Einstein thoughts on the quantum

[Fredrik]

I'm not going to read a book about it. But I checked the Wikipedia page. Turns out there are many different definitions. This is the first one:

One of the simpler, broader definitions is "The 'what it is like' character of mental states. The way it feels to have mental states such as pain, seeing red, smelling a rose, etc."​

If we use this one, you're obviously right. Since we're all experiencing this type of qualia all the time (I know that I am, and you know that you are), we can already rule out the possibility that qualia doesn't exist.

The definition I had seen resembles the one attributed to Frank Jackson (1982):

"certain features of the bodily sensations especially, but also of certain perceptual experiences, which no amount of purely physical information includes"​

If we use this definition, your claim would be unjustified.

 

[Varon]

That is really funny, I do like a cool sense of humour.

Varon. Varon Varon, what the hell do you expect here? The Ultimate answers? geez, calm down man.

It is very probable that we are going through a stage where science comes to terms with an ontological probability in nature. In retrospect all the interpretations will be "ahh that's why" type moments, except for the deterministic ones which will be seen like 19th century aether theories.

But it will take time, until someone proposes a scheme which predicts something new, or reformulates everything known so simply that Occam has to apply. I think once it is correctly formulated it will predict something new (and pretty amazing stuff we can do), but "qualia" will be seen to be a new area of science which doesn't immediately appy to the "Standard Model" for example.

Unusualman, you know what. There are 3 kinds of people who delve into the the quantum.

1. Man on the street who doesn't care about it.. because they think their experience is Newtonian. And occasionally read about them for entertainment or just a passing fancy.

2. Scientists who think the quantum has to do with electron, quarks and particle scale... and who focus the quantum on behavior of them like in quantum chemistry, electronics, etc.

3. Neuroscientists and proponents who believe qualia is not explained by current physics and want to seek out answers. I belong to this group. We know that it is increasingly difficult to accept quantum coherence works in the brain as refuted already by Tegmark and company. But if qualia is not part of the quantum (which is related to matter), then what is it part of? Special Relativity? But there is no matter in SR (only Spacetime). This is why we can't avoid the quantum which deals with matter. But if you can categorically prove 100% that qualia is not part of the quantum. Then state so in order that we can move on with this quantum headache and nightmare. The amount of time some of us spend in the QM interpretations for example can make us master of other subjects. I've spend 8 years analyzing this with bits of mathematics that makes bits of understanding after reading hundreds of popular science quantum books. The 8 years spent here would make one take major course in Economics or even Medicine (here all the facts are real and every paper you read make you gain solid knowledge unlike in quantum interpretations where only 2% can eventually be true). So if you someone of you have proof that qualia is just a programming algorithm and nothing to do with new undiscovered physics. Then let us know and let us avoid a possible lifetime of time wasted on understanding dozens of interpretations and hundreds of papers about it.

 

[atyy]

quale

Thank you!

 

[unusualname]

Unusualman, you know what. There are 3 kinds of people who delve into the the quantum.

1. Man on the street who doesn't care about it.. because they think their experience is Newtonian. And occasionally read about them for entertainment or just a passing fancy.

2. Scientists who think the quantum has to do with electron, quarks and particle scale... and who focus the quantum on behavior of them like in quantum chemistry, electronics, etc.

3. Neuroscientists and proponents who believe qualia is not explained by current physics and want to seek out answers. I belong to this group. We know that it is increasingly difficult to accept quantum coherence works in the brain as refuted already by Tegmark and company. But if qualia is not part of the quantum (which is related to matter), then what is it part of? Special Relativity? But there is no matter in SR (only Spacetime). This is why we can't avoid the quantum which deals with matter. But if you can categorically prove 100% that qualia is not part of the quantum. Then state so in order that we can move on with this quantum headache and nightmare. The amount of time some of us spend in the QM interpretations for example can make us master of other subjects. I've spend 8 years analyzing this with bits of mathematics that makes bits of understanding after reading hundreds of popular science quantum books. The 8 years spent here would make one take major course in Economics or even Medicine (here all the facts are real and every paper you read make you gain solid knowledge unlike in quantum interpretations where only 2% can eventually be true). So if you someone of you have proof that qualia is just a programming algorithm and nothing to do with new undiscovered physics. Then let us know and let us avoid a possible lifetime of time wasted on understanding dozens of interpretations and hundreds of papers about it.

