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Quicki note on "Normalization"


Doctordick

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First, I will have very little time these days; I can't say as much as I'd like to.

 

That's a shame, your input would be valued :I

 

It's definitely hard to make head or tail of things this way, one tends to get into absurd ideas that are hard to discuss conclusively. Schrödinger for one came to believe that the actual reality is what his equation describes (the "waves" rather than the "particles") and so considered there to be no real problem in quantum physics. The famous cat gedankenexperiment was excogitated by other physicists to confront him with and snap him bach into a bit of healthy realism. The trouble is that, in some measure, the optical visual is the reality; it's all a matter of coherence and decoherence.

 

Certainly interpreting QM as if everything was just "the waves" (if that's even workable; I'm not sure what it could mean) is as equally a case of "fallacy of identity" as any other view (you are just placing identity to the waves). (btw, didn't Schrödinger devise the cat thought experiment by himself, in order to discuss the absurdities of QM, no?)

 

Anyway, don't get me wrong, I don't really care which valid interpretation people use (as long as they understand it is a model cast onto the raw data from reality, i.e. many specific absurdities can be expected to be features of the model but not reality).

 

Considering that the identity of elements (and consequently "what motion means") is a function of a specific world model assigning identity on some features or patterns, and that we don't know the real source or mechanism behind those patterns, this implies it is entirely the fault of the definitions of our world model when we see some entities behaving in absurd manner.

 

Of course I'm also talking about specific definitions of time and space. I know you also see problems with the idea of entirely epistemological wave collapse, I presume it's the correlations in delayed choice Bell experiments and the implied "temporal complications". It seems to me it is entirely possible to define time and/or space or maybe even the meaning of the measured properties differently so to end up with a self-coherent and valid QM interpretation (that incorporates epistemological wave collapse). But just to keep this from being yet another valid interpretation on equal footing with every other interpretation, I think it would be more important to keep focus on the logical steps and first see if epistemological wave collapse indeed is expected to occur for random data.

 

Btw, this is probably saying too much, but I tend to look at QM behaviour as a case of feedback from the rest of the universe. By that I don't mean to say anything specific about time or space or identity of other elements or how it works exactly, but I think it is telling that light from independent sources produce interference effects just as well (http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0603048); this implies "things" all around in reality just add up and eventually we recognize entities we have defined. I'm staying vague here on purpose.

 

Hmmm, maybe you'll find it interesting that I came to think about how trivially spacetime interpretation of relativity also solves EPR paradox;

Quantum mechanics and spacetime

 

When I wrote that I did not know that such a thing as "Transactional Interpretation" existed. :phones:

 

Note that the motivation to write that was to point out that it is somewhat interesting how many people kind of accept spacetime as an ontological entity (or at least tend to communicate that way), but when it comes to thinking about QM situations they revert to thinking in terms of time that really advances.

 

If you scroll down you'll see a reply from JesseM (#12) where he asserts simultaneity is relative (implying he does think reality is static spacetime), and yet immediately goes on to claims where space-like separation has got some meaning to the independence of events, as if time actually advances and future does not yet exist. This is very typical self-conflict in people's modern worldviews, or at the very least it is assuming very much.

 

I know, it's not easy without the math but what you need is just an outline of things, an idea of what physicists and mathematicians are talking about when they use such terms. They are fundamental to gaining an insight of how the quantum formalism really works and I think you're needing to understand that better if you want to form a judgement that bears any weight. You need to start with something fairly brief and concise about classical (non quantum) analytical mechanics, then see how quantum formalism is built upon it. Trouble is, what is brief and concise either isn't introductory or isn't much to go by.

 

You are very much correct, that's why I said I'd really like to understand it better in order to communicate better. I hope I had more time, and someone to point out what to study and in what order, so not to get completely lost on non-issues... :I

 

-Anssi

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Unfortunately Anssi, I will have even less time to post. I'll no longer have wi-fi unless I decide it's worth it to rig up a pc of my own. At any rate I'll just have to be painfully brief.

