Can Marxist Dialectics and Quantum Mechanics

[Zingu]

A troubling thought came to me, well, actually I read about this.


I forgot the name; but there was a physicist who was apart of the Quantum Mechanics research team, who's faith in Marxism was shaken once it came apparant that since Quantum Mechanics is completely based on the law of probablity; and if this is true....how can Marx's theory of history be correct then? How can Communism be inevitable? If every possible event happens (if the many worlds interpretation is true); it is possible that Marx's prediction will never happen in this universe!

Marxism is deterministic stating since humans are pushed to make change by material reality. But since our entire material reality is made of subatomic particles that follow the laws of Quantum Mechanics; isn't...this kind of...well, conflicting?


On a side note; this phyiscist spent his entire life trying to solve this problem; but he died before he could finish it I think...


I hope you understand what I'm talking about, hard to explain...but if there any more physics nerds like me; you'll see the contradiction between Marxism and Quantum Mechanics. :(

[redstar2000]

It doesn't seem like a "big deal" to me, for several reasons.

1. Dialectics is crap anyway.

2. At the quantum level, we can still speak with considerable certainty of probabilities. If the isolated neutron has a half-life of 12 seconds before it decays into a proton and an electron, then there's a really high probability that your sample of isolated neutrons will be exhausted within a very short period of time.

3. Quantum events "cancel each other out" on the macro-level (where we live). There have been a very few carefully designed experiments that will reveal quantum effects "large enough to see"...but it takes a lot of work to make that happen. Normally, we can just ignore quantum phenomena at the macro-level.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[(R)evolution of the mind]

Quantum mechanics can be interpreted in a variety of ways, some of which are deterministic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretatio...antum_mechanics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics)

As I consider randomness only a way to model our lack of knowledge in something, I find the Bohm interpretation the most reasonable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohm_interpretation


Not that any of this matters much at the macro-scale as redstar pointed out.

[Severian]

Where's the conflict? One, materialist philosophy isn't married to any one theory about the nature of matter; the discovery of radioactivity, the theory of relativity, etc didn't disturb it; if tomorrow superstring theory is proved true or false, that needn't bother us either. Marxist philosophy just says matter in motion is primary; it doesn't try to answer what matter is.

I'd say most of these developments, by emphasizing how everything in nature is constantly changing, becoming something else, that even the elements aren't immutable nor the atoms unsplittable, support dialectics. Which emphasizes that change is universal.

Two, I don't think Marxism or dialectical materialism is deterministic.

If Marx thought communism was inevitable, why did he bother fighting for it, at significant personal sacrifice including spending most of his life in exile? If Engels thought communism was inevitable, why "socialism or barbarism"?

Nor does the Marxist approach to history require us to totally discount contingent, "random" effects or the role of individuals...would the Russian Revolution have happened - in that year - if Lenin had been hit by a falling brick before he wrote the "April Theses"? Would the Cuban Revolution have happened - in that year anyway - if those twelve guys hadn't made it up to the Sierra Maestra? Probably not and certainly not, respectively.

Marx didn't deny that people make history...he just pointed out they make it under circumstances not of their choosing.

He didn't claim economics determines everything, he said it was primary and sets the overall course.

That's what's dialectical about dialectical materialism.

[Monty Cantsin]

I don’t think Marx was a determinist, I know that’s quite in vogue but it quite incorrect and basically slander and misconception. The dialectics of history were for Hegel determined by the absolute sprit leading to the unification of particulars thus inevitably to a one-dimensional totality. Thus according to Hegel in the age of post-history the universal will have inscribed on its mantle ‘what is real is totalitarian and what is totalitarian is real’. The way i conceive Marx’s notion of history is one of probability and possibility, human volition creating a situation out of the womb of the last situation…Capitalism will inevitably collapse but what replaces it is still probability and possibility. But then again maybe dialectics only function as human phenomena and not natural.

[American_Trotskyist]

They are entirely, read, Reason In Revolt or read it on line at Reason In Revolt (http://www.marxist.com/rircontents.asp)

[Lamanov]

American Trotskyist gave you a link of the text.
Just so you don't get lost here is the fragment he had in mind

>>

Quantum Mechanics

The development of quantum physics represented a giant step forward in science, a decisive break with the old stultifying mechanical determinism of "classical" physics. (The "metaphysical" method, as Engels would have called it.) Instead, we have a much more flexible, dynamic—in a word dialectical—view of nature. Beginning with Planck’s discovery of the existence of the quantum, which at first appeared to be a tiny detail, almost an anecdote, the face of physics was transformed. Here was a new science which could explain the phenomenon of radioactive transformation and analyse in great detail the complex data of spectroscopy. It directly led to the establishment of a new science—theoretical chemistry, capable of solving previously insoluble questions. In general, a whole series of theoretical difficulties were eliminated, once the new standpoint was accepted. The new physics revealed the staggering forces locked up within the atomic nucleus. This led directly to the exploitation of nuclear energy—the path to the potential destruction of life on earth—or the vista of undreamed of and limitless abundance and social progress through the peaceful use of nuclear fusion. Einstein’s theory of relativity explains that mass and energy are equivalents. If the mass of an object is known, by multiplying it by the square of the speed of light, it becomes energy.

