Philosophical interpretations of quantum physics are unknowingly retreading old ground because their champions are specialists in physics who aren't all well-versed in the history of philosophy.
Sure. Although, any interpretation of quantum theory is going to be “philosophical”. Retreading old ground is all there really is now. The physics of tomorrow could always be different or allow us to do different stuff (space travel, VR). It’s finding new meaning in what’s there, and it’s only new insofar as you weren’t completely focused on it at the moment. Believe it or not, everything has been figured out since the dawn of time, big picture wise. It’s all been said before. The universe is a simulation according to that, and if you aren’t “reborn” when you die, then it isn’t, not in the traditional sense at least. Philosophy and science sort of go hand in hand. They aren’t “proving” philosophical ideas, it’s more so that boundaries appear to be dissolving. Take Plato’s Cave, and then science is just adding extra data to try and figure more of that out.
I think that the key to understanding quantum physics is not Berkeleian subjective idealism, but Kantian transcendental idealism. The collapse of the wave function by an act of observation and, indeed, empirical observation in general, corresponds to the Kantian synthesis of the imagination, whereby diverse sense-impressions are combined into a single perception by the application by the application of a priori mental categories such as reciprocity and causality.
I don’t think either of those need be a key to understanding quantum physics. Indeed, idealism is mostly just what’s in someone’s head. It’s as if that’s what true means, that just because it’s what they could come up with, must mean it’s true or valid, although that isn’t necessarily true. If something isn’t in an idealists head, for instance, to them it’s impossible for it to exist (so they place the burden of proof on the “accused”).
For Kant as well as Bohr, the empirical world is Newtonian, but only because we are so constituted as to perceive the world as a community of Newtonian bodies (patches of a determinate sensory quality in space), which is why it is wrong to, as is sometimes done, assert that Kant's synthetic a priori was refuted by the discovery of phenomena that resist Newtonian explanation. It should surprise nobody that we are unable to see precisely how photons behave, since it is precisely by means of photons (or, more precisely, their interactions with our retinas inasmuch as they contribute sense-data to the mental synthesis) that we are able to see at all. Photons belong to the ontic substratum of perception and are, for this very reason, distinct from it. Light is not electromagnetic radiation any more than a school of fish is a fish.
If Kant is considered some golden age of philosophy, circa 1780, even though his work wasn’t appreciated until the end of of his life, then that puts more things into context, considering quantum theory was developed circa 1926. They weren’t trying to prove any philosophy. Even though he agreed with Newton saying space is absolute, and Einstein later said it was relative, that wouldn’t disprove his idea besides it needing to, maybe, be updated or explained a little more. Bohr postulated his model of the atom after they noticed too many discrepancies using classical physics. It was based on the Newtonian solar system where planets revolve around the sun, so electrons revolve around the nucleus, however, that didn’t make sense based off the physics. Thus, he said, based off spectroscopic lines, that electrons can only move in discrete states, and not accelerate stably. It’s all just building a worldview to explain the world we live in, traditionally science “predicted” things, and so, that’s what it does. The Solvay Conference of 1926 was an attempt at “explaining everything”, as if they were tired of the lack of any utopia.
The relevance of Kant here is just his categorical imperative, “Whatever you do, consider what would happen if it became a universal law.”
As logic or a piece of reason, it makes sense, considering society. It’s a safeguard and attempt at maintaining civility. However, people will use it to their advantage to, basically, obtain more resources for their own use, mostly via manipulation. At the heart of things, it really isn’t true (since the actual existence, and universe, is an alternate reality where everyone else is enslaved, and I rule), although that’s harder to manifest in this reality.
Berkeley said there was no material substratum, and Kant held that the mind contains all. The universe could still operate on holographic principles, in which the whole is “contained within each pixel”, for stability.
Although, I think we can know or see how photons behave, unless you mean we can’t imagine the perspective of a photon, for instance in Einstein’s thought experiment of moving at the speed of light on a photon/light wave, so as to experience time dilation and the act seeming instant. We know some stuff about photons from Einstein’s photoelectric effect. True, we can only see because of light. Our ancestor fish that had three eyes, used the third one to see the surface of water, which also helped seeing any predator birds that might eat them. When they moved to land, the third eye wasn’t as necessary, so it receded into the head and became a (“the pineal”) gland, “regulating body temperature”. So, it is interesting that we must use light from the sun, a star, to see. Life will never develop on planets around blue stars because they emit mostly UV radiation, which causes cancer and will kill any microbes or “life” (as we do or don’t know it) attempting to develop and evolve. It goes into our eyeballs, through optic tracts into the visual projection area and, by all means, the superior colliculus as well.
EM radiation is another word for light, or vice versa. I think ultimately that synthetic propositions are, in a big picture sense, analytical propositions. It ultimately then has nothing really to do with metaphysical truths. A synthetic, a priori statement is really just an analytical one.
So everything isn’t “one”? I would only say that tongue in cheek wise, as a hippie/“New Age” idea to try and be vaguely funny, and if people thought I was serious, they didn’t get the joke. I don’t think everything is one or that everyone is equal, then. That “equal opportunity” stuff is just barbarism. I think we’re just approaching Wittgenstein and the picture theory of language, where words induce an image in someone’s head. Choosing your words is important, then, so as to manipulate the idea you want to communicate in another person’s mind. Unfortunately, people don’t listen, or care, and they just think about what they’ll think about anyway, for lack of trust and heavy skepticism, wherein not everyone has any business being that skeptical to begin with. It’s a trend. The only thing people are doing with their life is consuming, they aren’t thinking, just trying to look at as many things as possible before they die, I guess.
If you’re INTP try to imagine what it’s like being another type (not ISFJ, though). Take ESFP for instance. They. Do not. Think. They just look at stuff then get ideas. They don’t think. It’s easy to see how people make mistakes, though - I guess.
