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Beyond Weird: Why Everything You Thought You Knew about Quantum Physics Is Different by Philip Ball
blackoxford's review against another edition
5.0
The Fault, Dear Brutus, Is Not in Our Stars
Quantum theory is probably the best possible proof of the validity of Pragmatist philosophy. No one understands what the theory means. And as Philip Ball says, “No one tells you that it often lacks any justification beyond the mere (and obviously important) fact that it works.” And this has a startling implication: It’s not just the physical world that is different from what we thought; reason itself must be something much more obscure than we have ever conceived. Both the scientific route to quantum theory and the meaning of that theory contradict our most dearly held principles of correct thinking, or for that matter our most deeply engrained image of ourselves.
Ball takes an intriguing perspective. Most commentators on quantum physics, possibly most scientists, consider its contradictions - entanglement, wave/particle ambiguity, simultaneous existence and non-existence, etc. - as indications that the theory is incomplete, that some further theoretical breakthrough will resolve these contradictions and make it more rational. Ball doesn’t do that. Suppose, he suggests, “the apparent oddness, the paradoxes and puzzles of quantum mechanics, are real.” What we are then confronted with is a challenge to think differently because the world demands that we do so.
If reality is as quantum physics says it is, we don’t need a better physics, we need to reconsider what we mean when we use words like ‘reasonable’, and ‘rational’, and ‘logical’, and even ‘knowing’. If reality is as quantum physics says it is, we need to re-learn what it means to learn - not just about physics but about everything. If reality is as quantum physics says it is, the real issue isn’t about matter and energy but about mind. We may know far less than we thought we knew about what constitutes this dominant human capacity for making sense of the world because what it means to make sense doesn’t anymore. Quantum physics “calls into question the meanings and limits of space and time, cause and effect, and knowledge itself.”
Ball’s thesis is that quantum theory isn’t even about physics, it’s about information: “We now realise that quantum mechanics is less about particles and waves, uncertainty and fuzziness, than a theory about information: about what can be known and how.” In other words quantum theory is the key to an entirely new epistemology, an unexpected kind of ‘knowability’. As a species, we have stumbled across something more fundamental than another tool for exploiting the universe. We may, instead, have an impetus (or at least invitation) for beginning to investigate and understand ourselves in a new way.
This is clearly exciting stuff. When Ball points out that quantum theory “is not so much a theory that one can test by observation and measurement, but a theory about what it means to observe and measure,” he is implying that it is a theory of being human, a cosmic anthropology perhaps. After all, isn’t that what we spend most of our lives as human beings doing? Observing, comparatively assessing, and judging everything? If quantum theory is a theory of those things, it is a theory of us. It is certainly not a fully worked out theory but it does give a clear direction which is rather different than any other ever proposed.
For example, a central issue of quantum theory is measurement. Essentially, measurement is not a neutral act; it changes the character of the thing measured in some annoying ways. There is no such thing as ‘unobtrusive measurement’ in quantum physics. This challenges the idea of measurement as something which observes and comparatively assesses the properties of an object. The results of experimentation show that this is not the case. Measurement is not the assessment of the inherent properties of an object, it is the assignment of an object as a property of a scale of measurement, a metric.* This is the case as much in the ‘macro’ world we inhabit as it is in that of atomic particles. We just haven’t needed to recognise the fact.
So, this is a revelation of quantum physics: there are no inherent properties. ‘Properties’ are not inherent in anything. They are essentially scales on which we assign a place to events, objects, or relationships. As it turns out, sometimes the scales are incompatible with each other. Nothing to do with the object; everything to do with the scales. There is absolutely nothing ‘objective’ about these scales; they are chosen for some reason, some human reason, that has nothing to do with the phenomenon in question. These scales are not merely the basis for further judgment, they are themselves a judgment about what’s important in the world. That is, they are always subjective in the sense that they have a personal import to the one who chooses them.
The ‘meaning’ of quantum uncertainty, therefore, is fundamentally aesthetical and ethical, even in scientific research. The choice of a metric always means the rejection of other metrics. And the positive choice is not nearly so significant as the exclusion of the myriad of other possible metrics which could have been used to assess a phenomenon. The choice even at the quantum level is not binary - position vs. momentum - it is so for any number of so-called conjugate variables; and any choice means that an infinite number of other things will not be ‘observed,’ that is assigned a place on alternative metrics. This is one interpretation of the process of ‘replication’ of quantum events. The ‘imprint’ of the event is what is left on the metric; and if it is left 0n one it cannot be left on another. The event is quite literally a property of the metric which ‘absorbs’ information making it unavailable as a property of another metric.
These musings on measurement are mine not Ball’s; but I think they conform with the spirit of his analysis of quantum theory: “Rather than insisting on its difficulty, we might better regard it as a beguiling, maddening, even amusing gauntlet thrown down to challenge the imagination. For that is indeed what is challenged.” I imagine a logic which has yet to be articulated, specifically a logic of permissible choices of criteria of judgment. Such a logic would be both aesthetic and moral. It would also explicitly acknowledge that it is inevitable that we project our aesthetic and moral selves upon the world (as we do with the idea of a wave function - actually instructions for how to measure - which then allows the calculation of all sorts of ‘properties’ which are derived from these instructions). Perhaps most important is the recognition in this logic that we have a choice, and therefore a responsibility, about what we project. If we don’t know why we make certain choices, then we have a duty to find out.
