Laws of physics vary throughout Universe?

[Faust]

I'm not sure how these follow, to be honest. Anything outside our Hubble volume is by definition unobservable (the light from outside it would take longer than the age of the universe to reach us) so I don't know how they're drawing conclusions about that.

Exactly.

The wording of that is wrong, The laws do remain consistent across the universe.
However certain constants used in those equations do of course vary. Even on this planet it is possible to observe that the acceleration due to gravity is different from place to place. On average it is 9.1 but the further from the earth you get the weaker it becomes.

There is also the obvious example of time dilation and two different bodies being governed by a different progression of time depending on their speed, different time constants same laws.

It stands to reason that the electromagnetic fields constants impact across the universe could vary depending on the large scale conditions of each area it acts upon.

Not to mention that amplitude configurations and quantum physics are inherently local.

Which amplitude configurations, or is that a classification that I haven't come across?

[Kai]

I'm not sure how these follow, to be honest. Anything outside our Hubble volume is by definition unobservable (the light from outside it would take longer than the age of the universe to reach us) so I don't know how they're drawing conclusions about that.

Exactly.

The wording of that is wrong, The laws do remain consistent across the universe.
However certain constants used in those equations do of course vary. Even on this planet it is possible to observe that the acceleration due to gravity is different from place to place. On average it is 9.1 but the further from the earth you get the weaker it becomes.

There is also the obvious example of time dilation and two different bodies being governed by a different progression of time depending on their speed, different time constants same laws.

It stands to reason that the electromagnetic fields constants impact across the universe could vary depending on the large scale conditions of each area it acts upon.

Not to mention that amplitude configurations and quantum physics are inherently local.

Which amplitude configurations, or is that a classification that I haven't come across?

Amplitude configurations in general. For example, the amplitude configuration of earth has little or no interaction with anything outside of the stratosphere in a cohered quantum manner. Sure, we receive ion and photon flow from the sun but those amplitudes are decohered from the source by great distance.

[Faust]

Ok, for me amplitude doesn't mean an awful lot without units on it, Amplitude is just one small part of wave characteristics (peak to peak).
I have no idea what the amplitude configuration of the earth is.

[Kai]

Ok, for me amplitude doesn't mean an awful lot without units on it, Amplitude is just one small part of wave characteristics (peak to peak).
I have no idea what the amplitude configuration of the earth is.

I don't use words like wave/particle characteristics to describe quanta. It's entirely misleading. So I use amplitude because it holds no stupid connotations for me, because if I use the word particles I'm going to imagine little billiard balls bouncing around, and if I think about waves I'm going to imagine something that it is not as well. Amplitude works fine for a blob distributed in space that smears and flows and forms checkerboard patterns with other amplitudes in configuration. Not this "virtual photon" crap that I got taught back in undergrad. Not "/this/ electron here, /that/ electron there". Not "Schrodinger's cat is dead and alive."

tl;dr: quantum mechanics education is teh stupid. Sorry about that, spending too much time on Less Wrong.

[Faust]

Ok, for me amplitude doesn't mean an awful lot without units on it, Amplitude is just one small part of wave characteristics (peak to peak).
I have no idea what the amplitude configuration of the earth is.

I don't use words like wave/particle characteristics to describe quanta. It's entirely misleading. So I use amplitude because it holds no stupid connotations for me, because if I use the word particles I'm going to imagine little billiard balls bouncing around, and if I think about waves I'm going to imagine something that it is not as well. Amplitude works fine for a blob distributed in space that smears and flows and forms checkerboard patterns with other amplitudes in configuration. Not this "virtual photon" crap that I got taught back in undergrad. Not "/this/ electron here, /that/ electron there". Not "Schrodinger's cat is dead and alive."

tl;dr: quantum mechanics education is teh stupid. Sorry about that, spending too much time on Less Wrong.

Ehm, while I agree the ways of looking at stuff through qm are very much in a cumbersome infancy, the word amplitude does have a strong definition and it doesn't suit what you are describing. Amplitude is merely one characteristic of what's going on.
Its just not a good word for it, its saying a painting is nothing more then its dominant colour, if you catch my drift.

[Doktor Howl]

This is fucking BULLSHIT.

God is cheating again, like with that tunneling bullshit.   

[Kai]

Ok, for me amplitude doesn't mean an awful lot without units on it, Amplitude is just one small part of wave characteristics (peak to peak).
I have no idea what the amplitude configuration of the earth is.

