How do deterministic Bohmian/Pilot Wave Theories Handle These?

[jtbell]

But do you know that photon is just a mixture of Z0 and anti-Z0?

Reference, please? I wasn't aware that there is such a thing as an anti-Z0.

A Google search quickly turned up a few pages from http://books.google.com/books?id=7toILlSQtI0C&pg=PA120&lpg=PA120&dq=z0+antiparticle&source=bl&ots=Lyksel-f45&sig=oiWWk2IJgEIGzvcjhp-zIgiFSZg&hl=en&ei=g7_dScWDBIXsyQWo_szRDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10#PPA121,M1 which includes the statement that "The Z0, photon and Higgs particle are each their own antiparticle..."

 

[Fra]

Nore sure I got the point here.

The argument appeals to artificial intelligence that can be implemented by...

Since I didn't ever think of this before, and the way I think of information in physics is different than the usual backgroun dependent information theory, I am not sure if I got the picture in clear here.

It's mentioned about "we rotate" and "the observer". How many views are in this picture? Does "we" refer to the observer, or to and external observer? From my perspecive, that is extremely important. If we have a memory device for example, who is describing it?

It seems the general idea is that

1. We have an observer, that prior to an interaction, has a certain expectation of the result of the measurement.
2. Then interaction takes place.
3. The observers expectation is updated.

so far so good

4. Now there is some construction where the observer looses the previous measurement result, but instead keeping some information about that a measurment has been made, as an attempt to "undo the information update"?

This physical basis of this construction is unclear to me.

The only way would then be to picture another interaction, whose resulting information update, would exactly cancel the previous update.

Is that possible in my view? Yes possibly. But an observer, can not CHOOSE what feedback to get. An observer can only choose what questions to ask, moreover it does not KNOW what the right question is, if he wants a particular answer. That's IMHO the whole basis for reasoning upon incomplete information, and an evolving observer.

The problem suggest is: what question should an observer ask, in order to provoce from the environment, a particular feedback (necessary to arrive at a certain state of information).

But this question can not be answered with certainty by the observer. If such an constraint is nervertheless imposed, then you are adding information to this picture, that the observer doesn't have.

So when this example, assumes that this right question is asked, and the tries to suggest that it implies an inconsistency, then the problem is that the inconsistency is arrived at by mixing information that belongs to different views. It's an abuse.

It's a mix of reasoning, a bird reasoning about how a frog behaves, suggesting that the frogs behaviour is inconsistent with the birds view. But this doesn't contradict a rational inside view. This is one of the effects of acting upon incomplete information, and as I see it the reason for existence of interactions.

In short, an inconsistency that is inferred from mixing two different views, is not a real contradicton. It's just an apparent paradox due to abuse. Ie. it's not an _observed inconsistency_ because the inconsistency can not be inferred by an inside observer. It's an inconsistency only in a thought experiment.

That somehow different views, seems to come to different conclusions, is not itself an inconsistency, instead it's in my view the basis for an interaction between the views. If two frogs disagree, it means there is an interacting between the frogs (they will "fight" each other"), which in turns leads to that frogs deforming. This is the prediction.

The inconsistency is more obvious though, if you relate it to a birds view, because it doesn't make sense if there are several birds views. So as I see it, the inconsisntecy is the idea that there exists a bird view. without this, I see no observable inconsistency. All there is are evolving frog views. What frog is "bird enough" to judge the global consistency here? IMO, none.

It is what I envision a relational ideal of interactions. The only way to compare view is by means of physical interaction, and clearly there are physical forces involved here. these forces, by magnitude and classification are related to the type and order of disagreement.

Note sure if this answered the question, but as far as I understood the thought experiment,
it seems doubtfully constructed. If so, the above is my response.

Other than that, perhaps there is a more clear description of the experiment explaning that is the observer and what is the computer and why/how these reversed measurements happens and from whose point of view.

I apologise if I missed the point.

/Fredrik

 

[Dmitry67]

photon and Z0 are mixtures of 'real' Zo and anti-Zo in the same sense as
KL and KS are mixtures of K0 and anti-K0
For that very reason both photon and 'apparent' Z0 are their own antiparticles.
I need more time to find a link. Not sure where it was...

