Submitted by ADefiniteDescription t3_xyumwc in philosophy
fineburgundy t1_irkhjxb wrote
Reply to comment by TMax01 in Quantum philosophy: 4 ways physics will challenge your reality by ADefiniteDescription
I am not a physicist. But I have encountered this issue and spent a lot of time on it. Any actual physicist out there is invited to review this and correct it.
Here’s the subtle, insane thing that physicists (and philosophers) have grappled with: what you gave was a perfectly normal description that should apply to both QM and classical physics. “We don’t know where something is until we measure it, but it is somewhere, waiting for us to spot it.” QM is not that normal. It is not just telling us how much information we have, it tells us something weird is going on.
There are competing ways to describe the problem, but a Copenhagen interpretation would say that the wave function of a quantum system evolves smoothly (like ripples on he surface of a pond) then collapses when measured. It’s as if Nature waits to decide where a particle is until we ask.
What difference does that make? Well, I want to emphasize the following point: it took decades for someone to come up with an answer to that. We now know how to conduct an experiment that would give a different outcome if QM’s weird math is right. What I think you said is almost true, almost; quantum measurement almost gives us the same results as if our measurement just tells us where the particle was all along. And for decades many physicists assumed we never would spot any difference, that this apparent weirdness was “just philosophy.”
But Bell showed that we can check if that “almost” is true. Einstein didn’t figure out how to, he didn’t live long enough for anyone to figure this out. Many of the people who first discussed this had passed away. I can’t emphasize enough that it wasn’t obvious we would ever find that QM’s weird methodology made a detectable difference. But Bell came up with his Inequalities, experimenters could finally test for them, and it turned QM’s math was right. Entangled particles measured in a clever way were correlated “too well.”
One of the reasons this gets confusing is that there are many very different descriptions of the weirdness, because if physics says the world works in an impossible way you can “fix the problem” if you are willing to break a different rule instead. I say two entangled particles can’t know how to correlate in advance. But maybe the information travels backwards in time. Or maybe particles actually follow every possible path, but follow each one in a parallel universe. We end up with a lot of very smart people arguing about which unreasonable option is more reasonable. But nobody has found what most other physicists would consider a solution. Something weird really is going on.
I think Nobel Prize was awarded to three people who made a series of cleverer and more conclusive experiments testing Bell’s Inequalities. I think at least two have said that they thought if they were careful enough they could show that QM isn’t really weird in this way. But they kept coming up with the results QM predicted all along.
TMax01 t1_irl4kc4 wrote
>“We don’t know where something is until we measure it, but it is somewhere, waiting for us to spot it.”
>QM is not that normal.
Well, I hope you won't mind if I try to interpret what you're trying to say. Before I do that, though, I feel that I should point out that isn't a quotation from me, nor does it adequately characterize what I did say. But I understand why you presumed that you were actually paraphrasing my position, when you weren't.
Accepting the 'location' metaphor you have set up, I don't think "we don't know where something is" but it is "waiting for us to spot it". Quite the opposite; there is either a location, amd we simply look at what is there, or we only measure whatever we spotted, and then try to figure out from that what and where it is. In that way, QM is perfectly normal: it is simply physics. The fact that it provides results that are startlingly unexpected and seem to be more contrary to our intuitions doesn't make that any less true. In fact, it makes it more true, just in a surprising way because we've become so used to believing (falsely) that we understand why physical objects behave the way they do. But let's not forget that all science is, to some degree or other, contrary to our expectations. Intuition led us to believe that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. Intuition led us to believe that aether must exist, that the Sun orbited the Earth, and that mice arose from dirty rags. QM is more exceptional because it defies the expectations of conventional physics, not because it is unintuitive. Heck, most people don't quite understand how the speed of light could limit the propagation of gravity, so the fact that entanglement could (theoretically!) allow instantaneous information transfer is only notable because scientists previously (but only recently) insisted that instantaneous information transfer was impossible, not because it is "unintuitive".
>It’s as if Nature waits to decide where a particle is until we ask.
You just repeated the very error the article did. In spades. I understand, your intention was to point out that quantum indeterminacy is distinct and more profound than more mundane ignorance-based indeterminacy. But you've done it by invoking a problematic metaphor of agency and recycling the notion of location to resuscitate determinism; as if the particle is just 'elsewhere' until "Nature" wishes to reward us for looking for it. The "asking" is indeed what 'causes' the particle to have a discrete location. That only seems confusing if you try to imagine the particle as an object, like the moon. So DDTT.
