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joslyn@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov (Cliff Joslyn) writes:


>The following is a quote from the section called "The It from Bit"
>from a recent Scientific American article on modern quantum philosophy.

>"Quantum theory may demmand a revamping of our concepts of rationality
>and logic. Boolean logic, which is based on either-or propositions,
>suffices for a world in which an atom goes through one slit or the
>other, but not both slits. Bub [Jeffery, U.MD philosophy] concedes,
>however, that none of the so-called quantum logic systems devised so
>far has proved very convincing."

 I read a book by Alistair Rae titled "Quantum Mechanics -Illusion or Reality?"
which goes into different philosophical implications quantum theory with 
Copenhagen interpretation as advocated by Neils Bohr, Werner Hiesenberg etc.

It is amusing book for an outsider like me.Everything in this book is explained
in backdrop of "Photon polarisation experiment" as a quantum event.The facts 
itself about the experiment are startling.After delving into all different 
efforts to devise self-consistent quantum philosophy, he declares that only
theory which is "Economic on presumption but expensive on Universes" was 
one which says every time a quantum event occurs, the whole universe is 
divided into two non-interacting (rather interacting in only restricted 
conditions) universes !Then he diverges into the question of "imporatnce
of observer" by investigating Mind and Matter question with emphasis on 
determining whether it is possible to have any objective reality ?All these
looked so eerie to me, that I went into Humanities library and picked up 
some books on philosophy especially Zen and other oriental and tried to 
find some meaning in their striking resemblances.Especially, Zen theory of 
"No-self" and "Theory of Void(zero)" by Buddhist monk "Nagarjuna" has really
powerful suggestions.I went back to physics books and tried to look at the 
facts about "Fundamental Particles" and I found there are none.Electrons 
and Protons continue to be divieded and things have stopped at "Quarks and
Semi-quarks" presently but nobody believes it to be final.Also, Schrodinger
's wave equation and De'Broglie's wave-particle duality has already made the 
matter pretty transperant cloud.My feeling is that as long as this subject 
is investigated with purpose (it can be anything from building some applied 
device to mollify human psyche troubled at the prospect of having to deal
with uncertainity again or reveal the TRUTH ), it will be a self-defeating 
exercise.We have to leave humano-centric thinking with Logic and Intelligence
as central paradigm.It does not mean we should believe any "Tom, Dick and Harry"
but these philosophies look worth investigating like those of Greek 
Parmenides.


>"Various theorists are trying to recast quantum physics in terms of
>information theory, which was developed 44 years ago to maximize the
>amount of information transmitted over communications channels.
>Already these investigators have found that Heisenberg's uncertainty
>principle, wave-particle duality and non-locality can be formulated
>more powerfully in the context of information theory."

 Although, My article has been on little tangent but point that I wanted 
to make was that for a physicist atleast there is no dichotomy of Material
and Spiritual worlds.


>I'd like to know more. I am aware that a few physicists are advancing
>a Zadeh-Brower quantum logic (essentially the standard fuzzy logic) to
>quantum spaces, and are playing with relaxed excluded middles to
>account for quantum uncertainty ("Unsharp Particle-Wave Duality in a
>Photon Split-Beam Experiment", P. Mittelstaedt, A Prieur, R. Schieder,
>Foundations of Physics, 17:9, 1987, pp. 891-903).

>But especially the second paragraph quoted intrigues me.

>Can anyone lend some expertise?

>Thanks.

>O----------------------------------------------------------------------------->
>| Cliff Joslyn, Cybernetician at Large, 327 Spring St #2 Portland ME 04102 USA
>| Systems Science, SUNY Binghamton      NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
>| cjoslyn@bingsuns.cc.binghamton.edu    joslyn@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov
>V All the world is biscuit shaped. . .

