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T H E F R O N T I E R S C O L L E C T I O N

Ian T. Durham · Dean Rickles (Eds.)

INFOR MATION
AND
INTER ACTION
Eddington, Wheeler, and
t h e L i m i t s o f K nowl edge

123
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Series editors
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THE FRONTIERS COLLECTION

Series Editors
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The books in this collection are devoted to challenging and open problems at the
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Ian T. Durham Dean Rickles
•

Editors

INFORMATION AND
INTERACTION
Eddington, Wheeler, and the Limits
of Knowledge

123
Editors
Ian T. Durham Dean Rickles
Physics Department Unit for History and Philosophy of Science
Saint Anselm College University of Sydney
Manchester, NH Sydney
USA Australia

ISSN 1612-3018 ISSN 2197-6619 (electronic)

THE FRONTIERS COLLECTION
ISBN 978-3-319-43758-3 ISBN 978-3-319-43760-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-43760-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016949117

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017

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This volume is dedicated to the memory of
David Ritz Finkelstein (1929–2016).
Preface

We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised
profound theories, one after another, to account for its origins. At last, we have succeeded
in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo! It is our own. (Eddington
[1, p. 200])

No element in the description of physics shows itself as closer to primordial than the
elementary quantum phenomenon, that is, the elementary device-intermediated act of
posing a yes-no physical question and eliciting an answer or, in brief, the elementary act of
observer-participancy. Otherwise stated, every physical quantity, every it, derives its ulti-
mate significance from bits, binary yes-or-no indications, a conclusion which we epitomize
in the phrase, ‘it from bit’. (Wheeler [7, p. 309])

This volume was inspired by an FQXi-funded conference held at Trinity College,

Cambridge (March 20–23, 2014).1 This led to additional work over the subsequent
two years that addressed the questions raised at the conference in greater detail. The
basic premise of the full research programme was that the ‘practical’ approach to
information (as a resource to be manipulated), while certainly very impressive and
fruitful, has radically outpaced our theoretical understanding. Yet, advances in
quantum information and other related areas have begun to push the boundaries
of the physically possible and suggest new ways of thinking about reality, making a
foundational understanding of information increasingly important for future pro-
gress and, perhaps, yet more impressive practical outcomes.
Our aim was to take our cue from the later ideas of Arthur Eddington2 and John
Wheeler in an effort to fill in some of the empty theoretical ground. To both
Eddington and Wheeler, though their views certainly differed in a great many ways,
information occupied a (in fact, the most) fundamental position in the order of
things. Physical reality, in their view, is shaped by the questions we choose to put to
it and is thus built up from the information thus generated. This is the root

1
Details can be found here: https://informationandinteraction.wordpress.com.
2
By ‘happy’ coincidence, the conference that inspired this work coincided with the 70th
anniversary of Eddington’s death.

vii
viii Preface

of Wheeler’s famous phrase ‘it from bit’, which is taken to anthropic extremes in
his (rather less famous) ‘self-excited circuit’ in which all of physical reality
(including seemingly paradoxically, ourselves, qua beings of a certain constitution)
is determined by the questions of observers whose decisions determine (to some
extent) facts as to what has happened and what will happen. The observers (or, less
anthropically loaded, the observational equipment involving some irreversible
process) play an active, creative role in defining reality3:
‘it from bit’ symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom—at a
very deep bottom, in most instances—an immaterial source and explanation; that what we
call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering
of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic
in origin and this is a participatory universe. [9, p. 311]

Observers themselves (and so the interaction of observer and observed, or sub-

jective versus objective) also play crucial, though again rather different, roles in
their work. Neither of them privileged observers as external to physics, but sought
to incorporate them in the description provided as ineliminable actors. In Wheeler’s
case (in his anthropic ‘observership scheme’), observers were at the root of exis-
tence. In Eddington’s case, observers merely ‘selected’ aspects of reality rather than
creating them as such—by including observers we must take seriously the intrusion
of certain biases into our mathematical theories of reality such that any theory will
contain a fair portion of material that reflects certain of our features as
experimenters/observers (under various constraints) rather than objective reality.
This leads directly to Eddington’s much maligned a priorism:
An intelligence, unacquainted with our universe, but acquainted with the system of thought
by which the human mind interprets to itself the content of its sensory experience, should
be able to attain all the knowledge of physics that we have attained by experiment. [2, p. 3]

In other words, physics is, for Eddington, partly an exercise in ‘observer-spotting’:

there exist (anthropic) selective aspects that are those parts of a physical theory that
are really contributions of the intellect and our constitution as observers and
measurers of the world. Hence, there is a kind of anthropic carving of reality in both
Wheeler and Eddington that can be distinguished by the powers given to the
observers asking the questions and making the decisions: in the former, there is a
creation of new facts and in the latter, a selection of facts.
One can gain a better understanding of the connection between Eddington’s
views and those of Wheeler by looking at the work of Wheeler’s student (and
long-time friend) Peter Putnam. Putnam was amongst the students who joined
Wheeler in Leiden in 1956 when Wheeler was at the beginning of his career in
general relativity. Wheeler had supervised Putnam’s A.B senior thesis on

3
For Wheeler, observers as passive recipients or ‘registers of facts’ should be replaced by ‘par-
ticipators’: there is no ‘ready-made universe’ to simply record (see, e.g. [8, p. 286]). Eddingtonian
observers are likewise non-passive, though they act on a pre-given objective realm, selecting (not
necessarily consciously) certain portions as if those portions exhausted what reality is.
Preface ix

