An Effort to Dissolve the Hitherto Unresolved Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics - Vasantha Raja |
| Posted by Administrator (admin) on Apr 27 2010 at 1:49 PM |
Science for too long had seen the commonsense world of 'neatly definable' objects interacting with each other as the basic structure of reality. Even
The emergence of quantum mechanics as the inescapable way to understand the behaviour of the subatomic world, however, brought havoc to this comfortable outlook. Efforts to grasp micro-phenomena in terms of classical concepts began to send the scientists reeling. Particles appear to be in two places at once. They seem to be even moving in two different directions at once. Also, sub-atomic processes appear to be both wave-like and particle-like at one and the same time - as shown in the famous "double-slits experiment". Moreover, quantum entities that have interacted with each other seem to be able to remain entangled, however far they may eventually separate spatially; thus, showing their capability to interact instantaneously involving vast distances defying Relativity theory's speed of light barrier.
It was in 1935 that Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen trio designed a thought experiment - known as the EPR experiment - in the hope of exposing the 'deficiencies' of the quantum theory. [They thought something must be wrong with it.] In 1964 John Bell figured out a way to perform the EPR thought experiment and see if Einstein's idea of "local realism" - as opposed to the implications of quantum theory - could be defended. But it was not until 1982 the necessary experimental arrangements were possible for Alain Aspect to carry out an experimental test of
The results were mind-boggling. Einstein was proven wrong. As recently as 2007 Anton Zeilinger's team performed a test which also confirmed that the 'classical' reality of neatly definable space-time objects only emerges at the point of measurement. The test results baffled the scientists. They could not figure out what to make of them. There was no way they could fit in the micro-phenomena within the only form of reality they knew. Thus, they thought, perhaps there was no 'reality' devoid of human observation. It is this confusion that created the still dragging 'Quantum Enigma' that provided a field day for mystics.
Those who assumed classical reality as the only reality thought that there was no reality independent of measurement - as if the processes prior to measurements have no reality.
But close reflection on the experimental results tell us something else: it is entirely plausible that prior to some form of measurement energy could be dominated by wave-like attributes where non-locality and wave function reign. Only our intervention through a specific experimental setup makes the particle-like properties to surface and actualize - in other words, our intervention causes the wave function (Schrodinger equation) to collapse and fully-fledged particles of classical nature to emerge.
The ongoing scientific effort that comes closest to my "seed-product model" in resolving the "quantum enigma" is known as the "quantum field theory". Quantum field theories 'visualize' a background plenum that has intrinsically wave-like character with the potential to produce neatly identifiable classical particles. The quantum field involves a unique concept of void. It doesn't imply an empty space or an absolute vacuum. The field is a kind of "humming hive of activity", to borrow the mathematical physicist John Polkinghorne's expression. It represents "the lowest energy state, in which there will be no excitations present that correspond to particles".
As I've already mentioned, quantum experiments have provided fascinating insights into the nature of this background "vacuum" that must have emerged after the Big Bang and prior to the emergence of our commonsense world. This was energy at its lowest state. It seems to have enjoyed an unrestricted freedom that included instantaneous linkage as opposed to the subsequent world of relativity. Also, it contains the ability to produce solid things as a potential. Thus, the question is whether the quantum field contained the forces of self-movement that would necessarily bring about the macro-sphere and life. This is precisely what my "seed-product" model prescribes the scientists to look for.
Unfortunately, however, some scientists with a classical mindset concluded that perhaps universe does not exist when nobody is looking. It is this backdrop that provided the space for all kinds of mystical interpretations [including Prof. Nalin de Silva's Sinhala Buddhist interpretation]. I think such efforts are totally misplaced.
What is needed, in my view, is a conceptual revolution - to grasp the 'seed-product' nature of the universe where classical reality is seen only as an advanced stage of our evolving universe since the Big Bang - in other words, to see the micro-reality as the 'embryonic egg' of the subsequent developments of our evolving universe. In this light, we may see the micro-sphere merely as an early stage in our universe's evolution with the potential to bring about space-time objects, first in the form of particles to eventually create solid objects; and subsequently, life itself.
Remember, the 'seed-product' model is totally different from the 'simple-complex' model. In the former, the product is embedded in the seed [in the 'embryonic stage'] in a rudimentary way as a potential - like a DNA where the grown-up adult is in some sense embedded in the self-evolving embryo. Seeds have the capacity to self-evolve through hierarchical stages of development, and the stages cannot be reduced to seeds, because qualitative leaps also take place along with quantitative changes. Yet, a seed needs the backing of outside factors to realize its potential.
Contemporary philosophers, in my view, have failed to help scientists to overcome the conceptual dilemmas quantum theory faced despite micro-physicists' magnificent achievements. Philosophers of 'epistemological anarchism', I believe, must have been positively harmful for the conceptual revolution needed to dissolve the quantum mysteries.
