Professional Documents
Culture Documents
VOLUME6
Metadebates on Science
The Blue Book of
"Einstein Meets Magritte"
Edited by
General Introduction vu
Diederik Aerts
Acknowledgments xv
v
VI TABLE OF CONTENTS
12. Early Greek Thought and Perspectives for the Interpretation 163
of Quantum Mechanics: Preliminaries to an Ontological
Approach
Karin Verelst and Bob Coecke
Index 303
DIEDERIK AERTS
Vll
of his life and discussed his rightness, as he did repeatedly, with a con-
fidence and suppleness that distinguished him so sharply from modern
science. Albert listened enthralled and Rene was fascinated, and once
more my heart was in my mouth, but Nicole winked reassuringly, and
Sylvie brought us snacks on cushions of Brussels lace and sweet white
wine in tall, old-fashioned crystal glasses.
The topic of discussion for the evening turned out to be 'the doubts
of modern science'. In science there is not a single hypothesis for which
one cannot find two groups of hard-working scientists, one of which can
'prove' the hypothesis while the other can 'prove' its negation. And the
more fundamental and important the question is, the more clearly the
situation turns out like this.
"It's crazy," maintained Jacky, "In fact science states that one doesn't
know anything anymore."
"That's right," said Albert, "Truth is not a simple concept, and I
believe that the history of science makes it clear how often erroneous
hypotheses have been believed over the centuries."
"A good thing too," replied Rene, "Things can only happen as a result
of the movement brought about by that constant doubt."
Meanwhile Sylvie came to join us and handed round pictures of the
exhibitions of Jacky's paintings and poems. Jacky suddenly got very ex-
cited, as if something had inspired him, and he leapt up and vanished
into his studio. A few minutes later he returned with his palette and
brush poised. Before I could stop him he had started painting violently
right at the spot where Albert and Rene were sitting. A large, gossamer-
thin piece of Brussels lace gradually took shape and Albert and Rene
vanished. Fortunately, my young assistants, Jacky's girlfriends and my-
self got away with just a few vicious daubs of paint in the face.
The series of eight volumes introduced here are not just the results of
the conference, as would be the case with a record of the proceedings.
The authors were invited to write with the events at the conference in
the back of their mind, so that the books would form a second phase in
the process of thought set in motion at the conference. A second phase
more clearly crystallised than the self-organising forum that arose during
the conference, but one which focuses on the same timeless questions and
problems.
The whole ensemble was already streamlined at the conference into
a number of main topics named after the colours of the rainbow - red,
orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, as well as white, the syn-
thesis of all colours. This order was maintained and led to eight separate
books in the series.
EINSTEIN MEETS MAGRITTE ix
The white book contains more fully developed versions of the contribu-
tions made by the keynote speakers at the conference. So this white book
covers various scientific topics. In his article, 'Basically, it's purely aca-
demic', John Ziman asks himself what 'basic research' really is in today's
world. In his contribution, 'The manifest image and the scientific image',
Bas Van Fraassen analyses the considerable differences between the the-
oretical scientific description of the world and the way it appears to us.
He argues that most formulations of this problem may themselves be
tendentious metaphysics, full of false contrasts, and that insistence on a
radical separation between science and what we have apart from science,
and on the impossibility of accommodating science without surrender,
may be a way of either idolising or demonising science rather than under-
standing it. In the 'Microdynamics of incommensurability: philosophy of
science meets science studies', Barbara Herrnstein-Smith examines the
bemusing but instructive logical, rhetorical and cognitive dynamics of
contemporary theoretical controversy about science. In his contribution
'Subjects, objects, data and values', Robert Pirsig proposes a radical
integration of science and value that does no harm to either. It is argued
that values can exist as a part of scientific data, but outside any subject
or object. This argument opens a door to a 'metaphysics of value' that
provides a fundamentally different but not unscientific way of under-
standing the world. Ilya Prigogine discusses in 'Einstein and Magritte:
a study of creativity', the global transformation of a classical science
which was based on certainties into a new science that takes possibilities
as its basic concepts. Constantin Piron demonstrates in his contribu-
tion 'Quanta and relativity: two failed revolutions' that none of the two
great revolutions in physics, quantum mechanics and relativity theory,
have actually been digested by the physics community. He claims that
the vast majority of physicists still cling to the idea of a non-existent void
full of little particles, in the spirit of Leibniz or Descartes. Rom Harre
reflects on the significance of the theory of relativity. In his article 'The
redundancy of spacetime: relativity from Cusa to Einstein', he defends
the hypothesis that relativity theory is best interpreted as a grammar
for coordinating narratives told by different observers. In his contribu-
tion 'The stuff the world is made of: physics and reality', Diederik Aerts
analyses the consequences of the recent advances in quantum mechanics,
theoretically as well as experimentally, for the nature of reality. He anal-
yses the deep conceptual paradoxes in the light of these recent data and
tries to picture a coherent model of the world. In his contribution 'Da-
X DIEDERIK AERTS
the ecosphere. This book develops, from the call for an interdisciplinary
synthesis and respect for plurality, acknowledging the evolving scientific
truth, the need for an integrated but inevitably provisional world view.
Contributors from different parts of the world focus on four modes of
change: i) Social change and the individual condition, ii) Complex evo-
lution and fundamental emergent transformations, iii) Ecological trans-
formation and responsibility inquiries, iv) The economic-ecological and
socio-technical equilibria. Primarily reflecting on the deep transforma-
tions of humankind and on the relationship between humans and nature
it addresses major points of contemporary concern.
Volume 6: Metadebates
The Blue Book of Einstein meets M agritte
This book provides a meta-disciplinary reflection on science, nature, hu-
man action and society. It pertains to a dialogue between scientists,
sociologists of science, historians and philosophers of science. It covers
several topics: (1) the relation between science and philosophy, (2) new
approaches to cognitive science, (3) reflections on classical thinking and
contemporary science, (4) empirical epistemology, (5) epistemology of
quantum mechanics. Indeed, quantum mechanics is a discipline which
deserves and receives special attention here, for it still is a fascinating
and intriguing discipline from a historiographical and philosophical point
of view. This book does not only contain articles on a general level, it
also provides new insights and bold, even provocative theories on the
meta-level. That way, the reader gets acquainted with 'science in the
making', sitting in the front row.
Volume 7: Quantum Structures and the Nature of Reality
The Indigo Book of Einstein meets M agritte
This book refers to the satellite symposium that was organised by the
International Quantum Structure Association (IQSA) at Einstein meets
Magritte. The IQSA is a society for the advancement and dissemination
of theories about structures based on quantum mechanics in their phys-
ical, mathematical, philosophical, applied and interdisciplinary aspects.
The book contains several contributions presenting different fields of re-
search in quantum structures. A great effort has been made to present
some of the more technical aspects of quantum structures for a wide
audience. Some parts of the articles are explanatory, sketching the his-
torical development of research into quantum structures, while other
parts make an effort to analyse the way the study of quantum structures
has contributed to an understanding of the nature of our reality.
EINSTEIN MEETS MAGRITTE Xlll
The editors wish to thank the Center Leo Apostel (Clea) at Brussels
Free University and ORGAMED for their persistence in the organiza-
tion of the Einstein meets M agritte conference, for taking the initiative
to publish its outcomes, and for providing the dynamic structure and
stimulating surroundings to work in.
Explicit thanks are due to Sami Amira, Jan Broekaert, and Didier
Durlinger for their excellent handling of the material to be published.
Meeting the final deadline would not have been possible without their
flexibility that went well beyond any obligations.
We would also like to express our thanks to everyone at Kluwer Aca-
demic Publishers and the VUB-Press for the practical realization of the
volume.
Finally, and most important, we would like to thank the authors for
their contributions, as well as for their patience and responsiveness dur-
ing the editing.
XV
GUSTAAF C. CORNELIS
METADEBATES ON SCIENCE
INTRODUCTION
XVII
EMPIRICAL EPISTEMOLOGY
1. INTRODUCTION
1
© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
2 A.M. ADAM
part of the strategy pursued by them. Instead of strategy, the word cru-
sade would be more appropriate. Reichenbach himself warned that logical
positivism should be looked upon as a crusade and not as an abstract phi-
losophizing. Intellectual crusades have their inner logic to which logical pos-
itivists were not immune. Or, as Herbert Feigl admitted well over a decade
ago: 'Confession, it is said, is good for the soul. Undoubtedly we [logical
positivists] made up some facts of scientific history to suit our theories'[18].
5. IS EM PI R I CIS M TEN A B L E? N 0 .
In the first paragraph of his paper Einstein presents the standard answer
of the empiricist to the question of scientific method, the development
of natural science can be looked at as if it follows the inductive method:
Singular facts are chosen and grouped in such a way that the law of
nature which connects them becomes evident. By grouping these laws
more general ones can be derived until a more or less homogeneous
system would have been created for this set of singular facts. Start-
ing from these generalisations, the retrospective mind could then,
inversely, arrive back at the singular facts by pure reasoning. [6]
This is an elucidation of the empiricist view. General theories are induced
from singular facts. The main assumption shared by the empiricists, ever
since Bacon, was (the universal judgment) that all researchers should be-
6 A.M. ADAM
gin the inquiries about nature without any prejudgment. This is where
Einstein begins his argument against the standard answer of the empiri-
cist to the question of scientific method. He is not repeating the Humean
argument that inductive inference is invalid (he does this elsewhere [10]),
but Einstein denies that the researcher begins his inquiries tabula rasa.
Einstein argues that in principle the scientist cannot select singular facts
unless he has prejudgments. Einstein's attack is made by a counter ex-
ample, a singular case which counters (refutes) the universal judgment.
Einstein's counter example is an example of Galilee's scientific work. In
Einstein's opinion, the scientist has a prejudgment when he begins his
inquiries of nature. Otherwise, how should we understand, the essential
part of scientific discovery, the selection of facts done by the scientist?
Galileo could never have discovered the law of free falling bodies, had
he not maintained the preconceived opinion that the circumstances
which we really encounter are complicated by the effects of air resis-
tance so that one has to focus on cases in which air resistance plays
as marginal a role as possible. [6]
Einstein, then, asserts that in fact the scientist begins in almost a dia-
metrical way, to the inductive method. The source of scientific theory is
not the singular facts by themselves but general hypothesis based on the
scientist's mental intuition which evaluates ensemble of facts. Then, the
scientist constructs a hypothetical theory with general laws and their
logical consequences, particular statements, which can be tested against
experience. Note that this is a characterization of what is known to be
the "hypothetico deductive" structure of scientific theory. Einstein de-
scribes it as follows:
Intuitive comprehension of the essentials about the large complex of
facts leads the researcher to construct one or several hypothetical
fundamental laws. From the fundamental law (system of axioms) the
researcher draws as completely as possible its consequences by purely
deductive logical method. These consequences, which often can only
be derived from the fundamental law by extensive elaborations and
calculations, can then be compared with experience yielding a cri-
terion for the validity of the supposed fundamental law. Both the
fundamental law (axioms) and the consequences form what we call
a "theory" [6].
Einstein is rejecting the scientific outlook of the empiricist: first and
foremost Galilee's main discovery cannot be understood according to
that view (i.e., that scientific method is inductive), secondly, contrary
WAS EINSTEIN A PHILOSOPHER? 7
to this view, the scientist has prejudgment, otherwise how could we un-
derstand his selection of facts; finally, we can better understand the way
of scientific discovery by assuming that scientific theory is hypothetico
deductive. Einstein illustrates that indeed all branches of physics need
to be understood in that way:
Newton's theory of gravitation, thermodynamics, the kinetical theory
of gas, modern electrodynamics and so forth, all arose in this way
and their foundations have in principle a hypothetical character [6].
The question which is left open is: what is the scientific method, if not
inductive? Does Einstein say that the scientific method is deductive? Or
does he think that science has any particular method? Or the question
we should ask is not, what is the method of science, if any, but rather
how do we conjecture a scientific theory? That is, how do we arrive at
scientific knowledge? Einstein, in my opinion, does not advocate that
the scientific method is deductive. I doubt that he thinks that this is the
case because when he arrives to describe the scientific method he begins
to describe it in a metaphoric language:
But he [the researcher] doesn't arrive at his system of thought in a
methodical, inductive way, he rather, snuggles to the facts by intu-
itive choice among the imaginable axiomatic theories [6].
Thus, in Einstein opinion, the method of science is neither inductive nor
deductive. There is no scientific method in the traditional sense. In the
sense that both, the traditional rationalist and empiricist presuppose
the certitude thesis. If anything, a scientific method cannot license true
knowledge. Here Einstein attempted to put an end to the feeling of
certainty in science (end of certitude). Nevertheless, the scientist creates
a hypothetico deductive theory. What is the truth value of a scientific
theory? Can we know, in principle, whether a scientific theory is correct?
Every student of early 20th century philosophy of science knows that
these are all central issues to heated debates between philosophers. These
are the questions Einstein was considering.
But before we turn to Einstein's answers to these questions, it is worth-
while to dwell on their opposition as represented by Born in particu-
lar since Born's assertions are in straight contradiction with Einstein's.
Twenty years later, in his book on philosophy of nature, Born asserts
that relativity illustrates that the scientist begins from hard facts rather
than preconceived ideas [3, pp. 141-142]. Born is not referring to Ein-
stein's philosophical views on this question. Prima facie it is quite strange
that Born argues that the empiricist way to describe relativity is bet-
ter. Born followed Einstein's publications and activity ever since 1915
and closely in the 1919-1920s from Gottingen where he held a post until
8 A.M. ADAM
Consider what is to be done in the case when two scientific theories "are
capable of joining together the same given facts". This is where Einstein
cannot give a criterion for choice between the two theories. In this case,
the choice of the scientist then depends on the scientist's intuition, says
Einstein, where he attempts to explain why bright scientists hold contra-
dictory theories. Einstein, however, did not hold contradictory theories:
If two theories are available, both of which are compatible with the
given factual material, then there is no other criterion for preferring
the one or the other then the intuitive view of the researcher. Thus we
may understand how sharpwitted researches, who have command of
theories and facts, can still be passionate supporters of contradictory
theories. [6]
Interestingly enough the last three quotes from Einstein's paper serve a
respectable Einsteinian scholar, Howard, to argue that (I shall number
the sentences for the sake of convenience):
(1) What is significant [says Howard] is Einstein's claim that a the-
ory can never be proven true, not only because new discoveries might
overturn it, but also because alternative theories are "always conceiv-
able" which can account for the same evidence. (2) Einstein is saying
that in addition to the old Humean problem of inductive uncertainty,
we also have to acknowledge the radical underdetermination of the-
ory by evidence. (3) But this latter is just Schlick's point that "under
certain conditions several theories may be true at once, in that they
provide a different but in each case perfectly univocal designation of
the facts." [15, pp. 620-621]
Howard's statement (1) is true to the text, but his statement (2) is not.
If you recall, Einstein's attack on the inductive method is on the as-
sumption that the scientist begins tabula rasa in his inquiries of nature.
Einstein did not attack the invalidity of inductive inference, which is
10 A.M. ADAM
9. C 0 N C L US I 0 N
by Einstein:
It is certainly not by chance that Einstein stated the main points of
the Popperian program many years before the publication of Logik
der Forschung [1935], as early as 1919: 'But the truth of a theory will
never be proved. Because one can never know if, in the future, some
experience will become known that would contradict its conclusions
(Einstein 1919)'[14].
It is regrettable that Eisenstaedt neither pauses to elaborate once he
made an explicit strong historical comment, i.e., Einstein's philosoph-
ical view predates Popper's; nor does he say how significant Popper's
philosophy was, if at all. Nor does he say, If Einstein contributed so
much to an acknowledged philosopher's philosophy of science, how come
Einstein's philosophy of science is rarely discussed or why he himself does
not discuss it but reference to by passing. I shall discuss Eisenstaedt's
important observation in another essay.
AFFILIATION
REFERENCES
[19] Mach, E., Erkenntnis und Irrtum. Skizzen zur Psychologie der
Forschung, 1905.
[20] Meyerson, E., The Relativistic Deduction, 1925.
[21] Nagel, E., a book review: "Einstein's Philosophy of Science", on
[29] in: The Kenyon Review, XII, 1950, pp. 521-531.
[22] Pais, A., Subtle is the Lord: The science and the life of Albert
Einstein, Oxford, UP, 1982.
[23] Pais, A., Einstein Lived Here, Oxford, UP, 1994.
[24] Poincare, H., Science and Hypothesis, 1902.
[25] Paty, M., Einstein philosophe: La physique comme pratique philoso-
phique, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1993.
[26] Russell, B., The Problems of Philosophy, Oxford, UP, 1912.
[27] Russell, B., The Scientific Outlook, London, Allen, 1931.
[28] Schilpp, P.A., The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, Evanston, Illi-
nois, 1944.
[29] Schilpp, P.A., Albert Einstein Philosopher Scientist, 1951.
[30] Zahar, E.G., Einstein Revolution, New York, Open Court, 1989.
DON FAWKES
2. COMMANDS
We will deal with the view that morality is based on authority in its
most persistent form: That God is the authority. If we can show the
17
© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
18 DON FAWKES
most knowing deity would know the right acts from the wrong ones, and
would will that we do the right ones (DET). But it does not seem to be
likely that a deity like this would command a set of acts saying that these
acts are "right" just because the deity says so (DCT); in fact, believers
often refer to a supernatural being who acts in this way by a name other
than "deity". Thus, it is compatible with this notion of the deity that
the deity would make decisions on the basis of goodness and knowledge;
but Divine Command Theory is incompatible with this concept of the
deity.
We can now turn to the problems with DCT. There are four major
arguments of this kind, and we can label them the problems of meaning,
autonomy, variety, and interpretation.
a. Meaning. If right actions are held to be what the deity commands,
then the result is a curious emptiness in the meaning of the term "right".
For now it has no meaning apart from whatever is commanded. Perhaps
"right" in this setting is a way to remind us that the deity has power;
20 DON FAWKES
Having given argument that supports DET on the assumption that there
is a deity, and having given argument against DCT (again assuming that
there is a deity), we need to consider the consequences of DET, "The
deity wills right acts because these acts are right." Let us return for
a moment to the example of torturing to death a two-year-old child.
Following DET, a most good, most knowing deity would know that such
an act is cruel, and that cruelty is wrong, and therefore, would not
command it, but rather would forbid it. This means that the deity would
recognize the wrongness of cruelty, and this shows that cruelty would
be wrong whether or not a deity existed. Hence, contrary to Divine
Command Theory, the first consequence of Divine Expert Theory is (a)
that the existence of a deity is not necessary for morality. The existence
of a deity is compatible in this regard with morality, but not necessary
for there to be right acts. A second consequence of D ET is (b) that the
deity would not will that we do any wrong acts. This is so not because
what-the-deity-says-goes (DCT), but rather because a most good and
most knowing being would will that we do right acts because they are
right.
Now we will consider three further topics: (1) General objections to the
view that morality must be based on divine command; (2) the claim
that the goodness of the deity guarantees that DET is true and that
a version of DCT is true; and (3) some general ways to broaden our
understanding, of issues related to autonomy, religion, and morality.
1. General objections to the view that morality must be based on divine
command. We can take the view that morality must be based on
divine command as the position that "If there is no deity, then there
is no morality." We saw above that this would be a consequence of
DCT. But now we will examine this notion, "No deity implies no
morality" (NDNM), on its own. The first thing to say about NDNM
is to point-out that it seems difficult to imagine how we could believe
that NDNM is true without committing ourselves to believing that
DCT is true. The second thing to ask is, "What grounds are there
to believe NDNM?" Some people may have believed NDNM because
they believed DCT, but we have shown that there is overwhelming
evidence against DCT. So why would anyone believe NDNM? The
third thing to say about NDNM raises a difficult issue which affects
a wide variety of topics related to autonomy, religion, and morality;
EINSTEIN, ETHICS, AND ACTION 23
it is this: If there is a most good, most knowing, and most powerful
deity who created the universe, then why is there so much evil (for
example, undeserved suffering) in the universe? Now we cannot even
begin to discuss this complex topic here, but one caution we can offer
is to be careful of the fallacy of begging the question when thinking
about this issue. Finally, we can point-out that there are versions
of the problems of meaning, autonomy, variety, and interpretation
which also apply to NDNM.
2. The claim that the goodness of the deity guarantees that DET is true
and that a version of DCT is true. A person who believes that the
deity's goodness guarantees that DET is true might also add that,
therefore, there is a kind of "round-about" sense in which DCT is
also true. For it might be said, that "right acts are right because
the deity wills them," and this is so because the deity's goodness
guarantees that the deity can only will that people do right acts.
This appears to be a complex position and the following complex
remarks address it: Suppose it is said that the deity's goodness
guarantees that the deity would not (for instance) command that
people be cruel. Now we can ask, "Is the deity good because the
deity's character meets a standard that is independent of what the
deity wills, or is the fact that the deity wills to have a certain kind
of character the standard of goodness itself?"-If you think that we
now face the same question (in a new form) with which we began
our inquiry into commands, you are quite right! (And perhaps a
little tired!)-For consider that the question can be answered in
one of two ways:
a) The deity is good because the deity is, for example, benevolent,
merciful and just. But then are benevolence, mercy and justice
genuine standards of goodness? If so, then they are standards
which are independent of the deity's will. And thus, these are
genuine standards even if there is no deity. So, we are led back
to DET and its consequences.
b) On the other hand, if benevolence, mercy and justice are gen-
uine standards of goodness just because the deity wills that
they be part of the deity's character, then if the deity were
to will malevolence, ruthlessness, and injustice be part of the
deity's character, then these would be the genuine standards of
goodness. Thus we are led back to DCT and its consequences,
and its problems. Thus, we can see that nothing is added to our
discussion above by the claim that the goodness of the deity
guarantees that DET is true and that a version of DCT is true;
24 DON FAWKES
3. Some further general points. Easy answers are not available to ques-
tions about autonomy, religion, and morality. Now we will address
a few ways in which our understanding can expand. The first thing
we need to note is that the arguments given above are compatible
with the possibility that (Y) 'the set-of-all-right-acts' is identical
to (Z) 'the set-of-all-acts-commanded-by-the-deity'. Such an iden-
tity of sets is sometimes called extensional equivalence, and this just
means that every member of the first set is also a member of the
second set, and that every member of the second set is also a mem-
ber of the first set. We have not argued that set (Y) is extensionally
equivalent to set (Z), but only that this is possible, and compatible
with DET. Second, we should remind ourselves that we have not
addressed the question of the existence of a deity, nor the question
concerning the existence of so much evil in the world. We only asked
"If there is a deity, what bearing can this have on morality?" Third,
we should also remind ourselves that we only defined deism, and
did not discuss the grounds which might be given for or against it
or similar views. Fourth, we should keep in mind that many of the
beliefs we have concerning autonomy, religion, and morality were
acquired at an age and in circumstances which were not likely to fos-
ter careful or reflective thinking. We should recognize that these are
not the best conditions in which to acquire knowledge (knowledge
which can importantly affect our lives); and thus, we should resist
the natural inclination against reflectively reevaluating these beliefs.
