pcalau12i

There is no action at a distance in quantum mechanics, that is a laymen’s misconception. If there was, it would not be compatible with special relativity, but it is compatible as they are already unified under the framework of quantum field theory. The No-communication theorem is a rather simple proof that shows there is no “sharing at a distance” in quantum mechanics. It is an entirely local theory. The misconception arises from people misinterpreting Bell’s theorem which says quantum mechanics is not compatible with a local hidden variable theory, so people falsely conclude it’s a nonlocal theory, but this is just false because quantum mechanics is not a hidden variable theory, and so it is not incompatible with locality. It is a local theory. Bell’s theorem only shows it is nonlocal if you introduce hidden variables, meaning the theorem is really only applicable to a potential replacement to quantum mechanics and is not even applicable to quantum mechanics itself. It is applicable to things like pilot wave theory, but not to quantum theory.

So usually this is explained with two scientists, Alice and Bob, on far away planets. They’re each in the possession of a particle that is entangled with the other, and in a superposition of state 1 and state 2.

This “usual” way of explaining it is just overly complicating it and making it seem more mystical than it actually is. We should not say the particles are “in a superposition” as if this describes the current state of the particle. The superposition notation should be interpreted as merely a list of probability amplitudes predicting the different likelihoods of observing different states of the system in the future.

It is sort of like if you flip a coin, while it’s in the air, you can say there is a 50% chance it will land heads and a 50% chance it will land tails. This is not a description of the coin in the present as if the coin is in some smeared out state of 50% landed heads and 50% landed tails. It has not landed at all yet!

Unlike classical physics, quantum physics is fundamentally random, so you can only predict events probabilistically, but one should not conflate the prediction of a future event to the description of the present state of the system. The superposition notation is only writing down probability amplitudes of the likelihoods of what you will observe (state 1 or state 2) of the particles in the future event that you go to the interact with it and is not a description of the state of the particles in the present.

When Alice measures the state of her particle, it collapses into one of the states, say state 1. When Bob measures the state of his particle immediately after, before any particle travelling at light speed could get there, it will also be in state 1 (assuming they were entangled in such a way that the state will be the same).

This mistreatment of the mathematical notation as a description of the present state of the system also leads to confusing language like “it collapses into one of the states” as if the change in a probability distribution represents a physical change to the system. The mental picture people say this often have is that the particle literally physically becomes the probability distribution prior to measuring it—the particle “spreads out” like a wave according to the probability amplitudes of the state vector—and when you measure the particle, this allows you to update the probabilities, and so they must interpret this as the wave physically contracting into an eigenvalue—it “collapses” like a house of cards.

But this is, again, overcomplicating things. The particle never spreads out like a wave and it never “collapses” back into a particle. The mathematical notation is just a way of capturing the likelihoods of the particle showing up in one state or the other, and when you measure what state it actually shows up in, then you can update your probabilities accordingly. For example, if you the coin is 50%/50% heads/tails and you observe it land on tails, you can update the probabilities to 0%/100% heads/tails because you know it landed on tails and not heads. Nothing “collapsed”: you’re just observing the actual outcome of the event you were predicting and updating your statistics accordingly.

I don’t think solving the Schrodinger equation really gives you a good idea of why quantum mechanics is even interesting. You also shouldstudy very specific applications of it where it yields counterintuitive outcomes to see why it is interesting, such as in the GHZ experiment.

You have not made any point at all. Your first reply to me entirely ignored the point of my post which you did not read followed with an attack, I reply pointing out you ignored the whole point of my post and just attacked me without actually respond to it, and now you respond again with literally nothing of substance at all just saying “you’re wrong! touch grass! word salad!”

You have nothing of substance to say, nothing to contribute to the discussion. You are either a complete troll trying to rile me up, or you just have a weird emotional attachment to this topic and felt an emotional need to respond and attack me prior to actually thinking up a coherent thing to criticize me on. Didn’t your momma ever teach you that “if you have nothing positive or constructive to say, don’t say anything at all”? Learn some manners, boy. Blocked.

They are incredibly efficient for short-term production, but very inefficient for long-term production. Destroying the environment is a long-term problem that doesn’t have immediate consequences on the businesses that engage in it. Sustainable production in the long-term requires foresight, which requires a plan. It also requires a more stable production environment, i.e. it cannot be competitive because if you are competing for survival you will only be able to act in your immediate interests to avoid being destroyed in the competition.

Most economists are under a delusion known as neoclassical economics which is literally a nonphysical theory that treats the basis of the economy as not the material world we actually live in but abstract human ideas which are assumed to operate according to their own internal logic without any material causes or influences. They then derive from these imagined “laws” regarding human ideas (which no one has ever experimentally demonstrated but were just invented in some economists’ armchair one day) that humans left to be completely free to make decisions without any regulations at all will maximize the “utils” of the population, making everyone as happy as possible.

With the complete failure of this policy leading to the US Great Depression, many economists recognized this was flawed and made some concessions, such as with Keynesianism, but they never abandoned the core idea. In fact, the core idea was just reformulated to be compatible with Keynesianism in what is called the neoclassical synthesis. It still exists as a fundamental belief to most every economist that completely unregulated market economy without any plan at all will automagically produce a society with maximal happiness, and while they will admit some caveats to this these days (such as the need for a central organization to manage currency in Keynesianism), these are treated as an exception and not the rule. Their beliefs are still incompatible with long-term sustainable planning because in their minds the success of markets from comes util-maximizing decisions built that are fundamental to the human psyche and so any long-term plan must contradict with this and lead to a bad economy that fails to maximize utils.

The rise of Popperism in western academia has also played a role here. A lot of material scientists have been rather skeptical of the social sciences and aren’t really going to take arguments like those based in neoclassical economics which is based largely in mysticism about human free will seriously, and so a second argument against long-term planning was put forward by Karl Popper which has become rather popular in western academia. Popper argued that it is impossible to learn from history because it is too complicated with too many variables and you cannot control them all. You would need a science that studies how human societies develop in order to justify a long-term development plan into the future, but if it’s impossible to study them to learn how they develop because they are too complicated, then it is impossible to have such a science, and thus impossible to justify any sort of long-term sustainable development plan. It would always be based on guesswork and so more likely to do more harm than good. Popper argued that instead of long-term development plans, the state should instead be purely ideological, what he called an “open society” operating purely on the ideology of liberalism rather getting involved in economics.

As long as both neoclassical economics and Popperism are dominate trends in western academia there will never be long-term sustainable planning because they are fundamentally incompatible ideas.

You did not read what I wrote, so it is unironic you call it “word salad” when you are not even aware of the words I wrote since you had an emotional response and wrote this reply without actually addressing what I argued. I stated that it is impossible to have an very large institution without strict rules that people follow, and this requires also the enforcement of the rules, and that means a hierarchy as you will have rule-enforcers.

Also, you are insisting your personal definition of anarchism is the one true definition that I am somehow stupid for disagreeing with, yet anyone can just scroll through the same comments on this thread and see there are other people disagreeing with you while also defending anarchism. A lot of anarchists do not believe anarchism means “no hierarchy,” like, seriously, do you unironically believe in entirely abolishing all hierarchies? Do you think a medical doctor should have as much authority on how to treat an injured patient as the janitor of the same hospital? Most anarchists aren’t even “no hierarchy” they are “no unjustified hierarchy.”

The fact you are entirely opposed to hierarchy makes your position even more silly than what I was criticizing.

All libertarian ideologies (including left and right wing anarchism) are anti-social and primitivist.

It is anti-social because it arises from a hatred of working in a large groups. It’s impossible to have any sort of large-scale institution without having rules that people want to follow, and libertarian ideology arises out of people hating to have to follow rules, i.e. to be a respectable member of society, i.e. they hate society and don’t want to be social. They thus desire very small institutions with limited rules and restrictions. Right-wing libertarians envision a society dominated by small private businesses while left-wing libertarians imagine a society dominated by either small worker-cooperative, communes, or some sort of community council.

Of course, everyone of all ideologies opposes submitting to hierarchies they find unjust, but hatred of submitting to hierarchies at all is just anti-social, as any society will have rules, people who write the rules, people who enforce the rules. It is necessary for any social institution to function. It is part of being an adult and learning to live in a society to learn to obey the rules, such as traffic rules. Sometimes it is annoying or inconvenient, but you do it because you are a respectable member of society and not a rebellious edgelord who makes things harder on everyone else because they don’t obey basic rules.

