If you want to distance yourself from Hitler, you don't go for a toithbrush moustache. Why muddy the already muddy waters? — Agent Smith
Well it's still all to play for, but by my reckoning, if it diffracts like a wave and it interferes like a wave, it's a wave. — Kenosha Kid
Human behavior, if you'll take the time to notice, breaks this easiest route rule - we do things in very inefficient ways, most of the times failing to take the shortest route between beginning (of a project) and its end. In essence we violate the Principle of Least Action.
Since deterministic systems have to adhere to the Principle of Least Action and humans consistently violate this principle, is this free will? — Agent Smith
Since deterministic systems have to adhere to the Principle of Least Action and humans consistently violate this principle, is this free will? — Agent Smith
The physicist wants his quarks and leptons (or subs within them, to which muon g2 anomaly seems to hint) to be real. What's thought real or not varies and there is, especially nowadays, no consensus, not even for the fundamental, what the right picture is. — Raymond
I don't think though that the absorption of a photon is the reversed process of absorption. The absorption involves a different photon state as the emitted photon. So one can see the difference. Or not? — Raymond
What about the evolution of the wave function? Reversing motion will still produce collapse. Collapse is insensitive to time reversal. Still, if you reverse the movie of a collapse, a superposition magically appears. — Raymond
I'll agree that there are hierarchies of ontology. I don't _believe_ in quarks the way I believe in houses. But it's not just a case of wanting. — Kenosha Kid
Another aspect is the thermodynamics of the evolution of the wavefunction: its dispersion. If you measure a particle, it has a very localised wavefunction. As time progresses, it spreads out. It never does the opposite.
3hReplyOptions — Kenosha Kid
By that logic, it's equally sensible that something that diffracts and interferes isn't a way, which is linguistically incoherent. — Kenosha Kid
The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it's comprehensible. — Albert Einstein
The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you. — Neil deGrasse Tyson
I can always say that you see quarks because you only belive in them — Raymond
When quarks were introduced in the sixties it took another 10 years to prove their existence and Feynman didn't believe in them, though he believed in partons. — Raymond
But what spreads out? If it spreads out it can collapse. — Raymond
Something isn't a way? — Raymond
The quark model (and it is just a model) is based on empiricism, not belief — Kenosha Kid
If I don't believe in this approach (I do though), then one can say whatever they want about quarks and leptons, they existing whatever I think about them, but if I don't belief in the approach, or if I don't value it, the quarks will be non-existing for me. — Raymond
About absorption and emission. Isn't the emitted photon different from the absorbed? A creation and destruction operator are applied in asymptotically free perturbative approach, and can't be applied to a bound system like an atom. The photon absorbed is a different one than the emitted one. Only in Compton scattering they can be interchanged, so it looks. Do you agree with this? — Raymond
Whatever Tyson was talking about, it's obvious that the universe, save quantum physics, makes sense as in it behaves in ways that a sensible, intelligent being would — Agent Smith
The obvious counterexample comes from Einstein himself. One can understand relativity, which is what Einstein meant, but there's nothing intuitive about light having the same speed regardless of whether and how fast you're moving toward or away from it, — Kenosha Kid
Compton scattering is a destruction of a photon that necessitates the creation of a different photon by a charge that is excited but must immediately de-excite. So on the contrary that's a description of two different photons, not the same one. — Kenosha Kid
What I meant was that the emission of a photon produces a different photon field configuration as the field used for for exciting an atom. — Raymond
the field emitted looks different than that of a photon coming from it. — Raymond
You can't see though what direction time goes. — Raymond
For absorltion/,emission both photons have the same energy and angular momentum but their states differ. — Raymond
don't know what you're trying to say (and I have read on). What is the difference here between a "photon" and a "photon field configuration"? — Kenosha Kid
Again, the photon is described by a time-dependent wavefunction — Kenosha Kid
Thanks sir. Its hard for me to read though. I am impatient to read longwinded explanations.I'm not getting what you are saying makes will free. That it evolves? — Yohan
I'll give it a try. — Raymond
Fair enough good sirEasy. The desired outcome was: discuss philosophy with people more knowledgeable about it than me. The chosen course of action -- to visit a philosophy forum -- was the optimal one. — Kenosha Kid
Again, the photon is described by a time-dependent wavefunction, which will disperse both in real and reciprocal space thermodynamically. It's still the same wavefunction and same photon. I think we're doomed to just repeat the same statements at each other. — Kenosha Kid
In general when thinking about free will it is helpful to consider robots. You can program a robot to always move up hill. Does this constitute a proof of free will of the robot — hypericin
The _wavefunction_ will be different at absorption to emission, but that doesn't mean it's a different photon: wavefunction are time-dependent. — Kenosha Kid
I wasn't talking about intuition alone. It's as clear as day that the universe makes sense in a rigorously logical sense - there are laws, mathematical to boot, that govern the universe and that extends far beyond mere gut feelings. — Agent Smith
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