Is Copenhagen the pragmatic or actual interpretation of quantum theory?

[Varon]

How many percentage of physicists believe Copenhagen is pragmatism and how many percentage believe Copenhagen is actual in that the particles attributes are really nonexistent before measurement?

Quoting Herbert in Quantum Reality:

"Some physicists confuse the Copenhagen doctrine with a pragmatic interpretation of quantum theory. The pragmatist regards any theory as mere mathematical machine for generating numbers which he then compares with experiment. A pragmatist is concerned with results, not reality. The pragmatist refuses on principle to speculate about deep reality, such a concept being meaningless from his point of view. Pragmatism is an intellectually safe but ultimately sterile philosphy.

A pragmatist would refuse on principle to comment on the existential status of an unmeasured electron's attributes. No timid pragmatists, there students of Bohr! The Copenhagenists claim not that such attributes are meaningless but they are nonexistent. They based their conclusions about an unseen quantum reality not on some abstract philosophical principle applicable in all cases but on the specific structure of quantum theory itself. Some theories of the world (Newtonian mechanics, for instance) allow us to believe or not that unobserved entities possesses their own attributes. Quantum theory, according to the followers of Bohr, does not permit this option."

 

[Ken G]

Quoting Herbert in Quantum Reality:
...The Copenhagenists claim not that such attributes are meaningless but they are nonexistent.

Here I think Hebert strays a bit-- a Copenhagenist would never see any distinction between "meaningless" and "nonexistent." To them, anything that is meaningless is nonexistent, so they would be quite content to call it meaningless, and would not be troubled by the distinction Hebert draws. They hold that existence is subject to what we can know about what exists, it is not something that exists independently of what we can know about it. That's why I would call the central principle of the CI the subordination of ontology to epistemology.

They based their conclusions about an unseen quantum reality not on some abstract philosophical principle applicable in all cases but on the specific structure of quantum theory itself.

Hebert is also mistaken here. They don't "base their conclusions on an unseen quantum reality," the whole point of Copenhagen is that no conclusions at all can be drawn on that reality. Instead, in CI, all conclusions are drawn on the outcome of observations, and all observations occur at the classical level. This is the crux of Copenhagenism, an admission of a fundamental distance between us and what we wish to understand, so if Hebert doesn't get that, he is no authority to talk about Copenhagenism. He is correct that the observations only present the kinds of problems he is talking about in the case of observations of quantum systems, but remember the correspondence principle-- observations on classical systems are nothing but aggregates of quantum systems. Hence, one can have a particular effect go away during the aggregation, but it's still there behind the scenes of that huge sum. I'm not sure where Hebert is going with this quote, but I don't think he's off to a good start.

ETA: It sounds like his basic point is that CI is not the same as the purely pragmatic "shut up and calculate." I agree with that, and I also agree that "shut up and calculate" is not really a philosophy at all, and I've never actually seen anyone who adheres to it, even those who claim that they do. So CI does make assertions that are not purely pragmatic, but they have the flavor "we should not say things that we cannot support with observations." Even if saying those things makes a nice tidy mathematical picture (like the way many worlds supports unitarity), or even if they allow us to imagine that the universe supports certain properties we'd like (like the way Bohmian mechanics supports determinism). So the CI does make some assertions, but I wouldn't frame them quite the way he does, he's not being careful enough. Since it sounds like he will be critical of the CI, he has to be more careful to state it correctly.

 

[Varon]

Here I think Hebert strays a bit-- a Copenhagenist would never see any distinction between "meaningless" and "nonexistent." To them, anything that is meaningless is nonexistent, so they would be quite content to call it meaningless, and would not be troubled by the distinction Hebert draws. They hold that existence is subject to what we can know about what exists, it is not something that exists independently of what we can know about it. That's why I would call the central principle of the CI the subordination of ontology to epistemology.

Hebert is also mistaken here. They don't "base their conclusions on an unseen quantum reality," the whole point of Copenhagen is that no conclusions at all can be drawn on that reality. Instead, in CI, all conclusions are drawn on the outcome of observations, and all observations occur at the classical level. This is the crux of Copenhagenism, an admission of a fundamental distance between us and what we wish to understand, so if Hebert doesn't get that, he is no authority to talk about Copenhagenism. He is correct that the observations only present the kinds of problems he is talking about in the case of observations of quantum systems, but remember the correspondence principle-- observations on classical systems are nothing but aggregates of quantum systems. Hence, one can have a particular effect go away during the aggregation, but it's still there behind the scenes of that huge sum. I'm not sure where Hebert is going with this quote, but I don't think he's off to a good start.

ETA: It sounds like his basic point is that CI is not the same as the purely pragmatic "shut up and calculate." I agree with that, and I also agree that "shut up and calculate" is not really a philosophy at all, and I've never actually seen anyone who adheres to it, even those who claim that they do. So CI does make assertions that are not purely pragmatic, but they have the flavor "we should not say things that we cannot support with observations." Even if saying those things makes a nice tidy mathematical picture (like the way many worlds supports unitarity), or even if they allow us to imagine that the universe supports certain properties we'd like (like the way Bohmian mechanics supports determinism). So the CI does make some assertions, but I wouldn't frame them quite the way he does, he's not being careful enough. Since it sounds like he will be critical of the CI, he has to be more careful to state it correctly.

Nick Herbert argument is that quantum particles possesses no dynamic attributes before measurement. Do you deny this? If you agree with it. Then it's an ontology that actually occurs. Quoting Herbert:

"This does not mean that the quantum world is subjective. The quantum world is as objective as our own: different people taking the same viewpoint see the same thing, but the quantum world is not made of object (different viewpoints do not add up). The quantum world is objective but objectless."

Herbert completely contradicts what you are saying Ken G. I'd like to know where you get all your information. Are you a physicist or a philosopher? How many percentage of physicists hold your view and Herbert view? I'd like to know this, hope others who have idea can share as I'm getting a bit confused by all this already.

 

[Ken G]

Nick Herbert argument is that quantum particles possesses no dynamic attributes before measurement. Do you deny this? If you agree with it. Then it's an ontology that actually occurs. Quoting Herbert:

"This does not mean that the quantum world is subjective. The quantum world is as objective as our own: different people taking the same viewpoint see the same thing, but the quantum world is not made of object (different viewpoints do not add up). The quantum world is objective but objectless."

Then it seems Hebert is a Copenhagenist. I thought from his earlier comments he would criticize them.

Herbert completely contradicts what you are saying Ken G.

I still have not seen anything said by Hebert that contradicts anything I said, actually, except for minor tinges of emphasis. Exactly what do you think I said that Hebert is "completely contradicting"?

I'd like to know where you get all your information. Are you a physicist or a philosopher?

A physicist.

How many percentage of physicists hold your view and Herbert view? I'd like to know this, hope others who have idea can share as I'm getting a bit confused by all this already.

I don't see it as one or the other. Actually, I see Hebert as being pretty close to my views, though I would split some hairs about his language choices as I mentioned above. There certainly are many physicists with drastically different views from both mine and the way you describe Hebert's. Many physicists take the many-worlds interpretation, and many more the Bohmian. I can debate the issues with them, but a prevailing fact I'm not sure you're getting is that the reason we can all communicate scientifically, and indeed easily be co-authors on the same science papers, is that the interpretations matter almost negligibly to the actual science.

 

[my_wan]

I wonder what percentage of physicist do not care. I would put those in the majority. I cannot blame them either.

 

[Ken G]

I think most have a closet interest, it's hard not to! But the one thing that is really the consensus is that it doesn't matter to the science.

 

[apeiron]

Here I think Hebert strays a bit-- a Copenhagenist would never see any distinction between "meaningless" and "nonexistent." To them, anything that is meaningless is nonexistent, so they would be quite content to call it meaningless, and would not be troubled by the distinction Hebert draws. They hold that existence is subject to what we can know about what exists, it is not something that exists independently of what we can know about it. That's why I would call the central principle of the CI the subordination of ontology to epistemology.

The problem is that any account of CI stresses that it is in fact a variety of interpretations and stances, so it is hard to know which you, or anyone else stands for. Which interpretation of Copenhagenism are we actually dealing with here?

To me, there seem two general positions.

1) The pragmatic, positivist, operationalist "shut up and calculate" position": All we have is a consistent epistemology and we can say nothing definite about ontology as a result of that.

