Quantum Physics Fairy Tale

[lukeev]

Great videos. Are you familiar with Bill Gaede's work?

[JohananRaatz]

@lukeev Bill Gaede is a quack.

[L1ber8ted]

@JohananRaatz Quacks are people who believe in 0d particles. Quacks are people who call people quacks. 

[JohananRaatz]

@L1ber8ted I don't believe in 0d particles. Point particles vanish when you take quantum gravity and quantum information theory into account.

The reason it's seen as a point particle is because the space-time defining it is not constructed yet. Whenever we observe it, a point in space-time is defined out of the spin foam thereby giving it a location at an exact point. In reality though there really isn't a particle, just a bit of information. Or perhaps an a-dimensional "particle."

[bjohndick]

There are limits to observations and experiments - this is where the example of Schroedinger's Cat comes into play. The point is that the cat would never actually be in a state where it is both dead and alive - it is that there is no way to know until the necessary observations are made.

[3waybar]

me, wants longer movies of this alternative jabbering : D me like, me wants, me smile : )

[Newton1692]

OMG...Unsubscribed.

[nine9s]

"OMG...Unsubscribed."

Boo-hoo... don't let the door hit ya.

[JohananRaatz]

@nine9s You have to be kidding me. My major was physics, and I can tell you this clown would be laughed out of the field if he ever tried to get a job in it. QM doesn't violate identity, it just tells us that causality fails. It's "indeterminate state" doesn't mean it's both "yes" and "no" (about a property) at once, just that that property isn't yet defined. It could be either "yes" or "no" before a state of observation is added. (reality is made of states of observations -"empirical info")

[JohananRaatz]

@nine9s You have to be kidding me. My major was physics, and I can tell you this clown would be laughed out of the field if he ever tried to get a job in it. QM doesn't violate identity, it just tells us that causality fails. It's "indeterminate state" doesn't mean it's both "yes" and "no" (about a property) at once, just that that property isn't yet defined. It could be either "yes" or "no" before a state of observation is added. (reality is made of states of observations -"empirical info")

[JohananRaatz]

@nine9s You have to be kidding me. My major was physics, and I can tell you this clown would be laughed out of the field if he ever tried to get a job in it. QM doesn't violate identity, it just tells us that causality fails. Indeterminate states exist because physical reality is made of states of observation (empirical information). When the empirical info making up an object is not complete, that object appears "fuzzy" to us -just like how poor bit resolution leads to fuzziness.

[outsidemendham]

@JohananRaatz

This "clown" has worked as a physicist for the U.S. Department of Defense and taught philosophy at California State University, San Bernardino.

[JohananRaatz]

@outsidemendham "worked as a physicist"

Having a degree and an impressive resume does not prevent one from also holding to pseudoscience. This actually happens not infrequently.

"taught philosophy"

That comes as a surprise. I find it almost as hard to imagine that as I can imagine him as a real physicist.

If he can really explain QM without spooky effects, he should take the Quantum Randi Crackpot Challenge and produce a locally real QM theory. He'd win a Nobel Prize.

[BrianTheMusicMan]

This is just a rambling about a ridiculous Strawman. Horrible!

[MrCropper]

Is that the best you can do against a straw-man, Brian?

[BrianTheMusicMan]

Do I really need to "do" anything to a fallacy that stands so stupidly on its own? As others have pointed out, EPR, Young's (Double slit), Bell test, and various other experiments have shown that Entanglement (Non-Locality) is a fundamental characteristic of Being. But obviously you and other Randions deny Entanglement because it doesn't fit within your philosophy, presuppositions, conditioning, and thus narrow minded, weak Weltanschauung.

[11Agamemnon235]

This guy is an imbecile.

[GrahamCrackerStudios]

Hmm...interesting.

I'm studying Philosophy of Science right now, so this course could be a neat add on to my studies.

[rebauer2000]

Harriman is quite confused and ignorant.

[Randroid02]

Wow! Nice video Nine9s. This guy is a genius. Thank you for putting up this video. This stuff is hard to find. Awesome!

