Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ecsvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary 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 References: <664@h-sc1.UUCP> <639@spar.UUCP> Distribution: net Organization: Duke U Comp Ctr Lines: 39 > . . . 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 USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary