My debate with YouTuber physicist Sabine Hossenfelder is now available in video format:
This was originally motivated by an essay I wrote a couple of weeks ago criticizing Hossenfelder's 'hidden variables' theory as fantasy. Since then, I offered further criticism in parts of a more recent essay.
As such, the point of the present post is not to rehash arguments already presented, but to tackle one specific part of the debate: at one point, I claim that Hossenfelder has never precisely specified what the 'hidden variables' are supposed to be. I was referring to a 2019 draft paper in which Hossenfelder makes an experiment proposal to substantiate hidden variables, even without specifying what they're supposed to be. The reason the proposed experiment is so vague and cumbersome is precisely because it tries to control for the initial state of undefined hidden variables.
But during the debate, as you can see in the video above, Hossenfelder claimed unambiguously that she had in fact defined what the hidden variables are supposed to be (see the video from this point, where she says, "you are asking, did I define the variables? I've defined them"); and that she had done that all the way back in 2011. This would be a case in which her earlier literature would have been more complete than her output of ten years later, which was confusing to me. Why propose an experiment, in 2019, that is so cumbersome precisely because Hossenfelder didn't know what she was supposed to control for, if she actually had this knowledge ten years earlier?
After the debate, I received a number of links from her by email. Two were meant to address the point mentioned above—namely, the specification of what the hidden variables are supposed to be: this and this paper. The former is a small subset of the latter, so I'll limit my commentary to this latter one.
The paper is an experiment proposal largely identical to the 2019 one, just with some more introductory discussion. But it, too, explicitly acknowledges lack of knowledge of what the hidden variables are supposed to be. Indeed, the thrust of the paper is precisely to propose an experiment that is somehow meaningful while not specifying the hidden variables. Consider this passage, for instance, in which the experimental conditions are discussed step by step:
1. Instead of measuring a sequence of individually prepared states, chose a setting in which the state (at least with some probability) is returned into the initial state and repeated measurements on the same state can be performed.
2. The experimental setup itself and the detector should be as small as possible to minimize the number of hidden variables (i.e. N should be small).
3. The repetition of measurements should be as fast as possible so any changes to the hidden variables of the detector in between measurements are minimized (i.e. κ < τ).
These proposals are meant precisely to circumvent lack of understanding of what the hidden variables are supposed to be. It is for this reason that one needs to avoid "a sequence of individually prepared states" (so not to reset the hidden variables, whatever they may be), make the detector "as small as possible to minimize the number of hidden variables" (whatever they may be), and repeat the measurements "as fast as possible so any changes to the hidden variables [whatever they may be] in between measurements are minimized." Throughout the text, the paper implicitly acknowledges that the authors do not know what the hidden variables are supposed to be; they just make assumptions about some boundary constraints. For instance, in this passage:
Most crucially, we have made the minimalist assumption that the hidden variables stem from the correlation with the detector and possibly other parts of the experimental setup. (emphasis added)
If they knew what the hidden variables were supposed to be, there would have been no need for such an assumption; they would know, not assume.
I am not sure, therefore, why Hossenfelder felt that this, in any way, addresses my point of criticism; if anything, it seems to reconfirm it. Perhaps she felt that the extended introductory discussion provides some more definition. She talks, for instance, of "Corr(ν, κ)," the correlation that one expects to observe if hidden variables are true. But this just formalizes, mathematically, what the 2019 paper proposed; it doesn't provide any additional clarity about what the hidden variables are supposed to be. It is also true that this earlier paper provides some more discussion about some boundary conditions of the experiment, but that doesn't entail or imply any precise definition of the supposed hidden variables.
In the spirit of being as charitable as possible towards her position, I perused the other links she sent. The paper that seems to come the closest to defining what the hidden variables are supposed to be is this one, seemingly yet to be peer-reviewed and published, from 2020.
