TMax01 t1_irk05t3 wrote on October 8, 2022 at 8:55 PM

Reply to comment by newyne in Quantum philosophy: 4 ways physics will challenge your reality by ADefiniteDescription

>that's a common misconception among laypeople

Unfortunately, it is also a common misperception among both physicists and philosophers, as well. In fact, there may well be good reason to believe that Bohr himself was willfully, perhaps even intentionally, confusing the issue to begin with. After all, we should not presume that, at the dawn of our exploration of quantum weirdness, even the most profoundly brilliant physicists knew just how weird things were going to get. The article seems more than slightly sensationalist, as almost any article on the subject of quantum mechanics is going to be, so it seems more of an inevitable rather than terrible choice for an essay which uses the phrase "quantum philosophy" in its title.

>As for physicalism... Lol, I will never pass up an opportunity to critique that!

The dialectic between a naive physicalism and a comprehensive one makes both critique and criticism unavoidable, I think.

sticklebat t1_irkcljv wrote on October 8, 2022 at 10:32 PM

> Unfortunately, it is also a common misperception among both physicists and philosophers, as well.

Among philosophers, yes. Among people who studied physics in college? Sometimes. Among actual practicing physicists? No. Not often enough to matter.

> In fact, there may well be good reason to believe that Bohr himself was willfully, perhaps even intentionally, confusing the issue to begin with.

No, we have plenty of Bohr’s research, correspondence, and seminars to know that Bohr did indeed understand the distinction, and did not deliberately try to confuse the issue. There is zero reason whatsoever to believe what you’re suggesting. The article isn’t quoting Bohr, it’s poor use of words doesn’t reflect Bohr’s meaning. This misconception arises so often because physicists appropriated colloquial words for technical meaning, so people without training or expertise read/hear things and don’t realize that they’ve misunderstood, because they don’t realize the words don’t mean what they think they mean.

I do agree that the article is sensationalist, though, since its attempts to describe the concept of local realism to an inexpert audience are ignorant or incompetent, depending on whether the author actually understands it themself.

TMax01 t1_irkfy25 wrote on October 8, 2022 at 10:59 PM

> Among actual practicing physicists? No. Not often enough to matter.

In the context of their actual professional physics, that is beyond doubt. Unfortunately, outside of that restricted activity, physicists are as apt as any other person to expound upon what they believe are the implications of their physics. And what is worse, they are both more likely to believe their actual knowledge of physics provides them a privileged perspective of those philosophical implications, and to be referenced by people without that practical and professional knowledge of physics go suggest their skill in physics lends weight to their philosophical beliefs. Hence the need for the whole "shut up and calculate" perspective, as honored in the breach as the observance.

>Bohr did indeed understand the distinction, and did not deliberately try to confuse the issue

I understand your point, but I was not impugning his integrity. It was a poor choice of words on my part. The truth is the distinction itself is not so simple a matter, nor something physicists are qualified to assess to begin with. Bohr had a rational and scientific perspective on physics, as all good physicists must. But unfortunately, that is, in a real way, assuming a conclusion, from a philosophical perspective. Bohr assumed there is a [meta]physical truth that his work explored, as did Einstein; they were simply discussing what that truth was, which of their conflicting explanations was more accurate. Which means they were both failing to "shut up and calculate", but were instead using discourse and thought experiments (valid practices for physicists, I realize, but not physics) to attempt to ascertain which worldview to embrace based on their beliefs about the implications of their calculations rather than the calculations themselves.

>This misconception arises so often because physicists appropriated colloquial words for technical meaning,

I don't believe that is the case. The misconception arises often because of the nature of consciousness and quantum weirdness, and the potential for killing two birds with one stone, which most people find very tempting. The fact that scientists borrow words for use as symbols in logical expressions is an entirely separate issue, although I do agree it confounds things even further.

sticklebat t1_irkzann wrote on October 9, 2022 at 1:36 AM

> Unfortunately, outside of that restricted activity, physicists are as apt as any other person to expound upon what they believe are the implications of their physics.

