Vladimir_M comments on Great Explanations - Less Wrong

23 Post author: lukeprog 31 October 2011 11:58PM

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Comment author: lukeprog 01 November 2011 09:05:57AM *  2 points [-]

if you have no independent knowledge of these areas as a solid foundation for your opinions about them, it is reasonable to conclude that you have let your enthusiasm for the underlying philosophy of these sequences lead you to an illusory "understanding" that is in reality sheer rationalization.

I haven't read the quantum physics sequence on Less Wrong. I got my physics from lots of other sources.

if you really believe you understand them in some "non-mathematical" way, you are fooling yourself... it seems inconceivable that someone could gain such understanding in a "non-mathematical" way

Are we just disagreeing about the meaning of "understand" or something? Are you using the word "understanding" in an unusual way, such that there is no such thing as non-mathematical understanding?

Also, at one point you seem to say that I can't have evidence about whether Copenhagen is correct or incorrect without understanding all the equations involved? That seems too obviously false; I assume I'm misunderstanding you?

Comment author: Vladimir_M 02 November 2011 07:00:18AM *  5 points [-]

Are we just disagreeing about the meaning of "understand" or something? Are you using the word "understanding" in an unusual way, such that there is no such thing as non-mathematical understanding?

No. Some things can be understood without mathematics, and some can't. I'm just claiming that QM and relativity (including the basic intuitive understanding of these fields) fall into the latter category, and by extension also various fields of modern physics that have them as prerequisites.

Also, at one point you seem to say that I can't have evidence about whether Copenhagen is correct or incorrect without understanding all the equations involved? That seems too obviously false; I assume I'm misunderstanding you?

I have no idea what you mean by "all the equations involved"; I certainly never mentioned any such thing. There are many different ways in which Copenhagen might be formulated, which may involve different mathematical concepts and equations used to express them -- but any formulation that rises above fuzzy and obscurantist fake-explanation talk must necessarily have a mathematical basis. I mean, if you're going to talk about "collapse of the wave function," you'd better have a solid understanding of what a "wave function" is and what exactly it collapses into.