The halting problem revisited

D

Dirk Bruere at NeoPax

A full model of how the state space collapses must account for Mind,
mind and consciousness, and must somehow seek to formalize whimsy.

The MWI does not require mind or consciousness because there is no collapse.
Nothing is determined but that nothing is determined.

I assume you are a friend of Wigners friend...
 
L

Lew

I assume you are a friend of Wigners friend...

I don't know. I haven't been on Facebook in a while.

Nothing is determined like my buddy Phil when he wants a big Mac.
 
D

Dirk Bruere at NeoPax

I don't know. I haven't been on Facebook in a while.

Nothing is determined like my buddy Phil when he wants a big Mac.
I'll be charitable and assume that's a feeble joke rather than an
illustration of your total ignorance of the subject
 
L

Lew

I'll be charitable and assume that's a feeble joke rather than an illustration
of your total ignorance of the subject

I don't need your stinkin' charity. It was total ignorance of the subject.
 
J

Joshua Maurice

Bell’s inequality states otherwise.

Just because I'm marginally knowledgeable about such things, let me
pipe in. I'm pretty sure that's an incorrect interpretation. Bell's
inequality, if true, says that quantum mechanics is either "true
random" /or/ "non-local". It's possible to have a determinmalistic
system of equations that can produce observed quantum mechanics if you
allow FTL interactions. Not necessarily FTL information flow, but some
sort of hidden variable system which is non-local.

IIRC, there's also some discussion of whether Bell's inequality are
true. I'm not the most versed on it, but I think that the evidence for
Bell's inequality is less than foolproof.

I'm sure wiki can do a better job of explaining it, so I direct any
more questions to there.
 
D

Dirk Bruere at NeoPax

I don't need your stinkin' charity. It was total ignorance of the subject.
Well, here's something that will help relieve the burden:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner's_friend

"The Wigner's Friend thought experiment posits a friend of Wigner who
performs the Schrödinger's cat experiment after Wigner leaves the
laboratory. Only when he returns does Wigner learn the result of the
experiment from his friend, that is, whether the cat is alive or dead.
The question is raised: was the state of the system a superposition of
"dead cat/sad friend" and "live cat/happy friend," only determined when
Wigner learned the result of the experiment, or was it determined at
some previous point?

Wigner designed the experiment to illustrate his belief that
consciousness is necessary to the quantum mechanical measurement
process. If a material device is substituted for the conscious friend,
the linearity of the wave function implies that the state of the system
is in a linear sum of possible states. It is simply a larger
indeterminate system.

However, a conscious observer (according to his reasoning) must be in
either one state or the other, hence conscious observations are
different, hence consciousness is not material. Wigner discusses this
scenario in "Remarks on the mind-body question", one in his collection
of essays, Symmetries and Reflections, 1967. The idea has become known
as the consciousness causes collapse interpretation."
 
S

Stefan Ram

Joshua Maurice said:
Just because I'm marginally knowledgeable about such things,
let me pipe in. (...)
IIRC, there's also some discussion of whether Bell's inequality are
true. I'm not the most versed on it, but I think that the evidence for
Bell's inequality is less than foolproof.

Marginally knowledgeable people are aware that

»every single experiment done so far (...) violates
a Bell inequality«

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments

and

»Aspect's experiments were considered to provide
overwhelming support to the thesis that Bell's
inequalities are violated«

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Aspect

as it has to be when quantum theory is correct.
 
J

Joshua Maurice

  Marginally knowledgeable people are aware that

      every single experiment done so far (...) violates
      a Bell inequality

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments

  and

      Aspect's experiments were considered to provide
      overwhelming support to the thesis that Bell's
      inequalities are violated

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Aspect

  as it has to be when quantum theory is correct.

I mispoke. I meant "Bell's Theorem" instead of "inequality". Typo. My
mistake. I meant to say that Bell's Theorem is widely upheld to be
true, although the evidence isn't foolproof. It is exactly as you
state - all performed experiments seem to violate a Bell Inequality,
which is interpreted as proving no hidden determinalistic local
variable system which can describe the results.

As I mentioned, there are so called "loopholes" in the validity of
these experimental results, but the consensus leans towards validity.

Let me requote what you snipped.

Bell’s inequality states otherwise.