 

[JustinLevy]

There are ways to turn discussions of foundational issues into experimental tests (such as Bell's inequalities). Speaking of which, I thought that some papers by the nobel laureate Tony Leggett combined with experiments, ruled out nonlocal-realism as well. A quick google search brought up a reference to this paper which may be the one I was remembering:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v446/n7138/abs/nature05677.html

Some physicists like to talk about virtual particles as if they really existed because they want to have some intuition about quantum processes...

It is more than that. You are dismissing way too much here.

Note that the Dirac equation (the relativistic equivalent of Schrodinger's equation for spin 1/2 particles) can be solved exactly for the hydrogen atom. Despite this exact solution of the Dirac equation, this does NOT account for the Lamb shift. That is because solving the Dirac equation to obtain a wavefunction in that manner is forcing the assumption that particle number is constant (just like in non-relativistic quantum mechanics). It takes quantum field theory, which considers contributions from "fluctuations of particle number" to get the Lamb shift.

You essentially are arguing that we should only consider on-shell contributions. It is _very_ clear from experiment that we need to consider off-shell contributions.

Furthermore, to claim a particle is "real" or not only has a good mathematical definition in the limit the particle goes off to infinity. Only on-shell excitations can survive at that point, so one could argue that what makes a particle "real" or not is whether it is on-shell or not. However it is clear that such a black-white distinction cannot be made. As Griffith's elementary particles textbook likes to comment, would you consider a photon released from the sun and absorbed by your eye as "real"? The system of your eye and the sun would, in calculations treating them as one system, have that photon as an internal propagator in a feynman diagram. Similarly, the photon didn't exist forever, so will have a small off-shell component. (I'll even add, consider the top quark ... a distribution of masses is measured due to its short lifetime causing one to essentially just have a concept of "near-shell".) So there is no black-white distinction between "real" and "virtual" particles. You need them all.


The point is this: if you agree that fields exist and have quantized excitations, and you call these excitations particles, then you can't accept some and dismiss others as "not real" just because you don't like that physicists use the word "virtual" at times. Off-shell contributions are important, with experimental implications that have been verified. So people insisting on non-local realism would have to explain not just a particle deterministically, but also all off-shell fluctuations deterministically (even though there is not a "single" determined fluctuation, but the sum and interference of possible fluctuations).

You may be able to hobble together a theory equivalent to quantum mechanics in that it predicts the same values for all experiments, but to do so you would have to abandon much of what we learned about the deepest symmetries of physics. To cling onto one a priori expectation you have, you'd end up replacing real physics with adhoc results. Sure, Lorentz Ether Theory predicts the same results as Special Relativy for electrodynamics .. but do all those ad-hoc statements really amount to a better, or even useful, theory ... can you even call it an "interpretation" of a theory if you replace all the beauty and guts with something else to fit your a priori expectation? There is a reason LET and the Bohm interpretation haven't led to new predictions and advancement of physics. In my opinion they are a waste of time.

 

[Demystifier]

Tell me, is a real (non virtual) photon real?
You say, it is real? But do you know that photon is just a mixture of Z0 and anti-Z0?
So what is real, photon, Zo or anti-ZO? :)

First, you misunderstood something about electro-weak unification; photon is NOT a mixture of Z0 and anti-Z0.
Second, both MWI and BI agree that the photon wave function (which turns out to be a superposition of certain U(1) and SU(2) gauge wave functions) is real.

 

[Demystifier]

Speaking of which, I thought that some papers by the nobel laureate Tony Leggett combined with experiments, ruled out nonlocal-realism as well. A quick google search brought up a reference to this paper which may be the one I was remembering:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v446/n7138/abs/nature05677.html

No, it just rules out SOME NAIVE VERSIONS of nonlocal realism.

Concerning virtual particles, I am not saying that you do not need to take into account their mathematical contribution to measurable quantities. Of course you do. But I am saying that you can obtain the same result on measurable quantities by applying a different calculation method (a non-perturbative method) in which the concept of a virtual particle does not even make sense.

 

[Dmitry67]

First, you misunderstood something about electro-weak unification; photon is NOT a mixture of Z0 and anti-Z0.
Second, both MWI and BI agree that the photon wave function (which turns out to be a superposition of certain U(1) and SU(2) gauge wave functions) is real.

Hm, it was on a papar source. I need more time.
Meanwhile, can I reformulate my question:

1 What particles from the list: K0, anti-K0, KL, KS are real?
2 Are quarks real? The fit the same criteria: like virtual particles, then can be just a mathematical model of barions.

