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That's the counterfactual Scott is asking us to consider. See this comment for elaboration on exactly what kind of relevance rhis counterfactual has for QM htt
by platz 5y ago
That's the counterfactual Scott is asking us to consider. See this comment for elaboration on exactly what kind of relevance rhis counterfactual has for QM https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30117928 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30117928
- breuleux 5y agoI'm not a fan of the teleological angle I'm seeing here. The universe doesn't serve a purpose, it's not doing a "job", any level of complexity is needless. Putting that misgiving aside, I think I get what you're saying (correct me if I'm wrong): the question is whether the "simpler" or at least more naive classical rules of physics could be the foundation for a world that looks and feels exactly like ours, e.g. one that forms a substance that has the precise properties of water, one that can support a stable form of DNA with which to assemble living beings, and so on. The answer to that depends on how far exactly you are willing to depart from perfect fidelity. To put it another way: what is exactly the set of invariants that you aim to preserve from QM to classical? Do you need them to be exactly the same? Probably not feasible. Do you want water to behave exactly the same? I would tend to say it couldn't. Do you want it to have stars? To be able to evolve humanoids? To be able to evolve life? These are all interesting questions on their own, but they may all have separate answers.