EPTAsk and answer stupid questions here! - Page 334
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Cascade
Australia5405 Posts
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On September 01 2015 04:55 Cascade wrote: Weren't the pyramids built by aliens anyways? Illegal ones probably  | ||
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oGoZenob
France1503 Posts
On September 01 2015 04:55 Cascade wrote: Weren't the pyramids built by aliens anyways? that's a common misconception : Actually, our rulers and overlords from outer space were just the architects, while the work was done by humans | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5299 Posts
men, what the hell is up with those people saying(or at least implying) that a photon acts like a particle when you look at it with your consciousness(and like a wave when you don't look at it, but that's irrelevant here), then go on a spree about all these other kind of mental shenanigans/gymnastics all the way up to a universal consciousness/god ...?; because you know, you look at that damn particle with a sensor/detector made up of plastic and metal that's not even remotely similar to the so called consciousness. do they have any ground to sit on?; am i missing something?. (i just watched some random youtube vid) | ||
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oGoZenob
France1503 Posts
On September 01 2015 18:48 xM(Z wrote: so quantum physics, allegedly. men, what the hell is up with those people saying(or at least implying) that a photon acts like a particle when you look at it with your consciousness(and like a wave when you don't look at it, but that's irrelevant here), then go on a spree about all these other kind of mental shenanigans/gymnastics all the way up to a universal consciousness/god ...?; because you know, you look at that damn particle with a sensor/detector made up of plastic and metal that's not even remotely similar to the so called consciousness. do they have any ground to sit on?; am i missing something?. (i just watched some random youtube vid) Hum. lets imagine a particle in vacuum, with nothing to interact with. it is described by a density of probability of presence in the medium, meaning it could litterlay be anywhere. THe observation of said particle, however, whether it's by you or a plastic detector or a starfish, will collapse the waveform and so the density of probability to one point, the point where you observed it. And as always, no gods are needed | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18291 Posts
On September 01 2015 20:37 oGoZenob wrote: Hum. lets imagine a particle in vacuum, with nothing to interact with. it is described by a density of probability of presence in the medium, meaning it could litterlay be anywhere. THe observation of said particle, however, whether it's by you or a plastic detector or a starfish, will collapse the waveform and so the density of probability to one point, the point where you observed it. And as always, no gods are needed While I'm not sure this is a good place to discuss the intricacies of the Copenhagen interpretation of QM, this argument has always struck me as flawed. As Wigner showed, this is simply a larger uncertain system. To me, the starfish+photon now know where the photon is, but the starfish observing the photon does not collapse the wave function FOR ME. I would thus need to either observe the photon as well, or have the starfish tell me where it is, in order to collapse the wave function for me, but not for you,or your neighbour, or the Kwarglblarx aliens in the next galaxy over. This is so utterly counterintuitive that the Copenhagen interpretation must simply be rejected. The many worlds interpretation deals better with this, but instead simply posits an infinity of parallel worlds, which while not dismissable, seems like a cop out. | ||
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oGoZenob
France1503 Posts
On September 01 2015 21:02 Acrofales wrote: While I'm not sure this is a good place to discuss the intricacies of the Copenhagen interpretation of QM, this argument has always struck me as flawed. As Wigner showed, this is simply a larger uncertain system. To me, the starfish+photon now know where the photon is, but the starfish observing the photon does not collapse the wave function FOR ME. I would thus need to either observe the photon as well, or have the starfish tell me where it is, in order to collapse the wave function for me, but not for you,or your neighbour, or the Kwarglblarx aliens in the next galaxy over. This is so utterly counterintuitive that the Copenhagen interpretation must simply be rejected. The many worlds interpretation deals better with this, but instead simply posits an infinity of parallel worlds, which while not dismissable, seems like a cop out. yeah QM is counterintuitive, but that doesnt mean shit in science. Intuition is what our limited senses can directly try to infer from observation. And our senses are so limited that intuition is flawed as fuck. That's part of the reason why science is so hard to vulgarize properly, and why people flat out refuse scientific consensus on some issues. So however your opinion or intution or gut feeling says, QM is the best way we currently have to describe matter at a nano scale. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18291 Posts
