The left wing is still not wanting to rise up against censorship because they believe it's still benefiting them, since BigTech (+M5M) is their leftist ally...for now.
What they need to realize is that once you give Tyrannical Control over to your leaders (governments, or BigTech censors), because you consider them benevolent today, it's foolish because they won't be benevolent forever.
Our founding fathers knew power corrupts, but today's 20-somethings seem quite unaware. They think we can create a system where all forms of "bad" speech are stopped. But the problem with that is you end up having to define "bad". My definition of "patriotic speech" might be your definition of "mean speech", so unless you appoint power-wielding dictators to make the final decision, the only solution is to just say everyone is free. Once you allow dictators they'll always become corrupt and self-interested.
The left thinks they're in a war against evil and meanies, but really the only opponent they're fighting is freedom itself.
> Our founding fathers knew power corrupts, but today's 20-somethings seem quite unaware.
The government has to be able to actively respond to the problems of the moment, and those problems will constantly change. A handcuffed government only benefits the already-powerful.
The dirty secrets of the "but the founding fathers!" argument are that (a) they knew they weren't creating a perfect set of rules in the Constitution, and planned for us to be modifying it as we learned new things and the world changes, and (b) it's failed anyway. Abstract principles listed on a page don't "protect freedom," bad actors can find ways to sneak things through (sometimes in plain sight, like that whole slavery thing that took a century to get figured out, or the followup forms of discrimination that are still with us).
Our founding fathers and subsequent forefathers fought wars to protect our freedoms, and sadly the current generation don't value or even want to preserve that freedom. Good times create weak men, and weak men will happily surrender to Tyranny.
>>lately it seems that "the right" remains undecided about whether or not it is acceptable to threaten the lives of politicians who refused to overturn the results of an election>>
This isn't even remotely a representative sentiment of the 70+ million people that are not on the "left".
>>"The left" is for democracy>>
Again, I don't think we would find this accurate if data were collected. Both sides are "for democracy". I think what you would find is something slightly more refined: that one side appreciates that democracy alone is flawed and requires a strong constitution to guard against its propensity to oppress individuals. The other side finds a constitution that limits democracy too constraining.
"...45 and the Republicans attempted to throw out the results of an election."
Do you mean that 45 Republicans voted against ratifying the electoral college votes? My understanding is that that vote is largely procedural and that the losing side voting against it as a protest is common in every election. If you take away that context it makes for a great narrative in this election (the whole histrionic overthrow theme), but context often matters.
My understanding could be wrong, though. I couldn't quickly put my hands on the historical voting record. Or maybe that's not what you're referring to.
> My understanding is that that vote is largely procedural and that the losing side voting against it as a protest is common in every election
No. The only times prior to 2021 that an objection in proper form to trigger a debate and vote on any state’s submitted electoral votes since the modern process was adopted in 1887 were in 2005 and 1969 (the latter over a faithless elector), both addressing only a single state, and the 2005 example was explicitly stated to be an effort to draw attention to electoral system issues rather than alter the outcome; there weren't members who voted for it stating on national TV the expectation that who would be President was in doubt based on the action the way, e.g., Sen. Hawley did in regard to the challenges this month.
Voting against result certification is occasionally used as a protest against certain specific irregularities. It is absolutely not common to vote against them, and not in these numbers (i.e. not as a lone congressperson or two drawing attention to something they see as a problem).
[ EDIT: added known historical examples ]
Specific examples: 2016, 11 Democrats rose to object to certifying Trump's results; none of them had obtained a Senator's cosignature and so all were dismissed immediately. Objections were based on reports of Russian interference, subsequently confirmed in the broadest sense by the Mueller and Senate reports, though their findings would not have likely invalidated any actual results.
2004: 1 Senator and 1 Representative raised objections to results favoring Bush from a single state. They both stressed that their objections were not intended to change the outcome of that election.
2001: on the order of 15 Representatives raised objections to the Gore/Bush result, which had been decided by the SCOTUS. No Senator joined them, and Gore himself dropped the Gavel on their protest.
Ok, only 40% wrong. So protesting that the election was flawed occurred in 60% of the elections in the last two decades, which more than supports my point that without such context the overthrow narrative loses a good deal of its exaggerated effect when one learns that this election was not unique on that point.
I think that scale matters. The number of house members and their coordination with 6 senators in my mind makes what happened this year different in so many important ways. Obviously, YMMV.
Labels can be divisive and tribal when used against individuals, to smear them by saying they're guilty of the bad actions of a few in a group. However language itself is built on "labels", so they're required.
It's impossible to criticize bad ideas without some shorthand label for those kinds of thinking and ideologies. The fact that whole entire groups hold those same ideas necessarily is a critique of the entire group, and is necessarily tribal. But labels are nonetheless also necessary for the discussion to take place.
Democracies can only thrive when there's an educated population free to discuss all ideas, and allowed to strongly criticize or even ridicule those they disagree with. Yet people like Jack Dorsey think it's their duty to step in as a referee to make sure everyone's polite and behaves according to his personal political views. He needs to be put back in his place, because no one elected him, and he just fell backwards by accident into a power position over millions by pure luck.
From this description, I can't tell which side you're characterizing as which. That would generally imply it's more of a platitude than a real realization.
Also while that may be true of individuals (I don't think it is), it clearly isn't true of party leadership.
> literally ushered into the buildings by security
Are you serious?
The fact that some cops eventually decided that 20 cops could not stand against 1000 violent protestors smashing through windows and doors, after at least one cop had been dragged out of his position and beaten senseless by the mob, and another cop killed, and so decided that the safest thing to do was open the doors, doesn't mean that all of a sudden they were peaceful protestors. Give me a fucking break.
They killed a Police Officer, chanted "Hang Pence", and tried to stop the democratic process of verifying votes for the new president.
Now of course you will likely argue that they were a small minority, but I don't see you making that concession for those on the "other side" so I'm not sure how much weight it'll have.
M5M? https://m5mfoundation.org/? Do you mean "main stream media"? If so, no, I don't tend to pay attention to QAnon, OAN, InfoWars, or whatever those who use "main stream media" as a slur watch. Prefer the Beeb, actually.
I still can't find any actual evidence of "violent murdering thugs" "looting entire cities".
The MSM has only themselves to blame for their record low levels of trust by Americans. You're right that the term MSM is basically a slur at this point. Great point. Thanks again for helping me make my points.
Do you have a source to the "ushered into the buildings" thing? Like, are you saying they didn't intend into storming the Capitol but were guided/leaded there by the security staff?
