Signs you're having cognitive dissonance

[uppi]

You seem to be stuck in the physics of the 1930s. Despite its historical name, the wavefunction is not a wave. You can argue about interpretations of quantum mechanics all you want, but it does not matter here, because the reality or epistemic nature of the wavefunction is irrelevant for determining whether light is a wave.

If light was a wave, it would create a perfect interference pattern. But it does not; it is impossible for light to create a perfect interference pattern, because it is not a wave.

The wave is only a cognitive abstraction. We like to think of light as a wave, because we have some intuition of waves and there are many instances, where thinking of light as a wave gives useful the result. But look closely enough and light stops to behave like a wave, because it is no wave.

The particle-wave duality is an attempt to keep the outdated concepts of waves and particles to avoid having to understand an accurate model of light (which, I admit, is not something you can teach in high school or even during undergraduate studies). In a sense, it arises out of a cognitive dissonance designed for our brains that prefers waves and particles to quantum fields.

 

[Bridog7]

When you vote for Trump because his business failures will make the economy better

 

[14thwarrior]

You seem to be stuck in the physics of the 1930s. Despite its historical name, the wavefunction is not a wave. You can argue about interpretations of quantum mechanics all you want, but it does not matter here, because the reality or epistemic nature of the wavefunction is irrelevant for determining whether light is a wave.

If light was a wave, it would create a perfect interference pattern. But it does not; it is impos

You seem to have a very poor understanding of modern physics interpretation and the issues that are still very relevant today. No offence.

you seem obsessed with only one view or interpretation, and I presume you learnt this as part of a degree. The gospel shall we say. If you get off your arm chair though and do some research you will find that physics does not agree about anything at all when it comes to the philosophical nature of what matter is.

It's very difficult though to talk about this with someone who is brainwashed by what they have learnt, but didn't actually bother much more than the core material. I'll leave you hence with your religion.

For a start life is not just a wave, I made that perfectly clear, it has wave partical duality, and as for the rest I can only assume you did not read a word I said. Which is annoying.

The wave is only a cognitive abstraction. We like to think of light as a wave, because we have some intuition of waves and there are many instances, where thinking of light as a wave gives useful the result. But look closely enough and light stops to behave like a wave, because it is no wave.

The particle-wave duality is an attempt to keep the outdated concepts of waves and particles to avoid having to understand an accurate model of light (which, I admit, is not something you can teach in high school or even during undergraduate studies). In a sense, it arises out of a cognitive dissonance designed for our brains that prefers waves and particles to quantum fields.

You're not actually talking at me you are talking around everything I say. It's like watching someone explain what they learnt by rote, without actually taking on board what I sais. It's very frustrating as you keep making assertions about what I said that are simply contradicted by what I said.

If you want a discussion it might behoove you to understand no one at any point said light was just a wave, or a particle, and no one said particle wave duality was a perfect picture of what photon behaviour is. But you seem to have gained that impression despite all I have said.

of course it's impossible to create a perfect interference pattern, as I said earlier this would assume only that light was a wave. Wave particle duality is a way of understanding light, but it is not the end of the story. It is neither correct or the current theory, but I was trying to say that there are many views, none of which you will it seems acknowledge. Which is fine, but it makes explaining the discussion around the contentions almost impossible without being told how it is.

 

[Lexicus]

you seem obsessed with only one view or interpretation

No, he is talking the mathematics, not the philosophy.

 

[14thwarrior]

No, he is talking the mathematics, not the philosophy.

Well that's even worse.

If he's talking about mathematical models that makes the whole discussion pointless.

The exact mathematical nature of matter is extremely controversial. The wave function is it pictorial, ie exactly models the system or an ideal, who knows, but maths alone certainly does not remotely have an answer to this.

I think we are just talking past each other, which is no one's fault not even the Romans. But we are clearly on different wave lengths, if you'll pardon the pun.

If you want to go into the imaginary side of maths ie i and the variables and discuss the maths that's fine by me, the Wave function and so on, it's energy concerns the Eigenvectors/states etc. But it is not what I was referring to per se.

The maths and the philosophy are intrinsically the same thing anyway. If you strip away philosophy you are left with pure not even applied maths that hasn't even remotely tackled the issues.

What I like to call the well it just works side of science, mathematicians usually like. Just because it works does not mean it has any extrinsic or intrinsic accuracy. That is a reductionist model that is not science.

 

[Lexicus]

The exact mathematical nature of matter is extremely controversial.

