What is Decoherence?

a reply to: neoholographic


In that sense some are trying to fix a car without understanding its intricacies. Science does need to move away from notions related to materialistic thinking and as mentioned....


The concept of reality exceeds human imagination from any point of view, respectively in relation to Human Consciousness.

originally posted by: Kashai
Science does need to move away from notions related to materialistic thinking and as mentioned....

Your entire...demeanor... entirely depends on how you define 'material'.

And you assume the definition of 'material' you think is 'all of sciences definition of material' is the definition of material that is all of sciences definition of the term, and you assume even if the definition was wrong, you dont think that science would instantly acknowledge that their definition is wrong. The task is to attempt to straighten out semantics, and drift away from words, always towards reality, always caring more about reality then playing with words. We need words to discuss reality, but we always must be careful we are attempting to discuss reality, and not only play and be comfortable in our understanding of purely words.

So yes; what do you think material is?

Please. How do you define 'material'?

a reply to: ImaFungi


In order to define "material" I must understand all that it is.

I do not understand all that it is.

I do understand that "material" has a wave aspect and that science as of yet has not defined it. I understand that without such a definition my understanding of what "material" is actually incomplete.

In no different a way than I understand that working upon the intricacies of my cars automatic transmission requires me to understand how my cars automatic transmission works.

a reply to: HotMale

I read through here you have yet to tell us what you believe is occurring in the experiment. How does it show your correct and why??

originally posted by: Kashai

In order to define "material" I must understand all that it is.

I do not understand all that it is.

I do understand that "material" has a wave aspect and that science as of yet has not defined it. I understand that without such a definition my understanding of what "material" is actually incomplete.

So what did you mean by this?

Science does need to move away from notions related to materialistic thinking

OP of this thread, has stated a lot about 'material' as well.

This is why I immediately attempted, as always should be done when there exists confusion and ignorance, as it is the source of all truths; make a statement about our knowledge of the absolute difference between; Something and Nothing.

It is the purest thing that can be said and thought. The only trick is that 'nothing' does have power. But 'nothing' does not exist.

The only way in which nothing exists, is in relation to somethings.

Think about the static charge of charged particles; There is a difference in energy depending on how close they are together; If a space of absolutely nothing, did not exist...which it doesnt...but that is how it does... It is annoying to talk about but so simple to grasp if you just grasp and I can stop making those silly distinctions; then two charges could never be separate from one another; then no 'something' could be separate from one another. The fact that the totality of something does not exist in a 0d point, is the fact that 'nothing space' exists.

Compared to that nothing space. Everything that is not that. Is something. Can be called material. There is only one thing that is nothing; Nothing.

Everything that is not nothing; Is related as being; That which is not nothing.

Speaking about 'materialism' or immaterial, is now quite...meaningless. It is entirely humanistically arbitrary to say; some something is called the word 'material' but there is some something that is not 'material'. And then for you to think there is some type of ideological battle, between people who believe in one definition or the other. Entirely pointless, meaningless, arbitrary.

a reply to: ImaFungi

The word "nothing" means no thing. I read your comments upon nothing and there is no evidence to suggest there is a place where nothing exist.

Do you have evidence to the contrary?

originally posted by: HotMale
a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Is this a thought experiment you came up with or an actual experiment that was conducted?

It has obviously been done, although I couldn't tell you what the experiment is called or if it even has a name. But I've seen scientists talking about that setup and why it doesn't work the way you think it does. Clearly it doesn't work that way otherwise we would already be sending messages into the past and we'd have very clear-cut proof that consciousness plays a role in QM. The wave-function does collapse even if you delete the data very quickly after it is acquired by the detector. There is something much more complicated happening in the delayed-choice quantum eraser which allows seemingly retrocausal activity through some type of entanglement process.

originally posted by: ChaoticOrder
There is something much more complicated happening in the delayed-choice quantum eraser which allows seemingly retrocausal activity through some type of entanglement process.

I think it most likely has to do with the multiple ways in which the earth is moving (linear, revolution around galactic center, revolution around sun, rotation) and then the events in light fields are like 'the dropping of stone in pond'; so events have effects that spread their effects out 4 dimensionally, so the same event can be detected in multiple areas of space, in multiple areas of time.

originally posted by: ImaFungi

originally posted by: ChaoticOrder
There is something much more complicated happening in the delayed-choice quantum eraser which allows seemingly retrocausal activity through some type of entanglement process.

