I "Single-world interpretations.... cannot be self-consistent"

[AlexCaledin]

This is probably the best philosophical framework!

"Suppose that physics, or rather nature, is considered analogous to a great chess game with millions of pieces in it, and we are trying to discover the laws by which the pieces move. The great gods who play this chess play it very rapidly, and it is hard to watch and difficult to see."

Richard P. Feynman, https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679601279/?tag=pfamazon01-20, page 53

 

[jambaugh]

That is an interesting discussion (at least from my layman's perspective)

But yet, even if you take the minimal ensemble interpretation, because after all QM only describe probabilities on ensemble of events, you won't go so far as to say that elements composing those ensemble do not exist ?

Nope, because while the probabilities describe ensemble events (and thus too the wave functions as they are utilized) the measurements are singular events (hence the need to collapse our descriptions.) An electron detector goes 'click' and each time I identify that as the detection of a singular electron, that is what an electron is as a phenomenon and I believe that phenomenon exists. I must in order to believe in the resulting sample proportions. I then looking at many such clicks over many detectors can derive proportions and compare to calculated probabilities and confirm or falsify QM predictions.

My understanding is that the pilot wave only evolve in time and not in space. So I don't think it "propagate" in any classical(SR) sense. It seem to be very well in tune with what Bell's inequality allow us to guess about the underlying process/model.
I also am under the impression that some form of determinism is reintroduced by the pilot wave. Wouldn't that open the door for true new behavior/falsifiability ?

As for propagation (and again I'm inexpert here) I assumed it obeyed the same superposition principle as e.g. classical EM waves. Thus although you can speak of the totality of the EM field over space only propagating in time, one can also speak of components causally propagating at the speed of light thus through space and time as with e.g. the light on my car's blinker signaling my turn.

With respect to falsifiability, not when the non-time-forward causality is fundamentally unobservable... (like the unobservable but asserted instantaneous communication between EPR pairs when you assert reality of the wave function.) I am not fully up to speed with dBB interpretation though so I would refer you to someone who has studied it in more depth.

 

[jambaugh]

"Atom" is not a phenomena. It is unobservable ontic entity in many models. But without this unobservable ontic entity and models that are built on it many scientific theories would become unimaginably contrived.
What value your position then has?

Yes the atom is an unobservable ontic entity in many models. It is also an observable quantum phenomenon in various repeatable laboratory experiments ... see for example atom traps and atomic emission and absorption experiments. We can "see" atoms as well as we can "see" distant galaxies or cars in our rear view mirror. The scanning tunneling electron micoscope can resolve individual atoms on a crystaline surface. Seeing those via the physical experiment is the pheonomenological event that affirms our ontological treatment in said model.

Scientific approach assumes "objective reality" as given (experimental facts, their records, shared information etc. are objective). If you want to investigate possibility that it is not as objective as it is assumed you would have to develop different philosophical framework for that. So it's not science anyways.

Yes you are quite right but the objective reality of our records of measurement is not fundamental. It is a contingent, tentative objectivity we can assert at the large scale and which is assured by the Correspondence Principle in QM. As my thesis advisor was want to say "all is quantum", but we treat most of it classically because we can and we found that gets bacon on the table as we evolved. And this in turn is how we "bootstrap" the study of nature plus it is why we are forced to "collapse" our quantum descriptions. We don't have the means to manipulate truly quantum symbols... i.e. use actual representative quantum systems to communicate. We instead use classically recorded letters and words and symbols. Perhaps poetry could get you further if you could at the same time impose scientific rigor? Who knows? Maybe one day we can use quantum computers as brain implants to conceptualize quantum systems directly... or maybe some smart fellow will simply reformulate QM in a way that makes it all perfectly natural to dispense with the classical records... I don't know how you can publish a paper though using quantum paper and quantum ink nor how the peer reviewers can be sure they are reading what you wrote.

 

[jambaugh]

Let me add one other bit of sophomore level philosophical pondering.

The phenomenologist's dilemma begins when he despairs of knowing anything but the sensations he experiences since all (empirical) knowledge must pass through this barrier of phenomena.

But the dilemma is only at knowing "a reality". If you don't take it too seriously you can happily construct whatever realities fit your sensations. We build up object models of our environment and through these ... and always tentatively... we extend ourselves to the "objects" we use to further probe our environment. We even extend our singular selves to the community of others we perceive to communicate with us.

You take this "reality" around you only as seriously as it deserves given its ability to describe the extensive accumulation of experiences. You thereby push back this phenomenological wall. But it can't be removed.

Once you become an experimental physicist exploring quantum phenomena you have pushed this phenomenological wall to the Observer/System divide. You treat the measuring devices and recording devices and intermediate dynamical filtering devices as classical objects which you use to probe the wall further.

 

[Boing3000]

Nope, because while the probabilities describe ensemble events (and thus too the wave functions as they are utilized) the measurements are singular events (hence the need to collapse our descriptions.)

That is also my understanding. Hence the collapse is not part of any phenomenon/model/reality. It belongs to the interpretation domain/framework which deal in probability complex waves and "information".
Thus I still don't understand why somebody keen on falsifiability would use a "interpretation" where one of its tenet is some unorbservable phenomenon like "collapse"

An electron detector goes 'click' and each time I identify that as the detection of a singular electron, that is what an electron is as a phenomenon and I believe that phenomenon exists. I must in order to believe in the resulting sample proportions. I then looking at many such clicks over many detectors can derive proportions and compare to calculated probabilities and confirm or falsify QM predictions.

This is also my understanding, but I cannot reconcile it with one of your previous statement

CI says that there is no deeper reality of individual members of quantum system ensembles than that given by wave function i.e. there are no hidden variables.

You may not want to call them "hidden variables", but right now, they are actually the only "real" thing: quantized value that "tick". Whatever "deeper" reality there may (or not) be, it seems to me that taking the stance that only the aggregate behavior are "real" is pretty illogical.

With respect to falsifiability, not when the non-time-forward causality is fundamentally unobservable... (like the unobservable but asserted instantaneous communication between EPR pairs when you assert reality of the wave function.)

Why would "instantaneous" correlation be unorbservable ? Is this a scam ? Also did not Bell's theorem actually kind of explain it ?
What would forbid us to augment the precision of photon arrival time as precisely as we want to ?

 

[Denis]

My problem with dBB is twofold. The aforementioned unobservability and also the point of its formulation is to provide a consistent reality but (as I understand dBB which may be quite wrong!) the necessity of causal propagation of pilot waves FTL and back in time undermine the very objectivity of the reality one is trying to assert. If the future may update the present then the present state of reality is contingent and hypothetical.

Unobservability is not an issue for me. Reality is not obliged to be completely observable, in all details.
FTL is necessary in every realistic or causal interpretation. Which is the point of Bell's theorem, who was aware of dBB theory, and that it requires FTL, and he wanted to show that this is not an argument against dBB, because it is necessary in any realistic causal interpretation.
But there is nothing backward in time in dBB theory. It simply does not have any fundamental Lorentz symmetry. Effective Lorentz symmetry, which gives no FTL signalling, is unproblematic. But the ontological description requires a hidden preferred frame. What is the problem? Yet another hidden variable in a hidden variable interpretation.

 

[PeterDonis]

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