Dialogue (of sorts, or out of sorts) with Henry Stapp
(continued)
[Henry Stapp]
And you cannot understand Bohr unless you understand what he was talking about, which is the procedure for using quantum theory. His philosophical writing were generally directed at broad audiences that did not all understand the technicalities, and so he talked without using the language of the working physicist. The Copenhagen interpretation is more than just the words of Bohr: it includes the subject matter. Physicists must reduce the wave function when the learn something more, to get the results: each new bit of information changes what they can predict.
[Peter Mutnick]
If you want to resort to the pragmatic algorithmic approach, why bother with all the philosophy at all? As you must know, many physicists believe that the state vector reduction, or process 1 of von Neumann, is not a coherent element of the theory at all. You have not made it more coherent, but only added heaps and heaps of confusion. What a shame! BTW, the state vector reduction or process 1 is not an element of Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation - he never used those terms (to my knowledge) and had a different understanding of it in terms of "closure", which is a Gestalt concept whose real meaning has never come to light and never will if your desire to remain ignorant prevails. His different understanding will undoubtedly have different mathematical implications, and as I said, no one has ever written a "Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics" from *Bohr's* point of view. That is the creative adventure ahead, but you would rather remain ignorant and whack upstarts like me over the head with your insensitive and relatively unintelligent criticism. Blah!
Bohr was NOT insincere, as you imagine, in his philosophical and psychological views - for him, they were in fact the foundation for his interpretation of quantum mechanics. That type of sincerity may be something that you, as a physicist within the physics establishment, cannot comprehend. The greats of physics were not bound by their own personas in that way (not in love within their own reflected images), and that is why they were great. If one were to deal with the philosophy sincerely and dialectically with respect to the physics, one would indeed develop a deeper theory of physics, which Bohm and many others have sought, and which I seek.
I might just mention that a very relevant result of my recent inquiries is that I am able to conceive of the group of motion and space in a more actual way than the abstract treatment of conventional quantum theory. This may lead to another mathematical form than Hilbert space and/or to the synthesis of Hilbert space and Einstein space. Philosophy must inform physics and direct it in the paths that lead to truth. Otherwise, the blind lead the blind and they all fall in the ditch of the quantum muddle.
I am not denying that you know alot about physics that I do not know, especially about the hands-on working knowledge, as you say, but I am not completely ignorant about physics and I believe that the path of inquiry upon which I have been led is inspired by a mind much greater than my own *and* much greater than yours! So there, as Gordon would say. If you want to waste it all on meaningless put-downs of me (and my source of inspiration), that are only destructive and self-destructive, then you are not as great a man as I had hoped you might be. Please reconsider, take what I say seriously, for I do not speak in vain, and let us begin anew a more reasonable and fruitful dialogue. What I say unto you I say unto all the physicists on this list. God wants a few good men for the research project of the ages!
Peter Joseph Mutnick 1949 - 2000
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