Re: Why physicists should pay attention to the mind

rof@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Ralph Hartley <hartley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>>The reason physicists don't like to talk about interpretations of
>>quantum mechanics is that they are epistemologists.
>
>>Physicists, almost universally, are committed to a *particular* way of
>>acquiring knowledge. Build theories, test with experiment, repeat, try
>>the simple ones first. Some might even claim that's the *only* way to
>>acquire knowledge, but even if it isn't, it's their way.
>
> Perhaps you are saying that there's a silent majority of physicists
> who would not disagree with the statement "The wavefunction describes
> the actual state of the system, rather than the experimenter's
> knowledge about it."

No. I'm saying that there are many physicists who would neither agree
nor disagree with that statement, but even if they did have a personal
opinion, wouldn't consider it a statement about physics.

Can you describe an experiment that would test that statement? No, it is
not a question decidable within the epistemology of physics, and
therefore is not physics.

I neither know, nor care, if they are a majority, but that (non)position
is the "party line." You are wasting your time if you are trying to
convert physicists from ontologists to epistemologists. They've been
epistemologists for centuries.

Beyond the unquestioned (and very difficult to question in a coherent
way) assumption that there is *some* sort of objective reality, which
can be usefully examined by theory and experiment, there is no ontology
in physics.

All interpretations (in the strict sense of the word) of quantum
mechanics are physically equivalent - experiments cannot distinguish them.

A physicist, speaking as a physicist, *cannot* answer ontological
questions, like "which interpretation is true?" If he does so, he is
speaking as a "mere" philosopher.

> we would need to do a poll to find that out.

You could, but you would be wasting your time.

Opinion polls are not a part of the epistemology of physics, so it is
unlikely that many physicists would consider the results of any
interest. The best (and certainly the wisest) would refuse to
participate, leading to results that would be meaningless even to
someone who *did* consider poll results potentially meaningful.

Ralph Hartley

.

Relevant Pages

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