Quantum Mechanics

[Séadna]

I've always wondered if somebody could place the interpretations of Quantum Mechanics somehow into a SciFi game. It's beyond my abilities, but just in case the info is useful to somebody at any point!

Basic set up:
Quantum Mechanics as it exists is a "user theory", in the sense that it predicts your chances of seeing various outcomes in experiments, i.e. turn on a silver oven at 300 degrees and put photographic plate one meter away and you have x% chance of seeing a yellow mark develop. Unlike previous theories it provides no narrative about what is actually happening, even being silent on whether particles exist or are merely a nice way of thinking about results in certain situations.

Interpretations:
These are attempts to provide narratives. Mathematical constraints from various theorems (PBR, Bell's, Kochen-Specker) mean the possibilities are now narrowed down to:

1. Nonlocality. Every microscopic component of the universe is in constant instantaneous communication with every other particle, regardless of the distance between them. This explanation also entails Contextuality, that results we see from some experiments don't reveal true properties of the particles, but simply an effect they leave in our devices, e.g. particle spin isn't real, they just tend to make our devices shake in a certain way
   
   
2. Retrocausality. Every microscopic component sends signals back to its previous self and to its future self, ensuring a dance of consistency so that the correct 4D pattern plays out.
   
   
3. Acausality. The universe makes sense only when viewed from the outside as a complete 4D object. Trying to think of things in terms of 3D objects changing over time cannot explain everything, even if you try to use ideas like their past and future communicating.
   
   
4. Many-Worlds. There are an infinite number of worlds, ranging from the minutely different where an atom in one leaf did something slightly different, to the vastly different where the Earth never formed
   
   
5. AntiRealism. The majority view. QM is bumping up against a level of reality that one cannot fully describe in mathematical or algorithmic terms. Possibly surpassing scientific understanding.

I kind of wanted to set this in some kind of SciFi horror, but never found a way to make it not abstract.

 

[The Butcher]

I kind of wanted to set this in some kind of SciFi horror, but never found a way to make it not abstract.

Let's start with a simple enough premise: high-powered quantum computer goes online. Choose an interpretation:

Nonlocal horror: power-mad operator uses it to affect events at impossible distances.

Retrocausality: one or more users gain the ability to perceive past and future everywhere they go. Go mad or use it for personal gain. Think The Arrival on crack.

Acausality: 4D beings from beyond our spacetime are not crazy to see humanity develop the technology to perceive higher dimensions, start murdering the shit out of the research team. How do you even stop them? More importantly... should you? What if they are actually protecting us from unspeakable, sanity-shattering horrors from beyond our brane?

Many-Worlds: pretty sure this one writes itself.

Antirealism: not sure, but I am reminded of Revelation Space's inertial drive, which tampered with causality enough that sometimes people who spent too mcuh time close to it were erased from existence (including their pasts) entirely. Later the idea was weaponized against the Inhibitors as hypometric weapons, designs supplied by a causality-breaking AI from the future... you knwo what, this one's pretty much carte blanche for you to go full David Lynch.

 

[Voros]

I just picked up the sf novel The Quantum Thief and it is already really trippy, will let you know if any interesting ideas come out of it.

I think a lot of sf interpretations of QT are just an excuse for magic in the guise of science but then that's a pretty fair description of the genre in general.

And not like I understand QT enough to refute most of it.

Either way John M. Harrison's Light and Nova Swing are great modern sf novels that play around with QT concepts in mind-expanding ways.

 

[Séadna]

Antirealism: not sure

If it helps there are a few subvarities of this.

The most standard is Bohr and Heisenberg's Copenhagen view that the level of reality underneath QM cannot be comprehended because its nature simply cannot fit in human methods of thought and there is no bridge between it and our intuitive concepts. Bohr went further identifying language itself (and its implicit way of ordering the world) as the problem:

We are suspended in language

We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.

Others would say it simply lies outside mathematical comprehension, but perhaps there are other ways of understanding it.

Another interesting view is QBism which states that the world is still being created, so you can't predict certain facts because they are genuinely entirely new and don't follow from previous facts, i.e. the world wasn't created in one go at the Big Bang and then simply developed from that initial state. The fundamental act of "fact creation" is then seen to not be amenable to mathematical analysis.

 

[dokel]

If it helps there are a few subvarities of this.

The most standard is Bohr and Heisenberg's Copenhagen view that the level of reality underneath QM cannot be comprehended because its nature simply cannot fit in human methods of thought and there is no bridge between it and our intuitive concepts. Bohr went further identifying language itself (and its implicit way of ordering the world) as the problem:

I would say that the language thing brings you back to Arrival (mentioned above) again. You have the idea that the structure of language reflects/shapes cognition. So aliens who have a circular language experience reality in a non-linear fashion.

