Post: #26

A danger in talking about quantum mechanics is that people have a tendency to project the findings to the non-quantum level - "PUAs can cho-cho-choose their reality" or "what I believe is my reality" or "This is exactly what my favourite guru/bible/philosopher said!" Not really, not at all. These findings apply to really tiny objects that are incredibly small like photons and electrons.

I was actually just talking about the double slit experiment with a friend. He comes from a physics background and told me that the instruments we have are the cause for changing the results. After I showed him this story he is starting to doubt that the instruments are causing the electrons for behaving like particles. Thanks for sharing this OP.

Post: #27

(03-15-2019 11:04 PM)Valentine Wrote:  This study (see here for an explanation or read on for my interpretation) builds on a thought experiment by Eugene Wigner that because of the weirdness of quantum physics it should allow two beings to experience different realities. This is because matter and light exists in a superposition of all possible outcomes up until the point that we try to observe/measure it (e.g. the double-slit experiment), where it then changes to being a single objective reality.

His thought experiment raises the question of whether objective facts can exist, which challenges the foundations of science (at least on a quantum scale).

There are a few variations of the Double Slit experiment and some taking what that finds a bit further again. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_eraser_experiment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheeler%27...experiment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed-ch...tum_eraser

An excerpt from the last link there:

a last-minute decision made on Earth on how to observe a photon could alter a decision made millions or even billions of years ago.

While delayed-choice experiments have confirmed the seeming ability of measurements made on photons in the present to alter events occurring in the past, this requires a non-standard view of quantum mechanics. If a photon in flight is interpreted as being in a so-called "superposition of states", i.e. if it is interpreted as something that has the potentiality to manifest as a particle or wave, but during its time in flight is neither, then there is no time paradox. This is the standard view, and recent experiments have supported it.

My bold here is key.

The main sticking point here with all of these experiments is the fact that they can mimic retro-causality, that is to say that events in the future can actually change events in the past. Now, people have a real problem with that. So they are looking to see if that is actually the case or if there may be something else at play.

Enter the emerging field of causal modeling and the work of Chaves I alluded to earlier.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/closed-lo...-20180725/

This is the most important link in all of this discussion. And this is the experiment he did that supports the experiments that Valentine linked to.

Wheeler was espousing the view that elementary quantum phenomena are not real until observed, a philosophical position called anti-realism. He even designed an experiment to show that if you hold on to realism — in which quantum objects such as photons always have definite, intrinsic properties, a position that encapsulates a more classical view of reality — then one is forced to concede that the future can influence the past. Given the absurdity of backward time-travel, Wheeler’s experiment became an argument for anti-realism at the level of the quantum.

You can't have it both ways. Either events in the future can influence events in the past or photons do not have definite intrinsic properties when not being observed.


I.e. there is no such thing as objective reality. See the last paragraph of this image -



In the classical way of thinking, it’s as if the photon went back in time and changed its character from particle to wave.

Original image: https://d2r55xnwy6nx47.cloudfront.net/up...1x1720.jpg

One way to avoid such retro-causality is to deny the photon any intrinsic reality and argue that the photon becomes real only upon measurement. That way, there is nothing to undo.

Such anti-realism, which is often associated with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, took a theoretical knock with Chaves’s work, at least in the context of this experiment. His team wanted to explain counterintuitive aspects of quantum mechanics using a new set of ideas called causal modeling, which has grown in popularity in the past decade,


Causal modeling, which prohibits backward time travel, ensures that the experimenter’s choice cannot influence the past intrinsic state of the photon.

With this setup in place, Chaves’s team came up with a way to distinguish between a classical causal model and quantum mechanics. Say the first phase shift can take one of three values, and the second one of two values. That makes six possible experimental settings in total. They calculated what they expected to see for each of these six settings.

And this from Valentine's link:
The breakthrough that Proietti and co have made is to carry this out. “In a state-of-the-art 6-photon experiment, we realize this extended Wigner’s friend scenario,” they say.

They use these six entangled photons to create two alternate realities—one representing Wigner and one representing Wigner’s friend. Wigner’s friend measures the polarization of a photon and stores the result. Wigner then performs an interference measurement to determine if the measurement and the photon are in a superposition.

Mmm. Six.

Back to the Chaves experiment.

