SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Spacetime events and objects aren't all that exists, a new quantum interpretation suggests.
[...] In the new paper, three scientists argue that including "potential things on the list of "real" things can avoid the counterintuitive conundrums that quantum physics poses. It is perhaps less of a full-blown interpretation than a new philosophical framework for contemplating those quantum mysteries. At its root, the new idea holds that the common conception of "reality" is too limited. By expanding the definition of reality, the quantum's mysteries disappear. In particular, "real" should not be restricted to "actual" objects or events in spacetime. Reality ought also be assigned to certain possibilities, or "potential" realities, that have not yet become "actual." These potential realities do not exist in spacetime, but nevertheless are "ontological" — that is, real components of existence.
"This new ontological picture requires that we expand our concept of 'what is real' to include an extraspatiotemporal domain of quantum possibility," write Ruth Kastner, Stuart Kauffman and Michael Epperson.
[...] In their paper, titled "Taking Heisenberg's Potentia Seriously," Kastner and colleagues elaborate on this idea, drawing a parallel to the philosophy of René Descartes. Descartes, in the 17th century, proposed a strict division between material and mental "substance." Material stuff (res extensa, or extended things) existed entirely independently of mental reality (res cogitans, things that think) except in the brain's pineal gland. There res cogitans could influence the body. Modern science has, of course, rejected res cogitans: The material world is all that reality requires. Mental activity is the outcome of material processes, such as electrical impulses and biochemical interactions.
Kastner and colleagues also reject Descartes' res cogitans. But they think reality should not be restricted to res extensa; rather it should be complemented by "res potentia" — in particular, quantum res potentia, not just any old list of possibilities. Quantum potentia can be quantitatively defined; a quantum measurement will, with certainty, always produce one of the possibilities it describes. In the large-scale world, all sorts of possibilities can be imagined (Browns win Super Bowl, Indians win 22 straight games) which may or may not ever come to pass.
This could be an amazing breakthrough - and it would also reconcile Einstein's 'Left Shoe' construction.
Somehow, reading this paper also made me think of software design!
Read the article at sciencenews.org
Read the paper at arxiv.org
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @09:25AM
No. There is no meaning in the theory, nor in any interpretation. Rather, interpretations are there to give us a consistent model we can base our understanding on. Unfortunately many people additionally demand that this model should describe "the reality" (which is something we cannot check, even in principle). Which is why there are so many heated arguments about it, which ultimately lead to nowhere.
The purpose of a model is to give us an intuitive understanding of what observable behaviour the theory predicts. Having more than one model, even conflicting ones, does no harm, as long as they don't conflict with the theory (if they do, they are no longer models of the theory, but rather competing theories). Indeed, different models may help thinking about different aspects of the theory. Even more important is the question which types of model do not work (the no-go theorems), because they tell us quite directly about the structure of the theory. And those are also the theorems which indeed do tell us something about reality, namely what reality is not like. Which is the only thing we can ever hope to learn about it.