>quantum measurement almost gives us the same results as if our measurement just tells us where the particle was all along.
Your interpretation of my description is mistaken, again. I believe what I actually said (and none of your points actually disputes, although I understand why you find my perspective to lack the requisite mystified exacerbation of quantum weirdness you're used to) is that "quantum measurement" isn't a special thing, it is just measurement. And no matter how spooky, uncanny, weird, mystifying, and confusing the mechanisms of quantum systems get, somehow or other they do result in the behavior of the material objects our intuitions are informed by. Quantum particles aren't objects, they never have been, they don't have locations, they simply have localization determined by the necessity of their local effect, regardless of whether that is a measurement by a physicist or any other quantum particle interacting with it. People are rightfully confused and bemused by "spooky action at a distance". Why is that? Because it isn't an effect that is analogous to how larger objects (which are all entirely composed of quantum particles) behave.
>But they kept coming up with the results QM predicted all along.
That has been the case since the discovery of QM. Many of the greatest advancements in quantum physics have been the result of someone trying to disprove quantum physics, and successfully failing to achieve that goal.
gae12345 t1_irmefwg wrote
>(which are all
>
>entirely composed
>
>of quantum particles) behave.
What are quantum particles composed of then? sorry don't know if the question makes sense
TMax01 t1_irmj1fq wrote
It doesn't really, but only because I don't know why you are asking it, and the answer doesn't make any difference to what I said. Quantum particles aren't really "composed" of anything, because that term suggests component parts, which is the opposite of what "quanta" means. Quantum particles are just energy, aka the localized affect of decoherent wave functions.
gae12345 t1_irmr44d wrote
oh it wasn't meant as something which would challenge something else you said or anything like that I just asked because how crazy and interesting all this is thanks for having answered
so quatnum particles are made of energy no wait they 're made of wave functions?
TMax01 t1_irmy8rh wrote
Just the thought they are "made of" some other thing is really the issue, in a very ultimate sort of way. Some people truly believe they are 'made of' thought, perception, even consciousness itself. Most people want a more rigorous, scientific kind of approach, but are stymied by the fact they seem to be 'made of' nothing more than probability (or perhaps "strings vibrating in 11 dimensions"). Is energy 'made of' wave functions or are wave functions 'made of 'energy? I propose they (energy and wave functions) are 'made of' and 'make up' the ineffability of being, and it's "turtles all the way down", as if that makes any sense. 😉
By the way, I started a subreddit for discussing things like this outside of r/philosophy and r/consciousness, feel free to visit or post there if you are interested.
Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
gae12345 t1_irn40m2 wrote
>hey are 'made of' thought, perception, even consciousness
well one could ask what those things are made of as well
TMax01 t1_iroydv4 wrote
Indeed. But whatever the answer might be, one could ask what that is "made of". It's turtles all the way down.
gae12345 t1_irn43mq wrote
>propose they (energy and wave functions) are 'made of' and 'make up' the
>
>ineffability of being
>
>, and it's "turtles all the way down"
sort of like a feedback loop? I will definitely check out that sub
TMax01 t1_iroxz5j wrote
Not a feedback loop, like a dynamic equilibrium; an identity (not a personality trait, but being the same thing) without teleology (cause or purpose): being. As in the word is.
Smooth_Notice8504 t1_irmqpn5 wrote
Particle-like behaviour is one aspect of the manifestation of energy in quantum fields.
fineburgundy t1_irtj421 wrote
Hmmm, I see a relatively simple disagreement, and a more serious one.
Simple one: the interpretation are weird in their own ways. It’s possible that “my” interpretation happens not to work for you. But let me test that:
When we measure the location of particle A, we get a particular result. Do you believe in counterfactuals? That if we measure particle B instead, particle A is in that same location it would have we measured it? Feel to answer for either entangled particles or unentangled particles, whichever seems clearest to you.
I think I can guess your answer, but I would rather just ask you yourself!
TMax01 t1_irtyjpe wrote
The entire "disagreement" is simple: you think your question relates to the topic of conversation, and I know it does not. More importantly, I know why it does not. Feel free to review the thread to try to determine why the details of QM which you are asking about are irrelevant to the issue we were previously discussing. If you cannot, or choose not to, then there is nothing I could say, in response to your quandary or otherwise, that would force you to recognize your error in this regard.
fineburgundy t1_iru0rzn wrote
I was responding to this part of the article:
““What if the world isn’t made of well-defined, independent pieces of ‘stuff’?” I hear you say. “Then can we avoid this spooky action?”
