The universe is a mathematical construct

[James R]

The part I quoted to say I disagreed with it, of course.

 

[Write4U]

The part I quoted to say I disagreed with it, of course.

So you disagree with Bohm's perspective of a fragmented world?

1 FRAGMENTATION AND WHOLENESS

The title of this chapter is ‘Fragmentation and wholeness’. It is especially important to consider this question today, for fragmentation is now very widespread, not only throughout society, but also in each individual; and this is leading to a kind of general confusion of the mind, which creates an endless series of problems and interferes with our clarity of perception so seriously as to prevent us from being able to solve most of them. Thus art, science, technology, and human work in general, are divided up into specialities, each considered to be separate in essence from the others.

Becoming dissatisfied with this state of affairs, men have set up further interdisciplinary subjects, which were intended to unite these specialities, but these new subjects have ultimately served mainly to add further separate fragments. Then, society as a whole has developed in such a way that it is broken up into separate nations and different religious, political, economic, racial groups, etc. Man’s natural environment has correspondingly been seen as an aggregate of separately existent parts, to be exploited by different groups of people. Similarly, each individual human being has been fragmented into a large number of separate and conflicting compartments, according to his different desires, aims, ambitions, loyalties, psychological characteristics, etc., to such an extent that it is generally accepted that some degree of neurosis is inevitable, while many individuals going beyond the ‘normal’ limits of fragmentation are classified as paranoid, schizoid, psychotic, etc. The notion that all these fragments are separately existent is evidently an illusion, and this illusion cannot do other than lead to endless conflict and confusion. Indeed, the attempt to live according to the notion that the fragments are really separate is, in essence, what has led to the growing series of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us today.

Thus, as is now well known, this way of life has brought about pollution, destruction of the balance of nature, over-population, world-wide economic and political disorder, and the creation of an overall environment that is neither physically nor mentally healthy for most of the people who have to live in it. Individually there has developed a widespread feeling of helplessness and despair, in the face of what seems to be an overwhelming mass of disparate social forces, going beyond the control and even the comprehension of the human beings who are caught up in it. Indeed, to some extent, it has always been both necessary and proper for man, in his thinking, to divide things up, and to separate them, so as to reduce his problems to manageable proportions; for evidently, if in our practical technical work we tried to deal with the whole of reality all at once, we would be swamped.

So, in certain ways, the creation of special subjects of study and the division of labour was an important step forward. Even earlier, man’s first realization that he was not identical with nature was also a crucial step, because it made possible a kind of autonomy in his thinking, which allowed him to go beyond the 2 wholeness and the implicate order immediately given limits of nature, first in his imagination and ultimately in his practical work. Nevertheless, this sort of ability of man to separate himself from his environment and to divide and apportion things ultimately led to a wide range of negative and destructive results, because man lost awareness of what he was doing and thus extended the process of division beyond the limits within which it works properly.

In essence, the process of division is a way of thinking about things that is convenient and useful mainly in the domain of practical, technical and functional activities (e.g., to divide up an area of land into different fields where various crops are to be grown). However, when this mode of thought is applied more broadly to man’s notion of himself and the whole world in which he lives (i.e. to his self-world view), then man ceases to regard the resulting divisions as merely useful or convenient and begins to see and experience himself and his world as actually constituted of separately existent fragments.

Being guided by a fragmentary self-world view, man then acts in such a way as to try to break himself and the world up, so that all seems to correspond to his way of thinking. Man thus obtains an apparent proof of the correctness of his fragmentary self-world view though, of course, he overlooks the fact that it is he himself, acting according to his mode of thought, who has brought about the fragmentation that now seems to have an autonomous existence, independent of his will and of his desire.

Men have been aware from time immemorial of this state of apparently autonomously existent fragmentation and have often projected myths of a yet earlier ‘golden age’, before the split between man and nature and between man and man had yet taken place. Indeed, man has always been seeking wholeness – mental, physical, social, individual.......more.

http://gci.org.uk/Documents/DavidBohm-WholenessAndTheImplicateOrder.pdf

Does any of this remind of what's happening in today's world?

 

[exchemist]

Here endeth the lesson.

We will now sing the hymn number 94," Oh Bohm our Help in Ages Past".

 

[Write4U]

Here endeth the lesson.

We will now sing the hymn number 94," Oh Bohm our Help in Ages Past".

Thanks for that insightful critique. I'm sure everyone learned from that thoughtful response.

 

[James R]

So you disagree with Bohm's perspective of a fragmented world?

Now that you mention is, probably yes, at least in part.

Thus art, science, technology, and human work in general, are divided up into specialities, each considered to be separate in essence from the others.

I disagree that these things are considered "separate in essence". Maybe some people think of them that way.

Becoming dissatisfied with this state of affairs, men have set up further interdisciplinary subjects, which were intended to unite these specialities, but these new subjects have ultimately served mainly to add further separate fragments.

