"So far from being right, it isn't even wrong!"

[Doctordick]

Well, I just received my copy of “Discover” magazine and it has an interesting interview with Roger Penrose centered pretty well on quantum mechanics. Has some interesting personal views of Schroedinger, Einstein and Dirac; all of which apparently expressed doubts in the validity of quantum mechanics. He refers to his new book, “Fashion, Faith and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe”:

Penrose

The fashion is string theory; the fantasy has to do with various cosmological schemes, mainly inflationary cosmology [which suggests that the universe inflated exponentially within a small fraction of a second after the Big Bang]. Big fish, those things are. And the other one, even more sacrilegious, is quantum mechanics at all levels -- so that's the faith. People got the view that you really can't question it.

I think I would add “the space time continuum” but I certainly don't disagree with his view of modern physics as a religious position. The academy certainly considers questioning their position on these issues to be as sacrilegious as any religion could view being skeptical of their assertions. ;)

 

I liked his answer to the last question: “When physicists finally understand the core of quantum physics, what do you think the theory will look like?” His answer was, “I think it will be beautiful.” I think I will have to agree with him as I think I have seen it: it will be based on the problem of finding solutions to the following equation :D

[math]\left\{\sum_i \vec{\alpha}_i \cdot \vec{\nabla}+\sum_{i \neq j}\beta_{ij}\delta(\vec{x}_i -\vec{x}_j)\right\}\vec{\Psi}(\vec{x}_1,\vec{x}_2,\cdots,t)=K\frac{\partial}{\partial t}\vec{\Psi}[/math]

 

I love Wolfgange Pauli's means of dismissing some ideas he found lacking:

He could be scathing in his dismissal of any theory he found lacking, often labelling it ganz falsch, utterly false. Famously, he once said of one such paper: "This isn't right. It isn't even wrong."

That is pretty well how I feel about things like “many worlds”, “entangled states”, “real wave function collapse” and the confused idea that “clocks measure time”. All that stuff is so far from being right, it isn't even wrong.

 

:wave:

 

Sorry about being so adamant -- Dick

[Erasmus00]

Doctor Dick, how does your work get around the problem of measurement? I understand that in your view, the wave function psi (which is a solution of your dirac-like equation) represents the experimenters "explanation" (or knowledge of?) the system.

 

What happens during a measurement in your system? After the measurement, the probability distribution must be very different then before (peaked around the measurement outcome).

[Buffy]

In the first chapter of his "The Road to Reality" he lays this basic theme on pretty thick. Although not having my copy handy to refer to, it leaves the rest of this humongous, fairly rigorous (given its goal as "popular science"), and very well laid out tome on a very shaky foundation, that quite frankly begs at least an attempt at "defining reality" that you've spent so much time on here Dick!

 

When forced to choose, I usually end up in the Many Worlds camp, but always have this horrible doubt generated by the simple question, "where do they all go?"

 

This is not as simplistic or trivial a question as might be imagined: several years ago Scientific American had an article (again, not near my references so I can't provide a link), that in all seriousness discussed the volume that would be required for all permutations of our Universe that would be implied by Many Worlds. The think I walked away from that exercise thinking was amazement to think about its finite result: not that the result was counter intuitive, but just that its so *small*! Imagine if we start to change the parameters and run all *those* permutations, and its *still* small!

 

Does any of this make it "not even wrong?" I dunno. I'm not sure any of these theories will even be close to "reality," but I have the feeling that they're fewer orders of magnitude out of whack than Platonic Cosmology was....

 

Thou art God, and I am God and all that groks is God, :)

Buffy

[Southtown]

Hey to all three of you, long time no type.

 

Doctor Dick, how does your work get around the problem of measurement? I understand that in your view, the wave function psi (which is a solution of your dirac-like equation) represents the experimenters "explanation" (or knowledge of?) the system.

 

What happens during a measurement in your system? After the measurement, the probability distribution must be very different then before (peaked around the measurement outcome).

 

[- will]

A couple of interjections. Tell me if they are related or not.

 

Origins of Quasars and Galaxy Clusters - Halton Arp's official website

 

ResearchChannel - The Trouble with Physics

[Buffy]

A couple of interjections. Tell me if they are related or not.

 

Origins of Quasars and Galaxy Clusters - Halton Arp's official website

 

ResearchChannel - The Trouble with Physics

Yes, the first is an example of what the latter is talking about in his book of a similar title...

 

When people join a scientific community, they give up certain childish but universal desires: the need to feel that they are right all the time or the belief that they are in possession of the absolute truth, :)

Buffy

[Southtown]

Yes, the first is an example of what the latter is talking about in his book of a similar title...

 

When people join a scientific community, they give up certain childish but universal desires: the need to feel that they are right all the time or the belief that they are in possession of the absolute truth, :)

Buffy

Ouch. lol How trite.

[Doctordick]

Well, that was a surprise. I sort of expected my post to be ignored. It's been a long time since I heard from either Erasmus00 or Buffy. I am quite happy to see you at least occasionally read what I post. You must know that I hold the two of you in very high regard. I am very sorry to have failed to inspire you to think about what I say. With his last post Anssi has made it very clear that he has been the only person in the last forty years to seriously examine my work and he is certainly not the most qualified person on this forum to perform such a service (as he would undoubtedly agree). That is a sad thing. But, back to your posts.

Doctor Dick, how does your work get around the problem of measurement? I understand that in your view, the wave function psi (which is a solution of your dirac-like equation) represents the experimenters "explanation" (or knowledge of?) the system.

 

What happens during a measurement in your system? After the measurement, the probability distribution must be very different then before (peaked around the measurement outcome).

What you are missing is the fact that it is the explanation which provides the expectations, not my equation. My equation merely supplies a constraint on the behavior of the fundamental elements underlying any and all interpretations of that explanation. If you would take the trouble to follow my proof you would understand that statement. If you are interested, I am attempting to go through that proof once more (item by item) with modest. Take a look at the thread What I believe an explanation is!

