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Re: Robert Rosen's discussion of Quantum state in Life Itself quoted by Ms. Judit Rosen; " Definition in the SpaceTime of an Organism and in relation to Quantum theory?
- From: Ionel <***>
- Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 20:20:42 -0400
Hi, Judith:
I have a brief addition to make related to your interesting quote
from "Life Itself": it seems that Robert Rosen has anticipated by many
years a current of recent efforts in Quantum Theory developments to either
give up or circumvent the continuous state function in a Hilbert space for
a quantum system, such as the recent paper published by Dr. B. J. Hiley
from the Theoretical Physics Research Unit at Birkbeck in London,
entitled : "Algebraic Quantum Mechanics, Algebraic Spinors and Hilbert
Space", (2001), 38 pp. that can be found on the web , for example, using
Google. The same author quotes in this quantum-theoretical paper also a
written statement attributed to von Neumann related to this issue of
(quantum) state functions : <Yet there have been other voices raised
against the necessity of a Hilbert space;... (e.g., in quantum mechanics...
which is a state vector space of state (complex) functions of real x,y,z
coordinates and real time points represented as vectors)... <Von Neumann
himself wrote to Brikhoff (1966): "I would like to make a confession which
may seem immoral: I do not believe absolutely in Hilbert space any more."
(A detailed discussion of why von Neumann made this comment can be found in
Redei (1996): "Why von Neumann did not like the Hilbert space formalism of
quantum mechanics (and what he liked instead)., Stud. Hist. Phil. Modern
Physics, vol. 27: 493-510(1996).>>
With best regards,
Ionel
Ms. Judith Rosen wrote:<br>
><blockquote cite="***" type="cite">
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> <div><strong>I've been in touch with Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, whose
>site "i-sis.org" is, and asked her if she had ever seen any
of Robert
>Rosen's stuff. She said she had heard of him but hadn't read any of
his
>work and told me it sounded like something she would like to take a
>look at. However, I doubt she will like what she sees if she does,
>given what she has subsequently written about quantum theory and living
>organisms. I will include a snippet from "Life, Itself", beginning on
>page 103. </strong></div>
> <div><strong></strong> </div>
> <div><strong>Robert Rosen wrote:</strong></div>
> <div><strong><em>"As I have indicated, several basic presuppositions
>of Newtonian mechanics break down when extrapolated from experience
>with bulk matter to the realm of the small. That is, when we come to
>actually think about atoms, the Newtonian encodings fail completely.
>This has had several revolutionary consequences in physics. One of them
>is the development of a new kind of mechanics, quantum mechanics,
>which I have already [discussed]. Concomitant with this has been a
>proverbial agonizing reappraisal of causality itself, which is worth
>mentioning here. As we shall see, as far as causal entailment is
>concerned, the quantum-theoretic revolutions were mainly technical; the
>heart of Newtonian causality (recursion) has passed intact from
>classical to quantum mechanics...</em></strong></div>
> <div><strong><em></em></strong> </div>
> <div><strong><em>Yet when quantum mechanics seemed to contradict or
>preclude classical ideas of causality, an enormous disquiet was
>generated, which has still not been completely resolved. The problem is
>that the Uncertainly Principle, or more generally, the commutation
>relations on which Heisenberg based his quantum theory, are not
>compatible with the notion of phase. As we have seen, phase is the
>basic idea in the Newtonian description of particulate systems; it is
>precisely what the recursion rules operate on to generate the
>trajectories that encode causality in that formalism. The Heisenberg
>commutation relations said that classical phase could no longer even be
>defined at the quantum level, let alone be recursive.</em></strong></div>
> <div><strong><em></em></strong> </div>
> <div><strong><em>But as was quickly realized, giving up the notion of
>phase did not mean giving up the notion of state. It merely required an
>encoding of that notion whose relation to actual observational
>chronicles was now (to say the least) indirect. Formally, in quantum
>mechanics, the wave functions that encode state remain completely
>recursive, governed now be Schrödinger's equation (or its equivalents)
>rather than by Newton's Second Law. The guts of classical causality
>therefore passed intact to the new mechanics. It so happened that the
>new encoding, into a formalism of wave functions and Schrödinger's
>equation, could be related only in a statistical way to the old,
>classical encoding, so that the two inferential structures in the
>formalisms could not be brought into a complete homology. But as we
>have seen, this is an entirely different matter; causality encodes
>differently into the two kinds of formalisms, but that only says
>something about the encodings, and not about causal entailment
itself...</em></strong></div>
> <div><strong><em></em></strong> </div>
> <div><strong><em>Nevertheless, the reappraisal of causality
>occasioned by the advent of quantum theory has left physicists without
>consensus on what causality is or on how it should be encoded into
>contemporary physical formalisms. More generally, no one is today sure
>what the formalism of quantum theory encodes, or even if it encodes
>anything at all; in this latter view, advocated by Bohr under the
>rubric of complementarity, the only thing that matters is the decoding.
