Dear Jeremy Fiennes ,

I must congratulate you to point out philosophy of Quantum Mechanics .Epistemology -The theory of knowledge . METAPHYSICS -A relationship between

Mind & Matter - Just like de-broglies wave particle duality .

There are two epistemological categories and not just one as the question suggests. So, the world view on anything including the quantum phenomena will differ, nay in some cases be the exact opposite, depending on which category is considered. G.W.F. Hegel for the first-time in history divided epistemology into two categories: 1. “The View of Understanding” or popularly known as causality as defined by Aristotle’s principle - “Unity, Opposition and the Excluded Middle”, which is deterministic and is mediated by a series of cause and affect, originating in a “First Cause”. 2. “The View of Reason” or popularly known as dialectics (authored by Heraclitus), which is non-deterministic and is defined by the contradiction “The Unity of the Opposites” and is mediated by blind chance, but with an iron dialectical necessity inherent in chance itself.

Causality based epistemology cannot give us positive knowledge beyond (biological) evolution-defined and historically conditioned everyday life experience of “good old common-sense” and classical and Newtonian mechanics in terrestrial Nature. For dialectics, even in this realm, our knowledge is not “certain” but only approximate and relative and can never be complete or exhaustive. But it has the scope of being increasingly and progressively ever closer to ontological truth in the process of the historical evolution of the human intellect.

Beyond the terrestrial realm; i.e., the macrocosm of the cosmos and the microcosm of the quantum world, causality cannot give us any positive knowledge at all; but only leads to mysteries and Kantian Antinomies, because causality starts from the mystery of all mysteries; i.e., the “First Cause”! This is the very reason why (even before the recognition of the quantum phenomena in Nature) Immanuel Kant declared the world (objective reality) to be an “unknowable thing-in-itself”. After the recognition of the quantum phenomena, and following Kant; Albert Einstein also rejected reality and the quantum phenomena as unreal because it violates causality. Kant and Einstein tried to solve the problem of the knowledge of reality by imposing on it their subjective logical and mathematical categories respectively.

So, any “Epistemological Interpretation of quantum physics” based on polar opposites either/or epistemology of causality is bound to be nothing but mysticism; be it the positivism/solipsism of Niels Bohr et al., the indeterminism of the uncertainty principle of Warner Heisenberg, the “realism” of Einstein and Bohm, the “many world” interpretation etc., etc.

Only “chance and necessity” based materialist dialectics can be the proper epistemology for positive knowledge of the quantum world (without any mystery) as well as of the infinite, eternal and ever-changing universe from the microcosm to the macrocosm. For dialectics, any existence at all is a contradiction of “the unity of the opposite”, like chance and necessity, which must resolve into a “becoming” - a third entity with its own contradictions and so on forever; leading to change, motion, evolution, development or in one word the phenomenology of the universe. This evolutionary process can go in both positive and negation direction with the contradiction “being-nothing” being both the first and also the last contradiction through which matter in motion eternally “comes into being and passes out of existence” as Heraclitus posited.

For dialectics, abstract space and time are in eternal contradiction that resolves to the quasi-real quantum vacuum containing virtual particle-antiparticle pairs. The virtual particles become real elementary particles through quantum tunnelling and other yet unknown processes and evolve further through the cosmic processes to provide matter in eternal motion; which in turn forms the basis of objective reality and the phenomenology of the infinite, eternal and everchanging universe. The epistemology of materialist dialectics thus provides the basis for a proper understanding (without the mystery of “First Cause”) of the universe from the microcosm to the macrocosm and the phenomenology of Nature, Life, Society and Thought. Please see the following links for some examples of dialectical epistemology applied in particular relation to quantum physics.

1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328359746_The_Philosophy_of_Space-Time_Whence_Cometh_Matter_and_Motion

2. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304782975_RealVirtual_Exchange_of_Quantum_Particles_as_a_Basis_for_the_Resolution_of_Wave-Particle_Duality_and_Other_Anomalies_of_the_Quantum_Phenomena

3. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320027626_Ambartsumian_Arp_and_the_Breeding_Galaxies

4. https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Space-Time-Whence-Cometh-Matter/dp/984041884X

Also, for dialectics, the uncertainty of the quantum phenomena is not just a statistical or a measurement problem as commonly thought; nor because of the uncertainty of measurement due to change in the object being measured as Heisenberg formulated in the uncertainty principle. The objective reality itself is inherently uncertain at quantum level as matter particles eternally come into being and pass out of existence (being-nothing) from and to the virtual particles of the quantum vacuum. The quantum vacuum therefore, acts as both the source and the sink of matter particles in their eternal cycle. Please see the following question in RG: “Are you certain Mr. Heisenberg?”:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Are_You_Certain_Mr_Heisenberg

Abdul Malek

Thanks for yours. You are obviously far more philosophically erudite than me, and I cannot even begin to answer your various points with any competence.

