Fetch What Is Real : The Unfinished Quest For The Meaning Of Quantum Physics Depicted By Adam Becker Distributed As Publication
his book Superintelligence, philosopher Nick Bostrom tells a story about an evolutionary algorithm tasked with designing an efficient oscillator, After running through many generations, it eventually presented a “solution” with a strange absence: it had no power source!
At first, the engineers declared the design a failure.
Upon closer examination, however, they discovered the algorithm had reconfigured its circuit board into a makeshift radio receiver to pick up oscillating signals from nearby lab computers.
The circuit then amplified this signal to produce the desired oscillation pattern, It was a solution that certainly worked but only at that exact location in those exact circumstances,
This is an interesting story because it reveals an opaqueness thats already becoming a major issue in the type of black box machine learning thats become popular recently.
Because neural network deep learning or genetic algorithms arent rulebased like the old expert systems were, their solutions are often beyond the understanding of those who created them.
Which is a little worrying, Sure, its no big deal that AlphaGo is much better at Go than any of its designers Go is just a game but what about future blackbox AIs that design governments or medicines or new laws of physics
In a way, that last one is already true.
If youre not familiar with it already, go read the wikipedia article on Schrodingers Equation, Its very clear its a mathematical trick that is quantitatively accurate, but provides almost no qualitative explanation, Indeed, the article admits as much: The Schrödinger equation provides a way to calculate the wave function of a system and how it changes dynamically in time.
However, the Schrödinger equation does not directly say what, exactly, the wave function is, What a remarkable state of affairs that is! We dont even know what it is were calculating the values of! Itd be like if I handed you a phone and asked, “How many grozoiacs is this” You did some math and found the phone was.
grozoiacs. On the basis of that calculation, we knew the phone requiredwatts of power, But wtf is a grozoiac
And of course, theres the strange relationship between the equation and waveform collapse caused by a measurement or an observation.
No one actually seems to know what exactly those words mean either, As John Bell asked, “Was the wave function waiting to collapse for thousands of millions of years until a singlecelled living creature appeared Or did it have to wait a little longer for some highly qualified measurer with a PhD”
Thats what I mean about physics already being opaque.
In a way, quantum mechanics is like a blackbox AI system that serves up accurate calculations but whose inner workings remain mysterious,
Thats the core idea explored in What is Real: this weird tension between how incredibly accurate and useful Quantum Mechanics is and how it nevertheless doesnt seem to help us understand anything.
Now, theres two sides to this book, On one hand, its a tome of science history, I have nothing but good to say about this aspect, Its exhaustively researched and gives a real sense of being in the room with physics greats like Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein, While I found myself a little disillusioned to see these scientific luminaries engage in petty tribalism and stubborn closemindedness fool that I am, I expected better, I nevertheless thoroughly enjoyed getting to know these legends more as humans than as mere names attached to equations.
And I really do think learning WHERE and HOW equations came about actually assists in understanding them,
For example, when I first learned Schrodingers Equation, it felt so different than previous math theories and equations, Honestly, for the longest time, I thought I just didnt get it, I could do the math, but I didnt know what it meant or how it worked, It felt like magic. Well, after reading this book, its clear the very people who created it, didnt get it either, Knowing that, I see I was pondering the equation in the wrong way, I was trying to decipher a hidden meaning that I thought already existed, when my task should have been more about creating a hidden meaning that has not yet been found.
Now I do have some issues with this book, Because, in addition to being a science history, there is a second side: an argument against the Copenhagen Interpretation and its underlying philosophy of logical positivism.
While Im sympathetic to that aim, I was less impressed by how the author went about it,
As a quick summary, the Copenhagen Interpretation essentially draws a sharp line between the quantum world if it even admits that such a thing exists and the classical world the macroscopic world that we inhabit.
In this interpretation, quantum systems dont really have definite, deterministic states UNTIL they are observed or measured,
As I briefly mentioned above, theres quite a few problems with this interpretation, which is why Einstein himself disliked it, What constitutes a measurement or observation And is there really such a distinction between the quantum world and the classical world All objects a cup, you, me, a measuring device are themselves made up of quantum particles.
Shouldnt that make them subject to the rules of quantum mechanics too
What is Real explores these problems in great depth and vivacity, and Im completely on board in seeing the Copenhagen Interpretation as a flawed or incomplete interpretation that needs to be evolved.
However, as I said, I was less impressed with how the author went about making this argument, In particular, he seems to fall into two very common philosophy traps:
Major Flaw: Absolutism
Extreme skepticism is a hallmark of philosophy.
Rene Descartes famous Cogito Ergo Sum I think, therefore I am represents the only absolutely true statement he thought he could say, at least to begin with.
Because hes thinking, he knows he exists in some form, But everything else Uncertain. Every sense experience he has might be the result of a deception by some demon, This type of radical skepticism is not only not rare in philosophy, Id say its the norm, To a great many philosophers and thinkers including, apparently, the writer of this book, unless you can beabsolutely certain about something, then you should treat it with absolute skepticism.
