LS Re: MOQ puzzles


Anders Nielsen (joshu@diku.dk)
Fri, 5 Sep 1997 04:01:06 +0100


> Anders:
> Yes, I was referring to the EPR paradox or delayed choice experiments.
> Such phenomena (seemingly unique to the microworld) were the original
> impetus for our quantum-level debate. It seems that a sort of consensus
> has been reached in which these phenomena have been acknowledged yet
> still
> referred to under the broad classification of the Inorganic Level.
>
> If you would like to offer further comment on your understanding of the
> ERP paradox, I would love to listen...
>
> Regards,
> Jason

----------

Well to be perfectly honest, Im sort of confused about what to make of
EPR paradox, and delayed choice experiment results. When I say there are
no macroworld consequences of EPR (because the macroworld is too far
from plancks constant), Im just trying not to say anything wrong, and
buy time to figure it all out :-)...But I'll try to share more openly.

Given that everything is experience (or Quality), and that the
Subject/Object metaphysics (or "the general population and
scientific/intellectual world's normal view of the world") is an
interpretation among many of this Quality and that all the things in the
world are just recurring experiences (or static patterns if you will) of
this quality, I would expect to find that our (humans as biological
beings) limits of our sensory "hardware" is reflected in physical
theory.

This I think is what is the case in both Quantum Physics which is
expressed in Heisenbergs uncertainity principle and the theory of
Relativity (Special Relativity at least).

Heisenberg's inequality says "you cannot know both the position and
velocity (or rather impulse) of a particle with arbitrary precision."

dP * dQ > h

This can be derived this way:

(I hope you can read these little drawings)

We have a particle. We'd like to measure it's position and velocity, so
we shoot a photon (lightparticle) at it.

(the wavy line is a photon, and the X is a particle.)

fig. 1
    /\ /\ (y)
  / \ / \ X (y)
/ \/ \/ (y)

here the particle can be in the position of any of the three (y) 's. So
it's position is a bit uncertain.

fig. 2
/\/\/\/\/\/\X (y)

here the particle's position is more precisely measured (3 times more),
but with the a 3 times shorter wavelength, the photon contains 3 times
more energy, and thus it pushes the particle 3 times harder than the
first photon. Therefore the first particle's velocity is measured more
precisely than the second.

The principle of relativity is more elaborate to explain, but here again
physics had to change when the observer was taken into account.

Both of the above can be thus argued to be consequences of our limited
technical achievements, and that was also the case made by the EPR
article.

BUT (and there is a big BUT here) Heisenberg's uncertainity principle,
and Einstein's relativity principle are not concerned with technical
difficulties in measuring, but rather with how the world ONTHOLOGICALLY
is structured. This was shown by experiments made by Alain Aspect in the
80'es.

So my thought is that there is a connection between this onthological
structure, and the limits of our biological sensory "equipment", but I
can't seem to complete the connection. (In fact I think that the
onthological consequences are direct effects of the limits of our
biological sensory limits).

Normally humans are thought of to consist of atoms.
I think that atoms are parts of humans.

(so to speak).

Sometimes I think that is what Bohr has been saying all along:
"When asked whether the algorithm of quantum mechanics could be
considered as somehow mirroring an underlying quantum world, Bohr would
answer, 'There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract physical
description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find
out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature.'"

(q. from Aage Petersen: "The philosophy of Niels Bohr", Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists, XIX, No.7, Sept 1963, p. 12)

(It is my belief that Bohr may have been one of the greatest
philosophers that ever lived, but his efforts were stiffled by a lot of
things, probably not least the philosophical environment in Copenhagen
at the time.)

- Anders Nielsen, joshu@diku.dk
Student at Dept. of Computer Science,
University of Copenhagen.

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