David Albert: The Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics | Robinson's Podcast
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ก.ค. 2024
- David Albert is the Frederick E. Woodbridge Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University and one of the world’s most respected philosophers of physics. He is also the director of the Philosophical Foundations of Physics program at Columbia and a faculty member of the John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics. This is David’s fifth (!) appearance on Robinson’s Podcast. He appeared on episode #23 with Justin Clarke-Doane on metaethics and absolute space, episode #30 on the philosophy of time, episode #67 with Tim Maudlin on the foundations of quantum theory, and episode #106 with Sean Carroll on Many-Worlds and fine-tuning. In this episode, Robinson and David discuss his new book, A Guess at the Riddle: Essays on the Physical Underpinnings of Quantum Mechanics (Harvard, 2023), and the metaphysics of quantum mechanics. If you’re interested in the foundations of physics-which you absolutely should be-then please check out the JBI, which is devoted to providing a home for research and education in this important area. Any donations are immensely helpful at this early stage in the institute’s life.
A Guess at the Riddle: a.co/d/6qcsidl
The John Bell Institute: www.johnbellinstitute.org
OUTLINE
00:00 In This Episode…
00:56 Introduction
05:12 On The Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics
30:24 The Complex Origins of Antirealism in Quantum Physics
37:29 Instrumentalism and String Theory
45:31 The Amazing History of Locality in Physics
01:22:38 Quantum Mechanics as Experimental Metaphysics
01:26:27 What Is Wave-Function Realism in the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics?
Robinson’s Website: robinsonerhardt.com
Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, weightlifters, artists, and everyone in-between.
Can listen to David Albert ramble all day- thank you for co-signing the rambling Robinson
Funny how his ramblings are valued more then Nobel prize winners.
One thing most beautiful in this video is that host patiently allowed guest to share his views uninterruptedly enabling the guest to explain his views in detail and plane language beautifully and elegantly... thanks 🙏.
Great that guys like David Albert And Tim Maudlin are willing to talk about these things on podcasts such as these. This is essential for the physics and philosophy community, or more particularly, young aspiring physicists who actually want to know what the world is like. Great talk.
I think they are still really underfunded. I'm sure they will grow. Hell, I'll fly to Croatia for vacation/summer school at the institute haha@@lc2000
imo both Albert and Maudlin concede way too much to the idealist. They both concede that quantum mechanics proves there is no objective reality independent of the observer but just follow it up with "therefore quantum mechanics must be wrong." They hinge their entire belief on realism on quantum mechanics one day being falsified, which seems like a big gamble given it has remained strong for a century.
Treating the measurement problem as a scientific problem and therefore realism can only be saved with a new theory is questionable. A lot of philosophers have pointed out for decades that QM is perfectly compatible with philosophical realism as it is currently formulated without modification but tends to remain on the fringes for some reason.
@@amihartz Odd observation, I would say Maudlin and Albert prefer "realist" perspectives. Maudlin is a Bohmian and Albert proposes a unique GRW type interpretation if I remember correctly. Both interpretations postulate physical, observer independent, ontologies.
@@legrantmoore5264 Did you not read my comment? I literally said everything you said, the only difference is I did not say "interpretation" because what you mention are alternative theories not interpretations.
@@amihartzYes I did. Then I don't understand your first paragraph. I would say that your impression of their positions is incorrect. Where do they concede that QM proves that there is no objective reality independent of the observer? The interpretations/theories they propose do not postulate observer dependent ontologies. They also don't say QM is wrong, where do they say that?
David Albert is possibly my favorite physicist to listen to. Thanks for another episode with him.
Wow, David gives a fantastic summary of the history too. What a great stream. Thanks for sharing.
I just met David last week when he visited the University of Michigan. I learned a lot from him about the foundations of quantum mechanics. He's very clear and sharp.
Prof Albert is one of my absolute favorites. Thanks 😎
Thank you Robinson.
Thank you, Robinson, for having David Albert on your program.
Listening for the second time.
you're nailing this dude. great guest, great discussion.
And you listen so well and let your guest speak!!!
I've grown to love David Albert. So clear and articulate while talking about amazingly difficult stuff. I simply must catch up on all that he's doing.
This guy has earnt my money, will buying a book by Albert. Great channel.
I just picked up Quantum Mechanics and Experience and been meaning to read it!
