What Is the Role of Ontology in the Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics?

[PeterDonis]

What have these discussions to do with physics?

That's another big part of what makes these kinds of discussions difficult. Different people will have widely varying opinions about how relevant such discussions are to physics.

 

[timmdeeg]

That's another big part of what makes these kinds of discussions difficult. Different people will have widely varying opinions about how relevant such discussions are to physics.

If an instrumentalist claims the Schrödinger Equation isn't ontic how do we proof he is wrong? If I understand this discussion correctly there is no answer. Instead there is this or that opinion. So what's the worth of this whole discussion? Intellectual enjoyment?

 

[A. Neumaier]

The 'software' is the brain wiring

Wiring is generally considered hardware, not software. Software is about telling what to do, not about how it can be carried out physically. See the wikipedia quote in post #94.

 

[A. Neumaier]

Can minds exist without brains? Can a mind run an algorithm without a computer or some other hardware (paper, abacus, etc.) to run it on?

A mind turns a mindless piece of hardware into something having purpose and direction. It is (in my opinion) definitely something independent of the physical hardware it is using.

Can minds exist without brains? Can a mind run an algorithm without a computer or some other hardware (paper, abacus, etc.) to run it on?

Who knows? Quite possibly yes - there is no logical obstruction. I gave a plausible scenario in an Insight article.

whats the worth of this whole discussion?

In matters where the concepts are completely clear, nothing need to depend on opinion. In matters where the concepts are fuzzy (because of multiple meanings and poor demarkations between them), philosophy is important and strongly shapes the opinion. Knowing the spectrum of opinions of others and their justification (which requires such discussion) is valuable to find or sharpen one's own opinion. It potentially leads to more clarity and hence to more precise concepts - which is the only way to improve understanding.

In the present case, the quest is about ontology - the notion of existence. Is it necessarily material existence (generalized hardware)? Or is it primarily mental existence (generalized software)? Or is it both? Surely physics is not about nonexistent things, but neither is psychology. Is psychology reducible to physics (and mind just an epiphenomenon of matter)? Is physics reducible to psychology (and the wave function only encodes subjective knowledge)? These questions matter for understanding physics and its role in Nature.

 

[PeterDonis]

If an instrumentalist claims the Schrödinger Equation isn't ontic how do we proof he is wrong? If I understand this discussion correctly there is no answer. Instead there is this or that opinion.

That's how I understand it too.

So what's the worth of this whole discussion?

There is no unique answer; there is only this or that opinion. I'm posting here because I feel like it.

 

[PeterDonis]

A mind turns a mindless piece of hardware into something having purpose and direction.

Perhaps this is just a difference in preferred wording, but I would say instead: A mind is a piece of hardware that has purpose and direction.

It is (in my opinion) definitely something independent of the physical hardware it is using.

"Independent" in what sense? It is certainly conceptually independent, since we can think and talk about minds without having to think and talk about the hardware they are associated with. But that's not the same as minds being able to exist without hardware; see below.

Who knows? Quite possibly yes - there is no logical obstruction. I gave a plausible scenario in an Insight article.

Again I didn't make myself clear. Let me rephrase my question: can a mind exist without any hardware at all? The Turing machine you use in your Insights article counts as hardware.

 

[vis_insita]

We are talking about several different interpretations of the term "numbers". Which in turn means we are talking about several different interpretations of the term "exists" in terms of whether numbers exist. These terms do not have single unique meanings. That's a big part of what makes these kinds of discussions difficult.

At least the term "natural number" does have a unique meaning. It means "element of the standard model of arithmetic". Referring to some set of things which does not even satisfy the laws of arithmetic as "numbers" will of course make any discussion of the existence and properties of numbers difficult. But this would be entirely the fault of the person who introduces such misleading language.

As for numbers in the ususal sense it is still unclear to me how one can deny their existence (without resorting to claims that are far more implausible than their existence). Let's try this argument: We have a (partial) description of the natural numbers in terms of the 1st order Peano axioms. Those axioms are consistent. According to the Completeness Theorem for every consistent set of such axioms there exists a set which satisfies all those axioms. The smallest of those sets are the Natural Numbers.

Do you disagree with any assertion in this argument? Or are you suggesting the term "exist" is used here in another sense than in, e.g. "trees exist", "electrons exist", "unicorns don't exist". If the latter is the case, can you make precise where you see the difference?

 

[A. Neumaier]

A mind is a piece of hardware that has purpose and direction.

All properties of hardware can be analyzed in terms of physics. On the other hand, purpose and direction are not physical but teleological concepts. Thus hardware cannot have these properties.

