http://www.wired.com/2014/06/the-new-quantum-reality/
Have We Been Interpreting Quantum Mechanics Wrong This Whole Time?
265 thoughts on “Bohm Lives Again–(aka was Krishnamurti right? ;>} )”
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The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
Bruce, I don’t understand why you take what you have written below the paragraph of mine that you quoted to conflict with what I wrote. I mean, it may, but I don’t get why. Can you explain? Thanks.
You are right, I quoted a poor sentence for motivating my post. I should have used this one:
But it doesn’t follow from that there is no such thing as “what is real for the object.”
I was trying to describe problems with talking about “what is real for the object”, at least if what is real referred as real are properties a single object possessed definitely and in isolation.
Sorry, I should have read your original post more closely before talking about books on QM in my other post; I now see you are more interested in philosophy of science in general and not in philosophy of QM.
The Short Introduction series entry is good for a start, I think. With that type of intro, I found Alex Rosenburg’s book a good next step. (yes, he’s the guy who proudly proclaims his atheistic, reductionist, scientism).
If you are interested in online courses, Coursera is offering one in the fall. I took their general intro to philosophy course; it was well done, I thought, although basic. I’m planning to take this as well since I am sure it will offer some new perspectives on what I read.
Finally, SEP is always worth looking at. The article on scientific realism is a good overview of realism and anti-realism. SEP articles are often written for professionals, not laymen like me, so I normally skip the really technical parts on first reading (and second and third and … for that mattter).
I ment to imply nothing about separateness or isolation by using the term ‘object.’ Maybe there’s only one!
Just to be clear, his phil of science book is balanced and not a podium for is personal views. If you want those, by this one.
Robin,
So not getting up and not going to do things would be unenjoyable?
That being the case, you already know my reply, so it would be redundant of me to do so.
Wait, what did I just do?
Never mind….
This was an interpretation approach I was not aware of. It has not made it to the popularizations I read, possibly because it is relatively new.
The fact that it is called “Darwinian” is appropriate for TSZ and so I wanted to understand that characterization better. Although the math is beyond me, I think I was able to understand the basic logic from the paper you mentioned and some others referenced at the Wikipedia article.
His approach is a new way to use interaction with the environment to avoid the addition of the collapse postulate as in the Copenhagen interpretation. The collapse postulate has to be added to the wave equation to avoid weird outcomes like the partly dead and partly alive cat in Schrödinger’s thought experiment and further to ensure we see exactly one of the states of fully dead or fully alive with the probabilities provided by the Born rule.
Standard decoherence theory says that interaction with the environment reduces the possible outcomes to the reasonable states of fully dead cat and fully alive cat, but it still needs the collapse postulate to have one of those selected with the right probability. Further, there is a concern that the way standard decoherence is formulated still relies on some math from the collapse postulate to even get that far.
Zurek tries a different approach which he says avoids using the collapse postulate in any form and which also provides the probabilities and a single state outcome. His new approach to decoherence still depends on interaction with the environment, but enhances the role of the environment by considering it as multiple, independent subsystems that indirectly receive information from the system being observed, eg via photons interacting with that system.
Here is how the Darwinian part fits in.
The abstract Darwinian process of natural selection involves a parent, copying with variability of some characteristics to offspring, and differential survival of the offspring based on relative fitness. In this case:
1. The parent is the quantum state of the system being observed.
2. The copying to offspring is the broadcasting of information about that state to the independent subsystems of the environment through (eg) photons and the recording of that information in those subsystems.
3. The variations are the different possibilities for the broadcasted quantum state implied by the QM formalism.
4. Differential fitness depends on the stability of those different possibilities in the environment. His argument involves showing that the states we actually see in the real world, eg a fully dead cat or a fully alive cat, are the most fit in that sense, to the extent that only they can survive..
Now deriving the probabilities and ensuring a single outcome is left. The math is beyond me, but I did notice that it involves applying the principle of indifference (indistinguishable states are equiprobable). But, unlike application of the principle to the macro world, the resulting probabilities are objective relative frequencies (not subjective beliefs) because entanglement means the properties of subsystems cannot be known separately from the whole which allows probabilities to be objectively assigned to them. So entanglement turns out to help for this part of the argument.
I was not clear on why the probabilities apply to selecting a single state that all subsystems then record, rather than selecting the individual state that each environmental subsystem records from the non-weird, stable states. Of course, it was in the math, but I did not catch where that was at least partly explained in the text as well.
phoodoo, think about it: if “good” just meant the absence of evil, then no world at all, NOTHING, would be the best possible scenario.
