hello all
Roger wrote:
1) There is no deep reality. In the Copenhagen interpretation, Bohr
insisted that "There is no quantum world. There is only abstract quantum
description." Heisenberg dismissed any possibility "that new experiments
will
lead us back to objective events in time and space."
Roger, though they both were instrumental in formulating what is known as
the Copenhagen Interpretation, Heisenberg and Bohr had some fundamental
differences philosophically. from 'The Philosophy of Niels Bohr' by Henry
Folse i quote:
" ...it comes as no surprise that Heisenberg recalls in their discussions
during the spring of 1926, Bohr reluctantly agreed for the first time to
completely abandon any attempt to describe the atomic system in terms of
'visualizable' or pseudo-mechanical models. Here 'visualizable' clearly
refers to 'space-time description' as classically understood. Nevertheless,
it is probable that the parties to this agreement had rather different
interpretations of what had been agreed to. On the one hand, Heisenberg
apparently read their agreement as Bohr's endorsement for pursuing a purely
mathematical theory that would ascribe properties only to observed phenomena
resulting from interactions between atomic systems and radiation. On the
other hand, Bohr characteristically read this agreement as endorsing a
search for a revised understanding of how we use space and time concepts in
picturing the behavior of atomic systems. For Heisenberg, this resolve
helped to produce first matrix mechanics, then some twenty months later, the
uncertainty principle. For Bohr, this agreement marked a major step on the
road to complementarity." (Pg. 78)
Now, complementarity may be misunderstood as meaning that there is no 'deep
reality' but Bohr himself did not believe that. he merely believed that we
were incapable of perceiving that deep reality in any other manner than an
abstraction. but he clearly believed in an independently existing atomic
system. what he is saying by 'there is no quantum world' is that we cannot
conceptualize what is happening there and conceive of it in terms of
everyday reality. there really is no quantum world in our observable
everyday reality.
"...we are dealing here [i.e., in quantum theory] with a purely 'symbolic
procedure' the unambiguous interpretation of which in the last resort
requires reference to a complete experimental arrangement. Disregard of this
point has sometimes led to confusion..." (Phil. of Niels Bohr, Pg. 246)
in quantum theory these 'symbolic procedures' are expressed mathematically,
but its also clear that these mathematical symbols do not represent a
'picture' of the atomic system as we conceptualize a 'picture' in everyday
reality.
sometimes the Copenhagen Interpretation is taken to be Bohr's philosophy but
that is a misunderstanding. Bohr's philosophy was complementarity, which
would work at the quantum level but also could be extended into everyday
reality...
"...complementarity divides the epistemic content of the theoretical
understanding of nature into two types of knowledge: a) a description of a
phenomena as an observational interaction in which the whole interaction is
partitioned into observing system and observed phenomenal object, and b) the
purely formal theoretical structures which symbolize the quantum mechanical
state of an independent object lying behind the phenomena in terms that
allow for co-ordinating different phenomenal appearances as appearances of
the same object." (Phil. of Niels Bohr, Pg. 253)
clearly Bohr is acknowledging a 'real' object behind the different
phenomemal appearances reality presents to us as perceivers. complementarity
tells us we must look at that 'real' object from as many viewpoints as we
need with the understanding that we are not 'really' seeing the object, but
different abstractions of the same object.
Folse uses an analogy of observing Smith to illustrate complementarity..."
For this task, we have as our given data only that the experienced phenomena
as communicated in the subjective reports of three 'observing systems'.
Thus, for example the supervisor describes a (phenomenal) person possessing
the property of indecisiveness. If this property which truly describes the
phenomenal appearance of Smith as an object of description is taken to refer
to a property possessed by the 'real' Smith, by Smith's ego, the resulting
description cannot be reconciled with Smith's wife's description of her
husbands ego as possessing the property of competence. These communications
are 'ambiguous' because they are describing different 'phenomenal' objects.
But by ignoring the full circumstances of the observational interactions,
one might assume they both refer to 'the same object'."
" In order to remove this ambiguity, we must develop a descriptive formalism
which will allow us to describe Smith's ego in a way which will predict not
only that Smith will behave indecisively before his supervisor and
competently before his wife, but also, prior to the observation of it, that
he will behave imperiously before his children. We need not change the terms
of our description of the phenomenal Smith, for indeed they describe the
phenomenal object unambiguously. But we must understand that such
descriptive concepts which are given empirical reference to the phenomenal
object are unambiguous only when describing specific interactions between
Smith and other persons. These concepts, therefore, are not defined for
reference to the independently existing Smith, isolated from his
interactions with others. In trying to isolate Smith's behavior from the
phenomena in which that behavior is manifested, we create an abstraction for
which there can be no empirical evidence. Smith and his interactions with
other persons have an 'individuality' which makes ambiguous any attempt to
desribe a phenomenal Smith, without specifying the full circumstances of the
observational interaction in which this phenomenal Smith was observed. (Pg.
250)
by this analogy we can perhaps conceive how complementarity functions in our
normal everyday reality the same way it functions in quantum reality, and at
the same time see that indeed complementarity is assuming an underlying
'real' object that can be focused upon only in abstract ways.
best wishes,
glove
http://members.tripod.com/~Glove_r/index-2.html
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