Yes, we can. And many in the quantum physics community think this way, too. But this would be no consolation to Einstein.
Einstein had a long-running debate with his friend Niels Bohr, a Danish physicist, about this very question. Bohr argued we should indeed give up the idea of the stuff of the world being well defined, so we can avoid spooky action-at-a-distance. In Bohr’s view, the world doesn’t have definite properties unless we’re looking at it. When we’re not looking, Bohr thought, the world as we know it isn’t really there.”
You are not required to discuss that at all.
TMax01 t1_irw67zi wrote
That really doesn't help, no. The question is what part of this discussion about the article (which all pertains to that part of the article) your quandary relates to. You are not required to answer, but this response isn't useful.
Perhaps I could help by noting a few problems with your quandary itself, because it seems malformed. As far as I can tell, "Particle B" is irrelevant, because whether A and B are entangled or not, the location of one isn't dependent on the location of the other. Indeed, this is related to the nature of entanglement itself, that the location of either is unimportant; questions about entanglement iconically query spin although that is not the only property which shows entanglement. The location of a particle is a circumstance rather than a property, in this context.
So perhaps you meant your quandary to actually involve both particles. In that case, entanglement must be assumed or they have no necessary correlation at all. So the question becomes whether Particle B has any spin between the time the spin of A is measured and the time the spin of B is measured in order to evaluate the system according to Bell's theorem. Whether this is logically (though not physically) the same as saying a particle has spin before it is measured, or location for that matter, seems to be the root of your quandary, but there is a subtle difference in the reasoning of the argument, I suppose. Regardless, in terms of science the spin of B becomes "well-defined", though probabilistic rather than deterministic, as soon as the spin of A is measured.
Returning to the question of location, though, this has been my point all along. In the decades since Bohr and Einstein debated the matter, it has become clear that a particle actually doesn't have a location until it is 'observed', whether by a scientific measurement or a 'natural' interaction with any other particle. What I have been saying all along is that this metaphysical uncertainty is indeed no different than whether, according to Einstein's analogy (not to be taken literally but logically valid nevertheless) the moon exists before we observe it. This has proven a more contentious claim than I expected (perhaps because it means both Einstein and Bohr were "right") resulting in one redditor accusing me of insulting Bohr, another declaring I am ignorant about science, and now you insisting some other thing I cannot be certain about.
The metaphysical uncertainty involved in the question of whether there is "objective truth" independent of 'subjective knowledge' of that truth isn't special to quantum physics, it just becomes undeniable in that context. But it really is the same "normal" metaphysical uncertainty in particle location, the presence of the moon (or a clock on a classroom wall, another example presented in this discussion) or, and this is the really important part, the existence of the entire physical universe outside of one's mind. Because scientificists (neopostmodernists) and scientists are used to dismissing metaphysical uncertainty entirely as a philosophical illusion rather than an undeniable truth, they generally believe that the quantum effect referred to as "spooky action at a distance" is somehow a special case, but it really isn't.
My philosophy approaches the matter (pun intended) a bit differently than most. In standard (postmodern physicalist) philosophies, resolving (not really avoiding but hoping to explain) 'spooky action' by assuming that the world is not made of "made of well-defined, independent pieces of ‘stuff’" focuses on whether the stuff is "well-defined", but this, as suggested by the article, would not be consolation to Einstein. Instead, I focus on whether the stuff is "independent" in the way both science and naive observations by consciousness dictate. This is problematic only it that it does not directly distinguish my philosophy, which is fundamentally and entirely physicalist but not naively so, from idealist philosophies that propose 'mind is fundamental' or some such. My philosophy (POR) does address the issue and distinguish itself from idealism, just not directly with this particular principle. Consciousness ("mind") is an emergent property of human brains, it is no less physical than space or time or heat or entropy or information, but like these things is not composed of particles or matter or substance. I can't truly explain "spooky action at a distance" any better than QM does, but I don't need to because QM does it quite well already, if it does so at all. What my philosophy does, and yours (apparently) doesn't do is explain why people are confused by 'spooky action', or local realism, or consciousness, why they are justified in being confused, but also why they don't really need to be.
Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
fineburgundy t1_is9bhhb wrote
How can you not know that a particle’s location is also used in these thought experiments? Have you never even considered the two slit experiment? It’s like telling me “it’s always cows we make perfectly spherical, you can’t give an example with sheep!”
