world is entirely quantum everywhere and it's just some kind of accident that it seems so classical to us (contrast to relativity which has a very satisfying answer for why we don't notice the difference from classical mechanics).
- goldenkey 5y ago
  > I have huge problems believing The universe is indifferent to your persuasions. The double slit experiment has been successfully performed on large molecules of 810 atoms. Quantum mechanics is fundamentally about knowledge and information after interactions. You seem to be a physics guy but something tells me you aren't aware that every single interaction causes entanglement. Entanglement is simply a constraint on interaction products, given the input particles. It is just easier to see its effects on small objects since they are less likely to be perturbed. https://arxiv.org/abs/1310.8343 https://arxiv.org/abs/1310.8343
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    What you're describing is one self-consistent possibility. But there are other self-consistent possibilities, and all have an equally-good claim to being 'how the universe really works'. Some people are really adamant that MWI is the one. Some are adamant that Copenhagen is the only sound one. It may even turn out that Pilot wave theory is true and none of this quantum weirdness is really all that different from the classical world. I think we just don't know enough yet to choose any one interpretation. I hope that at some point we'll find a way to address the measurement problem - either finding that the classical world also behaves quantically or that there is some clear limit between them or that the quantum world behaves classically (least likely). But until then, we're all just guessing. Edit: 810 atoms is great, just ~6.023*10^21 more to go and we'll have something that is truly in our range of advertising.
    - goldenkey 5y ago
      Even more macroscopic now: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01223-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01223-4 Eraser experiments have already shown that collapse either doesn't actually happen or is reversible. It appears that all observables are just lazily evaluated nested expressions. Collapse/decoherence is just the phenomena of simplification of expressions. The expressions don't change. In the quantum eraser experiment, the erasure causes the expression to no longer be simplifiable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed-choice_quantum_eraser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed-choice_quantum_eraser

tsimionescu 5y ago

The article you cite provides various alternatives to this world view. It even contains the fun observation that the experiment has actually been performed, but with photons instead of observers - showing just how important consciousness really is in physical theories. In general, I believe the most obvious interpretation of consciousness is simply as a computational process, so looking at consciousness as a key to QM is incompatible with my beliefs. Furthermore, given the classical-ness of the world we see everyday, I have huge problems believing theories like MWI or these consciousness-based ones that claim the world is entirely quantum everywhere and it's just some kind of accident that it seems so classical to us (contrast to relativity which has a very satisfying answer for why we don't notice the difference from classical mechanics).

goldenkey 5y ago
> I have huge problems believing The universe is indifferent to your persuasions. The double slit experiment has been successfully performed on large molecules of 810 atoms. Quantum mechanics is fundamentally about knowledge and information after interactions. You seem to be a physics guy but something tells me you aren't aware that every single interaction causes entanglement. Entanglement is simply a constraint on interaction products, given the input particles. It is just easier to see its effects on small objects since they are less likely to be perturbed. https://arxiv.org/abs/1310.8343 https://arxiv.org/abs/1310.8343
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  What you're describing is one self-consistent possibility. But there are other self-consistent possibilities, and all have an equally-good claim to being 'how the universe really works'. Some people are really adamant that MWI is the one. Some are adamant that Copenhagen is the only sound one. It may even turn out that Pilot wave theory is true and none of this quantum weirdness is really all that different from the classical world. I think we just don't know enough yet to choose any one interpretation. I hope that at some point we'll find a way to address the measurement problem - either finding that the classical world also behaves quantically or that there is some clear limit between them or that the quantum world behaves classically (least likely). But until then, we're all just guessing. Edit: 810 atoms is great, just ~6.023*10^21 more to go and we'll have something that is truly in our range of advertising.
  - goldenkey 5y ago
    Even more macroscopic now: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01223-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01223-4 Eraser experiments have already shown that collapse either doesn't actually happen or is reversible. It appears that all observables are just lazily evaluated nested expressions. Collapse/decoherence is just the phenomena of simplification of expressions. The expressions don't change. In the quantum eraser experiment, the erasure causes the expression to no longer be simplifiable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed-choice_quantum_eraser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed-choice_quantum_eraser