Modern Physics: Imagination = Reality: Hyperreality

Modern physics started in 1900 with Planck's mathematical "trick" of imagining a "smallest quantum of energy" to derive Planck's Law of blackbody radiation about an imagined "empty cavity" filled with "degrees of freedom". 

Einstein followed up in 1905 imagining himself riding on a wave of light at the speed of light, or watching a train pass a station with half the speed of light. 

The imagination expanded in 1926 into describing a World filled with "particles" by a complex-valued  "wave function" $\Psi (X,t)$ with "coordinates" $X$ ranging over a "configuration space" with a separate 3d Euclidean space coordinate identifying the position at time $t$ of each "particle" of the World. 

The wave function $\Psi (X,t)$ was viewed to carry "all there is to know" about the World however in a cryptic form which needed unwinding to make sense. 

The evolution in time of $Psi (X,t)$ as function of $X$ was given as solution to a Schrödinger equation. This was the birth of Quantum Mechanics as the foundation of modern physics.

Key question: What is the physical meaning of the wave function $\Psi(X,t)$ with $X$ ranging over configuration space? 

In 1927 Max Born suggested:

• $\vert\Psi (X,t)\vert^2$ is the probability that the particle configuration of World at time $t$ is given by $X$. 
• $\Psi (X,t)$ does not describe an actual configuration $X$ but only a possible configuration. 

This was quickly accepted because it appeared as the only possibility, which decided the path of modern physics to follow. 

The step from actual to possible configuration was a step from firm classical ground into something completely different. A grandiose step worthy a modern physicist. 

Classical physics seeks to describe the actual evolution in time of a physical system from some given initial state typically by time-stepping computational procedure. For each given initial state a final state is computed. But it is out of question to consider all possible initial states because it requires infinite computational work. 

But going from actual to possible as in QM involves all initial values, which means the $\Psi (X,t)$ with $X$ ranging over configuration space is uncomputable. This means that the goal of describing the World by a wave function $\Psi (X,t)$ cannot be reached because the required computational work cannot be created.

How are modern physicists handling the impossible situation they have created? 

The only possibility appears to be to give up the classical physics distinction between a World of specific real configurations evolving in time by some form of computation, and a Mind of an Observer which follows  the evolution but is also free to invent whatever comes to mind. By replacing computable by "thinkable" it is thus possible to let the Mind of an Observer be part of the World and so get around limitations of reality.

Does it work? What happens if we give up the distinction between observer and observed, or painter and model as depicted by Picasso? 

It opens to self-interaction which is a delicate subject. Is imagined reality also reality? A classical physicist would say no, and a modern yes while having to deal with the infinities of QED.

Baudrillard describes imagined reality conceived as reality as hyperreality as an (potentially dangerous)  aspect of modern society. It seems that QM is concerned with hyperreality rather than reality. See next post.