How did our discovery of quantum mechanics impact our belief in our logic as a means to get at the truth?
I will open by saying I am neither a philosopher or very knowledgeable on quantum mechanics, so perhaps this question is meaningless. But I was thinking the other day along these lines. I am also not great at expressing this idea so bear with me.
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Most modern (western) philosophy depends on the belief that logic will allow us to get at the truth in some capacity.
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Quantum mechanics seems to fly in the face of human logic, yet we are reasonably sure it is correct.
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If thats the case, how can we be certain logic will allow us to arrive at correct conclusions about anything if it does not apply universally?
I realize I may be way off base here and this is an epistomological minefield, but Im sure this has been thought through in the philosophical world.
Just curious as to how this has been addressed and maybe even any literature you could point me to!
Thanks!
26 replies
The idea that we can come to an understanding of the world purely through logic is flawed, and has fallen out of favor in western philosophy. Works like Kant's Critique of Pure Reason were heavily influential in countering the pure logicians. I myself am a Marxist-Leninist, so my world outlook is that of dialectical materialism, and quantum mechanics fits with the dialectical materialist understanding perfectly, that the world exists and we come to understand it through experiment and practice, essentially. Quantum mechanics is merely something that exists, and we must understand, not something supernatural and above us.
Also, for what it's worth, everyone is a philosopher. We all view the world in particular ways, whether we cognize that or not. You may not be academically trained, but that shouldn't gatekeep you from philosophy.
Thanks for the answer!
But logic surely comes into play to some extent? Without it, how would we interpret our experiments and extend them to a conclusion about the way the world works?
It seems very difficult to untangle.
Logic is useful! So is empiricism. The pure logicians and the pure empiricists are both wrong. Dialectical materialism essentially asserts that as we interact with and experiment with the world, we come to know it more, reinforcing our knowledge and so allowing us to better understand related phenomena. It also asserts that the world is constantly changing, so this is a living process. There is no "this is how the world works, forever."
Perhaps its my training in the sciences but I find it hard to accept that there are no fundamental, unchanging laws of physics. Excepting the possibility our experience is determined by something unyet known which could change those laws at any point in time (as a manner of speech given time itself seems regulated by those laws).
Im not even sure where Im going with this. I think I just find epistemology fascinating.
A helpful way of thinking about it is that the sun of today is not the sun of tomorrow, be it in position, stage of life, composition, etc. Quantitative buildups of phenomena result in qualitative leaps and developments. This isn't to say that tomorrow gravity will be reversed or anything, that's impossibly unlikely, more that the notion of a static, clockwork universe is flawed. Rather than the mechanical movement of static objects, the universe is a collection of constantly changing and developing processes.
I can see that, sure. But I think Im more interested in what drives that change in process to begin with. Something must dictate that the universe behaves that way.
Then again, I realize I am technically making an assumption here based on human logic, which may not hold universally anyway.
I think it all comes down to the belief that, as much as I want to be sure something is knowable, it might not be.
The dialectical materialists posit that all change is a result from contradictions held internally, two opposing identities, what is rising and what is dying away. Essentially, movement comes from action and reaction, like walking requires pushing off the Earth while the Earth pushes back. A contradiction is a coexistent diametrical link between two forces, and contradiction is the engine of all motion and change.
That's how the Marxists answer that question, and I believe it to be correct based on my understanding.
I dont personally find that a satisfying answer for the physical world, but I do appreciate you sharing your thoughts!
Cowbee's reply is pretty solid. I'll approach from a different angle.
The real learning lies in examining the details of your three points.
Point 1. Is it true that most modern (Western) philosophy depends on the belief that logic will allow us to get to the truth in some capacity?
Yes. But what do you understand Modern Western philosophy to be? Modern Philosophy is a specific academic term meaning philosophy from Decartes in the 1600s to Kant in the late 1700s and ending by the very early 1800s.
What you're describing is also true of Ancient Greek Philosophy and Medieval Philosophy. But you don't seem concerned about those because they have been surpassed. Well Modern Philosophy was surpasses about 220 years ago. So why are you asking this question in this way? Why do you care about a philosophical tradition that's over 200 years old?
