I note that while you and barney took issue with the web paper intended primarily as an introduction and an explanation of issues with Bohm's interpretation, you left my critique of the deterministic view of QM untouched.
Sure. I have said that I don't have any deep understanding of QM. I can however look at a paper giving basic concepts and trying to derive conclusions. And Ericsons paper didn't stand up well as far as I could see. I noted particularly that he criticised Bohm for having a prejudice for determinism, while displaying openly (honestly, good for him!) his own prejudice against it. I also pointed out how this is exactly your position - which you ignored (dishonestly, bad for you!).
Now you say the metaphysics of QM is still an open field but one interpretation enjoys the benefit of corroboration with empirical evidence while the other relies on imagination. Applying reason and logic would have us fall on which side, the one with evidence or the one without? Which side do you take Callum?
You are confusing (as usual) different things. The physical interpretation of the evidence is one thing, the metaphysics behind it is another. I realise that you don't pretend to be a philosopher, but there is a recent book (I haven't read it yet, though its amongst the legacy papers I have) concerning the fundamental entitities of the universe entitled 'Every thing must go'. The main argument is that of Ontic Structuralism that proposes that entities do not exist except as nexi of relationships.... This is in fact drawn from the very 'bizarreness' of QM entities, an extrapolation you could say, that fits entirely with the 'empirical evidence'. What do you say, RF? Just a bit of imagination, or corroborated interpretation? I think your either-for-or-against approach is a little black and white - deterministic even
A not too imaginative way to avoid the question.
Now, you are dismayed that I do not approach your critique of a deterministic view of QM. I'll do what I can...
Firstly, you came out with some Pat Robertson-isms...
... advocates of determinism tweak the interpretations and add imaginative conditions (the most common is the idea of parallel worlds/multiverses where simultaneously, all possible outcomes are actualized, how is that for fantastic imagination!) to revive their philosophically based prejudices. The problem of course is that when you are willing to mess around in metaphysics you can get any result you like!
I think barney typifies this as the Argument from Personal Incredulity - it sounds silly to you, therefore it must be silly. Well, the rhetioric sounded silly to me, so I took your lead and ignored it.
Not intended to say it is silly, just an introduction to put it into perspective. Your complaint is petty.
You follow with...
In the case of these many-world scenarios where determinism is purchased back at a huge cost of vastly inflated ontology,
the ontology is not inflated - there is a type of thing called a universe. We know of one token, there could be more without 'inflating' the number of types of things.
Perhaps you don't understand the many-worlds model. In many-worlds, for each quantum event every permutation plays out in these evergrowing numbers of parallel universes. The ontology indeed is inflated and continues to do so as the many-worlds inflate
...not only does the data argue against this inflation, but also the data in principal can never help us to select among such theories because the theories don't offer the opportunities to collect enough data. By these theories, we are separated from the data we need to validate them.
so, the data argues against, but the data is insufficient. Make up your mind.
Both statements are correct because they refer to different things. The empirical data we do have argues against the ontological inflation of many-worlds and there is not enough data in principle never will be to select among the many versions of many-worlds postulated.
Also, on this basis, could you give your view of superstring theory - the existence of the multiple dimensions in excess of empirical spacetime is impossible to verify. Do you mean that any theory that postulates an non-empirically verifiable entity is a non-starter?
No, but one must keep the proper perspective about such postulations. One they are essentially articles of faith, two they are not strictly in keeping with the scientific method, and three if an alternative exists that is consistent with empirical data and explains the observed world better it should be preferred.
So how do we decide between the minimalist interpretation of QM stressing indeterminism that I hold and the ontologically inflated many-worlds interpretation that stresses determinism? [/quote]
I don't think the connection between deterministic QM and a many-worlds theory has been established.[/quote]
I briefly mentioned the connection in the previous post. I won't explain it in detail here, there are several articles available on this as well. When applying the state equation to the entire universe, it collapses without many-worlds forcing indeterminism back into this universe. Many-worlds prevents this mathematical inevitability.
The minimalist approach makes sense of and comes to terms with this reality. The many-worlds interpretation begins with these same probabilities and then explains them away only to recover them (as it must) for use in actual QM experiments. I find this decisive in its error in that the many-worlds interpretation is parasitic of the minimalist approach and in that it is not clear that a many-worlds interpretation even allows for coherent recovery of probabilities in this universe. The state equations offered don't demonstrate how this is so.
I don't see that using probabilities in experiments in THIS actuality, but explaining their deterministic nature across ALL actualities to be 'decisive in its error'. The apparent regularities of the macroscopic world are explained away by the agglomeration of enormously large numbers of probabilistic quantum events - is this a 'decisive' count against the theory?
The plausibility of the idea is not the error. The error is that there is no mathematical way to represent it . The state equations don't demonstrate it and therefor don't allow for the narrative.
You did not find time to reply to the quote from Ted Honderich, so I'll give you the main point (metaphysical, I'm afraid)
...Quantum Mechanics consists in a formalism and an interpretation of that formalism. There is the mathematics, and there is a view of what the mathematics is about, the referents of the numbers. The referents are commonly said not not to be necessitated, but to be a matter of indeterminacy or randomness. ....
No agreement has been achieved on the nature of these referents, let alone a persuasive account. That in itself is remarkable. What I wish to note, however, is that if one looks at the writings of physicists, one is told that the referents are, among other things, epistemological concepts, propositions, possibilities, features of a calculation, mathematical objects, probability waves, theoretical entities, and waves of no real physical existence.
Simple question... there you have a list of possibilities of just WHAT we are talking about when we look at your state equations (italicised) - so what are the referents of the maths, please?
Honderich points out the obvious problem of extending QM too far into metaphysics as these many-world advocates seem to be doing. The minimalist approach avoids this as much as possible by insisting these referents can is some way be validated by empirical evidence. In the many-world and other deterministic interpretations the referents indeed are mostly smoke and mirrors (concepts, propositions, possibilities, etc.). In my interpretation of QM they have analogs to particles, waves, momentum, velocity vectors, energy states, spin orders, etc.