Hitesh N Brahmbhatt writes:
>
> I read a book by Alistair Rae titled "Quantum Mechanics -Illusion or Reality?"
>which goes into different philosophical implications quantum theory with 
>Copenhagen interpretation as advocated by Neils Bohr, Werner Hiesenberg etc.
>...All these [interpretations] looked so eerie to me, that I went into
>Humanities library and picked up some books on philosophy especially Zen
>and other oriental and tried to find some meaning in their striking
>resemblances.Especially, Zen theory of "No-self" and "Theory of Void(zero)"
>by Buddhist monk "Nagarjuna" has really powerful suggestions.
>...My feeling is that as long as this subject is investigated with purpose
>...it will be a self-defeating exercise.  We have to leave humano-centric
>thinking with Logic and Intelligence as central paradigm.It does not mean
>we should believe any "Tom, Dick and Harry" but these philosophies look
>worth investigating like those of Greek Parmenides.
>
If you are inspired by the theory of no-self, then isn't a 'self-defeating'
exercise exactly what you would want?  :) 
Are you saying that we need to leave behind a paradigm with logic and
intelligence? Nagarjuna is one of the most logical and intelligent
philosophers I have ever read.
What would you hope to come out of an investigation of such philosophies?
>
>...[the] point that I wanted to make was that for a physicist atleast
>there is no dichotomy of Material and Spiritual worlds.
>
What makes you say this?  Please elaborate.

Regards,
Tom McFarlane

In article <1992Jul17.174536.514@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov> joslyn@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov (Cliff Joslyn) writes:
>
>The following is a quote from the section called "The It from Bit"
>from a recent Scientific American article on modern quantum philosophy.
>
>"Quantum theory may demmand a revamping of our concepts of rationality
>and logic. Boolean logic, which is based on either-or propositions,
>suffices for a world in which an atom goes through one slit or the
>other, but not both slits. Bub [Jeffery, U.MD philosophy] concedes,
>however, that none of the so-called quantum logic systems devised so
>far has proved very convincing."

>I'd like to know more. I am aware that a few physicists are advancing
>a Zadeh-Brower quantum logic (essentially the standard fuzzy logic) to
>quantum spaces, and are playing with relaxed excluded middles to
>account for quantum uncertainty ("Unsharp Particle-Wave Duality in a
>Photon Split-Beam Experiment", P. Mittelstaedt, A Prieur, R. Schieder,
>Foundations of Physics, 17:9, 1987, pp. 891-903).

There is an extensively investigated, beautiful, and (IMHO) perfectly
satisfactory theory of quantum logic which physicists and mathematicians
might find worth learning.  A good introduction is Jauch's "Foundations
of Quantum Theory" (if I have the title right).  Basically, what
distinguishes quantum logic from classical is the nondistributivity of
"and" and "or".  I.e, what fails is

		P & (Q v R) = (P & Q) v (P & R).

For example, 

P = the particle is moving to the right [i.e. its momentum is
definitely positive]

Q = the particle is on the left [i.e. its position is definitely
negative]

R = the particle is on the right

makes the left-hand side true but the right side false.

I.e. propositions form a nondistributive lattice.  This has the effect
that a "state" is no longer just an assignment of "T" or "F" to each
proposition, but a probability value ranging from 0 to 1, satisfying
certain conditions.

In article <1992Jul19.202309.29157@galois.mit.edu> jbaez@cayley.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes:

			...................

>There is an extensively investigated, beautiful, and (IMHO) perfectly
>satisfactory theory of quantum logic which physicists and mathematicians
>might find worth learning.  A good introduction is Jauch's "Foundations
>of Quantum Theory" (if I have the title right).  Basically, what
>distinguishes quantum logic from classical is the nondistributivity of
>"and" and "or".  I.e, what fails is

>		P & (Q v R) = (P & Q) v (P & R).

>For example, 

>P = the particle is moving to the right [i.e. its momentum is
>definitely positive]

>Q = the particle is on the left [i.e. its position is definitely
>negative]

>R = the particle is on the right

>makes the left-hand side true but the right side false.

>I.e. propositions form a nondistributive lattice.  This has the effect
>that a "state" is no longer just an assignment of "T" or "F" to each
>proposition, but a probability value ranging from 0 to 1, satisfying
>certain conditions.

It is not clear that the theory of quantum logic cited is useful for 
anything, or adequate.  I believe that a better view of the uncertainty
principle is that P&Q, for example, is utter nonsense; even making
things probabilistic does not help.

Also, there is no satisfactory truth value system which makes truth
values merely probabilities, but rather elements of a probability
space.  If A has probability .5, so does ~A.  But A&A has probability
.5, while A&~A has probability 0.

There have been many attempts to describe quantum mechanics within 
probability, but I know of no successful ones.  Quantum processes
are far more complicated than stochastic processes.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
{purdue,pur-ee}!pop.stat!hrubin(UUCP)