For Wiseman, the debate over Copenhagen versus de Broglie-Bohm in the context of the delayed-choice experiment is far from settled. “So in Copenhagen, there is no strange inversion of time precisely because we have no right to say anything about the photon’s past,” he wrote in an email. “In de Broglie-Bohm there is a reality independent of our knowledge, but there is no problem as there is no inversion — there is a unique causal (forward in time) description of everything. ”

Either time can flow backwards and influence past events because there is an objective reality we can call out. Classical view.

Or time does not flow backwards because there is no such thing as objective reality. Quantum view. Anti-reality. Wheeler's view. And corroborating the results of the experiment that Valentine posted. There is no objective reality.

In theoretical physics, quantum nonlocality is a characteristic of some measurements made at a microscopic level that contradict the assumptions of local realism found in classical mechanics. Despite consideration of hidden variables as a possible resolution of this contradiction, some aspects of entangled quantum states have been demonstrated irreproducible by any local hidden variable theory.

These hidden variable were exactly what Chaves found and proved in his experiment.

If the results continue to support Wheeler’s original argument, then “it gives us yet another reason to say that wave-particle duality is not going to be explained away by some classical physics explanation,” Kaiser said. “The range of conceptual alternatives to quantum mechanics has again been shrunk, been pushed back into a corner. That’s really what we are after.”

I'm totally out of my depth here.

Given the absurdity of backward time-travel, Wheeler’s experiment became an argument for anti-realism at the level of the quantum

So you can have backward time-travel and objective reality (reality as we think we know it). But it breaks too many fundamental laws (not least second law of thermodynamics).

Or you can have no backward time-travel, but with NO objective reality (anti-reality). Reality does exist, but with hidden variables, that we can never know and only ever conjure in to existence when we observe them. This maintains entropy (second law of thermodynamics).

What a choice!

I've probably made a load of mistakes. Feel free to point them out. I'm not clever enough to understand this shit when it comes down to it, but I like to give it a go now and again.

And don't forget those pesky Russians thad did travel back in time. I haven't.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/...chine.html

Move over Doctor Who: 'Time machine' created in Russia moves tiny particles a fraction of a second into the past

= Russian physicists have effectively achieved the same principle of time travel
= They loosely described it as moving in the opposite direction of 'time's arrow'
= The researchers worked with electrons in the realm of quantum mechanics
= Broken pool balls were able to re-order themselves into their original formation


The Second Law of Thermodynamics deals with transition of energy within a system from usable to unusable.

It is the reason our phones and laptops need to be charged, and that our sun will one day die out.

It states that energy cannot repeat in an infinite loop within a closed system, and so we must replenish what is lost.

The Second Law profoundly sets the limits for what is possible in our universe, defining why everything within it must one day decay.


Just when you think you've figured it all out, those bloody Russians come along and piss in your toybox!

Either retrocausality exists or it does not!

Either man went to the moon or he did not!

Either there is life out there in the wider universe or there is not!

It's binary. And whether it ends up being a '0' or a '1' "in reality" - then it's pretty mind-blowing all the same.

Where the fuck is Bill Nye (your mom's a guy) when you need him eh?

Science motherfuckers! Do you even speak it?

Post: #28

I've always said that we're someone else's movie or video game. Similar to how near the end of the movie Men In Black an alien opens a locker's door at an alien train station and our universe is inside of it.

Post: #29

My interpretation is also that the photons and electrons are not really there, they are projected from another place or dimension when called upon by an observer. This strengthens the theory that we are living in a videogame-like simulation where information is only processed by a computer when called upon, due to the limitations of computational processing power. In video games, the information isn't static that would take enormous computational power, instead everything appears as you call for the information. Scott Adams said memories probably work in the same way. They exist as a wave function until it collapses when an observer finds a photo or other evidence that collaborates it.

Post: #30

(03-16-2019 09:03 PM)infowarrior1 Wrote:  

(03-16-2019 07:32 PM)CynicalContrarian Wrote:  Most folk live their lives as if the world they see & touch is 'solid'.
Whereas, even without going into the 'crazy' realm of quantum physics, even staying at the atomic level. The world is not really solid.

Then when we do ponder quantum physics. The whole situation becomes far more malleable.