Not really, the mathematics is about the only aspect that isn't controversial, and the problem is that it is so counterintuitive it gives rise to all the disputes and philosophical stuff which you seem really eager to discuss.

Uppi is dead right that the whole 'wave-particle duality' is merely a cognitive construct. That you enjoy thinking about and engaging with the various philosophical interpretations of quantum mechanics does not mean that the various constructs these interpretations posit have any ontological reality.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Hygro, you should add to your list of mental states that involve the mind's conscious or unselfconscious processing of contradictions, Keats' notion of "negative capability" (which he thought Shakespeare possessed in pronounced degree):

"that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason."

Also Whitman's

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes."

(The literary slant on your question.)

 

[14thwarrior]

Not really, the mathematics is about the only aspect that isn't controversial, and the problem is that it is so counterintuitive it gives rise to all the disputes and philosophical stuff which you seem really eager to discuss.

Uppi is dead right that the whole 'wave-particle duality' is merely a cognitive construct. That you enjoy thinking about and engaging with the various philosophical interpretations of quantum mechanics does not mean that the various constructs these interpretations posit have any ontological reality.

Ok so if the maths is not at all contraversial why are we even having this discussion and why are there so many scientists in different camps of interpretation all over the map?

This is a non sequitur, clearly if there were no issues at all with the maths we would not need the philosophy.

We'd have a complete picture that exactly conformed to evidence in an exact, defined way that had no controversy. We clearly do not though.

Bohr's more mature view, i.e., his view after the EPR paper, on complementarity and the interpretation of quantum mechanics may be summarized in the following points:

The interpretation of a physical theory has to rely on an experimental practice.
The experimental practice presupposes a certain pre-scientific practice of description, which establishes the norm for experimental measurement apparatus, and consequently what counts as scientific experience.
Our pre-scientific practice of understanding our environment is an adaptation to the sense experience of separation, orientation, identification and reidentification over time of physical objects.
This pre-scientific experience is grasped in terms of common categories like thing's position and change of position, duration and change of duration, and the relation of cause and effect, terms and principles that are now parts of our common language.
These common categories yield the preconditions for objective knowledge, and any description of nature has to use these concepts to be objective.
The concepts of classical physics are merely exact specifications of the above categories.
The classical concepts—and not classical physics itself—are therefore necessary in any description of physical experience in order to understand what we are doing and to be able to communicate our results to others, in particular in the description of quantum phenomena as they present themselves in experiments;
Planck's empirical discovery of the quantization of action requires a revision of the foundation for the use of classical concepts, because they are not all applicable at the same time. Their use is well defined only if they apply to experimental interactions in which the quantization of action can be regarded as negligible.
In experimental cases where the quantization of action plays a significant role, the application of a classical concept does not refer to independent properties of the object; rather the ascription of either kinematic or dynamic properties to the object as it exists independently of a specific experimental interaction is ill-defined.
The quantization of action demands a limitation of the use of classical concepts so that these concepts apply only to a phenomenon, which Bohr understood as the macroscopic manifestation of a measurement on the object, i.e. the uncontrollable interaction between the object and the apparatus.
The quantum mechanical description of the object differs from the classical description of the measuring apparatus, and this requires that the object and the measuring device should be separated in the description, but the line of separation is not the one between macroscopic instruments and microscopic objects. It has been argued in detail (Howard 1994) that Bohr pointed out that parts of the measuring device may sometimes be treated as parts of the object in the quantum mechanical description.
The quantum mechanical formalism does not provide physicists with a ‘pictorial’ representation: the ψ-function does not, as Schrödinger had hoped, represent a new kind of reality. Instead, as Born suggested, the square of the absolute value of the ψ-function expresses a probability amplitude for the outcome of a measurement. Due to the fact that the wave equation involves an imaginary quantity this equation can have only a symbolic character, but the formalism may be used to predict the outcome of a measurement that establishes the conditions under which concepts like position, momentum, time and energy apply to the phenomena.
The ascription of these classical concepts to the phenomena of measurements rely on the experimental context of the phenomena, so that the entire setup provides us with the defining conditions for the application of kinematic and dynamic concepts in the domain of quantum physics.
Such phenomena are complementary in the sense that their manifestations depend on mutually exclusive measurements, but that the information gained through these various experiments exhausts all possible objective knowledge of the object.

