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Re: The halting problem revisited

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  Re: The halting problem revisited Lew <noone@lewscanon.com> - 2011-03-29 14:05 -0400
    Re: The halting problem revisited Dirk Bruere at NeoPax <dirk.bruere@gmail.com> - 2011-03-29 20:43 +0100
      Re: The halting problem revisited "javax.swing.JSnarker" <gharriman@boojum.mit.edu> - 2011-03-29 20:24 -0400
        Re: The halting problem revisited Michal Kleczek <kleku75@gmail.com> - 2011-03-30 10:05 +0200
          Re: The halting problem revisited "javax.swing.JSnarker" <gharriman@boojum.mit.edu> - 2011-03-30 04:41 -0400
            Re: The halting problem revisited Michal Kleczek <kleku75@gmail.com> - 2011-03-30 11:35 +0200
              Re: The halting problem revisited Lew <noone@lewscanon.com> - 2011-03-30 07:38 -0400
                Re: The halting problem revisited Dirk Bruere at NeoPax <dirk.bruere@gmail.com> - 2011-03-30 15:48 +0100
                  Re: The halting problem revisited Lew <lew@lewscanon.com> - 2011-03-30 10:35 -0700
                    Re: The halting problem revisited Dirk Bruere at NeoPax <dirk.bruere@gmail.com> - 2011-03-30 19:46 +0100
                      Re: The halting problem revisited Lew <lew@lewscanon.com> - 2011-03-30 13:24 -0700
                        Re: The halting problem revisited Dirk Bruere at NeoPax <dirk.bruere@gmail.com> - 2011-03-31 00:04 +0100
                          Re: The halting problem revisited Lew <noone@lewscanon.com> - 2011-03-31 00:00 -0400
                Re: The halting problem revisited "javax.swing.JSnarker" <gharriman@boojum.mit.edu> - 2011-04-04 20:28 -0400
              Re: The halting problem revisited Dirk Bruere at NeoPax <dirk.bruere@gmail.com> - 2011-03-30 15:44 +0100
              Re: The halting problem revisited "javax.swing.JSnarker" <gharriman@boojum.mit.edu> - 2011-04-04 20:26 -0400
                Re: The halting problem revisited Dirk Bruere at NeoPax <dirk.bruere@gmail.com> - 2011-04-05 01:32 +0100
            Re: The halting problem revisited Dirk Bruere at NeoPax <dirk.bruere@gmail.com> - 2011-03-30 15:42 +0100
              Re: The halting problem revisited Lew <noone@lewscanon.com> - 2011-03-31 08:31 -0400
          Re: The halting problem revisited Dirk Bruere at NeoPax <dirk.bruere@gmail.com> - 2011-03-30 15:41 +0100
            Re: The halting problem revisited "javax.swing.JSnarker" <gharriman@boojum.mit.edu> - 2011-04-04 20:34 -0400
        Re: The halting problem revisited Dirk Bruere at NeoPax <dirk.bruere@gmail.com> - 2011-03-30 15:38 +0100

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#2535 — Re: The halting problem revisited

On 03/29/2011 12:18 PM, Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote:
> On 29/03/2011 16:59, Lew wrote:
>> Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote:
>>> Lew wrote:
>>>> Nothing is determined but that nothing is determined.
>>
>>> I assume you are a friend of Wigners friend...
>>
>> I don't know. I haven't been on Facebook in a while.
>>
>> Nothing is determined like my buddy Phil when he wants a big Mac.
>>
> I'll be charitable and assume that's a feeble joke rather than an illustration
> of your total ignorance of the subject

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

-- 
Lew
Honi soit qui mal y pense.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Friz.jpg

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#2557

On 29/03/2011 19:05, Lew wrote:
> On 03/29/2011 12:18 PM, Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote:
>> On 29/03/2011 16:59, Lew wrote:
>>> Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote:
>>>> Lew wrote:
>>>>> Nothing is determined but that nothing is determined.
>>>
>>>> I assume you are a friend of Wigners friend...
>>>
>>> I don't know. I haven't been on Facebook in a while.
>>>
>>> Nothing is determined like my buddy Phil when he wants a big Mac.
>>>
>> I'll be charitable and assume that's a feeble joke rather than an
>> illustration
>> of your total ignorance of the subject
>
> I don't need your stinkin' charity. It was total ignorance of the subject.
>
Well, here's something that will help relieve the burden:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner%27s_friend

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

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

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

-- 
Dirk

http://www.neopax.com/technomage/ - My new book - Magick and Technology

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#2573

On 29/03/2011 3:43 PM, Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote:
> Wigner designed the experiment to illustrate his belief that
> consciousness is necessary to the quantum mechanical measurement
> process. If a material device is substituted for the conscious friend,
> the linearity of the wave function implies that the state of the system
> is in a linear sum of possible states. It is simply a larger
> indeterminate system.

