Quantum Ontology: A Guide to the Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics by Peter J. Lewis (PDF)

Description

Metaphysicians should pay attention to quantum mechanics. Why? Not because it provides definitive answers to many metaphysical questions-the theory itself is remarkably silent on the nature of the physical world, and the various interpretations of the theory on offer present conflicting ontological pictures. Rather, quantum mechanics is essential to the metaphysician because it reshapes standard metaphysical debates and opens up unforeseen new metaphysical possibilities. Even if quantum mechanics provides few clear answers, there are good reasons to think that any adequate understanding of the quantum world will result in a radical reshaping of our classical world-view in some way or other. Whatever the world is like at the atomic scale, it is almost certainly not the swarm of particles pushed around by forces that is often presupposed. This book guides readers through the theory of quantum mechanics and its implications for metaphysics in a clear and accessible way. The theory and its various interpretations are presented with a minimum of technicality. The consequences of these interpretations for metaphysical debates concerning realism, indeterminacy, causation, determinism, holism, and individuality (among other topics) are explored in detail, stressing the novel form that the debates take given the empirical facts in the quantum domain. While quantum mechanics may not deliver unconditional pronouncements on these issues, the range of possibilities consistent with our knowledge of the empirical world is relatively small-and each possibility is metaphysically revisionary in some way. This book will appeal to researchers, students, and anybody else interested in how science informs our world-view.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐A book at the intersection of quantum mechanics and metaphysics. Lewis focuses on the three dominant interpretations of quantum mechanics and various of their variations exploring the advantages and disadvantages of each from a viewpoint of the metaphysical ontology (the philosophy of what exists or what is real) of the universe and our experience. On the whole the book delivers on what it promises. While it fails to come to any definite conclusions, the author is clearly biased towards “the many worlds” view, one of the three dominant interpretations of quantum mechanics.When I first bought the book I searched it for a mention of my own favorite interpretation, the “transactional theory” of Cramer and Ruth Kastner (see my review of her book “Understanding our Unseen Reality: Solving Quantum Riddles”). Lewis casts this interpretation as one of a class involving temporally reversed cause. Oddly he fails to mention that Kastner herself rejects this interpretation based precisely on a unique ontological commitment; that quantum phenomena take place outside (as Kastner puts it “underneath”) timespace. In her view, the quantum phenomena only appear to be causally reversed from a viewpoint within time but in reality no such reversal occurs because prior to the phenomena being particularized as energy is transferred in timespace they occur outside of it. This is a big ontological consequence that Lewis utterly fails to notice.But aside from this quibble, the book is a good review of the dominant interpretations of quantum mechanical phenomena and their associated ontological implications.

⭐I managed to get to the end of Chapter 3 of this and I found it was very helpful in grounding my intuitions about the range of metaphysical interpretations of quantum physics. It illustrates the basic ideas with lots of concrete examples of physical experiments which give a good feel for the difficulties in coming up with an interpretation of what our best quantum physics says about the nature of reality. I’m looking forward to read the rest of it and I really strongly recommend it to anyone who wants a good introduction to the issues in the philosophy of quantum physics.

⭐The ongoing quantum debate regarding the intertwined nature of mind and the physics of matter were not touched here. I thought since the word Ontology was in the title I would get more philosophy. I thought this book would would reflect and discus a system of belief. The book is great for the maths and I couldn’t put it down, because it makes the maths very clear and gratifying, but this is a book for Epistemologists who see the wave function as a description of our scientific knowledge and its limitation. I did not find much enlightenment here outside the maths. I was hoping for more philosophy I guess. For the maths side of the quantum physics this book was enlightening and clear.

⭐Its seems to me that associating ontology to quantum physics is only leading to inconclusive results, but associating ontology to metaphysics is more direct. Although the two, metaphysics and quantum physics do seem to correspond, yet quantum physics seems to have alot of loose ends. Nevertheless, a very thought provoking book.

⭐Great book, brings many concepts together.