Reality is what it is. Simulation or otherwise. It's our perceptions that are either incomplete or incorrect.

The reality is that reality including everything on this earth and inside it is 99.99% vacuum.

And if the world isn't really solid...

...

Sure, if you boiled every single person who ever lived on planet earth down to just their sub atomic particles and took out the space, you could fit them all in to a sugar cube that you put at the end of your finger tip.

You wouldn't be able to hold it though because it would be neutron star density 'heavy'. Let's not get in to concepts of 'weight' or 'mass' as well as they aren't quite the same thing. You get the picture. Like the Flaming Lips song: A spoonful weighs a ton.

Check out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_energy_levels

Electron Degeneracy Pressure is when this very thing happens to a Star and it boils it down to a White Dwarf. Even though it is relatively small, it is also relatively massive.

When the next state of Quantum Degeneracy takes hold (Neutron Degeneracy) you get a Neutron Star. Something about 3 times the mass of our sun is boiled down to an area the size of London. Don't forget you can actually fit a coupla million Earths in to Sol. Many people don't realize how 'massive' it is (or rather voluminous).

When things get really 'heavy' they become black holes. A black hole can be the size of a golf ball btw, but let's not go there now.

The reason the Electron Degeneracy pressure results in White Dwarfs and not Neutron Stars is because there has been so much vacuum pushed out. Electrons orbit the nucleus of an atom which contains the neutron. They are relatively far away and not so energy packed. It's easier to condense. If you took an atom you could put a pea in the centre of a football field and the outer edges of the game of play would be where the electrons were. The neutrons would be in the centre line kick off point/circle along with the Protons*. Very rough visualisation. Don't shoot me.

Condensing an already energy packed and kicking back neutron is a whole other ball game. Eh eh.

There are things denser than Neutron stars again, but...

Once you get to about over 3 solar masses, then black holes start to be formed.


As for vacuums, well even they aren't vacuums. You get particles popping up out of nowhere, literally. Then they annihilate each other with their anti-matter particles.

It is not possible to have a 100 percent vacuum. Matter literally does just appear out of nowhere then disappear just as quickly again.

In the Heart Sutra Buddhists declare: Form is emptiness and emptiness is form.

Christians declare: As above, so below.

See quantum vacuum states.

According to present-day understanding of what is called the vacuum state or the quantum vacuum, it is "by no means a simple empty space".[1][2] According to quantum mechanics, the vacuum state is not truly empty but instead contains fleeting electromagnetic waves and particles that pop into and out of existence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_state

*I tried to tell them all this in Junior School, but only got a clip around the ear for being disruptive.

Post: #31

(03-16-2019 09:09 PM)[email protected] Wrote:  A danger in talking about quantum mechanics is that people have a tendency to project the findings to the non-quantum level - "PUAs can cho-cho-choose their reality" or "what I believe is my reality" or "This is exactly what my favourite guru/bible/philosopher said!" Not really, not at all. These findings apply to really tiny objects that are incredibly small like photons and electrons.

We all interpret reality as we see fit, sometimes for fun, sometimes for profit, sometimes out of expediency, sometimes because we are just clutching at straws but want to find higher truth.

People project all the time. I believe nothing and know nothing, but it doesn't stop me from chatting shit whenever someone lends me their shell like...

(03-16-2019 09:09 PM)[email protected] Wrote:  I was actually just talking about the double slit experiment with a friend. He comes from a physics background and told me that the instruments we have are the cause for changing the results. After I showed him this story he is starting to doubt that the instruments are causing the electrons for behaving like particles. Thanks for sharing this OP.

The stuff I posted does seem to be another take on this whole thing that OP (Valentine) put up - and adds validity to it again if I got my bearings right with it all. It's pretty heavy going. Very few people really understand this stuff. There isn't much to be understood anyway, if that makes sense. You really do need to have studied this stuff for many many years to even begin to play in this field. I'm an amateur. And a mid-wit amateur at that too. I'm happy to try to pass on what I know though to those that are interested.

That is why I took the time to go over what I found the other day. Sorry if it wasn't coherent. I did my best. It's taken me over 5 hours. I can boil it down more if you like.

I can see that OP Valentine has a couple of IQ points on me. I'd figured that anyway, before. But with this new offering from him I can now tell that he's not only a bit of a clever chap, he's put the hours in. Many, many hours. Nobody expresses to be a 'master' in this field, not even the original scientists themselves, even if they are 'professionals'.

