From stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov Wed Jul 19 10:51:53 2000
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 10:38:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov
Reply-To: hpstapp@lbl.gov
To: piergiorgio odifreddi <po14@cornell.edu>
Cc: hpstapp@lbl.gov, schipani <fschipani@aol.com>,
     odifreddi <piergior@dm.unito.it>
Subject: Re: interview for the italian tv

Dear Professor Odifreddi,

You have composed a marvelous set of questions. Thank you
very much. They provide a wonderful scaffolding that allow me
to weave a tale that quickly brings out the main features of
my approach. I insert, below, into your letter, my replies
to your questions in a written form, They follow generally
the verbal answers that I gave on the tv interview.

Best regards,

Henry

On Wed, 12 Jul 2000, piergiorgio odifreddi wrote:

> dear professor stapp,
> 
> i'm the math professor in charge of the questions for 
> your interview. i'm
> sorry i couldn't make it to california: i would have 
> liked to meet you,
> since i read your book "mind, matter and quantum mechanics",
> and liked it
> very much. here in cornell i had a few talks, some years 
> ago, with david
> mermin on the subject of bell's theorem and your versions 
> of it.
> 
> obviously, in the interview you should try to keep as 
> informal as you can.
> this is going to be a popular program on prime time, and 
> most people will
> not have any scientific or mathematical background. if you 
> allow me, i will
> also publish a version of the interview for a page on 
> "la repubblica", the
> leading italian newspaper. 

That would be fine.

> please answer the questions in 
> as many words as
> you deem necessary: there is always time to edit things 
> out later on, but
> not to add on them!
> 
> the program is called "the other face of science", and is 
> conceived as
> follows. we're after stimulating and novel ideas about the 
> universe. we
> interviewed brian green on his book "the elegant universe", 
> in particular
> about string theory and its applications to the big bang, 
> including what
> might have happened "before". perhaps witten will also 
> give us an interview
> on the same subject.
> 
> we also interviewed frank tipler about theories of the 
> end of the universe.
> we'll balance his (often puzzling) words with freeman 
> dyson's, who's also
> going to talk about some of his provocative ideas about 
> the origins of life,
> as well as space travel and the end of the universe.
> 
> i also hope to get wheeler on the board (till now we've 
> been unable to
> contact him: do you happen to have a recent e-mail or 
> phone number?).
> 
> we'd like you to talk about the EPR paradox, bell's theorem,
> holistic views
> of the universe, and the role of consciousness. here is a 
> list of questions,
> which i hope you'll find of your liking. obviously, we'll 
> have to miss the
> chance of any interaction among us, and of reactions to 
> your words.
> 
> 1) what was einstein trying to accomplish by proposing 
> his EPR argument?
> 

These three letters, EPR, are the initials of three physicists,
Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen. Podolsky and Rosen were
two young colleagues of Einstein, and the three together wrote
one of the most famous papers in the history of science.
Its  title was:
"Can Quantum Mechanical Description of Physical Reality
 Be Considered Complete?"

The words ``quantum mechanical description'', mentioned 
in this title, referred to a new  physics developed during
the first part of the twentieth century. This new physics 
was RADICALLY different from what had gone before. 
The old physics dealt with objects such as planets and 
cannon balls that were big enough to be seen. However, those 
big objects were thought to be built out of  particles that 
were too small to be seen, and were just tiny bits of matter. 
However, that simple idea seemed incompatible with 
experimental data that physicists were collecting, and 
physicist made a REVOLUTIONARY change. Instead of speaking 
directly about the physical reality itself, they made a 
theory about what human observers CAN KNOW 
about physical reality. 

But the question then arises: Can this indirect approach 
completely describe everything that is out there?

Einstein was convinced that the answer was NO! He believed
that physicists should try to describe what is 
``out there'', rather than what is ``in here''.

The EPR argument was designed to PROVE that the new physics
did not describe ALL of physical reality.

