The Wave Function

[Mole]

The Wave Function makes it plain that the three dimensions plus time are an illusion.

And the three dimensions plus time give us location.

So location is an illusion.

But all of us intuitively believe in location. We believe we are in a location now, and in five minutes we are in a slightly different location, even if only time changes.

In fact every time we look around us our illusion of location is validated. And it has been validated our whole life. And indeed it is validated by everyone around us who share the same illusion.

And the illusion of location is similar to the illusion that the Sun goes round the Earth.

For because we are so small and the Earth and Sun are so big, we have the illusion that the Sun goes round the Earth.

And in exactly the same way our illusion of location is created.

At the same time location has been shown to be an illusion by the Wave Function and experiments recently done by French scientists.

So the illusion of location is created by the Wave Function, in exactly the same way the illusion the Sun going around the Earth is created the Solar system.

But it is the validation of an illusion that is most interesting.

As the validation is achieved by false positives or confirmation bias.

And this is precisely the way MBTI is validated.

So the Sun going round the Earth, the three dimensions plus time, and MBTI, are all illusions.

But how we hate to be invalidated, even by reality - we much prefer our illusions.

"It's love's illusions I recall, I don't remember love at all".

 

[heart]

The Wave Function makes it plain that the three dimensions plus time are an illusion.

And the three dimensions plus time give us location.

So location is an illusion...

Sounds sort of David Icke-ish.

 

[Feops]

An illusion typically refers to an error in judgment, misdirection, or other misconception. If time and space are consistent and stable for all of our practical purposes, then there is no error as our perceptions are following their function - that is, providing accurate input upon which to make decisions.

You tacked MBTI on despite it being an unrelated subject to create the "illusion" of correlation.

 

[wildcat]

The Wave Function makes it plain that the three dimensions plus time are an illusion.

And the three dimensions plus time give us location.

So location is an illusion.

But all of us intuitively believe in location. We believe we are in a location now, and in five minutes we are in a slightly different location, even if only time changes.

In fact every time we look around us our illusion of location is validated. And it has been validated our whole life. And indeed it is validated by everyone around us who share the same illusion.

And the illusion of location is similar to the illusion that the Sun goes round the Earth.

For because we are so small and the Earth and Sun are so big, we have the illusion that the Sun goes round the Earth.

And in exactly the same way our illusion of location is created.

At the same time location has been shown to be an illusion by the Wave Function and experiments recently done by French scientists.

So the illusion of location is created by the Wave Function, in exactly the same way the illusion the Sun going around the Earth is created the Solar system.

But it is the validation of an illusion that is most interesting.

As the validation is achieved by false positives or confirmation bias.

And this is precisely the way MBTI is validated.

So the Sun going round the Earth, the three dimensions plus time, and MBTI, are all illusions.

But how we hate to be invalidated, even by reality - we much prefer our illusions.

"It's love's illusions I recall, I don't remember love at all".

Illusion is all we have, Victor.
The dead do not walk with the living.

 

[Mole]

If time and space are consistent and stable for all of our practical purposes, then there is no error as our perceptions are following their function - that is, providing accurate input upon which to make decisions.

Good heavens, even your CD player can't be designed without Quantum Mechanics and the Wave Function.

So much of modern technology, which you take for granted, depends entirely on the Wave Function.

You no longer believe your illusion that the Sun goes round the Earth. And yet you still believe your illusion of the three dimensions plus time.

And incidentally time and space are are certainly not consistent and stable for all our practical purposes.

In fact our most accurate theory, Quantum Mechanics, specifically says that time and space are not consistent and stable. And much of modern technology is built on Quantum Mechanics.

Of course you are in good company questioning Quantum Mechanics as Albert Einstein said about Quantum Mechanics that, "God does not play dice".

But we now now that God does play dice - as Quantum Mechanics is based on statistics and chance.

And so far, to many many decimal points, we have no invalidation of Quantum Mechanics.

So Albert was simply wrong.

This is a bitter pill to swallow so you might like to console yourself with your Quantum Mechanical CD player.

 

[Feops]

And incidentally time and space are are certainly not consistent and stable for all our practical purposes.

Time and space have certainly not failed me this morning. I woke up when I expected to (with a little help from my alarm clock) on my bed as I should be, got ready with a logical set of motions (space) in a rather mundane sequence (time), and now I'm about to go to work on a bus that will most certainly be in front of my apartment in the same 5 minute window it tends to be, outside a breakdown.

So my purpose (getting to work on time) has been served very well by my perceptions. You can say it's an illusion as many times as you like, in a trainwreck of logical nonsense, and yet everything worked exactly as one expected. I can think of no system more stable.

 

[Kangol]

Does this really belong in "Science, Technology, and Future Tech"?

I quickly looked up wikipedia's article and see no mention of how it disproves our vision of reality. I'd think it could easily coexist with our vision, seeing as how we cannot possibly look at quarks flitting through time-space, but this thread seems headed in a philosophical discussion about Plato's allegory of the cave.

