Free will?

[Willamena]

I'm glad you enjoy your strings.

If that's a metaphor, it escapes me. I just thought it's an issue that wasn't addressed earlier.

Will is us acting freely. Determinism is the flow of cause and efffect. Will does not appear anywhere in the deterministic picture, it has its own picture. I would really like to know in what way will is unfree.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

They can observe it, it is delicate though.

This is the same kind of observation we've been doing for almost the last century. You could compare it to computer screens. They've come a long way since the days when pixels were so large the display looked better if your vision was poorer. Gone are the days when computer games all appeared to be 2D, like pacman or Ultimate Wizard. The rendering and graphics cards (not to mention the motherboards) of gaming computers are unbelievable compared to those even a decade ago.


But they are not holographic projectors. As good as they get at pretending to be 3D, a 2D screen will always be 2D (ignore 3D glasses for a moment, but even these aren't the same as the holograms of the Death Star in Retun of the Jedi).

Quantum measurements are a bit like that. We can get better "graphics" of a 3D world, but never really see it. The difference (among other things) is that while there is nothing to prevent us from greating 3D glasses, or even 3D virtual realities, the heart of modern physics, the foundations, are built around this understanding of the measurement and the quantum world: every observation, whether we use quantum devices or those from 70 years ago, requires us to interact with a world in which the only we can detect anything is by fundamentally altering it.

Can we run experiment where we manage to "slow" decoherence, or in which we manage to detect both a "wave" and a "particle" at the same time? Sure. But once we detect anything, we've changed it. We're used to everything like speed, size, weight, etc., being relative. A mouse is a small mammal, but it's huge relative to an ant. A cheetah runs very fast, but it's nothing compared to a jet. The mass of the Earth dwarfs everything on it, but it's nothing relative to our sun.

This is not true in the quantum world. At the quantum level, everything disturbs everything else. Try to observe the state of an electron? Any method of doing so requires something that interacts with the electron (the way that vision requires light to "hit" an object and then our eyes) will alter it. The best we can do is be very delicate in certain ways which allow us to detect quantum processes in the same way we have been for almost the past century.

Quantum computing is based on trying to keep decoherence at bay for a certain amount of time. It means "controlling" the quantum world so that the "weird" effects remain in a particular way. However, all the sophisticated methods we use to do this mean we can't look at the "computer". Whatever it's doing that our sophisticated devices allow it to continue to do will work only so long as all we try to do is keep the processes going without observing. The moment we look, we destroy it.

They are particles as in electrons photons and atoms.

Electrons are not particles. Neither are photons.

Again, think of a dead cat and one that is sleeping. Would you describe a sleeping cat as "alive with aspects of a dead cat"? It makes no sense to describe a particle which "behaves" like a wave. It's like saying a cat "behaves" dead. It's meaningless. A cat that looks dead but is alive is alive. A particle which appears to be a wave but isn't, never actually behaves like one.

As long as you think that quantum entities are "particles" which can act like waves, you will be putting blocks in front of yourself which prevent you from understanding quantum theory. There is a great deal we don't understand about quantum reality. But it is all based upon what we do know: the classical conception of waves and particles is completely, utterly, and in all other ways inconsistent with quantum reality. Particles do not have "wave aspects". There is no point in thinking of something as a "particle" with a wave aspect when the "particle aspect" is just as much an illusion, or just as "real", as the "wave aspect".

There is no such thing as a particle with a wave aspect. Thinking of particles like this is only going to confuse you.

 

[atanu]

I understand that some take thoughts and surmises, scientific or not, as the truth, forgetting the truth of the one who surmises. Former is a view and latter is what is.

 

[PolyHedral]

I understand that some take thoughts and surmises, scientific or not, as the truth, forgetting the truth of the one who surmises. Former is a view and latter is what is.

The observer is irrelevant; the universe is ruled by differential equations.

 

[atanu]

The observer is irrelevant; the universe is ruled by differential equations.

That is a beautiful observation, BTW.

 

[idav]

This is the same kind of observation we've been doing for almost the last century. You could compare it to computer screens. They've come a long way since the days when pixels were so large the display looked better if your vision was poorer. Gone are the days when computer games all appeared to be 2D, like pacman or Ultimate Wizard. The rendering and graphics cards (not to mention the motherboards) of gaming computers are unbelievable compared to those even a decade ago.


But they are not holographic projectors. As good as they get at pretending to be 3D, a 2D screen will always be 2D (ignore 3D glasses for a moment, but even these aren't the same as the holograms of the Death Star in Retun of the Jedi).

Quantum measurements are a bit like that. We can get better "graphics" of a 3D world, but never really see it. The difference (among other things) is that while there is nothing to prevent us from greating 3D glasses, or even 3D virtual realities, the heart of modern physics, the foundations, are built around this understanding of the measurement and the quantum world: every observation, whether we use quantum devices or those from 70 years ago, requires us to interact with a world in which the only we can detect anything is by fundamentally altering it.

Can we run experiment where we manage to "slow" decoherence, or in which we manage to detect both a "wave" and a "particle" at the same time? Sure. But once we detect anything, we've changed it. We're used to everything like speed, size, weight, etc., being relative. A mouse is a small mammal, but it's huge relative to an ant. A cheetah runs very fast, but it's nothing compared to a jet. The mass of the Earth dwarfs everything on it, but it's nothing relative to our sun.

This is not true in the quantum world. At the quantum level, everything disturbs everything else. Try to observe the state of an electron? Any method of doing so requires something that interacts with the electron (the way that vision requires light to "hit" an object and then our eyes) will alter it. The best we can do is be very delicate in certain ways which allow us to detect quantum processes in the same way we have been for almost the past century.

