text:
Quantum Physics and Many Worlds
Quantum Non-Realism
by Eliezer Yudkowsky10 min read8th May 200841 comments
Quantum MechanicsPhysicsWorld Modeling
"Does the moon exist when no one is looking at it?"
—Albert Einstein, asked of Niels Bohr
Suppose you were just starting to work out a theory of quantum mechanics.
You begin to encounter experiments that deliver different results depending on how closely you observe them. You dig underneath the reality you know, and find an extremely precise mathematical description that only gives you the relative frequency of outcomes; worse, it's made of complex numbers. Things behave like particles on Monday and waves on Tuesday.
The correct answer is not available to you as a hypothesis, because it will not be invented for another thirty years.
In a mess like that, what's the best you could do?
The best you can do is the strict "shut up and calculate" interpretation of quantum mechanics. You'll go on trying to develop new theories, because doing your best doesn't mean giving up. But we've specified that the correct answer won't be available for thirty years, and that means none of the new theories will really be any good. Doing the best you could theoretically do would mean that you recognized that, even as you looked for ways to test the hypotheses.
The best you could theoretically do would not include saying anything like, "The wavefunction only gives us probabilities, not certainties." That, in retrospect, was jumping to a conclusion; the wavefunction gives us a certainty of many worlds existing. So that part about the wavefunction being only a probability was not-quite-right. You calculated, but failed to shut up.
If you do the best that you can do without the correct answer being available, then, when you hear about decoherence, it will turn out that you have not said anythingincompatible with decoherence. Decoherence is not ruled out by the data and the calculations. So if you refuse to affirm, as positive knowledge, any proposition which was not forced by the data and the calculations, the calculations will not force you to say anything incompatible with decoherence. So too with whatever the correct theory may be, if it is not decoherence. If you go astray, it must be from your own impulses.
But it is hard for human beings to shut up and calculate—really shut up and calculate. There is an overwhelming tendency to treat our ignorance as if it were positive knowledge.
I don't know if any conversations like this ever really took place, but this is how ignorance becomes knowledge:
Gallant: "Shut up and calculate."
Goofus: "Why?"
Gallant: "Because I don't know what these equations mean, just that they seem to work."
—five minutes later—
Goofus: "Shut up and calculate."
Student: "Why?"
Goofus: "Because these equations don't mean anything, they just work."
Student: "Really? How do you know?"
Goofus: "Gallant told me."
A similar transformation occurs in the leap from:
Gallant: "When my calculations show an amplitude of −13ifor this photon to get absorbed, my experiments showed that the photon was absorbed around 107 times out of 1,000, which is a good fit to 19 the square of the modulus. There's clearly some kind of connection between the experimental statistics and the squared modulus of the amplitude, but I don't know what."
Goofus: "The probability amplitude doesn't say where the electron is, but where it might be. The squared modulus is the probability that reality will turn out that way. Reality itself is inherently nondeterministic."
And again:
Gallant: "Once I measure something and get an experimental result, I do my future calculations using only the amplitude whose squared modulus went into calculating the frequency of that experimental result. Only this rule makes my further calculations correspond to observed frequencies."
Goofus: "Since the amplitude is the probability, once you know the experimental result, the probability of everything else becomes zero!"
The whole slip from:
The square of this "amplitude" stuff corresponds tightly to our experimentally observed frequencies
The amplitude is the probability of getting the measurement
Well, obviously, once you know you didn't get a measurement, its probability becomes zero
has got to be one of the most embarrassing wrong turns in the history of science.
If you take all this literally, it becomes the consciousness-causes-collapse interpretation of quantum mechanics. These days, just about nobody will confess to actually believing in the consciousness-causes-collapse interpretation of quantum mechanics—
But the physics textbooks are still written this way! People say they don't believe it, but they talk as if knowledge is responsible for removing incompatible "probability" amplitudes.
Yet as implausible as I find consciousness-causes-collapse, it at least gives us a picture of reality. Sure, it's an informal picture. Sure, it gives mental properties ontologically basic status. You can't calculate when an "experimental observation" occurs or what people "know," you just know when certain probabilities are obviouslyzero. And this "just knowing" just happens to fit your experimental results, whatever they are—
—but at least consciousness-causes-collapse purports to tell us how the universe works. The amplitudes are real, the collapse is real, the consciousness is real.
Contrast to this argument schema:
Student: "Wait, you're saying that this amplitude disappears as soon as the measurement tells me it's not true?"
Goofus: "No, no! It doesn't literally disappear. The equations don't mean anything—they just give good predictions."
Student: "But then what does happen?"
Goofus: (Whorble. Hiss.) "Never ask that question."
Student: "And what about the part where we measure this photon's polarization over here, and a light-year away, the entangled photon's probability of being polarized up-down changes from 50% to 25%?"
Goofus: "Yes, what about it?"
Student: "Doesn't that violate Special Relativity?"
Goofus: "No, because you're just finding out the other photon's polarization. Remember, the amplitudes aren't real."
Student: "But Bell's Theorem shows there's no possible local hidden variable that could describe the other photon's polarization before we measure it—"
Goofus: "Exactly! It's meaningless to talk about the photon's polarization before we measure it."
Student: "But the probability suddenly changes—"
Goofus: "It's meaningless to talk about it before we measure it!"
What does Goofus even mean, here? Never mind the plausibility of his words; what sort of state of reality would correspond to his words being true?
What way could reality be, that would make it meaningless to talk about Special Relativity being violated, because the property being influenced didn't exist, even though you could calculate the changes to it?
But you know what? Forget that. I want to know the answer to an even more important question:
Where is Goofus getting all this stuff?
Let's suppose that you take the Schrödinger equation, and assert, as a positive fact:
This equation generates good predictions, but it doesn't mean anything!
Really? How do you know?
I sometimes go around saying that the fundamental question of rationality is Why do you believe what you believe?
You say the Schrödinger equation "doesn't mean anything." How did this item of definite knowledge end up in your possession, if it is not simply ignorance misinterpreted as knowledge?
Was there some experiment that told you? I am open to the idea that experiments can tell us things that seem philosophically impossible. But in this case I should like to see the decisive data. Was there a point where you carefully set up an experimental apparatus, and worked out what you should expect to see if (1) the Schrödinger equation was meaningful or (2) the Schrödinger equation was meaningless; and then you got result (2)?
Gallant: "If I measure the 90° polarization of a photon, and then measure the 45° polarization, and then measure 90° again, my experimental history shows that in 100 trials a photon was absorbed 47 times and transmitted 53 times."
Goofus: "The 90° polarization and 45° polarization are incompatible properties; they can't both exist at the same time, and if you measure one, it is meaningless to talk about the other."
How did you acquire that piece of knowledge, Goofus? I know where Gallant got his—but where did yours come from?
My attitude toward questions of existence and meaning was nicely illustrated in a discussion of the current state of evidence for whether the universe is spatially finite or spatially infinite, in which James D. Miller chided Robin Hanson:
Robin, you are suffering from overconfidence bias in assuming that the universe exists. Surely there is some chance that the universe is of size zero.
To which I replied:
James, if the universe doesn't exist, it would still be nice to know whether it's an infinite or a finite universe that doesn't exist.
Ha! You think pulling that old "universe doesn't exist" trick will stop me? It won't even slow me down!
It's not that I'm ruling out the possibility that the universe doesn't exist. It's just that, even if nothing exists, I still want to understand the nothing as best I can. My curiosity doesn't suddenly go away just because there's no reality, you know!
The nature of "reality" is something about which I'm still confused, which leaves open the possibility that there isn't any such thing. But Egan's Law still applies: "It all adds up to normality." Apples didn't stop falling when Einstein disproved Newton's theory of gravity.
Sure, when the dust settles, it could turn out that apples don't exist, Earth doesn't exist, reality doesn't exist. But the nonexistent apples will still fall toward the nonexistent ground at a meaningless rate of 9.8 m/s2.
You say the universe doesn't exist? Fine, suppose I believe that—though it's not clear what I'm supposed to believe, aside from repeating the words.
Now, what happens if I press this button?
In The Simple Truth, I said:
Frankly, I'm not entirely sure myself where this "reality" business comes from. I can't create my own reality in the lab, so I must not understand it yet. But occasionally I believe strongly that something is going to happen, and then something else happens instead… So I need different names for the thingies that determine my predictions and the thingy that determines my experimental results. I call the former thingies "belief," and the latter thingy "reality."
You want to say that the quantum-mechanical equations are "not real"? I'll be charitable, and suppose this means something. What might it mean?
Maybe it means the equations which determine my predictions are substantially different from the thingy that determines my experimental results. Then what doesdetermine my experimental results? If you tell me "nothing," I would like to know what sort of "nothing" it is, and why this "nothing" exhibits such apparent regularity in determining e.g. my experimental measurements of the mass of an electron.
I don't take well to people who tell me to stop asking questions. If you tell me something is definitely positively meaningless, I want to know exactly what you mean by that, and how you came to know. Otherwise you have not given me an answer, only told me to stop asking the question.
The Simple Truth describes the life of a shepherd and apprentice who have discovered how to count sheep by tossing pebbles into buckets, when they are visited by a delegate from the court who wants to know how the "magic pebbles" work. The shepherd tries to explain, "An empty bucket is magical if and only if the pastures are empty of sheep," but is soon overtaken by the excited discussions of the apprentice and the delegate as to how the magic might get into the pebbles.
Here we have quantum equations that deliver excellent experimental predictions. What exactly does it mean for them to be "meaningless"? Is it like a bucket of pebbles that works for counting sheep, but doesn't have any magic?
Back before Bell's Theorem ruled out local hidden variables, it seemed possible that (as Einstein thought) there was some more complete description of reality which we didn't have, and the quantum theory summarized incomplete knowledge of this more complete description. The laws we'd learned would turn out to be like the laws of statistical mechanics: quantitative statements of uncertainty. This would hardly make the equations "meaningless"; partial knowledge is the meaning of probability.
But Bell's Theorem makes it much less plausible that the quantum equations are partial knowledge of something deterministic, the way that statistical mechanics over classical physics is partial knowledge of something deterministic. And even so, the quantum equations would not be "meaningless" as that phrase is usually taken; they would be "statistical," "approximate," "partial information," or at worst "wrong."
Here we have equations that give us excellent predictions. You say they are "meaningless." I ask what it is that determines my experimental results, then. You cannot answer. Fine, then how do you justify ruling out the possibility that the quantum equations give such excellent predictions because they are, oh, say, meaningful?
I don't mean to trivialize questions of reality or meaning. But to call something "meaningless" and say that the argument is now resolved, finished, over, done with, you must have a theory of exactly how it is meaningless. And when the answer is given, the question should seem no longer mysterious.
As you may recall from Semantic Stopsigns, there are words and phrases which are not so much answers to questions, as cognitive traffic signals which indicate you should stop asking questions. "Why does anything exist in the first place? God!" is the classical example, but there are others, such as "Élan vital!"
