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Space, Time and Quantum Mechanics: A Process Approach

Blazej Kot

Published Jan 1, 2019• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Since the time of Newton, physicists have imagined a background stage called space and time (later spacetime) permeating the entire universe. The contents of the world around us are then seen as objects embedded in this background at a defined location, and with a defined size and other properties (color, mass, spin etc.). We refer to this traditional view as the Objects in Space and Time (OST) model. It works very well for picturing classical physics; but once we move into the quantum domain it is no longer of much use. In the quantum realm objects no longer have defined locations at all times, their properties can become entangled and undefined until observed. In this paper, we seek to present an alternative to the OST model in which the weirdness of quantum phenomena goes away and is replaced by clarity, obviousness and inescapability. In this model the world is viewed as a network of fundamental processes by which indivisible units called tomas bring each other into and out of existence. We show that this model yields the same equations and predictions as the current OST-based formalism of quantum mechanics. While not contradicting the success of quantum theory, the toma model lets us get rid of the weirdness of the quantum world and understand reality at a deeper level than the OST model. We illustrate this by discussing two classic quantum experiments and their interpretations.

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Since the time of Newton, physicists have imagined a background stage called space and time (later spacetime) permeating the entire universe. The contents of the world around us are then seen as objects embedded in this background at a defined location, and with a defined size and other properties (color, mass, spin etc.). We refer to this traditional view as the Objects in Space and Time (OST) model. It works very well for picturing classical physics; but once we move into the quantum domain it is no longer of much use. In the quantum realm objects no longer have defined locations at all times, their properties can become entangled and undefined until observed. In this paper, we seek to present an alternative to the OST model in which the weirdness of quantum phenomena goes away and is replaced by clarity, obviousness and inescapability. In this model the world is viewed as a network of fundamental processes by which indivisible units called tomas bring each other into and out of existence. We show that this model yields the same equations and predictions as the current OST-based formalism of quantum mechanics. While not contradicting the success of quantum theory, the toma model lets us get rid of the weirdness of the quantum world and understand reality at a deeper level than the OST model. We illustrate this by discussing two classic quantum experiments and their interpretations.
We see objects in front of us, and experience a real material effect when we approach and touch them. Thus, we conclude that all objects are embedded in space and exist objectively. However, such experiences in everyday life cannot be transferred to the atomic level: within standard quantum theory, the material world is still embedded in space, but it no longer has an objective existence. How can objects be embedded in space without existing objectively? This book addresses this and similar issues in an illustrative and non-conventional way. Using up-to-date information, the following basic questions are contemplated: what is a particle, a quantum object; what can we say about the nature of time; how is reality, in particular the cosmos, formed; and, what is the influence of evolution on the discovery of new developments in this field. Like the philosophers Whitehead and Bergson, the primacy of process is advocated: we experience objects - both quantum objects and those we experience in everyday life - at certain positions in space, but everything is a matter of process and the existence of static objects in space is thus eliminated.
Quantum mechanics have always shown great predictive successes, but also some weird aspects concerning the mathematics-reality correspondence, such as superposition of contradictory events, like a dead and alive cat. Although physicists claim that we have to live with these contradictions, a psycho-biological analysis could propose another explanation. Observation of extra-mental reality is based on direct physical contact between an object, its corresponding sense organ and its mental representation in the brain. In contrast, prediction of the future is no longer directly linked to extra-mental reality, but projects possible observations from the memory of the past into the future. Due to the uncertainty of the future, predictions require mental potentiality, meaning that it may or may not happen in extra-mental reality. Nevertheless, if past observations are regular as in classical physics, they allow predictions with high reliability, whereas if they are irregular as in quantum physics, they are limited to uncertainty and probability. Superposition in classical physics increases space or time units accordingly, whereas quantum superposition considers multiple space locations for the same object at the same time. Thus, the quantum mechanical formalism is in direct contradiction to the philosophical law of non-contradiction, which does not allow considering it as extra-mental reality. However, it has all characteristics of mental potentiality, which allows prediction of future outcomes with probability. The consideration of quantum mechanics as mental potentiality would solve the superposition problem, as well as the measurement and the non-locality problem. According to the regularity or irregularity of observation, classical or quantum mechanical formalism has to be applied for prediction of future dynamics. There is no collapse or continuation of superposition in the wave function, but simply the replacement of an uncertain prediction model by the more certain observation. With this interpretation some weird aspects could be completely eliminated.
The atomic world view is based on the notion that matter is built of elementary constituents called atoms, and quantum mechanics was created in the pursuit of this view with probabilistic events caused by atomic particles. This conception involves unresolved ambiguities linked to the notion of an elementary quantum of action. The resolution of these problems in quantum mechanics requires a new, geometric, world view, which recognizes the occurrence of events, clicks in counters, coming without a cause, referred to as fortuitous. The possibility of a rational theory of probabilities for such events is based on the assignment to the individual click of a proper value of an element of (flat) space–time symmetry. Thereby, the distributions of uncaused clicks can be endowed with a geometric content in terms of the irreducible representations of space–time symmetry. Through fortuity, space–time invariance itself thus acquires a hitherto unrecognized role. Departing from the norms of physical theory, the uncaused click is not a measurement of something, and the reality mirrored in the distributions is the geometry of space time itself, and not a property of an imagined object. The geometric world view involves only the dimensions of space and time, and the absence of an irreducible dimension of mass is seen as the result of the discovery of new physical phenomena. Accordingly Planck's constant has no place in fundamental theory and is seen as a relic of dimensions that have become superfluous.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by , And that has made all the difference . Robert Frost (1916) The explanatory role of empty waves in quantum theory In this chapter we are concerned with two classes of interpretations of quantum mechanics: the epistemological (the historically dominant view) and the ontological. The first views the wave function as just a repository of (statistical) information on a physical system. The other treats the wave function primarily as an element of physical reality, whilst generally retaining the statistical interpretation as a secondary property. There is as yet only theoretical justification for the program of modelling quantum matter in terms of an objective spacetime process; that some way of imagining how the quantum world works between measurements is surely better than none. Indeed, a benefit of such an approach can be that “measurements” lose their talismanic aspect and become just typical processes described by the theory. In the quest to model quantum systems one notes that, whilst the formalism makes reference to “particle” properties such as mass, the linearly evolving wave function ψ( x ) does not generally exhibit any feature that could be put into correspondence with a localized particle structure. To turn quantum mechanics into a theory of matter and motion, with real atoms and molecules consisting of particles structured by potentials and forces, it is necessary to bring in independent physical elements not represented in the basic formalism. The notion of an “empty wave” is peculiar to those representatives of this class of extended theories which postulate that the additional physical element is a corpuscle-like entity or point particle. For clarity, we shall develop the discussion in terms of a definite model of this kind whose properties are well understood and which it is established reproduces the empirical content of quantum mechanics: the de Broglie–Bohm theory, a prominent representative of the class of ontological interpretations (Holland, 1993).