Quantum computing is based on trying to keep decoherence at bay for a certain amount of time. It means "controlling" the quantum world so that the "weird" effects remain in a particular way. However, all the sophisticated methods we use to do this mean we can't look at the "computer". Whatever it's doing that our sophisticated devices allow it to continue to do will work only so long as all we try to do is keep the processes going without observing. The moment we look, we destroy it.

Electrons are not particles. Neither are photons.

Again, think of a dead cat and one that is sleeping. Would you describe a sleeping cat as "alive with aspects of a dead cat"? It makes no sense to describe a particle which "behaves" like a wave. It's like saying a cat "behaves" dead. It's meaningless. A cat that looks dead but is alive is alive. A particle which appears to be a wave but isn't, never actually behaves like one.

As long as you think that quantum entities are "particles" which can act like waves, you will be putting blocks in front of yourself which prevent you from understanding quantum theory. There is a great deal we don't understand about quantum reality. But it is all based upon what we do know: the classical conception of waves and particles is completely, utterly, and in all other ways inconsistent with quantum reality. Particles do not have "wave aspects". There is no point in thinking of something as a "particle" with a wave aspect when the "particle aspect" is just as much an illusion, or just as "real", as the "wave aspect".

There is no such thing as a particle with a wave aspect. Thinking of particles like this is only going to confuse you.

It doesn't make sense for the cat to be alive and dead at the same time but such is the case in the quantum world. Just like a quantum bit can be a one and/or a zero at the same time. Such isn't the actual really the case, once no longer in a quantum state it can only be one or the other.

It is the quantum properties that give the ability of a particle in two places at once. at more than one place at once. That isn't what the cat thought shows. It is about the poison container being both open and closed simultaneously, where it stops nobody knows til you open the box.

 

[idav]

The idea of free will can only work if our brain works and can make decisions at the quantum level. Using the shrodinger cat as an analogy to making a decision the brain would need to be able to determine whether the poison vile is open or closed at the point that it is both open and closed at the same time. I believe this is entirely possible as the brain would only see both influences as equal and at the same time and then the free choice can be made which ultimately effects the outcome at the macro level.

 

[Thief]

If that's a metaphor, it escapes me. I just thought it's an issue that wasn't addressed earlier.

Will is us acting freely. Determinism is the flow of cause and efffect. Will does not appear anywhere in the deterministic picture, it has its own picture. I would really like to know in what way will is unfree.

Free will can falter. That would be the halting of freewill.

As long as you have choice you have freewill.
Burgers or steak....that sort of thing.

Self defense or die?...not really a choice.
You might die in the attempt of self defense....but do you really have a choice about dying?

I say your free will goes as far as your will.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

It doesn't make sense for the cat to be alive and dead at the same time but such is the case in the quantum world.

Ok, but going along with this, we still don't say the cat is alive but is "behaving" dead or has a "dead" aspect. It is both at once and emphasizing either one over the other (e.g., by calling it a "particle that can behave like a wave") is misleading. If it helps to thing about the dual nature, just call it a duality. It's not a wave. It's not a particle. It somehow has a dual nature.

It is the quantum properties that give the ability of a particle in two places at once. at more than one place at once.

The double slit experience doesn't show this. It does show that under the right conditions, we can mathematically represent light hitting the splitter and then the detection screen by mathematically "describing" it as the sum of two waves. Likewise, if we have one slit, we can mathematically represent the light by units. But either way, all we are doing is describing what we force to happen. Neither one is a more "real" explanation than the other. We don't make a particle "act" like a wave somehow, any more than we make a wave "act" like a particle. These are just descriptions of how our measurements correspond to results we used to understand in terms of particles and waves. They are not descriptions of particles or waves themselves.

That isn't what the cat thought shows. It is about the poison container being both open and closed simultaneously, where it stops nobody knows til you open the box.

The thought experiment was designed to show something quite different. It's true that part of the experiment is about the observer. But what Schroedinger was trying to do is demonstrate that if things the mathematical description of a superposition states means two states occuring at the same time (in this case, and atom both decayed and not decayed), then it must mean the poison is both released and not released, and the cat is really both alive and dead.

Furthermore, we have now done the equivalent of the double-slit experiment in two important variations. One allowed us to perform two seperate measurements of the same "system", one designed to detect the "particle-like" state, and the other the "wave-like" state. The experiment showed both states were detected at the same time.

Another experiment was sort of the classic double-slit experiment, but not with subatomic systems. Instead, we detected an entire molecule in two places at once.

 

[Willamena]

Free will can falter. That would be the halting of freewill.

As long as you have choice you have freewill.
Burgers or steak....that sort of thing.

Self defense or die?...not really a choice.
You might die in the attempt of self defense....but do you really have a choice about dying?

I say your free will goes as far as your will.

Obviously not everything is a choice, your choice, but then not everything is willed.

What do you see as the difference between will and free will?

 

[idav]

Ok, but going along with this, we still don't say the cat is alive but is "behaving" dead or has a "dead" aspect. It is both at once and emphasizing either one over the other (e.g., by calling it a "particle that can behave like a wave") is misleading. If it helps to thing about the dual nature, just call it a duality. It's not a wave. It's not a particle. It somehow has a dual nature.

Sure why not. Thats why I've been saying they are both.

The double slit experience doesn't show this.

Why did you disagree but then say this.

Another experiment was sort of the classic double-slit experiment, but not with subatomic systems. Instead, we detected an entire molecule in two places at once.

Just cause it was something "like" the double slit experiment? That is why I brought up the box experiment which would involve actually observing a molecule.

The thought experiment was designed to show something quite different. It's true that part of the experiment is about the observer. But what Schroedinger was trying to do is demonstrate that if things the mathematical description of a superposition states means two states occuring at the same time (in this case, and atom both decayed and not decayed), then it must mean the poison is both released and not released, and the cat is really both alive and dead.