Amazing content yall! Thanks
Brilliant. Could listen to David all day.
Nice another David Albert
Wow! An outstanding insightful dialogue. Clearest explanation of locality & non-locality I have ever heard!! 🤗 Just ordered the Kindle book.
Clear and clearly wrong: Albert's claim that "the standard quantum mechanical recipe is nonlocal", where the meaning of "nonlocal" is taken from the context of his preceding description of "Einstein locality", is simply false. Like Maudlin before him ( DOI: 10.1088/1751-8113/47/42/424011 ) Albert invites us to conflate two very different notions of "locality" - "Einstein locality" and "Bell locality" - and thereby regard the (empirically confirmed) failure of the latter in QM as a failure of the former. As is well known, it isn't.
That was a great episode.
the king is back!
An excellent book which delves into the history of Niels Bohr, and his colleagues in Copenhagen, is Adam Becker‘s book “What is Real? The unfinished quest for the meaning of Quantum Physics“. It helped me to understand what David Albert is alluding to when he says that people convinced themselves of certain ideas which actually held back progress and understanding. My take away was that a cult formed around Bohr.
Really interesting. I hadn't realized either that Einstein's theory had resolved Newton's "action at a distance" problem.
❤thanks for the podcast.😊
Yay, the cat is back! With two blokes. Interesting blokes too. Can't get better than that.
Sure was a banger! Love Prof Alberts too! , Such a novel take on locality/non locality with resolutions in favour of realism , encompassing , surprisingly for me, Newtonian mechanics non locality, resolving in favour of a philosophically “realistic” view of Einstein , considerations of bohmian and hidden variable mechanics, Bells inequality, resolutions of non locality in terms of Maxwell and field equations, “open” ending in high dimensional , realist, wave function theory, top down approach. Experimental metaphysics … wow! Love these new insights and flashes of inspiration. Thanks so much Robinson and Impcat (Pins Podcat) 🐈 !! Prof Alberts is an awesome scientific raconteur . His book is on my list!
Thank you once again for your qualified questions. I appreciate that David Albert talks in an articulate way so that I can follow him easily at least on the language level. Regarding the contents, there are a lot of spooky puzzles to put together for a layperson. Maybe I should follow his advice and finally read Flatland to approach the bottom-up perspective. Greetings from the birthplace of Hegel.
I get the feeling that Robinson is a really nice guy just based on how gentle he is with his cat - not a single push or anything:,)
David Albert is a wonderful guest. He explains things slowly which is my speed. And he repeats things which helps, again, because I’m slow. Adam Becker’s book is indeed great. I just bought Albert’s new book because of this podcast. Finally, please consider Alyssa Ney as a guest. Thank you.
Thank you so much for this Rob and Prof Alb, you just made my Monday a lot better. Always so appreciative of your guys hard work to promote positive energy on our planet.
Just discovered this channel; it is great; thanks
Excellent... thanks 🙏.
David Albert is a great physicist knowing a lot about physics and it's philosophy. I really enjoyed the talk. ❤
A broadminded thinker, from literature to physics! Enjoyed greatly
What a great conversation!
May I suggest you have on the analytical philosopher Bernardo Kastrup? Even though you and most of your audience will reject his analytical idealism, Bernardo does inform his view via a broad study of the various modern interpretations in physics. So it can be a fun conversation weaving between his arguments against physicalism while staying within (or close to) experiments. And it helps that he isn't arguing for a self-conscious deity or any woo woo spiritual events. Just a suggestion. I know he is very responsive to long form podcast conversations.
It's quantum woo. He equates relativity to dependence on consciousness as if the fact things change from point of view proves objective reality doesn't exist, which is just comical. All idealism is also based on the unjustified assertion that experience is "conscious" or "subjective," something idealists refuse to justify. Chalmers just cites Nagel saying he proved it already, and Nagel just says he "knows" experience is created by mammalian brains and is "certain" about it but gives no convincing justification either.
Great video! Can’t wait to read the book!
iv always liked prof albert. hes insightful, humble, and open-minded
David Albert gives the greatest history modern physics lecture, non stop and uninterrupted in this conversation.
It’s f’ing amazing.
Thank you.
49:20 ... Wow not even the bones. It's okay, I'm sure there is potential data in all of that. This was really good. Thanks David and Robinson.