Also I think you're being unfair by ignoring the causes of both of the protests, as (IMO, feel free to disagree) one of them was directly supporting democratic and liberal interests and the other was directly against them. I don't think you can discuss the protests without taking into account what they were protesting.
It took me a while to place the cognitive dissonance, but I found it eventually: you've made stuff up. Buildings weren't burning all summer, “violent murdering thugs” weren't called peaceful, “politically organized rally” doesn't mean anything…
You can tell this article is well over a year old, because it doesn't mention the words Fediverse, ActivityPub, Mastodon (or Quanta.wiki!)
It was summer of 2019 when the vast majority of those who are most 'plugged in' realized we're going to need a new censorship-resistant web, after the Vox Adpocolypse and other totalitarian and dictatorial over-reach by BigTech, which has been escalating steadily since then, culminating even with specific stories being blacked out (by cancelling people, and companies) and leading to a level of election interference that would've simply been impossible not many years ago. Committed by not just BigTech, but by M5M also.
Point of Fact: 68% of voters had never heard of the Hunter Laptop on election day.
(Full Disclosure: I'm the developer of Quanta.wiki, a new Fediverse App)
At the final presidential debate Donald Trump tried to land a blow on Democratic rival Joe Biden by suggesting that purported evidence from a laptop computer links him to alleged corrupt business dealings by his son, Hunter Biden.
[...] the results of a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll (conducted Oct 23-25) highlight the extent to which it has cut through to the voting public. More than three quarters (77%) of registered voters say they have heard at least a little about the story, with four in ten (39%) saying they had heard “a lot”.
> The Hunter scandal was just one random example of countless examples
Of stories you could have presented to support your narrative without concern for the fact that they have no basis in reality? Sure.
But it's the concrete example you chose. If there was a real problem, you'd think it wouldn't be hard for you to cite a real example rather than an unsourced, invented, weirdly specific claim (not “a majority” or “a large majority” but “68%”) that is readily shown to be completely in opposition to the facts.
People also underestimate how easy it is for life to get started by accident. Let's say you need a short segment of DNA to randomly pop into existence, capable of nothing but self-replication. What are the odds?
Here's my best analogy: If you take one mole of "random" Rubik's Cubes (the number of molecules in a glass of water), then search for 'Solved' ones you'll find 512 are magically solved, merely by the power of large numbers. The ways molecules can 'snap together' are similarly 'finite', just like a puzzle.
Now think how many glasses of water are on earth. A replicating molecule would have existed probably on the FIRST DAY earth had cooled enough to form water.
If we knew what the shortest sequence if DNA is that can replicate, we'd be able to mathematically state the probability of it existing in any 'random' length of DNA of that length as 1/(4^N) where N is DNA length (number of AT/GC pairs).
"The present study describes the directed evolution of replicating RNA enzymes that operate with an exponential growth rate of 0.14 min−1, corresponding to a doubling time of 5 min. Each parental enzyme can give rise to thousands of copies per hour, and each of these copies in turn can do the same, all the while transmitting molecular information across the generations."
Thanks for that link! That's amazing. I had no idea that work had ever been done.
According to my math 10 million moles of random sequence 50-base pair RNA segments would be required to ensure a correct 'Hit' on a replicator, assuming only one of those 50-long sequences can replicate. 4^50=10^30. 10^30/Avogadro=10^7. Assuming each enzyme is the size of a water molecule, that would be about one large swimming pool of water.
https://nebiocalculator.neb.com/#!/ssrnaamt 10 million moles of RNA of length 50 turns out to be a large amount of RNA... but then again there was like a billion years for life to develop, all around the world.
All around every world in the universe. If life had emerged on planet 5 around star 1778465 in galaxy M33 instead of earth, then people on that planet would be having the same thoughts.
This makes the assumption that all the RNA molecules of 50 bp length are "clean" chains of nucleotides, without any chemical modifications that break the replication process. This is highly unlikely if the RNA is not produced by existing enzymes, but by more or less random chemical processes.
It's purely the math probabilities I was getting at above. If you take the number of molecules in a large swimming pool, that is the same number of 50-long RNA molecules it would take to statistically cause at least one RNA to accidentally have any specific pattern of length 50.
In actual evolution this number of RNA molecules can be thought of as 'diluted' across the entire oceans, and not magically sitting in single pond.
> Let's say you need a short segment of DNA to randomly pop into existence
But do you?
If elements A and B tend to form compound A-B, and compound A-B can attach a further set of A and B, forming B-A-B-A which under certain circumstances will split into A-B and A-B, you have basic reproduction, and perhaps the occasional presence of element C will expedite the process. Game of life.
In my [very] layman's view of the world, given a billion years or two, some such infinitely simple process should be enough to get the ball rolling, as long as it can somehow produce an ever so slightly errorprone copy.
That's right. Once you have a replicating strand that's modular (linearly able to glue end-to-end) it can also recombine randomly with other completely different replicators to see if the "offspring" can replicate. We know for a fact major sections of DNA are shared among lots of different organisms, so we know this did happen a lot during evolution.
Going from a short segment of DNA randomly popping into existence, capable of nothing but self-replication to living organisms, carrying a tremendous amount of intelligence, those are two very different things.
To make an analogy, what you describe would be only the electronic chips or the logic gates of a computer. There are a still the CPU, RAM, and the whole software stack from the OS that runs our bodies (and mind you, there is a different one for each species) to the yet unknown abstractions from which human general intelligence emerges.
I think people underestimate how difficult it is for all the above to get started by accident.
Once the process is started with simple life evolution just causes complexity as a rule. I think people who can't believe evolution made us from "nothing" have never really tried to understand the time frame in which it happend, which is a really long time.
Humans can't conceive of large timescales nor large numbers. That's why I use my Rubik's Cube example. A single glass of water contains enough molecules that if they were each a random Rubik's cube then there's a mathematical certainty that 512 of them will be perfectly solved (per glass).
For molecules that are a linear chain of only 2 possible items in the chain, it becomes a 'brute force search' of a 'puzzle space' to find a chain that 'does something like computer code', and the earth has the computing power to solve that brute force problem in 30 seconds, not 30 million years.
But this is more of a proof how insanely big a mole is, rather than the fundamental question. Also, Rubik’s cube possibilities is not that high. Try to create each permutation of a standard deck of cards (hint: there are less atoms in the universe than the number of permutations)
About the 'card deck' combinations: That's why we can be virtually certain there are no life forms in the universe that consist of a chain molecule (as it's version of "DNA") where there's more than a handful of different types of molecules along the chain.
