I'll be the first to admit that we ultimately don't know what's going on exactly with quantum mechanics, and my personal guess... is that even quantum mechanics is probably an emergent theory, maybe an approximation of... something deeper. Maybe we can get it out of GU somehow, but... I also would guess... the opposite of Roger Penrose... that gravity doesn't really have much to do with this. I think you can... be in a spaceship far away... from any... important gravitating objects and do your little quantum experiments with a Schrödinger-like apparatus and you would get all the same fascinating things happening. So... ignoring gravity... ignoring relativistic effects altogether, you still have this thing people love fighting about. Does the wave function collapse or not, and that's why I'm so interested in this kind of discussion...
Max TegmarkRelated topics
altogether apparatus approximation collapse discussion emergent far fighting function gravity guess happening ignoring kind love maybe mechanics opposite people personal quantum something theory thing think wave spaceship things roger effectsRelated quotes
Every development of truths which relate to human nature, and more especially its active manifestations, is attended with a wish to see worked out in practice what theory has shown us to be just and good. To man, whose mind is seldom satisfied with the calmly beneficent influence of abstract ideas, this desire is perfectly natural, and it increases in liveliness with the spirit of benevolent sympathy in social happiness and well-being. But, however natural in itself, and however noble in its origin, this desire has not unfrequently led to hurtful consequences,-nay, often to greater evils than the colder indifference, or (as from the very opposite cause the same effect may follow) the glowing enthusiasm, which, comparatively heedless of reality, delights only in the pure beauty of ideas.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
For what advantage is it, that the world enjoys profound peace, if thou art at war with thyself? This then is the peace we should keep. If we have it, nothing from without will be able to harm us. And to this end the public peace contributes no little: whence it is said, ‘That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life.' But if any one is disturbed when there is quiet, he is a miserable creature. Seest thou that He speaks of this peace which I call the third (inner, ed.) kind? Therefore when he has said, ‘that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life,' he does not stop there, but adds ‘in all godliness and honesty.' But we cannot live in godliness and honesty, unless that peace be established. For when curious reasonings disturb our faith, what peace is there? or when spirits of uncleanness, what peace is there?
John Chrysostom
The Feraliminal Lycanthropizer is a low frequency thanato-auric wave generator. Known for its use by the Nazis and for its animalizing effects on human subjects tested within measurable vibratory proximity, the machine electrically generates two subsonic sinewaves-one 3hz, the other 9hz. Together, these two frequencies (one acting as carrier, the other as program) generate a lower third,.56hz. In addition to these sinewave generators, the machine contains four tape loops of unduplicable lengths, each containing textual material. Two of these loops operate below the threshold of decipherability (one forward, the other backward), and two operate far beyond the opposite threshold (also one forward, the other backward). The effect of the subsonic sinewaves on the sound of these human voice recordings is one of organic ululation.
David Woodard
Replacing particles by strings is a naive-sounding step, from which many other things follow. In fact, replacing Feynman graphs by Riemann surfaces has numerous consequences: 1. It eliminates the infinities from the theory. ...2. It greatly reduces the number of possible theories. ...3. It gives the first hint that string theory will change our notions of spacetime. Just as in QCD, so also in gravity, many of the interesting questions cannot be answered in perturbation theory. In string theory, to understand the nature of the Big Bang, or the quantum fate of a black hole, or the nature of the vacuum state that determines the properties of the elementary particles, requires information beyond perturbation theory... Perturbation theory is not everything. It is just the way the [string] theory was discovered.
Edward Witten
There is today almost no scientific theory which was held when, say, the Industrial Revolution began about 1760. Most often today's theories flatly contradict those of 1760; many contradict those of 1900. In cosmology, in quantum mechanics, in genetics, in the social sciences, who now holds the beliefs that seemed firm sixty years ago? Yet the society of scientists has survived these changes without a revolution, and honors the men whose beliefs it no longer shares. No one has recanted abjectly at a trial before his colleagues. The whole structure of science has been changed and no one has been either disgraced or deposed. Through all the changes of science, the society of scientists is flexible and single-minded together, and evolves and rights itself. In the language of science, it is a stable society.
Jacob Bronowski
