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On quantum theory and belief: A
comment on the role of belief in science Brian
Capleton (Copyright
Brian Capleton, 2001, 2005, from previously published material) Introduction The history of science has shown that the conceptual understanding operating in a field of enquiry, may be subject to change, or even to continual change. At one time the Earth was "understood" to be the centre of the celestial system, and at another time, the same system was "understood" as a heliocentric solar system. What was once "understood" as the release of phlogiston, is now "understood" as combustion. Light has been simultaneously but conflictingly "understood" as a particle phenomenon, and a wave phenomenon. Only the conception of light through quantum theory has provided an explanation for, or at least a method of working with, this apparent dichotomy. In all circumstances, what constitutes "understanding" is not necessarily as distinct from "belief", as we might like to think. Belief can have a number of different bases, from rational evaluation, to cultural conditioning, to religious faith,, and even to hypnotoid conditioning. The apparent "boundaries" between these bases of belief are not necessarily absolute.
The question of the relationship between the rational conceptions and beliefs of those participating in discovering the nature of the word, is an interesting one. The success of quantum theory and the philosophical problems that it apparently presents, is one field to which the question is especially pertinent.
Conceptions and theories in science do not necessarily acquire their status purely as a result of what scientific method itself reveals, because status is not an entirely objective thing, that is, status, as applied to an idea or a theory, often has a psychological aspect based on belief. If, in the absence of incontrovertible proof, one "feels strongly" that one view is "wrong", and another is "right" or more promising, the strength of the emotion may be an indicator of the presence of belief, which is a thing quite distinct from evaluation of the facts itself, even if this belief is a belief in a particular evaluation of the facts.
Belief by itself is insufficient to establish a scientific fact, but it nevertheless plays a noticeable role in science. If one believes there is a thing called "scientific method" that wholly transcends or circumvents the role of belief, then one might be deluding oneself. It is certainly not the case that there is always such a thing as the scientific view, or the view of scientists. If one speaks to practitioners in the field of quantum physics, one will encounter an array of differing viewpoints, not only on possible answers to unsolved questions, but also, significantly, on what those questions actually are. It is not uncommon to find what is quite evidently emotional attachment to views that tend in one particular direction rather than another. This, as is illustrated below, is quite distinct from the rational arguments put forward to support those views. Even at the early stages in the development of quantum theory, we can see this in the well known case of Einstein, who could not believe that God would "play dice with the universe". Examples of this kind illustrate the importance of the relationship between belief, and what are usually claimed to be the "objective" investigations of science. It is tempting to think that scientists in general, know better than to rely on belief, or would know better than to confuse the directives of belief with the method of scientific discovery, or with the process of dispassionate, objective, enquiry. After all, well before undergraduate level study in physics, it would have been appreciated by most perceptive students that the nature of the world is often counter-intuitive. How often is the search for answers in science being guided by intuition, and the defense or criticism of unproven propositions, being made mostly on the grounds of intuitional belief? These questions, I would suggest, are more important than might be commonly supposed. The intriguing and profound nature of the questions that arise from the field of enquiry into physics itself, such as can be found in the "Schrödinger's Cat paradox", or the apparent incompatibility between Relativity Theory and Quantum Theory, tend to eclipse questions concerning the psychology of the participants in the field of enquiry, which the conceived problems can sometimes throw into relief. Scientific method itself may be argued to circumvent the influence of psychological factors on scientific investigation. Nevertheless, in circumstances where theory calling for very deep thinking and conceptualization has to be developed before appropriate experimental testing can take place, psychological factors could at least influence the pace of progress.
