The Uncertainty of Quantum Mechanics from the Perspective of Dialectical Materialism

Loren R. Graham

Paul K. Feyerabend

Dennis Alan Bartels

Paul K. Feyerabend

Hanoch Gutfreund, Jürgen Renn

Abstract This is devoted to detailed commentaries on Bohm’s lectures. The primary aim of these commentaries is to demonstrate how dialectical materialism acted as a new perspective on Bohm’s understanding of the meaning of quantum mechanics and as the foundation for a comprehensive interpretation of science and human understanding of nature in general. The commentaries address all the main topics discussed in Bohm’s lectures, emphasizing their roots in the contemporary discussion about the foundations of quantum theory, in Hegel’s dialectical philosophy, and in dialectical materialism, as well as in current scientific debates—for example, about the foundations of mathematics. The comments summarize Bohm’s long and sometimes convoluted discussions to highlight the key points, occasionally connecting them to the broader scientific and philosophical discourse. The comments also provide missing references and identify novel topics and arguments presented in these lectures, in comparison with those found in Causality and Chance in Modern Physics.

Ziming Xu, Luyao Fan

As an epoch-making achievement in the field of natural science, the scientific principles of quantum mechanics, such as nonlocality, entanglement and decoherence, and role at a distance, have triggered many different interpretations and controversies in the field of philosophy, among which idealism, metaphysics, and agnosticism are based on which to question or even deny dialectical materialism. Marxist philosophy has always closely interacted with natural science. In the face of new and old propositions in quantum mechanics, such as uncertainty principle, quantum tunneling, large distance zero interaction measurement, and Poincare regression of multi particle quantum system, we can promote its compatibility with the new world outlook and methodology of quantum science in the intertextuality interpretation. Quantum mechanics reveals the "intermediate phenomenon" in the process of understanding the micro world, highlighting the dialectical characteristics of materialistic epistemology; It emphasizes probability, but denies that uncertainty is subjective conjecture, defending the objectivity of existence; For the movement and change of things, the status of the contingency category has been improved and the linear causality has been exceeded, but the existence of universal and inevitable connection has not been fundamentally denied.