 

[Mole]

Time and space have certainly not failed me this morning. I woke up when I expected to (with a little help from my alarm clock) on my bed as I should be, got ready with a logical set of motions (space) in a rather mundane sequence (time), and now I'm about to go to work on a bus that will most certainly be in front of my apartment in the same 5 minute window it tends to be, outside a breakdown.

So my purpose (getting to work on time) has been served very well by my perceptions. You can say it's an illusion as many times as you like, in a trainwreck of logical nonsense, and yet everything worked exactly as one expected. I can think of no system more stable.

Great Caesar's Ghost Feops, the Sun rose at exactly the right time this morning and it set again at exactly the right time.

And in between sunrise and sunset the Sun travelled halfway around the Earth.

So the Sun certainly has not failed to travel around the Earth.

And certainly I can't think of a system more stable.

So you can tell me that the Sun going around the Earth is an illusion as many time as you like, but everything works exactly as one would expect..

 

[Mole]

Does this really belong in "Science, Technology, and Future Tech"?

I quickly looked up wikipedia's article and see no mention of how it disproves our vision of reality. I'd think it could easily coexist with our vision, seeing as how we cannot possibly look at quarks flitting through time-space, but this thread seems headed in a philosophical discussion about Plato's allegory of the cave.

Read the latest issue of, "Scientific American", and it will become clear to you.

And if the Wave Function can take up a whole article in, "Scientific American", I am sure it belongs here in, "Science, Technology and Future Tech".

 

[Kangol]

Okay, now it's making a bit more sense, but it would help to either provide some information they gave on the article for the rest of us to read and analyze, so that we can actually have a discussion about the science of it. Unfortunately, it seems the Scientific American website doesn't have that particular article up, or I can't find it. I'm sure there are lots of websites out there discussing wave functions as described by those Schroedinger and Bohr guys and others to follow, but I'm too lazy to check further.

I'm just wondering if the point of this thread is one of science or philosophy?

 

[Mole]

I'm just wondering if the point of this thread is one of science or philosophy?

I think Quantum Mechanics does take us into the area of philosophy because it is so counter-intuitive.

And the idea - that the Wave Function provides the illusion of space and time, in the same way the spherical Earth provides the illusion of the flat Earth - is quite new.

Mainly because Einstein himself believed that space and time were not an illusion.

However there is not only the Wave Function but there is also physical evidence that space and time are an illusion.

And interestingly it is an illusion created by the Wave Function itself.

However it is an illusion we all share.

 

[Feops]

Great Caesar's Ghost Feops, the Sun rose at exactly the right time this morning and it set again at exactly the right time.

And in between sunrise and sunset the Sun travelled halfway around the Earth.

So the Sun certainly has not failed to travel around the Earth.

And certainly I can't think of a system more stable.

So you can tell me that the Sun going around the Earth is an illusion as many time as you like, but everything works exactly as one would expect..

Not exactly, or we wouldn't be able to tell one way or another.

It may help to explain what this Wave Function is, rather than simply repeating that it's an illusion and pulling in other misconceptions as "evidence".

 

[Thisica]

My take on the notion of "wave function", from a physicist's point of view

The wavefunction is a mathematical description of a particular kind of physical system. It has just the same status as the Newton-Euler law of motion, F = ma. People mystify the hell out of this notion, thinking that it applies to other kinds of phenomena, such as 'consciousness' (which is hotly disputed in cognitive science and philosophy circles). But because I'm not a cognitive scientist, I can't comment on that as a physicist...

 

[Red Ribbon]

Good heavens, even your CD player can't be designed without Quantum Mechanics and the Wave Function.

So much of modern technology, which you take for granted, depends entirely on the Wave Function.

You no longer believe your illusion that the Sun goes round the Earth. And yet you still believe your illusion of the three dimensions plus time.

And incidentally time and space are are certainly not consistent and stable for all our practical purposes.

In fact our most accurate theory, Quantum Mechanics, specifically says that time and space are not consistent and stable. And much of modern technology is built on Quantum Mechanics.

Of course you are in good company questioning Quantum Mechanics as Albert Einstein said about Quantum Mechanics that, "God does not play dice".

But we now now that God does play dice - as Quantum Mechanics is based on statistics and chance.

And so far, to many many decimal points, we have no invalidation of Quantum Mechanics.

So Albert was simply wrong.

This is a bitter pill to swallow so you might like to console yourself with your Quantum Mechanical CD player.

I read this post and the others but I'm just going to write out everything in this post.

The truth is that we can't even imagine certain things in this universe. A good example is, can we comprehend nothingness? Because the vast expanse of space isn't nothingness, true nothingness exists outside the universe. But it doesn't even come into our imagination.

Now, I'm no expert in quantum mechanics, but I did study it briefly for a while. I can mathematically express Heisenberg's (spelling?) Uncertainty principle but I can't ever perceive it, or we lack the technology to perceive it now. Facts like the sun revolving around the earth can be proven to be false, both mathematically and by one's own senses so it can easily be disproven.

