I don’t know what’s the matter with physicists these days. It used to be that they were an intellectually sophisticated bunch, with the likes of Einstein and Bohr doing not only brilliant scientific research, but also interested, respectful of, and conversant in other branches of knowledge, particularly philosophy. These days it is much more likely to encounter physicists like Steven Weinberg or Stephen Hawking, who merrily go about dismissing philosophy for the wrong reasons, and quite obviously out of a combination of profound ignorance and hubris (the two often go together, as I’m sure Plato would happily point out). The latest such bore is Lawrence Krauss, of Arizona State University.

I have been ignoring Krauss’ nonsense about philosophy for a while, even though it had occasionally appeared on my Twitter or G+ radars. But the other day I read this interview Krauss just did with The Atlantic, and now I feel obliged to comment, for the little good that it may do….

Krauss’s volume [titled “A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing”] … has been slammed by David Albert in the New York Times:

“The particular, eternally persisting, elementary physical stuff of the world, according to the standard presentations of relativistic quantum field theories, consists (unsurprisingly) of relativistic quantum fields… they have nothing whatsoever to say on the subject of where those fields came from, or of why the world should have consisted of the particular kinds of fields it does, or of why it should have consisted of fields at all, or of why there should have been a world in the first place. Period. Case closed. End of story.”

Now it’s my turn to slam Albert, though certainly not to defend Krauss.

Good heavens! Do these philosophy-of-science types really still believe in an “eternally persisting, elementary physical stuff of the world”? Relativistic quantum fields are calculational devices. Particle physicists study scattering events. A scattering event is characterized by (i) a set of incoming particles with their energies and momenta and (ii) a set of outgoing particles with their energies and momenta. Relativistic quantum fields are algorithms that allow one to calculate for any given (i) the probability of obtaining any given (ii). They have nothing whatsoever to say on the subject of the elementary physical stuff of the world — whether there is such a thing and if so what it might be. Period. Case closed. End of story.

Responding in kind to Krauss’s armchair psychology, Pigliucci puts forth the hypothesis that the reason physicists such as Weinberg, Hawking and Krauss keep bashing philosophy is because they suffer from an intellectual version of the Oedipus Complex (you know, philosophy was the mother of science and all that… you can work out the details of the inherent sexual frustrations from there).

Pigliucci gives kudos to Ross Andersen, who conducted the interview, for pressing Krauss on several of his non sequiturs…. Andersen…: “certainly philosophers like John Rawls have been immensely influential in fields like political science and public policy. Do you view those as legitimate achievements?” And here Krauss is forced to reveal his anti-intellectualism, and even — if you allow me gentle reader — his intellectual dishonesty: “Well, yeah, I mean, look I was being provocative, as I tend to do every now and then in order to get people’s attention.” Oh really? This from someone who later on in the same interview claims that “if you’re writing for the public, the one thing you can’t do is overstate your claim, because people are going to believe you.” Indeed people are going to believe you, Prof. Krauss, and that’s a shame, at least when you talk about philosophy….

Andersen…: “it sounds like you’re arguing that ‘nothing’ is really a quantum vacuum, and that a quantum vacuum is unstable in such a way as to make the production of matter and space inevitable. But a quantum vacuum has properties. For one, it is subject to the equations of quantum field theory. Why should we think of it as nothing?” Maybe it was just me, but at this point in my mind’s eye I saw Krauss engaging in a more and more frantic exercise of handwaving, retracting and qualifying: “I don’t think I argued that physics has definitively shown how something could come from nothing [so why the book’s title?]; physics has shown how plausible physical mechanisms might cause this to happen. … I don’t really give a damn about what ‘nothing’ means to philosophers; I care about the ‘nothing’ of reality. And if the ‘nothing’ of reality is full of stuff [a nothing full of stuff? Fascinating], then I’ll go with that.”

But, insists Andersen, “when I read the title of your book, I read it as ‘questions about origins are over.’” To which Krauss responds: “Well, if that hook gets you into the book that’s great. But in all seriousness, I never make that claim. … If I’d just titled the book ‘A Marvelous Universe,’ not as many people would have been attracted to it.”

In all seriousness, Prof. Krauss, you ought (moral) to take your own advice and be honest with your readers. Claim what you wish to claim, not what you think is going to sell more copies of your book, essentially playing a bait and switch with your readers, and then bitterly complain when “moronic” philosophers dare to point that out.

Lee Smolin, in his “The Trouble with Physics” laments the loss of a generation for theoretical physics, the first one since the late 19th century to pass without a major theoretical breakthrough that has been empirically verified. Smolin blames this sorry state of affairs on a variety of factors, including the sociology of a discipline where funding and hiring priorities are set by a small number of intellectually inbred practitioners. Ironically, one of Smolin’s culprit is the dearth of interest in and appreciation of philosophy among contemporary physicists. This quote is from Smolin’s book:

“I fully agree with you about the significance and educational value of methodology as well as history and philosophy of science. So many people today — and even professional scientists — seem to me like someone who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historical and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is — in my opinion — the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth.” (Albert Einstein)

This is the story of how I got to the philosophy department at Wildstone University in the UK and how I came to meet and know about some very clever people.