As I said this is untrue. Bell's Theorem, if correct, and it's widely
believed to be correct, proves that there is no /local/
determinalistic hidden variable system consistent with observations of
quantum mechanics. However, there could be a non-local one. There
could be a non-local determinalistic hidden variable system which is
consistent with observations of quantum effects. Thus the perceived
randomness could be determinalistic. It's conceivable and consistent
that there could be a determinalistic PRNG operating in the world of
quantum mechanics.

In short, Bell's theorem says that you have to have at least one of
the following: 1- action at a distance, aka FTL interactions, or 2-
true randomness, aka no determinalism. To a lot of physicists, both
seem rather, "unintuitive", shall I say. Such is the world of quantum
physics.
 
D

Dirk Bruere at NeoPax

I mispoke. I meant "Bell's Theorem" instead of "inequality". Typo. My
mistake. I meant to say that Bell's Theorem is widely upheld to be
true, although the evidence isn't foolproof. It is exactly as you
state - all performed experiments seem to violate a Bell Inequality,
which is interpreted as proving no hidden determinalistic local
variable system which can describe the results.

As I mentioned, there are so called "loopholes" in the validity of
these experimental results, but the consensus leans towards validity.

Let me requote what you snipped.



As I said this is untrue. Bell's Theorem, if correct, and it's widely
believed to be correct, proves that there is no /local/
determinalistic hidden variable system consistent with observations of
quantum mechanics. However, there could be a non-local one. There
could be a non-local determinalistic hidden variable system which is
consistent with observations of quantum effects. Thus the perceived
randomness could be determinalistic. It's conceivable and consistent
that there could be a determinalistic PRNG operating in the world of
quantum mechanics.

In short, Bell's theorem says that you have to have at least one of
the following: 1- action at a distance, aka FTL interactions, or 2-
true randomness, aka no determinalism. To a lot of physicists, both
seem rather, "unintuitive", shall I say. Such is the world of quantum
physics.

You need the true randomness to prevent temporal paradox arising
 
J

javax.swing.JSnarker

Wigner designed the experiment to illustrate his belief that
consciousness is necessary to the quantum mechanical measurement
process. If a material device is substituted for the conscious friend,
the linearity of the wave function implies that the state of the system
is in a linear sum of possible states. It is simply a larger
indeterminate system.

Thing is, it requires not only positing a collapse mechanism that is
non-unitary, non-Lorentz-invariant, non-time-reversible, and on and on
and on, but also positing a dichotomy between things that constitute a
"material device" and some other sort of stuff that does not (but you
can bet the name for it would start with an "S" and rhyme with "hole",
and be suggested as proof of the existence of some dude whose name
rhymes with Todd).

Or we can posit that Wigner's friend is also a "material device", in
which case you realize that Wigner's friend just gets replicated into
parallel worlds, and so does Wigner, and so does everyone eventually.
Which is philosophically somewhat disturbing, and being a "material
device" perhaps even more so.

This is probably why the *obvious truth* about QM is regarded as
controversial instead of a settled matter: it flies in the face of not
only commonsense intuition (I don't *feel* like I'm being duplicated!)
but also nearly all widespread spiritual and theological beliefs (anyone
remember the phrase "God does not play dice with the universe"?) and
even our intuition about free will.

Yet, the experimental evidence says we must either accept this, or posit
a non-unitary, non-Lorentz-invariant, non-time-reversible .......
However, a conscious observer (according to his reasoning) must be in
either one state or the other, hence conscious observations are
different, hence consciousness is not material.

There's Wigner's non sequitur; if a conscious observer was in a
superposition of states, and if consciousness was *part of the brain's
function* rather than some mysterious external thing, then the observer
would have two sets of experiences and in fact two consciousnesses, each
experiencing only one of them.

What happens if you superpose a computer adding 1 and 2 and a computer
adding 3 and 4? Two additions take place, separately but simultaneously,
producing a 3 and a 7, respectively. Neither operation influences the other.

So, what happens if you superpose a computer running a self-aware
program on one set of inputs and a computer running a self-aware program
on a second set of inputs? Again, two separate self-aware computations
take place, separately but simultaneously, and neither operation
influences the other.

The implication is that Wigner cannot tell by introspection that he
*isn't* one of two (or many more) superposed Wigners, each having
received separate inputs, none influencing the others, because of that
last part.
The idea has become known as the consciousness causes collapse
interpretation.

Which I'm quite sure will eventually join a list that also contains
phlogiston, hollow Earth theory, and cold fusion.

