Re: Is State Vector Reduction a 'Process'?

rof@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Arnold Neumaier <Arnold.Neumaier@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
>>rof@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>

>>>Now this is what you did, and you interpreted my post as an attack
>>>on you, became angry, and treated me to three question marks and a
>>>lecture about how everything is mere opinion and belief:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Everything called
>>>>knowledge is in fact a set of beliefs of the person claiming it.
>
>>You seem to be projecting _your_ anger onto me.
>
> Perhaps it seems that way to you; I assure you that I'm not.

Then it must have been an artifact of the medium usenet.
It seems to make statements to look more emotional than they
are meant, which occasionally (and in unmoderated groups often)
leads to an involuntary rise in aggression.


> Perhaps you use three question marks and assertions that everything
> is mere opinion and belief all the time, but I read quite a lot
> of your posts, and often enjoy reading them,

Thanks for the compliment. I try to be readable, informative,
and polite, though sometimes I am quite explicit about what I
think of a poor contribution.


> and it seems that
> you rarely do that. Your behaviour in this case seemed to be
> an exception to your normal tone.

I raise three question mark when I find something really unbelievable
though (because it is not about something formal) one cannot describe it
as wrong.


>>To say that ''Everything called knowledge is in fact a set
>>of beliefs of the person claiming it.'' does not contradict the
>>objectivity of mathematical definitions. When I say that a Banach
>>space is a normed, complete vector space, I both state my belief
>>and happen to coincide with the social consensus of the guild of
>>mathematicians.
>
> Indeed, but the question is how it appears to the person for whom
> your reply was intended. You are saying that one can adopt a
> particular point of view, namely that everything anybody ever
> says is their opinion and must be considered that way,

At least this is the way I take what others say. It is a very
efficient way of looking at communication. Then I sieve through
what nourishes my hunger for truth and understanding - independent
of whether the speaker spoke the truth or a prejudice. From an
interesting statement I sometimes learn even when the speaker does
not recognize its faults, and a true statement may fail to interest
me if it is phrased in a way that I cannot recognize its relevance.


> and that it
> might or might not coincide with what is well-established, and that
> the onus is on the reader to determine whether what is said
> is well-established or not. From this point of view, you weren't
> being dishonest; I agree.
>
>
>>And when I say that state reduction is a
>>physical process, I both state my belief and happen to coincide with
>>famous physicists like von Neumann and many others, and this is good
>>enough to make this statement honestly.
>
> Well, von Neumann was actually of the opinion that state reduction
> wasn't a physical process, as far as I can determine from reading
> his papers. In your post, you also said (more or less) that it
> wasn't a physical process, so I presume you left out a "not"
> above.

No. I meant ''state reduction is a physical process'' since this is
what I said and what physicists observe. See
A. Neumaier,
Collapse challenge for interpretations of quantum mechanics
quant-ph/0505172
(see also http://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~neum/collapse.html).
Von Neumann takes the collapse as an axiom, hence also testifies to its
reality. I'd appreciate getting a clear reference where he states
the contrary (if he does so).


> Consider, for example, somebody who liked Penrose's gravitational
> collapse interpretation. According to your criteria of honesty,
> that person could say "Yes, collapse is a physical process,"
> while being perfectly honest, since his opinion coincides
> with that of a famous physicist.

Yes.

> The poor person who asked
> the question in the first place would have gotten two "honest"
> answers to his question, one saying no (from you) and one
> saying yes.

This is the typical situation one finds when controversy prevails.
Indeed, in some sense, controversy _is_ the coexistence of
disagreeing honest statements.


> Neither of the answerers would have given any
> indication that their answer was merely their opinion,
> and so the questioner would be left confused,

No. If the questioner is only a little intelligent, he would
be left with the impression that either at least one of the
speakers was incompetent, or that the topic is controversial.


> and would
> have to distrust future answers that he got from supposedly
> respectable physicists.

This is indeed healthy. One should not trust a statement without
good reason, independently of whether it carries the label
'this is the truth' or 'this is my personal opinion'. In fact,
the first may be a lie and the second the truth.


> You may very well say that this is a harsh lesson that he needs to
> learn. I would say that it would be better if people clearly
> distinguished between what was merely their opinion and
> what is well-established, and then those who ask questions
> would be able to trust the answers that physicists give them.

Only if they have no prejudice, and if he recognizes that he speaks
with a person without prejudice. But both requirements are very rarely
met. So he is right to be cautious. Indeed, we learn it from the
earliest age not to trust too early.


> As another example, if somebody asks "Is Riemann hypothesis true?",
> most knowledgeable people would reply that it isn't known whether
> or not it is true, although it is widely believed that it is.
> Somebody who simply says "Yes, it's true," would be being honest
> by your criteria,

Only if he really thinks it is true, according to the standards
of mathematics. For example, I think that Louis de Branges
can say it with honesty.
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog/archives/000035.html



>
>>It is ridiculous to require a percentage of people in a field
>>to agree with you before you utter a statement without adding
>>a qualification like 'I believe' or 'Some physisicts believe'.
>>There would never be an agreement on the percentage required
>>to do so.
>
>
> I agree. I never suggested that one should require a
> specific percentage of physicists to agree with one before
> saying something.

You suggested that one should require 50% in the mail which
caused my three question marks.


> I do think, however, that if one knows
> that a statement is merely an opinion, and that more than
> 50% of physicists hold the opposite opinion, one can
> say that it is controversial,

Should Einstein have declared his theory controversial
until he convinced haldf of the physicsists? (or of the
theoretical phyicsts only? Or of the astrophysicists
only? ...)

No. He was convinced it was right, and he was right to
having aserted it without scruples. It is part of the
scientific process that finding out the truth takes time.
But often it is being found by bold people who know what
they know, even being in a minority.


Arnold Neumaier

.

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