The Mind Projection Fallacy

What got me really fired up with my last post was some of the recent literature I have read announcing ever more elaborate philosophical interpretations of the wave-function. It is my opinion that these attempts (too many to cite here) are afflicted with what E.T. Jaynes called the Mind Projection Fallacy.

The essence of this idea is the common affliction to mistake models for reality. There is a popular and equivalent concept of distinguishing carefully between Map and Territory. For those who like big words, the difference between Ontology (what is real) and Epistemology (what is known). It is my contention that contemporary physics is in a deep bind precisely because it has ignored this distinction.

The Shut up and Calculate crowd are complacent about what they think they know, while the philosophers obsessively change the words without changing the content of the theory. Each of these extremes leads to trouble.

So let me now make a bold assertion. I now firmly believe that important sections of the new quantum theory have already been published. Yes, you heard me right. Accepted for publication and in print.

This statement ought to shock people.

If there is a new theory of quantum mechanics already out there, then: How come nobody has ever heard of it? Surely with all these hyper-smart people running around in physics they could not be blind to the existence of a new quantum theory right under their noses?

In the journals they know and read? Surely not!

Let me explain why I think this to be the case and exactly why nobody has noticed.

Firstly, if the assertion is correct then how could people not notice?

Answer: Jaynes was absolutely correct. Physicists as a community suffer from the Mind Projection Fallacy. They fervently believe that their theory is correct and therefore they have stopped noticing difficulties. Now we are in the terminal phase of this illness. People not only do not notice difficulties, they do not notice solutions. How can you notice a solution to a difficulty you do not believe exists? Of course, you won’t.

It all started with a few small issues being swept under the rug. However, as time goes on little problems build up. I will state only two of direct relevance to this post:

1) the ongoing perplexing problems of infinities in treatment of self-energy; and

2) the apparent existence of a non-zero cosmological constant.

Of course, there are answers to both conundrums. The first is dealt with in the Standard Model through the program of renormalization, while the second was catered for early on by Einstein’s “great blunder” – his modification of general relativity to achieve a stationary universe by including a cosmological constant.

What if these two pat answers hide something deeper? Perhaps renormalization is simply a stop-gap. Perhaps the presence of the cosmological constant signals something else completely like a self-energy of geometry?

Secondly, if the assertion is correct, then: Where is the evidence of a new theory?

The best example I know is the Self-Field Quantum Electrodynamics of the late Asim Barut and co-workers. There is a lot more than that, but we are simply establishing prime-facie evidence for the logical possibility of my thesis.

Thirdly, if there already is a new theory: Why don’t people pay attention to it?

Here is an old conundrum: Why does mankind oftentimes fail to take heed of warnings?

A host of very distinguished physicists: Einstein, de Broglie, Schrödinger, Bohm and Bell, foremost amongst many, have been critical of the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics. They thought it was missing something: that is was incomplete.

Niels Bohr persuaded physicists that these problems either: 1) had deeply philosophical answers; OR 2) were not to be considered part of the practical program of calculation.

In other words, Bohr persuaded folks that it was okay to blur ontology and epistemology. When one did not work, simply slip effortlessly into the other mode until your audience is mentally exhausted and simply gives up.

Whenever something did not make sense you should either: change the words employed, or try not to think about calculating anything. With this device you could happily sweep any problem under the rug.

However, over time this ruse has caught up with physics. There are now so many different words used to say what a wavefunction means that nobody knows anymore. Further, the different tricks and devices have turned fundamental physics into one giant hairball. It is next to impossible to know what to say, or what to do.

I believe this situation is now self-evident. However, the very many professional academic physicists out there will doubtless dismiss this appraisal as betraying a lack of familiarity with the wondrous advances of recent years.

I say: Hooey to that!

Let me close with a simple observation.

Some years ago I conjectured something I called the hypothesis of restricted observables. For now, I will give the one sentence, just go with the flow, formulation:

The hypothesis of restricted observables posits that matter waves are real, but that reality, as we perceive it and experience it, constitutes only the reduced one-body fields projected from the total entangled multi-body matter wave in configuration space.

In short, Schrödinger was right, with one small proviso of restriction, and Bohr and the rest of the team were dead wrong. And no, Dorothy, this ain’t philosophy. You missed your stop in Kansas. This is physics with a big P. The surf is up and the waves are huge today.

As a corollary to that statement, I would go further and state:

If I am correct then 99.999% of the Academic Physics community are dead wrong and we need a new theory. Since they do not believe a new theory is needed, and supposing I am right, they will simply read about it one day. They are not even in the race.

Let us close with a simple general challenge to the Academic physics community.

Here is a “picture” of the Electron Localization Function (charge density) as used daily by Chemical Physicists. The image is form a recent Nanotechnology article on experimental imaging of the electron density. That is (essentially) a one-body density.

I started out in experimental Chemical Physics so I have awesome respect for these people. They solve truly hard problems and do not have Particle Physics Big Head Syndrome. In short, they are good old-fashioned scientists.

Here is my challenge to academic physicists:

According to the hypothesis of restricted observables the above picture is a description of laboratory reality. Yeah, you read that right. That is it. Done and dusted.

The challenge is to prove this statement incorrect through experiment.

In return, I accept my own challenge – one of theory.

Can I build a self-consistent field theory based on the hypothesis of restricted observables?

I believe yes. The physics community (I warrant) believes no. One challenge speaks to ontology (decisive experiment) the other to epistemology (constructive theory).

People who do not understand why this challenge is real are welcome to simply have their heads explode on the spot. There is no shame in saying:

I won’t play, this physics game is just too perverse for words!

First you say: particle; then wave; then both; then what, exactly?

As a final icing on this cake, let us reprise the de la Vega Confusión de Confusiones theme and an old advertisement from the South Sea Bubble days. In that time, there were many prospectus offerings to raise money for dodgy ventures.

I am a financial guy, so here is the prospectus for my part of this here challenge:

…a challenge for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know if it has been done already

Let the fun begin!

One thought on “The Mind Projection Fallacy”

  1. Throwing down the gauntlet in style 🙂

    Very thought provoking.

    Of course I also blame Bohr for popular culture atrocities such as the quantum hippies.

    Anyhow, about time I got around adding your site to my blogrole on wavewatching.net.

Comments are closed.