Fifth, we should note that the term "religion" could be misleading,
for we have only addressed those religions which are theistic (i.e.,
those that assert that there is a deity). But there are non-theistic
and/ or agnostic religions (such as Theravada Buddhism, U nitari-
anism, Taoism, and Confucianism) which we have not addressed at
all. Sixth, we have largely ignored a considerable body of analysis
among those who have studied the anthropology, sociology, psychol-
ogy, and mythology of religions. This body of analysis holds that
the relation between religion and morality is entirely different from
that which we have examined: Instead, it is said, that religion is
a social activity that gives dramatic and mythical expression to a
culture's "basic values"; that religion involves stories or parables
that express a culture's "world view," and "attitude toward life and
EINSTEIN, ETHICS, AND ACTION 25
death," and "sense of mystery or transcendence" as well as lists of
"do's-and-don'ts"; that these stories and activities show the mean-
ing and social importance of histories, of "sacred texts" and "holy
places"; and, that religion may embody and call for the celebra-
tion of a culture's art and literature. Finally, we have given little
attention to understanding the concepts of "right" and "wrong",
and "good" and "evil." We have been concerned, primarily with
removing an impediment to our consideration of those issues. That
impediment is contained in DCT and NDNM. We can now get on
with the business of discussing ethics.
does not show that there is no objective truth about it. But further-
more, concluding that "morality is relative" on such grounds assumes
that all moral propositions are on the same level of specificity; and, that
assumption is simply false. For, consider the following hypothetical ex-
ample: Suppose that we encounter two cultures with very different moral
rules concerning human reproduction. In culture A the rules encourage
the increase of population as rapidly as possible; in culture B reproduc-
tion is strongly discouraged. But suppose we then observe that in B the
ratio of population to resources is very high; while in A this ratio is very
low. We then further observe that the members of A and B agree com-
pletely concerning the preservation and enjoyment of people's lives. The
apparent moral disagreement now can be understood as a difference in
circumstances combined with a complete agreement about ethics. Having
said this much, what about (rii)?-Well, suppose that we demonstrate
(see section 4 below) that objective reasons show that lying is wrong
and truth-telling is right. Does this mean that it would be wrong to lie
in order to save the life of a Jew being pursued by Nazis?-Countless
examples like this (at every level of specificity) show that there are no
absolute nor universal moral rules. So, (rii) is not only true, but also a
significant part of morality. Now consider (riii). A little reflection will
make plain that (riii) is just another version of the view that morality
is founded on authority; (riii) replaces the deity's commands with those
of society, etc. So, we need not consider (riii) any further. As for (riv),
it is just the "linguistic" equivalent of the "metaphysical" (riii); so once
again, our work is done. (There are several more difficulties for (riii)
and (riv), and a concise exposition can be found in [2, pp. 160~172]. To
sum up then, our conclusions are that (ri) is true but irrelevant to the
question of whether ethics can be objective; that (rii) is both true and
relevant to morality; and that both (riii) and (riv) are false.
because they don't understand what they are supposed to think when
they confront the painting ... They want something to lean on, so they
can be comfortable. They want something secure to hang on to, so
they can save themselves from the void. People who look for symbolic
meanings fail to grasp the inherent poetry and mystery of the image.
No doubt they sense this mystery, but they wish to get rid of it. They
are afraid. By asking 'what does this mean?' they express a wish that
everything be understandable. But if one does not reject the mystery,
one has quite a different response. One asks other things. [3, p. 11]
So I will not ask that anyone find a meaning in the images I am about
to suggest, but only recommend that one contemplate the images along
with the prose to follow. Perhaps the images can play as a heuristic. It is
not necessary to reject the "mystery of the image" in order to see such
a heuristic role. One can bring a meaning of one's own to an image, and
appreciate the mystery too (I suppose Magritte brings some of his own
meaning to his works by giving titles to them). Consider then: Evening
Falls, 1964 [3, fig. 62].-I suggest, "Ordinary morals remain mostly only
with dogmatic structures shattered." And consider: The Two Mysteries,
1966 [3, fig. 110].-I suggest, "Description falls short of image, but has
its roles; it exists too. Image falls short of object ... Object falls short
of description ... Think of practice as object here." These are specula-
tions that I bring to the paintings, expressed allegorically for heuristic
purposes.
We can return from speculation to Einstein for a concrete example of
the use of "principles" or "axioms" in the understanding of moral rules .
. . . we do not feel at all that it is meaningless to ask such questions as:
"Why should we not lie?" We feel that such questions are meaningful
because in all discussions of this kind some ethical premises are tacitly
taken for granted. We then feel satisfied when we succeed in tracing
back the ethical directive in question to these basic premises. In the
case of lying, this might perhaps be done in some way such as this:
Lying destroys confidence in the statements of other people. Without
such confidence, social cooperation is made impossible or at least
difficult. Such co- operation, however, is essential in order to make
human life possible and tolerable. This means that the rule "Thou
shalt not lie" has been traced back to the demands: "Human life
shall be preserved" and "Pain and sorrow shall be lessened as much
as possible."
But what is the origin of such ethical axioms? Are they arbitrary?
Are they based on mere authority? Do they stem from experiences
of men and are they conditioned indirectly by such experiences?
28 DON FAWKES
For pure logic all axioms are arbitrary, including the axioms of ethics.
But they are by no means arbitrary from a psychological and genetic
point of view. They are derived from our inborn tendencies to avoid
pain and annihilation, and from the accumulated emotional reaction
of individuals to the behavior of their neighbors. [1, p. 115]
So, the rules need not be all on the same level of specificity. More gen-
eral rules may be called "principles", and these can serve the purpose of
helping to keep the more specific rules consistent with the point of moral-
ity. They also can help us to apply the more specific rules to concrete
cases, and help to eliminate apparent conflicts. But the entire structure
is based in experience.
Think of morality as a game, a social game. It is partly constituted of
rules in varying degrees of specificity. Applications of the rules depend
on circumstances. Rules apply in some situations and not in others, and
there is always space for originality. But the morality game has not only
rules and circumstances, but also a point. [6, p. 150] That point is to
promote the common good.
Without apprehending the point of morality we can get only rules that
are mere commands of authority or whims of culture. Just as morality
has nothing to do with the cynicism of ethical relativism, so also does it
have nothing to do with pious moralizing backed by commands. Moral-
ity has to do, instead, with careful recognition of natural facts, and with
recognizing and attempting to deal with real problems, like poverty in
the midst of plenty; and yet, morality docs not posit any utopia. Moral-
ity, instead, charges us to work, to strive, and to enjoy our efforts in the
knowledge that, although we may achieve much, those who may follow
us will find more to do. The choice is ours, and it is the same for each
of us in every age, every culture, and every generation: We can delude
ourselves in escapist cynicism, or pious certainty, or comforting confor-
mity; or, we can face ourselves and the natural world, and get on with
a moral life. It is in the (at least tacit) context of this understanding of
morality that interpersonal relationships, and intercultural relationships
are possible, beyond force competition. It often can be of help, when
we are unsure of a judgement, to recall the point of the game. A little
reflection should show how far removed is this understanding of morality
(though it is only a sketch) from that of either moral relativism or moral
absolutism. But what they say is likely to be what we shall get, if we
cannot make clear the point of the game.
There is a saying that "Too great a sense of identity makes a man
feel he can do no wrong; and, too little does the same." The human
history of religious and ideological violence shows that identification with
either the appeal to absolutism or to relativism produces people who
EINSTEIN, ETHICS, AND ACTION 29
AFFILIATION
Don Fawkes
Fayetteville State University
Fayetteville, North Carolina
U.S.A.
REFERENCES
[1] Einstein, A., "The Laws of Science and the Laws of Ethics", 1950, as
found in: Einstein, A., Out of My Later Years, Secaucus, The Citadel
Press, NJ, (Rev. ed.), 1956.
[2] Feldman, F., Introductory Ethics, Englewood Cliffs, Prentice Hall,
NJ, 1978.
30 DON FAWKES
[3] Gablik, S., Magritte, Little Brown and Company, Boston 1976.
[4] Sagan, C., The Dragons of Eden, Random House, New York, 1977.
[5] Time Magazine, 26 February 1979.
[6] Wittgenstein, L., Philosophical Investigations, Macmillan, New
York, 1958.
MAREK W. BIELECKI
31
© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
32 MAREK W. BIELECKI
3. C 0 N N E C T I 0 N I S M V S . S Y M B 0 L I C A I
Besides the two leading paradigms there is one other approach worth
to be mentioned here. It is the 'emergent computation' approach (14],
which adopts the view that an emergent pattern of behavior can be inter-
preted as processing information. Its modeling tools of choice are cellular
automata, genetic algorithms, and adaptive neural nets. This approach
comes closer than the classical ones to capturing the dynamic, adaptive
nature of natural cognitive systems. This robustness comes at a price,
however. It is not clear at all how the emergent transient patterns can
be harnessed to perform specific, repeatable tasks of information pro-
cessing. The main stumbling block in this and in all other approaches
adopted in cognitive science and other scientific disciplines is the in-
correct notion of information they presuppose. This is a result of their
inability to tackle the problem of intentionality (meaning).
There exists at present only one theoretical perspective that is robust
enough conceptually to provide a new general framework for cognitive
40 MAREK W. BIELECKI
They should do so, unless they are content to reinvent the wheel every
few days and when AI reinvents a wheel, it is typically square, or at
best hexagonal. His justification as to why philosophers should study
AI is unconvincing, however. Philosophers' wheels, he says, are perfect
circles that require in principle no lubrication and can go in at least
two directions at once. If by this he means that philosophers' wheels
can go in either direction, then he is perhaps right but there is nothing
wrong with it. Philosophers should certainly keep in mind the lesson
learned from the failure of behaviorism or logical positivism, and from
the insurmountable difficulties encountered by the symbolic AI and, I be-
lieve, also connectionismconnectionism. The lesson is precisely opposite
to what Dennett implies. Dennett, the Churchlands, and other cognitive
scientists are trying to come up with solutions to philosophical problems
by invoking scientific models, for example to solve the problem of in-
tentionality by adopting the connectionist model of cognition. A more
meaningful approach involves, I believe, a move in the opposite direction,
where shortcomings of scientific models are exposed by pointing out the
unsophisticated and simplistic nature of philosophical assumptions un-
derlying such models. This is particularly true of cognitive science where
philosophy can and should play a unique and special role.
AFFILIATION
Marek W. Bielecki
Philosophy Department
California State University
Hayward, CA 94542
USA
REFERENCES
1. INTRODUCTION
43
© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
44 BURTON VOORHEES
Trek episode I referred to, this question is gently raised by Mr. Data.
He points out that Lieutenant LaForge, another member of the Enter-
prise crew, has artificial eyes which provide him with vision which is
far superior to ordinary human vision. Why, Data asks, don't the rest
of the humans have their eyes replaced by similar cybernetic implants?
Picard's response, that this is inconceivable, begs the question. Support-
ers of strong AI should sec no problem with such replacement. Indeed,
the far more radical idea of achieving immortality by downloading mind
onto mainframe has been seriously suggested [2].
As that suggestion indicates, the question of whether or not machines
can think is intimately connected to a number of other questions: What
is thinking? What is consciousness? What is self-consciousness? These
questions have been central to philosophy from its very beginnings, but
the invention of digital computers has brought them down from the
high mountains of philosophical speculation to the cultivated plains of
practical application. The number of angels that dance on the head of a
pin may not be relevant, but the number of transistors on a silicon chip
certainly is!
2. FORMAL SYSTEMS
nary definitions are necessary to make this idea precise, and to formulate
the Godelian argument against it:
1. A Formal System consists of a set A of abstract symbols together
with a set R of rules for operating on strings of these symbols to
form new strings. The set A is called the alphabet of the system.
The set R is divided into rules of gmmmarwhich specify constraints
which a string of symbols must satisfy to be admissible, and rules
of inference which specify the way in which admissible strings can
be operated upon in order to form new strings. The grammar and
rules of inference must be compatible in the sense that it cannot be
possible to transform a non-admissible sequence into an admissible
sequence by application of any rules of inference.
2. Any admissible string which is specified a priori as a starting point
for application of the rules of inference is called an axiom. The
system is finitely determined if the rules and axioms can be specified
by a finite procedure. A finite sequence of admissible strings such
that each string is obtained from its predecessor by application of
one of the rules of inference is called a proof sequence (or proof),
and the final string in a proof is called a theorem of the system.
Two simple examples of formal systems will illustrate this definition:
1. The game of chess: The symbols are the game pieces; the admissible
strings are the ways in which the pieces can be arranged on a chess-
board; the grammar specifies the set of legal chess positions; there
is one axiom, the initial position at the start of the game (or, in a
chess problem, the specified initial position). The rules of inference
are just the rules governing the legal movement of pieces. Thus the
"theorems" of chess are all positions which can be reached from the
starting position by a legal sequence of moves. (Note, however, that
there are only three ultimately significant theorems: white mate,
black mate, and draw. The game consists of a struggle between
players to produce a proof sequence culminating in a particular
conclusion.)
2. Define a formal system A with alphabet {0, 1} and the strings as
all finite sequences of O's and 1 's, taken in any order. Admissible
strings are those which begin with a block of 0 or more O's followed
by a block of 0 or more 1 's. That is, admissible strings have the
form 0 ... 01. .. 1. There are two axioms, the strings 0 and 1, and
a single rule of inference: if S and S' are admissible strings then
( S, S') ----+ S" where S" is the string obtained by dropping the leading
O's from S' and adjoining the 1's of S' to the right of S. For example,
(0011, 0111) ----7 0011111.
46 BURTON VOORHEES
In 1931 the mathematical logician Kurt Godel proved the following the-
orems [10]:
Let F be a formal system such that: a) F is finitely describable,
and b) F is strong enough to contain a sub-system with ordinary
arithmetic as a model. Then:
1. F cannot be both consistent and complete.
2. F is consistent if and only ifF cannot prove its own consistency.
To prove these theorems, Godel developed a way to code logical propo-
sitions as statements in arithmetic. He then showed that there was an
arithmetic statement which corresponded to the proposition G(F) =
"System F Cannot Prove This Statement." This led to the following
possibilities:
48 BURTON VOORHEES
4. INTUITION
they represent. In making this criticism, he might well have had the
formalist mathematician David Hilbert in mind. In an often quoted pas-
sage [21], Hilbert asserts that the objects of mathematical intuition are
" ... the concrete signs themselves, whose shape, according to the con-
ception we have adopted, is immediately clear and recognizable.".
For Plato, intuition was the faculty giving access to the abstract world
of Forms. He held that this was the true reality, of which the ordinary
sensory world was but a shadow.
Aristotle dissented from this view, holding that the universals (i.e.,
the Forms) had their existence only as they were instantiated in matter.
Nevertheless, the universals were real, and were the true objects of intu-
itive knowledge once the mind had abstracted them from the experience
of a certain amount of concrete exemplars. Further, the universals are
the principles behind the manifestations of matter so that knowledge of
them is the fundamental knowledge. Once the mind has grasped the uni-
versal, or essential nature of a thing, all other knowledge of that thing
follows immediately by logical deduction.
"Only intuition yields a clearer knowledge of reality than the knowl-
edge resulting from science and proof. The intuitive mind is the prin-
ciple of science, for it knows the principles which form the starting-
point of science.
" ... intuition is true in a higher sense than science because it provides
science with principles." [22]
Writing 2100 years later, Kant distinguished sensory and internal in-
tuitions and found both to be closely related to consciousness. In Kant's
view, sensory intuition leads to the apprehensions which the mind struc-
tures into the objects of sensory perception, while mathematical objects
are derived from the mind's intuition of certain necessary aspects of its
own functioning. Kant also believed that mind could never gain knowl-
edge of reality as it is, apart from the necessary categories of its mental
construction, a view in which he differed strongly from Plato and Aris-
totle.
A possible clue to the nature of intuition might also be found in educa-
tional research which indicates a relation between the ability to grasp and
manipulate abstract concepts, and the capacity for "distancing," that is,
mentally detaching from an immediate context in order to "view" it from
a more objective position [23].
5. S C H 0 0 L S 0 F MATHEMATICAL T H 0 UGH T
6. AN 0 NT 0 L 0 G I C A L ASS U M P T I 0 N
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This paper derives in part from a survey paper presented at the Work-
shop on Logic held in July, 1992 at the University of Victoria. The
present paper is based on work carried out in January, 1995 during a
visit to the Santa Fe Institute, whose hospitality is gratefully acknowl-
edged. Early versions of the paper were presented as seminars at the
Santa Fe Institute, January 24, 1995 and at Athabasca University, April
27, 1995. A shorter version has been published in Complexity under the
title "Gi:idel's Theorem and the Possibility of Thinking Machines".
Supported by operating grant OGP 0024871 from the National Science
and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
AFFILIATION
Faculty of Science
Athabasca University
Athabasca, Canada TOG 2RO
burt@cs. athabascau. ca
REFERENCES
[1] Minsky, M., "Will robots inherit the Earth?", Scientific American,
271, No. 4, 1994, pp. 108-113.
[2] Moravec, H., Mind Child, Cambridge, MA, Harvard Univ., 1988.
[3] Lucas, J.B., "Minds, machines, and Godel", Philosophy, 36, 1961,
pp. 112-127.
[4] Lewis, D., "Lucas against mechanism", Philosophy, 44, 1969, p. 231.
[5] Benacerraf, P., "God, the devil, and Gi:idel", The Monist, 51, 1967,
pp. 9-32.
[6] Good, I.J., "Gi:idel's theorem is a red herring", British Journal for
the Philosophy of Science, 19, 1969, pp. 359-373.
[7] Penrose, R., The Emperor's New Mind, NY, Oxford Univ., 1989.
[8] Penrose, R., "Precis on the emperor's new mind: concerning com-
puters, minds, and the laws of physics", Behavioral and Brain Sciences,
13, 1990, pp. 643-705.
[9] Penrose, R., Shadows of the Mind, NY, Oxford U. Press, 1994.
[10] Godel, K., "On formally undecidable propositions of Principia
mathematica and related systems: I", In: Solomon Feferman (ed.),
Collected Works, Vol. I, NY, Oxford University Press, 1986.
62 BURTON VOORHEES
63
© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
64 SUZAN LANGENBERG
CONTRADICTION
consciousness rather than the reverse. Only what the human mind was
capable of conceiving, could exist. Being was shown to depend on Know-
ing. The primacy of consciousness as the constituting center was bound
up with three notions: the freedom of consciousness, its self-creating na-
ture, and its status as a complete and lucid source of truth. Beside the
almighty power of the church it was necessary to create an even more
powerful concept of knowing based upon cognitivist truth, a product of
the mind as a human source, instead of knowing based upon the truth
of an almighty god as a product of faith.
In the modern era however, consciousness as a seemingly self-aware
foundation and transparent medium of representation, is also found to
be surrounded by and imbued with a kind of obscurity. Consciousness
discovers at its borders an element of darkness, an apparently inert den-
sity in which it is embedded, an unthought which it contains entirely,
yet in which it is also caught. This contradicts the other notion of con-
sciousness that all of reality exposes itself before the mind and at the
same time is constituted by it. This gives a sort of tunnel-vision solip-
sism: an experience in which consciousness is felt to be both an ultimate
constituting source and a limiting and mysterious channel-omniscient
and omnipotent, but only within a sphere, the boundaries of which are
acutely felt from within.
REFLECTION
INTENTIONALITY
inner perception, of inner speech and the outer world, with the different
other, with the unusual, with the unfamiliar?
KAFKA
ing noTmal steps, of not tapping the pavement with my stick ... ? Am
I not mtheT entitled to complain bitter-ly at having to skip along the
houses like a shadow without a cleaT outline, sometimes disappearing
in the panes of the shop windows? [3, p. 825]
Maybe it was that small, veTy still pause between day and night, when
ouT head, without ouT expecting it, falls foTwaTd and in which eveTy-
thing, without ouT noticing it, stands still because we don't look at
it, and then disappeaTs, while we stay behind alone with a bent body.
Then we look aTound 'US but see nothing anymoTe; we don't feel any
resistance of the air eitheT, but inward we gmsp ouTselves onto the
memoTy that at a certain distance there must be houses with roofs
and, fortunately, with angular chimneys, by which the darkness in
the hmtses will flow thmugh the attics to all the different rooms. [3,
p. 845]
CONCLUSION
How can we know that what we experience of the world is not merely
a hallucination? We have met a number of artists who have their own
interpretation/hallucination of the world outside them. They have found
a universal accepted modus for sublimating their vision upon life- and
system-world. There are a greater number of human beings who cannot
cope in such a manner with their existential questions. They cannot
make people listen to their critical attitude towards family, society or
'dehumanised' daily living.
Leo Beyers gives a possible opening to other ways of conceptualisa-
tion when human beings want to cope with the complexity of human
behaviour. The will to speak ('zeggingswil'), present in all of us, gives
us, as a human condition, as a way of being, a concept to make cooper-
ation thinkable between cognitive, moral and emotional claims in social
events. The will to speak happens and, only if noticed, brings humans
into the inter-esse, the being between. Inter-esse is a tenuous state that
throws humans into conflicting qualities of life, while being in the event,
without classifying the event. Conflict is understood as a driving force
in bringing together simultaneously attention, intention, cognition, and
feeling again and again and again and again ...
AFFILIATION
Suzan Langenberg
Academie Leo Beyers for Art and Life Sciences
Kortenaken
Belgium
REFERENCES
The universe was put into equations the way the history of France
was put into madrigals.
~Maeterlinck
INTRODUCTION
Over these few short pages, I should like to offer you a brief introduc-
tion, or rather, a lengthy invitation, to an emerging field of scientific
study. Rather than attempt, impossibly, to convey the richness of the
tapestry, and its significance, I shall confine myself instead to drawing
your attention to just a few of the threads running through it, and say
a little about why I think these threads worth pursuing.
The word "metamorphology," not a pretty word, comes from the Greek
"metamorphosis," the equivalent of the Latin "transformation." The Ox-
ford English Dictionary reminds us that a century ago it was applied to
the study of "change of form" solely in the context of post-embryonic
ontogenesis. Today it refers more broadly to the study of transformation
in general~the emerging science of change.
This admission should at once arouse our deepest suspicions! After
all, which branch of science does not study change? Does physics, and
indeed each of the special sciences, not deal with change of one kind
or another? When one has said everything the various sciences have to
say about specific classes of changes, what more is there to say on the
subject of change? Surely, one might argue, if there are any fundamental
principles underlying change in general, these would turn out to be none
other than the laws discovered by physics!
Now on the basis of prevailing views on change we should be fully
warranted in drawing such a conclusion. And yet, I have come to believe,
to do so would be a grave error. If nothing else, I hope in this brief
discussion to indicate just a little of why I think so.
71
© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
72 JAMES WILK
Now you might say that, as scientists, whatever our particular discipline,
we study certain observed invariances of interest to us. In fact, each
branch of science concerns itself with a certain class of invariances. We
study the contexts within which certain invariances occur, and we seek,
empirically, to define the limits of those contexts~that is, to identify
where the invariances do not occur. We aim finally, when all goes well,
to account for those context-bound invariances in terms of a smaller
number of others which are considered more fundamental, and which in
turn account for a wide range of still other invariances too, some perhaps
as yet undiscovered.
So we may study mirages, for example, and come eventually to delin-
eate precisely the physical contexts in which mirages can uniquely be
observed, and do the same, say, for rainbows, and account for each of
these context-bound invariances in terms of, at most, a few of the laws
(the more fundamental invariances) of optics and atmospheric physics.