 

Certainly interpreting QM as if everything was just "the waves" (if that's even workable; I'm not sure what it could mean) is as equally a case of "fallacy of identity" as any other view (you are just placing identity to the waves). (btw, didn't Schrödinger devise the cat thought experiment by himself, in order to discuss the absurdities of QM, no?)
I get your meaning but note that I didn't mean the example as being one of exactly what you said about identity fallacy. I only meant about outlandish ideas that take things to extremes. Yes, the cat is called Schrödinger's because it was given to him by his peers, so to speak. Erwin was himself claiming that QM can be viewed in a manner that isn't counterintuitive at all but eventually admitted that his views weren't so reealistic. Anyway, while he talked in terms of "the waves" it would also have been possible to avoid this term and the idea of identity.

 

It seems to me it is entirely possible to define time and/or space or maybe even the meaning of the measured properties differently so to end up with a self-coherent and valid QM interpretation (that incorporates epistemological wave collapse). But just to keep this from being yet another valid interpretation on equal footing with every other interpretation, I think it would be more important to keep focus on the logical steps and first see if epistemological wave collapse indeed is expected to occur for random data.
I see what you mean but we don't yet know how that could be accomplished.

 

Btw, this is probably saying too much, but I tend to look at QM behaviour as a case of feedback from the rest of the universe. By that I don't mean to say anything specific about time or space or identity of other elements or how it works exactly, but I think it is telling that light from independent sources produce interference effects just as well (http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0603048); this implies "things" all around in reality just add up and eventually we recognize entities we have defined. I'm staying vague here on purpose.
Yup, very vague indeed! :hyper: Drifting toward Zen Buddhism!

 

Hmmm, maybe you'll find it interesting that I came to think about how trivially spacetime interpretation of relativity also solves EPR paradox;

Quantum mechanics and spacetime

Haven't had time to go through it properly but I can see that you'd need to understand theoretical physics a bit better in order to avoid some pitfalls. For one thing, it isn't consequent of necessity from SR that space-time must be regarded as something static but I can hardly even begin to discuss right now. I can only point out that even saying so is is riddled with semantic issues and ends up essentially being a moot point.

 

If you scroll down you'll see a reply from JesseM (#12) where he asserts simultaneity is relative (implying he does think reality is static spacetime), and yet immediately goes on to claims where space-like separation has got some meaning to the independence of events, as if time actually advances and future does not yet exist. This is very typical self-conflict in people's modern worldviews, or at the very least it is assuming very much.
In order to understand the matter, it seems you need a better grasp of causality according to SR and of how the so-called light cone distinguishes classes of intervals. Certainly SR doesn't imply that causality can go backward in time; it shows intead that this is possible if and only if it can go faster than c.

 

In relativistic quantum field theory, it is apparent that one must argue somewhat as if time weren't unidirectional, e. g. you might have heard of the PCT theorem. There are however many misconceptions about this, it's all very subtle and thick with pitfalls and semantic issues (including the notion of causality itself). It remains however that two gasses will spontaneously mix and scarcely tend to become unmixed.

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If your problem is indeed with the proof of the validity of the fundamental equation, which one of these propositions do you find questionable?

 

1. That all epistemological constructs depend upon a specific set of ontological elements.

 

Well true enough, but you seem to miss the critical point that your "specific set of ontological elements" logically must "depend upon" [to use your terminology] something more basis--that is, the universe of all ontological elements.

 

So, while I find nothing that I would disagree with from your # 1 proposition, since it holds to the philosophic position that I also hold of "priority of existence" (ontology) as opposed to "priority of consciousness" (epistemology), your so-called 'proposition #1' logically must be derived from a more basic philosophic axiomatic concept.

 

Your philosophy, DD, thus logically derives from this axiomatic concept:

 

EXISTENCE (e.g., the universe of ALL ontological elements) EXISTS

 

If you do not hold this to be true DD, then I truely have no idea at all what you are presenting.

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Unfortunately Anssi, I will have even less time to post. I'll no longer have wi-fi unless I decide it's worth it to rig up a pc of my own. At any rate I'll just have to be painfully brief.