It is primitivist because some institutions simply only work if they are very large. You cannot have something like NASA that builds rocket ships operated by five people. You are going to always need an enormous institution which will have a ton of people, a lot of different levels of command (“hierarchy”), strict rules for everyone to follow, etc. If you tried to “bust up” something like NASA or SpaceX to be small businesses they simply would lose their ability to build rocket ships at all.

Of course, anarchists don’t mind, they will say, “who cares about rockets? They’re not important.” It reminds me of the old meme that spread around where someone asked anarchists how their tiny communes would be able to organize current massive supply chains in our modern societies and they responded by saying that the supply chain would be reduced to just people growing beans in their backyard and eating it, like a feudal peasant. They won’t even defend that their system could function as well as our modern economy but just says modern marvels of human engineering don’t even matter, because they are ultimately primitivists at heart.

I never understood the popularity of libertarian and anarchist beliefs in programming circles. We would never have entered the Information Age if we had an anarchism or libertarian system. No matter how much they might pretend these are the ideal systems, they don’t even believe it themselves. If a libertarian has a serious medical illness, they are either going to seek medical help at a public hospital or a corporate hospital. Nobody is going to seek medical help at a “hospital small business” ran out of someone’s garage. We all intuitively and implicitly understand that large swathes of economy that we all take advantage of simply cannot feasibly be ran by small organizations, but libertarians are just in denial.

Anarchism thus becomes meaningless as anyone who defends certain hierarchies obviously does so because they believe they are just. Literally everyone on earth is against “unjust hierarchies” at least in their own personal evaluation of said hierarchies. People who support capitalism do so because they believe the exploitative systems it engenders are justifiable and will usually immediately tell you what those justifications are. Sure, you and I might not agree with their argument, but that’s not the point. To say your ideology is to oppose “unjust hierarchies” is to not say anything at all, because even the capitalist, hell, even the fascist would probably agree that they oppose “unjust hierarchies” because in their minds the hierarchies they promote are indeed justified by whatever twisted logic they have in their head.

Telling me you oppose “unjust hierarchies” thus tells me nothing about what you actually believe, it does not tell me anything at all. It is as vague as saying “I oppose bad things.” It’s a meaningless statement on its own without clarifying what is meant by “bad” in this case. Similarly, “I oppose unjust hierarchies” is meaningless statement without clarifying what qualifies “just” and “unjust,” and once you tell me that, it would make more sense you label you based on your answer to that question. Anarchism thus becomes a meaningless word that tells me nothing about you. For example, you might tell me one unjust hierarchy you want to abolish is prison. It would make more sense for me to call you a prison abolitionist than an anarchist since that term at least carries meaning, and there are plenty of prison abolitionists who don’t identify as anarchist.

quantum nature of the randomly generated numbers helped specifically with quantum computer simulations, but based on your reply you clearly just meant that you were using it as a multi-purpose RNG that is free of unwanted correlations between the randomly generated bits

It is used as the source of entropy for the simulator. Quantum mechanics is random, so to actually get the results you have to sample it. In quantum computing, this typically involves running the same program tens of thousands of times, which are called “shots,” and then forming a distribution of the results. The sampling with the simulator uses the QRNG for the source of entropy, so the sampling results are truly random.

Out of curiosity, have you found that the card works as well as advertised? I ask because it seems to me that any imprecision in the design and/or manufacture of the card could introduce systematic errors in the quantum measurements that would result in correlations in the sampled bits, so I am curious if you have been able to verify that is not something to be concerned about.

I have tried several hardware random number generators and usually there is no bias either because they specifically designed it not to have a bias or they have some level of post-processing to remove the bias. If there is a bias, it is possible to remove the bias yourself. There are two methods that I tend to use that depends upon the source of the bias.

To be “random” simply means each bit is statistically independent of each other bit, not necessarily that the outcome is uniform, i.e. 50% chance of 0 and 50% chance of 1. It can still be considered truly random with a non-uniform distribution, such as 52% chance of 0 and 48% chance of 1, as long as each successive bit is entirely independent of any previous bit, i.e. there is no statistical analysis you could ever perform on the bits to improve your chances of predicting the next one beyond the initial distribution of 52%/48%.

