Quantum Reality And Objectivism

[amagi]

So, I ask you directly: Do you or do you not agree that instantaneous action-at-a-distance is a violation of identity?

Yes, for one entity to affect another, instantaneously, with no means of action between them, does violate identity and its corollary, causality. However, in defining what in this case can actually constitute a distinct entity, metaphysics ends and physics begins. If certain particles are connected, by some physical property of the universe, in such a way that an action affects them simultaneously regardless of distance, then they can certainly be identified as a single entity--and this would therefore not violate identity. The reason that the particles represent an entity is precisely because they comprise a system affected by this connecting law of physics.

If two other particles were not affected by this particular scientific property, they could not exhibit non-local behavior.

This challenges our common-sense idea of what an entity is, but only because in our lives we have no way of experiencing or sensing directly anything resembling this kind of interaction. Nevertheless, it is certainly still possible that it this is in fact the physics that underlies that which we do experience. Whether or not it actually is is a question for science to determine.

Because you are already discussing with ragnarhedin essentialy the same view I have just expressed, I ask that you address the following portion of my post:

You quoted Dr. Binswanger as saying:

"The idea of an infinitely small amount of length or temporal duration has validity only as a mathematical device useful for making certain calculations, not as a description of components of reality."

But it seems that basing an argument against non-locality on this premise necessitates a contradiction. If there is no such thing as an infinitely small amount of length, then the very smallest entity that could exist must have an extended volume. If a force or action of some kind is to affect this entity, it therefore must affect the entire extended volume at once--it cannot affect only an infinitesimal piece of the entity, or propagate through a continuum of such pieces, because these pieces do not exist in reality, according to your premise. The smallest thing, or the smallest part of a thing, that could ever be affected by an action must therefore be spread out in space, and the action would be "non-local" in that sense--it would have to affect the whole entity simultaneously. Can you explain why this would not be so?

[stephen_speicher]

Because you are already discussing with ragnarhedin ...

I thought I was discussing ... but instead of an answer to my arguments I just received this notification email.

stephen_speicher,

ragnarhedin has just posted a reply to a topic that you have subscribed to titled "Quantum Reality And Objectivism".

----------------------------------------------------------------------

First and last question to Stephen Speicher:

Could you possibly be as dumb as you make yourself out to be?

----------------------------------------------------------------------

The topic can be found here:

http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.p...view=getnewpost

With a response like this it looks like I was right in the first place. The only appropriate place for the level of discussion I seek, on this subject, will be a tightly moderated forum dedicated to serious discussion of science and philosophy.

[MinorityOfOne]

For what it's worth, Stephen, I deleted the post a while ago, and he has been warned not to continue that sort of behavior. It's probably best that you saw it, though.

[ragnarhedin]

Stephen Speicher wrote:

I wrote: "In this context there is no meaningful distinction between 'instantaneously,' 'immediate,' and no 'time delay. All are expressions of nonlocality, which was refuted by arguments I have presented."

"ragnarhedin" disagrees. If there is a meaningful distinction between "instantaneously," "immediate," and no "time delay," what is it? They all look the same to me.

I replied:

The point is not so much any distinction between 'instantaneously,' 'immediate,' and 'no time delay,' but whether it is implied by the wider context of the sentences that, say, a series of motions could take place in no time. A phrase like "instantaneously redounds throughout the whole" could be interpreted this way, and was therefore changed. Or so I assume - I am certainly not speaking for David Harriman.

Stephen Speiher replied (his "question number one"):

So let's get back to my first question for "ragnarhedin": If there is a meaningful distinction between "instantaneously," "immediate," and no "time delay," what is it?

(Further, all of his other questions to me are of the same order.)

This seems to me like something straight out of a Monthy Python skit, but I am apparently not allowed to describe it as "dumb."

So let me just repeat very slowly: no - there - is - no - important - distinction - between - these - synonyms - but - that - is - not - the - point.

