Isn't that equally the case if we replace the cat+atom with a coin flipping machine? The observer inside the box knows exactly which side came up, the one outside lives in uncertainty. Until the two communicate, that is, or the outsider looks in, at which point both will agree. Which is the same...
The reason for assuming causality is perhaps not so much physical as methodological. When you incorporate a stochastic element in a model, you are in fact saying something like "we have a rough description of how this variable works, but for the purposes of this model we are not going to bother...
Well... isn't orthodox QM equally non-local? http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/#nl" states:
It should be emphasized that the nonlocality of Bohmian mechanics derives solely from the nonlocality built into the structure of standard quantum theory, as provided by a wave function on...
Reilly,
Thanks for your reply. I never intended to say that QM was wrong or didn't work, just that I didn't see any reason to assume fundamental nondeterminism. In e.g. economics randomness is introduced because we don't know enough, or don't have enough computational resources to completely...
Jesse,
thanks for the links to the articles about Bohmian mechanics, that was very interesting. I think that that may have been precisely what I was after. The article by Goldstein at one point says "...if at some time (say the initial time) the configuration Q of our system is random, with...
Yes, there are lots of models that have a probabilistic component, e.g. weather predictions, so assuming that isn't that strange. This generally does not let us to assume that it is "fundamentally" impossible to come up with a non-probabilistic model. Usually the conclusion is that we don't know...
Is "quantum indeterminacy" a result of experiment design?
Stemming from a debate about free will, I, a total lay person, have been doing some reading on quantum indeterminacy (QI). I have come up with some questions, I hope this forum is an appropriate place for them.
Basically the question...