Customer Reviews

Unconscious Quantum

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Stenger is a physicist completely at home in contemporary mathematical physics, yet incurably curious about the deeper philosophical issues brought up by quantum mechanics. I have read many books attempting to explain quantum mechanics to the layman and I consider this the most careful and enlightening--also quite up to date (even in the year 2000).

The problems arising around quantum mechanics can be analyzed using the famous Bell equation, which Stenger develops extremely nicely (although it helps to be able to read the simple algebra in the optional 'boxes'). The violation of Bell's inequality, he argues (drawing on many technical papers and books) violates either Determinism + Locality or Separability + Locality, or Completeness + Locality (all terms well defined in the book). He argues strongly that quantum mechanics does not violate Locality itself,which Stenger takes as very important to maintain.

Stenger presents the classical Copenhagen interpretation of the collapse of the wave function, as well as Bohm's hidden variable interpretation, the many-worlds interpretation, and the most recent (and to my mind satisfying) decoherence approach.

The Unconscious Quantum's main message is that modern physics provides absolutely no support for New Age and more traditionally religious notions of supernaturalism. Stenger is refreshing in not denying the existence of spirituality, but holding that the world of spirituality does not, as far as we know, intersect the natural world described in the natural sciences. "While I cannot bring myself to worship a hypothesis," he notes, "I have no wish to disparage those who do. I simply ask that they not assume that science, in its current state, provides any buttress for their belief..."

This does not mean Stenger supports New Age guruism. In a truly beautiful passage he says, "Anyone listening to New Age gurus and modern Christian preachers cannot miss the emphasis on the individual finding easy gratification, rather than sacrificing and selflessly laboring for a better world. Holisitic philosophy is the perfect self-delusion for the spointed brat of any age, all decked out in the latest fashion, who loves to talk about solving the problems of the world but has no intention of sweating a drop in acheiving this noble goal."

Dr. Stenger can be informative and even witty but ultimately I'd have to say this book is more than a little misleading. Other reviewers have walked away with the notion that quantum mechanics "makes perfect sense", something few thoughtful physicists would be comfortable saying. I'm an atheist who has no patience with New Age writers but Stenger seems to be almost obssessively on guard against any hint of mysticism, weirdness or even ambiguity. The book is published by an off-shoot of the magazine SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, and it shares that publication's tendency to strike an almost holier-than-thou tone -- or I should say a "rationaler-than-thou" tone. Stenger does too much sneering and dismissing. He tries to buffalo his readers by assuring them that the mathematics of quantum mechanics isn't weird -- just the WORDS are. That's a weak argument at best. Applied mathematics doesn't usually lead to paradoxical physical concepts. Stenger's own preferred interpretation of QM involves recognizing that the relativistic version of the Schrodinger equation has solutions that imply backward travel in time. In other words, he capitalizes on the weirdness implicit in the purportedly unweird mathematics (Traditionally the "reverse" solutions are ignored.) Incidentally, Stenger argues that time-travel on a sub-atomic scale somehow doesn't even qualify as weird -- just counter-intuitive. That, apparently, is a more rational word than "weird".

Stenger repeatedly belittles alternate interpretations of QM and points out that functionally all serious interpretations are the same. This means that the interpretations he favors have no more going for them technically than the ones he derides. His objections are as much philosophical as they are scientific -- and yet thoughout the book he is contemptuous of philosophical considerations. He finds holistic hidden variables implausible but then acknowleges (very much in passing) that his time-travel variation of QM is also not accepted by most physicists. Apparently one's philosophical perspective is more important than Stenger wants to admit. He even goes so far as to say that most practicing physicists don't think at all about philosophic stuff -- so it can't be very important. That's another misrepresentation. Many, maybe most, physicists simply memorize the formalisms of their profession and contribute little to its development. The giants of QM, on the other hand, were frequently aware of and intrigued by the implications of their formalisms. John Bell, a man Stenger admires, spent his career encouraging scientists to more closely examine the assumptions of the Copenhagen interpretation -- and he made a hallmark contribution to QM because of his philosophical curiosity.

