But trying to sort out what it means exactly.... — Darkneos

Trying to figure out what anything exactly means is not-so-easy. As to the entanglement of things - and I suspect that entanglement is a property of everything and only emergent at the scale of the very small - it's just a mystery for which no good account yet exists. And the universe full of such mysteries, is itself the biggest mystery.

But trying to sort out what it means exactly has been...knotty. I get conflicting accounts on how it says that reality can be real or local but not both. — Darkneos

There's an entire section of publishing and media devoted to explaining, exploiting, or denying ‘quantum weirdness’. The best book I’ve read on it is Quantum, Manjit Kumar, which goes into the history and implications in depth. It’s accessible to the non-physicist reader too. But there are no easy answers to these conundrums.

I'm pretty sure physics doesn't really have anything to say about realism, anti-realism, or idealism — Darkneos

Don’t be. Physics was at the center of the Copernican ‘scientific revolution’ and that had massive philosophical impact. The ‘quantum revolution’ was arguably even more impactful, especially considering the central role of physics in science and technology.

Pre-WWII, there were two very influential British scientists and science communicators, Sir James Jeans and Arthur Edfington. They’re not mentioned much nowadays but their books sold in the millions in their day, and both of them presented cases for forms of idealism based on physics. There is still a thriving school of idealist-leaning physicists among other schools of thought.

There is still a thriving school of idealist-leaning physicists among other schools of thought. — Wayfarer

Hmmm.

I feel like every new discovery in the field gets muddled by thousands of people who try to run away with it and draw conclusions that it's not saying. — Darkneos

Yep.

I think they are saying the noumena is the very small where particles aren't space-bound in the classical sense. The classical is the same classical stuied by humans for thousands of year. As you say, how does this affect the practical realm

There is still a thriving school of idealist-leaning physicists among other schools of thought. — Wayfarer

Ummm, not really? I've seen a few of them and the only thing they have in common is how they don't understand the science.

Most physicists I've talked to about this said it means nothing. Even on the Nobel Prize website the people who discovered this don't really know how it does it or what's going on.

I think they are saying the noumena is the very small where particles aren't space-bound in the classical sense. The classical is the same classical stuied by humans for thousands of year. As you say, how does this affect the practical realm — Gregory

Well most of the time it leads to people saying shit like "the moon isn't real or doesn't exist if you don't observe it". Bearing in mind that observer and observation don't mean consciousness in QM

It may be suggested the practical realm is impacted by these theories when a practical/technological application impacts our lives. Until then, very little impact for every few.

But, don't stop wondering.

smile of encouragement

Particles can communicate in sinc with each other faster than light. Some speculate worm holes to explain this, which really means we redefine what space means

But, don't stop wondering. — kazan

Well the issue with that is we are working with interpretations of extremely high level math, so our wondering is really more like butchering the evidence.

Particles can communicate in sinc with each other faster than light. Some speculate worm holes to explain this, which really means we redefine what space means — Gregory

According to the page on the Nobel Prize site the guy doesn't know how it does that just that it does. But this is only with entangled particles which is odd because entanglement is a local phenomenon

local reality isn't true, and I googled it to find the that Nobel Prize went to 3 scientists who had proved that in 2022 — Darkneos

If I understand the Scientific American article referenced in the linked article, which, as predicted by Clark's uncertainty principle, is a 50/50 proposition, the work of the Nobel winners was a new and important verification of Bell's theorem. So - it was new polish on a mint 1964 Ford Mustang - not new news but an update of old news. Exciting for particle physicists, but ho hum for those of us primarily interested in events greater in diameter than 10^−9 meters. That's 6.213712 x 10^-12 miles for us Americans. Or 5.87613 x 10^-8 smoots.

Which I have personal doubts about since doesn't science posit an external reality to study. — Darkneos

Its actually what the math seems to say (at least to probably most people) but at the same time, this is very strongly interpretation dependent so not everyone sees it that way.

