Wishing all the mothers in the world the honor and recognition that they deserve. Below is a picture of the ultimate in self-sacrificial motherhood--except I don't think these birds have the ethical categories to understand what had actually happened. I took these pictures at Pokagon State Park in 1997.

*****

Last time, as I began this series, I tried to make the point that the understanding of causality, as it emerged in modern (post-Cartesian) philosophy, and as it was implemented by Isaac Newton, was a somewhat truncated one. Essentially, it consisted of "objects" pushing and pulling on each other. No wonder that Hume was skeptical of the empirical perceptibility of such a thing (and just being able to describe it with a mathematical formula does not make it more visible). I think it's telling for Newton's view of the world that he advocated the understanding of light as particles (photons), as opposed to waves, and that, even in the development of his version of the calculus, he visualized the process of leading up to it as the movement of tiny little particles (fluxions) along the line described by a curve.

I suggested that, instead, we need to have a more open, but also more realistic understanding of causality, namely that a cause is an entity that actualizes some potential. I realize that this definition is more vague than "pushing and pulling" by means of forces, but it also does more justice to our actual use of the expression x caused  y:  y was non-existent, but potentially existent. Then x brought y into existence as its cause. This definition includes applications in Newtonian physics, but does not shut the door on other situations.  As I keep saying, I don't think that we ought to try doing metaphysics without doing metaphysics, but if it makes you feel more comfortable, you can stay with the definition that x is a necessary condition and at least is a member of the set of sufficient conditions for y, as long as we don't limit "necessity" to logical entailment, but include factually unavoidable conditions, as based on observation or experience.[1]

I'm still speaking in general philosophical terms. I will explain the following physical phenomena later on, but I really want you to see the difference between a Newtonian understanding of causality and a broader view. Many people are aware that Albert Einstein distanced himself from quantum physics, more specifically the "Copenhagen School" led by Niels Bohr. Did you know that Einstein actually received his Nobel prize, not for either theory of relativity, but for his contribution to quantum mechanics in which he posited light as consisting of particles (good old Newton's photons rediviva)? Subsequently he abjured the newer trends in quantum theory, especially as espoused by Niels Bohr et. al., based on the fact that their theory was incomplete. But, it was incomplete for him, I can say with confidence, because it did not meet Newtonian criteria of causality. In short, and it is really bizarre to say this, When it came to atomic physics, Einstein was Newtonion at heart.

Before giving you the reasons for my claim, let me re-emphasize that the point that I'm trying to make is simply to highlight the difference between coming at certain phenomena with a Newtonian world view or with a broader one. There is no further polemic intended, and I'm not even making any particular truth claims with regard to the physical phenomena at this point

So, now let me try to explain what I mean by Einstein having taken a Newtonian view. I'm going to refer to the phenomenon known as "entanglement," the subject of the book by Amir Aczel that I mentioned last night. "Entanglement" is the physics behind the imaginary idea of the "quantum computer," which plays a significant role in Michael Crichton's Timeline (New York: Ballentine, 2003), as well as my little The Absence of the Bloggist. IBM announced recently that they think they will have a functional quantum computer ready in ten years. We'll see.

The fundamental idea is this: Imagine that you have an electronic gun that shoots out one pair of sub-atomic particles. Because they leave together, they are "entangled" with each other.  Each particle could have certain properties out of a set {{A or B} & {C or D}}. Thus, a particle could have the properties: A & C, A & D, B & C, or B & D.

However, when first emitted, both of these particles will be in the state that is called "superposition," which means that until someone has actually measured the properties of a particle, it acts as though it had all of the available properties, even though they may be mutually exclusive. This is weird stuff, and, as I said, I'll try to describe it better later. For now, we just need to realize that, when we use our particle gun to shoot out a pair of particles, both of them are in the state of superposition; both demonstrate all four subsets of properties. So, now we select particle 1 and measure it. We keep track of its properties and check particle 2. Its properties will immediately show up to be equal and opposite to particle 1.

