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Phenomenal Surfaces and Noumenal Depths

Gary Nickard

Published Dec 30, 2014• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

In simple terms and with little scientific or philosophical jargon, this is an examination of some of the philosophical implications of quantum theory. In particular, the Copenhagen interpretation of Bohr and Heisenberg is systematically explored revealing its neo-Kantian and anti-realist features. As Bohr said: “Natural Science is not nature itself but part of a relation between man and nature, and therefore is dependant on man.” In addition, the physical theories of de Broglie and Bohm are contextualized within the philosophical ideas of Bergson, Deleuze, Kant and Whitehead. In particular, Whitehead’s idea of the “Melodic Metaphor” as an embrace of the matter wave model is seen as a new “Music of the Spheres.” Finally, the notion of aesthetic beauty in scientific theory is examined in some depth, revealing it to be an important criterion for judging the validity of theoretical constructs.

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This chapter repeats for quantum mechanics the comparison carried out for relativity in Chapter 5. Its thesis is that the same three interpretative families, neo-Kantian, empiricist and scientific realist, reappear in the philosophical reception of quantum mechanics, but in a more radical form, because the dispute now reaches the meaning of the quantum state, of probability and of measurement. The chapter first identifies what the formalism established in Chapter 4 leaves open and treats the Copenhagen framework as a point of departure rather than a unified doctrine. It then reconstructs the neo-Kantian interpretation (the Kantian affinities of Bohr’s complementarity, Cassirer, Grete Hermann and contemporary transcendental perspectives), the empiricist interpretation (Heisenberg’s observability principle, instrumentalism, Schlick, Frank, Reichenbach and van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism) and, on equal terms, the realist interpretation: Einstein and the EPR argument, Popper’s propensities, the de Broglie–Bohm theory, Bell’s beables and local causality, realist modal interpretations, and the Everett and collapse programmes. The realist family is the most developed of the three in quantum mechanics, but it is also internally plural: it affirms that the theory refers to a mind-independent reality while disagreeing about whether that reality consists of particles, fields, propensities, branching worlds or definite and possible properties. On this basis the chapter compares the three interpretations of causality and of stationary action. Causality appears as a relativized condition of objective description, as a statistical relation without surplus content, or as an objective but non-local structure; stationary action appears as a coordination axiom of quantum dynamics, as an empirically equivalent formulation, or as a real dynamical structure that in Bohm’s theory directly guides motion. The result confirms the pattern of Chapter 5 and identifies the precise point, the relation between quantum possibility and actuality, from which the BBMT bridge of Chapter 7 will start.
Steen Brock paints a cross-disciplinary picture of the philosophical and scientific background for the rise of the quantum theory. He accounts for the unity of Kantian metaphysics of Nature, the Helmholtzian principles, and the Hamiltonian methods of modern pre-quantum physics. Brock shows how Planck's vision of a generalization of classical physics implies that the original quantum mechanics of Heisenberg can be regarded as a successful attempt to maintain this modern unity of physics. However, for Niels Bohr, the unity of science and metaphysics did not end in the world of physics. The development of quantum physics had general implications both for other sciences and for various philosophical issues. Brock discusses these matters with respect to recent topics within the philosophy of science and major interpretations of Bohr's ideas. The author invites the reader to follow a long and winding route of thought which, in the end, culminates in Bohr's ideas of complementarity, culture and Spirit.
In this thesis I confront the problem of indeterminism in quantum physics. The first pioneers accepted indeterminism as part of their Copenhagen interpretation and it was incorporated in Von Neumann's formulation (as the "projection postulate"). But how deep does this indeterminism go? With the arrival of quantum physics, the idea that the world is fundamentally deterministic has been shattered. Redhead's work showed that the experimental confirmation of the violation of Bell's inequality means that determinism has broken down; he even formulated a version of the Bell inequality that is not dependent on local hidden variables and showed that the violation thereof negates even what might be called "stochastic" determinism - at least in the framework of the Lorentzian space-time manifold (Redhead 1987:83, 103). With the acceptance of non-determinism as part of our world, we are confronted with the question: How can the possibility of non-determinism be explained and how can it be reconciled with determinism in one coherent conceptualization of the world? I use the philosophy of science that Immanuel Kant developed in the Critique of the Power of Judgment to develop an answer to these questions. In this part of his philosophy of science Kant is concerned with the possibility and conceivability of a spontaneous (albeit effective) causality in nature's producing its products. Kant developed the idea of this causality in analogy to the achievement of human ends, conceptualizing it as a capacity that non-extended wholes and parts have to be realized as parts forming an aggregated whole in nature. An important feature of my approach is that I develop a new interpretation of Kant's philosophy as presented in his well-known Critique of Pure Reason. In contrast with the two-object and twoaspect views in Kantian interpretation, I argue that the noumenal realm refers to an ontologically distinct realm outside nature, problematically assumed. This agrees with Kant's view in the Critique of the Power of Judgment where it is conceptualized as the substratum of nature and forms a central part of his philosophy of science. It is only when the noumenal (supersensible) realm is conceptualized in this manner that spontaneous causality becomes not only logically possible, but also conceivable within the framework of his philosophy. In my Kantian interpretation of quantum physics his concept of nature is taken as referring to the "classical realm" (where the theories of relativity would apply). His non-extended wholes and parts, which belong to the supersensible realm, find application in superpositions of states, which I argue belong to an ontologically distinct realm - the pre-measurement "quantum realm". Since the classical and quantum realms are taken as ontologically distinct realms, there is no contradiction in ascribing two heterogeneous laws, namely of deterministic and spontaneous causality (which is manifest in the reduction of the wave packet), to these realms which are combined in one description in quantum mechanics. In my view spontaneous causality grounds a non-spatiotemporal potentiality which explains why superpositions of states have the ability to collapse to reduced states. I develop these ideas in the framework of the various interpretations of quantum mechanics.