Google says it accessed parallel universes with its new supercomputer
(www.dailymail.co.uk)
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The mulitverse interpretation is just one of many possible theoretical implications for how quantum probabilities work. There is no evidence for it. This is entirely personal bias on the part of the Google researcher, and is quite clearly just a click bait headline and article on the part of The Daily Mail.
I suppose the nonsensical statement and article could be strategic in order to play into a larger psyop going on. But I can't speculate on how.
Personally, I find parallel worlds the least compelling of all the interpretations physicists have come up with to explain quantum mechanics.
Yeah, in the article itself there is a refutation of the headline...!
"Astrophysicist turned science writer Ethan Siegel blasted Google over the claim, accusing them of 'conflating unrelated concepts, which Neven also ought to know.'
'Neven has conflated the notion of a quantum mechanical Hilbert space, which is an infinite-dimensional mathematical space where quantum mechanical wavefunctions "live," with the notion of parallel universes and a multiverse,' Siegel argued Friday."
Seems like Google wants a big headline. Not sure why the performance of Willow is not enough!
That's actually very succinct explanation of the issue. Better than anything I could write. I'll remember that. Thanks.
What are the alternative explanations you refer to?
I don’t necessarily buy the article’s claim, but the parallel universes thesis seems pretty sound.
The 3 most well known ones are parallel world's (what Google's researchers are biased towards), the Copenhagen interpretation, and pilot wave theory. Recently, a 4th interpretation has been gaining ground, which is simulation theory (which is really just a reformulating of the Copenhagen interpretation). Quantum computing doesn't offer any actual evidence for any of them. And honestly, I am of the school that says since our observable world doesn't correspond to any of these, that it is useless to wax philosophical about which one, if any of them, is correct. Or if "correct" even has a meaning in this context. The mathematics is identical no matter what you want to believe about its interpretation, so it is a difference which makes absolutely no difference.
If you held a gun to my head, I would probably lean towards simulation theory. That this is all just a mathematical construct being enjoyed by our ethereal souls, and the superposition which is exploited by quantum computers is simply the fundamental reality. It doesn't mean there are parallel realities. There remains just one reality which exists solely as a mathematical construct with superimposed, probabilistic outcomes until such time as the simulation needs to coalesce to an observable outcome that we, as a group of souls, collectively and individually choose.
But this is all highly metaphysical and philosophical nonsense which makes absolutely zero difference to anyone. If the Google researchers want to believe the superposition states are real parallel universes, who am I to tell them no? But it's not a thesis because it can neither be proven nor disproven. It is a personal bias, pure and simple.