rejection of dualisms such as subject/object and theories/facts appears mainly in Schrodinger's later works. In those texts, he also means that what is considered real is what makes us act in a certain way. This paper is part of a project at the beginning of its development, which is a proposal of establishing these and other contact points between pragmatism and Schrodinger's ideas. According to Yemima Ben-Menahem's, it would be difficult to label such philosophical standpoint, but, as she points out, it seems to be proper to say that it is a kind of philosophy with a human face. We claim that, for Schrodinger, science constructs its own object of study and, furthermore, that the reality of everyday life objects is itself a construction established in an experience of interrelation of the 'mind' or the 'subject' and the 'world'. In Mind and Matter, published in 1958, Schrodinger claims that subject and object are only one, having no barrier between one world that exists and other that is perceived. formation of invariants that make us see reality the same way begins at the earliest childhood. scientist's object incorporates such construction, plus the ways in which that object is conceived on a background theory. In this paper, we compare Schrodinger's ideas with John Dewey's ideas about reality, in Philosophy and Civilization, especially in the chapter The Practical Character of Reality.
rejection of dualisms such as subject/object and theories/facts appears mainly in Schrodinger's later works. In those texts, he also means that what is considered real is what makes us act in a certain way. This paper is part of a project at the beginning of its development, which is a proposal of establishing these and other contact points between pragmatism and Schrodinger's ideas. According to Yemima Ben-Menahem's, it would be difficult to label such philosophical standpoint, but, as she points out, it seems to be proper to say that it is a kind of philosophy with a human face. We claim that, for Schrodinger, science constructs its own object of study and, furthermore, that the reality of everyday life objects is itself a construction established in an experience of interrelation of the 'mind' or the 'subject' and the 'world'. In Mind and Matter, published in 1958, Schrodinger claims that subject and object are only one, having no barrier between one world that exists and other that is perceived. formation of invariants that make us see reality the same way begins at the earliest childhood. scientist's object incorporates such construction, plus the ways in which that object is conceived on a background theory. In this paper, we compare Schrodinger's ideas with John Dewey's ideas about reality, in Philosophy and Civilization, especially in the chapter The Practical Character of Reality.
A rejeicao de dualismos, como sujeito/objeto e teorias/fatos, esta presente principalmente nos ultimos textos de Erwin Schrodinger. Ele da a entender tambem nesses textos que o que e considerado real e tudo aquilo que nos faz agir de determinada forma. Este artigo e parte de um projeto em fase inicial de desenvolvimento, que se propoe a estabelecer esses e outros pontos de contato entre a filosofia pragmatista e as ideias de Schrodinger. Segundo Yemima Ben-Menahem, seria dificil rotular a posicao filosofica deste renomado fisico, mas parece adequado, para ela, dizer que se trata de uma “filosofia com uma face humana”. Defendemos que, para Schrodinger, a ciencia constroi seu proprio objeto de estudo e, alem disso, a propria realidade dos objetos cotidianos e um construto, estabelecido em uma experiencia de inter-relacao entre a ‘mente’ ou o ‘sujeito’ e o ‘mundo’. Em “Mind and Matter”, publicado em 1958, Schrodinger afirma que “sujeito e objeto sao um so”, nao havendo uma barreira entre um mundo que “existe” e outro que e percebido. A formacao de “invariantes”, que nos fazem ver a realidade da mesma forma, comeca ainda na tenra infância. O objeto do cientista carrega essa construcao, mais a maneira como ele o concebe a partir de uma teoria de fundo. Neste artigo, comparamos as ideias de Schrodinger com as de John Dewey sobre a realidade, em “Philosophy and Civilization”, especialmente o capitulo “The Practical Character of Reality”.
While philosophy of science is the study of problems of knowledge concerning science in general, there also exists - or should exist - a '' philosophy in science'' directed at finding out in what ways our actual scientific knowledge may validly contribute to the basic philosophical quest. Contrary to philosophy of science, which is a subject for philosophers, philosophy in science calls on the services of physicists. When, in its spirit, quantum theory and Bell's theorem are used as touchstones, the two main traditional philosophical approaches, realism and idealism, are found wanting. A more suitable conception seems to be an intermediate one, in which the mere postulated existence of a holistic and hardly knowable Mind-Independent Reality is found to have an explaining power. Some corrections to comments by Schins of a previous work on the same subject are incorporated.
The present study is concerned with the problem of realism in quantum mechanics. Contrary to the prevailing view that quantum mechanics forces us to abandon the concept of realism and reality, the author attempts to substantiate another standpoint. Quantum objects indeed exist in a different way from classical bodies. Before the act of measurement begins, one cannot attribute any specific properties to the quantum object observed, as they only occur in the course observation. The concept of observation, however, should not be interpreted as the inclusion of subjective traits in the description of nature. Observation records processes in space and time and establishes the fact of transition from the potential to the reality. The potential is described by a wave function, which in its meaning does not fall in the habitual space and time, whereas the actual is described in terms of a reduction of the wave function, i.e. the transition from a range of possible states to the single one, the observed. Whatever has been observed, in contrast, already belongs to ordinary space and time and can be detected. What follows is that, in quantum mechanics, it is the notion of reality which needs to be reconsidered, not the realism as such rejected. A reconsideration of this sort is conducted here within the framework of a double-modus picture of reality including both potential and actual being, where the quantum level of existence is distinguished from the observed modi of being as described by means of classical concepts. Such a scheme can be described in terms of Aristotelian metaphysics (the fact first pointed out by Heisenberg). The act of transition from potential to actual can be accounted for both in the language of Aristotle’s metaphysics and the language of modern science. In traditional metaphysics it is called the 'principle of individuation', while in modern science it is known as the extended Mach principle. It is argued that the development of these ideas leads to the rejection of Cartesian paradigm in which the existence of a material object always means an existence in space and time.