The idea was first to introduce a very
reasonable-sounding property of ``physical realty''
and then prove, STARTING FROM THE BASIC PRECEPTS
OF THE NEW PHYSICS ITSELF, that this radical new approach left
parts of physical reality out.

> 2) in plain words, what were the later developments on 
> this subject,
> including bohm's, bell's and your results?
> 

These later developments had to do with the possibility
of instantaneous, or faster than light,
action at a distance.

The key assumption of the EPR argument was that physical 
reality in one place cannot be influenced INSTANTLY by 
what someone freely chooses to do in some faraway place. 
For example, what I choose to do here in Berkeley, right now, 
cannot effect what is really happening RIGHT
NOW in Paris. It takes some FINITE AMOUNT OF TIME for 
my decision here to have any real effect there.

This claim of no instantaneous, or faster-than-light,
action at a distance is called the "locality assumption".

What David Bohm did was to show that this 
"locality assumption" was critical. He devised a simple model 
of physical reality that met all other requirements, but 
was blatantly nonlocal. 

Specifically, he showed, by means of a simple explicit example, 
that one COULD make theory of physical reality itself, 
provided one were willing to abandon this locality assumption. 

But physicists were not prepared to abandon locality.

Einstein himself, who wanted to have a theory of reality,
called Bohm's model "too cheap".

I asked David about this remark by Einstein, and 
he replied that he COMPLETELY AGREED!

But the question that then arises is whether it is possible
to make a satisfactory theory that is similar to Bohm's, 
but is "local".

That is where John Bell came in. He showed that
ANY theory that is like Bohm's theory MUST BE NONLOCAL.

However, Bell's proof was not really satisfactory.
That is because his proof rested on an assumption
that directly violated a key premise of the new physics.  
So from the point of view of an orthodox quantum theorist
Bell's theorem merely confirmed that the quantum principles
were sound: it proved nothing about nonlocality.

That is where I came in:
I showed, STARTING DIRECTLY FROM THE PRINCIPLES OF
THE NEW PHYSICS, that any theory of reality 
agrees with the predictions of quantum theory 
must violate the locality assumption.

This means that physicist are face with the option of 
either:
1) Abandoning the possibility of describing a physical reality 
that agrees with what know about it, or 
2) Abandoning the locality assumption.

The Copenhagen position is, essentially, that it is better to
renounce completely, and permanently, the possibility 
of describing reality, rather than allow a violation
of the locality assumption.

> 3) have there been experimental results related to 
these results?

Yes. Many such experiments have been performed.
The arguments about nonlocality are theoretical arguments.
They are based on what the new physics predicts, in certain 
special cases, about two experiments performed at the same 
time in different places.

Thus the question arises: Are these prediction
valid? To answer these questions experimental testing
is required. 

Many such experiments have been performed over the past
twenty years and it is now abundantly clear that the 
predictions of the new physics are accurate with
very high precision. In some recent experiments the distance
between the two experiments was more than ten kilometers.
So we are talking here about connections that extend over
distances that are huge on the atomic scale.

> 
> 4) do people agree on their outcomes, or is there room 
> to speculate?
> 

It is now clear the the predictions of the new physics 
are borne out to high precision in the relevant experiments.

> 5) what is the world view that follows from bell's theorem 
> and its variants?
> 

Failure of this locality assumption would means that, 
at some deep underlying level, the universe is much more 
closely interconnected than the old physics had led people
to believe. The universe seems to be a giant structure such 
that any change in one place requires instant adjustments
in faraway places.


> 6) can we draw any connection with the holistic world view 
> that has been
> proposed in various (mostly eastern) philosophies?
> 

Niels Bohr and Erwin Schroedinger, two of the founders
of the new physics, had noticed connections of this sort.
But the important thing is that the physics that I am
speaking about is expressed in a solid mathematical structure
that is erected upon the results of scientific experiments.
And it arises within the analytical traditions of Western
science. Thus both the origin and detailed content of the 
new insights differ greatly from those of the older traditions.