 

If [imath]\vec{\Psi}[/imath] is the function which defines your expectations and you obtain some new information (such as a measurement), it is quite reasonable that the “old” [imath]\vec{\Psi}[/imath] no longer describes your expectations and you need a new function. And yet the old function should have a rather large overlap with new one. Only those expectations brought to naught should be removed from your estimate of expectations and, since your expectations arise from a flaw free explanation, the measurement itself should be within the range of expectations both from the old [imath]\vec{\Psi}[/imath] and the new: i.e., there can not be a zero overlap or the explanation is flawed. I just wouldn't refer to such a case as “collapse of the wave function”; it's just a change and it's a change in your head (so to speak).

 

But back to the beauty of the view from where I sit (from the position of understanding that proof). Yesterday I also received my new issue of “Science News”. It had an interesting article: “Laser beam, simple math employed to produce random numbers faster”. A lot of people don't understand the difficulty of creating a truly random sequence. If the sequence is truly random, there can exist no patterns in that sequence who's probability exceed the probability for other possible patterns of equal length. That is not a trivial constraint and it has some major consequences generally (if not totally) ignored by most (if not all) scientists. You should take the trouble to examine that issue.

 

A sufficiently large sequence of random numbers must include a great many patterns (an infinite sequence must include all possibilities). The issue is not that patterns can not exist but rather that the probability of their occurrence (the occurrence of repetition) can not exceed that of other similar patterns (neither can it be less than that of other similar patterns). This can not be taken to mean that the pattern will never repeat but rather must be taken to mean that any specific pattern must have the same probability of repeating as does any pattern.

 

That is a strange constraint. That means that failure to see some specific pattern is as big a violation of randomness as is excessive repetition. Look at it from this perspective: suppose you are processing a totally random sequence of numbers and you have seen a specific pattern occur a great number of times; is it not quite reasonable to presume you will see it again? Is it surprising that our expectations should be related to the re-occurrence rate of patterns we have taken an interest in?

 

That brings up the question, what would a totally random universe look like? The scientific community will assure you there will be no recognizable patterns but that is patently false. Given a sufficiently large sequence, it is my position that all identifiable patterns have to end up obeying my equation. Now that is what I call a simple yet beautiful explanation of “reality”. That is also why I always refer to my presentation as a tautology and not a theory; it is no more than an analysis of rational expectations based upon what we know (and I don't have to actually claim to know anything; a very unassailable position). :evil:

In the first chapter of his "The Road to Reality" he lays this basic theme on pretty thick. Although not having my copy handy to refer to, it leaves the rest of this humongous, fairly rigorous (given its goal as "popular science"), and very well laid out tome on a very shaky foundation, that quite frankly begs at least an attempt at "defining reality" that you've spent so much time on here Dick!

I have spent no time on “defining reality” at all. I have spent all my time analyzing the possible interpretations of an undefined data stream. If you believe reality is not “an undefined data stream” then you must believe you have been provided some definition via a means outside that data stream. It came directly from GOD I suppose.

When forced to choose, I usually end up in the Many Worlds camp, but always have this horrible doubt generated by the simple question, "where do they all go?"

And why in the world do you feel “forced to choose”?

Thou art God, and I am God and all that groks is God, :phones:

Using the definition that the universe is everything, has it ever occurred to you that, if there were an all knowing GOD just how totally empty his view of the universe would have to be? Nothing to surprise him, nothing new, no uncertainty. It seems to me that, if I were such an all powerful being, my first move would be to cut myself off from being “all knowing” just for the pure fun of it.

 

I do have one bone to pick with you.

When people join a scientific community, they give up certain childish but universal desires: the need to feel that they are right all the time or the belief that they are in possession of the absolute truth, :phones:

My experience with the scientific community is that the plebes are required to bend to the will of the authorities: i.e., they are not to question their superiors who pretty well feel that they are right all the time and that their world view is absolute truth. Oh, they will claim not to have made up their minds but question them about the issues and they will all be adamant. On the other hand, I never knew Schroedinger, Einstein, Dirac or Pauli for that matter. Perhaps they were more skeptical of the accepted norms than the average physicist. Perhaps they could ask “what if?” As a graduate student, I was told that question was of no interest to the physics community.

 

Have fun -- Dick

[UncleAl]

If a theory makes even a single prediction that is empirically falsified, that theory must be rewritten or used with caution as heuristic. Newton (c=infinity, G=G, h=0) was good from 1687 to 1860 when Maxwell showed Newton was only an approximation. Both General Relativity (c=c, G=G, h=0) and quantum field theory (c=c,G=0,h=h) are absolutely validated to the extreme limits of measurement, without exception, where they pertain. We also know they must both be wrong, for GR assumes h=0 and QFT assumes G=0.

 

String theory attempts the hat trick. To date string theory is estimated to describe 10^(50,000) acceptable vacua - yet has zero testable predictions. Where has physics fundamentally yet so subtlely gone wrong? There must be a weak founding postulate that can be falsified.

 

Noether's theorems fail to connect conserved observables with discontinuous symmetries - parity. QFT theories with hermitian hamiltonians are invariant under the Poincaré group containing spatial reflections. Parity is a spatial reflection and parity is not a QFT symmetry. Covariance with respect to reflection in space and time is not required by the Poincaré group of Special Relativity or the Einstein group of General Relativity. Even-parity GR with Einstein-Hilbert action must be supplimented with an odd-party Chern-Simons term in all quantized gravitations. Metric gravitation postulating the Equivalence Principle (everything vacuum free falls identically) is a subset of teleparallel gravitation that demands chemically and macroscopically identical, opposite parity atomic mass distributions will ignore the EP.

 

Do an experiment to determine who is correct! Can we create two chemically and macroscopically identical opposite parity lumps that vaccum free fall along non-identical trajectories? Heck, let's do two different experiments, one physical and one chemical. Let's place physics UNDER SATAN'S LEFT FOOT

 

What could be fairer? Reproducibly demonstrate on a lab bench that *all* of fashionable physics is subtlely wrong for a very selective footnote never before addressed because its only sensitve tests arise from chemistry. Or not. Somebody should look.

[Erasmus00]

I am very sorry to have failed to inspire you to think about what I say.

 

Unfortunately, I have limited time, and in previous discussions had often felt we were talking past each other, for whatever reason.

 

What you are missing is the fact that it is the explanation which provides the expectations, not my equation.

 

But any explanation must be constrained by your equation, and so solutions to your equation are the weakest possible explanations, correct?

 

If you are interested, I am attempting to go through that proof once more (item by item) with modest. Take a look at the thread What I believe an explanation is!

