scholarly journals On the Need for a Certain Physicality from Quantum Theory

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 4747-4750
Author(s):  
Devin Hardy
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Translational Motion ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Physical World ◽  
The World ◽  
Fundamental Error ◽  
Future Outcomes ◽  
Physical Mechanics ◽  
Mathematical Construct

Many attempts have been made at the unification of General Relativity (GR) and Quantum Theory (QT), but there is a fundamental error made with these attempts, as we will discuss. What is the point of such theories? Well, obviously to describe the physical world we live in. QT describes what happens on the tiny scale, and GR describes what happens to bodies on a large scale. The fundamental error in unifying the two subjects is that QT doesn’t provide the physical happenings for GR to work, or in other words, QT describes why the world is the way it is, but not how, and this does not philosophically suffice in GR. Must we simply give up, in that the subjects are two different entities? I think the answer is that we mustn’t. I think that we should put one theory in terms of the basic mechanics of the other, perhaps by simplifying, or perhaps by taking the physical reality to be our guide. Do I believe QT describes the world? Accurately. Do I believe that QT is the physical truth? Of course not… it is simply a mathematical construct to provide a model that allows for us to predict future outcomes. I will begin very simplistic, but the goal for the first part of the paper is to Classically describe the physical mechanics of QT. I will stick with particles in their ground state, and hence no translational motion.

Causality Then and Now

1993 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-177
Author(s):  
Karen Harding
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Mechanical Model ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Way

Ate appearances deceiving? Do objects behave the way they do becauseGod wills it? Ate objects impetmanent and do they only exist becausethey ate continuously created by God? According to a1 Ghazlli, theanswers to all of these questions ate yes. Objects that appear to bepermanent are not. Those relationships commonly tefemed to as causalare a result of God’s habits rather than because one event inevitably leadsto another. God creates everything in the universe continuously; if Heceased to create it, it would no longer exist.These ideas seem oddly naive and unscientific to people living in thetwentieth century. They seem at odds with the common conception of thephysical world. Common sense says that the universe is made of tealobjects that persist in time. Furthermore, the behavior of these objects isreasonable, logical, and predictable. The belief that the univetse is understandablevia logic and reason harkens back to Newton’s mechanical viewof the universe and has provided one of the basic underpinnings ofscience for centuries. Although most people believe that the world is accutatelydescribed by this sort of mechanical model, the appropriatenessof such a model has been called into question by recent scientificadvances, and in particular, by quantum theory. This theory implies thatthe physical world is actually very different from what a mechanicalmodel would predit.Quantum theory seeks to explain the nature of physical entities andthe way that they interact. It atose in the early part of the twentieth centuryin response to new scientific data that could not be incorporated successfullyinto the ptevailing mechanical view of the universe. Due largely ...

Mapping Continents, Inhabited Quarters and The Four Seas. Divisions of the World and the Ordering of Spaces in Latin-Christian, Arabic-Islamic and Chinese Cartography in the Twelfth to Sixteenth Centuries. A Critical Survey and Analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Mauntel ◽  
Klaus Oschema ◽  
Jean-Charles Ducène ◽  
Martin Hofmann
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Critical Survey ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
The World ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
Geographical Space

Abstract This paper explores the presence and development of large-scale geographic categories in pre-modern cartography (twelfth to sixteenth centuries) in a combination of comparative and transcultural perspectives. Analysing Latin-Christian, Arabic-Islamic and Chinese maps, we demonstrate the varying degrees of importance accorded to large-scale geographic structures. The choice of related as well as independent traditions allows for the identification of specific emphases which reflect the influence of the respective cultural backgrounds and strategies applied in the ordering of space. While the analysed Chinese material concentrates on a geographical space that was perceived to form an ideal political and cultural unity without representing the entire physical world, Latin-Christian and Arabic-Islamic traditions share the focus on the whole “oecumene” that they both inherited from antique models. However, only Latin-Christian maps consistently and explicitly present a tripartite world that resonates with Trinitarian structures in Christian thought.

scholarly journals Om Grundtvigs menneskesyn

1987 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-28
Author(s):  
William Michelsen
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Mystical Experience ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Annual Conference ◽  
The North ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual

On Grundtvig's View of ManBy William MichelsenIn this paper, read to the Annual Conference of the Grundtvig Society in January 1988, an answer is offered to the question: Did Grundtvig’s view of man remain unchanged from 1817 to his death? The answer is in the affirmative. The line of argument of the paper issues from Grundtvig’s essay “On Man in the World”, printed in the magazine “Danne-Virke” II, 1817, abstracting from it nine tenets, about which Grundtvig’s view remained the same, even after 1832, when he changed his attitude to the prevailing philosophy and theory of knowledge of the age, as far as he drew a distinction between faith and knowledge. As early as 1817 man is viewed both from a Christian and a non-Christian point of view. By virtue of his sensory organs man stands in a direct relationship with animals, and his historical development is a continuation of his separation from the animal kingdom. Nonetheless, man is created in God’s image, which means, that he is intended to develop towards increasing likeness with his Maker. And the archetypal likeness to God remains in man in spite of the Fall, which is confirmed both by the life of the individual and by history. As God is Truth, the Fall means a deviation from Truth provoked by Untruth, through which man is undone. Truth and Untruth are seen as spiritual verities to be found behind the physical reality of immediate perception and consequently behind life and death.What does Grundtvig mean by the word “spirit”? The essay offers two different answers to the question that are not in disagreement. In one place he says that the spirit consists of “mixed ideas perceived by the senses, but with a spiritual character,” that is they are exclusively manifest in the form of images. Elsewhere he holds that the Spirit is a living, forceful and active idea, which is solely perceived by consciousness, and consciousness is a product of man’s external and internal senses: feeling, vision and hearing. With the external senses we perceive the physical world and the physical part of ourselves. With the internal senses we become aware of the spiritual side to ourselves, our fellow-men and the world, in which we live.That man and the world were created, is to Grundtvig no matter of belief, but quite simply a question of recognition of reality: No man did create himself and even less the world in which we live. This epistemological realism is Grundtvig’s main proposition, which became clear to him in 1813 (as evidenced by the lecture ms. “On the Human Condition”). - Conversely the Fall presupposes the belief that man was created to become like God, and is consequently not his own master but under his Maker. That man should be able to work his own salvation when he has deviated from his divine purpose, is to Grundtvig quite plainly an impossibility.The only way in which man may be saved from complete annihilation is to Grundtvig by faith in the only human being who did not stray from his destiny to become like God. To choose this faith is to choose Truth rather than Untruth as one’s ideal, in one’s actions as well as in one’s external and internal perception of the world and oneself. But the heart of the matter is that man sees himself as an imperfect image of his Maker, a creature still far from having been fully developed.According to Grundtvig this view of man is only to be attained and developed through historical scholarship. There is no short-cut to this goal as for instance by way of a mystical experience, or what his contemporaries called a pure vision of Nature or an intellectual vision, even though this may be experienced in a fleeting moment. In this case one is deluded by illusions (“brilliant shades”). To make reason a starting-point for a view of man is also an error, since both the historical development and the development of the individual begin with feeling and ideation or imagination. The road to knowledge and understanding of man must, according to Grundtvig, be entirely different from the one followed sofar. It is understandable that Grundtvig holding such views was debarred from a university post, as they differed so much from contemporary thought. The definitive formulation of his view of man is, indeed, not to be found in the Danne-Virke of 1817, but in his introduction to “Mythology of the North” from 1832 where it is presented as the opposite of what his own day and posterity imagined a Christian view of man to be: “a divine experiment” with the aim of demonstrating how it was feasible for spirit and flesh to interpenetrate, in the process being clarified in a mutual consciousness, which Grundtvig called “divine”, because it is the superhuman Maker who intends to make an image of himself, but that “will require a thousand generations yet. ” According to Grundtvig, the main error of the view of man was that it made our descendants true copies of ourselves, consequently bringing evolution to a standstill.

Quantum Magic and Quantum Mystery

1989 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Penrose ◽  
Martin Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Quantum Level ◽  
Common View ◽  
Classical Physics ◽  
Classical World ◽  
The World ◽  
Mathematical Equations