> 7) do we have to change our view of the world, and 
>    how difficult is it to do for the layman?
> 

If one is interested in bettering his understanding 
the reality that lies behind the world of human experiences, 
then a profound change in world view is certainly required. 
It is not difficult to do this. The mind of man is 
amazingly facile: it can easily grasp counterintuitive
ideas if they are rationally coherent. An example is the 
classical physics  idea that a solid rock is mostly
empty space. Similarly, it is not hard to grasp the idea that the 
world behind our evanescent experiences is really more "solid'' and 
"interlocked" than it appears to be, particularly the 
new concept is if it is backed up by a rationally coherent  
mathematical theory supported by empirical evidence.


> 8) how is science still possible, if all things are 
>    really interconnected?
> 

The problem raised here is that if faraway events
can effect what is happening here, then how can we ever get
a grip on causation. 

The answer is that the new physics specifies probabilities, 
and that these probabilities follow more normal laws of
causation. Thus although the cause of individual events
may be difficult to trace out, the constraints on probabiliies
often allow one to predict with good accuracy what will 
happen under specified conditions. All of the causal connection
specified by the old physics come out of the new physics
in this way.

> 9) is modern physics telling us something about consciousness
>    and its role, as well? in particular, can we separate 
>    observer and observed as neatly as we used to do in 
>    the 1800's?

     A big problem with the physics of the 1800's is that
     it made the separation between observer and observed
     TOO neat. The separation was so neat that my thoughts 
     are rendered unable to cause my tongue to move so that 
     I can describe to you my thoughts. The experienced fact
     that my thoughts can influence my actions, which lies 
     at the base of our human existence, must be, if one
     is in the grip of the fundamentally false ideas of the 
     1800's, be regarded as a mysterious illusion, or vast
     confusion. 

     The new physics, on the other hand, is essentially 
     a description of the dynamical two-way connection 
     between the thoughts of participant-observers and activities 
     in of their brains, with thoughts described in psychological
     language and brains described in the language of the new physics.
     
> 10) how were your views influenced by heisenberg's 
> interpretation of the
> world according to quantum mechanics, in particular by his 
> notion of
> "potentia"?
> 

I was greatly influenced by this idea. Heisenberg was the
most important founder of the new physics, and he generally
adhered to the orthodox philosophy, which said that the new
physics was just a set of mathematical rules connecting
bits of human knowledge, and that we should not try to
look deeper. But on one occasion he did addressed
the question of what was "really happening". He referred
to the concept of "potentia" in Aristelian philosophy,
and said that in nature one must distinguish "possible" from 
"actual", and that the transitions from "possible" to "actual" 
are governed by "potentia", which are "objective tendencies" 

This point of view converts the new physics from a mere set of 
computional rules that human beings find useful, into a way of 
describing physical reality. But this physical reality is 
completely different in character from the physical reality 
imagined to exist in the old physics. Now it was a churning caldron
of "urges" for EVENTS to occur, where these events were sudden 
transitions from possible to actual.

> 11) how were your views influenced by william james' 
> philosophy and psychology?


William James was both psychologist and philosopher.
As a psychologist he was interested in such things
as our conscious thoughts, sensations, and feelings.
He recognized, and strongly emphasized in his writings,
that these things come to us, in sudden EVENTS, or 
happenings, as complex wholes. Thus James identified
complex EVENTS in the psychological realm that
could be seen as parallels to the physical events
that Heisenberg spoke about.


> 12) von neumann and wigner thought that the collapse of 
> the wave function is
> the result of consciousness. could you first spell their 
> views, and then tell
> us if you agree with them?
> 

John von Neumann was one of the most brilliant mathemations
and logicians of his time. He, and nobel laureate Eugene
Wigner, provided the mathematical structure that allowed
the psychological events of James to be dynamically
linked to the physical events of Heisenberg.  Their work 
gives the mathematical foundation of a theory of reality
that that is built upon the dynamical interaction between 
minds and brains.

> 13) can you tell us about your proposal of defining 
> man's consciousness in terms of physical events?

