Metaversal Mining

On July 20th 1969 Apollo 11 landed men on the moon using substantially less computing power than is available in today’s mobile telephone. Its not a direct comparison since the Apollo Guidance computer wasn’t capable of floating point operations and that’s kind of the point of this post.

In 1969 reaching the peak of technology, flying three men to the moon, was possible using Newtonian mechanics and the calculations necessary to do that were available using simple integer-only computers. Cause and effect were still the gold standard of science and the weird world of Quantum Mechanics had not penetrated the public psyche even though it had been out in the open for 40 years. We’re 40 years still further down the line and probability-based interpretations of reality still haven’t gained widespread acceptance only, where this wasn’t an issue for Buzz & his buddies, its starting to cause real problems for science and its wider understanding and acceptance.

This is the famous Solvay Conference where the early developers of Quantum Mechanics discussed their new ideas with Einstein and others. Einstein hated the idea that probability functions and not deterministic processes could be the prime movers in the universe. But by any reasonable measure of science he and his theory of General Relativity are wrong. Perhaps it would be more generous to say that it was incomplete, but when compared to QM it pales by comparison in predictive power and accuracy. Yet Einstein still holds the public heart with his shock of white hair and sticky-out tongue. E=mc2. There is a reason why it is so easy to remember. As a theory to completely describe the relationship between mass and energy, its wrong. This is the Standard Model Lagrangian Expansion that physicists currently believe is the best explanation of that relationship. Bit more complicated isn’t it Its also the reason for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) since the term dealing with gravitons has not been tested conclusively.

Now I know that, strictly speaking, Einsteinian physics and Newtonian physics are not the same thing but they do share a common philosophical thread; the idea that a single cause will have a single effect. In Newtonian mechanics this is exemplified by ‘every force has an equal and opposite reactive force’. In the Eisteinian universe gravitation is an expression of warps in Space-Time.
Quantum Mechanics has a fundamentally different philosophical standpoint and does not experience or express the universe as cause and effect. Instead probability describes the likelihood of something happening. If you don’t know about this stuff already I’d recommend The Elegant Universe as a starter. Its a bit effects-heavy, but has an open and accessible style.The recent BBC show The Secret Life of Chaos shows the parallel development of complexity and non-deterministic mathematics.

The reason why I say Newtonian mechanics is holding back public understanding of science is that it is so easily testable. Table-top experiments show cause and effect at work, and our real-world experience backs that up. Most belief systems go further still with cause and effect being the structural basis for many moral codes – ‘thieves will go to hell’ – that sort of thing. So our social norms AND out experience of the physical world are predicated on cause and effect. But cause and effect stopped being a good explanation of the observable universe almost 80 years ago and still the public psyche is firmly rooted to that way of seeing the universe.

What we need to start doing is educating kids on roulette, betting odds, and all other manner of statistical analysis because quite simply we are not telling them the truth when we teach them that 2+2=4. What they should know is that there is a high probability that 2+2=4 in most situations, but don’t blinker yourself to other possibilities available under the Bell Curve. Until certainty is left behind humanity is going to have a hell of a philosophical challenge on its hands in living with the duality of macro and micro descriptions of the universe.