POLL :fundamental questions about reality

[ritwik]

(Phys.org) A trio of physicists has uploaded a paper to the preprint server arXiv describing the results of a survey passed out to attendees at a physics conference held in 2011:Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality. The purpose of the survey was to find out how much agreement or disagreement there is in the physics community regarding the most fundamental ideas of quantum mechanics – surprisingly, the results showed that there is still very little consensus among physicists regarding some of its most basic principles.

Quantum mechanics at its heart is the study of the building blocks of the universe – what they are and how they work together to form reality as we are able to interpret it. Its ideas were first developed almost a century ago with such notables as Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr developing theories and debating ideas such as whether particles exist at certain places at certain times, or whether they move around constantly with a probability of being someplace at a given moment. The second idea famously led Bohr to conclude that if that were the case than the universe is indeterminate and at its base probabilistic. Refusing to believe such a possibility could be true, Einstein responded with perhaps his most famous quote that "God does not play dice with the universe." Now, nearly a century later, modern physicists are still just as divided. In the survey, just 42 percent of respondents agreed with Bohrs' assertions – the rest were divided among several other theories. Also likely surprising to those outside the physics community, a full 64 percent of those who bothered to respond to the survey said they believe Einstein's view of the universe "is wrong." Another idea that appears to still vex the modern physicist is whether quantum objects have the same physical properties as they do when measured. Just over half thought so. Also there is the ongoing argument about the probability of a true quantum computer coming to pass, and if it ever does, when that might happen. The largest number, 42 percent said they believe it will happen 10 to 25 years from now, 30 percent said it would come after that, while just 9 percent said they thought it might happen before then. Based on the results of the survey, it appears Richard Feynman was right when he once responded to a reporter's question about how well quantum mechanics is understood by saying that "anyone who claims to understand quantum theory is either lying or crazy."

What's asternauts view of Quantum Mechanics and Reality : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/vie ... ZGt1T1E6MQ




Bohr vs. Einstein

For example, the theory suggests that particles don't exist in a particular place at a particular time, but rather float around in a haze of probability, with a certain chance of being in point A, and another chance of being in point B. In his "Copenhagen interpretation," physicist Niels Bohr took this to mean that the physical universe is indeterminate and fundamentally probabilistic.
Yet Albert Einstein never believed this, famously saying "God does not play dice with the universe." He preferred to think that underneath it all, the universe is deterministic, meaning the future state of, say, a particle, is completely determined by its prior states. In other words, all effects have causes.MSNBC

Ontic Vs Epistemic

ontic -possessing the character of real rather than phenomenal existence; Ex → Numbers- 1,2,3... & Languages - english japanese hindi...
Epistemic - Concerned with knowledge (also cognition, justification, belief, mental cogitations).
Knowledge of the numbers is epistemic.
[Mental: -Thoughts are all mental (not psychological).Psychological -Psychology is the study of thoughts, feelings, etc.]

The measurement problem

The best known is the "paradox" of the Schrödinger's cat: a cat is apparently evolving into a linear superposition of basis vectors that can be characterized as an "alive cat" and states that can be described as a "dead cat". Each of these possibilities is associated with a specific nonzero probability amplitude; the cat seems to be in some kind of "combination" state (specifically, a "superposition"). However, a single, particular observation of the cat does not measure the probabilities: it always finds either a living cat, or a dead cat. After the measurement the cat is definitively alive or dead. The question is: How are the probabilities converted into an actual, sharply well-defined outcome?Wikipedia

Quantum superposition of distinct macroscopic states

Usually quantum mechanics deals with matter on the scale of atoms and atomic particles. However, at low temperatures, there are phenomena that are manifestations of quantum mechanics on a macroscopic scale. The most well-known effects are superfluidity of helium and superconductivity which both show spectacular behavior. E.g. in both cases matter can flow with zero flow resistance. In rotating helium so-called quantum vortices are formed which are all equally strong and which can organize in beautiful patterns. A similar effect shows up in superconductors where an applied magnetic field is squeezed in bundles each containing the same amount of magnetic flux.Wikipedia

