Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!tektronix!hplabs!sri-unix!mikes@AMES-NAS.ARPA From: mikes@AMES-NAS.ARPA Newsgroups: net.physics Subject: Re: Re: Re: Faster than Light Message-ID: <387@sri-arpa.ARPA> Date: Thu, 11-Jul-85 18:05:23 EDT Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.387 Posted: Thu Jul 11 18:05:23 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 16-Jul-85 03:02:46 EDT Lines: 22 From: mikes@AMES-NAS.ARPA (Peter Mikes) How real is the wave function? Psi function does two things - none of them too well:1) It serves as a 'state of the system' and in this role is 'objective and real'. 2) It also 'describes information which observer X has about the system' and in this role it is 'just a computational device'. So far we have talked about widely separated events (astronomical distances) in which the function 2 (information) dominates - so we were told that it is not 'real' and should not worry about FTL. Now, when you have introduced the interference phenomena, we will be told that we are 'forgetting' function 1. Just watch the sleight of hand! It has been done before - so many times that it gets boring. It was to avoid this kind of ambiguity that DeBroglie introduced the "theory of double solution" in which both the particle and wave are real and inte- ract (vawe is guiding the particle). Naturally - a typical hard core po- sitivist - always ready with Occam's ax - will not entertain a notion just becouse it removes a logical absurdity ( we can always invent a new logic!). . How many people would agree with this?? P.M..