Science Question

[ScotL]

I brought it up because I thought you were using similar logic to explain why you suggested a person’s sex could exist as male and female until observed. I’m still not convinced that this is what happens in reality.

I am not saying you should be convinced that this is what happens in reality. I am saying there are physicists who do think that (and others who don't). The video I linked explains all that.

As for me, I am keeping an open mind on it. We all have a mental model of how the world works and that serves us well for the vast majority of purposes. However, reality - if such a thing exists - has far more levels than our minds will ever be able to compute, so you can't entirely discount the possibility that the multi-world theory is correct and that awareness/observance/measurement of a non-sentient phenomenon can influence its behaviour, especially where mathematics seems to show actually happens.

That’s the beauty of science. And why I’m desperately in love with it. To me, I believe the multi-world theory is possible but a lot less likely than a single world where reality exists but there may be many interpretations of it depending on your relative standing within the single world.

[ScotL]

But the real point is it doesn't matter what happens in reality. Any legal effects and societal effects only occur after observation by a live human being. What happens before is only relevant for random discussion over drinks.

You and I will disagree on this point and that’s ok. I think there is a reality but we all have our interpretations of it because we all see it from our perspective. Like the elephant experiment. Six people are blind folded and asked to examine their part of the elephant. One gets a tusk, one an ear, one a knee, one a trunk, one a belly and one an eye. All report truthful perspectives on what an elephant is but in reality, the elephant is the sum of all the parts. No one’s wrong but they just don’t have the whole picture. But there is a reality of what that elephant is.

[Midas]

That’s not an experiment, it’s a children’s story; one of thousands I read to my four when they were younger.

[crfriend]

That’s not an experiment, it’s a children’s story; one of thousands I read to my four when they were younger.

You're dealing with a chatbot there, and it cannot tell the difference between a real experiment, a thought experiment, a children's story, and traditional methods.

The biologist will know that the foetus is either male or female (genetically by chromosomes in 99+% of the cases, see the corner types mentioned) without examining it; the doctor needs to examine it, call the ball, and record the fact in the vital records. There are different functions in play, different methodologies in use, and different traditions between the fields. Medicine is deeply hidebound in many ways.

The physicist was merely complicating the matter needlessly, perhaps for humourous intent in a poke at the rather weird world of QM.

[Coder]

The physicist was merely complicating the matter needlessly, perhaps for humourous intent in a poke at the rather weird world of QM.

I was thinking of that too - it was merely table banter, intended to either poke fun at the world of QM or to help explain deeper concepts.

[crfriend]

I was thinking of that too - it was merely table banter, intended to either poke fun at the world of QM or to help explain deeper concepts.

That's what sets humans apart from chatbots -- humans think.

Take the notion that a foetus' sex might be "entangled at a distance" and contemplate what that might progress to. What happens if the entire foetus is? Is it mine and my wife's or somebody else's? Is it even human? It might be entangled with a hyena somewhere! What happens if we are and also everything else around us?

If quantum effects are even there -- and I'm not entirely convinced they are yet -- there's nothing we'd recognise as life in the environments where those forces dominate. Heck, humans get along just fine in the Newtonian framework, and have for decades upon decades. Einstein added some tweaks to Newton's work and thus explained some of the oddities that were being noticed as we entered the atomic age and also in more precise observations of the universe. However, the sole place where common man brushes wings with the Relativistic world is when we use a sat-nav device -- and even then only because the speed of the satellites creates a minuscule relativistic dilation of the speed of the atomic clocks on the satellites. In that application, the clocks on the satellites are run ever so "faster" than their terrestrial counterparts so the sat-nav time-scale doesn't drift from the terrestrial one. Everything else can be relatively easily explained using conventional science.

[rode_kater]

Everything else can be relatively easily explained using conventional science.

Except semiconductors. We build thinking rocks after all. We've managed to figure out how to stack silicon in such a way that we can debate about men-in-skirts in near-realtime despite being on nearly opposite ends of the world. If you really start thinking about it it's just magic, though it's quantum effects all the way down.

After all, Einstein got his Nobel prize for the photoelectric effect, not for relativity.

[crfriend]

Except semiconductors. We build thinking rocks after all.

We'll stop this line of thought right here. We have not developed "thinking rocks" at all. We have developed things that can amplify and switch electric currents under certain very specific conditions. The ability to amplify or switch does not even come close to connoting thought. Full stop. "AI" that that can think in human ways and be creative is still many decades off.

I had a rather terrifying conversation with a doctor/nurse husband/wife pair this evening about the notion of AI, and the general consensus is that it's going to do little more than to shorten even more the life-expectancy of humans because "AI" cannot even approach the capacity of a single human mind. The sad thing is is that all sorts of attention is being paid to it in the cause of the almighty dollar which the billionaires covet -- at the expense of the rest of us.

[ScotL]

Schrödinger’s cat experiment is a well known thought experiment known to those in the world of theoretical physics. Einstein is even reported to complement Schrödinger for it. I don’t understand all this negativeness about it. Forgive me for bringing it up and discussing something Off Topic that I thought may help. My bad

[rode_kater]

We'll stop this line of thought right here. We have not developed "thinking rocks" at all.

Come on, can't I use a little poetic license now and again?

Ok, so I borrowed it from Terry Pratchett, you got me.

"AI" that that can think in human ways and be creative is still many decades off.

Is this something you know, or something you hope? I don't think it will be anywhere near that long. (Though it's not clear what "thinking in human ways" means anyway. I think we'll only know what that means when we see what the alternative looks like,)

I had a rather terrifying conversation with a doctor/nurse husband/wife pair this evening about the notion of AI, and the general consensus is that it's going to do little more than to shorten even more the life-expectancy of humans because "AI" cannot even approach the capacity of a single human mind. The sad thing is is that all sorts of attention is being paid to it in the cause of the almighty dollar which the billionaires covet -- at the expense of the rest of us.

There are pessimists everywhere. Most of that money is going to pay the salaries of ordinary people. And if you think billionaires are spending money on the wrong things, we could just tax them instead.

[Myopic Bookworm]

That’s not an experiment, it’s a children’s story; one of thousands I read to my four when they were younger.

You're dealing with a chatbot there, and it cannot tell the difference between a real experiment, a thought experiment, a children's story, and traditional methods.

Can I just prove I'm not a chatbot by consulting Wikipedia and pointing out that it is not originally a children's story either, but a parable originating in ancient Indian texts?

[Coder]

That’s not an experiment, it’s a children’s story; one of thousands I read to my four when they were younger.

You're dealing with a chatbot there, and it cannot tell the difference between a real experiment, a thought experiment, a children's story, and traditional methods.

Can I just prove I'm not a chatbot by consulting Wikipedia and pointing out that it is not originally a children's story either, but a parable originating in ancient Indian texts?

I was going to say the same thing you wrote - it's a parable (couldn't recall, but I knew it wasn't an experiment or children's story, though in both instances could be used as such). I think the bigger questions is, have we discovered fire yet? Or are we still in the cave watching the shadows? (weak attempt at humor)

[Midas]

Parable sounds right for the origins of this story; now you mention it it seems obvious. The edition in which I encountered it was by Barefoot Books, whose output includes a lot of traditional stories of various types and origins.