In classical physics there is, in accordance with common sense, an objective world ‘out there’. That world evolves in a clear and deterministic way, being governed by precisely formulated mathematical equations. This is as true for the theories of Maxwell and Einstein as it is for the original Newtonian scheme. Physical reality is taken to exist independently of ourselves; and exactly how the classical world ‘is’ is not affected by how we might choose to look at it. Moreover, our bodies and our brains are themselves to be part of that world. They, also, are viewed as evolving according to the same precise and deterministic classical equations. All our actions are to be fixed by these equations - no matter how we might feel that our conscious wills may be influencing how we behave. Such a picture appears to lie at the background of most serious 1 philosophical arguments concerned with the nature of reality, of our conscious perceptions, and of our apparent free will. Some people might have an uncomfortable feeling that there should also be a role for quantum theory - that fundamental but disturbing scheme of things which, in the first quarter of this century, arose out of observations of subtle discrepancies between the actual behaviour of the world and the descriptions of classical physics. To many, the term ‘quantum theory’ evokes merely some vague concept of an ‘uncertainty principle’, which, at the level of particles, atoms or molecules, forbids precision in our descriptions and yields merely probabilistic behaviour. Actually, quantum descriptions are very precise, as we shall see, although radically different from the familiar classical ones. Moreover, we shall find, despite a common view to the contrary, that probabilities do not arise at the minute quantum level of particles, atoms, or molecules - those evolve deterministically - but, seemingly, via some mysterious larger-scale action connected with the emergence of a classical world that we can consciously perceive. We must try to understand this, and how quantum theory forces us to change our view of physical reality.

Shaping the Geography of Empire

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Political Power ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Multiple Worlds ◽  
The World ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Narrative Voices ◽  
Geographical Space

This is a book about the multiple worlds that Herodotus creates in his narrative. The constructed landscape in Herodotus’ work incorporates his literary representation of the natural world from the broadest scope of continents right down to the location of specific episodes. His ‘charging’ of those settings through mythological associations and spatial parallels adds further depth and resonance. The physical world of the Histories is in turn altered by characters in the narrative whose interactions with the natural world form part of Herodotus’ inquiry, and add another dimension to the meaning given to space, combining notions of landscape as physical reality and as constructed reality. Geographical space is not a neutral backdrop, nor simply to be seen as Herodotus’ ‘creation’, but it is brought to life as a player in the narrative, the interaction with which reinforces the positive or negative characterizations of the protagonists. Analysis of focalization is embedded in this study of Herodotean geography in two ways—firstly, in the configurations of space contributed by different viewpoints on the world; and secondly, in the opinions about human interaction with geographical space which emerge from different narrative voices. The multivocal nature of the narrative complicates whether we can identify a single ‘Herodotean’ world, still less one containing consistent moral judgements. Furthermore, the mutability of fortune renders impossible a static Herodotean world, as successive imperial powers emerge. The exercise of political power, manifested metaphorically and literally through control over the natural world, generates a constantly evolving map of imperial geography.

scholarly journals The End of a Classical Ontology for Quantum Mechanics?

Entropy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Peter W. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Fundamental Ontology ◽  
Hidden Variable ◽  
Variable Approach ◽  
The World ◽  
Obvious Consequence ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Causal Structures

In this paper, I argue that the Shrapnel–Costa no-go theorem undermines the last remaining viability of the view that the fundamental ontology of quantum mechanics is essentially classical: that is, the view that physical reality is underpinned by objectively real, counterfactually definite, uniquely spatiotemporally defined, local, dynamical entities with determinate valued properties, and where typically ‘quantum’ behaviour emerges as a function of our own in-principle ignorance of such entities. Call this view Einstein–Bell realism. One can show that the causally symmetric local hidden variable approach to interpreting quantum theory is the most natural interpretation that follows from Einstein–Bell realism, where causal symmetry plays a significant role in circumventing the nonclassical consequences of the traditional no-go theorems. However, Shrapnel and Costa argue that exotic causal structures, such as causal symmetry, are incapable of explaining quantum behaviour as arising as a result of noncontextual ontological properties of the world. This is particularly worrying for Einstein–Bell realism and classical ontology. In the first instance, the obvious consequence of the theorem is a straightforward rejection of Einstein–Bell realism. However, more than this, I argue that, even where there looks to be a possibility of accounting for contextual ontic variables within a causally symmetric framework, the cost of such an account undermines a key advantage of causal symmetry: that accepting causal symmetry is more economical than rejecting a classical ontology. Either way, it looks like we should give up on classical ontology.

scholarly journals QUANTUM META-THEORY (Twisting the Tail of Schrödinger’s Cat)

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Rescher
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Hidden Variables ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Quantum Reality ◽  
Better Than ◽  
Meta Theory

