At Big Think: The weirdness of quantum mechanics forces scientists to confront philosophy

_{Denyse O'Leary

February 10, 2023

Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Physics}

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The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning by [Marcelo Gleiser]

Physicist and philosopher Marcelo Gleiser is always worth reading:

The world of the very small is like nothing we see in our everyday lives. We do not think of people or rocks being in more than one place at the same time until we look at them. They are where they are, in one place only, whether or not we know where that place is. Nor do we think of a cat locked in a box as being both dead and alive before we open the box to check. But such dualities are the norm for quantum objects like atoms or subatomic particles, or even larger ones like a cat. Before we look at them, these objects exist in what we call a superposition of states, each state with an assigned probability. When we measure many times their position or some other physical property, we will find it in one of such states with certain probabilities.

Without philosophy, there is no way forward from here.

As it happens, Gleiser, author of The Island of Knowledge (Basic Books, 2014) anticipates the publication of a new book with Adam Frank and Evan Thompson, The blind spot (MIT Press, 2024) on the theme: “It’s tempting to think science gives a God’s-eye view of reality. But we forget the place of human experience at our peril.” The current link is to a 2019 Aeon essay by all three authors setting forth that view.

Meanwhile, at Big Think, Gleiser introduces QBism, which seems to anticipate the book:

Due to space, I will only mention one more epistemic interpretation, Quantum Bayesianism, or as it is now called, QBism. As the original name implies, QBism takes the role of an agent as central. It assumes that probabilities in quantum mechanics reflect the current state of the agent’s knowledge or beliefs about the world, as he or she makes bets about what will happen in the future. Superpositions and entanglements are not states of the world, in this view, but expressions of how an agent experiences the world. As such, they are not as mysterious as they may sound. The onus of quantum weirdness is transferred to an agent’s interactions with the world.

A common criticism levied against QBism is its reliance on a specific agent’s relation to the experiment. This seems to inject a dose of subjectivism, placing it athwart the usual scientific goal of observer-independent universality. But as Adam Frank, Evan Thompson, and myself argue in The Blind Spot, a book to be published by MIT Press in 2024, this criticism relies on a view of science that is unrealistic. It is a view rooted in an account of reality outside of us, the agents that experience this reality. Perhaps that is what quantum mechanics’ weirdness has been trying to tell us all along. (February 8, 2023)

One to watch for.

Note: This is a weird situation for a meaningless universe to be in. Isn’t it? Or, wait…

Comments

Some observations and clarifications: When I throw a six-sided die into the air, all its final states, 1-6, exist at 16.7% each. But when it lands, they all collapse into a single state at 100%. The wavefunction in this analogy has collapsed. Apparently, Darwinism can mean anything you want it to mean. It changes with every new discovery, but it mainly appeals to its triune gods-of-the-gaps, MIGHTA, MUSTA, and EMERGES, to explain every massive inconsistency, contradiction, and conundrum. As Belfast noted in 23, according to this other trusted source on Darwinism, mutations are most certainly random. https://evolution.berkeley.edu/dna-and-mutations/mutations-are-random/ For the same reason, ecosystems and environments are also the result of random processes UNLESS of course, they're actually the product of intelligent design. Even determinists, who contend, not surprisingly, that everything is predetermined, cannot explain how the original big bang (or whatever is necessary to keep entropy from being infinite in the present, which it's not) came up with a predetermined set of initial conditions and the finely tuned constants that are at the foundation of all physics. Some people need to pay more attention in class. I did. -QQuerius_{February 13, 2023
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CD@20 “Mutation merely provides the raw material of evolution; it is a random affair and takes place in all directions. … in all cases they are random in relation to evolution. Their effects are not related to the needs of the organisms. “ That’s Julian Huxley, leading figure in the Modern Synthesis of Evolution. You are not wasting time.Belfast_{February 11, 2023
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ChuckyD, is utterly convinced that an organism's environment is not random. There is nothing random about the environment, it is not random, it really is not. For him, the fact that the environment is non-random is so incredibly crystal clear that he can no longer argue why that is. It is a fact beyond argument. He can no longer relate to people who have different opinions. Whenever he encounters someone who starts yapping about the random vagaries and hazards of the environment he spontaneously starts shaking his head in disbelief and thinks:
Honestly, some days I wonder why I waste time responding to IDers….
Origenes_{February 11, 2023
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ChuckyD,
Pauli’s ideas on mind and matter in the context of contemporary science – Harald Atmanspacher Excerpt: “In discussions with biologists I met large difficulties when they apply the concept of ‘natural selection’ in a rather wide field, without being able to estimate the probability of the occurrence in a empirically given time of just those events, which have been important for the biological evolution. Treating the empirical time scale of the evolution theoretically as infinity they have then an easy game, apparently to avoid the concept of purposesiveness. While they pretend to stay in this way completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’” Wolfgang Pauli (pp. 27-28) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233554311_Pauli%27s_Ideas_on_Mind_and_Matter_in_the_Context_of_Contemporary_Science
bornagain77_{February 11, 2023
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Origenes I didn’t know that evolution had its very own definition of “random.” I must have slept through class that session. Likewise, I didn’t know that randomness came in layers, like a wedding cake. What next? Honestly, some days I wonder why I waste time responding to IDers…..chuckdarwin_{February 11, 2023
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CD: “Darwin’s theory is so simple that even I can understand it.” It's the theory that life is all sheer dumb luck. It describes a twofold random process: 1.) random variation 2.) random natural elimination. Some say that natural elimination is not random wrt the environment. This is true. However, on closer inspection, the environment is just another layer of randomness. Eric Anderson:
Great, so now think through what causes a particular environment to exist. Hot today, cold tomorrow. One predator this year, but gone the next year. A particular pathogen sweeps through half of the environment, but not the other. A great food source this month, but absent the next. And on and on… And absolutely all of it occurring utterly independently from the needs of the organism (the evolutionary definition of random, by the way), and without any particular directionality in the way the wind blows.
Origenes_{February 11, 2023
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Think about it all you want. The mathematical 'map' of the wave function is experimentally shown to have a deeper correspondence to reality than Sabine Hossenfelder, and many other 'instrumentalist', are holding. And in empirical science, experimental evidence has the final say.
"If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is … If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it." - Feynman
bornagain77_{February 11, 2023
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JVL at 16, The concepts have been applied to working quantum computers. The details have been dealt with and put to practical use, including wave function, measurement and so on. Watch the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UlxHPIEVqArelatd_{February 11, 2023
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Bornagain77: while I agree with your overall point, i.e. “the (mathematical) model is not the thing”, if you would have read my link, you would have seen that Hossenfelder takes a radical position. She is an ‘instrumentalist’ who holds the wave function is merely, and only, an abstract “mathematical tool”. I'm still having a think about your comments so my responses just now should be taken as first impressions. On the face of it I'm not sure that I disagree with a mathematical function as being just a 'tool' for predicting behaviour. Since we all agree that the function is not the object. What else is it for? Specifically he stated, “The instrumentalist approach,,, rejects quantum mechanics altogether as a description of reality. There is still a wave function, but it is not real like a particle or a field. Instead it is merely an instrument that provides predictions of the probabilities of various outcomes when measurements are made.” That sounds correct to me. The math is not the thing. In short, Hossenfelder is holding that there is no correspondence whatsoever between the ‘map’, i.e. the mathematical model, of the wave function and the reality of the wave function. In other. words, It is as if you had a map of the real world, but the central feature of the map, i.e. the wave function, you were also holding did not correspond to anything that you could go out and actually physically measure in the real world. Well, clearly there has to be some correspondence between the 'thing' and the model or the model wouldn't work. I'm not entirely sure that's what the instrumentalist camp is saying. But I'm not really up on the different camps of QM. Let me think about this stuff a bit more. I'm not sure that there actually is any great controversy here. But I am sure that our models are limited and only reflect a portion of what is actually happening. As all mathematical models have been. But they have to reflect reality enough to be useful.JVL_{February 11, 2023
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CD: "Darwin’s theory is so simple that even I can understand it." That reminds me of this observation from Laszlo Bencze:
“You might think that a theory so profound would be laden with intimidating mathematical formulas and at least as difficult to master as Newton’s Mechanics or Einsteins Relativity. But such is not the case. Darwinism is the most accessible “scientific” theory ever proposed. It needs no math, no mastery of biology, no depth of understanding on any level. The dullest person can understand the basic story line: “Some mistakes are good. When enough good mistakes accumulate you get a new species. If you let the mistakes run long enough, you get every complicated living thing descending from one simple living thing in the beginning. There is no need for God in this process. In fact there is no need for God at all. So the Bible, which claims that God is important, is wrong.” You can be drunk, addled, or stupid and still understand this. And the real beauty of it is that when you first glimpse this revelation with its “aha!” moment, you feel like an Einstein yourself. You feel superior, far superior, to those religious nuts who still believe in God. Without having paid any dues whatsoever, you breathe the same rarified air as the smartest people who have ever lived.” – Laszlo Bencze - 2014 https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/laszlo-benczes-reflections-on-darwin-day/
Or perhaps this one
Why a media dimwit “believes in” evolution - Laszlo Bencze - April 2, 2015 Excerpt: "The power of evolution is also, (like Freudianism), in its language. Darwin knew nothing of population statistics or the intricacies of replicating DNA. Nor do most proponents of evolution today. Just as in Darwin’s day, the power of evolution lies in how “obvious” its conclusions are when expressed in normal, conversational language. There are many similarities between monkeys, apes, and men. Therefore it’s obvious that some sort of ancestral relationship must exist. Offspring differ from their parents in certain visible traits. Therefore it’s obvious that beneficial traits will be favored in the population and eventually lead to new species. It’s obvious that a personal god who can willfully interfere with the events of the universe does not exist. Therefore, it’s obvious that the driving force of evolution can only be randomness. Once again, there’s no math, no statistics, no biochemistry in any of this. Further, when any of those studies get applied to evolution, they all happen to disprove it. But that doesn’t matter to the popular mind because the “obvious facts” so well explained in popular language by evolution proponents trump any technical criticism." http://www.uncommondescent.com/darwinism/why-a-media-dimwit-believes-in-evolution/
Whereas others not so easily enamored with the claim from Darwinists that evolution is an 'obvious fact' might just be inclined to ask Darwinists, "Can you tell me anything you KNOW about evolution, any one thing that is true?"
Colin Patterson: Can You Tell Me Anything About Evolution That Is True? – May 12, 2019 (with audio links to Patterson’s speech) Excerpt: The question is: Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing that is true? I tried that question on the geology staff in the Field Museum of Natural History, and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar at the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time, and then eventually one person said, “Yes, I do know one thing. It ought not to be taught in high school.” https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/colin-patterson-can-you-tell-me-anything-about-evolution-that-is-true/ Colin Patterson (1933–1998), was a British Senior Paleontologist, British Museum of Natural History from 1962 to his official retirement in 1993,,, quote is from a Keynote address at the American Museum of Natural History, New York City
bornagain77_{February 11, 2023
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CD at 13, Self-upgrading organisms? Fiction.relatd_{February 11, 2023
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Oh come now, BA77. Darwin’s theory is so simple that even I can understand it. None of this spooky wave stuff………chuckdarwin_{February 11, 2023
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Let's cut to the chase. Engineers have figured out the quantum realm. IBM has quantum computers. The "weirdness" has been figured out and put to practical use. Quantum computers can do things existing computers cannot. The working element, called a Qubit, has been figured out. It has been determined that a quantum computer requires 100 Qubits to perform useful work. IBM has announced that this year - 2023 - that this goal has been reached. Quantum computers will be doing useful work this year, not at some indefinite date in the future. I highly recommend the following video which explains how quantum computers work and how the quantum realm was put to practical use. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UlxHPIEVqArelatd_{February 11, 2023
