Bill Hobba wrote:
You are not the only one to take such a view. The consistent history
interpretation also looks at it that way. If you do not know about it take
a peek at - http://quantum.phys.cmu.edu/quest.html. I have bought Griffiths
book but have not got around to reading it yet.

Thanks
Bill

Thank you! No I was not aware, so many interpretations/formulations out
there and so many of them either bogged down in esoteric mathematics
or trying to rationalize a bad understanding that I'd stopped reading them.

Great recomendation, looked at the site and like what I saw so far.
Now to read some of the papers...

Regards,
James Baugh

Hi James,

Maybe some others also didn't receive it, I reprodiuced your post below
(some spelling corrected).

My comments:
Apart of that I would write "physics" where you wrote "science", and
"philosophers" where you wrote "theologians", I agree.
I had in mind to write a text to make clear that a model of physics already
belongs to metaphysics, but I see that you already took care of that!

Note that a large part of the participants in this group seems to disagree.

Best regards,
Harald

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Baugh"

"It's only a model!" Monty Python

Science is an epistemological discipline, a discipline which takes
as its defining principle that the determination of
*scientific knowledge* is only through experiment/observation.

Scientific knowledge is observational data.

Scientific Theories are systematic predictions of outcomes of
experiments.

In short a Theory "predicts or describes what happens".

No matter how correct/pretty the mathematics is or how well it fits your
"common sense", the scientific interpretation of the mathematics is, and
only is, how the mathematics translates into what we do and perceive in
a laboratory or observatory.

An ontological model is a mental picture of "what is".
It is essentially mathematics with a rich language of objects.
Once a model is interpreted by giving the behavior of experiments,
it generates a theory. Models are scaffoldings for theories.

I've seen many "theories" posted some less silly than others.
The poster argues vehemently why their "theory" is valid.
How it "explains" phenomena. What they usually have in the end is
a model. In a very recent post someone claimed their "theory"
predicts exactly the same phenomena as Special Relativity.
But the *theory* of Special Relativity is precisely the predictions it
makes. Indeed much of the lay criticism I've read have been
a diatribe against Einstein for removing the model aspects
and being so good as to stick to the operational meaning of the theory.

Many models may predict the same observable phenomena.
Since science is only concerned with the observable phenomena and
leaves the rest to theologians, changing the model changes
nothing with regard to the science. Its like changing between
coordinate systems.

Now before badgering someone to pay attention to your new
and wonderful "theory" do this check... is it a theory or
is it "only a model".

Some tests:
1) Are there objects which you claim to exist but
which you've failed to explain how one may confirm their
existence?

2) Is the intent to describe/predict experimental results
or to *explain* phenomena? Most *explanations* are
models.

3) Is the "state of reality" represented without reference
to how that "state" is unambiguously determined in the lab?

Note that models are good and useful when understood
to be such. But don't take the reality of the objects in various
models too seriously or you'll get into heated debates over
"whether unicorn's can dance".

But models also can get in the way of theory as in quantum mechanics.
Quantum theory is specifically interpreted by the transition
probabilities.
"Do this and such in the lab and you'll see
such and such with probability P."

We don't need to impose infinite universes to complete the theory. Some
people however feel the need to *explain* the theory in terms of a model
of ontological states. The result is a whole mess of "interpretations"
which do not in any way alter the actual interpretation as expressed
above. Quantum theory is indeed a "model-less" theory.

The model object of "system state" is discarded and the poorly named
"state-vector" or "wave function" is simply a representation of
*our knowledge about the system* as acquired through observation.

The mystery of "wave function collapse" is resolved when we realize the
collapse is occurring "in the math" i.e. "in the representation".
What happens is that we (1) assert that a particular observation
yields a particular result. (2) We erase our old representation of
what we knew about the system and write down the changed representation
incorporating the asserted new data.

Are we then shocked by the fact that "suddenly" the wave function
changed form?

The best classical analogue of "wave function collapse"
is the board at the airports with the arrival times posted.
When they are updated we don't wonder how the plane suddenly jumped
so far to change the value so much. We understand that what
has changed is what we know not "what is".
With airplanes we can in principle keep a continuous update, this
would make it less silly to confuse the posted arrival times with
the "state of the airplane".

With quanta the act of updating invalidates the predictions which assert
no interaction, thus confusing the representation with the "state of the
quantum" is very bad.

Quantum theory is much more careful about what it represents.
It only represents knowledge not reality. It is a theory without
an assumed underlying ontological model. Removing this assumption
gives more freedom in predicting and that is why it does a better
job at it.

Regards,
James Baugh.