I'm a PhD candidate in engineering at Columbia and I also love physics!! I also love Catholic theology and am a practicing Catholic!! So any topic that combines reasoning, science, faith, engineering, and logic is super interesting to me
Cool! I'm not nearly as educated as you, but I appreciate that you have managed to get something useful out of modern education and also keep your faith. That must have been quite hard work.
@@HolyKhaaaaan I think I realized that all of it comes under one truth! I noticed that there are many unseen and unquantified realities that clearly affect our lives like morality and beauty, which are just as apparent as the physical world (described by science). It was a grace from God to help me see that all of this can exist in harmony
@@HolyKhaaaaan I also have a friend here who is doing his PhD in theoretical physics who is a striving Catholic. It's nice seeing fellow academics who also strive to follow God
@@avb20540 I'll say! You excel in the intellect; your striving in the moral life tells me you want to be an excellent person generally. That is usually a good thing!
I became a catholic while studying physics at oxford because these fundamental questions of physics showed me the need for God to form a coherent world view of science
Well I have some objections on that. 1-The fact that you need God to form a coherent world view is not a proof and I don't think it is a sufficient reason for believing. 2-What you mean by God here is the god of Roman Catholicism. Why isn't it the god of Islam or of any other religion?
@@syphaxafricanus the god of islam cant be God because it cannot involve himself into its creation, it is limited so is not God for me, you can believe whatever you want. Also there is freewill so what is sufficient for you is not for other persons,
Yea honestly. This is the first time in my modest 10 hours of looking into QM, that someone purporting the theory says that it is not accctually both, but just a mathematical system to describe possibility, and probability. The last 10 videos I watched said outright that QM actually believes that superpositions are real reality, and that its legitimately both. I still don't know if the priest here is an outlier in the belief that its not actually both, but its refreshing.
@@gigafp6239 The De Broglie - Bohm (DBB) interpretation belongs to the mentioned first category - and I think the true solution of these quantum puzzles may be "somewhere in that direction". DBB is still just one model - and perhaps not the best possible one. But the popular counteragument (of "non-locality") against it comes from a misunderstanding of the Theory of Relativity. In reality, information can travel faster than light (what DBB supposes) when we cannot use it so that we influence the happenings of this material world with it.
This is great! It's the best explanation that I've seen of the Schrodinger's cat. Clear and to the point. It was interesting to hear the different possible explanations. I had heard of two out of three of them, but in separate contexts. Hearing the three of them together makes them more understandable. Love this!
"Quantum mechanics is weird." Finally someone who starts a video about it being so honest; Many people try to say it's simple, or logic. But it's undeniably weird.
he started with saying that it's weird and proceed to say that it's meaningless what happens as long as we dont observe it. yeah, great anti argument mate
One important detail: Schrödinger actually proposed this paradoxical thought experiment in order to critique some aspects of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.
mark'oh Hello and greetings to you. Yes indeed cheeky Erwin offered the cat complex tongue-in-cheek or cheek-in-Tanganyika while remaining in cheeks or neither or, but something akin.
Aquinas would argue that the cat has the potential to be dead or alive, but won't be realized in existence until actually observed. At least from the human perspective. Meaning things exist as they do whether we observe them or not. But in order to understand the world , we have to use models and concepts and frameworks like superposition. These are just acts of knowing the world. The object of knowledge remains the atom or cat in a particular state.
The presumed paradox only arises if we consider the "superposition of quantum states" a superposition of actual states, which they are not. The only actual states that we get are the observed states, i.e. the states that we actually observe when we make a measurement. A quantum superposition of states only occurs as a superpositon of not-yet-observed POTENTIAL states, and has no physical reality. So the Schroedinger's Cat is not "dead and alive". It is "potentially dead and potentially alive, but in an UNDETERMINED state until we observe it". The actual state is created when we observe.
The De Broglie - Bohm (DBB) interpretation belongs to the mentioned first category - and I think the true solution of these quantum puzzles may be "somewhere in that direction". DBB is still just one model - and perhaps not the best possible one. But the popular counteragument (of "non-locality") against it comes from a misunderstanding of the Theory of Relativity. In reality, information can travel faster than light (what DBB supposes) when we cannot use it so that we influence the happenings of this material world with it.
Or as I would say to my students in class "So, if your interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and Schrodinger's Cat is true, then it's also false, and now we agree."
Excellent explanation of Schroedingers' Cat! I have to say I was expecting/hoping you would at least mention the actuality-potentiality distinction, which Aristotle invoked to overcome Parmenides's use of the principle non-contradiction. Perhaps something to explore in a future episode? Maybe you could also talk about the Thomistic work on QM you mentioned, if that's not too out of scope.
The irony is that those who say that quantum mechanics requires us to deny the Law Of Logical Non-Contradiction are doing so on the basis that they falsely believe quantum mechanics to logically contradict it.
I love this topic, because this is proof to scientists and materialists that “consciousness exists”, the fact that the “observer” matters…even the cat. It’s where science and metaphysics meet! Our material world around us is really a simulation created by God. Divine Providence!
I'd not go that far. There is no necessity for a living thing to observe the particle for it to "choose" its orientation. A computer measuring it will have the same effect
@@DerPinguim A computer functions on algorithms and can “choose” it’s orientation. But living creatures with consciousness don’t choose anything. We’re just observers. Everything is “pre-determined”. Things (particles) appear to be random until we look at them.
great talk, as a 92.5 year old Catholic physicist, I learned something. However still puzzled: superposition yields entanglement, and that I believe has been experimentally observed in a number of experiments. So that implies, I believe, that superposition is more than a mathematical device. comment?
Seems similar to the platonic error of conflating forms or mathematical objects with actual ones, when considering QM as if it were saying something actual rather than upholding two contradictory possibilities.
Thank you very much for these videos! I'm Orthodox, not Catholic, but these are still wonderful aids in understanding the nature of how God's creation works
I do not know for sure if this is historically accurate, but my understanding is that Schroedinger's intention for the cat illustration was to point out a concrete example of the absurdity that quantum mechanics leaves for us to resolve. In other words despite it's brilliance, it is not complete. He was never saying the cat is literally both alive and dead.
it cannot be completed since schrödinger said that a particle is an electron and the electron is a particle, the equation works good in the squared version for statistic purposes but not to understand the behaviour and movement of a A=B ilogical entity
A bit off topic, but I thought I’d mention it anyway: If Schrodinger had put a puppy in the box his thought experiment would have been rejected in outrage. (It’s not surprising that he didn’t put a dog in the box since he owned one).
Tons of lessons and videos on the subject, but I was always pushed to the third interpretation (that, in mt opinion, is the least intuitive) as a truth. No one had ever claryfied this topic, neither explained how it was one of the interpretations. Thank you!
There is more than one Uncertainty Principle. For microscopic objects we have the Heisenberg UP, but for macroscopic objects, roughly those heavier than the Planck mass, we would do better to think in terms of an UP due to classical Brownian motion on the scale of Planck's constant, which is Reinhold Fuerth's UP. Thomism or Aristotelean logic applies to heavy objects in classical Brownian motion, but fails for microscopic objects where A and not-A are capable of destructive interference with each other.
I was taught the interpretation that any interaction with a macroscopic object collapses the wave function. I don't remember the exact mathematical details, but I remember working briefly with wave functions for multiple particles, and there are terms that tend to cancel each other out. I understand that for a macroscopic object, there are a huge number of canceling terms, leaving pretty much just one answer. I think it is roughly similar to how it would not be unexpected to get 8 heads out of 10 coin flips, but 8 million heads out of 10 million coin flips would be extremely rare. When the expected is about 50%, I believe the chance of getting 8/10 is about the same as getting 5.003 million out of 10 million. So, as you increase the sample-size/number of particles, the deviation from the expected outcome vanishes. I was also taught the interpretation that microscopic particles are neither particles nor waves, which means that they exist in some way that confounds our intuition. We have no experience of dealing with these kinds of things in our daily lives. The uncertainty in the state is actually an inherent quality of the thing itself, and not just our inability to measure it. I believe a proof of this is that particles sent through a slit one at a time still produce diffraction patterns. If they were particles, there would be no diffraction pattern, and if they were waves, there would be no definite position recorded for each individual particle on the screen.
My (layman's) understanding is that superposition can only apply to particles that are isolated and not "self observing" by interacting with other particles (i.e. decoherence). Therefore, the only thing that would be in superposition in the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment would be the decaying particle. Everything else: the detector, the poison release mechanism, and the cat--would not be in a quantum state of superposition because these are macroscopic objects whose particles are in decoherence, hence they are in only one state at a time, not two. Whether the cat lives or dies depends entirely on what the detector senses and does. If the particle's superposition sets off the detector, the cat dies. If not, it lives. But whether the cat lives or dies is resolved long before the box is opened.
