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Gerinski 
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Joined: February 10 2010
Location: Barcelona Spain
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Points: 5154
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 Posted: July 30 2013 at 13:42 |
 Dean wrote:
Gerinski wrote:
Dean wrote:
What, the Perry Bible Fellowship cartoon or the Dark Star reference? |
I'm afraid both  I didn't get the point in the cartoon posted by Rob, neither the Dark Star reference. |
The Spinning Beach Ball Of Death is the Apple Mac spinning wait cursor, it often preceeds the "Apllication-x has closed unexpectedly" alert box - which is the explanation of the PBF cartoon - the kid's beach ball has become the Mac wait cursor and the beach has crashed. "The Spinning Beach Ball Of Death" is the colloquial name for the wait cursor - like "Vulcan Nerve Pinch" is the colloquial name for ALT-CTRL-DEL on a PC, it is also known as the Marble of Doom and the Spinning Pinwheel, but that does not work in either joke.
Dark Star was a John Carpenter film from 1974 scripted by Dan O'Bannon, who also played Sgt. Pinback in the film, the plot of the film is that a ship (the Dark Star) is on a mundain and tedious 20 year mission to destroy unstable planets, by way of a diversion Sgt. Pinbeck wanted to discover alien civilisations but in the 20 years they have been in space the only alien they have discovered is a cantankerous blob with feet (but no legs) that resembles a beach ball and does little more than eat, fart and excrete, (and attack Pinbeck for no apparent reason). |
Thanks ! I had no idea (never used a Mac myself  )
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Dean
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Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
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Points: 37575
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Posted: July 30 2013 at 13:46 |
Gerinski wrote:
Dean wrote:
MWI is untestable yesterday, today and tomorrow.
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You proposed to open some thread about "things which used to be considered impossible (you used the word "magic" but OK I go along with that) and are real today. That would be fun and simply show that we should be wary of using the expression "impossible" (untestable is just a variant).
Again, I'm not saying I'm a proponent of MWI, I'm just saying that reputed physicists support it, so I can only show some objections when some PA members claim to be smarter than them. |
I differentiate between magic and hypothesis. That is permissible.
Expelliarmus is magic. Pulling a rabbit out of a hat is magic. Pulling a dead cat out of a sealed box containing a radioactive source and a flask of poison is a thought experiment.
I don't claim to be smarter than them, I just pretend to be as smart as they do (see sig) 
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Gerinski
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 10 2010
Location: Barcelona Spain
Status: Offline
Points: 5154
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Posted: July 30 2013 at 13:58 |
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
You asked me if the moon is there when I'm not looking at it. To that I responded I don't mix philosophy and science. Trying to figure our what QM means is not science, but it is legitimate.
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You know that "the moon" question is a fancy extrapolation, but the essence remains. The Copenhagen interpretation says that unless we observe a quantum state, it does not exist in any definite state but only "smeared" among all possible states it may be in, with different probabilities for each. Only when we observe the quantum system it takes a definite state. So the question remains, you are one of those who think that until someone observes a quantum state it is not in any defined state but in a superposition of possible states? (I have to say that in some sense I have to agree since it has been experimentally confirmed with the quantum-Zeno experiments with berylium atoms, "the quantum pot that never boils").
Btw, we are wandering away from sci-fi technologies, if we want to keep on discussing this maybe we should open a separate thread, otherwise poor Jim if he has to read all this 
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Equality 7-2521
Forum Senior Member
Joined: August 11 2005
Location: Philly
Status: Offline
Points: 15784
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Posted: July 30 2013 at 13:59 |
Dean wrote:
Gerinski wrote:
Dean despised MWI because it is untestable. |
I don't despise MWI - I have no opinion of it. I just said it does not predict that Many Worlds exist.
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
Finally, didn't catch that Dean said that, but remember Dean that MWI is testable.
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How so? |
It's falsifiable in principle. If one were to demonstrate a non-linear QM theory that would be the end of MWI as far as I know.
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"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Equality 7-2521
Forum Senior Member
Joined: August 11 2005
Location: Philly
Status: Offline
Points: 15784
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Posted: July 30 2013 at 14:00 |
Gerinski wrote:
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
You asked me if the moon is there when I'm not looking at it. To that I responded I don't mix philosophy and science. Trying to figure our what QM means is not science, but it is legitimate.
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You know that "the moon" question is a fancy extrapolation, but the essence remains. The Copenhagen interpretation says that unless we observe a quantum state, it does not exist in any definite state but only "smeared" among all possible states it may be in, with different probabilities for each. Only when we observe the quantum system it takes a definite state. So the question remains, you are one of those who think that until someone observes a quantum state it is not in any defined state but in a superposition of possible states? (I have to say that in some sense I have to agree since it has been experimentally confirmed with the quantum-Zeno experiments with berylium atoms, "the quantum pot that never boils").
