Science writer: Many Worlds (quantum multiverse) as a fantasy, verging on nihilism

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February 18, 2015

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Many worlds:The Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics holds that there are many worlds which exist in parallel at the same space and time as our own. The existence of the other worlds makes it possible to remove randomness and action at a distance from quantum theory and thus from all physics. – Stanford Plato

Philip Ball, a British physicist turned science writer, reflects at Aeon on who loves the Many Worlds notion and why:

In any event, both ideas display a discomfort with arbitrariness in the universe, and both stem from
the same human impulse that invents fictional fantasies about parallel worlds and that enjoys
speculating about counterfactual histories.

Which is why, if I call these ideas fantasies, it is not to deride or dismiss them but to keep in view the fact that, beneath their apparel of scientific equations or symbolic logic, they are acts of imagination, of ‘just supposing’. But when taken to the extreme, they become a kind of nihilism: if you believe everything then you believe nothing. The MWI allows – perhaps insists – not just on our having cosily familial ‘quantum brothers’ but on worlds where gods, magic and miracles exist and where science is inevitably (if rarely) violated by chance breakdowns of the usual statistical regularities of physics.

Certainly, to say that the world(s) surely can’t be that weird is no objection at all; Many Worlders harp on about this complaint precisely because it is so easily dismissed. MWI doesn’t, though, imply that things really are weirder than we thought; it denies us any way of saying anything, because it entails saying (and doing) everything else too, while at the same time removing the ‘you’ who says it. This does not demand broadmindedness, but rather a blind acceptance of ontological incoherence.

That its supporters refuse to engage in any depth with the questions the MWI poses about the ontology and autonomy of self is lamentable. But this is (speaking as an ex-physicist) very much a physicist’s blind spot: a failure to recognise – or perhaps to care – that problems arising at a level beyond that of the fundamental, abstract theory can be anything more than a minor inconvenience. If the MWI were supported by some sound science, we would have to deal with it – and to do so with more seriousness than the merry invention of Doppelgängers to measure both quantum states of a photon. But it is not. It is grounded in a halfbaked philosophical argument about a preference to simplify the axioms. More.

By all means, read the whole thing. One of the best reflective pieces on the subject to come along in years.

Couple thoughts:

Although Philip Ball seems to think Many Worlds got started to solve a problem in quantum mechanics, there is reason to believe that it has an enormous philosophical appeal anyway to post-empirical types in science, who have no use for concepts like falsifiability or Occam’s razor.

Science is actually only an ornament, a trinket, in Many Worlds/multiverse reasoning. Sages sitting on a riverbank 2500 years ago could come up with the same sorts of ideas, and the same amount of evidence.

Today it could hardly matter less that there is no evidence for these Many Worlds. Evidence is just not hot any more.

