Quantum Mechanics and Mind Games: Part I

Quantum Mechanics and Mind Games: Part I

In my investigation of Quantum Mechanics, I found several bizarre passages in popular books such as Stephen Hawking’s books and in the more specialized, and mathematically oriented, books such as Roger Penrose’s book, “The Road to Reality.”  

I will assert in these essays the following: 

• In science, we are not allowed to violate the Laws of Logic under any circumstances. 

The corollary is that,

• When theories violate the Laws of Logic, the theories are defective.

In any serious conversation, the above two bullet points are the basics for any discussion.  Without these two points, there is no hope for rational debate or discussion.  Furthermore, without these two points, anything goes, which we will get to later on.

Christopher Norris, in his book, “Quantum Theory and the Flight from Reality” points out several problems with the Orthodox interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, referred to as the Copenhagen Interpretation.  In summary, it is a debate about the nature of Ontology and Measurement.  Ontology deals, in part, with “questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist.”  Measurement is simply the observation of a physical quantity, i.e., I have 12 gallons of gasoline in my car.

Einstein does not like Dominoes

Albert Einstein famously objected to the Copenhagen Interpretation by saying something along the lines of “God does not play dice” when Niels Bohr interpreted the results of Quantum Mechanics as some mysterious theory that violated the basics laws of logic and mathematics, but was highly successful in predicting what would happen in a particular experiment.  Most physics books suggest that Einstein was wrong.  However, no book shows the chain of reasoning necessary to show Einstein was wrong.  Perhaps they refer to some mysterious consensus of witch-doctors who got together and issued a pronouncement against the heretic Einstein.

Multiple Universes just in front of your Nose

Some physicists have since then taken absurdity to a new level and have posited multiple universes for every possible state of a particle that exist in some realm alongside our present universe (whatever the hell that means).  So, in the next several seconds, for every possible future state of my being, it splits off into an infinite amount of universes of possibilities in the cases, such as, I both had coffee and did not have coffee this morning – and every other option in between.  Needless to say, but this is pure stupidity, and completely inappropriate for anything calling itself science.  This is not science; this is astrology or perhaps some LSD induced wild trip.

Electron’s Doppelganger messing with your head

One famous piece of nonsense is that the famous two-slit experiment of shooting photons or electrons through a couple of slits with a screen behind them suggest that the particle passes through both slits at the same time.  Almost every book or course on Quantum Mechanics uses this example, but we are never told why they think this is so.  Apparently nobody forces them to justify this with a solid chain of reasoning.  We are back to astrology where Mercury and Mars conspire to mess up your day when the moon is not watching out for you.  Now, one electron is out to get you, and uses his doppelganger to threaten you with a complete experimental screw-up.

Philosophy of Science

There is this strange idea among many scientists that metaphysical speculation is not part of what science does.  The idea is that science is to stick to the results of observable experiments and leave metaphysical speculation alone.  However, in the case of Quantum Mechanics, the following ideas are purely metaphysical:

• One particle passes through both slits at the same time in the double slit experiment

• Multiple universes exist as a result of the conclusions of Quantum Indeterminacy

So, these two conclusions are a direct violation of the principle of sticking only to the observable measurements of an experiment.  These two points are metaphysical claims.

So, we are in the realm of metaphysics.  We are now doing philosophy.  Thus, the rules of philosophy apply.  Physicists cannot, contrary to Stephen Hawking, claim that philosophy is dead.  They are doing philosophy.

Laws of Logic

What are the rules when doing philosophy?  There are many.  But, the basic ones are the Law of Contradiction and the Law of Excluded Middle. 

• Everything is either A or not-A (contradictions are not allowed)

• The case of something being A and not-A is impossible (middle is excluded)

Other powerful tools of philosophy, mathematics, and even engineering are the use of logic gates.  For example, to have a fire, we must have all of the following three conditions:

• Sufficient heat
• Fuel
• oxygen  

If you are investigating a fire, you can consider these conditions one big AND gate: Fire = (sufficient heat) AND (fuel) AND (oxygen).  Without any one of these three, we have no fire.  In the investigation, you must trace the events leading up to the fire and plug them into this AND Gate to determine the logical sequence of events.

Double Slit Conclusion is Wrong

So, in the double slit experiment, nobody is allowed to logically say that one particle passed through both slits at the same time without a solid chain of logical justification, which seems impossible.  Any arguments to the contrary prove that the arguments are wrong, not that basic logic is wrong, or that Quantum Mechanics is just “weird.”  The logical setup is as follows:

Event A = (Particle A passed through slit X at time t) OR (Particle A passed through slit Y at time t)

I will grant the following: that if one claims that the particle passed through both slits at the same time, the claimant must provide a logical explanation of the claim without violating the laws of logic.  Perhaps time can be redefined locally, or space can be redefined locally.  But, the claimant must provide logical justification in any case, and not stop at a whimsical or “weird” claim that things just “don’t make any damn sense here!”

