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Biomedical ethics reviews

Values, Scientific Objectivity, and Risk Analysis

Kristin Shrader‐Frechette

Published Jan 1, 1987• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Earlier in this century, the physics community was wracked with a great debate between the determinists and the indeterminists over the status of quantum theory. Determinists like Einstein and Bohm argued that quantum theory would eventually be superseded by a deterministic theory having new state variables. Indeterminists like Heisenberg and Schrodinger, speaking for the Copenhagen School, disagreed. They maintained that the indeterminism in quantum theory was not merely a temporary setback, an epistemological problem to be overcome by means of a better scientific theory, but an accurate ontological representation of the matter.

DOI
10.1007/978-1-59259-656-0_6

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Boston studies in the philosophy of science•Jan 1, 1993•18 citations
Earlier in this century, the physics community was wracked with a great debate between the determinists and the indeterminists over the status of quantum theory. Determinists like Einstein and Bohm argued that quantum theory would eventually be superseded by a deterministic theory having new state variables. Indeterminists like Heisenberg and Schrodinger, speaking for the Copenhagen School, disagreed. They maintained that the indeterminism in quantum theory was not merely a temporary setback, an epistemological problem to be overcome by means of a better scientific theory, but an accurate ontological representation of the matter.
The founding fathers of quantum mechanics had already perceived the essence of the difficulties of quantum mechanics; today, after almost a century, the discussions are still lively and, if some very interesting new aspects have emerged, at a deeper level the questions have not changed so much. What is more recent, nevertheless, is a general change of attitude among physicists: until about 1970 or 1980, most physicists thought that the essential questions had been settled, and that “Bohr was right and proved his opponents to be wrong”. This was probably a consequence of the famous discussions between Bohr, Einstein, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Pauli, de Broglie, and others (in particular at the Solvay meetings [1–3], where Bohr's point of view had successfully resisted Einstein's extremely clever attacks). The majority of physicists did not know the details of the arguments. They nevertheless thought that the standard “Copenhagen interpretation” had clearly emerged from the infancy of quantum mechanics as the only sensible attitude for good scientists. This interpretation includes the idea that modern physics must contain indeterminacy as an essential ingredient: it is fundamentally impossible to predict the outcome of single microscopical events; it is impossible to go beyond the formalism of the wave function (or its generalization, the state vector ∣ψ) and complete it.
In previous chapters we argued that the empirically successful formalism of quantum mechanics supports equally well two mutually incompatible general ontologies: the inherently indeterministic and generally accepted Copenhagen interpretation and Bohm's completely deterministic one. This underdetermination of the interpretation by the formalism is not simply an apparent one of two equivalent theories since there is no way to translate the terms of one of these ontologies into those of the other. This case could be seen as presenting a challenge to the scientific realist who seeks from successful scientific theories a true representation of the world. Furthermore, we suggest that the actual historical competition between these theories and the selection of Copenhagen over Bohm illustrate that such an historically contingent process is not meaningfully distinct from the rational reconstruction and logical judgment of the victorious theory. What is deemed successful and put on offer by the scientific community for the philosopher of science to justify after the fact is itself a contingent and nonunique product. UNDERDETERMINATION The origin of the underdetermination of scientific theories, what we refer to here as the so-called Duhem–Quine thesis, is typically located in Pierre Duhem's The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (first published in 1906). There Duhem was quite explicit about what he took to be the basis for judging whether or not a given physical theory is acceptable.