I had an interest in science since a very young age. I used to build incredibly complicated and highly useless electrical devices, the idea was to create something complex that happened to have a function, the functionality was secondary, my main concern was to have as much stuff as possible without making the whole structure fall apart.

For example, there was a kind of “robot” which incorporated a weather station, a fan, a lamp and a cassette rewinder, among other things. The weather station only detected if it was raining or not, the problem was that instead of looking at this damn thing to see if the “raining” indicator was on, it was always easier to pull back the curtains and see it for yourself. The cassette rewinder allowed you to save on batteries, but on the other hand, you had to extract the cassette from the walkman, cycle back home, put the cassette in the rewinder till you thought you have reached the song you wanted to listen to, put it back in the walkman to check it, and so fort, so the whole business was utterly pointless. That’s how realism ruins an otherwise brilliant idea.

I had a respectable collection of live spiders and lizards, and I enjoyed building temperature controlled environments for my beloved reptiles. I was creating one of those comfy homes when I got seriously electrocuted and almost died. I was very surprised to find out years later that Richard Feynman had the same type of hobbies when he was a kid. The only difference is that he was brilliant and I almost killed myself, so that must mean something.

I decided to study physics for the same reason as everyone else: nature, the ultimate knowledge and all that stuff. To get there you first have to do some sacrifices, overcome obstacles, prove yourself, travel a long way, etc. So I did all that, and finally here comes the big day. First day of class at this multimillion investment building opening for the first time, sitting in the brand new auditorium, fully packed with 180 first-year students of physics, the biggest generation in the history of the faculty. Mauricio, who was the Dean at that time, had the honour of giving the welcoming speech. Using an impressive minimalist surround audio system he starts by saying, in perfectly clear Spanish:

“You have not come here to dedicate your life to the study of nature and the laws of physics, a 2% of you may follow that road; the rest of you have come here to become something quite different. In a few years time you will be working in the IT industry or in Wall Street. Nowadays there are physicists working in banks all around the world, developing dynamical models, understanding complex economic systems, programming software…”

With hindsight, now I understand that had I had a minimum of criteria or integrity I should have walked away at that point and never looked back. But for one reason or another I decided to stay there and after five difficult years I was among the handful of guys that came through the exit door with a degree in theoretical physics… ready for the IT market!

It may be because of that that I was not at all surprised when ten years later I read that a group of mathematicians and physicists working with derivatives in Wall Street had been made partially responsible for the worst economic crisis in the last century, ruining the lives of a few million people. It was the same as with those monstrous devices I used to build when I was a boy, it didn’t fit the purpose. Putting those guys to do that job was a risky move, too complex and artificial to be considered safe.

Coming back to my senses, I realized that the profession of physics had become too narrow and specialized, I was missing the big picture, so I decided to study philosophy. After paying a considerable amount of money (which is what you, or somebody else, has to do if you want to get into philosophy) I ended up studying Philosophy of Science at Wildstone. Finally I had the chance to leave behind those narrow minded, boring physicists and meet some wonderfully smart people, people capable of saying at least two meaningful words in any social environment.

The main incentive for me was that I was going to be able to learn, first-hand, from one of the top-notch professors in the area of philosophy of physics and quantum mechanics, which was my main interest at the time. Her name was Lady Marley and there was a lot of fuss in the department whenever she moved around. When she asked a question in the middle of a talk, the background murmur would die away all of a sudden. When she entered a room, people would turn around and start inadvertently clapping with their ears. So I had to figure out what was all this admiration about. It turned out that it had something to do with her “genius”, of which her extensive work and knowledge of the subject was an inextricable part.

She had big smelly feet, which a Lady is not supposed to have, I know, but unfortunately that was the case here. So when you would get into the half-light of her office, hardly being able to walk between piles of books that reached to the ceiling, she would lay down in a sofa and take off her shoes, resting her big smelly feet in a heap of dispersed books and listening to you very carefully, not saying much, just to be able to measure the scope of your stupidity.

I was very close to getting into that same flattery mood when by sheer luck I came to read about this guy, one of those German physicists that happen to be born from time to time, his name was Ulrich Mohrhoff. No one knew anything about him or had the least idea of the issues he was trying to highlight in quantum mechanics. To me, everything he said seemed TREMENDOUSLY important, so I studied his work quite a lot, I read everything he wrote about physics and the few critical notes on his work that were published at the time. It was something groundbreaking and exciting. Exciting is the right word, here is a guy who is saying something really new and meaningful about a very old problem, and he publishes it in Foundation of Physics, so he’s not a nut case. What can be more important?

I was wrong, food is more important.

