Upcoming Books and Radio Appearances

In a review of this summer's OCON conference in Boston, the August issue of the Ayn Rand Institute's Impact includes a list of books by prominent Objectivist intellectuals that are expected to be published in the near future:

Dr. [Gregory] Salmieri is coeditor (with Allan Gotthelf) of the forthcoming Ayn Rand:A Companion to Her Life and Thought, and is a contributor to a book on Objectivist epistemology currently in review. Dr. [John David] Lewis’s Nothing Less Than Victory (March 2010) examines the requirements for victory in war by looking at six major wars, from ancient Greece to World War II.
...
Objectivist scholarship is booming, as evidenced by the number of forthcoming or newly published books discussed at the conference. In addition to those already mentioned above, these include Objectivism in One Lesson by Andrew Bernstein; The Inductive Method in Physics by David Harriman (forthcoming from Penguin Publishing); Winning the Unwinnable War, edited by ARI fellow Elan Journo (forthcoming from Lexington Books); Objectively Speaking: Ayn Rand Interviewed, edited by Peter Schwartz and Marlene Podritske, a collection of Ayn Rand interviews released earlier this year; and a book on neoconservatism by C. Bradley Thompson and Yaron Brook (in progress).The conference included book signings for Essays on Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged,” Objectivism in One Lesson and Objectively Speaking.

I'm presently reading and enjoying Dr. Mayhew's excellent Essays on Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" which I highly recommend. I'm looking forward to these upcoming titles.

In other news, editor Craig Biddle of the superb Objective Standard has made the following announcement at Principles in Practice:

I am pleased to announce that three members of the newly formed TOS Speakers Bureau, John David Lewis, Richard M. Salsman, and Raymond C. Niles, will be interviewed at separate times in coming days on “The Big Biz Show” (www.bigbizshow.com). Alex Epstein, a TOS contributor and an analyst with the Ayn Rand Center, will be interviewed as well.

“The Big Biz Show,” with Bob “Sully” Sullivan & Russ “T” Nailz, is syndicated via Business Talk Radio Network on 150 AM stations and heard on Internet Sites via BTRN, CBS radio, Chat-About-It, AOL radio, and wsRadio. The show can be heard live online from 1 to 3 p.m. Pacific Time (10–1 EST) at www.businesstalkradio.net (click on “Listen Live”).

The interviews are scheduled as follows:

Thursday, August 13
2:10 PST: Alex Epstein—Defending the Oil Industry
2:40 PST: Richard M. Salsman—Health Care, the Economy, and the California’s Financial Crisis

Monday, August 17
2:10 PST: John David Lewis—How Obama Care will Destroy Private Health Insurance

Tuesday, August 18
2:10 PST: Raymond C. Niles—Property Rights and Crisis of the Electric Grid

Please help promote these events by posting the information to websites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and the like.

The Objective Standard Summer 2008 Issue

This past Friday I received the Summer 2008 issue of The Objective Standard (TOS) in the mail. I finished it last night. All right, actually I had started reading it some time earlier online, since approximately Mid-June a little after Craig Biddle, the editor and publisher, announced the forthcoming issue. At that time I read Property Rights and the Crisis of the Electric Grid by Raymond C. Niles. The excellent article describes the origin of the electric utility companies and why the regulations that currently pervade the industry, far from being some kind of natural necessity, were in fact an unfortunately by-product of early attempts to by-pass more local regulations.

Generally I try to wait for the print issue before reading too many articles but I couldn't quite resist glancing at the new book review section. First I read John Lewis's review of Sun-tzu: Art of War. Dr. Lewis regards Sun-tzu as a rational observer of the art of warfare, concerned with enabling generals to understand the facts and act accordingly. It is interesting to me to what extent rationality is present in Chinese thought. Clearly the Chinese must have had some rational ideas in their culture, otherwise they would never have achieved as much as they did during some of their historical periods. And yet, unlike the Muslims, they did not have any contact with the Greeks. I am curious as to what the Chinese equivalents of Aristotle might have been and what their limitations were.

