Metaphysical physics

Metaphysical physics

An essay about philosophy and it's role in physics.

Frederik C.A. Kerling

Physics and Metaphysics

“...the past has no existence except as it is recorded in the present. (...) we would seem forced to say that no phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon. The universe does not 'exist, out there' independent of all acts of observation. Instead, it is in some strange sense a participatory universe” --- John Archibald Wheeler¹

The above quote was perhaps the most meaningful to me in the previous year of my academic education. It took me 5 years of study, and another few years of preparation just to understand the math and philosophical meaning of this quote, taken from a single paragraph from an enchanting work of science. It is a great example of what John Bell called 'metaphysical experimentation', a freak afterbirth of instrumentalism. At the one hand instrumentalists would enjoy the experimentalist approach, on the other they would probably shiver by adding previously metaphysical terms into the realm of nature. However in doing so, it becomes apparent what Descartes knew all along. It is about the things we doubt that give us certainty of knowledge.

In continuation of the above work it becomes usefully as to how we have even gotten to be at this point in science. And in the following paragraphs I will discuss the nature of human knowledge, Kant's Phenomena, Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation, realism and the purpose of science itself. In doing so I will use the works by Anne-Ruth Mackor², Stephen Richards³, Niels Bohr^4,5, Yoav Ben-Dov⁶, David Favrholdt⁷ and Peter Kroes⁸. All this in a hope to clarify how some parts of metaphysics should be added to physics and how metaphysical concepts can help to clarify the world around us and vice versa.

Kant and the nature of knowledge.

An uncanny question to any esoteric new-age thinker is when you ask them how that it is that they 'know' something. Generally they will say they 'just know'. And with that the discussion usually ends. This is naturally because this knowledge is based upon faith. In this article we will not discuss this. It is however required to name faith as it is so widespread among humans, if only because the lack (of the act) of proving justifies all faith.

Knowledge however is bound to proof. As scientists we cannot state to know anything if we do not have communicable proof of this knowledge. Whether we conduct our science in a rationalist and therefore intellectually sound way, or if we empirically look at experiments to proof our hypothesis. We need to prove our claims for knowledge to exist, and have found it useful to share this knowledge. These two ways, rationalism and empiricism, are two main concepts in human thinking.

Empiricism asserts that knowledge is gained by the use of observation by sensory experience. It emphasizes the use of the experiment in trying to explain things and formulate ideas. It is therefore considered to be infallible, because any principle is simply given in sensory experience. So what disagreements might arise must therefore stem from operations in the fallible human mind.

Rationalism asserts that knowledge must be intellectual and deductive in nature. The basis of such deductions are axioms and/or a priori knowledge. Which is knowledge independent of experience. It also states that pure reason becomes flawed once it tries to go beyond the realm of possible experience. Hence there must exist things outside this realm, Kant called this Ding-an-Sich.

In the (continental) discussion between these two groups Empiricists state that no knowledge past experience is possible. Whereas realists claim that this is possible, and that the lack of rationalism is a deprivation of what knowledge about the world is possible, when we cannot experience it. Empiricists then say that if we cannot experience it, it cannot be real either. This renders the question if induction can really lead to knowledge.

This problem addresses problems in empiricism like the generalization of properties of a set of objects, can knowledge still be knowledge when we exclude what might be possible. It also addresses the problem of continuation. How do we know that for instance the laws of physics will hold in the future as they hold today?
Kant attempts to solve this problem by the introduction of Noumena and Phenomena, In which the noumena is beyond the realm of experience. And phenomena do lie within the realm of experience but can be considered to not completely describe the noumena they come from. Kant's view however does not solve the problem of induction, even though generalizations can now be critically acclaimed to be of the same noumena, continuation cannot be proven. The generalizations however also give a new problem of antimonies as different generalizations might come from the same noumena.
Kant however does manage to introduce categories that make the characterize the empirical knowledge we gain. Such a priori knowledge describes an interaction of information with the mind, and is therefore empirically not incorrect.
Kant's antimonies can be used to understand the particle wave paradox in quantum mechanics. As is some experimental generalizations particles are viewed as waves, and in some as particles. Which seem to contradict one another, whereas in a 4 dimensional theory of fields this problem disappears, but is rather hard to understand. One could however wonder if such generalizations of noumena are a deprivation of these noumena, or that they are in fact when the noumena become. That the act of observation doesn't give only part of the knowledge we could possibly gain from the noumena, or that this act in fact limits the noumena in itself. And defines what it is, was or becomes. This is also upheld in the Copenhagen Interpretation. Which will be discussed later in this essay.

