Whilst I thought I understand the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, I'm not sure how it applies to whale populations, but clearly the Japanese are trying to prove that it does apply. In order to know the size and rate of increase of the whale population you must kill off the pregnant females. Or something. Presumably somewhere its possible to find out the scientific theory they're trying to prove by their research whaling, possibly some preliminary results too?

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:
>> ^Payback:
Still think this cat should be named Heisenberg.

Or Schrodinger .


I thought about that too, but with Schrodinger, when he's out of sight, you don't know if he's alive or dead, which would make me sad.

>> ^Payback:
Still think this cat should be named Heisenberg.


Or Schrodinger .

Still think this cat should be named Heisenberg.

At dg: First of all let me say this conversation has been fun. Few people obviously well versed in these issues are willing to engage in this dialogue. I haven't given you your due as someone willing to engage in respectful debate.


The universe does not really have rules, it has limits and structures, no enforcer is needed, because nobody can break rules which can not be broken.

I don't see, at this point, how what you posit is not simply a poetic view of physics. What is the difference between consciousness and existence? Is consciousness simply the attribute of being beholden to physics?

I'm not sure there is a difference between consciousness and existence. And you may be right, it might just be a poetic view of physics. My contention is this, physics, science, and philosophy all exist in order to explain in some precisely predictable manner the nature and causation of our common experience. This includes all aspects of that experience. Thus far it has done a remarkable job at explaining certain aspects of it, but it has come short of explaining experience itself. As I keep saying to you, there is nothing to suggest we should experience anything at all, just as you do not suspect your car engine experiences your depression of the pedals. To me, this begs for inquiry.


Heisenberg makes this entirely unrelateable to cuddling up to a fire, which is the main reason I consider this thesis incoherent.

I'm unclear on what you mean here.


I generate a coherent narrative, but you seem to be suggesting something else entirely. Something which has no context or meaning. Something which we share which is not a narrative, but is an experience in the absence of a narrative. And though it is common in my culture to claim otherwise, I don't see how this resembles anything I have.

What is it that "hears" the narrative? Do you understand the distinction? Why doesn't the narrative simply update synaptic weights, or activate ion channels, or whatever is physically happening, why doesn't that just happen without being experienced? To understand the distinction you'd probably have to refer to how you imagine internal states being recorded, presumably (under your presumptions) without experience. For instance, these words are internally represented by bits being set low and high in registers throughout my computer, but you don't seem to suggest that anything is "experiencing" those registers getting set. It just happens, the way physics always happens. Yet when you consider OUR experience, for some reason we are different. We "decide." We are "counter-entropic." You use these things to explain without evidence why I have experience, yet the computer does not. I, on the other, prefer to posit experience as the atomic element of existence.


We start in the middle, with experience. Then we build the tertiary structure, our theory. The theory points to the primary system, matter/energy/universe which gives rise to the systems which allow the theory to be created.

If we are under the spell of an evil genius, then you are right, matter follows from observation, but it is of no consequence, since observation is completely suspect, and in all likelihood meaningless. If the universe is instead how it appears, then our theory is almost certainly correct in pointing out that we, and our ability to create the theory, are consequences of the physical system the theory describes.

I don't understand why observation is "in all likelihood meaningless". Again, I'm not trying to separate us, or anything from physics. I'm simply trying to pull this final aspect of experience, experience itself, into the fold of physics. This, ultimately, is the goal of science. To describe existence as we know it. As of yet we have no physical description, or causation underlying experience, yet this is certainly part of existence as we know it.


I think the vagueness contributes to the ease with which you find agreement, but what you have described seems much more specific, and very different from the "phenomenal experience" most people claim. Just as an example: what is the "qualia of phenomenal experience" while you are dreamlessly sleeping? Many people would claim that they have none, but you suggest that small bits of matter are eternally having phenomenal experience. Are we also consistently conscious? If so why don't we remember sleep, but do remember our waking time? Is our awareness/thinking/memory completely distinct from this phenomenal experience?

Well, the question becomes "can you experience oblivion?" IMHO, yes. In fact, I believe this to be the state that many in your culture aim to attain. It requires practice, however, as quieting the unrelenting, driving signal of sensory input, and ending the maintenance of internal states is against the tendency of the system. When it is achieved, however, I think it helps one to understand the nature of experience itself, as divorced from the sensory input you're so conditioned to associate it with.

>> ^bmacs27: Things can not be enforced without an enforcer.

The universe does not really have rules, it has limits and structures, no enforcer is needed, because nobody can break rules which can not be broken.

I don't see, at this point, how what you posit is not simply a poetic view of physics. What is the difference between consciousness and existence? Is consciousness simply the attribute of being beholden to physics?

I don't see how that's different than cuddling up to a warm fire.

Heisenberg makes this entirely unrelateable to cuddling up to a fire, which is the main reason I consider this thesis incoherent.

I can't other than to refer you to what I presume you to have. I could suggest focussing on your breathing, or what have you.

I generate a coherent narrative, but you seem to be suggesting something else entirely. Something which has no context or meaning. Something which we share which is not a narrative, but is an experience in the absence of a narrative. And though it is common in my culture to claim otherwise, I don't see how this resembles anything I have.