Having read the first review, I couldn't resist reading the other two, starting John P. McCaskey's review of Reforming Philosophy: A Victorian Debate on Science and Society, by Laura J. Snyder, a fascinating account of the intellectual conflict between John Stuart Mill and lesser known William Whewell on the nature of scientific induction and the implications for ethics. According to McCaskey, Snyder's book does an excellent job of putting to rest the notion that Mill "was a champion of commonsense realism, inductive science, or individual liberty." Then I proceeded to Larry Salzman's review of The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: The Battle for Control of the Law, by Steven M. Teles. Teles's book is a history of how Conservatives have managed to penetrate the legal profession and institutions after being mostly absent between the 1930s to 1970s. This has had some limited beneficial effects -- after all, free market ideas are a lot more acceptable now than they were between 1930 and 1970. Still, as others have pointed out, since the defense of free markets is not conducted on moral grounds, it seems that the beneficial effect is temporary. Furthermore, the Salzman points out that Teles admittedly did not cover the rise of the Christian-Conservatives along with the economic conservatives, as a result "the darker side of the conservative legal movement gets an unfortunate and undeserved pass."

Finally, when I got the physical issue, I read the remaining two articles Alex Epstein's excellent essay laying to rest of the myths about Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company, and David Harriman's fascinating and enlightening account of the developments that lead to the Proof of the Atomic Theory. Both are highly recommended and ought be read by anyone interested in the history of business and science respectively.

It is difficult to express how much it means to have a subscription to such an excellent Objectivist journal. And now, according to the editor, the journal should be available at your local bookstores -- so what are you waiting for? Go out and get it.

Dinesh D'Souza's Myths

For some time now it's been quite evident that there's an effort underway to change people's perception of Medieval Christianity. One hears Conservatives (for example, Victor Davis Hanson and Dennis Prager) referring to something they term the "so-called Dark Ages" and whenever anyone points out that Christianity has a rather long and depressing history of torture and murder, it is usually pointed out that the number of victims is actually quite small and that it certainly pails in comparison to what the "atheistic" regimes of the 20th century "achieved" in that respect.

The latest of these efforts is in a column entitled "Debunking the Galileo Myth," by Dinesh D'Souza. D'Souza states the purpose of this column as follows:

About a hundred years ago, two anti-religious bigots named John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White wrote books promoting the idea of an irreconcilable conflict between science and God. The books were full of facts that have now been totally discredited by scholars. But the myths produced by Draper and Dickson continue to be recycled. They are believed by many who consider themselves educated, and they even find their way into the textbooks. In this article I expose several of these myths, focusing especially on the Galileo case, since Galileo is routinely portrayed as a victim of religious persecution and a martyr to the cause of science.

As a preliminary comment, I'll mention that I've read much of Andrew D. White's A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology and contrary to D'Souza's claim it is not posing "an irreconcilable conflict between science and God" but merely points out that religious dogmatists have throughout history stood in the way of scientific progress. In fact, White demonstrates in numerous examples that there need be no conflict between religion and science, as long as one ignores literal interpretations of scriptures in favor of interpretations that match the scientific facts of nature. In the examples he provides there is a recurring pattern: A scientist makes a new scientific discovery or offers a promising hypothesis or theory. Some religious authorities oppose the scientist and thus the science on religious grounds arguing that it cannot be so since it contradicts scriptures (as an aside, in some example there are a minority of religious supporters of the new idea that later becomes the majority). Finally, as more and more evidence points to the truth of the scientist's ideas, somewhat more liberal religious authorities begin to reinterpret scripture as not necessarily contradicted by the new science after all. Thus D'Souza's claim about White is simply false.

Moving on now to what D'Souza claims are myths:

The Flat Earth Fallacy: According to the atheist narrative, the medieval Christians all believed that the earth was flat until the brilliant scientists showed up in the modern era to prove that it was round. In reality, educated people in the Middle Ages knew that the earth was round. In fact, the ancient Greeks in the fifth century B.C. knew the earth was a globe.

Sorry, which "atheist" narrative has this erroneous opinion? It would have been helpful if D'Souza mentioned if it was Hitchens, Stenger, Harris, or Dawkins or someone else. It is certainly ought to be well known to any modern educated person that the Greeks knew that the Earth was round. Also, I could point out that the number of educated people in the Middle Ages was infinitesimal and if the idea that the Earth was round was limited to them, then the vast majority of people believed otherwise. Still if the Middle Ages is supposed to cover the whole period from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance, then it is not historically true that all educated people knew the Earth was round and more importantly, Christian religious authorities at the time explicitly endorsed the idea of a flat earth. William Manchester, in his excellent A World Lit Only by Fire points out that:

During the Dark Ages, literal interpretation of the Bible had led the Church to endorse the absurd geographical dicta of Topographia Christiana, a treatise by the sixth-century monk Cosmas. Cosmas, who had traveled to India and should have known better, held that the world was a flat, rectangular plane, surmounted by the sky, above which was heaven. Jerusalem was at the center of the rectangle, and nearby lay the Garden of Eden, irrigated by the four Rivers of Paradise. The sun, much smaller than the earth, revolved around ta conical mountain to the north. The monk's arguments were fragile, and not everyone accepted them -- the Venerable Bede, among others, insisted that earth was round -- but Cosmas scorned them. Rome, agreeing with him, rejected their protest as an affront to common sense.

