Quantum Mechanics

I wouldn't say embarrassment. Nobody has come up with the right interpretation that everyone can agree on. Possibly, there is no right interpretation. We have grown up in the macro world where everything averages out and makes sense (to us). Light acts like a particle or a wave depending how we look at it. We have nothing in our world that we can lay our hands on that does that, hence, no good model.

If you want to explore further, look into links to Bell's Inequality. Physical experiments have proven that the random results obtained from quantum systems cannot be attributed to any "hidden variables". The more they dig, the weirder it gets.
This only leaves Rixter's Hypotheses: "We're all living in a computer simulation and Quantum Mechanics is a software bug."

Not exactly right. The experiments on Bell's inequality didn't dis-prove hidden variable theory, what it showed was that if hidden variables exist they would evolve non-locally.

I am partial to Roger Penrose's ideas.

The many-world's interpretation has some appeal from a mathematical standpoint, but physically that suggests to me that the mass of the cosmos doubles every time the wave function collapses into two different states. I find it hard to accept that notion.

You're right, the options are 1) give up determinism (no hidden variables) or 2) give up locality (spooky action at a distance). I don't think most folks are happy with either one.

I find it interesting that the Copenhagen interpretation is the favorite. Did wavefunctions ever collapse before there were observers? Actually, I read an interesting SF novel written about the assumption that human observers had some strange ability to "collapse the wave function'.

http://www.amazon.com/Quarantine-A-Novel-Greg-Egan/dp/1597805386

My experience has always been that if something doesn't make sense, you aren't seeing the whole picture. So if there is any logic applicable at the quantum level, reality has to be a lot more complex than we know. All our models compare physical phenomena with things we can see and touch. Maybe reality is so foreign that we cannot image a model for it.

The concept that there must be a living observer is a bit of a misnomer in the Copenhagen interpretation.

Many people have sort of hijacked this to prove the idea of cosmic consciousness, but the wave function can also collapse when there is an interaction between particles or other wave functions.

I think the term used now is decoherence, which doesn't involve somebody making a measurement but only a thermodynamically irreversible interaction with the environment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_decoherence

It's a lot more scientific than assuming that someone has to be standing around watching.

I think you are right. Nice work.

Do you have a source for the idea that the wave function collapses when there is an interaction between particles?

The research I have heard of seems to say the opposite. I read that the process of photosynthesis in plants has a structure that derives extra energy from quantum effects in which the wave equation has not collapsed. That seems to show that the wave function does not collapse as a result of the interaction between the photon and the chlorophyll.

I have also read that you get quantum interference patterns even when you are using molecules up to the size of small proteins. It would seem that atoms interacting in a large molecule like that would collapse the wave function, if what you say is true.

So assuming that interactions between particles are not enough to cause a wave function to collapse, and that ALL interactions within a universe are fundamentally between particles, it follows that NO interactions limited to the contents of the universe are sufficient to cause the wave function to collapse.

If that is true, then does it follow that it requires an observer who is OUTSIDE the universe to observe it in order for the wave function to collapse? In other words, is it necessary for the observer be looking into the universe from a higher dimensional reality? And does that mean that if we (some?) humans can cause a collapse of a wave function, that means that we (some?) humans are actually higher dimensional beings (souls?) observing the universe through the "window" of a physical being?

Wikipedia is a start.

Too many infinities?

Is one enough and after that there is infinity overload? :)

I like that!

The tentacles of Microsoft must extend beyond the known universe. :)