Which position was more materialist in the Einstein-Bohr debates?

[heiss93]

The Einstein-Bohr debate was the most important 20th century controversy in the epistemology of science. To give a rough summary of the positions, both sides excepted the use of quantum mechanics, and believed it to be "true" in some sense, however Einstein had misgivings about 1.the strict division between the quantum world and the reality we experience 2. the idea that quantum mechanics could be "true" purely instrumentally without in some sense expressing the objective reality of the physical universe outside the experimenter.

Two specific aspects of quantum mechanics that challenge traditional epistemology were the fact that light was both a wave and particle, and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, in which the experimenter influences the experiment simply by observing.

The Soviet Union, especially post-Stalin, strongly supported Einstein as an unconscious dialectical materialist, and as a Spinozaist. And roundly condemned Bohr's Copenhagen school for idealistic metaphysics. Nevertheless some aspects of quantum mechanics could be seen as very dialectical. The idea that light is contradictorily both a wave and particle is an expression of the unity of opposites. And the Heisenberg principle, of learning through doing, echoes some of the ideas put forward by Mao's On Practice, or the Praxis school of Marxism, emphasizing action and activity as the key to learning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr–Einstein_debates

[scarletghoul]

This is something I really want to learn more about, do you know of any good dialectical materialist / marxist texts on this ?

[heiss93]

This is something I really want to learn more about, do you know of any good dialectical materialist / marxist texts on this ?

Soviet book http://leninist.biz/en/1979/DMP383/

DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM IN MODERN PHYSICS

[dawt]

History should've tought us not to mix politics and science. The Nazis eradicated millions of people in accordance with their "scientific" eugenic beliefs, and Lysenko's "scientific" findings led millions to hunger under Stalin's rule.

Science is the search for truth, not whatever suits your world view the best.:laugh:

[La Comédie Noire]

History should've tought us not to mix politics and science. The Nazis eradicated millions of people in accordance with their "scientific" eugenic beliefs, and Lysenko's "scientific" findings led millions to hunger under Stalin's rule.

Science is the search for truth, not whatever suits your world view the best.:laugh:

I think if history has taught us anything it is that politics cannot be separated from science because it is practiced in a social context. You can mitigate the obvious biases, but still fall prey to the ones outside your awareness.

[∞]

Einstein was definitely more materialist. However his theory of relativity wasn't really the reason (though him being heavily influenced by Spinoza was a key factor). Since there is an attempt to unify Quantum Mechanics with The General Theory of Relativity would mean that neither idea can really levitate correctly into the realms of ontology. Einstein to me doesn't seem to me like a "dialectal"-materialist by any chance but a materialist nonetheless. What would lead me to believe that Einstein was a materialist was his entanglement theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entanglement_theory) which was a way to counter the apparent "randomness" and as Einstein described ;"weirdness" of quantum physics. Einstein's theories had singularities, Einstein considered that a problem. Quantum Mechanics takes these kind of things as a part of nature.

Bohr would be less so considering his model for the atom was a little too abstract and unexplainable than a materialist would like to believe.

My advice to you is, don't try associate physics with Hegelian philosophy, it's like using the English language to solve algebraic formulas.

[Dean]

I think if history has taught us anything it is that politics cannot be separated from science because it is practiced in a social context. You can mitigate the obvious biases, but still fall prey to the ones outside your awareness.

Agreed. As I've argued before, the rate of inquiry and the conclusions drawn in different scientific fields is proportional to the funding received and the political leaning on scientists - who, if left to their own devices, would nonetheless still reflect their own interests in their research.

The entire notion of any clean separation between sectors of society or industry is fundamentally false. It does us no good to solidify these prejudices, either.

[Kronsteen]

Which position was more materialist in the Einstein-Bohr debates?

Erm, you're using an abstract principle to decide an empirical matter?

Why don't you ask which side was more Buddhist? Or whether Einstein or Bohr had the more enlightened politics?

If materialism predicts one, but reality shows the other, it's not reality that's got it wrong.

[heiss93]

Erm, you're using an abstract principle to decide an empirical matter?

Why don't you ask which side was more Buddhist? Or whether Einstein or Bohr had the more enlightened politics?

If materialism predicts one, but reality shows the other, it's not reality that's got it wrong.

To quote the founder of scientific empiricism Francis Bacon "I cannot be called on to abide by the sentence of a tribunal which is itself on trial." The Einstein-Bohr debates went into the very nature of what reality "is", and the epistemological question of how we as observers can come to know reality. There was no experiment that would conclusively say which side was right. Rather they were arguing over the same set of data.