Objectivism vs. Subjectivism. Discrete (separate) vs. Whole. Political materialism.

[Malkom]

I'll start at the beginning, and it's unclear. Some things can't be shortened or simplified, because they're already maximally simplified, even if they're long.

I recently started reading Prokhorov's book, and it's strange that this scholar asks questions that he claims have no answers. Why not? I disagree; perhaps he wrote this book during the era of political materialism, so he adjusted everything to avoid going to prison again. But there are answers, for example, how classical probability theory and quantum mechanics relate to each other, or rather, the mathematical apparatus of quantum theory. In my opinion, everything is simple here: quantum mechanics is a kind of generalization of probability theory. Instead of a probability distribution function, a wave function is considered, and the square of the absolute value of the wave function yields the probability distribution. Essentially, probability theory can be derived from quantum mechanics, but not vice versa. But what kind of physical reality corresponds to a wave function? None. The wave function is the observer's subjective knowledge of the system, and that's all. The world isn't divided into quantum or classical everyday life. There's no such thing, whether microscopic or macroscopic, to which quantum mechanics can't be applied. But the quantum world divides the world into the observer and everything else (the external system). The observer is a distinct object, or more accurately, a subject, from the perspective of quantum mechanics. When observing an external system, some aspect of it, the wave function or state vector that describes it collapses into one of the possible alternatives, which is realized in reality. This action applies specifically to the "observer," and by "observer," I don't mean a measuring device or even any of the observer's senses—the eye, the ear, whatever.

By "observer," we mean the observer's consciousness. When information about which alternative was realized enters the consciousness, the wave function collapses into precisely that realized alternative. This may seem to hint at some kind of solipsism inherent in quantum mechanics, but in fact, this is not the case. Although the observer has a distinct role, as we know, everyone can consider themselves an observer. As an observer, you cannot view others as observers because, for you as an observer, everything else is simply a system. From the standpoint of quantum mechanics, you have no right to view everyone else as observers. If you do, you will create all sorts of contradictions. If you apply the observation postulate not to yourself, but to other observers, you will create a contradiction. This is not allowed in quantum mechanics. But some people think that an observer is a rather complex system, a macroscopic measuring device, for example. If we collect many, many molecules, which individually can be considered quantum mechanically, then collectively we can consider this system an observer. But this is incorrect. No matter how large the system, even black holes, which can also be considered quantum mechanically, do this. And how can all this be reconciled without resorting to solipsism?

Let's say we have a particle, and it can be either "here" or "there." Let's write it as a quantum-mechanical superposition of "here + there." And we have a person, let's say, who observed this system and, from their point of view, this particle was, say, "here." And you might say, "Well, that's it, this observer collapsed the state vector, and I have no choice but to confirm that, yes, this particle is "here." But in fact, that's not true. You must consider this particle and this person not as an observer, but as part of the system, and their measurements of this particle should be described to you as an observer as an entangled state of "particle-observer." The particle is "here" because the person measured that it is "here," plus the particle is "there" because the person measured that it is "there." You might say this is a contradiction, since he doesn't see it as "there" and "here." And if we don't consider the freakish many-worlds interpretation, where the universe is split into two branches, then there's a contradiction here—why can I consider myself an observer, but not him? Well, look, purely hypothetically, all these formations of entangled states are reversible, just as the Schrödinger equation is reversible in time. Only measurement is irreversible in time.

And if I, as an observer, perform some actions on this external system, including both the particle and the observer who observed this system, perform these actions in such a way that evolution reverses. This is permitted in quantum mechanics; entangled states can be formed, or, conversely, untangled. All these actions are reversible. So, we can, as it were, reverse the measurement of this external observer to the moment they performed this measurement. And on the one hand, it turns out that for them, from our perspective, the measurement postulate is inapplicable because we can reverse it. But our own measurement as an observer is irreversible, which is precisely why time has an arrow. Quantum mechanics is not truly symmetrical with respect to time—the past is not the same as the future with respect to me as an observer. But if some super-advanced civilization were to come along and perform quantum actions, gates, unitary ones that would reverse this entire evolution, just as that person supposedly performed a measurement on the device, then everything would be erased, including their memory—not exactly erased, but simply nonexistent. The universe would have no information that they had ever performed or measured anything. If such information doesn't exist, then, in essence, they didn't measure anything. Quantum mechanics is subjective because only I, as an observer, can say that I saw a particular alternative, and from that moment on, it is irreversibly fixed.

