Mike Helland
Philosopher
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2020
- Messages
- 5,244
And yet it explains nothing.
That's your opinion.
In my opinion, and more importantly in the opinion of many in the field, Everett's ideas are helpful in understanding measurement in QM.
And yet it explains nothing.
That's your opinion.
No, it isn't my opinion. It's a fact, since you have not demonstrated that it explains anything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_problem
"Hugh Everett's many-worlds interpretation attempts to solve the problem by suggesting that there is only one wave function, the superposition of the entire universe, and it never collapses—so there is no measurement problem. Instead, the act of measurement is simply an interaction between quantum entities, e.g. observer, measuring instrument, electron/positron etc., which entangle to form a single larger entity, for instance living cat/happy scientist. Everett also attempted to demonstrate how the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics would appear in measurements, work later extended by Bryce DeWitt."
Are you ever going to answer the questions?
Oof.
Let's parse this together.
* Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external, and by another name is called duration:
* relative, apparent, and common time, is some sensible and external (whether accurate or unequable) measure of duration by the means of motion, which is commonly used instead of true time; such as an hour, a day, a month, a year.
A little trimming:
* Absolute time flows equably without relation to anything external, and by another name is called duration:
* relative time is some sensible measure of duration by the means of motion; such as an hour, a day, a month, a year. "
Two different concepts.
Relative time is a measurement.
Absolute time is not.
I think I have
and you're being belligerent.
Exactly, two different concepts, the concept of time (actual or absolute) and the concept of measurement (perceived or relative).
The problem with your actual/perceived description is that means seconds and minutes aren't actual. Relative time is not actual time.
Users of the absolute/relative terminology (Newton, Einstein, Heisenberg, Schopenhauer, etc) aren't trying to dismiss the relative world as fake.
Relative reality, with its relative space and relative time, is still real. Still actual.
Lacking access to any kind of absolute reference frame, our measurements of time are pretty important, and should be considered "actual."
This comes from a view of the world as a "hierarchy of the real", which is pretty common throughout history, but not so much anymore.
I don't recall anyone claiming they were.
The terminology used by Newton and others is absolute and relative.
Your terminology is actual and perceived.
Standard terminology:
Our measurements of time are relative, not absolute.
Your terminology:
Our measurements of time are perceived, not actual.
"The terminology used by Newton" is absolute and "relative, apparent, and common"
var particles = []
var t = 0 // absolute time
// add particles that make up some clocks and an observer
while (true) {
t++ // increment absolute time
// do physics on the particles
}
We have the task of making deductions about the appearance of phenomena
to observers which are considered as purely physical systems and are treated
within the theory. To accomplish this it is necessary to identify some present
properties of such an observer with features of the past experience of the
observer. Thus, in order to say that an observer 0 has observed the event α,
it is necessary that the state of 0 has become changed from its former state
to a new state which is dependent upon α.
It will suffice for our purposes to consider the observers to possess memo-
ries (i.e., parts of a relatively permanent nature whose states are in correspon-
dence with past experience of the observers). In order to make deductions
about the past experience of an observer it is sufficient to deduce the present
contents of the memory as it appears within the mathematical model.
As models for observers we can, if we wish, consider automatically func-
tioning machines, possessing sensory apparatus and coupled to recording
devices capable of registering past sensory data and machine configurations.
We can further suppose that the machine is so constructed that its present
actions shall be determined not only by its present sensory data, but by
the contents of its memory as well. Such a machine will then be capable
of performing a sequence of observations (measurements), and furthermore
of deciding upon its future experiments on the basis of past results. If we
consider that current sensory data, as well as machine configuration, is im-
mediately recorded in the memory, then the actions of the machine at a given
instant can be regarded as a function of the memory contents only, and all
9relavant [sic] experience of the machine is contained in the memory.
For such machines we are justified in using such phrases as “the machine
has perceived A” or “the machine is aware of A” if the occurrence of A is
represented in the memory, since the future behavior of the machine will
be based upon the occurrence of A. In fact, all of the customary language
of subjective experience is quite applicable to such machines, and forms the
most natural and useful mode of expression when dealing with their behavior,
as is well known to individuals who work with complex automata.
My description of absolute time is the variable t in the mathematical model, whereas relative time is encoded in the memory configurations of the model's internal observers.
They are both present in the mathematics, but exist very differently, and fit Newton's definitions just as well as Everett's.
This is what he says:
"Only I must observe, that the common people conceive those quantities under no other notions but from the relation they bear to sensible objects. And thence arise certain prejudices, for the removing of which it will be convenient to distinguish them into absolute and relative, true and apparent, mathematical and common."
He's breaking them up into two.
Actual and perceived are a bit off to me, but it's not a big deal.
In any case, as others have said, how this can be stated mathematically is more important.
I think it goes something like this:
Code:var particles = [] var t = 0 // absolute time // add particles that make up some clocks and an observer while (true) { t++ // increment absolute time // do physics on the particles }
Here, t is absolute time, and as programmers of the model, we have access to it.
The particles in the model should make up some clocks and a machine that's able to read them (using computer vision) and record the time.
These measurement records won't have a specific variable in RAM that we can read. The only variables in the program are particles and t.
The measurement records will be encoded in the particles as however the machine recorded its measurements. Say it had a spool of paper made of the virtual particles and it could print out the measurement. We should be able to read that sheet of paper, which tells us the time according to an observer that exists purely within the model.
If we began to move the clocks around, the observer might start to see some differences. At no point does the observer have access to absolute time, the t variable. It's version of time is made purely by the changes it can see, such as moving hands on a clock.
This might sound bizarre, but check out page 9 of Everett's thesis:
Also, as hecd2 remarks, no math to be found.
However, they are explicitly, by your own assertion, not reflective of the underlying actual absolute time. So whether that underlying actual absolute time exists or not doesn't actually change the outcome of any experiment(s).
Oh I gathered that. 'Natural philosophy' has a eighteenth century vibe, very Enlightenment.I should probably have highlighted the words "In this thread".
Dave
That's not maths. That is some very simple programming.t=0;
while (true) t++;
t=0;
while (true) t++;