The connection is through the brain. The brain constructs 
possible courses of action for the person to follow in his 
current situation. But the new physics requires, in 
connection with each event, TWO CHOICES that are not 
determined by the mathematical rules of the theory.
One of these choices can be ascribed to Nature, and 
THAT choice is constrained by certain statistical or 
probabilistic rules.

But the other choice is a free choice on the part of 
the PERSON. This personal, or subjective, choice can be 
the choice to CONSENT or NOT CONSENT to a course of action 
prepared by the brain. This personal choice is needed to 
make the quantum machinery work, but it is not 
constrained by the rules of the new physics. It can be
identified as a CONSCIOUS CHOICE. The content of the 
associated conscious event is an image of the proposed course of 
action that is made ``actual'' by the physical event. 

> 14) is it actually possible to define a universal 
> consciousness, of which man's own would just be a 
> manifestation?

According to the new physics, the state of the universe 
is a "compendium" of the increments of subjective knowledge 
of all the observers. Thus it is made out of the same kind 
of stuff as human conscious experience. Each subjective increment 
of knowledge can be regarded as a addition to the 
objective state of knowledge that constitutes the universe.

> 15) is this a way of reintegrating man into the cosmos, 
> and of  undoing the separation proposed by bacon and 
> descartes?

Francis Bacon was one of the great early proponents of 
science, and he saw science as a way of putting nature to 
work in the service of man. This is indeed what occurred. 
Just consider how our understanding of electricity has 
been put to use. But this idea that of man enslaving
nature has dangers. It can lead, for example, to the rape 
of the environment.  The new physics places man more 
securely IN nature, and presents the connection of human 
beings to nature as more of a cooperative venture, not one of
master and slave.

Descartes' name is generally associated with a complete disjunction
of the worlds of mind and matter: mind stands apart from the physical
morld of matter, and observes it without being able to influence it
in any way. (Actually, Descartes himself allowed for interaction via
the human pineal gland, but the laws of Newton mechanics excludes
any action of mind on matter.) But the new physics, interpreted in the
Heisenberg/James/vonNeumann-Wigner way, specifies the nature of the
two-way causal connection between the aspects of nature that we describe
in these two different ways.  


> 
> 16) how does this relate to the problems of free will and determinism?
> 

The essential point is that the new physics has two separate 
elements of freedom. One is a choice on the part of nature.
This choice is constrained by a statistical rule.
The second element of freedom is a choice on the part of the 
human participant. This latter choice is not constrained, 
within the framework of the laws and rules set forth in the 
new physics. 

This second element of freedom is the analog in von Neumann's
quantum theory of the free choice, on the part of the 
experimenter, as to which experiment he will perfom.
This choice is an essential ingredient in the quantum machinery.
This choice puts before nature some specific Yes-No question. This
choice---of which question to put to Nature---is absolutely
essential to the mathematical machinery, yet is not 
specified by that machinery. This element of freedom
given to the human participant by the quantum machinery
provide an opening for what we feel to be our freedom to 
consent, or reject, courses of action that present themselves 
to us.


> 17) are physics in general, and your views in particular, 
> giving a precise meaning to such venerable notions as the 
> presocratics' intelligence of the world, the stoics' 
> pneuma, and the christian's holy spirit?
>

These venerable notions all ascribe to nature herself, in 
some objective sense, properties similar to our own 
psychological qualities. The new physics represents nature 
as a "compendium" of bits of human-type knowledge, and gives 
to nature a quality of "potentia", which is akin to a 
pschological "urge". And the new physics builds the universe 
out of complex macroscopic whole events---not out of 
bits of matter---in much the same way as a human stream of 
consciousness is built out of a sequence of complex whole 
events, rather than a collection of moving material particles. 
But these "psychological" properties of nature are encoded 
in a well defined mathematical structure that conforms to 
rules that can be empirically tested.
 
> 18) how do your views related to eccles' and penrose's? in particular, what
> do you think of psychons and microtubula as mechanisms for consciousness to
> act on the brain?