Perhaps but that is to assume the cat is somehow in a quantum state also. The poison being released and not released at the same time will kill the cat either way. But going with the idea of the cat being in a quantum state it goes into the multiple worlds theory which I have no problem with. Regardless if there is one line where the cat dies and a line where the cat lives, we will only find ourselves in one of those lines especially once we break the quantum state.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Sure why not. Thats why I've been saying they are both.

Just trying to be clear and to clarify rather than confuse. Much of what you said has seemed to me to mean that you think of quantum reality in terms of particles acting like waves. If I have misjudged or misunderstood, my apologies. I just wanted to make sure I had not misinformed by one or more "explanations". Specifically, it is very important not to think of these experiments as suggesting that we are dealing with "particles" but that these can "behave" like waves, or that we have "particles" which can be "wave-like". Insofar as we use these misleading terms, it is vital to understand that when we talk about an experiment demonstrating that e.g. a photon "acts" like a wave, and another one which shows it "acts" like a particle, what we mean is that it is neither one, but the experiment itself determines whether we will detect the "particle-like" or "wave-like" behavior.

Put simply: thinking of these as particles with "wave-like" aspects is understanding them more in terms of particles than waves, and is misleading. We don't want to emphasize either behavior or "aspects".

Why did you disagree but then say this.

Here's what you said:

It is the quantum properties that give the ability of a particle in two places at once.

It's not that the particle is in two places at once, or that the experiment showed this. Nor is it the case that the experiment I mentioned showed that a molecule was in two places at once. It was detected in this way. The difference is a subtle one, but is extremely important. To interpret the mathematical formulation and experimental procedures always in terms of "particles" is misleading (although that's how physicists do talk, which makes it worse). Because what is really happening is that whatever the quantum entity is can, depending on one's experimental set-up, be "detected" in differnt ways exhibiting different behaviors. Whether the molecule was actually in two places at once is not something we can answer (the superposition state, or the mathematics which represent it, can be interpreted to mean that it is in many more "places" at once than those we detect).

It is less misleading, if perhaps more confusing, just to understand quantum systems and processes as being "nonlocal". That is, whatever we do to detect them wherever we do, we only detect them in these places by changing them so that we can detect them.

Example: we can set up and experiment to detect a photon in one place at one time, at two places at one time, at three, four, etc., all at one time. We can even detect the same photon as being entirely at one place at one time, while also detecting it as being in more places at that same time.

The point is that thinking of it in terms of how many places it is rather than the places we are detecting it is forcing a perspective as to the nature of something which we have no theoretical or experimental basis for.

But going with the idea of the cat being in a quantum state it goes into the multiple worlds theory which I have no problem with.

There is not really one "multiple worlds theory" (for example, Everett, the one generally credited with the initial idea, was not the one who developed it into a multiple world theory, nor did he use this term). More importantly, that is simply one approach to an explanation, which is by no means universally accepted and certainly is not supported by the evidence more than other approaches to understanding what the "quantum world" is and how it relates to what we experience.
It is certainly not the case that quantum theory and experimental evidence suggest that if it is possible to create an entire, actual cat to be defined by a superposition state, this means we are creating new universes all the time.

Regardless if there is one line where the cat dies and a line where the cat lives

Again, this is only one particular approach (with many contending approaches) to interpreting quantum experiments (including thought experiments). It is not generally accepted, nor is it generally understood that we have good experimental or theoretical reason for thinking the approach is a good one.

 

[idav]

Just trying to be clear and to clarify rather than confuse. Much of what you said has seemed to me to mean that you think of quantum reality in terms of particles acting like waves. If I have misjudged or misunderstood, my apologies. I just wanted to make sure I had not misinformed by one or more "explanations". Specifically, it is very important not to think of these experiments as suggesting that we are dealing with "particles" but that these can "behave" like waves, or that we have "particles" which can be "wave-like". Insofar as we use these misleading terms, it is vital to understand that when we talk about an experiment demonstrating that e.g. a photon "acts" like a wave, and another one which shows it "acts" like a particle, what we mean is that it is neither one, but the experiment itself determines whether we will detect the "particle-like" or "wave-like" behavior.

Put simply: thinking of these as particles with "wave-like" aspects is understanding them more in terms of particles than waves, and is misleading. We don't want to emphasize either behavior or "aspects".


Here's what you said:


It's not that the particle is in two places at once, or that the experiment showed this. Nor is it the case that the experiment I mentioned showed that a molecule was in two places at once. It was detected in this way. The difference is a subtle one, but is extremely important. To interpret the mathematical formulation and experimental procedures always in terms of "particles" is misleading (although that's how physicists do talk, which makes it worse). Because what is really happening is that whatever the quantum entity is can, depending on one's experimental set-up, be "detected" in differnt ways exhibiting different behaviors. Whether the molecule was actually in two places at once is not something we can answer (the superposition state, or the mathematics which represent it, can be interpreted to mean that it is in many more "places" at once than those we detect).

It is less misleading, if perhaps more confusing, just to understand quantum systems and processes as being "nonlocal". That is, whatever we do to detect them wherever we do, we only detect them in these places by changing them so that we can detect them.

Example: we can set up and experiment to detect a photon in one place at one time, at two places at one time, at three, four, etc., all at one time. We can even detect the same photon as being entirely at one place at one time, while also detecting it as being in more places at that same time.

The point is that thinking of it in terms of how many places it is rather than the places we are detecting it is forcing a perspective as to the nature of something which we have no theoretical or experimental basis for.



There is not really one "multiple worlds theory" (for example, Everett, the one generally credited with the initial idea, was not the one who developed it into a multiple world theory, nor did he use this term). More importantly, that is simply one approach to an explanation, which is by no means universally accepted and certainly is not supported by the evidence more than other approaches to understanding what the "quantum world" is and how it relates to what we experience.
It is certainly not the case that quantum theory and experimental evidence suggest that if it is possible to create an entire, actual cat to be defined by a superposition state, this means we are creating new universes all the time.


Again, this is only one particular approach (with many contending approaches) to interpreting quantum experiments (including thought experiments). It is not generally accepted, nor is it generally understood that we have good experimental or theoretical reason for thinking the approach is a good one.

OK so which approach are you proposing. What I've heard makes it sound like your supporting some sort of quantum mysticism while I'm saying there is a logical and likely physical explanation. Are you saying we can never fill the gap? Why not?

 

[PolyHedral]

neither the state of the actual system, nor the system itself, corresponds to anything in the math.

Your first source says, specifically, that the result is not tested against observations (which is false, e.g. double slit) and the second says that the relation between the mathematics and the physical reality is an open question.

You, however, appear to be arguing not that the relationship cannot be determined. You are arguing that the relationship somehow can be determined as unequal - the mathematics definitely do not match up with the physical system. My opinion is that you're not only wrong, but fundamentally cannot support the argument you're trying to make - because the physical process actually going on is completely ineffable and opaque apart from via the mathematics formalisms. You cannot compare the two and say they don't match, because you don't have anything to compare the formalism to.

If you read the description above carefully, you'll notice exactly what you asked for (once again): the "system" and the "states" are entirely prepared by macroscopic devices (which allow some actual quantum system to run), but the quantum processes which result from the set-up are never related directly to the mathematical formalisms which are then called the "system".

But how do you know? What do you know of the quantum processes that are literally unobservable? (We know by pure experiment that observing them changes the processes significantly, without having to touch quantum theory itself.)

The initial state is specified macroscopically and is described by parameters set in advance in a deterministic manner at odds with what quantum theory holds is true of quantum dynamics via some formalism...

I'm not sure how setting up the experiment in a "deterministic" way is at odds with quantum theory, at least in a way that isn't trivially fixable by an application of conditional probability.

Also, are you looking for classical-type measurements or not?

...every time you refer to a source on "quantum systems", "measurements", and "states", these are not described by actual physical states, measurements, or systems, but by the theorized states which are always abstracted from the actual quantum systems and which are always specified macroscopically and deterministically so that there can be a "measurement" and a "system" and some "states", but nobody knows how the mathematics correspond to actual quantum systems, quantum states, or anything else...

You apparently do, since you assert that the theory does not match the actual quantum system right at the beginning of the paragraph.

But this means that any "measurement" cannot be a measurement of the state of the system.

Quantum theory tells us a measurement is a thing you do to a system, which 1) produces a value, which is the value you end up measuring, and 2) disturbs the system in a non-reversible way. It is very similar to what we'd think of a measurement of the system, apart from the irreversible modification part.

It's preparing your "system" as if it were someone with a bow and arrow, ...announce that the distribution of the debris is where the aarrow landed.

As you keep telling idav, it's not really like that, since the arrow keeps landing in one piece and in one place, despite the fact that not only is your arrow imperfectly manufactured in a way you can't measure with absolute precision, it seems to do wibbly-wobbly things in the air that are impossible to formulate with any sort of accepted aerodynamics knowledge.

If they are counterfactually definite, then we can't use quantum mechanics.

Wavefunctions aren't counterfactually definite - they do not produce definite predictions, only probabilistic distributions.

Attempts to formulate a coherent framework with purely quantum rules taking into account the environment have however failed to provide a consistent picture of quantum mechanics and the measurement process."

I am not surprised. AFAIK, a measurement with a quantum doodad is, as is logical, not a measurement in the sense of an non-unitary operator application, which is what happens if you use a classical device to do the measuring.

If one doesn't treat the environment as classical, then obviously you run into an issue because now you've got more quantum objects than the SI standards committee had prefixes for.

Of course, it is generally agreed that, as a result of the decoherence predicted, under any normally realistic conditions, by the QM formalism itself, it is no longer possible to see the effects of interference between the two or more ‘branches’ of the superposition. However, the quantum formalism is exactly the same at the microscopic and the macroscopic level; if, therefore, a given interpretation is excluded in the former case, it cannot become permitted in the latter!

There seems to be a gap in this logic. I don't understand how they conclude that the quantum formalism is required to change if one is to say that decoherence means that the two states of the cat don't interact.

If you figure that out, let physicists know. You'll get a nobel prize at least.

Everett already did that part for me - the quantum state is the thing being described by the formalism.

What formal system? The system is a model of physics. If it's "pure mathematics", we wouldn't have physicists. We'd just have mathematicians.

The physicists are there to construct the model out of experiments. Mathematics can derive theorem results without reference to experiment, e.g. Bell's theorem.

Certainly if you don't actually work that into your equations. But that's what's done.

Then I shall just have to learn enough to do it myself.

Sure, if you haven't any clue how both are actually understood and how both relate to the QCC/quantum-to-classical transition issues.

The vanishing h technique is used to show, purely mathematically, that QM implies classical results in the domain of classical physics, e.g. large lengths, small energies produce negligible superpositions. If this didn't work, we'd have a major problem, since it'd mean that QM disagrees fundamentally with a theory validated by experiment. However, even though this works, it says nothing about QM's validity outside the domain of classical physics.

What we seem to be arguing about is why, despite quantum mechanics wibbliness, we experience a sensible, Newtonian reality, which is an empirical result that doesn't connect to any mathematical relationship between classic and quantum mech. More on this later.

And should you take away Einstein's nobel prize?

I thought Einstein's Nobel was for the photoelectric effect.

Or disregard Schroedinger? Or how about the PhD's of all the authors, from those writing papers (such as "Quantum Correlations in Biomolecules" from 22nd Solvay conference on Chemistry), or perhaps from the authors of studies/reviews such as these:
Or any number of sources I've already mentioned (which continually gets me links to wiki articles or even less) on the utter inadequacy of this "vanishing h".

