[MD] Quantum Physics

[Dan Glover]

Hello everyone

Robert Pirsig from LILA'S CHILD:

I see today more clearly than when I wrote the SODV
paper that the key to integrating the MOQ with science is
through philosophic idealism, which says that objects grow
out of ideas, not the other way around. Since at the most
primary level the observed and the observer are both
intellectual assumptions, the paradoxes of quantum theory
have to be conflicts of intellectual assumption, not just
conflicts of what is observed. Except in the case of
Dynamic Quality, what is observed always involves an
interaction with ideas that have been previously assumed.
So the problem is not, “How can observed nature be so
screwy?” but can also be, “What is wrong with our most
primitive assumptions that our set of ideas called ‘nature’
are turning out to be this screwy?” Getting back to physics,
this question becomes, “Why should we assume that the
slit experiment should perform differently than it does?” I
think that if researched it would be found that buried in the
data of the slit experiment is an assumption that light exists
and follows consistent laws independently of any human
experience. If so, the MOQ would say that although in the
past this seems to have been the highest quality assumption
one can make about light, there may be a higher quality
one that contradicts it. This is pretty much what the
physicists are saying but the MOQ provides a sound
metaphysical structure within which they can say it. (P 311)

Dan comments:
In the first sentence, RMP seems to be disavowing any supposed link between 
quantum theory and the Metaphysics of Quality. In the second sentence he 
answers all the questions that have arisen in this thread. In the third 
sentence he is eliminating any possible knowledge of Dyanmic Quality in 
static quality terms. Finally, Mr. Pirsig fixtures this whole problem as an 
assumption based on subject-object thinking that the reality quantum theory 
seeks to reveal is really "out there" existing independently of the 
observer.

Thoughts?

Dan


>From: "Ham Priday" <hampday1 at verizon.net>
>Reply-To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
>Subject: Re: [MD] Quantum Physics
>Date: Sun, 03 Dec 2006 15:19:18 -0500
>
>
>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
>
>
>moq_discuss mailing list
>Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
>http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
>Archives:
>http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
>http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/