The idea that language limits thought isn't that new. Nietzsche called language a "prisonhouse" and Wittgenstein had a fair bit to say on the subject too.

Used in a sci-fi horror scenario...

Scientists discover alien probe/artefact with recordings of alien language (an alien 'golden record' if you like). Exposure to the language affects their perceptions and they start to 'break through the veil' of reality. Unfortunately what's behind the veil is slimy and tentacled and hungry...

 

[dokel]

Or, alternatively, the recording is of alien music. Weirdly beautiful and compelling, listening to it causes altered states of consciousness (it's alien psychedelia, perhaps their equivalent of late-era Beatles or early Pink Floyd ).

 

[Voros]

I really liked The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts where he mashes together The Thing, QT and Kant. Essentially a scientist figures out how to view Kant’s ‘the thing itself’ and it reveals a horrific alien presence existing alongside our own world.

 

[Séadna]

I really liked The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts where he mashes together The Thing, QT and Kant. Essentially a scientist figures out how to view Kant’s ‘the thing itself’ and it reveals a horrific alien presence existing alongside our own world.

Just bought that, can't believe I missed it.
That's actually a neater way of saying the AntiRealist position, many textbooks on QM (e.g. Roland Omnès's "The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics") directly say QM is sort of the last layer of science because beyond that you have to know the "Thing In Itself" as Kant said.

 

[dokel]

For a slightly different take on QT I recommend David Bohm's Wholeness and the Implicate Order. It's an elegant attempt to resolve quantum spookiness by taking a sort-of-hidden-variables route (non-local). Bohm's thing is holism and his work blurs the line between philosophy and physics. He's a deep thinker and I find his ideas very thought-provoking. There's definitely potential for sci-fi plot inspiration (holographic principle!)

 

[Séadna]

For a slightly different take on QT I recommend David Bohm's Wholeness and the Implicate Order. It's an elegant attempt to resolve quantum spookiness by taking a sort-of-hidden-variables route (non-local). Bohm's thing is holism and his work blurs the line between philosophy and physics. He's a deep thinker and I find his ideas very thought-provoking. There's definitely potential for sci-fi plot inspiration (holographic principle!)

Bohmian Mechanics is very interesting. It has some issues with replicating particle physics, but I know that's being worked on.

 

[Dumarest]

Bohmian Mechanics...

Initially read that as Bohemian mechanics and thought this gang was going to fix my car...

 

[soltakss]

The trouble with Quantum Mechanics is that, by and large, it doesn't have any real effect on the macro scale.

Sure, light is a wave, but is also a particle, depending on how you look at it, but apart from that, Quantum Mechanics doesn't mean much.

Quantum Gravity is where known Physics falls down, because it can't handle a Macro effect like gravity at the Quantum level.

For, me, things like Jump gates and Jump Points are effectively a Quantum near-singularity that expands to a macro effect and then shrinks back and vanishes. Some power plants can use a trapped Singularity that consumes matter and produces energy, so that uses Quantum Mechanics to trap and model the Singularity.

But, I have a big problem with applying Quantum Mechanics on a macro level. Any time I read about it in SciFi, some part of me screams that is isn't how Quantum Mechanics works.

 

[Séadna]

For a slightly different take on QT I recommend David Bohm's Wholeness and the Implicate Order. It's an elegant attempt to resolve quantum spookiness by taking a sort-of-hidden-variables route (non-local). Bohm's thing is holism and his work blurs the line between philosophy and physics. He's a deep thinker and I find his ideas very thought-provoking. There's definitely potential for sci-fi plot inspiration (holographic principle!)

Only thought of this there now, a cool thing about Bohmian mechanic's holism is that not only does the motion of one particle depend on every other particle in the universe, but also if you can control particles in your lab well enough they can be used to manipulate or construct atoms elsewhere (via the Reeh-Schlieder theorem). So you could remote assassinate people for example.

 

[dokel]

Only thought of this there now, a cool thing about Bohmian mechanic's holism is that not only does the motion of one particle depend on every other particle in the universe, but also if you can control particles in your lab well enough they can be used to manipulate or construct atoms elsewhere (via the Reeh-Schlieder theorem). So you could remote assassinate people for example.

An idea I had:

Bohm posits that all information, essentially the entire blueprint of all time and space, is enfolded in every single particle of reality (yeah, I know it's a bit more complicated than that). What if then, in a comparable way to how you can clone a biological organism from a single cell, you could use a single particle to recreate, well... anything. And I am absolutely calling it quantum cloning, 'cos it sounds cool

 

[dokel]

The trouble with Quantum Mechanics is that, by and large, it doesn't have any real effect on the macro scale.

