Platonic Physics

Here is my conversation, recorded yesterday, with Dr. Wolfgang Smith. His new book PHYSICS: A Science in Quest of an Ontology is available from many online bookstores.

We discussed a range of topics, including wholeness in physics and mathematics, Whitehead and Russell’s different interpretations of the failure of the Principia Mathematica project, the fallacy of bifurcation, a Platonic interpretation of quantum physics, and the compatibility (or lack thereof) between Whitehead’s later Philosophy of Organism and Wolfgang’s Platonic vision of a tripartite reality.

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I let Wolfgang do most of the talking during our discussion, as I was eager to better understand his approach to resolving some long-standing confusions with regard to the ontology of quantum physics. I wish we’d had another hour just to discuss my final question concerning the spiritual meaning of history. I shared some of my concerns on this point with Ashton on a walk just following my interview with Wolfgang.

I got Wolfgang's Smith latest book, it's something of a summary of his views.

It's ok, but given there are things like causation from a timeless realm impacting this lower level more thoroughly addressed in other publications of his...it's hard to judge his Platonic interpretation of QM.

Haven't gone through these but it should hopefully provide more detail:




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[Laird]

Hey Sci (pinging you as @Sciborg_S_Patel),

In an unrelated email exchange, the documentary The End of Quantum Reality (trailer), released in 2020, was recommended to me. It is based on Wolfgang Smith's life and primary ideas, and can be rented or bought on various platforms (I rented it on YouTube). Although I haven't (yet?) watched any of the videos you posted above, I thought it would be useful to share what I took from that documentary, partly cribbed from and based on my response in that email exchange:

The key idea in it seems like a potentially powerful solution to the modern problem that until now I've only intuited but not fully expressed: how is it that an external physical world utterly devoid of qualities is perceived as having qualities by conscious observers?

The typical modern view is that these qualities are produced by our brains as a sort of extrapolation (not the best word) from frequencies and various other quantifiable physical properties that are input to them via the physical senses, but it's not a very satisfying view.

Wolfgang's view that there is an intermediate realm - the "corporeal" - between the physical and the mental in which qualities already exist seems to make more sense.

The most relevant part of the video is from 57:44 to 1:04:13, and most especially between 58:37 and 1:00:00. This quote seems key:

"[Narrator:] There exists one and only one function, S, from the corporeal to the physical domain, which can serve as a bridge [...]. S is the function which to every corporeal object X assigns the physical object SX, which is none other than the corporeal object X as conceived by the physicist. [Wolfgang:] SX represents the quantitative side of X to the exclusion of all else. What has been jettisoned to put it in Aristotelian and Thomistic terms are precisely the qualitative aspects of X and its substantial form."

This slightly later one from Wolfgang in printed words spoken by the narrator also seems important:

"No one on either side of the Copenhagen debate seems to have realized that the role of quantum particles is not to bestow but to receive being."

From rewatching and reconsidering this part of the video, the relationship between the physical and the corporeal on Wolfgang's view now seems clear: the physical is simply the corporeal stripped of everything qualitative (and substantial) and reduced to the quantitative; the physical is thus a strict subset of the corporeal, and thus depends on the corporeal, especially via "vertical causation", for its very being.

It seems like an elegant solution. I'd need to think about it more carefully before wholly endorsing it though.

From rewatching and reconsidering this part of the video, the relationship between the physical and the corporeal on Wolfgang's view now seems clear: the physical is simply the corporeal stripped of everything qualitative (and substantial) and reduced to the quantitative; the physical is thus a strict subset of the corporeal, and thus depends on the corporeal, especially via "vertical causation", for its very being.

It seems like an elegant solution. I'd need to think about it more carefully before wholly endorsing it though.

I think this makes sense, though it's been some time since I went through his stuff....and my knowledge of physics is nowhere as good as other members.

I've been hard-pressed to see where his particular posited vertical causation fits into the picture.

[Laird]

I've been hard-pressed to see where his particular posited vertical causation fits into the picture.

On reflection, I can't really see either.