From Osher Doctorow
Perhaps the most subtle misinterpretation of both Probability and
Reality is "Quantum Fluctuations".
It isn't so much that nothing "fluctuates" at microscopic levels, but
rather the belief that as you zero in on a point, your velocity and
hence energy and momentum fluctuate. This is allegedly because
specifying position precisely ("zeroing in on a point") is supposed to
result in greater variation in momentum and so velocity in accordance
with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (HUP).
Let's examine how this belief is actually used in Cosmology to see
mostly clearly what the mistake is. This belief is used to explain
unexpected jumps in velocity, energy, momentum, and so on of all types
in and out of vacuum and so on. It is the modern substitute for "why
something is produced from nothing".
What Cosmology fails to ask is: why don't you just attribute possibly
time-varying Probability everywhere in the Universe? Then you can
have any type of unexpected jump anywhere that you want to without
requiring that you get closer and closer to a point.
Ah, but Cosmologists might reply, getting closer and closer to a point
or particle is what distinguishes the Microscopic from the Macroscopic
world. They don't entirely believe this, however, since Quantum
Mechanics doesn't even have point-generated trajectories or paths
according to several of its main Mainstream theorists.
Nevertheless, assuming that Quantum theorists are wrong in this,
shouldn't we put in some qualification about getting closer and closer
to a point? Not more than to say that there is a Microscopic or
Quantum Phase below a certain distance scale, and that in that phase
Probability of arguably time-dependent type (as "wildly fluctuating"
as we may want) applies everywhere and anywhere.
We don't need the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (HUP) in Quantum
Mechanics, or arguably anywhere else, but the latter is a longer
story.
Osher Doctorow
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