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

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

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

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

> However, a conscious observer (according to his reasoning) must be in
> either one state or the other, hence conscious observations are
> different, hence consciousness is not material.

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

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

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

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

> The idea has become known as the consciousness causes collapse
> interpretation.

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

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

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

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

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

-- 
public final class JSnarker
extends JComponent
A JSnarker is an NNTP-aware component that asynchronously provides 
snarky output when the Ego.needsPuncturing() event is fired in cljp.

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#2578

javax.swing.JSnarker wrote:

> On 29/03/2011 3:43 PM, Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote:
>> Wigner designed the experiment to illustrate his belief that
>> consciousness is necessary to the quantum mechanical measurement
>> process. If a material device is substituted for the conscious friend,
>> the linearity of the wave function implies that the state of the system
>> is in a linear sum of possible states. It is simply a larger
>> indeterminate system.
> 
> Thing is, it requires not only positing a collapse mechanism that is
> non-unitary, non-Lorentz-invariant, non-time-reversible, and on and on
> and on, but also positing a dichotomy between things that constitute a
> "material device" and some other sort of stuff that does not (but you
> can bet the name for it would start with an "S" and rhyme with "hole",
> and be suggested as proof of the existence of some dude whose name
> rhymes with Todd).
> 
> Or we can posit that Wigner's friend is also a "material device", in
> which case you realize that Wigner's friend just gets replicated into
> parallel worlds, and so does Wigner, and so does everyone eventually.

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

> Which is philosophically somewhat disturbing, and being a "material
> device" perhaps even more so.
> 
> This is probably why the *obvious truth* about QM is regarded as
> controversial instead of a settled matter: it flies in the face of not
> only commonsense intuition (I don't *feel* like I'm being duplicated!)

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

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

-- 
Michal

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#2580

On 30/03/2011 4:05 AM, Michal Kleczek wrote:
> javax.swing.JSnarker wrote:
>> Or we can posit that Wigner's friend is also a "material device", in
>> which case you realize that Wigner's friend just gets replicated into
>> parallel worlds, and so does Wigner, and so does everyone eventually.
>
> I'm not an expert in all this stuff at all but my thinking is:
> If existence of parallel Wigners cannot be disproved experimentally (by
> definition of "parallel") the whole idea is not really science anymore.
> Since Wigner is not able to verify existence of parallel Wigners then by
> applying Ockham's razor he should just ignore them (and try another
> explanation which would be more scientific).

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

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

> You cannot easily say "commonsense intuition is wrong" because then your
> sentences about real world become meaningless.

Non sequitur.

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

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

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

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

-- 
public final class JSnarker
extends JComponent
A JSnarker is an NNTP-aware component that asynchronously provides 
snarky output when the Ego.needsPuncturing() event is fired in cljp.

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#2581

javax.swing.JSnarker wrote:

> On 30/03/2011 4:05 AM, Michal Kleczek wrote:
>> javax.swing.JSnarker wrote:
>>> Or we can posit that Wigner's friend is also a "material device", in
>>> which case you realize that Wigner's friend just gets replicated into
>>> parallel worlds, and so does Wigner, and so does everyone eventually.
>>
>> I'm not an expert in all this stuff at all but my thinking is:
>> If existence of parallel Wigners cannot be disproved experimentally (by
>> definition of "parallel") the whole idea is not really science anymore.
>> Since Wigner is not able to verify existence of parallel Wigners then by
>> applying Ockham's razor he should just ignore them (and try another
>> explanation which would be more scientific).
> 
> Ockham's Razor requires us to accept the *simpler hypothesis*. If we
> assume only what's already proven about QM, e.g. the Schroedinger
> wave-function evolution, then parallel Wigners fall out of that
> naturally. We have to posit something *extra* (a collapse mechanism) to
> get *rid* of them.
> 
> Absent experimental evidence one way or the other we should prefer the
> theory *without* a collapse postulate.
> 
>> You cannot easily say "commonsense intuition is wrong" because then your
>> sentences about real world become meaningless.
> 
> Non sequitur.
> 

How about: if a theory leads to conclusions that are not verfifyable by (or 
even contradictory to) "common sense" ( Myself ) - it means the theory is 
useless (hence parallel world assumption is useless - hence there are either 
a) other sentences more useful "falling out" from QM or b) QM is useless :) 
).