Arguments from Authority are Wrong

Nobody is allowed to say, “The overwhelming majority of physicists agree with the conclusion of the double slit experiment.”  This is a logical fallacy – the Argument from Authority, which is bogus.  One has to explain themselves with a logical chain of reasoning.  If they cannot do this, they have not made their case.

Conclusions

To make a logical, mathematical, or scientific claim, one must build a chain of reasoning going backward from the conclusion to the premises without any violation of the Laws of Logic.  We will be investigating some of the more bizarre claims and conclusions on Quantum Mechanics in this series of essays in the upcoming weeks and months.  We will find that the experiments themselves are usually straightforward, but some of the interpretations, claims and conclusions are not necessarily connected to the experimental results.  Quantum Mechanics needs a scientific clean-up crew to polish up the findings.

Freddy Martini

Debate: Playing Games with Equivocation

Debate: Playing Games with Equivocation

Sunday, August 03, 2014

Over the past 20 years I have studied philosophy.  I have read the greats like Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Locke, Hume, etc, along with some current thinkers like John Searle and Christopher Norris.  Outside of philosophy – and often inside – a recurring theme happens in debates among intelligent people.  That is Equivocation.   Equivocation is using the same word in differing senses, often with the intent to deceive, although I would prefer to say it is self-deception; people often want to deceive themselves on an unconscious level in order to avoid grappling and facing the Existential Vacuum.  Making drama out of nothing is a common way to distract ourselves from our looming death and the (possibly) meaninglessness of everything.

One encounters equivocation in debates when one person is using words in one sense and the opponent uses words in a different sense.  Then a “debate” happens, and those who are paying attention notice clearly that a debate is not happening, but an emotive ritual where people pretend to debate, but all is theatrics and rhetoric. 

Equality

The most common example of equivocation is the use of the word equality.  I have rarely, if ever, seen this word used in any consistent manner in any debate I have observed.  Furthermore, I have never seen anyone clearly define or even describe this term. 

Let us tease.  What is equality?  Is it equality of income?  Is it equality of power?  Is it equality of talent?  Is it equality under the law?  The shocking truth is that none of these concepts exist in the real world: they are impossible.  So, what are we talking about when we say equality?  Socioeconomic equality?  Perhaps, but that is not possible either.  The only equality that I am aware of is in Chemistry where four hydrogen atoms here equal four hydrogen atoms there.  Physically, this is about the closest we can come.  In mathematics, we can argue that x = 2.  But, in debates about equality, there are no debates about math or Chemistry.  So, we return to the ill-defined term equality where debaters enter into a pretentious ritual of combat, when there is no real debate happening.

Quantum Mechanics

Recently I have decided to restudy Quantum Mechanics.  Scientists claim that it is a counter-intuitive world of paradoxes.  However, upon closer inspection of the “scientific” writings, one sees a problem of equivocation and lack of clear thinking.

Stephen Hawking is his most famous book, “A Brief History of Time,” in the section on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle makes a very basic error in thinking clearly.  He explains the measurement uncertainty of a particle’s velocity and position.  This is, of course, a very simple principle; there is nothing mind-blowing about the width of a light wave, its velocity, and its capability and limitations in measuring a particle’s position and velocity simultaneously.  It is like having a ruler with centimeter tick marks: I cannot measure accurately anything more precise than within a centimeter with such a ruler.  It is that simple – in principle.

But, Hawking takes a simple-minded measurement limitation and then makes a metaphysical claim that the position and velocity of the particles are indeterminate.  This is not a justified conclusion, and is a basic error of equivocation from someone who is esteemed for his intellect.  Perhaps he is trying to shock the audience for advertizing effect; let us hope this is the case.

Philosophy of Science

Of course, we philosophers know what is going on here, but the scientists are, as usual, clueless.  There was a strong influence among scientists at the beginning of the 20^th century toward Empiricism.  You must keep your eye on the measurements, and the theory must accurately predict measurements, and that is all you do.  Do not make metaphysical speculations about the physical reality!  Well, it is a physical scientist’s job to make claims about physical reality; a physicist had better make physical claims about reality or he is not a physicist – or a very bad one.  I have an idea!  Let us speculate about the reality of parallel universes – something we can never measure!  Uh, oh…

Of course, these are old problems in the Philosophy of Science, but it gets hilarious when scientists attempt to get into philosophy without the proper training.  Again, we can hope they are merely trying to shock an audience, and that they are not being serious. 