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CD: "I still don’t understand what the wave “collapsing” means," It is somewhat similar to what happens to Darwin's theory whenever it is put under any real scrutiny. :)bornagain77_{February 11, 2023
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As Neil Young sings in his 1983 albumTrans: "every wave is new until it breaks....." (it's a triple entendre) Or in this case, collapses.... I still don't understand what the wave "collapsing" means, but it sounds cool and impressive to say it...chuckdarwin_{February 11, 2023
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Also of supplemental note, besides pointing us to almighty God, the mathematical 'map' that we now have of the 'real' world is also pointing, and/or leading, us to Jesus Christ's resurrection from the dead as the correct solution for the much sought after 'theory of everything'. Specifically, when we rightly allow the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics, (as the Christian founders of modern science originally held with the presupposition of ‘contingency’), and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands with the closing of the “freedom-of-choice” loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company), then rightly allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics provides us with a very plausible resolution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead bridges the infinite mathematical divide that exists between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics and provides us with an empirically backed reconciliation, via the Shroud of Turin, between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity into the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything”
Oct. 2022 - although there will never be a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything’ that bridges the infinite mathematical divide that exists between quantum mechanics and general relativity, all hope is not lost in finding the correct ‘theory if everything’. https://uncommondescent.com/cosmology/from-iai-news-how-infinity-threatens-cosmology/#comment-766384 Jan. 2023 - But as to modern science and the finite and infinite divide in Christianity, (i.e. the trinity), how can the finite and infinite divide found in Christianity, (i.e. the trinity) possibly relate to modern science? https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/is-the-galton-board-evidence-for-intelligent-design-of-the-universe/#comment-774504 February 2023 https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/has-string-theory-really-fallen-this-time/#comment-774920
Verse:
Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
bornagain77_{February 11, 2023
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Of supplemental note, It is also very interesting to note that the collapse of the wave function, (which, I remind, has now been experimentally shown to be a real effect), fits very well into Aristotle and Aquinas’s ancient ‘first mover’ argument for the existence of God, i.e. (reduction of potency to act).
Stephen Hawking: “Philosophy Is Dead” – Michael Egnor – August 3, 2015 Excerpt: The metaphysics of Aristotle and Aquinas is far and away the most successful framework on which to understand modern science, especially quantum mechanics. Heisenberg knew this (Link on site). Aristotle 2,300 years ago described the basics of collapse of the quantum waveform (reduction of potency to act),,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/08/stephen_hawking_3098261.html What Is Matter? The Aristotelian Perspective – Michael Egnor – July 21, 2017 Excerpt: Heisenberg, almost alone among the great physicists of the quantum revolution, understood that the Aristotelian concept of potency and act was beautifully confirmed by quantum theory and evidence.,,, Heisenberg wrote: ,,,”The probability wave of Bohr, Kramers, Slater… was a quantitative version of the old concept of “potentia” in Aristotelian philosophy. It introduced something standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the actual event, a strange kind of physical reality just in the middle between possibility and reality…The probability function combines objective and subjective elements,,,” Thus, the existence of potential quantum states described by Schrodinger’s equation (which is a probability function) are the potency (the “matter”) of the system, and the collapse of the quantum waveform is the reduction of potency to act. To an Aristotelian (like Heisenberg), quantum mechanics isn’t strange at all. https://evolutionnews.org/2017/07/what-is-matter-the-aristotelian-perspective/
So thus in conclusion JVL, contrary to what Hossenfelder holds, the 'map' of the wave-function is found to correspond to an objectively real feature of reality that we can go out and physically measure. Moreover, to the consternation of atheists, the mathematical 'map' that we now have in hand is pointing, and/or leading, us towards God as the true explanation for reality. Atheists, for whatever severely misguided reason, may not like where the 'map' is pointing us, but personally I hold pointing us to almighty God to be a very GOOD thing for any 'map' to do. Especially given the fact that, without God, we are all doomed to a hopeless nihilistic existence without any real meaning, purpose, nor even any real beauty, to our existence. Verse:
Job 38:19-20 “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings?”
bornagain77_{February 11, 2023
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JVL, while I agree with your overall point, i.e. "the (mathematical) model is not the thing", if you would have read my link, you would have seen that Hossenfelder takes a radical position. She is an 'instrumentalist' who holds the wave function is merely, and only, an abstract “mathematical tool”.
1:59 “Personally, I am an instrumentalist and I don’t assign any particular meaning to such a superposition. It’s merely a mathematical tool to make a prediction for a measurement outcome.”,,, 3:27 “In some sense, I have to say, superpositions are really not terribly interesting.”,,, – Sabine Hossenfelder – Understanding Quantum Mechanics #2: Superposition and Entanglement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6Mw3_tOcNI