See also: As if the multiverse wasn’t bizarre enough …meet Many Worlds

But who needs reality-based thinking anyway? Not the new cosmologists

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Comments

Your last source for this is the Pray Codex which according to Wikipedia is 70 years older than the carbon dating, and doesn’t look much like the shroud. It’s got four holes in it, big deal. As stated already, many churches used burial cloths pained with images of Jesus and held up by the Three Marys which are pictured in the Pray Codex. There were probably hundreds of them, and the liturgy was apparently standardized.
Again the forgers had to find the exact type flagellum used by the Romans at that time (hard to come by 1200 years later – especially without eBay.) They had to know that UV light would later be invented – as many details are not distinguishable to the naked eye. They had to be experts in anatomy. The abdomen shows distinct bloating (consistent with death by suffocation). The blood flows are from the wrists – not the hands (as was believed in the 1200?s), and at 65 degrees (correct for arm position for crucifixion). The face is unevenly swollen from being beaten. The buttocks are rigid from rigor mortis. They had to use HUMAN blood and have tortured the person first to get the levels of billirubin found. They also needed the blood type to be uncommon to medieval Europe. All silly, because scientists confirm that the blood is not painted on. They would have had to then take the shroud to Palestine (for pollen spores). Dirt found on the shroud is consistent with dirt from the Damascus gate (nowhere else). The forgers did all of this in anticipation of 20th century science??? No Pigments on the cloth, the only pigments they found belonged to paintings that lay above the cloth to bless. http://theshroudofturin.blogspot.gr/2012/05/you-state-that-there-is-no-paint-dye-or.html Dating tests were disputed on the basis that they were skewed by contamination by fibres from cloth that was used to repair the relic when it was damaged by fire in the Middle Ages. This is the most likely explanation: the radiocarbon laboratories dated a patch on the Shroud that was medieval. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4210369.stm
I don’t see that source as claiming the Shroud is older than 1355
Sorry wrong URL. As a Greek i know there are Greek texts from Byzantium that mention the cloth in Constantinopole in the 10th century together with the 3 gifts that he received from the Persian Astronomers (they are now in the Mountain Athos),the document of his trial, the crown of thorns and the other cloth that was put on his face and matches exactly the Shroud,The sudarium of Oviedo which we have concrete evidence that existed in Palestine until shortly before the year 614, when Jerusalem was attacked and conquered by Chosroes II, who was king of Persia from 590 to 628. It was taken away to avoid destruction in the invasion, first to Alexandria by the presbyter Philip, then across the north of Africa when Chosroes conquered Alexandria in 616. The sudarium entered Spain at Cartagena, along with people who were fleeing from the Persians. The bishop of Ecija, Fulgentius, welcomed the refugees and the relics, and surrendered the chest, or ark, to Leandro, bishop of Seville. He took it to Seville, where it spent some years. This documentary from History Channel took the image from the shroud and combined it with the sudarium and the blood matches exactly like a puzzle the blood on the Shroud, i mean.. if we have concrete evidence about the sudarium that is dated before the 6th century and matches the blood stains from the Shroud doesn't that mean its proof that the Shroud has the same date as the sudarium? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNJPJ4JwHeEJimFit_{February 19, 2015
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Diogenes is bloviating as usual. LOL. MWI creates multiple independent local systems, which is crap because nonlocality and the nonlocal conservation principles forbid it. Nonlocality is really synonymous with nonspatiality. Distance is abstract, an illusion of perception. Everything is ONE. MWI is stupid. Live with it.Mapou_{February 19, 2015
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Axel: But guess where Dio found that post by the Freeman lad – no, don’t laugh – a blog called, Why Evolution Is True….! I kid you not! That’s intellectual authority for you. You couldn’t make it up.
Genetic fallacy much? Yes, much. Yes Axel, I copied a couple comments from a historian, Charles Freeman, which he made at "Why Evolution is True." I did not copy Jerry Coyne, a biologist, as my expert on history, but rather a historian. Why does it matter at which URL he writes the comment? Moreover, Freeman's comments echo what he wrote in peer-reviewed article that I cited. Now, since you're acting as if Genetic Fallacy is valid, I'll point out that you guys have cited conspiracy rag WorldNetDaily, GodTube, YouTube, and BibleArchaeology.org.Diogenes_{February 19, 2015
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JimFit: Its impossible for Medieval people to have created the Shroud since we have evidence of its existence long before the dating
Long before? I looked at your source and the first sentence was
This entry will briefly trace the locations of the Shroud of Turin, from its first appearance in undisputed history[1] at Lirey, France in c.1355, to its current location since 1578 in St John the Baptist Cathedral, Turin, Italy.
I don't see that source as claiming the Shroud is older than 1355. Your last source for this is the Pray Codex which according to Wikipedia is 70 years older than the carbon dating, and doesn't look much like the shroud. It's got four holes in it, big deal. As stated already, many churches used burial cloths pained with images of Jesus and held up by the Three Marys which are pictured in the Pray Codex. There were probably hundreds of them, and the liturgy was apparently standardized.Diogenes_{February 19, 2015
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Mapou:
Nonlocality falsifies the multiverse hypothesis. It makes multiverse proponents look stupid.
Complete arglebargle backed up by no math. I already showed above that QM uses an outer product of the particle state and the apparatus state. Outer products are inherently non-local. Entangled states are non-local in MWI. Rather, one motivation for opposing MWI is an attempt to restore locality. It's your problem and none of our own. But the real point of Mapou's post is the use of name-calling to assuage his feelings of insecurity.
It makes multiverse proponents look stupid.
The "multiverse" is not the same as MWI, except in a generic sense. But the above shows the whole point of most comments at UD: to use name-calling to assuage your (plural) profound feelings of inferiority and status anxiety. You should feel inferior. You've contributed NO math.Diogenes_{February 19, 2015
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Diogenes if you have proved MWI go grab the Nobel Price, i will make them a call now and i will inform them that where Physicists have failed to solve all these problems (and much more) you did it! Better think from now how you will spend the 1 million dollar prize! I wish i was smart like you :(JimFit_{February 19, 2015
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JimFit:
1 Huge proliferation of universes for explaining the observations of an observer. In a way it does not respect the Occam’s razor. (Many worlders claim MWI respects it since this interpretation has an economy of principles).
No, that is not how Occam's Razor is applied. The complexity of a hypothesis is judged relative to how many extraordinary properties it has not supported by extraordinary evidence, with "extraordinary" here meaning different from known behavior of entities of that class. But we know from observation that macroscopic aggregates of atoms exist in quantum superpositions and become entangled, which is what "universe" means here. So entangled macroscopic quantum superpositions are not an extraordinary claim. Rather, non-MWI interpretations say there is ONLY one entangled macroscopic quantum superposition, in direct contradiction to observation of fluids at low temperatures. Suppose you were to argue that there's one malaria germ on Earth and I show you a photograph of 100 malaria germs. Is "only one germ" a better solution to Occam's razor because you think there's only one? It isn't the count of entities that matters, it's their claimed unusual characteristics. Again: non-MWI interpretations say there is ONLY one entangled macroscopic quantum superposition, in direct contradiction to observation of fluids at low temperatures. Further, non-MWI interpretations say that wavefunctions collapse at poorly defined points in undefined ways in direct violations of Schrodinger's equation. Any violation of Schrodinger's equation would be extraordinary, but since we can't see the wavefunction collapse, they're not supported by extraordinary evidence. For every "universe" (not actually a whole universe, but entangled macroscopic quantum superposition) deduced by the MWI, the non-MWI must hypothesize an equal number of unobserved violations of Schrodinger's equation.
