I Do Not Exist
Offline Quantum mechanics is the little dickens getting in all kinds of trouble. Quantum mechanics say that in the atomic world, particles can be in two places at once. Us being made of atoms must follow quantum mechanics too right? Why don't we see these effects? Well, the thought experiment Schrodinger's cat states the following:
One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter, there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small that perhaps in the course of the hour, one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges, and through a relay releases a hammer that shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts. It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a "blurred model" for representing reality. In itself, it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks.
Or in other words; if radioactive decay were to happen, where an atom would decay and emit a photon into a detector that would place poison into a cat's milk the cat would die right? Well, this photon would be read and not read at the same time, therefor the cat would be alive and dead at the same time. But if we observe the cat as being dead, how can it be alive too? This brings up speculation for parallel universes in which everything happens somewhere. But where would they be? Well, we're not sure they even exist let alone where they are, however there are many theories; anyway onward to my point.
I don't exist, for something to exist it has to be observed; by observing something we create it's existence.
In a funny sense; I'm dead, alive, and everywhere in the universe. I've done everything, made everything, have everything, know everything, been everywhere, and am everyone. But we only see one me, as do I see one you. Right now, as you are reading this message, keep in mind that this message, has been in every moment of time, typed or said by every being in the universe, has been ignored and acknowledged by everyone, and has had every combination of words, letters, and sounds for every possible language in the universe.
I do not exist, nor does this post; neither do you, god, and everything you understand as "the universe."
"I do not think it is necessary to believe that the same God who has given us our senses, reason, and intelligence wished us to abandon their use, giving us by some other means the information that we could gain through them." ~Galileo Galilei
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Offline A crucial thing is that we can nominally calculate probabilities for all these various possible alternative 'universes', and the vast majority of really weird ones turn out to be vanishingly small probabilities. This effect becomes even more pronounced when we consider macro-scale objects like ourselves.
So it is still technically possible for you to suddenly appear under your bed, but the probability would be incredibly small. Still incredibly small, but vastly more probable than all your particles tunnelling in precisely the same way so as to preserve you as you, are all the ways those particles could tunnel in different ways that left a totally scrambled mess. Or a mess spread out all over your room. Or only part of your components tunnelled and the rest stayed where they were. The vastly more likely probability is that the vast majority of particles making up you stay close enough to where they normally are for nothing noticeable to happen.
The point about the cat-in-the-box thought-experiment is that it is carefully designed to make a very large macro-scale effect (the life of the cat) dependent on a quantum level event.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
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Offline The divergence of probability from a point is still contained within infinity. Ergo, you exist within that infinity. For you to simultaneously not exist would be paradox and merely semantics discussing existence.
When discussing the cat, we speak of alive or dead neither of which covers existence of the matter that makes up the cat or is affected by the particle.
If you're going to say that in some universe the matter that makes up the cat does not exist then we have a problem. OR if you're going to say the energy involved with the cat's 'existence' is not consistent with other universes then you have another problem.
All of this puts spacetime as seemingly an ignored factor bendable by whim rather than co-dependent with massenergy.
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Offline Actually I think the famous cat example is deeply flawed.
One, it ignores the fact that the cat itself is really an observing entity, so it 'knows' what its state is.
Two, and related to the above, is that once the quantum event interacts with the macro world to kill or not kill the cat, it has already collapsed, so the conventional assessment of the situation is still applicable: the cat IS in a definite state, we simply don't know until we look.
Just like the classic two-slit interference experiment: once you install a means to determine which slit a photon went thru, you have caused it to interact with the macro world, and collapse the wave-function, so the interference ceases.
There are real mysteries and counter-intuitive things in QM, but these two classic examples, or at least many discussion about them, really do miss the point.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
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Offline Actually I think the famous cat example is deeply flawed.
One, it ignores the fact that the cat itself is really an observing entity, so it 'knows' what its state is.
Two, and related to the above, is that once the quantum event interacts with the macro world to kill or not kill the cat, it has already collapsed, so the conventional assessment of the situation is still applicable: the cat IS in a definite state, we simply don't know until we look.
Just like the classic two-slit interference experiment: once you install a means to determine which slit a photon went thru, you have caused it to interact with the macro world, and collapse the wave-function, so the interference ceases.
There are real mysteries and counter-intuitive things in QM, but these two classic examples, or at least many discussion about them, really do miss the point.
THAT!
I've always had problems with the cat, but I couldn't figure out how to put it in words.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
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Offline There is also another way of dealing with the infinite branching multiple realities thing.
A fundamental part of Quantum Theory defines that there is a finite amount of information in a given volume of space-time.
This suggests, at least to me, that there is no way all those possibilities actually exist simultaneously. There could be some threshhold level of probability - scenarios falling below that level simply get absorbed into the basic 'noise level'.
Haven't worked out how how to handle precisely balanced options, maybe eventually one becomes more likely and simply eventually pushes the other line out of wave-function space...
There is a great book around that inspired a lot of my thinking on this:
Schrodinger's Rabbits:
The Many Worlds of Quantum
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11002
I read while they had it on line.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
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Offline I'll have to keep an eye out for it.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
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Fair enough. Now prove that I exist....
=
It can't be done. I can't prove anyone exists, I can only create your existence, and vice versa.
Quantum effects only take place at the sub-atomic level. Which is why we can quantum tunnel electrons, but not my bed.
I'm not going to wake up under my bed because I quantum tunneled through it. An electron however can tunnel relativly easily, in fact some electronics rely on this.
I don't exist? Yeah, you know who else existed? Hitler.
This isn't about quantum tunneling.
Er... What?
"I do not think it is necessary to believe that the same God who has given us our senses, reason, and intelligence wished us to abandon their use, giving us by some other means the information that we could gain through them." ~Galileo Galilei