This implies a deep divide between reality and appearances, as Kant suggested. This limits the role of measurement to confirming our mental models of reality but never confusing these with a direct image of ‘the thing in itself’. The focus needs to be on an explicit linkage between the micro-world, when left to itself, and our mental models of this sphere of material reality, via the mechanism of measurement. Physics has returned to the pre-Newtonian world of Ptolemaic phenomenology: only verifiable numbers without real understanding. QM has failed to provide explanations: only recipes (meaningless equations), not insights. Significantly, we live in a world that is not being measured by scientists but is interacting with itself and with us. At least 12 earlier QM interpretations are critically analyzed, indicating the broad interest in “what does QM mean?” The standard theory of quantum mechanics is thus constructed on only how the micro-world appears to macro measurements - as such, it cannot offer any view of how the foundations of the world are acting when humans are not observing it - this has generated almost 100 years of confusion and contradiction at the very heart of physics. The defensive view that the micro-world is too different to understand using regular thinking (and only a mathematical approach is possible) is rejected totally. The present critique rejects this human-centered view of reality by assuming material reality has existed long before (and will persist long after) human beings (“Realism”). Quantum mechanics (QM) was developed over the first quarter of the 20th century, when scientists were enthralled by a new philosophy known as Positivism, whose foundations were based on the assumption that material objects exist only when measured by humans – this central assumption conflates epistemology (knowledge) with ontology (existence). This critique is based on the oldest approach to thinking about nature for over 2500 years, known as Natural Philosophy. A critique is offered of the commonly accepted ‘Copenhagen Interpretation’ of a theory that is only a mathematical approach to the level of reality characterized by atoms and electrons. This paper re-opens the debate on the failure of quantum mechanics to provide an understandable view of micro-reality.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |