“Everyone” is an anaphor for the “people getting it wrong” mentioned in my first sentence.
the examples don’t even claim what you say they do
They all affirm that (quoting myself) “the wavefunction is a real thing”. So perhaps I should have shouted that part?
THE COPENHAGEN INTERPRETATION DOES NOT SAY THAT THE WAVEFUNCTION IS A REAL THING.
But then—although the Copenhagen interpretation features in Phil’s first sentence—it’s not ubiquitous in the discussions. So maybe I should just say
THE WAVEFUNCTION MIGHT NOT BE A PHYSICAL THING! MOST PHYSICISTS THINK OF IT AS JUST LIKE A PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION!
The problem is not just a misapprehension about what the Copenhagen interpretation says. The problem is the ubiquitous background assumption of “wavefunction realism”. Either wavefunctions are real, and they collapse under observation, or spontaneously, or because of interaction; or wavefunctions are real, and they don’t collapse, and there are many worlds.
You can’t obtain clarity about quantum mechanics until you at least understand the perspective, historically identified with the Copenhagen interpretation, according to which wavefunctions are not real, and just provide a formal calculus for obtaining probabilities pertaining to the things that are real, the “observables”. Observables are where reality lies in quantum mechanics, not wavefunctions.
Once you understand that, you are then free to note that quantum mechanics is incomplete, you can run off and try to make a better theory in terms of actually existing wavefunctions or in terms of something else, etc. But most discussions on this site are starting off confused, not just about what Copenhagen says, but about what quantum mechanics says, and it’s because they start from the premise of wavefunction realism.
“Everyone” is an anaphor for the “people getting it wrong” mentioned in my first sentence.
They all affirm that (quoting myself) “the wavefunction is a real thing”. So perhaps I should have shouted that part?
THE COPENHAGEN INTERPRETATION DOES NOT SAY THAT THE WAVEFUNCTION IS A REAL THING.
But then—although the Copenhagen interpretation features in Phil’s first sentence—it’s not ubiquitous in the discussions. So maybe I should just say
THE WAVEFUNCTION MIGHT NOT BE A PHYSICAL THING! MOST PHYSICISTS THINK OF IT AS JUST LIKE A PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION!
The problem is not just a misapprehension about what the Copenhagen interpretation says. The problem is the ubiquitous background assumption of “wavefunction realism”. Either wavefunctions are real, and they collapse under observation, or spontaneously, or because of interaction; or wavefunctions are real, and they don’t collapse, and there are many worlds.
You can’t obtain clarity about quantum mechanics until you at least understand the perspective, historically identified with the Copenhagen interpretation, according to which wavefunctions are not real, and just provide a formal calculus for obtaining probabilities pertaining to the things that are real, the “observables”. Observables are where reality lies in quantum mechanics, not wavefunctions.
Once you understand that, you are then free to note that quantum mechanics is incomplete, you can run off and try to make a better theory in terms of actually existing wavefunctions or in terms of something else, etc. But most discussions on this site are starting off confused, not just about what Copenhagen says, but about what quantum mechanics says, and it’s because they start from the premise of wavefunction realism.
Then why did Schroedinger talk about the cat in the box?
I think you must be talking about some new interpretation unknown to Schroedinger.
Even if Schrödinger hadn’t known some interpretation when he devised his feline thought experiment in 1935, I don’t think it justifies calling it new.