The De Broglie - Bohm (DBB) interpretation belongs to the mentioned first category - and I think the true solution of these quantum puzzles may be "somewhere in that direction". DBB is still just one model - and perhaps not the best possible one. But the popular counteragument (of "non-locality") against it comes from a misunderstanding of the Theory of Relativity. In reality, information can travel faster than light (what DBB supposes) when we cannot use it so that we influence the happenings of this material world with it.
I feel that the reason why people don't know how to explain what a superposition is, is that it requires one to understand mathematics minimum at the level of Undergraduate Linear Algebra and or another topic in Mathematics called Fourier Series. In linear algebra or statistics, it is a linear combination of states, a good example equation to illustrate is a Multi-Linear Regression equation : y =a1x1 +a2x2 + a3x3 + ...., . In Fourier Analysis we have a linear combination of Trigonometric functions where the argument or angle is varying y = a1*sin(1*x) + a2*sin(2x) + a3*sin(3x) + .... . In Linear Algebra we talk about a Linear Combination of Vectors or Vector Space functions. So this is the basic math that has to be incorporated in a discussion to really talk about what a Superposition in Quantum Mechanics is.
the whole point of the box is to point out precisely that the superposition can't be observed. but I think the overall point is that things happen transcendentally of observation.
How do atheists reconcile the double slit experiment? I was having a debate with some atheists about the double slit experiment and from my interpretation it would seem to mean that the universe operates differently when there is a conscious observer taking a measurement. Why would a seemingly inanimate and unconscious universe operate in such a way?
Exactly 3:38 The thing about Quantum Superposition(states) is, it's not (for simplicity I used plus and minus) + and -, it is a position/state in itself according to Bra-Ket notation.
You used the phrase "Thomistic Philosophy" a few times in this video. Can you explain that? Is Thomism a philosophy, and if so, in what way? How are its principles different from Aristotelianism?
No, this is really as simple as this: The cat is either dead or alive. Upon viewing the evidence you will see that someone is right and someone is wrong. Not that hard.
Maybe we could say that QM both violates and respects the law of non-contradiction ? It violates it, but not under the same aspect as we usually imply because QM doesn't act on the same level of reality as ours. But on our macroscopic level, the law can't be violated. But thank you for the explanation, I enjoy the whole serial. I just ended a course on Aquinas and I'm still flabbergasted by his genius.
Is it too simplistic if said in terms of act and potency? Like the cat is either one or the other but only one in actuality and only the other in potentiality?
You do know that through the discoveries in quantum mechanics, most of the leading physicists actually became more and more interested in the non-materialist outlook of the world; Einstein, Bohr and Schrödinger being brilliant examples. Many of them even wrote multiple essays about it
I am a scientist and i am concern to get rid of the materialism in the scientific community, because that is the teaching of christ to spread the word, if you want to follow jesus leave all and heal them!
The mysterious feature of quantum mechanics is the destructive interference of probability distributions. An entity which exhibits this behaviour is imaginable. There is more than one way to travel faster than light. Consider an entity in tachyonic Brownian motion which also executes an oscillation in the other way to travel faster than light. The two behaviours are strictly orthogonal to each other, and the second behaviour means that the entity can interfere with itself. If the entity interacts with two or more detectors, then the randomness of the Brownian motion means that there is a broken symmetry and just one detector gets the prize. There is a long way to go to turn this idea into a working computer simulation.
No, it doesn't. It makes something to the other trees, it makes something to the ants passing by, it makes a sound to the birds the way they perceive sound, but it doesn't make a "sound as human beings consider it" if there are no persons to hear it.
@@andsalomoni This is simply a semantic argument, solved by defining “sound”. Is it the waves, or is it the _qualia_ of our perception? One could ask a plethora of similar questions: is an apple still red if no one can see it? Is ice still cold if no one can touch it? And so forth.
@@nathanaelculver5308 I hear sound, I feel vibrations (waves) in my body when a strong sound comes, etc. These are perceptions, like seeing colours and feeling heat and cold. Call them "qualia" if you like, but it is what has always been the reality we live in. The "sound waves" about which science talks, are intellectual constructs that work when applied in an objective way (with scientific instruments, etc.) to reality, but they have no reality as direct experiences. So it is not a "semantic" problem at all, it is substantial. "Sound" is what I hear and a "vibration" is what I can feel in my belly; scientific "sound waves" are a concept that we successfully apply in a technological ambit. But they are completely different things.
@@andsalomoni *I hear sound, I feel vibrations* Yes. We experience the same underlying reality it two different ways - as vibrations to the touch, as sound to the ear. But how we perceive that reality, and the reality itself are separate issues. *So it is not a “semantic problem”* No. The semantic problem lies in the conundrum set up in the original question: if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, does it make a sound? The answer simply depends on how one defines “sound”. If you mean vibrations, the answer is yes. If you mean our subjective experience of those vibrations, obviously no. *”Sound” is what I hear* In that case, your answer would be no.
Me trying to understand this in Thomistic terms: The issue at question is to know what is actual and what is potential, or if there can be beings that are in potency but not actual beings. As the video says, all we know is what we observe. Now we can make philosophical interpretations of that which we do not observe. In the Schroedinger's cat experiment, it is claimed that the cat is alive and dead at the same time until we open the box and discover. It is the observer that makes the wavefunction collapse, they say (Copenhagen interpretation). But this doesn't make sense. We have every reason to believe the cat, or the radioactive atom that can decay, exist in and of themselves. They exist in actuality, which means they have to be determined. they cannot be totally indetermined. Because total indetermination is negation of existence. Things are or are not. We can discuss the accidents of the existence (states of matter/energy), but existence is determination. What they claim is that these beings, (cat, atom) are totally indetermined. Something like the thomistic concept of prime matter: a being with no accidents, no form. But then what does it mean that they exist? It is far more simple to say that we do not know (and we cannot know), but not that they exist in an indeterminate way in reality (existence without form is only a thought experiment). Prime matter exist only in minds, something like the square root of -1. Needed to explain reality, but not truly real. Now another inconsistency is when they say that the observer is the one that determines the whole universe when he observes the wave function of the universe. It is inconsistent because that would mean that the observer is (metaphysically) not part of the universe, that is, that it is the only being determined outside of the universe. It doesn't work. We have every reason to believe things exist objectively differentiated, apart from the observer (subjective). beings exist as determined beings: Atoms, cells, rocks, they all exist in a determined way, despite the observation. To think otherwise is to think the observer is the only being in the universe (solipsism). It just doesn't work to explain reality. In the end, we are coming again to the problem of the prime matter as defined by Thomism: That which is only potential with no actuality, which seems to be an elusive and even contradictory thing. But Aristotle/Aquinas do not say that prime matter does not exist in reality, but only intellectually: Just as the soul and the body can only be differentiated only intellectually. It is only an intellectual concept necessary for explaining change, form and matter (and thus reality). The intellect knows, so you can know (under-stand) prime matter. Prime matter is one of the fundaments of existence, and is necessary to explain change. Conclusion regarding the three main philosophies of interpretation of quantum mechanics: 1- It is much more logical to think that the cat is dead or alive, although I cannot know: the cat is either dead or alive in actuality, with the potential to be in the other state. This is called superdeterminism. Things exist despite the observation. 2- This is far better than to think that the cat is alive and dead at the same time (which means the cat exists in potency without actuality; the Copenhaghen interpreation). The existence of potency without actuality means the cat would not be a cat. Because being a cat/atom is to exist as a cat/atom. Decayed or not decayed. this is what we observe. 3- Lastly, the third option is to think that another universe holds the other state (two actualities, each in a universe; the many universes interpretation). This is highy irrational, having the option of hylemorphism (see bullet no.1). This is so because then we would have to ask whether the universes exist determined in actuality, or only in potency. In order to uphold this theory, you need to believe that the universes exist in actuality, so you are transferring the problem of existence in actuality to the various universes. It doesn't work either.
I have enjoyed these videos a lot and have had many of my viewpoints changed by their content. I am, however, a bit concerned. Is there any logical principle or observation of St Thomas Aquinas that the Church now accepts as "a good idea at the time, but our knowledge has evolved"? It strikes me that occasionally (both in this video and others) there is an implicit desire to show that St Thomas Aquinas was always right rather than accept the possibility that he was brilliant but sometimes wrong or that, for now, we just don't know?
Thanks for the note, David. The goal certainly isn't to present St. Thomas as being absolutely infallible in every circumstance. One famous example where he was mistaken is with regard to Mary's Immaculate Conception: aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/st-iiia-q-27#TPQ27OUTP1 We're glad you've been enjoying the videos, and we hope you continue to find them helpful. God bless you!
*A honest doubt:* do different potencies aren't simultaneous while they aren't actualized? Existing both at the same time, but in that case, in different respects?