On September 01 2015 21:28 oGoZenob wrote: yeah QM is counterintuitive, but that doesnt mean shit in science. Intuition is what our limited senses can directly try to infer from observation. And our senses are so limited that intuition is flawed as fuck. That's part of the reason why science is so hard to vulgarize properly, and why people flat out refuse scientific consensus on some issues. So however your opinion or intution or gut feeling says, QM is the best way we currently have to describe matter at a nano scale. Eh, that doesn't really have anything to do with my point, which is mainly that the whole idea that "measurement" plays some special purpose in our universe is nonsensical, and both the EPR paradox (and subsequently Bell's experiments) and the Wigner's friend thought experiment (as I described it above) show that if you hold onto this belief of measurement as some kind of special event, it leads you to extremely weird places. In particular, it means you have to discard locality, which while possible, means you have to accept Einstein's spooky action at a distance as a real thing. Now, Bell's theorem means you have to accept some really weird shit one way or the other (the alternative to non-locality is to discard counterfactual definiteness, which I personally think is less weird to discard, or no-conspiracy which you can discard with impunity if you believe we just live in a simulation), but where you assert that the Copenhagen interpretation "is the best way we currently ahve to describe matter at a nano scale", I simply disagree. Modern variants on the MWI are better, albeit flawed. I think it is one of the great tragedies of the 20th century scientific community that Bohr got the better of the debate and the Copenhagen interpretation dominated QM for most of the century. Now Einstein didn't really have an alternative, and seemed to disagree with QM in its entirety, which goes against very many observations, but Bohm and Everett came up with interpretations that I think Einstein could have lived with (and to be fair, the earliest formulation of Bohmian mechanics can be attributed to him), although they have their own issues and were still very rough. An alternative, is of course, to simply change your philosophy and be an idealist rather than a realist, in which case you can choose from any number of interpretations. | ||
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oGoZenob
France1503 Posts
On September 01 2015 23:00 Acrofales wrote: Eh, that doesn't really have anything to do with my point, which is mainly that the whole idea that "measurement" plays some special purpose in our universe is nonsensical, and both the EPR paradox (and subsequently Bell's experiments) and the Wigner's friend thought experiment (as I described it above) show that if you hold onto this belief of measurement as some kind of special event, it leads you to extremely weird places. In particular, it means you have to discard locality, which while possible, means you have to accept Einstein's spooky action at a distance as a real thing. Now, Bell's theorem means you have to accept some really weird shit one way or the other (the alternative to non-locality is to discard counterfactual definiteness, which I personally think is less weird to discard, or no-conspiracy which you can discard with impunity if you believe we just live in a simulation), but where you assert that the Copenhagen interpretation "is the best way we currently ahve to describe matter at a nano scale", I simply disagree. Modern variants on the MWI are better, albeit flawed. I think it is one of the great tragedies of the 20th century scientific community that Bohr got the better of the debate and the Copenhagen interpretation dominated QM for most of the century. Now Einstein didn't really have an alternative, and seemed to disagree with QM in its entirety, which goes against very many observations, but Bohm and Everett came up with interpretations that I think Einstein could have lived with (and to be fair, the earliest formulation of Bohmian mechanics can be attributed to him), although they have their own issues and were still very rough. An alternative, is of course, to simply change your philosophy and be an idealist rather than a realist, in which case you can choose from any number of interpretations. well yeah it has everything to do with your point, you are opposing personalities and not theories. We don't care in the scientific field who came up with an idea, or who doesn't agree. If it fits with observation over and over, it will be accepted. If it doesnt fit with observation ONCE, it's gonna be reworked until it fits what we observe. You are taking scientific theories as monolithic blocks that disregard anything that disagree with it. That couldnt be further away from the truth | ||
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Buckyman
1364 Posts
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oGoZenob
