Infinitesimality issues

just_sayin

@MayCaesar
Not sure I know where you are going with this one.  Are you talking about  Everettian (“Many-Worlds”) quantum mechanics.?

Joeseph

it is perfectly reasonable to assume that there may be logical issues that we will never be able to solve, yet we will be able to function perfectly well without solving them - but as someone who likes to dig very deep and get to the bottom of every issue, it will never satisfy me.


Very interesting. I wonder do you think that there may be a limit on man's intelligence that would somehow limit him/  her in solving deeply logical problems?

I'm delighted you as a man of science can never be satisfied as its an essential spur and drive to do ones best and I think I'm right in saying you are  throughly enjoying the ride.

MayCaesar

@just_sayin

Not specifically. Virtually any interpretation of quantum mechanics posits the inherently probabilistic nature of the Universe, and as soon as we start talking about probabilities of infinity of possible outcomes, the issues I am describing arise

@Joeseph

I am more inclined to think that there may be elements of the structure of reality that are at odds with any intelligent being's everyday experiences, evading their intuition. It is not that our minds are somehow limited enough that certain properties of the Universe will always remain evasive, but it is that understanding them would require us to discard our intuition and significantly update the way we think about these things.

Contradictions to human intuition are very common in mathematics specifically: Banach-Tarski paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach%E2%80%93Tarski_paradox is a good example of our most basic intuition failing miserably. We have the intuitive notion of "mass" - if we take a ball of metal and split it into two objects, then the sum of masses of those objects will have to add up to the mass of the original ball - yet the best way we have found to formalize this notion mathematically violates this basic property. Yet, at the same time, virtually everyone agrees that there is no alternative to mathematics when quantifying these things. This suggests that something in the structure of reality, or, perhaps, even in the structure of logic in general, is incompatible with the way we think currently.

Dialetheists suggest that there may be statements that are both true and false in any possible logical system. This does not make much sense to us today, but it might in the future when we find a better way to think about the world than operating on standard logic.

just_sayin

MayCaesar said:

@just_sayin

Not specifically. Virtually any interpretation of quantum mechanics posits the inherently probabilistic nature of the Universe, and as soon as we start talking about probabilities of infinity of possible outcomes, the issues I am describing arise

@Joeseph

I am more inclined to think that there may be elements of the structure of reality that are at odds with any intelligent being's everyday experiences, evading their intuition. It is not that our minds are somehow limited enough that certain properties of the Universe will always remain evasive, but it is that understanding them would require us to discard our intuition and significantly update the way we think about these things.

Contradictions to human intuition are very common in mathematics specifically: Banach-Tarski paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach%E2%80%93Tarski_paradox is a good example of our most basic intuition failing miserably. We have the intuitive notion of "mass" - if we take a ball of metal and split it into two objects, then the sum of masses of those objects will have to add up to the mass of the original ball - yet the best way we have found to formalize this notion mathematically violates this basic property. Yet, at the same time, virtually everyone agrees that there is no alternative to mathematics when quantifying these things. This suggests that something in the structure of reality, or, perhaps, even in the structure of logic in general, is incompatible with the way we think currently.

Dialetheists suggest that there may be statements that are both true and false in any possible logical system. This does not make much sense to us today, but it might in the future when we find a better way to think about the world than operating on standard logic.

You know that the implications of the photon split screen wave function tests go off in lots of different directions.  Last week I read at least 5 articles about how the collapse of the wave function, so that the photon can be measured, may affect  the past.  In one article they were trying to create an experiment to see if the change could "propagate" (not a technical term) all the way back to the big bang.  

The reality of it all is that Schrodinger's cat is either alive or dead - it is never both.  Do the experiment an bazillion amount of times and it will always be one or the other.  While we can speculate about many worlds and realities, the fact is we experience only one.  

Joeseph

@just_sayin

While we can speculate about many worlds and realities, the fact is we experience only one.  