My position is much less wide-ranging than yours. It is limited to our direct observation of physical reality. Its basis is that – given the nature of our neurone-based physical mechanism – we are constrained to three (not one, as you say I suggest) distinct epistemological classes. Being 1) classical where observations don't affect the observed; 2) quantum where they do; 3) a hypothetical subliminal substrate of which we can have no definite knowledge at all. This last is based on the 'zeta-particle' argument, which is essential to my thesis.

My basic point is then that there is no a priori distinction between the determinate classical and the indeterminate quantum domains. The indeterminacy of the latter is only apparent, due to the limitations of our perceptual mechanism, and not inherent in physical reality.

Regards,

Jeremy

No purely epistomological or philosophical approach will do.

There are always purely experimental or empirical factors.

QM was almost forcibly built to accomodate often antiintuitive experimental results.

That the observation can afect the observed is true in the microscopic world, but this observation alone will not go very far in todays QM

Hi. Thanks. QM as such is fine - well: more or less. The problem is non-existent moons, half-alive-and-half dead cats, etc. Schroedinger thought it was all fatuous, and I agree with him. But when the cat principle gets extended into quantum computing, which they have been saying for decades will one day revolutionize computing (emphasis mine). But which day? Well, it seems no-one can can say. And if Erwin was right, it will be no day. And countless $bn down the drain and red faces all around.

The cat is not half dead and half alive, merely has a probability of 50% of being alive and 50% of being dead.

See the difference?

Jeremy Fiennes

Thanks for your response and the kind words. I can say the same about you for posing this profound question, which official physicists would better not discuss, because this exposes the bankruptcy of the epistemology of modern official theoretical physics and opens a can of worms for them. Based on causality they can never come to grips with the quantum uncertainty or chance and necessity. If a mighty thinker like Kant found problems with causality and if Einstein refused to accept the reality of the quantum phenomena because it violates causality, then lesser thinkers cannot just wish this problem off!

The problem lies with what Hegel termed as “the view of understanding” – which sees the world and things in it as given once for all “perfect in themselves” and separated from one another with an impenetrable barrier of “excluded middle”, for all eternity. This view excludes any change, evolution of one thing from the other or the further development of the existing ones etc., in one-word total fixity and stasis of the things of Parmenidean philosophy.

The quantum phenomenon is a revolutionary aspect of Nature that no philosophers of the past could even think of in their wild imagination. Only Hegel, with the extension of his idealist dialectics to the realm of ontology could in a very obscure way and dimly anticipate the quantum phenomena. Hegel was much advanced of his time! Even Marx and Engels who further developed and used materialist dialectics in the various branches of the sciences, could not and did not wish to deal with Hegel’s highly speculative and ontological triad of “Being-Nothing-Becoming” and Lenin even denounced Hegel for this idealist speculation.

But now with the developments in quantum physics specially quantum electrodynamics of Heisenberg and Dirac, the knowledge (Lamb Shift, Casimir force etc.) and the reality of the virtual particle of the quantum vacuum and particle physics; it is now possible to link up the things and processes in the universe (from the subatomic to the cosmic) in terms of the quantum and dialectical laws. My humble contributions, few of which are cited in my comment above only points to the tip of the iceberg.

Your three epistemological categories: [1) 'classical', where observations don't affect the observed, and our knowledge is certain to within experimental error; 2) 'quantum' where they do, and our knowledge is uncertain; 3) a hypothetical undetectable 'subliminal substrate']; in my opinion fall in Hegel’s category of “the view of understanding” or causality. Your view makes us (the subject) and the world (the object) as purely independent entities separated from each other with an “excluded middle” in between; i.e., no contradictions of dialectics. The subject then tries to understand the world (the object) at various levels (in terms of size?) of existence with diminished precision and certainty; as our capability of perception gets weaker at the micro-level and vanishes totally at the quantum level. Your category 3 is nothing but Kantian “unknowable thing-in-itself”, which can easily be extended to the other two of your categories. Please see my related recent comments in the following forum:https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_Any_Effective_Refutation_of_Einsteins_Theories_of_Relativity_Possible

Best regards, Abdul

epistemology may keep you guys entertained, but it wont advance the science...because the whole thing is largly empirical and could not be understood a priori.

Some people stubborny resist the concept of pure chance in QM, ie. Einstein remark that God does not play dice with the universe, but it is so. The determinist have lost that battle.

I dont see the point of mixing Hegel or Marx with physics, this has nothing to do.(Other than funny short remarks in physics books published in the ussr)

Philosophy hating and Einsteinian mathematical idealism worshiping charlatans of modern official theoretical physics, who are only creating new Fairy Tales (in the name of positive knowledge) in the realm of the cosmos; are at best riding the “Bugbear” of Immanuel Kant, namely “the unknowable thing-in-itself”; in the realm of the quantum world.

There is no doubt that Kant was one of the greatest thinkers of history. With his great vision of “Nebular Hypothesis”, he opened the door to the dialectical view of the cosmos and of natural science, against the prevailing view. The world and Nature do not only have existence in space “created perfect in themselves” as was thought since the early Greeks; but they also have a history of change and evolution in time – meaning that they come into being through historical developments. The great mind of Kant for the first time in history also discovered the laws of thought (the logical categories) through which "thought" evolves in triadic or triple movements – like from the singular/particular to the general to the universal; etc.

