To me this seems like both a humble and sensible QM interpretation. Is it not? I perceive Einstein to have been a humble man. Either MWI is somehow sensible, or the popularity of MWI is another demonstration of science failing given its lack of effective principles of metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology from which to work.
Our minds evolved to model reality at a certain level. Symbolic thought allows us to conceptualize things beyond those default scales, but quantum physics may represent the limit of that ability. On the other hand, the situation seems deeply unsatisfying.
The way the textbook presented it, it was no big deal. Knowing what I now know about the history of this concept, those textbooks seemed to be papering over the issue. So, it may be that QM lies at the boundary of what it is possible for us to know. I think Everett would have gotten at least that level of support from him. Yes, what Everett posited is bizarre and absurd. But we have to remember that what Einstein posited with special and general relativity were also bizarre and absurd.
And in , when he first posited special relativity, the ability to test it was still several years away. But I also know all the other interpretations are also absurd, each in their own way. Rejecting any of them only on the basis of their absurdity strikes me as a risky move, since over the history of science, reality has repeatedly shown that it is absurd.
In QM, no one agrees on which interpretations are more absurd than others. For instance, I find MWI highly absurd, but proponents see it as the least absurd. I do often think there lurks some major discovery about the way things really are that awaits us… we need the next Newton or Einstein to change our conception of reality. Because how is it that our two most well-tested theories are in conflict? My impression is that children tend to begin as platonist.
The interesting thing about Einstein is that he both presented radical ideas, as well as ways to test them. Of course as a human he must have hoped that his radical ideas would be found useful. So what can we say about physicists who believe radical things and to me MWI seems ridiculously so , though sans evidence?
That so many physicists today believe things on the basis of zero corroborating evidence, suggests to me that the field now suffers from the sorts of malaise that soft sciences have always suffered from. In essence the institution of science needs explicit rather than just implicit rules from which to work. And how might science acquire such rules? If science had formal rules, I doubt that goofy faith based ideas such as MWI would be considered quite as favorably, and even by Sean Carrol.
Furthermore you note frustration that professionals are unable to decide which parts of philosophy are worthy. Quantum mechanics concerns three of the four rules that I propose. Next there is my first principle of epistemology, or that there are no true definitions for any of the our terms.
Most critical however is my second principle of epistemology, or a rule which takes the longstanding implicit scientific method to a far higher explicit standard. This is incorrect; matter has particle and wave properties at all scales. One of the games in physics is finding larger and larger molecules to do the two-slit experiment with, and the interference pattern is always present.
In fact, philosophically I lean towards ontological antirealism — that is, for many philosophical questions, there is no correct answer, just answers that appeal to one intuition or another. But in terms of science I lean towards realism and the belief that the physical world is real and objective and therefore does have, at least in theory, correct answers.
Wyrd, you might enjoy P. Right Wyrd, I meant that the theory is associated with reality in general rather than just at the Planck scale. The field has become more of an art to potentially appreciate. In the end there is simply human exploration of reality. We need a word for the two combined.
The key ones involving repeatable evidence from experiments. I see those as very different situations. The problem with the latter is vast number of variables involved. Put it this way: Soft science issues can probably be resolved once we know enough and get a handle on all the variables involved.
Multiverse theories and the like are sheer science fiction that will likely never afford resolution. I do divide the world into B. Wyrd, I can see how Star Wars might have harmed sci-fi by making it mainstream. As a kid the movie utterly blew me away!
I guess I was 9. I loved the Dune trilogy! Ultimately I had other things on my mind however. Did sci-fi get so popular that sci-sci started going that way as well? We certainly agree that hard science has become too imaginary, and surely somewhat because particle colliders and such cost so much and are probably hopeless anyway.
But what might sensible people do when the system produces charming intellectuals such as Sean Carrol? Even Mike seems charmed by him. Shall we continue to fight the products of the disease rather than the disease itself?
Today physics is mostly for fun anyway. SW showed the bean counters that science fiction was profitable, so one result is that us fans get a lot more content. The downside is that so much of it is pop schlock for the groundlings.
