This note started from a simple observation I made while exploring my own model: many of its phenomena could be understood as boundary conditions acting on an interior. That pattern felt familiar. It echoed the way Gauss framed the relation between what happens inside a region and what can be read off from its boundary. That parallel made me curious. What if we looked at quantum mechanics through the same boundary-first lens? What would it say about measurement, collapse, and the information an observer actually receives? This note is an attempt to follow that thread. It’s not a new theory—just an exploration of a structure that seems to show up in more places than I expected.The model that inspired this insight: UniNet: From Axioms to a Foundational Framework for Emergent Physics
This note started from a simple observation I made while exploring my own model: many of its phenomena could be understood as boundary conditions acting on an interior. That pattern felt familiar. It echoed the way Gauss framed the relation between what happens inside a region and what can be read off from its boundary. That parallel made me curious. What if we looked at quantum mechanics through the same boundary-first lens? What would it say about measurement, collapse, and the information an observer actually receives? This note is an attempt to follow that thread. It’s not a new theory—just an exploration of a structure that seems to show up in more places than I expected.The model that inspired this insight: UniNet: From Axioms to a Foundational Framework for Emergent Physics
When investigating various interpretations of quantum mechanics one notices that each interpretation contains an element which escapes a complete and full description. This element is always associated with the stochasticity of the individual event in the quantum measurement process. It appears that the implications of this limit to any description of the world has not been sufficiently appreciated with notable exceptions of, for example, Heisenberg, Pauli and Wheeler. If we assume that a deeper foundation of quantum mechanics is possible, the question arises which features such a philosophical foundation might have. It is suggested that the objective randomness of the individual quantum event is a necessity of a description of the world in view of the significant influence the observer in quantum mechanics has. It is also suggested that the austerity of the Copenhagen interpretation should serve as a guiding principle in a search for deeper understanding. In recent years, a significant increase of interest in the foundations of quantum mechanics can be observed. This increase is certainly related to the immense progress made during the last two decades in experiments with individual quantum systems. This technological progress has made it possible to really perform more and more of the famous gedanken experiments which were so important in the early days of the theory. Not only did these experiments confirm the theory in every detail, they also opened up avenues for new experimental directions which might even lead some day to new technology. While such applications are certainly still far away, areas like quantum cryptography[1], quantum computation[2] and interaction-free measurement[3], just to name a few examples, certainly deserve the attention they receive. All this activity has also drawn more attention to the problems of understanding and interpreting quantum mechanics. It seems that there, a definitive consensus has not yet been reached. As witnesses quote authorities like Feynman as saying[4]: I think can safely say that nobody today understands quantum mechanics, whereby he apparently included himself, or like Roger Penrose[5], who describes his opinion remarking that while the theory agrees incredibly well with experiment and while it is of profound mathematical beauty, it makes absolutely no sense. Why did even physicists who have contributed so significantly to quantum theory Feynman was even rewarded the Nobel Prize for one of its mathematical formulations choose such emphatic and strong formulations? Why is it that the average physicist hears very little about such problems during his/her education? Why is the comprehension of the theory very often focused on formalism while questions that probe for deeper meaning are usually not tackled? To take a closer look at the situation, let us turn to a brief analysis of the interpretation of quantum mechanics. We note that there are at least two levels of interpreting a formalism, a physical theory. The first, basic, level supplies the rules that determine which element of the formalism corresponds to which measurable quantity or to which observable fact in a concrete experimental situation. Theses rules are a large, mostly not explicated but only implicit, set of instructions. These instructions concern the manner of working with the statements of the theory in order to obtain predictions for future experiments or events, and they concern the instructions on how to proceed in experiment in order to demonstrate or test a theoretical
Written at a level appropriate for an educated lay audience, this paper attempts to give a primarily conceptual overview of a framework recently introduced in reference [3] by this author, which attempts to clarify what quantum mechanics tells us about reality. Physicists may find this pa-per useful because it focuses on the central ideas of the framework at a conceptual level, thereby lessening their unfamiliarity, an unavoidable fea-ture of truly novel ideas. The author hopes that this article will motivate physicists to seriously evaluate the mathematical details of the framework given in the original reference...I think I can safely say that nobody understands Quantum Mechanics.”[1]