[sicjd]

This guy does not even know what causality is ! Quantum field theory is fully causal+local. Anybody claiming the opposite doesn't know shit about quantum theory ...

[AntimatterRadio]

So, if you can't predict where an electron's location will be, you are calling that non-predictability a causal theory? I think causality demands predictive results, and without it, you have, well, what you deny. The quantum theory is merely still ahead-of-its time in our age of materialism, and usually people don't logically debate it, and instead they get all riled up and cuss each other out, as you are doing. I think it's best that we seek the evidence on ITS terms, not where we want it go.

[sicjd]

Well, just like this guy, you don't know what causality means. Listen I'm not here to teach you physics, this is something you should do on your own. It's just that I really hate people who think they understand stuff they don't, and then criticize that stuff.

Causality has nothing to do with the uncertainty of the outcome of some measurement. Causality says that whatever you do in your lab cannot affect me in my lab instantaneously (or faster than light).

[AntimatterRadio]

then why do we have empirical evidence for faster-than-light interactions with the EPR experiments? Are you just wanting to deny that they exist so we can fit 'causality' into a favored definition you have? Also, I have taken grad.-level philsophy classes on cauaslity, so I know something about it.

[sicjd]

Let me repeat, there is no violation of causality or locality in EPR experiments. Tell me, what exactly travels faster than light in the EPR experiment ? Nothing ! Not even information ! Please explain me what evidence the EPR exp. brings for faster than light interactions ? (or in other words, amuse me !)

[AntimatterRadio]

Just because you don't see it, does not mean it's not there.Just like we say,just because you don't see the graviton,does not mean it's not there.If I alter particle a1 at x and therefore particle a2 at y is instantaneously altered,something is doing the altering,so that something is the causal factor.Of course nobody knows precisely what it is,but we have secondary,or indirect(or whatever you want to call it) evidence that it exists, so it's empirical (indirectly),and thus scentific.

[sicjd]

There is no such thing, you obviously don't know what you're talking about ... If I alter particle 1 at x, particle 2 at y cannot know anything about what I have done at x. There is plenty of empirical evidence for that ! By the way, if it was possible to transmit information faster than light, don't you think we would have use that in some kind of technology by now !?

[AntimatterRadio]

So, you are just saying that Alain Aspect never carried out the EPR experiement in 1980? It is used in some tech. now, already.

[sicjd]

Glad to see you know about Aspect, I actually met him recently. But let me repeat myself again, the EPR experiment does not say anything about space-like interactions, it only says that there exists quantum correlations that are stronger than classical correlations, that does not imply faster than light communication. There is no such thing as faster than the speed of light in today's tech, if you refer to quantum computing, their power is in entanglement since faster than light is impossible.

[AntimatterRadio]

this is just playing with words, though. you say, 'oh, there's correllation, but not communication or causation.' But if I see two particles interact (i.e, entangle), then both you and I don't know exactly what is going on with those two particles, and neither of us can claim to know if it is, or is not causation. So, we may both not be right, or more carefully put, we both may not have enough info from the current state of q. physics. Also, you are arguing from a relativistic perspective only.

[sicjd]

In addition, do you know anything about quantum field theory ? It is essentially the relativistic version of quantum mechanics. So, since in classical relativistic mechanics there is no such thing at faster than light (or instantaneous) communication, there is also no such thing as faster than light communication in quantum field theory.

[AntimatterRadio]

QF theory (key word being 'theory') is great, but EPR is observable fact, so I bias towards EPR, rather than QFT, though of course both are wonderful. I think you are arguing like a relativity theorist, where you tend to just dismiss and/or ignore EPR, or try to make lots of theories up about it that are not careful (e.g., it's not communication, but it's non-spatial correlation--but what is that?). That's all just trying to fit a theory into a theory, rather than an observation into a theory.

