Quantum Field Theory: The Woo Stops Here

[steenkh]

Yes we can, because your definition involves our world and contradicts how our world is known to work.

It does not contradict how our world is known to work because we have no way of knowing how our world would work with undetectable worlds. We simply cannot claim that the same rules will apply.

Remember, information is physical.

I have no idea how you can know what information is like in an undetectable fantasy world. My own guess would have been that this information could not be physical because then we could detect it.

But in any case, I see that we cannot agree, and further arguments seem useless. After all, we are discussing something that we all agree is futile or meaningless.

 

[tsig]

It does not contradict how our world is known to work because we have no way of knowing how our world would work with undetectable worlds. We simply cannot claim that the same rules will apply.


I have no idea how you can know what information is like in an undetectable fantasy world. My own guess would have been that this information could not be physical because then we could detect it.

But in any case, I see that we cannot agree, and further arguments seem useless. After all, we are discussing something that we all agree is futile or meaningless.

The problem seems to be that you want to have your undetectable fantasy world and have a way to detect it.

 

[ehcks]

It does not contradict how our world is known to work because we have no way of knowing how our world would work with undetectable worlds. We simply cannot claim that the same rules will apply.

If there's something truly undetectable, then whether it exists or not has no effect on the rest of the universe.

 

[PixyMisa]

It does not contradict how our world is known to work because we have no way of knowing how our world would work with undetectable worlds. We simply cannot claim that the same rules will apply.

Yes we do. Yes we can.

What happens in the undetectable world is irrelevant. What happens in our world is the point. Energy is passing out of our world. And the way you are suggesting this happens contradicts all the laws of physics of our world.

 

[PixyMisa]

Gentlemen, an editorial comment.

I have re-read my posts, and it is fairly clear that I speak of hypotheticals. The tendency to interpret this as actual advocacy, or backdooring of faith, is spurious.

The problem is, your hypotheticals don't stand up as hypotheticals. They contradict their own major premise.

 

[steenkh]

If there's something truly undetectable, then whether it exists or not has no effect on the rest of the universe.

Exactly. That is what I have been saying all along.

 

[PixyMisa]

Exactly. That is what I have been saying all along.

Yes. But if it is truly undetectable then it is also truly impossible for information to enter it from the rest of the universe.

Information transfer is energy transfer. There is simply no way around that.

 

[JoeMorgue]

You cannot know that when by definition the other world does not influence our world. How our world influences that world is unknowable.

*Sighs and face palms* Great it's semi-permiable membrane of Woo.

If people put the tiniest fraction of effort into evaluation of evidence and reason that they do into inventing new forms of special pleading....

 

[steenkh]

If people put the tiniest fraction of effort into evaluation of evidence and reason that they do into inventing new forms of special pleading....

The evaluation I made of such a scenario is that it was meaningless nonsense, but not actually incompatible with QFT because it does not interfere with it. I say that this kind of woo is unlikely to the degree that we normally call impossible, but not impossible in the logical sense.

A better example would be a fantasy scenario that is incompatible with QFT: the world is not ruled by the laws of physics but by billions of tiny invisible magic imps that just happen to do things so that for all purposes, things look as if normal physics apply. When it suits them, and scientists are not looking, they play havoc with the laws of physics.

Such a scenario is ridiculously improbable, but not actually impossible, because it does not contradict any evidence. It even could explain why woo works whenever skeptics are not around!

Both cases of incompatibility and compatibility with QFT can easily be dismissed by use of a bit of reason and a swing of Occam's Razor.

 

[steenkh]

Anyway, I do see that my distinction between compatibility and incompatibility sounds rather like a discussion of how many angels can dance on a pinhead, so I will do you all a favour, and keep my mouth shut from now on!

 

[PixyMisa]

The evaluation I made of such a scenario is that it was meaningless nonsense, but not actually incompatible with QFT because it does not interfere with it.

And you are wrong about that. Your hypothetical breaks every conservation law in physics. Never mind QFT, you contradict all the laws of thermodynamics.

 

[tsig]

*Sighs and face palms* Great it's semi-permiable membrane of Woo.

If people put the tiniest fraction of effort into evaluation of evidence and reason that they do into inventing new forms of special pleading....

People want to be special, I'd like to tell them that their mother is not running the universe.

 

[JoeMorgue]

The evaluation I made of such a scenario is that it was meaningless nonsense, but not actually incompatible with QFT because it does not interfere with it.

Which, unless we are willing to discount QTF entirely, makes it impossible.

I say that this kind of woo is unlikely to the degree that we normally call impossible, but not impossible in the logical sense.

I've never heard anyone split the hair over different degrees of impossible without the ulterior motive of trying to make a gap to slip so Woo in. I see no reason to think this is any different.