Somehow I feel the key point is missed in this video. If Schroedinger would have presented his cat to St. Thomas he would have replied very probably citing Aristotle Interpretation/Section 1/ Part 9: Now that which is must needs be when it is, and that which is not must needs not be when it is not. Yet it cannot be said without qualification that all existence and non-existence is the outcome of necessity. For there is a difference between saying that that which is, when it is, must needs be, and simply saying that all that is must needs be, and similarly in the case of that which is not. In the case, also, of two contradictory propositions this holds good. Everything must either be or not be, whether in the present or in the future, but it is not always possible to distinguish and state determinately which of these alternatives must necessarily come about. Let me illustrate. A sea-fight must either take place tomorrow or not, but it is not necessary that it should take place tomorrow, neither is it necessary that it should not take place, yet it is necessary that it either should or should not take place tomorrow. Since propositions correspond with facts, it is evident that when in future events there is a real alternative, and a potentiality in contrary directions, the corresponding affirmation and denial have the same character. This is the case with regard to that which is not always existent or not always nonexistent. One of the two propositions in such instances must be true and the other false, but we cannot say determinately that this or that is false, but must leave the alternative undecided. One may indeed be more likely to be true than the other, but it cannot be either actually true or actually false. It is therefore plain that it is not necessary that of an affirmation and a denial one should be true and the other false.
The superposition is mental masturbation . In science the person involved in an "experiment " is not suppose to have a bias. Saying that the cat is neither dead or alive is mental masturbation because the cat is either alive or dead and pretending as if it is neither is a bias in itself. Language is more intricate than math because math is made of language .
At least! I am a Chemist and Catholic and I can't agree more, how a particle can be a wave at the same time? a wave is a wave and a particle is a particle, and also how could they got into that conclusion using a BEAM, how can you reduce what you observe into billions of particles as the same thing to one particle? also the schrodinger equation is unreal untill you use the squared one that gives you the probability, the mapping of the electron density, it is an interesting aproximation with nice uses in chemistry but the theory is contradictory, thanks God bless our frayles and priests and the holy catholic church!
That's easy my friend. First though, you must recognize that the Michaelson Morley experiment and its subsequent conclusions are based on two underlying assumptions that are never articulated, and therefor the acceptance of the null hypothesis cannot be justified. First assumption: Light is a discrete entity, apart from the Aether. Second assumption: the field of Aether is incapable of localized rotation. When you also add "nothing can travel faster than the speed of light" into the mix, you begin to see where this is going. What the MM experiment never considers is that light is actually not a discrete entity apart from the Aether, but is itself a wave form within the particles of the Aether. Take a moment to visualize a simple Newton's cradle, where the ball on one end of the set strikes the end of the set and transfers its momentum to the ball on the other end of the set, causing it to move. This is an example of a mechanical wave form in a one dimensional, linear Aether. Now imagine a three-dimensional Newton's cradle comprised of equally sized spheres tightly packed in an F-C-C arrangement. If you were to strike one of the balls, the energy will eventually propagate through the matrix of balls and come out on the other side just like it would in a one dimensional Newton's cradle. Now consider that the energy of this wave, for a brief moment, is concentrated in one of the balls as it is passing the moment/energy to the next ball. Light can be best imagined as a cosmic relay race where one particle of Aether has the baton and it continues to pass that baton on to the next particle until it eventually reaches a receptor. Is light a wave? Yes, it is the wave of energy that propagates through the Aether from one fundamental particle to the next. Is light a particle? Yes, its energy and momentum is contained within the fundamental particle of Aether that finally strikes the receptor, whereupon it transfers its energy/moment to the receptor.
Getting back to the MM experiment.....if light is actually a wave within the Aether and the region of Aether that surrounds the experimental apparatus also rotates in three-dimensional space in unison with the apparatus, you would expect to get the same experimental result....no wave form interference pattern.
@@eugeniusbear2297 well then you have a 3rd entity that is the ethereal environment where light is a wave, so the fact of the behaviour doesn't rest into the particle=wave but in the spatial/environmental new dimension, is like with the string of the guitar the guitar string is not the nylon and the nylon is not the wave, but the guitar string posses the (I dont know how to translate this word) intrinsical" property of being created with nylon, and other "extrinsical" property that if you play the string a wave is formed, the problem is within the to be verb on the germanic languages i think, it is more pantheistic
I think that one better approaching is the 2t theory by Itzhak Bars, even though the michelson morley experiment and the approach is enteologicaly better than the schrodinger approach
Superposition is an "apparent" reality brought about by our inability to absolutely measure any phenomenon in which objects travel faster than the forward propagation speed of light. In a way its similar to motion pictures. Motion pictures are actually a succession of still frame images that are flashed at a speed greater than our ability to discern the individual still frame images. If one were able to slow down the motion picture, one would be able to observe that it is not a "movie" one is observing, but a succession of still frame images. The forward propagation speed of light is the limit in our ability to absolutely measure particles, etc. at the quantum level. Superposition is like freezing the movie. When can see the still image, but we don't know what way the objects in the still frame are headed based solely on the information presented in the still frame image. It takes subsequent prior knowledge to discern what the objects in the still frame image are likely to do. (Assuming we haven't already seen the movie) we don't know with absolutely certainty what the objects will do in the next image, but we can take our knowledge of physics and our prior information and predict statically, usually with great accuracy, what is likely to happen in the next image.
You do not need quantum mechanice for this experiment. The same question arise if, in addition to the cat, you would close in the box, a little man who tosses a coin, and kills the cat or not depending on the result. You would still didn’t know the status unless you open the box.
Ok the Copenhageners are RIGHT. It is meaningless to argue which state the cat is in while the observer is not watching, the event is just probabilities TO THE ABSENT OBSERVER. The observer also cannot be 'watching' and 'not watching' at the same time!
But if something can’t be true if it has its own contradiction then how can the law of non-contradiction aka correspondences or contradictions be true if both ideas contradicts each other, they both would be false in that sense meaning neither statements would be true. But it would also be a true statement to say it’s TRUE that both Non-contradictions(correspondences) or contradictions ARE false... but even this conclusion can have its own counter conclusion making it false in its own right, this is a paradox indeed. Maybe it’s really about how everything is a contradiction and wrong in a sense but we try to make it correspond in a sense to make things right, like a person trying to fix the pieces to a broken mirror or maybe it could really be about how everything is right and corresponds but we make it contradict In a sense to make things wrong like a person trying to break a mirror into pieces. Idk this paradox is endless. Maybe that’s the reason it’s a law bc life never actually ends and god is only true through corresponding with our false contradictions but every time we correspond with contradictions trying to reach our hands out to god it actually pushes god out even further inching us a step further towards the true almighty but never enough to actually catch up maybe we should contradict against correspondences(if that makes sense) to actually catch up and even surpass god... just ideas here
I know of a certain Franciscan that attempted to logically interact with TH-cam Atheists. Perhaps he should have left it to the professionals 🤔😁😉. Leaves the question if you put a Franciscan in a box will he try to hug his way out? On the other hand if you put a Dominican in a box he will explain rationally how the box is the best place for everyone. Meanwhile the Jesuits are arguing the morality of the box to begin with.
I liked so much how explains different interpretation of quantum mecanics and why does not exist a contradiction. Probability theory it's just a measure of uncertain it's not physics by itself And what show it just how Phenomena appear to our looker. Nature does not show by itself so just take probabilities measure of energy asociated to particle or field or how they interacted by itself. I dunno I think like joke than God is platonist and our science tools it's kantian 😅😅
So first things first. Bravo! I love this video as well as your other one th-cam.com/video/YLl7TRF_l2w/w-d-xo.html The Principle of Non-Contradiction (Aquinas 101). Fantastic stuff. I happen to agree with Aquinas's principle, but I'm having a hard time with what was just said. The main thing that I'm failing to understand is how can we then use these superpositions in quantum computing if they're left up to interpretations? Aren't the qubits a 1 and a 0 at the same time? This seems to go far beyond just interpretations.
'Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness."' (Genesis 1: 3-4) The same thing if you toss a coin that can split into two coins and will always show both the head and the tail, if 'head' means the cat is alive and 'tail' means the cat is dead, the cat will always be dead because the rule of 'superposition' doesn't apply to the cat; there is only one cat at any given time and any given position. Another side point for me, is about "For nothing will be impossible with God" (Luke 1: 37), but the sure thing is that God has determined that His creatures follow the rules of reality He has established. But we can't really speak about God the same way, not that God is both true and false at the same time, but God transcends His own rules for His creations. Some people ask if God cannot do wrong or be "not-God", then He is not omnipotent; so can God be omnipotent and not-omnipotent at the same time to be truly omnipotent? Of course I'm not saying God is bad, imperfect or contradictory or anything out of the Revelation and Truth; what is real is that God came in the form of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, truly human and in His true humanity He is God in everything; I suppose that answers some of the aforementioned perspective. When we speak of God, is not and never will be God, when God speaks about God, is God. 'Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says “Let Jesus be cursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.' (1 Corinthians 12 :3)
The wave form of light necessarily must travel faster than its forward propagation speed. Since our ability to measure anything is fundamentally limited by the forward propagation speed of light, we are incapable of measuring things absolutely at the quantum level where the "waveforms" travel faster than the forward propagation speed of light. One of the key fundamentals to the scientific method is measurement. Because our ability to measure things is limited by the forward propagation speed of light, the scientific method, and by extension all of "science", is fundamentally limited. Science is a philosophy, used for discernment of the material world. Any attempt to use this philosophy outside of its limited ability to discern things about the material world is downright idiotic and makes those who engage in such attempts look like fools. I hope all of you scientific atheists are paying attention.