But this is only with entangled particles which is odd because entanglement is a local — Darkneos

Are you just substituting "local" for quantum and non-local for classical?

Are you just substituting "local" for quantum and non-local for classical? — Gregory

Not really, more like non local is quantum and classical is local. But the term refers to proximity.

Its actually what the math seems to say (at least to probably most people) but at the same time, this is very strongly interpretation dependent so not everyone sees it that way. — Apustimelogist

Even still you have to posit an external reality with peer review otherwise there isn’t really a point to science.

Even the crazier interpretations don’t say the universe doesn’t exist.

One of these is false:

1. Particles cannot influence one another faster than the speed of light (locality)
2. Particles have well defined properties before being measured (realism)

As examples, the Copenhagen and Many Worlds interpretations reject realism, and the de Broglie–Bohm theory rejects locality.

I agree with you that discourse about this is overblown. Scientific American talks about 'the universe' and 'reality'. These big claims are extrapolations from quantum physics, but quantum physics is about the behaviour of particles. Particle entanglement happens; it now has many practical applications. But we have no idea how this, which relates very specifically to the act of measurement whether by human or machine or other particles, relates to reality and the universe.

I feel like every new discovery in the field gets muddled by thousands of people who try to run away with it and draw conclusions that it's not saying.

There are quacks and charlatans who use quantum weirdness to push all sorts of nonsense. There are also lots of people who try to label the work of serious scholars as falling into this former category as a way to discredit them and push their own agenda.

For instance, Sabine Hossenfelder portrays retro-causality (and so models like the crystalizing block) as a sort of garble created by uniformed hucksters. It isn't. Hucksters might promote it, but the key work in this area was by John Wheeler and Rodger Penrose, two of the biggest names in the field, and people take it seriously.

It's also a bit strange because Hossenfelder wants "common sense" interpretations of QM, and retro-causality actually achieves this by making the world both local and deterministic.

The confusion is not the result of people doing "bad science." The fact is that there are at least 10 major interpretations of QM and none have majority support. Further, prior consensus was largely enforced by a sort of dogmatic doctrine against work in quantum foundations, including attacks on it as "unscientific." Adam Becker's "What is Real?" has a good introduction on Bell's work on locality and the general climate of intimidation that existed in this period, with people being told explicitly that it was "career suicide" to engage in certain sorts of speculation, or having their jobs threatened, despite this work later becoming extremely influential. Tegmark relates a similar story of intimidation in his "Our Mathematical Universe."

I'm pretty sure physics doesn't really have anything to say about realism, anti-realism, or idealism, but that hasn't stopped folks from trying.

There are many different types of realism. Local realism involves the claim that things indefinitely far away from each other cannot instantaneously affect one another (influence moving faster than the speed of light). People have learned to parrot "but information cannot be transmitted superluminally!" as if this obviously makes entanglement straightforwardly unproblematic. Needless to say, the pioneers of relativity theory, Einstein chief among them, did not think this was in any way obvious.

Coverage of these debates tends towards the consensus that, while Bohr was right and Einstein wrong about "spooky action at a distance," Einstein was right about this being somewhat of a "problem" requiring more attention. Bohr's commitment to a certain sort of philosophy led him to paper over the problem, which in turn discouraged work like Bell's on his famous inequalities.

I don't know how physics couldn't inform philosophical debates or vice versa. It cannot solve them, but empirical examples often play a major role in metaphysics. Physics seems to tell us something about part-whole relations, information transfer, etc.

Physics itself was long a part of philosophy. It's the study of "mobile being," natural philosophy. Plenty of scientists argue there is no clear line between science and philosophy, and I'd tend to agree with them. The idea that the two are totally discrete is just one very particular form of philosophy that was dominant in the mid-20th century, one with thankfully seems to be dying.

The desire to build a firewall between philosophy and science isn't lacking in some good motivation. The logical positivists grew up in the shadow of "Aryan physics" in Germany and "socialist genetics" in Stalin's USSR. But I'd argue that what they really needed was a better philosophy of science that could show them why these fields were not proper scientific subjects.

