From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!rutgers!netnews.upenn.edu!libra.wistar.upenn.edu Mon Mar  9 18:33:12 EST 1992
Article 4075 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!rutgers!netnews.upenn.edu!libra.wistar.upenn.edu
>From: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: QM nonsense
Message-ID: <67735@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: 27 Feb 92 16:45:20 GMT
References: <66422@netnews.upenn.edu> <427@tdatirv.UUCP> <66636@netnews.upenn.edu> <437@tdatirv.UUCP> <66994@netnews.upenn.edu> <448@tdatirv.UUCP> <67404@netnews.upenn.edu> <453@tdatirv.UUCP>
Sender: news@netnews.upenn.edu
Reply-To: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
Lines: 52
Nntp-Posting-Host: libra.wistar.upenn.edu
In-reply-to: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)

In article <453@tdatirv.UUCP>, sarima@tdatirv (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>Except that in the physical interpretation the only 'additional' features
>are ones that are generally accepted in all branches of modern science
>except quantim physics.

So what's so special about a photodetector that it causes wave function
collapse?  This is a mysterious additional feature.

>			  Thus, in my book they are not *additional*, they
>are simply part of the scientific paradigm.

In your book.  In many other books the above question of mine is taken
very seriously.

>It is *this* that makes the Copenhagen interpretation less likely, and
>intrinsically more complex, then the physical one.

It is instrinsically more complex.  But it has an essential simplication:
wave function collapse is limited to one known exceedingly complicated
system.

>And this really was the main point of my prior post.

Your original main point--that experiment has proven some interpretation
--remains nonsense.

>IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE DUALISTIC THEORIES HAVE UNIVERSALLY FAILED.

So what?  For one thing, CI is not a pure dualistic theory.  It says
that there's a complexity whose explanation is outside the basics of
the theory.

>[And do not make the mistake of thinking that the dualistic theories of,
>say 18th century biology were stupid or hopelessly naive, they were held
>by brilliant, well-informed scientists - they made as much sense then as
>the Copenhagen interpretation appears to now - but they were all proven
>wrong in time].

So what?  Come up with the experimental evidence, not the philosophical
prejudice.

>|No, it says that the understanding will come from investigating the mind.

>I do not see how it adds anything there either.  At best it has no relevance
>to the study of minds, at worst it makes minds intractable to study.

So you don't see.  Your best and worse are merely your prejudices.  You and
everyone else simply do not know the relevance of QM to mind, and the only
people who find it might make for intractability are those who can't do QM
in the first place.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu)


