Table Of ContentThe Conscious Universe
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
Menas Kafatos Robert Nadeau
The Conscious Universe
Parts and Wholes in Physical Reality
With 30 Illustrations
Springer
Menas Kafatos Robert Nadeau
Department of Physics Department of English
George Mason University George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030-4444 Fairfax, VA 22030-4444
USA USA
Original artwork for the cover and figure illustrations created by Menas Kafatos.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kafatos, Menas C.
The conscious universe : parts and wholes in physical reality /
Menas Kafatos, Robert Nadeau.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-387-98865-8 ISBN 978-1-4612-1308-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4612-1308-6
1. Reality. 2. Physics—Philosophy. 3. Quantum theory.
I. Nadeau, Robert, 1944- . II. Title.
QC6.4.R42K34 1999
530'.01—dc21 99-15364
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© 2000, 1990 Springer Science+Business Media New York
Originally published by Springer-Verlag New York, Inc. in 2000
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9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21
ISBN 978-0-387-98865-8
To Alexios Kafatos, Langdon Nadeau, Lefteris Kafatos,
Stefanos Kafatos, and Thalia Kafatou
Contents
Introduction 1
Physics and Metaphysics.................................................................... 6
Science as a Way of Knowing ............................................................. 8
1. Two Small Clouds: The Emergence of.
a New Physics 10
Light and Relativity Theory ............................................................... 12
Entering the Realm of the Unvisualizable........................................ 17
The Rise of Quantum Theory ............................................................. 20
A New View of Atoms ......................................................................... 23
Waves as Particles and Particles as Waves ........................... ........... 27
The New Logical Framework of Complementarity.......................... 31
2. The Strange New World of the Quantum:
Wave-particle Dualism 33
The Two-Slit Experiment ................................................................... 38
Planck's Constant ............................................................................... 42
Quantum Probabilities and Statistics ............................................... 45
The Schrodinger Cat Paradox............................................................ 47
Quantum Field Theory ....................................................................... 50
3. Confronting a New Fact of Nature:
Bell's Theorem and the Aspect and
Gisin Experiments 56
The EPR Thought Experiment .......................................................... 58
A More Detailed Account of Experiments Testing Bell's Theorem 61
Results of Experiments Testing Bell's Theory .................................. 65
History of Experiments Testing Bell's Theorem............................... 67
Confronting a New Fact of Nature .................................................... 70
viii Contents
4. Changing the Rules: A New Epistemology
of Science 72
Realism Versus Idealism in the Quantum World............................. 76
Complementarity and Objectivity ..................................................... 77
The Need to Use Classical Concepts.................................................. 79
CI and the Experiments Testing Bell's Theorem ............................. 82
Complementarity and the Language of Mathematics...................... 84
5. The Logic of Nature: Complementarity and
the New Biology 90
Part and Whole in Darwinian Theory.. .............................. ............... 92
Part-Whole Complementarity in Microbial Life ............................... 94
Part-Whole Complementarities in Complex Living Systems .......... 96
Emergence in the Whole ofthe Biota.. ... .... ....................................... 98
Competition Versus Cooperation Within Species............................. 99
Competition Versus Cooperation between Species ........................... 101
6. Ancient Whispers: The Expanding Universe 105
The Hot Big Bang Theory. .................................................................. 107
Problems with Big Bang Theory................. ..................... .................. 110
Inflation as the Solution to the Big Bang Problems ......................... 115
7. The Emergence of a New Vision:
The Unfolding Universe 119
The Universe as a Quantum System ................................................. 121
The Observational Problem in Cosmology......... ..... .......... .... ....... ..... 123
Nonlocality and Cosmology ................................................................ 125
Three Types of Nonlocalities .............................................................. 127
Complementarity and Cosmology...................................................... 129
8. Quantum Ontologies: Metaphysics in
Modern Physics 134
The Quest for a New Ontology ........................................................... 135
The New Epistemology in a Philosophical Context .......................... 140
Parallels with Eastern Metaphysics .................................................. 141
Contents ix
9. The Ceremony of Innocence: Physics,
Metaphysics, and the Dialog between
Science and Religion 143
Physics and Seventeenth-Century Metaphysics ............................... 144
Metaphysics and Classical Physics................................. ... ...... .......... 148
Einstein and the Positivists .................................................... ........... 149
Einstein's View .................................................................................... 151
Philosophical Implications of Nonlocality ......................................... 153
Parts and Wholes in Physical Reality ............................................... 155
The Conscious Universe ..................................................................... 157
Consciousness and the Single Significant Whole ............................. 15B
A New Dialog Between Science and Religion ................................... 160
Appendix. Horizons of Knowledge
in Cosmological Models 162
Hypothesis of Large-Scale Complementarities ................................. 166
Quantum Resolution of Cosmological Measurement Problems ....... 169
Notes 172
Introduction............................................................ ............... .......... .... 172
Chapter 1 ............................................................................................. 172
Chapter 2 ............................................................................................. 173
Chapter 3 ............................................................................................. 173
Chapter 4 ............................................................................................. 174
Chapter 5 ............................................................................................. 175
Chapter 6 .............................................................................................. 177
Chapter 7 ....................................................................................... ...... 177
Chapter B. ...•.................................................................................•...... 17B
Chapter 9 ................................................................ ............................. 179
Appendix. ............................................................................................. 1BO
Index 181
Introduction
Imagine that two people have been chosen to be observers in a scien
tific experiment involving two photons, or quanta of light. These pho
tons originate from a single source and travel in opposite directions
an equal distance halfway across the known universe to points where
each will be measured or observed. Now suppose that before the pho
tons are released, one observer is magically transported to a point of
observation halfway across the known universe and the second ob
server is magically transported to another point an equal distance in
the opposite direction.·The task of the observers is to record or meas
ure a certain property of each photon with detectors located at the
two points so that the data gathered at each can later be compared.