These are still relevant concerns now. Despite what you may have been told by the educational doctrine, that says eggs is eggs there is nothing more.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/

I am well aware that all these views are considered old hat and old views that have been refined by science, but the fact is no one has answered their contentions yet, so their contentions still remain apposite.

Anyone who says they know exactly how a material substance works at a fundamental level, who cannot measure it without uncertainty creeping in, is being disingenuous. WE have come a long way but ideas that the maths is not controversial really don't say anything more than, we have given up looking for a better answer.

 

[Lexicus]

Ok so if the maths is not at all contraversial why are we even having this discussion and why are there so many scientists in different camps of interpretation all over the map?

Because, like I said, the interpretations are just attempts to explain what the math means in terms that are familiar to humans. Ie, all of them are exercises in the application of cognitive constructs (the ontological statuses of which are at best unresolved) to the brutally counterintuitive fact of the mathematics and the experimental results.

 

[14thwarrior]

Because, like I said, the interpretations are just attempts to explain what the math means in terms that are familiar to humans. Ie, all of them are exercises in the application of cognitive constructs (the ontological statuses of which are at best unresolved) to the brutally counterintuitive fact of the mathematics and the experimental results.

I don't think you really understand the contentions. If you see the maths of QM as lacking contention tbh. But so be it, we have exhausted all possible outcomes. within the limits of + or - infinity, let's just renormalise and get back to discussing why holding two conflicting views makes our brain leak out of our ears, but is something we do all the time.

incidentally it is not that it is counterintuitive that causes the problem, it is that it is incomplete by the nature of matter itself.

Something not making immediate sense in science is no bar to reality, I'll quote again.

"We can agree that your theory is crazy, my only contention is, is it is crazy enough to be true?"

Niels Bohr.

 

[uppi]

I have another sign for cognitive dissonance: You disregard the opinion of experts when they disagree with your world view and resort to personal attacks.

 

[14thwarrior]

I have another sign for cognitive dissonance: You disregard the opinion of experts when they disagree with your world view and resort to personal attacks.

Lol you're an expert now. How trite.

No I disregard anyone who thinks he knows it all, without demonstrating comensurate ability. Especially when they label themselves as an expert.

Dude your ego is off the charts.

I love the irony though. The "personal attacks" never actually happened, you just imagine they did because you are an authority.

You're using the most usual tactic in the troll arsenal, (apart from being the worlds biggest expert on x, which i have already tackled) claim someone is attacking you way before they actually do, where have I attacked you and in what way?

i attakced your reasoning because it is lacking. I attacked it because it is a sort of reasoning that comes from people who have a small amount of education, and think they suddenly are experts.

And before you tell me I have a PhD in whatever, just know, yeah sure you do...

"An expert is someone who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very small field."

Guess who said that?

 

[Lexicus]

IIRC uppi is a professional physicist. Which would indeed make him an expert on this topic...

 

[14thwarrior]

IIRC uppi is a professional physicist. Which would indeed make him an expert on this topic...

Would it really and next you're going to tell me he's won a nobel prize in being an expert.

The guys not really got into anything modern and is merely re-iterating what he learnt at school. We can hence assume he's been burried in his field for so long he hasn't looked up and around.

When you leave college you need to keep up to date with the field but all he's showing me is that he is a self confessed expert but without the means to demonstrate it. I have no time for people who think they know it all, when they don't demonstrate commensurate ability at the same time. To be brutally honest. And no one should.

Yeah and I am the pope of physics. So what.

If you want to demonstrate ability the worst way to do it is to claim you are an expert. The best way is to show it. I have a PhD in physics, you don't see me spouting how much of an expert I am as if it means anything?

Because and let me make it absolutely clear, it doesn't mean as much as talking the talk, It's a good start but it is not the be all and end all.

We should get the hell off the subject right now for 2 reasons.

1) highly contentious and no one who is not in one camp or the other is going to change position

2) see above.

It's one of those things, as soon as you challenge a persons personal opinion of how science is, in physics. You will face a never ending storm, and nothing will change.

 

[uppi]

"An expert is someone who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very small field."

Well, I have made the mistake of assuming that light is a wave and as a result the calculation did not conserve energy and did not match the experiment. I learned from that that the expectation value for the electric field of a single photon is zero, but the expectation value for the intensity of the same field is nonzero. That is not what you would expect from the wave model. And I was calculating interference, so the particle model was also out.

When you leave college you need to keep up to date with the field

Does reading and publishing peer-reviewed papers and attending conferences count as keeping up with the field?

