Granville Sewell on origin of life as a provably unsolvable problem

_{Denyse O'Leary

April 30, 2021

Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Origin Of Life}

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Mathematician Granville Sewell uses a concept from mathematics by which a problem is proved to be unsolvable:

All one needs to do is realize that if a solution were found, we would have proved something obviously false, that a few (four, apparently) fundamental, unintelligent forces of physics alone could have rearranged the fundamental particles of physics into libraries full of science texts and encyclopedias, computers connected to monitors, keyboards, laser printers and the Internet, cars, trucks, airplanes, nuclear power plants and Apple iPhones.
Is this really a valid proof? It seems perfectly valid to me, as I cannot think of anything in all of science that can be stated with more confidence than that a few unintelligent forces of physics alone could not have rearranged the basic particles of physics into Apple iPhones. In the first half of my video “Why Evolution Is Different” I argue with a bit more scientific sophistication, and a bit more scientific detail, that problem #3 has no solution, but my arguments are still very simple. Unfortunately, most biologists don’t seem to be impressed by such simple proofs; they don’t believe it is possible to reject all solutions to a difficult problem without looking at the details of each. But mathematicians know that sometimes it is possible.
Granville Sewell, “Some Problems Can Be Proved Unsolvable” at Evolution News and Science Today

It’s been said that many biologists are poor mathematicians.

Here’s a vid where he makes the case:

Comments

Viola Lee, and if the measurement settings are not determined and/or super determined by any possible 'local' causal influences from our past space-time history, and yet we ourselves supposedly don't have free will in a real and meaningful sense that is necessary to choose the measurement settings for ourselves, then what possible non-local hidden variable is choosing the measurement settings for us and giving us the illusion that we are responsible for choosing the measurement settings for ourselves? I certainly haven't heard anything resembling a coherent argument against us having free will, in a real and meaningful sense, that is necessary to choose the measurement settings for ourselves. For Instance VL, do you believe, as Gordon apparently does, that he chose one measurement setting in this universe, but instantaneously another Gordon happens to appear in another parallel universe that just so happened to choose another measurement setting?
Too many worlds - Philip Ball - Feb. 17, 2015 Excerpt:,,, You measure the path of an electron, and in this world it seems to go this way, but in another world it went that way. That requires a parallel, identical apparatus for the electron to traverse. More – it requires a parallel you to measure it. Once begun, this process of fabrication has no end: you have to build an entire parallel universe around that one electron, identical in all respects except where the electron went. You avoid the complication of wavefunction collapse, but at the expense of making another universe.,,, http://aeon.co/magazine/science/is-the-many-worlds-hypothesis-just-a-fantasy/
I certainly don't think the preceding MWI scenario is anything close to being a coherent argument against us having free will in a real and meaningful sense that is necessary to choose the measurement settings for ourselves In fact, as I have stated several times now, I think the MWI is an insane belief for someone to hold. Even a stark raving mad belief for someone to hold. Of supplemental note, and to repeat for the fourth time on this thread, the MWI denies the reality of wave function collapse,
The many-worlds interpretation (MWI) is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that asserts that the universal wavefunction is objectively real, and that there is no wavefunction collapse.[2] - per wikipedia
,, but wave function collapse is now experimentally shown to be a real effect:
Quantum experiment verifies Einstein’s ‘spooky action at a distance’ – March 24, 2015 Excerpt: An experiment,, has for the first time demonstrated Albert Einstein’s original conception of “spooky action at a distance” using a single particle. ,,Professor Howard Wiseman and his experimental collaborators,, report their use of homodyne measurements to show what Einstein did not believe to be real, namely the non-local collapse of a (single) particle’s wave function.,, According to quantum mechanics, a single particle can be described by a wave function that spreads over arbitrarily large distances,,, ,, by splitting a single photon between two laboratories, scientists have used homodyne detectors—which measure wave-like properties—to show the collapse of the wave function is a real effect,, This phenomenon is explained in quantum theory,, the instantaneous non-local, (beyond space and time), collapse of the wave function to wherever the particle is detected.,,, “Einstein never accepted orthodox quantum mechanics and the original basis of his contention was this single-particle argument. This is why it is important to demonstrate non-local wave function collapse with a single particle,” says Professor Wiseman. “Einstein’s view was that the detection of the particle only ever at one point could be much better explained by the hypothesis that the particle is only ever at one point, without invoking the instantaneous collapse of the wave function to nothing at all other points. “However, rather than simply detecting the presence or absence of the particle, we used homodyne measurements enabling one party to make different measurements and the other, using quantum tomography, to test the effect of those choices.” “Through these different measurements, you see the wave function collapse in different ways, thus proving its existence and showing that Einstein was wrong.” https://phys.org/news/2015-03-quantum-einstein-spooky-action-distance.html
bornagain77_{May 28, 2021
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Hi Gordon. I haven't been following your discussion with BA, but I will say that back in February I also questioned his interpretation of the Zeilinger experiments. You might be interested in my post#65 here: Post 65 It starts,
FYI: I don’t think BA’s interpretation on Anton Zeilinger’s experiments means what he thinks it means. He think it means that humans have libertarian free will. What it really means is that the universe is not superdetermined, and that genuine quantum phenomena, including entanglement and probabilistic outcomes, occur without deterministic “hidden variables”. That is why it’s often written “free will” loophole, not free will loophole.
I also supplied some links to some relevant articles.Viola Lee_{May 28, 2021
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The specific statement that Einstein made to Carnap on the train, “The experience of ‘the now’ cannot be turned into an object of physical measurement, it can never be a part of physics.” was a very interesting statement for Einstein to make to the philosopher since “The experience of ‘the now’ has, from many recent experiments in quantum mechanics, established itself as very much being a defining part of our physical measurements in quantum mechanics. As the following experiment, (that was done with atoms instead of photons), found, “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,”,,, “The atoms did not travel from A to B. It was only when they were measured at the end of the journey that their wave-like or particle-like behavior was brought into existence,”
New Mind-blowing Experiment Confirms That Reality Doesn’t Exist If You Are Not Looking at It - June 3, 2015 Excerpt: Some particles, such as photons or electrons, can behave both as particles and as waves. Here comes a question of what exactly makes a photon or an electron act either as a particle or a wave. This is what Wheeler’s experiment asks: at what point does an object ‘decide’? The results of the Australian scientists’ experiment, which were published in the journal Nature Physics, show that this choice is determined by the way the object is measured, which is in accordance with what quantum theory predicts. “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,” said lead researcher Dr. Andrew Truscott in a press release.,,, “The atoms did not travel from A to B. It was only when they were measured at the end of the journey that their wave-like or particle-like behavior was brought into existence,” he said. Thus, this experiment adds to the validity of the quantum theory and provides new evidence to the idea that reality doesn’t exist without an observer. http://themindunleashed.org/2015/06/new-mind-blowing-experiment-confirms-that-reality-doesnt-exist-if-you-are-not-looking-at-it.html
Likewise, the following violation of Leggett's inequality stressed the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we're not observing it.
Quantum physics says goodbye to reality - Apr 20, 2007 Excerpt: They found that, just as in the realizations of Bell's thought experiment, Leggett's inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we're not observing it. "Our study shows that 'just' giving up the concept of locality would not be enough to obtain a more complete description of quantum mechanics," Aspelmeyer told Physics Web. "You would also have to give up certain intuitive features of realism." http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/27640
The Mind First and/or Theistic implications of quantum experiments such as the preceding are fairly obvious. As Professor Scott Aaronson of MIT once quipped, “Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists,,, But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!”
“Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists who think the world sprang into existence on October 23, 4004 BC at 9AM (presumably Babylonian time), with the fossils already in the ground, light from distant stars heading toward us, etc. But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!” – Scott Aaronson – MIT associate Professor quantum computation – Lecture 11: Decoherence and Hidden Variables
Besides such experiments as the preceding from quantum mechanics demonstrating that "reality does not exist when we're not observing it", it is now also found that “quantum mechanics can even mimic an influence of future actions on past events”
Quantum physics mimics spooky action into the past – April 23, 2012 Excerpt: According to the famous words of Albert Einstein, the effects of quantum entanglement appear as “spooky action at a distance”. The recent experiment has gone one remarkable step further. “Within a naïve classical world view, quantum mechanics can even mimic an influence of future actions on past events”, says Anton Zeilinger. http://phys.org/news/2012-04-quantum-physics-mimics-spooky-action.html Quantum Weirdness Now a Matter of Time – 2016 Bizarre quantum bonds connect distinct moments in time, suggesting that quantum links — not space-time — constitute the fundamental structure of the universe. Excerpt: Not only can two events be correlated, linking the earlier one to the later one, but two events can become correlated such that it becomes impossible to say which is earlier and which is later.,,, “If you have space-time, you have a well-defined causal order,” said Caslav Brukner, a physicist at the University of Vienna who studies quantum information. But “if you don’t have a well-defined causal order,” he said — as is the case in experiments he has proposed — then “you don’t have space-time.”,,, Quantum correlations come first, space-time later. Exactly how does space-time emerge out of the quantum world? Bruner said he is still unsure. https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160119-time-entanglement/
And as the following 2017 article states, “a decision made in the present can influence something in the past.”
Physicists provide support for retrocausal quantum theory, in which the future influences the past July 5, 2017 by Lisa Zyga Excerpt: retrocausality means that, when an experimenter chooses the measurement setting with which to measure a particle, that decision can influence the properties of that particle (or another particle) in the past, even before the experimenter made their choice. In other words, a decision made in the present can influence something in the past. https://phys.org/news/2017-07-physicists-retrocausal-quantum-theory-future.html
And to clearly drive this point further home, in the following 2018 article Professor Crull provocatively states “entanglement can occur across two quantum systems that never coexisted,,, it implies that the measurements carried out by your eye upon starlight falling through your telescope this winter somehow dictated the polarity of photons more than 9 billion years old.”
You thought quantum mechanics was weird: check out entangled time – Feb. 2018 Excerpt: Just when you thought quantum mechanics couldn’t get any weirder, a team of physicists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem reported in 2013 that they had successfully entangled photons that never coexisted. Previous experiments involving a technique called ‘entanglement swapping’ had already showed quantum correlations across time, by delaying the measurement of one of the coexisting entangled particles; but Eli Megidish and his collaborators were the first to show entanglement between photons whose lifespans did not overlap at all.,,, Up to today, most experiments have tested entanglement over spatial gaps. The assumption is that the ‘nonlocal’ part of quantum nonlocality refers to the entanglement of properties across space. But what if entanglement also occurs across time? Is there such a thing as temporal nonlocality?,,, The data revealed the existence of quantum correlations between ‘temporally nonlocal’ photons 1 and 4. That is, entanglement can occur across two quantum systems that never coexisted. What on Earth can this mean? Prima facie, it seems as troubling as saying that the polarity of starlight in the far-distant past – say, greater than twice Earth’s lifetime – nevertheless influenced the polarity of starlight falling through your amateur telescope this winter. Even more bizarrely: maybe it implies that the measurements carried out by your eye upon starlight falling through your telescope this winter somehow dictated the polarity of photons more than 9 billion years old. https://aeon.co/ideas/you-thought-quantum-mechanics-was-weird-check-out-entangled-time
Moreover, not only does “quantum mechanics show us that “a decision made in the present can influence something in the past.”, but quantum mechanics also shows us that our present conscious choices ultimately determine what type of future will be presented to us in our measurements of quantum systems. As leading experimentalist Anton Zeilinger states in the following video, “what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.”
“The Kochen-Speckter Theorem talks about properties of one system only. So we know that we cannot assume – to put it precisely, we know that it is wrong to assume that the features of a system, which we observe in a measurement exist prior to measurement. Not always. I mean in certain cases. So in a sense, what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.” Anton Zeilinger – Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism – video (7:17 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4C5pq7W5yRM#t=437
As well, with contextuality we find that, “In the quantum world, the property that you discover through measurement is not the property that the system actually had prior to the measurement process. What you observe necessarily depends on how you carried out the observation”
Contextuality is ‘magic ingredient’ for quantum computing – June 11, 2012 Excerpt: Contextuality was first recognized as a feature of quantum theory almost 50 years ago. The theory showed that it was impossible to explain measurements on quantum systems in the same way as classical systems. In the classical world, measurements simply reveal properties that the system had, such as colour, prior to the measurement. In the quantum world, the property that you discover through measurement is not the property that the system actually had prior to the measurement process. What you observe necessarily depends on how you carried out the observation. Imagine turning over a playing card. It will be either a red suit or a black suit – a two-outcome measurement. Now imagine nine playing cards laid out in a grid with three rows and three columns. Quantum mechanics predicts something that seems contradictory – there must be an even number of red cards in every row and an odd number of red cards in every column. Try to draw a grid that obeys these rules and you will find it impossible. It’s because quantum measurements cannot be interpreted as merely revealing a pre-existing property in the same way that flipping a card reveals a red or black suit. Measurement outcomes depend on all the other measurements that are performed – the full context of the experiment. Contextuality means that quantum measurements can not be thought of as simply revealing some pre-existing properties of the system under study. That’s part of the weirdness of quantum mechanics. http://phys.org/news/2014-06-weird-magic-ingredient-quantum.html
Thus, Stanley Jaki’s contention that “There is no physical parallel to the mind’s ability to extend from its position in the momentary present to its past moments, or in its ability to imagine its future.”, is now experimentally established to be true by the fact that “a decision made in the present can influence something in the past.” and is also experimentally established by the fact that, “We are not just passive observers,,, what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure”. Thus, recent experiments in quantum mechanics, (contrary to what Einstein himself thought was possible for experimental physics), have now shown, in overwhelming fashion, that ‘the experience of the now’ is very much a part of experimental physics. In fact, due to advances in quantum mechanics, it would now be much more appropriate to rephrase Einstein’s answer to the philosopher Rudolph Carnap in this way:
“It is impossible for “the experience of ‘the now’” to ever be divorced from physical measurement, it will always be a part of physics.”
Gordon, you claimed that I should 'stretch your own mind a bit' and just accept the insane MWI contention that you currently exist in a veritable infinity of other places which are completely undetectable. In reply, I will ask you to accept that a foundational characteristic of the immaterial mind, , i.e. 'the experience of 'the now'', is now experimentally shown to be a foundational aspect of reality. And to also accept that it readily, and easily, explains why some of these experiments in quantum mechanics seem as weird to us as they do. Let's just say Gordon, to put it mildly, accepting the Christian Theist's "Mind First" view of reality is far more parsimonious in regards to its explanatory power, and also in regards to the evidence we now have in hand, than is postulating a veritable infinity of other undetectable Gordon's. Scientifically speaking, the comparison is not even close as to which of our explanations has more explanatory power.
Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
bornagain77_{May 28, 2021
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Gordon states,
I wasn’t asking for congratulations, I was just trying to explain my views… and hopefully get you to stretch your own mind a bit. But I guess your mental straitjacket is too strong for that.
So you consider it close minded of me to not play along with your insane belief that you hold it to be true, or at least hold it to be rational, that you are splitting into a veritable infinity of other equally real Gordons? Someone once said that it is good to have an open mind but not so open that your brains fall out. Clearly that quote applies more than ever now.
Prof. Walter Kotschnig (in 1940) told Holyoke College students to keep their minds open—“but not so open that your brains fall out.” He condemned the purpose of students who go to college merely to learn skill and urged his listeners to find the “real aim of education, to acquire a philosophy of life, intellectual honesty, and a constant search for truth.” - per quote investigator
Gordon then states,
And I see you also still think there’s something important about the free will loophole.
Anton Zeilinger himself, in one of his interviews (I can't recall exactly which one right now), said something to the effect that it was perhaps one of his most important experimental results that he has gotten. Gordon goes on,
Whether the loophole has been completely closed (as you seem to think) or only narrowed (as Zeilinger actually says) isn’t the main point. The main point is that closing the loophole doesn’t have much significance, and doesn’t have any significance to atheism.
Actually I have stated that the setting independence and/or free will loophole has been closed practically all the way back to the Big Bang itself a few times now in this thread. One time in the thread I said that the free will loophole was closed without throwing in the "practically all the way back to the Big Bang itself" part. With my emphasis of Hossenfelder's appeal to 'super-determinism' I thought I was being clear on that point. Sorry if I wasn't being clear enough. Gordon you also claimed that showing free will to be a real and tangible part of quantum experiments "doesn’t have much significance, and doesn’t have any significance to atheism." Other atheists, especially Darwinian atheists, who have spilled much ink denying the reality of free will, and defending determinism tooth and nail, would disagree with you.
THE ILLUSION OF FREE WILL - Sam Harris - 2012 Excerpt: "Free will is an illusion so convincing that people simply refuse to believe that we don’t have it." - Jerry Coyne https://samharris.org/the-illusion-of-free-will/ Free Will: Weighing Truth and Experience - Do our beliefs matter? - Mar 22, 2012 Excerpt: If we acknowledge just how much we don’t know about the conscious mind, perhaps we would be a bit more humble. We have so much confidence in our materialist assumptions (which are assumptions, not facts) that something like free will is denied in principle. Maybe it doesn’t exist, but I don’t really know that. Either way, it doesn’t matter because if free will and consciousness are just an illusion, they are the most seamless illusions ever created. Film maker James Cameron wishes he had special effects that good. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-brain-social-mind/201203/free-will-weighing-truth-and-experience Matthew D. Lieberman – neuroscientist – materialist – UCLA professor
Gordon, you go on to say that the experimental results only apply to local hidden variable theories and does not apply to non-local hidden variable theories. And even go so far as to claim that atheism is completely compatible with practically all of the interpretations of quantum mechanics. We'll leave the last claim you made about atheism basically being compatible with everything in quantum mechanics to one side for now. But as to your brushing Zeilinger's experimental results off with the remark, "closing the loophole doesn’t have much significance, and doesn’t have any significance to atheism." And as to your final remark that you made in that section, "I have no idea why you’re so obsessed with superdeterminism and Sabine Hossenfelder." Well Gordon, determinism, (and/or super-determinism), (which Darwinian materialists themselves hold to be a VERY big deal), holds that our thoughts are caused by the prior state of the 'material' particles of our brain. Yet, Quantum Mechanics flips that entire notion on its head and says that the 'material' particles, and/or the state of the 'material' particles, don't even exist until we choose, via our free will, how to measure them. In other words, instead of our thoughts being the product of the prior state of 'material' particles, our thoughts are instead shown to be prior to the existence of particles themselves. i.e. It is a fairly direct falsification of determinism (as determinism is commonly understood). Now Gordon, you have defined your particular brand of atheism as being compatible with practically everything within quantum mechanics. I find that to be, let's say, a fairly extravagant thing for you to do, (especially given the pushback that atheists have given over the years against many of the models that you listed). But anyways, be that as it may, I am still going to assume that you, as an atheist, still hold that we do not have immaterial minds and/or souls that are separate and distinct from our material brains, and/or our material bodies,. as is held as a primary presupposition within Christian Theism. Hopefully this is a safe assumption on my part, (and if your atheism is also compatible with the Christian contention that our immaterial mind is distinct and separate from the material brain, well then, I can see no difference whatsoever between your brand of atheism and Christian Theism). Now, there are several properties of the immaterial mind that are irreducible to the material brain. Dr. Michael Egnor, (who is a neurosurgeon as well as professor of neurosurgery at the State University of New York, Stony Brook), lists six properties of the immaterial mind that are irrediucible to the material brain as such, “Intentionality,,, Qualia,,, Persistence of Self-Identity,,, Restricted Access,,, Incorrigibility,,, and Free Will,,,”
The Mind and Materialist Superstition – Michael Egnor – 2008 Six “conditions of mind” that are irreconcilable with materialism: – Excerpt: Intentionality,,, Qualia,,, Persistence of Self-Identity,,, Restricted Access,,, Incorrigibility,,, Free Will,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/11/the_mind_and_materialist_super013961.html
Likewise, J. Warner Wallace has a very similar list, (but not an exact match to Dr. Egnor’s list), of six properties of immaterial mind that are irreducible to the material brain
Six reasons why you should believe in non-physical minds – 01/30/2014 1) First-person access to mental properties 2) Our experience of consciousness implies that we are not our bodies 3) Persistent self-identity through time 4) Mental properties cannot be measured like physical objects 5) Intentionality or About-ness 6) Free will and personal responsibility http://winteryknight.com/2014/01/30/six-reasons-why-you-should-believe-in-non-physical-minds/
For now, I will focus only on the specific immaterial mental attribute of the mind of "Persistent self-identity through time." ‘Persistence of Self-Identity through time’ (which may also be termed ‘the experience of ‘the Now”), although being a mental attribute which is irreducible to materialism, never-the-less, makes its presence clearly known to us in recent experimental evidence from quantum mechanics. As to defining the specific mental attribute of the ‘Persistence of Self-Identity through time’ (and/or ‘the experience of ‘the Now”) in particular, it is first important to note that we each have a unique perspective of being outside of time. In fact we each seemingly watch from some mysterious outside perspective of time as time seemingly passes us by. Simply put, we each seem to be standing on an little island of ‘now’ as the river of time continually flows past us. In the following video, Dr. Suarez states that the irresolvable dilemma for materialism as such, (paraphrase) “it is impossible for us to be 'persons' experiencing 'now' if we are nothing but particles flowing in space time. Moreover, for us to refer to ourselves as 'persons', we cannot refer to space-time as the ultimate substratum upon which everything exists, but must refer to a Person who is not bound by space time. (In other words) We must refer to God!”
Nothing: God's new Name - Antoine Suarez – video Paraphrased quote: (“it is impossible for us to be 'persons' experiencing 'now' if we are nothing but particles flowing in space time. Moreover, for us to refer to ourselves as 'persons', we cannot refer to space-time as the ultimate substratum upon which everything exists, but must refer to a Person who is not bound by space time. i.e. We must refer to God!”) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOr9QqyaLlA
In further defining the mental attribute of ‘the experience of the now’, in the following article Stanley Jaki states that “There can be no active mind without its sensing its existence in the moment called now.,,, ,,,There is no physical parallel to the mind’s ability to extend from its position in the momentary present to its past moments, or in its ability to imagine its future. The mind remains identical with itself while it lives through its momentary nows.”