 

[Demystifier]

1 What particles from the list: K0, anti-K0, KL, KS are real?
2 Are quarks real? The fit the same criteria: like virtual particles, then can be just a mathematical model of barions.

1. Any of them may be real, depending on the wave function.
2. If QCD is correct, then quarks in barions are real. If QCD is correct, then virtual particles are not real.

I have already explained the following, but let me try again. Virtual particles are NOT a part of a mathematical model (like QCD). Instead, virtual particles are a part of a specific mathematical method of calculation within the model (like perturbative QCD within QCD).

 

[Dmitry67]

1. Any of them may be real, depending on the wave function.
2. Virtual particles are NOT a part of a mathematical model (like QCD). Instead, virtual particles are a part of a specific mathematical method of calculation within the model (like perturbative QCD within QCD).

1. Well, check this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaon
Table, Quark contents for K-short and K-long.
Any comments?

2. The only way to tell these 2 things apart and prove that you're right is to suggest another mathematical method, which is virtual-particle free but gives the same result

 

[Demystifier]

So people insisting on non-local realism would have to explain not just a particle deterministically, but also all off-shell fluctuations deterministically (even though there is not a "single" determined fluctuation, but the sum and interference of possible fluctuations).

There is no such thing as a sum of fluctuations. There is only a sum of quantum states, represented e.g. by wave functions. In non-local realistic theories such as the Bohmian interpretation such wave functions are real and evolve deterministically, so they automatically contain the stuff you call "deterministic off-shell fluctuations".

 

[Demystifier]

2. The only way to tell these 2 things apart and prove that you're right is to suggest another mathematical method, which is virtual-particle free but gives the same result

Check out lattice QCD.
Or even better, check out certain low dimensional field theories that can be solved analytically.
Or as the simplest example, check out Ryder textbook on QFT, Sec. 9.3, where it is shown that a real free massive particle can be represented in terms of an infinite number of massless virtual particles.

 

[Demystifier]

1. Well, check this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaon
Table, Quark contents for K-short and K-long.
Any comments?

I am not sure what your point is. Is your point that kaons are not real, but that only quarks are real? If that is your point, then I agree. In this sense, I apologize for saying before that kaons were real.

 

[Ilja]

Ha ha!
This is possible because you don't believe in black holes.
But wait, there are much MORE differences between GLET and GR then 4 items in your list.

jets from AGNs, possibility/impossibility of the reception of the gravitational waves, hypernovas, et cetera et cetera... Such radical theory has much more then 4 predictions different from SR. What is a reason for not giving your theory a chance to win? Put 20-30-100 predictions, the more predictions, the sooner your theory would win LOL

Sorry, but I see no other differences. The theory has a natural GR limit, so there is no et cetera et cetera.

 

[DrChinese]

There is no such thing as a sum of fluctuations. There is only a sum of quantum states, represented e.g. by wave functions. In non-local realistic theories such as the Bohmian interpretation such wave functions are real and evolve deterministically, so they automatically contain the stuff you call "deterministic off-shell fluctuations".

JustinLevy said better what I was getting at. I am trying to follow your thinking, and am not intentionally trying to be dense. I understand that you view the extra contributions as deterministic, and that those contributions are not descriptive of virtual particles actually existing.

Yet I can't help but believe that in a non-local theory, there is a contribution from non-local particles which is "causing" the behavior we refer to as random. So if an electron (or unbound neutron or whatever) emits a photon (or the related decay products for other particle transitions) and drops to an inner shell, that behavior is caused by something. I do not believe you are asserting that there is any INTERNAL difference in one particle that decays vs. another which has not yet decayed, but might in the future. So the cause must be an EXTERNAL one, and I must assume that is a "field fluctuation" (or whatever terminology you want to use) and that fluctuation - a result of non-local influences - is the CAUSE determining what happens and when it happens.

So a) there is a BI particle - which is described by the mathematical apparatus we all agree upon - but which does not uniquely determine the trajectory or decay of that particle (else we wouldn't be having this discussion); and b) there is a BI field - with non-local components which supply the missing determinism (which includes both the particle trajectory and the actual decay time/mode); then c) it seems to me that a theory of the particle plus the field would be MORE than what current QFT supplies. That would be a good thing. :)

Am I getting a little closer yet?

