So As A Continuation Of This Post I Made In Frustration About How Anglo-centric Most “must-read”

Life is right now. While you’re waiting for your dream job, your future spouse, your goal weight, a new home, a change in appearance. Life is happening while you are working on mastering a skill, being in the unknown, not knowing which way to go, feeling stuck. Most of life happens in the waiting. Not in the achievements or successes which are nothing but milestones. Don’t wish the time you have away waiting for something that lives in the future. Look around. What does today offer that you might not want to miss?

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“Here’s what I know: if someone’s much better than you at something, they probably try much harder. You probably underestimate how much harder they try. I’m not saying that talent isn’t a meaningful differentiator, because it certainly is, but I think people generally underestimate how effort needs to be poured into talent in order to develop it. So much of getting good at anything is just pure labor: figuring out how to try and then offering up the hours. If you’re doing it wrong you can do it a thousand times and not produce any particularly interesting results. So you have to make sure you’re trying the right way. […] I’m curious about the ugliness of trying, the years and years of wanting and hoping and working. I don’t know why I’m so fascinated by craft. I think it’s because it requires such a sustained tenacity. Like Michelangelo saying that he just chips away at everything that didn’t look like David: a hundred thousand little motions to reveal the underlying beauty. I think a lot of people want to be but they don’t want to do. They want to have written a book, but they don’t want to write the book. They want to be fit, but they don’t want the tedium of working out. They’re ashamed of rejection and they’re ashamed of imperfection. I might want lots of people to subscribe to this Substack, but do I want to workshop a post every day? Donna Tartt once said in an interview that if the writer’s not having fun the reader isn’t either. I think people make the best things when they love the process, when they willingly shoulder the inherent uncertainty and pain that comes with it. It’s almost like a form of prayer: you offer up what you can even though the reward is uncertain. You do it out of love.”

— Ava, effort (via luxe-pauvre)

Quantum Mechanics Itself as Emergent 'Phenomenon'?

Recently, we've been talking about emergence - more explicitly about emergent phenomena in many body systems. But what if the concept of emergence would not only apply 'within' quantum mechanics but also 'outside' the theory? What if quantum mechanics itself is an emergent theory from a classical-type underlying 'reality'? This is exactly the approach of an interpretation of quantum mechanics, called emergent quantum mechanics (EmQM).

Where is EmQM located in the 'zoo' of interpretations?

The 'zoo' of interpretations and alternative theories of quantum mechanics can be classified by their answers to the violation of Bell's inequalities. Bell's Theorem is a theory-independent result and therefore must hold for any possible approach which reproduces the results of standard quantum mechanics. Roughly speaking, the theorem's consequences are that one either has to give up the traditional understanding of realism, or the idea of locality. E.g. Rovelli's approach and QBism belong to the camp which gives up traditional realism and adheres to locality, whereas Bohmian Mechanics sticks to realism and therefore embraces nonlocality. In general, hidden variable theories belong to this 'realist' camp.

EmQM suspects a locally deterministic theory from which standard quantum mechanics emerges. Walleczek and Groessing (p. 2, [1]) suppose that instead of "absolute quantum randomness" there might be "quantum interconnectedness" - indicating the presence of some kind of nonlocality, e.g. nonlocal causality. Hence, this approach seems to belong to the above called 'realist' camp, in which a traditional understanding of realism is embraced and the price to pay is nonlocality, more neatly called "quantum interconnectedness".

Why EmQM?

Walleczek and Groessing [1] argue that a metaphysical fundament is needed in order to unify general relativity and quantum mechanics. Since general relativity is strictly deterministic and standard quantum mechanics inherently indeterministic, the metaphysical fundament of each theory starkly opposes each other such that the lack of unification seems inevitable. However, setting a microscopically causal fundament for both branches of physics, as well as the focus onto emergent phenomena, might yield a solution. For instance, the theory of quantum gravity already relies on the idea of emergent spacetime - together with EmQM it may be possible to lay a metaphysical framework of 'all physics'. Nevertheless it might be questionable, in my view, how this is supposed to work with an approach as EmQM in which nonlocality is a cornerstone, i.e. possibly causing trouble with causality as we know it from relativity.

EmQM and Bohmian Mechanics

Since EmQm and Bohmian Mechanics (BM) belong to the same, 'realist' camp, both seem to be related. Both claim to describe the underlying 'reality' beneath standard quantum mechanics. Both approaches share the belief that standard textbook quantum mechanics does not have descriptive character regarding the nature of reality, even though the theory is empirically successful. Then, standard quantum mechanics is regarded as an 'effective' theory.

However, two approaches can be well compared by regarding how they attempt to reproduce standard quantum mechanics. One main aspect in this respect is the appearance of randomness. Both approaches claim to be fundamentally deterministic and therefore have to explain why we experience the randomness of standard quantum mechanics in our laboratories. Bohmians do this by introducing so called "absolute uncertainty" [3], which is a consequence of the quantum equilibrium hypothesis. Effectively, this means that a universe in which Bohmian Mechanics governs the dynamics, it is impossible to gain knowledge about the configuration of a system beyond the probability distribution determined by the wave function ρ=|ψ|^2. Hence, the complete configuration of point particles, their positions and velocities do exist, but there is no experimental access to it. This limited knowledge is supposed to be the source of randomness and uncertainty that we encounter in standard quantum mechanics:

"This absolute uncertainty is in precise agreement with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. But while Heisenberg used uncertainty to argue for the meaninglessness of particle trajectories, we find that, with Bohmian mechanics, absolute uncertainty arises as a necessity, emerging as a remarkably clean and simple consequence of the existence of trajectories." (p.864 [3])

