The state of physics is worse than I thought

Philosophy Forums Science, Technology, and Math
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In having a conversation with a doctor in physics, I was made aware of the latest novelty in physics: quantum extremal islands. They have to do with identifying information about an island of quantum states by knowing information about a separate one composed of entangled states by knowing a gravity constant that affects both. I was as confused as you, so I did a little research on modern theoretical physics to better understand.

We used to understand a paradigm of matter, energy and time. Einstein began a paradigm of all three as a single thing, described by E = MC(squared), where E is energy, M is mass and C is the speed of light. The reason speed of light is used for the equivalency of mass and energy is that it describes the limit of how fast a combination of the two can travel by interacting. So, in a sense, light provides the outline for energy-matter, a shape. And time is simply a measure of the interaction of matter and energy. OK. Then, quantum mechanics found that if you look at small enough things, you can observe faster movements. In theory, the movement has no need to be of matter or of energy because, indeed, it is so small and hard to see, that the truth is that we don’t know what it is. All we have is information of how instruments that are sensitive enough to detect things at such a small scale react when operated. So you can see how a new paradigm is probably needed.

Well, in the late 90’s one was chosen. Are you ready for this? The assumption physicists operate under is that the basic substance of the observable universe is information. Physicists no longer care what happens to energy or matter, they care about what happens to information. And they regard energy and matter, along with all else, as phenomenons produced by information.

The nihilism of this worries me greatly. Poor Einstein.

Operationally, sure, I can understand how information can be used as a provisional identification of the basic material of the world. Before we can know what is there, if we treat it as simple information, it allows us to calculate information that correctly interprets the readings we get and the mathematical consequences of some of the theories we know accurately describe the material world. But to actually propose it as a thing, that the world is made of, is on its face absurd.

What happens is this. There is a world. We have thoughts about the world. After a certain point, even though they accurately describe what it does, our thoughts fail to tell us what the world is, so we say the world is made of thoughts. As if the original thing is the thoughts, not the world. Because we cannot see what the instrument measures, but we can see the instrument, we say the thing the instrument measures is made of instrument. Alors.

I don’t know if you all follow, this is terrible.

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I gotta admit though, this fucking blew my mind.

That’s what I hate about these fuckers. On a basic philosophical conceptual level, they are trash. But the shit that they discover is so goddamn motherfucking cool.

I guess I have to “explain” Hawking radiation now.

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Check it out you sons of bitches:

Hawking described black holes, which are so fucking dense that they absorb everything, and even light, i.e. matter and energy interacting at the fastest possible speed, cannot escape it. Its gravity. Obviously, something of that mammoth amount of density is a kind of perfect stable system that nothing escapes. I mean if the rearrangement of the spin of electrons by contact with the next nearest electron cannot happen faster than the black hole sucks it in, I mean, aint’s shit can escape it. But electrons are too fucking big for modern physics. And Hawking eventually accepted that. And he also accepted the following:

When you look at things small enough, as small as quantum mechanics studies, it cannot happen that entropy, that the potential for different states, simply disappears. No way, no how. Black holes cannot be a perfect stable system. So, he eventually accepted, they must be the exact opposite. On the quantum scale, black holes are in fact the maximum possible amount of entropy. Ah, but this implies that there is a maximum possible entropy, that there is a point beyond which the multiplication of possible states by virtue of increasing complexity ends. Yes sir, it fucking ends. I guess because otherwise black holes would just suck the world in in an orgasmic paradox of all-consuming complexity and Satan himself would be lit on fire. I don’t know if you get me, forgive the color. This can’t make sense on the level of particles, of electrons and photons (photons are the energetic expression of this chain of shifting spins of electrons we call light), but it makes sense on smaller scales. Think about it, it’s so small that, like the same way that even if a ship crashes into another giant ship the rats inside still operate largely undisturbed. They are too small to be affected. I mean they are affected, but not so much that they are “involved” in the crash.

OK, so there is a maximum entropy. This means that if you add entropy, entropy on the quantum level, unfortunately sir some entropy must escape. Now, again, subatomic entropy cannot escape, but smaller scale entropy can. This rate of escape was calculated and formulated and called Hawking Radiation. Because Hawking was really fucking smart, and he calculated it (refuting his own self, him being the only person capable of doing that at the time. Also, if others can now, it is only because he is dead).

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It seems to me that politics (or ideology) has invaded and corrupted everything. And information is what dictates politics. So of course those who wish to manipulate the most - are all about studying and controlling information. But beyond that - they want us to believe that information is all there is - “don’t believe your lying eyes - truth is what we tell it is”.

Physics was all about manipulating matter. It proved to be extremely effective. So why not use a similar paradigm to manipulate mind? Quantum physics theories stopped being about the physical (probably when they discovered its shortcomings) and now are embedded in manipulation of mind - magic - far more power over people that way. They declare a different ontology while using the same words - giving the impression that they have proven one thing when really they just changed the words around to give that impression. To say that “it exists” means - “we declare that it exists”.

