Formulating the assumption that human knowledge evolves through paradigm changes, the article argues that we are nowadays on the threshold of a new ontological conception in which things might be conceived starting from the suggestion offered by the physics of quantum particles. In this domain, the micro-entities are not seen as being connected through universal causality but only mathematically. By generalizing such a model, we could say that all existing entities build a world not by themselves but according to the observer’s ontological perspective. In other words, things are not internally connected, as traditional determinism thought, but according to our way of understanding them as existing entities. Thus, we may say that, basically, they are related only formally, without any connection having the form of a substantial cause leading to a substantial effect. In this context, freedom is interpreted as capable of being detached from its traditional relationship with causality, and, rather, fundamentally as an expression of how the human being conceives of himself and the world (different conceptions being irreducible to each other) and of the way he connects things in his overall conception of the world.
Formulating the assumption that human knowledge evolves through paradigm changes, the article argues that we are nowadays on the threshold of a new ontological conception in which things might be conceived starting from the suggestion offered by the physics of quantum particles. In this domain, the micro-entities are not seen as being connected through universal causality but only mathematically. By generalizing such a model, we could say that all existing entities build a world not by themselves but according to the observer’s ontological perspective. In other words, things are not internally connected, as traditional determinism thought, but according to our way of understanding them as existing entities. Thus, we may say that, basically, they are related only formally, without any connection having the form of a substantial cause leading to a substantial effect. In this context, freedom is interpreted as capable of being detached from its traditional relationship with causality, and, rather, fundamentally as an expression of how the human being conceives of himself and the world (different conceptions being irreducible to each other) and of the way he connects things in his overall conception of the world.
This paper re-opens the debate on the failure of quantum mechanics to provide an understandable view of micro-reality. A critique is offered of the commonly accepted ‘Copenhagen Interpretation’ of a theory that is only a mathematical approach to the level of reality characterized by atoms and electrons. This critique is based on the oldest approach to thinking about nature for over 2500 years, known as Natural Philosophy. Quantum mechanics (QM) was developed over the first quarter of the 20th Century, when scientists were enthralled by a new philosophy known as Positivism, whose foundations were based on the assumption that material objects exist only when measured by humans – this central assumption conflates epistemology (knowledge) with ontology (existence). The present critique rejects this human-centered view of reality by assuming material reality has existed long before (and will persist long after) human beings (“Realism”). The defensive view that the micro-world is too different to understand using regular thinking (and only a mathematical approach is possible) is rejected totally. At least 12 earlier QM interpretations are critically analyzed, indicating the broad interest in “what does QM mean?” The standard theory of quantum mechanics is thus constructed on only how the micro-world appears to macro measurements - as such, it cannot offer any view of how the foundations of the world are acting when humans are not observing it - this has generated almost 100 years of confusion and contradiction at the very heart of physics. Significantly, we live in a world that is not being measured by scientists but is interacting with itself and with us. QM has failed to provide explanations: only recipes (meaningless equations), not insights. Physics has returned to the pre-Newtonian world of Ptolemaic phenomenology: only verifiable numbers without real understanding. The focus needs to be on an explicit linkage between the micro-world, when left to itself, and our mental models of this sphere of material reality, via the mechanism of measurement. This limits the role of measurement to confirming our mental models of reality but never confusing these with a direct image of ‘the thing in itself’. This implies a deep divide between reality and appearances, as Kant suggested. This paper includes an original analysis of several major assumptions that have been implicit in Classical Mechanics (CM) that were acceptable in the macroscopic domain of reality, demonstrated by its proven successes. Unfortunately, only a few of these assumptions were challenged by the developers of QM. We now show that these other assumptions are still generating confusions in the interpretation of QM and blocking further progress in the understanding of the microscopic domain. Several of these flawed assumptions were introduced by Newton to support the use of continuum mathematics as a model of nature. This paper proposes that it is the attempt to preserve continuum