A question about the observer effect

[Jokodo]

Any prediction requires knowledge of the initial conditions. In the case of a coin toss, if you were to know the initial conditions with sufficient precision, a purely deterministic Model of reality is sufficient to predict its behavior with a much higher accuracy than you could ever hope to measure. No need to refer to QM at all.

The range of hypothetically possible outcomes for the sum of a septillion dice is from one to six septillions. In that range, you only ever need to concern yourself with values between 3.4999999999 and 3.500000001 septillions, and probably several orders of magnitude narrower. The same Holds for a tumbling coin consisting of a septillion particles. Even is every particle has an uncorrelated chance of being in any arbiträre state along its range of possibilities, itself, I believe, a misunderstanding, the sum is everything but unpredictable. QM or the observer effect Play no role in explaining our inability to predict the outcome.


It doesn't work as such.

You can not compute probilities of a coin toss based on the particles without a wave function.

It's worse than that: You cannot (meaningfully) compute probabilities of a coin toss based on the particles, period.

There's a million reasons why it is practically impossible to predict which side a coin will fall on, and wave-particle dualism isn't one of them. Incomplete knowledge about the position, direction and momentum of the coin in the instant it's dropped, incomplete knowledge of its actual mass distribution and about the friction coefficient in different areas of its surface dominate any role quantum effects might have. It's a chaotic process, meaning that small differences in the input will lead to enormous differences in the output - but a deterministic one.

That one extra atom of lead that's embedded in the copper lattice of the bottom part of the coin, making it ever so slightly denser than the top part and shifting the coins balance point, or that microscopic scratch you inadvertently made with your thumbnail as you flipped it, slightly increasing the friction on one side, the sub-millimeter-scale air turbulence lingering on from when a fly passed this way a minute ago? Yes, they might affect which side it lands on. But not wave collapse.

1...
1...
2...
4 Therefore probability is ..

Show the steps in your reasoning. I do not see it'

Whether the uncertainties represented by QM that appear to underly reailit are a property of reality or a function of our limitations is an old question'

Not one that's relevant to deciding what causes the result of a coin toss to appear random.


Even if there were no qualitative difference between the behaviour of particles and that of macroscopic objects, even if the behaviour of a penny (~2.5 grams of 95% copper, thus several septillion particles) were best described as the product (not sum!) of it's septillion particles' wave functions, this still wouldn't get us to where the coin landing on one side or the other is in any meaningful way a quantum effect. Counterintuitive as it may seem, a system of a septillion entities acting at random behaves in effect like a septillion particles acting in a deterministic fashion. Throwing a septillion dice, each having an equal probability of showing any of its six sides, and summing up the results is in no appreciable manner different from throwing a septillion dice with the number "3.5" written on all faces.

Have a look at AnyDice.com and play around a bit with numbers in the 3-digit range by entering e.g. "501d6" for 501 tosses with a six-sided die (you'll get a timeout error if you go much beyond). As expected, the probability of getting at least 1754 eyes total (=more than 1753.5, the 501 * 3.5) is exactly 50%. The probability of getting at least 1700 is already well over 90%, despite the fact that the range of hypothetically possible results starts at 500. People who are better at math than me have derived a formula of sqrt(n * (k²-1)/12) as the standard deviation of results for k-sided dice after n tosses. With a septillion "tosses" (i. e. a septillion particles in a coin), that implies for all intents and purposes deterministic behaviour, and a larger role for that extra lead atom.

 

[steve_bank]

It's worse than that: You cannot (meaningfully) compute probabilities of a coin toss based on the particles, period.

There's a million reasons why it is practically impossible to predict which side a coin will fall on, and wave-particle dualism isn't one of them. Incomplete knowledge about the position, direction and momentum of the coin in the instant it's dropped, incomplete knowledge of its actual mass distribution and about the friction coefficient in different areas of its surface dominate any role quantum effects might have. It's a chaotic process, meaning that small differences in the input will lead to enormous differences in the output - but a deterministic one.

That one extra atom of lead that's embedded in the copper lattice of the bottom part of the coin, making it ever so slightly denser than the top part and shifting the coins balance point, or that microscopic scratch you inadvertently made with your thumbnail as you flipped it, slightly increasing the friction on one side, the sub-millimeter-scale air turbulence lingering on from when a fly passed this way a minute ago? Yes, they might affect which side it lands on. But not wave collapse.

1...
1...
2...
4 Therefore probability is ..

Show the steps in your reasoning. I do not see it'

Whether the uncertainties represented by QM that appear to underly reailit are a property of reality or a function of our limitations is an old question'

Not one that's relevant to deciding what causes the result of a coin toss to appear random.


Even if there were no qualitative difference between the behaviour of particles and that of macroscopic objects, even if the behaviour of a penny (~2.5 grams of 95% copper, thus several septillion particles) were best described as the product (not sum!) of it's septillion particles' wave functions, this still wouldn't get us to where the coin landing on one side or the other is in any meaningful way a quantum effect. Counterintuitive as it may seem, a system of a septillion entities acting at random behaves in effect like a septillion particles acting in a deterministic fashion. Throwing a septillion dice, each having an equal probability of showing any of its six sides, and summing up the results is in no appreciable manner different from throwing a septillion dice with the number "3.5" written on all faces.

