- #1
sandy stone
- 248
- 180
I recently finished reading a current novel whose main plot device depended on the Many Worlds interpretation as well as Observer-Created Reality. I wasn't too put off because every science fiction - type story is allowed a certain degree of temporary suspension of disbelief. As I plowed on, though, it seemed more and more as if the authors were actually promoting their particular interpretation(s); one of the main characters, a physicist, spent pages and pages throughout the book expositing that mathematics and experiment proved that MW and OCR were the one true interpretation, and anyone who thought otherwise was deluded and reactionary. I wondered how convincing this might be to a reader without any previous knowledge of QM, and actually began preparing counter-arguments in my head.
According to what I understand as a layperson, at it's heart QM is a mathematical tool for predicting the results of experiments involving objects too small for us to directly experience, so more or less for relating different instrument readings. A century of more of experiments have given rise to a very consistent picture of entities that we label atoms, nucleons, quarks, leptons, etc. In other words, nature provides us with instrument readings as if these objects "actually exist." As far as I am aware, the closest we have come to "really seeing" submicroscopic objects is with STM experiments. (Sorry for the scare quotes).
While performing an amazingly accurate job of predicting experimental results, QM says absolutely nothing about what is going on under the hood to cause those observations; there are untold numbers of different interpretations attempting to explain what we see, each trying to preserve a different element of our macro-world experience that their promoters hold most dear. However, there is no mathematical or experimental proof that can differentiate one from another, prove one is true, or disprove the others. Some philosophical questions, notably the Measurement Problem, cause the largest part of the discussion, and remain unanswered. Deciding what is really going on is only a matter of taste at this point.
So, that would be the basis of my (imaginary) rebuttal to the authors. Does it seem reasonable at a B-level?
According to what I understand as a layperson, at it's heart QM is a mathematical tool for predicting the results of experiments involving objects too small for us to directly experience, so more or less for relating different instrument readings. A century of more of experiments have given rise to a very consistent picture of entities that we label atoms, nucleons, quarks, leptons, etc. In other words, nature provides us with instrument readings as if these objects "actually exist." As far as I am aware, the closest we have come to "really seeing" submicroscopic objects is with STM experiments. (Sorry for the scare quotes).
While performing an amazingly accurate job of predicting experimental results, QM says absolutely nothing about what is going on under the hood to cause those observations; there are untold numbers of different interpretations attempting to explain what we see, each trying to preserve a different element of our macro-world experience that their promoters hold most dear. However, there is no mathematical or experimental proof that can differentiate one from another, prove one is true, or disprove the others. Some philosophical questions, notably the Measurement Problem, cause the largest part of the discussion, and remain unanswered. Deciding what is really going on is only a matter of taste at this point.
So, that would be the basis of my (imaginary) rebuttal to the authors. Does it seem reasonable at a B-level?