On 12/10/2012 2:47 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 10 Dec 2012, at 02:03, Jason Resch wrote:
On Sun, Dec 9, 2012 at 6:51 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]
<mailto:[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]
<mailto:[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.
What's not rational about it? I think 'rational' just means 'being able to give coherent
reasons'. There's a perfectly good coherent reason for 'selecting' one reality - we
experience one reality.
Brent
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