The Mind and Its Now – Stanley L. Jaki, May 2008 Excerpts: There can be no active mind without its sensing its existence in the moment called now.,,, Three quarters of a century ago Charles Sherrington, the greatest modern student of the brain, spoke memorably on the mind’s baffling independence of the brain. The mind lives in a self-continued now or rather in the now continued in the self. This life involves the entire brain, some parts of which overlap, others do not. ,,,There is no physical parallel to the mind’s ability to extend from its position in the momentary present to its past moments, or in its ability to imagine its future. The mind remains identical with itself while it lives through its momentary nows. ,,, the now is immensely richer an experience than any marvelous set of numbers, even if science could give an account of the set of numbers, in terms of energy levels. The now is not a number. It is rather a word, the most decisive of all words. It is through experiencing that word that the mind comes alive and registers all existence around and well beyond. ,,, All our moments, all our nows, flow into a personal continuum, of which the supreme form is the NOW which is uncreated, because it simply IS. http://metanexus.net/essay/mind-and-its-now
And ‘the experience of ‘the now” also happens to be exactly where Albert Einstein got into trouble with leading philosophers of his day and also happens to be exactly where Einstein eventually got into trouble with quantum mechanics itself. Around 1935, Einstein was asked by Rudolf Carnap (who was a philosopher):
“Can physics demonstrate the existence of ‘the now’ in order to make the notion of ‘now’ into a scientifically valid term?” Rudolf Carnap - Philosopher
Einstein’s answer was ‘categorical’, he said: “The experience of ‘the now’ cannot be turned into an object of physical measurement, it can never be a part of physics.”
The Mind and Its Now – May 22, 2008 – By Stanley L. Jaki Excerpt: ,,, Rudolf Carnap, and the only one among them who was bothered with the mind’s experience of its now. His concern for this is noteworthy because he went about it in the wrong way. He thought that physics was the only sound way to know and to know anything. It was therefore only logical on his part that he should approach, we are around 1935, Albert Einstein, the greatest physicist of the day, with the question whether it was possible to turn the experience of the now into a scientific knowledge. Such knowledge must of course be verified with measurement. We do not have the exact record of Carnap’s conversation with Einstein whom he went to visit in Princeton, at eighteen hours by train at that time from Chicago. But from Einstein’s reply which Carnap jotted down later, it is safe to assume that Carnap reasoned with him as outlined above. Einstein’s answer was categorical: The experience of the now cannot be turned into an object of physical measurement. It can never be part of physics. http://metanexus.net/essay/mind-and-its-now
Prior to that encounter with Carnap, Einstein also had another disagreement with another famous philosopher, Henri Bergson, over what the proper definition of time should be (Bergson was also very well versed in the specific mental attribute of the ‘experience of the now’). In fact, that disagreement with Henri Bergson over what the proper definition of time should actually be was one of the primary reasons that Einstein failed to ever receive a Nobel prize for his work on relativity:
Einstein vs Bergson, science vs philosophy and the meaning of time – Wednesday 24 June 2015 Excerpt: The meeting of April 6 was supposed to be a cordial affair, though it ended up being anything but. ‘I have to say that day exploded and it was referenced over and over again in the 20th century,’ says Canales. ‘The key sentence was something that Einstein said: “The time of the philosophers did not exist.”’ It’s hard to know whether Bergson was expecting such a sharp jab. In just one sentence, Bergson’s notion of duration—a major part of his thesis on time—was dealt a mortal blow. As Canales reads it, the line was carefully crafted for maximum impact. ‘What he meant was that philosophers frequently based their stories on a psychological approach and [new] physical knowledge showed that these philosophical approaches were nothing more than errors of the mind.’ The night would only get worse. ‘This was extremely scandalous,’ says Canales. ‘Einstein had been invited by philosophers to speak at their society, and you had this physicist say very clearly that their time did not exist.’ Bergson was outraged, but the philosopher did not take it lying down. A few months later Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the law of photoelectric effect, an area of science that Canales noted, ‘hardly jolted the public’s imagination’. In truth, Einstein coveted recognition for his work on relativity. Bergson inflicted some return humiliation of his own. By casting doubt on Einstein’s theoretical trajectory, Bergson dissuaded the committee from awarding the prize for relativity. In 1922, the jury was still out on the correct interpretation of time. So began a dispute that festered for years and played into the larger rift between physics and philosophy, science and the humanities. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/science-vs-philosophy-and-the-meaning-of-time/6539568
bornagain77_{May 28, 2021
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Drc466 @ 89 (responding to my example of an entropy decrease & energy increase in #35):
For all three examples, the problem is that you are not accounting for the increase in entropy due to compression. So a compressed gas at the same temperature as a non-compressed gas has a higher entropy, not the same entropy. Therefore the final result of the compression process can only end in lowered entropy if the temperature of the gas decreases. While it is true that entropy (heat) is lost to the heat sinks in cases two and three, the lost heat is always less than the gain in entropy due to compression – otherwise the end state of the gas would be a lower temperature than when you started.
I think you're mistaken about compression increasing entropy... unless you're assuming a constant volume of gas? I'm assuming a constant amount of gas (i.e. a constant number of molecules) being squeezed into a smaller space. If you're thinking about compression via adding more gas to a constant volume, that would give an entropy increase, but that's not what I was describing (or at least, not what I was trying to describe). For the simple case of a monatomic ideal gas, you can derive the entropy decrease due to compression from the Sackur-Tetrode equation (see here for example) as DeltaS = N*k*ln(V_final/V_initial), which is clearly negative if V_final < V_initial. For realistic gasses, the math's going to be more complex, but the result'll be pretty similar.Gordon Davisson_{May 27, 2021
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Bornagain77 @ 94:
Bear in mind that others do not see your becoming comfortable with the idea that you exist in an veritable infinity of other places as an achievement of any sort but see it as a mental deterioration on your part..
I wasn't asking for congratulations, I was just trying to explain my views... and hopefully get you to stretch your own mind a bit. But I guess your mental straitjacket is too strong for that. And I see you also still think there's something important about the free will loophole.
As to closing the freedom of choice loophole, if it is all the same with you, I think I will stick with Anton Zeilinger and company when his says he closed the loophole, and not with your denial that he closed it.
Whether the loophole has been completely closed (as you seem to think) or only narrowed (as Zeilinger actually says) isn't the main point. The main point is that closing the loophole doesn't have much significance, and doesn't have any significance to atheism. Back in comment #90, you said:
Basically with super-determinism, and with the closing of the setting independence and/or ‘free will’ loop hole by Zeilinger and company, the Atheistic naturalist is now reduced to arguing that “a particle detector’s settings may “conspire” with events in the shared causal past of the detectors themselves to determine which properties of the particle to measure.”
This, again, is complete nonsense. Closing loopholes in Bell's theorem tests is only relevant to hidden variable theories. Not to any non-local-hidden-variable interpretation of QM, and not to atheism. As I said before, none of the interpretations I talked about, MWI, Ghirardi–Rimini–Weber, de Broglie–Bohm, and the transactional interpretation, are local hidden-variable theories, so the presence or absence of loopholes in the Bell tests is irrelevant to them. And there's no reason atheists would be restricted to those interpretations. There are atheism-compatible interpretations that assign special status to consciousness, like the von Neumann–Wigner interpretation (which says conscious observation causes collapse), or Penrose and Hameroff's orchestrated objective reduction theory (which if I understand right says that collapse causes consciousness). There's also no reason at all that atheists can't prefer antirealist interpretations, like the original Copenhagen interpretation, QBism, Zeilinger and Brukner's information-based interpretation, Wheeler's "it from bit", approach, etc etc etc. I have no idea why you're so obsessed with superdeterminism and Sabine Hossenfelder. You also said, in #96:
Moreover, if we really ‘follow the math’ as Gordon implores us to do, and ask ourselves, “why should math even be applicable to the universe in the first place?”, we are led not to the insanity of the atheistic/naturalistic MWI as Gordon implies, but rather we are instead led to God.
Huh? Are you seriously unable to comprehend how math could work without God being involved? If so, that's your problem, not mine.
Also of note, a lot of the ‘weirdness’ in quantum mechanics also evaporates for us once we realize that there is a very strong correspondence and/or correlation between the ‘weird’ actions we observe in quantum mechanics and some of the defining attributes of the immaterial mind, (namely ‘the attribute of ‘the experience of the now’, and the attribute of ‘free-will’)
...and exactly how does this interpretation of yours work? Waving your hands and saying "there is a very strong correspondence" may satisfy you, but it's not in the same league with what I'd call a real interpretation. Put it this way: one of the significant problems with MWI is that it's hard to fully justify the Born rule for probabilities in it. Can you do better? How does your interpretation explain the Born rule (or can it)? For example, in the original Bell test (2 electrons in the spin-0 singlet state), why do the two spin measurements agree with probability 0.5 minus half the cosine of the angle between the two detectors? Not just why is there a correlation, but why that specific correlation? Why does summing across a bunch of Feynman diagrams give such good predictions of how particles will interact? Why can't two identical fermions occupy the same state (the Pauli exclusion principle), but identical bosons can? etc etc etc These are the sorts of questions a real interpretation of QM should be able to answer. If you can't answer questions like these, you don't actually have an interpretation, you've just decided that QM fits well with your views without bothering to understand it or think hard about it first.Gordon Davisson_{May 27, 2021
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Well Andy Clue, Zeilinger and company also stated "excluding any such mechanism from 96% of the space-time volume of the past light cone of our experiment, extending from the big bang to today." And as I also stated previously, that experiment by Zeilinger and company is also one of the primary reasons that Hossenfelder opted for super-determinism, over and above free will, where all our choices were somehow super-determined at the Big Bang. The denial of free will by determinism was irrational to begin with. The denial of free will by superdeterminism is obviously exponentially worse for the atheist. In fact, as I quipped when Hossenfelder first appealed to superdeterminism, welcome to Christianity (Hossenfelder), Calvinists have basically been arguing for superdetermism for centuries now.bornagain77_{May 27, 2021
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Gordon states,
Why not lock our intuitions in the metaphorical basement, ignore the plaintive whimpering(*), and follow the math wherever it leads? (Because, again, the math does seem to be a reliable guide.) If you do that, you pretty much wind up with MWI.
That plaintive whimpering is your sanity and common sense crying to be let out. Moreover, if we really 'follow the math' as Gordon implores us to do, and ask ourselves, "why should math even be applicable to the universe in the first place?", we are led not to the insanity of the atheistic/naturalistic MWI as Gordon implies, but rather we are instead led to God. Don't take my word for it. Eugene Wigner, (who's insights into quantum mechanics continue to drive breakthroughs in quantum mechanics; per A. Zeilinger), And Albert Einstein, who needs no introduction, are both own record as to regarding it as a miracle that math should even be applicable to the universe. Moreover, Wigner questioned Darwinism in the process of calling it a miracle, and Einstein even went so far as to chastise 'professional atheists' in his process of calling it a miracle.
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences - Eugene Wigner - 1960 ?Excerpt: ,,certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin's process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.,,,?It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here, quite comparable in its striking nature to the miracle that the human mind can string a thousand arguments together without getting itself into contradictions, or to the two miracles of the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind's capacity to divine them.,,,?The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning. ?http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html On the Rational Order of the World: a Letter to Maurice Solovine - Albert Einstein - March 30, 1952 Excerpt: "You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world (to the extent that we are authorized to speak of such a comprehensibility) as a miracle or as an eternal mystery. Well, a priori, one should expect a chaotic world, which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way .. the kind of order created by Newton's theory of gravitation, for example, is wholly different. Even if a man proposes the axioms of the theory, the success of such a project presupposes a high degree of ordering of the objective world, and this could not be expected a priori. That is the 'miracle' which is constantly reinforced as our knowledge expands. There lies the weakness of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but “bared the miracles." -Albert Einstein http://inters.org/Einstein-Letter-Solovine
Something tells me that Gordon's desire to ''follow the math' will evaporate once he realizes that 'following the math' actually leads to God, and not to his atheistic/naturalistic MWI. Further to 'following the math' to wherever it leads,
January 2021 Whereas atheists have no observational evidence that the Multiverses that they postulated to ‘explain. away’ the fine tuning of the universe are real, nor do Atheists have any evidence that the ‘parallel universes’ that they postulated to ‘explain away’ quantum wave collapse are real, Christians, on the other hand, can appeal directly to (the higher dimensional mathematics of) Special Relativity, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics, (i.e. our most precisely tested theories ever in the history of science), to support their belief that God really does uphold this universe in its continual existence, as well as to support their belief in the reality of a higher heavenly dimension and in the reality of a hellish dimension.” https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/closer-to-truth-are-there-really-extra-dimensions/#comment-722947
Also of note, a lot of the 'weirdness' in quantum mechanics also evaporates for us once we realize that there is a very strong correspondence and/or correlation between the 'weird' actions we observe in quantum mechanics and some of the defining attributes of the immaterial mind, (namely 'the attribute of 'the experience of the now', and the attribute of 'free-will')
How Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness Correlate - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f0hL3Nrdas
So in conclusion, I am, as a Christian Theist, quite comfortable with the 'counter-intuitive' findings of both relativity and quantum mechanics, whereas Gordon, on the other hand, is forced to appeal to the insanity of the MWI, and is also forced to endure the "plaintive whimperings" of his sanity and common sense which he has, by his own admission, locked in a closet.bornagain77_{May 27, 2021
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@bornagain77:
As to closing the freedom of choice loophole, if it is all the same with you, I think I will stick with Anton Zeilinger and company when his says he closed the loophole, and not with your denial that he closed it.
How is what Gordon posted different from what Zeilinger & co. claimed in their paper? Neither Gordon nor Zeilinger & co. claimed that the freedom-of-choice loophole is closed: Zeilinger & co.:
This experiment pushes back to at least 7.8 Gyr ago the most recent time by which any local-realist influences could have exploited the “freedom-of-choice” loophole to engineer the observed Bell violation (...) We also constrain the freedom-of-choice loophole with detector settings determined by extragalactic events, such that any local-realist mechanism would need to have acted no more recently than 7.78 Gyr or 3.22 Gyr ago (...)
Gordon @52:
In the first place, the test of Bell’s theorem you cited (which used distant quasar light as a source of randomness for setting the detectors) doesn’t completely eliminate the “free will” loophole, just pushes it out some (and not as much as it might seem).
AndyClue_{May 27, 2021
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Gordon states,
So understanding MWI is a bit of an achievement, and one I have achieved (and am therefore invested in, and therefore biased toward — as I said).
I would bet the 14 men under the delusion that they were Napoleon also felt a certain satisfaction as to having achieved such status. :) Bear in mind that others do not see your becoming comfortable with the idea that you exist in an veritable infinity of other places as an achievement of any sort but see it as a mental deterioration on your part.. As to closing the freedom of choice loophole, if it is all the same with you, I think I will stick with Anton Zeilinger and company when his says he closed the loophole, and not with your denial that he closed it. After all, besides his long track record of breath-taking and astonishing accomplishments in pushing Quantum Experimentation forward, he is actually mentally stable enough to know for a fact that he does not exist in an infinity of other places. You, on the other hand, apparently consider it an intellectual achievement for you to finally be able to believe that you exist in an infinity of other places.
Romans 1:22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools
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Bornagain77 @ 61: No, I don't agree that liking preferring MWI is "stark raving mad". MWI is certainly unintuitive and hard to think about, but actually that's part of the reason I like it. (And again, I like it, but I don't particularly believe it. I like it for what're basically aesthetic reasons, as well as some reasons that're really all about personal bias.) J. B. S. Haldane wrote that "Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose." I view MWI partly as a challenge -- a dare almost -- in seeing just how queerly we can suppose, or if you prefer how far we can stretch our minds. Everett and DeWitt have thrown down the gauntlet: can you wrap your mind around this? And I replied, "Challenge accepted!" So understanding MWI is a bit of an achievement, and one I have achieved (and am therefore invested in, and therefore biased toward -- as I said). But that's not a reason to take it seriously. Thinking about counterintuitive math puzzles is fun and cool and all, but that's no reason to think they have anything to do with reality. A big part of the reason to take MWI seriously is that the alternatives don't make a lot of sense either. All of the interpretations of QM are weird and unsatisfactory in one way or another. If you seriously want to defeat MWI, you need to provide an alternative that's objectively less weird, not just differently weird. So far, nobody's done it. But that's not really a reason to like MWI either. To explain why I say I like it, consider that our intuition is not very good at dealing with QM. In fact, it's really really bad. And QM is not the only area of physics were intuition is not a reliable guide: relativity, thermodynamics, orbital mechanics, ... really, quite a few areas that're outside of our normal areas of experience (i.e. the areas our intuitions have been trained on). But the math works. Do any amount of physics -- especially advanced physics -- and you learn to trust the math over your intuition (at least until you've retrained your intuition to follow the math, which is absolutely a thing that you do). The math of QM is weird and hard to understand; most interpretations try to find a way to make it conform as much as possible to our intuitions (and it doesn't work very well). But as I said, intuition isn't a reliable guide here, so why are we trying to pacify it? Why not lock our intuitions in the metaphorical basement, ignore the plaintive whimpering(*), and follow the math wherever it leads? (Because, again, the math does seem to be a reliable guide.) If you do that, you pretty much wind up with MWI. (* Dang, I sound like a scary person here. I swear, I'm not scary in person, and have never locked anyone in my basement. Honest!) (Also, "intuition" isn't really the right term for what I'm talking about. I'll try to clarify later.) To explain what's going on in MWI a little better, let me run through the Wigner's friend thought experiment. For those who aren't familiar with it, it's an extension of the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment: you have a box containing a cat, an unstable atom with a half-life of an hour, and an atomic decay detector hooked up to a vial of poison. After an hour, classical physics says that the box will contain either a live cat and an intact atom and vial, or else it will contain a dead cat, a decayed atom, and an open vial. QM, on the other hand, seems to imply that the box will be in a superposition of both of those states, not in either one alone. In the Wigner's friend extension, one of Eugene Wigner's friends opens the box and looks inside. From the friend's point of view, the cat etc now collapse from that superposition into a definite state of either alive&intact or dead&decayed&open. But Wigner himself hasn't looked yet, and isn't even in the same room. From his point of view, QM seems to imply that his friend has simply joined into the entangled superposition along with the cat, atom, and vial. His friend is now in a superposition of being happy (because the cat is alive) or sad (because the cat is dead). There are a variety of ways to resolve this: pick some point at which collapse actually happens (and depending on what point you pick, either Wigner or his friend are right... or maybe both wrong), infer that reality is observer-dependent and they're both right (from their own point of view), etc. But there's one really important fact I want to point out: QM doesn't allow the friend any way to discover whether they're in a superposition or not. They shouldn't be able to perceive the conflict, and there's no experiment they can perform that'll settle the question of whether they're in a superposition or in a definite state. We can perform experiments (from the outside) on smaller things, like photons, atoms, groups of atoms, ... even up to bacteria(!), and confirm that they're in superposition states. But testing this gets beyond impractical for bigger, messier things, like actual cats and humans. Some people who've gotten used to the idea that these small things can be in quantum superpositions, but cavil at the idea that they could be in such a state. The possibility goes against what we perceive our own states to be (although, as I said, there's no way we'd be able to tell), and is really hard to think about. (BTW, as you mentioned, a variant of the Wigner's friend experiment has actually been performed, although it replaced the cat and friend with photons (and there were two catphotons and two friendphotons). The results are in full agreement with MWI. If you think otherwise, you really really need to take some more time to understand what's going on in the experiment and how it'd work under MWI.) I think this is really why we wind up on opposite sides here. It's hard to think about ourselves being in a superposition of wildly different states. You think it's insane. But I appreciate that MWI doesn't bother about trying to be easy to think about. Reality is under no obligation to be easy to understand (if it were, QM wouldn't be a thing in the first place and we wouldn't be having this conversation), and MWI doesn't try to force it to be easy. In #91, you said:
Yet, regardless of how Weinberg and other atheists may prefer the world to behave, quantum mechanics itself could care less how atheists prefer the world to behave.
...I agree, but you need to realize that QM also couldn't care less how you want the world to behave either. Also, the implications of MWI aren't as wild as you seem to think. Not everything is possible, and only possible things wind up in the superposition. Wigner's friend winds up in a superposition of being happy and sad (actually, many slightly different happy states and many slightly different sad states), but there's no component of the overall wavefunction where he turns into Dracula, drinks the cat's blood, then starts flapping around the room in bat form. And while the overall wavefunction contains some weird-looking states, it's completely dominated by "normal" ones. I gave a simple example here:
That’s not how MWI works. Deterministic things are the same in all worlds; things like 2+2=4 hold universally, and the same applies at the physical level. The only things that vary between worlds are those that are indeterminate at the quantum level. What about things that are quantum-random? Let’s take a simple case: suppose I flip 500 quantum-random coins. MWI says the universe splits into 2^500 worlds, one for each possible combination of flips. (Note: actually, it’s a 2^500-way superposition; “world” is just a way of describing this without getting into QM terminology.) There’ll be worlds where fantastically improbable things happen: one where I flipped 500 heads in a row, one where I flipped 500 tails, etc. But the probability that I (as an inhabitant of the universe) will actually experience the all-heads world is only 1 in 2^500 — it’s nearly guaranteed that I’ll find myself in a world where I flipped roughly equal numbers of heads and tails, because that’s true in the vast majority of the worlds. Ok, that was a simple case, and I ducked some tricky questions. But there are reasonable arguments that MWI leads to the same observed probabilities as all the other (viable) interpretations. Weird stuff is happening in a few worlds, but we don’t live there so why should we care?
Now, you cited several real physicists as disagreeing with or disliking MWI, but I don't see anyone coming close to your dismissal of it as "insane". For example, in the article by George Ellis you cited, he mostly talks about other sorts of multiverse hypotheses. He does talk about MWI briefly:
Sean Carroll, David Deutsch, Max Tegmark, and David Wallace have all claimed that the quantum wave function of the universe splits into multiple branches every time a measurement is made. Each branch is a universe.[4] This idea was originally advanced by Hugh Everett III in his Princeton dissertation. Multiple worlds emerge as branches of the wave function, and having branched, the various branches remain in a state of superposition, entirely subordinate to the linear and deterministic Schrödinger equation. The wave function never collapses. The Born rule is not needed on Everett’s scheme. But it is the Born rule that establishes that the squared amplitude of the wave function is a measure of probability. Something must take its place or do the same work. Some physicists argue that the many worlds of quantum mechanics and the many worlds of the multiverse are one and the same. The multiverse, some physicists claim, is necessary to give exact operational meaning to probabilistic predictions from quantum mechanics.[5]
...and he's right, the Born rule (for probabilities) is tricky to fully explain in general in MWI. (In my 500 coins example, I carefully only considered 50%/50% events; measurements with unequal probabilities are one of the "tricky questions" I ducked). And Sean Carroll would agree as well; this is a well-known issue with MWI. That's why he (along with many other people) are actively researching it, from a variety of angles. There are a number of arguments that MWI produces the Born rule (or something functionally equivalent), but it's not entirely clear that they work. See this blog post where he discusses the issue. The strongest criticism you quoted was Steven Weinberg saying "I find the many worlds interpretation repellent". Here's an extended quote (from an interview in Physics Today):
PT: There has been discussion on the Web about your "evolving" views on interpretations of quantum mechanics. What are the general flaws you see in existing interpretations? Are you working on a more satisfactory interpretation, and do you see one on the horizon? Weinberg: Some very good theorists seem to be happy with an interpretation of quantum mechanics in which the wavefunction only serves to allow us to calculate the results of measurements. But the measuring apparatus and the physicist are presumably also governed by quantum mechanics, so ultimately we need interpretive postulates that do not distinguish apparatus or physicists from the rest of the world, and from which the usual postulates like the Born rule can be deduced. This effort seems to lead to something like a "many worlds" interpretation, which I find repellent. Alternatively, one can try to modify quantum mechanics so that the wavefunction does describe reality, and collapses stochastically and nonlinearly, but this seems to open up the possibility of instantaneous communication. I work on the interpretation of quantum mechanics from time to time, but have gotten nowhere.
As I said earlier, "Since there are many interpretations consistent with our observations, which one(s) we prefer (or think most likely to be true) is largely a matter of personal preference… and therefore it largely a matter of personal bias." I think it's entirely reasonably for Weinberg to find MWI repellent, I just happen to have different tastes and personal biases. But note that he didn't say it was necessarily wrong, or that it was insane for someone to have a different opinion from him. Also, note that he's been working on finding something better, but has "gotten nowhere". The others you cited also basically don't like MWI. Again, I consider these reasonable opinions, but they're just that: opinions. They're nothing like a basis for your extreme rejection. Finally, in #91, you reiterated your argument about superdeterminism and closing the free will loophole. As I explained in detail in #52, this is complete and utter nonsense. You simply have no idea what you're talking about here. Many of our differences are matters of opinion and/or differences in bias. This one is not. I am right, and you are wrong. Read my explanation in comment #52. Learn from it. And stop making the same bogus argument over and over again.Gordon Davisson_{May 26, 2021
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Huh? I never claimed that you personally believe the MWI. As far as I can tell about you personally, you never really cling too tightly to any naturalistic position that might be falsified. At least that is how I read your debating style for atheism.bornagain77_{May 26, 2021
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Bornagain77: So in conclusion JVL, the primary “motivations and rationale” for Atheists opting for the MWI over the instrumentalist approach is simply their desire to deny agent causality. and/or free will, any place whatsoever in quantum physics. Simply put, atheists opt for the insanity of MWI simply because Atheists don’t want a “Divine Foot in the door” (R. Lewontin). Your antagonism is curious since I clearly stated that I, too, do not lean towards the many worlds view. I guess you're just in some kind of attack mode and aren't really paying attention to what people are actually writing. What I said was correct: there are some physicists who think the many worlds conjecture is correct. But you chose not to acknowledge that I actually agree with you; instead you did your usual hatchet job on views opposed to yours. Why you cannot even try to build bridges with people who at least agree with you on some points is bewildering to me. Perhaps I won't try anymore seeking out any common ground. I'll leave you to your righteous anger.JVL_{May 26, 2021
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Well JVL, and I'm sure the 14 men who believed they were Napoleon had their own "motivations and rationale" for believing they were Napoleon. Yet the fact remains that they were definitely not Napoleon. As such, MWI proponents definitely do not currently exist in a veritable infinity of other places that are as equally real as this world. (which is their claim, not mine). To dive a little deeper into the "motivations and rationale" for why some people choose the MWI. To repeat what I cited earlier, and as explained by Steven Weinberg, there are two widely followed approaches in quantum mechanics that deal with the question of how probabilities get into quantum mechanics. The realist approach and the instrumentalist approach.
The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics – Steven Weinberg – January 2017 Excerpt: Today there are two widely followed approaches to quantum mechanics, the “realist” and “instrumentalist” approaches,9 which view the origin of probability in measurement in two very different ways. For reasons I will explain, neither approach seems to me quite satisfactory.10,,,, In the instrumentalist approach,,, humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level. According to Eugene Wigner, a pioneer of quantum mechanics, “it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness.”11,,,, In the realist approach the history of the world is endlessly splitting; it does so every time a macroscopic body becomes tied in with a choice of quantum states. This inconceivably huge variety of histories has provided material for science fiction. 12 http://quantum.phys.unm.edu/466-17/QuantumMechanicsWeinberg.pdf
Moreover, Weinberg rightly rejected the realist approach because of the insanity inherent in the MWI, but it is interesting to note exactly why he rejected the instrumentalist approach As Steven Weinberg himself, an atheist, put it, "In the instrumentalist approach (in quantum mechanics) humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level.,,, the instrumentalist approach turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.,,, In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure,,, Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,,"
The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics – Steven Weinberg – January 19, 2017 Excerpt: The instrumentalist approach,, (the) wave function,, is merely an instrument that provides predictions of the probabilities of various outcomes when measurements are made.,, In the instrumentalist approach,,, humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level. According to Eugene Wigner, a pioneer of quantum mechanics, “it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness.”11 Thus the instrumentalist approach turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else. It is not that we object to thinking about humans. Rather, we want to understand the relation of humans to nature, not just assuming the character of this relation by incorporating it in what we suppose are nature’s fundamental laws, but rather by deduction from laws that make no explicit reference to humans. We may in the end have to give up this goal,,, Some physicists who adopt an instrumentalist approach argue that the probabilities we infer from the wave function are objective probabilities, independent of whether humans are making a measurement. I don’t find this tenable. In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure, such as the spin in one or another direction. Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,, http://quantum.phys.unm.edu/466-17/QuantumMechanicsWeinberg.pdf
So Weinberg, again an atheist, rejected the instrumentalist approach precisely because it undermined the Darwinian worldview from within and because man, via his free will, is brought into the laws of nature at their most fundamental level. (i.e. that was his 'rationale and motivation' for rejecting the instrumentalist approach.) Yet, regardless of how Weinberg and other atheists may prefer the world to behave, quantum mechanics itself could care less how atheists prefer the world to behave. For instance, this recent 2019 experimental confirmation of the “Wigner’s Friend” thought experiment established that “measurement results,, must be understood relative to the observer who performed the measurement”.
More Than One Reality Exists (in Quantum Physics) By Mindy Weisberger – March 20, 2019 Excerpt: “measurement results,, must be understood relative to the observer who performed the measurement”. https://www.livescience.com/65029-dueling-reality-photons.html
This follow up 2020 paper reinforced the preceding finding:
Quantum paradox points to shaky foundations of reality - George Musser - Aug. 17, 2020 Excerpt: Now, researchers in Australia and Taiwan offer perhaps the sharpest demonstration that Wigner’s paradox is real. In a study published this week in Nature Physics, they transform the thought experiment into a mathematical theorem that confirms the irreconcilable contradiction at the heart of the scenario. The team also tests the theorem with an experiment, using photons as proxies for the humans. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/quantum-paradox-points-shaky-foundations-reality
Moreover, Anton Zeilinger and company recently (2018) closed the setting independence and/or 'freedom of choice' loophole
Cosmic Bell Test Using Random Measurement Settings from High-Redshift Quasars – Anton Zeilinger – 14 June 2018 Excerpt: This experiment pushes back to at least approx. 7.8 Gyr ago the most recent time by which any local-realist influences could have exploited the “freedom-of-choice” loophole to engineer the observed Bell violation, excluding any such mechanism from 96% of the space-time volume of the past light cone of our experiment, extending from the big bang to today. https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.080403
After this experiment came out some theoretical physicists, such as Sabine Hossenfelder, instead of accepting the fact that we have free will in a real and meaningful sense, instead opted for 'super-determinism'
Superdeterminism: A Guide for the Perplexed - Sabine Hossenfelder - 2020 Superdeterminism is presently the only known consistent description of nature that is local, deterministic, and can give rise to the observed correlations of quantum mechanics. I here want to explain what makes this approach promising and offer the reader some advice for how to avoid common pitfalls. In particular, I explain why superdeterminism is not a threat to science, is not necessarily finetuned, what the relevance of future input is, and what the open problems are. https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.01324
Basically with super-determinism, and with the closing of the setting independence and/or ‘free will’ loop hole by Zeilinger and company, the Atheistic naturalist is now reduced to arguing that “a particle detector’s settings may “conspire” with events in the shared causal past of the detectors themselves to determine which properties of the particle to measure.”