Wonderful presentation, as usual. But my question is more urgent than any on physics. What kind of cat is Pins?? Or what alien inhabits that felinid form? It's the ears that fascinated me first. Then ... all the rest. Then, of course, the podcast. For which, many thanks to both!
Robinson, stretch goal: David Deutsch on the podcast? you’re killing it.
MWI is mysticism.
Love these videos. But as with the Tim Maudlin potted history of quantum physics, I wonder why Grete Hermann v Von Neumann doesn’t make the cut in Albert’s story.
Also I second his recommendation to read Adam Becker “What is real?”
YAY YES LETS GO
Excellent! Best of dr. Albert’s of his basic understanding of where the experimental science needs to focus on. Terrific for us math poor people to understand. Realism, whatever it is, should be pursued wherever it goes.
Loved it. Thanks.
The Amazing History of Locality section at 45:46 is wonderful
Great discussion. I love David! ( He looks a bit like Hume,no?)
ooolala, love the hair :)
Robinson has favourites
Thank you so much for this intellectual journey! Non locality seems to me as a relic of theology and something similar to the idea of an omnipresent/ omnipotent god, especially after the development of ideas that show that even deteterministic space states that are developing locally are evolving to be unpredictable and chaotic on cosmological scale.
I’ve only recently found, and subscribed to, your channel. A most esteemed guest list and phenomenal conversations! Thank you.
Pins the Podcat, VERY clever! I was expecting your t-shirt to read Robinson Erhardt’s Podcat with Pins’ picture and name. Have you ever considered a Pins the Podcat pin or pen? We southerners often don’t clearly articulate difference between short | i | and short | e | sounds. The thought of the homophone made the idea (perhaps idiosyncratically) particularly amusing to me.
Hey I really think your channel should be bigger, and you should probable change your thumbnails and make them similar to diary of a CEO or Chris Williamson. The face of the guest on the right, simple dark background and an interesting quote of the guest
Great show as always Robinson; David does such a great job at clearly outlining important issues. But ironically as a geezer who as an undergraduate physics student wanted to go off to graduate school and study foundations but was told that much greater minds had foundered on those shores (which was no doubt true but fundamentally baseless nonetheless), David’s elucidation of the various proposals for realistic theories almost has me turning back towards instrumentalism (at the risk of being shot up by such a renowned gunslinger as David). While I’m in total support of the program of proving the viability of the realist program which David and colleagues so valiantly pushed through, I’m still not convinced that it’s the only option as opposed to various forms of empiricism. And hopeless mystic that I am I believe that the ineffability barrier is out there somewhere re. we finite types (though I don’t condone not pushing naturalism as far as it can be pushed).
Also, insignificantly, I found your pronunciation of Pierce interesting; when I pronounced it that way I was corrected by a philosopher who said that it’s pronounced like purse.
PS - forgot to mention that David’s book sounds compelling re. maybe addressing some of my concerns about the baroque requirements of current realistic proposals and sounds like I ought to pick up a copy (I really struggled to feel comfortable with Bohm’s work which I still think is brilliant; but ultimately it just feels a little too baroque to me).
I mean, it takes a very strong stomach to look at the universe and say "I'm ok with more than three dimensions of space"
[Monad in mathematics, science and technology]:
Monad (biology), a historical term for a simple unicellular organism
Monad (category theory), a construction in category theory
Monad (functional programming), functional programming constructs that capture various notions of computation
Monad (homological algebra), a 3-term complex
Monad (nonstandard analysis), the set of points infinitesimally close to a given point
[Monad in philosophy/cosmogony]:
Monad (from Greek μονάς monas, "singularity" in turn from μόνος monos, "alone") refers, in cosmogony, to the Supreme Being, divinity or the totality of all things.
The concept was reportedly conceived by the Pythagoreans and may refer variously to a single source acting alone, or to an indivisible origin, or to both.
The concept was later adopted by other philosophers, such as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who referred to the Monad as an *elementary particle.*
It had a *geometric counterpart,* which was debated and discussed contemporaneously by the same groups of people.
[In this speculative scenario, let's consider Leibniz's *Monad,* from the philosophical work "The Monadology", as an abstract representation of *the zero-dimensional space that binds quarks together* using the strong nuclear force]:
1) Indivisibility and Unity: Monads, as indivisible entities, mirror the nature of quarks, which are deemed elementary and indivisible particles in our theoretical context. Just as monads possess unity and indivisibility, quarks are unified in their interactions through the strong force.