Or again, we may study certain invariances in the degree of darkening
of the skin on exposure to sunlight, and come to account for these, in
the first instance, say, with reference to the quantity of melanin, and so
on. But whilst the appearance of mirages on a hot country road, or of a
rainbow after a shower, or of a tan after a holiday may all be considered
to be changes, what we are normally interested in, as scientists, is to
account for observed invariances as they happen to be exhibited in these
specific changes.
The changes themselves may provide us with observational fodder,
they may offer us the very clues we need to penetrate more deeply into
the nature of things, but they provide only one starting point of our
inquiry and perhaps some of the signposts along the way. Change is not,
in such cases, the subject of our investigation itself. How could it be, or
rather, why should it ever be?
CHANGE IS INESCAPABLE
Well, certain changes can indeed be, and often are, the very subject of
a scientific investigation, but normally only tacitly. So let me state the
obvious.
Once we turn our attention from physics to the biological sciences,
let alone the human sciences, we note that change, as a phenomenon,
has long been as indispensable in scientific explanation as it has been
ubiquitous. For any biological assembly, the perception of and differential
response to changes in its environment has long been taken tacitly to
A N I NT R 0 D U C T I 0 N T 0 MET A M 0 R P H 0 L 0 G Y 73
CHANGE IS INADMISSIBLE
But now let me point something out that may be less obvious.
To rely on the notion of change in nature, in our explanations, or to
refer to it at all, is 'Officially' an illicit move. That is, within nature as
Officially conceived over the past three centuries, there is no room for
the concept of change. For change is a difference over time, and, logically
speaking, any difference in a given particular can only be a descriptive
difference. For some particular p to be regarded as different at time T2
to the way it was at some earlier time T1 , it must be identifiably the
same p, which is now different in some (descriptive) respect.
What is more, we can readily prove the following from first principles:
To state the matter somewhat informally, for an assembly a to perceive or
respond to a change in some particular p, a must at the very least detect
a descriptive difference in some pattern or invariance of p--a descriptive
difference in pattern, moreover, which is of significance from a's point of
view.
But whoa! Wait a minute. How did description and point of view and
significance (meaning, no less!) suddenly appear amongst the would-be
fundamentals of the universe? How did these three interlopers manage
to gatecrash the explanatory party? If it is indeed the case that, in
logic, any attempt to invoke the concept of change is, however tacitly, to
presuppose the concepts of description and point of view and significance,
can we permit scientific explanations to rely so heavily, as they therefore
currently do rely implicitly, on such concepts as these? Can we permit a
key role for description and point of view and meaning (Heaven forfend!)
in the fundamental mechanics of the physical universe?
The short answer goes something like this: We might as well, and for
two reasons. First of all, it is unlikely that we could get by in scientific
explanation without making use of the notion of change, at least outside
of basic physics (and even there, for reasons we cannot go into here, it is
unlikely that we could get by without it for long). And second of all, the
concepts of description and point of view and significance turn out to
be analysable as more austere and theoretically parsimonious concepts
than we might at first be inclined to fear. In fact, within the theo-
retical edifice of metamorphology, these concepts are logically derived
74 JAMES WILK
this strict sense, to change. A 'sudden' solar eclipse from our (layman's,
frightened natives') point of view is only continuity from an astronomer's
point of view. If a solar eclipse just failed to occur when expected by the
astronomers-well now, that would be a turn-up for the books!
As to the question of where change comes into our investigations, I
shall return to this in a few moments. For now, let us note that we seek
in this area of work to account for pattern, that is, the persistence of
descriptive invariance in states of affairs.
NEGATIVE EXPLANATION
be deduced from its value on any or all of the others). The description
of a particular along all of the dimensions constituting the descriptive
space can be given by a vector (n-tuple) specifying the coordinates of the
particular's "representative point" [1] within the space (For shorthand,
rather than speaking of 'the location of a particular's representative
point' within the space, we shall refer to 'the particular's location' in
the space). The concept of a descriptive space is developed much more
rigorously in [25]. As a particular's description along these dimensions
changes over time, the particular will come to occupy different loca-
tions within the space, and we can track the trajectory of the particular
through the descriptive space over time.
For some agent assembly to intervene in the free fall of some patient
assembly is for the agent to act upon it such that the patient's trajectory
through a defined descriptive space will be different to the trajectory it
would have followed had the agent not so acted. But it is only meaningful
to consider the "free fall" of an assembly with respect to the possibility
of some agent's intervention. Free fall is thus defined as an assembly's
trajectory through some descriptive space over time~the description
of some assembly as it would unfold over time~if the agent did not
intervene at all. Free fall is thus always relative to a point of view of~a
set of descriptive aspects heeded by~an agent. The agent intervenes in
order that the patient will be descriptively different over time~from the
agent's point of view~to what it would have been in the absence of his
intervention.
SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVITY
According to the Official view, which has held sway for over three and a
half centuries, the universe comprises a vast, hugely complex and richly
interconnected causal system of events, governed by a relatively small
number of universal causal laws, some yet to be discovered. This Official
universe is hierarchically arrayed in a sequence of interlocking stratified
layers (or nested shells), with the phenomena of subatomic physics at the
lowest level (or at the core), and with layers of 'higher-level' phenomena
successively arrayed upwards from this base (or outwards from this core).
AN IN T R 0 D U C T I 0 N T 0 MET AM 0 R P H 0 L 0 G Y 79
The laws, known and unknown, governing the behaviour of the vari-
ous classes of interacting elements together determine the course of ev-
erything that transpires in the universe. On the Official view, if there
is any room for slippage between these universal laws and individual
goings-on, it can only be the result of a kind of leakage-some residual
indeterminism in the universe due either to quantum uncertainty or to
the predictive difficulties of non-linear equations [22].
There was once, and for many there still is, a heady and enticing ratio-
nalist dream of nature as such a universal, richly interconnected system
unfolding from a relative handful of fundamental laws. I have come to
believe, however, that this dream is just that: a dream. In its place,
metamorphology posits an uncompromisingly empiricist alternative.
In metamorphology, we replace the Official triad of notions of object-
and-forces, cause-and-effect, and conformity to universal laws or regular-
ities, with an alternative triad of notions: flux-and-constraint, purpose-
and-design, and adjustment to locally prevailing conditions. And we re-
place the Official picture of the universe as consisting of a hierarchically
ordered system of interacting, homogeneous classes of events with an
alternative picture of the universe as consisting of a myriad of idiosyn-
cratic, autonomous phenomena, unfolding and responding to the vagaries
of local circumstances which are always unique and unrepeatable.
The success of Official, rationalist science at uncovering general laws
with wide applicability shows not that all phenomena in the universe are
to be completely described by such regularities. Rather, it only shows
that the severely limited rationalist methodology, however redoubtably
successful it has been within its own terms of reference, is suited only
to discovering such universal regularities and is eo ipso oblivious to the
vast majority of distinct phenomena that occur in the universe and which
equally merit rigorous empirical, scientific study [28].
The laws of physics are at a very high level of abstraction and ap-
ply equally to phenomena that are widely dispersed in space and time.
However, the laws of physics tell us very little about what goes on in
the universe, and for all but a relatively small number of very simple
phenomena they explain-and, even ultimately, can explain--very little
indeed. This is not to imply the least discredit to physics (where indeed
would we be without it and its dazzling record of achievements?), any
more than it is a discredit to the aeronautics industry that their prod-
ucts are quite useless for getting about town. Universal laws, such as
those discovered by physicists, are handy and, when aptly abstracted
and accurately delineated, quite effective for getting us to the sorts of
theoretical and practical destinations to which such laws are useful for
taking us. But there are other sorts of places, more local destinations,
where we shall need to go, and there we must rely on more local forms
of-equally scientific-transport.
82 JAMES WILK
What then, on this view, is the relationship of mind and body? Quite
simply, on this view, there is no relationship between mind and body.
The alleged mind-body 'relationship' is like the relationship between
the separation of powers in the American Constitution, on the one
hand, and the arrangement of partition walls in the architecture of the
AN IN T R 0 D U C T I 0 N T 0 MET AM 0 R P H 0 L 0 G Y 83
White House, on the other hand. One has nothing to do with the other.
'The mind' and 'the body' are both, equally, abstractions, but they are
abstractions- abridgements, 'arrests in description' [8]-along very dif-
ferent lines. To the extent that we are only concerned with the handful
of aspects of some assembly corresponding to the tiny handful of as-
pects studied by physics (aspects concerned with, or derivable from, the
descriptive dimensions of distance, time, mass, etc.), to that extent we
abstract the physical aspects. To the extent that we are concerned to
understand the mechanisms of behaviour by placing the behaviour in
the realm of conduct ("the complex background in which it is enacted"
[4]) to make it intelligible, to that extent we abstract the mental.
There is an important sense in which 'the mind' is no more closely
related to the brain than it is to any other organ of the body [25]. And
for my own part I can confidently assert, after more than two decades
of investigation as a neurophysiologist, cybernetician, cognitive scientist
and philosopher of mind, that the study of the brain has so far thrown
no light (but much darkness) on our understanding of the mind, nor
is it ever likely to do so. The whole business, on my reading of things,
involves a philosophical error of the first water [25].
Now 'traditionally', cognitive science has started from the false premiss
that we have nature (equated spuriously with the so-called 'physical
world') pretty well understood, at least in broad outline. In other words,
we've got nature taped. The anomaly remaining to be accommodated
within the physical scheme, so the story goes, is mind, and cognitive
science seeks accordingly to understand the nature of mind and its place
within nature as thus, Officially, understood. The approach adopted by
my colleagues and myself, however, has been to start from the other
end and proceed in the opposite direction. We aim, as D.J. Stewart has
aptly remarked [14], not to reduce psychology to physics but to bring
physics up to the level of psychology. And so, in stark contrast to the
prevailing view in cognitive science, we have taken the view that we have
not yet even begun to understand the mechanics of nature-blinded, as
we have been, by the physicists whom we have permitted, in E.A. Burtt's
phrase, to make a metaphysic out of a method. But if we understand
nature aright, along the incomparably richer lines of metamorphology,
mind is no longer an anomaly at all.
For mind, more generally, from this point of view, can be seen to refer
to those aspects of phenomena in the universe which inherently involve
description, significance and point of view, where a defined pattern has
84 JAMES WILK
its source in imparity, and so is the result of a design, and no less so even
where, as in Darwinian evolutionary theory, there is no designer [30].
Design or purpose-what Cudworth (1628) [5] called "plastic natures"-
can be shown, in metamorphology, to be as essential to understanding
the mechanics of the majority of observable phenomena in the universe
as are the concepts of mass/energy, length, and time.
The framework of metamorphology thus not only provides a philo-
sophical and natural-scientific basis for taking purpose as central to our
understanding of human conduct. For more broadly, it provides a the-
oretically parsimonious basis for including purpose and meaning within
nature, yielding a new and readily tractable understanding of the rela-
tionship between the mental and the physical.
What has so far interested some people the most, however, about the
field of metamorphology-particularly in government and industry-has
been, predictably, the emerging practical applications of this work. The
core of the detailed theoretical structure of metamorphology, which we
have hardly even alluded to, is a General Theory of Intervention which
provides an account of what it is for anyone or anything to act and
what it is for anyone or anything to be acted upon. This theory turns on
the concepts of description, point of view, agent, patient, free fall, and
intervention.
TRANSFORMATION UNLEASHED:
THE POWER OF THE NUDGE
can pinpoint which constraints, if lifted, will yield the transformation de-
sired. This theoretical capacity for "minimalist intervention" has already
been applied successfully to creating significant real-world transforma-
tions by means of very small sets of precisely pinpointed actions. Some
of the practical implications have already been tested impressively by a
number of sponsoring government agencies and multinational corpora-
tions, in applications ranging from the resolution of intractable problems
to the overnight transformation of corporate culture.
It is heartening, to say the least, to find that what has seemed to me and
my colleagues to be such a rich field of study, such a powerful explana-
tory framework, and such a profound and fertile epistemological shift,
should turn out, so early in the game, to have such profound empiri-
cal and pragmatic consequences. These consequences, of course, sound
startling only from within the narrow stable of the Official View. If we
can include within Nature a cluster of fundamental concepts tradition-
ally excluded, we can come to adopt an epistemology possessing better
fit to the way Nature herself in fact would appear to operate~namely,
locally, concretely, and in terms of unities, within a universe in which
description and meaning play a critical determining role.
The founder of modern scientific methodology, Francis Bacon, said
that nature can be commanded only by obeying her. If we can achieve
this better fit, this greater obedience of our explanations and interven-
tions to the actual dictates of Nature, then we can expect far greater
(and more ecologically robust) command of Nature than the Official
universe has so far accommodated.
AFFILIATION
REFERENCES
INTRODUCTION
Juxtaposing the work of Einstein and Magritte has made for a wonder-
fully diverse and stimulating conference. As Michel Foucault has pointed
out, many of Magritte's works have entertained themes about the open-
endedness, indeterminateness and complexity of the relations between
language, world and imagination. His paintings reveal a world whereby
simple objects from our experience are combined in novel ways, providing
an elegant way to construct strange new phenomena from the familiar.
Einstein, on the other hand, urged us to accept a theory in which it is
possible to explain all novelty within a deterministic framework. The the-
ories of relativity show how it is possible to derive a complex world from
the geometrical structure of space-time alone. Many things could be said
about how we react when asked to think about the relationships between
these world-views. And indeed, many imaginative responses have been
forthcoming in the course of these proceedings. Unfortunately, I possess
neither the time nor the space to say anything more that is immediately
about the relationship between the work of these two great artists.
Nevertheless, my work meshes quite well with several themes addressed
at this conference. Following are a few words about how this paper fits
with others presented here. I am attempting a synthesis between the
work of social constructivists (particularly Bruno Latour) and that of
complex adaptive systems theorists (the likes of Ilya Prigogine, Heinz
von Foerster, Brian Arthur and Christopher Langton, to name a few
representatives present at the conference). Despite the surface tensions
between these diverse vantage points, I think that at a deeper level these
ideas can be married quite happily. To see how, one must first see the
task of philosophy of science from my perspective. In my view, the job
of philosophy of science is to construct models of the scientific process.
( C.A. Hooker and I have recently shown to what extent traditional phi-
losophy science succeeds in this regard in a paper presented to the 1995
International LMPS Congress.) Since scientific research is a social pro-
cess, this work becomes fundamentally one of social dynamics. Social
constructivists have been busily amassing data toward this end.
89
© 1999 Kluwer Academic P1tblishers.
90 WILLIAM E. HERFEL
one or the other side of the duality is more appropriate for our un-
derstanding of science. [14]
Among the methodological reasons for rejecting the dichotomy Latour
and Woolgar cite Barnes' "symmetry thesis": social factors are no more
or less relevant for explaining the successes of science than explaining
its failures [14].
Applying the tools of nonlinear dynamics permits a finer-grained ac-
count than is currently available in the social studies of science literature.
Considered from the perspective of nonlinear dynamics, the dichotomy
becomes a strategy employed in the modeling of science as a complex
system. Imagine a model of science in a state space whereby dynami-
cal constraints pick out a collection of trajectories through the space,
a specific trajectory selected by particular initial conditions. To con-
struct such a model we must choose features of the system which will
appear as dimensions represented by orthogonal axes. For example, we
could choose for our dimensions: available methodology, economic re-
sources, career interests and technological expertise. One reading, from
our present perspective, renders the dichotomy between the rational and
the social conceptual: in the terms of systems dynamics, this amounts to
stating that the social and the cognitive dimensions can be realistically
modeled on orthogonal state space axes.
It is compatible with Latour and Woolgar's account that the dynamics
of science is not (conceptually) decomposable along such lines, thereby
social and cognitive factors could not lie on orthogonal axes. But let us
suppose that they can. Even then the dichotomy could be maintained
dynamically only if the space in which science's dynamics could be cap-
tured has a linear topography. In such a (linear) space all vectors relevant
to the dynamics can be decomposed into the sum of orthogonal vectors.
Thus translated, even without the assumption that the cognitive and
social are conceptually inseparable, we can still retain a Latourian ob-
jection. For if the dynamics of science is nonlinear then any model in
a linear space, in which the dynamics is decomposed into the additive
play of independent forces, is bound to mislead. Hence even without La-
tour's radical assumption, which amounts to a very strong form of social
holism, we are still left with quite a powerful conclusion: rational and
social factors in science are dynamically interdependent making social
elements intrinsic to scientific activity.
IS SCIENCE IN ACTION
A NONLINEAR DYNAMICAL SYSTEM?
NONLINEAR SCIENCE
One might argue that order, not chaos, is what we want to promote
in science. And the surest way to guarantee order in a system is to
constrain it to linearity. But the robust chemical oscillators found in
organisms are nonlinear, as are a wide variety of other biological phe-
nomena [8]. There is no simple correspondence between orderly periodic-
ity and health. While chaotic cardiac fibrillation leads quickly to death,
aperiodicity is a ubiquitous feature of other healthy biological rhythms.
No general rule governs whether organic oscillations are normally either
chaotic or quasi-periodic (we rarely find strict periodicity). Instead it ap-
pears that life depends on a wide range of context dependent dynamical
patterns.
It is particularly noteworthy that aperiodicity occurs throughout neu-
ral processes. The olfactory systems of higher animals rely on chaotic
searching mechanisms in order to rapidly respond to smells [20]. Active
desynchronization through chaotic fluctuation is essential for healthy
C 0 N S T R U C T IV ISM & N 0 N LINE A R D Y N AM I C S 97
AFFILIATION
William E. H erfel
Department of Philosophy
The University of Newcastle
New South Wales
Australia
P L WEH @cc. newcastle. edu. au
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank John Atkins, Wayne Christensen and Barry Hodges
for free exchange of ideas and moral support. Special thanks go to Cliff
Hooker for his careful reading and critique of the manuscript and to
Chuck Dyke for critical comments and provision of his manuscript pre-
publication. Thanks to Kelly Boyle for proofreading and recommenda-
tions for stylistic improvements. This research was made possible in part
by support from ARC Grant AC9031991.
C 0 N S T R U C T IV IS M & N 0 N LINE A R D Y N AM I C S 99
REFERENCES
[1] Arthur, W.B., Increasing returns and path dependence in the econ-
omy, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1994.
[2] Berge, P. et al., Order within chaos, Thckerman (tr.), Wiley, New
York, 1984.
[3] Churchland, P.M. and Hooker, C.A. (eds.), Images of science,
University Press, Chicago, 1985.
[4] Dyke, C., "Addition accretion accumulation acceleration alteration:
technology and nonlinearity.", (forthcoming).
[5] Galison, P., How experiments end, University Press, Chicago, 1987.
[6] Garfinkel, A., "A mathematics for physiology", American journal
of physiology, 245, 14, 1983, R455-466.
[7] Giere, R., Explaining science, University Press, Chicago,1988.
[8] Glass, L. and Mackey, M., From clocks to chaos, University Press,
Princeton, 1988.
[9] Hacking, 1., Representing and intervening, University Press, Cam-
bridge, 1983.
[10] Hooker, C.A., Penfold, H.B., and Evans, R.J., "Cognition
under a new control paradigm", Topoi, 11, 1992, pp. 71-88.
[11] Kourany, J. (ed.), Scientific knowledge, Wadsworth, Belmont, 1987.
[12] Kuhn, T., Structure of scientific revolutions, University Press,
Chicago, 1962.
[13] Latour, B., Science in action, Cambridge, Harvard, MA, 1987.
[14] Latour, B. and Woolgar, S., Laboratory life, University Press,
Princeton, 1986.
[15] Lorenz, E.N., "Deterministic nonperiodic flow", Journal of the
atmospheric sciences, 20, 1963, pp. 282-93.
[16] Peacocke, A.R., An introduction to the physical chemistry of bio-
logical organization, Clarendon, Oxford, 1983
[17] Rapp, P. et al., "Experimental studies of chaotic neural behav-
ior: cellular activity and electroencephalographic signals", in: Othmer,
H.G. (ed.), Nonlinear oscillations in biology and chemistry, Springer-
Verlag, Berlin, 1986.
[18] Rosenberg, N., Exploring the black box: technology, economics,
and history, University Press, Cambridge, 1994.
[19] Shinbrot, T. et al., "Using small perturbations to control chaos",
in Nature, 363, 1993, pp. 411-417.
100 WILLIAM E. HERFEL
[20] Skarda, C. and Freeman, W., "How brains make chaos in order
to make sense of the world", Behavioral and brain sciences, 10, 1987,
pp. 161-195.
[21] Stewart, I., Does God play dice? The mathematics of chaos, Basil
Blackwell, Oxford, 1989.
[22] Stewart, I., "Warning-handle with care", Nature, 355, 1992,
pp. 16-17.
[23] Van Fraassen, B.C., The scientific image, Clarendon, Oxford,
1980.
[24j Watson, J.D., The double helix, Weidenfield and Nicholson, Lon-
don, 1968.
C. CAPEL-BOUTE AND A. KOECKELENBERGH
I have found that the scientific community may remain very conser-
vative and reluctant to put in question its fundamental criteria to char-
acterize the scientific method in experimental research: that is repro-
ducibility wherever and whenever the experiments are made in so-called
"identical conditions" ...
Happily, when I met Prof. H.S. Frank, the internationally known phy-
sicochemist author of a model of the structure of water, (in the Mellon
Institute in Pittsburgh (USA) in 1966), he introduced me to a biologist
and an economist Prof. Edward Dewey, (founder of the Foundation for
the Study of cycles), and they all, considering my views, recommended
me to read the book of Thomas Kuhn: "The structure of scientific rev-
olutions". I am grateful to them for warning me that "scientists fail to
reject paradigms when faced with anomalies or counter instances. They
could not do so and still remain scientists".
I knew thus that "inability to tolerate crisis" could drive "to desert
science", but also that "to reject one paradigm without simultaneously
substituting another is to reject science itself " ... "The act reflects not
on the paradigm but on the man". Pioneers in cosmo-biology like Tchi-
jewsky (1895-1964) in the ex-Soviet Union, or Piccardi (1895-1972) in
Italy had suffered until their death, and still afterwards, the criticism of
their colleagues, specially those of the same discipline.
Furthermore, a large interdisciplinary approach was more than unusual
in 1958 when we had held the 1st International Symposium on "Solar-
terrestrial Relationships in Physical-chemistry and Biology" at the Royal
Observatory of Belgium, under chairmanship of its director, Prof. Paul
Bourgeois [17, 3, 2].
It was specially intended to discuss an original methodology and its re-
sults, collected in different places, called the "Piccardi-chemical tests",
which had led him to present already in 1954 at an interdisciplinary
meeting in the Max Planck Institiit fiir Biophysik in Frankfurt, his "so-
lar hypothesis". It brought a coherent interpretation of evident abnor-
mal annual and long-term variations, appearing from mean values of
hundreds of daily experiments, carried out in so-called "identical condi-
tions", when ordered in function of time.
Forty years ago the scientific community had to face the choice either
101
© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
102 C . CAP E L- B 0 UTE AN D A . K 0 E C K ELEN BERGH
to reject all the peculiarities and abnormal facts already observed inde-
pendently by many scientists in their different fields of research or to
accept a new paradigm that could interpret them; as stated by T. Kuhn
"paradigm changes do cause scientists to see the world of their research
engagement differently". Let me illustrate this with his most familiar
demonstration showing "what were ducks in the Scientist's world before
the revolution are rabbits afterwards".
