A Mock Debate on Quantum Mechanics with DAVID ALBERT and DAVID WALLACE

[cademosley]

I always thought that the mark of good philosophers is that they can argue against their own position to the satisfaction of their biggest critics that acknowledge that they captured their own arguments fairly both in the spirit and in unpacking all the details and implications. I thought both of them did pretty well here on these grounds.

[PauloConstantino]

Random guy working in the canteen suddenly stands up and starts talking about Quantum mechanics

[richardrampage]

Interesting that David Wallace is now a “Many Worlds” proponent

[ZombieLincoln]

Sometimes name calling is merited.
Philosophers aren't concerned with impressing you. I could mention the work done to resurface the Everett interpretation in part by Dr. Wallace seen here in the video, but you apparently don't know what the measurement problem is.

[pugnatio]

Each is arguing against himself, no? That's what's meant by "argue their opposite position"?

[deplant]

Is the hand-flapping correlated with IQ or aspergers?

[StephenPaulKing]

So long as realism requires the existence of a privileged observer it will continue to fail us.

[andrewwells]

Many Worlds Interpretations (MWI) are not the only way to preserve Lorentz invariance or locality. When Heisenberg gave his analogy of a man late at the airport, he was clearly talking of measurement as some kind of "Bayesian" updating of a system and so there's no need for anything to transmit at infinite velocity (or any additional "collapse"). Consistent Histories is also compatible with Special relativity (as is QBism). Now while some proponents of the Consistent Histories approach (e.g. Hartle and Gell-man) tend to credit Everett with focusing the community working on quantum foundations, on "histories" as the basic element of physics the similarities end there.

On what David Wallace said; if I perform the 'cat in a box' experiment 100 times, while setting the state so that the probability of a cat surviving is 1/3. Quantum mechanics tells me about 1/3 of the cats will live (this is exactly the same as our ordinary understanding of probability). But Many Worlds says that there are universes where all cats live, all cats die and just about everything in between. So what does probability even mean? What does 1/3 rd mean?

[On an additional note since Wallace brought him up; Maudlin's take on the Born rule -- of it ruling out all linear and non-hidden variable theories is extreme -- and I'm almost certain it's wrong]

But it's even worse than that. The Born rule says that the probability of an electron being in either of two different states must sum to one. So the probability of it being in both states is zero. Voilà! The probability of electrons in parallel universes both being in separate states is zero ^^, )

[MetaSynec]

May I say something unkind in stating that Lawrence Krauss would be ashamed of himself if he were able to grasp how much beyond his level of understanding this is.

[Paul]

people need to investigate contextual ontologies

[ZombieLincoln]

You don't know how philosophy works, do you? There are in fact physicists who champion LQG over string theory, just as there are philosophers who champion wave function collapse over many-worlds interpretations.
And I never said ST wasn't physics. I also never said physics wasn't philosophy. The lines are often blurred between these.

[richdorset]

So this guy in the canteen suddenly stands up & starts talking, and we all just carry on stuffing our faces ;-)

[monsieurmitosis]

Never allow your keynote address to be scheduled between main course and dessert.

[TomTom-rhgk]

We live in a probabilistic world not a deterministic one.

[ZombieLincoln]

The goal of those theories is not to make testable predictions. It's to unite general relativity with quantum mechanics (both of which are already testable). Whether or not the end result is testable is not determined by the theorists, who are just doing the math. Thus far it is "not testable".
Einstein used philosophy ("gedankenexperiment") to come up with his theory of relativity.

[ruffneck]

can anyone give a brief summation of the themes and jargon used in this debate? i am very

[ZombieLincoln]

The correct interpretation of quantum mechanics sought by philosophers, is as important, if not more, than the grand unification of forces sought by string theorists. Neither involve performing experiments, but both must conform and interpret the results of experiments.

The goal of science is to reach an understanding of the way our world works. Both physics and philsophy work towards this end, and with similar rigor.

[ZombieLincoln]

No theorist would ever compromise mathematical consistency to make a theory "testable". If they did, no one would be pursuing string theory, obviously.

Being testable "in principle" is meaningless. You could say that about a theory that needs an accelerator long enough to span the galaxy for proof.

A "logical consequence" is philosophically derived - "logic" is a sub-field of philosophy.

[ZombieLincoln]

We do not have an accelerator that spans the galaxy. A bunch of high energy hadrons =/= accelerator.

A definition isn't a silly word game. It isn't a game at all, actually. You might not want to credit the development of logic (and thus math) with philosophy, but that doesn't make it any less true.

[ZombieLincoln]

Your critique of philosophy could directed at string theory verbatim..
Einstein was a de facto philosopher, but I'm sure you've never heard of the EPR paradox.

Also, by saying "It will be perfectly clear when experimentalists.." is a perfect demonstration of your ignorance about the measurement problem of QM.