I'm looking to drill through rock at temperatures of 700'C - close to magma chambers and subduction zones, line the bore holes with pipes and pump water through - producing contained superheated steam. The volume and temperature of the rock suggests there would be no recharge rate issue. — counterpunch

700 C rock isn't all that much energy; it sounds more impressive than it is. Heat capacity of rock isn't so high, and if we're talking super heated steam at 400 C, then there's only 300 C difference to work with.

To power a whole major country we're talking massive amount of rock, that costs money to put pipes through. If the heat extracted is equal to the recharge rate, no problem. However, even in incredibly convenient places for this technology, like iceland, the idea of powering a substantial part of Europe is just not remotely feasible.

Drilling pipe and circulating water is simply not all that hard, if this massive energy source was there, we'd be tapping it on a significant, and not niche, scale.

It's basic thermodynamics, very well understood, extremely low room for improvement of our heat engines (as you mention, steam is still a pretty solid choice of working fluid ... which is what was used at the very beginning of the aptly called steam age). This isn't something like nuclear fusion where we can always spectacular a breakthrough is possible.

Compared to our advancements in computing, heat engines have basically not advanced in a hundred years.

I plan to convert electrical energy into liquified hydrogen fuel for transport. Liquified hydrogen gas contains 2.5 times the energy of petroleum per kilo - and we ship petroleum around the world. — counterpunch

The problem this plan is:
- hydrogen is so small it seeps through materials, causing micro cracks; this isn't a problem if you need hydrogen and just a) tolerate leakage since the amount isn't a danger nor relevant economic loss b) replace the equipment when you need to, but is a problem if you want to build out a massive complex infrastructure of tanks, pipes, valves, gauges, etc. with high efficiency and low maintenance and few explosions.
- Even with the technical challenges resolved, the infrastructure involved is so massive that it would take decades to actually build.
- The only point of hydrogen infrastructure is to power personal vehicles and trucks ... but trains exist and can be built and powered by electricity far cheaper. I.e. even if it was doable, the basic justification doesn't exist, outside some niche applications that have no relevant to climate change.

It's difficult to generalise about geothermal energy because every geothermal energy source has different characteristics. Current extraction techniques are sub-optimal. The particular design, I've described here many times - was created with these problems in mind. There are over 500 volcanoes in the Pacific Ring of Fire alone, and 1500 globally, plus subduction zones - where large volumes of rock heated to very high temperatures, are within reach of modern drilling technologies. — counterpunch

Volcanoes are impressive as they release stored energy in a short amount of time. To power anything significant, we're talking about a massive continuous volcanic eruption; the earth doesn't recharge the magma chambers fast enough. Magma moves pretty slowly, significant pressure can be stored up over time, but release that pressure and it doesn't just flow out like a tap. The exceptions of super active volcanoes, are not impressive but really small, not regular Mount Saint Helen eruptions (which is impressive in terms of energy).

Solar energy is weak and diffuse; it must be gathered from a large area and concentrated. An area of 225,000 square miles would need to be covered to meet current global energy demand from solar. Then, the same transport problem arises. How do you get that energy to where it is needed? Solar energy must be stored, for when the sun doesn't shine, which is around half the time. All sorts of toxic metals are used in production, to make solar panels, and after 25 years, solar needs replacing at similar cost, plus the cost of recycling. — counterpunch

Incorrect. Geothermal has a transport problem because the "sweet spots" where it's economic are concentrated in very few locations (such as the 500 active volcanoes you mention), so, the energy is far from where people live and you'd need a massive and costly transport infrastructure even if the energy was there (which it isn't).

Solar, on the other hand, is diffuse but not in a bad way, it lands where people live.

Imagine you had the following:
- garden (powered by sunlight)
- energy (powered by sunlight)
- wood or bamboo construction material (powered by sunlight)
- ceramics (powered by sunlight)
- basic tool and machine shop, both in hour home and short distance in the community (powered by sunlight)
- the ability to recycle metals (powered by sunlight)

Then, ask yourself how much personal transport you would need.

Then ask yourself how much high volume transport infrastructure you would need. Certainly some inputs and trade are still needed for this local economic system to work ... but 10, 20, even 1 lane highways? Would they be needed?

If you actually calculate out how much energy is required to run this techno-peasant system, it's a small fraction of what is anyways required to grow food and materials. We grow food and materials (we mostly waste) in this way now, and with a lot of transport, mono-crop and rotting inefficiencies (with lot's of good land occupied by suburban sprawl accomplishing noting food wise), so, basically by definition, if you matched people to where food is currently grown, then matched solar technology (mainly solar thermal technology is needed in this system) to the enclosure of inefficiencies in the current system (roads, mono-crops, suburbia), etc. problem solved.

People can easily live in this semi-autonomous way right now, growing most of their food and making most of their capital equipment themselves, imagine if a large system to make it easy and efficient was in place? (a network of drones delivering materials and small things that do need a factory (like computer chips), local blacksmiths, and elevated bike and small vehicle paths connecting everywhere, and the Uber of helicopters if you need to go somewhere quickly, like to a hospital). Infrastructure that still enables high mobility and trade of dense quality (metals that can be recycled, "clean-room" electronics, medicines, machine tooling, and, of course, spice) could be insanely light compared to today's infrastructure, if bulky things (like food, wood, other plant fibers, and clay) are derived locally, and energy input (the sun) also derived locally.

If you've ever encountered this homesteading life, it's actually pretty lazy compared to most jobs in the capitalist system (especially low-paying jobs), and far more fulfilling. The homesteaders that work hard is because they make a point to do even more for themselves than is economically efficient in their system (to make a political point that it is possible to do it locally, leading by example, even if, right now, it would take less effort to trade for it), but even these hard working hippies would work a lot less hard if they had a network of craft-people and a light infrastructure of the kind I describe (to enable ethical and sustainable trade).

Why doesn't this happen if it's so lazy? Lot's of poor people try, but they can't buy the land necessary.

Why is land expensive? Because the private control of land is the foundation of capitalism. Had land remained a communal resource, where, of course, you just put a poor person in a "cottage" and at least they'll make enough food for themselves, maybe produce a soldier or two.

We could easily produce sufficient energy from solar power and solar generation plants are being built, but probably not fast enough. Although it’s probably to late anyway, as the tipping points are already being triggered. Even if we do manage to reduce emissions significantly, the damage is already sufficient for civilisation collapse, as we have discussed before. — Punshhh

We definitely agree on this.

Of course, from a purely engineering point of view, things could be radically changed and the result (still a pretty big catastrophe by any standard) still a lot better than otherwise.

However, the environmental movement of the "large scale" essentially doesn't exist anymore. The denialist industry won with the moral delialism in the exterior, as I explain at some length in my post above, but this geothermal debate is the denialism industry winning from within the climate movement

Promoting "niche" energy sources that have no global relevance consumes research, development and installation capital, while solving nothing. Environmentalists that don't bother with basic engineering principles, then spend time arguing about which of the irrelevant nice ideas (always in the future) are best, and declaring "small victories" along the way that are actually counter productive (and generate subsidies for the oil industry who own and promote these "clean" niches; subsidies that finance more denialism), while everyone else sees that "renewable energy" doesn't really work (doesn't actually displace fossil on a large scale).

It is also not just a question of energy source, but of organizing society to use those energy sources efficiently. Trying to keep a system (such as highways and personal vehicles) going that doesn't even use fossil fuels efficiently (but was invented precisely because fossil fuels starts in a super abundance and needs to be wasted on a large scale to profit), is just pure intellectual insanity.

Yet, decades after the "biofuels" revolution proved to be a total lure (which was obvious at the time to even the most cursory scrutiny), what's all the rage? Electric cars!!

On the question of "threat level".

Although I would agree climate change, in itself, isn't an existential threat to humans, it is through interaction with nuclear war systems and, now, also killer AI systems (assuming they get good enough that, if set to "kill all enemies" (if friend and enemy is even a stable definition to these machines through time), and then those people who pressed that button die, they would simply track down and kill everyone using the most creative, ingenious, and patient means possible, essentially guaranteed to succeed against dispersed populations regressing in technological capacity).

Magma energy is one potential, and I think promising source of high grade clean energy, in theory, more than adequate to replace fossil fuels. — counterpunch

Unlike , I do have truck with your Magma energy proposal.

There's a basic physical problem called the "recharge" rate, which reduces to simple geometry. To extract energy efficiently from rock, we don't dig down and then install a big metal plate as a single surface heat exchanger. Rather, we dig a bunch of tubes over a volume or then use natural occurring tubes of water in fissures and cracks that's is already down there.

Point is, this volume of rock will only heat back up as if it had a big surface plate heat exchanger below it. In terms of "renewable" it's this recharge rate below the volume of rock that matters, which is very low per square meter. The earth is efficient at trapping heat, that's why it's hot down there, but it doesn't produce much heat. This is the general problem of geothermal energy.

Now, exceptions like volcanoes, where energy gets out more efficiently and look more impressive, still have the basic problem of being recharged in energy and pressure overtime. In addition, volcanoes are in inconvenient locations, so even if the recharge rate was better than elsewhere, there's a large added cost of transporting the energy.