 

If I have time, I will look again.

 

I just wouldn't refer to such a case as “collapse of the wave function”; it's just a change and it's a change in your head (so to speak).

 

The problem then comes when we have two observers Bob and Alice. How can Bob's measurements change Alice's measurements? i.e. how can a change in Bob's head effect what Alice measures?

 

That brings up the question, what would a totally random universe look like? The scientific community will assure you there will be no recognizable patterns but that is patently false.

 

Who in the scientific community would claim this?

 

My experience with the scientific community is that the plebes are required to bend to the will of the authorities: i.e., they are not to question their superiors who pretty well feel that they are right all the time and that their world view is absolute truth.

 

I am surprised. My experience has been the opposite- open exploration has been encouraged, and bizarre ideas allowed to develop (perhaps a little too much, in my own field, extra spatial-dimension models and "unparticles" have recently been in vogue. I have trouble "buying" this.)

 

Granted, everyone (myself included) feels that their ideas are correct, otherwise why would we put the time into them that we do?

[Buffy]

...I am very sorry to have failed to inspire you to think about what I say.

On the contrary! You've been quite inspiring!

 

Sometimes it's just difficult to decide how to contribute to your discussions:

 

That brings up the question, what would a totally random universe look like? The scientific community will assure you there will be no recognizable patterns but that is patently false. Given a sufficiently large sequence, it is my position that all identifiable patterns have to end up obeying my equation. Now that is what I call a simple yet beautiful explanation of “reality”. That is also why I always refer to my presentation as a tautology and not a theory; it is no more than an analysis of rational expectations based upon what we know....

 

...I have spent no time on “defining reality” at all.

In spite of the end of the first paragraph, I quite agree with the statement that you have not "spent time" on "defining reality" in terms of your *intent*, but quite frankly, that's the personal choice I have made in making use of what you've contributed here! I think its quite honorable that you've avoided--quite explicitly in some of our past discussions--claiming such!

 

Call me foolish, but I find using your tautologies to fill in the gaps that folks like Penrose just dance over because they can't find a basis for solving one of the most fundamental issues in perceiving our existence is honestly quite enlightening!

When forced to choose, I usually end up in the Many Worlds camp, but always have this horrible doubt generated by the simple question, "where do they all go?"

And why in the world do you feel “forced to choose”?

Oh that's just what happens in scientific repartee even at the more casual cocktail parties I sometimes find myself at at Cal Tech. Once your typical physics professor gets nonplussed by a blonde conversant in quantum theory, the natural reaction is to insist on exposing one's opinions on the key controversies of the day....

Thou art God, and I am God and all that groks is God, :shrug:

Using the definition that the universe is everything, has it ever occurred to you that, if there were an all knowing GOD just how totally empty his view of the universe would have to be?

....

I do have one bone to pick with you.

When people join a scientific community, they give up certain childish but universal desires: the need to feel that they are right all the time or the belief that they are in possession of the absolute truth, :shrug:

My experience with the scientific community is that the plebes are required to bend to the will of the authorities...

Sorry! I need to clarify: you need to be aware of "Buffy's Asterisk" which indicates that the foregoing statement is not from me, but a famous (or not so famous) quote from someone else, that might, maybe, just be facetious in its intent!

 

But to address your concerns:

...they are not to question their superiors who pretty well feel that they are right all the time and that their world view is absolute truth. Oh, they will claim not to have made up their minds but question them about the issues and they will all be adamant. On the other hand, I never knew Schroedinger, Einstein, Dirac or Pauli for that matter. Perhaps they were more skeptical of the accepted norms than the average physicist. Perhaps they could ask “what if?” As a graduate student, I was told that question was of no interest to the physics community.

You had bad professors. The best ones will *at least* say "it's of course dangerous to go against the conventional wisdom...but you'll never be famous if you don't!"

 

You just have to learn to be brilliant at the politics of revolution.

 

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite, :D

Buffy

[Doctordick]

Unfortunately, I have limited time, and in previous discussions had often felt we were talking past each other, for whatever reason.

Yeah, I have had that same feeling. Mostly I think the problem is that you think I am asserting a theory of some sort and that idea gets directly in the way of the discussion.

But any explanation must be constrained by your equation, and so solutions to your equation are the weakest possible explanations, correct?

Not as I see it. It is generally felt that any reasonable theory has to be consistent with logic; to my knowledge, that is a widely accepted scientific position. Would you then call explanations consistent with logic “weak” explanations? I personally would call explanations inconsistent with my equation not worth looking at; they are simply not internally consistent: i.e., there exists information already known which is inconsistent with the explanation. Again, I think your problem is that you think I am proposing my equation as a “source” of explanations; I am not. It is instead a paradigm (“a unique way of looking at any collection of available information”) which guarantees that any explanation based upon that view is inherently internally consistent. As I have said many times, it is a tautology capable of representing any internally self consistent explanation and, as such, makes utterly no constraint on the available information.

 

What is absolutely astonishing is that every case the physics community presents to me in defense of their position that they “understand reality” turns out to be an approximate solution to that equation: i.e., their explanations are no more than tautologies themselves and tell us nothing about reality. As far as I can tell, it seems that their explanations are no more than stories for keeping track of information. Essentially identical to the ancient field of astrology: totally equivalent to after the fact compilation of information best explained by careful analysis of probability.

The problem then comes when we have two observers Bob and Alice. How can Bob's measurements change Alice's measurements? i.e. how can a change in Bob's head effect what Alice measures?

See, that is exactly why we end up talking past one another. You are asking “how”; in doing so, you are asking for an explanation. This implies you think I am saying that explanations are to be found by solving my equation. That is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that, however you explain such things, the explanation must be expressible as a solution to my equation. That is quite a different assertion.

 

My equation does not tell us “how” Bob's measurements change Alice's measurements; but it does tell us why they must. If Alice's measurements are not consistent with Bob's expectations then Bob's expectations must be wrong. It is as simple as that. As I have commented elsewhere (I don't remember exactly where) my attack is consistent with quantum mechanics from the very get go. That deduction has utterly nothing to do with your world view.