Different phenomenon. Way too many seem to take warp drive seriously, for instance. Hard science, in general, is doing just fine. Material sciences are proceeding brilliantly. Most sectors of science are. It has to do, I think, with the lack of hard data.
Science always looks! No, sorry, I disagree with that. The wonderful thing about science is that it proceeds despite scientists. As for the soft sciences, it may turn out like weather prediction or orbital calculations. In both cases albeit for somewhat different reasons , the only way to truly model the system is with the system itself. I suspect there are real world situations perhaps the brain is one where no simplified model can ever achieve what the system itself does.
Reality is unbelievably complex and intricate, and it tends to be holistic. Really Eric? Without generally accepted principles of metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology, science should thus have associated problems. To me weather prediction is a great example of a hard science with too many variables which thus render it impossible for us to predict very far out.
I agree that science advances despite scientists. Perhaps chemists and such would review such rules and have absolutely no conflict — business as usual. Conversely fields such as theoretical physics, cognitive science, and psychology, may need to do things very differently in order to comply. Given their problems, certain generally accepted principles of metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology, should help such fields function better.
We are confounded by the difficulty of collecting data at high resolution amounting to having data on, say, every cubic mile or every cubic meter.
An greater problem is chaos mathematics which is also a problem in orbital mechanics. Calculating with numbers necessarily means rounding off those numbers, and the moment we do that we break the ability of the calculation to be accurate long term. As I said, there seem to be systems that can only be accurately modeled by a sufficiently similar system.
It may never be possible to effectively computationally model some complex systems. Or compare with orbital mechanics where we fully understand the model but actually calculating it runs into chaos mathematics issues. I see axiology is a social-cultural-political concern. And mathematics is full of things its inventors explicitly said had no value, but which later turned out to be key to something real.
Science is about finding out how reality works — value judgements come after the science. I was wrong to say that Mike, but it will not happen again. This was a quick, stupid, easy shot at a good friend. Wyrd, Your weather prediction conception sounds right to me. Note that if things function magically rather than causally, then this should hinder our ability to figure out physical dynamics.
If this were a basic principle of science today, then I believe that scientists would effectively split themselves up into two separate varieties.
First there would be a fully causal side which would never seriously entertain supernatural notions given its brand of metaphysics. Then there would also be a side that permits itself to go both ways, and even though theoretically nothing exists to grasp beyond causal dynamics. Conversely today in science both sides are mixed together which I consider to unnecessarily waste the time of full naturalists, and should tend to present them with unnecessary temptations.
Instead they should try to define such terms as usefully as they can. Furthermore it should become more natural to try to grasp whatever implicit definitions that a given person seems to be using in the attempt to understand. My second principle of epistemology or EP2 essentially formalizes the existing implicit scientific method, and also adds some specifics.
As a given model continues to remain consistent with evidence, it tends to become progressively more believed. When I state this principle people tend to presume that I must be mistaken. But is any skeptic able to come up with a reasonable alternative? Then finally there is my single principle of axiology. Though all of science should suffer from the above, without the following understanding I suspect that soft sciences can only remain soft.
While the brain is fueled by means of neuron function, consciousness is fueled by means of this, or something which feels anywhere from horrible to wonderful. Apparently it is only this form of motivation which is able to provide sufficient autonomy under more open environments. If as my theory suggests ones own happiness is ultimately all that matters to this entity, is it effective for someone to openly state that to be the case?
Thus others should tend to help us out in the quest to help themselves out. I see this as the bread and butter of salesmanship. Thus this field should remain blind in this very basic regard. Apparently this field is far enough outside of core of human function to not sufficiently threaten the human morality paradigm. That phrase is meaningless to me.
Scientists, almost by definition, believe in causality. Science is, at its root, the belief the universe operates according to causes. The labels themselves are arbitrary a matter of language , but the definitions behind them are necessarily true by fiat. Just look at all the confusion in the field of consciousness because everyone has their own definition of what it means. Civilization cannot proceed without agreed upon definitions. Even personal relationships cannot proceed without agree upon definitions.
