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Post by speakertoanimals on Nov 8, 2010 12:51:40 GMT 1
Except we have plenty of evidence that the laws of physics alone produce 'organized patterns'. Blaming the brain for organisation adds nothing (apart from a great big hole), because if so, where did the organisation that is the brain come from? From previous creatures, says standard physics and biology, which makes perfect sense and is in accord with the actual structure of our brains.
If we have to wait for our brains to self-collapse the structure that led to them (the ultimate bootstrap), then why bother collapsing such a messy evolutionary path? None of this m,akes any sense, aside from the great big elephant in the room, which is posuiting avery weird property of OUR brains for which we have no evidence whatsoever, apart from lumping together the confusing issue of collapse with the confusing issue of consciousness.
Still waiting for an answer to the Feynman question...............
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Post by abacus9900 on Nov 8, 2010 13:23:00 GMT 1
Except we have plenty of evidence that the laws of physics alone produce 'organized patterns'. Blaming the brain for organisation adds nothing (apart from a great big hole), because if so, where did the organisation that is the brain come from? From previous creatures, says standard physics and biology, which makes perfect sense and is in accord with the actual structure of our brains. If we have to wait for our brains to self-collapse the structure that led to them (the ultimate bootstrap), then why bother collapsing such a messy evolutionary path? None of this m,akes any sense, aside from the great big elephant in the room, which is posuiting avery weird property of OUR brains for which we have no evidence whatsoever, apart from lumping together the confusing issue of collapse with the confusing issue of consciousness. Still waiting for an answer to the Feynman question............... How can the universe be self-conscious without life, stop being so silly. Naymissus is probably wrong about Feynman, but nobody is perfect.
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Post by speakertoanimals on Nov 9, 2010 3:52:03 GMT 1
Who says it needs to be self-conscious? Or perhaps you meant the universe gets embarrassed at having evolved such daft creatures as some of the posters on here.................
You miss the point -- it isn't being wrong that I mind, so much as not being willing to back it up, and not being willing to admit being wrong when he can't back it up. I can understand why someone might mistakenly come to that conclusion, but unless he is willing to discuss why he did, then it can't help anyone else to not make the same mistake.
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Post by Progenitor A on Nov 9, 2010 8:48:12 GMT 1
Who says it needs to be self-conscious? Or perhaps you meant the universe gets embarrassed at having evolved such daft creatures as some of the posters on here................. You miss the point -- it isn't being wrong that I mind, so much as not being willing to back it up, and not being willing to admit being wrong when he can't back it up. I can understand why someone might mistakenly come to that conclusion, but unless he is willing to discuss why he did, then it can't help anyone else to not make the same mistake. You sill girl! I asked you to repeat the question and you couldn't be bothered so that was the end of it. And as for you helping people to understand, that is quite laughable. Your clarity of thought is muddy, your expression is convoluted and obfuscatory and your command of the English language sloppy and totally unhelpful
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Post by abacus9900 on Nov 9, 2010 10:44:59 GMT 1
a) Our biology is based on carbon.
b) Carbon is made within the interior of stars.
c) Stars are a fundamental part of the universe.
d) Ergo, we are made of the constituents of the universe.
e) We are conscious, so we are that part of the universe that can examine itself.
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Post by abacus9900 on Nov 9, 2010 11:01:47 GMT 1
Well, we know from QM that things exist only as potentials so that 'things' need some agency that has the ability to collapse their wavefunction into definite patterns and it appears it is some property of consciousness that achieves this.
Think of it this way: Everything is in a state similar to a 'gooey' mess, undefined and chaotic, but then something comes along that interacts in some mysterious way with the gooey stuff and transforms it into well defined 'prickly' stuff, i.e. the objective reality of the everyday world. So, whatever it is about consciousness that achieves this, it is something 'outside' of normal space and time yet can interact with it in order to form reality. I call it the soul and it may have the ability to survive physical death. Some people call it the higher-self.
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Post by speakertoanimals on Nov 9, 2010 13:45:35 GMT 1
Why you are incapable of scrolling back through the posts puzzles me.....
