[2601] "No! Don't ask me about that!"

[imaginaryfriend]

So the Omega Device tries to predict the future through materialistic determinism?

[madjack]

Called it. Cookies to everyone who said 'prediction engine'.

Father said she is leaving tomorrow.

Tom set this up from the start.

[justcurious]

But Quantum Mechanics says that such prediction is impossible because you cannot know exactly both an object's position and velocity and the more precisely you know one the less precisely you know the other. And Quantum mechanics is one of the basic foundations of modern physics.
I'll be interested to see just what the Court is doing because it is very strange.

[justcurious]

It's a very Eighteenth or Nineteenth Century thing that the Court seems to be trying to do, not Twentieth or Twenty-First Century.

[arf]

... in other news, the James Webb Space Telescope continues with its commissioning.

[basser]

Oh no. It's stat mech. God help us.

Omega is the set of all microstates available to a system.

Statistical mechanics is the study of using math to predict the future. Since reality is fundamentally probabilistic due to quantum shenanigans, the math you need to use is statistical analysis, where you calculate the most probable state for any given system over a set time frame. We actually do have good enough foundational models to allow for the prediction of future events to an alarming degree of accuracy, but we're limited by not having even a fraction of the computational power necessary to handle the complexity of most macro-level systems.

Presumably Tony and friends made a magic computer capable of doing predictive calculus using gigantic macro system datasets.

I assume the slug boinking was to check model accuracy. Magic computer predicted two slugs would get busy in the jungle somewhere at x time so they sent a couple teenagers to see if it actually happened.

If Tony's spreadsheets are literally just him doing a bunch of aggressive math I'ma die laughing.

[basser]

Mar 23, 2022 7:16:05 GMT justcurious said:

But Quantum Mechanics says that such prediction is impossible because you cannot know exactly both an object's position and velocity and the more precisely you know one the less precisely you know the other. And Quantum mechanics is one of the basic foundations of modern physics.
I'll be interested to see just what the Court is doing because it is very strange.

I have a degree in atomic physics - this principle has nothing to do with large objects you can touch, it's only applicable to subatomic particles (quantum systems). It also doesn't impact your ability to predict where a particle is going to be, because particles spend most of their time existing as a cloud of probability rather than as actual tangible things, and we define them by that probability function. When you scale up to begin applying predictive models to large objects you drown out any quantum statistical "nonzero chance" type events and wind up with a highly predictable system.

[justcurious]

Is the Court seeking to make probabilistic or deterministic predictions. Modern physics says that only the first is possible.
But perhaps a deterministic prediction is possible for God, and by God I do not mean someone like Coyote but the power behind the Universe itself
Could this be what the Court is trying to become or manipulate? And might this be what so repelled Ysengrin?

[imaginaryfriend]

Mar 23, 2022 7:24:17 GMT basser said:

I assume the slug boinking was to check model accuracy. Magic computer predicted two slugs would get busy in the jungle somewhere at x time so they sent a couple teenagers to see if it actually happened.

I'm thinking the Omega device predicted a significant but unspecified event in the jungle and the teenagers reported back all they saw was slugs boinking; the main question I have is if there was follow-up because that was probably an instance where Omega managed to get it right but [edit]may have been[/edit] was recorded as getting it wrong. That would suggest there can be enough functionality to their modeling to predict some behavior of etherically-talented people.  

[edit]Also this may be an instance of their method, whatever it is, being accounted for sufficiently or by nature not changing what its observing, but the results of the prediction being self-fulfilling... Which means Omega may predict outcomes for etheric things where their controllers have access to Omega predictions or are in a system with those who do. Sounds like they need to clean up their study. [/edit]

[madjack]

Mar 23, 2022 7:36:40 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

Mar 23, 2022 7:24:17 GMT basser said:

I assume the slug boinking was to check model accuracy. Magic computer predicted two slugs would get busy in the jungle somewhere at x time so they sent a couple teenagers to see if it actually happened.

I'm thinking the Omega device predicted a significant but unspecified event in the jungle and the teenagers reported back all they saw was slugs boinking; the main question I have is if there was follow-up because that was probably an instance where Omega managed to get it right but was recorded as getting it wrong. That would suggest there can be enough functionality to their modeling to predict some behavior of etherically-talented people.  

If the Court has been working on this from the beginning, I reckon this would be how they find people with etheric talents in the first place. Look for the unexplainable errors and the individuals surrounding them. How the hell they get their data is the question.

Edit 2: This would be why none of the etherics are going either, they cause errors.

Edit: I'd never heard of Laplace's Demon before, but others are pointing out this is exactly what Annie just described.

