Re: Quantum Physics, Measurements and Robert's Functional Dynamics Concept

[John M <***>]

Dear Ionel,
not that I want to argue, (I am on divergent lines of thinking), just a
remark about my "other" hero: David Bohm:

He diverted from his conventional physics interest by the 60s and really
became one of the founders of "modern thinking" - from the side of a
physicist what he never ceased to be. (Once a physicist...)
His ~1952 ideas were far from his later philosophy and in my opinion it was
a mistake to make a posthumus edition of the physics he wrote THEN, without
pointing out his (later) changed natural philosophy system. He WAS a great
physicist but a GREATER philosopher.
The "Wholeness and the Implicate Order"  is a fundamental work
and he spent the rest of his thinking life in this domain, even when he was
teaching 'college-phisics'.

I wrote my ~100 publications and books in polymer (chemistry) before I
started to "think". My present ideas should not be mixed with the former
(reductionist-researcher) work, as well, as RR also did have different ideas
before developing his "complexity" system.

Regards

John Mikes

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ionel" <***>
To: <***>
Sent: Friday, May 28, 2004 10:04 PM
Subject: Quantum Physics, Measurements and Robert's Functional Dynamics
Concept


> I am adding a new part to my response on "States" and the measurement
> problem in Quantum Theory. Some authors, such as David Bohm (fmrly. at
> Oxford) and MacKay at Harvard, feel strongly that Quantum & Mechanics is
> a "misnomer" for quite different reasons, although not totally
unconnected.
> Thus David Bohm says that all systems are connected in the entire Universe
> (s?) at the quantum, microscopic level, and that different properties of
an
> electron, for example, are exhibited with different interacting systems;
> David Bohm in his Quantum Theory (1951 edn, 2nd edn. 1991) also goes
> further in stating that the measurement system/detectors/apparatus and the
> quantum system that is observed have to be considered as a "whole" in the
> quantum theory. Bohmm also states that therefore, even 'simple systems'
> such as the electron exhibit complex behaviors at the microscopic level.
>
> This may, thus suggest that complexity, even in Robert's sense, does
> originate at the quantum, microscopic level in biological organisms, as he
> was pondering on this question back in 1956, in his Quantum Genetics
> article published in BMB.
>
> David Bohm also has some other interesting and provoking thoughts on why
> and how quantum processes and the thought process in humans exhibit some
> basic similarities, and he also cites some older views by Niels Bohr that
> are labelled as 'highly speculative' on this subject. (See also my
previous
> posting on the preprint "N-Categories in Neuroscience" by Ronnie Brown
> (freely downloadable at his site). On the whole, Robert's ideas about
> measurement in complex systems do seem to be rather similar to David
Bohm's,
> although Robert doesn't cite Bohm in either his "Essays on Life..." or in
> his original article on Quantum Genetics in 1956. Because, really, the
root
> of all discussion about Schrodinger's "What is Life?" and Robert's "Life
> Itself", or F. Crick's "Life Itself..." is Quantum / Molecular Genetics.
>
> MacKay' lecture notes at Harvard on the "Mathematical Foundations of
> Quantum Mechanics" (Theory?) makes the point that one cannot define a
Phase
> Space of single, dynamic state points, in Quantum Statistical Mechanics
> because--according to Heisenberg's principle-- one cannot observe
> simultaneously velocity and position at any "point in time". (Quantum)
> States are then defined by means of a probability measure for certain
> observables whose eigenvalues determined through measurement. Moreover,
> just like Von Neumann and Robert, he distinguishes between "pure states"
> and "mixtures of states" in quantum theory... but no hidden variables.
> David Bohm agrees in his new edition: hidden variables won't work in
quantum
> theory, and therefore, "causality" in the Newtonian mechanical sense- or
> Einstein's-- for that matter, won't work in quantum theory.
> Both David Bohm and Werner Heisenberg agree on one thing : quantum theory
> is not in the final, completed stage yet, more new physics is needed. In
> this, Robert is in agreement with both of them. They seem to separate when
> it comes to the means by which to achieve/ develop the new physics. David
> Bohm doesn't exclude biology from the new , quantum physics
> but "speculatively" suggests possible bridges between quantum theory and
the
> thinking processes in the human brain. In my paper published back in 1972,
> "A Category- Theoretical Analysis of Processes involved in
EEG.",(RRM),that
> we're scanning soon, I have obtained estimates of the energy needed to
> sustain 'thinking processes' based in neural circuits/networks localized
in
> the brain's cortex, based on a combinatorial approach combined with
> Category theory.