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Paradoxes of Measurement
Author(s) -
HEELAN PATRICK A.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2003.tb06090.x
Subject(s) - observer (physics) , epistemology , phenomenology (philosophy) , quantum entanglement , perception , transcendental number , complementarity (molecular biology) , quantum measurement , object (grammar) , quantum , psychology , constitution , theoretical physics , philosophy , physics , computer science , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence , political science , biology , law , genetics
A bstract : Applying Husserl's Eidetic Phenomenology to the transcendental structure (or ‘phenomenological reduction’) of scientific data ‘given’ in measurement to a first‐person individual observer (the experimenter, S 1 ) and a related third‐person individual observer (the observer of the measurement process, S 3 ), and comparing the outcomes, two paradoxical theses, ‘paradoxes of measurement,’ are derived. Thesis I: classical science necessarily entails ‘complementarity,’‘uncertainty relations,’ and the ‘entanglement’ of observers and the data they observe. This situation is analogous in structure to that of quantum physics. Thesis II: a quantum object is a physical object with footprints in the perceptual world, but lacking a space‐time ‘body’; it exists ontologically before the constitution of the perceptual world of the laboratory.