Do you think the Schrödinger equation from quantum mechanics is a true description of reality?

No, quantum mechanics (QM) does not represent universal reality hidden under the collapsed wavefunctions due to the inherent quantum measurement problem wherein the fundamental universal reality is altered or destroyed. QM is not a theory but only a correlation of the collapsed wavefunctions that works very well within the range of its validity wherein the prediction errors are small, such as worldly technological applications - quantum computers, cell phones etc. The correlation fails badly at universal scales as evidenced in the QFT predictions of vacuum energy being off by 120 orders of magnitude, the worst ever prediction of science. As described in the paper - "Resolving Collapse of the Wavefunction" - (https://ijqf.org/archives/7927) , the quantum uncertainty may not be a fundamental reality but only a measurement problem, vindicating Einstein that God doesn't play dice with the universe.

And who/what observes the observer, if nothing exist, how can exist a "first" observer if need a previous first observer, and so on in infinito regression.

Not logical sound...

The idea of Quantum Flux seems to be a scientific way of saying 'Nothing exists unless I care enough to notice it'

An actual schrodinger's cat has a point of view of some sort, so IT will notice being alive or dead. Or at least respond to it...Or not.

So the cat experiment relies on the cat not being real until somebody wonders about it. The evidence I have heard about (not fully understood) suggests at the Extra-Tiny level there are bits of matter that work that way too.

Perhaps everything was just Truly solid blocks of substance, or Truly empty space until people figured out out to look REALLY CLOSELY!

As we are parts of the world, that would mean the world created itself. We are just the only parts we know of that can wonder about it.

(I realize the cat is just an analogy, but it is fun to think that one through. And a thing's reality requiring an observer, to coalesce, is just as messed up a concept as the cat idea)

My opinion is that a hundred years from now, no. However my opinion is uninformed because I don’t understand the math. It’s all about the math. Of course that’s another uninformed opinion.

My understanding is that the Schrödinger equation describes reality only through the two perspectives with which we comprehend the elementary particles of the universe. It doesn't say this is the complete perspective of the universe.

I think this is the essential question, "How do we then describe anything." I have a background in science and years of meditation which asks the same question -Who is it that hears, who is it that sees. As far as the inclusion of the observer as part of the quantum world, that is at the core of the actual answer. Anything separated from the quantum world cannot understand the quantum world, which reveals that very aspect of reality. Sir Roger Penrose's thinking on consciousness and quantum entanglement offer s very good explanation of this. In reality we exist in a state of superposition ( how the wave function evolves over time, but only when the system is left unobserved), but the moment we check on the position of an electron, or for that matter anything by labeling it, defining it, the wave function collapses which equals the birth of consciousness or separation or narrowing the place it actually was. The measurement problem is a mystery because we keep trying to understand it using the very thing that cannot understand it, human consciousness. We supposed that our view of reality or how we choose to view it or measure it is thought to be a given, an assumed, entrenched reality. Recent Noble Laureates in physics revealed there is no local reality or substantiality i.e. wave function reality. We are finally asking the right question which is, "Are we asking the right question" in terms of our actual way of viewing reality as a species. Quantum mechanics is telling us the answer.

This seems like the critical point; "...the phenomenon of quantum entanglement isn’t an objective fact—it actually depends on the circumstances of the observer. “Things that don’t look entangled in one frame can look entangled in another,” de la Hamette says. ... The same is true for the phenomenon of superposition...". If entanglement and superposition are not 'real', but just artifacts of how we measure, quantum theories may not be as mysterious as they seem.

Much of the discussion relies on an obsolete notion of reality, imprinted on humans by the particular environment that shaped our evolution. We think of a chair as real, and associate with it descriptors like shape, color, position, speed. Quantum mechanics teaches that these adjectives are simply not relevant for describing a deeper concept of reality. To transcend our umwelt and reach a better understanding of nature, we must rely on a more abstract description, but one that can relate to our classical intuitions. That reality is the wave function. Of course we know that the notion of reality goes even deeper, starting with relativistic quantum field theory.

QM represents the effort of the human mind to describe phenomena that couldn't be described with what was considered as natural laws - the reality - in a deterministic frame. Take for example the emission spectrum of an atom. If you make an approach considering that different outcomes are possible, you look for an instrument and interpretation of the outcome that are essentially non-deterministic.