Lady Marley was very conscious about the nature of her job, she would ring up the BBC to defend the argument that government cuts in areas like philosophy of science could damage future discoveries in unrelated fields. While some crazy guy on the other side of the line would say just the opposite, that the world is made of things (extensive things) and we should try to live with what we can afford.

So after listening very carefully to Lady Marley’s lectures, I came to her first seminar, knowing, after studying Mohrhoff, Mermin and others, that there were at least a few very worrying issues on what she had presented as objective “facts” of the microscopic world. She started talking again about the wave function and I took the first opportunity that presented to ask her where was she extracting the physical content of that function from, whether it was just a mathematical apparatus to calculate probabilities or an element of the real world. She looked at me in the same way as Hudig looked at Willems the day he fired the bastard from his post, and added with a pitiful laugh: “oh, you are an anti-realist!”

That was the beginning and the end of it. From then onwards there was no chance to discuss anything other than the usual waffle and fancy stuff, which is a mixture of science fiction and wishful thinking, all the standard tricks and transpired formalities of main stream philosophy of science. The rest of the people there were as lively as the reflection of the light in the totem permitted them to be. They shared some of that warmth and lived by it.

I didn’t find the openness or the opportunities I was expecting to find, but I did meet a very nice fellow with a strange Japanese surname which did philosophy of biology. He was unaffected and lovable. Sadly, I already had a bad experience with the natural world and didn’t want to get electrocuted twice.

Adrián Icazuriaga

That this statement received some well-deserved criticism in scientific circles wasn’t, according to Cox, because it is wrong but because “it sounds like woo woo, and quantum theory attracts woo-woo merde-merchants like the pronouncements of New Age mystics attract flies.”

Cox goes on to inform us (“for the record”) that “the subtle interconnectedness in quantum theory cannot be used to transmit information.” Wait a minute. Haven’t we just been told that the subatomic constituents of our bodies are constantly shifting in response to events happening an arbitrarily large distance away? If this were true, the response would depend on what happened a large distance away — otherwise we couldn’t say that it was a response to what happened there. But if what happens here depends on what happens there, then what happens here contains information about what happens there.

I am not saying that the “subtle interconnectedness in quantum theory” can be used to transmit information. It cannot. What I am saying (in agreement with the critics) is that blather about subatomic constituents constantly shifting in response to arbitrarily distant events is not the right way to illustrate the subtle interconnectedness that exists in quantum theory. Rather, it is precisely the kind of thoughtless talk that fires up the wooly masters of the New Age. Nor does saying that the constant shifting takes place “absolutely imperceptibly” explain why it cannot be used to transmit information. This qualifier is nothing but the second of two wrongs that pretend to make a right.

Cox accepts partial responsibility for the “cataclysmic tosh” purveyed by writers who cannot “possibly have the faintest idea how to use quantum theory to calculate the energy levels in a hydrogen atom” but tries to defend the use of his shifty metaphor, with scant success. Along the way he cites scientific questions — Is the climate warming and, if so, what is the cause? Is it safe to vaccinate children against disease? — whose answers “are independent of the opinion, faith or political persuasion of the individual.” I wish the tosh purveyed by those who know how to calculate the energy levels in a hydrogen atom were equally independent of their faiths or opinions. (Political persuasion may not be a factor here.)

The fact of the matter is that the mathematical formalism of quantum physics is a probability calculus. It serves to assign probabilities to the possible outcomes of measurements yet to be made, on the basis of measurement outcomes already obtained. This calculus, moreover, is the only testable part of the theory. It is all that experimental physicists need to know and most of them care to know. How, if not by way of faith or opinion, does one get from here to balderdash like the following?

“Quantum theory tells us that the universe we experience emerges from a bewildering, counterintuitive maelstrom of interactions between an infinity of recalcitrant sub-atomic particles. To understand something as simple as a rainbow, we have to allow each single particle of light to explore the entire universe on its journey through the rain.”

For a significantly more insightful discussion of quantum mechanics and its popularization I strongly recommend an article by philosopher of science Dennis Dieks, which appeared in the first issue of AntiMatters.

Why does a typical material object occupy as much space as it does? Part of the answer is that it is “made” of atoms (as well as molecules), and that an atom occupies a space roughly a tenth of a nanometer across. So why does an atom occupy that much space, despite the fact that it is composed of a very few objects, which either (like an electron) occupy no space at all or (like a nucleus) occupy a space roughly ten femtometers across — four orders of magnitude less than the atom?

To keep the problem as simple as possible, let us consider an atom of hydrogen in its ground state. Before we can profitably do so, however, we need to clarify what it means for a quantum-physical system to be “in” a state. After all, a quantum state is a probability algorithm, and it does not make much sense to say that a quantum system is in a probability algorithm.

We may think of the ground state of a hydrogen atom as an actual state of affairs if we allow that this state of affairs is adequately described in terms of the probability distributions it defines. Specifically, we may think of the position probability distribution defined by the ground state as describing a fuzzy position, and we may think of this fuzzy position as an aspect of that state of affairs. But we need to be clear about (i) when that state of affairs obtains and (ii) how we know that it obtains.