Randomness and quantum mechanics

Random, but not by Accident
The most common experiment used to say that QM is real, and specifically probability waves and wave-particle duality... is the young's two slit experiment. Where you fire particles at two very thin slits and they act like waves and you get interference between the particles/waves from the two slits.
That's all well and good, a bit weird but ok.
But now if you send 1 particle at a time (it's been done with buckyballs which are really rather big (60 carbon atoms) you find that you get an interference patternscienceforums

EDIT:
you can view the results here

you dont need to be a quantum mechanist to participate all you need is an open mind & good head

[owlice]

Here, we present the results of a poll carried out among 33 participants of a conference on the foundations of quantum mechanics.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.1069

[owlice]

I took exactly one physics class in college; it was required for my major. What good is a poll about quantum mechanics that asks random people who may have no background in the field to answer it?

[rstevenson]

I took exactly one physics class in college; it was required for my major. What good is a poll about quantum mechanics that asks random people who may have no background in the field to answer it?

I would hope they're collating the responses they get from this publically available survey separately from those of known physicists.

Rob

[Moonlady]

I go with the answer: we have to wait and see!

me - not physicists - took two classes in college one was electronics and other mechanics...I was more confused afterwards, asking questions lead to
faces saying me, whaaaaaaat? you dont know that? Which demotivated me alot. Asking question meant, I was stupid, smart students dont ask questions
because they already know.
I took chemistry classes and that was much better, not asking and inquiring was bad in that department, so till today physics is a mystery to me.
But there is still hope, maybe the books I got about physics will help me now.

Is there a physics book which you would recommend?

[bystander]

The Most Embarrassing Graph in Modern Physics
Discovery News | Sean Carroll | 2013 Jan 17

Sixty Symbols on Quantum Mechanics (w/video)
Discovery News | Sean Carroll | 2013 Jan 22

[owlice]

I took exactly one physics class in college; it was required for my major. What good is a poll about quantum mechanics that asks random people who may have no background in the field to answer it?

I would hope they're collating the responses they get from this publically available survey separately from those of known physicists.

Rob

ritwik started his own poll, which he links to both here and in the comments to the phys.org article he also linked to.

[Chris Peterson]

(Phys.org) A trio of physicists has uploaded a paper to the preprint server arXiv describing the results of a survey passed out to attendees at a physics conference held in 2011:Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality. The purpose of the survey was to find out how much agreement or disagreement there is in the physics community regarding the most fundamental ideas of quantum mechanics – surprisingly, the results showed that there is still very little consensus among physicists regarding some of its most basic principles.

The poll was useless, and demonstrates nothing of value. How quantum mechanics maps to "reality" may or may not even be a valid, answerable question. The fact is, the models utilized by quantum mechanics are useful: they are descriptive and predictive of nature, which is what we ask good theories to be. How they describe "reality" is a philosophical question, not a scientific one, and I'd expect a roomful of scientists to offer up a wide spread of opinions on philosophy.

As for those parts of physics that remain poorly described, because of a lack of theory or a lack of observational evidence, well... again, why should we expect any sort of consensus? Indeed, consensus in that case might be an indicator of intellectual failure. When we don't know something, it's good that the experts remain open to many possibilities!

[ritwik]

I took exactly one physics class in college; it was required for my major. What good is a poll about quantum mechanics that asks random people who may have no background in the field to answer it?

edited !! now random people can take a stroll ..

[ritwik]

The poll was useless, and demonstrates nothing of value. How quantum mechanics maps to "reality" may or may not even be a valid, answerable question. The fact is, the models utilized by quantum mechanics are useful: they are descriptive and predictive of nature, which is what we ask good theories to be. How they describe "reality" is a philosophical question, not a scientific one, and I'd expect a roomful of scientists to offer up a wide spread of opinions on philosophy.

As for those parts of physics that remain poorly described, because of a lack of theory or a lack of observational evidence, well... again, why should we expect any sort of consensus? Indeed, consensus in that case might be an indicator of intellectual failure. When we don't know something, it's good that the experts remain open to many possibilities!