Nature is statistically guaranteed to find the simplest patterns first and that's why our life is built on 'binary' (two kinds of 'cards' AT/GC). Life on all planets will likely use binary "information storage", especially because of it's modularity (i.e. it can be cut-n-pasted together in different patterns)
It's perfectly legitimate to say life stores information using only two "types" of things (AT or GC) which can be oriented one way or another, which is a "binary choice of the type". I explain it that way because it reaches a wider audience (easier to visualize)
However there's always at least one stickler who wants to quibble that the orientation is also a "binary bit" of information. Congratulations, you're him today!!
I did think about that, that’s why I added the second paragraph, namely that what about RNAs? (Since presumably they precede the DNA world) They can self-bind (I don’t know the proper nomenclature in English), but by all means they have 4 bases.
No. Oxygen screws a lot of things up. Also, RNAses are now everywhere (organisms secrete them all the time, which is why RNAse away is a product), and since the original replicating molecules were likely RNA, pretty much the entire world is toxic now.
If we found a sequence of DNA on some sample, and another identical sequence in that same sample, we still wouldn't know replication is happening.
However there may be slightly more requirements like the sequence has to be found in an oil film (bubble) up until it can form a skin/membrane, to protect itself, so even if it was happening on earth trillions of times every day no one would be there to discover it, and other life on the planet with a head start (bacteria, etc) would consume it before it made more 'progress' by evolution.
In the early planet there was nothing to "eat up" life as it was starting. Everything was on an equal footing.
There's strong evidence that all life on this planet can trace back to a single strand of DNA, which evolved exactly once in our billions of years.
For example, if I understand this correctly, a random jumble of DNA as you describe would have a 50/50 chance of twisting to the right or twisting to the left. And yet all life on earth uses DNA that is "right handed" twisting to the right.
The fact that life is right-hand twist DNA probably means left-hand was unsuccessful due to chemistry either in itself or in the environment, because an inversion of a molecule (chirality, twist, etc) means it will behave completely differently chemically. So left-hand twist can exist, but not necessarily in a way that can build life...even if it's able to initially replicate.
And then calculate the odds that the given DNA (though the RNA hypothesis seems more plausible) is in sufficient conditions like inside a lipid-bilayer with sufficient nucleotides for a reproduction - which is more than likely thermodynamically not a stable state to be in, so add another factor with an e^(-x) expression.
AT and GC are such simple molecules we can assume wherever we find 50 of them in one place (first replicator) you're going to have not just 50 but an abundance of them in that place too. And since that's what the replicator needs to replicate it's literally sitting in a bath of it's own "food" with no predators around, so it will grow like crazy and immediately. lipid-bilayer might be needed to find a pattern for "cells" to form, sure, agreed. And in all this 'base' counting math the statistics is the same regardless of whether it's DNA or RNA.
Thermodynamics would beg to differ about your first sentence.
Also, I’m not trying to disprove your point, since life did emerge in some way and I’m not fond of unscientific explanations.
But it is naiv to assume that life is a definite outcome given an Earth-like situation with a primordial soup.
It's already experimentally proven you can mix up N, H, and O and it spontaneously forms RNA. We've even found entire RNA and sugars on meteorites. It's not rare in nature, it's abundant and self-emergent from the raw atoms themselves.
I replied in terms of your first sentence. Molecules doesn’t concentrate spontaneously without active energy expenditure from someone (putting salt in a pot will have salt uniformly distributed everywhere).
Now, either there were some naturally formed impermeable areas with an abundance of base material (yet again, I’m not saying life emerged because the UFOs created it), or we are talking about many orders of magnitude less statistical chances.
I am willing to believe that many, not individually extraordinary thing had to happen at the same time, that made life possible - but that pretty much makes their combined presence extraordinary, which is my claim.
(Some form of underwater volcanic caves or whatever could sound like a possibility, especially because last I checked, starting sticked to a surface with certain catalytic activities is a plausible theory. Especially due to the reduced statistical chances due to a 2D surface instead of a 3D one! What I have a bit of trouble seeing, is how did organic materials form - I am aware of the famous experiment with lightning bolts that created ammonia and some other chemicals, but it would only slowly increase their uniform distribution in the oceans. Perhaps some chemical reaction with gases that made them accumulate? )
AT and GC never concentrate spontaneously. Brownian motion makes them 'find' each other and immediately snap together like tinker toys when they find a partner that fits. That's why you need warm temperatures, and it's why all chemical reaction rates are proportional to temperature. Even in a solution with 0.00001PPM reagents, reactions take place rapidly when warm.
> People also underestimate how easy it is for life to get started by accident.
That's well known. It is the key driver for the global contraceptives market, which generated revenue of $28,175 million in 2015 and is estimated to reach $43,812 million by 2022.
DNA is basically digital information. Every rung on the helix ladder is either an AT or GC. Nature found the simplest say to store information in our chemistry set. Couldn't really store any field patterns though.
I agree. I think our entire 3D universe is really more like a 'projection' (onto lower dimensions) of some vastly larger hyperspace in many more dimensions, so we're always seeing basically only a sliver of true reality, and if we could see it all (all of reality) it would be vastly more complex, but also a lot of things (like this video) would seem more mechanical than magical.
Language seems to be this, especially alphabet, symbols.
"If you have a powerful enough language, you can take control of reality. This is what magical languages, like in the late Renaissance, were about. The only thing which comes close to that today is code for computers. Essentially, these are languages which, when executed, something happens. They are languages of efficacy. They carry, not meaning, but motivation to activity. This Kabbalistic question is very interesting; someone showed me, recently, a sculptural object, which, when illuminated from various angles by a source of light behind it would cast, one after another, each of the Hebrew letters on a screen. In other words, this was a higher-dimensional object which had the entire Hebrew alphabet somehow embedded in it. When I mentioned this to Ralph Abraham, he said, 'Well, all you have to do is digitize and quantify that object, and we’ll be able to compute from that three-dimensional object to a 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-, or 9-dimensional object, which would cast all letters of all alphabets into matter.' So one way of thinking of the 'transcendental object at the end of time' is as this kind of Ur-letter or Ur-word in hyperspace, from which, as it sheds the radiance of its syntactical numenosity into lower and lower dimensions, realities as literary functions of being constellate themselves."
There was a Standford professor that studied this extensively and while I don't bu 100% into it, he makes a pretty compelling argument. The 3d molds that he created when held at specific angles and viewed, they certainly resemble letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. In turn, the way he holds them in both hands (arms extended out or twisting) represents specific meaning! In theory this should work with other languages as well but the bottom line, going back to the idea that our language itself is a trickle down effect from the outer workings beyond our current dimension.
