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From: djo@pbhyc.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.physics
Subject: Bell Inequalities, etc.
Message-ID: <651@pbhyc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 26-May-87 16:41:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: pbhyc.651
Posted: Tue May 26 16:41:54 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 27-May-87 04:44:16 EDT
References: <1275@cci632.UUCP> <766@klipper.cs.vu.nl> <650@pbhyc.UUCP> <19028@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: djo@pbhyc.UUCP (Dan'l Oakes)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Lines: 26
Keywords: aspect superluminance hidden variables Bell's inequality
Xref: utgpu sci.philosophy.tech:77 sci.physics:1382

In article <19028@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> kube@cogsci.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Paul Kube) writes:
>
>So, everybody, what do you want to give up: the impossibility of FTL
>information transfer, that the particle was spinning happily left all
>along, or the relevance of mathematics for physics?  Oakes sounds like
>he might opt for doing without the last, but it's interesting to note
>that the Bell inequalities don't depend on the formalism of quantum
>mechanics at all (though QM does correctly predict the observed
>probabilities).

Actually, we can accept a much weaker condition -- the inadequacy of our
[current] mathematical model to describe the physical reality.  That is
perfectly consonant with scientific method, whereas the dogmatic and
anthropomorphic insistence that the universe conform to our mathematics
is not.

State equations are not a description of a particle; they are a description
of what we know about a particle.  The ontological confusion which allows
physicists to believe -- effectively -- that "We can narrow things down to
A or B, but can't determine which; therefore both are equally true" never
ceases to astonish me.

Why are you all so afraid to admit that there are things you just don't and
can't know?

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes