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Henri Bergson’s debate with Albert Einstein swayed the 1921 Nobel committee

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Re: Henri Bergson’s debate with Albert Einstein swayed the 1921 Nobel committee

#21

Post by mkl »

hyperpallium wrote: post #13

Consonant with the theme of deposing humanity from the center/top e.g. geocentric to heliocentric. Bergson's perspective, which I interpret as 'things don't matter until they matter to someone', strikes me as more like engineering or economics: use not truth. OTOH there's that quantum mechanics idea (that I don't understand) that a waveform only collapses into particles when observed by a conscious "observer"... seem…

> OTOH there's that quantum mechanics idea (that I don't understand) that a waveform only collapses into particles when observed by a conscious "observer"... seems very anthropocentric. Surely it can't be right.

It's not right; it's a nonsensical (yet common) misinterpretation. It's not possible to measure quantum things without affecting what happens - no consciousness needed, just really tiny experimental subjects that are affected by influences from outside the system being analysed. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics) and its Quantum mechanics section.

Re: Henri Bergson’s debate with Albert Einstein swayed the 1921 Nobel committee

#22

Post by spacehome »

mannykannot wrote: post #12

Einstein has been described as a philosopher, and in a way he was - one of a new kind, both able and unafraid to follow reason through a veil of paradox into a disorienting world of postmodern uncertainty. It was an inflection point for philosophy, which could either follow Einstein or sink into self-referential introspection. Bergson had no clue as to what was happening. Einstein himself stumbled over quantum mechan…

I think Einstein did pretty well with quantum mechanics, as judged against his contemporaries. At least he knew something was wrong with the statistical/Copenhagen view. I think if he were told the Many-Worlds interpretation, he would find it beautiful and in line with what the character of natural law is supposed to look like.

Re: Henri Bergson’s debate with Albert Einstein swayed the 1921 Nobel committee

#23

Post by spacehome »

hyperpallium wrote: post #13

Consonant with the theme of deposing humanity from the center/top e.g. geocentric to heliocentric. Bergson's perspective, which I interpret as 'things don't matter until they matter to someone', strikes me as more like engineering or economics: use not truth. OTOH there's that quantum mechanics idea (that I don't understand) that a waveform only collapses into particles when observed by a conscious "observer"... seem…

Of course it's not right. The Many Worlds interpretation is a much more elegant explanation that does not privilege humans or consciousness.

Re: Henri Bergson’s debate with Albert Einstein swayed the 1921 Nobel committee

#24

Post by spacehome »

asimuvPR wrote: post #16
makmanalp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered about the observer and how the fuck the particles "know" (or detect) that they are being observed or what is even the criteria - is a human being an observer? What about a measuring device a la Schrodinger? Does the device measuring count as an observation, or is it when a human looks at the device? Turns out we're not the only ones confused: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_(quantum_physics)…

This made me chuckle: Critics of the special role of the observer also point out that observers can themselves be observed, leading to paradoxes such as that of Wigner's friend; and that it is not clear how much consciousness is required ("Was the wave function waiting to jump for thousands of millions of years until a single-celled living creature appeared? Or did it have to wait a little longer for some highly qual…

It's observers all the way down.

Re: Henri Bergson’s debate with Albert Einstein swayed the 1921 Nobel committee

#25

Post by frozenport »

spacehome wrote: post #22
mannykannot wrote: post #12

Einstein has been described as a philosopher, and in a way he was - one of a new kind, both able and unafraid to follow reason through a veil of paradox into a disorienting world of postmodern uncertainty. It was an inflection point for philosophy, which could either follow Einstein or sink into self-referential introspection. Bergson had no clue as to what was happening. Einstein himself stumbled over quantum mechan…

I think Einstein did pretty well with quantum mechanics, as judged against his contemporaries. At least he knew something was wrong with the statistical/Copenhagen view. I think if he were told the Many-Worlds interpretation, he would find it beautiful and in line with what the character of natural law is supposed to look like.

The opposition didn't feel rational. For example, the EPR paradox was presented as a failure of quantum mechanics, when quite the opposite was true - and indeed quantum entanglement has been proposed for commercial applications. Simply put, in his later years people were already using QM to solve real world problems, while he was telling them their theories were wrong.