Perhaps you used Modern in the colloquial sense, to mean "present day philosophy" or contemporary philosophy. Most present day philosophy does not hold the belief that logic is the basis of truth.
After Kant essentially triggered the end of the Modern period of philosophy, logic stopped being the sole basis for knowledge in philosophy. The next 100 years saw the emergence of Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, all of whom undermined logic as the basis of truth. Then a century after Kant we get phenomenology, linguistics, and postmodernism, all of which fundamentally undermine logic entirely. That's more than a century of contemporary philosophy at this point.
So, an important question, is your first premise actually a misunderstanding you have about philosophy, and if so, despite philosophy having undermined logic for a century, how did you come to believe in this first premise?
I ask this not because you're position is somehow deficient or laughable but because I experienced much the same coming to awareness that what I thought philosophy had arrived at and what philosophy had actually arrived at were very different, and the process of both learning where philosophy is and learning why I was so wrong about it were incredibly enlightening.
Point 2. You put "quantum mechanics" in opposition to "human logic". What is human logic and why qualify logic with the word "human"? Philosophy from the Ancient Greeks through Modernity saw logic as universal, not specific to humans. The idea that there could be a logic that is distinctly human comes out of philosophy after the Modern Philosophical period has ended. So perhaps postmodernism has had an impact on you that you're unaware of.
If logic is distinctly human, or if the logic we know is distinctly human, what is its origin? Is it a tool we created? Is it innate in our bodies? Is it an accidental emergence that has no meaning at all?
If logic can be human, are there other logics that are not in opposition with quantum mechanics? Are those logics a valid basis for truth? Could we adopt non-human logic to arrive at truth?
Point 3. What are "correct conclusions"? What does it mean for a conclusion to be correct? Is it a description of the language being used or is it a description of a mental state that language can only approximate?
Perhaps there's no such thing as correct conclusions at all and there never was. Perhaps the concept of correctness is actually the thing that is human. In that case quantum mechanics is the least of our worries as the whole of existence might stand in opposition to the very concept of correctness.
And yet, correctness as a concept is here, so it must exist in some sense, mustn't it?
Wrapping Up
I think that stepping back from one's own questioning, going back to the beginning, and observing one's own words is a powerful path of learning. We back into our quest for knowledge a certain set of presuppositions that we have inherited without realizing it. Part of the process is questing forward, and part of the process is questing backwards. Forward we gather new experiences and insight, backward we dismantle the presuppositions that bind and constrain our movement. We can then quest forward again with entirely new degrees of freedom.
Great question! Thanks for bringing it to the community for us to participate!
Theres a lot to unpack there so I will say for now I will bookmark this and revisit! Life is busy and clearly I have a lot more to learn before I can really engage in this meaningfully. I enjoy philosophy because I enjoy this line of questioning but this post was simply something that popped into my head, not a fully thought out argument.
Also I didnt realize this was in the .ml fediverse. I dont say that disparagingly, only that I suspect it will lead to mostly people of broadly similar philosophical backgrounds positing answers. Id be interested in a wider array of philosophical beliefs if you have any good resources.
The answer to your question is that this part isn't true: QM is perfectly logical, it's just unintuitive (and has a few open questions about it).
We developed/are developing quantum theory using logic/math and empirical observation, so I wouldn’t say that quantum theory has invalidated that selfsame logic.
Logic is a fundamental branch of math, and/or math is the continued extension of logic. It’s pure reason in the Kantian sense, but we didn’t/don’t develop it in a vacuum. We originally developed it because it’s useful in making sense of the world and ourselves within it. Quantum theorists have developed novel branches of math. So you might say that logic—coupled with empirical evidence—developed quantum theory, which further developed logic.
The thing about quantum mechanics isn't that it's illogical. It's that it's non deterministic. Which is perplexing.
Great question!
Everyone else has addressed the philosophy side of Quantum Mechanics but no one has addressed the science. You claimed that Quantum Mechanics flies in the face of human logic but that isn't true. Quantum mechanics is completely logical.
Probability is fundamental. Humans observe and handle probability daily in their lives. Having probability control the observations of particles isn't that different from probability controlling the observations of a sports game.