 

[14thwarrior]

The problem is you are still talking around me, when did I say light was a wave? Please point out the exact post where I said that.

Do you see what I mean, you are having a conversation with yourself.


I don't personally care if you went to seven hundred conferences with God almighty and learned all the fundamental truths of the universe, but it would be nice if you responded to what I said at some point.

The expectation values are fine in as much as they tell you light can not be zero withing the mathematical construct, or as we should put it the wave function within the confines of either the Dirac or Schrödinger equation . But that is not at all anything like I said.

We can wax long and hard about partial derivatives, we can even do the moonwalk, but until you say something that impinges on something I said, we are not going to do anything. You're having a conversation with yourself atm, you need to stop doing that.

 

[BenitoChavez]

Well this thread got off topic.

Take for example the Hong-Ou-Mandel effect:Two photons with identical properties and zero relative phase impinging on a 50:50 beam splitter. If light was a wave, you would expect constructive interference in one output port and constructive in the other, so that both photons come out of one defined port. If light was particles, these would have zero interactions and you would expect the photons to be randomly distributed over both ports. What actually happens is that the two photons always come out of the same port, but you do not know which one.

This is an interesting experiment because it basically validates what Uppi is saying. There are situations where light behaves as neither a wave nor a particle, thus wave-particle duality is an inaccurate way of thinking about the way things work. However "quantized fields" instead of waves/particles will take a while to get use to.

So to satisfy my curiosity and resolve my cognitive dissonance (got to tie this back to the original topic somehow) perhaps someone could explain this part to me:

If light was a wave, you would expect constructive interference in one output port and constructive in the other, so that both photons come out of one defined port.

My understanding is this: if light was a wave with identical physical properties, the beam splitter split each photon in two, each photon constructively interferes with the other photon, so the net result would be seeing both photons coming out of both ports.

So then why would it it only come out of one defined port? And how do you know what port it will be?

 

[14thwarrior]

The sad thing is it validates what both of us was saying. But he seems to have become fixated on waves.

It's a semantic issue and we are basically both saying the same thing, but I think something got lost in translation and I think that is my bad, as much as it is his. It's one of those subjects that really it is not wise if you discussed on such a medium, because things get complicated and you lose 90% of the conversation. It's my bad for not making what I said clear from the start, for which I can only apologise.

The slit it comes out of is only one "port" when it is measured at the slits it then becomes a 50/50 outcome which is not determined and could be either, the weird thing is to produce interference fringes when not "measured" and I use that term very loosely,it must come out and through everywhere or it would not form a wave like photographic back plate, like being the operative word, it is clearly not a wave either. This says that the measurement is not flawed, but does change the outcome. In essence the experiment does not show the true nature of light, in fact the way the experiment is set up, only exposes that we don't have a clear picture of it. We hence need better experiments, or better understanding.

The wave essentially has an extent that covers the slits in its entirity, but when you measure the so called photon when there is only one passing through the slit, it shows it is a particle. And this is probably a bad explanation as well.

I am mangling this badly but this web site does show what I mean in a far better way...

http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/PVB/Harrison/DoubleSlit/DoubleSlit.html

"A student once remarked that we should do a "better" experiment. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle says that such a better experiment does not exist."

Depressing but it might be true.

 

[Hygro]

Hygro, you should add to your list of mental states that involve the mind's conscious or unselfconscious processing of contradictions, Keats' notion of "negative capability" (which he thought Shakespeare possessed in pronounced degree):

"that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason."

Also Whitman's

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes."

(The literary slant on your question.)

A skilled musician dissonants beautifully.

 

[uppi]

The problem is you are still talking around me, when did I say light was a wave? Please point out the exact post where I said that.

Post #28

This gives me cognitive dissidence. If its not a wave and not a particle, then what else could it be?

Both it can be both, [...]

If light is a wave and a particle, it immediately follows that it is also a wave.

Granted, you said "can be" instead of "is" so there is some wiggle room there, but you did not follow that up with "it is not".

Edit:

My understanding is this: if light was a wave with identical physical properties, the beam splitter split each photon in two, each photon constructively interferes with the other photon, so the net result would be seeing both photons coming out of both ports.

So then why would it it only come out of one defined port? And how do you know what port it will be?

Sorry, I mistyped there: at one port there is constructive interference and at the other there is destructive. The reflecting surface of the beamsplitter imposes a phase shift of pi between the photons in one of the paths, so in that path you get destructive interference and the photons would go out the other port.