[stephen_speicher]

For what it's worth, Stephen, I deleted the post a while ago, and he has been warned not to continue that sort of behavior.  It's probably best that you saw it, though.

That explains why that post disappeared. Thanks, and it was appropriate for you to remove that slur.

Just to be absolutely clear: Because I choose to avoid people who want to engage me on that level, I will no longer discuss this subject, which is of great importance to me, except on a tightly moderated forum. This is not meant as a criticism of this group. This forum is an interesting place and it serves its purpose well.

A serious discussion of ideas admits no latitude for those whose prime purpose is to smear rather than engage in rational argument.

[ragnarhedin]

A serious discussion of ideas admits no latitude for those whose prime purpose is to smear rather than engage in rational argument.

Content edited by RadCap

This person has been removed

[stephen_speicher]

I ask that you address the following portion of my post: ...

Because some are more interested in smears than ideas (I do not mean to imply that you are one) this is a subject which I will not discuss here. You said you are a member of HBL. I will be happy to address your issue if you bring it up there.

[amagi]

Alright, I'll bring up the philosophical question I posed there if you like, but I don't think HBL would be the right place to discuss the scientific question:

Assuming for a moment that the law of identity does indeed prohibit instantaneous action, I have one question: If you replaced, in descriptions of non-locality, the word instantaneous with "occurring in an extremely small, or even in the smallest possible real time interval," wouldn't this allow for the observations that are reputed to show non-locality, while still allowing for the propagation of action, albeit at a speed that is many times greater than light speed? If this speed was beyond the limit of any human instrument to detect, wouldn't it appear to be instantaneous while not contradicting your position?

Obviously I understand your desire to not have to deal with such childish insults, but notice that the offending person has been removed. The moderators are in control for the most part here.

Can someone address this question?

[stephen_speicher]

Alright, I'll bring up the philosophical question I posed there if you like, but I don't think HBL would be the right place to discuss the scientific question:

You can also bring it up on the TEWLIP list: http://physics.prodos.org/

Actually, if you search through the TEWLIP archives, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TEWLIP/messages your question has already been answered there, probably more than once if I recall. If not by me, then perhaps by Dean Sandin, or others.

Obviously I understand your desire to not have to deal with such childish insults, but notice that the offending person has been removed.

The "offending person" is just one of a small group; remove one and he can be replaced with another.

The moderators are in control for the most part here.

As I understand the moderation policy here, the prime objective is to keep this a civil place. But, with all due respect to the moderators -- who, I believe, are mostly young students -- bright as they are it is difficult for them to moderate content, and sometimes content can be formulated in such a way as to be even more offensive than personal attacks. Ideas can and should be used to illustrate and educate, but they can also be used as a weapon for obfuscation.

Can someone address this question?

I will say this much: Philosophy cannot prescribe the specific limit on the finite speed of transmission of any information or signal -- that is a scientific issue. And that scientific issue has been discussed several times on the TEWLIP group. Feel free to search the archives there. Indeed, feel free to search the archives there for all these issues related to nonlocality.

[amagi]

Thank you. I will examine those sites before addressing any more questions to you.

[dsandin]

Amagi has expressed an interesting dilemma, which is instructive in illuminating a common fallacy about space. He cites Stephen Speicher's attribution to Dr. Binswanger:

"The idea of an infinitely small amount of length or temporal duration has validity only as a mathematical device useful for making certain calculations, not as a description of components of reality."

Amagi then says:

But it seems that basing an argument against non-locality on this premise necessitates a contradiction.  If there is no such thing as an infinitely small amount of length, then the very smallest entity that could exist must have an extended volume.

The dilemma is resolvable. For the above does not follow. It presumes that the concept of space is valid in this context. But space is not a physical entity or pre-existing framework in which objects exist and move; it is an abstraction from our perception of material objects. What exists are those objects and whatever lesser objects that they may be composed of -- and whatever other sorts of objects there may be, including your "very smallest entity".