Oh, and what *does* happen to free will if you're just a "material device"?

Why, nothing, of course. You only have problems there if you assume that
"you" are floating out there somewhere, "willing" your brain and body to
do something, and if that brain and body are deterministic all the
"willing" in the universe won't influence them. But that presupposes the
very dualism we're now presuming to be absent. So, instead, your will is
something internal; it arises from the mechanical processes of your brain.

You have the sense of being able to do anything you want to do, within
physics's constraints. This comes from the brain's labeling certain
states of the universe as reachable if certain actions are taken. All of
that is algorithmic; chess software does similar things under the hood
to see if it has a checkmate in N moves and then act to win the game if
it does.

So what is "will"? Ultimately it comes from whatever determines what you
"want" to do, and what you then decide as a way of trying to bring it
about. If what you "want" is a result of mechanical processes, and so
are those subsequent decisions, what of it? You still want things; you
can still figure out ways to try to get them and make the attempt. You
don't magically lose these capabilities, anymore than a chess program
suddenly loses the capability to win most games against human players,
just because you discover that the whole process is mechanical!
It was all along, and it never bothered you before you knew about it.
 
M

Michal Kleczek

javax.swing.JSnarker said:
Thing is, it requires not only positing a collapse mechanism that is
non-unitary, non-Lorentz-invariant, non-time-reversible, and on and on
and on, but also positing a dichotomy between things that constitute a
"material device" and some other sort of stuff that does not (but you
can bet the name for it would start with an "S" and rhyme with "hole",
and be suggested as proof of the existence of some dude whose name
rhymes with Todd).

Or we can posit that Wigner's friend is also a "material device", in
which case you realize that Wigner's friend just gets replicated into
parallel worlds, and so does Wigner, and so does everyone eventually.

I'm not an expert in all this stuff at all but my thinking is:
If existence of parallel Wigners cannot be disproved experimentally (by
definition of "parallel") the whole idea is not really science anymore.
Since Wigner is not able to verify existence of parallel Wigners then by
applying Ockham's razor he should just ignore them (and try another
explanation which would be more scientific).
Which is philosophically somewhat disturbing, and being a "material
device" perhaps even more so.

This is probably why the *obvious truth* about QM is regarded as
controversial instead of a settled matter: it flies in the face of not
only commonsense intuition (I don't *feel* like I'm being duplicated!)

You cannot easily say "commonsense intuition is wrong" because then your
sentences about real world become meaningless. In fact they are meaningless
by definition since "meaningful" actually means "something that commmonsense
intuition accepts as a fact".

It is not that easy to get rid of "the existence of some dude whose name
rhymes with Todd" :)
 
J

javax.swing.JSnarker

I'm not an expert in all this stuff at all but my thinking is:
If existence of parallel Wigners cannot be disproved experimentally (by
definition of "parallel") the whole idea is not really science anymore.
Since Wigner is not able to verify existence of parallel Wigners then by
applying Ockham's razor he should just ignore them (and try another
explanation which would be more scientific).

Ockham's Razor requires us to accept the *simpler hypothesis*. If we
assume only what's already proven about QM, e.g. the Schroedinger
wave-function evolution, then parallel Wigners fall out of that
naturally. We have to posit something *extra* (a collapse mechanism) to
get *rid* of them.

Absent experimental evidence one way or the other we should prefer the
theory *without* a collapse postulate.
You cannot easily say "commonsense intuition is wrong" because then your
sentences about real world become meaningless.

Non sequitur.
It is not that easy to get rid of "the existence of some dude whose name
rhymes with Todd" :)

How about the observation that any phenomenon in the universe that has
no detectable effect at all has no practical significance and may as
well not exist; whereas if it has detectable effects, those effects can
be partially modeled, at least statistically. The model, if made as good
as possible, should end up as a mixture of structured behaviors, with
patterns to them, and a random noise source of some sort.

The model of the structured behaviors, however, amounts to a
naturalistic explanation of those aspects of the phenomena more or less
by definition. And what's left over is unstructured noise!

This leaves no room for the supernatural in *any* form. A sufficiently
good model crushes it between the parts explained naturalistically and
the parts that are just noise. In fact, MWI QM even gets rid of the
noise, simply making it a lengthy bit-string parameter that varies
across the many worlds; the noise we observe is then just a reflection
of our uncertainty as to which bit-string our particular universe has
(even after we've observed an arbitrarily long prefix of it).
 