The Turing machine you use in your Insights article counts as hardware.

Then everything counts as hardware. Diluting the discriminating power of words to this extent is making language useless. I object to such usage.

A Turing machine is a purely mental concept without any relation to matter, logically defined by a few axioms - not by observable facts. In computer science terms, the tape is the hardware, the Turing machine is the software (program, algorithm) - the mind acting on the hardware.

 

[EPR]

Again I didn't make myself clear. Let me rephrase my question: can a mind exist without any hardware at all? The Turing machine you use in your Insights article counts as hardware.

Didn't he just discard everything physical as being mere wavefunctions encoding subjective knowledge?
There is no objective reality at the fundamental level. I see no contradiction in his statements - just the usual fuzziness related to these hard to pin down concepts.

 

[A. Neumaier]

we can think and talk about minds without having to think and talk about the hardware they are associated with. But that's not the same as minds being able to exist without hardware

It depends on the notion of existence assumed. For you, only hardware exists, Therefore minds must be hardware. For me, hardware and software exist and are different, but related to each other (perhaps even dependent on each other).

 

[PeterDonis]

It depends on the notion of existence assumed.

Ok, fair enough.

 

[PeterDonis]

purpose and direction are not physical but teleological concepts

I would say they are functional concepts, and hardware can have functional properties. But I think this is just an aspect of our differing notions of existence.

 

[Elias1960]

It seems that the word ontology which suppose to be about the most concrete object we can come up with is itself not well defined.

I would disagree.

I would accept that you reject Demystifier's notion of "primitive ontology" as not sufficiently well-defined. But the ontology is sufficiently well-defined. ("Sufficiently" means that I'm talking about notions of what is well-defined for physicists, not for mathematicians.) In particular, the ontology should contain all the information necessary and used to predict the evolution in future.

So, for some classical theory with Lagrange formalism, the ontology should contain $q(t_0),\dot{q}(t_0)$, if it is given in Hamilton formalism, it should contain $q(t_0), p(t_0)$. In dBB theory, it should contain $q(t_0),\psi(q,t_0)$. This is not restricted to deterministic theories, say, for Brownian motion the ontology would be simply $q(t_0)$ and the predictions about the future would be only statistical.

Let's also not forget that the ontology of some particular system, even if it is handled like a closed system, may nonetheless depend on the external world. Thus, the complete ontology may contain the ontology of the external world too. So, in an $\psi$-epistemic interpretation, $\psi(q,t)$ describes only our knowledge about the ontology of the system itself. But this knowledge may be objective - the measurement device used for preparation, the measurement result of the preparation measurement - and part of the ontology external to the system.

The precision of this definition is quite restricted - in principle, "theory with ontology" is a metatheoretical notion, which should be applicable to any theory. But the set containing "any theory" is not a well-defined set in mathematical set theory. All we can do is, therefore, to clarify the meaning of ontology for all theories which claim to have some ontology. This is usually not a problem.

If it is a problem, it is a strong indication that the theory is not well-defined. I see, for example, no definition of the ontology in many worlds which would make sense. There is a definition - all what exists is the wave function. But it makes no sense, because all the things they talk about, like the worlds themselves, are not well-defined by the wave function alone.

 

[timmdeeg]

In the present case, the quest is about ontology - the notion of existence.

The worth of this discussion to me is that this quest doesn't seem to be decidable.

I remember C.F.Weizsäcker mentioning somewhere (I can't find the reference unfortunately) that the wave function shouldn't be interpreted ontic and Dieter Zeh that Many Worlds require an ontic interpretation of the wave function (here I can show a reference if wanted).

I mean if numbers are ontic then the wave function should be ontic even more.

My personal view is that a mathematical construct isn't ontic. Otherwise the Pythagoras is ontic.

 

[A. Neumaier]

The worth of this discussion to me is that this quest doesn't seem to be decidable.

The quest need not be decidable, we may have the freedom to choose. But there are better and worse choices, hence the discussion of the reasons for the various possible choices is useful.

 

[microsansfil]

Who knows? Quite possibly yes - there is no logical obstruction. I gave a plausible scenario in an Insight article.

Inside–Outside: The Misleading Divide

Patrick

 

[timmdeeg]

Inside–Outside: The Misleading Divide

Inside-Outside: The ontological interpretation

 

[timmdeeg]

The quest need not be decidable, we may have the freedom to choose. But there are better and worse choices, hence the discussion of the reasons for the various possible choices is useful.

But has a proponent of the MWI "the freedom to choose" a non-ontological meaning of the wave function? If not are there given a specific physical framework certain criteria which restrict said freedom to a certain choice?

