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40 KiB
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552 lines
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HTML
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<title>Quantum Mechanics</title>
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<meta name="author" content="Amr Gharbeia">
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font color="#ff0000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>Q<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="TtsOtkCLQm_01" align="right" hspace="5" width="150" height="69" border="0">uantum
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Mechanics.</b></font></font> Quantum mechanics is the other great
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revolution in contemporary physics. Classical physicists would have
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admitted that the existence of ordinary material objects is a
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phenomenon that still needed an explanation, and as it turns out,
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that explanation came with the quantum revolution. Not only does
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quantum mechanics describe the electromagnetic forces responsible for
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the structure of all ordinary objects down to molecules and atoms,
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but the mathematics that is now used (in a gauge field theory called
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"quantum electrodynamics") is the model for explaining even
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the short-range forces (the strong and the weak forces) which
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responsible for the nucleus and deeper structure of material objects.
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The issues involved in explaining the truth of quantum mechanics is
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taken up in this chapter, and the two short-range forces, along with
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the basic particles of physics, will be explained in the next. The
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challenge posed by quantum mechanics and what is at stake in
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explaining its truth ontologically are discussed in the first
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section, and the rest of the chapter suggests one way, at least, in
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which its truth can be explained by spatiomaterialism. But at the
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outset, it should be noticed that spatiomaterialism already provides
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an explanation of how those forces are related to gravitation. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">One
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of the greatest current mysteries of contemporary physics concerns
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the relationship between the force of gravity and the other three
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basic forces of nature. The problem is that the electromagnetic force
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and the two short range forces are explained by the exchange of a
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distinctive kind of particle (the gauge boson, such as the photon, in
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the case of electromagnetism), and the general theory of relativity
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does not lend itself to representation as a gauge field theory. The
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most promising way to represent gravitation as the exchange of such
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gauge bosons (called “gravitons” in the case of gravitation)
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would incorporate all four basic forces and the objects on which they
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act. But this so-called “superstring theory” requires the
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postulation of ten or more dimensions to space, and it seems to be
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completely immune from possible empirical falsification. There is
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nothing to recommend it but the mathematical uniformity in the
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representation of all four basic forces of nature, and as we have
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seen exclusive reliance on mathematics does not necessarily lead to
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the best explanation. . </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Spatiomaterialism
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offers a solution to this problem, if quantum electrodynamics and the
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two short range forces are explained as interactions mediated by the
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inherent motion in space (that is, space as the "ether"),
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as I have been assuming, because this ontological explanation of
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relativity theory would also explain how the other three forces are
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related to gravitation. Gravitation is not a gauge theory, because
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the gravitational force acts on the inherent motion itself, that is,
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on space, not on bits of matter directly. It is by changing the
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“medium” (or "ether" as a condition of space) in which
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gauge particles are exchanged that gravitation accelerates bits of
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matter. It is not necessary for centers of matter accumulation to
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exchange gravitons with individual bits of matter in the region to
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accelerate them. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">What makes
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the problem of relating gravitation and the other forces seem so
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intractable is the assumption that it requires the discovery of a law
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of nature from which Einstein’s general theory of relativity as
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well as the gauge forces can all be derived. The discovery of a basic
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law covering all the basic kinds of interactions among bits of matter
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has long been the so-called “holy grail” of physics, and that is
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the assumption that has led to attempts to formulate a gauge theory
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of gravitation. It seemed that such a basic law of physics could be
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discovered only if gravitation could be represented mathematically in
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the same way as the other forces. That is the goal of superstring
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theory. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Spatiomaterialism
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would solve this problem <i>ontologically, </i>rather than
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mathematically. The solution does not require the discovery of a new
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law of nature from which all the other laws follow, but only an
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ontological explanation of the truth of the laws that have already
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been discovered, for that reveals how gravitation is related to the
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other three forces. We have seen how the truth of general relativity
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can be explained ontologically, and thus, if spatiomaterialism can
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explain the truth of the other basic forces of nature in terms of the
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inherent motion in space, there is an ontological explanation of the
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relationship between the two kinds of forces. It is the recognition
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of the inherent motion (or "ether") as an aspect of the
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essential nature of space that makes this possible. By contrast, the
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gauge field theories are, in effect, the attempt to represent space
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as nothing but the forces by which particles interact. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">If the
