Quantum weirdness: particles or waves (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, November 23, 2015, 20:24 (3288 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: An excellent review article. The universe is entangled, patterns may apply, and information may be at the root of reality. Read carefully to savor the complexity:-http://nautil.us/issue/30/identity/quantum-mechanics-is-putting-human-identity-on-trial-I have read the whole article through twice, and am more confused than ever. This is probably because I lack your scientific background, David, but maybe you can enlighten me. If I put the bits and pieces together, the author seems to be focusing partly on the question of whether there really is such a thing as matter. The more you reduce matter to its component parts, the closer you get to nothing: “...elementary particles are the end of the line. They are made of nothing, being, as they are, the most basic building blocks of the material world.” “I think in the end,” says Ladyman, “it may well be that the world isn't made of anything.” This makes the “multiplicity of the world” into a “kind of funhouse illusion”. I don't find this fun at all: how can nothing be the building blocks of materials? I am more inclined to trust the dictates of common sense than of physics, but let us continue...-The article also tells us that although our ultimate component parts are indistinguishable, “the state that they together form starts to be more and more capable of being distinct” - and this is what gives us our identity. “It's our state that's distinguishable, not our materiality.” (Pesic) Presumably this is a reference to our PHYSICAL identity, which is the result of physical components combining into their own particular individual pattern. This is later confirmed: "“My thingness is in how I'm organized, not what I'm made of,” says Ladyman. “But of course we know that anyway, because we know that the cells in our bodies are getting replaced all the time. Functional organization of structure, not the matter it's made of, is what counts.” That's fine with me, but it is organization of matter, not of nothing. However, this seems to be contradicted by another statement: “Our identity is a state, but if it's not a state of matter—not a state of individual physical objects, like quarks and electrons—then a state of what?” I thought functional organization of structure WAS the “state” that the parts form together, so is the structure made of matter or not? Are they talking about physical identity or about character, or do they see the two as inseparable? These are genuine questions. I simply don't understand how it all links up.-The answer to a “state of what” is apparently our old friend “information”, which is thrown in without any definition of what it actually means. But “another way of articulating what you mean by an object is to talk about compression of information.” What is compressed information, and how does it tie in with the elementary particles of nothing which are supposed to be the building blocks of an object? Once again, is an object material or not? It turns out, though, that “information” is not quite the answer to the question of what our identity is a state of: When we get to the grand climax of the article, we are asked to “Consider a brain—with as many neurons as stars in the galaxy linked together through trillions of connections it's the most complex object in the known universe. Try to compress it. Call it by just two words. Call it Martin Guerre. Push further. A single word, a single letter. Call it “I.” It's a wonderfully dramatic conclusion to a beautifully written piece, but bearing in mind the statement that elementary particles (not information) which are made of nothing are the basic building blocks of the material world, perhaps you can explain to me whether (a) the author is telling us that matter is real or not, and (b) how the material brain with its billions of material neurons constitutes the “I” (identity) when it is “compressed” to...exactly what? -Along the way, there are intriguing hints at BBella's concept of the oneness of everything, and perhaps the lines of thought might fit in with your own concept of an immaterial identity. My apologies if my confusion is not shared by anyone else.