Reproducibility in space and time, is based on the dogma that we
could operate in our laboratories in "identical conditions".
This meant not only a correct control of the inner parameters of the
systems observed, but also of the environmental factors already known
as able to act on a particular process, like light, temperature, pressure
and humidity, in a phytotron for example. But effects of low-energy
electric, magnetic or electromagnetic fields from our natural environment
were mostly ignored. Air pollution was known well before Lavoisier and
Priestley could identify the normal composition of pure air and our vital
need for oxygen ... because everybody could smell it! But radioactive
or electromagnetic pollution required not only specific instrumentation
to be detected, but also knowledge of their existence in our natural
environment and possible vital effects in spite of their low energy level.
It was when studying the effects and ways of action of such physical
factors, as they were used in industry for physical treatment of hard wa-
ters to prevent scaling in boilers, that abnormal facts were noticed quite
independently by G. Piccardi and myself, with different physical factors
and processes studied in carefully controlled laboratory conditions [15,
16, 18, 20].
1. the effects from such physical treatments of water could result from
an action on water itself persisting for days or hours.
2. laboratory test-reactions to characterize any effect of treated (ac-
tivated) water against untreated water (control in otherwise simi-
lar conditions) showed differences that could vary considerably and
even change from positive to negative effects in the course of time.
These could no more be considered as usual "experimental errors".
To test his hypothesis that the disturbing factors were of the same
nature, and could also act uncontrolled on water itself, Piccardi chose a
simple hydrolysis precipitation reaction (Bi Ch + H2 0 = Bi OCI + 2
H Cl) that could be carried out simultaneously with pre-treated or un-
treated distilled water, to observe in suitable conditions the variability
of the effect of a controlled physical treatment of the water. The effects
observed were on the germination, growth and subsequent sedimentation
of the resulting precipitate. The anomalous variability observed on the
NEW PARADIGM IN EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH 103
% T ~F
70
60
50
40
30
20
I 9 51 1952 1953 I 9 54 I 9 55
Apex Apex
I ji
Figure 2. The Piccardi "Solar hypothesis" (A) Trajectory of the Earth in the Galaxy
(B) Resulting speed of the Earth in the spring and autumn (C) equinox
50
N
40-
30-
I I I I I I I I I I I I I
J MM J S N J
Figure 3. Mean annual variation of D'-test (under a horizontal copper sheet) in North-
ern and Southern hemispheres in 1957- 1960.
0 -
50-
.1610
X
/
JO -f 1sso
R
I
0 100 200
Figure 4. Relation of the results of the D-tests in Florence with solar activity from
solar rotations 1610 to 1700. Ordinate: mean values of 20 daily experiments for 13
successive 27 days rotation of the sun ( =20 x 27 x 13 = 7000 observations for each
point) Abscissa: same mean values for Wolf's number R characterizing the importance
of solar spots.
The proper motion of the sun by reference to its local system of stars
is characterized by a speed vector of 19.4 km/s towards the direction of
the Apex which is situated in the constellation of Hercules. The plane of
the planetary solar system (the plane of the ecliptic) is tilted from 52.3°
on the Apex Axis. The orbital velocity vector of the Earth has a mean
amplitude of 29.9 kmjs and is normal to the radius vector Sun-Earth. It
turns in this plane with the annual motion of the Earth. In the plane of
the ecliptic the vernal equinox is turned approximately from 270° of the
plane who contains the poles, the Apex and the direction of the center
of the Galaxy. Thus, around the month of march, the vectorial addition
of the two vectors-reported on the Earth center-presents a maximum
in March and a deep minimum in September. We note that the northern
108 C. C APEL-B 0 UTE AND A. KOECKELENB ERGH
f
I'
,r~ '
.fJJ.', ' ' N
,;
~
'
'
''
' '
BRL'XELLES
FLOR E!'.:CE
Q --------- l.EOPOLOVIl.l.E
.. I<ERGUE l.E N
I
s
Figure 5. Dissymmetry of results of Piccardi F-tests in Northern and Southern hemi-
spheres in September 1958.
60-
so-
I r
5 0 +5
Figure 6. Effect of solar flares on mean values ofF and D-tests in Florence, significant
on keyday (0) only for test F, and not significant for 5 days before or afterwards.
Er,;\~~-h c
Cn,·tcr
Figure 7. Combination of the motions of the Solar system towards the Apex and of
the Earth around the Sun. The largest arrow is the resulting vector of the proper
motion of the Solar system towards the Apex and of the projection on the same axis
of the tangential speed of the Earth in its orbital motion.
Figure 8. The "solar ballerine skirt". An approximate schema of the structure of the
magnetic field of the sun in-between the opposite N and S magnetic hemispheres
(neglecting the effect of the rotation of the sun)
AFFILIATION
REFERENCES
[12] GalOr, B., "The crisis about the origin of irreversibility and time
anisotropy", Science, 176,4030, 1972, pp. 11-17.
[13] Kuhn, T.S., The structure of scientific revolutions, The University
Chicago press, (Ist. Phoenix ed. 1964).
[14] Piccardi, G., "L'influence des phenomEmes terrestres, solaires et
cosmiques sur les reactions physico-chimiques et biologiques", Ciel et
Terre, 5-6, 1956, pp. 227-244.
[15] Piccardi, G. and Cini, R., "The action of an electromagnetic field
of 10 KHz frequency on the chemical tests: the problem of the influx of
"atmospherics"", Geofisica e meteorologia, 4, 1956, p. 25.
[16] Piccardi, G., "On the structure of water and the influx of low-
frequency electromagnetic fields", La Ricerca Scientifica, 29, 1959,
p. 1252.
[17] Piccardi, G., "Expose introductif- les tests chimiques", In: Sym-
posium International sur les Relations entre Phenomenes solaires et
terrestres en chimie-physique et biologie, Presses Academiques Europe-
ennes, Bruxelles, 1960, pp. 9-49 and pp. 121-130.
[18] Piccardi, G., The chemical Basis of Medical Climatology, Charles
C. Thomas, Springfield, 1962.
[19] Piccardi, G. and Capel-Boute, C., "The 22-year solar cycle and
chemical tests", J. Interdiscip. Cycle Res., 3, 1972, pp. 413-417.
[20] Pourbaix, M. and Rorive-Boute, C., " Procedes electrochim-
iques anti-incrustrants", In: Proceedings 2nd meeting of CITCE, Tam-
burini, Milano, 1951, pp. 240-241.
[21] Schoffeniels, E., "Generalizing information theory to an open sys-
tem", Biometeorology, 10, part 2. Suppl. to Int. J. Biometeor., 29, 1985,
pp. 41-56.
[22] Schnol, S.E. and Udaltsova, N.V., "On space-geo-physical corre-
lations in biological and physical chemistry processes", (3rd Intern. Sym-
posium in Pushchino- 26/9 -1/10/1993) CIFA-news, 15, 1994, pp. 2-6;
CIFA-news, 16, p. 6.
[23] Vladimirsky, B., Problemy kosmicheskoi biologii, vol. 5, Leningrad
Nauks, 1989, pp. 210-221.
[24] Vladimirsky, B., "Sector structure of interplanetary magnetic field
and F-tests of Piccardi", CIFA-news, 14, Febr. 1994 pp. 3-4.
[25] Vladimirsky, B. and Bruns, A.V., "Heliogeophysical distur-
bances influence upon the results of the measurements of gravitation
constant", CIFA-news, 19, May-June 1995, p. 2.
NEW PARADIGM IN EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH 117
"The particles in [magnetic fluids] are minute, only about one-hundred atoms across,
and each particle is like a little compass needle suspended in the liquid ( ... ). So when
a magnetic field is imposed, the little particles rotate into alignment with the field
and the fluid becomes magnetic overall. Unlike a compass needle each particle jiggles
around a lot due to the very strong Brownian motion. The motion is essential as it
keeps the particles suspended in the liquid instead of settling to the bottom" [1, p. 4].
"It is a curious fact that so far the availability of raw magnetite, soap and solvent
is concerned, magnetic fluids could have been synthesized hundreds of years ago but
in fact they have been in existence for only about thirty years" [1, p. 3].
119
© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
120 LAZAREV, ROATH, YUNUS OVA & SAFONENKO
4. M A G N E T I C F L U I D S : A N I N T E R D I S C I P L I N A R Y
RESEARCH BRANCH:
DOCUMENTED SCIENTOMETRIC DATA
5. B I 0 M ED I C A L A P P L I C AT I 0 N S 0 F M A G NETIC FLUID S
A SUBSTANTIAL DIVISION OF
THE RESEARCH BRANCH
Table 2 plots the data on the relative increase or decrease of the portion
of citations to the journals in various disciplinary groups in the ICMF-
6 Proceedings as compared with the Proceedings of the ICMF-5. By
relative increase or decrease we mean the alteration not in number of ci-
tations but in their portion expressed in per cent. Besides 357.45 per cent
increase of citations to biological and medical journals, 65.90% of all the
disciplines cited in the ICMF-6 Proceedings are biological and medical
disciplines, while the part of medical and biological publications in the
Proceedings is but 12.87%. In the ICMF-6 Proceedings citations to bio-
logical and medical journals have the 4th rank after physics, mechanics,
engineering and there are more citations to medical and biological jour-
124 LA ZAREV, ROATH, YUN US OVA & S AF ON EN KO
TABLE I
Work 2 1 0.22 23
Polymer Sciences 5 0.85 18
Energy and Fuels 2 0.34 26
Geosciences 2 0.34 26
Computer Applications and
Cybernetics 1 0.17 34
Metallurgy and Mining 1 0.17 34
Meteorology and Atmosphere
Sciences 1 0.17 34
Photographic Technology 1 0.17 34
I Total dzsczplznary cztatwns 461 589
TABLE II
The disciplinary distribution of the bibliographic citations to the journals in the
Proceedings of the ICMF-5 and ICMF-6 (only highly cited disciplines and disci-
plinary groups)
The discipline or dis- The quantity of bibliographic Relative
ciplinary group citations to the items repre- increase
senting these disciplines in (+)/decrease (-)
the Proceeding::; of in the I CMF-6
ICMF-5 ICMF-6 Proceedings
a % r a % r %
"Physics" group 189 39.48 1 190 32.26 1 - 18.29
Mechanics discipline 122 26.46 2 83 14.09 2 - 46.75
"Material Sciences"
group 57 12.36 3 74 12.56 5 + 1.62
"Chemistry" group 40 8.68 4 45 7.64 6 - 11.98
"Engineering" group 20 4.83 5 79 13.41 3 +177.63
"Biology and Medical
Sciences" group 13 2.82 6 76 12.90 4 +357.45
8. S U B J E C T S T R U C T U R E A N D D I S C I P L I N A R Y
STRUCTURE OF THE RESEARCH
OF BIOMEDICAL APPLICATIONS
9. RETURNING T 0 SPECULATIONS:
POPULAR REVIEW OF SOME RECENT WORKS ON
MAGNETIC FLUIDS BASED
DRUGS TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
TABLE IV
The subject structure of the abstracts on biomedical applications published in the
ICMF-5 and ICMF-6 Proceedings
Subject Number of the abstracts in the abstract
(purpose or compendium
sphere of the ICMF-5 of the ICMF-6
application
or an objective) original reviews total original rev1ews total
cell separation" 2 0 2 7 0 7
drug carriers 5 0 5 6 1 7
image techniques 1 0 1 6 1 7
biomedical research
in general 1 0 1
alignment of biome-
dical assemblies 0 1 1
experimental medi-
cine and oncology
in general 0 1 1
development of
immunological
compositions 1 0 1
fabrication of
carbon 1 0
hyperthermia of
cancer 1 0 1
immobilization of
cytochrome-c-oxidase 1 0 1
obturation of
digestive tracts
external fistulas 1 0 1
obturation of
hollow organ
fistulas 1 0 1
smear examination 1 0 1
studies of bio-
transformation of
magnetic powders 1 0 1
studies of MF
interactions with
biological struc-
tures 1 0 1
antifiammatory
effects 1 0 1
treatment of
plants 1 0 1 1 0 1
" Italicized are the titles of the mam general subjects
132 LA Z ARE V , R 0 AT H , Y UN US 0 VA & S A F 0 N EN K 0
TABLE V
The disciplinary structure of the abstracts on biomedical applications pub-
lished in the ICMF-5 and ICMF-6 Proceedings
Scientific discipline Number of the abstracts in the abstract
compendium
of the ICMF-5 of the ICMF-6
a % a %
Biophysics 2 15.38
Hematology 2 15.38 3 8.57
Medicine, General and Internal 2 15.38 3 8.57
Biology 1 7.69
Oncology 1 7.69 4 11.34
Cardiovascular System 1 7.69 1 2.86
Cytology 1 7.69
Genetics 1 7.69 1 2.86
Immunology 1 7.69 8 22.86
Surgery 1 7.69 2 5.71
MF-based and related techniques are good for cell separation systems
used, e.g., for human lymphocyte subset removal, tumor cell removal,
selection of self-replicating bone marrow cells, hybridoma selection, sep-
aration of endothelial cells [16].
The most acute challenge in the context of the listed applications
is bone marrow transplantation which is an aid in the management of
leukemia, cancer, and lethal radiation exposure. Human lymphocyte sub-
set removal and the selection of self-replicating bone marrow cells are
among the possible problems to be resolved during the procedure of bone
marrow transplantation:
Removal of human lymphocyte subsets using a suitable magnetic bead
labelled with an antibody to the targeted lymphocyte and being per-
formed by methods of magnetic filtration, is still a good biological com-
A P PLICA T I 0 N S 0 F MAGNETIC FLUIDS 133
13. CONCLUSIONS
AFFILIATION
V.S. Lazarev
Department of Scientific Information and Patentology
Belarusian State Polytechnic Academy
Minsk, Belarus
136 LAZAREV, ROATH, YUNUSOVA & SAFONENKO
Stuart Roath
Cancer Research Division, Walt Disney Memorial Cancer Institute
Altamonte Springs, FL, USA
O.K. Safonenko
Laboratory for Thermomechanics of Magnetic Fluids
Belarusian Polytechnic Academy
Minsk, Belarus
D.A. Yunusm~a
Research Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion
Minsk, Belarus
REFERENCES
INTRODUCTION
Proliferation
different theories
,----,,---------------~
time
Non-Specialist Literature
139
© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
140 GUSTAAF C. CORNELIS
Plan
EARLY STAGES
1914
._s_li.;.p-rhe_r""""'!"'_..,. .......................X·························~
*
1915
1916
Einstein
1Einstein I
1917 I
~ e Sitter
1918
,..... .p.-.jmodel
1919
f
1920
1921 Fried:m.an
1922
1923 '
r----'------,·4·······;
Hubble:
1924 dis tan.c es
1925 '
1926 Lemaitre
1927
1928
~-· · · · · · · ·' Lemaitre:
expansion
Hubble: ~ ................ !
.....
1929
1930
Hubble's law
Hubble: ..
geometry
Lemaitre:
1931 primae vel
atom
The fat arrows depict real influences, while the faint ones stand for supposed or
secondary influences (when they did not happen, they are crossed). The vertical
dotted line distinguishes practical astronomy from theoretical cosmology on the
right.
Einstein revised willingly his so-called blunder of 1916: the fact that
he had renounced the dynamical models in the first place.
For a while, the physicists did agree upon the hypothesis that the
universe originated out of a physical singularity-precisely the hypoth-
esis of Lemaitre. However, they did not so regarding the future of the
universe: three possibilities remained. So, at this early stage in the de-
velopment of modern cosmology, although an almost infinite amount
of models was (mathematically) provided, roughly three groups among
142 GUSTAAF C. CORNELIS
time
Ku111Hilr..<
The universe came into existence at time to; we are now at t 1 . These models
accorded respectively with an open, closed or flat universe. The tangent line
stands for the constant acceleration of the galaxies, which is seen as implausible.
The extension of the line until it intersects the time-line, results in the so-called
Rubble-time.
EFFECTIVE GEOMETRY
The question which one of the models to choose is equivalent to the ques-
tion which overall geometry the universe has. In effect, it was Hubble's
original idea to determine the curvature of the universe by observation,
by determining the spreading of the galaxies. However, merely count-
ing them won't suffice, simply because a lot of the existing galaxies are
barely if not visible.
Through the seventies and eighties several other astronomical tech-
niques were developed to measure the curvature. The principle they all
had in common was the fact that there was an equivalence between
the curvature and the so-called deceleration-parameter qo. This quan-
tity measures how fast the universe expansion diminishes. One way to
determine the deceleration is to determine the total mass of the universe
and to check whether it matches the critical mass, the theoretical mass
necessary to decelerate the expansion-rate, that much as to bring the
expansion to a standstill.
Two positions were and are still taken by cosmologists and astronomers
alike. The first one is to postulate that the universe is flat (so the ratio
mass j critical mass equals unity) and to search for enough mass to keep
COSMOLOGY AND PROLIFERATION 143
the universe gravitationally in control. The second one is just to measure
the mass without any preconception.
The first group had to tackle the problem that only 1 percent of
the needed mass was visible. Another 9 percent could only be detected
indirectly-the so-called dark matter (for example, by dynamical mod-
els of galaxies and velocity-distributions in clusters of galaxies). Still 90
percent was missing, aptly named the missing matter. There was no way
to account for this matter, except by stating that it simply had to ex-
ist, because the universe had to be flat-there were doubtful indications
that the geometry was almost Euclidean, ranging from mere metaphys-
ical considerations to misinterpretations of physical theories. Anyway,
some cosmologists went out for some exotic particles, just enough to
constitute the missing matter. First they thought of massive neutrinos,
then they tried out axions. Needless to say that cosmologists and parti-
cle physicists were best friends during the eighties. The zoo of particles
found a reason for existence in cosmology.
The different particles implied specific cosmogonical assumptions. In
a certain sense, different and altogether new cosmological theories emer-
ged. But they disappeared almost as fast as they were developed.
The search for the missing matter had its inevitable repercussion on
the dark matter models. More than a dozen were tried out, but seemed
to be in conflict with observational data or the standard big bang cos-
mogony, which had proven to be quite reliable. Less than half a dozen
remain, so there is still no consensus on the geometry of the universe.
Cleverly, standard theory was recently defined (by Jim Peebles) in
such a way that this question could be left open. This fact ultimately
confirms that a proliferation of cosmological theories failed and still fails
to occur.
CURRENT VIEWS
..............................,
,.. ... ,...
,... '•,,1 ,.•'
I
II
"' ... I1111II "'
time
thing. Since there are no means to confirm or falsify the existence of in-
tergalactic magnetism, the group of adherents stays rather small and the
theories tend to disappear.
The inflationary concept can give an account for the vastness of the
universe, although this anomaly was not the initial problem to the the-
ories. They are undoubtedly very speculative, but approximately half
of the cosmologists regard them as quite reasonable and are willing to
accept them.
FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
1967 horizon-problem
__re_ro,g_eM_r_·ry____~)
( _____M
1982
t
inflation: MW inflationtheory
--1 Heisenberg
uantum-in!1ation
Pee "bles-Zel'dovich
CONCLUSION
basis. One can hardly speak of a consensus among the astrologers. Maybe
the concept of proliferation can shed new light on the demarcation-
problem.
Though, if one considers quantum mechanics, it is also seen that there
are at least between twenty and thirty different more or less accepted
interpretations going. In fact, every quantum physicist has his own meta-
physically induced view on the topic.
And if one considers particle physics, more than five different theories
are in competition with each other (ranging from the so-called standard
theory-and its derivatives-to string theory). They seem to be all in
mutual contradiction.
SST
What about cosmology? This last diagram shows clearly that, al-
though several different cosmological theories undoubtedly existed (and
some still exist), the overall picture remains quite surveyable. SST stands
for: Steady State Theory, OUM for: Oscillating Universe Model, PUM
for: Plasma Universe Model-the magnetic alternative. The lines are
148 GUSTAAF C. CORNELIS
partly dotted, meaning that these theories are slowly disappearing out
of the picture. You have the inflation theory development, not in con-
flict with Standard Big Bang Cosmology, but not generally accepted as
a part of it
We can conclude that, in spite of the existence of an appropriate breed-
ing ground and a suitable methodological tradition, there is no prolifer-
ation whatsoever appearing in the development of modern cosmological
thinking.
AFFILIATION
1. RESONANCE
149
@ 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
150 PAUL J. LEWI
zene which is composed of three single and three double bonds [2]. Al-
ternatively, the benzene molecule is also regarded as resonating between
two hexagonal configurations with different electronic distributions.
The phenomenon of resonance is so ubiquitous that most of the time
we are not aware of it. But whenever we look closer at what makes the
world tick, vibrating and interacting systems abound, often in surprising
disguise. Our approach may be likened to that of the Pythagoreans who,
once they discovered the link between sound vibrations and the physical
dimensions of the objects that produced them, attempted to extend the
principle to the whole of the universe. Kepler's harmony of the celestial
spheres is a typical testimony thereof. In this paper we will draw atten-
tion to instances of resonance in a field where it is hardly expected to
occur, namely in the statistical analysis of data.
2. D AT A AND IN F 0 R MAT I 0 N
3. FACTORS
In data analysis one may discern two basic approaches. Cluster anal-
ysis, on the one hand, aims at producing taxonomies or classifications
which show the similarities of things according to recorded measure-
ments. It also may show the phylogenetic descent of the objects from
ancestors that are inferred from the data. This approach may be called
Aristotelian, as it accepts the complexity of the world as it is. It is exem-
plified by the work of Linnaeus and has produced the hierarchical divi-
sion of the animal kingdom into classes, orders, families, genera, species,
etc. Factor analysis, on the other hand, attempts to find hidden factors
which may explain the variation in the data. The underlying assumption
here is that the number of factors is less than the number of observed
properties. This approach may be termed Platonic, as it attributes real-
ity to the pure factors from which our imperfect observations emanate.
One is reminded here of Plato's tale of the cave in which projections are
made on a wall by forms that are invisible to the observers [3].
Factor analysis originated around 1930 in the context of the study
of intelligence by means of psychometric measurements by Spearman,
Holzinger, Thurstone and others [4]. These early factorists considered the
multitude of psychometric measurements as mixtures of a few primary
traits which included general intelligence (the famous IQ), abstraction,
language, music, visualisation, etc.
In order to explain the concept of factors, Thurstone reminded us
that any of the millions of colors that we can distinguish is reducible
to a mixture of only three primary colors (e.g., red, blue and green).
These can be regarded as the factors of color vision [5]. Their meaning
derives from the three types of cone cells in the human retina, which
possess specific photoreceptors with maximal absorption for red, blue
or green light, respectively. Note that absorption of photons at specific
wavelengths by molecules is intrinsically a resonance phenomenon.
When Mendeleev in 1869 arranged the chemical elements by groups
and periods, he identified atomic weight and chemical valence as the two
factors which explained most of the chemical and physical properties that
were known in his days. His approach allowed to correct some errors in
the data and successfully predicted the existence and the properties of
Gallium, Germanium and Scandium [6]. Much later, the physical mean-
ing of the two factors became apparent when they were identified with
the first two quantum numbers [7]. Note that the latter are solutions of
a mathematical equation that describes the resonance properties of the
electron.