This problem hasn't gone away. Today we have people positing sui generis "feminist epistemologies" or "African epistemologies," etc. Different sciences for different sorts of people or locations.

The sad thing is, there was already a fine answer to this problem that had been popular for millennia. Aristotle lays it out in the Posterior Analytics and other places. Science deals with per se predications, what is essential to things, not per accidens. This rules out organizing the sciences based on relation (or time/space) because these can involve and infinite number of predications and we cannot consider and infinite number of predicates in a finite time for the same reason that one cannot cross an infinite distance in a finite time at a finite speed. So there can be no science of "biology as studied by men named John" and no "chemistry inside the bodies of cats on the island of Iceland."

Further, there are very many particulars. For example, 200 million insects for each man on Earth. This means science cannot progress by studying particulars as particulars. Rather, it must identify the unifying principles at work in things. For instance, we learn about flight through the principle of lift (and others) not by studying each individual instance of flight or cells in the wings of flying animals.

As examples, the Copenhagen and Many Worlds interpretations reject realism, and the de Broglie–Bohm theory rejects locality. — Michael

Sorta, I think the Copenhagen is saying that nothing exists unless you look at it, but that’s not true. The particles still exist, just that some things about them aren’t defined. Many worlds isn’t against realistic quite the opposite.

I don't know how physics couldn't inform philosophical debates or vice versa. It cannot solve them, but empirical examples often play a major role in metaphysics. Physics seems to tell us something about part-whole relations, information transfer, etc. — Count Timothy von Icarus

From what I see it can’t, especially in this case where the interpretations of quantum physics aren’t even close to the math that is taking place. They’re watered down guesses to explain the math, which is the most solid one ever. But since philosophers commenting on this can’t do the math behind it their works about what it means are effectively useless.

Science may have been a part of Philosophy at one point but science has come quite far since then and made strides that set it apart. Meanwhile philosophy hasn’t really changed much or advanced much of anything and is still hung up on the same old debates.

You’re also not right about science and the particulates. That’s exactly how science advances, that’s why there are all those seemingly random experiments and weird stuff they do all the time, it’s not a straight line. By studying particulars as particulars you get to the unifying stuff.

For instance, Sabine Hossenfelder portrays retro-causality (and so models like the crystalizing block) as a sort of garble created by uniformed hucksters. It isn't. Hucksters might promote it, but the key work in this area was by John Wheeler and Rodger Penrose, two of the biggest names in the field, and people take it seriously. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Because it is. It’s also funny that you cited two of the weirdos who back it. Wheeler thinks we manifest the universe with consciousness, which we don’t and as a quantum physicist he should know better. Penrose also has wooed theories about consciousness despite what we know about the brain today.

So you’re not really helping your case by citing the weirdos in the field. I knew I heard those names before and it’s because of their crackpot ideas. At least when it’s not related to black holes.

No one actually takes retro casually seriously in the field, it’s sorta like flat earth there.

From what I see it can’t, especially in this case where the interpretations of quantum physics aren’t even close to the math that is taking place. They’re watered down guesses to explain the math, which is the most solid one ever. But since philosophers commenting on this can’t do the math behind it their works about what it means are effectively useless.

I think this is an unwarranted assumption. Most philosophers of physics are physicists by education and work experience. The ones with philosophy PhDs often also hold undergraduate, or often advanced degrees in physics as well. The top programs for philosophy of biology, physics, etc. often allow candidates to get a masters in the field they are studying now, and of course one can learn the mathematics involved without going through a degree program.

Plus, knowledge of mathematics is not often a limit on contributions to the field. Einstein, largely regarded as the greatest philosopher of physics in the 20th century, had trouble with the math used in SR/GR. He sought help and got it, but he was obviously still crucial to the development of the theory (and obviously so were folks like Robb, the "Euclid of relativity" working more on the math).

