[extropy-chat] Zen Garden

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From: "Hara Ra"

> You mean the HeiZenberg principle?

According to W.Pauli (1933) that principle is
pure Zen, since nobody knows exactly
what it means. It seems that even
HeiZenberg - not the best authority
about his own principle - used different
words, meaning different things.

Ungenauigheit = inexactness
Unbekanntheit = unknowability
Unsicherheit = uncertainty
Unbestimmtheit = indeterminacy

Present Zen-theorists are still debating on:
- Do uncertainty relations apply to an _individual_ system
  or just to _ensembles_ (all in the same state)?
- Do u.r. really imply a mere limitation on making certain
  kinds of measurements _simultaneously_?
- Do u.r. imply a limitation on the possible
  _knowledge_ obtainable about a system? And whose knowledge?
- Do u.r. imply a limitation on the _properties_
  that can be ascribed to a quantum system?
- Do u.r. imply a real perturbation of a _pre-existing_
  physical state of a non commuting observable?
- And many more Zen koans!

s.

"That which is physically unique cannot be separated from the observer
anymore - and therefore falls through the net of physics. The individual
case is occasion and not causa. I am inclined to see in this "occasio" -
which includes the observer and his choice of the experimental setup and
procedure - "revenue" of the "anima mundi" (of course in "changed shape")
that was pushed aside in the 17th century. La donna é mobile - also the
anima mundi and the occasio."
- W. Pauli
Pauli Letter Collection, CERN, Geneva  9992.063, published in K. V.
Laurikainen: Wolfgang Pauli and Philosophy. Gesnerus 41, (1984) 225-227