 

Okay... :I

 

I get your meaning but note that I didn't mean the example as being one of exactly what you said about identity fallacy. I only meant about outlandish ideas that take things to extremes.

 

Oh I see. In that case I'm not sure what you mean by it being troublesome that "in some measure, the optical visual is the reality". I mean, regardless of what the reality is like, as long as we can define objects from the visual data, we get the "optical visual". And even though we then perceive these objects, there's no reason to suppose ontological identity to any of them.

 

I see what you mean but we don't yet know how that could be accomplished.

 

Yeah, I would just like people to be careful with "apparent incompatibilities" when these incompatibilities can be caused by all sorts of undefendable assumptions in their specific worldview.

 

Somehow it reminds me of "The apparent incompatibility of the law of propagation of light with the principle of relativity" as Einstein put it in "Relativity: The Special and General Theory" (Section #7)

 

Those ideas are "apparently incompatible" in so far that one assumes a specific definition for simultaneity (universal).

 

Seems to me that if someone had built this sort of epistemological analysis prior to QM and Relativity and Newton, its implications would have been so far off from the ordinary worldview, that people would have only seen apparent incompatibilities with everything in it. It simply would not have correlated with what people perceived around them (or the way people interpreted reality). Now, I don't think it's too far off the mark, and I admit it sounds quite appealing idea to me that the strange features of relativity and QM could be explained as epistemological features of sensical data tracking.

 

Yup, very vague indeed! :Exclamati Drifting toward Zen Buddhism!

 

Heh, I wouldn't like to be quite that vague, it's just that in our ordinary worldview we suppose there exists information from the rest of the universe just about everywhere all the time, and it seems quite reasonable that one could view the seemingly random behaviour as a result of feedback mechanisms that are obviously far too complex to integrate rigorously to any world model... I mean, however you'd model it, it would be practically impossible to prove. But that's somewhat off topic.

 

Haven't had time to go through it properly but I can see that you'd need to understand theoretical physics a bit better in order to avoid some pitfalls. For one thing, it isn't consequent of necessity from SR that space-time must be regarded as something static but I can hardly even begin to discuss right now.

 

Don't worry, I understand that many valid interpretations are available to us, and not all of them incorporate static spacetime. (And I must say I don't like the static spacetime interpretation myself at all, I am just commenting on self-coherence of different views)

 

One thing I wanted to say with that thread was that since Einstein came to view his model in terms of relativistic spacetime, that also opened a way to view QM entanglement in perfectly compatible way.

 

In my mind, EPR-paradox is basically just pointing out an "apparent incompatibility" between two ideas: special relativity and wave function collapse of entangled properties. But if one already assumes ontological reality to relativity of simultaneity, that means they assume ontological reality to static spacetime (or perhaps you see other options?), and that opens the door to modeling "relativistic information" (like photons) as structures that are affected by their "destination" as much as by their "origin". That just offers a valid way to explain the correlations in Bell experiments.

 

I can only point out that even saying so is is riddled with semantic issues and ends up essentially being a moot point.

 

If by this you mean, we can always interpret the raw logic of relativity in such different ways that relativistic spacetime construction ends up being nothing but a handy convention, then I understand what you mean.

 

In order to understand the matter, it seems you need a better grasp of causality according to SR and of how the so-called light cone distinguishes classes of intervals. Certainly SR doesn't imply that causality can go backward in time; it shows intead that this is possible if and only if it can go faster than c.

 

I know how the light cone distinguishes between space-like and time-like separation, and I can perform a lorentz transformation in my head for simple 2D-diagrams (although I don't know the math) so I know exactly what is meant by causality going backwards if anything moves faster than c.