I also linked to the late Steven Weinberg's article, (which, BTW, is an excellent article for untangling much of the confusion surrounding quantum mechanics), where he clarified exactly what is meant when a person says that they are a ‘instrumentalist’ in regards to quantum mechanics. Specifically he stated, "The instrumentalist approach,,, rejects quantum mechanics altogether as a description of reality. There is still a wave function, but it is not real like a particle or a field. Instead it is merely an instrument that provides predictions of the probabilities of various outcomes when measurements are made."
The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics – Steven Weinberg Except: The instrumentalist approach is a descendant of the Copenhagen interpretation, but instead of imagining a boundary beyond which reality is not described by quantum mechanics, it rejects quantum mechanics altogether as a description of reality. There is still a wave function, but it is not real like a particle or a field. Instead it is merely an instrument that provides predictions of the probabilities of various outcomes when measurements are made. It seems to me that the trouble with this approach is not only that it gives up on an ancient aim of science: to say what is really going on out there. It is a surrender of a particularly unfortunate kind. In the instrumentalist approach, we have to assume, as fundamental laws of nature, the rules (such as the Born rule I mentioned earlier) for using the wave function to calculate the probabilities of various results when humans make measurements. Thus humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level. According to Eugene Wigner, a pioneer of quantum mechanics, “it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness.”11 Thus the instrumentalist approach turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else. It is not that we object to thinking about humans. Rather, we want to understand the relation of humans to nature, not just assuming the character of this relation by incorporating it in what we suppose are nature’s fundamental laws, but rather by deduction from laws that make no explicit reference to humans. We may in the end have to give up this goal, but I think not yet. Some physicists who adopt an instrumentalist approach argue that the probabilities we infer from the wave function are objective probabilities, independent of whether humans are making a measurement. I don’t find this tenable. In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure, such as the spin in one or another direction. Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made, because in quantum mechanics not everything can be simultaneously measured. As Werner Heisenberg realized, a particle cannot have, at the same time, both a definite position and a definite velocity. The measuring of one precludes the measuring of the other. Likewise, if we know the wave function that describes the spin of an electron we can calculate the probability that the electron would have a positive spin in the north direction if that were measured, or the probability that the electron would have a positive spin in the east direction if that were measured, but we cannot ask about the probability of the spins being found positive in both directions because there is no state in which an electron has a definite spin in two different directions.,,, http://quantum.phys.unm.edu/466-17/QuantumMechanicsWeinberg.pdf
In short, Hossenfelder is holding that there is no correspondence whatsoever between the 'map', i.e. the mathematical model, of the wave function and the reality of the wave function. In other. words, It is as if you had a map of the real world, but the central feature of the map, i.e. the wave function, you were also holding did not correspond to anything that you could go out and actually physically measure in the real world. As should be obvious, holding that the wave function does not actually correspond to anything in the real world, anything that we could go out and actually physically measure, would render the 'map', i.e. the mathematical model of the wave function, for all intents and purposes, completely useless as an accurate map of the real world. And given that quantum mechanics is extremely, even astonishingly, successful in its experimental predictions, let's just say that the belief that the wave-function is 'just' an abstract mathematical tool, with no correspondence to physical reality that we can actually measure, is suspect. And indeed, it now experimentally shown that she is wrong in her belief that the 'map' of the wave function does not correspond to reality in a real and meaningful way. Specifically, “superposition” of the wave function is now experimentally shown to be physically real, and to not be merely an abstract ‘mathematical tool’ as Hossenfelder holds.
Direct measurement of the quantum wavefunction – June 2011 Excerpt: The wavefunction is the complex distribution used to completely describe a quantum system, and is central to quantum theory. But despite its fundamental role, it is typically introduced as an abstract element of the theory with no explicit definition.,,, Here we show that the wavefunction can be measured directly by the sequential measurement of two complementary variables of the system. The crux of our method is that the first measurement is performed in a gentle way through weak measurement so as not to invalidate the second. The result is that the real and imaginary components of the wavefunction appear directly on our measurement apparatus. We give an experimental example by directly measuring the transverse spatial wavefunction of a single photon, a task not previously realized by any method. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v474/n7350/full/nature10120.html The Weak Measurement in Quantum Mechanics – 2012 Excerpt: The basic idea of the weak measurement is that the interaction (or disturbance) between the measuring apparatus and the observed system or particle is so weak, that the wave function does not collapse but continues on unchanged. In other words, a weak measurement is one in which the coupling between the measuring device and the observable to be measured is so weak that the uncertainty in a single measurement is large compared with the separation between the eigenvalues of the observable [2]. http://www-f1.ijs.si/~ramsak/seminarji/KnaflicSibka.pdf