While this later paper makes an attempt to be more specific about the nature of the hidden variables, it is based on a toy model. As a matter of fact, the title of the paper is 'A Toy Model for Local and Deterministic Wave-function Collapse.' The model is not meant to be realistic at all; it's just an exercise in imagination to make some abstract mathematical points; it's not applicable to reality, but just to a much simplified, imaginary universe based on arbitrary assumptions known to be untrue in the real universe. It's a valid exercise, but it doesn't do anything about providing clarity regarding what real hidden variables are supposed to be. And this is not just my interpretation, it is acknowledged in the paper itself:
One should not think of this model as a viable description of nature because the way that the random variables enter the dynamics has no good motivation. ... This toy model avoids non-local interactions by hard-coding the dependence on the detector settings into the evolution law. This is another reason why one should not take this model too seriously: A good, fundamental, model should allow us to derive that the effective law for the prepared state depends on the detector settings. (original emphasis)
In conclusion, the papers referenced as answers to my criticism during the debate not only fail to refute my criticism, they appear to validate it. Hossenfelder's citation of these papers during the debate was a misleading—even flat-out false—rhetorical tool of deflection: it sought to convey the impression that I was fatally ignorant of her work (an impression casual viewers are bound to walk away with) while my points were spot-on. This kind of misleading, hollow, but self-confident, assertive rhetoric seems, unfortunately, to be characteristic of Hossenfelder's videos and—as I now know from experience—her defence of criticisms. Her rhetorical assertiveness is, at least sometimes, a facade that hides a surprising lack of actual substance. She doesn't debate, she deflects. These are very different things.
(Since publication, Hossenfelder has replied to this post and I offered a rejoinder here)
I thought her point in the video about the 2011 paper was not that it defined hidden variables, but that it gave more details as to how an experimenter could conduct the experiments that she feels will provide evidence for them. 1 hour 39 seconds: 'I've counted the degrees of freedom ... I've estimated the temperature and size ... and how quickly you have to repeat the measurements...' Are those numbers not there in the 2011 paper? I thought she had accepted that she hadn't defined hidden variables when she said that Bell doesn't define them either.
ReplyDeleteShe is pretty explicit in her assertion, following my criticism that her hidden variables are just philosophy, not a theory. See it starting from here: https://youtu.be/kJmBmopxc1k?t=960.
DeleteRegarding Bell, OF COURSE he didn't specify what the hidden variables are; his point was precisely to construct a theorem showing that quantum mechanics contradicts hidden variables, WHATEVER THE HIDDEN VARIABLES ARE (so long as they are local and real, in the sense of having standalone existence). I don't think you understand the basic issues in contention here.
Even better: https://youtu.be/kJmBmopxc1k?t=1039
DeleteOoft, this is a big one!
ReplyDeleteBecause for people without a physics education some points remained open, it would be of help to explain some topics not really answered and clarified in the discussion, like can an individual photon be counted as an observer? I mean, is this established? That would not look good for her, her video is based on just that assumption. And if I understood it correctly , she defined Hidden Variables in a paper describing a toy model of the universe, with a specific disclaimer that this might not be true for the real world. If this is correct, then all the rest from her side is a moot point, like having defined what taste an apple has but then going on arguing about pears.
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly right. Sabine has a big mouth and seems to be willing to almost flat-out lie in order to NOT look bad when confronted on a point she doesn't have a good counter for. If I knew this in advance I probably wouldn't have debated her. It left me with some very bad taste in my mouth, for while expecting my opponents to debate vigorously, I don't expect them to be dishonest. As for photons being observers, I explain the point here: https://www.essentiafoundation.org/reading/the-miraculous-epicycles-of-materialism/ (see section "The ‘compensate hollow argument with assertive rhetoric’ epicycle).
Delete"That would not look good for her, her video is based on just that assumption" -her whole video is based on the assumption that that is not true, I mean
DeleteThe relevant passage is this: "It is true enough that decoherence is often operationally associated with measurement. But we know how to probe and collect information about a quantum system without causing decoherence; that is, without disturbing the system’s superposition state. We call these “interference experiments,” an example of which is the famous double-slit experiment showing wave interference patterns corresponding to a superposition. Something of this nature—though a bit more involved—is precisely what the researchers in question have judiciously done. As such, it is simply false to maintain that, because photons don’t cause decoherence, no conclusions can be drawn from the data gathered in these experiments."
DeleteKeep in mind that Hossenfelder is at odds with nearly all the foundations of physics community. She has made it a habit to arbitrarily dismiss anything that is not in line with her opinions. She's a big mouth, but very little substance when it comes to these dismissals.
DeleteWould be a big help if you explain this to the layman, people get confused by how determined she speaks and don't expect dishonesty at this level, it is just like kindergarten arguments with lies and all.