Next, D'Souza sees fit to correct an apparently common misperception on Galileo:

The Experiment Galileo Didn’t Do: We read in textbooks about how Galileo went to the Tower of Pisa and dropped light and heavy bodies to the ground. He discovered that they hit the ground at the same time, thus refuting centuries of idle medieval theorizing. Actually Galileo didn’t do any such experiments; one of his students did. The student discovered what we all can discover by doing similar experiments ourselves: the heavy bodies hit the ground first! As historian of science Thomas Kuhn points out, it is only in the absence of air resistance that all bodies hit the ground at the same time.

As best as can be verified on the web, this is probably true, though there's some evidence to the contrary. However, it is an undisputed fact that Galileo did do experiments with inclined planes which, a background essay on a Nova documentary points out,

...allowed Galileo to accurately measure acceleration with simple instruments and ultimately to prove that, in the absence of other forces such as air resistance, gravity causes all falling objects to accelerate toward Earth at the same rate.

Regardless, I'm not entirely sure what that has to do with a "conflict between science and God."

I'm going to ignore the two examples about Darwin that D'Souza gives -- I think religious opposition to Darwin is just too well known at the moment to waste time on this. Let me focus instead on D'Souza's further points on Galileo.

Galileo Was the First to Prove Heliocentrism: Actually, Copernicus advanced the heliocentric theory that the sun, not the earth, is at the center, and that the earth goes around the sun. He did this more than half a century before Galileo. But Copernicus had no direct evidence, and he admitted that there were serious obstacles from experience that told against his theory. For instance, if the earth is moving rapidly, why don’t objects thrown up into the air land a considerable distance away from their starting point? Galileo defended heliocentrism, but one of his most prominent arguments was wrong. Galileo argued that the earth’s regular motion sloshes around the water in the oceans and explains the tides. In reality, tides have more to do with the moon’s gravitational force acting upon the earth.

Again, it would have been helpful if D'Souza had indicated any source for this supposed widespread myth. I certainly don't remember this from my reading of White's book. As far as I know anyone with a basic science education knows that, after the classical age, Copernicus was the source for heliocentrism. I certainly knew this back in high school. Apparently D'Souza is content to take the opinions of educated people in the Middle Ages but in modern times he relies on the uneducated. Furthermore, while it is true that Galileo's use of the tides to try to prove heliocentrism is usually regarded as his Big Mistake, it ought not to be judged so harshly:

Many critical questions are involved in this Galileo theory of the tides: first of all the fact that, rejecting any kind of attractive force as the real cause of the tides, this theory was, in Newtonian terms, an error. Nevertheless this judgment has for a long time impeded a historical evaluation of Galileo's theory. Only in some recent essays the question is examined with more care and is judged in the context of the physical and astronomical debate of the seventeenth century. To accuse Galileo of an excess of scientific realism, or even of presumption (as some authors have done), is to lose the possibility of historical reconstruction in which what counts is not the achievement of the future, but the efforts to reach them. Galileo was trying to build a scientific method in a world based more on books than on the nature, more on astrology than on astronomy, more on closing one's eyes than on observing through the telescope. That his theory of the tides did not survive the critical judgment of his successors is not germane to historical inquiry.

Furthermore, notwithstanding Galileo's mistake, Galileo, relying on his discoveries in physics (as in the inclined plane experiments described above), which took care of the existing scientific objections to Copernican theory, with the help of Kepler's astronomical ideas, and most importantly with the help of the new invention of the telescope did prove heliocentrism. Specifically, as David Harriman writing in The Intellectual Activist (Galileo: Inaugurating the Age of Reason, March-May 2000)points out:

The telescope enabled Galileo to observe the four moons of Jupiter, proving that not all astronomical bodies revolved around the Earth. In effect, Jupiter and its moons made up a miniature Copernican system...The implication was clear: Why shouldn't the entire solar system behave in a similar way, with the Earth and other planets orbiting the much larger sun?...
In the fall of 1610, he directed his telescope at Venus--and what he saw decisively refuted the Ptolemaic theory. According to Ptolemy, Venus was always located between the Earth and the sun; it was never on the opposite side of the sun. So as observed from Earth, we should always see less than half of the surface of Venus illuminated. But according to heliocentric theory, we should see a full cycle of phases. And this is precisely what Galileo saw, proving that Venus orbits the sun...

