Spin States of Selection: Predetermined Variables of ‘bit’ by Manuel S Morales

Manuel,

Your statement, that I quoted, declared that the inability to make "*DIRECT* selections is certain death." I merely pointed-out that that statement is indeed false. "I hope you realize that you have inadvertently confirmed that" my statement was correct. *INDIRECT* selection remains an option.

It was not inadvertent. I merely point out that the manner in which you have defined the terms "direct selection" and "indirect selection", as the only two possibilities preceding an "effect", causes the argument to reduce to the Anthropic principle; starting with the fact that something exists, it must necessarily be the case, that whatever conditions were previously necessary for that something to exist, must also have existed. If my life continues, then the conditions conducive to its continuance must have existed. If my life fails to continue, then the conditions conducive to that failure must have existed. "Nature is absolute in this regard."

Rob McEachern

Manuel, no, I did not submit an essay this year, an "indirect selection" was made that prohibited me from doing so. But I did submit one last year.

Rob McEachern

Dear Manuel S Morales:

I am an old physician, and I don't know nothing of mathematics and almost nothing of physics, I am not prepared to really understand your essay, but I understand enough to appreciate your good job. Maybe you would be interested in my essay over a subject which after the common people, physic discipline is the one that uses more than any other, the so called "time".

I am sending you a practical summary, so you can easy decide if you read or not my essay "The deep nature of reality".

I am convince you would be interested in reading it. ( most people don't understand it, and is not just because of my bad English).

Hawking in "A brief history of time" where he said , "Which is the nature of time?" yes he don't know what time is, and also continue saying............Some day this answer could seem to us "obvious", as much than that the earth rotate around the sun....." In fact the answer is "obvious", but how he could say that, if he didn't know what's time? In fact he is predicting that is going to be an answer, and that this one will be "obvious", I think that with this adjective, he is implying: simple and easy to understand. Maybe he felt it and couldn't explain it with words. We have anthropologic proves that man measure "time" since more than 30.000 years ago, much, much later came science, mathematics and physics that learn to measure "time" from primitive men, adopted the idea and the systems of measurement, but also acquired the incognita of the experimental "time" meaning. Out of common use physics is the science that needs and use more the measurement of what everybody calls "time" and the discipline came to believe it as their own. I always said that to understand the "time" experimental meaning there is not need to know mathematics or physics, as the "time" creators and users didn't. Instead of my opinion I would give Einstein's "Ideas and Opinions" pg. 354 "Space, time, and event, are free creations of human intelligence, tools of thought" he use to call them pre-scientific concepts from which mankind forgot its meanings, he never wrote a whole page about "time" he also use to evade the use of the word, in general relativity when he refer how gravitational force and speed affect "time", he does not use the word "time" instead he would say, speed and gravitational force slows clock movement or "motion", instead of saying that slows "time". FQXi member Andreas Albrecht said that. When asked the question, "What is time?", Einstein gave a pragmatic response: "Time," he said, "is what clocks measure and nothing more." He knew that "time" was a man creation, but he didn't know what man is measuring with the clock.

I insist, that for "measuring motion" we should always and only use a unique: "constant" or "uniform" "motion" to measure "no constant motions" "which integrates and form part of every change and transformation in every physical thing. Why? because is the only kind of "motion" whose characteristics allow it, to be divided in equal parts as Egyptians and Sumerians did it, giving born to "motion fractions", which I call "motion units" as hours, minutes and seconds. "Motion" which is the real thing, was always hide behind time, and covert by its shadow, it was hide in front everybody eyes, during at least two millenniums at hand of almost everybody. Which is the difference in physics between using the so-called time or using "motion"?, time just has been used to measure the "duration" of different phenomena, why only for that? Because it was impossible for physicists to relate a mysterious time with the rest of the physical elements of known characteristics, without knowing what time is and which its physical characteristics were. On the other hand "motion" is not something mysterious, it is a quality or physical property of all things, and can be related with all of them, this is a huge difference especially for theoretical physics I believe. I as a physician with this find I was able to do quite a few things. I imagine a physicist with this can make marvelous things.

With my best whishes

Héctor

Manuel,

I think I do understand your position, I just don't find it enlightening.