As mentioned, the measurement problem is not related to vanishing h. In fact, using the vanishing h technique implies the measurement problem, because if you accept quantum theory as a good descriptor, to the point where you want to derive classic results from it, then you... accept quantum theory's indeterminism as a good descriptor of reality, and so you need to explain why reality we experience appears classical.

It doesn't. But it does fundamentally conflict with your view. Because in it our measurements our meaningless. Macroscopic reality is the constant splitting of universes into parallels. So if you think that reality is "computed" by the universe, then you are in absolute disagreement with Everett, whose theory literally involves constant, total, and ever-present superpositions represented only in parallel universes, but never observed, measured, or represented by any physical systems in one universe.

I agree with Everett entirely, because of my choice of what, precisely, reality is computing: the universal wavefunction. As Everett dictates, every possibility is equally real, and the entire universe forms a deterministically-evolving tree of superpositions and entangled particles. There's nothing problematic about computing that in principle.

Also, my interpretation has an ace in te hole that I believe Copenhagen does not share. If Everett and myself are wrong in saying that reality is quantum and our Newtonian view of reality is the result of sufficiently complicated entanglement, then answer me this question:
How do quantum computers work when there is too little information content in the universe to store their wavefunction? (e.g. a 500-qubit quantum computer requires 2^500 bits of information to store its wavefunction; the information capacity of the universe is ~2^160 bits.)

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Your first source says, specifically, that the result is not tested against observations (which is false, e.g. double slit)

Here's the first source (italics in original):

Interpreting Physics: Language and the Classical/Quantum Divide (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 289):

"In contemporary particle physics conclusions from a theory are never tested against observations. They are tested against inferences based on observations and a network of presuppositions supporting the inferential process of experimental physics." Now, you state that the double slit is a counter example. Yet
1) What theory did this experiment test? Or rather, would it not be more accurate to say that it was one of the main experimental foundations for "contemporary physics" rather than to say that is is used to "test" theories in physics?
2) As a result of Einstein's nobel prize winning work explaining the photoelectric effect (light was composed of quanta), a serious problem for physics was introduced: two experimental results (Young's and Einstein's) supported two different conclusions. As you know, the resolution was quantum theory. The mathematical formalism was developed primarily by De Broglie, Bohm, and then Schroedinger and Dirac, all after the double-slit experiment. Furthermore, these formalisms, and the theory behind them (explaining quantum processes in terms of vectors over the complex plane), came about primarily by throwing "observation", "measurement", and "states" as they had been understood for the past 200+ years out the window.
3) The "systems" and "measurements" of "states" in quantum mechanics were developed initially by recognizing that experimental data could be explained if we treated quantum "particles" formally by using the wavefunctions in a way that wasn't even used with waves, let alone particles. However, after these developments, we had a formalism to describe the states of systems which were constructed out of two contradictory experimental results. The resulting formalisms were certainly supportable from observation and inference, but that was the origin of contemporary physics, and the source is talking about how wavefunctions, experiments, and theories are all constructed and/or tested in contemporary physics. In order to provide a counter-example, you would need to show a theory in contemporary physics which was tested against observations, rather than by the process described.

and the second says that the relation between the mathematics and the physical reality is an open question.

Which second source? The volume I linked to or this:

"In classical physics, the notion of the “state” of a physical system is quite intuitive...there exists a one-to-one correspondence between the physical properties of the object (and thus the entities of the physical world) and their formal and mathematical representation in the theory...With the advent of quantum theory in the early twentieth century, this straightforward bijectivism between the physical world and its mathematical representation in the theory came to a sudden end. Instead of describing the state of a physical system by means of intuitive symbols that corresponded directly to the “objectively existing” physical properties of our experience, in quantum mechanics we have at our disposal only an abstract quantum state that is defined as a vector (or, more generally, as a ray) in a similarly abstract Hilbert vector space."

Either way, you are correct. It is an open question. But this is what I was responding to:

The "function(s)" which map the system's state at one time to the state at another do not describe any state of any physical system.

You assert this, and things like it, multiple times in that post. Support this assertion.

You, however, appear to be arguing not that the relationship cannot be determined.

More precisely, I'm arguing that the physics community (at the very least those concerned with quantum systems in some way) not only holds that this is true, but that it a basic, well-known, foundation of quantum mechanics. And for this reason:

the physical process actually going on is completely ineffable and opaque apart from via the mathematics formalisms. You cannot compare the two and say they don't match, because you don't have anything to compare the formalism to.

But how do you know? What do you know of the quantum processes that are literally unobservable?

Interesting pair of statements. Let's recall how some of this arose:

This eigenket equation says that if a measurement of the observable

is made while the system of interest is in the state

, then the observed value of that particular measurement must return the eigenvalue

with certainty. However, if the system of interest is in the general state

, then the eigenvalue

is returned with probability

That looks like a description of measurement in standard QM to me.

How on earth can you ever know the "probablity" of the state of a system, or (even better), know "with certainty" what a measurement of this system's state will be, if the system's processes "are literally unobservable?" How did we determine its "state" to begin with? And if the dynamics of that system are (as quantum theory dictates) ontologically indeterministic, because there is no way to come up with some mathematical model of its dynamics (as whatever formalism we use to describe this system, we "don't have anything to compare the formalism to"), how on earth do we describe the states of the system using mathematical models which are deterministic? What states? If we can't compare the formalism to reality, then what "states" of what "system" are we describing?

But we do know something else. As you said, we "don't have anything to compare the formalism to", and this is because the processes "are literally unobservable". How do we know they are unobservable? Because this is sort of a cornerstone of quantum theory: quantum systems are ontologically indeterministic. So we may not know in what way our description of the system's states is wrong, but unless all of quantum theory is wrong (which would mean the measurements, experiments, and formalisms are useless anyway), we do know that our deterministic models cannot ever correspond to any actually quantum system, as that would contradict all of quantum theory.

