More On Heisenberg's View Heisenberg's world formula is: i s_u dX/dx_u + l^2 :s_u X(X* s^u X): = 0, Werner Heisenberg, "Natural law and the structure of matter", Rebel Press, pp. 18-9: "In this way Plato could escape the problem of the infinite divisibility of matter... The concept of matter was dissolved at the lower end into the concept of mathematical form. This form is responsible for the behaviour first of the smallest parts of matter and then of matter in general. It replaces the natural law to some extent, since it characterizes, without referring explicitly to time, the tendency in what happens to matter. Perhaps one should say that the fundamental tendencies were given by the geometry of the smallest units, while the finer details of the tendencies could be expressed by the relative position and the motion of these units. "The whole description agrees in every way with the central theme of Plato's idealistic philosophy. The fundamental structure in the phenomena is not given by material objects like the atoms of Democritos, but it is given by 'forms', by 'ideas', which determine the material objects. The ideas are more fundamental than the objects." Particles are not just quanta of the fields. They are also structures of the vacuum or the ground state, and what is missing from the unified field theory of Heisenberg and Duerr is precisely a way of dealing with them as such. Bohm theory provides such a way, but the decisive idea, overlooked by the Bohmians, is to regard the particle in its acceleration, velocity, and position aspects, i.e., P_a, P_v, and P_p, as separate metaphysical entities. In other words, the real particles of Democritos must not be regarded as material in a mundane sense, but rather in a transcendental sense that goes beyond the physical. Like reality itself, the Bohm point is a synthetic integration of metaphysical elements, only a small portion of which are strictly speaking physical. |