A better example would be a fantasy scenario that is incompatible with QFT: the world is not ruled by the laws of physics but by billions of tiny invisible magic imps that just happen to do things so that for all purposes, things look as if normal physics apply. When it suits them, and scientists are not looking, they play havoc with the laws of physics.

This little bit of fluff isn't nearly as profound as you are acting as if it is. It's meaningless. That doesn't make it profound. It can't be argued against because it doesn't say anything of meaning or context, not because it proves or even suggests anything.

It's like disproving 2+2=4 by going "But what if there is some magical place where it doesn't? Huh?"

It's silly faux-intellectual nonsense.

Defining something as something that disproves something and then using that definition as evidence is just circular meaningless nonsense, nothing more.

 

[The Greater Fool]

Simple, as I said. Any effect hypothetical additional dimensions may have on the four dimensions that we can observe... Can be observed.

Those extra dimensions explain the laws of physics; they don't change them. The laws of physics are what they are.

OK. I just can't grasp this, and this is likely my flaw. Perhaps I'm not expressing my thoughts well.

If no energy / information is able to move from the 4 dimensions we experience into the 6+ we don't, why are physicists positting the 6+ additional dimensions? If there can be no interaction between them, why must they be there for the math to work out?

*IF* there are 6+ additional dimensions, they have attributes we can't fathom, let alone measure. One particle that exists in our 4 dimesions can have attributes in each, true? Why couldn't or wouldn't they have simultaneous attributes in some/all of the 6+? With interactions in those dimensions we neither comprehend nor measure?

Again, I don't believe this is any sort of mechanism for afterlife. It just seems usopportable claims are being made about something we can't comprehend nor measure.

 

[Soapy Sam]

People want to be special, I'd like to tell them that their mother is not running the universe.

Evidences?

 

[PixyMisa]

*IF* there are 6+ additional dimensions, they have attributes we can't fathom, let alone measure.

No. The attributes of those extra dimensions are very tightly constrained, precisely because of what they don't do. If they were large, like familiar four, the Universe would have fallen apart as soon as it formed. Gravity wouldn't work, so we'd have had perpetual inflation, and our entire observable Universe would consist of a single electron.

 

[steenkh]

I've never heard anyone split the hair over different degrees of impossible without the ulterior motive of trying to make a gap to slip so Woo in. I see no reason to think this is any different.

That is exactly why I brought this up: we should be prepared for this kind of argument. And I said that we could not use physics but the old Occam's Razor to get rid of it.

This little bit of fluff isn't nearly as profound as you are acting as if it is. It's meaningless. That doesn't make it profound. It can't be argued against because it doesn't say anything of meaning or context, not because it proves or even suggests anything.

Did you read my post at all? I did not say anything about profoundness or proof. You are right that this scenario cannot be argued against, and that was the point! Just like it is impossible to argue against the world being created last Thursday, or 6000 years ago (if it was created to look like it was billions of years old).

There are people who think that it is very profound to have a single god ruling the laws of physics at His pleasure, but who can easily see the absurdity if this god is substituted with magical imps.

Never mind my point about compatibility or incompatibility with QFT, what I wanted to say is that Carroll's argument is a tool against almost all woo stuff, but the woos can easily dodge it by invoking magic, thus rejecting QFT when it suits them.

 

[PixyMisa]

Never mind my point about compatibility or incompatibility with QFT, what I wanted to say is that Carroll's argument is a tool against almost all woo stuff, but the woos can easily dodge it by invoking magic, thus rejecting QFT when it suits them.

Yes, it only proves that most types of woo are untrue (or rather, it shows that the proof we already have is the whole story); it can't make people accept the evidence.

 

[The Greater Fool]

No. The attributes of those extra dimensions are very tightly constrained, precisely because of what they don't do. If they were large, like familiar four, the Universe would have fallen apart as soon as it formed. Gravity wouldn't work, so we'd have had perpetual inflation, and our entire observable Universe would consist of a single electron.

That the interactions between the familiar four (I like that) and the extra dimensions are "tightly constrained" allows for at least an extremely limited interaction, as opposed to "no interaction", true?

Assuming true, then "tightly constrained" information is passing to those additional dimensions. It is this "tightly constrained" gap that is large enough for woosters to make claims. After all, how much interaction is required by a soul? a life force? a god?

Again, I don't believe the soul, god, stuff. Just don't believe QFT rules them out at firmly as stated.

 

[PixyMisa]

That the interactions between the familiar four (I like that) and the extra dimensions are "tightly constrained" allows for at least an extremely limited interaction, as opposed to "no interaction", true?

It's not so much that they interact, it's that they're part of all interactions.

Assuming true, then "tightly constrained" information is passing to those additional dimensions. It is this "tightly constrained" gap that is large enough for woosters to make claims.

No. Once again, the extra dimensions explain the laws of physics. They don't change them. They add precisely zero room for extra woo.