Obs.16. “Scientists generally
apply the scientific method, more or less intuitively, and can usually
tell in practice whether they are following it properly or not.
Nevertheless the question of proper method becomes ambiguous under
certain circumstances.”
“The reason why the intuitive application of the
scientific method becomes ambiguous in borderline regions is basically
that all the terms which appear in its rules, criteria, and directives
depend for their clear meaning on what may be called a general
framework of concepts, ideas, procedures, etc., which function together
as a coherent whole. Against
a background in which this general framework applies, one can consider
specific problems which do not call the framework into question. Within
this limited domain, it is clear how one is to go about finding the
facts, setting up hypotheses, testing them, etc. But as we approach the
edge of such a domain, these questions become less clear.” (p103-104)
“In fact, it is frequently realised that half the battle
is over when we know what are the right questions to ask. What must be
emphasised here is that the form in which a question is put
constitutes an implicit hypothesis about the object of the question;
namely, that the object is such that this question has a clear ‘yes’ or
‘no’ answer. (p105)
The habit of thought by which one identifies all lawful
relationships with predictability is capable of having an important
limiting influence on the direction in which scientific research can
develop. For it tends to blind us to the possibility that there may be
real relationships in time having no fundamental connection with
predictions. As a result, there
may be a large range of facts that we simply do not look for, because
there
is no room in our general framework of thinking to express these
facts.” (p110)
“The notion that everything is, in principle, reducible to
physics has in common with their various points of view the character
of being an unproved assumption, which is capable of limiting our
thinking in such a way that we are blinded to the possibility of whole
new classes of fact and law. In other words, it is possible not only
that the concepts arising in the physicists field of specialisation are
not sufficient for a complete treatment of all aspects of Nature, but
also, that these concepts may not even be completely adequate for
relating all the facts that might arise in the physicist's own field.
(p113)
To sum up ..., we wish to call attention to the
relationship between the methods of scientific research, and the
content of scientific knowledge. The method must be tailored to the
content; and if one loses sight of this, one is in danger of being
artificially limited in a way that easily escapes conscious
realisation. Method is determined in part by the effort to ask relevant
questions in our researches; and it is essential to understand that the
relevance of a question depends on the character of
the material under investigation. Such questions help determine the
forms
of the facts that can be elicited in further researches. These
questions are, in general, limited firstly by our concepts, laws, and
hypotheses, and
secondly, in a less obvious but equally important way, by our general
habits
of thought. Such habits can easily blind us to the need for altering
our
ways of thinking in accordance with the nature of the material under
investigation
as we penetrate into new domains.” p116 Bohm 1961
Obs.17. “There are vast
domains of knowledge, of which I speak in a moment, that exemplify, in
various ways, that we are generally unable to tell what particulars we
are aware of when attending to a coherent entity which they constitute.
Thus, there are
two kinds of knowing which invariably enter jointly into any act of
knowing
a comprehensive entity. There is (1) knowing a thing by attending
to
it, in the way we attend to an entity as a whole and (2) knowing a
thing by relying on our awareness of it for the purpose of
attending to an entity to which it contributes. The latter
knowledge can be said to be tacit, so far as we cannot tell
what the particulars are, on the awareness of which we rely for
attending to the entity comprising them. ... We can tell what the
things are which we know by attending to them focally, but we are
uncertain, or entirely ignorant, of things that we know only by relying
on our awareness of them for attending to something else, which is
their meaning.” (p601) “Tacit knowing now appears as an act of indwelling
by which we gain access to a new meaning.” (p606) “It
is interesting to compare, with this in mind, the process of
integration by
which we arrive at tacit knowing, with a formal process of inference by
which
we might arrive at the same conclusion.” (p607) “And just as a keen
eyesight
enables one to discriminate objects that others cannot see, so does a
gift
of scientific discovery reveal natural laws in a scientific experience,
which
signifies nothing to others not so gifted. Those who insist on finding
a
formal procedure of induction, would reject the acknowledgement of such
powers
of discovery, as mystery mongering. Yet these powers are not more
mysterious
than our powers of perception but, of course, not any less mysterious,
either.”
(p609) “It follows from it that we can identify tangible manifestations
of
mental processes only by first recognizing the mind at work in them;
that
in fact a rational pattern of behavior must be comprehended as a whole,
before
we can set out to analyze it;” (p610) “Before they learn to see
objects, both apes and babies do in fact see sense data, that is,
patches of light and color. And this is the case also when normal
adults observe the meaningless fragments of a puzzling sight and have
to make an intelligent effort in order
to see the objects of which these are the qualities.”
