[HN Gopher] The World is Built on Probability (1984)
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The World is Built on Probability (1984)
Author : the-mitr
Score : 217 points
Date : 2023-05-14 12:07 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (archive.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (archive.org)
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| My Hypothesis: All matter exists in a sphere of probability. Our
| brains are masters of computing probabilities to tell us the most
| likely location for any object. It is not that we collapse the
| wave form, but that our brain ignores the wave form for our
| convenience.
|
| Light is always a wave, never a particle. And a wave is just a
| probability.
| Eupraxias wrote:
| We need to connect - we are of the same mind. How do we do
| that? I have composed a 'book' on the topic and would love your
| thoughts.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| awesome!
|
| followingdao@protonmail.com
| pharmakom wrote:
| Our brains would then exist in a state of probability too.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Yes, they do. But our minds do not. The brain creates the
| mind, the ego, and this is another collapse of a wave form.
| pharmakom wrote:
| so the brain creates the mind but it does not fully
| determine the mind?
|
| why does the mind only experience one of the brains
| collapsed states?
| imdoor wrote:
| Do you account for the fact that probability distributions can
| have multiple peaks with equal probability? If multiple brains
| were involved, they'd somehow have to coordinate on what they
| deem the most likely outcome.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Our brains all use the program, but we can see when some of
| these programs have a glitch. Take some LSD and you will see
| what I mean.
|
| > probability distributions can have multiple peaks with
| equal probability?
|
| I think I know where you are going, but can you be more clear
| so I do not confuse things with my assumptions?
| imdoor wrote:
| Say there is a quantum system - a particle or something -
| that has an equal probability to collapse in either of two
| classical states if measured. Say there are two scientists
| in a laboratory who perform a measurement on that system.
| If your hypothesis is true, how do they agree on what they
| perceive when looking at the result of the measurement?
| Each brain would have to make an arbitrary decision on
| which of the two equally likely outcomes to perceive.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| How do all calculators know that 2+2=4?
|
| But our mental system is not as perfect. Because a person
| with schizophrenia or someone on LSD they surely not see
| the same things we do.
| mistermann wrote:
| Well, consider some of the political disagreements we've
| had in the last decade or so, we have ample evidence that
| two different people can look at the exact same thing and
| arrive at opposite conclusions.
| andrewgleave wrote:
| David Deutsch's "Physics Without Probability" covers the history
| of probability, it's legitimate and misconceived uses and
| concludes that according to MWI there is no such thing in reality
| - it's basically that probabilities correspond to how measures of
| the multiverse proportion themselves as differentiation occurs.
|
| I watched it a few years ago so may be misremembering bits but I
| think that is the gist...
|
| Worth a watch especially if you balk at this idea just to to see
| a strong counter argument.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wfzSE4Hoxbc&t=0s
|
| Edit: link
| hgsgm wrote:
| There is no contradiction. In Many Worlds Interprepation, Each
| World (and mostly importantly, with relative weight = 1, the
| World I am in right now) is built on probabilities.
| nico wrote:
| Cool to see a conversation-style section
|
| 1980s AI-chat emulation technology: just print the chat history
| on a book
|
| But seriously, conversation style feels a lot more natural
| sometimes than just reading a wall of text and trying to decipher
| its meaning
| ouija wrote:
| Seems like a lot of effort went into typesetting this, wow!
|
| I can recommend "Calculus: Basic Concepts for High Schools" by
| the same author (L.V. Tarasov) to anybody unfamiliar with
| calculus:
| https://archive.org/details/TarasovCalculus/page/n1/mode/2up.
| It's written as a dialogue between author and reader.
| tharkun__ wrote:
| This seems to have the hallmarks of LaTeX, meaning: not as much
| time sunk into "typesetting" as you might think ;)
| hgsgm wrote:
| It's not polite to accuse people of not reading the article,
| but
|
| > This completely digital version typeset in using TEX with
| EB Garamond font by DAMITR MAZANAV damitr@proton.me
|
| > Released on the web by http://mirtitles.org in 2023.
|
| > Access the BTEX project files
| http://gitlab.com/mirtitles/twibop
| gjvc wrote:
| Needs LuaTeX to create. I look forward to learning some TeX
| typesetting tricks from this.
| a_w wrote:
| https://mirtitles.org/2018/09/04/calculus-basic-concepts-for...
|
| https://archive.org/details/LevTarasovCalculusBasicConceptsF...