 

[Dmitry67]

Sorry, but I see no other differences. The theory has a natural GR limit, so there is no et cetera et cetera.

For example, as there is no collapse to BH your theory predicts no Hypernova http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypernova and hence no Gamma Ray Bursts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_ray_burst

 

[Dmitry67]

I am not sure what your point is. Is your point that kaons are not real, but that only quarks are real? If that is your point, then I agree. In this sense, I apologize for saying before that kaons were real.

My point is that if quarks are real, then how Kaons can contain an irrational number of them?
In fact, as K0 and anti-KO are almost indistnguishable, then we always observe a mixture of both.

So if kaons are not real, then how can they carry energy and momentum?
I also ask you as BM supporter, how many 'real' particles are 'guided' by the kaon wave?
In general, do you deny the 'real' existence to all particle mixtures?
Finally, if kaons as you are not real, are they virtual? or are there 3 types of particles - real, virtual, and something in the middle?

 

[Dmitry67]

First, you misunderstood something about electro-weak unification; photon is NOT a mixture of Z0 and anti-Z0.

But it is a mixture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_model_(basic_details)#The_W.2C_Z_and_photon

Z bosons (Zμ) and photons (Aμ) are mixtures of W3 and B. The precise mixture is determined by the Weinberg angle.

The Weinberg angle or weak mixing angle is a parameter in the Weinberg-Salam theory of the electroweak force. It gives a relationship between the masses of the W and Z bosons (denoted as MW and MZ), as well as the ratio of Z boson mediated interaction which behaves like a photon, i.e. its mixing

 

[Demystifier]

But it is a mixture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_model_(basic_details)#The_W.2C_Z_and_photon

More precisely, it is a superposition. And this is what I already said. MWI and BI agree on the ontological status of superpositions.

 

[Demystifier]

My point is that if quarks are real, then how Kaons can contain an irrational number of them?
In fact, as K0 and anti-KO are almost indistnguishable, then we always observe a mixture of both.

So if kaons are not real, then how can they carry energy and momentum?
I also ask you as BM supporter, how many 'real' particles are 'guided' by the kaon wave?
In general, do you deny the 'real' existence to all particle mixtures?
Finally, if kaons as you are not real, are they virtual? or are there 3 types of particles - real, virtual, and something in the middle?

Man, what are you talking about? All that "mixtures" you refer to are nothing but quantum superpositions. They have nothing to do with virtual particles.

Kaons are real (not real) in the same sense as classical tables and chairs are real (not real). They are real in the sense that they consist of fundamental entities which are real, but they are not real in the sense that it is a matter of human interpretation what will be considered as a chair, table, or kaon.

In addition, it seems to me that you don't understand well the difference between the concepts of quantum field operator and quantum state in quantum field theory. Someone who supports MWI, as you do, should understand that difference very well, because only the later has an ontological status in MWI. A state in QFT is NOT a superposition of "real" and "virtual" states; a state in QFT is a superposition of real states only. Thus, even your MWI says that virtual particles do not exist.

 

[Demystifier]

I also ask you as BM supporter, how many 'real' particles are 'guided' by the kaon wave?

Probably two. Although, perhaps this number could be even bigger, it is difficult to say with certainty with our incomplete understanding of nonperturbative QCD. For example, it could even turn out that kaon contains also something like a coherent state of gluons, which in the Bohmian interpretation would imply that kaon consists of an infinite number of pointlike particles. But all that is mainly a matter of nonperturbative QCD, while the Bohmian interpretation plays only a secondary role.

 

[Demystifier]

So the cause must be an EXTERNAL one, and I must assume that is a "field fluctuation" (or whatever terminology you want to use) and that fluctuation - a result of non-local influences - is the CAUSE determining what happens and when it happens.

Am I getting a little closer yet?

Since my paper is close to finishing, I can tell you that the sentence above is not so far from the Bohmian picture. More will become clear soon, when I upload the paper on arXiv.
For now, let me only tell you two things:
1. In BM, everything is determined by the initial conditions, but the initial conditions themselves are essentially random.
2. To have nonlocality and relativity at the same time, the concept of an "initial" condition should be radically revised. A part of it can be in the past, while another part of it can be in the future. [See http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/0811.1905 .] Consequently, the initial condition may appear as something that occurs randomly during the evolution of the universe.