2 The problem of preferred basis.
?? No more a problem for MWI than for anything else.
3 Defining a suitable measure of probability to achieve Born rule.
??? It's the square of the amplitude, like in every other quantum mechanical model. All QM interpretations have this "problem".
4 Other universes can not be observed. (A variation of saying it does not respect Occam’s razor)
Yes, you're counting that twice.
5 The Problem of Observers
No such problem for MWI. It's a much bigger problem for non-MWI wavefunction collapse. Why can dumb machines act as "observers" and cause this "wavefunction collapse" (actually a disappearance of the diffraction pattern)? Non-MWI interpretation has a problem and can't even define "observation." In MWI, observation is well-defined and I defined it mathematically above.
6 It is rather a psychological way of thinking about Q.T. rather than a real ontology.
What is that, Appeal to Motive? Ontology is philosophy. Let philosophy follow science, not the other way around. Non-MWI models can't definitively define "exist" because they can't agree if wavefunction collapse objectively exists. So they've got a problem with ontology themselves. In what sense of "exist" does a wavefunction collapse "exist", if you can't see it?Diogenes_{February 19, 2015
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Nonlocality falsifies the multiverse hypothesis. It makes multiverse proponents look stupid.Mapou_{February 19, 2015
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Diogenes please watch this documentary about the Shroud, it debunks every claim you have made with evidence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNJPJ4JwHeE There is also this site that demolishes all of your claims about the pigment on the shroud, the repair and the dating http://theshroudofturin.blogspot.gr/ Its impossible for Medieval people to have created the Shroud since we have evidence of its existence long before the dating http://theshroudofturin.blogspot.gr/2015/02/locations-of-shroud-turin-shroud.html We have the Shroud even painted in the 12th century correct so they had to look at it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pray_CodexJimFit_{February 19, 2015
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Well, nobody seems interested that we have contemporary documents saying that burial cloths with painted images of Jesus were used in the Easter liturgy of the 13th century, the dating that resulted fro the carbon 14 dating.
In [Easter liturgy of] the 11th century there was a significant addition to the number of characters when John and Peter were introduced. This was a re-creation of that dramatic moment, described in Chapter 20 of John’s gospel, when Mary Magdalene tells Peter and that ‘other disciple that Jesus loved’... of the empty tomb and they both run to see it. The grave clothes, the facecloth separate from the rest, are lying there and in this extended version of the play, often now called the Visitatio Sepulchri, it is Peter and John who bring out the cloths and display them to the congregation with the chant: ‘See, O brethren, here are the facecloth and the wrappings and the body is not to be found in the tomb.’... A French Bible dictionary of 1912 states that there were ‘linen cloths, in which it was the custom to paint the body of Christ in the tomb and spread them afterwards on the altar to serve for the Mass on Easter Sunday’. This is a late reference to images on the linen but it is given some support by a few other texts. For instance, in the Mozarabic Rites that originate in the seventh century and are followed in some parts of Spain to this day, the Easter Preface reads: ‘Peter ran with John to the tomb and saw the recent imprints of the dead and risen man on the linens.’ ...There are others who back this solution to the original purpose of the Shroud. In the third volume of the theology section (1790) of the mammoth Encyclopedie Méthodique... the Abbé Bergier contributed the article on Suaire (‘Shroud’)... He describes the Gospel texts and concludes that the linens or shrouds that one sees ‘in several churches’ could not possibly be the actual burial cloth of Jesus. He goes on to note that in the Easter ceremonies, which he dates back to the 12th and 13th centuries, a linen cloth empreint de la figure de Jesus-Christ enseveli (empreint, ‘printed’, enseveli, ‘buried’) is displayed to the congregation. He goes on to tell how these cloths are preserved in church treasuries, which is why there are so many of them. He notes specifically those displayed at Cologne, Besançon, Turin and Brioude and argues that despite their lack of authenticity as the original Shroud they should still command veneration. Furthermore, an article by Herbert Thurston, a Jesuit who did much research on the Shroud in the early 20th century and who concluded that it dated from the 14th century, also makes the suggestion that the Shroud was originally an Easter grave-cloth. [Charles Marshall, http://www.historytoday.com/charles-freeman/origins-shroud-turin#sthash.ofOfHc8N.dpuf]
Diogenes_{February 19, 2015
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Many Worlds interpretation faces a lot of problems 1 Huge proliferation of universes for explaining the observations of an observer. In a way it does not respect the Occam's razor. (Many worlders claim MWI respects it since this interpretation has an economy of principles). 2 The problem of preferred basis. 3 Defining a suitable measure of probability to achieve Born rule. 4 Other universes can not be observed. (A variation of saying it does not respect Occam's razor) 5 The Problem of Observers 6 It is rather a psychological way of thinking about Q.T. rather than a real ontology.JimFit_{February 19, 2015
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Oh for crying out loud, there isn't any 3-dimensional "holographic" information in the shroud, and the images front and back don't match up. They're different in height and the arms don't align. That's no "hologram."
They had to be experts in anatomy.
Please! The images front and back don't match, they're different heights, the arms don't line up! Also the head is attached to the neck wrong. No, no experts in anatomy. And now you say that the proof that it's supernatural is that it's "faint"? Uh, medieval engravings show that it was NOT faint, but easily seen from hundreds of feet away, when shown to medieval audiences. It was just a painting on linen, and the paint flaked off over the centuries every time it was folded and unfolded. No big mystery. If it were incredibly bright and vivid, you'd say that was supernatural too. As Charles Marshall has pointed out, there are contemporary examples of the same thing, though not burial cloths: We have a good example in the Zittau Veil (1472) at Zittau, Saxony, where the pigments came off when it was steamed leaving an image of two figures (women in this case) very similar to the ghostlike figures of the Shroud.
Strange, Dio, that that painter should have painted a facsimile of a photographic negative in the 15th century;
No, it is not a "facsimile of a photographic negative." it's just a negative, so you're wrong on that point. As has been pointed out many times, the painter was creating a prop for an Easter liturgy. It was supposed to look like a burial cloth of Christ, so the guy tried to make it look real. There's no reason to believe medieval people didn't understand negative images. Any moderately skilled artist should understand the idea.
and reproduced the markings of the scourged and crucified Christ so accurately.
How the hell would you know what Jesus' scourging looked like? As Charles Marshall points out, the scourge marks on the Christ figure match medieval theological symbolism about Christ's scourging.
Charles Freeman: This was a crude painting but details of the iconography, notably the -all-over scourging, were not known before 1300. The blood flows on the head and arms are also typical of this period. This fits nicely with the earliest documentation and the radio-carbon date... The scourge marks are all over the body. The Shroud images Jerry has posted above show them well. Earliest known examples are c. 1300. The art historian James Marrow (Princeton) suggests that this [was] inspired by Isaiah 1.6 that was believed to be a premonition of Christ’s scourging.