So go back and fix of all your incorrect posts.
phoodoo,
maybe lying there is neither enjoyable nor unpleasant so we get up, which we believe will be enjoyable. Or maybe they’re equally enjoyable, but we get up anyhow. Or maybe we believe getting up would be more enjoyable, but lying there is also kind of enjoyable. And maybe when we get up based on these beliefs each of them is incorrect. So the fuck what?
As I’ve asked before, do you ever have any idea what the hell you’re talking about?
walto,
1. You haven’t named a single instance in which you move, which has nothing to do with good or evil; so presumably this is not an easy question for you to answer.
2. You haven’t stated what is good, nor have your stated how good is not the absence of evil. The entire concept of good is by necessity a spectrum which includes not so good, and evil. You can try to deny that, but that is because you are a twit.
In you scenario of getting up with the hope of something being enjoyable, what happens if that thing turns out not to be enjoyable, it then becomes nothing? So then one could get up, slam there head inside the trunk of a car, and the result could either be enjoyable, or nothing? Eating could either be enjoyable or nothing. Would making a decision be enjoyable or nothing as well? You wife wants you to pick her up after work, and that decision must be enjoyable, or else you wouldn’t do it, but there is also a bar down the street where you could get drunk with your mates, and that decision must also be enjoyable or nothing at all, so how do you decide which enjoyable decision to make? If picking up your wife was not the maximum enjoyable decision, then you wouldn’t do it, and then your wife wouldn’t be able to come home, but that is only nothing for her, so why should you care if she has nothing. Nothing is not bad by your definition.
Now you have a world where you can’t give everyone maximum enjoyment, but you don’t care because that’s nothing, so every decision you make is about giving yourself maximum enjoyment. And when you kids die in a fire, that is not bad, that is only not the maximum enjoyment for you, so go ahead kids, jump in the fire, because there are other decisions I must make right now which also hold maximum enjoyment.
Do you ever think, or is that not maximum enjoyment for you?
What an amusingly shallow theology.
You mean as opposed to an ideology which says why does God make cancer its evil, Oh no wait, I mean, its not evil, because in order for me to believe its evil I would have to be a hypocrite about my worldview, so actually I take it back its not evil, its good, ..I mean, I don’t know what the fuck I mean. But I hate Jesus?
Do you mean as opposed to THAT ideology its shallow?
OMagain,
Indeed. 🙂
But he can’t even do that right: he says
Well, your spectrum would by necessity have to include “not so good”, but “evil” is an unnecessary addition
Thus, per phoodoo’s inane theodicy, all we need is “not so good” e.g. near-orgasmic pleasure, and his requirement for motivation is satisfied.
So, phoodoo, do people “move” in heaven?
Is there evil in heaven?
LOL
Since the writer of original posts here still has the (weird) authority authority to edit others comments, I momentarily considered rewriting this in plainer as language as Bibbidy Bobbidy Bumple! which perfectly captures its nonsensicality, but I left it as is for two reasons–
(1) It would be wrong–in spite of being enjoyable.
(2) It’s funnier as is.
I do note, again, your hedonism (the theory according to which no one is moved by anything but estimates of pleasure). Put in a more sensible fashion, it’s a fairly common view, but it’s generally opposed by Christians, who oppose that sort of reductionism, since it has no place for virtue.
In sum, confused, anti-Christian and very funny. Thanks!
DNA_Jock,
How does one make a distinction between not so good and evil? Don’t some people consider being separated from their lover evil, because they can’t have the pleasure of being with them?
In your world what is evil?
walto,
Still can’t think of a single movement you make during the day which is not about good or evil then, huh Walto?
Are you just being shy or did one of Jerry’s cats get your tongue?
It’s your claim that bad things exist to get us out of bed and that those bad things were created by your God. Ergo cancer is good as it serves that purpose, your God’s purpose.
This is not complex stuff.
Fundamentally it illustrates the problem at the heart of ID, which I occasional try to explain to ID supporters.
If evolution cannot create things, just shuffle things around in minor ways, then that which exists must have been created.
E.G. The brain eating wasp.
If, however, the brain controlling parasitic wasp was originally “good” it means that evolution can create things (i.e new behaviour, new tools to edit brains with), removing the need for ID.
So which is it for you phoodoo?
An evil designer or is evolution able to create new things?
Says the person who ran from their own thread that was about what they claimed they wanted to talk about in the first place.
OMagain,
You are doing all the running, I have already said that evil exists in this world, its a necessary part of a world in which we have free thought and things happen.