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explanation is ontological, what makes the problem of reconciling
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gravitation and the other forces of nature seem so intractable is,
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once again, the empirical method of physics, that is, the method of
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inferring to the best <i>efficient-cause explanations </i>of what
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happens in nature (and letting ontology be determined by realism
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about its theories). It was inevitable that physics would eventually
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find itself in this predicament, because physics first became a
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science by taking advantage of the power of mathematics to describe
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regularities about change. By insisting on mathematical theories that
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make surprising, quantitatively precise predictions of measurements,
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physics was able to discover the most abstruse facts about how bits
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of matter move and interact with one another. That is what enabled
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modern physics to go beyond the ancient atomists in understanding the
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nature of the elementary objects. But despite the acuity of its
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vision of regularities, physics was blind to a more basic aspect of
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the world. It failed to recognize that the job of science is not just
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to describe the regularities by which it is possible to predict and
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control what happens in the world, but also to describe the basic
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substances that constitute those regularities (not just the particles
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to which they refer, but all the substances that cause them
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ontologically). It comes from a failure to recognize that ontology
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can be explanatory in its own right and that ontological-cause
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explanations are a deeper kind of explanation from efficient-cause
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explanations, that is, from the same oversight that led to the
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Einsteinian revolution in the first place. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font color="#993366"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>T<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="TtsOtkCLQm_02" align="right" hspace="5" width="200" height="36" border="0">he
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challenge of quantum mechanics. </b></font></font>Like the
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Einsteinian revolution, quantum mechanics might also be thought to
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pose a challenge for ontological philosophy. The quantum revolution
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has also overthrown assumptions of classical physics about the nature
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of the world, and if spatiomaterialism were unable to explain
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ontologically why the laws of quantum mechanics are true, physics
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might provides a reason for denying that ontological philosophy can
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use spatiomaterialism as the foundation for doing philosophy in a new
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way, despite its explanation of relativity theory. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
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quantum revolution does not, however, challenge spatiomaterialism in
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the same, direct way as relativity. Quantum mechanics has not led to
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any consensus among physicists about the nature of what exists that
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is incompatible with spatiomaterialism. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The
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Einsteinian revolution is generally assumed to be the discovery of
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something that directly contradicts spatiomaterialism. In
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contemporary physics, absolute space and absolute time have
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explicitly been replaced by spacetime. But absolute space and time
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are entailed by the assumption that space and matter are substances
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enduring though time. Thus, in order to defend the use of
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spatiomaterialism as the foundation for this philosophical argument,
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I had to show that what Einstein’s two theories imply about the
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world could be explained on the assumption that space and time are
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absolute. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The quantum
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revolution has not led to ontological beliefs that directly
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contradict spatiomaterialism. This is partly because there is no
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consensus among physicists concerning what quantum mechanics implies
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about the nature of what exists. There is no dispute about the laws
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themselves; they are among the most precise and highly confirmed in
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physics. But scientific realism about quantum mechanics does lead to
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general agreement in ontological beliefs. There are so many disputes
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about the kinds of entities that are required for the laws of quantum
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mechanics to be true and they are so intractable that most physicists
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beat a hasty retreat to their empirical method and take cover by
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simply pointing out that its laws are the best way of predicting and
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controlling the relevant phenomena. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">To be sure,
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there are ontological interpretations of quantum mechanics that are
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incompatible with spatiomaterialism. For example, some philosophers
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take measurements in quantum mechanics (involving the so-called
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“collapse of the wavefunction”) to be an event that depends on a
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conscious mind coming to know something about the world, and that is
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to assume that mind is a fundamentally different kind of substance
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from matter, which is is a form of immaterialism that
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spatiomaterialism rejects. Another interpretation, called the “many
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worlds view,” interprets measurement in quantum mechanics (again,
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the collapse of the wavefunction) to be the occasion of the universe
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splitting into different universes in which each of the different
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possible outcomes of each measurement are realized, which is not
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compatible with the world being constituted by substances. However,
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the possibility of such views is hardly an objection to
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spatiomaterialism, as long as it is possible to give an ontological
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interpretation of quantum mechanics that is compatible with
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spatiomaterialism. Thus, the issue is whether <i>all </i>possible
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ontological interpretations are incompatible with spatiomaterialism.