That sounds very reminiscent of the old Creationist "missing link" arguments. With that kind of thinking, every time somebody finds a missing link, the Creationists simply say there are now two missing links instead of the original one. You found a link, B, between A and C? Well, that just means that there are "missing links" between A and B, and between B and C. Those people are never satisfied.

Then, society as a whole has developed in such a way that it is broken up into separate nations and different religious, political, economic, racial groups, etc. Man’s natural environment has correspondingly been seen as an aggregate of separately existent parts, to be exploited by different groups of people.

It sounds like Bohm is against categorisation, for some reason. Not to categorise means to have a disorganised, unapproachable mess.

Similarly, each individual human being has been fragmented into a large number of separate and conflicting compartments, according to his different desires, aims, ambitions, loyalties, psychological characteristics, etc., to such an extent that it is generally accepted that some degree of neurosis is inevitable, while many individuals going beyond the ‘normal’ limits of fragmentation are classified as paranoid, schizoid, psychotic, etc.

I don't know what he's blathering on about, here.

Thus, as is now well known, this way of life has brought about pollution, destruction of the balance of nature, over-population, world-wide economic and political disorder, and the creation of an overall environment that is neither physically nor mentally healthy for most of the people who have to live in it.

All that is due to "fragmentation" is it? Wow! This fragmentation stuff sounds really bad! Who'd have thought that every problem has such a simple, unifying cause? It's almost too simple. Almost.

Individually there has developed a widespread feeling of helplessness and despair, in the face of what seems to be an overwhelming mass of disparate social forces, going beyond the control and even the comprehension of the human beings who are caught up in it. Indeed, to some extent, it has always been both necessary and proper for man, in his thinking, to divide things up, and to separate them, so as to reduce his problems to manageable proportions; for evidently, if in our practical technical work we tried to deal with the whole of reality all at once, we would be swamped.

So, on the one hand Bohm recognises the importance of compartmentalisation, but on the other hand he doesn't like it. So what?

So, in certain ways, the creation of special subjects of study and the division of labour was an important step forward. Even earlier, man’s first realization that he was not identical with nature was also a crucial step, because it made possible a kind of autonomy in his thinking, which allowed him to go beyond the 2 wholeness and the implicate order immediately given limits of nature, first in his imagination and ultimately in his practical work. Nevertheless, this sort of ability of man to separate himself from his environment and to divide and apportion things ultimately led to a wide range of negative and destructive results, because man lost awareness of what he was doing and thus extended the process of division beyond the limits within which it works properly.

Wild speculation here about "man" losing awareness of what he was doing etc.

Being guided by a fragmentary self-world view, man then acts in such a way as to try to break himself and the world up, so that all seems to correspond to his way of thinking.

Or ... man realises that some conceptual or theoretical divisions are useful for precisely the reasons that Bohm himself previously appeared to recognise, but also that those conceptual divisions do not necessarily represent hard boundaries in the "real world".

Men have been aware from time immemorial of this state of apparently autonomously existent fragmentation and have often projected myths of a yet earlier ‘golden age’, before the split between man and nature and between man and man had yet taken place. Indeed, man has always been seeking wholeness – mental, physical, social, individual.......more.

Delusions about previous "golden ages" are common enough. The only novel spin Bohm is putting on this is his claim that it happens due to the "fragmentation" he is rambling on about.

Does any of this remind of what's happening in today's world?

Like most religions, I'm sure you can read in analogies to "today's world" or anything else you want to shoehorn into the rhetoric.

 

[Write4U]

So, on the one hand Bohm recognises the importance of compartmentalisation, but on the other hand he doesn't like it. So what?

Exactly, he recognizes the importance of compartmentalization, but IMO, he was also advocating for the necessity of keeping sight of the inter-connectedness to the greater whole.

The whole thing started as a singularity and it still is, except it's a lot bigger.....

 

[James R]

Exactly, he recognizes the importance of compartmentalization, but IMO, he was also advocating for the necessity of keeping sight of the inter-connectedness to the greater whole.

I have no problem with that. My problem is the part where he claims that people who ought to know better have lost sight of that interconnectedness.

 

[Write4U]

I have no problem with that. My problem is the part where he claims that people who ought to know better have lost sight of that interconnectedness.

Is that not because that was true (witness the apparent conflict between QM and GR), until the recent renewed interest in the "wholeness" and coincidentally, a resurgence of interest in Bohmian Mechanics.

I disagree that these things are considered "separate in essence". Maybe some people think of them that way

Paying lipservice to the "essence" of a Universal Wholeness is not the same as applying the concept in a practical sense.

Since the 1990s, there has been renewed interest in formulating extensions to de Broglie–Bohm theory, attempting to reconcile it with special relativity and quantum field theory, besides other features such as spin or curved spatial geometries.

