[BadThink6655321]

Edward Feser published a review of Koon's book ([0], [1]). I was struck by the number of times Feser argued that a "common sense" view of QM is the one that is "basically correct." Given the documented failures of common sense in mathematics and physics (see especially Feynman's comments in the first 15 minutes of [2]), why should anyone think common sense is a reliable metric to how things are?

[0] https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2023/01/86512/

[1] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2023/01/koons-on-aristotle-...

[2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41Jc75tQcB0

[danielam]

The article you provide a link to is the review I linked to (and that article mentions that Heisenberg was partial to the hylomorphist view of QM).

> Given the documented failures of common sense in mathematics and physics [...], why should anyone think common sense is a reliable metric to how things are?

I think the most serious objection is that categorical dismissal of common sense is a form of skepticism, and as a consequence, you undermine the very claims you are appealing to. All science takes place within a context and that context is going to be common sense, ultimately; the alternative is some truncation or corruption of it. So you might as well own it and own it to the fullest. All skepticisms suffer from the same problem, namely, the strange belief that you can know something while undermining the very conditions possibility of knowing it.

Note that by "common sense", we mostly mean that we take the human apprehension of the world as basically accurate, even if it is fuzzy around the edges or needs correction or refinement [0]. So at the very least, I think that the presumption is in favor of common sense. Your question does not provide a reason for doubting common sense categorically or even rejecting common sense interpretations of QM. It is a better idea to engage with the proposed interpretation, to understand it, and make specific criticisms instead.

[0] https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2012/10/aristotle...

[TheOtherHobbes]

No, common sense means we're using metaphors from a limited range of Earth-based everyday experience on a fairly cold planet where everything moves slowly to make predictions about physical phenomena.

In science, common sense has been wrong so consistently its wrongness is practically empirical.

QM, relativity, thermodynamics, gravity, astrophysics, electromagnetism, and math itself are profoundly and consistently unintuitive - to the extent that if someone starts a claim about reality with "Well, obviously..." you can pretty much bet they're wrong.

[breuleux]

> All skepticisms suffer from the same problem, namely, the strange belief that you can know something while undermining the very conditions possibility of knowing it.

I think these conditions are overstated. The human brain is a paraconsistent reasoning machine: it is made to be robust to inconsistency and contradiction. I think it is obvious that there exist logical contradictions in the belief systems of every human being, and it is equally obvious that we can reason productively in spite of them, so is it really that big of a deal?

It is not clear to me that we ought to believe something merely to avoid an inconsistency. If our common sense is indeed error-ridden, I would argue that it is ultimately better to accept the skeptic position and let our brains deal with the internal inconsistency than to accept a falsehood merely to preserve consistency.

[guerrilla]

> All skepticisms suffer from the same problem, namely, the strange belief that you can know something while undermining the very conditions possibility of knowing it.

This is incorrect. That's now how Pyrrhonism works. They have the same critiques of other skeptics.

[derbOac]

I have no idea what a common sense interpretation of QM would be.

I'm having trouble locating what I'm thinking of but I thought it had been established that at least one of three very non-common-sense interpretations of QM had to hold at this point.

[zeroonetwothree]

Isn’t the problem that everyone thinks a different interpretation is the “common sense” one?