Subject: QUANTUM-MIND Digest - 28 Jan 2000 to 4 Feb 2000 (#2000-6) Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2000 00:02:45 -0700 There are 16 messages totalling 1832 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. [q-mind] Waves (reply to Gao Shan) EL Hemetis 2. [q-mind] Complexity and computation - EL Hemetis 3. [q-mind] Does the future exist? - Peter Mutnick 4. [q-mind] Decoherence revisited - Question to Tito Vecchi - Dimi Chakalov 5. [q-mind] Decoherence revisited - Tito Vecchi 6. [q-mind] [q-mind] P. Mutnick's QM deduced from Whiteheadian logic - Barron Burrow 7. [q-mind] George McKee's Consciousness, complexity and computation - Hugh Deasy 8. [q-mind] My tentative breakthrough - Peter Mutnick 9. [q-mind] Who would not see the real face of Psi? - Gao Shan 10. [q-mind] Consciousness, complexity and computation - Hugh Deasy 11. [q-mind] Decoherence revisited - Question to Tito Vecchi - Tabish Qureshi 12. [q-mind] Decoherence revisited (reply to Qureshi) - Tito Vecchi 13. [q-mind] Radical reductionism - Leon Maurer 14. [q-mind] "Blow to quantum consciousness" (paper in Science) 15. [q-mind] Seife's "Cold Numbers Unmake the Quantum Mind" piece in Science 16. [q-mind] Reply to Tegmark - Stuart Hameroff ============================================ Contributions distributed to this list are automatically archived at http://listserv.arizona.edu/lsv/www/quantum-mind.html ============================================== ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 08:36:29 -0700 From: Stuart Hameroff Subject: [q-mind] Who would not see the real face of Psi? - Gao Shan Gao Shan Institute of Quantum Mechanics 11-10, NO.10 Building, YueTan XiJie DongLi, XiCheng District Beijing 100045, P.R.China E-mail: gaoshan.iqm@263.net [abstract] We show that whereas the objective discontinuous motion of the microscopic particle may exist, Copenhagen interpretation and many worlds interpretation will both agree to accept it, since it is just the substance they want. Who would not see the real face of Psi? only the dogmatist. Copenhagen interpretation[1] and many worlds interpretation[2] are the most widely-accepted interpretations of quantum mechanics, but even though they both give mouth to some parts of the truth, they still want something substantial, and need it to rely on just as the spirit need the body to reside in, the body for them is the real face of Psi, only if they find it, can they turn to be real. According to Copenhagen interpretation, quantum mechanics is concerned with individual microscopic particle, and the arisen probabilities are primary, this means that the probabilities denoted by |Psi|^2 do not reflect the ignorance of the observer, but reflect an essential character of Nature itself, and it is impossible to predict anything more than probabilities, but how can it get such revolutionary conclusion? is it from some kind of mystic apocalypse, or only from our pure inspiration? nobody can give a deeper reason, thus Copenhagen interpretation is incapable to prevent the realist from seeking the hidden variables to defeat it, is it too old? no, it wants something substantial to disillusionize the daydream of these opponents, but in order to gain it its dogmatic temper and resulting dogma must be changed. One of its main dogmas is that there does not exist the independent objective motion of microscopic particle, or the microscopic particles have no properties of their own, as we have denoted[3][4], this conclusion relies on an implicit prejudice in their demonstrations, namely classical continuous motion is the only possible and objective motion of particles, but it is irrational to compel us to accept this prejudice, on the contrary, once we reject this prejudice, the above dogma will break away, and Copenhagen interpretation may permit the existence of the independent objective motion of microscopic particle, which will be the wanted substance to sustain its orthodoxy. In fact, Copenhagen interpretation has suggested the objective motion mode of microscopic particle, since it asserts that there exists the discontinuous quantum jump in the measurement, while this discontinuous jump is just the first light of morning, whereas the quantum process during measurement is essentially discontinuous, and the original disturbance interpretation has been found improper, it is reasonable to infer that the motion of microscopic particle is universally discontinuous, not only during measurement, this kind of discontinuous motion of particle is just the wanted substance of Copenhagen interpretation. Once gained the substance, Copenhagen interpretation will be consistent and undefeatable, first, this kind of discontinuous motion will provide a unified realistic picture for quantum and classical world[3][4], it naturally generate the classical motion of macroscopic objects in classical world, as well as quantum motion of microscopic particles in quantum world, thus the problem of quantum cut is consistently solved, and the lost independent reality of microscopic particles is also gotten back, they are as realistic as macroscopic objects; Secondly, this kind of discontinuous motion will naturally and objectively explain the appearance of quantum jump during measurement, and will provide the deeper objective reason for the existence of primary probabilities in quantum mechanics; At last, this kind of discontinuous motion will also provide an objective demonstration about complementarity and Heisenberg uncertainty, they are just the essential characters of the objective discontinuous motion. Thus Copenhagen interpretation would see the real face of Psi, and would accept it. Now, we turn to many worlds interpretation, according to this interpretation the wave function Psi represents reality, but only mathematical reality in the multi-dimensional configuration space, not physical reality in the real space-time, which has been pursued by physicists, thus there exists no substance in many worlds interpretation either; on the other hand, the measure of different branches of worlds can't be objectively interpreted, this is evidently a direct result of wanting physical substance. Thus, as we think, in order to objectively and consistently interpret quantum mechanics, the physical reality in the real space-time is also needed for many worlds interpretation, moreover, this interpretation has implied a weird objective picture for the whole world, which is very different from classical continuous motion, but it never speaks out clearly, it just says that there exist many parallel complete worlds, and they all exist in the same real space-time in some definite meaning, but it always keeps silence about how these worlds exist in the same real space-time, while in order to give a complete physical interpretation of quantum mechanics, we must answer this question, we must find the physical reality in real space-time. The discontinuous motion of particle just provides the corresponding physical reality in real space-time for many worlds interpretation, the particle undergoing this kind of discontinuous motion moves throughout all the parallel worlds during very small time interval, or even infinitesimal time interval, this objectively and clearly shows that these parallel complete worlds exist in the same space-time; at the same time, the measure density of the particle in different worlds, which can be strictly defined in the real space-time for the discontinuous motion of particle, just provides the objective origin of the measure of different worlds. Then the visualizing physical picture for many worlds is one kind of subtle time-division existence, every world occupies one part of the continuous time flow, the occupation way is discontinuous in essence, namely the whole time flow for each world is a dense and discontinuous instant set, all these dense time sub-flows constitute a whole continuous time flow, in this meaning these worlds are the most crowded in time! Once accepting the discontinuous motion of particle as the physical picture for many worlds, many worlds interpretation will be a genuine physical interpretation of quantum mechanics. Thus many worlds interpretation would see the real face of Psi, and would accept it. [1] Niels Bohr, Nature. 121, 580-590 (1927) [2] H.Everett. Rev.Mod.Phys. 29, 454-462.(1957) [3] Gao Shan, Quantum-Mind Digest, #1999-121, (1999) [4] Gao Shan, physics/0001012, (2000)