Most of the work in quantum foundations—the various interpretations—has been done by physicists at any rate. Philosophers have some important things to contribute though. For instance, the arguments to eternalism from various interpretations of the Andromeda Paradox and Twin Paradoxes, simply involve convoluted reasoning and conflations.

By studying particulars as particulars you get to the unifying stuff.

Right, that's exactly what I said.

Because it is. It’s also funny that you cited two of the weirdos who back it. Wheeler thinks we manifest the universe with consciousness, which we don’t and as a quantum physicist he should know better. Penrose also has wooed theories about consciousness despite what we know about the brain today.

This is an inaccurate description of the participatory universe. At any rate, was the problem with Consciousness Causes Collapse that von Neumann and Wigner didn't know math?

The theory is hard to believe, but it's not prima facie implausible when compared to Many Worlds and the idea that everything happens, nor does MWI seem particularly implausible compared to the premises involved in the superdeterminist view invoked as "saving common sense intuitions."

In a certain sense, the math isn't accurate. The promoters of MWI often stress that their interpretation has the benefit of remaining true to the Schrodinger Equation instead of having to work in "post hoc" collapse. But one has to have a very particular view of mathematics and its relationship to the sciences to claim that having to introduce something that is observed in every case is a knock against a theory.

Likewise, claims of eternalism by physicists, which are incredibly popular in the popular physics literature, often presented as "what science says is true," are going to draw in philosophers because these aren't empirically testable claims and are largely supported by assumptions about how mathematics relates to nature. And if these go a step further into making claims about "free will," that's another place where good philosophical reasoning will be wanted.

It's also a bit strange because Hossenfelder wants "common sense" interpretations of QM, and retro-causality actually achieves this by making the world both local and deterministic. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I would say it doesn't achieve that at all. Retro-causality or 'temporal action at a distance' is a part of a long history of taking the spatialized language we use to talk about time way beyond their metaphorical/psychological origins.

I think this is an unwarranted assumption. Most philosophers of physics are physicists by education and work experience. The ones with philosophy PhDs often also hold undergraduate, or often advanced degrees in physics as well. — Count Timothy von Icarus

A fair reply to a criticism, imho. But the question really goes to who writes and publishes pop physics books and why. And not all of that is respectable.

It's useful to recall exactly what the Bell experiments do. The experiments are set up and run, and the results tabulated and analyzed. And it is found that the results are not compatible with some certain basic and fundamental assumptions that are very reasonably made. Over years the experiments have been refined to eliminate certain "loopholes," and it is claimed they have done so. What the experiments do not do is say anything about the how or the why. To date, no one has that account. My own suspicion being that once accounted for, while it may at first seem amazing, after being grokked seem simple enough.

You may wanna check out this:



(and in the description it gives titled links to particular sections of the interview)

Jacob Barandes presents a completely realist interpretation of quantum mechanics. Its one version of what you would call a stochastic interpretation of quantum mechanics.

The basic idea is that particles move along trajectories where at any time they are always in a definite position. The caveat is that their motion is kind of random. Closest analogy in everyday experience is probably something like a dust particle bobbing about in a glass of water, the water molecules pushing it one direction then another. This analogy isn't necessarily precisely how we should view quantum behavior but it displays within it precisely what I mean when I say that the particle always has a definite position but is being subject to random motion making it change directions.

It is important to note that in this view, the wavefunction is not real, it is just a proxy for a statistical description of particle behavior. The particle and the wavefunction in this interpretation are completely separate things: the wavefunction spreads about in space and evolves deterministically, the particle is hidden underneath this description (but is compatible with Bell non-locality) and is always in a definite point of space like the dust particle in water and it moves randomly. The wavefunction is entirely a formal object that carries information about particle statistics when you repeat an experiment many, many times - it is a predictive tool like how probabilities in statistics are not physical objects but predictive tools that you apply to things. This is important to emphasize because in many interpretations, people automatically assume the particle and wavefunction are the same thing and so they make arguments against a stochastic interpretation under this kind of assumption. From my experience, it is really difficult for people to stop thinking in this kind of way and entertain the alternative. You can still use collapse in this theory but the implication is that it isn't a real event, it is just something a statistician could do if they wanted to describe behaviors of a statistical system when assuming some measurement event definitely occurs or has occurred - effectively this is just equivalent to throwing some of the data away.

