From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Feb 23 2003 - 10:51:16 MST
scerir writes
> But somebody thinks that information is the key factor....
> [Niels Bohr, von Weizsaecker quotes]...
> And another big name (actually the inventor of decoherence)
> pointed out that QM sometimes speaks of It, sometimes speaks
> of Bit.
>
> The Wave Function: It or Bit?
> Authors: H. D. Zeh
> Comments: Several comments added, in particular regarding the role of a
> "second" quantization and concerning some recently proposed cosmological
> models. -- 21 pages, Latex
> http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0204088
> Schroedinger's wave function shows many aspects of a state of incomplete
> knowledge or information ("bit"):
> (1) it is usually defined on a space of classical configurations,
"A state of incomplete knowledge is defined on a state of classical
configurations?" What does that mean?
> (2) its generic entanglement is, therefore, analogous to statistical
> correlations,
Does this only mean "quantum entanglement relies on and is tantamount
to the existence of statistical correlations? Okay, this I think I
understand okay.
(3) it determines probabilities of measurement outcomes.
Yes.
> Nonetheless, quantum superpositions (such as represented by a
> wave function) define individual physical states ("it").
Yes. Quantum superpositions are something quite definite,
and conceptually very tangible. They are the simplest
possible interpretation of some very simple equations.
No problem.
> This conceptual dilemma
What dilemma?
> may have its origin in the conventional operational foundation
> of physical concepts, successful in classical physics, but
> inappropriate in quantum theory because of the existence of
> mutually exclusive operations (used for the definition of concepts).
What mutually exclusive operations? Does this mean like the
momentum operator and position operator? If so, I still don't
see any dilemma exactly. You apply one operator, and |psi>
yields information in one basis, you apply a different operator,
it yields information in another basis. Am I missing something
here?
> In contrast, a hypothetical realism, based on concepts that are
> justified only by their universal and consistent applicability,
> favors the wave function as a description of (thus nonlocal)
> physical reality.
Not sure I understand, but maybe I do.
> The (conceptually local) classical world then appears as an
> illusion, facilitated by the phenomenon of decoherence, which
> is consistently explained by the very entanglement that must
> dynamically arise in a universal wave function.
I need to break this apart into single propositions that
I can understand. (a) Entanglement explains decoherence
(b) entanglement dynamically arises from the universal
wave function. (c) therefore, the classical world appears
as an illusion.
I'm guessing that it's (a) and (c) that are giving me
some trouble.
> [I prefer this one, since 1972, :-)]
Lee
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