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charliew wrote:
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>&nbsp;
<blockquote 
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 solid 2px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Alan
McGowen<AMCGOWEN@CUP.HP.COM> wrote in message &lt;<a href="mailto:37E684FF.81B159A2@cup.hp.com">37E684FF.81B159A2@cup.hp.com</a>>...charliew
wrote:
<blockquote TYPE = CITE>There is a hidden assumption in this whole subject
line.&nbsp; The assumption is
<br>that there is an absolute "truth" that science can ultimately answer,
if we
<br>pursue science long enough.&nbsp; This way of looking at the world
is probably
<br>flawed.</blockquote>
Let's bear in mind that a truth is&nbsp; a&nbsp; (necessarily finite) *description*
of objective
<br>reality, and as such,&nbsp; has a *resolution* or *precision*. It only
makes sense to
<br>ask whether a map of the Himalayas is accurate at its scale of resolution,
not
<br>at "infinitely fine" scales.
<p><font color="#000000"><font size=-1>(cut)</font></font>
<p><font size=-1>charliew replies:</font>
<p><font size=-1>I think you completely missed my point.&nbsp; If you study
such things as special relativity, general relativity, and quantum mechanics,</font></blockquote>
</blockquote>

<p><br>I have.
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>
<blockquote 
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 solid 2px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px"><font size=-1>you
quickly start realizing that the term "objective reality" is not really
so objective after all.</font></blockquote>
</blockquote>

<p><br>Nothing of the sort. In special relativity e.g. what is objective
(not dependent on the observer) is
<br>the Minkowski interval. In general relativity,&nbsp; geometry&nbsp;
is objective.
<p>In QM,&nbsp; the idea popularized by Frizof Capra and others that subjectivity
is rampant is dismissed
<br>by most theorists.&nbsp; E.g. the decoherent histories interpretation
(Gell-Mann and others) elimimates
<br>any special metaphysical role for observers or minds.
<p>See
<p>Gell-Mann, Alternative Decohering Histories in Quantum Mechanics (with
J.B. Hartle) in Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on High
Energy&nbsp; Physics: 2-8 August, 1990, (South East Asia Theoretical Physics
Association, Physical Society of Japan; Teaneck, NJ) vol. 2, pp. 1303-10
(1991).
<p>Gell-Mann, Strong Decoherence (with J.B. Hartle) in D.H. Feng and B.L.
Hu (eds.), Quantum Classical Correspondence: The 4th Drexel Symposium on
Quantum Nonintegrability. (International Press: Cambridge, MA, 1997) pp.
3-35. Conference held at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA, Sept.
<br>8-11, 1994.
<p>For a nontechnical discussion see
<p>Gell-Mann, The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the
Complex (New York, NY: W.H. Freeman and Co., 1994).
<p>Another good book that puts the lie to the claims of Capra and other
mystics is
<p>Victor Stenger. The Unconscious Quantum: Metaphysics in Modern Physics
and Cosmology (1995)
<br>ISBN 1-57392-022-3. rometheus Books 59 John Glenn Drive, Amherst, New
York
<p>Stenger's home&nbsp; page at&nbsp; <A HREF="http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/">http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/</A> is
filled wih skeptical discussions of
<br>quantum quackery.
<br>&nbsp;
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>
<blockquote 
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 solid 2px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px"><font size=-1>Therefore,
an "accurate" description of a somewhat subjective reality cannot be claimed
to be an absolute truth.</font></blockquote>
</blockquote>

<p><br>For&nbsp; a coherent treatment of the subject of accuracy and limits
to predictability in an objective
<br>reality, see Murray Gell-Mann's Fundamental Sources of Unpredictability,
available on the
<br>web at his home page <A HREF="http://www.santafe.edu/sfi/People/mgm/">http://www.santafe.edu/sfi/People/mgm/</A>.
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>
<blockquote 
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 solid 2px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px"><font size=-1>In
many ways, my "argument" has very little to do with *precision*.</font></blockquote>
</blockquote>

<p><br>This subject has everything to do with information and precision
(c.f. Gell-Mann's "coarse graining"
<br>at the above web page.)
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>
<blockquote 
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 solid 2px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px"><font size=-1>If
you don't believe me, merely go into the appropriate relativity text, and
look up various descriptions of "simultaneity".&nbsp; If you manage to
understand the implications of what you read, I'll wager that you will
not see reality as being so "objective" after all.</font></blockquote>
</blockquote>

<p><br>If you had understood what *you* had read, you would have realized
that Einstein's analysis
<br>demonstrates that classical concepts of space and time are not independent
of the motion
<br>of observers. For that very reason, Einstein replaces them with something
that is
<br>observer-independent, Minkowski space-time. In other words, special
relativity is *more*
<br>objective than classical physics.
<pre>-&nbsp;
Alan McGowen



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