Find your ideal quantum interpretation

[bhobba]

Yes, and in the context of this thread, it means that, per the directions given in the OP, everyone should use their own intuitive judgment about what is "real" when answering the questions in the flow chart. Arguing over different definitions doesn't appear to be getting anywhere.

As I mentioned it didn't get Turing and Wittgenstein anywhere. I do not think we will do any better. All I will add is physicists despite the esoteric areas they investigate tend to side with Turing , as do I - but that's just a personal preference.

Thanks
Bill

 

[Lord Jestocost]

But this makes no difference unless it ends up leading to some known interpretation that isn't on the chart. The instructions in the OP already tell you to interpret each question according to your own intuition;

All right! Then I end up with the step “Copenhagenish interpretations” when it is "allowed" to subsume the instrumentalist minimal interpretation under this term.

[EDIT]
Rationale: I don't trust questions and intuitions which "attempt" to infuse the quantum world with a spurious concreteness (classical concepts) for ease of imagination.

 

[DarMM]

Only those not accepting the very facts we learned from the discovery of quantum theory that Nature is probabilistic have a problem here.

I think one should say "Nature is probabilistic without counterfactuals" or something similar. Just "Nature is probabilistic" isn't enough to get Bell Inequalities.

Note: This isn't a disagreement with the minimal statistical view, I just think it's a more accurate summary of it.

 

[microsansfil]

Just "Nature is probabilistic" isn't enough to get Bell Inequalities.

Yep, "The nature is probabilistic" is a metaphysical statement that is irrelevant to physics.

We use probabilities to talk about correlation, and it turns out that the violation of Bell's inequalities shows that quantum correlations have no equivalent in classical physics.

/Patrick

 

[martinbn]

I'm just trying to understand what does he mean by "real".

Well, I was just asking what the meaning of "the wave function exists" was. It is funny that now I have to explain what the meaning of real is (as in "the manifold is real")! Perhaps those that want me to answer whether I think that the manifold is real should say what they mean by real. Or even better, those that say that the manifold is real should explain what they mean by that.

 

[martinbn]

A field is a mathematical notion. Thus your division is as arbitrary as the one you criticise!

Not only mathematical. Even in mathematics it can mean different things.

 

[stevendaryl]

To me, the

It seems to me that "real" means the same thing as it does to you, with one difference. You have decided to take one of the mathematical notions, the manifold, away from the rest such as the probabilities, coordinates, hamiltonians and so on, and group it with the physical entities, the fields and the particles. And call it real.

But a field is by definition a function of a manifold. I don't know how a field can be real without the manifold being real. What is a field without a manifold?

 

[stevendaryl]

The very formalism of QT rests on probabilistic interpretation(s) of the state $\hat{\rho}$, and indeed to calculate the probability for the outcome of an (ideal) measurement you need to use the (generalized) eigen basis of the operator representing the measured. That's within the formalism of QT not subject to the arbitrariness of any representation. What you measure is determined by the measurement appatus used to measure the observable you want to measure. There's nothing mysterious in this.

But what makes a measurement apparatus a "measurement apparatus"? It's either because it helps me (personally) to know what the value of some variable is, or it is because a measurement apparatus amplifies microscopic variables so that they make a macroscopic difference. Either way seems very subjective to me.

 

[PeterDonis]

Thread closed for moderation.

 

[PeterDonis]

After consideration by the moderators, the thread will remain closed.