I need someone smarter than me to parse this

[MMIX]

Math is a tool.

Yeah, math doesn't like you much either

[P3nT4gR4m]

[minuspace]

Maths incompletes me.

[minuspace]

This is cool; not what I initially intended, but cool nonetheless . Just to be clear, my use of the word "micro/neuronal" was not meant to include quantum mechanics.  It was meant to distinguish scales of magnitude.  The human body(s) as a whole was the macro, the neurons were the micro.

...this does /not/ mean that the probability of any such condition is causally independent of say, the determinite perceptions of a macro (biological) scale organism.

If I understand what you're proposing, I should point out that quantum behavior is not affected by perception.  I think I explained that a while back in some thread or other.  If you really want to know more, I can get into it; but most people don't like it when the universe becomes more interesting and less mysterious.

Challenges, good.  So I feel we could probably address this most directly by way of the double-slit experiment but my brain can't do multiplexing today.  Routing around, I was thinking Heissenberg.  Let's see, the measurement problem?  So, if I determine the quanta's probable position, I have absolutely precluded the possibility of determining it's momentum, and vice versa.  So, the perception does not causally determine the property, but it determines the kind of information about that which I will/not have access to.  In some sense, my perceptions determine the kind of information I can derive from quantum behaviour, not the bahaviour itself.  Perceptions determine possibilities over actualities. 

PS.  Fuck, it does still feel like dividing by zero though, I know that the information is not destroyed, however it feels like that...  Thar goes the multiverse.

All I can say is that "quantum" doesn't mean what most people seem to think it means, at all, and that a conversation about how quantum behavior can or cannot manifest really can't be had unless all participants first understand what quantum behavior IS.

In the interest of getting on the same page, here is a very simple, straightforward introduction to the basic concepts: http://www.livescience.com/33816-quantum-mechanics-explanation.html

Putting this in to read once my brain allows it - hopefully soon.

Imagine you're looking at an elephant and your curious nature wants to know two things -

1) What is inside elephant?

2) How fast does elephant run?

So you grab your trusty chainsaw and set about investigating the pachyderm's interior. Satisfied you have a pretty good handle on what is inside elephant, you turn your attention to question 2...

This seems to imply the information was destroyed, not occluded.  I think of it as all quanta being Janus-like, or two faced.  If you chose to look at one face, you are doing so from a particular POV, say the front, so then of course the other side is hidden.  I otherwise don't complain about not being able to see the back of someone's head when looking at them in the face?

[minuspace]

I think this paragraph in particular from the above-linked article might be helpful:

Also in 1927, Heisenberg made another major contribution to quantum physics. He reasoned that since matter acts as waves, some properties, such as an electron's position and speed, are "complementary," meaning there's a limit (related to Planck's constant) to how well the precision of each property can be known. Under what would come to be called "Heisenberg's uncertainty principle," it was reasoned that the more precisely an electron's position is known, the less precisely its speed can be known, and vice versa. This uncertainty principle applies to everyday-size objects as well, but is not noticeable because the lack of precision is extraordinarily tiny. According to Dave Slaven of Morningside College (Sioux City, IA), if a baseball's speed is known to within a precision of 0.1 mph, the maximum precision to which it is possible to know the ball's position is 0.000000000000000000000000000008 millimeters.

I take it is not that the sum of quanta that amounts to this uncertainty, but rather an effect that occurs as a boundary condition "at the edge" of the ball?

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-4

On the subject of people misunderstanding Quantum. The author is usually good on science, but if there's something off it's better to tell me now than after I've made an ass of myself.

[P3nT4gR4m]

This seems to imply the information was destroyed, not occluded.  I think of it as all quanta being Janus-like, or two faced.  If you chose to look at one face, you are doing so from a particular POV, say the front, so then of course the other side is hidden.  I otherwise don't complain about not being able to see the back of someone's head when looking at them in the face?

No analogy is perfect. I just wanted to post something about chainsawing open elephants, tbh.

[LMNO]

This seems to imply the information was destroyed, not occluded.  I think of it as all quanta being Janus-like, or two faced.  If you chose to look at one face, you are doing so from a particular POV, say the front, so then of course the other side is hidden.  I otherwise don't complain about not being able to see the back of someone's head when looking at them in the face?

