The h Bar - 2023-02-08 (page 3 of 3)

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9:00 PM

I'm not sure what we need a precise idea of "what thing" per unit volume the density actually is for

well because as I said, to me it looked like a super weird thing, to make a claim about particles, physical/real material particles, as being located in the unit volume of the phase space, when for coordinates there, you have abstract points "filling" the system

When you initially, encountered statistical and quantum statistical mechanics, did you try to understand everything, every new concept the moment you were made aware of it, or were you able to understand most of them later on?

I never try to understand everything :P

Jul 18, 2021 at 12:23, by ACuriousMind

learning, to me, is a gradual process of understanding where I never really get something on the first try

Jan 20, 2020 at 18:36, by ACuriousMind

@JakeRose I don't necessarily see it as a bad thing: "Understanding" in the sense of having some sort of moment of enlightenment where you suddenly grasp what you didn't before is rare (though it happens). Much more common is a gradual process where you see and use something so often that you stop worrying about "understanding" it because you don't need any sort of grand enlightenment anymore to find it useful and familiar.

So, I should proceed with quantum statistical mechanics, in a mechanical way, without understanding how things work, exactly ?

I mean, you should try to understand things

but it's not the end of the world if there's some things you don't get

but, wouldn't that affect you in the future?

It's like a bridge without one of it;s pillars

yes it stands

9:06 PM

like, you don't need to understand what the phase space density "is" right now, you can wait and see some examples of how its used and perhaps you'll have to do some exercises with it

but it can carry less weight then what it could if, all the pillars were there

I see

and sometimes just getting more familiar with something then dissolves questions you had at the beginning

there is a Bayesian probability that you might be right

xD

understanding isn't a physical bridge, you can put the pillars in afterwards

@imbAF don't resort to metaphysics since it's meaningless :p

And me sleeping

Anonymous out

9:08 PM

@MoreAnonymous philosophy is cool, but sometimes they overdo it with trying to find an answer to a topic

Is life deterministic or not. A 2k years old topic (at least).

When you can simply make the claim

See Wigners friend extended. The short story is u can set up an experiment where life + qm s time evolution has no community consensus .

On what the answer is

@imbAF it's not as simple as u think

it is, since

Since we cannot foresee the future, I can't say that life is deterministic, because I can't prove that no matter what my actions are, they were determined, because I cannot see into the future

See the extension here

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner%27s_friend

the same way someone who says is indetermnistic can;t make that claim because of the same constraints

Anyway I think I've given food for thought

Im gonna bounce

9:13 PM

@MoreAnonymous you're doing that thing again where you respond with oddly specific physics to someone making a very general point

@ACuriousMind I don't see this as bad. I search for a.subset of their abstraction or an example and give a counter

*counter example

But it is not a counter though

@MoreAnonymous but you didn't even let them finish to explain their point, which has nothing to do with Wigner's friend!

Ah yes I was a bit impatient

simply because, we cannot see the future, and therefore we cannot say how taking or changing actions, affect the future

you can't make a claim about something that is yet to exist or happen,at least for now

so the greek philosophy needs 2k more years to come to a conclusion

9:15 PM

@imbAF I mean are u saying given an initial value problem u can't predict the future even with say a quantum computer?

and that's simply not efficient

@MoreAnonymous When that happens, which is impossible. You need to account for every possible variable in existence

then we will find the answer to the question whether life is deterministic or no

Up to that point, the correct answer is,like an electron spin, up and down, life is and is not deterministic

@imbAF okay so ur talking about experimental realisation. But the laws of physics can be expressed as a intial value problem where a unique intial condition has a unique final condition

that;s not predicting the future

of a human

what are your initial conditions xD

Now it is similar to saying I have a very large number not infinity which does not have a prime factorizariob

Cause u can't tell me it's factors

@imbAF whatever it is ... Its unique

So, one can make whatever claim they want

9:19 PM

The point imbAF is making is that indeterminism has to pose a counterfactual - "The future could have been different" - and you can't really prove or disprove a counterfactual

you don't need 2k years to figure that out

that counterfactuals are vacuously true is a storied problem in logic

@imbAF ofcourse not .

It's like trying to find a way for you to fly by flapping your arms

there must be a way....

.but which is why I mentioned Wigners thought experiment extended

The time evolution is not really known (I'm a community accepted way)

9:20 PM

this has, once again, nothing to do with whether or not a theory of physics we're using to describe the universe is deterministic or not - the "real world", after all, could just happen to conform to the determinstic theory but really this is an accident or vice versa

Anyway

I think @ACuriousMind can agree with me that philosophy helps here?

helps with what?

Now, if you ask me what I think , I'd say life is deterministic, but I hope I am wrong xD

Im too impatient and sleep deprived for a proper coversation

sure, this approach to the problem of determinism is, itself, philosophy; but it is clear that that's not the "philosophy" imbAF meant when they said something bad about philosophy

9:22 PM

Maybe continue later?

Somewhere I'm upset I won't be able to have the last word ... Grumble grumble

@MoreAnonymous was it determined that we would initiate this conversation as you were going to sleep or no? :P

@imbAF okay bait accepted.

xD

I mean you keep joining conversations immediately after you've said you're going to bed, this is solely your own fault :P

1. Qm describes the world

9:24 PM

ah no I'm not engaging with that again

2. The time evolution of qm + human is not known let alone agreed upon to be unique

I don't see how qm , describes a guy meeting a girl, while being stoned at a rave party, but who knows, it might

Please see the wiki link I referred

I will , it's interesting

Cool I'd recommend the link of the extended version

Im gonna sleep now and rejoin when I have more sleep 😴

9:26 PM

I'll rejoin in about 24 h TT

@ACuriousMind how do u work and do physics?

goodnight

I have a 12 hour workload

it's 10:30 pm here, I'm not working

Feel free to respond.later

9:27 PM

and I don't do any physics except what I do here

I mean i feel exhausted after a days work

And with alotta willpower open a textbook to study

I remember I was sooooo annoyed when u said i clearly didn't want to understand (the measurement problem) and would disengage

@MoreAnonymous 9 hours of work / uni / training and for closure statistical mechanics...

I didn't like the inference of my intentions

Ah memories

@imbAF isn't that more than 24 hours?

no

Im too sleep deprived

Plz don't bait me :p

9:30 PM

6AM-11:PM

just go to bed

@ACuriousMind yes dad!

@ACuriousMind I will proceed with my lectures and notes in statistics, read our discussion and hope that I eventually understand the things I currently don't

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