Two years later, in 1612, Galileo made yet another discovery that provided more evidence that the Earth, like Venus, moves around the sun. He found that in order to correctly describe the orbits of Jupiter's moons and predict the times of their eclipses, he had to account for the fact that the angle of viewing Jupiter changes as the Earth orbits the sun. In other words the geocentric theory could not explain the observed orbits, because to do so one must take into account the Earth's movement. This discovery not only refuted the old astronomy--it provided direct support for the most radical claim of the new heliocentric theory.

See also here. So, I'm afraid it is D'Souza who is being mythical here. Next "myth:"

The Church Dogmatically Opposed the New Science: In reality, the Church was the leading sponsor of the new science and Galileo himself was funded by the church. The leading astronomers of the time were Jesuit priests. They were open to Galileo’s theory but told him the evidence for it was inconclusive. This was the view of the greatest astronomer of the age, Tyco Brahe. The Church’s view of heliocentrism was hardly a dogmatic one. When Cardinal Bellarmine met with Galileo he said, “While experience tells us plainly that the earth is standing still, if there were a real proof that the sun is in the center of the universe…and that the sun goes not go round the earth but the earth round the sun, then we should have to proceed with great circumspection in explaining passages of scripture which appear to teach the contrary, and rather admit that we did not understand them than declare an opinion to be false which is proved to be true. But this is not a thing to be done in haste, and as for myself, I shall not believe that there are such proofs until they are shown to me.” Galileo had no such proofs.

Well, I already pointed out that Galileo did have such proofs. As far as the Church's view on heliocentrism, let's contrast what D'Souza quotes of Cardinal Bellarmine with the following quote that Harriman provides:

But to wish to affirm that the sun is really fixed in the center of the heavens and merely turns upon itself without traveling from east to west, and that the earth is situated in the third sphere and revolves very swiftly around the sun, is a very dangerous thing, not only by irritating all the theologians and scholastic philosophers, but also by injuring the holy faith and making the sacred Scripture false.

In light of subsequent events, I think Harriman's quote is much more relevant than D'Souza.

Finally, we have the most offensive parts of D'Souza's claims:

Galileo Was A Victim of Torture and Abuse: This is perhaps the most recurring motif, and yet it is entirely untrue. Galileo was treated by the church as a celebrity. When summoned by the Inquisition, he was housed in the grand Medici Villa in Rome. He attended receptions with the Pope and leading cardinals. Even after he was found guilty, he was first housed in a magnificent Episcopal palace and then placed under “house arrest” although he was permitted to visit his daughters in a nearby convent and to continue publishing scientific papers.

The Church Was Wrong To Convict Galileo of Heresy: But Galileo was neither charged nor convicted of heresy. He was charged with teaching heliocentrism in specific contravention of his own pledge not to do so. This is a charge on which Galileo was guilty. He had assured Cardinal Bellarmine that given the sensitivity of the issue, he would not publicly promote heliocentrism. Yet when a new pope was named, Galileo decided on his own to go back on his word. Asked about this in court, he said his Dialogue on the Two World Systems did not advocate heliocentrism. This is a flat-out untruth as anyone who reads Galileo’s book can plainly see. Even Galileo’s supporters, and there were many, found it difficult to defend him at this point.

No, Galileo was not tortured, though he was threatened with torture, which frankly, for someone merely arguing and publishing what he believes to be the scientific truth, is a profound injustice. As a result of his trial, Galileo was expressly forbidden from holding, defending, or teaching the heliocentric doctrine. Would D'Souza approve if an atheistic Communist regime placed a priest under house arrest and had forbid him from holding, defending, or teaching the theistic doctrine?

On the heresy issue, D'Souza is being disingenous, since heliocentrism was considered "heretical". In the 1633 indictment of Galileo we read:

Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei, of Florence, aged seventy years, were denounced in 1615, to this Holy Office, for holding as true a false doctrine taught by many, namely, that the sun is immovable in the center of the world, and that the earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion;...
therefore (this Holy Tribunal being desirous of providing against the disorder and mischief which were thence proceeding and increasing to the detriment of the Holy Faith) by the desire of his Holiness and the Most Emminent Lords, Cardinals of this supreme and universal Inquisition, the two propositions of the stability of the sun, and the motion of the earth, were qualified by the Theological Qualifiers as follows:

