Why is quantum theory so strange? The weirdness could be in our heads

How does science work? And what's all this about quantum mechanics?

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socrat44
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Why is quantum theory so strange? The weirdness could be in our heads

Post by socrat44 »

Why is quantum theory so strange? The weirdness could be in our heads
/ on Sunday, December 05, 2021 in Physics /
---
PARTICLES that also act like waves; the “spooky action at a distance” of entanglement;
those dead-and-alive cats. Small wonder people often trot out physicist Richard Feynman’s
line that “nobody understands quantum mechanics”. With quantum theory, we have
developed an exceedingly successful description of how fundamental reality works.
It also amounts to a full-frontal assault on our intuitions about how reality should work.
Or does it? “It only seems strange to us because our immediate everyday experience
of the world is so very limited,” says Sean Carroll at the California Institute of Technology.
#
There is a big difference between seeming strange and being strange, too.
“If quantum mechanics is right, it can’t truly be strange – it’s how nature works,” says Carroll.
#
We don’t know the extent to which it can or should apply to macroscopic objects.
#
“Whatever that underlying reality turns out to be, it is almost certainly ‘strange’
relative to our classical experience,”
-----
https://www.scientiststudy.com/2021/12/ ... 256ytptmjg
Scott Mayers
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Re: Why is quantum theory so strange? The weirdness could be in our heads

Post by Scott Mayers »

Accepting the actual nature of physics to be 'weird' is based upon those interpreting the contradictory interpretation of evidence as sufficient evidence of Nature to BE certainly a contradiction! This is the way that the politics of those practicing science are redefining nature to be non-resolvable without some magic needed. Just as the Big Bang owes its prevalence due to intententional deception, those promoting the 'weirdness' on the quantum scale are intentionally coopting the original 'science' and turning it into a religion,....at least on the remote fringes.

The 'weird' interpretations (and the scientists promoting them) should not be accepted as being rational. They are either anti-logical in principle or are acting with some political intent to make the scientific leadership appear as priests who are untouchable to challenge. The Everitt interpretation is the reality, not the Copenhagen's LSD-induced thinking that has dominant power in the institutes. I think that given a lot of money is thrown their way for large expensive projects without questioning the credulity of the supposed authorities....or without the ability to question them freely....enables a likelihood to defraud society for all that can be gained upon it in so many ways.

[As of this moment, the Covid-19 4th booster is being suggested now which seems overkill and I suspect that the power of those in authority in the pharmaceutical industry are more able to exploit governments more easily when we are so vulnerable.]

Yet by contrast, fringe science issues, like astrophyics and atomic physics are virtually immune from even this criticism simply because of remoteness of the topic. It is relatively 'safe' to favor weirdness and magical instantaneous existence of everything all at once from being challenged regardless of any logic against them. There is definite politics at play.

There is also my own theory which will provide how and why matter can easily go through two slits at once. But even if I turn out to be incorrect, Copenhagen and Big Bang are certainly flawed on a logical level. That suffices to toss them out regardless. In fact, it would be best to NOT impose anything than to forcefully make new retrofitting theories to save these theories stinking of religious politics getting involved.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Why is quantum theory so strange? The weirdness could be in our heads

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

socrat44 wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 1:25 am Why is quantum theory so strange? The weirdness could be in our heads
/ on Sunday, December 05, 2021 in Physics /
---
........
Quantum theory is strange and weird but we need not keep insisting on that since QM at present is sufficiently verified, justified and is practical.

Those who keep insisting it is strange and weird are those who adopt a strange and weird unrealistic ideology, i.e. philosophical realism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism
Philosophical realism is usually not treated as a position of its own but as a stance towards other subject matters.
Realism about a certain kind of thing (like numbers or morality) is the thesis that this kind of thing has mind-independent existence, i.e. that it is not just a mere appearance in the eye of the beholder.[1][2][3]

This includes a number of positions within epistemology and metaphysics which express that a given thing instead exists independently of knowledge, thought, or understanding.[4]

This can apply to items such as the physical world, the past and future, other minds, and the self, though may also apply less directly to things such as universals, mathematical truths, moral truths, and thought itself.
As Rorty [Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979) ] stated, such people are caught with a mirror and attempt to mirror and compare whatever they obtain as knowledge against some fixed reality out there.
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=32188
When they don't match, they insisted it is strange and weird, in many cases whatever do not meet their expectations are rejected, e.g. Einstein's rejection of QM theories.
seeds
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Re: Why is quantum theory so strange? The weirdness could be in our heads

Post by seeds »

Scott Mayers wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 2:39 am The Everitt interpretation is the reality, not the Copenhagen's LSD-induced thinking that has dominant power in the institutes.
Sure thing, Scott.

