William Young

I am a scientist . I once happened to collect all the cosmologies and genisis myths of various cultures and religions of the world . There are many of them . (I am sure with in Hinduism itself you have many versions ). And each one differ in major way from every other. There is no consensus. Now which one is true? Your asserting that Bagavatam is true is of no use as every cultures say the same thing about their own version. How do you resolve this issue? Any solution? William Young

What is truth? Two equally fanatic fools , one chiristian fenetic fool and another krishnian fanatic fool are fighting with each other. William Young

Bear Bart, Refer to your post no. 113 I am mentioning binary dualism in order to clarify that there is a version of dualism like this and a discussion on dualism should explicitly be conducted keeping this division in mind to avoid confusion and ambiguity. That is all my purpose. As to Dialectical dualism, which is the real issue in quantum mechanics, my position is that there are unresolved and puzzling issues arising out of it, which is not at all acceptable as good way of thinking, and these issues must be resolved and will be resolved. As to my position on Monism I am, like most scientists a monist. There is only one reality. This is the point I was making when I expressed my discomfort with the paradoxes of quantum mechanics. Dialectical dualism is a big problem precisely because it is a logical contradiction. (If it were merely a binary dualism there is no logical problem). In dialectical dualism, one is arguing that a result of a coin throw experiment is Head and Tail, not head or tail (which is a binary dualism). If a cat is either dead or alive then there is no logical problem but to say it is dead and alive is a contradiction. As to my position on monism is concerned I am, as majority of Scientists, is a monist. This is precisely why I cannot live with duality of quantum mechanics. But at present there is no solution to this and hence I maintained that Quantum physics is dualist - not that I am comfortable with it. But you have given a beautiful phrase Dialectical Monism. This indeed is a beautiful concept and has a potential to resolve the contradiction and duality. We encounter the paradoxical state of two opposite states together precisely because they are not two at all. Behind the apparent duality they are one at a deeper invisible level. That is why at the first place the paradoxical state arises. The two opposites are really one. But we need to establish this clearly before claiming it. We have not yet accomplished it. As to my idea on unification, I am an ‘unificationist” and my PhD is a small contribution in this direction by way of a small solution on the synthesis of particle and forces. Though my own work is a very small contribution and no where near the grand unification, the grand unification is certainly on the way. In this respect I am a Monist. As to quantum mechanist being religious, it is your generalization. Some are and some are not. There is no special connection between quantum mechanics and religion. May be that its present mysterious quality drives some towards religion. After all mystery is the origin and nature of religion. I prefer to be an agnostic because that is, according to me, being honest to one’s own self. We don’t know what are god, soul, and the like and we cannot know. Why get in to something that we cannot know and be dogmatic about it? I would rater claim something I know for certain. Kind regards, William Young.

