{"id":1732,"date":"2007-11-24T17:18:20","date_gmt":"2007-11-25T00:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dabacon.org\/pontiff\/?p=1732"},"modified":"2007-11-24T17:18:20","modified_gmt":"2007-11-25T00:18:20","slug":"space-time-to-call-mystics-on-their-misuse-of-quantum-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/pontiff\/2007\/11\/24\/space-time-to-call-mystics-on-their-misuse-of-quantum-theory\/","title":{"rendered":""Space-Time" to Call Mystics on Their Misuse of Quantum Theory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well it is certainly true that Mystics and quantum physicists speak the same language<\/a>, that language most probably being Mandarin, English, or Hindi, but I’m guessing that’s probably not what they meant by that title. I should have stopped reading at the title, but instead I actually scanned down the page.
\n
\nOy, this one starts out bad: <\/p>\n

Quantum physicists have discovered to their amazement that, in the sub-atomic world, particles behave in very “unscientific and unpredictable” ways.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well actually what physicists have discovered is that particles behave in a totally scientific manner. Their ain’t nothing unscientific about the scientific theory of quantum physics. Is quantum theory nondeterministic, certainly. But the word “random” doesn’t even come close to yielding the word “unscientific.” (Note the word “sub-atomic” here, which is always amazing: as if atoms don’t behave quantum mechanically or something.)
\nAnd then it gets even worse as they try to give examples. Their list of seven examples has some truly amazing misconceptions, my favorite being: <\/p>\n

4. Cause may occur at the same time as, not before, an effect.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What does this one even mean? A cause occurring at the same time as an effect? I guess I should be thankful that they didn’t talk about causes coming after effects. Then there is <\/p>\n

6. A fourth dimension known as space-time exists.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Besides the, um, minor problem that the discovery of the idea of space-time is special relativity and not quantum theory, I’m quite sure that what people normally call the fourth dimension, time, will not be happy being renamed “space-time.” What space-time do I have to wake up tomorrow?
\nThis followed by some truly breathtaking logic: <\/p>\n

The world the mystic sees is indescribable or difficult to verbalize. The world of particle physics that quantum physicists see is indescribable from the Newtonian stand point. Nor can it be understood rationally and scientifically.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, because quantum theory is indescribable from a Newtonian standpoint, anyone who can’t describe what they are talking about must be talking about quantum theory! Can’t describe how miracles work? It must be quantum mechanics! Can’t verbalize the feeling you got when you were fired? Must be quantum mechanics! Can’t describe why the U.S. elected Bush to a second term? Must be quantum mechanics! And of course, once again we learn that quantum theory is not understood rationally and scientifically. Which must be the reason that there is an entire scientific field built upon the theory: physics. I’m sure all those physicists will be happy to know that what they do can’t be explained rationally or scientifically.
\nQuantum physicists and mystics certainly do seem to speak the language, it just that one hasn’t quite realized that just because you say it, that doesn’t mean its true (with apologies to Radiohead.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well it is certainly true that Mystics and quantum physicists speak the same language, that language most probably being Mandarin, English, or Hindi, but I’m guessing that’s probably not what they meant by that title. I should have stopped reading at the title, but instead I actually scanned down the page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quantum-basterdizations"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/pontiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/pontiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/pontiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/pontiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/pontiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/pontiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/pontiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/pontiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/pontiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}