The ground state of atomic hydrogen (qua probability algorithm) is determined by a single outcome: the lowest possible outcome of a measurement of the atom’s energy. Strictly speaking, however, the possession by the atom of a specific energy cannot be observed. What can be observed is transitions between (approximately) stationary states, including transitions to the ground state. We can observe the transition of a hydrogen atom to its ground state, and we can prevent any subsequent transition to an excited state, at least for a limited period. If we do so, we know that the ground state (qua actual state of affairs) obtains, and we know when it obtains: not at any instant of time, but during an undifferentiated time span beginning with the atom’s transition to the ground state.

So why does a hydrogen atom in its ground state occupy as much space as it does? Primarily because the electron’s position relative to the proton is fuzzy. Merely being fuzzy is not enough, though. The relative position between the two particles must also stay fuzzy. For this, the electrostatic attraction between the two particles, which (by itself) would cause their relative position to get sharper (less fuzzy), must be offset by something which (by itself) would cause their relative position to grow more fuzzy. This something is the fuzziness of their relative momentum. A mere equilibrium between these two tendencies, however, also is not enough. The equilibrium has to be stable, and for this Heisenberg’s uncertainty relation is needed. This ensures that a decrease in the fuzziness of a relative position (beyond a certain limit) causes an increase in the fuzziness of the corresponding relative momentum, and vice versa. It thereby ensures that a decrease (or increase) in one tendency causes a decrease (or increase) in the other.

The word “uncertainty”, however, is misleading. Although Heisenberg’s original term Unschärfe carries the statistical sense of this word as well as the sense of “fuzziness”, the latter is appropriate here; for what “fluffs out” atoms is not our subjective uncertainty about the values of the relative positions and momenta of the constituents of atoms but an objective fuzziness of those values.

“What the Bleep Do We Know!?,” a spaced-out concoction of quasi physics and neuroscience that appeared several years ago, promised moviegoers that they could hop between parallel universes and leap back and forth in time — if only they cast off their mental filters and experienced reality full blast. Interviews of scientists were crosscut with those of self-proclaimed mystics, and swooping in to explain the physics was Dr. Quantum, a cartoon superhero who joyfully demonstrated concepts like wave-particle duality, extra dimensions and quantum entanglement. Wiggling his eyebrows, the good doctor ominously asked, “Are we far enough down the rabbit hole yet?”…

Dr. Quantum was a cartoon rendition of Fred Alan Wolf, who resigned from the physics faculty at San Diego State College in the mid-1970s to become a New Age vaudevillian, combining motivational speaking, quantum weirdness and magic tricks in an act that opened several times for Timothy Leary. By then Wolf was running with the Fundamental Fysiks Group, a Bay Area collective driven by the notion that quantum mechanics, maybe with the help of a little LSD, could be harnessed to convey psychic powers. Concentrate hard enough and perhaps you really could levitate the Pentagon.

In “How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival,” David Kaiser, an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, turns to those wild days in the waning years of the Vietnam War when anything seemed possible: communal marriage, living off the land, bringing down the military with flower power Why not faster-than-light communication, in which a message arrives before it is sent, overthrowing the tyranny of that pig, Father Time?

Members of the Fundamental Fysiks Group, circa 1975; clockwise from left: Jack Sarfatti, Saul-Paul Sirag, Nick Herbert and Fred Alan Wolf

That was the obsession of Jack Sarfatti, another member of the group. Sarfatti was Wolf’s colleague and roommate in San Diego, and in a pivotal moment in Kaiser’s tale they find themselves in the lobby of the Ritz Hotel in Paris talking to Werner Erhard, the creepy human potential movement guru, who decided to invest in their quantum ventures. Sarfatti was at least as good a salesman as he was a physicist, wooing wealthy eccentrics from his den at Caffe Trieste in the North Beach section of San Francisco.

Other, overlapping efforts like the Consciousness Theory Group and the Physics/Consciousness Research Group were part of the scene, and before long Sarfatti, Wolf and their cohort were conducting annual physics and consciousness workshops at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur.

Fritjof Capra, who made his fortune with the countercultural classic “The Tao of Physics” (1975) was part of the Fundamental Fysiks Group, as was Nick Herbert, another dropout from the establishment who dabbled in superluminal communication and wrote his own popular book, “Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics” (1985). Gary Zukav, a roommate of Sarfatti’s, cashed in with “The Dancing Wu Li Masters” (1979). I’d known about the quantum zeitgeist and read some of the books, but I was surprised to learn from Kaiser how closely all these people were entangled in the same web [...]

Richard Feynman famously stated “I think it is safe to say that no one understands Quantum Mechanics.”

This book is changing that. Although so far I have only read up to chapter 5, it looks like this unexpected treatise lives up to its preposterous subtitle.

The way Ulrich Mohrhoff introduces QM everything flows from the basic rules of calculating with probabilities and the uncertainty relation. The latter in turn is a logical requirement for stable matter and quite a misnomer in English (surprisingly the original German term “Unschaerferelation” captures its meaning significantly better).

Reading chapter 5 has been a most humbling experience. I studied physics and have always been captivated by the particle wave dualism that the classical two slit experiment embodies so beautifully. Feynman observed that this “experiment has in it the heart of quantum mechanics”. Well, I feel like eating my heart out.

The way this book covers the two slit experiment everything falls into place and makes perfect sense. There is no wave particle dualism, just the naked necessity of a probabilistic regime. It is so simple. Painfully obvious. Easy to grasp with just a minimum of mathematical rigor. It boggles the mind that QM has not been understood this way from the get go. This feels like 20/20 hindsight writ large.

To add insult to injury, this is written as a text book that’ll be easily accessible for an enterprising high school student, because it briefly introduces all necessary mathematical tools along the way. I.e. a physicist can easily skip these parts as they are cleanly separated from the chapters in which the author executes his QM program.

If you’ve been trying to make sense of QM you will hate this book. It’ll make you feel stupid for not having been able to see this all along. Time to eat some humble pie.

I’ll report back once I read the rest.

Such predictions are of the form: IF the particle is found hereabouts (by an approximate position measurement) THEN such and such are the probabilities of the possible outcomes of a momentum measurement. Position and momentum have gotten entangled, which means that the outcomes of both types of measurement are correlated, which means that increasing your information about the particle’s position increases your information about the particle’ momentum. Unless the Heisenberg limit is exceeded, no violation of the uncertainty relation occurs.

Now remember Young’s two-slit experiment. 200 years later physicists have learned how to shine light through the slits one photon at a time (or do something very much amounting to that), to do this a large number of times, and to perform measurements that (i) preselect photons with roughly known whereabouts and (ii) yield approximate information about the momentum of the preselected photons. As long as the Heisenberg limit isn’t exceeded, no violation of the uncertainty relation occurs.

For each approximate position one thus obtains an average momentum, and if one maps the average momenta on the approximate positions, one obtains this graph (Sacha Kocsis et al., “Observing the Average Trajectories of Single Photons in a Two-Slit Interferometer“, Science 3 June 2011: Vol. 332 no. 6034 pp. 1170-1173):

Must I insist that a consolidated plot of (approximately) locally observed average momenta is one thing, and a plot of strictly unobservable Bohmian trajectories is quite another?

As a trained physicist, do you think that quantum mechanics provides a theoretical framework to understand phenomena like psi (e.g, telepathy, psychokinesis, etc.) or the nature and origin of consciousness?

No, I don’t think so. The idea that quantum mechanics provides such a framework is based on what philosopher David Chalmers has called the “law of minimization of mystery.” The quantum-mechanical correlations (between measurement outcomes) are mysterious. Nobody knows anything about the mechanism or process by which measurement outcomes influence the probabilities of measurement outcomes. The observed psi correlations are mysterious. The correlations between neural firing patterns in a brain and the subjective, first-person content of consciousness are mysterious. So it’s economical (but also chimerical) to assume that the three mysteries can be reduced to a single mystery.

Some materialist scientists argue that the notion of a causally efficacious consciousness and phenomena like psychokinesis is physically impossible because it violates the law of energy conservation. For example, in psychokinesis, physical energy would be actually created by a non-physical consciousness in order to affect a purely physical world, and the principle of energy conservation precludes such creation of energy. What do you think of this scientific objection against the causal efficacy of consciousness?

A tautology. Energy is only conserved within a closed physical system. To assume the universal validity of the law of energy conservation is to assume that the physical universe is causally closed. If one assumes that the physical universe is causally closed, then nothing nonphysical can influence the goings-on in the physical universe. This begs the question of whether the physical universe is causally closed. I have discussed this in detail in a paper titled “The physics of interactionism,” which appeared in Journal of Consciousness Studies 6 (Nos. 8–9, pp. 165–184) and The Volitional Brain (Imprint Academic, 1999).

However, I am in full agreement with those – not only neuropsychologists but also phenomenologists, mystics, and yogis – who reject the folk psychology of free will. The mystic or yogi discovers behind our ordinary consciousness a subliminal consciousness, whose initial attitude is that of a detached witness. It experiences thoughts, feelings, intentions, actions impersonally and undistorted by any sense of ownership, authorship, or responsibility. Those who go further become increasingly aware of the true origins and determinants of their thoughts, feelings, intentions, and actions. And once they are sufficiently aware of these subliminal controlling influences, they are in a position to accept or reject them, to choose, and for the first time to exercise a genuine free will.

You have argued that, contrary to the common opinions on the matter, there is no such thing as a collapse of the state vector (or wave function). Can you expand on this idea?