Hi all, I am a new here. So let me introduce myself. I am a quantum physicist and my Ph.D thesis is on Quantum field theory. I worked on a part of the problem of unification of particles and forces. Presently I teach the subject of quantum mechanics and guide research in quantum field theory. I am an agnostic and no stake to prove or disprove god. My interest in this forum is academic. I think by this I am better suited to comment objectively on the process of the debate that is going on in this forum and many others. There is a huge misconception about quantum mechanics among laymen which is reflected in this forum too. Let me clarify this misconception just for the purpose of better, clearer and qualitatively more useful discussion among you. Before I enter in to debate with you all, let me clarify that I am not at all concerned with the religious dualism and monism and no implication is to be drawn in to my strictly scientific notion of dualism and monism. Nor I liked to be dragged in to the religious discussion. I will restrict to purely science. My only purpose of entering in to debate is to correct the science discussion you are already having. If you are using science then you must use it correctly with right understanding. That is all my concern. Before we address the issue of dualism of Quantum mechanics, I wish to make a distinction between two kinds of dualism that science is concerned with. To make this distinction clear let me employ two terms to refer to them: Binary dualism, Dialectical dualism. By binary dualism I mean that brand of thinking that there are two fundamental categories – entities, forces, concepts with which everything in a field of study is explainable. An example of this is the familiar computing systems. All computing is done in a modern computer with binary codes. Ultimately all information processing, -be it language mathematics, pictures, - all is done with a binary codes 0and 1. There is nothing else happening in a computer and nothing more is required other than these basic codes. In general terms binary dualism means that we need two minimum things, and only two things are needed, to explain anything. Everything else can be reduced to these two things. This kind of dualism is no real problem there is no real implication to quantum mechanism. We don’t mean quantum mechanics is dualistic in this sense. It is not. There is no need of two fundamental things in quantum mechanics. Dialectical dualism on the other hand is the assumption that the two fundamental things are didactical opposites. – Not just any pair of two, but mutually exclusive two. And secondly these two opposite things are together. In other words there is a logical contradiction – a paradox – present in a dialectical dualism. Reality is explained by a set of paradoxical elements. An example is the wave particle duality of quantum mechanics a wave by definition is not a particle and a particle is not a wave. Normally both cannot be true as that is a logical contradiction. However Quantum mechanics assumes this paradoxical state of affairs. Another example is the quantum superposed state which assumes two mutually exclusive contradictory states coexisting together, conceived by the famous Schrödinger’s Cat. A cat cannot be dead and alive together, that would be a logical contradiction. But a quantum cat is such that it is alive and dead simultaneously in mysterious superposed state. An electron can have its existence in two states two places two orbits etc. When we say Quantum world is dualistic we mean in the second sense and not in the first sense. There are many problems in quantum mechanics which are paradoxical and puzzling and out right unacceptable as logical neat thinking. Paradoxical thinking of this sort are logical contradictions and illogical. We live with it not because that is real or true, but because right now we don’t have solutions to the quantum paradoxes. It does mean we have accepted them as real. No one can accept them. No serious minded scientists have accepted this state of affair as real and final. Einstein who was in a way indirectly responsible for the emergence of quantum mechanics has not accepted this terrible state of affairs. Schrödinger, who is a major contributed of quantum mechanics, himself has not accepted the quantum dualism. There are scientists who do not take quantum theories seriously and consider it as nothing more than a computational algorithm to fit experimental data. All this is because we are not comfortable with the quantum duality and we would very much want to get rid of such dualism. We are putting up with all this at present because we don’t know yet the solution to avoid them.-Not that we have accepted them. Binary dualism is no problem in science and is relatively a superficial problem. It is just a matter of convenience how many fundamental category we can use and there is even an arbitrariness to it. For example the nine digit number system that we use in mathematics is arbitrary. It could very well be a sixteen digit system of a six digit system or a binary system. There is no compelling reason which system should be adopted. There is no real system in this sense. However science strives to reduce categories to minimum and if we could just have one single category all the more better. This is the principle of Occam’s razor which science values and practices and this is the logic behind the striving for grand unification. Is quantum mechanics dualistic? Yes at present. But is that the right and real state? Certainly not. It is in fact a problematic state. No one in the right state of mind can accept such an illogical state. Scientists, leaving alone a few minorities, have not accepted it as a real and final fate of the quantum world. Attempts are on to remove all this paradoxes and contradictions. Science as a philosophy do value and aspire to be non-dual. Two is better than many, but one is the ideal. On this there is no dispute among scientists. It is just that we are at present helpless with the ugly dialectic dualism present in quantum mechanics. Some of the members of this discussion group think that science is dualistic. That “quantum science is dualistic at present” is a true statement. But then, “that is how the reality is made” is not at all implied and there no consensus on this at all. Dualism is not a quality to be celebrated in any case in science. It is considered to be a worst problem in science. Scientists do strongly believe in scientific monism. By the term monism I don’t mean the religious theological or spiritual monism. And I don’t want to be dragged in to that. As I said I am an Agnostic. I don’t know whether soul spirit, or god exist and I don’t care either. William Young