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Pilot Wave posits a bunch of extra crap and derives the Born rule. Regular / MWI QM posits the born rule and skips the extra crap. They're both positing somethi

by ajkjk 10y ago

Pilot Wave posits a bunch of extra crap and derives the Born rule. Regular / MWI QM posits the born rule and skips the extra crap. They're both positing something - but the Born rule is a far simpler claim (just in, like, mathematical complexity, to me). Also: aren't we to the point where measurement makes perfect sense (besides the values of the probabilities, as given by the Born rule), via entanglement between experiment+lab frames, and decoherence of unrelated Degrees of Freedom? Cause I thought we were. (see, for example, http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/06/30/why-the-many-worlds-formulation-of-quantum-mechanics-is-probably-correct/ http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/06/30/why-the-...) Also, pilot wave fails badly in relativistic extensions, for the obvious reason that a universe-wide pilot wave function is hard to make covariant. There are attempts at fixing this but last I heard none of them are doing a good job. So that's another strike against it, in my book.

naasking 10y ago
> Pilot Wave posits a bunch of extra crap and derives the Born rule. Regular / MWI QM posits the born rule and skips the extra crap. They're both positing something - but the Born rule is a far simpler claim Except it's not, because you also have to posit the measurement postulates in orthodox QM. This so-called "extra crap" reproduces the measurement postulates and the Born rule, thus replacing a large set of assumptions with a much smaller set. Many-Worlds is indeed much simpler than orthodox QM, but it's still not simpler than pilot waves. They are roughly comparable, with many-worlds still having unresolved conceptual difficulties surrounding probabilities, among other issues [1]. Which is more parsimonious between many-worlds and pilot waves is hotly debated among philosophers of science. > Also: aren't we to the point where measurement makes perfect sense (besides the values of the probabilities, as given by the Born rule), via entanglement between experiment+lab frames, and decoherence of unrelated Degrees of Freedom? "Measurement now makes perfect sense" is an interpretation-specific claim. Measurement still doesn't make sense in Copenhagen, measurement mostly makes sense in Many-Worlds, modulo some of the difficulties I mentioned earlier [1]. > Also, pilot wave fails badly in relativistic extensions, for the obvious reason that a universe-wide pilot wave function is hard to make covariant. It's actually pretty trivial if you're willing accept a preferred foliation of space-time, as long as the preferred frame is unobservable. This seems aesthetically unappealing, hence why people perpetuate this myth of "difficulty", but it's not a priori wrong. Fortunately, a preferred foliation can actually be derived from the wave function itself, which means this foliation exists in every interpretation of QM [2]. This is the kind of surprising result that probably no one would have even bothered looking for, and I think it proves John Bell's position that non-locality is the unresolved problem of QM [3]. Other interpretations just let you paper over it, to our detriment IMO. [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-manyworlds/#6 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-manyworlds/#6 [2] https://arxiv.org/abs/1307.1714 https://arxiv.org/abs/1307.1714 [3] John Bell, who was a big fan of pilot waves by the way.

by ajkjk 10y ago

naasking 10y ago

> Pilot Wave posits a bunch of extra crap and derives the Born rule. Regular / MWI QM posits the born rule and skips the extra crap. They're both positing something - but the Born rule is a far simpler claim Except it's not, because you also have to posit the measurement postulates in orthodox QM. This so-called "extra crap" reproduces the measurement postulates and the Born rule, thus replacing a large set of assumptions with a much smaller set. Many-Worlds is indeed much simpler than orthodox QM, but it's still not simpler than pilot waves. They are roughly comparable, with many-worlds still having unresolved conceptual difficulties surrounding probabilities, among other issues [1]. Which is more parsimonious between many-worlds and pilot waves is hotly debated among philosophers of science. > Also: aren't we to the point where measurement makes perfect sense (besides the values of the probabilities, as given by the Born rule), via entanglement between experiment+lab frames, and decoherence of unrelated Degrees of Freedom? "Measurement now makes perfect sense" is an interpretation-specific claim. Measurement still doesn't make sense in Copenhagen, measurement mostly makes sense in Many-Worlds, modulo some of the difficulties I mentioned earlier [1]. > Also, pilot wave fails badly in relativistic extensions, for the obvious reason that a universe-wide pilot wave function is hard to make covariant. It's actually pretty trivial if you're willing accept a preferred foliation of space-time, as long as the preferred frame is unobservable. This seems aesthetically unappealing, hence why people perpetuate this myth of "difficulty", but it's not a priori wrong. Fortunately, a preferred foliation can actually be derived from the wave function itself, which means this foliation exists in every interpretation of QM [2]. This is the kind of surprising result that probably no one would have even bothered looking for, and I think it proves John Bell's position that non-locality is the unresolved problem of QM [3]. Other interpretations just let you paper over it, to our detriment IMO. [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-manyworlds/#6 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-manyworlds/#6 [2] https://arxiv.org/abs/1307.1714 https://arxiv.org/abs/1307.1714 [3] John Bell, who was a big fan of pilot waves by the way.