Eddington (completed in 1948 at Princeton), but was not very impressed with his
academic abilities [9, p. 254]. While Wheeler spoke of disabusing him of his
Eddingtonian belief that the laws of nature can be deduced by pure reasoning, it
seems Putnam possessed a certain charisma, and it is not unreasonable to believe
that certain Eddingtonian principles trickled into Wheeler’s thinking. Putnam
apparently did drop Eddington for physics, but later drifted into a bizarre mixture of
psychology, linguistics, philosophy, and physics—during this time, as Wheeler
relates, Putnam was making money as a janitor (rejecting his family’s considerable
wealth). But Wheeler remained friends with Putnam until Putnam’s death in the late
1970s.
In his large, unpublished manuscript ‘Comments on Eddington’ (from 1962,
with a preface added in 19714), Putnam integrates the Wheeler–Everett many
worlds interpretation with Eddington’s Fundamental Theory and his general phi-
losophy, as outlined in The Philosophy of Physical Science. In the preface, Putnam
writes that he spent a decade (1962–1972) figuring out how to embody an
Eddingtonian lifestyle (a ‘world outlook’). It seems that Putnam was concerned
with getting a physics that could cope with the ‘felt real’ (with the experience of
observers). He wanted a universal science—indeed, perhaps some of the problems
people have had with Eddington’s later work is that they are trying to force it into
the mould of physics, when some of it clearly is not quite physics. Putnam is
certainly correct in saying that Eddington’s approach is ‘not physics in its usual
sense’ (p. 2), and he in fact viewed its significance as lying in the treatment of the
brain (or observer) as a parallel calculating machine: that is, as a device that deals
in information. In other words, it is sub-physics, and is therefore supposed to say
something about the operations that physicists themselves carry out: physics (the
fundamental theory in Eddington’s sense) involves, then, a study of the operations
of the calculating machine (us) and has information and interaction at its centre.
Hence, Eddington was not concerned with a description of the world independent
from observers (the ‘absolute world’), but with the description of our means of
interacting with it and gaining information: the observer could not be removed from
scientific practice.5 Putnam believed that this incorporation of the observer into
physics resolved certain philosophical problems that led to considerable conceptual
confusion. This centrality of the observer also brings information and interaction
centre stage, as we have discussed, and that is this book’s focus.

4
Downloadable at: http://peterputnam.org/comments_on_eddington_1962_
preface_1971.htm. It seems Putnam could not let Eddington go so easily. However, the
essay is by no means hero-worship, and Eddington takes much flack in this work.
5
Whether this was in fact Eddington’s view is not what concerns us here. Rather, it is the link to
Wheeler’s ‘it from bit’ idea. The link seems to be especially strong when it comes to the mea-
surement process, and the idea that this should itself be part of physics so that the subjective and
objective are reconciled. Putnam, as mentioned above, related this directly to the Everett–Wheeler
view in which the measurement process itself (involving human observers, as a matter of fact, but
not in any supernatural way) should be included as part of physics.
x Preface

Wheeler pushed the notion of measurement and the role of the observer into
territory easily as uncharted as Eddington. In the context of the delayed-choice
experiment, for example Wheeler envisages a scaled-up version involving photons
having travelled a billion light years from a quasar, separated by a ‘grating’ of two
galaxies (to act as lenses offering two possible paths for the light), to be detected at
the Earth using a half-silvered mirror at which the twin beams can be made to
interfere. For Wheeler, this means that the act of measurement (our free choice)
determines the history of that entire system: actions by us NOW determine past
history THEN (even billions of years ago, back to the earliest detectable phe-
nomena, so long as we can have them exhibit quantum interference). It is from this
kind of generalization of the delayed-choice experiment that his notion of the
Universe as a ‘self-excited circuit’ comes: the Universe’s very existence as a
concrete process with well-defined properties is determined by measurement.
Measurement here is understood as the elicitation of answers to ‘Yes/No’ questions
(e.g. did the photons travel along path A or B?): bit-generation (gathering answers
to the yes/no questions) determines it-generation (the universe and everything in it).
However, Wheeler’s notion does not privilege human observers, but rather simply
refers to an irreversible process taking uncertainty to certainty.
The Eddington–Wheeler link can be made a little more precise through the
notion of idempotency. An operator A is said to be idempotent if A2 = A. Idempotent
operators have eigenvalues of 1 and 0, corresponding algebraically to yes–no
(bit-based) logic. Eddington employed idempotency at a somewhat deeper level
(superficially, at least) than Wheeler, attempting to latch on to the fundamental
structure of physics (and knowledge). Eddington used idempotent operators to
mathematically define a notion of existence (and non-existence). In this way,
Eddington defined the elemental structure of reality (true, basic individuality), and it
maps closely onto Wheeler’s understanding: what is elemental is the yes/no logic
(to be or not to be, that, in this case, is the answer!).
The phrase ‘it from bit’ can be a little misleading, then, since it suggests
something static and eternal: whateveris (i.e. that which exists) is made from
information. But that does not capture what is really going on. The idea embodies
acreative principle. The settling of questions about the quantum world via mea-
surement interactions creates facts about the world. There is here a curious amal-
gamation of Bohr’s teachings with Eddington’s. We think that these links, and the
deeper meaning of ‘it from bit’ (as the genesis of reality, or facts, from observer-
ship), have yet to be explored sufficiently and hide many more secrets.6
It is worth noting here that, though Eddington’s later work was much maligned
in its day, and continues to be misunderstood by a great many authors, many of his
ideas have proven to be particularly prescient in retrospect. For instance, the
‘statistical’ portion of Fundamental Theory, comprising the first six chapters, is
essentially one of the earliest attempts to develop a rigorous theory of reference