The crisscross of scourge marks can dimly be seen on the Enrie photograph of the Shroud taken in 1931 and on the Durante photograph of 2002. The earliest examples of an ‘overall’ flagellation come from the late 13th century (one example of this date is a wooden, painted crucified Christ, believed to come from the Rhineland, now in San Domenico, Orvieto) and the iconography is well established by 1325, as seen in the Holkham Bible. What caused this sudden but distinctive change in iconography? The catalyst appears to have been a new fascination with mining the Old Testament for prophecies of the Passion. The key text was Isaiah 1:6: ‘From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness – only wounds and bruises and open sores, not cleansed or bandaged or soothed with oil’. Contemporary commentaries on the Passion described an extensive whipping of Christ, ‘so that there was no soundness left in him: only wounds, bruises and sores’. These extensive flagellations are therefore a development of the 14th century and this helps place the iconography of the Shroud more securely in this period.
Again, there's no reason to doubt the carbon 14 dating. The evidence from the shroud itself shows that the samples were not patches nor repairs nor medieval modifications, and the amount of bacterial contamination would have to be HUGE to throw off the date that much.Diogenes_{February 19, 2015
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Don't confuse him, Jim, there's a good chap. And BA77, why mention the 3-dimensional information of the photographic-negative markings? That's just plain mean! But guess where Dio found that post by the Freeman lad - no, don't laugh - a blog called, Why Evolution Is True....! I kid you not! That's intellectual authority for you. You couldn't make it up.Axel_{February 19, 2015
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Scientists say Turin Shroud is supernatural - December 2011 Excerpt: After years of work trying to replicate the colouring on the shroud, a similar image has been created by the scientists. However, they only managed the effect by scorching equivalent linen material with high-intensity ultra violet lasers, undermining the arguments of other research, they say, which claims the Turin Shroud is a medieval hoax. Such technology, say researchers from the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (Enea), was far beyond the capability of medieval forgers, whom most experts have credited with making the famous relic. "The results show that a short and intense burst of UV directional radiation can colour a linen cloth so as to reproduce many of the peculiar characteristics of the body image on the Shroud of Turin," they said. And in case there was any doubt about the preternatural degree of energy needed to make such distinct marks, the Enea report spells it out: "This degree of power cannot be reproduced by any normal UV source built to date." http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-say-turin-shroud-is-supernatural-6279512.htmlbornagain77_{February 19, 2015
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“3 carbon dating tests show the Shroud is medieval,” For the sake of humor, let's assume it WAS forged. The forgers had to find the exact type flagellum used by the Romans at that time (hard to come by 1200 years later - especially without eBay.) They had to know that UV light would later be invented - as many details are not distinguishable to the naked eye. They had to be experts in anatomy. The abdomen shows distinct bloating (consistent with death by suffocation). The blood flows are from the wrists - not the hands (as was believed in the 1200's), and at 65 degrees (correct for arm position for crucifixion). The face is unevenly swollen from being beaten. The buttocks are rigid from rigor mortis. They had to use HUMAN blood and have tortured the person first to get the levels of billirubin found. They also needed the blood type to be uncommon to medieval Europe. All silly, because scientists confirm that the blood is not painted on. They would have had to then take the shroud to Palestine (for pollen spores). Dirt found on the shroud is consistent with dirt from the Damascus gate (nowhere else). The forgers did all of this in anticipation of 20th century science??? A bit of a stretch, don’t you think? Shroud is dated back in the Jesus Christ era. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/28/shroud-of-turin-real-jesus_n_2971850.html P.s Many Worlds Interpretation is pseudoscience.JimFit_{February 19, 2015
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Diogenes, you say the Shroud was painted. OK reproduce it with all the characteristics. i.e. photographic negative and 3-dimensional holographic information encoded in it: Q: Why can't the Shroud just be be a medieval painting? A: The image is also extremely faint, fading away completely if you get closer than about six feet, so it would have been like trying to paint an enormous canvas in invisible ink. A short film about the first photographic negative taken of the shroud of Turin in 1898 by Secondo Pia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTeKu2-3hRk Turin Shroud Hologram Reveals The Words 'The Lamb' - short video https://vimeo.com/97156784 Turin Shroud: a medical forensic study of its blood marks and image - G.Lavoie - May 2010 Abstract - From extensive analytical studies of the Shroud of Turin we know that the image is not man-made, and from medical forensic studies of the blood marks we know that a crucified man was laid out on his back and wrapped in this cloth. But the question still remains as to what caused the shroud image. A forensic evaluation of the blood marks and a study of the effect of gravity on surface anatomy suggest that a natural event is not the most probable cause of shroud image formation. http://www.acheiropoietos.info/proceedings/LavoieWeb.pdfbornagain77_{February 19, 2015
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Strange, Dio, that that painter should have painted a facsimile of a photographic negative in the 15th century; and reproduced the markings of the scourged and crucified Christ so accurately. Obviously an artist and engineer born before his time. Eat your heart out Leonardo. No, not the footballer, Dio. Are there any other photographic-negative paintings in existence from prior to the invention of photography? However, I suspect your post and BA77s crossed in the posting, and he will have exposed your extraordinary gullibility for all to ponder in bewilderment.Axel_{February 19, 2015