I think it most likely has to do with the multiple ways in which the earth is moving (linear, revolution around galactic center, revolution around sun, rotation) and then the events in light fields are like 'the dropping of stone in pond'; so events have effects that spread their effects out 4 dimensionally, so the same event can be detected in multiple areas of space, in multiple areas of time.

Though I do agree with you has to do with motion but not of the planet or the galaxy. I don't believe their is any time violation from the perspective of our photons.

originally posted by: dragonridr


Though I do agree with you has to do with motion but not of the planet or the galaxy. I don't believe their is any time violation from the perspective of our photons.

I think you are being to hasty and too minimal with your judgement.

Think about it; The material of the earth is moving how fast?

The material of the earth is rotating.

'light is created on earth'.

Light moves how fast?

In how much time and space does the light move as the earth moves?

Well...

Its more like; once light is created on earth, because it propagates away so quickly, earth isnt moving any where near fast enough to catch up to it; but earth always moving in relation, and because it is not moving perfectly smoothly, (earth is composed of a lot of charged particles) there is always a lot of radiation occurring.

But because earth is moving in 1 direction (traveling around the galaxy center in 1 direction, (I know its multiple, but, like a clock wise opposed to counter or vice versa)

when light is created on earth it does travel with the light for even the smallest amount of time and space, before the light surpasses it;

Then to add the fact that earth is spinning, and to add the fact of the gravity wells, and to add the fact of light interacting with all the material around the environment in which it is created;

Kind of suggests that there would be 'something novel' about the fundamental essence of light creation;

Heck, not to mention my quite certainty that the fundamental essence of light is not fully understand (as much as it potentially can be by humans) to begin with.

originally posted by: ChaoticOrder

originally posted by: HotMale
a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Is this a thought experiment you came up with or an actual experiment that was conducted?

It has obviously been done, although I couldn't tell you what the experiment is called or if it even has a name. But I've seen scientists talking about that setup and why it doesn't work the way you think it does. Clearly it doesn't work that way otherwise we would already be sending messages into the past and we'd have very clear-cut proof that consciousness plays a role in QM. The wave-function does collapse even if you delete the data very quickly after it is acquired by the detector. There is something much more complicated happening in the delayed-choice quantum eraser which allows seemingly retrocausal activity through some type of entanglement process.

Retrocasual activity is indicative as to how matter waves function in a fundamental way.

If theoreticians could provide a mechanism within the context of quantum mechanics in which the evolution superficially described by von Neumann's first intervention is achieved, without the need for an ad hoc mechanism or the insistence that we live in a universe in which ``consciousness or spirit...play an important and fundamental role'' in physical phenomenon [16], they will have made great progress in solidifying quantum mechanics (even further) as a sufficient theory. By this we mean that the protests that quantum mechanics is somehow incomplete (e.g. the EPR paradox [6]) can be better addressed (beyond Bell's theorem).

Given the substantial success of quantum mechanics in correctly predicting the outcome of every experiment thus far conceived and executed to test it, we would prefer that any mechanism designed to describe what occurs when a measurement is taken does so in the context of standard quantum mechanics, which is to say, does not require a modification of the Shrödinger equation.

The alternative is to accept a modification of the standard formulation of quantum mechanics. There are many various ``collapse models'' one could consider ( [10], see also [11] as a short, reasonable example). And though it serves a physicist well to consider fresh, new ideas, it also serves us well to realize that such ideas are almost always wrong. In any case, these alternatives are not the focus of this report.

Decoherence offers a theoretical framework in which the measurement problem can be swept under the carpet (pushed into a system larger than that which we can observe). The effect is that quantum mechanics can be studied and presented to a student without the need for the ad hoc ``wave collapse'' being presented as a primary tool of the theory. One can achieve, in many cases, the same apparent effect of a wave collapse without recourse to von Neumann's mysterious first intervention.

Thus we clarify that decoherence is not a new theory unto itself, but is instead an efficient and fruitful repackaging of theory. It does not solve the measurement problem, and most certainly wouldn't have satisfied the reservations of Einstein in his later years. Nevertheless, given its elegance in providing an apparent transition from the quantum realm to the classical realm, and its experimental success, we believe the time has come that decoherence be incorporated into graduate level quantum mechanics courses. This report is designed to be a self-contained introduction to the topic appropriate for a graduate student.

Source

Any thoughts?

originally posted by: Kashai
...

Source

Any thoughts?

