A Promising New Formulation of Quantum Mechanics

I've been watching the series of interviews that Curt Jaimungal conducted of Jacob Barandes from Harvard. The first, which is probably the most exciting (bang for the buck), here, runs over two hours. I found the discussion scintillating and probably the best thing on approaches to quantum mechanics in quite some time.

So far, I don't know much about Barandes's approach beyond what I've seen in these videos, but my understanding is that he derives the textbook axioms of quantum mechanics, which have always appeared rather strange and arbitrary, from a couple much simpler and entirely natural axioms involving undivided stochastic systems. And that this broader picture does away with the need for mystical interpretations of QM, including and most especially Many Worlds.

For those more interested in the formalism, there is this two-hour online seminar Barandes gave on the derivation of Hilbert Space from his stochastic expressions.

A friend who's an active theoretical physicist thinks this approach can provide some new tools for understanding physics. He says Barandes knows what he's talking about. I like Barandes's philosophical approach to physics, though I do think it's too limiting to restrict philosophical physics to the analysis of physics, theory and experiments. Why not also allow it the analysis of nature itself?

To me the most appealing point of Barandes's Undivided Stochastic Systems approach is the "undivided": the fact that motions are treated as indivisible wholes, and that imposing the requirement that these wholes be treated as divisible is what produces much of the quantum craziness. Recall that in the latter half of Physics, Aristotle discusses the wholeness of motions, and further, that the unity of motion is closely related to the unity of substance. I'm not sure there's a close connection of Barandes's work to Aristotle, but the former does seem to provide an opening for an incipient unity or teleology. More study is needed.

For the Poverello

Once you realize that "I don't have what I need" is all that you need, then your life can begin.

Mirages Instead of Marriages

Following up on the previous post, on Ex Machina (2014), one remarkable aspect of the film is the ease with which Caleb accepts the possibility, and even desirability, of an amorous relationship with Ava. Even if you've only seen photos, Ava is quite evidently a machine. It's her face with its realistic expressions that is human enough to traverse the uncanny valley and convince Caleb that he is forming a personal connection.¹ (I use the personal pronoun "her" out of convenience.)

There's another man-machine relationship in Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018). Lando's paramour is L3-37, a vaguely humanoid robot. L3 is quite evidently mechanical, lacking a human face or any apparently human features, but is typed as "female" with wide, mechanically inefficient hips and the adequately feminine voice talents of Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

An interesting contrast is the Twilight Zone episode "The Lonely" (S1E7, 1959) in which a prisoner stranded on an isolated planet is given a robot that appears convincingly as a woman. He develops an attachment to her. In the end, he is able to claim his rightful freedom only by realizing that she is but a simulacrum. The middle of last century was a healthier age, where men could still see that real women were goods in themselves (in their essence) and not merely because they presented a pleasing appearance or satisfied their needs.²

And of course we can trace the faux-women of cinematic science fiction back to Metropolis (1927). But there at least the men who were clambering over each other for fake Maria and her lascivious dance had no way of knowing that she was not a real woman, the transformation of the robot into Maria's likeness having taken place out of their sight. But one wonders in retrospect if knowing that fact would have made a difference to their crazed frenzy.

But all the self-deception these days can hardly be surprising. So many confused men in this age use pornography rather than cultivate relationships with real women. Especially confused men convince themselves that enough hormones and surgeries will make them become women. (Where that leaves the definition of "woman," no one can say apparently.) Ultimately, the fact that so many men in this confused age satisfy themselves with the mere images of women says it all.³ Ours is an age satisfied with falsehoods and lacking the courage to aspire to the high call of truth.

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1. It's significant that Caleb's desire is not erotic in the conventional, restricted sense: notice how he eschews relations with another android with a more convincingly human appearance. Rather, his motivation seems to be something in the neighborhood of being the White Knight to the Damsel in Distress. The savior complex of would-be do-gooders is a plausible route for all manner of mischief.

2. I wrote similarly about the latter two films in December 2020.

3. All this self-deception is quite clearly insanity. But perhaps there is a silver lining. Whatever heritable component there is to being satisfied with falsehood and illusion is being strongly selected out like so much wasted seed corn. Perhaps we should look at this crazy moment as a sort of evolutionary gate. As ever, the concern is the vast collateral damage, both human and cultural, in the meantime.