[sicjd]

You get this all wrong again. QFT and EPR are not different things, EPR is an experiment, QFT is a verified theory that explains, among others things, why EPR is not acausal. Non spatial correlations happen all the time, even classically, there is nothing wrong with that. The only addition of QM is that those correlations can be stronger than classical correlations ... btw this is common knowledge if you are a physicist (but common misunderstanding with laymen), Aspect would argue just like me

[sicjd]

I recently watched a pop science documentary and to be honest I have to correct myself, aspect would not argue just like me. It either seems Aspect was trying to impress the audience, or he does not understand relativity+QM very well ... but to some extant that is not very surprising, he's just an experimentalist ;)

[sicjd]

By the way, you don't really impress me with grad level philosophy class on causality ... philosophers nowadays are essentially retarded people who wish they were smart enough to do physics ;)

[AntimatterRadio]

you might find this surprising, but I sorta agree. I would not put it in those words (though I did get a chuckle), but after taking as many grad philosophy classes as I have, it only made me, well, totally lose respect for the field overal, and which I just stuck to reading philosophy on my own as I did before going to school. I'm out of academia again now, and WOW is it nice to be free again! Interesting points you make, by the way. Take care.

[nine9s]

Oh, and for everyone who says he doesn't know what he's talking about, he has a graduate degree in physics.

[sicjd]

That doesn't mean much... if you google scholar that guy you will see that he never made a significant contribution in quantum theory... and he clearly never learned QFT (if he did he clearly didn't get much out of it), a very basic course in all decent graduate degree in physics.

[normativeRandroid]

@nine9s To add, people should google The Crisis in Physics—and Its Cause an online lecture on the same topic from 2003

[KevinStanton84]

@nine9s There are people with doctoral degrees in physics who think cold fusion is possible that doesn't mean they aren't quacks.

However all of the Randroids who think they know more about quantum physics than actual physicists because they've read Atlas Shrugged and yet have no physics background whatsoever, those are REAL BIG quacks.

[outsidemendham]

@KevinStanton84

You seem to forget that objectivism is a philosophy that covers all branches, i.e. also metaphysics and epistemology. Philosophy comes first! That is exactly why these quantum physicists have abandoned causality and identity, because of Kant and his influence. You don't need a doctorate in fairyology to determine that fairies are bunk, you are even more rational when you refute the bs from the beginning.

[bewertow]

This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. He's just too immature to realize that the universe isn't as logical as he thought it was.

he's using logic to refute experimental data. He doesn't provide any proof for his viewpoint.

reality>logic

[SuperFinGuy]

The experimental data of QM is fine, the popular interpretation that is illogical. Again it is just statistics and it is perfectly logical.

You can't explain the physics behind the statistics and go ahead and say there is no explanation. Do you realize how unscientific that is?

[nine9s]

"he's using logic to refute experimental data."

Experimental data doesn't just reveal its meaning to us; we have to interpret it. The philosophy of the late 19th century (which is when modern physics began; it didn't start with Einstein) was that we cannot know reality, only appearances. Physics then treated appearances AS reality.

"He doesn't provide any proof for his viewpoint."

This is just 6 minutes of a 5-hour-long course. He provides scads of historical evidence.

[nine9s]

"He's just too immature to realize that the universe isn't as logical as he thought it was."

Way to jump straight to the ad hominem, buddy. THAT's the mark of immaturity, not the fact that someone disagrees with you.

[normativeRandroid]

@bewertow I think you missed his whole point entirely. @5:15 Harriman points out that the scientist's rejection of identity and causality was the result of faulty premises not experimental data. The experiment may provide valid info on reality but the physicists' faulty philosophical premises rendered their interpretation invalid. Reality doesn't trump logic; they are not in opposition. Logic is based on reality. Logic can trump false premises because they contradict reality.

[boys0fsummer1]

@normativeRandroid

But logic is something created by the human animal to understand his macroscopic world. Why should we pretend that the Universe plays by our rules? 

[normativeRandroid]

@boys0fsummer1 logic is the mental grasp of the facts of reality. It is a tool the human mind can employ if done properly. It is not an arbitrary system constructed by humans. It is reality based and employed via consciousness meaning the facts of reality give rise to the need for beings of volitional consciousness to figure out what is out there. Humans *discover* the rules set by the universe.