But since you seem incapable of doing it, you said (#246)
I replied (#247):
So, what is this 'same model' from which you claim both quantum and classical physic s can be derived (whereas conventional understanding is that classical physics can be derived as the limit of quantum theory (hence quantum correct, classical only an approximation). Other possible interpretation of your incorrect remarks is using a similar mathematical framework for both quantum and classical theories, which is NOT 'derived from the same model'..................
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Post by speakertoanimals on Nov 9, 2010 13:52:01 GMT 1
Nope, you have ASSUMED that things need some agency, rather than just -- quantum systems undergo wavefunction collapse via some process like quantum decoherence (i.e., interaction with their environment), or by some other physical process, such as collapse mediated by gravity.
Of course, it is even worse than this -- it is sayingm, we are going to assume that conventional physical processes, or even unknown physical processes like quantum gravity (which we don't know how to do yet) are incapable of explaining it. We will hence invoke some unknown process (consciousness), which we then define as unphysical, and stick on whatever nonsense about the soul, or higher-self, that we wish.
Might just as well says that god does it, since that at least only invokes one added, unphysical concept, and handles the question of why the universe should remain uncollpased until we evolved.........................
Either way, its not science.
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Post by Progenitor A on Nov 9, 2010 14:32:04 GMT 1
Why you are incapable of scrolling back through the posts puzzles me..... ;D If you cannot be bothered repeating the question, I cannot be bothered scrolling back I replied (#247): So, what is this 'same model' from which you claim both quantum and classical physic s can be derived (whereas conventional understanding is that classical physics can be derived as the limit of quantum theory (hence quantum correct, classical only an approximation). Other possible interpretation of your incorrect remarks is using a similar mathematical framework for both quantum and classical theories, which is NOT 'derived from the same model'.................. The Feynman 'sum over histories' (or path integral) approach, is, I am told, applicable to QM and classical physics and therefore is a model which fits both (gravity apart) Why you cannot accept this I do not know.
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Post by speakertoanimals on Nov 9, 2010 16:25:41 GMT 1
Wrong. It was as I described earlier.
So, classically, the principle is called the principle of least action. Depending on the exact physics, you write down a thing called the action, and the solution to your physical problem is the path that minimizes the action.
In quantum theory, rather than a single path, you instead consider all paths, weighted by the action.
In the limit, the quantum weightings cancel out, except along the classical path, hence you recover the classical solution from the quantum case, in the appropriate limit.
But it's NOT a model -- the physics is in the exact form of the action. This is just one particular mathematical formulation of quantum theories and classical theories, just as we have Langrangian and Hamiltonian formulations of classical and quantum theories.
But in whatever way you write down the maths, the classical result is recovered as a limiting case of the full quantum formulation. Hence (as I said earlier), classical physics is only ever an approximation to the full quantum theory, valid only in certain situations.
Hence fundamentally, quantum theory is correct, and classical physics is wrong (but a useful approximation in certain situations).
Are you sure you didn't read my earlier post, because you said exactly what I predicted you would say.....................
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Post by abacus9900 on Nov 9, 2010 17:49:29 GMT 1
The problem with your approach is that you can never eliminate consciousness from the equation. If you take the quantum gravity view you still have to have someone or something that has the capability to observe/measure it, don't you, so we always come back to an observer. You see, all the ideas in physics about QM are fundamentally generated from the mind in the form of ideas so that as soon as you take the realm of ideas from the situation you are left with essentially nothing, and what is the realm of ideas - the brain of course. I hope you're not suggesting that a dead brain can make scientific observations are you?
The wavefunction is purely a mathematical construction or idea so when we talk of 'collapsing the wavefunction' what is actually collapsing? Essentially it is the idea that is performing the collapse not anything tangible, so you see, reality actually consists of ideas and as such must originate in the mind or consciousness. You're just an idea, I'm just an idea, the universe is just an idea and as none of these things are real in themselves, have to originate from a non-tangible, not-physical source which is what consciousness must be.
