Science!! Fucking magnets, how do they work?

Furry_sl said:

I think the second view is absolutely retarded, and I at every chance argue against proponents of it, such as troll.

Click to expand...

What does the phrase, "It From Bit" do to you?

BrutulTM_sl said:

I've had Schrodinger's cat explained to me at least 5 times and it sounded like nonsense every time. They conclusion I drew is that understanding of quantum physics is unnecessary for me to live a full life and I am going forward with this assumption.

Click to expand...

This isn't Schrodinger's cat exactly, but another aspect of the quantum world, Uncertainty.

Imagine yourself in a pitch black, circular room. You are standing in the middle holding a bowling ball. There are maybe a dozen other bowling balls scattered all over the room but you can not see them. You are not allowed to move. The only way to find the bowling balls is to roll yours out and try to hit another one. Once it hits, you can use echo-location to more or less know where it is. But, now you know that the ball is not there any more. It got bumped into and rolled to another place. So you actually don't know where the ball is. Fundamental uncertainty.

That helps get me thinking quantumly. I got it from here:Einstein's Relativity and the Quantum Revolution: Modern Physics for Non-Scientists, 2nd Edition

Furry_sl said:

I think the universe dont give a fuck about us humans. Saying that our act of observation has any meaning to anything outside of ourselves is self absorbed and almost certainly wrong.

I agree with some of the original premises taken in his essay, but the extrapolations to me at times go into the realm of nonsense. I think we rather should accept the strangeness of quantum mechanics as proof of our scientific inadequacies and inabilities to comprehend and manipulate nature enough to fully understand it, and use it as guidance in what we should do to push the boundaries. We use our mechanical languages such as math as a model for describing reality, and extrapolating the strangeness in the math as evidence that the universe itself might be weird is just nonsense religious mumbo-jumbo. It's only proof that our language is not good enough, and nothing more.

Edit, let me ad as note, that I think this section of natural philosophy is garbage and haven't delved into it hard. That said, most natural philosophies aren't necessary to know for lay people at all when understanding science, and only really relevant to people who design experiments. Natural philosophies which don't help in the design of experiments are entirely and completely worthless.

Click to expand...

What is the relationship between 'language not being good enough' and 'religious mumbo-jumbo'?

I prefer the many-worlds interpretation. It seems to be the "best" explanation to me and avoids the idea (uncomfortable to me, not that this matters in the end) that our observations determine whether or not cats die.

David Deutsch does a good job arguing for it in...
The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World: David Deutsch: 9780143121350: Amazon.com: Books

and heaps lots of scorn on the idea that quantum mechanics is impossible to understand. If its impossible or really hard to understand, then that interpretation probably isn't the best one.

khalid_sl said:

I prefer the many-worlds interpretation. It seems to be the "best" explanation to me and avoids the idea (uncomfortable to me, not that this matters in the end) that our observations determine whether or not cats die.

David Deutsch does a good job arguing for it in...
The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World: David Deutsch: 9780143121350: Amazon.com: Books

and heaps lots of scorn on the idea that quantum mechanics is impossible to understand. If its impossible or really hard to understand, then that interpretation probably isn't the best one.

Click to expand...

How do you discriminate between objective and subjective realities in an empirical fashion when you have reached the scale point where that boundary is soft and porous. The cat is interesting, and it is interesting the idea that particles themselves may exist in a fugue state between the two types being commented on. I have no idea how you quantize that or make reliable predictions from that observation, and it sounds and awful lot like Hindu mysticism from over 3,000 years ago. Objective and Subjective are probably parts of a false framework. Useful parts, but limitations of our minds. Not limitations of reality itself.

I think it might also apply to the very large as well as the very small. The universe does some WEIRD SHIT at macro scales, as well. Inexplicably weird shit. Dark matter halos, impossible galaxies, length contraction, all that.

But i'm with Furry. What this means is not that we've figured it out or made great strides in comprehension, it means that we need a new way to think about it because it illustrates how little we actually understand. It's only been 100 years since Einstein. There are unobserved (perhaps even directly unobservable -- because of the nature of our observations, it is mandatory that we work within our timebound framework) facets of existence... that's really the only conclusion that we can come to.

Or... I also tend to agree with many worlds. It does leave some room for bullshit, granted. But I think it just will until we manage to explore it more completely.

Furry_sl said:

What does anything I say have to do with discounting results? In both scenarios, people agree that the math works. One just contends that its logically absurd to think that because we can model reality with the math, that the universe actually works exactly the same way as the math, rather than the math being our closest estimate... Especially since most math in quantum mechanics is essentially estimated chances.

Click to expand...

Discounting the results because you dont like them is exactly what you're doing. Just like with gravitational waves that you called everyone sheep for believing, while you were the one and only enlightened, only to have their existence confirmed a few months later. You claim to be an rational completely objective observer, when you're clearly not.

Furry_sl said:

"people, including scientists, are idiots."

Click to expand...

This I do agree with 100%. It's just you cherry picking when you want to apply this based on absolutely nothing that's the issue.

Furry_sl said:

There is none. I presented them as opposite views. Either you view the language [math] and our ability to observe as incomplete, or you view the universe itself as full of mystical nonsense. I find the second view and the stupid theories that arise from it to be the equivalent of "religious mumbo-jumbo"

Click to expand...

Just because our language is incomplete doesn't mean it's zero. And it doesn't mean it isn't capable of growth. Even exponential growth. Look at the last couple centuries. There can be a spectrum between not knowing anything and having perfect knowledge of everything. The language of it being perfect is not a claim I would ever want to be made about my philosophy. That would require there to be no growth. No growth is called dead.

Why is furfag still allowed to post here? ALL OF THE FUCKING SCIENCE SUPPORTS IT.

ALL OF IT.

PERIOD.

YOU ARE WRONG.

On one hand, the entire field of theoretical physics.

On the other, a man who wishes he had been born a mongoose trying to pretend he's smarter than all of them.

Hmm...

Furry_sl said:

or are forced to state that their science is flawed

Click to expand...

Please state, for the record, your qualifications in the science fields.

Yeah, I think a definition of science is in order here.

That's what it took to win Dover.

So now you're going to Tanoomba your way out of this?