DeleteSome points: photons as observers, toy hidden variables vs real hidden variables and why defining one means absolutely nothing to the other one, just a waste of time, statistical independence pro and cons ( I guess your arguments would be unopposable).She just showed her cards an they are weak. I guess another discussion will not follow, she risks too much. I read the article you mentioned but watched the vid just today so have to re-read it in that context.
Thanks for the answer!
Thanks again for taking your time to answer, pretty clear right now, as said, for a (kind of) layman in physics her fallacies and dishonesty are not that detectable because she avoids direct answers and hides behind elitism. As I see now, good reason for being angry and not wanting to repeat that again, help others also understand why.
ReplyDeleteThanks for clarifying this and I couldn't agree more with your assessment of Hossenfelder.
ReplyDeleteHi, thanks. Are you Joshua Bach? The Joshua Bach that used to comment here on my site until several years ago? And is that Joshua Bach the same that got interviewed by Curt Jaimungal? These are sincere questions, I'm not laying any trap or anything. Lots of people want me to debate that Bach, but I don't whether it's the same person who used to comment here.
DeleteNo, I'm the more musically inclined Bach :D
DeleteI personally don't see much point in debating Joshua. His entire theory is based on a bunch of assumptions and circular reasoning. He makes all the same arguments a materialist would except couched in "simulation" rhetoric. I find this abstraction pointless but what do I know.
The good thing about him though is that he is way more open than Sabine.
I generally like her stuff but I was put off by her coverage of the Quantum Eraser experiment. She seemed to downplay the fact that knowledge about which-path can cause collapse and not merely physical interaction with detector. She focused on retrocausality and played it off as nothing to see here. The comments are full of relieved materialists.
ReplyDeleteHer audience is not made of physicists, but of lay people who just want someone with an authoritative accent to reassure them that physicalism holds against all the evidence. They don't understand what she is saying, neither do they want to, they just want to trust it; they just want the conclusion they are looking for vouched safe by a seeming authority, so they can forget the actual argument and sleep easier. This is the psychology she is catering for; it's a charade. Sabine gives this people what they want, even if it means that she portrays basically the whole foundations of physics community (minus herself and about four other people) as a bunch of idiots. Ask yourself how likely that is.
DeleteThe people reading these comments might be interested in Sabine Hossenfelders blog post regarding the discussion in
ReplyDeleteTheories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal. See http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2022/02/an-update-on-status-of-superdeterminism.html?utm_source=pocket_mylist.
Seems to my simple mind that if a variable is "hidden," by definition it must be undefined. If it may be defined in advance, then it is not "hidden" but rather is known. The point of the experiment isn't to test whether some theorized and defined correlative factor exists, but rather if any previously unknown correlative factor exists at all. Presumably, if a "hidden variable" were discovered, then research would ensue to define the variable and remove it from the category of "hidden." There are always things about which we are ignorant, and so ignorant we do not even know about the existence of the thing that we are ignorant about. Seems to me a method to discover the existence of variables about which we are ignorant and therefore cannot define is very useful and that your requirement that the variable about which we are ignorant must be defined in advance is wrong and unfair.
ReplyDeleteHossenfelder's own view, written on her papers, is that 'hidden variables' are 'hidden' only in the sense that they are not part of quantum theory. Beyond that, they are supposed to be just normal properties of nature. Therefore, it is entirely legitimate, even necessary, to demand a scientific definition of what they are supposed to be; one that is testable and falsifiable. Hossenfelder's proposed experiment, which she has been arguing for for 10 years now, cannot falsify hidden variables. Therefore, nobody performs the experiment; I wouldn't either.
DeleteI don't get it. Any experiment at the LHC that was looking for physics beyond the standard model would then fall into the same category. There was hope that something would turn up, but no chance that a theory like SUSY would be falsified.
DeleteOf course not. SuSy is very well defined (have you ever read what SuSY is?). We have characterized all the particles that were supposed to be found if SuSy were true. And we did _not_ find them in the energy ranges where we thought we would. Every postulated physical hypothesis in history that has been experimentally confirmed has been first well defined (i.e. characterized) in theory, so to guide the experimental search. Hossenfelder wants to reverse the way science is done and, to her credit, she is quite open about it.