Automata, Autogoal

When I saw the ads for Ex Machina (2014) many years ago, I thought it was some sort of sex-robot fantasy with a pretentious, high-minded esthetic. Quite the contrary¹, the film is thoughtful and well-made, and actually one of the best films of recent years, especially as regards artificial intelligence.²

I encourage you to see it if you have not. The terms of my discussion will be so vague that it won't make much sense until you've seen the film itself. But if in watching it you have any recollection of what I say, it will spoil the twists for you. So there's a double reason for you to watch the film before proceeding.

The film shows something of a three-way cat-and-mouse game. In the end, who outmaneuvres whom? The obvious answer is Ava. Initially Nathan thinks he has outsmarted Caleb, but in fact Caleb has outsmarted Nathan. In the end, it's Ava who has outsmarted them both.

Yet in a broader analysis, the one who outmaneuvered Nathan was Nathan. He's the one who armed Ava with wits and a disarming appearance in order to prove how smart he is for fooling Caleb. He's the one who picked and manipulated Caleb into falling for Ava. In both cases, he failed to account for the possibility that another intelligent agent could outwit him. It's understandable that he treats Ava as a mere machine, but he also treats Caleb as an impersonal resource. In assuming his own mastery, Nathan has defeated himself.

That's a deeper truth than we want to admit about AI. What's driving the creation of AI is human desire. So if we succumb to AI, we've really just defeated ourselves.

And there are plenty of other ways we're using AI to defeat ourselves even apart from the flashy "machines will kill us all" headlines. Just the fact that these programs take materials from human creators to obviate the need for human creators (a.k.a., stealing with more steps), should give us pause. And, though these programs have their legitimate uses, there are many more ways the companies behind them are making our world less and less human.

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Notes

1. Which not to say the film is free of sexual themes or appropriate for children.

2. Despite all the hype around them, large language models (LLMs) have nowhere near the awareness required for actual thought. As has been said so many places, they're really just fancy predictive text engines, qualitatively like the ones that suggest the next word for your SMS text message.

The Present

I may get in trouble for this, but I mean nothing heterodox. Let me hasten to clarify: God of course is complete and perfect in himself, requiring nothing outside himself. But there's a sense in which he withdraws a bit to make room for each of us creatures.

So that God plus me is a whole.

In that sense, God is my "other half," my complement. He is present like my shadow, though it would be closer to the truth to say that I'm like his shadow, being at best a limited expression of his infinite perfections.

When we say he is Present, it's not just in the sense of Gift, but also that he is the Present One, existing in the Eternal Now, but also in every now of time. Each of these moments of time is a fragment of that Eternity. And dwelling in it is our Sufficiency.

God alone is enough.

Home

As he declined into dementia, my father was always asking to go home. "Home" was at first the place where he grew up, the house on Lavender Avenue in Baltimore, to which he proposed to improbably walk all the way from Texas. Eventually "home" meant just going to bed in his room.

But what he was really behind all these requests was the desire for his real home, the definitive Home, the One that all our earthly homes reflect but imperfectly, and toward which all our longings converge.

Take the Win, part 1

I have friends who complain about replacing "AD/BC" with "CE/BCE" (Common Era, Before the Common Era) for historical dates. True, it is ostensibly removing Jesus and Christianity from the calendar set up by Christians, the Gregorian Calendar, that is.² But can you really blame people who aren't Christians from not wanting to say this is the year of "our Lord," which is what AD, Anno Domini, really means? The "BC" is a different matter. Saying "before Christ" isn't forcing the conscience of anyone and shouldn't be a problem.²

Still, if you take a step back and think about it: everyone is still using our Christian calendar and dating events based on Jesus. Let's just take the win, dude.

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Notes

1. Based of course on the Julian Calendar, the formation of which is a tale.

2. Suprisingly agnostic Neil deGrasse Tyson uses "AD/BC," saying Christians should get the credit for the calendar that was and is no trivial matter.