[boys0fsummer1]

@normativeRandroid

Ok, then what exactly is your problem with letting the mainstream interpretation of quantum mechanics?

[normativeRandroid]

@boys0fsummer1 That is Harriman's whole argument of which this video is a small clip. There are many things wrong w/ the current interpretation which this format doesn't allow for much detail. If you have the time I recommend you google "the crisis in physics and its cause" and click what should be the first link from The Ayn Rand Institute

[MegaFlavia1987]

@normativeRandroid There is no "crisis in physics." There's just a crisis in Objectivism. I certainly hope all Objectivists don't subscribe to this silliness.

[outsidemendham]

@MegaFlavia1987

Oh, but you have to. The inductive account is the official stance of objectivism concerning the philosophy of science. The inductive method has been thought out and developed by Leonard Peikoff and David Harriman. It makes sense of the world on a RATIONAL level, and explains why the quantum mysticism of modern physicists is bunk at the core and why we really can causally make sense of the world!

[MegaFlavia1987]

@outsidemendham There was science long before Peikoff and Harriman arrived on the scene. It's absurd to think that the correct philosophy of science has only first been thought out by Objectivism. And modern physics is based on an inductive approach.

"can causally make sense of the world!"

Yes we can, at least to a degree, but only if we realize that the world is a quantum computer and not really materially there: watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc

PS. Causality is not required for science.

[SpazzzDog]

This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. In regards to a physicist explaining what a quantum particle is before observing it, he would tell you it's in a superposition. That is, it's in all possible states until one measures it. Now, I can understand how ridiculous that can sound, and it's rightly been a subject of debate. But this guy is saying physicists wouldn't be able to tell you anything about a particle in superposition which is just plain silly.

[SpazzzDog]

This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. "causality, the fact that an entities actions are caused by its nature". 3:40.

Quantum particles have a specified nature which is predictable probabilistically and mathematically. But it's inherently indeterministic. Yet, causality is still maintained. ie, if one tries to measure a quantum particle then you disturb its position and can only know its position probabilistically.

[SuperFinGuy]

There's a great book on this called "Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality"

[randyhelzerman]

Wow, this is just complete bullshit from beginning to end. He confuses causation with determinism, and quantum superposition with identity. But really, he commits the cardinal sin: he's convinced himself that his philosophy must be true, therefore, everybody else in the world must be false. So whenever a physicist says a true statement, that statement must be misconstrued until its false. Bah. (cont)

[randyhelzerman]

(cont) His theory which he believes is putting him in touch with reality is exactly what keeps him unzipped from reality. COME BACK TO THE LIGHT!!!! If all you do is listen to people who tell you you are right, you are doomed.

[WarVideo]

"he commits the cardinal sin: he's convinced himself that his philosophy must be true, therefore, everybody else in the world must be false."

Its sound like you live in a quantum ideological universe.

[randyhelzerman]

ha, sorry WarVideo, the guy who is crazy is the one who sees the pink elephant. Its not the rest of us who don't see it.

[nine9s]

"the guy who is crazy is the one who sees the pink elephant. Its not the rest of us who don't see it."

Precisely. QM is far weirder than a pink elephant.

[brouhajoe]

"Precisely. QM is far weirder than a pink elephant."

Weird, but observable, so the analogy holds for Randy, not you.

[sicjd]

QM is only weird if all you know about it is from pop science books ... because they want to blow your mind away, but leave you with a bunch or unanswered questions. So my advice is, read a real book on QM and you'll see it's not that weird.

[AntimatterRadio]

yeah, I agree, all this 'weirdness' we always talk about is mostly because we either don't know much about it overall at this point in our level of understanding, but also because it is turned largely into a mystical thing rather than a mathematical statistics. Now I agree with mysticism, and that QM is mystical, but that does not give us a right to postulate any and every theory off of it in a sloppy, unverifiable way.

[nine9s]

"He confuses causation with determinism"

How does he do that?

"...and quantum superposition with identity."

Not trying to be a smartass, but I have no idea what you're talking about here. He's FOR identity and AGAINST superposition (or at least that's the implication); how can he "confuse" the two?