Closing the ‘free will’ loophole: Using distant quasars to test Bell’s theorem – February 20, 2014 Excerpt: Though two major loopholes have since been closed, a third remains; physicists refer to it as “setting independence,” or more provocatively, “free will.” This loophole proposes that a particle detector’s settings may “conspire” with events in the shared causal past of the detectors themselves to determine which properties of the particle to measure — a scenario that, however far-fetched, implies that a physicist running the experiment does not have complete free will in choosing each detector’s setting. Such a scenario would result in biased measurements, suggesting that two particles are correlated more than they actually are, and giving more weight to quantum mechanics than classical physics. “It sounds creepy, but people realized that’s a logical possibility that hasn’t been closed yet,” says MIT’s David Kaiser, the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and senior lecturer in the Department of Physics. “Before we make the leap to say the equations of quantum theory tell us the world is inescapably crazy and bizarre, have we closed every conceivable logical loophole, even if they may not seem plausible in the world we know today?” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140220112515.htm
In other words, instead of believing what the experimental results of quantum mechanics are actually telling us, (i.e. that free will is a real and tangible part of reality),, the Determinist, and/or Atheistic Naturalist, is now forced to claim, via ‘superdeterminism’, that the results of the experiments were somehow ‘superdetermined’ at least 7.8 billion years ago, (basically all the way back to the creation of the universe itself), and that the experimental results are now somehow 'conspiring' to fool us into believing that our experimental results in quantum theory are trustworthy and correct and that we do indeed have free will. To call such a move on the part of Atheistic Naturalists, (i.e. the rejection of experimental results that conflict with their apriori philosophical belief in ‘determinism’), unscientific would be a severe understatement. It is a rejection of the entire scientific method itself. As should be needless to say, if we cannot trust what our experimental results are actually telling us, then science is, for all practical purposes, dead. Moreover, the refusal to accept the agent causality of man into quantum mechanics is pretty doggone irrational, even insane, in its own right. Think about it. Men intelligently Designed these very sophisticated experiments into quantum mechanics, testing our most foundational assumptions about reality itself. Elaborate mathematics, which men also intelligently formulated, lie behind the intricate design of these very sophisticated experiments. The experiments also use our latest cutting edge technology (which has been, or course, also intelligently designed). Elaborate mathematics, which men also intelligently formulated, also lies behind the interpretation of the experiments into the foundations of quantum mechanics. And yet, after all that intelligent agent causality of man that is poured into intelligently designing these very sophisticated experiments in the first place, the atheist wants to say that the measurement settings in the experiment were somehow 'super-determined' billions of years ago, (all the way back to the Big Bang itself), and that man is not truly free to choose whatever measurement settings in the experiment that he may so desire to choose so as to 'logically' probe whatever foundational aspect of quantum mechanics that he is interested in probing. No two ways about it, it simply is insane to deny that man has the freedom to choose whatever measurement setting he may so desire to choose in the experiment after all that agent causality that lay behind the existence of the measurement settings in the experiment in the first place. If man is not free to choose the measurement setting in the experiments then neither was man free to choose any of the other thousands upon thousands of choices that went into intelligently designed these extremely sophisticated experiments in the first place. If man does not have free will is a real and meaningful sense, then man did not really intelligently design these experiments, but rather the laws of physics designed the experiments and we were only under the illusion that we were designing them. As George Ellis commented on Einstein's denial that we had free will in a real and meaningful sense. "if Einstein did not have free will in some meaningful sense, then he could not have been responsible for the theory of relativity – it would have been a product of lower level processes but not of an intelligent mind choosing between possible options. I find it very hard to believe this to be the case – indeed it does not seem to make any sense."
Physicist George Ellis on the importance of philosophy and free will - July 27, 2014 Excerpt: And free will?: Horgan: Einstein, in the following quote, seemed to doubt free will: “If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the Earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced that it was traveling its way of its own accord…. So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man’s illusion that he was acting according to his own free will.” Do you believe in free will? Ellis: Yes. Einstein is perpetuating the belief that all causation is bottom up. This simply is not the case, as I can demonstrate with many examples from sociology, neuroscience, physiology, epigenetics, engineering, and physics. Furthermore if Einstein did not have free will in some meaningful sense, then he could not have been responsible for the theory of relativity – it would have been a product of lower level processes but not of an intelligent mind choosing between possible options. I find it very hard to believe this to be the case – indeed it does not seem to make any sense. Physicists should pay attention to Aristotle’s four forms of causation – if they have the free will to decide what they are doing. If they don’t, then why waste time talking to them? They are then not responsible for what they say. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/physicist-george-ellis-on-the-importance-of-philosophy-and-free-will/
Of note, "it does not seem to make any sense" is the very polite way for Ellis to say that it is simply insane for Einstein to claim he did not have free will in a real and meaningful sense. So in conclusion JVL, the primary "motivations and rationale" for Atheists opting for the MWI over the instrumentalist approach is simply their desire to deny agent causality. and/or free will, any place whatsoever in quantum physics. Simply put, atheists opt for the insanity of MWI simply because Atheists don't ever want to allow a "Divine Foot in the door" (R. Lewontin).bornagain77_{May 26, 2021
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Gordon Davisson, (Deleted earlier comment because it was confusing and obscured the main point). Pardon my lateness to the conversation, but as an engineer by education, I wanted to comment that I don't think your partially-insulated gas example works, and Dr. Miller is correct. Here are the three examples you give, restated: Insulated: Heat from compression energy stays in gas. Energy Up, Entropy (relatively) unchanged. Gas gets hotter but loses no entropy. Non-Insulated: Heat from compression energy goes into heat sink. Energy (relatively) unchanged, Entropy Down. Gas stays same temperature, Entropy is lost as heat is removed. Partially-Insulated: Some heat from compression energy stays is gas, some goes into heat sink. Energy goes up (gas is hotter), and entropy due to heat removed is lost. For all three examples, the problem is that you are not accounting for the increase in entropy due to compression. So a compressed gas at the same temperature as a non-compressed gas has a higher entropy, not the same entropy. Therefore the final result of the compression process can only end in lowered entropy if the temperature of the gas decreases. While it is true that entropy (heat) is lost to the heat sinks in cases two and three, the lost heat is always less than the gain in entropy due to compression - otherwise the end state of the gas would be a lower temperature than when you started. (FYI - if this wasn't true, you'd potentially be able to build a perpetual energy machine through a series of compression/expansion cycles, using the energy released by expanding gas to power the compression phase). My engineering training tells me Dr. Miller is correct re: higher energy/lower entropy processes, but I'm open to other possible counterexamples.drc466_{May 26, 2021
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Bornagain77: I would personally like to thank you for sharing your testimony and I shall never, ever attempt to denigrate or make less of it. My point was that some people might view your faith and your reasons for holding that faith in the same way that you view the Many Worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. I was trying to say that it's very hard to accurately judge someone's motivations and rationale when you're on the outside or, even, the 'other' side. Personally, like you, I find the many worlds interpretation pretty silly. BUT I can't ignore the fact that there are people who have spent a lot more time than I have considering QM and it's requirements and recommendations. Who am I to question a view held by a lot of intelligent and knowledgable people? So, just like I would not call your beliefs 'insane' I would not call the Many Worlds interpretation insane. I don't agree with either one, but I realise that a lot of people find both beliefs valid and sensible. Who am I to say otherwise? I won't.JVL_{May 26, 2021
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Well actually JVL, besides having "very old texts" ("very old texts" which, by the way, have withstood intense scrutiny), I also have the fact that I have personally experienced 'small miracles' in my life. Especially when I was at very low points in my life. For instance, here is my personal testimony of how I became a Christian:
I served in the Air Force back in the 1980’s. I worked on jet engines. When I got out of the service, I landed a job working for General Electric (GE) working on some of the most advanced jet aircraft in the world. I loved that job. Besides being well paying, I was very much honored to work on America’s top stealth aircraft. And I was well qualified for that job having spent 4 years in the Air Force. Yet, I had a problem with alcohol and drugs that was getting worse and worse as time went along. To the point that that problem ended up negatively affecting my work performance. Long story short, I ended up losing my dream job at GE. That evening, when I got home after losing my job, I was just numb. Devastated but just numb. Anyway, in my devastation I picked up my (very dusty) Bible. To this day, I do not know why I picked my Bible up at that particular time in my life. It was not like I was in a particular habit of reading my Bible. In fact, throughout my entire service in the Air Force I remember picking my Bible up only once. And that was because my roommate had asked me to see what John 3:16 actually meant during a football game. (They used to hold John 3:16 up in the end zones during professional football games back then). Yet, at that moment, as I began to read the Bible, and as clear as day, a miracle happened. That inanimate book, i.e. the Holy Bible, became alive and the words I was reading out of the bible at that very moment were speaking directly to me as if a living person were speaking directly to me. I was shocked to put it mildly. I ran my finger over the passage that I had just read, the passage that had spoken directly to me, and it felt as if someone had just opened a window on the passage I had read. The rest of the page felt normal, like paper, but that passage felt mysteriously cool and breezy. I knew in no uncertain terms, at that very moment, that God was really real and that He was and is very much a personal God who cares very deeply for each of us. Fast forward a few years later. I had relapsed into drinking and using. It was in the summer of 1993, I was down and out in Ft. Myers, Florida. This was about the second year that I was homeless. I was staying at the Salvation Army in Ft. Myers working temporary day labor and paying 8 bucks a night to stay at the homeless shelter. Since AA had failed me, I had come up with another idea to help me defeat the destructive desires for drinking and using that had kept me broke and bound to the homeless street life. I was finally going to read the Bible cover to cover. Surely, this would cure me once and for all of my destructive desires. Every night before I would go to sleep I made sure that I would read through at least 30 minutes worth of the Bible. This was done in my bunk in the open dormitory of the salvation army. Well, after about a month or 6 weeks of reading in this fashion, I was getting pretty far along into the Bible and had pretty much established myself, among the guys staying in the dorm with me, as some sort of Jesus Freak. One evening a man, who like me wasn’t fairing to well in this world, comes up to my bunk as I was reading the Bible. He angrily says something to this effect, “Where Is God? Just where is God? If I knew where God was my life would be alright.” Calmly I told him something to this effect, “Well I know that it may sound strange to you, but sometimes when I really need it, God seems to speak directly to me from the Bible, giving me guidance and comfort, and I believe that He may speak directly to you since you seem to be in a pretty bad spot.” Then I closed my Bible and handed it to him. Then he asks me “Do you mean like this?” and he just randomly flips the Bible open, but instead of gently reading the first words that his eyes landed on, as I thought he would do, he went and stabbed his finger down onto the page that the Bible had fell open to. Then, he looks over to me and asks me “Like this?” I nervously, in spite of my reservations of the brazenness of his act, indicated that “I guess that will work.”. Well his boldness paid off for his finger landed right on top of Job 23:3 which says “Oh, that I knew where I might find God, that I might come to His seat!”, (In fact that entire passage in Job 23 was related to his particular situation). Needless to say, we both were in awe about God, the creator of the universe, personally revealing Himself to him in the ‘Living Word’ that clearly. We even went to the chaplain of the Salvation Army that evening, told the chaplain what just happened and got him his very own Bible from the chaplain.,,,
So no JVL, I just don't rely on 'very old texts' (although the reliability of scriptures has been established from several different angles) .,,, I know from personal experience that Christianity is very much true. Moreover, we have the Shroud of Turin, ( by far the most scientifically scrutinized ancient relic of man), that testifies to the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
The evidence for the Shroud's authenticity keeps growing. (Timeline of facts) - What Is the Shroud of Turin? Facts & History Everyone Should Know - Myra Adams and Russ Breault - November 08, 2019 https://www.christianity.com/wiki/jesus-christ/what-is-the-shroud-of-turin.html John 20:6-9 Simon Peter arrived just after him. He entered the tomb and saw the linen cloths lying there.The clothb that had been around Jesus’ head was rolled up, lying separate from the linen cloths. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in. And he saw and believed. For they still did not understand from the Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.
