2018-12-30, 09:54 PM
Recently decided to do a refresher on the less well known interpretations re: Wave Function Collapse, realized I'd never really checked what the Transactional Intepretation was about:
Here's the Wikipedia entry
And an article from Sci-Am:
Can We Resolve Quantum Paradoxes by Stepping Out of Space and Time?
Here's the Wikipedia entry
Quote:The transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics (TIQM) takes the psi and psi* wave functions of the standard quantum formalism to be retarded (forward in time) and advanced (backward in time) waves that form a quantum interaction as a Wheeler–Feynman handshake or transaction.
And an article from Sci-Am:
Can We Resolve Quantum Paradoxes by Stepping Out of Space and Time?
Quote:The transactional picture is conceptually challenging because the underlying processes are so different from what we are used to in our classical world of experience, and we must allow for the startling idea that there is more to reality than what can be contained within spacetime. As is evident from von Baeyer's article, quantum theory truly challenges us to think outside the box--and, in this case, I submit that the box is spacetime itself. If this seems farfetched, consider the eloquent point made by physicist and philosopher Ernan McMullin:
"Imaginability must not be made the test for ontology. The realist claim is that the scientist is discovering the structures of the world; it is not required in addition that these structures be imaginable in the categories of the macroworld."
Only if we face the strange non-classical features of the physical world head-on can we have a physical, non-observer-dependent account of our reality that solves longstanding puzzles such as the problem of Schr?dinger's Cat.