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Learning calculus in high school made me question everything.
| You can never measure anything, never mind the area of a circe
| using calculus. It will only ever be a "good enough"
| measurement.
|
| There is a point where all of you will finally come to
| appreciate the limits of rationalism and materialism and let go
| a bit more.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| It is not really about measuring things, but about reaching a
| definitive answer given some assumptions. Sometimes our
| notation of numbers get in the way of writing things shortly
| (instead of infinite decimal places), other times we can use
| a fraction and be exact on the paper we write on.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| If you can infinitely divide a ruler, you can measure
| nothing.
|
| we only stop because it's convenient to stop. But that
| doesn't make the size of anything have any specific size
| other than where we stop measuring it.
| hgsgm wrote:
| You seem to have misunderstood the essence of calculus.
| Calculus provides efficient, high quality estimates for messy
| real world phenomena.
|
| Calculus put a man on the moon and a camera next to Pluto.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| > Calculus provides efficient, high quality estimates for
| messy real world phenomena.
|
| Can it love?
|
| > Calculus put a man on the moon and a camera next to
| Pluto.
|
| I am not saying the illusion is not useful, but all the
| things that come out of it are also inside the illusion.
|
| What if Pluto is not as far away as we actually _think_ it
| is?
| bmacho wrote:
| > What if Pluto is not as far away as we actually think
| it is?
|
| What if, what if.. um.. nothing, really? Our ships
| continue to work for a while, (may be t=0), then they
| won't, and we correct the models or the math.
| hgsgm wrote:
| You have moved deeply out of the realm of the scientific,
| into pure imagination. What if squiglal butterplotz
| mishric?
| vronkskoodo wrote:
| [flagged]
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| It's an imagination where new discoveries are found.
|
| The idea of distance being a human construct is not a new
| idea and may be the underpinnings of spooky action at a
| distance.
| peteradio wrote:
| Generally we think things are far away when it takes a
| longer time to get to them. We have some reasonable
| assurance that the speed of light is immutable and so we
| can measure the distance in our frame of reference by
| bouncing light off of Pluto. Are you nerd sniping sir?
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| I am making the distinction of what we perceive to be
| reality to actual reality.
|
| Distance is a human concept. The moment we stop thinking
| distance does not exist. It may be a limitation that we
| perceive distance as something to be overcome through
| rocket ships and not through other methods.
|
| Time is also in the same category. If you want to read a
| good book on the topic read "the end of Time quote by
| Jason Barbour.
| papandada wrote:
| I have thought it was interesting that, Christians
| believe, God became human and of all the things in the
| universe he could choose to teach about, apparently more
| than anything it is all about love (of a particular kind,
| actually).
| NateEag wrote:
| I think OP understands that calculus is an enormously
| powerful tool.
|
| I think the OP's point is that much like the Newtonian
| physics that paired with calculus to put a man on the moon,
| calculus is a pragmatically magnificent tool that doesn't
| yield exactly correct or perfectly accurate answers for
| many questions. Just "enough accuracy for the problem
| you're solving," in some very real senses.
| peteradio wrote:
| Huh, what are we talking about here? Calculus does give
| exact results. What questions are we talking about?
| Fundamentally statistical questions are going to have
| inherent uncertainties, its got nothing to do with
| Calculus.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Calculus make use of the fundamental notions of
| convergence of infinite sequences and infinite series to
| a well-defined limit.
|
| What you are calling an exact result is only a limit
| function. All "things" will measure infinitely.
| peteradio wrote:
| Still not understanding what your issue is with calculus.
| I think so far you only have a problem with its outcomes
| when you feed it garbage. We expect to see "Calculus"
| diverge when integrating near the lattice spacing. I
| don't think we wholly disagree but I am doubtful you are
| going to make headway fighting against calculus.
| the-mitr wrote:
| Thanks for linking Calculus book.
|
| His book on school physics also use the dialogue approach:
|
| Questions and Answers in School Physics (Dialogues between
| students and teacher)
|
| https://archive.org/details/questions-and-answers-in-school-...
|
| While other two books use dialogues intermittently as in the
| probability book
|
| Basics Concepts of Quantum Mechanics
|
| https://archive.org/details/tarasov-basic-concepts-of-quantu...
|
| This Amazingly Symmetrical World
|
| https://archive.org/details/TarasovThisAmazinglySymmetricalW...
|
| (I am the curator/maintainer of the mirtitles.org blog and the
| typesetter of the books)
| KRAKRISMOTT wrote:
| No mention of Metropolis-Hastings :(
|
| It's the biggest, baddest, hammer in probabilistic machine
| learning.
