All of that is false. The theory is spelled out in textbooks that are mostly in agreement. You could call the agreement the Copenhagen Interpretation, but calling it that sometimes get sidetracked into what Bohr meant, and not everyone agrees.
A new paper by Geoff Beck dives into what the textbooks say:
This work sets out to answer a single question: what is the orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics? However, we adopt a different approach to that normally used. Rather than carefully surveying the precise details of the thoughts of Bohr and Heisenberg, we extract an orthodoxy empirically. To do this we review a collection of 33 textbooks on quantum mechanics, encompassing the most popular and prominent works of this nature. We then gauge their response to 12 propositions to build up a picture of exactly what is believed by an orthodox quantum mechanic. We demonstrate that this orthodoxy is largely unchanged over the past century, with some interesting emerging deviations, and has many aspects of Copenhagen-like viewpoints.This is correct. We do have an orthodox version of the theory, and general agreement on most points for about a century. And it does not include parallel universes, nonlocal interactions, Bohmian ghosts, Bell beables, or any of that.
Orthodox QM is used all the time in computer chip industries, and many others. It has been spectacularly successful, both theoretically and commercially.
Hey Roger, PhD (Maths) (Berkeley),
ReplyDeleteDoes the above author accept the fact that there *is* a measurement problem to be solved --- something which even my (bought (paying in Indian Rupees (even when all you Americans simply refused to hire me for a job in my field so that there never was a question for you to pay me for a job exceedingly well done anyway))) cheap/Asian/South Asian/Indian albeit assuredly printed on acid-free paper copies, respectively, of (too) many textbooks do mention, at least in the passing or more frequently rather indirectly, making recourse to "Mathematical" "Postulate" of "Born's rule" (the Nobel Laureate born in the West)?
If yes, I might cursorily browse through it. Who knows, I might even cite it. If it *is* good enough to cited by me. Else, good luck to him.
BTW, are you (still) with (my some-time part-time "Guru" viz./which is/namely) Dr. Lubos(h) Motl that there is *no* measurement problem at all to be solved in the first place, because maths is already there, and / or your position that probabilities are all there is to science and all?
And, now, come to think of it: How about your Logical Positivism? Is this author too in there right with you on that count? (Just asking, because *you* cite him.)
iqWaves.
--Ajit
[I won't correct grammatical errors in this comment, if any. Go get it.]
The article just describes the theory as presented by textbooks. You are asking about a philosophical issue.
ReplyDeleteRoger,
ReplyDeleteThe bullshit you seem to dislike is part of the problem with conflating math models for reality. Just because you notice me leaving my house a certain number of times per day, put a ratio on it, and then start doing lengthy calculations doesn't mean you have the slightest idea why I do or don't leave my house a certain number of times a day.
Particles aren't math either, whatever your understanding, they aren't mere abstractions of thought, and they don't do math, much less quantum mechanics, never have never will. They function as they do because of their non-point sized internal structure and interaction, not by calculations made by someone with a computer who can't actually even observe them directly, and who has to use a tremendous amount of technological mediation and guesswork. Never once in reality has an electron had a moment when it said to itself "Gee, I wonder what my probability is where I'm located? I'd better probabilistically calculate that before I can exist there!" doesn't happen.
Whatever you want to call probabilistic math, it isn't reality, it's just the math you are using to vaguely describe things you can't actually measure very well due to their size and constant motion. The probabilistic description being used isn't a mechanism that can explain detailed functioning/structure of a particle anymore than a class average by itself can explain an individual test score of a student, much less why one student has a high score and another a low score.
Folks need to take a new look at structure by means of new methods of instrumentation that test previous observations, put the damn laundry lists of mathematical assumptions down, and do new analysis of the actual particles...and by particles I don't mean monte carlo simulations deux ex machina. It doesn't actually matter if your answers agree with outcomes when you have no idea whatsoever what is going on inside the black box.
You can sweep this all under the rug as 'philosophy' if you wish, but I would point out this lack of even basic philosophy is why so much of physics has become ungrounded, and lost touch with reality and reason. I notice time and time again high level physicists with their heads up their own equations making very basic logical reasoning errors as they sniff their own farts of magnificence, remember BICEP2? How much money did they waste on measuring polarized dust without asking "Duh...george, how do we know the dust was polarized by the big bang and not any other local star or stellar phenomena? Do we even have a way to tell remotely when it happend? Is there a time stamp on polarization? George...duh... how was dust even polarized by the big bang when supposedly dust didn't exist yet until several generations of stars???"
Apparently, a simple 'call it philosophical' logical flow chart of their own theory and few questions of causality would have saved them quite a bit of money (~20million dollars).
