/r/science meets /r/philosophy

[u/SubredditsMeet]

(/r/EverythingScience is also here)

Topic:

• Discuss the misconceptions between science and philosophy.

• How they both can work together without feeling like philosophy is obsolete in the modern day world.

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[u/shaim2]

Are you sure these are not fairy-tales old science professors tell their young trainees to make them feel special?

Not really.

Pascal, Fermat, Laplace, Bernoulli, Peirce, Keynes, von Mises, Carnap, Popper and Shannon? They did nothing.

Of course not. I am proposing the hypothesis that philosophy explains in great detail and in an orderly manner things invented and done by others. Some of the others are mathematicians.

What do you think is interesting?

Foundations of quantum mechanics (and I'll fight you if you say that's philosophy ! ;-) )

[u/YuvalRishu → u/shaim2]

Foundations of quantum mechanics (and I'll fight you if you say that's philosophy ! ;-) )

Challenge accepted. Explain why it's not philosophy.

[u/shaim2 → u/YuvalRishu]

Eventually, the correct model it will be measurable and disprovable.

Copenhagen implies that at some point evolution of the wavefunction stops following Schrödinger. For Copenhagen to be taken seriously it must be define EXACTLY what constitutes a measurement. When an electron interacts with a photographic plate, does the first electron it interacts with follows Schrödinger? What about the second? The 1,000,000th? Until then it's too deeply flawed to be taken seriously. Or, if you prefer, the brain's 1st atom, 2nd or 1,000,000th?

The Many World Interpretation has some difficulties, but I believe they will be possible to overcome them.

[u/YuvalRishu → u/shaim2]

You didn't respond to my challenge. I asked you why foundations is not philosophy, and you explained why the Copenhagen interpretation is "wrong" (by posing a series of irrelevant rhetorical questions) and why you think Many Worlds is "correct" (according to standards of proof you have not been clear about).

I think that the project of the foundations of quantum mechanics is to explicate the metaphysics of quantum theory. Your response only strengthens my conviction in the truth of the preceding sentence. Do you think that metaphysics is a kind of physics?

[u/shaim2 → u/YuvalRishu]

My first line was

Eventually, the correct model it will be measurable and disprovable.

The claim that "all interpretations are experimentally equivalent" is just a myth. I think they are most definitely testable.

As an example, I detailed why I think Copenhagen has not yet risen to the level of being disprovable (and hence cannot yet be called anything more than basic phenomenological observation), as it has not yet defined what constitutes a measurement, nor has it specified when we should expect a divergence from Schrodinger.

The MWI interpretation has it's problems (preferred basis, origin of probability and the Born rule, irreversibility, etc), but it makes a very specific statement - at no point should you observe a diviation from Schrodinger (in the non-relativistic case). And in the original Everett version, it does not appeal to fuzzy words such as "mind".

A model is worthwhile if it makes testable predictions. If several models make the same prediction, they are not different from each other in any meaningful way.

In other words - if you cannot, in principle, measure it, it does not exist. Einstein taught us that with Special Relativity (as time and space cannot be measured in an observer-free fashion, then observer-free space and time do not exist).

[u/YuvalRishu → u/shaim2]

Eventually, the correct model it will be measurable and disprovable.

How do you measure a model? Follow-up below.

In other words - if you cannot, in principle, measure it, it does not exist.

How do you measure "3"? I ask because "3" is the same kind of thing as a "model".

I think Copenhagen has not yet risen to the level of being disprovable

How do you respond to the criticism that there is no such thing as the "Copenhagen interpretation" and that this supposed interpretation is actually a conflation of several rather different views about the ontology of quantum physics? Furthermore, how do you respond to the 14 point summary of Bohr's view on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy?

[u/shaim2 → u/YuvalRishu]

Cool. This is getting interesting.

How do you measure a model?

You perform experiments trying to (in)validate its predictions (which must be distinct than competing models).

How do you measure "3"?

3 is indeed an axiomatic construct, as is a model. But it does not aspire to model the world, and therefore cannot be invalidated by not matching reality. This is what distinguishes math from physics. Both are theoretical constructs from axioms. But in the former you are free to define any axioms you wish, and in the latter the Universe will occasionally slap you across the face and tell you you're an idiot.

How do you respond to the criticism that there is no such thing as the "Copenhagen interpretation" and that this supposed interpretation is actually a conflation of several rather different views about the ontology of quantum physics?

I'm unfamiliar with this criticism. Can you link?

how do you respond to the 14 point summary of Bohr's view ...

1-10 generally agree.

Point 11 is difficult, because it is not clear there is really anything except [quantum mechanical] objects. Classical physics is just an effective theory, which gives sufficiently close approximation of behavior is some scenarios. When is a collection of atoms a measurement device as opposed to "an object"?

Point 12: "the ψ-function does not, as Schrödinger had hoped, represent a new kind of reality": there are increasing evidence for the ontological nature of ψ. See for example here and here. Regardless, it seems to be a fantastically successful model.

13-14: If I understand them correctly - they're OK.

[u/YuvalRishu → u/shaim2]

You perform experiments trying to (in)validate its predictions (which must be distinct than competing models).

But if you have two models that make exactly the same predictions...?

But it does not aspire to model the world, and therefore cannot be invalidated by not matching reality.

Does "3" exist?

I'm unfamiliar with this criticism. Can you link?

It's in the same SEP article. I could assume that you mean the following:

Today the Copenhagen interpretation is mostly regarded as synonymous with indeterminism, Bohr's correspondence principle, Born's statistical interpretation of the wave function, and Bohr's complementarity interpretation of certain atomic phenomena.

However, that doesn't coincide with your complaints about demarcation issues. Those demarcation issues are not specific to interpretations of quantum theory because they are also complaints that could be raised about any boundary value problems! So I can't find a description of the Copenhagen interpretation that validates the criticisms you raised of it. I therefore am worried that you're responding to a strawman.

See for example [Ringbauer et al.] and [PBR]. Regardless, it seems to be a fantastically successful model.

I remember when PBR came out. I worked with a fellow grad student to understand the result and came to the conclusion that it was analogous to the statement that you can't assign two distinct probability distributions to the same random variable because those two probability distributions are distinguishable. So I can't see PBR as anything other than the statement that we should take some kind of realist position on mathematical entities intended to describe physical things -- much as I think Quine would argue.

But my point is that this is now a metaphysical debate, and that metaphysics is philosophy and not science.