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It was the universal assumption that Einsteinian relativity is
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incompatible with space being absolute that forced us to take out a
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mortgage on spatiomaterialism, promising to show how it can explain
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Einstein’s two relativity theories ontologically as a condition of
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using it as the foundation for ontological philosophy. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">To
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be sure quantum mechanics did overthrow the <i>classical </i>view of
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the nature of matter. But that does not necessarily challenge
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spatiomaterialism, because spatiomaterialism is no more committed to
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the classical view of matter than it is to the classical view of
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space. The relevant issue is whether it is <i>possible </i>to explain
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the truth of the laws of quantum mechanics by making assumptions
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about the nature of matter (and space) that are consistent with
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spatiomaterialism. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Materialism
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in general is not generally thought to be what is refuted by quantum
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mechanics. On the contrary, many physicists who are quite confident
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of the truth of quantum mechanics would consider themselves
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“materialists” in the broad sense in which that term is used to
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classify ontological positions. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The
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question is what more specific essential nature material substances
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must have in order for quantum mechanics to be true. It is clear that
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the regularities described by quantum mechanics cannot be explained
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ontologically by the kinds of material objects and light waves
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recognized by classical physics. But spatiomaterialism does not have
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to defend that view of matter. Indeed, as we have seen, its
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explanation of why the laws of classical physics are true (insofar as
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they are true) depends on assumptions about the nature of matter that
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are not part of classical physics. I assumed, for example, that
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kinetic energy is a form of matter that exists in addition to the
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rest masses of material objects, and that potential energy is as form
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of matter (force field matter) that is already counted in the rest
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masses of the objects exerting the forces. And in explaining the
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truth of the special and general theories of relativity, I have made
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further non-classical assumptions about the nature of the world —
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for example, that there is an inherent motion in space and that it
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can itself be accelerated and have a velocity relative to space. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">This
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is not to say that there is nothing puzzling about quantum mechanics.
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There are two, basically different ways that it might seem to
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challenge spatiomaterialism directly. One has to do with a long
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recognized indeterminacy about its predictions, and the other is a
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more recently discovered problem about action at a distance (deriving
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from Bell’s theorem). </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><b>Indeterminism.</b>
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The laws of quantum mechanics do not describe nature as having
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deterministic causal connections among states of affairs. Those laws
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often imply only that, given everything that can be known about a
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given situation, any of a number of different states might follow (or
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precede) it. The most that can be done is to assign a probability to
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each of those possible outcomes.</font></font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">This is