Tell people to "shut up and calculate" because you don't know what the calculations mean, and inside of five years, "Shut up!" will be masquerading as a positive theory of quantum mechanics.
I have the highest respect for any historical physicists who even came close to actually shutting up and calculating, who were genuinely conservative in assessing what they did and didn't know. This is the best they could possibly do without actually being Hugh Everett, and I award them fifty rationality points. My scorn is reserved for those who interpreted "We don't know why it works" as the positive knowledge that the equations were definitely not real.
I mean, if that trick worked, it would be too good to confine to one subfield. Why shouldn't physicists use the "not real" loophole outside of quantum mechanics?
"Hey, doesn't your new 'yarn theory' violate Special Relativity?"
"Nah, the equations are meaningless. Say, doesn't your model of 'chaotic evil inflation' violate CPT symmetry?"
"My equations are even more meaningless than your equations! So your criticism double doesn't count."
And if that doesn't work, try writing yourself a Get Out of Jail Free card.
If there is a moral to the whole story, it is the moral of how very hard it is to stay in a state of confessed confusion, without making up a story that gives you closure—how hard it is to avoid manipulating your ignorance as if it were definite knowledge that you possessed.
Quantum Mechanics3Physics1World Modeling1
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[-]Unknown15y
Egan's law is one the most dangerous biases I've ever heard of. It prevents a person from facing reality in those cases in which it turns out that it isn't normal.
[-]Insert_Idionym_Here11y
How would reality go about being not normal? Or more specifically, what is normal, if not reality?
[-]Manfred11y
Well, I suppose reality could get pretty abnormal. And yet, it would still all add up to normality - that is, my model of reality should explain my observations, even if that model was "it's all a big acid trip." Getting around that would need something like a violation of causality.
[-]Norm15y
Hypotheses non fingo
[-]Robin_Z15y
Unknown, I don't think Egan's Law has anything to do with facing reality. If I read it correctly, Egan is saying that any theory (e.g. quantum mechanics, general relativity, the standard model) ought to predict normal events on the level of normal events. If relativity predicted that a ball dropped from a height of 4.9 meters would take 5.3 seconds to hit the ground, relativity would be disproven. It all must add up to normality.
[-]ME315y
1) Can someone tell me to what extent this many-worlds interpretation is really accepted? I mean, nobody told me the news that the collapse interpretation was no longer accepted, and I think I read such things in a recent physics textbook. So, can physicists remark on their experience?
2) I think the notion that the QM equations don't mean anything refers to the fact that nobody knows what the real substrate is in which QM takes place. It's a bit analogous to the pre-QM situation with light. People asked, what does light travel in? But since nobody was able to identify any substrate for light, they had to treat the wave-like nature of light as simply an empty metaphor. At least, that's how the classical theory of light was taught to me.
So in the same way, you say that the amplitudes and configurations are the "reality." But where do the configurations "exist"? Unless you believe that the universe is being simulated in a computer (which seems like a highly unparsimonious not to mention anthropocentric assumption), the equations must be a model of something that's out there. But it doesn't seem like we really know anything that the equations are models of.
[-]Shane_Legg15y
Eli: You are writing a lot about physics recently. Why?
[-]Z._M._Davis15y
Shane, it's a series. See "Quantum Explanations."
[-]Manon_de_Gaillande15y
"My curiosity doesn't suddenly go away just because there's no reality, you know!" Eliezer, I want to high-five you.
Does this "Many worlds" thing imply that there exists (in some meaningful sense) other worlds alongside us where whatever quantum events didn't happen here happened? (If not, or if this is a wrong question, disregard the following.)
What are the moral implications? If some dictator says "If this photon passes through this filter (which it can do with probability 0.5), I will torture you all; if it is absorbed, I will do something vaguely nice.", and the photon if absorbed, should we rejoice, or should we grieve for those people in another world who are tortured?
Should we try quantum suicide? I think I'm willing to die (at least once, but maybe not in a lot of worlds, my poor little brain can't grasp the concept of multiple deaths) to let one world know whether the MWI is true.
What about other events? A coinflip isn't really a quantum random event (and may even be not random at all if you know enough), but the coin is made out of amplitudes - are there worlds where the coin lands on the other side? We won WW2 by the skin of the teeth, are there any worlds where the Earth is ruled by Nazi Germany?
[-]DanielLC11y
should we rejoice, or should we grieve for those people in another world who are tortured?
People were, in fact, tortured. You can grieve for them if you wish.
Should we try quantum suicide?
That is also a question of how branching world-lines work.
I'd say no. Identity is an illusion. Everyone only exists for an instant, and a "person" is actually a world-line composed of tons of different people who all think they're the same person. If you perform the experiment, there will be fewer people who think they're you.
are there any worlds where the Earth is ruled by Nazi Germany?
Every world exists, but some exist more than others. Don't take that at face value. All it means is that not all of the worlds are equally likely. I have no idea why. Just rest assured that the other worlds exist somehow.
[-]DanArmak11y
If you grieve for everyone tortured in every branch not your own, not singling out your own branch for special treatment out of the literal infinity of branches, then I understand you have your work cut out for you just managing the mathematical infinities involved to specify a utility function. (The solutions I've seen all start by putting in the desired conclusion as an arbitrary assumption.)
No-one can or will mourn literally infinite people. (Even if you ignore people in other branches, what about people in our own in case our universe is spatially infinite and everything possible happens infinitely many times?) This is not how mourning works in humans.
You can mourn the general fact that suffering happens, without letting the (probably infinite) amounts of it directly establish the amount of mourning done. It wouldn't be productive in any sense, because in a universe where everything happens somewhere - whether via quantum branches or sheer size or both - you can't reduce the suffering, it'll always be infinite. So mourning in this case does not serve any purpose; I would wish to stop feeling such mourning if I felt it.
Just rest assured that the other worlds exist somehow.
And that you cannot interact with them ever again and therefore should not mourn them.
[-]alex_zag_al11y
If people leave on a spaceship to colonize another galaxy, and between their speed and the expansion of the universe it is physically impossible to interact with them ever again, surely they still have moral weight. If the spaceship company had constructed the spaceship to collapse the moment they could no longer ever interact with us, to cut costs, then surely when we discovered this from their internal documents we would prosecute them as criminals, even though the consequences of their crime occurred somewhere as fundamentally separate from us as another world.
I don't think you have, in your morality, an exception for everyone who is causally isolated from you.
surely they still have moral weight.
You're just stating your conclusion again. Such a moral belief is possible, but it's a choice. I choose not to care morally about people I cannot even in principle interact with.
then surely when we discovered this from their internal documents we would prosecute them as criminals
Note that punishment for crime isn't the same as grief, and works on different rules.
Why punish people? To reduce future similar crime. (I don't accept moral propositions of punishment for punishment's sake.) I could board such a ship in the future myself, and would not wish it to be sabotaged. So I want these saboteurs to be punished to deter future crime.
Here's another reasoning for the same conclusion: their action reduced the (expected) utility of the people on the ship while they were still in contact with us. We just didn't find out about it until later. This is analogous to a case where we discover that two years ago, Jane wounded Alex. We know that a year ago, Alex died from unrelated causes. We still want to punish Jane today even though Alex cannot be reimbursed himself anymore.
My morality comes from two main sources. One is how I feel (due to nature and nurture): such as grief. Sometimes I find this is not how I want to feel, and then I try to change myself - as I would with any other feelings. So if I discovered myself grieving for people outside my universe, I would try to stop doing so.
Luckily I, like most people I think, don't grieve for such people: grief falls off rapidly for more distant suffering (in space and/or time). People outside the future light cone, or in other quantum branches, are as far as they can be from me and still exist in some sense.
The second source of my morality is practical ethics: how do I want to behave, and want others to behave, to achieve certain things? Here too, grieving or expending any other resource (time, effort, thought) on people I cannot interact with doesn't benefit me or them or anyone else, so I would prefer not to do it.
[-]TheOtherDave11y
Can you clarify why you choose to grieve for people at all?
I mean, you seem to classify grieving as an example of expending resources on someone. So if person A dies and person B grieves, B is expending resources on someone. Who benefits from those resources? It certainly isn't A; A is dead.
There seem to be a number of possibilities.
1) Nobody actually benefits from those resources being expended. In which case your reasoning seems to equally well reject all grief, not just grief over hypothetical superluminal travellers.
2) Some surviving person benefits from B's grief... maybe B themselves, maybe A's family members, maybe somebody else. In this case rejecting grieving for A may have costs, and perhaps those potential costs should be understood before rejecting it.
3) A benefited, while alive, from the fact that B runs algorithms that reliably result in B grieving for A once A is dead. In this case rejecting grieving for A may have the consequence of also rejecting those algorithms, which would perhaps otherwise have been beneficial to someone in the same way that were in the past beneficial to A. Here again, perhaps those potential costs should be understood before rejecting grief.
Is there a fourth option?
A combination of all three options is true; I don't know of a fourth. Grief is mostly a waste because there's more of it than I'd like (option 1), but also helps to prevent future causes of grief (option 3) and possibly helps the griever cope (option 2).
I see grief as analogous to pain. It's an evolved response. Its primary function is conditioning by negative reinforcement. To avoid grief, people try to prevent grief-causing situations, e.g. protecting their loved ones more. Just as with pain, we have to live with grief today but we may wish to self-modify to grieve less.
Because it's an evolved mechanism, it tends to be entangled with other processes; thus it is claimed to have a secondary purpose - to help with "healthy psychological coping" of the grieving person in accepting reality. I've heard this claim but have not looked into its sources and don't have a good estimation of how true or important this is.
I suffer from experiencing grief a lot more than I am willing to suffer in order to get these benefits. If it was just a matter of choice, I would choose to grieve a lot less or maybe not at all, in all situations. That would require a level of modification of my psychology that would also enable me to get the above benefits without grieving. In reality I don't have that level of control.
However, we do have some control over how much we grieve. In particular, grieving for very distant people seems to be off-by-default in most people, and only activated by deliberate thinking about those distant people; i.e. this kind of grief may be avoided a lot of the time. It also happens to be the kind of grief where the above benefits are least (or nonexistent). So of course I focus my efforts and advise others to practice grieving less first of all in such circumstances.
Note: "grief" can be read broadly, as in "feeling sad through empathy with suffering distant others".
Given this, I am very confused by what you think is special about the esoteric possibilities you discuss with alex_zag_al above.
That is, given my understanding of your position, it seems you should reject or endorse grieving over those doomed intergalactic explorers to basically the same degree that you would either reject or endorse grieving over a boat full of tourists who drown on their way to Greece. (I'm not really sure what degree that is... what I get from your explanation is that you endorse some amount of grief, but not as much of it as people actually demonstrate.)