Yep, quantum reality and 'big reality' appear to be fundamentally different in nature. And it's entirely possible that never the twain shall meet. On the other hand, Bohm suggests that one may manifest out of the other, that 'big reality' is, in fact, an emergent property of quantum reality. He may well be wrong but it's still a pretty cool idea imo. And it's fertile ground for scenario ideas

 

[Séadna]

What if then, in a comparable way to how you can clone a biological organism from a single cell, you could use a single particle to recreate, well... anything

I think that's what the Bohmian view on the Reeh-Schleider theorem would mean literally. Pretty cool for a SciFi setting.

 

[Séadna]

The trouble with Quantum Mechanics is that, by and large, it doesn't have any real effect on the macro scale.

I think when attempting to use most of the interpretations it is easy enough to find ways out of this. For example in the retrocausal or nonlocal interpretations the reason we don't see the "true" nonlocal/retrocausal physics underneath QM is that thermal noise in our equipment or macroscopic objects masks the nonlocal or retrocausal signals, so to take T The Butcher 's example:

Retrocausality: one or more users gain the ability to perceive past and future everywhere they go. Go mad or use it for personal gain. Think The Arrival on crack.

Let's say the retrocausal explanation is true. You don't notice it on the large scale because large things are too thermally noisy and the signals from the future are masked. T The Butcher 's scenario can then simply involve a society that manages to carefully dampen the noise, thus gaining control over the signals.

Similarly the AntiRealist view, large objects are ones that conform to our thought patterns with QM being the only (poor) interface into a realm that doesn't. Easy to imagine somebody who pierces the veil.

Basically it mightn't affect the world in the large typically, but if somebody finds a way into the realm underneath, then in your setting/story the genie is out of the bottle.

 

[soltakss]

I think one of the main problems is with Sexy theories. SciFi authors and script writers hear about a sexy theory and include it in their stories/TV shows/films and everyone says "Oh, I know a bit about that" and accepts it, even though the theory wouldn't really have that effect. It's all to do with pseudoscience or pretend science, great for fiction and RPGs. It's better if the sexy theory is difficult to grasp or understand, as that gives a lot of ways to pretend things.

This applies to Quantum Theory, Black Holes, Chaos Theory, String Theory and Catastrophe Theory, but also applies to Genetics and Evolution.

 

[Séadna]

True using scientific theories in TV/films and games if done inaccurately might/would probably lead people to believe the author's incorrect version of the theory as it's unlikely you'd look deeply into it after (I've probably a few versions of this myself without knowing it).

That said I think there is still a place for taking the ideas and putting them in fiction or games even if others have done it inaccurately*. The interpretations of QM throw up some interesting possibilities for the world and fiction might be a cool way to explore that. I'm just thinking of how little about the AntiRealist stuff leaves heavy academic monographs and papers. I mean a scientific theory throwing up a possible block/end of analytically comprehending the world (going off Voros 's post: verifying Kant's divisions) is a big deal philosophically and yet hasn't really made much headway out of physics books. Fiction can be a good way to do that.

*Though truth told I don't mind it being inaccurate either. Traveller isn't exactly concerned with scientific accuracy, but it really fired my love of physics when I was young. I'd find myself a hypocrite for turning around from a position of expertise and dismissing adventure SciFi that wings the science for the sake of fun and imagination.

 

[Voros]

I think one of the main problems is with Sexy theories. SciFi authors and script writers hear about a sexy theory and include it in their stories/TV shows/films and everyone says "Oh, I know a bit about that" and accepts it, even though the theory wouldn't really have that effect. It's all to do with pseudoscience or pretend science, great for fiction and RPGs. It's better if the sexy theory is difficult to grasp or understand, as that gives a lot of ways to pretend things.

This applies to Quantum Theory, Black Holes, Chaos Theory, String Theory and Catastrophe Theory, but also applies to Genetics and Evolution.

This has always been true of sf so I don’t sweat it much.

To me more serious is when the public and even parts of the scientific community start to be influenced by the sf they grew up reading and promote various pseduo-science or unsupported theories as if they are as solid as evolution or relativity.

String theory, which is unsupported by evidence and looks increasingly creaky but is discussed at the popular level as if it was proven and true, is a prime example.

 

[Nobby-W]

A slightly different adventure seed involving quantum mechanics - I'll just leave this here ...

 

[Séadna]

Don't know how useful this will be, but the recent Frauchiger-Renner result published in Nature means when QM predicts something will happen it's not objective but subjective, i.e. it's not "50% chance the particle will be spin-up when measured" it's "50% chance it will manifest to you as spin-up when you probe it", i.e. QM predicts subjective "experiences" not objective occurrences.

