Holism vs. particularism: A lesson from classical and quantum physics

Michaël Esfeld

M. P. Seevinck

David Wallace

Karl H. Pribram

Ervin Laszlo's Science and the Akashic Field claims that there is a shift in Zeitgeist that allows us to view a field that entails coherence among residents of the universe, residents that hitherto have seemed far apart both in space and time. I agree with this claim but suggest that we need to clear up several ambiguities that have hindered understanding and therefore acceptance. Basic to clarification are an understanding of waves, spectra, and the formulations of quantum physics.

Richard Healey

M. P. Seevinck

Motivated by the question what it is that makes quantum mechanics a holistic theory (if so), I try to define for general physical theories what we mean by ‘holism’. I propose an operational criterion to decide whether or not a physical theory is holistic, namely: a physical theory is holistic if and only if some determination (measurement) of the global properties in the theory which can be determined by global measurements, can not be implemented by local operations and classical communication. This approach is contrasted with the well known approaches to holism in terms of supervenience. I will argue that the latter have a limited scope and need to be extended using the criterion for holism proposed here in order to satisfactory address the issue for physical theories. I formalize this criterion for classical physics and Bohmian mechanics as represented on a Cartesian phase and configuration space, and for quantum mechanics (in the orthodox interpretation) using the formalism of general quantum operations as completely positive trace non-increasing maps. Furthermore, I provide an interesting example from which one can conclude that quantum mechanics is holistic in the above mentioned sense, although, perhaps surprisingly, no entanglement is needed.