2) Or the position I prefer, which agrees that basically there is only the epistemology, but quantum theory does give us actual grounds to posit constraints on ontology. Generally speaking, we can already say "reality is not classical". And so therefore it must be something else. This something else looks to have some definite ontological features of its own such as complementarity and indeterminism. These are not "ontic nothings" but ontic somethings. For example, complementarity involves dualities, not trialities (or other higher orders). Indeterminacy is not determinacy, but it also isn't randomness.

So new metaphysics seems directly suggested and justified by CI. It is not necessarily agnostic at all. It says behind the screen of epistemological limitation, only certain things can still be the case. It is not a story that "just anything could be happening". CI still places contraints on ontic possibilities. It is just less constraining (perhaps) than a classical view of reality.

ETA: It sounds like his basic point is that CI is not the same as the purely pragmatic "shut up and calculate." I agree with that, and I also agree that "shut up and calculate" is not really a philosophy at all, and I've never actually seen anyone who adheres to it, even those who claim that they do. So CI does make assertions that are not purely pragmatic, but they have the flavor "we should not say things that we cannot support with observations."

So you are not supporting position 1 - the arch positivist.

Yet you are also not then allowing CI to act as a definite constraint on ontology. You are stressing what CI says we cannot say about reality, but not admitting what it also allows us to say.

Observation says that reality - when observed in that particular way - is complementary and indeterminate.

That then gives metaphysics some definite open ended research programme - to consider how complementarity and indeterminacy can be fundamental to a worldview.

 

[my_wan]

I think most have a closet interest, it's hard not to! But the one thing that is really the consensus is that it doesn't matter to the science.

Yep, that its even better than what I said.

On the issue of Nick Herbert, I tried to read his book "Superluminal Loopholes in Physics". Maybe I did not read enough but I got disgusted that he never mentioned the "energy condition" violations under various version. I do not mind going on intellectual journeys outside the standard, but such things need to be discussed first and any so called loophole needs to at least end with some comments about those "energy condition" assumptions.

I have my doubts that he wrote those books with any intention of articulating science. I think it likely he wrote them for public notoriety. This is where the distinction between perfectly valid logical exercises, such as Schroedinger's cat, get obfuscated and blurred into claims of what physics says.

 

[Varon]

Then it seems Hebert is a Copenhagenist. I thought from his earlier comments he would criticize them.
I still have not seen anything said by Hebert that contradicts anything I said, actually, except for minor tinges of emphasis. Exactly what do you think I said that Hebert is "completely contradicting"?
A physicist.
I don't see it as one or the other. Actually, I see Hebert as being pretty close to my views, though I would split some hairs about his language choices as I mentioned above. There certainly are many physicists with drastically different views from both mine and the way you describe Hebert's. Many physicists take the many-worlds interpretation, and many more the Bohmian. I can debate the issues with them, but a prevailing fact I'm not sure you're getting is that the reason we can all communicate scientifically, and indeed easily be co-authors on the same science papers, is that the interpretations matter almost negligibly to the actual science.

The major difference between your view and Herbert is the following:

Herbert: Quantum world is objective but objectless
Ken: Quantum world is undefined

Herbert: Particles have no dynamic attributes before measurement.
Ken: We don't know. It is meaningless. Just "shut up and calculate"

The major difference is that Herbert has ontology of what goes on in the quantum world which is that it is objective but objectless and particles don't have dynamic attributes before measurement. But in your view. You "don't know: and "don't care" and just want to deal with equations and measurements. There's the difference. You are anti-ontology. Herbert addresses the ontology.

 

[Varon]

I think most have a closet interest, it's hard not to! But the one thing that is really the consensus is that it doesn't matter to the science.

Although Bohmian Mechanics, Many Worlds, Copenhagen variants produce the same predictions as QM without interpretation. There are consequences. This is because we don't know what is consciousness and whether it can have extra degrees of freedom. In Many Worlds. There are actual duplicate worlds, what if consciousness can bridge them. In Bohmian Mechanics, there are pilot waves and implicate order. What if consciousness can interact with them. In Copenhagen variant where quantum world is a potentia of unmanifested energy, what if consciousness can interact with the quantum world and can manifest particles directly. This is the importance of studying interpretations.. because we don't know what is consciousness and it may have extra degree of freedom that can distinguish the true interpretations and other emergences.

 

[Ken G]

So you are not supporting position 1 - the arch positivist.

Yes, I wouldn't really even call CI positivist, even though it is clearly positivist-related, because positivism is really a pretty radical philosophy. It is basically the philosophy that elevates scientific knowledge above all others, even to the point of holding that it is the only kind of knowledge there is. I would say that CI believes that science invokes positivism, without marrying it till death do you part. Indeed, this is what I would call another founding principle of CI-type ontologies: a basic skepticism around the inherent limitations we face when we choose to do science. So I agree that no two CI users agree on all issues, but I would define the CI-type via these two principles, and I think they are pretty close to what Bohr might have said:
1) science is a two-edged sword-- we accept certain limitations in order to make certain types of progress. One of those limitations is having to pass the square peg of quantum systems through the round hole of our classical experience.
2) ontology is nice, but not when it extends beyond epistemology. In other words, we are allowed to assert ontic entities in support of our epistemological endeavor, but only in its support-- not as its own separate concern. We should not speak about what exists, except as it becomes necessary to give form to the lessons of our experiments.
Both of these principles essentially come down to fleshing out Feynman's admonition to "not fool ourselves, given that we are the easiest people to fool." Interestingly, I once saw a quote by Feynman that suggested he was sympathetic to the many-worlds view, but many of his other quotes, like that one, sounded very CI to me.

Yet you are also not then allowing CI to act as a definite constraint on ontology. You are stressing what CI says we cannot say about reality, but not admitting what it also allows us to say.

That's only because the things CI allows us to say are generally the minimum set that most everyone who knows quantum mechanics agrees on, so the differences generally involve what we should not say. But you're right, it should be stressed that CI is not really anti-ontology, it's just anti ontologies that extrapolate beyond what empirical epistemology can support or require.

Observation says that reality - when observed in that particular way - is complementary and indeterminate.

Yes, the principle of complementarity (related to the HUP) and the principle of correspondence (that quantum predictions must correspond to classical ones when the systems get large enough, so the classical world is a kind of "true witness" to quantum phenomena, it can lose some part of it but not bring in anything totally new) are lynchpins of the CI, right up front and center of Bohr's approach.

That then gives metaphysics some definite open ended research programme - to consider how complementarity and indeterminacy can be fundamental to a worldview.

Yes, that's well put. And I would add that any such metaphysical project that is faithful to the CI must begin with the expectation that the outcome shall be a kind of mediation between what is true and what we can know about what is true, rather than just the former. This is the decisive element of the CI approach-- the change in focus of the purpose of the endeavor, from knowing reality, to getting reality to fit into what we can know.

 

[my_wan]

The major difference between your view and Herbert is the following:

Herbert: Quantum world is objective but objectless
Ken: Quantum world is undefined

Herbert: Particles have no dynamic attributes before measurement.
Ken: We don't know. It is meaningless. Just "shut up and calculate"

To say that "We don't know" does not mean we do not care. That is where the issue came in with my debate with Ken, and Ken has shown an understanding of the 'potential' conceptual value of jumping ontologies. But Ken and I both agree that the resulting value is still defined by the predictive power, not the ontologies involved in deriving it. So the "shut up and calculate" is a non-issue in this respect. I think Ken would agree that a better and more complete "shut up and calculate" models would be a great and possible result of ontology jumping in search of how to derive it.

The major difference is that Herbert has ontology of what goes on in the quantum world which is that it is objective but objectless and particles don't have dynamic attributes before measurement. But in your view. You "don't know: and "don't care" and just want to deal with equations and measurements. There's the difference. You are anti-ontology. Herbert addresses the ontology.

If you want to know something funny, my approach is to take the (transfinite) objects as real while their properties are essentially subjective in a relativistic sense. Yet that makes the world as we can even in principle know it (empirically) purely subjective in a relativistic sense.

I have pointed out the difference between "don't know", "can't know", and "don't care" before. Reassociating them as the same thing here does not seem valid.

 

[Ken G]

The major difference between your view and Herbert is the following:

Herbert: Quantum world is objective but objectless
Ken: Quantum world is undefined

Those are actually not very much in disagreement, frankly. The basic point is that what we call "objects" are classical entities, because that's all we can really understand. This was very much Bohr's point as well. So if we can't understand something, one person might call it "objectless", and another might call it "undefined", but it amounts to the same thing. Hebert's key point, which I agree with, is that we can still do science on something we cannot understand (or define) the fundamental "objects" in, as long as we can still interact with it in an objective way. This is classic CI: what we know is what stems from the epistemology of the scientific method, and we can know something that way, even if we cannot know the basic objects that exist there because they are too far from the kinds of objects we can define from our experience.