Whereas objects of perception may be said to exist in space (so long as we don't arbitrarily attribute a separate physical existence to something called space), the "very smallest entity" -- i.e., an ultimate constituent of the physical universe -- does not exist in space in any sense at all. Rather, it and its fellow constituents exist in such a manner that we may ultimately form the concept of space. They form a plenum of entities, with any entity coincident with some other entities and non-coincident with all others. Integrate this picture over all entities and you get space.

Other entities coming into contact with a given entity can't be thought of as sliding through a continuous space underlying the entities, without begging the concept. Indeed, there need not be any interpenetration taking place by degrees through a succession of units of space (and over a succession of units of time). Any scale of spatial distance (and temporal duration) begins with the existence (and actions) of the very smallest entities. They aren't measured by these scales; rather, in some manner (that is to be determined someday by physical investigation) they underlie these scales. No finer units than what these entities offer are conceivable. There are no entities underlying ultimate entities.

By the way, if you want to concretize what a physical theory might mean by "the very smallest entities forming a plenum", you need go no further than the Theory of Elementarary Waves. Dr. Little's creation has the great virtue of dealing with that issue explicitly and head-on, as correct physical theory must come to do. The "final" (most deeply correct) physical theory has to be entity-based in its fundamentals.

If a force or action of some kind is to affect this entity, it therefore must affect the entire extended volume at once--it cannot affect only an infinitesimal piece of the entity, or propagate through a continuum of such pieces, because these pieces do not exist in reality, according to your premise.  The smallest thing, or the smallest part of a thing, that could ever be affected by an action must therefore be spread out in space, and the action would be "non-local" in that sense--it would have to affect the whole entity simultaneously.  Can you explain why this would not be so?

I have done so: "spread out in space" is not a valid idea in this context. The stipulated very smallest entity is, necessarily, not a collection of sub-entities through which some lesser entity could move from one to the next.

Of course our very smallest entity is affected as a whole by the causal contact. But far from being nonlocal action -- which would be something applicable to separated entities in instantaneous fashion (if that could be at all possible instead of being a contradiction of identity) -- this "simultaneous" action on the very smallest entity is exactly what local action must mean.

[amagi]

Thanks dsandin. That clarifies things a good deal for me.

"spread out in space" is not a valid idea in this context.

Yes I see that now.

But some designation like "extended body" or something similar must apply (though extended body might not be adequate either).

I do think it's instructive, in any discussion of locality versus nonlocality, to realize that, as you said:

Of course our very smallest entity is affected as a whole by the causal contact.

and that this is what is meant by local action.

[dsandin]

I wrote:

"spread out in space" is not a valid idea in this context.

and amagi replied:

Yes I see that now.

But some designation like "extended body" or something similar must apply (though extended body might not be adequate either).

You're getting at a valid point. I see two issues here that lead us to want to at least associate something like extension with the very smallest, most elementary entities making up the universe. First, nothing -- including the very smallest, most elementary things -- could be infinitesimal, geometrically or otherwise. Second, extension of course exists as an irrefutable, even perceptual-level fact.

As to the first, the elementary things being necessarily finite does not in itself give them size. They are simply finite in whatever capacities their attributes do offer. Note the difference between having the quality of extension in zero (or infinitesimal) measure, and not having extension as a quality at all.

As to the second, it's a matter of how extension arises. When two entities are not coincident, some measure of how greatly they are non-coincident is necessarily implied. How to measure it in the most basic terms of all (in terms of the elementary objects) is for physics to find out.

[amagi]

As to the first, the elementary things being necessarily finite does not in itself give them size. They are simply finite in whatever capacities their attributes do offer. Note the difference between having the quality of extension in zero (or infinitesimal) measure, and not having extension as a quality at all.

But how can size exist if the elementary entities of a thing have no size?

I assume the elementary things must still have position. So what's in between two non-coincident elementary things? It must be more elementary things, since it can't be nothing.

