On 1/24/2020 12:56 AM, Philip Thrift wrote:
On Thursday, January 23, 2020 at 4:15:16 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:
Carroll was pointing out the fallacy of the Platonist idea that we
achieve true knowledge by pure contemplation, i.e. mathematics and
philosophy, and are only deceived by the senses.
Brent
/Carroll echoes Everett in contending that the key mathematical
expression in quantum physics, known as *the* *wave function*, should
be taken seriously. If the wave function contains multiple possible
realities, then all those possibilities must actually exist. As
Carroll argues, the wave function is “ontic” — a direct representation
of reality — rather than “epistemic,” a merely useful measure of our
knowledge about reality for use in calculating experimental
expectations. In epistemic interpretations, “the wave function isn’t a
physical thing at all, but simply a way of characterizing what we know
about reality.”/
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/sean-carroll-something-deeply-hidden-quantum-physics-many-worlds
/When Weinberg promotes a “realist” interpretation of quantum
mechanics, in which “*the* *wave function* is the representative of
physical reality,” he is implying that the artifacts theorists include
in their models, such as quantum fields, are the ultimate ingredients
of reality -- thus expressing a platonic view of reality commonly held
by many theoretical physicists and mathematicians./
That's a news flash: Plato says fields are reality. I thought he said
it was forms.
Saying fields are the basic ontology is no more Platonic that saying
particles are. Any ontology which you can kick and it kicks back is
non-platonic. Quantum fields interact with instruments and kick back
just as well as Dr. Johnson's rock. It's a silly prejudice to say
fields aren't real, but particles which can exist in superpositions are.
Brent
/
/
/Many physicists have uncritically adopted *platonic realism* as their
personal interpretation of the meaning of physics. This not
inconsequential because it associates a reality that lies beyond the
senses with the cognitive tools humans use to describe observations./
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/physicists-are-philosophers-too/
@philipthrift
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