2) Interconnectedness: Leibniz's monads are interconnected, each reflecting the entire universe from its own perspective. In a parallel manner, the interconnectedness of quarks through the strong force could be metaphorically represented by the interplay of monads, forming a web that holds particles together.
3) Inherent Properties: Just as monads possess inherent perceptions and appetitions, quarks could be thought of as having intrinsic properties like color charge, reflecting the inherent qualities of monads and influencing their interactions.
4) Harmony: The concept of monads contributing to universal harmony resonates with the idea that the strong nuclear force maintains harmony within atomic nuclei by counteracting the electromagnetic repulsion between protons, allowing for the stability of matter.
5) Pre-established Harmony: Monads' pre-established harmony aligns with the idea that the strong force was pre-designed to ensure stable interactions among quarks, orchestrating their behavior in a way that parallels the harmony envisaged by Leibniz.
6) Non-Mechanical Interaction: Monads interact non-mechanically, mirroring the non-mechanical interactions of quarks through gluon exchange. This connection might be seen as a metaphorical reflection of the intricacies of quark-gluon dynamics.
7) Holism: The holistic perspective of monads could symbolize how quarks, like the monads' interconnections, contribute holistically to the structure and behavior of particles through the strong force interactions.
Metaphysics
Context
The monad, the word and the idea, belongs to the Western philosophical tradition and has been used by various authors. Leibniz, who was exceptionally well-read, could not have ignored this, but he did not use it himself until mid-1696 when he was sending for print his New System.
Apparently he found with it a convenient way to expound his own philosophy as it was elaborated in this period. What he proposed can be seen as a modification of occasionalism developed by latter-day Cartesians. Leibniz surmised that there are indefinitely many substances individually 'programmed' to act in a predetermined way, each substance being coordinated with all the others.
This is the pre-established harmony which solved the mind-body problem, but at the cost of declaring any interaction between substances a mere appearance.
Summary
The rhetorical strategy adopted by Leibniz in The Monadology is fairly obvious as the text begins with a description of monads (proceeding from simple to complicated instances),
then it turns to their principle or creator and
finishes by using both to explain the world.
(I) As far as Leibniz allows just one type of element in the building of the universe his system is monistic. The unique element has been 'given the general name monad or entelechy' and described as 'a simple substance' (§§1, 19). When Leibniz says that monads are 'simple,' he means that "which is one, has no parts and is therefore indivisible".
Relying on the Greek etymology of the word entelechie (§18), Leibniz posits quantitative differences in perfection between monads which leads to a hierarchical ordering. The basic order is three-tiered:
(1) entelechies or created monads (§48),
(2) souls or entelechies with perception and memory (§19), and
(3) spirits or rational souls (§82).
Whatever is said about the lower ones (entelechies) is valid for the higher (souls and spirits) but not vice versa. As none of them is without a body (§72), there is a corresponding hierarchy of
(1) living beings and animals
(2), the latter being either non-reasonable or reasonable.
The degree of perfection in each case corresponds to cognitive abilities and only spirits or reasonable animals are able to grasp the ideas of both the world and its creator. Some monads have power over others because they can perceive with greater clarity, but primarily, one monad is said to dominate another if it contains the reasons for the actions of other(s). Leibniz believed that any body, such as the body of an animal or man, has one dominant monad which controls the others within it. This dominant monad is often referred to as the soul.
(II) God is also said to be a simple substance (§47) but it is the only one necessary (§§38-9) and without a body attached (§72). Monads perceive others "with varying degrees of clarity, except for God, who perceives all monads with utter clarity". God could take any and all perspectives, knowing of both potentiality and actuality. As well as that God in all his power would know the universe from each of the infinite perspectives at the same time, and so his perspectives-his thoughts-"simply are monads". Creation is a permanent state, thus "[monads] are generated, so to speak, by continual fulgurations of the Divinity" (§47). Any perfection comes from being created while imperfection is a limitation of nature (§42). The monads are unaffected by each other, but each have a unique way of expressing themselves in the universe, in accordance with God's infinite will.