Herbert: Particles have no dynamic attributes before measurement.
Ken: We don't know. It is meaningless. Just "shut up and calculate"

Let me get this straight. In the vast array of quantum ontologies, where some people think that a multitude of incoherently separate worlds were generated seconds ago when I blew my nose, and others think that the necessity of my blowing my nose was encoded in the state of the universe in the first instants of its origin, you think Hebert and I are having some kind of fundamental disagreement because he says particle dynamics is actualized by measurement and I think there's a limiit to what we can say about the particle dynamics until we measure it? I'm sorry, but I'm just not seeing this great gulf in our mindsets.

But in your view. You "don't know: and "don't care" and just want to deal with equations and measurements. There's the difference. You are anti-ontology. Herbert addresses the ontology.

Now you are just putting words in my mouth that I never said nor even thought. I'm perfectly fine with a basic quantum ontology, it pretty much says we know what exists when it bonks us on the nose, whether it be a baseball or an electron. I see science as a conversation with nature, where the entities we are talking to on that other end have vastly different qualities in different scientific contexts, but the person on our end is always the same, and that has very important implications for the nature of the conversation. I'll bet that Bohr would have said almost the same thing, if he didn't.

 

[Varon]

Those are actually not very much in disagreement, frankly. The basic point is that what we call "objects" are classical entities, because that's all we can really understand. This was very much Bohr's point as well. So if we can't understand something, one person might call it "objectless", and another might call it "undefined", but it amounts to the same thing. Hebert's key point, which I agree with, is that we can still do science on something we cannot understand (or define) the fundamental "objects" in, as long as we can still interact with it in an objective way. This is classic CI: what we know is what stems from the epistemology of the scientific method, and we can know something that way, even if we cannot know the basic objects that exist there because they are too far from the kinds of objects we can define from our experience.
Let me get this straight. In the vast array of quantum ontologies, where some people think that a multitude of incoherently separate worlds are generated when I just blew my nose, and others think that the necessity of my blowing my nose was encoded in the state of the universe in the first instants of its origin, you think Hebert and I are having some kind of fundamental disagreement because he says particle dynamics is actualized by measurement and I think there's not much we can say about the particle dynamics until we measure it? I'm sorry, but I'm just not seeing this great gulf in our mindsets.
Now you are just putting words in my mouth that I never said nor even thought. I'm perfectly fine with a basic quantum ontology, it pretty much says we know what exists when it bonks us on the nose, whether it be a baseball or an electron. I see science as a conversation with nature, where the entities we are talking to on that other end have vastly different qualities in different scientific contexts, but the person on our end is always the same, and that has very important implications for the nature of the conversation. I'll bet that Bohr would have said almost the same thing, if he didn't.

Here's another major difference between Herbert and Ken's take on Copenhagen Interpretation (CI). I think Herbert believes in CI superpositions actually occur in the object while Ken believes in CI it is in the equations. What's your pick?

Quoting Nick Herbert "Quantum Reality"

"One of the drawbacks of the Copenhagen view is that it assigns a priveleged role to measuring devices, describing them in terms of definite actualities, while every other entity is represented by superpositions of possibilities. Surely the world itself is not so divided but consists of a single reality. Another conceptual weakness of the Copenhagen interpretation is that it regards both the M device and the measurement act as ultimately unanalyzable. Thus, in the Copenhagen view quantum theory can explain with great exactitude the behavior of atoms, but it is powerless to cope with the attributes of cats and apples in their role as unscrutinized parts of "the entire experimental situation"

(Ken, pls. comment on the above "weaknesses")

The following is my conversations between Ken and me in another thread here (where I take it that the weakness Herbert mentions, Ken simply put it under the rug of the "equations", agree guys?):

Varon: And how else can there be superposition without wave function being in the object (not merely knowedge of the observer??)

Ken: There's definitely interference in the mathematics, what is not clear is what is actually intefering. Terms in an equation, or something real? CI says the former, thus avoiding strange problems like "real" entities comprised of imaginary numbers, or mutually coherent pockets of outcomes coexisting alongside noncoherent other worlds that make no contribution because they have random phase relationships with our world.

Varon: Look. You mentioned terms in an equation is interfering. But just look at the detector screen, there interference patterns are there. It is something real.

Ken: The pattern is real, yes. But the interference? How is that real? It is an inference you make when you see the pattern. Inferences are not real, they are mental constructs. I'd say the crux of CI is noticing the difference between what is in the reality and what is in our minds. Granted, even the outcome of an observation is in our minds, but CI sees that kind of outcome as more concrete than the mathematical stories we build up around them.

--------------------
How many here believe the interference is only in the equation and nothing actually interferes in the double slit? Even SpectraCat believes something should be interfering as logically should be the case.

 

[Varon]

If one day consciousness were entirely charted out and the conclusion was our brain was simply machine and we could construct purely mechanical robots with special algorithm that produce self-awareness and there is nothing more to it. Then if there is no way to distinguish Copenhagen, Many Worlds, Bohmian, etc. then we could consider Copenhagen as the final say. But now that we still don't know what is consciousness. We must explore interpretations. This means that present people who just want to accept Copenhagen and don't care about the other interpreations simply don't have time for philosophy and just want to focus on practical applications, right?

To those people like Ken. Aren't you concerned that Copenhagen has a great flaw. For example. In the CI entry in wikipedia, I read this:

"Steven Weinberg in "Einstein's Mistakes", Physics Today, November 2005, page 31, said:

"All this familiar story is true, but it leaves out an irony. Bohr's version of quantum mechanics was deeply flawed, but not for the reason Einstein thought. The Copenhagen interpretation describes what happens when an observer makes a measurement, but the observer and the act of measurement are themselves treated classically. This is surely wrong: Physicists and their apparatus must be governed by the same quantum mechanical rules that govern everything else in the universe. But these rules are expressed in terms of a wave function (or, more precisely, a state vector) that evolves in a perfectly deterministic way. So where do the probabilistic rules of the Copenhagen interpretation come from?
Considerable progress has been made in recent years toward the resolution of the problem, which I cannot go into here. It is enough to say that neither Bohr nor Einstein had focused on the real problem with quantum mechanics. The Copenhagen rules clearly work, so they have to be accepted. But this leaves the task of explaining them by applying the deterministic equation for the evolution of the wave function, the Schrödinger equation, to observers and their apparatus."

I don't know what Weinberg mean by considerable progress. Is it Many Worlds or Zurek Interpretations? Doesn't this affect the pragmatists holder of Copenhagen I. at all? Maybe their motto is still "Copenhagen all the way"?

 

[apeiron]

I would define the CI-type via these two principles, and I think they are pretty close to what Bohr might have said:
1) science is a two-edged sword-- we accept certain limitations in order to make certain types of progress. One of those limitations is having to pass the square peg of quantum systems through the round hole of our classical experience.
2) ontology is nice, but not when it extends beyond epistemology. In other words, we are allowed to assert ontic entities in support of our epistemological endeavor, but only in its support-- not as its own separate concern. We should not speak about what exists, except as it becomes necessary to give form to the lessons of our experiments.

Agreed.

And I would add that any such metaphysical project that is faithful to the CI must begin with the expectation that the outcome shall be a kind of mediation between what is true and what we can know about what is true, rather than just the former. This is the decisive element of the CI approach-- the change in focus of the purpose of the endeavor, from knowing reality, to getting reality to fit into what we can know.

So that would be a constraint in the other direction . The nature of the theory is going to be constrained to what we can achieve epistemically anyway. So accept that as a fact and work with it.

I think that is probably the right view, but also it is one that is a little too close to "shut up and calculate" for me personally. Philosophy would have more freedom than science in this regard.

BTW, given Feynman is so often wrongly identified as the source of "shut up and calculate", here is a neat little quote where he defends the need for ontological intuitions.

What it means really to understand an equation - that is, in more than a strictly mathematical sense - was described by Dirac. He said: "I understand what an equation means if I have a way of figuring out characteristics of its solution, without actually solving it." So if we have a way of knowing what should happen in given circumstances without actually solving the equations, then we "understand" the equations, as applied to these circumstances. A physical understanding is a completely unmathematical, imprecise thing, but absolutely necessary for a physicist (Feynman et al., The Feynman Lectures on Physics, 1964, chapter 2).

