Originally Posted By: Bill S.
Both of these suggest, I think rightly, that the concept of reality is metaphysical, rather than scientific. Ultimately all we can test is whether or not our ideas about reality accord with the answers we obtain when we carry out experiments.

I personally don't accept that at all, I definitely only experiment and test real things in my reality and my reality rarely changes and most of the time it matches your reality smile

The real question your answer sidesteps is there only one reality and the answer is definitely no and that is what causes the problem. You dance around the core of that answer by turning that it into something metaphysical. The problem with your answer is you have now a whacky philosophical imaginary universe that at it's core still obeys a central hard set answer that the sum of the squares of the probability amplitudes equals 1. It is a very strange and wonderful metaphysical world you have which suddenly decides it will create such a strange rule and obey it without exception.

Sascha did a nice article on the issue which should be understandable to you (http://www.science20.com/alpha_meme/why_energy_seems_quantized_especially_to_crackpots-136282)

Originally Posted By: Bill S.
I was taking one thing at a time and trying to sort out if decoherence was linked to thermodynamics in such a way that would let us consider decoherence as a concrete feature in what we perceive as reality;

It is and has to be linked to thermodynamics in a very concrete way both have very concrete links to energy.

Last edited by Orac; 05/16/14 05:10 AM.

I believe in "Evil, Bad, Ungodly fantasy science and maths", so I am undoubtedly wrong to you.