In fact, I hold Jesus Christ's resurrection from the dead to be the correct solution for the much sought after 'theory of everything'
Jesus Christ as the correct "Theory of Everything" - video https://youtu.be/Vpn2Vu8--eE
So, directly contrary to what you claimed JVL, my belief in Christianity is very much a 'true belief' that I hold to be true from my personal experience and also hold to be true from my knowledge of the facts. Atheists, on the other hand, from what I can tell, have no scientific evidence whatsoever that they can appeal to so as justify their belief that the universe, life, and everything around us, is just one big ole meaningless accident. Indeed, we can't even 'do science' in the first place without presupposing teleology on some level. Talk about 'blind faith' that is not based in facts. Atheists have it in spades.bornagain77_{May 26, 2021
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Bornagain77: Yet, If believing you actually exist in a veritable infinity of other places, (without any evidence whatsoever that it is actually true), does not, in over the top fashion, qualify as an insane belief then no other delusions that people may harbor can ever be classified as insane beliefs. Some might say that believing that a man lay dead in a tomb for 36 hours or so and then came back to life was a bit crazy. But you do believe that without having witnessed it yourself. You depend on some very old texts written by unknown persons for your evidence. I'm not trying to downplay your faith; I'm just saying if you use the same criteria . . .JVL_{May 26, 2021
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Claiming that it is merely "hyperbolic rhetoric" for me to call MWI insane insinuates that it is not actually true that MWI is an insane belief. Yet, If believing you actually exist in a veritable infinity of other places, (without any evidence whatsoever that it is actually true), does not, in over the top fashion, qualify as an insane belief then no other delusions that people may harbor can ever be classified as insane beliefs. Indeed, MWI makes the 14 men who thought they were Napoleon look mild in comparison.
,,, In December 1840, nearly twenty years after his death, the remains of Napoleon were returned to Paris for burial—and the next day, the director of a Paris hospital for the insane admitted fourteen men who claimed to be Napoleon. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo15344276.html
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You take my calling MWI to be insane as an insult to others who hold MWI to be true.
Nope. I said that calling it "insane" is hyperbolic rhetoric. That's still my opinion.William J Murray_{May 26, 2021
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WJM, Yes you were misusing the term 'true belief' in regards to the intent and context in which I used the term 'true belief'. I used the term in regards to what we can have personal knowledge of as being true. You, in fact, SHOULD have been criticizing the MWI proponents instead of me for their holding beliefs to be true for which they have no personal knowledge of as being true. (i.e. blind faith belief) They are trying to claim that it is a 'true belief', or at least a 'rational belief', to believe that they exist in a veritable infinity of other places (an outlandish and even insane belief for which they have no personal knowledge of). I am saying that their 'belief', which THEY hold to be true and rational, conflicts we my 'true belief' (a belief which I have gained from my own personal knowledge that, number 1, I exist, and number 2, that I only exist in one place). Moreover, I pointed out that if I regarded their belief as actually being a true belief then it undermines any other true beliefs that I, or anyone else, may have formed from our knowledge. To repeat what Philip Ball stated, “It, (The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics), says that our unique experience as individuals is not simply a bit imperfect, a bit unreliable and fuzzy, but is a complete illusion. If we really pursue that idea, rather than pretending that it gives us quantum siblings, we find ourselves unable to say anything about anything that can be considered a meaningful truth.”
Why the Many-Worlds Interpretation Has Many Problems – Philip Ball – October 18, 2018 Excerpt: It, (The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics), says that our unique experience as individuals is not simply a bit imperfect, a bit unreliable and fuzzy, but is a complete illusion. If we really pursue that idea, rather than pretending that it gives us quantum siblings, we find ourselves unable to say anything about anything that can be considered a meaningful truth. We are not just suspended in language; we have denied language any agency. The MWI — if taken seriously — is unthinkable. Its implications undermine a scientific description of the world far more seriously than do those of any of its rivals. The MWI tells you not to trust empiricism at all: Rather than imposing the observer on the scene, it destroys any credible account of what an observer can possibly be. Some Everettians insist that this is not a problem and that you should not be troubled by it. Perhaps you are not, but I am. https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-the-many-worlds-interpretation-of-quantum-mechanics-has-many-problems-20181018/
So again, your criticism, (especially with your emphasis on personal experience in your MRT-IRT worldview in regards to our forming 'true beliefs' in regards to our personal knowledge and experience), would have been much more aptly directed towards the insanity of the MWI rather than towards me since I was, in fact, defending the integrity of true beliefs that are gained by personal experience and/or knowledge over and above 'blind faith' beliefs that are held in spite of true beliefs that are formed by personal experience and knowledge to the contrary. You take my calling MWI to be insane as an insult to others who hold MWI to be true. Yet, the MWI is insane. Period. If a person came up to me on the street and insisted that he existed in a veritable infinity of other places, (with absolutely no evidence whatsoever), I would, without hesitation think that the man was stark raving mad. Yet I am suppose to give such a insane belief respect because the person saying it has a PhD behind his name? Excuse me, it does not work that way. Nonsense is still nonsense even when it comes out of the mouth of a PhD. (hat tip: John Lennox) Verse:
2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
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BA77 said:
WJM, you are misusing language again. I used the term ‘true beliefs’ in the broad sense of having true beliefs based on knowledge. Yet you tried to imply that I was using the term in a ‘blind faith’ sort of way.
No, I wasn't. I'm just stating the logically obvious that is derived from the difference between the meanings of the words, at least as they are normally used.
As was accused of me earlier in this thread, that was ‘uncharitable’ of you to imply that I was using the term ‘true belief’ in that ‘detached from reality’ sort of way.
Your inference is not my implication.
I miss the old WJM on UD who use to make powerful, and rationally coherent, arguments against atheists. I certainly do not like this new WJM who has apparently decided to side with atheists every chance he gets,,,, even when their arguments undermines his own MRT-IRT theory.
I'm willing to follow the evidence and argument wherever it leads, even if, especially if, it undermines IRT. That would be so interesting to me. Like the argument from evidence you made about geocentrism; that was one of the most enjoyable exchanges I've ever experienced on this site because you were able to prove your thesis - and I admitted, happily, that you had done so. The available evidence, and reasoning from that evidence, clearly supported your position. I actually like everyone here, inasmuch as that is possible via such a platform. I like you, I like KF, I like Seversky, Jerry, SB, Viola, KM, UB, etc. I enjoy people that vigorously argue ideas and vigorously criticize mine. But, I can understand your dislike.
Jerry says you have basically become a troll on UD. I thought that was a bit over the top for him to say that. But your last posts to me, which were ‘uncharitable’ and basically incoherent, makes me think that perhaps Jerry is far closer to the mark than I had realized. As Jerry likes to say, “Prove me wrong”.
Well, I don't know how I would go about "proving" to anyone I'm not a "troll." I don't really know what purpose such a designation would serve other than to justify not engaging with a person in the debate of ideas, logic, and evidence. I mean, if a "troll" makes a good argument, what difference does it make if that person is a "troll" or not? It would be different if I was calling people names, attacking their character, their motivations, treating others with condescension, ridiculing them and their position, but I think we'd all agree I very rarely dip into that kind of behavior. I always try to keep it civil, friendly, non-personal and about the facts, evidence and logic, even when others are making disparaging comments about me during the process. I never (or extremely rarely) respond in kind. I would think that if I was a "troll," I would jump on every such opportunity and milk it for all the "attention" I could get out of it. But, in the end, I cannot prove to anyone I'm not a troll, so it's up to every individual to come to their own individual assessment - or, if Mr. Arrington decides I am a "troll," to kick me out of UD altogether.William J Murray_{May 26, 2021
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Bornagain77: Yet Seversky conveniently neglected to mention that I also cited three Nobel Laureates, (Sheldon Lee Glashow, Murray Gell-Mann and Steven Weinberg), who all disagree with Carroll. So? No one knows who is right. There are several 'versions' of Quantum Mechanics because physicists can't agree and they all admit that!! Some, like you, might fervently believe their 'version' is right but the truth is: no one knows.JVL_{May 26, 2021
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WJM, you are misusing language again. I used the term 'true beliefs' in the broad sense of having true beliefs based on knowledge. Yet you tried to imply that I was using the term in a 'blind faith' sort of way. As was accused of me earlier in this thread, that was 'uncharitable' of you to imply that I was using the term 'true belief' in that 'detached from reality' sort of way. Why you are trying to be facetious and trivial in your definitions I have no idea. As you yourself admitted, you yourself don't subscribe to MWI and yet here you are siding with atheists when I call them out for the fact that MWI undermines our ability to maintain 'true beliefs' that are based on our own personal knowledge. (Which is, ironically, the very thing you falsely accused me of being guilty of). I miss the old WJM on UD who use to make powerful, and rationally coherent, arguments against atheists. I certainly do not like this new WJM who has apparently decided to side with atheists every chance he gets,,,, even when their arguments undermines his own MRT-IRT theory. Jerry says you have basically become a troll on UD. I thought that was a bit over the top for him to say that. But your last posts to me, which were 'uncharitable' and basically incoherent, makes me think that perhaps Jerry is far closer to the mark than I had realized. As Jerry likes to say, "Prove me wrong".bornagain77_{May 26, 2021
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Seversky states,
William Lane Craig is a philosopher and theologian. Ronald Cram is a theologian. Michael Egnor is a pediatric neurosurgeon. Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist.
Yet Seversky conveniently neglected to mention that I also cited three Nobel Laureates, (Sheldon Lee Glashow, Murray Gell-Mann and Steven Weinberg), who all disagree with Carroll. I could have also cited George Ellis who also finds the evidence free multiverse musings of atheists to be preposterous:
Physics on Edge - George Ellis https://inference-review.com/article/physics-on-edge
Seversky also tries to maintain that Carroll was not being deceptive in how he handled the evidence in the debate. Yet he certainly was being deceptive in the debate. For instance, Carroll claimed in the debate that the BGV theorem does not imply the universe had a beginning. That simply is not true. As Vilenkin, who is the V in the BVG theorem, himself stated in a paper he delivered to Hawking's 70th birthday. “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.”
“All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.” - Cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin of Tufts University in Boston – in paper delivered at atheist Stephen Hawking's 70th birthday party (Characterized in the press as the 'Worst Birthday Present Ever') – January 2012
TimR also conveniently pretends that I did not list three Nobel Laureates who disagree with Carroll and states,
Edit: just Seversky’s comment which pretty much says the same thing If I was considering spinal surgery, I would consider the views of qualified spinal surgeons. If I am thinking about foundations of physics, I consider the views of qualifies theoretical physicists. As opposed to some guy on the internet.
Well, a far better analogy, (given that I cited three Nobel Laureates who disagree with Carroll). would be if you had a doctor, or even a group of doctors, who wanted to remove your brain with absolutely no physical evidence that your brain needed to be removed. Yet, more qualified doctors said that removal of your brain was completely unwarranted. Yet you opted to follow the advice of the quack doctors and have your brain removed anyway. Now that is a far better analogy for what is really going on. i.e. People who believe, (without any physical evidence whatsoever), that they exist in a virtual infinity of other places have literally lost their minds. Or to put it another way, By refusing to allow God as the explanation for quantum wave collapse, (and for the Creation of the 'fine-tuned' universe) atheists, (in their appeal to an infinity of other universes to try to 'explain away' the beginning, fine-tuning, and quantum wave collapse, of this universe), have literally become babbling idiots who have no brain.