The way to do that is ascribing a non-deterministic character to that part of the 'reality' which is matter. From this first axiom arises the question: How can matter be described with mathematical instruments in that manner? The answer is: describe matter as a wave, of which can be said like for 'The Red Pimpernel', is it here? is it there? or is it everywhere? There are at once many possible outcomes, and we know that one of them will occur now we conduct our experiment, but we don't know beforehand which one, where and when. That makes the inquiry manageable asking: what is the probability of every possible outcome?

To achieve those outcomes, a mathematical instrument has to be devised in which every variable needs to be assigned a very definite physical meaning. That's a logical requirement of the method that we use in Physics and is called 'scientific'. With the aid of (theoretical) axioms and (practical) constrains like boundary conditions and the like, we arrive at outcomes that can be tested by experiments. That is not done in a couple of minutes, but requires a long time, a huge number of smart minds working on it, experiencing failures and successes and the use of material means - machines, devices - to put that all into effect.

The Schrödinger equation is the key element in the approach in which all these deep insights can be concentrated. The mathematical expression of it is extremely flexible and can be used depending on what we want to consider, just a theoretical exercise or search for its validity when describing nature, by comparing its outcomes with experimental results within the limits of the experimental uncertainty inherent to any measurement.

In this last respect, the validation of the outcomes of the Schrödinger equation follows the same path as those obtained in Classical Physics. The essential difference between both is that because of the statistical nature in the description of nature used by QM, the number of experiments that needs to be conducted in order to achieve an equivalent certainty of the QM outcomes must be greater and the set-up of the experiment being much more complex.

Because of the statistical nature of the method, you need to work with large ensembles of objects, and the conclusion will be applied to 'objects' in general - not 'this' object! - or 'that percentage of objects' to state a specific behavior of the objects involved. And that is the essential difference between both approaches. The 'quantitative' certitude achieved in QM may be larger, the 'qualitative' is less.

It is already well known since about 1930 that the Schrodinger equation is an approximation that produces errors for certain classes of physical problems. A key point is that the Schrodinger equation is a non-relativistic equation which means that it assumes that the relative speeds of all particles in the physical system of interest, say the electron and proton in a hydrogen atom, are small compared to the speed of light. When the relative speeds of particles start to become close enough to the speed of light, collisions can cause new particles to appear and disappear and an entirely new mathematical formalism called quantum field theory is needed to calculate what is going on. The Schrodinger equation is accurate for many daily phenomena that people are interested in like chemistry, engineering, material science, and nearly all of biology and medicine --- phenomena that are room temperature or colder. Although quantum field theory extends the quantum world to high-speed high-energy physical systems, it too is incomplete since it does not include gravity.

In spite of all its correct predictions, quantum mechanics smells of phlogiston, to me. I hope it is superseded by 2126.

As any equation attempting to describe our universe or a part of it, this equation is a model, not the reality. Therefore, it cannot be a "true description of the reality". A map should not be confounded with the land, and a model cannot be the reality.

Nevertheless, as a map can be useful to find his way in a land, physical equations, like the Schrödinger one, are useful to describe natural phenomenon, and therefore, to describe - with some uncertainty - what happens in the reality.

The nature and character of the facets of non-locality.

From the 3 Uncertainty Principles we have now there would be 6 types of non-locality

Richard Feynman had suggested there could be 100 types of non-locality

We always forget to include ourselves in any equation, as professor Stephen Hawking realized when rewriting his A Brief History of Time, we are part of the universe that we observe. When Schrödingers cat is in the box, there's three of us: the cat, the box and I. There are three possibilities: the cat is alive, the cat is dead, I am not there to witness. With every possible step I make in this world, I am always in the middle of left and right. Quantum mechanics started with the atoms we are made of, of how we are IN everything from the start of Life. The atoms of my DNA are entangled for billions of years with every other atom because they come from the same source. We are.

Honestly, isn't it a bit presumptuous to think

that three pounds of neurons are going to be able

to grasp the mystery that is reality?

Try explaining quantum mechanics to an ant

when we are the ant.