Btw, we are wandering away from sci-fi technologies, if we want to keep on discussing this maybe we should open a separate thread, otherwise poor Jim if he has to read all this |
You could have asked me about a subatomic particle. In which case, I would definitely say yes. But I don't apply these things to the macro scale.
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"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 37575
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Posted: July 30 2013 at 14:05 |
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
Dean wrote:
Gerinski wrote:
Dean despised MWI because it is untestable. |
I don't despise MWI - I have no opinion of it. I just said it does not predict that Many Worlds exist.
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
Finally, didn't catch that Dean said that, but remember Dean that MWI is testable.
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How so? |
It's falsifiable in principle. If one were to demonstrate a non-linear QM theory that would be the end of MWI as far as I know.
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Ah, right, so falsifiable, but not actually testable?
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What?
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Equality 7-2521
Forum Senior Member
Joined: August 11 2005
Location: Philly
Status: Offline
Points: 15784
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Posted: July 30 2013 at 14:06 |
Dean wrote:
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
Dean wrote:
Gerinski wrote:
Dean despised MWI because it is untestable. |
I don't despise MWI - I have no opinion of it. I just said it does not predict that Many Worlds exist.
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
Finally, didn't catch that Dean said that, but remember Dean that MWI is testable.
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How so? |
It's falsifiable in principle. If one were to demonstrate a non-linear QM theory that would be the end of MWI as far as I know.
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Ah, right, so falsifiable, but not actually testable? |
Yes. I was mixing the two up in my head. I don't like non-testable theories much more than non-falsifiable theories though.
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"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
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Posted: July 30 2013 at 14:08 |
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Anyway, I actually like Alternate Realities in SF, they are a nice (often comic) diversion, with Deep Space 9's alternative reality being one of my all time favourites. And Sliders (tv series) was an interesting approach to the Many Worlds / Multiple Universe concept.
Edited by Dean - July 30 2013 at 14:09
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Equality 7-2521
Forum Senior Member
Joined: August 11 2005
Location: Philly
Status: Offline
Points: 15784
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Posted: July 30 2013 at 14:13 |
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I feel like all the SF I've encountered has handled it poorly. Though, there's probably a Twilight Zone exception to be added in there.
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"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
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Points: 37575
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Posted: July 30 2013 at 14:21 |
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
I feel like all the SF I've encountered has handled it poorly. Though, there's probably a Twilight Zone exception to be added in there. |
I know what you mean - the alternate versions of current factual reality are seldom very good because the scope of current reality is too well known so the consequence of altering one element of that is hard to get right. (the 'what if the Nazi's won WWII' type scenarios of Len Deighton and Robert Harris). In DS9 the current reality is self-contained and fictional so the alternate reality is easier to contain (if you "believe" the first fiction the second is equally as believable)
/edit: crap, my typing is bad today 
Edited by Dean - July 30 2013 at 14:22
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Gerinski
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 10 2010
Location: Barcelona Spain
Status: Offline
Points: 5154
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Posted: July 30 2013 at 14:25 |
Stanislaw Lem has a really great sci-fi story about time "paradoxes" in his book The Star Diaries. The protagonist Ijon Tichy while travelling in his spaceship hits some "time vortices" which cause the ship to get into closed time loops, so he gets involved with alternate versions of himself, but it is all very cleverly done so as to avoid paradoxes, he experiences the actions of his other selves but never actually meets them face to face. A really recommended fun read.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 37575
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Posted: July 30 2013 at 14:27 |
Gerinski wrote:
You know that "the moon" question is a fancy extrapolation, but the essence remains. |
I wanted to quip "which moon?" a while back but thought better of it and restrained myself.
Can I do it now?  |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 37575
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Posted: July 30 2013 at 14:37 |
Gerinski wrote:
Stanislaw Lem has a really great sci-fi story about time "paradoxes" in his book The Star Diaries.
The protagonist Ijon Tichy while travelling in his spaceship hits some "time vortices" which cause the ship to get into closed time loops, so he gets involved with alternate versions of himself, but it is all very cleverly done so as to avoid paradoxes, he experiences the actions of his other selves but never actually meets them face to face.
A really recommended fun read. |
For my sins (and to my utter embarrassment) I have only read Solaris (many years ago, after seeing the Tarkovsky adpatation - still my #1 SF film) - but then I cannot read every book ever written...
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Gerinski
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 10 2010
Location: Barcelona Spain
Status: Offline
Points: 5154
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Posted: July 30 2013 at 15:13 |
Dean wrote:
Gerinski wrote:
Stanislaw Lem has a really great sci-fi story about time "paradoxes" in his book The Star Diaries.
The protagonist Ijon Tichy while travelling in his spaceship hits some "time vortices" which cause the ship to get into closed time loops, so he gets involved with alternate versions of himself, but it is all very cleverly done so as to avoid paradoxes, he experiences the actions of his other selves but never actually meets them face to face.
A really recommended fun read. |
For my sins (and to my utter embarrassment) I have only read Solaris (many years ago, after seeing the Tarkovsky adpatation - still my #1 SF film) - but then I cannot read every book ever written... |
If I should feel embarrassed by all the good literature I haven't read I would probably have to kill myself. But really, if you fancy this kind of stuff Star Diaries is a real fun treat! recommended!
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Gerinski
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 10 2010
Location: Barcelona Spain
Status: Offline
Points: 5154
|
Posted: July 30 2013 at 15:29 |
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
You could have asked me about a subatomic particle. In which case, I would definitely say yes. But I don't apply these things to the macro scale.
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Which in turns begs for the question "what and why does separate micro from macro?" As you may know, superposition has been proven on "macro" scales
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Equality 7-2521
Forum Senior Member
Joined: August 11 2005
Location: Philly
Status: Offline
Points: 15784
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Posted: July 30 2013 at 15:36 |
Gerinski wrote:
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
You could have asked me about a subatomic particle. In which case, I would definitely say yes. But I don't apply these things to the macro scale.
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Which in turns begs for the question "what and why does separate micro from macro?" As you may know, superposition has been proven on "macro" scales
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Pet peeve: That's not what the phrase begs the question means. Nothing should separate macro from micro. But our knowledge is incomplete. I don't see the issue with that. I remember seeing that headline. I'll have to read up on it and get back to you tomorrowish.
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"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Gerinski
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 10 2010
Location: Barcelona Spain
Status: Offline
Points: 5154
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Posted: July 30 2013 at 18:29 |
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What causes decoherence? according to standard Copenhagen interpretation it is the act of observation. Other interpretations maintain that it is just the neighbourhood with the environment which causes decoherence. It's a really tricky question, lots of very clever minds have attempted to crack it for decades and no-one succeeded. So let's be a bit humble about it.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 37575
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Posted: July 31 2013 at 05:51 |
Gerinski wrote:
What causes decoherence? according to standard Copenhagen interpretation it is the act of observation. Other interpretations maintain that it is just the neighbourhood with the environment which causes decoherence. It's a really tricky question, lots of very clever minds have attempted to crack it for decades and no-one succeeded. So let's be a bit humble about it. |
Well, no, let's not be humble about it, humble is for underachievers, humble never progressed anything, humble blindly accepts and never questions. I reserve the right to question everything and everyone, including those smarter and more clever than I (hell - 'specially those smarter and more clever than I), that's not humility vs arrogance, that is blind acceptance vs learning. Two years back a team of Italian scientists announced that they'd measured neutrinos travelling faster than light - very few 'scientific' people accepted that blindly - on this forum three of us said "measurement error", "timing error" "analysis error" (or words to that effect) - the reasons for that scepticism in the findings were not entirely assumption or theoretical - 60nS in 721km was simply too big to be valid - six months later OPERA sheepishly announced a loose fibre optic cable on the GPS receiver and a poorly calibrated clock generator caused an error in measurement. Neutrinos now travel at precisely the speed of light. So, does this mean we can crack what causes decoherence? No, of course it doesn't; Does it means we should not dare to try? No, of course it doesn't, othwerwise you would not have asked the question (assuming it was not rhertorical in some way, though quite what that way would be is not immediately obvious); Does that mean we should not question the current explanations? No, of course it doesn't, we should always question (ie test) current explanations. The act of observation at the quantum level always affects the thing you are observing, and we can never observe the thing directly (without destroying it at least), we can only observe the effects of the thing. We cannot know whether a particular instance of decoherence was not caused by observing without observing the state the thing is in after decoherence. So at present it is not possible to know which explanation (if any) is correct.
Edited by Dean - July 31 2013 at 05:53
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Gerinski
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 10 2010
Location: Barcelona Spain
Status: Offline
Points: 5154
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Posted: July 31 2013 at 06:53 |
Did I sound like me talking about this with humility means blindly accepting? not at all, as you say if that was the case I wouldn't even have posted the question. But it's a subject I know nothing about first hand, only from what I have read from people who know. What we do know is that in a system sufficiently isolated from its environment, if we do not observe it, it stays coherent in superposition of multiple states, but if we do observe it, it decoheres into a definite state, this has been experimentally confirmed. So we are not sure whether unobserved systems would eventually decohere anyway by other causes or not (I tend to thing that yes, they would), but we do know that our observation certainly causes decoherence.
Edited by Gerinski - July 31 2013 at 06:54
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
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Posted: July 31 2013 at 07:06 |
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So why be "a bit humble about it"? I've never felt the need to be a bit humble about any discussion subject.
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