 

You want to call the thing entanglement, call it entanglement. It's your explanation. My complaint is not with your explanation but rather that your paradigm (point of view on which that explanation is based) is not particularly well suited to insuring the explanation is internally self consistent. Instead of thinking things out, the scientific community uses apparent self consistency (years of experimentation) to defend their beliefs. I know you don't find that issue bothersome but I do. In my head, it is very close to the issue scientists use to toss out astrological explanations.

 

The astrologer brings forth mounds of data to defend their assertions. The truth of the data is not what scientists question; it is the paradigm they see as worthless: pure probabilistic relations seem to the scientist to be a rather simple and consistent mechanism behind the validity of the astrologer's data. Essentially, they see the scientific perspective as a much more universal paradigm (a much better answer to the question "why" than is the astrologer's answer). Each has his own answer to the question "how"; that answer is their explanation.

 

But your comment brings up another interesting issue. By defining “an explanation” to be a mechanism for setting expectations, all my work depends very strongly on “probability”. If you read through my analysis, you will see that I occasionally use accepted probabilistic relationships to work through difficult circumstances. Essentially I have always presumed the normal rules of expressing probabilities were sound mathematical relationships. Thus it was, about seven or eight years ago, that I was disturbed to run across Thin-Van Tran's assertion that “probability theory was wrong” (I think I first saw the assertion in a forum post somewhere).

 

He and I exchanged e-mails for a while and it became clear to me that his problem in no way formed a block to my work (which I was very happy to discover). His employment had consisted of examining the failure rate of hard disk drives for some manufacturer and, over the years, he discovered that the standard probability calculations were inconsistent with his data. Eventually he concluded that the Law of Large Numbers was invalid. He had found a change in the calculations which yielded the correct results and was trying to publish a new version of that law. The authoritative position was that he was making an error in his calculations and no one would even look his arguments (he had achieved the status of “a nut case”) and he was just simply refused publication without examination. We conversed for about a year before we went our separate ways. It was my opinion that he was making a mistake in telling them their theory was wrong. What he should have done is publish his data together with the supposed “rule of thumb” solution he had found which gave the correct answers. That I think he could have gotten published. When people are given usable rules, they will use them and, eventually, somebody will explain it. It is then that you want your explanation to be out there. But he just didn't want to do that.

 

As I do not count myself to be a mathematician, I really couldn't take a position to defend his arguments (his paradigm was a bit askew of mine) but, in my mind, it seemed what he was saying could very possibly be true. To make the issue simple, his complaint concerned the Law of Large Numbers and, in a way, concerned the issue I mentioned earlier.

That is a strange constraint. That means that failure to see some specific pattern is as big a violation of randomness as is excessive repetition.

That would imply that if the outcome of a coin flip were truly random, an excessively long run of one or the other outcome would have to lead towards an increased probability of the opposite result. (Such a result would at least maintain long run consistency in the data.) But that is a conclusion totally opposed to that of the common scientific authorities. They hold that the outcome of a random coin flip can not depend in any way upon prior outcomes. Could his problem, be the first hint of entanglement rearing its ugly head? Or is he wrong? I don't know and I will leave it to others to decide but I do think it is possible he is right. But, then again, I am a “nut case” myself. :)

I am surprised. My experience has been the opposite- open exploration has been encouraged, and bizarre ideas allowed to develop (perhaps a little too much, in my own field, extra spatial-dimension models and "unparticles" have recently been in vogue. I have trouble "buying" this.)

Perhaps things have changed as I have been outside the physics community for a long time now, but I still get a totally negative reaction to my assertion that “clocks don't measure time” which to me implies that they just don't want to think about it. (They absolutely know that can't be correct without thinking about it at all.)

 

And Buffy, I thank you for your kind words. As far as contributing to “my discussions”; pointing out an error would be a wonderful contribution. Anssi has certainly shown that I make enough of them to keep him busy and his knowledge of math is extremely limited.

 

You know, there are three kinds of errors made by scientists

Any scientific field may be seen as a body of assumptions (what I am referring to here are those things taken to be true without any examination) together with postulated relationships (and here I mean those things specifically held forth as the basis of the field including any specified assumptions) and the logical deductions which may be obtained from those relationships. Errors may occur in any of those three areas; however, the character and consequences of those errors vary quite considerably.

 

It should be clear, even to the uninitiated, that errors in the logical deductions only occur when an attack is newborn and are quickly eliminated by careful examination of those deductions. Errors in deduction are the easiest to eliminate and, in fact,seldom persist long enough to pervade the field. Certainly, if any idea survives long enough to be part of the body of knowledge passed from one generation to another, one can expect to find few if any errors in the deductions; too many people will have been led through those deductions to allow anything but extremely subtle errors to stand for long.

My problem is that no one has yet been led through my deductions and thus my ideas can not be seen as anything but tentative. If there are errors in my deductions, I would very much like to know about it; however, even considering the possibility of errors on my part, I think the attack is still a very powerful approach to the issue of understanding.

Oh that's just what happens in scientific repartee...

When I was in graduate school, the department threw a party every Friday afternoon (snacks and coffee just prior to the standard Friday invited lecture). The supposed purpose was to allow faculty and students to exchange ideas of interest in their research. You know, I do not remember anyone ever even bringing up their work. It was more like no one wanted to expose their ignorance. (That is just a personal impression.)

You had bad professors. The best ones will *at least* say "it's of course dangerous to go against the conventional wisdom...but you'll never be famous if you don't!"

Maybe, maybe not. I went to graduate school after my army service, back in the early sixties. I think, back in those days, we were all somewhat of rebels against authority and it somewhat colors your perspective. A lot of my problems could have been due to my abrasive nature. I was particularly bad because of a reading penchant I had. Whenever I had to look up an article in one of the scientific Journals I usually read the entire Journal, not just the referenced article. It was fun to see what other people at the same time were thinking.

 

When you do that, I think you get a very different impression of the scientific community than you do if you just read the referenced stuff. If you just read the referenced stuff you get the impression that scientists are brilliant thinkers. If you read the rest of the Journal you get the impression that most publications aren't worth the paper they are printed on (of course hind sight is a powerful influence here but that is really beside the point). Basically it left me without any desire to publish. I didn't want to make a fool of myself and had no interest in publishing unless I really felt I had something worth saying.

You just have to learn to be brilliant at the politics of revolution.