M

Michal Kleczek

javax.swing.JSnarker said:
Ockham's Razor requires us to accept the *simpler hypothesis*. If we
assume only what's already proven about QM, e.g. the Schroedinger
wave-function evolution, then parallel Wigners fall out of that
naturally. We have to posit something *extra* (a collapse mechanism) to
get *rid* of them.

Absent experimental evidence one way or the other we should prefer the
theory *without* a collapse postulate.


Non sequitur.

How about: if a theory leads to conclusions that are not verfifyable by (or
even contradictory to) "common sense" ( Myself ) - it means the theory is
useless (hence parallel world assumption is useless - hence there are either
a) other sentences more useful "falling out" from QM or b) QM is useless :)
).
How about the observation that any phenomenon in the universe that has
no detectable effect at all has no practical significance and may as
well not exist; whereas if it has detectable effects, those effects can
be partially modeled, at least statistically. The model, if made as good
as possible, should end up as a mixture of structured behaviors, with
patterns to them, and a random noise source of some sort.

The model of the structured behaviors, however, amounts to a
naturalistic explanation of those aspects of the phenomena more or less
by definition. And what's left over is unstructured noise!

This leaves no room for the supernatural in *any* form. A sufficiently
good model crushes it between the parts explained naturalistically and
the parts that are just noise. In fact, MWI QM even gets rid of the
noise, simply making it a lengthy bit-string parameter that varies
across the many worlds; the noise we observe is then just a reflection
of our uncertainty as to which bit-string our particular universe has
(even after we've observed an arbitrarily long prefix of it).

My point is that if "parallel world" theory cannot get rid of "the noise" in
"this world" it is of no use to me. There is no difference between
uncertainty of
a) which world I am in
b) the cat was dead or not a couple of hours in the past

But I think don't really follow and I am not capable of discussing it
further. It may be because:
a) my English is not good enough to comprehend such advanced discussions
b) I don't have enought background - do you have some pointers that would
introduce me to the concepts you're talking about?

Until it is more understandable to me I think I won't add "the noise"
anymore :)
 
J

Joshua Maurice

You need the true randomness to prevent temporal paradox arising

Are you talking about how FTL from arbitrary reference frames in
general relativity is equivalent to a "go back in time" machine? Yes.
I'm fully aware. If that's what you meant, then you really ought to
have provided the context of general relativity.

Obviously, both the theories of general relativity and quantum
mechanics are incorrect in each others's domain of utility. No modern
quantum theory is consistent with modern general relativity. If I am
correct about what you meant to say, then I think that you are wrong.
It's my understanding that the "local true random" and "non-local
determinalistic" interpretations of modern quantum mechanics are /
both/ inconsistent with general relativity, contrary to your
insinuation just now that "local true random" is closer to a Theory Of
Everything.

Either way, way off topic segue.
 
L

Lew

Michal said:
But I think don't really follow and I am not capable of discussing it
further. It may be because:
a) my English is not good enough to comprehend such advanced discussions

Your English is just fine. This discussion isn't at that high a level.
b) I don't have enought background - do you have some pointers that would
introduce me to the concepts you're talking about?

This is a Java newsgroup. Snarky-boy won't have anything useful anyway.
Until it is more understandable to me I think I won't add "the noise"
anymore :)

You understand it better than those trying to argue with you.
 
D

Dirk Bruere at NeoPax

Thing is, it requires not only positing a collapse mechanism that is
non-unitary, non-Lorentz-invariant, non-time-reversible, and on and on
and on, but also positing a dichotomy between things that constitute a
"material device" and some other sort of stuff that does not (but you
can bet the name for it would start with an "S" and rhyme with "hole",
and be suggested as proof of the existence of some dude whose name
rhymes with Todd).

Or we can posit that Wigner's friend is also a "material device", in
which case you realize that Wigner's friend just gets replicated into
parallel worlds, and so does Wigner, and so does everyone eventually.
Which is philosophically somewhat disturbing, and being a "material
device" perhaps even more so.

This is probably why the *obvious truth* about QM is regarded as
controversial instead of a settled matter: it flies in the face of not
only commonsense intuition (I don't *feel* like I'm being duplicated!)
but also nearly all widespread spiritual and theological beliefs (anyone
remember the phrase "God does not play dice with the universe"?) and
even our intuition about free will.