You apparently do, since you assert that the theory does not match the actual quantum system right at the beginning of the paragraph.

That's true. I assert this because quantum theory, as you said, states that the dynamics of quantum systems "are literally unobservable". They are indeterministic. And not in the classical or statistical mechanics sense, or in the dynamical systems sense. The problem is not that the

theories cannot be directly tested against observation, because our squishy biology does not have the equipment to observe the results.

Rather, there is no equipment which could, even in principle (according to quantum theory) "directly" measure any state of any quantum system. At the heart, root, and foundations of quantum theory is this indeterminism. Yet we describe these systems using deterministic models. So either our models do not and cannot describe the states of the system as they do, or quantum theory itself is fundamentally incorrect.

Quantum theory tells us a measurement is a thing you do to a system, which 1) produces a value, which is the value you end up measuring, and 2) disturbs the system in a non-reversible way.

And yet:
"the process of determining experimental results – a measurement – cannot be represented by the standard quantum state evolution equations, such as the Schrödinger and Dirac equations, for those are predictable (they obey existence and uniqueness theorems) and time reversible. They simply do not have the kind of nature that can lead to an unpredictable result when the initial state is fully known; but that is what happens in quantum measurements, which do not obey linearity and hence violate the superposition principle.
This is the measurement paradox: the process of measurement cannot be described by standard quantum dynamics."
Ellis, G. F. (2012). On the limits of quantum theory: Contextuality and the quantum–classical cut. Annals of Physics.

So how is it that the "system" as we describe it is reversible, yet our measurement creates an "irreversible modification"? Which is it? Quantum mechanics uses models to describe the states of a predictable, reversible system, but quantum theory dictates that quantum systems cannot correspond to any such model.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Quantum theory tells us a measurement is a thing you do to a system, which 1) produces a value, which is the value you end up measuring, and 2) disturbs the system in a non-reversible way

If so, then why the following:

I'm surprised you can measure them well enough for that conclusion to be valid at all.

I cited several studies involving experiments which showed quantum or quantum-like processes fundamental to macroscopic activity in the brain, numerous experiments concerning quantum processes at play in biological systems at the macroscopic level, and I even stated that a nobel prize was awarded for such work:

The use of quantum crystallography to understand ribosome structure and function was the reason that one of the authors was awarded the Nobel prize

Yet you asked

So, what experiment have you (or anyone) done to show this? Because macroscopic quantum phenomena is a pretty big claim.

The literature on such "macroscopic quantum phenomena" has been around for years, and the rate of its production has increased over the years as our devices experimental techniques, methods, and instruments have become more sophisticated.

More importantly, if quantum mechanics is as unproblematic when it comes to "measurements" of quantum systems at the quantum scale, why are you so skeptical that the same experimental procedures are capable of accurately detecting the same processes only at a larger (and therefore more easily "observed") scale? Why should we be more skeptical of a double-slit experiment which detects an entire molecule of hundreds of atoms in two places at the same time (and this was done) than we should be of the same experiement when performed to detect quantum systems?

Wavefunctions aren't counterfactually definite - they do not produce definite predictions, only probabilistic distributions.

It doesn't matter if they are "probabilistic". If a system is counterfactually indefinite, then it cannot have any single value of any state. Yet when we "transcribe" the "system" into our formalisms before the experiment, we have a definite intial state. When we conclude, we have talk about the system's final state as determined through our measurements and our definite initial state and in a way that describes a definite final state. The wavefunctions are functions mapping definite values of the system's state at some time t to those at some later time t. If I construct a probablity function which describes a deck of shuffled cards in terms of the probability that I will select an ace during any random draw with replacement, the fact that it is a probability function is completely irrelevant. If I get an ace, I say that I did. If the function I use for my quantum system is probabilistic, but I start and end with definite values of states of that system, then either my values are not describing the states of that system, or the system is counterfactually definite.

If one doesn't treat the environment as classical

The environment is classical. My devices are classical. The way I "set up" the system and "measure" it is classical. I have no choice but to incorporate "classical-ness" into my treatment.

There seems to be a gap in this logic. I don't understand how they conclude that the quantum formalism is required to change if one is to say that decoherence means that the two states of the cat don't interact.

That's not what they are saying, nor is it what the formalism says. It describes system's state at some time t in terms of vectors over the complex plane, and then at some later time t as having "evolved" such that when I get my final state this evolution is explained by having the system itself exhibit nonlocal properties. That is, the system dynamics can only be understood as in some way violating classical causality, either by somehow being spread out over space, or traveling in "no-time", or backwards in time, some combination of the above. What the study refers to is what Schroedinger demonstrated in his thought experiment and which has been demonstrated through observational experiments since: the same formalism applies at the macroscopic level. Which means that macroscopic systems must violate causality in some way, as decoherence is utterly irrelevant to the formalism except at the time of "measurement".