The applicability of such a logic is of course not confined to measurement. Measurement is one activity in the more general realm of language (which in turn is a component of information, that are all elements, perhaps the only elements, of mind). This suggests that there might be an aesthetic/moral logic of language that overrides categories like vocabulary, grammar, and pragmatics. Perhaps that is what literature is meant to do - uncover the hidden quantum logic of language one story at a time. And that logic exists, if it does at all, in mind not matter. Or if that way of expressing it is prejudicial, perhaps it would be better to say that it exists in matter as incipient mind. Matter merely awaits its turn at mind... and vice-versa. Meanwhile mind tells stories about matter, and there is nothing to compare these stories with... except other stories. Matter, of course, remains mute on the subject and just lurks, biding its time.
*See for further discussion: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2250383138
Quantum theory is probably the best possible proof of the validity of Pragmatist philosophy. No one understands what the theory means. And as Philip Ball says, “No one tells you that it often lacks any justification beyond the mere (and obviously important) fact that it works.” And this has a startling implication: It’s not just the physical world that is different from what we thought; reason itself must be something much more obscure than we have ever conceived. Both the scientific route to quantum theory and the meaning of that theory contradict our most dearly held principles of correct thinking, or for that matter our most deeply engrained image of ourselves.
Ball takes an intriguing perspective. Most commentators on quantum physics, possibly most scientists, consider its contradictions - entanglement, wave/particle ambiguity, simultaneous existence and non-existence, etc. - as indications that the theory is incomplete, that some further theoretical breakthrough will resolve these contradictions and make it more rational. Ball doesn’t do that. Suppose, he suggests, “the apparent oddness, the paradoxes and puzzles of quantum mechanics, are real.” What we are then confronted with is a challenge to think differently because the world demands that we do so.
If reality is as quantum physics says it is, we don’t need a better physics, we need to reconsider what we mean when we use words like ‘reasonable’, and ‘rational’, and ‘logical’, and even ‘knowing’. If reality is as quantum physics says it is, we need to re-learn what it means to learn - not just about physics but about everything. If reality is as quantum physics says it is, the real issue isn’t about matter and energy but about mind. We may know far less than we thought we knew about what constitutes this dominant human capacity for making sense of the world because what it means to make sense doesn’t anymore. Quantum physics “calls into question the meanings and limits of space and time, cause and effect, and knowledge itself.”
Ball’s thesis is that quantum theory isn’t even about physics, it’s about information: “We now realise that quantum mechanics is less about particles and waves, uncertainty and fuzziness, than a theory about information: about what can be known and how.” In other words quantum theory is the key to an entirely new epistemology, an unexpected kind of ‘knowability’. As a species, we have stumbled across something more fundamental than another tool for exploiting the universe. We may, instead, have an impetus (or at least invitation) for beginning to investigate and understand ourselves in a new way.
This is clearly exciting stuff. When Ball points out that quantum theory “is not so much a theory that one can test by observation and measurement, but a theory about what it means to observe and measure,” he is implying that it is a theory of being human, a cosmic anthropology perhaps. After all, isn’t that what we spend most of our lives as human beings doing? Observing, comparatively assessing, and judging everything? If quantum theory is a theory of those things, it is a theory of us. It is certainly not a fully worked out theory but it does give a clear direction which is rather different than any other ever proposed.
For example, a central issue of quantum theory is measurement. Essentially, measurement is not a neutral act; it changes the character of the thing measured in some annoying ways. There is no such thing as ‘unobtrusive measurement’ in quantum physics. This challenges the idea of measurement as something which observes and comparatively assesses the properties of an object. The results of experimentation show that this is not the case. Measurement is not the assessment of the inherent properties of an object, it is the assignment of an object as a property of a scale of measurement, a metric.* This is the case as much in the ‘macro’ world we inhabit as it is in that of atomic particles. We just haven’t needed to recognise the fact.
So, this is a revelation of quantum physics: there are no inherent properties. ‘Properties’ are not inherent in anything. They are essentially scales on which we assign a place to events, objects, or relationships. As it turns out, sometimes the scales are incompatible with each other. Nothing to do with the object; everything to do with the scales. There is absolutely nothing ‘objective’ about these scales; they are chosen for some reason, some human reason, that has nothing to do with the phenomenon in question. These scales are not merely the basis for further judgment, they are themselves a judgment about what’s important in the world. That is, they are always subjective in the sense that they have a personal import to the one who chooses them.
