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+--- Thread: Article Quantum mechanics gives us power, but no answers (epistemological hobbies) (/thread-13972.html)
Quantum mechanics gives us power, but no answers (epistemological hobbies) - C C - Apr 16, 2023
https://iai.tv/articles/quantum-mechanics-gives-us-power-but-no-answers-john-horgan-auid-2451?_auid=2020
EXCERPT: . . . Here’s an even bigger irony: Terry Rudolph is baffled too. Here is a physicist who has mastered the intricacies of quantum mechanics, and who is applying that knowledge to build quantum computers. His firm, PsiQuantum, has raised hundreds of millions of dollars. But he confesses that quantum theory leaves him in a state of “cognitive dissonance.” He can’t believe the conclusion of his own PBR theorem, that the world does not possess precisely defined qualities when we’re not looking at it.
If I wanted to end this essay on an up-note, I’d say: Breakthroughs could be around the corner! After all, corporations and governments are funneling billions of dollars into quantum computing. If quantum computers work, they could help physicists discover a more powerful--and sensible--theory beyond the current theory. Ideally, this new theory won’t be riddled with paradoxes like the measurement problem.
This new theory might take us closer to a theory of everything, which tells us why there is something rather than nothing. The theory might even solve the deepest riddle of all, how matter gives rise to mind--because without mind, there might as well be nothing.
But my guess is that the opposite will happen. My quantum experiment has convinced me that the more deeply we peer into nature, the more befuddled we will become. We will be forced to accept that language, including the language of mathematics, can never truly capture reality, whatever that is.
Science will surely keep giving us more power. If you think ChatGPT is clever, imagine what an AI based on quantum computing can do. But the dream of a final theory, a revelation that makes everything clear, will remain forever just that, a dream, a fantasy with no hope of being fulfilled... (MORE - missing details)
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Gorgias (483—375 B.C.E.) ... Gorgias on the distinction between a description slash conception of _X_ and the actual being of _X_: [...] Regardless of how it "has largely been seen" it seems clear that Gorgias was focused instead on the notion that true objectivity is impossible since the human mind can never be separated from its possessor.
"How can anyone communicate the idea of color by means of words since the ear does not hear colors but only sounds?" This quote was used to show his theory that 'there is nothing', 'if there were anything no one would know it', 'and if anyone did know it, no one could communicate it'.
This theory, thought of in the late 5th century BC, is still being contemplated by many philosophers throughout the world. This argument has led some to label Gorgias a nihilist (one who believes nothing exists, or that the world is incomprehensible, and that the concept of truth is fictitious).
For the first main argument where Gorgias says, "there is no-thing", he tries to persuade the reader that thought and existence are not the same. By claiming that if thought and existence truly were the same, then everything that anyone thought would suddenly exist. He also attempted to prove that words and sensations could not be measured by the same standards, for even though words and sensations are both derived from the mind, they are essentially different. This is where his second idea comes into place.