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fundamentally different from classical physics, for its laws were
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deterministic. As Laplace pointed out in the eighteenth century, if
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the basic laws of classical physics are true, then given a complete
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description of the current situation (even the state of whole
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universe), it would be possible, in principle, to predict any future
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state (or even any earlier state). The state of the universe (or any
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closed system) at any one moment determines its state at every other
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moment. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Even in
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very limited situations, the laws of quantum mechanics do not usually
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support such deterministic predictions. Given a complete quantum
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mechanical description of a situation, there is a range of possible
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events that can happen (such as what measurements will reveal), and
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there is no way of saying which one it will be (though it is possible
|
||
to assign probabilities to the alternatives). Thus, physics no longer
|
||
assumes that complete knowledge of the current state of the universe
|
||
would make it possible to predict what would happen.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">This lack
|
||
of precise predictability comes from the nature of the Schrödinger
|
||
equation. Its solution for a given situation is a wavefunction which
|
||
is a complete quantum description of that situation (in
|
||
pre-relativistic quantum mechanics). It describes precisely how the
|
||
quantum system evolves as time passes, just like a wavefunction in
|
||
classical physics. But the Schrödinger wavefunction is not
|
||
classical, because it involves complex numbers (containing <i>i</i>,
|
||
or the square root of minus one), and the space in which the wave is
|
||
contained is a “configuration space,” which is a space with three
|
||
times as many dimensions as there are particles involved in the
|
||
situation being described. There is no obvious way to relate such a
|
||
wavefunction to the natural world. The standard interpretation of the
|
||
Schrödinger wavefunction takes the square of the amplitude of the
|
||
wavefunction (for a single particle) in any small region of space to
|
||
represent the <i>probability </i>of finding the particle at that
|
||
location. (And there are mathematical operators on the wavefunction
|
||
that predict measurements, but they cannot predict precisely both of
|
||
any pair of complementary variables, such as the position and
|
||
momentum of an electron.)</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">This
|
||
limitation on precise predictions of what will happen is summed up in
|
||
the famous Heisenberg uncertainty principle. This principle can be
|
||
taken as reflecting either an indeterminism about the world itself or
|
||
as merely an incompleteness in what can be known about it. Though in
|
||
either case, it is a limitation in principle, rather than practice, a
|
||
mere incompleteness in our possible knowledge about the world would
|
||
not contradict spatiomaterialism. Substances enduring through time
|
||
could still constitute causal connections, even if some aspects of
|
||
those substances cannot be measured precisely. Furthermore, even if
|
||
this uncertainty did derive from an indeterminism in the nature of
|
||
what happens independently of how it is known, it would not
|
||
necessarily be incompatible with spatiomaterialism. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Indeterminism
|
||
would contradict spatiomaterialism if it was incompatible with the
|
||
world being constituted by substances enduring through time. Such an
|
||
extreme indeterminism would be true, if the predictions supported by
|
||
quantum mechanics corresponded to <i>all </i>the causal connections
|
||
that there are between the properties that hold at one moment and the
|
||
those that hold at the next. To hold that what is unpredictable is
|
||
not determined at all is incompatible with any explanation of the
|
||
world as constituted by substances enduring though time, because it
|
||
is to assume, in effect, that something comes from nothing. What is
|
||
unpredictable about the next moment would not depend in any way on
|
||
what existed at the previous moment, and since it would have to come
|
||
from nothing at all, extreme indeterminism would contradict the
|
||
assumption that the world (and all its aspects) are constituted by
|
||
substances enduring through time. Though this does not bother
|
||
epistemologically minded naturalists, it would be a death blow to
|
||
ontological naturalism.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">A less
|
||
extreme form of indeterminism is compatible with an ontological
|
||
explanation of the natural world, though it is still hard to swallow.
|
||
Indeterminism might hold that what is unpredictable according to the
|
||
Heisenberg principle is a result of an inherent randomness in the
|
||
essential nature of the matter making up the world. This would be
|
||
more than a mere limitation in what <i>we </i>can know about the
|
||
determining conditions, because it also would be a limitation in what
|
||
even God could know. There would be no need to believe that something