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| I've been meaning to read up on Frank Ramsey, an early 20th
| century philosopher, mathematician, and economist, who first
| postulated that people's actions are determined by the balance
| between their expectations and their desires. A world built on
| probability would be up his alley, I imagine.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Ramsey is one of those great what-ifs in my mind - just seeing
| his intellectual output and knowing he died at 26...what would
| he have given us if he lived a normal life span?
| ark4579 wrote:
| hmm probably
| throwme_123 wrote:
| HMMs are probabilistic models, yes.
| contravariant wrote:
| Probability theory works, with 100% chance even. Which
| annoyingly isn't the same as _always_.
| bmacho wrote:
| What is funny thought, that 0% chance events don't _can 't
| happen_, but _must happen_. Like when you pick a point on a
| line, or roll a dice infinitely many times.
| quantum_state wrote:
| The concept of probability is based on the concept of measure
| in math => limitation in its description of things, e.g., the
| probability for a real number in [0, 1) being an irrational
| number is 1.
| eli_gottlieb wrote:
| Hold on, what measure over the unit interval assigns
| probability 1 to the set of irrational numbers in the unit
| interval? Do irrational numbers on their own even form a
| proper measurable set?
| omnicognate wrote:
| Lebesgue measure [0]. I never did write part 2 and many
| years have gone by with that blog languishing
| unmaintained on free wordpress but I wrote a thing that
| goes through the issues around this [1].
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebesgue_measure
|
| [1] https://omnicognate.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/sigma-
| algebras-...
| contravariant wrote:
| The irrationals are measurable for any measure that can
| measure points, which is most of them.
| hgsgm wrote:
| Of course. [0,1] has measure 1. Rationals have measure 0.
| Irrationals have measure 1-0=1
|
| This question is _why_ measure theory exists.
| foogazi wrote:
| From the preface: Is the result of a dice roll truly random or
| dependent on physics: angle, velocity, surface ?
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| Randomness is not absolute, but relative. For the one having
| the computer powerful enough to compute how the dice will roll
| and bounce, it is not random. For others, it is. That's why
| people with computers are not allowed into casinos.
|
| In the world of online gambling, someone who knows the seed of
| the RNG, game outcome is not random. For others, it is. Here
| people with computers ARE allowed, because it's much harder to
| break a cryptographic RNG than to calculate physical roulette
| biases.
| layer8 wrote:
| I suggest acquainting yourself with quantum mechanics.
| NeutralForest wrote:
| The book looks absolutely beautiful
| goatlover wrote:
| The wavefunction is deterministic. If you take the MWI as the
| most straight forward interpretation of the math, then the
| universe if fundamentally deterministic. Probability on a physics
| level would represent our ignorance of the other branches.
| williamcotton wrote:
| Simplicity of mathematical models at the expense of
| falsification... who needs science, anyways?
| layer8 wrote:
| Or it would characterize the futures of the current branch.
| golol wrote:
| I don't think you can reason like this. As far as I
| understodod, standard quantum mechanics does not make any
| statement about how the measuring process and the collapse of
| the wavefunvtion happens. So while the waveform evolves
| deterministically, you can only ever apply this model when you
| are in the position of performing measurements on some quantum
| mechanical system. As I understand, Quantum mechanics is not
| meant to also model you together with the experiment as a
| wavefunction, because the act of you performing a measurement
| does not have a definition in the form of the wavefunction
| interacting with itself somehow. So without extensions to QM,
| you should not reason with universal deterministic waveforms.
| canjobear wrote:
| > the act of you performing a measurement does not have a
| definition in the form of the wavefunction interacting with
| itself somehow
|
| Performing a measurement just means you become entangled with
| the thing you're measuring.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_decoherence
| jounker wrote:
| What i remember from my PDE class was a lecture which involved
| solving the wave equation for a particular bounded case and,
| with a slight transformation, the professor showing that the
| normal distribution was embedded in that solution.
| kubanczyk wrote:
| > then the universe if fundamentally deterministic
|
| s/universe/multiverse/
|
| And a universe is fundamentally probabilistic.
