It made me wonder if things like mass, and position are not truly the fundamental building blocks of existence, but are only derived phenomena from something even more fundamental — Brendan Golledge

How would we even be able to know what state or lack of states quanta has apart from measurement?

Suppose spacetime is fundamentally entangled ... — 180 Proof

From what I gather it doesn't mean much for our day to day lives, but for quantum cryptography maybe.

So you are trying to find the right terms to interpret a mathematical model. Language games again. — substantivalism

Not language games, just that translating the math is hard because quantum physics isn't exactly intuitive.

These mental tools do not need a degree for someone to fully analyze it or get it on first viewing. — substantivalism

Yes they do, otherwise you end up with people like you talking about things they don't understand.

When a scientist has constructed explanations of phenomena they make use of something other than purely descriptive or mathematical terms. They use an assortment of analogies to other phenomenon — substantivalism

No they're not. We have data and then determine what that data means. If you put sodium in water and it explodes you can reason that sodium and water create that reaction.

Usually going along the same lines as saying 'let us treat light as if it were a wave', 'imagine that the electron is small ball and the nucleus is a dense collection', or 'pretend that atoms in lattices are balls connected by springs'. — substantivalism

Not language games and not what they do.

These are analogue modeling which is extremely prevalent and a fundamental fiction creating tool which physicists use all the time. — substantivalism

Not fiction.

I'd say that is all that the majority of what a scientific interpretation of a theory is composed of.

How else would you explain to someone what a mathematical model even means when there are no familiar, direct, and meaningful concepts? — substantivalism

Easily, we do it every day. Math is part of how we get the result but that's not all physics is. You're just making shit up that scientists don't do to try to justify that philosophy has some use when it's long been obsolete in navigating the world apart from ethics and morality.

The only thing I can think of is that maybe position and momentum aren't really the fundamental building blocks of existence, but maybe the wave function itself (which describes a probability distribution of position or momentum) is the true existence of the particle. — Brendan Golledge

They are and it's not.

Not language games, just that translating the math is hard because quantum physics isn't exactly intuitive. — Darkneos

Your acting as if there is some clear god given manner in which you translate the math into ordinary language. The fact that we do disagree on how to do so means that it isn't so much a revelation to a scientist as much as it is a long drawn out unending debate that has numerous subjective threads.

Such as appeals to: Empirical adequacy, simplicity, unificationism, counterfactual restriction of physical possibilities, conceptual pragmatic utility, etc. There are many other such subjective meta-criteria that scientists appeal to all the time especially when falsifiability fails to be able to yield any useful or clear answer.

No they're not. We have data and then determine what that data means. If you put sodium in water and it explodes you can reason that sodium and water create that reaction. — Darkneos

What you just stated is a description NOT an explanation nor is it how this would be explained regardless.

Where are the talk of atoms? Subatomic or atomic interactions? Fields of force? Quantum fields? Talk of little billiard balls or liquid wave functions?

I don't see those in the reaction as those are terms and stories meant to refer to something not in the description you just gave. They are meant to REFER to something UNSEEN and what is truly responsible for the reaction that took place. I was talking about EXPLANATIONS and not MERE DESCRIPTIONS.

Not language games and not what they do. — Darkneos

Then give me an example of how a scientist explains something using quantum mechanics that doesn't make use of math, descriptive language, or uses any form of metaphor/analogical speech. Go ahead, I'm waiting.

Not fiction. — Darkneos

Is the Rutherford model of an atom meant to be taken as how atoms actually are or merely a useful fiction?

Easily, we do it every day. Math is part of how we get the result but that's not all physics is. You're just making shit up that scientists don't do to try to justify that philosophy has some use when it's long been obsolete in navigating the world apart from ethics and morality. — Darkneos

Making it up!!

Read a scientific journal on the topic matter. . . a quick search got me this paper on hydrodynamic analogue modeling for gravitational modeling (https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0511105). Clearly, a hydrodynamical analogy is much more amenable to investigate or wrap your head around than talking about the forest of pure math approaches to quantum gravity along with the unclear, vague, or esoteric language that accompanies it. This is a valid approach.

Here is an entire 452 page textbook collection of articles on analogue models just for understanding gravitational phenomenon or as it puts it 'analogue gravity phenomenology'. Which is a deeply rich text which can only speak for itself:

Reasoning by analogies is a natural inclination of the human brain that operates by associating new and unknown situations to a series of known and previously encountered situations. On the basis of these analogies, judgements and decisions are made: associations are the building blocks for predictive thought. It is therefore natural that analogue models are also a constant presence in the world of physics and an invaluable instrument in the progress of our knowledge of the world that surrounds us. It would be impossible to give a comprehensive list of these analogue models but a few recent and relevant examples are optical waveguide analogues of the relativistic Dirac equation (linking optics with quantum mechanics), photonic crystals (linking optical wave propagation in periodic lattices with electron propagation in metals) or, at a more profound level, the Anti-de Sitter/Conformal Field Theory correspondence (linking quantum systems in D dimensions to gravitational systems in D+1dimensions). The purpose of this book is to give a general overview and introduction to the world of analogue gravity: the simulation or recreation of certain phenomena that are usually attributed to the effects of gravity but that can be shown to naturally emerge in a variety of systems ranging from flowing liquids to nonlinear optics.

This isn't only limited to gravity as here is a huge plethora of quantum analogue models along with well needed discussions as to the place or importance of them. Happy reading!

Do you believe quantum particles can be in multiple statea at once, and why believe that?