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Physics World

A subtle point about Bohr

Allen C. Dotson

Published Jul 1, 2013• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Jon Cartwright's interesting and informative article on quantum philosophy ("The life of psi", May pp26–31) mischaracterizes Niels Bohr's stance as anti-realist by suggesting (in the illustration on p29) that Bohr believed that "quantum theory [does not] describe an objective reality, independent of the observer".

DOI
10.1088/2058-7058/26/07/30

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The surprising thing is that the most successful scientific field of the century is quantum physics, and quantum physics in its most orthodox interpretation is decidedly anti-realist. At least that is what Niels Bohr, the foremost thinker in the field, said explicitly: "an independent reality in the ordinary physical sense can neither be ascribed to the phenomena nor to the agencies of observation." Many philosophers, however, would cringe at the thought that any form of relativism may be considered sensible. Their support for realism stems in part from the belief that the alternative to realism is relativism and that relativism is incoherent. Likewise at the level of science, a view may allow the bat such striking success in dealing with certain difficult questions that the bat adopts it as his means of viewing that entire area of experience.
I: Hoffding as Mentor.- I.- 1. Harald Hoffding, His Life and Thought.- 2. Hoffding and Bohr Senior.- II.- 1. The Ekliptika Circle.- 2. Bohr and William James.- 3. Bohr and Kierkegaard.- 4. The Student Bohr on Formal Logic.- III.- 1. The Friendship.- 2. The Years Around 1927.- 3. Hoffding on Complementarity.- IV.- 1. Hoffding's Theory of Knowledge.- 2. Totality as a Category.- 3. Hoffding's Philosophy of Mind and Psychology of Free Will.- 4. Hoffding on Biology.- 5. Analogy and Scientific Progress.- II: Bohr and the Atomic Description of Nature.- V.- 1. The Principle of Correspondence.- 2. The Search for an Interpretation.- VI.- 1. Complementarity.- 2. Quantum Mechanics and Psychology.- 3. Bohr on Biology.- VII.- 1. The Objectivity of Knowledge.- 2. The EPR Discussion.- 3. The Conditions for Description.- VIII.- 1. Bohr and Realism.- 2. Hoffding on Reality.- 3. Objective Anti-Realism.- Epilogue: The Legacy.- Notes.