[FRIAM] "I have no idea what's going on." -- Towelie

[uǝlƃ ☣]

This is interesting. To what extent is "energy" a reductive projection of what's actually (ontologically) extant? What details are being reduced out? If it helps, maybe it would be useful to avoid the concept of energy and rely instead on "probability" or superposition.

In the wake of Eric's post waaayyy back in early May mentioning decoherent histories, I found this presentation: http://quantum.phys.cmu.edu/CHS/CHS_transp.pdf, with one slide saying:

> • Quantum mechanics: three options for probabilities
>   (i) Use standard theory;
>   (ii) Invent new one;
>   (iii) Become confused (very popular option)
> • Consistent histories uses standard probability theory
>   · There are two tasks:
>   - Define quantum sample space S
>   - Introduce probabilities Pr

And Eric had already said:
On 5/1/19 10:55 PM, David Eric Smith wrote:
> What my physics did was construct the whole space of possible state vectors, and explain the role any particular one of them would play as cause.  It did not choose for me, which particular state in the space of the possible describes a particular instance, and it could not do so, having set up the whole space as the realm of possibilities.

Given all that, and what you say ("... not the details of the configuration"), I have trouble getting lost in the difference between the reduction and the fully detailed *thing* that I'm predisposed to imagine is "really" out there ... the thing being reduced.

...

Having re-read such things over and over and, perhaps having my brain polluted by things like this:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/03/death-of-debate-jordan-peterson-slavoj-zizek-alexandria-ocasio-cortez ... yes, I know, non-sequiturs notwithstanding ...
I can't help but wonder how anyone can remain enamored with the partial orderings we consistently impute. What evidence is there of degenerate ground states?

On 5/17/19 1:34 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Quantum tunneling enables moving between such states (without kinetic energy).   The probability of a configuration comes from the energy of the configuration, not the details of the configuration.   Even a ground state doesn't have to be a unique configuration.    There's also the notion of superposition states that aren't even definite states, but nonetheless can be characterized by their energy (and probability).   

-- 
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