I QM & Ontology: Why Should We Stay Away?

[martinbn]

Does this conceptual problem have a solution? What is it? If not, then there are no interpretation in which the wave function exists/is_ontic in this sense of the word.

Wouldn't it have been better to use new and well define terminology. Most arguments, at least on forums like this one, wouldn't even begin.

 

[Demystifier]

Does this conceptual problem have a solution?

It depends on whom you ask.

What is it? If not, then there are no interpretation in which the wave function exists/is_ontic in this sense of the word.

I would suggest you to take some more detailed text on many worlds or objective collapse and decide by yourself whether their solution is satisfying.

Wouldn't it have been better to use new and well define terminology. Most arguments, at least on forums like this one, wouldn't even begin.

Yes, it would be better. Unfortunately, nobody yet has found a good substitute for the word "ontic" with a precisely defined meaning. If you have a proposal, I am going to listen.

 

[martinbn]

I would suggest you to take some more detailed text on many worlds or objective collapse and decide by yourself whether their solution is satisfying.

What about Bohmian mechanics?

 

[Demystifier]

What about Bohmian mechanics?

There, the wave function is very much like the Hamilton-Jacobi function.

 

[Paul Parnell]

Hmm, pointing out from the bleachers that Ernst Mach didn't believe in atoms. Nor space.

 

[haushofer]

Imo, the boundary between philosophy and physics is as artificial as the boundary between classical and quantum. It's just that many physicists feel more comfortable calculating than interpreting.

It's not just quantum mechanics. I also think about my own struggles with the meaning of general covariance or interpreting coordinate transformations actively and passively. Doing the calculations is so much easier than carefully interpret the subtle issues.

 

[physika]

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The things that exist have properties.

Right.

"properties are characteristic qualities that are not truly required for the continued existence of an entity but are, nevertheless, possessed by the entity."
..........Aristotle.

properties are just atributes, qualities.
Predicates.

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[Demystifier]

All non-ontological interpretations of quantum mechanics are alike; each ontological interpretation is ontological in its own way.

 

[user30]

each ontological interpretation is ontological in its own way.

Including hidden variables or not. Those who advocate hidden variables insists that the universe is empirically explicable at all scales.

Had it not been for classical physics predating quantum mechanics, I'm fairly certain physicists would be content with reproducibility.

That is to say this "Reproducibility means obtaining consistent computational results using the same input data, computational steps, methods, code, and conditions of analysis.".

To state that this needs to be accompanied with empirical explicability is a form of induction. It cannot be deduced regardless of whether we live in a world that has reproducibility or not. It's an aestethic requirement, completely independent of the process.

 

[physika]

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Ontic:

Relating to entities (things, objects) and the facts about them.

Entities : example; Electrons (be a wave, a particle...)
Facts: Properties (attributes, qualities, features, characteristics...)

facts are secondary, I.E. derived.

Entity: a thing with distinct and independent existence.

Objects are Subjects;
Properties are Predicates.

Predicates: what is said about objects (things, entities)

"Existence is not a predicate"
......Inmanuel Kant..
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[A. Neumaier]

Entities : example; Electrons (be a wave, a particle...)
Facts: Properties (attributes, qualities, features, characteristics...)

facts are secondary, I.E. derived.

? One cannot even define entities without stating their defining properties, i.e., some facts about them.

 

[physika]

? One cannot even define entities without stating their defining properties, i.e., some facts about them.

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What do you say ? that if you don't define it, it doesn't exist?
without definition, there is no existence ??

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[A. Neumaier]

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What do you say ? that if you don't define it, it doesn't exist?
without definition, there is no existence ??

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Without a sufficiently precise definition of a concept X it is undetermined what the statement that X exists means.

 

[physika]

Without a sufficiently precise definition of a concept X it is undetermined what the statement that X exists means.

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Objects (thing, entity) exist whether or not has a definition. To imagine they don't exist before we make such a definition but they do after we make the definition is nonsense.

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[physika]

Saying that the atom exists means nothing unless you specify what properties of the atom exist. For instance, does its spin (before one measures it) exist?

and how you can talk about properties without that atom.
no object, no property.
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