Rescuing Reality

Robert McEachern

You got it. People, especially mathematical physicists and philosophers (Aristotle in particular), want math to be something other than what it is. Math is nothing more than a symbolic language for describing relationships. In physics, it can be used to describe how things behave. But it can never reveal the cause for why they behave as they do, which is what so many really want to know, and want math and deductive logic to provide. The reason for this is simple: math identities cannot be physical identities. a(b+c) = ab+ac only describes the final outcome, not the mechanism/algorithm/"physical reality" (one multiplier versus two) that caused the outcome. To say that a math identity even exists, is to say that there does not exist a unique mechanism for obtaining any given value - the two sides of the identity are not in fact "physically" identical - only their "values" are identical. It is ultimately no different than saying that five pennies do not make a nickel, physically, but do add up to one mathematically. Hence, entirely different, often wildly different, physical interpretations (underlying mechanisms) can be assigned to the same math equation, because math identities enable one to rearrange the equation into a different form, thereby implying a different physical mechanism for evaluating the equation. Which form did Mother Nature chose to use? The math cannot answer that question. Only an actual observation, of Mother Nature's chosen form, in operation, can answer the question.

Rob McEachern

jim hughes

The words "physical" and "exist" have no non-circular definitions. I'd say that in fact, they have no meaning. And continued insistence that there obviously is - or has to be - a "objective physical reality" contributes nothing and is only holding us back. Is this Copenhagen? If so, that's where we need to go.

Robert McEachern

"The words "physical" and "exist" have no non-circular definitions. I'd say that in fact, they have no meaning."

You got it. The problem is, the same is true of all short symbols, including all words. Their information content (in the Shannon sense) is too small for them to contain any intrinsic meaning at all, so all such meanings are simply made-up and slapped on extrinsically. The issue is; Is there even any possibility that there might be a one-to-one relationship, between any such set of symbols, and a corresponding set of "things" in "physical reality"? The answer, in some cases is "no" - when the number of symbols differs from the number of things "out there", there is no possibility for a one-to-one relationship. If you employ too many components (like spin components) in your symbolic description of reality (how spin behaves), then there can be no possibility whatsoever, of any one-to-one relationship with reality, if spin "in reality" only has one observable component. Assuming that there is a one-to-one relationship (I ought to be able to measure more independent, uncorrelated compoments!), is why QM interpretations seem so weird.

Rob McEachern

jim hughes

Like so many other things, the definitions of words are relative. A dictionary defines words in terms of other words. But there are a couple of words that don't fit in that scheme; their "definitions" are just lists of synonyms. I think that's significant - they're not just outliers, they're outside our system of meaning. Look up "exist" and you get something like "to have being".

Can someone claim to have a theory that proves there's something "physical", without defining the term? I'd say no, it would just be more hand-waving.

Georgina Woodward

Robert, I'm sorry my earlier posts could have been clearer. I am not talking about influence on the result of a second measurement on the same particle but the second measurement I mention is the first one done on the "entangled" partner.

In regard to the 'Selection pressure' description I have been thinking that the filtering out of some of the photons is like natural selection culling those individuals who can not survive the challenge and an analogy for the alteration of the surviving population is the epigenetic change that allows new phenotypes to be expressed by the genotypes that remain. The remaining population is not merely the pre-polarizer population minus some photons.

Robert McEachern

Some things are much easier to define by what they are not, than by what they are. Scientific theories, for example, cannot be proven or verified under any circumstance - later observations may necessitate revisions. But they can be falsified. And so can their interpretations. The long-standing claim that no classical system can reproduce Bell-like correlations has now been falsified. See the link at the top of this page; note also that there is no reference to any physical laws at all, either quantum or classical - it is pure math. As I noted in a FQXI essay contest several years ago, physicists have been mistaking the properties of the mathematical symbology that they use to describe reality, for properties of "physical reality itself" for a long time.

As for what exists, as Descartes noted centuries ago, the only thing that we know exists, with certainty, is our own thoughts. Hence, applying the point made above, "physical reality" might be best defined as that which exists, independently of our own thought.

Rob McEachern

Robert McEachern

There is no "filtering out" in the Bell tests. Every particle that is ever detected is detected. The detection is the measurement. Where there has been no detection, there can be no measurement.

Rob McEachern

jim hughes

What "exists, independently of our own thought" is, most obviously, the set of rules governing those experiences. There's an independent framework to our reality in terms of what can and can't happen. There is consciousness, there is experience, there are laws governing that experience. I don't recall making those laws or specifying the initial conditions, so I regard them as existing independently.

But to me the word "physical" adds nothing to the discussion, it's an empty concept, it's just sounds in the air. What exists between observations is apparently wave function, a probability distribution of what those observations might turn out to be. It makes little sense to debate whether it's "physical"; we might as well say it's "divine". Physicists would find the latter claim meaningless and unscientific, but they don't apply the same skepticism to the former.

Georgina Woodward

Hi Jim ,

you mention thought, experience, consciousness but you don't mention the thinker or any other material thing,the necessary "Beables". There cannot just be the measurement information without the measuring apparatus and its actual settings. There cannot be a thinking, experiencing, conscious observer providing that (output)information without the beable apparatus that perpetuates him/her/it's function/ viability (I mean a working body). Physical is perhaps too broad as it refers to both existing and seen things. But it seems to me to distinguish between the theoretical and the actual. Beable is a good word though it applies not just to material objects but also things like the settings of apparatus. Not the measurable but still an important, not irrelevant part of an experiment.