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Here is historian Charles Freeman that BA77 won't read or refute, on the attempts to refute carbon dating results:
Charles Freeman writes: The Shroud was carefully examined for a patch by Mechthild Flury=Lemburg, the textile expert who was put in charge of the restoration of the Shroud in 2002 and she found nothing. Years before, in 1978, photographs of the weave had also shown that the bandings of the linen continued uninterrupted through the sample area. The reweave theory was put forward by a former monk with a degree in theology, Joe Marino, who had never examined the Shroud. He seems to have a cult following on this but his latest move is to argue that there should not be another radio-carbon dating as the Shroud is not suitable.
Gosh I wonder why he'd be against it.
Whether radio-carbon specialists would agree with him,I do not know- but I doubt it! (I am not sure who he thinks will listen to him in the circles that might decide such things.) But we do have solid evidence that the earliest documentation of the Shroud and the iconography suggest the first half of the fourteenth century so it is a case where the radio-carbon dating has independent backing. There is absolutely no reason to discard it. The last desperate attempt to challenge it is the earthquake theory (earthquake (see relevant gospel) released neutrons that catapulted the carbon readings from first century to fourteenth). If this theory held true every artefact tested from an earthquake zone would also be miles out with its date. I did say’ desperate’ [Charles Freeman comment, 2014]
Diogenes_{February 19, 2015
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I accuse BA77 of superstition, and he proves me wrong with hyperlinks to... WorldNetDaily... Godtube... Youtube videos... a Shroud of Turin conference...
Scientific tests of Shroud point to supernatural – December 2011 Excerpt: The Italian scientists found they could achieve a Shroud-like coloration of linen yarns in a narrow range of irradiation parameters, using ultraviolent lasers that were completely unknown in the Middle Ages. http://www.wnd.com/index.php?f.....eId=380633
Supernatural. WorldNetDaily. Right. Nothing superstitious about that. Now here's historian Charles Freeman: The bishop of Troyes, Henry of Poitiers, whose responsibility it was to monitor such claims [e.g. the real burial shroud of Jesus] in his diocese, investigated the shrine and reported that, not only were the images painted on the cloth, but that he had actually tracked down the painter. After this clerical onslaught, the Shroud was hidden away for more than 30 years. Yet the Church accepted that it was not a deliberate forgery and in January 1390 the (anti-)pope Clement VII allowed its renewed exposure in Lirey. Oh, how Intelligent Design proponents make medieval bishops look like icons of rationality and enlightenment!Diogenes_{February 19, 2015
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"3-in-1 herringbone weave" Shroud Of Turin - Sewn From Two Pieces - 2000 Years Old (World Renowned Textile Expert - Matches Masada Cloth) – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uST6qt9pfoo The Shroud of Turin - Evidence it is authentic Excerpt: In June 2002, the Shroud was sent to a team of experts for restoration. One of them was Swiss textile historian Mechthild Flury-Lemberg. She was surprised to find a peculiar stitching pattern in the seam of one long side of the Shroud, where a three-inch wide strip of the same original fabric was sewn onto a larger segment. The stitching pattern, which she says was the work of a professional, is quite similar to the hem of a cloth found in the tombs of the Jewish fortress of Masada. The Masada cloth dates to between 40 BC and 73 AD. This kind of stitch has never been found in Medieval Europe. http://www.newgeology.us/presentation24.html THE SHROUD AS AN ANCIENT TEXTILE - Evidence of Authenticity http://www.newgeology.us/presentation24.html The Shroud of Turin's Earlier History: Part One: To Edessa https://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2013/03/14/The-Shroud-of-Turins-Earlier-History-Part-One-To-Edessa.aspx#Article List of Evidences of the Turin Shroud - 2010 http://www.acheiropoietos.info/proceedings/FantiListWeb.pdf (Jewish) STURP Shroud photographer Barrie Schwortz convinced of Shroud's authenticity after years of doubting it - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fyUHhTdSAs Shroud of Turin: Hoax or Proof of Resurrection? (feat. Photographer of Los Alamos, Barrie Schwortz) – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCyK2BzLy3Ybornagain77_{February 19, 2015
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KF:
if there are two worlds or more at each fork imposed by an experiment of any observable scale, the matter has to come from somewhere (with associated E = m*c^2 rest-mass energy) and the energy behind its momentum etc has to come from somewhere too.
No KF, for conservation of energy what matter is the expectation value of the energy which is computed by sandwiching the energy operator between the total state of the system and its conjugate. When a part of the system goes into a quantum superposition, each sub-state has a lower amplitude-- in the above I set the amplitude to 1/sqrt(2) as is standard for 50-50 probability-- this is universal for all quantum mechanics. I did the math above. Because each sub-state has an amplitude less than 1, and the sums of the squares of the amplitudes add up to 1, so the expectation value of E is the same, as I already showed above. Please read the math I so carefully typed out. Secondly, I emphasize that solid state physicists have observed macroscopic collections of atoms at low temperature in quantum superpositions of states. These aggregates of atoms have massive energy if computed by E=mc^2. If your idea were right (it's not) these observed phenomena would require the energy of an atomic bomb. But they didn't. So your assumptions are mathematically wrong and shown wrong by observation of macroscopic states that are entangled and in superpositions that require no special energies. This is the observational evidence. You are speculating. Your speculations must be testable against observation, which shows your assumptions are wrong. Look through the math above to find your error.Diogenes_{February 19, 2015
