A question for all the physicists and physics enthusiasts on the Fedi: What is the best exposition you've seen of something approximating the Copenhagen Interpretation or a relatively orthodox view of quantum measurement? That's intentionally a bit vague (because people even seem to disagree a bit about what these words mean), but I'm definitely excluding things like MWI or Bohmian mechanics here.
Ever since I first read "The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics" by Dewitt, I have been a subscriber to the MWI. I was essentially following the maxim of Arthur Conan Doyle, "When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth;" The MWI was the only interpretation of QM that ever seemed internally consistent to me.
But I sometimes wonder if I just haven't seen a really good presentation of a more orthodox view. People who subscribe to something that might be called the orthodox or Copenhagen Interpretation often don't really seem to think the topic merits serious discussion, so perhaps that's why they don't make very convincing arguments. Is there a really good version of these ideas that I've been missing?
@internic I'm far from being an expert, but I think that part of the problem with Copenhagen is that even the supporters had different views. Bohr, Pauli and Heisenberg didn't say exactly the same.
Physicists like Sean Carroll say that the Copenhagen interpretation is not very well established, but Carroll is a strong MWI supporter, one has to say.
@davidsuculum Right. While I haven't spent much time looking into those historical sources, I agree that my impression is that they weren't necessarily entirely consistent. But I'm assuming some more contemporary folks must have tried to defend something in the ballpark of this view (one that includes state reduction caused by measurements), something orthodox-ish.
I think a more contemporary account would also be more valuable because it would hopefully incorporate our understanding of environmentally-induced decoherence, which we only started getting a handle on in the 70s and 80s.