Communication requires agreeing on definitions, pure and simple. They can be proven false, but never true. It is always the case the theories gain credence through testing and consistent results. In that case my only metaphysical principle would mainly exist to keep philosophers in line as well, not to mention humanity in general. But notice that this is the status quo today and things are still quite a mess.
For example we generally speak as if we need to finally figure out what consciousness truly is — as if science has not been able to discover that truth. To me this is flat out wrong. There are no true or false definitions for this term or any other. Instead I consider there to be more and less useful definitions in the context of a given argument.
Usefulness brings acceptance. Consider modern panpsychists. Many seem to be swayed! Conversely from my own convention the panpsychist is free to directly define consciousness as something inherent to matter, but must also demonstrate a general usefulness for adoption.
At the end of the day I believe that the theorist must be given freedom to define speculative terms in any manner at all, and so that others can try to grasp and assess their ideas. People commonly still seem to discuss things by means of conflicting definitions, and so talk past each other. I doubt that Peter Woit and Sabine Hossenfelder alone will be sufficient to fight the big money interests which corrupt their field.
If however a sensible explicit principle from which to figure things out we generally accepted, then the tide should change in their favor. He remains one of the most revered names in science. They are social and emotional matters. I disagree with that on every level. You have to prove crap. As opposed to what? Something non -conscious figuring something out? So this sentence means nothing. Nothing is ever proved, only disproved.
This can never be proven without examining every swan that was, is, and will be. But it can be disproved the moment we find a non-white swan. I suspect that proponents of those indefensible philosophical proposals appear to be using the word consciousness because of its current cachet.
IIT is either Philomatics or Mathosophy but has nothing to do with organic consciousness either. Crackpottery indeed, of the philosophic kind that appeals to the hopelessly multisyllable-addicted.
Well, Sir Smythe, the wetware implementation of a functioning brain is the only known implementation. The glaring omission in nearly all philosophical theories of consciousness is the missing embodiment. Rather than the usual conception of thought as some airy, ghostly thing hence body-mind dualism , the embodied characteristic of thought is obvious when we consider that thinking in words is vocalization-inhibited speech—physical subvocalizations that can be detected by the way—and thinking in pictures, as autist Temple Grandin reports, is, similarly, sight-inhibited vision.
It would need to be constructed with artificial neurons that functioned like biological ones that is, they are signal processing devices, not computational devices. There would be constructed analogues of all aspects of the human brain. Cellular biology replaced with something constructed. We just get to be aware of the skim. If we ever were to create something that experienced a single artificial feeling though, I would be very concerned about the moral hazards because that feeling might be unrelievable pain and we might have no way to know.
It might be necessary to train it as we do our own brains — myelin, for example, continues to form until almost 30 and I believe never fully stops.
Myelin turns out to be crucial to signaling. It may also be a factor in why learning a new language is harder as one ages. I refer you to W. I accept the relativity of simultaneity; the model is too predictive. And I also accept the block universe, although with less certitude than you. Consciousness and the block universe exist at different levels of organization, different levels of abstraction. So, saying nothing ever happens in the block universe is, I think, a mismatch in levels of abstraction.
And as structures inside the block universe, the only perspective we can ever truly take is the one as one those structures. Another way of viewing MWI compatible with the block universe model is as the growing multiverse as a static structure that branches out along the time dimension. In that view, what we perceive of as our universe is just one of the branches.
A consistent conceptual analysis of only one of those quantum mechanical paradoxes — say, the famous double-slit experiment, discussed by Feynman—almost immediately identifies an implicit assumption—we have been taking for granted that quantum objects exist continuously in time although there has been nothing either in the experimental evidence or in the theory that compels us to do so.
Just imagine—a fundamental continuity continuous existence in time at the heart of quantum physics. And no wonder that such an implicit assumption leads to a paradox—an electron, for example, which is always registered as a pointlike entity and which exists continuously in time, is a classical particle i.