Quantum states (state vectors, wave functions, density operators, etc.) are mathematical tools by which we calculate the probabilities of the possible outcomes of a measurement on the basis of the actual outcomes of other measurements. Accordingly, the time t on which a quantum state functionally depends is the time of the measurement to the possible outcomes of which it serves to assign probabilities.

The common mistake is to misconstrue the time dependence of a quantum state as the continuous time dependence of an evolving state. An algorithm for assigning probabilities to possible measurement outcomes on the basis of actual outcomes has two perfectly normal dependences. It depends continuously on the time of measurement: if this changes by a small amount, the assigned probabilities change by small amounts. And it depends discontinuously on the outcomes that constitute the assignment basis: if this changes by the inclusion of an outcome not previously taken into account, so do the assigned probabilities. But think of a quantum state’s dependence on time as the time-dependence of an evolving state, and you have two modes of evolution for the price of one: continuous and predictable between measurements, discontinuous and unpredictable at the time of a measurement (the so-called collapse). Hence the mother of all quantum-theoretical pseudo-questions: what causes the (non-existent) collapse?

You have said that many writers who comment about quantum mechanics (and its putative metaphysical implications) are misguided, because they transmogrify the mathematical tools of a probability calculus into descriptions of actual physical states, events, or processes. What do you mean exactly by it? Does not quantum mechanics tell us something about the ontologically objective reality out there and its actual metaphysical properties?

Let me begin by quoting David Mermin, one of the most level-headed physicists I know. In his May 2009 column in Physics Today he wrote:

When I was an undergraduate learning classical electromagnetism, I was enchanted by the revelation that electromagnetic fields were real. Far from being a clever calculational device for how some charged particles push around other charged particles, they were just as real as the particles themselves, most dramatically in the form of electromagnetic waves, which have energy and momentum of their own and can propagate long after the source that gave rise to them has vanished. That lovely vision of the reality of the classical electromagnetic field ended when I learned as a graduate student that what Maxwell’s equations actually describe are fields of operators on Hilbert space. Those operators are quantum fields, which most people agree are not real but merely spectacularly successful calculational devices. So real classical electromagnetic fields are nothing more (or less) than a simplification in a particular asymptotic regime (the classical limit) of a clever calculational device. In other words, classical electromagnetic fields are another clever calculational device.

“Most people” are the silent majority, who unfortunately are rarely heard by science journalists and quantum physics popularizers. The latter are more likely to listen to a vocal minority, who, instead of having learned from quantum physics that even the reification of some of the calculational tools of classical physics was never more than a sleight-of-hand, are desperately trying to apply the same sleight-of-hand to quantum physics. It beats me how, even in the old days of classical physics, people could pass off calculational tools as physical entities or natural processes. Perhaps it was their hubristic desire to feel potentially omniscient — capable in principle of knowing the furniture of the universe and the laws by which this is governed. Or was it the prestige provided by the carefully cultivated image of physicists as being potentially omniscient?

To answer the second part of your question: Yes, quantum mechanics can be interpreted as telling us something about “the ontologically objective reality out there,” but the reification of calculational tools is definitely not the way to find out what quantum mechanics is trying to tell us about the nature of Nature. On the contrary, it’s the best way to make sure that nobody finds out.

Defenders of a realist interpretation of quantum mechanics have argued that the mathematical axiomatization of the quantum theory doesn’t contain any variables denoting mental/psychological properties or entities (like consciousness, thoughts, experiences or human observers); quantum theory therefore refers to an objectively existing real world. What do you think of this argument?

The axioms that encapsulate the mathematical structure of quantum mechanics are, every one of them, as clear and compelling as axioms ought to be – provided that they are treated as features of a probability calculus. The way the axioms are generally stated, they are anything but clear and compelling. Only one – the Born rule – then refers to probabilities, while the other axioms make it seem as if quantum states were evolving physical states of some kind. I agree that this probability calculus allows us to conceive of an “objectively existing real world” and to make inferences as to its nature. But I repeat that this cannot be done by reifying the probability algorithms we call “quantum states.”

Some contemporary atheist physicists have argued that physics provides empirical evidence that “something can come from nothing” or that the universe was created without any cause at all. For example, in the recent book The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow have argued that “Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.” Do you think this conclusion is scientifically correct? Has QM provided an empirical counterexample to the principle “out of nothing nothing comes”?

My only reply to this is a statement by C.D. Broad: “the nonsense written by philosophers on scientific matters is exceeded only by the nonsense written by scientists on philosophy.”

Do you think the Big Bang and the fine-tuning of the universe suggest (or make more probable than not) the existence of a creator or cosmic intelligence?

I don’t think it makes sense to assign probabilities to these things. As to what they suggest – it depends on one’s prior beliefs. I don’t believe in an extracosmic creator, but I see a creative intelligence at work in many places, not just the big bang and fine tuning. I also believe that this intelligence is far superior to the human variety, so that any attempt by us to second guess it is sheer folly.

