discovering uncertainty

[AntonioLao]

In the early years of the 1920s, as a sequential protégé of both Bohr and Born, the young physicist-mathematician Werner Karl Heisenberg (1901-1976) was debating whether Bohr’s quantum mechanics with its idea of quantum jumps or Schrödinger’s with its idea of standing matter waves is more realistically plausible and acceptable for the then growing modern post-Newtonian physics community. Both theories agree with the experimental discoveries of the science of spectroscopy by their independent theoretical calculations of the measured Rydberg constant. The first seems to indicate the particle nature of while the second the wave nature of the transport of useful energy and also providing a fundamental structure of matter. Nonetheless, the inseparability of this duality of particle and wave natures of matter and energy culminated in his discovery of the uncertainty principle in 1926.

With the help of Born and Jordan, Heisenberg had already fully developed matrix mechanics by 1925. Matrix mechanics uses the data accumulated from spectroscopic analyses. Organizing them led Heisenberg to the discovery of non-commutativity of products of conjugate variables for both the linear momentum and the wavelength of both particles and waves. In order to fit his matrix mechanics with Bohr’s and Schrödinger’s versions of quantum mechanics, he had to invent a new physical principle of uncertainty. This principle simply states that the product of the uncertainty of position and the uncertainty of linear momentum is never less than Planck’s constant of action, which has the same physical dimensions as angular momentum. Consequently, Einstein had indicated that the product of the uncertainty of energy and the uncertainty of temporal duration is also never less than Planck’s constant of action. This latter idea implies that great amount of energy can be borrowed from the quantum vacuum fluctuations for a very short time interval. However, the greater is the amount borrowed the lesser is the time this borrowed energy must be paid back to the quantum vacuum fluctuations such that their product can never be less than Planck’s constant of action. Borrowing almost infinite amount of energy would then require practically zero time interval for paying back, which is practically the same as not borrowing at all.

[Graybeard]

Or .... borrowing very little will give hyperstability. Our view of reality ??

cool bananas ... greg

[AntonioLao]

Relative to the entire universe, borrowing a lot is the same as borrowing nothing. For example, the average lifespan of a human being of 100 years compared to 10 billions years old universe.

[SteveA]

Or .... borrowing very little will give hyperstability. Our view of reality ??

cool bananas ... greg

A good question is over cause and effect, does a perception of stability arise from external physical configurations or does the stability arise from a common process generating those?

How much "luck" is actually involved? I think some has to be present though most of it could be influencing relatively unimportant aspects of experience.

[SteveA]

... This principle simply states that the product of the uncertainty of position and the uncertainty of linear momentum is never less than Planck’s constant of action, which has the same physical dimensions as angular momentum ...

The basic of time that I've been using for a while is similar to there being an infinite alphabet with fundamentally everything being unique and every moment being similar to witnessing a new element.

That, in itself, has no repetitions and gives a linear/extended view of time as 1 dimensional. Nothing in such a view would appear comprehensible or memorable because no correlations to past experiences would exist (much like a light speed motion, though in other respects it could be considered infinitely fast because there would be no units comparable to physical time).

Logical/deterministic/controllable influences can only exist relative to things that are already known/experienced/remembered/understood etc. So any controlled interactions reference the past and could be seen as a divergence from a purely linear motion of experience and the natural 'first order' interpretation would be a ring/loop/period/wavelength as some event in the future references something in the past and a relationship across time is constructed.

At the opposite extreme, if everything referenced the past and there were no new elements present, you end up with basically a ratsnest that's an unchanging rigid solid. You can unroll all the loops and describe it as a set of wavelengths and phases (much like matter at 0K). Because these loops don't change, they would appear to also be effectively instantly related (the wavefunction in QM).

If there are fundamentally no repetitions though (that's the view that everything preexists - it doesn't appear there's a way to distinguish between a preexisting or creative scenario except that it seems easier to explain the apparent entropy available in time by assuming a preexisting diversity than to derive how something is created from nothing, though there would appear no conventional form of precisely definable mechanism that could allow diverse properties to accumulate in experience without simply leaving it statistical, hence a fundamental statistical feature appears ultimately unavoidable, though it could potentially be reduced to infinitesimal influence over time, but it may also include complex (or even multidimensional) "spectral" features that could make its influence highly chaotic - describing energy as just a 1 dimensional quantity is underspecific).