If humans are so selfish, the observation of the cat for herself will be ignore. So, scientists or anyone who says that the cat is both dead and alive or neither alive nor dead at the same time is just being arrogant
Science is empirical. It is about what we observe. But it is also incomplete because we can't observe everything. So many people want to add things to the science to make it more complete. The many worlds interpretation is a clear example of this. It posits an infinite multiverse full of near clones of our own universe. That is certainly logically consistent. But because our universe includes everything we can possibly observe, these alternate universes are by definition unobservable and thus not part of science. Yet still physicists insist on believing this even though it is not science, by definition. They are willing to take a leap of faith. Many people believe in science in this manner. This manner is a religious manner. It is based on faith. Their priests wear white lab coats and spout logical arguments too complex for most to understand. Others follow blindly. IMO, it is crazy to reject a logical and observable God to believe, on faith alone, in "science" where that science is based on faith rather than observation. I believe in "Nullius in verba" in my science. BTW, God is not and cannot be part of science. Yes, God can be observed, but that's not enough. Science also requires repeatable observations. Yet God is omnipotent. In order to repeatedly observe God, scientists must be able to force God into those repeated observations, which they can't because God is omnipotent. So instead of assuming we will be able to know everything, we need to accept that there are some things we just won't be able to know, at least scientifically. Thus we are stuck with weaker proofs of God's existence like Godel's mathematical proof, or single observations like Fatima. (Though how one can reject either a mathematical proof of thousands of honest eyewitnesses I'll never understand.)
@@jwrosenbury I think in part this is explained by a confusion of mathematics with the universe. Mathematics is a _description_ (albeit an incomplete one) of reality, it is not reality, _per se._ Because (so supporters claim) positing a multiverse can solve certain mathematical conundrums, therefore it is assumed that multiverses must exist.
@@nathanaelculver5308 It's not clear to me that math is simply a description of the universe. It's not clear to me what exactly the relationship is between math and the universe? It might range anywhere from being a purely human idea mapped onto the universe all the way to actually being the universe or somewhere in between or something tangential. The amazing effectiveness of mathematics in science is one of the big questions in science these days. Positing a multiverse can solve certain mathematical conundrums. But so does, "God did it", as an explanation. Plus there are even more complex solutions that fit. Why choose that one answer? Perhaps it's complex enough to give rise to certain fantasies, but not so complex as to be unintelligible?
Great video. But perhaps more effort is needed to lay out the last claim. If superposition does not imply a logical contradiction. Then what does it imply? You claim that superposition is a tool to understand reality. However this tool seems to me made to describe a non-mutually exclusive pair of states (alive/death). So, even if superposition is a tool, it is a tool to describe a paradoxical state of reality. My impression is that your proof here became circular... Superposition does not imply logical contradiction. Superposition is a tool. Superposition describes a non-mutually exclusive state of the world. A non-mutually exclusive state of the world is an object with two or more stated in one instant. Superposition is a tool to understand a non-mutually exclusive states.
Superposition is an "apparent" reality brought about by our inability to absolutely measure any phenomenon in which objects travel faster than the forward propagation speed of light. In a way its similar to motion pictures. Motion pictures are actually a succession of still frame images that are flashed at a speed greater than our ability to discern the individual still frame images. If one were able to slow down the motion picture, one would be able to observe that it is not a "movie" one is observing, but a succession of still frame images. The forward propagation speed of light is the limit in our ability to absolutely measure particles, etc. at the quantum level. Superposition is like freezing the movie. We can see the still image, but we don't know what way the objects in the still frame are headed based solely on the information presented in the still frame image. It takes subsequent prior knowledge to discern what the objects in the still frame image are likely to do. (Assuming we haven't already seen the movie) we don't know with absolutely certainty what the objects will do in the next image, but we can take our knowledge of physics and our prior information and predict statically, usually with great accuracy, what is likely to happen in the next image.
Continuing on....Superposition is our best estimation of what will likely happen to the object in the next frame. We don't know what will happen because our ability to measure all of the properties of motion are limited because we can't get information back fast enough from the system that is being measured. Consequently, we are able to observe some of the properties of motion, but not all of them, hence the uncertainty. We can measure the position of the object in a system we are observing, but if the object in that system is moving faster than the forward propagation speed of light, we won't be able to absolutely measure its motion. We don't know what is going on "between the frames" so to speak. Incidentally, we think of light light as being a transverse wave, but the reality is its likely a helicoidal wave transmission. Because the forward propagation speed of light is what limits our ability to measure things, a three dimensional helicoidal wave form would appear as a two-dimensional transverse wave form when being observed. We are, in a sense, unable to perceive the depth of the three-dimensional wave form that travels faster than the forward propagation speed of light and it resolves to us as a two-dimensional wave form.
It seems to be a common misconception that QM, or even the Copenhagen interpretation, implies a violation of the law of non-contradiction. This is completely false and provably so, although if it indeed so, it would be inconsistent anyway, so...
My own understanding is your third version...but I find that as having incredible possibility, not contradiction. Human hubris (which God warns us about) thinks it can understand, classify, and control physics and all of reality. Quantum superposition along with many other quantum unknowns should humble us. God himself could be in a state of superposition...infinite potential...collapsing into us upon the needs of our conscious minds/souls....A place we cannot fully understand because we are tied completely to our physical reality. Limiting God to our human understanding of existing/non-existing seems hubristic to me. Limiting how God manifests himself so that we can neatly fit him into our Schrodinger's box is the flesh rearing it's ugliness. I ask: "Why would God be constrained to human understanding of reality?"
Quantum mechanics is an Alice in Wonderland universe built with mathematics. All of it is digital and abstract with nothing even remotely resembling reality. Hence why quantum mechanics is weird and counterintuitive.
I'm a PhD candidate in engineering at Columbia and I also love physics!! I also love Catholic theology and am a practicing Catholic!! So any topic that combines reasoning, science, faith, engineering, and logic is super interesting to me
Cool! I'm not nearly as educated as you, but I appreciate that you have managed to get something useful out of modern education and also keep your faith. That must have been quite hard work.
@@HolyKhaaaaan I think I realized that all of it comes under one truth! I noticed that there are many unseen and unquantified realities that clearly affect our lives like morality and beauty, which are just as apparent as the physical world (described by science). It was a grace from God to help me see that all of this can exist in harmony
@@HolyKhaaaaan I also have a friend here who is doing his PhD in theoretical physics who is a striving Catholic. It's nice seeing fellow academics who also strive to follow God
@@avb20540 I'll say! You excel in the intellect; your striving in the moral life tells me you want to be an excellent person generally. That is usually a good thing!
@@HolyKhaaaaan Thanks so much!! We all gotta keep going! I'll say an Our father and Hail Mary for your intentions and well-being!
I became a catholic while studying physics at oxford because these fundamental questions of physics showed me the need for God to form a coherent world view of science
God uses mysterious ways. I cam to God through sin.
Well I have some objections on that.
1-The fact that you need God to form a coherent world view is not a proof and I don't think it is a sufficient reason for believing.
2-What you mean by God here is the god of Roman Catholicism. Why isn't it the god of Islam or of any other religion?
@Indigator Veritatis Come back when you know how to show clearly and politely what you disagree with.
I pass through the same, amen!
@@syphaxafricanus the god of islam cant be God because it cannot involve himself into its creation, it is limited so is not God for me, you can believe whatever you want. Also there is freewill so what is sufficient for you is not for other persons,
It's okay that quantum mechanics disproves the Principle of Non-Contradiction, because it also doesn't.
Haha!
hahahahahahahahahahahahahhaa.
Goteem!
I see what you did there!
But it literally does and doesn’t.......................
Being a physicist, congratulations to my colleague the priest for the clarity of this presentation
Yea honestly. This is the first time in my modest 10 hours of looking into QM, that someone purporting the theory says that it is not accctually both, but just a mathematical system to describe possibility, and probability. The last 10 videos I watched said outright that QM actually believes that superpositions are real reality, and that its legitimately both. I still don't know if the priest here is an outlier in the belief that its not actually both, but its refreshing.
@@gigafp6239 The De Broglie - Bohm (DBB) interpretation belongs to the mentioned first category - and I think the true solution of these quantum puzzles may be "somewhere in that direction". DBB is still just one model - and perhaps not the best possible one. But the popular counteragument (of "non-locality") against it comes from a misunderstanding of the Theory of Relativity. In reality, information can travel faster than light (what DBB supposes) when we cannot use it so that we influence the happenings of this material world with it.
Thomistic Institute killing it again. ;)
I recommend You Aquinas "commentary on aristotle's metaphysics book 4"
my husband doesn't get it ;( ... i am still laughing! uh-oh!