Instead of making use of a (more or less ad-hoc) hypothesis, the appearance of randomness in EmQM seems a bit more natural: Only because the underlying dynamics is supposed to be deterministic, this does not imply pre-determination. This is something one can already observe in purely classical systems: The more complex a system is, the more uncertain is the outcome (often referred as "deterministic chaos"). A minor change in the boundary conditions can cause a huge change in the result. Thus, the central point is emergence:

"Critical in this context is that emergent phenomena are subject to unpredictability as a consequence of the intrinsically self-referential nature of the governing dynamics [...]." (p.5 [1])

In comparison, BM formulates its theory in a rather rigid manner. It formulates postulates from which the theory can be deduced. The issue with this is that these postulates have kind of an ad-hoc character. In my view, EmQM circumvents these problems by being less strict/definite. This approach does not seem to have a fixed formalism yet (at least I haven't found analyses on the same level of rigor as there are for BM), while the research seems to be more focused on exploring how emergence can enter the picture - as e.g. 't Hooft does in [2], where he describes explicit examples of possibly emergent symmetries. (Disclaimer: maybe my impression is incorrect, since I have only superficial knowledge about EmQM.)

Regardless of this point, both approaches seem to be interconnected in the end. Walleczek and Groessing (p.2 [1]) claim that a future EmQM would include BM. Hence, in my view, it might be possible that EmQM might support BM in the sense that it lifts the necessity of possibly ad-hoc appearing postulates as formulated in BM. Thus, any theory of quantum mechanics (orthodox or unorthodox) might not only yield emergent phenomena within the theory but quantum mechanics might unravel itsel as an emergent 'phenomenon'.

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References:

[1] Walleczek, Groessing, Is the World Local or Nonlocal? Towards an Emergent Quantum Mechanics in the 21st Century, arXiv:1603.02862, 2016

[2] 't Hooft, Emergent Quantum Mechanics and Emergent Symmetries, arXiv:0707.4568, 2007

[3] Dürr, Goldstein, Zanghí, Quantum equilibrium and the origin of absolute uncertainty. J Stat Phys 67, 843–907 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01049004

i think one of the most important things you learn about making connections with others is that a significant portion of the time people just do not know theyre doing what theyre doing

Made a small suite compiling some moments of Viktor’s theme that I picked up on while listening to the Arcane soundtrack (which is incredible by the way, go listen to it if you haven’t yet!) Though there are multiple repeated elements to the music in his scenes, I believe his central motif consists of the simple notes: G, F, E, D, which can be heard in each track.

You can hear it for the first time when Viktor introduces himself to Jayce in “It’s Viktor" as well as a lovely rendition of it in “The Toy Boat”, which explores the motif the most and even teases a bit of “First Steps”. The theme is later presented more tragically though in the Hexcore scenes, which continues the use of strings but also sometimes utilizes the unique addition of a man’s hum. During “Promise Me”, we also hear it with a woman’s hum. 

Tracks (In Order):

“It’s Viktor”

“The Toy Boat”

“Promise Me”

“Everyone’s Gotta Play Their Part”

“Viktor and the Hexcore”

“Something I’ve Been Working On”

You can also hear his theme very faintly at the end of “I Understand Now”, which I didn’t include here.

On a side note, the music in the Hexcore scenes is so epic and tragic, I’m hoping they’re the foundation of the Machine Herald’s theme because I want to hear a lot more of it in the future.

I’m no music expert by the way, just an enthusiast. If anyone has a background in music, please feel free to add your expertise to this! 

(This music obviously does not belong to me.) 

so on the subject of stolen property, i’ve seen various arguments on this point but it is in fact true that inheriting something from a relative, when you know full well that it was stolen, does not make it yours.

this clearly goes doubly so for powerful magical artifacts, and especially for artifacts which are strongly implied to contain part of their creator’s soul!

you can talk about consequences - maybe the artifact in question has benefits for you, maybe you’re not convinced its rightful owners would use it responsibly - but talking about the consequences doesn’t erase the fact that whatever benefits you think you’re getting are achieved through wrongful means.

which is why i, too, think Frodo should have given the One Ring back to Sauron. thief.

Honestly something that bothers me more than most things is having my compassion mistaken for naivety.

I know that another fish might eat this bullfrog right after I spend months rehabilitating it.

I know that turning a beetle back onto its legs won’t save it from falling over again when I walk away.

I know that there is no cosmic reward waiting for my soul based on how many worms I pick off a hot sidewalk to put into the mud, or how many times I’ve helped a a raccoon climb out of a too-deep trashcan. 

I know things suffer, and things struggle, and things die uselessly all day long. I’m young and idealistic, but I’m not literally a child. I would never judge another person for walking by an injured bird, for ignoring a worm, or for not really caring about the fate of a frog in a pond full of, y’know, plenty of other frogs.

There is nothing wrong with that.

But I cannot cannot cannot look at something struggling and ignore it if I may have the power to help.

There is so much bad stuff in this world so far beyond my control, that I take comfort in the smallest, most thankless tasks. It’s a relief to say “I can help you in this moment,” even though they don’t understand.

I don’t need a devil’s advocate to tell me another fish probably ate that frog when I let it go, or that the raccoon probably ended up trapped in another dumpster the next night.

I know!!!! I know!!!!!!! But today I had the power to help! So I did! And it made me happy!

So just leave me alone alright thank u!!!!

Distances. #pascalcampion