My problem was that I really wasn't interested in “doing physics”. I was interested in understanding the world I found myself in and, at the time, I saw most all authoritative positions as unsupported “baloney”. As an undergraduate, it seemed that physicists and mathematicians were the only people willing to build a rational defense of their assertions. As the field of mathematics seemed to have no bearing on reality, I studied physics. The problem was that, in graduate school, even physicists began to feed me unsupported baloney. They seemed to question nothing. That is why I dropped out of the field the moment I received my Ph.D. in theoretical physics.

 

I thought theoretical physics involved thinking about the underlying assumptions behind the theories. But, back in those days, the only thing physics theoreticians did was “number crunch” on inadequate computers (they totally presumed that their theories were correct, the only question in their minds was, “how do we calculate the consequences?”) After graduation I told my thesis advisor that the most intelligent use of a theoretician's time was to “go drink beer and party until better computers showed up; what we were doing was exactly equivalent to those people who used to hand calculate pie out to thousands of decimal positions back in the 1800's”. He didn't appreciate my perspective.

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite, :(

Well, I never found much confirmation to be found in poetry so I never took it seriously. It seemed to me that the only purpose was to influence one's feelings and I really never worried about what I felt; I just did and enjoyed what seemed to be enjoyable presuming my gut instincts were the authority on that subject: i.e., if my mother would be proud of me, it must be right. I have always wondered if I might have a split personality as I have never let logic interfere with my feelings. In my head they are totally separate universes. And, by the way, speaking of feelings, it was very pleasant to hear from you; thank you for your kind attention.

 

Have fun -- Dick

[AnssiH]

See, that is exactly why we end up talking past one another. You are asking “how”; in doing so, you are asking for an explanation. This implies you think I am saying that explanations are to be found by solving my equation. That is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that, however you explain such things, the explanation must be expressible as a solution to my equation. That is quite a different assertion.

 

My equation does not tell us “how” Bob's measurements change Alice's measurements; but it does tell us why they must. If Alice's measurements are not consistent with Bob's expectations then Bob's expectations must be wrong. It is as simple as that. As I have commented elsewhere (I don't remember exactly where) my attack is consistent with quantum mechanics from the very get go. That deduction has utterly nothing to do with your world view.

 

Just wanted to say that, that whole section was pretty good way to state the issue. At least in my mind.

 

I wonder if it's helpful for Erasmus if I still explain that, what is found is that there are some not-so-obvious logical reasons to quantum mechanical description of reality being valid, and those reasons don't tie to the content of the raw data (to ontological reality). Instead those reasons are tied to symmetries at play when ANY random data is categorized (the constraints are tied to epistemological mechanisms of ordering data).

 

That already means, that the quantum mechanical probabilities are to be valid for any valid world model, i.e. Einstein's doubt to quantum mechanics (EPR paradox) was founded on invalid assumptions about reality.

 

I.e. one can certainly build specific ontological models (QM interpretations) for every finger and toe, that each "explain" quantum entanglement situations, but at the same time none can be defended. As each is making some undefendable assumptions somewhere about the ontological meaning of the data. (One man's transactional is other man's many worlds)

 

I have to say that personally, I find DD's findings very reasonable already from the grounds that no supposed persistent identity of any stably persistent pattern can be defended, and in my mind it would be very strange if "persistent identity" was more than an epistemological mechanism (i.e. something that we assign to patterns for prediction purposes).

 

So with that, I find it a bit naive to believe in epistemological concepts in ontological sense, because it seems so obvious to me that no world model - which is always a presentation of defined "persistent entities" - can capture the ontological nature of reality. Not to mention, none is defendable from the others, as long as they are all actually based on the same underlying relationships. (It's the same thing in different terminology, that's all)

 

That all is just another way to state the map-territory relationship, or to invoke the concept of noumena, or to say "whatever you say a thing is, it isn't" and all that.

 

I have stated before that in my mind this analysis could just as well be called "quantum mechanics demystified", because once you understand the exact epistemological reasons behind quantum mechanical description, and you understand that quantum mechanics are referring to entities we defined - in our minds - as not much more than a categorization mechanism for "familiar patterns", it kind of explains all the mysteries away, does it not?

 

(This all could be repeated to refer to relativity, and to how people tend to assume that relativistic time relationships arise ontologically from relativistic spacetime, when in fact there are epistemological reasons to that issue too...)

 

-Anssi

[Erasmus00]

Not as I see it. It is generally felt that any reasonable theory has to be consistent with logic; to my knowledge, that is a widely accepted scientific position. Would you then call explanations consistent with logic “weak” explanations?

 

I meant weak in the sense of containing no more information or assumptions. i.e. a solution to your equation is the least predictive explanation (assuming that any explanation adds more constraints to the system).

 

I personally would call explanations inconsistent with my equation not worth looking at; they are simply not internally consistent:

 

But classical mechanics does not obey your equation, and it is certainly self-consistent.

 

It is instead a paradigm (“a unique way of looking at any collection of available information”) which guarantees that any explanation based upon that view is inherently internally consistent. As I have said many times, it is a tautology capable of representing any internally self consistent explanation and, as such, makes utterly no constraint on the available information.

 

But you also make the claim that your paradigm unifies gravitation and quantum mechanics, which seems to indicate it has some implications.

 

You are asking “how”; in doing so, you are asking for an explanation. This implies you think I am saying that explanations are to be found by solving my equation. That is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that, however you explain such things, the explanation must be expressible as a solution to my equation. That is quite a different assertion.

 

The post that started this was your discussion of things like many-worlds, etc. I had assumed that since you classified these as "not-even-wrong" your paradigm would have something to say on this issue.

 

Many world's IS an explanation of these correlations, and further, since it is based on Schroedinger's equation, it is an approximate solution to your equation, yes?

 

Instead of thinking things out, the scientific community uses apparent self consistency (years of experimentation) to defend their beliefs.

 

For axiomatic theories like classical mechanics and Von Neumann's quantum mechanics, self-consistency can be deductively shown. I think the issue you are talking about is consistency with known data?

 

Perhaps things have changed as I have been outside the physics community for a long time now, but I still get a totally negative reaction to my assertion that “clocks don't measure time” which to me implies that they just don't want to think about it. (They absolutely know that can't be correct without thinking about it at all.)

