The dizzying free fall of QBism
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- čas přidán 30. 06. 2024
- In conversation with Prof. Christopher A. Fuchs, Essentia Foundation's Hans Busstra explores QBism: an interpretation of quantum mechanics that puts the agent right at the centre. QBism regards quantum theory as just a ‘tool’ agents use and disclaims ontic interpretations of Schrödinger's wave function: the quantum state is not something ‘real,' but instead just our description of, or even our beliefs about, nature. Once known as Quantum Bayesianism, Fuchs has redefined QBism more radically as: 'Quantum Bettabilitarianism.' As agents, we make ‘bets’ on the behavior of the universe in its interactions with us.
Though QBism does not equal analytical idealism, in this conversation we touch upon a striking similarity: namely, that pure experience (i.e. phenomenal consciousness) is what quantum theory points to as fundamental in nature. And this, in turn, has implications for how we look upon the meaning of life. In Fuchs' words: quantum theory gives meaning to life.
00:00 Introduction
01:30 Some opening remarks on experience and 'nature striking back'
04:27 Chris Fuchs on the definition of QBism
05:12 Was Copernicus wrong? Why QBism is a free fall
06:46 On Cubism in art and QBism in quantum theory
09:24 The metaphysical debate within quantum mechanics
11:04 What is QBism?
14:23 We bet on the behavior of the universe with us
15:51 What is an agent, an observer, a decision maker?
16:53 Quantum theory is just a manual that agents use
18:10 Chris Fuchs on his mentor John Wheeler
20:24 The participatory universe
20:57 The broken glass between observer and observed
21:50 There is no physical reality prior to measurement
22:18 Back in the quantum museum...
23:37 Chris Fuchs on the different interpretations of the wave function
25:02 Agents perform 'actions': measurement is a term we shouldn't use anymore
26:29 Must an electron 'obey' our gambles on it?
27:36 The multiverse is a dead universe
30:05 The many worlds interpretation wants to uphold determinism
32:03 Genuine novelty comes into the world, the universe is being created on the fly
33:02 From the abstract to the concrete: QBism in practice
38:16 Is QBism doing best in progressing quantum physics?
41:47 The solipsist critique: how to account for a shared world?
44:33 Order in the universe is placed there by us, by the human mind
45:38 What is the ontology of QBism?
47:24 The stuff of the world is neither mind nor matter
50:21 QBism in relationship to analytical idealism
53:06 Can quantum mechanics tell us something about the meaning of life?
58:09 A personal conclusion of the interviewer
For more video's on QBism here's a playlist:
• Portraits in QBism
or check Chris Fuchs' own channel: / @qbistfuchs
Thumbnail inspiration image: Vecteezy.com
I really liked this. While I fully understand why Essentia needs to produce some much more technical conversations that only real physicists can truely grasp, this video is what I'm hungry for. I want to better understand the main gist of the different quantum interpretations. Fuchs does a wonderful job in this video, along with Hans' helpful framing. I'm very excited about this series. Here is my greedy suggestion: would it be possible to have a short conversation with Bernardo about each video, just relaxed reflections he has on what gets covered in the video?
I was surprised at the end to realize that when pressed to speak about his metaphysics, everything Fuchs said fits an analytical idealist frame. His reason for not wanting to use the word 'Consciousness' is simply because it often entails human cognitive forms of experience. But he sounds very happy placing mentality (experience, sensation...) at the ground floor.
Really happy to hear this! Creating a bit less technical videos around all the great scientific content on our platform, that's my job!💪 I will start sharing polls to discover what content all of you are most interested in. Meanwhile feel free to share ideas! Best Hans Busstra
Thanks for this really helpful intro into Fuchs. I clearly need to read him asap. Wonderful to hear how deeply he has drunk from the Jamesian well of pure experience, and his familiarity with Whitehead. Materialism is dead, but there remain important distinctions to make between idealism (whether absolute or analytic) and panexperientialism. Let me know if you want to talk more about the latter 😃
@essentiafoundation just making sure you have seen this comment :)
Excellent, I really enjoyed that. I've read all Chris Fuch's papers, but never seen him talking. Very nice
Please could you send me his papers and books ?
