Quantum Theory, Historical Contingency and the "Copenhagen" Hegemony

对本世纪初量子力学发展历史的考察表明，通常被认为是科学的“内部”因素(如逻辑一致性、经验充分性、繁殖力等)和“外部”因素(如一些主要科学家的专业竞争和先前的形而上学承诺)都具有本质影响。这两类因素本身都不能解释为什么科学界的共识选择了对量子力学的“哥本哈根”解释，因为它在微观过程层面上具有无穷无尽的不确定性，实际上排除了同样具有充分经验和丰富的因果版本的量子力学，在这种版本中，人们拥有微系统在时空背景中的确定性、连续性和可描绘的演化。库欣教授认为，在实际的历史记录中，存在着对某些高度偶然性事件的可能的、事实上似乎是可信的时间重新排序，这可能导致人们接受确定性、因果量子理论，从而排除了目前固有的非决定论的正统观点--哥本哈根。在这个研究项目中，库欣教授正在探索科学中存在一个与公认的地位相抗衡的可行对手的后果，以及科学未能探索这种替代方案。他认为，这提出了实际问题，而不仅仅是原则问题，即经验基础对公认的科学理论的确定不足，以及科学提供的知识的可靠性问题。

An examination of the history of the development of quantum mechanics in the early part of the present century shows the essential influence both of factors usually taken to be "internal" to science (such as logical consistency, empirical adequacy, fertility and the like) and of "external" ones (such as professional rivalries and prior metaphysical commitments of some of the major scientists). Neither class of factors alone can explain why the "Copenhagen" interpretation of quantum mechanics, with its ineliminable indeterminism at the level of microprocesses, was chosen by the consensus of the scientific community to the virtual exclusion of an equally empirically adequate and fertile causal version of quantum mechanics in which one has the deterministic, continuous and picturable evolution of microsystems in a space-time background. Professor Cushing argues that there exists a possible, and in fact plausible, temporal reordering of certain highly contingent events in the actual historical record that could have resulted in the acceptance of a deterministic, causal quantum theory to the exclusion of the present "Copenhagen" orthodoxy of inherent indeterminism. In this research project, Professor Cushing is exploring the ramifications of the existence of a viable rival to the accepted position in science and the failure of science to explore this alternative. He argues that this raises practical as opposed to just in-principle problems of the underdetermination of accepted scientific theories by an empirical basis and questions of the reliability of the knowledge with which science provides.