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"3 carbon dating tests show the Shroud is medieval," New Evidence Overturns Shroud Of Turin Carbon Dating - Joseph G. Marino and M. Sue Benford - video (with Raymond Rogers, lead chemist from the STURP project) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxDdx6vxthE Discovery Channel - Unwrapping The Shroud of Turin New Evidence - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWyiZtagxX8 The following is the main peer reviewed paper which has refuted the 1988 Carbon Dating: Why The Carbon 14 Samples Are Invalid, Raymond Rogers per: Thermochimica Acta (Volume 425 pages 189-194, Los Alamos National Laboratory, University of California) Excerpt: Preliminary estimates of the kinetics constants for the loss of vanillin from lignin indicate a much older age for the cloth than the radiocarbon analyses. The radiocarbon sampling area is uniquely coated with a yellow–brown plant gum containing dye lakes. Pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry results from the sample area coupled with microscopic and microchemical observations prove that the radiocarbon sample was not part of the original cloth of the Shroud of Turin. The radiocarbon date was thus not valid for determining the true age of the shroud. The fact that vanillin can not be detected in the lignin on shroud fibers, Dead Sea scrolls linen, and other very old linens indicates that the shroud is quite old. A determination of the kinetics of vanillin loss suggests that the shroud is between 1300- and 3000-years old. Even allowing for errors in the measurements and assumptions about storage conditions, the cloth is unlikely to be as young as 840 years. http://www.ntskeptics.org/issues/shroud/shroudold.htm Rogers passed away shortly after publishing this paper, but his work was ultimately verified by the Los Alamos National Laboratory: Carbon Dating Of The Turin Shroud Completely Overturned by Scientific Peer Review Excerpt: Rogers also asked John Brown, a materials forensic expert from Georgia Tech to confirm his finding using different methods. Brown did so. He also concluded that the shroud had been mended with newer material. Since then, a team of nine scientists at Los Alamos has also confirmed Rogers work, also with different methods and procedures. Much of this new information has been recently published in Chemistry Today. http://shroudofturin.wordpress.com/2009/02/19/the-custodians-of-time/ This following is the Los Alamos National Laboratory report and video which confirms the Rogers' paper: “Analytical Results on Thread Samples Taken from the Raes Sampling Area (Corner) of the Shroud Cloth” (Aug 2008) Excerpt: The age-dating process failed to recognize one of the first rules of analytical chemistry that any sample taken for characterization of an area or population must necessarily be representative of the whole. The part must be representative of the whole. Our analyses of the three thread samples taken from the Raes and C-14 sampling corner showed that this was not the case....... LANL’s work confirms the research published in Thermochimica Acta (Jan. 2005) by the late Raymond Rogers, a chemist who had studied actual C-14 samples and concluded the sample was not part of the original cloth possibly due to the area having been repaired. - Robert Villarreal - Los Alamos National Laboratory http://www.ohioshroudconference.com/ Shroud Of Turin Carbon Dating Overturned - Robert Villarreal - Press Release video http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=DPPWDPNX Turin Shroud 'is not a medieval forgery' - 28 Mar 2013 Excerpt: Experiments conducted by scientists at the University of Padua in northern Italy have dated the shroud to ancient times, a few centuries before and after the life of Christ.,,, The analysis is published in a new book, "Il Mistero della Sindone" or The Mystery of the Shroud, by Giulio Fanti, a professor of mechanical and thermal measurement at Padua University,,, Scientists, including Prof Fanti, used infra-red light and spectroscopy – the measurement of radiation intensity through wavelengths – to analyse fibres from the shroud,,, The tests dated the age of the shroud to between 300 BC and 400AD.,,, Scientists have never been able to explain how the image of a man's body, complete with nail wounds to his wrists and feet, pinpricks from thorns around his forehead and a spear wound to his chest, could have formed on the cloth. Mr Fanti said the imprint was caused by a blast of “exceptional radiation”, although he stopped short of describing it as a miracle. He said his tests backed up earlier results which claimed to have found on the shroud traces of dust and pollen which could only have come from the Holy Land.,,, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/9958678/Turin-Shroud-is-not-a-medieval-forgery.html Here is a fairly good 'unbiased' article on the 'laser' test which undermined the credibility of the carbon dating from a completely different angle; Scientific tests of Shroud point to supernatural - December 2011 Excerpt: The Italian scientists found they could achieve a Shroud-like coloration of linen yarns in a narrow range of irradiation parameters, using ultraviolent lasers that were completely unknown in the Middle Ages. http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=380633bornagain77_{February 19, 2015
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"Humbled", do you have any math or equations or observations to bring to the table or is it all Appeal to Motive fallacy with you?
It does make one wonder why people are so willing to accept such a *gasp (theory) when there exists no evidence for it.
That's right-- why should we believe the opposition to MWI when they have no evidence of this "wavefunction collapse", nor any ability to even define it? Call me when you have video of a wavefunction collapsing.
It is so blatantly obvious that their position is one of faith and superstition.
