Yeah, I kind of tacked that part about Thomas Kuhn on without going deep enough into it, but I agree. In the cases we're talking about on this sub, there isn't even any incommensurability at all, and there's still polemic. It seems that when something hints at potential future incommensurability, people react strongly, and that's probably to protect those economic factors and the ego as well.

>Also this sub isn't indicative of what scientists think.

Definitely, I just meant that you can start to see the seeds of it. But I have seen far too many scientists that ultimately try to push away anything that doesn't fit their current model by saying it's BS, doesn't fit with common sense, etc. The strange thing is that some of these points can very well fit in with the current paradigm, it's just that they aren't explicitly contained within it, but somehow that's enough to trigger these sorts of responses.

> Unfortunately, outside of that restricted activity, physicists are as apt as any other person to expound upon what they believe are the implications of their physics.

As someone who has spent decades in physics academia, I’ve never met someone at or past the graduate school level who would make the mistake of thinking that “observation” in quantum mechanics implies observation by a conscious observer, unless explictly talking about some sort of consciousness-causes-collapse interpretation. I’m not arguing that physicists can’t make mistakes or harbor some misconceptions, but negligibly few will make the mistake you’re claiming.

> It was a poor choice of words on my part.

What was a poor choice of words? Which words, exactly, are you referring to? The article doesn’t use any of his words. It summarizes what he says. If you want to read his actual words, here’s an example from a discussion he has with Heisenberg about objectivity and subjectivity. Here’s a particularly relevant excerpt:

> And what predictions we base on such findings depend on the way we pose our experimental question, and here the observer has freedom of choice. Naturally, it still makes no difference whether the observer is a man, an animal, or a piece of apparatus, but it is no longer possible to make predictions without reference to the observer or the means of observation.

I’m not sure how that could be confused, unless you cherry pick bits and pieces of his words so as to make them misleading.

> The truth is the distinction itself is not so simple a matter, nor something physicists are qualified to assess to begin with.

The details of the distinction aren’t simple, but the distinction between conscious observer and not is fairly straightforward, and the topic of conversation here. Also the claim that this is something that physicists aren’t qualified to assess, let alone discuss, is absurd. It certainly requires some philosophical chops, but it also requires a detailed technical understanding of fundamental physics, which very, very few philosophers have.

> Bohr assumed there is a [meta]physical truth that his work explored, as did Einstein; they were simply discussing what that truth was, which of their conflicting explanations was more accurate. Which means they were both failing to "shut up and calculate",

They were physicists exploring the implications and consequences of a new physical model. They were doing science, and their thought experiments and arguments led to further understanding that eventually underpinned physical, metaphysical and philosophical analysis of the matter. If they had those discussions 40 years later they’d have been pissing into the wind. But they didn’t, and their discussions led to the EPR paradox, the idea of hidden variables, Bell’s theorem, etc. This year’s Nobel prize has its roots in the very conversations you’re claiming these physicists — the foremost experts of the subject at the time — weren’t qualified to have. Talk about pretentious…

> I don't believe that is the case. The misconception arises often because of the nature of consciousness and quantum weirdness, and the potential for killing two birds with one stone, which most people find very tempting.

As someone who teaches this, I can assure you you’re wrong. It is difficult to talk about superposition and complementarity in a clear and concise way, because the technical language is confusing because it uses words that people have preconceptions about. You can either be clear, or you can be concise, but very rarely both. And worse, once a misconception always a misconception: it propagates. You can see it here on Reddit all the time. Someone who doesn’t understand states it with confidence, or someone who understands tries to explain it concisely and people misunderstand, and then they spread it to others.

This misconception is very easy to dispel simply by having a careful talk about the meaning of words, and that tells me it’s the words that are the main problem.

"It" being quantum physics.

I’m not sure what you mean by that. What is “it”?

Is this related to Descartes’ work in philosophy? The only thing I remember from philosophy 100 in college 20 years ago is the lecture we all had on how do we know the clock on the wall doesn’t disappear and reappear when we come back in the room?

I was an asshole back then and didn’t give a shit so I’m like, “so long as the clock is there when I need it to be, I don’t fucking care if it comes or goes”. Nowadays this shit is fascinating to me and will send me into an existential crisis if I think about it too much.

Hence its a good article. :)

Try writing something interesting.

The effects that quantum physics describes only occur at an atomic and sub-atomic scale. Superpositions, entanglement, these things only happen at a quantum scale. Your body does not hold a superposition. Nor does a rock.

You can't. Everyone has to accept certain axioms to discuss reality, if you accept that reality exists.

I think true incommensurability is in practice a milder factor (not that it isn't important) than what may be implied by the examples in Kuhn or found in other examples like Boyle and Hobbes. IMO it isn't simply a difference in world view. Often there are real economic concerns that lead to disagreements or outright hostility. A massive scientific revolution doesn't just demand a change in worldview but also has the potential of sinking your years of training and requiring you to train for years to get up to speed once again. It might even cost you your career. There's also the sheer laziness factor in that it's convenient to stick to the paradigm that everyone is familiar with.

I have found that many scientists actually understand different worldviews and see where others are coming from. But it's usually more convenient to stick to the paradigm. Also this sub isn't indicative of what scientists think.

There is no speed to light, there’s only a rate of induction. Light is electromagnetic, remember? Until everyone knows what dielectric induction is, we’re hopelessly lost with quantum atomism, sigh.

Thank you for your comment!

While it is true that the academic world has a lot of evidence behind their studies, this razor would be in better use for theorists and those who analyse the studies, not necessarily those who make the studies.

On the paradox, you are correct that we should not simply accept the new study. The razor should apply to them as well. Whatever theory or assertion, it should be able to explain more than any other theory or assertion to be considered more true. In this case, the new theory provided contrary evidence that the old theory could not explain away. Due to the new theory accurately explaining more than the old theory, the old theory should be done away. In an ideal world, a purely true theory would be able to explain everything and can answer all contrary evidence, but such a theory of everything everywhere does not exist for the universe around us.

I also would like to point out that it is unlikely for one study to completely dispel a decades-old theory like in the example given. In real life, it would take numerous years and many studies and assertions to overthrow a previous theory. I just simplify it for the sake of argument to show the importance of considering if there could be possible contrary evidence and how the razor could fix that problem.

Thank you and feel free to ask any questions.

Edit: Also, it is true that many theorists are very careful about their theories. That would just mean that they use the razor without having a name to it. I am only formalising a razor that people may already use to come up with their ideas.

And how do these physical, very real, computers have

>nothing to do with the complex macro structures we know as "reality."

?

I am not a physicist. But I have encountered this issue and spent a lot of time on it. Any actual physicist out there is invited to review this and correct it.

Here’s the subtle, insane thing that physicists (and philosophers) have grappled with: what you gave was a perfectly normal description that should apply to both QM and classical physics. “We don’t know where something is until we measure it, but it is somewhere, waiting for us to spot it.” QM is not that normal. It is not just telling us how much information we have, it tells us something weird is going on.

There are competing ways to describe the problem, but a Copenhagen interpretation would say that the wave function of a quantum system evolves smoothly (like ripples on he surface of a pond) then collapses when measured. It’s as if Nature waits to decide where a particle is until we ask.

What difference does that make? Well, I want to emphasize the following point: it took decades for someone to come up with an answer to that. We now know how to conduct an experiment that would give a different outcome if QM’s weird math is right. What I think you said is almost true, almost; quantum measurement almost gives us the same results as if our measurement just tells us where the particle was all along. And for decades many physicists assumed we never would spot any difference, that this apparent weirdness was “just philosophy.”

But Bell showed that we can check if that “almost” is true. Einstein didn’t figure out how to, he didn’t live long enough for anyone to figure this out. Many of the people who first discussed this had passed away. I can’t emphasize enough that it wasn’t obvious we would ever find that QM’s weird methodology made a detectable difference. But Bell came up with his Inequalities, experimenters could finally test for them, and it turned QM’s math was right. Entangled particles measured in a clever way were correlated “too well.”