As someone who has spent decades in physics academia, I’ve never met someone at or past the graduate school level who would make the mistake of thinking that “observation” in quantum mechanics implies observation by a conscious observer, unless explictly talking about some sort of consciousness-causes-collapse interpretation. I’m not arguing that physicists can’t make mistakes or harbor some misconceptions, but negligibly few will make the mistake you’re claiming.

> It was a poor choice of words on my part.

What was a poor choice of words? Which words, exactly, are you referring to? The article doesn’t use any of his words. It summarizes what he says. If you want to read his actual words, here’s an example from a discussion he has with Heisenberg about objectivity and subjectivity. Here’s a particularly relevant excerpt:

> And what predictions we base on such findings depend on the way we pose our experimental question, and here the observer has freedom of choice. Naturally, it still makes no difference whether the observer is a man, an animal, or a piece of apparatus, but it is no longer possible to make predictions without reference to the observer or the means of observation.

I’m not sure how that could be confused, unless you cherry pick bits and pieces of his words so as to make them misleading.

> The truth is the distinction itself is not so simple a matter, nor something physicists are qualified to assess to begin with.

The details of the distinction aren’t simple, but the distinction between conscious observer and not is fairly straightforward, and the topic of conversation here. Also the claim that this is something that physicists aren’t qualified to assess, let alone discuss, is absurd. It certainly requires some philosophical chops, but it also requires a detailed technical understanding of fundamental physics, which very, very few philosophers have.

> Bohr assumed there is a [meta]physical truth that his work explored, as did Einstein; they were simply discussing what that truth was, which of their conflicting explanations was more accurate. Which means they were both failing to "shut up and calculate",

They were physicists exploring the implications and consequences of a new physical model. They were doing science, and their thought experiments and arguments led to further understanding that eventually underpinned physical, metaphysical and philosophical analysis of the matter. If they had those discussions 40 years later they’d have been pissing into the wind. But they didn’t, and their discussions led to the EPR paradox, the idea of hidden variables, Bell’s theorem, etc. This year’s Nobel prize has its roots in the very conversations you’re claiming these physicists — the foremost experts of the subject at the time — weren’t qualified to have. Talk about pretentious…

> I don't believe that is the case. The misconception arises often because of the nature of consciousness and quantum weirdness, and the potential for killing two birds with one stone, which most people find very tempting.

As someone who teaches this, I can assure you you’re wrong. It is difficult to talk about superposition and complementarity in a clear and concise way, because the technical language is confusing because it uses words that people have preconceptions about. You can either be clear, or you can be concise, but very rarely both. And worse, once a misconception always a misconception: it propagates. You can see it here on Reddit all the time. Someone who doesn’t understand states it with confidence, or someone who understands tries to explain it concisely and people misunderstand, and then they spread it to others.

This misconception is very easy to dispel simply by having a careful talk about the meaning of words, and that tells me it’s the words that are the main problem.

TMax01 t1_irl8cnl wrote on October 9, 2022 at 2:51 AM

>I’m not arguing that physicists can’t make mistakes or harbor some misconceptions, but negligibly few will make the mistake you’re claiming.

You're building a strawman here. The nature of the issue is broader than just that one word. The metaphysical perspective that results in non-physicists over-interpreting that word does in fact infest the thinking of physicists, as well, in their interpretation if not their scientific efforts.

>Which words, exactly, are you referring to?

The ones I used, which is why I said that. I'll leave it for you to obsess over which ones exactly.

>This year’s Nobel prize has its roots in the very conversations you’re claiming these physicists — the foremost experts of the subject at the time — weren’t qualified to have.

Nah. The prize related to the "shut up and calculate" parts of the science, not their interpretations and conversations.

>This misconception is very easy to dispel simply by having a careful talk about the meaning of words, and that tells me it’s the words that are the main problem.

LOL. Yes, you misunderstand the problem. You are what I refer to as a neopostmodernist. By that I mean that you don't realize that compared to the meaning of words, quantum mechanics is downright trivial. If only something as simple as Bell's Theorem could be used to sort out language, consciousness, and existential truth.

sticklebat t1_irmw0ed wrote on October 9, 2022 at 2:08 PM

> You're building a strawman here. The nature of the issue is broader than just that one word.

