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  • Quantum Physics and the End of Reality by Sabine Hossenfelder and Carlo Rovelli

rbartlett

Since the human species will almost certainly be extinct, eons before the sun's red-giant phase, I don't worry too much about it anymore. I am presently more concerned by that fact that the sub-species of humans, known as "theoretical physicists", appears to have already become extinct; their former ecological niche has now been taken over by mathematicians, more interested in proving theorems, than in seriously examining the supposed relevance of those theorems to anything existing in the real, physical world, outside of idealistic thought-experiments.

The quintessential example of this, is their belief that quantum "particles" must be identical/indistinguishable. The mathematicians themselves, have no idea how to manufacture/produce such idealistic entities, yet they persist in their belief that "Mother Nature" does, and consequently, that the physical world must be constructed entirely, out of such idealistic entities.

But as I demonstrated years ago, by following Shannon's "recipe" for constructing non-identical "particles", that just happen to manifest only one, single bit of his "Information", it is easy to produce classical objects that behave exactly like quantum objects, in "Bell tests", in spite of all the supposed "theorems" that purport to prove that to be impossible. But 75 years ago, Shannon proved that one sequence of random noise can easily be distinguished from another, even when that other happens to be submerged beneath an entire ocean of other noise; just use that one sequence as a "matched filter", to detect the other. In other words, a quantum particle just uses itself as the "matched filter."

It is also easy to demonstrate, that Shannon's "recipe" for a single bit of "information", corresponds precisely, to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

A "quantum" is nothing more than the physical manifestation of a single bit of Shannon's "Information."

Your very first statement - "the human species will almost certainly be extinct, eons before the sun's red-giant phase" - is so predictable. I know enough about 21st century humans to realize that it's impossible for me to change your mind. (Your conviction seems to rest on the assumption that human nature can never fundamentally change.) Nevertheless, I will point out that Claude Shannon's Information Theory indicates that everybody will live on after our present brains and bodies die. Consciousness continues after death because the particles in the brain and the quantum particles in the universe share identical composition at the most fundamental level - they're "physical manifestation of Shannon's information". You'll disagree that my previous comments can be accurate, and thus be exactly like those theoretical physicists and mathematicians you criticize. But if you'll bear with me - and what you'd call a fantasy - for a few seconds, living on after death means you (and the rest of the human species) will actually be alive and well in billions of years.

    rbartlett

    everybody will live on after our present brains and bodies die.

    An important part of "everybody", is their body. Even if you could perfectly copy their personalities and consciousness into another form, such as a robot, that would not be sufficient to make the robots, newly formed members of the human species.

    Your conviction seems to rest on the assumption that human nature can never fundamentally change.

    My conviction is that "human nature" can, and very probably will, change. But once it does, the resulting beings, manifesting that new nature, will no longer be human. They will be a new species.

    the particles in the brain and the quantum particles in the universe share identical composition at the most fundamental level

    So do bacteria and mosquitoes; that does not give them all an equal claim to possessing a "human nature."
    The number 12345 also shares "identical composition" with the numbers 54321 and 14325. But that is not sufficient to make them the same number. Recognizing that they are different, is what information detection, is all about. As I noted above - "one sequence of random noise can easily be distinguished from another."

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