
The Quantum Mystics - acangiano
http://math-blog.com/2010/10/03/the-quantum-mystics/
======
gacba
There has always been a dichotomy between those who understand the science,
what it tries to explain, the limits on those explanations, and those who
simply latch on to the terminology out of convenience. _What the Bleep Do We
Know?_ was a terrible offender in the latter, although a fun exercise in
mental masturbation nonetheless. Unfortunately, those who are in the latter
camp will not (or cannot) understand the implications of this article...

~~~
niels_olson
I must say, this article also strikes me as mental masturbation. He puts
introduces concepts in a way that is academically very disjointed, but the
juxtapositions might seem plausible to a casual reader of popular science
books, eg,

> The basic Schrodinger Equation which describes the electron in the hydrogen
> atom approximately (the electron is a spin 1/2 particle which is exactly
> described by the Dirac Equation) is <LaTeX of the time-dependent Schrodinger
> equation>

Having studied quantum mechanics, I think, if anything, this article
highlights why physicists occasionally state that no one understands quantum
mechanics. The concepts simply cannot be adequately compressed into manageable
English sentences, but the trained mind can genuinely operate on the problems
using the symbolic language of math, then return to English to express the
results. It's sort of like flipping from one programming language to another:
they might all be Turing complete, but no one is implemented a sed VM in
browsers. For that matter, I wonder if native speakers of highly iconographic
languages like Chinese are able to approach such challenges.

------
lisper
> Why does one interaction or “observation” appear to collapse the wave
> function and another does not? To be sure, there is probably some hand-
> waving explanation of this seeming problem with quantum mechanics in the
> advanced physics research literature. But really, is it understood? Probably
> not.

Actually, this is quite well understood.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_decoherence>

<http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf>

~~~
ThomPete
It's not really well understood.

Decoherence is an approximation it speaks of the appearance.

The problem with QM isn't mathematic or experimental. It's philosophical.

In other words it just doesn't make sense even though it's as proven as
classical physics.

You got non-locality up against locality (or discreet)

Both are true. This is the paradox and no interpretation fully explains QM.

~~~
Retric
It's well understood in that we have a model which explains what happens to a
high degree of accuracy.

Unfortunately while people understand how to use the model it does not seem
intuitive. IMO, that just means that while humanity understands it people
don't.

PS: I would argue that the same split occurs in several areas. I don't think
any one person really understands a modern CPU, but get a large enough group
of people together and we can still build them.

~~~
ThomPete
I am not sure I understand what you mean with this:

 _"that just means that while humanity understands it people don't."_

~~~
grhino
This is what I think he means.

Considered as a whole rather than individual persons, humanity understands how
to apply quantum mechanics, in particular, to collapse the wave function.
However, few or no individuals actually intuitively understand the subtle
details of modern quantum mechanics.

If you can take the perspective of humanity as an entity which can
"understand" things, then humanity knows a lot more than any individual knows.

~~~
ThomPete
There are many things that humans know intuitively and have known for
centuries. They just haven't known why something works a given way.

It's the ability to explain it that makes you understand it.

~~~
Retric
Plenty of people teach QM, but they don't have an intuitive understanding of
it. Evolution has enabled us to have a solid grasp of what baseballs do, but
things 1/1,000,000,000,000,000,000,00th of that volume don't behave like
baseballs.

~~~
ThomPete
Yes they teach the math and the experiments like Bells theorem. They teach
what we know about QM.

But that is not the same as there is nothing more to understand, that all
puzzles have been solved.

There are how many different interpretations of QM?

10+ well known and however many not so known.

None of them are able to explain everything without:

1\. Introducing some kind of quantum weirdness 2\. Asking for a leap of faith
3\. Explains it in n dimensions but doesn't allow for predictions.

------
gort
The author lost me at "The evolution and growth of modern science has been
accompanied by the adoption of a militant, materialistic, reductionist, and
atheistic creed by many leading scientists and popularizers of science".

~~~
itistoday
I think he's quite right about that.

~~~
gort
He says it like it's a bad thing.

Militancy: the view that it's OK to tell people that they are wrong.

Materialism: the expectation that things are made up of stuff that can be
investigated by empirical experiment; which is to say, physics.

Reductionism: the expectation that what things do is explained by what the
things they're made of are doing [plus whatever outside influences exist, of
course].

Atheism: the view that gods need explaining as much as anything else.

~~~
itistoday
_He says it like it's a bad thing._

It certainly can be.

 _Militancy: the view that it's OK to tell people that they are wrong._

This would be OK if the people to whom they were saying this to were actually
wrong. The truth is quite often they don't have any evidence for this. For
example, if a mystic were to go to the average physicist and tell them that
they were God and they had created the Universe, they would laugh in the
mystic's face, yet that doesn't mean the mystic is incorrect, it just means
the physicist did not understand the mystic, nor were they inclined to attempt
to do so. This sort of militarism is a block to knowledge and understanding.

 _Reductionism: the expectation that what things do is explained by what the
things they're made of are doing (what else would you expect - some sort of
soul that imparts unexpected properties?)_

Reductionism assumes that fundamentally everything is made up of individual
parts, a "lego-theory of the world" if you will, yet this is not what the
known physics itself says is happening. Take the case of quantum entanglement,
you have two "things" that yet act as one. Physicists are still baffled by
this. Legos do not behave this way.

Further, it must be acknowledged that even if everything is made up of
"individual parts", these parts interact with one another, and hence they are
not truly individual and separate, their behavior and any meaning that can be
attributed to them requires the simultaneous acceptance of all other parts of
the system, the understanding of mutual-interdependence (a mystical concept).
Without the rest of the parts, the individual components are without meaning
themselves. Meaning only arises out of the relationship between the various
components, and that does not fit with the reductionist viewpoint.

 _Atheism: the view that gods need explaining as much as anything else._

No, atheism is the outright rejection of the idea of God. It is a religious
belief in itself that requires a faith in the non-existence of any sort of
God. It does not ask for an explanation of God, for if it did it would have to
accept the possibility of a God.