Similar interpretations to Barandes' one (e.g. the main other one is called Nelsonian stochsstic mechanics) have existed literally since quantum mechanics was invented and what is nice about them is they are all - including the one by Barandes in the video - justified by and constructed in math. They prove that just starting from assumptions about particles randomly moving about, you can derive all quantum behavior. These interpretations have never been popular though. Probably partly because the mathematical formulation of these things can seem convoluted (Barandes' formulation appears to be a simpler statement of these kinds of interpretations though). They have had some unanswered questions too (though most major questions seem to have been directly addressed in the last couple years). Maybe partly they are unpopular because the news was never spread that well. Maybe because of bias and a preconception that these kinds models shouldn't be able to work (but they do). Maybe because some people just like quantum mechanics to be mysterious.

In Barandes formulation, it seems to be suggested that entanglement is due to memory effects, i.e. there is a local interaction which causes a correlation and the correlation is remembered over time and space... it is non-local in the formal sense invented by Bell and Bell's theorem, but the non-locality is due to memory and not direct communication over space - I give an example of this kind of thing in a paper further down. Because it is simpler, Barandes' formulation doesn't really describe why quantum mechanics would have this weird behavior at all - it is agnostic about that - it just describes some formal conditions. The Nelsonian stochastic mechanics is more complicated but imo it gives a bit more depth to exactly what is causing quantum behavior. But it doesn't strictly explain the whole hog either.

Interestingly, there are classical models (called hydrodynmic pilot-wave models) and experiments which seem to show quantum-like behaviors. They are very different - physically and descriptively - from what stochastic interpretations say, and they are very far from perfect models of quantum behavior; but they actually broadly share some mechanisms that seem to be proposed as explaining quantum mechanics in both the Barandes and Nelsonian models. Barandes says that particle behavior display a particular breed of behavior called non-markovianity (behavior with memory). The most straightforward interpretation of the Nelsonian math is that particles get their behavior from interacting with some kind of background field in a particular kind of way. Both of these suggestions seem to be present in a loose way in the hydrodynamic pilot-wave model (though not exactly in the same way given that the classical model is only an analogy with a very different description to the stochastic interpretations of quantum mechanics). The model is basically an oil droplet (i.e. the particle) bouncing on a bath (i.e. analogous to the Nelsonian background).

I can only see the abstract of this following paper but what it appears to be describing is actually very similar to the Barandes description of entanglement but in the same hydrodynamic droplet-bath model that's been mentioned:

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?cluster=11815274735010691195&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1

An interaction causes droplet correlations that are remembered even after the droplets are isolated.

The interesting coincidence between these hydrodynamic models and stochastic interpretations suggests that this may be a possible way of looking at how quantum behavior occurs... in a way that is completely realistic and classical. Obviously the connection between the bath and the stochastic interpetations isn't proven in any sense, the analogy imperfect, and the suggested mechanism is still not very intuitive imo - so I am not necessarily expecting people to see this and immediately find it convincing in any way. But to me, this is my leading avenue or direction of enquiry about what quantum mechanics actually means. I also imagine that the idea of particles moving in and interacting with some background that fills all of space may seem weird too but something like this already exists in quantum field theory (stochastic interpretation versions also exist of quantum field theory) where empty-space (i.e. the vacuum) always has energy fluctuations going on and these can actually interact with regular objects. So its not really adding anything weirder than what is already in quantum theory; it may not be adding anything at all if it were to turn out that the stochastic interpretation background and quantum vacuum fluctuations could be shown to be inextricably connected in some way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy

I have to emphasize though that Barandes hasn't explicitly acknowledged the background explanation because it isn't explicitly part of his model - it is only something that has been inferred in the other Nelsonian theory. I think he is just agnostic about why quantum behavior is like it is; but the main takeaway is that in proving that quantum behavior follows from certain assumptions about stochastic behavior (e.g. particles moving randomly), you no longer have to view quantum mechanics in a way that isn't realistic, even if you don't know exactly why it does what it does. According to the Barandes model (the Nelsonian one too), you can in principle simulate all quantum mechanics with particles always in definite positions even when they are not being measured or observed.