FANTATIC production and content!!
As a child I knew that what I was looking at only popped up when I was looking at it. I tried to "catch it", sneak up on it. Suffice to say I couldn't. I eventually forgot about my sense reality until the I saw on youtube the double slit experiment. BOOM. Beautiful video. Thank you X
John Archibald Wheeler just set me free today. I never felt so good in my life, and this video comes 5 minutes after I picture his entire timeless equation, after 30 minutes of spinning while dancing.
I was literally believing that today I will die or be reborn. I was reborn from duality. Thank you for all the work that you are doing despite the push back. Qbism is the way to go forward.
music.czcams.com/video/tWm7tz2TOV0/video.html&feature=share
“[Time is the] central concern.
How did this come about, when the original focus of our discussion was ‘How did the universe come into being,
and what is its substance?’
The answer is simple. We don't understand genesis and we never will until we rise to an outlook that transcends time. That is why a review of frontiers of time is precondition for any proper analysis of the ultimate issue.” - J.A. Wheeler
Beautifully closed with that wise nod to the deep relevance of our existence as experiencers. Excellent discussion.
Mooi werk meneer Busstra!!
Excellent video and pitched at just the right level for me.
Thank you
I like this far more than the plain posted seminars. They are usually too dense for me to enjoy. But, with this, you've put one of those talks in context. Rally fun!
This was wonderful - thank you!
Wouahou, Wouahou, Wouahou. Big heavy video. Chris Fuchs Qbist interpretation is giant and you did a fantastic work. Thank you so much. Bravo so much. no words.
Beautiful and informative. Thank you.
When defining ‘consciousness/awareness’ as that in which all experience appears, that which knows all experience and that out of which all experience is made, the non-dual ultimate reality beyond words and concepts become more much more comprehensible (quoting Rupert Spira’s definition of ‘unlimited consciousness/awareness’). Very beautiful video, great inspiration.
Thank you for this thoughtful and beautifully-constructed discourse. You mentioned solipsism a couple of times in this episode. It seems always to be dismissed as a philosophical non-starter, but I have never been able to understand how it is not the fundamental "answer" that solves the materialist conundrum. Solipsism and idealism seem intertwined to me, or at least compatible. I would very much enjoy seeing you tackle this concept.
Thanks for you comment! We are working on content in which I will discuss questions like these with Bernardo. I like your question: why is it a philosophical non-starter in the first place? Not representing all authors on our platform, but as the filmmaker researching idealism for Essentia, I'd think that the universal mind is in itself solipsist? But keen to hear all your comments/questions concerning solipsism, so I can discuss them with Bernardo.
@@essentiafoundation I think Qbism is closer to Informational Relativity Theory, than it is to solipsism. Solipsism is quite different. I coined this term IRT about 15 years ago as my interpretation of Rovelli's RQM. (IR vs IR: Informational Relativity vs Informational Redundancy.) Since then, others have put their spin on the term and developed it further.
IRT was my attempt to explain black hole complementarity.
Solipsism is a tempting standpoint and doesn’t Qbism imply that to navigate “reality” all we are doing is making a “bet” that others exist and 😂experience the world as we do and react similarly? That they seem to only affirms/confirms our conscious experience to us but says nothing concerning the actual existence of others outside our experience of them.
I suffer from an inner ear problem which sometimes means that when I lie down I experience a feeling of being tipped upright with gravity acting on on my upright body from the right. This lasts just a few seconds but it is my conscious experience. So does it mean that the existence of gravity as a vertical downward force changes? If the nature of “natural” phenomena depends on experience of them can one say there is existence of such phenomena beyond our experience. does a single reality exist?
We are strange “machines” indeed but no different to say our laptops so try as we might we neither are able to read our own boot-up splash screen.
Thank you!
Best wishes to you and your family for the new year
48:19 this guy only needs to hear Bernardo talk about meta-congnition and the distinction between it and ''raw''mind and he will be an idealist, im pretty impressed by this guy. Much more than any Bayesians i have talked to in real life
Thanks! This is exactly what I hope to bring to the table in a to be recorded discussion between Kastrup and Fuchs!