Stenger seems always on edge at the thought of holism and this leads to another of the book's repeated contradictions. His suggestion that particles from the future travel back to the past and influence the present seems pretty darned "holistic" to me. (That's not to say it couldn't be true.) Why is spatial holism metaphysical while temporal holism merely counter-intuitive? Both ideas have theoretical justifications and neither has significant empirical support. Why should only one of these theories be considered respectable? Why shouldn't both be further developed?

Decoherence is an intriguing idea but also seems to have more than a tinge of holism about it. (Sub-atomic particles, the theory says, have an existence because of each other. What collapses all those mysterious wave functions [or rather, what renders collapse unneccessary] is the interactive nature of reality itself. The theory still seems to suggest -- like its precusor interpretation, Copenhagen -- that if taken individually particles don't always precisely exist.)

Contrast Brian Greene's new book with this one. Green has a deep appreciation for De Broglie-Bohm hidden variables, while by no means accepting that the theory is on the right track. He admires decoherence but recognizes that to date it's still begging a few questions. Also consider John Gribbin's Q IS FOR QUANTUM. It's a basic, excellent and nuanced overview of the field in the form of an encyclopedia. Gribbin is fair to all serious interpretations of QM, while making his own preferences clear. He doesn't slight the partly-philosophical motivation for those preferences.

Lastly, let me again stress that the weirdness of QM is not purely, or even largely, a useless metaphysical misconception. Technicians have forced a single atom to occupy two separate places at the same moment. As Stan Lee would put it, "Nuff said."

Contrary to some of the other reviews, I think this is a pretty good book. Let me point out that my own background is astrophysics (undergrad) and mathematics (grad). Stenger does a creditable job of laying out the major philosophical issues of quantum theory. He has included some sidebars for the more mathematically sophisticated. My own reading left me feeling that Stenger's aim is primarily to urge readers to approach any extrapolation from quantum facts to quantum ontologies with a great deal of skepticism. Many people have construed issues of measurement to mean that 'mind' collapses wave functions. Stenger points out that 'mind' is not easily defined, is likely an emergent property of base matter, and suggests we stop reverting to Cartesian dualism every time things get confused. He discusses De Broglie and Bohm's guiding field, and points out that regardless of its correctness, it provides a viable alternative ontology, so clearly the mystical approach is not a foregone conclusion.
The book could be better. It would be nice if he spent a bit more time discussing some of the confusion regarding 'mind', but I think he has done a good job of laying out the basic issues for the well-educated lay person, and of urging skepticism before seizing upon strange phenomena as a justification for one's metaphysics.

This book is a great companion to Dancing Wu Li Masters. Where Dancing Wu Li Masters gives a good, somewhat mystical overview of quantum physics and the history of its development, The Unconscious Quantum shows that people who want to understand quantum physics need not resort to mysticism or Eastern philosophy. While Stenger does address mystical interpretations when summarizing the history of quantum physics, he concludes by offering a logical, consistent, non-mystical paradigm.

Stenger acknowledges that the microworld of quanta cannot be viewed in the same way as the macroworld of concrete objects that make up our everyday experience. However, if people are willing to suspend their everyday intuition and accept some very logical but unintuitive concepts, like time symmetry and decoherence, then the quantum world makes perfect sense without mastering Zen or contemplating your navel.

Stenger also shoots down the ideas of consciousness directly affecting the physical world, and faster-than-light communication between quantum particles. He explains the EPR "paradox" and other experiments which spawned these interpretations, and how they can easily be resolved using the simple but unintuitive concepts already mentioned.

The text is written for the science amateur, and requires little background knowledge, but some persistence with technical concepts (you may have to read a few parts twice to get the idea). Supporting equations are included in boxes, separate from the text. The text stands alone, but mathaholics are welcome to indulge themselves in the formulae. The first six chapters are the most technical, but it gets much easier after that, and it's definitely worth it for anbody who wants a genuine understanding of quantum physics, sans the mystical rhetoric that pervades most pop literature on the subject.

I enjoyed this book immensely. If you read The Dancing Wu Li Masters, then you must read this book as well. It will bring you back down (this is a good thing).

Mr. Stenger writes very clearly and puts forth a good dialogue about what is and is not quantum physics. Before jumping on the New Age quantum, "science and Eatern mysticism are the same" bandwagon, be certain you are educated on the story from someone who lives it. Mr. Stenger lives quantum physics.