France1503 Posts
On September 02 2015 00:44 Buckyman wrote: I don't think measurement even requires consciousness. In a single-slit experiment, for example, it's the wall doing the 'measurement' i.e. converting the wave to particles. yes pretty much, there is no need for consciousness, only interactions are needed | ||
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Oshuy
Netherlands529 Posts
On September 01 2015 23:00 Acrofales wrote: where you assert that the Copenhagen interpretation "is the best way we currently ahve to describe matter at a nano scale", I simply disagree. Modern variants on the MWI are better, albeit flawed. Well ... he didn't say Copenhagen interpretation is the best way: he said QM is the best way (as a theory), which remains true in both interpretations (MWI/Copenhagen) ? | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18291 Posts
On September 02 2015 01:11 Oshuy wrote: Well ... he didn't say Copenhagen interpretation is the best way: he said QM is the best way (as a theory), which remains true in both interpretations (MWI/Copenhagen) ? I'm not quibbling with QM. I'm quibbling with the Copenhagen interpretation, which is what I stated right at the start of my post that started this whole discussion. Him stating QM is the best way in response to that led me to interpret that as "QM, as seen in the Copenhagen interpretation", because otherwise his rebuttal of my post makes no sense. | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5299 Posts
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Acrofales
Spain18291 Posts
On September 02 2015 00:26 oGoZenob wrote: well yeah it has everything to do with your point, you are opposing personalities and not theories. We don't care in the scientific field who came up with an idea, or who doesn't agree. If it fits with observation over and over, it will be accepted. If it doesnt fit with observation ONCE, it's gonna be reworked until it fits what we observe. You are taking scientific theories as monolithic blocks that disregard anything that disagree with it. That couldnt be further away from the truth Err, neither Einstein nor Bohr disputed QM results. They just disputed what that meant. There are different hypotheses about what that means for the fundamental properties of our universe. The Copenhagen interpretation is just ONE such interpretation of the meaning of QM and you are taking it as the truth, and therefore my problems with the Copenhagen interpretation are me trying to refute QM. Couldn't be further from the truth. Also, personalities are very much a part of science  Lay off the Popper and embrace the Kuhn. But that aside, I was just digressing into the history of science and wishing Einstein had convinced more people than Bohr about which interpretation of QM was better. Einstein didn't dispute QM, or any of the funky experimental results. He just disputed that this means that our universe is incredibly weird at a fundamental level, as the Copenhagen interpretation requires. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18291 Posts
On September 02 2015 01:29 xM(Z wrote: + for browser history; i watched this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C5pq7W5yRM Nice! I just disagree on the Occam's razor cutting down MWI, which is a weak argument in any case: it requires us to accept the simplest argument that explains the observations. Positing a pan-universal consciousness as an alternative to nigh-infinite universes is NOT simpler. | ||
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
On September 02 2015 01:29 xM(Z wrote: + for browser history; i watched this + Show Spoiler + https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C5pq7W5yRM I simultaneously find the parts of that video that I understand fascinating and I also don't know what to make of it, even though it's obviously super simplified. They're saying matter does not exist independent from observation which they found through some experiment, but as a person who knows just about nothing about physics, I'm confused by the comments from the guy who says that it's wrong to think that things really are there when you're not looking at them. How is it possible to extrapolate from the experiment to the notion that when I turn around my shit ceases being there and when I look again they're there again. I'm sure I'm misunderstanding something. | ||
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farvacola
United States18857 Posts
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
On September 02 2015 02:13 farvacola wrote: The answer lies within the definition of "being there"; to an extent, the notion that "things" stop "being there" once unobserved has more to do with the instability of quantum location than things disappearing. Observation affixes particular patterns of matter that, for lack of better words, fall apart once unobserved, but the "stuff" is still there in a relative sense. How is it impossible for this to fit in a materialistic view of the world? | ||
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farvacola
United States18857 Posts
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