Horror in complete subjectivity maybe? I summon T The Butcher

 

[The Butcher]

Horror in complete subjectivity maybe? I summon T The Butcher

That’s pretty much the core premise of the old World of Darkness — subjectivity shapes reality.

 

[Séadna]

Mage the Ascension? Never played, I would like to read about the world though, I know next to nothing about it. My OWOD only extends to Vampire.

 

[Séadna]

The Thing Itself

This was deadly!! It even functions as a good intro to Kant.

 

[Séadna]

Thought this is pretty weird:

A quantum experiment suggests there’s no such thing as objective reality

Physicists have long suspected that quantum mechanics allows two observers to experience different, conflicting realities. Now they’ve performed the first experiment that proves it.

www.technologyreview.com

The headline isn't completely accurate, but maybe useful in something like Kult for how somebody sees behind the scenes or similar.

 

[Count Otto Black]

In real life, the thing about applying quantum effects to macroscopic objects such as ourselves is that technically it does happen, but only in the same way that relativistic time distortion causes people sitting in moving trains to age more slowly than people sitting in chairs at home; the effect is so tiny you can forget about it. For instance, quantum uncertainty over exactly where a thing is makes all objects a bit fuzzy round the edges, but in the case of something the size of you, that fuzziness extends for a much smaller distance than the diameter of an atom, so for all practical purposes you're only in one place at a time.

However, if, just for fun, you make it a game-rule that quantum weirdness (which is an actual scientific term) sometimes applies to big things, though presumably to a far more limited extent than Doctor Manhattan being able to do quantum stuff therefore he's God, you don't need or want to drag actual science, whether practical or philosophical, into the game, because it would just confuse everybody without adding anything useful. And besides, from a scientific point of view, the whole idea is as wrong-headed as "my game requires the players to be able to travel quickly and easily between the stars, therefore let's forget about boring old Einstein and just make it that they can."

So, with that in mind, the first thing that occurs to me is the legendary Philadelphia Experiment. If you're not sure what that is, Wikipedia has a good summary of the basic story and the truth behind it (what little there is), but essentially, in 1943 the US government, who were understandably keen to defeat Hitler and his chums as quickly as they could, used poorly understood technology based on Einstein's Unified Field Theory, which in reality he worked on for decades but never succeeded in completing, to make a battleship invisible.

As described in the legendary version of events, the ship exhibited precisely the kind of behaviour it would if it was as vulnerable to quantum uncertainty as an electron, not only disappearing from sight but randomly teleporting from where it was now to where it had been a few weeks ago. The effects of quantum uncertainty on something as complex and delicate as the human body and mind are less easy to predict, but the unfortunate sailors involved in the Philadelphia Experiment supposedly didn't fare too well.

Wikipedia doesn't mention the later, more elaborate versions of the story, in which that 1943 experiment tore a hole between dimensions allowing flying saucers to begin visiting our world. So those Grays are actually from a reality unimaginably different from our own, it's a complete lie about them being from outer space, and what they really want is anybody's guess, but presumably not anything good or they wouldn't lie about it. I think that's enough material to suggest a few game scenarios. Also, those horribly confusing quantum effects don't come into play most of the time, only when the players are either directly interacting with Grays, or when they're standing near a fully activated unshielded Philadelphia Drive. Which is a bad idea.

 

[Séadna]

In real life, the thing about applying quantum effects to macroscopic objects such as ourselves is that technically it does happen...For instance, quantum uncertainty over exactly where a thing is makes all objects a bit fuzzy round the edges...so for all practical purposes you're only in one place at a time

This isn't an issue with the game idea, just thought you might like to know. You might already know this of course. This might be tedious, but well I could blather about this all day.

Quantum uncertainty doesn't come so much from an electron being in "multiple places at the same time", but that an electron isn't actually anywhere, i.e. position isn't a property of an electron. However when classical objects like our measuring equipment interact with electrons the results of those interactions are expressed in terms of position, momentum, etc because these are properties of our classical world.

It's sort of like beings in Abbott's flatland being forced to describe 3D things like us in terms of 2D shapes. The major differences however being that in the case of QM it's probably that "the truth" can't be described, where as you could imagine Abbott's beings could come up with 3D geometry from studying mathematics abstractly.

This is due to the "Failure of Unicity". We can look at quantum systems in different ways but the results don't make sense when combined (further one can prove there is no way to combine them). One just has a collection of incompatible subjective impressions, what Niels Bohr called Complimentarity. Further the probabilities it predicts depend on what you already know/witnessed. So they are very subjective predictions for subjective impressions.

I'm not very well versed in philosophy, but Philosophers and more philosophically minded physicists have told me that there is a close relation here with the works of Kant and Derrida.