Ruth\'s \"real\" possibilities (General)

by dhw, Tuesday, July 30, 2013, 12:21 (3929 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw: This simply serves to show that a Heisenberg/TI potential remains outside space/time, since no "real" energy is involved. Only a space/time encounter results in a "real" event. My puzzlement remains: If a potential is regarded as real, there is no limit to what you can believe. But if "reality" is restricted to space/time encounters/transactions/events, why is an unrealized TI potential or "possibility" considered different from any other unrealized potential, and why is a physical potential considered more "real" than an idea or concept? N.B. I'm not saying there are no realities outside our own spacetime reality. That is the field both you and I are so eager to explore. But I need help in understanding the terms and arguments that are being used here!-DAVID: "Understanding the terms and arguments" are an issue in itself. That is why QM needs philosophers to play a major role. Ruth asked me if I knew about virtual particles, and I do. They follow Heisenberg's uncertainty & possibilty and I view them as changing smudges in fields. Please read the following to see what you and I are up against. The math, which we cannot do explains or reveals an understanding which seems almost unreal to me, but it is real, just on the other side!-http://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/virtual-particl...-Thank you for this. It's a remarkable article, and the comments, questions and answers that follow are also revealing and highly educational. Interestingly, the subject of "virtual particles" vividly illustrates the problems of terminology:-STRASSLER: "The term "virtual particle" is an endlessly confusing and confused subject for the layperson, and even for the non-expert scientist. I have read many books for laypeople (yes, I was a layperson once myself, and I remember, at the age of 16, reading about this stuff) and all of them talk about virtual particles and not one of them has ever made any sense to me. So I am going to try a different approach in explaining it to you.The best way to approach this concept, I believe, is to forget you ever saw the word "particle" in the term. A virtual particle is not a particle at all. It refers precisely to a disturbance in a field that is not a particle. A particle is a nice, regular ripple in a field, one that can travel smoothly and effortlessly through space, like a clear tone of a bell moving through the air. A "virtual particle", generally, is a disturbance in a field that will never be found on its own, but instead is something that is caused by the presence of other particles..."-With your scientific background, you were able to work out the meaning for yourself. But when I see the term, I automatically assume it means what it appears to say. I have the same problem with Ruth's use of "potential" and "possibility" when she links it to "real" and to degrees of reality. Yes, we must learn to think outside the box ... that applies to many fields of life, and if humans didn't, there would be no inventions, no discoveries, no revolutions. But if we are to communicate with one another, we have to define or explain our terms, as Strassler does here. Incidentally, he says he too is writing a book for lay people, so there is competition for Ruth!-One of the sections of Ruth's Chapter 7 is on causality (again I have questions). This comes up in the correspondenceAUL: My lay understanding was that virtual particles "challenge" conventional notions of cause and effect, but you use the word "cause" in very conventional ways in this article. -STRASSLER: Could you try to help me figure out where this notion comes from? Do you know where you read it? I have some guesses as to where this conception comes from, but I wonder whether there are modern books promulgating the idea. While it is true that one has to be careful in general about assuming that all processes can be described in terms of cause and effect (even before accounting for quantum mechanics), and also true that quantum mechanics is weird, no doubt about it , there is no profound challenge to basic causality in this context. Certainly I do not think you will not find any discussion of challenges to causality from "virtual particles" (i.e. generalized disturbances in fields) in any modern quantum field theory book.-I don't know to what extent this challenges Ruth's take on causality, because I don't know to what extent the two approaches overlap, but I mention it because scientists rarely agree amongst themselves. Basically, for a non-scientist like myself, the interest lies in the conclusions that are drawn from the science, and the general lack of consensus at least gives us a degree of latitude in our own assessments of those conclusions.-I'm drawn to this subject because you consider it so integral to your beliefs, and because it appears to offer avenues into those vast areas of existence that we know practically nothing about. However, it may well be that I should stay out of the discussion altogether, and I most certainly should if my ignorance becomes a source of irritation.