(III) Composite substances or matter are "actually sub-divided without end" and have the properties of their infinitesimal parts (§65). A notorious passage (§67) explains that "each portion of matter can be conceived as like a garden full of plants, or like a pond full of fish. But each branch of a plant, each organ of an animal, each drop of its bodily fluids is also a similar garden or a similar pond". [1D string theory haha]
There are no interactions between different monads nor between entelechies and their bodies but everything is regulated by the pre-established harmony (§§78-9). Much like how one clock may be in synchronicity with another, but the first clock is not caused by the second (or vice versa), rather they are only keeping the same time because the last person to wind them set them to the same time. So it is with monads; they may seem to cause each other, but rather they are, in a sense, "wound" by God's pre-established harmony, and thus appear to be in synchronicity. Leibniz concludes that "if we could understand the order of the universe well enough, we would find that it surpasses all the wishes of the wisest people, and that it is impossible to make it better than it is-not merely in respect of the whole in general, but also in respect of ourselves in particular" (§90).
In his day, atoms were proposed to be the smallest division of matter. Within Leibniz's theory, however, substances are not technically real, so monads are not the smallest part of matter, rather they are the only things which are, in fact, real. To Leibniz, space and time were an illusion, and likewise substance itself. The only things that could be called real were utterly simple beings of psychic activity "endowed with perception and appetite."
The other objects, which we call matter, are merely phenomena of these simple perceivers. "Leibniz says, 'I don't really eliminate body, but reduce [revoco] it to what it is. For I show that corporeal mass [massa], which is thought to have something over and above simple substances, is not a substance, but a phenomenon resulting from simple substances, which alone have unity and absolute reality.' (G II 275/AG 181)" Leibniz's philosophy is sometimes called "'panpsychic idealism' because these substances are psychic rather than material". That is to say, they are mind-like substances, not possessing spatial reality. "In other words, in the Leibnizian monadology, simple substances are mind-like entities that do not, strictly speaking, exist in space but that represent the universe from a unique perspective." It is the harmony between the perceptions of the monads which creates what we call substances, but that does not mean the substances are real in and of themselves.
(IV) Leibniz uses his theory of Monads to support his argument that we live in the best of all possible worlds. He uses his basis of perception but not interaction among monads to explain that all monads must draw their essence from one ultimate monad. He then claims that this ultimate monad would be God because a monad is a “simple substance” and God is simplest of all substances, He cannot be broken down any further. This means that all monads perceive “with varying degrees of perception, except for God, who perceives all monads with utter clarity”.
This superior perception of God then would apply in much the same way that he says a dominant monad controls our soul, all other monads associated with it would, essentially, shade themselves towards Him. With all monads being created by the ultimate monad and shading themselves in the image of this ultimate monad, Leibniz argues that it would be impossible to conceive of a more perfect world because all things in the world are created by and imitating the best possible monad.
rather surprised by David's remarks on string theory...
David❤
Ep42 Batman and Robin save planet earth from ignorance, more serious note thanks for your dedication gentleman ❤
From what you said about the baneful influence of Bohr on his - disciples? - I have to wonder if his effect on about 60 years of quantum mechanics, isn't analogous to that of the Monk Rasputin on the Tsar's court. In the nicest possible way, of course. Bohr was above all a truly gentle man. But still ... !
That is interesting indeed
I’d love to hear what Albert and Maudlin have to say about CP/T violation.
@robinson you should add a shirt with David's face beside "Good."
The story told here by David Albert is one of how particles are affected by space (the quantum foam, quantum fields). Are forces, gravity and all their associated mechanisms local or non local. In fact, if you look at the universe since its birth 13.8 billion years ago, there is no amount of physical matter that has been created. The true story is the one that tells us how particles benefit the creation of empty space (dark energy, cosmological constant, quantum foam, etc) That is where the story begins and ends. Empty space controls the behavior of particles because it is the singular beneficiary of particle interaction, not the other way around.
Good.
Einstein knew that his own theory for the photo-electric effect depended on a non-local phenomenon, namely that light propagating as a wavefront lands as a point particle.
4.20 am. There's more than one way to travel faster than light. We can have an oscillation in one of the ways which leads to destructive interference. We can have tachyonic Brownian motion in the other way which leads to broken symmetries when our entity interacts with two or more detectors. Quantum mechanics need not be difficult to understand.