Fr. John, you mean saving it?
Killing is bad, right? 😁
God bless, father.
Thanks! We're glad you found it helpful.
As an athiest, this is one of the few times in my life that not only I enjoyed listening to a prists, but I strongly agreed with him too.
Nice! Thanks for the comment.
Many an atheist changed their mind after discovering Aquinas and Thomistic thought, myself included.
God is real you need to get on board
Finally, an explanation that makes sense. And short to boot.
It's an analysis of probabilities for what you can't measure. It can not be 100% both opposing states at the same time. Thank you for this video.
This is great! It's the best explanation that I've seen of the Schrodinger's cat. Clear and to the point.
It was interesting to hear the different possible explanations. I had heard of two out of three of them, but in separate contexts. Hearing the three of them together makes them more understandable.
Love this!
Thanks! We're glad you found it helpful. God bless you.
Schrödinger did NOT support that theory, he presented his thought experiment to show how absurd that superposition theory actually was.
"Quantum mechanics is weird." Finally someone who starts a video about it being so honest; Many people try to say it's simple, or logic. But it's undeniably weird.
he started with saying that it's weird and proceed to say that it's meaningless what happens as long as we dont observe it. yeah, great anti argument mate
One important detail: Schrödinger actually proposed this paradoxical thought experiment in order to critique some aspects of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Key point.
true, but people love to unorganize things, and blame the brother
mark'oh Hello and greetings to you. Yes indeed cheeky Erwin offered the cat complex tongue-in-cheek or cheek-in-Tanganyika while remaining in cheeks or neither or, but something akin.
Aquinas would argue that the cat has the potential to be dead or alive, but won't be realized in existence until actually observed. At least from the human perspective. Meaning things exist as they do whether we observe them or not. But in order to understand the world , we have to use models and concepts and frameworks like superposition. These are just acts of knowing the world. The object of knowledge remains the atom or cat in a particular state.
The presumed paradox only arises if we consider the "superposition of quantum states" a superposition of actual states, which they are not.
The only actual states that we get are the observed states, i.e. the states that we actually observe when we make a measurement.
A quantum superposition of states only occurs as a superpositon of not-yet-observed POTENTIAL states, and has no physical reality.
So the Schroedinger's Cat is not "dead and alive".
It is "potentially dead and potentially alive, but in an UNDETERMINED state until we observe it".
The actual state is created when we observe.
So it is a scientific way to say "I don't know, let me check." ?
The De Broglie - Bohm (DBB) interpretation belongs to the mentioned first category - and I think the true solution of these quantum puzzles may be "somewhere in that direction". DBB is still just one model - and perhaps not the best possible one. But the popular counteragument (of "non-locality") against it comes from a misunderstanding of the Theory of Relativity. In reality, information can travel faster than light (what DBB supposes) when we cannot use it so that we influence the happenings of this material world with it.
Which would imply to all of reality, and if reality is undetermined until we measure then the law of contradiction is sus
Or as I would say to my students in class "So, if your interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and Schrodinger's Cat is true, then it's also false, and now we agree."
Fantastic explanation, thank you for publishing these videos!!!
You're welcome! We're glad you find them helpful.
Excellent explanation of Schroedingers' Cat! I have to say I was expecting/hoping you would at least mention the actuality-potentiality distinction, which Aristotle invoked to overcome Parmenides's use of the principle non-contradiction. Perhaps something to explore in a future episode? Maybe you could also talk about the Thomistic work on QM you mentioned, if that's not too out of scope.
This was great! I really appreciate the way you break it down and speak. Thank you :)
You're welcome! Thanks for watching.
The irony is that those who say that quantum mechanics requires us to deny the Law Of Logical Non-Contradiction are doing so on the basis that they falsely believe quantum mechanics to logically contradict it.
I love this topic, because this is proof to scientists and materialists that “consciousness exists”, the fact that the “observer” matters…even the cat. It’s where science and metaphysics meet! Our material world around us is really a simulation created by God. Divine Providence!
I'd not go that far. There is no necessity for a living thing to observe the particle for it to "choose" its orientation. A computer measuring it will have the same effect
@@DerPinguim A computer functions on algorithms and can “choose” it’s orientation. But living creatures with consciousness don’t choose anything. We’re just observers. Everything is “pre-determined”. Things (particles) appear to be random until we look at them.
great talk, as a 92.5 year old Catholic physicist, I learned something. However still puzzled: superposition yields entanglement, and that I believe has been experimentally observed in a number of experiments. So that implies, I believe, that superposition is more than a mathematical device. comment?
Seems similar to the platonic error of conflating forms or mathematical objects with actual ones, when considering QM as if it were saying something actual rather than upholding two contradictory possibilities.
Suubscriiibed!
Speaking as a non RC, St. Thomas is a treasure to the body of Christ.
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become catholic
A much needed video
Thank-you for this clarification! God bless you all. 🙏🏽✝️
Really nice! Keep the pictures coming! subscribed
Excellent! Thanks for watching! God bless you.
Thank you very much for these videos! I'm Orthodox, not Catholic, but these are still wonderful aids in understanding the nature of how God's creation works
you are invited to become catholic!!
I do not know for sure if this is historically accurate, but my understanding is that Schroedinger's intention for the cat illustration was to point out a concrete example of the absurdity that quantum mechanics leaves for us to resolve. In other words despite it's brilliance, it is not complete. He was never saying the cat is literally both alive and dead.
it cannot be completed since schrödinger said that a particle is an electron and the electron is a particle, the equation works good in the squared version for statistic purposes but not to understand the behaviour and movement of a A=B ilogical entity
This solves my long time dilemma brought about by quantum mechanic's SUBJECTIVISM. Thanks, Padre!
A bit off topic, but I thought I’d mention it anyway: If Schrodinger had put a puppy in the box his thought experiment would have been rejected in outrage. (It’s not surprising that he didn’t put a dog in the box since he owned one).
I love the diagram of the experiment.
Wow. Simply beautiful. God bless you
Now I want to read about a Thomistic interpretation of quantum mechanics. Has that been formalized yet? Thanks for the video.
Tons of lessons and videos on the subject, but I was always pushed to the third interpretation (that, in mt opinion, is the least intuitive) as a truth. No one had ever claryfied this topic, neither explained how it was one of the interpretations. Thank you!
Congratulations for addressing this fallacious interpretation that gets popularized as science
Very well explained, thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
There is more than one Uncertainty Principle. For microscopic objects we have the Heisenberg UP, but for macroscopic objects, roughly those heavier than the Planck mass, we would do better to think in terms of an UP due to classical Brownian motion on the scale of Planck's constant, which is Reinhold Fuerth's UP. Thomism or Aristotelean logic applies to heavy objects in classical Brownian motion, but fails for microscopic objects where A and not-A are capable of destructive interference with each other.
I was taught the interpretation that any interaction with a macroscopic object collapses the wave function. I don't remember the exact mathematical details, but I remember working briefly with wave functions for multiple particles, and there are terms that tend to cancel each other out. I understand that for a macroscopic object, there are a huge number of canceling terms, leaving pretty much just one answer. I think it is roughly similar to how it would not be unexpected to get 8 heads out of 10 coin flips, but 8 million heads out of 10 million coin flips would be extremely rare. When the expected is about 50%, I believe the chance of getting 8/10 is about the same as getting 5.003 million out of 10 million. So, as you increase the sample-size/number of particles, the deviation from the expected outcome vanishes.
I was also taught the interpretation that microscopic particles are neither particles nor waves, which means that they exist in some way that confounds our intuition. We have no experience of dealing with these kinds of things in our daily lives. The uncertainty in the state is actually an inherent quality of the thing itself, and not just our inability to measure it. I believe a proof of this is that particles sent through a slit one at a time still produce diffraction patterns. If they were particles, there would be no diffraction pattern, and if they were waves, there would be no definite position recorded for each individual particle on the screen.
Why there would not be a diffraction pattern if they were particles? phys.org/news/2020-07-diffract-molecules.html
thanks for this work on theology and phylosophy for us
My (layman's) understanding is that superposition can only apply to particles that are isolated and not "self observing" by interacting with other particles (i.e. decoherence). Therefore, the only thing that would be in superposition in the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment would be the decaying particle. Everything else: the detector, the poison release mechanism, and the cat--would not be in a quantum state of superposition because these are macroscopic objects whose particles are in decoherence, hence they are in only one state at a time, not two.
Whether the cat lives or dies depends entirely on what the detector senses and does. If the particle's superposition sets off the detector, the cat dies. If not, it lives. But whether the cat lives or dies is resolved long before the box is opened.
Very fascinating, thank you! And useful: there's so much "quantum babble" out there.
We're glad you found the video helpful! Thanks for watching.