My main comment here was to look at how experiences, learning, time and measurement combine automatically to imply such qualities existing on some "scale" of experience.

If we assume time presents an unlimited number of unique 'elements' to experience, which accumulate in memory (implicitly this would just be a set as no other dimension/property other than 'time' would be present to these elements, in a sense there would not even be a linear ordering or 'whens' without utilizing some of those elements to describe such an ordering and that could be where memory and a perception of linear time arise - there might be some fundamental form of set construction or embeddings within our perception of time that give it a linear/sequential/ordered form ... that would really be a mind-bender for me to try to understand that though, so let's assume a conventional linear presentation), then each new element would have a specific position in a sequence in time, but not have any specific properties to localize it at any specific position in space, unless we were to assume a correlation between time and spacial positions, which is effectively the assumption of inertia (which could imply a form of matter).

Without additional information, the natural assumption/model would appear to be that every unique moment of experience arises in a new spacial position and there would be nothing to specify a non-constant 'distance' in either time or space between such events, so this implies a constant velocity straight-line/linear motion at maximum velocity (which in some ways could be correlated with a logical causation - what's the velocity of causation? It's really infinite/instantaneous, otherwise there's a detachment as something hasn't (yet) caused something else to occur. So this structure would basically resemble a perfectly rigid solid with instantaneous communication across a linear/1-D time and space made by the assumption of a correlation between time and space).

But let's say that via some inexplicable mechanism (an equivalent of individual free will) we're "racing" along infinitely fast in time, but make an association in the spacial representation with a previous spacial state. Time proceeds forward, but we've now constructed the equivalent of a virtual/physical loop to a past state in time. If all elements on this timeline are fundamentally unique then it would appear to require a replacement of the representation at that point in time with a prior one.

If everything else is unique, then the asymmetries involved would be the specific property re-represented in time as well as the distance or length of time over which this property was re-represented. These two aspects could be seen similar to individual "subjective" experience of the property that recurred, as well as the "objective" wavelength or period (discrete quantity) over which the repetition occured.

Notice that we could translation the wavelength across time (shift this loop along a linear time) and have the same common/physical/"objective" wavelength be perceived as a different subjective/individual property. If we make the assumption that an individual can only reference such properties relative to their own origin, then it would be similar to a number line where we can talk about mathematical operations objectively or in common, but the meanings or qualities of experience that these quantites represent could be quite diverse. Though, as an individual, things need to remain centered at ones own origin (otherwise it's drifting off into abstraction).

Consider this - if no property ever repeated, then there would be nothing specific in experience. You couldn't "point" to something, because an observation and an act of pointing would not remain correlated, nor would anything specific remain to be pointed to in the next instant etc. There would not even be a structure of memory for which specific events could be recalled or related to present events.

Now if some property/event repeated only twice, then we have the beginning of memory - something was witnessed that has already existed. There would be no ability to act coherently relative to this though because that property would never recur again. So there could be memory, but no specific physical properties or rules by which its existence in experience would be interacted with.

When we reach a third presentation, then there's a possibility for prediction - for example, we could predict that some event recurred periodically and witness the different in time between the first two presentations and use that to predict a distance until it recurred again. That appears to have some close correlations to a physical model of observation because it has 3 "dimensions" in terms of a relative origin in time (the initial event) as well as 2 displacements in time (which could be mapped to rotations similar to 2 angular components of a spherical surface in 3 dimensions - physical forces could be mapped to such a vector). There's also an ability to construct both constant velocities or inertia (if the prediction proves true) as well as acceleration (if a recurrance happens but not with a perfectly recurring period, which implies a change in its velocity/wavelength and there are correlations in physics between acceleration and spectral components). There could also be an equivalent of orthogonal electrical and magnetic components if we tried to map a fundamentally linear form of acceleration into a "knowable" periodic/orbital cycle in 3 dimensions (if all motions were linear and parallel in 3 dimensions, then little could be said about what events were "swept past" an observation point next - learned knowledge arises from "closed" structures and implies finite structures).

