4 ms·

This is an enormous area of study - one that I have followed for a few decades now. The issue comes down to the 'ontological commitment'. Scientists have grown

This is an enormous area of study - one that I have followed for a few decades now. The issue comes down to the 'ontological commitment'. Scientists have grown less and less willing to make the ontological commitment. These days, if I ever see it, it shocks me. That's why I'm so interested in this video. What has changed that would make a physicist so confident as to make these kinds of career-breaking ontological commitments? The most excellent book I have read on the topic, and I highly recommend this to everyone on this thread: Arthur Fine "The Shaky Game: Einstein's Realism and the Quantum Theory". I would love to hear suggestions for books to read as follow-up to this.

bowsamic 4y ago
> Scientists have grown less and less willing to make the ontological commitment. These days, if I ever see it, it shocks me. I actually think it's the opposite. The PBR theorem even says that the wavefunction is ontological in some sense. People are more willing to make ontological commitments now than they were in the early days of quantum mechanics. > career-breaking ontological commitments It isn't career breaking at all. My boss is literally publishing a paper about how photons ontologically do not exist. Bell's inequalities and things like non-complementarity have a much stronger hold in people's minds due to modern tabletop uses of things like quantum correlations and EPR entanglement. I basically disagree with the premise of your post. I am a postdoc in quantum optics, specialising in high-precision measurements and quantum measurement in general, and I think people are more willing than ever to choose ontological positions on QM.
- effie 4y ago
  > My boss is literally publishing a paper about how photons ontologically do not exist. I would be interested in this paper. Lamb argued the same, with good intention, but not everybody was impressed.
  - bowsamic 4y ago
    I will try and remember when it is published. The argument is quite strong though in my opinion, basically that photons are simply Fourier-limited modes, so they always deposit energy over a time window according to the uncertainty relation df x dt = pi/4. Also this means they really don't exist as point particles EDIT: Also it of course references Lamb's paper, which I don't think was badly received afaik, just not really widely considered
    - effie 4y ago
      > they always deposit energy over a time window ... Also this means they really don't exist as point particles I am afraid this is already the orthodox view, despite the suggestive/misleading pictures used when teaching particle physics (e.g. Compton's scattering). But even the well-informed photon concept where a photon isn't a point, isn't a plane wave, and usually there is indefinite number of them, is quite horrible. I hope some day the status quo will move where we realize that both the hand wavy imprecise photon talk in textbooks/pop-sci books and the sophist "just a figure of speech when we're talking about quantum field" will be abandoned in favor of more accurate technical terms.
- Eupraxias 4y ago
  If this is true, then my long wait is over. I am very interested to learn more about any physicist who is willing to make ontological commitments. Ultimately, such a commitment is to realism - what is the epistemological support? I strongly doubt the myriad complexities here have been resolved. Or are you proposing a kind of 'natural ontological attitude'?
  - bowsamic 4y ago
    There isn't an "epistemological support", it's all philosophical arguments. But physicists are nowadays willing to engage in philosophical arguments: your long wait is over. I went to a conference called Emergent Quantum Mechanics (EmQM) at the start of my PhD and it was almost all a semi-philosophical inquiry. Literally the chosen topic of the conference was "towards an ontology of quantum mechanics" If you think that physicists in general aren't working on these things you are probably confined within one subfield of physics. There are definitely thousands of physicists who spend a lot of time reading and writing papers on these kind of ontological topics
    - Eupraxias 4y ago
      If there is no epistemic support, how is this different from belief? And if it is belief, how is that epistemologically more or less sound than any of the world's other belief systems? How does this jive with Wittgenstein? ("Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent"). How do we reconcile Effie's (excellent) comment above? And a boat-load of other questions besides... It's one thing to say, we're pretty sure A = B. It is another thing to say, we have definite knowledge that A = B. The epistemologers can be vicious gatekeepers! To be clear, I want nothing more than to see a break in the log-jam of 20th-21st century epistemology. In fact, I am fighting for it. But I'm extremely skeptical that there is (or can be) any progress here, without a drastic and new approach. I am delighted to see brave physicists making ontological commitments - perhaps they are not aware of the tangled web that awaits them. This is why Fine's book is called "The Shaky Game". Epistemological grounding for claims in physics is... shaky at best. I am not satisfied with Fine's concession - the NOA (natural ontological attitude). I believe that only a drastic solution will resolve it. Please, please, please read Fine's book. It lays out the central problems here much better than I can hope to do, and is an pleasant and engaging read. And please stay in touch here and tell me what you think! I am practically obsessed with this topic, but I am not an academic, and have little time to research it. The central binary here is 'realism' and 'irrealism'. In the simplest reduction, on one side, people say, 'this is what is REAL'; on the other, people say, 'prove it... psst, you can't'. Einstein was a realist, and was extensively ridiculed for it. I wouldn't be surprised if there are no actual ontological realists in physics today, though it is my sincere hope that there may be a few brave souls out there. I suspect that if you engage Tong (e.g.) in the deeper parts of this topic, he would eventually concede to a natural ontological attitude, and back off of the commitment. I hope I am wrong!