1. The proposition that the sun is in the center of the world and immovable from its place is absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical; because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scriptures.
2. The proposition that the earth is not the center of the world, nor immovable, but that it moves, and also with a diurnal action, is also absurd, philosophically false, and, theologically considered, at least erroneous in faith.
Therefore . . . , invoking the most holy name of our Lord Jesus Christ and of His Most Glorious Mother Mary, We pronounce this Our final sentence: We pronounce, judge, and declare, that you, the said Galileo . . . have rendered yourself vehemently suspected by this Holy Office of heresy, that is, of having believed and held the doctrine (which is false and contrary to the Holy and Divine Scriptures) that the sun is the center of the world, and that it does not move from east to west, and that the earth does move, and is not the center of the world...[emphasis added]

I'm not sure what more there is to add. D'Souza here is exposed a propagandist without concern for facts. The truth is that Galileo was a great scientist and the Church unjustly persecuted him. He was just one example of a long history of antagonism between religion and science.

New Hope in Physics

During my recent religious experiences I realized that, ironically, my views were for the first time in years consistent with what seems to pass for mainstream scientific opinion, at least in physics. For example, it now made sense that there was a Big Bang -- after all the Biblical view is that God created the universe. There are of course numerous religious and otherwise mystical people taking advantage of the philosophical state of physics ever since the early 20th century.

Objectivists have always taken a quite different line. Ayn Rand in 1934 wrote in her philosophic journal:

I have to study: philosophy, higher mathematics, physics, psychology.
As to physics--learn why mind and reason are so decried as impotent when coping with the universe. Isn't there some huge mistake there?
May 15, 1934, Journals of Ayn Rand, Ed. David Harriman, Dutton, p.72

Ayn Rand is of course referring to Quantum Mechanics and the bizarre interpretations that people to this very day continue to ascribe to it. As a result, even great physicists such as Richard Feynman are quoted saying:

What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourth year of graduate school... It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don't understand it. You see my physics students don't understand it. ... That is because I don't understand it. Nobody does.
(Feynman, Richard P. Nobel Lecture, 1966, 1918-1988, QED, The Strange Theory of Light and Matter)

Of course, the main problem for Objectivists with physics are the claims that seem to go against the principle of causality. The law, as Ayn Rand grasped it, was stated by the character John Galt in Atlas Shrugged:

The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action. All actions are caused by entities. The nature of an action is caused and determined by the nature of the entities that act; a thing cannot act in contradiction to its nature …

Perhaps even more important when it comes to quantum mechanics is the following elaboration that Leonard Peikoff gave in his essay The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy which is contained in Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology:

Since things are what they are, since everything that exists possesses a specific identity, nothing in reality can occur causelessly or by chance.

Physicists such as Werner Heisenberg with his Uncertain Principle certainly seem to beg to differ as the following excerpt from an exhibit at the American Institute of Physics shows:

Heisenberg realized that the uncertainty relations had profound implications. First, if we accept Heisenberg's argument that every concept has a meaning only in terms of the experiments used to measure it, we must agree that things that cannot be measured really have no meaning in physics. Thus, for instance, the path of a particle has no meaning beyond the precision with which it is observed. But a basic assumption of physics since Newton has been that a "real world" exists independently of us, regardless of whether or not we observe it. (This assumption did not go unchallenged, however, by some philsophers.) Heisenberg now argued that such concepts as orbits of electrons do not exist in nature unless and until we observe them.

There were also far-reaching implications for the concept of causality and the determinacy of past and future events. These are discussed on the page about the origins of uncertainty. Because the uncertainty relations are more than just mathematical relations, but have profound scientific and philosophical implications, physicists sometimes speak of the "uncertainty principle."

Dr. Peikoff has claimed for some decades that the "uncertainty principle" mentioned above, if by that is meant a denial of causality, cannot be true. Philosophy here has "veto power" over science. Science cannot deny its hierarchical roots -- all science depends on the law of causality. This would no different than any claim that Higher Mathematics (such as calculus for example) disproves basic arithmetic. It simply couldn't make any sense. Helpful in this regard was a paper authored apparently in the 1990s by Objectivist Physicist Dr. Hans Schantz, which unfortunately is no longer available online (though it is available in the web archives), that showed that it was the acceptance of modern philosophy by the founders of quantum mechanics such as Heisenberg and Bohr that led to their denial of causality and not any experiments.