But every now and again you come across someone that has done 'the work'. Valentine is one such man. He's taken the time to write up his findings and condense his studies in to a digestible form.

Back to the subject matter:

The fact is that both of these experiments that OP Valentine and me put forward were just thought experiments (gedanken) from the 60's and 70's (from Wigner and Wheeler respectively) and only now have we been able to carry them out 'for reals' because of advancements in tolerances of engineering and better more rigorous approaches again to scientific methodology.

Even in science there is the concept of 'good enough' (see tolerances). Now 'good enough' can sometimes make the difference of losing your life (airplane bearings for one off the cuff example). But in a way 'good enough' is a pretty binary concept as well. Either something will make sure you don't lose your life, or it will make sure you get the right result in an experiment. I conflated those, but you get the picture. Not much tolerance for mistakes or ambiguity there.

Your friend comes from a physics background. I don't. I was shit at maths (which is pretty necessary for physics understanding), but for some reason I was pretty good at physics (which is very math heavy). I probably conflated something else there as well, but there ya go.

Here's a couple of these experiments that you can put together yourself for 50 bucks - why not give it a go?





There are some things that can be argued over this video, but it's 'good enough' for getting a general feel about EVERY SINGLE THING THAT HAS BEEN DISCUSSED IN THIS THREAD THAT IS OF IMPORTANCE!

That is if you can understand it. I only ever get these things in glimpses and rare insights anyway. I've had to work very very hard to get to my level of understanding, which is quite frankly, not far above ignoramus level.

Here are some other videos that visualise what I was going on about in my previous posts:









And to get back to the good old Double Slit for a moment:

The Double Slit Experiment started as a way to determine if light is a wave or a particle - but it uncovered mysteries that have baffled science to this day.

That's an understatement.







But I'm just drawing attention to these things here for those that want to get a bit of background - they shouldn't detract from OP Valentine's initial post. They are related though. And as you try to understand them, you join the dots...

Post: #32

(03-16-2019 10:29 AM)Roosh Wrote:  I'm starting to notice a rise in people wanting to believe that reality is a "simulation". When you don't understand reality, and are disconnected from it, the simulation theory is what you grasp towards in order to match how you feel about your existence (i.e. that your life is just a series of pixels like the entertainment you consume).

Some call it 'cognitive dissonance'.

When you are faced with the conscious or unconscious reality that things aren't quite as good as they could be, and that you only have one life, and that life is probably going to run out quicker than society gets its shit in order? Savage.

Believing in simulation is one way out.

Some people blindly subscribe to some kind of God. And that can get them through. But for some reason that sometimes brings problems with it as well. Even for the rest of us.

Some of us have found our own Gods. Or God. We see parallels in certain places with certain religions. The good guys don't proselytize.

We make our own way. We fail. But "Fail we may, Sail we must".

It's easier than to fight a government that just wants to take your guns away so it can walk all over you. And it's sure a lot easier for us folk that aren't even allowed guns in the first place.

Cognitive dissonance takes many forms. Simulation theory is just another one. Then again, the great contradiction and paradox with all this stuff is that they may be right!

When I take my final breath and find out for sure the reality of this universe, I'll be sure to let you all know.

Post: #33

Kinda saddening that this needs to be studied...I believe reality is reality, and there's no alternative* to it. Denying it is a step towards rationalizing shit like a woman.

Post: #34

Just settling down for the night. Watching some Japanese food porn - you know - noodles.

Then this pops up in my feed:

Re-thinking a Wheeler delayed choice gedanken experiment, by Jeffrey H. Boyd MD





Start watching from 15:16.

It's a hoot!

The fact they guy changes his hairstyle half way through the video as well does little to help. It's funny.

His words and his thoughts come in waves as well, but he gives some real elucidations on the subject. At the end, he explains why there is a 'glitch in the matrix'.

It's worth watching if you have the time. Even if you don't understand it, there's comedy there to be found. With the right kind of eyes.

Post: #35

(03-16-2019 11:06 PM)pitbullowner Wrote:  Kinda saddening that this needs to be studied...I believe reality is reality, and there's no alternative* to it. Denying it is a step towards rationalizing shit like a woman.