“Such an effort is a process of tacit integration by
which the object is recognized as the meaning of the sense data which
constitutes its appearance. It is not a process of explicit inference,
and hence the question of the ways in which such inference can be
conducted does not arise. The same is true for the insoluble question
of the way in which the existence of other minds is inferred. It does
not arise; for we know other minds, not by explicit inference, but by a
tacit process of integration.” (p611) “To undertake the search for the
solution of a problem is to claim the faculty of sensing the increasing
proximity of its solutions -- since no inquiry can succeed without such
guidance. In all these anticipations, essential to any scientific
endeavor, we focus on a center that is necessarily empty.” (p612)
“Knowing is a process in two stages, the subsidiary and
the focal, and these two can be defined only within the tacit act,
which relies on the first for attending to the second. But again, why
should this fact have been overlooked and a false ideal of science been
perpetuated for centuries? Because the moment we admit that all knowing
is rooted in an act of personal judgement, knowledge seems to lose all
claim to objectivity. I have hinted at a way out of this difficulty by
my definition of reality, and a substantial treatment of it has been
given elsewhere. But the answer will yet have to be worked out fully in
the future.” (p616) Polanyi 1962
Obs.18. “There are two distinct problems concerning the relationship between physical objects and consciousness. One is the ontological problem of accounting for the fact that two such diverse kinds of entities occur in nature and interact with each other. The other is the epistemological problem of justifying physical theories by reference to human experience. A complete solution to either of these problems would surely require a solution to the other as well. In particular, it seems that the epistemological problem cannot be completely solved without understanding how the effects of physical entities can be registered upon consciousness, since performing observations and formulating theories constitute a series of acts of consciousness. It is a remarkable fact about classical physical theory that considerable progress was made on the epistemological problem, at least on that part of the problem which has been demarcated as ‘scientific method’, while the ontological problem remained obscure. Classical physical theory was consistently ‘mechanical’ in the sense that the fundamental physical entities were considered devoid of sensuous qualities;” p755 Shimony 1963
Obs.19. “His initial
observations made the physical geometry of the orbit virtually
unintelligible for Kepler. But, when treated as an approximation to
the” ellipse, “the complexities fell into an orderly array.”
“This move of treating observed physical phenomena as
being but approximations to mathematically ‘clean’ conceptions
developed after Kepler into what has become virtually a defining
property of physical inquiry. Thinking about physical phenomena at all
came to consist of ‘smoothing’ the experimentally accurate descriptions
to mathematically manipulable patterns.” p265 “Sit autem haec figurra
perfecta ellipsis, parum enim differt. Videamus quid inde sequatur. Let
us suppose our figure is a perfect ellipse. Let us see what follows
therefrom.” Kepler, qby Hanson p267 1967
Obs.20. “When one undertakes the technique of renormalization to cope with what are sometimes referred to as the divergencies in the fully developed quantum theory of radiation, it turns out that there are an infinite number of solutions to a given wave equation. One selects, from this infinite set, on terms that are completely extraneous mathematically, a finite number for further examination. (Unfortunately this yields) ghost states, negative probabilities, and all sorts of strange things. (The main argument in favor of it is that the answer comes out ‘right’.)” p132-133 Hanson 1970
Obs.21. “The formalism of
quantum theory is not, in itself, a physical theory, but it becomes one
by virtue of an epistemology relating it to certain kinds of perceptual
experience as explanans to explanandum. Such
epistemology involves much more than mere operational rules ...
consider the limitations on the nature of the constructs of any theory
proposed as explanans.”
There are the “puzzles and paradoxes such as the so-called
‘measurement problem’ (reduction of the state-vector) and the problem
of ‘duality’. Bohr's rejection of the classical ontology was not wholly
adequate to solve these problems, if only because primitive terms such
as ‘observation’, ‘measurement’ and ‘particle’ had not been given
phenomenologically clear
and unambiguous usages.” p71
“Quantum theory deals with (alleged) events
submicroscopically placed, and these can be loosely described as submicroscopic
phenomena. In my view, one cannot properly speak of their being
‘observed’”. p72
“To obtain a ‘quantum-mechanical measurement’ the
connecting structure must be such that one can reasonably suppose a
certain property of it (e.g. frequency, velocity) to remain unchanged
between the first interaction and the second. ... Other measures,
sometimes excessively small (e.g.
electronic charge, Bohr radius), are obtained by the successive
application
of formulae to models conceptually placed in the mathematical
frame
as if it were the apparatus frame.”
