Bruce Sherwood writes, in relevant part: > On the other hand, I can recommend highly the popular science book > "The Dance of the Photons" by Anton Zeilinger [...] > At > one point in the book he appropriately celebrates measurements that > quantitatively address certain aspects of reality that have long been > major issues in philosophy (and physics). These recent measurements > actually rule out some plausible philosophical stances with respect to > reality. It's intriguing that a physical measurement could do that.
Surely it's more than intriguing, it's impossible. Any measurement is embedded in a theory (including, at a bare minimum, a theory about how the device that performs the measurement functions); all that a measurement can do (and it's quite enough, and sometimes--very likely in this case--both intriguing and well worth celebrating), with regard to a philosophical stance, is provide evidence (possibly, as you seem to me to suggest here, categorical evidence) that the philosophical stance S and the theory T in which the measurement is embedded are incompatible (I want to say "incompossible" but I don't think I have the proper credentials to use that word in public). That, at least, is what I think is the correct position to take, based on what I've read (and come to believe) about the foundations of measurement. But I'm neither a physicist nor a philosopher... Lee Rudolph ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