>I believe it fair to say that the "foundations" of quantum theory
>remain a quagmire, to a far greater extent than has ever been true in
>physics before.</em></strong></div>
> <div><strong><em></em></strong> </div>
> <div><strong><em>It would therefore be idle, as well as perhaps
>presumptuous, to enter into a more detailed discussion of quantum
>theory here. My main point is, however, unarguagble: that the concept
>of state plays the central role in its formalism, just as it did in its
>classical predecessor, and the essential property of state is its
>recursiveness. It thus perpetuates the duality between states and
>dynamical laws that began with Newton. The inferential or entailment
>structures in the two formalisms are different enough so that they
>cannot be directly compared (and indeed, attempts to directly compare
>the two formalisms have created much of the confusion to which I
>alluded above), but they remain different species of the same
genus."</em></strong></div>
> <div><strong></strong> </div>
> <div><strong>My diagnosis of what Dr Ho has been trying to achieve is
>a scientific description of what causes life in living systems
</strong><u>from
>within the accepted paradigm</u><strong>. She does not appear to
>question the soundness of the foundational issues involved, only the
>design of the structures built on these foundations. She recognizes the
>mechanistic approach as being inapplicable, but she is still trying to
>build structures on the same flawed foundations. If she reads my
>father's work and sees what he saw, she will have to pull a "Rashevsky"
>and go in a completely different direction (basically disavowing all
>earlier work). That's a really painful thing to make one's self do and
>is one reason why my father had so much respect for Rashevsky's courage
>as well as his intelligence. It's also why he felt such protectiveness
>towards Rashevsky when people like Lewontin tried to make a noose out
>of the older work and hang Rashevsky's credibility with it.</strong></div>
> <div><strong></strong> </div>
> <div><strong>I'd be interested in hearing thoughts to the contrary if
>the group has some?</strong></div>
> <div><strong></strong> </div>
> <div><strong>Judith</strong></div>
> <div><strong></strong> </div>
> <div><strong></strong> </div>
> <div><strong>----- Original Message ----- </strong></div>
> <div><strong>From: "Ionel" <</strong><a
>
href="mailto:***";><strong>***</strong></a><strong>>
</strong></div>
> <div><strong>To: <</strong><a
>
href="mailto:***";><strong>***</s
trong></a><strong>></strong></div>
> <div><strong>Sent: Saturday, July 24, 2004 1:38 AM</strong></div>
> <div><strong>Subject: Re: [ROSEN] "Process" Definition in the
>SpaceTime of an Organism and in relation to Quantum theory?</strong></div>
> <div><strong><br>
> </strong></div>
> <strong>> Hi, Tim:<br>
>> <br>
>> Related to the comments exchanged here, there seems to be also an<br>
>> interesting new reference that you might like to add a link to,
>which is on<br>
>> non-reductionist views of organisms at:<br>
>> <br>
>> </strong><a href="http://www.i-
sis.org.uk/hoarchi.php"><strong>http://www.i-
sis.org.uk/hoarchi.php</strong></a><br>
> <strong>> <br>
>> The author does not seem to be aware of Robert Rosen's work, but I
>might<br>
>> simply have not seen all that she wrote in several of her recent
>books<br>
>> published in the UK.<br>
>> <br>
>> Regards,<br>
>> Ionel<br>
>> On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 08:31:32 -0400, Tim Gwinn <</strong><a
>
href="mailto:***";><strong>***</strong></a><strong>&g
t;
>wrote:<br>
>> <br>
>> >Hi Pete,<br>
>> ><br>
>> >My only comment in reply is to your (rhetorical) question:<br>
>> ><br>
>> > For example, is it meaningful to talk about the
>"qualitatively or<br>
>> >quantitatively measured behavior" of, say, an ingot of lead
>(Pb) inside an<br>
>> >evacuated Bell jar ("the system"), wherein the lead ingot and
>the jar are<br>
>> in<br>
>> >thermal equilibrium with the jar's environment? No matter how
>you pick your<br>
>> >delta t across the initial & final states, any
>measurements you might make<br>
>> >of the system's "behavior" during the delta t are going to
>show zero<br>
>> >variance (within the precision of the measuring instruments).
>Is it<br>
>> >meaningful to say that the system states across the delta t
>define a<br>
>> >"process"?<br>
>> ><br>
>> >From my particular (peculiar?) perspective, I would say "yes"
>in answer to<br>
>> >that question. I take the view that 'process' is closely
>allied with its<br>
>> >etymological roots: deriving from L. processus - "advance,
>progress, lapse<br>
>> >of time", which in turn is from L. procedere - "go forward".
>To me, the<br>
>> >commonality here is the spanning of time, what we are calling
>the delta-t,<br>
>> >and the specifics of the behavior is not central to the
>definition. Thus,<br>
>> >for me, the behavior of any system across some delta-t is a
>process; the<br>
>> >specific nature of the behaviors encountered does not
>generically qualify<br>
>> or<br>
>> >disqualify.<br>
>> ><br>
>> >But again, as you note, depending upon one's purpose, changes
>(or lack of<br>
>> >them) in behavior may indeed be an appropriate qualifier (or
>disqualifier)<br>
>> >from the application of the term 'process' in a given context.<br>
>> ><br>
>> >Regards,<br>
>> >Tim<br>
> </strong></blockquote>
><br>
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