However, as I have noted in an alternate thread, if you are going to take Everett's "Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics" seriously, then you must be willing to accept the possibility that our own universe may not have originated 13.8 billion years ago in a Big Bang.

No, because if Everett's MWI is true, then we might just owe our existence to a “branching” that occurred - (perhaps a mere 10 minutes ago) - due to the quantum events that took place in the methane from a bear farting in the woods in an alternate universe.

In which case, we are not here as the result of a “Big Bang,” but from a “tiny toot.”

Therefore, you are correct in viewing the "Big Bang Theory" as being "...flawed on a logical level..." and can now replace it with what I have coined the "tiny toot theory."

So, thank you for inadvertently supporting my work. :D
_______
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Why is quantum theory so strange? The weirdness could be in our heads

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

seeds wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 4:09 pm
Scott Mayers wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 2:39 am The Everitt interpretation is the reality, not the Copenhagen's LSD-induced thinking that has dominant power in the institutes.
Sure thing, Scott.

However, as I have noted in an alternate thread, if you are going to take Everett's "Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics" seriously, then you must be willing to accept the possibility that our own universe may not have originated 13.8 billion years ago in a Big Bang.

No, because if Everett's MWI is true, then we might just owe our existence to a “branching” that occurred - (perhaps a mere 10 minutes ago) - due to the quantum events that took place in the methane from a bear farting in the woods in an alternate universe.

In which case, we are not here as the result of a “Big Bang,” but from a “tiny toot.”

Therefore, you are correct in viewing the "Big Bang Theory" as being "...flawed on a logical level..." and can now replace it with what I have coined the "tiny toot theory."

So, thank you for inadvertently supporting my work. :D
_______
I noted most scientists re the BB do not accept there is one-instantaneous bang, rather they give the provision there could be activity before the BB but they do not venture into that in view of insufficient data.
Also they do not accept that "one-minute" of events after the supposedly Big Bang.

At present the Copenhagen's interpretation is supported by loads of practical applications which can be verified empirically. So to doubt it is irrational.
Scott Mayers
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Re: Why is quantum theory so strange? The weirdness could be in our heads

Post by Scott Mayers »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Dec 31, 2021 5:52 am
seeds wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 4:09 pm
Scott Mayers wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 2:39 am The Everitt interpretation is the reality, not the Copenhagen's LSD-induced thinking that has dominant power in the institutes.
Sure thing, Scott.

However, as I have noted in an alternate thread, if you are going to take Everett's "Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics" seriously, then you must be willing to accept the possibility that our own universe may not have originated 13.8 billion years ago in a Big Bang.

No, because if Everett's MWI is true, then we might just owe our existence to a “branching” that occurred - (perhaps a mere 10 minutes ago) - due to the quantum events that took place in the methane from a bear farting in the woods in an alternate universe.

In which case, we are not here as the result of a “Big Bang,” but from a “tiny toot.”

Therefore, you are correct in viewing the "Big Bang Theory" as being "...flawed on a logical level..." and can now replace it with what I have coined the "tiny toot theory."

So, thank you for inadvertently supporting my work. :D
_______
I noted most scientists re the BB do not accept there is one-instantaneous bang, rather they give the provision there could be activity before the BB but they do not venture into that in view of insufficient data.
Also they do not accept that "one-minute" of events after the supposedly Big Bang.

At present the Copenhagen's interpretation is supported by loads of practical applications which can be verified empirically. So to doubt it is irrational.
The "Copenhagen" interpretation is like your Philosophical Realism as defined above that I'm confused at whether you are for it or against it?. It assumes that what appears weird IS the evidence of it being 'weird' when the qualification of its reality is only based upon those interpreting it as 'weird'. Your response thus tells me that you do not know that the 'weird' interpretion IS the 'Copenhagen" interpretation.

By contrast, the Everitt interpretation permits the evidence of the apparent indeterminism to mean that a world for EACH possibility must exist or the probability itself would be more 'real' than the particular unique outcome that happens.

The Big Bang is false due to the fact that the inferred singularity cannot be deemed real by logic nor observation. Where indirect evidence is permitted, the laws of the physics and any logic used has to remain consistent at the singularity as it is locally. But the Big Bang theory DOES NOT assume physics as being the same in the earlier universe as today and it lacks a logically VALID argument for the singularity to exist as a FINITE point (versus an INFINITE or INFINITESIMAL one.)