 

[my_wan]

If one day consciousness were entirely charted out and the conclusion was our brain was simply machine and we could construct purely mechanical robots with special algorithm that produce self-awareness and there is nothing more to it. Then if there is no way to distinguish Copenhagen, Many Worlds, Bohmian, etc. then we could consider Copenhagen as the final say. But now that we still don't know what is consciousness. We must explore interpretations. This means that present people who just want to accept Copenhagen and don't care about the other interpreations simply don't have time for philosophy and just want to focus on practical applications, right?

You said it again without even acknowledging my post. "Don't know" and "don't care" is two different things, nor does the ontology of a theory have anything to do with its validity.

Consciousness is a study in itself, spanning many different disciplines. I could go over models and the empirical data we have, much of which is likely to be shocking. But what consciousness is or is not has NOTHING to do with the validity of some interpretation of QM. Not even if is was proven our brains made direct use of QM effects.

To those people like Ken. Aren't you concerned that Copenhagen has a great flaw.

If you flip a coin and ask me to guess which side it landed on is say "I do not know" a flaw? No. Does saying ""I do not know" man that I do not care? No. Does saying "I do not know" mean that I think it landed on both and neither side? No. So why do you keep insisting it does?

For example. Steven Weinberg in "Einstein's Mistakes", Physics Today, November 2005, page 31, said:

"All this familiar story is true, but it leaves out an irony. Bohr's version of quantum mechanics was deeply flawed, but not for the reason Einstein thought. The Copenhagen interpretation describes what happens when an observer makes a measurement, but the observer and the act of measurement are themselves treated classically. This is surely wrong: Physicists and their apparatus must be governed by the same quantum mechanical rules that govern everything else in the universe. But these rules are expressed in terms of a wave function (or, more precisely, a state vector) that evolves in a perfectly deterministic way. So where do the probabilistic rules of the Copenhagen interpretation come from?
Considerable progress has been made in recent years toward the resolution of the problem, which I cannot go into here. It is enough to say that neither Bohr nor Einstein had focused on the real problem with quantum mechanics. The Copenhagen rules clearly work, so they have to be accepted. But this leaves the task of explaining them by applying the deterministic equation for the evolution of the wave function, the Schrödinger equation, to observers and their apparatus."

See the red part? Now any theory that gets accepted will do so because it works, not because the interpretation it contains is absolutely true.

I don't know what Weinberg mean by considerable progress. Is it Many Worlds or Zurek Interpretations?

Stop and think about this. First you say you "don't know what Weinberg mean by considerable progress", then the only two options you give for how "progress" can be made is by way of two interpretations. Here is what you need to understand: interpretations have NOTHING to do with the progress. They were mere conceptual tools to get at that progress that had NOTHING to do with the "truth" of QM. The progress is a long series of more detailed empirical constraints obtained NOT by interpretation but by experiment. Interpretation does NOT define science, no matter how much we might use it for conceptual leads to push the boundaries or as functional elements of the theory itself.

Doesn't this affect the pragmatists holder of Copenhagen I. at all? Maybe their motto is still "Copenhagen all the way"?

Think about this. CI is merely the same principle Einstein used to moot the ether theories of his day. Hence CI was around before QM was even developed. Ironically it was Einstein who then backtracked on the strong positivist stance and insisted on finding models which were not models but defined what the system was 'really' doing. But it was some Einstein created.

So, until there is some recognition that interpretation is not theory and does not define what a theory is, regardless of what interpretations the theory uses, your question is like me asking why you do not have bones. You saying, but I do have bones. To which I respond well then what happened to your bones? You say nothing. To which I respond, but you said you had bones? You are talking around our responses rather than to them. I sympathize with realist (am one), but if I let that blind me to the realities of what I can 'know', and the very real issues realist face, I am just yanking my own chains while ignoring the science and the things I can know.

 

[my_wan]

I think that is probably the right view, but also it is one that is a little too close to "shut up and calculate" for me personally.

This was basically the crux of my point when I debated Ken. Only Ken had no issues with this point, though he can speak out for himself, so long as the epistemology is accepted for the constraint it is. So I see no problem here as you have accepted that in the above quote also. I think we all agree on the value of ontology in terms of human creativity and epistemological development, but epistemology is always the end result of what we can 'know'.

 

[Varon]

You said it again without even acknowledging my post. "Don't know" and "don't care" is two different things, nor does the ontology of a theory have anything to do with its validity.

Bottomline is, some physicists don't know but they care. While some hard core pragmatist physicists who don't know also don't care. I know "don't know" and "don't care" are two different things, as emphasis.

Consciousness is a study in itself, spanning many different disciplines. I could go over models and the empirical data we have, much of which is likely to be shocking. But what consciousness is or is not has NOTHING to do with the validity of some interpretation of QM. Not even if is was proven our brains made direct use of QM effects.

See bottom of this message for comment.

If you flip a coin and ask me to guess which side it landed on is say "I do not know" a flaw? No. Does saying ""I do not know" man that I do not care? No. Does saying "I do not know" mean that I think it landed on both and neither side? No. So why do you keep insisting it does?

I mentioned "flaw" because I read the passage in the Weinberg paragraph I shared there: "The Copenhagen interpretation describes what happens when an observer makes a measurement, but the observer and the act of measurement are themselves treated classically. This is surely wrong: Physicists and their apparatus must be governed by the same quantum mechanical rules that govern everything else in the universe.". Here Weinberg mentioned "This is surely wrong".. so I thought it was synonym for "flaw". Wrong is related flaw, not?

See the red part? Now any theory that gets accepted will do so because it works, not because the interpretation it contains is absolutely true.


Stop and think about this. First you say you "don't know what Weinberg mean by considerable progress", then the only two options you give for how "progress" can be made is by way of two interpretations. Here is what you need to understand: interpretations have NOTHING to do with the progress. They were mere conceptual tools to get at that progress that had NOTHING to do with the "truth" of QM. The progress is a long series of more detailed empirical constraints obtained NOT by interpretation but by experiment. Interpretation does NOT define science, no matter how much we might use it for conceptual leads to push the boundaries or as functional elements of the theory itself.

I should have added "like" as in "Is it LIKE Many Worlds or Zurek Interpretations?" which gives different context. You know my native language is not english. I rarely speak english.

Think about this. CI is merely the same principle Einstein used to moot the ether theories of his day. Hence CI was around before QM was even developed. Ironically it was Einstein who then backtracked on the strong positivist stance and insisted on finding models which were not models but defined what the system was 'really' doing. But it was some Einstein created.

So, until there is some recognition that interpretation is not theory and does not define what a theory is, regardless of what interpretations the theory uses, your question is like me asking why you do not have bones. You saying, but I do have bones. To which I respond well then what happened to your bones? You say nothing. To which I respond, but you said you had bones? You are talking around our responses rather than to them. I sympathize with realist (am one), but if I let that blind me to the realities of what I can 'know', and the very real issues realist face, I am just yanking my own chains while ignoring the science and the things I can know.

The purpose for this thread is to know how to tell if a variant of Copenhagen Interpretation is valid. This is because I'd like to know if the Quantum Mystic variant of Copenhagen Interpretion is valid... stuff like Fritjof Capra's Tao of Physics and dozens of other books that elevate consciousness into quantum importance. For example. In Physicist Bruce Rosenblum Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounter Consciousness. It is mentioned:

"In quantum theory there is no atom in addition to the wavefunction of the atom. This is so crucial that we say it again in other words. The atom's wave-functions and the atom are the same thing; "the wave function of the atom" is a synonym for "the atom".

"Quantum probability is not the probability of where the atom is. It's the objective probability of where you (or anyone) will find it. The atom wasn't in that box before you observed it to be there. Quantum theory has the atom's wavefunction occupying both boxes. Since the wavefunction is synonymous with the atom itself, the atom is simultaneously in both boxes."

"According, before a look collapse a widely spread-out wavefunction to the particular place where the atom is found, the atom did not exist there prior to the look. The look brought about the atom's existence at that particular place - for everyone."

"For example, according to quantum theory, an object can be in two or many places at once - even far distant places. Its existence at the particular place it happens to be found becomes an actuality upon its (conscious) observation)"

------

Now the above is different than what Ken was describing. But is the above valid? If it is. Then I'll hold it instead of Ken's. Again this thread is wanting to ask how to tell if a Copenhagen variant is valid or not. I'd like to think that in between emission and detection in the double slit experiment, the particle literally morphs or shapeshift into wave in between measurement. Upon reaching the detector, the wave shapeshifts physically into a particle again just as the above text by Bruce Rosenblum is suggesting. Is this a valid way of looking at it? If not, why not?