Does it matter at all that they're in a spaceship etc. etc. etc.? Or does that just happen to be the example under discussion?
It matters that I'm not going to interact with them again (or with their dead bodies). For people who are still entangled with me, like tourists in Greece, I allow more grief because in principle my grief (and by TDT-like reasoning, the grief of others) may help prevent other drowning accidents in the future. But you're right that the actual grief I experience in practice for tourists drowning in Greece is for practical purposes zero.
The example of a spaceship is esoteric; I wasn't the one who chose it, but I responded to people discussing exotic propositions like grieving for "acausal" people like those in other quantum branches. I can't even afford to grieve for everyone who suffers on this Earth, in my own branch - 150,000 people die daily and I haven't got that much grief to spend even if I tried to grieve as much as possible (which I don't want to).
[-]acylhalide1y
Tbh I'm not sure how much "choice" we even have in who we choose to grieve for. Or how much "choice" we have in deciding which interpretation of QM we believe in. Or in any mental process for that matter.
Would it be possible we have partial choice over which interpretation of QM we arrive at? And once we've arrived at one, we have partial choice over who we grieve for as a consequence of whichever QM interpretation we believe in.
[-]MarkusRamikin11y
We won WW2 by the skin of the teeth
We did?
[-]Barry_Cotter11y
No. Well actually there are semi defensible scenarios where the Nazis could have won Europe but they're extremely unlikely. I was going to answer just "No." but the following factors suggest an even more freakishly lucky Nazi regime could have beaten the Soviet Union and the war in Europe was in reality the Soviets versus the Nazis because that conflict was existential once it began.
Evidence the Soviets could have lost
At one stage over 100% of Soviet GDP was going to the military.
The Soviets came quite close to losing 10% of their male population in WW2.
The GDP point means that all non-military economic activity was being supported by external subsidy, i.e. the USA and lendlease. The casualties as a percentage of population are suggestive because it took killing 30% of the male population to convert the Afghans to Islam and this seems a reasonable upper bound on the proportion of a population you need to kill to make a cultural change in a non state society permanently at war. Any more complex society, like the Soviets had will be less robust than that.
But in all seriousness the Soviets could have won the war without the British Empire or Americans committing combat troops, maybe not without economic support. The Nazis were not getting nukes so once anyone on the other side did they were doomed. The Japanese were doomed absent extraterrestrial intervention. I mean that literally. If a meteorite of sufficient size had landed on a major US city maybe the US would have pulled out. Otherwise the Japanese were fucked from the word go. The Italians are irrelevant.
For the easiest data point against the possibility of WW2 being lost by the Allies consider this; the Allies had over 50% of World GDP and had integrated battlegroups, command and control and economic planning. The Nazis had the Italians for allies and could not meaningfully link up with the Japanese.
Absent rocks from space the maximal surviving Nazi state is one of
Hitler dies after annexing Czechoslovakia.
Hitler dies after dividing Poland with Stalin.
I don't think Stalin would have started a war with a post Hitler Nazi regime so scenario 2 is plausible but scenario 1 is overwhelmingly probable.
[-]FeepingCreature11y
My personal favorite theory is that the cold war was quantum suicide on a species-wide level. Since you seem versed in history: seen in counterfactual retrospective, how likely was our survival?
I amn't that well versed in history but if we could somehow check all branches after V-J Day nuclear weapons being used in anger by one or both sides in 1/4 of them would not surprise me. Do keep in mind that it was the 80s before nuclear war would be civilisation ending. Europe and the Soviet Union were toast given nuclear war from '50 maybe, North America had to wait for ICBMs to be screwed given nuclear war and I can't remember if it was Brazil or Australia that were the last places to be targetted by civilisation ending numbers of bombs.
Quantam species suicide I doubt. By the time we could end civilisation the Soviet union was a gerontocracy, albeit one that truly thought the US was an existential enemy when it was barely an enemy. but hey, Stanislav Petrov. I don't know.
Disclaimer: I don't understand QM on a formal level. But here's what I got out of reading the Sequences and other LW discussions on the subject.
Does this "Many worlds" thing imply that there exists (in some meaningful sense) other worlds alongside us
They exist, in a special sense of the word. Instead of arguing about definitions of existence, measure of reality, etc., let's talk about the experimental consequences. Which are: you're not going to interact with them ever again. They exist at most as much as people in our own branch who are outside our Hubble radius.
Should you still grieve for them? That's for you to decide, but I do make a suggestion: grief is in part a useful adaptation. It may help motivate you to prevent more future grief. If you cannot prevent future grief-causing events (because quantum torture branches will always keep splitting off, and to the extent you cannot influence their measure), then that grief is useless. Eliminating it (not grieving) makes you better off and no-one else worse off, so in such cases I suggest you do not grieve.
Again, there may well be good quantum theoretical arguments against quantum suicide. But here's a more practical one. Suppose it works. It has been suggested that it in the vast majority of the branches in which you survive, you do not survive unscathed: you survive hurt, reduced, as an invalid, etc. If you rig up a gun to shoot you, there are some branches where it fails to shoot entirely, but there are many more branches where it misses just enough that you live on as a cripple. Quantum suicide is dangerous like an outcome pump.
In principle, any world whose past evolution does not contradict the laws of physics exists as a branch.
Most people try to avoid the unpleasant implications by assigning significance to the weight of those branches. I find this a bit problematic when applied to branches that are not in our future: the Born probabilities govern the branch we expect to witness, but we don't understand why or how, so why should we say they govern some "reality measure" of branches we cannot interact with?
@ Z. M. Davis.
Yeah, but why? I mean, there's a rumbling noise coming from just over the horizon... the clock is ticking... the machines are coming...
How is Eli turning into a (seemingly quite good) quantum theory philosopher going to save us?
[-]Clinton_Torres15y
Shane,
We need to simulate problems where human solutions deviate from what is observably optimal. With AI, the program must model both the underlying physics of a problem, and it must model a human response to this physical model.
For both of these models we must decide how much detail to build in.
These models include rules that often resemble or approximate equations from quantum mechanics. A particularly interesting similarity is the statistical nature of Bayesian calculations and the statistical representation of amplitude flows in quantum mechanics.
[-]iwdw15y
Unless you believe that the universe is being simulated in a computer (which seems like a highly unparsimonious not to mention anthropocentric assumption)
I can certainly see how it's an unparsimonious assumption, but how is it especially anthropocentric? Would you consider a given Conway Game of Life run to be "glidercentric"?
[-]Eliezer Yudkowsky15y
Shane, maybe I'll do a post on the reasons.
[-]Kaj_Sotala15y
(Whorble. Hiss.) "Never ask that question."
Hee. Funny coincidences, just rewatched that episode about, uhh, ten hours ago.
[-]Nick_Tarleton15y
ME, why should the configurations have to exist "somewhere", i.e. in some space? That's the real anthropocentrism. As you say, light doesn't actually travel in some medium.
Manon: if you survived a quantum suicide experiment, it might convince you of MWI but wouldn't be evidence to others even in the worlds where you survived. This is confusing.
[-]Ben_Jones15y
Nick - sure it could. I killed myself in parallel universe #49237fkwmn(ii) not ten minutes ago, and here I am typing away. QED.
[-]Anon1415y
how very hard it is to stay in a state of confessed confusion, without making up a story that gives you closure
Is there a "heuristics and biases" term for this?
"Need for closure". (I know, who'da thunk it?)
[-]tonyf15y
Is there a missprint in this sentence? "Doing the best you could theoretically do, would mean that you recognized that, even as you looked for ways to test the hypotheses." I think [this sentence] should tell what to recognise, but it does not. (I.e., what is actually the second "that"?)
[-]Daerin_the_Cluer14y
If it is true that all possible outcomes actually happen in at least one of the many-worlds, then a global quantum suicide machine (such as the one that's just about to be activated under the Franco-Swiss border) could be used as a veritable genie.
All possible outcomes happen if everything that happens or doesn't happen is determined at some point by a quantum event. If this is true, then the operators of the global quantum suicide machine can say "We'll activate it today if we don't win the lottery today." Then, only two types of world will exist: Those in which the experimenters all won the lottery, and those where the quantum suicide machine broke down (in which case, the experimenters can try again). From the point of view of the experimenters (and the rest of the world, too), it will seem like there's a certain probability of either their wish coming true before they hit the button, or the machine breaking down, every time they even consider pushing the button. For those outcomes that are less improbable than the machine breaking down, the experimenters would tend to get what they wanted. For other outcomes, the experimenters could try several times.
If they can increase the reliability of the machine arbitrarily, then they can also increase the improbability of their wishes, along with the probability of their wishes coming true when they ask. For example, they could activate the machine only if a meteor shower doesn't etch their names on the Moon.
If the wish can't be influenced by one or more quantum events, then the only worlds that would exist would be those in which the machine broke down.
There's no telling how far the experimenters would be able to go. Is anything truly impossible, or are some things merely ludicrously improbable? Is there anything the experimenters could ask for but never get?
[-]Joel214y
"Is there anything the experimenters could ask for but never get?"
Well, I'd guess they couldn't get anything incompatible with the actual laws of physics, like FTL (if that's impossible). Even so, the problem with this scenario as I see it is that there wouldn't just be the three types of world "wish granted"/"machine failed, nothing happened"/"earth disintegrated", but quite likely partial "successes" as well, where the machine failed in disastrous but not apocalyptic ways, e.g. only a third of humanity died. Whether or not that's ethical I'm not sure, but those surviving folks in the "a third of humanity died" world sure would be upset.
[-]beriukay13y
I've been meaning to update my knowledge about quantum mechanics for a few years now. Last I did any real thinking on it, I was being introduced to it, and the Many Worlds interpretation was spoken of as a very interesting unlikelihood. I didn't even realize the non-realism was wrong, though I do remember that it struck me as highly bizarre that my mind had that kind of power over reality. Then again, I was a teenager and a theist back then, and got all my science info from the brain candy magazines.
These past 4 hours, I've been reading this page and the various links (and sublinks). I was even half-convinced by the philosopher getting things wrong about experiments proving things, despite knowing that you were going to pull the rug from under his argument.
Thanks, Eliezer, for your continued efforts to be less wrong, and to help others be so as well.
[-]TheAncientGeek6y
There are a number of kinds and grades of non-realism.
Well, obviously, once you know you didn't get a measurement, its probability becomes zero
It's not an inevitable slide. An interpretation that is anti-realist about collapse, will not attribute the cause of collapse to consciousness, since it does not acknowledge the reality of collapse in the first place. It nonetheless has to explain the process of disregarding unobserved possibilities. ...which it can do by saying that the observer is updating their subjective map on the basis of fresh information. Selective anti-realism about collapse is a consistent position. Sweeping anti-realism,might not be, but that is another issue. The subjective interpretation of collapse is posited on information becoming available to an observer from an external world, so it is not sweeping anti realism.
[-]Nisan1y
"Shut up (−1/3)i and calculate." is a typo that isn't present in the original post.
[-]Vaniver1y


