Why Physicalism is Wrong

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seeds
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Re: Why Physicalism is Wrong

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QuantumT wrote: Sun Jun 17, 2018 11:54 pm Image
uwot wrote: Tue Jun 19, 2018 11:19 am Yeah, yeah, yeah. Understanding the mathematics of QM is very tricky...
Richard Feynman used to say that the most mysterious thing about QM is the double slit experiment. This is one way to conceptualise it (Can't remember who posted it first, but well done them.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIyTZDHuarQ&t=304s
Anyone who is still profoundly shocked by quantum mechanics hasn't done their homework. Or is just easily shocked.
Or is it possible that they did their homework and came to different conclusions than you?

The experiment in the video that you referenced shows the representation of a particle being guided (“piloted”) around by a waving fluid in a shallow container.

Now that is easy to demonstrate with the fluids and liquids that exist within the context of “local” reality.

However, the question is - what is the so-called “pilot wave” made of?

In other words, what exactly is it that is waving with respect to a single particle (one isolated electron) at the “non-local” level of reality?

In what seems to be an effort to rescue the integrity of a particular worldview in which particles themselves do not spread out into waves, isn't the experiment in the video simply introducing another mysterious and inexplicable phenomenon into the mix (i.e., the “pilot wave”) in order to support the theory?

And the point is that if there is a particle AND a wave (as is suggested in the video), then someone has to do some better 'splainin' as to, again, what the wave is made of.
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QuantumT
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Re: Why Physicalism is Wrong

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Arising_uk wrote: Tue Jun 19, 2018 5:33 pm So if no-one turns up you think your house wouldn't be burnt down?
The computer has to know the state and position of every atom in the universe, wether they're being observed or not. But not having to show them, saves GPU power.
It's not a logical conclusion, the logical conclusion according to your hypotheses is that you would have no idea what's happening whilst you're not there.
No. Computers are not that mysterious. But, I can never be sure, of course.
seeds wrote: Tue Jun 19, 2018 5:46 pm Or is it possible that they did their homework and came to different conclusions than you?

The experiment in the video that you referenced shows the representation of a particle being guided (“piloted”) around by a waving fluid in a shallow container.

Now that is easy to demonstrate with the fluids and liquids that exist within the context of “local” reality.

However, the question is - what is the so-called “pilot wave” made of?

In other words, what exactly is it that is waving with respect to a single particle (one isolated electron) at the “non-local” level of reality?

In what seems to be an effort to rescue the integrity of a particular worldview in which particles themselves do not spread out into waves, isn't the experiment in the video simply introducing another mysterious and inexplicable phenomenon into the mix (i.e., the “pilot wave”) in order to support the theory?

And the point is that if there is a particle AND a wave (as is suggested in the video), then someone has to do some better 'splainin' as to, again, what the wave is made of.
Truth is: They've had 100 years to figure out a non-spooky explanation, and they've failed.
Changing spooky action with a spooky, faster-than-light pilot wave, is still spooky!
seeds
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Re: Why Physicalism is Wrong

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QuantumT wrote: It's being computed/processed like any other event. It's just not being visualized/taking shape, untill the observer arrives. …
Arising_uk wrote: Tue Jun 19, 2018 5:33 pm So if no-one turns up you think your house wouldn't be burnt down?
Everything would still transpire as expected. The house would burn down and mayhem would ensue.

However, minus the presence of observers (in any and all forms), it would all transpire as algorithmic processes within the context of the noumenal level of reality.

As a very simplistic metaphor...

...it would be similar to if you turned off the monitor and speakers prior to a raucous destruction scene in a movie on a DVD (The Towering Inferno, for example), but left the DVD running.

If you come back later and turn the visual and audio monitors back on,...

(in other words, the metaphorical equivalent of “observers” in this quantum debate)

...the destruction is now witnessed as expected, yet all of it transpired within the informationally-based context of the bumps and pits on the DVD.
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Re: Why Physicalism is Wrong

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QuantumT wrote:The computer has to know the state and position of every atom in the universe, wether they're being observed or not. But not having to show them, saves GPU power. …
If 'its' a computer then there are no waves just bits.
No. Computers are not that mysterious. But, I can never be sure, of course. …
You're missing the philosophical point, you claim it takes and observer to note things, if so you cannot note your waves.
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Re: Why Physicalism is Wrong

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seeds wrote:However, minus the presence of observers (in any and all forms), it would all transpire as algorithmic processes within the context of the noumenal level of reality. …
Or just be a house burning down in a non-observer dependent external reality.
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Re: Why Physicalism is Wrong

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Arising_uk wrote: Tue Jun 19, 2018 7:42 pm If 'its' a computer then there are no waves just bits.
We use binary computers. I consider that primitive. My best bet is that we live in a quaternary computer. (Maybe even better.) I base that assumption on DNA, that has 4 compounds, and that we have 4 common elemetary particles: electrons, protons, neutrons and photons.