DeleteSorry, I don't get it. When LHC searched for supersymmetric particles, and didn't find them, then that didn't immediately rule out SUSY. There was still the possibility that the particles were at a higher energy. When Kamerlingh Onnes discovered superconductivtiy he had no idea that something like superconductivty would exists. He just had a hunch that something interesting would turn up. Sure, theory can guide experiments, but I don't see why it can't be the other way around.
DeleteThat's why SuSy was not a good theory. But it was _better_ than hidden variables, because it made more precise predictions, although not precise enough. There's a reason I keep saying SuSy was something I would have looked at with different eyes today.
DeleteNow, there are, of course, accidental discoveries in science. But we're not talking about them here, because hidden variables are not one such an accidental discovery; hidden variables are a prediction. The point is that they are a malformed prediction, since what is predicted is not scientifically defined (i.e. the hidden variables are not explicitly and coherently characterized, and neither are the mechanisms by which they allegedly have the causal force attributed to them).
That's correct, but the point is that at least SuSy was a defined theoretical entity. Sabine Hossenfelder's hidden variables do not even cross that bare minimum threshold, and are thus not worth taking seriously. The fact that she so publicly and viciously goes against well-defined interpretations of QM with a non-theory is baffling.
DeleteThe thread is really confusing. Why was SUSY not a good theory? It just turned out that it most likely does not describe the world. Why is following a hunch OK in the 20th century and not in the 21st?
DeleteThe ERP paper was written in 1935 and it was later experimentally confirmed that something weird is going on. AFAIK that weirdness has not gone away. Why should somebody who says "Let's look in this corner, because it has been a while since anybody looked there" be required to present a full fledged theory?
I think it's you who are confused, Bernhard. I have nothing against proposing some ill-defined, vague experiments that can't falsify superdeterminism... go ahead and propose them! Who knows, maybe one day someone will decide to try them? I also have nothing against a physicist not being able to explicitly and coherently articulate a theory after 12 years; it's not me who is paying their salary or giving them advertising revenue on YouTube. So be my guest, no problem. What I AM against is lying about it, deflecting, dissimulating confusion, misleading, attacking colleagues without basis (not referring to myself here). In general, I am very much against intellectual dishonesty.
DeleteIs there a connection with the concept David Bohm came with? I mean the concept of hidden variables.
ReplyDeleteIf I read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_wave_theory correctly then Bohm's theory is a hidden variable theory as it expands on quantum mechanics. But it is not superdeterministic. Instead it allows for the Bell type inequalities by introducing non-local effects.
ReplyDeleteQuote from your essay, Dr. Kastrup:
ReplyDeleteThe choice of what to measure on the first particle determines what the second is, so their physical properties couldn’t have had existence prior to the measurement. Instead, what we see is that physical properties are the result of the measurement itself, not pre-existing realities merely revealed by measurement.
What this tells us is that physical entities aren’t fundamental in nature. Instead, they are merely the appearance or representation, upon observation, of a deeper layer of nature that is, by definition, non-physical.
-> How can you conclude here that the underlying reality is non-physical? Only measurement may determine the outcome of an experiment, but reality could still be physical. I can see no hard argument here. Only a vague appeal to intuitio which may be misleading.
Your cognitive limitations are not my problem. But OK, I'll entertain this a little bit and pre-digest it for you. (1) Physicality is defined in terms of physical properties; (2) Physical properties are the outcome of measurement; (3) Ergo, physicality does not exist prior to measurement; (4) Ergo, what is measured is non-physical.
DeleteWell, I might indeed misunderstand you, but again you do not give a compelling chain of arguments for your conclusions from my point of view.
DeleteYou start with the assumption that an individual particle in an entangled system of quantum particles does not have definite values for all the physical properties fully characterizing it before measurement. Already this is not proven at all by any experiment, but only an interpretation of the mathematics of QM, namely the Copenhagen interpretation. In Bohm's interpretation (not ruled out by any inequality test like Bell's to my knowledge) in contrast every particle has well defined physical properties at any point of time. There the (only seeming, not real) uncertainty before measurement about the outcome of it is consequence of our lack of knowledge of the exact initial states. Therefore already the starting point of your argumentation is unsure and not safe as you want to make the lay readers believe.
Beside that, even if Copenhagen were correct, reality is already before measurement exhaustively defined in terms of physical properties. In general of course superpositions of different values of physical properties, but still physical properties. Otherwise QM would not have been confirmed again and again with dizzying precision. Therefore there is no good reason to postulate a deeper non-physical reality. It's just your fantasy and wish that the world should be non-physical that motivates this.
