The Problem of Interpretation of Modern Physics

Peter Mittelstaedt

Peter Mittelstaedt

Fernando Goñi Arregui

Through both an historical and philosophical analysis of the concept of possibility, we show how including both potentiality and actuality as part of the real is both compatible with experience and contributes to solving key problems of fundamental process and emergence. The book is organized into four main sections that incorporate our routes to potentiality: (1) potentiality in modern science [history and philosophy; quantum physics and complexity]; (2) Relational Realism [ontological interpretation of quantum physics; philosophy and logic]; (3) Process Physics [ontological interpretation of relativity theory; physics and philosophy]; (4) on speculative philosophy and physics [limitations and approximations; process philosophy]. We conclude that certain fundamental problems in modern physics require complementary analyses of certain philosophical and metaphysical issues, and that such scholarship reveals intrinsic features and limits of determinism, potentiality and emergence that enable, among others, important progress on the quantum theory of measurement problem and new understandings of emergence.

Lee Smolin

One of the most challenging problems in modern physics is the application of quantum theory to the universe as a whole. Progress in this area has been plagued by two types of problem: conceptual and technical. The conceptual problems arise from the old difficulties of interpreting quantum theory. The standard interpretations require that the measuring instruments and observers are outside the quantum system described by the wavefunction. In the late 1950s, however, Hugh Everett proposed an interpretation of quantum theory that might apply to systems that include the observers and measuring instruments, but the adequacy of such interpretations has remained controversial to this day.

Peter Pickl

The problems of modern physics are man made. The Copenhagen version of quantum mechanics is formulated in a vague prosaic way, inconsistencies and paradoxes are the price. New interpretations try to solve the problem, however a reformulation rather than an interpretation is needed. In this manuscript I will point out, where the Copenhagen formulation of quantum mechanics is flawed and how one can make sense out of it. Then I will show, that it is possible to give a precise formulation of quantum mechanics without losing its compelling ability in describing experiments.