Quantum confusion

yoda jedi

that's true.

yoda jedi

..............Quantum mechanical position is typically indeterminate but can, in principle, be measured precisely (i.e., with arbitrary accuracy) and be determinate (to a high degree) immediately after measurement (but with the result that momentum is disturbed
and indefinite, and vice-versa). However, at least one of the two quantities, position and momentum (and typically each of these), is also limited in its determination. In the case of quantum systems, properties can be considered objectively indefinite and sets of propositions regarding them complementary to specific other sets of propositions, so that it becomes impossible to jointly attribute them. Thus, quantum mechanics involves a unique form of vagueness..........

..............The novel feature in the description of physical reality brought about with the advent of quantum mechanics is thus the fact that physical properties will not in general be either actual or absent but indefinite or indeterminate..............

.......as an element of empirical reality, an actual property has the capacity to act, to actualize an indicative measurement outcome if a measurement is performed. By contrast, when a property is absent it has no capacity to act. We propose the idea of an interpolation between the two extremes of full actuality and absence of a property........

........It is also appropriate to think of an indeterminate property as an element of unsharp reality..........

george walton

Logical positivists embraced two standards of truth: analytic and synthetic.

Something can either be true by definition [or logically impregnable] or confirmed as true empirically. Others, however, soon pointed out that even scientific "truths" reflect only assumptions made regarding long standing correlations. And correlations are not necessarily a true reflection of cause and effect.

Consequently, we can't really know anything is true. A least not for all people and for all time and in all sets of circumstances.

Karl Popper then introduced the idea of falsifying propositions even if we can never actually verify them.

apeiron

So where does this leave rational concepts then? You know, the very stuff of logic, maths and metaphysics? If I suggest 1+1=2, do I have to now present the empirical evidence here?

I told him about vagueness - a well-established philosophical concept. I'm happy to refer anyone to a whole thread of resources on vagueness I have already compiled in this forum.

You can accuse the OP being hazy on both the theoretical concepts and the empirical observations (though I thought we could all pretty easily interpret his essential query). But a more sophisticated level of discussion (especially in a philosophy forum) must show its familiarity with both the physics and metaphysics involved. Yet your responses always sound like someone saying ooh yuck, personal tastes, when it comes to the conceptual aspects of a discussion.

ZapperZ

What you are suggesting is nowhere near such logic as 1+1=2. If it is, we won't have to perform experimental test of it and such tests won't be accepted in Nature, PRL, etc! You somehow cannot see the obvious contradictions and inconsistencies in your own argument based on what has transpired!

Zz.

yoda jedi

and physical !
i posted it at the post #53

apeiron

Yes, that Busch/Jaeger paper is an extremely valuable contribution here. Thanks yoda....
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/...005.0604v2.pdf

Zeilinger's take on the metaphysics is also worth reading (as no one can complain about his empirical credentials )...
http://www.quantum.at/fileadmin/zeilinger/philosoph.pdf

Anyway, from Busch/Jaeger is this elegant statement of the need for bold new metaphysics (and not to allow the "shut up and calculate" old guard shout us down)....

Zeilinger is not nearly so specific about the proper focus of this next step, but he endorses a holistic approach in general....

In this statement further on in Busch/Jaeger, they get precisely to the heart of the problem as I have frequently outlined it.....

What is crucial here is that complementarity (asymmetry, dichotomy) is part of the QM package. The logic involves both the initiating conditions, the indeterminate potential that is vague, and then also the decohering observation, the global set of constraints that crisply dichotomises this potential.

This is what is missing from most ontic vagueness proposals. People say well a vagueness is free do develop in any fashion really. But no. Only dichotomous outcomes are in fact possible. This was Anaximander's insight 2400 years ago. It has echoed down the years in the I Ching, Hegelian logic, etc. Yet people still seem to manage to overlook it.

There is just no accident that QM is based on orthogonal or complementary crisp observables. Systems logic says it could be no other way!

Here Busch/Jaeger state a consequence of this view. We can then go on to define vagueness (empirically, physically!) in complementary terms. It is a mixed state - a mixture of paired, dichotomous, outcomes.

Busch/Jaeger keep on hitting the mark. They correctly get the distinction between vagueness and fuzzy logic approaches...

