[MD] Quantum Physics

Sun Dec 3 14:26:03 PST 2006

Dan,

Good to see that passage. I think what you say is true and a valid
summary of what Bob had said, and your final sentence is I think what
David M had just said in this thread too.

Traditional received wisdom on QM (Quantum Mechanics) ...
post-Copenhagen for short ... still tends to see the (otherwise
independent) object as being affected by the (observer) subject, that
is the basis is firmly SOMist.

Dissidents in the area of QM interpretations, and there are plenty,
continually point out that there appears to be something more
mysterious underlying the observable "mechanics".. These writers, not
all new and fashionable, some as old as QM itself, seem to be much
closer to Pirsig.

Ian

On 12/3/06, Dan Glover <daneglover at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 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
> >
> >
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