For instance, Iceland is a place where you can get a lot of geothermal energy, and they do make a lot pretty cheaply; so much that they have a big aluminum industry as processing aluminium takes a lot of electricity. However, they don't have so much that they could power all of Europe.

In general, Geothermal is, along with tidal, bio-energy, hydro, an energy source that is not globally applicable, there's just some impressive "sweet spots" (some bays, big forests, large rivers, Iceland). Those sweet spots aren't so great that you could transport energy all over the globe.

The globally applicable renewable energy source is the sun, with it's first derivative wind power (2% of sun energy is converted to wind energy ... but even then it's still localized in a "sweet spot" of higher latitudes, due to the Coriolis affect, and so, we only think of it as "on par" with solar energy because there's a lot of rich countries North, where there's lot's of clouds and good wind; and rich countries determine research and investment dollars). Point is, "recharge" rate of the sun is way higher than geothermal and there's no surface area to volume problem.

Not strange at all. The "I told you so" aspect of it refutes the open conspiracy of ignorance and forgiveness. I think it's important for future generation to know we were lying sacks of shit when we pretended that we didn't know better. And when we pretended we were doing it "all for the children" (when we were really doing it for our own selfish selves, that next man-toy, vacation, McMansion, etc.). — James Riley

20 years ago, leading up to the "Kyoto Protocol" I would say there was actually more concern and less denialism then there is now.

I would say "more concern" because there was simply less "big issues" back in the 90s to compete, such as the "big existential" of terrorism, new cold war, financial collapse, China, Trump, of course coronavirus today, and, ironically, weather catastrophes I would argue also take up this discursive concern space (the awareness climate change is a problem may increase, but the actual time and energy spent on climate change is still displaced by discussing the catastrophe in question, be it hurricane or wildfires or drought, and of course money on the symptom and not the cause).

The denialism industry back then was less robust than it is now. Back in the 90s, denialists still at least pretended to be "doing science", and they then they lost the scientific debate. "Pretending to do science" at least focuses on what the scientific issues are and people can decide what case is more credible. Likewise, "science based denialism" of the 90s still implicitly accepted the basic framework that if there was a problem, we'd have a moral onus to do something about it ... just, there isn't a problem. Since then, denialism has shifted to what I would call "moral denialism" which is far more effective. Moral denialism simply refutes, one way or another, the basic premise that "we should do something", even if there is a problem, which there isn't (and no moral onus to back that up, one has a right to believe anything) ... but even if there was a problem, we shouldn't do anything about it. True believers are beyond the reach of critical and factual debate, and, more importantly, these doctrines tip people in the middle towards apathy. I.e. it both fuels an insane cult while creating a powerful apologetics for the lazy moderates (who would otherwise want something to be done, maybe over a long period of time with little personal cost, but at least something that would actually work; such as had the movement in the 90s achieved something significant, instead of the weakly worded "suggestion" of the Kyoto protocol).

For instance, when I started to get environmentally aware and talk about issues, my father's extended family and acquaintances etc., all left or far left on social issues, would always joke "I'll be dead by then!" and then laugh about it, whenever the subject of climate change was brought up, by me or anyone. The moral denialism of moderates, fueled by a total misunderstanding of what exponential rise in fossil consumption means and the risks of that, was already germinating.

Denialists in the 90s at least pretended to be working in a sane intellectual framework, just claiming "the facts" aren't in yet (taking advantage of the general public's lack of risk analysis skills, in an otherwise coherent debate where arguing on the facts did move people's opinions).

The 90s itself, was an echo of the 70s, where the same environmentalism debate also occurred, due to the oil shocks and discovering how poisonous pesticides and the like are.

Anyways, just my perspective supporting your basic point that we did know, did nothing, and future generations will view the Westerners that caused this as worse than the Nazi's (who only tried to illegitimate a few group in one species, in a mad lust for power and greed, and not destroy most species, in a mad lust for power and greed).

Weather catastrophes are leading people, who live through them, to regret the inaction of the last 40 years, but I think we are definitely in the "too little too late" phase and the large scale catastrophe is now "baked in". Though this was obvious to me 15 years ago (after the "environmental movement" declared biofuels a success), and, looking at the computer models that were still pretty good back then for decision making purposes, looked at where on the globe would become uncomfortably hot and where would stay ok (both in terms of environment and political stability) for a long time. I couldn't afford to move to New Zealand, so I moved to Northern Europe. If you're going to be a climate refugee, I highly recommend doing so at least a decade in advance. What does my old network say now: "it's really hot".

Although I agree with @Protagoras about the many trolls and nasty people out there, especially as you invite other private avenues of communication, and, online, that can be difficult to deal with, for the part of this forum, I have not generally observed much problem with emotion or vulnerability. It seems pretty well accepted round these parts.

It is only if you stake a philosophical claim of some sort here, that you should expect criticism and scrutiny. Purely friendly messages that don't really argue a philosophical point, are generally friendly received with friendly advise from different points of view, as already apparent in this thread.

My own friendly advice, having experienced when I was younger an analogous sense of disconnection from the people immediately around me (due to my longing for coherent principles, actions and real justice), is that connection with other people can, by definition, only really happen as part of a collective project (humans are a political animal, as Aristotle almost gets right).

Without some genuinely justified goal, "connections" in the modern world are the mere acting out of what people think are genuine connection (informed by mostly by movies). For instance, "bros" may act out what they perceive to be the bonds of brotherhood in a world war 2 platoon, fighting the evil Nazis (subconsciously, but more often than not with overt analogous symbolism and language of justice and missions and so on: see startup culture for this phenomenon on hyper-drive; or, more ironic still, acting out the bonds of brotherhood "gansta's" in sidelined communities create to deal with, or then a response to, systemic oppression propped up by the "bro" culture that mirrors them through the commodification and glorification of the ersatz sense of purpose of at least obeying no rules of an unjustified society: the dignity, ephemeral perhaps but arguably better than nothing, of being an autonomous moral agent in unjust circumstance).

The difference of course (and I think accurately described by the post-modernists, even if their proposed "cures" are worse in my view), is that a WWII platoon had genuine connection, a genuine mission, a genuine sense of mission (as much on the Nazi side as the allies!), and clear moral principle held in common, and an objective basis for that collective project. World War II veterans (on the winning side) had a life long feeling of accomplishment and bonds, despite trauma and loss that went with it, due to the, if not valid, commonly believed and justified goal. Take the veterans of not merely a losing side (where losing is shame enough; such as the Japanese), or then a side that lost (and could normally deal with that, such as World War I) but turns out the supposed objective basis of the cause evaporates (concentration camps, mass murders, etc. which most German soldiers on most front lines didn't know about, or then were in denial about, very solidly insofar as a sophisticated propaganda apparatus supported both the denial and the justifications of the atrocities if they were happening ... which they weren't, but if they were, well, only Jews, retards, and other undesirables). Likewise, the war in Vietnam, contemporary Iraq and Afghanistan; the experience of veterans is extremely sensitive to the perception of real justice of the cause.

What we can conclude of such contemplation -- and, even if they seem extreme, war is the most banal of all human pursuits and the most universal -- is that the mere experience of "close collaboration", "connection" in itself, cannot be divorced from the justification of the common goal. If we doubt later the purpose, the perception of the "bond" with collaborators is clearly impacted.

All this to say, clearly the purpose of collaboration must logically precede the search and construction of bonds of collaboration.

Joining a just war may indeed bring a lifetime sentiment of deep connection, purpose and accomplishment (even if one loses the war but the sense of justification is preserved!), however, the mere existence of such a psychological phenomena we may see play out in others cannot justify joining any war for any arbitrary cause. In this second case, it is clearly simply the theater representation of the first justified case; similar language and gestures may be used, and similar experiences encountered, but clearly it is not the same to kill for a just cause compared to some randomly selected cause; neither in the experience as a whole, nor the future reflections upon that experience. In other words, going to war for "the experience", regardless of the justification for the war, is a bad idea. Likewise, joining a startup for "the experience", regardless of the justification for the startup, is a bad idea. And so on and so forth until we have concluded joining any group at all, regardless of the justification for the group, is a bad idea.

What we are left with is the simple obvious questions in their simple and obvious order: What ends are justified? What ways of achieving these ends are justified? Who is worthwhile to cooperate with to achieve these ends? Where are these people? How do I find them? How do I know that they are who I think they are?

Any mistake in this chain of clear, simple and obvious questions: spells disaster, hardship, suffering, if not for oneself, then others.

lol But he didn't, did he? Is that your "evidence"? — Apollodorus

I said he's capable.

The evidence is his erratic, irrational, obvious poor grasp of new concepts, and morally void behavior.

I don't understand your scepticism. I cited an article that summarises the analysis of "a joint exercise between the WHO and the Chinese health commission. In all, there were 17 Chinese and ten international experts, plus seven other experts and support staff from various agencies."

Doubtless they have "actually studied maths", too. — Banno

Unfortunately, this isn't how science works, it's how politics works.