Realism versus Instrumentalism

When viewing the 'real world' one can apply the concepts of empiricism and rationalism to the knowledge we can subtract from this 'real world'. In doing so one must however determine just exactly what this real world is. Or what statements about this world can be considered to be 'true'. And therefore what 'reality' is. This results (among others) in 2 different ways of reality which will be discussed here. One being realism, and the other being instrumentalist.

Realism is the idea that there are really 3 worlds, the real world, theory and our observations of the real world. Each can interact with the other world, but are all essentially different. The problem is that we cannot perceive the real world, and must do this via theory and our perceptions. The Theory must therefore describe the real world, which exists independent of us. The theory therefore explains what observations where transmitted to the observational world from the real (objective) reality.

Instrumentalism says there is only observations, and that theory is only a tool to categorize these observations and not a world of truth in itself. Science should therefore be seen independent of metaphysical concepts. And its goal should be the simplification of observations. Theories that arise from this are only as valuable as their predictive power is.

Problems with instrumentalism are that observation and knowledge are intricately connected to each other. And that the theoretical minimalism of the view reduces the new discoveries. Whereas problems with realism is that no direct knowledge of the real world is possible. And that multiple metaphysically different theories can accurately describe the same phenomena in the observational world. Also simplicity does not equal truth and observers can influence the experiment.

Each of these views offer a different opinion to what should be the goal of science. Realists try to understand the real world and with it all of its possible observations. Whereas instrumentalists merely seek to categorize and simplify all that is known and observed.

Particle physics, especially high energy particle physics is a good example how these two world views can clash. The model that is central in this field is the standard model. Which is a theory that predicts the existence of all the particles by a use of symmetries and relativity. It is a highly realistic approach of the world. Whereas the theory is the foremost tested and confirmed theory in the world. Partially this is because the theory is an-sich incomplete. And is constantly fine tuned by the use of previous observations to make more accurate predictions in the future. If from an instrumentalist point of view one was to observe all these particles separately one would also make use of the standard model to simplify it. There is however also critique on the realistic part. For instance in the derivation of the Higgs particle it is assumed that the universe is infinite. Not finding the Higgs particle could simply imply that the Universe is finite. It is in such claims that one might wonder if the use of such large experimental projects is useful at all, when such easy contradictions can arise.

The search of this particle is expensive and one could wonder if the confirmation of the existence of the Higgs particle is worth it at all. But considering things like international cooperation, the previous success of the standard theory and the promise of a complete microscopical understanding, make the price tag seem cheap.

Bohr, Copenhagen and reality

When considering knowledge it is possible that antimonies arise in places where one wouldn't expect them. This phenomena is sometimes called the duality problem, where phenomena have multiple mutually exclusive explanations. It is Niels Bohr who took up this problem to start and form one of most influential theories of the 20^th century.

Even though Bohr himself probably never read Kant, physical experimentations proposed the problem of duality by itself. The analogy between Kant and Bohr is large. Both believe that there exists knowledge that does not completely apply to experience. And both reason that the existence of antimonies do not deprive our knowledge of the world. Bohr's view however is going further.

In short the world exists out of 4-dimensional waves. Or momentum and energy both are characterized by waves. It is therefore not integer deterministic and must therefore be described by a probabilistic theory. This also helps to characterize what we do not, and essentially cannot know about things in the world. Things can be complementary to each other, like waves and particles. And most can sometimes be considered at the same time to both correctly explain phenomena. Measuring or the act of observation is a classical act, as humans are classical and macroscopic beings. And we must be capable of conversing our knowledge of the quantum world by the use of language.

From this follows that knowledge about noumena is physically limited. As can be proved by experiment. This uncertainty principle looks a lot like the problem of induction which Kant tried to solve.

Bohr, Planck, Mach and the purpose of science.

In the above we have seen that the gathering of knowledge induces all sorts of metaphysical problems. And that the conducting of science itself seems subjective to its purpose. One therefore should ask what the purpose of science is. As is discussed in the paragraph about realism and instrumentalism. But this question cannot be answered without reviewing Bohr's viewpoint.

A Discussion point of Bohr's view is whether Bohr is a realist or instrumentalist. His general lack of philosophical education makes this an item of debate. In his life Bohr has more and more stressed the importance of formulation of concepts. Whereas this has little to do with what is the substantial meaning of his view. Bohr says that reality does not exist an-sich but that it literally shaped by the act of observation. This makes the act of observation an elemental part of the theory. And It is therefore required to incorporate metaphysical concepts into the theory in order to substantiate it. This is in contradiction of instrumentalism which seeks to purge these concepts from science as they are not required to mathematical categorize observed phenomena.

