Is Quantum Mechanics Deterministic after all?

Could Albert Einstein finally be vindicated?  His famous comment "God does not play dice" (actually, the correct and extended version, from a letter to Max Born in 1926, was "Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the 'old one'. I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice") referred to his belief that physical reality was deterministic at its core and that "hidden variables" that would describe deterministic reality were masked by the probablistic nature of Quantum Mechanics.  Most physicists have come to accept that quantum reality is probablistic.  But there have been a silent minority who maintained faith in the hidden variable idea.  A recent article in New Scientist discusses new research that may show that "quantum reality isn't random, it just looks that way."  Hoorah for determinism.

IMHO, I have always expected as much.  A random number generator appears random, but is fully deterministic.  Aren't Boltzman's laws of entropy probablistic on the surface but deterministic deep down?  We most certainly are not through uncovering the mysteries of subatomic particles.  The hidden variables may very well ultimately explain anomalies like entanglement.  And they may very well be the result of a programmed reality!


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Categories: Programmed Reality | Quantum Mechanics

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March 24. 2008 14:15

Red Dog

Are you familar with the work of A professor in Auckland, New Zealand? He published a paper in December that seriously raises the question: could we be in a virtual reality world and universe where the “computer” behind-the-scenes has a processing speed of 186,282.397 miles per second - the maximum speed of light? The professor is Brian Whitworth, Ph.D., in Information Systems and now Senior Lecturer at the Institute for Information and Mathematical Sciences at Massey University in Auckland.

You are both basically speaking of the same thing. It is a very intersting dialog to raise.

Professor Whitworth’s goal is to provide another model in which cosmologists might look at our universe that is not hamstrung by the paradoxes in trying to make sense of a physically objective universe in which all the underlying processing creating the universe is defined by quantum mechanics in which not even an atom can be directly measured in time and space because quantum mechanics says it is in all places at once.

My feeling is that this raises the real question of: "What is consciousness?"

Red Dog

March 24. 2008 15:36

jim

Yes, am I familiar with that work, which I have also referenced on this site. I think he has some excellent ideas in his paper, presented with some scientific rigor. I especially like his table on VR properties and physical outcomes.

I cover the quantum mechanical similarities to computational processing in detail in my book.

The one area where I may differ from what may are saying in response to the VR Hypothesis, is that we don't really have to have Planck-level computational speed and resolution to model our universe, even including quantum effects. After all, nobody has really been able to probe deeper than quarks, which are 20 orders of magnitude away from the Planck length. And physical laws like the speed of light are properties of our apparent reality, not necessarily the true one, right?

I think you are absolutely right that it is all about consciousness! What we truly are behind it all is the big question. I think there is a lot of evidence that shows that consciousness is not just machine complexity.

jim

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