Michael Epperson

This presentation explores the fundamental categorical presuppositions of quantum theory —i.e., its philosophical first principles, two of which find their correlative reflection in the categorical presuppositions of Islamic and Judeo-Christian philosophical theology: [1] the universality of logical causality, by which the reasonableness of the universe is presupposed; this is exemplified in quantum mechanics as the presupposed universality of the axioms of propositional logic—viz., the presupposition of an orthonormal measurement basis / Boolean algebra of observables in quantum measurement; [2] the presupposition of both primordial and consequent cosmogonic states of reality, reflected microcosmically as the presupposition of initial and final system states in quantum measurement.

Amid the wide variety of interpretations of quantum mechanics, the notion of a fully coherent ontological interpretation has seen a promising evolution over the last few decades. Despite this progress, however, the old dualistic categorical constraints of subjectivity and objectivity, correlate with the metrically restricted definition of local and global, have remained largely in place – a reflection of the broader, persistent inheritance of these comfortable strictures throughout the evolution of modern science. If one traces this inheritance back to its ancient roots in Plato and Aristotle, it is clear that the coherence, scientific utility, and historical durability of the various natural philosophies that followed have been directly proportional to their commitment, tacit or explicit, to object-oriented realism. As Simondon might put it, it is a commitment to the primacy of individuated substance over the process of individuation. For Whitehead, it is the misplaced assimilation of becoming to being, of potentiality to actuality. Quantum mechanics has challenged this commitment with a combined breadth and depth of force that far exceeds any other theory in the history of science. The theory’s objectively demonstrable empirical application is manifest only by way of a fundamentally subjective, context-dependent mechanism of measurement. More compelling still, actual system states are always actualizations of locally contextualized yet globally conditioned potential system states, such that “globally objective” reality is no longer merely the object of local measurement, but also its product. Thus, any coherent, ontological interpretation of quantum theory must include a conceptual framework by which objectivity and subjectivity, actuality and potentiality, global and local, being and becoming, individuated fact and process of individuation, are no longer understood as merely epistemic, mutually exclusive category pairs descriptive of an already extant, closed reality – but rather as mutually implicative ontological categories explicative of an ontogenetic, open reality-in-process.

The very fact that the totality of our sense experiences is such that by means of thinking (operations with concepts, and the creation and use of definite functional relations between them, and the coordination of sense experiences to these concepts) it can be put in order, this fact is one which leaves us in awe. One may say, " The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility. " The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle. ~ Albert Einstein, " Physics and Reality, " 1936 1 After nearly a century of attempted integration, the deep and enduring incompatibility of quantum mechanics and the general theory of relativity is today increasingly portrayed as a crisis in physics. What was once characterized as a stubbornly persistent technical problem now signifies, for many physicists, a crisis of incomprehensibility. Without a formal means of quantum mechanically depicting local-global relations in an extensive continuum, our earned confidence in physics' ability to provide a coherent, unified description of nature has, for the growing number of physicists calling attention to this crisis, begun to falter. To make matters worse, both quantum mechanics and general relativity have their own individual crises of incomprehensibility which add even deeper levels of complication in any attempted integration. The problems of dark matter and dark energy are infamously emblematic of observational inconsistencies with general relativity, so much so that for many cosmologists, dark matter and energy in recent decades have been costumed and recast as conventional features of modern physics. Likewise, in quantum mechanics, there is perhaps no more obvious manifestation of a crisis of incomprehensibility—in this case, one that inspires the total abandonment of the idea of a coherent, unified understanding of nature—than the Many Worlds Interpretation 2 (MWI) where, for any given quantum measurement, every potential

Presented by the Greek Consulate General in Los Angeles and Loyola Marymount University: The ethics and warfare documentary film The 11^th Day: Crete 1941, written and co-produced by Michael Epperson. The film chronicles The Battle of Crete and the civilian Cretan resistance against Hitler’s occupation forces in World War II. The film was presented, with introductory remarks, by Ioannis Stamatekos, Consul General for Greece. Loyola Marymount University, McIntosh Center, 8-10 pm.

https://cal.lmu.edu/event/the_11th_day_crete_1941

https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/philosophy/events/quantumphenomenology.php

Amid the wide variety of interpretations of quantum mechanics, the notion of a fully coherent ontological interpretation has seen a promising evolution over the past few decades. Despite this progress, however, the old dualistic strictures of subjectivity and objectivity have remained largely in place—a reflection of the broader, persistent inheritance of these comfortable strictures throughout the evolution of modern science. If one traces this inheritance back to its ancient roots in Plato and Aristotle, it is clear that the coherence, scientific utility, and historical durability of the various natural philosophies that followed have been directly proportional to their commitment, tacit or explicit, to object-oriented realism. Quantum mechanics has challenged this commitment like no other theory in the history of science. It is at once the most empirically sound fundamental physical theory ever conceived, and the most paradoxical; the theory’s objectively demonstrable empirical application is produced only by way of a fundamentally subjective, context-dependent mechanism of measurement. More troubling still, by this mechanism, reality is no longer merely the object of measurement, but also its product. Thus, any coherent, ontological interpretation of quantum theory must include a conceptual framework that relieves this paradox—a framework by which objectivity and subjectivity are no longer understood as mutually exclusive aspects of an already extant, closed reality, but rather as mutually implicative aspects of an ontogenetic, open, reality-in-process.

As argued by Kastner, Kauffman & Epperson ["Taking Heisenberg's Potentia Seriously" International Journal of Quantum Foundations, 4:2 (2018): 158-172], quantum theory is best understood as requiring an ontological dualism of res extensa and res potentia, where the latter is understood per Heisenberg's original proposal, and the former is roughly equivalent to Descartes' 'extended substance.' However, this is not a dualism of mutually exclusive substances in the classical Cartesian sense of mutually exclusive ontological extants. Rather, res potentia and res extensa are properly understood in the Whiteheadian sense of mutually implicative ontological extants, such that each requires reference to the other not only for its formal definition, but more important, for its coherent function in the definition and evolution of quantum mechanical systems. When understood as dipolar ontological relata, potentiality and actuality become foundational to the resolution of key conceptual challenges in quantum theory-in particular, nonlocality, entanglement, null measurements, and wave function collapse.

https://www.santafe.edu/events/thirty-years-complex-thinking-celebration-stuart-k