"These means are so ineffective, so exiguous in their poverty that, if that were the whole machinery, we could know little or nothing or only achieve a great blur of confusion." — Sri Aurobindo
I think it's quite unfortunate that the fact that things aren't simply "made of particles" isn't more well known or explained somewhat in popular science. I think a lot of people would find it very interesting, certainly makes the world a more interesting place.
Falkenburg's monograph is very good in this regard. So is Hans Primas's "Knowledge and Time", if you haven't read it. Another fun read on the difficulties of reductionism in QM is Giacomo Mauro D'Ariano's lovely short paper "Quantum Holism".
Thanks, Darran. With some of the pieces in the Primas anthology I am familiar. I have now taken a look at “Quantum holism.” While I appreciate the spirit of the paper, I tend to get mildly annoyed when a physical system is said to be "in" a state (what is the meaning of being in a probability algorithm?), and when subspaces or projectors are referred to as properties rather than as (say) "outcome-indicating events" (the things to which quantum mechanics serves to assign probabilities). On the technical side, however, the paper overlaps considerably with Chapter 7 (Quantum mechanics: A probability calculus) of the 2018 edition of my textbook *The world according to quantum mechanics*.
I actually ordered the 2018 edition of your book a few days ago. Looking forward to reading it!
Yes I understand the points you are making. I've had to train myself out of making statements like "in a state", something yourself and QBism papers helped me with. Even Classical Probabilists like de Finetti advocated avoiding that kind of term.
If there ever was anything said about this matter in a more clear and consistent way, other than by yourself a few posts back, I honestly don’t know, and don’t believe it possible.
I’m glad to read the names of PFS and Sri Aurobindo mentioned in a single line of thought. Regarding science pitfalls and shortsightedness, what image can be more robust than the following. You spend, let’s say, two years going through the inner workings of matrix mechanics following the Cohen, or any similar undergraduate course. When you get to the end of it you ask: “That’s fantastic! What problem have we effectively solved Sir?” And you get a straightforward answer: “You can now solve the two-body problem”. “Really? That’s superb! And to which objects in nature can we apply that solution?” -you might be inclined to ask. “You can apply that solution to the Hydrogen atom..”, that is the short answer. So you carry on perplexed: “But what about all the rest?”. At this point the metaphysical delusion you have been bought into opens up: “Well, for all the rest you may as well find a suitable approximation.”
I'm leaving this quote from Richard Mattuck's *Guide to Feynman Diagrams in the Many-Body Problem" here:
It might be noted here, for the benefit of those interested in exact solutions, that there is an alternative formulation of the many-body problem, i.e., how many bodies are required before we have a problem? G. E. Brown points out that this can be answered by a look at history. In eighteenth-century Newtonian mechanics, the three-body problem was insoluble. With the birth of general relativity around 1910 and quantum electrodynamics in 1930, the two- and one-body problems became insoluble. And within modern quantum field theory, the problem of zero bodies (vacuum) is insoluble. So, if we are out after exact solutions, no bodies at all is already too many!
Hi Ulrich - I think the basis of memory is another great example of "promissory materialism". Technical difficulties associated with the prevailing mind-as-computer paradigm were discussed years ago in an insightful paper by Stephen E. Braude entitled "Memory Without a Trace". Other areas where science seems to have run up against intractable obstacles (despite periodic claims of "breakthrough research") include phenomena such and long distance animal migration, the biological basis of schizophrenia, near death experiences, and more. Hey, if you partially amputate the antennas of a monarch butterfly, they have difficulty finding their way around anymore - who knew!
I also wanted to express how much I appreciate your generosity in sharing your ideas. Years ago I stumbled on Aurobindo's brief commentary on Heraclitus, which immediately prompted me to delve further. The very next thing I read was a paper that you had published which was - if memory serves - about Aurobindo's approach to the problem of pain. These days, my honorably worn copy of LD is always close at hand. Thank you so much for your work!
Thanks, Elwood. Btw, Braude's piece on memory was (re)published at AntiMatters, whose URL is now https://antimatters2.wordpress.com/. I suppose you have seen it there (at the old URL).
