Is the uncertainty principle culturally deranging?
Paul Mackin
mackin.paul at verizon.net
Thu Aug 2 11:19:51 CDT 2012
On 8/2/2012 11:34 AM, Keith Davis wrote:
> Perhaps I'm displaying my ignorance, but why the reference to Derrida
> and Borges. From the quote above?
The gentlemen are associated, respectively, with the problematics of
knowing and communicating.
That French saying is probably Derrida's best known--at least by
non-graduates of Ecole Superieure Normale.
Derrida pointed out the limitations of the logocentrism dominant in
Western philosophy.
P
P
>
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 11:10 AM, Prashant Kumar
> <siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com <mailto:siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com>>
> wrote:
>
> I'll see your Derrida and raise you a Borges.
>
> P.
>
> On 3 August 2012 01:02, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net
> <mailto:mackin.paul at verizon.net>> wrote:
>
> On 8/1/2012 9:47 PM, Prashant Kumar wrote:
>> The uncertainty principle as mentioned (as opposed to used)
>> in postmodernism and elsewhere is not the physicist's
>> uncertainty principle. If one misunderstands something
>> aggressively enough it takes on a life of its own.
>>
>> Just for clarity, I should differentiate between two versions
>> of the HUP which have popular currency, and are
>> (consequently) almost always conflated.
>>
>> Some people will tell you that the HUP forbids you from
>> exactly specifying position and momentum (think of momentum
>> as how much something hurts when it hits you); if I have a
>> quantumball, I can't get both pieces of information at a
>> given instant. A more useful way of restating this is that I
>> can't /measure/ both simultaneously. If I measure position,
>> then momentum, I don't get the same results as if I measure
>> momentum then position. This isn't true in classical physics.
>>
>> In QM we don't know exact values of things like position and
>> momentum. Instead we work with probability distributions. HUP
>> tells you that if you know one quantity with some
>> (statistical) degree of specificity, then the other quantity
>> is limited in a particular way. If I give you the position of
>> our quantumball exactly, you will have no idea of its
>> momentum. This is a consequence of the way wavefunctions
>> work. It does /not/ mean that our knowledge is imperfect or
>> incomplete. It means that there is no more there to know.
>> This is the modern understanding (modulo technical
>> mathematical caveats).
>>
>> Usually something called Heisenberg's (the guy was prolific)
>> microscope enters the picture at this point. This thought
>> experiment tries to imagine the actual /process/ of
>> measurement, and see whether we can find some physical reason
>> for HUP. At the time of its formulation, the only known way
>> to measure a quantum state was to subject it to photons,
>> measure it directly or indeed just get in there and rustle
>> around till you got what you came for, leaving the quantum
>> state spent and shivering under the sheets. The argument was
>> that the act of measurement, and the requisite interaction,
>> was responsible for the uncertainty principle: you changed
>> the state by mucking round with it, so you're not going to
>> get exact results.
>>
>> Problem is, today we know there is a class of measurements
>> which are known as /interaction-free, /you get information
>> seemingly for free/, without/ directly addressing the state/.
>> /And these measurements are also subject to the HUP. This is
>> a particularly dark kind of magic and I won't go into it, but
>> if you're interested check out the Elitzur-Vaidman bomb
>> tester. Interaction-free measurements have actually been
>> performed in a lab.
>>
>> So if someone at a party tells you that the uncertainty
>> principle implies something about our knowledge of the
>> universe, fundamental inconsequentiality of human endeavour
>> etc., you should shank them with your champagne flute, then
>> patiently explain the failure of Heisenberg's microscope.
>
> Thanks, Preshant. Helpful explanation.
>
> If people want to talk about the uncertainty of knowledge,
> they still have "il n'y a pas de hors-texte" to fall back on.
>
> P
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2 August 2012 07:10, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net
>> <mailto:mackin.paul at verizon.net>> wrote:
>>
>> On 8/1/2012 4:33 PM, Madeleine Maudlin wrote:
>>> Oh der/anging/. Mr. Kohut is certainly /that/. I would
>>> never use that word though, or any deranged derivative
>>> there, hem, of. If I did it would be in the best sense
>>> possible, which for me would be exceedingly /good/.
>>
>> Vidal claims he was using the word, if not necessarily in
>> the best sense possible, not the worst sense either.
>>
>> Writing of the author of GR: "Only a physicist who wrote
>> good prose could tell us if, say, Heisenberg’s famous and
>> culturally deranging principle is correctly used in these
>> many, many pages."
>>
>>
>>
>> P
>>>
>>> Does anybody write here? I just got an email, who knows
>>> why I'm on their list, I haven't tried to publish
>>> anything in years, from a place called AuthorHouse,
>>> subject says Publish today and get a no-cost bump-up.
>>> So I guess it's free, today, if you want to get
>>> published. I'm currently stuck on page 400 hell with no
>>> end in sight. 432. What is it about 400? The Moon is
>>> 400 times smaller than the Sun and 400 times closer to
>>> it than the Earth, or something. Bumping-up, m
>>>
>>> On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 2:58 PM, Paul Mackin
>>> <mackin.paul at verizon.net
>>> <mailto:mackin.paul at verizon.net>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 8/1/2012 10:23 AM, Prashant Kumar wrote:
>>>> Yes.
>>>
>>>
>>> but not pejoratively so I hope
>>>
>>> P
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> P.
>>>>
>>>> On 1 August 2012 23:52, Paul Mackin
>>>> <mackin.paul at verizon.net
>>>> <mailto:mackin.paul at verizon.net>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1976/oct/28/plastic-fiction-3/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
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>
> --
> www.innergroovemusic.com <http://www.innergroovemusic.com>
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