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Isn't PWT saying "well if you saw the entire state of the universe you could know the answer" the physics equivalent of "every terminating calculation is O(1) r

by rtpg 9y ago

Isn't PWT saying "well if you saw the entire state of the universe you could know the answer" the physics equivalent of "every terminating calculation is O(1) relative to the heat death of the universe"? Because the interpretation still leads to the "wave function collapse" interpretation in the expermienttal scope anyways, how does it feel less impossible? Is the theory equivalent to other quantum theories? If so, the value of that interpretation is purely philosophical right? Personally I'm not super satisfied. It's brought up as an interpretation that removes the non-determinism, but in reality it hides the non-determinism to the "practically invisible" by extending out to the entire universe. To bring back the stats thing... I could either say I have a 50/50 chance to get heads or tails on a flip, or I could say "well, if I could see through time I'd know all the results and they'd be knowable, so the results are 100% likely to be known". Sure, that's true but that's not happening. Granted, there's no local deterministic theory... but what's the value of determinism if the non-locality extends to the universe?

jamesrcole 9y ago
> Granted, there's no local deterministic theory... but what's the value of determinism if the non-locality extends to the universe? This implies that "value" (some sort of utility to us) has some say in how the universe is. It's basically saying the theory could not be correct because it has less value to us.
- rtpg 9y ago
  My understanding is that the guiding function mechanism of PWT could describe just about physical mechanism, not just quantum effects. Since the pilot wave itself is what truly encodes the results, you can mess around with this "initial data" and get whatever you want (Granted, I haven't thought too much about this, so this could be easily falsifiable). If the objective is to describe some fundamental truth, isn't it odd that the description can be applied to everything? Maybe the universe is odd and meaningless, though the Copenhagen interpretation captures that feeling pretty well ;)
  - jamesrcole 9y ago
    > If the objective is to describe some fundamental truth, isn't it odd that the description can be applied to everything? Whether something is odd or not is irrelevant to whether it is true. Quantum mechanics is a good example of this.
SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
I think PWT works better with TQFTs, but it's an area of active research how TQFTs work, so we'll have to wait and see. So far, the difference is philosophical, but it's worth pointing out that so is Copenhagen. They originally thought they had a choice in the theory between non-locality and non-determinism, so chose to build a theory around non-determinism for philosophical reasons. However, non-locality eventually became incorporated because some phenomena are non-local in nature. So in a lot of senses, the Copenhagen interpretation simply has an extraneous assumption of non-determinism and they don't want to rework their model because it would be a lot of work. Legacy cruft.

by rtpg 9y ago

jamesrcole 9y ago

> Granted, there's no local deterministic theory... but what's the value of determinism if the non-locality extends to the universe? This implies that "value" (some sort of utility to us) has some say in how the universe is. It's basically saying the theory could not be correct because it has less value to us.

rtpg 9y ago
My understanding is that the guiding function mechanism of PWT could describe just about physical mechanism, not just quantum effects. Since the pilot wave itself is what truly encodes the results, you can mess around with this "initial data" and get whatever you want (Granted, I haven't thought too much about this, so this could be easily falsifiable). If the objective is to describe some fundamental truth, isn't it odd that the description can be applied to everything? Maybe the universe is odd and meaningless, though the Copenhagen interpretation captures that feeling pretty well ;)
- jamesrcole 9y ago
  > If the objective is to describe some fundamental truth, isn't it odd that the description can be applied to everything? Whether something is odd or not is irrelevant to whether it is true. Quantum mechanics is a good example of this.

SomeStupidPoint 9y ago

I think PWT works better with TQFTs, but it's an area of active research how TQFTs work, so we'll have to wait and see. So far, the difference is philosophical, but it's worth pointing out that so is Copenhagen. They originally thought they had a choice in the theory between non-locality and non-determinism, so chose to build a theory around non-determinism for philosophical reasons. However, non-locality eventually became incorporated because some phenomena are non-local in nature. So in a lot of senses, the Copenhagen interpretation simply has an extraneous assumption of non-determinism and they don't want to rework their model because it would be a lot of work. Legacy cruft.