As the following article states, “For nearly a century physicists have argued about whether the wave function is a real part of the world or just a mathematical tool.,,, Eric Cavalcanti,, Alessandro Fedrizzi,, and their colleagues have made a measurement of the reality of the quantum wave function. Their results rule out a large class of interpretations of quantum mechanics and suggest that if there is any objective description of the world, the famous wave function is part of it”,,,
Wave function gets real in quantum experiment – February 2, 2015 Excerpt: It underpins the whole theory of quantum mechanics, but does it exist? For nearly a century physicists have argued about whether the wave function is a real part of the world or just a mathematical tool. Now, the first experiment in years to draw a line in the quantum sand suggests we should take it seriously. The wave function helps predict the results of quantum experiments with incredible accuracy. But it describes a world where particles have fuzzy properties – for example, existing in two places at the same time. Erwin Schrödinger argued in 1935 that treating the wave function as a real thing leads to the perplexing situation where a cat in a box can be both dead and alive, until someone opens the box and observes it. Those who want an objective description of the world – one that doesn’t depend on how you’re looking at it – have two options. They can accept that the wave function is real and that the cat is both dead and alive. Or they can argue that the wave function is just a mathematical tool, which represents our lack of knowledge about the status of the poor cat, sometimes called the “epistemic interpretation”. This was the interpretation favoured by Albert Einstein, who allegedly asked, “Do you really believe the moon exists only when you look at it?” The trouble is, very few experiments have been performed that can rule versions of quantum mechanics in or out. Previous work that claimed to propose a way to test whether the wave function is real made a splash in the physics community but turned out to be based on improper assumptions, and no one ever ran the experiment. What a state Now, Eric Cavalcanti at the University of Sydney and Alessandro Fedrizzi at the University of Queensland, both in Australia, and their colleagues have made a measurement of the reality of the quantum wave function. Their results rule out a large class of interpretations of quantum mechanics and suggest that if there is any objective description of the world, the famous wave function is part of it: Schrödinger’s cat actually is both dead and alive.,,, There may still be a way to distinguish quantum states from each other that their experiment didn’t capture. But Howard Wiseman from Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, says that shouldn’t weaken the results. “It’s saying there’s definitely some reality to the wave function,” he says. “You have to admit that to some extent there’s some reality to the wave function, so if you’ve gone that far, why don’t you just go the whole way?” http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26893-wave-function-gets-real-in-quantum-experiment.html
In fact, collapse of the ‘superposition’ wave function into a finite particle state of only one definite position, has now also been experimentally demonstrated. As the following article states, experiments have now demonstrated “the non-local, (i.e. beyond space and time), collapse of a (single) particle’s wave function”,, “the collapse of the wave function is a real effect”,, “the instantaneous non-local, (beyond space and time), collapse of the wave function to wherever the particle is detected”,, and “Through these different measurements, you see the wave function collapse in different ways, thus proving its existence and showing that Einstein was wrong.”,,
Quantum experiment verifies Einstein’s ‘spooky action at a distance’ – March 24, 2015 Excerpt: An experiment,, has for the first time demonstrated Albert Einstein’s original conception of “spooky action at a distance” using a single particle. ,,Professor Howard Wiseman and his experimental collaborators,, report their use of homodyne measurements to show what Einstein did not believe to be real, namely the non-local collapse of a (single) particle’s wave function.,, According to quantum mechanics, a single particle can be described by a wave function that spreads over arbitrarily large distances,,, ,, by splitting a single photon between two laboratories, scientists have used homodyne detectors—which measure wave-like properties—to show the collapse of the wave function is a real effect,, This phenomenon is explained in quantum theory,, the instantaneous non-local, (beyond space and time), collapse of the wave function to wherever the particle is detected.,,, “Einstein never accepted orthodox quantum mechanics and the original basis of his contention was this single-particle argument. This is why it is important to demonstrate non-local wave function collapse with a single particle,” says Professor Wiseman. “Einstein’s view was that the detection of the particle only ever at one point could be much better explained by the hypothesis that the particle is only ever at one point, without invoking the instantaneous collapse of the wave function to nothing at all other points. “However, rather than simply detecting the presence or absence of the particle, we used homodyne measurements enabling one party to make different measurements and the other, using quantum tomography, to test the effect of those choices.” “Through these different measurements, you see the wave function collapse in different ways, thus proving its existence and showing that Einstein was wrong.” http://phys.org/news/2015-03-quantum-einstein-spooky-action-distance.html (Of note: since the many worlds interpretation denies the reality of wave-function collapse, this experiment also falsifies the many worlds interpretation.)
Since the wave function is now experimentally shown to be an objectively real feature of reality, and not just to be some abstract ‘mathematical tool’ that has no correspondence to reality, as Hossenfelder holds, then it is interesting to look at the mathematical definition of the wave function. The wave function is mathematically defined as being in an ‘infinite dimensional’ state which takes an infinite amount of information to describe properly.