All of this should be read with a very open mind however, nonetheless, the original video, the various "sacred" geometries (why are they even sacred to begin with?), inspire thinking that what if languages and symbols representing ideas are simply projections?
> more mechanical than magical.
This. As we learn more and more and our understanding expands, I don't see why not.
(I'm really pleased that we can have this thread on HN)
Completely agree. I think this could also explain the fundamental randomness we perceive at the quantum level. We're simply not seeing/unable to see the full picture.
Yep, most every serious Physicist today agrees, it's more likely we're not "seeing" everything. Slit experiment, Entanglement, etc. prove we're missing lots of the picture. All the particles popping in and out of existence...seems like really they're just 'passing thru' and we only see them a fraction of the time, because most of the time they're in some 'realm' we've only thus far managed to label as "Wave Probability"
or the even more interesting question is: what if the human consciousness is hyperdimensional (the spiritual theory that the universe itself is conscious and capable of perception) but that through quantum trickery we simply perceive "others" and "me, us, them"?
If entanglement or Einstein's "spooky magic" is possible at the building layers of reality then why do we balk at the idea of this not being possible in other levels of dimension?
Are we like the many "Random Novelty Generators" that is needed for the whole thing to work where each layer of complexity created (in our case our collective human experience consisting of many individual ones) a platform for which additional novelty is generated?
Very interesting ideas to "toy" with. Samsara, karma, reincarnation, Einstein's theory that "God doesn't play dice" all seem strangely possible as our understanding of reality advances. It is weirdly mechanical in its raw form but borderline "pure **ing magic".
(I would also point out how the Western thought rejects all forms of non-objective, impossible-to-prove-therefore-nil ideas in pursuit of its theory that all we see is all we get. We attack all ideas that remotely challenge the religion that has become Science. Seems to be built upon shaky grounds as we seem to slowly approach a convergence of religion, spiritualism, quantum theory especially at a very high elite academic level. Ironically the only people in the scientific community I can have these conversations is also quantum physicists, and some molecular biologists.)
Very nice discussions today I am very satisfied with HN as normally this kind of talk gets the boot and hostile reactions from co-workers.
I agree with what you said. Even the concept of "God" seems like it's been 're-framed' by science lately (in a good way) with many scientists having to admit that a simulation theory is as good as any other theory for our origins, and if we're being simulated then by definition the thing doing the simulating is a "god", by most definitions despite whether it is concerned with human feelings or what we call morality.
HN is definitely a great place to find others who are intellectually curious about these topics. It's a shame that most people (in society at large) would rather discuss sports or entertainment, than the actual interesting scientific or philosophical things that matter more.
That's simple. Science says "probe it, or GFTO". Thus, religion and pseudoscience is out today, and for good.
We are not children believing on monsters under the bed anymore.
No, the information in the additional variables would be like a hidden variable theory, but the hidden variables make predictions that disagree with the experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden-variable_theory
There are a few physics theories that use additional dimensions, but they are use quantum mechanics.
Interesting. Can you confirm my ELI5 understanding of it? Is it that we could potentially claim that QM is not really random, we simply do not have all the data (like predicting a dice roll without accounting for the roughness of the surface). But then, experimental evidence contradicts this claim. Correct?
It's almost like a "standing wave" (of the square pattern) emerged spontaneously out of a chaotic stew of probability waves, and I guess that's a better way to describe quantum mechanics at this level than to say "The Na and Cl atoms snapped together". Nothing snapped to together. This video shows a pattern emerging from pure chaos, all based on probabilities and the fact that each individual atom probability wave can only oscillate in certain patterns.
I'm pretty sure in Quantum Mechanics systems like this the entire unit behaves as one and there's no real distinction possible regarding "which is which" if you were to try to identify individual atoms. It would be like looking at a standing wave pattern in water (or any other medium) and labeling one peak "Wave A" and some peak "Wave B". You can't really do it. Because for the standing wave pattern to exist at all it has to be the entire system interaction to cause it to emerge.
I'm not saying atoms are "Standing Waves" but I'm merely making an analogy. However even from some perspective you could even say any oscillating system of wave probabilities when taken as a "system" comprises a standing wave.
There is really nothing quantum in this, you can simulate this completely classically, although it takes forever as it's a slow process, as you seen when you compare the timescale of the video in the seconds to the timescale the atoms move about, in the femtoseconds.
I'm not a salt nucleation expert by any means, but I'd imagine the process has a similar statistics as protein folding. Individual folding events (and nucleation events) are superfast but takes forever to trigger (a lot of stars have to align so to speak). This is why, from just looking at frames 1/25s apart, it looks like suddenly things appeared out of nothing, but really there were eons of time in between the frames in the video.
Even if you consider a Hydrogen atom floating in free space a billion miles from any planets, everything about it is 100% "quantum".
There are no actual electrons going around the nucleus, because it's purely just a quantum probability wave. If you then introduce Oxygen atoms near it, then the probability wave of the two begin to behave as a single system and will oscillate in a different pattern but STILL a single quantum mechanical system, and one big "wave function" that represents the entire system.
In this multi-atom system you also cannot even say that one specific electron is going around one atom, and another electron is going around a different electron (the incorrect classical view). The electron probability wave for the entire system is one big probability wave oscillator function, and both electrons contribute to magnitudes of observables in an identical way to each other. So the two electrons loose their individual identity. They're both part of a 'cloud' but you can't say where any of them are. Not because it's hard to measure, but because actually reality itself doesn't even know.
None of this is inconsistent with the fact that the classical view also holds true under ordinary observational conditions, and can be estimated (albeit incorrectly) as pre-existing atoms "snapping together" by the laws of chemistry, but that is the less 'complete' view. Just like Newton is a less complete view than Relativity, but still 'works'.
[Replying here as you suggested in the other comment.]
The balls in a pool table are 100% quantum, but they are approximated very accurately by Classic Mechanics.
At this level, the position of the nuclei can be approximated to move classically, and the electrons quantically. Moreover, the standard trick is to approximate that the nuclei doesn't move, and then calculate the distributions of the electron with quantum mechanics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born%E2%80%93Oppenheimer_appro...
Once you calculate the distribution of the electrons assuming the nuclei are at different positions, you can approximate an effective force between the nuclei and calculate how they move almost like classic objects.
The calculation is too difficult, and the other nearby atoms affect them, so there are a lot of approximations. For big system, you need to use something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born%E2%80%93Oppenheimer_appro... that approximate the force between the atoms, with some formulas that hide all the quantumness and then move as if they were classic objects.
