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Actually it would make physics easier to simulate in some cases, depending on what you'd like to achieve. Specifically, if you wanted random outcomes calculate

Actually it would make physics easier to simulate in some cases, depending on what you'd like to achieve. Specifically, if you wanted random outcomes calculated at interaction, waves allow you to describe the potential positions continuously instead of needing to calculate a trillion+ potential positions for single particles. Why someone would need to calculate outcomes at interaction is a different question entirely, but I would avoid making too specific assumptions about our overlords at this point.

krastanov 5y ago
No, quantum phenomena do not make physics easier to simulate in any setting that obeys the already measured laws of physics in our universe. Your example does not really have anything even remotely to do with the wave-particle duality. You are making a significant categorical error: the duality is not that things are both particles and/or waves. "Things" are quantum fields that are more difficult to represent than either of classical counterparts, but they do happen to kinda behave like them (particles or waves) in some parameter limits. The metaphor you are using is simply wrong.
- mach1ne 5y ago
  I know you will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're just stating that the world operates on quantum fields. I'm not questioning that. It is just that the fact that our universe harbors intelligent life, and perhaps organization in general, seems to be dependent on the fact that quantum fields behave "particle-like" in interactions. The fact that the bottom seems to be quantum fields instead of either particles or waves doesn't in any way exclude the possibility that this was a deliberate design choice to compute random outcomes from continuous possibilities at interactions.
  - krastanov 5y ago
    Yes, you are right. However, this "design choice" makes things less efficient and more cumbersome to compute, not the other way around. There are easy ways to get random numbers from continuous dynamics that do not involve something as painful as quantum fields. There are also some consistency arguments (contradictions arising in classical theories that do not exist in quantum theories, so maybe it was not even a "choice", but the only way to make a self-consistent simulation). And there is the whole interpreation-of-quantum-mechanics issue: it is a separate can of worms to even claim that measurements of quantum observables produce random outcomes (but that question is too philosophical for me).

krastanov 5y ago

No, quantum phenomena do not make physics easier to simulate in any setting that obeys the already measured laws of physics in our universe. Your example does not really have anything even remotely to do with the wave-particle duality. You are making a significant categorical error: the duality is not that things are both particles and/or waves. "Things" are quantum fields that are more difficult to represent than either of classical counterparts, but they do happen to kinda behave like them (particles or waves) in some parameter limits. The metaphor you are using is simply wrong.

mach1ne 5y ago
I know you will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're just stating that the world operates on quantum fields. I'm not questioning that. It is just that the fact that our universe harbors intelligent life, and perhaps organization in general, seems to be dependent on the fact that quantum fields behave "particle-like" in interactions. The fact that the bottom seems to be quantum fields instead of either particles or waves doesn't in any way exclude the possibility that this was a deliberate design choice to compute random outcomes from continuous possibilities at interactions.
- krastanov 5y ago
  Yes, you are right. However, this "design choice" makes things less efficient and more cumbersome to compute, not the other way around. There are easy ways to get random numbers from continuous dynamics that do not involve something as painful as quantum fields. There are also some consistency arguments (contradictions arising in classical theories that do not exist in quantum theories, so maybe it was not even a "choice", but the only way to make a self-consistent simulation). And there is the whole interpreation-of-quantum-mechanics issue: it is a separate can of worms to even claim that measurements of quantum observables produce random outcomes (but that question is too philosophical for me).