Realism Escaping Wittgenstein’s Silence: The Paradigm Shift That Renders Quantum Mechanics Natural by Sascha Vongehr

Sascha Vongehr wrote: "Special relativity already shatters the classical past into a collection of possible past light cones, which each are an observer's determined past. Assuming otherwise implies either emergent relativity in an ether or a pre-determined block universe..."

Assuming otherwise does not imply anything like that. If the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment is correct, the only alternative to special relativity is Newton's emission theory of light:

http://www.amazon.com/Relativity-Its-Roots-Banesh-Hoffmann/dp/0486406768

Relativity and Its Roots, Banesh Hoffmann: "Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had suggested in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one, the second principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding train can do far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the speed of the particle is not independent of the motion of the object emitting it. And if we take light to consist of particles and assume that these particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to Newtonian relativity and thus automatically account for the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as we have seen, Einstein resisted the temptation to account for the null result in terms of particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian ideas, and introduced as his second postulate something that was more or less obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether."

Pentcho Valev pvalev@yahoo.com

To the best of my imperfect knowledge, this is the only recorded comment or commentary by LW directly in re: QM. It feels like it's saying much the same thing as Anton Zeilinger's "Photons are clicks in photon counters." --:

"The views of modern physicists (Eddington) tally with mine completely, when they say that the signs in their equations no longer have 'meanings', and that physics cannot attain to such meanings but must stay put at the signs. But they don't see that these signs have meaning in as much as -- and only in as much as -- immediately observable phenomena (such as points of light) do or do not correspond to them.

"A phenomenon isn't a symptom of something else: it is the reality. A phenomenon isn't a symptom of something else which alone makes the proposition true or false: it itself is what verifies the proposition." -- Philosophical Remarks, pp 282-3 (1929-30)

Pentcho,

"If the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment is correct, the only alternative to special relativity is Newton's emission theory" Non sequitur.

Maybe, the expectation of a non-null result was wrong.

Let's discuss this elsewhere together with others who are dealing with related question.

Sascha Vongehr seems to firmly believe in SR. Wittgenstein, who was one of the few thinkers who seriously objected to Cantor's set theory, did perhaps strongly disagree with Vongehr's undecided past.

Eckard

Sascha Vongehr wrote: "I will discuss comments seriously there and will ensure a moderated thread."

And you will be the moderator? Wise decision! Bravo! Now you have greater chances of winning the contest.

Pentcho Valev pvalev@yahoo.com

Jimbo,

Deleting unwanted comments and fabricating comments in other people's names is awful of course but I see nothing wrong in attacking dignitaries such as Joy Christian and Max Tegmark. If Vongehr deletes unwanted comments they simply do not take part in unwanted discussions. That is the difference but it is not essential.

Pentcho Valev pvalev@yahoo.com

Pentcho,

There is a big difference between intellectually honest attacks on other people's scientific work and nasty *personal* attacks on other people simply because you disagree with their opinion. What is even worse is to fabricate evidence and spread false and malicious rumors about others. These are hardly scientifically respectable activities, would you not agree? Mr. Vongehr is guilty of such activities. He prefers to take the law in his own hand.

Jimbo

Jimbo,

Is there a big difference between "deleting unwanted comments" (Vongehr) and "never replying to unwanted comments" (Christian, Tegmark)?

Pentcho Valev pvalev@yahoo.com

Pentcho,

Yes there is.

A deleted comment is no longer available to anyone and hence is no longer in the scientific discourse. For the readers of the blog it then gives a biased and distorted view of the discussion.

An unanswered comment on the Internet, on the other hand, can be read by anyone at anytime, and hence it remains in the scientific discourse. If the comment is never replied by the addressee, then it could mean many things. It could mean that the addressee is not interested in the comment or the relevant discussion; or it could mean that the addressee is unable to address the comment; or it could mean that the addressee simply has other priorities.

There is no comparison between overt scientific misdemeanours (as habitually committed by Mr. Vongehr) and setting one's priorities right for the sake of science (which, I suspect, would be the case for Dr. Christian and Prof. Tegmark). You seem to be confusing the two.

Jimbo

Pentcho,

You asked: "...do you think special relativity is in danger?"

I think---let alone special relativity---science itself is in danger from Mr. Vongehr type scientific misdemeanours.

