Well, the CI allowed for all forms of entanglement. So I’m curious as to how experimental results that were consistent with the model somehow “explained away” said model. That doesn’t seem to be how the science I am familiar with works.
EDIT: (Side note: I do not have a horse in this race; to me both the MWI and the CI are equally fallacious. My personal belief is that no interpretations are necessary at all.)
So I’m curious as to how experimental results that were consistent with the model somehow “explained away” said model.
Experiments don’t explain stuff away. Simpler models do. Also, they have to be consistent with previous observation. Otherwise it’s not explaining why it happens; it’s just showing that it was wrong in the first place.
Explaining away is when you give a simpler model that has the same results as the more complex ones. You’ve just explained away the complexities.
(Side note: I do not have a horse in this race; to me both the MWI and the CI are equally fallacious. My personal belief is that no interpretations are necessary at all.)
I think you don’t understand the question with this. Do alternate universes exist or not? Does the past exist. Do different places exist? They’re all related to the calculations in the same basic way.
There’s a simpler model available for discourse here? Well, fascinating. Please explain.
You’ve just explained away the complexities.
This, by the way, is a very dangerous mentality. Occam’s Razor is only a heuristic. New evidence may favor greater complexity over less. General Relativity is more complicated than Newtonian gravitation, for example.
I think you don’t understand the question with this. Do alternate universes exist or not? Does the past exist. Do different places exist? They’re all related to the calculations in the same basic way.
It would seem not. I never saw any connection between entanglement with rocks and alternative universes. Please explain.
There’s a simpler model available for discourse here? Well, fascinating. Please explain.
Simpler than what?
Newton’s laws are simpler than Newton’s laws plus elan vital, and once you understand enough, you realize they make much the same predictions. Ergo, you just explained away elan vital. General Relativity is simpler than Newtonian gravity plus time dilation. Once you get General Relativity, you’ve explained away time dilation.
This, by the way, is a very dangerous mentality. Occam’s Razor is only a heuristic. New evidence may favor greater complexity over less. General Relativity is more complicated than Newtonian gravitation, for example.
No. Evidence shows that the simpler models that don’t explain this are outright false. The simplest one remaining is the most likely. Newtonian gravitation is simpler than General Relativity, but it does not match what we see. Postulating Newtonian gravitation with time dilation added in makes it more complex. Adding in the non-euclidean geometry stuff makes it still more complex. At this point, General Relativity is the simplest explanation we can think of.
It would seem not. I never saw any connection between entanglement with rocks and alternative universes. Please explain.
“Entanglement” means that each combination of states exists separately. If every atom of a rock is entangled, there is a separate amplitude for every configuration of the atoms. If every particle in the universe is entangled, this means that there is an amplitude for each combination of particles. For example, there’s the configuration corresponding to the “universe” we see. There’s also one that looks exactly like how it would have ended up if Germany won WWII. Technically, a lot more than one. Infinitely many, in fact.
… sir, you have a very… ‘slippery’ manner of discourse. It makes it difficult to figure out exactly what it is you’re trying to say and when.
You suggested that there was a simpler model than either CI or MWI. So what is it?
Newton’s laws are simpler than Newton’s laws plus elan vital
Yes but that’s not the topic at this point. In other subthreads I’m sure elan vital may be relevant, but not this subthread.
Once you get General Relativity, you’ve explained away time dilation.
What in the hell? Excuse me, but… I’m not aware of any theories of ‘time dilation’ that predate General/Special Relativity.
Your methods of ‘explanation’ leave me mightily confused, sir.
No. Evidence shows that the simpler models that don’t explain this are outright false.
You’re missing the point—that being that a simpler model that doesn’t explain for the available evidence is wrong—and yet your previous comment suggests otherwise.
“Entanglement” means that each combination of states exists separately.
Huh? This isn’t even grokking for me.
If every particle in the universe is entangled, this means that there is an amplitude for each combination of particles.
… that isn’t even remotely possible under the known mechanisms of quantum entanglement, sir. Entanglement between two pairs only lasts until some ‘measuring’ event occurs upon one of the pairs.
Actually, after reading:
There’s also one that looks exactly like how it would have ended up if Germany won WWII.
I can only say that… you have a very bad understanding of quantum mechanics if you think this is intelligible under the topic at hand.
Quantum. Mechanics. Does. Not. Work. This. Way.
I suggest, sir, that before you attempt to explain this any further you get a deeper understanding of the phenomena at hand.