Faith and superstition? Since when did you UDiots decide "faith and superstition" were bad? Isn't this a website that comes out demanding that ghosts and phantasms are real, and that monks can levitate and fly through the air? Doesn't your moderator News argue that ESP is real and dogs have telepathy? And isn't this a website where BA77 is tolerated, nay rewarded for citing the Rev. Chuck "Peanut Butter Jar" Missler about the gravity-defying Quantum Shroud of Turin, "the science of the Shroud, such as total lack of gravity, lack of entropy (without gravitational collapse), no time, no space—it conforms to no known law of physics”, a position held tenaciously after 3 carbon dating tests show the Shroud is medieval, when its 3-in-1 herringbone weave and its mixture of cotton and linen did not exist in the Ancient Near East, when contemporary documents say a skeptical bishop found the guy who painted it, when the 2 images top and bottom don't match anatomically, they're 7 cm different in height, the heads don't match up and the arms are way out of alignment, so the 2 images can't be simultaneous, and when historians have contemporary documentary evidence that paintings of Jesus were made on burial cloths as common props for Easter liturgy? Ah. But you don't define your ghosts, your phantasms, your aerial flying monk, the ESP and psychic doggies, the crude, fake painting that you claim defies gravity and "conforms to no known law of physics", you don't call that "faith and superstition." No. Rather, you UDiots define "faith and supersition" as NOT BELIEVING in your ghosts, phantasms, ESP, psychic doggies, flying monk and gravity-defying Quantum Shroud of Turin. Gotcha. That's your definition of superstition. Right-o. OK then, every application of the scientific method is superstition then by your definition. Gotcha. And isn't this a website where the moderator literally, actually bans people and deletes their comments for blasphemy? If I wanted to be banned for blasphemy, I'd visit Ray Comfort's page. No faith or superstition when you ban people for blasphemy, right? Funny-- why is it you always accuse us of religion, but we never, never accuse you of science?Diogenes_{February 19, 2015
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PS: Oops, forgot 3 ords mag, 90 MJ for 10^-6 g.kairosfocus_{February 19, 2015
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Diogenes, if there are two worlds or more at each fork imposed by an experiment of any observable scale, the matter has to come from somewhere (with associated E = m*c^2 rest-mass energy) and the energy behind its momentum etc has to come from somewhere too. The above still reads a lot like something -- especially energy -- from nothing, you will note that earlier I went from the extreme case on an experiment being a Planck-time quantum event with "atoms" to the scale of setting up a GM tube and poison gas exercise with an unfortunate cat [and are there two worlds, one with a live and one a dead cat or a stochastic distribution pivoting on the odds, with the underlying population of atoms and decays driving?] . . . remember each gram of matter corresponds to 9*10^13 J of energy, a considerable amount, 90 TJ . . . and scaling with the mass involved, a micro gram would still be 90 GJ of energy. I find the concept that on exerting an observation one interacts with a system and triggers a collapse dependent on the stochastics involved, far more reasonable. But then I was educated back in the days when Copenhagen was dominant. KFkairosfocus_{February 19, 2015
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BA77: I watched the video. It makes no mathematical points and contains no scientific criticisms, only philosophical preferences and speculation. You philosophical speculation bores me. You have no math, no equations, no observations and no evidence of any "wavefunction collapse."
Many worlds, as if it wasn’t absurd enough already, dissolves into absurdity.
I don't think you know what "absurdity" means, but to me "absurdity" means hypothesizing speculative violations of well-known rules (like Schrodinger's equation) not supported by empirical tests, violations that can never be observed and must always remain speculative, like your "wavefunction collapse." I define "absurdity" as extraordinary claims not supported by extraordinary evidence, and "extraordinary" means entities behaving in ways different from our past observations of entities of that class. We know how wavefunctions behave. We have seen them evolve. Allegations of wavefunction "collapse" are extraordinary claims not supported by extraordinary evidence, which is absurdity by my very clear definition. 90 years after Copenhagen this absurdity remains speculative, never observed, never tested, never empirically confirmed.Diogenes_{February 19, 2015
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Continuing: Now what if another machine, say a computer, comes along and reads off the first apparatus? More of the same. First form the outer product of the previous system with the computer, which initially knows nothing about the outcome: {1/sqrt(2) |+> x |apparatus +> + 1/sqrt(2) |-> x |apparatus ->} x |computer > The above can be rewritten as 1/sqrt(2) |+> x |apparatus +> x |computer > + 1/sqrt(2) |-> x |apparatus -> x |computer > Then the second observation process involves a new interaction dependent on the state of the apparatus: Final State = 1/sqrt(2) |+> x U'|apparatus +> x |computer > + 1/sqrt(2) |-> x U'|apparatus -> x |computer > Again, this only involves the energy of an observation process U, which can be arbitrarily small. This U will leave the computer in a quantum superposition entangled with both apparatus and particle: Final State = 1/sqrt(2) |+> x |apparatus +> x |computer +> + 1/sqrt(2) |-> x |apparatus -> x |computer -> and so on up the line, until the scientist reads off his computer screen, and then he becomes a superposition of two states entangeld with all the others. The energy requirements are nothing beyond the observations themselves. Note that the EXPECTATION VALUE of total system energy does not change because each quantum state has an amplitude of 1/sqrt(2).Diogenes_{February 19, 2015
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KF:
How much energy is required to build a cosmos?... Think at ultimate level 10^80 atoms, forking a new cosmos or two each every 10^-43 s. With the flood of energy required. Then, repeat for the next 10^-43 s in all 10^80 daughter worlds. Then . . . Where is the energy coming from?