It supports statements made quite a few times in this and other threads. Decoherence occurs due to interaction (or coupling as stated in the link) with the environment. Although it does not explain why we observe a certain state. This is where it is extended by the many-worlds interpretation.

a reply to: moebius

I watched a very interesting video on the Four Types of Multiverse a few weeks ago. In that video Tony Padilla sums up his concerns with the many-worlds interpretation, which mirrors my exact feelings on the issue.

There's a few things I don't like about this. Firstly, when ever you have a split, well when does the split occur, at which point does the split occur precisely, when is that? I mean there's already time uncertainty in quantum mechanics so when does the split occur, that's not really clearly answered.

Secondly, if you do these splits, you're increasing the number of states suddenly, you're increasing the size of the space that describes the quantum system and that doesn't seem satisfactory either. The problem I have is that this was originally introduced, well people like to think about it because they're unconfortable with the idea of the collapse of the wave-function, the idea that when you open the box the cat is either dead or alive and not both.

But we actually understand why that is now, it's to do with a process called decoherence where the large environment outside of the box starts to mix up with the cat in such a way that the overlap region between cat dead and cat alive, because of the large environmental system outside, just gets made very small.

So if we're ok with wave-function collapse because we understand it through this decoherence, what's wrong with the idea that nature is probabilistic? Why do we have to have that every possibility is realized? Quantum mechanics is probabilistic, that's the way nature is, and just because our classical intuition tells us that we enjoy a deterministic existence, that doesn't mean quantum mechanics has to behave like that, it doesn't mean nature has to behave like that, it just means day to day that's how it seems to behave, but truly it's probabilistic. And that's fine, ok. It doesn't mean that every possibility has to be realized.

That last paragraph is the answer to all of these questions imo. Everyone is so concerned with making QM a deterministic theory that we are all failing to see the obvious answer, which is that reality is probabilistic at the most fundamental level. When that idea is coupled with decoherence is completely explains the measurement problem. The result we see after making a measurement is simply the state which the system collapsed into according to random chance. We can predict the state before hand with a certain degree of accuracy, but never with complete accuracy. The wave-function is a description of those probabilities.

The last part of the video about a mathematical multiverse is also very interesting and worth watching. I actually tend to lean more towards that theory than any other type of multiverse theory. I like to think of the universe as a mathematical object. A set of mathematical rules produce the universe we live in, and the multiverse is an infinite collection of every possible mathematical object that is Turing complete. It obviously wasn't just luck of the draw that we find ourselves living in a universe which seems to be fine-tuned to support intelligent beings such as ourself.

The problem then becomes, what sort of mathematical object would produce the sort of randomness we get in QM, assuming it's truly random and there are no hidden variables, which we can be confident in thanks to Bells Theorem. It seems to me that all Turing complete mathematical objects should be deterministic. For example my computer cannot generate true random numbers unless I have a QRNG which extracts random numbers from quantum events. If QM events are truly random it seems to me we will have a hard time explaining that as a mathematical/algorithmic process.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Many worlds interpretation can be denied as valid in any way, by considering energy conservation. There is no way to double the energy of the universe every planck second and not deny energy conservation.

Also, what I mainly wanted to respond with saying; Nature is determined, determinism is true.

Attempting to create hair brained theories to attempt to make hair brained theories seem less hair brained, may be not only futile, but... other words I dont care to attempt to think of now.

a reply to: ImaFungi

The first 'hard evidence' that other universes exist has been found by scientists.

Cosmologists studying a map of the universe from data gathered by the Planck spacecraft have concluded that it shows anomalies that can only have been caused by the gravitational pull of other universes.

The map shows radiation from the Big Bang 13.8billion years ago that is still detectable in the universe - known as cosmic microwave radiation.

Li nk


www.youtube.com...

Actually evidence is building.

originally posted by: Kashai
a reply to: ImaFungi

The first 'hard evidence' that other universes exist has been found by scientists.

Cosmologists studying a map of the universe from data gathered by the Planck spacecraft have concluded that it shows anomalies that can only have been caused by the gravitational pull of other universes.

The map shows radiation from the Big Bang 13.8billion years ago that is still detectable in the universe - known as cosmic microwave radiation.

Li nk


www.youtube.com...

Actually evidence is building.

Many worlds is not the same as multiverse theories

a reply to: ImaFungi

Yes but I was discussing multiverse theory.

originally posted by: Kashai
a reply to: ImaFungi

Yes but I was discussing multiverse theory.

Nothing in the post of mine that you replied to was discussing multiverse theory. Multi verse is either true or false and I dont think we know enough about our universe to make any claims that detecting within our universe are evidence that multi verse is true.

a reply to: ImaFungi


Obviously.