But it's one thing to deny that physics implies a lack of causality and quite another to propose a new physical interpretation that explains all the experiments in a causal way. Many physicists have tried and failed to do this, beginning with Nobel Prize Winner Louis de Broglie and David Bohm who formulated an alternative causal interpretation of the physics:

In standard QM every particle can be observed either as a particle or as a wave. The wave is not physical, like water or sound waves, but a wave of probability in an abstract space. When a photon goes through one slit in a barrier, to register on a detection screen, it is a particle. When two slits are open, the photon behaves like a wave and it is impossible to tell which slit it goes through without destroying the wave. If many photons are sent through a barrier with two openings, each registers on the screen as a particle, but they display an interference pattern that could only be produced by a wave going through both slits. The photon is a mysterious thing. It is neither wave nor particle, but something that can act like one or the other depending on the measuring apparatus.

In Bohm's revolutionary theory, as refined by his associate Basil Hiley, particles are as real as golf balls. At all times they have precise, unfuzzy properties such as position and momentum, and precise paths through spacetime. The particles are never waves. Associated with each particle is an invisible, undetectable wave in a field which Bohm called the "quantum potential." Its pilot waves are real waves, not probability waves. They guide the particle's motion in a manner somewhat like the way a rivers wave guides the movement of a floating leaf, or, in a better analogy, the way radar information guides a ship. This quantum field, like the fields of gravity and electromagnetism, permeates all of spacetime, but unlike those fields its intensity doesn't diminish with distance. Also unlike other fields, it exerts no force on particles. Essentially it is a wave of undecaying information. [Skeptical Inquirer 5/1/2000 Martin Gardner]

The Broglie-Bohm approach seems promising but involves another problem that many also consider philosophically problematic -- the idea of non-locality. The way this issue is introduced usually involves a description of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) thought experiment that these three scientists proposed in order to point to the necessity for "hidden variables" to underlie the surface randomness of quantum mechanics:

The EPR paradox has several forms, but the easiest to understand was proposed by the late American physicist David Jacob Bohm (1917-1991). It involves a mysterious property of particles called spin. Spin is roughly similar to the motion of a top because it has angular momentum that always takes one of two forms variously called left or right, plus or minus, up or down. Imagine a quantum reaction that creates two identical particles A and B which go off in opposite directions. In standard QM each particle has its left and right spins "superposed." When particle A is measured for spin, its "wave function" (a formula specifying the probabilities that certain values will be found when a particle is measured for a given property) is said to "collapse" (vanish). The particle at once acquires either a left or right spin with equal probability.

Now for the magic. To conserve angular momentum, after A is measured and so acquires a definite spin, B must acquire the opposite spin. Assume that A, measured in Chicago, has a left spin. (Remember, it does not have a definite spin until measured.) On a planet in a distant galaxy a physicist measures B when it gets there. It is certain to have a right spin. How does B "know" the outcome of the measurement of A? Does A send some kind of telepathic signal to B, either simultaneously or at a speed equal to or exceeding the speed of light? Einstein ridiculed this as "spooky action at a distance." He believed that his proposed experiment, then only a thought experiment, proved that QM was not complete. There must be local "hidden variables" giving definite spins to both particles before one is measured.

The standard Copenhagen interpretation of QM, based on the opinions of Niels Bohr, is that regardless of how far apart A and B get, they remain a single quantum system with a single wave function. When A is measured, the entire system's wave function vanishes and the two particles simultaneously acquire opposite spins. The particles are said to be "correlated," or in more recent terminology, "entangled."

Does this resolve the paradox? It does not. The mystery remains of how A and B can stay entangled when they are light-years apart unless there is some kind of connection between them that allows information to go from A to B.

Experiments have been conducted that appear to confirm this non-locality and it is now generally assumed to be a feature of nature regardless of which interpretation one puts on quantum mechanics.

Nevertheless, one physicist has attempted to propose a local, causal alternative physical theory that explains the quantum mechanical world. Dr. Lewis Little proposes the Theory of Elementary Waves (TEW). Dr. Little also proposes that both waves and particles exists, however, the particles follow waves that originate from a direction opposite to the particle's motion. These "reverse waves" are really a kind of flux. From chapter 1 of Little's upcoming book:

To summarize, the reverse wave theory posits that the physical universe
consists of both waves/fluxes and particles, which are separate objects. These
objects do not transform into one another nor are they the same object in
different states. The waves/fluxes exist at all times; they interact in much the
same manner as quantum waves in current theory. Particles are determined
in their dynamics by the waves/fluxes; but it is only the reverse wave, coming
from any detector (as viewed in the frame of that detector), that a¤ects a
particle that will be observed by that detector.