So is cancer evil or is it not? Were you partying with Jerry and Walto? Is it hard for you to answer?
phoodoo,
I mention a half-dozen activities having nothing to do with good/evil assesments and explain to you how that can be and you respond with–‘still can’t come up with anything, eh, walto?’. This is fun. Brings me back to when i had toddlers!
But I fear I’m keeping you from a more important task–preparing your defense against the xtian anti-hedonists who hate reductionist hedonism like yours. I hope youi don’t end up getting burned at the stake because you’re spending valuable time gibbering nonsense to me.
I am enjoying it though.
walto,
One would be good. Its that hard?
But the question is where that evil came from? And you’ve already answered, it was introduced to get us all out of bed in the morning! So your god has an evil side. From reading the OT I’d suggest it’s more then just a side however.
Of course it’s not, how can it be? Is a lion evil for catching prey?
We might perceive it as evil in it’s effects but it is mindless, it can be neither evil nor good.
But that’s what I think. What you have to think is that yes, it’s evil, as it was created to break the perfection of the garden of Eden. Or, if not created, then allowed to happen, which is the same difference really.
Now that I’ve answered your question I’d hope you’d address one of the others that I’ve asked. But I doubt it and this is all OT anyway.
Got a little tip for you. Six is actually more than one. Go back and read them.
Also, I’m still waiting for you to fix a bunch of your other errors. In particular, if good = absence of evil, then the perfect world would be the null set. That is pretty obviously false on every view. Get to fixing, man, and stop bothering me with questions about what number comes after what.
Another GSW to the foot, I see.
Pol Pot.
According to your argument, the explanation for the existence of Pol-Pot-like evil is that such evil is necessary for people to get out of bed. But you then claim that “absence of lover” would be sufficient for people to get out of bed. Why then is the spectrum so unnecessarily wide?
Your theodicy is quite the worst I have ever heard of and (as Walto has noted) betrays an weird anti-Christian hedonism.
I answered your question. I will repeat my questions:
Do people “move” in heaven?
Is there evil in heaven?
DNA_Jock,
On arrival in Heaven, people are first injected with heroine to give them a blissful mental state, and then flashfrozen and stored cryogenically to preserve that state.
Few have ever escaped.
Theidiocy.
DNA_Jock,
I am quite sure if you asked PolPot he would have said he was not evil. In fact, he probably would have said he is very good. He probably got laid a lot, had lots of money, servants, nice house. So for him he is not evil at all.
So if evil can be decided by each persons judgement, then anything less than perfect could be said to be evil. So I am suggesting a world where there is no consequences for any actions would be a world with no creativity, no compassion, no love for ones family, nothing. because in order for there to be love there must be hate. Otherwise love is the same as every emotion, like having a beer, or chopping off someones head.
And why have compassion for others in such a world, the worst that would happen if you don’t is nothing. Why help someone. Why not kill anyone who keeps you from getting maximum enjoyment all the time? I want to have sex with that girl. If someone is in my way, I might as well kill them so I can do that, because there is no such thing as wrong.
Should I build a building? Grow food, start a business? What for, there is no longer anything called hunger. I can’t starve to death, because that must be evil, so that’s impossible in this world. Why get up at all, can’t I have maximum pleasure without moving? That sucks, that’s evil. So therefore that’s impossible in this world. So no need to move.
phoodoo,
You’re not making a whole lot of sense, phoodoo. (To me, at least – I don’t recognise the straw man you are attacking.)
Just a suggestion. There’s a thread at UD OP’ed by Vince Torley and criticizing a post by Jerry Coyne on his not-a-blog. Is there enough interest for a post here on the subject, which is, I guess, about whether there is such an entity as a god?
Alan Fox,
Alan, your opinion became meaningless to me, when you suggested that I name one case of someone who was censored in academia by evolutionist, and when I did, (even though you had never even heard of the case!) you IMMEDIATELY claimed that Eric Hedin was teaching religion, and thus it was justified.
If that is your logic, I am not too surprised that you can’t understand why in order to have good in the world, evil is also a necessity.
Suggesting this is the same topic as “Is there a God” is a pretty shallow interpretation Alan. There is no scientific way to disprove a God, no matter what Jerry Coyne says. But that is a whole other topic.
phoodoo,
Theidiocy, indeed. 😀
I was raised to believe that God put Adam into the garden of Eden “to dress it and to keep it”.
According to phoodoo, Adam must have lacked the motivation to get of his fat arse and do any such thing.
Until the awkward incident with the fruit, that is.
😉
DNA_Jock,
So you were raised by parents whom you believe are complete idiots then correct? Have you told them how stupid they are?
Perhaps it explains you?
The ability to leap from point to disconnected point says much to me about why people are ID supporters in the first place.