Thank you
57.08:" i want to think my real actions have real consequences and they make real differences.."
The brilliant scientist is clinging to his individual identity.Perfectly understandable and legitimate.
His statement made me think another statement by Indian sage Nisargadatta:
"There is only a total functioning of the manifest consciousness. All happens by itself, including the idea of being a doer."
In my view, thinking is modelling. They are one and the same. When we think about "something out there", we - of necessity - abstract, i.e. ignore, a myriad details about that "something". As Fuchs says, if we ignore the right details then we may find that our models of various "somethings" may be similar. The models we create are, of necessity, abstracted and thus, of necessity, incomplete descriptions of reality (the "something out there"). A well known expression is that the map is not the territory. The above statements are really saying we are only ever capable of thinking about maps of the territory because thinking *means* creating a map.
If we choose our models carefully i.e. ignore the right set of details we may find that the models are similar or identical for those parts of "something out there" that we are examining. In that case, we say there is a "law of nature" and that "nature" or "reality" or the "something out there" is obeying that law. Of course, nothing is being obeyed, The "law" is not "dictating" how nature works. It simply reflects our ability to abstract away (ignore) certain differences which we call details which we then call "unimportant" such that the model that remains demonstrates a similarity for the parts of reality that we are exploring.
It is *we* who decide what details are important or unimportant and so what details to ignore or not ignore. That decision is a judgement based on *our* experience and thus our humanity. So in that sense, it is *we* who decide what laws come into being or not. They are inextricably linked to us or to be more accurate they are inextricably linked to our acts of thinking. If other life forms think as we do (i.e. by modelling) they might come up with the same laws too.
If we believe thinking is a universal property of intelligent life forms and that these life forms often make the same judgement calls about what details are considered important or not, we might then make the statement that the laws are "universal". But the universality of the laws has nothing to do with reality itself but is a statement or belief about the universality of the property we believe thinking life forms might have. Reality - as opposed to models of reality - has no laws because reality does not abstract i.e. ignore details of itself.
QBism asserts that the actions of the agent influence reality. That is certainly true but I suspect that it is understanding the very act of thinking and its implications as outlined above that really forms the cornerstone of QBistic philosophy.
While we can never *know* all details of reality we certainly can *understand* aspects of reality because understanding by its very definition means having models of aspects of reality that we find provides us with - for us - useful results.
It would be great to have a relaxed roundtable with Fuchs, Spira, Hoffman and Kastrup and Swami Sarviprinanda (wrong spelling).
Thanks for the suggestion. I will first try to get Kastrup and Fuchs together in a video!
I love QBISM! I would though like to see some comments on CIG Theory.
I’m writing about about what it means to be an observer and what the measurement problem actually means. So stay tuned.
I have found out the secret
"(The) Living is always a fresh forming¨ Eugene T. Gendlin
When it comes to reality being loose at the joints, and law emerging from lawlessness, love it, when it comes to over-essentializing what an agent is, I hate it. A measurement does not mean a sentient observer, an electron bouncing off a rock can be a measurement!
With the idealist conclusion, Lenin dispatched with such arguments from Avenerius, ("did the geology of earth at some point depend on the understanding of a worm?"), he dismantled this a century ago!
You all need dialectics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Comment about the level of material you should produce. I think you should always go over the basics quickly. It's better to skip ahead for those who are familiar with the material than for those who aren't familiar to be lost.
Thanks for this tip! I will do so in a new video on psychedelics. Coming from 'classical' documentary filmmaking in which you 'linearly' guide an audience, the CZcams chapter marks are a new -but great!- reality to me!
Thank you 😀 When you see the map is not the territory! and you also investigate the nature of your life, ie experience! You find the oneness. Then it is felt that the sense "I" and the sense "OTHER" fly together and the illusion is removed. The grooves in your thinking from previous cognition will take time to calm to stillness and allow the new etchings to build their grooves, either way it's pretty groovy. So be kind to your mind, all ways. Cheers from a retired digger down under. 😍🤩😍 stay safe and give care.
