On Monday, October 14, 2019 at 6:36:49 AM UTC-5, John Clark wrote: > > Philip Thrift <[email protected] <javascript:>> wrote: > > *>Have you suddenly become a fan of hidden variables models? In that case, >> I am totally on your side.* > > > If you're a fan of hidden variables then, to be consistent with > experimental results, you must also be a fan of non-locality, or > non-reality, or superdeterminism. > > *> QM (or the Schrodinger Equation, SE) is incomplete because it does not >> solve the measurement problem, * > > > Many Worlds solves the measurement problem because, unlike every other > interpretation, it precisely defines what a measurement is, it's just a > change, any sort of change. So what you really have is not a measurement > problem but a many worlds problem, and it's only a problem for emotional > reasons not scientific reasons, some people are just repelled by the idea > that there is more than one version of themselves around; but the universe > is not required to be in harmony with individual human desires. > > *> so there must be a new nonlinear SE, * > > > And all those proposed wheels within wheels added to the Schrodinger > Equation and the massive load of additional mathematical complexity that > entails does not improve the modified equation's ability to predict > experimental results one iota, it gets rid of many worlds and does > absolutely nothing else. It reminds me of a fundamentalist preacher's > theory that the world was made in 4004 BC and God put dinosaur bones in the > ground at that time that look much older but are not, and God can do that > because God can do anything. Making quantum calculations is difficult > enough as it is, we should be looking for ways to make it easier not > harder. > > And by the way, all those modifications of the Schrodinger Equation > involve sticking in random factors, Many Worlds has no need of such random > factors, it's contend with the simpler deterministic Schrodinger Equation > just as it is now. > > John K Clark >
The Many Worlds conferences sound like fun. On the other hand ... via http://prce.hu http://prce.hu/w/preprints/QT7.pdf *Backward causation, hidden variables and the meaning* *of completeness* Abstract. Bell’s theorem requires the assumption that hidden variables are independent of future measurement settings. This independence assumption rests on surprisingly shaky ground. In particular, it is puzzlingly time-asymmetric. The paper begins with a summary of the case for considering hidden variable models which, in abandoning this independence assumption, allow a degree of ‘backward causation’. The remainder of the paper clarifies the physical significance of such models, in relation to the issue as to whether quantum mechanics provides a complete description of physical reality. ... Here is another possibility. Let us think of the ‘hidden’ reality in terms of Feynman paths, between an initial state (e.g., an electron being emitted by a source) and a final state (e.g, detection of that electron at a particular point on the screen in a two-slit experiment). In Feynman’s path integral approach, calculation of the probability of the outcome in question depends on an integration over the possible individual paths between the given initial state and the given final state, each weighted by a complex number. The fact that the weights associated with individual paths are complex makes it impossible to interpret them as realvalued probabilities, associated with a classical statistical distribution of possibilities. However, there is no such difficulty at the level of the entire ‘bundle’ of paths which comprise the path integral. If we think of the hidden reality as the instantiation not of one path rather than another but of one entire bundle rather than another, then the quantum mechanical probabilities can be thought of as classical probability distributions over such elements of reality. (For example, suppose we specify the boundary conditions in terms of the electron source, the fact that two slits are open, and the fact that a detector screen is present at a certain distance on the opposite side of the central screen. We then partition the detector screen, so as to define possible outcomes for the experiment. For each element of this partition, there is a bundle Bi of Feynman paths, constituting the path integral used in calculating the probability of outcome Oi . We have a classical probability distribution over the set of such Bi . Of course, this conception of the hidden reality violates IA. The range of possible bundles depends on all the boundary conditions, including those in the future. However, this is the kind of model we were looking for. @philipthrift -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/48d42fac-0803-4536-a95a-6dab8cdc016e%40googlegroups.com.