Schrodingers cat is not part of any scientific theory , law or principle its an observation of how Observation does not affect outcome.

We? There is no objective reality all impressions of such are purely subjective.

MayCaesar

just_sayin said:

You know that the implications of the photon split screen wave function tests go off in lots of different directions.  Last week I read at least 5 articles about how the collapse of the wave function, so that the photon can be measured, may affect  the past.  In one article they were trying to create an experiment to see if the change could "propagate" (not a technical term) all the way back to the big bang.  

The reality of it all is that Schrodinger's cat is either alive or dead - it is never both.  Do the experiment an bazillion amount of times and it will always be one or the other.  While we can speculate about many worlds and realities, the fact is we experience only one.  

I do not think you are recognizing the issue in question. That the outcome is only one is obvious: we cannot live in two different worlds at once. The problem is that in case the space of outcomes is continuous and has probabilistic properties, the probability of each specific outcome is literally zero - yet one of them occurs. In a sense, we live in an infinitely unlikely world - you alluded to that when you (erroneously) referenced the finding that our Universe is extremely unlikely to be what it is by chance - only here it is far worse: the probability of the world being what it is is exactly zero.

Some philosophers tried going around that by positing that the world is fundamentally deterministic, even if we cannot learn anything about the mechanisms determining what outcome should take place. That does not solve the underlying continuity and infinitesimality issues, however.

I suspect that the concept of limit used in mathematics does not have a reflection in reality. One can say that the limit of the sequence 1/1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, ... is zero - yet perhaps there is no such thing as "limit" in the actual Universe. Perhaps the Universe is like a giant computer with extremely high, but finite computational power, therefore "limit" is a useful fiction, but it does not exist as a real phenomenon.

Or, perhaps, the problem is that we think as if it was a giant computer, while it is not. Humans think fundamentally in algorithms: "What do I need to do to feed myself?", or "What had to happen for the rain to begin?" We always assume that there is a sequence of events that leads to an emergent phenomenon - but if the sequence is infinite, we have a problem. Which makes me think of the Zeno's paradox. Perhaps people brushing it away by saying that Zeno's argument is naive and relies on the reader missing the clever trick of shrinking considered time periods are missing his actual point: that infinities are not as simple as we think they are.

just_sayin

@MayCaesar
I do not think you are recognizing the issue in question. 

You are correct.  I don't know what you are trying to ask. I'm sure the problem is in my understanding of what you are asking.

Joeseph

@MayCaesar

That's fascinating and especially Dialethicism which sounds compellingly weird.

Joeseph

@just_sayin

**I'm sure the problem is in my understanding of what you are asking.**

Well done , at least you're starting to realise your lack of comprehension is on you not on the OP ......there's hope for you yet.

Barnardot

@Joeseph @just_sayin ;**I'm sure the problem is in my understanding of what you are asking.**   

You are correct.  I don't know what you are trying to ask. I'm sure the problem is in my understanding of what you are asking.

This is got to be so funny that its not funny at all. The 2 resident self confessed habitual liers cant under stand what each of them is asking. See where all that lieing gets you? When 2 liers face each other they get so confused that they dont know weather there Arther or Martha or Bill and Bob or Yin and Yang. 

You never know. We might see some truth come out for once since each of you has to lie about the other ones lies. Wow this is going to be so cool.

Joeseph

@Barnardot

Good ole Barmy right on cue , as usual your participation on this site is just to troll , I cannot think of one member you haven't branded a .

Run along you big child.

MayCaesar

just_sayin said:

@MayCaesar
I do not think you are recognizing the issue in question. 

You are correct.  I don't know what you are trying to ask. I'm sure the problem is in my understanding of what you are asking.

Not to be a jerk, but this is an uncharacteristically honest reply from you. Instead of pretending that I said what you would prefer me to say so it is easy to dismantle "my" argument, for once you admit that you simply do not understand it. Welcome change.