[acqq]

> the interpretations which, consequently, are not scientific theories or even hypotheses, but firmly on the side of philosophy of physics.

Thanks, that's exactly what I wanted to know.

I'm completely satisfied with the "shut up and calculate" approach. For me, until somebody shows that he/she can calculate (that is, predict) more than what physicists achieve, they are the ones the closest to "the truth" and not the "interpreter."

[spacehome]

Bring it back to the scientific method. The way to differentiate between competing hypotheses is by devising experiments that falsify some of them, and then running the experiments and either falsifying or failing to falsify them.

The issue here is subtle, and it's that the most popular interpretation, Copenhagen, isn't a complete theory because it doesn't tell you algorithmically when collapse occurs. For any possible algorithmic way to handle collapse, there's a corresponding experiment that could (at least in theory) differentiate between Copenhagen and Many Worlds. But the Copenhagen is inordinately slippery in that collapse is defined to occur ex post facto in whatever way is needed to make the experimental results match the theoretical results.

It's perhaps not so surprising that this shortcoming was overlooked in the beginning because Copenhagen was hypothesized before we really had a clear handle on the study of algorithms. But the fact that Copenhagen is still as popular as it is means that Yudkowski needs to spend a lot of time on philosophy of science, because that's what's holding back most people from seeing the problems with Copenhagen, and why at first glance it looks like philosophy.

[sriku]

spacehome suggested reading Elizer's posts on quantum physics precisely to not bother to deal with outdated statements like "the most popular interpretation, Copenhagen". Afaik, no serious physicist uses this any more, not even to explain quantum theory. To use wavefunction collapse to "explain" QM is like invoking "God" to explain the universe - i.e. it is not much of an explanation, and it raises more questions than it answers.

Text books ought to be rewritten to teach decoherence instead of outdated stuff like wave-particle duality, wavefunction collapse and such. That is the history of the development of QM and not QM as it is known today, in my limited knowledge.

If you get decoherence, much of the "mysteriousness" and "spookiness" that's talked about in such magazines just disappears and you find them all, every one of them, shallow.

[acqq]

I think I can agree with your first paragraph, even if I'd phrase it somewhat differently, but I don't see the connection between it and the next two.

[spacehome]

I certainly meant those three paragraphs to be connected; perhaps I'm just poor at explaining. As I mentioned, the shortcomings of the Copenhagen Interpretation are subtle, and I originally linked to Yudkowski's treatment because I believe he does much better job of explaining it than I ever could.

[acqq]

Allow me to not agree with your classification of the top article as "garbage." I've got from it more than from the text you linked to and I'm even less satisfied with your explanations whereas Natalie Wolchover did a rather good article. Please tell me if you have any background in physics, or what is your background?

The major thing missing from the article for me is that she didn't mention that the co-author of the most recent paper on the topic is much more known as the security researcher than as somebody who does anything related to quantum physics:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.4356

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_J._Anderson

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/

He's author of (to me) very useful book "Security Engineering":

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/book.html

[scott_s]

Last week, I wrote a comment replying to someone asking, if we can't use experiments to determine which interpretation is better, what's the point? Rather than repeat myself, I'll just link to it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7940647

[acqq]

You say there: "How they lean will influence what sort of questions they investigate, how they investigate it, and what sort of outcomes they will look for."

If I understand you, we can expect that somebody is maybe going to be the first to discover something new thanks to the way he's used to think about the subject. Still, before that happens, what do we have?

Edit: Only real hard science. The discoverer we expect of course must decide from which side to attack the matter to reach the new discoveries.

[scott_s]

I don't know, but I'm not sure what you're asking. Kuhn's point (and mine, by transitivity) is that scientists are human with unavoidable biases, and these biases will influence what work they do.

The reason I don't know how to answer your question is that I interpret it to mean: what tangible result do we have before we have our first tangible result?

Of course, if that's not what you mean, then please clarify. You may want to read his book, though, as this concept is central to some of it. If you're saying, "what is the effect of such paradigms before they change," then it's best to read his book. One point he makes is that everyone operates under a paradigm, whether conscious of it or not. That is, we must think about our scientific work in some way, and whatever way we think about it will influence what scientific work we do. It is generally the case, though, that many people have some form of agreement on that "some way." When we do, that sets informal bounds on what is "acceptable science."

He does use quantum mechanics as an example, but that's loaded because we're still hashing it out. Another example he uses is phlogiston chemistry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory), which has thoroughly been supplanted. Those who first encountered oxygen were unable to recognize what it was because the paradigm in which they operated didn't contain the concept.

[acqq]

Thanks Scott. I understand that phlogiston thrived until real honest scientific experiments disproved it. Thanks to which "interpretation" before that point? Can't we call it "shut up, experiment and calculate"? Or, simpler, "do the science."

[scott_s]

There was none, that I'm aware of. It was a long, drawn out affair over more than a century, as far as I know. If you're looking for a direct analog to the situation with interpreting quantum mechanics, then I'm afraid you won't find it.

The analogy I draw from it is not direct, but merely: scientists unavoidably think of their work in certain ways that are themselves not tested. This thinking influences their work.

(You've made some changes since I responded, so let me respond to your last question: No, they cannot. Just as choosing what articles goes into the newspaper makes the news inherently subjective, scientists themselves choose what problems to work on, and experiments to carry out. You want them to just "do the science," but what science? The mental framework that helps them decide what science to do is what Kuhn calls a paradigm, and my claim is that the interpretations of quantum mechanics are such a paradigm. That, then, means that the interpretations are important, even if we can't yet directly test them.)

[acqq]

Just by looking at the Wikipedia entry, it appears that Kuhn's book is more philosophical than the carefully researched history of science. How do you see it?

[GregBuchholz]

If you can get the same answers, with a simpler or more elegant theory, you might consider that a "better" theory. IIRC, initially the heliocentric theory of the solar system gave worse approximations of planetary positions than the highly refined epicycles of the geocentric models.