 

What I was pointing out was little bit different issue. It's that, if you imagine a static spacetime block in front of you, then there's no reason to suppose that the structures found from within it are only governed by what exists in their past lightcone. They can be affected also by what exists in their future lightcone. That's actually just a different way to communicate transactional interpretation (which I feel is mixing up newtonian time advancement and relativistic spacetime in slightly incoherent manner in its terminology... ...but not in its logic)

 

If you model a "photon's journey" as a static shape that connects the measuring equipments, you can build some laws that govern the exact shape according to what is found at the beginning and at the end (and in-between) of the journey, and in the case of entangled photons you can therefore say these shapes interfere at the beginning of the journey, so at the end of their journey you find correlations that had something to do with information that in our view only existed at the "ends of the journeys".

 

If all that sounds incredibly arbitrary, it's just because I really see all worldview modeling exactly as this arbitrary. "But we don't have any real indications that there exists backward causation", that's true if you want to build a model where there doesn't exist backward causation. Or you could say the Bell Experiments are a real indication about backward causation, if and only if you wish to model the situation that way.

 

So all I'm saying is that with all the data available to me, it is possible to build valid explanations that incorporate the idea of backward causation. I don't really think ontological reality is like that. I don't think ontological reality is exactly "like" any mental model of it.

 

In relativistic quantum field theory, it is apparent that one must argue somewhat as if time weren't unidirectional, e. g. you might have heard of the PCT theorem. There are however many misconceptions about this, it's all very subtle and thick with pitfalls and semantic issues (including the notion of causality itself). It remains however that two gasses will spontaneously mix and scarcely tend to become unmixed.

 

I have not heard of PCT theorem. But I can certainly believe there exists misconceptions about any model that twists the definition of time from common everyday view. I was actually surprised how easily JesseM misinterpreted my post about spacetime & QM. I mean, his first reaction was:

 

"If two events are simultaneous in one frame, they are outside each other's light cones in every frame..." "...If we accept locality, this means events with a spacelike separation should be statistically independent"

 

That whole comment implies few assumptions that may not be true, one of them being that time does really advance, past is gone and future has not yet happened... When the main point of the thread was to ask why do we cling onto that assumption while at the same time we talk in terms that imply we don't believe it to be exactly true.

 

btw, if some sort of ontological view is required, personally I'd favor an interpretation that defines simultaneity as absolute, unless I'd figure out how "time that advances" and "relativistic simultaneity" could be made compatible... So far I have not been able to put them coherently together, except maybe through some sort of multi-verse scheme which is just not appealing at all.

 

Hmm, I'm sorry I was so lengthy again, as I know you don't have much time to reply... :I Well, if you want to reply, there's no hurry, just take your time...

 

-Anssi

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Well true enough, but you seem to miss the critical point that your "specific set of ontological elements" logically must "depend upon" [to use your terminology] something more basis--that is, the universe of all ontological elements.

 

So, while I find nothing that I would disagree with from your # 1 proposition, since it holds to the philosophic position that I also hold of "priority of existence" (ontology) as opposed to "priority of consciousness" (epistemology), your so-called 'proposition #1' logically must be derived from a more basic philosophic axiomatic concept.

 

Your philosophy, DD, thus logically derives from this axiomatic concept:

 

EXISTENCE (e.g., the universe of ALL ontological elements) EXISTS

 

If you do not hold this to be true DD, then I truely have no idea at all what you are presenting.

 

He's not saying that ontologically consciousness or epistemological construction (worldview) is the first thing that exists. The epistemological constructions are based on reality somehow.

 

What he is saying is that from the point of view of our knowledge, the epistemological construction must first exist before we can say anything exists. I.e. there must exist a definition of a "thing" before it can be pointed out from the raw data. Whatever we know about reality is part and parcel of the epistemological construction, i.e. an interpretation of some data whose ontological meaning is unknown.

 

Actually, I have a feeling that if you followed the logic and its implications through first, it would make perfect sense to you with your own philosophy.

 

-Anssi

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He's not saying that ontologically consciousness or epistemological construction (worldview) is the first thing that exists. The epistemological constructions are based on reality somehow.