My thesis investigates a debate between Vienna and Berlin about the view that the basic laws of nature are genuinely indeterministic that started long before the advent of quantum mechanics. It involved two different readings of Ludwig Boltzmann's legacy statistical mechanics and two different answers to how causality and ontology ought to be combined. Having adopted Ernst Mach's weak notion of causality, the local Viennese tradition could more easily contemplate ontologies for irreducibly statistical laws that were different from classical physics, while the Berlin tradition departed from Planck's reading of the Kantian tradition, according to which strictly deterministic laws represented an indispensable basis even for probabilistic theories.\nVienna Indeterminism, as I shall call the first reading, became characteristic for a series of physicist-philosophers connected to the Institute of Physics at the University of Vienna, among them Franz Serafin Exner, Erwin Schrödinger, Philipp Frank and Richard von Mises. It involved the acceptance of the highly improbable events admitted by the second law of thermodynamics, an assent to Mach's definition of causality in terms of functional dependencies, an empiricist shift of the burden of proof on the determinist's shoulders, and the adoption of the relative frequency interpretation of probability. Planck and his student Moritz Schlick initially rejected all of these creeds.\nWhile the Viennese reading of Boltzmann's legacy made it possible to accept probabilistic laws as genuine laws years before the advent of quantum mechanics, Schlick had to take a strictly verificationist tack to reconcile his views on probability with the failure of a Kant-inspired notion of causality enforced by the changes in physics. Until his death however, Schlick remained committed to the Spielraum interpretation of Johannes von Kries, compensating his qualified acceptance of indeterminism with an emphasis on the limits of language that were enforced by Heisenberg's uncertainty relations.\nIn view of claims that scientists' abandonment of determinism and causality was triggered, or at least enhanced, by external factors, among them the anti-scientific Weimar milieu and Bohr's power politics, the reconstruction of the philosophical debates between Vienna and Berlin requires historical contextualization. To this end, I initially recapitulate the Forman thesis and the discussions ensuing from it. Most important among them are the recent books of Cushing and Beller that, rejecting Forman's strong claims, nevertheless deny any constructive influence of the scientific aspirations of German physicists on the philosophical debates about causality and indeterminism in the 1920s.\nAgainst this picture, I argue that the philosophical aspirations of physicist-philosophers were rather genuine and followed influential role models, among them Helmholtz and Mach. They represent a characteristic trait of the German-speaking scientific world and were expressed in academic addresses and in the publication of popular writings. After 1913, this philosophical discourse was conducted, to an increasing extent, on the pages of Die Naturwissenschaften. In a separate chapter, I study the role of philosophical and cultural matters in this journal, which can hardly be separated from the personality of its founding editor Arnold Berliner. At about 1930, this discourse among physicist-philosophers partly merged into scientific philosophy, as conducted by Logical Empiricists, and the newly founded Erkenntnis.\nOne of the characteristic features of the discourse among physicist-philosophers was that they were not strictly indebted to philosophical schools but rather willing to form strategic alliances. Such alliances emphasized one philosophical aspect that was considered pivotal at the time which other features, often expressing severe disagreements of content, were played down. This process can be witnessed at the end of the discussion between the Viennese and the Berliners in the 1930s, at a time when Schlick had already become the center of the Vienna Circle. Being confronted with a plethora of "metaphysical" misinterpretations and having taken the linguistic turn, Frank and Schlick formed a strategic alliance on the 1936 Copenhagen Congress for the Unity of Science. It brought them into opposition with Schrödinger's quest for a modification of quantum mechanics, although Schrödinger continued to be a staunch advocate of indeterminism. This year thus signifies the end of the coherence of Vienna Indeterminism, a tradition that reaches back to the publication of Boltzmann's Lectures of Gas Theory.
In glaring contrast to its indisputable century-old experimental success, the ultimate objects and meaning of quantum physics remain a matter of vigorous debate among physicists and philosophers of science. This article attempts to shed new light on the debate. It relies upon two comments by Albert Einstein on his general approach to physical theories. I draw their consequences for the definition of a physical theory's ontology, and next for the ontology of quantum physics - i.e. what it may ultimately be about. The quantum ontology thus derived appears to be strictly limited to evolving experimental contexts and instantaneous measurement outcomes, which are to be understood, respectively, as mere potential measurement outcomes and actual ones. The notions of material body in particular and physical system in general are absent from this ontology, hence the vanishing of Schroedinger's cat and EPR paradoxes, as well as of the quantum measurement problem. Apart from its ability to clear up well-known conundrums, this ontology reveals what quantum physics may fundamentally be - i.e. its possible ultimate meaning - namely a theory of general relativity of experimental context. On this basis, I conclude with a new conception of objectivity in the sciences of nature.