Have a look at AnyDice.com and play around a bit with numbers in the 3-digit range by entering e.g. "501d6" for 501 tosses with a six-sided die (you'll get a timeout error if you go much beyond). As expected, the probability of getting at least 1754 eyes total (=more than 1753.5, the 501 * 3.5) is exactly 50%. The probability of getting at least 1700 is already well over 90%, despite the fact that the range of hypothetically possible results starts at 500. People who are better at math than me have derived a formula of sqrt(n * (k²-1)/12) as the standard deviation of results for k-sided dice after n tosses. With a septillion "tosses" (i. e. a septillion particles in a coin), that implies for all intents and purposes deterministic behaviour, and a larger role for that extra lead atom.

I have given up trying to decipher your posts. Sorry man, you do not appear to process a foundation for general discussion.

 

[Jokodo]

It's worse than that: You cannot (meaningfully) compute probabilities of a coin toss based on the particles, period.

There's a million reasons why it is practically impossible to predict which side a coin will fall on, and wave-particle dualism isn't one of them. Incomplete knowledge about the position, direction and momentum of the coin in the instant it's dropped, incomplete knowledge of its actual mass distribution and about the friction coefficient in different areas of its surface dominate any role quantum effects might have. It's a chaotic process, meaning that small differences in the input will lead to enormous differences in the output - but a deterministic one.

That one extra atom of lead that's embedded in the copper lattice of the bottom part of the coin, making it ever so slightly denser than the top part and shifting the coins balance point, or that microscopic scratch you inadvertently made with your thumbnail as you flipped it, slightly increasing the friction on one side, the sub-millimeter-scale air turbulence lingering on from when a fly passed this way a minute ago? Yes, they might affect which side it lands on. But not wave collapse.

1...
1...
2...
4 Therefore probability is ..

Show the steps in your reasoning. I do not see it'

Whether the uncertainties represented by QM that appear to underly reailit are a property of reality or a function of our limitations is an old question'

Not one that's relevant to deciding what causes the result of a coin toss to appear random.


Even if there were no qualitative difference between the behaviour of particles and that of macroscopic objects, even if the behaviour of a penny (~2.5 grams of 95% copper, thus several septillion particles) were best described as the product (not sum!) of it's septillion particles' wave functions, this still wouldn't get us to where the coin landing on one side or the other is in any meaningful way a quantum effect. Counterintuitive as it may seem, a system of a septillion entities acting at random behaves in effect like a septillion particles acting in a deterministic fashion. Throwing a septillion dice, each having an equal probability of showing any of its six sides, and summing up the results is in no appreciable manner different from throwing a septillion dice with the number "3.5" written on all faces.

Have a look at AnyDice.com and play around a bit with numbers in the 3-digit range by entering e.g. "501d6" for 501 tosses with a six-sided die (you'll get a timeout error if you go much beyond). As expected, the probability of getting at least 1754 eyes total (=more than 1753.5, the 501 * 3.5) is exactly 50%. The probability of getting at least 1700 is already well over 90%, despite the fact that the range of hypothetically possible results starts at 500. People who are better at math than me have derived a formula of sqrt(n * (k²-1)/12) as the standard deviation of results for k-sided dice after n tosses. With a septillion "tosses" (i. e. a septillion particles in a coin), that implies for all intents and purposes deterministic behaviour, and a larger role for that extra lead atom.

I have given up trying to decipher your posts. Sorry man, you do not appear to process a foundation for general discussion.

Which part of "there's million reasons why we fail to predict the outcome of a coin toss and wave-particle dualism isn't one of them" is so hard?

 

[Shadowy Man]

Sorry, I haven't read the whole thread. But a good book I once read that tackles this, or some aspects of this, is the following. I recommend checking it out:

"Where Does The Weirdness Go?: Why Quantum Mechanics Is Strange, But Not As Strange As You Think" by David Lindley

 

[steve_bank]

Sorry, I haven't read the whole thread. But a good book I once read that tackles this, or some aspects of this, is the following. I recommend checking it out:

"Where Does The Weirdness Go?: Why Quantum Mechanics Is Strange, But Not As Strange As You Think" by David Lindley

Why is QM any more weird than light coming from a lightbulb ?

 

[steve_bank]

I have given up trying to decipher your posts. Sorry man, you do not appear to process a foundation for general discussion.

Which part of "there's million reasons why we fail to predict the outcome of a coin toss and wave-particle dualism isn't one of them" is so hard?

A million reasons nah. Make it a billion reasons and maybe I might consider it doc.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/...15b3e0daf41830cdd2ac59fc3e736bea&action=click

As we might say over here 'looney tunes'.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/...=e2a5840f4bf02c8fb3e0827e61662b13&action=view

 

[Treedbear]

...
I'm not entertaining the MWI (or other woo).

I'm not following why you aren't entertaining the MWI, and why you're calling it woo. MWI basically takes the "the interference produced by the wave function is not visible simply because it has become much too complex to recognize" hypothesis as its premise, and follows it all the way to the end. And earlier you wrote "a more complicated superposed wave function for the whole atom observer+photon system.", which seems to be implying the conscious observer himself goes into a superposed state. If that isn't MWI you were entertaining, it's pretty darn close, and I'm not picking up on the distinction you're drawing.

...

Dear Bomb. I'd always intended to get back to you on this and I think I've finally been able to get some of my thoughts to gel about why MWI seems to me a bit too convenient as a way around quantum indeterminancy. If you'll refer to this post in the current thread it might make some sense to you. Or maybe not.

 

[DBT]

Our brain is a mechanism that interprets the world in the form of a mental representation of acquired information.

How the world appears to us being more a manifestation of the brain than what the world is actually like beyond the range of our senses or instruments, or how the world actually works.