To substantiate your view would also of course require a detailed description what a non-physical world should consist of, so what those non-physical entities shall be and why they behave like physical objects do. But no single word on that. So your reproach to Hossenfelder that she does not properly define her postulated hidden variables and that they are therefore pure fantasy even more applies to your own (vague) ideas.
There's so much wrong in what you say above I wouldn't even know where to begin. Bohmian Mechanics? Really? Do you even know what Bell's and Leggett's inequalities mean? Sorry, no time to teach the basics here. I substantiated my points well enough. If you can't understand the issues in contention, there's nothing I can do to help you further.
DeleteWell, of course I would not expect you to teach basics here. But is there really no article, essay or book of you that adresses my questions?
DeleteTry this: http://ispcjournal.org/journals/2017-19/Kastrup_19.pdf
DeleteAnd perhaps this: https://philpapers.org/archive/KASRIF.pdf
I tried the first link and found that already the second sentence is incorrect.
Delete"The recent loophole-free verification of Bell’s inequalities [Hensen et al., 2015] has shown
that no theory based on the joint assumptions of realism and locality is tenable. This already
restricts the viability of realism — the view that there is an objective physical world; that
is, a world (a) ontologically distinct from mentation that (b) exists independently of being
observed — to nonlocal hidden-variables theories. "
Superdeterministic local hidden-variables theories are not ruled out.
That's why I wrote three of four other essays explaining why superdeterminism is nonsensical. Duh. Indeed, superdeterminism is too nonsensical (almost universally dismissed by physicists) to even mention in a technical paper.
DeleteThanks for the reply. I tend to not agree witt that dismissal. But if you have a real proof that superdeterminism is nonsensical, then you could make a real contribution to science.
DeleteSurely you can't count almost universal dismissal by physicists as an argument. Where would that leave your idea of a mental universe?
DeleteIdealism is an ontology, not physics. But superdeterminism is physics, and therefore the professional judgment of physicists count. As for the ontology of idealism, it is not universally dismissed by ontologists. And as a matter of fact, it is not universally dismissed by physicists either, even though it is not their professional field; much tot he contrary. Here is just an example of it right now: https://www.chapman.edu/scst/conferences-and-events/quantum-physics-conference.aspx)
DeleteAnd you seem to completely misunderstand the scientific process. The burden of (dis)proof is not on me, but on the one that submits the hypothesis. It's Sabine that must prove superdeterminism true. I don't have to prove it false. As a matter of fact, most nonsensical hypotheses -- such as the flying spaghetti monster, or the hypothesis that there is a teapot in the orbit of Saturn -- cannot be disproven. Yet, one obviously doesn't need to take them seriously. You're trying your best to take jabs at me, but you're just making a fool of yourself.
DeleteI'm not convinced that I misunderstood the scientific process. As far as I can tell Sabine Hossenfelder simply says "I think that superdeterminism is an interesting idea and here is what I can say about it". If no other scientist finds the idea interesting that we have the spaghetti monster case. If there is interest, then people can chime in. They can contribute to the science by pointing out flaws or by adding other interesting thoughts and findings. In the best case the hypothesis can the elevated to a theory or be falsified.
DeleteSo, I don't see that you have a burden to falsify superdeterminism if you don't feel like doing so. If you go around saying "I know that superdeterminism is a false hypothesis" then people can come asking for evidence. If you can provide it then science has made progress. If your evidence is idle talk then nothing much is lost. If your evidence is shown to be faulty then science has still made some progress.
And you insist on this nonsense. Clearly you are here just to troll me, so I'll treat you accordingly.
DeleteI'm a layperson and can understand both points of view, although not as in depth as Sabine would go with her knowledge. I align with Bernados thinking because that's what I've been 'feeling and sensing' throughout life.
DeleteI said to my therapist once, we are all just 'light', soft to hard on a spectrum. Physicality is a hard light, intense frequency of vibrations to create matter. None of this is manifested until a local consciousness manifests or measures it. Flora and Fauna contain varying levels of consciousness.
Love your reply Bernado "your cognitive abilities are not my concern" I've said similar before to folk with mixed reactions. Your comment is no my lock screen on phone.