The waves we talk about in this discussion are potential experiences never shown. Data processes obeying causality until an observer comes and turns the process into a visual display of the data.
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Re: Why Physicalism is Wrong

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QuantumT wrote:We use binary computers. I consider that primitive. My best bet is that we live in a quaternary computer. (Maybe even better.) …
What on earth are you talking about, what is a 'quaternary computer' when its at home? 'All' you need is a 3-D computer with bits smaller than the Planck length.
I base that assumption on DNA, that has 4 compounds, and that we have 4 common elemetary particles: electrons, protons, neutrons and photons. …
So what's calculating the quarks and leptons?
The waves we talk about in this discussion are potential experiences never shown. …
What's a 'potential experience that is never shown' when its at home?
Data processes obeying causality until an observer comes and turns the process into a visual display of the data.
As has been pointed-out to you a million times you are just doing metaphyics based upon the curent vogue, all these ideas have been explored already in varius philosophical guises and since Kant we know them to be wishful thinking.
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Re: Why Physicalism is Wrong

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Arising_uk wrote: Tue Jun 19, 2018 8:24 pm*
Nothing you said makes any sense, because you mix our own reality with a higher unknown one.
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Re: Why Physicalism is Wrong

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QuantumT wrote:Nothing you said makes any sense, because you mix our own reality with a higher unknown one.
And you know this how?
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Re: Why Physicalism is Wrong

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Arising_uk wrote: Tue Jun 19, 2018 10:14 pm And you know this how?
Now you confuse a theoretical discussion with knowledge.
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Re: Why Physicalism is Wrong

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But you're the one claiming its all running on a computer? I just pointed out that if it is then you don't need waves just bits. You then waffled about a 'quaternary computer' or some such so I asked you to explain yourself and your response was to waffle off to somewhere else.
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Re: Why Physicalism is Wrong

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QuantumT wrote:The computer has to know the state and position of every atom in the universe, wether they're being observed or not. But not having to show them, saves GPU power. …
There's a GPU now? I thought you didn't like binary computing?

Did you know that a while back the Computational Universe mob worked out that the most efficient algorithmic way of simulating 'reality' would be to run all the possiblilties. So your 'saving GPU power' would not be an efficient method according to them.
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Re: Why Physicalism is Wrong

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at least it isn't GNU power...

-Imp
uwot
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Re: Why Physicalism is Wrong

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seeds wrote: Tue Jun 19, 2018 5:46 pm
uwot wrote: Tue Jun 19, 2018 11:19 amAnyone who is still profoundly shocked by quantum mechanics hasn't done their homework. Or is just easily shocked.
Or is it possible that they did their homework and came to different conclusions than you?
In a way, the conclusions aren't all that important. As Michael Faraday said:
"All this is a dream. Still examine it by a few experiments. Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature; and in such things as these, experiment is the best test of such consistency."
You and I have reached very different conclusions from largely the same data set, and the choices we make are largely aesthetic. The difficulty that many people have with QM, including many physicists, is that they don't always recognise which of the concepts refer to 'actual' things and which are simply mathematical tools. Things like mass, charge and spin sound like real things such as beach, beer and suntan lotion, but actually they're just labels given to properties that make particles move a particular way. That isn't always made clear, and in fact some physicists are realists anyway, so some stories about what the world is really like are very confused and confusing.
seeds wrote: Tue Jun 19, 2018 5:46 pmThe experiment in the video that you referenced shows the representation of a particle being guided (“piloted”) around by a waving fluid in a shallow container.

Now that is easy to demonstrate with the fluids and liquids that exist within the context of “local” reality.
Some physicists still insist that non-physicists can never understand how things work at the quantum level, because it is so different to how the macroscopic world behaves. The phrase "Shut up and calculate" has been attributed to practically every pioneer of quantum mechanics and there are still those who think it's the only way to do physics. What's great about the video is that it shows behaviour which produces the same effect as the two slit experiment. As the guy in the video says, that does not mean that it is an exact analogy, but it shows at least that perhaps there is a mechanism responsible for the results of the two slit, which we might be able to understand.
seeds wrote: Tue Jun 19, 2018 5:46 pmHowever, the question is - what is the so-called “pilot wave” made of?
Well, if you want my opinion, it's big bang stuff. I'm surprised you ask.
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Re: Why Physicalism is Wrong

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uwot wrote: Tue Jun 19, 2018 10:51 pm*
I'm glad you came down from your physicalistic piedestal, and joined our pondering of current reality, instead of consequently denying the implications QM indicates.
Any attempt to explain the mysteries is welcome. Any attempt to deny explanations is not. Unless it's backed up by logic.
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