SV: [Fis] Quantum info

SV: [Fis] Quantum info

From: Søren Brier <[email protected]>
Date: Thu 22 Jun 2006 - 11:09:21 CEST

Dear all

I am sorry not have had time to participate in this discussion in this topic
I studied many years ago. But just a few words about the general
epistemological problems.

I agree with John in the Criticism of Arne's approach. Something more is
needed. That is why I have worked on Cybersemiotics.

In general a way to avoid skepticism and radical constructivist be it social
or subjective is to start where Heidegger begins. We live in a natural
practical interaction with the world. There is some kind of basic unity
between us and the world of things and others. We do differ from things
through our linguistic and reflective consciousness, which make us aware
that there could be nothing, but there is something. We are aware of the
nothingness and of our connectedness to the world.

This is where one can Use Peirce's Synechism, Hylozoism and firstness to get
to the foundational nature of semiotic processes.

My Danish colleagues Peder Voetmann Christiansen has work with this for many
years. You can find his home page here http://mmf.ruc.dk/~PVC/ with some
article on quantum semiotics of which great parts are too technical too me.
Looking forward to the specialist's opinions.

Venlig hilsen / Best wishes
Søren Brier
 
Copenhagen Business School , Management, Politics and Philosophy,
Porcel�nshaven 18 A , DK-2000 Frederiksberg.
Office-phone +45 3815 2208 Cell 28494162
www.cbs.dk/staff/soeren_brier
Home page with full text documents http://uk.cbs.dk/content/view/full/9710
Ed. in Chief of Cybernetics & Human Knowing : home page:
http://www.imprint-academic.com/C&HK
 

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es] P�
vegne af John Collier
Sendt: 21. juni 2006 16:38
Til: Arne Kjellman; fis@listas.unizar.es
Emne: Re: [Fis] Quantum info

At 02:40 PM 2006/06/21, Arne Kjellman wrote:

        The realist’s riddle and the Foundations of Information
Science<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
        
         
        
        It seemed Andrei in the beginning opened the door to a discussions
about the foundations of science, in particular information science:
        
>Any careful analysis of this situation implies immediately that the
whole project “Quantum Information” should be based on more solid
foundations. We recall that >quantum mechanics by itself is a huge building
having the sand-fundament – the orthodox Copenhagen interpretation. On one
hand, there was created the >advanced mathematical formalism (calculus of
probabilities in the complex Hilbert space) giving predictions which are
supported by all existing experimental data. >On the other hand, it is still
unclear why this formalism works so well and moreover it is not clear what
it really predicts, because by the orthodox Copenhagen >interpretation
(which is the conventional interpretation) quantum mechanics is not about
physical reality by itself, but about just our observations (of what?).
>Problems which were of a purely philosophic interest during one hundred
years became technological and business problems. (Yes and its seemed we
for some >reason lost the interest in the philosophic questions – but I
think it is simply pushed into the background because the realists cannot
straighten out the puzzle. AK)
>Therefore “Quantum Information” gives a new great chance for
reconsideration of quantum foundations. All unsolved problems of quantum
foundations are >essentially amplified in the quantum information project.
        
         
        
        After this clever remarks it seems to me the list discussion has
been pushed into a discussion between realist defenders – sort of neglecting
other possible points of view – which make them into rippels on the surface
of classical knowning.
        
         
        
        To my mind these discussion can go on for ever and in vain – and
science we will not proceed an inch until the day we are prepared to accept
this (simple) fact that human knowing is in principle subjective. There are
several stronger reasons but the success of Copenhagen interpretation to
reject the human possibility to attribute ontological features to the
presumed reality. My claim (and SOA’s) is that no coherent definition of
information is possible as long as we keep on trying to make reference to a
“reality” that is unknowable in principle. Information relates to the
speaking (modelling) knower – and what is in his mind (his experience), just
as Bohr says. However his way of reasoning does not only apply to QM – it
applies to all forms of knowing.
        
         
        
         
        
        To pinpoint the situation let us consider the realist’s dilemma:
        
         
        
        A human knower first of all needs a MODEL OF HIS MIND in order to
consistently describe an ontological reality. However he has no model – and
cannot even consistently dig one out.
        
         
        
        To contemplate this situation:
        
         Assume I can identify a part of space-time, call it O (let it be
modelled by a cube of space-time, cloud of matter, a mathematical point or
even a thing – no matter). The crucial question is as to whether O can be
said to emit a signal that tells me anything about O – i.e., some feature
(property) beside the name O I have attributed to it. The assumption that
this is possible lies at the heart of IS i.e., we therefore say that such
signals contains “information.” This is the equivalent to assume O is the
bearer of such eventual ontological feature and such a feature should then,
according to the objectivist (and realist) be considered a pre-“given”
feature – or independent of the individual observer observer-independent
(exist prior to the knowledge of the knower). One might then ask who this
very knower is – and what is the point with human beings to search for the
ability to make a similar interpretation. But let me leave this unsolvable
question and proceed.
        