“On the other hand, it is more correct to say that the
submicroscopic event is ‘inferred’ from the observation by a complex
and
abstruse backward extrapolation, and that the ‘magnification’
is thus more strictly an extrapolated correspondence between
what
is observed and unobservable structures postulated in the mathematical
frame and obeying mathematical equations. Such correspondence
constitutes
the quantum-mechanical explanation of the observations.” p73
“The claim for the existence of such particles rests on
the results of such experiments as Millikan's oil drop experiment and
J.J.Thomson's on the deflection of beta rays. Actually experiment
establishes only the discreteness of absorptions, not of
‘particles in transit’. After this, a dubious argument leads to the
view that the incoming wave consists of separate wave-packets
(photons).” p74
Given the results “in the Jánossy-Náray
experiment ... we may infer that the extrapolated field in the
mathematical frame, between the two interactions, represents a ‘control
mechanism’ for absorption, rather than a localised transfer of anything
specific.”
“Backward extrapolation thus seems to take us to ‘another
sphere’, of quite different ontological status from that of
observations. It is a sphere of general control-structures
represented in a mathematical frame and not specific observable
ones in the apparatus frame.” “In quantum theory, when we consider the
unobservable region of potentiality to which we try to extrapolate
backwards from a few ultimate observations, it seems plain that if
there is any such gradual working out, we are, in nearly all respects, unable
in principle to extrapolate backwards to the details of it. The
process is, for the most part, beyond mathematical formulation in
principle.” p78 Whiteman 1971
Obs.22. “We ... must know the natural laws at least in practical terms, before we can claim to have observed anything at all. Only theory, that is, knowledge of the natural laws, enables us to deduce something the underlying phenomena from our sense impressions. When we claim that we can observe something new, we ought really to be saying that, although we are about to formulate new natural laws that do not agree with the old ones, we nevertheless assume that the existing laws -- covering the whole path from the phenomena to our consciousness -- function in such a way that we can rely upon them and hence speak of ‘observation’. Einstein qby Heisenberg p63-64 Heisenberg 1971” qby Jammer p266 1983
Obs.23. “... the quantum principle tells us that the observer is more than an observer, he is a participator. In some strange sense this is a participatory universe.” p333 “The mystery of (gravitational) collapse and the mystery of ‘participation’ summarize the greatest crisis physics has ever faced. ... Soon, we can believe, they will unite to thrust an imperative upon us: ‘Accept a drastically new view of man's relation to the physical universe -- or understand nothing.’” p334-335 Wheeler 1975b
Obs.24. Consider the
Relativity of States approach to the interpretation of the quantum
mechanics formalism. “In a sense, its first promoter was
Schrödinger (1935), but it was systematized and carried to its
logical extreme 10 years ago by Everett (1957).” It asserts that “...
this universe of ours is continuously splitting into a stupendous
number of branches, each of them as real as any other one. Yes, we, as
parts of that universe, are ourselves continuously splitting.” p266-267
“... it is a theory that cannot be disproved by any
specific experiment, since we cannot observe the split. ... Whether we
should economize preferably on universes or on principles is likely to
remain a matter in which each of us can follow his own preferences. ...
it is not the case
that one branch alone exists: all of them must be considered as
separately
existing.” p271-272
“... if an outside observer could ascertain the state
vector of the universe, he would find that my macroscopic observables
have no definite value; in fact, he would find that I am in a linear
combination of a large number of states, each of which is correlated
with the states of immensely many objects. As previously noted, we are
not conscious of such a split.” p275
An observer A, in one split world, can never know
that an observer B in another split world “does not have the same
impression as he has. This comes from the fact that any transfer of
information from B to A -- for example, any answer made by B to a
question asked by A -- unavoidably proceeds through physical means.”
p277 d'Espagnat 1976
Obs.25. “No consideration argues more forcibly that the ‘observer’ has nothing to do with the scheme of physics than the disparity in size of 26 powers of 10 between man and the universe; and none argues more strongly that life and consciousness are a rather unimportant development in a faraway and not particularly relevant part of space.” p18 Wheeler 1977
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