Subjective Interpretations Of An Objective Universe

#8

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The Dancing Wu Li Masters is not a manual on the various forms of Chinese martial arts, hehehe… It is an expose on physics for the layman. The author, Gary Zukav, tries to present physics and what physicists do in a way that doesn’t require a trillion neurons firing at once to understand.  It was a matter of time before my harebrained reading habits took me down this road. I mean quantum mechanics, schmuntum mechanics! If I had never flunked physics in school and harbored ill thoughts towards my teacher, I would not, today, be asking myself, “Why don’t I feel the same way about physics as I do biology?”  I need to know. Barely forty pages into the book it became very obvious; I’m a why person not a how person.

And really what physicists do is study the invisible cogs in the great machinery of the universe. Most of their subjects cannot be seen with the naked eye; waves, energy, emmisions. So it’s understandable why I would prefer being hung from my toenail than sit through a class in physics.  But I’m sitting through the book which is no great miracle because the philosophical underpinnings that guide physicists have kept my goats very busy.

Here is a rational field of study. By rational  I mean firmly grounded in reality. It’s principles are expressed with mathematical precision. Mathematics, as we know, is the language of logic. No contradictions. One plus one is two. Two plus two is four and so on.  But can there be contradictions in the choice of study object or in the assumptions of certain factors considered in the course of the experiment?

The concept of scientific objectivity rests upon the assumption of an external world which is “out there” as opposed to an “I” which is “in here”. (This way or perceiving which puts other people “out there,” makes it very lonely “in here.”) According to this view, Nature in all her diversity is, “out there.” The task of the scientist is to observe the “out there” as objectively as possible. To observe something objectively means to see it as it would appear to an observer who has no prejudices about what he observes.

The problem that went unnoticed for three centuries is that a person who carries such an attitude certainly is prejudiced. His prejudice is to be “objective,” that is, to be without a performed opinion. In fact, it is impossible to be without an opinion. An opinion is a point of view. The point of view that we can be without a point of view is a point of view. The decision itself to study one segment of reality instead of another is a subjective expression of the researcher who makes it. It affects his perceptions of reality, if nothing else. Since reality is what we are studying, the matter gets very sticky here. 

The new physics, quantum mechanics, tells us clearly that it is not possible to observe reality without changing it. If we observe a certain particle collision experiment, not only do we have no way of proving tha the result would have been the same if we had not been watching it, all that we know indicates that it would not have been the same, because the result that we got was affected by the fact that we were looking for it.

Clearly the problem has been solved. P:hysicists through their subjective interpretation/prejudices stumbled on objective realities. But what is it about them that enables the elimination of those unknown contingencies that biologists and psychologists have not accomplished? Especially when,

According to quantum mechanics there is no such thing as objectivity. We cannot eliminate ourselves from the picture. We are a part of nature, and when we study nature there is no way around the fact that nature is studying itself.

The answer was provided by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung when he said:

The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his iner contradictions, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposite halves.

To get around the matter all together the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics which is formulated on the theory of pragmatism was formed. 

The philosophy of pragmatism goes something like this; The mind is such that it deals only with ideas. It is not possible for the mind to relate to anything other than ideas. Therefore, it is not correct to think that the mind actually can ponder reality. All that the mind can ponder is its ideas about reality. (Whether or not that is the way reality actually is, is a metaphysical issue). Therefore, whether or not something is true is not a matter of how closely it corresponds to the absolute truth, but how consistent it is with our experience.   

As we can see Nature is the ultimate leveler. Whatever goes on in the laboratory will be proved or disproved when subjected to Nature and all the attendant forces. But human beings are very complex. Because of the complexity of nature studying nature, it makes it almost impossible to be objective when it comes to the human psyche, for instance. Psychology, and to a lesser extent, biology, have been viewed as the bastard children of the sciences. Conforming occasionally to the objective scientific process but generally established on the dodgy foundation of subjective interpretation, especially in behavioral analysis of organisms.

This is why, the critics went on to say, psychology has not experienced the unprecidented developments achieved in other sciences. While psychology and biology are being happily criticized, it is interesting to note that without a departure from Newtonian physics (which assumes an objective reality based on ‘absolute truth’) to Quantum Mechanics (which does not assume an objective reality apart from experience) physicists would not be able to boast about their accomplishments today. Which, leaves the question answered, yet unanswered; Is it viable/possible to view the world objectively?