No analogy is perfect. I just wanted to post something about chainsawing open elephants, tbh.

Yeah.  Metaphors are fluttering balls of fragrant screaming pus -- they only work for specific situations, in specific contexts, and if you don't understand the underlying analogy, fairly meaningless.

[LMNO]

http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-4

On the subject of people misunderstanding Quantum. The author is usually good on science, but if there's something off it's better to tell me now than after I've made an ass of myself.

That's pretty damn good.

There's a reason my dad's book made every attempt to avoid metaphors.  Honestly, it makes sense when you abandon classical mechanics, and start from the ground up (or, historically, top down, larger --> smaller).

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-4

On the subject of people misunderstanding Quantum. The author is usually good on science, but if there's something off it's better to tell me now than after I've made an ass of myself.

That's pretty damn good.

There's a reason my dad's book made every attempt to avoid metaphors.  Honestly, it makes sense when you abandon classical mechanics, and start from the ground up (or, historically, top down, larger --> smaller).

Yeah, the metaphors generally seem to just fuck everything up.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

To complement the above, the "paradox" mainly stems from the math.  The particle* has position, and has velocity.  That's not arbitrary.  We have to choose which one we measure; the math doesn't allow for both.

This doesn't mean the universe is weird -- it means our tools to understand it aren't always up to the task.

Wait, I didn't think it was a matter of tools (scientific equipment), I thought this was somehow the way information about quanta was fundementally organized.  That is, to the best of our understanding, the maths /always/ conceals one when the other is revealed.  Or, an increase in accuracy for one probability measurement MUST result in decreased accuracy of the other.  I even got a sense that we dont have reason to believe the maths is going to go about changing that - that it is fundamentally not up to task, that the universe /is/ weird.

I suppose this is where we reiterate "less mysterious more interesting"?

Not all tools are equipment. Language is a tool for describing things. Math is a language for describing physical behavior.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-4

On the subject of people misunderstanding Quantum. The author is usually good on science, but if there's something off it's better to tell me now than after I've made an ass of myself.

I liked this a lot.

[minuspace]

http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-4

On the subject of people misunderstanding Quantum. The author is usually good on science, but if there's something off it's better to tell me now than after I've made an ass of myself.

Tried to load it - can't - my equipment won't allow it.  I'm guessing that's kinda quantum

[minuspace]

To complement the above, the "paradox" mainly stems from the math.  The particle* has position, and has velocity.  That's not arbitrary.  We have to choose which one we measure; the math doesn't allow for both.

This doesn't mean the universe is weird -- it means our tools to understand it aren't always up to the task.

Wait, I didn't think it was a matter of tools (scientific equipment), I thought this was somehow the way information about quanta was fundementally organized.  That is, to the best of our understanding, the maths /always/ conceals one when the other is revealed.  Or, an increase in accuracy for one probability measurement MUST result in decreased accuracy of the other.  I even got a sense that we dont have reason to believe the maths is going to go about changing that - that it is fundamentally not up to task, that the universe /is/ weird.

I suppose this is where we reiterate "less mysterious more interesting"?

Not all tools are equipment. Language is a tool for describing things. Math is a language for describing physical behavior.

Not all math is for describing physical behaviour, right?  "Pure" maths is about entirely abstract/ideal concepts.  Still working on the difference between tools and equipment (maybe a similar distinction?)

[minuspace]

This seems to imply the information was destroyed, not occluded.  I think of it as all quanta being Janus-like, or two faced.  If you chose to look at one face, you are doing so from a particular POV, say the front, so then of course the other side is hidden.  I otherwise don't complain about not being able to see the back of someone's head when looking at them in the face?

No analogy is perfect. I just wanted to post something about chainsawing open elephants, tbh.

Yeah.  Metaphors are fluttering balls of fragrant screaming pus -- they only work for specific situations, in specific contexts, and if you don't understand the underlying analogy, fairly meaningless.

The underlying (nice one) analogy I got from it was that bit about the 3 blind monks trying to identify an elephant together.