 

[QMessiah]

1. In BM, everything is determined by the initial conditions, but the initial conditions themselves are essentially random.
2. To have nonlocality and relativity at the same time, the concept of an "initial" condition should be radically revised. A part of it can be in the past, while another part of it can be in the future.

So Bohmian Mechanics require:

1. TRUE indeterminism/randomness at the fundamental level?
2. 10 000x The speed of light which inreturns means: a block universe/eternalism?


This is less realist than positivism =\

 

[Dmitry67]

Man, what are you talking about? All that "mixtures" you refer to are nothing but quantum superpositions. They have nothing to do with virtual particles.

Let me explain my point

Why I started to talk about mixtures? Becuae particles can be added, substracted, multiplied, divided by sqrt(2) et cetera. They are more like mathematical notions, not like tiny colored billiard balls with labels 'e', 'gamma', 'u', 'd' printed on them, as bohmians imagine :)

So the claim that 'virtual particles is just a mathematical method' looks as minimum very artifical, because the same particle arithmetics is valid for the real particles too. This thread had shown that the line between 'real' and 'virtual' is very fuzzy and you started to change your mind after my questions

If you still don't agree with me, please
1. provide a rule to tell if particle is real or not. How can we tell something which just appear in a 'mathematical method' from a real thing.
2. So, is photon (non-virtual one) real or not? are its 'ingrediants' (bosons) real or not?

 

[Dmitry67]

So Bohmian Mechanics require:

1. TRUE indeterminism/randomness at the fundamental level?
2. 10 000x The speed of light which inreturns means: a block universe/eternalism?

This is less realist than positivism =\

Yes, Bohmian mechanics:

TOE equations: 1 page
Initial conditions: 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 pages :)

 

[Demystifier]

Becuae particles can be added, substracted, multiplied, divided by sqrt(2) et cetera.

No, they cannot. Instead, these are quantum states in the physical Hilbert space (wave functions) that can be added, substracted, etc ...

They are more like mathematical notions, not like tiny colored billiard balls with labels 'e', 'gamma', 'u', 'd' printed on them, as bohmians imagine :)

No, Bohmians do not imagine this. According to Bohmians, particles only have trajectories. All other properties are properties of the wave functions, not of particles. Particles do not have any labels printed on them.

So the claim that 'virtual particles is just a mathematical method' looks as minimum very artifical, because the same particle arithmetics is valid for the real particles too.

No it isn't. The superposition principle is valid for physical states only. Not for virtual particles.

1. provide a rule to tell if particle is real or not. How can we tell something which just appear in a 'mathematical method' from a real thing.
2. So, is photon (non-virtual one) real or not? are its 'ingrediants' (bosons) real or not?

1. The particle is real if its motion is guided by the wave function that represents a state in the physical Hilbert space. Is that precise enough?
2. From 1. it follows that the particle guided by the photon wave function (which is a superposition of other boson wave functions) is real. But strictly speaking, it does not make sense to say that this particle is "photon" or that this particle is "some other boson". All we can say is that it is a pointlike object moving in spacetime.

Is it clearer now?

 

[Demystifier]

Yes, Bohmian mechanics:

TOE equations: 1 page
Initial conditions: 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 pages :)

And how many initial conditions is needed to specify a wave function in the MWI? I will tell you: An infinite number of pages.

Can you tell me just one thing: Do you really want to understand BI better, or do you just want to provoke people who disagree with you? I will not answer any of your further questions until you answer this one.

 

[Dmitry67]

1
No it isn't. The superposition principle is valid for physical states only. Not for virtual particles.

2. The particle is real if its motion is guided by the wave function that represents a state in the physical Hilbert space. Is that precise enough?

1. So what happens when electrons exchange virtual photons in QFT?
Virtual photons are the mixtures of other bosons!
based on your claim, virtual particles can not be superposition, so we can not talk about virtual photons.

2. Your definition not only requires one to accept BM,
but even if we accept BM, it is based on the 'motion', which is, in BM, is unobservable

 

[Dmitry67]

And how many initial conditions is needed to specify a wave function in the MWI? I will tell you: An infinite number of pages.

Wow, this is basics of MWI
In MWI you can start from a very simple initial conditions (for example, an empty space - a sort of vacuum before the inflation in the big bang) and get our current world as a result!