De Broglie–Bohm theory - Wikipedia

 

[Write4U]

The Axiomatic Method in Mathematics

The standard methodology for modern mathematics has its roots in Euclid’s (3rd c. BCE) organization of geometry and arithmetic in his famous Elements. Geometers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries formalized this process even more, and their successes in geometry were extended throughout all of mathematics, so that today, the axiomatic method pervades every mathematical theory.

This axiomatic method is employed to give reliable and objective reasons for why conjectures about mathematical objects hold true. It is based on logically deductive argumentation that establishes proofs for every assertion in the theory under investigation. These assertions are called propositions, or theorems (when their statements are important milestones in the organization of the theory), or lemmas (when their purpose is primarily to establish an important step in the proof of a future theorem), or corollaries (when they are immediate consequences of a theorem).

Proofs of theorems are arguments based on the truth of previously proven theorems, but as these previous proofs require the establishment of prior assertions for their truth, we have to avoid an infinite regress of proof: the theory must be founded on assertions that do not require proof. Such statements are called the axioms of the theory.

http://www.cs.xu.edu/math/math301/07m/01_Axiomatics.pdf

 

[James R]

Is that not because that was true (witness the apparent conflict between QM and GR), until the recent renewed interest in the "wholeness" and coincidentally, a resurgence of interest in Bohmian Mechanics.

There is no conflict between QM and GR. The only problem (and it's a biggy) is that GR isn't a quantum theory. But that has nothing to do with "wholeness".

Also, you speak as if Bohmian mechanics is more mainstream these days than it used to be. As far as I'm aware, it's still on the fringes of physics. Physicists being physicists, there will always be some who take an interest. There's always more research to do. But that's as far as it goes. Most physicists never study any of Bohm's non-mainsteam work.

 

[Write4U]

Most physicists never study any of Bohm's non-mainsteam work.

You make it sound as if mainstream science dictates the work of physicists. I disagree or at least would consider that shortsighted.

IMO, physicist consensus dictates mainstream science.

But if people ignore the work by otherwise recognized mainstream scientists, I suggest that is a serious lack of recognition of the scientist's whole body of related work.

 

[James R]

You make it sound as if mainstream science dictates the work of physicists.

Roughly speaking, I'd say that mainstream science consists of those parts of science that have proven most fruitful towards progressing knowledge. Quantum mechanics is mainstream, for example, because it explains so much and because it has driven the development of many useful techniques and technologies. Bohmian mechanics is not mainstream because it has not led to new discoveries in physics or to new technologies. In fact, it doesn't achieve anything that other philosophies of quantum physics don't do equally as well.

That's not to say that things will necessarily always stay as they are now. Some people are working on Bohmian ideas. Who knows? They might eventually produce something useful, or even cause a revolution. Anything is possible.

But if people ignore the work by otherwise recognized mainstream scientists, I suggest that is a serious lack of recognition of the scientist's whole body of related work.

Physics, like every specialist field of study, is a big topic. Professionals need to decide how they will allocate their valuable time and effort. While there are always some who choose to follow less-traveled roads in the hope of a breakthrough, the majority tend to build on those methods and ideas that have already proven their worth time and again.

This is not to say that Bohm is ignored. Physicists are a curious lot. Some might make a hobby of Bohmian mechanics, or learn about it in their spare time. Some come across it by accident through Bohm's more mainstream contributions.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that, if you're outside the profession, you aren't necessarily in the best position to judge what is considered important and what is peripheral from the point of view of the average insider (whoever that is). A popular writer, for example, can sometimes turn a fringe scientist (or, more often, a fringe idea of a well-known scientist) into a celebration in the popular culture (or some segment of it), while the professionals continue on with business as usual, observing the resulting public fan club with a bemused expression.

 

[Write4U]

In fact, it doesn't achieve anything that other philosophies of quantum physics don't do equally as well.

Actually, the opposite is true.
The de Broglie-Bohm Pilot Wave Theory solves the wave-particle duality problem!

The de Broglie–Bohm Theory, also known as the pilot wave theory, Bohmian mechanics, Bohm's interpretation, and the causal interpretation, is an interpretation of quantum mechanics.

In addition to a wave-function on the space of all possible configurations, it also postulates an actual configuration that exists even when unobserved. The evolution over time of the configuration (that is, the positions of all particles or the configuration of all fields) is defined by a guiding equation that is the non-local part of the wave function.

The evolution of the wave function over time is given by the Schrödinger equation. The theory is named after Louis de Broglie (1892–1987) and David Bohm (1917–1992).

The theory is deterministic[1] and explicitly nonlocal: the velocity of any one particle depends on the value of the guiding equation, which depends on the configuration of the system given by its wave function; the latter depends on the boundary conditions of the system, which, in principle, may be the entire universe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Broglie–Bohm_theory

 

[James R]

The de Broglie-Bohm Pilot Wave Theory solves the wave-particle duality problem!

