DrChinese said:
Didn't we have the same discussion about Bohmian Mechanics? (And maybe one or two about MWI
) In which the BMers said that they would be able to explain everything in terms of their proto-theory if just given more resources?
Well, why not ? In fact, I fight every dogmatic religious attitude with religious conviction
In the same way as I would argue against a religious Local Realist, I argue against a Religious Bohmian, or a Religious quantum theorist. I take insult at being considered as a religious MWI-er btw, I'm not. I only argue against religious anti-MWI-ers :-). In this thread, it appeared to me that there was some Inquisitional Threat against people investigating into SED kind of theories.
It cannot be denied I think, that SED does what is often claimed is impossible. As such, it does have some flavor of Bohmian mechanics, which also does, what was claimed to be impossible. These (obviously erroneous) claims of impossibility are often the fruit of zealous religious conviction in need for proof of rightness. These counter examples are good to study, be it just to sober up from false certainties.
It is simply good scientific attitude to recognize what is, and what is not, established, and every inquiry which can clear that out is a contribution to take.
In other words, why design a theory to describe & predict what we can already describe & predict with QM? Yes, I know *maybe* it would lead us somewhere new, but so might equal research into the QM we have now! It would make more sense to stop funding research into the standard model IF we had hit an impass and were not making new discoveries.
Well, nobody is talking about giving up QM ! It's way too successful ! But my modest opinion is that these very simple SED models merit maybe a slightly less aggressive treatment from the scientific community than they are treated with now. True, there is an entire crowd of crackpot local realists, but that doesn't mean that all of it is crackpot. As of now, it is for instance totally impossible to find even a postdoc position working on that subject. As far as they are concerned, they are way closer to sound science than yet another over-hyped string/loop/whatever version of the Ultimate Theory of Reality and Everything (where it is not so hard to find funded positions): basic postulates of a model are written down, a deduction of predictions is worked out and then compared with experimentally known results. Science as by the book.
My point is simply that the simplicity of this SED model and the accuracy of its predictions (true, within a very restricted domain for the moment) is intriguing, and that we might learn something if only we understood why. I have a hard time believing that it is pure coincidence that quantum theory and SED models give so close results, with so different postulates. So the point is not so much SED versus QM, but how come that SED and QM give same predictions.
Quantum theory doesn't need any "proof". It simply needs to be explored in every corner. Thinking about alternative theories is a good way to find suggestions of exploring quantum theory experimentally. It is also a good practice to see what is "typically quantum", and what's not (all the classical examples of "typically quantum" and which are also explained by SED, are obviously less typically quantum than first thought).
As such, I think that the only totally correct statement of the empirical situation is:
"quantum theory has been challenged and made successful predictions in all empirical tests, also in those suggested by rival theories, such as local realist ones."
In other words, all experimental work as of today has not succeeded in falsifying quantum theory. However, claiming that it falsified SED is, as far as I know, still wrong. Maybe I'm wrong here, but I'm still not aware of a falsification of SED, in the sense: a clear SED prediction has been worked out, and a different experimental result has been established. As pointed out by Zapper, Kinsler worked out a theoretical proposition using 3-rd order correlations where certain SED predicted correlations are different from the quantum predictions, but I'm not aware of any experimental verification of it. Santos showed that second-order correlation functions using parametric down conversion and "low efficiency" photon detectors (<87%) are identical between QM and SED, but Kinsler showed that 3rd order correlations (if we can produce them) are not.
Here we see SED at work to suggest further tests of QM, which I think is a positive attitude.
General relativity also has its "challengers" (Brans-Dicke theory being the most famous one). It is interesting that some classical "tests" of GR can also be explained by B-D (for instance, the gravitational time dilatiation). As such, exploration of B-D theory is a useful exercise.
One should not religiously commit to a single theory, and view competitors as personal rivals. Competitive theories are the backbone of scientific inquiry.
That is hardly the case, as new area after new area has been discovered in recent years (how about GHZ & delayed choice quantum erasers just in the area of entanglement). When Marshall & Santos use their new improved line of thinking to push us into new fruitful territory, then they will really have something. Until then, the QM competition is kilometers (maybe even miles) behind.
That depends in fact. If we would understand why SED gives similar results than quantum theory in those simple cases (which were nevertheless at one time held to be "proofs" of quantum theory, remember), we might understand maybe certain properties of quantum theory better, maybe even leading to faster calculational algorithms. Imagine for instance that we would understand when stochastic models a la SED give similar or identical results as QM: that might make very simplified quantum chemistry models (using classical models + noise in the right way). It might also turn out to be in fact, more complicated (as is for instance the case when treating spin in Bohmian mechanics).
Point is: we have a simple model, which is fundamentally different from QM, and which makes accurate predictions. That needs to be understood, instead of frowed upon. One should stop making cliques of people, as religious brotherhoods, vowed to the success of one, or another theory.
I like to read about SED, and I find that fascinating. I also like to read about Bohm, and about other theories. That doesn't mean that the next day I burn all my books on quantum theory.
A totally different matter is considering whether it is wise to spend a lot of time or money on it. That's an entirely personal choice. And as to funding: I would certainly not argue for dropping funding of QM research! But I can think of quite some funded activities which are, IMO, less well spend than trying to find out why SED works so well in certain domains. Activities where there are no predictions, the postulates change every other day, and where there are no experiments...
I do think I see your point, which is: why bother ? Why bother with something that might work, while we have something that does work ? As I said, that's a personal matter. I can very well understand this viewpoint. But I can also understand the person who bothers. Maybe simply because that person is intrigued by it and hopes to learn something. Or maybe because of the fact that a SED-like theory has all chances of not having troubles with gravity.
P.S. Maybe you should be looking at your shoes in 26 dimensions.
Depends if they are bosonic or not
I appreciate this thread hanging to dear life and will give my personal opinion in my frame of reference.