mathematics (especially calculus), which drives much of the mystery and confusion behind all attempts at understanding quantum mechanics. The introduction of discrete mathematics is proposed to help analyze the discrete interactions between the quintessential quantum objects: the electrons and their novel properties. A related paper demonstrates that it is possible to create a point-particle theory of electrons that explains all their peculiar (and ‘paradoxical’) behavior using only physical hypotheses and discrete mathematics without introducing the continuum mathematical ideas of fields or waves. Another (related) paper proves that all the known results for the hydrogen atom can also be exactly calculated from this new perspective with the discrete mathematics. * Surrey, B.C. Canada (604) 542-2299 spsi99@telus.net Version 2.015 08-05-2017 Begun 23-06-2008 {pp. 82, 70.2 Kw; 800 KB}
In this article I present the extracts and summary of heuristic and speculative observations on various aspects I feel are problematic in the practice of modern physics, the definitions and methods of which are the premise for the whole of Science. The illustrations will be fully developed in a later, more extensive and in-depth work in which some theoretical solutions will also be put forward; therefore in the interests of brevity all assertions will not be demonstrated fully in this article. I will initially discuss the problem with thinking of Reality as basically being made up of ontologically autonomous “parts”; I will recall how the existence of the vacuum is demonstrated through the thermodynamic experiments about heat capacities run by W. Nernst and the experiments of W. Lamb and H. Casimir (static and dynamic); the vacuum will be defined as an object that precedes matter and space, and actually illustrated as an evolving (becoming) singularity, which all existence draws from; the non-isolability of the autonomous entity will be substantiated further by the uncertainty demonstrated as intrinsically following on from phase space quantisation, and not only as an algebraic requirement of quantum formalism. Once the inconsistency of the isolable entity has been demonstrated, the ontological supremacy of relationships in a perspective close to ontic structural realism will be considered; finally, issues relating to the usual idea of “information” in the scientific domain (in thermodynamics, informatics, and telecommunications) will be discussed fairly briefly, and its inadequacy in pooling knowledge. I will then touch on what is meant by living information as the basis for Reality and how it can be discussed consistently in terms of a self-implementing subject. It should be stressed that these topics are dealt with more extensively (along with other important subjects excluded here for reasons of space) in a complete work.
The original proposal of H. H. CitationPattee (1971) of basing quantum theoretical measurement theory on the theory of the origin of life, and its far reaching consequences, is discussed in the light of a recently emerging biological paradigm of internal measurement. It is established that the “measurement problem” of quantum physics can, in principle, be traced back to the internal material constraints of the biological organisms, where choice is a fundamental attribute of the self-measurement of matter. In this light, which is shown to be a consequence of Pattee's original suggestion, it is proposed that biological evolution is a gradual liberation from the inert unity of “subject” and “object” of inanimate matter (as “natural law” and “initial conditions”), to a split biological existence of them and, as a consequence, the “message of evolution” is freedom, rather than complexity in itself. Some classical philosophical systems are brought into context to show that the epistemologies of several strictly philosophical systems of the social sciences are well acquainted with the problem and their solutions support our conclusions.
This paper examines the structural discrepancy between the mathematical formulations of physics—particularly those of quantum mechanics—and the conditions under which human beings recognize existence and establish observation. The fundamental equations of quantum mechanics do not require sensory distinctions such as whether a particle is “moving” or “at rest”; the same formalism allows both dynamic and static states. In contrast, human perceptual structures presuppose continuous change or motion for the recognition of existence and the establishment of observation. A completely unchanging entity does not readily emerge within the sensory world. Focusing on this discrepancy, this paper argues that mathematical equations describe the consistency of states rather than the conditions of existential recognition or generative processes. Furthermore, concepts such as “will” and “choice” do not belong to the third-person domain described by mathematical formalism, but instead function as first-person preconditions. Accordingly, this paper does not claim that there exist phenomena that cannot be expressed mathematically; rather, it clarifies that there are layers of reality that mathematics does not, by design, attempt to describe. This distinction does not indicate a limitation of mathematics, but instead reveals a layered structure of world-description, offering a new perspective for connecting physics, cognitive science, and philosophy.