This is what I call Absolutism, and I find it an entirely ludicrous stance to take, illsuited to practicing useful philosophy or thought,
Consider this passage from the book, which purports to counter the falsification/verification ideas of Karl Popper and logical positivism that is, that any good scientific theory should be able to be proven wrong:
Looking out your window and saying, “Its raining outside” would be foolish because it assumes that your view through the windows glass gives you an accurate picture of the outside world, and that your eyes are functioning properly, and that the dimmed light and falling droplets are in fact caused by a rain cloud and not an alien spaceship blotting out the Sun and dropping some exotic substance onto your front lawn.
Is this a reasonable stance to take
Sure, its possible that my window has suddenly become a TV screen or that despite there never being an alien spaceship before there suddenly is one now, but if quantum mechanics has given us any one lesson to be applied to normal life, its that the question shouldnt be “is it possible” but rather “is it probable”
Indeed, the great skeptic David Hume himself acknowledged the silliness of extreme skepticism when he invoked his problem of induction: just because something happened in the past doesnt mean it will continue to happen in the future.
Because of this, it is actually impossible to state anything withcertainty, Therefore, extreme skepticism is simply not a valid approach to philosophy or science,
In the final chapter, the author laments a sadness I share the disrespect modern scientists such as Stephen Hawking have for philosophy.
But is it any wonder they do so, when philosophers seriously suggest that we ought to be skeptical that the raindrops we see and feel are even real
Major Flaw: Onesided Pragmatism
This is a rhetorical fallacy I witness often.
Its a form of moving the goalposts, in which a person makes an argument rooted in pragmatism i, e. that were interested in an ideas practical effects upon ourselves and the world rather than any inherent truth or reality without considering the pragmatic arguments of the other side.
Its kinda like if my opponent and I are playing a game of tennis, but right in the middle of it, I run off the court and onto a basketball court and slam dunk the ball and say, “Booya, I just won.
” Its like well that wasnt the game we were even playing
Let me give an example, Suppose Im arguing about the truth claims of religion, Lets say, Christianity. I say something like, Well we have all these dinosaur fossils, Why arent dinosaurs mentioned in Genesis Did God just accidentally leave that whole epoch out, in His account of the creation of Earth If He did, or if we must pretend He didnt by taking a metaphorical approach, doesnt that constitute a serious flaw in the Bible
To which a Christian might respond, Well, you know what Sure theres some mysteries, but it doesnt matter.
I dont want to live in a universe in which there isnt a God, where its all just chaos, Believing in God gives me purpose in life, It makes me feel good,
This is what I mean about onesided pragmatism, To avoid the issue, the Christian switched to a pragmatic argument that would be, of course, easily countered by an opposing pragmatic argument: Do you really want to live in a universe created and managed by a God who failed the relatively simple task of writing an accurate book
Well the author of What Is Real does this very thing.
He makes various pragmatic arguments about opposing the Copenhagen interpretation amp logical positivism not necessarily because they are more true but because diversity of perspective has pragmatically positive outcomes.
Which I dont disagree with, But nowhere does the author then discuss the pragmatic positives of the Copenhagen Interpretation, logical positivism, and the shut up and calculate approach to doing physics: they grant peace to the pursuit of science.
I sometimes say that one of the big differences between science and almost everything else is that science offers a means of resolving a dispute without resorting to violence.
If I say the universe was created by the flying spaghetti monster and you say the universe was created by Yahweh, how can we resolve this dispute Or if I say that Republicans are ruining the US and you say that Democrats are ruining it, is there any mathematical process or conclusive evidence we can offer to prove our side correct Well, no.
Both of those situations are rooted in natural language, which is rife with ambiguity, As such, there really is no way to resolve our dispute, except by some form of violence,
But that isnt the case with science at least science when restricted by a logical positivist or instrumentalist perspective, If I claim the Manyworlds Interpretation is correct and you claim the Bohm pilotwave theory is correct, we actually do have a nonviolent means of resolving our dispute.
We go to the math and say, Which one of these makes accurate predictions If they are both equally accurate, then functionally speaking there is no difference.
Were both correct, were both accurate, until such time as the experimentally testable predictions of our theories diverge,
But again, thats only within a logical positivist perspective, A scientific realist perspective which the author advocates and which holds that science should NOT merely be limited to math and experimental verification has a weakness in this regard.
From a realists perspective, there IS a difference between the pilotwave theory and manyworlds interpretation, and only one of us can be correct, But since Ive not restricted my perspective to what can be mathematically, experimentally verifiable, then what means do we have to resolve our dispute
Well, none.
Now of course Im not suggesting that realist scientists with competing theories are running around bashing each other with canes or maces, as politicians and zealots are wont to do.
But there is something to be said about nurturing a perspective that says we should do our best to restrict our view of the world only to what we can verify and for everything else, let us admit our ignorance.
To conclude, I quite liked this book, Im a firm believer that living in the universe without understanding physics or math is like living in France without being able to speak French.
Sure you can get along just fine but what beauty, what clarity, what meaning will you be missing In that respect, I consider this book flaws and all nothing less than a primer for
the Universe, at least as we currently understand it.
If youre at all sympathetic to that perspective, then youll probably enjoy What is Real too,
Note: Though I use the word 'math' a lot in my review, this book doesn't actually contain any and you don't need any to enjoy or understand it.