Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

L&FP 65c: Hossenfelder on the rest of the story on delayed choice quantum eraser exercises

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

Here:

Still not duly humbled? What more would it take? KF

Comments
For all you quantum experts - Today only
THE QUANTUM REALM LIMITED EDITION TRI-BLEND
https://www.snorgtees.com/t-shirts/visit-the-quantum-realm-limited-edition-tri-blendjerry
February 9, 2023
February
02
Feb
9
09
2023
06:58 AM
6
06
58
AM
PDT
Bornagain77, Thanks for your posts and links. I share similar respect for Dr. Hossenfelder and her courage for confronting weak speculations and unproductive imaginations. Nevertheless, I noticed as you also pointed out that she jumps to some conclusions compatible with her philosophical prejudices, which then paralyzes her ability to achieve new insights since everything now has to pass through her cognitive filter. I especially appreciated your link to Dr. Zeilinger's interview, where he ends with this observation: https://youtu.be/z82XCvgnpmA?t=1117 Again, Dr. Hossenfelder has no experimental data about the nature of consciousness or free will. She also denies the existence randomness except for some isolated instances that she waves off as inconsequential. So, she focuses her genius on maintaining a comfortable worldview rather than probing into the mysteries in quantum mechanics with an open mind to the experimental data. But there's profound significance in the probabilistic nature of a particles location in space-time and the probabilistic nature of the appearance of photons, electrons, positrons, pair production, nuclear decay, etc. There also seems to be a substrate of information behind the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and conjugate pairs. She can't simply retreat into SUPERDETERMINISM, which functions also as a fourth gods-of-the-gaps joining MUSTA, MIGHTA, and MULTIVERSE. -QQuerius
February 8, 2023
February
02
Feb
8
08
2023
09:10 AM
9
09
10
AM
PDT
Sev, by Q-mech. KFkairosfocus
February 8, 2023
February
02
Feb
8
08
2023
08:52 AM
8
08
52
AM
PDT
Still not duly humbled? What more would it take? KF
I'm not sure I get the reference to being humbled.Seversky
February 8, 2023
February
02
Feb
8
08
2023
08:50 AM
8
08
50
AM
PDT
BA77, fortunately, as God's creation, no incoherent scheme of thought can completely control our thinking and action. We have above a discussion of empirical results I am sure you will find illuminating, including the corrections of what others have said. KFkairosfocus
February 8, 2023
February
02
Feb
8
08
2023
06:18 AM
6
06
18
AM
PDT
KF, I did not comment on the highlighted quantum eraser experiment. I merely noted that Hossenfelder's apriori naturalistic worldview had previously forced her to, 'unscientifically', deny Zeilinger's 2018 experimental results for the reality of free will. i.e. I merely wanted to show, since free will is found to be integral in quantum measurement, that it is NOT a small problem for those who are wedded to the worldview of atheistic naturalism. Even for a theoretical physicist of Hossenfelder's caliber. Further notes:
Anton Zeilinger interviewed about Quantum Mechanics - video - 2018 (The essence of Quantum Physics for a general audience) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z82XCvgnpmA 17:30:,,, In quantum mechanics we have the measurement paradox (i.e. measurement problem),,, I think it (the measurement paradox) tells us something about the role of observation in the world. And the role of information.,, Maybe there are situations where we have to reconsider the "Cartesian cut"*,,, *Cartesian Cut The Cartesian cut is a metaphorical notion alluding to Decartes' distinction of res cogitans (thinking substance) and res extensa (extended substance). It plays a crucial role in the long history of the problem of the relationship between mind and matter and is constitutive for the natural sciences of today. While the elements of res cogitans are mental (non-material) entities like ideas, models, or concepts, the elements of res extensa are material facts, events, or data. The conventional referents of all natural sciences belong to the latter regime. http://see.library.utoronto.ca/pages/cartesian_cutdef.html “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 "There's one important message I want to say here. When you look at the predictions of quantum mechanics for multi-particle entanglement,, so you could have one measurement here, one (measurement) there, an earlier (measurement), a later (measurement), and so on. These predictions (of quantum mechanics) are completely independent of the relative arrangements of measurements in space and time. That tells you something about the role of space and time. There's no role at all.",,, - Anton Zeilinger - 2022 Nobel Prize lectures in physics - video (1:50:07 mark) https://youtu.be/a9FsKqvrJNY?t=6607 Alain Aspect: From Einstein’s doubts to quantum technologies: non-locality a fruitful image John F. Clauser: Experimental proof that nonlocal quantum entanglement is real Anton Zeilinger: A Voyage through Quantum Wonderland - Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2022 “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science”.
bornagain77
February 8, 2023
February
02
Feb
8
08
2023
06:12 AM
6
06
12
AM
PDT
BA77, this is not determinism, she explains what is not being reported in typical, accessible reports on delayed choice type versions of the double slit exercise. For example, the half of photons from the beam splitter tend to smear out and when second level detectors are added up you get a similar smear, though they may give band patterns when separate. That goes to issues of retrocausality etc. KFkairosfocus
February 8, 2023
February
02
Feb
8
08
2023
05:22 AM
5
05
22
AM
PDT
Of note to Hossenfelder and Quantum Mechanics, Although I greatly respect the way Hossenfelder has challenged string theory, and has pointed out its fatal flaws,
Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray - Sabine Hossenfelder Description: Sabine Hossenfelder argues, we have not seen a major breakthrough in the foundations of physics for more than four decades. The belief in beauty has become so dogmatic that it now conflicts with scientific objectivity: observation has been unable to confirm mindboggling theories, like supersymmetry or grand unification, invented by physicists based on aesthetic criteria. Worse, these "too good to not be true" theories are actually untestable and they have left the field in a cul-de-sac. To escape, physicists must rethink their methods. Only by embracing reality as it is can science discover the truth. https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Math-Beauty-Physics-Astray/dp/1541646762/ref=sr_1_1