Science is usually considered to be about what we can observe (measure) and make quantitative predictions about. We can't measure qualia to make quantitative predictions so this is not part of (current) science (eg PET scans or fMRI of the biological brain are not measurements of qualia).

I doubt Quantum Mechanics can explain our conscious experience of the world any more than Maxwell's theory of electricity and magnetism can.

However, Quantum Mechanics does show us that the world is not a mechanical deterministic one, like ancient people used to think (some still do!), and hints at a more sophisticated nature to reality.

I think it will become clearer once we properly understand QM what we are missing and where we must next look.

 

[unusualname]

btw, in reply to your comment in post #1 about Einstein's reluctance to give up realism, there is a famous quote attributed to Einstein from a discussion with Heisenberg, where Heisenberg was making a similar point to you and Einstein replied that the abstraction of spacetime was all nonsense, and not to be taken literally, just a mathematical framework for making predictions of nature.

"Possibly I did use this kind of reasoning," Einstein told Heisenberg, "but it is nonsense all the same ... on principle it is quite wrong to try founding a theory on observable magnitudes alone. In reality the very opposite happens. It is the theory which decides what we can observe."

http://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/p07c_text.htm

 

[Varon]

btw, in reply to your comment in post #1 about Einstein's reluctance to give up realism, there is a famous quote attributed to Einstein from a discussion with Heisenberg, where Heisenberg was making a similar point to you and Einstein replied that the abstraction of spacetime was all nonsense, and not to be taken literally, just a mathematical framework for making predictions of nature.



http://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/p07c_text.htm

Note realism has particular meaning in physics which means there are properties even between measurement. So Einstein can even believe a world existing with merely spin as the observable can be put under realism so long as it has deteministic values in between measurement. Einstein is so advanced with his spacetime physics but why couldn't he go one step further and believe there was no properties before measurement. Maybe because it can falsify his spacetime idea. So the incompatibility between QM and GR already started in the Bohr Einstein debate in 1927 at the Solvay Congress. But at that time, they never plan to unite QM and GR. Did Einstein plan to do that? I wonder what year was this attempt at unification of QM and GR become a serious endeavors or programme. Anyone?

 

[unusualname]

Note realism has particular meaning in physics which means there are properties even between measurement. So Einstein can even believe a world existing with merely spin as the observable can be put under realism so long as it has deteministic values in between measurement. Einstein is so advanced with his spacetime physics but why couldn't he go one step further and believe there was no properties before measurement. Maybe because it can falsify his spacetime idea. So the incompatibility between QM and GR already started in the Bohr Einstein debate in 1927 at the Solvay Congress. But at that time, they never plan to unite QM and GR. Did Einstein plan to do that? I wonder what year was this attempt at unification of QM and GR become a serious endeavors or programme. Anyone?

Unification of QM and GR isn't a problem of realism, it's a problem of developing a field theory which is renormalizable. If that could be done for quantum gravity (like for QED and QCD) then it wouldn't distinguish between realist and non-realist interpretations of QM (but we have the experiments of Zeilinger and others which deal with that).

Einstein already tried to develop a unified field theory in 1920s after hints from Kaluza that a fifth dimension could unify EM and gravity.

Einstein was a master of statistical physics and classical field theories and he firmly believed that all of reality could be described by physical theories founded on these two pillars. He had been right before when only a minority believed his theories and this must surely have made him ultra stubborn against the "baby-face kids" that created QM (heisenberg, pauli, jordan, dirac were all in their early 20s when QM was established, only Bohr, Born and Schrodinger were from Einstein's generation).

Einstein wasn't naive though, he recognised that Bohm/de Broglie's attempt was too simplistic for instance, but he didn't like the almost mystical way the Copenhagen Interpretation seemed to explain reality. I think today he would be satisfied with decoherence and the post-Bell advances in QM experiments which seem to have shown simple ideas of reality are surely wrong,

 

[Varon]

Unification of QM and GR isn't a problem of realism, it's a problem of developing a field theory which is renormalizable. If that could be done for quantum gravity (like for QED and QCD) then it wouldn't distinguish between realist and non-realist interpretations of QM (but we have the experiments of Zeilinger and others which deal with that).

Einstein already tried to develop a unified field theory in 1920s after hints from Kaluza that a fifth dimension could unify EM and gravity.

Einstein was a master of statistical physics and classical field theories and he firmly believed that all of reality could be described by physical theories founded on these two pillars. He had been right before when only a minority believed his theories and this must surely have made him ultra stubborn against the "baby-face kids" that created QM (heisenberg, pauli, jordan, dirac were all in their early 20s when QM was established, only Bohr, Born and Schrodinger were from Einstein's generation).

Einstein wasn't naive though, he recognised that Bohm/de Broglie's attempt was too simplistic for instance, but he didn't like the almost mystical way the Copenhagen Interpretation seemed to explain reality. I think today he would be satisfied with decoherence and the post-Bell advances in QM experiments which seem to have shown simple ideas of reality are surely wrong,

Ok. So serious attempt at quantum gravity occurred after t'Hoof discovered that QED was renormalizable, right?

 

[Fredrik]

Unification of QM and GR isn't a problem of realism, it's a problem of developing a field theory which is renormalizable.

...or a quantum theory of gravity that isn't a field theory at all.

 

[unusualname]

...or a quantum theory of gravity that isn't a field theory at all.

yes, the field theories may just be effective low energy descriptions of something completely different.

 

[unusualname]

Ok. So serious attempt at quantum gravity occurred after t'Hoof discovered that QED was renormalizable, right?

Well, depends what you mean by serious. We may still be at a stage as hopeless as Einstein's attempts at unification due to ignorance about what actually exists in nature (Einstein didn't know the weak and strong forces existed). But assuming it's no more than standard model (+SUSY maybe) + gravity then potentially workable theories have been developed only in the last few decades. Physicists aren't that bothered about mathematical rigour as long as the theory makes correct physical predictions. Feynman et al got the Nobel for qed long before it was made mathematically rigorous. Feynman himself proposed graviton theories in the 1950/60s which was a "serious" attempt at QG.

 

[Varon]

In a message to Alxm, Demystifer wrote:

Maybe you misunderstood me. I'm pretty sure that physics can explain the behavior of biological systems, including the behavior that we usually think of as a "conscious" behavior. But that's exactly what the problem is. We can explain the BEHAVIOR in terms of known PHYSICAL mechanisms. But these mechanisms do not involve anything like subjective conscious experiences. Subjective conscious experiences are simply not needed to explain the objective behavior. In fact, the whole scientific method explores the objective, not the subjective. I can measure your voice when you cry, I can measure your EEG waves in the brain when I torture you, but I cannot measure your FEELING of pain. I cannot even conceive how to measure someone's feeling of anything.


It's even more egoistic than you think. It's not about humans, but about myself (or yourself). I feel only my feelings, and nobody else's. If I could experience someone else's feelings, then they would no longer be purely subjective, but objective phenomena researchable by the scientific method. But I can't.

Demystifier. There is a question that bothered me the whole weekend. Do you think this subjective conscious experience or qualia can be modeled by math? Or could they belong to a realm that is outside math altogether. Is this possible? Or are all things in the universe eventually modellable and describable by the language of math. What do you think?

 

[Demystifier]

Demystifier. There is a question that bothered me the whole weekend. Do you think this subjective conscious experience or qualia can be modeled by math? Or could they belong to a realm that is outside math altogether. Is this possible? Or are all things in the universe eventually modellable and describable by the language of math. What do you think?

It seems to me that it cannot be modeled by math. Which is exactly why science is silent about it.

 

[Varon]

It seems to me that it cannot be modeled by math. Which is exactly why science is silent about it.

Do you think there is unification program that is akin to it. I mean. Is there possibility for example that quantum mechanics and general relativity are emergence of a third theory that is no longer describable by math.. meaning we will never have a quantum gravity or quantum spacetime because it would be beyond physics already. Is this possible? Why and why not?

 

[Demystifier]

Varon, ultimately anything is possible
http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/466
but that particular idea does not seem very appealing to me.

 

[Fredrik]

a third theory that is no longer describable by math..

If math can't deal with it, then it's not a theory.

meaning we will never have a quantum gravity or quantum spacetime because it would be beyond physics already. Is this possible? Why and why not?

It's conceivable that "the ultimate reality" can't be described by math, but considering how successful the mathematical approach has been so far, it seems more likely that it can be. However, that only means that there is a final description. However, it's possible (I would say very likely) that we will never find it. Even if we do, it may not be falsifiable. (That's why I said "final description" rather than "final theory"; if it's not falsifiable, it's not a theory).