6
As Helge Kragh explains in his chapter, Eddington restricts the ‘its’ to the laws and constants
(pure numbers) of physics.
Preface xi

frames that incorporates elements of quantum theory with the geometric spirit of
relativity by applying quantum mechanical uncertainty to the origin of spatiotem-
poral reference frames. There has recently been a resurgence of interest in the
relationship between quantum mechanical principles (including the uncertainty
relations) and the geometrical aspects of reference frames, most notably within the
fairly new field of relativistic quantum information.
More specifically, Marco Toller began considering some of these very ideas in
the late 1970s [6], many of which were later taken up by Carlo Rovelli who
incorporated them into his relational interpretation of quantum mechanics [4, 5]
which is decidedly Eddingtonian in spirit. Peres and Scudo even considered how
one might utilize a quantum system to transmit information about a Cartesian frame
[3], which is spiritually very close to Eddington’s statistical ideas. This raises the
issue of one particularly misunderstood aspect of Eddington’s work. Superficially,
if one only engages with his Fundamental Theory or Relativity Theory of Protons
and Electrons, one might be tempted to assume that Eddington attached an certain
objective/ontological status to some of his conclusions. If one, however, studies his
Philosophy of Physical Science, it becomes evident that his view is decidedly
subjective and epistemological. Indeed, he often refers to his view as ‘selective
subjectivism’.
While Eddington was relatively isolated towards the end of his career, Wheeler
continued actively collaborating throughout his life. In fact, he actually worked
directly with one contributor to this volume (Wootters). As such, his views on these
topics have benefited from contemporary analysis and clarification, i.e. from an
active engagement by the physics community while he was still formulating his
views. Eddington, by contrast, had very little contemporary engagement with
his theories. In some ways, this was because Eddington was simply well ahead of
his time.
In any case, the chapters that follow engage with many of these same deep issues
of information and/or observership interaction that float atop them: often we find
that (what were thought to be) objective/ontological features of the world are bound
together with subjective/epistemological features of observers.
That being said, Durham, in Chap.1 of this volume, argues that for science to
have succeeded so dramatically, some objective aspects of reality must exist (in a
later chapter, Fuchs argues that QBism actually allows for some level of realism).
He argues that this objective aspect is embodied in physical laws themselves which
are inherently relational in nature. This may seem counter-intuitive given that we
have just argued that relational structures are subjective/epistemological, but
Durham makes the case that some of those relational features are actually objective.
Mathematics, being the way in which we describe these laws, is thus best viewed as
a language of description rather than in a purely Platonic or formalist light. Durham
further argues that mathematics actually arises from physics rather than the other
way around, which bears some similarity to constructor theory, as described in
Marletto’s chapter. In this sense, Durham places Wheeler’s ‘it from bit’ in the
context of mathematical representation while holding to Eddington’s dictum that we
xii Preface

not lose sight of the original physical or logical insight that led us to a particular
mathematical deduction in the first place.
Fully understanding the nuances in Eddington’s thinking, however, requires
going a bit deeper than mere science. Indeed, as Putnam has noted, Eddington’s
work was more than mere physics. Stanley, then, examines some of the modes of
thought, both about science and religion, that prove useful in understanding
Eddington’s thinking in this regard. In particular, he emphasizes the importance of
experience to both science and religion for Eddington who was a devout Quaker.
Quakerism, unlike many other religions, is notably rooted in the non-dogmatic
experience of the individual and thus, like physics, places the observer at the centre.
Of course, there is the traditional view that sees Eddington’s Fundamental
Theory (which, it should be noted, was posthumously assembled from his collected
notes) as an early attempt at a ‘theory of everything’ (unifying quantum physics and
relativity, as well as the large and small). Kragh offers a wide-ranging discussion of
Eddington’s work within this context. As he explains, Eddington’s fundamental
theory was so constructed that the laws and constants, derived as they were from
epistemological considerations, could not be ruled out experimentally. But that was
precisely the problem that most physicists had with it!
Like Kragh, Rickles’ essay deals with the interpretation of Eddington’s sub-
jectivism and a priorism, taking his lead from Edmund Whittaker’s7 more lenient
approach, focusing on the underlying general principles, rather than the specific
applications in the computations of pure numbers of physics. He attempts to show
how some sense can be made of them if cast in more modern terms, issuing
primarily from quantum gravity research and the discussion of observables. Rickles
shows that the more radical epistemological claims are not quite right, since
observation (or a plan of observation/measurement by an observer) still lies at the
root of Eddington’s version of a priori knowledge: a priori is, for Eddington,
tantamount to ‘observer-spotting’.
But this volume is more than merely a reanalysis of Eddington and Wheeler
themselves. It is an exploration of the ideas and spirit that their work embodied. As
such, Weinert proposes that both local and cosmic arrows of time are theoretical
constructions (inferences) from available information (criteria), in complete
agreement with the Eddington–Wheeler epistemological approach. While attempts
to identify the arrow of time (or arrows of time) with particular physical processes
have often led us astray, Weinert argues that there are numerous criteria which
allow us to infer the anisotropy of time.
Chiara Marletto then lays out the constructor theory (jointly developed with
David Deutsch). There are many elements that bear close resemblance to features of
Eddington’s philosophy in this approach, not least of which is the use of ‘princi-
ples’. In the case of Eddington, we find that the qualitative laws (relating to our
constitution as observers) have the form of prohibitions on certain operations (what

7
It was Whittaker who assembled Eddington’s notes after his death and published them as
Fundamental Theory.
Preface xiii

Edmund Whittaker refers to as ‘postulates of impotence’—see Rickles’ chapter). In

