Why does wave-function collapse occur?

[salvestrom]

... Is the goal of physics to get reality to fit into our templates, or to keep an open mind and just let it tell us what it is?

I'm reminded of the 1970's observation of the rotation of galaxies. I don't know exactly why they were conducting these measurements but as is well known these days they found it didn't add up right. Fourty years on they've got some pretty good modelling of the dark matter regions. This would seem to be a really good example of the universe telling us something about itself. And yet, it would seem in order to learn more we do need a template, one that might give us an idea where else to look for additional information. I've encountered a few times on these forums a tendency to push aside the conceptual beginnings of templates as philosophy. But a concept can be testable, without a mathematical support structure. (Stay in school kids, not saying you can do without the numbers!) But I find myself alternatingly concerned and relieved by various posts. One says; "it's just maths. Another; "the maths works, we don't need to know the underlying reality". Others have even said we can't know the underlying reality because it's taking place on an unobservable scale, which is actually not as terrible as it first sounds. But perhaps a little disappointing.

I'm rambling. /hug

 

[Simon Bridge]

There is a speculative/creative side to scientific investigation - but if we want to know what to call "real" we have to check with reality.

Debating possible complications as human beings with feelings and biases is not the same as accepting any of them as scientists.

I think this is a useful distinction - there is a model of the ideal scientists which none of us ever live up to...

 

[Ken G]

And yet, it would seem in order to learn more we do need a template, one that might give us an idea where else to look for additional information.

I agree, the issue is how seriously to take the template. If our template is a circle, we then go out into the world and look for circles, because we understand circles. However, this does not mean there are actually circles out there, it means we learn something by entering into a kind of provisional pretense that there are circles out there. We must still "interpret the circles", but we needn't debate what is the "correct interpretation" of the existence of circles, because there is no existence of circles, there is only the existence of the interpretations and how we use them. The relevance here is if we substitute "circle" with "wavefunction collapse."

Others have even said we can't know the underlying reality because it's taking place on an unobservable scale, which is actually not as terrible as it first sounds. But perhaps a little disappointing.

And still others would say that there's no such thing as something "happening on an unobservable scale", because all we can say about what happens is what we can observe to happen, and that is completely provisional to what we do in fact observe to happen. The rest is interpretations-- and templates.