There is a difference between quantum mechanics (the theory) and the reality it is describing (electrons etc.). Electrons are not wave packets flying around in space. Electrons are physical objects, wave packets are theoretical notions. Probably the only way to have a wave packet flying in space is by throwing one’s quantum mechanics textbook. If a quantum mechanical observable were a Hermitian operator, one could observe it by looking into one’s quantum mechanics textbook. These trivial remarks are not superfluous because whole generations of physicists have been trained to think about electrons as wave packets flying around in space, and to see values of Hermitian operators as properties of microscopic objects.
— Willem de Muynck , www.phys.tue.nl/ktn/Wim/muynck.htm

Archive for the 'Aristotle' Category

Louie: "Functional Entailment and Immanent Causation in Relational Biology"

Thursday, September 18th, 2008

Aloisius Louie has written a new paper for the journal Axiomathes, entitled "Functional Entailment and Immanent Causation in Relational Biology" [1].  The abstract:
I explicate the crucial role played by efficient cause in Robert Rosen’s characterization of life, by elaborating on the topic of Aristotelian causality, and exploring the many alternate descriptions of causal and inferential […]

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Aristotle, Rashevsky, Rosen - A common thread

Monday, May 7th, 2007

“Again, we do not regard any of the senses as wisdom; yet surely these give us the most authoritative knowledge of particulars. But they do not tell us the ‘why’ of anything - e.g., why fire is hot; they only say that it is hot.”

   - Aristotle, Metaphysics Book I Ch. 1

Robert Rosen made extensive […]

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Aristotelian Analysis (a.k.a. “Aristotelian Causality”)

Monday, May 7th, 2007

 

“It was, of course, Aristotle who associated the notion of entailment between phenomena with the question ‘why?’ and answered it with a ‘because’.”

  - Robert Rosen, Life Itself

Rosen uses Aristotelian analysis throughout Life Itself and Essays on Life Itself for understanding entailment structures in modeling relations. Unfortunately, the usual terminology of Aristotelian analysis creates a […]

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