| [deleted]
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| I read the preface and there are things I agree with and things I
| find problematic depending on how the author goes about
| explaining them. The major one of these last is the seeming
| identity of probability with randomness.
|
| Statistics and probability are tools humans use to predict
| _outcomes_ of the world, they are not necessarily accurate
| reflections of the _mechanisms_ of the world. Maybe I 'm
| strawmanning the author here, I don't know. I may read the full
| book at some point but probably not yet.
|
| There may very well be a limit where events are random (such as
| particle decay), but surely even fully determined events can have
| probabilistic outcomes, when aggregated. Like say you have 4
| beads, 3 black and 1 white. And you non-blindly align all
| combinations of three beads. You'll have four combinations, three
| of which contain a white bead. So the probabilistic odds of any
| one combination of three beads containing a white bead is 75%. If
| a person picks three beads based on preference, another person
| can say that there's a 75% chance that those three beads will
| contain a white bead, iterated over enough picks. But the actual
| picking for all picks is fully determined by the current
| preference of the person picking the three beads.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| The book discusses the two sources of randomness early on:
| unknown information and true randomness. It even identifies
| Democritus and Epicurus as the philosophers who first
| identified these sources of randomness.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Thank you. I look forward to reading it now.
| cuttothechase wrote:
| MIR publishers (Moscow) published so many high quality books.
| They even had the same elegant style, quality and accessibility
| even in their translated works.
|
| The quality of paper used, the typesetting, the cloth binding and
| in general the physical attributes of their books were a work of
| art in itself. One can easily fall in love with the physical book
| just for the way it was designed, let alone the content.
|
| The authors used in their translated works were equally
| exceptional in their translation.
|
| I fondly remember reading their "Physics for entertainment" by
| Perelman as a translated work in good old days and it actually
| made me fall in love with the text book physics taught at the
| school level.
|
| Given that this was an artifact when USSR made it even more
| fascinating. Books were priced a trifle over the shipping cost as
| they were likely subsidized heavily by the government.
|
| It is sad to see that they are no more. They were likely
| defunded/dissolved when USSR broke up.
|
| Thank you MIR for lighting up my childhood.
|
| RIP.
|
| - https://mirtitles.org/
|
| - https://mirtitles.org/2012/04/30/misha/
| cyberax wrote:
| I wish someone would translate Fichtenholz's series on calculus
| ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigorii_Fichtenholz ). They
| are the best calculus textbook I've ever read, and they really
| helped me to master calculus.
| nextos wrote:
| Dover still publishes lots of translated MIR books.
|
| Not the same printing quality, but still decent.
| the-mitr wrote:
| I am the curator/maintainer of the mirtitles.org blog and the
| typesetter of the books.
|
| Thanks for the comment and putting in the perspective. The
| project started with the idea of preserving this knowledge
| about 15 years back. I grew up reading those books, but they
| were nowhere to be found for others to read by the end of 90s.
| The collection has been a collaborative effort with people from
| across the globe contributing to it. Though it will take some
| time (read years/decades), hopefully one day the collection
| will have all the books published during the Soviet era.
| layer8 wrote:
| I find the blog format a bit confusing. Is there a complete
| listing of the books somewhere?
| eternalban wrote:
| Just read _The tale about the snowflake that did not melt_.
| Lovely little story. Thank you for sharing all this bounty!
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Since the linked book is at archive.org: I noticed that it is
| part of the _Mir Titles_ collection there:
|
| https://archive.org/details/mir-titles
|
| IA's browser e-reader is pretty nice to use overall, and the
| Mir titles seem to have been converted into various
| downloadable formats as well, in addition to what I'm guessing
| is the native PDF.
|
| Props to the collection maintainer. This brings back some
| really good memories.
|
| Note--It seems like some additional Mir books, in various
| states of curation, may be accessible via IA through search:
|
| https://archive.org/search?query=Yakov+Perelman
| rajekas wrote:
| Not about this book in particular, but I wanted to thank you for
| creating this amazing resource. As someone who obsessively bought
| every MIR title he could while growing up in Delhi, do take a
| bow.
| Pbhaskal wrote:
| Cache works on probability. Superscalar processor works on
| probability. L1, L2 ....cache works on probability
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(page generated 2023-05-14 23:00 UTC)