Can we do any reproducible experiments to verify these claims for ourselves?

Can we examine their statistical model (that includes the cutting edge of bioweapons research and capabilities/intentions of various state and non-state actors with varying degrees of proficiency relative the cutting edge)?

China investigating itself and finding no wrong doing isn't very convincing. The WHO is a small organization with limited resources and politically constrained and isn't going to conclude anything politically disruptive (i.e. is not going to carry out any honest intellectual exercise of analysis and call a media armegedon onto itself / start international tensions (that's not it's job, countries respective intelligence agencies have that job; WHO's job is to reassure the public in this situation, which it has been doing). Civilian experts are, in anycase, simply not useful in this case.)

The best analysis that currently exists has been done by bio-weapons experts (who's job it is to do things like model pandemics, see what statistical signatures a bioweapon may leave compared to what's expected naturally etc.) and such analysis is not available to us. Actual analysis of actual experts on what is the cutting edge (assuming their opponent doesn't outclass them) are state secrets currently.

There was no Trump attack on China though, was there? — Apollodorus

How do we know?

I'm pretty confident Trump is capable of signing a paper authorizing a strategic bioweapons attack and not even remember doing so, if he even understood vaguely the general subject matter at the time.

...which is exactly what the article said. So what is your point? — Banno

My points have been in response to your claim:

There's an oddly one-sided scepticism at work here, were "might have escaped from a lab" becomes an extended narrative about genetic engineering and intentional infection, while the much more likely notion that it crossed from an animal is ignored. — Banno

You say it's "much more likely notion".

I have actually studied maths, and if you bring up the idea of "likely" you need some way to calculate that. If I say I'm more likely to get a pair of kings than a straight flush, that's only true based on some model of how the cards and game work which will allow me to make that calculation.

Months ago I've already explained anyone talking of "likely" in the cause of the pandemic will need to do a lot of work to actually make probabilistic claims.

And, on both sides of the narrative battle: for instance, is it even an "unlikely" event the pandemic would first emerge near a lab? To say so one would actually need to map out where such labs are, where a natural pandemic would likely emerge, consider the fact a disease is more likely to be detected near a place capable of detecting disease etc.

You're the one claiming you know what's a more likely notion, please explain how you know.

The question that needs to be asked is cui bono?

Obviously, in a dictatorship like Communist China, the state has the means to keep an epidemic under control. In liberal democracy, it's a different story.

So it's a calculated risk worth taking. — Apollodorus

It's a possible scenario (and my fellow leftists saying a regime doing concentration camps in the broad daylight of the international press, is too pure and innocent to contemplate such a move, I don't get; I don't think there are moral limitations on China's current policy), but the problem with cui bono on large scale events is that there are many parties that are going to benefit. Amazon has also benefited, as the other tech giants. Various other countries also can be argued to have benefited.

One must also take into consideration that complex global events are not predictable and often people are extremely stupid. Someone may have attacked China not realizing they would be able to contain it and the West would do everything possible not-to-contain it. I don't think this was a foregone conclusion at the time.

Likewise, precisely because Trump is an incompetent buffoon he may have authorized some crazy general, colonel, what-have-you to carry out an attack on China.

The argument seems to be that the possibility can't be excluded, therefore it happened. — Banno

What are you talking about?

I said pretty in my list of possibilities "Or perhaps it's just one of those random things nature does from time to time".

I didn't provide much analysis of why this possibility is possible because we agree it is, and if it's just some random natural variation, then there's not really any scenario to develop.

There's an oddly one-sided scepticism at work here, were "might have escaped from a lab" becomes an extended narrative about genetic engineering and intentional infection, while the much more likely notion that it crossed from an animal is ignored. — Banno

It's right in my list of possibilities that it could be:

Or perhaps it's just one of those random things nature does from time to time. — boethius

The point of my narration of other possibilities is that they are possible.

"What's more likely?" assumes some model in which we can calculate likelihood. I have already written many months ago why making a model of the globe and relevant phenomena (including what intelligence agencies may or may not be capable of, might be willing or not to do) is basically impossible.

Without solid direct, verifiable evidence, "it's more likely it was natural" is just hand-wavy bullshit.

The narration in the media was never attached to some sort of factual basis, but political expediency.

It was politically expedient to downplay (without any factual or theoretical basis) a lab origin (accident or intentional) as that would help Trump with whom the establishment media was at war with.

Now, Trump is an incompetent buffoon, incapable of managing the crisis and so a scapegoat would have deflected attention from obvious mismanagement (that had nothing to do with where the virus came from anyway) and that could only help Trump in many ways.

However, precisely because Trump is an incompetent buffoon, the (potential) last year of his presidency is the optimum moment to carry out a strategic bioweapons attack.

There's lot's of intelligence agencies on the planet with all sorts of agendas and employing all sorts of crazy people without any moral limitations (nor real intelligence, let's be honest here).

Causing a pandemic is so attractive precisely because it can be made to look natural, look like an accident, and so easily started anywhere on the planet (to support whatever narrative you'd want to establish; if you want to eventually blame China, just start the pandemic near a lab that has worked with the same kinds of viruses, which you expect a potential link China will try to cover up as a matter of course and look guilty anyways; if you're China and want to start the pandemic (to institute next level mass surveillance, crush Hong Kong protests, deflect from the casual genocide concentration camps things etc.) but have a plan B of saying it's "an oopsie" just start it close to your lab anyways as an eventual fallback explanation).

If you look at the history of clandestine operations (that we know about), completely insane things are done all the time in the past. The narration that crazy shit doesn't happen today, all the intelligence agencies (including fairly powerful extra-national private contractors nowadays also) are now all just wise old men who wouldn't harm a fly or disrupt public order in anyway, is just fantasy.

The possibility can't be excluded based on the opinion of a few civilian experts. We don't even know what the state of the art in bio-engineering even it.

Yes, there is the letter published in 17 March 2020 in the journal Nature Medicine led by Kristian G. Andersen, that said it's natural. Basically the argument was that because there aren't tell tale signs of cutting and pasting, it had to be natural. Unfortunately newer technologies don't leave those traces. So the article is wrong in ruling out the hypothesis. — ssu

In addition to this, simply evolving a pathogen in different hosts is also engineering, and can't really be distinguished between just natural evolution.

Weapons tech we can also presume is far ahead of what is known about by civilians, so civilian scientists commenting on what weapons labs can and can't do (unless it is breaking the laws of thermodynamics or something) is simply foolish.

The simple truth is, @Benkei, the establishment downplayed potential lab origins (weapon or accident) because saying otherwise would benefit Trump and the right wing insane conspiracy machine that fueled things up to and including storming the US capital looking to capture and hang US senators.

Now that an establishment politician is in the white house, the great game must continue and it is in the establishment's interest to up-play the lab origin to create tensions with China.

However, what is true is independent of what is good/bad for Trump or what is good/bad for the US establishment.

It's potentially true the virus did come from a lab, by accident or then even on purpose: by China in a classic "start the pandemic in China" fake out (the ol' burn my own house down to start a neighborhood fire because I'm a maniac, to both seem innocent as well as immediately deploy the next phase of the 1984 totalitarian state technologies to "fight" the virus; deflect from their genocide, deflect from Hong-Kong, which both mattered before the pandemic, but no one gives a shit about nowadays), or some adversary trying to harm China thinking they'd be particularly harmed with high population densities (if you told me an insane general or intelligence officer got 5 minutes with Trump in a Helicopter or wherever and asked him to quickly sign a paper authorizing releasing a bio weapon on China, not realizing the potential blow-back because their an insane idiot, that is definitely something I'd be surprised Trump not signing; and if you agree, then the system in place to prevent this sort of crazy shit happening was prevented for 4 years by aides who couldn't even stop Trump tweeting even with measures like hiding his phone from him) which didn't work as expected, or then to frame China for the pandemic and make it (eventually) appear like a classic fake out, or perhaps it was made (/ found and released) by some billionaire, or mere multi-millionaire, and was started in multiple places and simply went exponential first in China, etc (perhaps such a plan isn't expected to work, but plenty of crazy rich people have tried over the years and this one happened to work). Or perhaps it's just one of those random things nature does from time to time.

However, if it was one out of any number of defense departments or intelligence agencies that did it by accident or on purpose, the only thing we can be sure of is that it's some crazy tale involving macho off-the-cuff global strategic improvisation and many goose-bumpy moments that their having a good laugh about now (now that the evidence is buried pretty deep and we're unlikely to ever know the truth anyways).

That's why the word "basically" is there. It's definitely a statistical majority. Which is as good as you're going to get. — khaled

Is it a majority? Where's your data?

But, even so, who cares?

If a majority of physicists in the time of Newton believed physics was fully determined (or then to arbitrary precision of all variables such as position and momentum), did that conclusively prove anything at the time?

All communities are affected by "group think", and the point of science is that real experiments can settle differences, not votes. If a bunch of physicists "voted" about something, really, who cares about that? Do the physicists themselves even care about it more than just an opinion poll of the moment that obviously doesn't "prove" anything?

