From: kim@Lise.Unit.NO (Kim Gunnar St|vring \yhus)
Subject: Re: Report on Philosophies of Physicists
Organization: Norwegian Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 92 20:46:14 GMT

In article <2697@news.cerf.net>, mitsu@nic.cerf.net (Mitsuharu Hadeishi) writes:
 > barry@arnold.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes:
 > > >...
 > >The above is all at the most metaphorical level. Is there any situation
 > >in the experience of the Eastern philosophers in which boolean logic 
 > >was strictly violated? (I.e. a situation precise enough to be
 > >cast into predicate logic, in which the logical operators did
 > >not work properly). I think not. Therefore we conclude they were
 > >either very interested in non-logical modes of thought, or they
 > >incorrectly understood what boolean logic was (quite likely).
 > 
 >         It is very difficult to answer your question briefly,

(in other words, you don't know the answer.)

 > since to fully answer it would require that you have studied a great
 > deal of Eastern philosophy.  The relevant questions lie along

(Barry seem to be able to understand a 'yes', 'no', or 'maybe' answer.)

 > the lines of "what does it mean to make a statement about something?",
 > "what is the relationship between a model and the thing modelled?",
 > "what is the nature of the subject-object relationship?", and so forth.
 > These are questions of basic epistemology, in which the Eastern
 > schools of philosophy make very different basic assumptions about
 > how one goes about understanding these issues than are made in
 > Western logical positivist schools, particularly those that use
 > Boolean logic as their basis.

Why don't you answer the question directly? I find your polite and pompous
answer a little disgusting, like a christian explanation.

 >         However, again, for me to really get into these issues
 > would require a lot of careful study on your part, otherwise we
 > would both be wasting our time.  It would be like a physicist trying
 > to explain the equivalence of the Heisenberg matrix and Shrodinger
 > wave formulations of quantum mechanics to someone who does not
 > know elementary algebra much less calculus or any other form of
 > higher mathematics.

I can do that.
Schroedinger: The electron waves diffusely about places.
Heisenberg:   The electron jumps diffusely between states.
The point of an explanation is NOT to be precise, but to make the
listener understand as much as possible.

 > >What this has to do with QM is not clear to me.
 > 
 >         The basic issues of epistemology, etc., that are raised
 > by most of the Eastern schools of philosophy and answered very
 > differently from most logical positivist Western schools are exactly
 > the kinds of issues raised by QM, particularly when you consider
 > the measurement problem.  That is to say, if you've already gone
 > into these issues in the context of Eastern philosophy, you will have
 > a head start in trying to understand the philosophical problems
 > associated with quantum measurement.  The basic reality is that most of
 > maintstream Western philosophy has gone into much less depth into these
 > issues than have most of the Eastern schools, to be blunt about it.
 > That is, in this matter, Eastern philosophy is generally much more
 > sophisticated (as a whole) than the Western schools in this area,
 > and QM happens to be subtle enough that the standard simplistic
 > epistemological assumptions made by most Western schools of thought
 > are not fully up to dealing with these matters.

My personal philosophy of QM observations is "Lets calculate!".
QM contains the apparatus for doing this in the many-particle
models. Hugh Everett III formulated a philosopy on this, the 
many-worlds interpretation. I've never seen any eastern philosopy
even come close to this.

You seem to think that the unclearness of eastern philosophies
mirrors the spread-out wavefunction in QM. This is wrong, since
it is possible to build boolean algebra with QM models, and build
QM models with booelan algebra. F.ex. a computer calculating the
wave function, build with transistors developed with QM.

And by the way, I don't consider myself quite a 'western'. I'm more
a 'Northern'. This of course flavours my way of writing, as your
eastern culture clearly flavours your way of writing.

    Kim 0yhus