Tell me oh wise one, what evil can be level of evil are we allowed to fall to in pursuit of good?
phoodoo, what you are doing in your musing about why people act is making the claim that nobody would ever do anything if they didn’t want something that they don’t have in their present state. It’s similar to the “Buridan’s Ass” problem, according to which a person (or animal) placed between two precisely equal objects of desire, will simply die.
Even if your view about this is correct, nothing follows from it about goodness, and it’s certainly no solution to the problem of evil. It’s easy to see this, by assuming the truth of your claim for the sake of argument.
As good (anti-hedonist) Christian moral philosophers have long pointed out, there’s no reason to believe that what is desired must be what is best. The drug addict may desire heroin and attempt to get it because of that desire, but it does not follow that obtaining heroin is good either for the world or for that individual. Quite the contrary, in fact. Therefore, it’s not the case that what is good is always identical to what is desired. And again, such good xtians also disagree with you that good is the absence of evil for reasons already explained several times.
Now, if you define that which is done intentionally as that which is most desired, it’s obvious that nothing will be done intentionally by any person but that which is most desired by him/her. But (for about the 8th time), that stipulation doesn’t have anything to do with goodness: it’s just an artifact of defining intentional actions as you are doing.
Exactly.
And if “goodness of circumstances” were incompatible with human activity, there could be no such thing as self-abnegation–or, really, any type of virtue at all. Because on phoodoo’s hedonist view, one is always REALLY doing things for oneself.
I won’t here argue that such hedonism is false (though I happen to think it IS false), but it’s wildly antithetical to Christian ethics (which is one reason why this conversation is so delightful).
walto,
You have built an argument that I have never made, so no wonder you believe it is an erroneous one-its not my argument.
I never said that people only strive to do things that please them (although they might) I said that people do things because of the consequences of not doing them. This is not a morality judgement, as you are defining it, this is a practical one. Some things we do for pleasure but some things we do to avoid pain. That is the only motivation we have for doing anything. People go to find food, because if they don’t they will starve. They build houses because if they didn’t they would freeze. People take care of their families because it gives them pleasure to have a happy family, or because it would give them pain if their family was just chucked into a ditch in the desert.
Do you have other motivations for doing things besides the consequences of these two possibilities? What do you think animals do, do you think they have any motivations other than gaining pleasure and avoiding pain? if you removed the possibility of pain, all animals would simply be enjoying their pleasure (because pleasure is all that exists), regardless of their activities, so what is the point of an activity?
So every time you try to rewrite my ideas, and then tell me how wrong they are, its no great wonder why. They are not my ideas.
walto,
Being virtuous could be something that pleases people. Judging the worth of someone’s decision making is a completely different topic. The consequence one might be trying to avoid, is the knowledge that one is evil if they aren’t being virtuous. For some the pleasure of being evil, is better than the burden of being virtuous. We all get to decide which is more important to us.
You really are a novice at this whole contemplation thing, aren’t you Walto?
Hedonism isn’t traditionally thought to be exclusively a matter of reaching for pleasure, phoodoo, it has always included attempting to reduce pain too–the activities that you focus on above. That addition is irrelevant. I’m sorry, but all the same responses I’ve made apply. As I’ve said, what you should principally worry about yourself is that It’s an anti-Christian view for which you might be required to wear sackcloth.
You want ME to tell you (again) why people might do things other than for hedonistic reasons?! Ask your church buddies why they think so. The main thing for them, of course, will be that it reduces good and evil to thoroughly natural properties, something they (and you) claim to oppose. I note that such a reduction is something that keiths has supported here vigorously not too long ago.
Be sure and report back!
So…..no one has any comments on the _Symmetry_ book I asked about above?
This bizarre untruth has been spun for days.
I know it’s a waste of effort for me to point out the truth, but here’s how it actually went:
phoodoo started it here, 7/10/14 4:13PM
followed by several replies asking for specifics, quickly followed by phoodoo failing to provide any specifics.
Several posters continued the questions back and forth, but for some reason this reply from Alan Fox:
brought out unprovoked venom from phoodoo
(emphasis mine) That was the first time Hedin’s name had been mentioned.
I’m guessing that, due to phoodoo’s erratic style and poor sarcasm, no one realized that phoodoo believes those names are actually vald examples of “obscene censorship”.
Alan Fox saw that inadequate reply from phoodoo, and recognizing the boast “ten examples”, suggested:
Minutes later; phoodoo snapped back:
Then Alan Fox replied:
Okay, it took Alan Fox something less than 10 minutes to google the liar-for-god Hedin and get up to speed on the IDiot-manufactured “controversy”.