What could be better than booking your own private small cottage sheltered by trees in the countryside. Wake up undisturbed in the early morning and sit on your comfy wooden front porch with peaceful, tranquil gardens and farmlands your view. Here you will enjoy the privacy of your own deck although you are welcome to also enjoy and explore the main house and have use of the library room. The 5 acres of gardens are here for you to explore and enjoy and in the evenings nothing beats a jacuzzi corner bath tub by candlelight. A true countryside experience awaits you so book your weekend away for 2. This cottage is also perfect for honeymooners or those celebrating their anniversary.


Group Assignment emails will be sent by 11pm Monday April 8, 2019. This includes the Body Checking Clinic group that will go to all Minor Bantam registrants. If you have not received your email by that time please check your junk mail or spam folder before contacting Shannon at 289-439-8008 between 7pm - 9pm weekday evenings or anytime during the day on weekends. Calls between 9am - 6pm weekdays will not be answered.
Late registrants will not be sent their Group Assignment email until Saturday April 13.
Please note that requests to change your Group Assignment once the emails have been sent will not be accommodated.
You will receive an email letting you know where to report for every skate you are to attend. There will be exceptions however, so please check your tryout page and read your emails carefully for any updates or new information.
Emails will be received at least 8 hours before your next skate, however every effort will be made to get them out sooner. This is due to the narrow time-frame between tryouts.
Only those inquiries that are received in the 8 hours before a tryout skate is scheduled will be responded to.
During tryouts the system allows for only one email address per player, families will have to forward a copy to any other email recipients that require one.