Because the waves/fluxes exist as separate objects and on the same level
as the elementary particles, I have chosen to call them “elementary waves”,
and I will refer to the flux as the “elementary flux”. [p.39]

At first there seemed to be much excitement within the Objectivist community about Little's ideas. I was certainly among those excited when I first heard about it. The late Objectivist Physicist Stephen Speicher endorsed it and wrote a non-technical summary, David Harriman initially endorsed it in his lecture series The Philosophic Corruption of Physics, and Australian radio broadcaster Prodos provided charts and interviews to further support the ideas.

Then came the dissenters. Physicists Travis Norsen and Eric Dennis pointed out that since TEW fails to explain the latest experiments testing for superluminal or non-local effects. Norsen wrote:

Despite the mistaken claims of TEW's advocates to the contrary, the [experimental] results combined with Bell's theorem prove that no purely local description is possible. These experiments constitute a direct observation of a new type of (superluminal) causation.

Bell's theorem, in the simplest terms can be stated as follows:

no physical theory which is realistic as well as local in a specified sense can reproduce all of the statistical predictions of quantum mechanics [Oxford PhysJoy Christian]

David Harriman released a statement retracting his endorsement of TEW as a result of the arguments made by Norsen, Dennis, and others for for existence of non-local interactions. As Harriman put it:

TEW is a local theory, and therefore it contradicts the results of these experiments. Furthermore, locality is fundamental to Little's theory—to renounce locality is to reject TEW.

Both Norsen and Dennis endorsed the Bohm approach as most promising in providing a causal, yet non-local description of the physics involved. Stephen Speicher and others continued to support TEW and argue that nonlocality involves a contradiction and thus is subject to the same philosophical veto that a denial of causality would be. Betsy Speicher, long time Objectivist and wife of Stephen, published a short essay that argues against nonlocality or "instantaneous action":

...a concept like an "instantaneous action" is metaphysically invalid. Because such an action has no duration, it has no identity, and thus it cannot really exist. It certainly cannot be the underlying metaphysical assumption of a true scientific theory that correctly describes the real world.

I have to say I find this argument quite convincing but feel frustrated by the fact that here is yet another area where seemingly accepted scientific opinion clashes with Objectivism. Norsen has continued to convince other Objectivists including, it seems, Harry Binswanger that nonlocality is real and must be accepted.

Therefore it is somewhat surprising to find the following (unfortunately the article is only available by subscription) in the November 3 issue of NewScientist magazine. Oxford Physicist Joy Christian

...claims that physicists' supposed proofs of the impossibility of more "realistic" theories rest on false assumptions and so don't prove much at all.
"Contrary to the received wisdom," he says, "quantum theory doesn't rule out the possibility of a deeper theory, even one that might be deterministic."

In his latest paper Christian writes:

Contrary to the received wisdom, Bell’s theorem is not a threat to local realism. Neither is it a curb on determinism. The counterexample constructed in the [Dr. Christian's original paper G.R.] provides a fully deterministic, common cause explanation of the EPR-Bohm correlations. In fact, it is hard to imagine a more simple common cause than the one on which the counterexample is based—namely, the intrinsic freedom of choice in the initial orientation of the orthogonal directions in the Euclidean space. In the present paper we have further consolidated the conclusions of [the original paper] by demonstrating that the exact, locally causal model for the EPR-Bohm correlations constructed therein satisfies at least eight essential requirements, arising from either the predictions of quantum mechanics or the premises of Bell’s theorem. These requirements, as listed in the Introduction, include the locality condition of Bell, and hence by respecting them our model fully endorses the view that the quantum mechanical description of reality is incomplete. Moreover, since this view is reinforced by three different local realistic derivations of the violations of the CHSH inequality [a variation on the Bell inequality G.R.], and since all three of them agree with the corresponding predictions of quantum mechanics in quantitatively precise manner, the statistical interpretation of the entangled singlet state becomes the most natural interpretation of this state, as anticipated by Einstein. It is therefore hoped that—strengthened by the results of the present paper—the counterexample of [original paper G.R.]would rejuvenate the search for a unified, locally causal basis for the whole of physics, as envisaged by Einstein.

The actual resolution that Christian offers involves changing the mathematics of Bell's theorem with something called Clifford Algebra of which I am ignorant. Sorely lacking in everything I've read about Dr. Christian's ideas is a physical description of quantum mechanics as a local, deterministic theory. Would it be at all similar to TEW? I guess that remains to be seen. But Christian's papers, along with the recent admission that the Big Bang theory is far from experimentally established give room for some hope that perhaps Objectivists will be finally be able to claim that far from contradicting science, the latest scientific theories support what Objectivism has been saying all along.