You suggested that there was a simpler model than either CI or MWI. So what is it?
I seem to have lost track of the conversation. I’m sorry.
MWI is a simpler model than CI. It does not have wave-form collapse. It has decoherence, which is functionally similar, but is an emergent phenomena of the actual laws of physics, rather than a law in of itself.
Looking at your second comment:
Well, the CI allowed for all forms of entanglement.
It seems you were thinking it was supposed to explain away entanglement. It doesn’t. It explains away waveform collapse and the process of becoming entangled (as distinct from the property of being entangled).
What in the hell? Excuse me, but… I’m not aware of any theories of ‘time dilation’ that predate General/Special Relativity.
They didn’t have experiments supporting it yet. Given what we knew then, Newtonian physics may have been the simplest explanation. Now, it of itself, is not even an explanation, in that it doesn’t match the experiment. If we added a law to force it, it would no longer be simpler than general relativity.
Entanglement between two pairs only lasts until some ‘measuring’ event occurs upon one of the pairs.
According to CI. There is no mathematical formalism as to what “measuring” is. They say it’s when the system gets entangled with something “macroscopic”. There has never been an experiment that showed wave-form collapse that couldn’t be explained by decoherence, which arises from the same laws if you don’t postulate wave-form collapse.
Quantum. Mechanics. Does. Not. Work. This. Way.
CI doesn’t. MWI does. It’s possible that there are variations known as MWI that don’t include things like this, but the one Eliezer is a proponent of does. In fact, the specific variation he’s a proponent of (timeless physics), postulates that the past and future are exactly the same kind of alternate universe.
Handling this first: No, it doesn’t. MWI does not and cannot postulate universal entanglement. Entanglement is a phenomenon of paired particles sharing quantum states. That is all it is. You’re abusing the term very severely to mean something quite radically different from what it actually means.
MWI is a simpler model than CI. It does not have wave-form collapse. It has decoherence, which is functionally similar, but is an emergent phenomena of the actual laws of physics, rather than a law in of itself.
Handling this second.
I cannot accept the notion that CI is “more complex” than MWI as it has been explained thus far. CI does, yes, have the problem of wave-form collapse. But MWI has two problems of equivalent scope: 1) It fundamentally violates the Law of Conservation of Energy. 2) It requires information to be conveyable through quantum entanglement to essentially the entire universe simultaneously—and that’s just so absurd I can’t really take it seriously.
but the one Eliezer is a proponent of does.
I do not judge ideas by the names associated with them.
Finally:
They didn’t have experiments supporting [General Relativity] yet.
This is not an acceptable response to the portion of the converstaion it is applicable to. It’s like discussing colors of paint and responding “paint is dry once it has dried.” Do you even remember what my original point here was? It was: Occam’s Razor is only a heuristic. Be careful when proclaiming the simpler explanation is always right. It may not be in the face of new evidence.
1) It fundamentally violates the Law of Conservation of Energy.
How does it do this? I’m not sure what you mean here. I’m guessing that you are thinking of this because you are “creating worlds” or something like this. But MWI doesn’t really create worlds in any useful sense. New worlds are formed from smaller and smaller slices of the total amplitude of the wave function.
It requires information to be conveyable through quantum entanglement to essentially the entire universe simultaneously
But MWI doesn’t really create worlds in any useful sense. New worlds are formed from smaller and smaller slices of the total amplitude of the wave function.
Took me a while to get back to you on this. I apologize for the delay.
This, however (there being a ’total amplitude of the wave function) is the violation of the Conservation of Energy. For that to operate there would have to be a non-zero energy to be so divisible. And that just doesn’t mesh with what I know of the origins of our universe, its current energy state, nor the remainder of physics.
Students of nature have a long and troubled history of inventing new media or substances for the purpose of enabling their conceptions to be viable. Phlogiston. Luminiferous aether. And now ‘the total amplitude of the wave function’. Until such time as there is a material reason to accept that concept under the standard falsificationist definitions of evidence—I have no choice as a skeptic but to reject the notion.
Because it’s been a long while, I will remind you that not all rejections of MWI are created equal. My rejection of MWI is not and should never be considered an endorsement of the Copenhagen Interpretation. As I said previously, I do not believe there is any need whatsoever for any interpretation to occur. The mathematics of quantum mechanics as we have discerned them through experimental processes are elegant enough as is; there’s no need to dress them up for Sunday, as it were.
