Jaynes on the Mind

Edwin Jaynes: some refs 

The major thesis-Randomness is all in the mind. Epistemological interpretations of probability. Bayesian objectivist and sometimes subjectivist (a la de Finetti and Ramsey). Big believer in Jeffreys and the use of his objectivist priors or maxent methods for fixing (maximally uninformative) priors. 

The book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0521592712

Probability Theory: The Logic of Science: Principles and Elementary Applications Vol 1 [Hardcover]  (only volume 1 available)

 

 

The entire book as PDF:

 

http://pjp-75.uio.no/backup/Salvage/Game.Design.eBooks.Pack/Programming/Probability%20Theory%20-%20The%20Logic%20of%20Science.pdf?bcsi_scan_dd0fad490e5fad80=0&bcsi_scan_filename=Probability%20Theory%20-%20The%20Logic%20of%20Science.pdf

 

 

The website:

http://bayes.wustl.edu/  (worth a look, links to all). 

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Thompson_Jaynes Real strident fellow. Think he may have been a Republican? Or maybe it was just the fashion of the times!

 

Jaynes’ attack on Copenhagen Interpretation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_projection_fallacy

 

 

Refs on Interpretations of Quantum

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_quantum_mechanics (table pasted below)

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics

 

Note that many interpretations including the now popular many worlds interpretation do not require a belief in physical randomness and instead are fully deterministic.  

 

nterpretation	Author(s)	Deterministic?	Wavefunction real?	Unique history?	Hidden variables?	Collapsing wavefunctions?	Observer role?	Local?	Counterfactual definiteness?	Universal wavefunction exists?
Ensemble interpretation	Max Born, 1926	Agnostic	No	Yes	Agnostic	No	None	No	No	No
Copenhagen interpretation	Niels Bohr,Werner Heisenberg, 1927	No	No1	Yes	No	Yes2	Causal	No	No	No
de Broglie–Bohm theory	Louis de Broglie, 1927,David Bohm, 1952	Yes	Yes3	Yes4	Yes	No	None	No	Yes	Yes
von Neumann interpretation	John von Neumann, 1932,John Archibald Wheeler,Eugene Wigner	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Causal	No	No	Yes
Quantum logic	Garrett Birkhoff, 1936	Agnostic	Agnostic	Yes5	No	No	Interpretational6	Agnostic	No	No
Many-worlds interpretation	Hugh Everett, 1957	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	None	Yes	No	Yes
Popper's interpretation[46]	Karl Popper, 1957[47]	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	None	Yes	Yes13	No
Time-symmetric theories	Yakir Aharonov, 1964	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No
Stochastic interpretation	Edward Nelson, 1966	No	No	Yes	No	No	None	No	No	No
Many-minds interpretation	H. Dieter Zeh, 1970	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Interpretational7	Yes	No	Yes
Consistent histories	Robert B. Griffiths, 1984	Agnostic8	Agnostic8	No	No	No	Interpretational6	Yes	No	No
Objective collapse theories	Ghirardi–Rimini–Weber, 1986, Penrose interpretation, 1989	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	None	No	No	No
Transactional interpretation	John G. Cramer, 1986	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes9	None	No14	Yes	No
Relational interpretation	Carlo Rovelli, 1994	No	No	Agnostic10	No	Yes11	Intrinsic12	Yes	No	No