This implies that Bohr is in fact a realist. He seeks to explain and understand the nature of quantum physics, in however doing do he accepts that he cannot describe a 'real world' and that this world is devoid of existence at all. Instead Bohr's viewpoint eliminates the 'real world' but upholds the world of theory and of perception. In which perception is the actual reality included with it our acts of observation. And the world of theory our mental constructs to explain, understand and predict the reality. In communication between these lies the problems of choice, consciousness and contextuality.

This puts Bohr right in the middle of the debate between realism and instrumentalism. Ironically though Bohr's main argument for the purpose of science is that we can use it to communicate knowledge to each other. Science has no so much an obligation to explain the world, or to just categorize knowledge. But science is there to tell us what we can, and what we cannot tell about the world. This has put him into an attempt to bridge a contextuality gap between existing world views and that of his own. In a sense, Science has no purpose if we cannot communicate it to one another.

Favrholdt's interpretation of a realist Bohr is in my opinion not very feasible. Yes Bohr spoke in a realist fashion, after all he was attempting to describe the world using the only language he knew, quantum mechanics. But it is important to realize that this very language, is only a language of differences. It would seem too cocksure to state that a man speaks in set truths about an absolute reality, if the only language he has to do this can only speak about the differences between states from a reality. Bohr never spoke about what reality is, but how it communicates with us and itself. It would be like talking about the cables between the computers and stating that it by doing so, you state things about the computers they come from. No, that isn't the case after all, we might get to know how there computers process information, we wouldn't know anything about what these computers would be like.
Bohr was therefore more an anti-realist. After all he stated that what he know to be right isn't about reality, and that the sheer act of observation is a contradiction of the existence of an objective reality. But, having read a lot of his works I can say this. He was convinced it was true, but he couldn't find peace with the idea. After all, living life in communicational bliss is great, but it can be hard if you have no set certainties to fall back upon. Bohr knew this, and it would mean that some things cannot be assumed to remain if you stop observing.

Personal world view

In the following few paragraphs I will try to explain my personal world view with respect to the discussed metaphysical concepts discussed so far. I will try to be as elaborate and unambiguous as possible.

As a beginning I will start with Gödel's famous incompleteness theorem. This is not really known, and not directly applicable to everything like I will do now. But it is a nice concept which I think would deserve the state of ab-initio knowledge. It basically states that no rational system of concept can exist without contradicting its own axiom(s). This is the start of my philosophy. For the axiom from which I will base my world view upon, I will choose one that is easily contradicted but in a way that I can cognitively accept.

My first axiom, or actually only axiom, is that what I can observe must be reality. Basically I inherit the instrumentalist point of view. Only that what I can observe, can and will be part of what consider to be the realm of reality. This is of course easily contradicted, because I have no way of knowing whether my sense are not deceiving me. I could be living in a matrix. But my axiom is a choice, almost like faith, to disregard this. And to not live a paranoiac life of uncertainty. I will call this my Prime Assumption (PA)

From this I arrive almost directly to physics. After all, physics is a science of nature, which is where I live in, and hence can observe. In physics everything can be experimented, and these experiments can be conducted by everyone everywhere. And so I can share my world view of what is true, or more important, I can test the statements made by others to be verified by my PA. And so I can choose to refute or to inherit parts of the world observed by others. Naturally I cannot test all possible natural phenomena, and so I must adopt parts of realism to make up for this personal instrumentalist shortcoming.

Theory should describe reality, it should describe my reality. And if by a theory I can observe certain crucial things, I will accept a theory to be describing my reality in a accurate way in the region of physics in which it applies. A theory should however also account for that what is unknown. Only a clear formulation of the lack of knowledge gives a theory a value to be workable with my PA. After all, what is unknown lies beyond my PA and I do not want that to disturb the image I have of reality. This means that every theory has a considerable large quantities of incapacities that do not describe nature. But as Gödel's theorem already said, no single axiom can exist without contradicting itself. So it is important that for my PA to uphold in theory, there must be theories that seem to contradict other theories, and that they therefore share unknown parts. Theories therefore only overlap in parts of the unknown. And no single theory of everything should exist. At least to apply for my PA.

This results into a different problem; the theoretical world will never be able to make a full theoretical description of the entire real world. Even worse, it should never be possible to do so!