The poll was useless, and demonstrates nothing of value
poll brings out probabilities of possible answers

I'd expect a roomful of scientists to offer up a wide spread of opinions on philosophy.
well..views are widespread about basic principles&ideas not philosophical



The fact is, the models utilized by quantum mechanics are useful: they are descriptive and predictive of nature, which is what we ask good theories to be. How they describe "reality" is a philosophical question, not a scientific one
i agree on that one

[ritwik]

I go with the answer: we have to wait and see!

me - not physicists - took two classes in college one was electronics and other mechanics...I was more confused afterwards, asking questions lead to
faces saying me, whaaaaaaat? you dont know that? Which demotivated me alot. Asking question meant, I was stupid, smart students dont ask questions
because they already know.
I took chemistry classes and that was much better, not asking and inquiring was bad in that department, so till today physics is a mystery to me.
But there is still hope, maybe the books I got about physics will help me now.

Is there a physics book which you would recommend?

this site is fun and informative → http://education.web.cern.ch/education/ ... Intro.html

[owlice]

I took exactly one physics class in college; it was required for my major. What good is a poll about quantum mechanics that asks random people who may have no background in the field to answer it?

edited !! now random people can take a stroll ..

What do you mean, they can "take a stroll"? I can still take the poll. How is this information useful? I'm failing to see why you think anything I'd have to say on quantum mechanics says anything about the state of physics and whether there is consensus in the field.

[ritwik]

I took exactly one physics class in college; it was required for my major. What good is a poll about quantum mechanics that asks random people who may have no background in the field to answer it?

edited !! now random people can take a stroll ..

What do you mean, they can "take a stroll"? I can still take the poll. How is this information useful? I'm failing to see why you think anything I'd have to say on quantum mechanics says anything about the state of physics and whether there is consensus in the field.

i'll explain in detail what im trying to achieve here

first question of poll → What is your opinion about the randomness of individual quantum events

the standard interpretation is random model ... so if many people are in favor of competing "hidden determinism:" then it will give more weightage to the view of minority of physicist thinking that way .so looking in to the chart we know the % . just like the "like &dislike" bar under youtube videos

if you have no idea what randomness/ ontic /superposition in QM means ..you can read the brief excerpts and make a decision ..just like a riddle

for example ..if majority of people in a public poll are against the standard Bigbang theory ..thats not going to have any effect on theory ,but it is a way to know the mindset of people and also for introspection into shortcomings

[owlice]

so if many people are in favor of competing "hidden determinism:" then it will give more weightage to the view of minority of physicist thinking that way

You might want to rethink this...

(Somehow, I'm reminded of monkeys with typewriters. With stopped watches.)

[ritwik]

support of people certainly helps ..physicists with different view don't feel singled out ..it also works the opposite way.

im not saying veracity of theories are judged by public polls

[ritwik]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[Chris Peterson]

*** Cuckoo video ***

Thanks for that video. It's always nice to be reminded that otherwise respectable scientists (Amit Goswami) can go completely off the deep end into crackpot pseudoscience. This guy is part of the Institute of Noetic "Sciences", and contributed to What the Bleep Do We Know, perhaps the stupidest movie ever made (it makes Plan 9 from Outer Space look like high literature).

[ritwik]

how does this appeal to you CP ?

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[ritwik]

Imported from wikipedia

Consciousness and measurement

Wigner designed the experiment to illustrate his belief that consciousness is necessary to the quantum mechanical measurement process. If a material device is substituted for the conscious friend, the linearity of the wave function implies that the state of the system is in a linear sum of possible states. It is simply a larger indeterminate system.
However, a conscious observer (according to his reasoning) must be in either one state or the other, hence conscious observations are different, hence consciousness is not material. Wigner discusses this scenario in "Remarks on the mind-body question", one in his collection of essays, Symmetries and Reflections, 1967. The idea has become known as the consciousness causes collapse interpretation

