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Quantum Mechanics
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Virtual Reality: the relationship of observed phenomena to the mathematical formalism: as though physical manifestations themselves were being produced by a mathematical formula.
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from the website http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/argument/Argument4.pdf
The Relationship of Observed Phenomena to the Mathematical Formalism: as though physical manifestations themselves were being produced by a mathematical formula.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of quantum theory is the relationship of all things to the math, as with the phenomenon of non-locality discussed above, which occurs in nature, so it seems, because that is the way the equations calculate.
Even though the mathematical formulas were initially developed to describe the behavior of universe, these formulas turn out to govern the behavior of the universe with an exactitude that defies our concept of mathematics.
As Nick Herbert puts it, "Whatever the math does on paper, the quantum-stuff does in the outside world." That is, if the math can be manipulated to produce some absurd result, it will always turn out that the matter and energy around us actually behave in exactly that absurd manner when we look closely enough. It is as though our universe is being produced by the mathematical formulas.
The backwards logic implied by quantum mechanics, where the mathematical formalism seems to be more "real" than the things and objects of nature, is unavoidable. In any conceptual conflict between what a mathematical equation can obtain for a result, and what a real object actually could do, the quantum mechanical experimental results always will conform to the mathematical prediction.
Quantum theory is rooted in statistics, and such reality conflicts often arise in statistics. For example, the math might show that a "statistically average" American family has 2.13 children, even though we know that a family of real human beings must have a whole number of children. In our experience, we would never find such a statistically average family regardless of the math, because there simply is no such thing as 13/100ths of a child. The math is entirely valid, but it must yield to the census-taker's whole-child count when we get down to examining individual families.
In quantum mechanics, however, the math will prevail -- as though the statistics were drawn up in advance and all American families were created equally with exactly 2.13 children, never mind that we cannot begin to conceive of such a family. To the mathematician, these two situations are equivalent, because either way the average American family ends up with 2.13 children.
But the quantum mechanical relationship of the math to the observation does not make any sense to us because in our world view, numbers are just symbols representing something with independent existence.
Mr. Herbert states that, "Quantum theory is a method of representing quantum-stuff mathematically: a model of the world executed in symbols." Since quantum theory describes the world perfectly – so perfectly that its symbolic, mathematical predictions always prevail over physical insight -- the equivalence between quantum symbolism and universal reality must be more than an oddity: it must be the very nature of reality.
This is the point at which we lose our nerve; yet the task for the Western rationalist is to find a mechanical model from our experience corresponding to a "world executed in symbols."
The final computer analogy.
An example which literally fits this description is the computer simulation, which is a graphic representation created by executing programming code. The programming code itself consists of nothing but symbols, such as 0 and 1.
Numbers, text, graphics, and anything else you please, are coded by unique series of numbers. These symbolic codes have no meaning in themselves, but arbitrarily are assigned values which have significance according to the operations of the computer.
The symbols are manipulated according to the various step-by-step sequences (algorithms) by which the programming instructs the computer how to create the graphic representation. The picture presented on-screen to the user is a world executed in colored dots; the computer’s programming is a world (the same world) executed in symbols. Anyone who has experienced a computer crash knows that the programming (good or bad) governs the picture, and not vice versa.
All of this forms a remarkably tight analogy to the relationship between the quantum math on paper, and the behavior of the "quantum-stuff" in the outside world.
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