The basic idea is that particles move along trajectories where at any time they are always in a definite position. The caveat is that their motion is kind of random. Closest analogy in everyday experience is probably something like a dust particle bobbing about in a glass of water, the water molecules pushing it one direction then another. — Apustimelogist

Isn't this just a modern rendition of the notions that the early pre-Socratic atomists had?

I recall them talking about their atoms as constantly moving potentially in a randomized fashion aside from the perfectly deterministic collisions they had.

This is an inaccurate description of the participatory universe. At any rate, was the problem with Consciousness Causes Collapse that von Neumann and Wigner didn't know math? — Count Timothy von Icarus

It's not, that is EXACTLY what he means by the participatory universe and it's pretty much regarded as false.

Also consciousness doesn't cause collapse, that's another one that people keep getting wrong due to a misunderstanding of what observation means in physics.

And if these go a step further into making claims about "free will," that's another place where good philosophical reasoning will be wanted. — Count Timothy von Icarus

And that's when you know philosophers have gone off the deep end on this one.

Quantum physics is one area where philosophy needs to stay out, since the interpretations aren't accurate reflections of what is going on. You're also citing all the weird interpretations that aren't really widely accepted either. You make a very weird case.

Jacob Barandes presents a completely realist interpretation of quantum mechanics. Its one version of what you would call a stochastic interpretation of quantum mechanics. — Apustimelogist

I'm not reading all that, summarize into English. I don't understand why people assume everyone understands this on the level that they do. Do any of my replies indicate that I have the level of understanding to know what the video is talking about let alone you?

I get conflicting accounts on how it says that reality can be real or local but not both. — Darkneos

It seems to be a positive way to express the uncertainty of quantum physics. A particle can be either located in space (position), or measured for movement (momentum), but not both at the same time. Real things can be measured both ways, so what's wrong with quantum particles? Are they not things? Are they not real?

The problem may be less problematic if you think of Quantum particles as Ideal instead of Real*1, in the sense of a mathematical Field with infinite possible local points, but none actual until frozen in place by the stone-turning eye of Medusa, i.e. an observation by a humorless scientist. :joke:


*1. Is the Mathematical World Real?
Philosophers cannot agree on whether mathematical objects exist or are pure fictions.
https://www.scientificamerican.com › article › is-the-mat...

DON'T LOOK INTO THE EYES OF A QUANTUM PHYSICIST

Quantum physics is one area where philosophy needs to stay out, since the interpretations aren't accurate reflections of what is going on. You're also citing all the weird interpretations that aren't really widely accepted either. — Darkneos

This is something I've wondered about. Is it possible to have a scientific understanding of some aspect of the world without an ontology? Without a story about what is going on? This question comes up in the context of quantum mechanics. Is that the Copenhagen interpretation? Is that enough? If there is no way, even in theory, to verify or falsify the many worlds interpretation, does it even mean anything?

But that's not the same as saying philosophy needs to stay out.

I get conflicting accounts on how it says that reality can be real or local but not both.
— Darkneos
It seems to be a positive way to express the uncertainty of quantum physics. A particle can be either located in space (position), or measured for movement (momentum), but not both at the same time. Real things can be measured both ways, so what's wrong with quantum particles? Are they not things? Are they not real? — Gnomon

As I understand it, the question of non-realism vs. non-locality is completely different and completely separate from the question of position vs. momentum, i.e. the uncertainty principle.

I have no idea. I am not familar at all with those philosophies.