>> It is not that easy to get rid of "the existence of some dude whose name
>> rhymes with Todd" :)
> 
> How about the observation that any phenomenon in the universe that has
> no detectable effect at all has no practical significance and may as
> well not exist; whereas if it has detectable effects, those effects can
> be partially modeled, at least statistically. The model, if made as good
> as possible, should end up as a mixture of structured behaviors, with
> patterns to them, and a random noise source of some sort.
> 
> The model of the structured behaviors, however, amounts to a
> naturalistic explanation of those aspects of the phenomena more or less
> by definition. And what's left over is unstructured noise!
> 
> This leaves no room for the supernatural in *any* form. A sufficiently
> good model crushes it between the parts explained naturalistically and
> the parts that are just noise. In fact, MWI QM even gets rid of the
> noise, simply making it a lengthy bit-string parameter that varies
> across the many worlds; the noise we observe is then just a reflection
> of our uncertainty as to which bit-string our particular universe has
> (even after we've observed an arbitrarily long prefix of it).
> 

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

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

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

-- 
Michal

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#2586

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

Your English is just fine.  This discussion isn't at that high a level.

> b) I don't have enought background - do you have some pointers that would
> introduce me to the concepts you're talking about?

This is a Java newsgroup.  Snarky-boy won't have anything useful anyway.

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

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

-- 
Lew
Honi soit qui mal y pense.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Friz.jpg

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#2597

On 30/03/2011 12:38, Lew wrote:
> Michal Kleczek wrote:
>> But I think don't really follow and I am not capable of discussing it
>> further. It may be because:
>> a) my English is not good enough to comprehend such advanced discussions
>
> Your English is just fine. This discussion isn't at that high a level.

Well, if it's too simple for you I can up the complexity and throw in 
some maths.
Would that help?

-- 
Dirk

http://www.neopax.com/technomage/ - My new book - Magick and Technology

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#2600

Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote:
> Well, if it's too simple for you I can up the complexity and throw in
> some maths.
> Would that help?
>

Please just provide the Java example for it.  Otherwise, get a room.

--
Lew

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#2604

On 30/03/2011 18:35, Lew wrote:
> Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote:
>> Well, if it's too simple for you I can up the complexity and throw in
>> some maths.
>> Would that help?
>>
>
> Please just provide the Java example for it.  Otherwise, get a room.
>
> --
> Lew

Not very nice being talked down to, is it?

-- 
Dirk

http://www.neopax.com/technomage/ - My new book - Magick and Technology

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#2611

On Mar 30, 2:46 pm, Dirk Bruere at NeoPax <dirk.bru...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> On 30/03/2011 18:35, Lew wrote:
>
> > Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote:
> >> Well, if it's too simple for you I can up the complexity and throw in
> >> some maths.
> >> Would that help?
>
> > Please just provide the Java example for it.  Otherwise, get a room.
>
>
> Not very nice being talked down to, is it?
>

What?

I'm just asking you to get back on topic.  This is a Java newsgroup.
What are you on about?

--
Lew

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#2615

On 30/03/2011 21:24, Lew wrote:
> On Mar 30, 2:46 pm, Dirk Bruere at NeoPax<dirk.bru...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> On 30/03/2011 18:35, Lew wrote:
>>
>>> Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote:
>>>> Well, if it's too simple for you I can up the complexity and throw in
>>>> some maths.
>>>> Would that help?
>>
>>> Please just provide the Java example for it.  Otherwise, get a room.
>>
>>
>> Not very nice being talked down to, is it?
>>
>
> What?
>
> I'm just asking you to get back on topic.  This is a Java newsgroup.
> What are you on about?
>
> --
> Lew
>
The tone of your replies.
You seem a little peeved when out of your depth knowledge-wise.
I also note you seemed happy enough to join in this thread until your 
ignorance was put on display.
Try to be more polite and less condescending in future.

-- 
Dirk

http://www.neopax.com/technomage/ - My new book - Magick and Technology

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#2632

Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote:
> The tone of your replies.
> You seem a little peeved when out of your depth knowledge-wise.
> I also note you seemed happy enough to join in this thread until your
> ignorance was put on display.
> Try to be more polite and less condescending in future.

Yes, O Almighty God.

-- 
Lew

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#2867

On 30/03/2011 7:38 AM, Lew wrote:
> This is a Java newsgroup.

It's an interesting tangent and anyone who doesn't agree can killfile 
this thread. This isn't a very high traffic group.

> Snarky-boy won't have anything useful anyway.

In the immortal words of the tholenbot, "What does your classic 
unsubstantiated and erroneous claim have to do with Java, Lew?"

Indeed, this quantum stuff might be used to implement super-fast 
computers some day, and maybe someone will port the JVM to one.

>> Until it is more understandable to me I think I won't add "the noise"
>> anymore :)
>
> You understand it better than those trying to argue with you.

Another "classic unsubstantiated and erroneous claim".

-- 
public final class JSnarker
extends JComponent
A JSnarker is an NNTP-aware component that asynchronously provides 
snarky output when the Ego.needsPuncturing() event is fired in cljp.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#2595

On 30/03/2011 10:35, Michal Kleczek wrote:
> javax.swing.JSnarker wrote:
>
>> On 30/03/2011 4:05 AM, Michal Kleczek wrote:
>>> javax.swing.JSnarker wrote:
>>>> Or we can posit that Wigner's friend is also a "material device", in
>>>> which case you realize that Wigner's friend just gets replicated into
>>>> parallel worlds, and so does Wigner, and so does everyone eventually.
>>>
>>> I'm not an expert in all this stuff at all but my thinking is:
>>> If existence of parallel Wigners cannot be disproved experimentally (by
>>> definition of "parallel") the whole idea is not really science anymore.
>>> Since Wigner is not able to verify existence of parallel Wigners then by
>>> applying Ockham's razor he should just ignore them (and try another
>>> explanation which would be more scientific).
>>
>> Ockham's Razor requires us to accept the *simpler hypothesis*. If we
>> assume only what's already proven about QM, e.g. the Schroedinger
>> wave-function evolution, then parallel Wigners fall out of that
>> naturally. We have to posit something *extra* (a collapse mechanism) to
>> get *rid* of them.
>>
>> Absent experimental evidence one way or the other we should prefer the
>> theory *without* a collapse postulate.
>>
>>> You cannot easily say "commonsense intuition is wrong" because then your
>>> sentences about real world become meaningless.
>>
>> Non sequitur.
>>
>
> How about: if a theory leads to conclusions that are not verfifyable by (or
> even contradictory to) "common sense" ( Myself ) - it means the theory is
> useless (hence parallel world assumption is useless - hence there are either
> a) other sentences more useful "falling out" from QM or b) QM is useless :)
> ).
>
>>> It is not that easy to get rid of "the existence of some dude whose name
>>> rhymes with Todd" :)
>>
>> How about the observation that any phenomenon in the universe that has
>> no detectable effect at all has no practical significance and may as
>> well not exist; whereas if it has detectable effects, those effects can
>> be partially modeled, at least statistically. The model, if made as good
>> as possible, should end up as a mixture of structured behaviors, with
>> patterns to them, and a random noise source of some sort.
>>
>> The model of the structured behaviors, however, amounts to a
>> naturalistic explanation of those aspects of the phenomena more or less
>> by definition. And what's left over is unstructured noise!
>>
>> This leaves no room for the supernatural in *any* form. A sufficiently
>> good model crushes it between the parts explained naturalistically and
>> the parts that are just noise. In fact, MWI QM even gets rid of the
>> noise, simply making it a lengthy bit-string parameter that varies
>> across the many worlds; the noise we observe is then just a reflection
>> of our uncertainty as to which bit-string our particular universe has
>> (even after we've observed an arbitrarily long prefix of it).
>>
>
> My point is that if "parallel world" theory cannot get rid of "the noise" in
> "this world" it is of no use to me. There is no difference between
> uncertainty of
> a) which world I am in
> b) the cat was dead or not a couple of hours in the past

The real problem coming is that theories are just data compression 
algorithms, and science looks for the most efficient. AIs may well do a 
far better job of creating them, but they won't be "human friendly" 
explanations of "whats going on".

-- 
Dirk

http://www.neopax.com/technomage/ - My new book - Magick and Technology

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#2865

On 30/03/2011 5:35 AM, Michal Kleczek wrote:
> javax.swing.JSnarker wrote:
>> Non sequitur.
>
> How about: if a theory leads to conclusions that are not verfifyable by (or
> even contradictory to) "common sense" ( Myself ) - it means the theory is
> useless (hence parallel world assumption is useless - hence there are either
> a) other sentences more useful "falling out" from QM or b) QM is useless :)
> ).