Why do we need infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces in physics? You need an infinite dimensional Hilbert space to represent a wavefunction of any continuous observable (like position for example).,,, However, these are all ugly and artificial schemes, and there is very little reason to prefer them over the perfectly reasonable standard Schrödinger theory, which is why we use infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces in everyday quantum mechanics. https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/149786/why-do-we-need-infinite-dimensional-hilbert-spaces-in-physics Why does describing a quantum state take an infinite amount of information? Excerpt: Intuitively, things look pretty bad for Alice. She doesn’t know the state (of the wave function) of the qubit she has to send to Bob, and the laws of quantum mechanics prevent her from determining the state when she only has a single copy of (the wave function) in her possession. What’s worse, even if she did know the state (of the wave function), describing it precisely takes an infinite amount of classical information since (the wave function) takes values in a continuous space. So even if she did know (the wave function) it would take forever for Alice to describe the state to Bob. https://quantumcomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/14324/why-does-describing-a-quantum-state-take-an-infinite-amount-of-classical-informa
As is fairly obvious, the ‘infinite dimensional’ Hilbert space corresponds to the Theistic attribute of omnipresence. And the infinite information required to describe the ‘infinite dimensional’ wave function prior to collapse to its finite particle state corresponds to the Theistic attribute of omniscience. In essence, the infinite dimensional/infinite information wave function is, basically, mathematically described as being one of “God’s thoughts’ prior to its collapse to its finite ‘material’ state.bornagain77_{February 11, 2023
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Bornagain77: And Seversky, let’s also just ‘observe’ that Hossenfelder holds the wave-function to be merely a abstract ‘mathematical tool’, (again, in spite of empirical evidence to the contrary) If you could see a particle described by the wave function what do you think you would see? A tiny little wave function? A tiny little sphere? What? The wave function is a mathematical construct (defined by abstract mathematical terms) that models behaviour. The wave function is NOT the thing being modelled. I can model the behaviour of a projectile using a parabolic function but the thing I'm modelling is NOT a parabola. This is the case for all mathematical models: the model is not the thing.JVL_{February 11, 2023
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Seversky at 2, I've decided Miss Hossenfelder is not worth the time or effort. Significant advances in quantum mechanics have occurred because engineers, as always, are given a job to do and they do it. They don't care about philosophy or weirdness. It doesn't matter. They use or invent whatever tools they need to solve problems. That's how the field advances. And that's all it is, another field for engineering and then, product development.relatd_{February 10, 2023
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Seversky at 2, first lets just 'observe' that Hossenfelder, (because of her apriori commitment to atheistic naturalism), rejects the reality of free will in quantum mechanics, (in spite of empirical evidence from Zeilinger to the contrary),, https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/lfp-65c-hossenfelder-on-the-rest-of-the-story-on-delayed-choice-quantum-eraser-exercises/#comment-775366 And Seversky, let's also just 'observe' that Hossenfelder holds the wave-function to be merely a abstract 'mathematical tool', (again, in spite of empirical evidence to the contrary) https://uncommondescent.com/physics/lfp-65d-superposition-and-the-wave-function/#comment-775556 And Seversky, let's finally 'observe' that, since Hossenfelder appealed to "The Standard Model is a quantum field theory", that one of the 'unintended' consequences of unifying special relativity with quantum mechanics, in order to produce quantum field theory, was that that 'unification' left the entire enigma of the 'measurement problem' on the cutting room floor, https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/do-science-hero-stories-stand-in-the-way-of-progress/#comment-675955 As Sheldon Lee Glashow explains, “Although quantum field theory is fully compatible with the special theory of relativity, a relativistic treatment of quantum measurement has yet to be formulated.,,, Bell never completed his planned quantum mechanics textbook because he could not devise a suitably relativistic theory of measurement.”
Not So Real – Sheldon Lee Glashow – Oct. 2018 Review of: “What Is Real? The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics” by Adam Becker Excerpt: Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and their contemporaries knew well that the theory they devised could not be made compatible with Einstein’s special theory of relativity. First order in time, but second order in space, Schrödinger’s equation is nonrelativistic. Although quantum field theory is fully compatible with the special theory of relativity, a relativistic treatment of quantum measurement has yet to be formulated.,,, Bell never completed his planned quantum mechanics textbook because he could not devise a suitably relativistic theory of measurement. https://inference-review.com/article/not-so-real
Which is to say, although they unified special relativity and quantum mechanics together into quantum field theory by “brushing infinity under the rug”, (R. Feynman), this unification between special relativity and quantum mechanics into Quantum field theory came at the unacceptably high price of leaving the entire enigma of Quantum Measurement itself on the cutting room floor. Yet quantum measurement is precisely where the free will choices of the conscious observer makes their presence fully known in quantum mechanics.