This, however (there being a ’total amplitude of the wave function) is the violation of the Conservation of Energy. For that to operate there would have to be a non-zero energy to be so divisible. And that just doesn’t mesh with what I know of the origins of our universe, its current energy state, nor the remainder of physics.
Given that MWI uses the mathematical formalism equivalent to CI, they are equivalent in the only respect that counts. For example, neither provides any testable predictions re alternate universes, except that they are not observable. Of course, the MWI model tends to make people feel good about Quantum Mechanics, but that is a purely psychological effect.
CI has wave-form collapse. This isn’t used in the mathematical formalism because there’s no specific point at which it’s agreed to happen. It’s just assumed that it is when the system gets “macroscopic”.
They do show evidence of alternate universes, and they are not unobservable. For example, the double-slit experiment has two pasts. One for each slit.
Also, according to timeless physics, the past and future is just alternate universes. If you believe the past exists, and you accept the basic idea, you believe that alternate universes exist.
Well, the CI allowed for all forms of entanglement. So I’m curious as to how experimental results that were consistent with the model somehow “explained away” said model. That doesn’t seem to be how the science I am familiar with works.
EDIT: (Side note: I do not have a horse in this race; to me both the MWI and the CI are equally fallacious. My personal belief is that no interpretations are necessary at all.)
Experiments don’t explain stuff away. Simpler models do. Also, they have to be consistent with previous observation. Otherwise it’s not explaining why it happens; it’s just showing that it was wrong in the first place.
Explaining away is when you give a simpler model that has the same results as the more complex ones. You’ve just explained away the complexities.
I think you don’t understand the question with this. Do alternate universes exist or not? Does the past exist. Do different places exist? They’re all related to the calculations in the same basic way.
There’s a simpler model available for discourse here? Well, fascinating. Please explain.
This, by the way, is a very dangerous mentality. Occam’s Razor is only a heuristic. New evidence may favor greater complexity over less. General Relativity is more complicated than Newtonian gravitation, for example.
It would seem not. I never saw any connection between entanglement with rocks and alternative universes. Please explain.
Simpler than what?
Newton’s laws are simpler than Newton’s laws plus elan vital, and once you understand enough, you realize they make much the same predictions. Ergo, you just explained away elan vital. General Relativity is simpler than Newtonian gravity plus time dilation. Once you get General Relativity, you’ve explained away time dilation.
No. Evidence shows that the simpler models that don’t explain this are outright false. The simplest one remaining is the most likely. Newtonian gravitation is simpler than General Relativity, but it does not match what we see. Postulating Newtonian gravitation with time dilation added in makes it more complex. Adding in the non-euclidean geometry stuff makes it still more complex. At this point, General Relativity is the simplest explanation we can think of.
“Entanglement” means that each combination of states exists separately. If every atom of a rock is entangled, there is a separate amplitude for every configuration of the atoms. If every particle in the universe is entangled, this means that there is an amplitude for each combination of particles. For example, there’s the configuration corresponding to the “universe” we see. There’s also one that looks exactly like how it would have ended up if Germany won WWII. Technically, a lot more than one. Infinitely many, in fact.
… sir, you have a very… ‘slippery’ manner of discourse. It makes it difficult to figure out exactly what it is you’re trying to say and when.
You suggested that there was a simpler model than either CI or MWI. So what is it?
Yes but that’s not the topic at this point. In other subthreads I’m sure elan vital may be relevant, but not this subthread.
What in the hell? Excuse me, but… I’m not aware of any theories of ‘time dilation’ that predate General/Special Relativity.
Your methods of ‘explanation’ leave me mightily confused, sir.
You’re missing the point—that being that a simpler model that doesn’t explain for the available evidence is wrong—and yet your previous comment suggests otherwise.
Huh? This isn’t even grokking for me.
… that isn’t even remotely possible under the known mechanisms of quantum entanglement, sir. Entanglement between two pairs only lasts until some ‘measuring’ event occurs upon one of the pairs.
Actually, after reading:
I can only say that… you have a very bad understanding of quantum mechanics if you think this is intelligible under the topic at hand.
Quantum. Mechanics. Does. Not. Work. This. Way.
I suggest, sir, that before you attempt to explain this any further you get a deeper understanding of the phenomena at hand.
I seem to have lost track of the conversation. I’m sorry.
