alt Hacker News > none other than Einstein rejected a probabilistic interpretation of quantum physics
Plenty of physicists then and now still work hard on trying to figure out how to remove uncertainty in quantum mechanics. It's important to remember that randomness is a measurement of uncertainty.
We can't move forward if the current paradigm isn't challenged. But the way it is challenged is important. Einstein wasn't going around telling everyone they were wrong, but he was trying to get help in the ways he was trying to solve it. You still have to explain the rest of physics to propose something new.
Challenging ideas is fine, it's even necessary, but at the end of the day you have to pony up.
The public isn't forming opinions about things like Einstein. They just parrot authority. Most HN users don't even understand Schrödinger's cat and think there's a multiverse.
A core component of the Copenhagen interpretation is that quantum mechanics is fundamentally indeterministic meaning you are inherently and inescapably left with probabilistic/statistical systems. And yes, Einstein was saying people were wrong while offering no viable alternative. His motivation was purely ideological - he believed in a rational deterministic universe, and the Copenhagen Interpretation didn't fit his worldview.
For instance this is the complete context of his spooky action at a distance quote: "I cannot seriously believe in [the Copenhagen Interpretation] because the theory cannot be reconciled with the idea that physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky action at a distance." Framing things like entanglement as "spooky action at a distance" was obviously being intentionally antagonistic on top of it all as well.
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And yes, if it wasn't clear by my tone - I believe the West in has gradually entered onto the exact sort of death of science phase I am speaking about. A century ago you had uneducated (formally at least) brothers working as bicycle repairmen pushing forward aerodynamics and building planes in their spare time. Today, as you observe, even people with excessive formal education, access to [relatively] endless resources, endless information, and more - seem to have little ambition in exploiting that, rather than passively consuming it. It goes some way to explaining why some think LLMs might lead to AGI.