This in-depth study of the Global Impact Study looks at the use of cybercafés by children of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). It determines how cybercafés function as an alternative to home internet access in terms of the internet's function to maintain familial connectedness. The impact of using public access venues (public access venues) in strengthening the connectedness of the child to the parent was explored. The children's public access venue-use was operationalized in terms of both frequency of use and the use of various online applications, both synchronous and asynchronous, to communicate with their parents. On the other hand, connectedness was based on the children's perceived knowledge of their parents' lives overseas, the children's perception of their parents' knowledge about them, and the children's perception of their parents' efforts to know more about them.


Considering the extent to which EU policy and regulation impacts Irish business, Ibec - Ireland's national business and employers' federation - maintains a permanent office and delegation in Brussels.
Established since 1972, the year before Ireland joined the then European Economic Community, Ibec Europe is the primary representation of the Irish business community to the European Union. As a major stakeholder within the EU political system, we engage with the EU Institutions, the Irish Government, other Member States and the wider European policy community to protect and promote the interests of Irish business and to champion Ireland's business model and economic priorities at EU level.
We offer strategic advice, publish briefings and newsletters, host regular events and organise tailored delegation visits, helping our members to navigate the complexity of EU decision-making and build relationships in Brussels. Our work also supports the EU activities of our 235 colleagues across Ibec's policy units, sectoral trade associations and regional offices in Ireland.
Ibec is the only Irish member of BusinessEurope, the leading business, industry and employers' representation at EU level. Joining 40 counterpart federations from 34 countries, Ibec Europe collaborates closely with BusinessEurope to advance a competitive and pro-growth environment for European enterprise and wider society.
Ibec's EU Affairs & Trade Policy Committee fames our priorities. The committee, which meets three times per year in Dublin, brings together representatives of a number of our member companies, from across our sectors. The committee helps inform Ibec's policy positions and strategies across horizontal and general EU affairs, global trade and wider international economic and political issues impacting the environment for Irish business. We actively encourage all Ibec member companies with a particular interest or stake in EU and international affairs to participate in our committee and to contribute to our activities.
Our dedicated web portal on Brexit and the future of the EU can be accessed via this link.
For more information about our services and supports, if you have a specific question about how European issues impact your business in Ireland or to add your details to our communications and events mailing lists, please contact any member of the team.
Ibec maintains a presence on the EU Transparency Register. Our public ID number is 479468313744-50.


Starting today, acupuncture, herbal treatments, and other traditional Chinese medicines will be overseen by the provincial government.
In an effort to make these services safer, Ontario is now making sure that only regulated and qualified practitioners deliver these services.
Traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture practitioners need to be registered with and accountable to the College of Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners and Acupuncturists of Ontario. The college will oversee and regulate the profession to ensure patients receive safe, high quality health care services.
There are approximately 2,000 traditional Chinese medicine practitioners and acupuncturists in Ontario. The new legislation makes Ontario the second province after British Columbia to regulate traditional Chinese medicines.
Emily Cheung, registrar of the the newly established College of Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners and Acupuncturists, says that the rules are all about public safety.
"The college will ensure Ontarians receive quality health care services by practitioners who possess the knowledge, skill and judgment required for safe practice," said Cheung.
Not everyone is on board with the new rules, however.
Peter Lam, spokesperson for the ad hoc Committee to Support Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners and Acupuncturists of Ontario, says the new regulations may prevent those who've learned from their elders from practising, along with those who have insufficient English skills.
Lam said at a news conference two weeks ago that some 2,000 practitioners could lose their jobs due to the new regulations, a consequence he said went against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The group is seeking legal action to stop regulation of the traditional treatments.
Cheung says that it is possible for those who learned through ancestral tradition to register.
"They only need to prove that the number of patients that they've seen in the past five years was 2,000," she said, adding that those who do not speak English can also become certified.


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text:
How CEOs Can Support Employee Mental Health in a Crisis
A global survey reveals the detrimental effect of uncertainty.
William Andrew/Getty Images
Covid-19's second-order crisis is starting to emerge: the toll it is taking on our mental health. In a global study of more than 2,700 employees across more than 10 industries undertaken by Qualtrics and SAP during March and April 2020, 75% of people say they feel more socially isolated, 67% of people report higher stress, 57% are feeling greater anxiety, and 53% say they feel more emotionally exhausted. What can CEOs and managers do? The author, himself a CEO, suggests a five-step process: 1) Open the door so staff know you are available to talk about the issue, 2) Demonstrate supportive listening, 3) Be consistent in your messaging, 4) Keep a constant pulse on how your staff are handling the stress in the aggregate, and 5) Communicate available resources.
In these difficult times, we've made a number of our coronavirus articles free for all readers. To get all of HBR's content delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Daily Alert newsletter.
Business leaders are justifiably focused on the here and now of the Covid-19 pandemic, but there's a looming second-order mental health crisis that is only beginning to emerge as a result of global quarantines and a massive, sudden shift to working from home. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, 75% of people say they feel more socially isolated, 67% of people report higher stress, 57% are feeling greater anxiety, and 53% say they feel more emotionally exhausted, according to a global study of over 2,700 employees across more than 10 industries undertaken by Qualtrics and SAP during March and April 2020.
As humans we can handle change, but we do not do well with uncertainty. Given the enormous uncertainty everyone is facing —economically, personally, and professionally — these mental health statistics are as predictable as they are alarming. Using the data from the study and our own experience as CEOs, we have identified five steps every leader and manager should take to make an immediate impact:
1. Open the Door
Nearly 40% of people say their company has not even asked them how they're doing since the pandemic began. That's shocking. People in this group are 38% more likely to say their mental health has declined since the outbreak of the pandemic. How can we expect to help our people if we don't even ask how they are doing? So step one is to simply ask, "Are you okay?"
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I suspect that a desire to respect privacy is inhibiting these manager-employee conversations. But in our study, nearly three out five of people said they are comfortable with their manager proactively asking them about their mental health. Even more importantly, more than 40% of people said they want their manager to broach the subject. So open the door to a conversation by asking if people are okay, and then let them walk through that door in the way they are most comfortable, accepting that around 40 percent of employees will choose not to engage. That's okay, too.
Our research shows that the mental health of your reports should not be outsourced to human resources. In fact, when people were asked to rank who they were willing to talk to about mental health concerns, (selecting from a list including their manager, peers, subordinates, HR, and company executives), people listed HR as the group they were least willing to talk to about mental health. Peers and managers were the two groups with whom people were most willing to address mental health.
2. Demonstrate Supportive Listening
For employees who do choose to talk about their mental health, managers need to practice supportive listening. Don't try to solve everything all at once. Instead just listen, seek to genuinely understand, and ensure that people feel heard. And don't be afraid to open up yourself. Reciprocation can be a powerful tool to build trust. Share how you personally are handling the new normal. Be vulnerable. According to our data, roughly 40% of people at every seniority level of a company have seen a decrease in mental health. That means that whether you're the CEO, a mid-level manager, or a frontline employee, you are just as likely to be suffering. The sooner people realize they are not alone in this, the better we'll be at supporting each other.
I think back to recent conversations I had with two members of our team. One is a single mother who is balancing home school for her two kids (one of whom is in French immersion), her job, and concern for an elderly parent who lives far away. The other is an employee who is single, lives alone, and talked about the crushing isolation he is feeling. My challenges are different, but we all have them. For all of us, this has been one of the weirdest and most emotional times of our lives. We all need to learn to demonstrate supportive listening and be appropriately vulnerable with each other, recognizing that while all of our situations are different, they are all difficult in their own way.
3. Be Consistent
Talking about mental health is not a one and done conversation. One way to help people deal with uncertainty is by providing consistency, especially in how and when you communicate. When it comes to the pandemic, more than 90% of people said they wanted at least weekly communication from their company; 29% said they prefer daily communication. When it comes to discussing mental health specifically, people say that far and away the most effective form of company communication is a phone call directly from one's manager. Employees who say their manager is not good at communicating are 23% more likely to experience mental health declines. Regular, consistent communication from managers is essential to ensuring people feel supported.
4. Keep a Constant Pulse
It's not just about helping our managers take care of their teams, we need to take care of our managers as well — and we need to do it while keeping a constant pulse on the company as a whole. To best do that at scale, companies should be sending a regular employee pulse survey to understand how each team, department, and the company as a whole are doing. This is not a moment to be reactive as a leader: You need to get ahead of trends and understand the sentiment of your workforce so you can take action quickly.
Our study found that nearly one in three employees say their team does not maintain informal contact while working from home. People who are lacking informal contact are 19% more likely to report a decline in mental health since the pandemic began. So much of this stems from the fact that with so many people quarantined in their own homes, we have lost the opportunity for watercooler conversations and impromptu run-ins that give us energy and spark new ideas and collaboration. We can't replicate that exactly, but we have seen many of our teams hosting virtual happy hours to end the week or having a virtual lunch where people can just catch up, share stories, and maintain connection. By regularly running employee pulse surveys you can begin to spot problems early.
5. Communicate Available Resources
Lastly, make sure you are very clear about the mental health resources available to everyone at your company. Almost half of workers said their company has not proactively shared what mental health resources are available to them. To be sure, some people want and need to leverage those resources, but many more people just want to know that the resources are there. As we noted, people don't do well with uncertainty. That's why just knowing that resources are available goes a long way to ease anxiety and stress. People who said their company has proactively shared how to access mental health resources are 60% more likely to say that their company cares about their wellbeing.
The mental health crisis stemming from Covid-19 is serious and will be with us for some time to come. Let's approach it with compassion, honesty, and openness. We will emerge from this as better leaders, better people, and better companies.
If our content helps you to contend with coronavirus and other challenges, please consider subscribing to HBR. A subscription purchase is the best way to support the creation of these resources.
Read more on Leading teams or related topics Managing people, Motivating people and Mental health
Ryan Smith is the cofounder and executive chairman of Qualtrics.
RyanQualtrics

