This book explores the similarities between the indeterminacy principle of quantum mechanics and the concept of noetic nature in Eastern philosophy, and explains the new perspectives this intersection offers to modern science and philosophy.
Quantum mechanics is both an end point and a new beginning for modern physics, which has been highly developed to date. The discovery of quantum mechanics was as revolutionary as Darwin’s theory of evolution or Copernicus’ theory of the earth’s motion, and it marked another major seismic shift in modern science. However, quantum mechanics, which is at the cutting edge of modern science, has a strange connection to Eastern philosophy that goes back over a thousand years. This fact is quite paradoxical. It is difficult to accept that a scientific theory developed in the West is in line with Eastern philosophy, let alone the difference in time.
The points of contact between quantum mechanics and Eastern philosophy can be found in concepts such as indeterminacy, the role of the observer, and the superposition of wave functions. These are all strikingly similar to the ideas of ambiguity, complementarity, and holism that Eastern philosophy emphasizes. Eastern philosophy has long understood the world as a constantly changing and interacting process rather than a fixed entity. For example, in Taoism, all beings and phenomena in the universe are not fixed, but change in a flow called the Tao. Similarly, quantum mechanics holds that the position and momentum of particles are not fixed, but can change depending on observations.
After the collapse of China by Western powers in the 19th century, a wave of westernization in the name of modernization began rapidly. In this process, the trend of Westernization, which rejects Eastern culture and various philosophies of thought as outdated and worships the West, has become widespread, and the current situation is no different. However, with the development of quantum mechanics, Eastern philosophy, which has been neglected until now, is once again gaining attention as a new paradigm for understanding the universe. Let’s take a look at what quantum mechanics is and how it has developed, and follow in its footsteps to find out the similarities between quantum mechanics and Eastern philosophy.
In 1900, German physicist Max Planck analyzed the results of his experiments with blackbody radiation and realized that the previous concept of statistical mechanics needed to be revised. Previously, physics had thought of energy as a continuous unit proportional to temperature. However, Planck hypothesized that energy is proportional to the frequency and has a discrete value rather than a continuous one, which he called “energy is quantized.” In this quantum theory, a quantum is a unit amount of discrete energy. Five years later, Einstein developed the photon theory to explain the photoelectric effect. The photoelectric effect is the phenomenon of electrons bouncing off a metal surface when light above a certain frequency is shone on it, a phenomenon that could not be explained by the wave nature of light alone. Based on Planck’s quantum theory, Einstein was able to explain the photoelectric effect by defining light energy as consisting of discrete energy, which he called photons or photons.
Further research into quantum theory led to Niels Bohr using these quantum properties to propose a new model of the hydrogen atom. Before Bohr, Rutherford’s model of the hydrogen atom could not be explained by classical mechanics. According to electromagnetic theory, electrons traveling in a circular motion around the nucleus lose energy due to acceleration, and eventually their radius gets smaller and smaller until they finally collide with the nucleus, causing the hydrogen atom to decay. In reality, however, the hydrogen atom does not decay, and its energy is not continuous, but appears as a distinct band of light. To solve this problem, Bohr said, electrons travel in a “specific orbit” around the nucleus, which is called a normal orbit. In a normal orbit, electrons do not lose energy, and when they move from one orbit to another, they emit or absorb light with a frequency proportional to their energy level.
Although classical quantum theory has been very successful in the theory of atomic and molecular optics, it has not escaped the limitations of classical mechanics, and it cannot explain problems such as collisions and scattering. A typical example is the duality of light.
Thomas Young’s experiments with interference of light through a double slit showed that light clearly has wave-like properties. But it’s also clear that light is particulate, as demonstrated by the photoelectric effect. Even more interestingly, if you use the apparatus to determine which of the two gaps in the double slit experiment a photon enters, the light no longer shows an interference pattern, i.e., it behaves entirely as a particle. As soon as we remove the apparatus and no longer know which of the two gaps the photon is traveling through, light again has the properties of a wave. In other words, the act of observing causes light to be fixed in one of two states: particle or wave, and when we stop observing it, it exists in an ambiguous state where both states coexist. To explain this phenomenon, Born in 1927 proposed the hypothesis that the wave function of a particle is a “state function” and that the probability distribution of the particle can be obtained by considering the intensity of the waves obtained by this state function as a probability. The idea is that a particle has multiple state functions that are superimposed on each other and interfere with each other, but at the moment of observation, the wavefunction “collapses” and reverts to a single state. Based on this, Heisenberg discovered the famous “uncertainty principle”. The uncertainty principle states that the uncertainty in the position and momentum of a particle cannot be reduced at the same time: if the position is known exactly, the momentum cannot be obtained, and conversely, if the momentum is known exactly, the uncertainty in the position becomes very large.
When I took a quantum mechanics class last summer, Prof. Don Hee Ham explained this phenomenon as “nature knows”. What he meant by “nature” is a bit more philosophical. Lao Tzu, the founder of the Taoist school of thought during the Spring and Autumn period in China, advocated the idea of no-action nature as a political ideology and rejected artificial norms such as the Confucian code. Lao Tzu’s idea of unmanipulated nature is the same as the nature that Professor Ham Donhee mentioned. Uncontrolled nature refers to nature as it is, not artificialized. From the perspective of classical mechanics, nature can be seen as an artificial space that is divided into systems by humans. Therefore, it is impossible to understand or explain this phenomenon from the perspective of classical mechanics. However, in Lao Tzu’s state of uncontrolled nature, the duality of light is not a problem at all.
Newton’s classical mechanics, which preceded quantum mechanics, is a deterministic way of thinking about physics, which is based on the premise that “if all the conditions are known at any point in the past, then the future can be fixed or determined in a single way.” However, this way of thinking could not explain quantum phenomena at all. Therefore, the Copenhagen School, led by Niels Bohr, argued for the “principle of complementarity” as a fundamental premise of quantum mechanics, which states that quanta are both particles and waves, and that their states and positions are determined at the moment of observation and are superimposed on each other until then.
While this view of quantum mechanics has been able to explain many phenomena, it has also created another paradox: Schrödinger’s cat theory. In a hypothetical experiment, Schrödinger placed a radioactive substance, a sledgehammer, a vial of poison, and a cat in a sealed box. If the particles emitted by the radioactive material meet certain conditions, the mechanism is triggered and the sledgehammer breaks the poisoned vial, killing the cat. The point of this experiment is that if no particles are released, the bottle will not be broken and the cat will live. Without opening the box, it is impossible to know whether the particles have been released, so the cat is both dead and alive. The act of opening the box is an “observation” that specifies the location and state of the particle.
Quantum mechanics has evolved to accept all these indeterminacies. On the one hand, these indeterminacies reveal the limitations of our epistemology, but on the other hand, they also reveal laws of nature that we didn’t know about. Quantum mechanics gives us a new way of looking at nature and allows us to go beyond our fixed ideas. This is similar to the state of “no-nature” that Eastern philosophy seeks.