developing constructor theory, Marletto addresses a curious aspect of information
(as ontology): it seems to be rather an abstract thing, independent (to a large extent)
from specific physical objects (what she calls ‘substrate independence of infor-
mation’). This is in contrast to Wheeler’s view that the information, in the form of
bits, literally was the substrate of universe. The fundamental principle of con-
structor theory, then, is that every physical theory is expressible via statements
about what physical transformations (tasks) are possible (or not possible) and why.
In other words, counterfactual statements are taken to be fundamental as opposed to
factual statements.
By way of a selection of relevant correspondence, Chris Fuchs tackles aspects of
Wheelerian observership and takes seriously the idea of ‘No participator, no world!’
As Fuchs points out, Qbism (the approach Fuchs has pioneered with a variety of
collaborators) owes much to Wheeler’s later thoughts on the meaning of quantum
mechanics. Fuchs battles with similar foes to Eddington and Wheeler before him: if
agents/observers are central to the interpretation of the theory, then doesn’t it lose
it’s realist character? Isn’t it too subjective? Isn’t it instrumentalist, positivist, or
perhaps operationalist? Fuchs argues that the intrusion of ‘the subjective factor’
(into the interpretation of quantum states) by no means pushes the view into
anti-realism: including the observer ought not to be tantamount to anti-realism.
Indeed, this is akin to Eddington’s ‘selective subjectivism’: objective reality exists
but our knowledge of it is subjective (contrast this with Durham’s views as outlined
in Chap. 1).
Constructor theory and QBism can then be contrasted with a more operational
‘agent-based’ (or ‘task-based’) approach to physics (‘resource theory’) presented by
Younger-Halpern, in which the experimentalist and their freedom to act on and
influence a physical system (under some constraints), are centre stage. For example,
a classical agent would be constrained to perform only local operations and would
thus have a hard time creating entangled systems. The restrictions on agents’
abilities (what kinds of operations they can carry out) determine theories from this
resource perspective. Younger-Halpern lays out the basic project and advances
various challenges and possibilities for the approach, including (as did Fuchs, in a
different way), the issue of scientific realism with respect to such approaches.
As we mentioned earlier, this volume benefits from the fact that one contributor—
Wootters—worked directly with Wheeler. In the past several decades, it is then no
surprise that Wootters has been one of the leaders in the struggle to ‘reconstruct’
quantum mechanics from first principles. The approach he takes in this particular
work is based on the fact that in order to do physics, we need to connect the entities
that appear in our physical theories to the objects that we experience in the actual
world. This ties in nicely with some of the earlier chapters that emphasize the
experiential nature of reality. The core of Wootters’ argument is a toy model that
gains a non-trivial probabilistic structure from the imposition of a principle that he
called ‘the maximization of predictability’. In a way, he echoes Leibniz’s assertion
that we live in the best of all possible worlds, i.e. the world is best in the sense of
being the most predictable in the face of an underlying randomness.
xiv Preface

Though he never worked directly with Wheeler, Knuth was partly inspired by
him to reconsider what one might usually think of as a paradigm of elementarity
and objective individuality: the electron. He develops a view (‘Influence Theory’)
according to which the relationship of the observer and the observed is far more
widespread than, for example, notions of length measurements in the context of
special relativity. Many of the (supposedly intrinsic) properties of the electron are
argued to be relational, holding between the observer and the observed system
(the electron), with a simple direct, discrete influence relation mediating their
interaction. Hence, the respective shares played, in our physical description of the
world, by observer and observed is, according to this model, not quite as simple as
most simple accounts of scientific representation would have us believe (as with
Eddington’s, Wheeler’s, and others from this volume).
This collection of papers only scratches at the surface of the rich body of work
that exists and that shares a singular spiritual (and sometimes direct) kinship to the
work of two titans of twentieth-century physics. Indeed, Eddington and Wheeler
provide appropriate bookends for the greatest century in the history of physics: in
many ways, they held similar views while in others they were diametrically
opposed. On the one hand, both insisted that the role of the observer was crucial to
our understanding of physics. On the other hand, it could be argued that Wheeler
did not believe in an objective reality while it was quite clear that Eddington did.
Either way, it is our hope that this volume will stimulate further discussion and
debate concerning the role of the observer in physics, the nature of our subjective
relationship with the universe, and the nature and role of information in regards to
both. As Wheeler once said,
At the heart of everything is a question, not an answer. When we peer down into the deepest
recesses of matter or at the farthest edge of the universe, we see, finally, our own puzzled
faces looking back at us. (John Wheeler, as cited in John Horgan, The End of Science, p. 84
(Little, Brown & Company, 1998).)

Manchester, USA Ian T. Durham

Sydney, Australia Dean Rickles
May 2016

References

1. Eddington, A.S.: Space, Time, and Gravitation. Cambridge University Press (1920)
2. Eddington, A.S.: Relativity of Protons and Electrons. Cambridge University Press (1936)
3. Peres, A., Scudo P.F.: Transmission of a Cartesian frame by a quantum system. Phys. Rev.
Lett. 87, 167901 (2001)
4. Rovelli, C.: What is observable in classical and quantum gravity? Class. Quantum Gravity 8,
297 (1991a)
5. Rovelli, C.: Quantum reference frames. Class. Quantum Gravity 8, 317 (1991b)
6. Toller, M.: An operational analysis of the space-time structure. Il Nuovo Cimento B 40, 27–50
(1977)
Preface xv

7. Wheeler, J.A.: Information, physics, quantum: the search for links. In: Zureck, W.H. (ed.)
Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information. Addison Wesley, Redwood City (1990)
8. Wheeler, J.A.: At Home in the Universe. By John Archibald Wheeler. American Institute of
Physics Press, Woodbury, New York (1994)
9. Wheeler, J.A.: Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam. W. H. Norton (2000)
Acknowledgements

Thanks to the FQXi (Foundational Questions Institute) for providing the grant that
enabled the original workshop that inspired this volume to take place. Thanks also
to St. Catharine’s and Trinity Colleges, Cambridge, for providing a space for the
open discussion of these ideas. ITD would like to thank Laura Bellavia for
administrative support and Saint Anselm College for additional financial support.
DR would like to thank the Australian Research Council for financial support via
grant FT130100466 and the Future Fellowship on which this book was completed
and also to the John Templeton Foundation for financial support for the project
‘New Agendas for the Study of Time’, which contributed to the current volume.
Thanks also to Max Kemeny for his excellent editorial work.

xvii
Contents

1 Boundaries of Scientific Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 1

Ian T. Durham
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Objective Reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2.1 Relativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2.2 Locality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2.3 Realism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.2.4 Local Realism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2.5 Comprehensibility and Computability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.3 Mathematics and Computation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.3.1 Mathematical Formalism and Representability . . . . . . . . 11
1.3.2 Mathematical Platonism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.3.3 Mathematics as Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.4 Physical Laws and the Nature of Scientific Discovery . . . . . . . . 18
1.4.1 Physical Laws as Relational Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.4.2 The Evolution of Physical Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.4.3 Further Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.5 Limits on Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
1.5.1 Classical Measurement Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
1.5.2 Quantum Measurement Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
1.5.3 The Physical Universe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.5.4 Interpretation and Extrapolation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
1.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2 Eddington’s Limits of Knowledge: The Role of Religion ......... 35
Matthew Stanley
2.1 Thinking About Science and Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.2 Types of Interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.2.1 Restriction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.2.2 Inspiration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

xix
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2.2.3 Natural Theology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