So, if there must be elementary things everywhere, doesn't this lead right back to the concept of a continuum of infinitesimal, sizeless points?

If the elementary things themselves had extension, wouldn't that solve this problem?

[Capitalism Forever]

But how can size exist if the elementary entities of a thing have no size?

You might think of them as having a size of 1.

[amagi]

That's what I'm suggesting as consistent with what dsandin said:

Any scale of spatial distance (and temporal duration) begins with the existence (and actions) of the very smallest entities. They aren't measured by these scales; rather, in some manner (that is to be determined someday by physical investigation) they underlie these scales.

And that's what dsandin's original post seemed to imply.

But then dsandin clarified that they might not have any size at all--not merely that they have the smallest possible size. I'm asking about how that could work.

[Betsy]

But then dsandin clarified that they might not have any size at all--not merely that they have the smallest possible size.  I'm asking about how that could work.

What is the length of justice? Length isn't a characteristic of justice although it can be measured using a different standard than a meter stick. Justice is a concept of consciousness and doesn't heave physical measurements.

What is the length of a force like gravity or a capacity like energy? While these are physical things with physically measurable properties, length isn't one of them.

[amagi]

OK. But notice that I wasn't asking how some thing could be a physical phenomenon and not have length. Clearly length does not apply to everything.

I was asking specifically how the fundamental elementary things that make up a greater thing (which does have extension) could have no extension of their own. What does give rise to this extension, if not the elementary things? It can't be a mere "spacing out" of the elementary things, because then there would be nothing in between. (Conversely, if there were everywhere more elementary things between each elementary thing, and this is how extension arose, even though none of them individually had extension--this would be the invalid idea of a continuum of infinitesimal lengths.)

Wouldn't it have to be that the individual elementary things themselves have extension?

Note: I'm certainly not asserting that this is in fact the case, I'm asking for an explanation.

(Also, I would think that energy and gravity are not quite applicable to this question, because they are not themselves entities. They are properties of entities, or ways of describing the interactions between entities. Is this not so?)

[Betsy]

OK.  But notice that I wasn't asking how some thing could be a physical phenomenon and not have length.  Clearly length does not apply to everything.

I was asking specifically how the fundamental elementary things that make up a greater thing (which does have extension) could have no extension of their own. 

Extension could be an emergent property of the fundamental elementary things combined in a certain way just like life is an emergent property of inanimate matter combined in a certain way.

In fact, Leonard Peikoff uses exactly this example in OPAR (P. 44-45):

Let us see why, by supposing for a moment that physics one day reaches its culmination and attains omniscience about matter. At that point, scientists know the ultimate ingredients of the universe, the irreducible building blocks that combine to make up physical objects apart from any relationship to man's form of awareness. What these ingredients are I do not pretend to know. For the sake of the argument, let us make the extravagant assumption that they are radically different from anything men know now; let us call them "puffs of meta-energy," a deliberately undefined term. At this stage of cognition, scientists have discovered that the material world as men perceive it, the world of three-dimensional objects possessing color, texture, size, and shape is not a primary, but merely an effect, an effect of various combinations of puffs acting on men's means of perception.

[dsandin]

Amagi asked:

But how can size exist if the elementary entities of a thing have no size?

As I've indicated, that's for physicists to someday find out. It's an interesting physical issue that unfortunately we can't answer at our stage. Although the Theory of Elementary Waves is surely a start, since it acknowledges the existence of elementary objects from the metaphysically proper standpoint.

I assume the elementary things must still have position. So what's in between two non-coincident elementary things? It must be more elementary things, since it can't be nothing.

Correct.

So, if there must be elementary things everywhere, doesn't this lead right back to the concept of a continuum of infinitesimal, sizeless points?