This is also true in CI: in CI because of randomness, in MWI each branch appear to be random, but the whole superset is not.

 

[Demystifier]

First answer my question in #96!

 

[JustinLevy]

Concerning virtual particles, I am not saying that you do not need to take into account their mathematical contribution to measurable quantities. Of course you do. But I am saying that you can obtain the same result on measurable quantities by applying a different calculation method (a non-perturbative method) in which the concept of a virtual particle does not even make sense.

No. You are missing an important point about 'virtual particles' here.
As I tried to explain, there is no black and white distinction.

Is a photon ever a real particle to you?
They are from quantization of the electromagnetic field. But strictly speaking anything we refer to as a photon in experiment is from perturbation theory. You could claim no "photons" exist, they are all just 'artifacts' of perturbation theory and that the full theory only has the full fields.

Again, do you consider a photon emitted from the sun and absorbed by our eye are real or virtual? Let's make it simpler. A photon is emitted during de-excitation of an atom and is absorbed by another atom. Was this photon real or not?

As I tried to explain earlier, the only consistent way we currently have to define a particle as "real" is off at infinity. With finite times there is a full continuum, with some definitions being appropriate extensions given particular applications, but ultimately there is no black and white distinction between real and virtual particles.

Your proposed definition doesn't resolve any of these issues.

There is no such thing as a sum of fluctuations. There is only a sum of quantum states, represented e.g. by wave functions. In non-local realistic theories such as the Bohmian interpretation such wave functions are real and evolve deterministically, so they automatically contain the stuff you call "deterministic off-shell fluctuations".

No. As a realism theory, you are requiring the "fluctuation" to have a definite (although unknown) value. Saying it is a definite superposition of values is no different (it is just a change of basis). You will not get the correct answer.

Also, if you are saying the vacuum is "really" in a definite state containing off-shell values, then one could measure the component of vacuum in such states ... ie. one could measure the vacuum to be in a state that violates lorentz symmetry, etc. That is incorrect. It's not that the vacuum expectation (ie. averaging over many measurements) has lorentz symmetry, but that every measurement will not violate special relativity.

1. In BM, everything is determined by the initial conditions, but the initial conditions themselves are essentially random.

Again, here by random, because you want a realism theory, you have to mean unknown but definite value. This is different than truly random.

Consider spin of an electron.
If you measure the electron to be in the spin up state (S_z=+1/2), then subsequently measure S_y, half the time you will get (S_y=-1/2) and the other half you will get (S_y=+1/2). Quantum mechanics says this is truly random. It was NOT in a definite, but unknown state until you measured it.
You instead are claiming it is.

So for quantum mechanics it is random. But for your BM interpretation, your "essentially random" is really only unknown initial conditions. Multiple interactions will have correlations that would differ from true randomness. They are not equivalent.

2. To have nonlocality and relativity at the same time, the concept of an "initial" condition should be radically revised. A part of it can be in the past, while another part of it can be in the future.

I must be frank here. I feel this is teetering on Metaphysics/philosophy and not actually physics. This proposes much additional structure that doesn't even sound testible.

Let me make a historical analogy. Consider Lorentz and his aether theory. He found that it had an interesting symmetry that forbid detecting the ether. He found this before Einstein even published his paper in 1905. The troubling thing is that even after people came to understand relativity and the powerful understanding that came with it, Lorentz wouldn't give up on the ether. To him, this was just a mathematical trick: Rods really did shrink and clocks ran slow becaue their internal interactions were different when they were moving with respect to the aether.

The two theories both predicted the same results for experiment. So one could claim that we merely have two different / valid interpretations of the same physics. However in Lorentz theory, the Lorentz symmetry is just a mystical conspiracy of the math and several ad-hoc conjectures. In Special Relativity, the lorentz symmetry is fundamental and those same conjectures can be derived.

Which is physics? I hope most would agree here that the existence of an aether which cannot be experimentally verified, and which to cast equations in the term of interactions with, requires demoting seemingly fundamental symmetries to mere 'coincidences', and worse yet do not provide new predictions are at best metaphysics.

The lesson:
Good physics does not come from mangling theories to insist on a priori beliefs based on intuition.


