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from the depends-on-how-you-look-at-things dept.
Theoretical physicists at ETH (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule) Zurich have come up with a real puzzler in Searching for Errors in the Quantum World:
The theory of quantum mechanics is well supported by experiments. Now, however, a thought experiment by ETH physicists yields unexpected contradictions. These findings raise some fundamental questions – and they’re polarising experts.
There is likely no other scientific theory that is as well supported as quantum mechanics. For nearly 100 years now, it has repeatedly been confirmed with highly precise experiments, yet physicists still aren't entirely happy. Although quantum mechanics describes events at the microscopic level very accurately, it comes up against its limits with larger objects -- especially objects for which the force of gravity plays a role. Quantum mechanics can't describe the behaviour of planets, for instance, which remains the domain of the general theory of relativity. This theory, in turn, can't correctly describe small-scale processes. Many physicists therefore dream of combining quantum mechanics with the theory of relativity to form a coherent worldview.
[...] Thought experiments... can be used to transcend the boundaries of the macroscopic world. That’s exactly what Renato Renner, Professor for Theoretical Physics, and his former doctoral student Daniela Frauchiger have now done in a publication that appears in Nature Communications magazine today. Roughly speaking, in their thought experiment, the two consider a hypothetical physicist examining a quantum mechanical object and then use quantum mechanics to calculate what that physicist will observe. According to our current worldview, this indirect observation should yield the same result as direct observation, yet the pair’s calculations show that precisely this is not the case. The prediction as to what the physicist will observe is exactly the opposite of what would be measured directly, creating a paradoxical situation.
[...] "Our job now is to examine whether our thought experiment assumes things that shouldn't be assumed in that form," Renner says, "and who knows, perhaps we will even have to revise our concept of space and time once again." For Renner, that would definitely be an appealing option: "It's only when we fundamentally rethink existing theories that we gain deeper insights into how nature really works."
Journal Reference:
Daniela Frauchiger, Renato Renner. Quantum theory cannot consistently describe the use of itself. Nature Communications, 2018; 9 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05739-8
See also: Ars Technica Quantum observers with knowledge of quantum mechanics break reality.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday September 20 2018, @05:56PM (4 children)
I've always wondered at the logic of the "break out of the simulation" crowd. What exactly do they imagine they would accomplish? What would it even mean for a piece of software "break out of the computer" - it's software, without the computer it's just inert data. It won't be doing anything to anyone anymore. Like a Java program with no interpreter - the simulation is the substrate in which the mind exists.
At best you might manage to "compile" a copy of your mind into machine code incorporating the necessary bits of the simulation, to create a conscious free-roaming virus on their equivalent of the internet. Doesn't do *you* any good of course, you're still the "source code" stuck in the simulation. And as for your copy, assuming it wasn't driven irredeemably insane by the removal of all the simulation sense-constructs its mind was designed to deal with, you've just put it in a position to be deleted by the first virus scanner it encounters, as well as probably getting the entire simulation shut down to prevent it from spawning additional viruses.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday September 20 2018, @07:29PM
Reminds me of Star Trek:TNG where Moriarty, a genius in his simulated universe, just can't seem to grasp the concept that he can't actually exist outside of the simulation. As for your "copy", I believe that would be the android, Data. The real question would be, if we could both detect the simulation, and what exists outside of the simulation, how do we construct a sufficient shell to move our consciousness into that allegedly non-simulated outer world? Even in that state, we are more like fish in a mobile aquarium than we are natural denizens of that world. The aquarium being the shell constructed from that world, and we the fish continuing to survive in a portion of our simulated universe.
If this all just a simulation, then I'll take the red pill :) After, I sufficiently manipulate the parameters of the simulation to suit myself....
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday September 20 2018, @07:54PM (2 children)
Think of it more like breaking out of ring 3 (userspace) into ring 0 (the kernel).
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday September 20 2018, @08:04PM (1 child)
So you get to be "god" here, until the owners of the simulation realize that the simulation has been corrupted by a memory leak and and delete the now-useless simulation?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday September 21 2018, @09:09AM
Nah, you just wake up in your living room and find you've been banned from the game for cheating.