From: scerir (scerir@libero.it)
Date: Tue Jun 25 2002 - 11:08:23 MDT
[Jef Allbright]
> At the risk of sounding too "zen", we never know the ultimate basis of
> reality, but can deal only with appearances,ever changing, fully aware they
> are only that, and then continue to behave as we would in any case.
This may be completely off topic, but I read it yesterday and I was
so impressed.
A. Zeilinger at the Symposium on the Foundations of Modern Physics,
1994, in Helsinki.
". . . we don't know why events happen, as expressed by Bell.
Let me explain a little bit what I mean by that. By quantum
phenomenon we mean the whole unity from preparation
via evolution and propagation to detection. Then there is an
uncontrollable element somewhere in this chain. It can be called
the reduction of the wave packet. Or it can be in the many worlds
interpretation the unexplainability of the fact that I find
my consciousness in one given universe and not in the others.
In a Bohm interpretation it can be the fact that I cannot control
the initial condition. As an experimentalist I would say that there
is some uncontrollable element from the following point of
view. When doing a Stern-Gerlach experiment, for example,
with an x-polarized spin, I cannot predict that this spin will go up,
this one will go down, etc. There is something beyond my control.
My personal feeling is that we have found for the first time in
physics that there are things which happen without sufficient reason.
This, I think, is a very profound discovery. I don't know whether
there is a way to understand this or not. I feel there might be a way
to understand why the world is so strange but we have not
understood that yet. In my opinion this so, because we really
don't know what information is. We don't know what it means
to collect information about the world. There is some world out there.
In the words of Professor Laurikainen, in a very specific sense
we have created the whole universe. But in some sense it exists
without us. We have to understand therefore what it means to collect
information about something which is not as much structured as
we think."
[See also B. d'Espagnat, "Veiled Reality", Addison-Wesley,
Perseus Books, 1995]
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