That's the metaphysics on a sleepy morning. I have a sore throat and am having a hot sugary cup of tea. My real interest is in duplicating quantum mechanics by computer simulation. I need ideas on how the simulation can make use of a random number generator. Any other ideas?
I was under the impression that the recent Nobel prize was a more robust proof of bells theorem proving the validity of god playing dice so to speak, I’m fascinated by what this dispute seems to be, What the hell do I know?
I’m a layperson but clearly Tim is a head and shoulders above every one and it’s almost as if the other philosopher would stop trying to demonstrate he is on par with Tim… please allow Tim to connect the dots!!
🙏❤️🌍🕊🌿🎶🎵
I really loved this podcast, but I found one aspect quite baffling. David describes the intuition of (some crude form of) locality as being so deep that it's possibly "hard-wired into us through natural selection".
But I've just never particularly held this intuition. To illustrate, when I learnt Newtonian physics in school, I didn't once contemplate the strangeness of action at a distance. When I later came to understand Bell's theorem and its implications, my first impulse was to more or less shrug and say, "Ok, well putting aside the problems it would raise for GR, locality doesn't feel like a big one to sacrifice."
Do others share my bafflement at David's characterisation of this intuition?
That just mean you are not thinking. Not to be rude or anything, i really mean that
@@timewalker6654 not only is the comment rude, it's also vapid and unhelpful (not to mention that an intuition is precisely a thing that one holds without thinking, which is quite the point)
You describe your thought reaction to Newton's action at a distance, which is not intuition as he was describing it. It is more primitive than a cognitive process.
As he spoke, I immediately thought of a single cell in an environment in which everything the cell reacts to is local. This is the basis he was referring to.
I am reminded of Michael Levin's laboratory efforts in search of the primitives of what later becomes a cognition. He lays out a wonderful description of early bacterial biofilms which communicate with nearby dependent neighbors through electrical ion channels thus forming the early primitives of multicellular functioning. This was the primitive antecedent to the neuron, which is distinguished by being the first cell type which focused on the corpus as its primary functioning.
Whether it's a an ancient biofilm or a multicellular organism with a few neurons, all of the activity is local which later evolves into intentional animal behavior which is always locally focused with respect to the environment.
He is alluding to the concept of the earliest forms of local focus and action.
@@UnMoored_ thanks for the elucidation. Nevertheless, I posit, to extrapolate from one system (which happens to arise in biology, the relevance of which is not necessarily obvious to me) to another system seems to involve a process of reasoning, which itself goes beyond mere intuition (IMHO).
❤🎉
"If you are in philosophy, you have no excuse for not knowing Yiddish"!
This is what happens when you ask a philosopher to comment on the foundations of physics. At the inception of QM, observation played a fundamental role in explaining reality. And very soon it became known that observation collapses a field to produce particles, reducing probability into determinism. In a sense coupling physics with metaphysics, that should have been explained by philosophers, but sadly it fell on physics to explain the metaphysical act of observation with reality. As such a reality qualifies for a cosmic observer that collapses the quantum fields to produce particles, that evolved to produce life, consciousness, soul, faith etc., all metaphysical entities. The philosophers remained convinced they didn't need divine design to explain reality, so remained atheists.
1.03.40 (th-cam.com/video/tYL7HwzCyC0/w-d-xo.html) " You can see, if you put the appropriate instruments in there, the change in the force propagating at a definite finite speed, the speed of light, from the particle that is generating a field to the particle that is feeling a field." What experiment is Albert talking about here? Can anybody help me out? Or is he simply describing what the theory postulates? I ask because I do not know of an experiment that has actually confirmed that the electromagnetic force propagates at the speed of light, apart from that light obviously does.
The speed of light falls out directly from Maxwell’s equations once you plug in the known constants that were measured experimentally
@@johnblair1086thanks. Yes. It is a theoretical prediction. Now what I would like to know about are experiments that empirically verify the speed of forces like gravitation or electromagnetism?
No one knows the true nature of reality. This is the problem with realism. No one has that theory yet.
When asserting that reality does or should have certain properties, it's not coming from a place of knowledge, it's conveyed in order to socially construct the concept of reality, and to gain support for one's own assumptions.
I'm not against it, the consequence of this social construction is the scientific enterprise.
This is the problem with anti-realism, it's really more of a barrier to debate, than a maintainable philosophical position. You have to engage in some basic form of realism to communicate with other scientists!