No. First of all, "infinitesimal" and "sizeless" are contradictory in this context. "Infinitesimal" here refers to having the quality of size in absurdly tiny measure, whereas "sizeless" refers to not having the quality of size in the first place. But more to the point, the concept of the universe that we must adopt is of a physical plenum of finite objects, not of a mathematical continuum of infinitesimal points.

The mere metaphysical fact that there must be things everywhere doesn't lead to anything specific about the attributes of those things. Again, it's physics that has the job of telling us what those elementary objects are in particular, and how they act to yield the universe we perceive. There's no conundrum -- regarding size or anything else -- imposed on us by some special knowledge in advance of knowing the reality, beyond the law of identity. Any proposed conundrum would entail unjustified premises adopted (if only tacitly) in advance of knowing the physics. Ayn Rand's advice to check our premises applies everywhere.

By the way, "Capitalism Forever"'s one-liner answer to you on 5/13/04, that "you might think of them as having a size of 1", is not helpful. The issue is not how to characterize their size, it's can we attribute size to them at all; and further, how do they relate to each other such that size does characterize the objects of the world we perceive? We await the physics, not assume its answers in advance.

[saintjadee]

I'm not sure how some one with the demeanor of Elsworth M Toohey became a moderator, but I really enjoyed Mead's contribution.

By the way it's all a moot point and I think both sides knew it from the start.

[Betsy]

I'm not sure how some one with the demeanor of Elsworth M Toohey became a moderator, but I really enjoyed Mead's contribution.

By the way it's all a moot point and I think both sides knew it from the start.

???

What moderator? Who is Mead? What point is moot?

[vaclav-KI]

  First of all, "infinitesimal" and "sizeless" are contradictory in this context.  "Infinitesimal" here refers to having the quality of size in absurdly tiny measure, whereas "sizeless" refers to not having the quality of size in the first place.  But more to the point, the concept of the universe that we must adopt is of a physical plenum of finite objects, not of a mathematical continuum of infinitesimal points.

right, the concept of 'infinitesimal' (as well as that of 'infinity') is to be used strictly in mathematics when dealing with limits, it doesn't refer to anything in actual physical world although it may be used in mathematical methods of physics.

The mere metaphysical fact that there must be things everywhere doesn't lead to anything specific about the attributes of those things.  Again, it's physics that has the job of telling us what those elementary objects are in particular, and how they act to yield the universe we perceive.  There's no conundrum -- regarding size or anything else -- imposed on us by some special knowledge in advance of knowing the reality, beyond the law of identity.  Any proposed conundrum would entail unjustified premises adopted (if only tacitly) in advance of knowing the physics.  Ayn Rand's advice to check our premises applies everywhere.

OK, check your premises then. You yourself have adopted 'unjustified premises' in fixing on the "metaphysical fact that there must be things everywhere".

I happen to think that that is unwarranted starting point. The old concept of ether was much better way of doing away with void because the concept of ether was quite generic, i.e., it didn't smuggle in anything beforehand and physicists could make it whatever they actually found out there in physical world to exist and/or they could give it any properties they saw fit in the light of their various theories/hypotheses. (It is different thing that they made extremely poor job of that which led to untimely dismissal of ether from reputable physics)

Also, the whole history of physics has shown us that when going into the heart of matter, the reality never repeats itself and all analogies that tried to build deeper structures of matter from what was already known of higher structures failed (atomic structure wasn't found to resemble that of solar system etc). If reality was anything like that, the end of physics would be nigh if it wouldn't already be here.

In the same vein, I don't believe in talking of entities or their attributes (like size or whatever) when you are thinking of the most fundamental stuff the existence is made of. I also do not happen to believe that postulating densely packed entities does away with void in a satisfactory fashion. I do not believe any discrete stuff as such, entities or whatever will do in that regard, never mind that you are taking macroscopic picture of reality as presented to our senses down to the most fundamental level.