[randyhelzerman]

Hi nine9s, just because a particle in a state of superposition doesn't mean that it loses its identity. He seems to have conflated "superposition" with "loss of identity". Really, the guy completely misunderstands quantum physics from the top down. If you really want the real score, itunes university has some great courses by Leonard Susskind, starting with the course "Modern theoretical physics".  If you work through those I'm sure it will put your fears of quantum physics to rest.

[nine9s]

"He seems to have conflated "superposition" with "loss of identity".

I don't see how superposition can be understood to mean anything other than "a particle exists in no particular state until it is looked at." This is a textbook example of a violation of identity. If the particle has no identity, it violates the law of identity.I'm watching Susskind right now. What makes this guy better than others?

[randyhelzerman]

Hi 9nines, thanks for watching Susskind. If you get far enough, Susskind will show you that there is a certain phase space in which the particle has very determinate properties and it motions always satisfy conservation of mass, conservation of energy, momentum, etc.

[randyhelzerman]

As to what makes the guy better than the others; well, these computers we're using right now have microchips in them which are designed according to the principles of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics was what allowed us to develop transistors, and it is what allows us to keep shrinking them. In other words, his theories lead to better prediction and control of our world.

[sicjd]

What makes Susskind better than others ? Haha ... good one ! Well in short, Susskind, as opposed to your guy, is not a crackpot. Susskind, as opposed to your guy, made important scientific contributions, especially in black hole physics and in string theory. Susskind, as opposed to your guy, is a big shot in the physics community and could one day receive a nobel prize.

[SuperFinGuy]

Superposition doesn't even exist in nature, it is just an artifact of the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics. It is a blank point because they don't have the variables at that point, they don't know the wave function collapse mechanism, they just know that it happens.

[nine9s]

"Superposition doesn't even exist in nature, it is just an artifact of the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics."

I wish that were the mainstream physicists' view. They say that when we don't know the state of a particle, it actually IS in all its possible states, and doesn't come to any particular state until we measure it.

[SuperFinGuy]

That's the thing, they are taking the nature of QM as this mind boggling, mystical phenomenon when it is merely atomic statistics. They think it is literally what is going on and forget there is an actual mechanism in the first place.

[SuperFinGuy]

I think part of the mistake comes from the fact that at those levels spacetime itself is in little packets that interchange with each other (quantum tunneling is an example of this). For instance, when you say that a photon is delta-e (energy)*delta-t (time), a photon is actually that, piece of energy and a piece of time.

[Guncriminal]

"he's convinced himself that his philosophy must be true, therefore, everybody else in the world must be false"

Look who's talking.

[randyhelzerman]

Well Guncriminal, there are some people who let their philosophy (e.g. Genesis is the literal word of god) cause them to ignore scientific progress (e.g. evolution is false). There are other people who let their philosophy (e.g. Atlas shrugged is the literal word of Ayn Rand) cause them to ignore scientific progress (e.g. quantum physics is bogus). I'm not that way. If my theory doesn't agree with observation, I junk the theory, not the observation.

[Guncriminal]

Atlas Shrugged isn't the literal word of Ayn Rand? Who wrote it then?

(Ha ha. Sorry, I couldn't resist. )

I do think the Copenhagen interpretation of QP is bogus, though.

[randyhelzerman]

LOL  yes, its word for word, letter for letter, the word of Rand :-)

[horvay]

Oh hai Randy,

Nine9s isn't saying the current advancements on QM is bogus. It is a very useful because they can predict many things in it with statistics. This had led to some nice advancements in technology.

She is saying that their theory is bogus. Ancient astronomers could predict when and where certain stars would show up in the sky long before they even knew what a star really was, or what controls their "movements" in the sky.

[randyhelzerman]

Hi horvay, no doubt all of our current theories will eventually be replaced, but we don't replace them until there are experimental results which contradict the theory. This is, as you noted, not the case currently--q.m. Explains all known phenomena with amazing accuracy, so we are not in an epistemically position to reject it yet.