152 PAUL J. LEW!
4. EIGENVALUE DECOMPOSITION
5. DATA SPACES
Let's assume a table which describes the first 36 chemical elements (from
Hydrogen to Krypton) in terms of two properties, say atomic weight and
boiling point [9]. Such a table is called bivariate because it involves two
properties, each of which constitutes a different point of view. Conven-
tionally, for practical and aesthetic reasons, we associate the rows of
the table with the chemical elements and we relate the columns to the
properties. In theory, however, the roles of rows and columns are in-
terchangeable. A familiar geometrical interpretation of the table is the
Cartesian diagram in which atomic weight and boiling point are associ-
ated with the horizontal and vertical coordinate axes, and in which each
element is represented as a point in the plane of the diagram. Although
the geometrization of mathematics and physics is usually attributed to
Descartes, its origin has been traced back to the 14th century. Indeed,
RES 0 NAN C E AS A UNIFY IN G P R INC I P L E 153
6. FACTOR PLOTS
The notion of conjugate data spaces may seem trivial in the case of a
bivariate table such as described above. Let's therefore consider the mul-
154 PAUL J. LEWI
tivariate case, in which the 36 elements are described by, say, 8 chemical
and physicochemical properties. The first two eigenvectors of column-
space may serve to construct a bivariate diagram in which the two co-
ordinate axes represent the two factors, and in which each point defines
one of the 8 properties. Likewise, the first two eigenvectors of row-space
build another bivariate diagram in which the two coordinate axes rep-
resent the same two factors as above, and in which each point refers
to one of the 36 elements. We refer to these diagrams as factor plots.
Note that the factor plot for elements and the factor plot for properties
are conjugate. (They can be superimposed by making the origin and
the coordinate axes coincident.) One factor plot reproduces Mendeleev's
arrangement of the chemical elements by groups and periods [12]. The
other factor plot reveals the pattern of intercorrelations between the
properties. In particular, the latter shows that atomic weight and boil-
ing point alone explain nearly as much of the variation in the data as
all 8 macroscopic properties together. It is not surprising therefore, that
the bivariate diagram of atomic weight and boiling point is capable of
revealing the periodic structure of the elements. It is well known, and
has been pointed out before, that the factors identified by Mendeleev
are associated with the first two quantum numbers. These, in turn, are
solutions of an eigenvalue problem which describes the resonant wave
characteristics of the electron. Since the macroscopic properties of the
elements can be related to the resonant states of the electrons in the outer
shells of the atoms, it is not surprising that factor analysis is capable
of unveiling the underlying quantum-mechanical structure. A surprising
fact, however, is that mathematical algorithms of factor analysis can be
likened to processes that occur in the resonating systems from which the
data themselves have been generated [13]. This will be discussed in more
detail below.
7. ALGORITHMS
...
\ '
' \
''
f. ~1
2 \\ \
\
~\ -------
' I
'~
Figure 2. Cycle of the NIPALS algorithmic for the extraction of the dominant row-
eigenvector u and the conjugated column-eigenvector v from a data table X. The
diagram illustrates the analogy with a resonant system in which the output is fed
back as input.
Figure 3. Coupled Ouroburos symbol. In our context, the symbol represents the oc-
currence of resonance in two coupled systems.
After extraction of the dominant eigenvector, one can deflate the data
table X for the variation that is accounted for by that eigenvector (u or
v). If the iterative procedure, which we described above, is now applied
again to the residual table, we obtain the next dominant eigenvector.
This can be repeated until the table is exhausted, which occurs when
all the eigenvectors have been extracted and when the residual values
in the table become zero. The mathematical definition of deflation is
presented in the appendix. Technically, the algorithm for extraction of
eigenvectors from a table of data, which we described above, is called
NIPALS (which is short for non-linear iterative partial least squares)
[14]. It is also related to the so-called powering method which is used for
the extraction of eigenvectors from a table of intercorrelations between
properties [15].
Frequently, a situation occurs when the same set of objects is described
by properties that were determined in different contexts. We have al-
ready discussed the example of the table which describes 36 chemical
elements by 8 macroscopic properties, such as atomic weight, specific
heat, boiling point, etc. Let's now consider an additional table in which
the same 36 elements are described by 6 quantum-mechanical proper-
ties, such as atomic volume, Pauling electronegativity, ionization energy,
etc. [9]. An interesting problem now is to find out whether the quantum
mechanical properties can be predicted with a reasonable degree of accu-
racy from the macroscopic ones. This is a classical problem of regression.
It can also be seen as the problem of finding common resonance modes
between the two coupled systems that are described by the two tables.
The Ouroburos archetype can be helpful again if we consider two snakes
which bite each other's tail (Fig. 3). This symbol exemplifies a system
of two coupled oscillators, which under certain conditions exhibit a com-
mon mode of eigenvibration.
To fix our ideas we refer to the two tables by means of the symbols
Xl and X2. (We assume that corresponding rows in the two tables refer
RESONANCE AS A UNIFYING PRINCIPLE 157
X1 \.11 V2. X2
T I ,'
V1
Figure 4. Cycle of the PLS algorithm for the extraction of the dominant common row-
eigenvectors ul, u2 and the conjugated column-eigenvectors vl, v2 from two coupled
data tables Xl, X2. It is assumed that corresponding rows in Xl and X2 refer to the
same objects. The diagram illustrates the analogy with two coupled resonant systems
in which the outputs are fed back as inputs.
8. WORLD VIEW
9. APPENDIX
World Recons~roded
S!jstero World S!jsrem
...
...
... ... ...
Figure 5. World view involving resonances in world systems which are encoded in data
by means of instruments. The world systems are reconstituted, in part, by decoding
the data in terms of the eigenvectors that can be extracted from them.
where I represents the unit matrix of the common row-space. The algo-
rithm can be repeated until all eigenvectors of Xl and X2 have been
extracted, at which point all elements of Xl become zero.
AFFILIATION
Pa'ul J. Lewi
Center for Molecular Design
Janssen Research Foundation
Beerse, Belgium
REFERENCES
[3] Plato, Republic, (428-347 BC); Oldroyd D., The Arch of Knowl-
edge. An introductory study of the history and methodology of science,
Methuen, New York, 1986.
[4] Cattel, R.B., Factor analysis, An introduction and manual for the
psychologist and social scientist, Harper and Brothers, New York, 1952.
[5] Thurstone, L.L., Multiple-factor analysis. A development and ex-
pansion of the vectors of mind, University of Chicago Press, Chicago,
Ill., 1947.
[6] Kolodkine, P., Dmitri Mendeleiev et la loi periodique, Ed. Seghers,
Paris, 1963.
[7] Hund F., Linienspektren und periodisches System der Elemente,
Berlin, 1927; D'Abro, A., The rise of the new physics, Vol 2, Dover
Publ., New York, 1951.
[8] Jacobi, C.G.J., "Ueber ein leichtes Verfahren die in der Theorie der
Sekularstoerungen vorkommender Gleichungen numerisch aufzuloesen",
J. reine und angew. Math., 30, 1846, pp. 51-95.
[9] Table of periodic properties of the elements, Sargent-Welch Scientific
Cy., Skokie, Ill., 1968.
[10] Borchert, E., Die Lehre von der Bewegung bei Niclaus Oresme.
Beitraege zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters,
Aschendorffscher Verlagsbuchhandlung, Muenster, 1934.
[11 J Pearson, K., "On lines and planes of closest fit to systems of points
in space", Phil. Mag., 2 (6th series), 1901, pp. 559-572.
[12] Lewi, P.J., Multivariate data analysis in industrial practice, Re-
search Studies Press (J. Wiley), Chichester, Eng., 1982.
[13] Lewi, P.J., "Pattern recognition. A chemometric point of view",
Chemometrics Intell. Lab. Syst., 28, 1995, pp. 23-33.
[14] Wold, H., "Soft modelling by latent variables: the non-linear it-
erative partial least squares (NIPALS) algorithm", In: Goni, J. (ed.),
Perspectives in probability and statistics, Academic Press, London, 1975,
pp. 117-142.
[15] Hotelling, H., "Analysis of a complex of statistical variables into
principal components", J. Educ. Psychol., 24, 1993, pp. 417-441.
[16] Wold, S., Albano, C., Dunn III, W.J., Esbensen, K., Hell-
berg, S., Johansson, E. and Sjostrom, M., "Pattern recognition:
finding and using patterns in multivariate data", In: Martens, H. and
Russwurm, H. Jr. (eds.), Food research and data analysis, Applied
Science Publ., London, 1983, p. 147.
KARIN VERELST AND BOB COECKE
1. INTRODUCTION
At the origin of our approach lay two encounters between Greek thought
and Quantum Mechanics, one of them deliberately conceived by its au-
thor, the other being a meeting between new QM-concepts and one of
the oldest problems of human thinking about the world. The first en-
counter has been presented in a short lecture by C. Piron [74, p. 169] in
which he attempted to develop a realistic QM-interpretation based on
two concepts fundamental to Aristotelian metaphysics, viz. potentiality
and actuality. The second one is the doctoral dissertation of D. Aerts [3].
It both by content and title dealt with the problem of the One and the
Many, the central theme Plato inherited from fifth century philosopher
Parmenides of Elea. In what follows we will attempt to make clear that
these encounters are not of a purely coincidential nature. We intend to
develop in this paper an analysis and re-evaluation of these old questions
and their solutions. Our contention is that this analysis might amount
into new perspectives on the interpretation of QM, since the enigmas
and paradoxes of early Greek thought, and the solutions presented to
them in the "classical period" are, more than we realize, bound to mark
our way of looking at and reasoning about the world 1 . The thought in-
struments developed by Plato and Aristotle, in order to solve the riddles
following out of so called "pre-Socratic" thought, which are epitomized
in the, according to both classical thinkers apparent, contradiction be-
tween the "world views" of Heraclitus of Ephesus and Parmenides of
Elea, are in use up to the present, be it in slightly modified forms 2 . Our
1
We find support for the relevance of this position in Schrodinger's fine little book
dedicated to the subject [87, p. 3ff, p. 159].
2
"Two great warring traditions regarding consistency originated in the days of the
Presocratics at the very dawn of philosophy. The one, going back to Heraclitus, insists
that the world is not a consistent system and that, accordingly, coherent knowledge of
it cannot be attained by man. (... ) The second tradition, going back to Parmenides,
holds that the world is a consistent system and that knowledge of it must correspond-
ingly be coherent as well, so that all contradictions must be eschewed." [83]
163
© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
164 KARIN VERELST AND BOB COECKE
position will be that this classical contradiction has slipped through the
ages unimpaired, but in different forms, such as to make it hardly recog-
nisable in our present epistemological and ontological concepts, both
in philosophy and in science. A revelation of this implicit presence by
reconstructing the outlines of its historical pathway then becomes the
necessary first step towards an approach for the tackling of problems
it eventually causes in to-day's science. The argument will lead us to
the conclusion that the paradoxes appearing in QM represent such a
problem. A sketch of some possible strategies will complete this attempt
at clarification. Methodologically therefore the arguments in this paper
will be based both on scientific and philosophical grounds; even more,
it can be considered our aim to show that, when it comes to a proper
understanding of the significance and implications of basic "scientific"
findings, both are inextricably intertwined, since science, seemingly so
different, follows a path of deep conceptions laid down much earlier in
the development of human consciousness. We are tempted to see the ori-
gins of the QM-paradoxes as consequences of the ontological "choices" of
Plato and Aristotle. Their effort concerned the stabilisation of the world
of constant change, thus saving the possibility of certain knowledge in or-
der to escape the contradictions between stable and unstable, knowable
and unknowable that appear on the level of what happens in reality, as
expressed mainly by Heraclitus and Parmenides. This led to the concep-
tion of logic as a standardising rule for thinking and, much later, exper-
iment as a standardising rule for experiencing [34, IV: 99, p. 381]. Both
originated out of needs felt in the context of the macroworld, and reach
now their limitations in the study of the microworld. At the moment
when the interactions between things become as important as the things
themselves, the separating intervention in reality, first conceptualised by
Plato and Aristotle, seems to reveal itself as an illusion. For this reason
in this paper no position will be taken in the debate between rationalists
and empiricists. From our point of view these philosophical stances come
down to the same on the level of the ontological question: all imply the
metaphysical world-structure put forward by Plato and Aristotle as a
solution for the ontological paradoxes raised by pre-Socratic thought.
7
to EOV EC!'tt Being is. (actually it says: The Being is). [84, p. 45].
8
Dijksterhuis remarks sharply: "( ... ) we don't know how gravity manages to give
velocity to the body, and very often the given explanation comes down to pretending
to understand on the microlevel what should be explained on the macrolevel. But we
know since Zeno of Elea, that here lurks an essential difficulty of the conceptualisation
of motion ... " [34, p. 203, our translation]. See also the comments on modern attempts
to explain Newton's laws of gravitation by means of different kinds of bizarre particles,
the latest one being the theory of the graviton, by C. Piron in the text of a conference
given November 8, 1996 for CLEA in Brussels [78, p. 2].
9
to KEv6v "void" fulfills the role of non-being. That you can grant for the possibility
of motion by the introduction of the void was discovered by Melissus, a follower of
Parmenides, and of whom Leucippus, founder of atomism, was a disciple according
to tradition [57, pp. 397-398]. Furthermore ihoJ.tos, i.e., without 'tOJ.l~, without cuts,
unseparated in itself, undivided. It is important to see that this originally meant that
there are no "parts" in this Being between which there can be "parts" of non-Being,
the non-Being having a different character than the all-pervading, homogeneous void
or empty space of later times.
10
KtvOUV'tClt 'tE cmvex&s at a'tOJ.lOt 'tOV ai&va (... ) ~ 'tE 'tOU KEVOU <pucns ~ lhopisoucra bca-
(j'tllV aut~v touto 1tapamceuaset (... ) Les atomes se meuvent continument durant l'eter-
nite ( ... ) Car Ia nature du vide, qui separe chaque atome en lui-meme, produit cet
effet ( ... ). [29, in the 'lettre a Herodote', pp. 102-103]
GREEK THOUGHT AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 167
possible to speak of something that is not in a way that makes sense. But,
as said before, the "contradiction" seen by classical philosophy between
Heraclitus and Parmenides is not necessarily a correct understanding of
the earlier "philosophies". One could as well infer that Heraclitus and
Parmenides do articulate the same world-experience, the former as the
experience of reality over a lapse of time, the latter as the experience
of the absolute reality of this moment (to understand better what this
means, try to deny by yourself you are experiencing yourself as existing
at this moment) 11 . This has nothing to do with the intellectual question
what it means to exist, or whether our existence is "real" or not. These
questions concern things "as such", objects, and their identity in past
and future. But this type of interpretation-which is the interpretation
of classical philosophy and of science, and which entails a representation
of reality outside of its actual and momentaneous experience doesn't
make sense, because for Heraclitus no things "as such" do exist, and for
Parmenides there is no motion, which implies that there is no time. It
is our conviction that, rather than revealing the contradiction between
the "thought systems" of the two pre-Socratic "philosophers", Plato's
interpretation reveals the difference between their world-experience and
what we think to be ours, constructed on the rational base laid down by
classical philosophy. The non-existence of metaphysical world views in
the pre-Socratic period is then due to a different kind of awareness of
one's being-in-the-world that characterized the transition from mythical
awareness to rational self-consciousness [54, pp. 67ff]. The hallmark of
this awareness is transparence for the stream of events that constitutes
the world [18, pp. 81ff]; there is no such thing as the separation be-
tween subject and object 12 . This separation precisely coincides with the
coming-to-be of rational self-consciousness. In philosophy, this change
will be codified in the metaphysical systems of Plato and Aristotle. The
process found its completion only in the early modern period, when ra-
tionalised self-consciousness developed the scientific way of observation
and explanation of the world. The problem of change (and motion as
a special case of change) and the problem of the existence of separable
objects in the world appear as two sides of the same coin. It is at the
origin of the principle of contradiction, formulated by both Plato
and Aristotle.
The contradicting conclusions deriving from pre-Socratic philosophy
11
Medieval thought knew this experiencing of experience as the nunc stans, the
"standing now". [10, p. 210]
12
"it is still the primary function of the noos to be in direct touch with ultimate
reality." [46, p. 52]
168 KARIN VERELST AND BOB COECKE
13
Plato explicitly refers to Protagoras's "man is the measure of all things, existing
and non-existing". ([45], Theaetetus, 160(d,e))
14
The necessary condition that made possible this construction of stabilising world-
pictures or "world views", was the earlier coming-to-be of the "inner mind-space", in
which the non-present could be re-presented as present [54, p. 54ff].
GREEK THOUGHT AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 169
lows as a property of the way we can speak about the world directly out
of the participation theory. The principle of contradiction is the formu-
lation on an epistemological level of the participation theory 18 .
Plato's epistemology contains, because of this principle, and therefore
because of the existence of the Forms, an implicit logical structure [20].
The fundamental (and unproven) axiom on which his system rests is the
existence of the Forms proper. The stability of things and their knowa-
bility is granted by an essence (the Forms) existing before and apart
from them. The problem of motion gets its solution by means of the
degrees of reality that exist between the Forms mutually. In this way
he gives a foundation to the stability of the world and to its knowability,
without excluding properties like change and motion out of it. Thus he
escapes the pre-Socratic enigma.
Aristotle solves the problem of stability and knowledge-of stabil-
ity as a necessary condition for knowledge-in an at first glance to-
tally different manner. But he starts from the same premiss: that the
world, experienced as external, should be knowable as such, knowable
objectively-i.e., in its quality as a collection of objects- by a subject.
As said before, this separation of the world and the knower causes the
falling apart of the world in the stable, knowable, Eleatic noumenon, and
the unstable Heraclitean phenomenon, thus yielding a representation, a
metaphysical "world view" problematic vis-a-vis the changing reality
open to experience. The reasons for the Stagiryte's rejection of Plato's
system are the difficulties that are raised-from his point of view-by
the Form-ontology. The difficulties are threefold: the Third Man, the
unlimited number of Forms, and motion ([90], I, 990b(15)- 991a(8);
there also footnote c, and 991a(9ff)). Aristotle's objections reduce to one
major theme: the rejection of the Forms as stabilising essentials existing
separatedly from the things they instantiate. How then does he guaran-
tee the existence of stable things that can undergo change and motion
without allowing for the coincidence of opposites? And how does he
save the possibility to speak about them as being and non-being with-
out falling into contradiction? With him, and contrary to Plato, the
Eleatic and Heraclitean layers coincide in one world. A thing (object of
experience) is an essential form, a substance which realizes itself in
an undifferentiated material receptacle 19 , which can be seen as a sub-
stratum for existence, not as existence itself. Matter in itself has neither
individuality, nor quality. A thing consists of Form and matter at the
same time. Things therefore are not reflections of idealised Forms in
18
Epistemological formulation: [45], Sophist, 414, 257(a, b, c); id. 418, 258(b,c).
19
The unoKetJ.lEvOv. See [90, VII, 1028b(84)-1029a(34)]
GREEK THOUGHT AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 171
We bring to mind that his system was constructed this way to obtain
this result, to grant the possibility to deal with the apparent paradoxical
nature of 'real' reality: stability and motion should both be accounted
for. The world, thus stabilised ontologically, can now be made accessible
to thinking. How does he construct a framework for knowledge such that
a relation to this stabilised, but divided reality can be achieved? Here
we enter the vast area of Aristotelian logic. The principle of contra-
diction, based on the separation of being and non-being in the world,
can now be established as the basic axiom for correct thinking [90, IV,
1005b(8-34)]. Although Aristotle states explicitly its unprovability [90],
IV, 1005b(35)-1006a(16)], its introduction is justified in the framework
of his metaphysics, where the danger that it would cause the emergence
of a static, Eleatic world-picture, incompatible with our experience, had
been neutralised. The three fundamental principles of classical (Aris-
totelian) logic: the existence of objects of knowledge, the principle
of contradiction and the principle of identity, all correspond to
a fundamental aspect of his ontology. This is exemplified in the three
possible usages of the verb "to be": existential, predicative, and iden-
tical. The Aristotelian syllogism always starts with the affirmation of
existence: something is22 . The principle of contradiction then concerns
the way one can speak (predicate) validly about this existing object,
i.e., about the truth and falsehood of its having properties, not about
its being in existence. The principle of identity states that the entity
is identical to itself at any moment (a=a), thus granting the stability
necessary to name (identify) it. It will be clear that the principle of con-
tradiction and the principle of identity are closely interconnected. In any
way, change and motion are intrinsically not provided for in this frame-
work; therefore the ontology underlying the logical system of knowledge
is essentially static, and requires the introduction of a First Mover with
a proper ontological status beyond the phenomena for whose change and
motion he must account.
These different positions regarding the stable essence of things will
cause the Fight of the Universals, the question whether the substances
precede (ante re) or coincide with (in re) the things they instantiate.
During the Middle Ages this debate will give rise to a third possible
position: nominalism. It holds that substances (Universals) do not exist
except for our mental activity. But then the debate had already shifted
in a purely epistemological direction, while at its origin were mainly
ontological questions. That these questions even in the epistemologi-
cal treatment of nominalism don't disappear, becomes clear when one
22
With Aristotle, negation always is a secondary step in the process of reasoning.
GREEK T H 0 U G H T AND Q U ANT U M ME CHAN I C S 173
considers the difficulties each nominalist theory has to grant soundly for
the possibility to use general concepts, an indispensible tool for scientific
theory [19, p. 85].
given its inherent ontological nature, can be brought into agreement with
the changing world of our senses24 . This viewpoint also implies that the
metaphysical structure fundamental to the older philosophical systems
actually remains present in science, be it in a different and, in fact, less
clear way.
Our aim is not to describe all subtle differences between the alternative
conceptions of the "real world" advanced at the verge of modern science;
this has been done by others in a brilliant way; e.g., in [34] and [50]. Our
concern now is to see whether it is possible to bring at the surface the
essential characteristics of a common line of reasoning which would al-
low to place science back into the philosophical development sketched
above, and to check whether this clarification of its fundamental con-
cepts sheds new light on present-day questions related to the enigma of
Quantum Mechanics. Our argument will lead us to the conclusion that
this is the case indeed: the ontological role of the Eleatic and Heraclitean
layers in the metaphysical reconstruction of reality is played in science
by the increasingly absolute conceptions of space and time, instead of
but necessarily correlated to the development of modern conceptions
of the nature of "matter". This becomes manifest in the "desubstan-
tialisation" of space and in the increasing parallelism between "space"
and "time". We will briefly consider the role of "experimentation" as
an observational practice designed to apply the ontological rule present
in the scientific way of reasoning on our world-experience, by chang-
ing "perception" into "observation". The formalisation of the empirical
component of the cognitive, "objectified" world-experience made it pos-
sible to bring perception into agreement with the ontological structure
of logical reasoning, not the other way around. Therefore the "episte-
mological" revolution brought about by science can be described not
as the abandoning of metaphysics, but as the complete absorption of
the metaphysical structure into the procedures of its formalised "oper-
ational" components, cognitive and empirical, of this "objective" (i.e.,
objectified) world-experience. The obscured relation in science between
"act" and "perception" then allows for the conception of logical reason-
ing as a representation of the ontological structure of reality and for the
successful application of science to the natural world: reality is adapted
to the ontological structure of science, not vice versa25 . The certain base
24
This of course is by no means to say that the debate was considered this way by
those who where implied. A brilliant exposure of the backgrounds of the debate be-
tween Galilei and the Jesuit scientists can be found in [82]. On Newton's backgrounds,
see [35, p. 55ff]. A more general discussion in [89].