Yet, the experimental evidence says we must either accept this, or posit
a non-unitary, non-Lorentz-invariant, non-time-reversible .......


There's Wigner's non sequitur; if a conscious observer was in a
superposition of states, and if consciousness was *part of the brain's
function* rather than some mysterious external thing, then the observer
would have two sets of experiences and in fact two consciousnesses, each
experiencing only one of them.

What happens if you superpose a computer adding 1 and 2 and a computer
adding 3 and 4? Two additions take place, separately but simultaneously,
producing a 3 and a 7, respectively. Neither operation influences the
other.

So, what happens if you superpose a computer running a self-aware
program on one set of inputs and a computer running a self-aware program
on a second set of inputs? Again, two separate self-aware computations
take place, separately but simultaneously, and neither operation
influences the other.

The implication is that Wigner cannot tell by introspection that he
*isn't* one of two (or many more) superposed Wigners, each having
received separate inputs, none influencing the others, because of that
last part.


Which I'm quite sure will eventually join a list that also contains
phlogiston, hollow Earth theory, and cold fusion.

Oh, and what *does* happen to free will if you're just a "material device"?

Why, nothing, of course. You only have problems there if you assume that
"you" are floating out there somewhere, "willing" your brain and body to
do something, and if that brain and body are deterministic all the
"willing" in the universe won't influence them. But that presupposes the
very dualism we're now presuming to be absent. So, instead, your will is
something internal; it arises from the mechanical processes of your brain.

You have the sense of being able to do anything you want to do, within
physics's constraints. This comes from the brain's labeling certain
states of the universe as reachable if certain actions are taken. All of
that is algorithmic; chess software does similar things under the hood
to see if it has a checkmate in N moves and then act to win the game if
it does.

So what is "will"? Ultimately it comes from whatever determines what you
"want" to do, and what you then decide as a way of trying to bring it
about. If what you "want" is a result of mechanical processes, and so
are those subsequent decisions, what of it? You still want things; you
can still figure out ways to try to get them and make the attempt. You
don't magically lose these capabilities, anymore than a chess program
suddenly loses the capability to win most games against human players,
just because you discover that the whole process is mechanical!
It was all along, and it never bothered you before you knew about it.

Of course, if you want REAL weirdness go for the Many Minds approach!
 
D

Dirk Bruere at NeoPax

I'm not an expert in all this stuff at all but my thinking is:
If existence of parallel Wigners cannot be disproved experimentally (by
definition of "parallel") the whole idea is not really science anymore.
Since Wigner is not able to verify existence of parallel Wigners then by
applying Ockham's razor he should just ignore them (and try another
explanation which would be more scientific).

I think the whole problem of modern physics is that it has gone up
alleyways populated with the untestable.
The most notorious example is String Theory. For all the testable
scientific predictions it makes it might as well be a branch of theology.
 
D

Dirk Bruere at NeoPax

Ockham's Razor requires us to accept the *simpler hypothesis*. If we
assume only what's already proven about QM, e.g. the Schroedinger
wave-function evolution, then parallel Wigners fall out of that
naturally. We have to posit something *extra* (a collapse mechanism) to
get *rid* of them.

Absent experimental evidence one way or the other we should prefer the
theory *without* a collapse postulate.


Non sequitur.


How about the observation that any phenomenon in the universe that has
no detectable effect at all has no practical significance and may as
well not exist; whereas if it has detectable effects, those effects can
be partially modeled, at least statistically. The model, if made as good
as possible, should end up as a mixture of structured behaviors, with
patterns to them, and a random noise source of some sort.

The model of the structured behaviors, however, amounts to a
naturalistic explanation of those aspects of the phenomena more or less
by definition. And what's left over is unstructured noise!

This leaves no room for the supernatural in *any* form. A sufficiently
good model crushes it between the parts explained naturalistically and
the parts that are just noise. In fact, MWI QM even gets rid of the
noise, simply making it a lengthy bit-string parameter that varies
across the many worlds; the noise we observe is then just a reflection
of our uncertainty as to which bit-string our particular universe has
(even after we've observed an arbitrarily long prefix of it).

Unless QM is nonlinear somewhere, in which case it might allow
communications across parallel worlds. And that would mean a whole heap
of "supernatural" style problems and phenomena
 

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