I guess what I am trying to get at is - don’t believe what they are telling you that they are “proving” or “seeing” - because it is actually just a sneaky interpretation from the physical to the mental to a reality narrative to mystify and ingratiate.

The longing for the power to manipulate the mind of people has corrupted all fields of study - apparently for some time now.

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I agree with that (and it doesn’t take QM to figure it out).

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One big problem with all this is entanglement. What is entanglement?

Well, and again this is all on a scale so much smaller than electrons that we can’t even we don’t know what we look at. There are these things, as I said smaller much smaller than electrons, called quantum fields. Yes, quantum fields. They are little arbitrary but discreet units with identifiable properties. We will call those properties spin right now, it helps. It can so happen, that two quantum fields, not in contact with each other but indeed separated by many other quantum fields, what we sorry sacks of organic matter call “space,” have the same spin. But that’s not all. If the spin of one of those fields that isn’t in contact with the other one changes, the spin of the other one changes too. Yes, very confusing, very unsettling, nothing more specific can be ascertained with modern instruments, we don’t know why it happens or even exactly what it happens to, we just know it happens. In this sense, we can sort of sympathize with the physicists deciding the thing being affected is just information.

Now, physicists are not that useless. They have in fact been able to describe the situation of why this happens. OK. So, two quantum fields come into contact. Much like two electrons changing each other’s spin when light happens come into contact. Or like two ladies who become close friends and their menstrual cycles harmonize, so too do these quantum fields harmonize and come to have the same properties, the same spin. Then, when they become “separated,” again if we go by this sorry superstition of “space,” they are still harmonizing. They don’t care that other quantum fields now stand between them, they still change in correspondence with each other, they are still in contact. They are entangled.

Yes, they are entangled. This is so unsettling to even the most advanced of physicists, that they came up with a whole theory called string theory that involves sometimes more than 15 spacial dimensions to explain how they are not touching but still touching. That is the admittedly elegant aspect of the information paradigm, that it doesn’t consider it has to justify any of that shit. They are touching and if you think they are not it is because of your own stupid baboon conception of space and location which is fake and of no consequence to quantum fields. Although kind of actually the information paradigm is sort of kind of string theory. But the paradigm within string theory itself shifted, the multiple dimensions and such are simply now considered simple mathematical descriptions and not justifications for the bending of the rules of space-time.

Yes, it’s elegant, as a solution, but it cannot be held to actually describe reality. You scientist nerd motherfuckers.

Yeah, no, it’s kind of beautiful though.

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That seems to be the heart and mind of it. :smiley:

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Like here’s the thing, I sympathize with the paradigm, because it makes calculation possible. And physics theory has advanced in leaps and bounds since it happened. You just have to be aware that you are using a useful lie, it is a disgrace to actually convince yourself that what you are looking at is “information.” We simply don’t have tools sensitive enough to show us an image that by itself facilitates identification of dynamics or a new theory of physics, or to tell us or tell us about what it is we are actually looking at . So, for now, calling it all information helps us at least digest all the data we have now which has so far been conflicting. Having a harmonized system of calculations for these phenomena can only help, and only offer the possibility of breakthroughs later on. Just don’t tell me it’s the actual world, it’s a convenient lie, you beautiful bastards.

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By the way, obsrvr, I think your criticisms hold true for most of the more derived branches of science, such as climatology or psychology.

But in the case of physics, it really is I think just dispear at looking at these grainy fucking pictures and trying to decipher what’s there. And perhaps the modern nihilism helped them take that leap. But in their case, the specific drive is really just to fucking just be able to do the math that explains all of the different systems and phenomenons without conflicts between the different explanations.

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I mean, the idea that the entropy curve for the black hole radiation at one point reverses because the incidence of islands of entangled quantum fields must necessarily rise as entropy increases so that the very harmonization with stuff outside the fucking horizon of the fucking black hole which sucks light begins to provide balance and reverse the entropy in the black hole system is fucking cool as shit, goddamned fucking mind-blowingly beautiful.

What is really beautiful about it is that they can prove it.

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Also, not to alarm you folks, but all these things don’t apply just to black holes, but to everything.

I guess black holes just helped them find it because they are such an extreme case.

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I mean because, if you look at it, Hawkins was right (the curve he envisioned just went up and up until the radiation itself arrived at maximum entropy once the black hole had evaporated) that the entropy of the radiation can only go up, you are simply spitting entropic stuff so entropy can only increase in the “out” place it reaches, and honestly what in tarnation can possibly penetrate the event horizon of a black hole to stabilize this radiation. But these quantum extremal islands help us understand that something from outside the black hole can in fact have an incidence on this radiation that exists inside the horizon by mechanisms on a scale so small that they can survive the expelling nature of the horizon. And, if you think about it, it does make sense that once the black hole evaporates, what is left must have no entropy. And this is why it makes sense. Theory adapting to reality, once again.

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What you have to understand, in order to be comfortable with any of this, is that reality doesn’t scale.

Of course, hahaha, the reason this quantum extremal islands theory helps is because it does bring the very macro force of gravity to bear on this infinately small scale. Who knows what the future will bring.