By Jove, I think we've finally got it!

My whole life has been a waste.

Fuck MC squared!

This is the solution to love, life and happiness (and Quantum Theory):

I'm sad. It is what it is. And that's how it is. To say it's not is to hamster like a champ(ess).

Fuck MC squared, where is MC Hammer when you need him?

I can't touch your theory. I take it all back.






Finally, everything makes sense.

How could we all have been so stupid?

Einstein and me?

Both wrong about the same thing!

We didn't have much in common.

To think, this is how it ends...

I can now go quietly in my sleep.

Rested and peaceful.

Knowing 'The Truth'.

Thankyou.

Post: #36

Quantum mechanics is the most verified theory of physics and is true. But it is the mathematical equations that are true. Physical models or ontologys are still in the realm speculation. There are already paradoxes that have been experimentally verified such as particle/wave duality and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. This seems to contradict Aristotelian western logic and the law of the excluded middle. But Hindu scholars have long accepted paradox and contradiction as an aspect of reality and developed logics for it. That is why it was the Hindus who invented "zero". The Western scholars just couldn't conceive of "nothing" as a symbol that could be manipulated in a calculation. Many of the scientists who developed Quantum mechanics had knowledge of or an interest in Buddhist and Hindu philosophy. It shouldn't surprise us that "objective reality" is a fuzzy concept that dissolves on closer inspection. But coming up with conclusions from this about politics and culture is just entertainment.

Post: #37

On a more practical note, I remember reading something written from a law enforcement point of view, saying that you would never know exactly what happened at an incident, because all the witnesses would remember it slightly differently or, as a character in a movie once said, "You think you're telling the truth, but it's just your version of it".

Post: #38

Here's a question for all the Einstein's out there.

It's a question about the reality of my bank account balance.

If my account balance is $0...no matter what reality I choose to believe, my bank account balance will still be $0.

Post: #39

(03-16-2019 10:57 PM)Rigsby Wrote:  ...
Believing in simulation is one way out.

Some people blindly subscribe to some kind of God. And that can get them through. But for some reason that sometimes brings problems with it as well. Even for the rest of us.
...

Taco girl - "Why not both?"
What of a reality simulation created by Jehovah...?

Post: #40

The most interesting part of the article was glossed over:

Quote:Wigner imagined a friend in a different lab measuring the state of this photon and storing the result, while Wigner observed from afar. Wigner has no information about his friend’s measurement and so is forced to assume that the photon and the measurement of it are in a superposition of all possible outcomes of the experiment.

Wigner can even perform an experiment to determine whether this superposition exists or not. This is a kind of interference experiment showing that the photon and the measurement are indeed in a superposition.

From Wigner’s point of view, this is a “fact”—the superposition exists. And this fact suggests that a measurement cannot have taken place.

But this is in stark contrast to the point of view of the friend, who has indeed measured the photon’s polarization and recorded it. The friend can even call Wigner and say the measurement has been done (provided the outcome is not revealed).

Reality just has to stay consistent for you based on the information you have available.

So if Wegner took the measurement and called his friend and told him the result, the friend would then need to see the same result as Wegner. If he did not tell his friend the result of his measurement the friend doesn't necessarily get the same result...

Post: #41

^ that's another thing I wondered....if the observer outside the room looking at the photon in superposition is told of the result from the observer inside the room does the superposition collapse immediately?

Post: #42

(03-16-2019 08:57 PM)Latan Wrote:  Very interesting thread.

One thing bothers me though : the leap (voluntarily or not) made between the quantum level and the macro one.
Let's admit 1 photon can have a different state, depending on the observer.
This is crazy, yes.
But does it imply there's Any notable effect on the macro level?

We can find individual atoms which have different states, but maybe a balance is naturally found when taking a larger quantity of them, to give the exact same result for all observers?
Has there been any experience with a large quantity of atoms?

I remembered hearing something about them doing the dual wave/particle and other quantum handiwork experiments with bucky balls, which are big closed loop molecules of carbon atoms, think like a soccer ball with a C atom at each apex.

I also just found this article, which states they did it with a molecules containing 800 atoms in 2013:

https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blo...2c39db8e7b

Not quite the macro level, but orders of magnitude higher than individual protons or whatever.

