Hugo Fjelsted Alroe (alroe@vip.cybercity.dk)
Thu, 13 Nov 1997 03:51:01 +0100
>MOQ and Aristotle!. Two very odd partners I must say.
Well, I find the source of SOM in Aristotle's work, but I find more. And we
are off course in our discussions of MoQ (including Pirsig - especially
Pirsig because he is so good at it) using the logic which Aristotle worked
out. Logic is a valuable tool, but our rationalistic culture has taken
logic to be the very structure of the world . Anyway I just thought it fair
and humbling to mention that the ideas behind MoQ are just as ancient as
the ideas behind SOM, and that Aristotle worked out some key concepts of both.
>Well then, did our "potential world" - along with countless other -
>scan the various conditions (from a pre-big-bang abode) and
>decide what it liked? This sounds like the "many world's
>interpretation of Qunatum Physics if you look upon it with the
>SOM-loaded language, but with the quality "precondition" accepted,
>that way of asking does not apply.
No, no, no. I see the many world interpretation as our causation-type way
of handling the mysterious (to SOM) facts of QM, and I find the idea both
false and monstrous. And I don't think our world is 'chosen' in any
specific way, only in the sense of *some* form of structural complexity has
had to sprout.
>There are moments when I become a little scared of what Pirsig has
>released. He says the quality version of physics won't change the
>settings of any scientific measuring apparatus, but will it be a
>motivation for doing research in a MOQ steeped culture? Isn't
>science built upon the notion of a detached subject viewing objective
>reality? Phaedrus of ZMM found that there are an unlimited number of
>theories that fit ANY observation (the implication of this is
>sobering), and Phædrus of LILA says that science is just as
>value-dependent as anything else (science abhors 'value'
>as you know. Its even worse than 'purpose').
I do think that science is not necessarily objectivistic; Karl R. Popper
suggested a broader characterisation of science, stressing the *public*
nature of science, both in the sense of being open and wanting of probing,
and in the sense of having a common goal, working towards truth. As Popper
famously asserted working towards truth can be accomplished by hunting the
untrue, and hence the two sides of the public nature of science can be
coined as a quest for probe-able knowledge. I don't see why MoQ should
bring science (in this respect) to a halt. But on the other hand the
necessary contextuality of science and knowledge in a MoQ view, will
severely limit the scope of objective science, of the science which stands
outside. The one-eyed truths won't be as widespread and influential as they
are today, but I still se a very important role for science and a vital use
for probable-truths-in-their-proper-context.
>a new essay in the "Metaphysical Review" (free subscription
>at:<mpr@improv.sr.unh.edu> Paul Merriam: "On the Relativity of
>Quantum Superpositions".
Yes, I have read it, and I dont agree on much of what Merriam has to say.
For one, his way of handling the Schodinger Cat paradox I find fallacious,
a fallacy he shares with most who discuss that paradox (as always IMFO, In
My Fallible Oppinion). And the fault lies exactly in the kind of
subjectivist interpretation of QM that Merriam follow, in the idea that
*our observation* or our mind has some crucial importance in the quantum
collapse.
The somewhat cruel experiment goes like this: We put a cat in a box and let
a poison be triggered by a single quantum event. The measurement of the
spin of an electron will do, up and down spin (f.i.) being equally probable
and said to be in a 'superpositioned' state until measured, and lets say
down triggers the poison like the thumbs of ancient Rome. In measuring the
spin, this superpositioned state is 'collapsed', that is, one kind of spin
is measured and the other probable kind of spin disappears. Now the
argument goes, if we don't know whether the spin was up or down, we dont
know whether the cat is dead or alive - then the cat must be in a
superpositioned state between dead and alive, just like the electron, and
neither dead nor alive. The (subjectivist or whatever) point being that the
collaps wont happen until we look. I say, wait a few days and you might
smell the socalled superpositioned cat!
SPPMOTNIIABS (someone please punch me on the nose if I am being stupid),
but in my eyes this (subjectivist or whatever) view is quite confused, even
though I often meet upon such ideas. I find it evident that the place of
the quantum collapse is in the very actualization involved in the
'measurement'. A quantum measurement device is constructed as to actualize
one of a very specific set of possibilities, and the 'collapse of the
superpositioned state' is the same as 'the actualization of one of the
possible outcomes'.
Given this view of mine (and a few others I guess, at least the danish
physicist and Peirce translator Peder Voetman Christiansen has expressed a
similar view, though I havent seen him touch upon the Schrodinger paradox),
one cannot make a 'measurement device that triggers' without this involving
the collapse of the superpositioned state, or so I say. If the measurement
turns out a 'down' the cat dies, if it turns out 'up' it lives until the
next experiment.
Hence there can be no dead-or-alive cat paradox, and I am wary of Merriams
arguments as far as he takes off from the assumption that:
"As a result, I conclude there is no difference *as a matter of principle*
between the behavior of a quantum-mechanical "cat" and a quantum-mechanical
"electron". "
And further I suspect that his use of the condition 'quantum mechanically
sealed off' together with the implicit assumption of being able to observe
what is going on inside this sealed off place, involves a fallacy, though
this would take a closer scrutiny to decide.
Sorry for that outburst, I am not really sure on how the above might relate
to what you were arguing, Bodvar?
Hugo
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