... well, I'm still trying to piece together better what the dynamics of such a low level view of experience, memory, comprehension, prediction and interactive evolution etc. could appear as but it does appear that much of the general structure of physical experiences could arise naturally from properties of the time, perception and computational processes.

[racecar]

I'm super interested, but super slow...so, please forgive if this does not fit the discussion.... Experiment spots spooky quantum imprinting effect

[SteveA]

(... continued ... sorry! )

One thing I believe is present is that conscious interactions could arise from symmetries of experience in which more than a single association are possible and that a more fundamental version of deterministic time could progress for all asymmetrical aspects until some symmetrical state is reached, at which point some conscious selection occurs and things proceed on again (this could be analogized with reflexes and subconscious properties where much of ones actions are determined by previously acquired/constructed skills - if there was never any conscious interaction with some property, could it realistically be said to exist? I can't imagine how other than as some virtual abstraction ... and from that perspective, everything in ones reality should be something that one has influenced a relationship with, one way or another, directly or indirectly)

I admit there are some problems with trying to work on such levels of abstraction as there are many paradoxes possible and at some point it appears to begin with anything concrete at all, you just have to make an assumption or simply define what it is (otherwise there doesn't appear any way to even begin to attempt to rationalize about anything else), so that appears to still leave the potential for an unknown/unknowable "reality" beyond logic (if such could be called a reality) ... an interesting realization I had though was that such possible unknowns don't actually have any value though beyond future potential and so things appear to work out fine just beginning with as firm a point as possible (it seems ones own existence is about as close to a fundamental foundation for the rest as logic is ever going to be able to do, so there's a great spot to begin with - and then you can try to fix the perspective as 'first person' as possible and then logic seems to work pretty well at describing the rest. Focus on the immediate knowns and trust that whatever does the rest isn't entirely incompetent and to me that appears to be how to solve a ToE for the "universe" (what is the universe really? It could be imagined to be many things ... imagined things can have imagined problems and paradoxes )).

Well, I guess I'm rambling a bit there but last night I spend some time trying to think of a single real problem in the "universe" (the REAL universe - the one where stars are twinkles in the sky ) and couldn't think of a single immediate real problem (yes, there are tons of optional problems, but being in a particularly non-masochist mood I decided to limit it to things which I could consider to be issues that truely needed to be fixed/remedied etc. and couldn't think of one ... I could shoot them all down as being either hypothetical or resolvable if I truly had a desire to change them etc. I recognize that this in many ways was just a temporary solution (what I'd consider to be real problems will likely still come along), but it was still neat to see that, all things considered, there hasn't been a single truly insurmountable problem in 43 years of life and most aspects of it reflect personal desires and habits and it might be life is much like solving a ToE with a success rate approaching 100%, depending upon how one desires to define a failure. Then again, how many possible infinite mathematical series could be constructed? That doesn't appear to be an issue. A better question is over what aspects of such could be determined by a finite set of rules and what dynamic/evolutionary characteristics could arise from that - also, how could such a finite set be extended and what tradeoffs, controllable aspects, asymmetrical requirements etc. would be involved in such a process. In many ways it appears that from a purely informational perspective, the past has no inertia except as a context from which the present is observed or future expectations are constructed, but the expression "past performance is not indicative of future ..." is something rather fundamental in information theory. Bayesian techniques could be quite applicable to experience - one way to get from nothing to something is by making (unjustified) assumptions, and the complexities of continually proving those assumptions wrong could be entertaining. If that's true, then we could potentially move 'uncertainty' into the 'innate category' ... sorry, I couldn't resist tossing out that as another consideration . On the other hand, if such were supposed true, then there would still be a more fundamental form of certainty underlying it, otherwise it would seem we shouldn't be able to demostrate it either true or false (and that statement would not necessarily be true) ... basically, it seems there's no way to base any form of rationality upon anything other than something unquestionably true and having no uncertainty, even if that's a certainty in something possessing free and irrational aspects (which appears to be the only way to tie the finite/logical/deterministic aspects together with the infinite/energetic aspects).