I find the quantum world fascinating, and started readin much more about it after coming across this book by a guy named Jim Al-Khalili

Quantum: A Guide for the Perplexed

Researched the guy a bit more, and has some decent pop-sci/BBC style documentaries on youtube, and here's one that links the quantum world with biology, where he theorizes that quantum changes from individual particles being detected in brains can be responsible for a host of otherwise poorly understood phenomena such as how birds find north.

Post: #43

I am spectacularly bad at anything related to science and math myself, but extremely intrigued and fascinated when I get exposed to people that can explain it well.

I used to watch "Through The Wormhole" with Morgan Freeman, its even better when stoned.

If someone knows a good YouTube channel or podcast or something with nerds that talk about this stuff, please do recommend.

Post: #44

I think there is a lot of misunderstanding of the theory presented here because of the click-baity title of the thread, "There Is No Such Thing As Objective Reality."

See, first of all, the study cited in question does not show there is no objective reality. The key part of the study that shows the scientists in question have no idea what's going on is contained in this sentence:

Quote:There is an alternative explanation for their findings however, which instead proposes there is an objective reality but it can't be experienced, and there is still a subjective reality which is: quantum nonlocality.

So, the whole idea that "there is no objective reality" is obviously just a bullshit thesis that cannot be proven (as the very wording contradicts itself) that will get attention and clicks. In reality, what they are discovering is the limitations of human observation - two different humans will perceive completely different things that are actually mathematically and physically sound, while observing the same phenomena. This is a riddle, how can such a thing be possible?

And the answer to that was posited by Kant almost 250 years ago (the only real progress of philosophy we've had since Aristotle), that what we experience is generated by our mind (the phenomena), a very weak and imprecise instrument, while what is actually real cannot be perceived and does not exist inside our mind (the noumena).

Kant was able to deduce the phenomena and noumena without any advanced electron particle measurements by looking at key paradoxes of human reason, he dubbed the antinomies, which showed we can logically prove two conflicting things about the nature of reality. He also used other parts of human perception to bolster his claims, such as the fact that we observe light bend in water, we see stars moving in patterns in the sky that seemed impossible (at least they did in 1780; Kant was a huge astronomer and gets credit for many space discoveries today), etc.

But the big findings of Kant was that we can prove there is a soul and that there is no soul, that there is God and there is no God, that the universe (i.e. outer space) is both finite and infinite, and that time is both finite and infinite.

Obviously, it cannot be the case that contradictions exist, so what is really happening is that our mind is unable to perceive the true nature of reality. Which is exactly what Jesus and the tradition of the Bible has claimed for thousands of years (we cannot begun to comprehend the universe as God does).

Notre Dame has a pretty good lecture explaining Kant's metaphysics and epistemology through the Antimony of Reason here: https://www3.nd.edu/~jspeaks/courses/200...nomies.pdf

Once you read the above, then when you come back to this new scientific "discovery" (it's not a discovery, Kant discovered it back in 1780 lol, it's just new for most people because Kant's theories are so difficult fewer than .001% of the population can understand it) people are finally beginning to understand how the human mind generates contradictions with hard empirical research.

Second of all, the whole 'simulation' theory which gets a lot of traction from Cernovich and Scott Adams is just a pop-philosophy watered down version of Kantian metaphysics and epistemology. In other words, it's weak bullshit compared to the real deal of Kant, and I'm fairly sure Cernovich knows this since he is a well read philosopher (for example, Cernovich is huge into Nietzsche, and Nietzsche talks about Kant extensively, as do all intelligent men). But, the simulation theory is a pretty good purple-pill into the red pill of Kant, and maybe within another 250 years, people will begin to actually understand what Kant taught and use it to generate practical results in science and technology the layman can understand.

Just like it took nearly 2000 years before someone surpassed Aristotle's Metaphysics and Plato's The Republic, both of which although thousands of years old are hardly understood by more than 1% of the population, it will be many hundreds, if not thousands, of years before Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is surpassed by another philosopher.

People like Einstein or Neil Bohr, who are widely regarded as geniuses of the modern age that lead to the discovery of nuclear physics, both read Kant when young and for all of their study, were only answering around 1 or 2 parts of Kant's theories and problems of epistemology.