 

From whom? It is well established that clocks only measure their own proper-time. I don't know of anyone who would fight this.

 

The problem was that, in graduate school, even physicists began to feed me unsupported baloney.

 

I am only passingly familiar with what was in vogue at the time, but what specifically did you feel to be unsupported baloney, out of curiosity?

[Doctordick]

Erasmus, I apologize for being so slow to respond to your post here. The problem is very much that we are definitely talking past one another and I have been trying to figure out how to break that useless repetition of behavior. I don't know that such a thing can be done.

I meant weak in the sense of containing no more information or assumptions. i.e. a solution to your equation is the least predictive explanation (assuming that any explanation adds more constraints to the system).

Again, we are totally talking past one another. My equation is not an explanation; it is a required constraint when the explanation (and that would be any explanation) is interpreted in terms of my paradigm and, since my paradigm is no more than “an undefined data stream”, there exists no explanation which cannot be so interpreted. You should read a post I made to Qfwfq over three years ago:

Against this, you put forth your faith in the validity of the modern physics viewpoint. But you should consider exactly what "modern physics" based on? It is a complex construct, based entirely upon the assumption that they knew what "the rest of the universe was doing". Each issue of their arguments is based upon the unexamined assumption that the foundations on which the relevant issue is based (namely the world view established by your subconscious mind) is a valid representation of reality. Just as the religious arguments of the dark ages were based on the assumption of the validity of their religious beliefs. In which house does rationality reside and who is making "extraordinary claims" which require "extraordinary evidence"? Your faith in authority is getting in the way of your rationality.

Erasmus, you are falling for exactly the same unexamined authority.

But classical mechanics does not obey your equation, and it is certainly self-consistent.

I have two comments on that assertion. First, classical mechanics is an approximate solution to my equation in view of the fact that I have shown, in detail, that Schrödinger's equation is indeed an approximation to that equation and there are certainly a whole slew of books showing how classical mechanics follows directly from Schrödinger's equation. And, secondly, classical mechanics certainly is not self consistent. In classical (Galilean) relativity, it is presumed that clocks in an inertial system can be set to agree. That is an issue Newton simply overlooked. I know Newton knew the speed of light was finite as he was the first to approximate that speed. He noticed that the orbits of the moons of Jupiter yield a strange phenomena; the time for a moon to complete the portion of the orbit heading towards the earth is less than the time it takes to complete the portion going away (opposite points of the orbit are very easy to establish as they can been are marked by the moment the line from the earth through that moon touches the limb of Jupiter). Newton explained this phenomena by pointing out that light from the farther position takes longer to reach the earth than light from the near position. Now I know I am getting senile but I am quite confident Newton was aware of this and I suspect that Galileo may have noticed the same thing. Of deep significance is the fact that the speed of light was well known to be finite long before Maxwell's equation; in fact it was the similarity in speed that led scientists to believe Maxwell's waves were light.

 

I personally think Newton just overlooked the problems such a thing would have on setting clocks to agree in different inertial frames. Qfwfq pretty well disagreed with me on that issue but I think Newton would have seriously considered the problem had he thought of it. In the final analysis, I would certainly not call classical mechanics internally self consistent.

But you also make the claim that your paradigm unifies gravitation and quantum mechanics, which seems to indicate it has some implications.

No, that is not quite an accurate interpretation of my claim. As I have said many times, viewed from the perspective of my paradigm, all conceivable explanations are automatically internally self consistent (that is the only constraint I use in deducing my equation). What that view does is point out the exact reason why the Einsteinian paradigm is inconsistent with quantum mechanics. It has to do directly with his confused concept of time. (By the way, I brought this issue up to you once before but I don't think you ever responded.)

 

Einstein's paradigm utilizing the “fabric of space-time” bears exactly the same relationship to my paradigm as Ptolemy's paradigm utilizing the “celestial spheres” bore to Newton's paradigm that the planets were just falling towards the sun. Both Einstein and Ptolemy were bound up in medieval mechanical concepts. I have proved that my “fundamental equation” must be obeyed by all explanations. The equation itself looks exactly like what a classical quantum mechanical model of a gas consisting of a collection of point massless singularities would look like. So, my paradigm is, “a quantum mechanical representation of a gas consisting of a collection of point massless particles (essentially a four dimensional Euclidean space containing nothing except photons). That's it, that is all one need consider; it turns out that, “how it would appear” is exactly what we think we see. It is as simple as that and you cannot get much simpler. Oh, the math and the analysis is a *****, but the paradigm itself is trivial.

The post that started this was your discussion of things like many-worlds, etc. I had assumed that since you classified these as "not-even-wrong" your paradigm would have something to say on this issue.

Please, how do we check out these “many-worlds”? That issue is exactly equivalent to “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” A circumstance beyond examination is being proposed. That is indeed, "So far from being right, it isn't even wrong!"

For axiomatic theories like classical mechanics and Von Neumann's quantum mechanics, self-consistency can be deductively shown. I think the issue you are talking about is consistency with known data?

Sorry, but I just disagree with you on this. The biggest problem here are the assumptions they make which are never examined an issue I have already discussed with Qfwfq.

From whom? It is well established that clocks only measure their own proper-time. I don't know of anyone who would fight this.

And they hold, as inviolate, that these selfsame clocks measure “time” in their own rest frames. As I have said many times, they confuse repetitive phenomena definitions of time with interaction definitions of time. Thus their definitions of time are themselves internally inconsistent. You need to read a post I made to Qfwfq in September of 06.

Their physics is based upon clocks measuring what they call "their own proper time" or, more importantly, "Einstein's invariant interval" which is not "time" but rather a space time construct, having components of both.

 

That is to say, clocks measure a very specific thing and that specific thing is not "time" in their physics. It is something different and it should be recognized as something different. Their failure to recognize this fact is the foundations of their problems trying to bring relativity and quantum mechanics into agreement with one another.

I am only passingly familiar with what was in vogue at the time, but what specifically did you feel to be unsupported baloney, out of curiosity?

Mostly the foundations and assumptions upon which their theories were built. They are all emotionally obtained from their unwavering belief in the validity of their world view and not well thought out at all. (Exactly as the medieval clerics were bound by their belief in the absolute validity of Aristotle's physics.) Aristotle was quite a thinker but his followers were not; in fact one could say his success blocked further thought on the subject, much as Einstein's success blocks modern thought on relativistic phenomena.