[horvay]

There is no proven casual theory for how QM works yet.

Those astronomers didn't have a casual theory for why certain stars appear in certain places. They just knew that they did, and could predict them because they were consistent.

There is a difference in knowing that something is, and knowing why it is.

We still don't know why light particles seem to act in a certain way. We just know that they do, and we can map that they do.

[randyhelzerman]

Fundimental physical theories NEVER explain why, they only ever explain how. For example, newton showed that gravity could explain how rocks fall and how planets move. But he didn't explain why gravity exists. There is, on pain of infinite regress, always going to be a place where why explanations stop, and where we have to say "this is just the way thngs are, we don't know why yet."

[horvay]

I suppose. But there is still a different between statistical analysis and casual relationships. Statistics can still help casual relationships, but they do not say what that relationship is.

The statitistical analysis can predict the stuff in QM but the "theories" that some of these modern physicist draw about the data is bizarre. They are trying to use causality to disprove causality.

(cont.)

[horvay]

Instead they should be saying, "okay, we can predict these particles' destination, but we don't know what exactly is the cause of the particle going to a certain destination."

People like Louis Little and Bohm (sp) are trying to figure out the causes.

Also, interesting that you bring up Newton. He wrote extensively on how science should be done and what it is. It isn't just statitistical analysis.

[SuperFinGuy]

randyhelzerman QM doesn't explain how things work rather when things work. Just like Newton showed WHEN apples fall or weight a certain value, he didn't explain the mechanism of how gravity makes things fall.

And how and why mean the same thing, the difference is just of perspective. Why the ball moved? Because something hit it.

[randyhelzerman]

Yeah, but why should things move when they are hit? Suppose you gave some reason for that, call it R1. You could then ask "well why is R1 true?" Suppose you found a reason R2....then you ask "why is R2 true?" etc. Sooner or later, you are going to run out of reasons. In fact, if we ever find the FUNDIMENTAL laws of the universe, there CANNOT be any reason for them, they have to be true for no reason at all--because if there were a reason, then that reason would be more fundimental :-)

[SuperFinGuy]

Well it is a great thing we never run out of questions because the more we ask, the more we know and find out about the universe. I don't think we will find out the fundamental law because the universe is a continuum with no absolute frames of reference, something cannot exist out of non existence. Actually non-locality or instantaneous action at a distance in QM shows there is a higher dimension already.

[SuperFinGuy]

David Harriman is talking about the extremist view of quantum mechanics, the distorted version. A lot of people talk about quantum mechanics and say that it defeated causality but they have no idea of what they are really talking about, even though it's right in front of their faces. QM is merely statistics and probability. Probability is just the retarded brother of causality. Like a probability of 100% is by definition an exact instance.

[SuperFinGuy]

It is about induction and deduction, an induction with no margin of error is a deduction.

I am also annoyed by the misconception that you can't look at the so called quantum level, sure if you bombard electrons with photons they will change their course, but you can exactly predict them with relativity and look at them with the so called 'atomic force'.

[horvay]

"It is about induction and deduction, an induction with no margin of error is a deduction. "

Can you explain that some more? I see induction as the way we create generalities and deduction as the way we use generalities to identify a specific.

Induction to figure out that "All men are mortal" and then deduction to figure out, "since Socrates is a man, he is mortal."

[SuperFinGuy]

Yeah an induction is a generality, a probability. The more variables we know about something the more precise we can be. For example there is a high probability of extraterrestrial life because we know some important variables that imply the premise, such as that the sun is one of the most common type of stars, there are an infinite number of stars, stars are likely to have planets etc If we find just another planet with life then the whole premise turns into a specific. That is, E T life.

[SuperFinGuy]

Inductive premises contain some of the characteristics of the specific that we are are comparing them to. If they met then we have a specific case.

[horvay]

I think what you are saying (and I agree) is that in order to form a proper induction, one has to study the specifics?

[SuperFinGuy]

mmhh I mean the degree of validity in an induction depends on how much it relates to the specifics, so yeah the induction is just a start to meet them.