Everything else could theoretically be reversed in time because it's all an external system. It's difficult because entropy increases over time, like putting a broken glass back together, but it's theoretically possible. Here, too, we could theoretically reverse the measurement of an external observer because they aren't an observer in relation to me, an external system. All of this is symmetrical, and I, as an observer, will never have any contradictions with another observer. If they measure a particle as being "there," I'll later measure it, and it will still be "there" and not "here," and our measurements won't agree. But as I wrote, it's impossible to create an observer of some combinations, qubits, for example, or particles, or macroscopic devices, because that's not an observer. The observer is you and your consciousness, the you that applies quantum mechanics. But philosophers in the comments will tell me that quantum mechanics describes not our world, not our universe, but rather the observer's knowledge of the system, like a "shadow" in Plato's cave. It doesn't describe the very essence of things, but some other thing. The universe itself, in fact, has a description unrelated to the subject; science simply hasn't yet reached the point of describing this entire universe. But when such philosophers say this, they imagine this universe, just as Newton imagined it, as some kind of mechanical device, some kind of complex machine. The human brain simply can't conceive of the universe any other way. But as experiments have shown, the universe cannot be this complex mechanical machine. Therefore, if you say that quantum mechanics doesn't describe the universe, and the universe operates according to strictly defined rules, but we simply don't know what they are, then you're implicitly imagining some kind of mechanism. But experiment shows that such a mechanism cannot exist.

Continuing...

Are we living in a simulation? (This is the question of what is more fundamental: the discrete (divisible) or the Whole?)

The structure of the universe is always linked to the level of development of civilization, technology, and science. When humans' primary occupations were hunting and gathering, animals were the center of humanity, and accordingly, the world was imagined as standing on elephants and turtles. When Newton created his classical mechanics, the worldview changed once again, and the world began to be seen as consisting of gears, a kind of classical Newtonian mechanism. Even theorems were proven that the world is a classical mechanism, that everything is deterministic and defined—the so-called Laplace determinism. Laplace imagined a being who knows all the states, coordinates, and velocities of all the material particles of Newton's points. This being can predict all the future and past dynamics of the system, how it will develop billions of years in the future and billions of years in the past. Essentially, this demon is God. No one doubted that the world operated on gears, down to the smallest scale. Even Maxwell, when he developed his theory of electrodynamics, conceived of electromagnetic wave propagation as these mechanical gears (you can read Maxwell's original work and be horrified).

Computers have become so commonplace in our lives that everyone suddenly started thinking the world is a computer simulation. And that the world is actually discrete (digital) – there are tiny intervals of time, tiny intervals of space, pixels, voxels, and some computer simulates all these changes, essentially like a computer game. There are countless YouTube videos dedicated to this nonsense – we live in the Matrix. Elon Musk even speaks out on the subject. We won't go into detail; it's complete nonsense, the stupidity is beyond belief. Of course, there are a number of genuine scientists who believe we live in a simulation. Seth Lloyd, for example, says we live in a computer. And such people always exist, even among scientists. But we'll focus on the scientific arguments, which basically tell us that we DO NOT live in a computer, and the world CANNOT be discretized (divided) in principle. Discrete structures aren't fundamental in modern physics; rather, they're fundamentally continuous things, which are fundamentally impossible to model with classical computers. "God created the Whole, everything else is the work of man" – Leopold Kronecker. But even when Kronecker was alive, this was already being questioned. Now, it's the other way around – it's believed that integers emerge from continuous structures. Take the Schrödinger equation, where the key is the wave function, not the numbers. This discreteness – the quantization of energy levels – emerges from the Schrödinger equation, which describes a continuous wave function. In other words, integers emerge from continuous structures, but not vice versa. Although quantum mechanics was initially created as an attempt to discretize classical continuous equations, Bohr's quantizations and the like, hence the name "quantum mechanics." Later, as it developed, it became clear that, on the contrary, continuous things are more fundamental than discrete ones. It's said that while standard models as we know them most accurately describe our reality, scientists still don't know how to discretize them, to create a discrete version for computer simulation. This is likely impossible in principle.

Although there is currently no precise formal proof, there are attempts to make field theory discrete. However, all these attempts have only been successful for the simplest field theories, which are not directly related to our reality. The Standard Model, meanwhile, falls into the category of being impossible to force into a computer—a lattice field theory version. Even the very same Lorentz invariance, which Einstein discovered with the Lorentz transformation, says that these discrete intervals of time and space cannot exist. If a discrete time interval existed, we could find a frame of reference where this interval would be not small, but arbitrarily large. But also, due to Lorentz contraction, these spatial pixels also have different sizes in different frames of reference. Experiments on quantum entanglement also cannot be simulated with a classical computer. In quantum mechanics, of course, a matrix appears—seemingly discrete, but a matrix as such usually comes complete with a wave function. The same Pauli spin matrices were obtained when Pauli attempted to generalize the Schrödinger equation to account for spin. These spin matrices still come with a wave function, meaning you can't take spin and separate it from an electron, so to speak. The degree of freedom of spin is described by these three matrices, but you can't obtain a spin unbound to any physical object, any particle, which in turn is described by continuous functions. Instead of a single wave function, Pauli obtained two wave functions related by these matrices, and Dirac later discovered the relativistic wave equation, which includes 4x4 matrices, which are related to the wave functions by four components; they can't exist separately. Therefore, all these discussions, even about quantum computers and qubits, are somehow out of touch with reality. In practice, a qubit is always embodied by some real entity, which, in addition to the discrete property associated with qubits, also has a continuous aspect. Qubits cannot describe everything in the world.