[basser]

Unless the slugs boinking wasn't the "event" and they were actually sending Tony and Surma to boink town cause they determined that was a necessary precondition to their desired macrostate of creating the Robot Goddess.

[imaginaryfriend]

Mar 23, 2022 7:41:37 GMT basser said:

Unless the slugs boinking wasn't the "event" and they were actually sending Tony and Surma to boink town cause they determined that was a necessary precondition to their desired macrostate of creating the Robot Goddess.

Interesting but Robot goddess uses the etheric tech, to the best of my reading that's antithetical to what the Court wants.

[justcurious]

Mar 23, 2022 7:33:37 GMT basser said:

Mar 23, 2022 7:16:05 GMT justcurious said:

But Quantum Mechanics says that such prediction is impossible because you cannot know exactly both an object's position and velocity and the more precisely you know one the less precisely you know the other. And Quantum mechanics is one of the basic foundations of modern physics.
I'll be interested to see just what the Court is doing because it is very strange.

I have a degree in atomic physics - this principle has nothing to do with large objects you can touch, it's only applicable to subatomic particles (quantum systems). It also doesn't impact your ability to predict where a particle is going to be, because particles spend most of their time existing as a cloud of probability rather than as actual tangible things, and we define them by that probability function. When you scale up to begin applying predictive models to large objects you drown out any quantum statistical "nonzero chance" type events and wind up with a highly predictable system.

On a macroscopic scale you can make predictions whose imprecision is negligible. But they still never are exact.
And then there are chaotic effects, which are still deterministic but where the detailed outcome is so influenced by the initial conditions that detailed prediction is impossible after a while because you cannot know the initial conditions precisely enough.
Oh, and to give you an idea of how I am looking at things my degrees are in Statistics and Biology.

[bicarbonat]

Lou-rek's going to BS his way through this conversation like an onboarding/first-week-of-classes module.

Identify familiar concepts, say something germane, and look out for your exit ramp!

[noone3]

Sooo...
She had to bring atoms to his attention. Hopefully he will not try splitting them.

[Per]

Forget quantum physics, basic logic says you can't make a perfect prediction machine.

[V]

Mar 23, 2022 7:33:37 GMT basser said:

Mar 23, 2022 7:16:05 GMT justcurious said:

But Quantum Mechanics says that such prediction is impossible because you cannot know exactly both an object's position and velocity and the more precisely you know one the less precisely you know the other. And Quantum mechanics is one of the basic foundations of modern physics.
I'll be interested to see just what the Court is doing because it is very strange.

I have a degree in atomic physics - this principle has nothing to do with large objects you can touch, it's only applicable to subatomic particles (quantum systems). It also doesn't impact your ability to predict where a particle is going to be, because particles spend most of their time existing as a cloud of probability rather than as actual tangible things, and we define them by that probability function. When you scale up to begin applying predictive models to large objects you drown out any quantum statistical "nonzero chance" type events and wind up with a highly predictable system.

Yes, but this is explicitly about atoms, not "large objects you can touch".

Nevertheless, wavefunction collapse and all that is only one mathematical interpretation of QM, and getting rather outdated these days at that. Along the lines of "Wigner's Friend", you can basically put your observers into the description of the system, and extend state ("wavefunction") formalism to them. If you go on to encompass the entire Universe, no observer remains and all the apparent randomness is modelled within, and completely predictable. That may be what Carver meant by "every atom in the universe, not just its location" etc., but of course simplifying things to layman terms for his daughter.

[pyradonis]

Mar 23, 2022 7:16:05 GMT justcurious said:

But Quantum Mechanics says that such prediction is impossible because you cannot know exactly both an object's position and velocity and the more precisely you know one the less precisely you know the other. And Quantum mechanics is one of the basic foundations of modern physics.
I'll be interested to see just what the Court is doing because it is very strange.

Mar 23, 2022 8:43:45 GMT Per said:

Forget quantum physics, basic logic says you can't make a perfect prediction machine.

As far as we know, basic logic also says time travel is impossible, yet here we are.

[guntherkrieg]

Mar 23, 2022 8:43:45 GMT Per said:

Forget quantum physics, basic logic says you can't make a perfect prediction machine.

It predicted you would say that.

[saardvark]

Mar 23, 2022 7:46:26 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

Mar 23, 2022 7:41:37 GMT basser said:

Unless the slugs boinking wasn't the "event" and they were actually sending Tony and Surma to boink town cause they determined that was a necessary precondition to their desired macrostate of creating the Robot Goddess.

Interesting but Robot goddess uses the etheric tech, to the best of my reading that's antithetical to what the Court wants.

