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I have some sympathy for your thinking, but it is not borne of any understanding of the physical concepts you mention. > You assume wrongly. The implication is

I have some sympathy for your thinking, but it is not borne of any understanding of the physical concepts you mention. > You assume wrongly. The implication is that all wavefunctions have a corresponding consciousness. Since the universe is a nested set of wavefunctions, it's essentially all consciousness. First, a wavefunction is a way of making sense of (some of) the concepts of quantum mechanics. It has a specific meaning, and scientists to this day argue about whether it is necessary or actually a thing. When it is used, it is a scalar field that is used to describe the probability of some experimental result, i.e. a mathematical tool. It has no link whatsoever with consciousness, which is the result of electric signals going up and down a group of neurons bunched together. You sound like you want to redefine “consciousness” as “existence”. In that case there is some tautological beauty in what you say, but it is not as enlightening as you seem to think it is. > There is nothing special about consciousness, it's the unified field, it's all there actually is. What the hell does that even mean? You use scientific-sounding words without seeming to grasp their meaning. I mean, surrealism is fun, and metaphysics can be interesting, but don’t confuse them with a deep understanding of physical truths. > https://youtu.be/LPhgDfT4Zpc https://youtu.be/LPhgDfT4Zpc I need to point out that you are citing a crackpot and that there was absolutely nothing scientific in what I have seen in this video. But yeah, it probably is my mental rigidity talking.

goldenkey 6y ago
There is no difference between physicality and the information that backs it. Only a philistine would try to claim that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_wavefunction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_wavefunction > Since the universal validity of the state function description is asserted, one can regard the state functions themselves as the fundamental entities, and one can even consider the state function of the entire universe. In this sense this theory can be called the theory of the "universal wave function," since all of physics is presumed to follow from this function alone.[7] You appeal to a trivially naive interpretation of what the wavefunction represents, yet claim that I or Hagelin are the crackpots. Don't you know that all modern science requires unobservables? Yet you want to constrain the wavefunction to being a mathematical tool for measurement only because that was its intended purpose and conceptual creation. Narrow mindset. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobservable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobservable > You use scientific-sounding words without seeming to grasp their meaning. You think you understand quantum physics when no one does. Furthermore, you don't even understand wavefunctions except by their textbook definition...
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  > There is no difference between physicality and the information that backs it. Only a philistine would try to claim that. The map is not the territory. A ball is a ball and its motion is its motion, while Newton's equations of motion for that ball are something else. While it is possible that the MWI is right and the state of the entire universe could be described by a single, universal wavefunction, that wouldn't mean that the universe is that wavefunction, anymore than Maxwell's equations are the electromagnetic field. Now, there is an interesting question that indeed no one knows the answer to for now: is the wavefunction a direct description of a physical object, or is it just a statistical tool for predicting possible positions of the real objects (waves and particles existing in some duality)? Also, you shouldn't forget that none of the existing interpretations of QM actually solve the measurement problem, not even MWI. Here is Sabine Hossenfelder's explanation of this [0]: > In the many worlds interpretation, if you set up a detector for a measurement, then the detector will also split into several universes. Therefore, if you just ask “what will the detector measure”, then the answer is “The detector will measure anything that’s possible with probability 1.” > This, of course, is not what we observe. We observe only one measurement outcome. The many worlds people explain this as follows. Of course you are not supposed to calculate the probability for each branch of the detector. Because when we say detector, we don’t mean all detector branches together. You should only evaluate the probability relative to the detector in one specific branch at a time. > That sounds reasonable. Indeed, it is reasonable. It is just as reasonable as the measurement postulate. In fact, it is logically entirely equivalent to the measurement postulate. The measurement postulate says: Update probability at measurement to 100%. The detector definition in many worlds says: The “Detector” is by definition only the thing in one branch. Now evaluate probabilities relative to this, which gives you 100% in each branch. Same thing. > And because it’s the same thing you already know that you cannot derive this detector definition from the Schrödinger equation. It’s not possible. What the many worlds people are now trying instead is to derive this postulate from rational choice theory. But of course that brings back in macroscopic terms, like actors who make decisions and so on. In other words, this reference to knowledge is equally in conflict with reductionism as is the Copenhagen interpretation. [0] http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-trouble-with-many-worlds.html http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-trouble-with-ma...

goldenkey 6y ago

There is no difference between physicality and the information that backs it. Only a philistine would try to claim that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_wavefunction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_wavefunction > Since the universal validity of the state function description is asserted, one can regard the state functions themselves as the fundamental entities, and one can even consider the state function of the entire universe. In this sense this theory can be called the theory of the "universal wave function," since all of physics is presumed to follow from this function alone.[7] You appeal to a trivially naive interpretation of what the wavefunction represents, yet claim that I or Hagelin are the crackpots. Don't you know that all modern science requires unobservables? Yet you want to constrain the wavefunction to being a mathematical tool for measurement only because that was its intended purpose and conceptual creation. Narrow mindset. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobservable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobservable > You use scientific-sounding words without seeming to grasp their meaning. You think you understand quantum physics when no one does. Furthermore, you don't even understand wavefunctions except by their textbook definition...

tsimionescu 6y ago
> There is no difference between physicality and the information that backs it. Only a philistine would try to claim that. The map is not the territory. A ball is a ball and its motion is its motion, while Newton's equations of motion for that ball are something else. While it is possible that the MWI is right and the state of the entire universe could be described by a single, universal wavefunction, that wouldn't mean that the universe is that wavefunction, anymore than Maxwell's equations are the electromagnetic field. Now, there is an interesting question that indeed no one knows the answer to for now: is the wavefunction a direct description of a physical object, or is it just a statistical tool for predicting possible positions of the real objects (waves and particles existing in some duality)? Also, you shouldn't forget that none of the existing interpretations of QM actually solve the measurement problem, not even MWI. Here is Sabine Hossenfelder's explanation of this [0]: > In the many worlds interpretation, if you set up a detector for a measurement, then the detector will also split into several universes. Therefore, if you just ask “what will the detector measure”, then the answer is “The detector will measure anything that’s possible with probability 1.” > This, of course, is not what we observe. We observe only one measurement outcome. The many worlds people explain this as follows. Of course you are not supposed to calculate the probability for each branch of the detector. Because when we say detector, we don’t mean all detector branches together. You should only evaluate the probability relative to the detector in one specific branch at a time. > That sounds reasonable. Indeed, it is reasonable. It is just as reasonable as the measurement postulate. In fact, it is logically entirely equivalent to the measurement postulate. The measurement postulate says: Update probability at measurement to 100%. The detector definition in many worlds says: The “Detector” is by definition only the thing in one branch. Now evaluate probabilities relative to this, which gives you 100% in each branch. Same thing. > And because it’s the same thing you already know that you cannot derive this detector definition from the Schrödinger equation. It’s not possible. What the many worlds people are now trying instead is to derive this postulate from rational choice theory. But of course that brings back in macroscopic terms, like actors who make decisions and so on. In other words, this reference to knowledge is equally in conflict with reductionism as is the Copenhagen interpretation. [0] http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-trouble-with-many-worlds.html http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-trouble-with-ma...