From: Robert Owen (rowen@technologist.com)
Date: Sat Dec 25 1999 - 21:24:13 MST
Dan Fabulich wrote:
> > In which case you distinguish "potentiality" (or "possibility") from
> > "actuality". "Causality" is a relation useful for describing observed
> > connections among actualities (c.f. "covariance" and "correlation").
>
> I intentionally avoided this route for a number of reasons, the most
> important being that there is a strict sense in which counterfactual
> situations really AREN'T possible: if you allow for only deterministic
> elements in the universe, then the fact that something hasn't happened or
> isn't happening now entails that it couldn't happen at all.
There is, of course, no objection to the attempt to formulate a consistent
deterministic explanation for microscopic quantum events, such as Einstein's
insistence that quantities that are conserved absolutely (examples: momentum,
energy) must correspond to some objective element of physical reality---
because QM does not model this he felt it must be incomplete. Or, the so-
called 'hidden variables' theories, which Bell proved cannot deal with quantum
entanglement without introducing explicitly nonlocal mechanisms.
But I don't understand what Stapp's contrafactual definiteness assumption,
which means that for the various alternative possible measurements which
might have been performed on a quantum system, each would have produced a
definite (but unknown and possibly random) observational result, has to
do with the problem under discussion.
I am not a trained physicist, and feel unqualified to say anything further
about "quantum foam" and other esoterica. All I intend here is to urge you
to avoid equivocation in the use of the word "possible". It cannot mean
in principle that which may or may not occur, i.e. is a priori undecidable,
and subsequently that which could not have occurred because it did not
occur. Possibilities are either real latencies or merely temporary unknowns;
quantum indeterminacy cannot, I believe, be reduced to the definite but
currently potential outcome of some measurement of a variable which
when performed will manifest its predeterminate value. Remember that,
according to Heisenberg, the path of an object first comes into existence
when we observe it. Or, if you prefer, forget it.
Certainly the superimposition of probabilities, or, if you will, the aggregate
outcome of a measurement performed macroscopically, will support to a
great degree the determinism you seek to demonstrate.
> Nonetheless, and this is important, we can still define an event in a
> deterministic universe, which we can call a decision (though
> non-determinists would be loathe to do so) which has motivational causes.
> I'm going to the refrigerator because I want to; this, too, is determined
> by other motivational reasons, (I want food), which, in turn is determined
> by non-motivational reasons (my brain is wired to want food at certain
> times of the day). The charm of all this is that it reaffirms the
> importance of internal motivation in decision-making without denying
> determinism its due.
>
> In response to your last question? Depends on what you mean by possible.
> Epistemological possibility ("It could be X, it could be Y, we don't know
> enough to say for sure") seems pretty non-mysterious to me. The relation
> between the actuality and one of those possibilities is identity, but we
> don't know which it is. Counterfactuals ("It's X, but it could have been
> not X") are tricky monsters. I'm in the camp that says that the correct
> interpretation of a counterfactual is a matter of filtering out what's
> normatively "important;" that the relation is normatively determined
> rather than analytically determined.
I find your continuing discussion of great interest. It is difficult to say "yes --
I mean epistemological possibility" because of the ontological implications of
quantum measurement, or simply instrumental observation. I rather like the
note by Heisenberg that what we discover is not "Das Ding an sich" but
Nature exposed to our method of questioning. But I like this even more:
"The more I think about the physical
portion of Schrödinger's theory, the more
repulsive I find it...What Schrödinger
writes about the visualizability of his
theory 'is probably not quite right,' in
other words it's crap."
--Heisenberg, writing to Pauli, 1926
Bob
=======================
Robert M. Owen
Director
The Orion Institute
57 W. Morgan Street
Brevard, NC 28712-3659 USA
=======================
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