To appreciate the point I am making it may be helpful to trace the way how our understanding of the universe's general structure has improved along with the progress of science:
The backdrop to Pre-Einsteinian physics was the 'commonsense world-outlook' where bodies mechanically interact within absolute time and absolute space as separate categories. Before long, however, scientists confronted new phenomena involving vast distances and the speed of light that exposed the limitations of the Newtonian picture; the limited worldview began to crumble. A new world outlook (Einstein's theory of relativity) emerged where time, space and speed are inseparably intertwined. The commonsense outlook was subsumed within the new framework, and the Newtonian concepts' validity was restricted to areas where the impact of movement (speed) and distance is negligible.
As I have already mentioned, the next big challenge to our evolving concept of the universe's general structure has come from quantum mechanics; particularly to see the micro-world's attributes essentially as those of universe's 'embryonic seed' that potentially contains the commonsense world of 'stable' space-time objects. Such a change in approach, I believe, is bound to bring in new insights for fruitful research in new directions. For, the ongoing crisis of quantum mechanics seems to me to be essentially of conceptual nature rather than anything else.
The universe's inseparable unity can be seen in the specific form it evolves as 'parts' and 'wholes'. [Note that these opposites should be grasped dialectically: 'parts' also as wholes' and 'wholes' also as 'parts'; a leaf of a tree, for instance, is 'part' of the tree while being a 'whole' on its own right] Also nothing in the universe (parts or wholes) seems to come as ready-made final products. Everything evolves from seed-like situations that are linked to everything-else in a 'part-whole' relationship. Thus everything has its limited independence (by virtue of being a 'whole') while being subject to a general pattern of determinateness (by virtue of being a 'part'). This unique feature of our universe seems to explain the dialectics of 'chance' and 'necessity' - 'accidents' within 'order' - which may also help understand the micro-sphere's relation to the macro-sphere. (Remember, nothing comes as ready-made products.)
The million dollar questions, however, are: How did that Big Explosion over thirteen billion years ago imposed on itself an objective logic of evolution that has brilliantly combined 'chance & necessity'? Is the universe a kind of production-line that has an embedded objective purpose of producing something unique? Is this the way Mother Nature designed our universe to strike the right balance between determinism & freedom? [Note that this approach undermines one of the main arguments against 'Intelligent Design', namely the apparent accidental nature of evolution.]
Here are a few more related questions: Does Mother Nature 'intends' to secure the evolution of 'free-will' in a pre-determined direction through a delicate balance of randomness & necessity? Doesn't the evolution of 'energy-forms' via life, consciousness and intelligence point at this direction? In other words, are the parts of our universe designed to serve an overall purpose of the universe as a whole – perhaps to evolve the mind-energy towards eventual freedom from the parts? Do the evolutionary stages reached so far confirm a general progress of free-will and compassion of an evolving mind as our universe's main theme?
Quantum experiments have already demonstrated the freedom embedded in the most primitive stages of energy-forms with the potential to bring about a qualitatively new stage (geosphere) embedded with the potential to produce the next qualitatively higher stage, i.e. the biosphere. The trillion dollar question is: Is our universe designed to lawfully evolve the originally free primitive energy to produce free-souls of compassion?
These are the questions that bother me above all; but let's avoid further diversion from the main theme and return to the dialectics of evolution in relation to quantum mysteries. [Those interested in the philosophical questions raised above may read my "Is our evolving universe an intelligent design?" and my poem, "Tsunami Dilemmas" available in www.lankaeye.com.]
It is worth remembering that long before the advent of quantum mechanics several major contributions towards resolving similar conceptual predicaments have occurred outside physics. Hegel, Karl Marx and Charles Darwin in their own ways have done their part to demonstrate that big chunks of the universe are evolving in a 'seed-to-product' relationship. Also, recent biological discoveries of the genome and related areas are of immense significance to a re-evaluation of the established methodological approach to reality.
It took a long time to view the entire universe anything close to a 'seed-product' model until cosmology came up with concrete evidence of universe's birth in a Big Bang and its subsequent evolution to the present stage. Yet, the micro-physicists do not seem to have figured out the full methodological implications of discoveries in other fields to resolve quantum mysteries.
In other words: though physicists have been dealing with a microscopic world - as opposed to the highly evolved macro-world mirrored in the theory of relativity - for quite sometime now, they still do not seem to have figured out the possibility that they may be dealing with universe's 'embryonic egg' that contains the subsequent developments as a potential.
Clearly, both quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity are incredibly successful in their own arenas. And the scientists are presently facing grave difficulties in unifying the two. The abyss between the microsphere and the macrosphere seems unbridgeable. But if you look at quantum mechanics and general relativity as mirroring two different stages in universe's hierarchical evolution the problem dissolves. If that is the case then they cannot be unified by reducing the latter to the former. Thus the task would be to find out the circumstances under which the microworld has given rise to a macroworld regimented by different laws.
Vasantha Raja [v.raja@btinternet.com]-------------------------------------------
Back