> Go 4th wrote:

>> andy-k wrote:

>>> I'm not familiar with Bhaskar's work.

>>
>> If I and others are an example, then complete agreement with or full
>> understanding of the rest of Bhaskar's philosophy of science isn't
>> necessarily a requirement. The Epistemic and Ontic Fallacies:
>>
>> http://www.raggedclaws.com/criticalrealism/index.php?sitesig=WSCR&page=WSCR_060_WSCR_Glossary&subpage...

>
> From the above link:
>
> "The epistemic fallacy first projects the external world onto a
> subjective phenomenal map, then the ontic fallacy projects the
> phenomenal entities of that subjective map back out on the world as
> objective sense data, of which we have direct perceptual knowledge.
> So reality independent of thought is first subjectified, then the
> subjectified elements are objectified to explain and justify our knowledge."
>
> Surely this entire system assumes an "external world" --
> i.e. a "reality" independent of any consciousness of it
> (and this is precisely what cannot be known)?
>

>>> what is the ontological status of a quantum system between
>>> interactions?

>>
>> The alternation to a wavelike state in between measurements is
>> probably what process philosophers usually relate to. Certainly some
>> of the later interpretations where a particle remains "real" wouldn't
>> have been around in Whitehead's day:
>>
>> "As Whitehead's own reaction shows, the rise of the quantum theory put
>> money in process philosopher's bank account. . . . Here the demise of
>> classical atomism brought on by the dematerialization of physical
>> matter in the wake of the quantum theory did much to bring aid and
>> comfort to a process-oriented metaphysics. For quantum theory taught
>> that, at the microlevel, what was usually deemed a physical thing, a
>> stably perduring object, is itself no more than a statistical pattern
>> -- a stability wave in a surging sea of process.
>>
>> "Those so-called enduring 'things' come about through the emergence of
>> stabilities in statistical fluctuations. . . . Twentieth century
>> physics has thus turned the tables on classical atomism. Instead of
>> very small things (atoms) combining to produce standard processes
>> (windstorms and such), modern physics envisions very small processes
>> (quantum phenomena) combining in their modus operandi to produce
>> standard things (ordinary macro-objects). . . . Process metaphysics
>> envisions a limit to determinism that makes room for creative
>> spontaneity and novelty in the world (be it by way of random mutations
>> with naturalistic processists or purposeful innovation with those who
>> incline to a theologically teleological position).
>>
>> "Moreover, process philosophers have reason to favor quantum physics
>> over relativistic physics. . . . Special relativity with its
>> preoccupation with time-invariant relationships in effect suppresses
>> time as a factor in physical reality and relegates it to the penumbral
>> status of a subjective phenomenon. This serves to explain why
>> Whitehead sought to provide a new theoretical basis to relativity
>> theory and reconstrue space-time, as well as the conception of other
>> physical objects, as being a construction made from 'fragmentary
>> individual experiences.' Processes are not the machinations of stable
>> things; things are the stability-patterns of variable processes."
>> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-philosophy/
>>
>> But for David Deutsch's quantum computation, he seems to suggest that
>> single particles (as information carriers) disappear or flicker into
>> parallel universes rather than transforming into a wavelike
>> distribution in between measurements:
>>
>> "When the equations of quantum theory describe a continuous but not-
>> directly-observable transition between two values of a discrete
>> quantity, what they are telling us is that the transition does not
>> take place entirely within one universe. So perhaps the price of
>> continuous motion is not an infinity of consecutive actions, but an
>> infinity of concurrent actions taking place across the multiverse." --
>> The Discrete and the Continuous

>
> I remain skeptical about the ontological status of the MWI (some substantial
> results from the field of quantum computing might serve to dispel my
> skepticism, if they ever arrive). The reason for my question above was
> that I'm inclined to think in anti-realist terms -- i.e. that things are not
> "things-in-themselves" but rather "things-for-each-other" (consistent,
> I believe, with Whitehead's notion of Mutual Immanence). This line of
> thought would seem to have implications for 'things' that undergo a duration
> (however short) in which they make no appearance to anything else --
> the case in point being quantum systems between interactions.