4 ms·

Is it vaguely related? He wondered why measuring anything even works. Why wouldn’t the measurement disappear, thus making all this measuring pointless? Because,

Is it vaguely related? He wondered why measuring anything even works. Why wouldn’t the measurement disappear, thus making all this measuring pointless? Because, apparently the measurement(s) are true each time-step, and it will be true for that time, until it’s not true. Why it reasonably works well for us? Well, God , I guess. Same way the Sun doesn’t burn our skin off (God, I guess, but some have issues with that). Sorry, I had to critique that immediately because I could already see that other second paragraph I quoted coming, as in, this author probably worships Math, Science, and those that do it, certainly not God, because he was unable to characterize the phenomena of it as related to God.

n4r9 16d ago
Yes, vaguely related. Dirac is not wondering why measurement itself works, but why mathematical reasoning applies so effectively to the measurement results. I think it's valid to be surprised that all observations of a physical phenomena up until this point have obeyed a beautiful and (relatively) simple mathematical relationship, without even thinking about predicting the future.
GoblinSlayer 16d ago
Measurement works because universe moves in a simple way. As Hume indicates, you need very complex motion for irregularity, maybe even sentient, but sentient universe is fairy tale.
- pixl97 15d ago
  > but sentient universe is fairy tale. Ehhhhh.... this is actually a much bigger claim than you realize and to immediately dismiss it leads to some problematic issues in the continuum of reality. Without a rigorous falsifiable definition of sentient at all scales it can apply at best the problem is undefined. Are brains sentient? Are neurons sentient? Are the actual algorithms these structures run sentient? Without those answers we can really only say "The universe is probably not sentient". Also, you are the universe experiencing itself.
  - deleted 15d ago
    [deleted]
  - GoblinSlayer 15d ago
    For a regularity to be broken, the phenomenon causing this regularity should be sentient to break the regularity in an intelligently chosen way. It doesn't matter how sentient are neurons, they don't affect anything and might as well be absent. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_of_Neptune https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_of_Neptune - what neurons did there?
    - general_reveal 15d ago
      In other words, if I write this for loop: For (i=0; i< math.random; i++) This stability, as anarchic as it is with that randomness, still within reach of our finite minds to understand that it isn’t totally random, however utterly random it may appear to our mind, such an explicit and confined loop, why should such a thing ever be unpredictable? Some will argue that simple .randomnesss() is the thing that mindfucks you. But plenty are gifted to not be perturbed by randomness, that even in the noise they can seek out a truth. Hah. Yeah, why would magically improbable things emerge out of a clear cut predictable system, like the for loop I defined above, which to the naive will seem infinitely impossible to predict because I increased the domain to randomness. Somewhere here, God laughs. I write jokes for the divine, I never thought that’d be me, hah! —— I believe Christ speaks to programmers. We have insight into design and big systems. God is Good. Therefore, those who were gifted the training to understand design, should take up the mantle. Lord have mercy, grace us, this place has been hollow of practical religious men and women for quite some time. May god bless this place with more leaders of the right soul. Amen.
      - GoblinSlayer 15d ago
        Trading sacrifices for a good hunt is kinda useless now.
      - rramadass 15d ago
        This is just meaningless twaddle. Read the chapter on "Chance" in Poincare's "Science and Method" linked to here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49743377 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49743377 Randomness/Chance itself is amenable to laws by which we can estimate its bounds. In one sense everything is chance since the deterministic laws themselves operate within approximation bounds. When the approximation bound in the effect is similar in magnitude to that in the cause and both are very small, we call it "deterministic" whereas when the approximation bound in the effect is much larger than that in the cause for no discernible reason we say "chance" is operating.
- n4r9 15d ago
  Could you cite your reference to Hume here please? I'm not aware of him linking complexity to regularity.
  - GoblinSlayer 15d ago
    Chicken and farmer.
    - n4r9 15d ago
      That's Russell rather than Hume, and I don't see how it links to complexity.
      - GoblinSlayer 14d ago
        The chicken has a problem with prediction of future because of intelligent behavior of the farmer, i.e. the farm is a conspiracy of sorts.
        n4r9 13d ago
        I wonder if you're reading too far into one example. Hume's original example was of the sun rising every day - nothing to do with sentience or arguably even complexity. The chicken/farmer example is one that Russell came up with to make it easier to imagine.
otabdeveloper4 16d ago
> Math, Science, ..., certainly not God Pretty much everyone worships some sort of God. (The exceptions are non-self-aware people living moment-to-moment.) What people argue about is the degree of personality and autonomy that God possesses.
- pixl97 15d ago
  Are you talking about god as being, or god as a concept?
  - otabdeveloper4 14d ago
    It's capital-G God. Also the question is circular because how you define what a "being" is is dependent on your concept of God.
- n4r9 14d ago
  I'm pretty sure that I don't worship some sort of God, unless perhaps you substantially dilute the meaning of the word "worship".

