Thanks for the metaphysics perspective, Meow Mix. I'm no physicist (i.e. I'm a professional linguist), so it is great to get your take on the subject of metaphysics. I especially enjoy your comments on Einstein's views. I do not feel a lot of sympathy for the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum phenomena, which some have characterized as "good physics, bad philosophy". Anyway, I'm nothing more than a dilettante when it comes to either physics or philosophy. So I appreciate your views on these matters.
I used to read about quantum physics. I think the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum phenomena served well to demonstrated how our logic does not apply as it does within classical physics. I think some people read too much into the thought experiments regarding particle physics, they were designed to deal with specific problems.
Actually, the Copenhagen Interpretation is very responsible metaphysics. There are two issues here:
First, there is a mass public misconception about the Copenhagen Interpretation because many New Age and some popular media without much physics background have incorrectly defined exactly what the Copenhagen Interpretation
is.
On one hand you have people who think the Copenhagen Interpretation
is "consciousness causes collapse," which couldn't be more wrong (CI was developed in
response to that metaphysical garbage).
On the other hand when popular science books and media attempt to explain quantum mechanics and the Copenhagen Interpretation they make the mistake of suggesting that everyday logic does break down on the quantum level. That isn't true: identity, noncontradiction and excluded middle are very much intact on the quantum level.
The problem comes from treating the wave-function is if it's real; and consequently treating light as if it's particles, waves, or a superposition of particles and waves.
Bell's Inequality showed that since there are no hidden variables in quantum mechanics in principle -- the weirdness doesn't come from our instruments not being sensitive enough -- that quantum mechanics as it was then formulated required that scientists abandon either locality (thus allowing what Einstein called "
spukhafte fernwirkung" or "spooky action at a distance;" e.g. the EPR paradox) or realism (thus allowing violations of Aristotlian-esque logic like identity; e.g. quantum superposition of states and Schroedinger's Cat).
The truth is that the most metaphysically viable explanation for quantum particles is that they are not particles and they aren't waves; they are something consistent which just happen to
behave like particles and waves. Thus a third solution to Bell's Inequality was born: rather than abandoning
metaphysical realism (i.e., instead of abandoning Aristotlian logic, a self-refuting concept) we can briefly -- until our knowledge expands -- abandon
scientific realism (i.e., the notion that the mechanisms in science are describing something that actually exists rather than just providing correct answers).
The Copenhagen Interpretation abandons scientific realism: it is the interpretation that the wave-function doesn't exist; it's just a thought-tool that we use to arrive at correct answers.
This is similar to Feynman's many-paths integral from quantum electrodynamics: Feynman showed that if you integrate all paths a particle can possibly take as if it's taking all of them at once -- and literally he means ALL paths, even ones that go to Mars and back -- it happens to produce correct answers that match experiment at an unprecedented predictive power of seven decimal places. But are particles really taking all paths? Of course not; it's just a thought tool that gives correct answers.
Likewise with Schroedinger's Cat: it's useful to think of the cat as in a superposition of dead-alive but in reality it is either dead or alive. It's just a neat way to do calculations without understanding yet what's really happening. As Bohr eloquently said, "Shut up and calculate."
Now interestingly enough, even scientific realism is beginning to return to quantum physics with Roland Omnes and the concept of quantum decoherence, which explains why there is an
appearance of a wave-function even if a wave-function doesn't ontologically exist. So, we're making steps in the right direction!
