fredag 16 december 2022

The Unsuccessful Quest for Foundations of Quantum


Let us see what leading physicist/philosopher Tim Maudlin has to say about the foundations of Quantum Mechanics QM as the prime expression of the modern physics behind modern atomic/information society. Tim starts out with the following declaration in Philosophy of Physics: Quantum Theory (2019):

  • There is no discussion (in the book) of the most famous "interpretation" of quantum theory of all: The Copenhagen Interpretation CI ascribed to Niels Bohr and his colleague. Why is that? 
  • A physical theory should clearly and forthrightly address two fundamental questions: what there is, and what it does. The answer to the first question is provided by the ontology of the theory, and the answer to the second by its dynamics. The ontology should have a sharp mathematical description, and the dynamics should be implemented by precise equations describing how the ontology will, or might, evolve.
  • The CI does not. 
  • There is little agreement about just what this approach to quantum theory postulates to actually exist or how the dynamics can be unambiguously formulated. Nowadays, the term is often used as shorthand for a general instrumentalism that treats the mathematical apparatus of the theory as merely a predictive device, uncommitted to any ontology or dynamics at all. 
  • That predictive device is described under the moniker “the quantum recipe.” Sometimes, accepting the CI is understood as the decision simply to use the quantum recipe without further question: Shut up and calculate. 
  • Such an attitude rejects the aspiration to provide a physical theory, as defined above, at all. Hence it is not even in the running for a description of the physical world and what it does. More specific criticisms could be raised against this legacy of Bohr but our time is better spent presenting what is clear than decrying what is obscure.
Tim thus discards the commonly accepted (obscure) CI and so turns instead to Collapse Theories, Bohm's Pilot Wave Theory and Everett's Many Worlds Theory, all of which however directly connect to the CI without better answers to the fundamental questions (in my view).  

I have asked Tim about a reaction on my attempt to answer the fundamental questions in the form of Real QM.

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