MWI is a simpler model than CI. It does not have wave-form collapse. It has decoherence, which is functionally similar, but is an emergent phenomena of the actual laws of physics, rather than a law in of itself.
Looking at your second comment:
They didn’t have experiments supporting it yet. Given what we knew then, Newtonian physics may have been the simplest explanation. Now, it of itself, is not even an explanation, in that it doesn’t match the experiment. If we added a law to force it, it would no longer be simpler than general relativity.
According to CI. There is no mathematical formalism as to what “measuring” is. They say it’s when the system gets entangled with something “macroscopic”. There has never been an experiment that showed wave-form collapse that couldn’t be explained by decoherence, which arises from the same laws if you don’t postulate wave-form collapse.
CI doesn’t. MWI does. It’s possible that there are variations known as MWI that don’t include things like this, but the one Eliezer is a proponent of does. In fact, the specific variation he’s a proponent of (timeless physics), postulates that the past and future are exactly the same kind of alternate universe.
I’d suggest reading the (quantum physics sequence)[http://lesswrong.com/lw/r5/the_quantum_physics_sequence/]. I’m not sure if Eliezer is as good at explaining it as he hopes he is, but I doubt he’s worse than me.
Handling this first: No, it doesn’t. MWI does not and cannot postulate universal entanglement. Entanglement is a phenomenon of paired particles sharing quantum states. That is all it is. You’re abusing the term very severely to mean something quite radically different from what it actually means.
Handling this second.
I cannot accept the notion that CI is “more complex” than MWI as it has been explained thus far. CI does, yes, have the problem of wave-form collapse. But MWI has two problems of equivalent scope: 1) It fundamentally violates the Law of Conservation of Energy. 2) It requires information to be conveyable through quantum entanglement to essentially the entire universe simultaneously—and that’s just so absurd I can’t really take it seriously.
I do not judge ideas by the names associated with them.
Finally:
This is not an acceptable response to the portion of the converstaion it is applicable to. It’s like discussing colors of paint and responding “paint is dry once it has dried.” Do you even remember what my original point here was? It was: Occam’s Razor is only a heuristic. Be careful when proclaiming the simpler explanation is always right. It may not be in the face of new evidence.
How does it do this? I’m not sure what you mean here. I’m guessing that you are thinking of this because you are “creating worlds” or something like this. But MWI doesn’t really create worlds in any useful sense. New worlds are formed from smaller and smaller slices of the total amplitude of the wave function.
I don’t understand what you are getting at here.
Took me a while to get back to you on this. I apologize for the delay.
This, however (there being a ’total amplitude of the wave function) is the violation of the Conservation of Energy. For that to operate there would have to be a non-zero energy to be so divisible. And that just doesn’t mesh with what I know of the origins of our universe, its current energy state, nor the remainder of physics.
Students of nature have a long and troubled history of inventing new media or substances for the purpose of enabling their conceptions to be viable. Phlogiston. Luminiferous aether. And now ‘the total amplitude of the wave function’. Until such time as there is a material reason to accept that concept under the standard falsificationist definitions of evidence—I have no choice as a skeptic but to reject the notion.
Because it’s been a long while, I will remind you that not all rejections of MWI are created equal. My rejection of MWI is not and should never be considered an endorsement of the Copenhagen Interpretation. As I said previously, I do not believe there is any need whatsoever for any interpretation to occur. The mathematics of quantum mechanics as we have discerned them through experimental processes are elegant enough as is; there’s no need to dress them up for Sunday, as it were.
I’m not sure I understand this. Can you expand?
Edit: Double post.
This post was duplicated. You might want to delete this one.
Given that MWI uses the mathematical formalism equivalent to CI, they are equivalent in the only respect that counts. For example, neither provides any testable predictions re alternate universes, except that they are not observable. Of course, the MWI model tends to make people feel good about Quantum Mechanics, but that is a purely psychological effect.
CI has wave-form collapse. This isn’t used in the mathematical formalism because there’s no specific point at which it’s agreed to happen. It’s just assumed that it is when the system gets “macroscopic”.
They do show evidence of alternate universes, and they are not unobservable. For example, the double-slit experiment has two pasts. One for each slit.
Also, according to timeless physics, the past and future is just alternate universes. If you believe the past exists, and you accept the basic idea, you believe that alternate universes exist.
The Copenhagen Interpretation does not say anything about consciousness collapsing the wave function.
And consciousness collapsing the wave function is entirely unrelated to entanglement in rocks.