25
The Greeks, whose intuitions about the relation man-world seem to have been
GREEK THOUGHT AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 175
for knowledge is thus granted for in the most absolute sense, the circle is
closed: ontology is not a "problem" anymore. In this context the prob-
lem of the validity of knowledge takes on a new shape. Epistemology,
the critical commentary of the process of science, becomes more and
more the philosophical discipline, and can be considered as a discipline
or theory of knowledge not separated from, but "without" metaphysics:
it nourishes itself ontologically on science. The apparently sole prob-
lematic point concerns the relation of the "subject" with the objective
world-the debate between empiricists and idealists-a "question" that
for evident reasons never can be "solved" inside its framework: the re-
lation between knowledge and the real world that is implicitly supposed
here is replaced in science by the relation between knowledge and a re-
construction of the real world via an "empirical" procedure containing an
ontological rule that shapes the relation between the human "observer"
and reality on a much deeper level. The separation between subject and
object has by now been completed. Let us now see how early modern
science solved the problem of "refilling" logic with an ontology that al-
lows for a world of change and motion, and therefore for the description
of the world of our sensual experience.
26
Galilei's famous dual method, composed of Metoda risolutivo (analytical method
based on experimental data) and metoda compositivo (synthetical method, generalises
the principles found by the former and proves by prediction and verification that they
hold for the phenomena under study). [34, p. 259]
GREEK T H 0 UGH T AND QUANTUM ME CHAN I C S 177
did not content himself with the reformulation of the "void" of classical
atomism, as it leaves the fundamental question of the origin of motion
unanswered. The introduction of an atomistic explanation for the nature
of material bodies and their properties required a different conception
of space as well, for abolishing the categories "substance" and "quality"
causes the downfall of the ontology of "potentiality" and "actuality",
and therewith of the possibility to grant for change and motion. Space,
infinite, divisible at infinity and indifferent to its material content [16,
p. 179] is the seat of the stable individuality of things. Space con-
stitutes the true Eleatic layer in the metaphysical set-up of
natural science: things take position in it while it remains immobile
and identical to itself. Space proceeds the material existence of things
and is a necessary condition for it, not vice versa; it fulfills the same role
as the substances with Aristotle. Atomism, Eleatic by nature, provides
a non-qualitative explanation of the composition and motion of mate-
rial entities in it. Gassendi's real coup, however, is the establishment of
the rigorous parallelism between "absolute space" and "absolute time".
The conclusions arrived at concerning the ontological status of space will
now be applied to time. Time is not the "number of motion" as with
Aristotle. It is motion that depends on time, not vice versa. Time con-
stitutes the true Heraclitean layer in the metaphysical set-up
of natural science. Gassendi thus reaches the completion of his quest
for sound metaphysical foundations for the new natural science: change
is motion, while space is the modus of existence of things permanent,
exactly the same way as time is the modus of existence of things suc-
cessive31. Here we find another fundamental reason for his rejection of
the Cartesian substantiality of space: nobody would defend the substan-
tiality of time. The reality of space and time is extra-substantial and
extra-accidential. They have dimensions and/or properties, but, being
incorporeal, no functions nor qualities [16, pp. 177-181]. Therefore the
dimensions of space can coincide with the dimensions of matter without
causing any interference. All this clears the road for the theoretical de-
le 'lieu Aristotelicien', retablir le 'vide' dans Ia Nature, proposer une nouvelle notion
du "Temps" etc." [16, pp. 172-173]. Our boldtype.
31
"II faut en effet, comme il le dira plus loin dans le Syntagma a propos du mou-
vement, faire une distinction radicale entre le mode d'existence des 'choses
permanentes' et celui des 'choses successives', distinction a laquelle cor-
respondent respectivement l'espace et le temps. (... ) Espace et temps sont
infinis, l'un selon les dimensions, !'autre selon Ia succession (... ). Espace et temps
ont des 'parties inepuisables', d'ou Ia contingence de Ia situation du monde hie et
nunc. Espace et temps sont enfin inalterables et invariables quel qu'en soit le contenu:
... l'espace reste identique et immobile, comme le temps s'ecoule toujours
de meme maniere." [16, p.179ff], our boldtype.
G R E E K T H 0 UGH T AND QUANTUM ME C HAN I C S 179
32
[69, p. 3] Although we totally agree that "extension" and "divisibility" are at
the origin of the present-day QM-problems, we think it established and not without
relevance for eventual remedies that these notions are themselves not primitive in this
respect, because they follow from past attempts to come to terms with the paradox.
33
"Our helplessness vis-a-vis the continuum, reflected in the present difficulties of
quantum theory, is not a late arrival, it stood godmother to the birth of science" [87].
34
He uses almost the same wording as Gassendi: "I. Tempus Absolutum, verurn,
& mathematicum, in se & natura sua, sine relatione ad externum quodvis,
aequalibiter ftuit, alioque nomine dicitur Duratio ( ... ) II. Spatium Absolutum,
natura sua sine relatione ad externum quodvis, semper manet similare &
immobile( ... )" in [71, p. 6] (Scholiurn to the Definitions). Our boldtypc. Reference
to this also in [78, p. 2]. "Tempus Relativum" and "Spatium Relativum" are the tools
that allow us to measure and describe motion in concreto, thence they are easily
confused with 'real'-i.e., absolute-space and time.
35
"What he proposed was an addition to the ontology of Nature." Westfall, R.S.,
cited in [28, p. 51]. Also [50, p. 101].
36
In a letter to Bentley, 25 Feb. 1693, Cited in [28, footnote 42, p. 52]
180 KARIN VERELST AND BOB COECKE
etry [58, p. 13]. But this at first glance purely formal approach hides the
Cartesian-Leibnizian ontology of the unreality of space, with Descartes
because space coincides completely with matter as pure extension; with
Leibniz because space is nothing but the relations between the objects
'in' it. That the basic quantity describing with Leibniz the dynamical
behaviour of the system, the vis viva or living force 39 , is represented by
a scalar is clearly of more than merely formal importance, it is a conse-
quence of his ontological position. This annihilation of non- Being~the
vacuum, empty space~from physics opens the possibility to treat space
as a merely "relativistic" phenomenon, a position fully adopted later by
Einstein in the context of his Special Relativity 40 . The problem of the
initial origin of forces or motions remains equally unsolved. Even worse,
analytical mechanics lacks a 'natural' way to provide for the stabilis-
ing frame of reference for experimental observation as is present in the
explicit ontology of the Newtonian treatment. Appearances are saved
by stating that the universe presents the same aspect from every point
(apart from "local irregularities") [50], but in the ontological setting of
the logical framework~i.e., the framework of the separation between
Being and non-Being, between system and environment, between cause
and effect~this can be upheld only by an act of Divine creation, as is
the case with Leibniz, but of course not with his followers in the later
school of analytical mechanics. Saying that the notion of absolute space
is redundant because the natural laws are invariant under coordinate
transformations [48] is turning upside down the chain of justifications.
As should be clear, the whole metaphysical set-up of natural science is
such that they should be so. That the role of "causal black box" played by
space is now fulfilled by the "environment" 41 , doesn't change anything
to the fundamental circularity of the reasoning.
39
Almost identical with our kinetic energy. Together with the "work of the force"
or potential energy the two fundamental scalar quantities on which the study of
equilibrium and motion of analytical mechanics rests [58, p. xxi].
40
"The introduction of a "luminiferous ether" will prove to be superfluous inasmuch
as the view here to be developed will not require an "absolutely stationary space"
provided with special properties, nor assign a velocity-vector to a point of the empty
space in which electromagnetic processes take place." [37, p. 38].
41
"What is system, for instance, is described by phases or states; environment is
not, and cannot, be represented in such terms. Rather, environment is the seat
of "external" forces ( ... ) This apparently necessary and innocent partition of the
world into system and environment, ( ... ) has the most profound consequences for
the notion of causality. For according to it, the notion of causality becomes bound
irrevocably to what happens in system alone, ( ... ) the state-transition sequence.
( ... )what happens in environment has thus been put beyond the reach of
causality. Environment has become acausal" [85, p. 19]. Our boldtype.
182 KARIN VERELST AND BOB COECKE
The depth of the problem has been brought again to the fore by the
results obtained both theoretically and experimentally by QM. For not
only does the theory incorporate states for quantum entities that imply
non-local behaviour [8], but such effects have by now been established
incontrovertibly in various experimental settings, thus shortcutting for
once and for good eventual attempts to explain them away statistically42 .
Furthermore it was proved to be impossible to describe soundly two or
more separated systems within the present formalism [3]. As is suffi-
ciently known, the state of a physical system in QM is described within
mathematical Hilbert space. For every physical entity the collection of
all its properties constitutes its state in Hilbert space. Exactly in the
same way as the state of a classical entity is represented in phase space,
the Hilbert space contains all possible states the system could have. In
this sense, both phase space and the Hilbert space represent the envi-
ronment in which the dynamical transition of one state to another of the
entity will take place. To avoid that the individual state be blurred in the
statistical ensemble proper to the 'orthodox' interpretation, C. Piron in-
troduces a new notion of physical state based on the concept of property
as related to experimental projects with well-defined certain results [75,
p. 398]. These results are called yes-results, while any other outcome is
considered to be a no-result. To this end, a test that could eventually be
performed is associated to a property of the system under consideration,
42
C. Piron in [76]: "... the orthodox QM (the 'new testament' as Pauli named it)
with its credo and its principles is dead and definitively dead." A lot of acrobatic
attempts were made to rescue the modernist picture, by extending the quantum pic-
ture with an underlying modernist kind of world (for example D. Bohm [17]), or by
rejecting it (for example A. Einstein [36] and J. Bell [13]). But at the same time,
every advance on an experimental level (in particular A. Aspect [11] and H. Rauch
[81]) confirmed that these attempts were bound to fail. The general community of
physicists reacted to this by a kind of ontological ignorance attitude which evolved
towards a pragmatic quasi botanic empiricism, or by some new age like mystification
tendencies (see for example 'The Tao of Physics' by F. Capra). Alternatively, a not
unimportant group of people saw the inadequate arsenal of mathematical (and in par-
ticular logical) tools as the origin of all these problems (especially J. von Neumann &
G. Birkhoff [15], J. Jauch [52], C. Piron [73], H. Neumann & G. Ludwig [60], [61] and
D. Foulis & C. Randall [42]). This gave rise to an enormous development of mathe-
matical attributes and structures, of which quantum logic is the most known among
philosophers of science (see for example [14] and in particular [65]). Unfortunately,
the mathematical expertise required made the development and study of quantum
logic an essentially mathematical occupation such that the conceptual development
stagnated (a confirmation of this fact can be found in [66] and [77]).
G REEK T H 0 U G H T AN D QUANT U M ME CHAN I C S 183
in such a way that, once you are certain in advance to obtain the desired
result, you can assign to the system an element of reality [7 4, p. 170]
as conceived by Einstein [38, p. 137]. Introducing Aristotle's dynamical
terminology, a property is called "actual" when the result of the test
is certain; when uncertain it is said to be "potential" [7 4, p. 171]. A
property conceived this way is always potential or actual. It is, however,
possible that the property tested by an experimental project, and the
one tested by the experimental project obtained by exchanging the "yes"
and the "no" results of the former, are both potential. Whenever this sit-
uation appears we are dealing with quantum-like entities, contrary to
classical ones where this can never be the case. But it is not a priori ob-
vious how to define a particular entity and thus how to assign properties
to it. All comes down to account for the set of tests which matches the
collection of its properties and thus the entity itself. This presupposes
the possibility to separate the phenomenon under consideration from the
rest of the universe [31]. But, although it is stated explicitly that the cer-
tainty of the experimental project is an objective feature of the system
without reference to our knowledge or beliefs [69, p. 5], we are supposed
to know in advance what to do with the system in order to get this cer-
tain result. Indeed, the system should be prepared in a precise way that
is related to our existing knowledge of its properties. This presents no
problem when we are dealing with phenomena that are accessible to our
daily experience, like with the breaking of a piece of chalk [76, p. 208].
The necessary assumptions about its properties are then given by our
daily experience. This enables us to drop the preparation procedure that
is essential to 'true' experimental observation. Experimental observation
is indeed more than the "contemplation of the astronomer" [69, p. 8], it
is an intervention that prepares the system in such a way that we obtain
an entity-separated from its environment-together with a set of prop-
erties determined by the possible yes-no experiments. Again, it is the
preparation of the system that moulds the 'real thing' so as to fit into a
definite metaphysical set-up, primarily by separating "the system" out
of its "environment". Whatever be the structure of the set of possible
answers, the modelisation of the set of possible yes-no experiments im-
poses on the set of possible properties the mathematical structure of a
complete lattice [53, p. 844]. This means, as indicated before, that the
"real thing" is forced to fit into the scheme of an intrinsically
Eleatic ontology. The preparation procedure is a 'black box'
generating that ontology. This does not imply that it is senseless
to perform experimental projects. Natural laws are verified by experi-
mental observation, and experiments are performed in reality, so there
must be some kind of agreement with what happens in reality. But it is
184 KARIN VERELST AND BOB COECKE
precisely the kind of relationship that exists between reality and experi-
mental observation that should be rendered more clear; this implies that
the consequences of the fact that each experimental project is an inter-
vention in reality should be itself subject of investigation. By making ex-
plicit the structures underlying the sets of possible yes-no questions and
of possible answers, the Geneva School approach realises an important
progress in this respect, though until now the ontological aspect of the
problem has been left untouched. Embarking on an analysis of this as-
pect could nevertheless shed some light not only on the relation between
the "entity" and the "real-world phenomenon", but also on the status of
our conceptions of space and time, which form, as has been argued, the
ontological foundation for the metaphysical set-up present in scientific
theory. This provides the background against which Piron's attempts to
get hold of a "realistic" conception of space are to be seen. The inevitable
re-appearance of ontological circularity to which also these attempts are
subject can be clarified on a more theoreticallevel 43 . The tacit assump-
tion underlying the position that a thing coincides with a collection of
properties is that "being" in the sense of "existence" is but a property
amongst the others. We discussed before at length why this assumption
is untenable in the context of an-implicit or explicit-Eleatic ontology
as the one present in the cognitive and empirical procedures of science.
The notions "object" or "entity" necessitate the introduction of Being
in some form, ontologically beyond the object's predicable properties, so
as to grant for its required stability and separability, as well as for an
origin for the dynamics governing the processes of change and motion
to which it is exposed. In this ontological setting to be is not a prop-
43
A specific discussion of this problem with respect to Piron's approach of space
and time will be the subject of a future publication. Equally problematic but outside
our scope would be an analysis of the concept of 'field', arising out of General Rel-
ativity. Be it sufficient to refer to Schrodinger, who explains: "at any rate the very
foundation of the theory, viz. the basic principle of equivalence of acceleration
and a gravitational field, clearly means that there is no room for any kind of
'force' to produce acceleration save gravitation, which, however, is not to
be regarded as a force but resides on the geometry of space-time" [86, p. 1).
This 'making real' of the geometry of space as the 'force' behind dynamical processes
in four-dimensional space-time reveals more clearly the underlying ontology and links
General Relativity firmly to the 'Leibnizian' tradition within physics. But this con-
tinuum, in which gravity manifests itself, is itself the source of a host of ontological
problems. Regarding this, Piron cites in his lecture Einstein saying "that according to
general relativity space is endowed with physical qualities and in this sense
an ether exists ( ... ) but this ether must not be thought of as endowed with
the properties of ponderable media ( ... ) nor may any concept of motion
be applied to it" [79, pp. 1~2]. Our boldtype. By trying to explain his own concept,
Einstein reveals how close Newton and Leibniz actually stand.
GREEK T H 0 U G H T AND Q U ANT U M MECHANIC S 185
erty. It follows that existence is not a predicate [80, p. 36] and existence
itself is not within reach of experimental preparation, nor observation
[50, p. 84]. Regarding the paradoxical results attained by QM, we then
are led to the conclusion that only the development of an explicit and
properly ontological foundation for basic categories as 'entity', 'motion'
as well as for the intervention represented by their experimental obser-
vation remains open as a fruitful strategy. A sketch of a possible further
elaboration of the results attained thus far by the Geneva School with
regard to the foregoing analysis is presented in the last section of this
paper. Alternatively, leaving behind the principle of contradiction as con-
stituting ontology at the core of scientific procedure both empirical and
cognitive, could be taken into consideration. Interesting steps to come
to terms with problems related to this approach have been made in the
recent past. From attempts to develop logical systems that escape the
rigorous consistency demanded by the principle of contradiction sprang
relevant considerations, but these remain trapped within the framework
of the ontological core common to all logical systems44 . Another ap-
proach recognises the ontological nature of the problem, but limits itself
to the construction of ontologies for "possible worlds" that fit "a" logic
in which the principle of contradiction has been "neutralised" somehow
[83]. Since all logics still do partake in the same fundamental principle,
these "possible worlds" necessarily remain Eleatic. Our position would
be that the origin of the problem resides within the ontological nature
of reality itself This viewpoint might clarify the incurable presence of
paradoxes in logical systems of all kinds. Paradoxes then would appear
because of an ontological incompatibility between logic and "real" real-
ity. Therefore our approach would be to take paradox itself as the starting
point for the construction of an ontological framework. We see the work
of Spencer Brown [88], and, more recently, Kaufman 45 as supportive
in this respect. That this strategy might open relevant perspectives for
QM is indicated by the recent discovery of Aerts et al [7]. The principle
underlying such ontology has been adequately formulated in the past.
It is the already mentioned principle of coincidence of opposites, to be
found in the work of fifteenth century philosopher Nicolaus Cusanus. It
provides an excellent example to show that abandoning the principle of
contradiction implies the loss of neither the capacity to reason soundly,
nor the possibility to use mathematics [30, viz. Capitula XII to XVII]. It
does imply, however, the necessity to abandon on a conscious level the ar-
44
"Every logician in the end divides propositions into those which are acceptable
and those which are not." [40, introduction]
45
Oral communication. See also [55]
186 KARIN VERELST AND BOB COECKE
Let us now concentrate on one of the words in the title which might
seem rather innocent and obvious, namely 'products'. In a first reading
of this title one could think that it might easily be replaced by 're-
sult' or 'consequence'. We nevertheless attach a very definite meaning to
this word 'product' which is definitely not covered by 'result' nor 'con-
sequence'. In contemporary mathematics, which deals with the study
of families of well-defined formal structures (or, in a more advanced
language, 'categories of mathematical objects' 46 ), products of two struc-
tures that belong to the same family (i.e., two mathematical objects that
belong to the same category) are usually defined as a third structure in
this same family which has the two given structures as 'faithful' sub-
structures (in categorical language this means that there exist structure
preserving maps, called 'morphisms', from the two given objects into
the product object). In fact, this means that the product is larger than
the given structures, but essentially not different. This way of defining
products is an obvious consequence of the specific 'scientific method' in
the context of which mathematics is used: one only wants to deal with
objects that are well defined. Once one has defined such a well-defined
collection of objects, one sticks with it and studies it. Even more, an
object has only a meaning as an element of this well-defined collection.
As a consequence, if one wants to introduce operations on the objects in
46
For an outline of the mathematical theory of categories introduced by Eilenberg
and Mac Lane [39] we refer to [12], [62], [64]. In fact, some approaches and authors on
category theory see a possibility of introducing 'aspects of undefinedness' within this
formalism, and consider this aspect as the main argument to apply category theory
as a foundation for mathematics.
GREEK THOUGHT AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 187
this collection in order to study and characterize it, one remains faithful
to this collection, i.e., one does not leave it 47 . This situation in mathe-
matics had a major influence on the way how people tend to describe
compound systems in physics: for a given description (i.e., structural
characterization) of individual physical entities one is still attached to
the idea that the compound system should be described within the same
family of structural characterizations. Within the context of Newtonian
mechanics, this does not pose a problem. Within the context of QM,
however, one is able to produce a description procedure for the joint
system, but looses completely the mathematical consistency48 required
for a 'good theory'. Unfortunately, by yielding the conclusion that the
'Hilbert space structure', the structure in which QM-entities are de-
scribed, is not 'the good universal structure' for their description, these
results have only fostered the search for 'bigger' and 'bigger' structures
in which one could hope to find 'consistent products' for the description
of the compound system. Never the a priori idea of universality has been
put into question. According to our previous sections, we think that this
specific attachment to universality of a description points the finger at
the real problem at the source of this malaise concerning the descrip-
tion of compound entities in physics. The presence of a second entity in
a compound system definitely changes the context of the first one, and
as such, a description that incorporates a contextual ingredient should
take this presence into account in an explicit way 49 . Unfortunately, for
the QM formalism, this is not the case 50 based on ideas developed by
Aerts, Gisin and Piron in [4], [5] and [47], and yielding the framework
of [5] and [21], shows that in the traditional QM description, aspects
like the order in which one performs consecutive measurements on dif-
ferent individual pseudo-entities within the compound system are even
not a part of the context, but an ingredient of the formal representa-
tion of the entity itself.. Solving this problem comes down to starting
from correct collections of primitive notions in order to reconstruct the
47
We have to remark that quite recently, since the development of the mathematical
theory of categories, one became very interested in 'relating' the different well-defined
collections of mathematical objects. However, one is still attached to the same kind
of scientific method, but now on a meta-level.
48
This inconsistency is encountered as well on a purely structural level, in the sense
that there exist two unequivalent procedures for obtaining a so called tensor product
[2], both when one starts from an operational or empiricist point of view [3], [77], [91].
49
For the reasons stated before, this could considerably enhance the coherence of
the theory.
so
An explicit construction in which one of the present authors tries to take the
context into account for a situation of 'the many' (see [22], [27]
188 KARIN VERELST AND BOB COECKE
54
Here, 'induction' does not refer to any of its usual philosophical significances, but
rather refers to physical theories like electro-magnetism.
190 KARIN VERELST AND BOB COECKE
8. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Sonja Smets, Hubert Dethier, Wilfried Van Rengen and Rudolf
De Smet for discussing the content of this paper. We thank David Moore
for the indication of problems and references connected to the subject
of this paper. We thank Didier Durlinger for technical help while imple-
menting the ancient Greek font. Bob Coecke is Post-Doctoral Researcher
at Flanders' Fund for Scientific Research.
AFFILIATION
Karin Verelst
Center Leo Apostel
Brussels Free University
Brussels, Belgium
Bob Goecke
Center Leo Apostel-FUND
Brussels Free University
Brussels, Belgium
REFERENCES
[55] Kaufman, L., "Virtual Logic", talk delivered at the Einstein Meets
Magritte Conference, June 1995.
[56] Kirk, G.S., Heraclitus. The Cosmic Fragments, Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, Cambridge, 1975.
[57] Kirk, G.S., Raven, J.E., and Schofield, M., The Presocratic
Philosophers. A critical history with a selection of texts, Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, Cambridge, 1983.
[58] Lanczos, C., The variational principles of mechanics, fourth ed.,
Dover publications, New York, 1970.
[59] Luck, G., Arcana Mundi. Magic and the Occult in the Greek and
Roman Worlds. A collection of Ancient Texts, The Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity Press, Baltimore and London, 1985.