However, if we abandon the implicit assumption and replace it explicitly with its alternative—discontinuous existence in time—the paradox disappears. Such a quantum object can pass simultaneously through all slits at its disposal. Such a model of the quantum object and quantum phenomena in general provides a surprising insight into the physical meaning of probabilistic phenomena in spacetime—an electron is a probabilistic distribution of worldpoints which is forever given in spacetime.
Although like all interpretations, maybe its particular bizarreness is less objectionable to some than the ones in the other interpretations. And what narrows its locations after measurement? Or what gives us the impression that it does?
How does it scale up to classical mechanics? Mike, it appears that you continue to grant existence to the dynamic-view of the block universe. No experiments to test for it have ever been proposed and there is no evidence whatsoever that it exists. We also cannot directly experience the curvature of spacetime.
Our dynamic-view of the block universe is rooted in the stream of consciousness, but the dynamic-view does not exist in the world—it is instead a consciousness-enabled perception of the block universe.
For those of us reared in the Western tradition, this realization represents a severe blow to the Ego and is a denial of Self and self-determination that far transcends the trivial realization of the absence of free will. As I said, those are guesses on my part. He is obviously a dualist and adopts Wm. He spends many, many pages ripping panpsychism to shreds, which it truly deserves, but he does so because he sees panpsychism as philosophical competition for neutral monism in resolving his dualist embarrassment.
Also, panpsychists and neutral monists never offer an explanation of how their undefined and non-biological version of consciousness manages to make it into brains but not John Deere tractors or Dell Latitude laptops. In the end, it might not matter. I accept the block universe provisionally , but I also reserve the right to discuss dynamics when not talking in the context of the entire universe. The ant can make use of many theories that are predictive of its experiences in its view, even if the dynamics of those theories are ultimately just patterns in the overall block universe.
Which view or context we use depends on which is productive for the moment. We are structures embedded within the block universe and have to work with how we perceive things to work. Some may see this as useful, but I find it unsatisfying. More of an admonition to stop asking questions.
On consciousness and the brainstem, I think we have to just agree to disagree on this. I choose not follow their advice. Without interpretational charity, interesting philosophical discussions are not possible. Neither of you have claimed to be physicists, but if you are, please advise forthwith and register your professional perspectives.
I would guess that the percentage of physicists who accept the block universe is greater than the percentage, about 97 percent I believe, of climate scientists who believe in anthropogenic climate change which, I assume, you accept.
If you claim at all to adhere to the findings of repeatedly confirmed physics, your lack of belief in the block universe is simply insupportable. You do have some intriguing alternatives, though. First among them is to invalidate the repeatedly performed and confirmed Michelson-Morley speed of light experiment that conclusively rules out the existence of the aether, putting the kibosh on Lorentz aEther Theory LET.
Most sincerely, I say to all of these options—Good Luck with That! From a rich abundance of Einstein quotations, how this particular quote managed to make it into that obituary is unknown. Since obituaries for the famous are composed in advance, perhaps he was asked in advance to volunteer his preference. And the sequence of change seems to have a continuous motion; it seems to unfold into a coherent story. We think in stories rooted in embodied metaphors which are themselves stories.
We understand ourselves and the external world in stories—all of our sciences are stories. In fact, viewing the brain as a Story Engine reveals the block universe to be full of stories, at all levels, in every discipline and wherever we look talk about an Anthropic Principle! The scientific stories reveal a consistency in implementation without which science would be impossible. But physics has found a crack in the curtain—the apparently unavoidable RoS—that reveals the true nature of the universe underlying our dynamic-view: the unchanging block universe.
Regarding cortical vs. Most intriguing for me, in regards the very credible view that the cortex resolves the contents of consciousness , its functionality can easily be seen as that of the Story Engine I discussed above.
If only reality was that simple; now the chorus from Five Man Electric Band:. Is my quest for there to be a community of respected professionals with generally accepted principles of metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology, misguided? Or simply hopeless? Or perhaps you have a better plan? For an example of a real philosopher doing real philosophy, try P.
An impression is a feeling or idea. A community of respected professionals with generally accepted principles of metaphysics, epistemology and axiology is not the answer.