Clearly, our action of analyzing particle 1 must have released some kind of force that affected particle 2 and communicated to it which properties it should adopt. Well, we can test that: Let us say that we create such a large distance between them that we can rule out any communication by any conceivable force, gravitational, electromagnetic, nuclear, whatever. So we set up our apparatus so that by the time we measure the properties of one particle, the other one is a football field's length away. The same phenomenon still occurs. Once we measure the properties of one electron, the properties of the other electron immediately become its equal and opposite. So, how can the properties of one particle influence the properties of another particle a hundred yards away? That could be a trick question because quantum mechanics, according to Bohr's interpretation, allowed for no "influence." It is just the nature of particles to come out that way. If one is A, the other is B. If one has a clockwise spin, the other one's spin is counterclockwise. Even though neither one had either property prior to the measurement (or perhaps both), once you've determined the properties of one, the other one instantaneously must have the opposite properties.

But, seen from a Newtonian point of view, there must have been some way in which, say, particle 1, communicated with particle 2, so that particle 2 could know which properties particle 1 possesses and take on the opposite properties. But no such factor is known.

I've been writing about this phenomenon as though it were based on experimental observation. Actually, that's not how it first came up. (See Aczel, Entanglement, pp. 111-121). Albert Einstein brought it up in an article published in 1934 (co-authored with Nathan Rosen and Boris Podolsky) as a thought experiment involving quite complex and apparently flawless mathematics on how the wave functions of the two particles would become entangled at the outset prior to observations. He proposed that, if the Copenhagen version of quantum mechanics were true, then entanglement would be a definite result. However, entanglement is not physically possible because it would involve what he called "a spooky action at a distance," which is to say a causal influence of one particle on another particle without any physical force between the two particles. This was clearly impossible, and so Einstein, along with some other notable physicists, wound up parting theoretical ways with the main stream of quantum mechanics. 

The big names in quantum physics, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schroedinger, Wolfgang Pauli, and others were furious at Einstein--probably more at the fact that he wrote against their theory than at what he wrote--though they couldn't really refute it. Niels Bohr went into a tizzy trying to find a way to prove Einstein false, but struggled helplessly. He eventually announced that the article was irrelevant since it had no experimental application.

Since then the entanglement phenomenon has been confirmed at distances of many miles. Einstein was vindicated by the claim that entanglement was, indeed, a consequence of quantum mechanics, but quantum mechanics was vindicated because what Einstein thought of as a reductio ad absurdum turned out to be physically real.

You see, when it came to science, Einstein was a materialistic determinist. Notwithstanding occasional references to God, his theology was a deistic one at best: God was the creator who started the clock running. Now, I'm not saying that this world view is worse than the agnosticism and skepticism expressed by many of his colleagues, but we need to realize that such was his approach, and that it figured in his response to later quantum mechanics.

And then we need to make sure that we don't buy into the same paradigm. Objects and the forces associated with them pushing and pulling at each other just don't exhaust all that happens in the universe.

I'm reminded of an argument made by Kai Nielsen, a leading atheist of the previous generation. I guess he should be considered an "old" atheist. His over-all case didn't hold in the final analysis, but, in contrast to the so-called new atheists, he was a rigorous philosopher who presented real arguments with which one could actually interact. Nielsen (Introduction to Philosophy of Religion, New York: St. Martin's, 1982, pp. 17-42), following the canons of analytic philosophy, tried to show that the concept of God is not meaningful. His basic argument was that God is described as both incorporeal and as acting in the world. But how can a non-corporeal being possibly carry out actions in the material world? According to Nielsen, the only experience of action that human being have is that of one material being acting ("pushing or pulling") on another material being. Actions by a non-corporeal being on material objects is beyond our experience and are, therefore, incomprehensible. But, since the concept of God is intimately tied to his acting in the world, the concept of God is also intrinsically incoherent.

A response to Nielsen on this point is fairly easy and straightforward. His idea of the unintelligibility of actions by an immaterial being, to which he appeals, is obviously gratuitous. Millions of people seem to find it comprehensible, for example when they pray, so such an argument based on the meaningfulness of words includes some highly dubious assumptions.

Now, I'm certainly not saying that quantum mechanics proposes divine action to explain matters such as entanglement. But it challenges us to back off from a naive materialistic and deterministic understanding of the world.

Next time: So, what is a quantum anyway?

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[1] In other words, we limit ourselves to alpha, the actual world. Neither logically possible worlds in which the laws of the universe are different from the ones we know, nor so-called alternative universes fit into this definition.

Einstein was a great man.He is a genious because he discover something that noone can think about it.

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