But there is no parallel world "assumption". There is a parallel world 
*conclusion* from the Schroedinger equations, *absent* a *collapse* 
assumption.

And there is no evidence for the need for a collapse assumption.

Ockham's Razor applies to the complexity of the theory's *hypotheses*, 
not its *conclusions*.

In fact, the general preferred theory for phenomenon X should be:

* Of those that do not make already-falsified predictions
   * Of those that explain the most already-observed phenomena
     * Of those with the fewest hypotheses
       * The one with the greatest number of consequences

The first point eliminates outright-wrong theories.

The second prefers the theories that predict not only X but as many 
other phenomena as possible -- so, Maxwell's electromagnetism to 
separate theories of electricity and magnetism, and quantum 
electrodynamics to either. Essentially, the ones with greatest 
explanatory power regarding what we already know.

The third is Ockham's razor.

The fourth prefers, among equally-simple theories, the one that will 
have the greatest predictive power regarding what we still *don't* know. 
In particular, it's probably the easiest to falsify, because the more 
yet-untested consequences the theory has, the more opportunities the 
universe (or an experimenter) has to prove it wrong.

Whereupon it gets eliminated by the first point in the list above, the 
is replaced by its first runner-up in the competition. :)

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

Funnily enough, there is. In case a), but not in case b), you can 
potentially create interference patterns in cat alive-or-dead-ness. :)

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

http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/The_Quantum_Physics_Sequence

-- 
public final class JSnarker
extends JComponent
A JSnarker is an NNTP-aware component that asynchronously provides 
snarky output when the Ego.needsPuncturing() event is fired in cljp.

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#2870

On 05/04/2011 01:26, javax.swing.JSnarker wrote:
> On 30/03/2011 5:35 AM, Michal Kleczek wrote:
>> javax.swing.JSnarker wrote:
>>> Non sequitur.
>>
>> How about: if a theory leads to conclusions that are not verfifyable
>> by (or
>> even contradictory to) "common sense" ( Myself ) - it means the theory is
>> useless (hence parallel world assumption is useless - hence there are
>> either
>> a) other sentences more useful "falling out" from QM or b) QM is
>> useless :)
>> ).
>
> But there is no parallel world "assumption". There is a parallel world
> *conclusion* from the Schroedinger equations, *absent* a *collapse*
> assumption.
>
> And there is no evidence for the need for a collapse assumption.
>
> Ockham's Razor applies to the complexity of the theory's *hypotheses*,
> not its *conclusions*.
>
> In fact, the general preferred theory for phenomenon X should be:
>
> * Of those that do not make already-falsified predictions
> * Of those that explain the most already-observed phenomena
> * Of those with the fewest hypotheses
> * The one with the greatest number of consequences
>
> The first point eliminates outright-wrong theories.
>
> The second prefers the theories that predict not only X but as many
> other phenomena as possible -- so, Maxwell's electromagnetism to
> separate theories of electricity and magnetism, and quantum
> electrodynamics to either. Essentially, the ones with greatest
> explanatory power regarding what we already know.
>
> The third is Ockham's razor.
>
> The fourth prefers, among equally-simple theories, the one that will
> have the greatest predictive power regarding what we still *don't* know.
> In particular, it's probably the easiest to falsify, because the more
> yet-untested consequences the theory has, the more opportunities the
> universe (or an experimenter) has to prove it wrong.
>
> Whereupon it gets eliminated by the first point in the list above, the
> is replaced by its first runner-up in the competition. :)
>
>> My point is that if "parallel world" theory cannot get rid of "the
>> noise" in
>> "this world" it is of no use to me. There is no difference between
>> uncertainty of
>> a) which world I am in
>> b) the cat was dead or not a couple of hours in the past
>
> Funnily enough, there is. In case a), but not in case b), you can
> potentially create interference patterns in cat alive-or-dead-ness. :)
>
>> But I think don't really follow and I am not capable of discussing it
>> further. It may be because:
>> a) my English is not good enough to comprehend such advanced discussions
>> b) I don't have enought background - do you have some pointers that would
>> introduce me to the concepts you're talking about?
>
> http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/The_Quantum_Physics_Sequence
>