Even though the photons are traveling from the source at the
speed of light, each observer would have to wait billions of years for
one of the photons to arrive at his observation point. Suppose, how
ever, that the observers are willing to endure this wait because they
hope to test the predictions of a mathematical theorem. This theorem
not only allows for the prospect that there could be a correlation be
tween the observed properties of the two photons but also indicates
that this correlation could occur instantly, or in no time, in spite of
the fact that the distance between the observers and their measuring
instruments is billions of light years. Now imagine that after the ob
servations are made, the observers are magically transported back to
the source of the experiment and the observations recorded by each
are compared. The result of our imaginary experiment is that the ob
served properties of the two photons did, in fact, correlate with one
another over this fast distance instantly, or in no time, and the re
searchers conclude that the two photons remained in communication
with one another in spite of this distance.
This imaginary experiment distorts some of the more refmed as
pects of the actual experiments in which photons released from a sin
gle source are measured or correlated over what physicists term
space-like separated regions. But if we assume that the imaginary
experiment was conducted many times, there is good reason to be
lieve that the results would be the same as those in the actual
experiments. Also like the imaginary experiment, the actual experi
ments were designed to test some predictions made in a mathemati
cal theorem.
M. Kafatos et al., The Conscious Universe
© Springer-Verlag New York, Inc. 2000
2 Introduction
The theorem was published in 1964 by physicist John Bell, and
the predictions made in this theorem have been tested in a series of
increasingly refined experiments. Like Einstein before him, John Bell
was discomforted by the threats that quantum physics posed to a
fundamental assumption in classical physics: that there must be a
one-to~one correspondence between every element of a physical theory
and the physical reality described by that theory. This view of the
relationship between physical theory and physical reality assumes
that all events in the cosmos can be fully described by physical laws
and that the future of any physical system can, in theory at least, be
predicted with utter precision and certainty. Bell's hope was that the
results of the experiments testing his theorem would obviate chal
lenges posed by quantum physics to this understanding of the rela
tionship between physical theory and physical reality.
The results of these experiments would also serve to resolve other'
large questions. Is quantum physics a self-consistent theory whose
predictions would hold in this new class of experiments? Or would the
results reveal that quantum theory is incomplete and its apparent
challenges to the classical understanding of the correspondence be
tween physical theory and physical reality were illusory? But the an
swer to this question in the experiments made possible by Bell's theo
rem would not merely serve as commentary on the character of the
knowledge we call physics. It would also determine which of two fun
damentally different assumptions about the character of physical re
ality is correct. Is physical reality, as classical physics assumes, local,
or is physical reality, as quantum theory predicts, nonlocal? Although
the question may seem esoteric and the terms innocuous, the issues
at stake and the implications involved are, as we shall see, enormous.
Bell was personally convinced that the totality of all of our previ
ous knowledge of physical reality, not to mention the laws of physics,
would favor the assumption of locality. The assumption states that a
measurement at one point in space cannot influence what occurs at
another point in space if the distance between the points is large
enough so that no signal can travel between them at light speed in
the time allowed for measurement. In the jargon of physics, the two
points exist in space-like separated regions, and a measurement in
one region cannot influence what occurs in the other.
Quantum physics, however, allows for what Einstein disparag
ingly termed "spooky actions at a distance." When particles originate
under certain conditions, quantum theory predicts that a measure
ment of one particle will correlate with the state of another particle
even if the distance between the particles is millions of light years.
And the theory also indicates that even though no signal can travel
faster than light, the correlations will occur instantaneously, or in no
