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I think what you are really asking is: what is the substantial reality of 'the thing', if it is merely 'information'. All following quotes are from the documen

I think what you are really asking is: what is the substantial reality of 'the thing', if it is merely 'information'. All following quotes are from the documentary "Atomic Physics and Reality" [1 - 'emphasis' mine.]. John Wheeler: Einstein admired Bohr and Bohr admired Einstein. And you recall that Einstein felt that 'reality' exists, in effect, 'out there', something independent of us. And the position of Bohr was rather this: that 'reality' is only a word and we have to learn what the right way is to use that word. John Bell: Bohr, I think, quite in early in life had decided that ordinary concepts such as space and time simply wouldn't work at the atomic scale. And it was always a bit unclear what Bohr would replace those concepts by, if anything. But Einstein was very attached to the space-time description, and thought that one should try very hard to extend it into the atomic domain. And this was the root of the disagreement between the two men. David Bohm: Bohr had developed a view in which he essentially would say that 'reality' was unknown or unknowable, or even had no meaning, 'reality' by itself. Reality, except at the large scale level of ordinary experience, atomic reality had no meaning, and all that we have are 'phenomena', produced in an 'experiment', and that quantum theory deals with the inter- relationships of all these phenomena. Abner Shimony: Bohr was not a professional philosopher. How much of the traditional philosophers he read, one does not know. But he was an extremely intelligent man and he must have thought through some of the issues that professional philosophers had thought through very deeply. And certainly one of the issues that he had though through considerably, with some help I think from reading, was the Kantian issue of the status of 'the thing in itself'. The 'thing' as it really is, quite apart from Human 'perception' of it. Bohr, like Kant, was very suspicious that one can say anything significant, intelligent, controllable, about 'the thing in itself'. [Bohr] once said that physics or science in general was not about 'nature' but about nature exposed to our 'observation'. And that is very Kantian. -- [1]: https://youtu.be/BFvJOZ51tmc https://youtu.be/BFvJOZ51tmc

duaneb 10y ago
Actually, I find it very intuitive that reality is just information. It's much easier than setting it apart as ineffable.
- eternalban 10y ago
  That's not what Bohr said. He said we can't know -- per Bell "have no right to know" -- what is "[objective] reality" [at the atomic scale]. I am personally not comfortable with using 'information'. I think Bohm's formulation "phenomena" is more appropriate. Note that, for example, the manifestation of wave/particle duality is an actual physical phenomena. The 'information' bit is our observation of this phenomena. And in case the question is still on the table as to are these distinctions merely a matter of philosophical taste or aesthetics?, from same source cited: Alain Aspect At the time of Einstein and Bohr it was just a theoretical discussion. You could endorse either Einstein's position or Bohr's position, and it was just a matter of taste. And then there was the great discovery by John Bell in '65 that it is not only a matter of taste, because according to the position you have at the subatomic point, you have predictions which are not the same. If you follow Einstein you have a certain type of predictions -- that is to say you have results that are in agreement with what is called the Bell's inequalities -- and if you follow Bohr's position you have another type of prediction which are in contradiction, in opposition, with Bell's inequalities. Aspect at this point had conducted a series of EPR experiments that proved that the Einstein line of reasoning was in contradiction with the obtained experimental results.
  - duaneb 10y ago
    Well, I'd put "can't know" squarely in the ineffable. But yes, I think phenomena are the atomic building blocks of science. The logical positivists at least got that right.
    - wamatt 10y ago
      > I think phenomena are the atomic building blocks of science Lacking context, this could seem somewhat opaque. Would you mind clarifying which definition of "phenomenon" you are intending to convey? (eg Kantian or otherwise)

duaneb 10y ago

Actually, I find it very intuitive that reality is just information. It's much easier than setting it apart as ineffable.

eternalban 10y ago
That's not what Bohr said. He said we can't know -- per Bell "have no right to know" -- what is "[objective] reality" [at the atomic scale]. I am personally not comfortable with using 'information'. I think Bohm's formulation "phenomena" is more appropriate. Note that, for example, the manifestation of wave/particle duality is an actual physical phenomena. The 'information' bit is our observation of this phenomena. And in case the question is still on the table as to are these distinctions merely a matter of philosophical taste or aesthetics?, from same source cited: Alain Aspect At the time of Einstein and Bohr it was just a theoretical discussion. You could endorse either Einstein's position or Bohr's position, and it was just a matter of taste. And then there was the great discovery by John Bell in '65 that it is not only a matter of taste, because according to the position you have at the subatomic point, you have predictions which are not the same. If you follow Einstein you have a certain type of predictions -- that is to say you have results that are in agreement with what is called the Bell's inequalities -- and if you follow Bohr's position you have another type of prediction which are in contradiction, in opposition, with Bell's inequalities. Aspect at this point had conducted a series of EPR experiments that proved that the Einstein line of reasoning was in contradiction with the obtained experimental results.
- duaneb 10y ago
  Well, I'd put "can't know" squarely in the ineffable. But yes, I think phenomena are the atomic building blocks of science. The logical positivists at least got that right.
  - wamatt 10y ago
    > I think phenomena are the atomic building blocks of science Lacking context, this could seem somewhat opaque. Would you mind clarifying which definition of "phenomenon" you are intending to convey? (eg Kantian or otherwise)