The De Broglie - Bohm (DBB) interpretation belongs to the mentioned first category - and I think the true solution of these quantum puzzles may be "somewhere in that direction". DBB is still just one model - and perhaps not the best possible one. But the popular counteragument (of "non-locality") against it comes from a misunderstanding of the Theory of Relativity. In reality, information can travel faster than light (what DBB supposes) when we cannot use it so that we influence the happenings of this material world with it.
superb video
We're so glad to hear it! Thanks for taking the time to watch and comment. May the Lord bless you!
profound teaching father devenooirt
Essential video. Excellent Catholic teaching.
Thank you, Father Davenport.
Pax Christi.
You're welcome! God bless you.
I feel that the reason why people don't know how to explain what a superposition is, is that it requires one to understand mathematics minimum at the level of Undergraduate Linear Algebra and or another topic in Mathematics called Fourier Series. In linear algebra or statistics, it is a linear combination of states, a good example equation to illustrate is a Multi-Linear Regression equation : y =a1x1 +a2x2 + a3x3 + ...., . In Fourier Analysis we have a linear combination of Trigonometric functions where the argument or angle is varying y = a1*sin(1*x) + a2*sin(2x) + a3*sin(3x) + .... . In Linear Algebra we talk about a Linear Combination of Vectors or Vector Space functions. So this is the basic math that has to be incorporated in a discussion to really talk about what a Superposition in Quantum Mechanics is.
the whole point of the box is to point out precisely that the superposition can't be observed. but I think the overall point is that things happen transcendentally of observation.
How do atheists reconcile the double slit experiment? I was having a debate with some atheists about the double slit experiment and from my interpretation it would seem to mean that the universe operates differently when there is a conscious observer taking a measurement. Why would a seemingly inanimate and unconscious universe operate in such a way?
Exactly 3:38
The thing about Quantum Superposition(states) is, it's not (for simplicity I used plus and minus) + and -, it is a position/state in itself according to Bra-Ket notation.
I would have much more appreciated a true thomistic interpretation of QM through essence and accident. Act and potence.
That is what I was expecting too
Where can I find such an interpretation?
@@traderette9211 If I find it, I'll tell you. But... why not try to define it yourself? Shall we try?
I get the impression from this video that it's an ongoing venture.
@@jeremysmith7176 yes but i'm sure there has been thomistic descriptions. QT is not new
You used the phrase "Thomistic Philosophy" a few times in this video. Can you explain that? Is Thomism a philosophy, and if so, in what way? How are its principles different from Aristotelianism?
No, this is really as simple as this: The cat is either dead or alive. Upon viewing the evidence you will see that someone is right and someone is wrong. Not that hard.
Maybe we could say that QM both violates and respects the law of non-contradiction ? It violates it, but not under the same aspect as we usually imply because QM doesn't act on the same level of reality as ours. But on our macroscopic level, the law can't be violated. But thank you for the explanation, I enjoy the whole serial. I just ended a course on Aquinas and I'm still flabbergasted by his genius.
Is it too simplistic if said in terms of act and potency? Like the cat is either one or the other but only one in actuality and only the other in potentiality?
Scientists do anything these days to hold their materialism. That's a shame!
Quantum Mechanics is certainly a difficulty for Materialists, but it is just something fascinating and interesting for Theists.
You do know that through the discoveries in quantum mechanics, most of the leading physicists actually became more and more interested in the non-materialist outlook of the world; Einstein, Bohr and Schrödinger being brilliant examples. Many of them even wrote multiple essays about it
I am a scientist and i am concern to get rid of the materialism in the scientific community, because that is the teaching of christ to spread the word, if you want to follow jesus leave all and heal them!
@@LVCIVSANTONIVS Philosophy helps a lot. Good philosophy.
Great explanation!
The mysterious feature of quantum mechanics is the destructive interference of probability distributions. An entity which exhibits this behaviour is imaginable. There is more than one way to travel faster than light. Consider an entity in tachyonic Brownian motion which also executes an oscillation in the other way to travel faster than light. The two behaviours are strictly orthogonal to each other, and the second behaviour means that the entity can interfere with itself. If the entity interacts with two or more detectors, then the randomness of the Brownian motion means that there is a broken symmetry and just one detector gets the prize. There is a long way to go to turn this idea into a working computer simulation.
So logic alone is not enough and observations are needed.
When a tree falls in the woods, it still makes a sound even if no one is around to hear it.
No, it doesn't. It makes something to the other trees, it makes something to the ants passing by, it makes a sound to the birds the way they perceive sound, but it doesn't make a "sound as human beings consider it" if there are no persons to hear it.
@Pangea06 It changes all. "Sound waves" are one thing. "Sound" is another.
For sound to exist, there must be a listener.
@@andsalomoni This is simply a semantic argument, solved by defining “sound”. Is it the waves, or is it the _qualia_ of our perception?
One could ask a plethora of similar questions: is an apple still red if no one can see it? Is ice still cold if no one can touch it? And so forth.
@@nathanaelculver5308 I hear sound, I feel vibrations (waves) in my body when a strong sound comes, etc. These are perceptions, like seeing colours and feeling heat and cold. Call them "qualia" if you like, but it is what has always been the reality we live in.
The "sound waves" about which science talks, are intellectual constructs that work when applied in an objective way (with scientific instruments, etc.) to reality, but they have no reality as direct experiences.
So it is not a "semantic" problem at all, it is substantial.
"Sound" is what I hear and a "vibration" is what I can feel in my belly; scientific "sound waves" are a concept that we successfully apply in a technological ambit. But they are completely different things.
@@andsalomoni *I hear sound, I feel vibrations*
Yes. We experience the same underlying reality it two different ways - as vibrations to the touch, as sound to the ear. But how we perceive that reality, and the reality itself are separate issues.
*So it is not a “semantic problem”*
No. The semantic problem lies in the conundrum set up in the original question: if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, does it make a sound? The answer simply depends on how one defines “sound”. If you mean vibrations, the answer is yes. If you mean our subjective experience of those vibrations, obviously no.
*”Sound” is what I hear*
In that case, your answer would be no.
Me trying to understand this in Thomistic terms: The issue at question is to know what is actual and what is potential, or if there can be beings that are in potency but not actual beings.
As the video says, all we know is what we observe. Now we can make philosophical interpretations of that which we do not observe.
In the Schroedinger's cat experiment, it is claimed that the cat is alive and dead at the same time until we open the box and discover. It is the observer that makes the wavefunction collapse, they say (Copenhagen interpretation). But this doesn't make sense. We have every reason to believe the cat, or the radioactive atom that can decay, exist in and of themselves. They exist in actuality, which means they have to be determined. they cannot be totally indetermined. Because total indetermination is negation of existence. Things are or are not. We can discuss the accidents of the existence (states of matter/energy), but existence is determination.
What they claim is that these beings, (cat, atom) are totally indetermined. Something like the thomistic concept of prime matter: a being with no accidents, no form. But then what does it mean that they exist? It is far more simple to say that we do not know (and we cannot know), but not that they exist in an indeterminate way in reality (existence without form is only a thought experiment). Prime matter exist only in minds, something like the square root of -1. Needed to explain reality, but not truly real.
Now another inconsistency is when they say that the observer is the one that determines the whole universe when he observes the wave function of the universe. It is inconsistent because that would mean that the observer is (metaphysically) not part of the universe, that is, that it is the only being determined outside of the universe. It doesn't work. We have every reason to believe things exist objectively differentiated, apart from the observer (subjective). beings exist as determined beings: Atoms, cells, rocks, they all exist in a determined way, despite the observation. To think otherwise is to think the observer is the only being in the universe (solipsism). It just doesn't work to explain reality.
In the end, we are coming again to the problem of the prime matter as defined by Thomism: That which is only potential with no actuality, which seems to be an elusive and even contradictory thing. But Aristotle/Aquinas do not say that prime matter does not exist in reality, but only intellectually: Just as the soul and the body can only be differentiated only intellectually. It is only an intellectual concept necessary for explaining change, form and matter (and thus reality). The intellect knows, so you can know (under-stand) prime matter. Prime matter is one of the fundaments of existence, and is necessary to explain change.
Conclusion regarding the three main philosophies of interpretation of quantum mechanics:
1- It is much more logical to think that the cat is dead or alive, although I cannot know: the cat is either dead or alive in actuality, with the potential to be in the other state. This is called superdeterminism. Things exist despite the observation.
2- This is far better than to think that the cat is alive and dead at the same time (which means the cat exists in potency without actuality; the Copenhaghen interpreation). The existence of potency without actuality means the cat would not be a cat. Because being a cat/atom is to exist as a cat/atom. Decayed or not decayed. this is what we observe.
3- Lastly, the third option is to think that another universe holds the other state (two actualities, each in a universe; the many universes interpretation). This is highy irrational, having the option of hylemorphism (see bullet no.1). This is so because then we would have to ask whether the universes exist determined in actuality, or only in potency. In order to uphold this theory, you need to believe that the universes exist in actuality, so you are transferring the problem of existence in actuality to the various universes. It doesn't work either.
Oh my goodness. Where will the subscribers to scientism hide now?