Update 11/18/2007 -- Added link Dr. Hans Schantz paper on Quantum Mechanics
Update 10/24/2008 -- Per Lewis Little's request changed description "Objectivist physicist" to "physicist"

The Good: The Objective Standard

I recently had the privilege to attend and enjoy Tara Smith's talk on Justice in Irvine where I work. The talk was excellent but ironically it was primarily during the Q&A that Dr. Smith was able to put increased emphasis on the greater need to praise the good. Of course, it is important to identify and judge evil but as anybody who has studied Objectivism in some detail knows, evil is metaphysically impotent -- it is far more important to express appreciation to the good people one encounters as they are the life-givers. Regular readers of this blog know that I spend most of my time criticising what's wrong with the culture. In this post I intend to do the opposite.

I have commented on the new journal The Objective Standard (TOS) briefly on a previous occasion but it deserves a more thorough review. So following in the footsteps of Mike of The Primacy of the Awesome blog, here are my comments on the premiere issue of TOS. I will begin by repeating my earlier comment that "the issue clearly represents a new milestone in Objectivist publications in every aspect." The professional look of journal deserves high praise -- finally an Objectivist publication that does not look like a pamphlet or newsletter. But let me focus on content as that is what's most important. Here there are five excellent essays and I'll take them each in turn.

Craig Biddle has written an elegant introduction to the philosophy behind the journal -- Ayn Rand's Objectivism -- in his essay Introducing The Objective Standard. He labors to distinguish Objectivism from its main philosophical rivals on both the right and the left and lays out an exciting future for the journal. Previous readers of his excellent book Loving Life will once again enjoy his lucid writing style and essentialized presentation of the ideas that will guide the journal.

Director of the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) Yaron Brook and ARI Junior Fellow Alex Epstein finally put into print the position on the "War on Terror" that Dr. Brook has discussed in several previous talks and op-eds in their essay "Just War Theory vs. American Self-Defense." Now there is a single place where people can see the complete statement of ARI's position on the war with many questions and sub-issues thoroughly addressed, including such issues frequently in the news as the treatment of prisoners of war. The essay is an inspiring example of the power of ideas in action and argues forcefully (and in my opinion successfully) that the current effort allegedly put forth to defend us is misguided and inadequate. An alternative approach to fighting that will lead us to victory is also presented.

After war and peace, we move to education with Lisa VanDamme's enlightening essay "The Hierarchy of Education: The Most Neglected Issue in Education." Mrs. VanDamme is owner and director of the VanDamme Academy, a private school in Laguna Hills, where I might mention my daughter will start school in the fall. Since her experience with homeschooling, VanDamme has been sharpening and developing her views on education, based on the foundation provided in Leonard Peikoff's classic set of lectures "The Philosophy of Education." The result is a fascinating insight into an essential structural component of teaching almost completely overlooked by most of today's educators -- the issue of hierarchy. VanDamme describes her approach to teaching the subjects of science, literature, and history, and where she differs with Montessori education, giving many examples to clearly illustrate her points. In her essay we again see the power of ideas in the application of Objectivist epistemology and its idea of the hierarchical nature of knowledge to issues in education.

As someone who has studied physics in college, I am particularly enthusiastic about David Harriman's essay "Enlightenment Science and Its Fall." Excerpted from chapter 5 of Mr. Harriman's upcoming book The Anti-Copernican Revolution, the essay discusses some of the great scientists and mathematicians of the Enlightenment, including such figures as Euler, Stephen Gray, Charles DuFay, and, of course, Benjamin Franklin, as well as some of the intellectual villains at the time who rejected the greatness and achievements of the age, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and, of course, Immanuel Kant, as well as the scientists they both influenced. The result is a fascinating story of both the rise and promise of enlightenment science and its subsequent corruption as a result of philosophy. If this essay is representative, then I, for one, can't wait until Harriman's book is published.

Finally, we have ARI junior fellow Elan Journo's interesting piece on "Exposing Anti-Muslim 'Conspiracies'" where he discusses the unfortunate paranoid delusions prevalent in the Muslim world. Relying on the detailed coverage of conspiracy theories in Daniel Pipes's book The Hidden Hand, Journo takes the reader on a disturbing journey through the irrational world of the Middle East. Journo argues that the bizarre beliefs he sites present ample depressing evidence of the corrupting influence of religious ideas on the local culture and continue to present a threat to the more civilized world.

To have so many high quality essays in a single journal is indeed a rare thing. I am already eagerly awaiting the next issue.