         
        
        Let us instead ask: Is my assumtion of a pre-given feature of O
correct?
        
        In order to compute some feature (property) of this is presumed
entity O I then need to know what has happened to the signal on its way from
O to my consciousness – no matter whether it is a quark, particle, thing or
even a bare state transition (assume it to be a state transition ST).
        
        The only way for me to find out how the human apparatus of
perception has influenced ST on its way to consciousness is to “send a
similar” test signal the same way through my apparatus of perception and
compare the original test signal with the received test signal (under the
assumtion that the apparatus is stable). Then and only then he can compute a
model of my own perceptual apparatus. However such an act of computing is
not possible until I know the original test signal – and this is not
possible because I have no model of my perceptual apparatus. (This
impossibility of comparison is most stikingly reflected in the human
monistic situation: There is only one percept!)
        
        What I can do in this embarassing situation is to assume the test
signal to be “known in advance” i.e., pre-given. This clearly is misleading
since I then assume what I want to show. There is simply no way out if this
dilemma but assuming that the features of O are pre-given – but such an
assumption is also clearly misleading – for exactly the same reason. The
realist is caught in inconsistency.
        
         
        
        I can see no way out of this dilemma. Can you? Or maybe I am
mistaken?

Arne, colleagues,

I don't think that this is an argument for antirealism, but for skepticism.
At least it can be made out that way, so there is another alternative. The
choice is not between just either we can check our representations against
the external world or we only have constructions (or models) to rely on, but
also we can hold our models to be falsifiable, and withhold final judgement
(this was Hume's route). This position has a very old argument in its
favour. The constructivist deviation is very recent. The problem with it is
that our models may contain information about the outside world, so to
dismiss them as not having that, and judging reality only on our models is
equally unjustified and misleading. There is an argument known to the
Greeks, called the Diallelus (the wheel). There is a discussion of it in
Nicholas Rescher, Methodological Pragmatism, New York University Press
(1977) pp. 15-18. The basic idea is that we have a means of judging truth,
or at least acceptability. Call it C. C can be any method you like, simple
or complex; it does not matter to the argument. Now we ask if C is
justified. Either the justification is in terms of C, which is circular, or
in terms of some C', different from C. If the latter, we need to ask (if we
did at first for C), is C' justified? Then we are back on the wheel, and so
on. Your argument, Arne, can be put in these terms: Let O be the truth, and
C be our perceptual apparatus; then we can know O only through C, but what
validates C? We are on the wheel, not on the route to taking models to be
the essence of reality. This can be seen easily. Suppose that we have a
criterion C for judging if our models are acceptable. What justifies C? We
are back on the wheel. I see no advantage in retreating to models as the
epistemic ground, and it smacks of a sort of verificationism to me. In any
case, it adds an epicycle to the problem that can be dealt with just by
acknowledging that perceptual apparatus and models are part of the
information we have, and we need to be sceptical about whether we are
dealing with information from the world or from our C in this case. Then we
can get down to the business of trying to figure out how to distinguish the
two classes of information (externally originated and internally
originated). The first step, I think, is to deny that we have any evidence
that there are things in themselves out there; we cannot, by postulation,
have information about them, only information transferred from them through
an information channel, which invariably adds noise, some nonrandom. So at
best we have access to information that forms patterns, some perhaps real
and objective, other parts artefactual. Is there a criterion for
distinguishing artefactuality from reality? Certainly not some C that is
infallible, or we are on the wheel, but there might be criteria that work
fairly well as long as we don't get all paranoid about certainty. In
traditional science, invariance under transformations of models has been an
important criterion (Galileo, Einstein), but certainly not the only one. It
seems to me that it can be applied to QM through a structuralist approach to
QM. I don't expect that this will move committed inernalists,
constructivists, antirealists and antimodernists (it's too early or
impossible to know what postmodernism would be -- see Bruno Latour, We Have
Never Been Modern, Harvard UP,
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/LATWEH.html
<http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/LATWEH.html> ). I colleague of mine,
antirealist historian -- Maggie Osler, remarked before examining a realist
MA thesis with me, that she thought that being a realist or antirealist was
genetically determined, or at least innate. She may have been right. In any
case, the same problem of finding invariances applies to the antirealist --
they are of great scientific interest for whatever reason, but it is harder
to justify.

As I have mentioned previously, a number of us are producing a book What's
wrong with things?: Information-theoretic ontic structural realism, that
addresses QM this way, among other subjects. If anybody would like to read
and comment on the manuscript, please get in touch with me. It is in
revision right now, but any input we can get from this esteemed group would
be valuable. This book relies on Peirce for one major premise, but does not
investigate Peircean semiotics, which I think is required for a more
complete answer to Arne's question of a way out of the dilemma.

Cheers,

John

________________________________

"The agility of the tongue is shown in its insisting that the world depends
upon it." Charles Peirce CP 8.83 (1891).
Prof John Collier collierj@ukzn.ac.za
+27 31 260 3248 Fax: +27 31 2603039

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