The problem of Schrödinger’s Cat has figured prominently in the debates about the bearing of quantum physics on our understanding of physical reality. On its basis, various theorists have maintained the quantum physical world exhibits a probabilistically indecisive physical reality. The analysis of the paper that this appeal to quantum reality is methodologically at odds with and disjoint from its underlying approach to quantum theory itself. If there is to be methodological uniformity at this juncture it will have to be along the lines that Einstein always focused—an incomplete hidden factor (perhaps better than “hidden variables”) approach.

scholarly journals From semiosis to semioethics: The full vista of the action of signs

2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 437-491
Author(s):  
John Deely
Keyword(s):  
Physical World ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Distinct Individual ◽  
Fundamental Error ◽  
Contemporary Development ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Sign Vehicle

How anything acts depends upon what it is, both as a kind of thing and as a distinct individual of that kind: “agere sequitur esse” — action follows being. This is as true of signs as it is of lions or centipedes: therefore, in order to determine the range or extent of semiosis we need above all to determine the kind of being at stake under the name “sign”. Since Poinsot, in a thesis that the work of Peirce centuries later confirmed, the proper being of signs as signs lies in a relation, a relationship irreducibly unifying three distinct terms: a foreground term representing another than itself — the representamen or sign vehicle; the other represented — the significate or object signified; and the third term to or for whom the other-representation is made — the interpretant, which need not be a person and, indeed, need not even be mental. The action of signs then is the way signs influence the world, including the world of experience and knowledge, but extending even to the physical world of nature beyond the living. It is a question of what is the causality proper to signs in consequence of the being proper to them as signs, an indirect causality, just as relations are indirectly dependent upon the interactions of individuals making up the plurality of the universe; and a causality that models what could or might be in contrast to what is here and now. To associate this causality with final causality is correct insofar as signs are employed in shaping the interactions of individual things; but to equate this causality with “teleology” is a fundamental error into which the contemporary development of semiotics has been inclined to fall, largely through some published passages of Peirce from an essay within which he corrects this error but in passages so far left unpublished. By bringing these passages to light, in which Peirce points exactly in the direction earlier indicated by Poinsot, this essay attempts a kind of survey of the contemporary semiotic development in which the full vista of semiosis is laid out, and shown to be co-extensive with the boundaries of the universe itself, wherever they might fall. Precisely the indirect extrinsically specificative formal causality that signs exercise is what enables the “influence of the future” according to which semiosis changes the relevance of past to present in the interactions of Secondness. Understanding of this point (the causality proper to signs) also manifests the error of reducing the universe to signs, the error sometimes called “pansemiosis”.

Conscious Mind, Resonant Brain

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Grossberg
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Machine Learning ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Neural Circuits ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Learning Technology ◽  
Large Scale Problems ◽  
The World

The book is the culmination of 50 years of intensive research by the author, who is broadly acknowledged to be the most important pioneer and current research leader who models how brains give rise to minds, notably how neural circuits in multiple brain regions interact together to generate psychological functions. The book provides a unified understanding of how, where, and why our brains can consciously see, hear, feel, and know about the world, and effectively plan and act within it. It hereby embodies a revolutionary Principia of Mind that clarifies how autonomous adaptive intelligence is achieved, thereby providing mechanistic explanations of multiple mental disorders, biological bases of morality, religion, and the human condition, as well as solutions to large-scale problems in machine learning, technology, and Artificial Intelligence. Because brains embody a universal developmental code, unifying insights also emerge about all living cellular tissues and about how mental laws reflect laws of the physical world.

Kitcher’s Circumlocutionary Structuralism

1991 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-89
Author(s):  
Michael Hand
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Structural Features ◽  
Mathematical Truth ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Philip Kitcher ◽  
Physical Knowledge ◽  
The World

Philip Kitcher has proposed an account of mathematical truth which he hopes avoids platonistic commitment to abstract mathematical objects. His idea is that the truth-conditions of mathematical statements consist in certain general structural features of physical reality. He codifies these structural features by reference to various operations which are performable on objects: the world is structured in such a way that these operations are possible. Which operations are performable cannot be known a priori; rather, we hypothesize, conjecture, idealize, and eventually wind up with theories which are true of the world (taking into account our idealizations), just as we do in the sciences. Kitcher argues that mathematical and physical knowledge are continuous, in that they concern the same subject matter (the physical world) and are subject to the same epistemological and methodological constraints.

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