Great video! Neutromonism seems very similar to Advaita Vedanta. As far as novelty goes, I also tend to believe that creation, maintenance, and dissolution are simultaneous. Brahman is described as limitless and ever new. It seems to be an expression and seeking of novelty in an infinite manner.
Edited to add: The state of moksha or Purna ironically ends in a state of fullness and homogeneity. Ananda (completeness/satiety) is understanding that we are the fountain of this bliss. Consciousness and the apparent world, I believe are cooriginated. Brahman and Shakti are NEVER separate and Brahman (is-ness) is ALL pervasive.
Second edit: I believe that “novelty” itself could be the subject of a few talks.
What if QM doesn't actually tell us something is in two different states at the same time until it is observed, but is detecting the potentiality of something that could be in two different states, and we are reading into it as if that thing is in two different states simultaneously, when we know that is impossible.
That's pretty dangerous thinking, "knowing" that something is impossible
That's pretty dangerous thinking, "knowing" that something is impossible
That's pretty dangerous thinking, "knowing" that something is impossible
Fantastic- my perspective tells me we need to talk and I need to talk to Fuchs. Will try do reach out to you in the days to come, will first have to re-watch to digest. Greetings (working on quantum and Bayesian- so you opened the path maybe what for ever reasons chose to not reveal itself until now).!
What's the difference between solipsism and idealism?
Solipsism does not entail the concept of dissociation, that is, multiple centers of subjectivity. For solipsism there is in fact only one, you. In idealism, mind-at-large can be considered solipsist, however there is internal differentiation so that multiple centers of independent subjectivity are present, so I am as conscious as you are and not a zombie.
In short, the existence of the others
There is a divine solipsism (which Bernardo has acknowledged under a specific context of terms and understanding) at hand.
20:50 what's the title of the book?
45:20 difference
Here are my thoughts about CIG Theory in the context of the table in WIKI of Quantum Interpretations. .
I am hoping that one day CIG Theory will be adopted as a contender for reality and appear on the WIKI page along with all the other interpretations..
Deterministic: YES
Ontic Wave Function: YES
Unique History: YES
Hidden Variables: YES *1
Collapsing Wave Function: YES
Observer Role: No * 2
Local Dynamics: YES
Counterfactual Definiteness: YES *3
Extant Universal Wave Function: YES *4
*1 Found
*2 Any Introduction that changes the rate of motion of the particle will collapse (or expand) the wave function.
*3 If all known parameters are defined in advance (i.e. there is no spontaneous collapse as in GRW)
*4 Everything is everything else - as such a Universal Wave Function Exists (Many Worlds exist only over infinite time, not in the same Universe)
❤❤❤❤❤
I think it’s idealism built from syntax/language that’s teleological.
Potential has to be the substrate of reality. Paradox gives logic utility.
Perception is born out of syntax and spacetime is born out of perception.
In gambling, a Dutch book or lock is a set of odds and bets, established by the bookmaker, that ensures that the bookmaker will profit.
I’d like to ask you something: to eliminate the background noise (music) meanwhile someone is talking. It would make it so much better! 🙏
2:45 Yellow lamp says, free my reality.
What damage must happen in a person's childhood that makes hard relativistic (the observer as central) interpretations of reality attractive?
Someone or something above the human mind gave us a game board and we made up the rules as we played
I may have missed something, but I don't understand why QBism is not just outright wrong. I don't go back to my textbooks and look up the Born rule every time I wear polarized sunglasses.
Yes, I don't understand how QBists calling the Born Rule 'normative' is really that helpful or explanatory.... the sunglasses really do block the square of the light coming in and it doesn't care about my participatory agency betting on it. I want to like QBism, but I've read a bit of it and watched some of his videos and I really just don't get what he's trying to say. It's really frustrating when someone can only explain their ideas by immediately jumping into analogies (dutch book, agent 'betting' on outcomes, etc), that tells me their ideas are not complete and this stuff just sounds like fragmented, isolated philosophical musings rather than a new approach to QM. Nothing wrong with that, but it presents itself like it's a new paradigm.
