# 142: BOOK OF THE WEEK — “Philosophy and Logic of Quantum Physics”
Story behind the Book Choice
Today, I am entering new territory. I am going to write about something that I really have no clue about (yet). Or, at least, very little. The only book I have ever read (partly) on quantum mechanics is one of these small yellow Reclam books that Germans might still know. It is Werner Heisenberg’s Quantum Theory and Philosophy. You might ask now: “Why the heck would you start reading stuff like that?” Answer: Because I deem it increasingly important and my next research project (whatever it will look like exactly) will be about quantum philosophy. Of course, that is not the full answer. I mean, just doing some research project on something tells you that there might be people interested in the research. But is there value in this beyond producing thoughts on paper?
Yes!
I strongly believe that we are in a period again where the ‘worlds,’ in a cultural sense, are moving closer together — again. When saying “again,” I am basing everything I am writing here on the conviction that the world is always moving in circles of some kind and now, post-Enlightenment, we have gone through a long period in which the sciences have been of increasing importance and with them the rise of rationality and quantitative methodologies. I am not saying that the importance of the sciences is going to suffer in any way. I am arguing that we will be seeing a blending with philosophy and the humanities in the near future because the absoluteness of positivism and the claim that we can describe and predict anything has come to a halt. And this is exactly where quantum mechanics comes in.
One thing I have to say up front: It was an absolute pleasure to read this book. Readers in the humanities might really doubt this because it might look a little ‘technical’ but I personally enjoyed reading it a lot. It is so concise, the language is so clear, the examples are so well-chosen — the authors really fulfill their self-set goal of equipping their readers — people without prior knowledge of quantum mechanics — with some fundamental knowledge on the topic, particularly on the logic of quantum mechanics. They divide the book into three major parts in which they basically explain a) the “old” world logic of physics and key terms, b) basics of quantum mechanics, and c) the (possibly new) logic of quantum physics. Given that this book is a collaborative project that is based on the B.A. theses of the authors, I can only say: “Chapeau!”
- Ontology
This first quote about Popper is so revealing, I think, because readers of Kuhn’s Scientific Revolutions will realize a similar argument. Whichever “revolution” occurs in science — even in scholarship at large, I would argue — depends on the academic community recognizing it. And by recognizing I do not necessarily mean just “notice” it, I mean accept is as new truth. To me, this is very similar to Kuhn’s argument, or actually, it is the very same thing. But I am not mentioning this passage just to point to Kuhn. There will probably be many others who argued along similar lines.
The reason why this passage struck me probably is my thinking about why it is that people in academia are so eager to talk to their kind and publish only for scholars. This is a very simple “truth,” right, but nobody seems to wonder much. And I think, the quote above and all related thoughts on scientific innovations and ‘revolutions’ reveal parts of the answer: If scientific breakthroughs depend on what the community declares as “new,” then, of course, members of this community are your primary target group. That also means, of course, that whatever other target groups there might be, including the public or laypersons with expertise on the matter, do not have a say in bringing about scientific revolutions because they obviously cannot claim “validity.” That takes us to some more learning.
2. Ostensive Learning
Again, what I like so much about this book is that the authors provide such sharp descriptions of the status quo but they also very clearly highlight their own assessment and positioning on crucial debates. This also happens in this part. The passage is preceded by more general explanations about logic and the role of language therein. Of course, this is something that has been fascinating me forever. For me, it is deeply intuitive that we are able to learn about things in the ‘real’ word without having words for them. The authors give the example of the differentiation between the colors or yellow and orange in Zulu language. Obviously, in Zulu, there are no different words for the two colors. Still, empirical evidence shows that people speaking Zulu still notice the difference. If you want to read more on this, you find plenty online.
So, all these explanations about language relativity led the authors to list these five sentences above. As they say on the next page, they only disagree with the last one, i.e., the fact that observation is “language dependent.” Obviously, this corresponds to my intuitive understanding. Still, if you look at the debates in the ‘humanities’ or at least in literary studies, you find many adherents to the theory that language and thought are very much tied. I would not generally disagree with this but when it comes to making new discoveries, I strongly believe in the possibility of seeing new things which do not have a name (yet). In fact, this is the very requirement for scientific discovery. But this statement of mine would need much more explaining because it does not accurately express what I want to express. In any case, let us just infer that this discourse on language dependence is very fruitful for explaining the major breakthrough of quantum physics.
