A Kaleidoscopic Relational Reality

In quantum theory and its interpretations the classical concept of “object” would dissolve into a quasi interpretationist “rainbow reality” (Herbert 1985)—or even “kaleidoscopic” (Lenk 1995, 2003 Chap.

H. Lenk (s)

Department of Philosophy, University of Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany

e-mail: hans.lenk@philosophie.uni-karlsruhe.de

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 257

E. Agazzi (ed.), Varieties of Scientific Realism,

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51608-0_14 descriptions. In the last analysis, it seems indeed that not only quantum “objects” (“quones”, Herbert) have such a character of “rainbow” or “kaleidoscope” reality,^[81] but also everyday objects of our usual perception of and action with things and by their respective projections regarding their kinds, forms and schemes. Mutatis mutandis the same applies to perceiving and conceiving events—indeed for any “grasping” whatsoever of “objects”, be they real or virtual.. Even the description and grasping of dynamical and comprehensive whole systems are dependent on extant possibilities of action and interpretations (as, e.g., in quantum theory the preparation of situations, i.e., of measurements and observations, the decision regarding these preparations and actions on the respective manipulation and delineation of the situation). But holistic interpretations are indeed interpretations proper, i.e., human-made constructs necessary even for an objective description as for any agent-related or subjective projection in the first place.

Any recognition or identification of objects or events as “entities” confronting us is certainly interpretation-dependent, essentially co-constituted or in part influenced by schematic and structural modeling and the respective modeling activities, even though they are impregnated in the above-mentioned sense, i.e., co-determined by what can be called “world factors”.

In the following paragraphs I would like further to dwell on such epistemo­logical generalizations of this insight about the preparation of situations and mea­surements as well as observation procedures in but not only in quantum mechanics. Primas (1983, 254ff) would even go much further and say that not only the Cartesian split of subject and object has to be given up in (a philosophy of) physics, but even the old dream of a monistic natural science consisting in explicitly describing and explaining something as occurring totally outside of the subject and being as well as changing independently of it—at least with regard to describing the engendering process of phenomena and any observational “grasping”. Indeed, the dream of a purely mechanistic natural science being independent of any delineation, modeling, structuring, theoretical integration etc. seems to be outdated after Primas. (But this to my mind does not at all contradict in any sense the methodological(ly) indispensable objectivity and inter-subjectivity in natural science and also not the respective realism of sorts.)

“The theory of entangled systems leads us to a new holistic seeing” of the things of the world “which was alien to classical physics and its systems theory” (Primas, ibid. 258): “The world is no longer seen as an aggregation of particular mutually interacting things existing just for themselves, but as a unity in which objects only exist in connection with their relationships to the observer and his models and abstractions. There is no possibility of describing phenomena without prejudice” and (in this strong or strict sense) totally “objectively”, we cannot “grasp” them as such without taking or having chosen a specific perspective.

Rather interestingly Primas even infers: “Reality is a relationship between observer and the observed” (ibid.). (But what is that beast “the observed” without an(y) interpretative, if virtual, “grasping” again?) Instead, one can say that “grasping” reality is inevitably scheme-bound and thus interpretation-impregnated. Here, an impregnation is defined as necessarily being or at least implying loosely speaking a sort of “impact” of a “world factor” but is indeed, methodologically speaking, an interpretative approach, i.e., epistemologically as well as neuro-physiologically speaking, dependent on the activation of schemes. This is an important statement for pragmatic interpretative realism (of course of an indirect provenance). Sentences about matter would always be statements about relation­ships, about “our relationships toward the external world; the laws of the natural sciences are (basically, H.Lj not (just, H.Lj laws of nature, but orders summoning (instructions for) actions to the natural scientists” (ibid. 258). Phenomena are but “context-dependent” and interpretation-laden, i.e., indeed dependent on a special choice of a perspective required by any observation and measurement whatsoever. This choice of perspectives in some sense—at least methodologically speaking as an abstract structure of necessary predeterminations or prior or implied decisions— is certainly also (to be interpreted as) an action. In the same vein, performing, e.g., an observational measurement would also signify an (however minute) intervention into the system displaying more or less important consequences impacting or modifying the state of the system.

“Only the totality of all complementary descriptions would represent the unseparated reality” (Primas, ibid. 258). Whatever this “unseparated reality” may be and the term may designate or mean, in any case the conception is a construct, an idea to be conceived of integrating all wholes or totalities of potential descriptions in a unitary (metaphoric) picture.

According to Lockwood the very consciousness itself would select these per­spectives, would “designate” them; but I would not like to understand this in any ontological sense or supposition. Important is the methodological aspect: We necessarily need something like a starting base or take-off point given by a sort of interpretational perspective either pragmatically, at times tentatively given by our modes of seeing and understanding as mediated by our culture and language or assumed by a conscious choice: The “real” is (part and parcel, process and prior prompting of) impregnation. (More exactly, the “grasping” of the real is the result of impregnation processes.^[82]).

All this corresponds in a certain sense—mutatis mutandis—with the scheme-interpretational perspective as developed here. There is only one important difference: I do not relate directly to consciousness and its faculties, but I would like to understand the connections rather in a methodological or even (quasi) tran­scendental manner—as a necessary interconnection of conditions. Lockwood so to speak understands this probably horizontally: The choice, e.g., to measure the momentum of one of pairwise entangled electrons would restrict and determine the correlated magnitude on the side of the other electron (may however be observed by another observer). This is so to speak a horizontal relativization of states.

The perspectivistic, interpretation-constructivistic understanding of the quantum-mechanical measurement problem does of course not lead to a solution of this problem on the object-level (in quantum theory itself) nor even just in an experimental-methodical manner, but nevertheless it would put the whole situation in regard to constituting and perceiving of objects and their delineations in everyday contexts in a new perspective. By this, of course, the interpretation of quantum-mechanical entities and of the measurement problem are also to be con­sidered in a new light: The situation so to speak turns around as more generally illustrated. On the other hand, by this now changed relationship between macro- and micro-objects—amounting to a veritable turnabout—also the presuppositions, perspectives and methodological attention regarding micro-objects themselves will be modified in general, too. It is then not thus extraordinary any more if perspectival and interpretation- or construct-bound modes of “grasping” micro-entities are so to speak “read” into micro-entities, since a respective understanding is already at hand in mesocosmic interpretations of objects and reality. These insights therefore may be used from a double vantage point: First for a modified and novel construct-interpretationist conception of micro-entities implying consequences regarding the overlapping problem in quantum theory and secondly for the gen­eralization of respective topics engendering constructs under perspectival or scheme-interpretational preconditions in usual mesocosmic everyday world situa- tions—or rather in a respective epistemological interpretation on a higher level.

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