Perhaps proponents of simulation will say that those simulating us have some kind of super-technology, and that the laws of physics are completely different from ours. In the world they're simulating, everything is completely different, and we'll never really know what's out there. But that's a matter of faith or psychiatry. In psychiatry, there's a syndrome called derealization and depersonalization, where a person feels like the world is unreal, and they themselves are unreal. This is now considered a mental disorder. If you feel like you're living in a virtual world, you should consult a psychiatrist instead of writing comments or posting videos somewhere, like on YouTube. Philip K. Dick apparently had this syndrome, possibly acquired through substance abuse. Basically, just as the ancients believed the world rested on elephants and turtles, the Middle Ages believed the world was made of gears, and now people believe the world is a computer, but I think all of this will pass with time.

There are many videos about how space is curved, allowing one to travel faster than light by compressing space itself. Space is NOT curved in ANY WAY; all we see and feel is gravity, because this curvature affects the observer. To talk about real curvature, about observable curvature, we need to go beyond this space. Moreover, the theory of relativity implies that it makes no difference whether the world is moving or you are moving. It turns out that the theory of relativity is relative, that is, subjective. Quantum mechanics is also subjective, as I already wrote. Now let's take mathematics – in set theory, you can construct a statement that is either false or true, but you cannot prove it. That is, you can derive an axiomatics where one statement is false and it does not contradict common understanding, and where this statement is true and it also does not contradict common understanding. Gödel, studying set theory, derived the incompleteness theorem. If we take a hypothetical "alien" with a different mind, say, and without numbers, they would use a different mathematics. This means that mathematics acquires the status of anti-realism, which is also nominalism in philosophy. In mathematics, the important thing is not what is true or false, but self-consistency within itself.

Recently, crazy sets have been discovered—ultraexacting and exacting cardinals—where the axiom of choice and the continuum hypothesis are not unknowable; they have the status of both proven and refuted, but do not have the status of unprovability as in ordinary fundamental mathematical axiomatics. This suggests that mathematics is based not on order, but on chaos (in the good sense). Max Tegmark hypothesizes a level-4 Multiverse (this is beyond any theory of everything), where everything that is not forbidden within the system is possible, and that means literally EVERYTHING. For example, our world is quantum, but the Multiverse could allow for a super-quantum world, and even a super-super-quantum...

It turns out that the theory of relativity is subjective, quantum mechanics is subjective, mathematics is subjective. Our entire world is SUBJECTIVE. Object = Subject, Duality = Non-duality. Besides this intuitive knowledge, it is also given a formal form, and this is very important, since it becomes REALIZABLE or EMBODIED.

 

Consciousness (qualia) is the only objective thing in the world.

P.S. There may be some nuances and inaccuracies in the translation.

Edited Saturday at 08:45 AM by Malkom

[Breakingthewall]

Your text is difficult to understand, not because it's technical, but because of its nature, its origin. The text is written to assert the writer as a superior intellectual position, not to clarify a real problem. Therefore, it doesn't address the problem; it addresses the writer. 

This results in a lack of clear structure, impossible twists, and abrupt shifts from science to philosophy to possible simulation and then to consciousness. The author isn't describing reality but their self-image, and this makes everything difficult.

The objective is not penetrate in the readers understanding, but show the reader the level of the writer. Then the explanations are not clear, clean, direct. Are intentionally twisted, dark, difficult. 

You could try again putting your ego aside, then we could enjoy sharing with someone who knows about physics 

[Malkom]

17 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Your text is difficult to understand, not because it's technical, but because of its nature, its origin. The text is written to assert the writer as a superior intellectual position, not to clarify a real problem. Therefore, it doesn't address the problem; it addresses the writer.

This results in a lack of clear structure, impossible twists, and abrupt shifts from science to philosophy to possible simulation and then to consciousness. The author isn't describing reality but their self-image, and this makes everything difficult.

The objective is not penetrate in the readers understanding, but show the reader the level of the writer. Then the explanations are not clear, clean, direct. Are intentionally twisted, dark, difficult.

You could try again putting your ego aside, then we could enjoy sharing with someone who knows about physics

I already told you not to write to me. That's the first thing. Second, you can't discuss something you don't understand; you need to learn the basics first, and only then will you have a clearer structural picture. It's just a matter of fact; ego has nothing to do with it; it's just your ego that's being hurt. All you can do is philosophize, or rather, pseudo-philosophize. I already wrote that I've already abridged everything, and abridged it to the point of indecency. Your problem is your own laziness. Like many philosophers, you get stuck in illustrations and meta-theories; you seem to understand something, and yet you don't.
And don't write on this thread anymore; don't clutter it with your presence. I don't need your irritation. I don't care at all who's smarter, and I don't strive to be smart; that only matters to you. And don't write to me anymore. If you don't understand something, you could have simply asked a question instead of spewing your venom. I don't like you, bro. So just move on.

I don't read your posts or comments at all. If I see something you've written in them, I just skim them. You're not revealing anything new to me. And you should do the same.

Edited 18 hours ago by Malkom