 

[AlexCaledin]

Hmmm the most "ontological" things seem to be those Strings of the String theory - and they are pure math objects...

(So I am forced to believe in the Fundamental Consciousness)

 

[A. Neumaier]

But has a proponent of the MWI "the freedom to choose" a non-ontological meaning of the wave function? If not are there given a specific physical framework certain criteria which restrict said freedom to a certain choice?

Freedom is an emergent concept applying to social beings, not a concept of physics. Thus any foundation of physics compatible with its macroscopic laws is compatible with freedom.

 

[AlexCaledin]

We have some freedom because we are subprocesses (introduced by means of "physical" brains - but never completely confined to the brain processes ) of the Fundamental Consciousness that is possessing the freedom fundamentally.

 

[Lord Jestocost]

Freedom is an emergent concept applying to social beings,...

The framework of experimental physics requires a freedom of action as a constitutive presupposition.

In his book “Dance of the Photons”, Zeilinger puts it in the following way:

“ [W]e always implicitly assume the freedom of the experimentalist... This fundamental assumption is essential to doing science. If this were not true, then, I suggest, it would make no sense at all to ask nature questions in an experiment, since then nature could determine what our questions are, and that could guide our questions such that we arrive at a false picture of nature.”

 

[EPR]

Freedom is an emergent concept applying to social beings, not a concept of physics. Thus any foundation of physics compatible with its macroscopic laws is compatible with freedom.

I am not sure if there is anything that is not emergent. What is not emergent if 'classical' reality is? (given that classical reality is all that we are aware of). How does one think about anything if this is how the world really works at the fundamental level? It gets more bizarre instead of becoming clearer.

 

[lavinia]

Here is a quote from Gauss's Third proof of the Law of Quadratic Reciprocity (Found in "Source Book in Mathematics" by David Eugene Smith Dover Publications ) in which he talks about investigations of numbers.

The first section begins with this observation.

“The questions of higher arithmetic often present a remarkable characteristic which seldom appears in more general analysis, and increases the beauty of the former subject. While analytic investigations lead to the discovery of new truths only after the fundamental principles of the subject (which to a certain degree open the way to these truths) have been completely mastered; on the contrary in arithmetic the most elegant theorems frequently arise experimentally as the result of a more or less unexpected stroke of good fortune, while their proofs lie so deeply embedded in the darkness that they elude all attempts and defeat the sharpest inquiries…. These truths are frequently of such a nature that they may be arrived at by many distinct paths and that the first paths to be discovered are not always the shortest. It is therefore a great pleasure after one has fruitlessly pondered over a truth and has later been able to prove it in a round-about way to find at last the simplest and most natural way to its proof.”

So here he is experimenting with numbers to discover their hidden properties. IMO this is not pure deductive reasoning but is rather the same search for an understanding and a theory of observed objects as one finds in all science. Gauss called Mathematics the queen of the sciences.

Further this is not just software in a computer nor is it purely words found useful for physics.

 

[EPR]

Again I didn't make myself clear. Let me rephrase my question: can a mind exist without any hardware at all?

My take on it for whatever it's worth.

Can a mind experience events? Most certainly. Can a mind record events? Certainly not. A physical brain is necessary(matter). Matter records experiences and we are always giuded by past experiences. All our knowledge comes from the collections of past experiences or someone else's past experiences... and some extrapolations(imagination). I don't understood how imagination works yet - it must be the mind.
The point is we build everything through history and past experiences which are always encoded in physical matter(whether that would be brains or memory chips or wood markings or something else). A mind on its own is probably not going to be very efficient at making sense without memory(brain). If it could hypothetically exist without a brain.

PS It's probably not the brain that does the thinking but the mind(which superviens on the brain). An unconscious person cannot think. Or feel - although they are obviously still alive. This could be why we have been unable to sufficiently well understand how brains operate. Or freewill.

 

[PeterDonis]

Can a mind experience events? Most certainly. Can a mind record events? Certainly not. A physical brain is necessary(matter).

Huh? A physical brain is necessary to record events but not to experience them? This makes no sense to me. At the very least, the claim that a physical brain is not necessary to experience events is a very highly extraordinary claim that requires very highly extraordinary evidence, which I very strongly doubt that you have.

 

[microsansfil]

Huh? A physical brain is necessary to record events but not to experience them?

Does conscious experience derives from a material basis ?

Correlation isn't causality.

"To describe a certain neural process is not to live it, it is not to live the experience that goes with it. (...) You can have any brain process you want, yet you have absolutely no reason in principle to think that they should be associated with lived experience. "

Patrick

 

[PeterDonis]

Correlation isn't causality.