Although I greatly respect the way Hossenfelder has challenged string theory, it is interesting to note exactly where Hossenfelder herself, via her apriori belief in determinism, and/or atheistic materialism, has found herself to be at odds with experimental results from quantum mechanics. Specifically, in 2018 Anton Zeilinger and company, via using distant quasars, pushed the 'freedom of choice' loophole all the way back to "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."
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 experimental result came out some theoretical physicists, such as Sabine Hossenfelder, (instead of accepting this fairly impressive experimental result showing that we have free will in a real and meaningful sense), instead opted for believing in ‘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.,,, https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.01324
Basically Hossenfelder, with super-determinism, is arguing that "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."
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?” https://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. So Hossenfelder herself, as gifted as she is in science, has herself been betrayed by her apriori belief in determinism and/or atheistic naturalism, in that her apriori belief has led her to reject experimental results that conflict with her apriori philosophical belief in atheistic naturalism. And it is not as if determinism had a leg to stand on before these experimental results came out. The denial, by atheists, i.e. their denial that we have free will in a real and meaningful sense, is self-refuting nonsense. Simply put, if we do not have free will in a real and meaningful sense then rationality itself dies, (and science dies along with it),
(1) rationality implies a thinker in control of thoughts. (2) under materialism a thinker is an effect caused by processes in the brain (determinism). (3) in order for materialism to ground rationality a thinker (an effect) must control processes in the brain (a cause). (1)&(2) (4) no effect can control its cause. Therefore materialism cannot ground rationality. per Box UD Sam Harris's Free Will: The Medial Pre-Frontal Cortex Did It - Martin Cothran - November 9, 2012 Excerpt: There is something ironic about the position of thinkers like Harris on issues like this: they claim that their position is the result of the irresistible necessity of logic (in fact, they pride themselves on their logic). Their belief is the consequent, in a ground/consequent relation between their evidence and their conclusion. But their very stated position is that any mental state -- including their position on this issue -- is the effect of a physical, not logical cause. By their own logic, it isn't logic that demands their assent to the claim that free will is an illusion, but the prior chemical state of their brains. The only condition under which we could possibly find their argument convincing is if they are not true. The claim that free will is an illusion requires the possibility that minds have the freedom to assent to a logical argument, a freedom denied by the claim itself. It is an assent that must, in order to remain logical and not physiological, presume a perspective outside the physical order. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/11/sam_harriss_fre066221.html
Moreover, the refusal to accept the free will, and/or agent causality, into quantum mechanics as a legitimate starting assumption is pretty doggone irrational to start off with. Think about it. Men have intelligently designed these very sophisticated experiments into quantum mechanics. Elaborate experiments testing our most foundational assumptions about reality itself. Sophisticated mathematical engineering lie behind the intricate and exacting, design of these experiments. The experiments also use our latest cutting edge technology (which, of course, has also been intelligently designed). Elaborate mathematics, which men also intelligently formulated, and/or discovered, also lie behind the analysis of the results of these experiments. Yet, none of these elaborate mathematical tools that are used to build and analyze these experiments would even exist if man did not first have free will in a real and meaningful sense.
Algorithmic Information Theory, Free Will and the Turing Test - Douglas S. Robertson Excerpt: Chaitin’s Algorithmic Information Theory shows that information is conserved under formal mathematical operations and, equivalently, under computer operations. This conservation law puts a new perspective on many familiar problems related to artificial intelligence. For example, the famous “Turing test” for artificial intelligence could be defeated by simply asking for a new axiom in mathematics. Human mathematicians are able to create axioms, but a computer program cannot do this without violating information conservation. Creating new axioms and free will are shown to be different aspects of the same phenomena: the creation of new information. http://cires.colorado.edu/~doug/philosophy/info8.pdf The mathematical world – James Franklin – 7 April 2014 Excerpt: the intellect (is) immaterial and immortal. If today’s naturalists do not wish to agree with that, there is a challenge for them. ‘Don’t tell me, show me’: build an artificial intelligence system that imitates genuine mathematical insight. There seem to be no promising plans on the drawing board.,,, - James Franklin is professor of mathematics at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. https://aeon.co/essays/aristotle-was-right-about-mathematics-after-all
And yet, after the thousands, upon thousands, of free will choices that are poured into intelligently designing these very sophisticated experiments in the first place, the atheist now wants to say that the measurement settings in these experiments 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 setting in the experiment that he wants to choose? 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 those thousands, upon thousands, of free will choices that went into designing the experiments in the first place. So thus in conclusion, Hossenfelder herself, as gifted as she is in science, has, never-the-less, been seduced and 'unscientifically' led astray in quantum mechanics by her a-priori belief in atheistic naturalism. Verse:
Deuteronomy 30:19-20 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
bornagain77
February 8, 2023
February
02
Feb
8
08
2023
03:45 AM
3
03
45
AM
PDT
L&FP 65c: Hossenfelder on the rest of the story on delayed choice quantum eraser exerciseskairosfocus
February 8, 2023
February
02
Feb
8
08
2023
12:17 AM
12
12
17
AM
PDT

Leave a Reply