For example, Einstein's Theory of Relativity is just an answer to a single Antinomy of Kant's, the one of space being both infinite and finite. Einstein's brilliant response to Kant? That space is infinitely bounded (it's both finite and infinite, an expanding mass that one can never step outside of and yet a mass that expands indefinitely). And it's evident that even Einstein's theory does not fully answer Kant's Antinomy.

And just by answering a few pages of Kant, humanity discovered this:



Imagine if humanity took the time to figure out the rest of the paradoxes discovered by Kant, who knows what is possible? Time travel, direct communion with dead souls or even God is not outside the realm of possibility once we escape the prison of our mind (The Matrix is more or less a complete rip-off of Kantian metaphysics).

If anyone here wants the greatest intellectual challenge of their lives, try reading the Critique of Pure Reason; to make it easier I highly recommend this resource: http://userpages.bright.net/~jclarke/kant/index.html

That said, Roosh and many others in this thread are correct that science and philosophy are often abused to justify the worst degeneracies. Ironically, Kant himself was a hardcore moral absolutist who would denounce our age as a doomed decadent waste. His philosophy was a rigorous justification of Christian principles.

Really, the smartest people to have ever lived was Jesus (who is so far in the lead it seems impossible to ever catch up), Aristotle, Kant, and Plato in that order (as far as I have read). When one gets to these levels, mistakes are as common as rain, and everyone makes them (myself included!).

Every single scientific theory today can be traced back to Kant. To describe the influence of Kant is nothing more than to write a history of science since 1780. Kant was a watershed moment in the intellectual progress of humanity, and since that peak of humanity we've fallen tremendously. It's going to be a long time before we get back there.

But the article Valentine posted shows we are finally discovering empirical evidence to support what Kant was able to deduce with mere reasoning alone, thus demonstrating the incredible power of his theories. Empirical research is an important step towards making further progress in philosophy, since before we can formulate new problems and theories we must have a clearer picture of reality to discard false hypotheses.

Post: #45

In my opinion, Quantum Mechanics isn't explained by a simple noumena/phenomena duality. The refraction of light in water doesn't cause any problems for an objective model, because the light actually is being physically bent by the water. It isn't caused by the observer. One can explain contradictions by saying that the contraditions are points of view formed in the phenomena, and the contradition thus comes from a mind's limited knowledge. But Quantum Mechanics goes further then this and raises the possibility of contradiction in the noumena itself, i.e. light really is a particle or a wave in nature, and a limited perspective is not the answer. The contradiction is in nature itself. But keep in mind that true Quantum Mechanics is a mathematical equation, and statements about reality are philosophical speculations. The equation itself is logically consistent, but doesn't have a physical interpretation.

Famous International Physicists who were influenced by Hindu Dharma

https://detechter.com/6-famous-internati...-hinduism/


Erwin Schrödinger : Vedantist and Father of Quantum Mechanics

http://www.hinduhistory.info/erwin-schro...mechanics/

Post: #46

(03-17-2019 01:07 PM)Sherman Wrote:  But Quantum Mechanics goes further then this and raises the possibility of contradiction in the noumena itself, i.e. light really is a particle or a wave in nature, and a limited perspective is not the answer.

I think the idea is that light as either a particle or a wave is still Phenomena. The Noumena is something else we can't perceive.

Post: #47

(03-17-2019 01:07 PM)Sherman Wrote:  In my opinion, Quantum Mechanics isn't explained by a simple noumena/phenomena duality. The refraction of light in water doesn't cause any problems for an objective model, because the light actually is being physically bent by the water. It isn't caused by the observer. One can explain contradictions by saying that the contraditions are points of view formed in the phenomena, and the contradition thus comes from a mind's limited knowledge. But Quantum Mechanics goes further then this and raises the possibility of contradiction in the noumena itself, i.e. light really is a particle or a wave in nature, and a limited perspective is not the answer. The contradiction is in nature itself. But keep in mind that true Quantum Mechanics is a mathematical equation, and statements about reality are philosophical speculations. The equation itself is logically consistent, but doesn't have a physical interpretation.

Famous International Physicists who were influenced by Hindu Dharma

https://detechter.com/6-famous-internati...-hinduism/


Erwin Schrödinger : Vedantist and Father of Quantum Mechanics

http://www.hinduhistory.info/erwin-schro...mechanics/

Kant is still way ahead of all of these people and has already answered your objection.