Notice how both theoretical interpretations predominating on the fringes are 'weird' precisely for being 'contradictory'. But where some of us interpret contradiction as a universal motivator (literally and figuratively), accepting the state of contradiction as certainly 'paradoxical' [unable to be resolved] is anti-rational by empirical standards when it is limited to only THIS world. The empirical cannot speak of a 'beginning' with finite specificity (like a single source to space or time) without having clear boundaries known. A beginning to time and space would require setting this boundary AT or BEFORE the apparent origin of both space and time. In fact, opposingly, one CAN assert the appearance of anything observed as always requiring space and time and so we safely remove any presumptions that rely on anything opposing space and time as unbounded, such as the Big Bang. That is, the existence of the singularity is not even a right that any scientist should ever trust as having validity by any logical standards of convention applied to most other areas in science and so it should not be used as an assumption that other theories are based upon. You require knowing for certain that the singularity is finitely real but then if you discover it, you require having another spot behind it to act as the new boundary, ...repeatedly! So you cannot assume a finite singularity to time, space, nor matter.

...and thus, that defines 'steady state' reality as all that we can presume: all things able to observe witness phenomena limited to their own local physics and so any observations FROM that perspective cannot infer times or spaces that are distinctly different other than as a coinciding appearance of something weird or unusual. The appropriate principle to assume about observations in space through great distances and times is the Perfect Cosmological Principle: all space and time from any point in all spaces and times should be assumed to have a similar appearance on the largest scales regardless of perspective. [Homogenous and Isomorphic]
socrat44
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Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2019 4:20 pm

Re: Why is quantum theory so strange? The weirdness could be in our heads

Post by socrat44 »

''Invent formulas that we decide that the microcosm has to follow, and that later we verify that
they are strange and incomprehensible, but to say again that they are correct for the simple
fact that we have invented them and that if they seem strange it is because we are not capable
of understanding so wonderful formulas,
I find it dishonest on our part.
It has always been demanded that a formula or theory must be constantly checked to be true,
and if it is a probability theory, there must also be multiple measurements and proofs
that such a possibility is correct.
And that does not happen with quantum formulas, but quite the opposite.
They are demonstrated where particles are searched for and found, that is, in particle accelerators.
There the uncertainty principle and probabilities according to the wave function do not exist.
There, it is the quality and consistency of the measuring devices that measure us and find the particles.''
/ by fernando mancebo /
Agree. Every season a new quantum particle is discovered to explain the strangeness
of the previous and so until the next season, until a new cycle of discovery. /Israel /
===
socrat44
Posts: 309
Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2019 4:20 pm

Re: Why is quantum theory so strange? The weirdness could be in our heads

Post by socrat44 »

Scott Mayers wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 2:39 am Accepting the actual nature of physics to be 'weird' is based upon those interpreting the contradictory interpretation of evidence as sufficient evidence of Nature to BE certainly a contradiction! This is the way that the politics of those practicing science are redefining nature to be non-resolvable without some magic needed. Just as the Big Bang owes its prevalence due to intententional deception, those promoting the 'weirdness' on the quantum scale are intentionally coopting the original 'science' and turning it into a religion,....at least on the remote fringes.

The 'weird' interpretations (and the scientists promoting them) should not be accepted as being rational. They are either anti-logical in principle or are acting with some political intent to make the scientific leadership appear as priests who are untouchable to challenge. The Everitt interpretation is the reality, not the Copenhagen's LSD-induced thinking that has dominant power in the institutes. I think that given a lot of money is thrown their way for large expensive projects without questioning the credulity of the supposed authorities....or without the ability to question them freely....enables a likelihood to defraud society for all that can be gained upon it in so many ways.

[As of this moment, the Covid-19 4th booster is being suggested now which seems overkill and I suspect that the power of those in authority in the pharmaceutical industry are more able to exploit governments more easily when we are so vulnerable.]

Yet by contrast, fringe science issues, like astrophyics and atomic physics are virtually immune from even this criticism simply because of remoteness of the topic. It is relatively 'safe' to favor weirdness and magical instantaneous existence of everything all at once from being challenged regardless of any logic against them. There is definite politics at play.

There is also my own theory which will provide how and why matter can easily go through two slits at once. But even if I turn out to be incorrect, Copenhagen and Big Bang are certainly flawed on a logical level. That suffices to toss them out regardless. In fact, it would be best to NOT impose anything than to forcefully make new retrofitting theories to save these theories stinking of religious politics getting involved.
Thanks to quantum physics, we have modern technology, and therefore QP cannot be “weird”. . . .
but (as selfish people) we transfer our unresolved problems ''from a sore head to a healthy one''
saying that nature is ''weird, strange, incomprehensible, cannot be understood by the classic logic''
===
Impenitent
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Re: Why is quantum theory so strange? The weirdness could be in our heads

Post by Impenitent »

weird science... Oingo Boingo or Kelly LeBrock

-Imp
seeds
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Re: Why is quantum theory so strange? The weirdness could be in our heads

Post by seeds »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Dec 31, 2021 5:52 am I noted most scientists re the BB do not accept there is one-instantaneous bang, rather they give the provision there could be activity before the BB but they do not venture into that in view of insufficient data.
There is a literal "ETERNITY" preceding the alleged Big Bang.