I don't think so. It retains the same wave-particle duality as standard quantum mechanics.

 

[Write4U]

I don't think so. It retains the same wave-particle duality as standard quantum mechanics.

No it does not. In fact its main difference is that it does away with the particle/wave duality.

Bohmian Mechanics
First published Fri Oct 26, 2001; substantive revision Mon Mar 27, 2017

Bohmian
mechanics, which is also called the de Broglie-Bohm theory, the pilot-wave model, and the causal interpretation of quantum mechanics, is a version of quantum theory discovered by Louis de Broglie in 1927 and rediscovered by David Bohm in 1952. It is the simplest example of what is often called a hidden variables interpretation of quantum mechanics.

In Bohmian mechanics a system of particles is described in part by its wave function, evolving, as usual, according to Schrödinger’s equation. However, the wave function provides only a partial description of the system.

This description is completed by the specification of the actual positions of the particles. The latter evolve according to the “guiding equation”, which expresses the velocities of the particles in terms of the wave function. Thus, in Bohmian mechanics the configuration of a system of particles evolves via a deterministic motion choreographed by the wave function. In particular, when a particle is sent into a two-slit apparatus, the slit through which it passes and its location upon arrival on the photographic plate are completely determined by its initial position and wave function.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/#2s"

In the double slit experiment, Bohmian Mechanics

the paths of real particles traveling from the two slits to the detector to look like something like this: The above image shows particles travelling in non-straight paths.

The Pilot wave is a Universal Guiding wave being traversed by a particle which has a definitive velocity and position at all times.

The theory is deterministic[1] and explicitly nonlocal: the velocity of any one particle depends on the value of the guiding equation, which depends on the configuration of the system given by its wave function; the latter depends on the boundary conditions of the system, which, in principle, may be the entire universe.

The theory results in a measurement formalism, analogous to thermodynamics for classical mechanics, that yields the standard quantum formalism generally associated with the Copenhagen interpretation. The theory's explicit non-locality resolves the "measurement problem", which is conventionally delegated to the topic of interpretations of quantum mechanics in the Copenhagen interpretation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Broglie–Bohm_theory[/quote]

 

[James R]

Okay, Write4U, thanks for that.

So Bohm manages to retain particles as particles, but only at the expense of creating a new entity: pilot waves.

It seems to me that pilot waves are themselves mysterious things that do odd things (IIRC, they are even supposed to move backwards in time, or do something else that's weird time-wise), so I'm not convinced this is an improvement on standard quantum mechanics, which has only the wave function and the measurement procedure.

 

[Write4U]

Okay, Write4U, thanks for that.

UVW....

So Bohm manages to retain particles as particles, but only at the expense of creating a new entity: pilot waves.

I have always wondered what the Pilot Wave actually is.

It seems to me that pilot waves are themselves mysterious things that do odd things (IIRC, they are even supposed to move backwards in time, or do something else that's weird time-wise), so I'm not convinced this is an improvement on standard quantum mechanics, which has only the wave function and the measurement procedure.

Yes, the theory has problems to be sure. But it may have connection to other standing hypotheses.

The de Broglie–Bohm theory, also known as the pilot wave theory, is an interpretation of quantum mechanics. In addition to a wavefunction on the space of all possible configurations, it also postulates an actual configuration that exists even when unobserved.

This sounds confusing, but intriguing.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on quantum decoherence groups "approaches to quantum mechanics" into five groups, of which "pilot-wave theories" are one (the others are the Copenhagen interpretation, objective collapse theories, many-worlds interpretations and modal interpretations).

There are several equivalent
mathematical formulations of the theory, and it is known by a number of names. The de Broglie wave has a macroscopic analogy termed Faraday wave. [4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Broglie–Bohm_theory#:

Faraday waves

Faraday waves, also known as Faraday ripples, named after Michael Faraday (1791–1867), are nonlinear standing waves that appear on liquids enclosed by a vibrating receptacle. When the vibration frequency exceeds a critical value, the flat hydrostatic surface becomes unstable. This is known as the Faraday instability. Faraday first described them in an appendix to an article in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London in 1831.[1][2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_wave

The deeper one looks the more interesting it all becomes....

 

[Write4U]

This may well be the most informative video I have seen.

Are Pilot waves Gravity waves or Faraday waves?

As far as I am aware, though, there's no way to detect them, which is why this idea is called an interpretation of quantum mechanics. It's kind of a meta-theory.

 

[James R]

Are Pilot waves Gravity waves or Faraday waves?

Neither. If they exist at all, they will be their own special thing.

 

[Write4U]

Could this be related:

Question: Is it possible that particles walk on fluid space by their own oscillations, or is fluid space vibrating which causes the particle to walk?