Quantum theory The
received ‘interpretation
’ of quantum
theory
is
known as the Copenhagen Interpretation, after Niels Bohr’s physics
institute
in Denmark which he founded in the 1920’s.[1]
As John Gribbin
describes
in Schrödinger’s Kittens, according to this interpretation ‘an
entity such as an electron is neither a wave nor a particle, but something
different, something we cannot describe in everyday language
. But it will show
us either a particle face or a wave face, depending on which measurements
we choose to carry out on it....Indeed, it may have other properties as
well, that we are not clever enough to measure at all, and know nothing
about.’[2]
Furthermore, according to the Copenhagen Interpretation, the electron as a
wave is not a wave of something,
as it were, or a wave in some
medium, but is an abstract
wave
of mathematical
probability,
- the probability of actually finding the particle at a particular
location ‘in space
’.[3]
As Gribbin puts it: ‘This
interpretation
of
quantum
theory
is
telling us that entities such as electrons are only real
in
so far as they are observed - that the measuring apparatus is, in some
sense
,
‘more real’
than the photons and electrons and all the rest....In other words, the
atoms of which everything
in
the classical [macro-scale ‘everyday’] world
is
made are somehow less real than the things atoms are made into!’[4]
A
further profound consequence of quantum
theory
is
the notion of ‘quantum entanglement’, or ‘non-locality
’. This means that
particles which are well separated in space
,
or in principle
even light
years
apart, can be intrinsically ‘connected’. They may be at two distant
‘locations’ in space, but they can behave ‘non-locally’, as if
they were not separate at all. If two particles are ‘entangled’, the
attributes of one particle can depend upon which attributes a scientist
chooses (even just on a whim) to measure on the other particle, even if it
is well separated in space from the first particle. In principle, the
‘fate’ of one particle is dependent upon observations carried out on
the other, even if it is light years away.[5]
This is a verifiable consequence of quantum theory and yet it is difficult
to see how one particle could ‘know’ about the other remote
particle
unless there was some form of simultaneous,
i.e. faster than light signalling between them. Yet faster-than-light
signalling is not possible, according to Einstein
’s theory
of relativity
. The
objectively physical
,
spatially extended
universe
consisting
of independent separate parts, is composed, it seems, of particles that
are not necessarily independent and separable, even when spatially
separated. Also these particles are not ‘physically objective
’, independent of
their observation
. The universe, it
has previously been assumed in science
,
is local
and real
. Local
means a local part of the universe cannot be ‘in contact with’ a
remote
part,
except through the transmission of information
between
the parts, which according to the Theory of Relativity cannot take place
faster than the velocity of light
. Real refers to the nature
of
the universe – it means that an observer
of
the universe is not a necessary part of the universe. Experimental testing
of quantum
theory
seems
to have shown that the universe is not ‘local and real’ even
if quantum mechanics is completely wrong.[6]
Relativity theory, which is also a successful theory in its own right,
shows that no signal can travel faster than light. So Gribbin
describes
the situation as one in which: If you want to believe there is a real world out there, you cannot do without non-locality ; if you want to believe that no form of communication takes place faster than the speed of light , you cannot have a real world, independent of the observer .[7] There is no universal agreement about what quantum theory ‘means’ for our conception of ‘reality ’, or how science should proceed in order to move beyond the current paradoxes and puzzles , or if indeed it needs to.[8] Inevitably, some scientists understate the problems quantum theory raises concerning the ‘nature of reality’, or maintain that there is no real doubt over how quantum theory should be interpreted.[9] The truth is, that the scientific community is fraught with controversy and disagreement within itself, as Brown ’s book The Ghost in the Atom demonstrates. It is also manifestly clear from the general body of material pertaining to the subject , which begins early in the first half of the 20th century, that quantum mechanics consistently denies the so-called ‘common-sense ’ notion that the universe is real (as defined above). The theory is repeatedly confirmed by the empirical investigations of quantum phenomena.[10] The theory cannot be easily doubted. As Davies and Brown emphasise, it is ‘a
truly remarkable theory - a theory that correctly describes the world
to
a level of precision and detail unprecedented in science.’[11]
This ‘remarkable theory’ and the experiments that have been prompted by it, undermines the traditional scientific notion of an ‘independent’ observer or questioner. Some physicists such as E P Wigner [12] have already speculated that consciousness , or the mind of the observer play an essential role in creating the ‘reality ’ we observe, a view paraphrased by David Bohm as ‘saying that only when somebody becomes conscious of a phenomenon is it really ‘actual’’.[13] As Heinz Pagels (President of the New York Academy of Sciences in 1981) put it: ‘There
is no meaning to the objective
existence
of
the electron at some point in space
....independent of
actual observation
. The electron seems
to spring into existence as a real
object
only
when we observe it!’[14]
Many
physicists are endeavouring to develop new interpretations of quantum
mechanics,
some of which would perhaps support the ‘intuitive’ notion of an
independent, objective
reality
or
existence
‘out
there’ at the quantum micro-scale. Physicists are prepared to go to
considerable lengths in order to provide an alternative to the Copenhagen
Interpretation
. Some interpretations, such as the Everett
theory[15]
which claims that there can be an infinite number of ‘parallel’
universes, would seem more bizarre or counter-intuitive than the
implications of the Copenhagen Interpretation itself.[16]
Consciousness and the scientific world view Wigner
is
by no means the only scientist to have recently drawn attention to the
issue of consciousness
,
and its place in
the scientific
world
view.
Consciousness has now become a legitimate focus of attention for
scientific enquiry, and, significantly, this has not arisen exclusively
because of the implications of quantum
mechanics.