So it's a quantum system, like everything in this word. But the apparent atoms that appear and disappear are not explained by weird quantum effects. They can be explained with the simplified classic model when the camera takes too few frames, the objects are moving too much, and the background is too noisy.
I'm glad we agree that classical mechanics accurately predicts macro objects.
However, atoms, molecules, and even molecular lattices containing a small number of atoms (or large number actually), behave as quantum wave systems. Even the link you gave states that 'benzene' despite having 42 electrons, has a single wave function that determines probabilities for where an electron can be observed (but not WHICH electron. There is no WHICH ELECTRON in the function). In that wave function it means there's no longer 42 actual electrons that even exist. There is nothing but a probability of where you'd find one if you collapse the entire wave simultaneously by taking a measurement of any part of it.
When atoms join into a crystal formation that becomes even a 'higher level' new emergent pattern of vibrating probabilities, that's more complex and structured than what the individual particles exhibited before the new pattern emerged.
You think I'm wrong to say atoms pop into existence?, but we know for a fact all particles are merely probabilities until observed. All observation is synonymous with wave-collapse, and only upon wave-collapse do you have actual particles with actual positions in spacetime. Every 'frame' of every video you could ever create is a snapshot of "a series of collapses", because that collapse is what created the particles that make up the 'image' itself.
You are taking a mathematical formalism and giving it a physical meaning, in a way that doesn't make any sense.
The wave function is a way to describe the physical properties of an entire system - position, velocity, spin etc, for every component that you chose to model (e.g. electrons and nuclei, or electrons and protons and neutrons, or electrons and quarks etc). To get an accurate prediction, you need to input all of the relevant parts of the system. For example, when solving the Schrodinger equation for a hydrogen atom, people input the properties of the electron and proton. If you want to compute the properties of a benzene molecule, you input information about all of the 6 nuclei and 42 electrons. If you want to compute the wave function of a mole of benzene, you would have to input the properties of all ~10^23 atoms composing it. This has no physical meaning per se - this is just the nature of the formalism.
Depending on the exact system, you may or may not have separate components of the wave function which correspond to the different components of the system which you are modelling - such as a component indicating the position of the electron and a component for the position of the nucleus/proton for the Hydrogen atom.
Also, if you were to model an electron launched towards a benzene molecule, the wave function of the system would show different values for the 1 electron that was launched vs the 42 electrons which were part of the original system.
The 42 electrons are not distinguishable simply because we don't normally choose to input any way of differentiating them, because we don't think it's useful. You could in principle describe the system such that you get a particular prediction for each of the 42 different electrons - though we don't know any property that electrons have that we could use to actually measure and confirm.
> In that wave function it means there's no longer 42 actual electrons that even exist.
The 42 electrons absolutely exist as part of the wave function - otherwise, the charge of the system would be wrong. The wave function in fact predicts positions and velocities and spins for 42 electrons, and you could in principle do a measurement where you would identify the positions for all 42 of them, with probabilities that you can compare to the wave function predictions.
> The 42 electrons are not distinguishable simply because we don't normally choose to input any way of differentiating them, because we don't think it's useful.
(If you want to be super technical, the best model we have for electrons assume they are indistinguishable. This model has very accurate predictions for the experimental results. And all the models that we have tried that assume that electrons are distinguishable make some predictions that are wrong, so we have to send them to the trash can.)
(And there are some extensions that are useful for high energy experiments, but in these extensions the electrons are even more indistinguishable.)
The main discussion here is that in spite the nuclei of Sodium and Chloride are also undistinguishable quantum objects, I say that in these conditions the can be perfectly approximated as distinguishable and with a classic movement.
This is a good approximation, except in some specific weird experiments that measure the diffraction pattern when a crystal is used as a mirror for a beam of neutrons or helium or even bigger atoms.
Well said. And furthermore: Any quantum mechanical system (i.e. all systems) is ultimately just a vibrational pattern, so trying to assign persistent identities to "things" is impossible because it's like trying to label the peaks and troughs in some standing wave oscillating on some medium. The wave is a pattern only, and the peaks/troughs are merely emergent phenomena with no actual identities, that have a history or a future, other than at the exact time of some observation.
My favorite philosophical thought experiment to ask people is: "Do football stadium waves actually exist or is it merely people in two states (standing/sitting)?" The answer to that question is a superposition of both Yes and No. lol. It sounds like a silly question, but it actually gets to the heart of the deepest philosophical questions Physics.
Seems like you're mixing a lot of classical mechanics concepts into your 'understanding' of QM. Even in a single water molecule the electrons loose their "identities" and even if you could look close enough at infinitesimally small time intervals at the molecule you'd never be able to say "There's one electron here, and there's the other over there". And I'm not saying it's just too hard to have a microscope that good, I'm saying not even "Mother Nature Herself Knows them apart"
Imagine if you setup a standing wave on a water surface, and there are exactly two peaks in the wave system. You cannot label one "Wave A" and the other "Wave B" and then turn off the energy source and then turn it back on and create the pattern again and say "Ok now which is A and which is B". The question itself is nonsensical. The same thing is going on in physics probability waves. Particles don't have identities just because "when you look for one you find one".
People think QM is describing "where particles go". It isn't. It describes where they can be found, and there's a huge leap of knowledge in understanding to comprehend the difference.
Particles have a position and a momentum (even though they can't both be measured per the uncertainty principle, so you could say they don't both exist at the same time). The wave function gives you both a position and a momentum (and other properties).
I believe what you're referring to when you say that it's wrong to talk about 'where particles go' is that it gives the wrong image of the particle moving continuously through space, occupying each point between its current location and its final one. You're right that this model is wrong. But the wave function still has a position which evolves with time, which is what I would describe as movement (even though it's not continuous).
Now, related again to identity - let's take a real experiment: we fire an electron cannkn at some benzene gas. We configure our cannon such that it fires a single electron per minute. We then want to compute what happens when this electron interacts with an atom in the gas. If we could solve the Schrodinger equation for the system, it would give us some wave functions which would probably show 42 electrons whose positions is always very close to the 6 nuclei, and 1 electron whose position can be far away, then close, then far away again. Now, whether this is even 'the same electron' between any two moments of time or not is more or less a philosophical question. But if it were a neutron instead of an electron, would you say it is not distinct from the 42 electrons? And if you wouldn't, then why say that when it is an electron?
I do understand that moving towards QFT, where we see the electron as an excitation of the field, it does make a lot of sense to say that even in a system with a single electron it's not 'the same' electron across different moments of time.
