Atla wrote: ↑Thu Apr 05, 2018 7:02 am
Serendipper wrote: ↑Wed Apr 04, 2018 9:59 pmThere aren't infinite possibilities. There may be other possibilities, but this is the possibility that survived. It is like a tree growing branches to reach sunlight: the branches do not presuppose where the sun is (for the most part, discounting gravity, heat, etc) so the branches head off in random directions and the one that receives the best light survives while the others slowly die off. So it was likely the same with the universe: some possibilities happened and the one that beat the others managed to survive leading to the next competition in the evolution of things.
Well there you have it, this is why I choose the MWI.
Your explanation is magical, you say that there is something magical going on behind the scenes, or something magical right now in this world, that MADE this possibility be chosen.
Not only is that a non-explanation, it also goes completely against genuine randomness.
So out of genuine randomness, this and only this universe comes to be. THAT is the most crazy idea to me.
Magic is not the same as nothing.
If I present you with two identical items, which will you choose? After you have selected one, then I ask you why you picked that one, will you reply "magic"? Or will you claim there are, magically, infinite other worlds where you picked the other one? Will you then say that, magically, there is infinite energy supporting the infinite other worlds? Or will you assert that energy is, magically, not necessary to have infinite universes?
Either you say there is no reason why you picked one over the other beside the fact that you had to pick one or you claim some magic as the reason.
So you object and theorize that the reason you picked the one is a function of how you were put together and that is a function of your atomic makeup and that was determined by a never-ending series of causality that had no beginning and therefore no cause, no identifiable determining agent, ie magic.
If you cannot pin down and tell me exactly what determined your choice, then it's either magic or it's nothing. That's your choices and I leave it to you to decide which you prefer.
I don't know how they derive that conceptualization knowing that space and time do not exist from the perspective of light, so there is no universe in which to have locality.
I guess looking at it from the perspective of light is also a new idea.
It shouldn't be. It should be a century-old idea.
It's not that randomness is required for consciousness, but that I can't understand how I have a point of view, an experience, if I am merely the product of a dumb mechanical process such as dominoes falling. It's hard to articulate why. Additionally, there is nothing to select for this point of view that I have because it makes no difference to anything if I have it. I could function as a robot just the same. All my emotions and whatnot could be programmed in, if all that I am is a determined process. If that is so, then how did awareness of myself and a feeling of a point of view on the universe come to be if there is nothing selecting for it?
But if you say that something is selecting for it, then you are saying that there is another mechanism outside this universe that made things happen the way they did. And you have to explain that as well.
What selects for deer having long or short legs?
My take is that there is no other type of mechanism, just more of the same: which is indeed why I chose the MWI. And so there is only the illusion of selection. I find this to be the simplest extension.
So is it a fluke that deer have long legs in this world and short legs in another world because there are no selective forces? Then it's random? If there are no selective forces, clearly decisions about which deer go in which universe are random (causeless).
Can you think of a way of having a universe without energy?
Sure, I think the net energy of the universe is zero.
But how did it get into a non-net state? How did plus get separated from minus? Antimatter was in the news recently, so how did matter get separated from antimatter? Just because everything cancels doesn't explain how it became separated. How do you take nothing, divide it in half, and create two opposites without using energy? Magic?
Because that's the theory: many worlds. Each quantum event happens in another universe.
Many-worlds implies that all possible alternate histories and futures are real, each representing an actual "world" (or "universe"). In layman's terms, the hypothesis states there is a very large—perhaps infinite[2]—number of universes, and everything that could possibly have happened in our past, but did not, has occurred in the past of some other universe or universes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worl ... rpretation
An infinite number of universes??? Each with no temporal end??? You don't see that as silly? Why not? What empirical observation has given you any clue that the infinite can exist or that all possibilities exist?
Well not quite, there seem to be several version of the MWI. In the non-layman's terms version, there is actually just the universal wavefunction assumed. But indeed some physicists take it to separate branching universes and that's crazy imo.
The first statement on wikipedia is:
The many-worlds interpretation is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that asserts the objective reality of the universal wavefunction and denies the actuality of wavefunction collapse.
I have two philosophical problems with that: 1) objectivity cannot be determined nor verified unless it is done subjectively. 2) Occam's razor asserts we should choose the solution with the least assumptions and assuming the wavefunction doesn't collapse is not consistent with what we observe, but attempts to explain that it's an illusion by assuming that the other possibilities manifest in other universes. So assumption #1 is the wavefunction doesn't collapse and assumption #2 is that other universes exist.
Ironically, the assumptions are made to avoid the problem of something coming from nothing (ie randomness), but still doesn't solve it. So two new assumptions have been made with nothing being accomplished. What determines which possibility goes to which universe? What is the ultimate cause for everything? If there are more universes now than before, then logically there was a time when only one universe existed, so what was before the very first quantum event? Now that's a problem!
I also don't see why our universe couldn't have a temporal end, maybe time goes in circle in this universe.
It's possible. If time goes in circles, then that's infinite.
As I said above, I don't know the connection of randomness to consciousness; I just know determinism can't explain it.
I think if there is a fundamental thing, then that thing cannot have something more fundamental determining its behavior; therefore randomness must exist unless there is no fundamental thing, which implies an infinite number of smaller things. But again, there is no starting point for an infinite series of causality so again there appears to be no cause that can be identified. Whether the cause of an event is due to an infinite number of factors or zero factors, it is the same.
Determinism can explain it, as I showed. And a fundamental thing can easily be deterministic.
If the fundamental thing determines everything else, then what determines the fundamental thing?
Do you have substantiation?
The quantum measurement problem is imo the greatest unsolved mistery in physics and philosophy. No one could fully figure it out yet. But it's getting really old having to explain every time that the "mind causes the collapse" idea is just one of the many interpretations and while it may be partially true, it's fundamentally incorrect. That "mind" that causes the collapse is just another set of particles, that everything else is made of too. There's more and less to it.
If it would be so damn simple as you write then it had been solved long ago.
But if some minds cannot cause the collapse, then the mind must be able to understand what it sees in order to cause the collapse. You said that is wrong, so explain to me why that is wrong.
From what I understand from the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment, if we take a measurement, but discard the data before observing it, the pattern is the same as never being observed. So if we substitute an animal in place of a human, then discard the result such that a human could never know, which pattern would develop?
If a circle is not infinite, please write out PI in its entirety here for me.
That's a numerical represaentation of pi, which is an irrational number. Are you saying that every circle we draw or imagine is infinitely large?
Infinity and a circle has no starting nor ending point. An infinitely large circle is a straight line without end and with zero curvature.
What's the difference? If there are changes or no changes, then it's infinite regression. A simple illustration is to aim a camera at its monitor. Does the monitor change because of what the camera sees? Yes or no, it doesn't matter.
If there are no changes, then there are no changes.
That's not an infinite regression, your misconceptualization of it is an infinite regression.
I don't think the misconception is mine.