Thank you Anssi. It is this 'somehow' that you mention that is of interest to me. Perhaps you have some ideas how DD explains the process by which epistemological constructions in his mind are formed 'based on reality' ? Does not seem to me he can use his 'equation' to 'explain' this process since his equation begins with the assumption that the 'somehow' has already occurred. Perhaps here we find how the DD equation is falsified, it cannot explain "how epistemological constructs are based on reality", thus it is not an 'explanation of explanation itself' as he claims. Now, this is not to say it (the DD equation) has no value, only that it is constrained because it cannot be used to "explain" the "somehow" that links ontology and epistemology. Then again, as DD so often tells me, perhaps I just have no idea what he is talking about--so, some help on the "somehow" issue would be appreciated.

 

Second, you mention the importance of DD equation to "definitions" of a thing. But, do you not agree that before a "definition' must be the 'concept' of the thing in the human mind ? If so, then how does DD equation fit into the process of 'concept formation' that must be prior to definition ? Perhaps the answer here relates to question above on the mechanism of the 'somehow" ?

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Thank you Anssi. It is this 'somehow' that you mention that is of interest to me. Perhaps you have some ideas how DD explains the process by which epistemological constructions in his mind are formed 'based on reality' ? Does not seem to me he can use his 'equation' to 'explain' this process since his equation begins with the assumption that the 'somehow' has already occurred. Perhaps here we find how the DD equation is falsified, it cannot explain "how epistemological constructs are based on reality", thus it is not an 'explanation of explanation itself' as he claims. Now, this is not to say it (the DD equation) has no value, only that it is constrained because it cannot be used to "explain" the "somehow" that links ontology and epistemology. Then again, as DD so often tells me, perhaps I just have no idea what he is talking about--so, some help on the "somehow" issue would be appreciated.

 

Well, I'm thinking of 2 completely different replies depending on what you exactly mean by "explaining the process by which epistemological constructions are formed based on reality". (I'm also thinking "oh lord how to explain this unambiguously..." :)

 

The analysis is working on "undefined ontology". That means, it begins with symmetries that must be valid for any possible "set of defined entities" (worldview), i.e. no matter what your worldview, if it is self-coherent and it does not make undefendable assumptions, it will obey those symmetries. The results of the analysis are essentially logical consequences of those symmetries, i.e. these consequences are not dependent on the content of the data (the actual ontological source of the data)

(btw, worldview = epistemological construct)

 

That those logical consequences look a lot like what is usually taken as the "laws of physics", it just means those laws of physics are the laws that make it possible to define relatively simple entities (self-coherently and without undefendable assumptions) from raw data. So in that sense you could say it's an explanation about the "logical mechanism" of how unknown raw data comes to be conceived in a form of relatively simple entities. I.e. how the data comes to be "explained". I believe that is what he means by "explanation of an explanation".

 

On the other hand, it is not really a specific explanation about how the brain works or anything of that form. You would have to define many things in your worldview before you could communicate that type of explanation of the matter.

 

So what is assumed is that it is possible to build explanations of ontologically unknown data (as we all have done it), and that each explanation works in terms of some defined entities.

 

I don't know what you mean exactly when you say the analysis is constrained. Perhaps you have misinterpreted what the analysis is about, so I think if you are interested you should just try and walk through the analysis itself, and its purpose should become clearer.

 

Also remember that the analysis is not about ontological reality, it's about the logical mechanism of building explanations for unknown stream of data. The explicit meaning of the data still remains fundamentally unknown. (Actually I believe it's fair to say that "meaning" is inherently human idea and not something ontological reality has to itself)

 

Second, you mention the importance of DD equation to "definitions" of a thing. But, do you not agree that before a "definition' must be the 'concept' of the thing in the human mind ? If so, then how does DD equation fit into the process of 'concept formation' that must be prior to definition ? Perhaps the answer here relates to question above on the mechanism of the 'somehow" ?

 

I don't know what you mean because in my mind "concept" and "definition" are essentially the same thing. I could say "worldview is a set of concepts" or just as well "worldview is a set of definitions". I definitely don't know what kind of "concept" exist without definition(s). So maybe you can elaborate what you mean exactly by "concept" and "definition" and maybe I can muster a meaningful reply.

 

-Anssi

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