Not the smartest kid in the class, but this is interesting. It could open many doors to new and perhaps correct answers to some of the biggest questions. I Love SCIAM.

first i must say that i am not trained a a physicist, nor do i have the advanced math needed to truly evaluate the issue at hand. i will regress to Newton's Law of Gravity. this equation does work, it is true, but only in particular settings. it is therefore true in limited cicumstances. this is because Newton could not travel in space. he did not have the technology. he did not have computers. The periodic table of elements was a revelation when it was discovered. the discovery that the two electrons in the first shell of electrons spin in opposite directions was stupendous. our tools for observing and measuring at the atomic and subatomic level are crude, light striking an electron, let alone a smaller particle moves it. schrodinger's equation probably describes a set of instances in certain circumstances and we cannot evaluate it from outside of being on Earth. it is like an equation from a topology that describes a shape in three space, but only parts of it, because the shape exists in seven space. bur since schrodinger's equation is the tool we have to use, we should use it and be observant for the instances when it does not describe what we are "seeing"; we can only improve upon it when we see when it does not work. besides, who are we to decide what is and is not reality? reality on Earth is probably not reality aboard the USS Enterprise going at warp nine.

I don't have a degree in physics, so my thoughts may be naive; but Schrödinger didn't know what he had with this equation until Born came along to give it some direction. Everyone went, "Wow! This can fit our observations!" But that only happened after some odd speculation (superposition?) and mathematical gymnastics. (Shut up and compute!) I think Schrodinger's equation is a model, a nice model on the order of F=ma. Useful, but incomplete, as we have seen with relativity. The reality may be something else.

Measuring a quantum something [QS] - particle or wave - always means the interaction of that QS with another QS, because on the size level of the QS everything else is also a QS. At the moment of measuring the Schrödinger equation collapses and the QS becomes 'classic' - it is in a definite place or it has a definite momentum. That explains why the world as we know it is behaving in a classical way, as everything is (almost) always in contact with everything else. In other words: everything is always being measured and the Schrödinger equation of everything is always collapsed.

So, a measurement has nothing to do with 'observation', let alone with us as observers - a wide spread misunderstanding.

The Schrodinger equation does describe physical reality, but not as it is presently interpreted. The same goes for the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Both represent a quantum discrete-point Newtonian like absolute space that finds its realization of physical presence within the embedding space dimension in the form of a five-dimensional time-space. this physical model of reality blends and brings together the correct aspects all of the different variations of quantum paradigm, unifying them with an extended general relativity, thermodynamics (which explains physical evolution and supersedes the Darwinian based evolution of life). Maxwellian electromagnetism and Newtonian physics. It is also used to explain life, mind and consciousness. It takes predictions, some of which have been verified, and explains a great deal in physics which has so far been beyond explanation in physics such as DE and DM. The theory is based as much on Schrodinger's work in quantum theory and space-time structure as much as Einstein's work on the unified field theory. This theory is called the single (operational) field theory or SOFT.

It seems to me that the "subjectivity" of space and time per general relativity implies that what we are actually doing is comparing perceptions in an attempt to find the commonalities that guarantee that our perceptions are reasonably accurate representations of reality. Quantum frames of reference apparently also display subjectivity. I find that a pleasing thought.

Perceptions are all we have. Mathematics is the most precise language we have for comparing our perceptions and thereby discovering their commonalities. Those commonalities are structures, relationships between the elements of perceptions. The structures of our perceptions must somehow match the structures of reality, else we would not survive -- we would not be here to talk about them.

I've long puzzled where in Schrodinger's Gedankenexperiment the "observation" actually occurs. It's not when the "observer" opens the box and says "Here Kitty!" (or not, as the case may be). It looks like I may get an answer. :-)

Mind is all there is. How humans have constructed Reality, the science of Reality and components of the Universe (Reality) itself. Finally the 'big boys' have been figuring it out, the Observer/Reality question itself. No such thing, Objective reality. And human 'measurement' is what do humans do, constructing Reality. A big Thank You!

The Schrödinger equation is one little piece of a general mathematical-physical theory and I'd say it's very likely that that theory has the resources to provide us with a "true" description of reality. However, I think it's important to recognise that without an interpretation it doesn't describe anything and that different interpretations describe radically different realities. Furthermore, what is and isn't a mystery or a problem in QM is highly interpretation dependent. In particular it's not generally true that the measurement problem remains the central mystery of QM (as Matt Leifer et al pointed out recently: arXiv:2506.00112 ).

here to learn

Yes it does. The measurement problem is solved at https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.06375 , by applying the equation to the components of any measuring device and assuming that the resulting perturbations of a quantum system have a random component associated with a lack of precise knowledge of the device's components' wave functions. The Born Rule is thereby derived, not an independent postulate.