It’s weird how more words indicate less to say.
TMax01 t1_isamro8 wrote
Unless and until you can more clearly and comprehensively explain the results of the two slit experiment, rather than merely that the results occur, there is no reason to believe your thought experiments have any validity. Knowing there is such a thing as wave/particle duality is not the same as resolving that conundrum. If you actually understood why cows can be considered spherical but are not, you would understand why it makes no difference if you use sheep instead. So a better analogy would be that you are saying "Because we assume spherical cows, there is no reason not to assume spherical cubes."
Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
fineburgundy t1_irtkb6v wrote
I have a separate unrelated question, which I should probably put off but I need help:
I happen to know a way physicists could measure momentum of a certain kind of particle much more accurately. I just want to get it out there, I know I won’t make any money, but I’m getting frustrated as hell. Do you have any ideas? Do you know who to ask for ideas?
TMax01 t1_irtzs4h wrote
I can't help you with that, sorry. But I will point out that physicists are already able to make such measurements with a great deal of precision. "Accuracy" isn't really the issue; why do you think physicists cannot measure the momentum of any particle accurately to begin with?
fineburgundy t1_iru1azf wrote
I was hoping to show you how implausible it would be for a curious amateur to understand physics better than the experts. Obviously I don’t. Neither do you. So you should probably stop saying that physicists are wrong about the weirdness, really QM works just like regular mechanics if only people would listen to you.
TMax01 t1_irw753z wrote
>I was hoping to show you how implausible it would be for a curious amateur to understand physics better than the experts.
This discussion has never been about understanding physics, it is about understanding philosophy. I understand physics just fine, despite your uncertainty on that point.
>So you should probably stop saying that physicists are wrong about the weirdness
So long as they "shut up and calculate", I have nothing to say. When they begin philosophizing about the implications of their calculations, I will address any mistakes I believe they have made. Likewise, I am not a certified expert on philosophy, but when philosophers make errors on scientific matters, it is still possible for me to notice that.
>really QM works just like regular mechanics if only people would listen to you.
Your interpretation of my position is inaccurate. Metaphysical uncertainty in QM works just like metaphysical uncertainty in regular mechanics, despite your contention to the contrary. It is just that QM forces some people, who believe (incorrectly) that metaphysical uncertainty can be ignored, to confront the fact that they are mistaken.
Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
fineburgundy t1_is9bxd9 wrote
Again, then: you would be advised to approach subjects where you are not an expert with curiosity and a smidge of humility when you think they are doing something wrong. Your reflex should be to assume that you are missing something, not that they are.
TMax01 t1_isan22w wrote
I have. But humility does not require undo reverence for the less humble, and the possibility remains that you are making a mistake rather than that I am.
Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
fineburgundy t1_isdezkk wrote
Not humility with respect to me.
With respect to professional physicists (and philosophers).
TMax01 t1_isdg5wr wrote
fineburgundy t1_isgqm3t wrote
Where you also made it about me.
But I have given the advice, taking it is up to you.
TMax01 t1_ish7nrx wrote
That wasn't advice, it was an admonishment, and it was out of place. My advice is you learn how to avoid such situations, and I've offered you good advice for how to do that, which you keep ignoring and yet trying to make it seem like a bad thing I offered it.
Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
fineburgundy t1_islsjyb wrote
It’s advice: if you wish to be engaged, you can’t say “I’m not a physicist but I figured out what they all get wrong about this whole ‘QM is weird’ thing. It’s really quite simple…”
Nobody will take that claim seriously, or at least nobody who knows enough to carry on a conversation about any of this.
Anyway, you get my point or you don’t. I’ll leave the poor equine corpse alone.
TMax01 t1_ism14ss wrote
You still don't get it: this is not a discussion about quantum physics, and nothing I have said either denies that QM is weird or contradicts the scientific findings in quantum physics.
Metaphysical uncertainty is still just metaphysical uncertainty, you're just used to being able to dismiss it in classic physics. People love to go on and on about how the human brain is incapable of comprehending "reality" and metaphysical uncertainty is just a psychological limitation of our minds, and then the mathematical undeniability of wave/particle duality or Heisenberg Uncertainty or spooky action at a distance comes along to make it clear that metaphysical uncertainty can't be ignored as easily as you'd like. Scientificism has made you arrogant, and now you're being humbled by science itself, and because you don't like that or the emotional uncertainty of real life, you're transferring your cognitive dissonance onto me.
Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
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