...and yet the Court apparently needs a large supply of etheric-energy to accomplish its current plans of... moving?  setting up the new Court?  finishing Omega?  
The Court seems to have a love-hate-need-reject relationship with the Ether... it needs lots of etheric energy to... get away from the Ether?  Contradictions abound....

[blahzor]

The court recently binged "D**s"

[ohthatone]

Mar 23, 2022 8:25:03 GMT bicarbonat said:

Lou-rek's going to BS his way through this conversation like an onboarding/first-week-of-classes module.

Identify familiar concepts, say something germane, and look out for your exit ramp!

ah, finally something I understand on this thread!

[blahzor]

Mar 23, 2022 7:07:31 GMT madjack said:

Called it. Cookies to everyone who said 'prediction engine'.

Father said she is leaving tomorrow.

Tom set this up from the start.

Once again the ether being something else of your perception increases / changes when it switches it going to fire once she's aware of the truth of the matter

[speedwell]

This is the key to how Smitty's powers work, of course. Remember this conversation?

gunnerkrigg.proboards.com/post/159837

[TBeholder]

Mar 23, 2022 7:16:05 GMT justcurious said:

But Quantum Mechanics says that such prediction is impossible because you cannot know exactly both an object's position and velocity and the more precisely you know one the less precisely you know the other. And Quantum mechanics is one of the basic foundations of modern physics.
I'll be interested to see just what the Court is doing because it is very strange.

Obviously, where we are going we won’t need spectrometers! Mwahahaha! some parts of what they deal with are beyond the scope of this model.
Where this ends may depend on where exactly they plan to stick rusty crowbars into it, and which way to push. And what is affected when it pushes back.
Most answers are likely to fall under “existential horror”, of course.
The most obvious being, «I know where you are and how fast you’re moving. Because you’re not an electron». What matters is wavelength. If the idea is merely to make classical mechanics applicable to atoms, what you need to push is Planck constant. The system may or may not just respond by shrinking instead of changing its behaviour (hmm). But it’s unlikely to be something this “simple”.

[Per]

Mar 23, 2022 11:25:10 GMT blahzor said:

The court recently binged "****"

Well, yes, that is a spoiler for that show.

[Isildur]

Mar 23, 2022 7:33:37 GMT basser said:

Mar 23, 2022 7:16:05 GMT justcurious said:

But Quantum Mechanics says that such prediction is impossible because you cannot know exactly both an object's position and velocity and the more precisely you know one the less precisely you know the other. And Quantum mechanics is one of the basic foundations of modern physics.
I'll be interested to see just what the Court is doing because it is very strange.

I have a degree in atomic physics - this principle has nothing to do with large objects you can touch, it's only applicable to subatomic particles (quantum systems). It also doesn't impact your ability to predict where a particle is going to be, because particles spend most of their time existing as a cloud of probability rather than as actual tangible things, and we define them by that probability function. When you scale up to begin applying predictive models to large objects you drown out any quantum statistical "nonzero chance" type events and wind up with a highly predictable system.

With respect... this is not true. There are plenty of examples of quantum effects not getting drowned out and in fact getting amplified.

Every time we look at the spirals on a particle accelerator collision debris photo plate, we're being affected at a human scale by the outcomes of individual subatomic die rolls.

For those wishing for an example of what I'm describing, see the image here. (Is your own eye drawn to a particular track? Boom, another amplification of a subatomic chance, that happened decades ago.) More context here.

As another example, rod photoreceptor (night vision) activation can depend on a single photon — a photon subject to chance whims of atmospheric atoms that may or may not scatter a barely visible star away from view for that moment.

rupress.org/jgp/article/150/3/383/43686/The-discovery-of-the-ability-of-rod-photoreceptors
journals.aps.org/rmp/abstract/10.1103/RevModPhys.70.1027

As for particles spending most of their time in a cloud of possibilities, this is true in some sense, but at human perception time scales like even a millisecond, particles' states undergo an enormous number of wave function collapses whose effects ripple outward. It's hard to not be an observer in the quantum sense (i.e. affected) — that's why maintaining quantum entanglement for any significant amount of time requires careful isolation.

[sleepcircle]

the heart of omega: one small piece of fairycake

[Gemini Jim]

All of this can be handwaved by the Court saying:

"Yes, yes, of course we're aware of the impossibility. That's why the Omega Device comes equipped with (technobabble) and Heisenberg compensators. Duh."

[ctso74]

Ignoring quantum indeterminacy for the moment, Background Loup is all "F'ing magents, how do they work?". Now, I can't stop thinking of Loup as a Juggalo. The face paint would fit him.