One of the reasons this gets confusing is that there are many very different descriptions of the weirdness, because if physics says the world works in an impossible way you can “fix the problem” if you are willing to break a different rule instead. I say two entangled particles can’t know how to correlate in advance. But maybe the information travels backwards in time. Or maybe particles actually follow every possible path, but follow each one in a parallel universe. We end up with a lot of very smart people arguing about which unreasonable option is more reasonable. But nobody has found what most other physicists would consider a solution. Something weird really is going on.

I think Nobel Prize was awarded to three people who made a series of cleverer and more conclusive experiments testing Bell’s Inequalities. I think at least two have said that they thought if they were careful enough they could show that QM isn’t really weird in this way. But they kept coming up with the results QM predicted all along.

They use sub-atomic particles that exist in superpositions and quantum computing operates on the probability they will arrive in certain states.

Yes, of course, certainly. Now all you have to do is explain why, and how the size of the scale causes this profound difference in behavior, and your initial conjecture that quantum physics "has nothing to do" with the universe that arises from those quantum physics will be something more than stomping your foot and crying "no"!

This is absolutely not true, case in point, quantum computers. They use qubits that exist in superpositional states, instead of binary 0 or 1 bits.

3rd time you've shown you don't actually read my posts, thanks for the waste of time.

You didn't present any arguments to respond to, just name calling.

> Among actual practicing physicists? No. Not often enough to matter.

In the context of their actual professional physics, that is beyond doubt. Unfortunately, outside of that restricted activity, physicists are as apt as any other person to expound upon what they believe are the implications of their physics. And what is worse, they are both more likely to believe their actual knowledge of physics provides them a privileged perspective of those philosophical implications, and to be referenced by people without that practical and professional knowledge of physics go suggest their skill in physics lends weight to their philosophical beliefs. Hence the need for the whole "shut up and calculate" perspective, as honored in the breach as the observance.

>Bohr did indeed understand the distinction, and did not deliberately try to confuse the issue

I understand your point, but I was not impugning his integrity. It was a poor choice of words on my part. The truth is the distinction itself is not so simple a matter, nor something physicists are qualified to assess to begin with. Bohr had a rational and scientific perspective on physics, as all good physicists must. But unfortunately, that is, in a real way, assuming a conclusion, from a philosophical perspective. Bohr assumed there is a [meta]physical truth that his work explored, as did Einstein; they were simply discussing what that truth was, which of their conflicting explanations was more accurate. Which means they were both failing to "shut up and calculate", but were instead using discourse and thought experiments (valid practices for physicists, I realize, but not physics) to attempt to ascertain which worldview to embrace based on their beliefs about the implications of their calculations rather than the calculations themselves.

>This misconception arises so often because physicists appropriated colloquial words for technical meaning,

I don't believe that is the case. The misconception arises often because of the nature of consciousness and quantum weirdness, and the potential for killing two birds with one stone, which most people find very tempting. The fact that scientists borrow words for use as symbols in logical expressions is an entirely separate issue, although I do agree it confounds things even further.

It is still only a behavior of the quantum particles. The point is that it has nothing to do with all the metaphysical stuff ascribed to it.

That’s not true at all. Quantum mechanics describes macro structures through its descriptions of the things that make up those macro structures. It’s just impractical to use quantum mechanics to describe the macroscopic world, because classical physics is easier and in the vast majority of circumstances more than good enough.

In fact, we have constructed macroscopic quantum systems (like the mirrors used in LIGO, for example). There are also many macroscopic phenomena that we only understand through quantum mechanics, like why metals tend to be reflective or lustrous.

You’re talking about solipsism. It cannot be disproved, even in principle. However, it is typically presumed implicitly false in any conversation about reality, because otherwise there’s no point in the discussion.

No. Things on that small of a scale behave differently, that's why they had to come up with quantum physics to describe it.

Oh, that’s what you meant. It’s true that we can’t measure the one-way speed of light, but we do know that the two-way speed is 300 million m/s and isotropic, and that is always what is meant by “the speed of light” unless explicitly stated otherwise. If this is actually what the person was referring to, then they were being absurdly obtuse.