"When a man stops believing in God he doesn’t then believe in nothing, he believes anything." - Chesterton
TimR also asks,
what about it (MWI) is inconsistent with experiment?
Well Tim, one thing is that, as you already mentioned, MWI denies the reality of wave function collapse. Yet, as I have already referenced twice in this thread, the collapse of the wave function is now experimentally shown to be a real effect,,
Quantum experiment verifies Einstein’s ‘spooky action at a distance’ – March 24, 2015 Excerpt: An experiment,, has for the first time demonstrated Albert Einstein’s original conception of “spooky action at a distance” using a single particle. ,,Professor Howard Wiseman and his experimental collaborators,, report their use of homodyne measurements to show what Einstein did not believe to be real, namely the non-local collapse of a (single) particle’s wave function.,, According to quantum mechanics, a single particle can be described by a wave function that spreads over arbitrarily large distances,,, ,, by splitting a single photon between two laboratories, scientists have used homodyne detectors—which measure wave-like properties—to show the collapse of the wave function is a real effect,, This phenomenon is explained in quantum theory,, the instantaneous non-local, (beyond space and time), collapse of the wave function to wherever the particle is detected.,,, “Einstein never accepted orthodox quantum mechanics and the original basis of his contention was this single-particle argument. This is why it is important to demonstrate non-local wave function collapse with a single particle,” says Professor Wiseman. “Einstein’s view was that the detection of the particle only ever at one point could be much better explained by the hypothesis that the particle is only ever at one point, without invoking the instantaneous collapse of the wave function to nothing at all other points. “However, rather than simply detecting the presence or absence of the particle, we used homodyne measurements enabling one party to make different measurements and the other, using quantum tomography, to test the effect of those choices.” “Through these different measurements, you see the wave function collapse in different ways, thus proving its existence and showing that Einstein was wrong.” - per physorg
So yes, there is the rather inconvenient and embarrassing fact for atheists that MWI is now shown to disagree with experiment. But hey, what does a little experimentation matter when it comes to having your brain completely removed by someone as prestigious as Sean Carroll is? Think about it, although you will have completely lost all your common sense, at least you can rest assured that you exist in a virtual infinity of other universes. What does common sense, (or reality), possibly have to compare with such a delusion of grandeur?
Romans 1:22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
bornagain77_{May 26, 2021
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BA77 asks:
So we can’t hold true beliefs? What about WJM preceding statement, does he hold it as a ‘true belief.”
I'm just following the logic. If you believe a thing, you cannot know it is true, and so cannot characterize it as true. If you know it to be true, it is not a belief, it is knowledge.
WJM, you do realize that MWI renders free will illusory? And as such, does that not also render your very own Mental Reality Theory false? Or has that little detail escaped your notice?
I didn't say I subscribe to it; I was just making a logical observation. The MWI under discussion is framed under the idea of external (of universal mind), physical universes, which of course is not compatible with IRT (formerly MRT.)William J Murray_{May 25, 2021
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BA77: I've never heard Sean Carroll described as a new atheist before. He very rarely talks about religion. And no I'm not saying MWT is a sane belief because Sean Carroll says it is. I'm saying its a theory that arises from the equations of quantum mechanics (and is in fact the simplest application of those equations. It doesn't require a collapse of the wave function, or hidden variables). Eminent physicists treat it as a legitimate theory and a fruitful area of enquiry. And by the way, the theory doesn't require an infinite number of worlds. Edit: just Seversky's comment which pretty much says the same thing If I was considering spinal surgery, I would consider the views of qualified spinal surgeons. If I am thinking about foundations of physics, I consider the views of qualifies theoretical physicists. As opposed to some guy on the internet. But perhaps rather than describing it as crazy, you could identify what is wrong with MWI from a theoretical perspective - what about it is inconsistent with experiment?TimR_{May 25, 2021
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Bornagain77/74
So TimR, you find the evidence free belief that you exist in a infinite number of places to be a sane belief just because Sean Carroll says so?
William Lane Craig is a philosopher and theologian. Ronald Cram is a theologian. Michael Egnor is a pediatric neurosurgeon. Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist. On questions in cosmology, who would you say has the greater expertise, whose opinion carries more weight?
Moreover, I have never been overly impressed with Sean Carrol musings in physics.
You are entitled to your opinion but do you have expertise or qualifications in this field that would make that opinion any thing more than that of just another layperson?
Sean Carroll’s Dishonesty: The Debate of 2014 – By Ronald Cram – April 15, 2020 Excerpt: (In his debate with William Lane Craig), Carroll was dishonest on two important points. Carroll claimed BGV theorem does not imply the universe had a beginning. Carroll claimed that quantum eternity theorem (QET) was better than BGV theorem.,,, Carroll,, knows that QET is not really a theorem at all and so cannot honestly be described as better than BGV theorem […] Carroll’s denial that BGV theorem implies the universe/multiverse had an ultimate beginning was shocking and dishonest.
You could, in fairness, have linked to Carroll's Post-Debate Reflections where he writes:
The second premise of the Kalam argument is that the universe began to exist. Which may even be true! But we certainly don’t know, or even have strong reasons to think one way or the other. Craig thinks we do have a strong reason, the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem. So I explained what every physicist who has thought about the issue understands: that the real world is governed by quantum mechanics, and the BGV theorem assumes a classical spacetime, so it says nothing definitive about what actually happens in the universe; it is only a guideline to when our classical description breaks down. Indeed, I quoted a stronger theorem, the “Quantum Eternity Theorem” (QET) — under conventional quantum mechanics, any universe with a non-zero energy and a time-independent Hamiltonian will necessarily last forever toward both the past and the future. For convenience I quoted my own paper as a reference, although I’m surely not the first to figure it out; it’s a fairly trivial result once you think about it. (The Hartle-Hawking model is not eternal to the past, which is fine because they imagine a universe with zero energy. In that situation time is an approximation rather than fundamental in any case — that’s the “problem of time” in quantum gravity.)
For a theologian to accuse a physicist of dishonesty and deception on questions of cosmology does not, in my view, reflect well on the theologian.Seversky_{May 25, 2021
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I have more notes on the subject of ORFan genes if you want them
Not at the moment. I don't have time at the moment to pursue any of this. I was just pushing my long held solution to the issue which would be a no brainer if it was true and would end the debate immediately. But as I said - silence. Thank you for the offer. I may take you up on it some time in the future.jerry_{May 25, 2021
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So TimR, you find the evidence free belief that you exist in a infinite number of places to be a sane belief just because Sean Carroll says so? Really??? And I guess if someone like Einstein told you that you were a poached egg would you then believe that you were a poached egg? As John Lennox once said in reference to Hawking's book "The Grand Design", “Nonsense remains nonsense, even when talked by world-famous scientists.” Moreover, at least three Nobel Laureates, (Sheldon Lee Glashow, Murray Gell-Mann and Steven Weinberg), all disagree with Sean Carroll.
A Hand-Waving Exact Science Sheldon Lee Glashow In response to “It’s You, Again” Excerpt: Consider what several of my distinguished scientific colleagues say about Everett’s many worlds: Arthur Fine: "There is, I think, no sense at all to be made of the splitting of worlds."3 John Bell: "The many worlds interpretation seems to me an extravagant, and above all an extravagantly vague hypothesis."4 Murray Gell-Mann: "Everett’s ideology that there are many worlds that are equally real is operationally meaningless."5 Steven Weinberg: "I find the many worlds interpretation repellent."6 https://inference-review.com/letter/a-hand-waving-exact-science
Moreover, I have never been overly impressed with Sean Carrol musings in physics. For instance, here is a critique of Sean Carrol's 'preposterous' universe
Sean Carroll’s Preposterous Universe - Michael Egnor - February 13, 2018 Excerpt: Physicist Sean Carroll is a bit of a celebrity among New Atheists. Carroll is better credentialed (as a scientist) than many of his ideological comrades, and he is a prolific advocate for atheism and naturalism. His arguments have a superficial credibility, but generally lack any real logical or philosophical substance. He has famously made the argument that an infinite number of universes is more plausible than God. His views are the usual witless atheist/materialist boilerplate, with a patina of (fake) scientific credibility.,,,, Carroll’s universe — a universe without cause — is indeed preposterous. The material universe must be caused, and it cannot be the cause of its own existence. There are clear coherent reasons to infer a Creator, and the only way to deny creation is to deny logic and, ironically, to deny science. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/02/sean-carrolls-preposterous-universe/
Moreover, besides being philosophically, and scientifically, incoherent, Sean Carrol was also once caught being less than forthright, (if not outright deceptive), with the evidence in a 2014 debate with William Lane Craig.
Sean Carroll’s Dishonesty: The Debate of 2014 - By Ronald Cram - April 15, 2020 Excerpt: (In his debate with William Lane Craig), Carroll was dishonest on two important points. Carroll claimed BGV theorem does not imply the universe had a beginning. Carroll claimed that quantum eternity theorem (QET) was better than BGV theorem.,,, Carroll,, knows that QET is not really a theorem at all and so cannot honestly be described as better than BGV theorem. Conclusion Uninformed viewers of the 2014 Carroll-Craig debate may think that Carroll won the debate. After all, Carroll is a cosmologist, he’s brilliant, confident and likable. He attacked and undermined BGV theorem, the science upon which Craig often bases his arguments. Carroll even enlisted the help of Alan Guth to undermine his own theorem. Then Carroll sprung the quantum eternity theorem on Craig, who was caught off-guard by the term since it had never appeared in the scientific literature. Informed viewers of the debate came away with a different view. Carroll’s denial that BGV theorem implies the universe/multiverse had an ultimate beginning was shocking and dishonest. Also, informed viewers saw it as rather underhanded for Carroll to claim “quantum eternity theorem” was a recognized theorem that implies the universe is eternal into the past (since the term had not even appeared in the scientific literature at that point). On the basis of the science, Craig was truthful with the audience and Carroll was not. Truth will win out as they say. Carroll’s (dishonest) behavior can only be seen as harmful to science. https://freethinkingministries.com/sean-carrolls-dishonesty-the-debate-of-2014/
Of related note is this 2015 lecture that William Lane Craig gave where he, (directly contrary to what Carrol was trying to deceptively imply in the 2014 debate), firmly established that the universe did indeed have a beginning.
Cosmology: A Religion For Atheists? | William Lane Craig critiques (Hawking's) "The Theory Of Everything" movie - 28:00 minute mark – Hawking's quantum model still implies, despite misconceptions, a beginning for the universe https://youtu.be/i08-gCue7Ds?t=1687
So TimR, let's just say, to put it mildly, that I am very unimpressed with your appeal to Sean Carroll as your supposed expert of choice.bornagain77_{May 25, 2021
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