In the case where it is genuinely random (statistical independence) yet is non-uniform (which we can call nondeterministic bias), you can transform it into a uniform distribution using what is known as a von Neumann extractor. This takes advantage of a simple probability rule for statistically independent data whereby Pr(A)Pr(B)=Pr(B)Pr(A). Let’s say A=0 and B=1, then Pr(0)Pr(1)=Pr(1)Pr(0). That means you can read two bits at a time rather than one and throw out all results that are 00 and 11 and only keep results that are 01 or 10, and then you can map 01 to 0 and 10 to 1. You would then be mathematically guaranteed that the resulting distribution of bits are perfectly uniform with 50% chance of 0 and 50% chance of 1.

I have used this method to develop my own hardware random number generator that can pull random numbers from the air, by analyzing tiny fluctuations in electrical noise in your environment using an antenna. The problem is that electromagnetic waves are not always hitting the antenna, so there can often be long strings of zeros, so if you set something up like this, you will find your random numbers are massively skewed towards zero (like 95% chance of 0 and 5% chance of 1). However, since each bit still is truly independent of the successive bit, using this method will give you a uniform distribution of 50% 0 and 50% 1.

Although, one thing to keep in mind is the bigger the skew, the more data you have to throw out. With my own hardware random number generator I built myself that pulls the numbers from the air, it ends up throwing out the vast majority of the data due to the huge bias, so it can be very slow. There are other algorithms which throw out less data but they can be much more mathematically complicated and require far more resources.

In the cases where it may not be genuinely random because the bias is caused by some imperfection in the design (which we can call deterministic bias), you can still uniformly distribute the bias across all the bits so that not only would be much more difficult to detect the bias, but you will still get uniform results. The way to do this is to take your random number and XOR it with some data set that is non-random but uniform, which you can generate from a pseudorandom number generator like the C’s rand() function.

This will not improve the quality of the random numbers because, let’s say if it is biased 52% to 48% but you use this method to de-bias it so the distribution is 50% to 50%, if someone can predict the next value of the rand() function that would increase their ability to make a prediction back to 52% to 48%. You can make it more difficult to do so by using a higher quality pseudorandom number generator like using something like AES to generate the pseudorandom numbers. NIST even has standards for this kind of post-processing.

But ultimately using this method is only obfuscation, making it more and more difficult to discover the deterministic bias by hiding it away more cleverly, but does not truly get rid of it. It’s impossible to take a random data set with some deterministic bias and trulyget rid of the deterministic bias purely through deterministic mathematical transformations,. You can only hide it away very cleverly. Only if the bias is nondeterministic can you get rid of it with a mathematical transformation.

It is impossible to reduce the quality of the random numbers this way. If the entropy source is truly random and truly non-biased, then XORing it with the C rand() function, despite it being a low-quality pseudorandom number generator, is mathematically guaranteed to still output something truly random and non-biased. So there is never harm in doing this.

However, in my experience if you find your hardware random number generator is biased (most aren’t), the bias usually isn’t very large. If something is truly random but biased so that there is a 52% chance of 0 and 48% chance of 1, this isn’t enough of a bias to actually cause much issues. You could even use it for something like cryptography and even if someone does figure out the bias, it would not increase their ability to predict keys enough to actually put anything at risk. If you use a cryptographysically secure pseudorandom number generator (CSPRNG) in place of something like C rand(), they will likely not be able to discover the bias in the first place, as these do a very good job at obfuscating the bias to the point that it will likely be undetectable.

I’m not sure what you mean by “turning into into a classical random number.” The only point of the card is to make sure that the sampling results from the simulator are truly random, down to a quantum level, and have no deterministic patterns in them. Indeed, actually using quantum optics for this purpose is a bit overkill as there are hardware random number generators which are not quantum-based and produce something good enough for all practical purposes, like Intel Secure Key Technology which is built into most modern x86 CPUs.

For that reason, my software does allow you to select other hardware random number generators. For example, you can easily get an entire build (including the GPU) that can run simulations of 14 qubits for only a few hundred dollars if you just use the Intel Secure Key Technology option. It also supports a much cheaper device called TrueRNGv3 which is a USB device. It also has an option to use a pseudorandom number generator if you’re not that interested in randomness accuracy, and when using the pseudorandom number generator option it also supports “hidden variables” which really just act as the seed to the pseudorandom number generator.

For most most practical purpose, no, you do not need this card and it’s definitely overkill. The main reason I even bought it was just because I was adding support for hardware random number generators to my software and I wanted to support a quantum one and so I needed to buy it to actually test it and make sure it works for it. But now I use it regularly for the back-end to my simulator just because I think it is neat.

