Ben, you wrote: "the 'realist' assumption that particles have determinate quantitative values in all measurable respects prior to a given act of measurement. I tend to chalk such phenomena up as a potential validation of Peirce's realism about modalities (such as possibility) and absolute chance, although I don't understand the physics well enough to make a serious argument. A related question is, is Peirce's idea of absolute chance consistent with the idea of the deterministic continuous time evolution of the wave function (from which probabilities are calculated)? I don't know. "
The 'realist' assumption - understanding realism as the existence of general laws - would, to my understanding of semiosis, suggest that the organization of matter as it moves from potentiality (the wave function) to actuality of morphological existence mean that within these laws, matter will organize in 'determinate quantiative values'. But which quantitative organizational mode takes precedence can be an issue of 'absolute chance'. I think in the physico-chemical realm, there are limited chance possibilities - after all, since this realm is the basis of life, a chaotic physico-chemical realm would be disastrous. But in the biological realm, chance emerges within potentiality (wave function) as a vital, if not key agent, in the ability to diversify, network and expand the ability of organized matter to prevent energy dissipation. Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Benjamin Udell To: [email protected] ; [email protected] Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2014 10:45 AM Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Re: [biosemiotics:7407] Re: Natural Propositions Koihiro, lists, With this one I would get more out of my depth than usual. It gets into the question known as that of Bertlmann's socks, about which I read many years ago and was left shaking my head. Anyway, from what little I understand, the experimentally shown violation of Bell's inequalities conflicts with (classical physical) local _realism_, not with locality by itself without the 'realist' assumption that particles have determinate quantitative values in all measurable respects prior to a given act of measurement. I tend to chalk such phenomena up as a potential validation of Peirce's realism about modalities (such as possibility) and absolute chance, although I don't understand the physics well enough to make a serious argument. A related question is, is Peirce's idea of absolute chance consistent with the idea of the deterministic continuous time evolution of the wave function (from which probabilities are calculated)? I don't know. Best, Ben On 11/8/2014 7:24 PM, Koichiro Matsuno wrote: At 1:40 AM 11/09/2014, Benjamin Udell wrote: In particular, Peirce regards individual existence as a matter not merely of location or proximity in space and time, but of reaction, resistance, interaction, like so many natural measurements. This is congenial to the QM view of things as becoming determinate through interaction with the environment, the 'observer', the 'measurer', etc. In a related context, John Bell (1964) said: "In a theory in which parameters are added to quantum mechanics to determine the results of individual measurements, without changing the statistical predictions, there must be a mechanism whereby the setting of the one measuring device can influence the reading of another instrument, however remote." The violation of Bell’s inequality in QM reveals the failure of Einstein locality or local realism strictly on the experimental ground. I am not well acquainted with how Peirce or Peirceans would have responded to this observation. Koichuro ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
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