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boltzmann64 • today at 11:43 AM • 9 replies • view on HN

Saying I don't understand Quantum Mechanics is like saying, "I don't understand how attention/transformers explain the human brain."

It doesn't. It's model. All models are wrong (including quantum mechanics and attention) but some are useful. You understand the domain of the model, the problems it can solve, the math behind the models and use the model to make predictions. If you are competent at linear algebra and functional analysis, you can do quantum mechanics.

If you make the error of believing that quantum mechanics is ontological god's honest truth of nature, you will end up with blunders like using it to explain consciousness like Prof Penrose. His math was impeccable, but he was making a category error.


Replies

dahart • today at 2:10 PM

One problem with your analogy is that transformers do not even attempt to model the human brain, while Quantum Mechanics does attempt to model real physics.

> All models are wrong

That famous quote could use attribution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong

> If you make the error of believing that quantum mechanics is ontological god’s honest truth of nature

This is why science & experiment exists. The author holds no such belief, and the paper makes that very clear. That is what he actually meant by “I Don’t Understand Quantum Physics”. Jump to the very last section, “Is Quantum Theory Correct and Complete?” He’s pointing out the confusing and contradictory nature of the model so far, and saying that Quantum is incomplete and needs work. He is not making any category error.

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kitd • today at 12:42 PM

Don't take the title too literally. It's an article aimed at lay people, using a typical lay person's expression as the title.

fsh • today at 12:35 PM

I disagree. The human brain is difficult to understand due to the extreme complexity. Quantum mechanics is weird even for simple arrangements of a few building blocks such as the double-slit experiment or Bell tests.

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lefra • today at 11:55 AM

Quantum physics is a theory, as in "as far as we can tell, this is an exact mathematical description of the world".

Models are simplifications/approximations made on purpose, as in "I know this is wrong on some level, but it's close enough for my use case", or "this makes the maths solvable".

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alansaber • today at 12:54 PM

Yes, but even with a model, you should aim for some serious intuition as to how and why it works.

Penrose has fallen into the same logical fallacy that many older, retired theoretical physicists have (notable einstein?).

truculent • today at 11:47 AM

> It doesn't. It's model. All models are wrong (including quantum mechanics and attention) but some are useful.

Sure, but what if you don’t understand the model?

kenjackson • today at 1:06 PM

This makes no sense. Saying one doesn’t understand quantum mechanics means that they don’t quantum mechanics. It doesn’t mean anything about anything else. It seems like you posted with a lot of baggage that you wanted to hurl.

thatsabadlook • today at 12:44 PM

Somehow hacker news makes the top comment about some weird unrelated ai take. So unrelated. The take mostly doesn't make sense either.

DiogenesKynikos • today at 11:46 AM

There are only a few things that I think are exactly correct in physics, and quantum mechanics is one of them, alongside Relativity.

Quantum mechanics is a framework for how theories are built, not a specific theory, and it's really all or nothing. There's not much between the quantum and classical ways of viewing the world.

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