But, in any case, it is clear that to the ancient Greek proposition of “if you keep reducing the scale you eventually arrive at an unsplittable scale,” the answer is “if you keep reducing the scale, things get weirder.”

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No, it is very healthy indeed.

There have always been a large and growing number of alternative theories to save the appearances throughout the history of physical sciences. The present day is no exception.
Whilst the core of certainly remains firm and growing, the edges of physics where things are still being understood, are less firm.
400 years ago there were several competing theories about how planets went round the sun, and several ideas about how far away were the stars. These days we know.

I suggest that the more and varied the threories are at the peripheral areas of knowledge there are more chance science will have of finding one that does the best job. That’s how Newton became supreme, and how Kepler’s massive insight about orbits not being circular (which at first seems absurd) were eventually adopted to answer all the anomalies of the heliocentric hypothesis, which was doing rather badly against the geocentric one at the time.

Physics is doing a great job giving us a range of energy sources, computers, technical goodies of all sorts that were undreamt of a generation ago. It has enabled this last generation to plumb the depths of the oceans and to explor the solar system; even discovering planets around other stars. This is very healthy.

I suppose there will come a time when the human intellect is too small to be able to conceive of the next set of boundaries at the fringes of known science. And we might already have arrived there.
But when that moment occurs science will be at its most useful and plentiful in knowledge and understanding.

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Yeah, you may want to read the thread. It is of course healthy to play with concepts, and like I said before, this particular concept has caused a flurry of activity and achievements in physics. As long as it is understood as that, a convenient lie. The level of self-deceit required to accept that the basis for the world is information is worrisome. Maybe a scientist can accept this price for the profit of the advances in physical theory, but a philosopher must know what the truth is. The truth is that saying the world is made of information is self-evidently terribly misconceived. And, eventually, if the mistake is not corrected, once all the kinks that the concept came about to smooth out have been smoothed out, it will put an end to further progress.

I am not sure you understand that these are not the fringes, but the core of scientific understanding today. All modern theory is based on this, the most core elements of scientific understanding of how the world works. This is not some peripheral accommodation to address some out-lying anomaly. It is a claim on the basic material of existence.

One thing scientists and philosophers have in common, the doctor I spoke to definitely included, as are the authors of the paper I quoted and anybody remotely involved in quantum mechanics, is that we really could not care less about this.

The human intellect cannot be too small to conceive of the next set of boundaries of science, because the intellect is what produces science. Scientists do not struggle with the limits of science, they struggle with the limits of the world and by so doing produce science.

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I thought that the scientists are trying to reduce “what exists, how, and why” down to a language of numbers which could be described as information (in a formation=information) but it would be a new language to us in how it’s translated and applied in vastly different ways than our more simple maths. However, I still believe that any number system would only be an incidental bi-product of what is actually occurring if an intelligent energy has projected everything in existence as a divine matrix of consciousnesses within consciousness. IOW, I think science is looking at it all wrong since we assume that we are looking at it, things, everything from an outer perspective, like in 2nd and 3rd person when we combine our knowledge to apply it as if we are on the outside of a planet, a river, an organism, everything, we see an illusion of separation. Ever heard the saying, “In is the only way out?” My 2 cents.

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The Information Ontology.

I think Aventador has been right on track throughout this thread.

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What is wrong with “The Information Ontology,” not enough bricks and mortar? What are the bricks and mortar of a hologram, a conscious thought? Science’s perspective and approach is wrong. Would “humans” be able to handle the truth if we are only projecting within a projection? Nothing’s truly physical as we currently understand it.

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Define “physical”. I don’t mean that in a pedantic way. I mean that if you are going to say “no thing is physical” we need to know what a “thing” is and why it isn’t physical. What does it mean to be “physical”?

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Correctamundo Avantaror, and I destroyed this eunuch of the mind verily, as now I have the hammer of the sublime on my armor!!! What transmits on unobservable levels is the same as what transmits as, qua and in matter and energy; value.

and the ‘transmitting’ is willing, appropriation, value-ing.
(waz)

Probleem is only people of value can grasp this.

Very excellent outline of the nature of light as the outline of interaction of matter and energy and we must agree on the idiocy of modern zienteests.

::

You see information is the neutered version of value, made up by neutered minds.
they dont get as deep as to wonder as to what the processing of information as information implies, namely a processor, this they don’ t consider or just attribute to ‘oh also being a kind of complicated information we dont need to think about because we’ve already decided all is information because we are tired’, meaning they dont have the capaicty to process the value of information and thus are incapable of attributing it with reality and making it science in the good old sense. Power.

Beings are value processors and that makes them of value. It doesn’t go infinitely deep probably because value is substantial by definition. There is probably an actual minimum value. Meaning it’s not abstract.

Whats in information ?
power, which you could understand as the value of value.

The value of power is existence.

etc etc

So how does value transit faster than light? Well, light just applies to value-systems, not to value itself. It is itself an evaluator-droid.
This is why telepathy cant be monitored.