~~~
ThomPete
_No, atheism is the outright rejection of the idea of God. It is a religious
belief in itself that requires a faith in the non-existence of any sort of
God. It does not ask for an explanation of God, for if it did it would have to
accept the possibility of a God._

This is pure nonsense. Kindergarden logic.

I am an atheist because I don't have god in my life. I live without god. It's
not a non-belief in god. It's simply that I don't believe in this thing that
someone claim exist any more than I believe that we are living in the matrix
or that advanced aliens created us.

If we are to follow your line of reasoning then all believers who are only
allowed to have one god would be going against their belief by not believing
in the thousands of other gods out there.

~~~
itistoday
_I am an atheist because I don't have god in my life. I live without god. It's
not a non-belief in god. It's simply that I don't believe in this thing that
someone claim exist any more than I believe that we are living in the matrix
or that advanced aliens created us._

You accuse me of spouting nonsense, yet you actually make two contradictory
claims:

1) "It's not a non-belief in god."

2) "It's simply that I don't believe in this thing" (thing referring to "god")

Statement #2 is clearly an admission that you hold a non-belief in god.

I think part of the problem here is that you do have a belief in God. You
believe "God" to refer to some specific thing, and it is that thing that you
choose not to believe in. Whatever that is, I don't know, but if you assume
that the word "God" has a clear and singular definition, well, then you don't
know very much about religion, do you? :-)

But that doesn't seem to be the case, it just sounds like you might be a
little confused, as in your last sentence, you demonstrate an understanding
that there are in fact multiple definitions for the word "god".

So, what is atheism then, really? Wikipedia gives the following definition:

    
    
      Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of 
      deities.[1] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there 
      are no deities.[2] Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that
      any deities exist.[3] 
    

We must then investigate further, because this definition begs the question of
what is meant by the word "deity". A click and we get this definition:

    
    
      A deity[1] is a postulated preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may 
      be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by
      believers, often religiously referred to as a god.
    

Here I think the relevant word is not "immortal", for there may in fact be
something that is immortal (the universe is immortal), but rather
"preternatural" and "supernatural".

And that is were the crux is. For the mystics do not believe that God is
supernatural or "preternatural". This is not the notion of God as understood
in Hinduism or Buddhism, for example. In those religions, God _is_ natural.
God _is_ nature.

So, if you identify as an atheist, and by that you mean you disbelieve in a
God that is outside of nature, then I think that is just fine (and fairly
unremarkable), but if you disbelieve also in the second type of God, the one
who is one with nature, then that is another thing entirely. You may in fact
believe in God, but you just might not have known about the various meanings
of that word.

~~~
ThomPete
You apparently forgot what your claim was:

 _No, atheism is the outright rejection of the idea of God. It is a religious
belief in itself that requires a faith in the non-existence of any sort of
God._

And you also forgot one definition. Namely that of religion:

 _Religion is the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or a set of beliefs
concerning the origin and purpose of the universe._

Please explain what god or gods i believe by not believing in god?

Please explain what atheists believe in?

I am an atheist by definition. Not by belief.

~~~
itistoday
_You apparently forgot what your claim was:

No, atheism is the outright rejection of the idea of God. It is a religious
belief in itself that requires a faith in the non-existence of any sort of
God._

Yes, you are right to point that out; after looking up the definition on
wikipedia I saw the nuance regarding "supernatural" and expounded upon that
above.

 _And you also forgot one definition. Namely that of religion:_

How so? I generally tend to agree with that definition of religion. Notice how
physics overlaps that (cosmology and TOEs specifically).

 _Please explain what god or gods i believe by not believing in god?

Please explain what atheists believe in?_

I already addressed this above. If you have a specific question let me know.

~~~
ThomPete
No you didn't address it.

You argue as if you know what my belief is.

So I ask you again. What is my belief? What is it that I believe in that makes
me religious. Which god do I believe in?

~~~
itistoday
You said you were an atheist, and I went through what the commonly accepted
definition of that was. I quoted it. That is what atheism is. If you call
yourself an atheist, then that is what you believe, unless you call yourself
an atheist yet hold beliefs that are different from what atheism is understood
to be, in which case, you might want to choose another word.

~~~
ThomPete
Again what is it that I believe?

That I don't believe in god's or boogymen or dragons?

Is that a belief? Then surely the word itself is meaningless.

If you say that non-belief is a religion then all religions that only allow
for one god consist of people who daily do what is forbidden by their own
religion by not believing in the thousands of gods that exist.

~~~
itistoday
_That I don't believe in god's or boogymen or dragons?_

My assertion, as I explained, is that you have a poor understanding of the
various meanings of the word "God". If that is so, then you might be missing
something important. It's fine not to believe in a "pink elephant", but doing
a quick Google search will show you that there are in fact things that exist
and go by that name.

If you're still in disagreement and would like to take this conversation to a
satisfactory conclusion, feel free to contact me via email. You'll find it via
the link in my profile. I think I am done refreshing the page for this thread
for today though.

~~~
ThomPete
Well you are the one arguing that non-belief is religious. You still haven't
explained how that can live together with the apparently religious non-believe
in other gods that religious people are forced into by your reasoning.

Unless you are actually going to address that, I am afraid I don't see how any
satisfactory conclusion can be reached.

No biggie.