Kant would just point out that math itself does not exist in the world, therefore any mathematical model or equation is based on concepts supplied by the cognition. This is to say, math is utterly trapped in the world of the phenomena.

Trying to use math to describe the noumena is like using your naked eye to describe a dark planet 10+ million light years away.

Post: #48

(03-17-2019 01:37 PM)Samseau Wrote:  Kant is still way ahead of all of these people and has already answered your objection.

Kant would just point out that math itself does not exist in the world, therefore any mathematical model or equation is based on concepts supplied by the cognition. This is to say, math is utterly trapped in the world of the phenomena.

Trying to use math to describe the noumena is like using your naked eye to describe a dark planet 10+ million light years away.

Math is the language of physics. If math is feeble, than a natural language is even more feeble, and we can't know anything. The equations reliably predict what will happen when we probe nature in certain ways. So to that extent we seem to have obtained valid knowledge of a behavior of the noumena.

Post: #49

Thanks for the kind words Risgby, I'm just a layman in this subject though since I lack the math background to comprehend the deeper intracies of these theories.

Your understanding of perceived retrocausality matches mine - it's simply our consciousness collapsing these superpositions to a single subjective reality, so there's no time paradox. This video offers a simple overview of how the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment makes sense:




Samseau, I'm not widely read on Kant but it's interesting to hear that he also had the same ideas. It seems we end up verifying a lot of old wisdom later with modern science.

(03-17-2019 03:57 AM)Hammerhead Wrote:  The most interesting part of the article was glossed over:

Quote:Wigner imagined a friend in a different lab measuring the state of this photon and storing the result, while Wigner observed from afar. Wigner has no information about his friend’s measurement and so is forced to assume that the photon and the measurement of it are in a superposition of all possible outcomes of the experiment.

Wigner can even perform an experiment to determine whether this superposition exists or not. This is a kind of interference experiment showing that the photon and the measurement are indeed in a superposition.

From Wigner’s point of view, this is a “fact”—the superposition exists. And this fact suggests that a measurement cannot have taken place.

But this is in stark contrast to the point of view of the friend, who has indeed measured the photon’s polarization and recorded it. The friend can even call Wigner and say the measurement has been done (provided the outcome is not revealed).

Reality just has to stay consistent for you based on the information you have available.

So if Wegner took the measurement and called his friend and told him the result, the friend would then need to see the same result as Wegner. If he did not tell his friend the result of his measurement the friend doesn't necessarily get the same result...

Ah I thought it was clear in the idea of the superposition existing at all times without observation. Whether you discover the collapsed reality via direct measurement or indirectly being told by another it's the same thing, the superposition has been collapsed.

(03-17-2019 09:25 AM)[email protected] Wrote:  ^ that's another thing I wondered....if the observer outside the room looking at the photon in superposition is told of the result from the observer inside the room does the superposition collapse immediately?

This is effectively the same as the quantum eraser experiment (see detectors A+B in the video) in that there is this perception of retrocausality, so the experimenter outside the room wouldn't have perceived the superposition at all.

(03-16-2019 08:57 PM)Latan Wrote:  Very interesting thread.

One thing bothers me though : the leap (voluntarily or not) made between the quantum level and the macro one.
Let's admit 1 photon can have a different state, depending on the observer.
This is crazy, yes.
But does it imply there's Any notable effect on the macro level?

We can find individual atoms which have different states, but maybe a balance is naturally found when taking a larger quantity of them, to give the exact same result for all observers?
Has there been any experience with a large quantity of atoms?

On a macro level superpositions are also maintained for up to 810 atom molecules, which are 1000s of times heavier than similar atomic-scale particles to photons such as electrons. To put this in perspective, the width of a human hair is about 100,000 atoms.

Yeah, when we look at larger objects the fact that we can't replicate superpositions with them demonstrates that their chemical bonds shift their state to a fixed reality that wouldn't be likely to be modified by your own subjective reality.

Post: #50

This guy goes for many worlds as a solution to quantum mechanics that doesn't involve any woo. Essentially you just get entangled with the bit of the universe where things happen the way they happen for you. All the other possibilities are inaccessible.

[url] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXRLDatmbgA[/url]