Quantum weirdness (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, November 29, 2013, 16:00 (4012 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: A fine comment from a book review on how weird it is:-http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/quantum.enigma.html-I'm sorry, but Professor Henry's enthusiasm leaves me distinctly unenthusiastic. He has suddenly discovered Philosophical Idealism through quantum mechanics, and expects us all to throw common sense out of the window.-HENRY: No, the mystery is not quantum mechanics. The mystery is our own existence. Let me ask you: which would be easier to believe in (if you did not have irrefutable evidence for one of them): life after death, or your own existence? I do think that the latter is incomparably more improbable.-That our existence is a mystery can hardly be disputed. How does that make life after death incomparably more probable? How can you have a life after death without first having an existence? And what on Earth is the point of removing the irrefutable evidence from the equation?
The answers may be obscurely rooted in the fact that Professor Henry is "convinced that the universe does not exist at all (except as mind)." -HENRY: Let me ask my readers, does your own mind actually exist? Note that I am not talking about your brain, I am talking about your mind. Well, of course it does! Cogito ergo sum. After all our convoluted and ultimately entirely unsuccessful attempts to tease something, anything, REAL out of quantum mechanics and out of the observations (the so-called "universe"), here, first crack out of the box, we have, with the Henry interpretation, a solid and irrefutable success! Something that is real. And, it is a success that you cannot arrive at from physics, because physics does not treat of consciousness at all!-Sorry again, but why should the reality of my mind throw into question the reality of my body, my family, my house, and everything else around me? If Professor Henry steps in front of a bus, will he still be convinced that the universe only exists as mind?-HENRY: But does the Henry interpretation actually say anything? Does it have any meaning? It most certainly does! First, it means you can forget all the other interpretations that are on offer (and what a relief that is!) Second, once you understand that there is no universe out there, you are forced to face up to your personal responsibility. You now have a fundamental decision to make. You know that other people do not exist.-No I don't. The fact that "of course my mind exists" does not exclude other forms of existence.-HENRY: But, you must now decide whether their minds exist, as yours unquestionably does. Physics cannot assist you in this critical decision. Your stark choices are solipsism, or a leap of faith. -I have already decided that not only do their minds exist, but so do their bodies, and so does the material world I live in. This decision did not require any faith at all, because I have evidence, which TO ME is irrefutable, that they are as real as my mind. "TO ME" is important, because Professor Henry only asks us to take subjective decisions, and indeed those are the only kinds we can take, which makes all his own subjective speculations pretty pointless anyway.-HENRY: For a person (such as me) who has never before been religious, this leap of faith is not so easy. Indeed, I worry that my decision, which (let me relieve your mind) is that the reader's mind does exist, is too much influenced by my previous (but now seen to be utterly silly) belief that the reader's (as well as my own) mind was created by real electrons.
 
I don't know what makes him so sure of his beliefs and disbeliefs, or what he thinks his mind is made of, or why he thinks it necessary to tell us all this in the first place. But if I knew Professor Henry, I would be extremely worried about his state of mind, and I would be even more worried about the effect of his state of mind on the people around him. My apologies again if this sounds rude. I do realize that since, like everyone else, I can't understand quantum mechanics, and common sense spoils such philosophical games, it would be more sensible for me to keep quiet. But what the hell, we're all in this together ... or at least, those of us who believe we all exist and there's a "this" to be in.