Subatomic Darwinism

blamanj writes "In the beginning was Darwinism, then there arose Social Darwinism, now physicists are proposing Quantum Darwinism. According to the Nature article: "If, as quantum mechanics says, observing the world tends to change it, how is it that we can agree on anything at all? Why doesn't each person leave a slightly different version of the world for the next person to find? Because, say the researchers, certain special states of a system are promoted above others by a quantum form of natural selection, which they call quantum darwinism. Information about these states proliferates and gets imprinted on the environment. So observers coming along and looking at the environment in order to get a picture of the world tend to see the same 'preferred' states."."

Comments

Don't forget ...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

... religious Darwinism. IOW, beliefs evolve as previous beliefs are shown to be "unfit," i.e. disproven by observation.

"The Earth is flat, because this passage from the Bible talks about God stopping the Sun directly overhead!"

"Um, no, actually, it's a sphere, and here's the proof."

"Okay, okay! But the celestial bodies are little lights in the sky, and perfect and unblemished, and the go around the Earth!"

"Um, no, actually, they've got all kinds of flaws and blemishes, and they all go around the Sun, and here's the proof."

"Oh, damn! But the Earth was created a few thousand years ago, as we can determine from Biblical genealogies!"

"Um, no, actually, it's been around for a lot longer than that, and here's the proof."

"Aaargh! But humans were specially created by God in His image, and are absolutely unique!"

"Um, no, actually, we look an awful lot like other apes, and that's really not a coincidence, and here's the proof."

"*whimper* All right, so the Earth is round, and it and all the other lumpy rocks revolve around the Sun, and it's all really old, and humans are a lot like apes ... but, um, see, there's all this little stuff you scientists haven't quite figured out yet about the specifics, and sometimes you argue about it, and THAT'S ABSOLUTE PROOF OF THAT GOD EXISTS AND HE WANTS YOU TO DO EXACTLY AS _____ (insert your preferred version of a frequently mistranslated, politically loaded anthology of folktales here) SAYS!"

Abuse of the term "Darwinism"

[ites]

What's next... "market darwinism" when the products people buy survive?

No. "Darwinism" is about replicators, i.e. organisms that reproduce and that compete for resources.

When used for "Social Darwinism", the word implies that societies reproduce and compete for resources. In many ways this is accurate. You could use "darwinism" to describe many kinds of replicating, competing natural systems.

But quantums...? WTF?

Until we have evidence that quantums are actually lifeforms, the word "Darwinism" is simply not valid.

Anyhow, and on a different note, quantum mechanics is easy. Here's Ites' Dummies Guide to Quantum Physics: matter and energy are made of wavelets, a string of energy. Wavelets look like particles when they're compressed by time or distance. Measuring a wavelet changes it. Wavelets do not breed and they do not compete for resources.

The table is not solid because it's an agreed reality. The table is solid because your hand cannot pass through it. /me needs more eggnog

Quantum what?

[JossiRossi]

I'm not a physicist so you can shut me up at any time. But I thought the "observation changes the object" was only true because to observe you you have to toss energy at it and see what happens. Then the act of tossing the energy changed it. How does this mean that "looking at Buckinham Palace" would do anything ever? You just look at it. Being aware of an electron does not make it change. What you do to the electron to know it's there is what changes it. I suppose I don't really know, so I won't claim to.

Oh by the way if we all percieve that the reality of quantum physicists is to disappear, I think they would disappear... or at least make themselves disappear to prove their own points.

Re:Quantum what?

[doug_wyatt]

There are really two kinds of "measuring affects things" at play. The first is more understandable by the lay person - when you look at buckingham palace, you're not changing it, but you're changing the photons that had reflected off it. Had you not looked, your eyes would not have been in the way and absorbed them, so they'd have continued on. In a more general sense, to detect anything, be it the velocity of a particle, the location of a particle, the energy level of a particle, etc., you need to do something to it that affects something about the particle.

The other kind "measuring affects things" is a little harder to grasp, and is exemplified by the schroedinger's cat example. There are situations where a particle/system/etc. can probabalistically be in one of several states. But until someone or something measures it to determine which state it is in, "the universe hasn't decided yet". So it's kind of like telling someone "I'm thinking of either a car or a dog" and not really deciding which one you're thinking of until someone asks you to tell them which it is. It's not the case that someone really has to look at it for it to "determine" itself - something about the universe could depend on the state, which is as good as an observer looking at it.

Don't observe this post

[pegr]

It wasn't a troll until you looked at it. Nice going...

Stephen Hawking

[bill_mcgonigle]

Reminds me of this passage from A Brief History of Time
by Stephen Hawking:

"He [the pope] told us that it was all right to study the evolution
of the universe after the big bang, but we should not inquire
into the big bang itself because that was the moment of Creation
and therefore the work of God. I was glad then
that he did not know the subject of the talk
I had just given at the conference - the possibility
that space-time was finite but had no boundary, which means that it
had no beginning, no moment of Creation.

He goes on to talk about how time curves back on itself as it approaches zero (stuff I'll never understand). So, basically the Catholic Church has conceded the time since the Big Bang to Science, excepting the occasional divine meddling. Of course, such meddling would imply the Great One couldn't design a universe that ran according to The Plan without intervention - such impudence.

Re:Quantum Physics is Like 15th Century Astronomy

[rokzy]

>Modern physicists, believing that wavelets acted a particular way under certain observation arrangements, developed much arcane math and explanation as to why they couldn't completely account for the observed data.

Quantum Mechanics is THE most sucessful and accurate theory ever. whereas the astronomers could not account for the data, QM accounts for the data to ridiculous accuracy and the only problem is accepting the interpretation. and that's a problem with humans, not QM.

Here is the Problem

[freepath]

This sounds very interesting, but is it just simply a strange twist on words? Mathematics can work out to many wonderful things, but the challenge is how and why the mathematics is applied. Methinks (and remembers as a physics undergrad) that conceptual theories such as quantum and relativity are very different from everyday life because they are special cases. Whereas in biology we learned that Darwin's theory of evolution was a general case.

Let me explain: Quantum mechanics takes place in the realm of the extremely super small. Einstein's relativity takes place in the realm of extremely large values of velocity. There is a disconnect there in reconciling these two theories, thus the epic hunt for TOE, The Theory of Everything. The Holy Grail of physics is to find this super theory that unites relativity, quantum mechanics, electricity and magnetism, gravity, mechanics. Although relativity is used in quantum for calculations, there are some contradictions in reconciling the two theories, thus Einstein's famous quote (during his hunt to reconcile relativity with quantum), "God does not play dice with the universe!"

It is my understanding that Darwinism, whether social, economic or of natural selection, takes place in all biological situations. Look around, and everyone will see that quantum mechanics is not something that happens around us! Do you see quantum wells on your computer screen? As you observe the movement of the train, does the Heisenberg uncertainty principle come into play? No! This uncertainty principle does not conflict with everyday life chiefly because it only applies to the special case of extremely small and extremely fast particles.

So this comparison, extension and exercise of extending quantum mechanics to Darwinian proportions appears to me to be more than anything a philosophical exercise.

Re:what are they talking

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Quantum darwinism is false! The tree is that way because God made it that way, not because 4 billion years of quantum evolution positioned its particles that way!

We need to stop teaching quantum darwinism in our schools, and teach quantum creatinism! Darwin himself denounced quantum evolution on his deathbed, it's true!