Re: Physicists Disagree Over *Meaning* ! (interesting thoughts -at last!)

--- In [email protected], Alan Forrester <alanmichaelforrester@...> wrote:
>
> On 19 Feb 2013, at 13:12, JAG <jaguarnight2012@...> wrote:
> 
> > Physicists Disagree Over *Meaning* of Quantum Mechanics, (Poll Shows)
> > 
> > http://www.livescience.com/26444-quantum-mechanics-physicists-poll.html
> > 
> > A Snapshot of Foundational *Attitudes* Toward Quantum Mechanics
> > 
> > http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.1069
> > 
> > Can we see now, why EVERYTHING depends on attitude/meaning/justification/explanation?
> 
> It depends on explanation, not on the other three ideas you mentioned, and especially not on justification, which is an impediment to progress.


Yes, it's all about *explanation* but the point i was trying to make, and am not sure if you can see that, is that explanations mainly depend on our attitudes and justifications. (in what else?) ;)
It is the attitudes and justifications, in concert, that give the necessary *meaning* to make an *explanation* true and valid. ;) 

I am surpised that you can not see and 'accept' a few things !!!!

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." -Aristotle

> 
> The many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is true. There is no single universe explanation of single particle interference experiments or the EPR experiment. And the theory itself implies the existence of the multiverse: a structure that can be approximated in some circumstances by a collection of universes each of which obeys the laws of classical physics.

Well said, and i could not agree more!


> 
> This raises the question of why so many physicists are so confused about this issue. Part of the trouble is that some of the founders of quantum mechanics were influenced by a bad philosophical idea: logical positivism. They claimed that science is only about things you can observe and not about how the world works and they applied this to quantum mechanics. 


Very true, and again, i could not agree more. Actually, i am asking the very same questions, and in most part, i have come to the same conclusions as you here. But, isn't that a different approach than you had earlier when were talking about Popper's philosophy  -and his claims about justification? ;)

 "The only use of a knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present. The present contains all that there is. It is holy ground; for it is the past, and it is the future." 
-Alfred North Whitehead



> Where did logical positivism come from? Some philosophers thought that science could be justified by observation. But, in fact, if you say "a particle is at x" all that follows from this is that "a particle is at x". So some philosophers decided that science should only make statements about observations because nothing else can be justified.

That's exactly what i have been arguing all along! 

 
> There were two major mistakes in this idea both of which were impediments to progress in understanding quantum mechanics. The first was the idea that science is about justifying ideas from observation. You can't see all of the multiverse so by this standard we would be irrational to think it exists. The second mistake was to take observations for granted instead of asking how they worked because they are supposedly foundations on which we justify ideas. The person who first understood the existence of the multiverse, Hugh Everett III, did it in part by realising to understand quantum mechanics you have to be willing to reconsider your understanding of measurements, which is incompatible with treating measurement results as foundations.

"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." 
-Albert Einstein 


Exactly, but in others words, Everett figured another way to *justify* a few things, and was BRAVE enough, among other things, to even question his own assumptions and justification!
In essence, that is exactly what you are saying (and i could NOT agree more) when you speak of willingness to reconsider ANY understanding of measurements -and of method for that matter! ;0

On a different note, that's exactly why we are here too, isn't? 


> > Can we see now that we can NOT have an *objective* SCIENCE since all method amd measurements are done and evaluated by *subjective* processes/experiences (in short, by ourselves)?
> 
> So you're an inductivist and a subjectivist.

Not really but then, sometimes YES i have to be, out of necessity, depending the field/issue -and the availability of tools.

"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more importantthan knowledge... Knowledge is limited. ...Imagination encircles the world." 
-Albert Einstein

As a Cognitive/Developmental psychologist/researcher (with backgrounds in Chemistry and Philosophy) i would tell you that a few things are way and by far more important, difficult and complicated than you think and assume here ;)  

Some of the things you said are true and good enough (with some revision) only when dealing with certain issues in QM, and i agree with you. But when it comes to the Mind-Brain problem, and some other problems/issues (Will, Identity, issues in Neurology, etc.), your line of thinking and approach, simply won't do the deed! ;)

> > Can we see and recognize now the need for a *complementary* theory/science? is it possible?