 

Have fun -- Dick

[AnssiH]

I wanted to add, that to me, the above is all very clear way to put it once again. Probably largely due to having followed to logical steps that led here. And Erasmus, I know you could follow them with much less effort than I can (I have to learn the mathematical tools while I'm moving through the argument and it is incredibly time consuming to do that properly), and I would expect you would be able to see easily what he is saying if you spent time thinking through the steps and what they imply.

 

Also it appears to me that you probably don't expect the symmetry arguments to lead to very tight constraints. I think you should think about that issue with each step of the argument in mind. For instance, during the deduction of Schrödinger's equation, the requirement that the defined element has got negligible feedback from the rest of the universe, probably plays quite large role in the final definitions of elements.

 

I mean, entities that are defined that way, are quite useful in one's world view (and thus quite expected); if you were to instead define elements in such manner that the feedback from the rest of the universe is "largely responsible for their behaviour" (which would probably be possible in principle), that would result in quite complicated mechanics in one's world view. (and pretty poor prediction ability)

 

But if it is possible to define elements in a manner that they are connected with the rest of the universe in as simple manner as possible, then drawing expectations about their behaviour is simpler as well (less information leads to more accurate predictions). The mathematical steps are there to display the constraints to the expectations for entities that are thus defined, and those constraints are equal to quantum mechanical relationships.

 

That is clearly an epistemological issue; having to do with usefulness of a world model. The underlying data can indeed be just random patterns, as its meaning arises from the self-coherent definitions and various epistemological needs, and that is why I've sometimes referred to this issue as "data ordering mechanism".

 

-Anssi

[Erasmus00]

Again, we are totally talking past one another. My equation is not an explanation; it is a required constraint when the explanation (and that would be any explanation) is interpreted in terms of my paradigm and, since my paradigm is no more than “an undefined data stream”, there exists no explanation which cannot be so interpreted.

 

Alright, please help clarify the following for me

 

If I take my data, plot it as you have indicated, and solve your equation, what have I accomplished? Does this solution make predictions? If it does make predictions, why is it NOT an explanation?

 

First, classical mechanics is an approximate solution to my equation in view of the fact that I have shown, in detail, that Schrödinger's equation is indeed an approximation to that equation and there are certainly a whole slew of books showing how classical mechanics follows directly from Schrödinger's equation.

 

You need extra assumptions to move from Schroedinger to classical mechanics (the correspondence principle/measurement). Your equation doesn't have these additional constraints. Further, the probability distributions generated by classical mechanics are essentially delta functions, which do not solve your fundamental equation. So a question:

 

Is classical mechanics an explanation?

 

And, secondly, classical mechanics certainly is not self consistent.

 

This is unequivocally false. Self-consistency means that a given axiomatic system will deduce a consistent answer for any true/false statement derivable from those axioms (i.e. you never get A and not A). Classical mechanics, as an axiomatic system, is completely self-consistent.

 

What it is NOT is consistent with all known data mankind has collected. This is consistency with experiment, which is different from self-consistency.

 

As a side note- it is not the finite speed of light that creates problems for classical mechanics, it is the observer/frame independence of the speed of light that creates the problems.

 

What that view does is point out the exact reason why the Einsteinian paradigm is inconsistent with quantum mechanics. It has to do directly with his confused concept of time. (By the way, I brought this issue up to you once before but I don't think you ever responded.)

 

I'm sorry I missed that, but you've again stated the following- rearranging Einstein in your manner (to create a Euclidean "metric") allows a unification of gravity and quantum mechanics. This greatly misunderstands the problems between GR and quantum mechanics. I would like a brief proof of this, as playing with it seems to indicate its not actually true.

 

Further, I find trying to solve Einstein's equations in your "metric" to be incredibly difficult due to the fact that implementing coordinate changes is so hard. Have you actually attempted these? Have you actually tried to calculate what your version of quantized GR looks like?

 

So, my paradigm is, “a quantum mechanical representation of a gas consisting of a collection of point massless particles (essentially a four dimensional Euclidean space containing nothing except photons). That's it, that is all one need consider;

 

Your point particles are more like electrons then photons. But even so, I thought your model did not provide an explanation? Doesn't this mean we need to consider more than your equation, but ALSO the explanation?

 

Please, how do we check out these “many-worlds”? That issue is exactly equivalent to “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” A circumstance beyond examination is being proposed. That is indeed, "So far from being right, it isn't even wrong!"

 

I didn't say it was an explanation distinguishable from other quantum interpretations- I simply point out that it IS an explanation and it DOES satisfy your fundamental equation. Are these points correct?

 

Mostly the foundations and assumptions upon which their theories were built. They are all emotionally obtained from their unwavering belief in the validity of their world view and not well thought out at all.

 

Specifically what? Which axiom/postulates do you find lacking?

[AnssiH]

Hi Erasmus. For the simple reason that I have carefully followed the logical steps of DD's argument, even I can trivially see what (or at least "that") you are misinterpreting. I'd expect you would see it as well if you were motivated to look, so let me just make a stab;

 

Alright, please help clarify the following for me

 

If I take my data, plot it as you have indicated, and solve your equation, what have I accomplished? Does this solution make predictions? If it does make predictions, why is it NOT an explanation?

 

The fundamental equation just expresses requirements for self-coherence. I.e. any self-coherent worldview (a set of defined "fundamental entities") obeys the relationships it expresses. If you find a solution, you have found a method of transforming data patterns into an expression of persistent entities, without self-conflict. One method of many logically equivalent possibilities.

 

That set of defined persistent entities is essentially one's idea of "what world is ontologically made of", and the fundamental equation is to "all ontological assumptions" what QM formalism is to "quantum mechanical interpretations".

 

What DD calls "explanation" is a worldview expressed in terms of defined entities. So, under that definition, the equation that expresses the requirements for all explanations is not by itself "an explanation" (it doesn't define any entities, just the necessary relationships between defined entities, for the set to be self-coherent).

 

BUT, when you factor in the algebraic steps between fundamental equation and Schrödinger (i.e. the understanding of what leads to Schrödinger in raw logical sense), I might call that "an explanation about the validity of Schrödinger's equation". The same goes for the treatment of relativity.