 

[Ken G]

"One of the drawbacks of the Copenhagen view is that it assigns a priveleged role to measuring devices, describing them in terms of definite actualities, while every other entity is represented by superpositions of possibilities. Surely the world itself is not so divided but consists of a single reality. Another conceptual weakness of the Copenhagen interpretation is that it regards both the M device and the measurement act as ultimately unanalyzable. Thus, in the Copenhagen view quantum theory can explain with great exactitude the behavior of atoms, but it is powerless to cope with the attributes of cats and apples in their role as unscrutinized parts of "the entire experimental situation"

(Ken, pls. comment on the above "weaknesses")

The first weakness is resolved by recognizing that the key point about measurement is not that it is classical, but that it is done by an agent capable of registering experience (and this is more true of the experimenter than the experiment). This was discussed at length in another thread, and I have little desire to trot out once again all the ways that statement can be misconstrued, but I will say I think this is a minor issue the CI got wrong. Since our classical nature, and our conscious nature, are easily mistaken for each other, it's not a terribly important oversight, and no doubt would be considered controversial. As for the second "weakness", I see that as no weakness at all-- it's not the least bit surprising that quantum mechanics has as much trouble with the biology of cats as Newton's laws would, a cat is just way too complicated for either one and none of that has anything to do with CI. I mostly agree with Herbert, but here I think he is "shooting the messenger" when he attributes that problem to CI.

How many here believe the interference is only in the equation and nothing actually interferes in the double slit?

Here you are simply taking my words out of context, an extremely sophomoric tactic that is way below you.

 

[Ken G]

So that would be a constraint in the other direction . The nature of the theory is going to be constrained to what we can achieve epistemically anyway. So accept that as a fact and work with it.

I think that is probably the right view, but also it is one that is a little too close to "shut up and calculate" for me personally. Philosophy would have more freedom than science in this regard.

Agreed. We are probably in the minority for wanting to give philosophy such free rein! I'm fine with it, if it comes under philosophy. What I dislike is the people who adopt the attitude "it's only philosophy if I don't agree with it."

BTW, given Feynman is so often wrongly identified as the source of "shut up and calculate", here is a neat little quote where he defends the need for ontological intuitions.

Another Feynman gem, to be sure.

 

[Ken G]

This was basically the crux of my point when I debated Ken. Only Ken had no issues with this point, though he can speak out for himself, so long as the epistemology is accepted for the constraint it is. So I see no problem here as you have accepted that in the above quote also. I think we all agree on the value of ontology in terms of human creativity and epistemological development, but epistemology is always the end result of what we can 'know'.

I think that's a good page for us all to be on.

 

[Ken G]

Now the above is different than what Ken was describing. But is the above valid? If it is. Then I'll hold it instead of Ken's.

I think it is apparent to us all that you have a significant chip on your shoulder, and you are trying to shoehorn an intepretation of QM that can be consistent with certain prejudices you bring in. This is not uncommon, actually, it may be said that this is probably the usual way that people select a favored interpretation. But you are mostly mischaracterizing things you don't really understand. First of all, I never claimed that my way of explaining the CI was anything but my way of explaining it. Most who know it well seem fine with how I've explained it, but you can find some other version if you prefer. Also, it's not at all clear to me Rosenblum claimed to be explaining the CI. Indeed, many of his pronouncements sound singularly un-CI to me. Instead, they are just ways of thinking of quantum mechanics that you like. Many people have written books about how to think about QM, and some of them were people who really understand it quite well, and even so they can use very different language for expressing their understanding. They can even flatly disagree with the pictures each other evoke. That would certainly be true in this case-- I think Rosenblum trots out some seriously inferior rhetoric to talk about quantum phenomena, but the observations he describes are accepted scientific fact, and on that common ground we all find that the rhetoric is of far less importance. The Weinberg quotes deserve additional attention, because it must be noted that Weinberg believes in a "multiverse" of not only the many worlds of quantum mechanics, but also different physical parameters and maybe even different physical laws, all so he can use anthropic thinking to make go away certain difficult philosophical questions. His Nobel-prize-winning contributions to physics are beyond reproach, but his philosophy is controversial at best. And I couldn't help noticing that in the same breath he intimated that the CI has fatal flaws, he also said it worked fine. Curious that.

 

[Varon]

The first weakness is resolved by recognizing that the key point about measurement is not that it is classical, but that it is done by an agent capable of registering experience (and this is more true of the experimenter than the experiment). This was discussed at length in another thread, and I have little desire to trot out once again all the ways that statement can be misconstrued, but I will say I think this is a minor issue the CI got wrong. Since our classical nature, and our conscious nature, are easily mistaken for each other, it's not a terribly important oversight, and no doubt would be considered controversial. As for the second "weakness", I see that as no weakness at all-- it's not the least bit surprising that quantum mechanics has as much trouble with the biology of cats as Newton's laws would, a cat is just way too complicated for either one and none of that has anything to do with CI. I mostly agree with Herbert, but here I think he is "shooting the messenger" when he attributes that problem to CI.

Here you are simply taking my words out of context, an extremely sophomoric tactic that is way below you.

Here's the complete conversation from the thread Qualia & Quantum Mechanics spanning many messages that discussed this particular interference issues:

Varon: And how else can there be superposition without wave function being in the object (not merely knowedge of the observer??)

Ken: There's definitely interference in the mathematics, what is not clear is what is actually intefering. Terms in an equation, or something real? CI says the former, thus avoiding strange problems like "real" entities comprised of imaginary numbers, or mutually coherent pockets of outcomes coexisting alongside noncoherent other worlds that make no contribution because they have random phase relationships with our world.

Varon: Look. You mentioned terms in an equation is interfering. But just look at the detector screen, there interference patterns are there. It is something real.

Ken: The pattern is real, yes. But the interference? How is that real? It is an inference you make when you see the pattern. Inferences are not real, they are mental constructs. I'd say the
crux of CI is noticing the difference between what is in the reality and what is in our minds. Granted, even the outcome of an observation is in our minds, but CI sees that kind of outcome as more concrete than the mathematical stories we build up around them.

Varon: So if the interference is in the equation. Pls. tell me what physically happens to a single photon or electron between the emission and the detection in the double slit experiment.

Ken: The central thesis of the CI is that there is no answer to your question. Not just that we don't yet know the answer, that there is none. The reality is not set up to allow our intelligence a means of answering the question, and that is just exactly the same thing as the question having no answer.

Varon: You are saying that it is possible nothing physically actually happens?

Ken: I'm saying the CI interpretation is that "what physically happens" is whatever we can assert, with our apparatus, physically happened. There is no other meaning to the term, the rest is practically identifiable with mysticism. I'd say it's a bit like watching a movie-- we are told that all we are seeing is a string of still pictures, yet our minds interpret motion there. Is that motion something physically happening? With the "movie magic" that is done these days, say in superhero epics, oftentimes the motions we perceive never occurred in any reality, the still pictures on the film are the only things that are real there. I believe the CI takes a similar skeptical approach to "the quantum realm"

----------------------------------------------------

I think what you are saying is that since we don't know what occurs between emission and detection, then we can just state interference happens in the equation. But I don't like this philosophy. I'd like to know what could be interfering physically, so I won't be satisfied with Copenhagen. Can we know what's interfereing. Remember we still don't know what is consciousness so we can't discount the possibility consciousness can probe what happens between emission and detection.

 

[Ken G]

I think what you are saying is that since we don't know what occurs between emission and detection, then we can just state interference happens in the equation. But I don't like this philosophy. I'd like to know what could be interfering physically, so I won't be satisfied with Copenhagen. Can we know what's interfereing.

What is uncontroversial is that what is interfering in the equations is the wavefunction. At the experimental level, we can say that what is interfering is the particle, in the sense that we have a particle exhibiting an interference pattern, so the particle is undergoing some kind of interference. Where the issues get sticky is if we attribute reality to the wavefunction or not. In CI, we say the wavefunction is a mathematical tool, so its interference describes the interference exhibited by the particle, but that doesn't mean there's a real wavefunction with physically actualized complex numbers adding up and cancelling each other at some location in space. How does a complex number become a real thing anyway? The mathematics of the interference is mathematics, and it lives in the realm of mathematical concepts. Whether one imagines some kind of Platonic reality where those mathematical concepts really exist, rather than just as a processing step in someone's brain, is a philosophical question that has been debated for thousands of years. All I'm telling you is that the CI takes the positivist approach, without necessarily adopting positivism as a life philosophy, of saying that a concept is in someone's head, and a measurement is in the real world, and the connection between them is still completely mysterious.

 

[Varon]

I think it is apparent to us all that you have a significant chip on your shoulder, and you are trying to shoehorn an intepretation of QM that can be consistent with certain prejudices you bring in. This is not uncommon, actually, it may be said that this is probably the usual way that people select a favored interpretation. But you are mostly mischaracterizing things you don't really understand. First of all, I never claimed that my way of explaining the CI was anything but my way of explaining it. Most who know it well seem fine with how I've explained it, but you can find some other version if you prefer. Also, it's not at all clear to me Rosenblum claimed to be explaining the CI. Indeed, many of his pronouncements sound singularly un-CI to me. Instead, they are just ways of thinking of quantum mechanics that you like. Many people have written books about how to think about QM, and some of them were people who really understand it quite well, and even so they can use very different language for expressing their understanding. They can even flatly disagree with the pictures each other evoke. That would certainly be true in this case-- I think Rosenblum trots out some seriously inferior rhetoric to talk about quantum phenomena, but the observations he describes are accepted scientific fact, and on that common ground we all find that the rhetoric is of far less importance. The Weinberg quotes deserve additional attention, because it must be noted that Weinberg believes in a "multiverse" of not only the many worlds of quantum mechanics, but also different physical parameters and maybe even different physical laws, all so he can use anthropic thinking to make go away certain difficult philosophical questions. His Nobel-prize-winning contributions to physics are beyond reproach, but his philosophy is controversial at best. And I couldn't help noticing that in the same breath he intimated that the CI has fatal flaws, he also said it worked fine. Curious that.

Because I want to learn how to scrutinize Quantum Mystics claim. For example, physicist Jack Sarfatti mentioned how our consciousness is simply the wave function of the brain. Or the belief that everything is conscious and consciousness resides in the quantum world which is its natural home. This is the reason I want to be conversant with Copenhagen because of the Heiserberg conjecture that the world of the quantum is a state of potentia.. where all possibilities can exist. It is the home of creative energies.. and stuff like that. But you emphasize these are NOT Copenhagen. I believe Copenhagen is what as you described all this time.. all about equations, observations, and measurements. So I guess Quantum Mysticism is just some kind of ontology separate from Copenhagen. Maybe it can form a separate interpretation called Quantum Mystic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics? But the most important question is. Is it valid possibility? Or totally falsified and proven to be untrue? How?

 

[Varon]

What is uncontroversial is that what is interfering in the equations is the wavefunction. At the experimental level, we can say that what is interfering is the particle, in the sense that we have a particle exhibiting an interference pattern, so the particle is undergoing some kind of interference. Where the issues get sticky is if we attribute reality to the wavefunction or not. In CI, we say the wavefunction is a mathematical tool, so its interference describes the interference exhibited by the particle, but that doesn't mean there's a real wavefunction with physically actualized complex numbers adding up and cancelling each other at some location in space. How does a complex number become a real thing anyway? The mathematics of the interference is mathematics, and it lives in the realm of mathematical concepts. Whether one imagines some kind of Platonic reality where those mathematical concepts really exist, rather than just as a processing step in someone's brain, is a philosophical question that has been debated for thousands of years. All I'm telling you is that the CI takes the positivist approach, without necessarily adopting positivism as a life philosophy, of saying that a concept is in someone's head, and a measurement is in the real world, and the connection between them is still completely mysterious.

You said in CI, the wave function is a mathematical tool. What is the problem if we force it to become real wavefunction "with physically actualized complex numbers adding up and cancelling each other at some location in space", what's wrong with this? For example, Dirac Equation is actually describe antimatter. Why can't we say the wave function in Schrodinger Equation is actually describing real wavefunction in space? What isn't this possible?

 

[Ken G]

Because I want to learn how to scrutinize Quantum Mystics claim. For example, physicist Jack Sarfatti mentioned how our consciousness is simply the wave function of the brain. Or the belief that everything is conscious and consciousness resides in the quantum world which is its natural home.

Yes, I understand where you are coming from, and basically those are questions that are not adjudicated by experiment, they are speculations that some may agree with and some may disagree with, while neither can produce data to prove they are right. I think you'll find most people who understand quantum mechanics well are highly skeptical and even critical of those kinds of characterizations of the theory, but that's not the same thing as saying they know those characterizations are inconsistent with observations. It is something we just fundamentally don't know, and so you could simply choose your own belief, you could poll experts and look for a kind of consensus, or you could let the issue be fundamentally mysterious at this stage of the human scientific experience. No one can tell you that you are wrong, I can only tell you that my understanding of the status of things does not support those kinds of contentions, and most people here will probably agree with me, but you could find someone who agrees with the mystics for all I know, and they might be able to solve for the energy levels of a hydrogen atom just as well as I can. See what I'm saying?

So I guess Quantum Mysticism is just some kind of ontology separate from Copenhagen. Maybe it can form a separate interpretation called Quantum Mystic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics? But the most important question is. Is it valid possibility? Or totally falsified and proven to be untrue? How?

Science doesn't prove things to be untrue, generally, it looks for evidence that things are true and incorporates those things into its theories, until such time as the theory is shown to not work and need modification. I would say that a theory that explains observations is just a kind of shorthand for those same observations, so we should not look to theories for truth, we should look to observations-- but it turns out that a theory can be a very good shorthand for observations, and can provide a much easier way to see those observations in one unified place. So this means the claims of the quantum mystics cannot be judged based on theory anyway-- they must be judged based on observations that suggest they are right. To my knowledge, there are not observations that suggest they are right, so science takes a dim view, but there are not observations that prove they are wrong, so there is room for the individual to believe what they choose.

 

[my_wan]

Because I want to learn how to scrutinize Quantum Mystics claim. For example, physicist Jack Sarfatti mentioned how our consciousness is simply the wave function of the brain. Or the belief that everything is conscious and consciousness resides in the quantum world which is its natural home. This is the reason I want to be conversant with Copenhagen because of the Heiserberg conjecture that the world of the quantum is a state of potentia.. where all possibilities can exist. It is the home of creative energies.. and stuff like that. But you emphasize these are NOT Copenhagen. I believe Copenhagen is what as you described all this time.. all about equations, observations, and measurements. So I guess Quantum Mysticism is just some kind of ontology separate from Copenhagen. Maybe it can form a separate interpretation called Quantum Mystic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics? But the most important question is. Is it valid possibility? Or totally falsified and proven to be untrue? How?

Jack Sarfatti does not even work within academia for his quantum consciousness stuff. When people draw the general brain connection into quantum physics by saying the brain is a quantum wave-function what does that really mean? The exact same argument says the computer you are at is a quantum wave-function. Does that give in any 'special' quantum abilities, if such a characterization even makes sense? No.

I have studied a lot of the empirical data from neuroscience, psychology, hive intelligence systems, various algorithms, etc., with an interest in the so called hard problem of consciousness. What makes it a hard problem has more to do with demonstrable illusions (ghost in the machine mentality) than reality. Before asking about consciousness, can you understand how an ant colony is smarter than any of the ants? This is readily available data for many species. What about neuroscience studies indicating people make their choices before they know they have? Or the ways mentalist use these to make you see things that do not exist, or remember things that never happened? To even think about these issues in the big picture you need to have some grasp of the parts. Do you know what Hebbian or anti-Hebbian learning is, or how it works? Those basics need to be understood to some extent before it is even possible to talk about higher order learning structures. What about self-organizing systems, such as how a simple platform can cause a bunch of disorganized mechanical metronomes to spontaneously sync up? Jumping straight to the biggest possible picture and drawing willy nilly connections to QM simply makes no sense.

To learn to scrutinize QM first learn to scrutinize the actual experiments that tell us about it, so you will actually know better when a Dr Quantum on youtube puts a cartoon eyeball by the slit to indicate what it means to "look". Once you know how we actually "look" in such experiments that eyeball just looks like a silly lie. Hunting easter eggs with a shotgun is probably a more realistic analogy to the traditional method of "looking" than that silly cartoon eyeball. Start with those basics, the machines we use to actually do experiments, as the starting point. Then move into the things it could possibly mean. For a lot of what is called weird quantum stuff the basic logic can be observed in everyday objects if you think about it, or actually go through some of the classical analog experiments. Of course to see the real differences you need to understand the formalism to some extent.

The answers to the questions you want to scrutinize are not in ANY interpretation. Interpretations where created for one purpose and one purpose only, to skirt around actually saying anything about QM while not directly violating anything QM says. This is useful ONLY to the degree that it tells us about ways it may possible be improved, and not anything about how it really is.