But on the other hand, we reach again the measurement problem at some point: we know that classical objects have identity. We also know that classical objects, like balls, are ultimately composed of electrons and quarks. If the electrons and quarks don't have identity, how can a ball?
> Particles have a position and a momentum (even though they can't both be measured per the uncertainty principle, so you could say they don't both exist at the same time). The wave function gives you both a position and a momentum (and other properties).
It's much better to imagine that electrons don't have a property that is position and other that is momentum. Classic object have both. Electrons have neither. You can measure one of them, or the other, or some mix, but until you measure them, these properties don't exist.
> we know that classical objects have identity.
It's only an approximation. They can swap electrons using quantum mechanics or swap them using the thermal energy. It's easier to see with two glasses of water a few foots away. There is a tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny probability that a molecule of water decides to go from a glass to the other using quantum mechanics, but also it could just evaporate and after some time reach the other glass and dissolve. Anyway, the fact that both glasses are exchanging molecules classically does not prevent us to assign them an identity as an approximation.
About the canon with an electron and the benzene: When the electron is far away, you can assign it an identity as an approximation and all the calculation would be fine. When it is very close to the benzene of going thru the molecule, you must use the quantum mechanic version of the equation that assume all the electrons are identical. After a while, when the electron is far away, you can assign again an identity to the electron. The problem is: How are you sure that the electron that exits the molecule is the same electron that entered the molecule?
The answer is that you can't! Because they are all identical. In similar experiments you must do both calculations, when the electron that enters the molecule is the same that the electron that exits the molecule, and when it is a different electron, and the result is a combination of both.
When you use a neutron you can almost assign an identity and don't worry about weird things. (There are possible weird thing, but the probability is just too small.)
It is more interesting if you replace the neutron with a neutrino. When the neutrino is very close to an electron it can emit a W+ particle and get transformed into en electron. The election of the molecule that absorbs the W+ particle now gets transformed into a neutrino. So if you see that the neutrino went thru the molecule, you are not sure that it is the same neutrino or that it exchanged it's place with an electron in the molecule, so you must calculate both cases and combine them.
well said. That neutrino W+ stuff went over my head, because I'm not actually doing Physics by profession. And unless you just now googled all that, it seems like you're my superior, and I bow down to your excellency. :)
The wave function specifies how the probability of "finding" a particle evolves over all of space and time for any point in space you yourself choose to solve it for. You can't really say the WF is predicting positions...if it's up to you to provide the positions.
> If the electrons and quarks don't have identity, how can a ball?
Macro objects can be separated, to where macro measurements make them appear separate (but they never really are), however at the atomic level this video helps (as a mental visualization) explain why actual electrons have no identity:
In the video, ask yourself, do any of the "humps" in the string have identity? You can count them, see their position, measure velocity, etc., but they're purely an emergent phenomena, and have no true identity.
Nothing about any quantum mechanical wave system has any identities either. So when you "measure" something (i.e. "find" a particle) by collapsing the WF, you have actually not 'found' but 'created' something that seems to have a location in space and time, but it's not because it "moved there". It's because you "created it there".
Quantum Field Theory has a lot of strong evidence, as does the Copenhagen interpretation of QM, but it might be more suitable not to speak of these things as if they are 100% fact. It's theory, and it's likely that the eventual bridge between QM and classical physics will usher in an entirely new model unlike either individual model.
I always refer to QFT + Standard Model as 'fact' even though myself and all other Physicists agree there may be deeper understandings than what is currently known by science.
At some point is becomes philosophy when you call into question something that has zero evidence against it and the evidence in favor of it has been measured out to 43 decimal places already.
While the electrons do form a cloud and aren't entirely well positioned in space as far as we know, it's important to remember that there still are a fixed number of electrons which can be detected one by one, even though they may interact with themselves or each other at multiple positions at the same time before our detection.
Furthermore, it is not yet proven that reality behaves the same in classical settings as it does in quantum interactions. For all we know, wave function collapse may be a physical phenomenon that happens at specific conditions, yielding purely classical behavior. Your explanation is one popular view of QM, but it is not the only possibility that would be consistent with observations.
If you want to call the "Standard Model" merely one among many "popular views" then you can, but that's not what I'd call accurate. No one really disagrees with it. They just have different "interpretations" of why it holds true.
Regarding your claim that electrons "interact with themselves", that's actually kind of misleading too. When electrons are "in the cloud" (pre-wave-collapse) they're pure probability and so none of them have an actual location in spacetime even if you had some infinitely fast camera to look. They simply don't exist at specific locations. They are genuinely everywhere at once, or stated even more correctly: they don't exist. Only the energy exists.
The "Bohr Model" of the atom is correct insofar as a way to track energies in a classically relevant way, but in no way at all is it actually "real". There's no electrons flying around. Only electrons that have already stopped. They don't exist until measured.
> If you want to call the "Standard Model" merely one among many "popular views" then you can, but that's not what I'd call accurate. No one really disagrees with it. They just have different "interpretations" of why it holds true.
The Standard Model doesn't contain an explanation for the measurement problem, which is essentially what your explanation is touching on, with the claim that everything is quantum and that the electron really doesn't have a definite position in space, rather than us being unable to know its position. Basically you stated a version of the Copenhagen Interpretation, which is very popular, but not the only way of making sense of the wave function.
> When electrons are "in the cloud" (pre-wave-collapse) they're pure probability and so none of them have an actual location in spacetime even if you had some infinitely fast camera to look. They simply don't exist at specific locations. They are genuinely everywhere at once, or stated even more correctly: they don't exist. Only the energy exists.
I think you're mixing things up a bit here. Before a measurement takes place, the movement of electrons is predicted by a deterministic equation, there is no probability. The electron is indeed (described by?) a wave function that has some amplitude at any point in space. My point about "interacting with themselves" was that the Schrodinger equation predicts the possibility of self-interference of a single electron's wave function, which is an observed effect.
I think you're also over-selling the wave part of the duality and disregarding the particle part. The electron doesn't behave entirely like a wave, it also has particle-like properties, such as a fixed mass and a fixed charge.
> There's no electrons flying around. Only electrons that have already stopped. They don't exist until measured.
This is exactly the part that people love claiming as if it is settled, when it is anything but. The reality is that we don't yet know what quantum particles are. If they don't exist until you measure and then they start existing, then you need to explain what a measurement is, which we have no idea how to.