3. After dependency
I would say, this passage is a great way of introducing quantum mechanics based on showing what it is not. At least, quantum mechanics and the logic that is supposed to go along with it fundamentally shook up classical physics with respect to the two general principles above. And this really is fascinating. If you wanted to translate that into even simpler words, you could say: “We thought we could measure and predict the world — but now we found out that this is wrong.” Well, again, part of the motivation behind the book is to explore whether quantum logic really is that different. As to this case, the answer is no, at least according to the authors’ reading of some major scientists working on quantum logic and classical logic, including Schurz and Popper. Still, that does not change the fact that quantum mechanics at large definitely have caused a rethinking of physics — of our view of the world and our means of studying it.
I first heard about the famous double slit experiment and Schroedinger’s Cat a few years ago from a colleague of mine at a Physics cluster. Since I worked with physicists but had no clue about physics at the time, I really appreciated all explanations people gave me. But as very often happens, you learn something and you get a slight idea of the magnitude of the findings that you are just being confronted with. Still, you do not get it into your system. In other words: the “boom” effect does not happen. This was the case with me back then. I could see that finding out that light is not what everybody had thought it was (wave) but instead two things at the same time (wave and particle), was quite revolutionary. Even more disturbing was the fact that, obviously, the act of measuring, i.e., observing phenomena, had an impact on the things you were observing, even the entire state of the system.
Basically, these crucial findings by de Broglie, Schroedinger and all the others which are probably taught to everyone dealing with quantum physics were the major reason why I got interested in quantum physics in the first place. Even though, at the time, I knew even less about physics, it immediately made sense to me that this idea that — in a world of determinism — there is another “truth” and it gains acceptance in the scientific community, was groundbreaking: these findings that there is ambivalence of some sort, that you cannot definitely explain and predict the status of a system because there seem to some kinds of insivible variables. All this is breathtaking and, here we go, quite intuitive to people in the humanities working with hermeneutics .
Since many do not believe in positivism and realism in this world of theory-led subjective interpretation, the belief that you can actually grasp objective reality is not that popoular anyways. But the assumption that there are always unknowns is very much alive. And this, even though you know my skepticism about the contemporary contribution of the humanities for social progress, is the missing piece which really assures me that we are seeing the convergence of the natural sciences and the humanities again — a thing, by the way, that in the 15th century was the norm. Think of Leonardo da Vinci and all the other polymaths. Their intellectual wisdom relied on the unity of natural science and humanistic/artistic knowledge and skills. What I am saying is that these two worldviews of measurability and determinism versus interpretation and indeterminism are now discovering that they need each other to make sense of the world.
Especially in a time like this in which a virus has taken over that nobody can really grasp, I think, humanity will immensely benefit from the lessons we are learning. Not only from the scientific products that derive from this (e.g., vaccine) but from the interaction we are seeing. Just yesterday I talked to a physician friend of mine and she confirmed how much, for example, the merely technical approach to medicine is merging towards a more holistic view of the human being, i.e., the patient. I do think that this will be happening in other fields of science too. I mean, the discovery that there is a philosophical turn in physics is nothing new. I just wanted to give you some insights today of what this means and I also wanted to use the chance of making a prediction:
Our world is moving from “0 or 1thinking” (bivalent) to thinking “between 0and 1 (ambivalent).
Even if quantum logic does not make classical logic obsolete, as the authors conclude, all this is quite encouraging. Actually, this is my overall insight that makes quantum theory so exciting — just as exciting as any other theory or research. People are always chasing new findings, new results, new theories. But then, gradually, we learn that the ‘new’ is not that new at all. We just learn more about it and then we realize that we just did not realize the pattern before. As soon as we see the pattern, we usually also have a name for this ‘new’ phenomenon and we can compare it to somethings we know.
Still, knowing that there really is nothing new to explore in the world does not stop me from learning something that is new to me.
Reflection Questions
1) What can you remember from your physics classes in school?
2) Do you believe that humankind will ever be able to come up with technologies that allow us to describe the world in a way that we can completely predict and control it?
3) How do you think about the relation between language and thinking? Do the words we know/do not know shape what we see/think?