Splittings of the Universe

Somehow the answer to these questions must be explicable in terms other than it "comes out of a subtle result on the structure of Hilbert spaces".

Stephen says:
It would be nice, but I'm not sure that it "must be" explicable so easily. We really lack the intuitions and therefore the vocabulary here in the macrocosm. I think it would be important to be able to do it simply, but no-one has managed it to my knowledge.

@Stephen
I cannot believe that an intricate mathematical subtletly can be at the bottom of the conundrum that something about the nature of making a measurement demands a sudden re-zeroing of the state of the universe. On measurement one deterministic process suddenly ceases and a new one begins! The answer must, indeed, have a mathematical embodiment but we ask what specific character of the structure of hilbert space connects with these interminable splittings of the universe at each measurement event.

Measurement Problem

Rovelli's work is 2006. see http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9609002. When I think about it I don't see how he solves the measurement problem. He solves Schroedinger's cat. Idea: The cat measures the radioactive decay by dieing or not. But you can't talk about the cat until you interact with it by opening the box. I like Rovelli's notion that there is no distinction between observer and the observed. Everything is a system: observer or observed are just interacting systems. But the measurement problem is far more profound. I gathered some quotes to state it.

ALL POSSIBILITIES ARE LEFT OPEN. BUT A DEFINITE OUTCOME OCCURS.

“The quantum measurement parodox.. stated succinctly... In quantum mechanics all possibilities... are left open whereas in ... experience a definite outcome always (occurs).”
A. J. Leggett in
Foundation of Physics. 18, 939 (1988)

“How is the measuring instrument proded into making up its mind which value it has observed?”
Bryce S. Dewitt Physics Today 23, 30 (1970)

“Some explanation must be provided for the fact that the Hilbert—space vector... collapses onto a certain eigenvector during a measurement process...”
J. Bub, Nuovo Cimento v. 57, Nr.2, 503 (1968)

The probability amplitudes evolve deterministically until a measurement is made: the measurement stops the evolution. What is the essential element that changes the evolution of the system from being in a state |S> = superposition of states |n>, into being in a state |n=3>, one from among the superposition? Marvin Chester, never published

Somehow the answer to these questions must be explicable in terms other than it "comes out of a subtle result on the structure of Hilbert spaces".

Ant's World View

The interesting thing about suicide bombers is this: that they are so dedicated to their community - islam, anarchism in a former time - that they kill themselves for it.

Let us distinguish the practice from the mechanisms by which they are persuaded. The mechanism requires a world view - a belief in the supernatural, in an afterlife, in unseen powers around us which we must placate, a belief in a greater good.

What persuades the ants to kill themselves for their community? Do ants have a world view?

"Is Life Worth Living?" asks William James

In Is Life Worth Living? by William James James says: "Pessimism is essentially a religious disease."

He clarifies thusly: This "is why I call pessimism an essentially religious disease The nightmare view of life [arises from] the contradiction between the phenomena of Nature and the craving of the heart to believe that behind Nature there is a spirit whose expression Nature is."

He is wrong. Pessimism is a purely chemical phenomenon. Proof: Smoke a little marijuana and life becomes worth living.

Economics Animated

I was very impressed by http://www.youtube.com/v/SA1f2MefsMM

This is as fine an expostion on economics as I have ever seen. Unfortunately the enthusuastic narrator speeds up his speech exactly where he should be slowest - in the more complicated later sections. This leaves me with the impression, unfortunately, that some hype is involved in his exposition. References for his assertions are lacking. Too much righteous indignation comes through. He resents that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. That this is, indeed, the case is his thesis and he certainly seems to prove it masterfully - clearly, intelligently and completely.

What is truly wonderful about the presentation is its clarity. Arnold's symbolic representations of ideas is the work of a master intellect. He makes a great contribution to thought exposition.

The video is part of a series which can be accessed at
http://www.youtube.com/user/leearnold

Below is the first of this remarkable Lee Arnold series and his Ecolanguage invention.