Eccles' theory adds `spirit entities' onto the new physics 
whereas I build directly upon the structure and rules of that 
theory as it already exist: I introduce nothing that is not 
already an integral part of the new physics. Eccles allows
his spirit entities to bias, hence violate, the quantum laws, 
whereas I adhere strictly to those laws. The quantum 
structure is an intricate structure of amazing internal
logical coherence, hence violating any part of it opens the 
door to pandemonium, and unconstrained speculation.

Penrose's dependence upon microtubula require a certain 
property of brains called `macroscopic coherence'. Most 
physicists expect this propery to disappear in a warm wet 
brain in something like one nth of a second, where n is 
1 followed by 23 zeros. I share that general expectation, and
in fact not only embrace but make important use of the expected
macroscopic decoherence. 
 
> 19) how do your views relate to bohm's and josephson's? in 
> particular, what do you think of the implicate order, and 
> of the possibility of experiencing it through meditation 
> techniques?

Bohm's concept of implicate order is rather vague. I prefer 
to build directly on the clear and well tested mathematical 
structure that defines contemporary physics, and the findings
of psychologists and neuroscientists.

I do not meditate, and rely on the testable ideas that have 
emerged from the objective techniques of Western science. 


> **********************************
> 
> Piergiorgio Odifreddi
> Dipartimento di Matematica
> Via Carlo Alberto 10
> 10123 Torino (Italy)
> 
> tel.  +39-11-898.5253
> fax  +39-11-670.2878
> 
> e-mail: piergior@dm.unito.it
> 
> 



From stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov Wed Jul 19 10:52:40 2000
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 10:46:14 -0700 (PDT)
From: stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov
Reply-To: hpstapp@lbl.gov
To: Stanley Klein <klein@spectacle.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: interview for the italian tv (fwd)



On Wed, 19 Jul 2000, Stanley Klein wrote:

> Henry, that was a really wonderful interview. I hope an English 
> speaking paper picks it up. My only complaint is that there is 
> nothing at all for me to complain about. I agree with it all. By 
> explicitly avoiding the specific Zeno mechanism you have converted 
> your approach to one that I think is unassailable. I see no need for 
> Mr. Zeno whatsoever. It holds together beautifully as it is.
> 
> (But if you are still advocating Zeno, I will continue to pester you 
> about how the mind is able to do the big one msec collapse following 
> all the nanosec entanglements with the environment. I think that is 
> an ugly thing for the mind to do. I would need to see how a human 
> experimenter could do such a thing.).
> 
> Stan
> 

I did not mention QZE, but it is essential. The point is that if one
does not use it, then the freedom of choice that QT gives to the person
to pick which question to ask---i.e., which aspect of nature to probe:
which projection operator P to use---produces no net statistical
effect on behaviour of a system that has already been reduced by
environmental decoherence to an ensemble of quasi-classical systems,
when P picks out a subset of these quasi-classical systems. Without
exploiting the suppression of the linear-in-time term the system becomes
essentially classical, and in the classical case the capacity to
choose which question to ask has no effect on the statistical ensemble:
one must add the contributions from the two possible answers to the
question, Yes or No, and this leaves the statistical ensemble unchanged.

An ugly thing for mind to do?

I find it rather beautiful, and in any case natural. The brain-body
is (represented by) Tr_{-b} S(t). So the posing of a question by
a person's mind ought to be represented by choosing a projection
operator P that depends only on the variables that specify the person's
body-brain, and that acts only on those variables. 

You ask how the mind is able to do the big one msec collapse following
all the nanosecond entanglements with the environment.