 

(You were asking about what's the difference between the "point massless particles" interpretation and "an explanation", see the end of this post for the answer to that)

 

You need extra assumptions to move from Schroedinger to classical mechanics (the correspondence principle/measurement). Your equation doesn't have these additional constraints.

 

Of course; if there exists a deduction from Scrödinger's equation to classical mechanics, which employs undefendable assumptions in between, then that just tells us what the necessary assumptions are that yield that specific set of definitions. There are assumptions included in the algebraic steps between fundamental equation and Schrödinger as well, yielding exactly the understanding of what undefendable assumptions are involved for one to get to that specific set of defined entities (all the way from that initial defendable premise).

 

Is classical mechanics an explanation?

 

Under DD's definition, yes.

 

This is unequivocally false. Self-consistency means that a given axiomatic system will deduce a consistent answer for any true/false statement derivable from those axioms (i.e. you never get A and not A). Classical mechanics, as an axiomatic system, is completely self-consistent.

 

If you followed the steps to relativity, you would see the definitions that lead to relativistic time relationships, under the requirement of self-coherency. The self-conflict is quite subtle and not readily apparent for intuitive thought, but what DD was saying was that the definitions that lead to those subtle problems, that lead to the necessity of relativistic time relationships, already existed at the time of Newton. Doesn't mean it would be easy to spot.

 

That should ring true to you if you think about any breakthrough in science (any step that led to more accurate models). Special relativity is a solution to not-very-apparent problems, yielded by the definitions that existed at that time. Especially Einstein was thinking about the subtle problems that arise between the newtonian postulate "only relative motion is observable" and Maxwell's equations describing the situation with a moving magnet & conductor differently, depending on chosen frame. I talk about Moving magnet and conductor problem of course.

 

(Btw, they claim on that page also that M&M experiment was part of the basis of Einstein's theory of relativity, which, according to Einstein, is not true)

 

Likewise, Quantum mechanics arose from subtle problems; when something "just didn't quite make sense".

 

That classical mechanics are apparently without problem doesn't mean they are absolutely without self conflict.

 

To not let this stray away from what started this, that was just to point out in what sense your argument "classical mechanics does not obey your equation, and it is certainly self-consistent" is false on both accounts, but that becomes apparent only under very, very careful analysis.

 

What it is NOT is consistent with all known data mankind has collected. This is consistency with experiment, which is different from self-consistency.

 

Note that DD's work is exactly the explanation about how self-coherence leads to those definitions being valid, as oppose to empirical research alone. Contrary to the popular belief of course. That result, being as surprising as it is, is sort of the "meat" of the work. To state it is false without examining the issue is a bit strange (I'd say rude even).

 

I know your statement comes from the fact that it sounds so incredibly counter intuitive, but if you think about it, it is quite possible. Think about the "moving magnet and conductor problems" for instance. The way reality had been defined at the time, already contained the paradox in the definitions. But it was way too subtle to be obvious to most people; it only became apparent when our nose was rubbed to the paradox, in how we interpreted a situation right in front of our face.

 

People think at that point that it was empirical research that simply told us how reality is, but I think it is more accurate assessment that we just faced a situation where the problem became more apparent. The problem itself was always there, in our definitions.

 

Same goes to the history of quantum mechanics, if you think about it.

 

As a side note- it is not the finite speed of light that creates problems for classical mechanics, it is the observer/frame independence of the speed of light that creates the problems.

 

I think you are grossly underestimating DD's competence with that statement. The postulate about isotropy of the speed of light makes the problem obvious yes, but what lead us to that postulate was the more subtle problems, already embedded to the definitions. He just supposed you had better grip at that part of the issue so he didn't state it separately.

 

I'm sorry I missed that, but you've again stated the following- rearranging Einstein in your manner (to create a Euclidean "metric") allows a unification of gravity and quantum mechanics. This greatly misunderstands the problems between GR and quantum mechanics. I would like a brief proof of this, as playing with it seems to indicate its not actually true.

 

It is not a rearrangement done for the purpose of simply being able to state the same thing differently. It is an epistemological explanation about why relativistic time relationships must be valid for any self-coherent world view (Certainly one can use whichever plotting method happens to be simplest for the problem at hand). I hope you saw my post where I talked "about the presentation form..." (...not being the crux of the argument)

 

And once again, in a not-so-obvious manner, the interpretation/definition that time is what a clock measures, leads to those subtle but well known problems between QM and relativity (I have to mention at this point that I have yet to step through the argument all the way to GR, but I certainly mean to). Of course it is not readily obvious that the problem lies in that specific definition of time, but DD is saying that under careful analysis, the problem can be traced to that junction. "Not intuitively apparent" doesn't automatically mean "false".

 

And just for your benefit, this is not an issue about how it is "proper time" that clocks measure. The issue is quite subtle and requires some focus, so if you do get motivated to look at the issue, keep a close eye at the necessity of an evolution parameter of some kind to track changes in knowledge (that is the "t", also called "time" in DD's analysis), and in how its meaning is ultimately different from what clocks measure (under the careful analysis, via the definitions behind "a clock", their count can't be alinged with "t"... Issue leading straight to special relativity, but also to very different implications about ontology)

 

I thought your model did not provide an explanation? Doesn't this mean we need to consider more than your equation, but ALSO the explanation?

 

Not really; what he is referring to is a mental interpretation (just a handy way to think about the relationships in intuitive manner). Obviously, he does not forward that as an argument as in "this is what reality is really like". He forwards that as an argument that all our definitions can be seen as springing from the behaviour of such point particles, as in, the fundamental entities of standard model can be seen as higher order definitions of the behaviour of much simpler things. Of course essential part of that mental interpretation is exactly the kind of space as he has defined, also as a mental view.

 

Albeit I think unfortunately, many people would become very tempted to conclude reality really is like that mental interpretation if they were to trace through the validity of that view. I think that would be very naive, but it seems to happen with every scientific breakthrough ;)

 

In that case, if that mental interpretation was raised into an ontological status in the minds of some people, it could be called their "explanation". Not a defendable one in so far as its ontological validity goes, of course. :rolleyes:

 

Just as a related comment, the reason I find this treatment so rational is exactly because this is NOT "yet another hypothesis about ontological reality".

 

I hope that is helpful.

 

-Anssi