What, in relatively simple language, are the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics?

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Well, that can't be determined. ;)

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:07 (twenty-two years ago)

It doesn't rule out absolute determinism if I remeber, it just says we can't absolutely determine something incredibly tiny?

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:09 (twenty-two years ago)

If you can't absolutely determine the smallest of things, then how can you expect to make unimpeachable statements about what those small things compose and affect?

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:12 (twenty-two years ago)

It's not that nothing can be determined, it's just that Newton's grand vision of retracing that eternal billard game of physics simply can't be done b/c quantum physics precludes tracing certain things back (or forwards). Thus, no absolute determinism.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:13 (twenty-two years ago)

the tip-of-the-haha-unbelievable-iceberg aspect is why scientists are suspicious of "telekinetic-intelligence-operating-everywhere" or "force-at-a-distance": once you let them in, you have to spend your entire time explaining why they DON'T operate in 99.9999999999999% of cases

Scientist A: "I don't get this bit"
Scientist B: "That's caused by magic elves"
Scientist A: "But why do magic elves only work on bits of the universe I don't understand"
Scientist B: "Because you are an arrogant reductionist"

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:13 (twenty-two years ago)

*Spinktor rides in trough the saloon doors in the middle of the science-talk-conversation weilding a length of barbed wire that he is swinging wildly around him as he shreiks like an idiot.*

AYAYAAAAAYYYAYYYYYYY!!!

― Spinktor the Unmerciful (mawill5), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Maxwell's Demon: *cackle*

― Ricardo (RickyT), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:15 (twenty-two years ago)

You can still say that they compose and affect something, you just can never know exactly what.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:16 (twenty-two years ago)

*Spinktor smacks the compose out of Mr Noodles' affect.*

― Spinktor the Unmerciful (mawill5), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Surely the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment means you can expand the quantum indeterminacy into the visible world, not just the world of very tiny things?

('tho I still don't understand what the actual ontological status of the cat is)

― Jonathan Z., Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:16 (twenty-two years ago)

my new theory: since everything is ~~energy~~, er ~~vibrations~~, er some kind of stuff, then everything is the same as everything else when you look close enough...so close in fact that you can't really see or know for sure, er, but that shows that SCIENCE PROVES that we can't really definitely know anything so anything is possible so my theory is ultimately as good as YOURS haha DO YOU SEE

the usefulness of this theory is as yet unclear

― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:17 (twenty-two years ago)

you just can never know exactly what.

Wouldn't that sorta rule out absolute determinism? Obviously (or not? Hume experts?) cause and effect is still operating. But determinism, as I am interpreting it, relies on the predicative abilities (forwards and back).

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Surely the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment means you can expand the quantum indeterminacy into the visible world, not just the world of very tiny things?

No, because it's just an analogy.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:19 (twenty-two years ago)

the schrodinger's cat theory is a way of dramatising an idea in the macro-world: actually building a real-world machine to amplify the effect being dramatised would (of course) submit the whole process to a vast sequence of other (teenytiny) quantum effects in every other atom of this machine

the basic point pete made holds: the material logic of activity doesn't isn't a one-stop shop whatever size you are

this is why newton's billiard balls stop being a useful model: billiards logic stops working

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Well it hamstrings it for sure.

And people aren't quiet grasping the meaning of cat Gedankenexperiment.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Feckin Planck...

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:25 (twenty-two years ago)

If you can't absolutely determine the smallest of things, then how can you expect to make unimpeachable statements about what those small things compose and affect?

depends what the statements are ?
when my central heating broke down i didn't call in a subatomic physicist to fix the boiler because 'the atoms weren't working properly'
(though obviously it would have been good to have that call recorded on Scottish Gas' helpline)

― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Planck should have fudged his results and we never would have been in this mess.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:28 (twenty-two years ago)

if your dealing with central heating or cooling, statistical mechanics is much more handy.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:29 (twenty-two years ago)

greasy-rag mechanics works too

― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Cowboy physicist inspects boiler:
"It's yer atoms mate. They need replacing. That's pricey but I can get you a new lot for a pound each!"

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:32 (twenty-two years ago)

i didn't call in a subatomic physicist to fix the boiler because 'the atoms weren't working properly'

Being as they would be a subatomic physicist, what did you expect?

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:35 (twenty-two years ago)

This is still going?

― Spinktor the Unmerciful (mawill5), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Its the Boise-Einstein clan that have decided to stop working with the Fermi-Dirac clan and you got a blood feud breaking out.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Quantum gravity vs. relativistic electroweak force FITE!

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Someone - I forget who - has posited a connection between quantum theory and consciousness, to cover the so-called 'explanatory gap' in the consciousness debate. Now, if that were true (or even simply the fact that a scientist can think it might be true) then quantum theory might well have a huge effect on the non-subatomic world.

― Jonathan Z., Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:39 (twenty-two years ago)

No one's denying that quantum theory can have a huge effect on the non-subatomic world. We're just denying that the implications within the subatomic world can simply be cut and pasted into larger scenarios wholesale.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:40 (twenty-two years ago)

generally, science has been used as useful tropes to explore the relationship of various epistemologies with each other. not just cut/paste

― possible m (mandinina), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:44 (twenty-two years ago)

You guys jumped the shark.