Mysterious Quantum Rule Reconstructed From Scratch – Philip Ball – February 13, 2019 Excerpt: “What makes quantum theory puzzling is not so much the Born rule as a way of computing probabilities,” Chiribella said, “but the fact that we cannot interpret the measurements as revealing some pre-existing properties of the system.” What’s more, the mathematical machinery for unfolding these probabilities can only be written down if you stipulate how you’re looking. If you do different measurements, you might calculate different probabilities, even though you seem to be examining the same system in both cases.,,, https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-born-rule-has-been-derived-from-simple-physical-principles-20190213/ The Measurement Problem in quantum mechanics – (Inspiring Philosophy) – 2014 video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB7d5V71vUE
So Seversky, let's just 'observe' that if Hossenfelder truly wants to understand the measurement problem perhaps it would first greatly behoove her to pay attention to experimental evidence, even when it contradicts her apriori commitment to atheistic naturalism, and to become more open to "QBism (which) takes the role of an agent as central." In other words Seversky, in reality the 'measurement problem' is much more of a insoluble 'problem' for atheistic naturalists such as yourself and Hossenfelder, who refuse to allow the agent to have any role whatsoever in quantum mechanics, than it is a supposed 'problem' for, say, the authors listed in the OP, i.e. Marcelo Gleiser, Adam Frank and Evan Thompson, who champion "QBism (which) takes the role of an agent as central."bornagain77_{February 10, 2023
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QBism takes the role of an agent as central. It assumes that probabilities in quantum mechanics reflect the current state of the agent’s knowledge or beliefs about the world,as he or she makes bets about what will happen in the future But as Adam Frank, Evan Thompson, and myself argue in The Blind Spot, a book to be published by MIT Press in 2024, this criticism relies on a view of science that is unrealistic. It is a view rooted in an account of reality outside of us, the agents that experience this reality. Perhaps that is what quantum mechanics’ weirdness has been trying to tell us all along.
Well, they're getting really close. At some point they're going to realize as many others have that it's all just easier and more efficient once you do away with the so-called "external world." It's like trying to do evolutionary science under the mistaken yoke of Darwinism. The so-called "external world" is an unprovable myth that cannot be evidenced, much less demonstrated, even in principle. The myth of the external world is just making externalists grasp at straws trying to find some experiment that will clear up the past 100 years of quantum evidence and salvage some form of ontological realism.William J Murray_{February 10, 2023
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We still don't understand the measurement problem An interview with Sabine Hossenfelder […] One of the things you’ve said that have surprised me is that part of the problem with our inability to overcome the problems of the Standard Model is that we still don’t understand quantum mechanics and in particular the measurement problem. How do you think progress in this area is likely to take place, is it a conceptual/philosophical shift that needs to happen, or do we simply have to learn more physics about how the quantum world works? The Standard Model is a quantum field theory, which is basically a more difficult version of quantum mechanics. But it still requires the basic ingredients of quantum mechanics, notably what’s known as the “measurement postulate” (aka the “collapse of the wave-function”). Particle physicists often forget about this because it doesn’t explicitly appear in their mathematics – for a particle physicist the experiment is done when the thing is in the detector, no need to update the wave-function. They just calculate probabilities and that’s that. But it’s still the case that those particles which we produce in an LHC collision go into a detector and yet the detector never picks up the quantum properties the particles had. We don’t know why. Somehow detectors make quantum effects disappear. In quantum mechanics, we just postulate that a “detector” does certain things to quantum objects, but we don’t know why and we can’t even tell exactly what a “detector” is. Notice how odd this is: We think that the Standard Model describes all elementary particles, and everything is made of those particles. It should tell us what a detector does. And yet it can’t. It’s not just that we don’t know how to do it, we know that quantum mechanics can’t describe it correctly. We know from observations that the measurement process is non-linear, whereas quantum mechanics is a linear theory. Where does the non-linearity come from? (For the same reason, btw, quantum mechanics has problems reproducing classical chaos.) What we need to solve this problem is a better theory that underlies quantum mechanics, one that allows us to calculate what happens in a measurement and one that explains what is, and what isn’t a detector. (And that theory has to be non-linear.) The thing is though that this distinction between detector and not-detector doesn’t become relevant at high energies, it becomes relevant between the macroscopic and microscopic. You don’t test this parameter range with big colliders, instead you test it in the laboratory by miniaturizing measurement devices and by creating larger quantum objects in controlled conditions. Both of these directions are currently being pushed already, so I am hopeful that we will find evidence for deviations from quantum mechanics in the near future. The theory-development for physics beyond quantum mechanics is severely lacking at the moment. There’s a lot of opportunity here for young physicists to leave their mark.
Seversky_{February 10, 2023
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Somehow all this weirdness is necessary for an objective experience in the macro world where we live. But how did all this weirdness come about? It makes the macro world seem extremely complicated but actually tame compared to the micro world. What could have caused such a thing?jerry_{February 10, 2023
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