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Post by speakertoanimals on Nov 9, 2010 18:19:28 GMT 1
Why anyone would want to think up an 'idea' like this poster is beyond me.
Whatever it is, it isn't physics..............
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Post by Progenitor A on Nov 9, 2010 18:41:17 GMT 1
Wrong. It was as I described earlier. So, classically, the principle is called the principle of least action. Depending on the exact physics, you write down a thing called the action, and the solution to your physical problem is the path that minimizes the action. In quantum theory, rather than a single path, you instead consider all paths, weighted by the action. In the limit, the quantum weightings cancel out, except along the classical path, hence you recover the classical solution from the quantum case, in the appropriate limit. But it's NOT a model -- the physics is in the exact form of the action. It is a MODEL you DoDo! It models the real thing It is not the real thing It is a best-fit THEORY of how things happen This is just one particular mathematical formulation of quantum theories and classical theories, just as we have Langrangian and Hamiltonian formulations of classical and quantum theories. Exactly . It is a model that fits rather well But in whatever way you write down the maths, the classical result is recovered as a limiting case of the full quantum formulation. Hence (as I said earlier), classical physics is only ever an approximation to the full quantum theory, valid only in certain situations. ALL physical theories/models are approximations Hence fundamentally, quantum theory is correct, and classical physics is wrong (but a useful approximation in certain situations). Oddly Dr Tong states that in another 50 years or so our conception of QM will have changed out of recognition
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Post by speakertoanimals on Nov 9, 2010 20:10:02 GMT 1
No it isn't.
It's just a mathematical formulation, a particular choice of mathematical dialect, if you like, in which to write down a theory.
Just as using forces and F=ma is one way to do classical mechanics.
The physical theory is saying what the forces are for a particular physical situation. So if we're doing fluid mechanics, the forces depend on the flow field for the fluid, the viscosities for the fluid, and so on. Whereas if we are doing solar system dynamics, the forces are gravitational forces, which depend on the masses and positions of the planets and the star.
BOTH are written in the 'dialect' F=ma, but one is not derivable from the other, they are DIFFERENT physics written in the same dialect.
SO what feynman produced was not a model, nor a theory, but a different way to write down quantum theories (WHICH quantum theory is a different question), that produces the related classical theory as an approximation in the limit. Its not a case of BOTH are derivable from some other theory -- the classical theory is derived as an approximation to the quantum theory, hence in the sense I used it before, the classical theory is WRONG in that it is only ever an approximation to the quantum theory.
There is a difference between something that is a best-approximation to physical reality, and something that is only a mathematical approximation.
Yes, but that won't change the fact that classical theories will only ever be an approximation to quantum theories, because the two cklasses of theories make different (and irreconcilable) assumptions about what physical states of anything can be.
Why anyone would want to pretent that its ALL just approximations, so classical physics is as correct as quantum theory, in that both are only approximations anyway -- is beyond me, unless it is someone who either understands so little physics they are convinced it is true, or just doesn't care that by stating such arrant nonsense they will only confuse anyone who does actually want to understand what is going on here.
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Post by speakertoanimals on Nov 9, 2010 20:25:02 GMT 1
Even if all theories are approximations, some are better aproximations that others.
So, to return to classical physics and quantum physics. We can derive classical physics as the limit of quantum physics, but we can't go the other way -- we can't derive quantum physics from classical physics, because classical physics just makes totally different assumptions about reality.
Hence quantum theory is (more) correct than classical physics, and Bells theorem shows just that -- we can't explain quantum results using some hidden underlying classical theory.
To give another example -- atomic theory is more fundamental than assuming that solid matter is continuous. Assuming matter is continous, with certain properties, you can work out how solid objects can bend and deform, for example, when you build bridges out of them. The point that again, you can derive the bulk properties of materials from the atomic and molecular models, but not vice versa. Assumptions of continuity are just an approximation to the fact that solids are actually made of atoms.
Just as classical physics is ann approximation to quantum physics, valid in certain regimes, derivable from quantum theory, but not vice versa. Hence quantum theory is more fundamental, more fundamentally right than classical physics, and explains more than classical physics (including classical physics!).
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