Re: Henri Bergson’s debate with Albert Einstein swayed the 1921 Nobel committee

#26

Post by eru »

rumcajz wrote: post #19

This is a kind of thing that have always fascinated me: People from past epochs (Bergson in this case) trying to convey a though and we being unable to parse it. My favourite example is one of Robert Musil's essays. There are multiple versions of it, showing that he desperately tried to convey a thought and make it as precise as possible, but the meaning escapes me. The reason for fascination is that even in the past…

The debate about angels dancing on pins was about whether you could fit a finite number or an infinite number.

We can decipher a lot of great thought, even from before 1850.

Reach eg Archimedes' "The Sand Reckoner" (http://euclid.trentu.ca/math/sb/3810H/Fall-2009/The-Sand-Rec...).

Some meta-information about it at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sand_Reckoner

Re: Henri Bergson’s debate with Albert Einstein swayed the 1921 Nobel committee

#27

Post by danieltillett »

spacehome wrote: post #23
hyperpallium wrote: post #13

Consonant with the theme of deposing humanity from the center/top e.g. geocentric to heliocentric. Bergson's perspective, which I interpret as 'things don't matter until they matter to someone', strikes me as more like engineering or economics: use not truth. OTOH there's that quantum mechanics idea (that I don't understand) that a waveform only collapses into particles when observed by a conscious "observer"... seem…

Of course it's not right. The Many Worlds interpretation is a much more elegant explanation that does not privilege humans or consciousness.

I have always wondered what Hugh Everett would have done in physics if he was not so discouraged.

Re: Henri Bergson’s debate with Albert Einstein swayed the 1921 Nobel committee

#28

Post by nabla9 »

rumcajz wrote: post #19

This is a kind of thing that have always fascinated me: People from past epochs (Bergson in this case) trying to convey a though and we being unable to parse it. My favourite example is one of Robert Musil's essays. There are multiple versions of it, showing that he desperately tried to convey a thought and make it as precise as possible, but the meaning escapes me. The reason for fascination is that even in the past…

Some of these people caused similar revolution against their predecessors. We may not be aware that some of their toughs are interesting deviations or improvements for the previous state of things.

Freud is perfect example. He caused huge revolution in the philosophy of mind and changed our culture in many visible ways, but his theories did not survive.

Freud's theories are based on outdated concepts of how the brain works. The evidence was usually incomplete or questionable. Freud based his theories on anecdotes from his practice and his patients were mostly upper class women who suffered from sexual repression. Freud overgeneralized from this very odd set of patients very strange theories.

Still his basic themes are considered correct even today and they were revolutionary at the same way as Einstein's. They seem so basic and obvious to us that we don't think there was controversy or revolution involved.

Five still valid _general_ ideas that are left from his psychodynamics theories after most was debunked:

1. There are unconscious processes. Parts of cognition, motivation and emotions can be hidden from consciousness.

2. There are competing processes and conflicts in the brain.

3. Personality is significantly shaped by childhood

4. Our mental representations of other people shape our social relations.

5. There is a sequence of different developmental stages that create internal psychological conflicts.

http://psych.utoronto.ca/users/peterson/psy430s2001/Westen%2...

Re: Henri Bergson’s debate with Albert Einstein swayed the 1921 Nobel committee

#29

Post by selimthegrim »

rumcajz wrote: post #19

This is a kind of thing that have always fascinated me: People from past epochs (Bergson in this case) trying to convey a though and we being unable to parse it. My favourite example is one of Robert Musil's essays. There are multiple versions of it, showing that he desperately tried to convey a thought and make it as precise as possible, but the meaning escapes me. The reason for fascination is that even in the past…

Riemann is a good example of this when talking about Riemann surfaces but what essay of Musil's are you talking about?

Re: Henri Bergson’s debate with Albert Einstein swayed the 1921 Nobel committee

#30

Post by mannykannot »

marmaduke wrote: post #5

Simultaneity plays an important role in the brain too, and there it is difficult to say who may be right.

The issues of simultaneity in consciousness are different from the issues that relativity address. I get the impression that Bergson thought his intuitions about time, arrived at (at least in part) by introspection, could somehow invalidate Einstein's evidence-based reasoning.
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