there was a discussion here about the relation between objectivity and subjectivity. This, from Bryan Appleyard's excellent Understanding the Present, seems pertinent:
"The quantum was not just a physical limit, it was also an epistemological limit, a frontier beyond which our knowledge could not pass. Built into the fabric of our world was the astonishing certainty of uncertainty. We could not know everything about a particle. The better we knew its velocity, the more vague was our knowledge of its position; the better we know its position, the more inadequate was our knowledge of its velocity. This was not a problem of observation, it was a calculable consequence of experiment, theory and observation. It was not simply that we could not know these facts, it was rather that they could not be known.
"Worse still, the fact of our observation appeared to affect the real world. Particles changed their nature according to whether they were observed. Just as later philosophers adapted Descartes's 'I think' to become 'There is thinking going on', so quantum theorists have effectively changed the experimental 'I observe' to 'There is an observation going on'. The subjective and the objective are blurred in the quantum world." (Emphasis mine.)
Not to be a wiseass or anything, Frank, but... so what? The quantum realm is a strange one, for sure, but we live in on a Newtonian/General Relativity level. Please don't tell me you're advocating a Deeprak Chopra-like "quantum mechanics says we can learn how to levitate!" junk argument.
ReplyDeleteThis is Heisenberg's "Uncertainty Principle," no? By "the present," does Bryan mean the last 60 years?
ReplyDeleteIt is the Uncertainty Prnciple, Susan, though other aspects of physics are involved. I think by 'present' I just meant now. I agree with the other Frank that quantum mechanics may not be directly relevant to the world in which we live. I think - this was 1992 - I was more preoccupied with the imaginative impact of such findings. I saw them as a form of theology. Deepak Chopra - no.
ReplyDeleteWell, Frank, I certainly wasn't endorsing Deepak Chopra, whose quantum speculations I have managed to miss until now. What I was suggesting is that quantum theory at least suggests that the subject/object relation may be a fundamental characteristic of reality - and that the idea of pure objectivity is fanciful.
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