Concepts to be presented in next Metaphysics meeting

Dear Metaphysicians,

I have a little challenge for you. Eli James' presentation on the Wholistic Paradigm will make use of a number of concepts such as

1. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.

2. Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem.

3. Schopenhauer's Infinite Regress.

Given that such concepts are often misquoted I would like to start a discussion about them in the message board before the presentation. Please, feel free to post a definition and your own views on each of those concepts, and on any other that may be related to the subject to be discussed.

What exactly do we mean by "Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle", "Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem", Schopenhauer's Infinite Regress", . . . ?

Miguel

Ok, I'll start a reply by giving pointers to wikipedia articles about the first two subjects:

1. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle

2. Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem

Miguel

I don't think I've heard these concepts explained directly but I'm in my first semester at Truman College majoring in physics and hoping to eventually work in the field of quantum mechanics. What sparked my interest in the principles involved with this is a movie called "What the Bleep Do We Know." It's sort of a docudrama focusing on the nature of reality and self for those of you who haven't seen it. What I took from Heisenberg's Principle is that every atom and particle doesn't have any exactness about it, only possibility/probability. They're kind of swirling around out there and the mind or perspective is what makes them appear solid. A part of the mind, or somewhere beyond it, is what gives the world shape.

As far as Goedel's Theorem goes, after reading the Wikipedia article, it's a bit over my head. I have always been awful when it comes to math and math related things. This is my biggest fear in wanting to become a physicist: math. The main thing that I took from it is that any mathematical system or list of axioms (I had to look that word up, haha) is never really complete or wholly valid??? Either in being analyzed by the human mind or a computer. If someone can explain this in layman's terms I'd appreciate it.

Concerning the April meetup, Scott and I are going to see if our neighbors can watch Lincoln that evening and are really going to try to make it. He is much more skeptical than I am when it comes to anything metaphysical, but I told him that if he'd like to join me with an open mind that I'd love to have his company.

I'm really looking forward to meeting some of you and expanding our beliefs together!

-Betsy

What sparked my interest in the principles involved with this is a movie called "What the Bleep Do We Know."

We watched that movie in one of the meetings of the group some time ago. Precisely that movie is a good example of popular misconceptions surrounding quantum mechanics. See for instance:

http://skeptico.blogs...

http://www.abc.net.au...

Concerning Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle I think the Wikipedia article on it is pretty good. The principle is often quoted as the inability of measuring simultaneously the position and momentum or a particle (as if the particle had definite position and momentum but we are "unable" to measure them simultaneously), or as the statement that measuring the position necessarily disturbs a particle's momentum, and vice versa (observer effect.) Those appeal to some sort of inability or limitation of the observer to "know reality". However a more accurate statement of the principle would be the following:

"There are no states in which a particle has both a definite position and a definite momentum."

As the article puts it: "the uncertainty principle is a property of quantum states". I.e., it does not reflect a lack of ability of the observer to observe reality, it is a feature of physical reality itself.

There are some additional interesting considerations in the article about quantum indeterminacy:

http://en.wikipedia.o...

See in particular the section about indeterminacy and incompleteness.

I will address "Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem" in some other post . . .

Miguel