This results into something peculiar; I am essentially part of my own reality, and theory describes my reality, and at the same time is part of reality. As I myself use and think of it. It is therefore a subgroup of reality, and can never be complete unless it becomes reality itself. It is inevitable.

This brings me to Quantum mechanics. A lot of my world view is inherited by this theory. Or maybe it was the other way around. I do not entirely know. I do know that there are no problems with the quantum theory and my world view. Except; mine does not have complementarity. After all this would mean that two seemingly contradictorily theoretical notions overlap each other within the realm of the known! And this violates my PA.

Instead we must devise a theory that is built up in such a way, that it explains both from the same theory. So that they are both subgroups. These can overlap, as they are part, and share the same unknown areas. (This has something to do with Group-theory)

This doesn't mean that there are contradictions, in fact in trying to understand all complementarity issue's one has to imagine a four dimensional world. This isn't all that hard, after all, besides 3 spatial dimensions, we also see a change in time. In my PA, this is not strange. However it is strange to see what implications this has for the formalism of my world view. The four dimensions need to be viewed together and hence can influence one another. This is no problem in relativistic theories. It is however harder to see in the real world, however it is very real. We were just never taught to speak in its language. For example:

Causality is a 4 dimensional principle, and is only conserved in 4 dimensional space, space and time cannot be separated like Kant would like to. Cups will fall, once pushed, and the shards cannot fall back into a cup. Or, a particle or wave becomes that in its interacting state when it is observed, even if this is in seemingly contradiction with the normal direction of time. In daily life however things rarely remain unobserved and therefore unknown. And so everything seems to be going in a single direction of time, so that relativity is upheld. However in the gaps of the unknown this is not required.

This does not mean that the 'real world' is still existing when I am not observing. It means I have less knowledge about the world and that by my PA I cannot tell anything about the world. Hence not exclude anything either. And I do not need to. After all by not knowing what is happening I have still place for this in the gaps of my theory. It just creates huge possibilities which I cannot exclude nor confirm and therefore are not part of my PA, or reality.

From a standard physics point of view this might seem a lot like solipsism. After all, all I need for my reality is that I observe. But that is not the case. In my PA, it is not excluded that others can carry the same PA. And for them too the rules must then be valid, for that I can observe. I have no reason to believe that in communicating my theories they would apply to other people differently. And so the purpose of science is to understand and explain the effects and implications of my PA.

This does not mean we need to live in the same reality, it means that we share the same theoretical languages about our universes. And so our language coincides. The fact that the theory is never a full projection of my reality, or someone else's reality enables me to converse on the same level. What parts of reality need to be described by reality are only concerned by what is necessary. After all, we only know so little about the world yet. It would seem unlikely that this view reaches a theoretical contradictions or problems in which parts of the theory are required that cannot be discovered without causing overlap. I would almost say that that will never happen. But I cannot exclude the possibility.

I hope that I have made my personal world view a little clearer. And I realize that not all statements made are provided with sound arguments, as many require an extensive (intuitionistic) logical and experimental reasoning to be understood.

In this essay I have discussed some of the concepts and works used in the lectures and made an reasoning why metaphysics cannot be excluded from science the way it is today. Also I have shortly mentioned my own personal viewpoint of items like reality and the purpose of science.

I can be contacted by E-mail.

References:

[1] The “past” and the “Delayed-choice” Double-slit Experiment, John Archibald Wheeler, Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Theory, edited by A.R. Marlow, Academic Press, 1978.

[2] Anne-Ruth Mackor: ‘Over de aard en grenzen van kennis’ (Chapter 6 of Martin van Hees et.al.: Kernthema's van de filosofie, Amsterdam: Boom 2003, p. 135-159)

[3] Stephen Richards, The Philosophy of Emmanual Kant, http://www.faithnet.org.uk/Philosophy/Kant/kant_philosophy.htm

[4] Niels Bohr (1958). “On Atoms and Human Knowledge.” Dædalus: Proceedings of The

American Academy of Arts and Sciences 87: 164-175.

[5] N. Bohr, "Quantum physics and philosophy: Causality and complementarity,"

in Philosophy in the Mid-Century: A Survey, R. Klibansky, ed. (La Nuova

Italia Editrice, Firenze, 1958), pp. 308-314.

[6] Yoav Ben-Dov, Complementarity and reconciliation, Lecture given at the conference Einstein Meets Magritte, VUB, Brussels, June 1995

[7] David favrholdt, Niels Bohr and realism , 1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers
[8] Peter Kroes, The purpose of science, Ideaalbeelden van wetenschap, Chap. 3. Amsterdam: Boom 2000