It is part of a wider movement towards the addressing of consciousness,
mind
,
and intelligence
. Today, it is
generally to the brain
that
science
looks
when addressing consciousness, and the brain, although more complex, is
sometimes compared with the computer.[17]
The rapid development of computer technology, and the promise of a
continuing exponential increase in computer capability has contributed by
catalysing the question "What is consciousness?" with the
seemingly more pragmatic question "Is it possible to build an
Artificial Intelligence
machine
that is conscious?". Science is no longer content to accept Descartes
’ edict, which
would have mind remaining firmly outside the domain of scientific enquiry
into the nature
of
the physical
world
. Questions
concerning the nature of minds, brains, and consciousness, which were once
reserved for philosophy
,
are now addressed
in connection with the practical aspirations of some scientists
,
and the lack of
answers provided by the current scientific world view is seen as a failing
which must be rectified. Roger
Penrose
describes
the situation in the following passage from Shadows
of the Mind
: A scientific world view which does not profoundly come to terms with the problem of conscious minds can have no serious pretensions of completeness. Consciousness is part of our universe , so any physical theory which makes no proper place for it falls fundamentally short of providing a genuine description of the world.[18] The holistic universe To
sentient life
(us)
material
objects
at the everyday macro-scale seem to be substantial enough. But what is
substantiality, and what is
matter, objectively, and
independent of our experience? What does it mean
for matter to be independent?
Independent of what? The idea
that
anything has independent existence
from
the rest of the perceived universe
can
itself be difficult to reconcile both with quantum
theory
,
and the
experimental confirmation of some of the theory’s implications. 19]
Quantum entanglement seems to imply that there is something wrong with our
notion of a universe consisting of independent, separate parts. The
proposition that the universe does not ‘really’ consist of independent
parts, but is holistic in nature
,
was presented from
a scientist’s point of view in 1980 by David Bohm
,
an acknowledged
world
authority
on
quantum mechanics. In his book Wholeness
and the Implicate Order
[20]
Bohm emphasised the inadequacy of a non-holistic world view: ....Science itself is demanding a new, non-fragmentary world view, in the sense that the present approach of analysis of the world into independently existing parts does not work very well in modern physics . It is shown that both in relativity theory and quantum theory , notions implying the undivided wholeness of the universe would provide a much more orderly way of considering the general nature of reality .[21]
But
even if the universe
is
holistic in nature
,
how can it have an
‘undivided wholeness’, which means a one-ness or non-duality
,
with respect to
the observer
,
the knower, the
thinker, or the intelligence
behind
these questions? Bohm
recognises
that consciousness
and
thought itself cannot be ignored in addressing the question of reality
,
and asks: What is the relationship of thinking to reality ? As careful attention shows, thought itself is in an actual process of movement. That is to say, one can feel a sense of flow in the ‘stream of consciousness ’ not dissimilar to the sense of flow in the movement of matter in general. May not thought itself thus be part of reality as a whole?[22]
Bohm
’s answer to his
own question is the notion of a ‘higher dimensional’ reality
,
but this is still object
-orientated. In the
above passages Bohm seems to be
conceding that there is not anything ‘objective
’ that we should
call ‘reality’. However he goes on to develop the idea
of
the ‘multidimensional’ reality of which space
-time
-matter
existence
and
all aspects of it, are merely partial projections. The interconnection
between the five facets of space, time, matter, thought and consciousness
are
accounted for by considering them as all lower-dimensional
‘unfoldments’ of the higher ‘implicate order’ already
‘enfolded’ in the ‘immense multidimensional reality
’.[23]
Every thing, and everything
that
happens, at every level, is an unfoldment of order that is intrinsically
enfolded in the multidimensional reality. This projects into the lower
dimensional elements that make up the universe
we
know, and represents a ‘behind the scenes’ unity and order that
accounts for things like quantum
non-locality
and
the entanglement of the observer
with
the observed.
