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From: DAM%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Quantum Field Theory
Message-ID: <397@sri-arpa.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 15-Jul-85 12:47:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.397
Posted: Mon Jul 15 12:47:00 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 17-Jul-85 20:56:17 EDT
Lines: 35


I appreciated your message on quantum field theory;  I found
it enlightening and will read it more carefully later.  However
certain aspects of the message bothered me.  In particular
consider the following statement:

  Notice that I avoid the use of the term "wave function collapse" here
  as it creates a misunderstanding of what is going on ...

What IS going on?  I would be perfectly willing to listen to a
mathematical description of the measurement process.  Are the laws of
physics governing "measurement" different from the laws of physics
which govern "non-measurement" interactions such as scattering?  If we
assume that some events are measurements and others aren't and that we
know the difference between measurement events and non-measurement
events then the mathematics is clear: measurements result in
eigenstates.  But I find this assumed distinction between measurement
and non-measurement quite bothersome.

   All of the quantum mechanical equations of motion, wavefunctions and
   stuff are "in your head" just as the newtonian equations of motion are
   "in your head".  The only reality is the firing of the phototubes.

But isn't a phototube a physical object?  Can't we assume that
a phototube is made of atoms and that our theories of atoms apply to
the phototube?  Or would you say that the phototube itself is just a
computational device for predicting perception?  Is awareness the
only reality?  I would like to believe in external physical reality
and I would like to have a good mathematical model of what that reality
is.

	What do you think?  Is there an external reality?  What is it?
I'm willing to listen to the mathematics.  I even think I understand
it to some extent.  But I don't think that the mathematics has yet
answered these basic questions.