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Article 3998 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: QM nonsense
Message-ID: <448@tdatirv.UUCP>
Date: 24 Feb 92 23:42:48 GMT
References: <66422@netnews.upenn.edu> <427@tdatirv.UUCP> <66636@netnews.upenn.edu> <437@tdatirv.UUCP> <66994@netnews.upenn.edu>
Reply-To: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Teradata Corp., Irvine
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In article <66994@netnews.upenn.edu> weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
|>Except that this requires one *additional* assumption,
|
|So you are admitting that it's a philosophical decision regarding the
|experiment?  That's my basic point.  The various experiments that are
|around cannot prove any interpretation, they can only make explicit what
|is already know about QM weirdness.

In a sense, but given two interpretations that have equivalent observational
properties, I will take the one with fewest built-in assumptions.

|>						        namely that the
|>human mind has some mysterious, presumably non-physical, capability
|>that induces decoherence (I like that term).   It is this additional
|>assumption that makes it unacceptible by Occam's Razor.
|
|I wouldn't say that's an assumption--it's an experimental observation!
|We do observe a classical world.

Not if there is an interpretation of those experiments that *does* *not*
involve any special capacity for the human mind!

Given the two possible interpretations, the additional features of
the Copenhagen interpretation become *assumptions*, since they are no
longer directly supported by the observed data.

|The radical Copenhageners would phrase it that collapse isn't understood,
|and neither is conscious observation, so lump them together and get on
|with the physics.  In contrast, your ideal detector is simpler if you
|do not tack on this mysterious wave function collapse ability.

It is not mysterious, it is actually capable of being *studied* experimentally,
which is another *great* advantage. Scientific theories that suggest new
research are of inestimable value, ones that simply say, ignore it, it is
of no importance, are less valuable.  (And that is exactly what you claim
the Copenhageners are doing).

|>The two interpretations are *not* equal in 'complexity'.  The interpretation
|>involving physically caused decoherence at least postulates the existance
|>of a *general* mechanism based on physical processes.
|
|To which the Copenhageners say "Occam! Occam!"

Why, given the success of science, a physical mechanism is less of
an assumption, or a less unlikely assumption, than mysticism!

|>						        The Copenhagen
|>approach requires something akin to dualism.
|
|Akin yes.  Meanwhile, we *know* there's much not understood about mind,
|but why should a trivial detector be not understood?

I never said *trivial*.  And mostly because until now no one has thought
to do any research on what sorts of systems cause decoherence and which do
not.  Just like until Alvarez no one thought to look for evidence of sudden
extinction at the Cretaceous boundry.

Until a theory exists that suggests a meaning for observations, scientists
rarely even bother to make them.  Now, with a hint of a physically based,
rather than intrinscially unknowable mystical, expalanation for decoherence,
these observations will in fact be made.

|You and everyone else!  That's part of the reason Copenhagen is still
|popular.  Just where does the quantum turn into the classical?  There
|are no clear borderlines.
|
|And meanwhile, experiment has not told us.

No, but it has made Copenhagen less atractive, because there is now a hint
of a consistant alternative, where there wasn't before.

Again, I find assuming 'more of the same' to be more likely than assuming
magic.  A physical cause, of some sort, is the sort of thing we have
consistantly found in the past whenever there has been some concept of
a 'mysterious' trancedence.  Elan vital, aether, spontaneous generation,
and many others have fallen to physical explanations.  Why should the
Copenhagen mysticism be any different?  When there was no good alternative
it was a least excusable, bu that is now changing.

|>I still find the addition of a dualistic assumption when it is not *required*
|>by the observations to be unacceptable.
|
|No problem.  You have much company--by choosing to find this assumption
|the most bothersome.

Why, in the past it has always failed to sustain itself.  A physical
explanation has *always* been found.  A physical explanation fits in
better wit the rest of our knowledge, mysticism stands out like a sore
thumb in scientific circles.  This is why many physicists have simply
chosen to *ignore* the issue of interpretation.

|>       It only remains to experimentally investigate the necessary and
|>sufficient conditions for decoherence.
|
|My point is, this is a theoretical/philosophical issue.  Radical Copenhagen
|will explain the experiments as well as radical Many Worlds as well as Path
|Integrals as well as a dozen or so other interpretations.

But I am not talking about any of those.  At least I think not.  Perhaps
Path Integrals, but certainly none of the others.


I am simply saying that assuming a mystical explanataion, and leaving it
there, like the Copenhageners, is a *dead* *end*.  It suggest no research,
it leaves no scope for improved understanding, it just says 'this is
incomprehensible'.

The possibility opened up by the new ecperiments is that of studying
decoherence on its own, as a branch of physics.  it may take some time to
come up with a complete model of exactly how it functions, but it has
at least ceased to be a closed subject.

|>I do not really think I am ducking the question, I am only requiring
|>observable evidence before I accept strange assumptions.
|
|I don't think you understand the question, if you keep mixing philosophical
|problems with the experimental problems.

I guess not.  My philosophy is that I need observable evidence before I
posti the existance of a *new* capacity or entity.  Assuming 'more of
what science has been doing for 300 years' is *not* positing something new,
so I can do it without additional evidence.


The Copenhagen interpretation posits something completely alien to the
last 300 years of science.  When it appeared to be the only viable game
in town, it was at least *usable*, even if objectionable.  It is simply
a modern, 20th Century version of 'elan vital'.
-- 
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uunet!tdatirv!sarima				(Stanley Friesen)


