Thursday, September 19, 2019

Causality and Quantum uncertainty




Possible Duplicates:
Why quantum entanglement is considered to be active link between particles?
Why can't the outcome of a QM measurement be calculated a-priori?




Why do some (the majority of?) physicists conclude non-determinism from quantum uncertainty?


If we can't measure something, it seems to me like it's just a reflection of our ignorance.


Yet, from what I've read and seen, physicists actually interpret that as a reflection of the underlying non-determinism.


I can't understand why this is. It seems to violate the fundamental axiom of science. Specifically causality.


According to Wikipedia's page on Uncertainty Principle:



(..) Certain pairs of physical properties, such as position and momentum, cannot be simultaneously known to arbitrarily high precision. (...) The principle implies that it is impossible to determine simultaneously both the position and the momentum of an electron or any other particle with any great degree of accuracy or certainty.



This seems like a statement about a limit of our instruments and knowledge.



I see no reason to conclude "the underlying nature of reality is inherently nondeterministic" from "we cannot make precise measurement".


It seems like Einstein was pretty much the only prominent physicist who rejected it.


Again, to quote Wikipedia:



Albert Einstein believed that randomness is a reflection of our ignorance of some fundamental property of reality.



I find myself naturally agreeing with Einstein.


I see no logical pathway from "we can't measure nature" to "nature is random".


So why do physicists adopt this view?


Please provide an answer that is clear and simple, and not smothered by formality.



Please note: this question is not for debating. I'm genuinely asking why is this the prevalent point of view? I honestly see no logical pathway to that conclusion at all.


For example, consider the question "Is it day or night in Cairo right now?", and assume we don't know what causes day and night. If we try to find out the answer to this question at any point in time, there's 50% chance that it's day and 50% chance that it's night. This doesn't mean that there's no answer to the question until we check, it simply means we don't really know what causes day and night to occur in Cairo at any given point in time.


So why, oh why, would anyone conclude from this thought experiment, that Cairo has the fundamental property that day and night are non-deterministic in it?


It seems patently clear that there's an awful lot about sub-atomic particle that we don't know. If we knew more, perhaps we could come up with better ways to measure things.


EDIT:


To clarify what I mean by non-determinism:


If a particle has 30% chance of being "here", and 70% chance of being "there", then I would assume that there's some underlying reason that determines where the particle is. But the prevalent view (as I understand it) is that there's no underlying reason, the particle just happens to sort of "choose" to be "here" 30% of the time and "there" 70% of the time with no particular reason. (I find this view absurd)




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