[lbo-talk] *Materialism and Empirio-Criticism*

[andie nachgeborenen]

Shane misunderstands the challenge that QM poses to
realism. He thinks that just because QM doesn't allow
observewrs to make up reality an way they choose,
realism is fine. Unfortunately, you can be a hard core
realist about probability propensities (although
subjective Bayeseain interpretations of probability as
what one would bet on have their attraction) and the
probabilistic laws of QM,a nd still the theory seems
to counsel antirealism about the actual distribution
of the states of particles in the universe. The
observer-dependence taht QM involves is not
Berkeleyean phenomenalism, and poses no difficulty for
saying that the universe pre-existed any actual
observers. Rather, the point is that it is in part the
act of observing that determines the distributiona nd
velocity of the particles, so that, e.g., there is no
determinate answer to whether Schroedinger's famous
cat is alive or dead until we decide which slit to let
the photon go through. It is antirealism under
constraints, but it's pretty antirealistic. Shane is
misguided if he thinks any questions about realism are
easy, and least of all questions about quantum
realism.

--- Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:
> >The sad news is that it is real hard to escape the
> >conclusion that quantum theory itself -- not a
> theory
> >about quantum mechanics -- says that the states of
> >particles are observer dependent in a very deep
> way.
> >For a popular, nonmathematical account accessible
> to
> >any college educated person, see Nick Davies,
> Quantum
> >Reality. There has been much ingenuity escaping
> this
> >conclusion. None of the alternatives has gained
> >general acceptance.
> 
> Heisenberg proposed that observation of a particle
> could never
> be completely accurate as to both position and
> velocity. The
> Copenhagen interpretation proposed that this
> uncertainty is
> a feature of the particles themselves--that they are
> basically
> probability functions.  Neither challenges Realism,
> since for
> a Realist mathematical  laws, like probability, are
> just as
> real as  physical objects (or even more real than
> they are). As for
> "the states of particles [being] observer dependent
> in a very deep way,"
> whatever "a very deep way" may mean, the fact
> remains that
> virtually none of the virtually infinite quantity of
> particles in
> the past, present, and future universe[s] can be in
> an
> "observer-dependent" state in any, let alone an
> "important" or
> "deep" sense, since they are in no sense whatever
> capable of
> observation through any conceivable experimental
> apparatus.
> 
> >  > > The hard case for realism even on the NOA is
> >>  quantum
> >  > > mechanics. There the science itself sure as
> hell seems
> >  > > to tell that what there is, is in an
> important way
> >  > > observer-dependent.
> 
> Shane Mage
> 
> "When we read on a printed page the doctrine of
> Pythagoras that all 
> things are made of numbers, it seems mystical,
> mystifying, even 
> downright silly.
> 
> When we read on a computer screen the doctrine of
> Pythagoras that all 
> things are made of numbers, it seems self-evidently
> true."  (N. 
> Weiner)
> 
> 
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com