On 10 Dec 2012, at 02:03, Jason Resch wrote:
On Sun, Dec 9, 2012 at 6:51 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
On 12/9/2012 4:37 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Sun, Dec 9, 2012 at 5:40 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 12/9/2012 12:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
And without a doubt the most popular interpretation of Quantum
Mechanics among working physicists is SUAC (Shut Up And Calculate),
That's not an interpretation at all.
Well for a more philosophical statement of it see Omnes. His view
is that once you can explain the diagonalization of the the density
matrix (either by eigenselection, dechoherence, or just assumed per
Bohr) then you have predicted probabilities. QM is a probabilistic
theory - so predicting probabilities is all you can ask of it.
Is science just about its applications or about understanding the
world? I would argue that science would not progress so far as it
has if we thought finding the equation was the be all and end all
of science. The "shut up and calculate" mindset can be translated
as "don't ask embarrassing questions", it is the antithesis of
scientific thinking.
Student in the 1500s: Does the earth move about the sun, or do the
planets merely appear to move as if earth moved about the sun?
Professor in the 1500s: We have all the formulas for predicting
planetary motion, so shut up and calculate!
Fortunately, Copernicus wasn't satisfied with that answer.
So what's your objection to Omnes? That the world just can't be
probabilistic? So instead there must be infinitely many
inaccessible worlds - which happen to mimic a probabilistic world.
It is fine if QM is a probabilistic theory. Where I disagree with
him is in his belief that we can never go beyond that in our
understanding of it. I am not sure how accurate this statement is,
since it is a secondary source, but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Omn%C3%A8s
says: "We will never, Omnès believes, find a common sense
interpretation of quantum law itself." To me, it almost seems as if
he says it is not worth trying to find an answer. I lean more
towards David Deutsch who says science is about finding good
explanations.
Omnes is very special. His many books gives the best account and
defense of the MWI, except that in the last paragraph, or chapter, he
insist that we have to be irrational, in fine, and select one reality.
This is really cosmo-solipsism, and makes QM indeed no more rational
at all.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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