Even at the lowest energies, there is a basic mystery to quantum mechanics. A photon passes through a half-silvered mirror and then gets detected. There is an "undead" wave function representing the bit of the photon that was reflected back from the mirror. How does this undead wave function get annihilated? We can reflect back the undead wave function to make it interfere with the presumed live wave function just before detection in order to alter the results of the detection, but once detection has happened, there really is an annihilation. Logical positivists would say of this undead entity "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent". I would say the undead entity is annihilated by the working part of the detector temporarily becoming a tachyon. Any other ideas? In other interpretations of quantum mechanics, there are undead universes or undead streamlines to ask about. The issue remains the same.
I've always found it troubling that we even speak of non-relativistic QM. Why can't quantum theory be relativistic through and through from the outset? It may be too hard and ambitious to rebuild QFT from the ground up, but can we even discuss or describe what kind of ontology it would have to be? Do you believe that MW has better answers on that score and is qualitatively on the right track more than Bohmian mechanics or GRW?
Most excellent. That is precisely why I am not too happy with statements that the universe is not locally real. I posit that there is only the real. A different interpretation. Anyway. Good going. Bravo.
"Wavefunction realism" sounds like a category error. A Vector in an abstract mathematical space (Hilbert space) " real"? And what about structural realism (Relational QM)? At least this interpretation restores observables as "real", instead of the ( unobservable anyway) state vector...
So everything in quantum mechanics is fiendishly complicated and impossible to understand? As an antidote to this, I will just propose a very simple version of QM for the purpose of computer simulation. Just model QM as a classical system plus a bit of classical Brownian or Lucretian motion on the scale of QM. The computer simulation makes use of a random number generator. This simulation can deal with chaotic dynamics and the arrow of time question, and the fact that a coin toss does after all end up heads or tails and not in a superposition of states. Indeed there is plenty in microscopic QM that this model fails to represent. The question is can we have something better which uses a RNG but maybe falls short of modelling quarks?
Even at the lowest energies, there is a basic mystery to quantum mechanics. A photon passes through a half-silvered mirror and then gets detected. There is an "undead" wave function representing the bit of the photon that was reflected back from the mirror. How does this undead wave function get annihilated? We can reflect back the undead wave function to make it interfere with the presumed live wave function just before detection in order to alter the results of the detection, but once detection has happened, there really is an annihilation. Logical positivists would say of this undead entity "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent". I would say the undead entity is annihilated by the working part of the detector temporarily becoming a tachyon. Any other ideas?
In other interpretations of quantum mechanics, there are undead universes or undead streamlines to ask about. The issue remains the same.
I've always found it troubling that we even speak of non-relativistic QM. Why can't quantum theory be relativistic through and through from the outset? It may be too hard and ambitious to rebuild QFT from the ground up, but can we even discuss or describe what kind of ontology it would have to be? Do you believe that MW has better answers on that score and is qualitatively on the right track more than Bohmian mechanics or GRW?
Most excellent. That is precisely why I am not too happy with statements that the universe is not locally real. I posit that there is only the real. A different interpretation. Anyway. Good going. Bravo.
"Wavefunction realism" sounds like a category error.
A Vector in an abstract mathematical space (Hilbert space) " real"?
And what about structural realism (Relational QM)? At least this interpretation restores observables as "real", instead of the ( unobservable anyway) state vector...
Thank God somebody understands!!!
God lol
So everything in quantum mechanics is fiendishly complicated and impossible to understand? As an antidote to this, I will just propose a very simple version of QM for the purpose of computer simulation. Just model QM as a classical system plus a bit of classical Brownian or Lucretian motion on the scale of QM. The computer simulation makes use of a random number generator. This simulation can deal with chaotic dynamics and the arrow of time question, and the fact that a coin toss does after all end up heads or tails and not in a superposition of states.
Indeed there is plenty in microscopic QM that this model fails to represent. The question is can we have something better which uses a RNG but maybe falls short of modelling quarks?
Mere philosophy.
Haha I hope you show up with this clown in the avatar under all foundation of physics videos