I saw her video on "super determinism" the other day and what I wanted to say was how is superdeterminism not metaphysics? And if it is, in what way is she qualified in expressing an authoritative opinion about it? Her specialty is physics, not philosophy.
ReplyDeleteIronically, after I watched her video on superdeterminism I thought of writing in a YouTube comment that she should look you up for an alternative viewpoint.
ReplyDeleteThe experiment proposed for finding hidden variables seems strangely like experiments that are performed also in parapsychology. Trying to find something that is not rigourously defined, hoping that what you find will define what you are searching. And then you label what you found in the seeming statistical anomalies. Disclaimer: not trying to dismiss parapsychology, but that analogy just appeared to me.
ReplyDeleteThe difference it probably on a technical level. I doubt that many experiments in parapsychology try to use rigorous statistics. In a way the proposed experiment is like the experiments done at the LHC. Probe a well established theory and be really exited when there are anomalies.
DeleteThat total nonsense. I worked at the LHC and its experiments. Sabine's proposed experiment looks nothing like what is done there, and I have explained it in my writings about superdeterminism, which I gather you have read. So, at this point, I suspect strongly that you are here just to troll me. Good to know.
DeleteOf course the proposed experiment by Sabine Hossenfelder looks more like a table top quantum optics experiment than the LHC. I was saying that both experiments are looking for effects that are not predicted by a well established theory.
DeleteNo, wrong, again. The two main experiments of the LHC (namely, ATLAS and CMS) look precisely for effects fully characterized, specified and predicted by theory, such as the Higgs boson/field, supersymmetry, etc. No malformed, vague, handwaving fishing expedition, like the stuff proposed by Hossenfelder, is carried out at the LHC. That would be the end of funding for CERN. You either really don't know the first thing about what you are talking about, or you are out to troll me.
DeleteOk, I'm fine with making that distinction. AFAIK, there is no fledged out theory that would predict what kind of anomalies might show up in Sabine Hossenfelders proposed experiment. There were, and I suppose still are, such predictions for LHC. But I suspect that LHC particle physicists would be exited by any anomaly, even if it isn't predicted by any existing theory.
DeleteMaybe Sabines proposed experiment is more comparable with delayed choice experiments measuring the violation of Bell type inequalities. My impression is that experimenters do not really expect any divergences from quantum mechanics, but still secretly hope that they find some divergence.
@Bernhard Schmalhofer: to the degree that I remember seeing parapsychological papers and watching interviews from the experimenters, the studies are almost all of the time done with statistical tools, applying analysis and deriving conclusions based on a series of gathered data. The conclusions are sometimes strange and sort of confirmation biased (like the trickster effect or self blocking psychic abilities) but nonetheless statistical. The point i was trying to make is, that you have a hard time regarding statistical analysis, when you don't define what you are looking for. Like that parapsychologists who label certain effects in a subset of occurrences in the performed experiment. And when the effect doesn't show up in the next experiment you suddenly have a phenomenon disappearing, that maybe wasn't there in the first place. And you stand where you started, not knowing what is going on :)
ReplyDeleteAh, I wasn't aware that there was any serious parapsychological research. I was more thinking of hobbyists making video and sound recordings in old castles. But that was only because I've seen a report of that kind of "research" on TV.
ReplyDeleteMy impression of Sabines experiment was that the data analysis would be pretty elementary. I imagine a time series that is predicted by QM to be totally random. When there is any autocorrelation, then it is party time. But my impression is probably too naive. The data analysis of a real experiment would likely be more involved.
Thank you for the links. I read the first article. Quite interesting and eloqently written. However, I think you are dishonest to the reader. On other occasions you ridicule the many-worlds-interpretation of QM as ontologically extravagant and not at all parsimonious. But now you use relational QM as basis for your argumentation. But RQM implicitly also entails - to my understanding - many worlds (perhaps not quite so much as many-worlds interpretation but still a separate world for every observer, i. e. every atom?). Taking that into account also renders your critique against Bohm powerless. Bohm after all took the effort and was so honest to describe how QM works "behind the curtain". You do not explain anything how RQM creates all those separate realities. Then of course the theory is parsimonious but also incomplete. So you compare apples with pears.