In fact, even the Copenhagen interpretation doesn't exactly say what you are claiming. It is instead claiming that the wave function + the Born rule are a mathematical tool that predicts the behavior of quantum systems with excellent accuracy, and that the probabilities in the Born rule are fundamental. If we accept this fundamental impossibility of predicting deterministically the properties of a quantum system, it follows that it is unscientific to claim that the particles "have" properties that we fundamentally can't measure. This un-existence is then a philosophical argument, not a physical one: it's stating that something that can't in principle be measured can't be said to exist.
Other popular explanations that are perfectly compatible with the Standard Model are:
- the particles are real, and they exist at all positions in space as predicted by the Schrodinger equation, but these results happen in different universes; for some unexplained reason, "classical objects" can only observe one world at a time
- particles are real, and their movement is affected by a real carrier wave; the particle has a definite but unmeasurable location in space and speed, affected by the carrier wave; the carrier wave is the wave described by the Schrodinger equation
- Measurement is a physical process that causes particles to switch from being somewhat indefinite objects described by the wave function to being definite objects described by classical (rather, relativistic) mechanics
Of course, some of these interpretations have their own unintuitive aspects (non-locality), because of the Bell inequalities. There is also super-determinism, that could in principle allow QM to be both deterministic and local, at the cost of statistical independence.
And finally, the Standard Model itself doesn't yet account for gravity, and the current theories we have for gravity do not work with masses that have indefinite positions in space, so there is still room for discoveries that could contradict somewhat the fundamental properties of "particles" as known today (though, to be fair, it is more likely that our theories about gravity are the ones that will need adjustment).
I can tell you're deep into Physics as I am. To be honest I was presenting the "Standard Model" the way a professor would explain it to a student, who is trying to explain QFT using the conventional beliefs held by most of the Physics community.
I agree with everything you said, actually, except for this one sentence which you stated which I know is some kind of typo, because I doubt you think it's true: "Before a measurement takes place, the movement of electrons is predicted by a deterministic equation, there is no probability." That sentence goes against conventional wisdom so I doubt you meant it litterally.
Anyway, if you want my own personal unproven belief (theory) here it is: (or a few aspects of it)
I think our universe is a 3D (excluding time) manifold that is an event horizon in a larger higher dimensional space and what we call "Wave Collapse" is actually the point where an actual existing real particle does travel across our manifold. That is, anything that we can assign a position to in spacetime coordinates is also "on" this manifold. You can also call this manifold our "universe".
So when something exists in what we call "Probability Wave" state that just means we haven't yet done something to pinpoint a particle "on" this (our) event horizon. Unless someone is a very good geometry mathematician they cannot really comprehend how our entire universe can be a "surface" in some a higher-dimensional space, and since it's unproven I generally don't bring it up on HN. I also believe all N-Dimensional spaces contain (N-1)-Dimensional constructs inside them. The example in our unsivers is 'black holes'. We see 2D (i.e (3-1)D) constructs where our physics fails and even have proven their informational content is proportional to surface area (Hawking+Susskind). Most people think black holes are 3D spheres, but they're really 2D surfaces to their "inhabitants". Similarly the higher dimensional universe in which our 3D space is embedded would see our universe similarly as some kind of construct where their own physics breaks down, and they are unable to "look" inside possibly, just like we can't see inside black holes.
Also if we are an event horizon it disproves the big bang theory. The inhabitants of a black hole would notice their "universe" is expanding, and therefore conclude they came "from" some center point, but in reality BHs form from outside in, not inside out. So our universe came from outside itself not inside itself. It doesn't solve the 'first mover' problem, it just inverts it, but it does simplify it.
All that to say, I appreciated your response and you're right I was putting the "professor hat" on when I described most of what I said on this thread, but the paragraph above should prove I'm capable of as much quackery as the next guy. lol.
> We see 2D (i.e (3-1)D) constructs where our physics fails and even have proven their informational content is proportional to surface area (Hawking+Susskind). Most people think black holes are 3D spheres, but they're really 2D surfaces to their "inhabitants".
I think that is more complicated. From what Susskind explains, the current understanding is that black holes have a dual nature, similarly to the idea of wave/particle duality. Specifically, you can perform experiments that would see the event horizon of the black hole as a 2D surface which emits Hawking radiation; and you can perform experiments which will show the event horizon of the black hole is a completely unremarkable region of space. Importantly though, there is no way for an observer to notice both results, so there is no contradiction. The black hole is 1 thing to some observers, and 1 different thing to other observers, and the two can't even communicate.
Even more specifically, to an observer that will never cross the event horizon, the event horizon is a surface emitting Hawking radiation. For an observer approaching and passing the event horizon, the event horizon emits no radiation and is a completely unremarkable region of space-time. The two observers of course can't communicate, as the observer crossing the event horizon will never be able to send a signal outside again, and conversely, a signal sent from outside after they crossed the horizon will never reach them.
I would also note that our current theories do not permit any kind of structure to exist "inside" a black hole, which is a 0-volume point. If you mean "inside the radius of the event horizon of a black hole", I believe matter would be observed falling quickly towards the center. A theory of quantum gravity may give us some idea of the structure of a black hole, but I personally doubt that it could be allowed to contain another universe.
I agree with pretty much all of what you said. It's an amazing brain teaser how the person falling across an event horizon would feel nothing (as far as science knows) and yet some observer far away watching it happen would see that it takes 'forever' to happen (time stops). Like QM itself, General Relativity has some 'contradictions' built in, related to observability.
Despite the contradictions, I agree with Susskind that the 'surface' of BHs might be where the interesting stuff happens, and that the singularity itself might not even 'exist' except as some endpoint boundary condition of oscillations like an end of a guitar string, that's interacting with everything yet contains nothing.
> I doubt you think it's true: "Before a measurement takes place, the movement of electrons is predicted by a deterministic equation, there is no probability." That sentence goes against conventional wisdom so I doubt you meant it litterally.
I meant that very literally, and it is very important to understand. Quantum mechanics contains two fundamental postulates:
1. The Schrodinger equation: any quantum system can be described by the Schrodinger equation, which is a linear partial differential equation - i.e. it is completely deterministic. The solution of the Schrodinger equation is one or more wave functions - complex-valued functions which have some value for every point in space.
2. The Born rule: when a measurement is made of the state of a quantum system, the probability that a particular result will be observed is equal to the square of the amplitude of the wave function. To predict the state of the system after the measurement, the wave function must be updated to have the exact value of the measurement and no others.
Without the Born rule, QM is completely deterministic, and predicts that particles have multiple positions. This prediction is actually correct until you measure anything. For an example, let's say you have a particle P0 whose wave function has some non-0 amplitude at far away locations A and B. Say you also have two other particles, Pa and Pb; Pa has amplitude almost 1 at point A and 0 elsewhere, while Pb has amplitude almost 1 at point B and 0 elsewhere. The positions of both Pa and Pb will be affected by the properties of P0. So, P0 was essentially in both places at once.