⭐This book is targeted at philosophers – those who already have a bias towards Metaphysics, as there is little here of value to physicists – even quantum theorists; it should be avoided by physics students, as it will add to their confusion and destroy any faith in a central physics theory before they have been indoctrinated with the view that only a mathematical knowledge is needed for quantum mechanics (QM). The reputation of QM has been greatly exaggerated with few comparisons with the real world – namely the simplest atom in existence: the (one electron) hydrogen atom. Contrary to its public reputation, QM has never been extended to more complex atoms or molecules. Worse, there are numerous conflicting interpretations of the mathematics of QM. These problems are hidden behind the implicit retention of the metaphysics of classical physics, which have become the de facto world-view of the hidden foundations of modern thinking. This book has failed in its attempts to penetrate this vast deception that is blocking progress in thinking about the micro-world.The author is well qualified to tackle this subject; he studied physics at Oxford University and philosophy at the University of California (Irvine). He is now Associate-Professor of Philosophy at Miami University, where he researches and publishes in Understanding Quantum Mechanics. He is one of those few physicists whose interest extends to Natural Philosophy and he is much bothered by the multiple interpretations of this foundational physics theory, which led to very different implications for our understanding of the nature of the world. Because the author has targeted this book at informed members of the philosophical profession, he fails to justify the need for metaphysics (see my review of Triggs’ recent book), nor does he ever define metaphysics or even ontology for the general reader; this limits the impact of this tempting title. He does give a single sentence ‘definition’ that “Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the fundamental structures of reality while physics is a branch of science that does the same thing.” Actually, this is the definition of Ontology; amajor component of metaphysics, especially when one makes the Materialist hypothesis. He points out that QM challenges our classically tutored intuitions, which have spread through Europe’s educated class since Isaac Newton’s revolutionary launch of Classical Mechanics (CM) with his Principia Mathematica. The author (probably reflecting his undergraduate education) repeats the orthodox claim that: “CM has been superseded by QM and subsumed as a limiting case”. Fortunately, he adds in a footnote that: “It will turn out that there are various ways of recovering part of our classical metaphysical picture, but always at the expense of some other part.” The author tries hard to not offer a polemic or attempt to construct a new interpretation of QM but does provide a highly condensed (3 page) summary of some of them. For readers here, who desire a more extensive review, then see my paper “Problems of QM” (UET 7B). This book is an attempt to convince metaphysicians that the study of QM will reward them in empirically informed ways. After too many words and much too much mathematics, Lewis fails to accomplish his aim. The author makes the point that QM provides a level of science where a number of interrelated conceptual difficulties appear and it is the responses to these difficulties that make QM so metaphysically revisionary. While admitting that quantization was the historic source of QM (which he does not cover), he makes a brave attempt to explain the physics of QM, by zeroing in on two esoteric experiments (phenomena) that are mainly only known to professional physicists.The first chapter emphasizes the fact that QM is remarkably silent about what its mathematical structure represents in reality. This is because this was one of the first physics theory developed in 300 years where a physical model was NOT created first that was then described mathematically but rather it was first and only one developed as a mathematical theory (in contrast to the earlier Bohr/Sommerfeld theories that were built on the analogy with planetary systems). It is for this reason that this is a BAD physics theory.The book begins with an informative description of the key experiments involving Interference, where even low-density interactions still generate effects that are usually only seen in high-intensity situations. The exposition of the electron Two-Slit experiments (“Interference”) relies on the analogy with light but fails to point out the “Light as Wave” theory came about because of the earlier analogy with water-waves flowing by near obstacles. If they had thought deep enough they would have recognized that we were looking at a Many-Body situation, after the discovery of liquid molecules; everyone just assumed a continuous fluid medium. This was soon forgotten as the Cambridge mathematicians (ending with Clerk Maxwell) showed the quick results arising from the mathematics of waves. Thus, the ancient simplification of assuming a single object was invoked where one (single) wave passes through one slit or another. This presented a problem when the wave split into two parts that recombined (“added back together”) at the detection screen. Again, a single electron is a focus when electrons substitute for light. Thus, when we invoke the classical model of the electron as a particle (like a billiard ball), then we are mystified by seeing the particle going through only one slit. This illustrates the classical assumptions that are implicit when we think about QM. This problem is ‘resolved’ by invoking de Broglie’s hypothesis that all particles are “associated” with a wave: this explained the interference but not the fact that electrons are always detected at points on the screen, as when a particle arrives. This simply is described as “duality” but Lewis correctly says “naming the mystery does not make it any less mysterious”. This is ‘flat-out contradictory’ – we cannot accept that any entity is simultaneously described by two opposite concepts: a localized particle and a spread-out wave.The experimental challenge continues with an extended discussion of the peculiar phenomenon known as Entanglement. Unfortunately, Lewis’s mathematical background too often comes to the fore, as he discusses this situation in terms of electron ‘spin’: a mysterious quantum property that has no macroscopic analogy. In fact, most physicists do not really believe that this involves the rotation of particles – worse they do not understand quantum ‘spin’ at all: just an application the finite (matrix) mathematics. None-the-less, as a good mathematician, Lewis proceeds vigorously. The problem with using ‘spin’ to discuss Entanglement is that the discussion is always made in terms of ‘spin-up’ or ‘spin-down’ (while invoking an image of at least an arrow pointing in two opposite directions). This primitive imagery provides little insight because we need to see spin as longitudinally aligned with the electron’s direction of motion and this simplification continues by assuming a simple interaction with a single object (the ‘magnetic field’) when again we are watching a Many-Body situation where a target electron interacts with many remote electrons (in motion) that are the physical source of magnetism. Unfortunately, this lack of physical understanding and the concentration on just the mathematics sets the stage for all later ‘philosophizing’.The author then examines ‘advanced’ QM by briefly discussing Heisenberg’s Matrix Mechanics (MM) and Schrödinger’s Wave Mechanics (WM). Dirac showed that these were two equivalent representations of very advanced continuous mathematics known as Hilbert Vectors. The problem with both approaches is that they each use another poorly defined concept “the system state” that has equivalent representations. This problem has been addressed in my “Quantum Measurement (UET7A)” paper, where the suggestion is made that the ‘state’ is actually a combination of the Measurement Equipment and the Target System (e.g. H-atom).

⭐A good description of the fundamental issues with quantum mechanics from a philosophical perspective. Well-written and presented.

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