Everett already did that part for me

I agree with Everett entirely

Everett barely developed his theory, nor does Everett's solution, and further work on his approach, resolve anything:
"The central idea of relative-state interpretations, first described (but not worked out in detail) by Hugh Everett in the late 1950s and subsequently further developed by many authors, is to abandon this system–observer duality. Instead, one (i) assumes the existence of a total quantum state |psi> representing the physical state of the entire universe and (ii) upholds the universal validity of the Schroedinger evolution. In addition, one (iii) postulates that at the completion of a measurement all terms in the expansion of the total state in the eigenbasis of the measured observable correspond to (physical) states in some sense, that is, no particular “outcome” is singled out, neither formally nor physically. Each of these (physical) states can be understood as relative (a) to the state of the other part in the composite system (as in Everett’s original proposal), (b) to a particular “branch” of a constantly “splitting” universe (the many-worlds interpretation, popularized by DeWitt and Deutsch), or (c) to a particular “mind” in the set of minds of the conscious observer (the many-minds interpretation).
Relative-state interpretations face two main difficulties. First, the preferred-basis problem: If states are only relative, the question arises, relative to what? What determines the particular basis terms that are used to define the branches, which in turn specify the relative properties, worlds, or minds in the next instant of time? When precisely does the “splitting” occur? Which properties are made determinate in each branch, and how are they connected to the determinate properties of our experience? Second, what is the meaning of probabilities, given that every possible outcome “occurs” in some sense, and how can Born’s rule be motivated in such an interpretive framework?" p. 336 of Decoherence and the Quantum-to-Classical Transition (The Frontiers Collection).

The problem is that this was an attempt to resolve a particular mathematical result which was itself derived from and motivated within an entirely different theoretical framework incompatible with the new interpretation. By making the math be as much "take it like you derive it" as possible, we still don't get anywhere, because it can only be meaningful without the experimental basis for the mathematical formalisms we use to begin with along with throwing out any usefulness of any measurement. Because we aren't measuring anymore, but "singling" out particular outcomes from the possible outcomes in a way we can't explain and at a time we can't explain.

The vanishing h technique is used to show, purely mathematically, that QM implies classical results in the domain of classical physics, e.g. large lengths, small energies produce negligible superpositions. If this didn't work, we'd have a major problem, since it'd mean that QM disagrees fundamentally with a theory validated by experiment.

Well it would be a major problem, were it not for the fact the we've known from the begininng that QM already "disagrees fundamentally" with quantum theory.

As mentioned, the measurement problem is not related to vanishing h

It is. That's what this means:

"It is generally believed that classical mechanics is the contraction of quantum mechanics in some appropriate limit of vanishing h. Thus in principle every classical observable...is the contraction of some quantum observable. However, quantum observables are generally constructed by the quantization of classical observables...Obviously this introduces circularity when one invokes the correspondence principle. This is unsatisfactory if quantum mechanics were to be internally coherent and autonomous from classical mechanics."

The "math" only works, and only "implies classical results in the domain of classical physics" after you use the math to discuss "quantum observable". However, these "quantum observables" were never, are never, and can't be "quantum observables", but are "constructed" out of classical observations, classical "measurements", and formal descriptions of quantum systems that contradict quantum theory.

In fact, using the vanishing h technique implies the measurement problem, because if you accept quantum theory as a good descriptor, to the point where you want to derive classic results from it, then you... accept quantum theory's indeterminism as a good descriptor of reality, and so you need to explain why reality we experience appears classical.

The fact that one needs to explain why quantum theory doesn't "mesh" with our experience in no way implies a certain limit at which quantum effects vanish.

If Everett and myself are wrong

You should read Stapp. His development of Everett and the later many-worlds theory is closer to your own than is Everett's actual work. There is one difference: Stapp interprets the result in terms of consciousness, free will, and the brain.

 

[Thief]

Obviously not everything is a choice, your choice, but then not everything is willed.

What do you see as the difference between will and free will?

It is your will that guides your hand.
If you do anything at all, it is that you thought you should...or felt like it.
Your will.

If you abide by the will of others....doctrine...law...mutual desire.....
That would not be your freewill, as something transits in the interchange.
Mutual saftey, profit, common good, etc.

To say we lack freewill is naive.
Of course you have freewill.
Your next response is proof.

Or is someone twisting your arm?

 

[PolyHedral]

It is your will that guides your hand.
If you do anything at all, it is that you thought you should...or felt like it.
Your will.

If you abide by the will of others....doctrine...law...mutual desire.....
That would not be your freewill, as something transits in the interchange.
Mutual saftey, profit, common good, etc.

To say we lack freewill is naive.
Of course you have freewill.
Your next response is proof.

Or is someone twisting your arm?

The laws of physics made me write this post.

 

[Willamena]

It is your will that guides your hand.
If you do anything at all, it is that you thought you should...or felt like it.
Your will.

If you abide by the will of others....doctrine...law...mutual desire.....
That would not be your freewill, as something transits in the interchange.
Mutual saftey, profit, common good, etc.

To say we lack freewill is naive.
Of course you have freewill.
Your next response is proof.

Or is someone twisting your arm?

I am not arguing against free will. I was just curious at your claim that "your free will goes as far as your will." It seemed an odd thing to say unless you distinguish between will and free will.

 

[PolyHedral]

Now, you state that the double slit is a counter example. Yet
1) What theory did this experiment test? Or rather, would it not be more accurate to say that it was one of the main experimental foundations for "contemporary physics" rather than to say that is is used to "test" theories in physics?

It tested quantum theory - quantum theory tells us that a single electron fired through the slit will land in a given position some proportion of the time. Do the experiment lots of times, and that's what you will get. It also tells us that this pattern will not appear if you somehow measure which slit the electron went through.

3) The "systems" and "measurements" of "states" in quantum mechanics were developed initially by recognizing that experimental data could be explained if we treated quantum "particles" formally by using the wavefunctions in a way that wasn't even used with waves, let alone particles. However, after these developments, we had a formalism to describe the states of systems which were constructed out of two contradictory experimental results.[/quote]
The photoelectric effect and the double-slit do not contradict each other. Our internal model was inconsistent with evidence.

The resulting formalisms were certainly supportable from observation and inference, but that was the origin of contemporary physics, and the source is talking about how wavefunctions, experiments, and theories are all constructed and/or tested in contemporary physics. In order to provide a counter-example, you would need to show a theory in contemporary physics which was tested against observations, rather than by the process described.