I have enjoyed these videos a lot and have had many of my viewpoints changed by their content. I am, however, a bit concerned. Is there any logical principle or observation of St Thomas Aquinas that the Church now accepts as "a good idea at the time, but our knowledge has evolved"? It strikes me that occasionally (both in this video and others) there is an implicit desire to show that St Thomas Aquinas was always right rather than accept the possibility that he was brilliant but sometimes wrong or that, for now, we just don't know?
Thanks for the note, David. The goal certainly isn't to present St. Thomas as being absolutely infallible in every circumstance. One famous example where he was mistaken is with regard to Mary's Immaculate Conception: aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/st-iiia-q-27#TPQ27OUTP1
We're glad you've been enjoying the videos, and we hope you continue to find them helpful. God bless you!
*A honest doubt:* do different potencies aren't simultaneous while they aren't actualized?
Existing both at the same time, but in that case, in different respects?
Somehow I feel the key point is missed in this video. If Schroedinger would have presented his cat to St. Thomas he would have replied very probably citing Aristotle Interpretation/Section 1/ Part 9:
Now that which is must needs be when it is, and that which is not must needs not be when it is not. Yet it cannot be said without qualification that all existence and non-existence is the outcome of necessity. For there is a difference between saying that that which is, when it is, must needs be, and simply saying that all that is must needs be, and similarly in the case of that which is not. In the case, also, of two contradictory propositions this holds good. Everything must either be or not be, whether in the present or in the future, but it is not always possible to distinguish and state determinately which of these alternatives must necessarily come about.
Let me illustrate. A sea-fight must either take place tomorrow or not, but it is not necessary that it should take place tomorrow, neither is it necessary that it should not take place, yet it is necessary that it either should or should not take place tomorrow. Since propositions correspond with facts, it is evident that when in future events there is a real alternative, and a potentiality in contrary directions, the corresponding affirmation and denial have the same character.
This is the case with regard to that which is not always existent or not always nonexistent. One of the two propositions in such instances must be true and the other false, but we cannot say determinately that this or that is false, but must leave the alternative undecided. One may indeed be more likely to be true than the other, but it cannot be either actually true or actually false. It is therefore plain that it is not necessary that of an affirmation and a denial one should be true and the other false.
The superposition is mental masturbation . In science the person involved in an "experiment " is not suppose to have a bias. Saying that the cat is neither dead or alive is mental masturbation because the cat is either alive or dead and pretending as if it is neither is a bias in itself. Language is more intricate than math because math is made of language .
Is this true of quantum tunneling? That a particle is not in two places at once, but just probabilities of where it's at?
At least! I am a Chemist and Catholic and I can't agree more, how a particle can be a wave at the same time? a wave is a wave and a particle is a particle, and also how could they got into that conclusion using a BEAM, how can you reduce what you observe into billions of particles as the same thing to one particle? also the schrodinger equation is unreal untill you use the squared one that gives you the probability, the mapping of the electron density, it is an interesting aproximation with nice uses in chemistry but the theory is contradictory, thanks God bless our frayles and priests and the holy catholic church!
That's easy my friend. First though, you must recognize that the Michaelson Morley experiment and its subsequent conclusions are based on two underlying assumptions that are never articulated, and therefor the acceptance of the null hypothesis cannot be justified. First assumption: Light is a discrete entity, apart from the Aether. Second assumption: the field of Aether is incapable of localized rotation. When you also add "nothing can travel faster than the speed of light" into the mix, you begin to see where this is going.
What the MM experiment never considers is that light is actually not a discrete entity apart from the Aether, but is itself a wave form within the particles of the Aether. Take a moment to visualize a simple Newton's cradle, where the ball on one end of the set strikes the end of the set and transfers its momentum to the ball on the other end of the set, causing it to move. This is an example of a mechanical wave form in a one dimensional, linear Aether. Now imagine a three-dimensional Newton's cradle comprised of equally sized spheres tightly packed in an F-C-C arrangement. If you were to strike one of the balls, the energy will eventually propagate through the matrix of balls and come out on the other side just like it would in a one dimensional Newton's cradle.
Now consider that the energy of this wave, for a brief moment, is concentrated in one of the balls as it is passing the moment/energy to the next ball. Light can be best imagined as a cosmic relay race where one particle of Aether has the baton and it continues to pass that baton on to the next particle until it eventually reaches a receptor. Is light a wave? Yes, it is the wave of energy that propagates through the Aether from one fundamental particle to the next. Is light a particle? Yes, its energy and momentum is contained within the fundamental particle of Aether that finally strikes the receptor, whereupon it transfers its energy/moment to the receptor.
Getting back to the MM experiment.....if light is actually a wave within the Aether and the region of Aether that surrounds the experimental apparatus also rotates in three-dimensional space in unison with the apparatus, you would expect to get the same experimental result....no wave form interference pattern.
@@eugeniusbear2297 well then you have a 3rd entity that is the ethereal environment where light is a wave, so the fact of the behaviour doesn't rest into the particle=wave but in the spatial/environmental new dimension, is like with the string of the guitar the guitar string is not the nylon and the nylon is not the wave, but the guitar string posses the (I dont know how to translate this word) intrinsical" property of being created with nylon, and other "extrinsical" property that if you play the string a wave is formed, the problem is within the to be verb on the germanic languages i think, it is more pantheistic
I think that one better approaching is the 2t theory by Itzhak Bars, even though the michelson morley experiment and the approach is enteologicaly better than the schrodinger approach
Excellent
What if we put a dead cat in first? And we look in, will it be resurrected?
When I think of this subject I recall the biblical verse "we are strangely and fearfully made".
Superposition is an "apparent" reality brought about by our inability to absolutely measure any phenomenon in which objects travel faster than the forward propagation speed of light.
In a way its similar to motion pictures. Motion pictures are actually a succession of still frame images that are flashed at a speed greater than our ability to discern the individual still frame images. If one were able to slow down the motion picture, one would be able to observe that it is not a "movie" one is observing, but a succession of still frame images. The forward propagation speed of light is the limit in our ability to absolutely measure particles, etc. at the quantum level.
Superposition is like freezing the movie. When can see the still image, but we don't know what way the objects in the still frame are headed based solely on the information presented in the still frame image. It takes subsequent prior knowledge to discern what the objects in the still frame image are likely to do. (Assuming we haven't already seen the movie) we don't know with absolutely certainty what the objects will do in the next image, but we can take our knowledge of physics and our prior information and predict statically, usually with great accuracy, what is likely to happen in the next image.
Love it!
You do not need quantum mechanice for this experiment. The same question arise if, in addition to the cat, you would close in the box, a little man who tosses a coin, and kills the cat or not depending on the result. You would still didn’t know the status unless you open the box.
Ok the Copenhageners are RIGHT. It is meaningless to argue which state the cat is in while the observer is not watching, the event is just probabilities TO THE ABSENT OBSERVER.
The observer also cannot be 'watching' and 'not watching' at the same time!
Interesting
But if something can’t be true if it has its own contradiction then how can the law of non-contradiction aka correspondences or contradictions be true if both ideas contradicts each other, they both would be false in that sense meaning neither statements would be true. But it would also be a true statement to say it’s TRUE that both Non-contradictions(correspondences) or contradictions ARE false... but even this conclusion can have its own counter conclusion making it false in its own right, this is a paradox indeed. Maybe it’s really about how everything is a contradiction and wrong in a sense but we try to make it correspond in a sense to make things right, like a person trying to fix the pieces to a broken mirror or maybe it could really be about how everything is right and corresponds but we make it contradict In a sense to make things wrong like a person trying to break a mirror into pieces. Idk this paradox is endless. Maybe that’s the reason it’s a law bc life never actually ends and god is only true through corresponding with our false contradictions but every time we correspond with contradictions trying to reach our hands out to god it actually pushes god out even further inching us a step further towards the true almighty but never enough to actually catch up maybe we should contradict against correspondences(if that makes sense) to
actually catch up and even surpass god... just ideas here
I know of a certain Franciscan that attempted to logically interact with TH-cam Atheists. Perhaps he should have left it to the professionals 🤔😁😉. Leaves the question if you put a Franciscan in a box will he try to hug his way out? On the other hand if you put a Dominican in a box he will explain rationally how the box is the best place for everyone. Meanwhile the Jesuits are arguing the morality of the box to begin with.
Is this Franciscan a TH-camr?
@@elijahhallberg1847 Insert perhaps cow meme
If you get a modern Jesuit in, we don't have a Superposition for morality is obviously dead
It's not that simple. You have to meet the cat where it's at.
@@shashikamanoj1160🤨🤨🤨 cough* Fr Pacwa* cough SJ cough🤭🤫
I liked so much how explains different interpretation of quantum mecanics and why does not exist a contradiction.
Probability theory it's just a measure of uncertain it's not physics by itself
And what show it just how Phenomena appear to our looker.
Nature does not show by itself so just take probabilities measure of energy asociated to particle or field or how they interacted by itself.
I dunno I think like joke than God is platonist and our science tools it's kantian 😅😅
" cat placed in box for long enough will no longer be a cat, what is a cat?"