Why is any 'discrete stuff' not satisfactory? Well, for one, it still implies the existence of void albeit one that is 'banished' by being filled with entities. Then you have many questions as to the exact conditions existing at the interfaces of those discrete entities related to closeness of contact among those filling entities and you will be asked about theories you have developped as to the motion of particles of matter in these entities or through them and if you have some integrated picture of how exactly matter as we know it relates to this substratum made of denselly packed entities... Basically it won't do to postulate something like entities being everywhere and leave it to physicists to incorporate this 'metaphysical fact' into their theories for you, somehow.

vaclav (knowledge integration)

public note to moderators: when making my very first post here, I pressed the Submit Post button and then I realized it being my first posting here, I better should Preview Post first. I hit Escape key fast and clicked on Preview Post button before the post was posted and somehow that was interpreted as trying to spam the board while all I did was trying to post proper and all... By doing that, I earned some warning %bar under my name, unjustifyingly in my opinion since I did precise opposite to being some bad element on this board, so...

[christopher_helms]

This subject has been hottly contested in objectist circles for decades now. The problem is, simply stated, "Does quatum physics violate the the first axiom of Objectivism, the law of identity (A is A), and/or its corollary, the law of causality. (A has a specific nature and acts in a specific way).

The problem that bogs people down is that quantum physics, admittedly!, is still bad science. It offers a very precise mathematical description of what very tiny things do. We *know* for a *fact* that the mathematics is good. Everytime you use your computer your using those mathematics. Every time you turn on a TV, use a remote, use a microwave, get an xray, etc., the mathematics that have been worked out and called "quantum physics" govern the design and operation of the device you are using.

Unfortunately, quantum physics offers very little in terms of a conceptual understanding of the world. Virtually any physicist you speek with will refer to their description of both quantum and relativistic reality as models. They are just ways of thinking about stuff that "work" with the mathematics. They make it able for physists to talk to each other with words.

As Capitalism Forever pointed out above, light (and all electromagnetic radiation) is what it is. Because it sometimes behaves in way that are very analogous to waves (think ocean and sound---real waves) we sometimes speak of light as a wave. Because it sometimes behaves in a way that is very similar to the way particles behave (think atoms, molecules, rocks) we sometimes speak of light as a stream of particles. Often left out, it's often (even if physics) simplest to think of light as a "ray". This is used in simple optics (mirrors, lenses, etc...).

It isn't quantum physics, the science, that violates Objectivist axioms. It is the people, and admittedly a few scientists, who misunderstand it and demand that light is a particle and a wave that violate the axioms.

Another thing I would like to point out, is that Schrodinger was arguing against the silly "nothing is somethign until you look at it" idea with is paradox. It works like this. The equations of quantum physics seem to imply that particles exist in some kind of indeterminate state much of the time. The modern idea is that these indeternminate states must act on one other in certain way before determinate states "coalesce" out of them. Previously it was explained by saying that you had to measure the state or "look at it" before it would exist. (Notice that by measuring it you are acting on it in a certain way). This led many to think that science had proved that reality was somehow created by consiousness.

Shrodinger thought that this was stupid. So he came up with this scenario (called a thought experiment by physicists and philosophers). Imagine you put a cat in a box with a radioactive substances. According to the "reality created by consciousness" hypothesis, whether or not the substance and sent out radiation would remain indeterminate until we looked in the box. Since this radiation would kill the cat, the cats life would somehow be "indeterminate" until we looked. The cat would be somehow "inbetween" both alive a dead. Shrodinger thought a cat being "in between" dead and alive was ludicrous. Thus, he intended to point out to fellow physicist how silly this explanation was. They needed to come up with something else. They did. I just wanted to make it clear to those bashing Shrodinger that he was arguing *against* this ludicrous idea.

Everyone cross your fingers with me that better *conceptual* explanation of quantum reality will be forthcoming.

[vaclav-KI]

Everyone cross your fingers with me that better *conceptual* explanation of quantum reality will be forthcoming.

Well, I for one don't have to do any finger crossing with you and let it stand at that.

vaclav (knowledge integration)