I think it's quite unfortunate that the fact that things aren't simply "made of particles" isn't more well known or explained somewhat in popular science. I think a lot of people would find it very interesting, certainly makes the world a more interesting place.
Falkenburg's monograph is very good in this regard. So is Hans Primas's "Knowledge and Time", if you haven't read it. Another fun read on the difficulties of reductionism in QM is Giacomo Mauro D'Ariano's lovely short paper "Quantum Holism".
Thanks, Darran. With some of the pieces in the Primas anthology I am familiar. I have now taken a look at “Quantum holism.” While I appreciate the spirit of the paper, I tend to get mildly annoyed when a physical system is said to be "in" a state (what is the meaning of being in a probability algorithm?), and when subspaces or projectors are referred to as properties rather than as (say) "outcome-indicating events" (the things to which quantum mechanics serves to assign probabilities). On the technical side, however, the paper overlaps considerably with Chapter 7 (Quantum mechanics: A probability calculus) of the 2018 edition of my textbook *The world according to quantum mechanics*.
Ulrich,
I actually ordered the 2018 edition of your book a few days ago. Looking forward to reading it!
Yes I understand the points you are making. I've had to train myself out of making statements like "in a state", something yourself and QBism papers helped me with. Even Classical Probabilists like de Finetti advocated avoiding that kind of term.
If there ever was anything said about this matter in a more clear and consistent way, other than by yourself a few posts back, I honestly don’t know, and don’t believe it possible.
I’m glad to read the names of PFS and Sri Aurobindo mentioned in a single line of thought. Regarding science pitfalls and shortsightedness, what image can be more robust than the following. You spend, let’s say, two years going through the inner workings of matrix mechanics following the Cohen, or any similar undergraduate course. When you get to the end of it you ask: “That’s fantastic! What problem have we effectively solved Sir?” And you get a straightforward answer: “You can now solve the two-body problem”. “Really? That’s superb! And to which objects in nature can we apply that solution?” -you might be inclined to ask. “You can apply that solution to the Hydrogen atom..”, that is the short answer. So you carry on perplexed: “But what about all the rest?”. At this point the metaphysical delusion you have been bought into opens up: “Well, for all the rest you may as well find a suitable approximation.”
I'm leaving this quote from Richard Mattuck's *Guide to Feynman Diagrams in the Many-Body Problem" here:
It might be noted here, for the benefit of those interested in exact solutions, that there is an alternative formulation of the many-body problem, i.e., how many bodies are required before we have a problem? G. E. Brown points out that this can be answered by a look at history. In eighteenth-century Newtonian mechanics, the three-body problem was insoluble. With the birth of general relativity around 1910 and quantum electrodynamics in 1930, the two- and one-body problems became insoluble. And within modern quantum field theory, the problem of zero bodies (vacuum) is insoluble. So, if we are out after exact solutions, no bodies at all is already too many!
Hi Ulrich - I think the basis of memory is another great example of "promissory materialism". Technical difficulties associated with the prevailing mind-as-computer paradigm were discussed years ago in an insightful paper by Stephen E. Braude entitled "Memory Without a Trace". Other areas where science seems to have run up against intractable obstacles (despite periodic claims of "breakthrough research") include phenomena such and long distance animal migration, the biological basis of schizophrenia, near death experiences, and more. Hey, if you partially amputate the antennas of a monarch butterfly, they have difficulty finding their way around anymore - who knew!
I also wanted to express how much I appreciate your generosity in sharing your ideas. Years ago I stumbled on Aurobindo's brief commentary on Heraclitus, which immediately prompted me to delve further. The very next thing I read was a paper that you had published which was - if memory serves - about Aurobindo's approach to the problem of pain. These days, my honorably worn copy of LD is always close at hand. Thank you so much for your work!
Thanks, Elwood. Btw, Braude's piece on memory was (re)published at AntiMatters, whose URL is now https://antimatters2.wordpress.com/. I suppose you have seen it there (at the old URL).