The Twin-Slit Experiment

[Steve3007]

Steve, not wishing to butt in on your experiment, but I came across this video about the double-slit experiment that I especially liked, especially how he explained the measurement problem (hint: you don't need a conscious observer) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h75DGO3GrF4

Thanks. I'll take a look at it when I have the ability to listen to the soundtrack.

[Steve3007]

Perhaps I don't understand what you're trying to convey. For one, how does one send 27 photons "in a single wave pattern" as opposed to not sending them that way? It seems like case b is just case a done 27 times. You can do each of them in separate labs if you want. You get the same predicted results either way, per quantum theory.

This is what I've been trying to get him to explain coherently in his proposed model. He seems to be vaguely proposing that some particles travel across empty space in a related group, in a way that seems to be analogous to an oscillating drop of water or jelly moving across a space. How that is supposed to be in any way related to the observed interference fringes, I don't yet know.

[Steve3007]

After all, what we're primarily doing in making predictions for experiments like this is using mathematics, but mathematical objects are not real. They're simply (a) a way that we think about some basic relations we observe, and then the bulk of mathematics is (b) a construction extrapolated from (a), much in the way of building elaborate structures from an erector set. It's simply a language for talking about the way we think about relations.

We're using mathematics in the same way that we're using English language. It's just less prone to ambiguity. We use mathematics to precisely describe the observed behaviour of the surface of water when a "dipper" bobs up and down in it. We use mathematics to precisely describe the observed behaviour of cathode rays as they go through two slits. We use the mathematics to note similarities between the two. We propose that the similarities might continue in the future. We test that proposition.

None of the above constitutes the reification of mathematics that you've discussed previously.

[Terrapin Station]

We're talking about too many issues at once, where we keep going over and over and over them, and then gradually adding more, which I hate doing. For example, here, now we've also brought up the issue of Occam's razor. So one bit at a time, although I'll do one paragraph.

That is true, in the sense that there is no experiment or observation that could be used to distinguish between different propositions as to what is going on ontologically if all of those propositions stem from the same set of observations. That is where such metaphysical devices as Occam's razor are sometimes invoked. But if our theory doesn't make falsifiable predictions as to what will be observed then it hasn't even reached the first stage. The first stage is to lay out various theories that achieve that basic aim. Only then can we decide among them.

Occam's razor is basically an aesthetic preference.

As I said, all the various possibilities could be set up--by applying the same or similar/at least equivalent mathematical constructions--so that they make exactly the same predictions. They'd all be falsifiable in the same way.

The point is that this fact doesn't enable us to make statements about "what's really going on" behind what we're observing, so that we can state that "this is the behavior of single particles" etc. That's not epistemically justified. What we're observing could be the behavior of all sorts of groupings of particles rather than of single particles.

[Steve3007]

I didn't intend to discuss Occam's razor specifically. I just brought it up as probably the most well known example of a device whose purpose is to choose between competing theories on purely ontological grounds; i.e. theories which all have already cleared the first hurdle of accurately describing and predicting what is observed.

[Terrapin Station]

In case (a), there would be one dot on the detector screen. A single data point. With the other cases, there would be 27 or 282 respectively.

A claim that would be based on what, exactly? How would you be observing 1 versus 27 versus 282 particles to check how many dots they'd make on the detector screen?

Perhaps I don't understand what you're trying to convey. For one, how does one send 27 photons "in a single wave pattern" as opposed to not sending them that way?

That might be the only way that it's possible to send photons, at least given the apparatuses we have.

[Atla]

Never heard that according to known physics, that's how photons work.

So the way we'd know that something is the case is by conforming to conventions?

I don't know how else to put it anymore, really.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-photon_source

[Atla]

(hint: you don't need a conscious observer) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h75DGO3GrF4

Or do you?

"Collapse" happens when which-path information is available. Even if say no one is looking at say the result of a double-slit experiment, and we store the result in an atom, and send the atom to the other end of the universe, the collapse will still happen because which-path information is available.

But what or "who" is keeping this classical universe classical in the first place, which-path information is available to what or to whom?

[Atla]

Or do you?

"Collapse" happens when which-path information is available. Even if say no one is looking at say the result of a double-slit experiment, and we store the result in an atom, and send the atom to the other end of the universe, the collapse will still happen because which-path information is available.

But what or "who" is keeping this classical universe classical in the first place, which-path information is available to what or to whom?

I mean classical PART of the universe.

[Terrapin Station]

So the way we'd know that something is the case is by conforming to conventions?

I don't know how else to put it anymore, really.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-photon_source

That doesn't answer the epistemological question I'm asking.

[Atla]

I don't know how else to put it anymore, really.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-photon_source

That doesn't answer the epistemological question I'm asking.

It did answer it. If we can emit single photons, then it's not true that we may only be able to emit groups of photons together.

[Terrapin Station]

That doesn't answer the epistemological question I'm asking.

It did answer it. If we can emit single photons, then it's not true that we may only be able to emit groups of photons together.

A conditional wouldn't answer the question I'm asking.

[Atla]

It did answer it. If we can emit single photons, then it's not true that we may only be able to emit groups of photons together.

A conditional wouldn't answer the question I'm asking.

You know it wasn't a conditional.

Why don't you academics try to solve the Measurement problem instead?

[Terrapin Station]

A conditional wouldn't answer the question I'm asking.

You know it wasn't a conditional.

Why don't you academics try to solve the Measurement problem instead?

You wrote: " If we can emit single photons, then it's not true that we may only be able to emit groups of photons together. "

That's a conditional. Conditionals are "if...then" statements.

What I was asking can't be answered by a conditional. It can't be answered by an "if...then" statement. I'm asking how we know we're emitting single photons. Saying "If we're emitting single photons, then . . . " doesn't address how we know that we are emitting single photons.

Re the "measurement problem," that only arises via reifying mathematics--taking the mathematical equations we use to be telling us what the noumenal/objective world is like.

[Atla]

You know it wasn't a conditional.

Why don't you academics try to solve the Measurement problem instead?

You wrote: " If we can emit single photons, then it's not true that we may only be able to emit groups of photons together. "

That's a conditional. Conditionals are "if...then" statements.

What I was asking can't be answered by a conditional. It can't be answered by an "if...then" statement. I'm asking how we know we're emitting single photons. Saying "If we're emitting single photons, then . . . " doesn't address how we know that we are emitting single photons.

Re the "measurement problem," that only arises via reifying mathematics--taking the mathematical equations we use to be telling us what the noumenal/objective world is like.

I linked how we know we're emitting single photons. You just won't look it up because it refutes your pet theory.

And by saying that the measurement problem only arises via reifying mathematics, you've lost your remaining credibility as well. It arises directly from experiment.