The New Language of the Atomic World.

James Stokley

Jerome P. Mbat, Emmanuel Iniobong Archibong

Language has severally been viewed as a collection of words, phrases, and sentences. For some, it is a habit system, acquired accidentally and extrinsically. It is further regarded as a structure of forms and concepts based on a system of rules that determine their interrelations, arrangement, and organization. Language also has a relationship with the world and how we talk about the world. It is often likened to a tool, perhaps man’s most important one; more useful it seems than fire, the wheel, or atomic energy. However, language like any tool has its limitations. This limitation is very obvious in the discussions of the behavior of sub-atomic quantum particles of reality since the ordinary everyday language of this macro-world does not fit into the picture of the behavior of elementary particles of physics. This paper attempts to highlight the language difficulties inherent in the discussions of quantum reality from a philosophical perspective using such tools as criticism, analysis and speculation to justify the position that ordinary language is not enough to interpret and explain quantum reality.

John J. Stachel

What is Logic? My answer consists of three steps: Logic is about Language, Language is about the World. Panlogism is the attempt to "short circuit" this process by identifying the real object and the "concrete-in-thought." It leads to the assertion: Logic is about the World. If we abandon panlogism, we see that quantum logics (note the plural!) are just different ways of reformulating the same content. The danger: is that, If we accept the idea of one unique quantum logic, that provides all the answers, this prevents us from confronting the real questions about quantum mechanics.

R. Folman, Jörg Schmiedmayer

Steven A. Pinker

Ian von Hegner

Niels Bohr thought that what quantum mechanics has taught us is not only to understand something new, but also a new meaning of the term “to understand”. Bohr wanted to free himself from ontology by putting emphasis on epistemology; i.e. on certain conditions for observation and description. He believed that the epistemological lesson of quantum mechanics was a crucial one. Basically it has two important aspects. 1. Bohr's philosophy leads to a break with the so-called correspondence theory for truth and meaning. It states that true propositions are descriptions of a world that is independent of our observations; i.e. that on a regular basis one can compare with reality, that is, in compare the two areas against each other. Bohr believed that this did not make sense, since in many situations cannot add meaning to a world that has a sich structure (the thing-in-itself), which in turn can be depicted when observed. 2. All knowledge is attained under certain conditions for description. Bohr thought that the long-lasting criterion for valid knowledge is that can communicate it unambiguously to each other. When Bohr emphasised that we are suspended in language in the sense that all knowledge determines what can say about the world in an understandable way, and not what the world actually is, this must be understood in the sense that only know the world as recognised; i.e., structured on the basis of the conditions for description, to which are, as part of the world, necessarily are subjected to. Bohr's emphasis on conditions for descriptions invalidates the well-known distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions. An important feature of the descriptive use of ordinary language, as well as in classical physics, is that description is based on a dividing line between subject and object. This results in idealism and materialism not being tenable positions. Furthermore, it is such that cannot use the designation of things independently of the designation of time and space. Logical principles are only meaningfully applied in situations relating to our conditions for observation. So based on inspiration from Bohr, Favrholdt developed a more adequate and comprehensive philosophy, where he, among other things, states that all humans possess a fundamental language, underlying all languages. This constitutes a number of concepts – the core – where the correct use is dictated by the structure of the world, which humans learn through sensory perception and action.