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This is a guide for lawyers handling Maryland District Court claims for $30,000 or less. It is also a good read for people who are trying to handle their own claims in Maryland District Court. If you are an injury victim who wants to understand how the Maryland District Court process works, you can click here for information about the district court process written for accident victims.
The District Court has original jurisdiction over civil matters where the damages claimed are $30,000 or less. Md. Code Ann. Cts.&Jud. Proc. ("CJP") § 4-401. Although the District Court lacks the extensive formal discovery process available in Circuit Court, it is important not to allow this perceived lack of formality to diminish our trial preparation and presentation to the District Court bench. Although the damages claimed may be smaller than those of other matters, these cases are important to our clients, and we owe them our best efforts when presenting their claims.
This article will presenttrial practice tips designed to maximize the recovery to our clients and increase the level of professionalism of the District Court bar. I am sure many of us have had the excruciating experience of sitting through a District Court trial conducted by a lawyer who is unprepared or unfamiliar with District Court practice. This diminishes both the professional reputation of counsel and the potential recovery to his or her client. The practice tips contained below are designed to foster an effective, organized, and professional trial practice in the District Court of Maryland.
A small claim is any matter in which the amount in controversy is $5,000 or less. CJP § 4-405. Forms for pleading small claims are available from the clerk and should be used in filing and defending such actions. Md. Rule 3-701 (b). Using these forms can save considerable time . Further, the clerk's office's inherent familiarity with the forms helpful in getting cases timely and correctly set for trial . Most District Court forms are available as fillable .pdf files directly from the Maryland Judiciary website. The required information can be typed in and printed directly from your computer, ready for filing. Happily, the days when District Court forms required a typewriter and carbon paper are long gone.
Additionally, small claims are unique in that no discovery is permitted, Md. Rule 3-701 (e), and the Rules of Evidence do not apply. Md. Rule 3 -701 (f). It is the wild west which is probably how it should be since so many of the participants are pro se plaintiff who are not going to understand the Maryland Rule of Evidence. However, often if there are counsel on both sides, the Court will require the rules of evidence be applied, so it is best to be prepared to present your evidence in accordance with the Rules, should it be required.
Claims from $5,001 up to $30,000 occupy the "no man's land" between the extremely informal small claims procedure, and the formal procedures used in Maryland's Circuit Courts. Fortunately, there are myriad ways to present your case effectively even within the constraints of the District Court trial format.
Presenting Medical Evidence Under CJP § 10-104.
It is possible to admit medical bills and records without witness testimony using the procedure set forth in CJP § 10-104. This has been a wonderful cost and time saving device for personal injury lawyers and defense lawyers in simplying the handling of personal injury cases. Although to many this practice may seem routine, the requirements can be technical, so a little extra attention is well spent.
Usually in District Court injury cases this type of evidence makes up the bulk of the damages evidence that will be presented to the court, so the consequences of a procedural error can be particularly dire. It allows the bills and records of a health care provider to be received in evidence without witness testimony, as long as the requirements of the statute are met. Section 10-104 may be used in any action for personal injury, medical or disability benefits, first party auto insurance, or first party health insurance benefits brought in the District Court (or in the Circuit Court where the amount in controversy would be within the original jurisdiction of the District Court ). CJP § 10-104.
This requires that a Notice of Intent to Introduce Writings and Records Without Support of Testimony be filed with the Court and served on all parties at least sixty days before the trial date. CJP § 10-104 (c)(1)(ii). The Notice must contain a list stating the name of the health care provider for each writing or record and the date of each writing or date of each treatment. CJP § 10-104 (c)(3). In order to ensure compliance with the sixty -day deadline , I suggest serving the required notice and supporting documentation along with the complaint.
This ensures that the trial date will not be set too early to comply with the sixty-day requirement. The documents will then be admissible without the need for testimony. CJP § 10-104 (d)(1). The fact -finder may assign this evidence any weight it deems appropriate. CJP § 10-104 (d)(2). Medical bills presented using this procedure are not required to contain a statement as to fairness or reasonableness. CJP § 10-104 (c)(1). Click here for more on using a 10-104 in Maryland.
Presenting Evidence of Paid Bills for Goods or Services Under CJP § 10-105.
Similarly, a witness from a provider of goods or services is not required to admit into evidence paid bills or receipts for goods or services in civil actions in the District Court (or in Circuit Court cases within the original jurisdictional amount of the District Court ) if counsel complies with CJP § 10-105 (a). Paid bills for goods or services are admissible without testimony as to the authenticity of the bills for goods or services or testimony regarding the fairness and reasonableness of the charges for the goods or services. CJP § 10-105 (b)(1)(i). The fact -finder may attach whatever weight to the bills it deems appropriate. CJP § 10-105 (b)(1)(ii).
Testimony from a witness is still required, however. The bill may be admitted upon the testimony of a person with personal knowledge identifying the original bill or a copy, identifying the provider of the goods or services, explaining the circumstances surrounding the receipt of the bill, describing the goods or services provided, stating those goods or services were provided in connection with the event giving rise to the action, and stating that the bill was paid. CJP § 10-105 (b)(2). Normally, this testimony may be provided by your client. A classic example of a situation in which this procedure would be useful is in the context of admitting a paid bill for a rental car in an auto tort case. Your client can lay the entire foundation required to admit the paid bill. This avoids the problem of trying to get a witness from the rental car company to appear for your case.
Remember, using this section also requires service of a notice upon all other parties at least sixty days before the trial begins. CJP § 10-105 (c)(1). The notice resembles that which is used to admit records of health care providers under section CJP §10-104. It must include a list that identifies each bill and have attached to it a copy of each bill. CJP § 10-105 (c)(1)(i). For each bill, the list must include the name of the provider of goods or service , and the date the good or service was provided. A notice of service and the list that identifies each bill must be filed with the Court. CJP § 10-105 (c)(1)(ii). Admitting paid bills this way can save you many headaches and streamline the presentation of evidence by requiring fewer witnesses and less of the Court's time.
Proving the value of personal property.
This issue often arises in District Court trials. I have seen it come up with personal property destroyed in an auto collision, in a flood or removed by theft, and I am sure there are other contexts in which it arises. Each time I have encountered this issue , my opponent has tried to convince the court that an expert was needed to opine as to the value of personal property. Luckily, Maryland law contains no such requirement. An owner of personal property is competent to offer an opinion of the value of his own property. "It is well settled in this State that an owner of personal property in common use may express an opinion as to its value without qualification as an expert." Christian v. State, 65 Md.App. 303, 307, 500 A.2d 341, 342 (1985), affirmed on other grounds, 309 Md. 114, 522A.2d 945 (1987); see also, Maryland Casualty Co. v. Therm-O-Disc, 137 F.3d 780, 786 (1998). This is true in civil and criminal cases. Christian, 65 Md.App. at 307, 500 A.2d at 343.
Additionally, "the fair market value of common consumer goods… will usually be close or equal to their replacement cost." Maryland Casualty Co., 137 F.3d at 786. This means that your client who lost a GPS unit, compact discs, or a new lamp in a collision can present her claim for damages for these items to the court without the need for a costly or difficult to find expert.
Most courtrooms in the District Court of Maryland are equipped with exhibit stickers located at counsel table. It is always good practice to make sure your exhibits are pre-marked. With the volume of cases that are heard in the District Court, most judges want their dockets to move quickly and efficiently. Nobody wants to wait while an unprepared lawyer fumbles around attempting to mark exhibits in the middle of a trial. In my experience, this problem is most commonly seen where a series of photos need to marked (usually on the back so as not to obscure the image on the front). I keep a stack of yellow "Plaintiff's Exhibit" stickers in my office so that I can have everything marked and ready to go before getting to the courthouse. At a minimum, take the time to arrive at the courtroom a few minutes early to mark your exhibits. A judge annoyed by delay is not likely to make a generous damages award.
One ever present challenge in District Court motor tort cases is showing the judge how the collision happened. Most of us have seen this done in various ways: A description of the scene given by witnesses without demonstrative aids; a description made with magnetic car figures on a magnetized chalkboard, a drawing on a whiteboard or easel; or a description using grainy, out of focus snapshots. Each of these methods lacks clarity, specificity, or reliability. My favorite way to show the court where and/or how the collision happened is by using the official land records for the municipality in which the collision occurred or, now, Google Earth.
These are usually available through the municipalities' land records office. Records of this type have several advantages over the myriad other ways to convey the same information to the court. First, these records are self-authenticating as a certified copy of public records under Md. Rule 5-902 (a)(4). Second, they fall within the public records and reports exception to the hearsay rule. Md. Rule 5-803 (b)(8). Thus, they can be admitted into evidence without a witness, as long as they are accompanied by a certification from the custodian of records. These records make very effective trial exhibits. They can generally be purchased in a variety of sizes to show several vantage points. They are exact and are drawn to scale. This helps to minimize witnesses' natural difficulty in estimating distances.
Now, your witness will no longer have to guess or estimate how far away the other vehicle is when they first saw it or, for example, how far the defendant got through the intersection before the collision. These factors can more easily be determined by pointing to the plat and using a ruler to determine the exact distance. Using these records as trial exhibits takes the confusion and guesswork out of showing exactly where and how the collision occurred.
Many types of claims are heard in the District Court. They range from torts, contracts, landlord-tenant matters, to injunctive relief. Because the bench is confronted with such a wide range of types of claims, I find it helpful to arrive prepared to educate the court about the particular law that applies to the matter at hand. Usually, this takes the form of a trial Memorandum. This is nothing more than a brief memorandum in pleading form containing all of the law that applies to the matter, whether statutory or caselaw.
It is important to understand this is not an opportunity for advocacy. A trial memorandum should not contain any factual material or application of the facts to the law. It is designed solely to make sure the Court understands the legal issues involved. I have used trial memoranda to explain issues such as res ipsa loquitor, trespass as to land, and the notice requirement in premises liability cases. This way, once you have put on your evidence, the court will be able to readily apply the facts to the law and render a decision. Although the trial memorandum itself is not advocacy, it is likely that you will have the Court's full attention to your argument having made an impression with your thorough preparation.
Additionally, if there is a case or statute that is particularly applicable, it is always a good idea to arrive with copies for the Court and opposing counsel. The same holds true for exhibits. Obviously, there is no requirement that you provide a copy to opposing counsel, but the principles of collegiality, professionalism, and civility make this a good practice. Professionalism always enhances your presentation and reputation.
Also, keep in mind any potential appeal. Under Maryland Rule 3-522, in "a contested trial, the judge, before or at the time judgment is entered, shall prepare and file or dictate into the record a brief statement of the reasons for the decision and the basis of determining any damages." So if a judge does not give the basis for his ruling, you do not want to press it. The failure to comply with this rule provides a good basis for appeal.
These tips should help to maximize the effectiveness of your District Court trial presentation. Hopefully, they will aid in preparing an organized, professional, and compelling presentation. Each of these techniques is designed to minimize the attention the court must pay to legal, procedural, and evidentiary issues so the focus of the trial can be directed where you want it.