[60] Ludwig, G., "An Axiomatic Basis of Quantum Mechanics", in:
Neumann, H. (ed.), Interpretations and Foundations of Quantum the-
ory, B.I.-Wissenschaftsverlag, 1981.
[61] Ludwig, G., and Neumann, H., "Connections between Differ-
ent Approaches to the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics", in: Neu-
mann, H. (ed.), Interpretations and Foundations of Quantum theory,
B.I.-Wissenschaftsverlag, 1981.
[62] Mac Lane, S., Categories for the working Mathematician, Springer,
1971.
[63] McGuire, J.E., and Rattansi, P.M., "Newton and the 'Pipes of
Pan"', Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, 21, 1966.
[64] McLarty, C., Elementary Categories, Elementary Toposes, Oxford
Sci. Publ., 1995.
[65] Mittelstaedt, P., "Classification of Different Areas of Work Affer-
ent to Quantum Logic", in: Beltrametti, E.G. and van Fraassen,
B.C. (eds.), Current Issues in Quantum Logic, Plenum, 1981.
[66] Moore, D.J., Helv. Phys. Acta, 66, 1993, p. 471.
[67] Moore, D.J., Helv. Phys. Acta, 68, 1995, p. 658.
[68] Moore, D.J., Int. J. Theor. Phys., 36, 1997, p. 2211.
[69] Moore, D.J., "On State Spaces and Property Lattices", British J.
Phil. Sc., to appear, 1998.
[70] Mourelatos, A.P.D., The Pre-Socratics, a collection of critical
essays, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1974-1993.
[71] Newton, I., Isaaci Newtoni, Opera quae extant omnia, Commen-
tariis illustrabat Samuel Horsley, Landini: exc. Joannes Nichols, 1889.
GREEK THOUGHT AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 195
197
© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
198 ARKADY PLOTNITSKY
"The very nature of the quantum theory ... forces us to regard the
space-time coordination and the claim of causality, the union of which
characterizes the classical theories, as complementary but exclusive
features of the description, symbolizing the idealization of observa-
tion and definition respectively" [2].
and (in view of Bell's theorem in the case of hidden variables) insofar as
the Lorentz invariance demanded by relativity is maintained, the possi-
bility of such states would imply a breakdown of the classical description
of measuring instruments. For the classical describability of measuring
instruments becomes the only vulnerable link in Bohr's logical chains.
One needs to consider both standard and hidden variables because one
must examine all available situations in which classical-like states may,
in principle, be ascribed to quantum data, and establish that, if one
does so, the classical describability of measuring instruments would be
violated in each of these situations. Bell's theorem eliminates the case
of hidden variables, since it implies that any hidden variables frame-
work consistent with the predictions of the standard quantum theory
would lead to violation of the Lorentz invariance. The EPR situation
as treated by means of non-relativistic quantum mechanics entails no
violation of relativity, in contrast to treating it by means of Bohm's
theory or, it appears, any theory that presupposes independent states.
Establishing fully rigorous connections between quantum mechanics and
relativity entails quantum electrodynamics. Thus theory leads to further
epistemological complexities, which cannot be considered here.
In view of some recent arguments, we may not be able, even by using
Bell's theorem, unconditionally to exclude the possibility of local (i.e.,
Lorentz invariant) and locally causal hidden variables theories of a non-
realist type-that is, theories that are causal but that (in contrast to
Bohm' s theory/ ies) would disallow an ascription to a quant urn system
of classical-like states independent of observation. The formulation of
Bell's theorem needs to be amended accordingly. Hidden variables in
this case would have to be seen as "located" in the interaction between
quantum objects and measuring instruments, an interaction that would
itself be seen as irreducible, just as in Bohr's interpretation. Hence, the
possibility of such theories would not undermine the present argument.
Such theories would offer the intriguing possibility of a picture of the
physical world that is both causal and local but that does not presuppose
an independent physical reality at the microlevel [16].
In Bohr's interpretation, classical macrophysics and quantum micro-
physics are intertwined in an asymmetrical way: attempts to introduce
a more classical or classical-like description at the microlevel appear to
break down classical description at the macrolevel, while non-classical
quantum microdescription is fully consistent and sustains classical ma-
cro-description, at least in the situation of quantum measurement. In
this scheme quantum (micro) physics, relativity, and classical (macro)
physics are irreducibly interlinked, and both modes of description, classi-
208 ARKADY PLOTNITSKY
micro aspects of the physical world. For the moment we can at best
only correlate or conjoin some of them and try to maintain their consis-
tency with each other (and, of course, with experimental data) within
sufficiently workable limits. Whether physics can ever be fully brought
together remains an open question; and, as I have stressed here, the
problem of transition from quantum microphysics to classical macro-
physics remains outstanding. It is conceivable that future theories (or
new data) will transform both classical and quantum theories and their
relations, perhaps by means of a more homogeneous single theory. It
is also conceivable that future developments will preserve the joint sig-
nificance of classical and quantum physical and philosophical theories,
which has defined the century of physics that began with Planck's dis-
covery of quantum physics in 1900 and that is now at its end-or will
produce landscapes of as yet unencountered or even as yet inconceivable
strangeness.
AFFILIATION
Arkady Plotnitsky
Department of English
Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN 47907-1356, USA
aplotnit@acpub. duke. edu
REFERENCES
1. METALINGUISTIC VIEWS
213
© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
214 LARS LOFGREN
A= in w E(dw) .
A= in w E(dw),
implies the spectral resolution of F(A)
Coincidence
Anti
coincidence
Photon detection
L-T"""-1 counter
----•1
Single
photon
pulse
Beam Photon detection
spliuer counter
5. C 0 N C L U S I 0 N S
Our central quest for wff's for basic measurement sentences may be
looked at as a modern realization of Bohr's plea for using natural lan-
guage with parts of classical physics for describing measuring instru-
ments and experimental findings-in the hope of reaching an unambigu-
ous communication of experimental results.
Our conclusions are that this seemingly simple quest for wff's for basic
measurement sentences in fact is too complex to allow a positive solution
in terms of formalism. What is needed is a complementaristic resolution
222 LARS LOFGREN
Lars Lofgren
Department of Information Theory
University of Lund, Box 118, S~221 00 Lund, Sweden
lofgren@dit.lth. se
REFERENCES
1. INTRODUCTION
225
© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
226 ENRICO GIANNETTO
4. C 0 N C L US I 0 N S
the illusory character of life world dominion over nature), whereas na-
ture is even subjected to any seeming-even if non-effective -violent
dominion of the life world at the interspecific, intra-specific, ecological,
biological, social and political levels? In any case, physics, beyond any
ethical indication, shows us a physis of which, conscious or not, we are
parts belonging to that secret love which is the non-separability of the
world.
AFFILIATION
Enrico Giannetto
Dipartimento di Fisica "A. Volta"
Universita di Pavia
Pavia
It alia
REFERENCES
[1] For these issues, see for example: Giannetto, E., "La logica quan-
tistica tra fondamenti della matematica e della fisica" in: Bartocci,
U. & Wesley, J.P., Blumberg (eds.), Foundations of Mathematics
€3 Physics, 1990, pp. 107-127; Giannetto, E., "Toward a Quantum
Epistemology" in: Dalla Chiara, M. L. & Galavotti, M. C. (eds.),
Atti del Convegno S.I.L.F.S. Temi e Prospettive della Logica e della
Filosofia della Scienza, CLUEB, Bologna, 1988, pp. 121-124; Gian-
netto, E., "L'epistemologia quantistica come metafora antifondazionis-
tica" in: Petruccioli, S. (ed.), Immagini Linguaggi Concetti, Theoria,
Roma, 1991, pp. 301-322; Giannetto, E., "On Truth: A Physical In-
quiry" in: Cellucci, C. & Dalla Chiara, M., Atti del Congresso 'Nuovi
problemi della logica e della filosofia della scienza', CLUEB, Bologna,
1991, pp. 221-228; Giannetto, E., "Il crollo del concetto di spazio-
tempo negli sviluppi della fisica quantistica: l'impossibilita di una ri-
costruzione razionale nomologica del mondo" in: Boniolo, G. (ed.), As-
petti epistemologici della spazio e del tempo, Borla, Roma, 1987, pp. 169-
224.
[2] Heidegger, M., "Die Frage nach der Technik" in: Vortrage und
Aufsatze, Neske, Pflillingen, 1954; Heidegger, M., "Wissenschaft und
Besinnung" in: Vortrage und ... , op. cit.; Giannetto, E., "Heidegger
and the Question of Physics", in: Kiss, 0. & Ropolyi, L. (eds.), Pro-
ceedings of the "Conference on Science and Hermeneutics", Veszprem
1993, Reidel, Dordrecht (in press).
[3] Giannetto, E., "Note sulla complessita: Max Borne la nascita della
234 ENRICO GIANNETTO
nuova fisica del caos", in: Cellucci, C. and Dimaid, M.C. (eds.), Atti
del Congresso, ETS, Pisa, 1994, pp. 317-330.
[4] See [1], [2], [3].
[5] Rothstein, J ., "Physics of Selective Systems: Computation and Bi-
ology", International Journal of Theoretical Physics, 21, 1982, pp. 327-
350; Primas, H., in: Miller, A.l. (ed.), Sixty-Two Years of Uncer-
tainty, Plenum Press, New York, 1990, p. 233; Primas, H., Chem-
istry, Quantum Mechanics and Reductionism, Springer Verlag, Berlin,
1983; Primas, H., Time-Asymmetric Phenomena in Biology: Comple-
mentary Exophysical Descriptions Arising from Deterministic Quantum
Endophysics, preprint, LFC-Zurich, 1988; for a general overview, see
also: D'Espagnat, B., Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Mechan-
ics, Benjamin, Menlo Park, 1971; Bohm, Hiley, The Undivided Uni-
verse, Routledge, London, 1993; Kitchener, R. (ed.), The World View
of Contemporary Physics, State University of New York Press, Albany,
1988.
[6] Giannetto, E., "The Epistemological and Physical Importance of
Godel's Theorems" in: Walkowski, Z.W. (ed.),First International Sym-
posium on Godel's Theorems, World Scientific, Singapore, 1993, pp. 136-
147.
[7] See references given in the paper quoted in [6].
[8] See papers quoted in [5].
[9] See also the demonstration of the impossibility to attribute a wave
function to a single (one-particle) well-defined physical system in quan-
tum mechanics, given in the following paper: Preparata, G., What is
Quantum Physics? Back to the QFT of Planck, Einstein and Nernst, lec-
ture given at the IX Winter School on Hadron Physics, Folgaria (Italy)
6-13 February 1994, MI-TH 94/3 preprint. However, in my opinion, it
is not enough to realize a many-particle theory to deal with the non-
separability problem.
[10] Caderni, Martellini, "Third Quantization Formalism for Hamil-
tonian Cosmologies", International Journal of Theoretical Physics, 23,
1984, p. 223.
[11] Giannetto, E., Teoria quanto-relativistica delle fasi macros co piche
della materia condensata: la transizione fiuido-solido, PhD thesis, Uni-
versity of Messina, Messina, 1992; Giannetto, G., "Towards a Quan-
tum-Relativistic Understanding of the Phases of Matter: The Fluid Solid
Transition", Physics Essays, 6, 1993, pp. 98-109.
[12] See [11] and Kugo, Ojima, Supplement to Progress in Theoretical
Physics, 66, 1979, p. 1.
QUANTUM TRUTH & REALITY 235
237
@ 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
238 GEOFFREY HUNTER
localized nature of the wave. Thus the paradox of the wave-particle du-
ality is, in principle resolved because the electron or photon is a localized
wave whose centre behaves like a particle.
The concept of a Particle is that it is point-like, its size possibly being fi-
nite but small (on some scale). For the particle concept to be elementary
(i.e., without internal structure that must be described in terms of more
elementary concepts), the "particle" would have to exist at a point, or
it would have to be a rigid body-probably a rigid sphere. If the ele-
mentary particle existed at a point, and if it is something physical (as
distinct from mathematical), then the elementary physical object would
have to have an infinite energy density, which is physically untenable;
there is no physics at a mathematical point. The other possibility of
the particle being a rigid body would require the transfer of momentum
across the particle's finite size during a collision to imply either infinite
forces within it (which is also physically untenable), or alternatively an
infinite speed of transmission of the impact across its finite size, which
is inconsistent with the principle that the velocity of light is the upper
limit for the transmission of all material interactions. These arguments
are from Lucas and Hodgson [1]. Hence the concept of Particle is not
Elementary: the nature and structure of particles (such as electrons, pro-
tons, etc) must be described in terms other than "particle" -probably
as waves-the other principal paradigm of theoretical physics. The con-
cept of elementarity is of something that is conceptually selfsufficient;
thus an elementary finite-sized particle would have to be a rigid body,
otherwise we would need some more elementary property to describe its
internal elasticity.
Einstein (1905) quantified the idea that mass is simply a form of energy
in his famous equation:
(1)
Scientists have tended to regard particles (especially the electron and
proton) as "elementary" constituents of nature, the mass of the particle
being one of its most distinctive properties. The idea that a particle is a
localized wave was introduced by de Broglie [3]. By combining Einstein's
equation (1) with Planck's equation:
E = hv (2)
relating the energy, E of a quantum "oscillator" to its frequency v, he
postulated that an elementary particle such as an electron is some kind
of localized (soliton) wave whose frequency of oscillation is related to its
mass by:
(3)
That is what we regard as the (inertial) mass of the particle is, ac-
cording to de Broglie's proposal, simply a manifestation of a localized
oscillation of a field (most likely the electromagnetic field). From this
standpoint mass is not an elementary property of a particle, but rather
a property derived from the localized motion of the (electromagnetic)
field.
For an electron, the computed frequency of the wave is v = 1.2356 x
1020 sec- 1 (Hertz), corresponding to a wavelength of>.= cjv = 2.4263 x
10- 12 metre.
where 1 = 1IJ1- (vlc)2 and the primed variables are the coordinates
(x', t') in the observer's frame of reference. Thus the wave (4) becomes
in the observer's frame (x', t'):
6. PH 0 T 0 N S AS S 0 LIT 0 N WAVES
The Photon has been modeled as a soliton wave [4]. The model is a
nonplane wave solution of Maxwell's equations that has the correct spin-
angular momentum of the photon (±n), the two values corresponding
to right and left circularly polarized photons. Although the mathemat-
ical form of the electric and magnetic fields is obtained by solution of
the linear Maxwell equations, they are constrained by the relativistic
ELEMENTARY NATURE 0 F PH Y S I CAL W 0 R L D 241
(8)
AFFILIATION
G. Hunter
Department of Chemistry
York University, Canada
REFERENCES
243
© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
244 DAN NESHER
Ch. 12]; [38, pp. 49-54]; [40, Ch. l]; [11]; [10]). I will attempt to ana-
lyze this problem in the framework of Spinoza's naturalism (as distinct
from physicalism) and Peirce's logic of cognition (semiotics). I believe
that Spinoza and Peirce reject both, Metaphysical Realism and Internal
Realism, and take a third, pragmatist, perspective, which I call Repre-
sentational Realism (cf., [29], [30]). There are various ways to explicate
realism (and therefore anti-realism). I would like to give a wider defini-
tion for realism than Dummett's, and to suggest that it has two tenets
that only together explicate it: (1) the ontological tenet, that there is
reality which exists independently of its cognitive representation; and (2)
the epistemological tenet, that this reality is represented by our cognitive
minds: we know it. Dummett defines realism as accepting (1), but instead
of (2) has a stronger condition: "that reality renders each statement in
the class determinably true or false, again independently of whether we
know, or are even able to discover, its truth-value" ([11, p. 55]; cf., [38,
p. 49ff.]). The question is whether, under my explication of realism, the
"metaphysical realist" and the "internal realist" are realists at all. The
metaphysical realist accepts naively the existence of external reality (1)
but since the truth of a statement is determined by reality independently
of whether we know it or not, it is not clear whether humans can know
that there is such external reality (2). The internal realist, by reject-
ing the possibility of knowing reality outside of our cognitive states (1 ),
must also be skeptical, like Hume, or categorical, like Kant, about the
existence of this mysterious transcendental reality (2).
The question of realism is whether we humans can know that there
is reality external to our cognitive experience, and if so, what is its na-
ture. This is Peirce's distinction in between the negative and the positive
knowledge of reality. The first is grasped in the way we learn that there
is something different from us; the second in the way we learn that there
is something which corresponds to our cognition. The negative knowl-
edge of reality evolves already in the child's awareness of the real by
being in error or in ignorance, but we are aware of it in every surpris-
ing fact frustrating our expectation [36, 5.233-234, 5.311]. In this case
we are aware that by knowing that what we expected is an erroneous
subjective cognition, we also know that there is something independent
refuting our ideas, and "to this we give the name of the rear' [37, vol.3,
8]. Popper, with his celebrated theory of refutation actually accepted
only the negative concept of reality, while in his later writings he tried
in vain to show how we should leap from frustrated hypotheses into the
eternal truths.
According to Spinoza and Peirce we can achieve representational
knowledge of external reality only through our causal interaction with
WHICH SIDE SPIN 0 Z A W 0 U L D HAVE TAKEN ? 245
[7, pp. 233-4], [5, p. 146ff.], [8, II, pp. 72-73]). Bohr's phenomenalism
(and instrumentalism) is expressed clearly in the following:
In our description of nature the purpose is not to disclose the real
essence of the phenomena but only to track down, so far as it is pos-
sible, relations between the manifold aspects of our experience ([8, I,
p. 18]; cf., [8, I, p. 4]).
On the line of objective description [i.e., the unambiguous commu-
nication-e.g. [8, III, p. 3], it is indeed more appropriate to use the
word phenomenon to refer only to observations obtained under cir-
cumstances whose description includes an account of the whole ex-
perimental arrangement. In such terminology, the observational prob-
lem in quantum physics is deprived of any special intricacy ... [8, II,
p. 73]; cf., [6, p. 24]; comp., [17, p. 58]).
Strictly speaking, the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics
and electrodynamics merely offers rules of calculation for the deduc-
tion of expectations about observations obtained under well defined
conditions specified by classical physical concepts [i.e., common-sense
communicable physical concepts-[8, II, p. 73] ([8, III, p. 60]; cf., [8,
II, pp. 3, 68, 71], [7, pp. 222-3, 233-34, 237-8]).
Bohr's philosophical position was such that while he took the effect of
the measuring instrument on the measured object (system), and even of
the human body on the former, as parts of the experimental perceptual-
observational process, he despaired of the possibility of describing "un-
ambiguously" their interactions in the physical realm (cf., [8, II, p. 39],
[8, III, p. 3]; [23, Ch. 3.5]). In order to avoid ambiguous (non-objective)
language in the description of this uncontrolled relation, he invented his
principle of "complementarity". This enabled him to apply the math-
ematical formalism of quantum mechanics to different descriptions of
separated experimental arrangements without relating the different re-
sults to an independent reality of a particle; hence "an unambiguous
meaning can be attributed to such an expression as 'physical reality' "
([5, pp. 145, 151], cf., [8, II, pp. 1-2], [8, III, pp. 2-7]; [22, p. 179]).
According to Bohr, "the interaction between the measuring instru-
ments and the objects forms an integral part of the phenomena" [8,
III, p. 4]. The phenomena are the "experimental arrangements", and
the "evidence about atomic objects obtained by different experimental
arrangements exhibits a novel kind of complementary relationship" [8,
III, p. 4]. Since in quantum physics evidence of different experimental
arrangements "appears contradictory when combination into a single
picture is attempted" Bohr concluded that even if there is such reality
that determines causally our phenomenal experience we cannot know it
WHICH SIDE SPIN 0 Z A W 0 U L D HAVE TAKEN? 249
Person Observing
pp. 172, 197-211]; [25]). Einstein believed in the reality of things in them-
selves completely independent of human activity but that nevertheless
can (miraculously) be known (cf., [18, xix, 180]); and Bohr viewed phys-
ical reality as identical with the experiential phenomena, namely, depen-
dent on human cognition (cf., [8, I, pp. 93, 103]; [18, p. 211]; [46, p. 59];
[4, pp. 16-19]; [45, pp. 65, 117-119]; [41, p. 51])]. Thus, Einstein and
Bohr were involved with "the so-called 'deep truths"', in Bohr's terms,
namely, "statements in which the opposite also contains deep truth" [7,
p. 240]. For example, when Einstein speaks of "incomplete description"
of physical reality by quantum theory he means the reality of things in
themselves, while Bohr by "complete description" means the formalism
of quantum theory as applied to the observed phenomena only (cf., [5,
p. 145ff., pp. 149-150], [7, pp. 222-224, 237-8]; [43, pp. 153-4, 157-160];
[14, p. 681ff.]). On the incompleteness of Quantum Theory from there-
alist (not the naive realist) perspective and its apparent completeness
from the phenomenological standpoint, Schri:idinger writes:
The rejection of realism also imposes obligations. From the stand-
point of the classical model the momentary statement content of the
\If-function is far from complete; it comprises only about 50 per cent
of a complete description ["the other half then remains completely
indeterminate" - p. 132]. From the new standpoint it must be com-
plete for reasons already touched upon at the end of sect. 6 [p. 157].
It must be impossible to add on to it additional correct statements,
without otherwise changing it; else one would not have the right to
call meaningless all questions extending beyond it [as Bohr does] ([43,
p. 159]; comp. [14, p. 668ff.]).
Thus, returning to Einstein's and Bohr's philosophical positions in their
1935 controversy about scientific theories, their completeness, and the
nature of physical reality, it seems to me that they are both some-
how wrong. First, they are wrong because they hold uncritically a basic
"philosophical instinct" to believe in the completeness of scientific the-
ories; but from Spinoza's and Peirce's pragmaticist point of view there
cannot be a complete (certain) description of external reality since hu-
man knowledge of it is limited and fallible. Moreover, Einstein's "cri-
terion of reality" is too strong since there is no completely independent
"undisturbed" reality, and Bohr's "conception of reality" is too restricted
(devised to ensure complete knowledge) and thus his "phenomena" can-
not describe external physical reality (cf., [43, pp. 153, 155, 157ff.]; [17,
p. 65ff.]). However, I suggest that when a pragmaticist epistemology is
adapted "we are nearing the goal where logical order to a large extent
allows us to avoid deep truth", where contradicting positions are both
256 DAN NESHER
true and false (Bohr's wording, [7, p. 240]). It is true that the represen-
tation of the atomic domain depends upon the cognitive mind but we
should not identify, as Kant and Bohr do, the phenomenal-representation
with the represented reality (cf., [33]). In order to differentiate these two
components, representation and physical reality, we should analyze the
observational-measurement situation.
In a theory of representation a distinction should be made between
the role of the perceiver-observer in measurement and the relation be-
tween the measuring instrument and the measured object (system). The
measuring instrument is what the experimentalist perceives and the mea-
sured system is what she observes through the perception of the former.
As Schrodinger expresses it:
The systematic arranged interaction of two systems (measured object
and measuring instrument) is called measurement on the first system,
if a directly-sensible variable feature of the second (pointer position)
is always produced within certain error limits when the process is
immediately repeated (on the same object, which in the meantime
must not be exposed to any additional influences) [43, p. 158].