His able disciples, Hegel, Fichte, Schelling, Feuerbach et al., held tightly on to the dialectics and the logical categories of the great master, but rightly, totally and unceremoniously rejected his “unknowable thing-in-itself”; because it does not make any sense! If the objective reality is unknowable, then what is the point of trying to know or do anything with it at all? – a premise leading to nihilism and anarchism and all sorts of many other spurious trends in post-Kantian philosophy.

To judge something is unknowable, you must at least have some knowledge (however little) of it, before you can make this judgement; so, it is not totally unknowable after all! Kant with all his greatness could not unfortunately rise above the historical and social limitation of his time, which his disciple Hegel partly accomplished; by greatly expanding and extending the dialectical mode of thought.

To save causality - the closely guarded and the venerated tool of class rule and theology, against the skepticism of David Hume, Kant resorted to opportunism. He seemed to accept the materialist notion of an objective reality independent of the human mind, but then declared it to be unknowable and found it necessary to impose on objective reality his subjective “logical categories”, cooked up in his thought; thereby hijacking philosophy from the lowly material world to the world of thought and idealism – the heaven of idealist philosophy and theology! This conveniently gives him and the ruling authority, to decide what is knowledge and what is not, what is good and what is bad etc., in one-word unimpeded class rule of society. With his scholasticism of antinomies Kant brought back medieval theological scholasticism and the renewed strong role of theology in society.

Einstein, in face of the breakdown of causality with the recognition of the quantum phenomena, took the same opportunistic approach of Kant in physics, by leading physics to abstract mathematical idealist world of thought, that has resulted in endless scholasticism, confusion, diverse mathematical abstractions etc., that we see in modern theoretical physics, including in these pages of RG. The confusion is much worse in post-Einstein physics than in post-Kant philosophy. Einstein himself was a victim of the confusion that he created and expressed it in contradictory assertion. Einstein aptly described this confusion with the following words, “Who would imagine that this simple law has plunged the conscientiously thoughtful physicist into the greatest intellectual difficulties?” A. Einstein, in "Relativity, The Special and General Theory" (Three Rivers Press, NewYork, 1961).

The reason for the greater confusion in physics is because of the fact that Einstein mixed up the ideal and the real world in his "thought experiments", indiscriminately and inconsistently; whenever and wherever it was convenient and expedient for him. Kant was at least consistent in that he was totally unconcerned about the real world or objective reality; as it was for him the unknowable thing-in-itself and dealt consistently and only with his subjective idealist world of thought.

I pity the followers of Albert Einstein much more than I do for those of Immanuel Kant!

I dont hate philosphy by a long shot. I just think its not that relevant in this situation.I gave my reasons.

By the way you should know that Einsteins contribution to QM is only marginal.

"Marginal" what qualifies you to say that... Mattis...

Juan Weisz

No. QM says that before being observed the cat IS a wave function superposition state of half-alive-and-half-dead-cat probabilities. It was to demonstrate the absurdity of this that Schroedinger thought up his cat-in-a-box. And failed miserably! Cat superposition is today the essence of quantum computers. Which to date have consumed $$bn in funding, with nothing but promises to show for it.

Come on, once you open the lid, what do you expect to see?

Abdul Malek Again, thanks for your wide-ranging and comprehensive comments. I didn't really intend to raise the question of epistemology in general. Maybe I shouldn't have used the word. My thesis is that that is no essential difference between the classical and quantum domains. It is simply a question of our knowledge (hence the 'epistemological'), which in the classical domain is certain, and in the quantum domain is uncertain. The uncertainty is not then inherent in physical reality as the Copenhagen interpretation holds. It is due to us, specifically the limitations of our perceptual mechanism.

And that's about it.

"I pity the followers of Albert Einstein much more than I do for those of Immanuel Kant!" Brilliant!! 100% with you! Though they don't really follow Einstein, but prostrate themselves before the EPR (Einstein Protection Racket) perpetrated by the Physics Establishment in its own pecuniary interest.

If you leave out some measurement axiom, people get confused about the cat problem.

It is usually said that the result of a measurement is one of the eigenvalues of the hamiltonian, and if you measure that eigenvalue can show up with its corresponding probability, which you read off the superposition of the wave functions, as the square modulus of an amplitude.

In exact analogy the possible results are here either dead cat or live cat, and only one of the two can show up on measurement. (opening the lid), with probabilities 1/2 for each.

Without an extra measurement axiom the superposition is not properly interpreted.

If you already knew the cat coming out half alive and half dead, you would not need probability.

It seems also people confused about the entanglement phenomena after all this time.....

Dear Jeremy Fiennes ,

I must congratulate you to point out philosophy of Quantum Mechanics .Epistemology -The theory of knowledge . METAPHYSICS -A relationship between

Mind & Matter - Just like de-broglies wave particle duality .

Jeremy Fiennes

I particularly liked your new representation of the "EPR paradox" as "Einstein Protection Racket"! This in my opinion also precisely describes the status of modern official theoretical physics.