Jimbo

No, Jimbo, science is destroyed by dignitaries, not by people like Vongehr:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/max-tegmark-time.html

Max Tegmark: "If someone asked Isaac Newton, "Excuse me, what's the time?" he would have felt that that question made sense because he believed that there was "the time," the absolute time, which was completely well-defined and ticked at the same rate for everybody. And Einstein overturned this and said no, each clock, even a perfect atomic clock, will run at a different rate, which depends on how fast the clock is moving and how far down it is in the Earth's gravitational field. It's all relative. The question, "What is the time?" is actually a trick question. There is no "the time," and "the time" flows at a different rate depending on how fast you're moving and depending on where you are."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PkLLXhONvQ

Max Tegmark: "We all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity. Yes we all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity. Everything is relative, even simultaneity, and soon Einstein's become a de facto physics deity. 'cos we all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity. We all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity. Yes we all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity."

Pentcho Valev pvalev@yahoo.com

Sascha,

"The most severely misleading of our basic physical assumptions is a tacitly held direct realism and its way of physical actualization of future."

Really? Who was misled by that assumption? Most scientists I know tacitly hold with metaphysical realism as described by Popper and other rationalist philosophers of science. Certainly not with Wittgenstein's philosophy.

Perhaps you would like to read my essay. Wheeler plays a prominent role. So do you and Amazing Randi.

(Please don't invite me to your blog -- you've already deleted everything on there that I had to say.)

Tom

Dear Professor Vongehr,

I read your essay but must admit it was not an easy read.

The overall picture I get about your description of tautological modal realism is that we would expect the most fundamental theory of nature to describe it in its totality, and that this implies articulating all possible alternatives into which the parts of nature can evolve to in the next instant, and furthermore, that these alternatives are treated equivalently with respect to such a theory, and finally, that because there is nothing else to compare the totality to, it can only be compared to itself, and hence its description becomes tautological.

Your argument then would be that since QM already contains some of these features it may be close to, or perhaps even already be, our most fundamental description of nature. So for someone who has adopted the tautological modal realism perspective, Quantum mechanics should appear natural, if not even tautological, and the assumption that QM is "strange" is wrong.

Although I find your argument quite ingenious, I seriously doubt that many people will be convinced by it to regard QM as "natural" (unless, by virtue of becoming so familiar with the theory, it no longer triggers their sense of wonder).

The reason why I doubt this is simple: Surely someone before QM was developed should have developed intuitions in line with tautological modal realism, and been filled with puzzlement that measurements on objects up until then yielded definite results (within the accuracy and precision then available), and they would have been disturbed about the absence of observable superposition. I would be amazed if such a person existed. Moreover, from what little I understand about tautological modal realism (if I even understood it at all) I don't see why it should not lead us to expect to observe macroscopic superposition phenomena (not necessarily due to quantum mechanics)? Should it not lead us to expect to observe superpositions of gravity fields at energy scales which are accessible to us, for example? If we adopt this worldview, then, it seems to me, it would be inconsistent that we emphasize how well it fits one set of our observations but not emphasize how poorly it fits another.

I'd like to emphasize that I am not suggesting in any manner that QM is wrong or not a fundamental description of nature. My point is, rather, that adopting this type of worldview post hoc seems to me akin to a form of rationalization.

I accept that quantum mechanics is correct and fundamental, but that does not stop me from trying to understand what the origin of its puzzling features is. Some of my professors have told me that "why" questions are not the kind with which physicists are really concerned, but I strongly disagree. We have to keep asking "why" if we want to maintain any hope of gaining deeper insights into nature. Adopting a worldview which keeps me from asking "why" seems counterproductive. Indeed, it was because I kept asking why that I believe I made any progress in my own attempts at trying to 'understand' quantum mechanics.

The previous commenters have painted a picture of someone who does not take criticism well, but, not having had any prior interactions with you, I like to believe that when faced with an attempt at respectful, thoughtful and constructive criticism, you will receive it in the spirit in which it was given, namely that we can benefit and learn from an exchange of each other's perspectives, even if they sometimes disagree.

All the best,

Armin

Sasha

I am big admirer Wittgenstein Tractatus logico- philosophical

Specially 4.461 "Tautology and contradiction are without sense"

I often try to use this thesis as applied to the Universe.

