So I suspect there are plenty of physicists who would politely disagree that it’s not possible to really understand quantum mechanics. Sure, it might take them a few decades of dedicated work in theoretical physics and a certain amount of philosophical sophistication, but there surely are physicists out there who (justifiably) feel like they grok quantum mechanics both technically and philosophically, and who feel deeply satisfied with the frameworks they’ve adopted. Carlo Rovelli (proponent of the relational interpretation) and Sean Carroll (proponent of the many-worlds interpretation) might be two such people.
Sorry to derail, but I’m a physicist in a related field who’s been reading up on this, and I’m not sure I agree with this characterization.
The issue with quantum physics is that it’s not that hard to “grok” the recipe for actually making quantum predictions within the realms we can reasonably test. It’s a simple two step formula of evolving the wavefunction and then “collapsing” it, and you could probably do it in a afternoon for a simple 1D system. All the practical difficulty comes from mathematically working with more complex system and solving the equations efficiently.
The interpretations controversy comes from asking why the recipe works, a question almost all quantum physicists avoid because there is as of yet no way to distinguish different interpretations experimentally (and also the whole thing is incompatible with general relativity anyway). Basically every interpretation requires biting some philosophical bullet that other people think is completely insane.
I very much doubt that Carroll is “deeply satisfied” with MWI, although he does think it’s probably true. MWI creates a ton of philosophical problems about identical clones, identity, and probability, Carroll has made attempts to address this but IMO the solution is rather weak.
I haven’t read up much on the consciousness debate, but it seems like it could end up in a similar place: everybody agreeing on the experimentally observable results, but unable to agree on what they mean.
Sorry to derail, but I’m a physicist in a related field who’s been reading up on this, and I’m not sure I agree with this characterization.
The issue with quantum physics is that it’s not that hard to “grok” the recipe for actually making quantum predictions within the realms we can reasonably test. It’s a simple two step formula of evolving the wavefunction and then “collapsing” it, and you could probably do it in a afternoon for a simple 1D system. All the practical difficulty comes from mathematically working with more complex system and solving the equations efficiently.
The interpretations controversy comes from asking why the recipe works, a question almost all quantum physicists avoid because there is as of yet no way to distinguish different interpretations experimentally (and also the whole thing is incompatible with general relativity anyway). Basically every interpretation requires biting some philosophical bullet that other people think is completely insane.
I very much doubt that Carroll is “deeply satisfied” with MWI, although he does think it’s probably true. MWI creates a ton of philosophical problems about identical clones, identity, and probability, Carroll has made attempts to address this but IMO the solution is rather weak.
I haven’t read up much on the consciousness debate, but it seems like it could end up in a similar place: everybody agreeing on the experimentally observable results, but unable to agree on what they mean.