More on Einstein's Philosophy and
the Stapp v. Joos and Zeh Debate
[Albert Einstein, from "The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell"]
p. 289 In order that thinking might not degenerate into "metaphysics", or into empty talk, it is only necessary that enough propositions of the conceptual system be firmly connected with sensory experience and that the conceptual system, in view of its task of ordering and surveying sense-experience, should show as much unity and parsimony as possible. Beyond that, however, the "system" is (as regards logic) a free play with symbols according to (logical) arbitrarily given rules of the game.
p. 287 The concepts which arise in our thought and in our linguistic expressions are all - when viewed logically - the free creations of thought which can not inductively be gained from sensory experiences.
[Peter Mutnick]
I believe what Einstein is rejecting here is, in quantum mechanical terms, precisely the notion that observables can come from the Schrodinger dynamics. Where his logic breaks down is in not realizing that the abstract "ego", as the classical observer, is not constrained by outer relations only, but by inner relations which have to do with the quantum implicate order (what Heisenberg, et al., called the "central order"), which is the true Mind of the Observer. Without recognizing this internal constraint and the real nature of the consciousness that the abstract "ego" utilizes in its observations of external nature, one might reasonably espouse such a subjective freedom to be arbitrary. In the light of the phenomenological research of Descartes and Husserl, however, which reveals the inner reality of subjectivity and consciousness, such an arbitrariness can no longer be exalted over a genuine metaphysics of the quantum implicate order, IMHO. Hence, the way is made straight for the development of a theory of observables that are determined by the noumenal reality and not arbitrarily selected by the classical observer. A genuine free will is still mandated, but it has to do with the transcendental wholeness of the quantum phenomenon and not with the freedom of the abstract "ego" from internal constraint.
BTW, Einstein does admit elsewhere in this essay that indeed all thought is metaphysical, and that if we excluded metaphysics, as the logical positivists would have us do, no thought at all would be possible. In this he is drawing very close to the conclusions of Heisenberg, et al., as documented in "Physics and Beyond", by Heisenberg.
This particular essay by Einstein is perhaps the best summary of his position vis-a-vis philosophy and philosophers. He revered Hume precisely insofar as he showed that our conceptual interpretation of experience cannot be attributed to the sensory experience itself. This includes most especially the concept of causality. In my metaphysics, the lower quantum worlds are mental, emotional, and physical, while the higher classical worlds are meta-physical, causal, and phenomenal. The intermediate world is etheric. So, Hume's notion that causality is a property of the observer is built into my system of metaphysics.
However, the relational properties do have a lower type of causality built into them, as well. Niels Bohr mandated in his essays after 1935 a new type of quantum theory that would include a quantum description of the measuring apparatus. This is essential to any further progress in quantum theory. If observables are properties of the observer, we can begin to find out what that means only by developing some sort of theory involving a *fundamental* type of measuring apparatus, which would serve as a prototype for all others. Quantum reality itself is noumenal and unknowable. All that we can know is based on relational properties or properties of a measuring apparatus in relation to a noumenal system. We must find out what eigenstates really mean in a metaphysical sense.
In the case of the position representation, the space-time eigenstates are a simple projection of the meta-physical reality of the classical subject, including the abstract "ego", onto the physical quantum world below. The classical subject is the bra vector, the classical object is the ket vector, and the transcendental classical thought is the seed of the measurable basis state. The transcendental classical thought is not the thought (or spirit) adjacent to extension (or matter) in the classical framework of Newtonian physics. Once relativity establishes that matter is transformable into energy, that type of thought is thereby objectified, and a new type of transcendental thought of the thought (and extension) is already mandated. This transcendental thought is not in the classical order, which is the physical sub-world of the meta-physical world, but rather in the astral sub-world of the meta-physical world.
The position representation requires an external potential|actual event, or I-IT, which couples with an I-THOU and gives rise to a feedback circuit, known as THOUGHT. This is a quantum THOUGHT.
The eigenstates of the energy-momentum representation are the atomic subjects of Whitehead, each comprised of a dipolar actual entity. The actual events in this case are internal, i.e., they are already built into the eigenstates as the prehensions of the past and anticipatory prehensions of the future that constitute the internal structure of the momentary atomic subject in question.
When Einstein defines the conceptual system in relation to the sensory experience, he is indeed talking about the position representation, about thought and sense-perception in the mode of presentational immediacy, all in the context of consciousness. That is why Whitehead says in the first pages of "Process and Reality" that process has nothing to do with consciousness, thought, or sense-perception (in the mode of presentational immediacy).
Indeed, it is the superjective process that combines the momentary atomic subject with all of its objects and unifies them into one object that is the quantum system being experienced by the atomic subject in that moment. This does not define a wave function in the world, but rather a superject before the world. That subject and superject become mind and matter on the phenomenal level is then the demonstration that the conceptual system is in this case entirely determined by the quantum dynamics, or the mind-independent reality. This is called by Whitehead perception in the mode of causal efficacy. It is prior to thought - it is like *noesis*, or direct perception of the *eidos*, rather than *dianoia*, which depends upon external thought.
The latest news I have heard concerning the debate between Stapp and Joos is that Zeh has now entered the fray and is claiming that if Stapp were to use the energy-momentum representation instead of the position representation, he would get a different result, one that would demonstrate how the basis states can arise from the quantum dynamics. I have just explained how I think this is true in principle, but I am very eager to see if they can get that out of the conventional physics we now have. My prediction is that they cannot, and that such a result can only come out of a new type of physics in full accord from the start with metaphysics, such as I have envisioned.
Peter Joseph Mutnick 1949 - 2000
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