Penrose (2004: 529-30):
[Most physicists'] reason for preferring not to contemplate altering the basic framework of quantum mechanics is (in addition to the great mathematical elegance of its U formalism) the tremendously impressive and precise agreement between quantum theory and experimental fact, where nothing is known that tells against quantum theory (in its present hybrid form) and many varied results confirm it to great accuracy. Accordingly, most quantum physicists would adopt a philosophical standpoint (or, rather, one of the various different alternative philosophical standpoints) which try to come to terms with the apparent contradiction between the U and R procedures, while not attempting to change the present-day quantum formalism in any significant way. …
I think that it would be fair to say that a common thread in much of what might be called ‘conventional’ attitudes to quantum mechanics is that the U process is to be taken as an ‘underlying truth’ and that one must come to terms with R, in one way or another, as being some type of approximation, illusion, or convenience, and there are many accounts in the literature which pursue this kind of approach. Even those (myself included) who are of the opinion that some change in the quantum formalism is needed at some stage, would argue that the present-day scheme is at least a marvellous approximation, so it is necessary to understand it thoroughly if there is to be any hope of moving beyond it. Accordingly, we must try to see more deeply how it is that U operates and, moreover, how it is that it can dovetail so beautifully with R, whilst nevertheless being inconsistent with it!
Blogger Comments:
From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the relation between the U and R procedures is not the relation between 'underlying truth' and approximation, but the relation between potential and an actualised instance of that potential. It is this that accounts for the 'apparent contradiction' between them.
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