[Serious] Generally speaking, is philosophy a worthwhile subject of study?

[polymath257]

Considerations of these interpretations may have an impact on future findings, though.

Refer to the Aeon essay I posted earlier for an example of what you actually requested.

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Once again, the discussion of these interpretations is primarily a philosophical exercise and has had essentially no impact on the science (as fun as it is). Plus, in practice, the physicists do the philosophy better than the philosophers because they actually understand the science and math.. So even as philosophers, the philosophers fail.

Depends on the specialty of the philosopher. Those who specialize in mathematics and in science are expected to be as good as physicists in understanding the science and math. It's part of their expertise ...

By the way, it's physicists (not mere philosophers) who came up with many of the interpretations for quantum mechanics. Ironically.

And I was asking for actual philosophical theories that turned into good scientific ones.

The story about Hume and Einstein actually exemplifies my point: philosophy is best when it looks at hidden assumptions and NOT when it is making grand theories. Hume noted that our assumptions about time may not be correct and Einstein actually came up with a scientific theory that gave a new way of looking at time.

And, your last point that physicists have been the ones making up the interpretations is also to my point: philosophy is getting to be too hard for the philosophers. The physicists are actually the ones pushing the philosophical envelope. But the physicists also acknowledge that the differences between the interpretations are not very relevant: they all give exactly the same answers concerning observations so *they are all actually the same theory*. Sort of like the difference between Newtonian and Lagrangian mechanics. The point is that some perspectives suggest ways to actually do the calculations.