And the point is that whatever "activity" came before the BB, it had plenty of time (in fact, "FOREVER") to acquire the necessary conditions that would allow for the successful manifestation of this singular and isolated phenomenon...

Image

...that we call a universe.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Dec 31, 2021 5:52 am At present the Copenhagen's interpretation is supported by loads of practical applications which can be verified empirically. So to doubt it is irrational.
I assume you are addressing that to Scott Mayers and not me, right? For my sarcastic critique of the "Many-Worlds Interpretation" was meant to show just one of the MWI's ridiculous implications (e.g., the "tiny toot theory"), and I mentioned nothing about doubting the Copenhagen Interpretation.

However, seeing how the Copenhagen Interpretation includes the caveat that its practitioners are so baffled when it comes to the true nature of the substances they are dealing with that they simply throw their hands in the air and exclaim: "shut up and calculate",...

...then it is clear that something is amiss.
_______
seeds
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Re: Why is quantum theory so strange? The weirdness could be in our heads

Post by seeds »

Scott Mayers wrote: Fri Dec 31, 2021 9:28 am ...the Everitt [sic] interpretation permits the evidence of the apparent indeterminism to mean that a world for EACH possibility must exist...
Scott, do you actually believe that due to the interaction taking place between the photons of light jumping off your computer screen and that of your eyeballs,...

...that trillions of copies of you, me, the earth, and the entire universe just now sprang into existence in the few seconds it took you to read this sentence?

Really???
_______
seeds
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Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2016 9:31 pm

Re: Why is quantum theory so strange? The weirdness could be in our heads

Post by seeds »

socrat44 wrote: Fri Dec 31, 2021 11:09 am Every season a new quantum particle is discovered to explain the strangeness of the previous...
According to the Copenhagen Interpretation, when dealing with unmeasured (superpositioned) quantum phenomena, there are no particles with any specific attributes (such as "position," for example) until a measurement is made.

In other words, if unmeasured quantum phenomena exist in a state that Heisenberg called...

..."a quantitative version of the old concept of "potentia" in Aristotelian philosophy",...

...then perhaps rather than "discovering" new particles, our measuring devices are literally "creating" (sculpting) new particles (out of Heisenberg's raw "potentia") by reason of what they are designed to look for.

Again, if according to Copenhagen there are no "particles" with specific attributes until a measurement is made, then the word "discovered" might just be a misnomer.
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seeds
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Re: Why is quantum theory so strange? The weirdness could be in our heads

Post by seeds »

socrat44 wrote: Fri Dec 31, 2021 1:30 pm Thanks to quantum physics, we have modern technology, and therefore QP cannot be “weird”. . . .
but (as selfish people) we transfer our unresolved problems ''from a sore head to a healthy one''
saying that nature is ''weird, strange, incomprehensible, cannot be understood by the classic logic''
Dear lord, no, there is absolutely nothing weird about the fact that we are magnetically adhered to the surface of what is, more or less, a rotating ball of concentrated "light-like" energy, flying laterally through space at approximately 67,000 miles per hour.

Furthermore, even though the vast oceans and our great human metropolises are being spun around (topsy-turvy) in a rotisserie cycle that only takes a mere 24 hours to complete, we are generally unaware that the ball is even moving, or that we are literally upside-down from those on the other side of the ball...

Image

Nah, nothing weird about that at all. :roll:

Good grief, everyone needs to wake-up, for crying out loud.

The bottom line is that our general level of consciousness has been attenuated in such a way as to cause us to be oblivious of just how utterly weird our situation truly is.
_______
Scott Mayers
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Re: Why is quantum theory so strange? The weirdness could be in our heads

Post by Scott Mayers »

seeds wrote: Fri Dec 31, 2021 8:14 pm
Scott Mayers wrote: Fri Dec 31, 2021 9:28 am ...the Everitt [sic] interpretation permits the evidence of the apparent indeterminism to mean that a world for EACH possibility must exist...
Scott, do you actually believe that due to the interaction taking place between the photons of light jumping off your computer screen and that of your eyeballs,...