The Path Forward

So, what do we very smart people do about this?  We must be very clear about the definition of every term within a statement.  However, we do not want to get caught up in the opposite: analysis paralysis - where concrete-bound minds get stuck in the weeds of irrelevant details (I call this weighing turds).  But, we want to be clear within context of the study. 

What if someone is using rhetoric?  Well, play their game against them.  Smart people can wield the weapons of rhetoric like a nuclear weapon when we study the basics of Rhetoric.  Learn how to stand in front of a crowd and move them – it is not that hard.

Freddy Martini

Philosophy of Science: Logical Positivism

Philosophy of Science: Logical Positivism

Professor Jeffery Kasser produced a series of 36 lectures through The Great Courses entitled Philosophy of Science.

These are my notes, commentary, and synopsis from Kasser’s lectures.  The author of this blog highly recommends this course as a high quality lecture on the philosophy of science.

One may purchase the entire course here.

Introductory Note

The efforts, struggles, and spectacular failures of Logical Positivism illustrate that the problems philosophy reveals about certain ideas eventually return to haunt us.  Connecting ideas to experience to find Truth is extremely difficult.  This discussion reveals the stubbornness of the problem, and perhaps the equal - or greater - stubbornness of Positivists.

Synopsis

Logical Positivists influenced the Philosophy of Science for several decades.  They also made the Philosophy of Science a major study.  As was the case with the Classical Empiricists, Einstein and others’ work in Physics impressed them.  19^th and late 20^th century German philosophy was the main impetus driving them; they did not like the direction German philosophers were taking philosophy.  Positivists believed that the philosophy of the day was speculative and an obstacle to scientific progress.  They were not worried about Pseudoscience as was Popper.  They worried that metaphysics and philosophy were getting in the way of science. 

The ‘Positivist’ part of Logical Positivism was derived from the work of August Compte, who had animus against traditional metaphysics.  The ‘Logical” part of Logical Positivism came from the belief in mathematical logic’s ability to provide methods to build a new empiricism favorable to science and unfavorable to metaphysics.  Hume’s Fork heavily influenced this version of empiricism: (1) the philosopher establishes the relations of ideas, not matters of fact, and (2) philosophy clarifies linguistic problems and establishes the relationship between statements and experience.

The principle of Logical Positivism is as follows: every meaningful statement is either (1) analytic or (2) makes a claim about experience.  Thus, there is a class of statements whereby we cannot say that they contain any Truth.  Imperatives and questions have meaning but not in the empirical sense; they are not candidates for Truth.  Poetry and poetic statements also do not aim for literal truth.

Analytic statements are true or false based upon their meaning, but they have no factual content.  Analytic statements are knowable a priori: this means that empirical evidence is not needed to establish their truth.   For example, no empirical evidence is needed to establish the truth of logical or mathematical propositions.  The power and importance of analytic statements is that analytic truths are necessary.  For example, ‘No bachelor is married’ is true by definition.  On the other hand, there can be a problem with analytic statements; we may be certain that every effect has a cause, but this certainty loses some of its importance if this assertion is merely based upon how we use the words ‘cause’ and ‘effect.’ 

Kasser explains that classical metaphysics is based upon facts, which makes them synthetic, but that the metaphysics is supposed to be knowable independent of experience.  Classical metaphysical claims hold no matter what experience shows.  Positivists claim that a factual claim’s meaning is limited to its claims about possible experience.  Positivists claim that metaphysical statements are not just merely true or false, but that they are incapable of bearing truth or falsehood.  Perhaps they are examples of unintentional poetry, they speculate - cynically, perhaps.

Logical Positivists claim that a statement must be true or false to be meaningful.  This statement must also have a correct method by which to determine whether or not it is true.  Analytic statements use mathematical or logical proof, which makes them verifiable.  If analytic statements can be linked correctly to a source, according to linguistic rules, they are meaningful.  The concern within the Philosophy of Science is empirical statements, which are not analytical, but synthetic.  Classical empiricism and operationalism focused upon connecting a term to experience for verification, while the logical positivists focused upon the meaning of a statement to connect it to experience.  This was a liberalization of empiricism, which some advances in logic made possible.  Using this method, a term gets its meaning from making meaningful statements; a term does not need its meaning independently established.  Verifiability of a synthetic statement involves finding possible observations that support its truth.  Actual observations assess the truth of the statement, not its meaningfulness.  The difficulty is the requirement whereby these observations are possible. 