n4r9 16d ago

Yes, vaguely related. Dirac is not wondering why measurement itself works, but why mathematical reasoning applies so effectively to the measurement results. I think it's valid to be surprised that all observations of a physical phenomena up until this point have obeyed a beautiful and (relatively) simple mathematical relationship, without even thinking about predicting the future.

GoblinSlayer 16d ago

Measurement works because universe moves in a simple way. As Hume indicates, you need very complex motion for irregularity, maybe even sentient, but sentient universe is fairy tale.

pixl97 15d ago
> but sentient universe is fairy tale. Ehhhhh.... this is actually a much bigger claim than you realize and to immediately dismiss it leads to some problematic issues in the continuum of reality. Without a rigorous falsifiable definition of sentient at all scales it can apply at best the problem is undefined. Are brains sentient? Are neurons sentient? Are the actual algorithms these structures run sentient? Without those answers we can really only say "The universe is probably not sentient". Also, you are the universe experiencing itself.
- deleted 15d ago
  [deleted]
- GoblinSlayer 15d ago
  For a regularity to be broken, the phenomenon causing this regularity should be sentient to break the regularity in an intelligently chosen way. It doesn't matter how sentient are neurons, they don't affect anything and might as well be absent. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_of_Neptune https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_of_Neptune - what neurons did there?
  - general_reveal 15d ago
    In other words, if I write this for loop: For (i=0; i< math.random; i++) This stability, as anarchic as it is with that randomness, still within reach of our finite minds to understand that it isn’t totally random, however utterly random it may appear to our mind, such an explicit and confined loop, why should such a thing ever be unpredictable? Some will argue that simple .randomnesss() is the thing that mindfucks you. But plenty are gifted to not be perturbed by randomness, that even in the noise they can seek out a truth. Hah. Yeah, why would magically improbable things emerge out of a clear cut predictable system, like the for loop I defined above, which to the naive will seem infinitely impossible to predict because I increased the domain to randomness. Somewhere here, God laughs. I write jokes for the divine, I never thought that’d be me, hah! —— I believe Christ speaks to programmers. We have insight into design and big systems. God is Good. Therefore, those who were gifted the training to understand design, should take up the mantle. Lord have mercy, grace us, this place has been hollow of practical religious men and women for quite some time. May god bless this place with more leaders of the right soul. Amen.
    - GoblinSlayer 15d ago
      Trading sacrifices for a good hunt is kinda useless now.
    - rramadass 15d ago
      This is just meaningless twaddle. Read the chapter on "Chance" in Poincare's "Science and Method" linked to here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49743377 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49743377 Randomness/Chance itself is amenable to laws by which we can estimate its bounds. In one sense everything is chance since the deterministic laws themselves operate within approximation bounds. When the approximation bound in the effect is similar in magnitude to that in the cause and both are very small, we call it "deterministic" whereas when the approximation bound in the effect is much larger than that in the cause for no discernible reason we say "chance" is operating.
n4r9 15d ago
Could you cite your reference to Hume here please? I'm not aware of him linking complexity to regularity.
- GoblinSlayer 15d ago
  Chicken and farmer.
  - n4r9 15d ago
    That's Russell rather than Hume, and I don't see how it links to complexity.
    - GoblinSlayer 14d ago
      The chicken has a problem with prediction of future because of intelligent behavior of the farmer, i.e. the farm is a conspiracy of sorts.
      - n4r9 13d ago
        I wonder if you're reading too far into one example. Hume's original example was of the sun rising every day - nothing to do with sentience or arguably even complexity. The chicken/farmer example is one that Russell came up with to make it easier to imagine.

otabdeveloper4 16d ago

> Math, Science, ..., certainly not God Pretty much everyone worships some sort of God. (The exceptions are non-self-aware people living moment-to-moment.) What people argue about is the degree of personality and autonomy that God possesses.

pixl97 15d ago
Are you talking about god as being, or god as a concept?
- otabdeveloper4 14d ago
  It's capital-G God. Also the question is circular because how you define what a "being" is is dependent on your concept of God.
n4r9 14d ago
I'm pretty sure that I don't worship some sort of God, unless perhaps you substantially dilute the meaning of the word "worship".