The ‘meaning’ of quantum uncertainty, therefore, is fundamentally aesthetical and ethical, even in scientific research. The choice of a metric always means the rejection of other metrics. And the positive choice is not nearly so significant as the exclusion of the myriad of other possible metrics which could have been used to assess a phenomenon. The choice even at the quantum level is not binary - position vs. momentum - it is so for any number of so-called conjugate variables; and any choice means that an infinite number of other things will not be ‘observed,’ that is assigned a place on alternative metrics. This is one interpretation of the process of ‘replication’ of quantum events. The ‘imprint’ of the event is what is left on the metric; and if it is left 0n one it cannot be left on another. The event is quite literally a property of the metric which ‘absorbs’ information making it unavailable as a property of another metric.
These musings on measurement are mine not Ball’s; but I think they conform with the spirit of his analysis of quantum theory: “Rather than insisting on its difficulty, we might better regard it as a beguiling, maddening, even amusing gauntlet thrown down to challenge the imagination. For that is indeed what is challenged.” I imagine a logic which has yet to be articulated, specifically a logic of permissible choices of criteria of judgment. Such a logic would be both aesthetic and moral. It would also explicitly acknowledge that it is inevitable that we project our aesthetic and moral selves upon the world (as we do with the idea of a wave function - actually instructions for how to measure - which then allows the calculation of all sorts of ‘properties’ which are derived from these instructions). Perhaps most important is the recognition in this logic that we have a choice, and therefore a responsibility, about what we project. If we don’t know why we make certain choices, then we have a duty to find out.
The applicability of such a logic is of course not confined to measurement. Measurement is one activity in the more general realm of language (which in turn is a component of information, that are all elements, perhaps the only elements, of mind). This suggests that there might be an aesthetic/moral logic of language that overrides categories like vocabulary, grammar, and pragmatics. Perhaps that is what literature is meant to do - uncover the hidden quantum logic of language one story at a time. And that logic exists, if it does at all, in mind not matter. Or if that way of expressing it is prejudicial, perhaps it would be better to say that it exists in matter as incipient mind. Matter merely awaits its turn at mind... and vice-versa. Meanwhile mind tells stories about matter, and there is nothing to compare these stories with... except other stories. Matter, of course, remains mute on the subject and just lurks, biding its time.
*See for further discussion: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2250383138
misneach's review against another edition
4.0
3.5
It was so hard to focus my attention on this most of the time. I don't know why, but reading this one made me want to start reading anything but this, and it's obvious from all the books I started reading after I started this one.
However, there were points I really liked (the parts dedicated to decoherence and the MWI)
I'll have to read it again sometime in the future and see if it goes any differently.
It was so hard to focus my attention on this most of the time. I don't know why, but reading this one made me want to start reading anything but this, and it's obvious from all the books I started reading after I started this one.
However, there were points I really liked (the parts dedicated to decoherence and the MWI)
I'll have to read it again sometime in the future and see if it goes any differently.
ederwin's review
5.0
For years there was very little published comparing different interpretations of QM. Suddenly there seems to be a flood of them. While I loved [b:What Is Real?|35604796|What Is Real? The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics|Adam Becker|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1500753932s/35604796.jpg|57042385] by [a:Adam Becker|17128971|Adam Becker|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1520309180p2/17128971.jpg], this one might be even better. Becker was re-telling the history of QM and discussing the personalities of the scientists along with talking about interpretations. Ball skips almost completely over the history and personalities and just gets right down to what we currently know and several attempts at interpretation.
Becker was more friendly to the Many Worlds Interpretation(s) which Ball pretty much considers logically inconsistent. (I share his sentiment, but don't fully follow the argument.) Ball gives much more detail on how "decoherence" could maybe avoid the "measurement problem". And Ball talks about recent ideas on whether "super-quantum entanglement" and "PR boxes" can exist and if not, why not. I'd only met that concept before in a "graphic novel" type book: [b:Totally Random|36642373|Totally Random Why Nobody Understands Quantum Mechanics (A Serious Comic on Entanglement)|Tanya Bub|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1511369008s/36642373.jpg|58411030].
I'm going to have to read this again later to really get my head around it.
There are a few things I hate about this book. The title is horrible and the subtitle is worse. No table of contents. No chapter numbers. End notes are not numbered or linked easily to the page they are commenting on. But despite all that, this is excellent!
Becker was more friendly to the Many Worlds Interpretation(s) which Ball pretty much considers logically inconsistent. (I share his sentiment, but don't fully follow the argument.) Ball gives much more detail on how "decoherence" could maybe avoid the "measurement problem". And Ball talks about recent ideas on whether "super-quantum entanglement" and "PR boxes" can exist and if not, why not. I'd only met that concept before in a "graphic novel" type book: [b:Totally Random|36642373|Totally Random Why Nobody Understands Quantum Mechanics (A Serious Comic on Entanglement)|Tanya Bub|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1511369008s/36642373.jpg|58411030].
I'm going to have to read this again later to really get my head around it.
There are a few things I hate about this book. The title is horrible and the subtitle is worse. No table of contents. No chapter numbers. End notes are not numbered or linked easily to the page they are commenting on. But despite all that, this is excellent!
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