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From: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Electrons, etc., may TOO be deterministic.
Message-ID: <733@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 11-Nov-85 13:11:00 EST
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.733
Posted: Mon Nov 11 13:11:00 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 14-Nov-85 07:44:02 EST
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Organization: Duke U Comp Ctr
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>     . . . Bohm insists that nature possesses an inexhaustible depth of
>     properties and qualities that no finite system of laws and categories
>     can ever express entirely; . . .

This reminds me of a talk I heard Freeman Dyson give.  He proposes that
it may never be possible to have a final theory of physics, just as we
can never have a (sufficiently complex) mathematical system that is
complete (Goedel's Theorem).  This stands in contrast to Stephen
Hawking, who said in his Lucasian lecture that we may be on the verge
of a complete understanding of physics.

It's interesting to think about why people prefer one view over the
other (in the absence of real evidence).  It's vaguely reminiscent of
the old steady-state versus Big Bang argument.  I find I like the notion
that we will never stop learning, but I'm at a loss to say why.

>     Reminiscent of Eastern worldviews, Bohm sees the universe as an
>     undivided whole in which indeterminism necessarily results from the
>     fragmentation imposed by any attempt to impose a rational scientific
>     structure. Nonetheless, rather than discarding the Western analytic
>     approach of science, Bohm has worked to expand science . . .

As I've said before, the Western/Eastern business is a load of
baloney.  There is no single "Western" worldview, and the East is if
anything more diverse in its philosophies than the West.  Remember that
Western philosophies embrace everything from the Greek rationalist
tradition to the mysticism of Christianity.  For that matter, the
phrase "Greek rationalist tradition" covers so many worldviews as to be
almost meaningless.  The same culture that produced Socrates executed
him.  Our own "scientific" culture spends far more on astrology than on
astronomy, and even in academic circles radically different outlooks
prevail in different fields.  Compare archaeologists, anthropologists,
and sociologists for instance, who overlap in their fields of study and
whose methods and traditions differ quite radically.
-- 
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC  27706
(919) 684-3695
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