Using Special Relativity (SR) as a starting point, then noting a few empirical 4-Vector facts, one can derive the Principles that are normally considered to be Axioms of Quantum Mechanics (QM). Since many of the QM Axioms are rather obscure, this seems a more logical and understandable paradigm than QM as a separate theory from SR, and sheds light on the origin and meaning of the QM Principles. For instance, the properties of SR can be “quantized by the Metric”, while SpaceTime & the Metric are not themselves “quantized”, in agreement with all known experiments and observations to-date. The SRQM or [SR→QM] Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics: A Tensor Study of Physical 4-Vectors. I also introduce the SRQM Diagramming Method: an instructive, graphical charting-method, which visually shows how the SRQM 4-Vectors, Lorentz 4-Scalars, and 4-Tensors are all related to each other. This symbolic representation clarifies a lot of physics and is a great tool for teaching and understanding. The use of 4-Vectors allows many deep results simply by noticing symmetries in the equations. 4-Vectors = 4D (1,0)-Tensors are a fantastic language/tool for describing the physics of both relativistic and quantum phenomena. They easily show many interesting properties and relations of our Universe, and do so in a simple and concise mathematical way. Due to their tensorial nature, these SR 4-Vectors are automatically coordinate-frame invariant, and can be used to generate *ALL* of the physical SR Lorentz Scalar (0,0)-Tensors and higher-rank SR Tensors. Let me repeat: You can mathematically build *ALL* the Lorentz Scalars and larger SR Tensors from SR 4-Vectors. 4-Vectors are likewise easily shown to be related to the standard 3-vectors that are used in Newtonian classical mechanics, Maxwellian classical electromagnetism, and standard quantum theory. Each 4-Vector also connects a special relativistically-related scalar to a 3-vector: ex. Temporal energy (E) & Spatial 3-momentum (p) as 4-Momentum P = (E/c,p). Why 4-Vectors as opposed to some of the more abstract mathematical approaches to Quantum Mechanics (QM)? Because the components of 4-Vectors are physical properties that can actually be empirically measured. Experiment is the ultimate arbiter of which theories actually correspond to reality. If your quantum logics and string theories give no testable/measurable predictions, then they are basically useless for real, actual, empirical physics. In this treatise, I will first extensively demonstrate how 4-Vectors are used in the context of Special Relativity (SR),and then show that their use in Relativistic Quantum Mechanics (RQM) is really not fundamentally different. Quantum Principles, without need of QM Axioms, then emerge in a natural and elegant way.
Operatoric Research CorpusStudies in World-Formation Section I Ontology and Physics Volume 2 The Ontological Limits of Physical ExplanationMeasurement, Collapse and Boundary Phenomena in Quantum Physics This volume brings together a series of contributions on the ontology of fundamental problems in physics, in particular the measurement problem of quantum mechanics, the collapse of the wave function, the relationship between quantum mechanics and relativity theory, as well as boundary phenomena such as black holes, renormalization, and vacuum energy. The point of departure of these investigations is the thesis that numerous paradoxes of modern physics do not primarily result from insufficient physical theories, but from a categorical misaddressing. Transitions that concern the very conditions of world stability—especially the transition from possibility to facticity—are often interpreted as dynamical processes within an already stabilized world. This gives rise to explanatory programs that attempt to bridge this boundary by means of additional mechanisms, ontologies, or informational structures. The texts collected in this volume pursue an alternative strategy. They understand the so-called collapse of the wave function not as a physical process, but as an irreversible constriction of a space of possibility through which objectivity and the direction of time first emerge at all. The concept of indimergence designates the boundary act in which possibility passes into facticity without itself being describable as an event within the world. On the basis of this determination, central approaches in the foundations of quantum mechanics—particularly dynamical collapse models, Many-Worlds interpretations, and information-theoretic ontologies—are comparatively analyzed. It becomes evident that, despite their differences, they share a common presupposition: the assumption that the transition from possibility to facticity must itself be explicable within physical description. The contributions in this volume instead propose to read the measurement problem and related paradoxes as indications of structural limits of physical description. From this perspective, other fundamental problems—such as the tension between quantum mechanics and relativity theory, the information paradoxes of black holes, or divergences in field theory—no longer appear primarily as unsolved technical puzzles, but as boundary phenomena of world formation itself. The volume therefore does not present itself as an alternative physical theory, but as an ontological clarification of the conditions under which physical theories are able to describe a world at all.
The interpretation of quantum mechanics in the context of measurements, and concepts such as state “collapse,” have troubled physicists since the inception of quantum theory. Pushed to their logical extreme, such issues become entangled (in the colloquial sense) with questions of consciousness, reality, etc. Bell’s theorem eliminated possible ways out of this tangle via any (halfway reasonable) classical underlying theory, and the success of quantum mechanics forces us to adopt it as a fundamental theory and face the logical consequences.
January 1999, “The (Un-)Detached Observer” Yesterday I ran across your paper “On the Interpretation and Philosophical Foundation of Quantum Mechanics” posted on the web, and was very much impressed with its depth. Most importantly, however, I am sad to say, it reminded me that I still owe you some papers. I have remedied that now by sending you a pile of things that I have written on the relation between information gain and quantum state disturbance. These are relevant to your request above, and, I think, even more relevant to the thoughts in your paper. I am in great agreement with the idea that there may be a deeper foundation to quantum mechanics, one along the lines that Pauli and Wheeler attempted to sketch. Quantum mechanics, it seems to me, is an expression of the best we can say in a world where the observer is not detached (to use Pauli's phrase). Recognizing and appreciating that lack of detachedness is the most exacting tool we have for peering into the greater future of quantum theory. This I think is the ultimate role of quantum information theory. (For the opposite point of view, however, you may be interested in having a look at John Preskill's paper “Quantum Information: Its Future Impact on Physics” at http://theory.caltech.edu/~preskill/.) I hope you will enjoy the things I have sent you; it is always my attempt to be as clear as I possibly can be when I write.