Quantum Cybernetics: Toward a Unification of Relativity and Quantum Theory via Circularly Causal Modeling

Citation

Andrew, A.M. (2002), "Quantum Cybernetics: Toward a Unification of Relativity and Quantum Theory via Circularly Causal Modeling", Kybernetes, Vol. 31 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.2002.06731aae.002

Quantum Cybernetics: Toward a Unification of Relativity and Quantum Theory via Circularly Causal Modeling

Quantum Cybernetics: Toward a Unification of Relativity and Quantum Theory via Circularly Causal Modeling

Gerhard GrössingSpringerNew York2000ISBN 0-387-98960-9xi + 153 pp.Hardcover, £34.00

This little book extends the impact of Cybernetics into a region where it is not usually thought to apply. It is useful to mention at the outset two things it does not do. One is to contribute, except negatively by implication, to the ongoing debate on a possible connection between quantum mechanics and consciousness. Although Penrose is quoted, the word "consciousness" does not appear, and it is stated on page 54 that the treatment is based on the version of quantum theory associated with de Bfoglie and Bohm which is "realistic" in that systems are held to exist independent of the human observer.

The other thing the book does not do is to frame its arguments in terms of simple mathematics that would allow them to be accessible to a wide audience. Terms like "simple" and "wide" are of course relative, but the publicity leaflets about the book, and the notes on its back cover, are misleading in this respect. The treatment may be simple compared to the presentation in original papers, and something can be gleaned by reading the text while ignoring the equations, but there is no escaping the fact that the book is essentially mathematical, with more than a hundred equations in each of the first two chapters and more to come later on. The equations include such things as the "nabla" operator (printed as an inverted capital Delta) and its "nabla-squared" version as it appears in the usual formulation of Schrödinger's wave equation, and the "squabla" operator printed as a square.

These mathematical constructs appear without preliminaries or explanation (except that "squabla" is expanded on page 46). It is easy to feel that, even for a reader with some mathematical background, the presentation is not as reader- friendly as it could be made by, for example, the inclusion of a list of symbols with interpretations.

As the second part of the title indicates, the purpose is to reconcile the apparent contradiction between the theory of relativity and quantum theory, where the former is usually thought to the impossibility of transmitting information faster than the speed of light while the latter requires action at a distance that is instantaneous or nearly so. The solution offered is eybernetie insofar as it requires a circular chain of causation, in which the motion of particles is guided by a quantum potential which is itself caused by the presence of the particles and has wavelike properties determined by the enclosure. The shape of the enclosure can include a barrier with the twin slits of a diffraction experiment and the diffraction pattern is preformed in quantum potential which then guides the particles.

There is much more to the theory than this, of course, and the basic ideas of the Special Theory of Relativity are revised to suggest that the universal constant equal to the square of the velocity of light in a vacuum can usefully be seen as the product of two velocities, one of them superluminal and applicable to transmissions within the quantum potential field and the other subliminal and associated with "waves of simultaneity" in one space-time frame corresponding to events that are simultaneous in another frame. It is also pointed out that the Special Theory does not deny the existence of a fixed standard frame of reference, or of an aether, though it suggests that physical laws conspire to prevent us from having access to them. A feature of the new treatment is reintroduetion of the idea of an aether.

The argument that quantum theory should allow near-instantaneous communication is referred to as the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) experiment, or as Einstein's "spooky action at a distance". Practical experiments to test the hypothesis are described, some of them accomplished and some proposed. One of them confirms that where a wave packet is divided by a beam-splitter and then the two parts are recombine& there is interference even where one of the components has been delayed so that there is no time-overlap of the physical waves. This supports the view that phase information is conveyed separately by the quantum potential field. Elsewhere in the book this field is likened to the radio signal controlling a ship on automatic pilot, such that the shape of the field, irrespective within limits of its strength, guides the movement (of the ship or particle).

The occurrence of superluminal communication is not fully reconciled with the considerations of separate space-time frames that underlie the Special Theory of Relativity, and the possibility of causal paradoxes (in which an event might precede its cause) is not convincingly ruled out, except by acknowledging that if such a possibility was demonstrated it would constitute a reductio ad absurdum that would negate the theory. The relationship of the theory to a quantum theory of gravity is also treated. Although the unfortunate eat described by Schrödinger is a feature of the alternative approach to quantum theory that ascribes a role to human observation, reference is made to it and an illustration on page 91 shows attractive ideograms of cats nestling among graphs of wave packets.

It is possible to query whether this study is appropriately described as Cybernetic. Cybernetics is undoubtedly concerned with circular causal processes, and their importance has become increasingly clear in various contexts. It is mentioned as an example that genes are not best viewed as a blueprint for building an organism but as the basis of interactions between the developing organism and its environment. Another example, not from the book, that seems to me to illustrate the point even more clearly, is the Gaia hypothesis (Lovelock, 1979; Andrew, 1996) which recognizes that life profoundly affects the environment and that biological evolution as a whole is a circular causal process.

lt is rather usual to think of Cybernetics are necessarily involving something living, particularly in view of Wiener's reference to "the animal and the machine" and the fact that he was stimulated to inaugurate the discipline by his contact with McCulloch and Pitts who were primarily interested in the nervous system. It is possible, though, that the principles apply even more widely, with the whole phenomenon of life just part of a greater pattern. The author mentions encouragement in his work from Heinz von Foerster, and he notes connections with ideas of "organizational closure" discussed in the autopoiesis context by Maturana and Varela. An additional aim of his work is the integration of scientific theories applicable to phenomena on different scales and in his closing pages (page 138 to be exact) he refers with satisfaction to a phenomenon that can be seen in a microphysics experiment and is paralleled in a supernova.

A great many profound and controversial issues are raised in this little book. Apart from what was said earlier about the use of mathematics the arguments are well presented in a mixture of precise formalism and appeals to visualization and intuition.

Alex M. Andrew