Dear all,
declarations of faith are declaration of faith.
Nothing more, nothing less. They are self-contradictory in case they are
supposed to be the truth about reality. In that case they are no recongnized
as declarations of faith. The faith of a scientist that acknowledges to be a
(materialist) realist is no less a faith than the one that believes reality
is "just" numbers (or bits or...). The poverty of reductionisms is that they
give the impression that in the long run we just need to make, as in this
case, good physics and everything will be explained. This is not very
realistic, in fact.
kind regards
Rafael
Prof. Dr. Rafael Capurro
Hochschule der Medien (HdM) - Stuttgart Media University, Wolframstr. 32,
70191 Stuttgart, Germany
Private: Redtenbacherstr. 9, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany
E-Mail: rafael@capurro.de; capurro@hdm-stuttgart.de
Voice Stuttgart: + 49 - 711 - 25706 - 182
Voice private: + 49 - 721 - 98 22 9 - 22 (Fax: -21)
Homepage: www.capurro.de
Homepage ICIE: http://icie.zkm.de
Homepage IRIE: http://www.i-r-i-e.net
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Devereux" <dbar_x@cybermesa.com>
To: "FIS Mailing List" <fis@listas.unizar.es>
Sent: Sunday, June 25, 2006 8:58 PM
Subject: [Fis] Realism
> Dear Arne and colleagues,
>
> There is an essential reason, I believe, why nearly all physical
> scientists are realists. There would be no physical science without
> realism. Perhaps the most fundamental assumption upon which physical
> science depends is the conviction that all of us are imbedded in the
same,
> objective physical reality.
> I understand that one cannot prove this deductively, but the inductive
> evidence seems, to most of us, to be overwhelming. From the very
beginning
> of physical science, through to the present, all of our scientific
> accomplishments rely on a description of nature that is observer
> independent. We�ve incorporated Gallilean relativity into the fundament
of
> classical physics. All the classical equations of motion are observer
> independent. Would there be anything at all left of the physical sciences
> if we discarded classical mechanics?
> It is exactly the consistency and usefulness of the physical sciences
that
> argues, irrefutably, I believe, for the validity of the axioms upon which
> physical science depends. Statistical mechanics, hydrodynamics,
> electrodynamics, and others cannot stand without classical mechanics. So,
> we physical scientists must adamantly refuse to concede that because
> realism is not deductively derivable, it might not be correct.
> I note that Einstein built both his theories of relativity, special and
> general, on the postulate of observer independence. Should we throw out
> those extraordinarily valuable and consistent theories because we wish to
> debate the lack of a deductive argument for realism? I�m sure that
quantum
> mechanics (which also employs classical mechanics via the Hamiltonian
> formalism, Poisson Brackets, etc.) does not imply observer dependence,
> though some eminent physicists, like Wigner and von Neumann, have read it
> that way.
> The accepted understanding of the wavefunction, Psi, was given in the
> early 1920s by Max Born. As you know, If we wish to calculate the
> probability for each possible measured value of the system we take the
> projection of the eigenfunction for that value on the wave function, then
> calculate the inner product with Psi*. That we are predicting a
> probability for a measured outcome does not, at all, imply that human
> consciousness plays any part in the measurement. In fact, as Hawking,
> Penrose, and so many other physicists have so carefully calculated, there
> is every reason to believe that quantum mechanics described the cosmos
> billions of years before any humans and their conscious minds existed.
> In general, measurement is information exchange between two separate
> physical objects. Neither object need be human, of course. The canonical
> model for a measurement that transfers one bit of information is the
> bi-level atom located along one arm of the Stern-Gerlach apparatus
> described in 1978 (Physics Reports) by Scully, Shea, and McCullen. When a
> spinning molecule collides with the bi-level atom, a single quantum of
> energy is transferred to the atom. This is a real, physical, energetic
> signal that carries information about the change in energy of the
molecule
> to the atom. Since energy is always conserved, the energy jump in the
> detector atom always records the exact information about the change in
> energy of the molecule.
> One may, of course, still ask how human beings are able to observe
> properties of our shared physical reality. I�m convinced that at the most
> basic level of human percepta, more fundamental than learned, or perhaps
> innate, shapes and objects, we all look at the same pattern of minute
> color specks and see (and describe) the same specks. The key here is to
> look only for each speck of color, as one might do to a pointillist
> painting by Signac, say, ignoring any impression of physical objects that
> the artist may have portrayed. If necessary, scientists could employ such
> a basic technique to insure that the pattern which carries information
> about results of a measurement (like the face of an ammeter, for
instance)
> really is observer independent. I�m convinced that there are no
> cultually-inculcated tendencies at this most basic level.
> Cordially,
>
> Michael Devereux
>
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Received on Sun Jun 25 23:42:37 2006