What you are proposing is simply another priesthood, an order which by design requires a high priest. And who will reign in your respected community as high priest? So is it misguided and hopeless? Is there a better plan? Yes, one has to go it alone and not rely upon an institution for answers, because meaningful change only occurs one person at a time. In another note, the institution of science is working, all one has to do is view the landscape and take in all of the contributions the church has made, be them good, bad or indifferent.
Theoretical physics is a troubled discipline simply because material reductionism has reached the limits of what can be known through observation. They all remind me of a Catholic priest trying to explain the trinity, hopelessly lost in the arbitrary world of justification.
All else shall always remain stronger and weaker belief. Of course I could understand the motorcycle trip parts, but not the theory parts. Technically there is an arrogant form of solipsism where something believes that it is all that exists. This is the ontological variety, and to me seems quite ridiculous. Then there is a modest epistemic version. From here presumably all sorts of other things exist as well, though they can only be believed with various levels of confidence.
Believing in all sorts of other things with only various levels of confidence would make for a harrowing experience when speeding down a busy freeway.
Yes I know the freeways well Stephen, and driving them can indeed be a harrowing experience! No issues so far however. I use the term as the great Rene Descartes did. Furthermore this age of science explains quite clearly that everything that I perceive is some kind of cartoon representation of noumena. Yes I do believe that there is a reality beyond me with associated implications, though the only thing which I can ever be certain of regarding what truly Exists, is me.
What is it that keeps your certainty itself from being illusory … and where does your certainty in that come from? The existence of an external world is regarded as an unresolvable question or an unnecessary hypothesis, rather than actually false. That being the case, I believe your position to be, at a minimum, incoherent. Any form of solipsism is a dead end, Eric. Although non-conscious freeway driving, possibly assisted by some evil demon, may not be troubling to a solipsist, the rest of us would be eager to avoid you, regardless of your level of uncertainty about our existence.
The following quote is one of those examples:. The messy, chaotic sorting of competing definitions which can be perceived as madness is an absolutely essential component in the process of reaching an agreed upon definition from which to work. This principle is true whether it is a personal relationship between two individuals or the community of science. That is of course, unless one is willing to accept the definitions handed to us by the High Priest, then only compliance is required. I disagree that definitions are true by fiat.
Definitions themselves like the words that represent them are arbitrary. A circle of mutual definition and agreement is reached, and the definition is cast in stone.
The negative side of this process is that those agreed upon definitions which are now cast in stone can be the very things that hold us hostage. Mike, you might want to get in here as well. Written messages in Chinese come in, and he looks up answers from the files and so provides written Chinese messages out. Chinese people do so by means of a sentience based consciousness. These machines do not.
It is my position that all of the non-sentient computation of this computer, could in principle be done by John in the room looking up answers from the files. For example when a letter is pressed on its keyboard, this will provide input information for it to process. Thus if associated input notes were passed to John, he could then process them given the files and so provide associated output notes.
But his output notes should still correlate with the information by which the screen becomes animated. Many people seem to believe that this pain will exist as nothing more than processed information itself. Thus John looking up these answers would in itself cause there to be pain associated with this Chinese room. I however suspect that experiences such as pain exist as something more like an output of computation, as a screen image is, not just computation itself.
So back to the Chinese room, we pass written notes associated with the thumb pain key to John. He looks up responses and provides output notes just as he did for the auxiliary screen computation, though no pain yet exists.
We all know that brains are complex. But who is confident that brains effectively function as information processors exclusively , and so sentience shall exist as nothing more than the very stuff which John produces in the form of notes?
Or does it seem more likely that in our heads, there may exist mechanisms from which to output our sentience, and thus processed information will tend to animate such mechanisms? And if anyone would like to share some brain architecture with me in which valence exists as information exclusively, I promise to grant them the required condition in my own attempt to understand and assess the nature of such a model. Eric, I think you know my views on this. The experience of pain can be extinguished by cutting certain connections to the anterior cingulate cortex.