I own a quantum random number generator on a PCie card that uses optical effects for random number generation. It cost me over $2000. I use it for quantum computer simulations.

By applying both that and the many worlds hypothesis, the idea of quantum immortality comes up, and thats a real mind bender. Its also a way to verifiably prove many worlds accurate(afaik the only way)

MWI only somewhat makes sense (it still doesn’t make much sense) if you assume the “branches” cannot communicate with each other after decoherence occurs. “Quantum immortality” mysticism assumes somehow your cognitive functions can hop between decoherent branches where you are still alive if they cease in a particular branch. It is self-contradictory. There is nothing in the mathematical model that would predict this and there is no mechanism to explain how it could occur.

Imagine creating a clone which is clearly not the same entity as you because it is standing in a different location and, due to occupying different frames of reference, your paths would diverge after the initial cloning, with the clone forming different memories and such. “Quantum immortality” would be as absurd as saying that if you then suddenly died, your cognitive processes would hop to your clone, you would “take over their body” so to speak.

Why would that occur? What possible mechanism would cause it? Doesn’t make any sense to me. It seems more reasonable to presume that if you die, you just die. Your clone lives on, but you don’t. In the grand multiverse maybe there is a clone of you that is still alive, but that universe is not the one you occupy, in this one your story ends.

It also has a problem similar to reincarnation mysticism. If MWI is correct (it’s not), then there would be an infinite number of other decoherent branches containing other “yous.” Which “you” would your consciousness hop into when you die, assuming this even does occur (it doesn’t)? It makes zero sense.

To reiterate though, assuming many worlds is accurate, the expiriment carries no risk to you. Due to the anthropic principle, you will always find yourself in the reality in which you survive.

You see the issue right here, you say the reality in which you survive, except there would be an infinite number of them. There would be no the reality, there would be a reality, just one of an infinitude of them. Yet, how is the particular one you find yourself in decided?

MWI is even worse than the clone analogy I gave, because it would be like saying there are an infinite number of clones of you, and when you die your cognitive processes hop from your own brain to one of theirs. Not only is there no mechanism to cause this, but even if we presume it is true, which one of your infinite number of clones would your cognitive processes take control of?

This problem presupposes metaphysical realism, so you have to be a metaphysical realist to take the problem seriously. Metaphysical realism is a particular kind of indirect realism whereby you posit that everything we observe is in some sense not real, sometimes likened to a kind of “illusion” created by the mammalian brain (I’ve also seen people describe it as an “internal simulation”), called “consciousness” or sometimes “subjective experience” with the adjective “subjective” used to make it clear it is being interpreted as something unique to conscious subjects and not ontologically real.

If everything we observe is in some sense not reality, then “true” reality must by definition be independent of what we observe. If this is the case, then it opens up a whole bunch of confusing philosophical problems, as it would logically mean the entire universe is invisible/unobservable/nonexperiential, except in the precise configuration of matter in the human brain which somehow “gives rise to” this property of visibility/observability/experience. It seems difficult to explain this without just presupposing this property arbitrarily attaches itself to brains in a particular configuration, i.e. to treat it as strongly emergent, which is effectively just dualism, indeed the founder of the “hard problem of consciousness” is a self-described dualist.

This philosophical problem does not exist in direct realist schools of philosophy, however, such as Jocelyn Benoist’s contextual realism, Carlo Rovelli’s weak realism, or in Alexander Bogdanov’s empiriomonism. It is solely a philosophical problem for metaphysical realists, because they begin by positing that there exists some fundamental gap between what we observe and “true” reality, then later have to figure out how to mend the gap. Direct realist philosophies never posit this gap in the first place and treat reality as precisely equivalent to what we observe it to be, so it simply does not posit the existence of “consciousness” and it would seem odd in a direct realist standpoint to even call experience “subjective.”

The “hard problem” and the “mind-body problem” are the main reasons I consider myself a direct realist. I find that it is a completely insoluble contradiction at the heart of metaphysical realism, I don’t think it even can be solved because you cannot posit a fundamental gap and then mend the gap later without contradicting yourself. There has to be no gap from the get-go. I see these “problems” as not things to be “solved,” but just a proof-by-contradiction that metaphysical realism is incorrect. All the arguments against direct realism, on the other hand, are very weak and people who espouse them don’t seem to give them much thought.