Which interpretation is your favourite?

[RUTA]

I don't worry about the multiplicity of interpretations for QM, under determination is unavoidable in physics as Fredrik pointed out about SR and GR. I'll happily live with such multiplicity as long as each ontology is consistent with all of our theories of physics. We don't have that situation now because violations of Bell's inequality imply causal and/or constitutive non-locality while GR is local on both counts. This incongruity prompted Smolin to write (The Trouble with Physics, 2006, p 9), "This is probably the most serious problem facing modern science," and (p 10), “The problem of quantum mechanics is unlikely to be solved in isolation; instead, the solution will probably emerge as we make progress on the greater effort to unify physics.” That remains to be seen of course, but those of us in foundations who subscribe to this attitude are hoping to find clues to unification by considering various interpretations/ontologies for QM. The study of QM interpretations serves as a basis for the study of unification in that sense.

 

[PTM19]

Fredrik, I really appreciate your feedback and I understand your position but I don't think we can get much further with this discussion. I think my position should be more or less clear by now, I simply don't find the arguments for MWI convincing for reasons I already stated. To me the doctor analogy holds, you claim it doesn't say why organs are unobservable - does MWI say why parallel universes are unobservable? In any case organs can be in a parallel universe.

I understand that some may prefer to believe QM does indeed describe reality no matter where it leads them in hope they can learn something about reality from interpretations like MWI. Personally however I believe we have a much better chance to understand reality if we accept ensemble interpretation and the fact that QM does not describe reality and instead concentrate on searching for an underlying hidden variable theory which does. Unfortunately it is my impression that not many people are going that route and I suspect this may be the reason why there has been hardly any progress in physics lately.

 

[Fredrik]

does MWI say why parallel universes are unobservable?

Yes, the version of the MWI that I'm talking about does that. (I tried to explain how). But it's hard to find two people who mean the same thing when they say "MWI", so you won't have any problems finding a version that doesn't.

 

[rewebster]

Fredrik, I really appreciate your feedback and I understand your position but I don't think we can get much further with this discussion. I think my position should be more or less clear by now, I simply don't find the arguments for MWI convincing for reasons I already stated. To me the doctor analogy holds, you claim it doesn't say why organs are unobservable - does MWI say why parallel universes are unobservable? In any case organs can be in a parallel universe.

I understand that some may prefer to believe QM does indeed describe reality no matter where it leads them in hope they can learn something about reality from interpretations like MWI. Personally however I believe we have a much better chance to understand reality if we accept ensemble interpretation and the fact that QM does not describe reality and instead concentrate on searching for an underlying hidden variable theory which does. Unfortunately it is my impression that not many people are going that route and I suspect this may be the reason why there has been hardly any progress in physics lately.

I agree

 

[RUTA]

I understand that some may prefer to believe QM does indeed describe reality no matter where it leads them in hope they can learn something about reality from interpretations like MWI. Personally however I believe we have a much better chance to understand reality if we accept ensemble interpretation and the fact that QM does not describe reality and instead concentrate on searching for an underlying hidden variable theory which does. Unfortunately it is my impression that not many people are going that route and I suspect this may be the reason why there has been hardly any progress in physics lately.

Check out where the interpretation called Relational Blockworld (published in 2008 in Foundations of Physics and Studies in History & Philosophy of Modern Physics) suggests physics should go (http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/0908.4348). That interpretation suggests a definite path for unification and quantum gravity based on constitutive non-locality as the correction for GR. We're trying to solve the equations for (discrete) tensor CFT now to see precisely where the theory differs from GR. This is an example of how the study of QM interpretations can lead to new ideas for physics.

 

[rewebster]

Check out where the interpretation called Relational Blockworld (published in 2008 in Foundations of Physics and Studies in History & Philosophy of Modern Physics) suggests physics should go (http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/0908.4348). That interpretation suggests a definite path for unification and quantum gravity based on constitutive non-locality as the correction for GR. We're trying to solve the equations for (discrete) tensor CFT now to see precisely where the theory differs from GR. This is an example of how the study of QM interpretations can lead to new ideas for physics.

I just read the thread:

"The Fatal Flaw in Every Techno Show on TV

Let's Enhance!"

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=367648

for some reason, I got the same feeling when reading this post

"Let's Enhance!"

 

[RUTA]

I just read the thread:

"The Fatal Flaw in Every Techno Show on TV

Let's Enhance!"

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=367648

for some reason, I got the same feeling when reading this post

"Let's Enhance!"

We're still waiting for the referee reports, but if you've found a "fatal flaw" in the paper, let us know and we'll withdraw it.