Einstein showed that light, hitherto thought of as a wave, behaved like a particle. Light, in other words, is just another form of matter. This was proved in 1919, when it was shown that light bends under the force of gravity. Louis de Broglie later pointed out that matter, which was thought to consist of particles, partakes of the nature of waves. The division between matter and energy was abolished once and for all. Matter and energy are…the same. Here was a mighty advance for science. And from the standpoint of dialectical materialism matter and energy are the same. Engels described energy ("motion") as "the mode of existence, the inherent attribute, of matter." (2)

The argument which dominated particle physics for many years, whether subatomic particles like photons and electrons were particles or waves was finally resolved by quantum mechanics which asserts that subatomic particles can, and do, behave both like a particle and like a wave. Like a wave, light produces interferences, yet a photon of light also bounces off all electrons, like a particle. This goes against the laws of formal logic. How can "common sense" accept that an electron can be in two places at the same time? Or even move, at incredible speeds, simultaneously, in different directions? For light to behave both as a wave and as a particle was seen as an intolerable contradiction. The attempts to explain the contradictory phenomena of the subatomic world in terms of formal logic leads to the abandonment of rational thinking all together. In his conclusion to a work dealing with the quantum revolution, Banesh Hoffmann is capable of writing:

"How much more, then, shall we marvel at the wondrous powers of God who created the heaven and the earth from a primal essence of such exquisite subtlety that with it he could fashion brains and minds afire with the divine gift of clairvoyance to penetrate his mysteries. If the mind of a mere Bohr or Einstein astound us with its power, how may we begin to extol the glory of God who created them?" (3)

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated example. A great part of modern literature about science, including a lot written by scientists themselves, is thoroughly impregnated with such mystical, religious or quasi-religious notions. This is a direct result of the idealist philosophy which a great many scientists, consciously or unconsciously, have adopted.

The laws of quantum mechanics fly in the face of "common sense" (i.e., formal logic), but are in perfect consonance with dialectical materialism. Take, for example, the conception of a point. All traditional geometry is derived from a point, which subsequently becomes a line, a plane, a cube, etc. Yet close observation reveals that the point does not exist.

The point is conceived as the smallest expression of space, something which has no dimension. In reality, such a point consists of atoms—electrons, nuclei, photons, and even smaller particles. Ultimately, it disappears in a restless flux of swirling quantum waves. And there is no end to this process. No fixed "point" at all. That is the final answer to the idealists who seek to find perfect "forms" which allegedly lie "beyond" observable material reality. The only "ultimate reality" is the infinite, eternal, ever-changing material universe, which is far more wonderful in its endless variety of form and processes than the most fabulous adventures of science fiction. Instead of a fixed location—a "point"—we have a process, a never-ending flux. All attempts to impose a limit on this, in the form of a beginning or an end, will inevitably fail.

<<

Ted Grant & Allan Woods, Reason in Revolt

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Grant & Woods
The only "ultimate reality" is the infinite, eternal, ever-changing material universe...

Infinite? Eternal? Ever-changing?

Not according to the current most widely-accepted cosmological theories.

It is presently thought that the universe is finite both in size and duration.

After trillions of years, the "end" of the universe will be that time when no further changes are possible...nothing will be left but electrons and positrons separated by light-years from each other and unable to interact.

The practical end is when all the stars burn out and there is no longer any gas to form new ones. In our neighborhood, that should happen within 150 billion years or so.

Of course, our current understanding could be wrong...and probably is wrong in crucial respects. But we certainly know enough to predict the end of stellar formation "in our neighborhood" and the "life-span" of the red dwarf stars that "live" the longest.

I can&#39;t say that I&#39;m surprised that Grant & Woods get this wrong -- you can&#39;t expect much from people who think that wave-particle duality "proves" dialectics.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[mikelepore]

Redstar2000, I agree with your post of April 30.

Cause and effect at the macroscopic level are not destroyed by randomness at the atomic level. This is no different than recognizing that the statistical theory of heat (Boltzmann, et al.), showed that the deterministic behavior of heat does not contradict the random behavior of particles.

Shortly after Schrodinger introduced the wave function, Max Born proposed a probabilistic interpretation of it. There are no known historical implications of such things as the locations of electrons relative nuclei, unless we want to include such purely technological implications as limits on circuit miniaturization.

Furthermore, uncertainty as defined by Heisenberg is a limitation on measurement, not on causation.

"Popular science" books, bestsellers, sometimes contain pseudoscience.

[Severian]

Originally posted by redstar2000+May 16 2005, 06:20 AM--> (redstar2000 @ May 16 2005, 06:20 AM)
Grant & Woods
The only "ultimate reality" is the infinite, eternal, ever-changing material universe...

Infinite? Eternal? Ever-changing?

Not according to the current most widely-accepted cosmological theories.

It is presently thought that the universe is finite both in size and duration.
...
I can&#39;t say that I&#39;m surprised that Grant & Woods get this wrong -- you can&#39;t expect much from people who think that wave-particle duality "proves" dialectics.[/IMG] [/b]
Actually the idea that anything is eternal is pretty...anti-dialectical.