A Poster He or I wrote:I imagine that the phrase "the quantum connection" used in your post #12 corresponds to the "quantum potential" of Bohmian mechanics. If so, I'm a little bit puzzled about why you think of Bohm's Implicate Order as nonsense while at the same time you don't seem to have any trouble entertaining the quantum potential, a concept that is equally unscientific.
Most Bohmians don't think much of either Bohm's philosophical stuff on implicate order or even his introduction of the 'quantum potential' to explain quantum phenomena. These 'minimalist' Bohmians (like Durr, Goldstein, Zanghi (DGZ) regard configuration space as only a mathematical tool and the wave function as nomological (a law of nature). However, there are problems with treating the wave function as nomological (denoting a law of nature) because, "laws aren’t supposed to be dynamical objects, (as) they aren’t supposed to change with time, but the wave function of a system typically does...(since), we can in (a) sense control the wave function of a system. But we don’t control a law of nature. This makes it a bit difficult to regard the wave function as nomological."
There are some Bohmians, however, that do seem sympathetic to Bohm's suggestion of "quantum potential" versus the more minimalist Bohmians like Durr, Goldstein, Zanghi (DGZ). They suggest that Bohm's concept of quantum potential may be useful in comparison to the minimalist Bohmian (DGZ) scheme. For example, Belousek writes:
On the DGZ view, then, the guidance equation allows for only the prediction of particle trajectories. And while correct numerical prediction via mathematical deduction is constitutive of a good physical explanation, it is not by itself exhaustive thereof, for equations are themselves 'causes' (in some sense) of only their mathematical-logical consequences and not of the phenomena they predict. So we are left with just particles and their trajectories as the basis within the DGZ view of Bohmian mechanics. But, again, are particle trajectories by themselves sufficient to explain quantum phenomena? Or, rather are particle trajectories, considered from the point of view of Bohmian mechanics itself, as much a part of the quantum phenomena that needs to be explained?...the mere existence of those trajectories is by itself insufficient for explanation. For example, to simply specify correctly the motion of a body with a certain mass and distance from the sun in terms of elliptical space-time orbit is not to explain the earth's revolving around the sun but rather to redescribe that state of affairs in a mathematically precise way. What remains to be explained is how it is that the earth revolves around the sun in that way, and within classical mechanics, Newton's law of universal gravitation and second law provide that explanation.
Formalism, Ontology and Methodology in Bohmian Mechanics
https://www.academia.edu/3474625/Formal ... _Mechanics
This was also discussed on another thread on the physics forum who made a similar point:
There is a very serious and obvious problem with their interpretation; in claiming that the wavefunction is nomological (a law-like entity like the Hamiltonian as you said), and because they want to claim deBB is a fundamentally complete formulation of QM, they also claim that there are no underlying physical fields/variables/mediums in 3-space that the wavefunction is only a mathematical approximation to (unlike in classical mechanics where that is the case with the Hamiltonian or even statistical mechanics where that is the case with the transition probability solution to the N-particle diffusion equation). For these reasons, they either refuse to answer the question of what physical field/variable/entity is causing the physically real particles in the world to move with a velocity field so accurately prescribed by this strictly mathematical wavefunction, or, when pressed on this issue (I have discussed this issue before with DGZ), they simply deny that this question is meaningful. The only possiblity on their view then is that the particles, being the only physically real things in the world (along with their mass and charge properties of course), just somehow spontaneously move on their own in such a way that this law-like wavefunction perfectly prescribes via the guiding equation. This is totally unconvincing, in addition to being quite a bizarre view of physics, in my opinion, and is counter to all the evidence that the equations and dynamics from deBB theory are suggesting, namely that the wavefunction is either a physically real field on its own or is a mathematical approximation to an underlying and physically real sort of field/variable/medium, such as in a stochastic mechanical type of theory.
Antony Valentini (another supporter of the deBroglie/Bohm interpretation) tries to thread to a middle position in between Bohm's and the minimalist Bohmian position. He accepts reality of configuration space but not Bohm's/Hiley's 'quantum potential'. He disagrees with Goldstein and thinks the wave function is not just nomonological (a law of nature). Valentini suggests that configuration space is "real" (like Albert, it seems) and argues that the quantum wave is a new type of "causal" agent that may take some time for us to understand it, in the same way scientists had difficulties accepting the concept of "fields" when they were first introduced. So he sees an evolution (see slides in video) from forces to fields to this non-local quantum wave (which does not vary with distance and appears to be completely unaffected by matter in between). So in his scheme, the configuration space is always there where the pilot wave (a radically new kind of causal agent that is more abstract than conventional forces or fields in 3-D space) propagates. See video below:
http://streamer.perimeterinstitute.ca/F ... iewer.html
But there are also problems with Valentini's model as Belousek notes:
Next, Valentini claims that his interpretation of ψ as a ‘guiding field of information’ is “free of complications”. In claiming this, he evidently does not see the irreducibly multi-dimensional character of ψ as a “complication”. This point brings out an internal tension in his guidance view. He wants to interpret ψ (via the pilot wave S) in realistic terms as representing a physically real causal entity, yet he never expressly takes a stand regarding the status of the configuration space in which ψ exists. He introduces further ambiguity by equivocating upon the real physical status of ψ itself. While in one place he takes the view that “The pilot-wave theory is much better regarded in terms of an abstract ‘guiding field’ (pilot-wave) in configuration space...” , in another he states that “The quantum mechanical wave function ψ(x, t) is interpreted as an objectively existing ‘guiding field’ (or pilot-wave wave) in configuration space...”. Is ψ a concrete entity existing in a physically real space or is it only an abstract entity existing in a mathematical space? Valentini does, though, somewhat clarify his view elsewhere by stating that “the pilot wave ψ should be interpreted as a new causal agent, more abstract than forces or ordinary fields. This causal agent is grounded in configuration space...” .
Thus, the pilot wave or ‘guiding field’, while being more abstract than forces or classical fields, in the sense of being further removed conceptually from ordinary experience-the concept of ‘guiding field’ is achieved by abstracting the notion of ‘force’ from the classical concept of ‘field’, is nonetheless an objectively existing causal entity. But, that such an entity is grounded in configuration space implies that configuration space itself must be taken to be physically real in some sense. Whereas Albert takes an unequivocal (though perhaps incoherent) stand on this, Valentini leaves us without a clear idea of in what sense configuration space is to be regarded as physically real. Is configuration space itself the only physical reality? Or are both configuration space and ordinary space physically real? And, if so, are they real in the same physical sense? These questions remain to be answered for any interpretation of Bohmian mechanics that would postulate entities in configuration space.
This is where I think/hope that insights from Couder quantum analogue experiments may shed some light. I know that Gerhard Groessing has done some work trying to use Couder's stuff to argue that QM emerges from a deeper, more exact theory on a sub-quantum level:
An explanation of interference effects in the double slit experiment: Classical trajectories plus ballistic diffusion caused by zero-point fluctuations
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1106.5994v3.pdf
The Quantum as an Emergent System
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1205.3393.pdf
And if by 'implicate order' that is what Bohm implying, then fine, but the way he and Hiley wrote about it, in their book was very confusing.
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