"Consciousness without imagination is a contradiction. Mind that lacks wonder is mindless. But what is mind? Perhaps the best definition I can give is that mind is the best 'metaphor' of all possible metaphors." -Fred Alan Wolf, Taking the Quantum leap 


Now, if you ask me, what kind of 'science' can really include conceps such as imagination, intersubjectivity, intuition etc., i will tell you that:

1) you finally got my attention, 
2) that while it seems kinda impossible, actually it is feasible... 
3) that is exactly where Quantum Mechanics (QM) becomes relevant and important -and going beyond its main/immediate goals, but then we do have to work out the details ;)

 
> > 
> > what are the implictions of such theory/endeavor?
> 
> The implications are a failure to make substantive progress in understanding quantum mechanics for the past 80 years, except by the few people who have rejected the ideas you're peddling. The lack of understanding of quantum mechanics is, in part, a result of the triumph of the ideas that you advocate. 

True and false at the same time. You are assuming a lot here, both about me and my methods and goals.

"Organized nonsense is already a defense, just as organized chaos is a denial of chaos."
-D. W. Winnicot, Playing and Reality


I don't "advocate" anything but i do question EVERYTHING. So PLEASE do not hurry in hasty conclusions and generalizations. AT LAST, please! 

My love for Knowledge and the pursuit of "truth", are by far more important than 'me' and maybe all the 'scientific' theories and philosophies of the world. On the other hand, QM is the foundation and liberation of the above ;) 

"Ultimate reality is best viewed as imaginal; as conscious activity which, as embodied in content, resembles most nearly that human experience which we call imagining, conservative and creative, reproductive and productive."
-Douglas E. Fawcett, Divine Imagining


Fundamentally, I do beleive that Quantum Mechanics hold the 'key' to so many answers, or more correctly, QM do open the doors and paves the way to....Progress, to so many fields and worlds, even beyond our current understanding and Imagination ;) 

"The inventors of images discover similarities and hunt down metaphors. The imagination, in its true poetic function, meditates on identity. If it is true that the imagination circulates through a universe of images, it does not move to the extent that it promotes or reunites images, but to the extent that it destroys and consumes them. The imagination is in essence iconoclastic. Metaphor is the metaphysics of the image, in the sense that metaphysics is the destruction of physics. The true poet denies himself the 
accomplishment of desire in the image, because the freedom of imagination imposes itself on him as a task of refusal."
-Michel Foucalt,  Dream, Imagination and Existence



> 
> Every person who thinks that quantum mechanics underwrites some superstitious piffle about the oneness of everything thinks that way, in part, because many people have accepted your intellectual standards. Every physics student who becomes cynical about understanding quantum mechanics, and goes around uttering the most stupid thing Richard Feynman ever said (the Feynman quote in one of the articles you cited), is doing so partly because he accepted the ideas you advocate about justification.
> 
> Alan
>


"The universe is made of stories, not atoms." -Muriel Rukeyser


Again, that is not the only issue discussed here. I am not a physics student and am not talking about QM only; but i do recognize the relevance and importance of such masterpiece!

Indeed, QM for me is the Dream that finally came True, and while it takes some form-conceptualization with tagible results, is also the *means* for further Dreaming and Investigation; it is that source of Knowledge and Inspiration that will re-UNITE science and philosophy, and then give meaning in the Matrix of our Existence, in terms, that one day will lead to that  perception/description/understanding of the Ultimate-Universal Truth! (hey, it was to be one-and it must be a way to *see* it, even if all of the above are themselves in constant change and ..in progress) ;)

"Nothing truer or more unprejudiced can be said about Truth. Only 
consciousness of the universal is consciousness of truth; but consciousness of particularity and particular action, originality which results in idiosyncracy of content or form, is untrue and evil. Error, therefore, consists solely in the particularization of thought-evil and error consist in the divorce from the universal. Most men think that their conceptions should be something special and original; precisely this is illusion." -Hegel


Furtermore, and to be both politically and philosophically correct here, last time i checked (when i joined this group) the list was still under the category of "philosophy", and its purpose was  "to consider the nature of the fabric of reality", and to my view we can do that by having an open mind and the willingness to go beyond our own thinking/training etc., and finally use all available relevant means/tools!

Please, do correct me if am wrong.....

"Truth springs from argument amongst friends." 
-David Hume

Cheers!


JAG