MWI subjectively verifiable by suicide

-- 
Dirk

http://www.neopax.com/technomage/ - My new book - Magick and Technology

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#2594

On 30/03/2011 09:41, javax.swing.JSnarker wrote:
> On 30/03/2011 4:05 AM, Michal Kleczek wrote:
>> javax.swing.JSnarker wrote:
>>> Or we can posit that Wigner's friend is also a "material device", in
>>> which case you realize that Wigner's friend just gets replicated into
>>> parallel worlds, and so does Wigner, and so does everyone eventually.
>>
>> I'm not an expert in all this stuff at all but my thinking is:
>> If existence of parallel Wigners cannot be disproved experimentally (by
>> definition of "parallel") the whole idea is not really science anymore.
>> Since Wigner is not able to verify existence of parallel Wigners then by
>> applying Ockham's razor he should just ignore them (and try another
>> explanation which would be more scientific).
>
> Ockham's Razor requires us to accept the *simpler hypothesis*. If we
> assume only what's already proven about QM, e.g. the Schroedinger
> wave-function evolution, then parallel Wigners fall out of that
> naturally. We have to posit something *extra* (a collapse mechanism) to
> get *rid* of them.
>
> Absent experimental evidence one way or the other we should prefer the
> theory *without* a collapse postulate.
>
>> You cannot easily say "commonsense intuition is wrong" because then your
>> sentences about real world become meaningless.
>
> Non sequitur.
>
>> It is not that easy to get rid of "the existence of some dude whose name
>> rhymes with Todd" :)
>
> How about the observation that any phenomenon in the universe that has
> no detectable effect at all has no practical significance and may as
> well not exist; whereas if it has detectable effects, those effects can
> be partially modeled, at least statistically. The model, if made as good
> as possible, should end up as a mixture of structured behaviors, with
> patterns to them, and a random noise source of some sort.
>
> The model of the structured behaviors, however, amounts to a
> naturalistic explanation of those aspects of the phenomena more or less
> by definition. And what's left over is unstructured noise!
>
> This leaves no room for the supernatural in *any* form. A sufficiently
> good model crushes it between the parts explained naturalistically and
> the parts that are just noise. In fact, MWI QM even gets rid of the
> noise, simply making it a lengthy bit-string parameter that varies
> across the many worlds; the noise we observe is then just a reflection
> of our uncertainty as to which bit-string our particular universe has
> (even after we've observed an arbitrarily long prefix of it).
>

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

-- 
Dirk

http://www.neopax.com/technomage/ - My new book - Magick and Technology

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#2647

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

This all very fascinating and all, and I'm sure you are proud of how much of a 
genius you're making yourself seem and all, but could we please talk about, 
oh, I don't know, Java - seeing as how this is a Java newsgroup and all?

I hate to disrupt your little egofest and all, but really, 
comp.lang.*java*.programmer, hm-k?

Thank you, dear.

-- 
Lew

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#2593

On 30/03/2011 09:05, Michal Kleczek wrote:
> javax.swing.JSnarker wrote:
>
>> On 29/03/2011 3:43 PM, Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote:
>>> Wigner designed the experiment to illustrate his belief that
>>> consciousness is necessary to the quantum mechanical measurement
>>> process. If a material device is substituted for the conscious friend,
>>> the linearity of the wave function implies that the state of the system
>>> is in a linear sum of possible states. It is simply a larger
>>> indeterminate system.
>>
>> Thing is, it requires not only positing a collapse mechanism that is
>> non-unitary, non-Lorentz-invariant, non-time-reversible, and on and on
>> and on, but also positing a dichotomy between things that constitute a
>> "material device" and some other sort of stuff that does not (but you
>> can bet the name for it would start with an "S" and rhyme with "hole",
>> and be suggested as proof of the existence of some dude whose name
>> rhymes with Todd).
>>
>> Or we can posit that Wigner's friend is also a "material device", in
>> which case you realize that Wigner's friend just gets replicated into
>> parallel worlds, and so does Wigner, and so does everyone eventually.
>
> I'm not an expert in all this stuff at all but my thinking is:
> If existence of parallel Wigners cannot be disproved experimentally (by
> definition of "parallel") the whole idea is not really science anymore.
> Since Wigner is not able to verify existence of parallel Wigners then by
> applying Ockham's razor he should just ignore them (and try another
> explanation which would be more scientific).

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

-- 
Dirk

http://www.neopax.com/technomage/ - My new book - Magick and Technology

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