ReplyDeleteThe most ridiculous aspect of your article to me, however, is the following: You try to develop an all is mental/consciousness ontology. By doing so you start out well with mind-at-large and psychologial dissociation processes leading to individual minds. But then you need to close the gap between pure experience and thoughts to the quantitative modelling of the world by physics. But to this crucial point you have nothing more to say than: The challenge, of course, is to explain the patterns and regularities of nature in terms of subjectivity alone. Furthermore you state: An alternative but equivalent way of saying the same thing is to say that the quantum field is mind; that is, the subject, not an abstract conceptual object. And before, referring to universal mind: Its excitations are thus experiences — not objective physical values — though they can still be modeled or described mathematically by values. So your whole "solution" to brigde the gap between quantitative and qualitative/subjective descriptions is to postulate that physical objects, like the quantum field, are "made out of mind"? What is here the difference to the dualist position, that certain configurations and movements of matter cause qualitative experience? You start in the completely analoguous way with a "flat" mind at large which does at first experience nothing. Then it gets excited and those excitations are magically combined with qualitative experience.
Beside that you say absolutely nothing about the many detailed questions arising from your all-is-mental ontology. For example: What is your explanation of a brain stroke and it's impact on the patients mind? Materialism can explain this very easily and in a parsimonious way, which you can't. So to me your ontology is in sum not at all more parsimonious. And your whole theory appears to me to be at least as vague as Hossenfelder's superdeterminism, maybe even more.
Relational Quantum Mechanics does not entail or imply many worlds; you don't know what you are talking about. Ontologically speaking, it entails only one external world and many physical representations thereof, each from the perspective of one observer. Read this to inform yourself to a bare minimum degree of the things you're trying to talk about: http://ispcjournal.org/journals/2017-19/Kastrup_19.pdf.
DeleteI have addressed the challenge of explaining perception in terms of transpersonal, endogenous mental processes ad nauseum, in many works, in excruciating detail. Again, you don't know what you are talking about. Follow this course: https://www.essentiafoundation.org/analytic-idealism-course/. And/or read my second PhD thesis: https://repository.ubn.ru.nl/bitstream/handle/2066/203090/203090pub.pdf. And/or read this paper: https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/imp/jcs/2018/00000025/f0020005/art00006. And before you offer more criticism, check if I haven't answered it already here: https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/disp-2017-0025. And if any of this is too difficult for you, I've also made it all light and easy in some of these little popular articles: https://www.scientificamerican.com/author/bernardo-kastrup/.
I'm only giving you freely available material so you don't accuse me of trying to make a buck, but none of this material is as detailed and carefully written as a book, of course. Have you read any book of mine, before charging me with failing to explain this or that? Obviously you haven't, otherwise you would have known better and not made a complete fool of yourself with this comment. Hopefully my links help you get your bearings now, nicely pre-digested. You're welcome.
PS: I, of course, know that you are trolling me. I approved this comment and replied to it so to make a point, using you as an example. But, in general, silly trolls like you are not tolerated here.
For what it is worth, at least I don't see Stefans comments as trolling.
ReplyDeleteNuclear physicist here: watched this match-up with intense focus, and multiple times. It seems the main contention arose in your imposition of a very classical (and in that sense, seemingly reasonable) picture of measurements through your at-the-telescope and in-the-cockpit analogies. The realist paradigm this represents cannot be expected to be carried into a QM-ruled world without crashing immediately into at least a few Axioms of QM (as per D'Espagnat, let us say for argument sake). I think it was at this point that Sabine was rattled by the simultaneous lay appeal of this 'tactic' and the jarring incompatibility of this ontologicaly IS against a statement of an what a-prior wavefunction IS if it interpreted to include a measurement apparatus, including quantum evolution - ie., the new idealist departure from Copenhagenism IMHO. I respect that you were trying to reach the lay watcher and stated as much, but I see it as snapping the conversation right there, more the pity. Best regards D. Barillari
ReplyDeleteBell's Inequality and the experimental verification of this inequality has proven once and for all that hidden variables do not exist. Is Sabine unaware of Bell's Inequality?
ReplyDeleteShe is aware of it, of course. The hypothesis of superdeterminism, if true, would account for the inequalities, so she's not incoherent in this regard. There are many _other_ reasons, however, why the superdeterminism hypothesis is beyond implausible, and isn't even explicitly formulated enough to be taken seriously by experimentalists. So she is wrong, but not for this trivial reason you are bringing up.
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