The Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics

[JaysonR]

No, realism is a specific term in this context borrowed from philosophy.
To see a contextual use of the term in application, here's an article:
http://seedmagazine.com/content/arti...reality_tests/

You can also read "scientific realism" on wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism#Scientific_realism

In the simplest of terms: it means that the moon is there even when no one is looking at it.
It may sound strange to claim that anything should work counter to this, but actually....QM does.
In fact, QM not only works this way...we can build computational data traffic basing off of this feature of QM and appear to teleport a photon as a result.

Ergo the dilemma: if it works on the small, how come it doesn't appear this way on the large?
(of course...that has been the ongoing question between QM and Classic since the beginning)

Originally Posted by hybrid

what's the relation of a QM interpretation that an electron has no position until measured with the bell's theorem which is about non-locality?

Bell's theorem is about locality and realism.

From the wiki page:

Originally Posted by Wiki

The title of Bell's seminal article refers to the famous paper by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen that challenged the completeness of quantum mechanics. In his paper, Bell started from the same two assumptions as did EPR, namely (i) reality (that microscopic objects have real properties determining the outcomes of quantum mechanical measurements), and (ii) locality (that reality in one location is not influenced by measurements performed simultaneously at a distance location). Bell was able to derive from those two assumptions an important result, namely Bell's inequality, implying that at least one of the assumptions must be false.

Originally Posted by JaysonR

Kepler:

It's like I said before; I don't have a computational standpoint (outside of basic logic) to offer.

I have a visualization of what I think would be interesting to test (the 3D wave concept mentioned previously); but I have no current means of testing this.

The problem with such thought experiments is that physics is very often completely counter-intuitive. Until thought experiments can be underlined by some sort of rigorous mathematical foundation or can be experimentally verified, it's hard to conclude anything from them. Thought experiments may make sense in someone's head, but nature doesn't care much about how well things make sense to humans. Nature is full of surprising, counter-intuitive things. Not to say your idea isn't interesting. I'm just saying, at this point, its hard to conclude anything from it.

Originally Posted by JaysonR

And we can even show the threshold of where such stops being the case in scale.

But we really don't have an answer as to why that is the case.

As to why what is the case? Why realism can be adopted for large scale things? If that is what you are asking, again, I recommend reading about decoherence.

Originally Posted by JaysonR

It may sound strange to claim that anything should work counter to this, but actually....QM does.

No, QM does not work that way (with the specific case of the moon), because of decoherence.

Originally Posted by JaysonR

Ergo the dilemma: if it works on the small, how come it doesn't appear this way on the large?
(of course...that has been the ongoing question between QM and Classic since the beginning)

Decoherence! Haha. Are you reading my posts?

One more time (from my previous post):

Originally Posted by Wiki

Quantum decoherence gives the appearance of wave function collapse (the reduction of the physical possibilities into a single possibility as seen by an observer) and justifies the framework and intuition of classical physics as an acceptable approximation: decoherence is the mechanism by which the classical limit emerges out of a quantum starting point and it determines the location of the quantum-classical boundary.

Originally Posted by JaysonR

No, realism is a specific term in this context borrowed from philosophy.
To see a contextual use of the term in application, here's an article:
http://seedmagazine.com/content/arti...reality_tests/

Great article, thanks! It basically outlines everything we've discussed up to this point.

[JaysonR]

I have more I want to discuss....but I'm not going to be around for the rest of today, so Kepler; I will catch back up tomorrow on this good conversation.

[whoguy423]

Hey people,

Eventually all of you are going to get right down to the nitty gritty of

What is Consciousness?

What is Reality?

Where do the two meet?

Kepler, I don't really want to go more into De Brogelie's formula on Macro thing a ma jiggy's. I suppose you'll just have to take my word for it... he he

Don't worry... been there... done that...

I very much would like to point you all towards David Bohm's model called the Implicate Order.

As to whether a particles moves here or there... there are many models which examine this... e.g. the Multiple Universe model, Pilot wave theory and a couple of other ones I don't care to remember.

My personal belief is in the remotely controlled movement of the particles by what could be described as the universal consciousness... (i.e. God... the true God)... aka... Pilot Theory as touched on by Kepler in Bell's Theorem

That is my personal view and understanding....

In lay man's terms... Our consiousness interacts with the universal consiousness... feeding back into our consiousness again and again... creating what we perceive as reality.

As to whether our consiousness is really ours or just a part of the whole... each to their own I guess.

This as you may already have guessed is the implicate order.

Goodluck on finding what you are searching for... Search Well Good People !!!

http://youtu.be/ZL9a4HchCqQ

Originally Posted by spiritualized

http://youtu.be/ZL9a4HchCqQ

Is there any particular part of that you'd like to discuss?


His main quote related to QM was:

If our consciousness can influence the basic build blocks of matter, subatomic particles, can we really say our consciousness does not influence matter? And if our consciousness does influence matter, how can we hope to do science, without considering the effect of consciousness?

All big IFs (hence this thread ). Again, I'll direct people to this paper.

[JaysonR]

Alright...Kepler.
I need some help getting my bearings on our conversation a bit.

What is it exactly, in your words, that you see decoherence solving?

Originally Posted by JaysonR

Alright...Kepler.
I need some help getting my bearings on our conversation a bit.

What is it exactly, in your words, that you see decoherence solving?

Certainly! So, decoherence provides a mechanism by which classical behavior arises in macroscopic systems. In other words, it seems to justify the adoption of "realism" for macroscopic systems and large objects.

"Solve" might be a strong word, since there is still much to be understood in QM. But, it does seem to work.

[JaysonR]

Alright, could you explain the mechanism that accomplishes that arrival of realism in the macroscopic system?


(Sorry; I do troubleshooting all day long. I find it easier to take one small step at a time when there is a confusion between two discussing parties - thereby reducing the variables of where the confusion is.)