Bohm
recognises
some parallels between his ‘implicate order’ explanation
,
and the
philosophies of Leibniz
and
Whitehead
,[24]
but he is also shadowing Plato
closely
in some respects. In Bohm, both space
and
time
are
only projections of the higher dimensional reality
. The ‘implicate
order’ requires ‘a fundamentally new notion of the meaning of time’,[25]
since all time orders are dependent on the multidemensional reality.[26]
Moments separated in time
are
only what appears in a lower-dimensional unfoldment of what is already
enfolded in the higher reality. One
is
reminded here of Plato
. In Plato, space
and
time
are
unreal
representations
of the higher reality
he
calls ‘Being
’. The world
of
space and time is an unreal moving image
of
Eternity
or
Reality
. The
human
individual,
for Bohm
,
is a
‘sub-totality of a yet higher dimension’: ....It will be ultimately misleading and indeed wrong to suppose, for example, that each human being is an independent actuality who interacts with other human beings and with nature . Rather, all these are projections of a single totality. As a human being takes part in the process of this totality, he is fundamentally changed in the very activity in which his aim is to change that reality which is the content of his consciousness . To fail to take this into account must inevitably lead one to serious and sustained confusion in all that one does. [27]
Bohm
’s higher
dimensional reality
encapsulates
the order behind life
,
the universe
,
every thing, and
everything
that
‘happens’, just as Plato
’s ‘Being
’ does. Order in lower-dimensional manifestation
is derived from the implicate order in the higher. Mind
and
body
are
mutual enfoldments of each other, and both reflect the order implicate in
the higher-dimensional reality.[28]
Also, ‘the body enfolds not only the mind
but
also in some sense
the
entire material
universe’.[29]
One
is
reminded of the Platonic
hierarchy
in which the ‘World soul
’ is the order
behind the human
soul,
and the human body
,
and how even
society or the state is modelled on the higher order. One is especially
reminded of the neo-Platonic
and
Fluddian correspondences
between
universal order and order in the soul and body.
The
qualitative
correlation
between Bohm
’s ‘wholeness
and implicate order’ and the macrocosm
-microcosm
correspondence
world
-view of the Greeks
and the renaissance
philosophers
is
unmistakable. The difference is that in the Platonic
or
renaissance world-views the implicate order is explicitly Divine
,
reality
is
ontological
(God
or
Being
) and the structure
of symbolic
representation
of
the unfoldment of that order is explicitly ‘musical’, in the Myth of
Er. In Bohm’s picture there could be ‘an infinity of further
development beyond
’,[30]
but the top of the hierarchy he presents is the ‘immense
multidimensional reality
’. The structure
of Bohm’s presentation is not musical,[31]
but is explicitly scientific
or
quasi-scientific
and
related to physics
in
particular.
In
all the world
-views, the material
universe
as
it appears is the fragmented manifestation in a ‘lower’ form, of a
‘higher’ order, and it is ultimately a holistic system
in
which the parts are more or less reflective of the whole.
The collapse of the wave function The Copenhagen Interpretation has not widely been considered as a cue to find an alternative to ‘material realism’ as an appropriate way to address ordinary everyday living, which takes place at the macro scale and not the micro scale of the quantum . There seems to be a fundamental difference between the micro world of the quantum, where it can be argued that particles don’t exist as particles until they are observed as such, and the macro world in which we live our everyday lives, and make indirect observations of particles. There is in quantum mechanics a concept which has come to be called ‘the collapse of the wave function ’, or ‘state vector reduction ’ which is associated with the point at which the deterministic quantum-mechanical description of the micro-world in terms of a wave function, is replaced by a probabilistic description in terms applicable to the macro-scale sense -perceivable ‘reality ’.[32] The quantum particle itself seems not to exist with any of the attributes by which the macro-world ‘makes sense’, as long as it remains ‘unobserved’ and represented by the wave function. But there will always have (conveniently) been a ‘collapse of the wave function ’, by the time an observation has been made, so that the particle can then be described as actually having the same kind of fixed, definite, measurable , physical properties, as macro-scale objects. However, exactly what causes the collapse of the wave function is unclear, and we are still left with an unresolved situation. On the one hand, people, observers, and everyday things are taken to have an objective existence and location in space , but on the other hand, we cannot say the same thing about the particles of which these objects are made. The trouble is, that one cannot simply say "obviously quantum theory is wrong", because this is clearly not the case, as is verified both by experiment and mathematical necessity. But it can be argued that the theory is somehow incomplete, as is our understanding of what we are observing empirically, on the basis that macro-scale existence must be ‘real ’. What does not receive so much attention currently, is the cause of the latter conviction, or the questioning of it. Anyway, the ordinary everyday world is, as it were, for the time being seemingly protected from the vagaries of the quantum world by the collapse of the wave function . Does
this mean that ‘objective
reality
’ at the classical
scale is assured, and that material
realism
need not be questioned. No, it does not. As long ago as 1935, Erwin Schrödinger,
one of the founders of quantum
mechanics,
published a theoretical account of an ‘experiment’ that would bring
the seemingly paradoxical aspect of the quantum world
right
up to the macroscopic ‘everyday’ scale. This now famous account is
known as the Schrödinger’s cat
paradox
. In The ghost in the atom
, Davies
and
Brown
describe
the implications of the Schrödinger’s cat
paradox
in
the following passage: |