[pikchurn]

The Conpenhagen interpretation is flat out wrong by any reasonable philosophy of science. You can choose many-worlds interpretation, or pilot-wave theory and either one would give you a consistent, simpler explanation of what is going on then some mumbo-jumbo hocus pocus about consciousness and observation of cats in boxes, with fewer assumptions to boot, and no paradoxical conclusions that require religious like mysteries to explain.

Yet for inane reasons the Conpenhagen interpretation is still ALL that is taught to the next generation of physicists, who in turn teach it to their students. Only the weird physics students (like me) who go "wtf?" in class and refuse to believe the teacher go out and learn pilot-wave theory (my preference) or many-worlds interpretation to re-inject some sanity into the world.

[thethirdone]

> The Conpenhagen interpretation is flat out wrong by any reasonable philosophy of science.

AFAIK, this is an exaggeration to the point of incorrectness.

The Copenhagen interpretation may be a poor interpretation which introduces absurd complicated ideas rather than the simpler ideas of other interpretations, but that doesn't make it "flat out wrong".

[pikchurn]

You ignored the "philosophy of science" part. Philosophy of science is how we decide which of two theories is "correct" when they offer the same experimental predictions. See also my reply to a sibling comment.

[Koshkin]

Unfortunately, the Copenhagen interpretation is weaved into the very fabric of QM as it exist to this day, and it would be a huge deal if we could replace it with some other consistent theoretical framework that would not be modeled after classical physics with its notion of measurable properties.

[pikchurn]

What do you mean by that? Pilot-wave and many-worlds have EXACTLY the same predictions as the Copenhagen interpretation. It's the same theory, in the sense that the same mathematical equations, expressed differently.

[platz]

Conpenhagen interpretation is refined with the concept of decoherence to avoid those problems.

[pikchurn]

That's many-worlds interpretation that introduces decoherence to avoid the problems of Copenhagen.

[platz]

There exist flavors of decoherence that do not invoke MWI (those flavors may be even more problematic however)

[cscurmudgeon]

> The Conpenhagen interpretation is flat out wrong by any reasonable philosophy of science.

Why? Is there a formal proof of that claim?

[pikchurn]

Rhetorical question: why are epicycles wrong?

An infinite sequence of epicycles could be used to accurate model any orbital path, in a similar sense to how a Taylor series can represent any function as an infinite series of polynomials. It's not wrong in the mathematical sense, but rather the philosophical: a needlessly complex theory that is hard to work with and which provides no advantages or insight over the simpler theory is declared wrong, even if it provides, or could provide the same predictions.

So it is with quantum mechanics. The standard Copenhagen interpretation of QM requires notions of observers and mysterious faster-than-light transfer of state which is really hard to reconcile with the modern scientific view of the world. The mystery surrounding it (in the religious sense) has let to disproportionally many cranks who misinterpret the theory into statements about "quantum consciousness" or other new-age nonsensical tie-ins.

However these issues arise to a lesser extent with the many-worlds interpretation, and not at all with pilot wave theory. The former is nothing more than reinterpretation of the same equations, and the latter is a different formulation that is nevertheless mathematically identical as far as it has been worked out. If we had started with many-worlds, or better yet pilot-wave, then we wouldn't have a century of people growing up with 2nd-hand tales about how the world is governed by a mystical and incomprehensible theory of matter that even physicists don't understand. Which is utter bullocks.

[cscurmudgeon]

Thank you, but I was looking for a proof formalized in hard and cold logic like in this paper below (so that assumptions are clear and formalized):

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-011-9914-8

[pikchurn]

That's missing the point. Copenhagen is not mathematically wrong. Alternatives like many-worlds interpretation and pilot wave theory have the same (MWI) or isomorphic (pilot wave) equations. Copenhagen is epistemologically wrong in that it requires strictly more assumptions than is strictly necessary, specifically an theory of wave function collapse. It is "wrong" by Ockham's razor.

[cscurmudgeon]

> That's missing the point

I didn't say it is mathematically wrong

> It is "wrong" by Ockham's razor.

You do know that there are dozens of mathematical and formal versions of Ockham's razor.

Show me a formal version in which it is wrong. Otherwise arguing about this is like discussing politics where the loudest voice wins. Using English to debate the philosophical foundations of physcis after almost a hundred years of Hilbert, Gödel etc is what is wrong.

[pikchurn]

I already told you the added assumption: a theory of wave-form collapse as physical phenomena. Only the Copenhagen interpretation has this. I'm not going to spend my time putting that into formal logic notation to satisfy random person on the internet. Do it yourself.