|
||
comes from nothing, because what exists at the next moment would be
|
||
constituted by the same substances that constituted the world at the
|
||
previous moment. But here would be no aspect of the nature of those
|
||
substances at the previous moment that determines which of certain
|
||
aspects it will have the next moment, because the randomness would be
|
||
an aspect of the essential nature of the kind of matter that
|
||
constitutes the world. The randomness would be a temporally complex
|
||
aspect of the essential nature of matter, for it would make the
|
||
connections between properties that substances have at different
|
||
moments random. It would be as if matter itself contained a
|
||
randomness generator that even God could not use to predict what will
|
||
happen (though God would presumably still know the future, since he
|
||
is the creator of all the moments of the world). Though such a view
|
||
about the nature of matter would be consistent with
|
||
spatiomaterialism, it would not be as good as one that could give a
|
||
genuine ontological explanation of what happens, that is, which
|
||
explains what happens as aspects of the world that follow from the
|
||
natures of the basic substances as they endure through time
|
||
constituting the world. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">However,
|
||
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle does not preclude a genuine
|
||
ontological explanation of what is unpredictable. To hold that
|
||
quantum uncertainty is merely a limitation in what beings like us,
|
||
who are parts of the world, can know about the world is to hold that
|
||
what happens does have a cause, but that we cannot know precisely
|
||
what it is. This is to interpret the probabilistic nature of quantum
|
||
mechanics as an <i>incompleteness</i> in our knowledge, rather than
|
||
as <i>indeterminism</i> about the world. It assumes that there is
|
||
some “hidden variable” that is actually determining what happens,
|
||
though for some reason, that variable cannot be measured. That is not
|
||
incompatible with spatiomaterialism, because the reason for the
|
||
Heisenberg uncertainty could be that the interactions required for
|
||
scientists, as material objects in space, to know about particular
|
||
conditions in the world so disturb the world that they alter the
|
||
conditions being known. That limitation must, of course, be caused by
|
||
the basic nature of those interactions. But that does not mean that
|
||
it is impossible to identify the nature of the hidden variable. It
|
||
means only that its quantity cannot be measured accurately in any
|
||
particular case. And having inferred to spatiomaterialism as the best
|
||
ontological explanation of the world, we may be in a better position
|
||
to identify the nature of the hidden variable that makes quantum
|
||
mechanics incomplete. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><b>Bell’s
|
||
theorem.</b> Though the traditional puzzles about the apparent
|
||
indeterminism of quantum mechanics do not necessarily contradict
|
||
spatiomaterialism, there is a more recently discovered implication of
|
||
quantum mechanics that may. It occurs when particles separate from
|
||
one another in a way that gives them opposite orientations of a
|
||
quantum property called “spin.” John Bell showed that when such
|
||
particles move away from one another in opposite directions, it is
|
||
possible for a measurement made of one particle at one location to
|
||
predict (probabilistically) measurements that are made at another
|
||
location more accurately than would be possible if the particles had
|
||
the properties being measured from the time they parted from one
|
||
another. These “Bell correlations,” as I will call them, seem to
|
||
imply that spin is not a property that the particles carry with them
|
||
locally, but one that depends on the entire system, including both
|
||
particles rushing away from each other. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">This
|
||
suggests according to a standard interpretation of quantum mechanics
|
||
that the measurement of one particle affects the other particle (that
|
||
is, that such effects are part of what is called the “collapse of
|
||
the wavefunction”). But if measurement does have such effects, then
|
||
it would have to be able to have its effect faster than the velocity
|
||
of light, and that seems to contradict the principle of local action.
|
||
I have assumed that what happens in one part of space cannot affect
|
||
what happens elsewhere any faster than the velocity of light, for
|
||
that velocity is determined by the inherent motion in space. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">There is,
|
||
however, something suspicious about the Bell correlations. There is
|
||
no other evidence of faster than light effects in nature.
|
||
Furthermore, it has been shown that, whatever is going on, Bell
|
||
correlations are the kind of signal that can be used to communicate
|
||
information. They are peculiarly lacking in further consequences.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">It is not
|
||
clear, therefore, that this departure of quantum mechanics from
|
||
Bell’s theorem (about what local action entails) depends on one
|
||
measurement affecting the other measurement causally. However,
|
||
worries about the possibility of action at a distance will probably
|
||
not be put to rest completely unless it is explained how it is
|
||
possible for quantum mechanics to make such predictions. Thus, there
|
||
something that needs explaining. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">There
|
||
is, therefore, reason to explore the ontological explanations of
|
||