So as I replied to the OP, between total realism and total unrealism, there is the intermediate ontic position which takes indeterminacy seriously.

And Busch and Jaeger is probably the best paper I've seen on this so far.

apeiron

You seem the one struggling to follow the argument here. Models involve both theory and measurements. The two work in tandem and neither should be neglected.

You keep harping on about the need to be up to date with the empirical content. Which of course I agree with. But it was actually not particularly relevant in this thread as the essential QM issue has been clear from the beginning. It was that which I addressed, and which you have so far failed to address.

If you have some enlightening comments on the "third path" of quantum vagueness, especially in light ot the very fine Bausch/Jaeger paper (much better than other recent QM vagueness papers such as http://www.sorites.org/Issue_15/chibeni.htm), then let's hear them...

ZapperZ

What does that have anything to do with what you were proposing? A "theory" isn't a hand-waving argument. For theory and experiment to "work in tandem", a theory must produce quantitative predictions and the experiment must be able to measure such quantities! Are you telling me that what you told the OP falls under a category of a "theory"? Really?

You offered a hand-waving argument with no empirical support. This is a fact that you haven't and can't dispute. That's the end of the story.

Zz.

apeiron

All the evidence that QM is not-local and not-real is precisely my empirical support here. That is what is driving theorists like Busch and Jaeger.

So yes, as usual it is stunningly easy to dispute your version of events.

DevilsAvocado

This looks like a very strong candidate for the next Nobel Prize in Physics? Reference please!

apeiron

Oh please! I deliberately separated the two to make the usual point that not all the loopholes have been closed. If I wanted to say "local realism" had been proved wrong, that's what I would have said.

But if you are asking me what I believe, I do believe that both locality and realism are concepts that both need to be revised. Which is what a systems approach does.

The systems approach argues for top-down or contextual causality (which undercuts locality, or bottom-up, efficient cause as being all there is). And it also argues for vague initial conditions (which undercuts naive realism - local or global).

But if you really want a reference, I think this is a fair statement of the current state of play. If you are a fan of hidden variables and praying for a loophole, the tide has been going out on you for many years now....

http://www.quantum.at/fileadmin/Pres...enaissance.pdf

DevilsAvocado

"Deliberately separated"... "loopholes"... I don’t understand anything...

Honestly, if you are referring to "empirical support" and "evidence", you should at least get the most basics facts correct. How could we else be helping OP getting it right??

Bell's theorem (aka Bell's inequality) is stating that:

No physical theory of Local Hidden Variables (LHV) can ever reproduce all of the predictions of QM.

All performed EPR-Bell test experiments performed so far verifies Bell's theorem, and another word for Local Hidden Variables is Local Realism, which by the scientific community is considered "dead" (naturally).

This does NOT mean that we now have evidence that QM is not-local and not-real. All we can say is that the predictions of QM and all experiments performed so far is telling us that the microscopic world must be non-local AND/OR non-real.

To me, this is a HUGE difference, since nothing is really settled yet. There are still three (3) options and the person(s) who can tell us which is correct will most probably get the Nobel Prize in Physics.

I’m not in any "camp", I’m just here to listen and learn. Furthermore I’m not a big fan of the "shut up and calculate" –model, neither can I see the use of building large "Philosophical Castles" on shaky grounds...

I must agree with ZapperZ that using logic as 1+1=2 is nothing but a catastrophe when discussing EPR-Bell and the real nature of the microscopic world.

Why!?

Because if we take the simplest version of Bell's inequality, by Nick Herbert:

N(+30°, -30°) ≤ N(+30°, 0°) + N(0°, -30°)

And reduce it, you will get:

1+1=2

This is the classical assumption we all think is "natural". But is this what QM predicts and experiments verify...??

Well, when we do the math and run the EPR-Bell test experiments, we will always find that:

1+1=3

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...Get it...?

yoda jedi

very SHARP remark.

yoda jedi

long time ago sirs..........

Aristotle:

"about anything that exists just because of its existence and not because of any special qualities it has".....




and now again:(the same essence)

"Reality is the state of things as they actually exist"






Being Qua Being

there is no need of so "ENTANGLED" definitions...