[Buddha-l] Re: Views of Information & Knowledge

[Barnaby Thieme]

Howdy Bernie

>The Copenhagen interpretation talks about the impossibility of measuring 
>two conjugate variables to arbitrary precision.

I don't know what you've been reading, but there is significantly more to 
the interpretation than that. The most widely-cited implication of the 
interpretation (drawn by Bohr and Heisenberg themselves) is that it is 
meaningless to ascribe some properties to quantum phenomena in the absence 
of measurement. This view has been corroborated by John Archibald Wheeler's 
oft-replicated delayed choice experiments.

>It also  divides the physical world into two parts: an uninterpreted realm 
>of quantum mechanics and an interpreted world of measurements made of these 
>quantum mechanical systems.

Yes, not unlike Nagarjuna's doctrine of the Two Truths. Precisely what I 
find interesting about the Copenhagen interpration of QM is that it suggests 
the seeming-paradoxes of quantum mechanics arise when we try to ask what 
quantum events are like "in themselves", prior to measurement. This is what 
latter-day Tibetan exegetes of Madhyamaka such as Tsong Khapa have called 
"ultimate analysis". As the Madhyamakas would predict, trying to describe 
what quantum events are like in themselves leads to contradiction.

>This gives the Copenhagen interpretation a strong instrumentalist flavor, 
>which is the main reason it is not much in favor with today's practicing 
>physicists.

How interesting. Strange that Wikipedia reports:

"According to a poll at a Quantum Mechanics workshop in 1997, the Copenhagen 
interpretation is the most widely-accepted specific interpretation of 
quantum mechanics, followed by the Many-worlds interpretation."

>All this is quite different than Nagarjuna's refutation of views via the 
>reductio ad absurdum.

I'm not saying that Nagarjuna was performing particle physics, but the 
similarities here are rather obvious.

Barnaby

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A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing
- Emo Philips