Robert McEachern

Jim,

The debate is only indirectly about if something "physical" exists. A physical cause for the observed behavior exists, by assumption (it is assumed there is no divine intervention etc.) The debate is about what "causes" the observed behavior. Is a wave-function causing it, or, by using math-identities, can the wave-function be totally rearranged, so as to completely disappear from the equation, thus leading one to reinterpret the equations as having a completely different, cause. I vote for the latter: it has already been done - the reinterpreted equation has no wave-function in it at all - it describes a histogram, which is why the whole process results in a probability distribution. Consequently, there is no reason to suppose that wave-functions are any more physical than unicorns - they exist - but only as conceptions within our thoughts. Being based on a math-identity, the wave-functions necessarily yield the identical result as the histogram - but provide only an absurd interpretation of the cause.

In this sense, "wave-function" is a term that is no different than "dark matter"; it is merely the name for an unknown cause, for a known behavior - the probabilistic behavior of a histogram process/operation.

Rob McEachern

jim hughes

I wasn't trying to present my inventory of what exists. Clearly I exist, my perceptions and observations exist, some framework of law, possibility and initial conditions exists. These things make up reality.

My intent was to try and separate the words "exist" and "physical"; one has meaning, the other does not. It's true that definitions of both are circular, but "exist" has intuitive meaning on which we all must to some extent agree. "Physical", in my opinion, no longer does.

To be fair, the word "physical" doesn't appear in this article, but it does present these ideas as a way to restore "realism". And I think in this context, realism implies "physicality" which I'm asserting is just a redundant word, not a meaningful concept.

Robert McEachern

Clearly things like thoughts and numbers exist. But if the sky and the earth exist, they are clearly a different type of thing than "insubstantial" thoughts and numbers. So what would you call such "substantial" things, if not "physical"? Realism and physicality are not the same concept. The laws of physics do not apply to numbers or thoughts or ghosts, but they do apply to the substances making up the earth and sky etc. "Rescuing Reality" is about identifying "substantial" rather than "insubstantial" (mental or spiritual etc.) causes for the behaviors of observed "substances".

Bear in mind that the etymology of the word "physical", derives from terms meaning "of or pertaining to material nature". Consequently, if one believes in things like Platonic forms and supernatural entities (as most early scientists did), then material nature does not encompass all that exists.

Rob McEachern

Georgina Woodward

Being seen is one of the criteria that can be used to say something is physical. However that definition does not take into account the sensory process. Both information source and observed output are actual' existings/happenings'and not merely theoretical. Both can be included as physical and may be usefully differentiated as physical actualisations and physical manifestations.

Georgina Woodward

Robert, sorry for being unclear once again. My second paragraph was just about polarizers not Bell's tests.

The polarizer is interesting because it is both providing a selection and a provocation, it seems to me. By provocation I mean it is inciting a response rather than being inconsequential inert measuring apparatus.

jim hughes

Robert,

If I were to continue in this vein I'd feel like I was hijacking the discussion thread and moving too far away from the original article. From this point forward we'd really be discussing idealism vs. materialism and my point of view is basically that of George Berkeley. In my dreams, I'm his disciple and interpreter for the 21st century.

Robert McEachern

I think Berkeley's ideas on perception were interesting in their time. But he overlooked the same minimalist case being overlooked by today's physicists: if there is only a single bit of information present, to ever be perceived within something, do you really think you can form multiple, independent perceptions of it? Such a minimal perception only requires a minimal mind (no mind at all) in order to perceive it - simply behaving as if it even exists (exhibiting any behavior at all, even just being deflected by its presence), is all that it takes. If you cannot detect that a substance even exists, then phenomenon like "quantum tunneling" right through it, is not only possible, but inevitable.

By the way, are you familiar with the Closer To Truth website? There are a lot of interesting philosophical interviews, in addition to scientific ones.

Rob McEachern

jim hughes

Yes I've seen the Closer To The Truth site. My initial impression was one of yet another attempt to sell the public on the view that science and traditional (i.e. Christian) religion are somehow on an equal basis and that some sort of amalgam is the way forward. I don't agree.

James Putnam

Jack Sarfatti said:

"FTL violates relativity.

Back From The Future does not."

Steve Dufourny said:

"We cannot travel in time ... "

Steve can speak for himself, but, my understanding of his meaning is that we cannot travel back to the past or jump forward into the future and he is, of course, correct.

Jack Sarfatti's claim that we can go from the future to the past is empirically unsupportable. Time has never been included as a unique fundamental property in physics equations. The 't' in physics equations represents a count of cyclic object activity. Objects may be able to cycle in reverse, but even theorists can't travel back in time.

Eckard Blumschein

Tom,

Attraction as well as repulsion are mutual phenomena. That's why I cannot imagine unilateral propagation of them like propagation of light. Steve A's biphotonic argument sounds appealing to me.

Elsewhere I found an other possibly good idea of him concerning decay.

Did you deal with it? Did you deal with Rob's opinion concerning entanglement?

Admittedly I didn't read all postings, and I am still suspecting that phase in QM might be elated to a mathematical artifact of complex representation. Nature hardly exhibits perfect mirror symmetries.

Elsewhere I am waiting for your reply concerning my Fig. 1. While the ordinary time scale is best suited for ubiquitous not yet local comparison, the scale of elapsed time is the natural one for local description.

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Eckard Blumschein

Tom,

Hopefully you didn't overlook my questions.

Considering retrocausality one more unnecessary attempt to rescue silly speculations, I quote Jim: "initial conditions exists". Do initial conditions really exist on the same level as do observable physical quantities? Definitely not. Rob is correct. Someone who used to operate with initioal conditions knows that they are arbitrarily chosen starting points of mathematical models. Strictly speaking, there are in reality no starting points. Adam and Eve are fairy tales.

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