2.3 Science and Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.3.1 Pacifism and Internationalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.3.2 Seeking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.4 Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.5 Information and Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3 Eddington’s Dream: A Failed Theory of Everything . . . ......... 45
Helge Kragh
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.2 Warming up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.3 Eddington Meets the Dirac Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.4 Constants of Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.5 Fundamental Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.6 Cosmo-Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.7 Nature as a Product of the Mind. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.8 Quantum Objections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4 All Possible Perspectives: A (Partial) Defence
of Eddington’s Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............. 59
Dean Rickles
4.1 Eddington’s Tarnished Reputation . . . . . . . . . . ............. 59
4.2 Eddingtonian A Priori and A Posteriori:
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? . . . . . . . . . . . . ............. 60
4.3 Going Soft on Truth? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............. 62
4.4 Eliminating All Possible Perspectives:
The Epistemological Purge? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.5 Postulates of Impotence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.6 From Pure Numbers to Eddington’s Principle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.7 How Do the Deductions Work? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.8 Real Observability and Measurability Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.9 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5 Tracing the Arrows of Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............. 73
Friedel Weinert
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.2 Cosmic Arrows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
5.3 Eddington and the Arrow of Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
5.4 Phase Space and Typicality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5.4.1 Kinematics I: Phase Space Arguments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
5.4.2 Kinematics II: Typicality Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Contents xxi

5.5 Dynamic Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

5.5.1 Local Arrows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
5.5.2 The Global Arrow of Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.5.3 A Master Arrow of Time? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
6 Constructor Theory of Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Chiara Marletto
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
7 On Participatory Realism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Christopher A. Fuchs
7.1 “QBism as Realism,” to Steve Weinberg, 7 August 2015. . . . . . 116
7.2 “Realisms,” to Adán Cabello, 28 July 2015 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
7.3 “Slicing the Euglena’s Tail,” to Adán Cabello, 28 July 2015 . . 126
7.4 “Denouement,” to Johannes Kofler, 6 October 2014. . . . . . . . . . 127
Appendix: Transcription from John Wheeler’s Notebook . . . . . . . . . . . 128
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
8 Toward Physical Realizations of Thermodynamic
Resource Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 135
Nicole Yunger Halpern
8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
8.2 Technical Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
8.2.1 Resource Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
8.2.2 Thermodynamic Resource Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
8.2.3 One-Shot Statistical Mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
8.3 Opportunities in Physically Realizing Thermodynamic
Resource Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 141
8.3.1 What Merits Realization? How, in Principle,
Can We Realize It? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
8.3.2 Enhancing TRTs’ Realism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
8.3.3 More-Out-of-the-Way Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
8.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
9 Merging Contradictory Laws: Imagining a Constructive
Derivation of Quantum Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 167
William K. Wootters
9.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
9.2 Quantum Theory of Preparations and Measurements . . . . . . . . . 169
9.3 The Toy Model: Merging Contradictory Classical Laws. . . . . . . 170
9.3.1 The Case n ¼ 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
9.3.2 The Case n ¼ m . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
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9.4 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
10 Understanding the Electron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 181
Kevin H. Knuth
10.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
10.2 Electron Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
10.3 Influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
10.4 Coarse-Grained Picture of Influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
10.4.1 Intervals: Duration and Directed Distance . . . . . . . . . . . 186
10.4.2 Motion and Velocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
10.4.3 Rates: Energy, Momentum and Mass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
10.5 Fine-Grained Picture of Influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
10.5.1 Zitterbewegung . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
10.5.2 Influence Sequences: Further Quantum Effects . . . . . . . 196
10.5.3 The Feynman Checkerboard Model and
the Dirac Equation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 201
10.6 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 203
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 205
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Contributors

Ian T. Durham Saint Anselm College, Manchester, NH, USA

Christopher A. Fuchs Department of Physics, University of Massachusetts
Boston, Boston, MA, USA; Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, Garching,
Germany
Kevin H. Knuth University at Albany, Albany, NY, USA
Helge Kragh University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Chiara Marletto Materials Department, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Dean Rickles University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Matthew Stanley New York University, New York, USA
Friedel Weinert Bradford University, Bradford, Yorkshire, UK
William K. Wootters Williams College, Williamstown, MA, USA
Nicole Yunger Halpern Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, California
Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

xxiii
Chapter 1
Boundaries of Scientific Thought

Ian T. Durham

1.1 Introduction

The scientific revolution, as understood to be the rise of modern science, began in

the late Renaissance and took firm hold during the Enlightenment. Indeed, it played
an integral role in general Enlightenment-era thinking with its emphasis on empiri-
cism and rational thought. It is no accident that this period in history was dominated
by classical ‘Renaissance men’ (who, despite the term, were hardly confined to the
Renaissance—a prototypical example is Benjamin Franklin). The modern concept
of ‘disciplines’ in which a person becomes an expert in only one, narrowly defined
area whose methods tend to be confined to that field, did not yet exist. Science
was ultimately a methodology that was meant to apply to anything. Indeed, many
Enlightenment-era thinkers did not presume that there were any limitations to its
applicability. It was merely a reliable way to approach the world in general, incor-
porating rational thinking, empiricism, and mathematics.
One of the key tenets of this early period of scientific thought was the assumption
that there exists an objective reality and that it is the task of science to uncover that
reality. The 20th Century brought about radical new discoveries that challenged the
assumption of an objective reality. This had been preceded by the rise of individual
academic disciplines at universities in the late 19th Century. In the process, scientific
methodology became associated, almost exclusively, with what are now recognized
as ‘the sciences.’ Further segmentation has led to ‘sub-methodologies’ that tend to
only be applied in narrow sub-disciplines. The combination of the fragmentation
into strict disciplines with the challenges presented to objective reality have caused
us, to some extent, to lose sight of the underlying framework that has made modern
science arguably humanity’s greatest achievement. Unfortunately, this also comes at
a time when science and rational thought itself are increasingly under assault by a

I.T. Durham (B)

Saint Anselm College, Manchester, NH 03102, USA
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 1

I.T. Durham and D. Rickles (eds.), Information and Interaction,
The Frontiers Collection, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-43760-6_1
2 I.T. Durham

dramatic rise in motivated reasoning and a general desire for simplistic solutions1 to
complex problems.
In this essay I address some of these problems, with a particular emphasis on
physics which is the core scientific discipline. Indeed, while not everything in the
universe must obey the laws of biology (e.g. a rock) or even the laws of chemistry (e.g.
a weak nuclear interaction), absolutely everything must obey the laws of physics.
And so, through the lens of physics, I define the boundaries of scientific thought. In
Sect. 1.2, I give a broad argument in favor of the existence of a true objective reality
and, in the process, attempt to correct several pernicious misunderstandings about
certain aspects of physics. In Sect. 1.3, I eschew the usual formalist versus Platonist
debate in favor of a third alternative, arguing that mathematics is a formal language
by which we describe the objective reality that I argued for in Sect. 1.2. Putting these
ideas together, I argue in Sect. 1.4 that the structure of objective reality is in the
physical laws themselves which are inherently relational in nature. I further argue
that we often mis-represent how these physical laws develop, what they mean, and
what they have to say about other, related physical laws. Finally, in Sect. 1.5 I note
that many of these ‘laws’ actually place inherent limits on what we can know about
the world and that we often over-extrapolate and over-interpolate our results.

1.2 Objective Reality

The first few decades of the 20th Century witnessed the introduction of two of the
greatest scientific developments in history: relativity theory and quantum theory.
Despite the fact that the two theories appear to be at odds over many things, both
seem to suggest that reality is subjective. This, of course, has had a notable influence
on our larger culture and notably on the post-modernist movement which, despite
the derision with which it is often rightfully treated, has had a profound impact on
society at large. While the question I wish to address here is one of pure science
and not one of philosophy or culture, I hope that my arguments will have an impact
beyond pure science.

1.2.1 Relativity

Let us consider relativity theory first. To motivate our investigation, I pose the fol-
lowing question: what is the most important lesson we can take from relativity?

1I prefer the term ‘simplistic solutions’ to ‘simple solutions’ since, to me, the former invokes
solutions that are easy or less disruptive to some pre-conceived set of ideas we might have. In other
words, some complex problems do indeed have simple solutions, but they may not be the solutions
we desire because they challenge our worldview. Thus what people often really seek are simplistic
solutions rather than simple ones.
1 Boundaries of Scientific Thought 3

It is my entirely unscientific guess that most people—scientists and non-scientists

alike—would say that relativity’s most important lesson is that the values of certain
physical quantities depend upon the reference frame in which they are measured.
This strongly suggests that relativity’s most important lesson is that reality is subjec-
tive. Instead, I contend that relativity’s most important lesson is the exact opposite.
To understand this, let us first consider a bit of history.
The idea that motion is relative is very old. The Ancient Greeks certainly had a
basic understanding of the phenomenon as did the Chinese at least as far back as
the Jin dynasty2 in the third and fourth centuries CE [13]. It was Galileo who first
proposed that this had an implication for physical laws. Indeed, it was Galileo in
his Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (Dialogue Concerning the Two
Chief World Systems, 1632) who first introduced the principle upon which all formal
relativistic theories are founded. Formally it is stated as follows.
Definition 1.1 (Principle of Relativity) The laws of physics must be the same in all
inertial reference frames.
This principle was one of the core assumptions made by Einstein in his development
of special relativity. To that he added the additional assumption that the concept of
‘speed’ had a finite, upper limit whose value was equal to the speed of light. As such,
the speed of light took on the status of a ‘law of physics’ (since it served as the upper
bound on all speeds) which meant that it was, by the first assumption, necessarily
the same in all inertial frames. All of special relativity can be deduced from these
two basic assumptions.
Galileo’s deduction of this principle was based on a thought experiment involving
a sailor in a windowless room (belowdecks) on a ship sailing in a straight line at
a constant speed on perfectly calm water. He reasoned (correctly) that there was
no experiment the sailor could perform without leaving the room that could prove
whether or not the ship was moving. Hence motion must be a relative (subjective)
concept. None of Galileo’s contemporaries took this to mean that reality itself was
subjective. Quite the opposite, they correctly understood that it meant that the actual
laws of physics must be the same whether the ship was moving or not. Thus while
certain physical quantities may indeed be subjectively dependent on a reference
frame, the laws governing how those quantities are related and how they are obtained,
must be entirely independent of any reference frame. But if they are independent of
any reference frame then they must be objective.
Though Einstein made Galileo’s principle a core axiom in his development of
special and general relativity, the conclusions he drew were far enough removed
from personal experience that they spawned numerous misconceptions in the popular
imagination. As an example, consider the famous Twin Paradox of special relativity.
Suppose that we have two twins, Alice and Bob, and let us assume that Alice becomes
an astronaut who travels at a highly relativistic speed to a distant star before returning.
Relativity tells us that time runs slower for observers that are in motion. Thus, Bob
expects that when Alice returns she will be younger. But relativity also tells us that

