quantum mechanics: Kastner\'s brilliant blog (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, July 17, 2013, 20:13 (4148 days ago) @ rekastner

rekastner: Thanks very much, David, for your kind words and interest. I do think that the biggest impediment to finding a good interpretation of QM has been the often-unconscious identification of 'real' with 'existing in spacetime'. If one thinks that anything real has to exist in spacetime, then by definition (based on their multi-dimensional mathematical properties and nonlocal behavior) quantum objects can't be real, so they become representations only of our 'knowledge'. I think it's time to get beyond these types of subjectivist, antirealist approaches and to acknowledge there there could be a more subtle kind of reality that is sub-empirical -- and therefore beyond spacetime.
 
Again I discuss all this in great detail in my book. Some chapters are technical but others are accessible to the layperson, and the chapters on these mataphysical issues don't require a background in math or physics.-Ouf, no sooner have I posted a response than I find I'm miles behind again! A perpetual problem for me in this context is the fact that even if there are objective realities outside spacetime, we cannot know what they are. And so when we come to metaphysical concepts, for example, there is still no escaping the "subjectivist" approach. Yes, there has to be an objective truth, but we have no objective access to it!