If a majority of physicists were defending your point of view, where's their experiment to prove it? Are you really defending the idea that these physicists would say "ah, ah, ah, not so fast, we're a majority and therefore correct"?

Yes we can because if it did the interference pattern wouldn't emerge. — khaled

What does this point make? We agree the electron cannot be said to be "at one place" when we aren't observing it (even though there are fully deterministic theories where the particle is "at one place" at all times, but we seem to agree on at least this point; still, worth making a note of), and we agree that the "substance" of the electron, in some sense, is represented by the probability distribution, which has wave characteristics and can interfere with itself to make interference patterns etc.

What we're debating is what happens to this "probability related substance" when a measurement is made.

My point is that to "know" a measurement is made is to become conscious of the measurement result. The "probability waves going away" happen at that moment or before. If you argue "before", how do you prove it? In science you need to go and check, but this just kicks the can up the road, as @Wayfarer has really described super well, so read his comments. I'm just adding some quantum math lingo to what Wayfarer has already adequately described (and my math lingo I'm adding just to explain to you, or other readers here interested, that the math lingo doesn't really change the philosophical arguments of principle that pre-existed Quantum Mechanics, of determinism, skepticism, solipsism, panpsychism, everything possible actually happens in eternal infinite chaotic universe, etc.; although if a poster here knows of an interpretation of QM that does not map "pretty well" to pre-existing philosophical arguments, it would be interesting to add it to the mix).

As above. — khaled

You backup your claim by just asserting "physicists agree with you", without providing any "well controlled experiment" of how this is even supported?

No but if throwing a bunch of people through two slits produces the result that the people act as "waves" until measured that precisely means that they don't act as particles all the time. In other words, that the people are "truly everywhere" in the probability distribution.

Now replace people with electrons.

Or in other words, if the electron really did exist as a particle in a spot, with a certain momentum, how do you explain why an interference pattern emerges when we don't measure the electron's location? — khaled

I don't know what we're debating here. I've said our knowledge about the person lost at sea is a probability distribution (labeling it a "wave" or not doesn't matter), my point is that if you claim the person is "really somewhere" and not somehow "co-existing" in all the places they can be according to what we know, how do we prove they are "really somewhere"? We go and check.

As for making interference patterns with people; so far there is no known bound for making interference patters with atoms, so in principle, as far as we know, it's possible with people too. Of course, you'd need to cool them incredible close to absolute zero and you may need literally hundreds of trillions of throws to see any pattern in a whole bunch of noise, as well as do the experiment in deep inter-galactic space; but, until we find an upper bound of number of particles for making interference patterns, we can't say we can't do it with "people too" (well, at least the particles making up their bodies).

Except in this case... For some reason in this one case, when collapse happens at time t5, it also happens backwards for times t1,t2,t3,t4. It's either that, or everything we know about Cosmology is just wrong, and we can't really know it. — khaled

Collapse does not happen backwards. All the possibilities related to t1, t2, t3, and t4 can be still "in play" and those possibilities are still co-existing at t5 as well, but when we make a measurement at t5, all the other possibilities "that could have happened" go away.

Cosmology only tells us that now, when we look up at the stars, we see starts in definite locations corresponding to a definite history we can piece together. There is zero problem saying plenty of other possibilities "co-existed" until the first consciousness emerged to make such observations to collapse the wave function. Definiteness occurs at observation, how would we check it occurred before? We'd have to go and observe what occurred before, defeating the purpose of the checking.

You claim this. But it's clearly false. We know definite situations followed one to the other even though no one was around to see them. That's what Cosmology establishes. By your theory we shouldn't be able to do cosmology. Since waves don't collapse unless seen by a conscious agent, and since we can't see the past, we should not be able to know anything about it. It should just seem like quantum soup. — khaled

I really don't see where you get this. All possible cosmologies propagate from the big bang, and then the cosmic wave collapse happens and one definite cosmological history is "retained" once a "sufficient" consciousness emerges (in at least one of the possible cosmologies) and the wave function collapses.

This theory explains fine-tuning, and also solves the problem of the universes splitting and questions about energy conservation and quantum information copying (which if universe splitting doesn't just ignore, I haven't seen any experimental evidence proving this isn't a problem); however, we know probability waves can and do exist without violating information or energy conservation, so the entire cosmos in such a state creates zero problems in this regard. Maybe inflation was a super low probability event, likewise matter and antimatter asymmetry, weakness of gravity, and so on, but the first consciousness emerged in this super probability edge case, so that's what we see. Why is humanity so stupid? > edge case, "sufficient consciousness" is a pretty low bar.

I mean.... that is pretty much what happened when it comes to whether or not consciousness is necessary. They basically all drew the conclusion that it isn’t. That’s one of my first arguments. — khaled

They don't all agree on an interpretation. I don't see where you get this, maybe read some of @Wayfarer''s posts.

But we can KNOW that the electron, unlike the drowning person, doesn’t “really exist somewhere” that we are finding out correct? Or else interference effects wouldn’t happen. — khaled

No, we can't know. We can't know if the person is in a superposition of possibilities, unless we go and check and make an observation.

You are claiming to know? How would you backup your claim? By going and finding the person and pointing to a definite location the person is in, or then making other observations that at least constrain the possibilities. Does that establish you "know" the person is in a definite position before you go and check? No, it doesn't establish that.

And DESPITE, no one being conscious before to say otherwise, we know certain things happened at certain times. — khaled

We do not know.

The whole cosmic wave function could have been happily existing in its quantum splendor representing all possibilities a conscious being might see, and only collapse due to a conscious being existing in one possibility and therefore the cosmic wave function collapses to a coherent single, or at least greatly constrained, possibility.

What you’re suggesting here is that in the xyz-time “block”, you start from time = 0 and as you move along particles take every which path available to them. But the second one of these paths hits consciousness, suddenly, the awesome power of consciousness causes collapse “back in time” correcting history so that only one path happened all along. This contradicts what you say here: — khaled

It does not "correct history".

The other possibilities "go away" upon observation, just like any other experiment.

How do we, or "the universe", know there's an observation that has happened? Because someone or something becomes conscious of the observed results.

There is no correcting history, obviously our "definite universe" is a coherent possibility, just as any other; it's just the other possibilities "went away" somehow for some reason. Before anyone was conscious of what possibility the universe is actually in, there's no way to go back and check whether the possibilities co-existed in a quantum probability wave sense (or any sense) or then definite situations followed one to the other even if there was no one around to see it.

"The evolution of conscious life on this planet is due to appropriate mutations having taken place at various times. These, presumably, are quantum events, so they would exist only in linearly superposed form until they finally led to the evolution of a conscious being—whose very existence depends on all the right mutations having 'actually' taken place!" — khaled

I've already mentioned, it can just be supposed that all the possibilities propagate, including ones in which evolution happens, and the first possible consciousness collapses the cosmic wave function. No problem, no one's conscious before that to say otherwise, perfectly explains why we live in an extreme probability edge case, based on what we know of quantum mechanics so far, that there's more matter than antimatter for instance.

Of course, if, why and how this happens is pure speculation. The difference is that I'm labeling my speculations as speculations.

Point is, these probability distributions are “ontological” for QM. It’s not that there “really is an electron somewhere” we just don’t know where, the electron “is really everywhere” in the probability distribution. Otherwise you wouldn’t get interference patterns. — khaled

This is literally what I explain, as the electron somehow "co-existing" in detached regions.

What is at issue is what to make of this.

That’s what I mean by not JUST updating the model with new information. Observations in QM change what is happening, not just what we think is happening. — khaled

That's not a problem. The model includes these interactive effects, so when we measure position precisely of a particle we update the model with this increase in constraint on position but also decrease the constraint on momentum.

We can do all this without making any ontological claims as to what exists apart from our calculating and measuring. This is where the "shutup and calculate" expression comes from; it works and it doesn't "have to" make any intuitive sense nor does one "have to" take a position on the ontological status of the electron apart from variables being more or less constrained in mathematical models that take real world inputs.

We take information from the real world, we put it in a model, we get information out that corresponds to future information we can take from the real world. This is all that "we know" is happening. What happens between information gatherings we don't know.

In the case of the classical "probability waves" of large objects, even if the above is true "in principle", we are free to imagine the drowning person somehow co-exists is in all possible locations and the possibilities "collapse" to one possibility when we find them (how do we check if the person is "really somewhere", we need to go and find them and check), nevertheless, the assumption that the person is "really somewhere" doesn't run into intuitive problems (the statistical model is completely compatible with this assumption).

In the case of quantum mechanics, not only is it a problem "in principle", but it's also a problem that our intuitions about how "real objects" should behave simply don't work.

If there was an obvious conclusion to be drawn, the best physicists of the last hundred years would have drawn it and all agreed.

I think Feinman says it best when he describes "doing quantum mechanics" as the same state of knowledge as Mayan priests (I think it was Mayan) calculating the next eclipses. They've discovered a pattern, and they can do the calculations and make predictions and those predictions come true, but they have no knowledge of orbital mechanics and what is "really happening". So, any explanation the high priest gives is complete speculation and doesn't seem much better than plenty other explanations available. In such a state of knowledge where the "true causes" are simply lacking, we just have a mathematical pattern of what we observe, "these are lucky numbers for the Sun God" is going be just as reasonable to believe as "things are floating up there and they can block each other ... coincidentally following the pattern we've discovered for some reason".

And speculation is fine; I'm simply arguing that unless there's an experiment that proves one equally reasonable speculation is more credible than another ... one equally reasonable explanation is not more credible than another.

And mostly, interpretations boil down to ontological positions that predate quantum mechanics. "Everything that can happen does happen," is a very old concept. Likewise, we simply can't know what reality is "really like", goes thousands of years before Kantian skepticism. Similarly, there is a specific state of the universe and the future is fully determined is also an old idea.

All we are doing in this conversation is throwing in some quantum jargon, which is useful because it can help readers here understand quantum mechanics a tiny bit better, but doesn't really setup anything really different in the speculations available. We know quantum mechanics "is wrong" and maybe a better theory lends itself to one over another speculation, just as Newtonian physics lends itself to a deterministic interpretation and Quantum Mechanics, at least on the surface viewing, lends itself to Kantian style skepticism of "not knowing anything about things in themselves"; but QM isn't "proven" as some sort of end all and be all of physics, so maybe some future theory gives us other indications about "the true ontology" (and perhaps equally misleading as the indications of Newtonian, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics).

It’s not like when the probability distribution of the location of the drowning person “collapses” when we see them, but really, there was always a person there even without us observing them. — khaled

Yes, we are "JUST" updating the model with the new information, but in quantum mechanics updating the model with new information can impact on the model in ways that aren't intuitive. If we measure a particles location precisely (constrain that variable) it also changes constraints on momentum, and we may now know less about the particles momentum than we did before. We do not need to make ontological assumptions about what "really exists" between measurements to make use of quantum mechanics.

But it’s not just “updating the model with new information” is it? — khaled

In science, yes, that is what is happening.

If we don't have new information, we cannot say what is happening other than the probability distributions that we already have based on old information.

If you make a claim about what is happening, how can that claim be verified?

By getting new information through new observations.

Talking about what is happening without any actual information about what is happening, is pseudoscience. It maybe true, it maybe false, but it's not a scientific claim that can be verified by experiment.

I appreciate the long explanation but there is nothing there I didn’t already know. — khaled

I very much doubt this is true.

“Really exist in some physical definite state” = collapse. — khaled

But how do we know this? We observe the world and see a definite state?

How do we know we've observed the world to see a definite state? We become conscious of the observation.

If we just had the wave function we can have as many particles as we like, and nothing in the math of the wave function "forces" us to collapse our possible states to more definite states.

The reason viewing the reality as "just the wave function" is that it conflicts with our being conscious of definite states.

Correct. And MWI is the idea that this is what happens, for each possible universe. Again, you have each possible single path block, not a single multi path block (though that’s what you get if you were to superimpose all the blocks on each other) — khaled

You do not understand my point.

There is nothing in quantum mechanics that prevents setting up a wave function state of however many things you want, and simply propagating it forward in time to the end of the universe.

There's nothing preventing a "spacial" view of time in such a mathematical structure so everything is "one block" and all the particles represented by all their possible world lines and spacially representing the probability density of each world line, and having one block.

What's "wrong" with such a view of the universe? (And whether the block-universe we're considering we define as Newtonian, General Relativity or Quantum terms )

The problem is the supposition that there are conscious beings that experience the flow of time. The idea the universe, however it is mathematically described, is one "single block" with past, present and future coexisting (just as up and down direction co-exist) is that it conflicts with the idea of conscious beings inhabiting the universe and experiencing time, and we get that idea from being conscious ourselves.

The point is that it is an analogous problem of a perfectly "fine" interpretation of a mathematical structure of which the only problem is the supposition of conscious beings experiencing time and change (rather than experiencing no time and no change as something existing as a solid changeless block would suggest).

Likewise, that wave functions just propagate indefinitely and never collapse is a perfectly "fine" interpretation of the mathematics of the wave function, of which the only problem is the supposition of conscious beings experiencing definite states represented by real numbers and not these probability distributions represented by complex numbers.

In both cases, since consciousness is "the problem" that prevents, it is entirely reasonable to consider some special relationship between consciousness and these things.

So a single path, for every possible path a world. — khaled

Again, you do not understand my point nor the mathematics of quantum mechanics.

It is not the case that when the wave functions "collapses" that a particle is then considered to have taken a definite path, only the properties observed become more definite for the time of observation, but it is still the case that the particle in some way (we really don't understand) when through all possible paths to get to that observation point: which is why interference patterns emerge (the particle went through, in some sense, both slits and then interfered with itself).

No the point is this isn’t the “result” of the experiment. The variable we want to examine is whether or not the wave function can collapse without our conscious interference. If we get a cookie, where was the conscious interference? We definitely didn’t measure which slit the electron went through. And we didn’t interpret the results on the screen. All that was done by things that aren’t conscious. Yet in the end, when we look at the cookie dispenser, it won’t be “in a superposition of dispensing and not dispensing a cookie” it will either dispense or not dispense a cookie. Based on that we can know whether or not collapse happened without measuring which slit the electrons are going through. That’s the point. Same with the cat. All you’d need is a cookie dispenser there too to know specifically whether or not the cat is alive without observing the cat, just the dispenser.

And, again, address the historical argument: — khaled

Wave function collapse is not a variable.

Variables are states of particles or fields that we can observe. "Wave function collapse" is simply what the "other possibilities" going away is referred to.

For instance, you can have a "probability wave" of a particle in classical mechanics, such as a random walk of a particle Brownian motion or someone who fell of a boat and is adrift at sea. Take the person at sea, based on known constraints, relevant laws of physics etc, a probability distribution of where we are likely to find the person after some time t can be calculated. "Our probability wave" representing where the person might be is the exact same sense of probability as where we might find a particle in a quantum mechanics experiment.

We then go and find the person, and the "wave function" or where they could have been "collapses" in our model because we have new information. This the exact same process as quantum physicists doing measurements and "collapsing" other possibilities that didn't happen when they find one possibility that did happen, they update the model with new information and continue. For instance, finding the persons boot (or what is evaluated as 50% likely to be the persons boot) would update the "lost at sea" model based on this new constraint of observing a boot at location x,y.z at time t.

The difference between classical and quantum probability "wave collapse", is that classical probabilities of the above scenario act only as a one sort of "blobbty diffusion" wave and don't have tell-tale characteristics we'd associate with classic waves such as waves in water.

Critically, as the classical "probability wave / blob" diffuses in space, it always remains cohesive. The probability wave representing where a person maybe based on some initial condition, has no disconnected regions. A person might fall down an elevator shaft, and so is very "unlikely" we'd observe the person in the state of falling down the elevator shaft, but it's not zero probability; we could open one of the other elevator doors on the way down and see the person falling. It's more likely we'd observe the person either just sitting somewhere at the top or then just lying t the bottom of the shaft, than it is to go and observe happen to open an elevator door in the middle and see the falling state, but obviously not impossible.

The classical probability blobs diffuse through space, but never disconnect entirely.

Likewise, someone in a house maybe more probable to be observed in one room or another and less likely we'd observe them right at the moment of going through a door, but obviously we might and people do need to walk through doors to be in different rooms.

We do not believe someone lost at sea somehow "really exists" in all the places we might find them, it is just a mathematical description of probabilities to help us find them. Likewise, we do not believe someone is in "all the rooms" they could be at once, it's just a mathematical description of where we might find them.

Critical to this view that someone lost at sea is a definite state or someone in a house is in a definite state, before we go and check where they actually are, is the probability regions never disconnect (there is a continuous connection of everywhere "they might be", just different probabilities for each place, and we might really find them anywhere in this region; we can run experiments to find that 1/10000 chance of randomly opening the elevator shaft over some time span at the moment someone, let's hope a dummy, is falling).

In quantum mechanics, regions of probability states can be entirely disconnected, and this completely breaks our normal intuition of probability diffusion of "little ball particle" at definite positions through space at each moment in time. How does the electron exist in a definite state but "move" between disconnected regions A and B without any possibility of us finding the electron in some connected bridge state between A and B (i.e. in the doorway)? Likewise, how does an electron interfere with itself so that it's probability of hitting certain regions of a detector is zero, and that even one at a time, electrons produce interference patterns?

The only way to make sense of this is to say the electron does not "move" in a classical sense between A and B and when we look we find where it "really is" but rather the electron somehow co-exists in some sense in both regions, but when we look to find the electron in region A, then somehow it's "existence" in region B disappears. This is what happens mathematically, and "collapsing the wave of probabilities" to the new reality, is a sensical way to describe the mathematical process of updating a model with new information (just as with updating a model of someone lost at sea with information about their probable shoe or then finding the person themselves).

What we cannot easily make sense of is what sort of "substance" the electron (or quantum fields if you prefer) really is to have these characteristics, nor can we easily make sense of how our observations affect the situation (to resolve such questions, we need to make observations, but obviously that is no longer the same question).