Studying hard is one of the worst myths you can tell a student. It's about effectively organizing your study time to maximize your effort and use your schedule to memorize as much as you can. However, even this is no enough sometimes.
Even straight-A students end up forgetting things and messing up their exams. There is simply too much to do to rely solely on memory and intuition.
Various apps can help you make the most out of your studying and achieve better results. Whether it's apps for graduating high school or more specialized college apps, you have a lot to choose from. In this article, we've decided to assemble a list of the 10 best apps for Android and iOS that will surely make a difference.
This is one of the best new apps for students of all ages and professions. Use it to handle all the demanding essays and assignments from your professors. Google Docs gives you the opportunity to combine your own writing with content ordered from https://customwriting.com/.
Effectively create study notes, tools and everything else you might need. And the best part? Everything stays online and you won't have any problems tracking down files on your hard drive.
Google Drive is one of the best Android apps all time, but they've also drastically improved their iOS interface. You get 15 gigabytes of free cloud storage, which is more than enough for any semester.
If you want to have more, you can upgrade the memory to even 30 terabytes, which is quite astonishing. In cases where you don't want to pay, you can always move last semester's study material to your hard drive.
There aren't many apps like My Homework App. This particular tool specializes in helping you sort your homework into categories. With options to sort by subject, day, length and priority, you can always keep track of your essays and assignments.
You get interactive reminders and alerts a few hours before you're required to start. For those of you that have a hard time organizing themselves, this is an ideal option.
Todoist is one of the most useful Android apps out there. Unlike MyHomework, you get options for organizing your entire day.
While MyHomework is specialized in organizing study time and homework sessions, Todoist helps you take notes and place reminders for other things you have to do during the day. It can be a real lifesaver when the days are hectic.
Grammarly can literally be used for anything. When you're writing notes in the last minute or if you're writing an email to your professor, Grammarly will do the proofreading for you. You will hand in perfect essays and have notes that are free from mistakes.
Sometimes, studying effectively is all about taking care of the foundations, so it's safe to say this app is a must-have for any student that writers a lot. There is a paid version, in addition to the free option, but you will do just fine without the extra features.
Writing notes and rewriting content for essays and assignments is a big part of studying, right? Of course. No matter how inspired you are, you can always get carried away with long, unintelligible sentences and too many adverbs.
Hemingway App solves this problem by marking sentences that are too long and signifying whether a word is too complex or misplaced. Just copy whatever you're writing into the App and you will have no problems having optimal discourse for your assignments, research papers and whatever else you pay need.
Every student should strive to volunteer to deliver presentations in class. Why, exactly? Having to talk about something in front of the whole class instill pressure and expectations, urging you to perform.
With Google Slides, you will have the best presentation app that will help you study in the most effective way. An equally good idea is to separate the material between your friends and have each make a presentation. This will help everyone memorize stuff for the test.
Are you often sleepy in class and unable to concentrate? You're not the only one. There is a solution and its name is SoundNote. With this app, you can capture entire lectures and classes using your phone.
With special sound clarification software, SoundNote enables you to sleep in class or to study another subject. When you're done, just turn off the sound recorder and you can re-listen all the material when you get home.
Let's try a different situation – you're well rested, but you don't have the will to write down all the important things. What should you do now? In this situation, use Office Lens to capture the blackboard and scan every bit of writing on it.
Once you take a picture, you can immediately convert the file into .pdf or .docx. This is a great tool that you can use to create articles for students that aren't present.
Another useful app for studying, GoConqr allowed you to organize your revision sessions and get the best results out of those final days. You can create associations, mind maps and customized schedules in any way you want. It's an app that you simply must have if you want to make those long revision hours count.
The best way to get the most out of each app is to use them in unison. For example, you can use Google Drive to store all your study material so that you don't have to carry a lot of papers. With Todoist, you will know when to start each chapter, with outsourced notes from Custom Writing.
These are the best apps for college students and anyone else who wants to be an effective student. It's about being resourceful and you will become just that.


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Has there ever been a time when you wished you could just talk to someone who owed you money, or to someone you owed money to, and tried to make a quiet deal in order to better settle a debt and get some debt relief? For most of us, the answer might be yes, though it doesn't actually happen near as often as we'd like it to. Maybe the problem is that many of us simply don't try a practice known as debt negotiation, where people talk out debt and try to settle for a mutually agreeable amount.
The first thing we need to do when considering debt negotiation is change our perceptions of credit providers. Creditors are not all rich, old men who have no regard for the people they give credit to. No, creditors are often businesses, holding debt in exchange for profit in the form of interest. If there's a clear business case for reducing the amount of that debt, then many businesses will follow up on it. They would do so because it's in their best interests (and also in yours) to do so.
Next, consider the potential avenues for debt negotiation. There are generally two ways to go about it: do it yourself or hire someone else to act as your agent in a debt negotiation—some even call it debt settlement—process. That someone can be a lawyer or a debt settlement firm. Watch out for some debt settlement companies that may look to scam you out of your money.
The potential issues to watch for when dealing with debt settlement companies involve fees to open a file to begin with, monthly fees for services, or charging based on a percentage of money saved through the negotiation process. Additionally, watch out for unusually strong guarantees that are a good sign of a scam in progress: a guarantee of huge settlements, "pennies on the dollar", or that some debts will be outright eliminated. Creditors are certainly free to negotiate—it is their debt, after all—but they are under no obligation to accept any negotiation process or offer to negotiate.
One thing to watch for is any suggestion that creditors never sue debtors over non-payment. Many will, and many do. Any notion that a company can remove negative information from a credit report that happens to be accurate is also a false promise. No one can remove this kind of information. Even if a debt is negotiated or settled, it's important to note that if a debt is reduced or charged off it can be treated as taxable income, which means a potential note of sticker shock when taxes come due.
Negotiating debt with creditors can be as simple as sending a letter, making a phone call, or going in person to speak to someone with authority over the debts. Consider going in with the intent to pay a lump sum up front in exchange for a reduction of the amount, or a longer term with lower payments. These things are reasonable, and may find a receptive audience.
In the end, businesses don't want to lose the amount invested in the debt, but might be willing to lose a small portion of it in exchange for getting most of it. Very few businesses actually win when someone declares bankruptcy, so avoiding bankruptcy and finding alternatives to bankruptcy become very worthwhile tasks. Those who talk to their creditors early on, and remember that the creditor views debt as a business venture, are most likely to come out ahead in the end.


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Cholera can't kill his music
by Angus Shaw · Published October 5, 2018 · Updated November 9, 2018
The government claims the latest cholera epidemic is under control. It's no consolation to the family, friends and colleagues of eminent musician, composer and choirmaster Rodwell Samkange who has succumbed to cholera in western Harare at the age of 70.
His death is a massive loss to Zimbabwean music and the arts world as a whole. Though his prolific music lives on – and probably played in his mind as his life spewed away – it is unforgivable that in this day and age such a great talent and inspiration to many, young and old, should be silenced by the failure of inept, indolent and corrupt officials to provide clean water and proper sanitation that prevent cholera.
Samkange played many different instruments with skill and passion and had an abiding love for everything musical, something he learnt from his musician father. His formal training got going at the Waddilove Institute near Wedza; he eventually graduated from the Zimbabwe School of Music and later achieved another top-notch music diploma in Japan.
At home, he founded several prize winning school and church choirs. The brilliant Chitungwiza Harmony Singers sang his popular composition Pjumvu at international events. (So moving were they at the recent funeral of Tudy Stevenson, the Chitungwiza singers brought tears to the eyes of mourners.)
If we had a music Hall of Fame, Rodwell Samkange would right there at the top of the rankings.
As for corruption and plundering of resources meant for the public good, we have now reached a new low. The latest monetary policy is a fiasco, daylight robbery again.
The slogan "ED Pfee" urged Mr Mnangagwa and his loyalists "to get in there" and sort things out. But now on the streets it is being seen to mean a middle finger up to ordinary folk and especially the most poor. This up-yours image – as did the original slogan – derives from the shona slang word pfekera, which means "entering."
We have heard them lie before that foreign currency accounts would never be raided. We heard the central bank governor say he would resign if bond notes failed; they have become the new Zim dollar, nowhere near the 1:1 against the American dollar that he first promised. We are being screwed.
Not that it matters to Rodwell Samkange or the dozens of other cholera victims, but their surviving families will suffer even more now.
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Thanks for your interest in the Respiratory Care Practitioner - $10,000 sign on bonus (FT), Respiratory Care, Nights position. Unfortunately this position has been closed but you can search our 698 open jobs by clicking here.
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text:
Q: pdf2swf works only on ssh i have the following execute command:
/usr/local/bin/pdf2swf -s centerx=1 -s bitmap -s jpegquality=85 -s zoomtowidth=1200 -s zoomtoheight=1000 -s zoom=100 -s framerate=0.25 -s subpixels=1.5 -S /test.pdf -o /test-%.swf

when i run it via ssh(putty for example) it works perfectly.
but when i run it via php script like following:
<?php
exec("/usr/local/bin/pdf2swf -s centerx=1 -s bitmap -s jpegquality=85 -s zoomtowidth=1200 -s zoomtoheight=1000 -s zoom=100 -s framerate=0.25 -s subpixels=1.5 -S /test.pdf -o /test-%.swf");
?>

it doesnt work...
please help me, thank you very much!

A: You could try phpseclib, a pure PHP SSH implementation.  Example:
<?php
include('Net/SSH2.php');

$ssh = new Net_SSH2('www.domain.tld');
if (!$ssh->login('username', 'password')) {
    exit('Login Failed');
}

echo $ssh->exec('pwd');
echo $ssh->exec('ls -la');
?>

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


A perfect barbecue dish for summer evenings.
Allow to cool a little, then cut the end off each garlic clove and squeeze the garlic flesh into a bowl.
Add the paprika, olive oil salt and pepper to the bowl and mix well.
Place the tuna steaks into a shallow dish, pour over the above sauce and leave to marinade for about half an hour.
Cook on a barbecue or grill for about 5-6 minutes each side.