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David Chalmers is an expert, and you sir are not. Keep it classy.

mistercow 13y ago
David Chalmers is most certainly not an expert on quantum mechanics (and Chalmers doesn't seem to be someone the author is relying on in his points about QM). Neither am I, but I would make a strong bet that I have a better understanding of it than the author of this article. For one thing, he seems (like many laymen) to fundamentally misunderstand what an "observer" is in the Copenhagen interpretation. An observer does not by any means imply consciousness. A computer program could take measurements of a quantum system and then delete that data before anyone looked at it, and it would have exactly the same effect as if a human took those measurements. Moreover, he seems to think that the primary motivation for MWI is to solve the Schrödinger's cat paradox, and that this is its only advantage. This is, of course, completely wrong.
- jervisfm 13y ago
  > the primary motivation for MWI is to solve the Schrödinger's cat paradox, and that this is its only advantage. This is, of course, completely wrong. By MWI, I am assuming you mean the Many Worlds Interpretation. I am curious: Can you describe what are the other motivations there are for this theory beyond resolving Schrödinger's cat paradox ?
  - mistercow 13y ago
    Sure. To start off, I'd like to point out that Schrödinger's cat really isn't a problem for the Copenhagen interpretation. The hypothetical device is "observing" the system during the entire experiment, so the cat is never in a superposition between dead and alive. At least, I can tell you some of its other advantages. First of all, wavefunction collapse is non-local. That is, if you take the wavefunction as being physically real in some sense, then collapse is an event which propagates faster than the speed of light. Because this cannot be used to actually send information faster than light, it doesn't violate causality. But it still has a smell to it. MWI does not have this problem. Another advantage of MWI is that it is deterministic. Once again, there's no rule that says that physics has to be deterministic. But when you're going along, finding one deterministic law after another, and then all of a sudden it seems that things are non-deterministic after all, it should give you pause. There are other problems MWI solves which I don't understand as well, most dealing with problems with wavefunction collapse. In short, collapse has a lot of properties which are highly suspicious because you just don't see them elsewhere in physics. It's also arguably a simpler interpretation, in which case Occam's razor applies. Unfortunately, we don't yet have good ways of estimating the algorithmic complexity of arbitrary hypotheses, so whether this is actually the case is a matter of debate.

David Chalmers is most certainly not an expert on quantum mechanics (and Chalmers doesn't seem to be someone the author is relying on in his points about QM). Neither am I, but I would make a strong bet that I have a better understanding of it than the author of this article. For one thing, he seems (like many laymen) to fundamentally misunderstand what an "observer" is in the Copenhagen interpretation. An observer does not by any means imply consciousness. A computer program could take measurements of a quantum system and then delete that data before anyone looked at it, and it would have exactly the same effect as if a human took those measurements. Moreover, he seems to think that the primary motivation for MWI is to solve the Schrödinger's cat paradox, and that this is its only advantage. This is, of course, completely wrong.

jervisfm 13y ago
> the primary motivation for MWI is to solve the Schrödinger's cat paradox, and that this is its only advantage. This is, of course, completely wrong. By MWI, I am assuming you mean the Many Worlds Interpretation. I am curious: Can you describe what are the other motivations there are for this theory beyond resolving Schrödinger's cat paradox ?
- mistercow 13y ago
  Sure. To start off, I'd like to point out that Schrödinger's cat really isn't a problem for the Copenhagen interpretation. The hypothetical device is "observing" the system during the entire experiment, so the cat is never in a superposition between dead and alive. At least, I can tell you some of its other advantages. First of all, wavefunction collapse is non-local. That is, if you take the wavefunction as being physically real in some sense, then collapse is an event which propagates faster than the speed of light. Because this cannot be used to actually send information faster than light, it doesn't violate causality. But it still has a smell to it. MWI does not have this problem. Another advantage of MWI is that it is deterministic. Once again, there's no rule that says that physics has to be deterministic. But when you're going along, finding one deterministic law after another, and then all of a sudden it seems that things are non-deterministic after all, it should give you pause. There are other problems MWI solves which I don't understand as well, most dealing with problems with wavefunction collapse. In short, collapse has a lot of properties which are highly suspicious because you just don't see them elsewhere in physics. It's also arguably a simpler interpretation, in which case Occam's razor applies. Unfortunately, we don't yet have good ways of estimating the algorithmic complexity of arbitrary hypotheses, so whether this is actually the case is a matter of debate.