2 This is not to be confused with the “Great Jin” which was a dynasty in the twelfth century CE.
4 I.T. Durham

motion is relative and so, from Alice’s standpoint, it is Bob (and the entire solar
system, for that matter) that moved while she remained stationary. Thus she expects
that he will actually be younger. The paradox is, of course, that they can’t both be right.
For reasons lost to history or that are a matter for psychologists and sociologists, the
paradox, as opposed to its solution, has always been the focus of the narrative. While
most physicists know that there really is no paradox here, this notion that “everything
is relative”—which is a byproduct of the paradox and not it’s solution!—has seeped
back into physics from the popular culture, missing the fact that popular culture
misappropriated the idea to begin with. We forget the true moral of the tale: when
Alice actually does return to greet her brother, there can be only one reality. We
can’t even conceive of a reality in which both of them are right.3 So while they may
find different values for certain observables in their respective frames, the laws of
physics must be immutable, i.e. frame-independent. Operationally this implies that
there must be a procedure for reconciling their measurements.
This should make sense if we pause to think about it. What is the use of a physical
theory if it doesn’t tell us something widely applicable about the world? To put it
another way, we rely on the fact that the world works the same way at the physical
level in New York as it does in Tokyo. It is impossible to even imagine a world in
which it didn’t. It is this point that is the essence of relativity. Far from telling us that
everything is relative, relativity actually tells us that there are certain things (physical
laws) that must be universally true and absolute. In short, far from suggesting that
“everything is relative” (i.e. subjective), relativity explicitly requires some level of
objective reality. This, in fact, serves as a core idea in Einstein’s general philosophy
of physics: the universe is only comprehensible if there is something about it that
can be objectively known. Indeed, we instinctively rely on this objectivity every day
in our expectation (consciously or unconsciously) that physical laws are universal,
i.e. that our confidence in engineering and even such things as simple as getting out
of bed in the morning, is not misplaced.
One final note concerning relativity is that many physicists who do understand the
theory may be tempted here to assume that objectivity necessarily implies determin-
ism. Indeed, I suspect it may be a key component in the thinking of ardent defenders of
local realism. I will not claim that is the case here (nor will I deny it), though the rela-
tionship between determinism and objective reality is worthy of further examination.

1.2.2 Locality

The question of an objective reality becomes a bit murkier in light of certain aspects
of quantum theory. We make two major assumptions in classical physics that prove
problematic at the quantum level. The first that I wish to discuss is locality.

3 The solution to the paradox, of course, is to analyze the problem from a third reference frame
(often chosen to be centered on the sun). In doing so we find that it is Alice that is actually younger
when they meet again.
1 Boundaries of Scientific Thought 5

Definition 1.2 (Principle of Locality) Physical systems are only directly influenced
by their immediate surroundings.
This statement of the principle is a bit misleading since it implies a certain spatial
“closeness.” Historically the principle arose as a counter to “action at a distance” by
suggesting that for an action at one point in spacetime to have an influence on some
other point in spacetime, something must exist (such as a field) in the spacetime
between the two points that mediates that influence. In other words, for object A to
exert an influence on object B, something physical must travel through spacetime
between A and B in order to carry the influence from one to the other. It bears noting
that this is the definition of an interaction in the Standard Model which predicts four
fundamental interactions (electromagnetism, gravity, weak nuclear, strong nuclear)
plus the Higgs interaction.
Locality is usually assumed to hold unequivocally in classical systems and is an
axiom of relativistic quantum field theory. But it can prove problematic when we
try to make sense of certain types of physical systems. For example, all matter is
stable against collapse under the enormous electrostatic forces that bind atoms and
molecules together. This stability is a result of degeneracy pressure4 which is not
traceable to any fundamental interaction but rather to the spin-statistics connection.
As A. Zee puts it
It is sometimes said that because of electromagnetism you do not sink through the floor
and because of gravity you do not float to the ceiling, and you would be sinking or floating
in total darkness were it not for the weak interaction, which regulates stellar burning. Without
the spin statistics connection, electrons would not obey Pauli exclusion. Matter would just
collapse [63].

Nothing (such as a field) mediates the spin-statistics connection. It simply is. There-
fore degeneracy pressure must be a non-local phenomenon.
Non-locality is not in-and-of-itself problematic for objective reality, per sé, but it
does pose some problems for causality and determinism. It is worth noting here that
causality and determinism are not necessarily the same thing. D’Ariano, Manessi, and
Perinotti, for example, have developed a toy operational theory that is deterministic
but not causal. In order to understand the implications this has for objective reality,
it is important to take a closer look at the difference. Consider any probabilistic
physical theory. As defined by D’Ariano et al. such a theory is deterministic if
all of the probabilities of any physical events are either zero or one [12]. If the
probabilities are anything other than one or zero then we might say the theory is
partially deterministic.
First consider the following simple situation. A blue index card and a red index
card are each placed in separate envelopes and the envelopes are sealed. One of the
envelopes is then opened and found to contain the blue index card. That means, of
course, that the other envelope must necessarily contain the red index card regardless
of when (or even if) it is opened. Thus, in a certain sense of the word, the act of
opening the first envelope and inspecting the color of the card inside determines

4 For a concrete example, see [16].

6 I.T. Durham

what we would find if we opened the second envelope. The same could be said had
we opened the envelope containing the red index card first. Of course, this assumes
that the blue card is always blue and the red card is always red, i.e. it takes realism
for granted (something I discuss further below). In other words, there’s nothing
particularly odd about this example. Nevertheless, knowledge of one card’s color
immediately determines knowledge of the other even though the acts of opening
the envelopes could be spacelike separated events. That, of course, is the key here:
determinism is a description of states of knowledge about a physical system, not a
description of the actual physical system itself. As such, locality is not a requirement
for a deterministic system. Indeed, degeneracy pressure is deterministic but not local.
But can a physical system be causal and non-local? Before we address that question,
we need to discuss realism.