Abstract These essays in natural philosophy were all written from a pragmatist point of view developed over the past 15 years. They show what work pragmatism can do in science as well as philosophy. Many essays express a view of quantum theory developed using ideas of contemporary pragmatist philosophers: other essays apply these more widely to science and metaphysics. Quantum models are used not to represent physical systems but to offer good advice on how to represent them. The role of a quantum state is not to describe a system but to yield objective probabilities for alternative outcomes of events involving it. A situated agent could use these probabilities to decide what to do, and one can use them to explain phenomena. They are probabilities for physical events including measurements: pragmatist inferentialism helps one to say what these are, and when they have outcomes, thereby resolving the quantum measurement problem. One can use quantum theory locally to explain non-localized correlations, and why quantum field theory poses no ontological problem. Despite its unrivaled success, quantum theory offers no scientific image of the physical world on which a naturalist could construct a metaphysics. There are structural reasons why the rest of physical theory cannot be reduced to quantum theory. This pragmatist view of quantum theory is not instrumentalist. One essay explains why it should count as realist. Other essays defend pragmatist views of scientific laws and explanations as well as causation, truth, and objectivity.
Most interpretations of quantum theory fail to provide a fundamental, complete, self-consistent account of nature describing physical reality itself, as opposed to merely yielding predictions about results of experiments and observations. A paradigm providing a self-consistent foundation for quantum theory and a description of the reality it refers to, generalized to a worldview, is a Quantum Paradigm, where ‘paradigm' is defined as structure of experiential reality. We assert that the fundamental obstruction in the quest for a quantum paradigm is the assumption of objectivity. The subject-object distinction, drawn within experience, has within the natural sciences degenerated into a dichotomy-an absolute split into separate realms-with scientists adopting the classical paradigm where the object pole of experience ("objective reality") can be studied independently from the subject pole ("the experiencer"), with a presupposition that this procedure yields a fundamental description of nature. In fact, the subjective is often eliminated altogether as a fundamental category, and reduced to an epiphenomenon of objective processes. We claim this objectivity assumption precludes a full comprehension and a paradox-free formulation of quantum theory. By challenging this presupposition, i.e. leaving the question open, a coherent understanding of quantum nature falls naturally into place, providing appropriate foundation for quantum theory and an associated world-view. The resulting Quantum Paradigm is "realist" in the sense that it provides a description of what is actually happening: namely the arena of all happening is Mind or Consciousness-from which mind and matter, subject and object, individual and collective, and time and space co-dependently arise. The subject matter of quantum theory then becomes the fundamental mind-function of distinction ("measurement"), resulting in information and its statistical correlations. The message of quantum mechanics is surprising: the basic components of objects-the particles, electrons, quarks, etc.-cannot be thought of as ‘self-existent'. The reality that they, and hence all objects, are components of is ‘empirical reality', of experience."The universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine."-James Jeans Anomalous phenomena such as ESP and psychokinesis, collective consciousness, and synchronicity that are considered impossible in the context of the classical paradigm, fit naturally in, and can in turn provide evidence for the Quantum Paradigm. Spirituality and science are shown to be complementary approaches referring to the same reality, Mind, while each discipline retains its integrity. The Quantum Paradigm can be intellectually comprehended, as well as embodied: one can live in quantum reality. A good metaphor for this is "life as a dream": with no "real" objects as distinguished from experienced objects. Experience is "empty" of self-nature in the Buddhist sense, with everything interconnected and co-dependently arising. Experiencing the world by "embodying the Quantum Paradigm" is transformative, healing, and an antidote to alienation resulting from embodying the classical paradigm. Embodying the Quantum Paradigm and living in the Oneness of all creation can help humanity-increasingly lost in the materialism and individualism reinforced by our embodiment of the classical paradigm-and restore intimate connection and harmony with Spirit, Nature and fellow humans; we need such a transformation to survive and thrive in our technological society.
Abstract The introduction explains the origin and development of the views expressed in these essays. Fruitful interaction with physicists applying quantum theory provided the kernel for the author’s growing interest in contemporary pragmatism, initially as a source of ideas that could solve conceptual problems blocking an understanding of quantum theory. These pragmatist ideas were later applied to more general issues in the philosophy of science and metaphysics. After briefly sketching the pragmatist view of quantum theory defended in the essays, the introduction explains the implications—for the place of quantum theory in science, for metaphysics, and for the philosophy of science and specifically for the issue of scientific realism. New results in the foundations of physics prompted revision of the original view of the objectivity of quantum event outcomes. Some later essays show how elaborating a pragmatist view of the function of truth helped to acknowledge that the outcome of a quantum measurement is a relative fact that remains objective in the sense that matters for science: others take a neo-pragmatist view of causation, explanation, and laws in science. All these later essays illustrate the neo-pragmatist moral that by focusing on the intellectual function of a concept, one can satisfy a demand for understanding that might otherwise provoke a fruitless metaphysical quest.