This talk presents the Transactional Interpretation (TI), originally developed by John Cramer, and its relativistic extension (RTI) as developed by the speaker. TI is a kind of 'collapse' interpretation. However rather than make ad hoc changes to the basic quantum theory, it uses the direct-action or 'absorber' theory of fields, originally developed by Wheeler and Feynman, to obtain a physically grounded account of the measurement transition and collapse to a single outcome. The absorber theory, although historically neglected by 'mainstream' physics, was recently being recommended by Wheeler (2003) as a route to a theory of quantum gravity.
A dividend of the transactional approach is a natural derivation of the Born Rule that emerges from the physics alone. All processes and interacting systems can be accounted for within quantum theory once its interpretation is augmented by an active process of absorber response. The latter requires no changes to the theory, since absorber response is already implicit in the theory itself. Thus, this is a thoroughgoing realist approach that however does not depend on hidden variables or on any ad hoc changes to quantum theory.
This talk is part of a Lecture series on foundations of physics: scientific realism (260020 VO, 2.5 ECTS, ufind.univie.ac.at/en/course.html) organised by the students of natural science of the University of Vienna (see naturwissenschaftscafe.wordpress.com)