No, I’m not. You keep saying that the misconception that observation requires a conscious observer is a common misconception among physicists. It is not. I don’t know where you’re getting this idea but it’s entirely false.

> The ones I used, which is why I said that. I'll leave it for you to obsess over which ones exactly.

So you’re blaming Bohr for your choice of words? Good on ya, that makes so much sense! /s

> Nah. The prize related to the "shut up and calculate" parts of the science, not their interpretations and conversations.

Then you frankly don’t understand it. I was beginning to gather as much by your other comments, but this is the nail in the coffin. The argument Einstein and Bohr were having was about whether the universe can be locally real (another example of scientific/philosophical terminology being easy to confuse). The argument they participated in led to the creation of different possible interpretations of quantum mechanics and culminated in John Bell realizing that any locally real interpretation must predict different correlations than an interpretation that isn’t locally real. He was hoping and expecting that this would allow physicists to show that the universe is in fact locally real, making quantum mechanics a bit easier for many to swallow. This Nobel Prize was awarded to the primary experimenters who tested those correlations, and who found the opposite of what Bell hoped. Bell’s theorem and tests of it are absolutely central to any discussion about interpretations of quantum mechanics, and they’ve ruled out all interpretations consistent with Einstein’s argument. The notion that Bell tests are unrelated to interpretations of quantum mechanics is laughably wrong.

> LOL. Yes, you misunderstand the problem. You are what I refer to as a neopostmodernist. If only something as simple as Bell's Theorem could be used to sort out language, consciousness, and existential truth.

You are what I would refer to as obtuse. You’re just changing what we’re arguing about halfway through to make yourself sound smarter. I am not arguing about the details of language, consciousness, and existential truth. I am merely pointing out that the language used to describe quantum mechanics is easily misunderstood, and that the specific misconception that quantum mechanics places conscious observation on a pedestal is easily dispelled by clarifying what the words used to talk about quantum mechanics means. But go ahead and call me a “neopostmodernist” if using big made up words makes you feel better, and accusing me of misunderstanding grandiose problems that were never under discussion in the first place.

TMax01 t1_irn3ag5 wrote on October 9, 2022 at 3:02 PM

>You keep saying that the misconception that observation requires a conscious observer is a common misconception among physicists. I

As a strawman, it is not an entirely inadequate proxy for what I actually said, but it is not what I actually said.

>You are what I would refer to as obtuse.

And you are what I refer to as cantankerous. You're in the wrong subreddit. This is r/philosophy, not r/physics.

>. I am not arguing about the details of language, consciousness, and existential truth. I am merely pointing out that the language [...]

Oops.

>used to describe quantum mechanics is easily misunderstood, and that the specific misconception that quantum mechanics places conscious observation on a pedestal is easily dispelled by clarifying what the words used to talk about quantum mechanics means.

Quantum mechanics is easily misunderstood. Perhaps owing to the fact it cannot be easily (or actually) understood. "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." The meaning of words is also (supposedly independently) not easily understood, despite the faith one might have in any particular definition or dictionary. So despite the devastation you have wreaked on the strawman argument that I have besmirched the good name of Niels Bohr, the actual issue I am discussing remains, unperturbed.

I don't identify you as a neopostmodernist to "make myself feel better", I do it to accurately describe your position and practices, or at least the intellectual milieu and time period of your reasoning.

The problem is that "clarifying [...] the words used to talk about" any subject, let alone the supremely difficult subjects of QM or consciousness, doesn't actually work as well as you insist it should. Whether 'observation' or 'measurement' or 'interaction' or any other word is used, and no matter how rigorously one attempts to nail down what any of them "mean", the difficulty of understanding or discussing these things does not evaporate, or even lessen, and the effort itself simply compounds the difficulty. Scientists can shut up and calculate, but when they don't, and for everyone else who simply accepts what (current) science provides without further consideration, the nature of meaning, in both words and more generally, makes the difficulty of dealing with the possible correlation, or at least parallel, between the ineffably quantum and the ineffably conscious all the more enticing.