What quantum mechanics tells you is how to predict the outcomes of a measurement BEFORE the measurement. So if you want to know how many photons are going to pass your sunglasses you want to use the Born Rule. That’s what quantum mechanics is all about. Anything after the measurement has nothing to do with quantum mechanics. Even the Heisenberg uncertainty principle holds only before the measurement.
The digital computer model of life, that a 1 and zero switch when built up in complexity allows consciousness to emerge, lacks dimension like flat earth perspective. Each cell in the body contains the contains the hardware and software to build itself up from its fractal quantum volition architecture.
More in-depth
Does "consciousness" continue to be a misleading term for QBism, or in general? It seems to give us this image of Cartesian mind-as-its-own-substance, when the “phenomenal consciousness” of James, Whitehead, or German Idealism has very little to do with that.
1. If you hold onto this simplistic picture where we “have” consciousness and there is some kind of barrier between knowledge of our own minds-perceptions-sensations and that of the external world, then solipsism is a genuine philosophical problem for you. You’re going to take seriously the possibility that the only knowledge you have of the external world is really your own mind since that’s what you’ve got epistemic access to. Ironically or not, the picture of mind-cognitive interface-world tends to protect the problem of the existence of other minds.
2. The idealists tend to attack solipsism on the grounds that their problem is framed entirely by the possibility of eternal illusion. As long as you believe subjects don’t have access to nature, then anything we say about it is cloaked or dimmed by skepticism, solipsism. Transcendental idealists like Kant have the most in common with the picture above (although he critiqued transcendental realism too), but no matter what strand of idealism you subscribe to, you’re not going to be upset by the pleas of solipsism that want to argue the world does not exist. The idealism Friedrich Hegel talks about in the Phenomenology of Spirit, and the pragmatism of William James do not put a metaphysical blockade between the knower and the known. This leads to a completely different strategy for critiquing solipsism. The idealist or the pragmatist could be seen as arguing that the person troubled by the idea that all our knowledge is an illusion is mistaken because they have not sufficiently motivated the existence of this barrier to knowledge. They have not shown by all of us at once should doubt the existence of others.
3. You could call this an advantage of the idealist position, but note that in the view, the sense of “consciousness” is completely different from the property of mind trapped in a corporeal vessel. The sense of “phenomena” Fuchs is getting is what William James recast as a “relation” from which we differentiate subjects and objects. “Consciousness” or the “ego-pole of observation” is one such differentiation or “experience catching sight of itself.” The consciousness you refer to in everyday conversation is more like the “subjectification” of the subject or “personal identity.” And if you agree with Fuchs that idealism’s connotation of “literal thought being put in nature” is too strong, then you’re going to resist the idea of "pan-psychism" on the grounds that it is no more satisfying than the simplistic view above. Both the simplistic realism that entices skepticism and the literal idealism of "mind-in-matter" already presume the intelligibility and correctness of subject-object dualism.
4. Fuchs seems to take that James was right to reject this dualism. The ability to cast phenomena in some particular ontological light, a point discussed by Fuchs at 47:24, makes me think that the QBist move refrains from settling on a strict ontological interpretation or differentiation of ontologies into “matter” or “mind.” The reason you might go for this idea is because physics does not have to posit the nature of the physical object to do physics - one simply does it.
Also, in addition to James, Whitehead, and others, another philosopher you might throw into the mix then is Ernst Cassirer - the neoKantian.
Earth may not be the center of the universe, but the universe circles around the earth. Likewise, the universe circles around me/you. You are the only thing that really matters in the universe because without you, it stops existing.
Could you not somehow hybridize the notion of mind/matter, having the mind create the universe, but rather than out of nothing, it is being created via selection, that the agent selects from a variety of variables to bring specific matter into existence, the mystery of dark matter and dark energy could interplay, these are unused and unseen variables that could or could not be called into existence.
No it is not about gambling lol good one
You can keep the level of detail. But please amp up the super-simple internal summaries for non scientists like me.
A lot of content that tries to latch onto subjectivist approaches to QM (or science broadly) are hopelessly woo-woo and uninformed. This was not that. Great job.
Christianity is true because of the impossibility of the contrary.
Great video but would be even better without the mind-numbing elevator music.
You waste 11 minutes talking about why the subject matter is supposedly so special without really saying anything