k writes:
Alternatively, get out of yourself with the simple and effective Scientific Method. Repeatability, repeatability, repeatability.
I too was a great fan of the SCIENTIFIC METHOD until some events occurred in my life that made it seem rather *quaint* in retrospect.
Allow me to illustrate:
As a preschool child traveling in the car with my parents, I had an unreasonable fear of getting lost in traffic, especially in the *big city*. I was totally mystified how my parents could go from one destination to another and not get lost. Yes, I was very, very, young.
Then one day I discovered maps.
I was 5 years old.
What a revelation!
What a discovery!
What convenience!
What did I know!?
What does any 5 year old know???
In the above illustration:
What is primary is the feeling of going from fear and unknowing to knowing and confidence. In this illustration the maps are secondary (but still important!). The maps are the objective of classical physics. The maps have always been there, if you ***knew*** where to look!
As children of the universe we are missing a great many maps to the multiple dimensional and consciousness levels that we inhabit. The only surething we have is the knowing.
Yes, this is a very
In three plus time-as-the fourth dimensions, I agree with Einstein and Penrose and yourself
that both Special and General Relativity are strictly classical theories: in both all quantities are considered continuous (black holes not withstanding), any uncertainty is due to lack of knowledge. These days this position is held by another great mathematical physicist: Roger Penrose.
Penrose wants that objectivity back for the same reasons that Einstein wouldn't let it go--physics is a lot more mathematically neat, and *much* more comfortable to live with if it is objective. Penrose has yet to come up with any experiment (let alone any experimental evidence) that would lead us to the return of such objectivity
Yes, we are missing the map(s) in-and-about-those pesky black holes BECAUSE they are the conduits into and beyond the 3rd and 4th dimensional levels.
IF you step-up to dimensional levels that are
--- YOU choose the reality frame that is comfortable for YOU ---
then time itself becomes malleable or a *quaint* notion of THE Timeflatlanders.
Timeflatlanders are those persons who are unable to unstick themselves from linear time.
Relativity did greatly change our understanding of the universe however. The main shocker is that it does away with the notion of simultaneous events. Observers in (greatly) distant locations are simply unable to arrive at a shared description of the passage of time.
Yes, relativity did change our understanding or at least the knowing of the Timeflatlanders.
I believe that
This is a direct confirmation of the core idea in QM: uncertainty now may have two sources--
- the classical lack of information --- called a mixture
- AND the quantum wave-function collapse --- called a superposition.
The uncertainty is in the observer NOT in the map.
The not knowing has to do with my linear time/life path or *age* (if you prefer). Even though I have advanced many years, I still do not know a great deal, but I do acknowledge that the maps (that the objective) are out there.
At this point I diverge from the focus of what you wrote:
What I'm leading up to here is that QM, while it denies objectivity in the sense that classical physics relied on, is in no way less rational, no less well-defined, no less stringent in its formalism (more so, actually) than classical physics. And you have no choice.Aspect's experiment is repeatable. Physical measurements are not objective ... provided they are carried out on entangled quantum systems. There is nothing ... er, how to put it ... there's no sense in which quantum physics is any less any of the things that people who don't like classical physics don't like about classical physics, than is classical physics. If you see what I mean.
Classical physics needs to stay in the box -- in other words -- in the dimensions of normal space/time. It does not *deny objectivity*, rather it CONFINES it to the box.
Quantum mechanics deals with the multiple dimensions beyond linear space/time. What is common to both classical physics and quantum mechanics is the knowing.
There is a something.
The only something that is a surething -- is our direct knowing of an event.
Measurement of an event comes in many, many formats -- not just the yardsticks and beakers of traditional scientific methodology.
The (correct) predictions of Relativity and QM are, where they differ from Newton et. al., *all* counter-intuitive.
OK that is why, I brought in my little diagram to illustrate that the counter-intuitive that you spoke of -- rests at the level of FORM and EXPERINECE -- the classical physics levels of mind. (Rough equivalents are 3D as the *form* level and 3D+time as the *experience* level.)
To get to the knowing you (as a human mind with its own perspective) have to function at the level of myth.
You function at the level of cosmic mind.
OR if you prefer
To undo the uncertainty.
Your direct knowledge of an event is your certainty.
Cosmic mind is beyond time.
Simultaneity makes no *sense* outside of linear time.
Simultaneity does not exist outside of the box of 3 dimensional space/time.
I find this a very interesting thing (snip) I see the whole of human history as a slow climb out of self delusion based on the makes sense model. Some would like us to return to it. Well, that's fine, but before you go: please hand in your childhood inoculations and all dental work, and all the time you spend not gathering food and fuel to survive.
NO! NO! NO!
I do not propose to any such retrograde movement! I am in no way a Luddite!
Rather, THINK of the various systems of thought and your (self-singular) participation in those systems. When you hit any paradox in thinking, then you are overdue for an expansion in YOUR system of thought -- Not a retrograde movement to what you knew when you were 5 years old.
I am always on the lookout for NEW MAPS in my life -- to take me beyond linear space/time -- Whether they be math equations, cognitive interventions, virtual realities, men-in-black or glass bead games!
The two big challenges in contemporary physics, (one of which "f" mentioned earlier) are to merge QM and General Relativity, and to explain how the quantum world comes to look just like the Newtonian one within the domain of validity of the latter. It's by rolling both of these together that Penrose wants to get the objectivity back. These are hard problems, both technically (doing the maths) and philosophically, but they do not cause hard-nosed, left-brain science to blow up in the way the quote at the top seems to suggest.
Rolling back is NOT the answer.
Hyperspatial equations are one way of opening up the box and allowing us to taste some these greater/larger/higher/out-there realms and dimensions. Functioning on the level of cosmic mind is another way of opening up the box.
Open up and acKNOWledge the higher dimensions and states of consciousness. There are many techniques, but those are for another post......
Thank you for YOUR most delightful post!:)
I hope that it answers your question of:
QM says the universe does not admit of objective physical quantities, but, the world of direct human experience seems to--no one yet ***knows*** how one turns into the other, and it is, in my opinion, a mistake (almost a category mistake) to try to use the quantum result to make strong statements about the directly experienced world (until that relationship is ***known***).>>
Postscript:
I could use some clarification on the following:
I don't know what Penrose's treatment of the EPR/Bell/Aspect result is: he tends to gloss over it in his books. Einstein thought the EPR result was a death-blow to QM, Aspect's confirmation of Bell's reduction is instead the death blow to classical objectivity: there are NO objective facts to be found. Note that a new "deeper" theory won't help you here, Aspect's experimental results would still be true, and would still demand the non-objectivity of physics.