Your theories do the same. You destroy locality, but in such a contrived manner that it cannot be measured. Lorentz symmetry is now emergent, yet probing deeper at any level will not give details on this 'emergence'. And now you are laying ground to allow anything to be explained away by saying it deals with "initial" conditions in the future. Things will become even more convoluted if you actually manage to derive the lamb shift and the magnetic moment of the electron (it would be hard to take your "new QFT" seriously without at least showing how such calculations could be done in principle and showing the correct results should follow ... for relativistic quantum mechanics gets the wrong result, it took field theory to get the rest, so such calculations really demonstrate that final step from non-relativistic quantum -> relativistic quantum -> quantum field theory).


Any such theories are not seem by the mainstream as attempts to resolve 'foundational issues of quantum mechanics', but hiding behind the excuse of foundational issues to try to wedge in antiquated a priori intuition back into a theory.

They serve as examples of not what additional interpretations are compatible, but what must be sacrificed in order to force particular unnecessary requirements into a theory. These sacrifices are too big. It prevents any possibility of making new predictions/advances, so the theories are dead ends. Just as Lorentz ether theory serves only as historical example, so too do these ideas. No new predictions have come from it.

 

[Dmitry67]

Can you tell me just one thing: Do you really want to understand BI better, or do you just want to provoke people who disagree with you? I will not answer any of your further questions until you answer this one.

Frankly, I am here, in this thread because I am puzzled (and I try to understand the reasons) why people can prefer such interpretation. So I am trying to understand BM better - but ont the psycological, not mathematical level.

There are theories which can look strange, weird, contre-intuitive but they are BEAUTIFUL. Thru these theories I feel the reflection of God. I see the beauty.

Correct me if I am wrong, but BI is just a sequence of ad-hoc attempts to catch up with an understanding of reality. Even these artificial attempts might be successful, they created more and more artificial things making it less and less beautiful.

Bohmians had made their theory relativistic by the ugly price of adding a preferred frame. Now as I said to ilja - it is not possible to define a common preferred frame in the curved space, for example, a common frame for the inner and outer part of the black hole. I had had confirmed it, because in his GLET there is no such thing as collapse.

But I am sure that BM will be able to accommodate the black holes by making more and more artificial assumtions. But what is a whole point? Pure/MWI (and even CI) QM is able to work on the edge of the semi-classical approach to gravity (Hawking, Unruh) while BM is in denial of both effects because these effects are inconsistent with BM.

You can say that both effects are not confirmed experimentally. I agree, but at least they are predicted. What is a prediciton power of BM except that it had recently accommodated SR and is trying to tackle some GR things?

Finally, the single histrory deterministic theory suffers from the laplace determinism, so me writing this post is pre-coded in the initial conditions during the big bang. I see such determinism as a loss, not as a victory.

Could you explain, what aspects of BM are so attractive for you?

P.S.
I ahd noticed an interesting thing, looks like our discussion about BM and Virtual particles are the same. Without these 'particles' added to wavefunctions these wavefunctions are not real enough for you, and it leads to some strange classification of what is real and what is not.

 

[Demystifier]

Could you explain, what aspects of BM are so attractive for you?

No, I could not. I have tried many times to explain that to you, but you still ask me the same question. So there is no point in trying to do that again. In the following, I will only point to some of your misconceptions.

 

[Demystifier]

1. So what happens when electrons exchange virtual photons in QFT?

As I already said many times, electrons do not exchange virtual photons.

 

[QMessiah]

Demystifier: I dno about Dmitry67 and doubt he really cares or knows too much about QM.

I've always gone with STFU and calculate.

As for interpretations:

Copenhagen = insanity and definitely wrong
Many Worlds = uncertain, all I know is that it can't arrive at Born's Rule and therefore can't be considered coherent yet.

I've always felt Bohmian sounded reasonable, however never dwelled deeper into it.

If your saying that the universe is fundamnetally indeterministic and past and future exist (eternalism) I have a hard time swallowing that as a realist interpretation.
Am I missinterpreting your statements or is this what Bohmian mechanics claim?

 

[Dmitry67]

BTW there are some good news.

So, relativistic BM is indistinguishable (experimentally) from other iterpretations of QM.
But, BM predicts that there is a preferred frame.
The situation changes in curved space, check here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parameterized_post-Newtonian_formalism

There are special parameters:

The meaning of these is that α1 , α2 and α3 measure the extent of preferred frame effects

And these values of these parameters are experimentally verifiable.