I don't use words like wave/particle characteristics to describe quanta. It's entirely misleading. So I use amplitude because it holds no stupid connotations for me, because if I use the word particles I'm going to imagine little billiard balls bouncing around, and if I think about waves I'm going to imagine something that it is not as well. Amplitude works fine for a blob distributed in space that smears and flows and forms checkerboard patterns with other amplitudes in configuration. Not this "virtual photon" crap that I got taught back in undergrad. Not "/this/ electron here, /that/ electron there". Not "Schrodinger's cat is dead and alive."

tl;dr: quantum mechanics education is teh stupid. Sorry about that, spending too much time on Less Wrong.

Ehm, while I agree the ways of looking at stuff through qm are very much in a cumbersome infancy, the word amplitude does have a strong definition and it doesn't suit what you are describing. Amplitude is merely one characteristic of what's going on.
Its just not a good word for it, its saying a painting is nothing more then its dominant colour, if you catch my drift.

I'd like it if you please told Eliezer Yudowsky he is full of shit, then.

ETA: ITT, I admit my idiocy of Guessing the Teacher's Password this whole time, and that I don't have a clue what I am really talking about.

[Faust]

If he uses an alternative method of looking at QM I'd love to have a look at his stuff but I strongly doubt he would use amplitude configurations as an overall descriptor for what's going on.

[Kai]

If he uses an alternative method of looking at QM I'd love to have a look at his stuff but I strongly doubt he would use amplitude configurations as an overall descriptor for what's going on.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/r5/the_quantum_physics_sequence/

[Cain]

It's worth noting Yudowsky is an autodictat, so he may be using words without realizing their connotations within academic circles.

[Faust]

If he uses an alternative method of looking at QM I'd love to have a look at his stuff but I strongly doubt he would use amplitude configurations as an overall descriptor for what's going on.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/r5/the_quantum_physics_sequence/

Ah, that's what I thought, Its not an overall descriptor, I'd say you were just confused with his terminology (no offence). Its not amplitude configurations, its a mathematical descriptor model of what's going on.
Amplitude is only a part of that, and in this case he IS still using the virtual photon model, that maths is the exact same. The difference comes in to what he is classing as the amplitude is to describe if the photon is complex (square of minus one) or regular, this is the classic amplitude format peak to peak.
He's got a really cool way of looking at it. I'm going to have to poke around some more of his articles.

[Cain]

Most interesting to me is that Yudowsky is a proponent of the Everett-Wheeler Many Worlds hypothesis.  I'd like to see how he establishes his belief in that.

[Cramulus]

What this suggests is pretty cool, IMO.

in psych, the Fundamental Attribution Error is where you form an impression of somebody based on a very limited interaction with them. If you meet somebody, and he's being a jerk that day, you're going to think of that person as a jerk, even if he's nice on the other 6 days of the week. In short, we tend to overstate the importance of the knowledge we have.

I've always wondered if we make the same kind of mistakes in physics. We're only observing a very small sliver of the universe, and it's possible a lot of the conclusions we've drawn are based on relatively localized phenomena.


just goes to show... the more you know ... the more you know you don't know. 

[Kai]

Most interesting to me is that Yudowsky is a proponent of the Everett-Wheeler Many Worlds hypothesis.  I'd like to see how he establishes his belief in that.

He establishes it by default, as the collapse postulate violates nearly every level of physics out there, and many worlds is implicit in decoherence.

But then, I'm probably just spitting out teacher's passwords again.

If he uses an alternative method of looking at QM I'd love to have a look at his stuff but I strongly doubt he would use amplitude configurations as an overall descriptor for what's going on.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/r5/the_quantum_physics_sequence/

Ah, that's what I thought, Its not an overall descriptor, I'd say you were just confused with his terminology (no offence). Its not amplitude configurations, its a mathematical descriptor model of what's going on.
Amplitude is only a part of that, and in this case he IS still using the virtual photon model, that maths is the exact same. The difference comes in to what he is classing as the amplitude is to describe if the photon is complex (square of minus one) or regular, this is the classic amplitude format peak to peak.
He's got a really cool way of looking at it. I'm going to have to poke around some more of his articles.

Since I'm not a physicist and it would take me years to learn and understand the math, I tried to take from it the consequences, and to visualize what's going on. Because even if I don't know the math I can still visualize a conceptual explanation. If it makes the universe less mysterious than the "billiard balls" I'd been taught previously, then I like it. But I guess I don't really understand it.

[Cain]

Well I need to read the rest of his sequence first, and re-read Beneath Reality and a couple of other books on Quantum Mechanics as well, because my current understand is hovering somewhere above the average person in the street, but well below anyone with advanced mathematical skills.