If the Universe is cyclic mean tautology

If the Universe is mortal mean contradiction.

What is your opinion?

Hello Sascha,

Thank you for your comments. I find your replies interesting.

You said: "This is not about us expecting, but it being so by definition ("most fundamental")."

It appears to me that we have different perspectives on what might constitute a most fundamental description of nature. However, it is incumbent upon me to explain the difference because I think your view is more in line with a general consensus view whereas mine is not.

In my opinion, the most fundamental description of nature transcends what would normally be called a "theory of nature" because it will contain regions in its domain that are in principle observationally inaccessible to us, but perhaps not to other kinds of observers, so that our description of those regions is really metaphysical, whereas to other kinds of observers they might well be part of physics (and our physics might be their metaphysics). You may think of I am referring to the many-worlds hypothesis but that is not the case. It refers to something more similar to the inaccessibility of information about the interior of black holes to us, but I'd like to emphasize that my conception of those domains is much more general than that. It just so happens that my essay in this contest contains a more detailed explanation, so if you are interested in finding out more details, I invite you to take at look at it, and especially the appendix, which outlines a worldview that is quite different from that almost universally held today.

Getting back to your comment, from my perspective it is not so "by definition" because you first need to specify what you mean by "fundamental theory of nature". Do you mean a framework which describes that aspect of nature describable by us just in terms of physics? Then I disagree, because that is, in my opinion, not the whole part of the story and therefore cannot by definition refer to the "totality" of nature. Do you mean the by "fundamental theory of nature" all aspects of nature which could be described by any kind of hypothetical observer whatsoever? Then yes, by definition it describes it in "totality" but note, then you have adopted a point of view in which such a description includes both physical and metaphysical regions and transcends what we normally would call a "fundamental theory of nature".

You said "No, statistical mechanics already does (all configurations in phase space)."

Yes but phase space is totally different from Hilbert space. It seems to me that you cannot just pick and choose which "space" you wish to apply your philosophical principles to, otherwise your principles risk becoming either internally inconsistent or vacuous. Phase space is well compatible with classical physics, quantum superposition is not. My understanding of your paper was that its goal was to try to help show the reader a perspective in which quantum mechanics seems natural. A perspective in which "phase" space seems natural falls short of this because it already seems natural to a classical physicist.

You said: "This is because you left out most of the argument."

Yes, indeed I did. That is because I could not avoid leaving out something out of your argument without reproducing almost your entire paper, I had to make hard choices and pick the points that seemed the most salient to me.

You said: "One of the main points is that tautological modal realism is NOT yet QM."

Actually, I thought that was one of the points I did (implicitly) include by the statement "...since QM already contains some of these features.." (as opposed to, say, "since QM is implied by this...")

You said: "You need to add special relativity in order to then come to Wheeler's "utterly simple idea that demands the quantum". "

Allow me to express skepticism at the idea that adding one counter-intuitive idea to another in the manner you describe makes the whole more intuitive (I suppose it is possible, but I am skeptical). Also, I did not come away with a clear idea of what Wheeler's idea was, I wished your essay had been clearer on that.

You said: "Precisely! For thousands of years there have been people for who "possibilism" was self-evident."

Ah, thank you for clarifying this, so I stand corrected on this point.

You said: "I do not exclude 'further facts' like Bell's fifth position or gravity induced non-linearities (e.g. Diosi-Penrose)."

When I said I accept QM as fundamental this is what I meant more precisely: I do not believe that any future theory that replaces QM will show that QM was wrong, but it might shed insight into how QM fits into our total worldview. In other words, I meant that QM is fundamental (=won't be shown to be wrong) in its domain, not "fundamental" in the sense that it is already the final theory that covers its domain. I regret that I did not express myself clearly.

You said: "The question now is, for example, why do the correlations between alternative worlds lead to Born probabilities rather than stronger or less severe violations of the Bell inequality. This will likely be answered via David Deutsch's ideas hitting Relational Quantum Mechanics as applied to EPR."

As I have my own ideas on this, it is only natural that I may disagree, but that's okay, since this is still at the edge of our knowledge. We still have room to disagree.

Thank you for your serious replies.

Armin

Sorry, thought I was still logged in.

Tom