There's been two big problems with attempts to fathom the meaning of quantum mechanics (the commonly used term by scientists in that field, rather than quantum physics).
New Age types, along with other mystically-inclined fans of quantum mechanics, make too much of what quantum mechanics means -- spouting indefensible notions of how we create our own reality, consciousness pervades the cosmos, and such.
Physicists, along with others who work with the applications of quantum mechanics, typically make too little of what quantum mechanics means -- proclaiming that all that counts is the astoundingly precise mathematics underlying this field, often encapsulated as "shut up and calculate."
People like me fall into an in-between realm. We're fascinated by quantum mechanics and devour attempts to make sense of quantum phenomena, but have minimal comprehension of the mathematics needed to truly understand quantum mechanics.
So I was excited when I learned about Heinrich Pas' book The One: How An Ancient Idea Holds the Future of Physics. Pas is a professor of theoretical physics at a German university and has conducted research visits at CERN and Fermilab, which makes him well qualified to explore the meaning of quantum mechanics.
His first paragraph in the chapter following an introduction does a good job of outlining what his book is about.
Quantum mechanics is the science behind nuclear explosions, smart phones, and particle collisions. But it is more than that. It sketches a hidden reality beyond what we experience in our daily routines and holds within it the power to transform our notion of what is real -- provided that it is taken seriously as a theory about nature. And therein lies the debate that begins our journey: How can we know that there exists something hidden that we can't experience directly? Doubts about this question launched the debate that ultimately returned the notion that "all is One" to the science most concerned with the separate identities and behaviors of the universe's most finicky bits and pieces.
Because quantum mechanics can be so complex, Pas makes use of metaphors to help us non-physicists grasp the central issues. Here's a key metaphor which I'm going to share by quoting from the first chapter, "The Hidden One," since if I tried to summarize the metaphor, I'm worried that I'd leave out something important.
We can obtain an even better understanding by comparing cosmic history with an old Hollywood movie. When we watch a film like Bringing Up Baby, the 1938 American screwball comedy starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, we experience a hilarious plot about a paleontologist trying to assemble the skeleton of a huge dinosaur, a project disrupted when he meets the crazy but beautiful Susan, who owns a tame leopard, and Susan's dog steals the last missing bone and buries it somewhere.
But the story we experience in the theater is not really stored on the roll of film. Instead, a traditional movie projector displays the information on the film, one picture after another, flashed so quickly that the viewer has the impression of an unfolding story line. Again, the story is not really on tape; it is created by the viewer's perspective onto the projected film.
The story is created by us watching it, while the original source of information remains unswayed, mounted on the projector. In the same way, cosmic history may be understood as what we experience, created by our perspective onto a fundamental "quantum reality."
The "Hollywood movie plot interpretation of cosmic history" offers an astonishingly accurate picture of how quantum mechanics works, highlighting the most important question quantum mechanics forces us to ask: What is reality? Is it the light bulb and the collection of pictures stored on the film roll inside the projector, or is it the story experienced on-screen?
Even today, there are two camps of physicists and philosophers arguing fervently about exactly this question.
The orthodox "Copenhagen" interpretation of quantum mechanics, advocated by Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and the overwhelming majority of physicists, insists that the movie plot constitutes reality. For many decades only a small number of outcasts, including (at least for some time) Erwin Schrödinger, Wheeler's student Hugh Everett, and the German physicist H. Dieter Zeh, populated the "projector camp."
This renegade view, however, is getting increasingly popular. It is part of a controversy that originated in the 1920s, as physicists fought out the question of how strange reality really is.
As you can probably guess, Pas is in the renegade projector camp. Otherwise his book would be a rather boring rendition of the traditional Copenhagen "shut up, calculate, and don't worry about the meaning of quantum mechanics" camp.
I'll be writing more about this book. For now, I'll end with the final paragraph in "The Hidden One" chapter, just to bookend how Pas begins and ends the chapter. Well, actually I need to include the next to final paragraph also. I'll break the paragraphs up to make them easier to read.
In a different place, though, Wheeler provided some clues: "The point is that the universe is a grand synthesis, putting itself together all the time as a whole... It is a totality." He also speculated whether "a comprehensive view of the physical world [would] come not from the bottom up -- from an endless tower of turtles standing one on the other --but from a grand pattern linking all of its parts."
The Hollywood movie plot interpretation can help to illustrate this point: Onscreen, Susan, the paleontologist, and the leopard appear as distinct, individual characters. On the film roll, though, they are all mere features of a single camera shot.
Quantum mechanics goes even further. In quantum mechanics, so-called entangled systems get so completely and entirely merged that it is not possible to say anything at all about the properties of their constituents anymore. In quantum mechanics, all individual objects and all their properties result from the perspective of the observer -- as, at least potentially, do matter, time and space: they don't really exist on the film but are part of the story experienced as unfolding on-screen.
In fact, this view again is strikingly similar to Plato's philosophy, which assumed that hidden on the most fundamental level there exists only one single object in the universe: the universe itself. Or, in the words of Plato, "The One."
Very interesting!
Don’t know quite what to make of this, so I won’t rush into commenting on it, or indeed into formulating some opinion even privately to myself, until I understand it a bit better.
Looking forward to your further posts discussing this.
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | July 10, 2023 at 11:47 PM
A quick knee-jerk, though: While Plato's idea works as a good metaphor for the movie playing on a screen, absolutely; but what little I've read here, of what Heinrich Pas is saying, seems better represented by the old Jain idea of the blind men milling around the elephant analogy. While superficially similar, but they're actually two very different ideas.