Materialists have argued that the existence of split-brain patients provide almost a knock-down argument against dualism and in favor of materialism. What do you think of the cases of split-brain patients and their relevance for the mind-body problem?

I’m not competent in this field, but I’m confident that you will find a most competent response in the book First Person Plural: Multiple Personality and the Philosophy of Mind by Stephen E. Braude.

As a trained scientist, do you think there is good scientific evidence for psi phenomena and survival of consciousness?

There is impressive evidence. I don’t care if it’s considered scientific. Evidence is evidence.

Which is your current philosophical position regarding the mind-body problem (e.g. dualism, panexperientialism, etc.)?

Matter and mind are mutually irreducible, but they have a common origin, which is neither material nor mental but a trans-categorial (“ineffable”) Reality, which relates to the world in (at least) two ways: as a substance that constitutes it, and as a consciousness that contains it. In other words, the world exists both by that Reality (this is the origin of matter as we know it) and for that Reality (this is the origin of consciousness as we know it). So dualism is isn’t the last word, but it seems to me to be a necessary stepping stone towards an adequate understanding of the problem and its solution. There is an excellent book on this subject: The Two Sides of Being: A Reassessment of Psychophysical Dualism by Uwe Meixner. (I’ve written a lengthy review of this book, whose two parts can be downloaded from the AntiMatters website.)

Do you think that intelligent design, both in biology or in cosmology, is a viable scientific hypothesis?

I think that intelligence is beyond the purview of science. There is an excellent book on this subject: Is Nature Enough? Meaning and Truth in the Age of Science by John F. Haught (My review of this book is also available at the AntiMatters website.) I am sympathetic to those who see a higher intelligence at work, but not to the politico-religious movement associated with the phrase “intelligent design.”

As I said, I believe in an intelligence that is far superior to human intelligence. The latter first designs and then executes its designs, utilizing pre-existent materials and pre-existent laws. The former doesn’t work that way; it doesn’t first design and then execute, and the only material it uses is the substance (Reality) in which it inheres. It works more like a spontaneously self-realizing vision of what is to be.

You are sympathetic to the epistemology known as “radical constructivism” developed by Ernst von Glasersfeld. Why do you think this epistemological view is superior to or better or preferable than other common epistemic doctrines like epistemological realism?

Everybody has his own views on all but the most trivial subjects. Often we stick to our views and defend them with a tenacity that makes us construct epicycles upon epicycles, but sometimes we reconstruct our working model of reality to incorporate new evidence. It would be ludicrous in the extreme to pretend that one’s present working model is adequate to all the evidence one may yet obtain. The great advantage of radical constructivism is that it takes this into account. (Note that von Glasersfeld doesn’t claim that radical constructivism is right but only that it is part of such a working model.) I believe that only the superior intelligence mentioned before can have an adequate knowledge of reality. (I also believe that evolution will eventually produce a species embodying that superior intelligence.) Our own intelligence can at best grasp limited aspects of this knowledge. The human being, to quote Sri Aurobindo,

is not intended to grasp the whole truth of his being at once, but to move towards it through a succession of experiences and a constant, though not by any means a perfectly continuous self-enlargement. The first business of reason then is to justify and enlighten to him his various experiences and to give him faith and conviction in holding on to his self-enlargings. It justifies to him now this, now that, the experience of the moment, the receding light of the past, the half-seen vision of the future. Its inconstancy, its divisibility against itself, its power of sustaining opposite views are the whole secret of its value. It would not do indeed for it to support too conflicting views in the same individual, except at moments of awakening and transition, but in the collective body of men and in the successions of Time that is its whole business. For so man moves towards the infinity of the Truth by the experience of its variety; so his reason helps him to build, change, destroy what he has built and prepare a new construction, in a word, to progress, grow, enlarge himself in his self-knowledge and world-knowledge and their works.

Mark this in bold red: “Its inconstancy, its divisibility against itself, its power of sustaining opposite views are the whole secret of its value.”

A common objection against radical constructivism is that it leads to skepticism regarding the real, objective world (if it exists) and destroys the traditional philosophical concepts of “truth” and “knowledge.” What do you think of this objection?

I wouldn’t call it an objection. Skepticism is healthy (as long as it also remains skeptical of itself). The correspondence theory of truth is our naïve, lazy, default position. It is not even wrong, to use Wolfgang Pauli’s felicitous phrase, inasmuch as there is no way to prove it either right or wrong.

What books on philosophy, quantum physics, consciousness and related topics would you like to recommend to the readers?

The major works of Sri Aurobindo, all of which can be downloaded here. Also the magnum opus of Jean Gebser: The Ever-Present Origin. Part 1 of this volume (“Foundations of the Aperspectival World”) is subtitled “A contribution to the history of the awakening of consciousness.” Part 2 (“Manifestations of the Aperspectival World”) is subtitled “An attempt at the concretion of the spiritual.” (See also my article “Evolution of consciousness according to Jean Gebser” in AntiMatters.) Then the works of Stephen E. Braude, whom I have already mentioned. Nobody writes with greater competence about paranormal phenomena. Also my own textbook The World According To Quantum Mechanics: Why The Laws Of Physics Make Perfect Sense After All (warning: pricey and intended mainly for students and teachers of quantum mechanics). A non-mathematical overview is available at this site.