Again, address this: Consciousness evolved yes? In order for that to happen we needed to have collapsed, well defined molecules at least yes? And eventually after enough time a conscious thing evolved from these molecules yes?

Then how can consciousness be a requirement for wave function collapse? If it was, it would’ve never evolved. — khaled

The consciousness relation to wave collapse can solve this in different ways; such as simply stating first wave collapsing at some threshold of consciousness or something along those lines (evolution happens in every possibility, and then collapses to the first possibility of consciousness; explaining why there's more matter than antimatter, as only in these probability edge cases does matter outnumber anti-matter, and stars and evolution can happen etc.); but we have no experiment that even shows what is and isn't conscious so this is pseudoscience speculation; not anyway to go back and "observe" the universe before it collapsed to a definite state due to the first observation.

What we do know (or what I know) is that I'm conscious and observe a definite state of the universe around me (certainly more definite than observing "all possibilities" simultaneously). I can know what I observe; I cannot "know" what existence is "really like" prior to my observations. I can note that quantum mechanics basically prevents any intuitive visualizations of what "things are really like at all", but, as a Kantian, it's not really surprising that whatever we can say of the "noumena" always remains fundamentally speculative anyways (maybe new physical theories will lend themselves back to a more "Newtonian" view just to be overturned once again by something even more bizarre than quantum mechanics).

There is no experimental evidence that something just needs to be "big enough" to cause probability wave collapse.

"Big things" we assume are in definite states even if we don't look, only because we are big and perceive definite states. There is nothing in quantum mechanics that forces one to start "wave collapsing" once a certain amount of terms and time have been added to describe a system. There is nothing in the mathematics of quantum mechanics (as understood apart from the behaviour of apparatusses and having some independent existence from such apparent behaviour) that prevents adding as many states of things as one wants (as long as the it coheres with the previous states) and then simply propagating the resulting total state forward as far as one wants. The only reason we need to assume probability distributions collapse to "one world" is because we are conscious of only a single world; without this foundational assumption going into things, the mathematical structure of quantum mechanics would not lead us to invent it (i.e. conscious beings perceiving a single possibility) and without this constraint a mathematician that doesn't know "what it's about" I would expect would be perfectly happy with a bunch of parameters and variables, equations, ways to solve for one variable (or then the constraints on that variable) given other constraints on other variables etc.

In other words, if you took the math and removed all the meaningful labels like "time" and so forth, you could ask the mathematician to solve for something, for instance what to us is question about, given some initial state, the probability distribution of a particles position after some time t, but is just a "math problem" to the mathematician. The mathematician would provide whatever solutions exist for the question, which would be the constraints on variables in question (x,y,z coordinates and some additional value representing probability for each coordinate), likely in some equation form. What I contend the mathematician is unlikely to do is add the postulate that the probabilities "collapsed" in some sense on the way to the final answer, but rather would just plug in the provided parameters and constraints (i.e. the fundamental constants and whatever values for initial conditions we provide) into the equations and solve for the question. This would be the process no matter how much information we provide in terms of initial conditions or then constraints at, what is to us, future times which to us represents "measurements", but to the mathematician is just additional constraints to take into account to solve things without the need to imagine the solutions represent anything real at all.

Adding a lot of information about states would make the work the mathematician needs to do exceedingly long and difficult, but I contend at no point would the mathematician postulate wave collapse happening nor even postulate that when answers are given (constraints on variables provided constraints on other variables) that somehow a single range of one or more variables, what we would call possibility (i.e. the photon hitting a particular region of a sensor apparatus), is "special" in a sense of actually happening.

If this process (that for the mathematician is just math and doesn't represent reality in anyway) results (what is for us who understand how the variables are usually labeled) in the solution to a question about interference patterns in a double slit experiment, the mathematician will solve for the pattern and is happy to provide it, but there's nothing in the math that implies "one spot" in the pattern must logically "happen". The math doesn't logically lead to special spots where something actually happens, that is the core of the quantum mystery (why rejecting hidden variables, which is not the same as rejecting merely local hidden variables, is as problematic as accepting them; for if they do exist, where are they, and if they don't exist, then how do particles / quantum states "choose" where they end up, it seems then "pure uncaused spontaneity" ), there's no logic to where things actually happen, only the probability of happening, and so provided only the logic without context of an experienced reality we are talking about, a single reality does not jump out from the math as a logical necessity. It's mostly just a lot of integrals in abstract spaces which mathematicians solve for fun all the time without suddenly deciding certain values represent probabilities of something actually happening in some sense in the real world, and much less be led to add the postulate that "constraining events" (what we'd call wave collapse) randomly happen along the way to the final answer to a given question (these additional "constraining events" don't change the answer as it's unknown what will be constrained in such a hypothetical constraining event, and so adds no additional information to the initial conditions).

The reason quantum physics doesn't work like this mathematical exercise is because physicists add additional constraints by measuring things in the real world: the real world, not logic, provides this additional information that makes it reasonable to constrain a quantum model at some real time t to reflect what was actually measured. Logic does not even provide some necessary extrapolation from the equations of quantum mechanics that there must be "measurements"; hence, why all sorts of speculation is compatible with it. However, I'm sure you would agree that it is the equations of quantum mechanics that are extrapolated from the single world we see, not the other way around.

But, entropy makes everything quite a bit more deterministic. Whilst QM remains elusive for high variance in temperature gradients for atomic elements locally, and even non-locally, yea? — Shawn

Obviously, this whole conversation is in the context that there is no theory of quantum gravity, no real understanding of what dark matter or dark energy really "is", incompatible measurements of the Hubble constant that should be compatible, etc.

So, definitely some future new physics could re-frame all these questions totally differently. No reason in principle, if there are hidden variables in some other dimension, that we couldn't access them somehow.

The only point I'm trying to defend is my view on the idea we can "know" what reality is like before we look to see what it's like. Any such theory is speculative in my view. I don't have a problem with speculation though. Can be mind expanding and lot's of falsefiable scientific predictions originated in what may appear as speculation; so, I'm not here to judge for sure what's "really speculation" or "really totally not", but I will of course make the challenge to anyone claiming to know these things we have been discussing.

But in short, I haven't looked in detail about quantum entropy concepts other than combination of micro-states in an essentially classical sense.

However, splitting into different possibilities again involves the definition of measurement, which is precisely what is to be avoided in the MWI. If I have defined what exactly a measurement is, then I can simply choose the Copenhagen Interpretation. The MWI would then be superfluous. — SolarWind

I'm not sure I agree. MWI seems to me to still have the problem of when these worlds actually "split"; it's easy to say "when something is measured as is understood in the standard model", but if nothing is measuring anymore it doesn't seem to me clearly defined when universe splits are supposed to happen; whenever something "could have" been measured. I believe there's also the "continuous" split, at least in some sense, idea and interference patterns then need to be interpreted as these continuously splitting universes interfering with each other. Of course, you can (as with all these interpretations) just say "in a consistent with the standard model".

But to be clear, science does not have a measurement problem. I can take this clock and measure something taking 45 seconds to happen. I can take this ruler and I can measure this thing to be 18cm. I can take something and weigh it to read 40 grams. Likewise, I can make an apparatus in a precise way and read out measurements of the apparatus. I can predict how this precise apparatus will behave (what I will see in it's measurement output) using sophisticated mathematics and knowledge of how I built my apparatus and what state it will be in when I turn it on.

The "measurement problem" is not a problem scientists who measure things face, but rather a problem of people trying to take the person measuring out of the measuring and substituting some collection of particles or what-have-you, which of course can always be hypothesized to be in a superposition of all their possible outputs until someone bothers to check and report back that's not the case.

Only within a certain stochastic process governed by entropy, surely? — Shawn

Yes, this is the main problem with "entropy collapse" as I understand it. Entropy is (in it's classical sense) a macro statistical property resulting from fundamentally quantum process (as is temperature, a related macro property to entropy), so it doesn't really make sense in the usual way entropy is understood to say it can collapse wave functions.

So, some quantum version of entropy needs to be made for it to relate to quantum wave collapse. The one's I've seen are basically just some statistical probability of wave collapse based on number of particles or amount of information. Which can of course be postulated without any conflict with the standard model as it is, but the hope of such theorists is generally that there is some experimental difference that can be detected.

What exactly is a "quantum fork"? — SolarWind

Usually in these discussions what I am calling "a fork in the road" is called a branch in a graph of possible state changes.

What it means is simply that when a "wave collapses" and a value previously represented by a range of possibilities becomes one possibility (which is not really one possibility, it becomes just a more constrained range than it was before, as we don't observe particles at "points" but in a region, such as photons hitting a camera sensor we just know which region the photon hit, but not the exact location).

In multiple worlds interpretation there is no wave collapse of the possibilities into more constrained possibilities, but simply everything that can happen does happen in multiplying real and equally physical universes. Every time the universe splits to follow different possibilities new branches appear in the tree of real possibilities that constantly proliferate at a considerable rate, actualizing every possible state of the universe.

We've been recently debating the idea of wave collapse relating to consciousness, as opposed to multiple worlds where no "probability waves" ever collapse.