I don't see the distinction between the process described and testing by observation. How do you avoid assuming that inferential science works when you do inferential science?

How on earth can you ever know the "probablity" of the state of a system, or (even better), know "with certainty" what a measurement of this system's state will be, if the system's processes "are literally unobservable?" How did we determine its "state" to begin with?

Via quantum theory, which infers it from observation. But that answer depends on the supposition, which you appear not to accept, that quantum theory accurately describes the process going on between the electron gun and your screen.

And if the dynamics of that system are (as quantum theory dictates) ontologically indeterministic, because there is no way to come up with some mathematical model of its dynamics...

You appear to be contradicting yourself.

How do we know they are unobservable? Because this is sort of a cornerstone of quantum theory: quantum systems are ontologically indeterministic. So we may not know in what way our description of the system's states is wrong, but unless all of quantum theory is wrong (which would mean the measurements, experiments, and formalisms are useless anyway), we do know that our deterministic models cannot ever correspond to any actually quantum system, as that would contradict all of quantum theory.

Depending on which view (in the technical sense) of reality (for there are several) you are operating in, quantum systems are not ontologically indeterministic. In Hilbert space, it is absolutely deterministic - the time evolution of a closed system is unitary and reversible. The indeterminism appears when your quantum system is not closed - unlike the universe - and includes an interface to a classical, measuring object. It is only in the ontology of this classical, 4D view of reality that quantum theory is indeterministic.

So either our models do not and cannot describe the states of the system as they do, or quantum theory itself is fundamentally incorrect.

Yet they produce the right answers. How can they not describe the states of the quantum system, yet produce the right answers in all tested circumstances?

So how is it that the "system" as we describe it is reversible, yet our measurement creates an "irreversible modification"? Which is it?

Measurements - that is, non-reversible operators - are not purely quantum. They are what happens when a quantum system interacts with a classical one.

Quantum mechanics uses models to describe the states of a predictable, reversible system, but quantum theory dictates that quantum systems cannot correspond to any such model.

Quantum theory dictates that no deterministic model can describe the state produced in the classical view of the universe, for it is indeterministic.

If so, then why the following:

Because practical experiments have measurement errors that are far higher than the theoretical requirements. The phenomena you were describing are very small and very fast, hence I was surprised you had the instrument accuracy to measure them well enough to produce that conclusion with statistical confidence.

More importantly, if quantum mechanics is as unproblematic when it comes to "measurements" of quantum systems at the quantum scale, why are you so skeptical that the same experimental procedures are capable of accurately detecting the same processes only at a larger (and therefore more easily "observed") scale? Why should we be more skeptical of a double-slit experiment which detects an entire molecule of hundreds of atoms in two places at the same time (and this was done) than we should be of the same experiement when performed to detect quantum systems?

I usually take the term "macroscopic" to mean "detectable with visible light" at least.

Yet when we "transcribe" the "system" into our formalisms before the experiment, we have a definite intial state.

Do we ever have that? We have measurement uncertainty to deal with.

If I get an ace, I say that I did.

In quantum terms, drawing a card requires measuring the deck, which in turn makes the value measured definite within classical reality. (As opposed to in Hilbert-space reality, where it was always a definite value: a uniform distribution of 52/54 discrete values)

The environment is classical. My devices are classical. The way I "set up" the system and "measure" it is classical. I have no choice but to incorporate "classical-ness" into my treatment.

Your device is made of electrons and protons and sub-atomic particles. It is, ontologically, quantum too.

What the study refers to is what Schroedinger demonstrated in his thought experiment and which has been demonstrated through observational experiments since: the same formalism applies at the macroscopic level. Which means that macroscopic systems must violate causality in some way, as decoherence is utterly irrelevant to the formalism except at the time of "measurement".

Which time of measurement? Because Mr. Einstein is asking me to remind you about relativity of simultaneity.

First, the preferred-basis problem: If states are only relative, the question arises, relative to what? What determines the particular basis terms that are used to define the branches, which in turn specify the relative properties, worlds, or minds in the next instant of time?

If velocity is only relative, the question arises, relative to what...?

When precisely does the “splitting” occur?

There is no explicit splitting, only arbitrarily large divergence.

Which properties are made determinate in each branch, and how are they connected to the determinate properties of our experience?

I'm not sure how this question makes sense in perspective of continuously varying branches.

Second, what is the meaning of probabilities, given that every possible outcome “occurs” in some sense, and how can Born’s rule be motivated in such an interpretive framework?" p. 336 of Decoherence and the Quantum-to-Classical Transition (The Frontiers Collection).
I don't know. Are we sure that Born's rule isn't just an artefact of classical interaction?

Well it would be a major problem, were it not for the fact the we've known from the begininng that QM already "disagrees fundamentally" with quantum theory.

...? Quantum theory disagrees with itself?

The "math" only works, and only "implies classical results in the domain of classical physics" after you use the math to discuss "quantum observable". However, these "quantum observables" were never, are never, and can't be "quantum observables", but are "constructed" out of classical observations, classical "measurements", and formal descriptions of quantum systems that contradict quantum theory.

You're denying that things are themselves here.

Besides, construction is irrelevant. It does not matter how you construct the real numbers, or the Eisenstein integers, or the field of complex-valued polynomials, the structures retain the same properties, by definition. (In fact, for suitable choice of inner product, that last one is a Hilbert space. ) Quantum observation obeys certain rules - how we realized those rules are the ones that work is completely besides the point.

The fact that one needs to explain why quantum theory doesn't "mesh" with our experience in no way implies a certain limit at which quantum effects vanish.

The sentence is the other way around from the way you have read it.

You should read Stapp. His development of Everett and the later many-worlds theory is closer to your own than is Everett's actual work. There is one difference: Stapp interprets the result in terms of consciousness, free will, and the brain.

Ewww, dualism.