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Soviet Review

Philosophy and Physics in the Discussions between Bohr and Einstein

Р. А. Аронов, B. Ia. Pakhomov

Published Apr 1, 1987• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

"To one sort of truth applies such simple and clear statements as: opposite assertions are not both true. Another sort, the so-called ‘profound truths,’ include, on the contrary, such statements as: contradictory assertions also contain a profound truth…. By virtue of especially fruitful cooperation of a whole generation of physicists, we are approaching the goal at which the logical order permits us to a great extent to avoid profound truths."

DOI
10.2753/rss1061-1428280149

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ENERAL philosophy claims to be the critical subject which lays down for all of us what we may be allowed to think, and yet it has played no part whatever in the great revolutions of human thought of the present century-those connected with relativity and the quantum theory. It might have been expected that the scientists would have been constantly consulting the philosophers as to the legitimacy of their various speculations, but nothing of the kind has happened. Since no one can dispense with some sort of metaphysic, each scientist has made one for himself, and no doubt they contain many crudities, but it would seem that a deep interest in metaphysic is a disadvantage rather than an advantage to the physicist-at least I have the impression that those of my friends who are most inclined to speculate on the ultimate things appear to be the ones whose scientific work is most hampered by doing so. Now I propose to risk a similar indiscretion. I want to embody in it the practical philosophy of a physicist, and I do not mean it as an attack on the pure philosophers, who are very reasonable people, only chargeable with the minor offence of not having made me want to read their books! I had better begin by stating shortly the ideas I intend to discuss. There is a notable contrast between the way we think about things and the way we think we ought to think about them.
Contemporary physicists, in creating theories adequate to nature's patterns of movement and development, speak the language of dialectics whether willingly or unwillingly. Even those whose personal outlook is at variance with dialectical philosophy acknowledge this in their own way. Thus Heisenberg states that inquiry into the foundations of the quantum theory, especially as carried out by Bohr, has features reminiscent of Hegelian philosophy. (1) And, to quote Pauli, "dialectics is that mutual game of two opponents which is typical of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics." (2) Bohr himself, while discussing the quantum theory, speaks of "profoundly true statements the opposites of which likewise contain deep verities." (3)
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What is time? This book explores the hypothesis that time is discrete rather than continuous. Time is an enigma, so we should expect some metaphysics and philosophy to creep into the discussion. Our inclination is to avoid those disciplines as much as possible, so let us deal with them right now. Metaphysics and philosophy deal with statements and conjectures that cannot be empirically validated. In those disciplines there are constant references to absolutes such as existence, good and bad, and suchlike without further qualification, as if everyone accepted them as meaningful concepts. Absolutes are the key things we wish to avoid. For the record, we define an absolute statement as one that is considered to be true regardless of any caveats or criteria, i.e., context-free. In contrast, a contextual statement has a truth value that is meaningful only relative to its particular context. The idea that physical truth can be contextual is an unfamiliar and uncomfortable one to physicists conditioned to believe that the laws of physics transcend the context of observation because they can be empirically validated. In fact, that is a circular line of reasoning. Every experiment is defined by its own context and experimentalists have to work hard to create that context: the search for the Higgs particle at the Large Hadron Collider did not happen overnight.