In the beginning was the bit

[Knotted]

And surely it makes no sense to have a purely informatic (ie. an abstract mathematical) wave motion without a corresponding physical medium? Like the ether, for example.

Well its this problem, amongst other problems that the mathematical formalism adresses. The wave is described in terms of particles in complex superposition rather than vibrations of a medium. This is not divorced from physical reality - it rather divorced from natural interpretation.

Incidently I think photons at least are always (someone jump in here if I'm wrong!) produced by oscillations of charged particles eg. electrons or ions. Furthermore a photon can cause a charged particle to oscillate. So the oscillations that are described by the theory are quite real.

Abstractions are just useful things that exist in our heads.

Yes so they should be secondary to physical phenonmenon in question otherwise they would not be useful.

By the way, while I'm saying all this, Zeilinger and Bruckner have brought quite an original theory to the table and if it helps you understand quantum mechanics then all the better. In particular the argument about Shannon information only applying when there is a definite objective reality and the propostion that a new form of information is necessary is quite brilliant especially since they have made it workable.
I just think that:
1) The measurement problem is not solved but rather swept under the carpet.
2) Insofar as the new description can account for the wave-like behaviour of quantum particles it merely adopts a new formalism which is more baroque than the old formalism.
Thus:
3) The theories do not represent a new paradigm but rather the old one with either an incomplete or unnecessarily complex formalism. Although it is arguarble that the axioms are more intuitively acceptable, but that's a matter of taste.

 

[Jonti]

poetic response

You fools. The view from nowhere is not possible.

Yes it is. It's nowhen that's not possible

But I agree that the primitive notion of duration carries along with it all you need for a sensory space or sensorium, "inside of" which one is located.

 

[Jonti]

the axioms are more intuitively acceptable

... Zeilinger and Bruckner have brought quite an original theory to the table and if it helps you understand quantum mechanics then all the better. In particular the argument about Shannon information only applying when there is a definite objective reality and the propostion that a new form of information is necessary is quite brilliant especially since they have made it workable.

I'm just so impressed. I'm pretty sure we could carry a "Demystifying QM" thread on General with these ideas.

What's been smuggled into things (not really swept under the carpet) is, I think, relative time, in the sense of order. I should not be at all surprised if therein lies the solution to the measuring problem -- we live our lives in the now, something no more known to physics than blueness (phenomenologically speaking). I think we have to own that getting the now into a timeless physics is a great subtlety.

These words of Erwin Schrodinger speak more clearly now

a property of organic processes in general (is to be) associated with consciosness inasmuch as they are new ... consciousness is associated with the learning of the living substance; its knowing how is unconscious.

We might now say: sentience is associated with the creation of new information within the organism. The dimmest and most transitory sentience is associated with the creation of one bit of information.

This is a major advance for Natural Philosophy.

 

[Knotted]

This is a major advance for Natural Philosophy.

Before you get too carried away have a look at this critique:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/0407/0407198.pdf

Not that it demolishes Z/B interpretation completely but it does point to serious difficulties.

 

[Jonti]

Hmmm, crunchy

Philosophically, the benefits of being able to ground sentience in a (any!) material process that creates information within an organism are enormous. It's not just that it gives you the raw material, so to speak, out of which to build the body's sensorium (not saying that every "information harvesting" organism would necessarily be sentient in an organised, conscious fashion).

Such a theory of consciousness paves the way for a scientific understanding of ethics*

* pace Schrodinger in Mind and Matter