You are viewing the historical archive of The Philosophy Forum.
For current discussions, visit the live forum.
Go to live forum

Andrew M

Comments

Per MWI, worlds are persistent structures that emerge as a consequence of decoherence. In that sense, an MWI world doesn't depend on observers. David ...
January 24, 2023 at 08:06
The loopholes have been closed in a more recent experiment. The remaining aim is to close all the loopholes simultaneously.
December 29, 2022 at 14:09
Yes, me too. Yes, so Chen and Li's experiments are an argument for necessity. The gist is that an entanglement swapping protocol is followed such that...
December 29, 2022 at 10:10
Yes, though those alternative formulations are non-local (i.e., require faster-than-light communication for measurements) and therefore don't integrat...
December 28, 2022 at 02:07
Recent experiments seem to show that complex numbers are required for QM.
December 26, 2022 at 22:39
If locality is the case (per QFT) then the correlation is a consequence of the SPDC. However, unlike with the gloves, the final measurement values are...
December 18, 2022 at 08:27
SPDC converts a photon into two entangled photons, each with half the energy of the original photon. For Type II SPDC, this prepares the singlet state...
December 17, 2022 at 05:38
If locality is the case, then the common cause of the entangled particles' correlation is their initial preparation (see spontaneous parametric down-c...
December 16, 2022 at 12:07
The particle measurement events aren't causally connected (i.e., correlation is not causation). So the precedence order need not be preserved in all f...
December 15, 2022 at 07:04
No, quantum entanglement says measurements will be correlated - a very different thing. As physicist Asher Peres noted, "relativistic quantum field th...
December 14, 2022 at 05:16
OK. Time dilation and length contraction are related in the expected way. If you travel half the distance (i.e., at 87% of the speed of light), then i...
December 06, 2022 at 23:46
Just grounding the thought experiment in some real numbers - there needs to be Lorentz symmetry between the observers. Weren't you also asking a quest...
December 06, 2022 at 08:31
At that speed, there is no appreciable difference between the distance for you and the stationary observer. Your velocity would need to be six million...
December 06, 2022 at 01:49
:up: I think ChatGPT meant "edge" in the higher dimensional sense, where the finite/infinite distinction is relevant. We can say that the Earth has no...
December 06, 2022 at 01:24
True, though neither is it ruled out. As physicists' Sabine Hossenfelder and Max Tegmark note:
December 04, 2022 at 10:04
I put your question to OpenAI's ChatGPT. I've also included some of my own questions (based on the above exchange between @"staticphoton" and @"noAxio...
December 02, 2022 at 22:31
That's how I see it as well. I think part of the problem is that there are many different tracks along which disagreement and misunderstanding can occ...
November 13, 2022 at 04:55
:up: As Feynman once noted, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.” I think that's right. T...
November 07, 2022 at 21:00
In this case, it's the cow that he saw that establishes his conclusion that there's a cow in the field. He is mistaken about which cow he saw, but tha...
November 05, 2022 at 08:55
:up: I would just add, though, that the causal connection may not always be sufficient for knowledge. Consider the fake barn scenario. In that case, t...
November 02, 2022 at 23:55
:smile:
October 31, 2022 at 02:44
Indeed. The claim can no longer be justifiably held at that point since knowledge does require truth and the claim in question is now known to be fals...
October 30, 2022 at 10:34
Yes, my view perhaps differs from Lewis' in that regard. In the case of the clock example, I know it's 3pm as long as I see that the clock says 3pm an...
October 27, 2022 at 20:27
A lemma, here, is a premise of one's purported knowledge. So the stated premise in the case of the robot dog was that James had observed an apparent d...
October 25, 2022 at 02:31
Yes. I think it's a reasonable view that the lemma be knowledge (which admittedly is a higher standard than simply truth), but it does need to be cont...
October 25, 2022 at 02:28
I regard the "no false lemmas" condition as essentially correct. The criticisms are really around what counts as a lemma. But if one is to construct a...
October 24, 2022 at 01:50
That's correct. There is also nothing about the definition of "negation" which requires that the result be other than the starting number. You're equi...
October 23, 2022 at 23:53
They're comparable because in each case the number remains the same. On that basis you reject that a negation has occurred but, apparently, still acce...
October 23, 2022 at 03:23
Do you also hold that adding zero to a number cannot be called "addition" because the number is the same before and after? Or that dividing a number b...
October 22, 2022 at 11:57
It is neither. The negation of zero (a number without a sign) is zero (a number without a sign). The number does not change. You need to be more speci...
October 22, 2022 at 09:01
Thank you. Since the unary negation of zero (-0) is a perfectly valid operation, I disagree. Note that your objection can equally be levelled at "add"...
October 20, 2022 at 13:34
No. Renner addresses criticisms, including Aaronson's which is the "agent's brain" sentence below. Assumptions Q, S and C are what Aaronson describes ...
October 20, 2022 at 08:17
Yes, that's right. Plain old "quantum weirdness" is when a system is in a superposition of state 0 and state 1. Wigner-grade "quantum weirdness" is wh...
October 20, 2022 at 07:26
I have, twice. But here it is again with the relevant parts bolded: Yes, I understand. On your definition, the mathematical expression "-(-0)" would b...
October 19, 2022 at 01:15
Yes. In terms of the thought experiment, Wigner can wait ten minutes, then enter the lab (collapsing the lab wavefunction) and the friend will report ...
October 19, 2022 at 01:03
I appreciate the comment! I think a realist grammar is fine. We are already used to sentences like the Liar and "The King of France is bald", with dif...
October 19, 2022 at 00:47
I also go with 3. I just meant in their capacity as a physicist. The quantum mechanics issue is ostensively about counterfactual definiteness, not fac...
October 19, 2022 at 00:27
So, according to you, your preferred definition of opposite precludes the mathematical definition of opposite. Even though the subject we are discussi...
October 18, 2022 at 12:25
As I quoted from here earlier, zero is its own opposite. Which is to say, -0 + 0 = 0. You can even type it into a calculator and see for yourself.
October 18, 2022 at 11:36
In quantum mechanics realism usually refers to counterfactual-definiteness, which is "the ability to speak 'meaningfully' of the definiteness of the r...
October 18, 2022 at 06:49
Such as reflecting the positive number line over the origin and reversing the sign of the reflected numbers. In other words, positive and negative num...
October 18, 2022 at 04:55
"Additive inverse" is the relevant sense here. I don't know what you mean by "a general sense". Do you have a link to a definition?
October 17, 2022 at 12:05
No, it just means that the choice of measurement settings and the measurement outcomes are predetermined.
October 17, 2022 at 11:59
Basically, yes. Superdeterminism is the one exception - it is local and real in Bell's sense, and instead rejects statistical independence.
October 17, 2022 at 10:14
That the particles are entangled only means that there will be a correlation between the two spin measurements. As physicist Asher Peres noted, "Bell’...
October 17, 2022 at 09:05
See the mathematical definition below. A picture for this is that walking forwards three steps and then walking backwards three steps returns you to y...
October 17, 2022 at 04:12
There are also two distinct conventions for natural numbers and integers (which include negative numbers). With integers, a larger number can be subtr...
October 17, 2022 at 00:51
Here's Heisenberg on the issue: Now consider the introduction of negative numbers: The math was entirely adequate but there was no natural picture, he...
October 16, 2022 at 05:14
Nicely put. I think this also relates to Gilbert Ryle's examples of category mistakes. The color of a ball is not reducible to the ball's machinery, s...
October 16, 2022 at 02:14