Bilateral cingulotomy is sometimes used as a treatment for severe chronic pain. Reportedly the person afterward still feels the interoceptive sensations, but without any discomfort. The neural spikes going in and out are the same as in the rest of the brain. The region, due to its connections, just ends up performing certain types of evaluations, whether a particular sensation should be taken as a sign of actual or potential tissue damage.
Two things about this however. Note that my own model is also able to address why cutting certain connections to the anterior cingulate cortex might extinguish pain.
It could be that valence production thus becomes disrupted just as processed output information to a computer screen can be disrupted. You and I happen to have very similar beliefs in a great number of ways. The theories above are consistent with the available data. The problem is that theories of consciousness are a dime a dozen. The line labeled "light signal" shows a pulse of light zooming from left to right. Now we proceed to the next diagram. In order to construct it we will require the mathematics of special relativity.
You will have to trust me if you are not already familiar with the subject. We use the Lorentz transformation to discover how these same events would be measured in another frame of reference. To be specific, consider a frame moving from left to right, at some perfectly allowed less-than-light speed. This takes some getting used to, but it is not too bizarre. It just means that if we plot the same set of events, with their spacial location and timing worked out in the new frame, then the diagram will look like this:.
Here is the diagram with this return journey added:. So we enter into all the famous causality paradoxes and we conclude that the whole scenario looks highly implausible, and indeed if the universe makes sense then this sort of thing cannot be happening in it.
Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Why would FTL imply time travel? Asked 1 year, 2 months ago.
Active 1 year ago. Viewed 2k times. Improve this question. PoultryMan PoultryMan 49 5 5 bronze badges. Does superluminal travel imply travelling back in time? Eventual consistency or in consistent systems, distributed consensus means causal relationships between phenomena have a temporal component.
Even for individual systems with multi-core CPUs, this is an issue, although it's one that x86 papers over well enough that most programmers successfully ignore it. Eventually I realised that there is no good layman's explanation of this involving planets and people sending messages which they receive before they sent them. The math, which is beyond me, requires that if FTL is possible then so is time travel. In my opinion, unless you are willing to put the effort in to understanding the math which underpins this, you are never going to understand it.
It would be better, in my opinion, if people stopped coming up with cute examples. Show 10 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. WillO WillO That there is a single global state, which we can't access because of the universal speed limit? Show 1 more comment. Dale Dale Add a comment. Andrew Steane Andrew Steane Featured on Meta. But in fact with this interpretation, which I guess is probably more correct?
But if you think about energy always moving at the speed of light, and initially all of it flying off in the same direction time , then matter becomes those particles which were somehow slightly diverted onto the spatial axes -- momentum is conserved, just redirected. And if you think about particles being ripples in fields of non-zero constant energy, an interactions between the fields causing ripples to bump away from each other in non-time directions which we describe as space , this whole relativity thing, and the fact that electric field particles photons do not have mass and move at c, starts to make a bit of sense.
It's crazy to think that what we perceive as time passing, the very possibility of things happening , is actually an emergent property of simple geometry and interactions of pure energy. The way I visualize it is: start two marbles rolling towards each other down an inclined slope. They bump, and bounce off in opposite directions on the X axis. Now imagine there is no table. Would the marbles "feel" anything in the vertical direction?
Or would they only feel something in the horizontal direction? Time, for them, emerges from the fact that they can get closer, bump, and move off in the other direction. The other axis, which they are both moving very quickly in, they have entirely in common and they might agree with each other that it is simply a stationary frame which allowed the "bump" to happen.
Same for us falling, unrelentingly and unstoppably, through time. Otherwise anything traveling in space - and thus slightly sideways - would immediately desync with the universe around it and interact only with emptiness? Rumudiez on July 9, prev next [—].
The speed of light is actually the speed of causality. It just happens that since photons don't have rest mass, they always move at the speed of causality. Gluons are also massless like light, but don't exist on their own.
If there's a particle that carries gravity, it would also be massless. You could say light travels at the speed of gravity. This only implies that FTL transport would make causality travel a bit faster Unfortunately, I am confused about implications of that.
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