You ask "Can an experimenter conduct an experiment without first making a selection?"

It is highly enlightening to reflect upon why everyone that discusses the Schrodinger's cat experiment, directly selects the starting condition to be Cat=Alive rather than Cat=Dead, before they proclaim the experiment reveals the cat to be both dead and alive. As I have said elsewhere is these discussions, a little a priori knowledge goes a long way.

Rob McEachern

Manuel,

"We actually think our opinions matter when it comes down to understanding nature", because they do matter, at least with regards to our understanding. However, I believe, and it appears that you also believe, that our options, beliefs and understanding of nature, has little influence on nature, apart from our earth-bound technology (Which is mostly about how to cause various, desirable effects.) Nature is indeed not about our options, but our opinions about nature cannot be separated from our understanding of nature.

I'm not quite sure what you mean be highly *calculated* guesses. But consider the following rewording of your statement: "all we are doing is making highly accurate guesses without knowing why that is so."

If I could accurately guess which stocks will go up each day, I would soon be the richest man on earth. If I could accurately guess which chemicals would cure cancer, I could add many years of life to millions of people. Even if I have no idea why it works, it may nevertheless, be very beneficial to many people. That is the primary reason people seek to find causes for desirable effects. For the intellectually curious, it would be nice to gain an understanding of why and how each of these causes produce the desired effect. But benefits exists, even in the total absence of any such understanding.

When looked at in this way, there seems to be a clear distinction between technology and science. The first is satisfied with simply obtaining the benefit. The second seeks to understand why and how each newly discovered cause produces the effect. But the distinction is not really so clear. If one could guess the form of a new theory of everything, that was subsequently verified to actually work, no one would care that the theory was obtained via a guess - you would get a Nobel Prize regardless.

Personally, I do not view the role of science to be that of "explaining nature." It cannot do so. Its role is to describe nature. But that includes describing how to bring about (cause) any desired effect, including the ability to predict the future behavior of physical systems, via deductive logic.

Rob McEachern

"The fundamental flaw with this paradox is that it does not tell us anything about what caused the initial 'something' to exist in the first place"

That is True. And nothing ever will. Not Science. Not Religion. Nothing. And that is why Science (as opposed to scientists) does not even try to determine a "first cause". Science is content to merely find causes for desired effects.

Rob McEachern

Manuel,

In many ways your approach is interesting and fascinating.

Antoine Acke.

You are correct Manuel. You are talking about a first cause. My point is that the first cause has been talked about for thousands of years. All talk and no action; after all of that time, no one, including you, has ever even succeeded in producing a logical demonstration that such a cause even exists, much less identified what it is.

The problem is, that deductive logic, the only type known to be capable of producing *certain* conclusions, given a starting premise, cannot be used to prove the premise. Hence, all "well reasoned" logical arguments, can only be demonstrated to be wrong or questionable, by demonstrating that the premise is false or dubious. Your starting premise, namely that a first cause exists, has been shown to be dubious; it cannot be shown to be true and it cannot be shown to be false - it is thus rendered dubious.

You stated that "You are correct Rob, if and only if, they exist in the first place" . That is indeed true, but it is just the Anthropic principle. All it really says is that something, your car key, can exist if and only if whatever was necessary for it to exist also existed. It is logically possible for there to be an infinite regression of such things, and thus no "first". It is also logically possible for there to a a circular chain of causes, rather than a linear one, so again, there is no "first", there is just an endless cycle. And that, of course, is why it is possible to debate the "first cause" in an endless cycle. Consequently, we do not need to agree to disagree, in order to break-out of this cycle. We only need to agree to break-out. Which is exactly my point. We do *not* need to directly select a "cause" or "reason" for the break-out, such as agreeing to disagree. We only have to directly select the break-out itself.

I shall.

Rob McEachern

Dear Manual,

There is a concept, well known to the quantum information community, that

determines in what precise sense there is no destiny

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

Mutually unbiased bases play a fundamental role in many tasks of quantum information processing. There is no cause, just a set of possibilities with equal probability as soon as you select a mesaurement base uncorrelated (unbiased) to your previous choices.

I suspect that this concept may be useful for you.

In my essay, I am working at something quite different but structurally related, that you may wish to read.

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1789

Best wishes,

Michel