[drdeca]

I don’t expect the particle has a one single path it takes. This is just an example of reality telling us our assumptions (“each particle has a single well-defined path it takes”) were mistaken.

“It’s claimed that the particle bounces off of vacuum fluctuations” : hm? Like some kind of classical particle bouncing off of something?

“ yet the energy predicted by these fluctuations is way bigger than what we measure” : This is indeed a mystery, one which people are working to resolve. You spoke earlier of wonder. Is this not something to wonder about?

[squeefers]

> Is this not something to wonder about?

no, i dont wonder about it, i worry about it. it means the theory is wrong - works most of the time like newtons, but cant explain these weird edge cases... highly likely to not be the full story. odds are on my side for that statement.

> This is just an example of reality telling us our assumptions (“each particle has a single well-defined path it takes”) were mistaken.

this is just a copout to explain the path integral. it acts AS IF it takes every path, but it cannot possibly take every path in an instant. mass creates gravity, so where were these gravitational effects? cannot be found. so this particle taking every path did it without mass somehow. little details like this conveniently without explanation in your theory.

[drdeca]

Hm, I think you are taking the language “takes every path” too literally. Like, set aside the “infinitely many paths” issue for a moment, and consider just two paths. A quantum superposition of two paths doesn’t mean “it took this path and also it took that path”. A quantum superposition is a different kind of thing from that. A quantum superposition is a linear combination.

A path integral involves an integral of e^{i S/hbar} where S is the action for a given path, with the integral being over the path, and evaluates to the amplitude from the starting state to the ending state.

(Of course, there are some difficulties defining integration over paths, especially if you want to get into QFT. Still.)

If you want to incorporate gravity into this, you probably need to do so within the path integral, with it being incorporated into the action.

But, of course, quantum gravity hasn’t been resolved, so to see why the issue you point to isn’t actually an issue, let me point out that the point you propose applies equally to electromagnetism: say we have an electron, and it goes from one point to another, and nearby we have a positively charged balloon. Replace “mass” with “electric charge” and “gravity” with “electromagnetic force” in your point, and we obtain an argument of the same form. But, QED works extremely well, and doesn’t predict an infinite electric charge in a region when an electron travels from one point to another (for the reason I said: the electromagnetic interaction between the electron and the balloon will appear within the action).