I suppose the best position would skepticism of the process of realism, while accepting the necessity.
Realism is an ontological position, not an epistemological one, so I don't think a lack of knowledge really hurts it's claim. Ironically I feel like your sentence implies realism is correct, since nobody knowing the true nature of reality implies there is a true nature that may or may not be discoverable.
@@onlynormalperson I'm not sure if your reality is an individual one, or a social one, that is discovered individually, or socially, and I think you'll come up with different answers to that question in different cases. I'm not even sure what agent is attempting to describe reality.
Reality can be a way to anchor a system of ideas, but so can evidence, experimentation, and observation.
It's not a useless argument, over the nature of reality, but I think it's useful more in a political sense. It is fundamental to the formation of language.
I don't want to give the idea that because it's a social activity I'm dismissing it. You can't do math without having some social motivation for communicating those kinds of ideas, and a social agreement as to the meaning of the symbols.
I mean I think the idea that reality is socially constructed, at a fundamental rather than an emergent level, would be an anti-realist belief.@@ywtcc
One basic problem with Realism ( or the opposite: Anti-realism) in Quantum physics is that it is a not well defined concept in either case.
What exactly is meant by saying that Hilbert space ( an abstract mathematical vector space) is "real"?
Or that the global State vector ( the Wavefunction of the universe) is "real"? Or that it is the "fundamental element of reality"?
These mathematical objects describe our real world ( or some aspects of it anyway), that's understandable, but what is meant by saying that they're themselves "The" fundamental elements Of Reality ?
Actually, this claims are very common, especially in the Everettian camp of QM realists, but I haven't seen yet a compelling definition / explanation whatsoever...
Seriously problematic is also , on the other hand, the opposite anti-realist camp, for the obvious reason that instrumentalism is about knowledge, and this "knowledge" is an aspect of our emergent "macroscopic" self awareness etc, that is described by the same fundamental laws of physics like anything else.... A Circular dead end...
@@dimitrispapadimitriou5622 If I'm to situate my perspective on reality as closely to the observation as possible, then I'm going to see the universe entirely in terms of timing pulses!
What am I to make of spatial theories, if at the heart of my epistemology is a universe that exclusively reveals itself in terms of time?
There's different perspectives on reality, and I'm sure there's lots of different ways to integrate those perspectives. There's an interesting argument there.
"Octopi"??
To add on to non-locality being magical, even God is local. People talk about God as if he's nearby, he's not affecting the world from far away, he affects the world because he's everywhere.
I would loooooove to see you moderate a discussion between sabine hossenfelder and sean carrol. ❤❤❤
As one of the world's foremost proponents of the Cephalopodic Principle (the universe is fine tuned to make cephalopodic life possible), I take exception to Prof Albert's flippant claim that octopoda are so muddle headed that they would fall for the naive localism of Einstein, Maxwell and Newton. The cephalopoda got past that kid stuff in the paleozoic. Welcome to reality, I can hear them say (or signal body color changes).
Love David Albert, but if anyone ever wakes him up in the middle of the night and asks him to answer anything in "one sentence" then he is doomed :)
Wavefunction is very real and describes the wave-particle. It represents the EM flux manifold with which the wave-particle is "woven" with.
How does the map/ territory analogy work here? It seems to me that the math of quantum mechanics is an attempt to create a map of the subatomic realm. Experiments would be ways to see if the map is accurate. This is a far cry from being able to say what the territory is. The map never is the same as the territory. All the map can do is describe the territory. A detailed description of a rock down to the subatomic level is not a rock.
Maps are useful of course for the engineers to come along and create technology that uses the map to create territories that exist in the world.
Talking about an equation as existing otherwise than in the realm of concepts needs a lot of work. Notwithstanding Max Tegmark
I never liked to listen to philosophers talking about QM and cannot imagine what David would say to Susskind, who claims that the other paths taken when an electron moves from A to B, these other paths act as 'observer'. Philosophers seem to misunderstand what metaphysics mean, when talking about physics. I think they will never arrive at a point when cosmic consciousness, as observer, may mean divine design to them.
Oh, the Boehr people did not understand Picasso's project and everything he had concurrently and from the geist already worked out, realistic representation of Einstein's findings - real paint. I suppose they didn't get Rothko either. Well by that time the CIA was involved so, hum.
