Dear all,
declarations of faith are declaration of faith.
Nothing more, nothing less. They are self-contradictory in case they are
supposed to be the truth about reality. In that case they are no recongnized
as declarations of faith. The faith of a scientist that acknowledges to be a
(materialist) realist is no less a faith than the one that believes reality
is "just" numbers (or bits or...). The poverty of reductionisms is that they
give the impression that in the long run we just need to make, as in this
case, good physics and everything will be explained. This is not very
realistic, in fact.
kind regards
Rafael
Prof. Dr. Rafael Capurro
Hochschule der Medien (HdM) - Stuttgart Media University, Wolframstr. 32,
70191 Stuttgart, Germany
Private: Redtenbacherstr. 9, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany
E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Voice Stuttgart: + 49 - 711 - 25706 - 182
Voice private: + 49 - 721 - 98 22 9 - 22 (Fax: -21)
Homepage: www.capurro.de
Homepage ICIE: http://icie.zkm.de
Homepage IRIE: http://www.i-r-i-e.net
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Devereux" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "FIS Mailing List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, June 25, 2006 8:58 PM
Subject: [Fis] Realism
Dear Arne and colleagues,
There is an essential reason, I believe, why nearly all physical
scientists are realists. There would be no physical science without
realism. Perhaps the most fundamental assumption upon which physical
science depends is the conviction that all of us are imbedded in the same,
objective physical reality.
I understand that one cannot prove this deductively, but the inductive
evidence seems, to most of us, to be overwhelming. From the very beginning
of physical science, through to the present, all of our scientific
accomplishments rely on a description of nature that is observer
independent. We’ve incorporated Gallilean relativity into the fundament of
classical physics. All the classical equations of motion are observer
independent. Would there be anything at all left of the physical sciences
if we discarded classical mechanics?
It is exactly the consistency and usefulness of the physical sciences that
argues, irrefutably, I believe, for the validity of the axioms upon which
physical science depends. Statistical mechanics, hydrodynamics,
electrodynamics, and others cannot stand without classical mechanics. So,
we physical scientists must adamantly refuse to concede that because
realism is not deductively derivable, it might not be correct.
I note that Einstein built both his theories of relativity, special and
general, on the postulate of observer independence. Should we throw out
those extraordinarily valuable and consistent theories because we wish to
debate the lack of a deductive argument for realism? I’m sure that quantum
mechanics (which also employs classical mechanics via the Hamiltonian
formalism, Poisson Brackets, etc.) does not imply observer dependence,
though some eminent physicists, like Wigner and von Neumann, have read it
that way.
The accepted understanding of the wavefunction, Psi, was given in the
early 1920s by Max Born. As you know, If we wish to calculate the
probability for each possible measured value of the system we take the
projection of the eigenfunction for that value on the wave function, then
calculate the inner product with Psi*. That we are predicting a
probability for a measured outcome does not, at all, imply that human
consciousness plays any part in the measurement. In fact, as Hawking,
Penrose, and so many other physicists have so carefully calculated, there
is every reason to believe that quantum mechanics described the cosmos
billions of years before any humans and their conscious minds existed.
In general, measurement is information exchange between two separate
physical objects. Neither object need be human, of course. The canonical
model for a measurement that transfers one bit of information is the
bi-level atom located along one arm of the Stern-Gerlach apparatus
described in 1978 (Physics Reports) by Scully, Shea, and McCullen. When a
spinning molecule collides with the bi-level atom, a single quantum of
energy is transferred to the atom. This is a real, physical, energetic
signal that carries information about the change in energy of the molecule
to the atom. Since energy is always conserved, the energy jump in the
detector atom always records the exact information about the change in
energy of the molecule.
One may, of course, still ask how human beings are able to observe
properties of our shared physical reality. I’m convinced that at the most
basic level of human percepta, more fundamental than learned, or perhaps
innate, shapes and objects, we all look at the same pattern of minute
color specks and see (and describe) the same specks. The key here is to
look only for each speck of color, as one might do to a pointillist
painting by Signac, say, ignoring any impression of physical objects that
the artist may have portrayed. If necessary, scientists could employ such
a basic technique to insure that the pattern which carries information
about results of a measurement (like the face of an ammeter, for instance)
really is observer independent. I’m convinced that there are no
cultually-inculcated tendencies at this most basic level.
Cordially,
Michael Devereux
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