It is readily apparent physics is now more about funding physicists employment than actually doing anything useful.
No, Physics is not going to be helped by more philosophy.
ReplyDeleteIt will if the physicists aren't smart enough to puzzle through the concept of basic logic and causation. If you want to argue there is a lot of bad philosophy, sure there is, You have to learn to separate the wheat from the useless chaff of the 20th century modernism. There is ALSO metric crap ton of fan-fiction high energy physics math that went splat on the windshield of the LHC...produced lovingly by many of the finest minds in the field for the last seventy years. They found not one thing on their VERY long laundry list but a monte carlo simulated particle they have since mostly ceased even mentioning at all. Remember how that pesky particle was going to EXPLAIN everything and the kitchen sink? Too soon? Hardly a glowing testimony to their fine methodical thinking.
DeleteAsking skeptical intelligent questions should be a prerequisite to spare the rest of us ordinary people wasting billions of tax dollars on untestable black box speculation...just because it looks 'beautiful' in the math and gets lots of citations in tiny inbred science knitting circles.
Knowing about bad ideas is as important as knowing about good ideas. Think of the nature of good and evil. Do you honestly think you can understand evil without being exposed to it? How else would you know when you are being convinced by a bad idea that has already been tried many times before? Marxism is a philosophy, that has been repackaged many times, under many names, and yet most of the mathematicians you look up to subscribe to variations of his ideas with a healthy dose of nihilism mixed in. Mainly because they are too conceited with their narrow slice of understanding to consider they really are not familiar with many bad ideas that have already been tried.
ReplyDeleteYour enlightened scientific community wouldn't recognize a bad idea, much less evil, if their funding depended upon them pretending not to notice. This is how we pretty much wrecked the united states economy after a our own country funded the creation of a man made disease which killed over seven million people...and the scientific community mostly said 'who us? HOW DARE YOU!' Some of these informed individuals were perfectly fine suggesting if we did not agree to injecting ourselves with untested medicines that we should be put into 'reeducation camps' until we complied with THE SCIENCE. Mind you, this was coming from people in the scientific community who considered themselves 'informed'.
Maybe you have forgotten what happened fifteen minutes ago, but I certainly haven't 'Mr. I don't need philosophy'. If you ever need to ask "should I do this?" then you need a framework of moral philosophy. Knowing all the math in the world won't will not help you. If you ever need to ask 'Can I do this?' just ask the scientists who cooked up Covid19 in the name of 'I needed a fucking paycheck so it's okay'.
The origin of covid-19 is unknown. There are some interesting theories, but no consensus.
ReplyDeleteAnd here I thought you favored probabilities Roger. Tell me, What are the odds that the exact disease which was being manipulated with forced gain research to make it become highly commutable to humans when it naturally wasn't just happened to be less than a couple of miles from the supposed epicenter of same said disease? Fauci's own people suspected genetic modification due to genetic clevage site indicators before they mysteriously changed their minds...at the same time... to then unanimously declare that it wasn't modified...without explanation...and then were all offered hefty research grants. Scientists who spoke out against this were blatantly discredited by the NIH at Mr. Fauci's direction. Right.
ReplyDeleteNothing to see here. So mysterious. Oh well.
Nothing at all suspicious.
Then it turns out the Fauci was actually the person responsible for the disease being outsourced for forced gain research in the first place because it was illegal to do said 'research' in the States. Think probabilities here...what are the odds of all the cotton-picking cities in the world that Covid19 just coincidentally occurred practically next door to the one place that was tinkering around with it? In addition, before the official outbreak was reported, scientists at the Wuhan Virology Institute suddenly became ill, and then the Chinese government shut down their data sharing website for undisclosed reasons. This has been documented. This same lab had also been sanctioned several times previously for not following correct biological containment procedures.
An awful lot of highly improbable coincidences stacking up here that leave 'experts' mystified. Circle the wagons and CYA. And still, folks are just completely at a loss for where the damn disease came from...and not one ounce of honest curiosity about how a supposed zoonotic transmission vector was favored when it hasn't been found in a single animal to date. Right. Sure. Over seven million dead, and no one knows anything...except behind closed doors.
No red flags. Nothing to see here. Nope. Nada.
I have zero respect for the integrity of a medical community which after acting on made up nonsense about masking, social distancing, vaccine efficacy, and bogus 'settled science' FOR YEARS is now more worried about their precious reputations being tarnished than being remotely honest or held accountable to what was going on. They are just appalled at the lack of trust the public has in them. Poor little them. Poor little them and all the billions they made off the fear and suffering their own little community engineered.
Creating highly commutable deadly new diseases is not medicine.
It's certainly not god's will, or chance.
It's premeditated mass murder.
Consensus my ass.