― Spinktor the Unmerciful (mawill5), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:45 (twenty-two years ago)

well, the various aspects of science. so the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, revealing the limits of science, is important in itself -- especially because so many social sciences have striven for the purity of 'real science'.

― possible m (mandinina), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:46 (twenty-two years ago)

well, the various aspects of science. meant, um to clarify my earlier post.....

― possible m (mandinina), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, to sort of answer the question:
If you stop moving completely, aka your energy drops to 0ev, you may perhaps disappear. I remeber someone mentioning this while lecturing on electron traps.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Godel, Escher, Bach.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:47 (twenty-two years ago)

If you stop moving completely, aka your energy drops to 0ev, you may perhaps disappear.

But wouldn't you have to be at absolute zero? Which pretty much kills entropy.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Heisenberg amoung other things, showed everyone the importance of commuting, and not just to work.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:49 (twenty-two years ago)

But wouldn't you have to be at absolute zero? Which pretty much kills entropy.

Yup, which is why its not possible at this time. Please hang up and try again.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Being as they would be a subatomic physicist, what did you expect?

that to fix a system you need to understand its constituent parts ?

ref: micro-vs-macro:
did anyone here see a Horizon prog a few months ago (or more?) about freakishly huge waves (eg 100 ft) of really short duration that randomly sink loads of ships per year?

as far as i can recall there was a suggestion that these things were some kind of macro-world equivalent (or even a kind of 'manifestation') of 'waves' as understood via quantum weirdness - conventional hydro-whatever theory couldn't understand them atall -
they even had a Proper Quantum Physicist Filmed In Front Of Scribblymath Whiteboard on the prog, making all the comparisons and predictions...
once they had figured what they were looking for, satellite imagery showed these isolated monster waves popping up then disappearing all over the oceans

i reckon it must have been Scary-Science crud, otherwise this macro-manifestation would be really really famous by now ?

― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:51 (twenty-two years ago)

boiler fixed:
'that'll be 2^5739995848207837573829234758983738598758 pounds please mate....oh and there's yer VAT to be added on'

― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:55 (twenty-two years ago)

"Someone - I forget who - has posited a connection between quantum theory and consciousness, to cover the so-called 'explanatory gap' in the consciousness debate."

Quantum theory in respect to philosophy of mind is a total red herring. Roger Penrose is a stunningly intelligent mathematician – that he fell for it's charms is something I've yet to come to terms with. http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/quantum.html

I sound very big-headed there, but the Penrose thing really does get to me.

― Alan (Alan), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 17:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Conspiracy!!!! My similar post to Alan's saying how much I detest the wrongheadedness of the mystery of consciousness=mytery of quantumness in the Emperor's New Mind was so apparent to me that an arrogant 20 year old almost staked his entire academic career on it (and of course lost). Penrose's idiocy in this matter suggests he is not as bright as Alan suggests. No big head comes into it.

― Pete (Pete), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 17:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Pete, yr post doesn't make sense!

― Ricardo (RickyT), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 17:25 (twenty-two years ago)

That's how angry even the mention of Roger Penrose makes me.

― Pete (Pete), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 17:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Even when talking abt his tiles?

― Ricardo (RickyT), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 17:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Even the tiles. (Crazy paving is not maths).

― Pete (Pete), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 17:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I did try to read the Penrose book ages ago, but I couldn't get to grips with the technicalities of his argument. There is a good debunking of it though in Searle's 'The Mystery Of Consciousness', which is a good overview on current consciousness theories (but weak on positing any actual theory per se).

― Jonathan Z., Wednesday, 3 December 2003 17:35 (twenty-two years ago)

The theory of quantum mechanics implies we are all hostages of circumstance.

― Aimless, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 17:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Quantum mechanics proves Ryan Adams Rock n Roll is the best album ever. Whod've thunk it?

― Pete S, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 18:11 (twenty-two years ago)

re the freakwaves prog: the relationship to quantum mechanics was that the (ocean) wave system can better (sometimes) be described by similar wave equations to those found in quantum mechanics - ie not just the 'linear" wave equations that are usually (for simplicity, but reasonably successfully) used to describe sea-systems, but cannot account for the height and relative commonness of freak waves

there was no suggestion that this was any sort of macro quantum effect...

i am sad at the penrose hate as he wz my non-euclidean geometry lecturer - and he invented this:
http://www.cameron.edu/~lloydd/webdoc1.htg/section2/PENROSE.GIF

and this:
http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/resources/explorations/blackholes/teacher/graphics/black%20hole%20diagram.jpg

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 21:54 (twenty-two years ago)

i suspect his book is poor however

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 21:56 (twenty-two years ago)

"I'm not even going to touch 3 cause its a good question and would require me to go pour over several large books again."

I realize this makes me a big gay meerkat, but I was enjoying reading this debate till ya misspelled "pore." PORE NOT POUR DAMMITALL! Unless you mean that you are going to turn into a liquid and flow around the pages till you've absorbed all the knowledge and then turn back into a Mr. Noodles again. That would be thexthy.

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 23:09 (twenty-two years ago)

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