A set of possible observations showing the conclusive truth of a statement is one way to ensure a statement’s verifiability.  This, however, may be impractical.  For example, establishing the truth of “All copper conducts electricity” with a finite number of observations is not possible.  Some Popper-influenced proposals substitute conclusive falsifiability with conclusive verifiability.  Combinations of these two approaches face many counter-examples: unobservable objects are a problem.  “That streak in the cloud chamber was produced by an electron” gets ruled out using these aforementioned rules.  If unobservable things get left out using these rules, we need a more practical, and possibly a weaker rule.  Ayer suggested that using a statement to derive observable statements that cannot be derived within it may work.  However, even this suggestion has problems; it is too weak because it lacks restrictions on auxiliary hypotheses.  For example, “If everything proceeds according to God’s plan, then this litmus paper will turn pink when placed in this solution” is an acceptable statement using Ayer’s suggestion.  A modified suggestion on this approach is to require the auxiliary hypothesis to be independently meaningful.  Kasser claims that this suggestion succumbs to technical objections.

These philosophical difficulties to the Logical Positivist approach strangely did not affect Positivism’s credibility.  The idea to connect meaningful statements to observation remained a powerful idea, but was tediously difficult, if not impossible to adequately defend.

Commentary

The claims of the Logical Positivists may sound good, but upon closer inspection, they do not survive careful philosophical objections.  It seems that their assertions, and the accompanying claims to truth, are presumptuous.  The Problem of Induction has been around for a long time, and the Positivist approach assumes that there is no problem with induction.  Perhaps, they have ignored the problem of induction. 

There is a serious problem with all empirical claims, and this problem goes to the root of science.  Defenders of science cannot ignore these problems as irrelevant and go on in a stubborn fashion taking Positivism for granted.  To state it boldly, there seems to be no way for the philosophical establishment of truth to a claim such as “All copper conducts electricity.”  This objection is not necessarily fatal for science from a practical view.  However, we must accept that this attack is possibly fatal to the scientific claim to philosophical truth.  It appears that many wish to establish scientific truth on the same level as that of mathematics.  This philosophical exercise shows that this is not true – at least not yet.

This attack has implications beyond science.  In our court systems, in legislation, and in the execution of law, we seem increasingly dependent upon scientific experts.  Science has a privileged status in government and within law.  Also, there is the competition for funds from government, companies, and many other organizations for the funding of scientific research.  However, how can we justify this privileged status when this claim to truth is in serious question?  Why should science get more funding than the humanities, literature, art, or even religion?  Why does it seem that science has a powerful privilege over these other important areas of human nature?  Who in their right mind can claim that poetry has no serious meaning?  Who will claim that great literature has no meaning because it does not fit the positivist approach?

Perhaps the spectacular successes of Newton, Einstein, and Maxwell provide a model of prestige that contemporary supporters of science research wish to emulate.  This prestige gives an air of authority and supposed truth to all claims of being “scientific.”  Perhaps this helps in raising funds for projects that otherwise would go unfunded.  However, we astute observers of science (and technology) must seriously question when this power over our institutions is detrimental to other important areas of human inquiry.  

Philosophy of Science: Classical Empiricism

Professor Jeffery Kasser produced a series of 36 lectures through The Great Courses entitled Philosophy of Science.

These are my notes, commentary, and synopsis from Kasser’s lectures.  The author of this blog highly recommends this course as a high quality lecture on the philosophy of science.

One may purchase the entire course here.

Friday, June 29, 2012

The argument that concepts should be connected to experience has a long history, even apart from science.  Before the logical positivists and the logical empiricists began their arguments at the beginning of the 20^th century, philosophy had been considering these issues a few centuries before.  Empiricism asserts - roughly - that the source of knowledge is through experience, or, more precisely, through experience from the senses.

Locke is regarded as the first empiricist.  His project was to find and determine the limits of knowledge.  He also wished to investigate the sources of knowledge, and to place a scope on knowledge.

Locke claimed that experience was the source of thought.  Everything inside the mind came from the senses.  Ideas are inside the mind but are composed of attributes taken only through the senses.  The mind perceives sights, sounds and other sensations, but cannot directly sense the physical object.  The mind has two basic powers: combination and abstraction.  Abstraction focuses on parts of an idea.  Combination allows the mind to take these parts of ideas and then rearrange them into new ideas; in some cases these ideas are not found in the world of experience– unicorns, for example. 

This philosophical point of view places limits on what we can know.  The inner nature of things is unavailable to us since our ideas are limited only to the perceptions provided by our senses.  There is no practical way to understand how these external objects interact with our senses to create the ideas within our minds. 

