Re: [Marxism] Re: quantum phyics as metaphor

[Les Schaffer <schaffer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jim Farmelant wrote:

> The logical empiricist philosopher Philipp Frank dealt with that issue in regards to 
> both relativity and QM in his book *The Philosophy of Science: The Link Between 
> Science and Philosophy*. In that book he discussed the metaphysical interpretations 
> of different scientific theories and how such interpretations can support various 
> social and political agenda.  He focused among other things on the popular mystical 
> interpretations of QM and how those interpretations supported reactionary<> 
> political agendas.

On Jim's advice i checked out Frank's book, particularly his chapter
entitled "Metaphysical interpretations of the atomic world". Though he
gives some pretty funny examples of  "popular mystical interpretations
of QM", i found myself wanting to know a lot more about how those
interpretations were used specifically in support of  reactionary politics.

After reviewing George Bernard Shaw's take on quantum metaphysics, Frank
continues with a discussion:

   "The idea that the conceptions of organismic science have "risen
   from the dead", as Shaw puts it whimsically, has been taken very
   seriously by a great many philosophers, We may quote as an example
   of the German philosopher and science writer, Bernard Bavink.

       There is today within the circles of natural scientists a
       willingness to restore honestly the threads from these sciences
       to all higher values of human life, to God and Soul, freedom of
       will, etc.; these threads had been temporarily all but disrupted
       and such a willingness had not existed for a century.

   Bavink points out that this rebirth of organismic science had arisen
   from "purely scientific motives"; he mentions the remarkable
   coincidence that at the same period a type of political regime
   appeared that claimed to be hostile to materialism and to be based
   upon the organismic conception of science. These new regimes are
   obviously Italian Fascism and German Nazism. As a matter of fact,
   materialistic or anti materialistic interpretations of science do
   not arise usually from "purely scientific motives" but generally
   have their origin in wishes to set up goals for desirable human
   conduct. These interpretations are connected with social, political.
   and religious trends.

Frank then discusses General Smuts, a former Prime Minister in South
Africa, who seems to have appropriated terms like "action", as in the
"quantum of action 'h'" and the "principle of least action". Frank says:

   This anti materialistic interpretation of twentieth century physics
   has appealed to men of action who were concerned about a scientific
   basis for their political goals.

But Frank leaves it to the more historically minded reader (i.e. not
someone like me) to figure out just how Smuts used these ideas and to
what ends. It would be interesting to track this stuff down.

Frank then discusses the German philosopher Aloys Wenzel's writings on
elementary spirits and the new quantum mechanics. Frank:

   In this interpretation, the quantum conditions that determine, for
   example, the energy levels in the hydrogen atom, are interpreted as
   forms in which "lower spirits" manifest themselves. The laws of
   quantum theory that cannot be expressed in common-sense language are
   interpreted by common-sense analogies like the "behavior of
   spirits", just as primitive tribes have interpreted sunrise and
   sunset as the behavior of orgnaisms, superior to, but analagous to
   human organisms.

Frank returns to Bavink and the Schroedinger equation:

    From the scientific aspect, it is hard to understand why the
   solutions of the Schroedinger equation are more "spiritual" than the
   solutions of the differential equations in Newtonian mechanics. But
   Bavink argues by way of analogies. The solutions of Schroedinger's
   wave equation (psi-functions) can be interpreted as probabilities;
   probabilities, however, are mental pheonomena; hence the
   psi-function is interpreted as a mental phenomena that happens in a
   human mind; the hydrogen atom is described by psi-functions; hence
   the hydrogen atom is a mental phenomenon and is a product of
   spiritual powers. The case against materialism is proved.

I don't know if Frank is taking a too simplistic view of Bavink, though
we clearly have our own Bavinks today.  Finally Frank discusses Bavink's
take on quantum jumps of the electron in the hydrogen atom. Quoting Bavink:

   We must remember firstly, that the individual elementary act (of
   jumping) as such is not calculable, but left free; secondly, that
   the real essence of this freedom is perhaps or probably a psychic
   event. ... In other words, the "free" choice of  the elementary act,
   which is left undetermined by physics, exists actualy only as part
   of an embracing "plan" or "form". exactly speaking of a "hierarchy"
   of "forms"; the superior form always absorbs the inferior one and
   performs a higher synthesis. ... What is new is only the fact that
   physics itself suggests trying out this idea.

My question is, apart from the obviously alarming talk of "the superior
form", how do these metaphysical meanderings get used in politics, on
the ground so to speak. for example, a lot of the stuff on Iraq in the
US papers continually harps on freedom and democracy for the Iraqi
people. i mean every news article has some allusion to some mystical
event that can happen in the Iraqi people's lives if we could only get
thru this "bad spell" and things calm down a bit. etc etc. likewise, was
the quantum spiritual nonsense actually harped on in German culture and
politics circa 1930's, or are these Bavink's just isolated speculators
rambling away and we notice them only in hindsight as fitting in somehow
with the times?

Les Schaffer




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