从物理到哲学：读物理偶遇意识有感

今天的英语作业写了这本书的书评，刚好可以放在这里，于是录于此。

From Physics to Philosophy: Reading Physics Encounter Consciousness

  Sorry for beginning this article with an apology, that the book I’m going to talk about and introduce to everyone isn’t a novel, but a creature somehow between popular science reading and popular philosophy reading. But it’s really a good book, it makes people think more about the real aspect of our living universe. So I take the risk of disobeying the requirement of the homework which demand for a “novel”.

  Nowadays many people are materialists, they are materialist by default, they are materialist but they don’t think much about what is matter. But what is materialism really mean? How it tackle some of the most confusing situation. For example, how can we explain the sensation of our consciousness if our universe it purely makes by atom and molecular and all the way up. Some people might say, we gain our sensation from the neurological electrical chemical activities inside our brain. But how can it be possible, since we know that the neurological electrical chemical activities is nothing more than the atom and molecular and their motion under the field obeying certain physical rules. How can it generate our sensation?

  Physicist told us that matter is such thing, particles that are moving, and do not explained further, and philosopher told us our the whole universe is made of atom and their motion, and we believe, don’t you think this is little similar with the medieval people believing in the existence of God? Actually, why sensation is generated by our objective physical brain is still a mystery, which contemporary philosopher David Chalmers called it “the Hard Problem”. By using this terminology, Chalmers divide two kinds of problem, the easy one and the hard one, he consider to explain the intelligence of human being supported by our brain is a easy one: although we can’t do it right now and it’s really complex, but we can do it “in principal”, there isn’t anything beyond the expectation of a materialist. But to explain why our brains generate sensation is another task. we do not know how to do it in principal. Pondering about it makes the problem even mystery than we can expect.

  But the book I’m going to introduce isn’t about the philosophical argument of “the Hard Problem”, but about quantum mechanics. There is another mystery inside quantum mechanics, which add another mystery to the reality of the world where we live. It’s called “quantum measurement problem”. For decades, the physicist seems to avoid mention this strange phenomenon, treat it as “the skeleton inside closet”, and experts who would have considered it seriously neglect it and draw their attention on the astonishing application of quantum mechanics. But the strange implication of quantum mechanics seems to imply so deep truth of our reality.

  The book begins at a meeting with great Einstein when the author is a young graduate student. Einstein began the talk by asking the two about their quantum mechanics course. He approved their professor’s choice of David Bohm’s book as text, but when he asked how they consider of Bohm’s position on the strangeness implied by quantum mechanics, they couldn’t answer, since their professor asked them to skip the more philosophical part of the book and concentrate on the mathematical formulation of the theory. And Einstein disappointed.

  The book introduce the strange phenomenon of quantum mechanics in a reader friendly way. The astonishing point is, you do not need any mathematics (but just good English enough to read the book) to appreciate the really wonderful way of the mysterious behavior of the particle. The implication of the quantum theory is, the behavior of a particle is affected by your choice, and in the Chapter 2, there is an excellent introduction of it. It’s about a story of a visitor visits a strange village where quantum mechanics has a macroscopic effect. The visitor ask different kinds of questions which his choice of the kind of question predetermine the possible state of the man and woman in the hut. It really amazing and the reality is as amazing as the strange village, the only difference is in this time the amazement reduce to the microscopic world.

  In the later part of the book, the author explain how this main mystery generate various mysteries such as the Schrodinger’s cat, two slit experiment, EPR, quantum entanglement, and so on.

   Many contemporary thinkers consider our consciousness is generated by our brain. But, in one way, we don’t know how brain generate consciousness in principal: there is Hard Problem; in another, in quantum mechanics, consciousness seems has a amazing effect to predetermine the possible state of matter. All matters are entangled in quantum state.

  The great quantum physicist, discoverer of the fundamental equation in quantum mechanics: Schrodinger equation, Schrodinger, ones says “Multiplicity is only apparent, in truth, there is only one mind.’ Thinking much about the reality, he became appreciate the wisdom of Indian philosophy, Upanishads, which thought human souls is identical with the omnipotent Brahman, and meditation can bring people to reach that state.

  This book leaves us to think. What is reality? What is consciousness? Our universe remains mystery.