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Hi Tim,
Does "probabilistic" or "Statistical" mean the same thing as
"haphazard"? I'm not so sure. Mind you, I don't know much about Quantum Theory,
other than that it has inherited/incorporated some of the same Newtonian
misconceptions; they are just better camouflaged. Once I ascertained
that much from my father, as well as noting his lack of interest in
pursuing quantum answers to his questions, I wasn't any further interested in
it, myself. Initially, my sole interest in the foundations of science were
strictly on my father's behalf-- it was only as I got into my thirties that I
began to develop scientific curiosities of my own that I deemed worth pursuing
independently. And none of them were quantum physics based
questions.
However, I've explored the ideas of quantum theory a tiny bit
further, over the past few years. I find it interesting that they way they deal
with time is radically different from Relativity, but in a certain sense it's
just as disconnected because the relational aspects are still not very
well integrated. My intuition so far is that "probabilities" are
the way they deal with the realization that, in an atom, the electrons are
always moving and the behavior of the atom depends on this. So, rather than
think of atomic structure in terms of "states" (motionless because
timeless), they think of the time in terms of states and the
atomic structure in terms of probabilities. So, at any given "instant of
time" the electrons have "this" probability of being in "this" path... or
something to that effect.
In any case, the aspect of the quotes I posted
from Reichenbach's book that most intrigued me was the information that
physics (even in 1943, when this book was written-- My father was nine!) was
being questioned from within about the models and conceptualizations it was
using. Even to the extent that some were doubting the "laws" were laws!
Judith
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, August 20, 2005 4:45
PM
Subject: Re: [ROSEN] The "Relational
Complexity" Reference Library of Dr. Robert Rosen...
Judith,
In my
view, Reichenbach is either using an exceptionally narrow definition of
'causality' here and in doing so he is mixing two points. One being the
"principle of causality" as "a principle a priori", and the
other being the behavior associated with that principle. With
the introduction of QM, the underlying principle of causality remains, and QM
in its mathematical formulation is law-like, followed strictly, each and
every time. That the function describing the behavior of what happens
every time an effect follows from a cause in QM has a probabilistic
formulation does not thereby make the principle
itself haphazard or probabilistic, much less void the principle of
causality.
Regards,
Tim
I thought the list might be interested in the
following:
I've begun (finally) the massive task of sorting,
inventorying, inspecting, and repacking my father's reference library (which
I am planning to donate to a university, although I haven't chosen one yet--
VCU has been hemming and hawing over one of my stipulations-- that the
collection must remain intact for 50 years or be returned to my
keeping; no mixing it all in with the rest of the library
inventory-- which I insist on because I think there is information in
the collection, itself. So, all options are open as far as I'm concerned,
until I sign something). There are all sorts of gems in there; sometimes
it's a book (there's a Japanese language version of one of Dad's books, and
I actually can't tell which book it is! Anyone here read Japanese? It's
got a 1971 publication date on it, so it is too early to be AS or
FM). Sometimes, it's a discovery on my part of one of Dad's papers
published in someone else's book. Other times, it's Dad's notations marking
up a book-- which can be frankly hilarious on occasion-- especially if he
was expressing honest irritation. But sometimes there are amazing moments;
finding, in his notation and underlining, past moments where he was putting
together some of the important pieces...
One such book is titled "Philosophic Foundations of Quantum
Mechanics" by Hans Reichenbach. I wouldn't have thought this book
would be of interest to me, but it had all this underlining and scribbled
notes in it, so I started reading it. There are aspects in it that are right
on target for discussions on the list in the past couple months. For
example, here are a few excerpts (with Dad's underlining), starting on
Page 1:
"The philosophical problems of quantum mechanics are centered
around two main issues. The first concerns the transition from causal
laws to probability laws; the second concerns the interpretation of
unobserved objects. We begin with the discussion of the first
issue...
The question of replacing causal laws by statistical laws made it
appearance in the history of physics long before the times of the theory of
quanta. Since the time of Boltzmann's great discovery which revealed the
second principle of thermodynamics to be a statistical instead of a causal
law, the opinion has been repeated uttered that a similar fate may meet
all other physical laws. The idea of determinism, i.e., of strict causal
laws governing the elementary phenomena of nature, was recognized as an
extrapolation inferred from he causal regularities of the macrocosm. The
validity of this extrapolation was questioned as soon as it turned out that
macrocosmic regularity is equally compatible with irregularity in the
microcosmic domain, since the law of great numbers will transform the
probability character of the elementary phenomena into the practical
certainty of statistical laws. Observations in the macrocosmic domain will
never furnish any evidence for causality of atomic occurrences so long as
only effects of great numbers of atomic particles are considered. This was
the result of unprejudiced philosophical analysis of the physics of
Boltzmann.
With this result a decision of the question was postponed until it
was possible to observe macrocosmic effects of individual atomic phenomena.
Even with the use of observations of this kind, however, the question is not
easily answered, but requires the development of a more profound logical
analysis.
Whenever we speak of strictly causal laws we assume them to hold
between idealized physical states; and we know that the actual physical
states never correspond exactly to the conditions assumed for the laws. This
discrepancy has often been disregarded as irrelevant, as being due to the
imperfection of the experimenter and therefore negligible in a statement
about causality as a property of nature. With such an attitude, however,
the way to a solution of the problem of causality is barred. Statements
about the physical world have meaning only so far as they are connected with
verifiable results; and a statement about strict causality must be
translatable into a statements about observable relations if it is to have a
utilizable meaning.
The statement that nature is governed by strict causal laws
means that we can predict the future with a determinate probability and that
we can push this probability as close to certainty as we want by using a
sufficiently elaborate analysis of the phenomena under
consideration.
With this formulation the principle of causality is stripped of its
disguise as a principle a priori, in which it has been presented within many
a philosophical system. If causality is stated as a limit of probability
implications, it is clear that this principle can be maintained only in the
sense of an empirical hypothesis. There is, logically, no need for saying
that the probability of predictions can be can be made to approach certainty
by the introduction of more and more parameters. In this form the
possibility of a limit of predictability was recognized even before quantum
mechanics led to the assertion of such a limit."
I've never heard it said that some of the laws of physics are not
causal in nature but probablistic/statistical. This book was published in
1944! >From what I've seen of the resistance to my father's work on
relational causality and his far less incendiary description of the
scientific "laws" derived from Physics, it seems like questioning the
applicability of laws of physics to causality is almost a lynching offense.
Judith
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