A Riddle to End Copenhagen
As you may know from my books, I have explained how spoken human language suffers from Gödelian Incompleteness and therefore cannot always be trusted to say something meaningful.
At the same time, I have explained how useless it is to play such word-games in philosophy and then pretend that paradoxes in spoken language have anything at all to say about reality.
Of course, it is the resolution to paradoxes which have something to say about reality, and as we learned in my last book, in physics such paradoxes are resolved by mathematics which then tells you, if you’re paying attention, that an Ontological Mathematics must be the logical basis of knowledge of reality.
Let me repeat that, because it is important: scientific paradoxes which can be created in axiomatic languages, such as any spoken human language, can be solved with the correct application of mathematics.
The point is that one requires the correct mathematics, but, this is not always known.
In Zeno’s time the correct mathematics was not known, and thus his paradox of motion remained unsolved for thousands of years, until the advent of calculus.
In modern times, quantum mechanics and its so-called Copenhagen-interpretation is known to be rife with paradoxes, such as wave-particle duality, and dead-alive cats, but given the historical nature of such things, do you think that such paradoxes are the true nature of base reality, or, are they due to an incomplete understanding or development of the necessary mathematics?
I’m reminded of Alice in Wonderland, the cartoon at least, and Alice wondering what a world of nonsense would be like?
Can base reality truly be paradoxical at the core? How paradoxical? To what extent?
If it is, by whence come any laws of physics at all? Why should the planets stay in their orbits?
Why is anything constant to any extent? Why can’t I have a paradox right now? You get the idea. Clearly, the problem is in the language attempting to understand the mathematics.
So, here’s a riddle which will destroy any modern quantum physicist.
I invite you to try this out on any you might meet. Honestly ask them for an answer to the riddle. I won’t explain it, but it goes like this:
If a quantum event would cause a tree to fall in a forest, in front of a blind man, would it make a sound?
Enjoy your results with that.
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JaKo
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“If a quantum event would cause a tree to fall in a forest, in front of a blind man, would it make a sound?“
Only the relevant info is bold, the rest is there to confuse non-Confucians 😉
Cheers, JaKo
P.S. The answer may depend more on what wasn’t said — Are the relevant observers deaf?
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Herb Rose
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What kind of car is the blind man driving?
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Ken Hughes
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I do not agree that mathematics is the panacea for improving knowledge and understanding. There are other ways. By all means mathematics can and should be used to verify or reject new ideas, but it is not the only way to resolve paradoxes.
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