I'm not arguing that correlation is causality. The association between conscious experience and the presence of brains is much stronger than mere "correlation".

The statement in what you quote that "you have absolutely no reason" to think that your lived experience requires a brain, seems so outrageously false to me that I can't even begin to decide how to respond to it.

 

[EPR]

Huh? A physical brain is necessary to record events but not to experience them? This makes no sense to me. At the very least, the claim that a physical brain is not necessary to experience events is a very highly extraordinary claim that requires very highly extraordinary evidence, which I very strongly doubt that you have.

You certanly cannot think with just a physical brain(whatever complex brain you may ever come up with). You need mind(conscious experience). Brains operate on unconscious persons for long periods of time.

 

[PeterDonis]

You certanly cannot think with just a physical brain(whatever complex brain you may ever come up with).

I didn't say you can think with just a physical brain. I said you cannot think without a physical brain. What you are calling "mind" requires a physical substrate; the only one we know of at this point that can support a mind is a brain. At some point we might figure out how to make other physical substrates that can support minds (this is one way of stating the problem of artificial general intelligence), but we haven't yet, which is why I say you cannot think without a physical brain. That in no way means that any physical brain can think; obviously the brain needs to be in the proper state (e.g., alive, not unconscious, not anesthetized, etc.).

 

[A. Neumaier]

The lack of completeness theorem is indeed one of those unappealing properties of second order logic (in the standard semantics). The other is the compactness theorem, valid in first but not second order logic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compactness_theorem

On the other hand,

• Parikh, R.J.: Some results on the length of proofs. Transactions of the ACM 177, 29–36 (1973)

proved that there exist arithmetical formulas that are provable in first order arithmetic, but whose shorter proof in second order arithmetic is arbitrarily smaller than any proof in first order. In my view, short proofs are much more important than the compactness theorem.

 

[EPR]

What you are calling "mind" requires a physical substrate; the only one we know of at this point that can support a mind is a brain.

This is what it looks like, indeed from a strict physicalist pov. From a slightly more comprehensive viewpoint - if my body is quantum in nature(as is everything else) and all of my so called physical sensations are felt and experienced by the mind, why do we wonder that some physicists advocate for a radical departure from the assumed nature of existence(ala Newton)? Mind certanly plays a big role in how we perceive this reality - it certanly gives it all attributes through which we judge it(smell, color, taste, 'sound', light and dark, temperature, meaning, perhaps even 'touch'). All of these should be in inverted commas as they are subjective qualities.

 

[microsansfil]

Mind certanly plays a big role in how we perceive this reality - it certanly gives it all attributes through which we judge it(smell, color, taste, 'sound', light and dark, temperature, meaning, perhaps even 'touch'). All of these should be in inverted commas as they are subjective qualities.

Mind i don't know what is it. However smell, color, taste, sound, hot/cold, pain, ... are foremost first person experiences.

It is through these sensations in the first person that we become aware of ourselves and of what surrounds us. The rest, such as for example our theories, are derived, by inter subjectivity, from our logical steps (Scientific method) and deductions.

When we describe a physical phenomenon in relationship with our first person sensation (smell, color, taste, sound, ..) there is not the live the experience that goes with it. (...) .

The world that we perceive by our sensations is not the world as it could be in itself.

For Timothy H. Goldsmith ( http://www.ler.esalq.usp.br/aulas/lce1302/visao_aves.pdf ): It is true, as many youngsters learn in school, that objects absorb some wavelengths of light and reflect the rest and that the colors we perceive “in” objects relate to the wavelengths of the reflected light. But color is not actually a property of light or of objects that reflect light. It is a sensation that arises within the "brain".

Patrick

 

[bhobba]

Then the question is meaningless because by definition, numbers can't exist in the same sense as unicorns don't.

Different senses of existing? I am reminded of what Feynman said in his famous lectures: 'We can’t define anything precisely. If we attempt to, we get into that paralysis of thought that comes to philosophers… one saying to the other: you don’t know what you are talking about! The second one says: what do you mean by ‘talking’? What do you mean by ‘you’? What do you mean by ‘know’?'

Philosophy is a perfectly legit area of study - its just has not proven particularly of value in making progress in physics. Nor is it why in general we do not discuss it here - that has a bit of a history that is nothing to do with people here being a fan or not.

BTW things like different senses of existing are usually resolved by context without much difficulty.

Thanks
Bill

 

[physika]

"But color is not actually a property of light or of objects that reflect light. It is a <sensation> that arises within the brain.

Patrick

...and "objects" too ?

Are sensations in the mind ?...