From: Don Winterstein (dfwinterstein@msn.com)
Date: Tue Jul 08 2003 - 05:01:06 EDT
Glenn Morton wrote:
>...'Gut feels' are
irrelevant in science....
Albert Einstein would disagree most vehemently. His essays on science are replete with references to intuition and its role in leading scientists to good theories and bypassing ones likely to be a waste of time. "Intuition" is just a sophisticated word for "gut feel." By no stretch am I saying that gut feels can't be wrong, but in fact they've always been important in science. They're how scientists often get started on breakthroughs.
IMHO you're giving way too much credence to people who claim that this or that single observation will prove the existence of MWs. Physics has come up with lots of astonishing results, but the most astonishing claim ever has to be this one asserting the existence of MWs. It's OK to entertain notions of MWs, but no one should put faith in such astonishing claims without extraordinarily good and straightforward evidence. Everything I've read about that "MWH experimental test" suggests that, if the quantum computer really works as expected, supporters are going to say, "How else could this have happened except through MWs?" Well, "how else" questions always explicitly beg the question; they never prove anything. If it comes to that, sooner or later some bright theorist will tell us exactly how else. That's my gut feeling. I'd never say "the test won't work." I will say that, if the test works, the result probably won't mean what Deutsch says it will mean.
If one could prove that a given outcome absolutely could not have happened except through MWs, then that outcome would of course establish the existence of MWs. Unfortunately science has never yet been able to come up with that kind of absolute proof. It would require theory that is absolutely true, and no such theory yet exists.
Therefore it's totally inappropriate at this stage IMO to get worked up about this MWH experimental test, partly because the test is not testing for MWs, it's testing someone's inference about MWs; and MWs are so astonishing that we need better evidence for them than something purely inferential. To accept such inferential evidence as hard proof would be to put far too much confidence in the opinions of a few theorists.
Their inference may be unjustified, and I'm not obliged to say why it may be (i.e., that's not my area of competence; and even if it were, I might not be the best person to critique the inference), other than to point out that human inferences are often mistaken. QM experiments have no track record in establishing the existence of MWs. In other areas of physics we trust predictions because of track record. I confidently expect particle physicists to find the Higgs boson, because the standard model has been extraordinarily successful in predicting the existence and properties of real particles. I have no reason to think any quantum computer experiment will establish the existence of MWs. In the first case there is a very successful track record with lots of supporting evidence, in the second case there is no track record and as of now no supporting evidence. In the first case the expected results are far from astonishing, in the second case the reality of MWs would be astonishing in the extreme and hence not believable without truly exceptional evidence.
What if MWs become widely accepted as real among scientists even without convincing proof? Well, the absence or irrelevance of God, without convincing proof, is already widely accepted among scientists. We don't have to follow the crowd. (The rest of the world wouldn't follow such scientists either, as the existence of the flourishing YEC community attests.) What we believe doesn't have to be what the majority of scientists believes. Such majority can be dead wrong.
Don
----- Original Message -----
From: Glenn Morton
To: Asa
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2003 4:22 AM
Subject: RE: MWH experimental test
I never cease to be amazed that people ignore what is written. I present a
means of testing MWH and this is the reaction:
Don wrote:
>Nothing they say is ever worth losing sleep over
>unless it can be directly tested, and my gut tells me no one is ever going
>to figure out how to test directly for multiple worlds. So I regard
>discussions of MWs as a form of entertainment.
Richard wrote:
>But seriously folks ... the argument that quantum computers require "real"
>resources in alternate universes seems to be an empty and untestable claim.
This is not serious scientific discussion or even criticism. 'Gut feels' are
irrelevant in science, and ignoring suggestions which have passed peer
review and been published (for which I gave entre to the literature in the
post) seems to be hiding one's head. Calling it mere entertainment is
reminiscent of Copernicus putting in his book that his view was merely a
calculating technique. Once again, I would challenge both of you to take on
Deutsch's claim which I believe is in "Quantum Theory, the Church-Turing
Principle and the Universal Quantum Computer,' Proceedings of the Royal
Society of London A 400(1985), pp 97-117, and then get your refutations
published. It is a cheap out to claim that this idea is wrong when you are
unwilling to do the work to show why it is wrong and get it published.
Without a doubt one might find something wrong with Deutsch's test, but just
saying a 'gut feel' or claiming that it is untestable, seems highly
unscientific. The scientific thing is to explain exactly why that test won't
work. If you actually read what I quoted from Brown's book the experiment
gives a different result for the 2 different views of quantum. That means it
is TESTABLE. Deutsch's article does have the computer world thinking about
these things. And regardless of whether or not we christians want to deal
with the implications, theologically, they are there.
1. IF MWH, then hell is full of an infinity of unsaved vs the 1 saved
individual. It means that God saves everybody with a plan to condemn the
vast, vast majority to hell.
2. Why evangelize. This is the same issue one runs into with predestination.
If you are predestined, what is the point. the problem, in my view becomes
more accute under MWH
3. If MWH, then is that the best way God can ensure what happens in the
future?
4. There must be universes where God's predictions fail, i.e. where Jesus
didn't come.
5. Are there universes where Jesus married?
6. Are there universes where Jesus sinned?
7. Would such a situation falsify christianity?
There are lots of theological implications. And claims that this can't be
tested, in spite of my pointing you to where the idea is published, seems to
imply that evidence and data don't count here, just gut feel and claims.
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