On 30/08/14 23:07, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , Timothy Murphy
wrote:

I don't think he works in quantum theory at all.
In fact he seems to share Einstein's doubts about that theory.

I wouldn't describe Einstein as having "doubts"; he simply didn't
*like* the notion, which is something completely different.

The issue is that quantum theory, like relativity, *works*. Therefore
it's a good theory. What is needed is a marriage between the two, as
was done for electricity and magnetism by Maxwell. So far no one knows
how to do that.

True. Quantum theory gives the right answers but the real horror is that
the equations that give the right answers don't seem to make sense in
terms of how we view the world.

Which is where metaphysics comes in. Putnam has argued that the logic of
the normal world doesn't apply to the quantum world. Penrose is trying
to bridge the gap with speculation.

I stand somewhat between, in saying that the easiest way out is to look
at the classical world of things/phenomena in space time as simply a
human way to map a really weird quantum reality into something we can
deal with. That is, space time energy and matter are human ways of
looking at something that isn't any of the above, and exists in a
completely different way.

True reality as it were, exists beyond and behind these things, and has
as Putnam suggest, a totally different logic.

That means if we can tap that level somehow, we *might* using quantum
level manipulations actually circumvent the laws that seem to apply to
the 'real' world so called.

As to what that might enable us to do, no one knows and I certainly
don't. What I do know is that stuff we already know about that has to
obey the laws of classical physics has certain limits that can't be
broken. If quantum level stuff doesn't have to obey those laws, who
knows what might be possible?

No one expected nuclear power to emerge out of atomic level
interactions. Or transistors and lasers to emerge out of subatomic level
interactions. But they did and have been the most transformative
technologies in the last 70 years.

I dint know what will pop out next - quantum computing maybe - but I do
expect it to be utterly unexpected :-)

That's why CEREN is so damned important. Its new territory and in new
territory you never know what useful stuff you may discover.

By the way Penrose is doing mathematics so pure it might almost be
numerology. He isn't solving the equations, he's looking at certain
sorts of equations that have the right 'shape' or 'quality' to describe
quantum level stuff.



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