Matter is merely the logical consequence of applying induction to our particular set of shared experiences.

We start in the middle, with experience. Then we build the tertiary structure, our theory. The theory points to the primary system, matter/energy/universe which gives rise to the systems which allow the theory to be created.

If we are under the spell of an evil genius, then you are right, matter follows from observation, but it is of no consequence, since observation is completely suspect, and in all likelihood meaningless. If the universe is instead how it appears, then our theory is almost certainly correct in pointing out that we, and our ability to create the theory, are consequences of the physical system the theory describes.

I told you, in the best english I can, what X is. It's the qualia of phenomenal experience. Now I can't provide you with direct evidence for it, but I can tell you that nearly everyone I talk to has some sense of what I mean.

I think the vagueness contributes to the ease with which you find agreement, but what you have described seems much more specific, and very different from the "phenomenal experience" most people claim. Just as an example: what is the "qualia of phenomenal experience" while you are dreamlessly sleeping? Many people would claim that they have none, but you suggest that small bits of matter are eternally having phenomenal experience. Are we also consistently conscious? If so why don't we remember sleep, but do remember our waking time? Is our awareness/thinking/memory completely distinct from this phenomenal experience?

Don't be gullible WRT this video. It was produced by some religio-mystical cult and presents things in a cloudy "isn't it magical?" kinda way (like the Heisenberg Principle and the double-slit experiment).

>> ^joedirt: Wow.. just wow. Let's just say you shouldn't have started with the electron as an example of deterministic or comparison to Newtonian physics.

Electrons are not quarks, and yes Heisenberg does put serious limits on our ability to catalog their movement, but supercolliders and electronics work because electrons function deterministically. Electrons don't just "decide" what to do, and when to do it. I may not know exactly where they are, or how they are moving, but they produce effects consistent with doing so in an orderly fashion.

The fact that the smallest detectable structures in our universe are chaotic in no way implies that structures made of them are chaotic, there are a number of technological examples of determinism derived from chaos.

For example your computer works deterministically, I can put a scope on it and show you all the noise and interference running through it. I can, through subtle measurement, measure the chaos in the system, but the system is still deterministic, as evidenced by the fact the you are reading this right now.

Have you tried adjusting the flux capacitor with a nadion pulse? That should fix it right up.

In reply to this comment by soulmonarch:
Apologies, sir.

...My Heisenberg compensator was obviously malfunctioning. >_>

In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
Way to break my joke.

In reply to this comment by soulmonarch:
For what it's worth: Black holes very well MAY work that way, at least in relation to tachyons.

A tachyon is a theoretical particle that has no mass, and may therefore exceed the speed of light (or possibly escape a black hole.) That's why you always hear them used in relation to black holes, gravity anomalies and FTL travel.

*shrug* So what if tachyons may not exist? That's part of the fun of fiction.

>> ^gwiz665:
BLACK HOLES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! GOOD NIGHT!
>> ^Ornthoron:
He left out the episode where they are trapped inside a black hole, and use a tachyon beam as a crowbar to force a hole in the event horizon so they can get out.

Apologies, sir.

...My Heisenberg compensator was obviously malfunctioning. >_>

In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
Way to break my joke.

In reply to this comment by soulmonarch:
For what it's worth: Black holes very well MAY work that way, at least in relation to tachyons.

A tachyon is a theoretical particle that has no mass, and may therefore exceed the speed of light (or possibly escape a black hole.) That's why you always hear them used in relation to black holes, gravity anomalies and FTL travel.

*shrug* So what if tachyons may not exist? That's part of the fun of fiction.

>> ^gwiz665:
BLACK HOLES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! GOOD NIGHT!
>> ^Ornthoron:
He left out the episode where they are trapped inside a black hole, and use a tachyon beam as a crowbar to force a hole in the event horizon so they can get out.

The guy who created this video is apparently unfamiliar with the works of Schroedinger, Heisenberg and Planck (among many others.)

There are series that abuse technobabble and fake technology, but Star Trek really wasn't one of them. The beauty of Star Trek (specifically, TNG and onwards) was that all of their science was theoretically possible, based on our current knowledge.

Of course, once reason that it sounds a bit like "technobabble" is because they attempt to dumb down the ideas enough to fit into the episode. It wouldn't do any good for them to launch into a technical description on quantum reality and n-dimensional physics during a one hour episode, now would it? I mean, then we wouldn't have any time for the actual fiction part of the show.

"Oh, and you know I'm a nerd!
And there ain't no uncertainty,
sorry Heisenberg..."

So much spinning, even my Heisenberg compensators are tired.

Upvote for reference to crappy UK automotive electrics, though any comedian discussing Heisenberg is likely to get my vote anyway.

>> ^MINK:

I was just thinking, if god is literally "unmeasurable" then his powers are extremely limited. He couldn't even heal the religious, or the prayed for, or non murderers more often than others. If he did, we could measure that and know that something was happening.

Are you one of these people that thinks if god exists, he's behind the Heisenberg uncertainty principle adjusting particle locations here and there?