[FRIAM] invoking quantum woo (was Book publishing advice needed)

[Jon Zingale]

As a hopefully brief addendum to my last post, I mentioned something
about Fourier analysis over different logical contexts, but this is
potentially a misdirection.

Quantum mechanics via traditional Fourier theory, wave equations and the
rest gives certain interpretable results about the very small and these
results are colored by the initial assumptions regarding Coulomb
potentials on spherically symmetric point particles, what it means to
have identical particles, etc. This theory, from my perspective, is a
great theory in that it does an overwhelmingly bang-up job of providing
predictions that have been verified over and over again. To the degree
that we wish to narrowly speak of quantum theory in terms of this
historically dominant and honorable perspective, we will arrive at the
limits we always do regarding what it means to be here or there, with
such and such momentum. We will continue to imagine the objects of our
inquiry as points or waves and ask how our picture is possible.

However, new perspectives are being developed, and these tools are also
available to describe the behavior of the very small and so are part of
quantum theory more broadly defined. Further, they are likely to paint
a picture of the very small from a different perspective than we have
classically come to paint. Before I am blind-folded and lined up against
some wall for flagrant post-modernism, and while for me (a lover of
models great and small) verifiability is just a matter of taste, I also
expect verifiable predictions from any grand scientific theory worthy
of the name.

Jon

ps. Thank you Eric for your contribution regarding the role of metaphor
(for better or worse) in the guiding of scientific inquiry.



--
Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/