quantum mechanics that are opened up by spatiomaterialism. We would
|
||
be justified in using spatiomaterialism as the foundation for
|
||
ontological philosophy without explaining why quantum mechanics is
|
||
true. But if its explanation of the aspects of the natural world to
|
||
which the equations of quantum mechanics correspond did help clear up
|
||
the quantum puzzles, there would be an additional reason for
|
||
believing that spatiomaterialism is true.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||
the first section, I will review the traditional puzzles about the
|
||
nature of matter posed by quantum mechanics. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||
the second section, I will introduce several new assumptions about
|
||
the nature of space and matter and show how they would enable
|
||
spatiomaterialism to explain the forms of matter that were assumed in
|
||
explaining the truth of the laws of classical physics. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
third section will return to the quantum puzzles and show how the
|
||
proposed ontological assumptions would explain those puzzling
|
||
phenomena ontologically, including a response to the challenge that
|
||
seems to be posed for spatiomaterialism by the more recent discovery
|
||
of Bell correlations. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">This more
|
||
detailed ontological theory about the nature of matter is offered in
|
||
a speculative vein. It differs from the ontological explanation of
|
||
relativity theory, because no such explanation must be given in order
|
||
to use spatiomaterialism for philosophical purposes. And it differs
|
||
from the arguments to come about global regularities, because they
|
||
attempt to prove that certain proposition are ontologically necessary
|
||
truths. The reason that this ontological explanation of quantum
|
||
mechanics is not ontologically necessary is that there may be other
|
||
ontological explanations of quantum mechanics that are also
|
||
consistent with spatiomaterialism (and what is says about relativity
|
||
theory). Thus, the most I would claim to show is that some such
|
||
ontological explanation is true. It may not be this one, but it will
|
||
be clear, I believe, that there is some way of explaining the truth
|
||
of quantum mechanics on a spatiomaterialist foundation. And since
|
||
speculation is valuable as a way of exploring the possibilities, this
|
||
particular version of spatiomaterialism may contribute to the
|
||
discovery of the more complete truth about the natural world. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">This
|
||
explanation of quantum mechanics is, like its explanation of
|
||
relativity theory, ontological, rather than mathematical. I will be
|
||
trying to show how the new phenomena predicted by quantum mechanics
|
||
can be constituted by space and matter as substances enduring through
|
||
time, not that there is a better efficient-cause explanation of what
|
||
happens. It does not claim to make any new predictions of what
|
||
happens in the world.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Though
|
||
I will give reasons for believing that this ontological explanation
|
||
is quantitatively accurate (or can be made so), I will not try to
|
||
show in detail how the formidable mathematical formalism of quantum
|
||
mechanics relates to the world. Such a mathematical argument would
|
||
take us too far afield. And in any case, it has already been done by
|
||
David Bohm. (See <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/ObjText/#Bohm">Bohm</a></u></font>,
|
||
1993, with Basil J. Hiley.) That is, the ontology I will be proposing
|
||
is a variation on the ontology that Bohm shows to correspond to the
|
||
Schrödinger equation, the basic equation of quantum mechanics, and
|
||
thus, if Bohm’s ontology is a possible explanation of the truth of
|
||
quantum mechanics, then so is this one. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">There are
|
||
many good accounts of quantum mechanics, but a reasonably accessible
|
||
one that I have recently found useful is Jim <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/ObjText/#Bohm">Baggott's</a></u></font>
|
||
<i>The Meaning of Quantum Theory. </i></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||
most cases, it will be clear that the kinds of assumptions I will be
|
||
making can be refined to made them quantitatively adequate. This is
|
||
much the same attitude I took in explaining ontologically the truth
|
||
of general relativity, except that in the case of quantum mechanics,
|
||
I also leave open the choice between various more detailed,
|
||
alternative ontological assumptions. Thus, in order to show that it
|
||
is not possible to explain the truth of quantum mechanics
|
||
ontologically in this way, it would be necessary to show that none of
|
||
these possibilities can be quantitatively adequate for the whole
|
||
range of quantum phenomena. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Nor
|
||
do I claim that the ontological theory being presented here is the
|
||
best spatiomaterialist explanation of quantum mechanics, only that it
|
||
(or one much like it) is possible in the sense of accounting for all
|
||
the relevant phenomena. There may be ways in which space and matter
|
||
existing together as a world can explain the truth of quantum
|
||
mechanics more simply. That would be interesting and preferable. But
|
||
it is not the crucial point, because the possibility of such an
|
||
ontological explanation is all that is relevant to rest of
|
||
ontological philosophy. And seeing how it is possible is the first
|
||
step toward discovering the best such theory.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
</body>
|
||
</html>
|