Don't get your ideas of realism mixed up boys. Don't misunderstand Hegel.
Modernism in art was already realistically representing and Hegel was on board so... Contradiction does not equal collapse or else how do we get babies?
i wish to see a debate /discussion between David Albert and Eric Weinstein and Sabine Hossenfelder
David and Sabine seem out of his league in philosophy and physics
David seems good at philosophy and physics, Sabine is good at physics and bad at philosophy, Eric is good at math, wouldn't trust him on anything else.
Eric is charlatan, very mid and kooky mathematician. Sabine isn't a good philosopher and her understanding doesn't go as deep. Just because someone is famous doesn't make them smart and worthy of debate.
@@Mesohornet11you mean eric and sabine?
@@Mesohornet11 That's good for David and Sabine.
Well I do appreciate the comment, but that was not what he said, but he might have meant that. The issue I do have with this chap is his looseness with language. This is a big no-no in philosophy. And not that difficult really. One can tell by the way he forms his sentences that he has not previously considered the issue. If one wants a person to how does the opposite, I suggest Suskind. The point is that when one thinks about issues deeply and constantly, the very precise words are just there waiting....
The only way to overcome quantum non-locality and make it local is to accept the only logical conclusion remaining thus of superluminal interaction in the universe.
You start asking questions, you better be ready for the answers pal
You were given the answers in 1927, you just didn't care to read the papers from a hundred years ago. ;-)
Watch the video feller
@@brickchains1 I did one better. I studied the correct answers they gave us in 1927. ;-)
@schmetterling4477 bro is using internet from 97 years ago
@@brickchains1 Yes, you saw it on the internet, which means it must have been true. How old are you? Three? ;-)
He talks all the time as if nowadays we have finally a realistic theory of quantum mechanics. Nothing alike is the case. Other than weird interpretations of quantum mechanics that were and remain wild speculations (Bohm mechanics, MWI, GRW, etc.) there is no empiric evidence that supports a quantum theory that recovers a deterministic and local realism made of marble-like particles, or sort of. After decades or even more than half a century, they didn't predict anything new that has been experimentally tested. Non-realistic quantum mechanics (in the sense of non-deterministic and non-local) is well and alive, and there is not a shred of evidence indicating that a realistic interpretation is going to replace it anywhere soon.
Quite right except that, as is well known, QM isn't non-local (see e.g. DOI: 10.1088/1751-8113/47/42/424011 ). It is non-local in the sense of being "Bell non-local" but as Landsman says (DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-51777-3_6 ) -
"Hence Bell locality is violated by quantum mechanics, but this does not imply
that “quantum mechanics is nonlocal” (as some say). Bell’s is a very specific locality
condition invented as a constraint on hidden variable theories. In another important
sense, viz. Einstein locality, quantum mechanics is local, in that observables with
spacelike separated localization regions commute (this is the case in quantum field
theory, but also in any bipartite experiment of the type considered here, where Al-
ice’s operators commute with Bob’s just by definition of the tensor product)."
- and the other thing he and others do all the time is talk as though classical (commutative) probability was still nowadays the only part of probability theory we knew of so that the "(Bell) non-locality" and "non-realism" could still seem mysterious.
Did he say he would say that jn one sentence? 🤣
So Robinson here is too young for Curb Your Enthusiasm and Laverne & Shirley? Jeezus
It is pronounced "Purse". Sorry, It just annoyed my autism.
So, almost 22 minutes in and this guy sure likes to talk, while saying nothing. He's definitely got a bone to pick with Bohr and I guess the measurement problem! And so...
Metaphysics, really, that's your safety blanket? Deepak and more woo woo? Laughable and sad😢
REASON is always the solution 😊
at 1:24:00 he starts talking about the bell experiments disproving locality. This is false. Because u have to make an assumption of statistical independence to reach that conclusion
I was frankly shocked . Hegel and Kierkegaard compatriots? Why is this man feted as he is? His use of language is so imprecise and not made up for by any originality. This must be called out surely. I tried reading one his books and it was impossible, and that in comparison to Hegel or Heidegger. Embarrassing really. The explanation I find most likely is from Sun Tzu who is said to have said “If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.”
Relax. David talked about Bohr being influenced by Hegel and Kierkegaard, who was a countryman of Bohr.
Bohr was right