...that trillions of copies of you, me, the earth, and the entire universe just now sprang into existence in the few seconds it took you to read this sentence?

Really???
_______
In general, yes. The fact that we can find certain realities as based UPON probabilities between multiple possibilities (where they exist), the reality could NOT be statistically valid if the other options do not exist somewhere.

For instance, you come to a T-intersection in which you could turn left or you can turn right. If the probability of real instances is 50% for turning left and 50% for turning right, this probability could not be demonstrated consistently if whichever possible choice one does not choose is 0% to the 100% one does choose. That is, where you discover real statistical probabilities consistently, this requires one accept the other options as real or believe that we live in an absolutely unique universe.

To add force to this, when given a frame of a movie, is there only one unique possible 'story' that this frame uniquely fits into? That is, can you tell from ONLY that one frame what is determined to precede it or follow it uniquely? The Copenhagen interpretation would assert that the probabilities are real in some grand univeral computer that 'tosses dice' in order to determine the particular reality AND that this particular reality is the ONLY one. The multiple worlds interpretaton is the only option that completes the full picture because it would account for why certain consistent probabilities are distributed FAIRLY among the different possibilies.

Note that I only used "Everett Interpretation" based upon it being the name of the first person to propose it, ....not to assert my support for any PARTICULAR unique meaning to Everett's views. As such, my argument is more broadly extended and requires being a truth about Totality (all posssible Universes of universes). If only ONE actual option in the above left-right-turn example is true, any measure of statistics collected about many different instances would not have ANY actual predictable pattern.


Note also that the example I gave in reality to which way one turns can depend on other factors such as whether we are in London versus Toronto, given we would tend to possibly favor turning 'right' in Toronto but 'left' in London due to which side of the road we normally ride on. But even under the possibility of such differences, while it might be say 75% chance that people in Toronto might favor turning 'right', we still expect this probability to hold consistently under those restricted influences. The only way a statistic of nature to hold consistently where it is not 100% or 0% assured is if the possibilities are actually distributed and fit with the same probability regardless of how many times you repeat it.

Does this help understand the distinction? The Copenhagen interpretation drew the same criticism from Einstein that I share. "God does not toss dice" was asserted by him about this interpretion because it implies our PARTICULAR reality should not show real fixed pattern of probabilities that 'collapse' into one unique reality unless it was perfectly indeterminate (not even predictable by probabilities.)
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Why is quantum theory so strange? The weirdness could be in our heads

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

seeds wrote: Fri Dec 31, 2021 8:13 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Dec 31, 2021 5:52 am I noted most scientists re the BB do not accept there is one-instantaneous bang, rather they give the provision there could be activity before the BB but they do not venture into that in view of insufficient data.
There is a literal "ETERNITY" preceding the alleged Big Bang.

And the point is that whatever "activity" came before the BB, it had plenty of time (in fact, "FOREVER") to acquire the necessary conditions that would allow for the successful manifestation of this singular and isolated phenomenon...

https://www.listland.com/wp-content/upl ... 363447.jpg

...that we call a universe.
Why are you so concern with what is before the Big Bang at all when there is no evidence and reasonable probability to grasp what there is at time t0 and prior?

What is happening is very personal to you, i.e.
you a fallible gnat [relatively] is trying to play God in jumping into conclusion to stop an infinite regression.
From where did you get your authority and power to do so?

Your drive to play God to stop an infinite regression [as a consonance] is due to a psychological issue, i.e. the inherent existential crisis that is driving you to relieve the cognitive dissonance in you. That is why the Buddha state life is sufferings [dukkha].

Being a gnat [relatively] all humans should just accept whatever is possible up the 61st seconds [t 61st second] after the supposedly Big Bang and not be bothered with what happen at time t0 and prior.

This is the top-down approach to reality, i.e. we start with what is observable and verifiable NOW and work backward in time to as far as our current evidences can support with the ultimate purpose for the individuals and humanity future well being.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Dec 31, 2021 5:52 am At present the Copenhagen's interpretation is supported by loads of practical applications which can be verified empirically. So to doubt it is irrational.
I assume you are addressing that to Scott Mayers and not me, right? For my sarcastic critique of the "Many-Worlds Interpretation" was meant to show just one of the MWI's ridiculous implications (e.g., the "tiny toot theory"), and I mentioned nothing about doubting the Copenhagen Interpretation.

However, seeing how the Copenhagen Interpretation includes the caveat that its practitioners are so baffled when it comes to the true nature of the substances they are dealing with that they simply throw their hands in the air and exclaim: "shut up and calculate",...

...then it is clear that something is amiss.
_______
Ok, I was addressing Scot's point.
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