The absolutely essential thing about the reduction, via entanglement
with the environment, to the ensemble of quasi-classical state is that
this is generated by the Schroedinger equation alone, and hence no actual
reduction has occurred to any one of the quasi-classical states:
the brain is the entire ensemble. It is true that if one is
interested only in calculating expectation values of operators that
do not depend on the environment, then the fact that the state of the
brain, Tr_{-b}S(t),  has this form means that the computation is the same
AS IF the brain were in one of quasi-classical states, but we don't
know which one, but do know the relative probabilities. That is the
basis of the Copenhagen approach, where one settles for practical
rules that work. But at the ontological level of von Neumann,
which is also the level of Zurek and the others who want to go beyond
the Copenhagen interpretation and explain why classical concepts
come naturally into QM, the full state of the universe S(t) is the
basic physical reality, and hence the state of the brain-body is 
the full ensemble Tr_{-b} S(t). You are not entitled to imagine
that the brain is really just ONE of the quasi-classical states,
except for the particular purpose of computing expectation values
of observables that depend only on the variables that characterize
the body-brain.

It would be worthwhile for you to look at Zurek's paper in
Progress of Theoretical Physics, 89, 281-312 (1993) to see him wrestling
with this point, and admitting that environmental decoherence
does not really solve the problems, but that one needs a theory of 
consciousness. He says: "Such model of consciousness is presently not 
available". That is the essential point. One needs a theory of
consciousness to make sense of quantum theory: trying to understand
quantum theory without recognizing that it can only be understood
within the context of a theory of consciousness is a nonstarter.
The environmental decoherence is indeed important in understanding
the importance in QT of classical concepts. But one must then bite the
bullet and face the problem of consciousness.

The first important thing to recognize clearly is that the environmental
decoherence does not by itself reduce the brain to ONE quasi-classical
state: it reduces it to an entire ensemble of such states. 

Thus those nanosecond reductions are merely a first stage of the
process. They set the stage for the real problem.

Henry


From stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov Wed Jul 19 12:56:33 2000
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 12:53:49 -0700 (PDT)
From: stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov
Reply-To: hpstapp@lbl.gov
To: Bruce Rosenblum <brucero@cats.ucsc.edu>
Cc:
Subject: Re: interview for the italian tv (fwd)



On Wed, 19 Jul 2000, Bruce Rosenblum wrote:

> Henry,
> 
> I too found your interview for Italian TV wonderfully concise.  But maybe
> you would comment on a point that I find confusing (and so, I'll bet, would
> Italian viewers).  You say:
> 
> "According to the new physics, the state of the universe
> is a "compendium" of the increments of subjective knowledge
> of all the observers. Thus it is made out of the same kind
> of stuff as human conscious experience. Each subjective increment
> of knowledge can be regarded as an addition to the
> objective state of knowledge that constitutes the universe."
> 
> Should I take this as a sort of (objective) idealism--all that exists are
> minds?  Sometimes I believe you say the state vector of the universe
> REPRESENTS the knowledge.
> REPRESENTS = IS?  And there's nothing else?
> 
> If your answer is simply "yes," I could not say you deviate from standard
> qm here.  The wavefunction of an atom represents (= is?) our knowledge of
> the atom.  And there's presumably no atom out there as something in
> addition to the wavefunction (Bohm aside).  So you're saying nothing more
> confusing than standard qm.  But standard qm has always confused me, at
> least whenever I take it seriously.  If you have a few words to throw light
> on this--even to merely confirm that you really mean "IS," and mean that
> there's nothing else, I'd appreciate it--and continue to ponder.
> 
> Bruce
> 

One must distinguish the Copenhagen view  (Quantum theory is a
practical set of rules that we use) from the vN view (The
quantum state of the universe represents/is physical reality itself.)

In Copenhagen quantum theory the quantum state can properly be called,
and often IS called, a representation (within our human-consructed
theory) of "our knowledge": it IS a mathematical structure, existing
within our thoughts, that REPRESENTS our knowledge. It REPRESENTS a
compendium of the increments of knowledge that we have put into
this state. 

In the final analysis all of our theories are ideas that exist in our
thoughts. But vN quantum theory moves in the direction of trying to
make the theoretical concepts accurate images in our thoughts  of
aspects of what really exists in nature. We can imagine that Nature
herself has aspects that really do have structural qualities
of a kind that we can grasp and represent in a mathematical form
that exists in our thoughts.