bowsamic 4y ago

> Scientists have grown less and less willing to make the ontological commitment. These days, if I ever see it, it shocks me. I actually think it's the opposite. The PBR theorem even says that the wavefunction is ontological in some sense. People are more willing to make ontological commitments now than they were in the early days of quantum mechanics. > career-breaking ontological commitments It isn't career breaking at all. My boss is literally publishing a paper about how photons ontologically do not exist. Bell's inequalities and things like non-complementarity have a much stronger hold in people's minds due to modern tabletop uses of things like quantum correlations and EPR entanglement. I basically disagree with the premise of your post. I am a postdoc in quantum optics, specialising in high-precision measurements and quantum measurement in general, and I think people are more willing than ever to choose ontological positions on QM.

effie 4y ago
> My boss is literally publishing a paper about how photons ontologically do not exist. I would be interested in this paper. Lamb argued the same, with good intention, but not everybody was impressed.
- bowsamic 4y ago
  I will try and remember when it is published. The argument is quite strong though in my opinion, basically that photons are simply Fourier-limited modes, so they always deposit energy over a time window according to the uncertainty relation df x dt = pi/4. Also this means they really don't exist as point particles EDIT: Also it of course references Lamb's paper, which I don't think was badly received afaik, just not really widely considered
  - effie 4y ago
    > they always deposit energy over a time window ... Also this means they really don't exist as point particles I am afraid this is already the orthodox view, despite the suggestive/misleading pictures used when teaching particle physics (e.g. Compton's scattering). But even the well-informed photon concept where a photon isn't a point, isn't a plane wave, and usually there is indefinite number of them, is quite horrible. I hope some day the status quo will move where we realize that both the hand wavy imprecise photon talk in textbooks/pop-sci books and the sophist "just a figure of speech when we're talking about quantum field" will be abandoned in favor of more accurate technical terms.
Eupraxias 4y ago
If this is true, then my long wait is over. I am very interested to learn more about any physicist who is willing to make ontological commitments. Ultimately, such a commitment is to realism - what is the epistemological support? I strongly doubt the myriad complexities here have been resolved. Or are you proposing a kind of 'natural ontological attitude'?
- bowsamic 4y ago
  There isn't an "epistemological support", it's all philosophical arguments. But physicists are nowadays willing to engage in philosophical arguments: your long wait is over. I went to a conference called Emergent Quantum Mechanics (EmQM) at the start of my PhD and it was almost all a semi-philosophical inquiry. Literally the chosen topic of the conference was "towards an ontology of quantum mechanics" If you think that physicists in general aren't working on these things you are probably confined within one subfield of physics. There are definitely thousands of physicists who spend a lot of time reading and writing papers on these kind of ontological topics
  - Eupraxias 4y ago
    If there is no epistemic support, how is this different from belief? And if it is belief, how is that epistemologically more or less sound than any of the world's other belief systems? How does this jive with Wittgenstein? ("Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent"). How do we reconcile Effie's (excellent) comment above? And a boat-load of other questions besides... It's one thing to say, we're pretty sure A = B. It is another thing to say, we have definite knowledge that A = B. The epistemologers can be vicious gatekeepers! To be clear, I want nothing more than to see a break in the log-jam of 20th-21st century epistemology. In fact, I am fighting for it. But I'm extremely skeptical that there is (or can be) any progress here, without a drastic and new approach. I am delighted to see brave physicists making ontological commitments - perhaps they are not aware of the tangled web that awaits them. This is why Fine's book is called "The Shaky Game". Epistemological grounding for claims in physics is... shaky at best. I am not satisfied with Fine's concession - the NOA (natural ontological attitude). I believe that only a drastic solution will resolve it. Please, please, please read Fine's book. It lays out the central problems here much better than I can hope to do, and is an pleasant and engaging read. And please stay in touch here and tell me what you think! I am practically obsessed with this topic, but I am not an academic, and have little time to research it. The central binary here is 'realism' and 'irrealism'. In the simplest reduction, on one side, people say, 'this is what is REAL'; on the other, people say, 'prove it... psst, you can't'. Einstein was a realist, and was extensively ridiculed for it. I wouldn't be surprised if there are no actual ontological realists in physics today, though it is my sincere hope that there may be a few brave souls out there. I suspect that if you engage Tong (e.g.) in the deeper parts of this topic, he would eventually concede to a natural ontological attitude, and back off of the commitment. I hope I am wrong!