The "true" foundation could have been random/statistical, but rationally it appears the assumption that such was capable of creating a non-random, non-statistical fact (logically integrated), from which another dependent/"subspace" of random/statistical features could similarly give rise to other "things" ad infinitum. You could make map such a structure similar to sentences in which verbs act upon nouns to create verbs acting upon nouns, or similarly wheels upon wheels (though the rotations would not necessarily be linear, but randomly oriented - knowledge of that randomness would arise from repetitions and then become a closed "thing" which would be perceived as a constant angular velocity ... but with "uncertainty" continually remaining (and so you'd witnesses an acceleration to that) etc.

The question of whether it began as a noun or verb appears irrelevant - every type of communication or logic we use appears to require it begin with a noun (even if it's an infinite number of nouns "behind", within or contained by that) and so it's natural to begin the figurative number line for science with 1 ... not just "a" 1, but "The" 1. If the units aren't comparable in a measurement, then we remain stuck with the later problem of trying to compare apples and oranges, so it's natural to have a common physical quanta for the universe (even if it doesn't actually exist, it has to be assumed to exist simply in order to have a manner to begin any form of physical communication. Once again, to me, the experience of time/change appears as evidence that such does exist, even if there's no manner to communicate about it, because it's the mechanism that allows such communications to exist in the first place - there's no proof of time beyond the capability to construct any proofs in the first place, and as an analogy, there's no way to write the letter 'A' in a sentence if someone continually interpretes it as the word A, instead of the letter A).

... yes, it's rather amazing all the twists and turns things can take, but it's also amazing to find some order in the apparent chaos, but it seems to require very close inspection and appears to be embedded in common logical assumptions (even if that logic isn't representative of some "true" reality beyond it or was arbitrarily selected).

P.S. I realize that my comments could be very difficult to follow and I likely would have a hard time going back and trying to follow it myself and my main intent is simply to show some areas that can be fun to explore. People have different ways of interpreting things and analogizing them in various ways ... I believe the fundamentals remain the same though and they're basically translations of the same 'stuff' in various forms.

[SteveA]

I'm super interested, but super slow...so, please forgive if this does not fit the discussion.... Experiment spots spooky quantum imprinting effect

I tried that link but it appears broken.

[AntonioLao]

The human factor cannot be avoided in all scientific endeavors. However, hopefully, these factors will be of little influence of the outcomes of certain discoveries in science, for example, the search for cold fusion as an energy source for future generations.

[SteveA]

I've been taking a bit different look at things for a while now under the assumption that things are potentially ideal, within finite constraints. Of course what ideal could be is subjective, so I can't judge that for anyone else, but if that's the case then consider that ones circumstances would be of characteristics matching ones present state.

The human factor cannot be avoided in all scientific endeavors.

Yes, that appears very significant, though beyond that there's additionally oneself that cannot be avoided in the picture with humanity and science as well.

However, hopefully, these factors will be of little influence of the outcomes of certain discoveries in science,

What would be ideal? Should science progress independent of ones own 'maturity' or should the two be related? At a minimum, synchronization in time appears to be a commonality ... the two follow a singular evolutionary timeline.

for example, the search for cold fusion as an energy source for future generations.

You point out something good here - it's not necessarily cold fusion, but more generally energy that's the issue (and a lot of the conflicts in that arena appear to be more socio-political ones rather than technological ones).

We can generalize upon this even more, it's not even specifically energy that has much direct value, but instead energy is primarily just enabling of other pursuits (for better or worse). You've pointed out some of the valuable uses of energy. Could we realize much of that value or would there be many indirect costs involved? Consider that if the socio-political structure that monopolizes energy technologies remains, cold fusion could simply be declared intellectual property and at least legally denied having widespread use, and the desired effect would not result.

I tend to think the issues with energy are largely symptoms of other problems that tend to degrade the quality of life for many.

Looking at it from the perspective of what might be ideal - would you put the gas to a motor where the timing belt's off and some cylinders aren't firing or would you wait until the engine works like a well oiled machine? If things were ideal and that engine's not quite working right, then I'd assume it could be pleasure working on getting it running smoothly ... then again, my ToE might still need a tune up