Personally, I don't suffer from this problem, because my philosophy resolves the nature of consciousness more completely than neopostmodern philosophies do. I can understand the parallels between quantum uncertainty and existential uncertainty, and recognize the meaning of those parallels without conflating the subjects. But the problem remains, even for me, when I attempt to discuss these issues with other people, and the more neopostmodernist they are, the more cantankerous they get. You have demonstrated that well, I believe, and I apologize for engaging on this topic with you as an object lesson on principle, since I don't disagree with you at all about how much that strawman deserved the thorough thrashing you've given it.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

sticklebat t1_irn84qa wrote on October 9, 2022 at 3:37 PM

> As a strawman, it is not an entirely inadequate proxy for what I actually said, but it is not what I actually said.

It is exactly what you said. That is the exact misconception that was being discussed when you replied, quoting another person, and said “it’s a common misconception among physicists.” I’m always amazed by people on Reddit who pretend they didn’t say the things they said, that are still there for all to see.

> This is r/philosophy, not r/physics.

Yes, in an article about philosophical ideas related to a model of physics. You cannot meaningfully consider the philosophy of physics if you don’t first understand the physics.

> Oops.

Did you fall, or something?

> Quantum mechanics is easily misunderstood. Perhaps owing to the fact it cannot be easily (or actually) understood.

But we aren’t talking about the entirety of quantum mechanics. We are talking about one specific and common misconception of it. And that particular misconception arises primarily because the words “observation” and “measurement” mean something different to a physicist than they do to a lay person.

> So despite the devastation you have wreaked on the strawman argument that I have besmirched the good name of Niels Bohr, the actual issue I am discussing remains, unperturbed.

No, I responded to two specific things you claimed. One, your claim that physicists commonly suffer from the misconception that conscious observation plays a special role in quantum mechanics. Two, that Niels Bohr deliberately confused the two. The first claim is laughably wrong and makes it very clear you have no experience with the actual physics community; and the latter is demonstrably false and demonstrates your propensity to make shit up for some reason that I can’t comprehend.

You keep defending your claims, but whenever I make any reference to those claims you call it a strawman. That just makes you dishonest.

> I don't identify you as a neopostmodernist to "make myself feel better", I do it to accurately describe your position and practices, or at least the intellectual milieu and time period of your reasoning.

You don’t know enough about my positions and practices to call me anything, since the only things I’ve addressed are whether physicists possess a particular misconception, the origin of that misconception, and what words Bohr used. This would be like watching someone walk down the street and diagnosing them with heart disease.

> The problem is that "clarifying [...] the words used to talk about" any subject, let alone the supremely difficult subjects of QM or consciousness, doesn't actually work as well as you insist it should.

But it does. I actually teach these things, I deal with this all the time. In this particular instance, about the very specific and precise thing we’re discussing, it works quite well. In fact, you can see it working in this very Reddit post, among others on the subject. Your imagination — or perhaps your own confusion — notwithstanding.

> Personally, I don't suffer from this problem, because my philosophy resolves the nature of consciousness more completely than neopostmodern philosophies do.

How pretentious of you. This attitude is certainly consistent with your previous assertion that Einstein and Bohr weren’t qualified to talk about quantum mechanics.

> I can understand the parallels between quantum uncertainty and existential uncertainty, and recognize the meaning of those parallels without conflating the subjects.

And yet you’ve demonstrated that you clearly don’t understand the physics (see your claim that this year’s Nobel prize has nothing to do with interpretations of quantum mechanics). So sorry if I doubt your ability to see parallels so crystally clear when you don’t even understand one of them in the first place.

> But the problem remains, even for me, when I attempt to discuss these issues with other people, and the more neopostmodernist they are, the more cantankerous they get.

It’s more likely that people who actually understand the physics get frustrated when you, who clearly don’t, make baseless and false claims about something you don’t understand, and then accuse them of inventing strawmen when they correct your errors. You aren’t arguing honestly. Hell, you’re still defending your claim about Bohr instead of admitting that you took this shitty article’s awful summary of his argument as a stand in for his actual words, and you’re too proud to admit you made a mistake.