The Transactional Interpretation

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

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? 

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.

Ah, actually I do recall listening to this before:

Taking Heisenberg's Potentia Seriously

R. E. Kastner, Stuart Kauffman, Michael Epperson

It is argued that quantum theory is best understood as requiring an ontological duality of res extensa and res potentia, where the latter is understood per Heisenberg's original proposal, and the former is roughly equivalent to Descartes' 'extended substance.' However, this is not a dualism of mutually exclusive substances in the classical Cartesian sense, and therefore does not inherit the infamous 'mind-body' problem. Rather, res potentia and res extensa are proposed as mutually implicative ontological extants that serve to explain the key conceptual challenges of quantum theory; in particular, nonlocality, entanglement, null measurements, and wave function collapse. It is shown that a natural account of these quantum perplexities emerges, along with a need to reassess our usual ontological commitments involving the nature of space and time.

Taking Heisenberg's Potentia Seriously

R. E. Kastner, Stuart Kauffman, Michael Epperson

Found an old pop-sci article that might clarify things:

Considering potential things to be real is not exactly a new idea, as it was a central aspect of the philosophy of Aristotle, 24 centuries ago. An acorn has the potential to become a tree; a tree has the potential to become a wooden table. Even applying this idea to quantum physics isn’t new. Werner Heisenberg, the quantum pioneer famous for his uncertainty principle, considered his quantum math to describe potential outcomes of measurements of which one would become the actual result. The quantum concept of a “probability wave,” describing the likelihood of different possible outcomes of a measurement, was a quantitative version of Aristotle’s potential, Heisenberg wrote in his well-known 1958 book Physics and Philosophy. “It introduced something standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the actual event, a strange kind of physical reality just in the middle between possibility and reality.”


In their paper, titled “Taking Heisenberg’s Potentia Seriously,” Kastner and colleagues elaborate on this idea, drawing a parallel to the philosophy of René Descartes. Descartes, in the 17th century, proposed a strict division between material and mental “substance.” Material stuff (res extensa, or extended things) existed entirely independently of mental reality (res cogitans, things that think) except in the brain’s pineal gland. There res cogitans could influence the body. Modern science has, of course, rejected res cogitans: The material world is all that reality requires. Mental activity is the outcome of material processes, such as electrical impulses and biochemical interactions.
Kastner and colleagues also reject Descartes’ res cogitans. But they think reality should not be restricted to res extensa; rather it should be complemented by “res potentia” — in particular, quantum res potentia, not just any old list of possibilities. Quantum potentia can be quantitatively defined; a quantum measurement will, with certainty, always produce one of the possibilities it describes. In the large-scale world, all sorts of possibilities can be imagined (Browns win Super Bowl, Indians win 22 straight games) which may or may not ever come to pass.

If quantum potentia are in some sense real, Kastner and colleagues say, then the mysterious weirdness of quantum mechanics becomes instantly explicable. You just have to realize that changes in actual things reset the list of potential things.

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? 

"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 Schrodinger's Cat."

Here speaks a typical materialist and adherent of philosophical naturalism. Absolutely all of reality (which must include consciousness) is ultimately physical. With the necessary implication that "nonphysical" paranormal phenomena like psi, veridical NDEs and reincarnation do not really exist except in folk imagination. 

"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 Schrodinger's Cat."

Here speaks a typical materialist and adherent of philosophical naturalism. Absolutely all of reality (which must include consciousness) is ultimately physical. With the necessary implication that "nonphysical" paranormal phenomena like psi, veridical NDEs and reincarnation do not really exist except in folk imagination. 

Eh, I don't think the world "physical" here refers to "physicalist". Especially since part of the Transactional Interpretation involves another realm of reality where the Possibilities lie.

It's more dualist, and more accommodating of Psi, than most. Probably why Mishlove interviewed one of the authors.

Taking Heisenberg's Potentia Seriously

R. E. Kastner, Stuart Kauffman, Michael Epperson

Am I understanding correctly that this paper is proposing a more general way of looking at things than the Transactional Interpretation - consistent with it, but not limited to it?

Am I understanding correctly that this paper is proposing a more general way of looking at things than the Transactional Interpretation - consistent with it, but not limited to it?

Maybe...could you elaborate?

Maybe...could you elaborate?

I just had a quick look at the paper to try to work out its relationship with the Transactional Interpretation, and found a paragraph on page 9 beginning:
"One specific, quantitative model of such a transformation is provided in the Relativistic Transactional Interpretation (RTI) (Kastner 2012 ...); another is given in the sheaf theoretic, topological Relational Realist (RR) interpretation (Epperson & Zafiris, 2013). One need not subscribe to either of these models in order to consider the current proposal, which simply points out in general terms the efficacy of allowing for a non-substance duality of res potentia and res extensa, where the former is transformed into the latter through measurement. Further, the concept of quantum mechanical actualization of potentia via measurement need not commit one to a specific theory of measurement itself (although we assume that measurement is genuinely non-unitary and that there are no hidden variables)."

"sheaf theoretic, topological Relational Realist" ...