 

[Varon]

Jack Sarfatti does not even work within academia for his quantum consciousness stuff. When people draw the general brain connection into quantum physics by saying the brain is a quantum wave-function what does that really mean? The exact same argument says the computer you are at is a quantum wave-function. Does that give in any 'special' quantum abilities, if such a characterization even makes sense? No.

I have studied a lot of the empirical data from neuroscience, psychology, hive intelligence systems, various algorithms, etc., with an interest in the so called hard problem of consciousness.

Have you studied Parapsychology too? What have you found out? Totally hoax eh?

What makes it a hard problem has more to do with demonstrable illusions (ghost in the machine mentality) than reality. Before asking about consciousness, can you understand how an ant colony is smarter than any of the ants? This is readily available data for many species. What about neuroscience studies indicating people make their choices before they know they have? Or the ways mentalist use these to make you see things that do not exist, or remember things that never happened? To even think about these issues in the big picture you need to have some grasp of the parts. Do you know what Hebbian or anti-Hebbian learning is, or how it works? Those basics need to be understood to some extent before it is even possible to talk about higher order learning structures. What about self-organizing systems, such as how a simple platform can cause a bunch of disorganized mechanical metronomes to spontaneously sync up? Jumping straight to the biggest possible picture and drawing willy nilly connections to QM simply makes no sense.

I have done that already. I have over 30 neuroscience books and know every part of the brain and every conceivable things about it as well as network theories of neural circuits. All major brain researchers I'm familiar with their works and collect their books and read them thoroughly.. like Antonio Damasio, Edelman, Koch, Gray, Ramachandran.. all of them. So I'm done with brain part. Now just want to study new physics model to get a clue of the Hard Problem.

To learn to scrutinize QM first learn to scrutinize the actual experiments that tell us about it, so you will actually know better when a Dr Quantum on youtube puts a cartoon eyeball by the slit to indicate what it means to "look". Once you know how we actually "look" in such experiments that eyeball just looks like a silly lie. Hunting easter eggs with a shotgun is probably a more realistic analogy to the traditional method of "looking" than that silly cartoon eyeball. Start with those basics, the machines we use to actually do experiments, as the starting point. Then move into the things it could possibly mean. For a lot of what is called weird quantum stuff the basic logic can be observed in everyday objects if you think about it, or actually go through some of the classical analog experiments. Of course to see the real differences you need to understand the formalism to some extent.

The answers to the questions you want to scrutinize are not in ANY interpretation. Interpretations where created for one purpose and one purpose only, to skirt around actually saying anything about QM while not directly violating anything QM says. This is useful ONLY to the degree that it tells us about ways it may possible be improved, and not anything about how it really is.

I just want to have idea what interpretation to start out in deriving at the possible full theory. Whether Copenhagen, Bohmian or Many Worlds or others. One hope of Copenhagen is along the line of Zurek Existential Interpretation where quantum stuff is informational. I can't decide whether it is or Bohmian or Many Worlds or even combination of them that can explain the Hard Problem + additional thing.

Btw.. if you will read Jeffrey Gray Creeping Up the Hard Problem. You may agree that the Hard Problem is not answerable by present Neuroscience. It is additional.

 

[Ken G]

You said in CI, the wave function is a mathematical tool. What is the problem if we force it to become real wavefunction "with physically actualized complex numbers adding up and cancelling each other at some location in space", what's wrong with this? For example, Dirac Equation is actually describe antimatter. Why can't we say the wave function in Schrodinger Equation is actually describing real wavefunction in space? What isn't this possible?

It is possible to say it, but to see the problem, take the statement "the wave function in Schrodinger Equation is actually describing real wavefunction in space" and just delete the words "actually" and "real", and read the sentence again. Has the scientific content changed? Does the scientist test anything differently, or do anything differently? No, so those words are scientifically empty when appended to the sentence, they are simply embellishment, hype even. If the science is the same without them, then they are not part of the science, they are part of something else, something that belongs in a separate box. That doesn't make them wrong, but it doesn't make them right either. If the reason for adding them to the sentence was not to alter the scientific content of the statement, then what was the reason for adding them, and what evidence do we have that they belong in the sentence?

 

[Varon]

It is possible to say it, but to see the problem, take the statement "the wave function in Schrodinger Equation is actually describing real wavefunction in space" and just delete the words "actually" and "real", and read the sentence again. Has the scientific content changed? Does the scientist test anything differently, or do anything differently? No, so those words are scientifically empty when appended to the sentence, they are simply embellishment, hype even. If the science is the same without them, then they are not part of the science, they are part of something else, something that belongs in a separate box. That doesn't make them wrong, but it doesn't make them right either. If the reason for adding them to the sentence was not to alter the scientific content of the statement, then what was the reason for adding them, and what evidence do we have that they belong in the sentence?

It's Occam's Razor. Something should be happening in between emission and detection. If you'd say that math after platonic processes simply produces the reality of interference without anything physically happening in between emission and detection, just like the math of curving space and time produces the reality of gravity, then from Occam's razor. It's simplier to assume that the wave function is actually in the system. Or one has to propose pilot waves or many worlds which are arbitrary and violate Occam's Razor. So the simplest explanation is, the wave function is actually in the object just like the math of Schroedinger Equation shows (like Dirac Equation giving rise to actual antimatter). So just after a particle is emitted in the double slit and if it's totally isolated. It physically shapeshifts or morphs into a wave and after detection, the wave reverts back to particle. This is as simple as can be without having to invoke platonic worlds or omnicient pilot waves or splitting billions of worlds in a single day.

 

[Ken G]

It's Occam's Razor. Something should be happening in between emission and detection.

That isn't what Occam's razor would say, Occam's razor would say the simplest explanation is the one that only explains what needs to be explained. If you add extraneous stuff to explain what does not need to be explained (because it is not evident anywhere in the scientific method, nor is formed as a testable hypothesis), then you are not following Occam's razor. Indeed I would call that a primary motivator of the CI-type approaches.

Or one has to propose pilot waves or many worlds which are arbitrary and violate Occam's Razor.

Most likely both proponents of many-worlds, and Bohm, have arguments why their approach is actually the one that satisfies Occam's razor. Indeed I've seen Max Tegmark give the argument that even the multiverse of worlds with different physical parameters than ours satisfies Occam's razor, on essentially the grounds that it completes the system and complete things are simpler than those with missing pieces. He gave an example like the even integers, and said that set is simpler than the particular set 2, 4, 6, 8, because it can be summed up in the single concept of "evenness", whereas the particular set requires additional description. I might counter that little children learn what 2, 4, 6, and 8 are generally before they get the abstraction of evenness, so we might take that as evidence there's something wrong with that argument, but the real point here is that Occam's razor is not an uncontroversial guidepost, much like the QM interpretations themselves.

So just after a particle is emitted in the double slit and if it's totally isolated. It physically shapeshifts or morphs into a wave and after detection, the wave reverts back to particle. This is as simple as can be without having to invoke platonic worlds or omnicient pilot waves or splitting billions of worlds in a single day.

Except it's not simple. How does the wave know when to revert back to a particle? It has some prescience that it is approaching a detector that can detect its particle nature? Or is the detector itself what causes it to turn back into a particle? Then you are sounding downright CI.

 

[Varon]

That isn't what Occam's razor would say, Occam's razor would say the simplest explanation is the one that only explains what needs to be explained. If you add extraneous stuff to explain what does not need to be explained (because it is not evident anywhere in the scientific method, nor is formed as a testable hypothesis), then you are not following Occam's razor. Indeed I would call that a primary motivator of the CI-type approaches.
Most likely both proponents of many-worlds, and Bohm, have arguments why their approach is actually the one that satisfies Occam's razor. Indeed I've seen Max Tegmark give the argument that even the multiverse of worlds with different physical parameters than ours satisfies Occam's razor, on essentially the grounds that it completes the system and complete things are simpler than those with missing pieces. He gave an example like the even integers, and said that set is simpler than the particular set 2, 4, 6, 8, because it can be summed up in the single concept of "evenness", whereas the particular set requires additional description. I might counter that little children learn what 2, 4, 6, and 8 are generally before they get the abstraction of evenness, so we might take that as evidence there's something wrong with that argument, but the real point here is that Occam's razor is not an uncontroversial guidepost, much like the QM interpretations themselves.

Except it's not simple. How does the wave know when to revert back to a particle? It has some prescience that it is approaching a detector that can detect its particle nature? Or is the detector itself what causes it to turn back into a particle? Then you are sounding downright CI.

