Undergrad What Defines the Standard and Realist Views in Quantum Mechanics?

[Demystifier]

In a broader sense, what about when astronomers talk about the larger universe outside our light cone, or the physics inside a black hole?

Astronomers don't really talk about such unobserved things. Perhaps astrophysicists do, and when they do they do it with a grain of salt, but astronomers don't. One way to frame such questions is to ask what would another observer beyond the horizon observe, if she was there?

 

[vanhees71]

You can ask, but never check the answer :-).

 

[physika]

Agreed, but someone might say that 'realism' is misleading and they just mean giving up on determinate values before a measurement is made.

Right.

just Counterfactual Definiteness, not to be real or not.
or there have to say; is unreal but exist...

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[Quantum Waver]

Right.

just Counterfactual Definiteness, not to be real or not.
or there have to say; is unreal but exist...

One poster in another thread claimed that microphysical objects were non-mathematical (not describable by math, ie wavefunction isn't real). I think they were a QBist. I would put it differently. Quanta aren't particles (classically speaking), they're waves in fields, so their values are spread out until a measurement is made (observationally speaking at least). But whatever the case, something real on the fundamental level gives rise to devices, measurements, observers and makes the formalism work.

 

[Structure seeker]

(I think that:)

Quanta aren't particles (classically speaking), they're waves in fields, so their values are spread out until a measurement is made

Couldn't agree more!