We can measure an atomic system only mediately when perceiving a
middle-size measuring instrument interacting with this system. If we can-
not perceive the measuring instrument we cannot experimentally mea-
sure and thus cannot observe an atomic System even where an interac-
tion between them occurs (comp. [7, p. 209]). However, we should be
careful not to confound perception with measuring operation and un-
derstand that even perception and measuring operation are two compo-
nents of observation. Hence, the measuring instrument can operate and
affect the measured system without being perceived; and also we can
perceive the measuring instrument when the latter is not in operation
and therefore does not affect the system to be measured. In perception
(as a part of the observational procedure) the relation of the mind to
the measuring instrument is not mediated as such. This, of course, leads
to a serious question as to whether "Schrodinger's cat", as an instru-
ment measuring the decay of the radioactive substance, can be in an
indeterminate superposition if it is always to be perceived. It seems that
Schrodinger's intention in his famous thought experiment is to show that
according to the doctrine of contemporary quantum theory "an indeter-
minacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transferred
into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct
observation"; but then if there is an indeterminacy in the measuring in-
strument itself (the cat), there cannot be any observation of the atomic
system. Hence, if this is the result of the quantum theory, it "prevents
WHICH SIDE SPIN OZA WOULD HAVE TAKEN? 257
4. T H E RELATIVE IN DE P END EN C E 0 F
REALITY AND COGNITIVE MIND
The properties of the atomic system after the measurement are not al-
together independent of the measurement interference but, according
to my analysis, are independent of their cognitive representation owing
to this measurement (cf., [33, IV]). However, regardless of how much
W HI C H SIDE S PIN 0 Z A W 0 U L D HAVE TAKEN ? 259
the properties of human body are entangled with the properties of the
perceived measuring instrument the epistemological distinction must be
between the representing Mind on one side, and the measuring instru-
ment on the other. But the same argument is even stronger for the
representation of an atomic observed system, which physically cannot be
distinguished completely from the measuring instrument and the body of
the observer; they constitute together an extended continuous natural
system whose components are only modally (relatively) separated (the
essential non-separability of the physical domain). Therefore, any possi-
ble division among all three of them is only relative in respect of their
modes of being. Their modal interaction causes modifications, new real
magnitudes or even new particles with their specific properties, since the
idealization of the atomic systems cannot be like the classical idealized
objects (separated and localized) (cf., [7, pp. 201-2], [8, II, p. 71], [8,
III, p. 2]; [4, Ch. 8 & pp. 386-390]). And yet, the measuring process is
determined, like any natural process according to the laws of nature and
cannot "disturb" or "interrupt" these laws. (cf., Spinoza, Ethics IIIPr).
Schrodinger states rightly that,
... in the realism point of view observation is a natural process like
any other and cannot per sebring about an interruption of the orderly
flow of natural events [43, p. 158]; cf., [43, p. 160#10]).
This is the case since observation qua measurement is itself a natural
process, yet, as such it really changes the flow of some specific events, but
according the laws of nature and without interrupting them. Now, some
interpreters of quantum theory suggest that the observation-measuring
operation due to the intervention of consciousness "creates" new realities
that were not in the interacting modes of being before. That is to say,
consciousness brings about an interruption of the orderly flow of natural
events (cf., [9, pp. 20-26]; camp. [1, p. 54ff.]; [4, Ch. 2[pp. 16-19, 218]]).
But if the physical observation-measuring process is separated from the
mental process of perception, and if our minds have no causal effect upon
the represented physical objects, then why should this atomic process be
understood differently from other natural physical processes? It seems
to me that the problem with Bohr's approach to quantum theory is
that he continued to use the classical concepts of particles and waves
and thus had to adapt the Kantian phenomenology as his philosophical
epistemology of science in order to describe unambiguously the resulting
experimental phenomena. This was expressed clearly by Weizsacker:
Niels Bohr is the only physicist in our time who-as far as I know,
without having been influenced by Kant-proceeded from fundamen-
tal insight similar to Kant ... Only in this framework will physicists
260 DAN NESHER
NATURE
Person Perceiving
,Sign------- ~E-----~0.----~L
I'
l ''
'' Human
,
Indirect Representation~ Union
' Mind
of the Physical Object ' "'"' .. "'"'"'"' "'"'"'""
"'T"'• -------------- ......................... -- ........ ---- of
AI'" ''
' Mind-Body
''
'
Physical Object----------..,.. {OR+ bp} f--4--------Human Body
AFFILIATION
Dan Nesher
Department of Philosophy
University of Haifa
Israel
REFERENCES
1. INTRODUCTION
267
© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
268 STEVEN WEINSTEIN
2. GENERAL RELATIVITY
(1)
3. QUANTUM THEORY
in which these objects persist over time. So far, so classical. What is un-
classical, again, is that the objects do not have definite properties at a
given time (of position, momentum, spin, etc.) and do not have definite
trajectories over time. Furthermore, if the systems have interacted, these
properties will be "entangled", so that, e.g., the position of one object
will in general be correlated with the position of another.
The ontological situation in quantum field theory is somewhat dif-
ferent. Indeed, the formal apparatus of the theory was developed to
accommodate physical situations in which the number of particles can
change. The general treatment is thus one of systems with "infinite de-
grees of freedom." The idea of infinite degrees of freedom is suggestive of
classical fields, and indeed there are many cases in which quantum fields
are analogous to classical fields, in that at each point in spacetime, one
has operators (technically, operator-valued distributions) that represent
various field properties (such as the electric field in the x direction), and
that allow one to extract the probability of observing various values for
those properties at the various points in space. The possibility of de-
scribing such quantum systems either in terms of an indefinite number
of particles, or in terms of probabilistic values of a field, is the essence
of wave-particle duality. 5
So we have a situation in which there is a sort of wave-particle duality.
But because the number of particles is indefinite, it would seem odd to
say that the ontology is particles. One of the founders of quantum field
theory, P.A.M. Dirac, shared this view:
If one can create particles, then the question of which are the fun-
damental constituents of matter ceases to have a definite meaning.
Previously, one could say that one only had to analyze a piece of
matter as far as possible, and get at the ultimate constituents in
that way. But if one can create particles by atomic interactions, then
one cannot give a definite definition for an elementary particle. [3,
p. 19]
In an important sense, a sort of field ontology appears to be forced on
us in relativistic quantum theory in a way that it is not in classical,
relativistic particle theory, for not only the properties of the particles
but their very number is indeterminate.
One might bite the bullet at this point and argue that, just as prop-
5
Note that the "wave-particle duality" often attributed to the non-relativistic
quantum theory of particles is a bit of a misnomer, since the wave-function for a system
with more than one particle cannot be thought of as a wave in three-dimensional
space. (In an n particle system the wave function typically exists in a space of 3n
dimensions.)
272 STEVEN WEINSTEIN
field theory which is not in any sense a spacetime theory is absurd, the
argument being that because observations take place at points in space
at particular times, any theory must have spatial degrees of freedom in
order for it to yield predictions for observations. Though this argument
has some appeal, it is highly problematic, for it rather begs the question
of how to represent observations in quantum theory. In general, I would
suggest that we be wary of it, for one of the fundamental problems in
physics is the reconciliation of quantum theory and gravity, and it may
be just such prejudices regarding the nature of observation that obstruct
the way toward a reconciliation of the two theoretical frameworks.
(2)
or
9
See [6] and [7] for excellent reviews of quantum gravity and discussions of the
:;orts of problem one encounters. See [8] and references therein for news of recent
progress in this area.
10
My quick dismissal notwithstanding, Rovelli (see [9], [10] ) has recently proposed
a way of dealing with some of the issues raised here.
276 STEVEN WEINSTEIN
expectation value of the stress tensor will be a simple function of the ex-
pectation value for the position). Now perform a position measurement.
One will find the object on one side of the room or the other. So at the
moment of measurement, when the object becomes localized, we must
say that the metric changes discontinuously. Besides the fact that this
seems intuitively unphysical, such a theory represents a major departure
from the framework of general relativity!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
AFFILIATION
Steven Weinstein
Department of Philosophy
Northwestern University
Evanston, Illinois
USA
278 STEVEN WEINSTEIN
REFERENCES
[14] Bohr, N. and Rosenfeld, L., "Zur Frage der Messbarkeit der
elektromagnetischen Feldgrossen", In: Kgl. Danek Vidensk. Selsk. Math.-
fys. Medd., volume 12, number 8, 1933.
[15] Bohr, N. and Rosenfeld, L., "On the question of the measurabil-
ity of electromagnetic field quantities (English translation)", In: Cohen,
R.S., and Stachel, J. (eds.), Selected Papers by Leon Rosenfeld, Dor-
drecht, Reidel, 1978, pp. 357-400.
[16] Rosenfeld, L., In: DeWitt, B.S. (ed.), Conference on the Role
of Gravitation in Physics, Proceedings, W.A.D.C. Technical Report 57-
216; ASTIA Document No. AD118180, Wright Air Development Center,
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, 1957.
[17] Rovelli, C., "On quantum mechanics", LANL physics archive, hep-
th/9403015.
EMMANUEL HEMMERLIN
281
© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
282 EMMANUEL HEMMERLIN
level where, in accordance with the rule "not the same level, not the
same properties", there is a priori no solidity, no definite shape, no
deterministic behaviour.
What has to be understood by that is made clear by the quantal
formalism of the wave function. For instance, what has to be understood
by 'no definite shape' for the entity is, according to that formalism:
- no precise boundary (therefore, a fuzzy shape),
- deformation of that fuzzy shape when moving. (Nothing to do with
fuzzy sets.)
With that new concept of extended and deforming shape it is clear that
we have neither precise position, nor precise speed, and that is what is
behind the Heisenberg inequalities. (Note: if we listen to Heisenberg [1],
the origin of what was not yet laid down as a rule-and not applied
to the word matter-may be found in the work of Democritus himself.
As to J.M. Levy-Leblond [2], he maintains the word 'matter' at the
fundamental level, but suggests to see it as "without qualities".)
From what we have said it follows that an electron, for instance, is not
matter. That has an immediate and fundamental consequence as, if an
electron is not matter, the mass is a quantity of matter. Therefore an
electron must not be characterized by a mass!
How to proceed in order not to have the mass at the fundamental level
is simple. Let us take a relativistic form of the Schrodinger equation, that
of Dirac for instance, and just consider its mathematical structure: it is
a one-constant structure. Therefore only one constant must be used,
and, as we know nothing about the nature of reality at quantal level,
this constant will be primarily unknown. So, let us name it ko, thus
obtaining:
Now, we write the conventional form, with mass mo of course, but also
with two other constants, n and c:
8 ~ 2
(in at+ inca\!- f3moc )w = 0 (3)
F R 0 M Q U ANTAL T 0 MATER I A L LEVEL 283
So, we have there three constants instead of one and, if one is enough,
why three? ... As we want to compare that conventional form with the
new expression, we multiply relation (2) by nc, thus obtaining:
8 ~
(in 0 t + incaV'- {3nck 0 )iJ! = o (4)
Then, by identification we obtain the way that ko is related to conven-
tional physics:
n(koc) = moc 2 (5)
Now, when deriving the Schrodinger equation, one has to set:
3. N OUMEN AL PHYSICS
that way. But, what is less known is that according to Kant, matter-
and mechanical causality-are also 'a prioris'. They are 'a prioris' of
our understanding. Therefore, at this point I must pay tribute to the
astonishing precocity of Kant's analysis, itself rooted in the old Greek
questioning.
4. F R 0 M N0 U MEN A L T 0 0 R DIN A R Y PH Y S I C S
(9)
and:
df E
m=- (10)
c2
thus creating two very useful, but artificial, concepts. Just as, in order
to deal with thermics, we must set:
(11)
(12)
and, in accordance with what has been said above, we have to remove in
order to get back to the wave level. Asp= lik, this is very easy indeed.
We obtain:
(13)
(14)
as a complement to equation (9) defining E. (Now we understand what is
behind that formal quantity, the momentum, as we understand what is
behind that other formal quantity, the energy, that we have got so accus-
tomed to, and we also understand the 'relativistic' link between them as
k is the spatial equivalent to w). And then, by introducing the corpuscle
and its momentum-that we call its 'quantity of movement'- therefore
coming back to the Heisenberg inequalities, we create the interpretation
problem!
But at the wave level, indeed, we have no problem. More exactly, we
have only one problem: wave collapse, or wave reduction. Of course I
should perhaps say 'wave function' instead of just 'wave', but what I
have in mind should already be clear. I also think we should say 'mys-
tery' instead of 'problem', because we must not have preconceived ideas
about noumenal physics. However, it seems to me that all the known in-
terpretations of Quantum Mechanics are attempts at not to purely and
simply accepting the reduction, or at not accepting it as something phys-
ical: the reason is that it is viewed, by those who may let think that
they want the description of the whole universe by physics be total, as
an 'ugly scar'. (The G.R.W. theory [6], [7] may also be examined in such
FROM QUA NT AL TO MATERIAL LEVEL 287
6. PH I L 0 S 0 PH I CAL 0 PEN IN G S
AFFILIATION
Emmanuel Hemmerlin
50 place du Quebec
M ontpellier, France
REFERENCES
[1] Heisenberg, W., Physics and philosophy, Harper & Brothers, New
York, 1958.
[2] Levy-Leblond, J.M., Une matiere sans qualites?, lecture at College
de France, 1990.
[3] Hemmerlin, E., On the use of the relationship hv = mc2 to trans-
form physical equations.
F R 0 M QUANT A L T 0 MATER I A L LEVEL 289
1. INTRODUCTION
291
© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
292 D. AERTS, B. COECKE, S. SMETS
by the set of all properties of the entity (actual, or not, which is called
potential [9, 11, 34]), we are for every classical entity able to attach a
value true or false to every property respectively corresponding with the
property being actual or potential 2 • Of course, in certain situations we
might not know exactly the value of every property of the physical entity
(although they really exist). This means in fact that we have a lack of
knowledge on the properties of the entity. The mathematical tool deliv-
ered to deal with such a situation of a lack of knowledge on a classical
entity is a probability measure [1, 3]. In such a probability representa-
tion, if something is true to our knowledge it requires that we attach a
value 1 to it, and if it is false to our knowledge it requires a value 0. In
a lack of knowledge situation, we are dealing with values lying between
(and not equal to) 0 and 1, representative for a lack of certainty. The
most important example where we encounter such a lack of knowledge
situation is the one of a statistical ensemble, i.e., a collection of entities
to which we attach only global parameters (for example temperature,
density, velocity distributions etc ... ). Consider for example a quantity
of a liquid within a barrel: For every individual molecule in this liquid,
we know that it is located within the barrel, but we don't know where
exactly in the barrel; as a consequence, the properties related to the
individual molecules are not exactly known; nonetheless, we do know
which ones are very probable and which aren't.
For more than sixty years now, scientists have been trying to really un-
derstand quantum mechanics. This long period is at least partly due to
the fact that we are very attached to the classical picture of nature. Ac-
cording to Einstein and many others-who believed in what we can call
the classical picture of nature -the quantum description which should
represent an entity is incomplete. This has been a point of discussion for
many years, and we have now come to the conclusion that we believe that
it is indeed possible to give a complete realistic description of a quantum
entity. But what was the cause for this so called incompleteness? The fact
is that when the formalism of quantum mechanics had been constructed
around 1927 to describe microscopic systems, the only mathematical ex-
pression to describe an entity was an expression about possibilities or
2
At this point, the present reader might get a feeling of conceptual overkill. There-
fore, we already mention that it will be here that the troubles start in the quantum
case: false will not be implied by potential. As such, this more evolved conceptual
picture will enable us to point at the differences between the classical and quantum
system in a scheme that hosts both of them [9, 11].
P R 0 B A B I LIT IE S IN QUANTUM M E CHAN I C S 295
3
We consider the quantum state to give us an as complete as possible representation
of the elements of reality of the entity under consideration. With the words of C. Piron
[14]: 'The state is nothing else than the collection of all actual properties of the given
system.'
296 D. AERTS, B. COECKE, S. SMETS
4. ASP E C T S 0 F C REA T I 0 N
Figure 1. Illustration of a measurement eu on our model for a spin-~ entity when the
initial state is Pv.
Consider now a random variable ,\ defined on the segment [-u, u], and
suppose that the relative frequency of appearance of the possible ,\ is
uniformly distributed on [-u, u]. If,\ E [ -u, v'], the point corresponding
to the state of the entity moves to u along [v', u] and we obtain a state
Pu· If ,\ E ]v', u], the point moves to -u along [v', -u] and we obtain
P-u· As a consequence, there are two possible outcome states for this
measurement eu: Pu and P-u· From a more mechanical point of view, the
segment [-u, u] can be seen as a uniform 'elastic', that can break in every
one of its points in [-u, u] with the same probability. Before we put the
machine on, there is no way to find out in which point the elastic will
break. In the case we push the start-button of the quantum machine, we
get the following image: the point particle falls from its original location
on the elastic such that its 'falling-direction' is orthogonal to the elastic,
and sticks to it. Then the elastic breaks and the particle is torn to one
of the two original endpoints of the elastic. If we decide to perform a
measurement in the u direction when we start with a particle located in
a point v on the unit sphere, it is easy to calculate probabilities for a
transition of the particle to u or -u:
1+cos,B ,8
P[v --+ u] = = cos 2 - = 1 - P[v --+ -u]
2 2
P R 0 B ABILITIES IN QUANTUM MECHANIC S 299
AFFILIATION
Diederik Aerts,
Senior Research Associate at the Fund for Scientific Research-Flanders,
Center Leo Apostel & FUND, Brussels Free University,
Belgium
300 D. AERTS, B. GOECKE, S. SMETS
Bob Goecke,
Post Doctoral Researcher at the Fund for Scientific Research-Flanders,
Center Leo Apostel f3 FUND, Brussels Free University,
Belgium
Sonja Smets,
Research Assistant at the Fund for Scientific Research-Flanders,
Center Leo Apostel f3 FUND, Brussels Free University,
Belgium
REFERENCES
[15] Aerts, D., "A possible explanation for the probabilities of quantum
mechanics", J. Math. Phys., 27, 1986, p. 202.
[16] Aerts, D., "The origin of the non-classical character of the quan-
tum probability model", in: Blanquiere, A., Diner, S., and Lochak,
G. (eds.), Information, complexity, and control in quantum physics,
Springer-Verlag, Wien-New York, 1987, p. 77.
[17] Gudder, S.P., Quantum probability, Academic Press, 1988.
[18] Aerts, D., "A mechanistic classical laboratory situation violating
the Bell inequalities with 2J2, exactly 'in the same way' as its violations
by the EPR experiments", Helv. Phys. Acta, 64, 1991, p. 1.
[19] Aerts, D., "A macroscopical classical laboratory situation with
only macroscopical classical entities giving rise to a quantum mechani-
cal probability model", in: Accardi, L. (ed.), Quantum Probability and
related topics, volume VI, World Scientific Publishing, Singapore, 1991,
p. 75.
[20] Aerts, D., De Muze van het leven, quantummechanica en de aard
van de werkelijkheid, Pelckmans-Kok Agora, 1993.
[21] Aerts, D., "Quantum structures due to fluctuations of the mea-
surement situations", Int. J. Theor. Phys., 32, 1993, p. 2207.
[22] Aerts, D., "Quantum structures, separated physical entities and
probability", Found. Phys., 24, 1994, p. 1227.
[23] Coecke, B., "Generalization of the proof on the existence of hidden
measurements to experiments with an infinite set of outcomes", Found.
Phys. Lett., 8, 1995, p. 437.
[24] Coecke, B., Hidden measurement systems, Doctoral Dissertation,
Free University of Brussels, 1995.
[25] Aerts, D., and Aerts, S., "The hidden measurement approach to
quantum mechanics", in: Proceedings of the international conference on
the foundations of physics, Oviedo, Spain, Kluwer Academic, 1997.
[26] Coecke, B., "Classical representations for quantum-like systems
through an axiomatics for context dependence", Helv. Phys. Acta, 70,
1997, p. 442.
[27] Coecke, B., "A Classification of classical representations for quan-
tum-like systems", Helv. Phys. Acta, 70, 1997, p. 462.
[28] Aerts, D., Coecke, B., D'Hooghe, B., and Valckenborgh,
F., "A Mechanistic macroscopic physical entity with a three dimensional
Hilbert space description", Helv. Phys. Acta, 70, 1997, p. 793.
[29] Aerts, D., and Coecke, B., "The creation-discovery-view: to-
wards a possible explanation of quantum reality", in: Dalla Chiara,
302 D. AERTS, B. COECKE, S. SMETS
science, 31-34, 36-41, 43, 83 density, 66, 150, 227-230, 238, 260,
color vision, 151, 152 269, 294
common good, 28 Derrida, Jacques, 66, 201
common sense, 257 Descartes, Rene, 4, 31, 32, 64, 65, 68,
complementarity, 179, 197-202, 204, 152, 176-178, 181, 217
206, 208, 213, 214, 216, 220, 222, describability, 47, 207, 215, 219
227, 248 determinism, 80, 89, 91, 93, 226, 231,
linguistic, 214-217, 227, 248, 249, 247, 281, 282, 291, 292
251, 253, 254 Dirac, Paul Adrien Maurice, 271, 282
complex adaptive systems, 89 disciplinary structure of references,
compound systems in physics, 187- 121-123, 127-129
189 divine, 18-22, 25, 181
comprehension axiom, 215 doctrine, 17, 165, 177, 253, 256, 260
computationalism, 35 dogma, 27, 29, 50, 102, 200, 208
computer science, 31, 33 drug carrier, 129-131
Comte, Auguste, 253 Dummett, Michael, 244
concept of particle, 238, 242
connectionism, 38, 39, 41 earth magnetosphere, 108
continuous whole, 245, 246 eigenvalue decomposition, 152-154
continuum, 171, 179, 184, 237, 260 eigenvibration, 149, 152, 156
conventionalism, 3, 9-12, 91 Einstein, Albert, 1-13, 17, 25-27, 29,
corpuscular theories, 173, 176, 285, 53, 63, 64, 89, 140, 141, 144, 181-
286 184, 197, 200, 202, 204, 205, 226,
cosmic particles, 109 227, 239, 243, 245-247, 250-252,
cosmic rays, 112, 113 254, 255, 260, 268, 273, 275, 287,
creation, 59, 189, 260, 285, 287, 296, 293, 294
297 classical [atomic] realism, 245, 247,
act, 292, 296, 297 252, 255
aspects, 292, 293, 295, 296, 299 Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR), 197,
consciousness, 66 226
creation-discovery-view, 296, 297 Elea, 164-166,168,170-172,174,178,
Divine, 181 180, 185
human, 188, 189 layer, 178
information, 40 noumenon, 170
intuition, 53 ontology, 173, 176, 183, 184
Leibniz, 181 paradox of Zeno, 166
of properties, 189 Parmenides, 163, 165
Popper, 53 Parmenides' realism, 164
theory, 189 Zeno, 166
CSD (Differentiated Sector Colonies), elementarity, 238
113 empiricism, 1, 3-8, 12, 59, 69, 72, 74,
Cusanus, Nicolaus, 165, 185 75, 79-82, 85, 144, 152, 164, 168,
17 4, 175, 182, 184, 185, 187, 188,
data analysis, 150, 151, 159 251, 252
de Broglie, Prince Louis, 239, 240 energy, 84, 102, 104, 113, 114, 156,
de Chirico, Giorgio, 64 181, 199, 206, 225, 229, 231, 238-
INDEX 305