[MD] Quantum Physics

[Ham Priday]

DMB/Laird/Ant/David/Chin/SA --

Laird said:
> Quantum probabilities and potentialities describe
> the likelihood of particular interaction-points
> where DQ can become SQ. The quantum observation
> "problem" is when we "force" DQ to latch to SQ,
> providing us a static value in one quantum-
> dimension but thereby eliminating the DQ potentiality
> in all others.

David said:
> It is a very key basic of Quantum theory
> that the possible exists, is real and
> effects what becomes actual, i.e. possibles form
> interference patterns prior to wave collapses (actualisation),
> so the actual is a subset of the real.
> Hence 'many worlds' suggests that maybe all possibles
> become actual in different worlds to retain determinism
> i.e. all sets have actuality.
> It takes a a big leap to start getting this principle of
> quantum theory. I recommend Prigogine's
> The End of Certainty.

I find it astonishing that a proponent of a philosophy founded on Quality
would seek to explain Reality by the principles of Quantum Physics.  Doesn't
this destroy the whole MoQ epistemology that Pirsig labored so hard to put
across?  And now we have David urging us into New Age mysticism by
speculating that "all possibles become actual in different worlds to retain
determinism."

If the intellect is what breaks DQ into the levels and patterns that
establish experiential reality, why on earth would a believer in the MoQ
attempt to redefine reality by a deterministic theory of creation?   Surely,
even if one cannot bring himself to understand intellect as a property of
the observing self, nothing that Pirsig has said or implied about Intellect
would lead us to believe that it is constructed of collapsing particle/waves
or formed by their "interaction points".  I submit that the author of MoQ
would consider such metaphysical degradation of his philosophy the
"lowest-quality" kind of thinking.

Read again what Pirsig said about his "source", Quality, and how he sees
finite "events" derived from it:

"Quality cannot be independently derived from either mind or matter. But it
can be derived from the relationship of mind and matter with each other.
Quality occurs at the point at which subject and object meet. Quality is not
a thing. It is an event. It is the event at which the subject becomes aware
of the object. And because without objects there can be no subject, quality
is the event at which awareness of both subjects and objects is made
possible. Quality is not just the result of a collision between subject and
object. The very existence of subject and object themselves is deduced from
the Quality event. The Quality event is the cause of the subjects and
objects, which are then mistakenly presumed to be the cause of the Quality!"
    --[Pirsig: SODV, page 11]

Does this sound like an interaction of "quantum probabilities" to you?

Regards,
Ham