Friar Bellows

I may have failed to glean your meaning, which I appreciate now, but I don't see how I misrepresented what you wrote. If you write...

...then you are saying that X is not science if it does not make testable predictions. And that, to me, is a rather restrictive way of looking at science. When does X become science? For 10 years X was pseudoscience, until one late night when some sleep-deprived graduate student extracted a single testable prediction. Then, in an instant, X became a science. A remarkable 10 year intellectual journey is pseudoscience while a graduate student joining the dots one night is science.

I think the whole process is science. I think the point you should be making is that science should be directed towards making testable predictions. That's a better way of putting it. But I think we should reserve the term, pseudoscience, for the crackpots.

Answerer

Well, I suppose that QM is trying to tell us the sub-atomic is randomnly behaved and perhaps this is really a part of nature, itself and a search for the predictable state of the quantum world will most likely to be resulted in failure.

Liquidrage

There's a difference between not having any idea how to test a theory and just flat out being untestable.

For example, the Many Words interpretation. Even though no one could think of how to test it for many years, there is no built in mechanism that makes it non testable. Eventually someone came along and thought of a way to test it. Maybe one day someone will actually do the test. Regardless, even if no one had though of a test, it wasn't a non-testable theory.

The CI has an "invisible mechanism that you can NEVER detect so don't bother trying to look for it" built into it. There is a difference between the two. As I said, just because something isn't testable now doesn't mean it isn't science nor that it wont ever be testable. However, the CI doesn't fall into this category. It is metaphysical pseudoscience.

Answerer

Well, the link that I provided show most of the problems with all the various different interpretations.

Liquidrage

Every interpretation has problems because there's no real reason to make an interpretation of the fundamental mechanisms of nature with QM because QM does not deal with fundamental mechanisms.

At lot has changed since 1986 which is when this written.
Even as recent as 1986, the CI was still widely held as the most commonly accepted interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. The Ghost in the Atom was written in 1986 and shows this better then anything else I can think of. Conversely, it appears as if no one really accepted it.
The CI comes from a lineage no one wanted to challenge and there was hardly anything better to take it's place.
1986 was still a time when the CI had to be attacked.
That is not the case any longer.
These days you rarely see any mention of the CI as a valid interpretation. Just that it was at one time the most accepted (and in many ways the "only") view.

Today, Loop theory, String theory, M-Theory at al, don't try to interpert QM. They try to dicsover the underlying processes that would yeild QM, Relativity and Newtonian physics. The business of trying to understand QM beyond what it does without furthering it is futile.

The TI isn't really in the same ball park as the CI. The TI makes no claim that this it "how it is". Instead it tries to describe a usefull way of thinking about what happens at the quantum level. The CI/MW try to explain what it actually happening.

"It should be emphasized that the TI is an interpretation of the existing formalism of quantum mechanics rather than a new theory or revision of the quantum mechanical formalism. As such, it makes no predictions which differ from those of conventional quantum mechanics. It is not testable except on the basis of its value in dealing with interpretational problems"

Liquidrage

QM doesn't tell how the sub atmoic world behaves. Thats an interpretation problem. QM is more of a tool for making predictions about the sub atomic world.
It's been apparent for some time now that we need a new tool. And a lot of research is being done to find it.

Friar Bellows

I agree with you. I just don't trust our ability to always be able to distinguish between the two. By that I mean, theory X may look flat out untestable now, but maybe one day some smart cookie will come along, turn the thing on its head, and discover a way of testing it. I'm not arguing that this is the case for the CI, because that seems to me to have untestability built in, as it were, but I just think we ought not to be too quick in calling something pseudoscience.

Answerer

Well, I see that you are a great supporter of string theory and I, myself,do hope string theory to be true. However, the chance for my hopes to be fulfilled are very low and the reasons are that string theory are too mathematically and not very realistic. Furthermore, so far, there is never a clear experimental evidence to prove their credibility. Already, there are signs of many physicists appearing to have given up solving the complicated equations of string theory. Besides, superstring or M or string theory is separate into several complicated versions and without the help of experiments, it is near impossbility to show which version is the right one.
In addition, the string theory could just be another mistake in physics..

[ July 02, 2002: Message edited by: Answerer ]</p>

Liquidrage

I'm not a huge fan of String theory really.

String theory needs one of a few things for me consider it more then just a curiosity.
Reason being as you mentioned there are several string theories that each describe a slightly different universe. Also because string theory is background dependant. Instead of the stings creating space, they exist in space. A true fundamental theory needs to create space.

A self replicating universe.
This would eliminate the anthropic pinciple implied by string theory on it's own.
If it was shown that black holes are themselves a big bang one instantly is drawn to a natural selection process working in the universe. With universes with a string theory that creates many black holes being more likely.

A phase universe.
In this universe all string theories would be valid and we just find ourselves in one of the phases.

M-Theory.
In M-Theory the separate String theories would be united or it would be shown why one is better then another.

There are more fundamental theories being worked on currently such as Loop Quantum Gravity that if understoof properly could validate String theory.
String theory looks very promising because it can be used to describe some processes where currently QM breaks down.

Answerer

Well as you, I don't intend to put too much faith in theories that are not well-founded yet. Anyway, I'm curious about the Loop Quantum Gravity, do you have any links?