According to this scenario the structure that we express in our
mathematical formulas is isomorphic to a structure that exists in 
Nature herself. Thus we can, in the usual way, use this isomorphism
to allow us to speak as if the mathematical structure that we
postulate in our thoughts is the structure that exists in the physical
world itself. Whether we say the quantum state REPRESENTS reality
or IS reality is not significant, if this isomorphism really exists.

The Copenhagen view is not puzzling in itself: we have useful rules
that work. It only becomes puzzling if we try to understand what is really
happening, which the Copenhagen approach instructs you not to do.

The vN approach likewise is not puzzling if you accept that nature
has the behaviour that vN/W QT says it has. This behaviour is
a behaviour appropriate to a world that is formed as an accumulation
of bits of knowledge. The appropriate language  is the language
appropriate to this behaviour. The physical world IS made out of
bits of knowledge: it IS a compendium of these bit of knowledge.
But it evolves according to mathematical laws that entail all of the
connections between the our experiences that classical physical
theory correctly predicts, plus a lot more.  

But I have not said that there is nothing more that these bits
of knowledge: present-day quantum theory does not explain
how nature makes her choices. Nor does it specify exactly
how we make our "free" choices. But present-day quantum theory
does slice the mind-brain problem in a different way. It formulates
the problem explicitly in terms of two aspects of nature that are 
described in two different languages, one physical, the other
psychological, and specifies the dynamical connections between the two
aspects. And this dynamical connection leads naturally
to the sorts of connections that we experience, first of all in our
perceptions pertaining to connections between, say, motions of planets
and falling apples, and secondly in the power of our thoughts 
to direct our bodily actions and mental processes. 

Henry


From stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov Sun Jul 23 04:40:42 2000
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 04:34:02 -0700 (PDT)
From: stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov
Reply-To: hpstapp@lbl.gov

Subject: Re: experientialism (fwd)




---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 04:26:28 -0700 (PDT)
From: stapp@thsrv.lbl.gov
Reply-To: hpstapp@lbl.gov
To: zznobo <zznobo@washburn.edu>
Subject: Re: experientialism



On Sat, 22 Jul 2000, zznobo wrote:
...
> 	While at your webpage, I read your exchanges with 
Klein and Rosenblum
> regarding the Odifreddi interview. Two questions came to 
mind. First,
> would it be compatible with your views to contrue 
subjectivity as
> objectivity in the making? 

Dear Jorge,

Yes! But I do associate subjectivity with some sort of
physical system.

> Second, do you equate knowledge and
> information? or would you be willing to say that all 
> knowledge is
> information, but not all information is knowledge? 
> (On the other hand,
> all information must be in principle knowable, though not 
> necessarily by us.)

 That does seem to be a good way to put it.

> 	It seems to me that, with the Copenhagen view, 
> the quantum state does
> "represent a compendium of knowledge that we have put 
> into this state."
> On the other hand, in the vN/W view, it may be better to 
> say that the
> physical world is made out of bits of information, only 
> some of which
> are bits of human knowledge.

Excellent!

> 	I am shooting in the dark here, but, without going 
> into details, I am
> trying to see whether there is some fit between my 
> metaphysics and your
> physics. For me, treating human knowledge as a special 
> case of
> information is metaphysically desirable, lest we make 
> human knowings way
> too special. Also, as a bit of terminological strategy, 
> your audience is
> less likely to bolt up the wrong tracks with the claim 
> that the world is
> an accumulation of bits of information than with the 
> claim that it is an
> accumulation of bits of knowledge.
> 		Regards,
> 			Jorge
> 

Right! I do want to use "knowledge" to tie it into
the Copenhagen position, both in terms of the terminology
that the Copenhageners use, and in terms of the meaning
appropriate to their pragmatic point of view. But I need
to allow for precursers to human knowledge, and then
"information" seems better. It is also better suited to
the objective vN position, and, as you mention,
more reasonable-sounding, and metaphysically neutral, 
as an objective property of nature. 

I think we see this terminological issue in a very similar 
way, and that your way of resolving it is very good.

Henry