Quantum Mechanics has taught us a lesson that goes well beyond a set of new physical laws. It has provided us with genuine “theorems of epistemology”. We now know that there are situations when the observation of the world cannot be considered as the mere reading of a reality pre-existing the observation, whereas there are circumstances where the knowledge of the whole do not corresponds to the knowledge of the parts (holism). We know that there are incompatible properties that are complementary. We know that there exist properties of the whole that are incompatible with any property of each part. The notion of “object” defined in terms of its “properties ” is in contrast with its mereologic connotation according to which objects can be composed to form new objects. The particle ontology as localizable unity is in contrast with the Malament theorem in quantum field theory. To the above add the fact that the two more general fundamental theories in physics – the quantum theory of fields and the general relativity of Einstein – are logically incompatible. In order to reconcile the logical coherence of the observations with their theoretical explanation we need a radical change of paradigm. The solution here proposed is to abandon the vision of the world as a “mechanism” and to substitute it with that of “algorithm”. This is the paradigm of the “universe as a huge computer” that have been latent within the community since Richard Feynman, and nowadays is resurrecting in physics, showing its full theoretical power. In the new algorithmic vision the “mechanics” becomes an emergent phenomenology. Without the need of physical primitive, the new “informational” program allows us to found physics on solid axiomatic grounds. The quantum theory of abstract systems along with the free quantum field theory are derived from information-theoretic axioms. The axioms of quantum theory all have an epistemological connotation, and pertain the possibility of falsifying the propositions of the theory. They reconnect holism with reductionism, probabilism and falsifiability, substituting the notion of “object” with that of “system” and of “event”, and logically implying the theorem of quantum theory without the need of using the abstract Hilbert-spaces toolkit. The free quantum field theory (Weyl, Dirac e Maxwell) is obtained by adding axioms of minimization of algorithmic complexity. The informational framework well separates the notions of “experiment”and “theory”: the theory connects input with output, the experiment being identified with the collection of input, output, and objective intermediate events. The objective reality (experiment) is made of “icons” with which we interact: the theory is the underlying algorithm. The paradigm describes the tapestry of reality as pure software, “software”. “Software without hardware”: the dematerialization of physics. “Reality without realism” means pure logical coherentism.
There are deep similarities between Whitehead's idea of the process by which nature unfolds and the ideas of quantum theory. Whitehead says that the world is made of ''actual occasions'', each of which arises from potentialities created by prior actual occasions. These actual occasions are happenings modeled on experiential events, each of which comes into being and then perishes, only to be replaced by a successor. It is these experience-like happenings that are the basic realities of nature, according to Whitehead, not the persisting physical particles that Newtonian physics took be the basic entities. Similarly, Heisenberg says that what is really happening in a quantum process is the emergence of an actual from potentialities created by prior actualities. In the orthodox Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory the actual things to which the theory refer are increments in ''our knowledge''. These increments are experiential events. The particles of classical physics lose their fundamental status: they dissolve into diffuse clouds of possibilities. At each stage of the unfolding of nature the complete cloud of possibilities acts like the potentiality for the occurrence of a next increment in knowledge, whose occurrence can radically change the cloud of possibilities/potentialities for the still-later increments in knowledge. The fundamental difference between these ideas about nature and the classical ideas that reigned from the time of Newton until this century concerns the status of the experiential aspects of nature. These are things such as thoughts, ideas, feelings, and sensations. They are distinguished from the physical aspects of nature, which are described in terms of quantities explicitly located in tiny regions of space and time. According to the ideas of classical physics the physical world is made up exclusively of things of this latter type, and the unfolding of the physical world is determined by causal connections involving only these things. Thus experiential-type things could be considered to influence the flow of physical events only insofar as they themselves were completely determined by physical things. In other words, experiential-type qualities. insofar as they could affect the flow of physical events, could--within the framework of classical physics--not be free: they must be completely determined by the physical aspects of nature that are, by themselves,sufficient to determine the flow of physical events.