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The Annals of the University of Bucharest Philosophy Series

Metaphysics and quantum physics: synallagmatic connections and asymptotic relationships

Andreea Gae

Published Jan 1, 2013• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Could the paradigm of the quantum physics instrument a metaphysical reconstruction of the natural world? What connections exist between actuality, potentiality and the contradictory complementarity? What are the uncertainty relations and how do they meet the Hegelian Concept or the Aristotelian energeia? How does the metaphysics retrieve the negativity of becoming and what is the hermeneutic contrariety of the quantum mechanics?

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Could the paradigm of the quantum physics instrument a metaphysical reconstruction of the natural world? What connections exist between actuality, potentiality and the contradictory complementarity? What are the uncertainty relations and how do they meet the Hegelian Concept or the Aristotelian energeia? How does the metaphysics retrieve the negativity of becoming and what is the hermeneutic contrariety of the quantum mechanics?
Quantum mechanics has maintained over the years the reputation of being "the most obscure theory." It works perfectly well, but nobody seems to know why. It has been argued that the difficulty in understanding quantum theory is our failed attempt to force onto it a wrong conceptual scheme, wanting at all costs to think about the objects of the theory as, precisely, objects, i.e., entities having continuously actual spatiotemporal properties. This too restrictive spatiotemporal scheme is most probably at the heart of the problem, as also underlined by the Einsteinian revolution, but then what could be an alternative? Many thinkers have suggested that we must surrender to the fact that our physical world is one of immanent powers and potencies. Aristotle did so ante quantum litteram, followed by scholars like Heisenberg, Primas, Shimony, Piron, Kastner, Kauffman, de Ronde, just to name a few, including the authors, who were both students of Piron in Geneva. However, if on the one hand a potentiality ontology puts the accent on the processes of change, responsible for the incessant shifts between actual and potential properties, on the other hand it does not tell what these changes are all about. In other words, the metaphysical question remains of identifying the nature of the bearer of these potencies, or potentialities, and of the entities that can actualize them. It is the purpose of the present article to emphasize that the above question has found a possible answer in the recent Conceptuality Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, which we believe offers the missing ontology and metaphysics that can make the theory fully intelligible, and even intuitive.
This article develops a contextual Boolean formalization of the Bell-Bohm-Modal-Thomistic (BBMT) model under the provisional name Contextual Ontological Actualization Framework (COAF). Its central thesis is deliberately limited: Boolean algebra does not prove the Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics of potency and actuality, but it can represent, within compatible quantum contexts, a disciplined sequence of determination, modality, actualization, and renewed determination. That is, it aims to show a path to accessing analogical ontology from BBMT. In this case, the idea is to maximize the algebraic route and postpone conceptual interpretation until the last moment. As I will show in subsequent articles, other options exist, but for now we will follow this path. Under this proposal, the global network of quantum propositions is distinguished from Boolean subalgebras associated with compatible observables, while a privileged beable algebra linked to position is examined as the domain in which a defined valuation can be assigned without postulating a prohibited global valuation1. On the other hand, the transition from physical-mathematical structure to ontology is governed neither by univocal identity nor by equivocal separation, but by a composite analogy. At this point, it is necessary to keep in mind two elements of the realist ontological framework that inspire BBMT-COAF: 1) Reality is divided into actual and potential; that is, potency is part of reality, because otherwise it would be impossible for a being to become actual. 2) The entity, as a transcendental concept, is analogous, and this analogy is twofold: it possesses a horizontal dimension expressed in proportionality and a vertical dimension expressed in its attributive predicability. This last element is the position subscribed to by the author in the discussion of specialists, which should be taken beforehand as a hermeneutical prejudice. Horizontally, a proper proportionality analogy compares the relation between physical possibility and physical actuality with that between potentiality and act. Vertically, an analogy of intrinsic attribution orders physical actuality and potentiality to their ontological analogs. Building on Ángel González Álvarez's synthesis of the Thomistic analogy and Santiago Ramírez's proposed correction to the Cayetano-Suárez opposition, this work also clarifies the conception of being that should govern the interpretation: a being is not an abstract logical unity, but rather the inseparable unity of essence and existence, intrinsically realized in diverse ways. Consequently, COAF is presented as a research program and a formal correspondence, not as a deduction of ontology from quantum mechanics. Furthermore, we must not forget that we are attempting to demonstrate that the analogical realist interpretation is not contradictory; that is, we begin with analogy and then demonstrate that this interpretive option of scientific realism does not lead to contradiction. This technique does not imply circularity and is used in various sciences when direct demonstration, whether experimental or deductive, is not possible. It thus proves that a proposition considered true will maintain this condition as long as no derived contradiction is found. Moreover, we must also remember that the BBMT model and its COAF form part of a hermeneutic and, consequently, interpretive thesis.
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.