There are other possibilities, however. Earlier we were discussing hidden variables. Bell inequalities is about local hidden variables, but doesn't exclude non-local hidden variables. Everything could still be fully determined by non-local hidden variables, which, if we knew we could use to fully predict any quantum process. Based on quantum physics as it seems to be now, it's difficult to imagine, even in principle, being able to actually know these hidden variables. However, we can still nevertheless conceive of these hidden variables existing in some other hidden variable dimension that we could probe with the right apparatus to arbitrary precision. Such "hidden variable dimensions" being discovered and accessible to arbitrary precision to predict the exact results of quantum processes (not just the probability distribution of where each particle is likely to land, but exactly where each particle will land to arbitrary precision, constrained just by size of apparatus, for instance) would return physics to a Newtonian world view that everything seems to be in a definite state and larger asparagus gets us more precise results without limitation (in quantum physics as it is, there are fundamental limits to probing values: measure position precisely and you can't measure momentum precisely at the same time; measure too precisely and you create black holes and can no longer see what happens inside those black holes).

So, "likely" hidden variable dimensions, if they exist, we can't access them. However, there's nothing the matter in principle to suppose quantum processes follow some fully determined path without any randomness, due to smaller states we are unable to access.

Next to "consciousness based wave collapse", multiple worlds, full determinism, there are other ideas such as "entropy based wave collapse" as well as "wave collapse just happening spontaneously".

Sort of. But we weren’t talking about MWI. We were talking about collapse and what causes it. There is an inconsistency between “multiple world lines” and “collapse”. — khaled

There's no wave collapse in MWI, as the idea there is all possibilities really exist in some physical definite state and new universes pop into existence every time there is a quantum fork in the road.

"Wave collapse" is the idea there's only one universe that doesn't split at every quantum fork in the road, but the possibilities collapse into one path going forward.

In both MWI and "wave collapse" theories, if we "setup", or just imagine, a cosmic wave function at the beginning of the universe will have the same mathematical structure. It's just in one interpretation if we go "forward in time" with our equations we see a range of possibilities and "predict" one of those possibilities will "actually happen" for observers at that moment in time. Whereas in MWI we go forward in time with our equations and we see the same possibilities but assert every possibility corresponds to a real "universe" (which should really be called "subverse" to the real universe of all these possibilities actually existing).

No we don’t. We need to become conscious of the consequences of the result. Such as cookie or no cookie. Would you call that “becoming conscious of the result”? — khaled

Science works through consciousness. We formulate questions, we formulate answers to those questions, we try to "prove" an answer is right or wrong through experiments. If we imagine unconscious rocks sitting in a pond, they cannot "do science".

It simply makes no sense to say we will setup an experiment but neither of us will ever become conscious of the result, and that will settle, in a scientifically meaningful way, the issue at hand.

This is just what "science" means. If you setup your cookie experiment but never look at the results, but assure me the cookie is definitely either there or it isn't even if you don't look, I'll ask "how do you know". The only way for you to "know" is to go and check, but you're claiming to know even if you don't check.

We can definitely tell the state of the cat. Without observing the cat. — khaled

We cannot know the state of the cat without observing the cat. We can know it's possible states based on initial conditions when the lid of the box is closed, to know it's state afterwards we need to look in the box. We can do that by physically opening the box, we can do it by running an MRI of the box, we can do it by setting up a detector for cosmic rays debris that travel through the box, we can take the temperature of the box and conclude the cat is dead if the box is too cold or on fire if the box is too hot, but each way we might get information on the state of the box requires observations. If we want to have a sort of "pure" cat killing experiment, we would make our box a light year on each side and place the cat in a suitable smaller livable box in the middle with our experiment; this way we can be certain that no information is "leaking" out about the state of our cat.

Sigh. Read the whole comment please. I show why one of the interpretations (the one we happen to be discussing) is inconsistent with that. — khaled

There is no inconsistency with MWI. You just have the block universe of all the possible universes. You have mathematically exactly what I described as the "cosmic wave function" that contains all the possibilities. MWI and cosmic wave function are mathematically the same, only in cosmic wave function I am removing the postulate that there are any conscious beings in this mathematical structure that experience anything, so "all the quantum states" can just happily remain in one quantum block universe where time has no special meaning.

It's not really useful to try to visualize the quantum block universe since there's many more dimensions for field strengths and directions as well as more dimensions representing the probabilities (either mapped onto new dimensions or just left in complex value form; a mathematician investigating this structure won't care that values are complex).

As I say, it's off topic as my point is simply to bring in the analogy that the only "problem" for block universe interpretation of physics equations when we remove "time" as something special that is experienced ... is the fact that we do believe the universe has conscious observers that do in fact experience time.

Great. Now the question becomes, do we need a conscious observer for this to happen, or can it happen on its own. — khaled

This is what I am explaining; the only way for us to resolve this question scientifically, is to setup an experiment and then for us to both become conscious or the result. If we setup the experiment and then never look at the results (i.e. just keep the lid of Schrödinger's box closed) then we don't know if the wave has collapsed or not because we haven't looked.

That's just how science works, if we don't observe we cannot say what the "real state" of Schrödinger's box is; it is as consistent to say it is in some definite state as to say it remains in the quantum superposition of all it's possible states we might observe when we open the box. One is free to believe the quantum state had already collapsed multiple times since we closed the box ... one is free to believe the quantum state has not at all collapsed since we closed the box; both views will result in the same predictions (we both have the same information of the state of the box when it's closed, we both have the same equations, we will both arrive at the same possible states and probabilities for what we'll see when we open the box; what is "really in the box" when we aren't looking is a unfalsefiable claim, as to falsefy a claim about what's "really in the box" when it's closed, we need to open the box and look and so it's no longer closed).

Within the math of classical mechanics.

In Quantum mechanics it is very much inconsistent. Because there are 2 alternatives in quantum mechanics: — khaled

Having multiple interpretations of things does not create inconsistencies.

If you show a parabola equation to a mathematician, there's lot's of interpretations available such as an arch of a particle through space (approximately so), or a string suspended between two fixed points (approximately so), or a shape you have or intend to draw, quadratic growth of some value, or maybe we don't care about the parabolic shape but want to solve for it's roots which will tell us the information we want to know.

Multiple interpretations does not create mathematical inconsistencies.

If I tell you "6", it's not a mathematical inconsistency that I could be talking about 6 electrons or 6 bananas or just the number 6.

Likewise, even if we assumed quantum mechanics does not lend itself to a "block universe" interpretation (which it does), the block universe is not the only interpretation of classical mechanics. We can interpret classical mechanics as representing particles that really do move through time.

All this is getting off topic however, as the analogy that a block universe interpretation of physics is only problematic because we are conscious of the present and time clearly flows in one direction to us.

However, for those curious, the block universe interpretation is as easy in quantum mechanics as classical mechanics. There are just many more paths through the block associated with any particle. If we want to add "wave function collapse" (which the point of contemplating the "cosmic wave function" is that we don't need to ever add a wave function collapse, if we remove the hypothesis of conscious observers that see definite things) then the many potential world lines associated with a particle collapse in the block to the, if not one location, then "smaller region" anytime the wave function collapses in this block universe.

Again, the only reason to postulate "time" as some sort of changing singular experience in our quantum block universe is if we want to contemplate the idea that some of the "particle world lines" represent a conscious being that experiences "time" as some changing singular experience. However, if we had no observers in our quantum block universe there is nothing in the math that would tell us time is some special thing as we understand time to be in our experience.

To those following this discussion and still uncertain of what "the problem" is.

An analogous problem is the idea of a "block universe", which is a hypothesis that arises as soon as we assign a dimension to time that is mathematically the same as our dimensions of space; which you can do in any physics system be it Newton, General Relativity or Quantum mechanics.

When time is treated as a space dimension, one becomes (based on the math) free to imagine that time really is a physical dimension and particles travelling "through time" are "physically" long strands traversing this "space-time" physical substance (in one way or another).

If one describes the whole universe this way, there is nothing logically inconsistent within the math of saying the whole 4 dimensions (or however many dimensions you have in your system) physically exist (in some substance intuition sense) as one 4 dimensional block.

The logical inconsistency arises when we try to reconcile the block-universe view with our experience of time, and that only arises due to being conscious of "one moment to the next".

If a mathematical system describing "the" or just "a" universe was given to a mathematician, and the label "universe" was removed and the dimension of time wasn't labeled "time" then there would nothing in that mathematical structure that would lead our mathematician to hypothesize time. You ask the value (or range of values) of a position labeled as "a,b,c,d" in the mathematical structure, and our friendly mathematician crunches the numbers and gives you the result.

False. That's precisely the point. There are CONSEQUENCES to the wave not being resolved while we're not looking at it. Attach a measuring apparatus to a double slit experiment. Then have an AI recognize whether or not an interference or striped pattern is produced, and connect the AI to a cookie dispenser. If a striped pattern is produced, no cookie, if an interference pattern is produced, dispense a cookie. Start the experiment and go to the cookie dispenser. You will find no cookie. — khaled

This is just not how it works.

Interference patterns disappear, not because of wave collapse, but because of running a different experiment, where phase is not preserved through both slits; and without the same phase going through both slits, the interference pattern does not emerge; this is why there is no interference pattern even if you do not "look" at your experiment until the end.

However, if you put your experiment in the box with Schrödinger's cat, how is it described quantum mechanically? The particles, the detectors, the AI are all in superpositions of the different possibilities of when you open the box.

If we look at the math of quantum physics, there is no logical inconsistency in just letting the wave function propagate indefinitely without any "collapses". The logical inconsistency arises when we look at the world and do not see this wave function, but see definite things with definite values. Now, what we can make of this I think @Wayfarer has been describing very well, so I suggest reading his posts carefully.

Not true. Not even for MWI. MWI is the theory that ALL the possibilities happen. As in a universe where the wave function collapsed to A is created and another universe where the wave function was collapsed to B is created, and so on.... — khaled

You seem to be in a contradiction.

You're saying the MWI solves the problem we're talking about, but somehow the problem doesn't even exist for the proposed solution you are arguing against that "consciousness collapses wave functions".

You say:

False. If you set up a measuring machine and no one looks at the results, the wave function will still collapse. — khaled

If the wave function collapses anyway due to a measuring machine, why the need to postulate multiple worlds?

I think @Wayfarer describes the basic problem well, so I'll just repeat it:

I think that the 'observer problem' or 'measurement problem' in physics is precisely due to the fact that 'the act of observation' has a material effect on the outcome of experiments in quantum physics. This is the origin of the controversy, and the reason there is a problem of interpretation. They don't necessarily refer to consciousness but to the act of observation or registration or measurement. It can be argued that this act of observation can be made by an apparatus, not a person, but that begs the question of why the apparatus existed in the first place, and also whether anything it measures or registers constitutes information until it is interpreted by those who made the apparatus. If you say it does, it simply kicks the can down that road, so to speak; ultimately the information is interpreted by a human being, and whether it exists uninterpreted can only ever be an assumption. — Wayfarer

As I mention in my previous comment, there's nothing "special" about measuring apparatus, other than that we become conscious of their definite states, and, once we do, it is incoherent to continue in the belief that the measuring apparatus is in a superposition of different possible results (which, before we look, is entirely coherent to believe the measuring apparatus is in the superposition of the different measurement outcomes; to "know it's not" we have to look, and only after looking and seeing it definitely says "5" does it become incoherent to persist in the belief that it could be other values other than 5, as it definitely says 5).

Adding a "measuring apparatus" in the box with Schrödinger's cat, doesn't change the thought experiment. There's already the measuring apparatus of the Geiger counter that when activated releases the poison, we ca simply argue it is in a superposition along with the particle it's measuring. We can add into the box as many measuring devices as we like. The particle, the "measuring apparatus" of the Geiger counter, the cat, the air, everything in the box is just particles described by some wave function and there is nothing "logical" that forces us to believe the wave function collapses at any given moment before we check.

The question is what state these measuring devices are in before we look at them? How can we prove any hypothesis? If we're doing science, we have to look to prove our hypothesis, but this defeats the question we are trying to resolve.

When we check, we see one of the potential outcomes; there is no difference between saying we "could have seen one of the potential outcomes since the box was closed" and saying "we could have seen one of the potential outcomes since a series of wave function collapse that have happened since the box has closed", there is no mathematical difference in this second way to imagine things where the "possibility tree" is pruned regularly, just in our minds with imagined wave collapses, as that does not give us any new information in which to predict the state of the box. All we have is the information about the box before we close the lid, so if I just calculate the wave function based on that and let it evolve until the time we open the box to know the probabilities of different box states I may observe, this will be the same as hypothesizing the wave function collapses regularly for some reason.

Yes. Which means it's not the consciousness doing it. If the wave was already collapsed by the time it made it through your eyes, before it got processed in any way by the brain then it's your eyes doing it. Not your mind. — khaled

I'm not sure you're getting it.

We cannot, by definition "observe" when wave collapse happens before an observation.

If you say your eyes cause wave collapse (which already isn't necessarily a coherent use of the word cause), then we'd need an apparatus that makes observations on your eyes to see this eye-wave-collapse phenomenon happening.

If wave collapse happens before observation, we cannot, in principle, observe it. It can always be argued that the cat with the poison is in a super position of different states, and when we open and look, our eyes are in a super position too.

There is nothing in quantum mechanics itself that prevents, in principle, "pan super position" of just setting up the wave function of the whole universe and letting it evolve. If we do this for the big bang or any moment after the big bang, there is nothing in quantum mechanics that forces "observations" to collapse the universal wave function.

It's totally coherent, in principle, to just have a cosmic wave function that then evolves with time and is never "observed" to resolve uncertainties (i.e. collapse the wave function).

What is incoherent in this approach is that we do not (by we I mean my individual consciousness and any like consciousness) observe the wave function of the superposition of all possibilities since the big bang, but we observe one clear possibility.

It's only consciousness that for sure forces us to even come up with wave function collapse in the first place. If you presented the wave function to a mathematician that doesn't know what it's about, they wouldn't be able to find why and when it needs to "collapse" for the math to be coherent. It can evolve in time in it's wavy form indefinitely.

If one sets up a wave function with an "apparatus", the above mathematician would just view it as more particles in the wave function, nothing intrinsically special about the apparatus than the experiment it's connected too.

What makes "apparatus" special is psychics is that we consciously observe the apparatus and so see definite states of the apparatus and not superimposition of states.

This doesn't mean consciousness "causes wave collapse", but "we" cannot "know" about definite states of the universe until we become conscious of those states. What happens before, in principle, we cannot know about unless we look and become conscious of what's happening before (which is now no longer "before" we're conscious of it).

Given all this, it is as reasonable to believe consciousness collapses wave functions as some entropy threshold or the like.

Basically: If we can prove that the eyes cause wave function collapse fully, then it's not consciousness doing it is it? Unless you want to then propose that eyes are conscious. — khaled

This does not seem any different than just experimental apparatus causing wave function collapse, just eyes being apparatus.

The whole point of the question is that "whatever is there" before observation we don't know about until we observe it. Schrodinger's cat in the box.

The paper you cite just goes over the "apparatus" or "external entropy" causes wave collapse arguments. It does not propose an experiment that I can build, turn it on, and be convinced wave collapse has nothing to do with consciousness. An "argument" even in the reputable https://arxiv.org/ does not an experiment make.

Why must we be able to count worlds for it to be science? It's not a real infinity anyways. — khaled

Yes, I thought you would reply this and I had already edited my comment above, but unfortunately not before you already saw it, so here it is again:

(And before you say it's not infinite, just near infinite there's so many: any finite number is totally miniscule compared to infinity; the largest number that can possibly be represented in the entire accessible universe using all available energy and material and building up the most compact way to represent the largest numbers in the axiomatic system of your choice; is a minuscule number incredibly close to zero when compared to infinity). — boethius

If we did an experiment that showed that even without any conscious observers the wave would collapse anyways, — khaled

There is no such experiment proposed, even in principle.

But yes, if there was, it would no longer be pseudoscience but science.

The pseudoscientific beliefs that are unreasonable are the one's contradicted by actual experiments that you can repeat.

By-the-by, no apparatus can count to infinity and so infinite worlds is pseudoscience, not real science. The "popular" physicists that talk about infinite worlds are complete morons. (And before you say it's not infinite, just near infinite there's so many: any finite number is totally miniscule compared to infinity; the largest number that can possibly be represented in the entire accessible universe using all available energy and material and building up the most compact way to represent the largest numbers in the axiomatic system of your choice; is a minuscule number incredibly close to zero when compared to infinity).

Sure. But if one of them is unreasonable it makes the other unreasonable. — khaled

Yeah, I say both are reasonable.

Is reasonable? — khaled

Yes.

What I don't believe is that it is resolvable by experiment, just as whether anyone else is conscious to begin with is not resolvable by experiment (which solves the relativity problems of wave collapse if I'm the only conscious observer, by the by). Again, my belief other people are conscious is pseudoscience.

As a belief you clearly find unreasonable since you call having it being "In denial" — khaled

I said you're in denial it is a pseudoscientific belief, whereas I am not. Two beliefs being "as reasonable to believe" do not make them true. I trust people, even some experts; I think it's reasonable, but I do not think it is therefore true. Some people turn out to be untrustworthy, even if I thought it reasonable to trust them before.

I said as reasonable. Both are claims about consciousness we are unable to verify by experiment. They seem equally reasonable to me in this regard.

I'm not really following you anymore.

I'm pretty sure you don't understand what we've agreed to, but maybe you're feeling lucky.

As reasonable as believing there's some people that have a consciousness made of "expertise" in some way.

Not an experiment. But you manage to do it. I manage to do it in the same way. So does everyone I think. — khaled

It's not an experiment, it's not science. It's pseudoscience with all the same trappings of other pseudosiences: plausible sounding reasoning, anecdotes, unfalsefiable claims.

I'm just not in denial about it. Maybe other pseudoscientific things are reasonable to believe as well.