Sorry, like I said, just a knee-jerk that I couldn't stop myself thinking up (despite not wanting to rush to conclusions without understanding this better); and, having thought this, couldn't resist posting this comment. Don't mind me, I'll keep it zipped now until you've said more about this, and I've understood this a bit better.
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | July 11, 2023 at 12:03 AM
When you look at a traditional printed photo, perhaps from a magazine or textbook, if you look closely, you will see the photo is merely an arrangement of different colored dots. The dots are all the same size. There are only four colors, red, green, yellow, black in different arrangements.
It is the same on a television screen. The dots are projected only when you turn it on, and the screen us entirely black and dark what you turn it off. Even the dots were just a passing projection.
You perceive movement, but these are a series of still pictures. There is zero actual movement.
Even Newton, in his Calculus, demonstrated that all reality and time could be described as an infinite series of entirely static events.
From a distance you see the landscape, with far more colors, different objects. You see the movie ad of there were actual movement. Maybe someone you know there.
' there' is really inside your own mind.
Now imagine a photo that is an infinite number of layers deep and all translucent. Simply altering your point of view changes the picture you see. Altering your point of focus, the depth of your focus, nstantly changes what you see.
The senses and mind have their part to play in what we see, even in the number of layers we can perceive. But there is indeed a reality there. Many actually.
"Your idea is crazy. But it isn't crazy enough to be real"
Niels Bohr
Posted by: Spence Tepper | July 11, 2023 at 04:22 AM
"In the Copenhagen interpretation, by opening the box containing Schrödinger’s cat, you cause the wave function to collapse into one of its possible states, either alive or dead.
" In the Many -Worlds interpretation, the wave function doesn't collapse. Instead, all probabilities are realized. In one universe, you see the cat alive, and in another universe the cat will be dead.
" Right or wrong decisions become right and wrong decisions
" Decisions are also events that trigger the separation of multiple universes. We make thousands of big and little choices every day. Have you ever wondered what your life would be like had you made different decisions over the years?
" According to the Many-Worlds interpretation, you and all those unrealized decisions exist in different universes because all possible outcomes exist in the universal wave function. For every decision you make, at least two of "you" evolve on the other side of that decision. One universe exists for the choice you make, and one universe for the choice you didn’t make.
"If the Many-Worlds Interpretation is correct, then right now, a near infinite versions of you are living different and independent lives in their own universes. Moreover, each of the universes overlay each other and occupy the same space and time.
" It is also likely that you are currently living in a branch universe spun off from a decision made by a previous version of yourself, perhaps millions or billions of previous iterations ago. You have all the old memories of your pre-decision self, but as you move forward in your own universe, you live independently and create your unique and new memories.
"A Reality Check
" Which interpretation is correct? Copenhagen or Many-Worlds? Maybe neither. But because quantum mechanics is so strange, perhaps both are correct. It is also possible that a valid interpretation is yet to be expressed. In the end, correct or not, quantum interpretations are just plain fun to think about."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/moorinsights/2020/04/01/the-schizophrenic-world-of-quantum-interpretations/?sh=7b5cd51a6192
If your point of view changes, have you slipped across strings into another universe?
But if you do, won't you forget all past memory formed in that previous universe? And immediately pick up the memory from this universe as if it is all you ever knew?
Your world could change dramatically, but you will never know it. Do you change the world at all? Or simply move to the reality you chose? You can forget, even moment but moment, so memory won't help.
But to raise your consciousness so that you are now an observer of "you" opens the possibility of consciously moving from state to state, aware, and maybe even remembering. Indeed, slipping from one place to another may become merely a matter of focus.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | July 11, 2023 at 12:29 PM
Pointing to Plato, and monism, and so, imho, ineluctably pointing to God.
Posted by: SantMat64 | July 12, 2023 at 09:31 AM
SantMat64, in his book Pas points out that monism is very different from monotheism. Monism says there is only one substance, the physical world, so this actually undercuts belief in God, since God would have to be identical with the physical universe. Monotheism says there is one God, which almost always is viewed as the creator of the universe, not the universe itself.
Posted by: Brian Hines | July 12, 2023 at 10:48 AM
Monotheism can be monistic - such as the various forms of panentheism . Brian, you wrote a book on Plotinus - would you say that Neoplatonism is monistic ?
Posted by: Cassiodorus | July 12, 2023 at 05:01 PM
Neoplatonism is monistic in a certain sense. It speaks a lot about the One. But the idea is that while the One is in all things, the One is not identical to all of the things that have emanated from the One. So that leads Neoplatonism to have a dualistic sense as well as a monistic sense. It just depends on a point of view, and Plotinus often wasn't crystal clear in that regard.
Posted by: Brian Hines | July 12, 2023 at 09:01 PM
One or many? Monism or monotheism?
"But to raise your consciousness so that you are now an observer of "you" opens the possibility of consciously moving from state to state, aware, and maybe even remembering. Indeed, slipping from one place to another may become merely a matter of focus."
Posted by: Spence Tepper | July 13, 2023 at 04:19 AM
I’ve always taken the view that the tradition of “ classical theism “ that extended into the Middle Ages was/is a kind of weak panentheism - monotheistic because it draws a definite line between Creator and creation and yet monistic because the world derives its being from the One at every moment in the present.
Posted by: Cassiodorus | July 13, 2023 at 10:29 AM