ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) (10/09/85)
>>Add to that Heisenberg's insights, and science is no longer the objective >>and value-free endeavor that you want it to be. It seems highly dishonest >>to ever claim objectivity. It is an impossibility. >This reflects a very common misconception of "Heisenberg's Uncertainty >Principle"; it probably wouldn't be such a problem if it were more correctly >referred to as "Heisenberg's Uncertainty Rule", for it is a specific >statement about the interrelation of specific physical attributes, not some >sort of general principle about the subjectiveness of the universe.. > [A formal statement of HUP - omitted MCE] >.. now what does that say about objectivity and values? > What it does say is that what we call particles in fact are somewhat >wave-like, and the less their momentum (and thus mass) the more wave-like >they are. But it states it in a very explicit, *objective*, *value-free* >way. If the HUP as you stated was all that bothered scientists about QM, I do not think there would be much problem. After all, physicists dealt with particles, waves, position, momentum, and even randomness before 1930 without getting so bent out of shape. Sure. The measurements themselves are "objective". But JUST WHAT are we measuring? (1) Something out there that really possesses the attributes we measured (within a certain margin of error)? (2) Something out there that we decided "ought to have" certain attributes (momentum, position)? Nineteenth century scientists used to believe they were generating "absolute descriptions" of "genuinely existing things". There was little reason to doubt that there was not one correct "objective" worldview unified by comprehensive laws tying all levels of description together into a single logical edifice. Things have changed. The readings of our instruments are "real" enough. Everything else is subjective mass delusion, useful to the extent that our society believes in it (and it works..). Rather than interpret the "insights of Heisenberg" for you, here are his own words: "What we learn about is not nature itself but nature exposed to our "methods of questioning. "Any experiment in physics, whether it refers to the phenomena of "daily life or to atomic events, is to be described in the terms of "classical physics. The concepts of classical physics form the "language by which we describe the arrangement of our experiments and "state the results, We cannot and should not replace these concepts "by any others... The use of classical concepts is finally a "consequence of the general human way of thinking... There is no use "in discussing what could be done if we were beings other than what "we are. -michael The theoretical structure (of Bohr and Heisenberg) did not extend down and anchor itself on fundamental microscopic realities. Instead it turned back and anchored itself in the sense realities that form the basis of social life. -- Henry Stapp, Berkeley Physicist
sqa@rayssd.UUCP (Department Account SQA) (10/25/85)
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