That sounds a reasonable amount of time to learn enough, from a cold start. But I could have done it in less than one minute since the top news link when googling “Eric Hedin” is a Christian Post article which does a thorough job of explaining the problem of Hedin teaching ID in advanced science seminars, and explaining the university’s solution to the problem. One minute. Done and dusted.
But, apparent!y, A!an Fox had a bit more spare time to track down the truth about the IDiot’s whiny pretension of “censorship”. So, the very next google result for “Eric Hedin” is:Jerry Coyne’s recent summary Two more minutes of reading-for-comprehension. Got it!
Days pass. Phoodoo reappears in the thread to discuss various stuff, but ignores the creationist/ID “censorship” stuff until now:
which again, for some reason, set off phoodoo’s bizarre anti-Alan ranting:
Why, phoodoo, why? What compels you to tell fibs about what Alan Fox said? What are you getting out of it?
And what is it about Alan Fox that drives you to behave so inappropriately? Why not me? Alan Fox is almost never less than nice … whereas I am as hateful to the IDiots and christers as I think I can get away with. Pick me, pick me!
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.edit: a zillion minor grammar and typo fixes
hotshoe,
The short answer why I don’t respond to you much? You believe Jerry Coyne’s version of truth.
Gee, Jerry Coyne is opposed to it, it must be valid! What a complete jackass.
Put more simply, I don’t think you are very clever. That’s why.
What’s your evidence that I “believe Jerry Coyne’s version”? Seriously, did you hear a voice in your head telling you that? Because it’s not what I wrote which you could have read here.
So, if you can’t pony up the evidence, you had better apologize and retract your statement about my beliefs.
Oh, good, because I never wanted to be the clever one. Mycroft’s the clever one. 😛 Well, him, and Olegt, and Joe Felsenstein, and BruceS, and walto, and our gracious host Lizzie, and well, pretty much everyone, except me and thee.
But now I’m still curious:
What compels you to tell fibs about what Alan Fox said? What are you getting out of it?
And what is it about Alan Fox that drives you to behave so inappropriately?
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edit: “never wanted”
It has been suggested maybe you should have your own thread alongside JoeG’s over on the panda’s thumb forums just so they can compile all the stupid shit you say into a single place.
This is usually a sign of severe encephalitic subnormality. Please don’t talk about other people not being clever.
Have a nice day.
How do you think it makes you look when you ignore a reply like hotshoe’s, just above, where it is explained in detail why you are simply wrong?
Alan did not just assume it was not anti-ID oppression, he looked for data first!
Ever think about responding to that or is it enough in your mind just to say it as you just know you cannot be wrong?
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2014/07/understanding-c-7.html
phoodoo, some good reading there for you I think…
I suppose it’s good advice. Tricky, though.
Yes, it is.
Most creationists sincerely believe that they are right.
When they resort to ad hominems, it is not because they are nasty people. It’s because that’s all they’ve got when the evidence is against them.
OMagain,
Ignore that it was Jerry Coyne who was behind the censoring of Hedin, and so Alan uses Coynes opinion to say it was religion he was teaching? You can’t say, give me an example of ID being censored in academia, and then when it is presented say well ID is religion so of course its censored. That’s patently absurd, but right up your alley.
That’s like saying give me an example of someone teaching Darwinian evolution that isn’t teaching evolution.
So instead of taking the words of the most dishonest academic in schools, how about looking at the truth.
” “[t]he sole content of [Hedin’s]… lectures involved the life cycle of stellar bodies and the Big Bang theory.” Most of the course, meanwhile, “was spent in discussion with small groups” on topics “such as the nature of time and reality, the definition of truth, whether there were categories of life, and the fine-tuning of universal parameters for life to exist.” According to the student (an agnostic)!:”
But in your completely dishonest world, if Coyne says that’s religion, and shouldn’t be taught in a science class, well, fuck, that must be so then. Who cares what the students who actually took the class say!
Did you ever think about NOT responding, because inevitably you are going to say something so fucking stupid?
http://cms.bsu.edu/-/media/WWW/DepartmentalContent/Physics/PDFs/MasterSyllabi/Master%20Syllabus_ASTR151.pdf
Behe, Michael, “Darwin’s Black Box” (1998).
Dembski, William A. “Intelligent Design as a Theory of Information”
Gonzalez, Guillermo “The Privileged Planet” (2004).
Meyer, Stephen C., “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories,”
Spetner, Lee, “Not by Chance”
Strobel, Lee, “The Case for a Creator. A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence that Points Toward God,”
All science so far!
Oh missed this one:
Yeah, that’s exactly what I’d expect in a science class.