Your argument is that everything is an illusion which I disagree with. Human senses are accurate within a range just like any other instrument. We can see visible light which is only a small part of the light spectrum. The world would look very different if we could see UV or IR rays. So in a sense, you could say that the colours are only illusions. But I would argue that the perception of colours is accurate for us in the visible range only and the human eye lacks the ability to see the rest of the colours. (I hope this makes sense)

And I'm baffled by how you connected this to MBTI? Would you explain?

 

[Red Ribbon]

The wavefunction is a mathematical description of a particular kind of physical system. It has just the same status as the Newton-Euler law of motion, F = ma. People mystify the hell out of this notion, thinking that it applies to other kinds of phenomena, such as 'consciousness' (which is hotly disputed in cognitive science and philosophy circles). But because I'm not a cognitive scientist, I can't comment on that as a physicist...

This is true. I've seen people try to explain things like Schrödinger's cat when all they know about it is, 'there's a cat in a box and it's either dead or alive.' A lot of conceptul knowledge is required to understand the subject and it really only appeals to people who like abstract theoretical stuff. Also I don't think that just because mathematically, all particles have particle and wave nature would imply that we should question our reality because it only really applies to the subatomic world where particles reach velocities comparable to that of the speed of light. In our daily lives, the masses are too large and we move way too slow. Even to experience miniscule evidences of time dilation, we'd have to travel at the speed of light.
[MENTION=3325]Mole[/MENTION] you certainly don't need to understand Quantum Mechanics to be able to design a CD player. I can do it myself, it's not that hard, and I can do it without even thinking of the wave function once.

 

[Straylight]

Any argument that attempts to negate the common-sense definition of reality (the natural world) is predicated on the idea that there is anything "non-real" that can be categorically defined.

To put it logically, any statement of the sort "X exists" is insinuating the possibility of a rational statement taking the form of "X does not exist", which is absurd given that if "X" does not exist, then you can't talk about it because it categorically does not exist.

Therefore, "X exists" is a tautology (it goes without saying - i.e., you could simply say "X" and that would categorically imply "exists"), and "X does not exist" is always irrational because it is self-refuting.

Now, I'm not saying that we can't redefine what we mean by concepts like "space" and "time" linguistically, but to say "they don't exist" is categorically false.

I realize I'm making a semantic argument here, but it's one of my pet peeves when people use this kind of language to discuss theory because it makes it sound like nonsense when in fact it might be very meaningful research of real importance into very abstract subject matter.

TL;DR, please stop trying to refute concepts such as "time" and "space", it's akin to trying to refute the existence of numbers and makes you sound foolish or high.

 

[Mole]

Time and space have certainly not failed me this morning. I woke up when I expected to (with a little help from my alarm clock) on my bed as I should be, got ready with a logical set of motions (space) in a rather mundane sequence (time), and now I'm about to go to work on a bus that will most certainly be in front of my apartment in the same 5 minute window it tends to be, outside a breakdown.

So my purpose (getting to work on time) has been served very well by my perceptions. You can say it's an illusion as many times as you like, in a trainwreck of logical nonsense, and yet everything worked exactly as one expected. I can think of no system more stable.

Sure, everything at our size is normal, we take it for granted, it is intuitive. And the unimaginably small and the unimaginably large are not normal, can't be taken for granted, and are counter-intuitive.

 

[Mole]

And I'm baffled by how you connected this to MBTI? Would you explain?

Mbti is an intuitive cult, it enable us to avoid our psychological pain by fantasising about our personality and the personality of others, of dogs and cats, even of nations, not to mention celebrities.

Interestingly the world we live in is intuitive, it fits us like a sock, we have successfully adapted to our environment, however the imaginably large and the unimaginably small are counter-intuitive.

So the interesting question arises: how did intuitive creatures discover the counter-intuitive. The answer is that for 200,000 years we lived in spoken, intuitive cultures, than in 1440 we invented the printing press, and as almost none of us learns to read naturally at home, we were compelled by State law to go to special institutions with specially trained staff to learn to read and write, to become literate. This was necessary because literacy is not intuitive rather it is counter-intuitive. So the deep fruit of literacy is a counter-intuitive way of thinking which has been applied to everything from science, to modern economics, to liberal democracy, to modern medicine, and almost everything else.

In short, the intuitive became the content of the counter-intuitive.

And interestingly this process hasn't stopped, and in 1840 we invented the electric telegraph, leading to the telephone, the radio, the television and the computer. In short, the electric media, and notice that unlike literacy we learn to use the radio, the television, and the computer intuitively at home, we are not compelled by State law to go to special institutions with specially trained teachers to learn how to use the radio, the telephone, the television, and the computer. The electric media are showing us an old age way of thinking called intuitive thinking.

The electric media are showing us etribal thinking and giving us identity politics.

Fortunately for us literacy is disengaged while etribes are emotionally engaged. And so literacy now acts as an antidote to etribalism and traditional tribalism, while traditional, spoken tribes are driven into a frenzy of engagement by the electronic media, which we see on our TVs and in our newspapers every day, while we remain calm and carry on.