Recall that in Bohmian Mechanics, the wave function is omniscient and aware of any configuration changes in the universe even 200 billion light years away. So in Copenhagen, one can similarly claim that the wave function is really in the object and it can also detect configuration changes anywhere in the vicinity and detect it is about to hit detector and shapeshift or morph into a particle. What is the other problems of this idea of the wave function actually in the object in addition to being in the equations aside from this?.

 

[Varon]

Ken. You were the only one who can see through the weak measurement haze in the latest trajectory paper. So let me ask you something about Neumaier Thermal Interpretation. What is it all about. Simple. He took the field in QFT as real ontology. And he believes particles don't really exist. And with it he can explain the double slit experiment using purely the language of QFT and fields. And so far it has survived the scrutiny of many physicists. I'd like to you see if you can detect some subtle problem or conflict that can falsify or refute it. In the thread https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=490492&page=6
I have asked him many questions. The following is collection of my questions to him and his answers in the form of a FAQ that focus particularly on the double slit experiment and how it can work with pure field and no particles.

Let us go to the beginning (this is related to this thread because it is seeing Copenhagen in the eyes of QFT):

Varon: Let us focus on the double slit experiment as Feymann said it's the main mystery. If it's solved, the entire quantum mystery solved.

I can't understand what you meant by "passing the screen turns the electron into a delocalized object". You said the electron is a particle before it passes the screen. Since it is already a particle, how can it turned into a delocalized particle at the screen?

Neumaier: The electron is always a quantum field. The quantum field can be regarded to describe a particle if and only if the field has a nonzero expectation only in a region small compared to the whole system considered. Thus we may say that the field is a particle as long as this condition is satisfied. Because of the dispersion of the field caused by the slits, this condition stops to be satisfied almost immediately after the field (with support large enough to cover both slits) passed the double slit. Thus it is no longer justified to talk about a particle.

The situation is similar as with a sphere of glass. If you throw it, you may regard it as a particle. But if it hits an obstacle and fragmentizes, it is no longer localized enogh to deserve the name of a particle.

Varon: Let's go from the beginner in the emission. So the electron is emitted. You believed it travels as particle? But where does it pass, the left or right slit? And what caused the interferences in the screen. Standard explanation says it interferes with itself because it is a wave after it is emitted.. and only become a particle at the detection screen. Pls. elaborate what happened to your electron after emission.. before it reaches the slits.. after it exits the slits and after detection in the screen.

Neumaier: The field passes the doulbe slit in a fashion similar as a water wave would do, except with quantum corrections."

Varon: Interesting. But how come the detector detects one electron and not the fragmentized parts (after passing thru the slits)?

Neumaier: The quantum field does not fragmentize like a broken glass sphere. It just expands into a superposition of two spherical waves. The outer electrons of the detector respond to the incident quantum field by an approximate Poisson process with rate proportional to the incident density. This accounts correctly for the simple statistics obtained for an ordinary electron beam. See post #4 of this thread, and the longer discussion of the case of photons in
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthr...39#post3187039
and in the thread
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=480072

Varon: What "outer electrons"?

Neumaier: The detector wouldn't be able to respond if it hadn't loosely bound electrons that could be freed when responding to the impinging quantum field formed by your single electron. The response of the detector to the field is a multibody problem, and solving it in the semiclassical approximation gives the desired effect."

Varon: Are you saying your interpretation only work for an ensemble of electrons?

Neumaier: No. I am considering your situation: precisely one elctron moving theough the double slit. But once this electron reaches the detector is meets a host of electrons in the detector. The latter are responsible for the measurable response (since ultimately a current is measured, not the single electron)."

Varon: I want only one electron at a time. What do you mean "The detector wouldn't be able to respond if it hadn't loosely bound electrons that could be freed when responding to the impinging quantum field formed by your single electron." Please rephase it in clearer words. As I understand it. The emitter emits one electron. After it pass thru the slits, it became smeared. Now how does the smeared field converge back into a single electron detected at the screen?

Neumaier: It doesn't. It remains smeared. But one of the electrons in the detector fires and (after magnification) gives rise to a measurable current.. This will happen at exactly one place. Thus it _seems_ that the electron has arrived there, while in fact it has arrived everywhere within its extent.

If a water wave reaches a dam with a hole in it, the water will come out solely through this hole although the wave reached the dam everywhere. A detector is (in a vague way) similar to such a dam with a large number of holes, of which only one per electron can respond because of conservation of energy

Varon: But your theory doesn't explain one electron at a day double slit experiment or in instance where only one buckyball is sent out in a year. It still interferes with itself. Because after 20 years. The 20 buckyball would still form interference patterns added up one year at a time.
Hence your model may not tally with reality.

Neumaier: Each electron capable of responding has a response rate proportional to the intensity of the incident field. This is enough to correctly account for the interference pattern. No memory is necessary to achieve that.

If you send one buckyball a year in a coherent fashion (I doubt that one can prepare this, but suppose one could) then at positions of destructive interference the response rate would be zero while at positions of constructive interference, the resonse rate would be zero except once a year where it would be maximal. Thus it is most likely that the yearly recorded event comes from an electron sitting at a point of constructive interference. After 20 years, one would see the pattern emerging.

Varon: Something that puzzles me greatly. First of all. How many electrons do typical detectors have? Let's say there are a thousand.

Neumaier: Its more like 10^20.

Varon: How can the uniform quantum wave after the slits trigger just one of the electrons in the detectors and not others. How can the principle of energy conservation cause it? Pls. elaborate. Thanks.

Neumaier: Each electron feels just the piece of the quantum wave reaching it. The electron responds by random ionization, with a rate proportional to the intensity. It takes the energy from its surrounding.

The detector as a whole receives the energy everywhere, also with a rate proportional to the intensity. This energy is redistributed (fast, but with a speed slower than that of light) through the whole detector, roughly according to hydrodynamic laws.

Thus there is no violation of conservation of energy.

Varon: But in one-electron (or photon or buckyball) at a time double slit experiment, how does the wave after the slits select only one electron among the 10^20 in the detector?

Neumaier: The wave selects nothing. It arrives at the various places of detector with different intensities, and these intensities stimulate all the electrons. But because of conservation of energy, only one can fire since the first one that fires uses up all the energy available for ionization (resp. jumping to the conduction band), and none is left for the others.

Varon: In other words. There are really no particles?

Neumaier: Particles are semiclassical approximations for field phenomena concentrated along narrow beams. It is not very different from water - which is in particle form if a tab is dripping but not if the water flows in a river.

The particle concept loses its meaning when applied outside its domain of applicability. Trying to keep the concept then leads to all sorts of weird things.

Varon: So in the photoelectric experiment, what makes each electron eject from the material?

Neumaier: Its the same principle as in the double slit experiment. This is explained in the entry ''The photoelectric effect'' in Chapter A4 of my theoretical physics FAQ at http://arnold-neumaier.at/ph...photodetection ,
and discussed in the thread
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=480072

Varon: Come on PF members. If Neumaier was right. Others would have figured this out already for more than a century.

Neumaier: How could this have been figured out before 1911, at a time where not even the Schroedinger equation was discovered? The reason why it hasn't been discovered is that those working on the foundations rarely also work on quantum fields, and those who work on the latter usually have more pressing things to do than to indulge in foundational issues. So the interface between foundations and quantum fields has been very little explored.

Varon: I'll start with Camboy criticism (A. Neumaier, pls. comment on it):

"I'm sorry - this sounds like nonsense to me. He says only 1 electron in the detector responds because of conservation of energy. What happens when the screen is the inner surface of a hollow sphere a light-year across, and the emitter is a point source dead in the middle emitting a spherical moving quantum field? How is the energy transported across space via the quantum field? Across the whole wave front? In which case, what kind of process involving conservation of energy takes place around the whole surface of the sphere instantaneously when the wave hits the screen? How does this work? if you wish to provide an 'interpretation' one must do more than simply state something happens."

Well?

Neumaier: A quantum field transports the energy in the same way as a classical field, namely by evolution according to the field equations. The energy of a radially expanding field is distributed uniformly.
So an extremely tiny amount of energy arrives at any place of the hollow sphere, integrating over the sphere to the energy of one electron. Thus energy is conserved. The probability of response anywhere is extremely tiny, too, so that uncertainties in the sphere by far dominate the effect, and nothing can be concluded.

--------

Ken. Can you see any flaw or experimental facts that can falsify it or put it into question? Thanks.