[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.

[cscurmudgeon]

No one with a modicum of decent formal training is going to get convinced by a random person's informal rant about the Copenhagen interpretation.

> Do it yourself.

This is why the Copenhagen interpretation still lives on and will live on if its detractors are too lazy to formalize things decently.