Is the uncertainty principle culturally deranging?

Thu Aug 2 11:26:52 CDT 2012

Somebody hit me just the other day with some Derrida, in an argument about
the Moon.  And I thought, Derrida?  Does anybody even read him anymore, I
mean since say 1993?

Suddenly with the Derrida everywhere.

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 11:19 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>wrote:

>  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
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> P
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> On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 11:10 AM, Prashant Kumar <
> 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> 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> 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>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> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1976/oct/28/plastic-fiction-3/
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
> --
> www.innergroovemusic.com
>
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>
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