Binding Problem

The binding problem is one of a number of terms at the interface between neuroscience and philosophy which suffer from being used in several different ways, often in a context that does not explicitly indicate which way the term is being used. Of the many possible usages, two common versions may be useful anchor points. Firstly, there is the practical issue of how brains segregate elements in complex patterns of data. This can be illustrated by the question "When I see a blue square and a yellow circle, what neural mechanisms ensure that the sensing of blue is coupled to that of a square shape and that of yellow is coupled to that of a circle?" Secondly, there is the more fundamental problem of "how the unity of conscious perception is brought about by the distributed activities of the central nervous system."[1] The first question is a difficult but conventional question within physical science that could equally be applied to a mechanical computer or any complex system with an input and output. The second question is metaphysical in the sense that the "unity of conscious perception" may be an idea outside physical science that requires a metaphysical or ontological underpinning, of the sort on which physics is generally agnostic. Thus "unity" in this sense has no physical meaning, but it does have a crucial meaning in subjective experience.
These two meanings of "binding problem" can be found in a well-defined form, chiefly in the neuroscience and philosophy literature respectively. However, there are also many instances where the two issues are conflated in ways that are difficult to be sure about. Perhaps the clearest exposition of the second meaning comes in William James's Principles of Psychology[2] where he refers to it as the combination problem.

Hard problem of consciousness

It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing. Why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C?... It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all?

[Beyond]

*** Cuckoo video ***

Thanks for that video. It's always nice to be reminded that otherwise respectable scientists (Amit Goswami) can go completely off the deep end into crackpot pseudoscience. This guy is part of the Institute of Noetic "Sciences", and contributed to What the Bleep Do We Know, perhaps the stupidest movie ever made (it makes Plan 9 from Outer Space look like high literature).

I liked Plan 9 from outer space. It was funny. Of course, that was many a year ago. Now it would just be boreing. I found the video to be interesting... but limited. Sort of like getting down to the Planc limit, realizeing there's more, than stopping, because it goes beyond common-sense(?) established scientific principles. I suppose we'll just have to wait until man discovers more about what he really is, before he can really understand much of anything else. But then... that's not the purpose of the Asterisk*. The Asterisk* is mostly an access point for people to see things they would not normally get to see, especially space, in a rather informal manner, with space provided for somewhat limited discussion, that is usually kept with-in peer reviewed scientific norms, to help keep the threads free of strife. Most seem to find this approach very acceptible. There are other places that are more suitable for in-depth discussions that go past the average person's ability to get into. The Asterisk* is really geared more towards the 'average' person, and that's the way it should stay.

[Chris Peterson]

how does this appeal to you CP ?

It's okay, but I don't think displays much Big Thinking.

Personally, I consider most attempts to intersect physics and ontology to be horribly misguided at best, and outright pseudoscience at worst. I think that what Albert is saying here is wrong. Quantum mechanics hasn't created any fundamental difficulties with understanding nature. The problem is, people simply misinterpret what QM is all about- and that misinterpretation occurs even among brilliant physicists.

But at least Albert is mainly talking about science, as opposed to Goswami, who by trying to connect QM and consciousness is just creating a bizarre religion, with no evidential basis, and cloaking it in science-speak.

[Ann]

Beyond wrote:
I liked Plan 9 from outer space. It was funny.

I never saw Plan 9 From Outer Space, but I watched Star Trek and thought it was funny. Science fiction is often funny. It's when you start thinking that science fiction is reality that you're in trouble.

(You're also in trouble when you think that everything in the universe must make sense to us humans, and to our everyday understanding of "common sense". How can a hydrogen atom or the expansion of the universe "make sense" to us?)

Ann

[Beyond]

Beyond wrote:
I liked Plan 9 from outer space. It was funny.

I never saw Plan 9 From Outer Space, but I watched Star Trek and thought it was funny. Science fiction is often funny. It's when you start thinking that science fiction is reality that you're in trouble.

(You're also in trouble when you think that everything in the universe must make sense to us humans, and to our everyday understanding of "common sense". How can a hydrogen atom or the expansion of the universe "make sense" to us?)

Ann

Or how about throwing hydrogen and oxygen on a fire to put it out It works really good, if you use a mixture of 2-parts hydrogen, and 1-part oxygen...H2O
However, if it's a super hot fire that breaks down the molecular bond of 2-parts hydrogen and 1-part oxygen, then you'd actually end up feeding the fire

I also don't know of anything besides water, that expands when it freezes. That works good to keep your drinks cold, because the icecubes float. If they were sitting on the bottom of the container, they wouldn't be cooling the top, where you're drinking from.