Would you like to add something else to end the interview?

I have said that quantum mechanics can be interpreted as telling us something about the nature of Nature, albeit not via the reification of calculational tools. So what does it tell us, and how? My physical interpretation of the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics distinguishes itself from others in that it does not invoke untestable metaphysical assumptions – such as what happens between measurements – but proceeds directly from the testable calculational rules of quantum mechanics. By analyzing the probabilities that quantum mechanics assigns in various experimental situations, I arrive at the following conclusions:

• Considered by themselves, out of relation to anything else, the so-called ultimate constituents of matter are identical in the strong sense of numerical identity. They are, each of them, that trans-categorial Reality I mentioned before.
• By entering into spatial relations with itself, this Reality creates both matter and space, for space is the totality of existing spatial relations, while matter is the corresponding apparent multitude of relata – “apparent” because the relations are self-relations.
• The world is structured from the top down, by a self-differentiation of this Reality that does not bottom out: if we conceptually partition the world into smaller and smaller regions, we reach a point where the distinctions we make between regions no longer correspond to anything in the physical world.

Note that the belief that quantum states are evolving (and hence instantaneous) states, is incompatible with the last conclusion, for while this implies that the world’s spatial differentiation is incomplete (it does not “go all the way down”), the interpretation of quantum states as evolving (and hence instantaneous) states implies that the world’s temporal differentiation – and thus (via the special theory of relativity) its spatial differentiation – is complete.

Another conclusion:

• Measurements do not reveal pre-existent values – values that the measured quantities would have possessed even if they had not been measured. Instead, they create their outcomes. Physical quantities have values only if (and only when) they are actually measured.

But if no value exists unless it is measured, then the value-indicating property of a measuring device also needs to be measured in order to have a value, and a vicious regress ensues. To avoid such a regress, some properties must be different. Solving this problem requires (i) a rigorous definition of the elusive term “macroscopic” and (ii) showing that the positions of macroscopic objects form a self-contained system to which independent reality can consistently be attributed. The elusiveness of defining “macroscopic” has often been remarked upon. It is worth pointing out that it was the incomplete spatial differentiation of the physical world that enabled me to rigorously define this word, which in turn made it possible to terminate that regress.

Another thing I said is that nothing is known about the mechanism or process by which measurement outcomes influence the probabilities of measurement outcomes. Let me add this: every conceivable measurement outcome has a probability greater than zero unless it violates a conservation law. Consequently, physics never needs to explain “how Nature does it.” It only needs to explain – via conservation laws – why certain things won’t happen. This is exactly what one would expect if the force at work in the world were an infinite (unlimited) force operating under self-imposed constraints. We therefore have no reason to be surprised by the impossibility of explaining the quantum-mechanical correlations laws, except in terms of final causes. It would be self-contradictory to invoke a mechanism or process to explain the working of an infinite force. What needs explaining is why this force works under the particular constraints that it does, and this I have explained in my book (as well as several papers, which can be downloaded via this page).

When science becomes this strange, it inevitably generates possibilities for confusion, and with confusion comes the opportunity for profit. I hereby wish to bestow my Worst Abusers of Quantum Mechanics for Fun and Profit (but Mostly Profit) award on the following:

Deepak Chopra: I have read numerous pieces by him on why quantum mechanics provides rationales for everything from the existence of God to the possibility of changing the past. Nothing I have ever read, however, suggests he has enough understanding of quantum mechanics to pass an undergraduate course I might teach on the subject.

The Secret: This best-selling book, which spawned a self-help industry, seems to be built in part on the claim that quantum physics implies a “law of attraction” that suggests good thoughts will make good things happen. It doesn’t.

Transcendental meditation: TMers argue that they can fly by achieving a “lower quantum-mechanical ground state” and that the more people who practice TM, the less violent the world will become. This last idea at least is in accord with quantum mechanics, to the extent that if everyone on the planet did nothing but meditate there wouldn’t be time for violence (or acts of kindness, either).

The idea [of cosmic inflation] is so compelling that cosmologists, including me, routinely describe it to students, journalists and the public as an established fact. Yet something peculiar has happened to inflationary theory in the 30 years since Guth introduced it. As the case for inflation has grown stronger, so has the case against. The two cases are not equally well known: the evidence favoring inflation is familiar to a broad range of physicists, astrophysicists and science aficionados. Surprisingly few seem to follow the case against inflation except for a small group of us who have been quietly striving to address the challenges. Most astrophysicists have gone about their business testing the predictions of textbook inflationary theory without worrying about these deeper issues, hoping they would eventually be resolved. Unfortunately, the problems have resisted our best efforts to date.