Unknown
HELP!?
I didn't get the part at: 5:11 (onward)
So do other dimensions exist? Any fellow Catholics willing to tell me "no", please?
@Christopher Winter thank you so much! Great explanation!
May The Immaculate Heart be your Refuge!
So first things first. Bravo! I love this video as well as your other one th-cam.com/video/YLl7TRF_l2w/w-d-xo.html The Principle of Non-Contradiction (Aquinas 101). Fantastic stuff. I happen to agree with Aquinas's principle, but I'm having a hard time with what was just said. The main thing that I'm failing to understand is how can we then use these superpositions in quantum computing if they're left up to interpretations? Aren't the qubits a 1 and a 0 at the same time? This seems to go far beyond just interpretations.
'Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness."' (Genesis 1: 3-4)
The same thing if you toss a coin that can split into two coins and will always show both the head and the tail, if 'head' means the cat is alive and 'tail' means the cat is dead, the cat will always be dead because the rule of 'superposition' doesn't apply to the cat; there is only one cat at any given time and any given position.
Another side point for me, is about "For nothing will be impossible with God" (Luke 1: 37), but the sure thing is that God has determined that His creatures follow the rules of reality He has established. But we can't really speak about God the same way, not that God is both true and false at the same time, but God transcends His own rules for His creations.
Some people ask if God cannot do wrong or be "not-God", then He is not omnipotent; so can God be omnipotent and not-omnipotent at the same time to be truly omnipotent? Of course I'm not saying God is bad, imperfect or contradictory or anything out of the Revelation and Truth; what is real is that God came in the form of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, truly human and in His true humanity He is God in everything; I suppose that answers some of the aforementioned perspective.
When we speak of God, is not and never will be God, when God speaks about God, is God.
'Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says “Let Jesus be cursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.' (1 Corinthians 12 :3)
The wave form of light necessarily must travel faster than its forward propagation speed. Since our ability to measure anything is fundamentally limited by the forward propagation speed of light, we are incapable of measuring things absolutely at the quantum level where the "waveforms" travel faster than the forward propagation speed of light. One of the key fundamentals to the scientific method is measurement. Because our ability to measure things is limited by the forward propagation speed of light, the scientific method, and by extension all of "science", is fundamentally limited. Science is a philosophy, used for discernment of the material world. Any attempt to use this philosophy outside of its limited ability to discern things about the material world is downright idiotic and makes those who engage in such attempts look like fools. I hope all of you scientific atheists are paying attention.
The answer would be that the cat is the observer in this case.
If humans are so selfish, the observation of the cat for herself will be ignore. So, scientists or anyone who says that the cat is both dead and alive or neither alive nor dead at the same time is just being arrogant
This makes my hair hurt.
Simply put. No
'St John Bosco and Diabolical Harassments' on TH-cam
Cool
This is great. I've debated atheist physicist Dr. Don Lincoln on Facebook. He thinks science proves atheism. 😆
Why do't you share your experience?
@@antoniomoyal that about sums it up.
Science is empirical. It is about what we observe. But it is also incomplete because we can't observe everything. So many people want to add things to the science to make it more complete.
The many worlds interpretation is a clear example of this. It posits an infinite multiverse full of near clones of our own universe. That is certainly logically consistent. But because our universe includes everything we can possibly observe, these alternate universes are by definition unobservable and thus not part of science. Yet still physicists insist on believing this even though it is not science, by definition. They are willing to take a leap of faith.
Many people believe in science in this manner. This manner is a religious manner. It is based on faith. Their priests wear white lab coats and spout logical arguments too complex for most to understand. Others follow blindly.
IMO, it is crazy to reject a logical and observable God to believe, on faith alone, in "science" where that science is based on faith rather than observation. I believe in "Nullius in verba" in my science.
BTW, God is not and cannot be part of science. Yes, God can be observed, but that's not enough. Science also requires repeatable observations. Yet God is omnipotent. In order to repeatedly observe God, scientists must be able to force God into those repeated observations, which they can't because God is omnipotent.
So instead of assuming we will be able to know everything, we need to accept that there are some things we just won't be able to know, at least scientifically.
Thus we are stuck with weaker proofs of God's existence like Godel's mathematical proof, or single observations like Fatima. (Though how one can reject either a mathematical proof of thousands of honest eyewitnesses I'll never understand.)
@@jwrosenbury I think in part this is explained by a confusion of mathematics with the universe. Mathematics is a _description_ (albeit an incomplete one) of reality, it is not reality, _per se._ Because (so supporters claim) positing a multiverse can solve certain mathematical conundrums, therefore it is assumed that multiverses must exist.
@@nathanaelculver5308 It's not clear to me that math is simply a description of the universe. It's not clear to me what exactly the relationship is between math and the universe? It might range anywhere from being a purely human idea mapped onto the universe all the way to actually being the universe or somewhere in between or something tangential. The amazing effectiveness of mathematics in science is one of the big questions in science these days.
Positing a multiverse can solve certain mathematical conundrums. But so does, "God did it", as an explanation. Plus there are even more complex solutions that fit. Why choose that one answer? Perhaps it's complex enough to give rise to certain fantasies, but not so complex as to be unintelligible?
Law of excluded middle refute true and false at the same time.
If unobserved particles are contradictions, then logically there are no unobserved particles. Idealism wins. Problem solved.
Great video. But perhaps more effort is needed to lay out the last claim. If superposition does not imply a logical contradiction. Then what does it imply? You claim that superposition is a tool to understand reality. However this tool seems to me made to describe a non-mutually exclusive pair of states (alive/death). So, even if superposition is a tool, it is a tool to describe a paradoxical state of reality. My impression is that your proof here became circular...
Superposition does not imply logical contradiction.
Superposition is a tool.
Superposition describes a non-mutually exclusive state of the world.
A non-mutually exclusive state of the world is an object with two or more stated in one instant.
Superposition is a tool to understand a non-mutually exclusive states.
Superposition is an "apparent" reality brought about by our inability to absolutely measure any phenomenon in which objects travel faster than the forward propagation speed of light.
In a way its similar to motion pictures. Motion pictures are actually a succession of still frame images that are flashed at a speed greater than our ability to discern the individual still frame images. If one were able to slow down the motion picture, one would be able to observe that it is not a "movie" one is observing, but a succession of still frame images. The forward propagation speed of light is the limit in our ability to absolutely measure particles, etc. at the quantum level.
Superposition is like freezing the movie. We can see the still image, but we don't know what way the objects in the still frame are headed based solely on the information presented in the still frame image. It takes subsequent prior knowledge to discern what the objects in the still frame image are likely to do. (Assuming we haven't already seen the movie) we don't know with absolutely certainty what the objects will do in the next image, but we can take our knowledge of physics and our prior information and predict statically, usually with great accuracy, what is likely to happen in the next image.
Continuing on....Superposition is our best estimation of what will likely happen to the object in the next frame. We don't know what will happen because our ability to measure all of the properties of motion are limited because we can't get information back fast enough from the system that is being measured. Consequently, we are able to observe some of the properties of motion, but not all of them, hence the uncertainty. We can measure the position of the object in a system we are observing, but if the object in that system is moving faster than the forward propagation speed of light, we won't be able to absolutely measure its motion. We don't know what is going on "between the frames" so to speak.
Incidentally, we think of light light as being a transverse wave, but the reality is its likely a helicoidal wave transmission. Because the forward propagation speed of light is what limits our ability to measure things, a three dimensional helicoidal wave form would appear as a two-dimensional transverse wave form when being observed. We are, in a sense, unable to perceive the depth of the three-dimensional wave form that travels faster than the forward propagation speed of light and it resolves to us as a two-dimensional wave form.
I think quantum mechanics implies that reality is NOT fixed, and as such, the law of non contradiction is suspect.
"Time" 🙃
And the real challenge: can you explain the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment in a way that non-scientists can understand?
It seems to be a common misconception that QM, or even the Copenhagen interpretation, implies a violation of the law of non-contradiction. This is completely false and provably so, although if it indeed so, it would be inconsistent anyway, so...
Man can be physically alive and spiritually dead at the same time. We observe this superposition all the time.
How do you know when they are spiritual dead?
My own understanding is your third version...but I find that as having incredible possibility, not contradiction.
Human hubris (which God warns us about) thinks it can understand, classify, and control physics and all of reality. Quantum superposition along with many other quantum unknowns should humble us. God himself could be in a state of superposition...infinite potential...collapsing into us upon the needs of our conscious minds/souls....A place we cannot fully understand because we are tied completely to our physical reality. Limiting God to our human understanding of existing/non-existing seems hubristic to me. Limiting how God manifests himself so that we can neatly fit him into our Schrodinger's box is the flesh rearing it's ugliness. I ask: "Why would God be constrained to human understanding of reality?"
Quantum mechanics is an Alice in Wonderland universe built with mathematics. All of it is digital and abstract with nothing even remotely resembling reality. Hence why quantum mechanics is weird and counterintuitive.