While the language is different, the goal is the same -- Mr. Stenger is merely seeking truth. Truth does not conform to the way we wish, no matter how hard we try. This book is one way to make certain that we keep the truth we think we have in check.

A deep but essentially non mathematical overview of the progression of scientific theories relating to Quantum Physics. The thesis of the book was to refute the popular idea that recent discoveries in Quantum Mechanics have merged with and in fact provide a scientific support for metaphysical/religious philosophies. This to me was the less interesting part of the book. IN making his arguments Stenger takes the reader through a chronological history of the major discoveries in Quantum Physics. Although very deep for someone not trained in this discipline it is mostly understandable. The non mathematical reader is left hanging in a few places but overall one emerges with a general understanding of the important debates of the day in this field

This is a refreshing alternative to the consciousness nonsense and second-hand explanations by reporters. Stenger is also willing to offer some solid science by including an occasional wquation and even a fundamental proof. Understanding the text does not require understanding the proof or even an equation, but he is aiming for educated and hopefully intelligent readers. Many of the alternative (in the pejorative sense) books take a full page to describe a 1-line equation in ambiguous words; you will find little ambiguity and no euphemisms or obfuscation here.

On the other hand, there are some loose ends and the major themes are not clearly justified. He has indicated that his next book, Timeless Reality (available for pre-order now), will fill in the holes as well as presenting his argument that a creation event is not necessary.

The previous reviewer failed to notice that the unexpected phenomena predicted by quantum mechanics have been proven to exist many times, while no paranormal phenomenon or miracle has even been proven despite a million dollar reward. The a priori probability of this coincidence is about the same as that for the random selection of parameters for a universe kije ours. Thus we would be even, except that our universe is one of many and Stenger points out that ours may not be so special as we have been led to believe.

If money is a factor, you may want to buy Timeless Reality and then see if you still need this book.

I didn't necessarily agree with some of Stenger's arguments, but thought he explained a number of things in Quantum theory that I couldn't grasp from other authors. He obviously doesn't understand the mystical wisdom traditions, but does an entertaining job debunking New Age quantum mythology. He definitely made me think and sharpen my own views. Sure he's biased, but who isn't? I always read a book as the perspective relative to the author. Those who get all bent out of shape or emotionally reactive have some of their own unconscious issues to explore. I gave it 4 stars, because I thought the modern physics information was exceptionally clear and valuable to my own literature research on this topic.

Stenger is a physicist completely at home in contemporary mathematical physics, yet incurably curious about the deeper philosophical issues brought up by quantum mechanics. I have read many books attempting to explain quantum mechanics to the layman and I consider this the most careful and enlightening--also quite up to date (even in the year 2000).

The problems arising around quantum mechanics can be analyzed using the famous Bell equation, which Stenger develops extremely nicely (although it helps to be able to read the simple algebra in the optional 'boxes'). The violation of Bell's inequality, he argues (drawing on many technical papers and books) violates either Determinism + Locality or Separability + Locality, or Completeness + Locality (all terms well defined in the book). He argues strongly that quantum mechanics does not violate Locality itself,which Stenger takes as very important to maintain.

Stenger presents the classical Copenhagen interpretation of the collapse of the wave function, as well as Bohm's hidden variable interpretation, the many-worlds interpretation, and the most recent (and to my mind satisfying) decoherence approach.

The Unconscious Quantum's main message is that modern physics provides absolutely no support for New Age and more traditionally religious notions of supernaturalism. Stenger is refreshing in not denying the existence of spirituality, but holding that the world of spirituality does not, as far as we know, intersect the natural world described in the natural sciences. "While I cannot bring myself to worship a hypothesis," he notes, "I have no wish to disparage those who do. I simply ask that they not assume that science, in its current state, provides any buttress for their belief..."

This does not mean Stenger supports New Age guruism. In a truly beautiful passage he says, "Anyone listening to New Age gurus and modern Christian preachers cannot miss the emphasis on the individual finding easy gratification, rather than sacrificing and selflessly laboring for a better world. Holisitic philosophy is the perfect self-delusion for the spointed brat of any age, all decked out in the latest fashion, who loves to talk about solving the problems of the world but has no intention of sweating a drop in acheiving this noble goal."

This book clears up all of the nonsense and mysticism surrounding quantum mechanics, and its mis-interpretation by non-scientists. As he shows, the world is a rational place after all.