thought experiment: i have a device which measures one attribute of a quantum particle. Let’s say that it measures the location. Now, every time it extracts this bit of information, it does two things. First, it collapses the waveform. Second, it loses other information about the particle. The better it detects location, the more momentum information it loses.
Now let’s suppose i hook up a futuristic advanced artificial intelligent neuroprocessor to that mofo. It basically has the intelligence of a person, and has all kinds of great routines already built into its neural network. This device is a wonderful simulacrum of a human consciousness. The fake brain is attached to the detector in such a way that the detector functions as a sense, the only sense.
Let’s call this whole apparatus Reggie.
All reggie knows about the outside world is what information he gleans from his locator. For every single thing about the universe that he knows, there is another of which he can’t even conceive. Reggie can’t fathom ‘momentum’. It’s ineffible and supra-intangible.
Now, extend the thought experiment to me. All of my senses are operating on the same foundation that Reggie’s are. I am taking very exact measurements of the quantum world, many times over. My eyes’ retinas are filled with cornucopious amounts of rods and cones, which take a photon and extract specific information from them. My cochleas absorb the energy of air molecules, measure it, and collate the info into a continuum of wavelengths. Etc.
For every input my senses give me, is there a flip side which i can’t know? Is the universe half unknowable to me, who can’t see the yin through the yang? Is there an entire other existence to every person i ever see, table i ever touch, food that i have eaten?
Wait! How did you get to here from Reggie? We need to discuss Reggie’s measuring abilities in a little more detail. But let me cut to the chase: If you can’t know, I can’t tell you. Then you would know and the thought experiment would fail…or maybe it has already.
Well, there’s things that you (or Reggie) can’t know, but it’s a matter of scale. Relative to our typical units, Planck’s constant is very small. In actual practice, you can determine the position and momentum both of anything you can see to precisions far greater than you could ever need. The uncertainty principle still holds, but it’s essentially irellevant if you’re looking at macroscopic objects.
Now, if you’re asking if there’s some quantity of which you can’t even conceive, due to the uncertianty principle, then the answer is that the laws of quantum mechanics make it quite clear when the uncertainty principle does and does not apply… Most pairs of variables can, in fact, be measured simultaneously.
Well if I understand what you’re asking then the most important thing to remember is that you actually have so little information about the outside world that quantum effects aren’t even noticeable to you.
Your eyes only capture (let’s say) .000000001% of the photons something emits so to a human the difference is pretty meaningless.
I think you’ve misunderstood poor Reggie. It’s not that he can’t experience momentum, because that would imply he is measuring location with infinite precision! It’s not that if you see yin at all you can’t see yang at all, it’s that there is an immutable reltionship between them, and the MORE you look at one the more you render the other hard to see (but not impossible). You’ve kind of slipped from a relative statement to an absolute one. So Reggie sees things just the way you do: the more precisely he measures position, the less precisely he can determine momentum and vice versa.
There’s another way to interpret your post though. If you make Reggie only capable of seeing location, then of course, momentum will be meaningless to him, but that has nothing to do with quantum mechanics. You could make him only capable of seeing in black and white and then ask him about blue - you’d get the same answer. I assume you didn’t mean this trivial case.
actually, i was thinking of the second when i wrote the post. the sensor is his only link to the outside world. true, asking him about blue if he only saw black and white would be meaningless because he has no concept of blue. The analogous question for a human would not be, “What is blue” because (most of us) can see blue.
my intent is to zero kind of in on the area of things we can’t even conceive of. now, this can be done with almost any study, skill, or craft (“oh geez, if i’m knitting ,but i’m not using yarn, am i really knitting?”) i thought i saw an opening in quantum theory, and thought about sniffing around for intangible realities that boggle the mind. this is what i came up with, and i couldn’t see anything wrong with it. however, i wasn’t too sure about the truth of my backing assumptions. now i know i had a kinda dorky understanding of the specifics i was invoking.
one final lunge for the OP-
all of our knowledge of the outside world is based on our senses. all conclusions that we come to must somehow be informed by these senses, perhaps even based on them. we know that quantum physics describes some cases where measurement of one thing leads to destruction of another piece of info. since quantum physics is itself a legion of theories based on conclusions, then quantum mechanics must somehow be limited by the limits of our senses, namely, that each measures one specific quantum attribute.
so of course, if there was another momentum-position-type cleave in measurement abilities, then it only makes sense that there MUST be a cleave who’s other side we can’t even fathom.