However, if you add detectors for P0 at positions A and B, what you will notice two things:
1. If detector A detected P0, detector B will never see it, and vice-versa. The probability for each of them will correspond perfectly to the square of the amplitude that P0 had at that point.
2. If detector A detected P0, the position of Pb will no longer depend on any property of P0, and vice versa.
So, the measurement changes the wave function of the P0, Pa and Pb system. The equation before the measurement is deterministic, and the equation after the measurement is also deterministic, but the switch from the first one to the second is probabilistic.
By the way, an excellent resource on this topic is Sabine Hossenfelder's blog, for example this post:
We may be getting into semantics but QFT doesn't say electrons are even moving. It says there are no particles at all anywhere period full stop UNTIL the precise moment of measurement. This is the "Measurement Problem". The measurement CREATES the particle.
The famous Bell experiment proved that the view of quantum mechanics as describing how particles "move" is incorrect, because the probability wave is not actually describing any movements of any actual particles.
If you think of a single Hydrogen atom floating in space, no there is not an electron moving around it. There is no electron that exists at all "until" something interacts (according to Standard Model) with the wave function and causes the wave to collapse and "choose" a place in spacetime to materialize an "electron" in and only then is there an electron.
The hydrogen atom has a wave function which shows properties for a negative charge and mass with some amplitudes at different positions in space and time, and a positive charge and mass at certain other positions.
Now, before you perform a measurement, you can't say that the electron is anywhere particularly in space, and netither can you say that about the proton. In fact, the atom itself isn't really somewhere definite.
On the other hand, just because they don't exist somewhere specific that doesn't mean that they don't exist. That charge and mass can't just disappear, so if we ever observed the atom, we know that it still exists in some sense. Even with QFT, you may dispute whether the particle exists or not, but its conserved properties certainly do, regardless of how non-localized they may be.
And again, this is just an interpretation of QM that were discussing. Adherents of MWI would say that the particles are perfectly real, perfectly localized (in a particular world) and move essentially like classical particles, but they happen to interact with all different versions of themselves in all the different worlds, as long as they keep the same phase.
I personally don't like MWI, but it is still consistent with all observations.
> I'm pretty sure in Quantum Mechanics systems like this the entire unit behaves as one and there's no real distinction possible regarding "which is which" if you were to try to identify individual atoms.
The grow experiment was at room temperature 298K. At this temperature the nuclei of the atoms behave almost classically. There are some important quantum effects between the electrons, but their mass is like 10000 smaller. The effects are small in the electrons in the lower levels that are close to the nuclei, but in the valence band they can be very important. Specially in conductors where the electrons are very delocalized, but this is not a conductor.
> At this temperature the nuclei of the atoms behave almost classically.
The video seems to show a crystal made of fairly large spheres... which appear from nothing. I don't see a bunch of chaotic spheres which arrange themselves into a grid; I see a grid of spheres appearing where there was nothing before.
I have a hard time thinking this corresponds to classical mechanics. :/
Why are there any frames in which the sodium and chlorine atoms appear not to exist?
Suppose there was just the chlorine (no sodium), and we observed it the same way. Would we see mostly chaotic arrangements of big spheres, or mostly a smooth background with no spheres?
Near the bottom is a figure with some cherry picked frames of the video and a handmade drawing showing the crystal and the incoming pairs of atoms.
The Brownian motion depends on the mass of the object, so the average movement of the individual atoms is higher than the average movement of the small crystal. So the isolated atoms are blurred in the image.
Because you are seeing frames once every few milliseconds of atoms moving back and forth at speeds a fraction of the speed of light. It's only when they happen to be in very fixed positions that you have any hope to notice a definite image of the NaCl molecule.
In general, the very fact that you can see something should be a clear indication that you are not observing quantum behavior: particles whose properties (such as position) are measured DO NOT behave according to classical physics, they no longer display quantum effects. And while we have yet to understand what exactly counts as a measurement, something which allows you to have a picture of the atoms certainly counts.
It's not that the individual atoms didn't exist before they joined, but it's that they start oscillating in unison with each other in a pattern that emerges purely from wave interactions.
Nature settles into the most stable patterns of oscillation it can find, even without anything "causing that". To fully understand this kind of emergence you need to realize even the following video is in the same category of phenomenology called "emergence":
Atoms themselves "emerge" from probability waves, not the other way around.
On a wild tangent: I believe all emergent patterns represent "negative entropy" so I claim this disproves the Second Law of Thermodynamics, because it fails to take into account (i.e. quantify) "pattern-ness" or "order" in systems. Total entropy of the universe maybe doesn't increase but remains at zero, where the order perfectly counterbalances the randomness. Since there's no way to "measure" order in a system, the Second Law remains somewhat philosophical despite it being consistent with 'gross averages' measurements like temperatures, pressures, volumes, etc., in classical systems for which essentially only one side of the equation can be quantified.
However accurate this description may be, it definitely cannot support the claim that "at this timescale the nuclei of the atoms behave almost classically".
Not that I'm trying to blow anyone's mind but here's a couple of other 'emergent patterns' in reality which can also be called standing waves, which proves some very low level patterns like DNA can cause identical patterns to emerge billions of layers higher in the causal chain of reality, and way higher than just the physical structure of the body and brain but also into the surrounding world.
Twitter has released a doc (part of their Bluesky project), analyzing the current state of the Fediverse, and claims to be creating new plans to disrupt it. Let's not let them do that.
Twitter made the Fediverse really gain huge popularity recently after the mass exodus from the BigTech Platforms, and now Twitter has the audacity to pretend to want to help the Fediverse. No thanks. Does anyone even believe them? We shouldn't.
Most people already equate the Fediverse with "ActivityPub" and Twitter wants us to think the jury is still out. Don't let them fool you.
What they need to realize is that once you give Tyrannical Control over to your leaders (governments, or BigTech censors), because you consider them benevolent today, it's foolish because they won't be benevolent forever.
Our founding fathers knew power corrupts, but today's 20-somethings seem quite unaware. They think we can create a system where all forms of "bad" speech are stopped. But the problem with that is you end up having to define "bad". My definition of "patriotic speech" might be your definition of "mean speech", so unless you appoint power-wielding dictators to make the final decision, the only solution is to just say everyone is free. Once you allow dictators they'll always become corrupt and self-interested.
The left thinks they're in a war against evil and meanies, but really the only opponent they're fighting is freedom itself.