This is a misunderstanding based on two different definitions of "universe". The MWI does not hypothesize creating a new universe akin to creating matter or energy. What is commonly called a "universe" in MWI is not galaxies etc., but a macroscopic collection of particles (which could be small or large) in a quantum superposition of states that becomes entangled with a system that was previously in a superposition. What is commonly (and perhaps incorrectly) called "splitting" is just quantum entanglement, which requires no energy. Again, the initial state has some particle already in a quantum superposition: Initial State = (1/sqrt(2) |+> + 1/sqrt(2)|->) x |apparatus> This is the INITIAL state, before any energetic interactions. The "x" above is the outer product, meaning that the particle and the apparatus exist in separate states and can't be multiplied against each other (but their states can be multiplied against themselves, that is, particle-particle interference and apparatus-apparatus interference, but no particle-apparatus interference.) The "x" for outer product is clumsy so we usually drop it. The apparatus in the initial state has no "knowledge" of whether the particle is + or -. Note that its amplitude is 1. I'm also adding amplitudes for the particle + and -, here 1/sqrt(2) which I ignored before. Squaring them of course gives probability = 1/2. Initial State = 1/sqrt(2) |+> x |apparatus> + 1/sqrt(2)|-> x |apparatus> This is the same as the above, just rewritten. No energy involved. The observation process means that the apparatus interacts with the particle via a time-evolution operator U which must depend on the eigenvalue that distinguishes the + and - eigenstate. Final State = 1/sqrt(2) U|+> x |apparatus> + 1/sqrt(2) U|-> x |apparatus> But to be an "observation" of the state of + or -, the U interaction must depends on the state, |+> or |->, AND must leave the apparatus in one of two orthogonal apparatus states, which "record" the observed state of the particle: Final State = 1/sqrt(2) |+> x |apparatus +> + 1/sqrt(2) |-> x |apparatus -> To answer your question, the energy involved in this observation is only the energy of a particle interaction necessary to observe the + or -, and that's all. How much that will be will depend on the nature of the observation process, but it can be very small. Note that the final state is now entangled, the apparatus is now not just in a superposition of states, but that superposition in entanngled with the initial superposition of the particle. This entanglement can be achieved with minimal energy. Note that the above "final" state will have all diffraction/quantum interference effects in the double slit experiment disappear, as I showed mathematically in my comment to Wallstreeter above, even though NO CONSCIOUS BEING HAS YET BECOME INVOLVED, only unthinking MACHINES. But the interference pattern will now cancel! This shows that the disappearance of the interference pattern does not require alleged actions of undefined "conscious beings" but only requires known physical processes of superposition and entanglement, making the unobserved "collapse of the wavefunction" superfluous in the extreme. KF asks: Is the energy of the system different? The EXPECTATION VALUE of total system energy does not change because each quantum state has an amplitude of 1/sqrt(2). If we compute the EXPECTATION VALUE of the energy, we sandwich an energy operator E between the dot product of the system with itself: {1/sqrt(2) <+| x <apparatus +| + 1/sqrt(2) <-| x <apparatus -|} E {1/sqrt(2) |+> x |apparatus +> + 1/sqrt(2) |-> x |apparatus ->} Then you just multiply out the cross-terms: (1/2)<+|E|+><apparatus +|E|apparatus +> + (1/2)<+|E|-><apparatus +|E|apparatus -> + (1/2)<-|E|+><apparatus -|E|apparatus +> + (1/2)<-|E|-><apparatus -|E|apparatus -> = (1/2)<+|E|+><apparatus +|E|apparatus +> + (1/2)<-|E|-><apparatus -|E|apparatus -> because cross-terms of orthogonal states cancel. (Here I'm assuming the particle and observer have separated and I neglect energy of interaction.) You're left with two terms but they're all pre-multiplied by 1/2 so the net energy is the same as before. This answers KF's question about energy.Diogenes_{February 19, 2015
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watch the video. A Critique of the Many Worlds Interpretation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_42skzOHjtA&index=5&list=PL1mr9ZTZb3TViAqtowpvZy5PZpn-MoSK_ Many worlds, as if it wasn't absurd enough already, dissolves into absurdity. p.s. don't complain to me. I'm not in a position to help you even if I thought your position had an ounce of sanity in it in the first place. Complain to the video's maker and the PhD level critics that he cites in the video. Only then will you make progress towards advancing your insane atheistic worldview where 'you' really don't objectively exist as one person but are instead a veritable countless infinity of selves.bornagain77_{February 19, 2015
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BA77, how can you paste so much falsehood into one sentence?
Moreover, the reason for using MWI, given by atheists, i.e. no additional assumptions, fails since it in fact, upon analysis, requires more assumptions rather than less assumptions:
No. MWI involves no new assumptions, and its critics have never pointed to a single "new assumption" in MWI. What "new assumption" would that be? MWI is a deduction from 1. QM involves superposition of states, 2. Superposition of states are observed to apply to macroscopic collections of atoms, and 3. Observers are macroscopic collections of atoms. Those are not assumptions and not new. The reasons for using MWI are not "given by atheists", they are given by physicists, but nice attempt at ad hominem fallacy. By contrast, the opposition to MWI is always philosophically or religiously motivated, and assumes new and extraordinary violations of Schrodinger's equations that can't be observed nor even defined, and speculates about wavefunction collapses that have never been observed and can never be tested. The opposition to MWI is a war by philosophers and their speculations against empirical science. Call me when you have video of your precious wavefunction collapse! It's only been 90 years...Diogenes_{February 19, 2015
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