Empiricism helps to clarify ideas.  However, it does not give confidence that we can assume things about reality before we understand the limitations that the perceptual process places upon our access to knowledge of external objects. 

George Berkeley, another empiricist, claimed that reliance upon experience implies more radical conclusions than Locke proposed.  He claimed that we have no direct experience of matter, and we cannot get a complete idea of matter through abstraction.  He asserts that we cannot imagine anything without its properties.  The process by which material objects produce sensations within our minds is mysterious.  He claimed that God puts these ideas into our minds directly, and does not use matter as a medium to transmit these ideas into our minds.  He wanted us to abandon the effort to go beyond our experience and sense organs to access the matter (or things) behind these sense impressions. 

What we experience through our senses is the world itself; there are no objects imprinting themselves upon our sense organs.  We can discover the patterns created within our experiences, and learn to predict subsequent patterns; Newton’s Laws are an example of the discovery of these patterns.  Science develops rules on the experiences we will have.

Berkeley wanted to purge skepticism and atheism from philosophy.  He saw his work contributing to these ends.

Dave Hume’s conclusions are more radical than Berkeley’s.  Hume takes empiricism to some of its logical conclusions.  Hume wanted to bring experimental methods to philosophy.  Applying this rigorously, Hume discovered that some of our crucial notions have a questionable link to experience.  Experience merely reveals one set of sensations followed by others.  These sequences of sensations do not reveal any causal link among themselves, and thus, our notion of causality (cause and effect) has no grounding in experience.  Our sense impressions are always changing, and thus, we do not experience anything enduring.  Even our sense of self does not endure.  Hume also speculated that we may not be thinking beings, but beings that experience one series of impressions followed by others. 

Can we call anything evidence that we do not experience now?  Can we be sure that our memory of experience and impressions is real, accurate or true?  This reasoning process ends in a deep form of skepticism.

Among Hume’s conclusions was that some of our core notions are meaningless or have no basis in experience, or mean something different from what we would think on first impression.  With this, Hume questioned philosophy’s position with regard to science.  Where does philosophy fit in with regard to scientific empiricism?  Hume also concluded with a notion of what is called “Hume’s Fork.” Hume’s Fork claims that meaningful statements must be in one of two forms:  (1) relations of ideas, or (2) matters of fact.  (1) can be things such as logic or mathematics, while (2) can be the empirical sciences.  Hume, as one would expect, was interested in matters of fact.  He saw his project as discovering the laws of the mind as Newton discovered laws of nature. 

Many wonder if Hume’s project is psychology.  Many also wonder if the Philosophy of Science and Philosophy in general is psychology without the experiments.

Toward the end of the lecture, we observe several issues that the empiricists of the 17^th and 18^th centuries had to deal with:

• How to reconcile experience with reasoning in order to do serious science and philosophy?
• Can philosophy connect experience to reasoning processes to demonstrate its legitimacy?
• Is philosophy merely science without evidence?

Commentary

In contrast to Hume’s conclusions questioning the legitimacy of philosophy, he demonstrates the exact opposite.  If one claims that empiricism justifies science, Hume’s reasoning demonstrates the potential illegitimacy of empiricism, not philosophy.  Philosophy investigates and then subsequently poses questions.  If these investigations reveal the lack of grounding in philosophy for empiricism, the philosophical critique holds.  To conclude that this line of reasoning undermines philosophy is backwards.  When a messenger (philosophy) delivers a message (empiricism has no rational ground), one is not credible in questioning the messenger (dogmatically holding to empiricism and assuming – not proving – that philosophy is the culprit).

This discussion contributes to a widely held notion among defenders of science that lack of evidence to any idea places the idea outside the bounds of knowledge.  Even empirical science has to abstract several stages from experience to reason toward physical laws and principles.  Furthermore, scientists will question the evidence itself when such evidence contradicts an established theory; this common practice is a spectacular contribution to the demonstration of the legitimacy of philosophy.  When one rejects evidence on theoretical grounds, one is doing philosophy.  Finally, the empiricist assertion cannot be taken seriously when one considers the entire realm of mathematics, where one can reason completely within a system of thought without any evidence whatsoever.  It would be foolish to claim that mathematics is not knowledge.

In conclusion, we know from observing scientific work that evidence of the senses – experience - contributes to science, but it is not clear how to connect evidence to theory.  This effort was a spectacular failure of the classical empiricists.  Their promise of a method to connect experience to theory, and thereby setting all other knowledge outside the bounds of knowledge, does not work.