1.2.3 Realism

The second assumption that is made in classical physics that proves problematic
at the quantum level is realism which is the idea that physical quantities are real,
i.e. they exist independent of whether or not we measure them. So, for example, in
Schrödinger’s famous feline thought experiment, classical physics assumes that at
any given instant prior to opening the box, the cat is either alive or dead, i.e. it has a
definite state that is independent of the box’s state. To put it another way, consider
the old philosophical thought experiment5 “if a tree falls in a forest and no one is
there to hear it fall, does it make a sound?” The realist answer to this question is an
unequivocal ‘yes.’
Realism proves to be problematic in some quantum systems, partly due to the fact
that quantum systems are contextual. Contextuality is usually understood as placing
limitations on the results of certain quantum measurements based on observables
that commute with the observable being measured. It can also loosely be interpreted
as saying that quantum measurements typically depend on the context within which
they are measured [18]. So, for example, consider a sequence of spin- 12 measurements
on a certain quantum system, as shown in Fig. 1.1. Realism assumes that the spin
has a definite value along a given axis whether or not it is measured along that axis,
e.g. if the spin is measured along, say, axis A and was found to be aligned with that
axis, then regardless of any subsequent measurements along other axes, a second
measurement along A must necessarily show the spin to be aligned with that axis.
In other words, realism would appear to suggest that once it is aligned with an axis,
it is always aligned with that axis regardless of any subsequent measurements made
along other axes.

5 The origins of this question appear to be in George Berkeley’s A Treatise Concerning the Principles

of Human Knowledge (1710). Its current form seems to have first been stated in [39].
1 Boundaries of Scientific Thought 7

Fig. 1.1 Each box represents a measurement of the spin for a spin- 21 particle along some axis with
the top output indicating that the state is aligned (+) with the measurement axis and the bottom
output indicating that the state is anti-aligned (−) with the measurement axis. Red and blue lights
on the top simply indicate to the experimenter which of the two results is obtained (e.g., red might
indicate aligned and blue might indicate anti-aligned)

On the other hand, quantum theory tells us that the probabilities associated with the
two possible outcomes of a measurement along axis C in the Fig. 1.1 solely depend on
the relative alignment of axes B and C and the state entering the device that measures
along C. For example, in the figure, the state exiting the middle device measuring axis
B is |b− where b represents a measurement basis. The probabilities for the outcomes
from the third device are thus Pr(c+) = sin2 21 θBC and Pr(c−) = cos2 21 θBC , where
θ BC is the angle between the B and C axes [48]. Now suppose that θ BC = π2 . This
means that Pr(c+) = Pr(c−) = 0.5 meaning the, state as measured along axis C,
could equally well be aligned or anti-aligned with that axis. This result is entirely
independent of the outcome of any previous measurement. But that, then, means that
if A and C represent the same axis, it is possible that the state will initially be |a+,
but then later be found to be |c− = |a−.
Realism would require that if the particle is found to be aligned with the A axis
then it would always be aligned with that axis unless some action is taken to change
that. Classically, if we measure the spin angular momentum around one axis, there
should be no change to the spin angular momentum around any other axis. Indeed
aerospace engineers generally take this as axiomatic when working with pitch, roll,
and yaw. So no measurement subsequent to the measurement along A should change
the spin state of our particle in reference to A and yet it may. This would suggest that
there is a problem with realism on the quantum level and implies that the reality of
certain quantum measurements is subjective, i.e. it depends on the context in which
the measurement is made.
This is the second misconception about the subjectivity of physical laws and
procedures. Notice that there is a qualification here. Only certain quantum measure-
ments behave in this manner. In the example given, while the spin state is contextual,
the fact that the particle is a fermion is never in question. In fact it is not even con-
ceivable that it could be otherwise since the device in question is only designed to
measure fermions.6 Or, to put it more bluntly, a measurement of the spin state of an
electron will not produce a potato. Ultimately we could attribute this behavior to a

6 Onecould design an experiment that measures the spin of both fermions and bosons, but that
would be a different experiment than the one described.
8 I.T. Durham

kind of conservation law of sorts regarding the nature of the physical system under
investigation. Indeed, it is persuasive enough that I will state it as a general principle.

Definition 1.3 (Principle of Comprehensibility) The nature of a physical system

under investigation will always remain within the bounds of the method of investi-
gation.

I use the term ‘comprehensibility’ here because the point is that we expect that we
will, in some way, comprehend the results of our observations and measurements.
Even if we don’t fully understand them immediately, we expect that, eventually,
science will offer an explanation. To put it another way, we expect scientific answers
to scientific questions. So if Wheeler is correct and the universe is simply built up
from answers to yes/no questions, then the principle maintains that no question we
put to the universe will ever produce anything but ‘yes’ or ‘no’ (or some combination
of the two). For example, consider an idealized Elitzur-Vaidman bomb test [22]. In
that thought experiment, an interferometer is used to test whether or not certain
bombs are duds. In such an interferometer, there are two photon detectors, call them
D0 and D1. In the idealized model, these photon detectors have perfect efficiency, i.e.
every photon that enters the interferometer is assumed to register at one of the two
detectors. A bomb is placed in one beam of the interferometer such that if an entering
photon is detected by D1, then the bomb is known to work. If the photon reaches
detector D0, it is inconclusive and further tests must be performed. But it is never in
question that the photon reached D0 in the idealized model. The inconclusiveness is
related to how we interpret the result, not in whether there actually is a result to be
interpreted.
So while it may be that some physical quantities do not possess values independent
of their measurement and are thus not ‘real’ in the sense in which ‘realism’ is typically
defined, the properties that are associated with those quantities objectively exist.
In fact they must exist, otherwise we could never properly construct measurement
devices in the first place since we would have no way of guaranteeing that they would
ever provide us with meaningful results. In short, our ability to make comprehensible
measurements guarantees that at least some level of objective reality exists. I will
have more to say on comprehensibility in a moment.

1.2.4 Local Realism

Famously, quantum mechanics seems to force us to choose between locality and

realism. Consider the prototypical Bell-type experiment in which a source emits pairs
of entangled particles in beams that propagate in opposite directions. Alice controls a
measurement apparatus along one beam and Bob controls one along the other. They
perform their measurements whenever a particle arrives from the source. As such,
we assume that entangled pairs of particles will arrive simultaneously at both Alice’s
and Bob’s measurement devices making it impossible for them to communicate
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